Fifty-Five Years! Really!

After my Mother died, I told my Father that I wanted to clean out his house.  To get it down to a bare minimum, so when the time came, it would be easier to deal with.  What I've learned from doing that over the past five years is this -- you're left with the most cherished items.   The excess has been cleared away, leaving those items that evoke the best, and sometimes funniest, yet hard-to-face memories.

In my Father's dresser drawers, I found my parents' marriage license.  As I read the few words that appeared on it, I was reminded of this paper represented the starting point of a 55-year marriage. 

Fifty-five years...!  Fifty plus five equals fifty-five...!  How many of us can say that we stuck it out for half-a-century with the same person?   None of their three kids can say they have.   My parents came from the generation before quality time.  They knew how to stick together.   Many of their classmates got married and lasted just as long.  They were children of the Depression and war years,  when people learned how to stick it out.

I admit they had to marry.  Wink-wink. Sometimes, I wonder what they would have done if it hadn't been for the one moment of passion.  At least, I hope there was passion.  But nevertheless, the marriage lasted for 55 years.

Fifty-five years!   I can't even get to a second date let alone spend the next 55 years with the same person.

This marriage also lead to a long-lasting family feud.  The age old tale of feud between son-in-law and mother-in-law.  My Father liked to tell the "shot gun" story.  About how he got so angry at my Grandma Alford that he stuck a shot gun in her face and told her to get out of his house.  More about her later. 

My Father had anger issues like his own Mother.  Both flew off the handle over trivialities.  I remember one time while my Grandma Marshall was visiting.  We were watching a movie on our newly installed cable television. Cable was all the rage back then. I believe the movie may have had Angie Dickenson in it.  Or some other blond actress from the late 1970s.  Anyway, during the course of the film, the actress was talking to someone and she called him "a son of a bitch."  At which point, Grandma Marshall stood up off the couch and said "Did you just hear what she said?"   She couldn't believe her ears.   This coming from the Grandmother who probably said those exact same words numerous times in her life.  I guess she felt that saying on television for the whole nation to hear was a little too much.

I realize now that Grandma Marshall was quite the woman in her early days.  One time, probably during the same visit, Grandma Marshall sat down on the living room couch and I was sitting on the other side of the room.  In the middle of her gray housecoat, a questionable-bulge (much like an erection) popped up as she sat down.   Grandma Marshall looked down at it and said,  and I quote, "Well what did you see that got you all excited?"   She proceeded to flatten out the bulge.  A tell-tale sign of where I got my mischievous nature.  I grin to this day when I see that video clip in my head.

CSM

Two Dimes and a Penny: A Tale from Beyond

The first fact the you must know about this story is...   My father was a gambler, especially card games and slot machines.   You must know this or what follows will not be as fantastic or magical.

My father liked to go to the casino in Anderson.   He could walk in with one dollar and walk out with two hundred.   Luck was always on his side.   He was a lucky man.

When I was in middle school, my parents bought a three-piece bedroom set at the Pendleton Furniture Mart for me.   Two solid blond wood dressers and a matching twin bed with a trundle underneath it.  We lived in a typical ranch-style house with three bedrooms.   We always referred to the smallest one as "the little bedroom."  And it was in this room where my bedroom set would live out its life until it moved on to my nephew.

Last Friday, I had to go to my parents' house to begin the final process of cleaning it out.   I worked throughout the morning pulling like items together, choosing items I wanted, and general cleaning.   One chore was to clean off the twin bed in the little bedroom and take off the sheets so they could be washed.   After moving stacks of pillows elsewhere, I pulled off the worn 1990s comforter, then pulled back the top floral-patterned sheet that had belonged to my grandmother.   Sunlight coming through the window hit a shiny object on the fitted sheet.   A single penny.

Usually I do no pick up pennies unless they are heads up.  It's back luck to pick up a penny that is tales up.  But in this case, it was tales up and this was not an ordinary penny.   It was one of the pennies with a shield and "one cent" in a banner on the back.    I am not sure how the penny got there, but there it was.  I took it as a sign from my father.   To me, the shield represented protection.   I smiled, picked it up, and put it in my jeans pocket.

Next, I pulled off the matching fitted sheet.   When I shook it, I heard a tinkling sound.   Rummaging through the corner of the sheet, I felt two coins.  Grabbing them from the fitted pocket, then opening my palm...   Two dimes.  I found two dimes.  I smiled and put them in my pocket and gave them no further thought.

Until the other night.

Two dimes and a penny.  Two dimes and one penny...  Twenty-one cents.   Twenty-one...  The winning number in the card game, Blackjack.   A sign from the gambler himself?   Maybe.  I like to think so.

Then something else struck me.   The trilogy.   Two dimes and one penny.  The dimes represent my parents and the penny is me.   Found in the bed my parents gave me, neatly tucked between the flat and fitted sheets.   The dimes were worth more and had greater value then the penny.  The penny represented luck and protection as reflected in the shield.

Yes, I am a lucky penny to have had two great dimes.

CSM


 

The Death Rattles

Twice in my life I have experienced the death rattles.  That sound that comes from the back of a person's throat when unmoving saliva builds up and they have lost the natural ability to swallow.  When you hear that sound, the end is near.  Death is not far away when the death rattles are heard.

In my minds eye, I can see the pool of clear fluid, lying in the back of the throat, air rippling across it, causing a gurgling sound that goes on for several hours, perhaps days.   Twice in my life.  I had to ask the first time I heard it.   "What's that sound?"   The response was grave.  "It's the death rattles."   Sometimes, education hurts when you ask and learn.  An unpleasant life lesson.

I've been told they're not painful... for the patient.  Nevertheless, I was pained.   I feared them, like the monsters under the bed.  I can still hear them.  They whirl back on my memory's soundtracks.  Like a record spinning round, the needle rides across the grooves and that familiar reverberation sparks the visual of the dying.  The death rattles echoing.

The stages of death have worked their way into my brain.   I feel morbid.  Knowing what to look for.  Coma-like state where the patient drifts off to place never to return.  Blue or purple tips of fingers.  Cold legs and feet indicating no circulation of blood to that part of the body.   Swelling, retention of fluid that the body can't filter out. 

Finally, the death rattles.   That wicked, taunting sign that I despise the most. 

I never want to hear that sound again. 

I hate it. 

CSM

Sauerkraut and Other Fine Messes

Many family stories have Aunt Carolyn and my Mother as the central figures.  They knew how to have a good time and create a comedic scenes without trying.  A regular Lucy and Ethel.  Laurel and Hardy.  I never understood the reason, but the combination of these two women never brought a dull moment.

Aunt Carolyn and my Mother were never easily swayed from trying. They first meet when my Mother was 18 and Aunt C was 16. They were the sisters that neither had growing up. Their antics spanned over decades.   First and foremost, you have to understand that Aunt C was a red head, and a good-looking one at that.  I remember her rosy-permed hair, perfectly formed and bouncy when you touched it.  I'm not sure but I think she casted a love spell on Uncle Dick that he never got over. 

One particular misadventure began when they had the bright idea of making sauerkraut.   The practice of fermenting chopped cabbage began ages ago.   Perfected by many cultures across many lands.   The recipe remains to this day simple.   Cut up the cabbage, pack it in salt to ferment, add some caraway seeds if desired, put a lid on it, and leave it alone.  A clean container, cabbage, salt, time...  Their honest attempt turned disastrous.  The stench finally dissipated, forming a cloud over a nearby field.  The container ruined, discarded to the landfill somewhere.  My cousin had to take the concoction out into the yard and bury it.   To this day, no grass grows on that spot at the red-bricked homestead out on Main Street.  And I'm sure ages and ages hence from now, a biochemistry major will study that plot of land to determine the reason why.

Later, Aunt C attempted to teach my Mother to make pie dough.   The early morning hours began with high hopes that Mother would master the technique and by evening we would be enjoying the fruits of their labor.  After several hours, bowls of mixtures of flour, water, and whatever else you put in began to stack up.  The lesson ended poorly by early afternoon.  I think I may have used some of it as a substitute for modeling clay. None of my creations survive.  And my Mother continued to keep Pillsbury's already-made pie dough in business.

One specific incident involving Aunt C sent this skinny kid into fits.   Aunt C worked at bank in Anderson and sometimes we would go and pick her up from work.  One particular trip would prove exciting.   As I recall, I stood, just high enough to see out the front windshield, in the center of the back seat next to my sister, and maybe a cousin on the other side.  Letting a kid stand in a moving car isnt' something that you could allow today without the police pulling you over.  It was back in the day when you didn't drive like a bat out of hell.   Aunt C sat in the front passenger seat, un-primping herself, while my Mother drove.   From my vantage point, it appeared that Aunt C began to peel off the hair on her head. She then tossed it into the back seat.  This ball of hair flew right at me. There's nothing more scarier than seeing your Aunt's head of hair come flying at you, even if it was just a wig.  Everyone laughed, but me.

CSM

End of an Era part 2

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned the two-part end of an era that I am facing.   The first being the loss of my father.    The second loss is almost as deep.

For anyone who has left and gone elsewhere or come from elsewhere, leaving behind the familiar like their hometown, you were smart.   You were smart to go out into the world and find a spot for yourself.  I wish I had moved further away, but I opted not to, feeling like I had an obligation.   With my father's departure, I feel like sometime in the near future, I can stamp my bill "Paid in Full."

But, it's not that easy.   Not only did I say goodbye to him, I have to say goodbye to home.   They say that home is where your heart is.   My heart beats in two places.  Here in my small cozy apartment in a historic neighborhood where my bedroom windows look out on a fountain that gushes water nine months out the year.   Shaded by old trees with deep roots.  And kind and caring neighbors.

My heart also beats in my parents' home.  The structure where I was welcomed from day one.  Where my parents brought me after the hospital.   To an 11-year-old sister who looked upon me as a new doll baby ready to be spoiled.  It was home.  It was the home where I took my first steps across the hard-wood floors.   The one where I was fed.  The one I came home to after school, from kindergarten to high school, then to college, then from my second home.   New Years toasts, Easter egg hunts, birthdays, pimples, dreams, changing body, and last farewells.  And most of all the Christmases when family came together to celebrate the passing of the year.

How do you say goodbye to a physical place where soon you can only drive by and say "I grew up there"?   And you pray that someone loves it as mush as you did.

I made the choice to leave it, so I have no one to blame but myself.   I fear the change.  I resist it.  But, I also have hope for the future.

I stand facing the end of two eras.   My father and the home where I felt safe and always welcome. 

It's rough, but I will carry on.

CSM 

End of an Era

Is there anybody reading this that has never experienced the end of an era?  If so, lucky you.

Last week, I experienced the first part of a two-part series of watching an era end.   My father left for destinations unknown.  I could go into my thoughts on the afterlife, but not now, maybe later.   With his departure, I have now lost both of my parents.   The two who brought me into the world, gave me love and support even when I may not have deserved it, watched me flourish, struggled with the parts of my life they didn't like.   They had to accept I wasn't perfect, just like I had to accept they weren't either.

I've been told by several people how lucky I was to have great parents.   I think it's only been in recent years that I have actually been able to say "Yes, I do" which now becomes "Yes, I did".   I never had to tell them.  They just knew.

It wasn't easy saying goodbye.  It wasn't the first time, and it was this time either.  It still seems surreal to me.   The actual moment when he left, then to the funeral, and on to the cemetery where I had to leave him.  I couldn't just pick him up and take him back home.  He had to stay there.  Inside a container made of steel, painted blue.   Sometime later, I'll have to write about my funeral experience and some of the strange thoughts I had.

Watching your parents who you remember as a child grow old, their hair thin and turn grey or white, their hands and face wrinkle.   Struggling with unrelenting sickness.   Accepting that they may not drive again.   I never thought those days would come.   But they did.  And now, I have to grieve.   Then pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again...  Thank you Jerome Kern for the lyrics.

Now onto part two.

CSM

Those Family Stories

Many thanks to Kathi, one of my readers, for her comments on Facebook.  She suggested that I write about my family stories and encourage others to so as well.  They do get lost.  Some are "lost" on purpose.  

When I began writing, I was sure exactly what I was doing.  I struggled with the typical questions -- Can I write?  What would I write about?  Why is editing so hard?  Why does my butt keep going to sleep after sitting for two hours writing?  So, I started with my imagination which runs on cheaper and more readily available fuel than my car.  Too bad we can't harvest a writer's imagination to meet our fuel needs.

I have a great love of writing fiction, especially for kids.  It was a good place for me to start.  You can use simple words, simple structures, simple grammar.   You can let your wildest fantasies run amok.   And just have a good time watching it unfold.  My characters tended to take over.

However, I have not tapped into another great fountain -- the family stories.   At some point, I will have to take liberties, since I don't remember all the details.  I wouldn't be the first in history.    Oh, the stories I could and will tell.   (I wonder if family can sue you?   I'll check later.)

For example, in third person singular...

I'll start with a simple story about this one skinny little kid in the family.  I barely remember him, but the photographs prove that he was real. 

He had suffered scarlet fever as a baby and would sleep best when rocking back and forth in his wind-up swing.   The kind with the old-metal-framed and fake leather seat.   As he grew, he remained, according to his Grandma, painfully skinny.  Enough so, that she would cry about it, fearing the worst at any moment, but he managed to survive.  Dear god, how I miss that skinny kid, especially when he now appears in a full-length mirror and the reflection isn't the same as it was then.

This kid tended to be a loner. There weren't other kids of his own age in the neighborhood which consisted of a few newly-built houses.   As the extreme youngest, his brother being 13-years older and his sister 11-years older, he found solitude in his sand box.   A wood-framed square, filled with about a foot of grainy sand, and situated along the side of a typical 1960s ranch-style house.  Built by his Father, it was not only a place of sand sculpting and imagination but it also marked a memorial for a dachshund named Daisy.   She would be there watching over the skinny kid who attempted to tunnel his way to China since he had seen it in a Saturday morning cartoon and believed it to be possible.   Invariably, a local feline would make use of the sand box, requiring a cleaning before the digging began.   In the center stood a small maple sapling, that would eventually engulf the whole area.

His imagination was active, not just in the sand, but also in nature.   Much to his mother's dismay, he experimented early on in cryogenics by freezing a dead dragonfly found on some afternoon romp.    A glass baby food jar filled with tap water would eventually suspend the dead insect in the freezer in the garage.  His mother wasn't as enthused as he was.  After all, it was taking up valuable space in the freezer, but where else could you freeze something with hopes of bringing it back to life.  He never thought about the later part, just preserving the body.   He eventually would turn to Dr. Frankenstein in the 1930s movie to seek advice on that part.   Sometime later, he would have to deal with the fact that someone had stolen his experiment while he was at school one day.  The culprit remains a mystery to this day, or at least, his Mother said she never saw anyone come into the garage.

CSM

Stalled

One of the many aspects about writing is that you can get stalled.  It's not that I have a "block" or a lack of ideas or even what I've been currently writing.   It's life.   Life gets in the way.    For the past several weeks, I have been stalled in getting work done on book two.   I have a total of 86 pages with just over 30,000 words down.  I'm moving faster than before, but life gets in the way.

They're not distractions like TV or mowing the grass.  They're really issues -- sickness, annoyances, infatuations, mental breakdowns.  And please note, they're all out of my control.  I can't do anything about any of them.   They have their limitations.  I can only take reign of the part I can control.

My one and only thought on how to deal with some of these uncontrollable issues is to take the energy I would spend on them and pour it into my writing.

It took me some time to realize that I've lost track of the most important goal in my life right now.   I had to stop, regroup, and get back to that number one goal -- book two, then onto book three.    Without much reluctance, I've pushed away all the uncontrollable distractions.    I can control my characters, the plot, the scenes, the dialogue.  Their lives are in my hands.  Those fictional characters alive and well and living in my mind. 

Why bother messing with distractions beyond my control?

CSM

Being Left Behind

As I sit here writing this, I can't help but wonder how long until I am an orphan.  

One by one I've watched the ones I grew up with grow old.  Their hair grays and recedes.   They eyes grow tired.  Their hands that used to be so soft to the touch get wrinkled.   Faces worn from their own changes of life.

I never thought the day would come that I would watch them go one by one.  Experience their experience with their own loved ones that they grew up with and had to watch get old and leave them.  We are all never really ready to say goodbye.   It's so unfair, but in order to live we have to die.  And we die trying to live.

I had several great teachers in my life who taught me to laugh and cry.  Uncle Dick's warm greetings and his "always glad to see you" welcomes.   Grandma Alford's stories of growing up in North Dakota.  Aunt Sue's cranberry salad at Christmas.  Grandpa Marshall's wit and humor.  Cousin Frances' generosity.  Aunt Martha's cutting my hair.  So many.

But the most important memories come from the two that gave me life and raised me as best they could.   One has gone on and waits.   Soon, she'll be here to take the other.   It will be his turn.

The one thing they never told me was how hard this would be.   I can only guess that they knew it was the one experience I had to go through.

It's unfair, but I know I'm not alone.

CSM