Parenting When Nearing Dotage

By Howie Barber

Have you ever wondered what ever happened to all those priests who resigned in 1968? Some have. Well now, search no more for an answer to that and other pressing questions. At a time when American women were having their last child at age 29, the author and his wife were having their first at 35. Having children when your peers are having grandchildren is worthy of our consideration and is one of several subjects of this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Jun 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781489736291

Howie Barber

In deference to the tales in this book, I was born in Valley Heights, Minnesota on January 4, 1937. That places me well into the fourth month of my 85th year. My wife, Clara, is six months behind so she has two months left in her 84th year. We have been married for more than 51 years. As you will shortly learn, many stories in this book make a great deal of fuss over the fact that we did not birth our first child until we were 35 and our last child when we were 38. Let me explain the two questions this raises: what’s the big deal about having children in your middle to late thirties and, if that’s a problem, why did you wait so long. These tales were written forty years ago. At that time the average American woman had her last child at 29. So we were getting in the birthing business a better part of ten years later than the norm. And that scared the living bejeebers out of the medical profession. In the forty years since our procreations, things have reversed 180 degrees. Now it’s very common not to start child bearing until one is well into their thirties. So, for the end result, we were not normal in the 70s, and would be super normal in the 2020s. Women are the cause of this big turnaround. In our time, they did family first and career second. Now they do career first and family second. And there, my friend, is a super-simplistic explanation of a very complex demographic. The answer to the second part of the question is a bit more direct. My wife, Clara, and I were married in our early thirties. And, I, basically, am the reason. I was raised in a Valley Heights “German” Catholic environment. In those early days, I clearly remembered the Armistice Day Blizzard, Pearl Harbor and the Normandy Invasion. For those of us in that Catholic environment it was drilled into us that God had something in mind for us that was called a vocation. Screwing up that call could possibly send us on a well-worn path to perdition. So those things played constantly on my mind through high school and especially while on dates with those wonderful young women who consented to accompany me to proms and homecomings and snowballs. Couple that with all the priests and nuns suggesting that I had a special calling to get myself to the seminary and eventual ordination to the priesthood. So my choice, since I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do in my life (I found that out in my fifties), I was torn between that senior prom date and the seminary. Fear of potential fire led me to the seminary. Fourteen years and six months later I learned of my potential to direct my own life and resigned the priesthood. So, if you’ve ever wondered what happened to all those priests who resigned in 1968, a partial explanation is contained in this very book. Clara had also avoided married bliss until our time. Early in our marriage we experienced a consistent reaction to our real and supposed past. For me, after a friend learned my history, “OMG you’re one of those.” For Clara, the reaction was always a question, “What convent were you in?” Clara was, in reality, a personal secretary to several very successful independent business men. The events in this book take place beginning ten years after our marriage in 1969. We could have made that a few months earlier, but it took a full year for Clara to propose. There is more biography than this, and that is possibly another book. This much is included here to help you understand the carrying-on in this book.

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Copyright © 2021 Howie Barber.

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-3627-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-3629-1 (e)

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 06/08/2021

CONTENTS

Flavors of Children

Part 1   Mostly Children

Out with the New, In with the Old

If They Sell It, There’s a Refund.

Healthy Living: The Scream

Got Pets?

Baseball-32 Innings a Day

Alone With Nothing To Do.

Just The Facts, Madam

Family Banking Problems

Avoiding War?

Disease-The New Status Symbol

Winter In Big Bend

Family Council Shows Leniency

They Outgrew The Babysitter

Bills, Bills, Bills

The Worst of It?

Words--I Thought You Meant…

Mystery: What’s a Four-Buckler

The Cars In My Life

Inflation, We’re Rich, We’re Ri...

Rules, What Rules?

Galloping Middle Age Ennui

Precious Moments

Adult Graduation Time

Non-working Workers

Lake Superior North Shore Escape

Change of Season Discovery

Thanksgiving 1979

A Houseful of Full-Time Students

Basement Theater

They Are Just Little Things

Survival At All Cost

Green Lawn...Ha!

Housekeeping-Don’t Waste Your Time

The Conversion of a Cat Hater

As Winter Comes, The Forts Go

Days Are Numbered For Those Flies

Must Stop Getting Older

May Log Jam

The New Public Pillory

Parenthood = Ticket To Heaven?

Humdrumism

Preparing for a birthday party

Anniversaries, Better Than Honeymoons?

Get to School-Please

A Disturbing Nocturnal Report

Talking theology with a five-year-old

Spring Weakly Arrives

Picasso For Kids???

Space Shuttle Byproducts

Blame It On The Vacuum Cleaner

Family Column Ideas, Do Not Bet On It

My Typewriter Talks Back

The Summertime Routine

Mom and Dad Take a Winter Break---Ha!

Diagnosis Battle

A Nice Quiet Night At Home

Qualifying for Debtor’s Prison

Part 2   Doubling Down With Foster Babies

Foster Care, No Pregnancy Needed

A Toddler Arrives

Diapers

No Developmental Delay Here

New Rules For A Growing Family

More Family News

Babies to Brats

Part 3   General Stuff

As Told By Dad

It’s 35 Below And We’re Fine, But

Lesser Events of 1979

The U of M Searches For A Football Coach

Fall To Winter In One Day

Watching In The Spring

Take A Letter--To Anybody

This Little Town Had It All

It Doesn’t Work!

Buy Our Car And We Will Sue You

Looking Back on 1980

No Thanksgiving Column This Year

A Written Christmas Scene

No Yuks in Today’s News

A Loving Creator and Joyous Creation

Three Dads, Five Sons, Take a Trip

Year 1982 Stuff

We? Those Teeth Are Mine

1984 Crystal-Balling

Part 4   Valley Heights Tales

You Can’t Escape Valley Heights

Valley Heights Happenings

Thanksgiving, Childhood Memories

The Town’s Chicken Shepherd

What Season Is It?

City Dumps

Lash LaRue and Saturday Confession

Class Reunion, 1979

FLAVORS OF CHILDREN

The other day we received a bumper sticker from the Hennepin County folks who look after kids without homes: Foster Parents Make a Difference-B1. Not bad, I thought, but they didn’t ask me before they went into production. I would have suggested: Foster Parents Have More Kids Than They Do.

All that got me to thinking about our couple of years in foster care. I know others who have had 139 kids in 40 years. That makes our venture one of rookie status, at best. Depending on how you total it, we’ve had six or seven in two years. The two we have now have been with us for about 2 and 1/2 years between them. 1 1/2 plus 1 equals 2 and 1/2.

They were very young when they came, so we’ve had the privilege of raising them from sprouts. Since we did the same thing with our two birth children, we think (I think, my wife wants nothing to do with this discourse) we’re somewhat expert.

What I’ve been thinking about, after that tedious introduction, is how much alike kids are. I mean kids of different colors. We haven’t had all possible colors yet, but most of them. Our kids have ranged from strawberry flavored to chocolate. We had cherry but no lemon yet. Kind of a rainbow connection if you think about it. And some politicians have

We have learned that still too many people like to think about different flavored kids in terms of stereotypes. A stereotype, for example, is all Farmers have big feet. You know the other ones, especially those for chocolate chips. I’m not even going to give nod to such silliness by mentioning examples.

What I am going to do is list a whole new set of stereotypes that you can apply to whatever flavor of kids you wish. Chocolate, vanilla, cherry, lemon or strawberry. Even licorice if you believe there is such a kid. I think they’re mostly chocolate. These stereotypes were brought to mind by our 16 month old chocolate kid; you can substitute whatever flavor you like and get the idea:

Chocolate kids don’t like wet diapers and cry in the middle of the night to let you know.

They crawl through their daddy’s legs.

They are afraid that you will go away and leave them alone.

The first word that chocolate kids learn is no and the second is bye.

They like to pound on the piano.

Have belly buttons.

Don’t like shoes.

Are ticklish.

Walk bow-legged.

Bump their heads a lot.

Have snotty noses most of the time.

Want their mother when the virus hits.

Can communicate with their mother without saying anything.

Admire their big foster brother or sister.

Chocolate kids fuss when they’re hungry.

Love to play Ring Around The Rosie.

Get up at 6 a.m. on Saturdays.

Suck their thumbs just before they go to sleep.

Laugh at big brother’s antics that aren’t even funny.

Like hugs.

Chocolate kids look glassy eyed when they’re sick.

Use pencils long before they know how to write.

Smile when you call their name.

Get what they want long before they talk.

Bring you all kinds of things you don’t want and didn’t ask for.

Like to go outside.

Are afraid of fighting and angry shouting.

Chocolate kids know where the trash can is and what to put in it.

Especially, they like to get up in the middle of the night and sleep in mom and dad’s bed.

If I became King of the world, I would make one law. Vanilla parents would have to take care of chocolate kids, lemon parents tend to cherry kids and so on until everybody had a year or two with all of the flavors.

Things would get better, I’ll bet.

PART 1

MOSTLY CHILDREN

OUT WITH THE NEW,

IN WITH THE OLD

The other day, I saw someone wearing black and white shoes. What are those? I asked. Saddle shoes you nerd-wimp, the wearer responded. Saddle shoes! Oh yeah! I vaguely remembered the girls wore them in the early 50s and the boys wore them some years later; golfers wear them all the time. It all came back to me, the older I get, the more things keep repeating themselves. Stuff that I used to know, then forgot, now I again remember. They say, history repeats itself. Even so, I never before had experienced anything like this...

As I entered the combination kitchen-dining room from the attached double garage, my wife was at the table with onions and dried bread. She was crumbling the bread and chopping the onions. Over on the counter was a round naked product, lying back side down, legs up, in a pan.

What’s that? I ask. A chicken, she responded, hardly aware of the significance of my question. A chicken? I said, where is the third leg? It’s a roaster, she said.

Well, I had prepared renowned feasts in our backyard and was not impressed by this whole, two-legged thing that had flopped into our roasting pan. I even felt slightly superior when I noticed how the two stubby legs barely cleared its potbelly. It appeared that even my food was coming to me out-of-shape. Strange things always happen at our house, so I continued my business and ignored the strange bread and onion and celery, goings - on in the kitchen.

I returned a few minutes later and she was still there with the crumbling bread and chopped onion.

Do you want me to cut that sucker up? I asked.

No, I’m going to stuff it. She continued with the dried bread and the chopped onions

I became concerned, even slightly frightened, stuff it. My wife was not the hostile type.

Still that bird laid there with those two legs in the air. We often had chicken, especially since beef (hamburger) priced itself out of our market. Yeah, chicken, but never this whole thing with those two legs. I didn’t know what to do. In desperation I pleaded, do you want me to start the charcoal?

No, she responded, I’m going to roast this one.

As a theatrical device, I had always liked the roast: When you leave it’s going to take a lot to fill your shoes, about 12 shovels full. Classic lines. But roast that thing laying in the pan? Why? It has never done anything but maybe lay a couple eggs. But then, haven’t we all?

At that time she took the critter and shoved all of the bread and onions and celery into it and put it in the oven and slammed the oven door shut for a very long time. Much later, the kids came to the supper table.

What’s that? They said. I knew that meant, I don’t like that!

That’s roast chicken with dressing.. I answered. They looked at the backyard at the grill.

But there’s no fire out there, they said.

This is the way we used to eat chicken before they invented smoker kettles, charcoal and three-legged birds.

I was actually defending the stuffed bird; it all came back to me. The Classic Home Meal, out of the past. The Sunday treat with all the trimmings and lots of gravy. And we were having it on Thursday. No plastic wrap, no microwave just hours in the oven. Roast chicken and dressing I remembered, and I was humbly proud

The kids wanted to know where the third leg was.

IF THEY SELL IT,

THERE’S A REFUND.

Old lady Dingleburp’s home in Valley Heights was haunted. All the kids knew it. If you got too close to the brick and iron fence surrounding the place, she would chase you with a butcher knife. All the kids knew it.

There were lots of stories about that place, and when the fire engines came roaring up one day, all the kids were there. Smoke appeared to be billowing from the basement windows, but it was hard to tell because there was a strong wind blowing. The fireman entered through the root cellar, and very shortly, emerged laughing. There was no fire at all, and that wasn’t smoke. It was dust. Old lady Dingleburp saved every product carton that came into the house. Those boxes were stored in the basement to collect the dust of ages. The strong wind had blown open some windows, and the smoke was dust.

Every time I tell my wife that story, her pulse quickens, and she starts to drool, Do you think that house is still there? Maybe those cereal boxes are still in the basement. Let us go by there the next time we’re in Valley Heights.

Cereal boxes play on her mind. She has become a full-time Refunder, and cereal boxes are her bread and butter. For the uninitiated, refunding is based on the premise that every label, every box and wrapper, every container of any type used to transport any item sold in America, will someday have a monetary value in the form of a refund. With a proper cash register tape affixed, of course. Refunder should not be confused with discounters who save coupons to get $0.10 off at the time of purchase. However, if you live with one, you probably live with the other.

Here’s the way it works: companies offer deals like, $1 refund with three labels and the amount paid circled on the register tape. It’s a good deal if you use the product in question. It’s a bad deal if you go out and buy three of something you don’t need. refunder avoid that pitfall at all costs. They never throw anything away.

For example, there is a $2 refund from a paper diaper company. But you don’t need paper diapers (he’s potty trained now.) But a good refunder doesn’t care, because somewhere in her files are the carcasses of the diaper boxes that were saved in those Halcyon Days that predated the potty training. Now only a vague historical landmark, that useless cardboard is suddenly worth 2 bucks. And that’s the way it works.

I first noticed my wife’s activities when I caught her picking at a ketchup label in one of our area’s finest restaurants. At first, I thought she was nervous. Then I realized that she was trying to remove the label.

What are you doing? I asked. I need this label for a dollar fifty refund, I already have two, she said. I’m not sure I fully understood at that point. It did explain all the jars and bottles that have been floating around in our sinks.

That very evening, I got into bed and felt something on my foot. I extracted my foot and found it wrapped by a Quickie Oats box. I stuck the bedecked foot towards her and asked, what’s this?

It’s my other Quickie Oats box; I thought I had three of them. It seems that she was sorting and filing stuff on our bed so she could watch the game shows and somehow that oats box made a break and had gotten stuck under my covers. I’m thankful; it could have been an empty ice cream carton.

Responders are not satisfied with sorting through their own trash. They take on the neighbor’s. In the long run they may be good for the environment. It is not uncommon to see my wife chasing a milk candy wrapper through a crowded parking lot. We check the trash barrels at campgrounds in parks. Those people eat lots of beans and hotdogs and there are always offers on them, she claims.

Rides in the country are new adventures. Stop the car, there’s a pantyhose wrapper. I would have thought that she could have supplied her own pantyhose container, but I learned that she doesn’t buy them anymore. Gets them free when she buys coffee.

Everything has changed for us since the refunding started. We do not take a constitutional on Wednesday morning anymore. That is the day all the neighbors put their garbage cans on the curb.

HEALTHY LIVING: THE SCREAM

My wife screams sometimes. Sometimes, she screams all the time. She is a full-time student and not doing too well in Spanish 1. Maybe that is why she screams. She even screams at me, until she realizes that I’m not one of the kids.

This story is about one day in her life when she did not scream. Refused to screen. Faced every assault with calmness. She held out for a whole day, and in a certain sense, won the battle. She did not scream

It began the other morning when she got up at 6:30 and altered the cuffs on our girl’s Brownie suit. This girl, once awake, would be my wife’s protagonist for the rest of the day.

The child arose, and, with surprisingly little fuss, put on the Brownie clothes. Rarely does she dress without changing three times and raising General Cain about what she will wear to school. This six-year-old has staying power when she makes up her mind. When she was a baby, we would say, let her fuss, she’ll quiet down soon. She never did. She could raise hell all night long, or until she got what she wanted. Twenty minutes before school she screamed that she would not wear the Brownie suit to school and changed into jeans. My wife didn’t scream back. Not one little bit.

It was Tuesday, and the first grader didn’t have lunch tickets. A check had been sent the day before for a book of tickets. The girl decided not to buy tickets since she found she had one left. The school only sells tickets on Monday. My wife, still not screaming, sent a note to the teacher pleading for a Tuesday purchase of lunch tickets. Coming up with $0.55 for the next three days would be near impossible in our house. Somehow, the teacher found a way and forestalled mother’s plummet over the brink.

By 7 PM, after minor challenges and skirmishes, my wife had not screamed. She was studying Spanish and the girl was coloring near her.

Our nine-year-old boy appeared and asked to stay up and watch a special on TV. Fourth graders in our family get certain privileges not granted first graders, and the answer was, yes.

Can I watch too, she challenged. No, mother responded calmly.

I’m not a little girl anymore, she screeched. I’ll get up right away tomorrow morning, without crabbing. I never, never, never get to do anything. No, my wife responded, not even warming to the challenge.

The girl didn’t give up but mounted a frontal attack on her mother’s armor of calm. She screamed and hollered and insulted and threatened. Stop your yelling or go to your room; I don’t want to listen to it. Calmly spoken, no hint of scream.

Now back in her room, the challenges to rightfully established authority continued and continued for the better part of an hour. Then all was quiet. Much later the girl showed up at the table where my wife was still studying. She wanted to color. No, it’s time to get ready for bed now. I’ll read you a story when you’re ready.

Not quite licked yet, she fired off one last volley. With her most challenging and demanding voice, she asked for a granola bar. Yes, you may, my wife responded. It was over, my wife did not scream the whole 13 + hours. No matter what the challenge. Not once did she raise her voice.

This story is written as told to Howie by his wife, who was at the Sunny Farms rest home. Our family is assured that she will return soon, just as soon as they can find a way to stop her screaming.

GOT PETS?

In a family with children, you will find that the house tilts slightly towards the parents’ bedroom. Even more true is this astounding fact if the family