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