There’s Old in Them-Thar Hills

Last year I turned Almost 70. It was a bit jolting, but over the past nine months I’ve gotten used to it. However, soon I will be OMG 70, and that looming reality is making me reflective, to say the least. Seventy is an iceberg and I’m the Titanic; 70 is Sitting Bull and I’m Custer; 70 is Mount Vesuvius and I’m a Pompeiian street vendor with a hurt foot. Okay, so that one is a bit of a stretch, but you get the idea. I’m not looking forward to turning 70.

When I was growiing up, 70 was the Old as Dirt age of my storied great-aunt Pobo. We were convinced she would live forever, mainly because Satan found her annoying, too. But, she did, eventually, check out at 72. Seventy was the number you saw littered across the Obits in the newspaper like jellyfish on a Gulf Coast beach. The dread of 70 was so strong in my family, almost everyone managed to die before they got there. “At least he didn’t have to turn 70,” was heard at most of our family funerals.

At a recent holiday party, I discovered that two of the five people at my table were diabetic, all had arthritis, most fell frequently, and we all knew what GERT was. 

“What did we talk about at parties when we were young?” one asked.

“Sex?” another suggested.

“Huh?” was the general consensus answer.

I’ve had a cane for several years, a necessity even after three knee replacement surgeries. I use it mostly when shopping so nice people will open doors for me, and when walking on uneven ground so nice people won’t have to  call 911 for me. I plan to buy a Medic Alert bracelet as soon as I can find one that reads, “Don’t Get Me Started!”

I have several doctors, each one specializing in a different organ or part of the body. Specialization has become even more targeted, with doctors treating limited areas, and finding a doctor for any one place is like tuning a piano–trial and error until you find the right one. 

“I’m sorry. Your knee hurts, and I stop at the elbow. Would you like to see my colleague? He’s a leg man.”

My husband Bryan is finally retiring next month, This decision triggered a whole new batch of experiences. I have waded through the Okefenokee Swamp of Medicare, trudged the Badlands of 401k distribution, and crawled through the Death Valley of Social Security (no pun intended). I was well-prepared for these tasks by my major in Romance Languages in college. It fell to me, instead of my business-degreed husband, because he had all he could handle being a short-timer. 

Not that he doesn’t deserve a happy retirement. He has worked since he was sixteen. I am fond of saying he handled data processing for Julius Caesar during the Gallic Wars. Admitted hyperbole, he did start in the days of punch cards. His career was made in the nascent technology world of Texas, which somewhat made up for being shunned at parties after disclosing his occupation. This lasted until the advent of PCs. When everyone had one at home, he became sought-after at parties by people wanting free user support.

We’re still discussing our retirement plan. He wants to be a fulltime Happy Camper. As you might guess, me, not so much. We will reach a compromise eventually, if we just live long enough. After all, we’ll both be in our OMG 70s, and we have to do something before our I Can’t Believe I’m Still Alive 80s.



March for Our Lives 2018, Georgetown, TX

Saturday, March 24, 2018, a date to remember; the day I took a walk on the wild side again with March for Our Lives. People of all ages, especially young people, took to the streets of America to insist on common sense in those who govern–or else. And I was out there with them! They aren’t out to ban all guns; they just want them to be as regulated as decongestants are. I admit I want to keep military grade weapons out of the hands of all civilians. You don’t hunt anything with an assault rifle but human beings.

A little background. I just turned Almost 70. The last time I marched in a protest I was 21. It was May, 1970, and I was outraged over the Kent State Massacre. I was no stranger to protesting then, although I’ll admit most of my demonstrations were more like pranks than assault and battery. An African-American guy friend and I brought on tachycardia in more than one chaperone by showing up at university mixers together. I carefully noted the responses to my strolls across campus with Jerry Rubin’s Do It! under my arm, cover out, with an arrogant scowl on my face. (Actually, I never managed to read his book all the way through. Really bad writing.)

Fast forward 48 years. My guy friend was a senior editor and later associate publisher of a major northwest newspaper and has passed. Jerry Rubin became an entrepreneur. I have five grandchildren and am best known as Grammy. I’ve had two knee replacements on the same knee, back problems, and I use a cane sometimes. Saturday afternoon was a homecoming for me.

Although I don’t live in Georgetown, perhaps the Reddest Town in Texas, I spend a lot of time there. I’ve belonged to the San Gabriel Writers League for about 20 years, and have friends there. I was contacted by Jeanell Bolton, a friend from the league and successful romance author, asking me to come to the March for Our Lives demonstration she was organizing for Saturday. Fortuitously, I was going to be in Gtown on other business anyway, so I agreed, contingent on my physical condition two weeks hence. We were to meet at the Williamson County Courthouse on the square at 2:00 pm. I figured I surely could make it around the square for a cause I care about, assuming I could find a parking place closeby

A little before 2:00 I sat on a bench and awaited the deluge. Jeanell and her husband arrived, “Never Again” poster in hand, then friend and political soul sister Jane Thompson showed up, and I was there with my cane. That was it. Lesser folk would have folded their tents and slinked away. But not us. We looked like the “small but determined group” that showed up at WKRP to protest the change of format to rock and roll. We were not to be gainsaid. And still we persisted.

The Williamson Country Sun newspaper sent a reporter–across the street–to take pictures and interview us. She was a Sweet Young Thing who looked enough like a flower child to fit right in with our Sixties motif. She held her own with a het-up group of senior citizens (median age was about 75) and seemed genuinely interested in our Crusade. I can’t wait to see the story.

We started off around the square, pausing for Jeanell to talk to anyone we passed about why we were doing what we were doing. People were unfailingly polite, if a bit bemused.  I guess they respect their elders in Gtown. The highpoint for me was watching Jeanell try to explain her sign to a couple of conservative grackles on the lawn, who kept moving away from her. One lady from a squareside boutique even brought us little bottles of ice water and thanked us for doing this. I’m convinced that water enabled our second lap around the courthouse before we all decided we’d made our point.

As we prepared to go our separate ways, tired but happy, we hugged and thanked each other for coming. My cane and I moved off to my car parked nearby, and I must have presented a distinguished, perhaps even regal, image as I crossed two intersections, because traffic stopped for me and no one ran me down.

I’ll admit my body felt Almost 70, but my heart felt 21 again.

In Memorium – Deborah Roberts Edwards

This week I went to the funeral of a friend I’d known since childhood. She was the first of my close friends to pass away, and her death was eye-opening. A flood of mostly-forgotten memories overwhelmed me as they rushed back. Deborah Roberts Edwards had been even more a part of my life than I recalled.

We were Brownies and Girl Scouts together, making ceramic ashtrays and hand tooling leather coin purses, and she attended my Dress Up Like a Lady tenth birthday party. She was gorgeous; I looked like a madam with a ponytail. When we were in middle school, my mother and her grandfather alternately carpooled us to Alamo Heights Junior High School every morning. He had lost half his stomach after a gas attack in World War I. I don’t remember his name, I probably just called him “Sir,” but her grandmother’s name was Honey, and everyone called her that, including me. I never found out if it was a nickname.

We spent the night at each other’s house frequently, mostly at her house, though. She told me not long ago that whenever I’d invite her to my house, her mother would suggest she invite me to theirs. She said it would be a nice break to get away from taking care of my sister’s kids. I hadn’t known other people knew about that.

Her well-known architect father had designed their house and the pool in the backyard. It was very avant-garde for the time, as different as could be from my parents’ professionally decorated, French Provincial monolith a few blocks away. It always felt warm and welcoming.

She married at 20, even younger than I at 22, and we lost track of each other. We reconnected in San Antonio when I was a young wife. We two couples socialized occasionally, and she accompanied me to the doctor’s office when I went to find out if I was pregnant. My first husband didn’t want to take off from work, so Deborah found out before he did that I was expecting. She knew we were hoping for a boy, so on the way home she stopped and bought a tiny blue sleeper. “Somebody has to make a decision about the sex of this baby!” she told me.

The day I brought my son home from the hospital, I called her in a panic and told her I didn’t know how to make the bottles, and my diaper-changing skills were failing, too. She asked if I was alone, and when I said yes, she said, “I’ll be right there!” I had very little family in town, and most people had assumed the baby’s father would be with me getting in some bonding time. However, he brought us home, dropped us off , and returned to the office. There are reasons that marriage didn’t work out.

Deb showed up at my door in a brightly colored, Chinese print wrapper, with her hair in giant hot curlers, her little boy, Darrell Jr., in tow. She showed me how to change diapers, made a load of sterile bottles for me, made sure I was calmer, and left. Seems she had been getting ready for a fancy night out when I called. The woman was a force of nature.

Three years later, when I was going through my divorce, her father, the architect, and her husband, the custom home builder, gave me a job as a secretary in their office. Her father taught me to compose business letters (“Say what you have to say and shut up!”), and her husband taught me the basic principles of cost accounting. Because of them I had skills other than typing when I moved to Houston in 1981.

Fast forward to 2011. We had lost touch again and I didn’t know until our 45th high school reunion what she and Darrell had gone through. We reconnected and became close friends again. We even got to visit their ranch, and they drove down to Austin and went with us to lunch and the Zach Theatre. We all had tickets to do it again in February when she passed away.

Bryan and I attended her funeral in Fredericksburg last Monday. It was held at St. Barnabas, a beautiful little Episcopal church there. It was packed with friends and family, and we all looked like we were about to fall apart. I know I was. The service was lovely and comforting, and by the end I felt better able to keep a grip.

Afterwards in the parish hall, we sat with a couple who had met Deb and Darrell on a cruise. We shared stories and laughed together, no longer strangers. The healing began there.

Deborah would have loved it. I sincerely hope somehow she got to see it.

 

 

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

I have never regretted taking after my father. Even getting his bone structure crammed into my mother’s height, or falling off my shoes due to Daddy’s weak ankles, they were happy trade-offs for his sense of humor and quick wit.

I inherited one other gift from my father. Daddy slept through every crisis in his life. Whenever his life fell apart, Daddy started yawning. He’d drop off into a nap, waking occasionally to see if the situation had improved, and drifting back off if it had not. He didn’t  use it to escape unpleasant situations. After doing everything he could to solve a or improve the latest washed-out bridge in his life , instead of sitting around worrying about how things would turn out, he laid down and took a nap. The infinite wisdom exhibited wasn’t lost on me, and it was by far the most valuable gift I ever received from him.

In May I went in for my annual physical and, as usual, my doctor ordered a mammogram. This time he made sure I got one of the newer 3D kind. Since I had absolutely no family history of breast cancer I thought he was over-reacting  bit, but for once I did as I was told. Long story short, I was diagnosed with an early stage malignancy.

At this point time sped up, and before I knew it I had three new doctors–a surgeon, an oncologist, and a radiologist– and enough  informational literature to support a college course. Thanks to the 3D mammogram, I was one of the lucky ones. It was caught so early I only had to have a lumpectomy, no mastectomy, and radiation treatments, no chemo. In less than two weeks of two-a-day radiation treatments I was declared ready to be kicked back into play in my life, assuming I could stay awake.

Being a woman of a certain age and never known as a ball of fire, I didn’t think I could get any more sloth-like. But it seems the radiation treatments really rob you of energy. In my case it brought on near-narcolepsy. Hibernating in the summertime is a lot better than nausea and hair loss, but I rose to new levels of getting nothing done. I would get home from my morning radiation treatment in the nick of time to fall into a dreamless sleep, waking just in time to go for my afternoon treatment.

My father passed away in 1992, but he was very close to me throughout my cancer days. I could hear him saying, “It’s going to be okay, baby girl,” or “No sense in worrying about losing your figure–much ado about not much,” and my favorite, “You look like you could use a nap, baby girl.” I heard his voice and saw his smile, and agreed with him every time. I’d fall asleep thinking, Thanks, Daddy. I love you.

I never believed in guardian angels, but I’m convinced I have a least one. He’s not one of those flashy guys, all radiant and sporting wings. Mine is an old oilman with a wicked-dry sense of humor, a genuine perma-tan from being outside every chance he got, and ears to rival Lyndon Johnson’s. He dished up huge bowls of ice cream, probably is in charge of making cream gravy in Heaven, and could squat interminably while telling one of his stories. He had a deep dimple in his chin, he said he got from sleeping on his collar button, and an incredibly deep voice. It sounded like distant thunder when he was gentle and the voice of God when he was mad.

He didn’t leave me a million dollars, or prime real estate somewhere, or valuable stocks and bonds. But he did leave me with his own version of a Pearl of Great Price. He left me with the ability to sleep through anything until I was strong enough–and rested enough–to face the problem.

Thank you, Daddy. I love you.

 

 

 

 

Old Friends, New Friends, New Old Friends

Alamo Heights ISD

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Do you remember The Fonz trying to say he was wrong and the words refusing to come out?

“I was wr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r, wr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!” He looked like he
was passing a kidney stone.

I have somewhat the same problem, but when I’m wrong I do eventually admit it. I attended my tenth high school reunion and the 45th. In between I had very little contact with anyone I knew from high school, and that’s the way I wanted it. They were not good years for me, and those were not fond memories. If it weren’t for high school, what the hell would we have to talk about with our
therapists?
Thanks to the woman who ramrods the reunions, Ilene Arbetter, I was hunted down and practically dragged to our reunion in 2012. The supposed end-of-the-world apocalypse forecasted for December 21 may have had something to do with my decision. After all, what did I have to lose?
What I discovered was that I was wr-r-r-r-ong. Everyone was much older, a bit wiser, and we had all swallowed a good dose of reality in the ensuing years. I saw old friends who still seemed glad to see me and to be seen. Memories of good times I had completely forgotten returned, and for the first time in 45 years, I felt the pain and anger I associated with that time of my life ebbing away. I discovered a lot of the negative feelings I’d carried for so long had more to do with my relationship with my mother back then than they did with the kids I
blamed for them.
I am so grateful to Ilene for nagging me into going. I’m still reaping benefits from reconnecting with my schoolmates. It seems like every few weeks there’s someone new who takes the plunge and joins our Facebook group. And every once in a while, one of those people become new close friends, based on shared interests and politics, or friendly adversaries, based on opposite viewpoints and politics. It all stays remarkably civil, much more so than I would have believed
possible.
So now I have old friends, new friends, and new old friends. My husband has been caught in the fallout and has made a few new friends, too. He enjoyed my reunion because he likes hearing things about me I never told him. Also, he doesn’t have to remember anyone’s names since it’s not his reunion. There’s no pressure, and
occasionally he gets an illuminating tidbit about my teenage years to laugh about.

My point is this: when your next reunion comes up, give it a chance. If you make just one new old friend, it will be worth your effort. You might even discover that someone you despised back then isn’t so bad now. There’s something about life that mellows most people. Marriage, kids, divorce, illness, and deaths have happened to us all, and we carry the scars on our faces.

Most of us look like crumbling Greek ruins, until we smile. There’s something so touching about someone smiling and being able to glimpse that sweet young boy or girl again, even if it’s only for a second. Our younger selves are still inside us. That part of us never ages, never dies.

Flirting with Death–Growing Up Boomer

imagesRT5WAQE7If you grew up in the 50s, 60s, or 70s, it’s a miracle you’re alive. There’s a reason for the saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” In other words, raising your children with danger and bad medicine didn’t end with the discovery of seatbelts and penicillin.

I can hear my mother now: “If a little does a little good, a lot will do a lot of good.” This was her rationale for ignoring dosing instructions on over-the-counter medications. To her, a tablespoon was a serving spoon from the table. A teaspoon was the soup spoon. She cheerfully ladled out Pepto-Bismol to reverse my problem, then ladled out mineral oil to reverse the cure. I was almost grown before I knew medicine doses measured like salt and baking powder, not mashed potatoes.

My mother was a helicopter parent long before helicopters were invented. Maybe she was a spiro-gyro or hot air balloon parent. Worrying was a way of life for her, and we were first on her list. A sneeze or cough was enough to make her drag us off to the doctor, where we were guaranteed a penicillin shot. The miracle drug was dispensed for complaints big and small. After all, what’s the use of having a miracle drug, if you aren’t going to use it for everything? And if we were really sick, too sick to go downtown to the Medical Arts building to his office, the doctor would stop by our house on his way home, and he always had a supply of penicillin in his bag.

The bathroom medicine cabinet was full of over-the-counter remedies, too. Pepto-Bismol, iodine, mercurochrome, Little Black Pills, and Carter’s Little Liver Pills all played a role in keeping the family healthy. Bayer aspirin, and later Excedrin, were the cure-alls for headaches. Aspirin, hot tea, and dry toast was the treatment for cramps. Little Black Pills were for constipation, with Pepto for diarrhea. Cuts and abrasions called for iodine. Always. Period.

My parents would have fit right into the Stoics’ society. If there were no bones sticking out and no blood, you were fine. Suck it up and walk it off. Of course, first we had to annihilate the enemy of the Free World–germs. These little critters were a relatively new discovery when my parents were little, and their parents attacked them as if they were going after “Kaiser Bill.”

For a good part of my childhood, iodine was the poison du jour for medical germicide. Unfortunately, iodine felt like having lava poured into an open wound, probably because it had an alcohol base. Screaming because of the injury redoubled when I felt the cure.

There was a kinder, gentler antiseptic–mercurochrome. It didn’t burn nearly as badly, and much of the discomfort it caused could be eliminated by blowing on the wound until it dried. No one considered the fact that blowing germ-laden breath on an open wound was counter-productive. In addition, it didn’t seem to impress anyone negatively that the active ingredient was mercury. Yes, as in “permanent brain damage” mercury. Mercurochrome wasn’t banned as an over-the-counter product until 1998.

And speaking of mercury, we loved it when Mama dropped the thermometer while “shaking it down,”  shattering it on the tile bathroom floor. That provided a really cool, new toy to play with: mercury. We were fascinated by the way it “crawled” when it moved, and even more awed by how well it cleaned tarnish off dimes and nickels when we smeared it over the coins with our bare fingers.

Dental care was high on the list for “better living through chemistry.” When an Air Force dentist looked at my husband’s teeth and exclaimed, “Good grief, boy! You’ve got Cadillac teeth!” there was a brief moment of alarm, before Bryan realized this was a good thing. His hometown, Pasadena, Texas, was one of the first cities in the state to put fluoride in their drinking water. Consequently, cavities were rare, but their smiles looked like a “before” picture in a whitening gel commercial. The recipe needed a little fine tuning.

imagesQ4VRVBCKDDT trucks driving up and down the streets, spraying for mosquitoes, were also part of growing up in Pasadena. Bryan and his friends rode their bikes in the fog behind the trucks for fun.

If being endangered by your parents and health care professionals wasn’t enough, toymakers and Madison Avenue joined in, too. No cool kid would have dreamed of wearing a helmet when riding a bike. I remember my father saying, “Aw, she doesn’t have to wear one of those. Nothing’s going to happen. Besides, she can hardly see out from under it. That thing’s dangerous.” And why on earth would you need child-proof packaging on medications and drain cleaner? “Kids know better than to get into those.”

My brother had a chemistry set. He managed to make his room smell like dead fish for a month, but at least no one was killed. Early Gilbert Chemistry Sets included 56 chemicals, such as ammonium nitrate (a key ingredient in homemade bombs) and the poisonous and flammable potassium permanganate. The “Atomic” chemistry sets of the ’50s came with radioactive uranium ore. They got a little safer in the ’60s but weren’t really reined in until the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.

imagesHT8EWSF6As if the sexy men and women puffing away in movies weren’t convincing enough, we were encouraged to smoke by actors dressed like doctors on television. No one had even heard of secondhand smoke. And remember candy cigarettes? I used to get them in my Christmas stocking.

Car seats and seatbelts were optional. imagesZYTDNG9FAnd lead-based paint, which causes brain and kidney damage, wasn’t outlawed until 1978. It was routinely used on cribs, among other things.

I don’t blame my parents. They only knew what they saw on TV and in the newspaper. I do blame the scientists and advertisers who knew these things were dangerous, even if they didn’t know the full extent. They ignored the fact that people were buying and using their poisons, and it really hasn’t changed much over the years. It seems like every day something is recalled or declared unsafe, something we did to our newborns is now considered deadly, and some medicine our parents gave us is now used to kill roaches.

There are seven billion people on the earth, and the population is growing. How can that be when we are doing our best to kill ourselves off? Maybe it’s the underdeveloped countries, whose people don’t have access to our medicines, cleaning products, and chemical-infused food, who are overpopulating. They better hope the don’t catch up to us. That could be a real health hazard.

The Wisdom of Facebook

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I don’t usually make life decisions based on Internet advice, much less anything I see on Facebook. However, lately I’ve felt a need for a basic change, and strangely enough, Facebook has been flooded with seminal advice. Like someone driven to buy something after a barrage of advertising, I feel a need to get my act together, and this may be my last opportunity. I’m not on death’s door, but I’m definitely on the downhill slope of my life. I’ve decided to live this part differently from the rest.

Hopefully, with age comes perspective about yourself and others. Here are some of the conclusions I’ve reached about how I want to conduct what’s left of my life:

  1. Don’t drink anti-freeze. It’s toxic. Likewise, it’s okay to cut toxic people out of your life. You’ll live longer.
  2. Stop feeling guilty for not being able to like someone.
  3. Try to be happy. If it makes you happy and doesn’t hurt you or anyone else, do it.
  4. For God’s sake, have an opinion on things that are important to you, the country, and the world. If you lie on the beach and just let the waves wash over you, you will die at high tide.
  5. You can’t save everyone or change the world in one lifetime. But it is our duty to try.

There are a few people in my life who are absolutely toxic to me. I get physically sick every time I have any contact with them. Some of them are people society tells me I should love/tolerate/suck it up and abide. I’ve tried. For years. Without success. These are people who literally drain the life out of me, and I just can’t afford to squander any.

I no longer feel guilty for not being able to like someone. Some people are just plain mean, and I have chosen, finally, to walk away clean. You can’t fix mean.

It is not a sin to be happy. Nor is it a personality defect or character flaw. I would never seek happiness from something that hurt someone else. It’s not that important. And it shouldn’t be something that actually hurts me in the long run, like eating pie every day. I confess I sometimes drowned my sorrows in a Hostess Fruit Pie. My name is Janet, and I’m a fructoholic. No stick and carrot for me. My stick dangles an apricot fried pie. Too much of a good thing will kill you, but so will too much of a bad thing (See No. 1 about that anti-freeze thing.) I refuse to spend the years I have left lying to myself. “Pie is bad for you,” is a lie. It makes me happy.

We are an opinionated family. My daughter called home just a few days after being dropped off at college to complain about her roommate. “Mama, she’s just not normal. She has no opinions on anything! She thinks I’m crazy for handing out flyers on the quad to stop violence against women. How am I supposed to communicate with someone like that?”

How can a sentient being not care about what’s going on around them? If a mother refuses to change her baby’s diaper because it is dirty and she doesn’t want to get involved, she’s arrested for child neglect. Well, America needs its diaper changed, and anyone who doesn’t want to get involved in politics because it’s distasteful and dirty is guilty of societal neglect. How did the Nazis take over Germany? Not enough people wanted to get involved.

Many people refuse to do even something as minimal as recycling, preferring to deny the existence of global warming and resource depletion. And so what if Dallas, Texas has suddenly become an earthquake zone? Couldn’t possibly have anything to do with fracking ‘cause we need that oil.

And finally, we may not be able to save everyone, but how can we not at least try? Every great world religion teaches the same thing: help those less fortunate. It’s a sentiment that’s repeated in our music, our literature, even our fortune cookies. Seeing to it no one gets kicked to the curb, not our elderly, disadvantaged, disabled, or ill, completes us as human beings. How can you not care that some people are trying to legitimize neglecting those who most need the help?

I figure, if I’m lucky, I’ve got maybe another ten years of lucidity. I’m not going to waste that precious time on negative situations or people. I am going to learn how to say, “To Hell with you!” in many different languages, and I am going to eat pie when I want to.

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You Don’t Have to Be Patsy Cline to Do Crazy

Squirrel 2

Invitation to My Last Family Reunion

Squirrel 1

Don’t talk to me…I’m Isadora Duncan!

I like squirrels. I relate to them. Maybe I was a squirrel in a previous life.

Admittedly they have a reputation for being, well, squirrelly, but they’ve always
seemed perfectly normal to me. That should have been a red flag.

Crazy doesn’t run through my family; it saunters slowly and deliberately. My daughter hates going to a new doctor and filling out the medical history sheets. When she gets to the question, “Is there mental illness in your family?” she has to ask for extra paper.

And I’m not talking about eccentricity. None of my people were rich enough to be eccentric. The kindest term I heard applied to one ancestor was, “He was notional.” Right. This was the guy who fought for the Confederacy for three years and switched sides the last year of the war. That might sound pretty smart and not crazy at all to some people, namely those from north of the Mason-Dixon Line, but context is everything. He was removed from the family Bible and never spoken of again.

My mother’s aunt, another example, was a complete loon. Her given name was Willie Polk Morgan, which she hated. The first chance she got, she had it legally changed to Pocahantas P. Morgan, which she considered a major improvement. I remember her well, because she used to remove her dentures at the table after eating, wrap them in her napkin, and then surreptitiously make the bundle move slightly, as if those choppers were alive. She would scare small children (mainly me) by grabbing the bundle, shoving it into their throats, and making Cujo growling noises. I had a stressful childhood.

Polk’s brother’s name was Robert Edwin, but he went by Pete. No one bothered to tell me he and his wife were dropping by from Tennessee one day, so when a strange man got out of his car and growled, “Come here, girl!” I screamed bloody murder and ran for the front door. Everyone laughed at me and acted like I  was crazy. That’s when I learned about “the eye of the beholder.” For the first time I realized I was the only sane one in my house.

My father approached normalcy, at least compared to my mother’s side of the family. But he carried a spool of tamale string in the trunk of his car in case he needed to effect repairs on something. He believed if it couldn’t be fixed with tamale string, it was broken beyond repair.

My mother was superstitious to the point of paranoia. It was bad luck to kill crickets, lay a hat on a bed, return to a starting point by a route different from the one by which you sallied forth, or walk around an obstruction on the opposite side from someone else without dispelling the bad luck by saying, “Bread and butter!” I remember many childhood hours spent in deep guilt because I had stepped on a crack in the sidewalk; my mother’s paraplegia was imminent. She used to make up superstitions if she didn’t have one ready-made to fit any occasion.  “You put those rocks back! Don’t you dare put them in the car. I had a cousin who came down with diphtheria right after putting rocks in the car!” It was years before I realized she just didn’t want my dirty rock collection in her Caddie.

I am not superstitious. I simply don’t believe in pressing my luck. And I can’t see letting those near and dear to me tempt fate, either. For example, my husband has a tendency to put hats on the bed. This is a community property state. That means half of his bad luck is mine! I have enough trouble forestalling my own doom without having to worry about a paranormal loose cannon.

We recently attended a party on a cold day, where everyone piled hats and coats on a bed. He motioned at me through the open door and asked, “Is it okay to put my hat on the bed if my coat is in between?” I made an executive decision. And I must have been right, because both of us survived the party and made it home safely.

I’ve heard that sane people are boring. I can’t confirm that because I’ve yet to meet one. I don’t even know where they are kept. If you find one, please let me know so I can judge for myself. In the meantime, I’ll just continue to relate to squirrels and my family as equals.

Hark the Herald Angels and Demons

The holidays sneaked up on me again this year. When do I have to start getting ready for the holidays to have a handle on things when they arrive? The reality is, I could start putting up decorations in early January and still feel like the holidays were sprung on me the following November.

Christmas is a time of reflection for me. I guess everyone gets nostalgic this time of year, missing times long-passed or even ones that never actually existed. The holidays started for me every fall, when my mother set up a Ping-Pong table in the master bedroom.  That table was ground zero for wrapping Christmas presents. It went up before Thanksgiving and was my signal to start getting excited.

In the days before ready-made bows,  Mama made them herself, twisting flat ribbon into a figure-eight, notching the middle, and tying it off tightly. Then, one at a time, she pulled a loop out, bringing it down and across, until she had a gorgeous, perfect bow. Mama was wonderfully good at this, but I got the impression she hated doing it. She was extra-edgy and short-tempered from the time that Ping-Pong table came out until it went back in the closet under the stairs.

My father was philosophical about Christmas, usually just waiting for it to be over. He enjoyed the once-a-year foods–Mama’s fruit cake, boiled custard, and angel food cake. But no matter how hard we tried, he never seemed to get a gift he really wanted.

“Socks with feet in them,” or “Drawers with seats in them,” followed by, “Just what I wanted,” were his standard comments. Admittedly, buying a gift for him was a nightmare. The man had two of everything he’d ever wanted. Plus, he had an annoying habit of going shopping for himself just before Christmas. It was the only time of the year he did this, and it drove my mother nuts.

Only a couple of times did I please him with my gift. When I was in high school, I managed to find a blacksmith in North San Antonio, no mean feat in the late 1960s, and had him make a wrought-iron sign, “T. W. Wheeler.”  Daddy didn’t say much on Christmas morning, but he did hang it on the ranch gate, an indication of approval. Years later, when he had to sell the ranch, he retrieved the sign and kept it in his home office. Later, as an adult, I gave him a Care Package one Christmas. It contained all his favorites: Marshmallow Circus Peanuts, Saltines to crumble into a glass of cold milk and eat with a spoon, Penguins–chocolate-covered marshmallow cookies– rat cheese (Longhorn style), and chocolate-covered cherries. That gift actually made him grin as he unpacked it.

At least shopping has gotten a lot easier over the years. Bryan is easy to buy for. He likes just about anything I get him. My grown kids want money or gift cards, and my grandchildren cheerfully provide me with detailed lists of EXACTLY what they want and where to get it. And the Internet, bless its little silicon heart, brings everything to my door. No more fighting crowds or doing psycho checks in dark parking lots before getting into my car.

Doing some heavy remembering, letting myself float back through the years, is my way of honoring the season. Instead of turning up at church on the high holy days because I feel I ought to, I use the time to reflect on my behavior on the other 364 days a year. Have I done enough for others? Did I manage to curb my wicked tongue at all this year? Did I hurt someone intentionally or un-? Do I deserve another year of walking this earth? We all have demons to wrestle; mine come decked out in jingle bells and mistletoe.

I hope your holidays are everything you want them to be; I wish for you the ability to determine what that is.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and Happy Holidays, y’all!

 

Pining for Alpine

I just attended my fourth writer’s retreat in Alpine, Texas. I can’t tell you how much good this does for the people who attend. We spend five days living, eating, and breathing writing. I come back feeling re-energized and ready to write.

Far West Texas is my favorite place to be in the hottest part of the summer. It’s always 10 to 12 degrees cooler than here, and it gets downright nippy at night. I get a week in my favorite place, doing my favorite thing, taught by some of the best writers around, and comparing notes with like-minded people. Heaven.

My teacher this year, Mike Hall, an editor at Texas Monthly, is a really nice guy. He was approachable and genuinely interested in helping us take the next step. I got my ego stroked and my confidence built, so much so I’m determined to finish the book I’ve been working on forever. The whole project is a lot clearer than it’s ever been, so maybe 2015 will be my year.

Paisano Hotel, Marfa

Paisano Hotel, Marfa

A big part of the fun on these trips is playing tourist with my husband. Bryan and I visited Marathon, Marfa, and Alpine. We’ve been to each one before, but there’s always something new to see. That’s something people don’t expect from tiny towns sitting in the desert.

Marfa has really grown and has turned into a clean, pretty little town. In addition to becoming quite the art colony and providing Marfa Radio which saves tourists suffering NPR withdrawal, it has two traditional claims to fame: the Presidio County Courthouse, which is one of the prettier members of the Tacky Texas Courthouse Club, and the Paisano Hotel, where the cast of Giant stayed while filming the movie in the mid-1950s. A young friend of mine announced she has never seen Giant but planned to rent it after hearing about it in Marfa.

Presidio County Courthouse, Marfa

Presidio County Courthouse, Marfa

“Or you can read the book,” I suggested.

“There’s a book?” she asked wide-eyed.

The exchange made me feel old, but I smiled picturing Edna Ferber watching us, thoroughly disgusted.

Gage Hotel, Marathon

Gage Hotel, Marathon

Marathon Cafe

Marathon Cafe

Next Bryan and I headed for Marathon, pronounced MAR-a-thun. You swallow the last syllable. The one visible place to eat turned out to be a highpoint of the trip. Just the other side of the historic Gage Hotel sat the tiny Marathon Café.

We complimented our waitress, who turned out to be one of the three owners, and the floodgates opened. The residents of Far West Texas have learned to be polite to the tourists but not to get too friendly. We are different; we are The Others. And they never know exactly how we’ll react to open friendliness. I always try to get people to talk to me. It’s half the fun of traveling out there.

We found out the café was owned by three cousins, all older ladies with painful arthritic joints. As is normal there, none of them plan to retire anytime soon. Hard work is ingrained in them from childhood. You work until you get too ill or too dead to continue. A niece did the cooking. She had trained at the Gage Hotel and brought her considerable talents to the tiny family concern. Bryan said his chicken fried steak was excellent, served interestingly on top of the cream gravy. My hamburger quite simply was the best I’ve had in years, and she seemed surprised when I told her so. We will definitely go there again next year.

Sometimes we revisit favorite places, only to find them closed up or reincarnated as something else. Businesses come and go out there with the suddenness of death in the desert. Apparently you’ve got a window to make it or else. There’s always a little feeling of relief when we arrive and find a favorite haunt still standing and still in business.

Our last stop was Alpine. I had just spent a week there and had seen everything in town three times. But we discovered the Museum of the Big Bend on the Sul Ross University campus last year and decided to go back. For one thing, they have a great gift shop, and I always stock up on memorabilia there. The displays don’t change drastically, but one of the blessings of advancing age is short-term memory loss. I see places for the first time over and over.

One of my favorite exhibits is a large topographical representation of the entire area. Plates on each side list points of interest and landmarks. Push the large, red button next to the plate, and a tiny light goes on at the appropriate place on the map. In the vastness of the place it’s easy to get turned around, and I enjoy lighting up the places we’ve just seen.

Black Bear, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine

Black Bear, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine

Pterosaur, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine

Pterosaur, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine

I like the stuffed black bear, whose relatives are repopulating the area. I also like the life-size replica of a pterosaur, which won’t be back anytime soon, hanging from the ceiling. Between dinosaurs, and later on Comanches and Apaches that gave the settlers many a bad day, Far West Texas has always been a pretty busy place. I prefer the toned-down version of today.

Every time we visit, Bryan and I try to figure out a way to move out there, and every year we realize we can’t. There are down sides to living in such a remote place: medical care is sketchy and usually far away; there is no quick way to get out there or back here from out there; and I’d have to hold auditions to find people to talk to about politics. With kids and grandkids in Central Texas, there’s a lot to stay for.

Still, I think we both started thinking about our next trip out there as we unloaded the car from this one. Far West Texas calls to both of us. As a friend, Joe Nick Patoski, said, “You either get this place or you don’t.” Bryan and I get it.