 Just a moment ago, I pulled a tray of molasses cookies from the oven, and as I write this, their rich aroma fills the house.
In our home, my wife is the cook and baker, and any trip I make into the kitchen for anything other than a snack, is looked upon with no small amount of suspicion from her. But today is different. It’s different for a couple of reasons. First, it’s different because my wife and children are not home. They’re off galavanting in Kalamazoo, priming the pump for the Christmas festivities that will shortly commence. So, like Kevin McCallister, I am home alone, free to traipse into the kitchen with abandon. The second reason — the real reason — is that I miss my friend. Don Greenleaf died one year ago today, just a few days after receiving a cancer diagnosis. He was a good friend, a man generous with his myriad talents: gardening, growing flowers, refinishing furniture, baking, playing the piano and organ. As I think back on it, I cannot recall a time when I did not know who Don Greenleaf was. Growing up in a small town, I always knew Don as the man with the big, blue Buick Electra 225, a vehicle he bought brand new, back in 1973, with my grandfather’s guidance. He was the pianist at countless weddings, the organist at as many funerals. In fact, the sound I associated with him was the tremulous sound of the funeral home’s Hammond B3 organ. I do not know how, exactly, Don and I became friends. I suppose it was the combination of our shared appreciation for those things some call “vintage” — fountain pens, classic cars, handwritten letters, nice furniture — and our brotherhood in the Lord that did it. By the time we became friends, I was living out west and he was in Cass City. We spoke on the phone once or twice a week, at which time he would usually have a story or two to tell about the town’s past. That was a remarkable thing about Don: owing to his having worked at a local bank and having played at the bulk of the town’s weddings and funerals for some 50 years, he knew virtually everyone in the village. In fact, during one visit back to Cass City, I drove Don up and down several of the town’s streets. Randomly, I would point to a house and ask Don to tell me something about it, and he could! Lest you think ours was a one-way friendship, I must say that one of my thrills was hearing the amazement in Don’s voice when I found an obscure gospel record album on eBay for him, or when I could, with just a few taps and swipes, bring up a particular seed company’s contact information. Only in those moments did I sense the age gap between us. With few exceptions, I never felt the sense of warmth and welcome so keenly as I did when I walked through the door to Don Greenleaf’s home. Built some time in the late 1800s, the house always smelled like the freshly baked something or other he was about to pull from the oven. At what would be our last visit together at Don’s home, my wife and I walked into a kitchen filled with the smell of homemade bread. Though our visit had been unexpected, Don cheerily seated us in the living room, where he served us thick slices of hot bread, a smear of butter melting on top, and then played our requests on the piano. The smell that takes me back to Don’s house in an instant, however, is the smell of his molasses cookies. As far as I can tell, there is nothing particularly unique about his recipe; but when I woke up this morning with Don on my mind, I knew that only his recipe would do. I dug through the recipe box and found the card Don had typed up for me (on his typewriter, no less). I measured out the spices, flour, and sugar, cracked the egg, added the oil, mixed it together, formed the cookies into balls, and put them in the oven. Ten minutes passed, and the timer beeped. I pulled the cookies from the oven. A few minutes later, a glass of almond milk in hand, I took a bite of a warm cookie. Thank you for Don, Lord, I thought silently. There, in that moment, was the Good News in miniature form: the bitterness that comes with the loss of a friend combined with the sweetness of Jesus’ promise that “he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John 5:24). I am thankful for that consolation and for the reminder of it, thanks to a batch of molasses cookies.
4 Comments
 I was probably sleeping the first time I visited Rawson Memorial Library. My parents began taking me there when I was an infant. In fact, my dad often took me to the library with him after dinner to give my mother a respite. He put me in my carrier behind the circulation desk, where Marge and Geneva, the library clerks, watched me while Dad perused the stacks.
My mom incorporated trips to the library into our weekly routine when I was a little older. During the summertime, she took me to Story Hour. (I can still remember sitting on Mrs. Elliot’s lap, listening to a story and eating my lime green Jell-o Jiggler). And one winter, we went to meet Mrs. Claus, who read The Night Before Christmas to our group of wiggling preschoolers. No matter what time of the year we visited the library, though, there were two books I checked out alternately on repeat--Barbara Bottner’s Bootsie Barker Bites and Ira Sleeps Over by Bernard Waber. My mother read these books to me so often that she had them memorized. (Incidentally, a few years ago the library discarded the copy of Ira Sleeps Over I used to check out as a boy, and I purchased it. It now is on my daughter’s bookshelf). A visit to the library was more than a trip, it was an experience. There was the sweet fragrance that accompanies a literary atmosphere, an aroma of paper and book glue; the sound of computer keys clacking and the soothing cadence of mothers reading to their children; the sights of brightly-colored books and artwork on the walls. A trip to the library employed all of the senses. As I grew older, my view of the library changed. Whereas I once saw it as a place for me, I grew to understand it to be a place for the community as a whole. This change undoubtedly took place when I was in my early teens. I had developed an interest in the history of the Cass City community and spent a significant portion of my free time doing research. Kate, the library director, invited me to access the archives at the library, which consisted of hundreds of old photographs and documents pertaining to the village’s past. From then on, I lived at the library. A couple of years later, after arriving home from school one afternoon, my mom said that Kate wanted to talk to me. “She would like you to apply for the library page position,” she said. “You can stop by an fill out an application.” It seems ridiculous now, but my initial reaction at the time was one of fear. I feared the teasing I would get at school for working at a library, especially for being the only male on staff. I was already ribbed by some of my friends for being bookish. Now they would have even more ammunition for their good natured, but irksome jabs. And wouldn’t working at a library be boring? “I think you should do it,” my mom said. “You already spend most of your time there. You will enjoy it.” Shortly after this conversation with my mom, I applied for the job and was hired. Those first couple of days on the job, when kids from my class came into the library, I ducked into the stacks. They’ll think I’m a nerd, I thought to myself. Soon enough, though, I decided not to care what others thought of me. Working at the library was a respectable job, one that suited me perfectly, and it was far from boring. Of course, I knew the library well because of our frequent visits when I was a boy; and I knew many of the patrons who came in. It didn’t take long before I admitted to myself that not only did I not mind working at the library, I loved it! In some communities, the local library is merely an information center. But in Cass City, the library is much more, it’s a gathering place, the hub of the community. It is a democratic institution, a place where socio-economic status is neither a benefit nor a detriment. Rawson Memorial is a place where, at any given time, a retired educator may be found tutoring a child, or where a pastor’s wife is teaching an elderly man how to read. At the same time, the Pinney Meeting Room may be hosting a gathering of the historical society or the Women’s Christian Temperance Union or the Girl Scouts. At the opposite end of the building one may find a lifelong bachelor reading the county newspaper, or neighbors standing in front of the Stephen King novels, catching up on the latest happenings from their block. Sitting at a table by the window, one may see a grandmother with her granddaughter making contributions to the communal jigsaw puzzle before going home for lunch. In the center of the library is the circulation desk, the anchor of the building. Here, friendly staff members not only assist patrons with checking out materials, but also with web searches for directions to the Detroit airport, faxes to the unemployment office, and photocopies of magazine clippings to be sent through the mail to friends. From time to time, the high school band has their bakesale in the lobby to raise funds for new uniforms or instruments. The Friends of the Library hosts their “Better Books Sale” near the circulation desk, a smattering of Janet Evanovich and James Patterson novels marked down to can’t-beat prices. When I worked at the library, one of my favorite events was when former residents, or the families of former residents, stopped by for a visit. Often they wanted information on where so-and-so lived or was buried, conversations that started as sterile inquiries and ended with warm smiles and friendly handshakes. From time to time, a bereaved widow or widower brought a box of their spouse’s used books to be sold at the annual summer book sale. “Cleaning out the house is therapeutic,” they often said. Sometimes happy news was brought into the library, too. “I got the job!” or “My daughter had her baby!” were always welcome announcements. Rawson Memorial Library was, and continues to be, a singular place; and I, for one, am thankful that such places exist. As one person aptly put it, “The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.” I couldn’t agree more.  Some of my fondest memories of childhood involve time spent with my dad. Saturday mornings were my favorite, because it meant running errands with him--to the bank, to the auto parts, a stop at Grandpa and Grandma’s, and maybe even lunch at Sutter’s Bakery & Restaurant.
As you can imagine, these times were special to me, because it meant one-on-one time with my father. During our drives to these errands, he often recounted stories of his childhood and teenage years, stories that soaked into my mind and helped to shape my imagination. As a teenager and young adult, my life became busy with school, friends, work, and extracurriculars, and consequently, errands with my father were not as common. But there was one errand we still did together: honey runs. You’ll search the internet and the dictionary in vain, if you try to find the term honey run. It’s a term my father coined, and it means an excuse to take a drive together, to talk together, to share ideas, and maybe, if we remember, to buy a jar of local honey. Honey runs typically took place at night, after Dad returned home from work and we had dinner. “You want to go on a honey run with me?” he asks. “Yep,” I say, as I get up to put on my shoes. We get into his Ford Ranger, a white Scottish Terrier positioned on the console between us, and drive to Gagetown, just northwest of the village, where the beekeeper lives. I relish these times with my dad, especially the summer honey runs with their golden Michigan sunsets. I roll my window down and put my arm out the door, the warm evening breeze gliding over my hand. Fields laden with tall, green corn stalks raise their proud heads in the afterglow of the setting sun. As Dad drives, we talk about our day, what went well, what we hope not to repeat tomorrow. We comment on the latest political news, talk about things of the Lord, point out deer we can see in the distance, and discuss the latest family news from down state, Florida, Tennessee, and Indiana. My favorite conversations during honey runs were those where we talked about the things of tomorrow. Dad talked about ideas he had and what he hoped for, but more often he asked me about my own. Ideas about college and career. Dreams of travel and experiences, of a wife and family. Sometimes, sitting across from someone at a table or in a living room can make intimate conversations difficult. You’re looking at the other person’s face and analyzing their reactions to what you are saying. It wasn’t that way with honey runs. On a honey run, you are sitting side-by-side, looking out the window. Your words are directed at each other, but your eyes look out at the fields and houses passing by. I have never been inside a confessional booth and never will, but I imagine that it is, in a way, a similar experience to a honey run, except that honey run conversations are about hopes, not sins. Before either of us knows it, we are at the beekeeper’s home, where we pull into his driveway and visit the self-serve honey stand by the road. Dad pulls a jar of honey out and puts the money into the little lock box, and we begin our drive home. On honey runs, driving home rarely meant going directly back to the house. Often, we would drive up and down streets in the village, where we talked about the town and its history, of memories we have there, of people we miss seeing sitting on their porches. "I remember riding bikes with my friends down there when it was Fort's Store," Dad says. "We would buy as much candy as we could." "Can you see what's playing at the Cass next week?" I ask. Dad looks over his shoulder at the theatre's poster and reads the name off. I make a mental note to go see it. Sometimes, we would drive down River Road, the lazy Cass River below, meandering its way to the west. The distant sound of horse hooves can be heard in the distance. Clip, clop, clip, clop, clip, clop. The dim and eerie glow of an Amish buggy’s lantern grows brighter, but no less eerie as the sound of the horse’s canter draws closer. The buggy glides by, its driver raising his hand in a friendly “good evening” salute. Eventually, we turn on to Shabbona Road and make our way toward the little, white house on Lightning Hill, a warm glow coming from the kitchen window above the sink. We park in the driveway and wrap up our conversation. “Thanks for letting me talk about these things,” I say to Dad. “Thanks for talking to me about them,” he replies. “I always enjoy hearing what’s on your mind, and I’m always here for you to talk to.” Honey runs are a thing of the past now that I live away from my family, but I can’t help but think that the world might be a better place if more fathers took their children on honey runs of their own.  There’s something terribly unwelcoming about the penetrating chill that Michigan greets its guests with in the winter months. For Las Vegans, walking down the jet bridge after a day-long journey, the greeting is especially rude. We’re a delicate people, when it comes to cold. Give us 110-degree heat and scorching sun; but that frosty stuff, forget it. My wife and I recently made just such a trip back to Michigan, and the greeting, though more mild than it has been in previous trips, was no less inhospitable. As soon as we reached the baggage claim, we unzipped our bags and pulled out the winter coats that have hung in our closets since last year’s visit. We wrapped scarves around our necks, gloved our hands, and sunk our heads into our thick winter hats, then brace ourselves for the 6-yard-walk from the baggage claim doors to the waiting car. Life is hard. We’ve heard all the excuses there are for why we can’t handle the winter weather, and we’ve used many of them ourselves. “You’ve just acclimated to that desert heat.” “But this is a particularly cold winter.” And my favorite-- “Your blood’s just thinned”. The truth is, we’re wimps, plain and simple. For all the violent shivering and the use of Baptist epithets against the frigid breath of the Mitten state-- “Good grief!”-- there is one thing that warms the body and the heart against it all: the sight of home. As our car rounds the M-81 bend, there is Katie Jackson’s house, welcoming visitors and those returning home to Cass City. Although Katie is now gone, as are the candles in every window that added so much to the sensation of “homing”, the house will forever be “Katie’s” and will always signal to the Cass City native, wherever they are coming from, that the trip home is complete. Into town we drive, the broad Main Street (99-feet-wide, to be precise) lined with two-story brick buildings, the faces of many of which have looked down onto the same parades, families, and even some businesses for well over a century, stand at attention. Some have been refreshed with 21st-century facades and signage; others’ peeling paint and empty windows speak of better days. But all of them are familiar faces that seem to smile back a “welcome home”. Down through town, past the theatre, the corner drugstore, the village clock that is always 5 to 10 minutes slow, up the hill past the large homes built by the town’s former luminaries, and into my parents’ neighborhood. If I’m to be honest, and I will be, the trip to my parents’ home does not require a drive down Main Street; it’s out of the way, in fact; but it’s part of my routine, part of the Ritual of returning to the Thumb of Michigan. I spent the first 23 years of my life in this area, the sixth generation of my family to call it home. Every building, every street, contains memories, mine and those I’ve adopted from others. The Ritual I follow whenever I return to the area, done almost without thought, exhumes these recollections, and brings with them a melancholic smile to my face. The Ritual changes little from visit to visit--that’s what makes it a ritual. But there is one deviation. When visiting in the summer months, my first stop is my grandparents’ home. (They spend their winters down south, so I’m out of luck at Christmastime; hence the deviation). Most often, Grandpa can be found in his garage behind the house, where he is working his craft, bringing new life to aged autos. His shop smells of work, of body filler, lacquer thinner, and metal dust. I purposely scuff my feet on the concrete floor as I walk through the garage door. I don’t want to startle him. He’s deep in thought as he examines his work and plots out the next movement of his hands. Bending. Sanding. Painting. We talk about his latest project, and he asks me about my travels; where I’ve been, where I’m going. After awhile, I ask him where Grandma is. (I always know the answer, but it’s part of the Ritual). “She’s in the house,” he says. “Go on in and see her.” “See ya later,” I say. “So long,” he says. Inside, Grandma stands in the kitchen, where she’s busy washing dishes. “Hellooo,” she says to me. I’m expected. It’s part of the Ritual. We sit at the table and talk about my trip, the latest local happenings, family developments, and such. If she’s been to Turner’s Blueberry Farm, she gets a bowl for me, and pulls a half gallon of milk out of the fridge and the sugar bowl from the cupboard. I eat the sun-warmed blueberries, as we talk. Before long, it’s time to go. Then to the library--if Grandpa & Grandma aren’t home, it’s the first stop. As the doors open, I smell the unsurprising, but still-pleasing, aroma of books. In many towns and cities, the library is a receptacle of knowledge; a place where anyone, no matter their race, religion, creed, or social standing, has equal access to information. That’s good. What’s great is Rawson Library. Here, the community gathers under the pretense of acquiring books, and that we do; but we gather there, also, to connect with neighbors, to organize ourselves, to exchange news--both that which is true and that which we heard is true. The library is all those things for me and more. My visits always include conversations with the library staff, my former co-workers. We update one another on family and community news. We ask each other for more details on status updates we read on social media. We talk about books we’ve recently read. And we do this because...it’s what you do when you’re at the library. The Ritual includes other places, too. There’s the cemetery, where I visit the graves of loved ones departed. I don’t talk to them--they aren’t there; but it’s a good practice to remember them, to think about the ways in which our lives intertwined, and to consider the brevity of my own life. As one gravestone there reads: Where you are now, I once was. Where I am now, you will be. Prepare, in time, for eternity. I am prepared; but a visit to the cemetery is good for a soul nevertheless. There’s the antique shop in a neighboring town, where I peruse the latest finds by local consigners. Sometimes I purchase small things; but usually not. It’s just part of the Ritual. I drive down River Road and look down into the Cass, lazy in the summer, frozen solid in the winter. I drive by my boyhood home on Shabbona Road; Lightning Hill, we called it. My corner bedroom looks so much smaller than it did when I was 5. Could it be the same place? At least one morning of each visit, I have breakfast at “Nick’s”, the local restaurant. The menu there changes little, if any, from visit to visit; but that’s part of the charm. A bowl of oatmeal or a couple slices of toast hits the spot. I always come prepared to pay, but often, I find that someone else--sometimes an anonymous someone else--picks up the tab. I now live in a city of 2 million. We have every form of entertainment you can imagine and enough dining options to make your head spin. There are well over 30 movie theaters in the city, many of them open exceptionally late. We have an Amazon fulfillment center close to us, meaning if we can’t find it in the store, we can get it delivered to our doorstep very quickly. It’s great. I enjoy it. There is, however, no house at the curve to tell me I’m almost home; no grandparents to hug and talk with; no buildings smiling at me as I come into town; no talks with friends at the library; no roots and no memories. For those things, I have to go home. I have to go back to the Ritual. And I’m glad it’s there.   As the biting winter wind hurls the falling snow across the fields outside, there is nothing but warmth inside the little house that overlooks the village below. The ticking of an old clock, the purring of a contented cat, and the familiar smell of homemade soup fill the living room. It’s another world inside the Esau home. Books—old books—line the shelves by the fireplace. Handmade quilts are thrown over the backs of plush chairs. Letters from around the country lie open on the end table, awaiting the thoughtful reply they always receive. It is in the midst of this homey setting that the jovial chuckle of the town’s patriarch, Jack, drowns out the howl of the wind outside. This was a typical winter afternoon at the home of Jack Esau, my favorite Marine. I first met Jack when I was a little boy. Each week, my mom and I would make our trip to Erla’s grocery store, where Jack would lean over the deli counter to hand me one of Erla’s famous hot dogs—a snack to tide me over until the shopping was done. When I was an elementary student, Jack was one of the local VFW members who would demonstrate to our class the proper way to fold and care for the American flag. I can still see the 80 year old WWII veteran folding Old Glory, a gymnasium filled with 8-year-olds sitting at rapt attention, mesmerized by the depth of respect this man had for our country. As a young man, I developed a friendship with Jack. He was the teacher, I was the pupil. On afternoons like the one I described, we would sit in the living room of the home he built back in 1948, as he regaled me with tales of Cass City’s past. He would sit back in his chair, one leg draped over the other, one hand engaged in telling an animated story, the other gently petting a snoozing cat. To me, Jack embodied all his generation – the greatest generation—was known for: strength of character; a good work ethic; devotion to family; loyalty to community and country. He was a man who had a story for everything, and shared it with anyone willing to listen. In 1940, Jack enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. By that time, World War Two was a reality for most of the world, with the exception of the United States who would be forced to enter it a year later, following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was on active duty in the South Pacific, where he saw active duty at Guam and Guadalcanal. One of the gifts I received when he passed away is also one of my greatest earthly treasures—a scrapbook full of black and white snapshots from his time in the South Pacific. The photos are of a tall 23-year-old with a full head of hair and the broad smile that won him friends his entire life. As a 23-year-old myself, it is a strange feeling to look at these photographs from the war that made so many American boys into men. Although Jack was an enlisted man, he and many others like him left all they ever knew, charging ahead into an unknown future against an enemy they had never met before. I remember bits and pieces of many of the tales Jack told me about that period in his life. He remembered exactly where he was on April 12, 1945, the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt died. During the 2008 election, when John McCain and Barack Obama faced off for the White House, Jack told me about the time he sat next to McCain’s father on a train ride during the War. Of course, Jack remembered the conversation clearly after more than 60 years had passed. In 1946, Jack was honorably discharged from the Marines and returned to his beloved hometown, where he married his wife, Ruth, two years later. The couple would be blessed with three children in the ensuing years. From the time Jack returned to Cass City, he was an active and integral member of the community. He served on the Cass City School board; was a founding member of both the Cass City Historical Society and the local VFW post; and was the authority on the history of Cass City and the surrounding area. I learned a lot from Jack. By the time we became friends, he was not as active in the community as he once was; but the care he had for the town he loved continued on, and serves as an example to me of how a person should take an active role in the civic life of their community. In October 2011, Jack passed away at the age of 93. To say that I miss him would be an understatement. His passing left a void in my life and the life of our community. Even now, three years after his death, I still find myself saying, “I wish I could ask Jack about…” But I am thankful for the friendship we had, and the stories he shared. Besides thanking a veteran for their service to our nation, maybe one of the greatest things we can do on Veterans Day is to tell the stories of the veterans in our lives who have passed on. It is, after all, the memory of their willingness to sacrifice that compels us to continue defending the land of the free. Happy Veterans Day, Jack. Thank you for your friendship and your example.  Jack Esau, 2010. (Photo courtesy of Jim Ware)  Three weeks ago, I made a quick trip to London, Ontario to visit Frank Morris, a 95-year-old man who has been both a friend and mentor to me for the past decade. He had been moved from his home to an assisted living facility.
During the drive to Canada, I thought about this man who had been such an encouragement to me and to others, now suffering from dementia. “Will he know who I am?” I thought to myself. “Will we be able to have meaningful conversation, as we used to?” These thoughts continued as a nurse led me down the hall to his room. I knocked lightly, as I entered the softly lit room. There on the bed was the frail form of my dear friend, a bit confused, but smiling nonetheless. “Hi, Frank,” I said, doubting that he would recognize me. “Well, hello, Tyler,” he said, as if he had been expecting me. I was overjoyed. Throughout our hour-long visit, very little was said. He told me, several times, that he was confused about where he was. Each time, his wife gently reminded him that he was in a good place where he was being taken care of very well. As I sat there, thumbing through a book of old photographs–sepia tone glimpses into Frank’s past–my mind traveled to the wise pieces of advice he had shared with me throughout the years. “Humility is one of the greatest character traits one can have…” “Never let intellectualism snuff out your love for the Lord…” “Throughout your life, you will have many successes and ‘also-rans’. Take them all in stride and thank God for all of them…” The words echoed in my mind. “Frank,” I said to him, “do you ever think about Heaven?” His eyes were closed, but he gave a resolute nod. Yes. “Are you ready to go?” “Yes.” “Is there anyone there you want to see?” At this, he looked at me with a big smile. “Yes!” he said. Before I left, we took a couple of pictures of the two of us, and one of he and his wife. I gave Frank a hug, knowing it would be the last I would give him this side of Heaven. “Frank,” I said, “I’m not going to see you for a little while. But I will see you again later. Alright?” “Ok, Tyler. Ok,” he said. Six days later, I received a message from a mutual friend: “Frank passed away this morning.” Even though I have the promise of God’s Word that those who have trusted in Christ as their Savior are with the Lord, I cried and cried, feeling a void–one less good man on the earth. No more phone calls. No more time-tested wisdom. No more letters encouraging me to stay close to Christ and His Word. But I am thankful. I am thankful I had the opportunity to say “See you later”. I am thankful that Frank’s funeral service was exactly what he would have wanted—a time of worship to the Lord. I am thankful that I had the opportunity to meet the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren he cared so much for. Most importantly, however, I am thankful for the example of a life well lived, because it was lived for Jesus Christ. |
AuthorTy Perry is a writer and blogger living in metro Detroit. Archives
December 2023
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed