The Girl from Cleopatra Hill

My mother, Perrie Rae Ling, grew up in what was still the wild west, in a mining town clinging to the side of Cleopatra Hill, an undulating accessory to Mingus Mountain, part of the Black Hills range. Mama grew up in a place and time I can only imagine, and they were central to who she was. The place was Jerome Arizona and the time was the early part of the 20th century.

Located high on top of Cleopatra Hill (5,200 feet) between Prescott and Flagstaff is the historic copper mining town of Jerome, Arizona. Once known as the wickedest town in the west, Jerome was a copper mining camp, growing from a settlement of tents to a roaring mining community. (Jerome Historical Society)

Now an artist's colony of around 450 people and a tourist addendum for folks visiting the beautiful red rocks region of Sedona, Jerome touts itself as “America’s Most Vertical City” and the “Largest Ghost Town in America.” What happened to Jerome was what happens to most mining towns. The mines eventually went bust. But when Mama and her family moved there in 1918, she was just a baby, and the small city boasted close to 10,000 people from all over the world.

Founded in 1876, Jerome was once the fourth largest city in the Arizona Territory. The population peaked at 15,000 in the 1920's. The Depression of the 1930's slowed the mining operation and the claim went to Phelps Dodge, who holds the claim today. World War II brought increased demand for copper, but after the war, demand slowed. Dependent on the copper market, Phelps Dodge Mine closed in 1953. The remaining 50 to 100 hardy souls promoted the town as a historic ghost town. In 1967 Jerome was designated a National Historic District by the federal government. (Jerome Historical Society)

In trying to write about what life was like in a place like Jerome in the early 1900’s, I went back and read parts of an interview with my mother I audio-taped at Tybee Island, Georgia on New Year’s Day, 2000. I called the intermittent conversations we had during our holiday stay The Millennium Sessions, in an attempt to give them the heft they deserved. Mama died three years later, her words becoming a gift to my family and me. I can’t iterate adequately my feelings about the importance of getting family stories before they disappear with that irrevocable last breath of the one person who knows them.

In looking back at my notes, I quickly realized my mother tells of life in Jerome much better than I ever could, so I’m including part of my interview. Some of it isn't particularly politically correct by today's standards, but it provides a snapshot of what life was like in that place in that time. My mother's responses are in italics.

You moved to Jerome when you were about one. What do you remember about the early years?

Some of the things that I think that I remember I can't understand why because I was so young. One thing, I might have been two, I don't know. My folks had rented this house. It was called the Gibbs House. Of course, everything was on the side of the hill there and somehow I wandered away and somewhere down the road, lower, a Mexican child had got to playing with me and took me home.


And that just wasn't done, I'm sure.

No! And the mama took me in and, all that I can remember, I was sitting on a table and eating frijoles, I think, when my mother came to get me.

And, of course, there were no telephones to call.

No, I think they sent the child and the mother may have seen me previously. Of course, the house was not real close. You know we were separated. And also, I think that I have told you that, sitting on my steps when I was about three or four, there was a family living underneath us down the side of the hill. I had gotten a toy piano and I was going to learn to play the piano even then, and the two little boys, the family downstairs, got two kits for Christmas, that had hammers and tools. And those two boys came up and I was sitting there with my piano and they beat up my piano. The funny thing was, at that time, my mother had a Negro woman who came in once a while. She was a wonderful pianist. She had been educated and how she got to Jerome, I don't know. Drucilla was her name. And she used to show me how to play on that little piano before the boys tore it up. Those two boys' father, he was an educator and ended up as the superintendent of schools. He was principal of several schools.

How many schools were there in Jerome?

Well, you had the primary school that was down here, and the elementary school that was here and you had the Opportunity School...

Which was?

For retarded children.

Did they really call it the Opportunity School?

At that time, I don't know of anybody who did that. That paid any attention to them. And then down on the upper grades elementary school and then the high school. We had an excellent school system. It was pretty much run by the people that I have been talking about, the educated people. So we got good teachers and by then, J.O. Mullen, the father of the two brat brothers, who, by the way, I used to date in later years, he really ran a tight system.

Other memories of when you were really young. Something about a baby carriage that you didn't put away so your mother threw it away.

I don't remember that but I wouldn't be surprised. I was disciplined.

Mostly by your mama?

Both of them. My mother would dislike one thing and my father would say to forget it and vice versa. I dearly loved my father. My mother was my mother, and that was all.

But you were your father's girl?

I was my father's boy.

Do you remember your parents fighting?

Not very much. I don't think they got along real well all the time. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't. My father was sick most of his life. He had stomach ulcers and back then they had no way to treat them, and of course, now they do. He finally had surgery a couple of times. He ended up with cancer. So he died when he must have been 71.

What do you remember your mother doing during the day? I know she was a good cook.

She was an excellent housekeeper. She played bridge most every afternoon. She was active in an organization that took care of people who had no money or illnesses, usually the Mexicans. They did a lot of social service work. If a mother was sick in the hospital, they would see that the children got fed.

What was your house like growing up? Was it the house that you showed me when we were in Jerome?

No, probably not. We lived in a series of houses. You know that Jerome was a mining town, and it basically was operated by the Verde Mine. They had a store that was like a commissary. They didn't call it that, but it was similar to that. People that worked for the mine paid once a month for the groceries and stuff they had bought. A company store. The hospital was a company hospital.

Everybody else could use it?

If it wasn't crowded. And my father, being the lawyer in town. Also, my dad, at one time, was justice of the peace, police judge. So, when the mine wasn't too crowded, we could live in the apartment house, which was owned by the mine. The other houses in town were owned by the mine. There was very little private property. So, we moved frequently when someone else needed our place. We even lived in my father's office for about six months. And then about that time, they said, come on back, we've got an apartment for you. We lived in two different apartments, each of them two different times, in and out, in and out. That was really the most pleasant living for some reason. No bedrooms. Murphy beds. One apartment was bigger than the other.

They had a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen, and then a dressing room and bath. And, in the largest apartment, my bed had to be pulled out and opened up in the dining room. My parents' was pulled out in the living room. And then, the other apartment, overall, it was smaller but their room in the dressing room to put my little bed so it didn't have to be pulled out. But that was right in the center of town. It was a nice place to live.



Jerome was the place where Mama spent her entire childhood and the place where she returned to teach after college. It wasn't until she was sewing at home one Sunday morning, and the news of Pearl Harbor came over the radio, that my mother began making preparations for what would ultimately be the reason for her to leave Jerome for good.

I think what stays with me most is how ordinary it all was. My mother, in spite of growing up in a place and time that seem so foreign to me, had a childhood very much like mine.

Lucky are we who had happy childhoods.

Hard Times

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to experience what it was like to live in the olden days, back when times were hard. No, I didn’t visit Jamestown, Virginia or Ellis Island. I didn’t even spend an afternoon at the Atlanta History Center.

In truth, my trip into the past began when something truly terrible happened. My cable went out.

First I re-booted my computer, and then I checked my TV. Nothing viable on either one. My computer kept telling me it couldn't access any of my addresses and my television just offered a screen version of a raspberry. I could feel myself getting agitated and my ends were coming loose. I couldn’t call Comcast because, to call Comcast, I either have to find the number online or wait for a commercial on TV and then look at the fine print. In addition, I couldn't even check to see if I'd paid my cable bill.

OH NO! What to do? What to do? After sitting around for a few minutes, looking at my fingernails and trying to decide whether to vacuum or not, I decided, instead, to call my friend Susan who lives downstairs. Thank goodness my cell phone still worked. Perhaps this wasn’t Armageddon after all.

Susan answered after just a couple of rings. “Hello.”

“Hey Susan, is your cable working?”

“I’ve already called,” she answered. I wasn't surprised as Susan is much more organized and proactive than I am. “They said cable is out all over Midtown, and it may be late afternoon before it’s back up. Isn't that just great? What am I supposed to do? I was all ready to turn on The Food Network and take a nap.”

At least Susan could still take a nap with no cable, which I pointed out to her. “Well, at least you can still take a nap.”

“No I can’t," she asserted. "I can’t take a nap without The Food Network or HGTV on in the background. This has completely ruined my Saturday.” Then remembering what an internet addict I am, she thought of my pain and asked, “So what are you going to do?”

“I don't know. I guess I’ll go to the library. Isn’t that what people used to do before cable?”

“I guess. Do you know where it is?”

“Not really. I’ll just have to drive around Atlanta until I find it since I can’t do a MapQuest.”

I would like to say that my visit to the library was great, and, because of it, I recalled the simple pleasures of life after finding a book on organic windowsill farming. But it turns out that the damned elevator wasn’t working and I would have actually had to climb stairs to get to the stacks, so I decided to head back home.

As I got into my car, I wondered if maybe my cable was back on, or if, at the very least, the drive-through call thingy was working at Wendy's. It would've been just too much to ask of myself to have to go inside to place my order.

It was really a very hard day, but the good news is that I have new respect for the pioneers.

Proud

This past Sunday, I was kissed by a grown man for the first time in more months (okay years) than I care to admit. And he was good looking!

I was so proud.

Only, too bad for me, this particular man was in drag, sporting a pink Dolly Parton wig, a mini skirt showing off his hairy legs, and a sparkly bikini top barely containing his purple balloon breasts.

I’m generally pretty lacking in courage when it comes to writing about topics having to do with politics, religion, or anything other than mainstream culture, since I know not everyone agrees with my bleeding-hearted left-leaning ways. But this time, I’m going take a deep breath and locate my spine in all of this back fat and address something that just might be controversial. I'm going to write about attending this year’s Gay Pride Parade here in Atlanta.

In spite of the fact that I live quite close to where the parade was going to wind its way, I hadn’t meant to go. It's not that I’m against people parading as I love a parade as much as anyone. It’s the crowds I’m against, the not being able to see and being scrunched up next to people I don’t know or even people I do know. And it's not because I'm against Gay Pride. I'm happy when any group of people can get together to celebrate something that's a part of who they are. I celebrate Thanksgiving as an American and National Left Handed Day as a Southpaw, and even Cinco de Mayo as a Mayo.

But no, I wasn’t going to go. It was pretty hot out and I had some other things I wanted to do, like take a nap. But I decided to walk on over, partly because, just recently, I’d promised my dead mother and myself that I would get out and do things, especially if I’m going to be serious about being a writer. I can’t just write about my pillow case and the back of my eyelids for very long without people losing interest.

So, as I crossed the street to Piedmont Park, I expected to be highly entertained and perhaps just a tad put off by a celebration that sometimes gets a little out of hand.

But what I hadn’t expected to do was cry.

When I arrived at the end of the park by Tenth Street, the parade was already passing by. I first heard the raucous music and kept walking until I could see the top of a garishly decorated float, typical parade stuff. I thought I’d stop by and get an eyeful and an earful and then go back home in time for my much deserved afternoon rest.

But before I knew it, in the midst of the sights and sounds that only Pride Weekend can offer, there came Georgia’s own Congressman John Lewis, riding on the back of a convertible, waving to the crowd, and I was undone, a tear peeking out in an embarrassing manner from under my sunglasses. For those of you who may not know, John Lewis helped to lead the 600 marchers over that bridge in Selma, Alabama on what became known as Bloody Sunday back in 1965. And there he was on yet another Sunday, forty-five years later, at age 70, still working to bring all kinds of people together into what he calls his “beloved community.”

Before I could stanch the flow from my newly found eye irrigation system, my bank (Wachovia - now Wells Fargo) came by with a banner and a phalanx of banker types. Although I know that all big corporations now have Divisions of Political Correctness and Mandatory Diversity Seminars, I was still touched that they were there, especially when I saw two of their marchers, both male, dressed in pressed and perfect Wachovia shirts, and holding hands. The look in the eyes of one of the hand holders spoke eloquently of the fine line gay people often must walk in order to be who they are while keeping "corporate" happy.

Then came Macy's (my chain of choice for over-the-hill all-occasion wear) with a banner proclaiming: Macy's Wishes You Pride and Joy! and I could tell that the banner wasn't some last-minute remake from a previous Peace and Joy at Christmas theme. It was brand new and made just for the event; I was sure of it. That brought more sniffles, a nose-to-sleeve wiping, and reminder to myself to return a shirt I'd purchased a few weeks earlier.

Finally, right before I left, my church, St. Mark United Methodist Church (okay I'm an irregular attendee at best but I'm on the roll) marched by with its usual crowd of the finest folks ever to fight for social justice while still enjoying a pot-luck dinner. I wiped away one last tear and decided it was time to go home.

But first, I stopped and took in my surroundings, saluting with my heart my funny and brave friend in his pink wig, and the good people of Atlanta who've allowed, and at times even embraced, this crazy and important celebration for 40 years, and the regular people who, whatever they believe to be right or wrong or innate or learned, try to see the commonalities in All of God's Children.

And, for that one important moment, I was proud.

Life Cycling

“Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept: you can get so much attention without having to actually show up somewhere.” – Anne Lamott, from Bird by Bird.

If I asked long enough, my mother would tell me the story of how I taught myself to ride a bike. It would go something like this:

“You were about four. One day, you just decided it was time for us to take the training wheels off of your big girl bike. Once the bike was ready, you went out, by yourself, on our back patio and practiced and practiced until you finally figured it out. You didn’t want any help. I’d look out of the kitchen window and there you'd be, with no shirt and your face redder than your hair. You kept a towel around your neck to wipe away the sweat and tears. After a couple of hours, you’d accomplished your goal with absolutely no help from anyone else.”

I never really took to bike riding. I rode some as a child, of course, but I’ve always preferred to walk, or better yet, to ride in the air conditioned comfort of an automobile. But, this isn’t a story about my learning to ride a bike. It’s a story about how I’m still learning who I am and how I’m made. Although my 60-year-old self happily applauds the tenacity I displayed on that summer day so many years ago, I've had to sit back and ponder my early-age decision to learn to ride a bicycle on a small patio, instead of a sidewalk, a playground, or a parking lot, with no instruction or advice from others.

After 56 years, my pondering is just now offering what could have been a helpful glimpse into my future, a foretelling of things to come, if I’d just been more alert as a young child. And if I could have just taken what would have been my very own four-year-old sage advice, I might have saved some time in becoming who I was ultimately going to be anyway.

I'm just now realizing that learning and doing and creating have, seemingly, always been a personal and private thing for me, just as it was on that day on that patio. Looking back, I see that I’ve never been one for study or support groups; sit-ins and love-ins have never interested me, neither have sing-alongs or group hugs. Although I appear to be outgoing and chummy, I can only hold on to that facade for a short period of time.

I’ve come to believe that many introverts become life of-the-party class clowns in order to survive until they can go home and be with their very best friends who just so happen to be their very own personal selves. I do like people, in small doses, and most of the time, people like me, probably because I don’t hang around long enough wear out my welcome. I wouldn’t want a world without other people as I need to have them around to edify, entertain, and then irritate me to the point where I can wish them away.

And this is where writing comes in. After a work day or a dinner party or even a family outing, I need to go home and process my thoughts and feelings, by myself, after I leave others behind. And, as Anne Lamott points out for many writers, I do enjoy the attention that writing sometimes brings as long as I don't have to be present when it's given.

And so, it seems that I'm a writer and not a cyclist, not because I’m a great thinker or a particularly talented wordsmith but because writing fits who I am and how I navigate the world from my own little personal space. Unless you are Salman Rushdie, writing is safer than bike riding, although it’s hard to experience much of life from behind a computer screen.

Therefore, I'll try, as always, to heed my mother's advice, taking "all things in moderation." I'll endeavor to get out and do things, be with people, and even take some risks. Except for bike riding. That I'm not going to do unless there's just no choice, and, if I do have to ride a bike, I'd prefer the experience to take place on a small patio with nobody watching and no help from anyone. And, if that happens, I'm definitely going to go home and write about it, even if it takes 56 years.

Bummed

Those of you who know me are cognizant of the well-known fact that I've never been one to complain, but there are some things that are really bugging me and I just need to get them off my chest:

• My two minute car wash sometimes takes up to seven minutes.
• My computer isn’t fully protected.
• I have jury duty.
• My windows need washing.
• My bathtub needs re-glazing.
• I’m missing a hubcap.
• I have a stack of papers to grade.
• I’m scared I might get bedbugs.
• It's hard to carry 12-packs of Diet Cokes up two flights of stairs.
• I agreed to tutor a child after school.
• The house plant behind my French door is dead.
• My five-year-old refrigerator hasn’t been cleaned out ever.
• The hood of my car is covered with some kind of sticky goop.
• I’m out of toothpaste.
• I need to vacuum but the bag is full.
• Sometimes the mail doesn't come until after four when I'm already in my pajamas.
• I hate meetings.
• My trashcans need emptying.
• I think I have a hammer toe.
• My winter shoes need re-soling.
• I have some kind of flying bugs in my pantry.
• My library card has expired.
• I’m afraid to change lanes.
• I don’t like people as much as I used to.
• I need new underwear.
• I think my hair might be falling out.
• House Hunters is a re-run.
• I’ll probably never get to New Zealand.
• I'm overbooked.
• My car emission test is coming up.
• My television screen is so dusty I can’t tell what the Iron Chefs are cooking up.
• People park in my space.
• Publix is occasionally out of my favorite muffins.
• My flu shot might hurt.
• Sometimes people are mean to me.

There's plenty more but I don't want to ruin my reputation as a real trooper, so I'm going to buck up and get out the bug spray.

I wonder if I can use Raid to dust my TV screen.

Flossie

Some time around the turn of the century (that last century, not this past century), Flora Selma Teresa Hartwig stood somewhere in San Francisco Harbor, champagne bottle in hand, and christened a ship. Her parents had nicknamed her Flossie, her husband called her Florence, my mama called her Mother, I called her Mammo, and my children called her G.G.

Mammo was my grandmother and we didn’t get along particularly well. She came to live with us after Dadding died, when I was around 12. She was smart and bossy and we got in each other’s way. She walked with a stoop and kept telling me not to step on the cat. The next year, we added an addition to our house for her to live in – a mother-in-law suite. It was pretty cool and I would have liked to have had it and probably deserved it, being 13 and all. It had a mini kitchen and a nice bathroom and a living room-bedroom combo. It was a lot better than my room and having to share a bathroom with my brother.

From what I can tell, Flossie was a difficult child. She was headstrong and probably too smart to be just a girl in Milwaukee Wisconsin in the late 1800’s. Family lore has it that Flossie was sent to live with her aunt in San Francisco after running down a railroad track after some boy who’d been sent away for some reason probably having to do with Flossie.

I’m pretty sure her parents meant for the deportation to be a punishment, but, according to my mother, life in San Francisco with a young aunt and her well-to-do husband was heaven. Not only did Flossie get to christen a ship, for a while she had access to Uncle Deep Pocket’s bankroll, until, at some point, she went too far and Uncle cried "uncle" and her money was cut off. But, by then, she’d met my grandfather, Perry Ling, who just so happened to be engaged to a minister’s daughter in Los Angeles, where he was finishing Law School at USC.

At that point, Flossie became Florence and Florence found herself living with her husband and mother-in-law in Prescott, Arizona, a place not exactly in the same social stratum as San Francisco. But Florence prevailed and became pregnant with my mother, sipping champagne imported from France during prohibition in order to stave off morning sickness.

My grandfather was offered a job as City Attorney for the mining town of Jerome, Arizona, a place Flossie would have hated and a place you'd think Florence would have abhorred, but, before long, Florence had her card games and her ladies' clubs and her off-handed good works for the brown and yellow and non-English speaking families of the town. And, when she had the time, she mothered my mother, who eventually realized she would be an only child.

Some time after Mama grew up, my grandfather became an Assistant Attorney General for the state of Arizona and he and Florence moved to Phoenix. I remember summers as a young child, staying at Mammo and Dadding's house on West Whitton, especially one summer when Mama and I went by ourselves, riding a bus all the way from South Georgia. That was the summer I learned that grown-ups did other things besides go to work and church. I think of my grandparents as using their home as something akin to an intellectual salon, sort of like a small wild-west-American version of the Left Bank. I remember Saturday nights with friends over for a few drinks, when politics and the ways of the world were argued over and smoke and adult laughter filled the Arizona air.

My Grandparents with friends. The Lings are on the right.

Reconciling the image of Flossie with what I remember about Mammo is difficult, but not as difficult as it was before I too moved from girlhood right past womanhood and straight into Grammyhood. Remembering that Mammo was once a Flossie, and then a Florence, helps to remind me that we all grow and change as we age, but our true selves are right there where they always were. I remember that Mammo loved Johnny Carson and she loved politics; she was always up on current events and she was smart as a whip until the day she died. And now I see that Mammo was a feminist before most people realized that options were an option for women, and she somehow knew she didn't have to give every part of herself away to be a wife and mother.

Was she a good wife? Maybe. Was she a good mother? Sometimes. Did she offer something to my mother and then to me that I can share with my daughters and granddaughters? Absolutely.

What she gave me was a part of herself that somehow latched on to a part of me. I think I have her to thank (and blame) for my irascibility, my liberal world view, and my love of a cocktail before dinner.

So, here's to Flossie, Florence, and Mammo. All three made up a truly memorable woman.

It’s Happened!

I’ve turned into my mother - and my grandmother, and my Aunt Susie, and my Aunt Annabelle, and, most likely, Aunt Bee and Auntie Em and Granny Clampett and Mrs. Methuselah and every other old woman in the history of the world.

This realization came to me the other day when a friend asked if I had my bottle of Windsor Canadian in my pocket book. I'm proud to say I did not, but the fact he asked gave me pause. At that point it did hit me that, yes, I do bring a small bottle of Windsor Canadian to social gatherings from time to time – just as my mother did. And yes, I do wrap up desserts to take home to eat after my early bird dinner. And yes, I do plan my travels to coincide with right turns only. And then there’s the going to bed by eight and the getting up before the sun, even on weekends and holidays.

But what I realize now, but failed to realize when I was just a young and silly person before I had the wisdom not only of my age but of the ages of all who came before me, is that old ladies have good REASONS for their peculiarities.

And those reasons include, but aren't limited to, the following:

1. young people mutter into the phone, making it difficult to understand what they are saying.
2. styles don't really change all that much in 20 years, and a good pair of shoulder pads do, indeed, make you look slimmer.
   
3. left turns cause accidents.
4. beverages at most parties aren’t of the same quality as a mid-priced Canadian blend.
5. restaurants are kept too cold.
6. waist bands are highly over-rated but wide belts help to hold your boobs up.
7. desserts are best when eaten while watching House Hunters International in your pajamas.
8. eyeliner helps to hide the bags over and under your eyes; however, an eyebrow pencil offers the added advantage of making you look surprised that you are still alive.
9. people do drive entirely too fast. Twenty-five mile an hour speed limits are posted for a reason.
10. the left lane on an interstate is the best lane despite the honking by people not observing # 9.
11. getting up early keeps you from having to commune with young people for the first few hours of any given day.
12. if you were lucky enough to happen upon a good hairstyle at 18, there’s no reason not to keep it for the rest of your life.
13. you really only need two outfits, one to wear and one to swear you are washing. Dark knits work best for hiding stains, but large patterns and sequins are more festive.
14. people really are interested in pictures of and cute stories about your grandchildren.
15. plastic baggies can be effectively washed out and re-used.
16. Noxema cures most any ailment on all parts of your body.
17. restaurants should offer smaller portions for early bird diners; however, drink sizes should be the same or bigger.
18. 81% of murders and 96% of purse snatchings happen after 8 PM so it's best to just go ahead and go to bed early.
19. if you don't know a statistic, it's okay to make one up if it proves your point.
20. things really were better forty years ago.
    

It all makes sense now. I'm glad I figured it out. Excuse me while I go find that cookie in the bottom of my pocket book. It'll go great with my highball.

Mama's Last Cat

I look at the cat standing sentry atop my refrigerator. It isn’t a real cat; it’s a wooden cat, painted a jaunty black and white stripe with its tail impossibly long.

It isn’t even my cat. It had been my mother’s, a present I’d purchased for her at an import store to feed her feline fix and to remind her of traveling the world and how much she loved a good street market.

My beautiful, brilliant mother, laid out in a mechanical, antiseptic bed, underpants and teeth taken from her during her last sad days on this earth. Alternating between rage and sweet confusion, all she had left of the material world was this cat peering over her untouched dinners and a rendition of Van Gogh’s sunflowers hanging askew on the opposite wall next to a sign promising Sunday chapel services.

“I want to go home. Please take me home,” she begged, although home was thousands of miles away, an impossible gift from a daughter who would have if she could have, a grown up little girl who would have given anything to be able to.

My daddy always said the only good cat was a dead cat, but he put up with at least one at all times I can remember because of his love for my mama. But Daddy left us years ago.

On her last day, during my last visit, Mama looked up from her confusion and laughed as I saw her fingers trail an invisible arc in the air. “I just saw a cat jump up on that table and then run out the door,” she said, her eyes offering a passable semblance of merry.

I kissed her goodnight, told her I loved her and left, never to see my mother again.

I know in my heart it was my daddy who sent that particular dead cat to come get my mama to take her home.

The sunflowers greet me each day as I rise and shine. The striped cat watches over me as I break my morning bread.

Looking for Myself in Family Pictures

These days, births are video-taped as babies slide into the world and paparazzi sell photos of dead celebrities to skanky magazines, both of which are helping to offer true cradle-to-grave viability documentation. In addition, every nuance of daily life is archived via digital camera, cell phone, and Skype, not to mention blog entries posted with Grammy contemplating the state of her brassiere. Before all of this new technology, not to mention intrusion, people had photos taken only on special occasions or by some astral alignment of stupendous serendipity, i.e., someone with one of those newfangled cameras happening upon someone else sitting stalwartly astride a horse or vamping roguishly in a Model T.

I'm pretty lucky in the pictures-of-antecedents department. I have quite a few photos of my grandparents and several of great grandparents. I knew my maternal grandparents, who lived good long lives, mostly in northern Arizona. My father's folks in Waycross, Georgia, weren't so lucky, as my daddy's mother died in 1920 during the influenza epidemic that ravaged much of the world, leaving behind four young children and their devastated father, who passed away, himself, in his early 60's during World War II.

I identify with these people who lived their lives the best they could, one day at a time, just as I'm living mine. And those lives all ended, just as mine will. In addition, since I'm related to these people by blood and whatever lurks in my genetic code, it makes sense that we might share some traits, and I'm wondering if I can find some instruction and comfort from what I can see in images captured on film so long ago.

And so, I go looking for myself in photographs taken before I was ever born.

This is a picture of my father's mother, the one who died young. I can now see why I've never been able to wear a hat successfully.

These are my mother's mother's parents, good German stock from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They had a son who became a concert violinist. While I have absolutely no musical talent, I can identify with the carelessness of their other son who lost a leg while venturing too close to a train track. I'm pretty sure he just wasn't paying attention when that old whistle started blowing.

This is not a picture of one of my relatives; however, trains appear to have been central to family lore on both sides, which is probably true for most families. While my mother's side had my poor unobservant legless great uncle, my daddy's side had the often tipsy Great Uncle Christopher Columbus Beauregard McGee who rode in and out of Waycross several times a year on the back of a train. Although I feel no real affinity for trains, my lawyer brother seems to have handled several large cases having to do with the railroad industry. Not to be outdone, I have been known to become tipsy from time to time. Oh, and I forgot, my mother's mother was sent to live with her aunt in San Francisco after chasing a train that was carrying her true love away off yonder somewhere. I think she was 15 at the time. I can absolutely identify with kind of truly stupid behavior.

Speaking of tipsy and stupid behavior, that's my paternal grandfather on the left;

and my paternal grandfather's father-in-law somewhere in this picture.

And here is yet another picture of my great grandfather on my father's side. I can't even begin to explain this photo but am proud to say that the idiot with the bottle on his head comes from an entirely different gene pool. My relative is on the right, a bit portly to be sure, but not serving as a human bar table.

Back to my mother's side of the family. This is a photo of my mother's father's parents. My daddy always said he "married up," and, from the photos I've found and the stories I've heard, this seems to be true. The man in the picture was a lawyer and a judge who was commemorated as being important to early Arizona statehood. My brother followed in the footsteps of my mother's side of the family by becoming an attorney. I, on the other hand, once rode a horse and have been known to cut the tops off of people's heads when taking a picture.

I love these two pictures of my grandfather in Waycross. They appear to have been taken at about the same place and show that progress happened even in small and isolated towns like Waycross, Georgia. Although he owned a livery stable at the time, he still seemed to be very much interested in the new conveniences. When I think about how it feels to adapt to change and to shifts in the economy, I need to remember what it must have been like to invest in horses during the advent of the automobile. I do wonder why the steering wheel was on the right.

This is a photograph of my mother with her mother. In this picture, my mother looks very much like my niece, Regan. Although I would like to say I take after my mother's side of the family, I believe my brother inherited most of those genes. I think I'm mostly Waycross, not so much northern Arizona.

But, on seeing this picture of my Waycross grandfather holding my Waycross father just a few years before he would be left with motherless chlldren to raise, and then reading this from the Waycross Journal Herald after my he died:.

George W. Mayo
Death Mourned
City Official Had Long Record of Devoted Service

George W. Mayo, 62, died at a local hospital last night following a heart attack. Mr. Mayo was one of the most popular and best-liked men in Waycross. For the past twenty years or more he has been connected with the city as superintendent of the Sanitation Department. On numerous occasions banquets in his honor have been held by the city employees as a tribute to his efficiency and to the esteem in which he was held by all who knew him.

I felt quite proud. To be popular and well-liked while in charge of city sanitation couldn't have been easy thing, and my grandfather's dedication and success serve as a substantial legacy.

And, apparently, he was quite the party animal, a trait all three of my children have inherited.

The Stages of Cat Acclimation

Note:
The stages below were developed as part of an extensive scientific study performed on one cat. Should the author decide to submit the study for juried review to a research-based veterinary journal, the investigation will be termed a Cat Case Study (hereafter known as CCS).

The system is helpful in that it would allow one to know where to locate a feline (based on how long said feline has been in one's care) if one ever loses a cat or decides to become a Cat Nanny.

Stage 1 – Under the bed
Stage 2 – In the room
Stage 3 – On a lap
Stage 4 –Under the covers

My friends, James and Whitney, were going to Fripp Island over the Labor Day weekend and they agreed that their cat, Ellie, wasn’t exactly a sand n’ surf kind of girl. Since I’m a cat widow who also happens to be bi-coastal, and I’ve been lamenting the lack of feline companionship, James and Whitney were kind enough to think of me when they were considering their vacation cat care options. Actually, it was after a glass of wine or two at a social gathering that I offered to take Ellie in if they would bring her to me. They agreed, high-fiving each other all over the place.

A few weeks later, when I hadn’t heard from them, I sent each an email gently letting them off the hook, figuring they’d found someone who lived closer to come to their home to feed Ellie and shovel out her sandbox. Within seconds, the following responses came in:

From James: We actually have not found another method, so we just need to coordinate with you on the details. I'm sure that Ellie would enjoy some devoted attention from a true feline lover!

From Whitney: Oh No! You're keeping her. We aren't looking for an easier way.

On the Friday before they were to leave, James arrived with Ellie, who looked embarrassed and more than a modicum of disgusted in her not-so-tres-chic cat carrier, along with hard food, soft food, her sandbox, and additional cat accoutrements including hairball goo, ear mite medicine, and a cat back-scratcher. She immediately shot from the carrier as soon as it was opened, and, employing cat radar, somehow found my room and scooted under my bed.

Now, you probably already know I’m not all that good a housekeeper, but, because I was going to have company, especially gay man company, I had dusted off some of the piles in preparation for James’ drive-by drop-off of Miss Ellie. The one place I apparently forgot to dust was under my bed, which is exactly where James went looking for Ellie before I could tell him to STOP! I can still see him there, on his hands and knees, peering through the useless dust ruffle at the dust bunnies, nay, the dust hippopotami, looking for his little lost Ellie.

Next comes the part of the study which enabled me to discern the stages. After James finally left and for about the next twenty-four hours, Ellie emerged from under my bed only to eat and use the sandbox, looking like she'd been sent straight to hell in a tacky cat carrier.

By the next day, Ellie had gifted me with her occasional presence, joining me in the living room but still copping a pretty bad attitude, as if she’d put a deposit down on a much better cruise package than what she'd found awaiting her at my motley (not to mention dusty) port.

As of the third day, Ellie was liking me a little as she would climb into my lap just as I decided to get up to make a sandwich or go to the bathroom. She was also beginning to do those cute little cat gyrations where she would roll over on her back and look like she was going to turn herself inside out. And, then there was that serpentine dance between my legs thing as I tried to walk, as if she might be able trip me up badly enough for an ounce or two of sirloin to fly out of my hands and into her bowl.

By the fourth day of what I thought was supposed to be a three day weekend, Ellie and I were best friends. In fact, by that point, we were sleeping together. She liked the middle of the bed and under the covers best, causing me to try to achieve respite in a modified V position.

And so, there you have it: The Stages of Cat Acclimation, a scientific hierarchy I can use to segue into a whole new career once I give up on second graders. Should James and Whitney ever return for Ellie, which is looking somewhat doubtful, I'm excited to report that I can parlay what I've learned through my extensive research to become a full-time Cat Nanny, or better yet, I can offer workshops on Cat Nannying in order to share this important information with others.

I can change the world one cat at a time.

Preface to Chickie Ling

I haven't written much about my mother for this blog because there’s so much to tell and it will take a while to do her story justice. But, in honor of the 50th posting from dabbler me, I’ve decided to get started with it, especially since I can imagine her looking over my shoulder and admonishing me with “What are you afraid of? Just get started. It can’t be that hard.”

I do want to begin by saying my mother was, by far, the most important influence in my life. Most of the good habits I have are from her, as are the majority of the bad ones. Mama wasn’t perfect and wasn’t the least bit interested in being perfect. I can just hear her say how boring perfection would be.

My mother smoked and drank and had a very exciting life until she gave it all up (all except the smoking and drinking part) to marry my daddy and to birth and care for, and about, my brother and me. She was a good wife and a good mother, while also managing to stay true to herself for her entire life. She was a painter and a sewer and a crabber and a knitter and a fisherwoman and an organist (not a very good one) and a furniture refinisher and an upholsterer and a shrimp net tie-er and a crochet-er and a jewelry maker. She was also a physical therapist and One Tough Cookie.

I have, however, documented my mother's life in other ways. A story I wrote for Arizona Highways was about Mama's childhood summers spent in what is now the Sedona area of Arizona.

And after my mother’s death, I did name a character after her in my last book, Westward Ho, a decision that truly horrified some of my friends. Their trepidation most likely came from the fact that the so-named character was a prostitute. In fact, Mama's namesake was the Ho in Westward Ho. This characterization wasn’t based on my mother’s history (as exciting as it was) but on the fact that her nickname, Chickie Ling, had always sounded like an Asian call girl to me. Although Mama wasn’t Asian and she was never (as far as I know) a call girl, I believe she would have loved being made a prostitute in her daughter’s book. In fact, I know this for certain.

In addition, my crazy idea of naming a character after my mother was based on my desire to use her home town of Jerome, Arizona as the prototype for the town where the fictional Chickie Ling had, at one time, plied her charms. I called my made-up town the silly name of Fred, Arizona, but the descriptions were based on my memories of current-day Jerome.

Here are a few:

The town of Fred looked, to Annabelle, like Arizona’s answer to Lost Horizon, with the illusion of being caught up and then left behind in an early daguerreotype print.

For better or worse, Fred du jour still brought to mind rowdy bars and musty-smelling whores. Annabelle half expected to see a drunken scalawag being dragged out feet first from one of the still-solvent watering holes. However, instead of tethered horses from an earlier time, new and expensive Harleys were resplendent, parked and chained in a shiny row on Main Street.

‘Next street down’ described it perfectly, as blocks were connected by steps instead of sidewalks. You could get a nosebleed just going to the drugstore (not that there was a drugstore in Fred).

Annabelle and J.B. each decided to order a glass of wine so that they could watch the sun set from the deck of The Haunted Hamburger. There was certainly something magical about the view, the striations of vibrant sun-streaked sky hues meeting in some kind of strange juxtaposition with the dun-colored earth, kind of like tutti-frutti topping off caramel crunch.

The above fictional descriptions are really, truly what Jerome, Arizona looks like now, at least to me. It’s on the side of a mountain and was, at one point, a ghost town. Now a funky artists’ colony, it does indeed, have a restaurant called The Haunted Hamburger and another called Belgian Jenny's Bordello, so named after the houses of ill repute that flourished during its mining heyday. The town of Jerome, when my mother was a child, was a bustling place with a productive copper mine and schools and businesses, but it was still enough of a departure from my childhood in Savannah, Georgia to seem different and romantic to me. I think I now see writing a book with my mother as a fictional character was just a way to put myself in the midst of a town that holds a special place in my heart.

And so, I will go from here to tell my mother's tale, whenever my memories, or Mama herself, nudge me. I won't try to tell it all at once, but in small stories, stories that made up the life of a remarkable woman, a woman who was thoughtful enough to detour her journey and change her dreams in order to have me and guide me and love me - a woman who still lives with me every day of my own life.