Why we are not as tough as our parents

It's starting to heat up here in Arizona. We've had a pretty nice spring so far, and the triple-digit temperatures are just starting to kick in for good. The desert is a great place to live while the rest of the world is holed in, waiting for the thaw. But come summertime, you wish you were someplace else. 

And if you're one of those folks with the phrase, "Yeah, but it's a DRY heat" rolling around in your head, just let me tell you, when you've gone through four months of high temps, and it's still 112〫in October, you are DONE with that heat, dry or not. 

Phoenix in February = Good.

Phoenix in August = Oven.

So as we gear up for another heater, and eastern Arizona is undergoing one of its worst forest fires in history, it's almost refreshing for me to read this story from my mom, about how my grandparents had to make it through the icy northern winters. I'm just thankful we don't have to deal with frostbite on our daily commute. 

~Heidi

by Nancy Hallock

1.   Our mother grew up in western North Dakota, almost on the Canadian border.  Houses were not insulated in those days.  Their bedrooms were upstairs.  They had two sources of heat, a fireplace in the living room and a stove in the kitchen.  At night, one fire was put out and the other was banked.  In the morning, they crawled out from under their piles of blankets, grabbed their clothes, and got dressed in front of the stove in the kitchen.

2.  Our dad grew up in Fargo, North Dakota.   He attended Moorhead State Teacher's College, in Minnesota.  The only way for him to get there was to ride a bicycle.  He got what he called "chill blains," which I assume were blisters from frostbite on his lower legs.  He had a brilliant mind and qualified for MENSA (the national Brainiac club for the top 2%), but the depression hit, and he only attended college for one year.  He was president of his class.

3.  The first year our parents were married, they lived in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where my older sister was born.  Our mother was worried that she had waited too long to get married (she was 23), because it took her 6 months to get pregnant.  They lived in a little trailer, and in the winter, when they woke up in the morning, the blankets would be frozen to the wall.

Mom and Dad

by Nancy Hallock

Looking back, I realize how God-like my mother was.  She planted seeds.  No, not so much in a garden, although her baby iris flowers were stunning, but in people.

She would plant a seed in our Dad's brain.  It would nurture and grow, and after awhile, it would give birth to an idea.  HIS idea!

Then a doorway would be moved to a more sensible (for her) location.  A wall would come down and a dining room would be created.  A half-door would be built to protect that precious little baby, who had come ten years after the rest.

The story about that little seed is for another time. 

Dad was born in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1913, of Norwegian parents.  He didn't speak much English before he went to school, which probably was common in that part of the country, in those days.  He made up for it by becoming a star scholar, who could recite rules regarding English usage until the day he died at age 92. 

Ragnar (his friends called him "Rags"), had five younger sisters, so there was always a full house.  However, there always was room for "boarders," including two "old maid" school teachers, who were sisters.  They stayed for many years.

A few years ago, we saw an article in a local home and garden type of magazine from the Fargo area.  It had an article about an old house that was the original farm house on that side of town.  It would have been in the country at the time it was built.

Imagine our surprise, when we realized it was nothing of the sort!  It was the house that Dad had helped his father build when Dad was fifteen years old.   Our grandfather's flower gardens were well known at the time, and there are lovely pictures of the house and gardens from when Dad's family lived there.  We also have pictures of the house being built.  It looks different now.  Some creative and beautiful changes have been made, and two of our family members have been able to visit and take pictures.

The moral here (if there is one), is that the "official" records are not always correct, and are sometimes created by repeated media misperceptions - some things never change.

What is important is to listen, listen, listen to those stories.  Grandpa has already told you this ten times?  Listen again.  You might hear something new in the telling.  As the present becomes less important, the past becomes more vivid.  Listen!