When my parents were young, my Dad enlisted in the Air Force to avoid being drafted into Vietnam. One of the places he was stationed was Holloman Air Force base, where Kimberly, my older sister, was born. Being new parents while stationed half-way across the country from their own families was tough. So to stave off the feelings of loneliness and isolation, they made a habit of taking frequent trips to various landmarks around the area. They figured they may as well make the best of what they had.
The trouble is, it was New Mexico. There's just not a whole lot to see out there besides windswept deserts and the occasional top secret spy plane flying over Roswell. But there are a lot of National Parks with forests, mountains, and even some intricate cave systems. Luckily, Carlsbad Caverns, one of the largest and most prolific cave systems in North America, was only a 3 hour drive away from the base. So once their newborn baby daughter was old enough to make the trip, they packed up the car and headed out on a fine spring day.
Upon arrival they signed up for a ranger guided tour through the caves. Now, since you can't roll a stroller through the rocky terrain of a cave, Dad had brought along a baby backpack to carry my sister down. So before they set off into the caverns, Dad loaded up Kimberly onto his back while Mom wrapped her up in a little baby jacket and bonnet to keep her warm in the chilly cave system. Fully prepared for the hike down to the cavern's Underground Lunchroom and visitor center, the tour group set off following the park ranger single file down the trail. Dad descended into the caves first with Kimberly strapped safely to his back while Mom followed right behind him to keep an eye on her baby daughter.
The tour group was about halfway through their 750 foot descent into the cavern when Mom looked up from her exertions to see Kimberly happily cooing and giggling as she played with her bonnet. It was a simple summer cap with a frilly laced brim and a single elastic cord that wrapped around Kimberly's chin to hold it in place. She had managed somehow to slip her chubby little hand underneath that elastic band and was merrily tugging on it, giggling with delight to feel it tugging back against her. Kimberly was evidently feeling quite macho that day because she then decided to stretch that poor elastic band as far as it could possibly go when suddenly...
SNAP! ...mmmbbbwwwaaaAAAHHH!!!!
The band had slipped through her tiny fingers right when it was stretched to the brink and come flying back at the infant, popping her square in the mouth. Never before has such a happy cooing baby switched so quickly to such ear-piercing irate screams.
As her squalling echoed off the cavern walls, the tour group began to notice that the high-pitched wails were not dying out as you might expect, but instead were growing louder, more urgent, and higher pitched. Such screeching could not possibly be emanating from the voice of this young child.
Carlsbad caverns is home to over 17 different species of bats. A recent survey counted over 700,000 individual bats resident in the caverns at once. In her cries of fear and pain, Kimberly had somehow hit an octave that the bats recognized as a child in distress and all 700,000 of them came flying down from their roosts to rescue the young one.
As the bats began swooping down to attack the tour group, the ranger gave orders for everyone to immediately duck and cover to protect their eyes and faces from the claws of the assailing bats. Dad, being the well trained military man that he was, quickly followed orders and hunched over to avoid the assault. Unfortunately, he did so with Kimberly still strapped firmly to his back. So as he bent down to escape the onslaught, Kimberly was hoisted up to face a rushing tide of screeching, fur-covered, claw-tipped leathery wings. This did not improve her mood in the slightest and her now panicked cries only served to incite the bats further.
Seeing her child in distress and now exceptionally vulnerable to the attacking bats, Mom leapt into action. She jumped from her own prone position onto Dad's back while wildly batting at the bats with both arms. Dad, already unbalance by his own crouched position, was further upended by the flailing weight of Mom upon his thoroughly unprepared back. In short order the trio went tumbling down the trail until their decline was finally halted by a pair of looming stalagmites.
Luckily, in the tumult Kimberly's cries were finally muffled by the weight of her parents' bodies; reassuring the bats that the alarm had been resolved so they could finally retreat back to their roosts. Needless to say, after checking that everyone in the tour group had survived relatively unscathed, the park ranger immediately escorted my sheepish parents out of the caverns.
That is why, to this day, children under the age of 3 are not allowed into Carlsbad Caverns.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Uncle Alan and the Coat of Many Arms
My Uncle Alan was the shy introvert you would expect from the typical budding young artist. Blessed with a soft spoken and easy going nature, Uncle Alan was hardly ever in trouble at school and usually managed to blend in well with his peers. So it was with much shock and surprise when his mother received an irate phone call from his art teacher.
Not only was she surprised by the uncharacteristic nature of the call, but also because art was his favorite subject in school. Uncle Alan struggled with the traditional academic classes due to a mild, yet undiagnosed case of dyslexia. But art class was a place where he could harness his incredible creative talents and really shine like nowhere else in his life. Every day when Uncle Alan came home from school and his mother would ask about what he had learned that day, he would literally gush about some new project they were working on or new technique they were studying in his art class. His love for the class wasn't merely limited to the subject matter either. For every amiable word he had for the class, Uncle Alan found two for the extraordinary mentor he found in his teacher.
"Mrs. Newsome, I need you to come to the school immediately!" the teacher fumed over the phone line, "You need to see what your son, Alan, has done and explain to him that I will not tolerate that level of insubordination in my class."
"Alan?" his mother replied, "I've never known him to harm a fly or speak out of turn to anyone. Are you sure it's not Kevin?" Uncle Kevin was his eldest brother and already had a notoriously infamous reputation for his stubborn defiance of any sort of authority. That combined with his overdeveloped sense of responsibility to stand up to bullies who might pick on his timid baby brothers had led to more than a few fights at school and twice as many phone calls from the principal's office. After reassuring her that it was indeed her son, Alan, who had committed this horrible offense, his mother relented and agreed to meet the art teacher in her office immediately.
All during the drive to the school, his mother tried to think of what horrible thing her demure littlest son could have done to illicit such a visceral reaction from his favorite teacher. Did he throw some sort of tantrum? But the boy never cried. Did he call the teacher a bad name? But he hardly spoke up in class at all much less talked back. Did he vandalize someone else's work? But he loved all forms of artwork and was well known as someone who regularly encouraged his peers. Giving up on every scenario she could imagine, she finally arrived at the school and headed quickly to art teacher's office to finally gain an answer to this looming mystery.
"Thank you for coming on such short notice, Mrs. Newsome. I couldn't show you this over the phone," the teacher explained, "You really have to see what your son has done."
His mother sat attentively awaiting the horrifying sight that had loomed in her imagination throughout the drive to school. His art teacher reached into her files and produced a drawing created by Uncle Alan over the previous week. It was a simple pencil drawing of a brown smoking jacket. It was extraordinary because at the shoulders instead of two arms hanging down, there were instead many arms, each engaged in some different activity. One held a tobacco pipe with tendrils of smoke wafting up. One was tucked neatly inside the coat's front pocket. Another manly arm gently lifted the coat sleeve to expose a slender watch attached to its feminine wrist. An old one waved goodbye to a longtime friend. While a younger one reached out to shake the hand of a newly made acquaintance. And yet another one helpfully pointed out directions to a total stranger. Indeed, there were enough arms coming out of this coat to make a Hindu god feel inadequate.
Impressed with the quality of his work, Uncle Alan's mother sat admiring her son's fine drawing down to the intricate details of wrinkles and hair on the knuckles. Awakening from her reverie, Mrs. Newsome looked quizzically at the art teacher. "I'm sorry, I don't understand what's wrong with his drawing."
Frustrated and impatient the teacher huffed, "The assignment, Mrs. Newsome was to draw a coat of arms. I know your son thinks he is being cute! But I want you to know that I do not tolerate this sort of insolence from my students when I give an assignment."
Mrs. Newsome blinked for a moment, then suddenly burst out into a fit of laughter so hard that tears began streaming down her face. The consternation of the art teacher grew as she began to believe such insolence ran in the the Newsome family. Heaving to catch her breath, Mrs. Newsome finally composed herself enough to address the teacher properly, "Did you show him what a coat of arms looks like before he began the assignment?"
"Well, no. I assumed all the kids had seen one from their family," the art teacher replied uncertainly.
"Well our family doesn't have one. And Alan, having the creative mind that he does, merely gave his best effort at providing what you asked for: A coat... of ARMS! I promise you he wasn't being a smart alec. He just took what you told him and interpreted it literally."
Mortified, the art teacher blanched with embarrassment. Ever the stately lady, Uncle Alan's mother simply patted the teacher on the shoulder and reassured her, "If you ever have trouble explaining an assignment to him again, just call me and I'll make sure he gives you what you want."
And that was how I first learned that the people in my family just don't think, or see, or hear quite the same way everyone else in the world does.
Not only was she surprised by the uncharacteristic nature of the call, but also because art was his favorite subject in school. Uncle Alan struggled with the traditional academic classes due to a mild, yet undiagnosed case of dyslexia. But art class was a place where he could harness his incredible creative talents and really shine like nowhere else in his life. Every day when Uncle Alan came home from school and his mother would ask about what he had learned that day, he would literally gush about some new project they were working on or new technique they were studying in his art class. His love for the class wasn't merely limited to the subject matter either. For every amiable word he had for the class, Uncle Alan found two for the extraordinary mentor he found in his teacher.
"Mrs. Newsome, I need you to come to the school immediately!" the teacher fumed over the phone line, "You need to see what your son, Alan, has done and explain to him that I will not tolerate that level of insubordination in my class."
"Alan?" his mother replied, "I've never known him to harm a fly or speak out of turn to anyone. Are you sure it's not Kevin?" Uncle Kevin was his eldest brother and already had a notoriously infamous reputation for his stubborn defiance of any sort of authority. That combined with his overdeveloped sense of responsibility to stand up to bullies who might pick on his timid baby brothers had led to more than a few fights at school and twice as many phone calls from the principal's office. After reassuring her that it was indeed her son, Alan, who had committed this horrible offense, his mother relented and agreed to meet the art teacher in her office immediately.
All during the drive to the school, his mother tried to think of what horrible thing her demure littlest son could have done to illicit such a visceral reaction from his favorite teacher. Did he throw some sort of tantrum? But the boy never cried. Did he call the teacher a bad name? But he hardly spoke up in class at all much less talked back. Did he vandalize someone else's work? But he loved all forms of artwork and was well known as someone who regularly encouraged his peers. Giving up on every scenario she could imagine, she finally arrived at the school and headed quickly to art teacher's office to finally gain an answer to this looming mystery.
"Thank you for coming on such short notice, Mrs. Newsome. I couldn't show you this over the phone," the teacher explained, "You really have to see what your son has done."
His mother sat attentively awaiting the horrifying sight that had loomed in her imagination throughout the drive to school. His art teacher reached into her files and produced a drawing created by Uncle Alan over the previous week. It was a simple pencil drawing of a brown smoking jacket. It was extraordinary because at the shoulders instead of two arms hanging down, there were instead many arms, each engaged in some different activity. One held a tobacco pipe with tendrils of smoke wafting up. One was tucked neatly inside the coat's front pocket. Another manly arm gently lifted the coat sleeve to expose a slender watch attached to its feminine wrist. An old one waved goodbye to a longtime friend. While a younger one reached out to shake the hand of a newly made acquaintance. And yet another one helpfully pointed out directions to a total stranger. Indeed, there were enough arms coming out of this coat to make a Hindu god feel inadequate.
Impressed with the quality of his work, Uncle Alan's mother sat admiring her son's fine drawing down to the intricate details of wrinkles and hair on the knuckles. Awakening from her reverie, Mrs. Newsome looked quizzically at the art teacher. "I'm sorry, I don't understand what's wrong with his drawing."
Frustrated and impatient the teacher huffed, "The assignment, Mrs. Newsome was to draw a coat of arms. I know your son thinks he is being cute! But I want you to know that I do not tolerate this sort of insolence from my students when I give an assignment."
Mrs. Newsome blinked for a moment, then suddenly burst out into a fit of laughter so hard that tears began streaming down her face. The consternation of the art teacher grew as she began to believe such insolence ran in the the Newsome family. Heaving to catch her breath, Mrs. Newsome finally composed herself enough to address the teacher properly, "Did you show him what a coat of arms looks like before he began the assignment?"
"Well, no. I assumed all the kids had seen one from their family," the art teacher replied uncertainly.
"Well our family doesn't have one. And Alan, having the creative mind that he does, merely gave his best effort at providing what you asked for: A coat... of ARMS! I promise you he wasn't being a smart alec. He just took what you told him and interpreted it literally."
Mortified, the art teacher blanched with embarrassment. Ever the stately lady, Uncle Alan's mother simply patted the teacher on the shoulder and reassured her, "If you ever have trouble explaining an assignment to him again, just call me and I'll make sure he gives you what you want."
And that was how I first learned that the people in my family just don't think, or see, or hear quite the same way everyone else in the world does.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Uncle Kevin and the Finicky Foods
My mother is the first of five children born at the tail end of the baby boomer generation. I'm not sure if this gave my grandmother the patience of a saint or the manipulative skills of the devil himself. Perhaps she found a happy medium somewhere in between. Anyone who has raised small children knows that one of the great daily challenges is dinner time and getting the kids to settle down to eat. Mamaw, as she likes to be called (because whenever you call her name you automatically have to say Ma'am), discovered that the best way to get all five kids to drop whatever they were doing and rush to the dinner table was to serve peas.
Peas are not commonly known as a favorite food among most children. Indeed most of her children disliked the taste of peas and will avoid eating them to this very day. Except for Uncle Kevin. You see, Uncle Kevin was a notoriously finicky eater who would be perfectly happy eating peanut butter sandwiches every day of his life. But peas happened to be one of the few foods that he would merrily scarf down, much to his sibling's delight.
Uncle Kevin's brothers and sisters would often sit around the dinner table telling jokes and sharing funny stories. And when peas were on the menu they would watch his plate carefully in order to time their punchlines to the exact moment when a spoonful of peas entered Uncle Kevin's mouth. He would be so overcome with delight as to let out a deep belly-filled guffaw of laughter. As a result, the mouthful of peas came flying out of his overstuffed mouth like giant mushy BBs right at Mamaw, who had the unfortunate honor of being seated directly across from him.
Peas weren't the only food that caused poor Uncle Kevin trouble with his mother. Indeed his finicky eating habits emerged much earlier when he was a toddler. Detecting this trend, his mother tried to head off this bad habit before it became unmanageable. So suddenly one day after finishing his meal from his highchair, Uncle Kevin decided that he didn't like the taste of milk anymore. Determined to prevent him from adding yet another food to his quickly blooming list of inedibles, Mamaw decided to go on the offensive, "Kevin, drink your milk."
"No!"
"Kevin, you drink your milk this instant young man."
"No! I don't like it", he replied with the indignant pout of a typical three-year-old.
"That's it Kevin, you are not getting out of that highchair until you drink your milk."
Now, Mamaw was not the type of woman to make idle threats. And true to her word she left him in that highchair so he would drink his milk. Even as everyone else in the family finished their meal and were excused from the table. One by one Uncle Kevin's brothers and sisters abandoned him at the dinner table to fight his own battle of wills with their mother.
Finally, they were the only two left in the dining room, a mother determined to nourish her son, and a son adamantly defiant in the face of such tyranny. The tension of the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. And the remaining children cowered from the shadows wondering how this standoff might end.
Finally relenting, Mamaw looked her son square in the eye and said, "I mean it young man. I don't care how long you have to sit in that chair, but you are not getting up until you drink every last drop of milk from your cup." And so she stood up and left him to stew in his chair with a sippy cup full of milk as his only companion.
But Mamaw had underestimated the stubbornness of her eldest son. For there he sat, arms crossed on his tiny chest, staring at his milk, completely unmoved by the enticements of the cup. As Mamaw went about her usual evening routine: clearing the table, washing the dishes, folding the laundry, and tucking her remaining children into bed. All the while surreptitiously checking every once in a while to see if he tried to drink any milk. But still he sat, as hour after hour passed with not a drop of milk passing through his tiny lips.
Finally, as the midnight hour passed, Mamaw realized she could not force him to drink. But unwilling to admit defeat to her three-year-old son she instead hatched a new plan, "Kevin, it's past midnight and I'm tired and I want to go to bed. So you either drink all your milk right now or so help me God you will wear it!"
Sensing his opponent's flagging determination, Uncle Kevin's confidence in his imminent victory was renewed. "No!" came his retort, firm as ever and this time accompanied an assured grin.
Always true to her word, Mamaw snatched him out of that highchair and dropped him quite unceremoniously into the family bathtub. Whereupon she produced the offending milk cup and proceeded to dump the entire contents over his head, much to his chagrin (and squalling cries).
They both learned a valuable lesson that day: Kevin, that stubbornness is indeed an inherited trait; and Mamaw, that open ended threats are entirely too time-consuming to be effective when disciplining her own stubborn children.
Peas are not commonly known as a favorite food among most children. Indeed most of her children disliked the taste of peas and will avoid eating them to this very day. Except for Uncle Kevin. You see, Uncle Kevin was a notoriously finicky eater who would be perfectly happy eating peanut butter sandwiches every day of his life. But peas happened to be one of the few foods that he would merrily scarf down, much to his sibling's delight.
Uncle Kevin's brothers and sisters would often sit around the dinner table telling jokes and sharing funny stories. And when peas were on the menu they would watch his plate carefully in order to time their punchlines to the exact moment when a spoonful of peas entered Uncle Kevin's mouth. He would be so overcome with delight as to let out a deep belly-filled guffaw of laughter. As a result, the mouthful of peas came flying out of his overstuffed mouth like giant mushy BBs right at Mamaw, who had the unfortunate honor of being seated directly across from him.
Peas weren't the only food that caused poor Uncle Kevin trouble with his mother. Indeed his finicky eating habits emerged much earlier when he was a toddler. Detecting this trend, his mother tried to head off this bad habit before it became unmanageable. So suddenly one day after finishing his meal from his highchair, Uncle Kevin decided that he didn't like the taste of milk anymore. Determined to prevent him from adding yet another food to his quickly blooming list of inedibles, Mamaw decided to go on the offensive, "Kevin, drink your milk."
"No!"
"Kevin, you drink your milk this instant young man."
"No! I don't like it", he replied with the indignant pout of a typical three-year-old.
"That's it Kevin, you are not getting out of that highchair until you drink your milk."
Now, Mamaw was not the type of woman to make idle threats. And true to her word she left him in that highchair so he would drink his milk. Even as everyone else in the family finished their meal and were excused from the table. One by one Uncle Kevin's brothers and sisters abandoned him at the dinner table to fight his own battle of wills with their mother.
Finally, they were the only two left in the dining room, a mother determined to nourish her son, and a son adamantly defiant in the face of such tyranny. The tension of the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. And the remaining children cowered from the shadows wondering how this standoff might end.
Finally relenting, Mamaw looked her son square in the eye and said, "I mean it young man. I don't care how long you have to sit in that chair, but you are not getting up until you drink every last drop of milk from your cup." And so she stood up and left him to stew in his chair with a sippy cup full of milk as his only companion.
But Mamaw had underestimated the stubbornness of her eldest son. For there he sat, arms crossed on his tiny chest, staring at his milk, completely unmoved by the enticements of the cup. As Mamaw went about her usual evening routine: clearing the table, washing the dishes, folding the laundry, and tucking her remaining children into bed. All the while surreptitiously checking every once in a while to see if he tried to drink any milk. But still he sat, as hour after hour passed with not a drop of milk passing through his tiny lips.
Finally, as the midnight hour passed, Mamaw realized she could not force him to drink. But unwilling to admit defeat to her three-year-old son she instead hatched a new plan, "Kevin, it's past midnight and I'm tired and I want to go to bed. So you either drink all your milk right now or so help me God you will wear it!"
Sensing his opponent's flagging determination, Uncle Kevin's confidence in his imminent victory was renewed. "No!" came his retort, firm as ever and this time accompanied an assured grin.
Always true to her word, Mamaw snatched him out of that highchair and dropped him quite unceremoniously into the family bathtub. Whereupon she produced the offending milk cup and proceeded to dump the entire contents over his head, much to his chagrin (and squalling cries).
They both learned a valuable lesson that day: Kevin, that stubbornness is indeed an inherited trait; and Mamaw, that open ended threats are entirely too time-consuming to be effective when disciplining her own stubborn children.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Great Aunt Bernadine and the Many Suitors
This one is less of a narrative story and more of a character study on one of the many crazy women in my family.
Great Aunt Bernadine was a firecracker of a woman. Born of an Irish immigrant, she had both the fire-engine red hair and the surly temper to prove it. Being raised at a time when Irish Catholics were regularly discriminated against in America caused her to be especially proud of her heritage rather than cowed by popular opinion. Bernadine demonstrated this pride every single day with her exquisite wardrobe. I never saw her without some hint or accent of green on her clothes on the rare occasion that it wasn't the dominant color of the entire ensemble. Whether it was her emerald green silk pant suit or verdant patterned Muumuu, she always managed to coordinate the outfit with a green color that highlighted her beautiful fiery red hair.
As children we would often ask her, "Great Aunt Bernadine, why are all of your clothes green? Is that your favorite color?" She would smile wryly and reply, "Why no children, I love every color... as long as it's green." with that characteristic twinkle in her eye.
Me, my sister, and our cousins would often visit her on the weekends because she lived literally around the corner from our grandparent's house. Having no children of her own, Bernadine didn't mind babysitting for our parents on frequent occasion. She would hold court on her back porch, perched atop her wicker Queen Victoria chair while lamenting the indignancies of old age. I remember sitting at her knee at the ripe old age of 5 as she described what a fine looking woman she was in her youth, "I used to have such a lovely pair of ripe cantaloupes here on my chest, and now there's nothing left but a pair of scrambled eggs."
Bernadine's boasts of youthful beauty were not exaggerated. While it's true that she never married in her life, she had managed to become successfully engaged five different times to five different men. Upon hearing this as children we would often look at her with incredulity. disbelieving that someone could become engaged so many times without actually getting married. "It's absolutely true," she quipped, "and I have the engagement rings to prove it."
"But Great Aunt Bernadine," we'd reply, "didn't you give the rings back when you called off the marriage?"
"Hell no!" she responded quickly, "I EARNED those rings, so I kept every last one of them."
Her womanly charms were evidently not limited to her many would-be suitors. There is an infamous four-poster bed which remains in our family to this day. It is a sturdy antique mahogany frame built by our great-grandfather. According to family legend, President Woodrow Wilson was passing through our town giving stump speeches to garner support for his League of Nations proposal. A very young and charming Great Aunt Bernadine was in attendance at the rally and was so enthralled by his oration that she somehow managed to obtain a private audience with him. They spoke at great length, well into the night until it was too late for him to check into a hotel. Being the ever gracious hostess, she offered him her own bed so he could rest for the evening before continuing on his campaign. To this day that bed is known as "The Bed that Woodrow Wilson Slept in." I asked her once if she was in it when Woodrow Wilson slept in her bed. She merely winked and replied, "A woman shouldn't reveal all her charms."
I quickly learned after that to stop asking so many questions...
Great Aunt Bernadine was a firecracker of a woman. Born of an Irish immigrant, she had both the fire-engine red hair and the surly temper to prove it. Being raised at a time when Irish Catholics were regularly discriminated against in America caused her to be especially proud of her heritage rather than cowed by popular opinion. Bernadine demonstrated this pride every single day with her exquisite wardrobe. I never saw her without some hint or accent of green on her clothes on the rare occasion that it wasn't the dominant color of the entire ensemble. Whether it was her emerald green silk pant suit or verdant patterned Muumuu, she always managed to coordinate the outfit with a green color that highlighted her beautiful fiery red hair.
As children we would often ask her, "Great Aunt Bernadine, why are all of your clothes green? Is that your favorite color?" She would smile wryly and reply, "Why no children, I love every color... as long as it's green." with that characteristic twinkle in her eye.
Me, my sister, and our cousins would often visit her on the weekends because she lived literally around the corner from our grandparent's house. Having no children of her own, Bernadine didn't mind babysitting for our parents on frequent occasion. She would hold court on her back porch, perched atop her wicker Queen Victoria chair while lamenting the indignancies of old age. I remember sitting at her knee at the ripe old age of 5 as she described what a fine looking woman she was in her youth, "I used to have such a lovely pair of ripe cantaloupes here on my chest, and now there's nothing left but a pair of scrambled eggs."
Bernadine's boasts of youthful beauty were not exaggerated. While it's true that she never married in her life, she had managed to become successfully engaged five different times to five different men. Upon hearing this as children we would often look at her with incredulity. disbelieving that someone could become engaged so many times without actually getting married. "It's absolutely true," she quipped, "and I have the engagement rings to prove it."
"But Great Aunt Bernadine," we'd reply, "didn't you give the rings back when you called off the marriage?"
"Hell no!" she responded quickly, "I EARNED those rings, so I kept every last one of them."
Her womanly charms were evidently not limited to her many would-be suitors. There is an infamous four-poster bed which remains in our family to this day. It is a sturdy antique mahogany frame built by our great-grandfather. According to family legend, President Woodrow Wilson was passing through our town giving stump speeches to garner support for his League of Nations proposal. A very young and charming Great Aunt Bernadine was in attendance at the rally and was so enthralled by his oration that she somehow managed to obtain a private audience with him. They spoke at great length, well into the night until it was too late for him to check into a hotel. Being the ever gracious hostess, she offered him her own bed so he could rest for the evening before continuing on his campaign. To this day that bed is known as "The Bed that Woodrow Wilson Slept in." I asked her once if she was in it when Woodrow Wilson slept in her bed. She merely winked and replied, "A woman shouldn't reveal all her charms."
I quickly learned after that to stop asking so many questions...
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