Being A Life Long Learner (LLL)

As I stowed casserole leftovers in the fridge last night, I thought, I should bring some of this to my folks. But then, I wondered if my simple shepherd's pie would be, well, too simple. At 86 years old, my father has become a close to a gourmet chef. Mind you, he and my mother are from the generation where the man would never set foot in the kitchen and the woman took care of all domestic household chores, including meal prep. Yet, a few years back, Dad developed an interest in cooking. He buys cookbooks at yard sales, checks them out of the library, and gets recipes and cooking tips on line. He makes everything "from scratch" -- no short cuts. He bought a freezer to put in the basement so he would have more room for his home made chicken stock and garden produce.

And, like most of the "greatest generation" who came of age during the Great Depression, he is quite thrifty. Have chicken bones? Make your own stock. That's much cheaper, and so much tastier than buying it in a box at the grocery store. Grow your own garden -- and he has expanded annually, growing tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, lettuce, peppers, squash, and herbs. Now that Spring seems to be here, our chats have focused on planting, growing something new, cooking and preserving the garden bounty.

My Dad has always had various interests and hobbies, for as long ago as I can recall. Bass fishing...antique collecting...gardening...and now cooking. He knows his way around the internet, self-taught. He is still eager to learn more, do more, explore something new.

How cool is that?

Reflecting On Our Irish Heritage

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! My Aunt Ruth Riley always said, after this day, spring is here. In my family, we didn't do too much on this Irish day of celebration. My mother -- who is not Irish -- would dutifully cook a corned beef and cabbage dinner to mark the occasion and we'd have some bakery made Irish soda bread, too.

My Irish ancestors came to Fall River from County Cork, in the later 1800's, living in what is now known as the Corky Row District. John and Catherine Riley and their brood. They were a smart, industrious lot, the women rather bold for their day, attending high school and even college, living singly or divorcing. It was a matriarchal family system, unconventional in that time; my father spent his formative years growing up in a tenement house on High Street, with his mother, uncles, one aunt, sister and grandmother. The aunt toiled in the city's mills, spending long hours winding bobbins and chewing tobacco, which inevitably claimed her life. Eventually, my father and his sister moved to Somerset with his newly remarried mother and there, they left those early rough-and-tumble Fall River memories behind.

As with most emigrant families, the early memories of arriving in this great melting pot quickly fade. The Irish in Fall River -- and all over Massachusetts -- quickly overcame fear and bigotry. Catholic churches were built shortly after the first wave of emigration; St. Patrick's Church, "the Irish church" in Fall River was built in 1875. Irish social clubs were founded. Political influencers were born. My grandmother was a die-hard Kennedy family fan her entire life, forever honoring her roots.

Today is a day to celebrate our Irish heritage as well as recognize the trials and triumphs of all arrivals to this great country.

Collecting Flow Mulberry (Obsessive Collections Disorder)

I wouldn't classify myself as a hoarder. But, like most antique junkies, sometimes a little thing catches my eye and then one little thing is not enough. A few years ago, my mother, who always has a good eye for fine collectibles, spotted a little inky purple and cream plate at a local flea market. She paid a few dollars for it and presented it to me: Do you want this dish? It looks old.

I immediately loved the little plate, a perfect piece of flow mulberry. It was clearly marked "John Alcock/Cobridge" and "Vincennes". The Kovels website states that "mulberry ware was made in the Staffordshire district of England from about 1850 to 1860. The dishes were decorated with a reddish brown transfer design, now called mulberry. Many of the patterns are similar to those used for flow blue and other Staffordshire transfer wares. Oriental motifs, floral patterns, romanticized landscapes, and historical scenes are some of the patterns that appear on flow blue and Mulberry ware, and other colored transfer patterns."

Part of collecting -- and becoming obsessed with the objects of one's desire -- is learning about them. And, like falling in love, there is always something about the object which is irresistible. In this case, the somewhat blurry purplish design and landscapes were fascinating to me.

Since then, I've acquired a number of Vincennes pieces, some like new, some with crazing, chips or other defects of age and use. I've been able to buy the less-than-perfect dishes and bowls very reasonably, and while they will never have great resale value, I so enjoy them displayed on the living room mantle. And it all began with a single flea market find. Thanks, Mom!

The Old Killingly Hill Church

This area of Putnam was once part of Killingly Hill, the site of an early settlement and anchored by the old circa 1818 First Society church, northeast at the Aspinock crossroad. The church, although not active for many years, continues to be maintained and is a local landmark. Flanked by maples and pines, this quintessential New England scene is photographed particularly in autumn, and frequently visitors with their cameras are crouched in our narrow front yard, trying to capture every bit of pristine beauty. We've witnessed marriages on the granite slab steps of the church and know that this place calls those who know it and has for hundreds of years.

The history of the old church is entwined with every colonial inhabitant in this village, every home, every headstone in the Putnam Heights cemetery. I purchased a history of the church including a transcription of its birth, marriage and death records. There I found most of the inhabitants of this house, at some milestone of life or death. I learned that the roots of the church began in a crude meeting house at the highest point on Killingly Hill. A more formal church was built in the 1700s at the northern end of the common, but later was moved to its present location. Periodically perusing eBay, I have acquired two photographs of the church, but at different periods -- the steeple was altered after a hurricane in the early 1800s.

The blacksmith's daughters told us that this house was built the same year as the church, although there aren't any records that verify this. My theory is that the original "front cape", which is just a center chimney two room structure, with a fireplace in each room, was a hostel of sorts for colonists who may have had to travel some distance in all manner of weather to attend church.

Visible from every east-facing window, the old church is a favorite muse. At sunset, the steeple and weathervane are illuminated pink or gold, depending on the western sky. The moon rises over its hulking silence, and then the sun climbs over the hill behind it as day breaks. There is an unmistakable ebb and flow of hours and days, of generations gone and those to come, the continuation of humankind.

Mulberry and mill towns

Our old house is well known in our parts. A blacksmith, and his wife, lived in the house for over 50 years before us. They were quite self-sufficient: the wife had a large garden, and canned until she couldn't anymore. On the small acreage, there was a horse, a few milking cows, pigs up in the back field, and a chicken coop. A wood stove heated the "front cape" and a coal burning cook stove heated the kitchen ell. There was no central heat until the couple was into their nineties, and the wife, during a stint in a local nursing home, said she wouldn't return home until there was a modern furnace. So, in 1995, an oil-burning furnace and hot air ducts were installed. But still, after the wife died, the old blacksmith reverted to his old rituals of wood burning -- collecting, cutting and stacking downed branches and trees, much to his daughters' dismay.

So everyone knew the old man. For at least three years after we bought the house, people would stop by, admiring our restoration efforts, and inquiring about the previous owner. We told them that his health had failed, he had gone to the nursing home down the road, and that is when he sold the place, but that he had come back for a visit not long before he died. His daughters brought him, so he could see the house again, and the barn rehab. And he seemed pleased with what we had done.

Our old house is perched at the crossroads at the old Killingly Hill church, precipitously close to the roads to the north and east. Our protection from wayward plow trucks and speeding teenagers is a tree, a very large tree, in the tiny front yard. It towers over the house. We had just begun some major structural work in the summer months after buying the place when one of the contractors asked about the big tree. He had noticed that the branches had leaves that didn't look at all alike, and that fruit was falling from it, staining the roof, and the road. Some research quickly revealed that our main defense from the road was a mulberry tree. Another mulberry tree grows in the center of the back field, but the trees don't look alike, although their fruit does.

Was the mulberry tree planted hundreds of years before, evidence of an effort of early settlers to start a silk industry? Or, perhaps, more likely, it is a native upstart, allowed to grow and flourish for the same reason we appreciate it: a natural barrier from the unnatural. Several years ago, a local historian provided me with a photograph of our home around 1930. The mulberry tree was only about ten feet tall.