The Crockery Issue

Mom was a champion china buster and pan rattler. We all agreed that you could tell if she was in the kitchen by the noise level. Fortunately, neither Mom nor Dad really cared if they broke every dish in the house between them and us.

Two stories come to mind about their attitudes. The first one involves a couple who came to dinner. The husband complained that his wife had broken one of the cups in their set of good china. My father took that opportunity to go into the kitchen and bring out a soup bowl that was filled to heaping with cup and soup bowl handles. Dad said, "Oh, you mean like these?" The guest husband was aghast, and Dad was delighted to have shocked him.

The other story is of the melamine incident. Sometime during the 50s, melamine dishes came out, and were touted as being unbreakable. Of COURSE Dad immediately threw them on the floor to watch them bounce. One hit exactly wrong and broke; Dad crowed triumphantly ...they were breakable after all.

Peony Bush

We had peony bushes all along the side of our garage, and once a year, in May I think, they would form buds and ants from everywhere would gather to peel the petals, bit by bit. Our parents were also big fans of Danny Kaye, who sang:

Twas the peony bush there in the garden
That made you turn around and smile at me...

I tried opening the buds by hand, but that was much too fast for the peony and it was like peeling a cabbage down to the nubbin, tightly folded to a tiny middle, nothing like the spectacular full blooms that the ants unfolded.