Welcome to the series of Posts from Your Archives, where bloggers put their trust in me. In this series, I dive into a blogger’s archives and select four posts to share here to my audience.
If you would like to know how it works here is the original post: https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2019/04/28/smorgasbord-posts-from-your-archives-newseries-pot-luck-and-do-you-trust-me/
Time to welcome a new participant to the series with four posts from her archives.. me Elizabeth Slaughter. Elizabeth shares many stories of her childhood and family and tough to select just four… but having spent the last few years removing dead trees in danger of toppling in two homes.. this one struck a chord..
“Timber-r-r-r-r” by Elizabeth Slaughter
Living among all those Douglas fir trees certainly came as proof that we were in Oregon and no longer in New York City. But Oregon is also famous for its green terrain. And the green is courtesy of rain and more rain for much of the year. The winter of this photo produced extra ordinary rain, loosening the soil around the large fir in the back yard. Then all it took was a strong wind and the tree toppled. A careful look reveals that our swing set is mangled in the wreckage.
Of all times for a tree to come crashing into the yard, it picked a night my parents had gone out to dinner. This left our babysitter with three frightened children as the branches(already removed in this photo) crashed onto the roof, leaving a significant hole. My parents arrived back home after a frantic call to the Chinese restaurant where they were finally sharing a meal without us. Fortunately, in those days, parents left numbers where they could be reached by babysitters. They rushed home, with the food in those little white containers, and finished their meal by candlelight. The tree and others like it in the area had knocked out power.
My brother and I were unconcerned about the hole in the roof, but were very upset about the swing set. My mother was unconcerned about the swing set, but upset that her clothesline had been destroyed. My father, leaning on his ax, was unconcerned about the swing set and the clothesline. He was just trying to figure out how he was going to turn all that tree into firewood.
©Elizabeth Slaughter
About Elizabeth Slaughter
I am retired from the Pacific Northwest College of Art(originally the Museum Art School) in Portland, Oregon where I was a professor of English and taught for 25 years. I had the privilege and challenge of teaching painters, photographers, sculptors, printmakers, illustrators, ceramicists, and graphic design students to express themselves in words. We also engaged in lively discussions about poetry, fiction, nonfiction and drama. It was a unique opportunity for me to flourish in an nontraditional (for English professors) academic setting where how I taught was privileged over what research I published.
My family moved to the East coast fifteen years ago when much of the world seemed to be descending on Portland. In doing so, I mirrored a journey my parents had taken to relocate from Brooklyn to Oregon in 1948 when I was one year old. Here I continued teaching at the local community college before deciding to retire all together.
About Elizabeth’s Blog: https://elizabethslaughter.com/about/
This is the beginning of a larger project to share various kinds of writing I enjoy. I am starting with this blog, but intend to incorporate that into a web site which will include poetry, longer reflective essays, short memoir pieces and family history accounts.
I hope you will head over to Elizabeth’s blog and enjoy browsing through her archives as they are rich with history.. thanks Sally.
Terrific post!
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Thanks Jennie..hugsx
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You’re welcome, Sally. Hugs to you! 🙂
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Thanks Jennie. I love reading your posts too. Lots of creative teaching going on in your room.
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Many thanks, Elizabeth!
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Reblogged this on Saved By Words and commented:
I was delighted to have Sally Cronin highlight some of my past posts on her Smorgasbord site. She generously offered this chance a while back and I took her up on it.
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Delighted to share your posts Elizabeth..thank you..
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Great to see Elizabeth featured here, Sally. I follow her blog, and reading her posts is always a delight. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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Great Pete.. thanks and I have enjoyed reading her posts…hugs
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Hi Pete. Just realized there were comments in two places.
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The story shows a calmed down man. 🙂 Don’t worry, we have to make pieces of it. Lol Wonderful post. Michael
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I know..could have been a calamity…
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😉
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He chopped for a long time for sure.
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🙂
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Great story. Must have been terrifying to have that tree come down.
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I would think so.. they make a horrendous noise..thanks Susanne
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It made a dreadful noise when it hit the house.
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How very frightening, Elizabeth. You could have been injured with an accident like that. We had a large tree in our garden and I had it cut down much to Terence’s anguish because I was afraid of something like this. He was annoyed because I didn’t tell him and he came home and it was cut down.
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We have had a couple of near misses.. which is why we had to take so many out here the first year… just before a hurricane tore through and took many out in the surrounding woods. xx
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My daughter had to have a tree cut down for the same reason. We encouraged our neighbor to take down a tree that was splitting apart and was going to fall on either her or our garage.
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Nice to meeting you, Elizabeth. What a frightening experience you had as a child when the tree crashing on the roof of the house. Yes, the soil is Oregon is loose with rich nutrient. When I was a student in Portland renting a cottage with a huge yard, my neighbor helped me to plow the soil.All I had to do was to plant seed. Without watering, I had am abundant harvest.
I moved to southern California after finishing school. My daughter went to the university in Portland and stayed there.Every time I go back to Portland, I can smell the green as soon as I land. I love it.
Thank you for this post, Sally.
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Thanks Miriam.. enjoy your weekend.. hugs
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Thank you, same to you, Sally! ❤
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My daughter had a camp at the University of Portland. Such a lovely campus.
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I bet that put your parents off leaving you for a while. I still remember the first time I left my fourteen-year-old son looking after the other three for an evening. We were only in the Indian restaurant across the road, but I sat with a view of the window, watching for rising smoke.
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Thanks Cathy..hugsx
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I can’t believe that my parents trusted me at 12 to look after the other three. I started babysitting for others at 11. What were people thinking? 14 seems reasonable.
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That must have been scary when it happened. Your dad sounds like he took it all in his stride and I like th eimage of your parents enjoying their meal at home by candlelight.
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Thanks Mary..xx
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My dad was a lawyer so he actually enjoyed the chance to do physical work.
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Great story, Elizabeth. I live in the land of the redwoods, and your experience has crossed my mind before.
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Thanks Pete.
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Now that would be a dreadful thing to be near as a redwood fell.
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Welcome Elizabeth. What a scary event that had to be with the tree. Things we never forget. 🙂
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Thanks Debby ♥
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After the initial shock, we found it a pretty fun adventure.
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Children do see the fun side in most things..x
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