Roadside Compassion

by Jerry Swertfeger

Summer of '65 Lee, Esther, Jerry and Dale were driving a winding rural road in San Diego County when a staggering man walking along nearly fell in front of our car. My dad pulled over to assist the man . We waited in the car for some time while he made sure the guy was okay. He helped him to the next driveway, apparently his, before returning to the car. Dad simply said he'd been drinking. I was struck by the compassion shown when I expected him to be very critical. Nothing more was said about it. I suppose Dad may previously been the recipient of such a good deed.

Annoying Wart On My Face

Esther had what she said was a wart near the corner of her mouth. She kept putting whatever she found in the cabinet on it--even though she didn't know what was in the bottle. She kept poking, pulling and picking at it. Jerry kept relaying this to me bit by bit over a couple of months. He came home from visiting her one day and said, "I told her you had some stuff that you could freeze that wart with." I told him, "You don't freeze things on your face yourself. You go to the doctor for that." The next time he saw her, a week or so later, he said to me, "That wart has doubled in size in a week." Then I knew it was not a wart. That very next morning I got a call from Esther:

"(Exasperated sigh) Paula, I want you to come here and cut this off of my face. I know you can do it."

The rest of the story is that I made her go to her doctor who took one look at it, said it was cancer and referred her to a very good Dermatologist. She impatiently waited two weeks for that appointment. ("Paula, why don't we stop in there today and see if they have a lull and can do it.") When the day of the appointment came she was more concerned that she have to wait to come back to have it removed, than she was about the diagnosis. The doctor took one look at it, said it was cancer and he would biopsy it. She didn't know that meant he would cut it off. So, even though they were both speaking to each other at this point, they were not having a conversation:

She is prattling on about him doing it today. He says, "I need to numb the area first. You will feel the needle, but just for a second." She says, "Are you going to do it now?" He says, "Are you ready?" She says, "Now?" He says, "Yes." She says, "OK". He then gently puts the needle in her cheek and she jumps at least a foot off the table because she had no idea he was going to do that. She only knew that she'd gotten her way and it would happen today.

The good news is that her face looks the best it has in years because he took care of everything on her face and it healed very well. Also the cancer was superficial.

Esther's Gift

This is just something I remember about one particular visit from Jerry and Esther to Rexburg, Idaho. Jerry, Grant and Brandon were building a carport, and Esther came along with Jerry for the trip. One morning Esther set off for her free coffee at McDonalds, and when she got back, she had brought Kelli a gift. It was a ball from the ball tank, that was in the Play-Place.

The good ol' days

When our Grandpa, Lee Swertfeger, was about 89 years old he was out to Oregon for one of his many visits. We had all been sitting around in the living room and talking and all of a sudden he decided to tell us stories from his youth.

He began, "Back when I was a boy..."

First he told us about the 4th of July celebrations when he was a kid. He said that they didn't have much money and so he and his brother would get a can and put rocks in it. They would run around shaking the cans to make noise and would repeat, "Hoorah! Hoorah for the 4th of July!"

He followed up with a story from a few years later when he was a young man. He said, "Back when I was running 'shine, I was making a run in the Ozarks and I noticed that a car was following me." He said that the road he was on was going up and down a lot of hills so he floored the gas to pull away from the car.

"I got to the top of that next hill and got out. I pulled out my gun and just pointed it right at that car. They didn't even slow down," he related.

Trips

Esther has the wanderlust. She says when she dies she wants "On the Road Again" by Willie Nelson played. Now she can't enjoy the trip because she's old, tired and blind, but she wishes and dreams. She remembers all the places she's been to and what she did and wants to just go.

Once my neice and nephew came to visit me for the very first time. They had been married for about 8 years. They are from Illinois, but she went to college in Washington near Seattle. They were planning a sort of "honeymoon" to the Seattle area because they had never had a honeymoon and he'd never been there. They were seated outside at a table for 4 during a big family get together in honor of their visit. Even though they had never met before, Esther was one who was seated at their table and they were talking about their plan to leave the next day on their honeymoon trip. Esther turned to them and said, "Can I go?"

I Like That Man

A few years ago Esther was into riding the Greyhound Bus around the country. She'd get a 30 day bus pass and just ride whichever way the bus was going. She enjoyed the riding, since she couldn't see anything much. She enjoyed visiting with the people on the bus, her captive audience. She came home from one trip and told me this: "I just wasn't thinking the right thing. All this time I've been thinking 'female'. Well, I was talking to this man. He was going to pick up a truck he'd bought. We talked almost all day and then it was his place to get off. I said 'goodbye' and he got off. Well, we were over an hour down the road and I thought, 'Hey, I like that man!!', and I got up out of my seat, thinking I might convince the bus driver to turn around and take me back. If I'd just been thinking 'male'!"

What do YOU do all day?

Grandma's favorite question for all of us young wife types (whether we have children or not) is, "What do you do all day?" When I sarcastically told her that we watch soap operas all day she had heard just what she had suspected. Even when I told her multiple times that I was joking she still couldn't let it go. "Mindy, I'm worried about you watching those stories all day." So Grandma, what do YOU do all day?

Wednesdays in Clackamas

Most of you have already seen the story I wrote for a Folk Studies class but I thought I would share it on this site for those who haven't.

"Wednesdays in Clackamas"

-Enjoy!

Barn cats

About eight years ago I stayed with Aunt Alice in Marionville for a couple of weeks. I'd seen cats around the property and I wanted to see where they were staying so I followed one into the barn. I watched it go in between a couple bails of hay so I peeked in. To my surprise I found that the cat had kittens.

I went back to the house to let Alice know she had kittens and she wanted to know where they were. I led her to the spot in the barn and showed her. Since I had disturbed the secret hiding place, the mother had moved all but one of the kittens to another location. Alice picked up the one remaining kitten and said, "lets go."

I followed her and she grabbed a shovel on her way out of the barn. She walked out past the tractor and down to the little pond right before the pasture. She dropped the kitten on the ground and looked at me. Then she sighed and said, "Oh, I hate it when their eyes are open!" Then without another word our 80-year-old great aunt took that shovel and smashed that kitten to the ground, scooped it up and tossed it over the fence into the pasture. She put the shovel away and went back into the house.

Thrifty

It was 1976 and I was still getting to know my new in-laws. They liked to come and visit unannounced, which was only once in awhile, since they lived 2,000 miles away. They always got up super early and cooked their own garlicy egg breakfast, filling the house with the aroma. One morning, I got up and came downstairs to see if they needed anything and found my father-in-law sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper. He was wearing a pair of black ladies eyeglasses with pointy corners and lots of rhinestones.

During a later visit, my sister Katie was with us. She had been behind my mother-in-law as she bent over to pick something up off of the floor. As she bent over her shirt came up in the back and her pants went down a little, as we all know happens. The thick, white elastic waistband of a pair of men's briefs was exposed with the large letters "B.V.D"..

Maxi pads

The very first Christams after Mindy and I were married we went to Oregon. On Christmas eve we had a nice gathering of relatives and friends. This was Mindy's first real experience with the family and we were having a nice time. For dinner we had a choice of clam chowder or chili and there were plenty of snacks all around.

Esther decided she was ready for a refill and said she wanted a little bit of chili and a little bit of chowder in the same bowl. With a little smile I put a scoop of each into her bowl, just then she added while shaking her bowl at me, "throw a piece of sausage in there."

After dinner Joy and Heidi were reminiscing that they had tricked me as a 12-year-old into staying home by telling me they were going to the store for maxi pads. At that moment Esther chimes in with... "Do they still make maxi pads?" My dad says, "Mom, not now." Joy then replied, "wait a second, I want to see where this is going... Yes, they do still make maxi pads." Ester: "Good. Melvina used to have to wear these bulky things, and when I get that old I don't want any bulky things I'd rather just use a maxi pad."

In an effort to kill the subject my dad says, "Oh mom, I just bought you a bunch of depends for Christmas."

Needless to say all in attendence, including my new wife, were well amused.

I Sure Like Ya

This is Esther at Brandon's wedding in 1997. A few years ago Esther called up my sister, Katie Trone one afternoon. Katie wasn't home so she left a message on her recorder. She was a little tipsy and slurring a little. She said, "Katie, I sure like ya."

Katie kept that message for at least a year, listening to it if she felt down or needed to feel liked.

Yellowstone With Esther

When Brandon and Traci were still at school at BYU Idaho we took Esther up with us for a visit. We went to West Yellowstone for one of the days. It was beautiful. When we'd stop, Esther would say, "I'll just stay in the car." Then Jerry would tell her she was going to miss out and he'd convince her to get out and see the sights. Which she did each time and enjoyed. We did this at every stop. With her being legally blind, I was concerned for her safety sometimes. At an area full of paint pots and deep pools I mentioned to her that we needed to stay in front of the warning signs. I read her the signs about the hot temperatures and thin crusts of earth. We were all looking at the sights and she turned her back on them like she was not going to look. Then she started bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet and kind of humming like she was not interested. Then she slowly backed up one little step at a time, acting nonchalant and humming, etc., until she could make out that the sign was just in front of her and she was behind it. Then she smiled to herself like the cheshire cat and slowly walked forward again.

Beer

You said to give "treasures" about the more famous members of the family, and I do think of Esther as a treasure, in many ways. Recently Jerry took her to Marionville, Missouri so he could visit Alice and help her around the place. (One night they went out to dinner with Willard and Margaret and of the 5 there, Jerry was the only one not over 80. ) As the week wore on Esther kept asking to go to the grocery store, which was basically a request for a beer run. So he took her and left her in the car in the parking lot while he did another errand so she could drink her can of beer. He came back 10 minutes later and she was surprised to see him back so soon. He noticed her hands were empty. "Did you drink your beer?" Stare from Esther. "Where's your empty can?" More staring and then fumbling around in the box of beer where she'd stuffed the empty one. She couldn't find it and so he opened the back door to dig it out. He found it, but it was stuffed way down in the bottom of the box, under the good ones. He took it out and threw it away, so there would be no open containers in the car. Just as he was about to get back in he had a feeling he should look again and sure enough, she had an open one hidden between her feet that she planned on drinking on the drive home. He was mad. She refused to sit there and finish the 1/2 of can that was left. "Just drive home." He took it away from her to throw it away. Oh no!!!!!!! So she drank it. He threw the can away and then drove home. He won . . . . this time.

Our mission

The mission of this blog is to document all things Swertfeger. So for all of you relatives out there that have some great stories on any of the more famous Swertfegers feel free to share them. I'll be starting this off with a couple of Grandma Esther treasures and we can build from there.