LETTERS FROM HOME: THE FROWNS AND PLEASURES OF GETTING INTO THE PIONEER SPIRIT

Sept. 10, 1998

Dear David,

Diana Krall purred through the stereo on the way to the cabin. "You've got to wine me and dine me/ Don't try to fool me, bejewel me/ Either amuse me or lose me/ I'm getting hungry, peel me a grape."

She's very convincing. I fantasized about a weekend of leisure.

DC was already there with her parents and brother and the Neosho part of the clan. The cabin has lots of beds. Privacy is not the point. Togetherness is.

Meals are eaten elbow-to-elbow at a long table on the porch, the easier to blow out birthday candles and take in faces too seldom seen.

I don't recall the last time I saw the nieces. They are no longer the little girls eager to show us their latest dance routine. They teach little girls dancing now. They outgrew their audience.

I forgot that DC's family observes Labor Day literally. As I arrived they were replacing the screens on the porch that nearly encircles the cabin. They were planing and sawing and painting together like the families who settled those rocky hills.

They were not living the Life of Krall.

DC's brother Paul had sustained his requisite wound of the year, this one a wasp sting that made one hand appear twice the size of the other. Her mother was walking among the workers with a tub of sodas. And her sister was being summoned with the words, "Hey, nail wench."

The nieces had the dead-eyed look of prisoners on a chain gang. Devon, the middle one, had taken to her bed the previous day with a malady my dad used to call "painter's colic."

I used to have occasional attacks of it myself as a boy, often just as my dad opened a can of paint and handed me a brush. Those fumes go right to the headache center of your brain and do U-turns in your belly. The only treatment is bed rest or removal of the paint can from the victim's sight.

Devon intuitively chose the correct therapy, interrupting her prostration only long enough to join the sweaty crew for a swim in the river and for dinner in the evening.

She felt better in the morning but went back to bed after lunch and remained there until dusk. I felt some twinges myself but helped Danica and Darci slather the screen frames with brown paint. We survived. So did Devon.

Once in awhile, someone stopped to take a picture, documenting the work. There are old photographs of DC's grandparents and parents together doing the same kind of work at the cabin. It's soul work to be sure, keeping your house in order.

Devon and I could stand to do some more.

In the pioneer spirit, we bathed the paint away in the river, mainly because the cabin's well water was a bit unsure what with all the bleach put in to kill contamination. The kids wondered if it was safe to brush their teeth. "Just don't swallow," DC advised.

As summer ends, the cabin is outfitted for another winter. Sadly, Hank and Lucy have been there more than we have, accompanying DC's father on his Tuesday night jaunts to fish and mow.

DC brought him a fancy new lightweight mower that turns like a Miata. I guess we aren't really pioneers after all.

Hank and Lucy spent the holiday at home. The last time they were at the cabin with the nieces, Hank left Darci's backside with a permanent reminder of his passive-aggressive nature. The bite drew blood -- all the way through her jeans.

Hank is persona non grata as far as the nieces' parents are concerned. I agree. He seems more sociable toward strangers since we put him on Prozac, but his M.O. is the sneak attack you haven't guarded against.

Prozac isn't a panacea. People, at least, can find places that reassure us.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.