Mom's Whistle

So how do you get six kids to drop what they are doing and pay attention? What if they are next door? Or maybe two streets over? What if you don't really know where they are but want them home now? What can you do? Well... , if you are a Wood kid, you know that Onalee's whistle means "front and center, right now!"

Mom's whistle was our best known signal for everything. Usually it meant to come in to home base, but it could be a warning or a welcome. It was a call that we all recognized and (usually) immediately responded to. It could be heard a couple of blocks away and we were well trained to respond. Neighbors would call Mom and ask her to"whistle the kids in" when they wanted their own kids. 

You never knew what was on the other side of a whistle. Sometimes it was an outing, or a cool summer treat, or you could find yourself facing a work project, or a chore that you "forgot" to finish before heading out to play.

Our gut reaction to the whistle varied over the years from the embarrassment that Laurie felt when Mom whistled her and her date in and he said, "Why don't you bark so she knows you are coming?", to the relief Steven felt when he was separated from Mom and Dad while traveling in Egypt. A whistle from Mom was all he needed to get turned back around and headed in the right direction. Regardless of our initial feelings, our reaction was always the same. When we heard the whistle, we reported to Mom.

I was at Legoland with a pack of my own kids when I heard a whistle behind me. My head whipped around and I caught three young teenagers hurrying back to their Dad. I smiled at the scene that I recognized so well and laughed at my own conditioning that made me look and heed the call.

Jumping in the Backseat

My parents always drove old cars when I was young. These old cars may not have been the most happening ride on the block but they made up for lack of style with character. We named each of them which gave them each a personality and we can laugh just recalling them. Old Blue was a little rusty sedan that gave you a view of the pavement passing below if you lifted the rug by the drivers seat. Big Banana got its name because it was big and looked like a banana just past its prime, yellow with fake wood paneling down the sides. It was the first car we owned with automatic windows and door locks. We felt like something else driving that car. Festus was a little white car passed down from Perc when he left on a mission. The Hulk was a big green station wagon and its name reflected the interests of the kids riding inside of it as much as its bulk traveling down the road. The Tuna Boat was a station wagon bought from friends and was named because it was big and gray and the teenagers crammed inside felt like tuna stacked in the hold. (It was too big to be a sardine can.) One of the last truly memorable cars was The Battlecruiser. It was a $200 special with two different colored doors and rotting tires. As it was purchased to move kids back and forth to college Dad arranged to have it repainted. A mistake at the painters changed it from a soft yellow to a bright neon yellow better suited to a Corvette than a land barge. You could spot the car a mile away and with the addition of its title printed on the back with contact paper letters it was a car that would not be mistaken for anyone else’s.

Of course being older vehicles they required maintenance and nurturing to keep them running. While usually reliable, sometimes they just didn’t want to go, or creaked and groaned and made other strange noises. I remember my mother patting the dashboard and assuring the vehicle that it could make it up the hill.

One Sunday experience stands out in my mind. We were living in Saginaw, MI. Dad was the bishop in the ward which meant that he left early for church, leaving Mom to get the kids ready and out the door. This particular Sunday we were running a bit late but were still on track to make it to church just on time. Mom herded the four of us into the back seat of the car and she got in behind the wheel. She turned the key and nothing happened. She tried again murmuring words of encouragement to the reluctant engine. It grated and whirred but didn’t turn over. One more try left my mother frustrated and convinced that it wasn’t going to start. She was near tears with frustration as she told us to sit still while she went inside the house to call someone to assist us, although she knew it was late enough that everyone would already have left for church.

Somewhat excited by the turn of events, we, of course, did not sit still in the back seat. We bounced up and down, laughed and giggled, and bounced some more. Mom returned to the car. No one had been home but she was going to try the car again. We sat back in our seats expectantly as she turned the key. A couple of sputters and then the engine turned over. We were on our way to church.

I am sure that it was Mom’s prayers that got the car running that day but the four young children in the back seat were convinced that jumping up and down in the back seat had kick started the engine. For years after, even at college with The Battlecruiser, when a car didn’t start on the first try someone would jokingly yell, “Try jumping up and down in the back seat!”

The Mimosa Tree

I was walking one morning when I was suddenly flooded with memories of summertime when we lived on Brandon Rd, near Pennington, NJ. I looked around and realized that I was standing underneath a mimosa tree in full bloom. The scent of the pink powderpuff blossoms had instantly erased twenty years and I remembered all the fun we had in, on, and underneath that tree.

The mimosa tree in our front yard was a wonderful tree to play in when we were kids. The trunk split just a foot and a half off the ground so that even the smallest of us could get a good foothold to climb up. Branches were spaced like a staircase into the tree and it spread out wide enough to accommodate any and all who wanted to climb. The tree regularly held eight to ten kids and more on occasion.

Mom holding Steven, Sharon Litecky, Stacy, Michelle, Brian, James, Laurie

The tree was home base during games of tag and hide-and-seek, a base during kickball games, and was often a house or ship during games of make-believe. When we played house, there were plenty of branches to be bedrooms to put "the kids and babies" down for a nap. We made "salad" by shredding the  leaves and tossing them with pink puffs or the orange berries off a nearby bush. And because grass doesn't grow well when there are so many kids playing, a little water was all that was needed to stir up some mud pies and soups to round out the meal. The pink puffs were a delight to little girls. Not only did they smell wonderful, they became makeup poufs, or hair decorations when we played getting ready to go out.

When our own imaginations wore out, it was a great place to take a book. All of us remember taking a book up to the branch that forked just right for you to sit and lean back against the trunk. It was possible for a young child to get quite comfortable for an extended journey into a new adventure.

The mimosa tree in our yard was the ultimate outdoor playground. Many happy adventures with siblings and friends took place beneath the wide spread of its branches during the steamy days of a New Jersey summer. It was a delight to be transported back by its sweet smell as I stood underneath the mimosa tree.