Remembrances of the Ozarks and the False Earring

Thursday, March 30, 2006

[6:30am] Severe weather had plans of entering tornado alley that fine March morning, and Collette had hopes that they would see some good winds and mighty rains – not enough to bring damage though, of course.

Wednesday night was spent at the Silverspoon’s to film a short video which they would send to Snickerdoodle and Penelope for their wedding. Rose would film. And so after pizza casserole and some laughs, they convened in the living room to organize a make-shift row of pews made out of chairs. And there, they pretended to wait for the ceremony to begin after OLeif and Izzy had both “fallen asleep” and they had acted conveniently bored, except for Denae of course, who was quite excited and wore a continuous smile. For the reception scene, Denae brought out the cake top from the freezer from Relevance and Kitt’s wedding. “Snow” (as Curly called it) had begun to gather amongst the silk flowers on the top, and the gum-paste leaves had yellowed, so as to make the whole thing rather un-appetizing close up. But there was a crystal dish of peanuts and champagne glasses which Denae filled with Sprite. And they attached pictures of Relevance and Kitts to broom handles and walked them around. Later, Sebastian jumped around eating bubbles which Curly and Izzy blew. And all in all, Collette thought that Theodore was pretty much a good sport for going through with the whole thing. By nine or so, they had completed filming and the boys had dishes of whipped cream while they watched old recordings made by Joe, Wally, Linus, and Curly at various points in the past years. And one clip included Carrie-Bri dancing with the cat and singing to the tune of some old song.

Collette recalled thoughts of Branson that morning. She was reminded of their family vacation. Branson had never been high on her list for interesting places to visit, although most people talked it up quite a bit. Perhaps she just didn’t have a thing for show towns. However, she did have good memories of the place. She was thirteen and it was the fall of 1998, incidentally the first time she really thought about OLeif. She remembered riding up through the green hills with the new “travel trailer” (as everyone in the family called it) toted behind. And every time Dad applied the brakes, someone was sure to call out from the back:

“Trailer brakes first! Trailer brakes first!”

The Long, Long Trailer was a favorite in the Snicketts’ household. But as they rambled through the great green hills of the Ozarks, Collette read Jacob Have I Loved, which really had nothing to do with anyone named Jacob. But it was their first vacation in the travel trailer and everyone seemed to be in a decent mood for living in such close quarters.

In the park where they camped for the week, the kids quickly met another family named the Carpenters, who had four children – a boy, a girl, boy, girl. And whenever there was a spare hour or so, they would run around the playground playing tag and the like. Collette quickly discovered from the oldest girl that they were Pentecost and they discussed such things on top of the jungle-gym – Collette sat there in a short-sleeved collared shirt of vertical white and light blue stripes with silver buttons, her hair long and raggedy with a fluff of curly bangs in the front. She was practically the quintessential example of the typical home-schooled choir student. It was rather embarrassing, looking back. Yet at the time, she did not really notice it, either that, or she did not care. And so she went around being a very uncool teenager. And as to the Carpenters, after leaving Branson, Collette and Carrie exchanged a few letters with the girls, and then soon lost touch.

And there was an older lady, a grandma, whom they met in Silver Dollar City during their stay. She was a kind lady and reminded Collette of Great-Grandma Combs. She toured the caverns in the woods with them and held Rose’s hand at times through the slippery parts (likely a good idea after her mishap at the Krispy Kreme factory). She would often stop in front of a particularly fascinating or colorful formation and say:

“Isn’t it just amazing what God makes? He gives us such beautiful things here.”

And Collette had to agree. Just before they left, a picture was taken of their tour group, and Collette wondered if the picture was buried somewhere back at the house with the grandma sitting there with them. Some short time later, when they had returned home, they received a package of goodies from the grandma and they sent her a thank you note. Collette could not recall what was inside the box, but it was exciting to receive something in the mail, and they had all liked the grandma very much.

There were go-karts while they were in Branson and a show which they attended for free – Mom and the older kids, anyway. The show was a single pianist, playing all sorts of flowing magical sorts of music while colored fountains splashed all around him in time with the music – various fountains and sizes and colors, like a liquid fire-works show. The man in charge of the fountains had long hair, and Collette heard him speaking with visitors in the gift shop afterwards:

“I just let it all flow to the music,” he said. “Whatever I feel like at the time.”

And when Collette had looked back at him during the performance, he was giving quite a show himself, reeling backwards and forwards and spinning around, throwing his head to the music. It was practically comical.

But the highlight of the trip seemed to be the Andy Williams show. They had all grown up with Andy Williams – he was Carrie’s and Joe’s hero. And Dad decided that he would take Collette, Carrie, and Joe to the show. The Moonriver Theater – they were the only kids there, and they were quite awed to see the gray-haired gentleman himself when he entered the stage. It was the first time Collette had ever really seen a show-biz performance, and they all enjoyed it. At the end of the show, Carrie started jumping up and down, waving her hand and yelling.

“He waved just to me,” she said later. “I saw him.”

Back at the office Thursday morning, perhaps the most unusual news of the day was that Jimmy no longer had a goatee. And Sinai, Ivy, and Rosemary heckled each other over peanut butter and pretzels and other things. Collette continued typing, hearing snatches of information from time to time:

“She doesn’t talk to her fish?”…

“When I worked at the ice cream store, scooping from three-gallon pails… built up some good muscle tone.”…

“Does he have one ear pierced or two?”

And then Collette realized that Ivy was addressing her concerning OLief.

“OLeif? Oh, no, no, that’s not an earring. It’s a mole. Everyone thinks it’s pierced, at first.”

“A mole!” Ivy and Rosemary were both thoroughly surprised.

“And here I was thinking, ‘OK, he’s just a cool dude. Earring, tattoo…” Ivy laughed.

‘That’s a good idea, actually,” Rosemary said. “I should do that. Get two tattoos on my ears for earrings.”

And then Ivy and Rosemary went on to discuss what they would do with a near-full box of jellies left over from the biscuits at the youth dinner. They decided that they would send it with the youth for their lunches on the mission trip. And then they talked over Peru.

Collette had been thinking the other day of her ancestors, the ones from the near past. She recalled the story Mom had told them several times about the young woman on the farm, somewhere, perhaps just having come over from Prussia, and a Union soldier rode through on his horse, stopping at their well. He asked her for a drink and so she handed him the ladle. After he had taken a drink, he told her,

“After the war has ended, I will return and marry you.”

How he worded it exactly, likely no one remembered anymore. But he did, indeed, return and married her sometime later. It was more of a Cinderella fable than anything else, but it was listed in the family records, and so Collette had to honor it.