Welcome to Family in Transition .. and Here Come the Animals .. .rather, the start of animals that will grow very quickly…  This episode shares some of our adventures as the family grew, ending with a decision resulting in a huge change to our daily lives.

A vivid memory from an early class experience was an assignment.  We were to go home and draw our family tree.  I turned in a drawing that was of ONE branch with ONE leaf with my name on it.  The teacher clarified what a family tree was and I responded that since I was adopted, my family tree is just me.  Yes, I was already outspoken to people that I should have been a bit more restrained.   That didn’t go over very well.  It wasn’t that I didn’t love my family or my parents and grandparents. 

I understood just enough about being adopted that I knew I was different.  My sense today, looking back, is that when your differences are pointed out, even in a very positive way as my parents did, the message is clear —  you are different. 

I had two books as a kid that I really cherished.  The first is Forgetful Bear and the other was Smoky.  They were first published in 1945 and the volumes that I had were spiral bound.  I had them for many years and sadly, they were lost in one of my many moves.  Growing up, I didn’t read a lot of books except for these two and the Hardy Boys Books.  I enjoyed reading them over and over again.

As a family, We made a lot of trips to Ellenville in those first years to visit grandparents.  Grandma and Grandpa lived on Camp Street in beautiful gray home.  Grandma would look for one of us alone along the porch area and sneak us an extra cookie.   My favorite piece of furniture that I admired greatly was one of Grandpa’s desks in the corner next to the stairwell.  It was a beautiful wood desk in the shape of a kidney bean.  I’d admire it on every visit.   Grammie and Poppy lived on Westwood Avenue; not too far from Camp Street and up on a hill going toward the outskirts of town.  Poppy built that house during the depression and never complete all the finishes allowing it to tell its own story.   I loved visiting this house.  There was a stone wall extending from the garage toward the property line and a huge evergreen tree on the side of the house.  As it grew, Poppy would just leave the Christmas lights on it because it was just too big to take them on and off the tree.   Knowing that Poppy built the family home, I remember looking around in awe of the work that must have gone into this during one of the darkest periods of American history.  Visiting Ellenville was always a real special time for me and am sure for my siblings as well.  On one visit to Ellenville, I remember getting to visit Grandma’s Kindergarten class.  There were two things I liked about that.  The first was I got cookies!  The second was I got to nap when the others did and you know how I like to nap in a Kindergarten classroom!

I’m sure you can imagine that since Dad was a music teacher, we got free piano lessons and well, while I tried to learn, I didn’t get very far; unlike my siblings who are far more musically inclined than me.  I think I can still PARTIALLY play Happy Birthday and Joy the the world.  I mean really, Markus wrote the song that the pre roll and post roll music was excerpted from for my podcast.  

Well, Dad taught music at the same school we attended for the first years.  Sometimes that was a good thing; sometimes it was more challenging, especially not getting away with things most kids did.  I joined the band early on and chose the tympani or kettle drums as my instrument.  I wasn’t very good.  I wonder if the reason was because I didn’t practice.  Anyway, somehow I went to All State my first year in band. … How, I don’t know.  Pretty sure Dad pulled some strings, no pun intended.  At my school, we had two kettle drums.  At All State, there were four on either side of the orchestras.    Since I couldn’t really read music and didn’t know what to do with the extra two drums, I would watch the tympani player on the opposite side of the orchestra and when he blew into the tuning device and tuned the knobs on the drums, I would just follow what he was doing …meaning I would blow into the tuning device and turn random knobs.   I also played my drums when he played his drums.  That meant I was always a split second behind which was … let’s say … less than good?   After the performance, we got to shake hands with the conductor.  When it was my turn, he simply said, “I didn’t think we were going to get through it.”  Oh well, my Dad was the music teacher so ha!  The next semester, I wound up with a N E W  music teacher.  He wasn’t much impressed with my progress and assigned “homework” on a drum pad.  I am not usually a quitter.…  I quit.  Imagine that I was expected to practice with All State on my resume!  My siblings are all pretty very musical from French horn, trombone, to trumpet - maybe I should have picked a brass instrument!

Several years later, Dad had the Summer marching band for a source of income because teachers are or were only paid for 9 months.  One  Summer, since I did so VERY well at All State a couple of years earlier, Dad asked me if I wanted to play the bass drum in a parade.  What?  I could be in the parade?  Of course.  I kept tripping over the trousers since I was so short and I also didn’t realize that it is the bass drum player that keeps the beat for the marching band.  Well, I’m sure you can well guess how that went.  I tried to keep in step with the people in front of me, who were trying to keep in step to the beat that I was providing so calling it “circus like” is an exaggeration, yet it was probably a bit comical. .   I only did that for ONE parade.  I still don’t know why, do you?

Between my days in Kindergarten through the fifth grade our family grew.  All of the children adopted from Korea were brought to the orphanage as either an anonymous drop-off or brought by a family member who could no longer care for them.  As time progressed, the rules and procedures changed to adopt children.  Wendy was next to join the family and was adopted at about 5 or 6 years old.   When the family had a total of six children, social services at that time told my parents that they could not adopt any more children, primarily due to the family income.  It was because we were doing well and the family was certainly a success by any measure, they finally acquiesced and said that my parents could adopt ONE more time.  Mom did her usual research and found a loop-hole.  If they adopted siblings; that would “count” as one more adoption.  So, the last two to be adopted were, I believe, 11 and 13.  The reasoning was that if they were not adopted, they might “age” out.  We drove to New York City where we met them at JFK Airport and I remember looking out the big glass windows as the plane approached the gate.  Because of their age and the need to assimilate them as quickly as possible to enable success in school, Mom would put stickers on everything with the phonetic Korean word …and English word so we could help them learn English.  The most memorable is the word for black pepper - it is hoo-choo.…  I think I remember that because it’s fun to say.  

Looking back, this was just one example of how Mom would be aware of details that focused on assimilation into America.   What we learned later was that the last two children; Linda and Doug remember Wendy from when they were at the orphanage.  The story with Linda and Doug’s natural family will come back in a future episode when their older sister writes to Mom twenty years later.  

As you can see, Mom and Dad had a lot of love to share and that was evident on how they integrated the additions to the family.  We were raised equally or at least that was my perspective.  I’m not saying there weren’t challenges.  There were.  At the same time, more importantly, those that were adopted were given a chance to a life very different from what would have been the situation in Korea.  While this is my autobiography, I’ll integrate family stories because an individual in a family of this size isn’t an island to himself!  I’ve often used the term, a Put Together Family in part because the family came together across a decade or so and children were integrated from young children to pre-teens. 

Stop for music interlude 

As the family grew, our Summer vacations mostly included trips to Ellenville and Maryland.  Why Maryland?  Dad’s brother’s family lived in Maryland.  Uncle John and Aunt Wanda had four children and a big yard with a very intimate grove of trees in back. 

 We really liked going to Maryland because their family was close in age to many of us and so we always had a fun time playing games, growing  relationships, and hiding in the little forest.  The next story is one that I remember quite vividly.  There was a scooter that caught my attention.  I got on the scooter, and nearly immediately fell injuring my leg.  I was bleeding.  Screaming and likely more than the actual injury would dictate, Mom was a bit frantic.  She wanted to rush to the hospital.  My Aunt, perhaps a bit more experienced with children’s injuries, especially boys, tried to assure her that it wasn’t serious at all.  Well, a trip to the hospital did ensue - and it was barely a scrape. There might have been TWO bandaids!  

I have never been on a scooter since!  Even with that incident, we always had fun visiting the Maryland Terwilliger’s and I had my first trip to a hospital.  Over the years, Our cousins would come visit us as well.   

While I’m sharing this story, of toys that you can ride, one of my more memorable events was the day I learned to ride a bike.   At some point, Grandpa gave us a big green bike.  I say big green bike because I was a kid and the bike was an adult bike.  Now, there were rules.  We couldn’t ride the bike in the street, naturally.  We had to bike with supervision, naturally.  We also couldn’t bike without permission, naturally.  The sidewalk in front of the house was pretty typical.  Before the last short distance before the property line, a  tree root had buckled the asphalt.  So, that was one of the points that I would fall plus you already know of my amazing sense of balance.

I liked to practice and  was getting super close to not falling off the bike.  So, one evening, close to dusk, without permission, I decided to try again.  I snuck out of the house, got the bike, and …. WOW, I could ride the bike without falling off.  The problem was that I couldn’t tell anyone because I wasn’t supposed to be on the bike in the first place!

In addition to the trips to Maryland and Ellenville; we went to Washington DC, Vermont, Montreal, Canada, and the biggest and possibly the most memorable trip was to South Dakota.  First, on one of the trips to Washington.  Because the Terwilliger crew had grown in size, Mom had us all wear the same shirts with broad red and white stripes so They could easily spot us when rounding us up.

Well, at one of the “let’s make sure everyone is here” points, we had ONE too many!  A little boy with a red and white striped shirt got corralled with everyone else.  Fortunately, he was quickly reunited with his family! 

The trip to South Dakota was one for the history books!   

We went to South Dakota as a family sight-seeing trip to Mt Rushmore as well as taking donations of clothing from the church to a Native American reservation.  We had a station wagon and a pop-up TravelMate trailer.  A pop up camper is one that folds into itself and when unfolded, the structure goes straight up and there are two wings that unfold, nearly tripling the size of the  sleeping area.  It had a small kitchen in it and dining room tables that folded out.  When closed, the top of the trailer which was made of the same metal material as the sides of the trailer, fit snuggly together and a padlock was put on each of the four corners to secure it.   

As we drove through the wide open spaces of the Dakotas, there was a huge wind storm.  The top of our trailer came off and flew away!  

What I do remember is the surprise by my Mom because the locks holding the top were still there.  We used to joke that some poor cow was minding her own business and along comes a flying camper top.  We weren’t far from the reservation, so we continued there and sought places to sleep before diverting to Elkhart, Indiana to get the trailer repaired.  

Dad wasn’t one to stop except for gas!  The open highways in that part of the midwest is long and far between stations and rest areas.  Well, as parents know, when a kid says they have to go; it’s usually because there isn’t a lot of room to negotiate timing.  I had to go - I mean, I really had to go — Dad didn’t stop.  A few minutes - maybe less, I started peeing in the back of the car!  Kinda funny now … less funny then!

At the reservation, our host provided us a couple of one room buildings where we slept on the floors with several blankets.  The next morning, our host came with a giant spider in a jar.  It was a tarantula.  Mom was like - you had my kids sleeping the floors when there were tarantulas around?  Well, we got the trailer fixed in Indiana and the rest of the trip went without any more drama.

Eventually, family trips stopped pretty abruptly and you’ll see why in just a bit.

Stop for INTERLUDE 

Growing up, we attended the Wesleyan Church.  Mom was very active in the children’s programs including Vacation Bible School where her creativity and artistic talent was well utilized. .  Dad played the organ and piano.  We participated in seasonal skits, several activities, and educational programs.  When your Mom is a youth leader, you get to stay after everyone leaves to help clean up.  Three things are most memorable about the church events.  First, Vacation Bible School was fun.   Being part of the skits through those early years was also fun.  The memory of always having to help clean up was less fun.

At this point, our family was complete.  As I look back, I didn’t know a lot about our finances - except to know that my Dad was a high school music teacher, and with that size family, the costs must have been more than I could imagine.  Mom did the books and was exceptionally good at keeping the budget in tow.  Being creative, Mom figured out that we could get government milk, cheese, and peanut butter.  Government milk was uniquely awful.  It was powdered milk and no matter how much you stirred it; put it in a blender, or whatever - it had lumps — and it was not good.  I can still remember that awful milk and makes me shudder even as I tell this story.

 The bottom line is that life was pretty good.  We always had plenty of food, shelter, and clothing; and our own unique family to engage.  There was no shortage of love and compassion.  As a kid, what else do you need.  

As the family grew, Mom, who was always thinking, came up with a new way for us to learn and grow.  She got some of us involved with 4-H.  I liked 4-H.  I had the chance to do creative things in arts and crafts.  I may not be very musical - I was talented with making crafts.  It was also impetus that took the family off on a new tangent. 

A big part of 4-H is animal husbandry, especially in rural New York State.  There are lots of dairy farms across the landscape, many that were in families for generations.  This side of 4-H gave Mom new resources in research and thinking about caring for the growing family, she thought maybe we could start by getting chickens.  This made sense because chickens provide eggs and a source for meat although the initial plan was eggs!  This was the start of the Terwilliger family’s move to being more self-sustaining long before it became popular!

Remember, we lived in town, so if we got chickens, where would they go?  We started out with a small shed like the kind you would get at Home Depot.  This would hold a few chickens, easy to set up, and seemed to make sense.  Guess who was responsible for the care of the chickens?  Initially it was all of us, since it was a family project.  In pretty short order, Mom thought we should increase the number of chickens especially if we were to use them as a meat source.  She learned we could get 50 baby chicks through 4-H, free of charge in the Spring and had to return 25 adult chickens in the Fall that they would butcher and donate to local families.   So, guess who was asked to sign up with this 4H program?  Yup - it was me, so I  signed up for the free chicks.  They arrived in a cardboard box made for such a purpose - little yellow chicks all chirping and vying for attention.   From a “couple” of chicks to 50!  Is your mind wondering what is next?  Well, so were we and Mom’s creative and inventive mind was going full bore.  

Mom knew who to call.  When in doubt, call Dad,  who you may remember, was an expert tradesman with concrete, plumbing, electrical, and building in general; and recall he built the family home in Ellenville.  Well, what they came up with was …..  oh no,  this episode is coming to an end so you have to come back for Episode 5!  I promise - You won’t believe what comes next!

This episode is dedicated to Ken Bryson.  You know already that he created the cover art.  Let me tell you that the little boy in the painting was created from a couple of photos of me, he researched refuse containers of the era in Korea; and added the newspaper complete with date.  The hangul or Korean language characters are the last two characters for the Korean word for refuse because that’s the area where the trash can was.  So it’s not just a random relatable painting - it’s as true to form as possible and that’s why this episode is dedicated to him. 

During the pandemic, I took a stab at writing poetry.  I posted it on TikTok last weekend.  It is a bit of an autobiographical poem, if there is such a phrase.  …… Here it is and the lyrics and art will be posted on instagram and twitter 

A Poem, The Blue Tomato

I’m different from you

You’re different from me

Even my twin is not the same

I wonder if that’s okay 

Some are red and some are green

That’s weird to me

I bet that makes me special

Wait, I’m the only one

Here comes the farmer 

He took care of all of us

He harvests all the others 

I’m left all alone

Am I that different?

My roots are deep, my leaves are green

Why didn’t he pick me

Am I confused?

Maybe it doesn’t matter

We all can’t be red or green

Some of us are different

I am the blue tomato

The poem is about how I often felt different from this stage in my life and many times forward. — and yet, hoped that was okay… although sometimes it didn’t seem like being the blue tomato was okay.  It comes complete with a drawing that is posted along with a photo of Ken’s full size painting of the cover art.  

Episode 5 is next — goats, and chickens, and rabbits, and blue eggs - oh my!

I appreciate those sharing the podcast - as the listeners are growing.  A huge thank you!

 Until next time…. from the blue tomato…. we’ll see you soon.

 The Boy in the Trash Can Podcast is a production of CSJ Associates.