Category Archives: Short story

Grandma’s House

Posted on by
Reply

            My Grandmother Williams lived in southeastern Ohio near the town of Gallipolis. She grew up poor, with her parents and later her husband working as poor tenant farmers. She was uneducated in terms of schooling, but knew a lot about cooking and working on the land. She and my grandfather together raised seven children, only one of which attended high school. Most of the others made it through eighth grade, which was a one-room schoolhouse at the time.

My grandfather borrowed a mule and wagon from a local farmer. Every morning he hitched them together and rode out along dirt roads to a hunk of land that he leased. There he grew corn and beans, staples of the family’s diet all year long. As they became more prosperous, my grandparents bought a house on a hill overlooking the Ohio River. That is the home that I knew, the place where we would come annually for a visit.

It was not a fancy house. Out back was a pit toilet that I despised. Not only did it smell atrocious, but it contained numerous spider webs dangling from the roof and swarms of flies buzzing around the “seat”. Heat was from a coal-burning stove that took up a sizable chunk of the front room. The roaring flames terrified me. When the door was opened to shovel in more fuel, I thought for sure that I was looking into the depths of hell.

My grandmother cooked on a wood-burning stove. How she created such marvelous meals with such primitive tools, I never knew. Even as a child I recognized that her task was not an easy one. On top of that, she set aside fruits and vegetables grown in her garden for consumption later on in the year. This was the time of year that we came for a visit: so that my mother could help with the grueling task of canning all that my grandparents had harvested. I did not have to help except for the shucking of corn and the snapping of beans, thank goodness, but I was expected to stay in the boiling hot kitchen until the task was complete.

The outcome was shelves full of glistening jars of a variety of tasty treats. No matter when we came to visit, there was always a something special to be opened and food to be shared.

            At home my mother carried on the tradition. Out in the backyard was my mother’s garden. She grew tomatoes, strawberries, corn, green beans and many other vegetables. A neighbor had fruit trees, and so we picked apples, peaches and pears from her yard. It all meant work. Almost every day throughout spring, summer and fall there was something to be canned. As a young child, just as at my grandmother’s, I participated minimally, but when I became a teenager, my mother expected me to stand at her side and work as an equal. I hated it.

            The work was hard. It meant endless hours of standing, peeling, pinching, pulling, plucking. My fingers ached. My feet and back complained. Perspiration streamed down my face and neck. There was endless washing of jars and sorting of lids. Standing over a hot stove, stirring whatever the product was at that time. Eventually it was poured into jars and the lids screwed on.

            The next step was the most challenging. The jars were gently placed into a pot of boiling water. Then we waited for the water to return to a boil and for the sealing to take place. There could be no talking, no music, no noise of any kind. One by one the lids would “pop”, signaling that the seal was complete. If six jars went into the pot, then we waited for six “pops”. Sometimes there were only five or four. Then my mom had to test each jar until she found the ones that refused to seal. Back into the pot they went, this time with new lids. The entire process lasted not just for hours, but for days, until every last piece of fruit was canned. Every day was the same: working, stirring, waiting for water to boil.

            I grew up thinking that this was a woman’s duty, albeit a tedious one. The rewards were obvious. As fall turned into winter and the snows fell turning the world into a crystal palace, all we had to do was walk into the garage and bring in a jar of treasure. Summer would blossom forth once again as sweet strawberry jam covered out toast or tasty green beans filled out plates. My mother’s efforts were welcomed and appreciated.

            When I became a stay-at-home mom, I accepted that the tradition was now mine to embrace. I decided to can so that we would have jams and fruits all year long, just as I had from my childhood. I got out a cookbook and found the directions for canning.  I went through all the preparation steps as carefully as I could. Each piece of fruit was peeled and cut. If I was making jam, then the fruit went into a giant kettle for cooking. I stood over the pot, stirring continuously to keep it from burning. When the pectin thickened the mixture, it was poured into jars. Lids were carefully applied.

            The jars went into the pot of boiling water. And I waited. And waited. Sometimes I would hear a pop, but most times I didn’t. I re-boiled the errant jars. And waited and waited. Some days it felt as if all I was doing was waiting for the water to boil.

            While I did not can as much food as my mother or grandmother, I did put aside applesauce, strawberry jam, pickles, tomatoes, peaches, and apricots. The problem was that I didn’t trust the safety of my work. What if the water wasn’t hot enough? What if I had become distracted by a good book and didn’t hear enough pops?

            All that waiting for water to boil, for what? Uncertain products and the possibility of poisoning my family. Nevertheless, I canned for several seasons in a row. At no point did I feel that my results were as good as those of my grandmother or mother. Nothing reminded me of home and nothing seemed worth the effort.

            Fortunately for me, my husband did not expect me to can. He realized that I was a better mother than a cook. On top of that, it was so much easier to blanch vegetables and then put them in the freezer. It required much less work, was safer all around. And no waiting for water to boil was involved.

A Halloween Memory

Posted on by
Reply

            The only part of Halloween that I ever liked was the endless pursuit of free candy. From the time my brother and I were in middle school, we roamed miles from home. We walked on streets whose names I never knew, knocking on the doors of anyone with lights still on. It took us hours, and at times our pillow case sacks were heavy that we had no option but to go home, empty them out, then head out again.

            I hated wearing costumes. Perhaps because I wore glasses, masks blocked my sight. I detested makeup and most of all, despised trying to come up with something to wear that could become a costume. My fallback was that of a hobo as all I had to do to play the part was put on my well-worn overalls.

            When I was thirteen my middle school decided that for Halloween, all students had to dress in costume. I immediately panicked. It was bad enough to traverse my neighborhood under cover of darkness, but now I would have to parade about campus under the horrific glare of fluorescent lights.

            I stewed over this for days.

I was a painfully shy, the girl who never raised her hand to ask or answer questions in class. I slithered down in my desk seat, my nose skimming the top of my desk, believing that if I couldn’t see the teacher, she couldn’t see me.

Dressing up at school had the potential to sink me even lower on the social scale, especially if I appeared in an unpopular or outmoded costume.

            When the day arrived, the only thing I could come up with was my mother’s WAC (Women’s Army Corp) uniform from World War II. It fit a bit snug, but I figured I could tolerate anything for the length of the festivities.

            In the morning I squeezed into the uniform, then trudged off to the bus stop. I was used to belittling looks, so the shrugs and smirks had little impact.

However, what seemed like a good idea in the morning, quickly became a terrifying experience at school.

            My teacher, thrilled to see the old uniform, made me stand in front of the class and share my mother’s story. Unfortunately, I knew little about her service.

I pronounced that she enlisted because her family was poor, a fact. That she chose the WACs because her older brother was in the Army, also true. I did know, only because of the few black-and-white photos she shared, that she was stationed in Florida where she learned to work on trucks.

            I figured that when my time was done, I could slink back into my desk. Not so. To make matters worse, my teacher sent me up and down the hall, into every single classroom, upstairs and down.

I was so terrified that I squeaked out only a few words, and wouldn’t have even got them out if it weren’t for the prompting of every teacher.

As the day progressed, the uniform seemed to get tighter and the heavy wool brought out as much sweat as a humid summer day. Perspiration pooled under my arms and down my face. It soaked the collar and the waistband of the skirt.

When lunch came, I was allowed to change clothes.

            It was such a horrible experience that I did not go out trick-or-treating that night and for several years after.

A Fresh Idea

Posted on by
1

            When it comes to getting my hair done, I’m an avowed cheapskate. As far back as I can remember, my hairdos were monitored and maintained by my mom. She cut it, permed it and styled it, all using home care products that were unpredictable at best. I learned my cheapness from her.

            My hair hung well below my hips until I was nine. At that point, after tiring of my cries of pain, my mom decided to cut my hair. We walked to a bus stop, then rode from Beavercreek, a country suburb, into Dayton, Ohio. There, at a shop, I got my first professional cut and perm.

            I loved the feeling when someone else shampooed my hair and ran a comb through it. I was entranced by the parting and snipping that shortened my hair to shoulder–length. I hated the perm. Long rods were wound into my hair, rods which were attached to an electrified pole. The smell of the chemicals cooking sickened me.

I hated my curly hair, but my mom loved it.

            My dad didn’t just hate it, he stated that only whores had hair like min. His words were so hurtful that it was a long, long time before I allowed my mom to get my hair cut again.

            After college it became popular to have an Afro style hairdo. The perm chemicals had improved so they didn’t burn as much, but the smell lingered for days.

I loved the finished product. My hair was only a few inches long. It easy to take care of, requiring only a good combing. The one downfall was that my hair did not take to the perm naturally, and so I had to have second and third dousings in order to get the tightly wound curls that the style incorporated.

            When I met my husband, I had stopped getting perms and let my hair grow out a tad. The problem was that my hair is naturally straight and lifeless. But it was easy to care for.

Shortly after our marriage, I decided to go back to the tight curls, mostly because I didn’t have time to wind my hair into curlers every night and sleeping on them was nearly impossible. As a working woman, I needed to be awake and alert at work.

            We had little money back then, and so when I discovered there was a beauty school in our downtown, it became my go-to for all things hair. I found that one of the greatest the joys of going to the beauty college was that I could get my hair cut for free. Yes, it took a long time. Often hours. Because I chose to go upstairs where all the novices were, every step along the way had to be approved by a supervisor. But it was free! And unfortunately inconsistent.

            After months of this, I decided to stay on the ground floor, where the skills of the students were much better. It still required hours and I had to pay a minimum fee; I think five dollars. Quality varied, and so I had to be flexible in terms of the final product. Sometimes I really liked what they did, most of the time it was tolerable, and sometimes it was downright awful.

            I decided to move over to the south side of the main floor where the operators were nearing graduation. My care was still monitored, but not as closely. I was still getting perms, but only enough to put some life in my normally straight hair. The good thing was that my hair was getting done regularly for a minimal charge.

            After I went back to work and was making a little more money, I found a local shop that only charged eight dollars. It was located in a poorer part of town, in an old house not too far from my school. No appointments were needed, but by that time I had given up on perms, so all I needed was a trim.

            Because of how cheap it was and how close to my place of work, I went there for years. Unfortunately, the quality varied. Sometimes I got a cut that pleased me. But more and more often the operator cut my hair too short, making me look more male than female. Or it was butchered, long in spots, barely showing in others.

            I switched to a shop not too far from home that was run by sisters. The first one I met did an excellent job and she only charged twenty dollars. I returned over and over until I got her sister. She cut my hair the way she wanted it, way too short, almost masculine. It was uneven to the point that when I got home I’d have to do my own trim.

            My stepmom used a salon within walking distance of my home. She only saw one stylist, so I made an appointment with her. I should have known better. My stepmom’s hair was bleached to the point that it looked like straw. In fact, all the time she was with my dad, I wondered if maybe she was wearing a really cheap wig.

            The first few times this stylist cut my hair, she did a pretty good job. But then she decided to do things her way. Once again I ended up with a masculine cut.

            Things changed when my sister-in-law treated me to a cut at a salon out near her home. She had won a Raffle ticket for a free cut and style from an operator that she never sees. Without knowing what they normally charge, I assumed it was in the thirty-dollar range. While she did a great job with the cut, the stylist insisted on fluffing my hair out into a bouncy, plastered helmet. The good news was that I’d never have to go back as it was a good forty-minute drive from home.

Despite my helmet-hair, I discovered two important things: you get what you pay for and there is a difference between a cut and a style. I fell in love with style. Not that my “do” is fancy, because it isn’t. What I liked was having my hair cut evenly, the finished product a blend all the way around.

Despite the long drive, I contemplated returning to that shop. Until I attended a birthday party for a wonderful man that I had known for years. I sat next to his son during lunch, where I learned that his wife was a stylist in a nearby town. The next time I needed a cut, I went to her. I loved the result. I have returned over and over and will continue to go to her as long as she is local.

Now my cuts cost big dollars. It pains me to pay so much, as the cheapskate part of me is still there, but I love the end result. It is well worth it to pay more if, when you walk out of the shop, you feel pleased.

The Invitation

Posted on by
Reply

            I was not a popular kid. I never received a single card on Valentine’s Day even though we were supposed to give one to every classmate. I attended no birthday parties and was never invited over on a play date.

            I don’t blame the other kids. I was a deeply unhappy, troubled girl who couldn’t hide those feelings. My face was in a perpetual frown. My lips were thin white lines. My eyes fought to restrain the tears that poured seemingly on their own accord. I never smiled, laughed or even when on the playground, ran about as joyfully as others.

            At that time, I would have been labelled a sad-sack. I was Grumpy the Dwarf from Cinderella.  I was the cartoon character who went about with storm clouds overhead. I was Eeyore.

            Later when I became a teacher, I understood how my own teachers had failed me. In today’s world a miserable student like myself would have been referred to a school nurse or the psychologist or even Child Protective Services. The stories I could have told would most likely have landed me in a foster home. But that never happened.

            Instead, I moped my way through school, the kid no one invited to anything.

            Until one day in fourth grade a girl handed me a pretty card. She watched with bright eyes as I opened it and read. She wanted me to come to her house for a sleepover!

            I didn’t want to go but my mother insisted. She took me to the store to buy new underwear and pajamas, toothbrush and toothpaste. She made me call the girl and tell her I was coming, get the details as to what time to arrive and what time my mother was to pick me up the next day.

            As time drew near, I became increasingly anxious. I’d never slept anywhere but home. I was terrified about the logistics: where would I sleep, would I have to brush my teeth in front of others and what would happen when I had to go to the bathroom.

            I feigned illness when it was time to leave. My mother made me go.

            To my surprise there were four other girls there. None of them were friends as I had none, but all were in my class. I knew their names, but had never spoken to them.

            We gathered in the girl’s bedroom, clustered on her twin bed. Because I was the last, I got the foot of the bed. I barely fit.

            I don’t remember much about what happened that night, except for the magazine. The girl brought out one of her mother’s magazines. The girls passed around the magazine, taking turns ogling the models and the fashions. All went fairly well until they decided to read the stories.

            The only one I remember was a test to see if you were a lesbian. I didn’t know the term, so had no idea what it meant. As they took turns reading the “signs”, I realized that I fell into that category.

            I had no interest in boys (although, truth be told, I had none in girls either). I was a tomboy with muscles instead of a girly figure. And, worst of all, dark hair on my arms and legs.

            The girls began teasing me, calling me names and scooting as far away from me as possible. Although no one pushed me off the bed, I somehow ended up on the floor.

            The teasing was so bad, so insistent and so cruel that I ran downstairs and told the mother that I was ill and needed to go home. She must have called my mother.

            While I feared my mother and really didn’t like being with her, when her car pulled into that driveway, I was very happy to leave.

            Looking back, I wonder if the girls hadn’t set me up. If they hadn’t planned on taunting me. If that hadn’t been the only reason that they had invited me.

            After the disastrous party, the girls returned to treating me the way they had before. They never spoke to me, played with me, invited me to parties.

            That one invitation could have opened doors for me. Instead, it solidified my place in elementary school society. How sad!

Stepping Out

Posted on by
Reply

            When I transferred to the University of Southern California at the end of my freshman year of college, I had no idea what to expect. I had visited no college campuses during my last year of high school, had never seen a residence hall (we called them dorms in the 1970s), and had chosen a major in math just because I found it easy.

            USC was not my first choice. I really wanted to go to Ohio State and live with my grandmother. I didn’t know if her neighborhood was safe, how far she lived from the campus and whether or not public transportation could get me there. My primary purpose was to escape my dysfunctional family. Going to Ohio was about as far away from California as I thought my parents would let me go. Plus, I figured, living with Grandma would give my parents peace of mind.

            They refused.

            Thanks to a full scholarship from the State of California, I could attend any college in the state, tuition-free. I wanted San Francisco State College because they had an excellent teacher-preparation program. I had always dreamed of being a teacher as the classroom was the one safe place where I wouldn’t be hit, spanked, or ridiculed. Teaching, was to me, an honored profession, something to aspire to.

My parents thought differently. They believed that I didn’t have it in me to teach. Intellectually, socially, psychologically. Considering had backwards I was back then, they were right. So, once again, my parents refused. The excuse they gave was that they didn’t want me living on campus and they were terrified of public transportation Their fears made no sense to me.

            My brother also received the state scholarship. He applied to and was accepted to USC as an Engineering major. Because my brother would be there, that was the only college my parents would allow me to attend.

            When September rolled around, my parents drove us down to Los Angeles. My first glimpse of USC was of towering, impressive-looking buildings. Everything was huge. So huge that I saw myself drowning. But I nodded, telling myself that I wouldn’t let that happen.

            After unloading my brother’s stuff at his dorm, I was taken to mine. My room was on the fourth floor, with a great view of what I learned was called the quad.

I wasn’t dismayed by the tiny size of the room as I had been sharing a comparably-sized room with my sister for most of my life.

There were things about it that I liked: the closet was the right width for my limited wardrobe. The bed looked like a couch until it was pulled out from the wall. It was comfortable enough, but then I was only eighteen and so thought anything that wasn’t a floor was okay.

I had a desk and shelves. Wall space to decorate. And more drawers than I’d ever had.

Everything about my new living situation pleased me except for the trek required to get to the communal bathroom. Sharing a bathroom for private affairs was a bit of a shock. But I was okay because it wasn’t home.

My roommate was a haughty, unfriendly rich girl. Her mother arrived every week with a rack of brand-new clothes with tags on and wrapped in plastic bags. A hair dresser appeared like clockwork every few weeks and cut her hair in our room! I couldn’t imagine such wealth until I’d come face-to-face with it.

Shortly after classes began, my brother decided to pledge a fraternity. I seriously doubt that he knew any more about fraternities than I did about sororities. We knew no one who had gone to college and so had no experience with pledging and all that entailed. I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I figured that if he could do it, so could I.

He got accepted into the house that later I learned was for nerds. It wasn’t his first choice. He’d yearned to be at the jock house even though he wasn’t a jock. The only fraternity that accepted my brother was the one for the smart, geeky guys that couldn’t get in anywhere else. Despite the disappointment, my brother grew to love it. For the first time in his life, he was surrounded with nonathletes whose academic goals were lofty.

Next door was a beautiful southern-style building that was home to a sorority affiliated with my brother’s fraternity. They called themselves Little Sisters.

I convinced a rather plain looking girl whom I had befriended in the dorm to go through rush with me. We spent many dinners at that sorority, hoping to be accepted. Looking back now, I bet the sisters laughed at my wide-open eyes each time I sat to eat.

It was my first experience sitting at an exquisite dinner table with rows of utensils on both sides of the plate. Tablecloth and stark white linen napkins. Getting gussied up for a meal. Surrounded by pleasant conversation swirling about. It must have shown, yet they invited me back, time after time.

I was overwhelmed each time. There was no arguing, no belittling, no being punched or kicked or smacked.

I badly wanted to be there, to be one with this wonderful group of young women. My friend was eventually dropped. I understood, even though it made me angry. Her face was covered by acne scars, so many that her skin was permanently dimpled. Her voice was nasally and her wardrobe was as inferior as mine. She was hurt when she was asked not to return. Even so, she encouraged me to continue to try to be accepted.

As time passed, in order to prove my worthiness, I had to participate in a series of activities. The first was a fashion show for a group of women donors. We had to wear our own clothes.

That’s when I noticed how badly I fit in.

The others had designer outfits. Tailored dresses for all occasions. Perfectly cut pants with matching blazers. Scarves and expensive-looking jewelry. Casual clothes that spoke of money.

Only my underwear came from a store: my mother had made every dress, skirt and blouse.

Prior to the show we practiced sashaying down a pretend runway. I was awkward to say the least. I blushed at the thought of swaying my hips. I had difficulty breathing just thinking about parading in front of anyone. (I’d never done that at home as my mother thought such behavior was vulgar.)

Two days before the show we had to submit a 3×5 card with detailed descriptions of each of our three outfits. We were supposed to name the designer, the fabric, the trims, the details so as to wow the audience.

What was I to do? Name my mother? The cheap cotton of my dress? The discount fake-lace and ribbon? I tried to “sick” my way out of the show, but was told that it was a condition of my potential acceptance into the house.

The day arrived. I carried over my arm an A-line dress made of white cotton, trimmed with fake gold around the neck, a plaid plain-looking skirt with a matching cotton blouse and the only pantsuit I had, a bright orange cotton, bell-bottom affair that probably glowed in the dark.

Behind the stage we were given racks to hang our clothes. Except for high school PE, I had never changed in front of other girls. As I watched them get dressed in their first outfits, I realized that they were skinny and I was fat. There was no way I’d fit in with these girls!

I picked up my clothes to make a hasty exit, but the house mother blocked my way. I was told that under no terms was I told I had to go out on that stage.

With tears in my eyes, I put on the dress and stood in line. Slowly it inched forward as impeccably dressed girls went before me. When only two girls were before me, I had a clear view of the stage, the walkway and the room. To my eyes, I believed there were at least one hundred richly dressed women in the room.

My turn came. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders and walked out on that stage. As instructed, I stopped next to the emcee. As she read the description of my homemade dress, I felt my cheeks blush and my eyes fill with tears.

I knew by then that I didn’t belong there, that I would never belong and that I was foolish to think that I could. However, I couldn’t runaway, so I took a deep breath and stepped out.

I did not sashay. I did not swirl or twirl or even plant my hands on my hips. I did not stop when I got to the end, but spun around and not-quite dashed to the back of the stage.

I changed into my next outfit, knowing that it only served to show how very poor I was. When my turn came, I stepped out once again. And then did the same for my third outfit.

When the fashion show part of the luncheon ended, we found seats at the tables, surrounded by wealthy women. I don’t remember the meal, but I am willing to bet that I ate nothing. I probably only offered cursory responses if anyone bothered to speak to me. I probably sat there with tears streaming down my face.

On the way back to campus, I berated myself for being so foolish to think that I could be a part of a sorority. My poverty, my poor upbringing, my complete lack of exposure to wealth, meant that if I was invited to join, it would only be because they needed a poor girl as a token representation of their efforts to diversify.

Stepping out on that stage was one of the most difficult things I’d done, but I did it.

Monkey Tale

Posted on by
Reply

This was generated in a writing workshop. Each participant contributed a noun, verb and adjective, for a total of twelve words. The object was to use all twelve in a story. What follows is what I created.

            Once upon a time a pet monkey escaped from its cage when the zookeeper left the key dangling in the lock. The monkey realized that this was its one chance to get away forever. It ran through the streets of the village, ducking behind garbage cans, climbing gutter pipes and leaping from roof to roof.

            When it came to the town square, the monkey discovered a marble statue of an old man. Because of the slitted eyes that seemed to pinpoint on the monkey, he decided that the man was the evil one who had captured it many years ago. The monkey spat on the statue then leaped up on first one arm, then the other. As it swung back and forth, it punched the cold, hard face over and over.

            When the monkey heard the noise of a crowd that had gathered around the statue, the monkey slid down and ran away down one street after another. Eventually the village was left far behind as towering mountains arose all around.

            The monkey found a well-worn path that disappeared into the forest. At first the path was flat and smooth, but soon it began to rise, higher and higher, getting steeper as the monkey walked along. It soon became quite rocky and rutted, but it didn’t bother the monkey because it started swinging from branch to branch, from tree to tree.

            Up and up the monkey went, higher than it had ever gone before.

            Then  a terrible thing happened; an earthquake shook the ground and made the trees sway back and forth. Right before the monkey a huge crevice appeared, so wide that it feared that it wouldn’t be able to swing across.

            Fortunately a woman walked out of the forest right when the monkey needed help the most. She was scantily clad, wearing nothing more than a fur-lined cape over her shoulders. The monkey thought little about clothes as it had never worn anything at all.

            The woman offered to help the monkey cross the crevice. She cradled the monkey in her arms, then with a few whispered words in a language the monkey didn’t know, the two of them rose into the air, a misty cloud under the woman’s feet.

             Up and up they went, floating like a cloud. Soon they were on the other side of the crevice. The woman asked it the monkey wanted to keep flying, and when it said yes, they headed uphill.

            With the village far behind and no villagers able to capture the monkey, it screeched and called with joy.

Wished-for Treasure

Posted on by
Reply

            My family didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up. We always had a clean place to live, even if it wasn’t in the best of neighborhoods. We always had a car, although never a new one. My mom was a frugal cook, so there was food on the table and while you might feel a bit hungry, you never starved.

            When we got our first television when I was twelve, I was exposed to commercials for the first time. That’s when I became aware of all that I was missing. There were dolls and soldiers, board games and sports equipment. Sweets of all kinds and varieties of cold cereals that made my mouth water just dreaming about that first bite.

            We watched about an hour of television a day, but it was enough for me to notice what people wore and didn’t wear. They didn’t dress like me in hand-me-down threadbare clothes. They didn’t wear conservative clothes that covered a body from head to foot.

            When a commercial came on for a Barbie doll, I salivated. Oh, how I wanted one! The girl across the street who sometimes played with me had one. It was so beautiful! So fashionable! So desirable!

            One time when we were going to the local five-and-dime, I brought my saved allowance. The store sold Barbie dolls! But they were too expensive. There was a cheap replica which I could afford, so I bought that one. I understood that it was a fake, but it looked enough like a Barbie that I could use the patterns for the real thing to make clothes for this one.

            Every afternoon I carried my sewing supplies out to the backyard where there was a shady place along the back fence. I made my doll skirts, blouses, pants and dresses. When I had what could have been considered an ensemble, I worked up the courage to carry it across the street to the girl’s house.

            I was pretty proud of what I had done. She destroyed me when she laughed at my cheap plastic replica.

            When Christmas rolled around a few months later, all I asked for was a real Barbie. I didn’t get one. But my younger sister did. My parents explained, as I wiped away the tears of disappointment that streamed down my cheeks, that I was too old for a doll.

            I didn’t dream of owning anything else again for a long time.

            A television program came on with a doctor in the lead role. It was a good show, one that was popular with not just my parents, but with my peers.

            One time when we went shopping, a “doctor” blouse hung on a rack. Oh, how I wanted one! School had started by now and many of my peers had them. I knew that I had almost enough saved up to buy one for myself. My mom wouldn’t buy it then even though I promised to pay her back when we returned home. Instead she made me wait until the next trip to the store.

            I don’t recall how much time passed between trips, but when we did return to the store, the blouses had been marked down. I was so happy! I finally got my “doctor” blouse.

            Imagine how proud I was to wear it to school! I pictured my peers recognizing that I was finally wearing something that was popular. But, oh, that did not happen. You see, styles had changed. The other girls had moved on to whatever the newest fad was. That’s when I discovered that things on a clearance rack were there for a reason.

            Around that same time my dad learned of a bargain store a good hour’s drive from home. I had little expectations of finding anything there of interest. I was right. There were car and bike tires, car parts, miscellaneous household goods and clothing that a worker would wear, such as overalls and jumpsuits.

            We returned several weeks later. I remember that it had snowed but the roads were clear. Mounds of snow were piled along the sides of roads and along the perimeter of the store’s parking lot. Once again I knew there would be nothing there that I would want.

            Imagine my surprise when just inside the doors of the store was a circular rack holding a variety of white and black “leather” coats. When I touched the sleeve of one, it felt so soft that I found myself salivating at the thought of wearing it.

            When I showed them to my mom, she informed me that they were not made of real leather. They were fakes. I didn’t care. I still wanted one.

            She told me that I’d only get it dirty, that I’d ruin it by spilling something on it and it was be a complete and total waste of money.

            I didn’t care. I still wanted one.

            My mom refused to buy it for me even when I begged. I promised to work jobs around the house to earn enough money to reimburse her if she bought it right then. She refused.

            I cried all the way home.

            I had never had a new coat or one that mirrored what other girls wore. I had seen girls wearing similar coats, so in my mind I pictured myself walking the halls of my high school wearing that jacket, feeling proud as all eyes smiled with appreciation.

            No matter how much I begged or tried to finagle a way to pay for it, my parents refused to take me back to the store.

            Dreams of that coat haunted me. It was all that I cold think of, all I wanted. My hopes for popularity depended upon having that coat. I sensed its power deep inside.

            The next time we went to the store, the coats were still on the same circular rack, but there were none left in my size. I walked about the store with tear-filled eyes.

            Christmas arrived a few weeks later. My gifts were needed, but boring: underwear, socks, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a new comb and other necessities. Nothing frivolous. Nothing fun.

            After all gifts had been unwrapped, my family gathered around the television to watch a Christmas show. I don’t recall what it was because I was heartbroken.

            We ate dinner. Don’t ask me what it was.

            It was time for bed. I changed into my pajamas, brushed my teeth and came out to tell my parents goodnight.

            My parents demanded hugs, which by then I felt too old for. I hated being wrapped in my mother’s arms, but it was even worse being hugged by my dad. He had a way of giving me the creeps.

            This time, when I approached my dad, he pulled a large present out from behind his chair. He said he’d found it in his closet.

            I sat on the floor, wishing upon wish that it was that which I most wanted. I wanted to rip the paper to shreds, but that would have been a sin. Every bow, every piece of ribbon and paper had to be saved for the next Christmas.

            I carefully slid my fingers under the ribbon until it came undone. I rolled the ribbon up into a ball, an expected action that had to happen before moving on. I used a pair of scissors to cut the tape on the paper. When it fell off the plain white box, I folded the paper along its creases.

            The box was taped shut. Once again the scissors broke the tape.

            I slowly removed the lid. Pulled aside the tissue paper.

            It was there! The coat of my dreams was inside that box. I didn’t believe my eyes at first, thinking it was a mirage.

            When reality hit, I pulled the coat out of the box and put it on. It fit over my fat body! I could button it all the way from top to bottom. The sleeves were the right length. It was as soft as I remembered. I was speechless.

            I wore that coat until bedtime. When it was time to take it off, I hung it in my half of the closet.

            Every day I wore that coat, even if we never left the house. I stood taller, held my shoulders squarer and my head higher. I knew that when school began, people would see me for the first time. Instead of being the fat girl who wore hand-me-downs and homemade clothes, I’d be the girl in the white leather (fake leather) coat.

            When school began in January, I wore that coat even though it was well below zero and too cold for a thin jacket. I didn’t care even though I was shivering when the school bus finally arrived.

            I smiled as I climbed the three steps into the bus. I nodded to the students already on board. No one returned my smile.

            At school when I walked the halls, I was still smiling. Not a single student or teacher acknowledged my new coat. As each class ended with no change in my status, I seemed to shrink a little bit more.

            By the time I boarded the bus to go home, my new-found confidence was shattered.

            To make things worse, sometime during the course of the day I had encountered something that left a mark on the sleeve of my coat. My mom was right: I wouldn’t be able to keep it clean.

            I had learned important lessons: don’t ask for things, don’t dream of having things, don’t think that owning something would improve my social status.

Strange Disappearance

Posted on by
1

It’s not as much fun being invisible as I believed it would be.  In my wildest imaginings, I “saw” myself drifting through life, popping in and out of conversations, knowing everything well before everyone else, and loving every minute.  That’s not how it worked out at all.

Let me backtrack for a bit, to explain how this invisibility thing came about.

I was leafing through Weight Watcher’s Magazine, reading low calorie recipes and making plans for the upcoming week, when I spotted an ad for a new product that would make cellulite disappear.  As a walking example of the ugliness of cellulite, my eyes lit up with hope.  Imagine taking a pill three times a day, and within a relatively short period of time, those horrendous lumps would be gone, and I would look like Farah Fawcett!

I whipped out my checkbook, completed the order form, and drove to the nearest post office box.  As I dropped the envelope into the slot, I crossed my fingers and swore that I would faithfully take the pills.

Weeks passed.  Just as I began to think that I had unwittingly sent my hard-earned money to a scam operation, my package arrived.  It was wrapped in generic gray plastic, with no identifying marks on the outside.  Inside, I felt two bottles, about the size and shape of my cholesterol medications.

I dropped the package on my computer desk and went about my normal routine. I changed out of my work clothes and gathered snacks to hold me over until dinner.

Later that evening I remembered the mystery package. I tore through the dense plastic.  Inside I found not the expected medications from my medical provider, but brightly labeled bottles.  Farah herself, with trim legs and skinny tummy, was pictured as an example!

The directions were simple.  Take one pill, three times a day for the first week.  Drink plenty of water and exercise at least 30 minutes a day, three times a week.  The second week, I was supposed to increase the dosage by a pill and increase exercise by another 30 minutes.  The third week, it was three pills a day, three times a day, combined with 30 minutes of exercise five times a week.  I could do this with my eyes closed.

The first week, I felt somewhat lighter.  The scales at the gym showed that I had lost three pounds.  Awesome!

By the end of the second week, I had lost an additional six pounds!  My clothes fit better and there was a nice glow to my cheeks.

At the conclusion of the third week, another six pounds had disappeared!  That made for a total of 15 pounds. All I was doing was taking pills and exercising a bit more than usual.  At this rate, I would be thin and gorgeous in just a few months!

If three pills worked so well, why not take four?  There was nothing in the literature that indicated any dangers in moving beyond the recommended three-pill regimen, so why not give it a try?  If I began feeling weird or noticed any adverse effects, I could always drop back to three.

Oh, the joys of weight loss!  When you’ve been fat your entire life and have tried every diet known to woman and failed at them all, finding success is a truly magnificent feeling.  So it was that I walked about, imagining myself looking svelte in my rapidly shrinking body.

            I dropped another ten pounds.  My clothes no longer fit and so I got to go shopping, my true love.  Any excuse to run off to a store is a good one, but even more so when it meant buying a wardrobe for this brand-new me.  Boy, did I have fun!

If you can get inside my head, I bet you can figure out what I did next.  If four pills worked with no adverse side effects, why not five?  Yep.  I increased it to five pills, three times a day.  I added additional exercise time, bringing it up to 40 minutes, five times a week, just to be sure.

I had more energy than I’ve had in my entire life and I looked hot.  Sexy, even.  My husband oohed and aahed when he saw me in my new clothes.  Heads turned when I sashayed into the office or made my many trips to the water cooler.  Friends made comments about how wonderful I looked.  My heart flew skyward and my eyes glowed with pride.

Not wanting to push my luck, I kept the dosage at the five pills.  I sent away for a refill, intending to keep it up until I reached the recommended weight for someone as height-challenged as myself.

When I was well into the second supply, something strange happened.  I had gone to the mall and picked out some new clothes.  I got in line with all the other shoppers.  I spoke to the woman in front of me, commenting on the beautiful blouse in her hand.  She didn’t even turn a shoulder.  I shrugged it off, thinking maybe she didn’t speak to total strangers, even nice ones like myself.

When I moved to the front of the line, I sensed an eerie presence, as if someone else had stepped into my body.  It’s hard to describe that feeling.  It was as if I could touch this person, yet not, at the same time.  My skin tingled, as if a slight breeze blew the hairs on my arm, but there was no breeze.

After a customer left the register, I stepped forward.  The “presence” came with me.  The clerk did not look at me, but at something slightly to my right.  She addressed the “presence,” and accepted her goods.  She also took mine, which gave me a really spooky feeling.  The “presence” protested that my clothes were not hers, and with no further ado, they were hidden under the counter.

The clerk rang up the other’s purchase, and then called for the next customer to step forward.

I could not comprehend what had just happened!    I felt violated, as if I wasn’t worth her time or attention.  Swearing that I would never shop at this store again, I stomped out.

Similar experiences occurred at other stores.  Clerks ignored me, time and time again.

It was not until I passed a reflective glass window that I discovered that something was wrong.  Why did I not appear in the glass, while the man next to me was clearly visible?  I stood there for quite a while witnessing over and over again, that I was missing from the picture of shoppers.

I was invisible.  To test my theory, I went into a clothing store, took a blouse off the rack and went into the dressing room, unchallenged by the woman at the check-in counter.  Once I had closed the door of my cubicle, I looked in the mirror.  There was my blouse, floating strangely in the air, but no me.  Not one finger or leg or hair.

Well, this presented a whole new situation.  Think of the things that I could do!  The perverse situations that I could observe and private conversations that I could overhear.  Charged with a new sense of purpose, I flew out of the dressing room, ready to put my theory to a test.  

I saw two women over in the lingerie section, deep in conversation.  Emboldened, I walked right up to them and stood, nearly touching one woman’s back.  Neither of them noticed me, nor did their conversation alter in any way.  I listened to juicy gossip about someone named Tadzi who had gotten his so-called girlfriend pregnant and then dumped her, and about Precia, who drooled every time the boss leaned over her desk and batted his eyes at her. 

Not only did they not see me, they didn’t hear me when I added commentary to the discussion.  That was a bit disturbing.  How could I make my wishes be known if I couldn’t be heard?  Oh, dear.

A bit saddened, I left the mall, found my car, and drove home.  I drove faster than allowed, daring the police to pull me over.  I yearned to see the officer’s face when he looked inside the car and so no one.  Unfortunately, the local police must have been hanging out at the coffee shop, sipping lattes and eating macaroons.

At home, I hurried to my bedroom and stood in front of my mirror.  Nothing, just like at the store.  By now, the novelty had worn off.  It was one thing to imagine invisibility, but another to be so.  What’s the point of shedding pounds and pounds of cellulite, if no one could appreciate the loss?

I was so depressed that I pigged out on chocolate candies, tortilla chips and butter pecan ice cream.  Bring back the pounds!  Put those ugly lumps back in my thighs!  Let me be seen!

My husband came home shortly after I finished the ice cream.  He called my name, like he always did.  When he got no response, I watched in dismay as he walked right past me, without even a glance, and down the hall to change clothes.  He reappeared shortly, dressed in shorts and t-shirt, and went into the kitchen to fix a drink.  He turned on the television, and got comfy in his recliner.

When I did not “arrive” home, he fixed a dinner of leftovers, and ate alone.  He seemed so sad and so much older.  I had never before noticed the bald spot on the top of his head or the bulge of his stomach hanging over the waistband of his shorts.   I had never taken the time to see how much he loved having me home and how terribly lonely he was when I was gone.

All those conferences, all those late night meetings, all those day-long shopping trips suddenly seemed so trivial compared to the relationship with my husband.  When had my priorities changed?  When had “I” come first, and “we” had dropped off the planet?

Embarrassed and humiliated, I threw the remaining pills away. 

If I could become invisible in a few short weeks, how long would it take to become visible?

My nights and days were lonely.  I cried as I watched my husband climb into bed alone and cradle my pillow to his face.  Night after night, he sobbed.  Not silent cries, but huge, bed-shaking sobs.  I wanted so badly to touch him, to hold him tight, but my fingers lacked substance.  All I could do was get as close to him as possible, and drape my misty arm over his shaking body.

There was no point in going to work.  I did try that first day after I discovered my changed state, but no one saw me.  People walked by my “empty” desk, and commented on my unexplained absence.  When my phone rang, the secretary answered before I could pick up the receiver and told my clients that I had not come in.

I left at brunch and did not go back.  I stayed safely inside my house as if I were agoraphobic.  With no job to go to, I cleaned out closets and played computer games.   I put photos in albums and sorted through papers that I had kept for one reason or another. 

I was careful about what I did, however, for fear of frightening my husband.  I left no evidence of my activities where he could find them.  Each day when it neared time for him to come home, I packed everything away as if I had not been there.  Which, in his view, I had not.

He made a lot of phone calls.  He went through our personal phone book and contacted everyone in it.  He reported my absence to the police, who politely told him that they would not look for me until forty-eight hours had passed.  When they did finally come to investigate, they found no evidence of foul play. 

Days went by, with little or no change in my condition.  By now, I was horribly depressed, and spent more and more time simply sitting and chastising myself for never being happy being me.  And eating.  I ate as if I was a starving child placed in front of a never-ending buffet.

After four weeks of this tortuous existence, I awoke one morning with a strange tingling in my left leg.  When I looked down, there was a lump under the covers the shape of a leg and foot.  Yes!  I jumped out of bed, ran to the mirror, and gaped.  There was a leg.  Attached to nothing, but it was there, in the flesh, so to speak.

That day was a day of miracles.  Every hour, I ran down the hall and stood in front of the mirror.  Body parts slowly became visible.  The other leg appeared next, followed by my left hand and arm.  Then the right one, my neck, head, and hair.  It took several hours for my stomach to show up, and another several hours for my chest.

I was no longer Farah Fawcett thin, for the ceaseless, depressed munching had added gobs of pounds.   The cellulite was back in all its glory.  The “love” handles jiggled pleasantly when I moved and the double chins reminded me of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, my favorite.

My imperfect self was gloriously beautiful.  Feeling full of life, full of air, full of joy, I skipped throughout the house.  I went out in the backyard and danced, with arms upraised and tear-filled eyes taking in the blue sky and feather-like clouds.  I sang and sang some more, enjoying the halleluiah tunes that bounced off the trees.  I was back, I was back, praise the Lord, I was back!

Suddenly my joy turned my stomach a flu-like sour.  How would I explain my absence to my husband?  If I concocted a story about a kidnapping and escape, he would expect me to report it to the police and identify the men who had taken me away.  I’m a lousy liar.  Always have been.  When I lie, my cheeks turn red and I fidget and fuss and make stupid sounds that resemble a pig grunting while giving birth to a litter of hundreds of squirming piglets.

Not knowing what else to do, I went to my computer and researched reappearances of missing persons.  The only story that seemed plausible had to do with a blow to the head that caused a concussion and resulting amnesia.  I could do that, for I had experienced two different concussions. I knew the symptoms well:  dizziness, disorientation, numbness, difficulty speaking, and uncontrolled shaking. All I had to do was act a bit ditzier than normal.  Shouldn’t be too hard, right?

Where to wait?  Should I sit at the computer?  He wouldn’t find that abnormal at all.  Should I fix dinner?  No.  He’d see through that right away, for I never cooked a thing.  Fix him a drink?  Wouldn’t do, for he knows how I feel about alcohol.  The computer, then.  I’d play solitaire until he came home.

I planted myself in front of the computer and whenever I heard a vehicle pull into our courtyard, I began a new game.  Right as the cuckoo clock struck five, my husband pulled into the driveway.  I heard his door open and shut, watched out the window as he walked toward the front door.  I smiled as he stopped and smelled one of my favorite roses, inhaling deep as if trying to remember his long-gone wife.

The key entered the lock and the front door opened.  The door closed and like always, he latched it closed.  He’d lectured me more than once about my cavalier attitude about doors.  He feared an invasion and the damage that a burglar might do to his home, his material goods, and especially to his wife.

He dropped his keys on the file cabinet near the door and then stepped around the computer desk.  That’s when he saw me.

Shock clearly registered on his face.  I watched in fascinated horror as my husband slipped through a range of emotional states.  Surprise, disbelief, terror, and even embarrassment, as if I had caught him doing something unthinkable, all passed, one after another.  He settled on elation.

Like a little boy who had lost his mother and then been found, he scuttled over to me and pulled me from my chair.  His long arms wrapped around my chest, encasing me in the tightest embrace that I had felt since our romantic days of young love.  His head fell on my shoulder, and he cried. 

“I thought I had lost you.  I thought you didn’t love me anymore.  You’re back!”

“I will always love you,” I said.

Those words triggered an unexpected reaction.  As if a nest of wasps had stung him, my husband pushed me away and took several steps backward.  “Where have you been?” he shouted.    “You never wrote or called.  I looked everywhere.  I called your friends and not a one knew where you were.”

“I don’t know where I was,” I answered in the best “confused” sounding tone that I could muster.  “I remember driving home.  I recall cleaning out the closet in the guest room.  I don’t know why, though.  I remember bringing in the step stool so as to reach things on the top shelf.  There were some old computer games up there that I never played anymore. 

After that, I have no memory, until today, when I found myself in the backyard where the sun was shining and the sky was blue.  It was if I had been born again.  Like I had been lost and then found, like in the song.  So I came inside and walked around, touching everything.  And then sat here to wait for you.”

I waited anxiously for his reaction.  Would he accept such a cockamamie explanation as fact?  Would he welcome me back without further ado?  Most importantly, could our relationship heal?

The answer is yes, yes, and yes.  He had found the step stool in the bedroom and had put it away.  The computer games were in a box on one of the beds.  He put them there, thinking that I was going to play them.  So, he believed every word of my lie.

That night we reveled in each other’s presence, like newlyweds.  Even though all we did was watch television, eat popcorn and go to bed after the weather report finished, it was the best night of our marriage.  We had each other, with all our imperfections, and that’s all we needed.

So, did I ever go on another diet?  Sure.  What woman doesn’t dream of a better-looking body?  My diets, however, were with sanctioned, medically approved plans.  No more strange pills for me.  I was done with that phase of my life.  If I never lost another pound, I didn’t really care, as long as I had my husband.

And my job?  Well, I did lose it.  When I supposedly failed to return to work, the agency hired a replacement.   That’s what my friend Sally told me.

I did find a new job fairly quickly.  The local school district needed an aide to work with special needs children.  My salary was one third of what I made in my high-powered previous position, but my satisfaction level was off the roof.

These kids were normally the invisible ones on campus.  They looked a little different, acted kind of weird, and couldn’t carry on a real conversation.  High school students don’t like to be seen with odd-looking characters, for at that age, you are whom you are with.

With time, I helped my students make friends.  With time, they lost their invisibility. With time, they became some of the most popular kids.

Being invisible is traumatic.  It hurts the heart more surely than a bullet or a knife, for from those injuries one can heal.  Invisibility only goes away when another person discovers the true person buried under the cloak.

I had been lost, and now I was found, and found I would stay.

Opening My Eyes

Posted on by
1

When you have very little, even the smallest thing can change your life. It often doesn’t matter what it is, it’s the ownership that allows us to see ourselves in a different light.

For most of my growing up years living with my family I felt inferior to my siblings. My brother Bill, who was a little more that a year older, seemed to bask in my mother’s attention. I understood that my father didn’t often see the good in my brother, no matter how hard he tried to gain approval.

My dad was a natural athlete: my brother was not. Bill signed up for Little League. He wasn’t good enough to get on a team. My dad was so angry that he lashed out at league officials, but no matter how obnoxious my dad was, Bill didn’t get placed on a team. My dad found out that he could pick up all the boys (yes, only boys could play back then!) that had been rejected and set up practice times with them.

My dad got busy, spending night after night making calls. When he had called every boy and got enough to make a team, practices began. I was allowed to tag along. Every time a ball went wild, it was my responsibility to retrieve it. Because theses boys had terrible skills, I spent almost the entire practice time, day after day, wading through thigh-high weeds gathering all the stray balls.

 I ended up with a such a severe case of poison ivy that I couldn’t bend my legs without being in pain. It did not deter me.

After weeks of practice, my dad arranged preseason games with organized, uniformed teams. His boys did not lose every game. When they did lose, it was not by the huge margin that the other coaches expected.

My brother was not the best player nor the worst, but he had an unusual style for running the bases. He never slid, but always arrived bent over with his butt facing the crowd. People snickered. My mom and I laughed.  My dad was embarrassed. He tried to teach my brother how “normal” boys ran the bases, but it didn’t change a thing.

What was important was that my dad took a group of players that no one wanted and made them into something valuable. In fact, two of his players made it onto the all-star team at the end of the season.

About the same time doctor shows were popular on television. Every doctor appeared in the typical “doctor” shirt, a white, short-sleeved button-up the shoulder shirt.

On a shopping trip to the nearest five-and-dime, I saw a display of doctor-shirts on a rack just inside the door. To my surprise, they had one in my size. Something I did not expect due to being quite overweight. It was marked down, but still too expensive, so my mom wouldn’t buy it for me. When my mom registered my dismay, she agreed that I could earn the money to buy one.

I set to work pulling weeds in the vegetable garden, picking blackberries along the border between our house and the woods, which gave me an outbreak of poison ivy, and cleaning my brother’s room which meant picking up dirty underwear off the floor.

As the days passed, I kept my fingers crossed that the shirt would still be there.

When I finally had enough saved, on the next trip into town, I was allowed to accompany my mother. With money safely stored in a little pouch tucked in y shorts pocket, I prayed for the entire thirty-minute trip.

I was so anxious that I could hardly breathe as we opened the doors to the store and walked in. The rack was still there. The shirt in my size was still there, now marked down even more. With joy I pulled it off the rack and carried it through the store, cradled against my chest. I refused to put it in the cart no matter how much my mom insisted.

As soon as I got home, I tried on the shirt. It was perfect! It fit just right. It made me look like the television doctors. It was a tad thin. This was before I started wearing bras, so my nipples showed through.

After washing I hung the shirt in my closet and saved it for special occasions. I took it off it food was involved. When school began several weeks later it was the first thing I wore. Picture me getting out of our car and striding across the playground. See my squared shoulders and confident step. Watch me as I approach classmates, expecting glowing comments about my wonderful shirt.

Now erase all that from your mind. The shirt was so out-of-style that everyone laughed. It was an awakening to me. The shirts were on the clearance rack for a reason: no one wanted them. Add to that my humiliation when I was teased about not wearing a bra.

That was the last time I wore the shirt.

I share the two different stories for an important reason: growing up means not just physical growth. Our bodies change, yes, but so must we change our awareness of ourselves in the world.

My brother might not have been a great baseball player, but later in life he discovered a love of swimming. He enjoyed it so much that he put in a backyard pool so he could swim every day. He taught his daughters how to swim and supported them through lessons and team practices. Like Bill, they were all excellent swimmers. At one time the girls were featured on the cover of a magazine as Olympic potentials. None of them did make it on a Olympic team, but they did swim for their respective colleges.

My shirt did not win me the admiration and acceptance of my peers, but it did teach me that theme-related items have a shelf-life. As a parent I never made the mistake of dressing my kids in no-longer-popular cartoon characters or out-of-favor styled clothing. As a mother I couldn’t afford the latest styles for myself but I could sew something similar.

As a child my clothes were usually hand-me-downs that were often stained. My kids never wore stained or torn clothes. My teenage clothes were sometimes too tight or too long or made from the wrong fabrics or designs. While my kids’ clothes might have come from thrift stores, they dressed like everyone else their age.

We learn a lot of things growing up if we keep our eyes and ears open. Chasing baseballs taught me the element of the game, something I still appreciate today. Watching my dad coach taught me what it takes to teach a sport, something I carried with me when I became a soccer coach.

Listening to my teachers exposed me to the good and bad of education. I admired and respected the teachers who saw me as the awkward, insecure child that I was masking the intelligent capable student who could go on to college and excel. They showed me what good teachers do, skills that I took into my own classrooms.

Throughout my adult life I have tried to keep my eyes open. Each time I experienced something for the first time, I lodged it in my mind, sorted by what worked and what didn’t. Those things that worked, I tried to repeat; the ones that didn’t I put away.

Imagine what kind of world we would have if everyone opened their eyes to what’s happening around them. Imagine the difference it would make in people’s lives.

A Valentine’s Dilemma

Posted on by
Reply

Part Two:

Just as he remembered, there was an old leather trunk in the corner, covered with a layer of dust.  He lovingly rubbed his hand across the top.  He opened the lid, revealing Nightingale’s treasures.

On top was a red velvet shirt with a beaded yoke, a string of yellow flowers attached to a white vine, all hand sown by Nightingale herself.  Next was a tiny pair of beaded moccasins, so small that he couldn’t fit his whole hand inside.  He found a bandolier of china tubes interspersed with blue glass beads and a pair of white buckskin leggings with a fringed tunic.

“This was her weddin’ outfit,” he thought as he held them up to the light. “She sure looked pretty in these.”  He held the tunic to his nose and inhaled, then cradled it to his chest.  For many minutes Grandpa sat on his haunches, rocking with eyes closed, remembering the beautiful girl who stole his heart so many years ago.  “This won’t do,” he chastised himself as he placed the outfit back in the trunk.  He rummaged around some more until he found the item that he had had in mind.  After taking it out, he closed the trunk, locked the door, and went back down the ladder.

About the same time Stan came in, leading Sally by the halter.  “Guess what I saw up on the ridge?”

“A beaver?”

“No.  Guess again,” Stan said as he led Sally into her stall. 

“Little Bear?” Grandpa chuckled at the thought of the creature from lore being spotted at the top of the hill.

“You know better than that,” Stan said. “Give me a real guess.  Something that lives up there, but you seldom see any more.”  Stan pulled off the saddle and the blanket and hung them over a rail.  He picked up a soft cloth and wiped Sally’s damp sides until she glowed.

“You saw a porcupine.”

“That’s it!  How did you guess that?  I haven’t seen one up there since I was a little boy.” Stan brushed Sally, removing the matted hair from her mane and tail.

“Well,” Grandpa drawled, “I was thinking of a porcupine that crossed my path when I was about your age.”

“Another story, Grandpa?”

“Yep.  You keep workin’ and I’ll talk,” he said as he settled onto a three-legged stool just outside the stall.  “Years ago, shortly after I met Nightingale, I wanted to give her something that showed how special she was.  I had little money to spend, so I figured I’d make something.  Now your grandmother always dressed in her traditional clothes.  Somehow it felt right to her.  None of that modern stuff.

“So I rode up on that ridge, just like you did, thinking maybe I’d see a nice piece of wood for carving.  Instead I ran across a dead porcupine.  Looked fresh.  Maybe died of old age, as I didn’t see any wounds anywhere.  Anyway, I got the idea to pull off the quills and make something out of them.  The quills are hollow, you know, so it is easy to lace them together to make a necklace or breastplate.  Plus they can be died different colors by using berries, roots, or mosses. 

“Red was Nightingale’s favorite color, so after getting as many quills as I could, I searched around until I found some nice berries.  I took it all back home, boiled the berries in some hot water, making a nice thick juice.  Then I dropped in about half of the quills.  While they were cooking, I found some rawhide scraps and cut them into very thin strips. 

“Once everything was ready, I prayed to the gods to guide my work.  The Blackfoot believe that the quills have religious powers, so I was extra careful not to offend anyone.  I had some blue glass beads left over from a necklace I made her as a wedding gift, so I used them too.

“Every evening I came out here to the barn and worked while Nightingale took care of the mother.  My fingers were too big and clumsy to make anything real fine, so I concentrated on the larger pieces of quill and the beads with the biggest holes.  It took me nearly two weeks, but when I presented her with a sash for her waist, she smiled so big I thought her cheeks would split.

“So, here it is,” he said as he held it up for Stan to see. “I found it in her chest.”

“Grandpa, that’s beautiful!”

“The colors have faded a bit, but Rose might like it anyway.”

“She’ll love it.  But won’t her father think we’re engaged?”

“Maybe yes to both.  But if you notice, I made a design like antelopes.  Blackfoot warriors place a lot of significance in the antelope.    Because they run fast, the antelope escape capture more times than not.  Curly Bear will remember that and know that this gift isn’t meant to tie Rose to you.”

Stan reverently held the sash up to the light, then ran his fingers along the lines of quills and beads.  “This is perfect.  Rose doesn’t have a sash nearly this nice.”

“Well, let’s go inside.  It’s nigh on to dark.  Soon it will be bedtime.”

Stan closed Sally’s stall door, turned off the light, closed the big barn door, then walked with his grandfather back to the house.  “One question, Grandpa.”

“Sure.”

“If this was Grandmother’s, don’t you want to keep it?”

Grandpa stopped at the top step and turned to face the now dark front lawn. He turned his eyes up to the sky, sighed, and then said, “The materials that went to make that came from the earth.  Yes, it was a special gift.  A way for me to tell my wife that I loved her.  But it holds no power over my memories.  Keeping it in that trunk is of no use to anyone.  If’n you give it to Rose, every time she wears it, Nightingale will smile.  Nope. It’s yours to give.”

Stan laid his right hand on his grandfather’s shoulder. “I don’t know what to say, except thanks.  This will make the best Valentine’s Day gift.  All I need now is a box and red wrapping paper.”

Grandpa nodded. “I just might have some of that upstairs.” With that, he opened the door and led the way inside. “Why don’t you get some studying done while I gather what you need.”

Stan pulled his Government textbook out of his backpack and settled at the wooden desk his grandfather had recently made. The surface was smooth even though it was a bit uneven.

He loved the care that had gone into its construction. In fact, he even knew which tree his grandfather had used. Not too long ago, during a rare windstorm, a walnut tree had blown down. He had helped cut the tree into usable pieces that he had stacked under an overhang on the backside of the barn.

He opened to the chapter on socialism and was just starting to read when his grandfather reappeared, his arms full.

“I found ever’thin’ you need.”

            Stan smiled when he saw the red Christmas paper. Rose would laugh when she saw dancing Santas and skipping reindeer. “That’s perfect. Thanks.”

            “So,” Grandpa said as he got out his pipe. “Happy?”

            Stan nodded. “Once again you solved my dilemma.”

            Grandpa opened the front door and just before he stepped through, he said, “Valentine’s is about love. I’d do anything for you because I love you. You know that, right?”

            “That I do.” Stan moved the paper and ribbon off to the side of the desk. “So what can I get you for Valentine’s?”

            “Every day you gift me with your love.” Grandpa closed the screen door behind him. “That’s all I need.”