Excerpt from "Stories for Eleanor"

Momba Tell Me a Story

When Eleanor Providence Kolasinski was 3 she began wanting to hear stories of my childhood. Over and over. My most happy and vivid memories were of our family in the 1950's when we lived in Lake Odessa so those stories became her favorites, and of these was the fire story.
Disclaimer* These are my memories...not to be confused with those of any other member of the family or neighbors.
We lived on Washington Blvd., a truly "kid street" on the edge of town. I was about 10, Shirley 8, and Val 5. Our house was a 2 story frame with 3 upstairs bedrooms. Shirley and slept in the foyer bedroom in a 3/4 sized bed like spoons in a drawer. Valerie slept with Eileen in her teen front bedroom but played in ours. Val and Shirl loved to play under the bed and this one day they didn't have enough light under there due to the blankets being pulled down to make walls for their pretend house. One of them got an idea to get candles under there and light them...probably Val (I'm thinking)....here I would pause for a little description of Valerie's bold and imaginative personality and Shirley's proclivity to go along with whatever sounded fun. proclivity?....
Anyway, it worked great and they probably played under there for another 5 minutes before being distracted by any number of available things to do. In the meantime, I was taking a bath. I even remember the new lily-of-the-valley baths salts...so grown up, wasn't I? 
Okay, so here are Valerie and Shirley playing across the street at McCall's farm when they heard a fire siren. Wow! it was close....closer and closer...now we can hear the truck engine, too...hey guys, it's on our street!...come on, let's go see!!!...Look it's at the Klingman's...no.. OUR house!!!...Val and Shirl get really quiet and steal looks at each other....the candles?...ohnoohnoohno.....hide! The other kids ran to our house and my sisters lay down in the ditch.....not here,..we. are. not. here. We are going to get spankings. Crying now.
Meanwhile, Eileen drives into the drive right after the fire truck and comes flying into the bathroom yelling, "Sharon, get out! The house is on fire!" My first thoughts were."It can't be! The McCall boys will see me in a wet bathrobe with my hair wet! It's the worst thing ever to happen to me!" But being so mature I really say, "Eileen, don't let those boys see me or I can't come out!"
So here come the firemen with the hose and they run right up the stairs because that's where the black smoke is coming from.  Next thing the soggy mattress is flying out of the upstairs front window onto the porch roof and bounces to the lawn.  I guess Mama WAS there somewhere because next thing I remember firemen are giving her not quite a lecture, standing in the yard, about candles under that bed. I can hear from behind the grape arbor. Poor Mama.
Having taken long enough time to have the whole town come to our front yard, the fire dept. left. Our family slunked into the stinky sooty house and by nightfall only a few neighbors were still on the lawn talking.
Don't remember what kind of punishment Shirley and Valerie got...but I know they must have got one. I'm thinking they got killed, then lectured, then spanked, then prayed over and made to go to the altar next Sunday, then killed again. The End

*I think there is a similar story involving an Easy Bake(tm) oven. Faith? Val?

Tigers and Lions and Bugs! Oh No!

Tigers and Lions and Bugs! Oh No!

A catastrophe occurred while Sunshine, Mary Sharon, Eleanor, and Kepler were camping in the Tourist Park in Marquette a couple of weeks ago. They discovered that Mary and EP had lice! They think Eleanor's shiney brown hair was innocently growing toward her waist when it did one too many sassy bounces off a train seat or something when she was traveling in Chicago with Vicky the week before. The kicker is that Eleanor starts her first year of middle school in a week! Last time she had lice she was starting kindergarten and couldn't get rid of them until all her golden curls had to be shaved off. She went to school with a little lace beany on. Can you see it? Well, needless to say that won't happen again, but the family gathered around the campfire after some
pretty nasty shampooing. Mary and Eleanor cut their hair to shoulder length and Sunshine shaved his in solidarity. They decided to pretend they were fugitives...changing appearances and leaving the campground clandestinely. They wished they had some old ID to burn with the hair in the fire.
So this week they are going around with Vaseline and tea tree oil in their tight braids. Kepler's caregiver says little black children never have lice....their hair is always oiled and braided.

Eileen told me that when she was a girl in second grade with long black braids..aww...she got lice at school. Mom left her with Geneva's mother, Wilma York for an afternoon and Wilma decided to fix it.
She took Eileen to the barn, poured kerosene in a bucket, and dipped Eileen's hair in it...all of it. E. said it didn't hurt and didn't get in her eyes. And she never had lice again. Boy was Mom ever mad, though. I mean, really.

The Ties that Bind

 The Ties That Bind

Hi Family,
I love to tell family stories. About the time Mary Sharon and Jason were teens I was coming to a time in my life that I realized how much I needed those stories and told them any any chance I had. They began to tease me by mixing them up. They would have Uncle Floyd and his black angus cattle in a story about Opal Houghton taking us "little girls" Easter dress shopping. I'd fuss, "You kids are going to appreciate them when you get to be my age" which could bring on more teasing about age.
One day after an extended family gathering for some holiday, Mark, mused, "You know, you women have so much fun together and sometimes I'd rather hang out with you in the kitchen than watch football with the guys. Why don't you go on a retreat together for a whole weeken. stories flew around so fast and we laughed so much ...well, you know.
Just this summer, Eileen and Faith went one afternoon to enjoy Marilyn who had come to visit. Sitting around Beverly's table they found themselves telling stories about our dad that the younger women had never heard. They gasped, dropped their jaws, laughed and cried. The stories were theirs.
On the way to Bev's, Matt's wife Ruth confessed to Faith that she had always thought her own family to be pretty boring. "Your family never runs out of stories to tell and I have nothing to say. But today, when it's time to tell stories, I finally have one I can tell, too. so let me know when it's time." So sure enough, after food was put on Eileen was reminded of something that happened at dad's funeral and started to tell it when Faith burst in and said that before they got started on dad that Ruth had a story...her very first sharing of a really good family story of her own. Well, everyone was so happy that they put their elbows on the table in unison, bugged their beautiful eyes, and said together, "Tell all". The story was great. It was so good that they decided she won....before they even got to Eileen's story...at least for the day. And Ruth also won because she learned the secret that all families have great stories. They just need telling.
So this blog is dedicated to the simple and amazing stories of our family. And a special thank you to David Bowen and Melissa Price Elenbass for this latest inspiration. Sharon

Tomorrow: Head Lice:Pediculus Humanus Capitus