Author: Brenda Stratton

Writer. Storyteller. Lover of soft truths and old farm tales.

A Basket Full of Puppies

Brenda Stratton

The house next door hadn’t always been empty. Friends of my parents lived there once, so I was familiar with the house, yard, and outbuildings. 

I don’t know who the family was that moved in next, but they weren’t there very long. Soon, the house was empty again.

One day soon after, Dad was driving slowly by the house with his window down. 

You didn’t drive fast on a country road. There was too much dust, and several houses sat close together in a tight little cluster. You never knew when someone’s child might chase a ball into the road.

A basket full of small blonde puppies.


It was then he heard the puppies crying. He stopped and listened because he knew no one lived there.

Our house was nearby—what would be about two blocks by city standards. Dad went home and told Mom what he had heard. They were both upset and knew they had to rescue the puppies. 

Dad went back to the house and followed the sounds of the crying puppies. I remember hearing him tell Mom they were locked in the shed and he had to force the door open. There was no mama dog with them, and he wasn’t going to leave them there to die. Dad placed them in the box he had brought with him and carried them home to Mom.

There were three puppies. They were light brown in color with white markings, and their little bellies were round and tight—but I didn’t know what that meant then. 

They were dirty and smelly—and they were starving.

Mom warmed some milk for them—milk she hadn’t yet skimmed the cream from. They ate eagerly, but Mom only let them eat a little at a time, knowing that if she gave them too much it would make them sick.  

When they were finished, she gave each of them a warm bath, then dried and wrapped them in towels to keep them warm. Then she made a soft bed in a laundry basket and said that’s all she could do for them that night. 

The next day, Dad called Dr. Beer, our veterinarian, and asked him to make a farm call. He also had some livestock for the vet to examine and asked him to stop at the house to look at the puppies while he was there. 

I had been quietly watching over them. When Dr. Beer came, I had to move back to give him and my parents room. I heard him say in a low voice that he didn’t know if they would survive because they were pretty little and very sick. He told Mom she was doing exactly what needed to be done—little meals often. He said they would know in a few days if they would live. 

A few days passed with Mom giving the puppies round-the-clock care, and Dr. Beer stopping by whenever he was “in the neighborhood.” I think that was his way of saying he was worried about the babies. 

With Mom’s tender care and steady feedings, the puppies rallied quickly. They grew strong and were ridiculously fat and round, but this time it was because of good nutrition. 

On one of his trips to check on the puppies, Dr. Beer said they were out of the woods and would be just fine. 

It wasn’t long before the puppies were playing, tumbling, and finding their voices. Mom started letting me hold them, then. The weather was nice, and when they got big enough, she let me start taking them outdoors to play. She knew I would be careful with them. 

They were so wiggly and squirmy but didn’t seem to mind me dressing them up in doll clothes and pushing them around in my doll buggy. Most of my dolls had dresses with panties. So, when I dressed the puppies, I wasn’t sure what to do with their tails—so I put them through one of the leg holes with their legs. 

I had so much fun with them, but too soon Mom and Dad said it was time to find new homes for them. We already had one farm dog, Brownie, so these little ones would need to have homes of their own. I wanted to keep them all. 

One by one, people came to see them, and soon they all found new homes.

I missed them. A lot.

I had watched my parents do what needed to be done. That seemed to be how things worked in our house.

Looking back, I realize they were teaching me something far more important than how to care for abandoned puppies.

If something was hurting…

…you helped it.

Army Beans

Brenda Stratton

A Dad Story.

When Dad was in the Army back in World War II, the soldiers took turns cooking. None of them liked KP duty. In fact, they had a rule that whoever complained about the cooking was to be the next one to take over the chore.

One night, the soldier who was on KP duty made navy beans and over-salted them on purpose to avoid cooking again the next night.

When meal time came that day, the soldiers took turns filling their plates and settled in to eat.

It was immediately apparent what the cook had done, but the soldiers continued eating stoically.

But one guy just couldn’t hold it in.

“Damn, those beans are salty!” he exclaimed. Quickly realizing what he had done he went on to add, “But, BOY are they good!”

Every time Dad told this story, it was punctuated by one of his signature belly laughs. We couldn’t help but laugh along with him.

The Day I Sold My Husband

Brenda Stratton

As an introvert, I have never liked to be the center of attention. 

I’ve taken piano and organ lessons as a child, and more organ lessons as an adult. But, I never liked to play for anyone outside my family. 

The business world wasn’t any different. A boss once asked my opinion on the subject at hand during a meeting—before I had formed one.

I felt like a deer caught in the headlights and spent the next minute or two feeling like I was babbling.

Carl and I went back to college when I was 36 and he was 39. 

As I was choosing my classes, I realized I needed one extra English class for my English/Writing major. I’d already chosen all the classes I really wanted. Of the ones remaining, speech was the most intimidating. But, I had it on good authority from other students in my class that it was easier (less intimidating) if I took it as a six week summer class.

Fortunately, it turned out that I only had to give one speech during the summer semester. That speech came at the end of the session—and counted as a significant portion of my grade.

The professor gave the class the freedom to choose our subjects, with some gentle direction on possible subject matter. 

After giving it a lot of thought, I settled on giving a sales pitch.

I decided to “sell” my husband. 

Of course, I asked Carl if he minded doing this for me. I explained that he would have to come to class with me and sit in front of the class beside me while I explained what a bargain he was. He readily agreed.

Here were just a few of his best features:

He’s a great cook and baker.

There is nothing that he can’t fix.

He is good-natured and has a terrific sense of humor.

He’s very smart. If you ask him a question, he usually has a ready answer. (This was before the internet.)

He pays the bills.

And there was so much more.

Having him beside me during that speech helped calm my nerves and made it much easier for me to get through it. 

As I had been advised by other survivors of speech class, it also helped imagining the whole class in their underwear. 

Between having Carl beside me and thinking of the class in that state of undress, I actually made it through my sales pitch with a smile. 

I also got a couple of offers for him, which made us both laugh. 

Somehow, between Carl beside me and an imaginary classroom full of people in their underwear, I got through the class and walked away with an A in Speech.

It’s Fall, Ya’ll!

Brenda Stratton

Actually, most of us here in the Midwest really don’t talk like that, but I couldn’t resist. We’re much more likely to say “It’s fall, you guys,” but it just doesn’t have the same ring.

Still, every time I pull out my “It’s Fall, Y’all!” T-shirt, I can’t help but smile. It is my favorite time of year.

While it’s not officially fall yet, the kids are back in school and there’s a different feel in the air.

Summer is wrapping up, and my garden is slowing down. I will soon can, freeze, and dehydrate the last of the vegetable crop. 

There will be zucchini for zucchini bread, tomatoes for soups, stews, and pasta dishes, cucumbers for pickle relish, and a variety of herbs tucked away for the months ahead.

And it’s nearly time to trim my roses back so they can rest until spring. 

The trees will soon turn color, painting the landscape in brilliant hues of yellow, red, orange, and russet.

And there will soon be traces of woodsmoke as people light their fireplaces against the first chill of the season. 

Although the home I live in now doesn’t have a fireplace, I fondly remember the one we had in my childhood home, where Carl and I continued to live until 2002. Now, I’ll enjoy the memories and perhaps catch the scent of someone else’s fire on a cool autumn evening.

It won’t be long until the earth itself breathes a sigh of relief and settles from the busy energy of summer into the slower pace of fall, as it prepares for winter’s slumber. 

For me, fall has always been a season of quiet gratitude. It is a time to reflect on the year so far and look forward to the months ahead. I hope to spend them writing, enjoying life, and sharing the holidays with the people I love. 

For now, though, I’ll simply pull on my favorite T-shirt, smile at the changing season, and enjoy every colorful day that autumn brings.

Meet Carl

Brenda Stratton
My husband, Carl, wearing the patient half-smile I came to know so well.

Christmas at our house was always so much fun. Our kitchen was the heart of our home, and our family naturally gathered around the kitchen table.

Our annual cookie baking marathon was a family affair. Carl stirred the huge batches of dough, while I measured ingredients. The kids helped by rolling dough into balls and washing dishes, jobs assigned according to age. Christmas lights twinkled merrily through the wide doorway into the living room. 

Excited chatter came mostly from the kids, along with plenty of sticky hands as they sampled cookies—and occasionally the cookie dough.

With a bitter north wind swirling drifts of snow around our home, we were snug and safe inside with a crackling fire to warm us. Carl always made sure to carry enough wood inside to keep the fire going late into the evening. 

The light scent of wood smoke mingled with the aroma of cookies rich with cinnamon and molasses. To me, those scents spelled home, and it was exactly where we wanted to be.

Carl was a fantastic helper in the kitchen, not just at holidays, but every day. 

He arrived home from work at 5:15 pm through the week. I tried to have supper ready by 5:30 pm so he didn’t have to wait long to eat.

I was usually standing at the kitchen stove when he arrived. After coming in the back door, he kicked off his shoes and slid in beside me to help finish cooking, often before he had time to say hello. 

One night when I was working as a crochet designer, I dropped a crochet hook into my printer as I was preparing a pattern to send to my editor the next day. I couldn’t get it out, and I was afraid I would damage the printer if I tried running it that way. 

So, I woke Carl up. He went to get the long forceps he used for working on TVs and was able to quickly retrieve the hook. The pattern went out to my editor the next day, and Carl was back in bed within minutes. 

Sometimes, I attended needlework conventions in Chicago to meet with my editors. It was a two hundred mile drive, and lasted for three days. He always drove me, and helped me find my way around the convention hall. Whenever I had materials to carry, he handled it for me then stood quietly by, waiting for me to finish talking with my editors. 

He was always up for a road trip, whether it was local or halfway across the country. 

He was the same with the kids when they grew old enough to go places without us. Since we lived in the country, and some of their friends lived in town, they would need a ride and Dad was always ready to take them. 

In the summer, he planted a garden to help provide fresh food for our family. When our family grew, he planted a second garden. 

While he tended the gardens, I was usually in charge of preserving the harvest.

If something was broken, he fixed it. He knew how to fix everything from household appliances and TVs to air conditioning and broken toys. If it could be fixed, he found a way to do it. 

If I could choose one way of describing Carl, it would simply be that he showed up, something that he did every day for the entire 52 years that we were married. 

He didn’t stop to ask if it was something that he wanted to do or might inconvenience him. He just did it. 

His quiet devotion and sense of humor meant everything to me. He was my  home. 

Ice Cream Cones and Car Rides

Brenda Stratton

Some lazy summer evenings, after supper and the dishes were done, we’d head to the Tastee Freeze for ice cream before taking a slow drive through town.

It was nothing special, but it was a chance to get out of the house and do something different. 

We waved to people we knew, and slowly drove the familiar streets.   

We saw children playing in the yard, people watering flowers, and lights coming on in windows.

We weren’t spying on anyone. We were simply enjoying the feeling of a town settling in for the evening. 

There was something comforting about seeing porch lights come on and families gathered inside their homes. Even then, I think I was quietly wondering what their stories were.

We didn’t know everyone, of course, in a community of over three thousand people. But we had been born and raised in this small town, and so had our children. It was our town, and these were our people, whether we knew them all or not.

I have always been a listener, an observer. I had no way of knowing back then, but all of these little moments were quietly tucked into the back of my mind, and now they seem to be clamoring to be told. 

Our lives were pretty ordinary. We worked hard, took care of our family, and built a life that made us happy. 

At the time, those evenings were pleasant but they didn’t seem to be more than that. They were simply a way for our family to spend an evening together.

Looking back, I realize they were far more than that. 

They gave me a sense of belonging—to my family and to my community. I didn’t think of it in terms of contentment then, but I know now that’s exactly what it was. I was content, and I was home. 

Mom Made Ten Dozen Doughnuts!

Brenda Stratton

At least, that’s what it sounded like to me. 

Mom made a lot of desserts… Doughnuts weren’t something she usually made, which is one reason that day has stayed with me all these years. 

She also made pies, cakes, cobblers, cookies, puddings, and almost anything else you could imagine. My favorites were cream puffs and Boston cream pie, but those doughnuts were near the top of the list. Nearly everything she made was from scratch, although she occasionally used a cake mix if she was in a hurry.

We had a Crosley electric stove back then in the late 1950s. The back left cooking area had a deep well. It was simply a deep cooking pot set into the stove itself, and that’s where Mom made soups and stews, and where she deep fried the doughnuts. 

She had just started making them when Monty and I came in from school. She said we could have some for dessert that evening, but she wanted to have some left over for breakfast the next day. 

We hovered around her watching what she was doing. She let us, but kept us away from the deep well in case it splattered hot oil. 

We did get to peek once in a while, and I remember watching the oil sizzle around them.

It didn’t take long for them to fry. She took them out of the hot oil and laid them on paper towels she had spread on some plates. 

When they had cooled a little, she drizzled them with a thin powdered sugar icing. The frying bread dough and icing together scented the air in a way that any bakery would have been proud of. I will never forget how the kitchen smelled that day. 

When they had cooled enough for us to handle, she gave one to each of us. They disappeared so quickly, one might have almost wondered if they had been there in the first place, but there was the lingering taste and telltale signs of sticky fingers on both of us. 

 Of course, we wanted a second one, but she said we had to wait until after supper. 

Dad came home from work not long after, and he had one, too. I remember him telling Mom how good it was. 

After we ate supper, she gave us each a doughnut for dessert, and then a second one. If I remember correctly, we might even have gotten another one before bed, and, of course, before our baths.  

The next morning, we got up eagerly expecting doughnuts for breakfast because she had said so the day before. 

Unfortunately, she told us there weren’t any left. We ate them all the night before.

As an adult, I’ve realized she probably made only two dozen or so because that’s what most recipes would yield. Either that, or Dad had quite a bedtime snack!

But at the time… I would have sworn I heard her say ten dozen.

The Yarn Box

Brenda Stratton

My interest in knitting and crochet as a child became more pronounced as I grew older. By the time I was in my early twenties, I left knitting behind and concentrated solely on crochet.

Before long, my yarn collection outgrew the space I had for it. I needed a dedicated place to keep it. Bags and boxes in a closet didn’t work very well because I couldn’t easily see what I had.

Plastic storage totes weren’t common in the 1970s, so Carl made a yarn box for me from tongue and groove lumber.

We had only been married a few years, so his tool collection hadn’t yet grown to the size it would become later. Working with basic tools, the woodworking skills he had learned in high school shop class, and the tongue and groove lumber, he soon got to work on it.

First, he asked me how I wanted it, and I gave him some suggestions. He drew up the plans and started building it.

Before long, it was finished. He added a coat or two of clear varnish, thoughtfully leaving the wood light in color to match the floors, cabinets and woodwork in our home.

You could compare it in size to a blanket box. At first, it held all of my yarn. But as my collection grew, I began keeping my favorite yarn in it and storing the rest in the basement.

When Dad saw it, he was impressed with the workmanship and told Carl so.

That meant something.

Dad had built and renovated houses, and he knew good work when he saw it.

It sat in our living room for years.

When my crochet design career took off, and my yarn collection exploded, we used it to store the assorted blankets that accumulated in a family of six living in the Midwest, where the winters get very cold.

It was his gift. Thoughtfully conceived and carefully made, it meant more to me than I can say.

He saw my yarn beginning to multiply, and without a word, he went to work and made me a place to keep it. That meant more to me than anything store-bought ever could.

That’s who Carl was. If someone he loved needed something, he quietly found a way to provide it. Sometimes it was a ride into town for one of the kids. Sometimes it was helping me finish supper after work. Sometimes it was a yarn box. Whatever the need, he simply showed up.

Forty years later, when we moved into our current home, we had to decide what we could reasonably bring.

My yarn collection had grown incrementally over the years, so it wouldn’t hold more than a small fraction of the yarn I had accumulated over 30 years of design work.

And, our kids all had homes of their own by this time, so I didn’t really have need of a blanket box.

Over time, the yarn box came to represent Carl himself. Every time I looked at it, I remembered the many quiet ways he took care of us.

I didn’t want to part with it, but there just wasn’t room for it.

Then, a solution presented itself that I could feel good about.

Our daughter, Liz, expressed an interest in it, so it went home with her.

Her father built it, and I know that means something to her.

Many years have passed, but the love continues.

My Family Garden

Brenda Stratton

I live in the home I inherited from my parents. It’s not my childhood home, but one they purchased just before Carl and I were married. 

After we were married, Carl and I made my childhood home our own for the next 32 years.

Mom and Dad both loved flowers, and they each put their mark on this yard.

Dad planted daffodils, a lilac bush, ghost lilies, roses, and peonies. He transplanted my maternal grandmother’s rosebush from my childhood home to where I live now.

Mom always loved hollyhocks, tulips, and clematis, which she planted on the south side of the house.

Over the years, I’ve added my own touches to the garden with more roses and peonies, hydrangeas, irises, two magnolia trees, and an ornamental cherry tree.

Not every flower has survived. This year I planted two light purple clematis vines where Mom’s dark purple one had grown for years.

It had been struggling for the last two or three years, and I don’t remember seeing it at all last year. I thought it was gone.

To my surprise, this spring the old vine returned. Now the dark purple and light purple blossoms are intertwined, climbing the trellis together.

On my list of flowers yet to replace are a new lilac bush, tulips and hollyhocks. 

The flowers made me think about my family and the things we leave behind.

Each generation adds something new to what was already there. New family members are added through marriage, birth, and sometimes adoption.

Just as I continue adding new flowers to the garden, each generation adds something new to our family.

It is a continuous cycle of life.

When I look at the flowers in my yard, they remind me of the people who planted them.

Dad is in the daffodils, peonies, ghost lilies, and roses. Mom smiles from the clematis, and Grandma still blooms in the old rosebush. 

They remind me that those who loved us are never truly gone. 

Your Pants Are On Fire!

Brenda Stratton

When we lived on the farm, there were only two bedrooms on the ground floor. Monty had one room and Mom and Dad had the other. 

I was only four or five years old, so they put me in a tiny room off Mom and Dad’s bedroom that I think must’ve been a dressing room. 

Because the room was so tiny, there was only a small white dresser and my single bed which was tucked under the north-facing window.

There was no overhead light, just a bare lightbulb screwed into a light socket on the wall with a pull chain to turn it on.

One evening, while Mom was busy in her bedroom, I wandered into mine. 

There was a pair of Mom’s black-and-white zebra striped pedal pushers hanging from the lightbulb.

I remember the light turning on, but I don’t recall who did it, although I’ve always suspected it was me. Mom would have known better.

I was fascinated when I saw the smoke starting to curl toward the ceiling.

All of a sudden, Mom was there. 

She moved me out of the way and grabbed the zebra striped pants, flinging open the front door and hurling them out onto the front porch.

If I was the one who turned on the light, I didn’t get into trouble.

But Mom never hung anything on the light again, and that was the last time I ever saw the zebra striped pants.