My grand dog Lily snoozes in my study's reading chair.

​In November 1974, our firstborn’s fourth birthday and Thanksgiving Day came in the last week of the month. My husband and I packed our suitcases and left our Warren townhouse for his parents’ home in Grand Rapids.
     Becky loved to visit Grandma Rosie. Grandma hid yummy surprises throughout her large, colonial house for Becky to find. The fun began with Grandma’s vintage coffee grinder which promised Hershey Kisses.
     And Grandpa, Uncle Miles, and Uncle Mark guaranteed triple attention. Under Grandpa’s supervision, the boys took Becky on snowmobile rides around their backyard. The first and only grandchild in the Underwood family until her two sisters arrived in April 1975 and November 1976, all eyes focused on Becky from the moment we entered Grandma and Grandpa Underwood’s house.
     As usual, that 1974 Thanksgiving we lingered around the kitchen table until time to leave. Then the wall phone rang and Grandma Rosie answered. She handed me the receiver. “It’s one of your sisters.”
     “Hello?”
     “Iris, haven’t you heard about the snowstorm?”  
     Now, the Underwood family kept a television on in each room, except the dining room and Grandma’s “rumpus” room.
     “No, we’ve not heard one snowstorm alert,” I said.
     “If you don’t want to get snowed in, you’d better leave immediately.”
     History records our harrowing drive home on Grand River Avenue to Eight Mile Road and Hoover was one of thousands that “Super Snowstorm” of 19.3 inches.  
     In contrast, forty-nine Novembers later, not one snowflake fell yesterday on our drive to and from our daughter’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.
     When we entered the side door, Lily greeted us with her two best neighborhood buddies, Stringer and Alli.
     “You’re dog sitting?” I asked Ruth.
     She nodded. “They’ll be back tonight.”
     Although I’d never met Stringer, Alli, and their owners, I’ve heard Ruth speak of them and Stringer, a wolf breed. Alli, a Chihuahua mix and adopted after her previous owner passed, is new to the neighborhood.
     Lily, the youngest at three years, ran circles (literally) around Stringer and Alli, their muzzles gray at twelve years old. Alli’s short legs and age excluded her from Lily’s and Stringer’s boisterous play and walk in the woods with Ruth and me.
     After our delicious dinner, kitchen cleanup, and walk, we all gathered on the mammoth sofa before one of Ruth’s televisions and watched the conclusion of the Lions game.
     Just like my cats do, Alli settled on my lap.
     “Here, Mom, wrap Alli in her blanky. She loves it.”
     Eventually, Alli’s dark eyes, gray muzzle, and pointed ears emerged from her blanket. I noticed the divide at the tip of her left ear. “What happened?” I asked Ruth.
     “An infection.”
     Dear Reader, as a young mother, I never dreamt I would be the grandmother to a black lab named Lily. Furthermore, I could not imagine my third-born’s heart would melt at the brown eyes and gray muzzle of a tiny dog named Alli.
     And for the record, I’m sorry the Lions lost to the Packers 29-22. 

​“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.” Jagues in “As You Like It” by William Shakespeare
 
Miss Corey, my sophomore English teacher in fall 1965, included William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” in her fall curriculum. She selected readers from our class, which provoked hilarious responses to our mispronunciation of the text.
     That experience endeared me to Shakespeare’s remarkable works. For one brief season, I thought it would be fun to act in a Shakespeare play, speak his fluffy Elizabethan language with passion. Yet, my mind went blank when I stood before an audience.
     Therefore, Mr. Edwards, my sophomore drama teacher, assigned me a brief soliloquy to memorize. For several weeks within my drama classroom, I recited my monologue to fellow students, blinded by the spotlight.  
     My senior year, Mrs. Andrews, our new drama teacher, suggested I take the role of prompter for our school plays.
     Her creative alternative also proved beneficial, particularly when the lead actor forgot a line in “Our Town” by Thorton Wilder.
     Almost a lifetime later, having fulfilled Shakespeare’s ages of the schoolgirl, lover, soldier (mother), and currently justice (grandmother), I don’t remember a word from my speech into the spotlight. Perhaps I’d find some wisdom as “the sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloons, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side.”
     Nor do I remember the lines I prompted from “Our Town”.
     However, more significantly, my teachers equipped me with understanding and acceptance of my limitations and talents. Both are inseparable parts of our broken, human condition, no matter our age.
     As Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Andrews illustrated the power of creative alternatives to transform disabilities into achievements, so I aim to encourage others.
     Now, as the sixth age of Shakespeare’s man blooms within my bones, I commit my days to humankind’s highest purpose: to encourage the discovery and development of a person’s God-given gifts and talents. No matter their age.
     Remember Grandma Moses.
     My heart and hands find neighbors, family, and friends who’ve entered the seventh age, the “Last scene of all.” The age that “ends this strange, eventful history, is second childishness…sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,”      
     I understand the context of Shakespeare’s metaphor. However, the world’s remarkably more than a stage. Earth and mankind are God’s creation. Ordered by His Word. Dynamic. Never vacant. We’re not just merely players in different stages of life from birth to death who eventually perish, stripped of “everything.”
    Rather, we’re created in God’s image to be His companions: loving, eternal beings who inherit the Kingdom of God. Mothers, fathers, children, siblings, grandparents, praising God and caring for one another. Sometimes children for parent, or parent for child. Wife for husband, or the opposite, until our last breath.
     Or, perchance a man like Mr. Edwards or a woman like Mrs. Andrews who teaches us how to rise above our limitations.

​It seemed my mother was happiest when she served her apple pie. She smiled when she carried her cooled pie plate to the table, the top crust lumpy from the delicious, sweet apple filling.
     Seasoned with butter, sugar, cinnamon, a touch of nutmeg, lemon juice, and flour, her apple pies filled the house with an aroma that promised my favorite dessert. Guess I could say my mother’s generous Northern Spy pies foreshowed the “mile high apple pie” of my generation.
     And when she took up her knife for the first slice of her perfect, flaky Crisco crust, an intense, content furrow formed on her brow. I can’t speak for my sisters and father, but I held my breath and salivated in awe and anticipation. Come fall, nothing pleased me more than a piece of Mom’s apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
     With skill, Mom slid her pie server under the bottom crust. Dad’s plate awaited the first slice. Mom’s left hand held the top crust steady as she lifted the slice from the glass pan. Apples oozed their juicy filling.
     My mother could not countenance a dry apple pie.
     A ten-inch pie was just enough for our family of five, then six, and seven. And when Mom cooked for Thanksgiving company, most often Kentucky relatives, she baked two apple and one pumpkin pie. I preferred apple.
     Incidentally, my mother peeled apples faster than anyone I’d ever seen, except Granny, her mother.
     “I’ve been baking pies since I was eleven years old,” Mom would say. Or, “I’d like to see the pies and cakes I’ve baked in my lifetime. Probably make a mountain.”
     Mom also peeled bushels of apples to can applesauce in October. She added thirty-some quart jars to her fruit cellar under the basement stairs. My sisters and I could consume a jar of applesauce with Mom’s delicious breaded pork chops, green beans, and scalloped potatoes.
     A bowl of applesauce on a winter day made a perfect after-school snack.
     Sometimes, Mom baked stuffed apples served with whipping cream. Oh, how I loved the sweet, nutty, oatmeal center. Following Granny’s example, Mom also peeled, sliced and fried apples in butter and seasoned with cinnamon for her hot biscuits.  
     Now, at the tail end of apple season, I crave Mom’s apple pie all the more. Unlike strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, peaches, and pears, apples have staying power. I core and slice them to toss in mixed greens with walnut halves, pomegranate seeds, and green onion. Salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, and olive oil make a fine vinaigrette.
     Indeed, dear Reader, I’m thinking of Thanksgiving dinner and my deep, ten inch, glass pie plate, edge fluted like Mom’s. And I just discovered a Butternut Squash and Apple Soup recipe which I think my grandson would like.
     And for an appetizer, an Apple Crostata recipe with McIntosh, Macoun, or Empire apples caught my eye.
     What can’t we cook and bake with the amazing apple in all its tasty varieties?