Hogie, Hogie, Hogie

You know that person who can drive you nuts, but you love the shit out of them anyway?

Hogie was husband #2 after husband #1 passed away from a blood disorder called: Alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT) deficiency, a rare genetically inherited disorder often unrecognized in clinical practice. Abnormal AAT levels can lead to the accumulation of AAT in the liver, leading to liver disease.

In other words, Stephen died of cirrhosis of the liver at 36 years old. He finally got a diagnosis 2 weeks before he died, a young intern came up with the idea to test him. Today, he would have been diagnosed sooner and gotten a liver transplant and management and lived.

Stephen was handsome and loving and mean. He was strong and masculine and domineering. He was hysterically funny and bitingly critical. Stephen was an Aries and I was a Libra. We fought and fucked and were passionate about everything. I left him repeatedly and came running back repeatedly. And then he was gone.

A funny thing was, I met my second husband when I was grocery shopping with #1. It is such a clear memory. We were in the meat department at Beck’s IGA and there was a red-haired guy with an Irish style tweed flat hat and a big red beard. He greeted us and chatted about steaks for a minute and left. I asked Stephen who it was. He answered, “That is Hogie, he’s Kim’s brother.” Kim was a good friend of Sox and Shelly, close friends of ours.

I never thought at that moment in time, that I would kiss and make mad love to that man. I never guessed that I would have his redhaired baby. I had no idea how he would empower me to be the woman I am today. I couldn’t imagine punching him in the nose or him being one of the great loves of my life, I wasn’t attracted to him at all. Steve was a 6’4” Burt Reynolds kind of guy. Hogie was a 5’ 9” Papa Smurf kind of guy!

How Hogie and I ended up together is all in my last Blog “If you try sometimes, you get what you need.” Hogie was exactly what I needed. Thirty-one years old, a widow, with a two-year-old, an eight-year-old and a suitcase full of victim consciousness, I had baggage.

Hogie never considered anything much of a problem or insurmountable. He was easy. He didn’t have much drive or ambition; I didn’t really care. He was a pleasant, loving, goofy person. He would walk into a room and his signature opener was “Why am I so handsome?” I had been under so much stress for so long, he was a deep breath of cool air and a sigh of relief for me.

I remember asking Hogie if it was okay for me to go to the store, he looked at me quizzically. “Why would you ask me that?” I always asked for permission to do anything with #1. Stephen ran a tight ship. He would ask how much I was planning to spend, and if I really needed it. If I wasn’t working, I had an allowance. I guess that is what happens when you are an unemployed teen-age bride.

I told Hogie, “I, I don’t know. I’ll be right back; I’m going to the store.” He smiled and went back to his book, “Get me a pack of smokes please, Baby.” That was it, I was free. I controlled the purse strings, I paid the bills, I made decisions.

I decided that I couldn’t take Vashon Island anymore. When your spouse dies young, all his friends disappear, and all your couple friends disappear. No matter where you go, everyone looks at you sadly. They feel awkward around you and don’t know what to say. Hogie was very social and had lots of friends and my roommate had a bunch of friends so there were people around. However, in 1985 many of these friends were doing coke. Actually, almost everyone under fifty was coked up. Hogie was adamantly antidrug. He didn’t even smoke pot. His drug of choice was scotch or Soave Bolla.

My dear neighbor girl was having problems, the one who saved me by taking care of my kids while I was at the hospital on and off for months with Stephen.

We decided we needed to get out of town. My neighbor girl and her boyfriend decided to join us in our exodus. I rented out the house to a friend and we moved on to the mainland and north of Seattle to Mount Vernon, Washington. I picked Mount Vernon because I had been to the tulip festival there. In the spring there are acres of gorgeous tulip farms in bloom. This is what it looks like, for real. It fills your eyes in a way nothing else does.

I found a five-bedroom house that was wonderful, and we all tromped off in a gang to start a new life. The house was wide with two bedrooms down and three up. It had a large living room in the front of the house, facing the street, with windows that went all the way around three sides of the room.

Under the windows was banquette seating with cupboards built in - here’s an example but now imagine thirty feet of this. It was amazing. There was a cupboard for everything you can imagine, toys, tools, blankets all neatly tucked away. I have long lusted after a house like this since this one. There was a very sixties cone shaped fireplace in the middle of the room, hanging from chains. I really loved that house. We got all happily settled in, the escapees from a life of cocaine. I had just got my son enrolled in school, my daughter was three and Hogie applied for a chef job, he was a trained chef educated at the first culinary academy in the Northwest, Edison at Seattle Community College.

We got a letter stuck in the door. The bank had foreclosed on our landlord and were taking possession of the house. We had 30 days to leave. We had a dinner meeting around the dining room table and pulled out a map. Mount Vernon was lean on job opportunities and rentals, so we picked another town. At this point, none of us had any allegiance to anywhere. I think I closed my eyes and stuck my finger on the map and came up with Winthrop, Washington.

I had been through Winthrop once during a festival and it seemed like a lot of fun. I liked the idea of a drier climate and the cowboy theme is pretty adorable.

I called Winthrop Realty because every town has a realty named after them and we had to do everything with no computers of course. A jovial man answered the phone and said he had just the ticket for me. Seven acres with a big new barn, a chicken house, greenhouse and a root cellar and rabbit hutches. The main house had 3 bedrooms but the ski chalet in the back had another two bedrooms. Seven hundred a month. I said, “That sounds swell, we’ll come see it tomorrow.”

The road, Highway 20 between Mount Vernon and Winthrop Washington is one of the most stunning on earth. The kids and I counted eighty waterfalls on the way through the mountains and at Washington Pass, there was still snow on the ground.

The farm was in Mazama, about 12 miles from Winthrop town. It was called Brown’s Farm and it was picture book charming.

This is the Ski Chalet, where the neighbor girl and her boyfriend lived. One of our crew, the boyfriend’s best friend decided to head back to Vashon.

There is the main house where we lived. You can stay there! It’s a B&B now -Lodging in Winthrop, WA at Brown's Farm with Methow Reservations.

I turned into a cross between Martha Stewart and Ma Kettle. I dove deep into making jam and planting a huge garden. I got 24 baby chicks and two fresh dairy goats, Blondie, a French Alpine and Crystal Starlight a snow white Saanan. Guess who named her? My 4-year-old daughter.

Pretty close to Blondie. Blondie was an all business goat. She put up with no crap from anyone. They had to be milked twice a day - 6am and 6pm.

The milking started with a warm udder bath and a bin of molasses covered oats that really looked like I would eat it with a little milk. After milking, another warm bath with a little disinfectant to keep those udders in good shape and a massage with bag balm. I had hands soft as rose petals after doing this to two goats twice a day.

One day my son came in the barn while I was milking and demanded to be taken to town. I shushed him, Blondie does not abide by turbulence in the atmosphere. He kept up the whining and got a back hoof planted so firmly in his chest that it left a red hoof print. He deserved it, Blondie without missing a beat, nudged my cheek with her soft nose as if to say, “You’re welcome,” and went back to munching her oat snacks.

Crystal Starlight. She was a sweet pristine, princess. She needed extra attention and love at all times and wondered why she didn’t have her own bedroom in the house.

She and Blondie gave us a gallon of milk a day, which became soft cheese to eat immediately, and I would squeeze and age balls of cheese that was similar to parmesan. Hogie took my son fishing every day and they developed a good bond. He was not his Dad or disciplinarian. Hogie played it exactly right. They both called him Hogie except when my daughter got older, she would call him Daddy when she needed something. It was a good chuckle.

Lakes in Eastern, Washington were flush with fish in 1985. It was not unusual to see a herd of sixty deer in our front pasture. The deer were so plump and abundant - that every hunter was giving away deer meat. It took Hogie about two weeks to get to know everybody in town, so we got gifts of deer about once a week.

Our freezer was full of trout and deer. We had a fridge full of cheese, and I was trading the neighbor goat milk for Jersey cow milk for the extra fat and protein. I would skim the ample cream from the gallon of Jersey milk and shake it in a jar until it was a ball of butter.

We got news of Hogie’s son being born and that same week, trout and deer nauseated me. I was marinating strips of deer meat in teriyaki sauce and hanging them on the clothesline wrapped in cheesecloth to dry when I felt extremely tired. The next day, I woke up and my 1/4-acre vegetable garden that was knee high, was completely gone. Eaten by deer. I sat on the porch and cried.

You guessed it, I was pregnant. I went to see the local obstetrician and was confirmed. Due on Christmas day. Hogie was elated. He already had three kids from two different wife-times. I was less than excited. Mostly tired. I milked goats and picked eggs from dawn to dusk and had taken a part time job at Mazama Country Inn as a chef.

I loved that job. It was a small cafe inside a charming country inn. There were 3 people on staff at all times. All three of us were trained for all three jobs. We would rotate each shift. On Monday - I would be cooking, Wednesday I would be hostess and waitress, Friday, I was the dishwasher and prep cook.

One day I was cooking and a table of 15 tennis pros, wearing their whites came in and insisted I be their waitress. I was the cook that day, so the waitress swapped with me. They made a big deal of it and applauded when I came out to take their order. I bowed and took their order. I was about six months pregnant, I think at this point.

I came out of the kitchen carrying a tray of large orange juices. As I reached their table, I tripped on a wrinkle in the carpeting and the juices didn’t just spill, they flew through the air, thoroughly dousing each player with a goodly splash. I apologized profusely and my comrades in the kitchen came running out with stacks of bar towels and we all started wiping and dabbing away as much as possible. My face was beet red. The pros thought this was hysterically funny. They sat right back down and waited patiently for their eggs benedict. When they left, they gave me a twenty dollar tip.

My only challenge working at the Mazama Country Inn was the seven layer bars that I made for the hikers. We would make sack lunches and the seven-layer bars that I made were infamous. I would make 24 of them twice a week and put them in the walk in. Invariably, there would be around twelve left every time I went to get them for the sack lunches. I asked about the disappearance and everyone who had access to the fridge would shrug and walk away!

Pam’s Magic Disappearing Bars

1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs

• 1/2 cup butter, melted

• 1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand^® Sweetened Condensed Milk

• 1 cup (6 oz.) white chocolate chips

• 1 cup (6 oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips

• 1 1/3 cup flaked coconut

• 1 cup chopped nuts

• 1 cup craisens

Instructions

• HEAT oven 350°F. Spray 13 x 9-inch baking pan with no-stick cooking spray.

• COMBINE graham cracker crumbs and butter; mix well. Press crumb mixture firmly into bottom of prepared pan. Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumb mixture. Layer evenly with remaining ingredients; press down firmly with fork.

• BAKE 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Loosen from sides of pan while still warm; cool on wire rack. Cut into bars or diamonds.