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!