Sunday, June 27, 2004

I SEE MY PARENTS STANDING

I SEE MY PARENTS STANDING

I see my parents standing in the middle of the hot, crowded room. It is their 50th wedding anniversary and it’s a surprise party for them. My mother, who suffers constantly with rheumatoid arthritis and sometimes can hardly walk, has been standing and talking and smiling for nearly three hours. My father, who usually is a table-hopper and loves to work the crowd has been by her side the whole time. Not touching but very close.

It really is my father’s party in many ways. Other than my family and my sister’s family and my mother’s sister and her husband, all the rest of the people are my father’s relatives, my father’s friends. My mother moved to my father’s town when she married him and it has continued to be his town, not hers, for fifty years.

“As soon as you girls are grown I’m going to leave that man”, she’d say to us girls when we were young. Usually on a day after he hadn’t come home until the middle of the night, drunk and hoping she wouldn’t be mad again. From my point of view, my mother spent most of her married life mad and upset with her husband, my father. And he spent a lot of time steering clear of her anger, only to invite it again on the following Saturday.

So it was striking to see them together like this, holding court with all the young and old people who had come out to honor them and their marriage, or at least the longevity of it.

And even more striking when my father left my mother’s side for a few minutes to have a bathroom break, and my mother finished her conversation with Aunt Agnes, and turning toward the spot where my father had been all afternoon, said

“Where’s my Joe?”

Posey’s

Posey’s


Posey’s. Right on the water, the Gulf of Mexico, at St. Marks, Florida. Right next door to a fish house where Mr. Posey or whoever owned Posey’s Restaurant got his shrimp and oysters and mullet. That’s all Posey’s served—raw oysters, boiled shrimp, and smoked mullet. The oysters came on an aluminum pizza pan. The shrimp were served in an aluminum pie pan, and the smoked mullet was served on brown paper towels like they use in restrooms. Plus beer. Any beer that was advertised in the neon signs hung everywhere around the joint.

In a back room overlooking the water were three professional pool tables and there was always someone hanging around willing to hustle a few games. My favorite was the prim little lady in a polyester pantsuit and round-toed stacked heels who carried her own pool cue in a little case.

The kitchen help was mostly white trash, to put a positive spin on it, and once when we were there with some friends, the cook and the waitress spent most of the time making out behind the bar. The waitress overheard Larry talking about his former life as catcher for a trapeze act with a circus, and she came over to join in on the conversation. It seems that the cook, her present paramour, was AWOL from a carnival that had passed through Panama City a couple of weeks before and he was going to leave her soon to catch back up with them in Mobile, or maybe Pensacola. He was a barker at the girlie show and was itching to get back.

“You know how it is” she said to Larry, expecting his understanding, “when you get show business in your blood.”

Ladies Handkerchiefs

Ladies Handkerchiefs

When my grandmother died, my aunt with whom she had been living returned to me the present I gave her for her last birthday—her 91st. It was a white muslin handkerchief with a white lace border and white flowers embroidered in the corners. I still have that handkerchief because it reminds me of Grandmother Hunter, and also because you just don’t see handkerchiefs like that anymore.

When I was small, all ladies carried a fancy handkerchief in their purses, or maybe in their pockets—to be pulled out for emergencies like tears, theirs or anybody else’s, or a snotty nose, especially of a child, or a small spill, especially one that wouldn’t stain. And all little girls carried a handkerchief in their pint-sized purses, along with a dime, or maybe a nickel. All during my elementary school years, I carried a handkerchief in my pocket with my Fudgecicle nickel knotted into a corner. Sometimes I even used the handkerchief for its original intention, blowing my nose when I had a cold. Kids today would die of excess snot before they’d blow their nose into a cloth hanky instead of a paper “Kleenex.” And if they did use the cloth hanky, they’d have to throw it away afterwards.

I regret the disappearance of ladies’ cloth hankies, though, because it was a fail-safe gift for grandmothers, aunts, mothers, and teachers. Personal but not intimate. Inexpensive, but not cheap. Depending on the decoration, everything from elegant to utilitarian. As with ladies hats and gloves, hankies are so yesterday, but unlike ladies hats and gloves, I mourn the passing of ladies handkerchiefs.

Sunday, June 20, 2004

The Fried Fish Valentine to my Mama and Daddy

The Fried Fish Valentine to my Mama and Daddy
Written February 14, 2003

“Get the iron frying pan out of the oven and put it on the big front burner,” she called.

“OK,” he said, “now what?”

“Take the fish out of the icebox (she still sometimes called it the icebox) and drain the extra water around it into the sink.”

“OK, what’s next?”

“Come back here a minute.”

He walked the few steps down the hall from the kitchen to her bedroom, pausing in the doorway, noticing once again how small she was, lying there on her side of the bed, propped up with two pillows under her head. She still stayed on her side of the bed, even though he had long since moved into another bedroom to make her more comfortable. Her side was the wrong side for getting quickly to the bathroom, but her habits died hard just as her body was doing. Her white hair was fluffed around her head, unlike the sleek dark hair she’d had when they married, but her black eyes were bright as ever.

“Let me explain the whole thing to you so I don’t have to yell,” she said.

“OK,” he said, always agreeable. He was always quick to avoid a fuss, a confrontation. She’d been the one with the comeback, the argument, the last word. But seldom now. She’d endured these final months without complaining, undemanding. The will to resist had gone out of her.

“Get everything ready before you start,” she said. “Get out the Wesson Oil from the panty, and the flour—it’s in a big jar with a screw-on lid, and salt and pepper from the cabinet over the stove, and the fish. You already have it out. You’ll need a plate with some paper towels on it to drain the fish on when they’re done and a knife and fork to turn the fish in the pan. Then come back here.”

He went back into the kitchen and snapped on the overhead light. He rummaged around in the pantry to find the oil and the flour, trying not to disturb too much the orderly rows she stored things in. He noticed for the first time the familiar food they’d eaten for more than fifty years. Corn Flakes for him. All-Bran for her. Crunchy peanut butter, store-brand canned beans, corn, and tomatoes. Aunt Jemima pancake syrup, Nabisco saltines, Bama apple jelly, Borden’s evaporated milk. His mother had used Carnation evaporated milk, but his wife had her own favorite brands. Funny that he noticed that now.

He put everything she’d mentioned on the counter net to the gas stove and headed back down the hall.

“OK, honey, I’ve got it all ready to go. How do you flour the fish?”

“You just get one of those shallow bowls next to the plates and put a scoop of flour in it. Then coat each piece of fish on both sides just before you put it in the frying pan to cook. First you have to heat up the oil, though. That takes a couple of minutes.

“Okey, dokey.” He headed back for the kitchen. “You’d think as many times as I’ve watched my mother and then Minna Lou fry fish I’d know how,” he though to himself. “And me a commercial fisherman.”

He lit the burner, put the pan on to heat, and poured in enough oil to generously cover the bottom. “That much I remember,” he thought.

“How do you tell when the oil’s hot enough?” he called down the hall.

“Oh, give it a minute or so. You’ll see movement in the oil. You can drop one tiny drop of water to test it, but stand back, it’ll splatter.”

He decided to forego the water test. To his surprise, there was a small scoop in the flour jar, so he dipped it in the flour and put one scoop in the shallow bowl he found next to the plates. He picked up one fillet with his right hand and laid the fish down in the flour. He tentatively dabbed at it with his left index finger.

“Wash your hands first,” she called from the bedroom.

“OK,” he called back and splashed some water across his fingers, drying them on the sides of his khaki pants. He turned the fillet over in the flour, picked it up and gently eased it into the pan, as he had seen her do a million times. The hot oil sizzled and splattered out.

“Cut the heat down,” she called. “You’ve got it too high.”

“Uh-huh,” he said under his breath. He finished flouring the other three fillets and got them into the hot oil without incident. Now the oil was barely bubbling and the fillets just lay there soaking up the oil. He gingerly turned the knob for the burner just a bit, and the oil obliged with rapid bubbles and the edges of the fish were turning brown.

“Smells good back here,” she called. “Did you remember to turn on the vent fan? Otherwise the whole house will smell like fish.”

He turned on the vent fan as quietly as he could, but the durn thing made a real racket.

“They’re getting brown on the bottom,” he called. “How do I turn them over?”

“With the knife and fork,” she called back. “You’ve seen me do it. Just stick the fork in the fish and use the knife to turn it over.”

The first one he tried went over with a big splash and oil got all over the top of the stove. But the next two went a little better, although one broke in half during the turn. The last one was perfect, although a littler browner than he might have preferred. “It must be the one I put in first,” he thought. “Should have turned it first.”

“How do I tell when they’re done?” he called down the hall.

“Use the fork to peek under. Remember to use the knife also to liff them out so they don’t fall apart.”

“A little late to be learning that,” he thought. In just a few more minutes, though, he had a few bites of fresh-caught, fresh-cooked mullet on a plate to take back to his bed-ridden dying wife, who would never again stand at that stove, effortlessly frying fish for him.

Later that evening, his sister stopped by to visit and to see how she might help. She spied the grease-spattered kitchen, utensils everywhere, smelled the aroma of fried fish in the air. Surprised, she said “Have you been cooking?”

“Fried some fish,” he said. “Nothing to it.”




MISS KITTY

MISS KITTY

When we moved back to Tallahassee in 1972, Miss Kitty found us living in the Groslight’s wonderful house on South Ride. Just after she loaded up her little coal black body on free cat food and diluted milk, which she had requested in the loudest M-E-O-W ever produced by a domestic feline, we noticed her belly seemed a bit swollen. But it didn’t recede after the feast was digested. So she and her developing brood of kittens lived outside until delivery day, whereupon she once again serenaded us with the infamous M-E-O-O-W until we let her inside. There, right in the middle of the bright white kitchen, she herself mid-wifed the birth of 6 perfect little black kitties. It was the first time I had ever witnessed a birth of anything, and I was awestruck. I think that was also the beginning of my consideration of the birthing of a child myself.

The most impressive part of Miss Kitty’s delivery was after she had given birth to the first black kitten. She had cleaned him up with her tongue when suddenly the second little sac of kitten slid out. She got busy licking the membranes from around his little body. Then along came number three, but instead of sliding all the way out like a watermelon seed spit out between your lips, this little fellow got hung up halfway through the exit. Meanwhile the firstborn had found the upright position and had edged, tipsily, over to Mom’s nipple to nurse. So there she was, one kitten hung up in mid-delivery, one kitten being licked all over, and one kitten nursing. And how did Miss Kitty handle this? She purred. So this is Motherhood.

Miss Kitty went on to have 3 more kittens, all right there in the middle of the kitchen floor, with me sitting on the floor by her side, “helping.” We got her a cardboard box with some towels and for the first few days, they all lived in there, in the kitchen, in a heap of soft shiny black bodies. Then she began to move them to other spots around the house that were apparently better than the box in the kitchen. One spot was behind the heavy curtains covering the sliding glass doors leading to the balcony off our bedroom. I was frantic when I discovered them all missing from the kitchen box and searched the whole house a dozen times before finding them. Later on, we would see Miss Kitty moving them to other spots, carrying them in her mouth, grabbing them just behind their heads. Occasionally she’d deposit them in the laundry basket, and then we’d see her moving them AND Larry’s black socks, one by one, to another location.

When the kittens were about 6 weeks old, I got dressed in pseudo-hippy clothes--bell-bottom jeans and a yellow peasant blouse-- put my long brown hair into two ponytails, one on each side of my head, put the six kittens in a big cardboard
box, wrote a big sign in magic marker that said “DON’T BE SUPERSTITIOUS, TAKE A BLACK KITTEN HOME WITH YOU” and set up camp next to the entrance of the fanciest grocery store in Tallahassee.

By the end of the day, I had categorized all humans into one of the following slots:
1. Don’t even make eye contact with the girl hawking kittens.
2. Look and say “Aren’t they precious! But my dog would kill it if I took one home.”
3. Look and say “Aren’t they cute! But my husband/wife would kill me if I brought one home.”
4. Look and start picking out which one to take.

I got two takers. One was a girl, a young woman really, who drifted up near the end of the day, deep in conversation with her friend, who glanced in the box and said, “OK, I’ll take one, if you’ll wait until I’m finished grocery shopping.” “Sure”, I said.

TWO HOURS LATER (what was she DOING in there?), when I had finally concluded that she’d left by the back service door so she wouldn’t have to tell me she’d changed her mind, she drifted back out, reached in the box, grabbed the first kitten she touched and strolled away with her friend. “Far out”, I heard her say.

The second kitten adopter was a guy. He had been waiting at the city bus stop in front of the store for about 30 minutes. When he saw the bus pull into the parking lot, he broke from the line, raced over to my box, and said, “I need a male. Which one’s a male?” I started picking each one up and feeling gently for tiny nubbins of testicles. “This one might be a male.” He grabbed the kitten from me, pressed it next to his chest inside his windbreaker jacket and leaped on the bus just as it was pulling away from the curb.

Which is why we had 6 black cats when we moved from the Groslight house to the trailer in the woods in Havana (Florida). But that’s another story.

Canasta

Canasta

Sitting at the kitchen table, my mother arranged her cards. My sister and I and Sandy from down the street did the same. Canasta had swept into our neighborhood.

That entire summer we all played all the time, except for Daddy. If it wasn’t cribbage or poker, he wasn’t interested. But my mother would sit in if we needed a fourth. She was pretty good, too, much to our surprise. We had gotten to the age when our parents had suddenly grown dumber and we would have to explain things to them. Like explaining dirty jokes to my Mother. Of course I realize now that she was playing dumb so she could find out how much we understood about sex.

But canasta ruled that summer. We started keeping logs of our scores and adding them up every day. We quit when the scores got into the hundred of thousands and it wasn’t fun doing the addition any more. One big problem was that often we’d have to let the little kids play, like Sandy’s brother and Gretchen who was even younger than my sister. And half the time they’d get the meld wrong and Gretchen wouldn’t even arrange her cards into suits.

When I think about the hours and hours we spent at kitchen tables that summer it’s a wonder we got any vitamin D at all. We lived at the kitchen table in our house, in Sandy’s house, in Gretchen’s, and at the Meitner’s where it was cooler because they moved their kitchen table to the screened-in porch. We hated it when suppertime rolled around and we had to vacate the table. But after supper and the dishes cleared, we were right back at it.

And then when school started again, just as mysteriously as it had arrived the canasta craze died, and we went back to other things again. But the kitchen table still sits in the middle of my childhood card-playing memories.

Sunday, June 13, 2004

5th grade friend

5th grade friend

In fifth grade, my best friend was Wendy Wilkes. I think we were friends because we had so much in common---Wendy and Gwendie, for instance. Plus we were both shy girls who made good grades so the teacher liked us. We both played the piano, and sometimes played duets on the old upright in our living room. We both had stamp collections, both were the oldest child, both wore training bras and had started our periods. We both had mothers who were resourceful and could stretch a nickel to six cents. Our mothers dominated our families and so our fathers were mostly in the background. My father didn’t hang himself, though, as Wendy’s did a few years after we were in 5th grade. We had sleepovers, at least a few, and I remember that Wendy had a room of her own that her mother had built onto the back of the house—not had it built, but built it herself, including installing bookshelves and cabinets in addition to the closet. I was so impressed. I shared a small bedroom with my sister and there was never enough storage space.

After fifth grade, we were never best friends again, although I knew Wendy and saw her at school. She wasn’t in advanced classes, and I was. She played clarinet in the marching band, I played the piano to accompany the glee club. She got shyer and shyer and I got more outgoing. But in our junior year, something happened. At first I noticed that Wendy hardly spoke to anyone in the hallways. Then one afternoon my mother gave her a ride home when she came to pick me up at school, and Wendy barely responded to my mother’s questions. Shortly after that, we had an assembly program—maybe it was a pep rally, and Wendy sat with the band in their section of the bleachers. Just sat, with her clarinet upright between her knees, and a soft smile on her face. She never looked at anyone, or spoke to anyone, or played a note during the whole program.

Within a day or two, word came around from Mrs. Davidson, our Dean of Students, that Wendy was in the hospital in West Palm Beach—a psychiatric hospital. They thought she was schizophrenic, and no, she wouldn’t be coming back to school.

Twice over the next year or so, Wendy came home for a visit and would give me a call. Once I remember we went to the beach with some other girls, and Wendy was cheerful and animated and playful and seemed to be having a wonderful time. But then on the day she went back to the hospital, her mother brought her by my house to say goodbye, and Wendy was silent again, staring and smiling.

Every time I think of Wendy it worries me that we had so much in common, and then one of us developed a mental illness. Was this something I should worry about, too? How does one know, from the inside of yourself, that you are getting less and less normal? For me, who had never felt really normal, not at all a typical girl, this early and first exposure to a mental illness was confusing and alarming. Although I felt sad, very sad, for Wendy, I was also concerned about myself. And even today, after a few days alone, I begin thinking that it’s not healthy to be too much of a hermit, too unsocial, too much inside myself. It’s Wendy, memories of Wendy, pushing me to be more “normal.” It’s fifth grade all over again.


The Sunrise Theater

The Sunrise Theater
By Gwendie Roberts Camp


My memories of movie theaters all converge on the Sunrise Theater on Second Street in Fort Pierce, Florida, the town where I grew up, or, more accurately, the town where I spent my first eighteen years. No other movie theater really comes to mind. Probably because as an adult I haven’t often gone to the movies, whereas as a child going to the movies was one of only a few places we ever went for an outing. That and visiting relatives and going to the beach were about it. So, as a small child, my father and mother would take my sister and me to the movies on Sunday afternoon as a family, as if “the family that movies together, stays together.” The funny thing was, we always went when Daddy decided to go, which meant that often the movie had already started and we had missed the first few minutes—or more. Usually we would stay on and watch those beginning minutes after the intermission. The time between the showings gave my father a chance to chitchat with half the people who were leaving. He’d even go out into the lobby so he wouldn’t miss anyone. He’d grown up in that town and knew practically everybody. In fact, sometimes we’d run into one of his unmarried brothers or sisters (my aunts and uncles) and they would treat Mary and me to a candy Sugar Daddy or to a comic book from the drugstore next door to the theater.

By the time I was in junior high school, my sister and I were allowed to walk downtown on Saturday mornings by ourselves, and join all the hordes of other kids to watch the “serials”—Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, and sometimes old reruns of Shirley Temple. My sister, younger than I and a real pest, would cry when a horse got shot out from under a rider. She’d say, every Saturday as we entered the theater, “I hope no horsies get killed today.”

The high school years relied heavily on the Sunrise Theater as a respectable place to take a date. As it was a one-picture-theater, there was no choosing of what picture to see. All those who went on a date on Saturday night saw the same thing—unless you went to the drive-in theater, but that’s another story entirely, and it didn’t qualify as a MOVIE theater, as no one ever remembered what they saw there anyway.

THE MAPUCHE WATER JUG

THE MAPUCHE WATER JUG

After the first morning of the workshop that I did for the medical faculty in Temuco, Chile, Pedro handed me off to his Dean for him to take me to his home for lunch. Apparently everyone goes home for lunch from the University in Temuco. Dr. Sabataci drove me a few blocks through the crowded streets where everything looked like 1950’s USA to his home on a residential side street. Once inside, I was introduced to Mrs. Sabataci, a glamorous woman in a very smart outfit. My professional blazer and slacks were no match for her crisply ironed day outfit. But she was very gracious and in her halting English offered the national drink—pisco. (You don’t say “no” when you’re the honored guest.) Pisco turned out to be a close relation to white lightning, but better tasting.

After pleasantries, in short phrases of English on their part and Spanglish on my part, the pisco was done and we were ushered into the dining room by the live-in cook and housekeeper. Clearly this was not going to be a soup and sandwich lunch. Oh, no. This was a three-course meal, including abalone—out of season, but somehow acquired for the tasting pleasure of the visiting American Consultant. (And you don’t say “no” when you’re the honored guest.) Of course, each course had its own special wine, (which, as you know, you don’t say “no” to when you’re the honored guest). This was followed by dessert and coffee, not brewed Columbian coffee as I was expecting, but powdered Nescafe, offered in a silver container with its own special spoon. (And you don’t say “no” when you’re the honored guest).

That’s when Mrs. Sabataci disappeared for a short while and came back, not only attired in a brand new crisply ironed frock, but also bearing a large piece of pottery—a Mapuche Indian water jug. Her husband explained to me that she very much wanted me to have the jug. “We are so honored you are here.” It was big. It looked fragile. It would take up half my suitcase. (But you can’t say “no” when you’re the honored guest.)

Somehow I got it home unscathed. And even more miraculously, somehow I conducted the afternoon workshop after one pisco and three glasses of wine. I wonder what I said.

The Mapuche water jug today has a place of honor on my living room display shelves. It is special in its own right. I mean how many other Americans have a Mapuche water jug? But more that that, it’s a symbol of what I could do when I couldn’t say “no” because I was the honored guest.

THE PEEPING TOM

THE PEEPING TOM

I was in college before I had any real exposure to sexual deviancy. But I suppose a college campus and its environs, with apartment houses, boarding houses, and “Greek” houses could be very tempting for voyeurs. Anyhow, in my case, during my freshman year a “peeping Tom” was periodically discovered, usually accompanied by loud shrieks, by my housemates as he was peering in an upstairs bedroom window. The fellow (he was later caught, so I know it was a “he”) would climb up on the roof of the front porch and peer in the closest window. The boyfriend of one of the girls along with some of his buddies once spent a night on the roof with their baseball bats, trying to catch the guy in the act. They didn’t catch him that night, but they did surprise him on another night trying to climb up on the porch roof, and chased him through the neighborhood until they caught him. It wasn’t much of a contest, as the fellow had one crippled leg and couldn’t run fast. Turns out he was the husband of one of the home economics professors. I felt very sorry for her.

The next year, though, brought a new Peeping Tom, and he stayed on the ground and looked through the back bedroom windows. His particular M.O. was that after he’d stood there for awhile, undetected, he’d “pssssssst” real loud, so the girls in the room would know he was there. He was never caught, though, because although we always called the campus police, by the time they arrived 5-10 minutes later, he’d strolled on off into the surrounding neighborhood.

It was during this year that I had my own “close encounter” with the Peeping Tom. One of my housemates and I were the only two women (of 25) at the house on a Saturday night. Everyone else must have had a date or a party to go to. Francine decided she’d take a shower, and she asked me to go into the shower room with her. She was a little nervous about that Peeping Tom. Now, our shower room---one for 16 girls---had three shower stalls lined up on one side of the window, and three toilets facing them on the other side, making a little hallway down to the window. I sat down on the seat of one of the toilets to talk to Francine through the shower curtain while she took her shower. Just before she got into the shower, Francine went down to the window and carefully adjusted the blinds so they were nice and even, with no cracks for any Peeping Tom to peer into.

Francine took her shower, and we chatted about whatever college girls in the 60’s chatted about—I certainly don’t remember now. What I do remember is that Francine stepped out of the shower, grabbed her towel to dry off, and then stepped toward the window. I looked around the corner of the toilet stall to see what she was up to. She was adjusting those blinds again. She needed the security. Then she turned to walk back down the little hallway toward me, carrying her towel in her hand.

That’s when I saw the little stick come from the outside through the tiny space between two of the blinds, and then slowly raise up the blind slat until there was a good-sized peephole.


Family Reunion

Family Reunion

Family reunions have always been a big part of my life. One of the most memorable was actually not my family’s reunion, but Larry’s. It’s hard to believe now, looking back, that I married a man without ever having met any of his family, except for his two children. But I did. And within a few months there was a Camp Family reunion in Gadsden, Alabama, and we went so that I could meet Larry’s mother and father and aunts and uncles and cousins, and they could meet his second wife.

I don’t what I expected, but I come from a very, very regular Southern family with almost no divorces and nice separation of the generations, so that all the cousins were younger than the aunts and uncles, and no scandal to speak of. I mean that literally. Our family did not discuss our scandals. Skeletons were kept securely locked in closets. My first clue that this (his) family was a little different was apparent when we first arrived at the picnic, spread out across three picnic shelters lined up in a row at a county park.

“There’s Mother.” Larry pointed toward a matronly, grandmotherly-looking woman seated in a lawn chair just inside the far end of Shelter #1. She was surrounded by other ladies about her same age and a few younger women.

“And there’s Daddy,” he said. I swiveled to follow his finger pointing toward the other end of Shelter #3.

“Who’s that he’s with?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s his first wife Elizabeth.”

“How long ago was he married to Elizabeth?” I asked.

“Oh, about thirty years ago,” he said.

“And there’s my sisters Betty and Doris.”

“I thought your sister was Judy and she wasn’t going to be here.”

“They’re my half-sisters and I hardly ever see them,” he said.

Pappy, or RO, or Jack—all names his father went by—spent the afternoon shuffling back and forth from Shelter #1 to Shelter #3, spending time with first one wife, then the other. Suddenly I had a glimpse of some future Camp reunion, where Larry would be shuffling back and forth between Wife #1, Donna, and Wife #2, me.

And it did come to pass, although thirty years and our own set of scandals had to be lived first.


Sunday, June 06, 2004

Cancelled Checks

Cancelled Checks

How will I remember my past now that the bank doesn’t send back the cancelled checks? I’ll have only those piles of photos as memory jogs and visual sticky-notes. But photos are often staged and mostly taken on special occasions—birthdays and graduations and weddings and reunions. But most of real life is everyday—grocery shopping and buying new shoes for school and paying for braces and the new roof and piano lessons and school pictures.

I’ve always loved looking back over the cancelled checks at the end of the year. Even in that short time, I’ll have forgotten to remember that my niece turned 16 and got a check from me, or that my lab test turned out to be normal and so the check written to the lab was written in gratitude and relief.

Most people would probably think I save way too many of these small same-size pieces of paper. I have 35 years worth of “special” cancelled checks. The check to the Unitarian minister who performed the wedding ceremony, the checks to the divorce lawyer. The check to the hospital where my son was born. The check for the closing costs on my first house. Checks to pay for flying lessons and karate and basketball camp. To pay off my college loans, to help out my daughter, my son. Checks for airline tickets, back before everyone used a credit card. In fact, I’ve been tempted to keep credit card receipts for the same reason I kept cancelled checks. But I’ve resisted. One off-beat paper-collecting obsession is enough in one lifetime, I think.

Pa’s Shop

Pa’s Shop

My grandpa had a “shop”—a storage shed that he built on the back of his lot before he built the house in front. It held his carpenter tools and his fishing nets. But it was also the home of Grandmother’s wringer washing machine, a giant round machine that plugged into the electric socket hanging down on a cord from the rafters. Grandmother would have to stand on her tippy toes to reach the socket, all the while telling me, a very impressionable four year old that the electricity cord and socket were very dangerous and I should never touch either of them. Somehow I eventually outgrew that admonition and today I can plug any appliance into a wall socket. I’m not sure about one that hangs from the rafters, though.

But, she said, the really dangerous part of this washing machine is the Wringer. And she’d flip the toggle switch that started the two rolling pins of the wringer moving toward each other. She’d dip her arm down into the rinse water in the round tub and pull up a sheet or a pair of Pa’s work pants. “Now watch what this wringer does to this sheet,” she’d say, “and just imagine what it could do to your baby fingers.” I’d hold my fingers close together and put my hands between my legs and lock my knees together. There would be no danger of my baby fingers getting anywhere close to that wringer. But then I would watch in fascinated horror as Grandmother would put each piece of wash through the tight lips of the wringer, water coming out one side and crushed garment on the other. She didn’t seem afraid, but she was grown-up.

I can still hear the sound of the electric motor on the wringer, and the splash of water falling back into the tub, and see how towels and shirts and underwear looked landing on the little shelf on the other side, all crumpled and flat. And how dry they already felt when Grandmother shook them out and hung them on the clothesline in the yard outside the shop. I get a little whiff of that memory when I take clothes out of the washer to put in the dryer. And I’m always very careful not to get my fingers near any moving parts.

MIDNIGHT (aka MARGARET)

MIDNIGHT (aka MARGARET)


After Miss Kitty presented us with six precious black kittens and we had prevailed on all our friends, we found a home for one kitten, Midnight. That’s the name my friend Betsy gave her when she adopted one of the kittens. Betsy already had two beautiful spoiled grown felines who, while not littermates, were definitely soulmates.

Three days after Betsy took Midnight home with her she called me. “Gwendie, I’m afraid the kitten isn’t working out.”

“Oh?” I said, with visions of a wild kitten climbing the plastic bathroom shower curtain, or leaving little puddles on the kitchen counter. “She’s precious”, Betsy said. “She sits in my lap and she tries to read the paper with me and she uses her litterbox.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“It’s Princess and Duchess. I haven’t even SEEN them since I brought Midnight in the house. I finally discovered that they’ve crawled into the bedsprings—they somehow clawed through the bottom cover—but they won’t come out. They haven’t eaten or anything.”

So I made the trip to Betsy’s house and she handed precious, cute Midnight over to me in the front doorway. As we stood there talking for a few moments before I left with Midnight, I saw, over Betsy’s shoulder, Princess and Duchess, the two huge cats, regally marching down the hallway from the bedroom to the kitchen, heading for their food bowls.

They had won.