Believing in Santa

(I know I'm a little late, but I'm still in the Christmas spirit...)

I grew up believing in Santa.

One Christmas Eve when I was very young, my brother and I heard him knock over an ashtray in the living room. We didn’t get out of bed though – we were too afraid. We knew he only came once we were asleep, and we didn’t want him to catch us awake.

So we just laid there frozen in our bunk beds until we finally dozed off again. But for years, that was proof that he was real.

****

Throughout elementary school, I had the hardest time falling asleep on Christmas Eve. I would just lie there, wide awake in my brand new footy pajamas (every year we received new pj’s so we’d look presentable in the Christmas morning photos). Every once in a while I would turn over and look out the window above my headboard.

No reindeer on the roof.

No sight of them in the sky.

I would lie there waiting for him for as long as I could, but I’d eventually doze off sometime after midnight.

In the morning when I ran downstairs to check under the tree…

“He came! He came!”

And I would wake everyone in the house.

One year it was my brother who woke me. It was about 3:30 in the morning and sure enough, the presents were overflowing from beneath our twinkling tree. Duane woke me up first, and then the two of us ran to wake Mommy and Daddy.

“He came!”

“He did?”

“Yeah! Can we open presents? Please??”

“You can each open one, and then we’re going back to bed until the morning.”

My mother chose two from the pile that looked identical. One had my brother’s name on it, and one had mine.

Inside we each found tape recorders and three-packs of blank cassettes.

My parents went back to bed, and Duane and I set out to master the buttons and record our voices onto the tapes.

“Well… it’s Christmas morning,” Duane announced in a voice that was scratchy from a winter cold. “Mom and Dad went back to bed, and me and Tam are playing with our new tape recorders that Santa brought us.”

“I wanna talk!” I whined from the background.

“Okay…”

My brother slid the recorder over to me, and I sang a song I learned from Bugs Bunny:

“I wiss I was in Dixie... Hooway! Hooway! I wiss I was in Dixie… Hooway!”

Lots of giggles followed, and then the loud click of my brother stopping the tape.

We stayed awake playing with our tape recorders until the sun came up. And when my parents finally got out of bed and made some coffee, we were allowed to see what else Santa brought…

****

When I was a little older, we used to call a phone number advertised on TV to hear a story read by Santa. I’ll never forget the year we called at around 9 o’clock on Christmas Eve. Santa didn’t answer – it was Mrs. Claus:

“Oh my goodness,” she said. “What are you still doing awake? Santa is on his way to New York right now!”

I think our eyes shot out of our heads and ricocheted around the room like superballs. “Santa’s on his way here right now! We gotta go to bed!”

****

Duane was in 5th grade when his friend John caught his parents putting the presents under their tree. And he told Duane, and Duane told me.

“There’s no such thing as Santa, y’know.”

“There’s not?”

“Nope.”

“Well I’m not telling Mom and Dad that I know.”

“Why not?”

“Cuz then I’ll only get half as many presents.”

You see, about half of ours were labeled “From: Mom and Dad” and the rest were labeled “From: Santa.” I figured if I let on that I knew, there went half my stuff.

I was no dummy.

****

Christmas isn’t quite the same once you don’t believe. It’s fun to get all the presents, of course, but it’s more fun when you believe that something magical happens while you’re sleeping.

I was fourteen when my little brother was born and the magic was rekindled in our house.

When he was eight years old, Mandy was born, and so the magic continued on.

It wasn’t easy with her though… she was an extremely inquisitive child. I had to have very creative and consistent answers to her questions, consistent handling of such things as wrapping paper and handwriting, and even some serious acting skills.

“Mom….. this present says Santa, but it’s wrapped in YOUR wrapping paper.”

My face looked shocked, then even more shocked, then a vision of pure amazement…

“He… touched… our… stuff??? Oh my gosh! I wonder what else he touched!!” I started looking around the room.

“You think he used our tape and scissors too?” I asked. “I wonder if we can fingerprint this stuff?!”

She gasped. “You think he could have done it without his gloves on?”

“I don’t know! This is so cool! Are there any others he wrapped with our paper???”

And so another hole in the amusing charade was filled in, and the magic lived on. Mall Santas, flying reindeer, how the dogs sleep through it all… I creatively explained every piece of the puzzle, or at least presented a sound hypothesis. And when I just didn’t know how to answer, I’d say, “You know, I’ve always wondered about that too. What do you think?”

In the fifth grade she figured it out after seeing a movie on TV. And with that, all the magic collapsed liked dominoes, one after the other – the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny – everything gone in one fell swoop.

She was even a little annoyed that I had lied to her.

Of course, the holiday isn’t really about presents or Santa, and my daughter knows that.

But every year Mandy says to me, “You always made Christmas so great, Mom. I miss when I used to believe.”

And I tell her someday, when she has a child of her own, she can revive the magic all over again.

****

"Christmas--that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance--a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved." -Augusta E. Rundel

Random Musical Memories

I grew up on music.

My parents had a huge collection of albums and 45’s – everything rock-n-roll from the 60’s and 70’s: The Beatles, The Doors, The Kinks, The Mamas and the Papas, The Guess Who, The Four Tops, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Bad Company. You name it, they had it. Even some disco, like KC and the Sunshine Band and Earth Wind and Fire. And a little bit of country too.

We spent a lot of time listening to music, enjoying the latest tunes on the radio or putting an album or a stack of 45’s on the turntable. We had a collection of 8-tracks too.

Funny… choosing which 45’s to play and in which order was kind of like making a mixed tape (which would become a favorite pastime a few years later). The 45’s needed to be set up on the plastic spindle adapter above the turntable (because 45’s had an opening in the middle the size of a half-dollar, whereas albums only had an opening the width of a pencil), and as each single-song record finished playing, the turntable arm would lift and move out to the side, the next record would drop down and then the arm would move back and lower the needle right onto the beginning of this new record. Pure genius.

These 45’s were my favorites as a young kid in the 70’s:
No Sugar – The Guess Who
Bad Leroy Brown – Jim Croce
December, 1963 (Oh What a Night) – The Four Seasons
Stay – Frankie Valli
Let Your Love Flow – The Bellamy Brothers
Dream Weaver – Gary Wright
Happy Together – The Turtles
I Can See Clearly Now – Johnny Nash

If you look closely at the photo of me with my cousins, you will notice that we are not gathered around that big console television to watch TV, but to listen to the 45's on the turntable on top.

********

I remember dancing in the living room. I made up whole dance routines to Play That Funky Music (Wild Cherry) and Get Down Tonight (KC and the Sunshine Band).

Funny how the lyrics go right over your head when you’re young.

And I remember my father teaching me how to do “The Bump,” which was basically just swaying side to side and bumping hips with a partner to the beat. Of course his hip was up too high for mine, so sometimes his bump would hit me in the shoulder and send me to the floor, but that made us both laugh.

My big brother and I had an old record player on the floor in our little bedroom. It was in a big hard case like a suitcase. We used to load an album onto the turntable and close the lid and take turns dancing on top of it, performing for each other on our tiny little stage. And if we jumped around too much the record inside would skip.

Skipping was the worst. When our records got too scratchy we used to tape pennies to the top of the arm, right above the needle, to weigh it down and hopefully keep it from skipping. But sometimes I miss all the clicks and pops of those old records. There was some character in those old scratchy recordings.

********

Some of my favorite times as a kid were when my father would strum songs on the guitar and sing to us, and if we knew the songs we would sing along. I had a favorite request – a song called “So Tired” by the Kinks. I liked the song and I liked the way my father sang it. But it wasn’t one of his favorite songs to play, because he had to slide his fingers across the strings and they’d get sore after a while. I always requested that one though, and he always played it for me. And My Maria too. And Take Me Home, Country Roads - I used to follow along in the songbook, singing the words to that one as Dad played.

Sometimes he would record us all singing. Once we were trying to record In The Still Of The Night – my dad singing and playing the guitar, and me singing the backup “Shoo-doop shoo be doo”. I was only about 6 years old, so my mother whispered the shoo-doop shoo be doo in my ear so I wouldn’t miss the words or the timing. But all those SH sounds really tickle when someone is whispering them in your ears, so I kept giggling. I don’t think we ever got through the song.

********

When I was in 6th grade I got my first boombox for Christmas, which meant I could have music in my room. I’d had music in my room before – big console stereos that we found in the garbage and got working for a while, but the speakers on those didn’t sound so great.

The new Sanyo boombox, on the other hand, sounded awesome. And with a three-pack of blank tapes from Caldor I was taping the latest greatest songs from the radio, diligently waiting for the DJ to stop talking so I could hit Record, and then pressing Stop before the talk resumed. I would wait for hours for a specific song to be played. Maybe it was Billy Squier. Maybe it was Madonna. Maybe it was the Go Go’s, or Journey. Maybe it was Huey Lewis and the News.

But I would wait up until midnight if I had to – you know how hard it is to have a song in your head and not be able to hear it. With the instant gratification of internet, kids don’t have that problem anymore (and actually, neither do I). But back then it took a lot of time and patience to make the ultimate mixed tape. There was always taping songs from your record collection, of course, but there’s nothing like having a new favorite song.

********

My brother and I used to get a weekly allowance, usually $5 each. It’s funny to me, looking back – it seemed we didn’t have enough money to heat the house or even to go food shopping sometimes, but somehow my parents managed to give us money every week. Well, not every week. We didn’t get the allowance if our rooms weren’t clean. Hmm… now that I think about it, they probably didn’t have to give us much money after all.

But if I didn’t spend my allowance during bowling night, I would save it up for new records from Caldor. Caldor had new billboard charts every week, one for each genre of music. The top 20 were kept in a wooden shelving unit near the register with slots numbered 1 through 20. A song’s ranking on the billboard chart corresponded to the numbered slots. I spent a lot of money there.

********

I remember walking into my mother’s bedroom once when I was younger and fully into good ol’ rock-n-roll, and she was listening to some kind of disco song. “What the heck are you listening to, Mom? Rock Lives, Disco Dies.”

“Well I like all kinds of music. Disco is good to dance to.”

I wonder if she ever regretted keeping me open-minded on the music front? My father may have. My bedroom was right above the living room, and as I got into the dance music of the 80’s my father became convinced that I spent 5 years listening to the same song, over and over, morning noon and night. The incessant sound of it thumping above his head was like water torture as he tried to watch Three’s Company, Sanford and Son, The Dukes of Hazzard or The Love Boat. Occasionally, he would get the broom from the kitchen and knock on the ceiling with the handle. That was the signal for many things - pick up the phone, come down for dinner - but usually it meant “turn down the music”.

I’ve remained very musically open-minded and have even expanded well beyond the genres introduced to me by my parents. Mandy’s taste in music probably covers just as wide of a spectrum, as she can wake up to techno, chill mid-afternoon in her room to some alternative rock and fall asleep at night to new age or classical. We regularly introduce each other to new songs.

Music does something for me. Not that I don’t enjoy silent times alone with my thoughts – I certainly do – but music is passion and emotion and life. Sometimes it mirrors the way I’m feeling; sometimes it heightens my mood and pulls me out of some sadness or stress. It’s soothing at night before bed, it’s invigorating while I’m cooking or cleaning, and it’s company while I’m driving in the car or walking around the lake.

And so many songs spark memories for me. I think that’s what my next few posts will be about…

Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter - to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water. (Albert Schweitzer)

The Return Of LeedleDee?

I’ve never really had a nickname, or at least not one generally known by anyone outside my immediate family.

My father is one of the few that uses my middle name, calling me “Tamma-Jean!” or sometimes just Tamma.

My little brother (who was born when I was 14) and I call each other by only our middle names, he calling me Jean and me calling him Joseph. No real reason.

I also used to call him Big Bri Stud, because as a pre-schooler he was constantly eyeing up the pretty girls (of any age, usually blondes) and hitting on them. My high school boyfriend had taught him to say “Hey Babe, what’s happenin’?” at the tender age of 3, so he was always a hit with the ladies. But over the years Big Bri Stud has gotten shortened to Big B. Or sometimes I just call him B.

My big brother was 1-1/2 when I was born, and he loved me. To my mother's dismay, he would sneak into my crib and try to hold me and sing me songs. At least he wasn't smacking me. That came later during The Teasing Years.

And as a toddler he called me “LeedleDee”, because he thought that sounded like a song. That was my first nickname: LeedleDee.

He called me LeedleDee often as we were growing up. He said it with a sneer during The Teasing Years. Those years ushered in new nicknames as well, such as Slammy and Meathead. I liked LeedleDee better. If memory serves, I simply called him Duane the Pain, or sometimes just Jerk or Idiot (said through tears, of course).

When my brother entered high school, he got a nickname of his own. My parents had named him after Duane Eddy, the guitarist my father loved so much. But he had never liked his name, because the show What’s Happening had come out in the 70’s with a main character named Dwayne, and that was perfect ammo for elementary school kids.

I’m not quite sure what my brother did in high school to earn the name “Doctor Love,” but I am quite sure there is more to the story than a simple fondness of the song by Kiss. To this very day, he is known as Doc. Most people don’t even know his real name and they get confused at his job when I call and ask for this “Duane” person.

In the days of my grandparents and even my parents, everyone had a nickname:
Lukey Lou (our crazy neighbor)
The Ground Mole (my uncle)
Beetle Bailey (another uncle)
Dob (my grandmother, and I have no idea why)
The Pheasant (my great-grandmother)
Tank (another guy from the neighborhood)
Mimi (my aunt)
Porky (my father’s friend)
Twinkie (Porky’s son)

One of my grandfathers was called Tiny, because he was so thin. My brother has a friend called Tiny as well, because he’s the size of a Mac Truck.

I’ve got a cousin named Buddha and a friend named Sully.

My father has two drinking mugs that he got when he was in the Navy. Both display the emblem of his submarine. But I remember asking him once when I was little, “Why does one say ‘Peachy’ on the back and the other one say ‘Tiger’?” He pointed to my mother: “Peachy!” And then he pointed to himself: “Tiger!” “No way!” They both nodded their heads. “Ooooooh…”

But for the benefit of us kids, my father gave himself a new nickname. “You know what you kids should call me?” he proclaimed one day. “Super-Fonzie-Austin.”

“What??”

“Super for Superman. Fonzie, because I’m cool like the Fonz. And Austin for Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man. Super-Fonzie-Austin - that’s my new name.”

So we would giggle as we called my father Super-Fonzie-Austin. Soon after, he decided to add Genius to the end of his name. And so besides being known as “The King” (another self-nomer) throughout his castle, he also became known as Super-Fonzie-Austin-Genius.

“What should mommy’s name be?” we asked.

“The Old Bag” he joked.

That one always made us attack him, and a full-blown wrestling match would ensue. I was the more aggressive one though. “Go get him, Tam!” my big brother would say, pushing me toward the infidel who had insulted our dear mother, yet maintaining a safe distance from the melee.

I would run across the living room toward him at full speed, fists flying, and try to land as many punches as I could before he finally wrestled me to the floor, turned me around, and locked my head between his knees so he could continue watching TV. He never even had to get up out of the recliner. I’d still be karate-chopping at his legs, but I’d eventually admit defeat.

That “Old Bag” thing got him in trouble once, though. My little brother had just started pre-school, and he wasn’t feeling well. They needed to call my mother.

“What’s your mommy’s name?” they asked him.

“Mommy.”

“What does your daddy call your mommy?”

“The Old Bag.”

They got quite a chuckle out of that one over at the pre-school. My mother didn’t know whether to be mortified or hysterical with laughter.

But I’ve always thought it would be fun to have a nickname, a real nickname that everyone knew. Friends have called me different things over the years like Tamma-Lama or Tammie-Tam or Tabitha. Boyfriends have had pet names for me of course, and my husband does as well. My daughter and I have a million different silly names for each other.

But I’ve never had a real nickname. Perhaps I’ll take a cue from my father and name myself. I just have to come up with something good…

Camping

Throughout my childhood, going on a family vacation meant one thing: Camping.

My parents never had a whole lot of money, so there were no flights to tropical locales, no tours through bustling city streets, no visits to distant lands.

We owned a tent. We would pack up the car with sleeping bags and pillows, peanut butter and jelly, bug spray, flashlights, fishing poles, jiffy pop, a propane lantern and the camp stove, a Frisbee and a deck of cards. And, of course, the dogs. And we would set off for a campground in the Catskills to reconnect with earth, water, air and fire.

Camping trips took place every Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend. Often we’d go together with my Uncle Mike and Aunt Ronnie and their 6 children, which meant my brother and I would have cousins to play with. They had a pop up camper, which we thought was the epitome of luxury. When they upgraded to a bigger camper, my parents bought their little pop up, and thus we moved up in the world.

It seemed to always rain on those holiday weekends, so there would be 2 kids and 2 dogs and 6 cousins slopping around in the mud for 4 days and bringing it all into the tent and the camper. Everyone and everything would be dirty and wet and cold.

And we loved it.

We’d bring bikes to ride around the campground, and there were enough of us to furnish the feeling of being our own little gang. We’d play tag, or maybe play catch with a softball and our well-worn dusty mitts. My cousin Jenny and I would get lost for a while to explore a mountain creek or a rocky bluff, and occasionally the campground’s game room with our pockets full of quarters.

Of course there would be the usual teasing and fights and sibling rivalries among the kids, but at night we’d converge to toast marshmallows on long thin sticks over the campfire, eyes and smiles illuminated by the flickering orange flames.

It was exciting to be outside after dark, surrounded by the sounds of crickets and frogs, by campfire smoke, by the twinkling fireflies and a sky full of stars.

We would giggle and tell stories and make up new lyrics to the “Diarrhea song” as our bouncing flashlight beams headed up the dirt roads and paths, moving erratically toward the mosquito-filled bathhouses. After one last pee, a quick brush across our teeth and a splash of water over our faces, we were off to snuggle deep down in our sleeping bags and doze off to sleep.

Those were the vacations of my childhood.

********

I never had a whole lot of money while I was raising my daughter. I brought Mandy on her first camping trip when she was two years old.

We’d practiced in the middle of the living room under tents made from sheets and couch cushions, so she was elated to finally be camping “for real”. She sang to herself as she collected buckets full of pinecones and acorns from around the campsite. Doing things outside – eating, sleeping, even peeing – made them that much more fun. For my little nature-girl-in-training, camping was the perfect vacation. And we took many perfect vacations.

And even when we had the resources to take flights to tropical locales, tour through bustling city streets and visit distant lands, we still took camping trips too. There’s just something about camping, the reconnecting with earth, water, air and fire, that can’t be duplicated in a hotel room.

And so over Labor Day weekend, Mandy and I packed the car with sleeping bags and pillows, peanut butter and jelly, bug spray, flashlights, fishing poles, jiffy pop, a propane lantern and the camp stove, a Frisbee and a deck of cards.

And we went on vacation.

(to be continued...)

Kids at the Bar

Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist. – Michael Levine

I hate hate hate when I see a kid in a bar. It’s not an appropriate environment for a child. They absorb every aspect of the bewildering spectacle with their innocent, impressionable little eyes.

I don’t care if you came here straight from your softball game with the team and you weren’t planning on staying long.

I don’t care if you think your little 5 year old is having a ball galloping around the dance floor to the overplayed tunes of the garage cover band.

Didn’t you notice that she almost got stepped on by the big drunk guy who was backing away from the bar with a pitcher in each hand, yelling to the bartender that he would be right back for two more?

Didn’t you notice your little one stopping and staring, mouth agape and eyes wide with astonishment, at the young couple leaning against the pole, her kissing and clawing voraciously at the man's neck, him clutching her barely-covered breast and eagerly grinding into her?

Don’t you see the other patrons shooting looks of disgust at you? They came here to let loose and have a good time, but those who aren’t already inebriated are now hesitant due to the unwelcome presence of your adorable little buzz-kill.

Don’t you realize that it’s 11:30 at night, and she’s rubbing her eyes as she walks in circles around the bar looking for you? It’s bad enough that you have subjected an innocent, doe-eyed child to this loud, clumsy, sticky den of beer and expletives, but to not even be keeping an eye on her is absolutely unconscionable.

I get so disgusted by people sometimes.

And what about the bars? I’m sorry, but if it’s 21 to get in, then it should be 21 to get in. Period. I’m sure if I showed up at our favorite watering hole with my 15 year old in tow, we would be turned away because she’s too young to be admitted. So why is it okay for a pre-schooler? Is a toddler any less vulnerable to the pandemonium of adult night life?

********

Maybe I feel so strongly about this because I was once the kid at the bar.

For those of you who are familiar with my blog, you know that I speak very highly of both of my parents. I was (and still am) blessed to have them, and I have few complaints about my upbringing. But I’ve never said it was perfect.

My mother was the champion shortstop on the local pub's softball team when she was in her 20’s. More than once the players ended up back at the Trails End Tavern for a victory celebration after the game. And since I was at the game, sometimes entertaining myself on the swings and the monkey bars, sometimes cheering on the team from the bench, sometimes off picking flowers for mommy - I ended up at the bar.

Yes, the team had use of the back room, so we were somewhat isolated from the other patrons.
But all the women were drinking and laughing and carrying on. I have an image in my head of my mother’s friend Kathy on her knees up on the table, shaking her very generous maracas and everybody howling and cheering. I probably didn't understand most of the conversations or the jokes.

But when they wanted to discuss something that even they had the sense to deem inappropriate for my little ears (I understand this in retrospect, of course), they asked me to get them pistachios out of the vending machine. The vending machine was out in the bar, so I would have to leave the relative safety of the back room, traverse the chaotic span of cacophonous drinking and merriment, around the guys playing darts, past the shuffle board bowling game and the cigarette vending machine, and over to the tall red machines with the nuts.

I remember thinking I was being very helpful as I slid the quarter into the slot, turned the metal handle, and received the red-stained seeds in my outstretched cupped hands. I felt proud as I brought them back and presented them to my mother’s friends, who thanked me and kissed me sloppily on my head and told me I was the best.

I thought it was fun at the time, and maybe I felt special to be out with Mom. But I do remember the cigarette smoke burning my eyes and throat, and I was always a little fearful of the drunken people because of my uncle, who was an alcoholic.

I was also a little worried that we were going to get in trouble with Dad.

Once we arrived home after midnight, and after I was put in bed I heard my parents arguing. My father was furious that my mother had me out at the bar. It was a really bad fight; my mother was crying. I remember thinking that I should go and tell my dad that it was okay, because I had fun being out. But I was afraid, and I stayed in my bunk and just listened and cried a little bit for Mom.

I remember other times when my father showed up at the bar and took me home. I was disappointed because I was having a good time with the girls and didn’t want to go yet. But I could tell that Dad was angry. He didn’t say much when he was angry.

Now that I’m older I can obviously see that my father was right.

When the subject comes up these days, my mother falls back on the fact that she was so young when she had us. “We were babies having babies,” she’ll say.

Hmm… I was about the same age, just before my 22nd birthday, when I had Mandy. I’ve never brought my precious girl out partying with me and she has never had to step over my passed out, hung-over body to use the toilet in the morning.

It’s an issue of maturity, not age.

But hey, I'm sure I'm not a perfect parent either. So I just nod my head and agree. “Yes, Mom, you were very young when you had us.”

Oh, well. Eventually my parents grew up. Although it was my father that didn’t approve of drinking or swearing around us kids, he was the one who had to learn patience and to keep his temper in check. They were both young. They both had their shortcomings.

It’s kind of funny to me now, actually, that I knew them both when they were young and immature. They watched me grow up; I watched them grow up.

But sometimes I wonder who my guardian angel was back then.

Robby and the Pencil Point

When I was in the second grade I had a little crush on Robby M. He had a crush on me too. Nothing had been said, but a girl knows these things.

He would rub my arm, and then smack someone else’s arm and say “You have Tammie Odor! I quit! No backsies!” So of course, a big “Tammie Odor” fight would ensue…

“Tammie Odor! I quit!”

“Tammie Odor! I quit!”

“Tammie Odor! I quit!”

The boys would chase each other, lunging and dodging, slapping the Tammie Odor around. The girls would just stand there and watch, arms crossed, heads tilted to the side, eyebrows raised. Boys were stupid.

But then Robby would pick me to be on his kickball team on the playground at lunchtime. And he would pass notes to me that said “Who do you like?”

He would try to make me laugh during music class.

He would sit at my table during lunch. He said he liked my Muppets lunchbox.

During a class trip, he wrote R+T in the fog of the bus window above his head. He even drew a heart around it.

One day the two of us got in trouble for talking during Mrs. Rogers’ class, so we had to stay in for lunch and work quietly at a round wooden table in the back of her classroom. We sat on the small pastel chairs, opened our reading comprehension workbooks, and started filling in the blanks, circling True or False, and drawing lines from the word to the matching picture.

Sometime after Mrs. Rogers stepped out of the room, a small argument erupted between us, which led to an all-out battle. The brief focus of my elementary school affections jabbed me in the thigh with a pencil, piercing my white tights. I was absolutely enraged.

I poked him in the eye.

By the time Mrs. Rogers came back, Robby had an ever-reddening eye full of eyelashes, and I had the point of a #2 HB in my leg.

We were sent first to the nurse, then to the principal’s office.

It was the first time I’d ever been sent to the principal’s office. Mrs. Waldron was old and stern in her white ruffled shirt, buttoned high on her neck, and her drab, floor-length skirt. Her eyes were two different colors, and it seemed that one of them never really looked at anything. The hallway rumor was that she had a glass eye. I surmised that it was the brown one, because the blue one was bloodshot all the time. We were given a talkin’-to and a warning, and we were sent back to class.

So Robby and I hadn’t even reached the point of confessing our young love, and the relationship was over. A week goes by so fast…

I never got that pencil point out of my leg.

I made several attempts at removing it over the years with a pair of tweezers and once with a sewing needle, but to no avail. It still floats around inside of me, hidden. I can’t feel it, but it’s there.

Occasionally, it makes its way to the surface. I’ll notice a little dark spot on my leg, just below the skin. But it refuses to be removed, and my efforts just send it deeper into hiding.

That is, until the next time it worms its way up to poke at the underside of my skin. A sly, secretive reminder of a love from long ago.

And that’s the way it is with those expired love affairs. You don't feel them anymore, but they never entirely go away. They’re inside of you, a part of you.

Every once in a while, they resurface for a moment. Sometimes they just smile and wave at you, and you think, “Aw, I remember that. Those were some good times.”

Other times, they sneak up on you and try to squeeze your heart, try to make you remember what you felt like when you were caught in their grasp, or how you felt when it was over.

Over time their power over your heart diminishes, and the little reminders floating through the currents of our insides carry no feelings at all. They’re just memories.

But we learn from those past experiences. We learn about people, we learn about ourselves, about love and what we want out of life. Maybe they even make us better for the next time.

They help make us who we are.


"You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so, you learn to love by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves." - Saint Francis de Sales

Mrs. Garrison

When I was very young we lived in an apartment building on 6th Street. Mrs. Garrison lived on the third floor of our building for a while, and then she moved to an apartment up the block from us – not too far, still within walking distance. She used to babysit for my brother and me. Sometimes if my brother had plans with friends, I would have her all to myself.

She was really old. I mean, to a 5-year-old, 75 was really, really old. She wore old-lady dresses and old lady shoes. She had a large hump on her back where her spine was curved, and she kept her pure white hair tied up in a bun.

I remember once when I was staying overnight with her, she took her bun down to brush her hair. I had never seen it down. It was so long and white.

“Mrs. Garrison, you look like a witch!” I laughed.

She looked in the mirror. “Yes, I guess I do!” she laughed. I didn’t mean any offense (you know how little kids just blurt out whatever they’re thinking), and none was taken. She put her hair back up in a bun, and she put mine up in a bun too, so I could be like her. We admired ourselves in the mirror. I had never seen my long hair tied up in a bun before. I liked it.

********

Mrs. Garrison was afraid of thunder and lightening. She and I had that in common. Whenever it stormed, she would come downstairs from her third-floor apartment and stay with us until it passed. She didn’t like to be up so high. It always made me feel better that I wasn’t the only one afraid of the lightening. And I recall even feeling the slightest bit brave, because I knew that staying with us made Mrs. Garrison feel better. I felt like I was helping her, protecting her. We got through those storms together.

********

There was a black velvet painting of Elvis on the wall in the living room.

I was 7 years old, sitting at the kitchen table drawing pictures with Mrs. Garrison when her son stopped by.

“Did you hear?”

“Yes, I heard,” Mrs Garrison said in a low, solemn voice, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it.”

“Hear what?” I asked.

“The King is dead.”

“We have a king?”

“The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll!” said her son. “Don’t you know who The King is?”

I didn’t know, but they sure did. It was a sad day at Mrs. Garrison’s.

(Side note: whose parents or grandparents cut out the newspaper article when Elvis died? I have all the Elvis clippings in the box of papers from my grandparents, along with the moon landing two page pictoral from the New York Daily News, and a bunch of recipes my grandmother was saving.)

********

Mrs. Garrison was old, but she was energetic and fun. Much more energetic than my grandmother, who was younger but very overweight and mostly just sat around and watched her “stories” in the afternoons. Mrs. Garrison and I took walks to the lake to feed the ducks, and up to Angie’s Delicatessen to buy new coloring books and nice new crayons. Oh, how I loved a new box of Crayola crayons, with their vivid colors and perfect tips. My favorite was Magenta, although at the time I misread it as Mag-neta.

When my favorite stuffed animal, a little white lamb, got so threadbare from its constant companionship with me, the neck ripped into a wide gaping hole. My grandmother said it couldn’t be fixed, so I carried my wounded lamb around that way for weeks with the stuffing hanging out.

But one night when I stayed with Mrs. Garrison, I asked her if it could be fixed and she said “Of course it can!” She got out her black thread (it was the only color she had) and stitched it up. The black stitches kind of stuck out on my dirty little lamb, but he was no longer injured or losing stuffing as we walked, and I was so happy.

Mrs. Garrison was the best.

Some of the caregivers from childhood (babysitters, teachers...) fade away from our memories over time. But the ones who gave you their full attention, the ones that spent quality time with you, and made you smile, maybe even made you feel loved… those are the ones you never forget.

A Dream House

Today on the way to work, I was thinking about my dream house. I have many dreams...

I would love to have a house on the shore. I would fall asleep to the sounds of the waves and the ocean breeze caressing my face, and wake up to a glorious sunrise, with the sun sparkling on the waves like thousands of tiny diamonds. And I would begin each day with a walk on the beach, breathing in the salty air and feeling the sand between my toes.

But I would also love a house in the mountains, hidden from the world, surrounded by old-growth trees and animals everywhere. There would be an amazing view from my deck, overlooking the trees and the mountains in the distance, and maybe a little meadow full of wildflowers. The deer would come to greet me in the early morning, because I would feed them apples or some other sweet treat and they would learn to trust me. I'd be like Snow White, feeding the birds from my hand and yodeling down the well! And I would begin each day with a walk through the trails, breathing in the cool air and feeling the moss beneath my feet.

I enjoy solitude and privacy, and natural surroundings. Oh and some sort of view. When we were camping in Pennsylvania last year with my dad, we spent the evenings sitting in chairs around the campfire, looking out onto the grassy hills. Occasionally a deer would walk by, or a fox or a racoon... and of course there were lots of birds. And it was so relaxing to just sit and watch. So my dream home would definitely have a place to sit and look out.

Of course, when I was young, my dream house was one where I had my own room. We lived in an apartment, and I had to share a room with my brother. We had bunkbeds and lots of toys everywhere and no privacy.

We moved into a small house when I was in 2nd grade. I remember our first day there, sitting in that empty room on a box full of books. I just sat and smiled. This was MY room. I could set up all my stuffed animals and toys, and put pictures on the wall, and I could listen to whatever music I wanted. There was even a closet for my clothes.

That old house made everyone happy, and it was great to have our own yard, too.

I helped my mother plant flowers in the front and a tomato garden in the back. My father worked on things out in the garage, my brother worked on his minibike back by the shed. My mother liked to cook even more in the new kitchen, and she made spaghetti sauce from the tomatoes in the garden. I built forts up on the hill and read books up in my room. And since we had a yard, we were able to get a puppy, which was the greatest thing.

And so I look at the house I live in now. Sure, there are some rooms that still need painting, and we need to redo the bathroom upstairs and refinish the hardwood floors. And I'd like to have a deck or a patio on the back so I could sit and look out on the yard, and we could have barbeques out there.

But I am able to plant flowers in the front and tomatoes in the back.

Mandy has her own room, where she can hang pictures on the wall and listen to whatever music she wants.

We have a nice yard where the dogs can run and sniff around where the deer trekked through the night before.

And there are closets for our clothes, and a garage for our toys.

I enjoy cooking dinner in the kitchen at night, while my husband is upstairs on the computer, Mandy is upstairs on the phone, and the dogs are under my feet, waiting for me to drop a scrap of food.

And I begin each morning with a walk around the lake, breathing in the fresh spring air, smiling at the other early morning walkers as we pass on the road.

I think I already have my dream house. Life is good.

Monster Madness

As a child, I loved scary movies. I loved being scared. From the time I was in pre-school, I would sit on my father’s lap (for protection) and watch New York's Chiller Theatre on Channel 11 and Creature Feature on Channel 5. I loved those old horror movies.

My big brother would watch too, from the safety of the area behind the couch.

Chiller Theater began with a claymation hand rising up out of a swamp. I remember my father saying to me, “You know there are six fingers on that hand?”

“Really???”

“Yup, count ‘em.”

So every time that show came on, I would count the fingers. He was right. And somehow, knowing that the hand had six fingers made it all the more creepy.

Here’s a link to the video on youtube: Chiller Theater

The only thing missing is the creepy voice that says “CHILLERRRRR!” after the hand gobbles up all the letters. It set just the right tone for the start of the “monster movies,” as I use to call them.

Sometimes we watched the movies while eating Swanson’s TV Dinners. Being able to eat in the living room was such a treat! My mother would get out the tray tables, and we would have Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots and a gooey dessert out of little crinkly tin trays. What fun!

Then my mother would pop some popcorn in a pot on the stove, shaking it the whole time so it didn’t burn. Later they came out with popcorn machines that turned the kernels and the oil for you. Microwave popcorn wasn’t around yet. Actually, neither were microwaves.

So with our TV dinners and our popcorn, we would sit on the couch, watching our little black and white television. We would eventually upgrade to a big console color television by the late 70’s. But of course, for those old black and white movies it didn’t really matter so much.

I remember watching the The Blob, The Crawling Hand, and Day of the Triffids, which was about an alien plant race I think. Monster movies like Godzilla, King Kong, and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.

And those abnormally large critter flicks like the one with the giant ants, or the one with the gargantuan spider.

That one with the spider haunted me, because just as the massive monster arrived in the town, and started crushing houses with each step of his giant spider legs, our antenna went out and the television screen went to gray noise. So I never knew if they got him or not. That made me feel quite unsettled. He could still be out there, you know.

But it wasn’t just the monster movies. I also loved The Twilight Zone. And ghost stories. And the Nancy Drew mysteries that had phantoms or haunted castles.

Even the comedy creature features like Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein. I liked Abbott and Costello to begin with – throw in a monster and I was enthralled.

Same with Bugs Bunny cartoons. My two favorites of all time were the ones with the evil scientist and Gossamer in the big castle.

I used to go around quoting the line, "Did you ever have the feeling you were being watched?" from Hare Raising Rabbit.

And I just loved the idea of vanishing cream in Water Water Every Hare, and that slow motion chase when the evil scientist and Bugs are both floating high on ether: “Coooooome baaaaack raaaaaabit.”

My favorite TV show was Land of the Lost.

I ate Frankenberry and Boo Berry cereals. My brother ate Count Chocula.

My favorite ride at Disney World (at age 7) was the Haunted Mansion.

I even favored monster vitamins.


As I entered my pre-teen and teenage years, I still had a love of horror films: The Howling, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween.

The Exorcist. Scariest movie ever.

The Shining. Well, that runs a close second for me. It's not just the bloody stuff - it's the creepy stuff. It's the freaky little twins. Man, they were creepy.

Even Salem’s Lot scared the heck out of me. I can vividly recall the vampire nightmare I had, with a little child vampire floating outside my window, tapping on the glass for me to let him in.

Once I became a mom, horror movies lost their appeal. I don’t like to be scared anymore – real life can be scary enough. I don’t like to see blood and guts. I turn my head away at yucky scenes, or change the channel, or even leave the movie theater.

But then again, those old movies were different. They were more about the suspense than the gore.

I wouldn’t mind munching on a bowl of Frankenberry cereal and catching Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.

Or one of those Bugs Bunny cartoons with Gossamer.

Actually, that sounds like the makings of a good Saturday morning.



Happy Friday the 13th!

Memories of Bowling Night

My parents were both into bowling. But my father was much more serious about it, so serious that he wanted to be in an all-male bowling league. Why? Because men are better bowlers, he said.

So this was not a fun little pastime that they enjoyed together. My father joined his serious Wednesday night all-male league, and then, not to be outdone, my mother joined her all-female Wednesday night league at a different bowling alley.

And so Bowling Night was born.

My big brother Duane and I enjoyed Bowling Night. Sometimes Duane would go with my father and I would go with my mother, but that turned out to be way too boring, because it could take 3 hours or more for them to play all of the games. So most of the time my brother and I would stay together, going with my mother one week and my father the next.

While we were there, we were the helpers. If Mom or Dad needed a soda, we would go get it for them so they didn’t miss their turns. At the end of the night, I used to fetch my father’s bowling ball from the lane, shine it up, and put it in his bag for him while he tallied up the scores and changed his shoes. I remember one year, when his team couldn’t think of a name, they ended up calling themselves The Tams, named after me.

All the bowlers in both leagues used to love us. We were well-behaved kids. This guy Al in my father’s league was my buddy. He used to talk to me all the time and tell me stories and jokes. And there was this little trick he would play on me: when I was about to sit down, he would pull my chair back and I would fall on the floor. Everyone got a chuckle out of it, even me.

One night I decided to offer Al a chair while he was watching the other bowlers and waiting for his turn. I pulled over one of the nice big padded winged-back chairs.

“Sit here, Al!”

Somehow, when that large, balding, grey-haired man hit the floor with a tremendous thud, and his drink splashed up and all the ice cubes went all over the loudly-patterned carpet, somehow it just didn’t seem to be the cute little joke I thought it would be. Al seemed to come down a lot harder than me, the scrawny little 7 year old that I was. I hid in the ladies room where no one could get me. It took Al quite a while to coax me out of there from the doorway.

Duane and I usually got hot dogs or burgers with fries for dinner, we would sit up on the swivel stools, just like eating at the diner or up at the counter at Woolworth’s. Some nights we even got ice cream sundaes, or banana splits. Those were my favorite things to get because they always came with real whipped cream and a cherry on top. Yum!

The other great thing about Bowling Night was that it was also Allowance Night. Every week, as long as we kept our rooms cleaned, we would get $5 to spend however we wanted. We could play video games, buy candy, play air hockey… with five dollars we were nearly rich. Of course, our rooms had to pass Inspection before we went out. If we didn’t pass Inspection, we didn’t get the five bucks.

And if all that wasn’t cool enough, Bowling Night was on a school night. So we were up late on school nights, running around and playing games. It was our night out, too.

One night while at Dad’s bowling alley, we discovered that right next door was a slot car raceway. To my brother, this was absolutely the most awesome thing ever. You could rent a car and a controller for a half hour and race your car around the track.

It was just like the AFX race sets Duane used to get for Christmas, only bigger. And way cooler. The corners were banked just right so your car didn’t go flying off the track. This was very different from AFX, which came with these yellow flexible plastic guardrails that went around the corners to keep your car from careening off the plastic roadway. But of course they didn’t work as intended, and our cats would attack the cars and start swatting them around the living room with their paws while Duane chased them, yelling that they’d better not wreck his best car.

Yes, my brother was in heaven down in that slot car raceway. Pre-pubescent boy heaven.

I was too intimidated by all the older guys around there to actually race a car myself, but I liked watching Duane race. Occasionally, if his car did jump the track, I was there to put it right back on so he didn’t waste one precious minute of his racing time. After all, he was spending his entire five bucks on this.

So what did I spend my five bucks on? Up at the counter at the raceway, they sold great big prismatic stickers for $2.00 each plus tax. I thought they were the coolest things I’d ever seen, much cooler than any stickers that the other kids put on their brown-paper-bag-covered books. Yes, I blew my money on stickers. I remember buying these cat stickers in every available color, and I specifically recall this green square prismatic sticker which simply bore the words “Macho Man.” Ah yes, it was the 70’s. And my book covers were the coolest at school.

Around here, many of the bowling alleys have closed down. The one where my mother used to bowl is now a supermarket, and the one where my father used to bowl has become a huge arcade. I don’t even think that either of my parents bowls anymore. There are still bowling alleys around, of course, but there seems to be less of them. Is it less popular now, or are there just more recreational choices?

Funny thing is, that slot car raceway is still there. That place has die-hard fans.


“We all have our 'good old days' tucked away inside our hearts, and we return to them in daydreams like cats to favorite armchairs.” - Brian Carter