The Year That Santa Didn't Come

It was a house built for Christmas, with two parlors, stained glass windows, fireplaces with marble mantles, and ceilings so high that you could pick the biggest tree on the lot without ever worrying about whether there would be room for the star on top.  

Built in the 1800's with the brick that St. Louis was famous for, it was a house like you see in the movie, "Meet Me in St. Louis," with a long front walk, an imposing double front door, the poetic street name of Longfellow, and a happy family inside.  For two years it had met its promise and had been the perfect backdrop for a magical Christmas that included Santa and wishes coming true.

But this year was different. This year the mom and dad in the house had separated in November and the dad had moved in with a friend until he could find a place of his own. Three and a half year old Alex, the oldest of two little girls, had grown quiet in the weeks since the separation, understanding on whatever level a three year old can understand that something in her life had changed.  Or, perhaps, just missing her dad's tickling before bedtime.  

As she left for her first overnight with her dad in early December, she was more serious than a three year old should be, carrying a Sesame Street suitcase in one hand and a tattered pink blanket in the other. She didn't see the tears falling down her mom's face as the door shut behind them. But she had seen them before. 

I was that mom. And as I shut the door, I was struck as never before that I was not going to be able to give my daughters the greatest gift that my parents gave me--the security of a loving mom and dad in the same house. For the rest of their childhood, my girls would be dividing holidays and carrying suitccases and blankets between houses. 

To Bess, who was only nine months old, the separation of mom and dad would be her normal, with not a single memory of a time when she was a part of a family that lived together and celebrated together. Alex, at three and a half, knew different.  How much she would remember in her later years of mom and dad as a team, I wasn't sure. But her recognition of a loss that year was clear. 

I made myself sick worrying which little girl would suffer worse. Was this a "better to have loved and lost" situation?  I didn't know. 

Their dad and I tried to make it as easy as we could for them and decided to celebrate Christmas togther that last year. He would come over on Christmas Eve to read our traditional Christmas stories and would sleep on the couch that night so he would be there when they woke up in the morning. And he would take care of buying the "big girl bike" that was at the top of Alex's Santa list. I couldn't help thinking that she might be wishing for something else, but without the words to know exactly what it was. 

In those few weeks before Christmas, he was slow about buying the bike and I was quick to nag. He laughed me off in that carefree way that I had once found endearing and assured me that it would be there on Chrismas morning.    

I tried to create some magic that last Christmas. We had the tallest tree we could find, and I let Alex have the blinking lights that I hated but that she loved. The Santa doorbell, with a red nose that played "Rudolph" when pushed, was hung inside where we could push it often, and the two stockings that I made with old quilts were hung low on the mantle where Alex could reach. On Christmas Eve, sleigh bells rang quietly outside the bedroom door of a little girl half asleep, but who might remember in the morning. Cookie crumbs were dropped on presents and outside the fireplace grate to show where Santa had been. Red Christmas pajamas and brightly wrapped presents completed the picture. The bike would be brought in last. He had bought it the day before and fell asleep before I had a chance to see it.

After the girls' presents had been unwrapped, Alex's dad told her that Santa had left one last present in his car.  He went out and returned with a full size, 24 inch bike, twice as tall as Alex, and fit for a twelve year old. It seems that Toys 'R Us sometimes sells out of the smaller bikes before Christmas Eve day.  

I can't pretend that there wasn't tension in the air when he brought in that bike. Or that Alex didn't notice my irritation and menacing glances directed at her dad when she couldn't climb on the bike by herself. 

But I also can't pretend that Alex didn't love that bike. In the days between Christmas and New Years, she sat on it whenever there was someone around to lift her up.   And she resisted every single suggestion I made about taking it back to Toys 'R Us--where Santa had an agreement--and exchange it for one where her feet could touch the pedals. It was only upon the urging of her dad, and his promise of pink streamers and maybe a horn, that she reluctantly climbed off and headed to the store with him. 

The year of the bike turned out to be the last Christmas we spent in the big Longfellow house. By June, the girls and I had moved to a down sized, two bedroom, Cape Cod with none of the charm or beauty of the old house. Yet, much of the magic seemed to follow us. We continued to buy big Christmas trees, even though we always worried about room for the star. We rarely missed celebrating Christmas mornings with their dad, opening only the stockings until he arrived.   Sometimes we were kept waiting longer than we liked, but we waited nonetheless.  And we learned to find joy and security in our more modest houses and non-traditional family. Only a little of the magic was gone.  

I'm  pretty sure that the year of the bike was the year that Alex quit believing in Santa. Not because of a skinny Santa or a fake beard, but because it was more important for her to believe that her dad had brought her that bike.  

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The Lonely Drive

The transfer is always hard--the part of a visit where both grandmas drive to a midpoint in Indianapolis and transfer the grandson.

This time I was on the giving side, saying goodbye in the parking lot of Starbucks and leaving quickly with little more than a grande coffee and a few broken animal cookies in a circus box. 

There was no chattering from the backseat during my drive home--the only sounds being the rattles from my car, which I worry may be ominous but tend to ignore, and the occasional voice of Rush Limbaugh as I searched for radio stations to distract me. I wasn't in the mood for outrage and kept searching until I found an appropriate sound track for my tears.  

He turned 18 months old this visit, an age that found him mimicking and adding new words at a pace rivaling how quickly I now forget them.

He arrived with just the basics--Mommy, Daddy, Abbey (his dog) and cookie.

I got blamed for that last one. He went home from my last visit saying it loud and clear. And so often that Alex visualized all my meals void of the fruits and vegetables that she had requested--a pile of cookies forming his sole food group.

I did better this time. He was transfered with a vocabulary of useful words like "up" and "down" and "train" and "truck" and "bus" and "cheese." And "achoo," which could come back to haunt me since his version sounds a little too much like asshole. Time will tell.

We enjoyed a few new treats too. Like ice cream. But I'm a quick learner. I never once used the word. He just says, "mmm, mmm good." 

And he says "nemaw," his version of grandma. 

Mmm, mmm, good, indeed.

George and Patricia

    Jim and I were at the marina at Lake Mattoon this summer getting registration stickers for a new paddleboat.  I was waiting in the car while Jim went inside to fill out the paperwork when I noticed a red pickup truck parked nearby.  An older woman (and by older, i’m meaning someone who looked like she graduated from high school at least a few years before I did) was sitting quietly in the passenger seat.  Nothing unusual about the woman, nothing unusual about a truck with a boat hitch at the marina, nothing usual about the truck itself--except that written on the side of the passenger door was simply the name “Patricia.”

    Shortly thereafter, an older man wearing bib overalls (and by older, I’m meaning someone who looked like he graduated from high school at least a few years before JIm did) came out of the marina office, climbed into the truck, and drove away, but not before he did a three point turn that enabled me to read what was clearly written on the driver’s side door of the truck.  That door simply said “George.”

    Now, I can’t swear that the couple in the red truck were Patricia and George, but I’m guessing they were.  And I don’t really know anything about the erstwhile Patricia and George.  I don’t know if they’ve been married a long time, if they live in Neoga or Mattoon, if they head out to Lake Mattoon to fish or if they just like to putter around the lake on a little johnboat.  I don’t know if they dote on a couple of grandkids or cheer for the Cardinals.  But I’m pretty sure that there are some significant ways that they are different from Jim and me.  

    Every year when Jim and I sign our income tax forms we trade off who gets to sign on the first line as Signee and who has to sign on the second line as Spouse, even though it’s been years since there’s been a W2 form with my name on it attached.  I’m guessing that Patricia and George don’t have that debate.  Every time Jim and I head to the car to drive somewhere, we look at each other and ask, ‘Want to drive?’  (And since I tend to drive a bit faster and Jim likes to read, I usually end up in the drivers seat.) I’m guessing that Patricia and George don’t have that conversation.  And I’m pretty sure that there’s not a car at Patricia and George’s home that has ‘Patricia on the driver’s side door and ‘George’ on the passenger door.

    George and Patricia reminded me more of my late parents’ generation than my own.  Although my parents didn’t have a pickup truck, and although there weren’t any names painted on the doors of their Chevy sedan, it was always a given that if they were going somewhere together that Marshall would be driving and Leslie would be in the passenger seat.

   Maybe it was that resemblance to my parents but I was touched by George and Patricia.  It’s not uncommon to see names on pickup trucks in Neoga, but those names are almost always male.  Sometimes, those names have ‘and son’ added on.  But hurrah for George, who, although he clearly wanted the drivers seat, also clearly wanted the world to know who he wanted by his side!

   As, for over fifty years, did my Dad!

Waiting In Line For an iPhone 5

I left my phone at home yesterday. Again. Not on purpose. I just forgot to put it in my purse. Which I do fairly often. It never really bothers me. 

I'll be on a plane or at a play and they'll make an announcement to turn off all mechanical devices and I'll look in my purse and be a little surprised when the phone's actually there.

Sometimes I even leave it at home on purpose. Not usually for the whole day, but when I run to the store, or walk the dog, or go out to eat.

I think it's a generational thing. Alex and Bess are never without their phones. They're lost without them. If they were at a play and saw they didn't have their phone, they'd probably go back home to get it, or borrow their seatmate's phone to call someone to bring it to them, or panic.

I'm much more casual about it."Oops, I forgot my phone."

It might make a difference if I was expecting important calls or tweets, but I rarely am.

  

And it might make a difference if my phone did all the things that most phones do these days--like play games, receive emails, take videos, write novels. Mine's a flip phone that only does calls and takes pictures. Or at least I think it takes pictures. I never actually do that. 

If you're running for President and making a speech in front of a group that you think is like-minded enough that you can say what's really on your mind, you're going to be safe with me. You'll have dissed 47% of the population before I even figure out if my phone has an audio and video function. That is, of course, if I remembered to bring it.

I think it would make a difference if I grew up thinking everybody was reachable at all times and that I should be too. Which I didn't. And don't. I grew up with land lines and pay phones and being paged at airports.

I was at an airport a couple weeks ago and heard a page, and was immediately on the alert. I wanted to connect with that other person who forgets their phone. 

Back in the day, we didn't even have voice mail or answering machines, let alone text. If you called and nobody answered, you didn't much worry about it. You just called back later. The pay phones even gave you your dime back.

These days I have to be a little more careful. Because Alex and Bess worry when I don't answer. Like the time I went shopping after work and didn't take my phone. It was 7:00 p.m., I wasn't home, and Bess was so worried she started calling people to see if they knew where I was. Even people in different states.

"Hello?!" Is this the same daughter that stayed out all night knowing that I would be waiting up and worrying on the couch?

    

I thought this was a generational thing too. Moms worry and kids think you shouldn't. It kind of makes me happy to realize that I can get payback by doing nothing other than leaving my phone at home.

    

I read some articles recently about privacy issues with cell phones. And I couldn't help but remember the days of party lines, when we actually shared phone lines with other people. Families who lived in the country shared with a whole bunch of other folks, each with their own distinctive ring. But if you wanted to listen in on what Ethel down the road was saying all you had to do was quietly pick up the handset.*

*(a handset is the piece of an antique rotary phone that you hold in your hand, speaking into the bottom half while holding the top half to your ear. It's connected to the base by a coiled cord that tangles easily, but that can be untangled by holding the end closest to the base high in the air and letting the handset dangle.) 

Just now I read about people camping out at night to get the newest version of a phone that's at least six versions away from the one that I'm perfectly happy with, but could no longer buy because it's extinct.

It kind of makes me feel that I'm a little extinct too.

It kind of makes me want to go and camp out in that line.

If I do, I think I'm going to leave my phone at home. Boy will that make Alex and Bess worry.

Memories Across Bike Rides and Continents

I rode my bike to her house for no reason other than a destination on a free afternoon and the vague hope of a dime for the Dairy Bar that was next door. Through four alleys, across the high school parking lot, then north on Second Street past three houses--a short six blocks, which I might have timed at about five minutes if I had been old enough to own a watch, which I wasn't.

She was my in-town grandma, known as "Ma," and was usually found in the garden or the field of strawberries in the first few rows of the cornfield directly South of her house. We picked strawberries and rhubarb, or onions and carrots, or sometimes just weeded and looked for garden snakes slithering through the rows. Both of us were brown from time outdoors, but she less so because of the bonnet she sometimes wore.

She fed me no-bake cookies and butter and sugar sandwiches on white bread before we sat down on the front steps and snapped peas or green beans into metal bowls for Sunday dinners. If there was no gardening to do, she let me sew on her sewing machine with the foot pedal that I couldn't reach, and which made it a two person project.

I picked switches off the weeping willow tree, whipped them through the air, and then trailed them from my handlebars as I rode back home.

My other grandma carried the full name, but lived in Tennessee, requiring a road trip and an overnight stay in a small roadside motel with a tiny swimming pool if we were lucky. We drove on two lane highways, through rolling hills and mountains that made the ride feel like a roller coaster, before reaching her house on Peach Orchard Drive--a street that rose high above the town sitting in the valley below and that felt far away from the plains of south-central Illinois.

She was waiting for us on the front porch, and I wonder now how long she must have waited in the days before cell phones could announce our imminent arrival. As she got up to greet us, she called out to me by yelling "Yeannie," never quite conquering the "J" sound of my name that was foreign to her native Norwegian tongue.

There were bowls of candy in the living room that she let us eat without limits and a box of jewelry in her bedroom that she let us play with without asking. In the morning she fed us little pancakes rolled up with jelly inside and then followed us outside and clapped with glee as we showed her the cartwheels and somersaults that we had perfected since our last visit.

She sent packages at Christmas and on birthdays and came to our house for a week's visit every spring or fall.  I took her to my Brownie meeting to talk about growing up in Norway and skiing to school and was smug knowing I would be the only one who could find Norway on the map.  

My grandson came last week. I fed him fruits and vegetables (like his mom requested), and ice cream sandwiches and cookies and happy meals (like she didn't).

We blew bubbles at parks, took walks in wagons and strollers, and went down slides at playgrounds. He stood at the top of every slide like his mom had warned, and I had to sit him down before counting "un, deux, trois," which was his signal to go. We fed goats, rode a pony, had our faces licked by puppies, and watched ducks ignore us no matter how loud we yelled for them.

We played with puzzles and blocks, found Elmo in books, and sang "Old McDonald" too many times. He chewed on books at the bookstore (leaving teeth marks for me to discover later), held on to my leg when we met new people, and climbed into my lap each night before he fell asleep.

After ten days we flew to DC to meet up with his mom and, three days later, I left him at the boarding gate waiting for a plane headed for Paris,  where he would spend a day, before boarding a second plane headed for his home on yet another continent. 

I waved good-bye at the gate and held back tears, hoping that a grandson's memories can survive across both time and continents.

                                           

Thank Goodness It's Thursday

I walked out the door the other day and my first thought was, "Oh good, it's Thursday, two crosswords in the paper today."

So much for TGIF. I work on Saturdays, so weekends don't mean a lot.

It's mostly little things that I look forward to these days. Enough rain that I don't have to water my flowers every day. I don't have a hose or an outside hook-up, so watering means a lot of trips back and forth from the sink to my little outdoor space. The flowers are nice. The watering isn't.

"The Closer" on TV on Monday nights. I looked forward to that show. I'm a little worried about having to find a replacement.

Thinking of something to write about and getting some comments.

Finding a copy of "Fifty Shades of Grey" at a garage sale. Not that this one has ever  happened. People seem to be holding on to it. I  look forward to finding a copy so I can see why.

But all those things will have to wait. For the next seven days, I have another little thing to look forward to--Flynn is coming to stay.

Alex has some training in DC and, in a complicated transfer plan, 15 month old Flynn is coming to spend some time with grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. I get him for 10 days and then spend another few days with him and Alex in DC before they fly back to Africa.

Thursday's crosswords and Monday TV will be taking a backseat for a while because I have a lot to do. I haven't been in charge of a one year old for 26 years and my apartment shows it.  

I'm terrified, I'm excited, I'm putting away all sharp edged tables. I'm moving cleaning supplies. Razors on the edge of the bathtub? What was I thinking? They get put up. How high can a one year old reach? Top shelf behind a closed door seems safe.

But why don't I have safety strips in the bathtub?

They go on my list. It's getting long. Diapers, snacks, divided plate, sippie cup, fruit, food that someone with four teeth can eat, wipes... 

I quit looking for "Fifty Shades of Grey" and started buying toys at garage sales. I went grocery shopping and bought juice instead of soda.

I mopped my kitchen floor. Not for the first time, but I'll probably do it again this week, and that would be a record.

I'm pretty sure the day will come when I'm ready to sit back and say, "Oh good, it's Thursday, two crosswords in the paper today." 

When I can breath and quit seeing everything in terms of breakable or non, potentially harmful or safe. When a day that isn't completely filled up with thoughts of a one year old will be something to look forward to.

Monday nights without "The Closer"? I'm not worried about them any more. I'm going to have pictures to go through, furniture to move back, good times to look back on.

Although I'll probably wish I remembered where I hid those razors? 

Cleaning Out My Memory

I'll be talking to Bess, and we'll be having a nice conversation, and then she'll ask me what I did yesterday.

Yesterday? I have no clue what I did yesterday.

But when I was six we went to Santa Claus, Indiana and rode the....Damn! What's the word I'm looking for? I think it starts with a "c." "C-o" maybe.

This is going to drive me crazy! I'm off to the dictionary. There are 44 pages of "c-o" words in Webster's Collegiate. All small print. Still, I can handle it. My finger scrolls down the list and then stops. I've forgotten what I was looking for.

I remember when I was ten and decided to read all the words in the dictionary. I got as far "asparagus" and stopped. I hated asparagus. It was mushy, and an ugly olive green color, and had these strings that stuck in your teeth.

But I don't need to remember that! I love asparagus now. All I need to remember is not to overcook it and not to buy it in a can. Delete, delete, delete!

I need to delete all this useless information rolling around in my memory so I have room for what I did yesterday.

I don't need to know where all the McDonalds with playgrounds are located in St. Louis.  I don't live in St. Louis anymore and my youngest kid is 27. Time to delete.

And, yes, Clinton brought some shame to the presidency. I remember all the details. Everyone else seems to have forgotten it.Why shouldn't I? Delete.

How to diagram sentences? Pfft! I could do it in my sleep. All the while remembering Mrs. Elliott standing in front of the class in her jersey dress telling us how important it was. But, really, I've become quite comfortable with dangling participles. Delete.

My first grade teacher's name? I don't need to remember that. I can always make one up. If a classmate remembers it differently and I stick to my guns, they'll just blame it on their own bad memory. Delete.

"Guns don't kill people. People kill people." Delete. Delete. Delete. I don't want to hear that one ever again.

How good the chicken at Chick-fil-A tastes? I'm pretty sure I can delete. Because it's never going to taste that good again.

All those slogans from the '60's like "Give Peace a Chance" and "Make Love Not War"? They don't seem to be of much use these days. Delete.

And while I'm at it, I need to get rid of all those words like "neat" and "groovy" and "bummer" and "nifty." When's the last time I used them? Well, okay, I'll keep "neat." The rest go.

Things are looking clearer already. I'm pretty sure the word I was looking for was "colossal." A few more deletes and I might even remember that I went shopping yesterday.

Whoa! That came out of nowhere--winded right through all that useless information and landed on center stage.

If only I could remember if I bought anything and where I put it.

Delete, delete, delete....

Poetry

All of my children will always know why a person would be “stopping by the woods on a snowy evening.”  They learned all about those snowy woods in Seventh Grade English at St. Matthews School--where their English teacher required all students to memorize her favorite Robert Frost poem.  Part of the Seventh Grade ritual every year was memorizing the infamous poem, practicing it over and over, and then proudly reciting it in front of the class.  There’s not a St. Matthews seventh grader around who will ever forget “promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

Having sent four children through Mrs. Pickard’s class, Frost’s words are firmly imprinted in my brain as well.

But those words are not the only poetry I know.  I too had  English teachers who believed in making students memorize favorite poems.  I, and everyone else at Marshall High School in the 1960’s, will always know that nothing “is so rare as a day in June” and that “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day.”  The words of James Lowell and William Shakespeare are just as firmly etched on my brain and pop out with greater frequency than I’m sure Mrs. Elliot and Miss Stephens ever imagined.

I have sixty four years of information and knowledge knocking around in my head, but most of it has accumulated bit by bit on top of itself, and almost none of it is place-specific.  I know a lot of things, but for the most part I can’t tell you where I learned any specific piece of information or who taught me something.  But memorizing poetry is different.  I’m not sure if it’s because the task is concrete and finite, or if it’s just because there is such a feeling of accomplishment when the piece is finally mastered perfectly.

I only know that at least once a year in early summer the sun shines, a warm breeze blows, clouds drift across the sky, and I find myself saying “then if ever come perfect days,” and remembering the smiling face of my old teacher.

I think that it’s just about certain that when my kids reach the age of sixty on snowy nights they will remember the smiling face of Karen Pickard.

Skyping With a Walker

                                      

After Flynn was born 13 months ago, I wrote a post about how Skype was helping close the gap between a grandson and grandma who live on different continents. It was one of the few times that I found myself fully embracing new technology. I have no use for Twitter, and my texts remain limited to one word answers because I've never upgraded to a phone with a keyboard.

But Skype? Well, count me a convert. For most of that first year, I was able to watch  Flynn scoot, roll over, and sit and play with toys without ever having to change a diaper. I saw bubbles and first teeth and smiles, and I heard babblings in real time. I felt like we were getting to know each other despite an ocean of separation--even though I harboured a few duobts about how our virtual playdates would translate to real life.

But that was all before I got the walker. And, no, I'm not talking about a walker that helps me navigate across the living room and into my desk chair. I'm not there yet. I'm talking about a grandson who went through the stages of rolling and sitting and crawling and, in the natural order of things, arrived at walking. 

I saw some of those first steps on Skype. Tentative movements that took him from leaning against a table or a chair or dad's chest and into mom's outstretched arms in two or three wobbly steps. Really more like lunges, but I cheered for him anyway. I encouraged him as those two or three steps became four and five, then six or seven. I clapped as I watched all tentativeness fall away. 

And now as we skype, I watch him walk with confidence. Even run. Unfortunately, it's almost always right out of the picture.

It seems that with his new independence, he's gotten a little bored with flat grandma.

                                         

There's a toy on the other side of the room that's calling. There are drawers to open in the kitchen. There's a dog to chase. There's a ball pit to dive into. And then there's grandma on Skype, trying hard to turn his disappearance into a virtual game of hide and seek.

"Where's Flynn?'' I repeat, hoping he'll come back into camera range, but simultaneously thinking that my year of Skype is some sort of fast forward microcosm of life, where our kids grow up, gain independence, and walk out of our own pictures.

Occassionally my calls work and Flynn leans around a door frame, grinning, or walks back in from stage left. More often he doesn't. He's off and moving.

I think the day may come when he'll be interested in sitting down and letting me read him a book over Skype. Maybe we can even play some virtual games. Or he can complain to me when mom and dad won't buy him a skateboard or let him stay up late to watch a movie. I'll listen. 

Until then, it's okay. I'll always have his back.  

                                                          

A Qualified Fortune

When I was growing up, we went to Chicago for a long weekend every summer and ate at a Chinese restaurant. It wasn't the only thing we did, but fortune cookies and the improbable video phones at the Museum of Science and Industry are what I remember most.

It was the early 1960's and Chinese restaurants and buffets had yet to show up on the main streets of small towns in Southern Illinois. Our diversity was pretty much limited to the gulf between  catholics and protestants. And our food choices were almost exclusively centered around meat and potatoes. The only Chinese cuisine I knew was the very occasional chop suey that came from a can at home and, later, the chop suey that came from a bigger can at the school cafeteria.

It was an eye opener to walk into an actual Chinese restaurant with red lanterns and tassles, waiters wearing silk pajamas and talking in accents, Chinese families sitting at tables, and a menu with Chinese characters that I couldn't begin to understand. It was a window into a world I didn't yet know. A glimpse into a future bigger than our town. A step towards being worldly.
 
I ordered chop suey. So did Ellen. And so did Mom. It was all we knew. Dad had grown up in Chicago and was a little more sophisticated--although I use that word loosely. He ordered beef with broccoli, fried rice and egg rolls, and made sure that they brought us hot tea with those little handleless cups that I so wanted to take home.

Almost as much as I wanted to order the fried ice cream for dessert. But dessert wasn't usually in our budget. And, after that first visit, I was okay with that because they brought us something even better at the end of our meal. They brought us our fortunes.

I think my first one said something like, "Happiness is yours if you enter each room with a smile and a wink." I took it to heart and started walking into every room with a wink and a smile when we returned home. I'm pretty sure that people thought I had a tic, but I knew I had a fortune. A road map to happiness. Straightforward and assured. Something that made me feel good about myself and positive about my future. Something that a scrawny nine year old from a small town could hold onto.

Subsequent fortunes just buoyed my growing confidence. "Hard work will bring big rewards." I could do that. "Keep your family close." I've got that covered.

I can think of only one other thing that had an impact comparable to my Chinese fortunes. It happened in seventh grade when our home room teacher was leaving to go to another school and gave everyone an award at the end of the year. Mine was for the "sexiest voice." I carried that certificate with the same confidence that I carried my fortunes. I was 12 and didn't even need a bra, and on some level probably knew that it was a stretch. Yet, somehow I've managed to live for nearly 50 years believing I have a sexy voice. Even though not a single other person has ever noticed it or commented on it.

I stopped at a Chinese take-out last week and brought home some dinner. I ate my beef and broccoli and  dug out the fortune cookie from the bottom of the bag with an innocence a little more jaded than the nine year old me. Still, I looked forward to reading it.

"The stock market may be your ticket to success," it said.

"What the hell?" I thought. "My happy future is now tied in with the stock market?"

 "And, even then, it's qualified? It's just a 'maybe' ticket to success?"

"What happened to rosy futures that made 9 year old girls enter rooms with a smile and a wink?"

"Where's that big reward I've been working hard for?"

"What's the stock market got to do with anything anyway? Can't you see I'm wearing a smile?"

"Confucious would be ashamed!"

I said this all in a very sexy voice.  

The Fastest Girl In the Class

There was a time when my goal was to write a book before I was 60. Well, actually, the original goal was 40, the same year I was going to stop smoking. But, like so many things, it got pushed back. I'm 60 now, cigarette in hand, and haven't written a single word. Although I do have a title.

It comes from a book I read several years ago called, "The Men My Mother Dated." The book wasn't quite as good as the promise of the title, but I loved the concept and decided I should write my own book about the men I had dated. It could be a sort of memoir of my life told through the progression of dates.

There were just a few snags. When I sat down to do a rough outline, I realized I hadn't dated enough men to fill up a decent number of chapters. Particularly if "dated" meant more than one date. Even worse, I had to face the fact that, if I was going to be honest, my memoir would have to end at about the age of 26.

So I regrouped and came up with a more workable title, "The Men I Never Dated." This one was full of possibilities. Almost frighteningly so.

It wasn't long before I moved past the idea of a single book and began planning a whole series. I could do a second book about the men I  dated once, but shouldn't have. And then, going back to the heady 70's, a third book about the men I dated, but can't remember.

It was all pretty overwhelming, and just a little bit depressing, thinking of all those men. Particularly the ones who never asked me out. I couldn't understand why there were so many. Was I boring? Maybe. Too standoffish? Probably. Not flirty enough? Almost certainly. Too likely to attract really strange men? It sure seemed like it.
  
Although maybe it was something else.
  
Sitting in the State's Attorney's office a couple years back, in my serious suit and Naturalizer pumps, ready to negotiate a plea bargain, he mentioned that he had run into a friend of mine recently.

"Oh?" I said, "Who?"

 "A friend of yours from your school days. Vern something."

"Oh sure, we went to school together. Nice guy."

"Yeah," he continued with a slight smirk, "He told me you were the fastest girl in the class."

"Hmm...," I'm thinking. "How do I want to handle this?"

The State's Attorney was 20 years my junior, and clearly getting a chuckle out of thinking of me as "fast." Maybe even seeing me in a new light. No longer the serious defense attorney, but the "fast girl of Marshall High."

I kind of liked it. Even though it was far from the truth.

Vern and I went to high school together, but we also went to the same grade school. And at North Elementary I could beat just about anybody in a foot race. Certainly all of the girls. But, on a good day, even Vern, who was the fastest boy in the class. Those blacktop races had left an impression on him, and now they were leaving an impression about me. One I hadn't earned and didn't deserve--but found that I didn't mind. 
 
So I just laughed and ended up leaving with a pretty good plea bargain.
  
The State's Attorney is a man I never dated. One of many. Enough to fill a book easily. When I get around to writing it, he'll be the first chapter since he helped me understand all those men who never asked me out.

It seems I might have scared them off. My reputation preceded me.

Remembering Mom

The day after Mom died, Ellen and I sat at my kitchen table trying to write a eulogy for her funeral. We had written one for Dad 16 months earlier, but Mom's was proving difficult.

Ellen rejected every one of my ideas. I rejected every one of hers. I accused her of being bossy. She accused me of being passive. In the space of 24 hours we had reverted to the two little girls fighting in the back seat of a '57 Chevy during a family vacation. Except that this time we didn't have Mom in the front to act as our referee.

Dad's eulogy had come easily. He had some quirks, which made the writing easier. Mom was harder. She was a bit more straight-laced, a bit more serious--the one who cried the first time she cussed in front of us and who worried about us dating "fast" boys. The one who signed our report cards and told us to do our best and to brush our teeth. The one we thought we might disappoint. Not because she gave us any reason to think we could change her feelings towards us, but because we somehow knew that she saw potential in us--sometimes more potential than we saw in ourselves.

She was also the one who suffered from Parkinson's Disease for the last twenty years of her life and who never stopped worrying about us during all those years when we should have been worrying about her.

Because worrying about us was also her domain. She laughed when we teased her about it, but she never stopped. When we lived at home, she wouldn't go to bed until we were home safe--although falling asleep on the couch was apparently okay. When we went to college, she wrote letters every week, worried we might be lonely. When we moved away, she worried about our cars and the weather every time we drove home. When I had surgery for cancer, I woke up with her face two inches from mine, worried that I might stop breathing.

And now that she was gone, Ellen and I couldn't seem to write a eulogy, worried that we wouldn't do her justice.

The newspaper with her obiturary arrived the next morning. We had given the information to the funeral director, but hadn't written it out ourselves or seen the final draft. It was a relief to see that the cropped picture had turned out okay and that all the family names and history were correct.

It was at the second paragraph that we stopped. And laughed, together. Because there in that final printed tribute to our down to earth mom were words that didn't come close to belonging to her.

"She loved gold."

Mom loved sale racks and discount stores and a good bargain. She could stretch a small paycheck to cover prom dresses and cheerleading outfits and birthday parties and special Christmases, but the only gold she ever had or ever wanted was the gold stars that we brought home on grade school papers.

She did, however, like her golf, which we had mentioned. And thank goodness for that because, with just one misstep of a letter, it ended up giving us a eulogy.


"For those of you who knew our mom, you may have been surprised to read that she loved gold.....she also loved a good laugh..."

It was all we needed. A start. Mom had given us a good start at life, and she had somehow managed to give us a good start at the hardest part of that life--saying goodbye to her. The start was all we needed. The rest flowed smoothly.

Mom deserved gold. But what she loved was us.

Times Are Changing

In reading Facebook recently, I came across posts that noted that, for the first time anyone can remember, there are no taverns in Marshall.

What?! I remember when Marshall had more taverns than churches. It seemed like a perfectly okay balance all the years I was growing up. One that worked and that no one seemed upset about. I even thought it might make a good tag line--a little more colorful than the "highways crossing and porch lights burning" one.

Although I do remember as a kid being a little intimidated by all the taverns. I would sometimes peek inside when I was walking to the dime store or the library, and they were always dark and a little mysterious. And occasionally a man, slightly tipsy, would walk out just as I walked by and I probably ran. But overall, they were fine. Because I was a fast runner.

They were even a little fun--as I discovered when I got old enough to go in, or at least to have a fake ID. Not near as dingy as I thought. And beer was cheap. It didn't even bother me that they put ice in my wine.

So what happened? Sure, the town didn't much like the adult bookstore and got right to work on that. But the taverns seemed safe. The town seemed to leave them alone. So I was left wondering. I find it hard to believe that the whole town quit drinking.

And in all fairness, I guess I do need to note that the American Legion and the VFW are still there and still serving drinks. Maybe even bringing out those illegal slot machines on occasion. I'm guessing they're both going strong. Maybe even thriving. Parking could be a problem. It's probably not a bad idea to get there early. Because, like I said, I can't believe that people have just quit drinking.

Although I guess they could be drinking at the Iron Bridge or on the 8th green of the golf course. I seem to remember stories about some drinking going on in those places. Some other places too. But I don't want to give away any secrets in case those places are perhaps being run as private clubs or something. That might explain the lack of taverns, particularly with warm weather coming on.

Still, it's all had me a little worried about what's happening in my little town. What's going to go next? Could we lose the State Farm office? Is this some grand plot of Walmart? First they surpersize and then they open up a tavern? Followed by an insurance office? I was coming up with all kind of frightening scenarios. I even foresaw the possibility of a name change.

Until I went back to Facebook and read about a new place that opened up where the Corner Tavern used to be. I think it might actually be a tavern. Even though it's called a Bistro.

Times are changing.

Golf Carts

   Jim asked me recently if I would like to play golf sometime this summer with Jeff Swearingen and his wife, and I immediately said yes.  Yes, however, I quickly added, only if we could rent a golf cart.

    I haven’t played much golf in years, haven’t really thought about playing golf in years, although for some odd reason I bought a set of women’s golf clubs at the St. Matthew garage sale last spring.  But as soon as Jim brought up the idea of playing golf, the thought of driving around in a golf cart popped into my head and all of a sudden I was grinning.  

    I’ve always had a bit of a love affair with golf carts!  

    My favorite Florida vacation spot is the Plantation on Amelia Island because we always rent a golf cart for the week and I get to spent my time cruising the byways of the resort.  To this day, whenever I hear the Beatles singing about that Yellow Submarine, I’m immediately transported to Amelia Island and a long ago trip home from dinner with Leslie, Dennie and Amanda Novak, and me singing Yellow Submarine at the top of our lungs as we drove through the towering trees back to our condo.

    When I think back on the golf experiences of my childhood, what I remember most is laughing my way around the Marshall golf course with Chris Bennett as we hit one wild shot after another.  The best part was hopping into her dad’s golf cart and careening all over the fairway to find our wayward balls.  Before we could even legally drive a car, we were pushing the pedal to the floor and speeding up and down what hills there were on that central Illinois course.

    Although I love my old house in central Champaign with its big trees, brick streets, and own private boulevard, I’m always a bit envious of my friends who live on the outskirts of town on the edge of the country club golf course because most of them have golf carts parked in their garages.

    Looking back, I think that my love affair with golf carts traces directly back to my dad.  My dad was a gentle, unassuming man whose passions were my mother, his children, the Chicago White Sox, and golf, in that order.  He wasn’t a man who asked a lot out of life or who needed a lot to be happy.  My mother was devoted to him and until the day he died he thought himself the luckiest of men to have won her hand.  My sister and I were relatively easy to raise.  The White Sox were a continual disappointment, but there was always next year...

    One of the best things about small towns is that there is very little distinction between the ‘haves’ and the ‘haves not quite so much.’  My family was definitely in the second group, but that didn’t stop my dad from joining a golf club.  My dad grew up in Chicago and he spent much of his teenage years caddying for rich members of Chicago’s many country club golf courses.  Marshall didn’t have a country club, but it did have a very nice nine hole golf course that was open to anyone who wanted to join for a very nominal fee.  Dad may have saved his pennies all winter, but come opening day, he was there with his membership form and his driver!

    And that membership wasn’t the only thing Dad saved his pennies for.  Shortly after I was out of high school, Dad, notoriously tight with a dollar, bought his first golf cart.  (Could he have known about some of the wild rides I took with Chris?)  He bought the cart used, but to him it was pristine, perfect.  Chris’s dad was a lawyer, and he drove a Cadillac to the golf course while my dad drove a Chevy.   But, up until the day Cas died, Dad and Cas Bennett parked their golf carts side by side in the Cart Barn.

    I don’t really know what my dad thought about all those hours and days and years that he drove that golf cart up and down the fairways of the Marshall golf course.  I don’t know if he was remembering all the miles he used to walk carrying someone else’s golf bag on his back.  I don’t know if he was just savoring the wind in his hair and the sun on his face.  I don’t know if he was remembering where he had come from or just was enjoying where he had ended up. I don’t know if he was proud or satisfied.  But I do know that he was happy.

    As am I, when I remember my dad, and when I get behind the wheel of a golf cart and push the pedal to the floor!