Something picked up. September 1, 2008
In 1931, Daddy left. The banks closed; and so did the town. No jobs. Then, Daddy was gone. He worked in the bank, and now it was closed. Momma cried. Daddy was there for a while. Word would go round the town of jobs somewhere else and lots of daddies disappeared. Then, Daddy went. Momma just had herself a new baby and Daddy was gone. Momma said he’d come back. But he didn’t. Momma cooked and washed for neighbors. She sewed with her hands and rocked the cradle with her foot. Granny and Pop came to live with us. Momma just bundled us up tighter and we all somehow fit in the house.
There were seven of us all together. I was nine. And it was my turn Momma said. My sisters helped Momma with the washing and baby, Granny made the stew, and Pop fixed things. So, now it was my turn. She heard tell of jobs in the city, so she patched my trousers and jacket, and slicked down my hair. She told me it was time to get a job and walked me to the ferry. I don’t remember all the instructions she gave me, expect that I was to be polite and talk nice. She said I was to get a job. She gave me some crackers wrapped in cloth for my lunch, a penny for the crossing and her good luck penny. I paid the ferry man and shoved the other way down in my pocket. I watched Momma as the ferry pulled away. She was Momma, then she walked away.
My dogs were so tired. I couldn’t find no job. I was too big; I was too small; I was too young. I put my hand in my pocket and fingered Momma’s penny and looked around. There in front of me was a little shed, and it was busy, men going in and out. It was the construction shed for the bridge next door being built from the city to the town across the harbor – to my town. An ugly mug grabbed hold of my collar and wanted to know what I wanted. I said a job – didn’t know nothing else to say. He let go, looked long at me, then asked if I could tote. I said yes, sir. He said then get started and handed me a bucket. I carried a water pail all day, back and forth over the bridge. I pumped water and toted to each worker. All day. Back and forth. The ugly man came and got me, said I done a good job. And that if I came back tomorrow I could do it again. He gave me a nickel and two pennies. Told me them’s my wages.
I ran to the ferry, paid the ferryman a penny and watched the city get smaller and my town get bigger. I fingered the three coins in my pocket. I took out Momma’s lucky penny and turned it over in my hand. It was an 1898 with an Indian on it. I did’t know what it said, ‘cepting those words seemed important to put on the penny. There used to be a deep cut across the Indian’s face, but it was dull now. I rubbed it, and then tossed it up into the air. I meant to catch it, but it hit the deck and bounced into the water. I stood there against the rail looking at the water, then I across at the bridge, and it was still standing. What was I gonna tell Momma?
In 1995, my husband accompanied our two sons on a weekend camping trip to a Boy Scout camp. This was a regular occurrence with the troop and my husband went on many trips, becoming as much a scout as the boys were becoming. These weekends are loaded with camaraderie and badge-work. It is the pride of a scout to wear a sash loaded with badges, each badge representing proficiency in some area such as first aid, swimming, or outdoor cooking. For leaders and chaperones the work is purely the oversight of scouts. Yet my husband always had more fun being one of the boys than one of the leaders.
Included in any of these weekend trips is a hike. After a morning of cooking and badge work, the scouts take a hike before lunch. This particular weekend hike went out the road toward the camp’s entrance. This is an old camp; and access to the camp is by way of a dirt road that must be re-graded every time it rains. However, recently the camp had contracted with some company to dump new material on the road in an effort to improve its condition. So the contractor came in with a mixture of gravel, dirt, sand and debris. It was a fresh dump and therefore had a peculiar odor. One of the boys bent down and picked up a shark tooth. This changed the nature of the hike from looking around to looking down and from walking to lingering. The boys learned from the camp director that the road had recently been re-graded with dredgings from the nearby harbor. One of the fathers on the trip worked at the port and said that a big vacuum is used to bring up the dirt, sand and debris from the bottom of the harbor in order to clear channels so that big ships could access the docks. The debris is then dumped onto a barge which is floated to a dump site where ditch-diggers loaded the debris into dump trucks which then head for construction projects all over the tri-county area.
The scouts lost interest in the story and went back to hunting shark teeth. Then a scout shouted out he had found a penny. Now pennies are not unusual finds. We find them everywhere and tend to dismiss them as valueless. We toss them in jars, overboard, and at each other. But this one was to turn out to be different. My husband had a look at the penny. It was an 1898 Indian Head, with a bad scar across the Indian’s face. My husband returned the penny to the scout with an offer to buy it for a dollar. The scout turned down the offer, saying that this penny was gonna be his lucky penny. My husband conjured up a likely future for the penny: once home it would be tossed in a penny jar or used in a gumball machine. He also thought about what historical, personal, or emotional events may have played into that moment when the penny entered the water only to end up at the camp some 60 miles inland. For my husband this was not just a penny with a tad bit of value, there was a story here, and history.
To my beloved son, some extra research on a penny and a possible new hobby:
Today (2008), an 1898 Indian Head is worth one dollar. That’s a ten-thousand percent increase in value. In 2008 a penny is virtually worthless. Its primary value is in education – such as in math and history lessons. It certainly is not financial as it costs $1.26 to make a penny. However in 1938, that penny could purchase a ride on a ferry or trolley car. And a loaf of bread or a pound of sausage cost nine cents. The minimum wage law was enacted by Congress in 1938 setting the minimum wage at twenty-five cents an hour: Children were not the target of the law, however, adult male workers were.
Yet a penny does have more value than its one cent:
“A penny saved is a penny earned.”
“A penny for your thoughts.”
“See a penny, pick it up: all the day you’ll have good luck.”
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Son: Something Picked Up
The homeless man picked up the lid of the trash can gingerly, sure not to make a noise so that no one would notice him. He reached into the trash can, pulled out a half-empty pop and toop a deep swig.
All of us sitting on the short wall watched in horror.
Not seeing our disgusted stares, he set the pop down slowly, picked the lid back up and put it onto the can. Grabbing "his" pop, he started moving away with eyes downcast as if to disapppear into the background of the city.
Strange, I thought, he thinks he's being discreet.
SMACK.
I saw the pop bottle go flying across the street, the top coming off and the cola spraying onto the rain-drenched asphalt. The homeless man was staring, stunened, at his empty hand whilst a roundish black woman loomed over him. She was only half his height, but her stature dominated the scene.
"That's disgusting, man!" She was digging furiously into her oversized handbag hanging off one shoulder. She wore a scrube top with Care Bears on it. Hm, I thought. She thrust her hand out and push a wad of bills into the man's hands. "Go buy yourself something .... Shi-eeeet."
She walked paost him, tennis shoes pounding the pavement, one arm clutching her bag strap, and the other swinging almost wildly in rhythm with her steps. He was stunned for a moment -- his crazed eyes reading someone noticed me... -- before moving on himself.
I stopped the lady. "That was the nicest thing I've ever seen done." I was already plotting how to pay the good deed forward.
"Man, shoot. That was disgusting. I was gonna vomit if he dran'anymore." And off she went.
---
Later that night, I was back on the short wall with a cigarette. No one was out there.
All the trash lids were off. Apparently, he's only that precise or that careful when other people were around.
I picked the lids up and put them back where they came from.
All of us sitting on the short wall watched in horror.
Not seeing our disgusted stares, he set the pop down slowly, picked the lid back up and put it onto the can. Grabbing "his" pop, he started moving away with eyes downcast as if to disapppear into the background of the city.
Strange, I thought, he thinks he's being discreet.
SMACK.
I saw the pop bottle go flying across the street, the top coming off and the cola spraying onto the rain-drenched asphalt. The homeless man was staring, stunened, at his empty hand whilst a roundish black woman loomed over him. She was only half his height, but her stature dominated the scene.
"That's disgusting, man!" She was digging furiously into her oversized handbag hanging off one shoulder. She wore a scrube top with Care Bears on it. Hm, I thought. She thrust her hand out and push a wad of bills into the man's hands. "Go buy yourself something .... Shi-eeeet."
She walked paost him, tennis shoes pounding the pavement, one arm clutching her bag strap, and the other swinging almost wildly in rhythm with her steps. He was stunned for a moment -- his crazed eyes reading someone noticed me... -- before moving on himself.
I stopped the lady. "That was the nicest thing I've ever seen done." I was already plotting how to pay the good deed forward.
"Man, shoot. That was disgusting. I was gonna vomit if he dran'anymore." And off she went.
---
Later that night, I was back on the short wall with a cigarette. No one was out there.
All the trash lids were off. Apparently, he's only that precise or that careful when other people were around.
I picked the lids up and put them back where they came from.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Surfing
Surfing August 25, 2008
We are coastal people. We live on a beach just south of Charleston, South Carolina. We eat shrimp, crab, and grits morning, noon, and night. We tote coolers to the beach loaded with bottled water, Kool-aid, and apples in the daytime. In the night, we sit around illegal campfires with friends drinking beer, reminiscing bygone days of shagging and high school pranks. On some of those evenings we just sit and listen to the waves moving in and out. Good company, peaceful world, summer and winter.
Our waves are small, not like those seen on TV at those beach competitions. We don’t have the large violent, loud crashing waves conducive to sports or thrill-seekers. Our waves are small, perfect for young children and weary adults. While the daytime brings playful laughter and busy families onto the beach and drowns out the noise of the waves, the nighttime is different. The nighttime is quiet and all that can be heard is the sound of the waves.
Our waves come in with small rushing, tumbling noises, end, over end, over end. You can feel something coming toward you like a gentle push backwards. Then you hear a little crash as the wave is played out, grips at the sand and tries to hold on. The water flows back out to the ocean and you, the beachcomber, feels the gentle sucking pull of that wave back out to sea. I often sit on the beach at night just to have the day’s problems solved by this washing of my soul. We do have big waves once in a while; they come with the hurricanes. These waves are big and powerful, ripping sand right off the beach. Dangerous. It is then that the locals turn out with their surfboards to challenge Mother Nature. These waves don’t happen often but we all have boards.
Life is good. We give our address as “On the Beach, South Carolina”. We treat our house as a temporary shelter; since the beach is more home than the house. Our house is a place where we sleep and store our clothes. Otherwise it is just a series of laundry lines and porch railings that are decorated with beach towels and bathing suits. Our lawns are decorated with plastic buckets, shovels, and sand castle molds. There are sand shoes, boat shoes, plastic boots, bathing suits, visors, reed mats, plastic fishing poles and a Wal-mart four-foot pool in the back yard with a layer of sand covering the bottom. The garage is just an extension of the yard except we keep bigger stuff in there like boogie boards, skis, surfboards, fishing poles, shrimpin’ baskets, waders and two boats - one for the ocean, and one for trolling creeks.
Our life and that of our children is so intertwined with the ocean that we were surprised when our daughter decided to go to school in Chicago. Her mind was made up and the school had accepted her long before she told us. Her father and I had four weeks notice that she was leaving, hardly any time to think or to talk her out of it. She is twenty-two, and fully an adult. After graduating high school, she chose to get an undergraduate degree from our local college having lived with us instead of in the dorm. It was a good arrangement – for us and for her. Many of her friends came and stayed with us, adding to the commotion in the house and the excitement of the beach. During her college years, three hurricanes skirted our coast. She and her friends got good on their surfboards. They practiced on the little waves in the days prior to the storm, then rode the gradually increasing hurricane waves for twelve hours, sought refuge in the house for the peak of the storm, then, went back out to the ocean until the waves petered out. In preparation for those hurricanes, my job had been to stock the frig; however those were some starving college surfers. After the storm, I was re-stocking the frig as soon as the grocery store opened back up. Thank goodness, we were never directly hit by the storms, so those times ended up being good times and good memories.
Our daughter was moving to Chicago. We couldn’t talk her out of it, wouldn’t have tried anyway, so we just worried about the little stuff. We worried about how our daughter would survive way out there in the “Great Plains” region - the Midwest. There are no oceans, beaches, or waves. Chicago is on Lake Michigan, and it’s very placid. Chicago’s cooler in the summertime and absolutely freezing in the winter. Our neighbors are from south of Chicago; they moved to South Carolina to get away from the cold. They told us about the wind off the lake and how no winter coat could stop the cold. They told us to have our daughter stock up on sweatshirts, long johns, thick socks, boots with good traction, scarves, gloves, ear-muffs, and hats: None of which are familiar to us here on our beautiful coast. I remember one time when she was in kindergarten and I didn’t even double shirt her for cool days until January. Our neighbors told us about frost bite, occasional brown-outs, and frozen transportation systems. But what got us was the mention of frozen nose hairs and how quickly that could occur to a person standing in a strong blast off the lake. I had nightmares of breathing through icicles. She was going to Chicago, a frozen tundra compared to our beautiful beach. She was leaving everything she knew. We tried to be supportive, but all I could see was disaster for both of us.
She packed everything. She said this was more than a move to another college; it was probably going to be her official move away from home. She’d be gone for three years and if things went well she’d probably stay in Chicago and work afterwards. The college had a good placement rate and there were lots of big law firms in the city. So we packed up her bed, desk, and lamps. I re-covered the old loveseat sofa she had studied on while here at school. She would probably need it to study on up there. Dishes went, as did the coffee pot. Things went that we had shared for twenty-two years. It was almost unbearable. I walked away from the packing many times. I went to the garage on those occasions to cry. All that garage stuff was there – boards, boats, buckets.
The packing was finished. She looked around for anything else, but she had got it all. The last act of packing was to sit on her suitcase and zip it up. The truck was in the driveway, mostly loaded. She was going to drive herself to Chicago in one of those rental trucks. I followed her down the stairs and through the garage. She set the suitcase in the last remaining open space in the back of the truck. At the very top of the truck, on top of piles, lay her surfboard.
“Daughter,” I chuckled, “there are no waves where you’re going,” pointing up at the board.
She pulled the rolling door down and locked it. “I know,” she said.
“Then what are you going to do with it?” I asked.
“There’s skiing up there.” She pulled her phone out of her purse. “Well…” She said like an announcement for the good-byes to start. I wasn’t finished.
“Wait. Skiing?”
“Yeah. Those people up there ain’t seen nothing yet till they see me surfing down the mountain.”
My baby:)
We are coastal people. We live on a beach just south of Charleston, South Carolina. We eat shrimp, crab, and grits morning, noon, and night. We tote coolers to the beach loaded with bottled water, Kool-aid, and apples in the daytime. In the night, we sit around illegal campfires with friends drinking beer, reminiscing bygone days of shagging and high school pranks. On some of those evenings we just sit and listen to the waves moving in and out. Good company, peaceful world, summer and winter.
Our waves are small, not like those seen on TV at those beach competitions. We don’t have the large violent, loud crashing waves conducive to sports or thrill-seekers. Our waves are small, perfect for young children and weary adults. While the daytime brings playful laughter and busy families onto the beach and drowns out the noise of the waves, the nighttime is different. The nighttime is quiet and all that can be heard is the sound of the waves.
Our waves come in with small rushing, tumbling noises, end, over end, over end. You can feel something coming toward you like a gentle push backwards. Then you hear a little crash as the wave is played out, grips at the sand and tries to hold on. The water flows back out to the ocean and you, the beachcomber, feels the gentle sucking pull of that wave back out to sea. I often sit on the beach at night just to have the day’s problems solved by this washing of my soul. We do have big waves once in a while; they come with the hurricanes. These waves are big and powerful, ripping sand right off the beach. Dangerous. It is then that the locals turn out with their surfboards to challenge Mother Nature. These waves don’t happen often but we all have boards.
Life is good. We give our address as “On the Beach, South Carolina”. We treat our house as a temporary shelter; since the beach is more home than the house. Our house is a place where we sleep and store our clothes. Otherwise it is just a series of laundry lines and porch railings that are decorated with beach towels and bathing suits. Our lawns are decorated with plastic buckets, shovels, and sand castle molds. There are sand shoes, boat shoes, plastic boots, bathing suits, visors, reed mats, plastic fishing poles and a Wal-mart four-foot pool in the back yard with a layer of sand covering the bottom. The garage is just an extension of the yard except we keep bigger stuff in there like boogie boards, skis, surfboards, fishing poles, shrimpin’ baskets, waders and two boats - one for the ocean, and one for trolling creeks.
Our life and that of our children is so intertwined with the ocean that we were surprised when our daughter decided to go to school in Chicago. Her mind was made up and the school had accepted her long before she told us. Her father and I had four weeks notice that she was leaving, hardly any time to think or to talk her out of it. She is twenty-two, and fully an adult. After graduating high school, she chose to get an undergraduate degree from our local college having lived with us instead of in the dorm. It was a good arrangement – for us and for her. Many of her friends came and stayed with us, adding to the commotion in the house and the excitement of the beach. During her college years, three hurricanes skirted our coast. She and her friends got good on their surfboards. They practiced on the little waves in the days prior to the storm, then rode the gradually increasing hurricane waves for twelve hours, sought refuge in the house for the peak of the storm, then, went back out to the ocean until the waves petered out. In preparation for those hurricanes, my job had been to stock the frig; however those were some starving college surfers. After the storm, I was re-stocking the frig as soon as the grocery store opened back up. Thank goodness, we were never directly hit by the storms, so those times ended up being good times and good memories.
Our daughter was moving to Chicago. We couldn’t talk her out of it, wouldn’t have tried anyway, so we just worried about the little stuff. We worried about how our daughter would survive way out there in the “Great Plains” region - the Midwest. There are no oceans, beaches, or waves. Chicago is on Lake Michigan, and it’s very placid. Chicago’s cooler in the summertime and absolutely freezing in the winter. Our neighbors are from south of Chicago; they moved to South Carolina to get away from the cold. They told us about the wind off the lake and how no winter coat could stop the cold. They told us to have our daughter stock up on sweatshirts, long johns, thick socks, boots with good traction, scarves, gloves, ear-muffs, and hats: None of which are familiar to us here on our beautiful coast. I remember one time when she was in kindergarten and I didn’t even double shirt her for cool days until January. Our neighbors told us about frost bite, occasional brown-outs, and frozen transportation systems. But what got us was the mention of frozen nose hairs and how quickly that could occur to a person standing in a strong blast off the lake. I had nightmares of breathing through icicles. She was going to Chicago, a frozen tundra compared to our beautiful beach. She was leaving everything she knew. We tried to be supportive, but all I could see was disaster for both of us.
She packed everything. She said this was more than a move to another college; it was probably going to be her official move away from home. She’d be gone for three years and if things went well she’d probably stay in Chicago and work afterwards. The college had a good placement rate and there were lots of big law firms in the city. So we packed up her bed, desk, and lamps. I re-covered the old loveseat sofa she had studied on while here at school. She would probably need it to study on up there. Dishes went, as did the coffee pot. Things went that we had shared for twenty-two years. It was almost unbearable. I walked away from the packing many times. I went to the garage on those occasions to cry. All that garage stuff was there – boards, boats, buckets.
The packing was finished. She looked around for anything else, but she had got it all. The last act of packing was to sit on her suitcase and zip it up. The truck was in the driveway, mostly loaded. She was going to drive herself to Chicago in one of those rental trucks. I followed her down the stairs and through the garage. She set the suitcase in the last remaining open space in the back of the truck. At the very top of the truck, on top of piles, lay her surfboard.
“Daughter,” I chuckled, “there are no waves where you’re going,” pointing up at the board.
She pulled the rolling door down and locked it. “I know,” she said.
“Then what are you going to do with it?” I asked.
“There’s skiing up there.” She pulled her phone out of her purse. “Well…” She said like an announcement for the good-byes to start. I wasn’t finished.
“Wait. Skiing?”
“Yeah. Those people up there ain’t seen nothing yet till they see me surfing down the mountain.”
My baby:)
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Topic; Due the week of 9-1-08
SOMETHING PICKED UP (as in physically, not metaphorically "picked up")
Let's stop the whole "due Monday" thing and just say that it's due the week of, since yours and my schedules are now so crazy we can't even talk on the phone most days. :-)
Let's stop the whole "due Monday" thing and just say that it's due the week of, since yours and my schedules are now so crazy we can't even talk on the phone most days. :-)
Son: Surfing, 8-27-08
HA! I totally wrote this in English class today.
The beach.
He was leaning back against his board, his feet buried in the sand his his knees drawn up to his chest. The sun was going down, and the silence of human noise -- this moment was shared mostly by lovers and romantics and the lonely hearted -- was punctuated only occasionally by the sounds of an incidental tourists' child or passing cars. Paradisio.
He stroked his surf board lying behind him. It was a relatively new skill he had acquired but found easy. He liked guiding the board across the wave, carefully balancing the forces of the water against gravity, constantly in danger of falling over and introducing his head to one of the many rocks that dotted the coastline.
It fit his personality.
"Margarita, baby?" asked his beautiful Samoan woman -- Keku -- as she stepped over the mini-sand dunes caused by foot traffic and wind. Full hips, large breasts, soft skin, and dialectic English that he found engorging.
They had met on a business trips. He been slumming it one evening -- drab Hawaiian shirt and shorts in a dirty local bar, complete with palm frond ceilings and a 300-lbs Pacific Island bartender. The drinks had been cheap and the lies had come easily.
He was looking to move here, he told people. He didn't work, the yarn went, and he was seeking the sort of personal greatness only the Bohemian crowd around him at the bar that night would appreciate. He was a star, and left with the promise of a job and with Keku on his arm.
That was nine months ago, when he had made $100,000+ a year, had a quaint house in the suburbs of a big city, drove a nice car, had a beautiful wife, and was awaiting twins. He was climbing the corporate structure. But he knew that his past was beginning to catch up with him, and when he got here, he knew it was time and the balancing act at "home" had become too treacherous. So, he left paradise for the suburbs, and immediately set about a plan to fake his own death.
A motorcycle accident. Over 50 people had been killed or seriously injured. His body was missing, and he was listed as "presumed dead." He had watched his own funeral from across the street, and he saw the cops there. They had caught wind, suspicious of who the dead man was and trying desperately to connect him.
But, like so many before, the local cops dropped it as "it doesn't matter, he's dead now." Always so easy, just don't get the FBI involved.
This was the third identity he had taken on; he wondered sometimes what happened to the handful of kids he had fathered and left behind. It was that first one -- Anna -- whom he had loved so much and whose unabashed adoration for him had so embarrassed and scared him, and shamed him into feeling his own humanity -- that made him run. She would be eight now.
Keku's belly was growing, and the questions had begun. He felt the past coming upon him.
The plan would be easier than ever, than any time before. He had been idly working out the details while she walked up and offered him a drink. "Sure thing, darling," he had affected a West Coast accent here. He didn't remember what his original voice sounded like.
She reclined back on the board, she was not skinny by American standards, and her stomach had begun the pooch of a pregnant woman. He ran a single finger across her stomach and down her legs.
"I love you," she said.
He grunted. This was the hard moment, when he realized, too, that he loved her and would have to give this us. "They say hurricane season will be rough this year -- good waves, starting any day now."
"We'll invite my sister and her kids -- you can show them how to surf. They just adore you."
He signed and laid his head down on ehr stomach, ear down as if listening. She entwined her fingers into his hair affectionately. For a moment, he was comfortable, and he thought, here, here at last he would stay, and screw whatever may come. He wanted so bad, then, to just be here for ever here in paradisio.
"Papa," she whispered, dreamily.
Or not.
----
I had problems with writing this one, so I thought I'd share the list of "free association" words I wrote down while I tried to brainstorm ideas: Surfing. Channel surfing. Television. Couch potato. Starches. Carbohydrates. Fat. Obesity. Diabetes. Loss of Feet. Foot-less. Footloose. What a feeling. 1980s. Bad hair. One-sie. Bikini. Minnie Driver is Preggers. OBGYN. Planned Parenthood.
Just so you see where the idea came from. :-) Literally, this is the sixth or seventh attempt at writing this; the rest were blah. Interestingly enough, I even went on Urban Dictionary and tried for two definitions they have there for Surf: 1) Stuck-Up, Rich F*ck; and 2) vomiting out a window of a moving car while drunk.
Neither of them did much for me.
"I love you," she said.
He grunted. This was the hard moment, when he realized, too, that he loved her and would have to give this us. "They say hurricane season will be rough this year -- good waves, starting any day now."
"We'll invite my sister and her kids -- you can show them how to surf. They just adore you."
He signed and laid his head down on ehr stomach, ear down as if listening. She entwined her fingers into his hair affectionately. For a moment, he was comfortable, and he thought, here, here at last he would stay, and screw whatever may come. He wanted so bad, then, to just be here for ever here in paradisio.
"Papa," she whispered, dreamily.
Or not.
----
I had problems with writing this one, so I thought I'd share the list of "free association" words I wrote down while I tried to brainstorm ideas: Surfing. Channel surfing. Television. Couch potato. Starches. Carbohydrates. Fat. Obesity. Diabetes. Loss of Feet. Foot-less. Footloose. What a feeling. 1980s. Bad hair. One-sie. Bikini. Minnie Driver is Preggers. OBGYN. Planned Parenthood.
Just so you see where the idea came from. :-) Literally, this is the sixth or seventh attempt at writing this; the rest were blah. Interestingly enough, I even went on Urban Dictionary and tried for two definitions they have there for Surf: 1) Stuck-Up, Rich F*ck; and 2) vomiting out a window of a moving car while drunk.
Neither of them did much for me.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Mom: Shakespeare
Shakespeare August 18, 2008
The old woman came in quietly on the arm of her daughter. She wore beige capris, a white button-down and sturdy moccasins. Her hair was curly and thinning at the forehead and temples. Her eyes were the most distinctive of all: They were the eyes of the un-dead, seeing but not caring. There was no response as I greeted her and motioned to a chair. She stood still until her daughter moved her toward the chair. I asked the old woman how she was. She just looked through me. I looked at the daughter and asked her to tell me again what had happened that brought them to my office.
She began.
The daughter had arrived home from work two days ago to find Mother sitting in the swivel chair in her office, distracted and repeating a phrase as though she were a stuck record – “A horse.” In fact, Mother was pulling on a piece of thread and swiveling slowly back and forth repeating “a horse” while staring out the window. She didn’t respond to the daughter’s greeting. Daughter tried to get Mother’s attention by swiveling the chair around and away from her focus on the window. But to no avail, Mother just swiveled it back and stared out the window. The daughter feared some kind of stroke. She called EMS and Mother was transported to the hospital. Mother’s response was to cooperate, but she spoke not a word. She responded in a stiff, almost unnoticing manner. She hadn’t had a stroke. No problem could be diagnosed, so she was released from the hospital. The attending physician had recommended a psychologist for an evaluation and the daughter called, i.e. the appointment we were now having.
Mother didn’t respond to my questions. “A horse.” She sat stiff, looking out the window and whispered “a horse.” So I interviewed the daughter. Her mother was a writer with three books to her credit – romance novels by literary classification, but not young romance. They were romances for the elderly. According to her daughter these novels were not Fabio-Harlequin romances but funny, down-to-earth stories of love among the elderly. It was a fairly undeveloped field as most readers think romance belongs to the young. Mother’s main characters were elderly, sexual, hungry, and viable; loving life in ways not available to the young. I have to admit Mother’s topic made me a little uncomfortable as a picture of my own grandmother came into mind. I pushed it out: The idea of my gran naked, sexual, and on the prowl. Mother made a living with this topic. However, the daughter said that recently Mother had stopped typing. Her computer was on but the white screen remained blank. Twice Mother forgot to plug in the power cord and the daughter had come home, only to spend the evening re-booting the machine.
“A horse.” Mother had turned her head to look at the wall. The only things there were theatre posters and licenses.
I asked the daughter questions that might have indicated a possibility of Alzheimer’s. But the daughter seemed to believe that Mother’s condition was too sudden. I asked about any other recent events in Mother’s life. The daughter had to think. Nothing suddenly she said, but some things that had caused a change in Mother’s lifestyle. I asked what. Mother’s husband, daughter’s dad, was still alive, but suffered from cancer and arthritis. He recently went through chemo which had been unsuccessful and his body was now advancing toward death, with a lot of pain and need. The bills were mounting for his care. The daughter lived with them to help take care of Daddy and Mother and she had been a help, but the daughter had a son who recently came for a visit. He did drugs and to pay for his habit stole from his grandmother. The pearl and sapphire brooch her husband had given her on their 25th anniversary was gone. The loss was never discussed out loud. The son, grandson, disappeared. Then, Mother had gone to the bank for a loan to help with the mounting expenses. She was a long time customer of this bank; they only gave her a thousand dollar loan. Only enough to make the late payments on the medical equipment she had rented to care for her husband. But she had been robbed coming out of the grocery store. The thousand was gone, along with the few groceries she had managed to purchase.
Mother was now staring at one particular poster on the office wall. “A horse?” she said.
I looked at the daughter, “A horse?” I asked.
The daughter shrugged her shoulders.
“A horse.” Mother repeated, getting out of the chair slowly, her focus on the one poster. It was a poster of a play that I had enjoyed in my student days, a Shakespeare play – Richard III, about a king who possibly killed his brother and two nephews – rightful kings of England - to gain the throne for himself and started a civil war.
The office was deafeningly silent. I looked up at the poster, then back at the old woman and her words suddenly made sense. She was telling us all the time what the problem was in those fateful words: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.”
The old woman came in quietly on the arm of her daughter. She wore beige capris, a white button-down and sturdy moccasins. Her hair was curly and thinning at the forehead and temples. Her eyes were the most distinctive of all: They were the eyes of the un-dead, seeing but not caring. There was no response as I greeted her and motioned to a chair. She stood still until her daughter moved her toward the chair. I asked the old woman how she was. She just looked through me. I looked at the daughter and asked her to tell me again what had happened that brought them to my office.
She began.
The daughter had arrived home from work two days ago to find Mother sitting in the swivel chair in her office, distracted and repeating a phrase as though she were a stuck record – “A horse.” In fact, Mother was pulling on a piece of thread and swiveling slowly back and forth repeating “a horse” while staring out the window. She didn’t respond to the daughter’s greeting. Daughter tried to get Mother’s attention by swiveling the chair around and away from her focus on the window. But to no avail, Mother just swiveled it back and stared out the window. The daughter feared some kind of stroke. She called EMS and Mother was transported to the hospital. Mother’s response was to cooperate, but she spoke not a word. She responded in a stiff, almost unnoticing manner. She hadn’t had a stroke. No problem could be diagnosed, so she was released from the hospital. The attending physician had recommended a psychologist for an evaluation and the daughter called, i.e. the appointment we were now having.
Mother didn’t respond to my questions. “A horse.” She sat stiff, looking out the window and whispered “a horse.” So I interviewed the daughter. Her mother was a writer with three books to her credit – romance novels by literary classification, but not young romance. They were romances for the elderly. According to her daughter these novels were not Fabio-Harlequin romances but funny, down-to-earth stories of love among the elderly. It was a fairly undeveloped field as most readers think romance belongs to the young. Mother’s main characters were elderly, sexual, hungry, and viable; loving life in ways not available to the young. I have to admit Mother’s topic made me a little uncomfortable as a picture of my own grandmother came into mind. I pushed it out: The idea of my gran naked, sexual, and on the prowl. Mother made a living with this topic. However, the daughter said that recently Mother had stopped typing. Her computer was on but the white screen remained blank. Twice Mother forgot to plug in the power cord and the daughter had come home, only to spend the evening re-booting the machine.
“A horse.” Mother had turned her head to look at the wall. The only things there were theatre posters and licenses.
I asked the daughter questions that might have indicated a possibility of Alzheimer’s. But the daughter seemed to believe that Mother’s condition was too sudden. I asked about any other recent events in Mother’s life. The daughter had to think. Nothing suddenly she said, but some things that had caused a change in Mother’s lifestyle. I asked what. Mother’s husband, daughter’s dad, was still alive, but suffered from cancer and arthritis. He recently went through chemo which had been unsuccessful and his body was now advancing toward death, with a lot of pain and need. The bills were mounting for his care. The daughter lived with them to help take care of Daddy and Mother and she had been a help, but the daughter had a son who recently came for a visit. He did drugs and to pay for his habit stole from his grandmother. The pearl and sapphire brooch her husband had given her on their 25th anniversary was gone. The loss was never discussed out loud. The son, grandson, disappeared. Then, Mother had gone to the bank for a loan to help with the mounting expenses. She was a long time customer of this bank; they only gave her a thousand dollar loan. Only enough to make the late payments on the medical equipment she had rented to care for her husband. But she had been robbed coming out of the grocery store. The thousand was gone, along with the few groceries she had managed to purchase.
Mother was now staring at one particular poster on the office wall. “A horse?” she said.
I looked at the daughter, “A horse?” I asked.
The daughter shrugged her shoulders.
“A horse.” Mother repeated, getting out of the chair slowly, her focus on the one poster. It was a poster of a play that I had enjoyed in my student days, a Shakespeare play – Richard III, about a king who possibly killed his brother and two nephews – rightful kings of England - to gain the throne for himself and started a civil war.
The office was deafeningly silent. I looked up at the poster, then back at the old woman and her words suddenly made sense. She was telling us all the time what the problem was in those fateful words: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.”
Monday, August 18, 2008
Topic: due 8-25-08
SURFING
An addenda from from mom as she told me on the phone: Just because we're from Charleston doesn't mean it has to be about the immediate kind of surfing you're thinking about. Not necessarily about waves and boards and stuff.
Response to the addenda from son: Methinks you have an idea about something that doesn't refer to literal surfing.
An addenda from from mom as she told me on the phone: Just because we're from Charleston doesn't mean it has to be about the immediate kind of surfing you're thinking about. Not necessarily about waves and boards and stuff.
Response to the addenda from son: Methinks you have an idea about something that doesn't refer to literal surfing.
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