Ma

Mary Agnes Donovan Madigan 
March 9, 1905  
  I hope you had a lot of happy birthdays. I miss you more than ever.

The Iceman Cometh Not

Nor does the Breadman, the Insurance man, the Watkins man, the Milkman, the Vegetable man, the Frozen Food man, the Cooks Coffee man, nor any of the various others who used to pay regular household visits.  During the years of my childhood, we did not have a telephone, and my mother was not a social butterfly by any stretch of the imagination.  However, she was a go-to kind of person for the ladies in the neighborhood, and it was a regular occurrence for one or the other of the women to drop in and sit and talk during the afternoon hours.  Most of them did not drive, so they walked to our house, from upstreet or from  down the River Road. 
   We have advanced to  telephone, Facebook, email, Blogging, and of course automobile travel, but communication is almost non-existent. Gone the way of the Iceman......
   

Promissory Promises

   I can't stand the way that the word promise is used when it applies to past deeds, as in "I promise you, I never said that,"  or "I promise I didn't have sex with that person."  A promise is a pledge you make for some future action;  "I promise to be true to you all the days of my life." 
   I've made only a few promises in my life, and except for a promise I made to a goat when I was 9 or 10 years old, and my marriage vows if we're counting such things, the rest of the promises were of the default type; my feet were held to the fire when I agreed to  the promises.
   My Aunt Helen had come to live with us when I was  13 years old.  Her mother had died the year before, her brother had finally been free to marry, and the family home did not have room for a wife and a sister.  I walked into our kitchen one day after school to find my mother and Helen having been in deep conversation.  Helen saw me, and continuing with what must have been the topic of their conversation, cried out, to me, "I'm an orphan now.  Don't let them put me in a home.  Please, promise me!"  So I did, I promised her that I would not let them put her in a home.  I had absolutely no idea of how I would do that, or any real conception of what it meant, but she seemed relieved when I said I would not let them put her in a home.  Helen ended up living in my mother's home for 12 years after my mother died.
   My mother had found a lump in her breast when she was about 47 years old.  In those days, that meant hospitalization for several days to a week while they cut out the lump and analyzed it.  It also meant that my mother would be a hospital patient for the very first time in her life, which also meant that she would be contained indoors for the first time in her life.  My mother could not spend a single day without going outside--she had to do her chores as well as get that fresh air.  I remember my father's driving us down to the old Leonard Hospital, where she was a patient on the third floor.  Her room had access to a small balcony, which was where we found her.   She seemed composed, as usual, but she did tell us that the balcony was the only thing that made her stay possible; she couldn't bear it if she'd had to stay inside.  She remained on the balcony at the close of our visit. My father and then my sister said their goodbyes, and as I was doing so, my mother frantically clutched me, saying, "Promise me you'll get me out of here, no matter what happens."  She had to wait there until she received her diagnosis, and a diagnosis of malignancy in those days was associated with death.  Since cancer was only whispered about back then, none of us could have had any idea of what lay in store if bad news was delivered.  She only knew she wanted to be home.  I wanted her home too, so I promised not to leave her there. I had no idea of how to go about that, though I thought my father would drive us home.  The lump was benign, so my mother did get to come home, and I didn't have to do anything about the promise I'd made. 
     The promise to the goat made me feel magically empowered.  The later promises  made me feel old.
 

The Trojan Wards

 The city of Troy has 2 hospitals, and the most favorable thing Healthgrades Rating System has to say about them is that they have a lower than average rate of having foreign objects left in  the patient post surgery. 

LEGO---WTH??

  I read the Sunday paper after a fashion--skimming articles here and there, including Felix Carroll's "Life" column.  Every once in a while, my eye is caught by something that demands attention.  This week it was his article, "Can't we just block all this out?"  The topic:  boyhood, Legos, sex, and yes, Lego Sex.  He starts writing from the point of his memory, at 10 years of age, when he could just "be a boy."  He was fascinated with Legos, but at about that time he seemed to notice his father was beginning to get a little maudlin, anticipating the time when Legos would not be enough to keep his son engaged.  Father and son share the memory of the time,  following "that fearsome sound that echoed from the goo of creation across the spectrum of history...."  and the time that's coming when "you'll be out the front door where you'll put your ear to the ground and follow the sound."  No wonder the father doesn't like change anymore.
     Although the winds of change have started in the boy' life, they are still only rustlings and always away from home, in the schoolyard, among friends, so the boy in him thinks it strange that his father seems aware of the stirrings.  That is a scenario as old as time, the need to have "the talk," formerly about birds and bees, but now somehow centered on Legos.  The boy could not have known that his father learned from his browsing history and discovered "the saddest, sweetest search term he had ever encountered," that being "Lego sex."   If only  Heroic Knight was  changing a race car tire, and Cowboy was smiling only because it was a beautiful day, but alas, time moves us on.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere......

  There are signs everywhere, too  many to pay strict attention to sometimes, and sometimes that is a good thing.  For years, I've been seeing a sign, or a road marking, and totally ignoring it.  Everyone else does too, I'm sure; otherwise there would be an ongoing traffic snarl, if not multiple accidents.
   As you drive off Oakwood Avenue to turn left into the Frear Park circle, the road is clearly marked for the turn with double arrows directing you into the turn lane.  Except the arrows stop short of the entry lane, clearly pointing you directly into the exit lane.   April Fool, year round.

Death Watch

Liz Bishop was reporting the story of a local woman who was bitten by a fox, potentially rabid.  Bishop said the police responded, had shot the fox, and "were waiting for it to die."  Really.