This is the second in some stories about growing up in Plymouth in the 1950s.
Growing up, I recognized that my father had a keen sense of proprietorship concerning our house and its land. Several times a year on a Saturday morning, he would announce from the pulpit of the breakfast table: “Today we’re clearing bushes” or “Today we shovel the driveway” or “Today we burn the lawn.” Those days he usually made dollar pancakes to soften us up, but these statements struck fear into our hearts, like those of a New England Puritan preacher. The driveway was a quarter mile long, the land was about five acres, and my father had an addiction to kerosene.
Our house was three stories, with weathered gray siding, dark green shutters, and three brick chimneys. It had been built in the mid-1800s by a man named Hornblower, and its many windows stared out at the water of Massachusetts Bay. There were five terraces leading up to the house from the main road, wild and full of brambles and wild blackberries, and some had even been other sites for the house. My father told me he had seen pictures of the house, raised up on a huge platform, being dragged down the hill, to be repositioned on the first terrace, next to the road, and the foundations were still visible in some places. There had even been a turret on one side of the house, but it had fallen off in a move.
The next terrace up had ancient apple trees that bore fruit sporadically. My brother and I had once tried the apples but decided that the small, tart fruits weren’t worth the briar scratches on our legs and the burrs in our socks. The third terrace was half-full of day lilies, which bloomed spectacularly in summer, painting the terrace in brilliant orange, and they spread a little each year. The fourth and fifth terraces were thick with bushes and brambles, the object of my father’s desire to clear, and he always established a beachhead for burning on that fifth terrace.
In retrospect, he could have hired a plow to do the work and he had a friend who owned one. However, undaunted in his belief we could do the job ourselves, and probably to save money, he made the whole family – except maybe Mom – suffer together in true pioneer fashion. Never mind that the job couldn’t be done in one or two weekends. So with much of the brush remaining after our Herculean efforts, only to regrow thick and lush the next year, we waited at the breakfast table for the annual announcement.
Clearing was always done in late spring and early fall, when it was warm and humid and the poison ivy in full bloom. Dad would get a burning permit from the town and start bushwhacking early Saturday morning with his machete and a scythe. My mother, brother and I would pull on old gloves, whose insides smelled and frequently contained small bits of yuck, and follow behind Dad, grabbing the cut brush and dragging it to the towering inferno he would create with liberal splashes of kerosene.
In the early days, when no one was particularly good at recognizing poison ivy, I usually came down with a good dose of it and would be wearing pink calamine lotion for the next week or so. Burning poison ivy was also unsafe, because the smoke, when mixed with sweat, also required calamine treatment. My loathing of this green weed only grew when Mom told me that years before, some crazy relative had died after eating poison ivy on a dare. Thereafter I carefully inspected every load of brush we dragged to the fire and tried to stay upwind of the smoke. My brother mocked me. Poison ivy didn’t affect him and he was never subject to the humiliation of sitting in a classroom with a pink-coated face, being driven crazy with the itching.
I came to regard my mother as the smartest one in the family, beginning with the very first time we bush-whacked the terraces. She would haul brush for about 30 minutes and then engage my Dad in a short discussion.
“John, I think we’ve just about cleared this area.” That would be followed by a grunt from Dad, who was dripping sweat into his eyes and trying not to slash himself with the machete.
“Would you like something to drink? You must be getting thirsty.”
“Sounds good.”
“OK, I’m going to head in and I’ll bring you all out some lemonade, after I start lunch.” Then Mom would retreat to the house and wouldn’t appear until she called us for lunch. The lemonade would be on the table when we slogged inside. I never knew exactly why ham sandwiches took the entire morning to make, but whatever Mom was doing, I would have been only too happy to help her.
In the winter, “the family must shovel” pronouncement usually occurred after several feet of snowfall. Inevitably, the snow blocked the back door. In that case, the easiest way out of the house was through the cellar, since Dad hermetically sealed all the other doors of the house to keep out the cold. We would assemble on the stairs leading up from the cellar to its double doors and with might grunts, would heave upward, dislodging a pile of snow which would rain down inside our clothes. While most of the day would be spent clearing the large parking area in the back of the house and making two straight lines the width of the car axle down the driveway, there were also a lot of snowball fights and general mayhem.
Dad’s belief that burning a lawn in the spring made it come in rich and green – why didn’t he think the same thing about the brush? led him to get another burning permit from the town. So one Saturday morning, he would set fire to the lawn by sprinkling it with his favorite flammable material, kerosene, and dropping a match. Before he did do, however, we had to make preparations. We filled buckets with water and lugged one to each of the four sides of the lawn, with two on the side adjacent to the house’s long front porch. Then Mom assembled as many old towels as she could find and soaked them in water from the hose and put several by each bucket. The hose attached to the spigot on the north side of the house and she coiled it, waiting for disaster.
I always stood at one end of the lawn, my brother at the other, and Mom on the porch to watch the progress of the fire. Dad would stand next to the flag pole on the edge of the lawn, just above aforementioned site of the twice annual towering infernos. He ceremoniously dropped matches here and there and the fire spread. We all concentrated on its movement, using the wet towels to beat out any errant flames. It never failed that the wind would rise, and the flames would march on the house or the flag pole or Mom’s rock garden. Then everyone would beat wildly with their towels and sling water on the flames and sometimes each other in an attempt to control the burn. The house never did burn and my mother never used a wet towel. She used the hose.
Our neighbors found the whole process amusing, and it was quite normal to have a couple of them watching from the side of the lawn where I was stationed, yelling “Hey Noelle, watch those flames off to the left! Don’t let it get near our fence!” but chuckling as they watched us flail with the towels. For some reason, they had absolute confidence that the fire would never spread to their property.
We showered vigorously that night, but since Sunday always followed the day of the big burn, the family had to go to church. I noticed right away that other parishioners gave us a wide berth. Why would anyone want to sit next to someone still reeking of smoke and kerosene?
Dad, the non-Catholic, got as far as the church with us, but wisely stayed in the car with the window open, reading the newspaper.
Great tales of a slightly crazy childhood! My dad never did things that wilds, but when we needed a new septic we kids did dig the whole thing. Giant pit for the tank, 200’ of drain field. Wouldn’t have been so bad if not for the clay layer, but somehow even when we hit that, we kept going. Of course, we probably didn’t have the money to hire a backhoe to do it in a single afternoon. And thank heavens there’s no poison ivy or poison oak in Western WA, so that stuff never entered into any of our activities.
I think having to dig a new septic tank is a great tale! Thanks for stopping by!
Hilarious! I kept reading, thinking there was some point where this would sound properly nostalgic, only to itch in sympathetic horror over the poison ivy.
I do itch when I tell the story!
I love the humour in your storytelling.
You can love our parents and still think they did crazy stuff.
Or clever stuff – like your mother retreating from the bush-work to spend the whole morning making ham sandwiches.
She was very smart that way – it took me a while to figure that out! Thanks for stopping by!
I think the only thing I remember of note was when Dad built a new patio out the back, and one of those concrete mixers delivered said concrete, which had to be moved through the garage to the site. I was old enough to push my load in a toy wheelbarrow that ended its life as a plante, so I couldn’t have been much more than six at the time.
Strangely, I woke up thinking of kerosene yesterday – specifically dipping peas in it when planting them, to deter the mice from digging them up. The dream ended with ‘but nobody has kerosene anymore’.
Life certainly was strange then 🙂
Thanks for THAT memory, Jackie. I have one similar which I will share one of these days. I replied to you and it showed up at the end of these messages and also under John Howell. This new blog site tends to put replies where ever it wants. Hugs!
Your Dad was quite a character, and your Mom definitely knew how to manage him. It is hilarious, I agree, although only from the distance of time. I am sure it must have been mortifying at the time. Thanks, Noelle!
Those are some great memories. Your dad sounds a lot like me when we were younger and couldn’t afford to hire someone. I’ve now reached that age where I much prefer paying someone to do the work. In fact, we lost a tree a couple of days ago (blocking the road) in a tremendous storm, and a company is out there right now dealing with the mess.
Wasn’t it? But somehow fun! You reminded me a pouring concrete for our basement, another story that will show up one day. I’ve never heard of dipping peals in kerosene – that’s a new one on me!
Thanks, Pete. Disregard the reply below – it was meant for Jemima, but this new iteration of my blog has my responses going all sorts of places. I think Dad didn’t trust anyone to do things for him – he always did it himself, including painting our flag pole! Hubs and I firmly believe in hiring someone who knows what they are doing to take care of the big tasks!
This is a fabulous story, Noelle.I can just see your dad marshaling the troops for whatever was the torture of the day. Well done.
Thanks, John. There will be more – he was great at giving orders. We called him the Cruise Director!
That is great.
Wasn’t it? But somehow fun! You reminded me a pouring concrete for our basement, another story that will show up one day. I’ve never heard of dipping peals in kerosene – that’s a new one on me!
In retrospect, he certainly was. We called him the Cruise Director. And yes, Mom learned how to deal with his schedule of work for the family!
Your dad sounds like a fun guy even though you probably didn’t think so as a kid!
He was a bon vivant but could be overbearing at times. He did not spare the rod! Thanks, Priscilla. I suspect everyone has stories like this about their fathers!
My father had ‘notions’ according to mum. Not quite as extreme but equally annoying. One involved cutting the grass at my grandma’s. Her house was built into the hill and the slope from the road had thirty some steep steps. Normally cutting the wild grass was a hands on knees and shears operation but once dad decided to tie his new mower on a rope and dangle it down the slope pulling it up and letting it down. On the third strip the rope broke allowing us to watch the escaping mower disappearing down the road with dad in hot pursuit… thanks Noelle for the memory. I’m glad dad never discovered kerosene
What a fun story, Geoff. I think your dad’s idea was smart but he definitely needed a stronger rope! I take it he didn’t try it again? 🙂 😉
Fun story, I’m glad that you have it to look back on and to share with us.
Thanks, Rosie. These stories will go in book about growing up in the 1950s!
What colorful memories, Noelle! May I say that your childhood home sounds gorgeous. Although I wouldn’t have liked participating in the brush clearing or lawn burning, the setting sounds like a fantastic place to grow up.
Your dad had some interesting ways, LOL, and your mother was quite clever. I loved this post!
It definitely was, MC, although of course I didn’t realize how lucky I was at the time I wish I could go back, enjoy it thoroughly and thank my parents for giving me such a treasure!
What a beautifully related memory, Noelle. Despite the seasonal work, it must have been amazing to grow up in a huge historic house in such a picturesque location. Hugs.
It was, Teagan. I consider myself very lucky!
This is wonderful, Noelle. Oh, to have had such a childhood that brings back such brilliant memories (however they felt at thetime!). A great chuckle moment or two for me. Thanks. x
Thanks, Judith. While it seemed onerous at the time, it’s fun looking back!
Oh, Noelle, I really enjoyed reading this! I could really picture you and your family following Dad’s orders. Your mother did seem very wise in her ways. Thanks for sharing this 🙂
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Barb! Yup, my mom was the smartest of all of us. I did have a great childhood thanks to my parents.
Same here 🙂
Fascinating childhood you had, Noelle! It certainly wasn’t boring with everything your dad had you do. Your mother was clever, I agree. 🥰
Never a dull moment with my dad! He had his faults but gave his kids a great childhood, along with my mom.