hat a gift to grow up next to next door neighbors like the Reeds, who had 5 children pretty much matching up with our family. There was so much traffic between the two households that Mrs. Reed put stones along the path through the bushes so that we wouldn’t track mud everywhere. Johnny Reed was the youngest and matched up with my two younger brothers Tony and Tim. He was such a part of the family that we marked his height every year inside the playroom door along with everyone else’s. The Reeds used to have plenty of ice cream in their freezer, because Mr. Reed had something to do with Kraft foods. He would frequently get gift baskets from them at holiday time, but they often seemed to be bizarre test flavors. Our freezer was stocked with a much more predictable supply of ice cream and popsicles, and occasionally Johnny would come over, say hi, open the freezer, get what he wanted, wave good bye and go home.
Peter and my brother Andy started an egg business together with the help of my mother. She moved the small unused red chicken coop that was in the Reed’s back yard to our backyard and stocked it with novelty hens that only laid brown eggs. I remember answering the phone once and it was the harried postmaster who reported, “Your chickens have arrived. Could you please come and pick them up.” In the background I could hear a chorus of agitated peeping. The chicks would live in our basement for a little while in a circular pen so that a single chick could not get squished into a corner by the flock’s natural herding instincts.
Several weeks later, the chickens were ready for the outside world. “Brown Reed Fine Poultry” was born, with Peter and Andy delivering fresh eggs to local neighbors. One day I was sitting eating breakfast at the kitchen table and looked out into the front yard and saw an escaped chicken walk by that basically had no butt – something had clearly chomped it from behind and only one lone feather was left sticking up. When I went to the back yard to investigate this odd occurrence, I was aghast to see that some animal had absolutely laid waste to the chicken yard. There were feathers and corpses everywhere. I then spotted the dog belonging to the other neighbors lurking across the lawn. While the dog feigned pure innocence, his guilt was clearly signaled by the two feathers stuck to his face. My mother was so enraged about this incident that she loaded all the dead and bloody chickens onto a wheelbarrow and dumped them on the Carton’s doorstep. When Mrs. Carton called, sputtering for an explanation, my mother calmly told her that she thought that the Cartons might want to eat them, since they were such fine birds who had met a very untimely death. For the next several weeks, whenever Keith Reed was in our house, he would answer the phone, “Brown Reed Dead Poultry.”
Helen Reed and I were in the same grade in school, and learned how to do everything together, skating, playing baseball, tennis and going to dancing school. Keith and my older brother Ralph were somewhat the same age, and had several years of close friendship involving pyrotechnics of one sort or another. Together with another neighbor John McCutcheon, who actually seemed to be the brains of the operation, they made all sorts of bombs that they used to blow up all the model airplanes and ships that my brother had made in a previous more constructive phase of his life. This was right smack in the middle of the Sputnik challenge, so perhaps it was not surprising shooting off rockets in the back yard was another activity. I remember warm summer nights when Keith and Ralph would put on a show, with all the parents gathering in the back yard holding their cocktails. The rockets went off with a bang, soaring straight upward perhaps an impressive hundred yards. As they plummeted down, we would all go scampering into the field to retrieve the space capsules.
I was in awe of Ginevra Reed who was probably 5 years older and was on an accelerated pace through her teenage years. I don’t think that I had every spoken to her directly, but one day found myself along with Helen and Peter in the Reed’s living room with Ginevra and her boyfriend Bucky. I sat there timidly, realizing that this perhaps was the first glimpse I would get of what being a teenager was all about. I think that we were all sipping ice tea or cokes and there was an awkward silence as Ginevra looked around and saw us kids staring at her. Playing to her audience, she said, “Bucky, why don’t you show these kids how you can eat a razor blade. I’ll go get one from Dad’s bathroom.” She hopped up, and was back in less than a minute with a flat razor blade. With an inexplicable confidence, Bucky took the razor blade and popped it into his mouth. All of us stared in utter horror and disbelief.
I could see Bucky’s tongue rolling around in this mouth and then heard a metallic snap. He swallowed, gave a satisfied smack of his lips as if he had just eaten a yummy piece of roast beef. As he opened his mouth wide open I spotted a small spot of blood on his tongue, but no sign of the razor blade. This was at a time when I had made a few initial attempts at using a razor to shave my legs. Even with focused concentration I routinely ended up with nicks and occasionally more drastic results. I felt that I was in front of true greatness. Here was a guy whose slippery but agile tongue could outperform my best efforts of hand/eye coordination. Ginevra then said, “Bucky can eat light bulbs too,” but to our disappointment Ginevra could not find the right sized bulb.
I was so awestruck that it just didn’t occur to me that there must be a trick involved. I chose not to contemplate the grisly consequences of razor-sharp shards coursing through the stomach and intestines. I was like a child distracted by all the gifts that Santa had brought, who did not consider the obvious fact that there was no way a man could pop up and down a chimney. Somehow, I mentally distilled the episode down to two questions. Was this what it was going to be like to be a teenager? Would I ever have a boyfriend cool enough to eat a razor blade?
This memory resurfaced this weekend as I attended the funeral service of Mr. Reed. I began to think that this could not have been true, how could anybody even pretend to eat a razor blade? I had not seen Bucky again in the ensuing 45 years, but decided to call him to find out what really happened. A little research produced the phone number, and there we were on the phone, reliving the experience. “Oh yes,” Bucky said, “those were wild years, and I did indeed eat razor blades and the occasional light bulb, but I have been sworn to secrecy on how I did it. But I will say that I never got hurt.” I knew enough not to press a magician on his tricks, but I did ask who taught him. “Oh, remember that famous drug dealer, Pablo Escobar. Well I was friends with some of his children and I went to a party where this was the entertainment. I learned how to eat razor blades at this party.”
So far, Bucky has not demo’ed this unique skill for his teenage kids, though he made it sound like riding a bicycle, where it would be simple to pick up where he left off. I suggested that since we were approaching the 50th anniversary, we should have a reunion to relive the event which had such an impact on my childhood. But this time we would be just a bunch of paunchy oldsters who would be appalled if their children ever attempted to do such a totally stupid thing.
Childhood, adolescence and adulthood are three of life’s great - - - - - .
And every one faces these transitions with anxieties and fears.
No parent - - - - - of worrying about how their children will grow,
And they try and prepare them with everything they’ll need to know.
But each child - - - - - experimenting and may not be a stranger
To drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and other kinds of danger.
But my - - - - - of passage were smooth because I listened to an inner voice
Who told me that eating a razor blade was an extremely poor life choice.
Click here for answers
Grave Situations
ver the past seven years I watched helplessly as my mother’s bright and witty mind slowly unraveled. And then over a brief 5 day period this July, her physical self quickly unraveled and suddenly she was gone. Suddenly, I transitioned from a helpless bystander to “a woman of action,” (one of my mother’s favorite phrases). Along with my siblings and cousins I became engrossed in planning a kick-ass celebratory memorial service for this lovely and generous woman. The date had to be set, the services of the minister and church secured, selection of music, travel and housing plans for out of towners, hosting meals and organizing flowers. Given the menu of tasks, it is probably not too surprising that I frequently misspoke and referred to the funeral as “the wedding.” Nick pointed out that the major difference between the two was that with a wedding you typically have several months to plan. Of course the other difference was my visit to the funeral home. My mother was very skilled in finding humor, irony and irreverence in almost any situation and thus I am sure that she would have approved and enjoyed the following description.
Wenban funeral home has been the only funeral home in Lake Forest for decades. Mr. Wenban also owned the Buick dealership, and thus my uncle said that his motto was, “Bodies, bones and Buicks.” As I approached the building, I realized that I had been in the building some 40 years earlier when it was prepurposed as the orthodontist’s office. I recalled Friday afternoons waiting for painful dental appointments, where I would try to dispel the anxiety by reading Highlight’s magazine. The best part was the page with line drawing with hidden items - a girl with long flowing hair would be hidden in the bark of the tree, or a bunny rabbit would be hidden in the fluffy clouds. It was a particular irritating when some spoil sport had circled all the hidden objects, totally ruining the game.
I entered Wenban’s with the same mixture of anxiety and irritation, since I was sure that Wenban’s was going to try and rip me off. I had heard many years earlier about a scathing satire of the American funeral industry, titled “The American Way of Death,” by Jessica Mitford. Jessica was one of the English quartet of Mitford sisters who achieved fame and notoriety in prewar England for their beauty and eccentricities. One sister was a communist, one a fascist who hob-nobbed with Hitler, one who more traditionally married one of the richest men in England, and Jessica, who became fascinated with American funerals. She pointed out the logically obvious fact that families arranging funerals are pathetically easy to take advantage of. A clientele addled by grief and guilt, infused with ready cash from an insurance policy to pay for it all, and in somewhat of a rush is a dream come true for the members of the death industry - the funeral homes, cemeteries and florists. A small novella by Evelyn Waugh called “the Loved One,” is a companion piece. This novel also skewers the funeral industry and includes a mortician named Mr. Joyboy as the main character. As I opened the door and walked into Wenban’s, I vowed to myself that I would not be played for a sap.
The lobby was predictably somber and heavily carpeted in dark rich tones. However, I was immediately puzzled by a bronze sculpture in the entryway depicting a hunting dog standing over a pheasant. Now I must say that dog did not have bared fangs as he lusted for the kill, nor was the pheasant cowering in abject fear as he contemplated his impending death. However, the sculpture did portray a predator/prey relationship that seemed a bit jarring for a funeral home. Oddly enough there was no reception desk, so I just sort of wandered around and finally peeked into a room and spotted a man sitting at an empty desk. This sallow young man seemed to fit the stereotype for a funeral director so I knocked and walked in. (Mitford’s book describes how the funeral industry has tried to elevate their status from that of a simple tradesmen to true professional. Therefore, the term “mortician” has been nixed and replaced by “funeral director” or even “grief counselor.”)
I was wearing my usual schlump dump outfit and since it was a hot and sticky July day, there were probably a few beads of perspiration on my brow. However Mr. Joyboy was decked out in a suit complete with a small hanky at the ready in his breast pocket. It struck me that the funeral parlor would probably be the last industry to transition to a business casual dress code - if I showed up at 3AM, Mr. Joyboy would be wearing the same outfit. He was expecting me, since Wenban’s had come to the house earlier that morning to pick up the body. Mr. Joyboy said, “Please review this list of charges and sign at the bottom to acknowledge that you understand and agree to them.” At the top was a charge for some $2,000. I asked what this charge covered, and the basic answer was that this was a “nondeclinable fee” that merely covered the overhead of having a lush plush funeral home with 24 hour availability. Since we had already hired Wenban’s to pick up the body, there was no way that we could “decline” this overhead fee. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Joyboy pointed out, there was an additional $500 fee for picking up the body, and more fees for cremation and for something called an “errand car.” The list, which was excruciatingly unbundled, went on for another page and a half. But I had already been had, I had already been played for a sap by the deceptively simple phone call to pick up the body. Habeant corpus.
I realized that since I was helpless in their clutches, my mounting irritation would have to play out in other ways. I also realized that I was under no obligation to be polite. As a member of a grief stricken family, any standards of behavior would be up for grabs. I could be as snippy or downright rude as I wanted with no feelings of remorse. Realizing the futility of negotiating the charges, I chose another tack. “I would like to ask you about the sculpture in your front hall. Don’t you think that a hunting scene might be a little inappropriate for a funeral home?” Mr. Joyboy startled and said, “Why no, that is a very elegant sculpture.” I pressed further, “Well frankly, Mr. Joyboy, when I looked at it, I saw death, I saw violence and I saw an animal about to be killed, and it really put me off.” Mr. Joyboy could only mumble, “Well many of our clients really like it.” Our session was over, I signed the paper ad left.
As I drove home, I recalled a recurring ad in one of our local papers that had a picture of some clouds with the caption, “Lakewood Crematorium, Direct Crematorium on the North Shore since 1988.” I decided to give them a call to figure out what direct cremation was. I ended up talking to a very friendly woman named Jeannette, who had started the business with her husband. And then in a stunning example of oversharing she said she got out of the business for several years since she thought that the stress was responsible for two miscarriages, but now after several successful pregnancies she has gotten back into the business. It turns out that direct cremation is basically a no frills funeral parlor, in fact there is no parlor. Lakewood provides a service where they will come and pick up the body, transport and from the crematorium and do other small tasks like filing the death certificate and delivering the “cremains” to the cemetery. (The term cremains as an alternative to ashes is another invention of the funeral industry, and stands as one of the most apt euphemisms every created.) Lakewood has a small office where you can come in and sign the necessary papers – I envisioned something like a HR Block office with chipped linoleum floors and stainless steel desks, all of which would have been fine with me. Without any encouragement, Jeannette invited me to come tour their facility, which was located between the Harley Davidson dealership and the bowling alley. However, I begged off. I was suddenly weary of the whole thing.
The mortician said “please review this document, I want to make everything crystal clear.
To make sure our charges don’t go - - - - - - - - - please sign this page right here.”
The initial charge was $2,000 but I quickly saw that I was deluded,
Not - - - - - - - - - were fees for everything else; nothing but overhead was included.
There were fees for an errand car, death certificates, and on page 2 the unbundling - - - - - - - - - .
I realized that my signature merely acknowledged that I knew that I’d been screwed.
Click here for answers
Susan Boyle
he first image of Susan Boyle was a frowzy older women
quietly sitting eating a sandwich in a room teeming with hopefuls waiting to
perform on the British TV reality show, “Britain’s Got Talent.” She came forward for a quick backstage
interview and cheerfully admitted that she was never married, and in fact had
never been kissed and lived alone with her cat Pebbles.
Now picture a women with the physique of a stout pickle
striding across the empty stage in sensible shoes, with a ribbon of sorts
situated where one could imagine a waist once was. She was wearing a matronly scooped neck lace
number the same color of her pasty skin, and a contestant’s number was slapped
haphazardly across her ample bosom. When
the judges asked her where she lived, she forgot the name of her village. Then the judge grimaced at her age of
47, and in response did a very embarrassing bump and grind, which left
both the audience and judges squirming uncomfortably in their seats.
She indicated that she was ready to sing “I Dreamed a Dream”
from the Les Miserables. She faced three sharp tongued and cynical
judges and an audience who presumably harbored a bizarre fascination in
watching delusional singers totally humiliate themselves in front of a jeering
crowd. The introductory notes started
and there were several moments of tension as everyone braced for some sort of
atonal croak. With a slight furrow of
her uni-brow and clench of her double chin, Susan
opened her mouth and sang.
Within one stanza of the song, the audience was on their
feet cheering; her voice was brilliant. The judges sat in slack-jawed shock. But it was not so much her stunning soaring voice, but to me what was
most remarkable was that it came out of this - let’s face it - total
frump. We rarely experience anything
with a single sense, and are accustomed to seeing the visual trump the
auditory – a marginal singing talent can be compensated by tarty outfits and makeovers. Food that smells
good tastes good. Food that smells bad,
like steamed cauliflower, can't overcome that bad first impression unless
there is enough butter and parmesan cheese.
The other remarkable thing was that her clear, liquid
singing voice bore no resemblance to her slightly shrill and squawky speaking voice. Athletes tend to look athletic so it is not
too surprising to see LeBron dunk. And sports physiologists have drooled over
Michael Phelps physique, and have poked and prodded it to show that his arms
are the perfect length for the butterfly stroke and his narrow and deep chest
is ideally proportioned to maximize his lung capacity. But with singers, how can you know? Someone should crawl inside this women’s
larynx to document its exquisite mechanics, investigate how it interacts with
her lungs and ears, because Susan can really belt it out, and then figure out
how the whole package is connected to her heart - this woman was singing with
effective emotion, far beyond what her limited never-been-kissed life
experience would suggest. A previous
show had featured someone called Paul Potts who similarly walked onto the stage
in an ill-fitting suit with the improbable dream to sing opera. He explained that he never had any confidence
since he was relentlessly teased as a child, perhaps due to his unfortunate
name that prompted potty humor derision, or a comparison to the genocidal
Cambodian despot Pol Pot. Or maybe it was his weird snaggle tooth that made you wince when he smiled. But as soon as he opened his mouth, like Susan, his singing voice bore
no relationship to his speaking voice and he just stunned the audience.
Susan approached the most challenging part of the song – a
series of rising notes that would blow out an average person’s larynx. But she nailed them. Now the entire audience and the judges were
in rhapsodic awe. She wrinkled up her
pug nose and when she nodded in recognition you could see a bald spot around
her jagged part. She finished with
a flourish and when the judges gave her an enthusiastic
thumbs up, she stamped her feet in excitement and did a fist pump, which
set her kimono arms wagging. The
cynical crowd rose to its feet in appreciation of this triumphant
underdog.
You also knew that you were witness to the first rush of
pure, undiluted joy and saw Susan guilelessly exulting in her dream goal of
performing before a live audience. The
news of her performance spread quickly around the world and the press descended
on her Scottish village, she was interviewed on the morning news shows, and
there is talk about her appearance on Oprah. Reporters immediately wanted to know if she was going to have a
makeover, do something about her thinning grey frizzy hair or whether she
had been fielding marriage proposals - all a patronizing and barely designed
cruelties targeting her physical appearance. Who knows how this experience will change this unassuming and modest
person, but I did notice that by the time of his last performance on Britain
Has Talent, Paul Potts had gotten himself a snappy new tuxedo, his snaggle tooth was gone, and most importantly the element of
surprise was gone.
Before she sang, the judge had asked why her dream of
becoming a singer had not worked out and she simply said, “Well nobody has
given me a chance before.” At the
conclusion of her song you are left with the powerful message that nothing
deserves to be casually dismissed and that the hidden talents that surely
surround us are routinely squandered. I
am thinking of some sort of unassuming frog verging on extinction who is quietly harboring the perfect cure for cancer beneath
his moist and delicate skin. But his
swamp is being drained and his muddy pothole is shrinking. The next pothole is across the new highway
that has divided his dwindling habitat. With a timid croak he tries to hop across the hot tarmac but splat…
nobody gave him a chance.
Of all our senses, it is the visual that usually - - - - - -
It’s never brains over beauty, the ugly genius complains.
So when the frumpy - - - - - - opens her mouth what we expect to
hear
Is an atonal croak instead of a voice that’s pure and clear.
So close your eyes when you listen, small, feel or taste
Otherwise we - - - - - - ourselves to hidden talents that go to waste.
Click here for answers
The Great Unraveling
n December 18th, with great sadness and some relief, I was
officially booted out of the sandwich generation. My mother had died a year and half earlier,
but her death did not change my every day life that
much. She had really been in her own
world for the previous three years or so, so my energies had really focused on
my father. And now with his death, the
great unraveling was complete, and I was in a new phase of life - before I
sandwich up my children. Perhaps I am
part of the open-face sandwich generation.
It was strange to be back in the same church again, with the
same cast and crew, but this time everything seemed more final, and we were
honoring an entire generation that was slipping away. We had learned a few things from the first
go-around, and had elected to do a direct cremation and bypass the unnecessary totus porkus funeral home. I went to pick up the ashes and found the
modest facility in the strip mall by the bowling alley. The woman was odd looking and pear shaped,
wearing a lumpy sweat shirt and large oversized glasses. Before she handed me the two tin containers,
she gave me an American flag and in a solemn voice read from a sheet thanking
my father for his service to his country. I asked her who was giving me a flag and she said, “the President of the United States and a grateful nation.” It would be easy to snicker at this hokey
ceremony in a poorly lit room with a bad shag carpet, but I was unexpectedly
moved by this minor gesture - it seemed like something that the US government
actually got right.
The last several months have been devoted to unraveling my
parents’ possessions and clearing out the house that they had lived in for over
50 years. When realtors first came in to
assess the house’s potential, they all sighed and commented that this was going
to be a huge job - certainly we would get bogged down by reading old letters,
perhaps discovering some deep dark secrets, or divvying up their
possession. However, as we delved into
the project, I realized that it would be easy. My parents were simply not collectors and left no trace of their
secrets. There were few possessions of
any great value, which were easily shared among my siblings. I had secretly hoped that one of my siblings
would put their sticker on my childhood portrait, but it was unclaimed at the
end of our great divide, so I took it home with me. I wandered around the house trying to find a
suitable spot for me, but felt self conscious putting it anywhere prominent. I walked by the powder room and thought,
“Perfect.” So there I hang, cute as a
bug’s ear in my blue smocked dress providing a cheerful greeting whenever
nature calls.
The most sentimental things my mother collected were
expressions about the importance of smiling and laughter. Some of these aphorisms were found on the
inside of the Dove candies, and I found some crumpled up candy wrappers taped
to the inside of a cupboard. On another
wall, she had taped all sorts of newspaper clippings that included her name
Fanny and my father’s name Ralph. My
mother liked to poke fun at her old-fashioned name. In recognition of her double-entendre name
she chose “Bum” as her grandmother name. Socially, she went by the name Fan, and would often introduce herself
as, “I’m Fan, like an athletic supporter.” My father Ralph, on the other hand, did not seem to appreciate the fact
that his name had evolved to an idiom for puking. For one anniversary party, I concocted a
family game of Jeopardy of various family trivia. I had squares for daily doubles where the
group was challenged to come up with the most unique idioms for Fanny and
Ralph. Fanny was no problem – rear end,
butt, ass, heinie, cheeks, glutes,
buns etc. But my father seemed
dumbfounded as we spewed forth Ralphisms such as “hug
the porcelain throne (from my college years), york the pork and splash the hash (from my mother’s
college years), and release the hostages (from the Iran hostage crisis). After this experience my mother started
collecting advertisements and sayings that included the word “Ralph.” No longer was Ralph associated with great
intellects like Ralph Waldo Emerson, in fact the general tenor of these ads was
that Ralph was a doofus name.
But father held his head high and went about his own
collecting - models of antique cars. When we were younger, he actually owned a few antique cars, which, based
on family movies, seemed to be the perfect vehicle to pull toboggans around our
circular driveway. My father never
thought to treat himself to anything, with the exception of antique car models
and magazines. They overflowed shelves
in his bedroom, family room and office, there were
probably several hundred of them. While
his cognitive abilities faded towards the end of his life, he was absolutely spot on when it came to his cars. I could pull any car off the shelf and ask
him, “What kind of car is this Dad?” He
would hold it in his trembly hand and in an equally trembly voice pronounce, “1937 Model T Ford.” I would turn over the car, and he would be
absolutely correct, even though he might be a bit vague on my name.
So this was the biggest challenge – what to do with all the
cars. Each of us took 10 cars for a
starter, which barely seemed to make a dent in the collection. Then we took 5 more, and more, and then a
nephew arrived and gratefully took the rest to display in his garden shop in
California. I had just scooped up a
bunch of cars, and only later when I got them home, I realized that I had
acquired an anatomically correct Good Humor ice cream truck, including tiny
latches on the freezer compartments, and the little bells on the
windshield. Of all the cars, this was
probably the only one that I had any direct connection to. Don Dumont was the name of the local Good
Humor man. I don’t know what he did all
winter, but every summer he would reappear wearing a cap that said he was
running for president in addition to selling Good Humors. In our household, Good Humor bars were the
height of indulgence and only rarely would we get such a treat. I was well aware that I had a very privileged
life, but I lived in a community where you could always find someone who had a
little bit more - like a Good Humor man who made housecalls. Standing outside, I would hear the tinkle of
the ice cream truck and the crunch of gravel as Don Dumont arrived at our next
door neighbor’s house and I watched as Mrs. Reed take boxes and boxes into her
basement. Of course the Reeds were
unfailingly generous, and I could have waltzed right over there to get a Good
Humor anytime, but the irony was they always got the inferior flavors of
toasted almond and strawberry shortcake and not the chocolate fudge cake that I
preferred. Out of all
the cars that my father could have purchased, why he had chosen to get a Good
Humor truck. It wasn’t really
even an antique. It did seem odd unless
of course we secretly appreciated the same symbolism…
Then of course there were the pictures. Some were of grandparents and great
grandparents stored in boxes, where they had been since my parents had gone
through the same rite of passage with my grandparents. I pondered on what to do with these. I had no direct connection with many of these
ancestors but felt a little guilty about just throwing them out. Around the same time I happened to stay in a
bed and breakfast where the owner had spared no detail in recreating a
Victorian ambience. As I was sitting
eating breakfast, I asked who were the
portraits were of – one a man with a stiff collar and a large bushy moustache,
and the other a woman with an impossibly cinched waist and a huge theatrical
hair do with combs and a bun. They
looked similar to the portraits currently lined up in my front hall. The owner
said, “Oh I have no idea, I just picked them up at an antique fair.” It suddenly seemed too cruel to consign my
ancestors to either the dustbin or to an anonymous contrived tchotchke. At the
same time, I saw an ad on TV about a website called ancestor.com which claimed
it could help people reclaim their roots. The ads featured people delighting in finding the slightest evidence of their forebearers. And here I was with a huge collection at my finger tips. So the tradition will continue, with pictures
gathering dust in the basement, waiting for the next generation to lower the
axe.
The next step in the unraveling was the dissolution of
various insurance policies, pensions and subscriptions. I discovered that my father was an incredible
optimist. He had renewed his
subscription to Forbes magazine through 2013. It turned out to be very difficult to get his pension checks turned off,
to get refunds for various insurance policies paid in full and straighten out
credit cards. Out of frustration I
discovered that a small change in verb tense was very impactful. I could say “my father died,” and nothing
would get done. However, if I said, “My
father is dead,” things started to pop and the weary customer service people on
the other end of the line showed signs of life. I got a credit card renewal fee refunded by repetitively saying, “The
card holder is dead.” I had subbed out
one of my tasks to Nick, and passed on my trick and he was amazed at the
responsiveness of the normally obstinate Comcast.
The house is empty now, scrubbed clean, and people comment
how heartbreaking it must be to see it deserted. Yes, the tangible vestiges of my magical
childhood are dimming, but also no reminders of my parents’ declining days – a
daily pitched battle of dignity versus the inevitable, which they mostly won,
but even so... Now I just stop by when I
remember to water the few remaining plants that brighten up the place for the
scarce prospective buyers. But seeing
the house totally empty makes it easier to feel optimistic about a restart – a
young family taking over with another joyful 50 year run stretching out ahead
of them.
One of the consistent traits of the human - - - -
Is the desire to mark territory and declare your space.
An - - - - becomes a back yard with a fence that’s picket white
A house becomes a home with porch lights that greet the
night
The space is now an empty shell and people ask “Does it
break your heart?”
But I only - - - - that this house becomes a
home again; it’s time for a fresh new start.
Click here for answers
When the Spit Hits the Spam
y interest in idioms was prompted by an offhand comment by my cousin Susie who remarked that she had enjoyed a slim volume called “Hog on Ice,” which provided derivations for common American idioms. I then began to notice that our conversation is peppered with colorful idioms that must bedevil anyone aspiring to be bilingual – between a rock and a hard place, raining cats and dogs, steal your thunder, etc. Every summer I take a two mile brainstorming walk along Pine Lake in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and it was here that I came up with the idea of turning idioms and their derivations into a board game. The centerpiece involved contestants selecting the correct derivation of an idiom from four different possibilities – one correct answer and 3 distractors that I made up, similar to the vocab section on the SATs that we all despised.
The first step in such a project, or really almost any new project, is to enthusiastically buy the correct equipment and I quickly discovered that that “Hog on Ice” was only one of many reference books on idioms, cliché, slang and proverbs. Amazon listed general reference books and then specialized reference books, such as idioms of the sailor (miss the boat), cop (perp walk) and army (SNAFU, FUBB, FUBAR, FUBIJAR, where the FU stands for different variants of F*** up.) I eagerly ordered a very impressive three volume American Heritage dictionary of American slang, but was disappointed when only two volumes arrived; I was missing the letters P-Q. Multiple phone calls later I was told that American Heritage had decided NOT to publish the last volume of the dictionary; they had run out of money or interest or both. This was quite possibly the dumbest thing I had every heard of. There is a long list of idioms describing stupidity. I propose that we add “His alphabet is missing a few letters” to this list.
I also learned that the most common origins of idioms were either the Bible (handwriting on the wall) or Shakespeare (pound of flesh [from Merchant of Venice]). In fact, someone reading Hamlet without historical context might comment that the play would be better if it wasn’t so riddled with clichés. I then amassed more reference books on Biblical phrases and summaries of Shakespeare in order to create convincing distractors for my game, which was christened Idiom’s Delight. While we had many hilarious parties playing the game I really did not know how to take this project to the next level, but nonetheless I am pleased to be left with an entire bookshelf devoted to idiom reference books.
When I last heard the familiar phrase, “When the Shit Hits the Fan,” it struck me that this might be the perfect idiom – exceedingly clever, slightly naughty in a potty humor sort of way, perfectly visual and absolutely capturing a situation that has gone terribly wrong. I searched my reference books, but could not find a single source of origin, though one suggested that in polite company the word “pudding” could be substituted for shit without losing any of its visual wallop. Coincidentally, as I was surfing through the vast wasteland of cable TV I came across a M*A*S*H episode where someone provided another sanitized version – “when the spit hits the spam,” though perhaps this describes the disastrous moment when someone first tastes spam. I could only imagine the first person uttering “when the shit hits the fan”, immediately followed by its lightning spread throughout the country and then the ultimate validation – inclusion in a reference book.
I certainly thought this expression could not be peculiar to English. Following its rapid diffusion though the United States, it must have leapt the big pond with immediate translation into German, French and Italian, with further diffusion to Middle East, Asia and South East Asia. It must be world wide. One day I was taking a cab to the airport and I overheard the driver rapidly talking in what sounded like a middle eastern language. I thought, “Cab rides, what a perfect venue for a little field research.” The man told me that he was from Ethiopia and was speaking Aramic. So I asked him, “How would you say ‘when the shit hits the fan’ in Aramic – what expressions do you have for when everything goes wrong?” I tried to write down his phrase phonetically, but when I asked him to translate it back into English, I realized that he had simply translated it verbatim and had no idea what I was talking about. I took a few steps back and realized that it was very difficult to define the concept of an idiom; the best that I could come up with was a phrase that is not used literally. I tried to come up with other examples of idioms and ended up running through the various idioms for stupidity – i.e. not the sharpest tool, not playing with a full deck, and finally got recognition with “lights on, nobody’s home.” The cab driver nodded appreciatively and said, “Yes I have a brother in law like that.” Although I knew that I needed to refine my research methods if my time was limited to a cab ride, I got the sense that perhaps English was particularly idiom rich. After all, we have Shakespeare on our team.
(Motivated readers can check out the website www.urbandictionary.com, which boasts that since 1999 it has added over 3,000,000 new idioms to our lexicon. One of the most recent idioms is the newly coined business term, “land it in the Hudson,” which like the previous “foam the runways,” refers to crisis management.)
My next stop was my Polish friend Iga and her son Phillip, who said that “when the shit hits the fan” has absolutely no meaning in Polish, and in fact, instead of being cute and funny, it was disgusting and “Why would any one ever say this vulgar thing in someone’s home?” When asked for a Polish expression for something that goes terribly wrong, Iga came up with:
Jak piorun rombnie in szczypiorek!
This translates to, “when the thunder hits the chives.” Now it was my turn to look thunderstruck at the inanity of this expression. Iga explained that chives normally grow resolutely straight upward and would become entirely discombobulated when hit (?) by thunder. In fact, since the chances are minimal that thunder would ever hit chives, this expression implies a very unusual occurrence (i.e. once in a blue moon). I explained that “when the shit hits the fan,” does not necessarily imply an unusual or unexpected occurrence, or a violent situation, but actually describes a situation that could be anticipated, a worst case scenario that once started, gathered a life of its own. Now Brits might like to say, “everything went down the crapper,” but to me that means something slightly different. My expression implies that multiple things are interacting in a synergistic and disastrous way, while to me the British expression could describe a solo act that comes to a very quiet and natural end (my tennis game has gone down the crapper). It also fails because it misses the wonderful visual of a fan wildly flinging material.
As I was finishing my conversation with Iga and checking the correct Polish spelling, she sheepishly mentioned that while Poles finds the word shit vulgar, they freely use the word f*** (which I cannot even bring myself to type). I am sure that many bright linguists have studied how different languages swear and use idioms in polite company or in locker rooms, but I wondered if in general cultures could be broadly subdivided into f***ers or sh***ers, and if so Americans might be the latter. Just consider the following list of idioms that incorporate the word, either as a noun, adjective, verb or adverb, with connotations that are negative, neutral or even positive (really know your shit). In particular, the number of animals is impressive, including representatives from the ungulate, simian, avian and chiroptera families.
• Bull shit • Horse shit • Chicken shit • Ape shit • Bat shit • Make like horse shit and hit the road • Happier than a pig in shit • Not give a shit • Up shit creek without a paddle • Get your shit together • Shit a brick • Get shit-canned • Get the shit kicked out of • Shit list • Shit on a shingle • Have the shits • Lucky shit • Know your shit • Holy shit • No shit Sherlock • Shit out of luck • Shit or get off of the pot • Shoot the shit • Tough shit • Scared shitless • Shit faced • Shit kickers • Dipshit • Hot shit • A shit load • Shit in a bag and punch it (a frustrating situation) • Shithead • Piece of shit • Be full of shit • Don’t know shit from shinola • Shit for brains • That’s some heavy shit, man
I tip my hat to the unknown linguist with the agile wit,
Who thought expressions for disasters were simply inadequate.
He thought, “I want to invent something clever and maybe a little naughty,
Perhaps an expression that includes some humor from the potty.”
Inspiration struck as he walked his dog on a hot and muggy day,
When” - - - - - - - - - - - - the fan” perfectly captured the visual he sought to convey.
Click here for answers
Cicadas, Round Three
or the past week or so, the local news has been full of the story of the cicada hatch. The stories are rich with details on how the cicadas will ruin our lives; their loud thrumming sound has forced cancellation of outdoor concerts, their appetites might thin the leafy canopy and their basic ugliness will just gross people out. Other stories have taken a more scientific point of view and described the billions of cicada nymphs beneath our feet who have presumably been counting up to 17 cycles of warming earth to time their simultaneous emergence. While part of me is captivated by this virtuoso performance of nature, mostly these stories make me feel old.
There is nothing like regularly scheduled events to mark time. However, birthdays, elections and Olympics are so relentless that they can be easily assimilated into the gradual aging process. Astronomy offers other recurrent events. There are few people who can recall seeing Haley’s comet more than once, with the exception of Mark Twain who was both born and died at age 73 under Haley’s comet. Several years ago I was privileged to be in the clear dark skies of Montana at the time the stellar Hale-Bopp comet passed overhead. However, this recurring event did not threaten my earthly mortality, since I would not be seeing its return until 4377. However a 17 year cycle is just long enough and just short enough to mark time in a very distinct way. Most humans will experience about 5 cicada summers, less if you are born towards the end of one cycle. This will be my 3rd distinct memory of the cicadas.
My first cicada memory 34 years ago coincided with the wild popularity of Monty Python’s Circus on the local PBS station. We sat together as a family and made countless comments about how stupid it was, but it was just stupid enough to cross over to inanely funny. My father, a very literal business man would repetitively ask, “What are they doing?” “I don’t get this,” but none the less would laugh. It was one of the few times I can say that my father “went with the flow” and just enjoyed himself without understanding why. There was one recurring segment called the “Ministry of Silly Walks,” where various people would unveil these bizarre gaits. We decided that we would all create our silly walks, and traipse over to the neighbor’s for a demo. We all practiced in the family room, and I was frankly jealous of my brother Tim’s creation. He would take one big leap, and then stand very still and slowly rotate his right shoulder before taking the next big leap. We all headed outside to take the wooded path to the Reed’s house next door. The rest of my family went ahead, while I hung back to perfect my forgettable silly walk. As I stood quietly in the dark woods, I was stunned to hear the rustle of leaves as hordes of cicadas pushed their way to the surface. A week or so later, the collective rustle of leaves was replaced by the din of the cicadas as they pumped their abdomens to a deafening effect.
Seventeen years later I was married and had two small children who were the same age as my brother’s kids and thus was spending a bit of time with my sister-in-law. Her singular gift was to find the negative in even the most mundane details of daily life. I remember one time bowling with the kids when she casually announced that she had just read an article where investigators tested various objects for human feces. The thrust of the article was to illustrate the sloppy wiping tactics of many people and also to instill a baseline level of fear even if your own hygiene was impeccable. One of the things they tested was bowling balls, and you guessed it, they found human feces in the holes of the bowling balls. At that moment, I already felt that I was engaged in a most foolhardy venture. I had ill-advisedly arrived at the bowling alley wearing sandals, and thus had no choice but to don a pair of well-worn bowling shoes commando style, i.e. without benefit of socks. My guess is that it takes bowling shoes at least 20 years or more to wear out and thus my feet were mingling with the fungus, gradoux, and overall mung of literally hundreds of prior patrons. And now I was going to repeatedly put my fingers into a feces-laden bowling ball. Pretty sure I didn’t break 100 that day.
During that summer my niece was about 5, and my sister-in-law announced that she was sure that her daughter was going to “marry rich,” since she knew that she was going to have expensive tastes. Already she was bemoaning that fact that her anticipated society wedding, some 17 years hence, would be marred by the cicadas, and she just would just have to reschedule. While I had many problems with my sister-in-law, I agreed with her on this one. That summer I recall cicadas absolutely coating tree trunks, and cicadas would sometimes just drop on your head. They looked like they had not evolved in millennia, with large red bug eyes and bodies that snapped and crunched when you stepped on them. I could just imagine an outdoor wedding with cicadas doing the dog paddle in the tureen of lobster bisque, or bride’s maids screeching in horror as the cicadas landed on the bare shoulders of their pastel, single-use dresses.
My dear friend Rudd and I decided that the summer of the cicada would be a very juicy backdrop for a B movie plot, and we gave ourselves a week to come up with one and then would compare notes. I decided on a crime drama theme, with a world weary detective contemplating his retirement after a decorated 20 year career. However, several unsolved cases gnaw at him, particularly a series of murders in Central Park 17 yeas ago. He distinctly recalled the hordes of cicadas as he investigated the crimes scenes. There were no clues, no leads and the murders stopped abruptly as they began. So it is a bittersweet good bye party, and as he slips on the gold watch, he hears the cicadas again thrumming in Central Park. And then the murders with the same M.O. start again, and the department calls him out of retirement. The cicadas and murders can hardly be a coincidence, and he discovers that cicada cycles are staggered across the east coast. When he searches for the same M.O. during different cicada summers in different locations – BINGO – he has found the pattern. He calls in the help of an expert entomologist, who is at first a love interest, but then emerges as the chief suspect. Apparently, as a child the murderer was left in her playpen under a leafy tree by inattentive parents. One by one cicadas fall into her playpen and crawl all over her, secretly scarring her for life. While this experience is the basis for her career choice, the sound of cicadas also sends her into a murderous rage. Her parents were the first victims.
Rudd, somewhat predictably, was impressed with the sex life of cicadas. I once tried to talk to her on the phone and could hardly hear her. “Rudd, turn off your vacuum cleaner,” I begged. “That is the cicadas – even with doors all closed. Can you believe that noise is the cumulative sound of sexual energy?” she said. Her plot line focused on the ugliest man in the world, with huge bug eyes. His physical appearance was so off-putting that women ignored him, except for every 17 years during the 6 week cicada season. While the cicadas were at their loudest, this man would become inexplicably and compellingly attractive. He was fawned over, verbally and physically stroked, and women drifted into his backyard to longingly gaze up at his window throughout the night. And then as the cicadas died out, so did his sex appeal, dormant for another 17 years.
And so here we are again, 17 years later. I am in a new house, kids are more or less grown, and I wonder how I will remember this cicada summer - possibly as the summer that I reminisced about the other summers. Accumulating memories, another sure sign of the passage of time.
Cicadas, Round Three
Radio, print and TV, the mighty - - - - - - - - of news sources,
Have been preparing scientific and educational cicada discourses.
They say they’re educating the public, but their real agenda is scaring and - - - - - - - -,
About the upcoming onslaught that they guarantee will be disconcerting.
- - - - - - - - to the story are graphic pictures of the bugs with their creepy red eyes,
And predictions of pestilential swarms darkening the skies.
The media like - - - - - - - - the danger to your pets if they eat too many bugs,
And a deafening vibrating noise that will require ear plugs.
But I suggest - - - - - - - - your perspective and consider the cicadas anew,
It’s a fascinating life cycle considered from a less egocentric point of view.
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Simply Christmas
his year we enjoyed an immensely satisfying Thanksgiving, filled with a harmonious family of 28 with ages ranging from 2 months to 85 years old, representing 4 different generations. We hosted the event at our house, and I had adopted two tricks that my mother had used for large groups. I listed a chore on place card so that everyone knew exactly how they could participate in food management; there would be no secret slackers. Secondly, my mother would take two hats and put the halves of something in each hat, and then everyone would find their dinner partner by finding their other half. One year it was nuts in one hat and screws in the other, another year it was two lines of a song, etc. This year I decided to split up oxymorons into two hats, so jumbo had to find shrimp, pretty had to seek out ugly, military and intelligence were a duo, as were butt and head. At the end of dessert, I ducked out for a couple of hours to go and visit my father. My timing was impeccable. By the time I returned, the entire Thanksgiving spread had been cleaned up and the group had settled into a post-dining mode. At one end of the room, the guitars came out, the singing supplemented by the beautiful voice of a friend of my nephew who came at the last minute because his flight home had been cancelled – the perfect Thanksgiving lucky strike extra. At the other end we started playing multiple different word games, and in the TV room there was a cadre of somnolent football fans working off the brain anemia associated with too much turkey and pie.
I could not help but think that this is what Christmas should be, but now we had a scant month to regroup and have essentially the same family event, but this time with the stakes raised with gifts. For the past several years I had grown basically tired of Christmas, not because I was bah humbug, but because I thought that we already done the big warm fuzzy family thing to perfection. The thought of shopping for the sole purpose of buying gifts was depressing. This was the first year that I heard the Friday after Thanksgiving referred to as Black Friday, which I mistakenly thought described the dismal Christmas shopping season given the tanking economic environment. So I was surprised to hear that “black” really referred to the moment that retailers could anticipate making their sustaining profits – the tepid sales during the rest of the year were only designed to keep them in a break even mode, until they could really kick ass in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The amped up black Friday ads promoted confusing “door buster” sales at ridiculously early hours – one started at 4 AM. I couldn’t imagine that anyone would fall for this gimmick at such an early hour, so I set my alarm for a door buster sociology field trip at the more reasonable hour of 6AM. This later hour also addressed my (presumably) irrational fear of driving away from home in the pre-dawn hours, worrying that this would be the very day that the sun would sputter out. Typically I would be driving to the airport and I was always greatly relieved to see the first inklings of dawn and know that I would not be leaving home on the day the sun went dead.
I cruised into the shopping mall at the still ridiculously early hour of 6:45 AM and was astonished to see that the parking lot was packed with cars jostling for spaces. The other ironic aspect of this field trip was that I simply do not shop, and probably had not been to the mall for random shopping for 15 years. My theory on clothing is that if you find something that you like, buy multiples, because they certainly won’t sell it again next year. Ten years ago when I was last at Marshall Field’s I found the perfect bra, and astonished the saleslady by buying 20 of them. Based on the way they have held up so far, I am confident and pleased that I secured a life time supply. I entered Marshall Field’s and was immediately overwhelmed with the quantity of merchandise. The entry aisles were filled with generic gifts like scarves and gloves and then I hit the cosmetic section. There was an idle and somewhat disheveled and pierced parfumier who looked like she had rolled in at 4 AM directly from the previous night’s party. She said that business was pretty good. Progressing to the central court, I saw parents toting huge shopping bags trailing crabby looking kids. There was one rotund man sitting sound asleep on a bench surrounded by packages, presumably holding down the home front while the missus went on shopping forays. I asked the salesperson in a toy store whether these early hours were paying off, and she said, “Well not as good as last year, where we actually had to break up some fights among shoppers trying to get the last discount.” I eventually stopped at a kiosk that sold board games and word games – I’m definitely a sucker for these. I asked for a door-buster discount, but was turned down.
As a young parent, I was eager to put on the show when the kids were younger and still full of wide eyed surprise. But those days were gone. One December I was in the grocery store and spotted our elderly neighbor Mrs. Reed ahead of me, midst other women pushing their shopping carts and wearing execrable holiday themed sweaters with candy canes and reindeer. I could tell that she was gearing up for another Christmas – her cart had odd things in it like chestnuts and whipped cream, and there was something about her body language that told me that she was also weary of Christmas. I snuck up behind her and whispered in her ear, “Mrs. Reed are you sick of Christmas?” She whirled around and said, “Yes, I am so glad that someone has said that! As far as I can tell, my teenage grandchildren have everything they want and it seems so mercenary to just send a Christmas check.” We were so excited to share our unexpected kindred spirit.
I enjoy buying gifts if I stumble upon something appropriate, which is pretty hit and miss given my aversion to shopping, but I also like making gifts. But our teenage children have very particular tastes, and it makes sense on a number of levels to give them a holiday check. However, I was in total agreement with Mrs. Reed on the mercenary aspect of a check. So for several years I created a game of holiday Jeopardy where the kids had to answer questions of varying worth. “Family pets, for $5, please. – Answer: The name of the Gramps’ dog that got run over by the mail man. Question: Who is Fido?” I had fun calling up their friends and finding little of nuggets of information that then became public knowledge. But even this game had run its course, and this year we all collectively decided that there was no expectation that we would exchange gifts. We then went for 4 days to the chilly woods of Upper Peninsula of Michigan to peacefully and quietly celebrate Christmas.
It was perfect. Nick gave me a box of Ticonderoga No. 2 pencils, which I really needed for Soduku since the dog had eaten my other supply. I had stumbled upon a tiny portable wind generator for Nick that you can attach to your bicycle and use the energy to recharge batteries. We both got Frances a massage, and Frances got Nick a pair of fur lined Crocs, but it was her gift presentation that was the most inspired. Nick had come in the house tracking snow everywhere. Clearly he needed a pair of shoes to change into and she ran up to her room to get them – unwrapped of course since she didn’t want to waste paper. She leaned over the railing and saw that he was now starting to track snow up the stairs, so Frances simply dropped the shoes over the rail where they tumbled down the stairs, bounced up and startled Nick by hitting him in the back of the leg. He turned around and said, “Oh, its perfect, a pair of indoor shoes.” It was a joyful moment that perfectly caught the Christmas spirit. That night we were eating dinner with some vacationers who were still going whole hog – totus porcus – over the holiday. Their eyes widened with disbelief as we related the incidence. But of course in the retelling, we left out the back story of our Christmas promise and the joy of the gift. The story become the year when Frances threw her Christmas present at Nick and hit him in the leg.
Merchandisers tell us that Christmas will be dreary and unpleasant
Unless everyone receives an exquisite store bought - - - - - -
Just like the hissing - - - - - - who seduces Adam and Eve,
And tempts them with gifts they want to receive.
But the family that - - - - - - and doesn’t succumb to this lure
Can enjoy an unfettered Christmas spirit both simple and pure.
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Tings Akoo-Moo-Late
We moved into our current house three years ago, and I exulted in our abundant storage space and expansive counter tops, particularly the kitchen which featured a large island. In our previous house I had railed against the piles of clutter that clogged every available flat surface – I had thought a possible solution was sloping counters such that everything would roll off, forcing household members to put away or otherwise dispose of clutter. Despite all sorts of empty drawers waiting to be filled with a “disorderly assemblage” (the dictionary.com definition of clutter), the new counter tops simply exacerbated the problem by attracting even larger volumes of clutter that could loiter around for days. Both Nick and I have home offices, and though I am mostly a solo act, Nick does have clients that stop by time to time. To get to his office above the garage they have to walk through the kitchen and mudroom, which my mother always referred to as clutter-prone “tension zones.” So Nick might call out, “Client arriving in an hour,” and together we would get into our counter attack positions and try and render all flat surfaces visible once again. This generally involves indiscriminately sweeping all the gradoux of the previous week into an empty drawer.
This reminded me of the “tings akoo-moo-late ” drawer in my parent’s household, coined by a wonderful Belgian cleaning lady who used to bring me ceramic figurines and make diminutive cheese sandwiches with the crusts cut off. She knew that the cleaning lady was the obvious scapegoat for anything that went missing, so she simply put every “ting” into one “akoo-moo-late” drawer in the kitchen. I wallow in jealous awe when I enter a house with immaculate counter tops and no clutter in sight. I don’t consider myself a slob but it seems to takes almost heroic daily efforts to achieve the immaculate counter top. I feel certain that all these households must have cavernous akoo-moo-late drawers someplace.
Occasionally when I am in a new household I like to take a discrete peek into the fridge to get a quick insight into the guts of a family. For example, you could discover that the family was a Miracle Whip family instead of a real mayo family, or that they had some sort of odd food fetish, such as scads of different jars of olives, or that even the tiniest scrap of food was saved in color coded Tupperware containers. I think that a peek into the akoo-moo-late drawer might be just as enlightening. For years there was a fake throw up and whoopee cushion in our drawer, which gives you some insight on the general tenor of the humor in our household.
Once things drifted into the drawer they seemed to acquire a life of their own and were never thrown out. For example, a dented ping pong ball simply cannot be resuscitated and by any reckoning has outlived its usefulness. Basic household etiquette would demand that you pick up the ball, rotate about 180 degrees and deposit it in the garbage can behind you, but in our household this would never happen. Perhaps we secretly wanted to retaliate by inflicting the same initial heady rush of joy at finding the ball followed by swift disappointment at spotting the flaw and cancelling the ping pong game. If directly asked why the ball wasn’t thrown away, we could simply say, “Oh I thought someone was saving it for something, like for an art project.” But basically, I think that throwing anything out would violate the unspoken sanctuary of the akoo-moo-late drawer. Other items in the drawer might have included:
• A deck of 47 cards
• A pair of scissors, which would be a real find, except that they were left-handed scissors that only my mother could use
• One shoelace with no mate
• A locked padlock with no combination in sight
• A variety of batteries, many of which could be dead but who knew?
• Birthday candles, but some would be broken
• A mechanical pencil with no lead
There were other things that rightfully should have been there, but weren’t. The akoo-moo-late drawer was the only place you could have any hope of finding the pin to inflate the basketball on a Sunday when all the stores were closed, but typically when you needed something it wouldn’t be there. The same thing went for scotch tape, band-aids and non-dried up markers. Extension cords should also have been in the drawer, but if you struck out there, you could always pirate one from one of the lamps in the living room, with resultant downstream cursing and gnashing of teeth as night fell. Scissors were always elusive and it was with a heavy heart that you had to resort to using the left-handed scissors. The one thing that I will say about those scissors is that provided one of my first insights into agony of discrimination.
The car served as a moveable akoo-moo-late zone. Once I came to an abrupt stop and three different kinds of balls rolled into the front seat from God know where, one dangerously wedging itself under the accelerator. One of the balls was a golf ball, which was particularly perplexing since nobody in our family played golf. My first car in the 1970s was a green Volvo, and it didn’t get cleaned out until 1979, when I won a bet and my brother Tony was assigned the job of auto archeologist. I kept his inventory of artifacts, which included:
• An unmailed thank you note to Uncle Fay and Aunt Lootie
• A newspaper clipping about the death of a white rhino in a zoo
• One Frito, good condition
• An unpaid parking ticket
• A Cook County dog rabies tag from 1978, odd since I have never had a dog, and certainly not in Cook County
• A pin to inflate a basketball
I have always considered the car a private place, and thus have minimal compulsion to clean it out, particularly given the spirit of akoo-moo-late sanctuary. However, occasionally someone will ask for a ride. Recently, I drove to a local business meeting where I was meeting some out-of-town clients. Unexpectedly my car was commandeered for transportation to the restaurant for dinner. As everyone piled in, I realized that the back of the car was littered with fertilizer left over from a weekend project. Everyone was a good sport, but I did wonder if fertilizer detracted from their business perception of me as a top flight consultant.
Sadly, several years ago, the “tings akoo-moo-late” drawer disappeared from my parents’ house. At its peak, this house was rollicking with 6 children and various house guests - the akoo-moo-late drawer was thriving. But some 40 years later, the household has winnowed down to just my father and his caretakers, and in some sort of fit of reorganization the contents of the drawer were finally thrown away. So after over 50 years of loyal service the whoopee cushion, fake puke and dented ping pong balls met their final demise. Recently, I inspected the akoo-moo-late situation in our house, which is now spread over several drawers. I was gratified to see that I have the same array of items, but perhaps in an effort to redress some of the frustrations of my childhood, my drawers seem to be better stocked. There are several decks of cards, such that there is a very good chance that one complete deck can always be cobbled together. There appears to be a life time supply of dice. I found a ping pong ball that treads the fine line between blemished and dented, but a few test bounces on the counter suggests that it is very useable. There are several extension cords and an intact set of birthday candles. But there is also:
• A sheet of paper listing numbers that look like a combination to a bicycle lock, but no lock.
• A rubber chicken that when squeezed, exudes some sort of egg from its butt in a gelatinous capsule.
• A novelty plastic kitchen item, intact, that appears to make curly cue French fries - But since the directions are in Italian it has never been used, but certainly won’t be thrown away (regifting is possible).
• A wedge-shaped token that looks like it comes from a Trivial Pursuit game.
• An indescribable squishy plastic thing that might be related to a computer, so I wouldn’t dare throw it away.
Huzzah! The spirit of Akoo-Moo-Late lives on!
For years tidiness has - - - - - - with clutter over the battlefield of counter tops,
But “disorganized assemblage” is a stubborn foe who never sleeps or stops.
The only solution is to designate a “things accumulate - - - - - -” that you can always use
To keep those weird do-hickeys and knick knacks that you are afraid to lose.
Here’s where the whoopee cushion and fake throw up can be eternally stored
Plus enjoying this fascinating collection of family flotsam is an additional - - - - - -.
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Baseball, Earlobes and Running Backward
his summer, a Cubs road game scheduled for Houston got rescheduled in Milwaukee due to Hurricane Ike pounding the Texas coast. Therefore on a beautiful early fall afternoon, Nick and I spontaneously decided to breeze up to Brewer’s field rather than trying to slog our way through traffic to the friendly confines of Wrigley field.
I hadn’t been to a professional base ball game for a good 20 years, but I actually know a lot about baseball, mostly learned from grandfather in the 1960s as we sat and watched the Cubs play after big Sunday lunches. I remember that I stunned a high school baseball coach when I was able to explain the nuances of dropped third strike, infield fly rule and the fact that the batter has to make an honest effort to avoid being hit by a pitch. But I had also had learned that without a time constraint, baseball could be maddeningly slow and you needed to have other diversions handy. Typically this was a nap, waking up just in time for a dramatic ninth inning. But different strategies were needed for the live event. Before we left for Milwaukee, I frantically searched for my old baseball mitt – unfortunately unsuccessfully. Besides being eagerly ready for a fly ball, you could also buy a program and keep score professionally, which my mother had taught me many years ago (why do you suppose that a strikeout is a “K”), but there were no Cubs/Houston programs for this hastily rescheduled game in Milwaukee. Fortunately, I had remembered to bring my binoculars and knew that I could probably while the way the hours by people-watching.
We settled into our seats along the third base line along with about 20,000 other Cubs fans, all presumably joining us in playing hooky. The man sitting next to us looked a bit sheepish as he arrived straight from his office wearing his coat and tie. As I scanned the crowd for good people watching, I was transported back 30 years to a Cubs game that I went to with my younger brother Tim. We were in the midst of a summer long discussion about ear lobes – which Tim had generally categorized as either “droopers” or “connectors.” For example, statues of Buddhas all have exceptionally long droopers, since this is supposed to symbolize a wise man who is “all hearing.” As a modern point of reference, Lyndon Baines Johnson had pendulous lobes that seemed to get droopier every year. Another prototypical drooper is John Madden, although I must warn you that you have to catch his lobes at the beginning of Sunday night football game because they are swaddled in headphones for the rest of the game. But if John put his chin into his hand, it looks like both his thumb and index finger could touch his lobes. There are no celebrity connectors that I know of (it turns out that droopers are a genetically dominant trait), but connectors are characterized by an ear lobe that is fixed to the face along the length of the jaw line. At that particular game, Tim and I could hardly contain our excitement when right across the aisle from us we spotted a spectacular set of droopers sitting next to equally spectacular set of connectors. I have no other memories of that game, but that is often the case with baseball games – there is plenty of time to do other things and the baseball game becomes an occasionally entertaining backdrop.
How would you categorize that useless blob handing from your - - -?
Does Johnsonian or Maddenesque come to mind, or even chandelier?
- - - they so long that they swing and sway as you begin to dance?
Or could Lilliputians host a picnic on this vast and fleshy expanse?
Look at a Buddha statue from a bygone - - - do your lobes look the same?
If any of these are true, you’re automatically in the Drooper Hall of Fame.
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Baseball
The people watching was mostly unsuccessful, so I turned to the baseball game. There was not much going on – scoreless in the third inning – so I decided that I would intently watch one individual player. In a prior Cubs game, I had decided to focus my attention on the second baseman Ryne Sandberg. It must have been a low scoring game, since even though Ryne batted near the top of the batting order, he was only up to bat 4 times in the entire game. He never got on base. In the field, no ball was ever hit to him, so for the entire game all he did was stand around and swing the bat a couple of times – he never had to run and I doubt if he cracked a sweat during the entire game, all the while earning tens of thousands of dollars. For this game, I chose to focus on the Cubs’ left fielder, Alfonso Soriano. He ran around a little bit, mostly to and from the outfield, caught a few balls, and maybe got a hit, but the captivating action was how many times he adjusted his crotch – in fact he did it constantly. It wasn’t as if “things” had gotten disorganized because he had sprinted or made a dramatic slide, he felt compelled to rearrange even if he was standing perfectly still. In the business world, this would be akin to the presenter squirming and tugging on his crotch before every new power point slide. The other notable quirk was that Alfonso, as well as most of the other players, were constantly chewing or spitting - tobacco, gum, sunflower seeds or liquids – baseball players are truly oral folk. I spent some time looking at the dugout with my binoculars and was horrified to see how untidy and slippery it looked.
It was now about the 6th inning, the Cubs were ahead, and the Cubs pitcher, Ryan Dempster, even had a no hitter going, which was quite remarkable since his team mate Carlos Zambrano had pitched a no hitter the night before. But still there was plenty of time for pleasurable day dreaming. I have never cared that passionately about baseball one way or another – but there are certainly many that get all misty eyed talking about how baseball is American’s favorite pastime. The word “pass time” would seem to undermine the image of baseball of a demanding sport, but it is probably America’s oldest organized sport and as such has contributed to the English vernacular:
• Can of corn (easy fly ball)
• Texas leaguer (short fly ball that falls in for a hit)
• Frozen rope (hard hit line drive)
• Ducks on the pond (base runners)
• Dying quail (similar to a Texas leaguer, but droopier)
• Ball park estimate/figure (based on the fact that baseball parks are all different sizes)
• Can’t hit the broadside of a barn (incompetent pitcher)
• Stick a fork in him (similar to testing meat to see if it is done, to assess whether or not the pitcher should be removed)
• Ride the pines (be a bench warmer [in itself a baseball expression])
• Throw someone a curve
• Step up to the plate
• Out in left field/come from left field
• Play hard ball
• Be a switch hitter
• Touch all bases
• Right off the bat
• Keep your eye on the ball
• Out of your league/bush league
• Bat one thousand, etc, etc.
In fact, the most recent 2008 edition of Dickson’s Baseball Dictionary has expanded their listings to 10,000 baseball expressions. I just ordered a copy.
With linguistic musings exhausted and the no hitter gone by the 7th inning, I looked for new entertainment. I began to further ponder on my great idea to improve baseball. I first began to think about this when I was a slow moving right handed batter in our ladies softball league. I was always jealous of those left handers who were at least two steps closer to first base, and thought this could possibly account for the fact that I was routinely thrown out as I lumbered down to first base. Our genial coach pointed out that I could best address this situation by becoming a switch hitter. Given my limited right handed skills, I knew that this wasn’t going to work, so I came up with a plan to have a game where you would run the bases in reverse. Let those left handers run that extra distance to third base!
This did not seem to be that much more preposterous than the designated hitter discrepancy between the American and National league, which has many subtle, but major impacts on the way baseball is played. In the American league, pitchers are not pulled for pinch hitters and the line up of batters is much more formidable. Why not throw another curveball and run the bases clockwise for a change? While left handed pitchers are at a premium, there are limited opportunities for left handed infielders – with the exception of the first baseman. Left handers are mostly delegated to the outfield. This would all be changed if you ran to third base first. Both the short stop and the 2nd baseman would almost have to be left handed in order to have the optimal angle to throw it to third base for a routine ground out.
This also lead me to consider that in the right handed dominated world, the natural tendency is to run counterclockwise – for example, all races in the Olympics are run counterclockwise, which disadvantages left handers/footers in general. So maybe every four years they should run the races in the opposite direction. Whoever invented the clock made the seemingly arbitrary and counter-intuitive decision to have the clocks run from left to right. And then why do we write from left to right – certainly there are many languages that read from right-to-left, notably Hebrew and other Middle Eastern languages, but clocks all run the same direction.
So many unanswered questions, but I ran out of time. There it was, the last fly ball to Soriano and the Cubs won, essentially burying the Houston Astros on their way to winning the pennant. We stood up, brushed the peanut shells off our clothes, kicked the drink cups under the seats and made our way to the exits. Can’t beat a beautiful afternoon at the old ball park!
- - - - - - - me a place in the baseball Hall of Fame,
Because I have a great idea to spice up the game,
This year, why not run the bases in - - - - - - -,
Run clockwise instead and get to third base first!
Even the fan who - - - - - - - the game knows it is an idea worth trying,
Because baseball is slow and boring and fan interest is dying.
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Just Don’t Go
The house is quiet after a busy summer of kids coming and going, and Nick and I can now settle back into our lives of empty-nesters with a reduced slate of parental responsibilities. I hear younger friends tell frenzied stories of ferrying kids from one structured event to another, endless hours on the sidelines cheering eager little soccer teams and hours in the locker room lacing up skates. I listen with a somewhat smug expression on my face, since this described our lives about 5 years ago, until a revelation changed our lives. Should I rise up like some sort of eminence grise and impart this great pearl of wisdom?
Like many of my contemporaries, I delayed child-bearing until my thirties until I was done with my medical training. And similarly, both my husband and I resolved to be hands-on parents, tireless advocates for our children both in school and out. Taking a page from Amnesty International, we would bear witness to every thrill of victory and agony of defeat. We would take the best of our childhoods and magnify it and address any missteps that our parents may have taken. My parents were swamped with six children such that daily individual attention was out of the question. And while I might have thought that this could be one area for improvement, the truth was that in the sixties, there were fewer opportunities for intervention. As far as I could tell, parents just packed their kids off to school; there wasn’t the competitive jockeying for teachers and grades that there is today. In the athletic world, there just wasn’t much going on, particularly for girls. I played on various sports teams in grade school and high school but it simply never occurred to me that my parents might attend, much less comment on the quality of the coaching, the playing time, or even the score. There were generally no structured activities on the weekend, and we had a great time just horsing around with neighbors and friends.
On Sunday afternoons my parents would always host back yard sporting events on Sunday afternoons that varied with the season – baseball in the spring and summer, football and soccer in the fall. This was about 35 years ago - well before any organized soccer in this country, and the only rule that we knew was that you couldn’t use your hands. One summer my mother organized a volleyball league in our back yard, consisting of families who would organize their own multigenerational teams and show up en masse for their matches even though everyone was pretty much clueless about volleyball. There were also croquet tournaments. It turned out my grandmother was an ace croquetiteur and her split shot has served me well over the years. Occasionally in the winter we would play dodge ball at a local gym. It seems like almost everyone likes dodge ball, but now my kids tell me that it is not allowed because it is considered too dangerous. Even if you didn’t like dodge ball, you could let yourself get smacked with the ball and then peacefully sit out the rest of the game. However, in baseball you could potentially be humiliated for a full 9 innings of strikeouts, bone headed plays and throwing like a girl.
My kids were part of the generation where everything was organized, creating a vicious circle. If you weren’t part of a structured activity, there would be nobody around to hang out with, so all of a sudden I found myself signing the kids up for things so that they could be with their friends. Soccer was a natural starting spot, and I remember getting Ned or Frances ready with their uniform, cleats, juice box and snack and then arriving at the field and seeing about 200 other identical children and parents; the sense of anonymity was overwhelming; I felt like I was in the middle of a big puppy mill. I have always had a pair of binoculars at the ready for sighting birds, but I learned that they were just as useful at the soccer complex to scan across the endless fields to find a cluster of familiar faces and uniforms. From above, all of us soccer parents probably looked like fevered ants convening on a melted popsicle. Once at the field, overweening parents would mutter about coaches, traveling teams and ODP opportunities. Clearly thoughts of college scholarships were emerging by 6th grade. While it rarely occurred to my parents to attend one of my games, it never occurred to us NOT to attend a game.
Initially the soccer teams were coached by parents. Nick was a volunteer coach for a team consisting of players from Lake Forest and the neighboring suburb of Lake Bluff. Immediately, he had to start managing both parents and players. The oddest complaint came from Lake Bluff parents who as a group complained that their kids got less playing time than Lake Foresters. Nick didn’t even know where the kids lived. Having professional coaches at the third grade level seemed unnecessary, but all of a sudden Solé was part of our lives – a bitter soccer player from Bosnia who clearly resented the fact that he was really acting as more of a babysitter. He would mutter that the kids had no commitment to soccer, but come on – they were only 9 years old. The team mother called announcing that Solé was available to give private lessons, and the implication was that this sort of face time might be worthwhile. Besides Frances wanted to be with her friends. When I went to pick her up from her “lesson,” it looked like they were basically having a pick up game, but then I had to peel off a twenty and give it to Solé for the opportunity to do what we used to do for free and on our own.
Our kids were athletic but not destined to be elite athletes, and my goals for them were to have fun playing on a team, gain confidence and satisfaction in improving, and to meet new kids. However, sometimes the environment would rub off and I would find myself becoming the parent I did not want to be. Surly Solé really began to irritate me and I started to clock playing time. I called one mother to strategize. She said that she had successfully managed the situation by picking up her son in her husband’s Corvette with the top down wearing a tight T shirt. Solé loved cars (and probably tight T shirts) and would always come over and chat after the practice. You have to “butter the coach,” she said. I certainly did not have access to this strategy.
As a goalie, our daughter Frances might have had the most difficult position on the field. As the mother of the goalie I might have had the second most difficult position on the field. The successes and failures of a goalie are highly visible even if you don’t know anything about soccer. It was difficult not to comment as we drove to and from the game. One day Frances announced that she did not really need us to be at the game. Basically, she didn’t want us to see her muff one, and she didn’t need us to see her be a success – she got enough feedback from her team mates and other parents. We weren’t really thrilled to be driving all over the suburbs either. One game was in a remote suburb called Schwaben, which made me think that I should wear my lederhosen to the game. While nonattendance challenged our perception of ourselves as parents, Nick and I took a look at each other and said – and here is my pearl of wisdom –
DON’T GO TO ALL OF THE GAMES!!!
This “light over Marblehead” realization changed all of our lives in positive ways. We told Frances that we agreed that we did not need to go to all of her games, but that she would have to arrange her own transportation. She then contacted the team mother and generally rode with her. The real advantage here was that she developed a very nice relationship with another adult who essentially gave her the same advice and counsel that she rejected coming from us. Along the way, she developed more confidence by knowing that there was no sturdy parental safety net ready to scoop her up. She had to handle challenges on her own and derived more satisfaction in doing so. On our part we got our Sundays back. We had generally horse ‘n goggled for soccer duty, and now we could do things together, which had previously been rare on a weekend. Sure, we went to plenty of soccer games, but not all of them, and Frances did fine without us. Now if only I could get a pick up game of dodge ball.
Overscheduled children is a topic that I would like to see debated.
But I - - - - - not buck the system that had been so carefully created.
Too much competition, no more pick up games, the thought filled my heart with - - - - -
At nine years old, what are the lessons we are teaching them, have we been all misled?
Will our eager attentiveness stunt confidence and create a lack of respect?
Like an - - - - - rising from the sand to bite the foot that has been standing on its neck.
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The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done
his summer our daughter headed off on a very rigorous hiking and camping experience in Alaska. The website didn’t try and sugarcoat the experience, warning that participants would carry 50 to 60 lb packs over mountain ridges, that it could continually rain or even snow, and that due to the threat of grizzly bears, absolutely everything would be done in groups; there would never be an minute of privacy. Furthermore, there would be no bathing for a month. I tried to prepare her for the struggles ahead and mentioned that this trip might be the hardest thing that she would ever do. She calmly looked at me and said, “I have already done the hardest thing – I went to that soccer camp in Wisconsin.” She stuck to this story even when she returned happy and healthy from Alaska, suggesting that we had inadvertently sent her to a hellish soccer camp that should be investigated for child abuse.
This got me thinking about the hardest work that I have ever done, which sent me back 28 years to the sweltering summer of 1980 when I was a newly minted intern at the VA hospital in Chicago. I timidly arrived at the grey decaying building and was immediately given 8 cases by former interns who were giddy with excitement in their new supervisory roles. I was totally unprepared for the physical, emotional and mental challenges. Actually, the only thing that I had prepared was my signature. I knew that I would have to sign my name on medical orders multiple times a day, so I had experimented with different signatures. With nothing better to do, I randomly picked one of the cases and as my first act as an intern, I ordered a routine blood count and signed it with my peppy and curvaceous “E Brown, MD” signature that I still use today.
We had a punishing work schedule, which involved being on call every third night. This meant that you had a 12 hour shift, followed the next day by 36 hour on call shift when you would spend a sleepless night careening between exhaustion and the sheer terror that you might actually kill someone due to ineptitude. I remember one night following my 36 hour shift when I attempted to go to a play featuring the juggling team the Flying Karamozov Brothers. I tried to hold my head up, but it just fell like a dead weight on my shoulders. One of the performers stopped the play and announced to the audience, “Look at that women, her head just tipped over!” My husband tried to wake me up amid the titters and stares.
When you were on call, you were responsible for anything that might go wrong with any of the patients on the entire floor, plus be responsible for any newly admitted patients from the ER. There was some shadowy woman who was in charge of “bed control,” which meant that she theoretically assigned newly admitted patients (called “hits”) sequentially to each floor. There was nothing more depressing than getting “hit” early in the morning, since this meant that you were first up and would likely get more admissions than anyone else, plus you had to work up a new admission in the middle of the hectic day instead of the afternoon or evening. It occurred to me that savvier residents were probably plying the all powerful Bed Control woman with sugary treats to cherry pick the easier admissions. Actually, I would have eagerly paid her cash, but was too exhausted to find out where her office was located.
My ward was on the un-airconditioned 8th floor and each day I wore fewer clothes as I tried to cope with the overwhelming heat. I remember one day hunched over a rummy old man trying to start an IV in veins obliterated by drug abuse. I looked up to notice that the man was looking directly down my braless unbuttoned shirt, revealing a modest cleavage glistening with rivulets of sweat. I was wearing some sort of wrap around skirt that had splayed open and was threatening to reveal my fuzzy-wuzzy. I could not have cared less and just as I found a vein, a drop of my sweat fell onto the patient’s previously sterilized skin.
Aside from my limited medical skills, I quickly realized that I had to multi-task as a social worker to arrange for discharges. The intern was frequently the only person with a vested interest in getting a patient out of the hospital. There were some patients that seemed to virtually live there with no interested family members and no place else to go. So it became my job to try and find a nursing home, or cajole the family into taking some responsibility. While these patients generally were not too much medical work since they were not receiving any active treatment, the longer they stayed in the hospital, the more likely they would become newly sick in the toxic atmosphere of the general ward. A beeper could go off in the middle of the night, prompting a nauseous knot in my stomach as the nurse would announce that 2 or more John Does were running a low grade temp. This would set in motion a search for the cause of the temperature, which could take hours. Several years later when I was an inexperienced mother, a crying baby would provoke the same exact same wave of nausea, as I feared that I would never be able to figure out why the baby was crying or how to make him stop. I did, however, learn one great trick in curing a low grade fever. You simply do not take the temperature.
I had one semi-comatose patient who had multiple insurmountable medical problems. The previous intern had asked for an infectious disease (ID) consult on the theory that the patient could have TB, along with kidney, heart and liver failure. Antibiotics had already been started but every day the ID resident would show up and earnestly ask me if I had managed to obtain a sputum specimen to confirm the presence of TB. He sometimes would grab me by the shoulders and look deep into my eyes and futilely try to convince me that this was the most important thing in my day. However, he did not provide too much advice on how to coax a hock out of non-responsive patient. When I saw him coming, I used to hide in the other semi-comatose patient’s room across the hall. Actually, this was a great room for general relaxation; this patient had the advantage of having the opposite of a fever – his temperature was too low due to some damage to his brain thermostat. At 940 he was actually cooler than the ambient temperature and I thought of him as a human air conditioner. Actually, his temperature could have been even lower, since the thermometer did not record anything below 940 .
Eventually, I got up the energy to get this patient discharged to a nursing home, and spent many hours filling out forms and arranging for transportation. Somehow I had grown fond of this man, probably because he was so undemanding, and I managed to filch extra PJs for him in the remote possibility that he would snap to. I triumphantly awaited the arrival of transport and had him all propped up in a wheel chair ready to go, but transport took one look at him and told me that he was not qualified to be transferred since he wasn’t wearing shoes, even though there was no way the patient could walk. I certainly did not know what had happened to his shoes, and it was entirely possible that he had arrived barefoot. I was devastated as I saw all my hard work go up in smoke. I then got a tip that I should go down to the scary basement where they kept all the old unclaimed clothes and effects from dead patients. I rushed down and rustled around in the dusty bins. I joyfully returned with a pair of random shoes, placed them on his lap, and transport had no choice but to take him.
I had my share of down-on-their-luck alcoholic and bitter vets. One patient arrived so filthy that my first order of business was to insist that he take a bath. When he returned he hurled all sorts of epitaphs at me, and seemed particularly pleased with his last – “Why don’t you go play in traffic,” he snarled. Another patient arrived with DTs; I started an IV, gave him some drugs and vitamin B6 and was momentarily pleased when he appeared much improved the next day. He could even tell me the date and who the president was. However my joy was short-lived as I noticed that he was intently reading the paper upside down. There were others that broke my heart. One gentleman came in with anemia and was discovered to have extensive colon cancer. A medical student was assigned to me and she was way too weirdly excited about telling this man that he had terminal cancer – I think that she felt that was one of the signature moments of her medical education. I told her that I would tell the man, who took the news with astonishing grace – I think he knew all along that his time was limited. However, he thanked me for my care and presented me with a paper ring that he had made out of a dollar bill. He said that he had learned this trick in Korea. Another man was dying of pancreatic cancer and I got to know his wife who visited every day. It was easier for me when the patients were somewhat anonymous, so I almost wished that she hadn’t told me that her husband was an accomplished guitar player and singer and in general was the life of any party. We cried together when he died.
I quickly realized that internal medicine was not for me and immediately took the steps to transfer to a pathology residency, which was my initial interest anyway. In fact, I had only pursued internal medicine because pathology had the reputation as the sanctuary for misfits who could not hack clinical medicine. But as my 9 month tenure ended, I had indeed become an accomplished intern who could juggle 10-15 patients and not freak out every time my beeper went off. On one of my last nights on call, I got “hit” at the absurdly early hour of 8 AM, but I took this piece of bad news in capable style. I was told that they were sending up an immensely obese man with severe asthma and that the pros down in the ER could not get a blood gas to determine his oxygen level. A blood gas requires a sample of blood from an artery in the wrist, unlike the more accessible veins. No problem. I walked into his room, buttoned my shirt, tightened my skirt and went to work. I located the artery from the faint pulsations through the layers of fat, and then slipped the needle in. I will never forget the slight resistance as I hit the muscular artery, the give as the needle went through the wall, and then the spurt of bright red blood filling the vial. I emerged from the room as triumphant as Rocky and danced down the hall with fists pumping.
Sure, plenty of patients had died while on my watch, but thankfully it wasn’t because I had killed them. Many of the patients were in the hospital for the express purpose of dying, and I took some satisfaction in providing them with the best comfort and care. For other patients I provided a slight detour on their path of self destruction, and finally a very small subset were cured. On my last day I was called into the office of the chief of staff for my exit interview. “I didn’t give you much of a chance when I saw you the first day, kid,” he said. “You looked like a deer in the headlights. But I have never seen anyone make better progress. Great job, doc.”
As a new intern on the - - - - - - - floor I was nervous every single day
That I could make a mistake and kill a patient in a dozen different ways.
For example, a misplaced - - - - - - - point when calculating a dose
Could leave a patient violently ill or even comatose.
And what would happen if a patient fraudulently - - - - - - -
That I let the scalpel slip and left him totally maimed.
But once - - - - - - - myself down and vowed not to go nuts
I began to develop the necessary emotional, mental and physical guts.
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My Mother Was a Loser
n my childhood and early teens I spent many happy hours at the Winter Club, a casual family club whose most unique feature was an outdoor artificial ice rink. The rink provided hours of free ice time where as a child I learned how to do crossovers and rudimentary spins. Entering my teenage years, Friday night free skates were a de rigueur social event – the first totally innocent and spontaneous coed event. Everyone would play pom pom pullaway – a game where you tried to dash across the ice and evade the tags of the “it” people. The girls would pay close attention to see if a boy preferentially sought them out for tagging. Girls would also wear long stocking caps to make it easy for the boys to snatch their hats, giving rise to a mad chase around the rink. I don’t think my hat ever got stolen.
I remember one night when John Coleman, the BMOI (big man on ice) was there. He was a couple of years older than I, and due to an early growth spurt, towered over all the other boys. He was reputed to be the star of the 8th grade boy’s hockey team due to a great slap shot. He clearly was in command of the evening and at one point in the middle of pom pom he herded everyone to center ice and instructed us all to kneel on the red line. He then skated slowly by, and we eagerly tried to kiss his skates, as requested. What little information we knew about sex was also traded on those evenings. I remember one triumphant moment when I was able to tell the very cool Colt Landreth what a pervert was.
Hot cocoa was served, but there was also one of those great water fountains that seemed to have the coldest water, and we all hypothesized that the water came straight from the depths of Lake Michigan. Jostling in line for water also became something of a social event. However, I generally preferred to drink when no one else was around, since I had this (hopefully irrational) fear that the person standing in line behind me would smash my face into the basin, breaking all my teeth as I bent over to drink. There was a cramped girl’s locker room just inside the entrance where you could go to regroup, renew hopes and strategize. I remember one Friday in particular where we were saying goodbye to one of our friends – Barbara Crawford, I think - who was on the brink of moving out of town. Three or four of us gathered together in one of the moldy bathroom stalls with our arms around each other and simultaneously touched our tongues together, substituting saliva for a blood oath of eternal friendship.
The Winter Club gym was also the site of our first organized social events – dancing school with Mrs. Woolson, a large matronly woman who taught us how to waltz and foxtrot. Her assistant thumped away on an out-of-tune piano, and Mrs. Woolson used a clicker in her hand to let the woman know when to start and stop. Some of the boys used to bring clickers and put them in their shoes to sabotage her signaling method. We started in dancing school in 6th grade, and the girls all wore white bobby socks and white gloves. During the ensuing months, girls would abruptly show up wearing stockings, which involved getting equipped with cumbersome garter belts. Nobody wanted to be the last girl wearing bobby socks, a fate that I narrowly escaped because I forgot to tell my neighbor Helen Reed that I had gone over to the other side.
Dancing school was full of anxiety for most girls, since part of the cruel experience was that girls had to wait for the boys to ask them to dance. The possibilities in order of humiliation were: a) nobody would ask you to dance; b) a loser would ask you to dance; c) since there were more girls than boys, Mrs. Woolson would insist that the leftover girls dance with each other. There were also some dances over the holidays, and I think some of the parents thought that they could engineer out the inequities by having a card dance. What a bone headed move. Each girl was given a card with a dozen or more lines representing each dance of the evening, and the idea was that during the dinner party before hand, boys would come up and sign up for a dance. Someone had also appointed the cool boys as the “dance captains” which empowered them to demand to see your card. Rob Isham saw plenty of blank lines when he glanced at mine, and said ( a little bit too loudly, I thought), “I will need to take your card to get it filled.” With that he whisked it away, and went to some back room and horse traded with the other captains to get the card in some sort of respectable shape. He managed to get some of the dances filled – I guess he was not a miracle worker – and I regretfully noted that the critical last dance at midnight remained blank. I remember having a reasonable time at the dance, and then all of a sudden they turned down the lights for the last dance. I felt like I was in a game of musical chairs, except that I had lost when the music started instead of stopped. There were a bunch of other girls without partners, and we all trooped over and sat down on the benches at the side of the gym.
As I review these words, I realize that it could sound like I had a tortured childhood, stigmatized by social awkwardness and dashed hopes to be part of the coed elite. But the truth was that I really didn’t care and look back on those years with fond bemusement. Certainly, dancing school improved with the retirement of Mrs. Woolson and her thumping accomplice, replaced by Gus Giordano and a record player. Giordano was a young man with tight pants who ran a jazz dance studio and taught us dances like the Frug and the Swim. These dances set us free of the tyranny of the waltz, which absolutely required a partner, into free form dances where you could dance with everybody or no one.
These memories were especially vivid as I drove our 13 year old son to his first organized dance. “How does the system work, Ned?” I asked. “Do you ask the girls to dance, or do people dance in groups?” He just rolled his eyes at me. I pressed ahead, “You know you might see some girls who look like they might want to dance – why don’t you just go ahead and ask them to join you. You know it is not really fair that girls have to wait for boys to ask them to dance.”
Ned looked at me with horrified eyes, “ I don’t want to dance with a loser,” he said.
I did not know how the social caste system worked in 6th grade, but I guess that I was secretly pleased that he did not consider himself a loser. And to give myself some credit, I did not consider myself a loser in 6th grade. But seizing the teachable moment I said, “You know I was a loser, and it would have been nice if someone had asked me to dance occasionally.”
Ned was now truly horrified. “My mother was a loser???” I nodded my head and I sensed that he suddenly realized that half of his genetic material was tainted by a self-confessed loser.
“Oh, no - for how many years were you a loser?” he asked. I was pleased to note that Ned either thought that I was no longer a loser, or acknowledged that people’s perceptions should not be frozen in time - a thought that had not occurred to me in 6th grade.
And then finally, “Did Dad rescue you from being a loser?” Although sexist, I did like his image of his father as the triumphant white knight swooping down to rescue his bride from social obscurity, so I nodded yes.
At this point we had arrived to pick up his friend J.D. He burst into the house and loudly announced to both J.D and his mother, “I can’t believe it, my mother was a loser!” I turned to wink at the mother, hoping that she would join me in a sisterly solidarity for losers, but I got no reaction. I had only met her once before when we had first moved to town and she came to pick up J.D. at our house. She had wandered to the back yard and saw me bouncing on the trampoline as I showed the boys a fabulous game of dodge ball I had invented. I distinctly remember wearing my favorite old ripped tee shirt that illustrated different birds of prey and a pair of ratty green shorts. She, on the other hand, was wearing an impeccable pair of snug white pants, a green and pink shirt and was holding a hand bag. I detected a judgmental look then, and saw the same expression now as Ned’s announcement confirmed her first impression!
Oh, the travails of 6th graders as they seek their assigned social - - - -
The brain, the boy crazy, horse crazy or even buffoonish mascot.
Even if you think you’ve made it, - - - - of pitfalls remain.
With one bobby sox slip up, your hard earned status may be hard to regain.
No one wants to feel - - - -, marginalized and socially disabled,
So don’t succumb to that stigma if “loser” is what you’ve been labeled.
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Riverview Ramble
hen I was a teenager in the 1960s, an invitation to the Riverview Ramble was most coveted. This was some sort of charity fundraiser, and a ticket allowed you unlimited access to all of the attractions at the Riverview Amusement Park, located along the Chicago River. A group of hardy parents would load the kids in the back and way back seats of the car, and take a picnic down to Riverview. The first thing that you saw as you entered was the enormous billboard cut out of Aladdin looming over his castle, which was some sort of fun house with misshapen mirrors and hidden passageways. By today’s standards, Aladdin would be considered offensively politically incorrect. He was drawn to look suspiciously middle eastern, with jaundiced skin, long black hair and a big single gold earring. And then the piece de resistance were his almond shaped and heavily lidded eyes, which mechanically moved back and forth to create a shiftless and menacing impression.
My recollection was that the parents would set up a central meeting place at picnic table caked with decades of greasy grime. A gingham plastic tablecloth was snapped into place and the parents settled into an evening of drinking and smoking. We had to sit there fidgeting until we had eaten some forgettable dinner and were given permission to take off. I distinctly remember one mother who wore brilliantly bright red lipstick at all times. The lipstick was everywhere, on her teeth, the butt of her cigarette, the end of her sandwich and most unpleasantly smeared on the glistening white of a half eaten hard boiled egg. I think my aversion to lipstick dates to that time.
Once freed, we raced off to stand in line for such rides as the Bobs, the Flying Turns, the Wild Mouse, the Rotor, the Pair-O-Chutes and some sort of splash ride. I avoided the splash ride because it looked like you would be splashing down in to a pool of rancid and dank water, filled with the debris of a summer’s worth of garbage. The Bobs and Flying Turns were rollercoasters that my mother referred to as puke machines. You got into a little train of cars that would inch up the first big hill, and your anxiety intensified as you heard the chains ratcheting you up higher and higher. And then with a whoosh you went careening down in a tumble of confused gravity. In contrast the Wild Mouse was a neck snapper, which produced its thrills with rapid-fire sharp turns that would fling you around your car and give you one of those hot things in your neck.
In looking back on it, I cannot imagine that parents ever let their kids run wild at Riverview. The Ramble was definitely in the days before amusement parks embraced wholesome family values, staffed by dozens of fresh scrubbed and cheerful teenagers looking for their break into show business. Riverview was a classic and relentlessly seedy carnival, staffed by a cadre of heavily tattooed, gap toothed, stringy haired, malodorous, pants shiny with grease, cracked lips, cigarettes dangling, fingers yellowed with nicotine, leering and dissolute down-on-their luck parolees. I also bet that amongst the throngs of kids at Riverview there lurked an ecstatic population of pedophiles and other perverts, who couldn’t believe their good luck. I am surprised that nobody was groped, accosted or snatched. The Tunnel of Love (which I was never asked to go on) could possibly have been the most dangerous place on earth, followed by Aladdin’s castle, which featured poorly lit mazes with dead ends. And if that wasn’t scary enough, there was the safety issue. Was there any sort of safety inspection policy for the rollercoasters, all made from turn-of-the-century wooden planks? As you walked by the contraptions, you could feel them shudder and hear little squeaks and winces.
Aside from the rides, there were also sorts of carnival games like Skee ball, throwing balls at milk bottles, one of those hammer things where you could show off your strength by trying to ring the bell. You would see sailors carrying around big stuffed animals that they had won trying to impress their dates. I remember spending almost $5, my bonus allowance for being on the school honor roll, trying to win a red and white teddy bear. Somehow, I couldn’t seem to get the last milk bottle to tip over, and I finally asked the carny if I could just buy the damned thing, and then immediately had buyer’s remorse.
And then in the true spirit of a classic carnival, there was the freak show, which featured a group of unfortunate souls with weird skin diseases, like elastic man, or leopard lady. This was in an adult only tent, but one year I was able to slip in through a crack in the flap. There was some sort of announcer who would describe the “freak” in hushed tones, “Lady Leona was raised by leopards in Africa, and is now here at Riverview!!” A curtain would then open to reveal the poor woman with horribly mottled skin, who would awkwardly stand in some sort of ecru bathing suit while everyone gaped.
I was standing in the corner next to the side stage, where a magician was doing an act. This must have been a really bad magician if the only gig he could get was performing as an afterthought at a freak show. He was wearing some sort of tattered tuxedo and had a top hat. He said, “As a finale, I will need a volunteer from the audience.” When nobody was forthcoming, he turned to me and said, “I would like this young lady to be my assistant,” and suddenly there I was sharing the stage with Lady Leona at the Riverview freak show. “Now I would like you to close your eyes, and concentrate very hard on what you really, really want, and I will pull it out of my hat,” said the magician. Being the obedient girl that I was and an absolute sap, I closed my eyes so tightly and thought to myself, “I really want a Brownie camera, I really want a Brownie camera, oh please a Brownie camera.”
“Yes, I am getting your signals, now open your eyes and see what I have for you in my hat,” said the magician. I think that I still harbored some foolish hope that I would end up with a Brownie camera. The magician reached into his hat and with a dramatic flourish removed a pair of red lace crotchless underwear, waved them in front of the audience and then handed them to me.
As you ascend up the hill, your face turns ashen and - - - - -,
Your knuckles turn white as you grip on the hand rails,
Around you, you hear muttered - - - - - of “Please don’t let me die.”
And you begin to wonder, who talked me into this and why oh why.
Your heart - - - - - into your throat in that moment of stillness at the top of the hill,
You know there is no turning back, so you might as well enjoy the thrill
As you tip over the edge, you feel like puking as your stomach churns
But you hear shrieks and - - - - - of laughter as you make breakneck turns,
You stagger off the coaster, nauseous, trembling and weak with fear,
But with good luck and an amnesiac memory - - - - -, you’ll be back next year.
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I Can't Believe It's Not Buttery!
he quick trip to the grocery store was pathetically mundane. I was simply there to pick up the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies, but at the egg case I found myself caught in a morass of conflicting humane, ethical, economic and nutritional decisions. I normally reach for the standard Grade A large eggs, but this time paused to consider the different egg options, which included the following:
Vegetarian – presumably to appeal human vegetarians who have extrapolated their sensibilities onto other animals, or possibly appealing to those who are fearful of mad cow disease in chickens forced to eat icky meat byproducts.
Organic – appealing to those who believe healthier chickens will lead to healthier and tastier eggs. Organic eggs come from chickens that have not been exposed to pesticides or antibiotics, either personally or in their food.
Cage Free - While the term “cage free” is self explanatory, the deception is that the chickens are still tightly confined into a coop. While cage free may appeal to our humanitarian sympathies, it still sounds like a very grim existence. They may never see the light of day and live in filth and an overwhelming stench, but at least they can stand up and possibly walk around. One carton proclaimed that not only were the chickens cage free but the eggs were “laid in nests.” The carton had a drawing of a chicken that looked downright comfy in a nest of straw. Generally suspicious by nature, I began to wonder whether the drawing was a gross exaggeration and if there was a standard definition of a nest.
Free Roaming/Free Ranging - It turns out the that the US Department of Agriculture has a standard definition of free range, but it falls woefully short of the pleasant concept of chickens frolicking in a farmyard, to wit: “Producers must demonstrate to the Agency had the poultry has been allowed access to the outside.” The key word here is “access,” meaning that the chicken must be highly motivated to seek out the door, which may be way across the pen, which may not be visible and which may only be open periodically. And of course, what is the nature of outside – specifically is there any nature outside? Does the door lead to a blazing hot parking lot; is there any food out there or other enticements? Why would the chicken cross the pen to get to the other side?
One carton of eggs noted that the chickens got “lots of exercise.” I was curious about this notion and thus called the 800 number printed on the carton. I got a surprisingly frank answer from the customer service representative who said, “Lots of exercise – that’s more propaganda and hype than real exercise. The chickens just have to walk to get their food and water since they are not in individual cages.”
Another carton of eggs noted that the chickens had “access to clean water.” There’s that pesky word “access” again, suggesting that it is the chickens’ own damn fault if they don’t have the sense to take advantage of the luxuries that are provided to them. Besides, it also seems to me that access to clean water is a uniquely human requirement that may have little appeal to a chicken. Wild animals drink whatever water – muddy, silty, dirty – that is available to them.
After some deliberation, I selected Phil’s Farm Fresh Eggs, which showed a drawing of friendly Phil wearing thick black glasses and a porkpie hat, cradling a chicken in his arms. These organic, vegetarian, cage free, nest laid, American Humane Association monitored eggs were $3.56 per dozen, about twice as much as the cheapest and presumably cruelest eggs, but less than some eggs that were merely organic. The middle of the road is usually a reasonable place to start.
As you may have guessed, overthinking (particularly about words) is a favorite pastime on an otherwise do-nothing afternoon, so when I got home, I spent some time researching the rules of product labeling and “standards of identity.” While poultry and meat are under the purview of the USDA, processed foods are the responsibility of the FDA. With advent of cheap products and inventive advertising in the 1920s, the FDA sought to provide standard definitions for common products, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. For example, consumers were duped into buying jelly that was basically nothing more than sugar, food coloring, and a splash of token fruit, the amount of actual peanuts in peanut butter was all over the board, and bread became the testing ground for all sorts of additives.
Among the first standards were those defining jams and jellies, but how to distinguish them? A popular song at the time of this debate was Glenn Miller’s, “It Must Be Jelly ‘Cause Jam Don’t Shake.” While this would seem to be a reasonable standard of identity, the FDA adopted an only slightly less subjective approach – i.e. consulting old family recipes dating back some 200 years, and determined that jam had to contain 45% fruit. Public hearings regarding the peanut content of peanut butter took 20 weeks and produced 8,000 pages of transcript. The “bread wars” were fought over the use of softeners in dough. Some bright marketer had discovered that consumers judged the freshness of bread by how soft it felt though the packaging, hence the use of softeners, which had nothing to do with freshness. Was this deceiving the public? My theory is that the bread softness expert realized that his skills were transferable to the toilet paper industry and began working for Charmin to deceive customers with their “squeezably soft” ad campaign. I think softness of toilet paper as assessed through the wrapper may be entirely due to how tightly the roll is wrapped, and may have nothing to due with the softness experienced by our most sun-deprived anatomy.
Once a standard of identity has been set, the manufacturer probably assembles a swat team of linguists to start dissembling. (It is likely that these linguists also moonlighted for Bill Clinton to instruct him on the subtleties of the definitions of “is” and “sex.”) For example, many standards of identity apply to nouns – like butter and chocolate - but there is no standard of identity for the corresponding adjective, such as buttery. So if a food is labeled “buttery,” this specifically means that it is not made of butter. One brave company decided not to play this silly game anymore and boldly named their product, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.” Perhaps the next generation product will be called, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buttery!” Same for chocolaty – chocolaty foods are not chocolate. Also the word “fudge” is not formally defined and is often used as a surrogate for chocolate that is not chocolate. By the way, the current standard of identify for chocolate is the midst of a heated debate. The FDA has proposed that the cocoa butter in chocolate can be substituted by other cheap vegetable oils and diverted to more lucrative uses. Waikiki beach may be one possible destination. I went swimming their once and the place reeked of cocoa butter, and there was oily sheen in the water from all the tanning lotion sloughed off into the water.
A rule of thumb for the savvy consumer is to suspect any claim that is very specific. Bill Clinton was the acknowledged master of this type of legerdemain semantics. For example, Clinton stated that he did not have a 12 year relationship with Gennifer Flowers, but his denial only applied to the length of the relationship and not whether it existed or not. The most egregious example was his statement that “there is no relationship with Monica Lewinsky.” When this misstatement was offered as proof of perjury he responded by saying, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." If 'is' means is and never has been . . . that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."
Now let’s apply the same concept to Subway, who advertises that their bread is “baked fresh.” While it sounds like there is some minion in the back kneading dough, the word “fresh” only refers to the timing of the baking, but not the freshness of the dough itself. So even though the bread may be no longer than a day old, it can be made from ancient frozen dough. Similarly, the word “taste” can be adorned with many oxymoronic adjectives, such as “home made” or “farm fresh” taste.” For example, home made taste means that the product is not made in anyone’s home, it just tastes like it could be. “Fresh frozen” is another puzzling concept, but when applied to fish, means that the fish is frozen shortly after it has been caught, as opposed to sitting around for a while before it’s put into the deep freeze.
The other day I heard a McDonald’s ad on the radio for a new Southern style chicken that that when served with a biscuit was a breakfast item, and when served with a bun was a lunch or dinner item. The biscuit was described as a “fluffy home-made tasting biscuit.” Fluffy is a throw away adjective (see discussion of toilet paper above) and home-made taste is also meaningless. The bun was described as “an oh! so steamy buttery tasting bun.” Buttery tasting – another degree of separation from real butter – the bun does not have to be made from butter, and also does not have to be buttery, it just needs to taste that way.
You may think of baby chickens as cute and endearing
But one look at the cramped cages will leave an image tragic and - - - - - - -.
You’d like to free these hens from this cruel farm juggernaut,
But cheap eggs for your omelet has a way of - - - - - - - this thought.
So chickens will have to defer their dream of a free range paradise
Until our country - - - - - - - a better balance between ethics and price.
