The Weather in Punxsutawney

The Weather in Punxsutawney:

A slight breeze wafted in through the screens in the kitchen door, ruffling the edges of Aunt Maude's apron as she stood at the kitchen table removing the thin brown skins from freshly boiled potatoes. Steam was circling in the air just above the blue and white tempered glass bowl as she tossed in the newly peeled potatoes.

Grandma was dicing half a dozen hard-boiled eggs, carefully adding them to a separate bowl of finely chopped onions and celery. All of these ingredients would be gently mixed into an amazingly smooth mayo, mustard, and vinegar dressing which Aunt Maude was famous for; famous in the family circle.

I was picking the green-leafy tops off the strawberries to prepare them for slicing. The strawberries would be a topping for our angel food cake. My chubby little fingers turning red with berry juice, Grandma took the bowl and sent me to wash up. “I'm not done.” “Yes you are, we want some left for the cake and you're eating more than you're husking”. These very special food preparations had become an annual thing for as long as I could remember, for you see, today was going to be our birthday celebration; Aunt Maude and I.

The day's preparations began very early in the morning, long before another tradition in the form of a not-so-comfortable car ride: “Punxsutawney is too far away, long car rides are annoying; I'll get car sick”. I was attempting to argue with my family about the merits of why I should get to stay with our neighbors until the family returned from this sure-to-be insufferable ride. “There's nothing to do in Punxsutawney in the summer.” There wasn't anything to do in Punxsutawney in the winter either but we rarely went there in the winter. This was not an argument I would win but it was worth registering the complaint anyway. “Stop squirming,” Mom was trying to buckle my patent white leather shoes over lace-trimmed shocks. I didn't know why my Sunday dress clothes were necessary for this occasion. We were getting ready to go to Aunt Maude's house which meant two hours crammed in the back seat of grandma's Plymouth.

Grandma smoked which meant her car smelled. Not a good smell but one of old car, oil, and gas mixed with cigarettes. I'd keep winding down the windows to get some relief from the car smells and grandma would holler at me from the driver's seat to stop winding down the windows. She'd make me put them up because the rain would come in and you can be sure it would be raining. That's what Punxsutawney was, dismal-drizzling rain and long car rides. Leaving the windows up while riding in the backseat of the car made me nauseous and Grandma said, I was too little to be allowed to ride in the front seat. Grownups were always making arguments like that which didn't make sense. Grandma wasn't much taller than me, she had to sit on a pillow to see over the dashboard! Still, I was in the backseat.

Once we got to Aunt Maude's house, there were no other little kids, and as I didn't have any siblings yet, it would be just me running around in my Sunday clothes, and a bunch of adults in the kitchen, sitting around talking. Once in a while one of the adults would say things to me like, my how you've grown and you're getting to be such a young lady. I hated it when adults tried to make small talk with me. My shoes pinched and my dress was itchy. As we loaded in the car for the drive I couldn't stop thinking about how I did not enjoy the prospect of a two-hour car ride that would be made even longer by the inevitable rain. Strange how it always rained on the way to Punxsutawney but never on the way back home, only on the way there. But we had to make the drive because if we didn't there wouldn't be the party and I wanted the party.

Resting the top of my head on the cool glass of the car window, I tried to focus on the upcoming activities, the party preparations, the traditions, Aunt Maude, and the picnic. As the hum of the tire treads meeting the road rang in my ears, I glanced forward and my eyes followed the windshield wipers as they went; swish, swish, swish, side to side wiping the droplets away. Everything went kind of hazy; I was getting nauseous already. Mercifully, time and monotony took over before the nausea got too bad and I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember, we were in the driveway and Mom was wrestling with an oversized umbrella while struggling to get me out of the car without getting her hair wet. Getting soaked wasn't really a worry at this point as the rain had slowed to a drizzle. Mom gave up on the umbrella juggling and gave me a push in Aunt Maude's direction. Aunt Maude was standing at the door calling for us to come in.

Even though we were born several decades apart, Aunt Maude, (my great-aunt to be more precise) and I shared a birthday and when I was very young, we would share the celebrations too. Every year I looked forward to the celebration preparations Aunt Maude had already lived what seemed like a lifetime by the time I was born. She'd been married, owned a gas station, had children, and became a widow. She was about a foot taller than her sister, my 4' 10” grandma, with very pale almost transparent skin, pink cheeks, and a poof of cotton-white hair. She was old-school right down to the way she dressed. From morning till bedtime, she always wore white-leather orthopedic shoes with knee-high nylon stockings, a wristwatch, and a tightly done-up corset under a freshly pressed just below knee-length cotton dress with a full bib-apron over it. When I'd hug her the corset made her body feel hard, like a plastic doll; she smelled like pressed cotton, menthol rub, and baby powder. Unlike grandma, Aunt Maude didn't smoke. Sharing the day with her made me feel like our birthday was especially wonderful. When I was little, I thought other kids must be missing out because they had to celebrate their day without a birthday buddy. And what could be better than a big picnic with loads of potato salad? She and Grandma would make the most amazing potato salad (her secret was yellow mustard). Neither of us liked traditional birthday cakes so for the party, we'd have soft fluffy store-bought angle-food cake piled high with fresh-cut strawberries and airy whip-cream.

Punxsutawney behind us, it's the day of the party and preparations are almost done. The big picnic table stood on the back porch in all its blackened wood glory. It was the same every year the table; dressed with a red and white checked vinyl tablecloth with a rock in each corner so the wind wouldn't upset everything. Mom was getting things ready to set the table: paper plates, plastic flatware, paper napkins, and little salt and pepper shakers. Mom collected little shakers so it took some deciding but this year she put out my favorites, little pandas that joined together in a hug. I didn't quite understand the plastic flatware since Grandma insisted on washing and reusing it anyway but we had it all the same.

The air smelled faintly like charcoal from the grill which meant I had just enough time until the food would be ready to eat. Just enough time for a good swing. From the other side of the kitchen, I heard Grandma hollering; “Don't let the door slam”. Bang! Too late, I ran outside, the door just missing my skirt as I headed for the tree swing. I pumped my feet, the dirt patch under the swing dusting my shoes; I thought about the party and the drive. The drive, although obnoxious, brought us to the party so I guess it was a fair trade.

All too soon we'd once again be in the car and in the rain on the way to Punxsutawney but for now, it was birthday party time, I had a swing, and rainy car rides were a faint memory.