presents

I loved Christmas as a kid. I know now that Mom and Dad didn't have much money to buy presents for four children but they managed to make the season special for us. I remember getting a baby doll every year until I was about 11 and that's when I asked for a Barbie. Mama didn't want to get me a lady doll but she did. She loved the babies and thought I was too young to want a grown-up doll. She didn't buy me Barbie, though. She got me a Tammy doll. Tammy wasn't as busty and as fancy as Barbie and she was probably less expensive, and she was a lady doll, but she sure wasn't a Barbie. I was the only one of my circle who had Tammy.

While we still believed in Santa, Mom worked hard to keep up the charade of the fat, jolly man in the red suit. To get presents for us, without much opportunity to shop, (Dad had the car at work), she'd give us the Sears Christmas catalog. She called it the wishbook. We'd wish and wish and wish as we scoured every page. Karla and I'd lay down on the living room floor on our bellies with the book in front of us. She'd have the left side pages, I'd have the right. (The right side person got control of page turning.)

We'd skip to the girl's toy section and start our toy selection ritual. At first glimpse of toys on the page, we'd find the best one and slap our palm over it, "I get this!" The slower one of us, usually the younger one (Karla) would have second choice in the palm slapping selection process. Sometimes though, she'd be just a little quicker than me and pick the better of the toys on that page. Of course, I'd brush it off as though I didn't want that "old thing" anyway. Always a competition...

After we'd worn the catalog out with our marathon page turning, Mom would get on the phone and pretend she was talking to the North Pole. I remember one time in particular when I caught her on the phone in the kitchen.

"Yes, Santa? I would like to tell you what my children want for Christmas this year."

"Yes. 919 E Shevlin, Hazel Park, Michigan. My first item? Yes, C156-876 page 22."

And so on, and so on. Hey, she had me fooled. I was impressed that we didn't really have to go sit on the old guy's knee and tell him what we wanted. Going to visit Santa when I was a kid wasn't like it is now. Now, he's treated like the king of the season. He's inside the store and everything is beautifully decorated. Our Santa was treated like an afterthought at the dept stores. Even in the depths of winter, with snow blowing and freezing temperatures, poor old St Nick was outside the front door of the store in a little tent-like structure. There were bare lightbulbs strung to give it some sort of semblence of warmth and cozyness and Santa was inside the lean-to sitting on a chair waiting for children to tell him their deepest toy desires. The cold wind and snow flurries whipped around us as we climbed up on Santa's lap. It was no picnic to put in your order. It was more like a necessary evil, that is, until the Sears wishbook. Now Mom could just phone it in. What progress we'd made!

As Christmas day drew nearer, Mom would make us narrow down the few things that we really wanted. Then she'd choose from the smaller list. As we got older, she made us pick one thing that we really wanted. I remember Kathy with her sno-cone machine. Man, icy treats ANY time. For me, it was the year I was twelve and I asked for and got a transistor radio. Now everyone else I knew got a long, narrow, hand held radio in a black case...maybe a 3"x5" or so that fit nicely in the palm of the hand. That's what I wanted. I wanted one like everyone else. But, nope. My dad prided himself on buying a better radio, (or a different doll), you get the picture...so I got a wide, handheld radio with a BROWN case. Yes, when I first saw it I was disappointed for a split second, but Dad was so proud of his selection, I wouldn't dare be ungrateful. And, besides, at least I had a RADIO! Whoo-hoo! Beatles, Temptations, Supremes, Herman's Hermits, on WKNR--Keener radio--my music anytime I wanted--until 11:00pm when they cut the signal and it was over for the day. Turns out it was a good little radio and I used it for a very long time. I thought it was my best Christmas present ever.

My worst Christmas as a kid was when I was 13. It was Christmas Eve at home. The house was decorated, there were specials on television and I think Aunt Wanda and Uncle Bill were coming over, and I was sick with an ear infection. I was miserable. I had fever and my ear hurt really badly. Mom fixed me a bed in the middle of the action in the living room on the couch with a heating pad for my ear. I felt very sorry for myself and started to cry. Mom asked me what was wrong, other than my ear hurting, and I said, "I don't want to ruin Christmas for everyone else."

I was trying to work up some sympathy for myself. After all, I WAS SICK, on Christmas Eve! Good Grief. Have a little compassion, people. My dear mother, with all her country girl practicality, said, "You're not going to ruin Christmas for anyone else. We're not the ones sick. You are!" And she walked away.

Boy, I couldn't even drum up sympathy from my mother. It caught me off guard when she said it. I'd really expected some pity for my circumstances, but the thing is, her reply put the whole experience in proportion for me. It wasn't the end of the world because I was sick on a holiday. It was an ear infection, for goodness sake, not a catastrophe. My ear didn't stop hurting until the next day when the abcess broke after a night on the heating pad, but it got OK pretty soon and Christmas got off without a major hitch.

Maybe one of the best presents my mother ever gave me was the gift of no outward sympathy and of not being allowed to be too full of myself and my circumstances. When it's all said and done, it really isn't all about me. Fancy that.

Thank you, Mom.

Merry Christmas, all.
Suz

that cute paper boy

I can see it all now--It was four o'clock in the afternoon and Alice, Rose and I were sitting on my front porch hashing and rehashing what had happened at school earlier in the day. That's when we saw him. Mike Johnson. He was the cutest fifteen-year-old paper boy ever. At least that's what I thought when I was 13. He delivered The Detroit Tribune to our neighborhood every afternoon and Rose, Alice and I made sure he noticed us most of those afternoons. OK, maybe I was the instigator, but he really was cute and I just knew if I could get him to notice me, he'd recognize what a great catch I was and then he'd like me, too.

Mike Johnson was a tall, lanky dark haired all-American boy wearing cut off jean shorts, madras shirt and funky fishing hat pulled down over his eyes walking down our street. He carried a canvas bag on his shoulder filled with newspapers that he'd roll up just before throwing them at his subscriber's porches. When he got to our porch he didn't throw it and take a chance on hitting us. He politely walked up the sidewalk, smiled and handed it to me. He was cute, polite and friendly. It was official. I was in serious "like." I was smitten.

It was after that first encounter that the plotting and planning began. All our parents got the Tribune so we made sure we were sitting on one of our porches everyday about four so we could do the "get up and take the newspaper from the cute boy" maneuver. Alice and Rose were kinda shy, and I wasn't, so I got to take it from him no matter on whose porch we were sitting. After a couple of days, we figured out that if we went to Alice's house first and got the paper from him, while he was at the end of her street, we could make our way to my house and take it from him there, then we could beat him down the street and also accept it from him at Rose's house. Three interactions in one afternoon. Brilliant!

But, after a while, it just wasn't enough. Mike was diligent about his work so even when we asked him a question to try to prolong his visit with us, he'd answer politely and keep walking. We had to have more time with him. Got it! We'd start paying him--OK-I'd start paying him-- at the end of the week when he had to collect the money for the papers he'd delivered. And that's what we did. Same order of business. Pay him at Alice's house, pay him at my house, and pay him at Rose's house. On a really sneaky week, we go to Rita's house and even pay him there. He must have thought we were very silly little girls. Either that or he thought we were insane. Either way, all our plotting and planning never got us, er..me, anywhere with Mike Johnson. Nope. Nunca. Nada. Nothing. He was just the same nice, polite, friendly paper boy each and every time he saw us. Rats!

The next school year we went to Hazel Park High School. Mike was a junior, we were freshmen, and he'd given up his paper route for football and sports. We still got to see him, but he never acknowledged if he recognized us or not. It would have been kind of embarrassing so I'm glad he didn't.

Once, in everyday conversation, I told my friend, the beautiful Connie Hughes about him, you know, telling her that he'd been our paperboy for a while and how cute I thought he was, etc. It wasn't two weeks later, she made sure she let me know she had gone on a date with him. Now, I can't say for sure that she did it just because she could, but it still seems a little fishy to me. Reminds me of that Dolly Parton song, "Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Joleeeen. Please don't take him just because you can."

I was diligent in pursuit but the boy liking thing never worked too well for Jr High Suzanne, or, even High School Suzanne. Let's say it never worked for me when I tried to make it work. I had more success with boys when I ignored them and let them find me. Go figure.

Junior High Beauty

I was a pretty nondescript girl at Hazel Park Junior High School in 1963. My hair was dishwater blonde and my clothes, while not the worst, were just ok, too. I wanted to be cooler. Prettier. Dress more stylishly, but it just didn't happen. I did have lots of friends because I'd gone to school with them since the third grade. There were Rosemary, Alice, Jackie, Mary Jo, Karen, Kathy and a host of others. I was in love with the Beatles and Motown, but mostly the Beatles. Paul McCartney was my favorite of all times. I thought he was the most beautiful guy I'd ever seen in my whole 13 years. Sigh.

Much of what my friends and I talked about during these couple of years were the Beatles and boys...and our hair...and other music boys...and boys at school. Are you seeing a pattern here? It was all about the boys and how to attract the boys. We grew our hair out. We wore mini-skirts. We studied boys and analyzed our every interaction with them.

"What'd he say?" "How'd he say it?" "Why did he say it?" "When did he say it?"

"What'd you say?"

Boys were magical creatures and I had no clue about how to get one of them to like me. In fifth grade, Butchie Osterhout asked me to go steady and gave me a little silver colored ring with a round light green stone without ever even talking to me first. Out of the clear blue he decided he liked me. I didn't even know how it happened, just that it did. When I didn't know which finger to put the ring on, some girls in my class laughed at me and told Butchie how dumb I was, and that was the end of the budding romance. It didn't matter too much to me, after all, I didn't even know how I'd gotten him to like me in the first place! It stayed an unsolved mystery.

Mom wouldn't let me wear makeup in 7th grade so I sneaked around and did it. I found an Avon sample lipstick in red at Aunt Wanda's house and she let me keep it. I hid it in my pencil case and took it to school. The first thing I did when I got there was paint up those 13 yr old lips in this garish red lipstick. I was gorgeous! All day long I felt grown up with my scarlet mouth. On the way home from school I'd wipe the stain off my lips as best I could so my mother wouldn't know I'd been wearing it. Everything went along peachy keen until the day I forgot to wipe my mouth.

I walked into the house one afternoon with my bright red mouth and Karla spotted it immediately.

"Suzy, you got lipstick on?"

I started wiping my mouth furiously.

"NO! I DON'T!"

"MOM! SUZY'S GOT LIPSTICK ON!"

"Suzanne! Do you have lipstick on?"

"NO!"

"You better not lie to me, little girl. And you better quit sneaking around putting on lipstick, too!"

"Yes, Mom."

I was so mad at Karla I could have eaten her for lunch, but I didn't get into as much trouble as I thought I would. I had to lay low on the lipstick wearing for a while. That's when I concentrated on secretly shaving my legs. I wore my dad's red long johns to sleep in so Mom never noticed. Then I'd scoot out the door in the mornings before her eyes were open enough to catch sight of my new smooth legs. It worked for quite some time even though Dad was complaining about his razor being dull even though there was a new blade in it. Nobody said anything to me until the warm spring day when I was wearing shorts.

"Suzanne. Are you wearing hose?"

"No, Mama."

She bent down and felt my legs.

"You've been shaving your legs?"

"Sometimes."

"Well, once you start you know you can never stop it, and you better be careful. Don't cut yourself. That razor's sharp."

"OK, I'll be careful."

There was little to no battle over that issue. I was safe.

As mythical and magical as boys were, beauty was also an illusive thing for me at age 13. The model of beauty my friends and I set our sights on came from 16 Magazine. All the girls were from England so they had long straight hair, heavily made up eyes and white lips. They were beautiful, but mostly they were cool! I wasn't sure how to go about finding my own personal beauty, so I took various measures trying to capture the Mod English look as my own. I wore red lipstick, secretely shaved my legs, dyed my hair green with food coloring, cut my hair, rinsed my hair through with beer to straighten it, used Curl Free to straighten it, and wore Peppermint Pink lipstick that tasted good, but made me look like a corpse.

Studies were secondary for me in Jr High. I did a mediocre job with my classes. Bs and Cs with the occasional D. Had it been possible, I'd have gotten an A in History of Paul McCartney, or What Not To Do With Your Hair if those had been two of my classes. Let's suffice it to say that not too many of these efforts succeeded for me, so I'd surely have gotten an F in Nabbing That Cute Jr High Boy.

sixth grade--Railroad Blessman and the beating

Richard Robert Blessman was my sixth grade teacher. He had a buzz haircut and wore a dark suit and tie every day to school. RR was retired Navy and ran our classroom like a military unit. He made the mistake of telling our class about his nickname in college--Railroad Blessman. His friends called him that because his first and middle names both began with R. We had fun with it when he wasn't around. It was the only humorous thing about the man.

We had lots of rules in our class, but the biggest deal was that we were not allowed to say the word "ain't." To keep us from it we each had an index card called the Ain't Card which RR kept in a box on the corner of his desk. Each time we slipped up and said that nasty word it was marked on our card and we were docked points on our grammar grade. His methods of changing our grammar only made it a game for each of us to sneak to say the dreaded "ain't" behind his back. Sometimes, in September, in the middle of a weekday afternoon, if you listen closely you can still hear the echoes of a bunch of silly sixth-graders mocking old Railroad Blessman.

"OOOOHH. Ain't, ain't, ain't, ain't."

One term I got creative with my handwriting and wrote backhand instead of in the Palmer method--you know the kind of loopy and slanted to the right way most of us use now. Even writing backhanded, I was very neat. It just didn't look like it was supposed to look, so I got a D in handwriting that grading period. I thought my mother was going to explode. When she questioned Mr Blessman about it he made her even madder by saying, "No student ever deserves an A." She told me I'd better do exactly what he wanted me to do in class because she didn't want anymore Ds on my report card, so I abandoned my evil, creative ways and joined the herd once more.

I was a Safety Patrol that same year. My post was at the corner of Mapledale and Vassar. I was very proud to have the responsibility of helping kids across the street. There never was much traffic but it didn't matter to me. I was a patrol. Donna Rudnik and Mickey McMasters were also safety patrols on streets in my area but further out from the school. I'd only known Mickey since fifth grade, but I had known Donna since third grade when I moved to Hazel Park. I thought Donna was my friend. I'd been to her house many times after school. We'd gone shopping together with her mom. I went to church with her once. We laughed. We talked. I liked Donna. I liked Mickey. I thought they were my friends. Then one afternoon they both came to my post and started laughing and acting silly.

"Here. Hold her arm."

"OK."

Donna grabbed one arm and Mickey grabbed my other one.

"Now hit her with your patrol belt."

With one on either side of me holding my arms, they both began swinging their rolled up patrol belts against my bare legs, metal buckle and all. It wasn't funny at all but they both laughed as they wailed on me over and over again.

It hurt.

"Hey you guys. Let me go!"

"Aw c'mon. You're a Safety Patrol. It doesn't really hurt."

They each kept a tight grip on my arms and kept swinging.

"Stop it! Let me go!"

I struggled against them twisting and turning until I broke loose. They both laughed like fools as they watched me run home to safety. When I got there Mom could tell something was wrong even though I wasn't crying. I think it was the welts on my legs from the "goofing around" that my friends had just done that gave me away.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"What in the world happened to your legs?"

"Oh, Donna and Mickey were just goofing around."

But my mother didn't buy my simplistic explanation and grilled me until I told her exactly how they were 'goofing around.' She called the school immediately to tell Miss Morris what had happened. The next day all three of us were called into her office. Miss Morris was an imposing figure. She was a large elderly woman with gray hair, black glasses, a stern look, and a withered arm. We were all scared to death of her.

Miss Morris told Donna and Mickey she knew about what had happened the day before and lectured them on responsibility and setting an example for the younger students. She took away their Safety Patrol posts and belts and required them to apologize to me. Which they did right then and there.

They had to or they would die.

As we left Miss Morris' office together to go back to class, Donna asked,

"What did you tell on us for?"

"I didn't. My mom did. I didn't want you guys to get into trouble."

If I live to be a hundred years old, I will never completely understand why I didn't want them to get into trouble. I didn't get mad at them but I was puzzled about why they'd doubled up on me and hurt me. In spite of everything that happened to me that day, I still thought of them as my friends. Especially Donna. She couldn't have meant to hurt me. They were just goofing. Weren't they? Surely they didn't mean to be hateful and rotten to me. Friends just sometimes make mistakes. Friends don't hurt you like that. Do they?

So, I let it go, and I never got mad or ever became their victim for the spur of the moment beating they gave me on the corner of Mapledale and Vassar one fall afternoon on a Friday in Hazel Park, Michigan.

a few potatoes

My mother used to send me to Bob's Produce Market once in a while when she was cooking supper. She'd tell me to go buy her a few potatoes. Why couldn't she just say, "Suzanne, go buy me 6 large potatoes," or "7 medium ones." Something specific. Not just a few.

I was only 11 years old. I didn't know! I'd beg her to tell me,

"Mama, how many is that anyway?"

But that's all she'd say. A few. So I'd hop on my big blue bike and ride the 3 blocks to dear old Bob's.

I loved how the produce market smelled. Apples, carrots, potatoes, pomegranates--we called them Indian Apples--and cantaloupes and corn. It smelled fresh, sweet and good for you, but as good as it smelled, I didn't like going in there. Bob was about 60 years old and not a friendly guy. I don't think he liked kids in his store.

I don't think he liked kids. Period.

When I opened the door to go inside, the little bells on the door handle jingled. There were never any other customers in there. Maybe he was unfriendly to everyone. He sat at the back of the one room market in his chair and never said a word to me. When I got about halfway into the store, he slowly stood up and moseyed a few steps toward me--still not speaking. I got all nervous and spoke because he wouldn't.

"My mom wants a few potatoes."

He stopped dead in his tracks and then he just looked at me.

Now what? Was I supposed to get a paper sack and pick them out myself? I didn't know. He still didn't say anything to me so I spoke again just to break the silence.

"Just a few."

That's when he figured out that I was waiting for him to pick them out for me. He moved silently over to the unwashed white potatoes and started placing them in the paper bag. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Five potatoes. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Nine medium potatoes. A few? Then he walked slowly over to the hanging scale and placed the bag carefully into the pan to weigh them. I now wonder just how much all the dirt on those potatoes weighed.

"55 cents."

I handed him the money, folded the top of the bag down and hurried out of the store. There was no "Thank you." No, "Come again." No, "Kiss my foot."

Silence.

I was so glad to be out of there I could have shouted. The good smell of the store was just not worth the misery of doing business with silent, old Bob.

I wrapped the top of the bag over the handlebar and placed my hand over it to get my treasures home because there was no basket on my bike. Off I went. That's when it started to sprinkle rain. I'd only gone one block, just up from Frankie Polito's house, when my bag started getting weak from the water. I hoped it would let me get home before it disintegrated.

It didn't.

One potato fell out. Two fell out. They all fell out. I had dirty, little potatoes all over the ground, and a soggy mess of a holey paper bag wrapped around my handlebar. It couldn't get any worse.

Then it really started raining.

The thought never entered my mind to simply leave them there and go home. I was too responsible to do that. I needed those potatoes. Mama needed those potatoes. Besides, she would kill me if I left them there and I surely couldn't hold them with one hand. There were too many of them.

Now what was I going to do? I was stuck.

So I arm wrestled with muddy potatoes in the rain. I put a couple in the crook of my arm, one under my arm, I held one in my hand and shoved two under my chin...I had potatoes everywhere. Then I tried to ride my bicycle. What a fiasco! I'd go 2 feet and drop 2 potatoes. At that rate I'd never get home.

Then I heard my name.

"Suz-ay-anne!"

My Aunt Polly was visiting us from Tennessee and Mama had sent her to look for me because I'd been gone so long.

"My bag broke. I can't get the potatoes home!"

"Well, let's see what we can do."

She tried carrying them, but it seems a few potatoes is too many for anyone to carry without a bag. Rain was still coming down. We were too far from the store to go back for another bag and still 2 blocks from home. We were soaked and now both of us don't know what to do. That's when I had a brainstorm. The light bulb came on. It was an epiphany.

I was wearing a yellow, flowered sunsuit. Remember those? One piece play suits with string ties at the shoulders? Elastic at the waist and at each leg? Why not put the potatoes in my sunsuit? Drop the muddy little suckers down the front and back of my top. I'd sit down and ride my bike home so they wouldn't fall out the legs and we could at least get them home to Mama.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Aunt Polly hesitated for a split second but she knew there was no other solution, and finally gave in. As I sat on my bicycle seat, she loaded me up, front and back with wet, dirty potatoes. We both laughed at the sight of my lumpy, muddy rain soaked sunsuit. She told me to go ahead and ride and she'd catch up with me, but I rode slowly so she wouldn't have to walk home in the rain alone. I wasn't going to leave her. She had rescued me. We were filthy and soaked to the bone by the time went the 2 remaining blocks home.

We crashed triumphantly and noisily through the back door, laughing loudly at the ridiculousness of the whole mess. We were ecstatic. We had succeeded. We had scaled the mountain. We had overcome our adversity. We had brought home the bacon...er, potatoes!

As Aunt Polly unloaded my dirty sunsuit of its cargo at the kitchen table, we spilled out our whole sordid story for Mama. She listened calmly like a disinterested bystander and then matter-of-factly said,

"Well, why'd you get so many? I told you just a few.

fifth grade--The Malinowski Baseball Incident of 1963

After reading my posts and noticing my negative happenings, a friend asked me, "Did you ever have a good year in school?" Sure, I had some good times each year but there seemed to be one thing or another every year that was dramatic for me. Fifth grade was one of those years.

I think my teacher was Mrs Fain the school's Spanish teacher. At least I had her for part of the year. She was OK. No problems there. See? It was OK so I don't remember much about it. Uncle Bill always said if nothing ever goes wrong, you'll never remember it. Well, I don't remember much about fifth grade except for the day I sent Eugene Malinowski to the hospital.

Yep. I did. We were outside at recess and on this particular day we were playing an organized game. Baseball. Everything was going along all right. I wasn't very athletic as a girl, much like I am now as a grown up. I didn't like to be in the spotlight but it was my turn to bat. I wasn't optimistic enough to think I'd hit the ball, I was just hoping I wouldn't swing so hard and miss that I'd screw myself into the ground.

I was up. Holding the bat at ready. Here comes the pitch. I closed my eyes and swung the bat. Whap! I connected. I couldn't believe it! I HIT THE BALL! Now I had to run. RUN, SUZANNE! I slung my bat backwards to give myself momentum. I forgot that poor Eugene was stooping down behind me playing catcher. I took off toward first base. About halfway there, the cheers telling me to "Run," stopped and I slowed down. As I got to first base, there there was no cheering. In fact no one was paying me any attention. Everyone was now gathered around poor Eugene. He was sitting up and our teacher was holding a bloody handkerchief over his forehead. What happened? Who'd hurt Eugene? Then someone told me that I'd clobbered the kid.

I felt awful. First, because I'd put in all that effort batting and running for nothing. Second, because I was so stupid I didn't know not to throw the bat and I'd hurt an innocent kid. They called Mrs Malinowski and maybe an ambulance. I'm not sure.

We all headed back to class and Eugene with his broken head went to the doctor for stitches. School went on as usual although the mood in our classroom was somber. None of us had much experience with accidents like this. We didn't even know if he was going to live. No one fussed at me. My classmates didn't ostracize me or get mad because I'd hurt our classmate. Later that afternoon our teacher told us Eugene was fine and only had to have a few stitches. I was very sad about the whole thing.

What I didn't know was that the principal, Miss Morris, had also called my mother. I went home as usual that afternoon never telling my mother what had happened. After a few minutes at home, she asked,

"How was school today?"

"OK."

"Did anything unusual happen?"

"No."

"The school called."

That's when the dam burst. I broke into tears and confessed to Mom that I'd almost killed a kid. Why not confess? She already knew anyway.

After a good cry, some consoling and reassurance from my mother that Eugene really was going to be all right, my mother had me call Eugene at home to apologize for the accident. Life went back to normal. He was out of school for a day or so but came back almost good as new. Neither one of us ever mentioned it again.

Maybe we had them but I don't ever remember another baseball game for the fifth graders at Longfellow Elementary. I never played baseball in school again for fear of a repeat of the Malinowski Baseball Incident of 1963.

fourth grade--Charlotte Surdaki and the loss of grace

Miss Charlotte Surdaki was my fourth grade teacher. She was not a young woman. She was perhaps in her early 40's and was swift to politely correct any student who called her Mrs Surdaki.

"I am Miss Surdaki, not Mrs Surdaki."

Her white porcelain skin was impeccably made up with deep red lips to accent her exotic beauty. Her hair was jet black which she wore completely off her face in a classic chignon at the back of her neck. She wore tailored clothes which matched her cool, calm and collected personality. Our class loved her. I loved her. She treated us with respect and we felt as though she enjoyed teaching us.

Miss Surdaki made our classroom fun in an orderly way. We worked hard on our regular schoolwork, but she also gave us little bits of fun information to hold our interest. She told us we would be losing our teeth at a quickening pace and not to worry. We were not actually falling apart.

Miss Surdaki also encouraged us to stand tall and proud when we recited the Pledge of Allegiance and to sing loudly and clearly our national anthem. She's the one who told us the national anthem's "sweet land of liberty," was not, "sweet land of liverty," and had nothing to do with our liver. Her enthusiasm for us and our class was uplifting and I just knew this would be the best school year I'd ever had.

Then one day, all was not well in Mudville. I cried when she told us she wouldn't be our teacher anymore. It was a blow to the gut that I will never forget. My classroom in paradise was gone.

Miss Surdaki's mother had become ill and it fell her responsibility to take care of her. After the Christmas break our class was given to Mrs Arnold who was already teaching her own fifth grade class. We were moved into her classroom with the fifth graders for the second half of the school year and taught in one room school house style.

What a difference a day makes. Everything changed. Mrs Arnold was a longtime, no nonsense school teacher who didn't have a fun bone in her body. She wasn't impolite to us, she just wasn't as polite and as graceful as Miss Surdaki had been. Her motto seemed to be,

"School is work. Do it"

There was no charm. There was no beauty. There was just the business of learning. Our job. So we worked joylessly and even though I was glad when that school year ended with Mrs Arnold, I took with me the joy of learning I had gotten from Miss Surdaki. She had made school as beautiful and as exotic as she was.

third grade--I was the Spirit of Christmas

Our family moved from Madison Heights to Hazel Park in 1960 at the start of my third grade in school. My new teacher at Longfellow Elementary School was Mrs McWaters. I think she must have been in her forties as far as age goes and she was such a nice lady! In an area where most of the teachers and children were Michigan born and bred and Catholic, it was a lovely thing for me to have a Southern woman who went to the Baptist Church as my teacher. It was familiar and comfortable.

I met Rose in Mrs McWaters class along with many other classmates I would keep through the ninth grade until we moved away. I remember bits and pieces about that school year. At Longfellow we went home for lunch everyday. It was only about a block from my house so we'd leave around 11am and have to be back at noon. Seems funny to me now and makes me feel a little sad that most children won't know the joy of coming home for lunch and seeing their mom in the middle of the day as I did. Mom always fixed a hot lunch like Chicken Noodle Soup and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or Chef Boyardee Ravioli and a sandwich with a glass of milk to wash it down. We'd eat and then head back to school for three more hours till we were out for the day.

Since we didn't have a lunchroom at our school our PTA would host hot dog sales every month or so. On the Monday of hot dog sale week, we'd place our order and pay for our hot dogs and milk. Then on Friday Mom would pack a sack with goodies for me to eat along with my hot dog. There'd be a small bag of chips, some cookies and maybe some celery and carrot sticks. Because we could only order our hot dogs plain, or with mustard or ketchup, I'd cut up an onion and wrap it in waxed paper for mine. I LOVED mustard and onion on my hot dog! Our sacks went under our desks until lunch time and as the morning rolled on, my onions smelled stronger and stronger! At first it embarrassed me but Linda Lee told me how good my onions smelled and she started bringing them too. We were the only ones who brought them but at least we weren't alone! After lunch we all filed into the gym and sat on the floor to watch a movie. Hot dog day was a great change from the usual and the PTA made a little money too.

This same year I was chosen to play the Spirit of Christmas in the school play. The dress I wore was beautiful red velvet with white lace hearts all over it. It had been used as a Valentine's Day dress but it was going to do double duty as a Christmas dress for the play. I think Mrs McWaters really chose me because she liked me but there was some controversy about it because I was the new girl. A mother or two thought Mrs McWaters should choose someone who'd been at the school a longer time. She defended her choice but finally used the argument that I was the best fit for the dress. So much for being well-liked.

I worked hard to learn my lines and I didn't really care how I'd gotten the part. I was chosen. The only line I still remember is the first one. I said it strongly and surely. "I am the Spirit of Christmas." For those few moments in the spotlight on that stage in our elementary school gymnasium I felt as though I really were the Spirit of Christmas!

There were no paddlings, no yelling at me, no trouble with Mrs McWaters in the third grade. I was a happy camper at Longfellow Elementary in 1960/61. It was a very good year.

second grade--paddles and hula hoops

Mrs Kazarian was my second grade teacher and our classroom was on the second floor of the school. And, will wonders never cease, I got into trouble in her class, too.

It was a gorgeous spring day and our school was having a hula hoop contest for the fifth and sixth graders. The contest was held outside on the school's front lawn but only fifth and sixth graders were allowed to watch it. We younger ones missed out on all the excitement.

The teachers across the hall, whose classrooms overlooked the front lawn, opened their windows and allowed their students to watch the festivities from their own classroom. As Mrs Kazarian stepped across the hall to also watch, she looked back into our classroom and said sternly,

"Do not leave your seats. I'll be right back."

Sounds like clear instruction to me.

I got up, peeked out the door with several others and decided I'd make a run for it and blend in with the other students to watch out the windows. I'd never be noticed in the crowd and then I'd get back to my desk before my teacher came back, or at best she'd never really be mad because she'd understand I just wanted to see all the fun.

Boy, was I wrong.

I maneuvered my way through the other kids and got up to the window. I saw the hula hoopers going to town swinging those hips round and round. It looked like fun for the moment, but after a while it was just hula hoopers swinging their hips round and round.

I got bored.

So did Mrs Kazarian.

She noticed her students mixed in with the others.

"Get back to class."

I was a dead woman.

We got back to class and she was very upset that a some of us didn't obey her and stay in our room. We got the ultimate punishment. A paddling in front of the class. Good grief! I wasn't expecting a whipping. It was first grade all over again! Maybe some yelling. Extra work. Writing sentences. Not that! Anything but that!

Mrs Kazarian lined us up in front of all our classmates--four terrified children, boys first. Rebel that I was, I was the only girl--and then she proceeded to paddle our behinds with a ping pong paddle.

Whack! Whack! Whack! Swoosh!

There was a definite advantage to wearing a dress to school. The paddle stung a little but the full skirt of my dress deflected most of the momentum of that deadly weapon. We all left the front rubbing our backsides. That would be a lesson to us--and to the whole class.

We should always obey Mrs Kazarian.

Mrs Kazarian was a good teacher. She was very fair and I certainly don't harbor any hard feelings toward her. She did me great favor by nipping this little girl's rebellion in the bud.

Maybe the time in our culture for corporal punishment in our schools has passed. I don't know. I do know that not every teacher is emotionally fit enough to wield a paddle, but I also believe that sometimes strict discipline and corporal punishment have a place. I deserved getting into trouble for my offense and because of the swift carriage of justice by my teacher I never directly disobeyed a teacher of mine again.

My inner rebel surrendered.

first grade--too much trouble

I must have had a magnetic personality when it came to my elementary school teachers. My first grade teacher, Miss Arnett, was a real charmer. Kinda like a snake. That woman was mean--at least she was mean to me.

I wanted to like her. I really did. After all, she was young and attractive. She dressed nicely. I wanted to look up to her and fall in love with my teacher. But it just wasn't happening. She didn't like me at all.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't the perfect student. At least for back then. I was noisy sometimes. For instance, during silent reading time, I was looking at my Dr Seuss book. Books were VERY important to me. I wanted to be sure and get everything out of this book that I could so I started at the inner cover illustration. It was of a huge traffic jam with Dr Seuss characters. I loved them. They were whimsical creatures that had great personalities and style. While I was looking at the cover, at this great traffic jam, I started thinking about how the jam would sound.

I let down my guard. I got lost in this book and I immersed my thoughts in these covers. I'd have been OK if I'd only thought of what it sounded like, but I started doing sound effects and saying all the things in this jumbled jam of traffic. This was supposed to be silent reading.

"Beep, beep!"

"Honk, honk!"

"Hey you, get out of the way!"

"LOOK OUT!"

"CRASH!"

Miss Arnett heard the commotion and asked, "Who is making all that noise?" I didn't hear her and I kept on going.

I was stuck in traffic.

She found out who was the noisy one and jolted me back into reality.

"SUZANNE! Be quiet! This is silent reading. Put down your book and lay your head on your desk! You will be quiet!" (Thinking back on it now she sort of sounded like Colonel Klink!)

OH NO! I didn't want to lay my head down and stop reading! This was a terrible thing! Then Miss Arnett came to my desk and took my book away.

I was done. I was humiliated and done.

During my first grade year I got paddled a time or two and yelled at a lot but my mother was my champion. I got into trouble so much that Mama finally told Miss Arnett that if she laid one more hand on her daughter she'd come up there to that school and tear her up!

She would have, too.

After Mama threatened her, Miss Arnett still never liked me, but she did lighten up on me and the unfair punishment.

That battle would have been something to behold wouldn't it?

The Tennessee Wildcat Protecting Her Baby vs Miss Arnett, Yankee School Teacher Who's Too Big for Her Britches.

my first day of kindergarten--big, mean Julie and the broken sidewalk

I remember my first day of kindergarten at Thomas Alva Edison Elementary School in Madison Heights, Michigan. I was five years old and my mama walked me to school that day. It wasn't far. One street over and down a half block. I would only go a half a day to morning kindergarten and then go home.

There weren't many other kindergartners on our street and I would be walking home from school by myself so on the way there, Mama carefully told me how to get back home.

"Look for the broken sidewalk. Then turn right at the next corner after it. You'll see the Rank's house."

I was scared and I asked lots of questions but she said I'd do fine.

When we walked into the classroom, I was amazed. What a beautiful place! It was an open, airy room with a high ceiling and lots of windows. There were colorful decorations all over. There were shapes and colors and numbers cut out of construction paper on the walls. Our small oak tables had little wooden chairs around them just waiting for us to begin learning. We walked into the room and my mom introduced me to my teacher. My first day was about to begin and I couldn't wait to get started.

I don't remember what we did after my mama left, or the fun we had, or the things we learned.

But, I do remember Julie.

She was a big, mean girl with slanty eyes and braids. She was strong. While we were in the line to get a drink of water at the fountain, she tried to choke me. I remember her hands tightly around my neck and how it hurt when I pulled away from her.

I don't remember my teacher's name. I only remember her aggravation with me when I told her that Julie had choked me.

"Suzanne, don't be a tattletale. Now go sit down."

I protested but it didn't do any good.

"But, Julie choked me!"

I was flabbergasted by her lack of concern at my danger. You weren't supposed to CHOKE people in kindergarten! That wasn't safe. My mama would be mad that someone had tried to hurt me. But, my teacher never said anything to Julie and I'm the one who got in trouble.

This took the shine right off my greatly anticipated first day of school.

Hungry, still shaken and puzzled by my lack of safety in class, when my half day was finally over I turned the wrong way as I left the school. Nothing looked familiar and I couldn't find the broken sidewalk. I didn't know how to get home. I was alone on the street and there was no one to help me. I started to go up to a house and ask for help. There was one with the front door open and through the screen door I could hear dishes rattling and a television playing. Maybe some other nice Mom would help a lost, hungry little girl find her Mama. I peered into the door and saw the outline of a man sitting in a chair.

Nope.

I didn't want any other dads helping me. Only moms. Mr Rank from down our street looked like a nice dad but Mama told Daddy he beat up Millie because she forgot to brown his fried bologna for lunch. I moved quietly away from the door. I just couldn't bring myself to knock. Strangers lived there.

I thought about going back to the school but I didn't think I was allowed to go back there until tomorrow. So I just stood there--and I cried.

And cried.

I tried to remember the instructions Mama had given me but they all involved that darn broken sidewalk and I couldn't find it. I was never, ever going to get home again.

Then I heard the most beautiful sound in the world.

"Suzanne! Suzanne!"

I sniffed and wiped my nose on my arm. My mama was calling my name. I turned around and she ran to me and hugged me.

"I was worried about you. What are you doing way down here? You were supposed to come the other way."

"I looked and looked but I couldn't find the broken sidewalk."

She wiped my tear-stained face, took my hand in hers and gave me directions again as we walked home.

It had been a tough day. I was hungry. I'd been choked, fussed at and gotten lost.

I just wanted to go home.

the continuum

I've written a few stories about my dad but there are many more interesting things about him. For example, he was a TV repairman when sets had tubes and he was also a meat cutter. The TV repairman job didn't work out as well as he had hoped, so he was mostly a meat cutter. When he'd cut himself at work, which was often, he'd take himself to the Dr's office, get stitches then come home early. Then, when it was healed he removed his own stitches. Ewww. I was grossed out, but I still loved to sit at the kitchen table and watch him clip the threads and pull them out of his hand. His white shirts were always bloody from the meat market but that was just the norm for our house.

He wasn't much of a hunter but once in a while he'd go with Uncle Bill. One time he got a pheasant and brought the foot home to me. He showed me how to pull the tendon at the top, so the foot would close and grasp. I brought it in for show and tell.

I was a hit.

My classmates were amazed. I kept the foot in my desk in a Whitman's Sampler candy box with my other treasures the rest of the school year.

That's another thing. For every birthday, holiday and anniversary, Dad brought Mom a Whitman's Sampler. She loved it. We did too because she always shared with us. Of course, she always got to choose her favorite piece first.

When he left early for work before we got out of bed, he wrote poems to Mom and us with his red meat marking pen on the laundry cards that came out of his shirts. They went something like this:

Good morning to you, my beautiful wife
and my darling daughters three.
I have get out and go to work
so I'm not here, you see.
So have a good day
while the sun shines bright,
it won't be too long
and I'll see you tonite.

He was also given some pigeons which he kept in our large garage out back. He wasn't much of a keeper though--not very tidy--and the whole mess turned into a 2 1/2 car bird house. Yes, it's as bad as you imagine it was. ICK!

For each of several winters Dad spent one freezing cold night making us an ice skating rink out of most of our backyard. He'd carefully bank the snow for the rink. Then he'd fill it with a layer of water, wait a couple of hours till it froze and fill it again. In layers. He explained if it was frozen in layers, there would be no pockets of water to pit and it would be stronger and smoother this way. Layer after layer, it would take him all night to complete it. We were the only kids in our neighborhood with our own ice skating rink in our back yard.

In the nearly 18 years since my dad died I have recognized some similarities between us. Curiosity, a quick temper and a mischievous gleam in my eye have gotten me into trouble more than once, and when I feel that golden itch to understand or learn something new, or I speak too sharply or I tease my granddaughters until they laugh at me, he's there. And sometimes, when the weather cools and the holidays hover, I walk outside at night and I see my dad sitting on top of the picnic table waiting for me to return home from a date. He's smoking a cigarette, looking at the stars in the clear, black skies, listening for the panther's scream.

his death

In April, 1982, at fifty-six years of age, my dad had a severe stroke that left him unable to recognize his family. He was also paralyzed on his right side and speechless. The daddy of my childhood, my nature guide, my algebra tutor, and my encourager were all gone. Through time and therapy he remembered who were and regained some mobility, but his speech, like his short circuited thoughts, was never again fluent. We never again carried on another real conversation.

Some eight years later on December 12, 1990, I got the phone call about his last strokes. This time he'd had one on each side of his body and was totally paralyzed from his neck, down.

Our family set up siege in the 10' x10' hospital waiting room next to the ICU. Our normal lives were on hold. I felt a great urgency to be with my parents. They seemed so fragile and I wanted to take care of them, to protect them. I left my volunteer responsibilities during our busiest time of the year at the food pantry with my friend and stayed at the hospital. We ate there, we slept there and updated friends and family there during these hard days. We only left long enough to shower, maybe grab a nap and return.

I saw my dad at every opportunity. I tried to talk to him but I didn't know what to say.

"Hi Dad."

I leaned over the side of the bed and kissed him on the cheek. The respirator hissed and swooshed rhythmically.

"Your mouth looks dry. I'll get some glycerin for your lips from the nurse."

His eyes followed me as I got the ICU nurse to treat his dry mouth.

"I came in first but Mom's in the waiting room. She'll be in here shortly. Are you in pain?"

He only looked at me. He couldn't respond. I didn't know how much damage had been done to his brain. Did he even know me? I felt our time rushing away and it felt frivolous to chatter about non essentials and fluff so sometimes I read comforting verses to him from my Bible. Were they for him or were they for me?

Other times I just sat with him, a million thoughts whirling through my head. Will he live? How will Mom take care of him if he does? What will Mom do if he dies? What will I do if he dies?

"I love you, Dad. I'll be back after Mom comes in."

I told him I loved him after every visit. I wanted him to understand the depth of my love. I wanted him to know how much I'd learned from him. I wanted him to know that I am who I am because of him but I didn't know how to say it. It was long ago that we'd last talked about anything and even then we didn't tell one another how we felt. Our family had spent an emotionally silent lifetime, loving one another in deed, assuming--hoping--we all knew we were loved. Now I sat with my dad in his last days, my hand on his motionless hand, my eyes searching his eyes, willing my gaze to push beyond my inability to express myself--hoping it communicated my profound gratitude to him and my deepest love for him.

After two interminable weeks of conferring with his doctors and hearing his prognosis, with deep anguish and excruciating heartache, my mother agreed to remove him from life support.

It was Christmas Eve day.

They took him off the respirator and out of ICU about 10 am and moved him to a semi-private room in the small hospital that is only two blocks from the little church where my daddy walked me down the aisle, six miles from my house and only five miles from the place he brought us when we came to Florida twenty-three years earlier.

Except for my sister Kathy who had returned home to Pennsylvania the day before, the whole family was nearby. Space in this room was close so we took turns sitting with my mother and dad. After about an hour his breathing grew tight and labored and he was no longer conscious.

A younger, yet experienced nurse stayed in the room with us. My dad began to work for every breath. His body and gown were wet with sweat. Even though I thought it unusual when the nurse asked me to help her dry him off and change his gown--to make him more comfortable she said--I agreed.

She raised the head of his bed and slightly leaned him forward. He was a big man so I braced myself and held him steady as she untied and removed his gown. She dried his upper chest and shoulders with a small towel and then we laid him back down and lowered the head of the bed.

With great care she rolled his body way over to one side and I held him while she dried off his back. We laid him flat and she came to the other side. I held him while she dried and then we laid him down again. She got a fresh gown and together we slipped it on him. Then we straightened his sheets and pillow.

As we moved him, his lungs fought for any small amount of air they found. We had physically maneuvered him around and used the towels on him, but his sick, weakened body had worked hard for those dry clothes.

Somewhere in the middle of caring for my dad in those last moments I understood that this compassionate nurse was helping me, help him die.

our wedding

Today, August 8, 2008 is our anniversary so this post is extra special to me.


It was a hot, Florida Saturday night in August 1970. Byron was twenty-one years old and I was almost eighteen. The small town Church of God was comfortably full with nearly a hundred people the night we married--more than we usually had in our regular Sunday morning service.

White wicker flower baskets overflowing with daisies were placed near the two cascading candelabras at the front of the church. The glow of candles and dimmed lights softened the harsh angles of the rectangular sanctuary.

My sparkling white wedding dress with long sleeves, chiffon and lace inserts at the neckline and intricate beading , sequins and lace flowers interspersed over the length of the dress--all for $99.00 plus tax, at JC Penny--was the most beautiful dress I'd ever put on in my life.

As an adult, I now understand that despite our family's lack of saying "I love you," or telling one another our deepest feelings, that for my dad, when he calmed my fears, explained catalysts, fixed my shoes, or bought me lots of beautiful, but affordable daisies for my wedding he was showing me concrete expressions of his love.

The minister stood at the front of the church with the groomsmen all in place as my attendants promenaded down the center aisle. After my girlfriends and my sisters found their places, the organist's majestic-sounding music signaled everyone to stand and watch me walk down the aisle with my dad.

My parents had been surprisingly easy about our decision to marry at such a young age. When I told my mother what we were planning, there were no shocked reactions or arguments and only one requirement; I had to graduate from high school. The night Byron asked my dad for permission to marry they talked a long time about jobs and money and places to live. Both my parents had confidence in Byron to be a good husband to me.

Marrying at only seventeen should have scared me, but it didn't. Maybe I wasn't scared because I was seventeen and thought I knew everything anyway. I know now that marrying so young is the boldest and at the same time the most naive thing I've ever done.

I was sure I wanted to be with Byron and maybe it was because I saw some similarities between him and my dad. Opposites in most ways, they both displayed fierce loyalty to family and held great respect for the feelings of others. Despite my desire to marry him that night, queasiness overtook my stomach and my dry lips stuck together. My knees wobbled at the thought of being the center of this huge amount of attention.

The double doors opened.

It was show time.

Panic-stricken I looked into my dad's eyes, slipped my arm into his and we took a step together into the church. He smiled his crooked smile, comically raised his bushy eyebrows over the black glasses frames and said,

"Let's go, Suzanne."

We went.

As we took another step or two he bent his head down near mine and whispered into my ear,

"Look around to the left side of the church and then to the right. See all the people you know?"

I smiled and nodded to him.

"They're here because they want to see you and Byron tie the knot."

Until that moment I'd only seen faceless bodies--a nameless crowd--and it had unnerved me, but when I saw my Sunday School teacher, Mrs Bowman, my friends from school, Rose and Alice and my sisters Kathy and Karla as my bridesmaids and all my family smiling at me, trying to catch my eye as we walked, I knew I had nothing to be afraid of. These people were my friends and family. They liked me. I returned my smiles and beamed at my dad. He only knew our immediate family there that night yet he basked in the moment proud to escort his eldest daughter to be married. We both enjoyed our stroll down the aisle.

Dad whispered to me as we walked,

"Look at Byron down there. He looks scared."

I saw Byron at the altar as he watched my dad and me walk toward him. I leaned in and whispered ,

"He's not smiling, is he?"

Byron wasn't smiling but time has proven that his fear wasn't fear at all but solemn commitment. Dad and I shared another smile and walked a few more slow steps.

We reached the rest of the wedding party and my dad fulfilled his role of,

"Who give this woman to be married?"

He took his seat next to my mother in the pew. The ceremony proceeded, we promised to love and honor, I promised to obey, and Byron and I were pronounced man and wife. Thirty-eight years ago today.

We attended the same church for many years afterward so I know it is small and I'm certain the aisle is short--perhaps only forty-five feet to the front--but that night, walking and talking with my dad, it was exactly as long as I needed it to be.

cars

I was fourteen when we moved from the suburbs of Detroit to sixteen acres in rural, central Florida. We went from walking to school and neighborhood stores, to school buses and needing a car for every activity away from home. Instead of a gang of kids in our neighborhood around for play we had two teenage girls as our only nearby peers. There was a huge culture shock for my younger siblings and me but my dad had been raised in the north Georgia mountains and was in his country-style element. There were orange trees and two small lakes on our property and the undeveloped area was populated by possums, raccoons, snakes, hawks and even a Florida panther. My dad spent most of his off work hours exploring fields and back roads in his 1960-something red Chevy Bel-Air.

Mom always said when my dad got his hands on a car that no one else could ever drive it. When anything broke, he fixed it, but his way of fixing it was to rig it. The trunk didn't have a keyhole. It used to be a key hole. Now it was just a hole. He had a pair of vice grips in the floor of the back seat that he used to open it.

Groceries never went into the trunk when Mom used it to go shopping. They were lined across the back seat and in the floorboard because even if she could have maneuvered the vice grips to open the trunk, it was loaded with one of every tool my dad owned. There were also rolls of electrical tape, pieces of wire, tins of grease, quarts of oil and brake fluid in there. Just in case he needed it.

My dad wasn't known for being a particularly focused driver. He liked to 'sightsee.' One afternoon I saw him walking down our long, sandy driveway toward the house. He had to walk home because his car was in a ditch just down the road at the s-curve. He'd been chasing a snake across the road with his car and hadn't noticed where he was headed. His car was soon nose down in a small ravine on the side of the road.

One night after Byron and I returned to my house at my midnight Saturday night curfew, my dad met us at the door.

"B. You in a hurry to go home?"

"No, Mr. Bryant. What do you need?"

"I was driving around in the back by the lakes while a go and got stuck. It's up to the axle. Can you go with me to help me get my car out?"

Looking for any chance in the world to stay later at my house, Byron said he'd be glad to help get it out.

My dad, Byron and I went trekking out into the darkness with a flashlight and a shovel. We started walking down the path toward the lakes in the back and discovered we didn't need the flashlight because the moonlight shone nearly bright as day. I was sixteen and desperately in love so I held tightly to my guy as we traveled into the night. I stumbled, tripped and complained, making Byron also stumble and trip as we made our way off the trail into the high grasses to my dad's car.

When he'd heard enough of my complaining my dad said,

"If you'd let go of the man's arm, you could walk, Suzanne!" Patience wasn't exactly his strong suit when he was focused.

We reached the car and the two of them worked together in the bright moonlit midnight to free the thing from its sandy trap. Our ride home was jubilant and wild. We bounced all over the car as my dad drove us through the field to get us back to the house.

the chameleon

Pets weren't welcome and never fared well in our home when we were kids. We had a few kittens and I vaguely remember a couple of dogs way back when. The kittens developed a fatal affinity for hiding behind or sitting on top of our car's wheels and my mother routinely backed over them. My dad always buried the dead animal quickly and we children never saw them. If we cried when we "lost" another cat, we were sternly admonished.

"Stop it. It was only an animal."

My mother lashed out to cover the painful feelings that overwhelmed her. She never opened up very much and hid her vulnerability well. So, as a good daughter, I accepted her declarations, hid my sadness, and stifled any affection I might have had for pets. My mother once stayed upset for a long time after being the accidental executioner once again and declared that none of us kids would ever have another pet. And, we didn't--until my chameleon.

My dad bought it for me at the Michigan State Fair. He had taken us kids to the fair to give mom a break. The lizard and a small box of meal worms for food cost $1.25. The 4-inch creature had a thread tied loosely around his neck which, at the other end, was attached to a tiny gold safety pin used to secure him to my clothes. A leash and collar combo. He wasn't furry and cute like a kitten and I wasn't sure I wanted the little reptile attached to my shoulder. I didn't know anything about them. I wondered about biting and peeing. Sure, his ability to change colors to match whatever I was wearing was interesting, but it was my dad's excitement about the little guy's talent that sealed the deal for me.

After my initial hesitation, I proudly wore him around the fair that evening while his hue ranged from the bluish-green of my sweater to the red in the plaid of my blouse. I delighted in the stares and comments of the other fair-goers when they noticed him on my shoulder. I felt special. I felt brave.

Dad hadn't said anything to me but we both knew my mom wouldn't like it. The animal was too slithery and snakelike for her and she was terrified of snakes. When we got home that night, as my dad's co-conspirator, I proudly showed my mom my new present anyway. She had then what she called a "blue-nosed hissy" when I showed her my little green lizard.

She jumped back in fright, glared at me and through clenched teeth said,

"OH GOD! Get that thing out of here!"

The she went after Dad.

"MACK! What's the matter with you?"

I thought she was going to kill him. He tried to calm her down.

"C'mon, Bobbie. Just look at him."

He smiled, cajoled, and tried to sweet talk her into it. With his every ounce of boyish charm he worked hard to win her over. He cupped my lizard in his hand and tried to coax my mom into seeing how harmless it was. His eyes were full of mischief when he said,

"Look at his cute, little, pointy face and his cute, little, pointy tail."

She wouldn't have any part of it. Even with our smiling, sincere assurances that her fears wouldn't be realized and he would not "get loose in her house and scare her to death," she came completely unglued about the thing. She didn't want any creature surprises.

After much pleading, begging and even a few tears from me, she gave up and said she'd let us keep him if we promised her he'd stay in a cage down in the basement. Out of her sight. Which we did until he died 6 weeks later of natural causes. Or neglect.

As parents, Byron and I had various pets for our children in our home over the years; several dogs (including a pitbull), cats of various types such as a pregnant calico and huge male Siamese, and a little parakeet that was passed around from our house to my mother-in-law's to Hollys house because he was a very messy bird. Fun, but messy. Each one has been without emotional ties for me until nine years ago. That's when one Christmas I deliberately determined to unpack my stifled affection for animals and learned to lavish it on a feisty, chocolate brown Chihuahua named Treasure.

my black patent leather shoes

I wore the black patent leather Mary Jane dress shoes to church every Sunday when I was eleven years old. I loved those shoes but it wasn't too long after I got them that the sole came loose from the top of the shoe and the side of my foot started sticking out of them. I knew we couldn't afford more new shoes right then, so I showed them to my dad on Saturday night before church the next morning.

He looked at my shoe and we went to the basement to fix it. I watched and asked questions at every step. He talked while he worked cleaning off each side of the opening in my broken shoe. He mixed the epoxy with its catalyst, explained catalysts to me, and carefully spread the mixture thinly over the openings. Then he placed a piece of cloth around the shoe before putting it into the vise so the vise wouldn't mar the shoe. The vise would hold the joint securely overnight until the glue could set.

The next morning while I was getting dressed for church he brought me the repaired shoe. It looked as good as new to me. My shoe only stayed together for a few hours but I wasn't worried about it anymore. I knew he'd fix it again for me the next week. He fixed it every Saturday night until I got a new pair.

My dad and the storm

My Dad died on Christmas Eve day about 12:30 in the afternoon in 1990, a very long time ago. I've been thinking about him a lot lately and these next few stories will introduce him to you. I'm sure you'll like him.

Once in a while I dream about my dad and he's always well and happy. When I wake up I feel cheerful. He had the same effect on me when he was alive. He'd tell me a joke or an interesting animal fact he'd read or he'd try to poke me in the ribs because he knew I was ticklish. I depended on my dad to help me with my algebra homework in high school and he was the one who waited up for me when I went on a date on Saturday night. He was a peaceful man and he liked to sit outside after dark and just be quiet. Sometimes I'd sit with him and we'd listen to the night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Storm

I was eight years old and it was a Saturday at the turn of autumn in Michigan. It had been a drippy gloomy day but the weather turned worse in the early afternoon with strong winds, sharp lightening and lots of thunder. Passing my dad in the hallway of our small tract home, I made myself tell him I was afraid. We weren't supposed to give into our fears. Mama said it was silly and I didn't want to be a baby.

Dad stopped, thought for a moment, and ran his hand through his receding black hair. He looked at his own closed bedroom door. He knew then and I found out years later that my mother was lying across their bed with her arms over her head and her face buried into the bedspread, trying not to give into her own stormy fears.

"Come with me, Suzanne. I want to show you something."

He led me to the tiny bedroom I shared with my two younger sisters. He sat down on the edge of the roll-away bed I shared with six year old Karla and I sat on four year old Kathy's twin bed. He raised the wooden sashed window over the book laden table. I leaned on the table with my elbows toward the open screen and felt the cool breeze and rainy mist whoosh across my small, round face.

"Feels good, doesn't it,? he asked.

"Yeah."

Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and I jumped. He looked at me through his thick black framed glasses.

"Did you see the lightning bolt? Did you notice how crooked it was when it flashed and then how it trailed across the sky?"

"It was real white, too," I said. I was very helpful.

"What about the thunder? Did you hear how full the rumble sounded? It was like it wrapped around the whole world. It sounded like drums," he said.

He pointed toward a large Maple tree in the center of our postage stamp sized front yard.

"Watch as the strong older tree stays straight and lets its branches whip around in the wind. Now, see the flexible young maple by the street bow down as the wind passes through here?"

I didn't say much as we watched. His voice was low but enthusiastic about the scene in front of us as he fed me child-sized bites of the storm.

The rain started coming down harder in great sheets across the small porch and sidewalk in front of the house.

"Suzanne, see the patterns of the rain over there on the street?"

I watched traveling sheets of water move from our yard to the street where they collided with other sheets of rain., Then they bunched up and disappeared down the drains under the curb of the street. When the next lightning flash lit up the sky and the next roll of thunder crashed, my eyes flew to Dad's face. His contented gaze didn't change as the storm raged. Taking my cues from him, I didn't jump at the next flashes and rolls. I now asked, "Daddy, did you hear that?" and said, "Oh, Daddy. Look at that one!"

I don't know how long we sat there as he pointed out the ragged, earthy beauty of the day's storm and I don't know where my little sisters were. I can't say how long my mother hid out on their bed, but I do remember my utter lack of fear when he closed the window.

a safety breach and that very sad day

I don't remember much about that day. I know it wasn't winter and I think it was after school, maybe about 4:30 or so. I was at Alice's house. She lived on the corner of Coy St and Vassar, one street over from my house in our quiet neighborhood. We were in her house probably scavenging for food when we heard the siren coming our way. We quickly went outside to see what we could because ambulances rarely came into our area so we wanted to know what was going on.

It flew down Vassar past Alice's house with lights flashing and sirens screaming. Husbands got out of their cars from work and walked to the corner to peer down the street. Wives dried their hands on aprons as they came out their side doors from cooking supper to look. Kids grabbed their bikes and raced after the lights and siren to check out the excitement. People of every age, up and down the streets, came out of their small, safe nests to watch the ambulance race down the thru street. Something important was happening but nobody knew what.

It turned left several streets down onto Morehouse. We had lots of school friends and acquaintances down there. Kathy Butte, Linda Johnson, Illona Geiger. The McManamen's. We didn't go down there. Maybe it was too close to supper or maybe we were supposed to be doing something else. I just don't remember. But, we got busy again, doing whatever we were doing and the excitement of the ambulance faded for a little while that afternoon.

I was leaving Alice's house to go home when we saw the vehicle coming back our way down Vassar. This time there were no lights. No sirens. No excitement. It just drove back slowly down the street retracing the direction it had come in. It seemed strange. I didn't understand. Why no hurry? Why no rush to the hospital? What had happened?

We found out the next day that our classmate, 15 year old Michael McManamen, had killed himself that afternoon with a gun. We heard something about an argument with his sister or his mom or his dad but we never learned the whole story.

I had known Mike from school as an acquaintance not as a friend. He was a year older than I was. He seemed like an OK kid. His family seemed like a good one. No public drama. They were smart kids, good students, from a good, wholesome family. Everything seemed OK--but now we knew it wasn't. Something had been horribly wrong for Mike. His despondency must have been tremendously overwhelming. As far as he could see, there had been only one way out of his pain and he had taken it. My heart hurts for his family even now--my heart hurts for him, even now.

There were no counselors called into school for us the next day. There were only whispers at the lockers. Teachers didn't ask us how we felt or how we were handling it. We didn't even know if they knew. We all suffered our private pain in whispers, or in silence. We wondered how this could have happened to someone we knew. We wondered how bad life had to be to do this to yourself--to your family?

Something changed for me that day. My assumed safety buffer was breached. The illusion of "everything will always be all right if your family is good" was gone. Just because your mom and dad loved you and took care of you wasn't a guarantee that you wouldn't be blindsided by something awful like Michael had been. If it happened to him, couldn't it happen to someone close to me--or to me? Would it ever happen to me?

I just didn't know anymore.

losing my skirt and Terry Jones

One wintery Michigan afternoon, Alice, Rosemary and I were walking home from Jr High past Henry's Dept Store. It was out of our way but if we didn't go home that way we wouldn't get to see Terry Jones at the corner shoe store. And we HAD to see Terry Jones. He was about 19 years old and looked JUST like Paul McCartney. JUST LIKE HIM! To put it mildly, we were smitten. Silly girls.

I was wearing my cute white sweater, white tights and my cool army green a-line skirt with the industrial-type zipper up the middle of the front of the skirt underneath my maroon, heavy winter coat called a benchwarmer. (These were the days before girls were allowed to wear pants to school.) I wore the skirt often so the zipper wasn't too secure anymore. I usually pinned it at the top with a large safety pin. It was actually an old diaper pin I'd taken from my baby brother's stash. I think it had a chipped yellow duck's head on it. It could have been the chip that did me in.

Noisy teenybopper girls that we were we literally squealed in anticipation of waving to Terry Jones (we always used both names). We were one store down from Terry Jones in front of Henry's Dept Store when my skirt felt funny. I didn't really know how--it just felt funny. I ignored the feeling--after all, we were 30 seconds from the Terry Jones Smile and Wave. We'd stare in the store with big grins on our faces and he'd always smile and wave at us. In spite of our silliness and frequent passes by the store he was always cordial to us.

Back to the skirt--It felt funny. Strange. It felt loose. Then it happened. One more step and it dropped down around my feet. I was mortified. Alice and Rose took a step or two without me while I quickly scooped up my skirt and crammed it on top of my school books. I was in my slip on the highway in the winter!

"C'mon, Suzanne."

"I can't. My skirt fell off."

In unison, "WHAT?"

"MY SKIRT FELL OFF!"

"Where is it?

I lowered my books to show them my skirt shoved into a tight knot. I didn't know what to do. I simply couldn't walk home in my slip even though there were only a few inches showing from the bottom of my coat. (Actually, I could have done exactly that and no one would have been the wiser, but I was 13 and mortified. I NEEDED to make this an emergency!)

We rushed into Henry's like a small gaggle of noisy geese. We found a very proper saleslady and in a panic asked her if I could use the dressing room to put my skirt back on. She was shocked. We wanted to shock her. Most young teen girls want to shock proper ladies.

She said nothing and pointed to the room against the wall. I went in to get re-dressed. It took all of about 2 minutes to repin my chipped, ducky head safety pin securely at the top of my zipper. With a deep sigh of relief I exited the dressing room ready once again for the Terry Jones Smile and Wave. Noisily and in a tight little cluster, we hurried out of the store, laughing and whispering about the poor saleslady's reaction. We loved it.

Twenty feet to the Smile and Wave. We got serious. Grown-up. After all, someone who looks like Paul McCartney isn't going to think we're cute if we're too silly, is he? At the shoe store we looked into the window of the store. He's there.

Sigh. Sigh. Big sigh.

We stared inside and smiled at him.

There it was.

Terry Jones, our Paul McCartney double, SMILED AND WAVED!

It was as good as if Sir Paul had been there himself. We had our prize. The Terry Jones Smile and Wave.

We basked in the glow of the moment and dreamed of what it would be like to smile and wave at the real Paul McCartney. Our minds raced. If Paul really saw us, he'd think we were cute and want to date us and even marry us. We'd be Paul McCartney's girlfriend or wife! Or we'd meet and marry three of the Beatles or at least date them. (All of us? Logic? There was no logic. Only the moment mattered.)

We lingered on that special corner for a few extra minutes just knowing he was in there. Then we crossed the busy street and headed home to dream of the life of a Beatle's girlfriend.

There had been a serious glitch with my wayward skirt that wonderous afternoon, but we overcame it. Together, in concerted effort, we three averted calamity. Our mission for that fateful afternoon was complete.

We had survived to Smile and Wave again.

vacation

It's vacation time so I am suspending this forum for a couple of weeks. I have lots of new ideas, (or are they just old memories?) and, the good Lord willing, I will begin again when I return.

Take care, all.

Love,
Suz

babysitting for the go-go dancer

I baby-sat for a go-go dancer's three kids when I was a young girl. I think her name was Tina and her husband's name was Rick. One Saturday afternoon, Rick was driving around the neighborhood and saw a group of us young girls on the street. He stopped and asked if anyone wanted to baby sit that night. I jumped at the chance to earn $1 an hour and quickly said yes. THEN, I asked my mother.

I didn't know this guy from Adam so I had to do a lot of fast talking with a lot of wheedling and begging thrown in, but my mother finally gave in. I was to be at their house on the next street at 6:30pm. When I arrived at the big, roomy, old house, Rick let me in. He was all dressed up in a jacket and tie. He smelled strongly of aftershave and his hair was slicked back in a smarmy, Elvis kind of way. He showed me around the house and told me a little about the kids. The oldest was about 8, the middle one about 5 and the baby was 3 years old. The kids, already in their pajamas, paid no attention to me whatsoever and continued to eat their Spaghettios at the kitchen table.

Tina was in the bedroom getting all dolled up for work and after about 20 minutes of sitting on the worn, green couch, making inane small talk with Rick about the kids, she breezed out into the living room to wow us with her sparkles and fringe. Her hair was a long, straight, and blonde wig. Her heavily made up eyes were works of art with bright blue eye shadow, heavy liner and false eyelashes. The sleeveless mini dress she wore was all silver fringe and she wore short white go-go boots to complete the outfit. I had never seen anyone dressed so spectacularly before in my whole life. She was gorgeous!

I couldn't keep my eyes off her as she gave me a few last minute instructions for the children. Soon it was time for them to leave and Rick gallantly held the front door open for her. He hurried down the steps to the passenger side of the huge, old station wagon and and helped her in, closing the door securely. She was precious cargo.

The little one started to fuss because his mama was leaving, so I picked him up still awestruck at what I'd just seen. Holding the baby on my thirteen-year-old hip, I stood at the open front door and watched the red tail lights all the way down the street as Rick and Tina, the beautiful people, rode off into the glamorous, Saturday night world of bright lights in small town, Michigan show business.

mascara and the church picnic

Kathy Butte was another blonde friend of mine but think party-down Ellie May, not Cheryl Tiegs. I invited her to go on an outing with our church on a Saturday for a picnic to a park some distance away. There were a bus ride and boys included so we were glad to be going.

I waited for her at the corner like we'd arranged but she never showed up. It was getting late so I walked the several blocks to her house. When I got to the door, I heard shouting and something about,

"If I can't wear it then I'm just not going."

I knocked and as Mrs Butte let me in she yelled back to my friend,

"Kathy, she's here. If you're going, go!'

Even though I'd never been in her house before, I made my way to Kathy's room by following the shouting. Kathy was dressed in her cut-off jeans and a red print button up sleeveless blouse. She looked like she always did. Big, teased, curly blonde hair and heavy eye makeup; lots of black eyeliner, shadow and thick mascara. She looked OK to me.

"Kathy, you're not going to a church picnic with that mascara on. Go wash your face and get out of here. You're going to be late."

"If I can't go like this, then I'm not going," Kathy shouted back.

If I had ever threatened my mom like that, she'd just tell me to get myself in the bedroom and stay home then. If Kathy didn't go with me I'd be all alone on the picnic. I needed some backup. I needed someone to sit with. To have fun with. I didn't know many of those other girls and certainly didn't know the boys. I was in a panic. So I whispered to Kathy,

"Just wash it off. You don't need it. Let's just go. We're gonna be late!"

No makeup in the world was important enough to make us miss that bus to fun. Kathy never even answered me and continued her argument with her mother.

"I'm just not going without my mascara! I'll look stupid."

Poor Mrs Butte was about to give up but then in one last ditch effort she even tried throwing me in as a good example.

"Look at her. She doesn't need all that paint to have a good time." This argument carried no weight at all with Kathy. She stood her ground.

I wasn't allowed to wear ANY makeup, but, truth is, if my mom had let me I'd have looked exactly as Kathy did in a heartbeat.

After about 15 minutes of Mrs Butte haranguing Kathy, of Kathy shouting, screaming and simply pitching a fit, and of me panicking because I wasn't going on a picnic after all, Mrs Butte gave in and Kathy left for the Calvary Baptist Church picnic looking like a 13 year old hooker.

ugly girlfriend

I was Connie Hughes' ugly girlfriend. We were both 13 and though I was still a kid, she was a woman. Her polished, manicured beauty shined like the noon day sun next to my childish appearance. I felt like a hefty trash bag compared to her. She had the blondest blonde hair and molten brown eyes that sparkled. Her little turned up nose perfectly framed her startlingly white teeth. Her skin was perpetually tanned even in the days before tanning salons because she had her own sunlamp and she only wore the latest, most fashionable clothes. Connie moved with a grown-up grace that I still, to this day, struggle to possess.

As for me, I wore regular clothes that looked OK to me but that Connie wouldn't have been caught dead in. Sometimes I wore hand me downs that never fit exactly right on my chubby young teen body. My hair was dishwater blonde and never quite fixed. My unmade-up eyes were blue-gray and paled in comparison to my friend's eyes and her perfect minimally applied makeup.

I had little composure around boys and was pretty shy most of the time. Connie's confidence and charm was a beauty to behold. I was right beside her and watched closely while she held court with the boys every Sunday. If I'd had pen and paper, I'd have taken notes. She was that good. Connie talked with them as though they were just regular people, while I thought they were aliens to conquer and take prisoner.

She lived with her divorced mother in her house with white carpet and a manicured yard. (I was never invited in, but she told me about it.) I lived with my parents and three siblings in our house with gray carpet and Dad's pigeons in the garage. She never even saw my house.

With all these differences you may be wondering how we ever connected, this gorgeous Connie and I. We knew each other from Jr high but actually met in Sunday School at Calvary Baptist Church. I rode the church bus, and she, living closer to the church, walked. Despite our differences and because I was the only other person in the room she knew, we got to know one another and she charmed me, too. It wasn't too long before I was skipping the bus ride and walking all the way to her house so she didn't have to walk the last block to the church alone.

a new thing

Hi all!

This goal of this blog is to be a bit more whimsical. I could have just added my whimsicality to the other forum but there's something fun about starting a new thing and this is it. I hope to try lots o'new stuff, or at least new stuff for me. We'll see if it works. If not, then the delete button will be my new best friend.

Saw a sign on an airboat once that said, "Get in, sit down, hold on and shut up!" For myself I say, "Get in, sit down, hold on!" Hopefully this won't be a mediocre ride. And please DON'T shut up. Let me know what you think and pass along any brainstorms and/or ideas you have. And, hey, please be patient with me. I'm fragile. (Fra-gee-lay :)

Suz