Category Archives: Friends Along the Way

Family Tales, Friends Along the Way

Along came a Froggie

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As froggies go, he wasn’t very big. He was about an inch long, smaller than all but the tiniest plastic ones in the toy store.

He wasn’t plastic, though. He was real.

The day we picked up my brother’s car was a tough one for me. The car was the largest thing Stevie had owned, and although my job was to eventually sell it for his estate, I was emotionally attached to it. Standing beside the plain-vanilla Camry with the keys in my hand, I got a little teary-eyed.

That’s when the the little green guy appeared. He crawled out from behind the passenger-side mirror and looked at me with big round eyes. Did he know he was an omen, or did he think he was just a frog? Was he really a Froggie?

When he passed away, Stevie’s living room walls were decorated with paintings of beaches and lighthouses, and in the center hung his doctorate, double-matted, in a heavy gold frame. In the place of honor, right below the doctorate: His froggie collection. That’s right, froggies. I never once heard him use the word “frog.”

Display of Stevie's Froggies
Stevie's Froggie collection

Stevie had stuffed froggies, glass froggies, ceramic froggies, metal froggies, and plastic froggies. Some were elegant, some were goofy. One of them used to make croaking sounds, although I accidentally destroyed that capability when I ran it through the washing machine.

The first one came from a coworker, 15 years ago. He had such fun with it, calling it “Froggie,” and making up stories about it, that others began giving him froggies as well. A friend of his mentioned a “Froggy Battle,” which sounded epic. Dad sent froggies for birthdays and Christmas, and I gave him Seattle-themed froggies. Stevie never bought a single one for himself.

He referred to them by silly names: Santa Froggie, Big-Mouth Froggie, Squeaky Froggie.

Stevie was very protective of his froggies. When I sent him a stuffed gorilla named Curious George, he wrote back, “Did I tell you that curious george can stay but that the Froggys and their extended family have eminent domain!”

Stevie was in rare form with his thoughts about a February event called GroundFrog Day, in which a bullfrog by the name of Snohomish Slew offers his weather “frognostication.” He wrote:

“Snohomish Slew and I could become very good friends although as long as Mr & Mrs Froggie are around they cannot be replaced by an upstart tadpole from who knows where who can barely speak froglatin and does not see his shadow cus he probably don’t have one!! Plus he makes BAD predictions and as anyone knows…when you’re frozen like he was you are usually braindead upon arrival!! I guess I’m kinda hard on Slew this morning but ya gotta be kind of jealous towards someone who gets to live in a place called Flower World!”

At Stevie’s memorial, we displayed all the froggies, and afterwards, family and friends could choose one to keep as a memento. I ended up with more than my share of Froggies — Bendy Froggie, Spitting Froggie, Playskool Froggie, Sparkly Froggie, and a bunch of tiny plastic ones.

With Stevie on my heart, you can imagine what I thought when that live little frog climbed out from behind the car mirror, looked at me, and climbed back into his hiding place again.

I am sure that there are people who find frogs on their cars all the time. I am not one of them. Until that day, when I picked up Steve’s car, I had never in my life seen a frog on a car. So I had a name for this little guy: Omen Froggie.

Omen Froggie sitting on Stevie's car with an inset showing his size
Tiny Omen Froggie, sitting on top of Stevie's car

Omen Froggie was tucked safely behind the mirror when we drove the car to town for dinner. There was no sign of him when we came out of No-Name Pizza. Was he still in the mirror? Was he chowing down on pizza scraps? Was he hopping around Beaufort?

It was on the way home that he reappeared. At 55 mph, he decided to make his move. “Look! Froggie!” said Barry, who was in the passenger seat. Our little friend had crawled out from behind the mirror and was now clinging to the passenger window. With his tree-frog toes spread wide and his skin blowing in the wind, Froggie was enjoying a perilous — surely terrifying — joyride. “Hang on, Froggie, hang on!” I cried. I was a very distracted driver, paying more attention to the tiny passenger on the outside of the window than to the other vehicles on the road.

I didn’t want Omen Froggie to go flying off along the road and get killed. He was a Very Important Froggie, and I needed to return him to the boatyard, where he had come from.

Or had he come from the boatyard? Perhaps he had come from another dimension! Maybe he just popped into this universe to let me know Stevie was keeping an eye on his car. And me.

Omen Froggie did not fall off the car. He made it safely back to the parking space where we’d found him. I took a picture of him sitting, serene, on the roof of the car. And after that, I never saw Omen Froggie again.

~~~

(Click on a thumbnail to see full size)

Julie with Tree Froggie
Julie with Tree Froggie
Hank with Squeaky Froggie
Hank with Squeaky Froggie
Daisy with the Wacky Quacker and Mt. St. Helens Froggie
Daisy with the Wacky Quacker and Mt. St. Helens Froggie
Meps with Seattle Bubble Froggie and Bendy Froggie
Meps with Seattle Bubble Froggie and Bendy Froggie
Barry with Mr. and Mrs. Froggie
Barry with Mr. and Mrs. Froggie
Joy with Huggie Froggie
Joy with Huggie Froggie
Jeanie with Glass Froggie
Jeanie with Glass Froggie
Meps with Playskool Froggie, Sparkle Froggie, and the Little Froggies
Meps with Playskool Froggie, Sparkle Froggie, and the Little Froggies
Friends Along the Way

The life of the party

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Barry and his family share my favorite toast. Here's to Loraine!

When I was growing up, I thought it terribly unfair that I didn’t have a grandmother. I envisioned white-haired grandmothers as the source of all kinds of good things, like cookies, presents, and sympathy. When a friend’s grandmother tried to poison me during a sleepover in the 7th grade, I figured that was an anomaly.

One of the first things I learned about Barry was that he had a cookie-baking grandmother. She used to send the most amazing, gigantic boxes at Christmas — a panoply of homemade sweets that included fudge, cherry bites, and icebox cookies, each one individually wrapped, with love, in plastic wrap. But what I enjoyed even more than Grandma’s cookies was her sparkle.

The first time I met her was at Barry’s mother’s 50th birthday dinner at a Columbus restaurant. I was working the night shift, so I took a longer-than-usual dinner break to attend. After a meal of rich pasta, bread, salad, and cake, Grandma turned to me and said, “How about coming back to the hotel with us for a little spumoni?” I was stunned. How could this crazy family put ice cream on top of all the other food? I was stuffed! But Grandma persisted. “Just a little spumoni?” I didn’t want to offend her, so after she asked several times, I finally agreed.

When we got to the hotel, she and Barry’s grandfather pulled out a cooler and, to my surprise, champagne glasses. She meant Spumante! For a toast! When I admitted my confusion, we all just laughed and laughed.

In the decades since then, every time we get together with Grandma, there’s a lot of laughter. Growing up in the Roaring 20’s, she has a unique perspective. She lived through the deprivations of Prohibition, the Great Depression, and the second World War. She would tell us stories about about her huge, crazy family, and we’d stay up into the wee hours, talking about everything and anything. She was the ultimate hostess, not just plying us with food and drink (“I can’t eat another bite, Grandma!”), but making sure everyone was having a good time.

When she visited Seattle in the late 90’s, she made a lasting impression on our sailing friends. Bill Brown would complain at great length about “those damned blue-hairs;” why couldn’t more seniors be like Barry’s Grandma? He started a tradition at every gathering, raising his glass and saying, “Here’s to Loraine!” Puzzled friends would say, “Who’s Loraine?” This would give Bill a chance to tell them just how cool Barry’s Grandma is. Then we’d have another toast, and everyone would join in, no matter what they were drinking: “Here’s to Loraine!”

Grandma reads my tea leaves

Grandma is pretty down-to-earth, so her passion for reading tea leaves comes as a bit of a surprise. She’ll make a pot of loose tea and pour us each a cup with the leaves floating in it. When we’ve sipped all but about a teaspoon, we swirl the cup carefully to drain the remaining liquid and turn it upside-down, resting on a spoon in the saucer. She can do this perfectly every time, with just the right flick of the wrist. The rest of us are complete klutzes, pouring all our leaves into the saucer, or dumping tea on the tablecloth. But when it’s done right, you can pick up the teacup and find clumps of tea leaves in the bottom, forming recognizable patterns. Or not-so-recognizable.

We take turns peering into each other’s cups, studying the dregs of our tea. “Is that a bird?” “Maybe that’s some kind of fish.” Near the end of the session, when our imaginations are getting tired, the amateurs will say, “I can’t make any sense of this one at all,” but Grandma still sees a tree or a flower and can interpret their meanings.

Of course, if the tea leaves seem to be forming a computer, a cellphone, or a satellite, we all scratch our heads and wonder what’s in the future. That’s because the guidebook she uses was published in 1922.

A few years ago, when she read her own fortune, Grandma kept finding crosses, which mean someone you know is going to die. She stopped reading the leaves for a while, afraid of what the cup might tell her. It’s tough to outlive your husband, your siblings, and most of your friends.

These days, Grandma’s a little less prone to late nights. She gave up baking cookies over a decade ago. But she’s still reading tea leaves and living on her own at almost 100. She still has that sparkle.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a 50th anniversary celebration for Barry’s parents, and because Grandma doesn’t travel, we held it in the Michigan city where she lives.

The beautiful head table at the golden anniversary party

Barry’s sister had done a fantastic job of decorating the restaurant’s tables, and at the last minute, Barry and I added a bottle of champagne and sparkling cider to each one. When the restaurant set stemware at each place setting, the tables gleamed with reflected light. But what was this? The “head” table, where the original guests from the 1961 wedding were seated, seemed to have something extra.

You guessed it — that’s where Grandma was sitting! She hadn’t been to a party in many years. Now she seemed to have found some reserve energy, and she was the life of the party. How many parents get to attend their children’s 50th wedding anniversary? It was pushing her limits, and she’d be tired the next day. But there she was, sparkling away.

And that is what Grandma does best. The champagne is optional.

Friends Along the Way, Limericks, Messing About in Boats, Strange and Silly

Inciting a peaceful riot

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Nick sails Valkyrie, peaceful, serene,
With the engine turned off, no machine,
Breaks the stillness, the quiet,
Til he creates a riot,
With his blender, which burns gasoline.

With a sound like a loud chainsaw roar,
Our Lake Union’s not peaceful, no more,
“Margaritas,” I say,
“Over two miles away,”
It’s Saint Nick, giving alms to the pour.

We went out on Flagrante Delicto to watch Duck Dodge (for you non-Seattlites, it’s a very silly sailing race) last night, and were greeted in limerick form by Blender Boy Nick. Here’s a picture of Valkyrie’s crew (don’t ask me how Nick can steer with this many people in the cockpit!).
Blender Boy Nick and the crew of Valkyrie at Duck Dodge
The theme for last night’s race was “Bastille Day Night,” which inspired these clever sailors to install a guillotine. Now I know where to put one if I ever need one.
The sailboat with the guillotine at Duck Dodge
Our captain for the evening, buttoned up against the weather in his MG-B. He says that at 30 mph, the rain just goes over his pith helmet, and he cleverly pulls out an umbrella at stoplights.
Captain Craig in his MG-B.

Friends Along the Way, Limericks

The secret to a long marriage

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Over 50 years, no one else knew,
That the preacher who married these two,
Did not tie a mere “knot,”
As the poor couple thought,
But instead joined the Stellrechts with glue.

Though he poured it on gooey and thick,
He still wasn’t sure that did the trick,
So what keeps them together,
In both good and bad weather?
It’s the DUCT TAPE, that’s what makes them stick!

I’ve never been to a golden anniversary party, and so I wasn’t sure what my official duties should be when celebrating my in-laws’ 50th. I decided to make myself useful by writing this limerick and reading it at the party last weekend.

I also took a few photos at the event; a few of them follow. There’s a photo of Sharon and Dave with their original 50-year-old champagne glasses, one with Barry’s sister (who put the party together), one of the happy couple cutting the cake (with the original 50-year-old cake topper!), and one of Barry’s parents with us, his sister’s family, and most importantly, Grandma. How many people get to celebrate their children’s golden wedding anniversary?
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Friends Along the Way, Living in Vero Beach, FL, Rebuilding Boats

There oughta be a rule

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Vero Beach is a very clean, pristine little town. Careful zoning prevents high-rises as well as any other ugliness. There are large, beautifully-landscaped homes owned by wealthy retirees as well as tidy smaller ones, where the hard-working younger set lives.

In addition to these neighborhoods, there are gated communities, protected from unwelcome riff-raff by fences and walls. These condo communities have additional rules to prevent unsightliness and untoward behavior by their own residents: No rollerblading. No pickup trucks. No open garage doors. Speed limit 10 mph. No soliciting. No one under 55. Pool chairs must be completely covered by a towel. No pets.

So how did these two grubby sailors from Flutterby, who are used to living in a boatyard, fare in pristine Vero Beach for five months?

We stayed in compliance easily, because nobody had thought to write rules about the things Meps and Barry will do.

One day, the neighbors found the front yard of Dad’s house completely full of soggy camping and kayaking gear. It was spread across the bushes, and Barry had tied clotheslines between the palm trees and the garage for our dripping jackets and pants. These remnants of a messy and disastrous Everglades camping trip were just a harbinger of the chaos to come.

Meps and Barry with all their kayak gear in Dad's front yard
Looks like a garage sale!

Luckily, nobody had written a rule against our soggy gear display. There is probably a rule agasint drying laundry, but it was not enforced.

Next, we tested the waters with a small project, refinishing the oars for the dinghy. I took them over to Dad’s backyard one afternoon. He wandered out of the house to see what I was doing, and he pulled up a chair to watch as I set up my sanding station. There were no sawhorses, so I compromised by propping the oars across a couple of folding chairs. Then I got out my random orbital sander and my red earmuff-style hearing protection. The sander is LOUD, especially since its bearings are in bad shape after all the fiberglass we’ve used it on.

Before I put the earmuffs on, I said to Dad, “I’m going to make a lot of noise now. You might want to go back inside.” “That’s OK,” he responded, “I’m way over here.” He was all of six feet away.

I just shook my head and started up the sander. The noise and sawdust didn’t phase him at all, and he kept me company until I finished the first oar.

Evidently, the project didn’t phase the neighbors, either. I’d just proven that his gated complex could handle a little bit of sanding, Meps-style.

After the oars were sanded, we suspended them in the garage and painted them with multiple coats of epoxy and paint. I worried that the fumes might get into the house, but it was well-sealed. None of the neighbors complained about that, either.

Then we went shopping with our friend Ann, and on top of her big Mothball van, we piled enough plywood and dimensional lumber to build a freestanding wooden lofting floor in the garage. All the sawing, screwing, and hammering still didn’t raise the ire of any neighbors, although Dad started grumbling about the loss of his garage for the car.

Plywood lofting floor leaning against the wall of the garage
The lofting floor, ready to lay down

Over the next weeks, Barry set up first one, then two sewing machines in the garage. He made paper patterns and transferred them to fabric. Then he stitched them into sails, working late into the night. He closed the garage door at night to keep mosquitoes at bay, which helped keep us in compliance with the no-open-garage-door ruling. We were pushing that one.

We admired Mothball so much, Ann left the van in our care while she sailed her boat north to Maine. That was wonderful serendipity, allowing us to move vanloads of battens and yards across town without renting a truck. The longest battens are 18 feet, and they only stuck out of the van eight feet!

But surely, in the next phase, the neighbors would complain. They hadn’t written any rules against sanding aluminum or doing epoxy jobs in the driveway, but they probably should have. Any time you see your neighbor wearing a full-face respirator, he’s probably doing something he shouldn’t.

White van with 8 feet of aoluminum pipe sticking out the back
Mothball, ready to roll

By now, the neighbors were blase about the stuff happening at Dad’s normally quiet, tidy house. They didn’t peer curiously into the garage any more when they walked their completely controlled pets on leashes. I’m sure there’s a rule about that. I wonder if that’s why one woman walks her cat on a leash.

Finally, all the irritating, rule-breaking projects were done. I posted a couple of ads on Craigslist and Freecycle, and obliging people came and took away all the lumber. One man was building chicken coops, and the other was building rabbit hutches. I doubt Vero Beach allows such critters; they probably came from outside the city limits.

We returned the borrowed sewing machine to our friend Linda. We loaded the tools, paint, and epoxy into plastic bins that would fit aboard the boat, along with the carefully-folded sails. The sewing table we carried back inside.

Then we stood back and looked at the garage, ready for Dad’s car.

There was no sign of the mess or noise that had completely taken over for almost three months. In fact, the garage looked better than before we’d arrived! Barry had installed a couple of ladder hangers for working on the battens. Now Dad’s ladder was neatly stored on them, instead of leaning precariously against the wall.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

We had made a BIG mess, and we had cleaned up all of it. This was in keeping with the biggest rule of all. Not a Vero Beach rule, or a condo complex rule, but a family rule: Do not mess up Dad’s house.

Someday, Dad will see our picture on the front of a sailing magazine. He can show his friends, saying “Look! These sails were made in my garage.” I have my fingers crossed that he’ll conveniently forget the sawdust and noise and chaos, and just remember my favorite part: How much we enjoyed his company for five months, the messiest Snowbirds in Vero Beach.

Barry sitting on the floor surrounded by white fabric
Barry sewing the mizzen sail
Barry sitting in the garage, bike and car in background
The car is outside, bikes and sewing machines are in
Margaret attaching tape to batten pockets
Meps at work in the garage
Barry carrying a piece of plywood out of the garage
Taking the floor apart to give the lumber away
Barry holding a stack of folded sails
The end result of all that mess
Cruising on Flutterby, Friends Along the Way, Limericks, Messing About in Boats, Our Limerick Life

The Prince of Vero Beach

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Though we stayed from December til May,
It was time to get back under way,
We had put our hook down,
In a posh Florida town,
And they just kicked us out yesterday.

Just kidding! The truth is complex —
No one in this fine town objects,
To our presence, in fact,
They speak to us with tact,
For my Dad’s the Crown Prince: “Vero Rex.”

He must be: He treats us like royalty!

Friends Along the Way, Living in Vero Beach, FL

Losing part of my name

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When I was born, my brother Stevie was 12. He told the family that Margaret was too long a name for such a little baby, and he proposed the nickname Peggy. It stuck for 17 years (I changed the spelling to “Peigi” at age 11). Now you know where the “P” in Meps came from.

Stevie passed away suddenly on April 16th. He was a kind, gentle soul with a great sense of humor. Losing him is like losing part of my name, part of my identity.

In the photo below, he is the tall, handsome athlete. The miniature person, looking up at him adoringly, is me. I’d just learned to walk.

Stevie’s funeral and a celebration of his life will be here in Vero Beach in mid-May.

Stevie and me in 1966. He was later known as Dr. Stephen T. Schulte.
Friends Along the Way, Philosophy

Flying High on Cloud Nine

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Like a zombie, I shuffled across the Philadelphia airport. It was 5:30 am, and I hadn’t gotten much sleep on my red-eye from Seattle. This cross-country trip required three flights, instead of two, and each plane change was stressful.

A cafe caught my eye, and I joined the line to buy some juice, setting my luggage down and shuffling it forward each time the line moved.

I hardly noticed the older woman in line behind me, until her husband joined her. “I don’t know what you were thinking, you $@#%! You should have $@#^@!” she said to him, her tone loud and acerbic. He responded defensively, then started making nasty accusations at her. I thought about giving up my place in line to get away.

It devolved into one of those toxic “You always!” and “You never!” arguments that’s impossible to resolve. Fortunately for me, they disagreed vehemently about the cafe and went somewhere else.

I felt icky, contaminated by their toxic emotions, but also relieved. It gave me a chance to appreciate that my life is not like that.

By most measures, my morning went downhill further from there. Bad weather delayed my second flight, and when I arrived in Charlotte, my flight home had been cancelled.

Luckily, I didn’t have the same attitude as the angry couple I’d overheard earlier. I took a deep breath and walked to the customer service counter, where a smiling customer is an anomaly. I decided to be the anomaly.

The customer service agent worked out a couple of options and printed new boarding passes. As she handed them to me, the agent still looked concerned. “I need your luggage tags,” she said. I was befuddled by the request, then I realized why she was frowning.

“I only have carry-on luggage,” I said. Her face lit up with a huge smile. “Wow! You’re good to go, then!”

I had plenty of time to catch my new flight to Orlando. With a sigh of relief, I headed for the nearest bathroom.

It was sparkling clean, and just inside the entrance was a display with free candy, hand lotion, hair products, and feminine supplies. The clue to this largesse was the accompanying tip jar. I had just entered the domain of one of the Charlotte airport’s restroom attendants.

This woman, though, was no mere attendant. She was earning her tips as a Bathroom Ambassador.

She bustled around the large bathroom with a cleaning towel, wiping the counters as she greeted women with a cheery hello and a smile. “Hi, how are you today?” She also served as a traffic cop, keeping track of which stalls were in use. “Come on over here, I’ve got a great room for you, lady!” “Here, take this big one — you’ve got a lot of luggage.”

She made the bathroom so pleasant, I wished they had more comfortable, less-specialized seats in there. I would have stayed for a while. She came over and said hi as I was washing my hands. “If you’re going someplace sunny, take me with you!” she quipped.

“I don’t know,” I said, rummaging around for something to put in the tip jar. “You’re making it pretty sunny in here!”

I had over an hour to kill, so I stopped at a Starbucks for a cup of tea. I didn’t even have to use money for this treat — I paid for it with a gift card my brother Hank had given me.

Every time I use this gift card, it makes me feel good. It’s as if he’s giving me a Christmas present over and over.

After my Philadelphia cafe experience, I found myself looking curiously behind me, to see who was next in line. It was a woman about my age, black, with a southern accent. She was alone and had no luggage, perhaps an employee from one of the other shops. She placed an order very similar to mine, and as she fumbled in her purse for the money, I had a brainstorm.

I handed the gift card back to the cashier. “Here, charge it to my card,” I said. The cashier didn’t miss a beat, just swiped the card and handed me a new receipt. She probably assumed we knew each other.

The woman in line behind me went through a series of reactions. There was initially confusion as the cashier refused her payment, and then astonishment that a stranger would pay for her order. Apprehension — was I going to ask something of her? And finally, she got it, and was simply grateful. She’d never experienced anything like this before.

“This is one of those pay it forward things, isn’t it? Now I have to do something nice for someone else?” she said. I just smiled and said, gently, “Only if you want to.” I slipped away to put some milk in my tea, and she followed me across the restaurant. “Thank you! You really made my day! What’s your name?” If I hadn’t been carrying a very full cup of tea and two pieces of heavy luggage, I suspect she might have hugged me.

Despite my lack of sleep and change of plans, I was on Cloud Nine for the rest of the day. If I hadn’t jotted a note about the angry couple in Philadelphia, I would have forgotten about them completely.

For many people, the experience of traveling by plane is miserable. The security process takes away all privacy and dignity. When you reassemble your belongings and put your shoes back on, you no longer have your autonomy or your freedom. Your fate is in someone else’s hands.

Your fate, perhaps, but not your experience. Each of us can choose whether to be miserable or not. The couple in the cafe line? They chose to be angry. Me, I choose to smile, and to do things to help other people smile.

Sometimes, like when my flight gets cancelled, I don’t feel like smiling, but I paste on a smile anyway. Eventually, someone sees my smile and smiles back at me. Then the game is up — I can’t help it, I’m smiling for real now! The next thing I know, I’m smiling at everybody, basking in the cheerful smiles I get in return.

Meps, smiling at you: (=