Schelenbergs. Our new neighbors we very self-sufficient. He made furniture and they both had
the ability to grow just about anything.
He made a desk for our sunroom which forever after was called, of course, Mr. Schelenberg's
desk. Their backyard was large, just as ours was, but almost every available space was filled
with fruit trees, vegetables and flowers. They had a shed in their yard, and as eary as March,
they would start their seeds in a hot house frame attached to the shed.
They persuaded my Dad to try his luck with tomatoes and he had a huge quantity every
summer we were there. We relied upon the Schelenbergs for green beans, corn, cucumbers,
carrots, and just about anything else you can think of. Mrs. Schelenberg "put up" all the
bounty we could not handle during the summer. She also made jams and preserves from
the strawberries she grew and from the apple and peach trees. Until Mrs. Schelenberg told us,
I don't think any of the Hohlfelds knew the difference between or among preserves,
jams, and jellies. I remember preserves contain chunks of the fruit, jelly has no chunks, and
I'm not sure what Jam consists of. (It must be jelly cause jam don't shake like that.)
In addition to their growing ability, the Schelenbergs had something else we didn't have: a
basement. This meant we spent many a spring afternoon or evening sitting in their basement
waiting for tornados that never came. After the exchange of opening pleasantries, there was
little the old couple, the young couple, and their kids had in common. After my Dad and
Mr. Shelenberg exhausted the subject of baseball, we all just hung out until Mom thought it
was safe enough to head back to our own house. I think if she found it too boring the all-
clear came a little sooner than later.
My mother never overcame her concern about tornados. For some reason, when there was
the threat of funnel clouds during the school year, my Mom and Aunt Rita would pile their
toddlers into Rita's car, pick up her kids from school, head to Epiphany to get Diane and me and head for Grandma Santa's house. I still don't understand the thinking that went into
this but I guess if you don't have a basement you are apt to do questionable things to get
into one.
Of course, once we were at Grandma's house, word would go out to Rita's husband, Don,
and to my Dad, to meet us there for dinner. Toddlers had to be amused, diapers changed,
people fed. My sister and I would often sit under the huge dining room table and watch
the lower legs of the participants in this hodgepodge.
Grandpa Joe's favorite question for any and all grandkids was, "What did you eat today?
What did they feed you?" At least during tornado season, Grandpa knew what we were
eating on a regular basis.
After we moved to Tholozan, we had a huge basement and were lucky to be corralled on our
own property. When Mom said, "Everybody, into the basement!" we went. Sometimes
reluctantly, but we went. We would have a transistor radio, homework, reading, laundry,
many things to keep us occupied. Our dog, Fang, loved tornado season because it meant we
spent more time with him on his own turf. Poor Fang was pretty much an outdoor-basement
kind of a cur, because he couldn't learn to live with real people. My Dad read that terriers
loved to chase and bite things. So Dad would wrap his arm in old sweaters or jackets
and run around the yard so the Fang could chase and bite him. My Dad was a regular
St.Francis.
One Sunday afternoon, it started to look a little questionable, and Mom gave her "everybody
to the basement" directive. However, most of us just didn't see the point. Dad was used to it,
he just took the Sports Page and sat down in his desk chair. Mom did some laundry. The
four of us found today's imprisonment a little hard to take, especially since it looked
pretty good out the back door. Neil was standing by the back basement window and observed
the activity in the house behinds us. "They're drinking and barbecuing!" With that, we
decided to take our chances with nature's wrath. As we were traipsing up the stairs, Mom
emphatically said, "Well, we don't know what it looks out the front window." Also, it must
be added that the people behind us hardly let anything keep them from drinking and
barbecuing.
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