"Thus held they funeral for Hector tamer of horses."
The last sentence in my 1922 edition of The Iliad of Homer.
Kind of makes you want to read the whole thing, right?
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Drowning in Downsizing
I'm trying, I really am, to restore some order in my life. The first step is to organize. In the past, even when I would decide to finally get rid of an accumulation of utility bills or old bank statements, I would first put them all in chronological order before disposing of them. I figured that was the least I could do for them after all the time we'd spent together.
I knew it wouldn't be easy to sort through more significant items, for example the ton or so of books that have been in my house throughout the various life stages. We weren't provided the luxury of book-owning when we were children beyond a tattered old Bible, a Webster's dictionary, and an old World War 1 book that had been my father's.
The first books accumulated enmasse were my college texts, and then a number of books from my teaching days. At the time, teachers were gifted with free offerings for their personal collections from book companies hoping to convince the teachers to order their texts. That was the procedure then: each teacher submitted preferred selections of classroom textbooks. A teacher in my department retired to move to Arizona, and offered me free choice of books from her personal library, even handing me the key to her summer camp where her books were stored. I remember carrying out only a dozen or so, because books are heavy and I didn't want to seem greedy, though her hundreds of books were to be donated or discarded anyway.
Naturally, you can't organize books without leafing through them, as I am presently doing with "Recognition of Robert Frost." It was edited by Richard Thornton in honor of Frost's 25th Anniversary, copyright 1937. It has slowed my would-be organizing down to less than a crawl.
In the book is a torn in half sheet of paper with the following poem written in longhand, placed in the book some years later. Discarded, but evidently saved as an afterthought:
The Obverse: Waiting
If reality exists, if all is a sum of parts,
You spend hours, days, months
Waiting for someone to come home,
Endless hours spent thinking, knowing
That your child is gone,
And one brief moment of realizing that he is here.
Years from now, when all the comings and goings
Are in the past, history, deeds and days gone by,
Yes, you have the memory of the joy of his presence,
But also the truth of anxious, empty moments
Of dread, of fear, and the certainty
That separation is forever.
At the end, all is but memories anyway.
"Remember the good times," is the cry,
But how to select one memory over all the others?
And, finally, did not what was dreaded come to be?
Did you not lose first the body and then the spirit
Of what was most precious?
I knew it wouldn't be easy to sort through more significant items, for example the ton or so of books that have been in my house throughout the various life stages. We weren't provided the luxury of book-owning when we were children beyond a tattered old Bible, a Webster's dictionary, and an old World War 1 book that had been my father's.
The first books accumulated enmasse were my college texts, and then a number of books from my teaching days. At the time, teachers were gifted with free offerings for their personal collections from book companies hoping to convince the teachers to order their texts. That was the procedure then: each teacher submitted preferred selections of classroom textbooks. A teacher in my department retired to move to Arizona, and offered me free choice of books from her personal library, even handing me the key to her summer camp where her books were stored. I remember carrying out only a dozen or so, because books are heavy and I didn't want to seem greedy, though her hundreds of books were to be donated or discarded anyway.
Naturally, you can't organize books without leafing through them, as I am presently doing with "Recognition of Robert Frost." It was edited by Richard Thornton in honor of Frost's 25th Anniversary, copyright 1937. It has slowed my would-be organizing down to less than a crawl.
In the book is a torn in half sheet of paper with the following poem written in longhand, placed in the book some years later. Discarded, but evidently saved as an afterthought:
The Obverse: Waiting
If reality exists, if all is a sum of parts,
You spend hours, days, months
Waiting for someone to come home,
Endless hours spent thinking, knowing
That your child is gone,
And one brief moment of realizing that he is here.
Years from now, when all the comings and goings
Are in the past, history, deeds and days gone by,
Yes, you have the memory of the joy of his presence,
But also the truth of anxious, empty moments
Of dread, of fear, and the certainty
That separation is forever.
At the end, all is but memories anyway.
"Remember the good times," is the cry,
But how to select one memory over all the others?
And, finally, did not what was dreaded come to be?
Did you not lose first the body and then the spirit
Of what was most precious?
Friday, August 30, 2013
The Web
This morning a spider was building a web across the handlebars of my exercise bike even as I was sitting on it. I brewed a mixture of Borax and sugar. That seems to work on ants, but spiders--I don't know.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Watch Out for the Eyes
He called across the midway from one booth to a woman across from him and a distance down working another concession, "Yes," he said, "I am one of those people whose eyes change color. They're green, but turn brown like when I'm angry." His voice rising across the midway, he added, "And when I'm really angry, they turn red, blood red." I hope the carnival is long out of town before that happens.
Sorry, Brian,...
....but I think you're being a little bit of a wimp and more than a little self-indulgent. In your interview, you're asked what was the first thing you remember when you woke up after your TKR. You answer that it was the surgeon standing over you telling you all went well, and he's going to go tell your wife. Some of us peons have yet to have a follow-up visit with our surgeon, and won't until 5 months have passed since surgery. And you remark upon your constant, ongoing physical rehabilitation, innocent of the fact that some are strictly limited by financial guidelines. Your doctor, you state, wouldn't let you leave the hospital until you had 90 degrees of bend in your knee. Really? Your surgeon actually tracks that? You say you're able to fight through the pain by reading of the tremendous suffering of true American heroes, and are buoyed up by the knowledge you don't have cancer, or MS or other debilitating disease. You announce that recovery takes strong motivation and that you are very strongly motivated. Does that sound a little like bragging to you? But then, your interview is watched by millions of people who are interested in the experience of and the outcome of your surgery, and who of us can even come close to that milestone?
( And he still uses a cane.) Or, as he most likely calls it, "a stick."
( And he still uses a cane.) Or, as he most likely calls it, "a stick."
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Lost
I like to say that, unlike others I know, I always put things back after I use them. However, I know this can't be completely true because I fed the cat this morning and now I can't find the catfood. It's a bitch when you don't have anyone else to blame.
Bugs ( and arachnids)
I'm sitting on the chair in front of my house recuperating from a rigorous and vigorous 15 minutes on my exercise bike. A spider is building a web on the grill of my car. I haven't driven it yet today, but I drove it yesterday. The spider is intent on making it his own. No wonder they say that bugs will inherit the earth. (Or is it the meek)
Sometimes in the morning when I go out to get the newspaper, I open the front door and walk face first right into a spiderweb laced from the shrub to the outside light. They just can't wait to take over. (I suppose that's why some people choose cremation.)
Sometimes in the morning when I go out to get the newspaper, I open the front door and walk face first right into a spiderweb laced from the shrub to the outside light. They just can't wait to take over. (I suppose that's why some people choose cremation.)
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Finally-- a meal.
Now that I'm home alone, I'm getting ready to enjoy a Hungry Man Select Fried Chicken Dinner. Dave doesn't care for frozen dinners, but I have fond memories of serving them to the kids when Dave worked in Rochester, and I rather like them from time to time. Now if the corn would just stay out of the brownie.....
Fair Enough
I drove over to the Fairgrounds this morning to deposit my entries, very efficiently as it turned out. Then since I'm now able to, I took a little tour around the grounds. The opening is definitely a work in progress, but I suppose as experience dictates they will be mostly ready for opening day tomorrow, half day anyway. Walking around by myself triggered memories of how excited we kids used to be anticipating Fair Time, and how completely incomprehensible and somewhat disturbing it was when my older relatives declined to attend, saying the fair was "the same old thing." Blasphemy to my ears. They were far younger then than I am now, and had probably themselves attended the Fair only a few or several times so I can imagine what their thoughts would be eons later.
I walked under the Grandstand, to the Commercial Building. One of the few exhibits in place is that of Culligan Water. Remember marveling at the working water pipe with no visible connection to source. How many years ago, and was that Culligan, or some other company? The County Clerk office, Frank Merola's, was set up with handouts at the ready, though no staff manned the booth. The fudge booth was partly set up and I noticed the candy jars were empty and scummy looking. I wonder how they clean them. There were some workers hammering away on the far end, and there were ladders, so I didn't go down to that end.
Outside I noticed a great many golf carts zipping around the grounds, with young men driving them, with no apparent focus. Why can't they walk to where they're going; haven't they heard there's an obesity crisis in America? I saw a large tent with 3 signs on it, advertising Giffy's, Blooming Onion, and some pizza outfit. And as I left the grounds, a young guy was posting signs on the fence reading thank you for having attended the Schaghticoke Fair. The sign was torn, but he was putting it up anyway.
So now it's time to go home, break out the old copper boiler fitted with rivets my father used to stop the leaks, load it with ice chipped off the old block of the same, and fill it with sliced tomato and baloney sandwiches. Yum, Fair food!
I walked under the Grandstand, to the Commercial Building. One of the few exhibits in place is that of Culligan Water. Remember marveling at the working water pipe with no visible connection to source. How many years ago, and was that Culligan, or some other company? The County Clerk office, Frank Merola's, was set up with handouts at the ready, though no staff manned the booth. The fudge booth was partly set up and I noticed the candy jars were empty and scummy looking. I wonder how they clean them. There were some workers hammering away on the far end, and there were ladders, so I didn't go down to that end.
Outside I noticed a great many golf carts zipping around the grounds, with young men driving them, with no apparent focus. Why can't they walk to where they're going; haven't they heard there's an obesity crisis in America? I saw a large tent with 3 signs on it, advertising Giffy's, Blooming Onion, and some pizza outfit. And as I left the grounds, a young guy was posting signs on the fence reading thank you for having attended the Schaghticoke Fair. The sign was torn, but he was putting it up anyway.
So now it's time to go home, break out the old copper boiler fitted with rivets my father used to stop the leaks, load it with ice chipped off the old block of the same, and fill it with sliced tomato and baloney sandwiches. Yum, Fair food!
Nanny
My mother's mother, the only grandparent who was alive during my lifetime, died when I was 12 years old. My memory is of her sitting by her kitchen table. In my lifetime, she always used a cane when she walked. At first I remember her out in the yard with her cane. She'd trained her dog, Tiny, to jump over the cane when she extended it, though he never seemed too pleased to be doing so. In the years before I turned 12, she gradually gave up much movement and was pretty much confined to her house, as her health declined, by what was then termed rheumatism. As far as I can remember, she came one time with Helen and Matt to see our house when we moved to the house near the curve outside Valley Falls. Another time, she went in the car to a funeral, probably her brother's son or some other relative of the Hogan family. She always wore her hair pinned up on her head, but on this day, we were there as she was getting ready, and I was surprised to see she had very long, snow-white hair. I thought it looked nice.
When we visited "over home" every 2 weeks, in clement weather, we kids always kissed her goodbye when we left. I remember being really young, and she would do some nursery rhyme, itsy bitsy spider type thing on my leg, and I felt uncomfortable, near stranger as she was. But that's pretty much all I knew about her.
Except, that is, what I overheard. Nanny had lived a hard life, quite typical I suppose for those times. She'd emigrated from Ireland on the heels of the potato famine, married, bore first 5 children, and lost her husband when her then youngest, my mother, was only 9 months old. She would lose her oldest daughter to the influenza outbreak and her oldest son, a teenager, in a fall from a building where he'd had to work to support the family. She remarried, had one more child, and then was widowed again. Each child had to leave school and go to work as soon as they were old enough, as this was before any social services, except the dreaded poor-house.
In the Irish tradition, probably also in other ethnicities, it fell to the oldest daughter to stay home to care for the mother and the rest of the family still at home. In Nanny's tradition, perhaps more universal than just her, the eldest son was expected to go out to work to support the family, and was expected to not marry until after his mother had died. I think my aunt accepted her lot, but my uncle was more frustrated as I understand it. However, both fulfilled this obligation.
Guilt must have played some role in coordinating expectations at home with worldly enticements though. More than once, when some problem or deviation arose, I would hear my aunt confiding to my mother that Nanny, despairing, would tell them that when she died not to bother with a funeral but to just dig a hole and bury her down behind the barn. At the time, my child's mind thought that might be a possibility, and what Nanny wanted. But now I sense that Nanny was realizing that her only possession, her power as a parent, was slipping away, as it inevitably does, and she was trying to salvage as much as possible through the only means left to her.
When we visited "over home" every 2 weeks, in clement weather, we kids always kissed her goodbye when we left. I remember being really young, and she would do some nursery rhyme, itsy bitsy spider type thing on my leg, and I felt uncomfortable, near stranger as she was. But that's pretty much all I knew about her.
Except, that is, what I overheard. Nanny had lived a hard life, quite typical I suppose for those times. She'd emigrated from Ireland on the heels of the potato famine, married, bore first 5 children, and lost her husband when her then youngest, my mother, was only 9 months old. She would lose her oldest daughter to the influenza outbreak and her oldest son, a teenager, in a fall from a building where he'd had to work to support the family. She remarried, had one more child, and then was widowed again. Each child had to leave school and go to work as soon as they were old enough, as this was before any social services, except the dreaded poor-house.
In the Irish tradition, probably also in other ethnicities, it fell to the oldest daughter to stay home to care for the mother and the rest of the family still at home. In Nanny's tradition, perhaps more universal than just her, the eldest son was expected to go out to work to support the family, and was expected to not marry until after his mother had died. I think my aunt accepted her lot, but my uncle was more frustrated as I understand it. However, both fulfilled this obligation.
Guilt must have played some role in coordinating expectations at home with worldly enticements though. More than once, when some problem or deviation arose, I would hear my aunt confiding to my mother that Nanny, despairing, would tell them that when she died not to bother with a funeral but to just dig a hole and bury her down behind the barn. At the time, my child's mind thought that might be a possibility, and what Nanny wanted. But now I sense that Nanny was realizing that her only possession, her power as a parent, was slipping away, as it inevitably does, and she was trying to salvage as much as possible through the only means left to her.
Tell me the difference.
I really wanted to know. My brother was in school, first grade, and I wasn't; neither of course was my younger sister. Each day, or so it seemed to me, my mother would be waiting for his ride to bring him home. "He's early today," she would say, or " He's late." These words were new to me at the time, in those days when we didn't have electricity for a radio, or indeed didn't have anyone to talk to us, except my mother who was busy with unending chores from daybreak to bedtime.
I thought about it for some time, wanting to know, and finally one day asked my mother what was early and what was late. She told me to stop bothering her, she was busy, and maybe worried if this was one of his late days. I certainly don't remember everything, but some events are stuck in my memory forever for no good reason, and this is one of them. I remember feeling hurt, and a little angry, and I'm sure I cried privately, probably under a table that was in the hallway. I'm also sure that my mother had absolutely no knowledge of my reaction. She was way too busy for that. Maybe I remember this because it was the first time that I was, in effect, told to stop talking, but with all certainly it was far from the last.
I thought about it for some time, wanting to know, and finally one day asked my mother what was early and what was late. She told me to stop bothering her, she was busy, and maybe worried if this was one of his late days. I certainly don't remember everything, but some events are stuck in my memory forever for no good reason, and this is one of them. I remember feeling hurt, and a little angry, and I'm sure I cried privately, probably under a table that was in the hallway. I'm also sure that my mother had absolutely no knowledge of my reaction. She was way too busy for that. Maybe I remember this because it was the first time that I was, in effect, told to stop talking, but with all certainly it was far from the last.
Sleepless in Solitude
I had a feeling I wouldn't get to sleep tonight, and it's not because I saw Miley twerking. I'd read about the second arrest in the bludgeoning battering murder of the World War 11 veteran, how he was shoved down in between the seats of his car. I started thinking that awful as it is to have to face death, I really hope I don't die from murder. From the other room the dishwasher clunked, a strange and different sound. Another noise---I think a squirrel ran across the roof. I've seen one several times on the roof when I'm in our driveway. But are squirrels nocturnal?
I'd been watching Jay Leno earlier with guest Jeff Daniels, and the interview was so full of contrived anecdotes that it bored me, so I turned to Craig Ferguson. But he was spending too much time on Secretariat, which also bored me. I've been clearing the last 16 years of collected paperwork out of my house. (The recycling bin now out front is overflowing.) I came across one of those sheets with what looks like abstract markings where you stare for 20 seconds or so at the 2 dots in the middle, and then look at the wall, and the face of Christ appears. I've never understood the mystery or mechanics of that phenomenon, and even more remarkable is how the heck anyone could have come up with that; somebody brilliant, or freaky, or a brilliant freak?
Then I remembered that I hadn't had supper, or lunch for that matter, only those dangblasted cookies, the leftover broken ones, so I am eating the only food left in the house--frozen yogurt with too much syrupy chocolate in it, even though chocolate tends to give me a headache and I might be developing lactose intolerance in my later years.
I have to get up fairly early tomorrow (today) to drive my meager and measly collection of artifacts to the Fair. I entered enough to be comped with a free one-day pass, which right now I'm not sure I'll even use---though I'm very anxious to see David Blaine, but disappointed that the racing pigs won't be there. Or will they?
I'd been watching Jay Leno earlier with guest Jeff Daniels, and the interview was so full of contrived anecdotes that it bored me, so I turned to Craig Ferguson. But he was spending too much time on Secretariat, which also bored me. I've been clearing the last 16 years of collected paperwork out of my house. (The recycling bin now out front is overflowing.) I came across one of those sheets with what looks like abstract markings where you stare for 20 seconds or so at the 2 dots in the middle, and then look at the wall, and the face of Christ appears. I've never understood the mystery or mechanics of that phenomenon, and even more remarkable is how the heck anyone could have come up with that; somebody brilliant, or freaky, or a brilliant freak?
Then I remembered that I hadn't had supper, or lunch for that matter, only those dangblasted cookies, the leftover broken ones, so I am eating the only food left in the house--frozen yogurt with too much syrupy chocolate in it, even though chocolate tends to give me a headache and I might be developing lactose intolerance in my later years.
I have to get up fairly early tomorrow (today) to drive my meager and measly collection of artifacts to the Fair. I entered enough to be comped with a free one-day pass, which right now I'm not sure I'll even use---though I'm very anxious to see David Blaine, but disappointed that the racing pigs won't be there. Or will they?
Friday, August 23, 2013
Poem -Back in the Day
Another triumph besides not succumbing to knee surgery: A lot of years ago, when we used to have in-depth, psyche-plumbing seminars connected to my employment, we, as a group, were given a list of words and asked to construct a poem using all 11 words. The words were: symmetry, wrought, eerie, patterns, expression, barrier, closure, mystical, mechanical, foreboding, and either animalistic or bestial. We had about 10 minutes or less. I wrote the following, and the coordinator of the session collected them (those which were completed) and read them all to the group. She didn't know us, and when she read mine, said she believed it was written by a poet.
Wrought with symmetry,
The eerie pattern cast
A mystical expression,
A barrier of foreboding
Allowing no closure
Between the bestial
And the mechanical.
I scored a high ranking here, and also in another year when we were asked to communicate with a partner using words of no more than 4 letters, (the point being to demonstrate how difficult it can be to speak in a second language). I must tell you that I was very good at this game too, and even now some days when I am out for a ride in my car, I find it easy to talk this way, and find it hard to stop. So don't read this if you don't want to; you can stop any time you want. It's my blog and I'll say what I want to; I must go on. Damn this dumb game; it's in my head now.
Wrought with symmetry,
The eerie pattern cast
A mystical expression,
A barrier of foreboding
Allowing no closure
Between the bestial
And the mechanical.
I scored a high ranking here, and also in another year when we were asked to communicate with a partner using words of no more than 4 letters, (the point being to demonstrate how difficult it can be to speak in a second language). I must tell you that I was very good at this game too, and even now some days when I am out for a ride in my car, I find it easy to talk this way, and find it hard to stop. So don't read this if you don't want to; you can stop any time you want. It's my blog and I'll say what I want to; I must go on. Damn this dumb game; it's in my head now.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Did'ya ever....
.....go to pour the watery liquid off the top of a carton of yogurt and have the entire contents slip out into the sink?
.....drop something on the floor and grimace when you bend to pick it up, drop it a second time and swear, and then drop it a third time and want to kill yourself?
.....drop something on the floor and grimace when you bend to pick it up, drop it a second time and swear, and then drop it a third time and want to kill yourself?
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Disambiguate this please!
Would those responsible for selecting the theme for the Great Schaghticoke Fair please make an attempt to clarify what the hell the theme is. Who's Your Super Hero or Souper Hero? If someone wanted to use a pun for an entry, that would be clever, but first the theme should be clear. The theme idea is only in its second year, and the same HVC student has won the art contest for the theme both years, so maybe nobody else really cares enough to enter, or else is too confused to try. Bah, Humbug.
Rescue!
OMG, I think I might have to dig down into the coffers and come up with $2500 to bail David Cassidy out of the Rensselaer County Jail. He was pulled over for failure to dim headlights, found to be DWI, and remanded to Rens. Co. Jail. Poor guy. His mug shot looked terrible; he used to be so beautiful. Sic transit gloria.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Super Agents
I'm not much given to paying compliments for people who are just doing their jobs, because I figure that's what they're supposed to do. But, looking back over the years, I think the Lohnes brothers, Dick and Bob, were the best insurance agents ever. They unfailingly responded almost instantly whenever there was an accident or a burglary, and in a timely manner when there was storm damage or some other issue. They helped with all the paperwork and forms that had to be submitted, and would advise the best course of action, even when it was out of their area of responsibility. They were caring and respectful, and we couldn't have asked for better service.
I wish that somewhere there exists an equivalent to their insurance agency, because our present agency seems bent on being diametrically opposed to the Lohnes Agency. (I didn't used to appreciate the Travelers calendars, though later I changed my opinion. Now we get nada.)
I wish that somewhere there exists an equivalent to their insurance agency, because our present agency seems bent on being diametrically opposed to the Lohnes Agency. (I didn't used to appreciate the Travelers calendars, though later I changed my opinion. Now we get nada.)
Fightin' Irish
Once upon a time, when the world was new, I taught third grade at a parochial school in Delmar. My class consisted of 51 students because although the class size was set at 50, one child was moving, and there was a waiting list so they allowed the child into class before the other child moved away. A lot of kids, but absolutely no discipline problems because the school and the parents of the students wouldn't have allowed any problems.
Except for one other lay teacher, all the other classes, K to 8th grade, were taught by nuns, who were a fairly youthful and pretty dynamic lot back then. They pretty much stayed to themselves, instruction-wise, and allowed me and the other teacher freedom inside our classrooms, without any criticism. I would say they never criticized anything I did, except that would not be entirely true: on one occasion they all descended on me like a pack of avengers:
I drove myself to that job, in my 1957 Chevrolet BelAir. One evening, while I was driving my sister to a doctor's appointment, a drunken realtor came speeding down Stillwater's Lake Avenue and smashed into the side of the front of my car as it was stopped to make a turn. (Ironically while his big old Olds, or whatever, was stopped on the road with the police on the scene, another car drove right up behind it and pushed it forward quite a good distance. That driver was also obviously inebriated, but nobody paid any attention to that back then. Hard to believe, but true.)
My car had some fairly minor damage, but was still drivable. A few days later, while it was parked outside the school, the adjustor from the other insurance company came to investigate and was taking pictures, unbeknownst to me. The street where my car was parked was right outside the window where the nuns hung out, to eat lunch, have their prep periods, etc. They were not supposed to socialize during those times with us 2 non-nuns, so I was taken by surprise when a contingent of nuns burst into my room, and announced that somebody was taking pictures of my car, WITHOUT my permission. And was I going to allow it?? I was a new driver then, and this was my first accident, so I hadn't really thought about the protocol involved. I indicated as much to the questioning nuns.
The head nun, Sister Anne, who thought of me as kind of her protégé, drew herself up, and obviously disappointed in me, exclaimed (the only word for it): "Well, I thought you were Irish!"
If every tale has to have a lesson, I guess the takeaway here would be not to let everybody walk all over you. And this from a group of peaceable nuns.
Except for one other lay teacher, all the other classes, K to 8th grade, were taught by nuns, who were a fairly youthful and pretty dynamic lot back then. They pretty much stayed to themselves, instruction-wise, and allowed me and the other teacher freedom inside our classrooms, without any criticism. I would say they never criticized anything I did, except that would not be entirely true: on one occasion they all descended on me like a pack of avengers:
I drove myself to that job, in my 1957 Chevrolet BelAir. One evening, while I was driving my sister to a doctor's appointment, a drunken realtor came speeding down Stillwater's Lake Avenue and smashed into the side of the front of my car as it was stopped to make a turn. (Ironically while his big old Olds, or whatever, was stopped on the road with the police on the scene, another car drove right up behind it and pushed it forward quite a good distance. That driver was also obviously inebriated, but nobody paid any attention to that back then. Hard to believe, but true.)
My car had some fairly minor damage, but was still drivable. A few days later, while it was parked outside the school, the adjustor from the other insurance company came to investigate and was taking pictures, unbeknownst to me. The street where my car was parked was right outside the window where the nuns hung out, to eat lunch, have their prep periods, etc. They were not supposed to socialize during those times with us 2 non-nuns, so I was taken by surprise when a contingent of nuns burst into my room, and announced that somebody was taking pictures of my car, WITHOUT my permission. And was I going to allow it?? I was a new driver then, and this was my first accident, so I hadn't really thought about the protocol involved. I indicated as much to the questioning nuns.
The head nun, Sister Anne, who thought of me as kind of her protégé, drew herself up, and obviously disappointed in me, exclaimed (the only word for it): "Well, I thought you were Irish!"
If every tale has to have a lesson, I guess the takeaway here would be not to let everybody walk all over you. And this from a group of peaceable nuns.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Moving (On)?
First comes the dumpster. Then the painters. Then the realtor's sign. Moving on, or at least out, after most of a lifetime means the clearing out, cleaning up, and erasing of an existence. The new inhabitants will vow never to sully their pristine surroundings with the untidiness of life lived, but time will take its toll.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Honor the System
I drove to Cambridge today for the express purpose of buying a cheesecake baked by The Nuns of New Skete. I read that their energy efficient kitchen can bake 400 cakes a session, and that they bake 1 or 2 days a week for about 37 weeks out of the year. That's a lot of cheesecakes, so I figured they'd have some in stock and they certainly did. There were cars parked in front of the building on Ash Grove Road, but not a person in sight. You enter the doorway that a sign marks as the gift shop and there in the vestibule is a large cooler filled with the cheesecakes and other cheese spreads. There are jars of jam and jellies and fruitcakes and pancake mixes and other items on shelves around the room. Not a person in sight though. Each item is marked with the selling price and you are instructed to choose your item and slide cash or a check through a slot in the locked doorway . How quaint, and trusting, I thought, the honor system. But reading further---there are lots of signage with instructions posted around the room----your eye falls upon another sign advising that cameras are present, because unfortunately, some people took items without paying for them. I slid my check into the slot and hoped my hair didn't look too bad for the invisible camera.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Hostesses Unaware
Our house was a gathering place for all the local kids during our growing-up years. Local meant primarily all the kids on our street all the time, the kids from the corner on down through the lane most of the time, and occasionally some upstreet kids. We weren't fans of them and later learned that some of them thought downstreet was slumming it. But downstreet was the hub as far as we were concerned; we were all comfortable enough to be able to ignore each other in perfect harmony. However, another element was introduced when the families on the street, most of them older than my mother's age, had their grandchildren visit. The women would ask my mother if their children could come down to play with the Madigan girls, such obedient and perfect children we were. Moreover, we had a front porch, a back yard, and a vacant lot next door. The grandparents meant visitors to our yard, not the inside of the house, because that was an unspoken rule in our neighborhood. Don't be a bother to others and play outside. At first, that could be a little awkward, during the initial visit, carrying with it as it did a sense of obligation which was new to us. But gradually the visiting kids adapted to the way the hierarchy worked, and fit right into our games and pursuits.
One family had visitors from West Virginia who stayed summers for a few years. There was a girl named Patti and her younger brother Steve. We were somewhat impressed because Patti had an accent, and also because she was unfailingly the most perfectly groomed child of 10 years old we had ever encountered. Although they pretty much lived out of a suitcase during the visits, and she seemed to have only one outfit of clothing, her shirt was always crisp and ironed and her blonde hair never out of place. We were too young to realize that was the way of her Southern mother. Though she appeared bandbox perfect, she dove right into all activities and had an affinity for horror stories. One older boy had attended Boy Scout Camp, and had shared those campfire horror stories with us, and when she pleaded with us from her seat on the doghouse roof, somebody would usually recount the tale of an iron claw stuck to a car's door handle after leaving a drive-in, or some other ghoulish story. Oddly enough, while she came down every day, her brother never did, although at the age of 6, he would not have been the youngest on the scene. We lose track of each other, as children do, never knowing when the last sighting of each other would be. We did learn of little brother Steve years later, though. He had become a Secret Service Agent and was widely portrayed by the media for his efforts in protecting President Reagan during the 1981 assassination attempt.
Searching Low
I guess he never heard the complete expression, "Search high and low." This morning a car was parked in our driveway with 2 kids in it. Turns out the father had placed his wallet on top of the car and driven off, the wallet flying off and spewing the contents. He found his wallet, but the stuff was gone, including his driver's license, said the son. The man was gone quite a while, searching most intensively at last week's accident scene, where there's still a lot of torn up earth. I saw the man as he approached his car, looking down into the ditches. (Poison ivy is prevalent alongside the road, so I hope he recognized it.) I went back into the house and didn't stay until he got back to his car, but I would have told him to look UP the bank. Paper products scatter up, even into the trees when so thrust by passing cars. Men can't find anything anyway.
Way past childhood years...
The last time I saw the twin with the bandana sling, years and years past childhood days, was at the sad occasion of his brother's funeral. Reminiscing just a little, he had no memory of the broken arm on his moving in day; he said too many other things had been broken since then. He did remember the time he rode Dr. Sproat's Guernsey cow and crashed right through my mother's garden fence. There were no horses around, only cows, and cowboys gotta ride.
Moving In....
The news spread to our front porch, focal point for all the kids on our street and down the lane. A new family was moving in, just a few houses down on River Road. The previous family had moved out, (a young couple I suppose .) All we knew then was that the woman, Helene C. was rather pretty and had a baby, which was of little interest to us kids, and that she was terrified of cats and even kittens, which we found slightly more interesting. Anyway, that family was gone. The question now among us kids was did the new family have kids?
Various trips down the street to surveille the newcomers revealed the presence of a teenage girl, pretty but too old, and a boy about 12 years old, just past the veil of childhood, so we 10 and under's knew he wouldn't be part of our front porch assembly, counting cars and playing 20 Questions, et al. Another little boy, barely out of toddler-hood, way too young. So our attention focused on 2 young boys who we later found out were twins, a few years younger than I was, but still within the bracket of childhood. It's not possible at age 10 and 11 to know how fleeting that category is to be. But at the time, that's all we cared about---more kids to join our games.
Even more intriguing, one of the twins wore his arm in a sling, of the red bandana type, so he definitely was a contender. He told us later that he'd fallen out of a tree and broken his arm. At that time, the outdoors was the center of childhood play, and the games were primarily based on Cowboys and (yes) Indians or Cops and Robbers. A bandana slung arm could have qualified on either count, so we had high hopes. And we kids were not disappointed. The twins were full of life and energy, and were always at the porch, either for the store or our house. As was true of all the kids then, no invitations, no obligations, no expectations. Just hang out, any time, any weather, and see what happens.
Various trips down the street to surveille the newcomers revealed the presence of a teenage girl, pretty but too old, and a boy about 12 years old, just past the veil of childhood, so we 10 and under's knew he wouldn't be part of our front porch assembly, counting cars and playing 20 Questions, et al. Another little boy, barely out of toddler-hood, way too young. So our attention focused on 2 young boys who we later found out were twins, a few years younger than I was, but still within the bracket of childhood. It's not possible at age 10 and 11 to know how fleeting that category is to be. But at the time, that's all we cared about---more kids to join our games.
Even more intriguing, one of the twins wore his arm in a sling, of the red bandana type, so he definitely was a contender. He told us later that he'd fallen out of a tree and broken his arm. At that time, the outdoors was the center of childhood play, and the games were primarily based on Cowboys and (yes) Indians or Cops and Robbers. A bandana slung arm could have qualified on either count, so we had high hopes. And we kids were not disappointed. The twins were full of life and energy, and were always at the porch, either for the store or our house. As was true of all the kids then, no invitations, no obligations, no expectations. Just hang out, any time, any weather, and see what happens.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Cleaning house
Sorting through the detritus of years, I came across a notebook holding a collection of my writing assignments over the years, including that posted previously. In ninth grade, we read "Evangeline," the Epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and were assigned to write a one-page summary of it, which is the above post. My paper was graded 100, but it left me with a lot of questions. So I reread the poem, and when it's called Epic, that does indeed mean epic; there are 2 Parts and each has 5 (V), lengthy Cantos, written in dactylic hexameter form. Longfellow must have spent a good portion of his days fitting his tale into poetic meter: "This is the forest primeval."
I'm sure I read the entire poem because it was assigned, and when I was 13 and 14 years old, I always did my homework, and especially in English class. That's probably how I know that a kirtle is a skirt because Evangeline wore a blue kirtle, and how I knew that Loup-garou inhabits forests, and that the White Letiche is a fearful spirit. But I'm pretty sure I didn't understand at that age that the British were not the only villains in the evacuation of Acadie, and that other political components came into play. But this is Longfellow's fictional account, his poem, so he is not entirely responsible for the misrepresentation of history his poem inspired.
I'm equally sure that I was nowhere near understanding the full meaning when I read back then about Gabriel's death after a lifetime of the two lovers searching for each other, to be re-united only at death. "Sweet was the light of his eye, but it suddenly sank into darkness as when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement. "
I can't fault my teenaged self for lack of insight. It is not possible to fully comprehend love, life and loss until you yourself have traveled, "bleeding and barefooted over the shards and thorns of existence."
I'm sure I read the entire poem because it was assigned, and when I was 13 and 14 years old, I always did my homework, and especially in English class. That's probably how I know that a kirtle is a skirt because Evangeline wore a blue kirtle, and how I knew that Loup-garou inhabits forests, and that the White Letiche is a fearful spirit. But I'm pretty sure I didn't understand at that age that the British were not the only villains in the evacuation of Acadie, and that other political components came into play. But this is Longfellow's fictional account, his poem, so he is not entirely responsible for the misrepresentation of history his poem inspired.
I'm equally sure that I was nowhere near understanding the full meaning when I read back then about Gabriel's death after a lifetime of the two lovers searching for each other, to be re-united only at death. "Sweet was the light of his eye, but it suddenly sank into darkness as when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement. "
I can't fault my teenaged self for lack of insight. It is not possible to fully comprehend love, life and loss until you yourself have traveled, "bleeding and barefooted over the shards and thorns of existence."
Disambiguation
Evangeline was a young girl who lived with her grandfather in the French village of Grand Pre. She was very beautiful and fair and all the young men in the village worshipped her, but only Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the village blacksmith, was welcome. They had been brought up together and as children they had been schooled by Father Felician, the town priest.
One day the village and all its belongings were taken away to a foreign land. Gabriel and Evangeline were parted and, to add to the hardship, Benedict Bellefontaine died of a broken heart at leaving his beloved home. During the journey, Evangeline and Gabriel never saw each other.
After many years of searching for her beloved Gabriel, Evangeline became a Sister. One day during a dreadful epidemic of fever, Evangeline was caring for the sick when all at once she saw the dying form of Gabriel. She went to him and laid his head on her lap. Gabriel opened his eyes and tried to speak her name and then he died. Evangeline looked up with tears in her eyes and said "Oh Lord, I thank thee."
"The Great Upheaval"
One day the village and all its belongings were taken away to a foreign land. Gabriel and Evangeline were parted and, to add to the hardship, Benedict Bellefontaine died of a broken heart at leaving his beloved home. During the journey, Evangeline and Gabriel never saw each other.
After many years of searching for her beloved Gabriel, Evangeline became a Sister. One day during a dreadful epidemic of fever, Evangeline was caring for the sick when all at once she saw the dying form of Gabriel. She went to him and laid his head on her lap. Gabriel opened his eyes and tried to speak her name and then he died. Evangeline looked up with tears in her eyes and said "Oh Lord, I thank thee."
"The Great Upheaval"
Sunday, August 4, 2013
BLOG: Off
I started my blog to take the place of conversation. Simple as that. It was an attempt to reach out to those in the past, many of them now lost to me, most, probably, no longer living. Recount the stuff of daily life, to try to connect with those who were in your life. Like Thornton Wilder offered, don't pick a monumental happening, but an ordinary day. Pick one of the times a 10-year-old Roger V. shinnied about twenty feet up Sara's signpost, lightbulb in hand, so her sign would be lighted up again. Then listen that evening to the splat of the insects as they zithered into that lightbulb. Nothing very important or memorable about that, but here it is stuck in my mind so many years later. Or choose the summer days when Dorothy and Johnny Daurio played Parcheesi on the deck of the front porch for what seemed like hours, all summer long, an eternal game. No one paid any attention as they sprawled, in innocent concentration. Certainly not me, I would have thought, but there's the picture, etched in my memory.
And so, in blog world, I've entered these hundreds of posts, trying to establish what life was like, back when we lived it. A vain effort, unless as in "Our Town," the writer is skilled enough to draw you in behind and beyond the meaning of the words. Anecdotes and remembrances over seven decades, from the delights of childhood to the inevitable track of sorrows along the path of life, were meant to be just that and not intended to be filtered through to detect concealed motives. The time has come to end this blog. Two truths survive: The heart can feel as it it's bleeding. Soft and spongy sorrow can turn into cold and hard resentment. NB: to be deleted.
***Back by popular demand. Requests poured in by the three's.
And so, in blog world, I've entered these hundreds of posts, trying to establish what life was like, back when we lived it. A vain effort, unless as in "Our Town," the writer is skilled enough to draw you in behind and beyond the meaning of the words. Anecdotes and remembrances over seven decades, from the delights of childhood to the inevitable track of sorrows along the path of life, were meant to be just that and not intended to be filtered through to detect concealed motives. The time has come to end this blog. Two truths survive: The heart can feel as it it's bleeding. Soft and spongy sorrow can turn into cold and hard resentment. NB: to be deleted.
***Back by popular demand. Requests poured in by the three's.
Finale
It's 4:00 a.m. and I just got up and looked out the bedroom window as a car was passing by. My first thought was that the headlights made the lawn look as if it were covered with snow, silvery and cold in appearance. Now who would I share that thought with but this blog. No person would care to hear, no one in my present life anyhow.
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