High Tea in a Beer Wagon

About a week ago, I was finally able to meet Ronni Bennett, the Grande Dame of Elder Blogging. We’d tried to get together a couple of times previously, but the stars hadn't aligned correctly. Finally, they came together and it happened.

Ronni lives in Lake Oswego, a tony suburb of Portland, OR, while I spend my summers in a small condo in St. Johns, an indubitably untony village just over the St. Johns Bridge in what is known at NOPO or North Portland. Whereas Lake Oswego has bird calls that tell you it’s time to cross the street, St. Johns has its resident schizophrenic who will run you over with his grocery cart if you don’t move fast enough when deciding which way to go at an intersection.

So you might imagine that I was a little nervous meeting The Ronni Bennett, especially when she suggested High Tea for lunch. People who know me well understand that I’m more a Chicken McNuggets kind of girl than one who sips any kind of tea, much less one made of High. 

And then there was the beer wagon. I was able to transport myself from St Johns to Lake Oswego by virtue of the fact that my daughter and her family were on vacation that week, traveling in her mother-mobile and leaving her husband’s car for me to use. Since Trevor works as a rep for a beer distributor, his car carries lots of samples, all rolling around in the back.

But my nervousness disappeared as soon as I heard Ronni laugh.  It was a gritty streets of New York City kind of laugh, a "you ain't showing me anything I haven't seen or smelled before" kind of laugh.  I immediately fell in love.

We did go to High Tea at a place called Lady Di's Tea Shoppe, a sobriquet Ronni made fun of right after she complained about Lake Oswego being just "too damned clean."  We began talking over our little sandwiches and kept on for five straight hours. We talked about the world and politics and aging and death and cats.  Ronni's life could be the basis for at least several pages in a Who's Who of Culture and Counterculture of the Second Half of the 20th Century, and she remembers it all.  I was absolutely enthralled and edified.

And to top it all off, she gave me a pastry blender!  Not because she thought it would save me from Chicken McNuggets, but  because she had promised me her extra one should I ever come to see her.  I'm assuming she already suspected I wasn't much of a cook as she also gave me a packaged Apple Crisp mix.  All I have to do is "add fresh apples and butter."

My new pastry blender (and Apple Crisp mix)

I wonder if I will need to cut up the apples.  I'll ask Ronni the next time I see her.

Still Vertical

I have a friend who lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, and, after the earthquake there last week, I sent an email asking him to let me know that he was okay.

This was his response:

Bloody miracle really but still vertical.

I met Judith and Malcolm Tait my first year as an Assistant Professor at Georgia Southwestern State University. He was our Interim Vice President and she was on the adjunct faculty there.  I’d never met New Zealanders before and I don’t believe I’ve run into any since, but that’s okay because I had the chance to get to know the Taits. To first look at them, they seemed an oddly-matched set. Malcolm looked important; Judith looked like she seldom thought about how she looked. Together, they were a lovely couple, still interested in each other after more than forty years of marriage.

The Taits had spent much of their adult lives in the US, following Malcolm’s professional path. Along the way, they’d lived in New York, where he did his graduate work at Columbia, and then Hawaii, Ohio, and North Carolina, welcoming three sons born in various places. Americus, Georgia was to be their last stop before going back home to retire in New Zealand.

Judith and I bonded over books. She was the first to tell me about Harry Potter and Augustine Burroughs, with his crazy book, Running with Scissors. We also shared a love for liberal politics and cats. Malcolm and Judith had some of us over to their charming rented Victorian-era home on several occasions during the time we worked together and I was always struck by how much like them their rented house was, down to the baby grand in the music room. I remember when Judith cried after one of her cats was hit by a car and died. I also remember her giving me her other cat, Sheba, when they moved back to New Zealand some time around 2001.

Over the years I would hear from Malcolm and Judith.  Because all three of their boys lived in the US, they would come over to visit them and their grandkids.  We got together one time in Americus when they drove through.  After that, Judith would send letters and notes with that New Zealand airmail stamp; and, at least once a year, I would get a phone call from some strange number, a call  I wouldn't answer until around the third time it showed up on my phone and I picked it up out of pure curiosity.  Then I would hear, "Mahsha, is that you, Mahsha?  It's Judith Tait calling from New Zealand."  And off we would go with everything from family doings to international news.  It was as if we were back in the faculty lounge and not on opposite sides of the world.

At some point, I knew that Judith wasn't well, something about a hospital stay in the US in the midst of a trip to see the kids.  Then there was a while when I didn't hear; then a phone call from a strange number and "Mahsha, is that you, Mahsha? and it was Judith and she sounded good.

Ultimately, an email came to me from Malcolm in December of 2009 with the news that Judith had passed away.

Judith Tait gave me many gifts, including friendship, book recommendations, copious amounts of wine, and her cat.  But although I loved Sheba, the greatest gift Judith ever gave me arrived all wrapped up in her memories of growing up in New Zealand.  Before her death, she gathered those memories together in A Pretty Gumboot Show, a book she dictated with great courage and effort to her cousin, Ruth Alley.  

Those memories include:

Beginnings

I was born in a nursing home in a suburb of Christchurch, New Zealand.   I was the first born child of Geoffrey Thomas Alley, and Euphan Margaret Alley.  I was born in the latter hours of the day in the middle of the New Zealand summer and on the longest day of the year - the 22nd December 1931.

I have always been told that I inherited my Grandmother's complexion and her family, the Buckingham's build.  I had big broad bones and this was attributed to the Southland Buckinghams, who lived at Waikawa and who bred cattle of vast dimensions.  Thus, as a toddler, I was frequently described as 'one of those big Waikawa things'.

We moved back to 'Westcote' (outside of Christchurch) when my Grandfather died so that my father could help my Grandmother, Nanna.  We lived in The Jung.  This was a little cottage a short way away from the main house.  There was no water and no loo and it had three rooms.  It was called The Jung because a visiting family called it a bungalow and somehow this got mixed up with the jungle and then the Jungalow was invented and shortened to The Jung.

I have many, many vivid memories of my grandmother Nanna and she was an important influence in my life until after her death.....  I was a little girl during The Depression when many people were out of work, homeless and poor.  Unemployed people would travel the country looking for work and some of them turned up at 'Westcote'.  Nanna would never turn them away and always made sure they were fed and had shelter for the night or even a little work about the place. There were often strange people tucking into a bowl of porridge at the kitchen table and these people came to be known as 'Nanna's lame ducks'.  I remember Nanna's favourite black cat was called Paul after the American bass singer Paul Robeson.

Any time I think it's not worth the trouble to get my thoughts and memories down to share with my children and others, I need to think of Judith Tait and her gift.  Through her, I know something of a time and place I could have never known otherwise, and, because of her, I have a better understanding of people who live a world away from me, and that understanding is something I believe we all could use.

Judith died over a year ago, but Malcolm is still vertical, thank God.  Although I'm sure he's glad she hasn't been privy to the recent troubles in their beloved homeland,  I know he misses having her on this earth with him, offering a pithy comment or laughing at some absurdity.

 I certainly do.

Friends Today

My Aunt Susie, who is 95, has lived her entire life in Waycross, Georgia. She never married, working as a typesetter for the Waycross Journal Herald for forty years. Aunt Susie was, and is, a reticent soul, almost dysfunctional socially, but she was the only grownup I ever knew who had a pen pal, and Susie’s pen pal was from Holland! As a child, I couldn’t imagine having a friend who was from a place so far away. And get this, Susie actually traveled to the Netherlands one time to meet her friend in person! Keep in mind this was in the late 1950’s when people just didn’t travel like they do now, at least not people who lived in Waycross. After she got back, when asked about her trip, she said it was “nice.”

Fast forward 50 years. When I started blogging six months ago, it was mostly to entertain myself and my more tolerant friends with my views on life, and to have a place to store my memories for my kids and grandkids. Little did I know I would become the Aunt Susie of my generation as I began to interact with people all over the world. I submitted a couple of my stories to a site called The Elder Storytelling Place, and, before I knew it, I had a small gaggle of greathearted friends who supported my efforts at writing just as I began to do the same for them. I now have a friend who lives in England, another from Scotland, another who lives her life in Newfoundland, and one who spent many years in Israel. And I've gotten to know folks who live all over the good old USA, north, south, east, and west, all people whom I consider to be friends although we’ve never met face to face.

One of those friends is Mary B. Summerlin, who was my first blogging cyber buddy. We first conversed about one of her stories in which she told of growing up on a farm in South Carolina. She mentioned that her grandfather’s last name was McGee. I too have a passel of McGees hanging from my family tree so I wrote something in the comments section of the blog and soon heard back from her. We haven't figured out yet if we are related or not, but the point has became somewhat moot as we've turned into fast friends. Although Mary is from Poughkeepsie, New York, her family home is in Starr, South Carolina, a mere 100 miles from Atlanta. As we were getting to know each other, we also discovered that we are both divorced, and both teachers. We are also mothers and grandmothers, and we have similar perspectives on the ways of the world.

What has been even better for me is that Mary has a few years on me, so I get to see her as a mentor and guide as I feel my way forward in life. I think, deep down, I would like to be Mary one day, retired from full-time work, but still engaged and busy, full of energy and questions and plans and projects.

Just the other day, I was able to feel what Aunt Susie must have felt all those years ago as she made her way from Waycross to Amsterdam, although I had only to drive to Starr, South Carolina. That's where I had the chance to meet my new old friend, Mary B. Summerlin, when she was visiting her family farm, which is now run by her brother and his family.

I have to say my kids thought I was a little bit crazy when I told them I was going to meet my online friend in a place called Starr, South Carolina. I think they thought I'd accidentally happened upon an over-the-hill same-sex dating site. And I'm sure Mary's family was wondering why this total stranger from Atlanta was stopping by their house and generally getting in their way on a hot summer's morning when they had other things to do.

But Mary and I had very few qualms and it took no time at all for us to warm up to each other since we were already friends. We toured the house (much to her sister-in-law's tolerant dismay) and talked about writing and storytelling, as Mary is a powerful storyteller and I’m a fledgling writer. Mary told me about her childhood in that very house, and her memories brought back my own memories of my childhood home, very much like Mary's, where I lived until I was four and where my Aunt Susie grew up before she ever even thought about traveling to Holland.

Mary's childhood home in Starr, South Carolina

Marcia's childhood home in Waycross, Georgia
both were built by a man named McGee

The very best part of my visit was riding on the tailgate of Mary’s brother’s truck while we toured the farm. I felt just like a kid again, holding on for dear life to the back of that truck, as we retraced the steps she took as a child. I already knew a good bit about Mary's childhood through her writing and storytelling. I knew of the Big Gully and had an idea of where Laura Francis had lived, but on that very special day I was able to see those places in person with my friend, Mary, who, although she lives far away, has so much in common with me.

I know people are opining that the internet is making us all antisocial and isolated, but without exploring cyberspace I would have never met Mary or my other blogging friends around the world. So, I don't feel isolated at all. In fact, I feel as if my circle of friends has expanded exponentially and I've learned that people who are far away can feel quite close.

Maybe that's what Aunt Susie was trying to tell me when she said her trip was "nice."