Wore Slap Out

wore slap out – a Southern colloquialism that describes, at least somewhat adequately, how grandmas feel when their precious progeny finally buckle up and head for home.

Don’t get me wrong; I love my grandkids.  It’s just that they are very, very busy and my home is very, very small.  

In an attempt to define grandkids' kind of busy, I’m going to try to quantify five-year-old Miles and three-year-old Georgia’s recent visit that ended, thank you God and Jesus, Thursday afternoon at 4:29 PM, despite daughter, Melissa’s worries that they might hit rush hour traffic. 

Number of:

• Grammy's knick-knacks rearranged by Georgia:  472
• knick-knacks moved by adults to get them out of Georgia's sight line:  327
• crumbs on the floor: infinity
• times Georgia hit Miles: 73
• times Miles hit back: 6
• times Georgia told on Miles for hitting her: 6
• bath salts poured into bath: all
• Grammy’s bran muffins eaten by grandkids:  just 1 as the rest were hidden
•  cups of milk poured: hundreds
• pictures colored by Miles for Grammy: 3
• times Georgia lost her bear, Beary Manilow : 326 
• Nick Jr. shows ordered On Demand: 8 (well worth the cost no matter what it was)
• parks visited: 2
• swing pushes: infinity
• times I went down a slide: 4 
• times kids were told to stay with us: 500
  times they listened: 0
• times we mistakenly thought we could go to a restaurant as long as we dined al fresco: too many
• escalator rides to nowhere: 2
• Pumpkin Patches we visited: 2
• times Georgia dropped her pumpkin: 15
• times we got lost going to and returning from the zoo: 5
• animals we saw at the zoo: 35 (1000 counting the naked mole rats)
• times we had to pick up a kid so he/she could see: 72
• animals we got to feed:  just 1 but it was a GIRAFFE!!!!
• things climbed on in spite of our admonitions not to do so: 85
• animals brushed at the petting zoo: I don't know.  I was sitting on a bench at that point.
• times we rode the train despite telling the kids we were all out of money: 1
• times Georgia and I rode the Merry-Go-Round despite telling the kids we were all out of money: 1
• times Miles climbed the very tall climbing wall: 2
• minutes Miles waited patiently to climb the climbing wall: at least 30
• times we lost the children: only 1.  We were sitting and resting while they played on the playground at the zoo, patting ourselves on the back about how careful we are with them at all times.  While we were talking and resting and watching so carefully,  they somehow managed to see the little kid door into the naked mole rats building, which they visited unchaperoned until they gleefully exited via the tunnel at the other end of the building while we were dutifully watching the playground where we were sure they were. 

To tell the truth, the visit was a great one and the kids were pretty good, considering their ages and my small Atlanta home. I would have liked for them to stay longer, but when they finally, thank you God and Jesus, left, I was wore slap out.
 

Number of lies I just told about wanting them to stay longer: 1

Number of sweet memories of the trip: infinity

 

 

 

Birthday Girl

 Dear Molly,

If I were with you this morning, I’d make blueberry muffins from a mix and I’d put a birthday candle in yours, worrying as always that the melting candle just might be carcinogenic, one of many reasons why there wouldn’t be twenty-eight of them. 

People told me a late-in-life child would keep me young.  I’m not sure if that was true for me with you, but you have certainly kept me going, sometimes from worry, sometimes from necessity, often from your sheer Mollyness, your quirkiness, your dark and dorky humor, your carnsarned cussedness.

Through your more than a modicum of spills and struggles, you’ve managed to come to an understanding of yourself and others that I think is unusual for someone as young as you.  Although you don’t always trust enough to share this quiet discernment, at just the right moment, under the right circumstances, you offer up something so deep and insightful it leaves me slack jawed in wonderment.

People love you because you’ve been there, because you ask so little and offer so much: a sturdy shoulder, a big heart, a from-the-gut laugh, and a thoughtful answer to afraid-to-ask questions.   Your sense of irony comes from your sincere belief that, if it fell apart, it was because you didn't screw it on tight enough.  And, while that may not be all that healthy for you, it sure makes the rest of us relax a bit.  There’s such a comfort in world-worn you.

You worry that, at twenty-eight, you should be further ensconced in your adult life, more firmly rooted in knowing where you’re going and when.  I’m afraid I feel the same way at sixty-two, so I won’t be much help in figuring that out.  I do believe there’s a road map for your journey and an itinerary, both of which will come into your sight-line as you travel your life.  What a surprise that your heart’s own true love turned out to be with kids in high school, the very place that almost did you in.  Talk about courage, and perhaps a perverse form of payback.

You, my youngest child, share with me a love of reading.  In fact, you’re so pitiful and geeky that you profess the home-made Harry Potter coasters to be the best present you’ve ever received, and I’m pitiful and geeky enough to believe you.  We also now share a profession and a desire to pass on what little knowledge we have to anyone who will sit long enough to listen (and especially to those who won’t).  I’ll never forget that your first full-time teaching job came to you at the same moment I was leaving my final one.

The baton has been passed and the circle is unbroken.

Love always,

Mama

PS:  Some photos of times you may or may not remember

 And we didn't realize you needed glasses?

 Easter at Houston Lake

 Remember the naked years?

 The first of the "Maw" cruises

With your big brother

 With your big sister.

Reading most likely

 This must have been the Melissa and Billy booze cruise 

before they found the free liquor behind the closed bar.

Time

A message to the parents of my students this year:

Each morning as the sun first peeks into my classroom window and I prepare for the day, I stand at the board and write the date with an orange marker. I began this school year with Monday, August 9, 2010, and soon I’ll write Tuesday, May 24, 2011.

And that will be it.

Just as I’ll never again write those specific dates on that board in an orange marker on those particular days, neither will I ever again greet your child as my own as he or she arrives, wet-combed hair or bed head, lunch in hand or sorrowfully left in the back seat of the car, eagerly or reluctantly facing the morning, a story to tell, something to share.

We talk of good news and bad, new pets or those who’ve left us, family trips in our future or in our past, ballgames won or lost, times of trouble and times of bliss. We spar with jokes and insults; we forgive and sometimes forget; we argue and then offer ourselves for comfort.

Living with twenty or so children seven hours a day, five days a week, ten months a year is an experience much greater than a curriculum map or an attendance sheet or test scores or discipline plan. We become a family and what happens between the four walls of our classroom is as complicated and tender as what can be found in any home. We share our laughter and tears and pain and wonderment with each other a hundred times a day. We have a common language and agreed-upon jokes; specific memories that no one else on earth will ever have.

My second-graders will move on and love their third-grade teacher in spite of what they promise me now. They will never remember me as I remember them - they with their gappy teeth and shorts in winter and fake tattoos and fledgling understandings of who they are and what they’ll become.

Time is such a trickster. It hides itself in routine, in menial jobs to be done, in minor irritations that keep us from realizing we’re in the midst of something amazing. We become mired in the details and often lose track of the gift. I wish I could tie up this year in a ribbon and give it to myself when I need a lift, or to be reminded of what’s important; when I need a good laugh or an even better cry.

I’ll want to remember and to tuck it all away because this year has been as no other year. No other class was like this class and no other children were like these children. We were Mayo’s class and it will never be the same.

 

Many thanks to Nance at Mature Landscaping for this award

Looking for Junanto: Shipping Out

If you saw my earlier introduction,* you know that my mother had decided to join the Army and was headed to Texas, not Michigan or Washington, for her physical therapy training.  I believe it was some time in the  summer of 1942.  As you read this, you'll notice a common theme to my mother's experiences during that time, the summer she turned 25, and that theme was "men."  

She was young, pretty, unencumbered, and looking for adventure.

Part of my mother's Army training, apparently.

Mama is in the front with the cowboy

So you went to Texas. Was that San Antonio?

Yes, Fort Sam Houston

And how long were you there?

A little over a year.

Was the training hard?

It was interesting.

What was life like there? Did you have fun?

Fun.

Were there a lot of soldiers?

Yeah. Of course, we weren't supposed to date anybody but officers. But we did.

Were you commissioned immediately?

No, we had to complete the program. We finished in late August and the next day, we signed up for the army and got our commissions.

Where did you live during your training?

On the base. They were wooden barracks. We left within a couple of weeks of our completion of the course. We sat around in San Francisco for a couple of weeks, getting clothing. They gave us cold weather clothing and told us we were going to Alaska. 

And so, my mother thought her grand adventure would be in Alaska.  I have no idea why Army troops were being sent to Alaska, but, no matter, because Alaska is not where she ended up.

When we finally left and got on our ship with our stuff, we were the first ship that ever went over without an accompanying gunboat. We went down past the tip of South America and then turned west and came up at the bottom of New Zealand and then up the Australian coast.

When did you know you were going to Australia?

When we got there.

You really didn't know where you were?

No.

Didn't that drive you crazy?

No. I was a lark! Everyday something different, and somebody different.

So, how many women were on this ship and how many men?

Probably about 100 women and 1000 men.

You were probably sorry when you got there!

By then, I was dating the merchant marine man that was head of, let's see what his job was on the ship. Head of all the mechanics.

How did you date on the ship?

Just like any place else. There was one place where we got together every night. The fellow that I ended up dating could really play the piano and we sang with the piano.

Could you drink?

If you had it, you could.

Did you stop in a port ever?

No, not until we hit Brisbane.

How did you take on fuel?

I guess we carried enough. I can't remember how many people it was supposed to carry.

I remember that you had 4 times as many people as you were supposed to. Did you all just have a tiny little space?

We had cabins, 3 tier bunks, 3 of them, 9 girls to a room. And you couldn't get down and get dressed except one at a time, so you sat on your bunk and you pulled on your under clothes and then you took your turn to come down. We did have a bathroom, a pretty good size one. But it had salt water in it, no fresh water.

Where did you store your stuff?

In the hold of the ship. We were allowed to keep a musette bag, that you hung over your shoulders, but your bedrolls and your foot lockers were in the hold.

Food.

Two meals a day. And I was one of the few women that ever went to eat. The rest of them were so seasick. I've never been seasick.

The food was ok.

Yep. It was good. It was hearty.

You all didn't have any work to do on that ship. Wasn't there anything they wanted you to do?

No, 23 days. It was getting kind of boring toward the end. We played cards.

The men, did they have stuff to do or were they just being transported?

They made up stuff for them to do. They assigned them things to check on this, check on that. But see, we didn't have anybody to lead us. We could do whatever we pleased. We had dietitians, physical therapists, and nurses.

Did you just have physical therapists rooming with you?

We had some dietitians and maybe a couple of nurses.

So, you got off in Brisbane?

Yes

I bet you were excited.

We wanted to see what was next. And we arrived Christmas Eve day. 

Note:  I looked up Alaska during WWII and found these resources from Amazon:

Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians (Classic Reprint Series)Thousand-Mile WarReport from the Aleutians: World War II Documentary [VHS]

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS CAMPAIGNStepping Stones to Nowhere: The Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and American Military Strategy ...

You can, of course, just google it for free.
*Thanks to my friend, Cile, for the idea of linking my intro here.  Duh!

Introduction to Looking for Junanto

 

 Mama in Arizona, Summer of 1941

Looking for Junanto is the story my mother’s life from December 7, 1941, the day Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor, to February 12, 1946, the day she married my father. I’m going to tell it in parts, so as not to overwhelm you with too much to read at one time, or me with too much to think about and organize. Some of it will be in her words, from a taped interview I did with her on New Year's Day, 2000.   The rest will be my interpretation of what her life was like, based on family lore and photographs I’ve inherited. The title comes from the word Junanto, which was written on the back of several of the more interesting photographs. It's a word my mother never used in describing that time and it's a word for which Google was of no help.

Below is from Mama directly:

Well, Pearl Harbor happened. Like everybody, I was shocked to death. I was in Jerome (living at home with her parents in Arizona) and teaching school. We heard it early Sunday morning on the radio. I think I was sewing. And, of course, I had no idea of anything that I was going to do. I was anxious to do something, anything, besides live at home.  Going back to Jerome had probably been s stupid thing to do.

Some time in the early spring, they began talking about training people for different things, and one of them was Physical Therapy. You see, I was teaching physical education and the requirement to take the physical therapy program was that you had a degree in physical education or you were a degree nurse. I read about it first in my professional magazine, and so I think I wired, you didn't telephone then. I sent a telegram asking for further information. They told me I could go to a school in Michigan, Ann Arbor. It wasn't the University. It was a school that was run by Sister Kenny; she was a physical therapist who went from England to Australia, and then she came to the United States. She was the originator of physical therapy in the United States. She had a training program. Anyway, I considered going there, and about that time I heard about the Army program, which was free. And we were to be paid - a pittance - while we were in training. 

The first time that I applied, they told me that I couldn't see well enough, and with almost return mail, they sent me a wire and said that it didn't matter whether I could see or not. They told me to report to Washington, DC, a hospital there, almost immediately. Then the next telegram said that they were starting a school in Texas and for me to go to Texas, so I did. But I didn't go until about the middle of the summer. That's when I ended up in Texas at Fort Sam Houston. There were five of us; we were the first class.

So, it seems that my mother joined the Army and began a journey that took her to places I've certainly never been because she was living at home after college and was bored. That, in turn, led to the life she lived for the next five years and ultimately to her marriage to my father and the births of my brother and me.

What if my mother had loved living with her parents after college?  What if she'd done her training in Washington instead of Texas?  What if her eyesight had, in fact, been her undoing when it came to joining the Army?

Our very existence, it seems, is based so precariously on some things falling apart and other things coming together. 

And most likely, in many cases, boredom.

St. Patricia’s Day

It was 1991, and I was newly separated and living with my kids in a three bedroom apartment just a few miles from our old home. I was feeling optimistic about the future and wanted to take a stand for womanhood everywhere.

So I hosted a St. Patricia’s Day party on March 17th. Only my female friends were invited. Wait, I didn’t have any male friends. They all belonged to my husband.

At my party, I served canned corned beef and boiled cabbage and, for dessert, I’d had a grocery store cake decorated in green, with the inscription “Erin Go Braghless.”

I remember it being fun and I felt brave and free. That was twenty years ago.

These days I still feel free but often not so brave. I now know too much. However, I do feel a small ocean’s worth of compassion and love for the woman I was back then, a woman who would make quite a few mistakes, but a woman with enough courage (and cluelessness) to get up each morning and put on her shoes and start her day.

I’m still that same woman.

Happy St. Patricia’s Day.

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.

To Melissa ~ a repost on her thirty-sixth birthday

 This was written a year ago but it still stands:

You were my first big hope, a miracle I couldn't engineer all by myself. After months of trying and failing, the planets aligned, the perfect swimmer met the ready egg, and you were conceived. I still have the little piece of paper that says "gravindex positive, " a folded memento your grandfather's nurse handed me the day I knew it was true. Back then, there were no magic sticks to wet on in the privacy of your own bathroom; people had to make an appointment to find out. Daddy and I were lucky your grandfather was a doctor and we could get in quickly for a test. We were living in Greenville at the time so we must have traveled back to Warner Robins, with you as our secret, to keep the process all in the family.

I still remember the peppermint flavor of that summer as peppermints were what I used to stave off the nausea. I also recall looking at myself in the full-length mirror you took to Oregon years later. I stood sideways and sucked in my stomach and saw and felt the hard knot that was you. I wonder now at not being able to foresee that the mirror which afforded me my first look at you would one day accompany you to the place that would steal you away from me.

We called you Boogie as we watched you, already a member of the Allman Brothers Fan Club, grow in my belly. We named you after the song that was a reminder of the music your daddy loved so much, and something I, in turn, loved about him .

From the very beginning, you were your own little person, often inwardly focused, occasionally cranky (if you can imagine that). Your need to create happened early on as we all recall your waking us up in the middle of the night asking where the scissors were. You accepted your siblings with resolve and some affection, taking on the mantle of oldest while still maintaining an air of being above it all, as if the promise had been that you would be the only one.

As a child, I remember your best friends as being boys, but what I'm recalling is most likely just that one summer, the summer of Greg and Sonny. You three were like a cyclone pulsating through the neighborhood, all grime and no homework. Some days, I couldn't tell you apart. You looked and smelled exactly the same.
When you became a teenager, with the height of your cock-a-doodle bangs signifying your mood, social endeavors dictated your days and nights but you still managed to do well in school and stay out of trouble (mostly). We had some issues with the car, the curfew, and that big party, but I could still count on you to snuggle up and ask me to scratch your back, and to put your big old feet in my lap when we watched television. Because you were my first teenager, I had to try to figure out how to continue to mother you after you thought it was no longer necessary. I still remember the times you were late enough for me to be scanning the driveway, mentally writing your very sad obituary, and I certainly haven't forgotten the rope and rubber gloves you used for climbing in and out of your second-story bedroom window.

It was while you were in college I began to realize how like my mother you are: intelligent, intense, and ready to travel to places I'd be afraid to go. The summer you and Molly Mitchell spent working in Yellowstone must have been a mighty one as it ended up changing your life. When you later told me you wanted to move to Oregon, I thought of it as a great adventure, never dreaming it would become your future (and to a great extent, mine).

Now you are a wife, a mother, a worker, a driver, a sewer, a maker, a coaxer, a car-seat buckler, and a cinematographer, but, thanks to Trevor, not a cook. You are also still a daughter to your daddy and me, and a sister to Billy and Molly, and a friend to those who are worthy of the relationship. I realized a couple of Christmases ago that you'd already bypassed me to become the family matriarch, making sure events happen with all the necessary ingredients, while the rest of us stumble around mouthing exhortations about what we would have done if we'd just had the time, the money, or if you had simply reminded us.

Being a mother yourself, I know you now understand what you mean to me. I can't imagine my life without you, and Miles and Georgia would tell you the same if they just had the words. We are talking one big deal, reciprocal, co-dependent relationship here.

And so, one heart supports new hearts, life goes on, and the family endures in spite of itself.

The Electrocution of the Bookworm

The bookworm has been electrocuted, but don't be sad. There's a happy ending.

At my request, my brother gave me a Kindle for Christmas and I have to say I like it better than I thought I would. I was intrigued with the notion of an electric book but withheld judgment, waiting to see if it would do the reading trick for me, and so far, it has.

My only problem centers on heft. The Kindle is pretty light weight, which is good. The heft problem has to do with the fact that I apparently gauge the length of a book by its weight and girth, not to mention the number of pages. My Kindle doesn’t give me page numbers and it weighs the same, whether I’m reading War and Peace or a memoir by someone who hasn’t yet lived very long. It does give me the percentage of what I’ve read. For example, my Kindle will have something like 38% written at the bottom of the screen. But percentage of what? Thirty-eight percent of 200 pages or 1000? So, what happens is I’ll be barreling along, happy as that legendary worm eating its way through a real paper and ink book, when all of a sudden, I’m at the end. Okay, the climax was there and the ending was satisfactory and the little percentage sign did say 98, but I’m still nonplussed and undone, and that’s because I couldn’t count the number of pages I had left as I was moving along.

Who would have thought, when I was a little girl, that I would someday read an electric book? I remember hearing about how, one day, we would be able to see the people we talk to on the phone.  This has obviously already happened with Skype and that latest IPhoney thing. I also remember laughing about the notion of smellivision, technology which would enable us to actually smell what Mrs. Cleaver and Aunt Bee were baking in their cozy kitchens.

But an electric book! Who could have envisioned such a thing and why would anyone want one?

I've been a reader almost as far back as I can remember. I recall sitting in the back seat of my parents' car, book in lap, knowing I could read. I like to think I was somewhere around four, but it may have been later. I do remember it was after second grade  when I finished one of my brother's Hardy Boys books, which was too hard for me to fully enjoy, but I still took great pride in my feat.  And then there was the great joy I had as a child, which emanated from my being able to eat the occasional sandwich meal, not with my family around the dining table, but while lying in my bed with a book as my dinner companion.

Other reading memories as a child include:

• 365 Bedtime Stories.  I read this book for years, even when I was too old for it.  My kids have tried to find it to give me as a gift, but, so far, no luck.
• The Secret Garden.
• Those biographies of famous people with the silhouettes on the front cover.  I only read the girl ones: Martha Washington, Clara Barton, Juliette Low.
• Trixie Belden.  I loved Trixie and Honey and the Gang and so wanted something exciting like that to happen in my life.
• The Diary of Anne Frank. Whatever goodness I have in me was bolstered by reading this book at a relatively young age.
• Lost Horizon.  I don't remember how old I was when I read this one but I knew it was one of my mother's favorite books and it became one of mine too.
• Born Free.  My mother actually read this book to me when I was about ten and we spent the summer at my grandparents' house in Phoenix.

In fact, many of of my childhood memories have to do with reading, coming back from the old Savannah Public Library on Bull Street with a load of books, picking through them, deciding which one I would read first.  I was a child who lived a dual reality, one of my own making and the other based on whatever book I was reading.  I could say the same about my adult life, a life made richer by the books I've read. 

And so, I think I'll juice up the Kindle and browse my digital stacks to figure out what I'll read next.  It's nice not to have to make my way to the bookstore or the public library.

But wait, I just found my mother's copy of Lost Horizon, all dusty and forlorn on a bookshelf.  I think I'll pick it up, and read it again.  It feels good in my hands; not too light, not too heavy and it has just a right number of pages. 

Looking for the Awesome

The other day, my daughter, Melissa, and I were heading to the local outlet mall with her two kids, who also happen to be my grandkids. Miles and Georgia were in the backseat, legally secured in their newfangled, regulation, impossible-for-Grammy-to-buckle-without-cursing, car seats. Georgia was asleep, holding best stuffed bud, Beary Manilow, in a death grip, and Miles was complaining because it was taking too long to arrive at the restaurant where he was going to get the juice we had promised him.  This delay was based on the scenic route we'd embarked upon, out of Portland, through Troutdale, where Melissa and Trevor had celebrated their wedding, then down by the Sandy River, and up the side of a small mountain.

“Juice! I want juice!” Miles reiterated the iteration he’d iterated quite a few times during our journey. Truth be told, he would have been much happier at home riding his Christmas bike, but, at three, he doesn’t really have much of a say about how he spends his days, other than belting out “Juice!” every few minutes.

In an effort to hold our squirmer off for while longer, either Melissa or I had promised, at some point, that we were going to see something really awesome at the top of the mountain, yes indeed, employing the overused term that’s become such a cliché. What that awesome thing was we had no idea, but what we wanted was for him to stop fussing long enough for us all to be able to take in the beauty of that mountain and that river and the time we were spending together, just the four of us snugly snapped into our warm seats in Melissa’s mom-mobile on a wet and cold Oregon December day.

A bit more time went by and we discerned that the complaint department had apparently closed down in the back and we thought Miles, thumb in mouth and Gankie tucked under arm, had dozed off to snore in unison with Georgia by his side.  With new confidence, we drove a little higher up the mountain, enjoying the quiet and the companionship, mother and daughter all grown up. 

However, just as we were lulled into a faux serenity and some entry-level contemplation, a little voice emerged from the back seat.

“But where’s the awesome?”

After a chuckle at Miles’ cuteness with his childish but point-on question, I stopped to consider the fact that we often spend so much time overusing a term based on a dearth of a more varied and thoughtful vocabulary and  attempting to make the mundane noteworthy, that we overlook the minor miracles, the real awesomeness we happen upon, but often fail to note, in the hurry up of our everyday lives.

So, with that in mind, I challenged myself to notice and document the truly awesome for the rest of that day.  And I did.  

It included:

• the deli lunch with the promised juice and hot dogs and lots of crackers, many on the floor, while the kids, in turn, sat on the table.
• shopping for light-up shoes and packages of socks and finding one-year-old Georgia sitting, legs straight out, on the floor at the front of the store trying on a Norwegian knit hat from the sale bin.
• fifty-cent rides with a serious Spidey and mirthful Big Bird.
• driving back over Portland's gorgeous bridges with both kids asleep (and quiet) in the back.
• walking in the rain to Pattie's Home Plate later in the day with son Billy and granddaughter Cami for a most unusual dinner.
• coming back home, wet and happy, to listen to Cami's two-year-old patter about her day and her papa and her mama named Mary.

 

Cami after our walk in the rain

I know there was more to that day that I could have commemorated, but I'm still new at looking for the awesome.  I'm hoping this Omar Khayyam treasure, recently shared by a friend, might help me to stop and ponder the wonderful.

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.

Awesome.

Henry and the Runaway Christmas Tree

Henry was our early marriage dog. As with many newlywed couples, anxious to nurture something but knowing it was too soon for that thing to be a baby, Gary and I adopted Henry. Gary was doing his pharmacy residency at McCook’s Pharmacy in South Macon, an area known as the Rutland Community. Being a good old boy, Gary fit right in at McCook’s, a place where patrons brought in cooked-to-perfection turnip greens and warm-from-the-garden tomatoes to share with the people who worked there. At some point, someone mentioned that a lady had some pure-bred beagle puppies she was going to sell for next to nothing, so we went and picked one out .

I have lots of stories about Henry, about our moves with him to South Carolina and back, about the fence we bought to keep him in, about all the flowers he pulled up in that fenced-in yard, about the many times I had to bail him out of the pound when he dug under that fence. But the story I’m going to tell now is one that’s appropriate for the season and one that exemplifies what typically seems to happen to my best laid and made holiday plans.  And that story is the one about Henry and the runaway Christmas tree.

Henry was a sweet dog, but stupid. When the human babies started arriving, he accepted those annoying hiccups in his life plan pretty well as little ones grabbed his hairy nose and black dog lips and tried to ride on his speckled back. However, I do believe that all this mayhem did serve to make poor Henry a little nervous. If he’d been a person, he might have developed a nervous tic or perhaps a smoking habit. In addition, the more crowded the house became, the less attention Henry received from the people who had promised to cherish him just a few years earlier. Whereas, before the kids came along, he could depend on a bowl of clean water and fresh gruel each morning and evening, that expectation eroded as changing diapers and spooning baby food took energy and focus away from caring for the dog.

But, in spite of his less than stellar cerebral cortex, Henry adapted.  He took to eating off the floor, taking advantage of the messes the children made, the milk-engorged Cheerios, the dust-covered cracker crumbs, a tasty bit of pre-chewed weenie.  As for water, he got it wherever he could find it, from mud puddles, toilets, the occasionally-mopped kitchen floor.

As the holidays approached one Christmas and preparations were underway, Henry was in dog heaven with actual baking going on and butter and chocolate dropping in giant glorious globs upon the floor.  And then there was the real tree, adorned with candy canes, chewy and delicious despite their cellophane wrappings, and the tree itself sitting in its very own reservoir of water.  Not stopping to reflect on the unfairness of a newly-arrived stalk of future pine straw getting preferential treatment over the family dog, Henry, pragmatic soul that he was, decided to feast upon the waters that sustained that Christmas tree.

This water poaching went on for quite a while with my knowledge until ultimately the irresistible force met the immovable object when Gary happened upon Henry in mid drink on none other than Christmas Eve, its divine self.  A chase quickly ensued as Henry's collar, striving as we all do to make a some kind of connection to another entity, linked itself to one of the strings of Christmas lights that gave the tree its shine.

All I saw as I arrived from the kitchen, covered in sugar and sweat and wondering just what this particular ruckus could have possibly been about, was Henry and the Christmas tree rounding the corner and careening down the hall in an attempt to find refuge under a bed. 

At that point, if he could have, if he'd just had the words and the cultural history and a brain large enough for rote memory skills, Henry might have had the courage and the abandon to render the following from Clement Moore:

But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

And although he didn't, I do have all those things and, since I'm not hiding under a bed with a Christmas tree ruefully attached to my collar, that's exactly what I offer to you.

A Christmas Walk

In thinking about a Christmas memory, several come to mind. I remember my mother making us listen to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol via 78 rpm recordings each Christmas Eve, a story that should have been more interesting than it was. Of course, on Christmas Eve, pretty much nothing was as interesting as looking for Santa's feet landing on our hearth followed by all the presents I'd asked for and was confident I deserved.

I also remember another Christmas Eve when my brother set his bed on fire. Too nerdy to smoke and too smart to play with matches, Sandy decided to try to lull his excited self to sleep by reading under the covers while I slept in the next bed, having had to give up my room to Aunt Susie for the holidays. He took the shade off the lamp before he entered his private reading fort, one that unfortunately turned out to be combustible when the bare bulb met the cotton sheet. However, it seems that there wasn’t too much of a conflagration as I slept through the entire emergency. From then on, our holiday tradition was to open presents on Christmas Eve to keep my dumb-ass brother from burning the house down.

A Christmas Day memory I have is one that happened a bit later. It was 1964, I think, which made me 14, a difficult age for the holidays, too old to play with the toys Santa had brought me and too young to borrow the family car to escape from the heat produced by too much food and too many relatives. I had already received all the compliments I was going to get about how pretty I looked in my new Christmas sweater and I couldn’t watch TV because Uncle Walter was sitting in front of the television set nursing his highball. When the phone rang and my new friend, who’d just recently moved to Savannah, bemoaned her similar circumstances, we decided to get together and take a walk around the beautiful island that was our home. We met up by her house and agreed to walk down by the bluff, a gorgeous spot adorned with moss-hung oaks, genteel old homes, and quaint river docks. I wore my Christmas sweater and she wore her new navy pea coat, something I immediately added to my upcoming birthday wish list. My new friend’s name was Allison and I’d been looking for her for a quite a while, even though I hadn’t known it. I’d skipped a grade in junior high and had been at loose ends ever since, as the kids I’d played with my entire life were now a year behind me in school and we no longer seemed to have much in common.

Beginning with that Christmas walk, it didn’t take long at all for Allison and me to bind our friendship through our outlandish senses of humor, our budding liberal views, and our love for saddle oxfords. We went on to become college room-mates, bridesmaids in each others' weddings, and, years later, that same other was right there when each of our marriages ended. And then, just a few years ago, fate would intervene once again when we both had the opportunity to move to Atlanta around the same time.

And so, forty-six Christmases later, my new friend is now my old friend. Although I never got my pea coat and we no longer yearn for saddle oxfords, which, by the way, just might now work wonders in covering our bunions and veiny feet, we are still pretty darned silly and annoyingly liberal. Just ask anybody.

 

Still friends (and silly) after all these years.

Peas All Gone!

A few evenings ago, I dined with old friends, Gene and Charlotte, at the iconic Atlanta eatery The Colonnade. As Charlotte was enjoying her veggie plate, I, my chicken-fried chicken, and Gene, his salmon croquettes, he reminisced about growing up near Atlanta in the 1940's and 50's, describing memories of driving downtown with his mother to shop at Rich’s and Davison’s Department Stores and the small magic shops that were situated between those two Grande Dames of Southern Shopping. He told about following his mother up and down Peachtree Street, to and from Forsyth Street, and how the trip was made less painful as he was allowed to stop at both of the magic shops on the way. He said that, all the while he was eating lunch at Rich’s Magnolia Tea Room, he’d be trying to decide which one of the magic tricks he would be allowed to buy.  As Gene was talking, my own Rich’s memory hit me like a….well, like a mouthful of English peas. 

Living way down in Waycross as we did, we didn’t make it up to Atlanta very often. However, I did have two aunts who lived here and we would drive up to see them from time to time. My first memory of an Atlanta visit must have been in about 1954, which would have made me four. I remember looking in the Rich’s window and seeing my first television screen ever, all lit up in vibrant black and white. I also remember eating lunch in the tea room there.

As a child, I was a picky eater. On one occasion when I was quite small, a nice neighbor lady asked what I liked on my hamburger, and I responded with “everything but the meat.” I’d like to think I was ahead of the  times with my vegetarian sensibilities, but I guess my recent chicken-fried chicken selection would belie that. And a vegetarian I definitely was not, as, to my child mind, vegetables were to be avoided at all cost. 

I’m pretty sure that, for my nice luncheon at the Magnolia Tea Room, I ordered either a cheese sandwich or my extra-special favorite, peanut butter and jelly. I’m also certain that my sneaky mother mouthed something about a vegetable to our complicit waitress in her frilly white apron.

It doesn't take much of an imagination to conjure up what happened next in the midst of a nice meal in a lovely restaurant full of happy post-WWII hatted and white-gloved matrons and very few children.  To my horror, English peas arrived in a neat little pile on my plate; Mama told me to at least taste them, and I said no.  She ordered and I cried.  She put her foot down and I petulantly took a spoonful.  But, determined to have the last, albeit silent word, I refused to swallow.  

The rest of the meal was spent with me full-cheeked and teary-eyed, but Mama didn't relent.  Finally, the bill was paid and my Mary Janes insolently followed my mother's spectator pumps past the other patrons, out the door, and into the elevator to take us to the first floor where the perfumes and hosiery were displayed and sold.  Midway through our downward journey, I looked up at Mama and smiled my best smile.  In the midst the packed elevator full of  other shoppers and diners, I said, in what my mother later reported to have been an extremely loud voice, "Peas all gone!"

Rich's Department Store, with its Pink Pig at Christmas and its Crystal Bridge spanning seven stories, is also gone, gone from downtown Atlanta and elsewhere.  All that's left are grown-up memories of little children reluctantly following their mamas in their pretty hats and white gloves up and down Peachtree Street; children just looking for some respite, perhaps a magic trick or a nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich with no vegetables. 

Although Gene eventually understood that there were simple solutions to the magic tricks he obsessed over and purchased on his shopping trips to downtown Atlanta, solutions explained by the sales clerk as soon as he handed over his small bills and coins, I continue to dislike English peas to this day.