Refrigerator Tales

By Nancy Everill Hoffmann

Refrigerator Tales is a collection of humorous and heartfelt short stories about a mother raising three adventurous sons and a strong-willed daughter in the pre-cellphone era of the 80's and 90's in suburban Philadelphia. From the sidelines, she watches her children play pranks on one another and sometimes step out of bounds. The mother struggles to restrain from interfering with her kids' questionable decisions, trusting that things will work out… and they usually do.

The stories will be familiar to those who raised a clutch of children before the internet age. Summer vacations camping in Acadia. Kids getting lost without GPS. Sibling breakfast squabbles. Having to wear grandma's ugly sweater. The alluring freedom of skateboard culture. An awkward meeting with the principal. A skiing trip to rural Maine at night in a snowstorm. A teenager's last Halloween. These stories and more capture the bittersweet beauty of kids growing up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667839622

Book preview

Acadia Park, 1982

We’d driven past the oversized model of a green moth that sat outside its namesake restaurant, The Green Moth. The wire cage surrounding the insect made us laugh, as always. Jack and I had first seen it just after we married and made our first visit to Acadia. Now, we’re traveling with our three sons—Bob, Alex, and Matt— who’d once visited the park to climb Bubble Rock and to see the view from the top of Cadillac Mountain, the deep blue water of Penobscot Bay dotted with near and distant islands.

On this vacation, we were staying in Blackwoods campground for two weeks and have time for biking, swimming, and hiking, now that Bob was ten, Alex eight, and Matt six. Soon, we’d be setting up tents and beginning our two weeks of sleeping and cooking outdoors and taking cold showers.

Restless, knowing that the end of the journey was close, Alex and Matt began to look for the box of toys they’d packed. They had books and several hero action figures with them- that was all. I’d insisted they keep toys to a minimum.

The box might be under something, I said. I could hear their mumbles that they didn’t find the box.

No, I don’t think so, Alex said. I crawled around back there and didn’t see that box. I know the box they’re in.

You were supposed to pack the box in the car, Matt said.

I did, Alex said, and someone took it out.

When you get to the campground, you won’t miss them, there’ll be so much to do, I said. I was hoping to silence my doubts.

I can’t believe it, Alex said. No one answered. Bob was asleep; he’d been experiencing a growth spurt, which caused him to sleep for hours in the car. He and Alex were usually the ones to get in tussles and arguments, but Matt, the easygoing brother, had showed annoyance. He was still more interested in the superheroes, and hoped Alex would improvise or figure a way they didn’t need them.

With a glance in the rearview mirror, I saw that Matt had black ink on his fingers.

Is that one of Dad’s pens?

It is, but not one Dad needs anymore, Matt said.

But it’s leaking!

I’ll be careful, Matt said. The pad of paper he was drawing on was small, so I was sure his jeans would be covered in ink. The rug in his bedroom was ruined because he liked to paint hunched on the floor where he wasn’t always able to control paint that crossed beyond the paper’s edge.

Jack kept his attention on driving, occasionally lifting his eyes to the dark sky ahead. I knew he wondered how we’d set up the tents in the pouring rain.

Upon reaching the gate, the park ranger assigned us to a site on a hillside that made it hard to find a level spot for tents, but at least the fireplace circle and table area were flat. I put all the food boxes and pots above ground, safe from squirrels. Waiting to set up the tents, the boys tested how to roll out their sleeping bags. Was it better to sleep with your head lower than your feet, or the other way around?

Once the car was emptied, no toys showed up. Alex searched under the seats and pushed his hands down into the spaces between the cushions. Triumphant, he came up with a battered Lone Ranger, four inches long in a faded blue outfit, also a green water pistol.

I think it works, he said, beginning to fill the gun with water from our big plastic jug.

Jack needed help supporting poles while he staked the ropes. He looked at Alex, then called for Bob.

You always ask me, just because I’m the oldest.

Jack and I were a bit deaf to Bob’s complaints because we were both oldest children, used to being asked to help. It was probably true that Alex got away with helping less, making himself busy or disappearing just when he was needed. And Matt, as the youngest, often escaped helping.

Get over here and help, Alex, Bob yelled.

Dad asked you, Alex said.

You can both help me, Jack said. Now!

Alex and Bob walked to the sagging tent, spread loosely on the ground, propped up with a center pole. I saw Alex take a jab at Bob, which was a mistake, even he’d admit. Bob was bigger and usually won these bouts. So Bob gave him a shove back. Alex bent sideways, as if he’d been knocked hard.

Jack saw the way the nonsense could get out of hand and he gave each boy a corner. I should have started dinner right then. The food I’d planned was simple and they’d be getting hungry soon, but I had the impulse to go off alone, to escape from the pent-up tension of the long car ride and do something that would make the evening more fun.

That's what I was thinking when I started out to get firewood. The sky continued to threaten rain. I told myself a campfire would be a good beginning to our week here. While the older boys were working on the tents, Matt was just watching. Better not to bother them, I decided.

We had neighboring campers on both sides of our campsite, so I headed farther away, looking for a place where the ground wasn’t so cleanly picked over. I didn’t find any decent-sized sticks, not even small pine twigs until I was far beyond the sounds of the campers.

Maybe I didn’t notice how far I’d gone as I started loading up my arms in a tight pile. When they were level with my chin, I turned to go back. I wasn’t sure in which direction to head. The woods were fairly open, so I thought that by just going downhill, I’d get back.

I walked awkwardly with my load, stopping every few minutes to see if I could hear campground noises, but there was quiet in all directions. I thought to look at the skyline to see if I could detect any setting sunlight, but the tall trees blocked the horizon.

Though I was comfortable in the woods, as my father’s companion on many hikes, I never liked to be out once the sun went down, even though the long afterglow gave off plenty of light at this time of year. After a few more minutes, I shouted, not Help, but Hello? Anyone out there? I didn’t hear an answer, so I picked up my pace, thrashing a little wildly over the uneven, stony ground. I stopped to yell again, then twice more. I now regretted my impulse to just take off, to be unaccountable to all of them.

I reached a lower portion of the slope with a steeper angle of decline than our campsite had. I’d missed the campground, certainly, so I climbed back up a little and walked horizontally against the hillside. Finally, I heard them calling. Was it Meg or Mom they were saying? I gave my loudest return yell. Slowly, we came together to find each other through the pine brush. We gave hugs and fired off questions. I attempted to explain why I’d left. My plan for a campfire seemed to surprise them.

When the boys were asleep in their tent, Jack asked me why I’d gone off to get wood. Again, my reasons sounded silly: I wanted us to have a campfire or I needed some time alone? Maybe it was the long car ride?

When Alex discovered that the toy box was missing, I said, it scared me, but I’m not sure why. Jack didn’t quite understand what I didn’t understand either, except I felt it would be hard to be together for two weeks with no toys. I couldn’t imagine how we’d manage so long without things to play with.

I won’t do it again, I said. I felt a bit reckless.

Good. It’s not a good example, Jack said. We were glad to find you.

Yeah, I know. It made me happy, too.

The next morning, we awoke to drizzling rain that sounded softly on the tent’s roof. Jack made coffee on the cook stove and brought in a cup.

Alex is up, he said. He’s making a fort.

I stuck my head out through the tent flap, and saw him sitting on his haunches by the picnic table, breaking twigs, fixing them in the ground, building a wall. Soon Matt, his hair sleep-tousled, not talking so early, squatted beside Alex.

You can get sticks this size and break them. It’ll be a square fort, Alex said. I just wish we had more figures than the Lone Ranger.

Matt moved away to find sticks, adding to the pile that Alex had inserted in a growing line.

From a large nearby rock, where he sat eating his bowl of cereal, Bob looked at the fort. I waited for his negative comment, but he was silent. Alex and Matt kept working without talking. Bob watched a few minutes longer, then started making his own pile of twigs on the opposite side of the fort. He drilled them into the ground with a twisting motion, following their pattern and meeting them at the corner.

This is where we should have a blockhouse, Alex said.

We can do it, but we need longer sticks, Bob said, and then turned to the woods to look for them.

Want another cup of coffee? Jack asked.

Yeah. I loved just resting in the sleeping bag, watching the three boys working, sipping coffee. No one mentioned that I had said there’d be pancakes for breakfast. Maybe this week is going to be all right, I told myself.

Bike Loops

After the first week’s camping in warmer-than- usual weather, a perfect day for biking arrived. A cool, light breeze lifted the napkins on the picnic table. Jack spread out the park maps looking for a place where we could choose either longer or shorter routes to bike around three ponds. He suggested that Matt and I could take the shorter five-mile loop around Eagle Lake and Half Moon Pond. He would go with the older boys to the farther small pond called Witch’s Hole.

At the car park, while Jack was still thinking about either staying with us or going with the older boys, Bob jumped on his Mongoose bike and started off with Alex who was yelling from behind to wait. Jack called them both back.

Here, look where you’re going, he said. They looked at the