Peaches

For those who are following my blog, I have been writing about my 93 year old neighbor Mary. I saw her walking to the store this morning. She was going to get some peaches. Here in the Pacific North West, its prime peach season.

When I was in college, in Huntsville Texas, I had an elderly neighbor too. His name was Mr. Neighbor. Really, that was his name. He was in his 80’s. His wife had died recently. This was his second wife. His first wife and all their children had been tragically killed in a fire.  I checked in on him periodically and quickly, we became friends. He made great iced tea.

He was lonely. He always asked me about my classes. I was getting my degree in Agriculture. (I really wanted a degree in Horticulture but had to settle on that as a minor.)  When I told him that I was taking a summer class on canning, he told me his wife had left him a freezer full of peaches. He asked if I could make him some peach jam. With the confidence of youth, I smiled at him and said sure.

I went to the local Piggly Wiggly and bought all the jars and lids and supplies that I would need. (For those who do not know, this is a grocery store chain with this silly name.) I heard that it is still there.

I methodically sterilized everything the way I had been taught in my class. It was my first attempt outside of the lab. I was a bit nervous. I did not want to make the big mistake and give him botulism.

Mr. Neighbor gave me the bags of frozen peaches. I carefully thawed them out.

It wasn’t long before I realized they were not peaches. They were chicken livers and gizzards.

I was way too familiar with chicken livers and gizzards because I worked the dinner shift at Tinsley’s Southern Fried Chicken and that was the most popular item on the dinner menu.

You could get a box of them with a large yeast roll and a jalapeño for one dollar. Yes, $1.oo. It was our best seller.

So I fried up all the chicken parts and had a bunch of friends over. (We were all poor and hungry students.)

I went back to the Piggly Wiggly and bought peaches and made Mr. Neighbor some peach jam.

Just now, I cut up some of the peaches Mary bought and shared with me. I am going to freeze some to use later when there will not be fresh peaches to eat with my daily granola and yogurt.

I will be sure to label the bags: Peaches.

Ice Cream and Potato Chips

Yesterday I shared some of my 93 year old neighbor’s story. Here is a tiny bit more.

She was born in 1927. Her parents were from Ukraine. They came over to the Northwest Territories to be farmers. They were wheat farmers. She gave me some of the backstory of where she was raised in Saskatchewan.

In Canada, from 1914 to 1920 (WWI and for two years after) “enemy aliens” were confined to internment camps.  About 8,000 Ukrainian people; men, women, and children, those of Ukrainian citizenship as well as naturalized Canadians of Ukrainian descent were kept in twenty-four internment camps and related work sites. An additional 80,000 people, were not imprisoned but were registered as “enemy aliens” and obliged to regularly report to the police and were required to carry identifying documents at all times or incur punitive consequences. She told me that some people never got over this treatment.

They became bitter. Then she paused and she very quietly added that she did not get along with her mother. I did not question this statement. I nodded my head. She went on.

She grew up in a log cabin on the farm. Her mother grew a very large garden and canned everything, including meat. There was no electricity. Winters could be bitterly cold and long. She attended school but during the school year, she boarded with a family that lived closer to the school. They treated her kindly.

There were no luxuries. She was fed a balanced diet.

Now she likes to have a cup of coffee and piece of toast in the morning, a real meal at noon and for dinner, she really likes to just eat potato chips and ice cream.

Since she has survived two bouts of cancer, numerous natural disasters, and heart surgery, at 93 she only wants to eat what she wants now.

I just walked to the store and bought her some potato chips and ice cream.

I just visited with my 93 year old neighbor, Mary. She was wiping off her hands when she answered the door. I asked if I was interrupting. “No” she replied, as she was cleaning paint off her trembling hands.

She showed me what she was working on. It was a scene from a cherished place in Alaska. She said she had always wanted to return to Alaska, but she felt that her traveling days were now officially over. (She had heart surgery last month.) Painting made her almost feel like she was back in those places again.

Alaska was one of her favorites. She and her husband lived there for 14 years. Her husband was a second-generation Alaskan. She said that her husband’s father had gone north to Alaska during the Gold Rush. Her husband was born when his father was 65.

She told me that summers are very nice but that the rest of the year was sometimes tough. She had a photograph of the thermometer at the bank showing -74 degrees. She said that it was often -40 but the kids still went outside and life went on.

They were there during the Earthquake. She said it was right around her birthday and her anniversary.

 I looked it up. The Good Friday Earthquake happened at 5:36 pm on March 27, 1964.

She was cooking dinner. When the rumbling first started her husband hollered up to their two young kids, “What are you two doing up there to make such a ruckus.” In seconds, they knew it was more than kids roughhousing.

The magnitude 9.2 megathrust earthquake was the most powerful earthquake recorded in North America.

She said there were large ships thrown miles inland. There were two types of tsunamis produced by this subduction zone earthquake. The tectonic tsunami and smaller, local tsunamis. The largest tsunami wave was in Shoup Bay with a height of 220 feet. That could toss a ship for sure!

Some areas were permanently raised up 30 feet and some places dropped 8 feet.

Her favorite town of Valdez in the Prince William Sound, was basically destroyed. Valdez moved to another location after its waterfront was wiped out from the massive underwater landslide.

She was painting what she fondly remembered from the pre-earthquake waterfront.

She advised me to go to Alaska as soon as I could.

You just never know how many todays or tomorrows you have.