Sunday, December 14, 2014

Memories near the holidays, my dad and "Squirrel Brains"!

Found this old picture of the Messere's in front of old Tubbert's Restaurant
one the old North side of Syracuse. I am the little girl in the middle sitting down, 

my cousin Gerri on my left and my brother on the right!
Around the holidays people tend to talk about  their family who are now gone.  Remembering their mom or dad with a bit of a tear here, or sadness... because they are gone …Not me, as many times as I think of my father it is not with sadness.  No I don’t tear up with remembrance,  I usually am breaking out in a laugh.  This Sunday morning while I cleaned the kitchen was no exception.

When dad retired he used to work with me helping with my little contracting company or helping me with the new house I bought to refurbish.

When I lived in Syracuse he used to come over early for coffee because he claimed we had the best water (Skaneateles water) and his Solvay well water was far too chlorinated to make a good cup.  Of course… we also had a Mr. Coffee and not mom’s boiled and perked until it was dead coffee.

One morning he showed up while I was making toast and the toaster kept popping up.  In truth it had been doing it for more than a week.  I would punch it down and it would pop back up.  Chris’ cousin Donna had given it to us used and we had worn it out I thought.  I asked my father if he could take a look at it. 

He drolly replied, “Have you ever cleaned it?”  I said. “What do you mean?”  He said,  “You know cleaned it?”  With that he turned it over and there on the bottom was a little door that once opened dropped a pack of bread crumbs onto the kitchen cabinet.  He then gave me his most dreaded statement … the worst criticism that I could ever hear from my father if I screwed up…”Squirrel brain!”  Yes “squirrel brain”….Ouch!

Well today I was making toast and the same thing kept happening... I put the toast down… it would pop up!  Eureka! I knew what to do… turn it upside down and open the little door and shake it clean… This was an easy solution. 


So I turned it over and at that same moment realized I had the fan on the counter on high to move the heat around the room from the wood stove.  Just as I shook the crumbs (tons of them) out…bam!  The air filled with crumbs that were sent over my entire clean kitchen… and so l started laughing and laughing.  If someone saw me they would for sure have thought I was daft.   But I was thinking about my dad.  I knew that somewhere.. up above…ole dad was saying…”Squirrel Brain!” Ouch!

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Wine, December Birthdays, and Santa Lucia Day all rolled up in one!

December 13th was the birthday of my friend Chris and on this weekend we used to drive out to Swedish Hill Wineries to buy wine for Christmas presents and to enjoy a tradition that the owners celebrated with special treats and music…Santa Lucia Day!

Today the feast is celebrated on December 13th though it was originally celebrated on the darkest – shortest day of the year December 21.  In America we call her St. Lucy, though Santa Lucia day is celebrated in Italian, Germanic and Scandinavian countries like Sweden.


In Sweden custom has it that the eldest daughter gets up early and wearing a traditional dress of white with a red sash and a crown of leaves and berries that holds candles… wakes the family singing “Santa Lucia” and feeding them coffee and St. Lucia buns. The candles as a symbol of “light” why in some places it is called the Festival of Light!

Lucy the saint was born in 283 to rich parents, losing her father at an early age.  It is said she refused to marry giving herself to God becoming a “Virgin Saint” who has been regarded as doing many miracles. She is also the Patron Saint of Syracuse, Sicily, where the legend states that she ended a famine on her “feast day” when grain loaded ships sailed into Sicily’s Harbor.

Wonderful traditions and stories like these are what make this season special…not just Christmas with it commercialism…so I hope all families everywhere remember (or make) their own family traditions and pass them on to the young and to their friends. 

So tomorrow our little group of museum friends will be celebrating December Birthdays and Santa Lucia Day!

I myself wish Chris was still alive and we could continue in our little holiday “Tradition”, the wine was just a bonus!

Well sing Santa Lucia with Elvis...think Tradition!



Thursday, December 11, 2014

A Christmas story about a upstate NY Saint, Kateri...

I have been thinking about past Decembers and remembered this Christmas season story from 2013 that brought news of the canonization of an upstate New York woman known to many simply as “The Lilly of the Mohawk”, Kateri Teckawatha. 

Born at the Mohawk fortress of Ossernenon (New France) today’s Auriesville, New York, of a Mohawk Chief and a converted Algonquin mother, Kateri was our first Native American saint.


Kateri’s life was a life of turmoil losing her mother and father to a small pox epidemic at 4 yerars old, surviving the disease herself with a terribly pocked face and poor eyesight. She was taken in by her Uncle a Turtle Clan Chief who was not favorable to the Catholicism of her mother. The rosary that was the only thing she had of her mother’s was taken away from her. Ossernenon later burned and the grouped moved to today’s Fonda, across the Mohawk River.

Kateri never married and was not only ridiculed because of her holiness, but also because of her unwillingness to marry. She was baptised into the Catholic religion on Easter Sunday in 1676, taking the name Kateri, which is a Mohawk pronunciation of the French name Catherine. Fearing for her life because of her devout nature and resolve to remain a virgin, eventually taking a vow of “Chastity”, she was driven out of the Mohawk village and moved to the Native American Christian community of Kahnawake in Canada, where there is a shrine to her is today.

At Kanawake she tended the sick and elderly where it was recorded that she practicing “mortification” to make her more holy. Kateri died age the young age of 24. It is at her death that it was recorded that her face immediately changed, all her disfiguration vanished and her face became white like marble. Her last recorded words were “Jesus I love You.” It is held by traditions that she healed many of the people who attended her funeral as well as it being recorded that she appeared after her death to people.

Today many have asked for her for intersession and she was made “venerable” in 1943, by Pope Pius the XII and on in 1980 by Pope John Paul II beautified her. This year on December 19, 2011, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints certified a second miracle through her intercession, which has led to the announcement that she will now become a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church.

Auriesville itself was named for the last person to leave the settlement, Auries, and today the site is open to the public to honor the Jesuits Saint Isaac Jogues, and his companions, Saint René Goupil and Saint Jean de Lalande, who were martyred by the Mohawk.

The Auriesville Shrine (Ossernenon) also honors Kateri with a special Chapel and with the story of the settlement and the saints in a museum on the grounds which overlooking the Mohawk River, The National Shire to this venerated Native American rest across the river at today’s Fonda.

Her tombstone testifies to the name she is often call “Lily of the Mohawk” it reads: “Kateri Tekakwitha – Ownkeonweke Katsitsiio Teonsitsianekaron – The fairest flower that ever bloomed among red men.”