JW Embser & Sons Funeral Home and Sedan Ambulance Service.

       In about 2003, I went to Embser's Funeral Home with a bit of nervousness. The last time I had gone it was to preplan a funeral but this time it was looking for a story. Still, walking through those doors brings back memories of every time I entered the building. 
     This visit was interesting and made me feel better about every funeral ahead of me. Did you know that it was once Embser's Funeral Home and Ambulance Service?  They had an ambulance but also could hook up sirens and lights to the hearse if they needed to use that.  They drove people from accidents to the hospital and transferred patients from Jones to Buffalo or Rochester.
       At the time, Jones was the Jones Homestead, a Victorian house near the current site.  There was a dumbwaiter in the building that could be raised to the level of the ambulance/hearse making it easier to get people out of the vehicle.  Sometimes people called for a ride just because it was an available transportation from out of the hills into town.

WELLSVILLE, NY:  As a child growing up in Buffalo, I saw sleek, station wagons speed by, chasing cars to the side of the road with their flashing lights and screaming sirens. These wagons had a special function, not for soccer moms or grocery delivery but for medical purposes, they were the ambulances of the 1950s and ‘60s. Painted in varied designs and colors to indicate their operators, they were owned and operated by hospitals in Buffalo. At that same time, in small towns like Wellsville, funeral homes met that need. In Wellsville, one operator was JW Embser & Sons Funeral Home and Sedan Ambulance Service.
     Why connect a funeral home and an ambulance service? Well, both had vehicles that could accommodate a person needing to lie down in the back.

        John Embser remembers riding along with his dad in their ambulance. For John, those rides had all the drama a kid could want with the pulsing red light on the roof and the wailing siren behind the grill. John especially remembers one trip to Scio to take an eight-year-old boy to the hospital. John, about the same age, sat in the back with the boy to hold a cloth against his bleeding forehead. This was all before the days of EMTs, biohazard fears or even seat belts.
            David Gardner, John’s uncle, remembers the ambulance days differently. His memories are of the responsibility of transporting injured or ill people at all times of the day and night. He said that sometimes they’d sit down to eat dinner and the phone would ring and someone would call out, “Well, there goes Dad again.”
            The passengers in David Gardner’s ambulance went to an early version of the Jones Memorial Hospital. While most people went to Jones in a private car, people without cars or those with serious illness or injury would call Embser’s for transportation. 
            These trips were tough work when people needed to be carried down steep, narrow stairs on a stretcher. Generally, David Gardner would call someone to ride along and help. Often it was a car mechanic interested in earning a few extra dollars. Sometimes it was a friend willing to get up at two in the morning and drive across the county to help carry a heavy person.
            Occasionally the drive was a scheduled event, bringing someone to Buffalo or Rochester but more often it was a sudden event. It was meant to be discontinued when actually ambulances available through the fire department or through an ambulance service but when older customers called Emser’s to ask for a ride to an appointment with a specialist, they were never turned down. Courtesy has always been a pillar of the Embser family.
            The Embser Funeral Home and Sedan Ambulance Service grew from a business started in 1913 when JW Embser left his job at Rauber’s Furniture and Undertaking to begin his own funeral service. At the time, furniture builders supplemented their income with the construction of caskets. They also had the extra chairs one would need during a wake. The connection between funeral service and furniture was common for a long while. An Allegany County Directory from 1905 shows 18 funeral homes with 12 of them also listed as furniture stores.
     JW’s first hearse was drawn by horses, flanked by lanterns with stylish drapes over the side windows, and filled with all that was needed.  JW had learned embalming as he worked for his employer. People generally died of illness or accident, usually at home. Maybe a doctor would be there, maybe not. The family would call the undertaker and he would “under take” the arrangements for home, church and cemetery.
     In the bedroom, the body would be washed and prepared. A gravity feed system would drain the body and siphon the embalming fluid (a formaldehyde solution to control moisture and, one must say, odor) into the body. The fluids removed from the body would be carried by bucket to the privy for disposal. Afterward, the deceased would be washed and dressed.
     The next big task was to prepare the parlor. JW had a service wagon in addition to his hearse. The service wagon carried drapes for covering the windows, satchels with a crucifix and candles, and a special table to hold the casket. Chairs were carried in the service wagon, packed in canvas, six to a bag. When the room was properly arranged with all in place, the mourners would arrive.
     A religious service was generally carried out at home but often there was a second service in a church. The horse-drawn hearse transported the body there and, while the clergy comforted the mourners, JW would go to the cemetery and erect a tent over the hole, paying $3 to the hole diggers. JW arranged chairs there, too, and installed the apparatus for lowering the coffin.    
     Afterwards, JW returned to the home to remove the service table, chairs and drapes, reclaim things from the cemetery and tackle the paper work of death.  All of his efforts brought him $20.
     The first service performed by J.W. was for an infant, Pearl Van Kuran. Pearl lived from August 26 to September 6, 1913 and was buried at York’s Corners. Paging through the old book shows that business was slow at first but by 1917, the influenza epidemic had his funeral service bustling. Gravediggers were earning $13 and casket makers asked for $100.
     Eventually, the horse-drawn wagon and hearse went into long-term storage and JW purchased a new, gasoline engine hearse. This hearse maintained some of the style elements of the old horse-drawn buggy with faux pillars along the side windows and the same stylish curtains over side windows.
The new hearse strained the business financially because, while a wagon could be traded for another wagon, it wasn’t something that the automobile dealer was interested in.
     The second generation of Embsers in the business, brothers Walter and Richard, worked in a different world. They learned their trade through formal classes as well as experience. Walter and Richard expanded the operation by introducing the sedan ambulance service.
David Gardner ushered in the third generation after he earned certification as a funeral home director, through formal education  in 1962 and John Embser joined later.
     Generation four, Walter Gardner, earned one degree at SUNY Canton and another at SUNY in Utica. Canton’s program offers a Bachelor of Technology degree in Health Services Management:  Mortuary Science. The program, including a full year of internship, shares several courses with nursing students so that funeral home directors are now more knowledgeable about anatomy than ambulance drivers were a generation ago.
     Earning a degree isn’t the end of it, either. Funeral directors must participate in continuing education seminars and renew their licenses every two years. They develop and maintain proficiency in the embalming process as well as with aspects of business, rules and laws.
     alking with multiple generations of practitioners makes it easy to see how the profession has changed. The embalming and the ceremonies have moved from the home of the deceased to the funeral parlor. The caskets are no longer standard items but are available in virtually unlimited materials, designs, colors and themes. The cost has changed too. Rather than having one flat fee, there are itemized charges for each service, many of which simply pass over the funeral director’s desk. For example, the charge for opening a grave goes directly to another agency. The job, once costing $3, now fetches $350.
            A major change seems to be the option to preplan a funeral. The planning can be done at any time and with any amount of detail. The advantage is that a person can make their wishes known, state their preferences, and remove stressful decision making for family members. All of this can be done leisurely, without the huge, emotional impact of death.
            The whole funeral scenario is serious business but checking some of the coffin styles offered over the Internet shows that some people put creativity into the situation. One website offers a casket painted to look like a set of golf clubs.  Others were painted with sport or religious themes. There are standard models in a wide range of colors. I also found a not-so-standard model that comes outfitted with shelves. It can be used as a bookcase until needed as a coffin. The shelves come out and a liner with pillow pops in.
         Of course, for those who choose cremation, there is a world of urns including those privately made by potters or other artisans who make the item for a specific person.

     The thing that seems to have remained the same in this business over the years is the emotional impact of dealing so regularly with death. All of these funeral agents feel that it is hardest to work with the families and bodies of children. Some of the preparations that they have made haunt them. Sometimes one of them, overcome by emotions, has had to call for help. At other times, dealing with a long-time friend, they feel that their work is an act of kindness that gives them comfort as they work as carefully and respectfully as they can.
     At the time of this essay, Ember’s was nearing their 90^th year of operation. It is on West State Street in what was once the home of JW and Agnes Embser. Their hours are simply any time you need them. them.  
 
      For more on the history of the Jones Memorial Hospital: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/MediaLibraries/URMCMedia/jones-memorial/services/images/JMH-History-booklet_1.pdf
      For more on the creation of the modern paramedic program listen here: https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-222-the-paramedics-6-8-2023

Chickens on Hertel

Chickens on Hertel Avenue

A Hardman Family Story

We have a family story about Jay and his encounters in Kuala Lumpur with the man we named “The Chicken-Plucker.” Memories of chickens in my childhood are from the chicken store on Hertel Avenue in Buffalo in the 50’s.

My family lived in the first of a group of three houses next to a car dealer and across the street from the dry cleaner/bookie. (I don’t know if there was really a bookie, but my father said that there was because he saw people go in empty handed and come out the same so I wasn’t allowed to walk in front of that building.)

Sometimes my mother sent me past the other two houses and the church parking lot, on the good side of the street, to the brick building that held a car repair shop and a chicken coop on the ground floor and apartments above.

Entering the shop was strange because, on the inside, it didn’t look, smell or sound like the city. The floor was covered in sawdust. The owner walked through the mist of odors, leading with his enormous belly, wearing a blood-spattered apron over his long-sleeved white jacket. The sawdust on the floor behind his counter was not fresh but mixed with chicken droppings and feathers.

The back of the store had cages and a chopping block. The wire cages held chickens, sometimes more, and sometimes fewer, but always noisy. The birds would pompously strut with their darting beaks. Their combs proudly dressed their heads and their bead-like eyes sparkled in the light of the bare bulbs hanging on black wires.

The man sold eggs in gray, cardboard boxes tied with a string that spun from a spool on the counter, traveled through a wire loop above and came back down to his flying hands to be wrapped around the carton, tied and snapped, the small sound of which was lost among the clucking. Placed in my hands, those eggs were carried, cautiously, back to the kitchen at 1101.

Sometimes I was not an egg customer but a chicken customer. The chickens knew the difference. “My mother wants a nice, fat chicken and she doesn’t want any feathers. She hates the feathers!”

Then he went to the cage to select a chicken for butchering, the noise was deafening. Shouts of chicken kinship or chicken fear were far more hectic than those of egg loss.

His counter was too high for me to look over though I could peek around the side. I didn’t see the business that so fascinated and shocked Jay in Malaysia because The Chicken Man stepped outside the back door to do the serious stuff. When finished, he would hand me the still-warm chicken wrapped in paper and tied with his flying string. It was okay to skip, run or even to roller skate with a package of chicken and, when I was holding a dead chicken, a chicken so recently gone from life to meat, moving faster seemed like a good idea.

There were always a few small feathers and my mother would burn them off with the flame on our gas stove before she washed the chicken and started dinner.

The man and his chickens were gone by the time I was ten years old and could walk all the way to the corner drugstore or ride my bike around the whole block. I remember stopping once to look in his dark window. The cages were empty, a few feathers were on the floor in the dusty corners and the quiet, so unusual for that store, was eerie.

Elaine Hardman is a retired teacher/potter/tin cutter who gets eggs from Meredith and stories everywhere.

My Mother's Singer

My Mother's Sewing Machine
Published in the Patriot and Free Press, Christmas Story Collection 2008

Cold passes through the kitchen windows and floats in a chilly gauze around my shoulders. Periodically I hear the rumbling of a snow plow on the highway with hard tires buzzing and the blade scraping through slush. Dwight’s snow blower growls in one driveway and Rob’s in the other but Rick isn’t clearing snow yet. No rush today.

Chickadees flutter in gray gusts from the feeders to roof and back littering the new snow in bits of seed for field mice to find later.

Inside red bows are splashed on the curtains while nutcrackers and wooden soldiers stand duty on the fireplace mantle. Em’s and Jay’s Kindergarten art projects, now faded construction paper held together with tape and memories, are in place on the doors and there are cookies (I hope not to burn) in the oven. It’s nearly Christmas and that’s when I want to get out fabric and listen to the sound of my mother’s sewing machine.

It’s an old Singer. I remember when she got it in the 1950s. She took a few sewing lessons at the store and modeled her dress in a student fashion show. She was proud and pleased. The machine was a major investment at the time, purchased “on time” and seen as a treasure. Mom said she would make clothes, save money, and be accomplished.

The first dress that I remember her making (55 years ago!) was emerald green with a square neckline and yards of skirt cut on the bias. The fabric was placed on the cleared dining room table, right sides together with pattern pieces carefully cut, pinned, measured on the straight then pinned more. They were cut with no small measure of concern for error. Her stress showed in the tight line of her lips as she snipped carefully on the lines.

The sewing machine later hummed, speeding over basted seams making neat and even stitches.

Eventually I was allowed to use the machine thus making my older brother a nervous wreck. “She’s going too fast,” he’d yell. “She’ll break it.”

My mother seemed unconcerned so I charged ahead with more interest in speed than stitches. Now and then I'd sew a stitch or two into my finger but that was the price of speed and I couldn't admit to any pain if my brother was there.

My own sewing machine was purchased in 1979 and it had lots of extra gizmos – nothing like what one can buy today but cams that could stitch a row of ducks or bring zigzag to new levels of art. Rick and I were looking toward the birth of Emilie so such a machine was sure to have great use and I expected it to be a last extravagance before children consumed our future earnings.

I sewed clothes, quilts and curtains and repaired all kinds of things but the “new” machine never sounded right to me. The plastic gears may be great for fancy stuff but the rows of ducks weren’t as important to me as that sound of smooth, well-oiled metal so when it was time to empty Mom’s house I wanted the sewing machine. I wanted to hear it sew. Precision pieces. Solid parts. Perfect fit.

Jay got interested in fabric sculptures in college so I picked up a used machine for him but working with leather, burlap and canvass he burned through the plastic gears in no time. When I mentioned to Aunt Florence that I was on the lookout for a solid, old machine for Jay she said she had one in her garage.

That sounded crazy to me. Aunt Florence had never sewn much more than a button. How could she have a machine? The answer was in her attitude against waste. When she saw her neighbor put a machine on the curb for trash she asked him to move it to her garage on the chance she’d find an owner for it.

Jay now has a rescued 1931 White in a wood cabinet and as soon as he heard the old parts purr through his work he understood what I was talking about. Solid. Strong. Just great.

India, second class

Dinner and a Train Ride

Rick and I always travel on our own. He finds guest houses and interesting restaurants and we walk mile after mile taking photos. But his research hinted that India was visited with a guide so we booked a tour.

Our trip was difficult, interesting, unforgettable, exhausting, amazing and sometimes wonderful. The problems were often due to our terrible guide and his terrible company (GAP tours) but sometimes they were due to poverty and intense numbers of people.

One night we left our hotel, piled into taxis for the train station stopping for dinner along the way. For safety, we took the luggage off the roof and stuffed it into the taxis while we ate at Treat Restaurant.

The restaurant occupied one side of a large building while the other side had some kind of children’s restaurant/play area where the music was loud enough to cause brain damage. Through the wall the music rattled the tables. Shortly after we ordered dinner the music stopped and the play area closed.

As my nerves began to settle with the quiet, I glanced to my left, toward the kitchen and a rat scamper across the floor to scoot under a cabinet.

I was sitting across from a pale, sad Jen, green shawl pulled tight around her shoulders and head down in the fatigue of constant stress. Earlier that day, while recharging her Blackberry, and she told me she thought herself adventurous before this trip but had reassessed. All future travel would be first class.

Had she seen the rat? Her eyes were closed so probably not. The rat might have sent her into a comatose state or perhaps it would have propelled her, screaming, onto the table. My relief turned to moral dilemma. Should I tell her or be silent? I chose silence because as I thought about it I began to realize that I too was in this restaurant with a rat. Should I eat this food, my last meal before a long train ride? If not, what reason will I tell everyone for my sudden change of heart? Maybe I should jump on the table and scream.

Certainly we had seen rats in Asia. In some Hindu temples people share food with rats – a form of prayer, a source of blessing. I do not wish to be so blessed.

If this had happened on my first night in India, I’d have probably starved but it was the middle of our trip and I smiled wanly at Jen and ate.

After dinner we continued to the train station. There’s an advantage to being in a train station at night. With the heat of the day gone, the smell subsides. With the darkness, one can’t see the, well… the rats.

We waited a long while for our late train but finally boarded a second class sleeper car. It would be home base for 12 hours, clanking from Orchha to Varanasi. The night on the sleeper train was a much-dreaded component of this tour. While I would not rush to board that train again, it wasn’t as bad as it might have been. It was November, winter, so instead of reaching 48 degrees Celsius in the afternoon the temperature merely ambled toward 30 (about 90 F) and that passes for “cold” in India. So, since it was winter, the fans were off. From my slot on a top bunk, I looked longingly at the shiny aluminum blades wishing they would move the hot air surrounding me but seeing the Indians mummy-like in woolen blankets, heads buried to conserve heat, it was senseless to ask.

Let me describe the train. The cars were in sections and each section accommodated 8 people. There were 2 sets of 3 bunks and one set of 2. The bunks, or berths, were green shelves cushioned with a bit of padding. Each person was given 2 sheets, a blanket and a pillow for personal nest building for the night. I started by cleaning my berth with several sani-wipes.

During the night, the train chugged for about 10 minutes, then stopped for 5. While it moved the snoring was masked by the many train noises and the sound of one’s brain sloshing in one’s head from the jarring movement. (How can train tracks be so bumpy?) When the train stopped the snoring seemed to pass through a clarifying filter sharpening the edge of each sound to increase the fingernails-on-chalkboard sensation.

This was my train song - to the tune of “My Favorite Things” – sort of
Clanking of train wheels and blaring of loud horns
Sellers of chai tea and people of loud snore
Bare toes that wiggle ‘neath white crispy sheets
These are a few of the things on my train.
When the flies bite
When the sanitizer stings
When I’m feeling bad
I simply ignore all these things on the train
And make sure my Rick is near

During our afternoon in Varanasi, we were warned not to walk on our own but that’s just what we did. We were approached by 50 drivers by the time we turned a corner. Once out of sight of the hotel, people ignored us.

Imagine this. We found a Hindi wedding march. It was Sergeant Pepper’s Band meets Bollywood - very cool. The bride was a lovely young girl who walked barefoot on the street surrounded by family and led by a marching band in full uniform.

We found spice alley with huge baskets of every spice we know and more and metal work factories where people rebuilt tuktuks. In the streets of Varanasi we crowded with humanity talking, beeping, driving, walking and riding bikes on every street while flies filled the spaces between people and sound. (I exaggerate only marginally.) Streets held cows, trash, goo, spit and urine. In every sheltered corner, we saw men peeing. Where there was no sheltered corner, we saw men peeing. Constantly, men pee. Of course, if one has no toilet what is to be done?

I’m sure parts of India are quiet, calm, aromatic and elegant. Perhaps even parts of Varanasi are serene but everything we saw was intense with color, noise, odor and clutter.

Grandma Anna

Story Jar April 16, 2008

When she was a child, my grandmother, Anna Mallia, didn’t ponder her future. Futures were predictable – carved in stone and woven through history. She learned to cook, crochet and keep a house running. Her greatest skill, the ability to love, constantly bubbled inside bringing happiness and hopefulness, traits she no doubt needed.

When it was decided that she would marry Sebastian Schillace, he immigrated to the United States in 1900 at the age of nineteen to work as a bricklayer in Buffalo. When there was enough money to establish a home, Sebastian returned to Italy, married Anna and brought her to Buffalo. Somehow, her family let her go, knowing they would never be together again. They believed that she would find opportunities for a better life than their small village could provide.



She must have been afraid sometimes but hers was an era when duty dictated activity so Anna left all that was familiar and came to America with her vows to love, honor, obey and bear children, seven of them. The children honored Anna and even as a tiny child I could feel her presence. Treating Anna with dignity was natural as getting hungry in her kitchen.

When their son, Peter, became ill, they moved to the country – North Collins – to the house where, decades later, I would play while my grandfather sat silently smoking his pipe at a square, weathered table outside the back door, surveying his dominion while household chores bustled inside.

Their house was clean and uncluttered. My favorite area was the busy kitchen where Grandma, short and round, sparkling and energetic, was always cooking, washing or eating in her sensible black heeled shoes and apron. The kitchen flowed into a wide, butterscotch colored staircase, a great place for lining up toys, launching a slinky or sliding down the side while Grandma smiled.

At the top of the stairs was a cupboard-lined hall with the entrances to five bedrooms and one secret room, a large closet full of trunks with linens and precious memories of the family in Sicily, Grandma’s treasures. Kids were forbidden to enter that room or to touch the trunks so I assumed, through childish illogic, that the trunks held treasure or dead bodies. (It was the era of The Hardy Boys.)



Sebastian was the breadwinner but Anna was the bread maker. She purchased flour in huge sacks and made rows of loaves of bread. Later, she bleached the flour sacks, cut them in half, sewed a hem and crocheted or tatted lace along the edges with bright green or pink threads turning sacks into wonderful towels. Some of Grandma’s work stayed in those trunks.

Grandma cooked, ate and prayed with gusto. There was always some kind of sauce simmering and everyone who entered Grandma’s home ate - two or three helpings if Grandma’s spoon was quick enough. Aunt Florence said that Grandma could eat an entire loaf of fresh hot bread all by herself. Before eating, her prayers were said with fervent Italian words.

Braided in the back and wrapped around her head like a crown, her long, silver hair fascinated me. When I was about four, I had permission to comb her hair but her faith in me was poorly placed. As I stood on a stool to reach her head, the comb went through her shinny, wavy hair but my little arms couldn’t reach the end and when I pulled the comb back up some hair was still in it. Trying to pull the comb free made it gather in more and more strands until it was hopelessly knotted.

All the aunts and uncles tried to remove that comb, scolding me mercilessly in two languages while Grandma tried to shush them and I cried. In the end, someone used scissors to free the comb and so ruined the cherished braids. I hid among the trunks the rest of that day.

Anna’s Italian voice was strong and musical. She depended on that language, augmented with some tuneful English words, spicing all with her smile, making me feel her ideas from the melody of the words.

Near the end of her life, Anna suffered a stroke. Her eyes and mind remained quick, young and lively, but her body couldn’t move out of the wheelchair. The stroke didn’t end the song of her life but she needed help so Aunt Florence cared for her. I stayed in the big house for a little while and, while Aunt Florence went to work, I answered the phone, delivered drinks of water, turned on the tiny, round-screened TV. I proudly served as “Grandma’s little legs.”

When Grandma died, the whole town came to sit in her parlor where the sound of the little television was replaced with tears and tales about Grandma. People said that Grandma was a saint and, through years of childhood prayers, hers was the face I’d see. Even now, writing about Anna wraps memories of her around me like a hug, her soft grandma-skin against my cheek.

Dumpster Diving

Story Jar April 2 2008

It was called garbage picking when I was a kid, then dumpster diving and now the Freegan movement. It’s the fine art of giving rebirth to discarded objects. Karrie, an artist, says that people should look at nearly all trash as opportunity. Our house is full of great opportunities.

My dumpster diving days began when I moved into my first apartment in Greene, New York. All that I owned fit into a Volkswagen bug and this was an unfurnished apartment so when I saw an abandoned, maple drop-leap table nestled between the trash cans I gleefully dragged it upstairs to my empty kitchen. Not long after, I discovered a brass floor lamp in the same place. With a new wire threaded through and a lampshade added, it became a treasure. Now antiques, both are in Emilie’s Boston apartment.

The next major treasure was found in Binghamton in the late 70’s. I was jogging past a huge carriage wheel placed near the curb. It was clearly garbage with two rotted spokes but it was a "treasure" nonetheless. I rushed home and dragged Rick to our station wagon. Grumbling, he came along and found that the wheel was larger than the car, a Chevy Vega. The only way to get it home was to roll it.

Inconveniently, we lived at the top of a steep hill. It was so steep that on an icy winter day, Rick stepped into the road to put the garbage at our curb, slipped and flanked by bags of garbage, slid down the hill past about ten houses before he could stop.

Rick considered the wheel unworthy of further attention but I started rolling it. In a short distance, it became clear that I was a lousy wheel roller. Thankfully, Rick felt sorry for me and, grumbling a little more, took over the rolling while I drove the car. I cheered him on. He growled.

That wheel came with us to Alfred and again to Wellsville (with additional growling). Jay dressed up in Daddy's hat and stood in front of it once for a photo before several more spokes finally gave way to rot and we put it at the curb. In just a few minutes someone else began rolling that wheel away to their house.





My dresser was once trash. The mirror was gone and a few pieces were broken. We bought it at an auction with few people bidding in competition. They didn't see potential the way we did. With the discarded wings from an old vanity making a frame for a new mirror and a few other pieces of wood it has provided decades of service.






Rick once trashed a narrow, paneled door but I pulled it back into the garage and he eventually built a wonderful blue cupboard around it. Sometimes, the reflection of the cupboard can be caught our half-round window.




Once part of the Wellsville High School, it now is part of our kitchen along with some discarded oak cabinets from Andover School. Andover also gave us a glass lamp found resting on a pile of old light bulbs and Alfred State College "sold" oak book cases for $5 - not far from a dumpster price. Things made of oak, beveled glass or brass just aren’t meant to be garbage.















I rescued a 1972 dress model with wheeled cast-iron feet, stamped metal arm and neck plates and a fancy cast-iron finial. Discarded by the girls moving out of Jay’s Cherry Street apartment, it now stands in our living room in an outfit made (and discarded) by members of Thailand’s Karen Tribe. Leaning against the wall are some fly fishing poles that Jay rescued for us from another Philly apartment. You just can’t find stuff like that in a store.

The only time Rick gives any discarded stuff a glance is when he notices my pottery. Once he took an enormous but perfectly ugly bowl out of our trash and shipped it to a gallery near Chautauqua where it sold for over $200 – a record. I’m still astounded.




photos of other rescued items are at flickr

Story Jar: Baktapura

A bell clangs, a hundred bells clang and the sound bounces over and around the chugging engines, beeping horns, chanting monks, bargaining shoppers and endless drums and flutes. In the far distance the dying day glows pink on mountain snow and over the valley a huge flock of white birds settles then explodes again into the air looking for a night roost.

Red and pink shawls warm shoulders of women buying, women selling, women walking with children tied to their backs, women filling water jugs and everywhere there is another sound, another movement and another temple toward which sounds are offered. This is Bhaktapur, Nepal, the city that holds its heritage.

We came here with Jeff, the last member of our India tour we hugged good-by. Rick and I had a room for our last night in Nepal but Jeff came only to walk about and have lunch before returning to Katmandu. Shortly he’ll leave for Tibet and we will head for home.

Inside the taxi was one century but outside time was braided: ancient history, middle ages and modern times. We found internet cafes and pottery smoldering in straw fired pits. Tarps on streets or temple steps were covered with rice drying in the sun while people talked on cell phones.

At noon a live goat led a parade to the main temple where it was sacrificed leaving a large puddle of blood on cobblestones – all of it captured on digital movie cameras. It is completely not Kansas.

Bhacktapur is the most impressive of the World Heritage sites we have seen during this trip. A large, complex entity, the city is a living museum with hundreds of temples and wells (there is little indoor water service) and more carvings than a person could count. The wooden doorways, windows, balconies and roof tops are carved with Ganish (the elephant god), elephants, goddesses unknown, Garuda (a mythical bird), feathers, fruits, diamonds and flowers.

The main square is carved and polished but Rick and I walked the back alleys peeking in a doorway where a woman cooked over an open fire while surrounded by as many people as the small floor would hold. Hens pecked at stray grains of rice between their fluttering chicks. A young girl jumped rope in a courtyard and an old man slept on a bit of burlap next to knitting women and sleeping babies.

Everywhere there is one more structure worthy of a photograph.

Once just a bit of a trading road to Tibet what is now Bhaktapur became a town under the efforts of King Ananda Malla 1080, more or less. For 200 years, from 1400 onward it was the most powerful city in the area. Most of the knock-your-yak-wool-socks-off architecture is from that period or from the 17th century. Apparently it would be even more dramatic but an earthquake in 1934 destroyed several temples. It’s hard to believe that any were lost since they are everywhere but at the peak there were 172 temples and monasteries here as well as 172 pilgrim shelters, now used as shaded meeting areas for old men during the day.

It seems as if there must be 172 stores selling CDs of monks chanting or of Nepali music because one hears this everywhere. Our guidebook says that this city, the architecture and pace, is what Katmandu was 30 years ago. As I write we are sitting on the roof of our hotel sipping tea, listening to all that is Bhaktapur while I type on the laptop by the light of a candle sheltered from the wind by a plastic water bottle. Gotta love recycling.

In the 1970s a German consortium decided to support Baktapur by building a sewage system and repaving the streets with cobblestone and brick and also began a continuing restoration of buildings and temples. Now one pays $10 to enter and the money is used to restore old buildings brick by brick and clay tile by clay tile. Only photos will do to explain this town wide party with momo steamers on every block.

Part 2

One never knows what one will find on any street but when on a street in a foreign city he chances of seeing something outlandishly different increases. Baktapura’s streets are as foreign as they come and they have provided us with shock, amusement and fascination.

A three-year old girl’s toy was the creepiest thing though I can only say that because we missed the goat sacrifice in the afternoon. She was running and laughing while waving about a hypodermic needle. (Let’s reassess the danger level of “runs with scissors”.) The needle was huge, the holding several ml of what looked like very dirty water (sewage??) and brandishing a 2 inch long needle. Rick and I cleared out of her way. Can you imagine being stabbed with an old hypodermic needle with unknown fluid inside?

Later another tiny girl ran between us with a burning stick. She was among a group of 3-10 year olds who were burning bits of trash in the corner of a temple.

In a safer part of our evening walk we went to Potter’s Square. We had been there in the afternoon when we saw pots being stacked on a straw bed, packed with more straw and layered with more pots and more straw. By evening the pots were covered in straw and buried in ash in preparation for a 3-day firing.

Another load of pots had been fired and another was in the process of firing with smoke leaking out all around it. This pit firing was being tended by a man who fed scraps of wood into each of the ports at the bottom. He would continue to do this all night.

We went to our hotel room for the night when I heard cymbals and drums and looked out the window. There was a dancing parade of the nine manifestations of Durga, living gods that are particularly revered and feared in Baktapura. During certain few occasions and particularly during the festival of Dasain (now), members of the cast of flower sellers are chosen to don the masks and parade through the street.

The masks are specially made and used for only one year. When on, the masks empower the wearer with the embodiment of the deity and so they are living gods. They dance throughout the city to of the major temples and then they disappear into the monastery where only they and initiates can go. I snapped one photo but then learned that someone might have taken my camera and smashed and then beaten me for the audacity of photographing a living god. Religious ideas are amazingly creative and varied.

Part 3

Through the COLD night there were periodic bells clanging but the bells began in earnest at 4:30 and were ferocious for a while being joined by blaring horns and the occasional fire cracker. Dressed in every layer we had we ventured out, creeping down the stairs intending to go to the square for a closer look but the night clerk slept under a thick blanket in the lobby and the doors were closed and bared. We were locked in but in isn’t really the right word.

The hotel rooms are closed but the restaurant is in the open courtyard and the stairs lead to the roof-top café so the building is more open (cold) air than enclosed but without leaping over the outer walls or waking the guy on the sofa we were locked in.

Jen Brown, a new friend from the India tour, leaves today for base camp at Everest. We’re chilled to the bone here and can’t imagine what she will face.

Driving with Jay - Story Jar

Driving with Jay

Wellsville, 1998: An important element in teaching Jay to drive was teaching me not to scream. There were moments when fear and anxiety welled up inside and beat their little fists against my throat until I yelped or yelled or squeaked with apprehension – at various volumes. Jay complained that my screams made him nervous and that I really had to get a grip. Gee.

The thing was that I wanted the car to slow down before Jay started slowing down. Occasionally, pedestrians (including Larry, the crossing guard one day) did not get the right of way. One morning, Em’s Geo’s tail pipe/muffler made rapid contact with the front porch bending it up under the car as if it were merely aluminum foil.
We collected bits and splinters of the porch spindles and railing - Rick’s recent summer project - and put the damaged car into the garage then I insisted that Jay drive my car to school.

The problem for all of these incidents was that Jay had a tough time remembering which foot ruled the brake and which the gas. Trying to be logical about this, sometimes he would avoid both pedals while he thought about it. Unfortunately, time couldn’t stop while he mentally chewed his choices.

Jay didn’t explain this until after a white-knuckled whoosh down Madison Hill. The car picked up speed coasting downhill and, noticing other cars stopped at the traffic light, I suggested slowing down. Jay intently looked forward and the car intently sped. I gently called his name, admirably controlling myself but he remained frozen.

I considered three options (screaming, grabbing his arm and being patient) –okay four options (invading his space to smack the brakes) as the nanoseconds whipped with wind around the car. Then Jay touched the brake, sighed and really thumped it. After we stopped Jay said that he appreciated my squeezing the begeebers out of the armrest instead of screaming while he was thinking about the pedals.

Of course he knew we were speeding downward but figured that getting the gas would make things worse so he wanted to be sure before he chose. After that day he remembered where the brake was.

He had less trouble with the manual transmission in the truck though that wasn’t always smooth. One time Rick picked Jay up at the school. Jay revved the engine, popped the clutch practically doing a wheelie and nearly mated with Elsie Swartz’s much-loved, red Thunderbird. Rick claims to have remained calm and advised Jay to back up and give himself a bit more room.

Jay had a lot of experience with the truck when he was tiny. He’d sit on Rick’s lap and “steer” the truck when taking garbage to the dump. Later, he and Emilie “drove” on back roads when I wasn’t around. Part of the deal was, “Don’t tell Mom.”

Of course we all have stories about learning to drive. My favorite is that while demonstrating figure 8s during my motorcycle road test, some demon force goosed the throttle and sent me bouncing over the curb, through a shrub and up two steps before I stopped. I thought a bit of levity was in order but my brother couldn’t have been more embarrassed when I asked the examiner if I could have one more try.

Story Jar: Metro One, Budapest

Metro One, Budapest

Hungary, 2007: Subways are great. I say that with all sincerity right now because we stayed out too late and missed the last train to our hotel so had to hike a considerable number of blocks across the city.

Budapest is actually two cities (Buda and Pest) divided by the Danube River, a body of water without a hint of blue. It’s easy to get around Budapest on the Metro lines, the trolleys or the buses. We used the Metro for several days and took it for granted until tonight.

We boarded on the red line and meant to transfer to Metro 1 but when we started up the stairs a woman at the top shouted a string of Magyar (Hungarian) to which we responded with blank stares. She then said, “Finished.” That we understood. Didn’t like it but understood so we exited the station and pulled out the worn map that Em and Josh’s had given to us. We had to hike a distance equivalent to 7 stations on Metro 1. We walked down the wide center avenue on a clear, spring evening talking about the yellow line, Metro 1. It’s a gem.

It’s a series of Little-Engine-that-Could trains with sweet, small yellow cars that arrive every 2 or 3 minutes all day long with seating for 16 and, the poster says, standing room for 50 more. (I would challenge that because we were on a full car once and I counted 24 standing passengers with virtually no room between elbows and bags. There is no way another 26 passengers could have gotten on without some sitting on others’ shoulders.)


Hungary had the first underground system in Europe and while I don’t know that Metro 1 is part of that first construction, it certainly has the hand-crafted look of an earlier time. Metro 1 has oak doors, steel pillars with art deco tops and two-toned ceramic walls. We particularly liked that the Metro 1 cars play a happy little tune when entering stations, as if they are pleased once more to make it out of the dark tunnel.

When we arrived in Budapest we purchased a one week pass. We each carried a tiny, colorful ticket entitling us to ride any of the trains, trolleys or buses in either Buda or Pest. The tickets don’t open gates or pass under scanners. It almost seems as if a person could get around without a ticket but at any time while on the system, someone with a transit system armband might ask to see the ticket and if it isn’t produced, they collect a large fine right there. If a person has neither ticket nor money, the transit officials may confiscate anything that the person does have and hold it ransom until the fine is paid. There’s no messing around.

The system is the same in Prague where we were asked for our tickets several times. Generally tickets were checked on the bus. Not only did we always have our tickets but every person around us during those checks also produced one so we never witnessed a problem in Prague but in Budapest we saw three people pay fines. To say they looked glum would understate their appearance.

On the night of the long walk, this night of the missed train, we witnessed such a fine on the red line. We walked into the station at nearly 11 p.m. when 3 officials asked for our tickets. Rick pulled them out of his pocket and we were nodded onward. A train had just come into the station, disgorging an assortment of passengers – a band with trombone, guitar and sax, a man with a suitcase and a number of couples. These people were also stopped by the transit officials and the man with the suitcase had no ticket so one officer scribbled out a citation. The man handed over several bills, took his receipt and wheeled his suitcase out of the station unhappy to have taken such an expensive ride.

We had time to watch all of this because we had an enormous ten-minute wait before our large, modern train arrived with screeching brakes. That train took us to the station where the woman told us that the service was finished for the night.

We spent the next 20 minutes walking and missing the wonderful, yellow Metro 1 trains.

Story Jar: The City of Brotherly Furniture

The City of Brotherly Furniture
The Story Jar

Philadelphia, 2002: Jay spent Sunday with his friend, Cora. After lunch they went to a thrift store for a few things to dress up their apartments. Jay wanted a ceiling fixture and a carpet. Cora wanted a comfy chair.

At the first store Jay found a ceiling fixture - functional but ordinary, nothing of a sparkle to it - but he considered getting it for $25 if he couldn’t find anything else.

After a bit of shopping in other stores, they headed back to the first one to get that fixture but they spotted a ceiling fixture discarded on the curb. Not totally brimming with character but lacking a price tag, it was perfect for Jay. They tossed it in the truck and Cora told him that he was a lucky guy.

The next thrift store had carpets. Persian style carpets. Just what Jay wanted. The one he liked best was about four by six feet and carried a whopping price of $200. While that’s cheap for a carpet, it’s way out of Jay’s budget so he told the guy that he would think about it. He didn’t have to think for very long.

Cora said that, luckily, they turned down a narrow street, so narrow that they generally avoid using it, and on this day the street was carpeted. Sticking out of a box was the end of a carpet. It was dirty but plenty large – 9 x 12. Into the back of the truck it went with the light fixture and room enough for steam carpet cleaner.

By then Cora had to get to the train station to head back to work in Rhode Island for the week. Jay drove her there but it was a busy day so Cora was bumped off that train. She had to wait for the morning train which was a mild disappointment that she would feel better about if Jay could just find a chair for her.

Jay took his no-problem attitude and cruised Philly. They drove down a couple of blocks and found, abandoned on the street and waiting for Cora, a fine, almost new, leather recliner. They stood for several minutes to see if someone might come back for it but no doors opened, no trucks stopped, no people showed up at all so the chair went with the rug and carpet cleaner.

They felt successful and headed home but the streets of Philly held one more treasure. It was a sticky, empty beer keg – the kind that means a $40 deposit when returned.

All this success built an appetite so they went to Jay’s house to make dinner. Cora went to Jay’s garden to clip some fresh basil leaves but she accidentally cut leaves from a pepper plant. Ah well, everyone's luck eventually changes.

2007 Christmas Issue: Christmas Gingerbread Houses

Gingerbread Houses

Christmas at our house means gingerbread house time. We made some simple ones when
the children were little. You know the kind - graham crackers and frosting - but that’s not what we do now. Before everyone comes home, I bake a house.

Rick starts by choosing a house pattern and making cardboard pattern pieces for the walls and roof. Generally I have to double the recipes for gingerbread to make the house but it goes quickly now because I have a method.


I put parchment paper on a baking pan, roll the dough out, cut around the pattern and remove the extra dough. Since I don’t pick anything up, I no longer stretch the rectangles into some frustrating parallelogram or wonky trapezoid.


When they are cool, I glue the pieces together. The first time I glued a house it was without appreciation for the searing temperature of melted sugar. I thought I had to hurry and while hurrying I dripped melted sugar on my hand. It took about two weeks to heal.

Now I wear neoprene gloves and move slowly and carefully. With all the pieces arranged on the kitchen counter and an aluminum foil-covered board at the ready I melt sugar in a large frying pan. Sugar melts into sticky syrup. I dip two sides of a wall into the goo and then place the wall on the board. I know that there’s enough time to move slowly and deliberately.

I worry a little about putting roof on. I have to use a spoon to drip glue on the top of the wall and then place the roof parts. The small pieces of the chimney go on easily and they add style. Often I put a few trees or shrubs or a snowman in the “yard” or pour the sugar/syrup into a “walkway” in front of the door. The sugar glue hardens and the house waits for candy.

At our house all the food we share has to be vegan and that, just a couple of years ago, limited our choices of candies for decoration but now one can get just about anything in a vegan formula so we get pretty darn colorful.

Christmas Eve is decorating time. We get some drinks, turn on the holiday music and put the house on the dining room table surrounding it with bowls of candies. I make lots of frosting for the decorations and we get the kitchen scissors, knives and our fingers very gooey in the process.


Often each of us claims a section of the house and gets to work, a process that means the house looks different from each angle. We cover it with enough candy-tile to make Anton Gaudi jealous and us happy.

As soon as it’s finished it is okay to start eating it but usually the sampling of materials has already made us sick on sugar by then. Our gingerbread house is the best 50,000 calorie project of the year.



Basic Gingerbread House Dough
From recipes.vegansource.com
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 or 3 tsps ground ginger (use a really good quality spice)
1 or 2 tsp ground cinnamon (Vietnamese is my favorite)
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup molasses
2 Tbs soymilk, or as needed

In a large bowl stir together flour, baking soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon. (This is the step where our kitchen floor gets messy.)
In a saucepan, combine the shortening, brown sugar, and molasses over low heat.
Stir occasionally until the shortening is melted and the sugar is dissolved,
but still slightly grainy. Remove from the heat and let the mixture cool to lukewarm.
Gradually add the molasses mixture to the dry ingredients, mixing until well blended.
Add enough soymilk to make a firm dough.

Gather the dough into a ball, and cover with plastic wrap.
Let the dough rest for at least 20 minutes. (When tightly sealed, the dough will keep for up to 1 week in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before rolling.)
Preheat oven to 325 F. Position rack in the center of the oven.
Use ungreased baking sheets or use parchment paper.
With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out the dough 1/4" thick, and cut out desired shapes.
Bake until the edges are slightly brown, about 15 minutes.
Makes enough for 1 small gingerbread house (8" x 8").

Gingerbread House Glue*
Pour a layer of sugar about 1" thick in a heavy frying pan.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon
until it melts. This makes a quick-hardening, edible glue.
*Caution, this is VERY hot, do not taste or touch!!

Frosting Glue
This frosting works well if made with egg whites but it's okay with water
1/3 cup water (or 3 egg whites)
1/2 t cream of tartar
about a pound of confectioner's sugar
Whip till smooth if you can stand the noise of your mixer.

People tell me that these can be sprayed with a clear finish and saved for years but we nibble on the peanut brittle and chocolate until the house seems less than glorious and then we get serious and eat the gingerbread.

The Lizard At My Feet - Story Jar

The Lizard at My Feet

Folks around here probably share a standard image for hospitals or doctor’s offices. When Em and Jay had ear infections or nasty, runny noses with hacking coughs, we walked into the old Martin Street School where we found comfort and care with Dr. Tartaglia.

When Em and Jay were young, we took a short trip to Zimbabwe. Our pre-trip medical shots caused us to wince but not as much as the assurance there was no need to worry during the trip because we were assured that they could fix most anything when we got back!

I hadn’t really worried until I heard that but they were true to their promise. When we came back, Jay did need a bit of fixing and fix him they did.

Malaysia was different. We’d be there for well over a year. Medical needs had to be considered and we wished for a crystal ball with a medical degree.

We knew, from our contacts at the University of Buffalo, that there was an American, for-profit hospital in Kuala Lumpur but we also knew that the quality and availability might be different. We needed to take certain precautions.
We started with hepatitis shots. Em had a reaction to the second one in that series but the reaction didn’t start for a few weeks and we were in Malaysia when fever and sickness turned Em into a sweaty, slightly green, little girl. We found a charming Sari-clad, Indian doctor at that hospital in Kuala Lumpur (KL).

I can’t remember the doctor’s name but we saw her a few times and she worked through blood tests and x-rays to find an enlarged liver and zero in on the cause. While I’ve forgotten her name, I do remember one visit rather well. Emilie was waiting to be seen, sitting on the edge of a cot in what pretty much looked, smelled and felt like a regular hospital. I noticed movement on the floor and glanced down to see, slithering between my feet, a black, spotted lizard, his tapered tail casually gliding over the toe of my right shoe.

It moved on, unperturbed by my presence and found its way behind a cabinet where he probably reduced the bug population, doing its part to keep the hospital clean. It was a measure of my adjustment to the not-Wellsville life that I was able to stand still, draw Rick’s attention to this splay-toed visitor, and then patiently wait for “our” doctor, a person in whom my faith continued.

Story Jar - Peace, Love, Flowers and Ribbon: The Wedding

Peace, Love, Flowers and Ribbon
Story Jar, November 2007





I want these words to turn to butterflies, rainbow wings floating with spicy scents amid the rich voices of a thousand violins but of course it’s not possible. Still, that’s what it would take to tell you how wonderful Emilie’s and Josh’s wedding was. I can’t pack the sights, the tears, smiles, pride, energy, love or even the colors of that wonderful day into words but their first anniversary is nearly here so it’s time to do my best.

Emilie and Josh were married. Allow me pause to smile and sigh. On that day Josh was no more our son than the day before because he’d already been in our family
for 6 years.

You might think that because you’ve been to weddings you have a pretty good idea about this wedding but it wasn’t like any other wedding I’ve seen. They were joined by Rev Connie Dutcher in an intentional, purposeful, conscious Celtic Handfasting Ceremony. Let me explain.

They were married at Peace Abbey outside of Boston. That’s where the Dali Lama and Mother Theresa stayed at times and it’s the location of a national registry of conscientious objectors. The chapel holds the holy books, prayer beads, prayer wheels, vestments and flags for all major religions – so many that it barely has room for people so Em and Josh were married in the library.

People who know Josh and Emilie realize that the library was THE place for these two readers, writers, masters of words, thinkers of thoughts, holders of ideas and histories and connections. The library was totally fitting.

Across from the entry door is a finely-crafted fireplace and seating is arranged in a U facing it. As people entered, they took a candle. Karn was there to light it for them. All the candles were placed on a table near the entry and then everyone sat and talked spreading the energy of anticipation. When the guests were seated Rick, Jay and I came in and we each put flowers in what Emilie called our “family vase.” Josh’s family (Patti, Dave and Johanna) added flowers to the vase blending our families and then it was time for Josh and Emilie.


Somewhere in the process I began to worry a bit about the vase. Emilie asked me to make a large vase but clearly I didn’t get it large enough. It was full when Em added her bunch but Josh had more flowers. How would they fit? One of them was a sunflower with a stem about the size of a broom handle. Josh paused a bit considering the situation and then grabbed the vase and shoved those stems in. His smile of triumph was well earned.

They walked to the center of the room, in front of the fireplace, within a circle of rose petals, holding hands, smiling, looking young and happy and whole.

Handfasting is an ancient tradition common in Scotland until 1939. For hundreds of years, only wealthy Europeans could afford to marry in a church. Peasants would fasten their hands together in public (“tie the knot”) as a sign of their commitment. The practice is also associated with the custom of shaking hands to seal a contract. This ceremony was an elaboration on tradition.

Emilie and Josh stood in the circle of flower petals and Connie welcomed everyone and then Emilie began reading her vows to Josh. I started crying, not that I was the only one. Emilie spoke of being a fierce friend and partner. She talked of loving and of being purposely and intentionally together.

Rick had tissues in his pocket so I nudged him but he was absorbed in the moment and ignored me. It took some powerful sniffs and a couple of pokes to get a tissue out of him and by then Josh was reading his vows. He talked of admiring Emilie for her spark, creativity, courage, compassion and sense of justice. There was a lot of crying by then.

They held hands through all of this and then the tying began. Jay was first with the blue cord representing water. He made the cord of ribbon and lace and described how it represented emotional depth, peace and security. Then he tied their hands together. (Sorry, I was crying then. Here's Jay and Em dancing.)


Johanna was next with the white cord made of ribbons and marble discs and representing air. Johanna said that the air-cord represented strength of spirit, healing and protection. (I made this cord and the others after spending hours in Joanne Fabric choosing from thousands of ribbons, cords, braids and fabrics and then sewing them together with embroidery threads and beads.)

Kyle presented the orange chord of ribbons and rope and shinny gauze. Orange represents fire and Kyle talked of passion, liveliness, kindness and encouragement while he fastened the cord.


Kjersten was next with the green cord representing earth. Green stands for energy, success and a full and happy life.

Adding to that was Patrick with the gold cord for metals. It represents activity, intelligence, unity and learning.





Finally was their friend Josh with the brown cord. Brown is for wood and represents skills, talents and love for animals. Like the others, Josh’s tying ended with hugs.




Then Connie spoke to pronounce them partners for life. People stopped wiping their tears long enough to applaud and as the fireplace log burned low, Em and Josh removed their hands from the cords which fell nicely into a wreath – now hanging on the wall in their living room.

Story Jar - British English

British English

I’ve had difficulties with my English communication skills from time to time and place to place. I remember having several problems in 1984 when we went to Zimbabwe and the Queen’s English confounded me. Gill asked me if I wanted to use the loo before leaving her house and I wasn’t sure how to answer. I’d been tripped by this foreign English on several occasions already.

Everyone knows that a car has a boot and a bonnet but during the visit I learned that robot = traffic light and trolley = shopping cart. It was quite the thing when I learned that pants = under garments and trousers are the only pants that other people see. By the way, women do not discuss undergarments with store clerks under any circumstances.

One puts things into a pocket or a punnit and not a paper sack or bag. One eats biscuits, not cookies, and sweets, not candy. Juice is not the liquid squeezed from fruit but rather it is the carbonated soft drink. So, when Gill asked me about the loo, I answered honestly asking “Is that something I’ve done before?”

Now, if you are laughing, may I say to you that the spell check on Microsoft Word doesn’t know “loo” yet. Had she asked if I wanted a water-closet or even the WC, I’d have been right at home. I just didn’t know loo.

I had a conversation about my speaking ability some time in 1988 when I was standing at a bus stop in Butterworth near the island of Penang in northern Malaysia. I visited with another tourist there and we passed the time talking about where we’d been and what there was to do and what to eat when she asked where I was from.
“I’m from the US.” I told her.
“No, you can’t be,” she said.
“But, I am.” I assured her.
“But you speak English,”
“Americans speak English,” I said wondering what had suddenly gone wrong. “English is what we all speak.”
“Americans speak garbage,” she scoffed. You have grammar, diction, you can’t be American.”

Well, I don’t know where she had been or who she talked to. She was convinced that I was lying – some kind of spy in hiding perhaps. Curious.

Curiouser still I was in a taxi with the children not long after and the Sikh driver asked me a question. I couldn’t understand him so I asked him to repeat it. I tried to process his words and his accent with my English but just couldn’t figure out what he said so asked him to repeat it a third time.
“Don’t you speak English?” he barked.

It was uncommon for someone to lose patience in Malaysia. It quite startled me. I wanted to tell him that I’d been told I speak very well. I wished I had a note from the woman at the bus stop to show him as proof of my abilities but I think I just sat there feeling hot and defeated.

Then there was the time that Emilie wanted to go to Ina’s house to play. Ina’s mom asked if she could give us “a tinkle.” My face, I presume, took on a totally blank look while my brain tried to figure out what the heck “tinkle” meant. Maybe the cab driver was right.
“On the phone,” she said. “I’ll give you a tinkle on the phone.”
“Ohhhhh,” I answered. “Yes, of course.”
“Don’t you tinkle in the United States?”
“Yes,” I said, “we do but it doesn’t involve a phone.”
Had I known the word I might have mentioned the loo.