Northeast Arkansas - grace grits and gardening

I’m Home!

January 8, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

I eagerly anticipated Tate’s college Christmas break.

I envisioned family meals spread on the dining room table night after night. Piles of beef tenderloin with roasted potatoes, pot roast and carrots, his favorite cream of mushroom soup… (Tate is my carnivore.)

Tate had visions of Burger House and late nights with friends.

I had grown accustomed to my tidy third floor. Tate had grown accustomed to apartment living.

3rd floor

There comes a time when Christmas decorations need to be taken down and put away. The tree, fresh and fragrant, filled with bright twinkle lights, became instantly frazzled and tired by January 1. Garland and tinsel and cherished vintage ornaments need to be returned to attic storage to rejuvenate and regain holiday magic for next year.

There comes a time when college kids need to return to college, bittersweet though it may be.

Sunday, Tate drove back to college to begin the spring semester of his sophomore year. As I watched the Redskins lose to the Seahawks, Tate sent me a text saying, “I’m home.”

What? Home?

I wanted to respond… NO, you are back in Fayetteville. Home is here in Dallas. With me!

But I knew what he meant.

We all have more than one home. Home is the place where memories are strung together like pearls on a necklace. The place where all our yesterdays live.

I’m home as soon as I cross State Line Avenue into Texarkana. I’m home as soon as I cross the Red River back into Texas.

I am home any time I’m with my family. I miss Tate already.

talya

Musical Pairing:

There’s No Place Like Home, Elvis Presley

p.s. I miss Kelsey too!

Tate, Kelsey, Zach, Taylor
Christmas 2012

Tonka Truck Tale

December 25, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

After crafting my letter to Santa, I proof-read my little sister’s. At the top of her list, a Tonka Truck.

“No, Staci! That’s a boy’s present!!!” I was incredulous. Although we both had tomboy tendencies favoring tree climbing to tea parties, she couldn’t waste her main gift on a boy’s present. Papa Creecy would buy us boy presents any time we wanted, at the mere mention of a matchbox car or a baseball bat…

Grateful to have been saved from such a misguided gift, Staci erased and erased and erased until she almost ripped the notebook paper. Over the bare worn spot, she wrote Baby Alive Doll in large block letters. There could be no confusion on Santa’s part. Much better, I thought.

Satisfied, we taped our letters near the rock fireplace in the living room. Santa would spot them the moment he slid down our chimney. I felt a bit sorry for Staci—her letter was really messy with all that erasing. I would have started over with a clean sheet of paper…

Christmas morning was cold and blustery and WHITE. Snow on the most wonderful day of the year! But the snow would have to wait. We crept into the living room wondering had we really been good enough? I had doubts.

Shocked, we stared dumb-struck at the Christmas miracle. Parked underneath the Scotch pine tree—a shiny Tonka Dump Truck and Front End Bucket Loader. Santa really didknow what we were thinking.

I was surprised to receive anything that year after making fun of my sister’s letter to Santa.

We played with those trucks for years, and to this day they sit on my mother’s back porch. Tonka Trucks are guaranteed for life, you know.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:

Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Jackson 5

“Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder

Jesus and Duck Blinds

December 10, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

A few weeks ago as I hiked trails around Eureka Springs, I saw Jesus peering over the mountaintop. Literally. The Christ statue welcoming everyone to the Passion Play—the Passion Play that is no more…

This sighting reminded me of the coldest night of my life. Which reminded me of the coldest morning of my life. Five-ish years apart, thirty-six years ago—just like yesterday.

coldest night…

In the mid-1980s, a beautiful warm fall day turned positively polar sitting in a hollow in the Ozark Mountains watching the Passion Play. Numbing gusts of wind blew off the hills and through the crowd. Everyone else brought blankets and sleeping bags to huddle underneath. We had nothing other than street clothes. Why we didn’t leave, I have no idea. It wasn’t the canned lip syncing that held our attention. And we knew how the story ended… Too cold to reason?

I was praying for a down-filled ski coat. Somehow we survived—an Ozark miracle.

Rewind to the winter of 1979.

coldest morning…

An overnight snowfall silenced Mississippi County. Before daybreak, as a pink glow began to spread along the horizon, my boyfriend and I hiked across a frozen field toward the duck blind.

I was prepared for cold weather, outfitted head to toe in thermal underwear, layers of clothing and thick coveralls from the Osceola farm implement company. The morning was exciting and exhilarating. I carried a thermos of double hot chocolate. He carried my gun. Romance ablaze in our own quiet snow globe.

Until.I.Slipped.Into.Icy.Water.

Like quicksand, my boot was sucked from my foot, the muddy suction noise alerting all ducks in Northeast Arkansas as to our camouflaged whereabouts.

Not one to complain, I remained unruffled even facing hypothermia.

I prayed to be delivered from such icy hell.

All that hard work, yet I would never graduate from high school…

Instead of succumbing to total doom, my boyfriend, a Bear Grylls-type, quickly removed my wet sock, rubbed my numb foot against his chest and held it inside his flannel shirt and coveralls until the blood flow returned.

True love. At seventeen anyway.

After a few hours, we made our way home—he with his duck limit and I still had all ten little piggies. A successful hunting trip.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.