MARY'S BIG SISTER

MARY’S BIG SISTER

In 1985, Beloved and I attended a conference in Las Vegas. For the previous two years I had been engaged in ferreting out what information that I could obtain on my mother’s (biological) family.

I had learned that my grandmother Annie Lois’s youngest sister was living in Fresno California. The conference wrapped up a day and a half early and a light bulb went off over my head.

Now, let me say, I have strengths and weaknesses like anyone else. Spatial relationships are not my strength.

When I proposed to Beloved that since we were “practically in the neighborhood”,  that we should drive over to Fresno to meet my great aunt, I reasoned that “Nevada is pretty close to California”—on the map. Well, it is!  Relatively speaking-- I mean, Gulf Coast to California vs. Nevada to California—you see my point.

We rented a car and started out toward Fresno from Las Vegas. Beloved likes to drive and I like to let him, so this works well for us.  I slept a lot; but every time the engine revved and sounded like it was struggling the change in the engine sound disturbed me briefly. 

You see, the map I had glanced at casually was not a topographical map. I had overlooked a tiny little obstacle between those two western states: the Rocky Mountains.

The trip was actually hundreds of miles. I saw little of the countryside, though I do remember one spectacular sunrise in the mountains.  The sky was deeply and richly colorful—gold and red-- much more vivid than the pastels that are more familiar to me. The mountains on the horizon shifted from blues and purples as the shadows changed.

Aunt Mary was a delightful sprite. She invited the relatives within driving distance (within the city or county around Fresno) to come over to meet us. For those living in Los Angeles, it was too far a drive. J

She made lunch for us and we looked at the few photographs that she had. She did not have one of my grandmother, Annie Lois, but she shared her memories with me. 

She knew of Annie Lois’ attempt to lure Bernice and Clara to run away from their adopted parents. Mary said Annie Lois had always regretted not (being able) to raise her children. Aunt Mary wanted me to know that Annie Lois' children were loved and remembered,though.

Annie Lois moved around settling finally in Eudora Arkansas.  There were long periods of time when she functioned well; she was talented with needlepoint and crochet. There were other times when she was deeply depressed, neglected herself, and was in need of family to take care of her.

During a family holiday dinner in the fall –winter one year when she was barely in her sixties, Annie Lois died suddenly. Heart attack probably, Mary opined.

While these were tidbits, really, each part helped to draw a portrait of Annie Lois—a troubled talented woman who loved her children. She had been Mary’s big sister, and obviously, Mary loved her.

SCREAM ROOMS?

One of the benefits of human intelligence is the ability to learn from previous experience, one's own or that of another. If a problem has been solved, techniques successfully developed and applied, one need merely learn what has worked before and apply it oneself. 

I can speak from my personal experience of the last half of the 20^th century that in the United States of America:  we have known how to raise and educate children. We have known how to teach, train and discipline them for all those decades—without the necessity of locking them in a so-called scream room.

Here is my question: whose hair-brained idea was this? Scream rooms are used in mental institutions for sick people who may be a danger to themselves or others. Similar isolation and restraint are employed in prisons and jails for criminals or those accused of crimes. But where on earth does one get the idea to employ scream rooms in public school class rooms in the second decade of the 21^st century?  This is a practice that should be banned immediately.

If the person in charge of that classroom is unable to manage the classroom and the students without the use of a scream room, I submit the “fault” does not lie with the student. Teachers have been teaching and successfully disciplining children using the teacher's own intellect, skills, and professional education and training.  

On closer investigation it appears that this “procedure” is actually being applied to elementary aged children! A news broadcast featured a parent outraged by this practice, and a school board defending the practice of restraining children in scream rooms.

The featured parent wisely withdrew her child from the offending school and placed him in another school.  The commentator submitted the question to the viewers. It is, after, all the age of “decide every issue by popular vote and comment of the cyber audience.”

While teachers should absolutely be supported as the authority in the classroom that support does not extend to the use of barbaric inhumane and emotionally destructive “methods” of discipline such as scream rooms.

Parents are the ultimately responsible for the care, education and protection of their children. Kudos to that mother.

                                                                                    

WHITE CHRISTMAS

Christmas of 1993, we boarded a train to travel to Virginia for our first Christmas away from home. That train trip has forever endeared train travel to me.

It’s my understanding that it does not snow in Virginia all that much.  However little it snows there, the frequency and amount are monumental when compared with our hometown snowfall totals.

If we get an inch of snow—that sticks for half a day—the schools close and people get off work early. College students flee their classrooms or dorm rooms and scoop up snow for snowball fights. The atmosphere is a cross between Mardi Gras and the county fair.

The last snowfall in our town came on a school day just as classes were ending for the day. That became the ideal time to pick our Christmas tree that year. Afterwards, we scraped the snow from the grassy median in front of our house and made a two foot tall snow man!  To us, snow is a lovely wonderful rare novelty.

As we chugged along to Virginia by train we talked of snow, hoped for snow, prayed for snow.  On Christmas Eve we made the inevitable one last trek to the store for an essential but overlooked ingredient. As we turned onto the street where we were visiting, the flakes began to fall.

During that evening, I sat by the window in the dark, looking out in absolute wonder. The incredible beauty of the falling snow and the silence of it struck me. It looked a little like rain as it fell, but it fell silently. Silent Night, Holy Night...

When we awoke, the evergreens were draped with snow. The view out the kitchen window was like the Christmas cards of my childhood.  Breath-taking…incredible to believe and yet the Christmas card scene was there-- right before my very eyes.

I could not wait to get outside! It was inches deep, soft, light fluffy.

I tasted it—no taste--just cool lightness that melted in an instant. I made snow angels…I had seen that in the movie Love Story. It was even cooler to make them than to have seen them made.

Later we sledded down the slope of the backyard. This is more fun in retrospect than it was at the time. I was much more of a “control freak” then than I am now:  I sledded with my foot on the brake…most of the time.

I am really glad that I took what seemed to me to be a great risk at the time; there were so many tall pines, thickly covering that slope. But-- everyone else seemed to be enjoying sledding so much… I felt the fear and tried it anyway.

The snow fell again over the next days and on the train ride home it continued to snow. If that Christmas Eve snowfall had been beautiful, the scenes from the train windows were majestic.

There were huge mounds, many tall snow men, plowed furrows of snow pushed and piled to sides of walkways and roadways. I could not take my eyes from the window, during the day and into the night.  Christmas lights reflected off the snow. 

Little Christmas trees  stood here and there, seemingly all alone, standing sentry in the snow drifts.  The scenes were exquisite: beautiful, charming, romantic and nostalgic… all at once.

Christmas 1993 was our first white Christmas. Now, I know what all the wistfulness is all about.

                                                                 

NO GIFTS, PLEASE!

NO GIFTS, PLEASE!     Originally published October 2011

Okay with my birthday coming up this week, let me say, I am not totally there—to the “no gifts, please “stage.

But I do have very definite ideas about gifts for me these days. I finally "get" why someone, however well intentioned, who does not know one really well is trying to do the impossible:  anticipate what I might like.

You would have to know me well to know, for example, that even though I collected clowns for years—decades actually—I no longer add to my clown collection: I have found the meaning of the word “enough”.

I love many of the clowns that I chose and that were chosen for me by those who know me well. I do not have the same preference for those clowns in my collection that were chosen by the less-well-initiated, to whom it appears that all clowns are created equal-- that is simply not true.

I thought I was going to discuss gifts but I will get back to that later, right now I want to tell you about my some members of my collection of clowns.

Right now on my bulletin board is a two dimensional—well flat but three dimensional in places—fella with a yarn mouth upturned in a smile and straw hands and hair. Kate made him years ago. He is one of my treasures.

“Charlie” whistles and plays “Sweet Georgia Brown”. He is about 14’’ tall—and the young Huntes and my Beloved gave him to me for my birthday one year—or was it Mother’s Day? Charlie is a treasure.

I could not limit myself to one, but certainly Charlie is in the top 5.  There is a baseball player at bat already wound up to swing that Pat, my best friend of 35 years gave me for my birthday. He stands next to Charlie in a place of honor.

Then there are the non-identical twins. They were bought from my favorite frame shop at that time. (Does everyone have a favorite frame shop?)

I would go to the gallery-frame shop and do my pre- Christmas shopping (for my own gifts).   I would pick out what I wanted.  

When I “sent” Beloved in to shop for me, the gallery owner, also a friend would point out items that I "might" like.  Okay, so I did not have any reservations about manipulating and controlling the “gifts” I was “given”, all right?

Well, on that Christmas morning, I opened my gift from that frame shop.  I know what’s inside (since I already chose it) and I am eager to see the lovely thing…and… the clown inside ...is not what I ordered!

Instead of the ink on canvass jewel tones sophisticated clown painting that had the flair and fragrance of New Orleans and the theater…here was a, how shall I describe him?

Well, he was three-dimensional. He had cotton balls for ears; chartreuse rocks for eyes with black dots for pupils (anatomically correct) a kidney bean nose and a yarn mouth—rather wide.

His arms were striped ribbons; he had pinwheel spaghetti for hands and several large yarn strands made up each of his huge clown feet. Just to be sure one did not mistake his identity, his name-- Clown”-- was printed in black marker below his long orange feet.  He was laid out on an orange background with a yellow bow frame around it.

I was bewildered…but like my Daddy before me... I was going to be gracious even if I did not quite understand.  (Remind me to tell you about Christmas morning and the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes box.)

 I was thanked Sweetheart and told him how charming "Clown" was—at least that is how I remember it.   Maybe Beloved and the young ones would say I was shocked and disappointed and not so gracious about “Clown".

I know for sure Beloved was smiling when I opened another framed gift wrapped in brown paper. This one contained the New Orleans clown--the one I had pre-selected.

Beloved said having me open "Clown" when I was expecting to open "New Orleans" had been a joke between the shop keeper and him.  He had only borrowed "Clown" and he said he would take "Clown" back to the shop.   

I renamed "Clown" Cotton Ears. I loved Cotton Ears--I could not part with him.

COURTESY AND COURAGE

BLOG POST   COURTESY AND COURAGE

Courtesy was something that was discussed by name in my family as I grew up. My father was a very polite man. In his work with people, courtesy made the difference between repeat customers who would help him feed his family as opposed to twiddling his thumbs.

Having come of age at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, activism and confrontation seemed to my pre-teen eyes more self-respecting than passive resistance. I was very concerned with justice and being right. On more than one occasion I said to my father,” I would rather die than be treated that way.”

He would look at me as a father who loved his child would, and he would say to me, “I want you to live, not die.” Until I became a mother, his words seemed paradoxical and bewildering.

He was an activist: he resisted the oppression that was all around us. He did it in his own way. He was not flashy or confrontational. But he was courageous—both in World War Two in France and in the streets of Selma, Alabama.

At one point there was a blockade of Brown Chapel Methodist Church, where the mass meetings were held. The church was packed with people. Dr. King and the Steering Committee were inside.

The Alabama State Troopers and Dallas County Sheriff’s Deputies surrounded the church. The streets were blocked with saw horses. Cars were not allowed in or out. The tension was thick in the air, even for those of us who were too young to fully comprehend the gravity of the situation.

Mother was sitting in the back seat. Prudence and safety made that essential.*

Daddy drove his cab up as close to the church as the blockade would allow.  Then he got out, went around to the back passenger door and opened the door for her.

He would have done that for any passenger, of course.  In this instance it was crucial that Mom appear to be just a passenger arriving in a cab. 

My mother was dressed in her white uniform—starched and pressed fitted white dress with pockets on both sides. She wore the white thick soled shoes that nurses and other professional women wore and maybe even white gloves.

She was wearing dark glasses and she was carrying a basket of food for Dr. King and the Steering Committee. Without a word to anyone, she emerged from the cab.  She held her head erect and walked with purpose but not in a hurry toward the steps of Brown Chapel.

The lights on the tops of the police cars—red in those days—were revolving.  The troopers and deputies looked at her.  They looked at each other.  

They had guns, and Billy clubs. They had used cattle prods just days before on the high school and college students who were taking part in the demonstrations.

Mother walked up those steps as cool as anything and no one said a word to her. No one made any move to stop her.

She told me years later that they assumed that she was some “White Lady” who was attending to some business of her own; they were not about to interfere with a “White Lady”.  They let her pass.

*My mother had vivid red hair, fair skin, and freckles.  Appearance notwithstanding, her racial self-identity was that of an African-American.