Little things are bigger in a place called home

I was in my hometown the past few days—getting to see people I love, do things I enjoy, visit places I cherish. 

I spent time with my parents and my young adult grandson, I attended a writer’s workshop and concert at Carl Sandburg’s birthplace, and I visited two libraries that helped in many ways to nurture my interests and provide resources as I completed my late-in-life college degree. 

It’s funny how such things, which appear small on first glance, can be so large when viewed through a stronger lens. 

My parents, as do I, continue to grow older – no brilliant observation, but one that grows clearer over time. Our time together, because of this, becomes more precious with each visit.

My grandson, once in our lives day in and day out, has grown up and no longer lives in the same community in which we do. It’s a joy to get to know the older him as he discovers who he is and where his life will take him.

The Sandburg Days writer’s workshop, an annual affair for me for a number of years, has become with distance a rare treat. Yet each time I attend, regardless of presenting author, I grow myself as a writer – and remember with renewed clarity how much and why I love what I do – putting words on paper.

Something that I find most encouraging about Galesburg’s event in honor of its hometown poet is the way the “Festival for the Mind” celebrates a diversity of arts, from poetry to photography, from encouraging budding writers to showcasing gifted musicians. It’s a special treat when one of those musicians happens to be a high school classmate come back to the ‘Burg to play a few tunes. 

I can’t remember a time I didn’t love books or libraries – from the first ones my mother read to me as a small child, to the ones I chose from book order forms in elementary school, to the diversity of genres I’ve savored as an adult. 

One thing is certain. No matter what community I called home through the years, one place always made it so – the library. And, of all the libraries I’ve visited in the past six decades, two stand out above all others – the Galesburg Public Library and Seymour Library at Knox College. 

At tables in the corners each of these repositories, I took sanctuary so I could study in tranquility. In the stacks I found books about subjects I was assigned and those I enjoyed. I savored and used as reference volumes about regional topics, looked with longing at names of people from West Central Illinois who worked with words – Carl Sandburg, Earnest Elmo Calkins, John E. Hallwas, Martin Litvin and more. 

As I did, I often mused, “Someday, perhaps, my name will be found upon these shelves.”

Though it still doesn’t appear as author, today I delivered to the archives at each library a volume I had the privilege to see even before it was a book – “Abraham Lincoln Traveled this Way: The America Lincoln Knew“ with photographs by McLean County’s Robert Shaw and narrative by Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame. 

Way in the back, on a line that credits those who helped to edit the copy, you’ll find this name: Ann Tracy Mueller. 

It’s a little thing – that string of 15 letters and two spaces – but gigantic to a former Galesburg resident who hoped for a half-century to add, if even a little, to the literary tradition of her hometown. 

In a way, perhaps, I have. 

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013

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A legacy of laughter—and of love

It was my first experience with death. I was 10, and our cousin was living with us for the summer, a city kid working on the farm. 

When I awoke that morning, this 15-year-old, had-to-grow-old-too-soon, was bearing the news that our grandfather had taken his last breath as he sat down on the edge of his bed after the 10 o’clock news the previous night. At 71, Grandpa’s life was over in an instant, due to a massive coronary. 

My cousin was in charge for the morning, while my dad took my mother to their hometown to be with my grandma. Together, this young man and I tried to comprehend our loss.

In talking recently with some of my cousins about that time in our life and the days following our grandfather’s death, I found we all have different memories. And, no matter our age at the time, we all saw life a little differently after that day. 

My strongest memory of those days is of one of my younger uncles, who was then in his early thirties. It was a couple mornings after Grandpa’s death, a day or two before his funeral. A number of us were sitting around the big table in Grandma’s even bigger kitchen, with its tall wooden cabinets, often-whirring treadle sewing machine, and heavy iron hand pump. 

I don’t remember for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, over her housedress, Grandma was wearing a homemade, flowered-print bib apron, a few straight pins stuck into the front of the straps, ready and waiting for the next sewing project. She usually did.

It was breakfast time, and the old two-slice toaster under the window on Grandma’s counter was working overtime. 

What a toaster it was! 

I’d never seen one like it before and I’ve never seen one since, but this toaster popped the toast high out of the slots and sent the slices soaring through the air. As kids, it was as exciting to watch that toaster as it was to walk to the small-town Ben Franklin with Grandma, crisp dollar bill clutched in hand. 

This uncle was always quite a clown. My mother tells stories of how, when he was a young lad serving as an altar boy, my uncle would push the paten under her chin to try to make her laugh as she received Holy Communion.

And, yes, even in grief, he knew how to bring joy to the moment. 

As we sat around the kitchen that day, my uncle took my grandmother on his knee. We children had never seen anyone bounce our grandmother on their knees. Soon all three generations were in stitches—and not from the treadle machine on the far wall. 

A few seconds later, the next two slices of bread flew through the air. As my uncle caught the flying toast, his tiny Irish mother balanced on his knee, we giggled more, and all knew that, even in our loss, we had each other. We’d be all right. 

I learned a couple of lessons that day—how much comfort can be found in a family making memories and that a little laughter can go a long way toward soothing hurting hearts. 

Yesterday, my uncle left us to join Grandpa and Grandma. As I stop to remember his life and his legacy, the laughter is once again the thing I remember most. 

He didn’t leave us as quickly as Grandpa did. Cancer took its time in claiming my uncle’s life. 

He fought it with courage, and I’ve no doubt one of the tools in his arsenal was his sense of humor. 

More than 50 years later, hearing the news of a loved one’s passing isn’t any easier, though. 

I love you, Uncle Lyle. Godspeed.  

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013

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A 60th birthday gift to my high school classmates

This week, the youngest member of my high school class turns 60. That’s right—the entire Costa High School class of ’70, a bunch of Central Illinois Catholic kids who grew up in the ‘60s—are now a couple decades older than those teachers we thought were “older than dirt” were back when we were raising Cain in our gender-segregated high school classrooms. 

When I celebrated my 60^th birthday earlier this year, it looked as if I were going to be spending the day alone. My husband was still living and working a state away, and my daughters and families both lived hours distant. I planned to eat a frozen Weight Watchers cake for breakfast, work, and mope about being alone on my big day. 

My family had other ideas. 

Using some sort of social media magic (the Facebook event function, I suspect), they threw a surprise card shower for me. I got birthday cards in the mail and greetings on my Facebook page for days, some from a few of those long-lost classmates. It was a day to remember. 

Even better, instead of 60, I felt about 16. We aren’t 60 the way our parents and grandparents were 60. 

Baby Boomers don’t get old, do they? I know, there’s probably some kind of saying about that somewhere: “Old Baby Boomers don’t die, they just … ”

As the rest of my friends turned 60 throughout the year, I often posted messages such as these: 

“Happy birthday, So-and-so! We’re going to rock 60 like it’s never been rocked before.”

Or 

“Welcome along as the Class of 70 rocks the sixties once again.”

Every time I shared a greeting, I wished I could give each of my friends a gift of some sort. Like many, my budget just doesn’t allow for 70-some gifts for classmates and other friends my age. 

A rite of passage

One day, I realized that, as a health care communicator, perhaps there is a gift I can share with my fellow Friars and friends. It’s a reminder that it’s time for another rite of passage. We’re old enough now. 

Just as we once reached an age when we could receive our First Holy Communion, vote, be drafted, or drink, we’ve reached the age when we can get a shingles vaccine. 

What, you wonder, is the big deal about that? If you’ve ever known anyone who suffered through shingles, you’ll know. If you haven’t, this video will help you understand. 

I did it

I got my shingles vaccine a couple months ago. 

It’s not a cheap immunization.  I was lucky. My health insurance covered it in full. Coverage varies by insurer, but one thing’s sure. You can’t put a price tag on pain—so this preventative measure is worth the cost. 

Class of ’70, as we turn 60, happy birthday! My gift to you is this reminder: Protect yourself. I don’t want to read a message like this on Facebook:

“Crap. Sure wish I would have gotten my shingles vaccine. This itching and burning is killing me. I feel so miserable can’t go golfing (fishing, dancing, hiking) or ride go karts (bicycles, Harleys, jet skis) or play baseball (basketball, soccer, pool) with my grandkids.”

After all, you can’t feel 16 if you’re hurting like a sick 60-something, can you? Get that shot, Class of 70. 

Happy 60^th!

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012  

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Jennifer Niven does it again with ‘Becoming Clementine’

I first heard the name Jennifer Niven back in the early ‘90s, about the time her mother Penelope Niven’s nearly 900-page biography of Carl Sandburg was published.

In a lecture at Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg, Ill., Niven shared a story of her young daughter, growing up with a mother “obsessed with a dead guy” as the elder Niven studied the prairie poet.

I’m not sure if it were the mother’s pride, her storytelling abilities, or her optimism, but I was convinced that day that not only the elder Niven, but the younger one, too, were to leave marks on the literary world. 

My suspicions were correct. 

Today, Sept. 25, is the release date for Jennifer Niven’s latest novel, “Becoming Clementine.” 

Jennifer’s name was splashed across a page – a screen, actually – shortly after her mother’s Sandburg biography was published. The daughter’s first work was an Emmy award-winning screenplay, “Velva Jean Learns to Drive.” 

Jennifer followed that with a non-fiction arctic adventure story, “The Icemaster;” the biography of an Inuit adventurer, “Ada Blackjack;” a memoir of her own high school years in the big hair days of the 1980s, “The Aqua-Net Diaries; “ and two novels, “Velva Jean Learns to Drive” and “Velva Jean Learns to Fly.” 

It seems as if life itself is an adventure for Jennifer, and it shows in her books. A diligent researcher, Niven leaves no pebble unturned, yet gifted storyteller, she knows how to weave a tale without threads that go astray. 

In “Becoming Clementine,” Jennifer continues the story of Velva Jean Hart, the character who endeared herself to us in the first two novels. In the series, the author invited us along with the young girl from the mountains of North Carolina as Velva Jean learned to drive, to sing, to fly a biplane, to serve her country as a pilot. 

The latest novel adds to the adventure in ways most of us would have never expected when we first met the young girl. In a quest for her missing brother, the pilot Velva Jean finds her way to Europe.  Once there, as she enters the field of espionage, it may seem as if we’ll lose our Velva Jean when she becomes Clementine Roux.

Yet, be she Clementine or Velva Jean, the adventurous spirit we grew to love remains ever determined, gutsy and inspirational. Just as she’s done in each of her previous works, Jennifer Niven holds her audience spellbound from the first page to the last and sets the stage for Velva Jean’s next adventure.  

What’s that? 

How does 1940s Hollywood grab you? Guess what Velva Jean wants to be next.

Isn’t Jennifer lucky that she can help make Velva Jean’s dreams – and her own – come true and keep us entertained in the process?

© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012  

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