"I told you I was sick!"

                     You might think that having a pharmacist as our father that my brother and I would  be affirmed in our ailments. Or, at least garner some sympathy with our tribulations.  Oh, No! Daddy and Mother believed that sickness could be thwarted by strength and determination and few meds. Maybe 1T of Citrocarbonate.  Repeat after me, “I will not be sick.  I will not be sick.”  While we had our share of the usual childhood colds, coughs, and the inevitable chicken pox, if we felt bad, we were to “buck up.”

                      I remember one particular early morning when Mother woke me for school. “I don’t feel good,” I whined from beneath a mound of covers.  She left my room and returned a few moments later and told me for the “last time” to get out of the bed and get dressed for school. 

                         “I don’t feel good,” I repeated with heightened pitiful mewing. 

                          “You’ll feel better when you get up and get dressed,” she assured me.  So, I dragged myself out of the bed and into the bathroom to get dressed.

                          I trudged to the breakfast table and intoned, “I still don’t feel good.” 

                         “Eat some breakfast,” she replied, “you’ll feel better.” 

                           I put a few morsels of scrambled eggs into my mouth and swallowed.  I was feeling no better and said so.  “Go on to school and you’ll feel better. And quit slouching at the table.”

                             After much ado, I sighed, gathered my books, notebook, and purse. The carpool honked for me and I summonsed strength for the day while feeling horrid.  I made it through first period only to succumb to the inevitable. I got sick in the girls’ restroom. So embarrassed and so sick and helpless, I had no car for a drive home, even if I had been well enough to drive.  I was weak, sweating, and shaking. I called home but no one answered. 

                            I began to hallucinate and it all began to make sense.  Mother must have had plans which I would have interrupted had I remained at home in the sick bed.  I was furious.  And sick.  And crying in the school’s office.

                          Fortunately, I had friends…with cars. My friend Roseanne took me home.  Luckily, we lived in an era where homes could be left unlocked, so I was able to get into my house without a key.

I went to bed and to sleep, the cure for most of what ails us.

When Mother got home, I announced, “I told you I was sick!”

Let the guilt-induced pampering begin.

A Fun Time They Never Found Out About...

The exploits of teenagers are never more transparent than in a small town. A social extravaganza perpetuated the welfare of the family unit and kept parents informed. Updates came weekly; if urgent, the information was conveyed via Ma Bell. Back in the day, the social equivalent of TMI on Facebook postings occurred over decks of cards, with a light lady-lunch, and a decadent dessert. It was called “Bridge Club.” Bridge Club kept me in line.

Mother learned way too much at these gatherings and interrogated me about everything, even the things I did not do!  After learning of shocking teen behavior at the weekly Tuesday gathering, she’d lurk at home, waiting for me like a spider, ready to pounce, armed with the latest scoop. She’d preface her lecture with a scolding remark, “Well, I better never hear about you…in a dark corner at a dance…with a boy.”  Yikes!

That warning kept me cautious, circumspect, trying to determine who might be the undercover spies, those who attended the dance and tattled to the chaperones, charter members of the Bridge Club.

After weeks of pitiful begging and affirming to my mother about how responsible I was, she granted me permission to drive the family’s new Oldsmobile 4-door sedan, solo. I planned to avoid Bridge Club Lane. In my imagination, on a straight, paved, sparsely populated stretch of back road highway, that sedan morphed into a red Mustang! Dual exhausts, that heavy, low, sexy rumble of power, that throaty roar. I floored it. Trees blurred as I kept both hands on the steering wheel and both eyes wide open, peering straight ahead.

The fantasy car roared down the road, accelerating to 80 MPH before I chickened out, taking my foot off the gas pedal. I had been roadrunner fast - “beep…beep…Zoom!”

“You’ve been speeding,” she said in solemn greeting when I exited the Bullet car, again the family sedan under our single carport. I had not seen old Mr. Tell-it-all at his roadside mailbox. He had seen me and recognized the car as I whizzed past his driveway. For my safety, he had reported his findings to my mother. That’s the way it went the vast majority of my teen years.

The best clandestine deed I performed undetected was a snooping fun-fest when my cousin Pam and I were left alone at our grandmother’s house. We were old enough, in our early teen years, and trustworthy enough, they thought.  Except when we got together; they didn’t realize we were bandits together. With power in pairs, we kept good secrets. I’ll just say we left no drawer unopened, no closet was left undisturbed. Under the bed, inside the roll top desk, and in bathroom medicine cabinets we stuck our super sleuth noses, searching for whatever mischief we could find. 

Our grandmother’s house was clean, but the investigation took hours of uninterrupted time and we spent the night giggling, belly laughing, and making memories. And maybe a couple of decadent desserts for good measure.

Polite Insanity

I was hesitant, with good reason.
It's unnerving to enter the dating world after a 30 year marriage.
Well-meaning friends gave countless suggestions, until one evening after Bunco...
I went along with the unmarried crowd.
To a dance club.
For singles.

When we walked into the club with its swirling smoke and loud music, gyrating strangers, and milling men-on-the-make, I knew I was in over my head and out of my league. Being a good sport and wanting to know what this scene was all about, I took in a deep breath, threw my shoulders back, plastered on a smile, and took my seat with the other girls.

He approached our table and singled me out. Black wiry chest hairs peeked from the Travolta-esque shirt; the few, the proud, the revolting, the bold ten matched a shock of black, slickly groomed hair combed in tribute to Elvis. While I saw the neon sign blinking "disaster" glowing from his forehead, I did not break and run. I'm polite. I'm also insane.

After I lied about my job, he told me he was a painter. "That ought to be good for a few moments of conversation," I thought.  "What style of painting do you prefer?" should have opened the door to a nice monologue in reply.  "Not that kind of painter," he laughed, "a house painter.  That's how I lost part of this finger." I chose not to hear the rest of the story.

I jumped down from the stool, said, "excuse me," found the girl who suggested this lame-brain adventure and told her I'd had just about as much fun as humanly possible and was retiring for the night.

Those black hairs said it all; the missing body part added the exclamation point.

Telling Your Own Stories - American Storytelling
Did I depict this man at the singles club in one sentence (bold italics)?

The Summer of 1993: They Put Baby in a Corner

Intense heat and its silence filled the hazy daylight. Scorching the trees, roofs, and concrete, the sun glared mercilessly. No creaking sounds of rocking chairs on front porches, no squealing children punctuated the thick air prior to the splash of a cannonball. The quiet was deathly and pervasive, as was the heat.

This heat in an area that boasts of mountain breezes through open windows is record-setting. Everyone alive that summer remembers when there were few Gulf breezes and no cool mountain air. That ugly Bermuda High positioned itself on top of the already hot enough South.

Lake Junaluska in North Carolina is a quaint mountain retreat, built in the olden days, retaining the charm of a mountain lodge with cabins and lake houses. It boasts “no need for air conditioning” due to perpetually cooling mountain air and refreshing breezes. Our packing lists included a sweater for cool evenings, a light blanket for chilly nights.

Fantasy...only in the movies

My fanciful romanticism kicked in. I pictured the lodge at Lake Lure as in the movie Dirty Dancing (1987).How green, how lush and gorgeous. A full week at a mountain retreat. I'd looked forward to this family vacation for months. 

In our Ford Taurus wagon with the AC cranked wide-open, we crossed out of sweltering Tennessee and drove up into the mountains outside of Asheville and Maggie Valley.

We exclaimed,"Hey, look at that. What fun!" It was a nature-made,  water slide, a shady area where we’d wade in the swift, cold streams and picnic. I could not wait for this mountain adventure, a chance to relax, refresh, and cool off, escape the Memphis Delta air.

The kids and I opened our car doors at our assigned lake house and were slapped in the face with heat.  Suffocating heat. Shocking heat, worse-than-Memphis heat.  Are you kidding me? We entered our lake house that was nowhere near the lake, the house that we shared with another couple.The heat became claustrophobic. “This is the worst summer on record,” the other couple shared. “Not a breath of air moving.  Can you believe it?” she commented. 

Our bedrooms were at the front of the house.  I did not know whether to open the windows to let the hot air in or keep them closed and die of oxygen deprivation. 

I thought about opening the refrigerator and standing in front of it until the moment we left to go home. I suggested we do that immediately.  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” he retorted.  “This will be fun.”  Fun, like a lobster in a pot has fun, I thought.

Night fell.  David decided to sleep on the couch in the living room area.  Richard slept with his dad. I slept alone, with all the windows open, on top of the sheet, naked.  Or, “nekkid” as it’s called in the mountains of North Carolina. I think it was about 3 AM before there was enough cool in the room for me to sleep.  The sun rose, the roosters crowed, and feet padded upon the floor.  Time to “rise and shine.” I saved energy by refusing to shine, as the sun was doing enough of that already.

The seminar called for the men to attend meetings, at the big lodge that had fans. The kids and I went to the swimming pool…which had been closed for repairs. Are you kidding me?  Back to the house that had no TV. We decided to go bicycle riding. When the husbands returned from their meetings, we found a restaurant for supper…not caring what they served, but was there a block of ice anywhere around?

   We found that mountain stream and the natural water slide which David loved and Rich was too little to fully enjoy.  It was great to sink our feet in the cold stream and wade in that swift stream, holding onto a rope so we wouldn't fall to our deaths. Still, not a good sport, I counted down the days until our escape…to civilized, conditioned air.

Not once did I pass an evening on the front porch enjoying a mosquito-free, breezy evening with a light sweater around my shoulders.  Not once did I sleep without sweating. 

                                          And, not once did Patrick Swayze ask me to dance!

Telling Your Own Stories:  Is there a Vacation you'd just as soon never take again?

I Can Explain

“Oh, yeah, Mother, I’d be happy to take the car to the jewelry store so Gordon can fix your watch!”  It’s a sunny day and all’s right with the world. Alone behind the steering wheel, using Mother’s keys, the ones on the heart-shaped keyring, I was on a mission of mercy.  I got to drive, by myself, downtown. The radio was rocking with tunes from KJWH on my radio dial in Camden, the keys jingled in time. The next time I thought of the watch was at the top of the hill when I looked into my lap and realized I did not have the watch. Short story: it lay bruised and broken on the road, face cracked, additional injury to the original reason I was taking it to Gordon.

But that wasn’t the first time a bad end came to something that did not belong to me. Or, I might add, the last time. The first time I remember abject irresponsibility for which I felt extreme guilt was age 4, as in kindergarten-age. 

“Oh, yes, please Mother, let me wear the little garnet birthstone ring to Miss Lila’s.”  And she did.  And I lost it playing on the huge (not really) hillside at Miss Lila Newcomb’s kindergarten. It was positioned nicely on my finger and I admired it. I was running up and down the hill with others, and then it vanished, probably abducted by aliens. My little 4 year old eyes looked and looked. We searched for days, and then weeks, and then months, but never found it. While Gordon could fix the watch, nothing could replace the little garnet birthstone ring.

None of these events can compare, however, to a fairly recent, noteworthy experience of breaking something that did not belong to me.  I broke the cable box.  Or, drove over it.  Backed over it, actually.  During the World Series. 

Men poured from their respective houses to see what Act of God had stricken television coverage for the baseball game.  I stood beside the decapitated green rectangle with its guts hanging out, stood there agape, in disbelief. How could the driveway at my friend’s house have become curved while I was inside? I know I drove straight into her driveway, so I backed straight out …straight over the cable box.

It was not the final game and the phone lines were not destroyed nor the radio waves, so after much ado about plenty, the Cable Guys were called and the men scheduled emergency service for the next week, prior to the next Series game.

So I live to wreak havoc another day, like when I hung Marvin’s 10-pound mounted fish on our office wall in Bartlett.  When it fell off the wall, push pins were discovered. I’d used a humongous nail, but did not hammer it into a stud. A loud thud had summoned me down the hall and I peeked cautiously into each room. I stopped short, looking into the office. 

Charlie with a Re-do

“Oh, no!” Picture the wallboard ripped as the weight of the fish and its wood mount carried the trophy and the nail downward. Witness my horror as Charlie lay face down on the carpeted floor, green and awkward in his chipped state. Notice also six multi-colored push pins in askew alignment on the wall, smiling at my most recent involvement with breaking something that belonged to someone else. 

Burning Bush on Truman Road

               Most of the time I attempted sneaky disobedience.  Rarely was I outright, in-your-face disobedient.  That’s because one time I absolutely did what I had been told not to do, and I did it right in front of Daddy. 

             I got what was coming to me and got it swiftly.  No questions asked. No one said, “MJ, why did you do that?”  I’m sure I had a reason and could have explained it perfectly well with great clarity of thought.  But, nobody asked.  Nobody cared.

            Thomas, dear little brother, is several years younger than I. We were about age 3 1/2 and age 8 or so. He could be really fun to play with – like a big toy or a boy-doll.  I could whip him around into a choke hold and exercise my superior strength on him.  I did that routine during the Saturday morning cartoons, so we always watched my favorites.  None of that Tom and Jerry stuff…we watched Betty Boop and other intellectual, funny girls. A little Roadrunner and Pepe’la Pew for good measure, and "out of the blue of the western sky comes Sky King."

            I watched Daddy rough-house with Thomas, toughening him up for the daily onslaught from his sister. Much to Mother’s dismay, Daddy would  ride him around as on horseback and buck like crazy. 

That looked like loads of fun to me. Daddy let me try it but somehow I got thrown off much more than Thomas.

            One evening, I was feeling my oats after being conquering heroine for most of the day. We were horsing around in the den on Truman Road and Daddy admonished me, “He’s getting too heavy for you to ride around on your back like that.  Don’t put him on your back again.”  And he went on about his business. I put Thomas down, for about 5 minutes.  Then, we decided to try it again, only this time, I gave Thomas a ride around the house with me standing up, him on my back, like a captured prisoner or dead horse-thief.

            Daddy came around the corner upon hearing the commotion coming from the den and living room, our stable and corral.  He saw me with Thomas hoisted upon my back.  I saw him; his eyes glowed with incensed anger.  “I told you not to put him on your back!” and the scolding was accompanied with a sharp smack across the face.

            First time.  Last time.  Only time.

            I must still have PTSD or something because I do not recall anything after that moment.  I don’t remember crying, pitching my usual across-the-bed-fit, nothing.  I was shocked into immediate and complete obedience.  When my father spoke, it might as well have been coming from a burning bush.  

                                     Telling Your Own Stories - American Storytelling   
A goal for the Blog this year is to intersperse Family Stories guided by Prompts and Discussions in the little text named above.

Ralph Waldo and Me: Philosophy on Leadership

From The Wizard of Oz:

Dorothy:  "Oh - you're a very bad man!"
Wizard: "Oh, no, my dear.  I- I'm a very good man.  I'm just a very bad Wizard."

Everything is relative.  Everyone is usually a success at being what he is and fails miserably at being what he is not.  From students at the wrong college with the wrong major to people who have ascended to roles of leadership for which they are ill-equipped.

That nugget of wisdom is from today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

                I am a good visionary.  I can see the finished product and the throngs of people who would appreciate it. "If you build it, they will come." I know, clearly, what needs to happen. I can lay it out, step by step.  My vision, as Ralph Waldo encouraged, is in the Heavens so that if/when I fall short, the result/I will still land among the stars. (Les Brown paraphrased it in his book about goal setting, dreaming big, etc.)

               With my exuberance, excitement, I can motivate others to catch the vision. "Nay-sayers" bother me. "We can't because we never have," is the voice of doom.

                I'm a very bad at patience. I see slowness in progress to the goal as dull, unmotivated lethargy.

              Realistic vision: the dreams, yes. Add the legs under those dreams and it's altogether better.

             A co-worker in the endeavor must provide the rudiments, the necessities to give dreams their flight, without squelching the passion.

I know these truths about myself and search for the realistic path, the partnership to progress.

The Quicker, the Better: a Kitchen Disaster

     It was when we had first moved to Truman Road-after the fire, after the remodeling, It happened when the countertops were modern and fashioned of yellow formica and the wallpaper glistened in a yellow and green kitchen pattern. Plenty of pine cabinets sporting black pulls, a bronze gas cook-top and a wall oven with pull-out broiler spoke volumes about the style of the time. In this kitchen my mother reigned. She was not one to share the throne, so I did not learn to cook under her guidance.

     One disaster after another followed me through my gallant efforts, however. From a pound cake weighing five pounds, resulting from not beating between each addition of eggs, to the baking of a hotel-recipe for yeast rolls in a friend's kitchen, I was not Betty Crocker. Well-meaning friends' mothers would gift me with Cookbooks for Kids at the age-appropriate birthday, but aside from admiring the pretty pictures, these texts were not Must-Reads in my house.
    My best effort from the Cookbook for Kids was Bunny Salad (pear with a mini-marshmallow tail and cherry nose). Delicious.
    One afternoon, my BFF went with Mother and me  to the grocery store. My task was to run in, grab a head of lettuce, pay, and hurry out.  Mother wasn't dressed for the grocery and this should be a quick little trip,  Wrong.  "What's taking her so long?" my friend murmured.  "I can't imagine," Mother replied.  "Go check," she instructed.  I was easily spotted in a dilemma at the produce stand.  Unable to tell the difference in lettuce and cabbage, it was down to eeeny-meeeny, miney-mo.
     So, when I decided to treat Mother and Daddy to a surprise Saturday breakfast, the outcome should not be surprising, I was not so brazen as to light the stove and attempt eggs or bacon or biscuits. I began with the simple - coffee.  How many times had I watched Mother fill the percolator carafe with water and the basket with coffee. Plenty.
 

   I managed the water portion of the task. Now, to find the coffee. I opened every cabinet within my reach. No coffee. I opened canisters and found sugar and flour, but no coffee. At last, I discovered a jar of coffee.  It did not look like the cans or bags I'd seen at the grocery store, but the label plainly spelled out COFFEE.  Trouble was, in little letters above the word "coffee" was the word "instant." That would be all the better, I surmised.  The quicker, the better.
    I filled the percolator basket with instant coffee, nestled the stem into the base, put on the lid firmly and prepared to see the coffee bubbling up in the glass bubble on the top.  I plugged the coffee pot in and perking sounds began.
     The aroma of coffee and the melodious perking sounds must have awakened my parents. They hurried to the kitchen where I was about to pour their first cup of morning fortification.
     It did not take long for us to discover a new reason for Jane to stay out of the kitchen.

Yellow Kitty and Me

My one and only cat was named "Yellow Kitty."
The story of Yellow Kitty is short, as was our friendship.
Claimed from the backyard during the years of our residence at The Big House in downtown Camden,  AR,

Yellow Kitty took my attention in stride, allowing me to dress her in doll clothes and put her to bed in a stool turned upside down to resemble a 4-poster bed.
In front of the black-tiled gas stove hearth in the living room, I set up housekeeping with YK.
The kitty drank from a tiny baby-doll bottle, wore a doll dress, and got carried around on my adventures for several weeks.
YK enjoyed the days outside, running through the flower beds and drinking from the hydrant's water basin out in the back yard.
She'd come to me with her little purring "mew" and I'd pick her up and carry her into the house.
The kitten began to grow into a cat and thus outgrew the baby-doll play time.
Yellow Kitty became Yellow Cat and while it lived in our yard, I do not recall any further adventures with her. Or any other cat.
We moved to a neighborhood when I was 9-10 years old and Scooter came into our lives.
No more cats.
Yellow or otherwise.
"Telling Your Own Stories: American Storytelling."

Life is a Puzzle...

             Currently, it's.a 750 piece puzzle. This particular puzzle is pretty, colorful, and with a theme-"Wheels." Santa brought it to us to provide enjoyment through the bleak winter...enjoyment in cold, wet, nasty days. That Santa knows it's important to select a theme appealing to a man and colors appealing to a woman. Clever guy!

                  The puzzle contains a zillion (ok, 750) pieces in weird shapes and sizes. My eyes move toward the color...Marvin's toward the shape. We make a good team. I see a piece that might fit and hand it to him. He turn it just right and "Voila!" It fits!

                  Another way I work is to find a motif within the puzzle that intrigues me. I then group the similar colors, and go for it. I've found Coca~Cola signs, road signs, license plates, and a gas pump! To me, putting the pieces together for these images is fun and relatively easy, because my interest is high and I choose the pretty colors, the neon, the ones that catch the eye. I leave alone the brown, motley flooring colors, for now.

                 The complete picture shown beautifully on the box is a motivator. Knowing the finished picture will match the beauty of the model is encouraging. That's where Faith comes in when we ponder how this stage of Life will turn out and how it works in "the big picture." Some stages in life are prettier than others, but when all the pieces fit together, we see; we understand.

                 Perseverance will bring the puzzle to completion, though working through the details will be tiring. I doubt we will employ a 2 AM session this year, but we'll definitely put in the hours since neither of us can leave a challenge alone.

                  Clever planning helps us this year.I do not dump all the puzzle pieces onto the table at once. No, sir-ee!  I'm an organizer. I know we need the edges of the puzzle first, so I dump small portions, 4-5 different times, and pull out the edges, even the tiny edges. Then, I sort the color groupings from each set.  Finally, I pour out the mix-n-match portions. It's orderly. It's workable. It's not overwhelming.

                 Working a puzzle together is revealing of styles and ways of problem-solving and trouble-shooting. It's our various ways of navigating life and its complexities. The combination of styles, finding coordinating patterns, recognizing the strengths of the other: life management skills.

               A Puzzle is a beautiful thing...as is Life.