Saving Memories, Losing History

The last thing my mother taught me was how to light the oven in the RV.  I had loaded the rig with a couple hundred books and two cats. This was my maiden voyage in the Sun Raider. The self-promoting book tour for The Last Voyage of the Cosmic Muffin.  Mom’s health was failing during July and early August yet she insisted on showing me how to light the oven. She hardly had the energy or strength get into the camper. I kept saying she didn’t need to show me. But she insisted. She laid on the floor to point out where the pilot light was located. I don’t think I ever really saw it as I knelt beside her staring deep into the black reaches of the oven. I’m not even sure if she managed to ignite the pilot. The whole moment was a trial, but I do remember thinking that this would be the last time Mom would ever again be in the Sun Raider.  I didn’t know this to be the truth.  The next morning I drove away. The last time I saw my mother smiling and waving she sat in a lawn chair at the end of the driveway.  And I never once lit the stove until this year, nine years later.  This is a memory I shared with no one else.

Last night I warmed some Italian bread to go with our spaghetti dinner. Getting the pilot light lit was not a problem.  Lighting it was part of my all-systems-go check.  But keeping the fire burning in the oven was another story. It kept going out. And this morning when I tried to make toast the same thing happened. Dad thought it was the wind. It sure has been windy but seriously, not in the oven.  And although I got dinner made tonight – hobo stew – the flame kept puffing out.  Well, there is the microwave.  If Mom had trouble like this she would not have been cooking baked ziti, stuffed shells and other signature meals.  Dad doesn’t remember any problems with the stove, but then again he doesn’t remember the water leak either.

Where do these things go missing? Why do I store the small detail of Mom showing me how to light the oven?

Besides the oven, I’ve discovered other stuff that’s not right.   After fixing a nice mocha drink to take to watch the sun break out of the clouds, I found the drink with a foul taste.  The culprit, the water from the rigs tanks.  I’m so glad I’m not sailing in the middle of the ocean. The water is bad.  I ditched the drink and in Cape Vincent bought four gallons of water.  The tanks need to be flush and re-sanitized before we kill ourselves with cholera or some other third world disease.  

I try to keep Dad busy with useful chores. The cleaning the water system is a good one, but I’m not ready to do it. I need bleach and vinegar.  Maybe when we get to the next campground.  Meanwhile I assign tasks.  He hooked up the rig to the electrical outlet. Yeah that’s right. Plug it in. He tightened the nut on the side mirror which kept turning inward every time he closed the passenger down.  He attempted to fix a broken latch on the cover to the electrical panel. I had already figured out how I would fix it but had not done it when he started to fool with it. “Someone might accidentally hit one of these switches,’’ he said bent down to inspect the panel.  I wanted to say, “Like who, Dad? I’m not going to hit them. So it must be you.” Together we rigged a temporary latch, one made of a twist tie from the loaf of bread and an old diabetic stick pin found in the rigs utility junk box.

Despite the chores we managed to grind down the road to Cape Vincent to see the Tibbits Point and lighthouse at the end of the Great Lakes and the beginning of the St Lawrence Seaway.  It’s a short ferry ride to Wolfe Island, Canada, but couldn’t see any reason to do go.  So we went down to Brownville to see the Brown’s Museum. At least, that was what the road sign said. A few dusty display cases in the hallway outside the public library housed in the same building of several municipal offices. All this was located in the Brown Mansion, formerly the owner Jacob Brown. And who was Jacob Brown? He was a commanding general in the War of 1812 and won several major battles against those pesky British and Canadian invaders.  Of the nine major battles in this war, Brown won three.

Dad and I were reading a plaque near the street in front of the mansion when a gentleman walking his Scotty approached us. He told us more about the mansion than we had learned in the hallway including a story of when Governor Dewey had come to visit and the caretaker refused to admit him and his entourage. As a boy he use to play in the basement of the mansion. Its floor packed earth and the room filled with old cannon balls.  He claimed there are a lot of artifacts in the building, but lamented that few are interested in preserving this history.

Little bits of history, memories and stories are scattered everywhere in life.  Some get recorded and passed down through time. Some things are just ignored.  More things are forgotten than remembered. And over time, lost when the keepers of such history pass away. Someone like Jacob Brown, a farmer, a teacher, a surveyor, a builder and a solider…forgotten despite his contributions to this nation.  Some actions like those of my mother gone.

On the same day Mom taught me how to light the oven, she insisted I take the ice pick.

“Ice pick? It’s August. I’m not going to have much need for hacking ice.”

“Well, you use it to get the ice out of the metal ice tray.” The obvious struck me as silly.

“Mom, they make ice trays that flex and the ice pops out.” By why buy those when the RV came with small metal trays that hung onto the ice like winter hangs onto late March in upstate New York.

Now I have a couple of plastic trays in the freezer.  And I packed the ice pick too.  Just in case.