"Grandmother's Cookbook"

                        My mother’s childhood showcases trauma and loss. Her father lost their farm during the Depression and moved his family into the small town of Danville, Illinois. Her oldest sister, Lois, drowned while swimming in the local lake within a few years. Around the time Mom turned nine, her mother died. Her father, left with five children still at home, found himself unable to care for his three youngest girls. They ended up within the foster care system. Fortunately, the small town meant all of the Thompson siblings went to school together. She visited her sister Nellie, a newlywed, often. Mom remembered the marble-topped furniture in their home, the lean years of lunch consisting of half a head of iceberg lettuce sprinkled with salt, and the wild antics of her older brothers, known for pranks that resulted in scoldings from the local police. Only a few treasured pieces came into Mom’s possession once she reached adulthood. She received a golden bracelet, which she wore at her wedding. The bracelet became a tradition to wear at weddings with my sister and me encircling our wrists with it. I inherited this lovely piece and used it for the cover art of my novel.

            The other prize from Mom’s childhood came in the form of The American Woman’s Cook Book, edited by Ruth Berolzheimer. All of the frequent moves made by my parent’s military lifestyle meant somethings never made it to the next assignment, but Mom always tucked this cookbook into a box that came with us. Over the years, both of my parents pulled this book off the shelf for recipes. My husband and I turn to it regularly, with me recently vowing to try new-to-us recipes weekly. The volume, though, contains not just ways to prepare various dishes, but also a look into life for the housewife in the 1940s. The thick work contains color plates of finished delights. It suggests menus for parties and holidays. Within its sheets one can find pages of food equivalents. Struggling with ideas for school lunches for the kids? Need a tip on how to set your plates for a fancy dinner? Want the perfect Hollandaise Sause (one of our favorites)? How about the best banana nut bread or pancakes on Earth? You can even find specific instructions on how to help with the war effort.

 

                 This volume represents a life that showcases hardship and hope.

 

Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman      

I am like IOUNIO's "Time Traveler" today, as my fingers trail thought the pages of Grandmother's cookbook. 

Promote IOUNIO by LISTENING, LIKING, COMMENTING, SHARING, and SUBSCRIBING

"Morality"

          Over the last couple of days, I’ve engaged in written confrontations with several acquaintances on moral issues. These clashes stem from the inability of some people to view our society from totally different perspectives. During my discourses, I find myself able to see the opposing view, but I haven’t found success in getting my angry opponents to even try to see my outlook. Instead, I’ve met with unexpected anger and open hostility. I understand the fear of some of these individuals that somehow another group of people in our society, who are perceived as undeserving, will reap benefits from those of us who “work hard for our money.”

            Trying to reason with fears and phobias never seems to work. I did a little research to back my points, but finding statistical proof that families on welfare receive benefits that are below the poverty line, or that more than one-hundred studies show that most recipients of welfare leave the system within the first two years, doesn’t sway my antagonists.

            The entire situation leaves me baffled and stunned. Insults come flying my way. My opinions are simplistic, liberal, stupid, childish, naive, and WRONG! I sit here and wonder, “How can I be wrong?” When did making a moral choice to protect those weaker and less fortunate become something so erroneous that I’m belittled for my sense of morality?

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"The New Colossus"

By Emma Lazarus, 1883

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

"On The Edge"

         The working poor live on the edge of poverty, where every little thing can impact their lives tremendously. Emergencies that many people absorb by dipping into a savings account, or using a credit card, hit hard because there is no reserve stash of cash. If your extended family survives on a month-by-month budget, turning to them for help adds to a layer of embarrassment and failure to the problem.

         On Thanksgiving, when we arrived at my brother’s home, a pool of water on the front porch greeted us. We immediately suspected a water leak and sniffed out the problem before we even put our bags into the spare bedroom. The water line going to his refrigerator hissed. Cutting open the wall, we found a nasty spray of water. The plumber my brother uses was out of town for the holiday and wouldn’t be able to check out the problem until the following Tuesday. We headed to Walmart (the only place open) and bought a variety of patch options, which we Frankensteined over the whole as a temporary fix. The hissing leak slowed to a sighing trickle.

         As the plumber did his repair, my brother called with the news. First, he was extremely lucky. The water hadn’t backed into his kitchen. His kitchen cabinets and the sheetrock along that wall remained dry. All of the water had flowed forward and had seeped out to the front of the house along the exterior foundation. We worriedly asked about the plumber’s fee. If he only did the repair and didn’t patch the sheetrock, the bill would run about $400.00—a huge chunk of money out of the fund our family maintains for my brother’s home and car emergencies. We decided that we could run down to my brother’s house in a few weeks to fix the wall. The hole hid behind the refrigerator, so it wasn’t an eyesore.

         As usual, events in our own lives kept shifting back the trip to repair the wall. Then horrendous rain storms pushed back the date even further. The hideous gap remained for over four months. Although it didn’t take long to cut a patch, float and tape and texture the area (plus add a new coat of paint to the wall), that repair would’ve added a huge dollar amount to the plumber’s bill if he’d used his supplies and time fixing the wall.

         My brother’s gratitude for our help always reminds us of how difficult it is for someone working full-time, but not at a livable wage, to absorb setbacks. When he stated optimistically, “If you have to have something go wrong, just hope it goes wrong in the right way,” I had to smile.

Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"The American Dream"

         My son, an artist, struggles daily to build his business. He spends his days in a blend of sharpening his skills using a variety of art programs while searching for potential clients. One of his oldest goals, designing art for clothing, started when he was twelve and custom-made t-shirts for friends. A few weeks ago, he stumbled upon a new local business that can meet his needs for placing larger pieces of art onto articles of clothing. Yesterday, he picked up the first order from this company: a t-shirt, two hoodies, and a pair of joggers that carry his logo plus some original art. Before he made it out of the store, he knew he will need to experiment with a wider variety of items see how his concepts will translate onto things like hats, totes and purses.

         With that new goal in mind, we ran to a Wal-Mart across the street from the mall in search of a black cross-shoulder tote that would be perfect for advertising the different patches my son wants to offer. We had no luck, and as we crossed the parking lot to our car, a young man stopped my husband and asked if he had a screwdriver. His battered, older model Ford van wouldn’t start. My husband pulled a small tool kit from the trunk of our car, and the two men began trying to fix the vehicle while my son and I chatted with the woman and her four-year-old daughter. Eventually, my husband pulled our car around to jump their battery, but the van never started. Another passerby suggested that the jumper cables (provided by the van owner) looked pretty old. He volunteered to purchase new cables while inside the store, saying he’d help the family if they were still stranded once he finished his shopping. The van’s owner suggested that we head on our way since we’d already been helping him for so long.

         As we drove out of the parking lot, an even younger man stood near the stop sign, holding a battered HOMELESS cardboard sign in his hands. As we rarely carry cash with us, we only had a few quarters to pass on to him. His eyes filled with gratitude.

         The juxtaposition of dreams and reality punched me in the gut as we sped down the highway. My son’s aspirations to own his own business and support himself through his creativity contrasted sharply to the stranded couple and homeless teen. I found myself wondering about the dreams these other people might have had before Life wore them down.

Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Midnight Musings”

 

“We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe- some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others- some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of men.
But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal- there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court.”
―Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

 

            I know the difficulty of law enforcement officers. They go, sometimes blindly, into situations that scream danger. However, my father took great pride that he only drew his gun once while on duty--at a distraught, suicidal man who was threatening to kill his entire family. Dad talked him "down" and the man got the help he needed. Dad taught me that his job required the ability to quickly assess a situation and to do his best to reduce the possibility of violence. This skill requires constant training and a mindset that the officer must deescalate a situation.

            I know, first hand, how families of officers feel and deal with the stress of this career. If the phone rang in the middle of the night, I'd bolt out of sleep and say, "Dad's been shot." That was my greatest fear.

            My father went into law enforcement late in his life. He was the oldest man to ever graduate from the sheriff's academy for his county! He honestly liked almost everyone he met, and the people under his care respected and trusted him. Because he maintained the same patrol for many years, he built a personal relationship with the residents and business owners in his area. Maybe our police force needs to revisit the importance of the "cop on the beat," the cop who lives in his or her neighborhood.

            Before he retired, Dad worked at the county jail and taught GED classes. He prided himself on having a high success rate of students getting this diploma. Over and over again, he stressed that many of the inmates with whom he worked came from poverty or had little education.

            Now I know that many, many of my students snubbed their noses at the opportunities offered to them through public education. They were, after all, children; and unfortunately children make mistakes that impact their entire lives. Most of them had parents who also started their pattern of poor decisions early in life. Generational problems weave themselves into the very tapestry of a family history and become the knotted threads that all of us must untangle. People who don’t have this type of family dynamic find it difficult to comprehend and easy to condemn.   

            We have fractures cracking through the structures of our society. What if these foundations fail? What happens if we hold distrust towards those who should protect and serve? What happens when we feel disenfranchised and disillusioned?

            I can spend the rest of my life listing the problems within our society, but solutions begin when we embrace differences and walk in another person’s shoes. We can talk about poverty, drug abuse, and violence in homes and on the streets. We can point our fingers and place blame on almost everyone and everything. But until we learn tolerance, we will continue to disintegrate into fragments.

 

 Copyright 2015 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman          

             

 

 

“Downsizing Christmas”

 

            My quest to simplify seeped from not putting up a Christmas tree over into decorating only the dining room table and purchasing just a few holiday gifts.

Only decorations out this year!

            My husband, son and I each picked a couple of items to put on our wish list. As I’d spent months lusting over a second camera lens, my family didn’t think twice about the perfect gift for me. My husband decided to refurbish his old Vox, and my son managed to locate companies that sold the necessary parts to make the guitar look new again. Teddy bear pendants topped my son’s list-again something unique that we found online.

            My siblings proved as easy to shop for since my sister always says, “Nothing,” when I ask her what she wants. And she means it. I will probably send something small through the mail the week after Christmas as an unexpected surprise. My brother, on the other hand, needs and appreciates everything. We often pull together a necessity box that contains items like Tide (which is so expensive), soaps of various scents, his favorite body wash and shampoo, and other household cleansers that tend to eat his grocery budget. These practical items will allow him to spend more of his budget on food. Usually, we also purchase something for my brother that he wants but won’t get for himself. Since he mentioned clothing for this year, and he has to work on Christmas day and the day after, I suggested we go out together on the 27^th on a shopping extravaganza to find the items he wants.

            I handed responsibility for my in-laws’ gifts over to my husband. In the past, I would have handled the shopping for them, but simplifying means stepping away from even this task. My husband found something easily for his sister’s home and ordered it weeks ago. He still hasn’t decided on what to do about his brothers, and stated that if he doesn’t find anything it’s not a big deal. My “old” self would want to jump in and hunt for some kind of present—even if it were a token gift; but this is an assignment for him, not me. Talk about an eye opening experience! Why didn’t I sidestep some of these duties years ago?

            I know paring back Christmas and all of its festivities and traditions won’t turn into a permanent lifestyle change. It has, however, caused me to re-examine many things I do around the holiday season and forced me to hone I on the important ones.

            What about our Christmas breakfast of Eggs Benedict and Mimosas?

            Well—some traditions are just too sacred to mess with . . .

 

Copyright 2014 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“My Vote”

         As political leaders play their games on television and over other media, I pull back and worry. I worry about my siblings and myself, and our fifty-fifty chance of inheriting the mutated gene that causes Huntington’s disease. Our genetic code may switch on soon, and our cognitive and emotional well-being becomes endangered. This disease will compromise our ability to work, drive, or walk, think and talk. Both my sister and I retired from education within the last couple of years, and so we have small retirement incomes. Both of us have husbands who earn their own incomes.

         My brother stands alone.

         So as the political pandering continues, I feel angry and frustrated by the portrayal of low income people as not having good character. The words “lazy” and “irresponsible” keep being thrown around with imperial disregard to the life events that lead someone into a low paying, “dead end” occupation.

         My brother has learning disabilities. He attended school at a time when our educational system could identify learning differences, but our teachers didn’t know how to address these problems. I remember spending hour after hour each evening and on the weekends drilling my brother on letter sounds, basic phonics, and sight words. He learned to read because he has a remarkable memory. Eventually, we discovered that his visual disability actually distorted letters and shapes. His eyes perceived images, but his brain processed what he saw into contorted versions. My brother’s school struggles led him to want to work with other children who faced problems. He attended a junior college to study Early Childhood Development, received certification to work with young children, and became a teacher for Head Start.

         His low salary at Head Start meant that he eventually left the work he loved and took a job as a custodian, first with a school district and later with a local hospital. He felt comfortable with this highly physical and repetitious work. Over the years, I’ve watched my brother work harder than anyone I know. He volunteers to work holidays, does extra shifts if someone call in sick, and stays through hurricanes to be the first to clean up after storm damage. My brother’s always works forty hours a week, or more. His income stays under $18,000 a year. He represents the working poor in this country.

         My brother lives a modest life. He budgets every penny to break even each month. He has no cell phone. During the last hurricane, we had to call the local police and beg that someone drive by his home to make certain of his safety. My brother doesn’t own a computer, and he obviously doesn’t have internet. This year his vacation consisted of staying at home and going to see two new releases at his local movie theatre. He has no IRA, or a pension plan from his employer. Even if his income allowed it, his learning disabilities make it difficult for him to understand the financial nuances required to make retirement decisions.

         If my brother carries the Huntington’s disease gene, he eventually will depend upon governmental programs—for everything. I cannot be my brother’s keeper. My own finances won’t stretch enough to cover his entire salary if HD forces him out of work. My sister cannot be my brother’s keeper. She and her husband’s retirement incomes won’t bare the weight of a second household.

         When I hear and see mindless people thoughtlessly and cruelly making judgments about those who have less, anger floods through me. These heartless people, who often have so much, don’t want to understand that Life isn’t fair, and so we must have social structures, provided by our government, to care for those who cannot care for themselves. I don’t mind that some people manage to manipulate the “system” and get more than they “deserve” because that won’t be the case with my brother, or my sister, or even myself if we succumb to Huntington’s downward spiral.

         I am not a statistic.

         My sister is not a statistic.

         My brother is not a statistic.

         So when I cast my vote in November, I’ll select the politicians that err on the side of humanity.       

Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman