Kids in Cars

     Kids in cars seem to make the news more and more these days, especially during the sweltering summers. Children are left in hot cars while parents go shopping, or run errands, or go to work, or forget all about them – and the children are dying or suffering other dire consequences and parents are prosecuted in the courts and persecuted in the media.

Eric, Clark, Den 1960

     Back in the 60's when my brothers and I were young, we were left in the car often while my parents shopped! I remember it mostly was in the early evening, after Dad had worked all day and we had eaten dinner and cleaned up – Mom and Dad might decide to drive to Sears, about a half-hour drive away at the Southgate Plaza – to pick up some things they probably had talked about over dinner. We were too young for the three of us kids to be home alone for the length of time it would take to get to Sears, shop and drive home again. And that might have raised some eyebrows at the time. So that meant taking us with them. But how convenient to not have to get us out of the car, go through the parking lot and then the store and back into the car again – wouldn't it be so much faster for just the two of them to leave us in the car, go in, hurry with the shopping, and then get back to us kids?

     It was not unheard of back then to do this. And again, the temperatures of the early evening in Western New York were not killers; and Mom and Dad were not working 8 hour shifts with us out in the car – just running into the store and out again.

     They did not leave the windows cracked; nor were the doors unlocked. The Folks did not want anyone getting in to harm us, nor did they want any of us getting out. But I think their biggest most realistic fear at the time was the fact that the three of us did not really get along that well – and we were three smushed kids in the back seat told to behave while they were gone! Actually, I was the only problem in this scenario – I felt I was too old to be left in the car like that, and being the bossy older sister with two younger brothers just being normal boys – well, yeah it was me.

     But we managed, however, in spite of all that could happen – to not have anything terrible happen to us. Of course, if my Folks were raising us in today's world, they would not consider leaving any or all of us in the car for any length of time, and in today's world, I don't think anyone shopping at the Southgate Plaza would get away with leaving kids in the car like that.

     There is one incident I can remember from when the three of us were in the car at the Sears parking lot one evening. Being the early sixties, and with us growing up out in the suburbs – we had never seen in person, an African American! African Americans were in the news since the Civil Rights movement was well underway in those years, and African Americans were in our textbooks at school. Well, we were in the car and chatting. And then we noticed a couple who were getting out of a nearby car that had just parked. They were African American! I burned the image into my brain – the first time I saw African Americans!

My brothers and I commented about the couple. And then Eric began to roll down the window! He was going to ask them if a few questions!

     I managed to get the window rolled back up before they heard him. And the couple walked on by, walked into Sears, and did not notice, I don't think, the three kids staring at them from another car in the parking lot.

59 20150228 kids in cars

Arthurmometer

     When we still lived on Heinrich Road, the radio sat on top of the refrigerator in the kitchen. It was AM radio, and the station was always set to WBEN which was not a top-40's station. One was likely to hear Frank Sinatra or Al Martino and not at all likely to hear Elvis or the Beach Boys.

     For about a hundred years or so, the morning DJ on WBEN was Clint Buelmann. He was not loud or gimmicky, no cowboy ego or political agenda – of course I might have been too young to notice. What I do remember is that he was personable. After a particularly heavy rainstorm, Clint would use the phrase “gully washer and trash mover” isn't that a great depiction of what a lot of rain would do to the gullies and the trash?” And along with the news, weather, and traffic, Mr. Buelmann solemnly announced in alphabetical order, after really bad snowstorms, the school closings!

     One of the quirky things that Clint Buelmann did was that he had a name for the thermometer! He called it Arthur as in our-thermometer! Isn't that cute? He'd say “Arthur says it's 20 degrees outside this morning,” or “let me go see what Arthur says is the temperature right now?” As a little kid, I pictured a guy named Arthur looking at the thermometer and reporting back to Clint so he could announce it on the radio. When I finally figured out that Arthur was the name of the thermometer, I kind of groaned and kind of wished I had thought of that myself.

     At home these days, we have indoor/outdoor thermometers – the kind that have the probe outside and the readings inside. Every morning when Mike is sitting in the music room listening to NPR, I'll ask “What does Arthur say today?” and Mike will tell me the outside temperature, thus bringing a little of Clint Buelmann and WBEN Buffalo of yesteryear into our 21^st century Georgia home.

58 20150227 Arthur the Thermometer

Home Alone

     This is a story that was first written in 2009 after Amanda's college graduation celebration.

     As we chatted and swapped stories, suddenly it turned into confession time – and the rules the girls were supposed to have followed when they were home alone as kids.

     It was the summer when Sarah had turned ten and Amanda was seven, 1994, that the experiment was tried to let the girls stay home alone all day while I worked. If all went well, then we could say goodbye to daycare. But if there were any problems, then we would have to make different arrangements – probably back to daycare. The girls were motivated to make the experiment work! And they did – or so I thought.

Bodie class of 2009 and Goober

     I had several rules that Goober and Bodie were supposed to follow when home alone. The only ones I remembered that college graduation day in 2009 were: one hour of television per day maximum, clean up after themselves in the kitchen, no answering the door to anyone, and take turns cleaning the litter box every day. The girls remembered a lot more rules and recited this list: one hour or less of tv per day, practice piano at least 30 minutes each per day; read for one hour a day; 1 hour or less of video games per day; one glass of soda maximum per daughter per day; no eating or drinking in Mom's bedroom.

     Have you noticed the omitted rules of cleaning up after themselves in the kitchen and doing the litter box daily?

     And then they confessed:

     “We watched more than one hour of television every day.”

     “We ate in your bedroom while watching the more than one hour of television every day.”

     “When one of us practiced piano, the other would read out loud for ½ hour – and listening counted as reading – so piano practicing and reading got done at the same time.”

     “Because we cheated on the television rule, we never went more than one hour each on the video game playing rule.”

     “You used to yell 'no airborne objects!' if toys began to fly around when you were home; but since you weren't home to yell, we played bouncy balls in the kitchen – the floor was nice for bouncing – and the balls flew so high and hit things and we knew you really would not like that if you knew we were doing it. Did you find some bouncy balls when you put in the new refrigerator and stove this past winter? How about some little race cars?”

    And so I asked, “how much television do you remember watching every day? Three hours? Four?” (I would have watched all day if it had been me!)

    “There were three shows that we liked. So one and one half hours at lunchtime. And when we ate lunch in your bedroom, we used the big puzzle boards that we had to put our food and drink on. We never left any sign of having eaten in your room!”

     They confessed to on extra half hour of TV a day and cleaning up after themselves after eating in my bedroom!

     “Did you ever answer the door if someone knocked or rang the bell?”

     “Oh no, Mom, we would never have done that!”

     “And did you kill each other?”

     “No.”

     “And now you know. None of the other rules counted for anything at all. I could attempt to set lofty rules about tv and video games and reading and piano – but all that really really mattered was that you were safe.”

     And then I added, “Did you jump on the couch?”

     “No Mom, just the bouncy ball thing!”

     That's funny because jumping on the couch was the first thing I did when left alone after my Mom went back to work oh so many decades ago!

57 20150226 Home Alone

Harold's Purple Crayon

      A common question that comes up from time to time, especially in conversations with children is “Who was your favorite teacher?” Well, my favorite teacher was my grade school librarian. I can remember her name, but I'm not sure of the correct spelling – she was Miss Rubright. She was young, tall, brunette – stately looking, is how I would describe my memory of Miss Rubright now. I did not get the impression she was a spinster, because she seemed so young, I guess, but I did feel like she was alone at the school – as if she was submerged in the book world rather than the social swirl of the Faculty Lounge which was just past the door across the hall.

     The thing I remember most about Miss Rubright is that after we checked in books and looked for more books to check out, she would read to us. And the one thing I specifically remember Miss Rubright reading to us, probably in my younger grades, was Harold's Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. I think the message I got from Miss Rubright's example was that it is okay to take the time to sit and read – to go on adventures in a book, to take the time to share these adventures with other children, to share one's love of reading with others. Classrooms were always one extreme or the other – hectic or boring, not being challenged or doing every single blasted thing wrong. But in a library, you and your purple crayon can go anywhere, do anything, unconditionally – and it was Miss Rubright who showed us that.

     My Mom told me once that she asked her brother not that long ago, my Uncle Jim, who his favorite teacher was. He mentioned his third grade teacher – the only one he remembered, and he remembered her because when the students arrived for school every morning, instead of having busy work for the kids to do, the teacher sat at her desk and read out loud – the students would come in and sit down and be quiet because they did not want to miss what was next in the book the teacher was reading! Mom said she had the same teacher – and she was her favorite also for the same reason.

     These days, whenever I am invited to a baby shower, the gift I bring is invariably Harold's Purple Crayon. And in 2009, when I found out that Mike and I would be traveling to Buffalo to sight-see and visit relatives, I contacted my old grade school and asked if I could read to the kindergarten classes? The librarian, who was fresh out of the University of Buffalo, said “of course.” 

     As I sat there in front of the kindergartners of 2009, I told them that I went to that school when it first opened fifty years earlier (founded in 1959), and my librarian, Miss Rubright, read Harold's Purple Crayon to the us. And I wanted to read the same book to them that day to make it something special for all of us. And then I asked them to promise that at least one of them will return to the school in fifty years, during the school's 100^th year, and read Harold's Purple Crayon to the kindergartners. They looked at me like I was crazy – but that's okay – may be one of them will remember, and it could happen!

56 20150225 Harold's Purple Crayon

Spiro Agnew

     Of the many things in this world I am not good at, current events has to be very close to the top of the list. And when I was in college I was even worse – which was really sad because during my freshman year there was so much going on: the young men my age were at risk of being drafted and possibly sent into the Viet Nam War, the Attica prison riot had just taken place down the road from where I lived, and the usual college-age passions and ideals were swirling all around me. Yet I hardly knew or pursued any details of what was going on.

     Studying for classes was my best excuse for not reading the newspaper.

     But when the most spaced-out druggie classmate I knew walked into the student cafeteria one day sophomore year laughing about the resignations of Haldeman and Erlichman, and snickering over the firing of John Dean, I was embarrassed because I had no clue who those guys were! I knew less about current events than the guy who was too stoned most of the time to remember his own friends' names! That incident made me feel like the most self-centered, uncaring, hypocritical flower-child in the universe.

     This was even more pathetically exemplified one afternoon my junior year in college. I had taken the bus downtown after classes to do a little shopping, and I was standing on the sidewalk on Main Street, probably waiting to catch a bus home. A man and a woman approached. One of them had a microphone, and they asked if they could interview me for the 6 o'clock news? That is when I noticed the cameraman behind them. I said okay.

     “Tell us your reaction to the resignation of Spiro Agnew.”

     “Spiro Agnew resigned?”

     Now, I did know who Spiro Agnew was – he was the Vice President for Richard Nixon who was the US President at the time.

    “Yes, Spiro Agnew resigned today. What are your thoughts on that?”

    “This is the first I've heard about it.”

    I was flustered. Were they kidding me? I had not heard about anything going on concerning the Vice President . Was his resignation brewing and I was just completely in the dark about it? Of course the Watergate scandal was the talk of the nation those days – I had not missed that at all – especially after figuring out who Haldeman, Erlichman, and Dean were. I could not recall Agnew being at all involved in Watergate. So why would he have resigned? I wanted to say to the microphone and camera, “Nixon's the crook! Why did Agnew have to resign?”

     But instead I replied that I had no comment. They asked for my name and address so they could put me on the television! I said absolutely not. And they replied that I would not be on television then – and I said okay!

    Later, when I told my parents about the incident, I thought they would scold me for not knowing about Agnew, but instead they were upset that they could not tell their friends that I had been on TV!

    Spiro Agnew resigned amid charges of tax fraud and bribery.

    Nixon resigned less than a year later due to the Watergate scandal.

    The War in Viet Nam ended during this time. And the draft.

    I don't think the draft will ever be re-instated in my lifetime.

    But even someone who is still as terrible at current events as I am recognizes when new wars like Viet Nam arise.

2007 Protesting the Iraq War in D.C.

55 20150224 Spiro Agnew

The Faculty Lounge

     Wow, writing about second grade suddenly brought a few other memories to mind. The lower primary grades had bathrooms in the classrooms for the students. Of course, the teachers did not use them. They had the Faculty Lounge.

      When we walked, in single file, and quietly, of course, from our class to the other end of the school where the cafeteria, gym, and auditorium were, we went down a long hall that had the library on the right side of the hall, and a door that said Faculty Lounge on the left side. The faculty lavatories were actually to the left of this door, and the school nurse was the room to the right of the lounge.

       I was always intrigued with the thought of what was in the Faculty Lounge – did the faculty actually lounge in there, did they laugh and party, relax and let their hair down?

      There was a cartoon in the comics one time that showed reptiles in the faculty lounge of a school – and the reptiles were putting on their human faces before going to their classes. That was the kind of thing I wondered about – something like reptiles is what I suspected!

      If I could have somehow finagled an excuse to enter the Faculty Lounge, just to quench my curiosity, I imagined that the aura of the forbidden territory would have made me uncomfortable enough to turn around and run out. But even today, fifty plus years after second grade – I would still love to just have even a peek inside the Faculty Lounge.

      Alas, when I returned to Boston Valley Elementary School in 2009 and begged to be allowed to read Harold's Purple Crayon to the kindergarten classes in the library – I discovered that the library had moved across the hall where the faculty lounge had once been! The librarian and students had no idea they were treading in formerly forbidden space! My eyes dashed across the hall to the site of the old library – I forget now what it has become, but it is not the faculty lounge.

      How do you like that, now that I am old and could probably swing the clout, the Faculty Lounge of my elementary school days manages to elude me still!

54 20150223 the faculty lounge 

Second Grade

     In second grade, my teacher was Mrs. Howard. The best word to describe her is proper. She was very no-nonsense, serious about her task of getting second grade across to her students.

     Here is our class picture. It is amazing when I look at it now that I can still name 18 of the 24 kids in that picture! That's me on the far right of the first row.

Mrs. Howard's Second Grade Class

     The most lasting memory I have of second grade took place in winter. Just like in first grade, there was a wall in the classroom along which we hung up our coats and left our boots during the snowy, wet weather.

     Waiting for the bus on winter mornings was very cold – almost to the point of abusive! And one morning when we got to school, a classmate, who I will call Tyler, started to cry when we were hanging up our coats and taking off our boots. Mrs. Howard asked what was wrong? And Tyler said his hands were cold! Now, we aren't talking a little bit cold. If his hands were cold enough to make him cry, then they had to have been very very cold – Tyler was scared that something bad had happened because his hands had been so cold for so long.

     Mrs. Howard rushed him over to the little sink that was next to the students' bathroom and turned on the water. Tyler put his hands in the stream of water. Then he reached over to turn on the hot water faucet. A very logical move, I thought. But Mrs. Howard did the strangest thing! She told him not to turn on the hot water! She said to only run the cold water. She said the hot water would burn his hands!

     Now that sounded to me like the silliest, most illogical thing I had ever heard! Tyler's hands were cold. If he ran hot water over them, his hands would get warm, and then he could take his hands out of the water and they would not burn. But NO, the teacher said to run the cold water on the cold hands and that would warm them up.

     That made no sense, no sense at all! Why did grown-ups have to be so contradictory? Why did life in the real world have to be so the opposite of way it seemed it should be?

53 20150222 Second Grade

My Overalls

 

Christmas 1982

   A young woman at a storytelling event recently said she liked my black overalls. I said thank you, and then my mouth just kept talking and I spilled out my life with overalls.

     The black overalls are for storytelling nights – they can look formal for my serious telling, or they can make me look youthful for the stories from my younger years.

     The blue denim overalls I wear on casual Fridays at the lab – or any other time that I can rationalize a reason.

     Overalls have been my thing ever since my college days. I think they accommodate my stomach well. Things around my waist, like pants and skirts, are too constricting – I wear them, but they are uncomfortable.

     One summer during college when I was home, I saw Mom driving home from work and I ran out into the street and jumped up and down in front of her car. After she pulled into the driveway, Mom said I looked ridiculous goofing around in the street like that – in my overalls I looked just like a scarecrow!

     Over the years I have gained and lost weight several times – but I aspire to someday look again like that scarecrow!

2014 My New Black Overalls

     And the overalls inspire me, while comforting me too.

     On weekends – well on weekends I wear the blue overalls, or the black overalls, or my capris overalls, or, when I've lost enough weight, my short overalls

      – And I wear them without a shirt underneath.

      Those are the bestest days of all – as long as no one rings the doorbell!

52 20150221 My Overalls

More First Grade Moments

     A couple more memories of first grade. While reading was something I was eager to learn, penmanship was very much my weakest subject. My letters were sloppy, and really, my handwriting has not improved much over the years.

     One day I was sitting next to Chad, and I had written a capital G on my paper. Even I knew it was sloppy with an extra loop at the bottom of the G. I turned to Chad (not his real name) and said, “see that line? It is the G's bum!” Feeling feisty, saying bum. Chad's eyes got big, and he said he was going to tell on me! Then my eyes got big and I begged him not to, and he didn't.

     Another day Mrs. Ulrich asked us to line-up. We were probably going to music class or maybe gym. Everyone stood up, but I realized that I could not! I just sat there. The kids got in line, and some of them stared at me because I was not following instructions. I realized that I could be in big trouble, but I just could not move.

     I don't remember if it was after the others left the room or if they were still standing there waiting to go, but suddenly I threw up! Not only was I sick all over my desk, but on a couple of other desks too!

     And once again I marveled at how smart big people were! When Mrs. Ulrich saw that I did not get in line, she did not get upset or order me to follow instructions. She wordlessly let me stay at my desk while the others lined up. She must have known that if I was not moving that something was wrong. Mrs. Ulrich probably deduced that I was not feeling well and maybe even knew I was about to be sick, even when I did not know what was wrong! Isn't that something?

51 20150220 More First Grade Moments

Swear by my Tattoo

     The day-care facility I worked at for a year after we moved to Georgia closed down a while ago. I think the closure was due to decreased enrolment – since then, no other business moved in, and a couple of years ago, the building was torn down. Today there is a sign that says a Family Dollar store is coming soon to that location.

     When I drive by and see the sign, I flash back to memories of Ms Jayne standing outside the old building having a smoke during her break; Ms Bobbie in the kitchen fixing lunch for everyone; all the kids running around the old playground; my Toyota Tercel which sat broken down in the parking lot for a couple of days; ah yes, the manager holding a staff meeting and lecturing that nap time is when the children sleep, not the teachers; a Mom on the phone cussing me out because her son was not potty trained yet while the manager watched and listened to make sure I didn't mouth off at said disgruntled parent.

    During my stint at the day-care, I had the class of 18 month-old kids. And I loved them. At that age, the children are learning to talk, and yet they could not tattle on me when they got home at night. It seemed an even trade for all the diapers I had to change. 

     Surprisingly I don't have a lot of stories to tell about the Georgia day-care after all these years. A recent memory did come to mind, however. Right after lunch every day, the teacher of the 12-month old class and I would pop a video into the television for the kids to watch to help them wind down for nap time. It would be about 20 minutes long – usually a collection of Disney movie songs. My favorite tape had two Little Mermaid songs, Under the Sea, and Just Kiss the Girl – how can you not help but love those tunes? And it had The Three Caballeros – with happy serapes. And there was Kirk Douglas, from the movie Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, he looked so young, and he was singing A Whale of a Tale – you need to youtube it – adorable – I swear by my tattoo!

     One day while watching one of the videos, the kids were sitting on the floor or lying stretched out on their stomachs. One or two might have been on our laps as we sat on the floor with them. Suddenly one of the girls let out a yelp and told a little boy near her to stop! I looked over to discover that the boy had kissed the girl's toe! It was clear that he had not given much thought to the act – the toe was there, why not lean over and give it a smooch? – something he most likely saw at home with his parents. The girl was not upset – her response was the equivalent of flicking a fly off of her foot – she did not even look at him when she yelped, just kept watching the TV – perhaps something she had picked up from her own parents. The act and the rejection both seemed so sweet – and then I felt sad – when is kissing of toes between friends ever not welcome?

      Since that day, I have pictured the little boy grown up with a continued affection for toes;, and I have imagined the little girl now a woman who appreciates a guy who will kiss her toes. I doubt either of them will be doing those things at at the Family Dollar Store – but the spirit of that moment will be there!

50 20150219 swear by my tattoo

Cracked Ribs

     My daughters asked me recently to tell the story of the time I cracked some ribs. They had not been born when it happened – so I guess it is a story they have heard from time to time over the years and remember – maybe because it is so typically me. I was married and working at the lab at Roswell Park, and I had come down with a nasty cold – probably a sinus infection. I had been home from work, having learned early in my post-college work life that when I am sick, folks appreciate my staying away and not sharing my germs.

     I think I had been home two days with no energy at all – which means I spent daylight hours lying down on the couch watching TV.

     When Guiding Light was over on the second afternoon – at 4PM, I thought perhaps I could take a shower. A few minutes later I was in the shower; I put shampoo in my hair and started to lather up. Suddenly my vision was starting to tunnel and I realized that I needed to get to sit or lie down.

     But I also thought I might have some time.

     I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair – quickly. Then I leaned down and turned off the water. Getting out of the tub could have been tricky – the tunnel vision was narrowing. I managed to get one foot out of the tub and then the other foot out. Vision was gone at this point. But I was still standing and I thought I might have more time.

     Two steps straight out of the bathroom would be needed, turn right, and a few steps to the bed in the bedroom. Once out of the bathroom, I started to run! How many steps to the bed? And I was sinking. I crashed into the nightstand and rolled onto the bed. I stayed until my vision returned – oxygen got back to the brain. I was sick and had been lying down for 48 hours – apparently I had pushed myself too far – too far to take a measly shower.

     But I had crashed into the nightstand – and because I was sinking while running toward the bed, my ribs met the edge of the nightstand. And I must have cracked one or more of them because my ribs hurt after that – for a long time – it hurt to take a deep breath, it hurt to cough, it hurt to laugh. That was the worst part – it hurt to laugh, for weeks!

50 20150218 cracked ribs

A Skeleton Will Let Me In

The SunRoom Cabinet Today

    There is a cabinet that has stood in the sun-room within arm's reach of the dinner table ever since my girls were growing up. The cabinet holds a collection of reference books – so if, during conversation while eating a meal, we ever had a question come up that needed clarification or verification – I could grab the dictionary, or the book of familiar quotations, or a thesaurus, a mythology book, According to Hoyle, Lies My Teacher Told Me, and surprisingly many more selections considering the cabinet is really not so big – and the answer would be there, and our conversation would be enlightened.

     My favorite collection of books in the sun-room cabinet is by Richard Lederer. One of his titles is Anguished English – and that is what Mr. Lederer writes about – puns, malapropisms, accidental headlines – books-worth of anguished English he has amassed from students, advertisements, and newspapers. I guess I cannot give any examples because of copyright. But the girls and I had many good chuckles from these books over the years. Of course, it helps that our senses of humor have always been predisposed to the twisted.

    The word key always makes me think about anguished English. More specifically, skeleton keys make me wistful about this. One time many years ago on the radio, I heard a woman mention that she had been a real estate agent for a while; and one day when she was going to show a house, a colleague asked her if she needed a key to get in? And the realtor answered, “No thanks, a skeleton will let me in.”

     Now, we all know that what she meant was that some sort of master skeleton key would let her into the house. But when the realtor said, “No thanks, a skeleton will let me in,” all of a sudden she had a vision of a real skeleton waiting at the house to open the door!

     What an picture that makes!

     And ever since then, when I think of house keys, I think of skeleton keys, and when I think of skeleton keys, I think of a skeleton waiting to open the door like some dutiful Arthur Treacher.

     A skeleton will let me in.

     Today we do not need a cabinet of resource materials within arm's reach of the dinner-table Today almost every one of us has at palm's reach a cell phone with internet capabilities that holds the wealth of all that is known to humankind. And we are constantly accessing that info during conversation. How far we have come in such a few short years!

     So the sun-room reference cabinet is rarely accessed anymore. It could be moved to another room. Its contents could be replaced. But just the other day Mike reached in and pulled out the etymology book to look up the origin of something in the midst of table-time conversation.

     Not surprisingly, the cabinet is going to stay right where it is with all of its references intact.

48 20150217 A skeleton will let me in – sunroom cabinet

Chautauqua 1 - Just Dropped In

      A Kenny Rogers song came on the jukebox one morning recently when Mike and I were out for breakfast. I bounced along to the tune and almost said to Mike, “this is my favorite Kenny Rogers song!” But I stopped before uttering because I realized that I say that about almost every Kenny Rogers song I hear – This one was The Gambler – it tells a great story. But then, there's Lucille which is so much fun to sing along with; and the one about the little boy and the baseball, I Am the Greatest– so sweet! - And then there's Ruby – don't take your love to town. And thinking of Ruby takes me all the way back to when Kenny Rogers was in a singing group called The First Edition and the hit song Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In).

     I heard that song live! I actually saw Kenny Rogers and the First Edition! Ah, the memories that concert stirs up!

     The summer between my junior and senior years of high school, 1970, I worked for 8 weeks about an hour and a half from home at a place called Chautauqua. You may have heard of a Chautauqua? – well this is where the word came from. On Lake Chautauqua in southwestern New York, there is a gated area filled with hotels, summer cottages, parks, churches, the beach, a theater, an amphitheater, facilities for lectures, classrooms, lessons, and cabins for the practicing of musical instruments. It is a realm for summer living and also a realm for the arts, religion, education, politics, etc.

     So what the heck was I doing there? I was a lowly dishwasher in one of the smaller hotels, living in a dorm adjacent to the kitchen. The kitchen staff worked all three meals every day. We had free time between the meals, and one day off a week – different days for each of us – there was one person whose job was to fill in for others' day off.

     There is so much that I could say about Chautauqua and the time I spent there (I also worked there the summer of '71 – after high school graduation) but I could not do justice to the awesomeness of it all, nor could I be honest enough in talking of its splendor because I was not appreciative enough of it at the time. These days one dream of mine is to start a Southern Chautauqua – and come full circle from those high school days.

     There were stage shows once a week in the theater. I remember seeing Camelot and The King and I. There were ballets – and ballet classes – I did not partake in any of those. The opera was once a week – I saw Pagliacci – the best opera ever. Political lectures were advertised and orated in the parks – I never attended any of these.

     However, I did listen to the occasional guitar player on a park bench – but only if there were not a lot of other silly girls already standing around gushing over him.

     And several evenings a week there were stars at the amphitheater. One evening Kenny Rogers and the First Edition took the stage. They sang all their songs which were familiar to me from the radio, including their most popular Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Is In. Live music is so thrilling – and seeing and hearing a famous band was very exciting! I can close my eyes and be right back at that amphitheater, on the lawn, hearing the songs. Since then Kenny moved onward and upward – jettisoned to super-stardom – the concert of 1970 is long ago and far away – and still, my favorite Kenny Rogers song is the one I heard him sing live back in those Chautauqua days!

47 20150216 Chautauqua Part 1 - Just Dropped In

Another Bonus Lesson

      Of my time spent working at day-cares when my girls were young – almost a year in Texas and a little more than a year in Georgia, one thing I say often in thinking back on those days is that I loved the kids, but I did not care much for management, or parents. Employment now as a lab rat is, of course, a much better fit for me.

    The Texas day-care was just down the road from where we lived, in what folks would call a somewhat affluent neighborhood. (Our house was the next neighborhood over.) One night teenagers with nothing better do do broke into the day-care! They came in through the window over the sink in the kitchen – they stole all the computers and tape-players – this was 1989 – and all the petty cash found in a file drawer. What an inconvenience! - I brought my own tape-player after that so we could still run around the room on Friday mornings with crepe paper streamers to the tune of the William Tell Overture' and another teacher would borrow the tape-player for her class to hear Raffi. Ah, Raffi!

     It was not long after the break-in that a car hit the corner of the day-care! Rammed right into the brick building after a high speed chase one evening! This was very hard to do since the building was off of the road a bit and at the top of a hill (or rather, incline, not many real hills in that area of Texas)! We arrived at the day-care the next day to see a gaping hole in the kindergarten classroom! 

     A bit of reshuffling occurred then to accommodate the 5 year-olds into space elsewhere in the building while repairs were being made.

     After a month or so, insurance money came through for the items that had been stolen and for the repair of the hole in the building. In a move that totally floored me because management was incredibly stingy with funds, all of the employees got a $50 bonus for all that we had been through putting up with the break-in and the ram-in!

     Now, the room I had at the day-care was shared with another class. I had the 18-month-old kids, and on the other side of the room was a class of early 2-year-olds. The teacher, who I will call Liddy, had had a much less charmed life than I had. She had an ex-husband who may or may not have been in jail at the time, and from that marriage was a teenage girl. Liddy was married to her second husband, who I will call Max, and they had three more children, all of whom were grade-school age. While most of the other women who worked at the day-care were using their paychecks for fun stuff like cleaning ladies and gym memberships, Liddy clearly needed her job to help support her family. And she was wonderful with her 2-year-old class.

     The day after the bonuses were distributed, Liddy and I had gotten the kids down to sleep at nap-time, and we sat on the floor chatting quietly to each other. Liddy asked me about the bonus. I told her my family had gone out to dinner with the money to celebrate – and there was even some cash left over.

     Liddy looked a little wistful, and then she smiled and said that when she got home the day before and told Max about the bonus, he got so excited that they made love! Liddy said, “and it was still daylight!”

     Making love in the daylight – the best way ever to celebrate the bonuses of life!

46 20150215 another bonus lesson

First Grade Picture

The infamous 1st Grade pic

     Even though I was only in first grade, the sixth grade teacher, who was a man, had a reputation, even to six year olds, for being a scary guy. He was known to be strict with all the kids, not just the ones in his class. He made his students work very hard. I was someone who did not want to attract his attention in any way.
     Ever.

     But it turned out that this sixth grade teacher was also the person taking the school pictures that year. And he would be taking my first grade picture. Our paths were about to cross!
     I remember I was wearing a white cardigan sweater on picture day. I was so terrified of that teacher. I tried to sit calmly in the spot where I was told. Mr. Friar took a few shots, and then he barked at me to take the sour look off my face and smile! My terror was soon mixed with stubbornness and anger – there was no way I was going to smile for that man, even if I could! 

     He got nothing but sour!

     A few years ago I asked Mom if I could have my first grade picture. It had been damaged – right where the sour should have been! I sent it to a restoration place, and although the results were clearly not me, I had several copies made and gave them away as Christmas presents that year.

     My brothers thought it to be an odd gesture.

     Now even the restored picture is quite dear to me!
     But of course, I could not find a copy of the restored pic in time for this post - instead I came across the original, damaged first grade picture that the restoration people were glad to return to me!

45 20150214 First Grade Picture

Oh and the Wrong Feet

     My first grade teacher was Mrs. Ulrich. She was not as old as Mrs. Endress, my kindergarten teacher. She was tall with brunette hair. The classroom was in the new Boston Valley Elementary School, and we were the first room down the hall after the kindergartens.

     The first kindergarten room just inside the big double doors to the outside was room 100. I could not understand why that was room 100 – where were all the rooms 1 through 99? They might have been down a different hall, but as the year wore on, I came to realize there was no such hall, and there were no rooms numbered 1 through 99. That was confusing to me – why not have rooms numbered less than 100?

     Reality should not be that complicated!

    The first grade classroom was exciting. There was a chalkboard across the front wall with green cardboard strips above the chalkboard that started on the left with capital A and lowercase a, and went all the way through the alphabet to Big Z, little z. My heart pounded as I looked at them. I was going to learn how to read! In those days, first grade was when kids first learned how to read.

     On our first day of reading class, Mrs. Ulrich wrote an o on the chalkboard, and then she put an h next to it. She said , “this is the word oh.” I said the word in my head while looking at it. “I'm reading!” I was ecstatic! After that came Dick Jane, Sally, Spot, and Puff. I was cruising!

     Wintertime in elementary school meant lots of boots and leggings and heavy coats and mittens. There was a whole wall of the room dedicated to the removal of snow gear in the mornings so they could be dry and warm by the afternoon.

     One morning at home I put on my shoes and then my boots over my shoes. When I got to school and took off my boots, I realized my shoes were on the wrong feet – they looked all right (at least to me they did). But they felt just a little bit funny. I decided to leave them that way.

     Well, Mrs. Ulrich noticed right away that the shoes were on the wrong feet and told me to take them off and put them on the right feet! As I switched the shoes to their correct feet, I marveled at how smart adults are, and I wondered if I would ever be able to tell shoes are on the wrong feet just by looking at them?

44 20150213 Oh and wrong feet

Going Back to Texas!

     During Sarah's move to North Carolina in 2014, I was thinking about when we moved from Texas to Georgia in 1990. Sarah was six years old and she was very upset. She insisted that she would move back to Texas the first chance that she got! – and Sarah felt that way for a couple of years. Then Texas became a faded memory, and if you ask her now, Georgia has always been home.

     But back when we left Texas – golly Sarah was one vocal kid about not wanting to move!

   

Virginia and Aunt 'Manda

 On her first morning in Chapel Hill, Sarah's daughter, Virginia, who was four, was feeling very sad, and she did not want to be there. Aunt Manda started talking to her – Amanda was a month shy of her fourth birthday when we moved to Georgia, and although she was more soft spoken than her sister, Amanda was not thrilled with being uprooted and moved out of state either. She talked with Virginia for quite a while – two kindred spirits with the same experience and same feelings. Soon V had perked up a bit.

     I told Virginia that when I am sad, I try to think of someone I could call on the phone – someone I can make happier with some conversation – then Sarah and John called John's Mom and Virginia got to have face time with her.

     Thinking back to 1990 once again and those first days living in Georgia – the girls' dad went to work every morning, and Sarah went to school – Amanda was at home with me – it was Amanda helping me with the unpacking this time. And what a joy she was – making me happy with her conversation, our own face time!

43 20150212 Going Back to Texas

Owl Moon

 

     So the owls brought back to mind Owl Moon – let's see if I can remember all the parts of this story correctly. When Amanda was in kindergarten, I was not working, and so I was able to volunteer in Amanda's class on a weekly basis – reading stories mostly.

     On Wednesdays, there were stations in the room, kids moved from work area to work area and did the tasks involved in each. I can't remember what station I was monitoring, but the room contained two entire kindergarten classes, and they were combined for this portion of the day.

     After that, it was time for me to read.

     I sat down in a low chair in front of the children and showed them book I had for them that day – Owl Moon. As I opened the book and began the story, I suddenly remembered that I was going to have to hoot during the course of the reading. A slight panic came over me and I looked at my audience. There were two classes of kindergarten kids sitting with their eyes upon me – there were the two teachers, their two para-pro assistants, a few more mothers who were helping out that morning, and two men, one at the bottom of a ladder and one at the top of the ladder replacing a fluorescent light – I had not even noticed the men until that moment. I was going to have to hoot in front of all these folks! Well it was too late to not read the book, I would have to just move forward. Whatever the hoot sounded like – that would just have to do.

    The story went well – Owl Moon is so beautiful. When I finished, the kids lined up to go outside, and then they left. I packed up my bag and headed for the door to the hallway. One of the men from the ladder said, “Excuse me Ma'am? That was a fine reading of Owl Moon just now – my boy and I read it all the time, it is our favorite book!”

    “Oh thank you, did I hoot okay?”

    “Ma'am, you hoot with the best of them!”

     Well, of course, that made my day, my week.

     How much our family was enriched because owls made their way into it and helped us all to hoot with the best of them!

42 20150211 Owl Moon

The Owl Trivets

     Last summer my daughter, Sarah, and her husband and two children moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina so Sarah could return to school for her advanced degree in Library Sciences. Her sister Amanda and Mike and I and quite a few other folks helped in the move. So many memories came to mind during that moving weekend – like fuses popping in my brain.

     Find the owls! I found myself saying this –  while opening boxes in the new kitchen.

     Back in 1986, just after Sarah's second birthday, we moved from Western New York to a rented house in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Within two months after that we moved to a house we had purchased in the next town over called Dewey.

     Looking back on it now, I can't imagine having gone through all of that – I had never lived anywhere else but the Buffalo metro area with its cold winters and short summers – and suddenly I was in 100 degree weather halfway across the country, pregnant with Amanda, and not only had we unpacked to live in one house but we packed up and moved to another where we had to settle in once again – and oh yeah, there was a precocious two-year-old to make things even more exciting!

     So one morning soon after the move to Deer Creek, I decided that I was going to empty boxes until all of the kitchen stuff was unpacked so we could start having homemade meals again. Sarah was fun company – she could already talk quite a bit, and she was a good helper. But not too long into the unpacking, Sarah started asking me to get to the box with the owls.

     I was not sure I heard her correctly, if she meant owls, I did not know what owls she was talking about.

     As the day wore on, Sarah got more insistent about finding the owls. I tried to think of all of Sarah's toys, but could not think of any owls that she had. The only owls that my poor brain could come up with were iron trivets that were owls – if I kept going through the kitchen boxes, I would find them soon, and perhaps they would appease Sarah until whatever owls she was talking about appeared.

     Well, you know, there were no other owls in the house. The trivets seemed to satisfy Sarah. For months afterward I tried to discern what owls Sarah had really been talking about. There were no owl toys or knick-knacks. There was a record album of Bambi – and one of the characters is Owl; and there was Owl from the Winnie the Pooh stories – could they have been what Sarah was talking about?

     Sarah's request made for such a cute story, that I told all the relatives, and that began the great owl collection. Over the years Sarah received stuffed toy owls, ceramic owls, souvenir owls from exotic lands – Poppee, Sarah's paternal grandfather, carved owls out of wood for her. There were pictures of owls, sketches, more books. Every July, the month of Sarah's birthday, the entire owl collection would be on display on the living room hutch. It was beautiful and impressive.

Sarah with one of her many owls

     Eventually, after Sarah departed for college and never really returned home again to live, all of the owls were wrapped and put into a box. And years later Sarah took the box to her home in Norcross – and last year she decided that the owls would not be going to Chapel Hill with her. Sarah saved the ones from Poppee and a couple of others that were extra special, and of course, the books – the vinyl copy of Bambi was long gone, alas – and the rest of the collection went to good homes during a yard sale.

     After arriving in Chapel Hill last August, we moved all the boxes labeled kitchen into the kitchen and started unpacking. I said Find the owls more than once – hopefully I was not too obnoxious about it.

    When we found the trivets – all was well.

    And all will be well.

41 20150210 Find the Owls

Kindergarten Surgery

     Of all the teachers I have had, there should be at least one memory to relate about each one. I can try. I would have to start with kindergarten because I did not go to day care, or pre-school, or nursery school. And gosh, aside from the bus number 6 story, I really don't remember much of anything about kindergarten.

      My teacher was Mrs. Endress. I thought at the time that she was old – so she was probably in her forties. I don't recall her being mean or nice, or if she raised her voice, or if she even talked at all, but I guess she did talk because I would have remembered her not speaking as something odd. She was just there.

      And the other kids were there. I made friends – they were at my eye level. In the classroom there were low desks and chairs. I do have a memory of looking up from between the chair legs. I was down on the floor looking for the paper Easter baskets we had made for ourselves – Mrs. Endress had hidden them in the room (mostly between chair legs) for us to hunt and find our own – a holiday festivity that is most likely banned from the public schools today.

      One day the teacher called me to her desk. I was mortified at being singled out – had I done something wrong? What could she possibly want?Mrs. Endress had me sit in the chair next to her desk. And I was told to stay there until the school nurse came! I was completely weirded out! I did not think anything was wrong with me physically, but Mrs. Endress had noticed a lump on the side of my neck!

      The school nurse came to the class, looked me over and took me down the hall to her own room. Mom was called, and somehow she came and got me – we did not have a second car, so perhaps she asked a neighbor to give her a ride to school and then home again with me - I remember that I went home, but I do not recall how. Eventually I ended up in the hospital - an abscessed tonsil had caused the lump, and then I had surgery. So I guess that was a little bit of excitement for kindergarten!

40 20150209 Kindergarten Surgery

White Overalls

In honor of this day, whose specialness will become apparent upon its reading, I bring you something written six years ago on this day:

White Overalls?

     Today began unusually enough; Mike had not been feeling well - chest congestion and a nasty cough. But instead of saying, let's sit around and watch movies all day, Mike suggested that we take a drive to the Georgia Mountains! By the time we were heading north on 985, the plan was to go as far as Suches to the National Forest near the trout hatchery and then hike about one-half mile to the suspension bridge.

     We have been to Suches for the past four years celebrating the Fourth of July at a cabin owned by friends Steve and Lorraine. It is a beautiful spot on the Taccoa River, and it is where we have done some kayaking. The area of the suspension bridge is an infamous milestone on our kayaking expeditions. The river there has a slight drop, and there are rapid rapids which make it the riskiest spot along the route. And even though this is not Deliverance-kayaking, the river at the suspension bridge, before today, conjured up images of flipped kayaks, lost eyeglasses, and testiness in relationships. Sometimes only some of our group would go kayaking on a given day, and the rest would drive through the park and hike to the suspension bridge to watch and goof on our friends in the kayaks below and take pictures of the subsequent ecstasies of success and agonies of defeat.

    But to go to the suspension bridge today would mean a relaxing drive up to the mountains, a short walk, not too taxing on our poor physical conditions, and the view when we got there. Lovely!

    There were at least two other small groups of people at the bridge when we arrived, and we could hear a few more voices in the woods. Who would have thought this to be such a popular place in the middle of a Georgia winter? We took pictures on the riverbank and a few shots of the steel cords that made the suspension bridge suspend.

    Finally I saw the bridge was empty, and I got on and made it sway side to side as if we actually took lots of risks in life!

    Mike joined me, and as we looked down, the dead branches and fallen tree trunks made one side of the river seem still and stagnant while the other side flowed briskly with the rapids. Much symbolism to be gleaned from that, I suppose.

    We went all the way across the bridge until we were over the site of infamy where I had flipped-over two summers ago and lost my glasses, the place close to where Mike lost his eyeglasses last July, the place where we've screamed and oared and sometimes even succeeded without mishap with no more than just a few scrapes and bruises!

   "Don't freak out," Mike said, taking one of those giant risks. " I brought you up here to ask if you would marry me?"

Official Pic in September 2009

    And that historical and precarious perch is now the site of our engagement!

    Mike presented me with a most beautiful diamond ring. It had belonged to his mother.           And now we are committed to swinging and swaying the rest of our lives together!

    Mike said that over the Christmas holidays, he had asked Sarah and Amanda for permission to marry their mom, so they already knew the proposal was coming! And Mike had also mentioned it to his sister, Ann, who asked him what color overalls I would be wearing to the wedding?

    At first Mike wanted to propose on Election Night, you know, the theme for the election was change, and the whole evening was so exciting. How cool that would have been? but alas, he could not find the ring! 

    Then he wanted to take me to the Pigeon Forge Storytelling Festival in January like we did three years ago and stay at the Cuddles Cabin again and maybe soak in the hot tub outside with the snowflakes falling and oh my gosh that would have been so romantic; but the Pigeon Forge festival is in June this year, go figure, and the Cuddles Cabin prices have soared sky high, and he still couldn't find the ring.

    Yesterday the ring was found, and Mike decided North Georgia was the place to go with the proposal!

    The perfect place.

    On our way back home, we stopped in Dahlonega where Mike and I had our first date four years and three months ago; that night it was the Smith House for dinner and the Holly Theater for a show.

    Today we went to the Crescent Moon for a beer. Writing on the bathroom walls is encouraged at the Crescent Moon so Mike wrote: On 2/8/2009 De and Mike got engaged on the swinging bridge MDM.

    Yes we did, and now yes we are!

39 30150208 White Overalls

Locked Out

     Whenever I step onto the deck at my house and/or whenever I have a piece of cherry pie, I am reminded of Mama Cat. Mama Cat adopted us when we were living in the rented house on Realm Lane, in Georgia here in 1991. She was Siamese in looks but not in meow, and as you might guess, she was pregnant. Not too long after we took her in, she had three kittens which we later gave away and then had Mama fixed. She was used to going outside, and I think she had a few of the neighbors feeding her and sheltering her from the rain and cold also.

     When we moved to our new house on Glynmoore Drive a year later, Mama was reluctant to go outside at first, and just when we got used to the idea of her being an indoor cat, Mama decided to go out again and she explored her new surroundings and endeared herself to the new neighbors.

     Well, it was probably the summer of 97 or 98, I have it written in one of my letters to the girls – so the exact date is somewhere. From the summer of 95 through 2002, Sarah and Amanda spent one month each year on Long Island with their paternal grandparents and other relatives including three cousins – those summers were great times for all involved and have left the girls with cherished memories and a few good stories (and some plays!) that they still tell. 

     When the girls were gone, I was quite alone. Mostly I worked a lot of overtime at the lab, and sometimes I got up enough energy to do some extra cleaning around the house before the girls' return.

     And one late Saturday afternoon, I put a piece of cherry pie on a plate, and with a fork, and either a book or a magazine, I walked out onto the deck for some relaxation. The deck is off of the sunroom, just past the kitchen, and it is an entire story above the backyard with no stairs from the deck down to the yard. Mama Cat was in the house, and when she realized I was on the deck, she went to the storm door and started meowing to come out and join me. I was enjoying my reading and made the choice to not leap out of my chair to open the door for the cat.

     And that prompted Mama to jump up toward the door handle! I don't know if she had figured out that the handle was the way to get the door open, or if she was just trying to get my attention by bouncing off of the door. Mama kept jumping at the door handle, and then it happened – she managed to hit the latch that locked the door! I was locked out of my house on a deck one story off the ground!

    I got up from the chair and tried the door.

    Yeah, it was locked

    Mama Cat was excited when she saw me walk her way! – but she was soon disappointed because I could not open the door for her.

   There was no point in trying to get off of the deck and safely into the yard because the other doors to the house were locked, the garage door was closed, there were no windows open on the first floor – so there would still be no way for me to get in the house even if I attempted the hazardous descent from the deck. If I called out to passersby, they might have been able to help me off the deck, but then that would be it. This was before cell phones – so I had no phone on the deck with me, like I usually have nowadays if only to play words with friends while relaxing.

     But the deck has the house along two of its sides – one wall is the sun-room and has the door to the deck which was the door Mama Cat locked. The other wall is actually the wall to the master bathroom – and the window from the bathroom overlooking the deck was open! There was a screen there, but I decided I would get the screen off somehow, hoist myself up and get into the house through the bathroom.

    Having decided what to do but not yet how to do it, I sat back on the deck chair and ate my piece of cherry pie.

    Not too much later, I started picking at the screen. I don't think I poked a hole in it; I might have just jiggled it a lot until the inside latches came loose one at a time. When Mama Cat heard the noise, she went to the bathroom window and got on the sill to watch and advise in her own special way. I could not believe the gall she had to think that I was fussing about the window so that she could get out!

    As I gave a running commentary to Mama Cat for having locked me out of the house, she watched anxiously for the moment the screen would give way and release her from being locked in the house!

     Finally the screen came off, and then the logistics of how to climb into the window and not fall head-first into the bathroom had to be worked out – I was squeezing my way in while Mama was trying to get by me. But I got in, fixed the screen and taped the latch on the storm door to the deck in the unlock position such that catpaws could not move it ever again.

     We did not go looking for adventure when the girls were gone, but sometimes adventure found Mama Cat and me!

38 20150207 Locked Out

First Confession Part 2

     When I left off in part 1 of my First Confession story, I was struggling over my list of seven years' worth of sins that I had committed – wondering if I needed to report an exact number for each sin, and finally hoping that God would be okay with a sincere estimate. I decided to say I had disobeyed my parents 7 times – an average of once per each year of my life, and I bore false witness perhaps 7 times – again an average of once per year, and I said the name of the Lord in vain 1 time based on the story my dad had told about me cussing when trying to light a match at the beach when I was two - no need to second guess that one as I could not recall ever having said the Lord's name in vain.

     The day for our first confession arrived. We met in our classroom, and the nun told us to get in a line, and she marched us down to the church. The confessionals were in the back of the church – all the pews faced the front. There was no one else in attendance. We sat in the pews in the back, but we were facing away from the confessionals, and there was a wall or a half of a wall between us and the little closet-like rooms for confessing.

     The nun made a signal, and the first student stood up in the furthest back pew. And I could hear footsteps on the tile as the seven-year-old walked to the confessional. A door opened and then closed. Then silence. After just a minute or less, the door opened and closed again. There were three footsteps and then....nothing! Where had the classmate gone? Not back to the pews. Not out the main door of the church – there would have been more steps to get all the way to the door! Why were there just three footsteps and then nothing?!!!

     The nun signaled for the next person to stand up. I heard footsteps to the confessional, the door opened and closed; after a minute or less, the door opened and closed again, and three footsteps and nothing! Again!

     I was terrified enough as it was – and now all I could imagine was that there was a portal to hell three footsteps away from the confessional – and each child was being pushed in for being so evil! What else could it have been?

     One by one each classmate got up and went to confession. I was in the last pew of children. The longer I sat there, the more I shook with fear. When there were only about six of us left to make our first confession, the nun suddenly appeared in front of us – her hands were on her hips. And she was mad!

     The nun said, “Father has just informed me that he does not want to hear another child say that he or she has committed murder!”

     My mouth dropped open! Then the nun signaled for the next kid to approach the confessional.

     Oh my gosh! My classmates were making up sins! They were lying in confession! How could I have been taking this whole thing so seriously while the other kids were fabricating confessions? Well, now I know it is because they were just trying to please the big people – somehow the adults wanted us to say something – so the other kids decided to confess to murder. And again, as in my specific gripes in Part 1 of my First Confession story, I blame the big people for this.

     The revelation of classmates making up their sins did not ease my own terror, of course. I shook as my own footsteps approached the confessional. I looked for the portal to hell, but it was well hidden. My voice cracked as I spoke my sins. The priest was neither fire and brimstone nor sympathetic – he sounded a tad bored, perhaps doubtful of my honesty.              Rather than feeling purified, I felt petty and small.

     When I left the confessional, the nun pointed, and I walked in the direction of her finger – three footsteps, which could be heard on the hard floor, and then there was a carpet all the way to the main door of the church.

    And my ride was waiting outside.

37 20150206 First Confession Part 2

365 Memories

     Most of the storytelling venues I attend are for personal storytelling. And sometimes people, especially young people, will tell me they only have so many stories inside of them! They believe that their lives are not interesting enough to come up with two or more tales a month or even two or three a year! – how does one come up with more than a few stories other than to have lived a long time?

    And I think back to the year I was going to send Sarah and John a memory a day while they were in England – and even though I only sent 6 months' worth, I had notes enough to fill a whole year. And you know, they can turn into stories – from family classics like the one about my grandmother, the illegal immigrant, to anecdotes like the time Amanda and Sarah, at grade-school age, were playing cards and Amanda said to Sarah, “You have a great joker face!”

Amanda and Sarah - Joker Faces 

    So I decided to start, with hopes of finishing, this blog of one memory a day for a whole year. My goals are many – first - the challenge, the feeling of accomplishment, the wealth of material for stories for years to come – so success, even if no one else ever reads it!

Story Jam in Dahlonega August 2013

    Secondly, it just might motivate some of the folks who do happen to read an entry or two to write down their own memories, just a list of one or two words – teachers, classmates, trips to the emergency room, Disney movies, unforgettable characters, sins, forgiveness – and this might inspire more stories.

     Thirdly – if others can put a list of memories together, (even in his/her own subsequent blog!) - then perhaps some folks might realize that at least 12 stories could be developed from the memories, and that could be a reflection of a whole life – 12 stories, or 10, or 8 that is not too much. And they could make for a truly decent autobiography to pass down to family.

    And wouldn't that be awesome?

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