Birthday Season Archives

October 17, 2023October 17, 2023

A Letter to Mother

Birthday Season Exemption

I’m getting a fileserver upgrade, so my computer will be dark for a few days, which would be a problem because Mother’s birthday will fall within that period. Fortunately, I can post this under the Birthday Season Exemption.

My family, for better or worse, is made up of packrats who saved stuff that would be considered inconsequential to most folks. While going through an envelope of greeting, birthday, sympathy and get-well cards, I ran across this snippet of a letter I had written to Mother from Ohio University, probably in 1967.

I’m glad she saved it (and that I found it)

I don’t know what triggered me to write it, but I’m glad I did. I didn’t do that enough to people who are important to me.

Maybe I was trying to recover for letting Mother’s Day slip past me the first year at OU. Trust me, that never happened again.

October 17, 2016

Hey, What’s that Sound?

Mary Welch Steinhoff w Ken Steinhoff 1949

Missouri is thinking about becoming winter. Every day when I look out the kitchen window, a few more maple leaves are turning yellow. I had to take a rake to the driveway a couple afternoons ago. I’m a rake kind of guy. I never liked the noise and hubbub of power leaf blowers.

Maybe it’s because I never got good at using one. Mother, on the other hand, could keep a wave of leaves rolling down the hill like she just dared them to slow down.

Furnace one day; AC the next

Mary Steinhoff and LV Steinhoff w Roy E Welch in background - Rolla MO 1942 — Mary Steinhoff and LV Steinhoff w Roy E Welch in background – Rolla MO 1942

It got down into the 50s the other night. Cool enough that the hall thermostat read 61 degrees. I threw three rice bags that Wife Lila had made for me into the microwave, then put one at my feet, one at my knees and one at my chest to make the bed toasty. The next morning, though, I gave in and set the furnace at 66 to take the chill out of the air.

Being Missouri, though, the temperature cracked 80 two days later, and I had to switch from furnace to AC to keep the house below 77 degrees.

I had gotten used to the silence

All of these seasonal changes mean it is what used to be Mother’s Birthday season. This is the second one without her. I had just gotten used to the silent house.

Mostly silent

There are some odd creaks and groans: some of it comes from me when I crawl out of bed in the morning. Some of are familiar sounds like the board in the hallway floor I used to try to step around when I was sneaking in late. It still squeals on me, even though it’s been years since I had a curfew, and there’s nobody around to scold me.

Who is in the house?

I was in the basement the other night, though, when I heard what sounded like the scraping sound the kitchen chair would make when Mother would push it back. That was followed by a couple of sharp raps like the door opening, and footsteps on the stairs.

Mother? I thought?

Wife Lila? One is 1,100 miles away, and the other is much further away than that.

Then it dawned on me

Walnuts. The wind was throwing walnuts against the roof like they were golf balls.

That, or Mother wasn’t happy that I hadn’t mowed the lawn recently or chased the leaves down the hill.

What do the pictures have to do with this?

Absolutely nothing. I just like them.

Here are some stories about Mother.

October 18, 2013

Birthday Season #92

October 17 marked the high point of Mother’s extended Birthday Season, which kicked off way back in August when Steinhoffs from Oklahoma, Florida and Missouri stopped in. Mother is showing Brother Mark a letter she got from a hearing aid company offering her a discount on a hearing aid. “I thought you guys were getting together to buy me a hearing aid.”

Still has the lung power

She might have candles on her cake representing 92 years, but she can still puff them out with a single breath of air. Click on the photo to watch her blow out the candles. (This is a fairly large file, so it might take a little while to load.)

We were going to fill the cake with a full 92 candles, but the firefighters in the station across the street saw the delivery truck from Acme Birthday Candle Company pull up and intervened.

Other Birthday Seasons

July 22, 2013

Birthday Season Starts Early

Mother decided several years ago that a birthDAY in October wasn’t enough: she wanted a birthday season. Well, she has outdone herself this year.

Wife Lila, Friend Anne and I descended on her in late June. It’s past mid-July and I’m still in town. I have to head out to Ohio to do a photo exhibit and a couple of presentations, then (if there are no hurricanes headed to Florida), I’m headed back to Cape to work on some more projects.

Several years back, we gave Mother an iPad to replace her obsolete WebTV. It has become her favorite toy. Son Matt had a newer iPad he wanted to upgrade, so he let Brother Mark and me pick it up cheaply, then he offered to kick in a share of it for his birthday season gift. Her old model was WI-fi only, so she couldn’t use it when she was at Kentucky Lake unless she cruised around looking for hot spots. (For the digitally uninitiated, a hot spot is a place where you can pick up someone’s unsecured internet connection. It has nothing to do with the place across the river from Cape.) The new one can run off cellular service.

The new one will let her do Facetime with her grandkids, too. (If we can ever get it set up. Mark spent half the afternoon trying to get her Apple ID working.)

“It’s a bleeping lawnmower shed”

The Tulsa branch of the Steinhoff Family: Amy, David and Diane, came into town because David had this crazy idea that mother needed a shed to hold her riding lawnmower. Mark came down from St. Louis so he could join me in chanting “It’s a bleeping lawnmower shed, for bleep’s sake.” David, you see, has never found a project he couldn’t over-engineer.

To keep him from building some kind of teak and mahogany Taj Mahal, I found a $144 10x10x8 soft-sided shed the instructions said could be put together in two hours by 2+ people. The catch was that you had to have the right 2+ people whose names were not Steinhoff. You’ll get the full Shed in a Box story later if I can bring myself to relive the experience.

Amy and Mother

Mother timed the demise of her microwave oven to coincide with a houseful of guests. Faced with imminent starvation, the Tulsa Branch came up with a new microwave for Early Birthday Season. Amy, an accomplished shopper, aided in the search.

There is a rumor that other Florida Steinhoffs may be landing just about the time I depart (assuming I ever do). If the sheets ever get cold in Cape, she says she may jet out to see Granddaughter Kim’s new home in Austin.

No telling what she expects us to do with her 92cd rolls around on October 17. I guess I should start looking around for someplace she can go skydiving. (As always, you can click on the photos to make them larger.)