Daddy and Me

 

 

When I was two years old, my father would lift me up and stand me on top of the refrigerator. Of course, refrigerators were smaller in those days, but, still, my feet were at the level of his chest.

"Jump!" he'd say, holding his hands out to catch me. I had no fear. I remember the triumphant joy of soaring through the air as if I were flying, and landing, giggling and safe in his arms.

Daddy loved to joke. Sometimes he would put me high on that refrigerator, and then fold his arms over his chest. "Jump!" he'd say. I knew he wouldn't let me get hurt, so I would jump. He always caught me, and I knew he always would.

*          *          *

 

I loved Rootie Kazootie! I knew him from the Golden Books my father read to me. Daddy would go to Woolworth's all the time to see if there were any new Rootie books, and he bought me every single one that he could find. We both loved them, which was lucky, because I asked for Daddy to read them to me over and over and over again. Rootie was like Daddy. They were both very good baseball players and they wore baseball caps a lot. But Rootie had something else special. He had a magic kazootie, a sort of magic kazoo which could help him out of all kinds of scrapes. Along with his spotted dog, Gala Poochie Pup,  his girl friend, PolkaDottie, who was famous in her own right for making Polka Dot Pineapple Pies, and a helpful gentleman named Mr. Deetle Dootle,  Rootie could do almost anything, and escape all kinds of dangerous stuff that  the bad guy, Poison Zoomac, caused. Sometimes I would call Daddy Rootie, and I would be PolkaDottie. I called Daddy Rootie so much that even Mummy started calling him Rootie.

 When we went to the A&P to buy food, I was always very interested in the pineapple pies they sold, which were not made by PolkaDottie, but instead by a lady named Ann Page whose picture was on every one of their red pie boxes. Once in a while, we'd buy an Ann Page pineapple pie, but I knew that they were not half as good as the PolkaDot Pineapple Pies that I made when I was PolkaDottie.

Early Memories

 

My first memories are from  when I was  two. They are just little snatches of experience. I remember being in the walk-in pantry at Nana’s (my father's mother) while she sang to me: “Once upon a time, a goose drank wine and a monkey chewed tobacco on a trolley line. The trolley broke, and the monkey choked, and they all went to heaven on a billy goat.” 

When I was little, Nana would clear everything breakable out of my reach when we came to visit, so that she would not have to tell me No, don’t touch. Nana was also a good cook. I remember sitting on telephone books on the seat of a cane chair at her kitchen table, and the wonderful smell of her roasted chicken. She had a big black cast iron stove, with burner covers that were lifted with a tool, and she always wore an apron when she cooked or washed dishes. 

I remember visiting Nana on the third floor of a three decker house in Everett in which they lived. We went up two flights of stairs to their apartment, which was on the right side of the building. There was both a front porch, which we didn’t go on, and a back porch, which we did use when I was a little older. The front room was their parlor with windows that opened onto the front porch, but the room I liked best was the kitchen, which had windows opening onto the back porch, and which always smelled good. I’m not sure, but I think that there were only two bedrooms. The apartment had wooden door moldings, some pocket doors, baseboards and chair rails which all were stained a rich brown. 

 I also remember my grandfather (my father's father), whom I called Joe, drawing a picture for me in that same little pantry where Nana sang to me. Dad always told me that his father was a good artist. He was called  Johnny,  and his nieces and nephews called him Uncle Johnny. But Nana and some of his friends called him Babe, because he looked like Babe Ruth. My mother (his daughter-in-law) called him Joe. I don’t know why. I picked up calling him Joe because that’s what my Mummy called him. He always carried pictures of me in his wallet, and showed them to everyone he met, telling them stories about his  little granddaughter. 

Joe had been a carpenter, and he built me a little chair. The base of the chair consisted of a wooden box, open to the floor. On top of the box was the seat, and a back was affixed to that base. I loved that chair, and sometimes would carry it into the kitchen and turn it upside down. I had imaginary rabbits which I kept inside the bottom of the chair Joe made for me. 

I remember visiting my grandfather Joe in the hospital. I was two and a half then. He was in a large room with several beds and a number of other men, and everyone was very happy to see me. One nice man gave me a stick of chewing gum. Everyone was smiling and laughing, and Daddy was there with me. I sat on Joe’s bed with him, and we had lots of fun. 

I never saw Joe again. He died in the hospital after lung cancer surgery. I did not go to the funeral, and I don’t know what anyone told me about what had happened to my grandfather. But thereafter, throughout my childhood, I believed that Joe was sitting in a rocking chair on top of a cloud keeping watch over me from heaven. 

                                           - Kate Lydon Varley

 

Copyright 1959

 

My mother bought one section per week at the A&P

week by week by week

fitting each neatly into the sturdy binder

one thousand five hundred thirty-six pages

black and white illustrations galore

The Mary Margaret McBride Encyclopedia of Cooking

Published by Homemakers Research Institute

Evanston, Illinois

 

The pages glittered with promise –

Appetizers for parties and meals

Cold quick ’n’ easies to serve on picks

Raisin Suzette, Square Dance Nut Cake,

Drawn Butter, Frangipane, Fricassee, Galantine,

a wonderland of tempting treats we never ever tried

 

The massive cookbook resided

forgotten on top of the refrigerator

save one day each December

when my mother would take it down,

open to page four hundred twenty-nine

Old-Fashioned Butter Cookies

 

The look, the scent, the crunch,

the taste of those cookies we made!

A brief flight of  magic

so quickly at  end

then back to the dust on top of the fridge

for Mary Margaret McBride

                            Kate Lydon Varley

 

It's a holiday season, so here's a booming echo of  some of my past holidays! Happy, jolly, good, joyous whatever you celebrate, and if you're not celebrating anything, may you have happy, jolly, good, joyous days nonetheless!

Holiday Season Rant

 

Okay.

I’m not an innocent party.

Six days a week

I go out to the mailbox

pick up the contents

carry the stuff in –

catalogues.

Scads of catalogues.

 

I dump them on the table,

and then the trouble begins.

I admit it.

I search through them

an awful waste of time

if you think about it

but I do it

because I never know if maybe

something good

something great

something special

or something expensive

I can’t forget expensive

because it’s bound to be expensive

but whatever it is

it might be available

only by catalogue –

that all-important catalogue.

 

Mind you

I’m not saying

I never get anything good from catalogues.

There was that cute butler cast in resin holding a corkscrew,

or the bright red miniature British phone booth for storing CDs

and the Rocky and Bullwinkle sweatshirt I gave my husband one Christmas

but please!

These catalogues end up

sprawling all over

the kitchen table

the island

the counters

the dining room chairs

the piano bench

the end tables

the couch

my desk

the computer keyboard

until I can’t find anything

in the whole house

and I realize

I’m drowning in multiple copies

of the same stupid catalogues –

all selling the same kinds of

pointless idiotic stuff

that nobody really needs

especially me

because if I’m crazy enough

to buy more merchandise

cute

decorative

special

or worst of all

unique

because it's bound to be unique

I still won’t have

even two square inches of space

where I could fit it

because everything

yes, everything 

in my whole house is already covered with

catalogues.

 

 

                        Kate Lydon Varley

 

Voluminous Endeavors

 

If I stock up on scads of new books that spill

Over shelves already stocked to the brim

It is good.

 

If O’Henry shares Poppy Varley’s book shelf with Laocoon

Louisa May and Isabelle Allende

All the better!

 

If the kitchen table tilts with stacks of stuff –

Pat Schneider Writing Alone and With Others

A Field Guide to North American Birds teetering over

Caste and the Astonishing August March,

Well, so be it.

 

I am reading my way through months and months

With old thoughts and new thoughts

Always other ideas to consider.

 

For this time of consolidated reading

Day after day after day

I thank generations of writers, librarians,

Book sellers, publishers, editors,

And also an instigator extraordinaire

The covid-19 pandemic.

                            Kate Lydon Varley

 

Woke to the wind

 

Woke to the wind roaring like the heart break of a

Ken Burns’ documentary on the dust bowl,

or no,

like the real thing

except no sand or grit seeps in at

my doors and windows

not yet anyway

 

the dog whimpers at the

howl and whoosh and rhythmic bangs

even though her hearing isn’t

what it once was

but me

my hearing’s fine and

I’m afraid too

as clouds rush past treetops

from east south east shaking

heavy trunks and big branches

this way and that way

 

when will it stop?

 

I can’t say

 

any more than I can say when

this pandemic will end

any more than I can guess

if there’s a possibility

any at all

of stumbling somehow

back into normalcy

any time soon

or just a bit later

 

any time for hugging?

or not

for safety’s sake

for flattening the curve

for that old Bee Gee’s number

 

Staying alive

Staying alive

                  - Kate Lydon Varley

Christmas Cove

Remembering other summers ~

I wrote this poem in July 2007 in Maine.

Here's to a return, someday, to such glorious summers. 

Christmas Cove

 

From high on a massive thrust of stone,

I hear the tugging waters of John’s Bay,

See in flashes of overdue sun the rising filigree of spray

Break on the far side of Hay Island.

The incoming tide surges and gurgles at bedrock –

Granite, pegmatite, feldspar, quartz.

This has been mine for a week:

The osprey tending her nest on a white chunk of rock;

The gull perched on the chimney top next door;

The bearded blue heron posing on our ledge;

The goldfinches nesting in our birch;

Pink blossomed sedum patching over slate;

Lobstermen circling their pots,

Sturdy boats chugging and churning the waters,

The polka-dot pattern of buoys on the bay;

Living rich with binoculars, sketch book, bird guide,

And books to ponder on foggy days.

Tomorrow, in sorrow, I’ll leave this behind,

And in joy, carry it away.

 

                                                                        Kate Lydon Varley