Felix Is Saving For A New Gig; Grandma Lu Is Finding Answers

 Felix loved the sunshine and his beautiful new home. "Oh this is the life. I've given up on my old life with Santa at the North Pole and moved further south where the sunshine actually warms my old bones. It didn't take much to get adopted by these people. All I had to do is get on a computer and Google someone that wanted a cat. Of course, I gave Santa a year's notice.  I've been here for awhile now, but their computer or internet is down. I'm not good with that. My new job at the Historical Society of Long and Forgotten Felines means I need to have access to a computer. I've got a zoom call scheduled for this afternoon with some future clients that would like to join. If they join that means I can start saving up for a better gig.  I've been watching over there at Marleewood. They have a doggie door I could sneak into, but they also have a dog that I can see in the window. I wonder if he would be much of a problem. I might just saunter over there for awhile and lay on the steps in the sun to see what he would do."

Laura had just stopped by to see if Grandma Lu was there, but found that she wasn't. She would try to see if she could catch her at home. She called Patches and then Marleewood was empty.....

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The next day Grandma Lu decided that she would go through her mother's papers again. It was a long task, but oh so very interesting. "They sure put things in the paper that they don't nowadays. This ad on how to put up peas takes me back to when I was just a child. My mom had a huge garden. She used to tell stories on how I used to "help" her. When she was planting pepper plants I would pull them out because I thought they were weeds. Weeds had to go you know. One year my Uncle Leslie's sheep got into her garden and ate all of her pea plants. They ate them clear to the ground. Oh how she scolded her brother for not making sure they were far away from her garden. As the story goes she never had a better crop of peas. She canned 99 pints of peas that year. I can't even imagine how many days that took. I do remember her picking peas and as she picked them she put them in her apron and walked back to the old farm house. Then she sat in the doorway where there might be a breeze. She shucked them for 'a mess' either for eating or for canning. Sometimes the peas were muddy from a rain so then she would put them in water she pumped from the well and washed them. Then she would spread them out on one of her dishtowels to dry. What a long process it was in those days. She didn't get a freezer until I was about ten I think.

Grandma Lu sighed and thought of her mother's youngest brother Leslie Allison Banister. He lived to be over one hundred one years old. He was the oldest World War II veteran in the county. She and her husband had visited with him a few months before his birthday. He was hard of hearing and had poor vision, but when I mentioned his Aunt Nettie he chuckled and said, "Aww yes, the old spinster. She was something." The word spinster has carried with it a connotation of  'not worthy of marriage or too old for marriage' for centuries. Nowadays being a single woman usually means a career woman that wears power suits, including astronauts, CEO's, editors Oh so many differents careers that are now available for women.. Of course, women are single for an assortment of personal reasons. I know many women that just like being single.  "You just don't hear that word spinster much anymore. Of course, Uncle Les's aunt wanted him to go to college like she did. However he loved the farm and later owned a mill that he took to farmers to grind their grain. He did that for many many years.

 His grandfather took barley for over fifty miles with a pair of oxen to have it ground. And my mother would buy fifty pounds of Gold Medal flour from the store to bake her rolls, bread, cookies and cakes for a little over two dollars. (My great grandfather bought the farm we lived on for a little over two dollars for an acre.) I can remember she sold a dozen cinnamon rolls for thirty-five cents. Then she would use the flour sacks to make my clothes. "Oh mom, the work you did for your family. I never once heard you complain. Look at this. You made the news! It's so interesting how the generations correlate down through the ages."

She very carefully started going through the yellowed brittle newspapers and said to herself. "I knew you would have this Mom. The poorly spelled Banister history from Aunt Nettie ( the college graduate) that was printed in the newspaper in the 1920's. Oh I have to have a cup of coffee and sit a spell. This is so cool. Then I need to call my brother and then I'm going to see if I can't copy this for my nieces and nephews and grandchildren. It's a little scary because they are so brittle. Okay here we go." I should probably call Grandma B and let her know what I'm doing. I won't be over to Marleewood for awhile. I really want to get this done."