The A-Z of Melody McDonald “I” is for Imagination

Melody had a very vivid imagination, which often got her into a lot of trouble. It was also the reason that her parents rarely left her without reading material for long periods of time. They valued the integrity of the house and remembered often the moment that Melody’s chemistry set almost left a very large hole in the roof. It was, of course, her last chemistry set. Oh well; it had been fun while it lasted.

However, her imagination was also one of the reasons that people who knew her well tended to question the veracity of the stories she told. Not that she was lying; in her mind, these things really happened. (Saturday’s story of the haunted house trailer was true, though). It was this imagination that allowed her to write stories, too.

When she was in the fifth grade, she wrote a series of stories about a little fire-breathing dragon that she and her brother Mark named Hotstuff. The reason Mark had the right to help name him was because Mark was the illustrator of the collection (even Melody had to admit that Mark drew much better than she did).

This little dragon slightly resembles our Hotstuff 

The series was actually so well-liked that one of the school teachers, Mrs. Dietrich, who taught the hearing-impaired children, asked if she could borrow it to share with the children in her class. Melody and Mark entrusted it to her care; it was the last time they saw it again. At that time, the only copying machines were mimeographs and the process was long and unavailable to young children. Mrs. Dietrich had been transferred to another school and so the little book went with her.

It may only have been a coincidence, but many years later, when Melody was a mother, she was watching cartoons with her little daughter. She looked closer at the TV and almost fell off her chair; there, on the screen, was a little dragon that looked exactly like another little dragon she had seen almost thirty years earlier, whose name was Hotstuff. The story-line was also a more than a little familiar, too. But, without a personal copy, there wasn’t much she could do about it. At least a lot of people could enjoy the fruits of Melody’s and Mark’s vivid imagination.

Another example of what some say was Melody’s imagination was Fluffy. Melody insists to this day that Fluffy truly existed; she carried that little ball of feathers all over creation with her. And, she wasn’t the only one who saw him. Her Grammy saw him, too.  

She found Fluffy one day as she was lying out in the backyard counting ants. It was another of those boring summer days when she had nothing to do and that usually tended to get her into trouble. She had awoken from her five minute nap perfectly refreshed (or at least as much as was possible on a hot summer’s day in Southern California) and raring to go. Unfortunately for her, her brothers and sister were still sleeping and Honey had told her to be quiet. She had already counted two hundred forty-nine ants…

And then she saw the little ball. It was weird the way it kept popping up, and some might have called it an imaginary friend. Indeed, no one else saw it except Grammy. In fact, even Melody didn’t remember putting it in her suitcase when she went for a week to Grammy and Grampa’s house, but Grammy found it there in the suitcase as she was helping Melody put her clothes in the chest-of-drawers. But then again, she and Grammy had a lot in common…

She imagined being a wild horse running on the plains; an eagle, flying high above in the sky; sitting on clouds.  She dreamed of singing like an angel and of becoming a writer.

Maybe it was because of her imagination that people imagined that she lived in a world all her own… It could be, but there is one thing you could say about her: when you were with Melody, you could count on not being bored.

Did you have a wonderful imagination when you were a child. Did you have an imaginary (according to others) friend?

Copyright © April 11, 2016. Mary Purpari. All Rights Reserved.

A to Z of Melody McDonald: “H” is for Haunted House #AtoZBloggingChallenge

In reference to Melody and her explorations, perhaps one of the most compelling was the one where she and her friend Steve went to explore the Acacia Street haunted house.

One day, walking home from school, Steve said to Melody, “I found a haunted house; wanna come see it?” Did she want to go see it? What a question! Of course she wanted to see it! She tore into the house, put on her play clothes, tore back out the door and caught up with Steve before he reached the corner: it was a two house walk. She did shout out to Honey that she was going to Steve’s house, so at least Honey knew what to name the cyclone that whipped through her living room.

Steve was already wearing jeans, but he also had his books with him, so they dropped them off on the way to the haunted house on Acacia St. And then, they were off. Acacia St. was just around the next corner after Steve’s house.

When they arrived at the haunted “house” (it was really a trailer) Melody knew as soon as she got there that it really was haunted, even if it wasn’t really a house. The door was hanging on one hinge and it was screeching as the wind blew it back and forth. It looked like a house from a typical cowboy movie ghost town.  With a miniscule bit of trepidation – the atmosphere really was eerie, even in the bright sun – but, tiptoeing quietly, they edged their way to the creaking door. Steve, ever the gentleman, let Melody go in first. She carefully turned her head around the corner and shrieked. Steve bumped into a paralyzed Melody in his hurry to see what their exploration adventure had brought them to. The drops on the blood on the floor stopped him for a moment, too, but then their intrepidity returned and they entered the house and started following the trail of blood. The fabric on the furniture in the house was torn and tufts of filling were strewn across the creaky, rain-sodden floor of the trailer. Melody jumped back when she saw something moving ghostlike from the corner of her eye; she landed on Steve’s foot, causing him to shout in pain. Melody turned and glared at him and he shrugged his shoulders. They avoided the ants and flies crawling around on the floor, but Steve just couldn’t resist picking up the shed snake sin lying on the floor.

And then, Melody froze as they reached the door into the kitchen. Steve also looked into the room; the look of was horror that appeared on his face mirrored the one on Melody’s. The blood on the kitchen floor, almost black from the presence of flies and ants, seemed much fresher than the tiny drops dotting the other floors, but it was the giant blood-stained knife lying in the center of the floor that inspired their terror. The slamming door was too much for them: they turned around and skedaddled out of the trailer as fast as their legs would carry them. They didn’t stop running until just before they reached Steve’s house.

Right then and then, even before they could properly breathe, they vowed to each other that they would never, ever tell another soul about what they had seen. Who could they tell, anyway? Melody’s parents would shoot her if they knew she had been on Acacia Street; she was only supposed to go as far as Steve’s house. And, who would believe them? Melody’s imagination was well-known, and Steve was just as imaginative as Melody. Or almost, anyway. Nah, it was better to just leave things the way they were; now, if they could just convince their imagination to leave it alone…

The above story is true. I thought I had told Honey, but I guess I kept my word. When I was talking to her last night, I said, “Who could we have told?” She suggested, “Your parents, maybe?” And I said, “Right, and risk being grounded? Are you nuts?”

There you have it folks. Have you ever explored a haunted house in your lifetime? I mean, other than the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland/ Disney World. I’d love to hear about it.

 

Copyright© Mary Purpari. April 4, 2016. All Rights Reserved.

 

A to Z of Melody McDonald: “E” is for Exploring #AtoZBlogging Challenge

Another thing that Melody liked doing was exploring. There was never a single spot ANYWHERE that did not come under Melody’s careful scrutiny; no tree was left unclimbed (did I ever mention that you would be safe in calling Melody a tomboy?); no alleyway uncombed (unless she was bodily dragged away) and no cinder-block left un-poked or unturned (you never knew if there might be a blue-belly lizard hiding in some chink there…).

When she wasn’t busy hunting for lizards under rocks or blocks, she was busy exploring with her friend Steve Even. And, when the two of them started exploring, watch out! That’s when her exploring sometimes got her into some kind of trouble.

Steve moved into the neighborhood just before school started in the third grade, but Melody

Blue Belly Fence Lizard

didn’t meet him until school started. He was in her class, and she really disliked him at first, because all you had to do was look at him to know he was Trouble with a capital “T”, but then, when she found out they had a really neat tree in his yard with a Tarzan vine hanging from it (it was really a rope, but hey! Melody had no compunctions about using her imagination to create memorable moments), she was ready to join forces. And whatever other misgivings she might have about him, he liked animals almost as much as she did.

Together, they explored places that alone they might have had some qualms about. One of the places they explored was a haunted house (see “H” is for Haunted House, to be posted in the future). Another was what they called the peacock farm, which indirectly caused a great many nightmares for our girl.

They also explored down at the Back Bay, which was really fun and just across the street from their school. There were a lot of small canyons running through the whole area surrounding the bay itself. The Back Bay has now been named a Natural Reserve, which should give a pretty good idea just how interesting it was.

They found gourds and lizards and snakes (no rattlesnakes). They found salamanders and jack rabbits and lots of holes that were, fortunately, too small for them to get into. They saw lots of birds and flowers. And gophers and lots of junk. And mud; lots of mud, along with salt. It was a paradise for two young explorers.

They also explored around Steve’s house and discovered Steve’s dad feeding their kittens brandy “because, he said, “it stunts their growth.” His intent was to create a breed of “teacup kittens”.  Both Melody and Steve were highly incensed over that particular discovery, because it went against everything they loved and believed in.

Everywhere they went there was something to be explored, and explore they did.

When you were a child did you like to explore new things (or old) or did you just like to read about explorations? Share with us, if you’d like.

By Basar - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8879663

The A-Z of Melody McDonald: “D” if for Drawing #AtoZBloggingChallenge

One of the things that Melody enjoyed doing more than anything else was drawing. She wasn’t too bad at it, either. Okay, so she would never win a prize competing against the Italian or Flemish artists. She might have had a chance against Picasso, because at least her results were understandable to someone with a normal mind-set. A frog looked like a frog and a horse looked like a horse… sort-of… With a little training she might have had hope.

Anyway, her Gramma Mary abetted her in her endeavors. Actually, all of the McDonald kids were aided and abetted by Gramma Mary, because she provided endless amounts of paper, and pencils were always there. Gramma Mary worked as a draftswoman for the U.S. Navy at San Pedro, California. And there, she was able to get her hands on pads of paper of two sizes, nicely stapled and ready to go.

She wasn’t stealing; this was recycled paper of a sort. When a project in her office was finished, the paper, instead of being shredded (this was before those times began) the papers were lined up, cut to size and stapled. They were the put out for the disposition of everyone in the office. And she would gather up a goodly amount and give them to the kids the next time she saw them.

And they made good (or bad) use of them. Melody had so much fun drawing seasonal scenes. At Halloween, she would draw haunted houses with rickety fences around them and ghosts stretching out of windows. There would be bats flying in the sky, jack-o-lanterns sitting on fence posts, and witches flying across full moons. Sometimes she would even draw clouds across the moon so all you could see would be their hats or shoes. So much fun!

And they had never-ending amounts of crayons, so those pictures were always colored after being drawn.

Christmas was time for Santa Claus, winter scenes, Christmas trees, snowmen, snowy skies, sleds plum full of presents and of course, the reindeer. I especially liked drawing Rudolph. I also liked drawing winter scenes and hanging them all over the house. I guess they just reminded her that it was winter, since there wasn’t that much snow falling on the ground there in Southern California.

There were horses in fields eating, running, rearing on two legs. Bugs, butterflies, giraffes, rabbits. The two animals she wasn’t very good at were cats and dogs, strangely enough.

She still likes to draw, especially for the enjoyment of little children. She still can’t draw cats or dogs, though.

 

 

“C” is for Church and crocheting #AtoZBlogging Challenge

Melody has always enjoyed going to church. As a child, she attended the Methodist Church together with the rest of her family. The Christ Church by the Sea Methodist Church the family attended was a fairly well-known historical Church on the Balboa Peninsula in Balboa, California. Melody sang in the church’s children’s choir as a “half note” (aka alto). Choir practice was held every Saturday morning; since the church wasn’t far from her Grammy and Grampa Jenkins’ house, they always went there after practice.

During the summer after Melody finished the fourth grade, a new church in the area offered a morning Bible school. The church, the Upper Bay Baptist, was just around the corner from their house. It had been built on the land where a small green grocers had been, where Melody had gone to buy fresh eggs and milk (she took fifteen cents and came home with change; try and do that now!).

Christ Church by the Sea 

When Melody was in the fifth grade, her friend Veronica decided that Melody and another friend, Steve Even, should get married, so the three of them headed to the Baptist Church around the corner and, hiding under the stairway, Veronica gave a fairly convincing sermon (remember, they were only ten years old); after Steve slipped one of his father’s gold cigar rings around Melody’s ring finger, Veronica pronounced them man and wife. She didn’t mention kissing the bride because that would have been just too icky for words—even Veronica realized that.

A few weeks later, Melody forgot to take off her cigar ring and it melted in her bath water, but by that time Steve had moved away with his family, destination unknown. They’d been friends for a long time, and Melody mourned his loss for a long time…

The following year, the McDonalds stopped attending the Methodist church, and Melody, remembering how much fun she’d had during the summer, returned to the Baptist Church. She became a helper during the summer class and grew very close to the members of the church. They became like a second family to her during the period of the great upheaval and its aftermath; during her time there, she progressed from childhood to her teenage years and into young adulthood. She lived through the pain of seeing a young man she’d had a crush on get drafted into the army and his subsequent death in Viet Nam.

When she was twenty, she joined the LDS Church, which she continues to frequent up to this day. Last year’s A-Z challenge tells that story.

Crocheting came into Melody’s life at a fairly young age. It all started when her best friend came over the same day Melody was scheduled to for a week-long visit to her Grammy’s house. Lynn had brought over a new project: her mom, Sylvia, had taught her how to embroider. She looked very smug as she drew the needle in and out of the fabric, while Melody looked on, green with envy.

When Grammy and Grampa came to pick up Melody, Grammy looked at Lynn’s smirking face and the envious darts shooting from Melody’s eyes, and quickly assessed the situation. She walked calmly over to Lynn and asked, “What’s that you’re working on, Lynn dear.” Lynn told her and she patted the girl’s arm and replied, “That’s very nice dear”, and walked over to a horrified Melody.

After they had settled comfortably into the car, and Grampa had driven out of the driveway,  Grammy asked Melody if she would like to learn how to embroider. Melody looked at her eagerly. Would she ever?! After they emptied her suitcase and put her bike in the garage

and her clothes in the drawers, Grammy went into her special closet and pulled out a box filled to the rim with   embroidery thread, needles and bits of cloth. By the time Melody was an expert with the chain stitch and cross stitch.

But that wasn’t all she’d learned: she loved the look on Lynn’s face when she pulled out her new crochet hook and yarn and chained and worked a single crochet in each chain stitch.

Melody became so proficient by the time she was in junior high school that even the teachers watched her as she crocheted her own sleeveless sweaters during lunch time. That ability has stuck with her even today, and has also provided a means for earning money.

 

Copyright © Mary Purpari. April 4, 2016. All Rights Reserved.

The A-Z of Melody McDonald: "B" is for Books and Birthdays

Melody is a book fiend. As a child, she had a number of books that were hers, but most of the books she read either came from the Costa Mesa Public Library or were school textbooks. That is, until she finished reading all the books in the children’s section of the library.

That is when birthdays really came into the picture. Well, all right; birthdays in the McDonald household were almost as exciting as Christmas and Easter. And Thanksgiving. Actually, Melody’s birthday was really exciting because Melody’s birthday was two weeks before Halloween and, more often than not, she got to have a Halloween party and invite all of her friends over in their Halloween costumes and then they’d all go trick-or-treating together (after she’d opened her presents, naturally; the other parents were quite happy to let Ross and Honey take over that chore).

But, I digress. The really, really good part of birthdays was the table at breakfast time. There was always a huge mountain of birthday (Dudley Dursley, yours was nothing compared to the McDonalds’) presents piled in front of their place. And a good part of the presents on the table on October 16 were BOOKS!

Melody loves books, and even then she considered them to be friends. The worst punishment that could be inflicted on her would be to sit on her bed without a book to read.

It was also the worst punishment for her parents, because they never knew what other things Melody would dream up during those book-free hours. It was especially terrifying the year she had that chemistry set…

Melody had a growing set of The Happy Hollisters by Jerry West, the Nancy Drew books, The Hardy Boys and the Dana Girls. There was a special Christmas book that had been Honey’s (her mother) and several others of Honey’s childhood books, including the Bobbsey Twins and several books about girls living in foreign countries, like Yumi San of Japan. Her Gram gave her a book published in 1850 about Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings, which she had won as a child in an essay competition.

One year Melody received three classics for her birthday, Gulliver’s travels; Alice in Wonderland; and The Jungle Book. They were wonderful, but Melody had one book that she loved with all her heart: The Giant Golden Book of Natural History.

Unfortunately, an upheaval in the McDonald household caused the loss of all of the books Melody had received. New books began to pile up, including continuations of Nancy Drew and the Happy Hollisters. Melody still mourned the loss of her Giant Golden Book of Nature, but her Grandma Mary found something that brought a certain amount of relief: the Life-Time Natural History series. Those books brightened Melody’s spirits, with a new book every morning.

By the time Melody reached high school, she discovered the Salvation Army and Goodwill. Her rummaging brought to light a 1918 copy of Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar and an 1892 English version of Pinocchio, as well as a brand new version of Peter Pan without a publishing date. She also bought the entire James Bond series in paperback version. And can we EVER forget the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, bought at the Tic Toc store around the corner?

A couple of those books are in Italy, but the others? Who knows?

Melody now has a huge bookshelf stacked with books; she also has a floor and chairs stacked with books... A tee-shirt she likes to wear says it all: So many books to read, and so little time.

Do you have a favorite book or series of books? Do you still have any that thrilled you as a child?

 

 

 

Copyright © April 2, 2016 by Mary Purpari. All Rights Reserved

The A-Z of Melody McDonald: “A” is for Animals

 

Melody loved (she still does) animals of every kind. She made no distinctions. Believe it or not, she even loved rats; that was before she met sewer rats, though. In fact, her love for rats waned a little when her male, Big Stuff, ate the female, Spot. That action did not endear him to her. She still likes mice, though, as long as they help pay the rent.

She did have a few animals that she liked best, though. They weren’t necessarily any particular type over another unless, of course, they were horses. Horses were the animals that populated her dreams. She dreamed of riding Pegasus high above the world, just like Bellerophon. However, she loved her pets, such as Pink Ears, Missy and Butterscotch, as much as she loved horses. The first two were her pet bunny and her beloved best buddy, a sweet Sheltie (dogs are also a girl’s best friend, despite the song about girls and diamonds). Butterscotch was another four-legged friend: a bedraggled, drenched orange kitten that came to live with Melody during the time covered in book two.

There are a million tales that could be told about Melody’s love for animals, but I’ll just quickly share a couple of the most unusual (Unusual, that is, for most people; they were just run-of-the-mill for Melody).

Melody and the baby snake

Baby Diamond Back rattlesnake

One year, during the family’s Labor Day picnic at Big Bear Lake, she saw a very small snake slithering toward their picnic table. Delighted, and wanting to show that she was not only great at catching lizards but also at catching snakes, she snuck up behind the little snake. She thought it would make a beautiful addition to her terrarium. It wasn’t very big, about seven inches long, but when she started leaning over to grab it, her grandmother caught sight of her and looked down at the little snake that had attracted Melody’s attention.

When she saw exactly what kind of snake it was, she reached down, picked up a big rock and slammed it down on the tiny snake, just as it started to reach up to Melody’s hand. Astonished, Melody began to cry and asked her grandmother, “Why, Grammy? It was so cute. Didn’t you see how it was standing up so I could catch it easier? And now it’s dead.”

Her grandmother tried to explain that if it had bit her she could have died, but Melody was inconsolable and refused to talk to anyone until her Gramps cut the rattle off the dead snake and handed it to her. He explained that, even though the snake was only a baby, its bite was just as poisonous as an adult snake’s.

That was the last time Melody ever tried to pick up a rattlesnake. She caught lots of other snakes, lizards, frogs and toads, but never another rattlesnake. She had the rattle for a very long time as a reminder.

The snails

Common garden snail

This is a much shorter and to the point story of Melody and her reasoning.

One day, Honey (Melody’s mommy) had just finished cleaning the house, and was resting on the couch. At the time there were only three children, although Kenny was on his way. She thought the children were taking a nap, but she should have known better. A rustling sound caused her to look up. She gasped at the sight that met her eyes. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a more disgusting (or comical) vision in her life: there, standing in all her five-year old glory, was Melody, covered from the neck down in… snails.

Her excuse? The snails were in in a hurry to get into a cool place before the sun got too hot and dried them out. They were too slow and asked her if she would give them a ride. She did, and since the coolest place she knew was the house, that’s where she took them. Honey was so flabbergasted that all she could was point toward the door and say, “out”. Melody hung her head and followed her mother’s instructions, explaining to the snails on her way out that they were going to have to find another cool spot, outdoors.

These were just a couple of examples of Melody’s obsession with animals. There were so many more, that they would require a thousand books to contain them all (okay, so maybe there would be only a hundred). ;)
If you find it hard to believe these things really happened, you can always ask my mom; she remembers!