06/14/09 Family Chuckle: Just don't let me volunteer to call the shots

I recently read an inspirational magazine article about women bettering the world with their work as volunteer leaders. It reminded me of my own efforts. In fact, it reminded me so strongly that I snorted "Hah!" and threw the magazine across the room. Then I brewed myself a cup of tea and found a good mystery to read.

My heart was in the right place when I volunteered, and I think I probably made a few lives better, one-on-one. Just leave me out of leadership. Let me labor back behind the front lines. W-a-a-y back.

The Chicken Tamale Stew incident is a good example. The church group needed to make money, and selling lunches at a bazaar seemed like a painless way to do it. I'd used Russ' mother's recipe for the stew often for my family. It has a cornmeal base, with chunks of chicken, tomatoes, corn, green chiles and just the right spicy seasonings. It's delicious.

I volunteered the recipe, and my dubious leadership skill. It was a smashing success. I was kept busy afterward jotting down the recipe for folks who asked. We fed many, many people who went away happy. Unfortunately, after expenses, we cleared $8.37. I don't know if we served too generously, or I made a mistake in calculating what the supplies would cost ... math was never my strong suit. I was never again asked to be in charge of a church fundraiser.

As one of the worker bees, I did fine. At bake sales my homemade bread was usually the first to be sold out. If you wrap the loaf while it's still warm enough to create a little bit of steam on the plastic wrap, homemade bread is hard to resist. Some folks might raise their eyebrows when I use the term "homemade," but I say it's silly to split hairs. After all, those loaves of Rhodes frozen bread dough spent some time in my oven before they went to the bake sale. Doesn't that qualify as homemade?

If I'd been in CHARGE of a bake sale, however, it probably would have featured the best cook bringing five custard pies, and being closed down by the health department.

The Christmas advent calendars were another example of a great idea falling off the rails.

The AIDS support group we were involved in needed money for the good things we wanted to do. I wrote a children's Christmas story about a family of lovable mice who lived under the kitchen floor of an old farmhouse. It had 24 short chapters, one to be read aloud every evening from Dec. 1 to Christmas Eve.

We made calendars of red felt, with 24 pockets sewn on each. Then we gathered up cute Christmas designs from coloring books, and traced them on felt to trim the calendars. We all had fun on the project, being more artistic than we'd ever have expected. Sure, one of the guys got a bit too anatomically correct when making Scottie puppies, but I was able to neuter 23 of the little critters with quick snips of my sewing scissors.

All our meetings became work sessions. I got tired of hauling all that stuff in and out of my sewing room, so I just left it in the backseat. From September through November, my car looked like a traveling yard sale. Or maybe a car on its way to the landfill.

At last all the calendars were trimmed. We spent a couple of meetings rolling each chapter like a little scroll, tying it with red ribbon and putting it in the proper pocket. Then, after finding a few calendars with chapters in wrong pockets, we spent another meeting double-checking each one.

Ah, the big day! Bazaar season arrived! We sold seven calendars ... not even enough to reimburse me for the felt. Once again, I was removed from a group's A-list of fundraisers ... probably down to the Z-list. I was back to visiting people in the hospital, driving sick people to medical appointments, and cooking homemade dishes to tempt picky appetites.

All of us old-timers of that first support group meet every summer for a potluck supper. We renew friendships from years ago, sometimes shed a tear for the loss of someone we loved and helped, and talk over old experiences. They're kind when chatting about my advent calendar project; just say what fun it was, and nothing about the fact that it was a disastrous failure. We're all pretty mellow by the time the subject comes up, anyhow. We've either had, or are about to have, a dish of Florence's peach cobbler, the reason we keep coming back each summer. The crust is so light that if it didn't have a dollop of whipped cream on top of it, it'd float up into the clouds.

I'm grateful for that dessert. I'd much rather have everybody go home remembering Florence LeMaster's peach cobbler than Donna Scofield's advent calendars!

* Donna Scofield is a freelance writer whose articles, columns and short fiction stories have appeared in numerous national and regional magazines. The longtime Yakima resident is retired after working as a secretary and office manager in Yakima School District elementary schools. She has raised two sons and two daughters.

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