Extra, Extra!

I noticed that the movie "Iron Will" is playing on the Hallmark channel today. I could have been

an extra in that movie. It was made near Two Harbors on the North Shore of Lake Superior, 25 miles from where I live.

My daughter and I were sauntering through the Target store in 1993 or 4 and as we passed a table that was set up with people recruiting extras for this very movie, I said to one of the recruiters, "I don't think my coat would be suitable for the movie." He replied, "Oh, yes, it will do fine." The outdoor scenes were filmed in cold, snowy weather which is what we have a lot of here.

I said to my daughter,"With my looks and talent, I just won't work for minimum wages!"

Patty Duke's son, Sean Astin, starred in this movie. Patty had starred in "You'll Like My Mother" which was

produced right here in Duluth using our very famous old mansion named Glensheen. It is a

great tourist attraction, now owned by the U of M, Duluth Branch. I have toured it twice. The first time we were not allowed to visit

the third floor or the attic. So I had to visit it in my dreams, literally. (Patty Duke was filmed on that floor as she hid her newborn baby from her mother-in-law.) I kept dreaming while

sound asleep, that I owned Glensheen and I was inspecting the attic. Finally, the Glensheen tour included the third floor and the attic. Oh, happy day!

The third floor was rather interesting. They had a room where the children of the family that

originally lived in the mansion were kept when they were sick. But the attic was a big disappointment. Attics should be full of wonderful interesting things from the past. This one wasn't.

Some people think the mansion is haunted by the lady that lived there alone except for her night nurse. Her servants probably did not live in. She was in her 80's when someone broke into the house and murdered both her and her night nurse. It was big news around here as the case was being solved.

I have a commercial copy of "You'll Like My Mother" and I think I'll view it tomorrow. It was one of the scariest movies I've ever watched. Its like taking another tour of Glensheen.

It Was a Crime!

I had a neighbor named Betty who was married to Jim and they were the parents of a four-year-old boy. Betty was about 25 or so, and I was 20. We became good friends as she was cheerful and hospitable and very likable. She seemed very happily married.

But Betty was saddened by the fact that she couldn't have any more children. So she cooked up a plan with a friend of hers in a neighboring state.

This friend had been married, but her husband left her because she had had an affair and became pregnant by this illicit lover of hers. She desperately wanted her husband back. He was willing to take her back, but he wanted nothing to do with another man's child.

So the plot was hatched.

The friend, who probably had no pre-natal care, would enter the hospital under Betty's name when the time came. Betty eventually showed me the birth certificate with Jim and her as the parents. There was the baby's footprint on this birth certificate.

So Betty brought this little baby boy home. It wasn't working out very well. Betty did not bond

with the baby at all, and I was appalled sometimes when she would ignore his heart-breaking crying. Jim even said to me once as he was tying his fishing flies, "I don't begrudge the baby a

little milk!"

It was 1946 and diaper flannel was almost impossible to find. I found a few yards of it to make my expected baby some diapers, but luckily I received lots of diapers as gifts and didn't have to

make any myself. So Betty wanted to buy my flannel for her new baby's diapers. She would pay

me later, of course, but------

Betty and Jim suddenly left town without as much as a goodbye. I heard later that they got

a divorce.

I never knew what happened to that poor little baby. But I fantasize that a loving couple adopted him and when he grew to young manhood he found his biological father. I don't know

whether I want him to put his arms around his real father or if I want him to shoot him dead in my fantasy. What would you fantasize?

My First Kiss

Oh, boy, this ought to be good! I haven't even told this story to my kids. Enjoy, kids!

Art was a young man that worked summers on a farm that was quite close to the area where I lived. It was a pleasant hike to this farm if the weather was nice. I remember walking to

"Hooker's Farm" (honest!) at least once. I remember sitting on the grass with my hiking friends and watching a bull being led by a rope that was attached to a ring in his nose. That was a little scary. Art used to come to our neighborhood riding on a white horse and he had a

barn aroma around his being, but he was kind of cute- especially astride that horse.

Art was Margaret's boyfriend. Lots of boys liked Margaret. She had big blue eyes and long curly

eyelashes and golden-brown hair that glistened in the sun. She also had freckles and tiny feet. She was always complaining about her hair, and I suspected she was fishing for compliments, which she got, of

course. She was older than I was, being about fifteen.

I don't have total recall on how Art and I happened to be together, but Margaret wasn't there.

Art said to me "What would you do if I kissed you?"

Being in total shock at such an idea, I replied, "I'd die!"

I guess he didn't care if I died, or even fainted dead away, because he planted a big wet sloppy

kiss on my innocent little mouth. (well, innocent, yes, but not so little)

Yuk!!!

Every time I see Bette Davis wiping her mouth in disgust after that actor kissed her, I think of Art.

My Brother Fred

Actually, we called him Fritz! He was a kid that built his own movie projector from scrap, scrounged up old 16mm films to entertain us. Built his own bow and arrows and even a target made from straw firmly coiled with wire. He used to stand on top of our chicken coop and shoot the rats that came to steal the chicken feed.

He built up a paper route for the Minneapolis Star so big that the manager made him give up half of it. He almost froze his feet once while out delivering the paper in the evening. I can remember my mother trying to bring back the circulation in his feet.

Then Fred worked at the Italian Bakery in Virginia, Minnesota and would bring home his lard-soaked aprons every week for my mother to boil. That's the only way you could get the grease

out. He would also get some of the day-old bakery to bring home, but not much, as these were

depression days.

The war came, Fred tried to join up, but he was too thin, so he was rejected. He worked his

way through the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis, every bit of way with no help from any source. He made friends with the guy who trucked the Minneapolis Star up to the Range, and would get a free ride home with him quite often. But he hitch-hiked back, I think.

He was selected by the government to work on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago where they were secretly working on plans for developing the first atomic bomb.

Then he went to Tennessee where the work was continued at the National Laboratory in a brand new city named Oak Ridge. You couldn't enter without a pass. The story goes that once he dropped some plutonium on the floor at the lab, so that part of the floor had to be cut out. His shoes were now radio-active, too, so he had to part with them.

Fred worked at the Oak Ridge National Lab for many years where research was done on many projects to help humanity. He eventually went into buying and developing land. He formed the Emory Valley Corporation and built many houses and

office buildings. Fred has been gone now for four or five years, and the company is managed by his family members. For information about that company you can use Google.

He certainly was a brother to be proud of.

Food

When I was still living with my parents, my father said to me, "When you grow up you will be

eating nothing but canned pork and beans and baking powder biscuits!"

I have no idea what prompted him to predict such a thing. But he didn't realize that two of my

favorite foods were pork and beans and baking powder biscuits.

Well, I just now looked at my food supply because its lunch time and there was nary a sign of pork and beans, but I have a whole bag of Schwan's baking powder biscuits with cheese and herbs in my freezer compartment of the refrigerator. They are pretty good, but not as good as "made from scratch".

My father was a cook's helper in the first World War. That was good because he was a tender-

hearted man that had trouble killing a chicken much less a man. But he was a whizz at baking it after he killed it. I saw him once basting a chicken with white wine while it was roasting in the oven.

His mother was from Norway, so of course, he had to cook Lutefisk every Christmas. It was tolerable with lots of melted butter on it. He also loved pig's feet and herring. You won't find

any of those things in my larder! He had a big jar of hot pickles and I wanted to taste one. He

warned me! I didn't listen, but went ahead and bit into that very hot pickle. WOW!! Father knew best.

Now what else should I have with my biscuits?

A Friend in Need

Shirley, age 14, really needed a friend because she had no mother. Her father it seems was a

little dim-witted and her older sister was married and not living at home anymore. So no one

looked out for Shirley back in 1939 and there-a-bouts.

I used to walk home with her in the extreme cold weather when we missed the bus. I could see

she didn't even have all the underwear she really needed. Her daddy probably was too embarrassed to buy her a bra. And she really could have used one. She was well-padded, so I

guess that helped to keep her warm.

Well, Shirley got a mastoid infection and was in terrible pain, so she was taken to the hospital.

Surgery was performed on the mastoid infection, but she died on the operating table they told me.

I went to the funeral home to view the body. I was shocked!! Here was this young girl who had

never worn as much as a pat of powder on her nose, made up to the gills with bright red rouge, lipstick and eyebrow pencil! It was awful. That's when I made up my mind to be cremated.

The Hypnotist

In the class ahead of me in Roosevelt High, there was a guy named Sanford Berman. I did not know him at all, but years later I almost fell under his spell. Yes, he became a professional hypnotist and changed his name to Dr. Michael Dean. He did earn a Doctorate at a University, so he was entitled to be called a doctor. But he wasn't a medical doctor. He was into words and their meanings----something called semantics. He wrote books and taught classes and such, but he wanted more.

So he became a nightclub hypnotist.

Time passed and my daughter was attending Roosevelt High just like I did so many years before.

Dr. Dean came back to his old school and put on a show for the local people, but not in a nightclub, but in the Roosevelt auditorium, the proceeds going to a scholarship fund for students.

My daughter was picked to be a participant in the show along with a few other students. I sat in the audience. Dr. Dean did remarkable things like suspending a boy between two chairs with

nothing between to hold him up. Another boy was put upon him, but the hypnotized boy was as stiff as a board and was undaunted by the heavy weight he had to bear.

Dr. Dean told the volunteers that they were naked. The audience really enjoyed watching the kids trying to hide their illusionary nakedness. I felt a little sorry for my daughter. He also told them that they were good dancers. My daughter didn't have a good sense of rhythm and I thought she looked silly. Young John Eide was told he could sing just like Andy Williams, so

he put his heart and soul into singing "Night and Day". But he wasn't very good.

Dr. Dean faced the audience and began to move his arms very slowly up and down. Up and down, up and down. I was beginning to get very sleepy. I realized I was being hypnotized even

though I was sitting in the audience. I fought it with all my might. I don't think I went under.

It makes you wonder if there are people walking around in this world under one kind of spell or another. Maybe I'm one of them.

stiff as a board

Cod Liver Oil

My grandchildren seem to like my stories of growing up during the Great Depression, even though there was nothing great about it.

I looked like a GD kid should look. Skinny, sallow-skin, stunted growth, dish-water- blond hair color. And I walked like a duck.

In school they took one look at me and ran for the cod-liver-oil bottle. They forced it down my

throat whether I liked it or not. Have you ever tasted cod-liver-oil?

Ovaltine, the well-known chocolate drink was available even back then, and the company ran ads in many magazines. The ads always had a nervous, painfully thin little girl presented to the public in a comic strip style. I always read these ads and I identified with this pathetic little girl.

Of course, after drinking Ovaltine for awhile, she blossomed into a beautiful, rosy-cheeked, healthy child with nerves as strong as steel. I think my mother bought some Ovaltine once,

but I didn't like the taste of it.

On the other hand, here were the Campbell Soup kids. They were fat and rosy-cheeked with

faces glowing over the thought of Campbell's soup. I don't know for sure, but I think the soup

company killed them off some time ago.

And one day my beautiful gym teacher took me aside and told me to train my feet to walk straight ahead. But these days when I see my footprints in the snow, I think I still walk a

little like a duck.

The Wax Museums

You haven't lived until you have visited a wax museum. Mark Twain sat in a rocking chair wearing his white suit, "smoking" his beloved cigar looking like the real man. Florence Nightingale bent over a wounded soldier, his knee a bloody mess, his chest heaving up and down, as he fought for life. Somehow they pumped air into his chest to make him look like living, breathing human in great distress. It was very moving to me.

I saw Richard Nixon's wax head just sitting there, waiting for the rest of his body, I guess. Jimmy Carter had been finished and he looked good.

Human hands made of wax are a thing to behold!

So beautiful that they are displayed alone---just the hands. Under glass.

Barbra Streisland looked so tall and lovely in a long green gown that you expected her to burst

out in song. Laurel and Hardy looked like they were still having fun.

But at another museum I saw what I thought were wax fetuses in various stages of development from a few weeks to full term. As I looked closer at their faces I realized these were for real!

I was viewing preserved human babies who had somehow lost their bid for continued life outside the womb. It gave me an awful feeling.

But I thoroughly enjoyed seeing an Egyptian mummy!! He was probably about 3,000 years old and here I am------ looking at his toes, even!

I saw a hologram, too. Truly amazing! It was a glass of wine and if it wasn't behind glass, you

could swear you could take hold of it, but it was an illusion. Durn!

A Dog's Life

I don't know where this Beagle hound came from, but many years ago he decided to live in my

part of the neighborhood. He wouldn't let anyone come near him, but he wasn't vicious, just plain scared.

Month after month, people who lived on the four corners of this intersection put food out for him. But as time went on I could see him sitting on the neighbor's steps so cold that he looked like he was starting to sway. I think he was flirting with hypothermia. And one day he could only walk on three legs. He held his front leg up as he walked and it dangled.

I had a back entry where the door opened inward instead of outward. (I have replaced that storm door) So I put a heavy old coat in the little entry for him to sleep on at night. I don't know how animals know things, but this Beagle knew that he could sleep there and so he did.

But this could not go on forever because we didn't know if he could become a danger to the

children in the neighborhood or contract some disease and die alone in agony.

So I contacted the Animal Shelter. They borrowed a tranquilizer gun from the local zoo, and

set out to catch this poor homeless creature. But he eluded them time after time.

Then one cold night he crept into my back entry and accidentally pushed the door closed.

In the morning I realized he was trapped there! I called the shelter and a man came out in record time! He entered through my front door, through the house and then opened

the back kitchen door and quickly got in the entry with him. The Beagle put up a struggle, but

was subdued with mace.

I had mixed feelings. I was glad that poor dog was going to be put out of his misery, yet I did

not care much for the part I played in bringing his life to an end.

The Lonely Housewife

The lonely housewife back in the 40's and early 50's had some really dear friends that made her

life much easier to bear. They were called " radio soap operas". There were so many, and I can remember "The Romance of Helen Trent" and the announcer asking "Can a women over 35 find

love and romance?" What a laugh!!!

And then there was "Our Gal Sunday" and the announcer asked, "Can a girl from a little mining town in the West find happiness as the wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman?" Hey, why not?

And Oxydol's Own Ma Perkins. She was a friend to all and came close to being a fairy godmother. The harried housewife felt a little better knowing that there were people like Ma Perkins in the world.

And there was "This is Nora Drake". She was a nurse in a hospital and probably had all the doctors falling for her.

And so the lonely housewife lived vicariously through the soap opera heroines. And it was good.

Little Annie Fights Back

All my life, I have been described as "sweet". In tenth grade history for instance Miss Simons asked me "Annabelle, sweet Annabelle, is this your day of silence?"

My neighbor told me I was sweet. The teller at the bank said the same. It gets sickening.

Because------I really am not sweet!

To prove it, I'll relate what happened to a poor girl back when we were in ninth grade. It was a

very cold winter and we had to wait outside of the school for the school bus to take us home. Every day I would get to be first or almost first in line. Big Barbara would come along and shove me to the back of the line and take my place.

One day, I decided enough was enough and when she started to push me, I doubled up my sweet little fist and slammed it into her stomach. From then on, she let me keep my place in line.

Moral: Don't push "sweet" people too far.

A Cat Brings a Gift

Once I had two pregnant cats, Serena and Tootsie. Tootsie had her kittens first and I kept them in a box in the living room. Tootsie wouldn't let Serena near her kittens for love or money. Serena was heart-broken. She begged and begged Tootsie to let her come in the box and lick her little kittens, but each time she got hissed at and boxed.

One evening, a bunch of us were sitting out on my front steps with both Tootsie and Serena. Serena had an idea! Off she went in search of a mouse. She came back with a mouse in her

teeth and dropped it at Tootsie's feet. When we all went back in the house, Serena jumped in the box with the kittens, heart filled with love and joy! Tootsie just sat there, probably realizing that now she had a trusted baby-sitter.

That was long ago, but recently I noticed a new cat in the neighborhood and sometimes in my yard. She wore a collar, so I was sure she wasn't a stray. One morning I looked out on

my back- step platform and much to my surprise I saw an almost dead mouse. It moved a bit, but it was surely dying. Every few minutes I would go back and check. It was moving itself

slowly down the four steps and within a half an hour it was on the cement walk. I took a snap

of it to prove my story. The next morning before dawn, I turned on the outside light to see if

anything was going on in the back yard. There on the steps was this new cat looking up at me.

I really think she had offered me a mouse because she wanted to live with me. I shook my

head "no" and I haven't seen her since.

The Plumber

I know this will be almost impossible to believe, but it really happened about five years ago.

One day I heard some water dripping in the basement. I, of course, had to call a plumber, and

I asked for a free estimate. My wish was granted. Later, he arrived and I took him down to

the basement and pointed out where the drip was. He grabbed my hand. Even five years ago I

was classified as an old lady by the experts. He wasn't going to let go of my hand as I tried to pull away. So I said, "It's cold down here." He let go, probably thinking that I preferred a place warmer than the basement to carry on what it was he had in mind. We proceeded up the stairs and as his shoes were in the front entry, he had to go through the living room on his way out.

But he made a stop. He decided to sit on my couch. I sat in a chair. He started talking as if he

were just a new neighbor that I had invited in. I really didn't know what I should do.

Then the phone rang. The phone was in the kitchen at the time, so I left him sitting there while

I answered the phone. He couldn't hear what I was saying, but I think he got nervous. I hung

up the phone and went back to the living room. He was in the front entry putting his shoes back on. Then he left, but eventually I received the bill for the free estimate. Almost $80.00! This man must have been really mad!

I wrote to the company and straightened that out and they cancelled the billed amount. I

didn't tell them what happened as I had no witnesses and who would believe it anyway? But it

really happened.

Gregory Peck and me!

Gregory Peck came to town to promote his latest movie and he didn't want any publicity except for appearing on the local TV stations. I was determined to hunt him down, so I called a TV station and got some lowdown as to where he was.

So I grabbed my movie camera (this was in the early 70's), got one of my daughters to come with me, and drove to KDALTV. We saw a limo sitting there with the driver waiting for him to exit the building. Then he appeared!!

I was a nervous wreck, but he posed with me while my daughter took a movie of us together.

He wore dark glasses so I couldn't see his eyes, but I took a really good look at the rest of his

handsome face. There was no doubt about it. It really was Mr. Peck. He spoke!

He said, "It looks like we are going to make a movie together."

This trembling idiot replied, "Do you think we will both fit ?"

What was going through my mind was that he was so tall, and I was so short, that maybe the

movie couldn't capture us both. But it did. And I got his autograph, too. I might sell it on

E-Bay.

A starry night

Mars has always intrigued me. Our grade-school science books showed photos of the canals on

Mars. There had to be life there! Anything you wanted to know could be found in the children's library, I assumed. I was really disappointed! Nobody on earth knew anymore about Mars than

the man on the street knew. There was a man named Orson Wells that imagined things really well, so this genius wrote radio scripts and when they were aired, some people in America thought Martians were actually invading New Jersey! I think Orson got into a little trouble for that!

Being born under the Zodiac sign of Taurus the Bull, I was a stubborn little cuss, and I promised

myself that I wouldn't leave this world until I knew for sure that life did or did not exist on Mars.

Today CNN's Web site invites us to look at brand new photos of Mars. There are 95 pages of

photos. There are more than 1500 photos. Nothing very startling there, I'll bet!

Of course, long ago when I thought of life, I pictured human or human-like creatures. We are

pretty sure that there are no such critters inhabiting Mars now. But life on Mars doesn't have

to walk around on two legs to be considered as life.

What really scares me is that one of those machines might have a warped sense of humor and

drop a copy of LIFE magazine on Mars and therefore put an end to my quest.

Mice are not nice

My favorite mouse of all time was never Mickey, it was/is Jerry. I love the Tom and Jerry cartoons because I like to see the little underdog (undermouse?) outsmart the big, mean

brutish cat. It was a love/hate relationship and always exciting, like some human marriages.

My first encounter with my own personal Jerry was in the middle of the night as I lay sound

asleep only to be awakened by something moving on the back of my neck. I put my hand over

the little creature and realized it was a mouse! I was about 10 years old. So what does a ten-year-old coward do when presented with such a terrifying situation? She screams bloody murder and her father comes to her bedside. What does a grown man do in such a situation? He takes the innocent little creature by the tail, opens the living room coal- stove door, and tosses it in.

I suffered a little bit of guilt over my part in this, but then realized that that little thing was not

so innocent after all because he chewed up one of my favorite pieces of sheet music-----would you believe it was entitled "Kamenoi Ostrow"? Honest.

The Good Old Days

When I was ten years old, I lived for a short time with my uncle and his family on the edge of town. Very close by was a very lonely road leading to another section of the town. The road led

to the Olcott Park where children could play and watch the caged animals.

There were no buildings on this gravel road named for President Hoover except some shacks built by poverty stricken, alcoholic men. We called it "Hoover Camp".

I remember walking alone on Hoover Road when a car (probably a ModelT) came along and the

driver offered me a ride home. I had been told by my mother not to talk to strangers, so I refused to get in his car. "I know your father." he said.

"Well, then he was not actually a stranger, was he?" my little mind reasoned. So I got in his car and he dropped me off at my uncle's house. That was it!!

But sometime later there was a terrible happening at the Hoover Camp. Two of the men got

some wood alcohol and drank it. They must have gone raving mad! One man put his head

down on the chopping stump and the other man chopped off his head with an axe.

Well, Hoover Road is now civilized with many commercial buildings and those terrible

Depression days are over. We hope.