First

We have lots of firsts. Memories of many bury themselves deeply within our minds because they seem inconsequential to our daily lives, but there they stay. There must be some reason that the vestiges of those firsts remain in our memories—perhaps to aid us when we experience similar things in our lives, or maybe they dwell there simply to give us a smile on a winter’s night when an old friend pops up and says, “Remember?”

He is an old friend, and he did pop up a few nights ago on Facebook and said hello. He’s an important old friend, someone with whom I shared entry into the world of true romance.

We were seven. He is upper left; I am the blonde smack in the middle.

It was early fall and second grade had just begun. I had little interest in boys beyond how hard I could kick them in the shins when they got too close (yes, I was a bit of a terror), or which would play the best “Batman” on the playground to my “Catwoman.” Our Batman play involved a large, heavily rooted tree on the edge of the asphalt playground. We ran around and around the tree before taking off to the monkey bars that would, today, cause cardiac arrest for any observing safety inspectors. We would then return to the playground over a cracked and weed-infested concrete area with tall chain link fences at either end that was once a tennis court; our school had been a high school a decade before. After traversing the tennis court, the running around the tree began again. I am not sure how our play re-enacted the Batman show, but that was how it worked.

The boy that caught my attention was not a Batman. He stood off to the side, often staring at me, and I didn’t know what to do with that. He didn’t come close enough to kick him, so he was a complete enigma.

He drew me away like no one has done since. How could one not investigate such a mystery?

When we recently chatted he casually mentioned being near “The Portables,” which were portable classrooms outside of the main school whose use was reserved for cool second graders, because who else was there in the Universe?

He mentioned the grass near The Portables as if it was just grass. It wasn’t. It was the grass of the kids who were separate from the rest for good reason—we were cool second graders with cool portables. There was a small hill of mown grass near The Portables on which only cool kids could sit (including some older student usurpers), and of those cool kids, only those who were romantically involved.

We had only the slightest idea of what romantic meant, but we were placed in a situation where we needed to learn quickly. If we had not, the older kids might have chased us off of our little hill of grass, and the weight of that embarrassment could not be borne.

I followed the boy with the brown-red hair to be near The Portables. I pretended I had a reason to be there and kicked other boys when necessary, to prove I had a reason. That boy with the brown-red hair had nothing to do with my being there. I didn’t like him at all. I went home and expounded on how I didn’t like him at all.

A couple of days ago when I mentioned his name to Grandma Beanie, her eyes lit up with recognition. She knew I didn’t like him at all. That is why we all remember his name forty five years later. He meant nothing. Nothing.

He meant everything, but it was a hard sell to get me to admit that when I was seven. I wasn’t going to like him, because that was not what self-respecting tomboys did. They didn’t like boys, not at all.

During the time I was not going to like him at all Grandpa John often said, “We are going to have a bunch of little Gooshwalls running around here.” The whole family teased me with that for years—no—decades. The last conversation I had with Johnny as he taught me to reload shotgun shells included hunting, field dressing game, baby powder and Gooshwalls.

My old friend will recognize that murdered name. I hope he will know that we all remember his real name and appreciate him. I hope he will understand that all of my family could not have recognized his name if I had not spoken of him constantly when I was a very romantic seven year old child.

He was my first.

He held my hand on the mown grass outside of The Portables when we seemingly had no idea of what romance was about. But we did know. We knew romance in its purest form. We knew it in the best form.

We didn’t have any Gooshwalls running around here, but we all have irreplaceable memories because of my dear old friend that said hello a few nights ago.

Thank you, Jerry. Thank you for then, and thank you for now.

She looked like a prizefighter

When Jenny was born she had a blocked tear duct that caused the tissue around her eye to be sightly swollen. Once the delivery room nurse added silver nitrate drops to her eyes as was customary to prevent eye infection in newborns, the swelling turned a shade of purple-blue that left Jenny looking as if she had just come from a boxing ring.

She looked that way for about a week, when a porcelain doll emerged from the prizefighter face and she was the most beautiful child I had ever seen. Her features were tiny and delicate. She seemed to be aware of her own beauty and cried sparingly so as not to scrunch up her lovely face unnecessarily. I appreciated that.

She was a delicate little thing (off and on, and we won’t discuss those early OFF periods) until she awoke on her third birthday and decided that she was henceforth to be, Jenny: HELLION. She was, for a while. She then discovered some wonderful girly thing and became a delicate flower once again.

Jenny’s transmogrifications kept me hopping for the next couple of decades. She was girly, she was hippie, she was Wicca aficionado, she was gymnast and swimmer, she was singer, she was black goth girl wannabe, she was drum circle didgeridoo player, she was hiker, camper, canoe and outdoor enthusiast, she was forklift driver. She didn’t only live life, she tasted it, drank it, she consumed it and left a slightly singed trail of her presence behind her.

She drove me out of my ever-loving mind.

I called her my tornado girl because she entered like a whirlwind and changed things all around her. She exhausted me, and I couldn’t have loved her more. I can’t love her more today.

She is now to be married and will soon have a baby. I hope her child drives her as nuts as she did me. It’s the best way to raise a new citizen; watch them grow, watch them fall, watch them soar, and then sit back and watch them settle. A brand new family will be born. It’s as amazing as the birth of one baby, and as exciting to observe.

I understand

I understand that folks are busy with life. It’s how things are. I wonder, however, what it would be like if people paid attention to those who will soon be leaving before they left, instead of telling their tale of woe at a funeral service.

I have been fortunate. I have had interactions with loved ones before they died, so I didn’t have to feel anything other than loss when they finally left our world. I wouldn’t give up those interactions for the world. I loved those people and was able to tell them so.

I also know that people receive far more in the way of commiseration if they have not been able to connect with loved ones before the inevitability of death. Announcing death or dying on Facebook has become a way to receive comment after comment stroking the same sore spots after seeing, or not seeing, those who are passing, and indeed, caring or not really caring at all. I think it’s a new fashion.

Such a shame.

My experiences with my mother over the past year have so affected me that I cannot understand missing out when things are tough. I can’t understand not reaching out for the person who gave me life or perpetuated my life in some way. I would not have missed a single moment. Beanie is as Beanie has always been—Mom, and I love her.

I am not sure how she imparted to me this deep love that I cannot leave behind as a nuisance, but I am grateful. We are both here, for now. We love. What a wonderful thing that is.

Getting hitched

Most girls have dreams about how their wedding will unfold. I wonder how many realize their dreams, and how many laugh at reality. I hope that the majority have a hearty laugh at the things that go wrong that can make weddings, and sometimes marriages, go absolutely right.

It’s a good time to talk about weddings because of Aunt Jenny’s pending nuptials, while leaving a few words for you to remember when your time comes.

The ability to laugh at ourselves is one of the most important skills we can learn. I call it a skill because it was a really tough lesson for me. I needed to learn to separate the funny parts of life from those critical to survival, take a good look at them, strive to understand them, and finally, laugh. Laughing at myself never became a natural response; I still need to evaluate and then laugh, but these days I laugh often.

Weddings are important, but not nearly as important as the marriages they celebrate. When you decide to embark on the journey of marriage, sweet girl, be honest with yourself. Once you are honest with yourself, be honest with your partner. Hide nothing. Love or do not love everything, and be honest about those things. We can love without loving every part of our partner. We can’t love without being honest about it. We can’t live that lie. It always comes up or out or falls on our head, while jeopardizing the most important relationship we will ever have.

I know these things because I lived them. Your Grandpa and I were not nearly as honest about things we did not like about each other as we should have been. Perhaps if we had been, we would have been able to keep our marriage together. I like to think that we could have.

Never forget that a broken relationship comes from the actions of all parties to the relationship. Your Grandpa and I were both wrong many different times and we didn’t fix it. We let things simmer. Don’t do that. Talk, argue, holler, and do it honestly. Do it with the love that we still had when we fell apart, but that we forgot to put into play.

Remember to laugh. We did laugh and, for that, I am proud of us.

The first laughs came from the day of the wedding itself. Too much was going on in town, and we knew that traffic would be a problem. President Ronald Reagan was going to be speaking at Notre Dame University Commencement the same morning as our wedding, so we tried to plan well. Grandpa Frank would be coming from the far south side of town to the far north of town, to a church near our house.

We had already faced difficulty with a church and a pastor to officiate, and were being married in a Protestant church, by a Presbyterian minister. We were okay with that. The minister was replacing the regular pastor that had had a heart attack just days before the wedding. The organist waited until the day of the wedding to become very ill, but the church found a replacement.

I was at home getting dressed and being nervous when Grandpa Frank arrived at the house. He went to change clothes and realized that his pants were not on the hanger with his shirt and jacket. He was always so organized and prepared that everyone was stunned. He hopped back into his 1970 Volkswagen van to make the ten mile trip back south, through Notre Dame traffic, to get his pants. I got myself dressed—there was no hair to be done; I had my regular pixie cut—while people were working on getting Grandma Cecelia and Dodie to the church. Everyone was in cars and took off for the church—early, even!

The one person they forgot, was me. I came downstairs and into the kitchen to—no one! The house was empty. I got into my Oldsmobile and drove to the church. Everyone was surprised when I arrived, because everyone thought someone else had me in their car.

Grandpa Frank made it back to the church in time (but close) for the ceremony. Just as we had wished, Grandpa John and Grandma Beanie walked down the aisle with me, and Grandpa Frank Sr. and his wife, Fran, walked down the aisle with Grandpa Frank. We lit two tapers from one unity candle.

Everyone looked wonderful and the ceremony was just as I had imagined it would be. My siblings were all in the wedding. I wanted it to be special and it was.

We laughed at the reception when the champagne cork worked itself out, slowly, during toasts, and then popped up and hit the ceiling, coming right back down on Aunt Linda’s head. We laughed about the day’s traffic and Grandpa Frank’s mad dash to get his missing pants. We laughed about the bride being the only one left without a ride to the wedding. We were giddy, as was our right on our special day. We celebrated until we just couldn’t move any longer, then made our way to Grandma Beanie’s home in our two vehicles—my Oldsmobile and Grandpa Frank’s VW van.

I arrived at the empty house first. The empty locked house. I had no purse and I was still in my wedding gown. There was a window that we all used when locked out, and I thought, why not? I did climb in through that window in my wedding dress and tumbled a bit into the living room. It was somehow fitting that this tomboy couldn’t remain a lady, even on her wedding day. We laughed at that, too.

Grandpa Frank arrived shortly after and we began to laugh at all of the crazy things that had happened on our way to marriage, things that helped to cement our bond.

We laughed. We should never have stopped.

Paul Newman and the chicken defense

I always wanted to be on a jury. Court proceedings fascinate me. Though I was called to report for selection a few times I was never chosen, but in the mid 1980s, Grandma Beanie was.

We were all excited for her and awaiting news from her jury adventure. We wondered if it would be a capital case. We wondered if she would be sequestered. We wondered what amazing stories she would tell us about being in court and seeing how it all worked. In the 1980s there was a certain reverence for court proceedings that has been lessened by exposure of the populace to a number of more recent public trials. Trials are still riveting for many, including me, but there is a certain missing mystique that was once a large part of a trial.

Grandma Beanie prepared to go to trial with allowed reading materials and some crochet work for time spent waiting before being called. She was excited when she and her fellow jurors were called to the courtroom, soon to be apprised of the case about which they would be deliberating after all evidence had been presented.

Others filed into the courtroom, and then they all saw the defendant. He was a tiny thing. He didn’t look at all scary. What could he have done to be standing there in front of a judge and jury? The judge said something, to which someone responded that the court was awaiting the arrival of the defense attorney, a Mr. Paul Newman.

Grandma Beanie’s mind, probably because she was overexcited, envisioned the suave and impossibly handsome Paul Newman, the actor. We all fall into a bit of romance from time to time, don’t we? Even court proceedings could have romantic moments when a defense attorney named Paul Newman was involved. It didn’t happen. When Paul Newman walked in, at least one of Grandma Beanie’s romantic court bubbles burst right in front of her. While the defense attorney was an okay looking guy, he was an enormous man bearing no resemblance to Paul Newman, movie star.

Paul Newman, Esq., looked like a defense attorney in a mid-sized metropolis (well, we like to think of it as a mid-sized metropolis – romantics to the last, we are). He looked just like you and me and everyone else around here. And it was okay, because Grandma Beanie was in court, part of a jury. That was going to be exciting.

Once everyone was settled the charges were read. The defendant was accused of breaking into a home via a bedroom window, climbing over the bed and making his way to the kitchen, where he opened the freezer and absconded with a whole chicken. That was it. He stole a frozen chicken. It was made clear that he exited the home through the same window and left it open. The house became very cold with winter air flowing through that open window, the window whose gaping countenance displayed to the world that the owners of the home had been violated.

Each of the jurors took the case very seriously and deliberated when the time came. They found the young man guilty of breaking and entering and sundry other charges. It was serious because no one is allowed to break into the home of others and steal their belongings—not even a frozen chicken.

When Grandma Beanie told us of her experience over dinner that evening we hung on to each word of her story until she said, “frozen chicken.” We then all lost it, en masse. In our world, it seemed that ONLY Grandma Beanie could be called for a jury trial over a frozen chicken. It was priceless, because she had such great luck with poultry, such as the Thanksgiving when both of the breasts popped out of the turkey and on to the kitchen floor as she was removing the bird from the oven. It was the only year that Aunt Cindy’s FUTURE in-laws ever attended our Thanksgiving.

Shhhh, I am not sure who knows about those turkey breasts. It’s kind of like the roast beast.

We didn’t always behave, sweet girl, but we sure did have a lot of fun.

SuperJoe

Aunt Jenny just reminded me of a story to tell about the typical heroics of your father. He loved to help and wanted to make things better for everyone, especially Jenny. He was a big brother and took that role seriously.

So the stage was set one warm summer day when Joe-your-dad and Jenny were out riding their bicycles with a friend. Jenny was about eight and Joe was about ten, and they were enjoying the freedom that “riding around the block” afforded them. Most times it was a safe trip.

One exception to the safe trip was when the group stopped to visit a couple of other kids four houses down from home and, after parking their bikes, were hanging around an overgrown and unshapely Japanese yew near the street. Lurking within that yew was a nest of bluejays. I am pretty sure that bluejays are birds that none of us should ever mess with. We had experience with them before, twice. They look pretty, but if you look very closely you can see a bit of evil in the eyes, and maybe even some evil in the crest of those males. This was our third experience with those males attacking one of our males. Once it was Grandpa Frank, once it was Grandpa John, and this time, it was Joe-your-dad.

He said he was minding his own business, hanging around and being as cool as a kid can be, when one of those birds decided to ascend from the Japanese yew and attack his head. PECK, PECK, PECK, the thing went, with your dad running those four houses home, dripping blood down his face in the most ghoulish fashion. He insisted he did nothing to provoke the bird and I believed him, because I had seen it before. DANG those bluejays anyway!

But that was not the stage that was set when Joe-your-dad decided to save your Aunt Jenny. Still on the other side of the block, Jenny was riding along on her bike with Joe and his friend following. While looking at who knows what, Jenny ran directly into a parked car and she and her bike bounced off of the car in slightly different directions. The bike landed. Jenny landed. Joe was horrified, and after a cursory check to see that Jenny was still alive while thrashing around on the asphalt and gravel, he took off at break-neck speed to save his sister. He was heading home to tell adults, to call for help, to get first aid, to do anything that needed to be done.

He was SuperJoe.

His caring and compassion for his sister at those moments could be matched only by the pure of heart. He did that a few other times, too. It was really quite impressive to experience such purity of love.

SuperJoe was heroism in action until he forgot one of the most important rules of being a hero: look out for number one, first. If one does not look out for number one, all others trailing behind could be in serious peril.

SuperJoe rounded the curve on the way to going home, and in some of the same gravel his sister had found herself, his super bike slipped and failed him. He skidded spectacularly (SuperJoe couldn’t do it any other way), and fell to the asphalt. But he wasn’t finished. SuperJoe proceeded home with bloodied knees, scraped arms and banged up face, and without a thought for himself, he told me about Jenny. While bleeding and panting, he told me that she was lying in the street, hurt. He was quite amazing.

In the meantime, Jenny and the neighbor boy had made their way home. They were walking with their bikes. There were no dents on either bicycles or children as they approached. Jenny had the tiniest scrape on one knee that I couldn’t even categorize as a skinned knee.

SuperJoe sat with a huge grin on his face. He had saved the day, and with one bloody grin, he touched a part of my heart that wasn’t easily reached.

Later I saved him with some cleaning up and bandages, and a great big thank you for being Joe.

I didn’t thank him for being SuperJoe. I never told him, to this day, that I had thought about SuperJoe. I thanked him for being Joe. He was a pretty good guy. I remember him.

Sisters

No one could have known it would happen this way. I never expected to discover sisters because, as you know, I work pretty hard to keep my distance from most people. But some people sneak in when one least expects it, and in the most surprising ways.

I have discovered sisters. I think they may be the most remarkable things I have ever seen. I didn’t know they could be so cool, really.

They do the most amazing things! They help—a lot. They say nice stuff. They listen.

Who could have known they DO that?

I said one day that I love the modern wine glasses without stems; the next week I found them on the front porch, delivered via the heart of my North Carolina sister. I didn’t know what to do with that, so I did what I do when people break into my world; I cried.

Last week I said during dinner that I loved radishes. Today I had a bag of radishes and a radish and caraway seed salad, via the heart of my dear, dear Indiana sister. I am almost afraid to love a food, because kale, lettuce, mushrooms, chicken, tacos, rice and I-can’t-even-think-of-it-all has appeared.

Of course, they listen and respond to far more critical matters than those above, but the mentioned instances surprised me. That’s sisters, eh?

They HUG, too! Though I wasn’t quite sure about that, I survived it and dare I say, even liked it a bit? I didn’t cry until later. And they don’t hug often. It’s a good thing, methinks. I am also thinking that I am going to like this sister thing a whole lot.

What do you think?

She asked.

“You are really asking me what I think? Really?”

“Yeah,” she said, “what do you think?”

“Okay. I think that none of us thinks nearly enough about anything at any time. I think that when one asks another ‘What do you think?’ that one should be prepared to hear precisely the thoughts of the person queried.

I think there are far too many self-absorbed and far too few self-realized people in the world. I think that men are mean. I think that men are impatient fools. I think that men are inconsiderate dolts. I think that adult offspring are ungrateful and the best examples of self-absorbed people in the world. I think that given the correct tools and toys, men can move earth, snow, and probably this grumpy old soul. Adult offspring, too.

I think that grandchildren are the hope of the future.

I think that gun control is necessary. I think that people kill people, but that guns help those people kill people. I think that people have a right to defend their homes and families with weapons devoid of magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition. If you can’t hit ‘em with 10 rounds, folks, you’ve already lost. And that doesn’t even begin to discuss the results of the bad guy getting YOUR gun with more than 10 rounds and turning it on you, because he is BADDER than you.

I think that people who commit terrible crimes are not gentlemen and ladies. I think that all law enforcement personnel and murder show interviewees should STOP calling them gentlemen and ladies. Men and women will suffice if they cannot bring themselves (or are not allowed) to call each and every one of them a waste of skin on television.

I think that in most cases, logging into a personal account of another, such as email, Facebook, Twitter, etc., using a username and password somehow illicitly obtained from the account owner is not hacking. Well, I know it’s not hacking. Please, news folks, stop calling it hacking. It’s sneaky, invasive, intrusive and all sorts of other things, but hacking it is not. Hacking is another type of violation entirely, and can be much more scary than simply invasive.

I think that when people find love they need to grab on to it and hold on with both hands. It matters not if it is male, female, in-between, black, white, red, yellow or just slightly jaundiced. If it’s real, hang on and love with all you have; it’s rare and incredibly valuable.

I think that publications with as much exposure as TIME Magazine and CNN should be using correct grammar and spelling in their articles. The English language is already getting a bit weird without publications such as those teaching poor usage by example.

I think that murderers are cowards and stalkers are fit-throwing toddlers. Grow up.

I think that if God does exist, He has a seriously warped sense of humor.

I think that pro-choice does not mean pro-murder, and that no choice often leads to death in horribly filthy rooms off of horribly filthy alleys. I think that anyone using the phrase “pro-abortion” needs to be smacked squarely across the head with a NERF® bat to WAKE THE HELL UP. I think that no one is pro-abortion. Any other suggestion is insulting.

I think that the checkout gal at CVS who checks to see if her customer really wants conditioner when purchasing a single bottle, rather than shampoo-and-conditioner twins is special. She saved me from owning a bottle of unwanted conditioner, and I appreciate her.

I think that rape is a crime. I think that force is rape. I think that anyone suggesting that an unwilling sexual victim “wanted it” needs to take a good hard look at him/herself in the glare of the public eye. I think that sleazy Ohio assholes need to take a look at the public’s reception of them right now. I would detest seeing something happen to the young men who couldn’t shut their mouths, but would detest seeing it less than I would detest seeing another high school jock rape another 16-year-old while those young men laugh about it. So fellas? Shut the hell up.

I think that when I write a post that makes me cry, it’s a keeper. Of course, I cry easily.

I think about who are the proverbial “they.” Who are they and why do they keep saying all those things? Why do they keep doing things we attribute to them? I haven’t yet figured out who they are or how they became so important.

I think that knowing death is coming is liberating. What will people do when I say something they don’t like? KILL me?

Oh, and those things I think about men, from above? I think them about women, too. And about myself, most Tuesdays. We all have a long way to go. Follow me, I am going.

Mindy

Annie stood in the middle of the room with her fingers holding her demure maternity blouse against her hips. Her tummy stood out along with her ample bosom, of which she was proud for the first time in her life. She was happy about both and hopeful that the enhanced bosom would remain after the birth.

The ladies in the room fussed over Annie and told her how beautiful she looked. And she did look beautiful, until a new woman joined the group.

“Ugh, why do you show that? I never even look pregnant until the month before the baby is born, and I certainly wouldn’t show it off,” said Mindy, Annie’s sister-in-law, as she moved efficiently through the crowd. Her body betrayed no sign of the coming of her third child. Her nineteen-sixties-style shirt dress with belted waist and plenty of fabric in a large knee-length gathered skirt surely covered a lot, but the ladies also knew that Mindy would be sporting a shoulder to thigh girdle beneath the billowing skirt.

Annie looked crestfallen. Annie’s mother, Mindy’s mother-in-law, looked furious. As the ladies turned away from Mindy’s nastiness, her mother-in-law followed Mindy to the food table. Of course, Mindy wouldn’t be eating. She never ate in public. Her mother-in-law suspected that she knew the reason, but had never explored her theory. With anger at Mindy for insulting Annie bolstering her, she was ready to test the theory today.

Looking Mindy square in they eye and then gathering all of the force she could find in her body, she backhanded Mindy across the center-parted, shoulder length, perfectly flipped nineteen-sixties-style blonde hair. Mindy fell to the floor with her gathered skirt flying up to her waist. As suspected, a sturdy girdle firmly held every inch of flesh nearly to Mindy’s knees.

As Mindy’s mother-in-law had suspected would occur, Mindy’s head was split open and firing off electrical sparks. A dislodged electrical component that looked like a motherboard showed within the split. Mindy was twitching from her face to the tips of her sensible low-heeled pumps.

Looking at her daughter Annie, Mindy’s mother-in-law said, “Call your brother. His wife is broken.” She punctuated her words with a simple nod. Her theory had been correct.

Yuno

The lake has been looking like something from a horror flick lately. Every cloud that can be seen beyond the heavy mist covering the lake appears menacing in front of the typically gun metal gray skies of the local winters. The mist moves in and out, sometimes coming up to the shore and settling heavy and wet on the seawall, and sometimes hanging back a dozen or so yards, breathing.

Somewhere out to the west exists an orifice with lips manipulated by gusts emanating from somewhere near Hades. It comes and goes with Alberta clipper winds, sending frigid puffs of air first to the north, then south, whipping snow into eddies that dance above thin, but surprisingly wide, ice floes floating on the lake. Curlicues of snow cut into the surface, leaving spirals on the ice between the dark, dark water peeking from below.

Some wind gusts last long enough to push fat clumps of lake-effect snow in one direction, sending snow rollers running across the ice. The snow rollers end up looking like fluffy, plump cinnamon rolls sitting between icy spirals cut into the ice that undulates with each movement of the dark lake water.

Somewhere in the western sky there are big jagged teeth in that mouth from hell, I just know it.

The lake eventually freezes to a depth of a few inches and it then begins to look like something in the Midwest. Better.