ON A HOT SUMMER DAY IN AUGUST

It is fitting on this last day of August 2009, when the temperature is guaranteed to be 103+, to post a little picture of how kids 65+ years ago beat the heat.

My sister and I were just little twerps - I was probably 8 and she 6 - when this snapshot was taken. We were living in a rented house in Long Beach, and this side yard was perfect for all kinds of kiddie stuff. On hot days mother would set the sprinkler up for us to run through, or sit on, or hold over our heads as if we were taking showers. We had only bathtubs in the house, so pretending we had a shower was always one of the first things we did.

These were the days when polio was still a damaging disease that children caught, and mother always monitored us carefully. She kept us in bathing caps so our wet hair wouldn't cause us to take a cold. She always stood nearby with big towels, and at the first sight of a shiver or lips turning blue, we got bundled up and sent into the house. In Long Beach an afternoon sea breeze always came up, cooling the city, and that was why mother always made sure we were out of the sprinklers long before we could get chilled.

That side yard was also good for tent-making later in the year when the weather wasn't so hot. Mother would string a rope from the picket fence on the property line to a big oleander tree that was near the side of the house. Over that rope she would drape a blanket and weight the corners with all manners of heavy objects she could round up, making us a fine tent. Ginnie Lou and I used to bring our paper-dolls out and we would spend hours imagining and acting out the lives our paperdolls led. Mother always reminded us that the tent was for our use only, and that neighbor children were not to be invited into it. And like a wise mother, she always admonished us that we were not to play "doctor."

Jump-rope, jacks, hopscotch, tea parties, jigsaw puzzles, board games, book-reading -- along with the sprinklers and tents -- these were the kinds of things we played with in those days to entertain ourselves. We had interactive friends, not interactive electronics.

I remember those days like they happened yesterday. So much of what I remember is because my mother always had a camera in her hand and she made sure as I grew up I always had one in my hand too. The pictures bring back clearly a memory of the times of my childhood, and even the little insignificant events can be worth a blog or two to share with others who grew up in that much simpler time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SWEET O

Daughter Erin has a birthday today (an unbirthday, she calls it, as she doesn't much like the marching along of years any more than I do). I won't tell her age, but I will say that she is my #2 child, born this date in 1957.

Sweet O is her nickname. Her brother Sean, older by 14 months, couldn't pronounce "Erin" and called her "Oneen" - and Sweet O simply morphed out of that.

She is the child who called lipstick "Lik-stick" and perfume "Spiffroom." She is the one who interrogated me one day about angels, wanting to know if they all had wings, if the wings had feathers, did they flap, were they white -- and most specifically, did angels fly vertically or horizontally. I was sorry I ever got involved with that question. She was the persistent child who one day while we were in the car insisted on my acknowledging that she had seen a horse. I was busy talking to her dad and here's how the conversation went: Erin: Horse, horse, horse mommy, mommy, horse, horse, mommy horse. HORSE! MOMMY HORSE! HORSE! HORSE! ad infinitim. I finally stopped talking to her dad and acknowledged her: "Erin, did you see a horse?" Erin: "No."

This is the child who spilled a package of Coco Puffs on the kitchen floor, which just happend to be a brown speckled asphalt tile floor. I grabbed the broom to sweep them up and watched while Erin went into a full-blown tantrum because she wanted to eat every one of them.

But she is also the child who grew into a beautiful young teenager with a singing voice, inherited from her father, that those angels would have been hard to duplicate. She was always in choirs, one of the best of the singers.

She grew up to be the kind of grandma that her own grandmother (my mother) was, a grandma second to none.

And she is a wonderful daughter, watching me like a hawk, making sure I take care of myself. She can do this because she lives near to me. I would love to post a picture of this daughter as she appears now, but I really think she will enjoy most of all my posting of her in action. If I need help, she is the one I call. This picture - she's working on getting my broadband connection up and running - is my tribute to a daughter who is turning another year older today.

ROASTED VEGETABLES WITH BALSAMIC VINEGAR

Roasting brings out the natural sweetness of vegetables. These earthy
and elegant roasted green beans and squash squash balance just about
any entree. They also are wonderful "as is" -- no meat needed!

8 ounces fresh green beans, ends trimmed
1 small onion, cut into thin wedges
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
Dash salt
Dash pepper
1 medium yellow summer squash, halved lengthwise and sliced 1/4 inch
thick
1 medium zucchini squash, cut in chunks
1 red pepper, cut in bite-sized pieces
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

1. In a shallow roasting pan combine beans, onion, and garlic. Drizzle
with olive oil; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss mixture until beans
are evenly coated. Spread into a single layer.

2. Roast in a 450 degree F oven for 8 minutes. Stir in squash and bell pepper. Roast for 5 to 7 minutes more or until vegetables are tender and
slightly browned.

3. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan bring the balsamic vinegar to boiling
over medium-high heat; reduce heat. Boil gently about 5 minutes or until
reduced by half (vinegar will thicken slightly).

4. Drizzle the vinegar over roasted vegetables; toss until vegetables
are evenly coated. Makes 4 side-dish servings.

GETTIN' DOWN TO BASICS

I am really not so interested in Cuba that I read every jot and tittle written about it, but I do tend to quickly scan the headlines and the first paragraph of newspaper articles, searching for something worth reading. So my overall opinion of Cuba gleaned from these quick scans is that a few things are changing for the better, though s-l-o-w-l-y.

However, today under the local newspaper's 'IN BRIEF' section the headline CUBA: TOILET PAPER SHORTAGE TO LAST TO END OF YEAR caught my eye and I read the whole thing.

In a nutshell, Cuba has a dire shortage of toilet paper. What is available, a package of 4 rolls, costs the equivalent of two days' salary for the average worker.

Seems that "the shortage is a result of the global financial crisis and three devastating hurricanes last summer, which forced cuts in imports as well as domestic production because of reductions in electricity and imports of raw materials."

I can't say that this article falls under the "changing for the better, slowly" genre. And I suppose any small island nation is going to have little glitches in their available goods every now and then.

But what made me laugh is the last line - it says Cubans are forced to buy alternatives - Chinese and North Korean magazines - because they use softer paper than other magazines. Shades of the Sears Catalogs!

Perhaps in a humanitarian gesture, and as side benefit for our own financially-suffering postal service, we can each send a roll of toilet paper to Cuba. I personally would send a roll of Charmin' Ultrasoft with Aloe. Give the suffering Cuban folk a heavenly wipe for a while and give our postal workers something to do that e-mail can't take away.

It's nice to identify a need and meet it in a constructive way. Much better than just sending a financial donation, I think.

OH?

From today's newspaper is this announcement:

"The Brazilian psychedelic prankers (sic) Os Mutantes have, even in their absent decades, spiked the punch bowl of tropicalia with humid guitar fuzz, maniacal vocals and a restless sense of exploration. A new album, "Haih or Barauna," due out on the unlikely indie Anti-, should help cement them in a hipster hagiography of pan-global brilliant weirdos. Echoplex (below the Echo...."

Say what?!

POTENTIAL FOR TERROR LURKS EVERYWHERE!

Last week it was the light brown apple moth that came under the scrutiny of the California State Department of Food and Agriculture. Seems that these moths think that California Apples are better than Australian apples and have started to move in on the territory. The agriculture industry was up in arms, with all kind of alerts being issued. Well, that was last week. I noted in the newspaper yesterday that the powers that be aren't quite as sure as they were earlier that this dreaded pest is all that it is cracked up to be. Like everything else, there is a rush to news of any kind, and then comes the correction, or the disclaimer, or the sending of the spin in another direction. So who can believe what they read?

But now a new pest has arrived, according to today's paper, that is stealing the thunder from the light brown apple month. And here it is:



Yep, its the Asian citrus psyllid! Now apparently the psyllid itself is not a danger. But the problem comes when it is found to be carrying the disease Huanglongbing, otherwise known as Citrus greening disease. These little psyllids are only 3-4 mm in length, which in my language equates to about 1/8". (Jerry and I had a major discussion about the metric system as a result of my asking him about how many inches 3-4 mm is. He is one of the old school nerds who still believes that our country would be better off if we all changed our thinking to metric, so actually I was sorry that I asked him and finally went on line to get my answer!) Anyway, this bug (called an aphid-like insect in the newspaper article) was discovered in a duffle bag at a Fed-Ex facility in Fresno. They don't know yet whether it is Huanglongbing-infected but all the citrus growers are on edge awaiting the outcome. Quarantines are expected.

I'm all for keeping the nasty little things at bay, but I must admit that I was a little startled to read that inspectors were so dedicated and so diligent in their work that they could find a 1/8 inch bug in a Fresno duffle-bag. Since California is a major citrus grower and a Huanglongbing infestation would spell disaster for that industry, perhaps our good governor could tweak some money out of the Federal government to hire some of the unemployed workers in California as Huanglongbing inspectors. I mean, with all the money going out to the auto industries and banks and so forth, maybe California could use a little of it to protect one of our own industries and put some more people back to work.

IN GENEALOGY, IT'S WORTH THE WAIT

When I was a kid growing up in Long Beach, California my mom used to tell me little things that happened in her life as a child. She grew up on a farm in Kansas, and she was faced with tornados instead of earthquakes, acres of crops instead of Victory Gardens, and stifling heat instead of afternoon breezes off the ocean. I was always interested in these stories and of course believed every word she said.

Among the stories was one she told about coming out to Newport Beach from their home in Caldwell, Kansas in April of 1920. She said her dad had some kind of illness that he felt the fresh salt air would help. He had tried Colorado Springs before and had experienced no change, so California was next on his agenda. Mother said she started first grade in the Newport Beach schools but that in a few months her dad packed everyone up - everyone being his wife, sons Bob and Byrd Jr. and daughters Florence, Virginia and Marie - and headed back to Caldwell.

When I started doing genealogy in 1984, occasioned by my mother's death and the realization that I was carrying around in my head lots of details about the life of the Ryland family and no one to confirm it with, I tackled the job of proving every thing she told me. None of her younger brothers or sisters remembered the California story, so I decided that when I finished with the major, more important part of my research, I'd tackle the Newport Beach story. I figured I'd run down to the Newport Beach School District to see if I could find any corroborating facts.

I never got around to it.

In 1984 I had located a fairly close Ryland relative, Verne, who still lived in Caldwell and as luck would have it, two of his three children lived here in California. One of those two had already done some research on the Rylands and over the years we swapped details and ideas. Verne died in 1997 and in the years since, his son has methodically gone through some of his dad's memorabilia. So imagine my surprise when one day in the mail I received a copy of a postcard that Verne had kept all these years (above). It was sent to Verne's mother by my grandma Ryland and gave me the confirmation I needed of my mom's trip to California. The postmark tells when and the postcard shows where.

Imagine! Almost 20 years after starting my research I received something new and surprising. In the scheme of things it is not all that important, but we who research understand that every tiny "find" adds one more dimension to the story we can leave for our children. Right now it probably doesn't matter to them, but it matters to me. And someday they are going to find this as interesting as I do.

Patience and serendipity, two important values for the genealogist.