Mostromisms

It's funny how when you are growing up, there are things that your family does that you don't realize are unique to just your family. Here are some of them for the Mostroms.

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Silverbars: We had a swingset in the backyard that was homemade. Someone hand-welded thick pipe together and added the attachments for swings and even a glider. It was then painted silver. So, we called them the "silverbars". On the playground at school I wonder if my friends ever thought it strange that I would say, "Let's go play on the silverbars!" To me, it was another word for swingset. I spent hours on this thing growing up. In fact, there are lots of pictures of me as a little toe-headed toddler riding a swinging horse and grinning from ear to ear. They just don't make them like that anymore.

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Pig: I don't know how this got started, but the absolute filthiest thing that we could call each other growing up was "pig." Mom said later that since we thought it was a dirty word, in her book it was a dirty word. When we used it, she knew we were cussing each other, and we got in BIG trouble. Isn't it interesting how words can provoke such emotion?

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Gudgurl: This one started when I was very young, in fact, probably before I was even born while Mom was potty training Casy and Susan. When we would succeed in pooping in the toilet, Mom would exclaim, "Good girl!" or "That's a good girl!" We didn't realize that our mother was praising us for saving her from cleaning up a mess. Instead, we thought she was telling us the name of this nasty stuff--and that she was excited about it! For years I thought "gudgurl" was a nice name for poop. As in "I need to gudgurl." My mom thought it was cute, and that this sounded much better than the alternative.

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Bud Buddies: Dad and Mom always had lots of friends who were always lots of fun. One of these couples was Ron and Gloria White. Each couple had three daughters and soon each had a fourth. It was an interesting coincidence and one that led to lots of shared time together as families. Their girls (in order by age) are Barbara, Brenda, Kelly, and Kristi. Kelly and Casy were the same age and so were Kristi and Lisa. Brenda and Susan were pretty close in age and had similar personalities. When we met them, however, I was very young so I was always paired up with Barbara who probably had to keep an eye on me. The were our "Bud Buddies". I'm not sure where the term came from but it is what we always called each other. Ron's girls were still growing up when he died suddenly from a massive heart attack and Gloria never remarried after losing the love of her life.

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Gary's Polka: My Grandpa Mostrom (Grandpapa) played the accordian by ear. This is a complicated instrument with many strange keys and a very large, awkward size. Once he heard a song, he could play it. As a child I didn't realize what a unique and special gift this was. When he and Grandmama were young, they played dance after dance with her on the trapset. One of the songs they played was "Gary's Polka". Gary is my father and this song was written and played solely for him. To us, this was just another fun polka that my Grandparents would play. Although we have old recordings of them playing it, I often wish I could hear it live once more.

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Stirrin' Stick: Dad was a farmer. All of us spent time helping him with different tasks in the fields. One of the more time-consuming ones was "changing water". Before pivot irrigation, we would load aluminum pipe on a trailer and it would take three of us (a driver and two pipe-movers) to lay the pipe to water the fields. These pipes had gates on them that could be opened and closed as needed to sufficiently water each row. What a chore this was! Often the gates needed replacing, the pipes stubbornly wouldn't fit together easily, and little animals (from rabbits to snakes) would be inside. Once laid, the water was started and would make it's way from one end of the field to the other. Later, Dad would "check water" which meant that he drove along the other side and listed the rows that needed more water and the rows that were fully watered. We would then go back out with a "stirrin' stick" to close and open gates as needed.

Opening these little gates by hand would be silly. Besides the fact that they were often very tight and hard to move, you never knew what little critter may be down there! The tool that I most often used to complete this task was simply a golf putter. Dad had several thrown in the back of the pickup. But THE "stirrin' stick" was an old tractor tire iron--perfectly rounded to conform nicely to the shape of the pipe. This was a precious tool to my father. To this day it hangs in his shed, a reminder of all of the time he spent walking through his turnrows and tending his land.