Post #73 – Women’s Memoir Writing, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
Scrapbooking our Stories, One Memoir at a Time
Kendra Bonnet and I are delighted to share with you the Memoir Writing Honorable Mention vignette by Judy Watters. Never thought much about Groundhog’s Day? Well, this charming story will win you over and have you checking the Farmer’s Almanac to see if he’ll see his shadow.
MEMOIR CONTEST WINNER, HONORABLE MENTION
GROUNDHOG’S DAY 1956
Judy Watters
“Petinia, Petinia,” I yelled as I pushed and shoved to wake her. “Hurry, it’s Groundhog’s Day. I don’t want to miss the bus.” Groundhog’s Day was one of my most favorite days of the whole year. It was a big day for that lovable groundhog, Punxsatawney Phil.
“Petinia, what if Phil doesn’t see his shadow? That will be just awful!” I would be in fourth grade before I could correctly say Virginia.
“Ohhh,” Virginia groaned. “It’s still dark out, Judy. What time is it?”
Virginia continually tested me like that. She knew I was struggling with telling time, so she asked me often during the day to run and see what time it was. It was either that she was trying to teach me, or she was just trying to get some peace and quiet from my incessant questions.
I stretched over her and looked at the clock on the stand by her side of the bed. The long hand was on three and the short hand was just past the five. This was hard. I had to stop and think for a moment. I remembered the short hand told the hour, but the two hands were so close together. I didn’t hear Mom in the kitchen yet and that meant it had to be before six a.m..
“It’s almost six a.m.,” I announced.
“No, Judy,” Virginia moaned through her sleepiness, “what time is it exactly?”
“Oh, Petinia, it’s too early to tell time!” I whined.
“Then it’s too early to get up.” Virginia rolled over and pulled Grandma’s quilt up tight over her head.
I knew if I didn’t answer the time question, Virginia wouldn’t get up until Mom called. And I couldn’t wait.
I stretched my brain and in doing so remembered that when the long hand got to the six, then it would be thirty minutes and the short hand was past the five so even though the long hand wasn’t exactly on the six it was close enough.
“It’s five-thirty,” I proudly proclaimed. “and we’re going to be late!”
“Oh, we’re not going to be late, Judy.” Virginia peaked at the clock and groaned. “We still have another forty-five minutes to sleep.”
“Is that a long time?” I asked.
“Judy, just go downstairs. Let me sleep until Mom gets up.”
I realized at that moment that I couldn’t hear Daddy’s snoring in the next room. So that meant he was already in the barn. He would know about Phil. I quickly jumped out of bed and found my clothes that Virginia had laid out for me the night before. My panties labeled “Tuesday” lay on top of the brown corduroy pants. I quickly pulled both on and put on an old flannel shirt instead of the dress that she had planned for me to wear over the corduroy pants. I would wait until after breakfast to put on my school dress. I tied up my saddle shoes as quickly as I could.
I had become a master at tying my shoes over Christmas. Virginia made me tie shoes over and over and over as we sat and watched the Christmas specials on our new black and white TV. Neighbors from nearby farms came to watch “The Stingiest Man in Town” and Amos and Andy’s “The Christmas Story.” Eventually, I tied everyone’s shoes.
The enclosed back porch held all the winter coats and boots, along with the washing machine and the new freezer we had gotten the year before from GLF, the local feed store. My heart raced as I pushed my shoes into the black overboots. I wasn’t as good at buckling up my boots, so I just let them flap open. I knew Mom wouldn’t like that if I had to go through deep snow to get to the barn, but I was on a mission, and I had to see Daddy in the worst way. I plopped my earmuffs on my head, and then my scarf over the earmuffs and threw the tails over my shoulders. I grabbed my coat and reached for the handle of the back door.
“And just where do you think you are going, Miss Judy,” Mom asked as she came up behind me.
“Oh, Mom. It’s Groundhog’s Day, and Petinia won’t wake up, and I don’t know if Phil is going to see his shadow. I know Daddy will know, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“All right, Daddy’s almost done at the barn anyway. You might even meet him coming in. Let me help you with your boots.”
“Mom, it’s going to take too long,” I started whining just as the back door opened and in walked Daddy.
“Daddy, Daddy,” I squealed, “what about Phil? What’s going to happen?”
“It’s still too dark to tell,” Daddy said taking off his coat and boots. “But let me wash up and then I’ll get the Farmer’s Almanac, and we’ll figure that out at the table.”
Mom returned to the kitchen to stoke up the fire and get the pancakes on the griddle. I sat down on the back porch step to pull off my boots. The boots were always harder to get off than they were to put on. By the time I had taken off all my outer clothes, I could hear Daddy in the kitchen.
“Daddy, Mrs. Harrison taught us a poem about Groundhog’s Day. Want to hear it?” I asked, always ready to perform.
“Sure, I would love to hear it, again,” Daddy emphasized that last word for some reason.
I tugged on Daddy’s hand and pulled him over to his stool at the end of the kitchen bar he had made that served as the kitchen table as well as storage for dishes underneath. I stood in front of the sink, folded my hands in front of me and repeated, word perfect:
“If Groundhog’s Day be sunny and bright,
Winter again will show its might
If Groundhog’s Day be cloudy and gray,
Winter soon will pass away.”
“Oh, no, not that again,” Rodney grouched as he came into the kitchen. “Enough is enough!”
“That’s not nice, Rodney,” Daddy told him.
“But Daddy, how many times do we need to hear that?”
“Mrs. Harrison says that we say it until Punxsutawney Phil makes his appearance,” I said.
“Well, he better hurry up and get out of his hole so you can stop being so stupid. Oh, no, that won’t do it,” Rodney spouted.
“Come on,” Mom interrupted the beginning of yet another spat between big brother and me, “Breakfast is almost ready.”
“Okay, here it is,” Daddy said. “The Farmer’s Almanac says it will be bright and sunny today with the high of thirty degrees with a chance of snow flurries tonight. There you have it, Judy. Phil will definitely see his shadow and rush right back into that hole for another six weeks of hibernation.”
“Oh, good,” I beamed. “I can’t wait to tell Mrs. Harrison the good news.” If Daddy had said Phil would see his shadow, then Phil was sure to see his shadow!
Virginia brought baby Emery in and put him in the high chair just in time as Mom was serving up the pancakes with hot applesauce and hot maple syrup.
“Judy, can you say the grace?” Mom said. Everyone knew that breakfast was my time to say the prayer.
“God is good, God is great, and we thank Him for our food. By His hands we all are fed, Give us Lord our daily bread, Amen,” It was the same prayer every time, but I thought it was a good prayer. It covered everything.
Breakfast was not a time for a lot of chitchat; that would be tonight at dinner. Daddy finished first and hurried off to see if the Studebaker would start this morning. Even though he had parked the car in the woodshed and put several blankets over the hood, the temperature had been in the single digits for the last several days. But it wasn’t long before we saw Daddy drive the car past the kitchen window. He would have to go by way of the swamp road, as the snow had recently been plowed off to the side.
“You kids better hurry,” Mom warned. “You need to leave in fifteen minutes.”
The three of us raced to the bathroom, but of course, Rodney beat us there and swayed his body from side to side as he brushed his teeth. Virginia and I couldn’t get close to the sink if we wanted to. He was soon done though.
“It’s all yours, girls,” he grinned as he did a victory waltz out of the bathroom.
When Virginia and I were done, we joined Rodney on the back porch. He had already donned his winter garb and was on his way out the door.
Mom handed Rodney his sack lunch that held his bologna sandwich, apple from last year’s crop, and a homemade chocolate chip cookie. “Now be careful.” It never mattered where we were going, Mom always said, “Be careful.” I was never sure what I needed to be careful about, but it made me feel loved anyway.
Rodney grabbed the sack and accepted her kiss.
“Hurry, we’re going to be late,” I yelled.
Mom handed Virginia and me our lunches. Kisses were given, and we were out the door. Today we wouldn’t be able to take our sleds because the snowplow hadn’t been over the hill road in several weeks. So we walked as quickly as we could around the drifted snow and down the one-mile stretch of road that led to the bottom of the hill. Mr. Harrison, the bus driver, janitor and husband of my second grade teacher, never liked to be kept waiting, so we were sure to be there on time every day.
The forty-five minute bus ride seemed like two hours to me. I fidgeted and grew quite perturbed at having to wait at the many stops for different students to get on the bus. Once at school, I made a beeline to my classroom, getting there before anyone else.
I pranced into the room. “Mrs. Harrison, it’s Groundhog’s Day!”
“Oh, Judy, you are so right. Isn’t it exciting?” Mrs. Harrison was excited about everything. She took my hands, and we twirled once in a circle.
I looked at the February calendar that she had drawn on the board two days before using light blue chalk. She said the snowy skies of winter looked the bluest of the year. Today’s date, February 2nd, 1956, had a hand drawn picture of a groundhog. I loved Mrs. Harrison and her artistic flair. And she loved me, especially when I brought her the bouquet of pussy willows that grew at the bottom of our hill. She colored each little fuzzy bud a different color using her colored chalk. Mrs. Harrison and her beautiful box of pastel chalks were never too far apart.
“Mrs. Harrison, Daddy says that Phil will definitely see his shadow. Isn’t that great? The sun is shining so he must have seen it, right? That means six more weeks of winter, right?”
This was one person who never tired of my questions. “You are so right, Judy. Six more wonderful weeks of winter!” That’s why Mrs. Harrison and I were such great buddies. We both loved winter and everything that came with it.
When the other students came into the classroom, I had the privilege of announcing that Punxsutawney Phil had seen his shadow and was scared back into his hole for another six weeks of winter.
We spent the entire day talking about Punxsutawney Phil.
“If Phil’s twenty-nine relatives were ice skating and ten got cold and went home, how many groundhogs would still be ice skating?” The teacher could think of so many different word problems about Phil.
For history, Mrs. Harrison told us that the first Groundhog’s Day was in 1887, and he continues to come out every February 2nd on Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, 158 miles southwest of Wellsboro. That was an awful long way to go, but maybe, just maybe, I could talk Daddy into going there this year for vacation. I dreamed of seeing Phil in person some day.
In science, we learned all about the groundhog. We learned that Phil was a relative of the squirrel and is sometimes known as a woodchuck. From there, we had fun practicing the tongue twister that Mrs. Harrison had printed on the board.
We said it over and over in unison. “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”
She told us to practice all through recess, which we did. By the time recess was over, we could all say the tongue twister, but Billy could say it super fast.
When the bell rang, we scurried in and took off our boots, coats, scarves, and earmuffs, and stowed them in our cubbies. We laid our mittens on the radiators so they could dry in time for our noon recess.
“Now boys and girls,” Mrs. Harrison said, “who wants to come up front and say Phil’s tongue twister?”
I wanted to be the one to say it, but I heard myself chime in with the rest of the class, “Billy, Billy, Billy.”
Billy went to the front of the class and rattled it off lickety split. I was so envious of him. Even though I asked a lot of questions, my tongue never could go that fast.
“That’s great, Billy,” Mrs. Harrison said. “You may take your seat. Now, boys and girls, look at Phil’s response.” She turned and raised the map of the United States that she had pulled down to cover the board. Let’s read it together.”
“A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.”
I spent the rest of the day practicing the response. I couldn’t wait to tell Rodney this one. This was something he wouldn’t know, for sure!
It was very sad at the end of the school day, when Mary, the student assigned to the calendar for the week, crossed off February second. The tears welled up in my eyes, but I was careful not to let anyone know how sad I was.
“So Rodney,” I smiled my biggest I-know-something-you-don’t-know grin when I climbed on the bus for the trip home. “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”
“A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood,” Rodney grinned back at me.
Oh, well, Rodney did have Mrs. Harrison just two years before. Why shouldn’t he know the right response?
The ride home was bittersweet. I had just had one really fun day at school, Punxsutawney Phil had seen his shadow, there would be six more weeks of winter, and it looked like it was getting ready to snow again. I wasn’t surprised at the six more weeks of winter. Daddy had called it in the morning, and so it was a fact.
But as the sadness enveloped me on that cold bus ride home, I realized that a whole year would be a very long time to wait until the next Groundhog’s Day, and I was never good at waiting.
APPLESAUCE
Peel, core and quarter 8-10 Granny Smith apples
Put in saucepan with a cup of water
Heat, covered, and stir often so the apples do not burn.
Stir apples until they form a sauce. Remove from heat and add cinnamon and brown sugar to taste. Serve hot with any meal, especially with pancakes.
