{"id":1064,"date":"2022-06-07T19:10:56","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T03:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2022-07-16T11:43:13","modified_gmt":"2022-07-16T19:43:13","slug":"in-which-i-remember-a-friend-and-acquire-a-new-toy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=1064","title":{"rendered":"In which I remember a friend, and acquire a new toy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I think often of my friend Frances, and more so in the spring and summer when I am engaging in yardwork and gardening. Frances and I met at a self-help group in Anchorage in the mid-eighties when I was 25 and she was in her middle sixties. She was a tiny, smiling thing, unabashedly sporting a wig, who took to telling people that she was my grandmother. She and I shared much tea and sympathy over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When my husband and I left Anchorage in 1988, Frances and I stayed in touch via letter and phone call. Her letters were always an event, replete with tiny drawings and descriptions of her exploits as a \u201cLady Gardener.\u201d While my dear old Uncle Brooks would have described her miniature chainsaw as having been \u201cpicked most too soon,\u201d Frances simply referred to it and her other tools with her favorite epithet, as in \u201ca Lady Gardener chainsaw.\u201d Throughout the years, whenever I bought something of that nature that suited my size and strength, Uncle Brooks and Frances vied for dominance in helping me describe it; this mental tug-of-war sometimes led to such descriptions as a \u201cLady Gardener weed trimmer that was probably picked most too soon.\u201d My husband and I, to this day, still bandy these terms about whenever we get a chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frances had no children, and the only family member that I knew about (besides her husband Bill, who predeceased her) was a niece in Wyoming. Sometime around 2000, I asked as casually as possible for the contact information for said niece. I mumbled something about wanting to send Christmas cards to the niece, because any family of Frances\u2019 was family of me also\u2014a gently selective truth that Frances declined to call me out on. My sneakiness notwithstanding, I was glad to have made this connection, because that was how I managed to receive Frances\u2019 death notice in 2005. Included in the notice was this poem written by Edna St. Vincent Millay:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                My candle burns at both ends,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                It will not last the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                But ah, my foes and oh, my friends,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                It gives a lovely light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had yet another occasion to think of Frances a few days ago, when I bought what must truly be the quintessential Lady Gardner chainsaw. It has a four-inch blade, runs off a 10.8-volt battery, and is cuter than a whole basket of speckled pups. It also lends itself well to a Charlie\u2019s Angels pose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m taking down these willow branches in your honor, my dear friend. It pleases me to think that you might be proud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think often of my friend Frances, and more so in the spring and summer when I am engaging in yardwork and gardening. Frances and I met at a self-help group in Anchorage in the mid-eighties when I was 25 and she was in her middle sixties. She was a tiny, smiling thing, unabashedly sporting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[433,434],"class_list":["post-1064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-as-an-alaskan-educator-and-citizen","tag-friendship","tag-yardwork"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1067,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions\/1067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}