Ten-Finger Exercises

Memory (while it lasts) Lane

Saw my first neighborhood Kool Aid stand this evening. Too bad I was in a hurry to get to the first night of a ten night series grief group, or I would have bought a cup out of solidarity. Even if I don't have fond memories of Kool Aid.

I had a lemonade stand. We lived with my grandparents on the main intersection in Carmel, Indiana. Why anyone would stop on a busy highway I don't know, but they sometimes did. We only had a caution light then, and maybe there was a parking lane that I don't remember.

Mother made the lemonade for me the first time, out of real lemons. She "set me up in business." I painted the sign and taped it to the front of a card table. She gave me a big wooden chopping bowl with some change in it, and probably Dixie cups. A couple of truckers stopped, and a few people getting gas on the opposite corner crossed over. Mostly it was kids though.

I don't remember any other details except that I was supposed to buy the ingredients myself next time out of my earnings, and that somehow there were no earnings. Mother said the kids probably took money out when I wasn't looking. It was very disappointing.

I don't know why she didn't have me make the lemonade, but it wasn't her style. Anything I learned about cooking, my grandmothers taught me. Or the mother of a friend, who taught me how to make a meatloaf usiing the broken eggshells to measure the liquid and make neat nests in the ground meat to pour the eggs and liquid in before squishing it all up. Mother hated the squishing part, but she didn't let me do it for her.

Another thing I learned from a friend's mother was ironing. When Susie got started by ironing pillow cases and handkerchiefs, I asked if I could do that too. Mother thought it was too important that Daddy's handkerchiefs look just right for me to do them, and I don't know what her excuse was about pillow cases. Probably the same.

Why is this "Down on Mother Day?" I don't know! When I was putting cookies and crackers out on plates for the group tonight, I thought about the time she asked me to do that, and then said, "Can't you try to make it look pretty?" It's true that I'm much more intuitive than sensing. Maybe it wasn't my talent, or that it hadn't occurred to me to try. I wonder which?

The group went well, although smaller than we expected. One woman in her 90's just lost her husband last month. That's a little early to be involved in a group, but then at that age, maybe she figures she shouldn't wait. She was more reserved than the others; I would think she would still be in the 'can't believe it's real' stage.