Saving Second Base, The McVicar Legacy

I was a freshman in college when they finally let me play on a regular basis. Oh, they had let me fill in every once in a while so I had learned how to play poker their way. Looking back on it now, I can't blame my aunts for their reluctance to give me a permanent chair at the table. After all, they played poker every Friday night to escape the realities of home life and I was still classified as a child.

In 1962 they watched their mother die of breast cancer. My mom and her sisters grew up under some tough circumstances in post depression Detroit. Scottish & Irish, they don't let people in easily. But if you get in, you won't find a more loyal bunch. Just don't expect hugs, kisses or any other kind of mush.

The 1980's turned out to be a lousy decade for our family, breast cancer wise. In between weddings, graduations and lots of babies produced by me and my numerous cousins we had an abundance of sickness and death. It seems that the women in our family have the tendency to die fairly young and often from cancer.

Now, aside from being non demonstrative, they were also great avoiders. The were private and modest. As close as they all were to each other, there were many subjects that were off limits for discussion. And absolutely no pushing allowed. In our family, they didn't sit down and press, "tell me what's bothering you" and unsolicited advice was never offered.

They hung out, they helped each other, spent time just being there or maybe playing cards until the wee hours of the morning where conversation flowed naturally. Each of them gave up the secrets according to her own time.Sometimes, they just knew, without a word being spoken. Problems were dealt with pragmatically or sometimes just denied and buried in a code of silence.

Unfortunately, health issues often fell into the denied/code of silence category. So none of my mom's sisters were truly surprised when my Aunt Marg announced she wasn't well and went into my Aunt Shirley's spare bedroom to lay down. A room from which she never voluntarily emerged until a short time later when they took her to the hospital to die.

Of a long ignored, undiagnosed case of breast cancer. Margaret Davis was one tough bird who cussed like a sailor and drove like a demon. She raised 5 boys in a very dubious neighborhood near Tiger stadium in Detroit. She made an unfortunate choice of a husband, who turned out to be an abusive drunk.

It's rumored that one night my Uncle Rayburn made the mistake of hitting and kicking my very pregnant Aunt Marg in front of my mother, her younger sister. The details of what happened are sketchy, but one minute he was pounding the kitchen table with his hand and the next minute he was screaming as he realized my mother had shoved a hunting knife through his hand, pinning him to the table.

Outraged, he continued to threaten them until my Aunt Marg rallied and smacked him in the head with a cast iron skillet. It's that loyalty thing, come home to roost, protecting their own whenever it was possible. Our only silver lining was that son of bitch husband of hers died years before her so we got to enjoy the pleasure of her company for many years sans bad husband drama.

Three babies later, April of 1986 came and it was my turn to have my heart ripped out and my life changed forever. She wasn't just my mother, she was my best friend, my confidant, my number 1. She was totally devoted to me and the 3 grand babies I had provided her with.

I knew something was seriously wrong when she didn't show up at a family wedding where her precious granddaughter was the flower girl. My mother turned 56 on June 23, 1986 and  died June 26, 1986 from an untreated case of breast cancer.

I thought I would never survive it. The funny thing is when you have kids, you just cannot indulge yourself in grief. Life moves on and so do we. It has been 24 years without my mom. 24 years of joy and pain without the most important person with whom I'd like to share them.

She did not have that much of an interest in food, but she and my aunts all loved their sweets. The infamous card parties featured tea (my aunts favorite beverage) and dessert. One of the few recipes passed down which I really use is the butter cream frosting that was known in our circle as Sanders Butter Cream frosting, rumored to be a top secret recipe of the famous Detroit candy company.

My mother was not much of a cook, but I am and I have used this frosting faithfully for decades and it never disappoints me. (I should say rarely, once I made it in an un-airconditioned, hot humid cottage and it wasn't right).

SANDER'S BUTTERCREAM ICING

1 Egg white

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup shortening

1 stick of butter

1/2 cup scalded milk

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

*Scald 1/2 cup of whole milk * Beat 1 egg white until stiff, then mix in the sugar* Place the shortening & butter on top of the beaten egg white mixture* Pour the scalded milk over these ingredients

** Pay attention now* When mixture is completely cooled off, use the mixer and beat on high* It will look like an awful soupy mess at first but have faith and in about 3 minutes it will turn into a light, creamy, fluffy butter cream.

Sander's butter cream frosting

I'd like to include pictures of my mom and her sisters, but the McVicar girls avoided the camera at all costs. I'd also like this to be the end of this story, but it isn't because it's only part of my legacy of breast cancer. Soon after my mother's death, one of our poker playing gang, Mrs.Baker also succumbed to her long battle with breast cancer.

A few years later, my infamous Aunt Pat lost her battle to ovarian/colon cancer. My Aunt Shirley died of non cancer related heart problems. A gaping whole was torn into our family as these were the ladies that were the absolute glue that held us all together.

A whole new century began and yet breast cancer is not done with us. It was Christmas 2005 when I got a call, my cousin Linda was taken to the hospital and died a short time later from untreated breast cancer. In April 2009 my audacious cousin Denise (Linda's sister) passed away after a 12 year battle with Lymphoma. During one of her numerous hospital stays she joked, "Well, at least it's not breast cancer".

I have about 13 female cousins from my generation left. And we have daughters, many daughters and some have grand daughters.

So this is an issue of great importance to the lot of us that are left and those yet to come.

Aunt Hazel & me, Candler, NC 2007

My precious Aunt Hazel (my uncle's wife, not related to my mother) lost her long battle to breast cancer in November 2008. She was a very fine southern cook with an enthusiastic willingness to pass on some of her Beaverdamn Gap cooking secrets to her favorite Yankee niece. It is only by her hand that I ever learned how to make biscuits without measuring.

Aunt Hazel's banana pudding

One of my most recent posts included a recipe and pictoral instruction for my Aunt Hazel's banana pudding.

Bon Appetit & Mind Your Boobs

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A Respectful Afternoon

Road Trip Day 4: After a late breakfast on day 4 I felt I wanted to go to the cemetery to pay my respects to my dear Aunt Hazel. She was loving, loyal, a hard worker, generous, lived for her family. She taught me how to cook southern style every summer when I visited and immersed me in their culture.She would tell me to grab my pocketbook and let's go loafering! And Oh could that woman ever talk, for hours, about nothing. I surprisingly liked that.She was precious to me and although we had said our good byes last summer when she was helping to write her Eulogy, I was unable to attend her funeral over Thanksgiving and felt I had really missed out on something important.

You know I'm not a fan of drama and public displays of emotion but when I leaned down to gingerly touch, and then clean my Aunt's headstone I felt greatly grieved. And I missed her. It was my first trip to N.C. that I didn't see her smiling face and accept her "sugar" while trying not to grimace. Everyone on our side of the mountain is still feeling raw around the edges of their mourning. As they like to say we are all feeling tore up over her passing.

Her husband, my Uncle Richard passed away 18 years earlier in 1990. He would take me hiking and exploring all over in places my mother would never approve of me going. He talked and demonstrated as he walked along. He knew everything about the trees and the snakes that populate the area and of which I am deathly afraid.He had so many funny tales of he and his brothers exploits around these mountains. Just when I thought I had heard it all he would come up with another tale and  I'd discover a new piece of our family puzzle. It was like hiking with a relevant and interesting history book. Each summer when it was time for me to return to Michigan I always missed them the most.

Now I have my cousin David and some of his children and grandchildren to share memories with. We are striving to keep the stories alive and relevant and to teach these values to the next generation.

 On my last stop I had to see my Uncle James who had shocked us with his untimely death 4 years ago. After years of diminishing health and back problems they had done a heart procedure that really seemed to breath new energy into my tallest uncle whose nickname was treetop.

He seemed to be on a roll, able to move about more freely and having more energy than he had in years. That spring flu season hit hard. Both he and my dad came down with an unruly case. Subsequently my Uncle was hospitalized and entered a downward spiral that he never came out of and he passed, leaving his very close family shell shocked to say the least.

I flew down to the funeral all by myself and picked up my rental car which ended up being a very fast black Mustang. I felt a wee bit conspicuous tooling around the mountains in that car but all my male cousins got a big kick out of it. My Uncle James was a very quiet and humble man and our visits rarely had much conversation but instead companionable quiet and that was ok with the both of us. I do however recall some pretty wild rides on the back of his jeep up and around trails and through mountain passes- so maybe the mustang was a fitting ride for the funeral after all.

We spent a fair amount of time their taking in the air, pulling weeds and trimming back grass around the headstones of our loved ones.

Later I tried to explain to my 13 year old daughter who was with us how important these simple rituals were to men like my dad. It demonstrated to him that I had not forgotten to miss these dear people even though I live 600 miles away. And it comforts him to have us there as a matter of respect to these family members that he spent so much of his life with.

I was proud of her, she didn't roll her eyes once or act bored. She didn't say much but just followed along thinking. When we got in our own car and followed my dad back up the mountain home she said she thought it was a fine way to spend 30 minutes if it could make Grandpa happy and show him that we cared about the same things he did.

That made me so happy.

It's Not All About The Turkey

Thanksgiving 2008: Part II

It’s safe to say that the food is very important, I think we covered that topic earlier this week. It’s definitely the most time consuming.

But that’s not what it is all about.

The beverages play a crucial part. This is my husband’s job for most occasions. Stocking the bar. Period.
Oh, and putting real clothes on (versus his “working at home” uniform of sweat pants and a patagonia).
It’s a job he enjoys. He likes to shop and he likes to pick out wine. So this is a good fit for him.

Here’s my recipe for a memorable and fun holiday.

1. Good food
2. Creative drinks
3. Interesting people ( I hate to be bored)
4. Thankful hearts
5. Lots of humor

Keep in mind, we do hospitality around here vs entertaining. There’s a big difference. Although a tremendous amount of effort can go into
a weekend of socializing, it never turns out perfectly. Something outrageous is bound to happen or go wrong. A recipe will flop. Someone will get their feelings
hurt. Someone will forget to flush the toilet or heaven forbid plug it up. Something will get broken.

Plan B is always put into place and that is to have fun and enjoy your time together no matter what the circumstances.

It looks something like this:
And like this.

And this

And last but not least

What’s amazing is that this whole gang of people actually like each other. It takes a lot of effort to all come together- but it’s exactly where we want to be.