Books

When I was a very little kid, I used to amuse myself when my mother was on the telephone in the hallway (in those days the phone was a stand in the hallway) by rearranging all the books on the bookshelf, also in the hallway. Well, perhaps rearranging the books is not exactly correct. My mother said I like to pull them out, but didn’t do so well at putting them away.

I used to collect the Bobbsey Twins books. I think I probably had about 30 of them when I moved on to harder books. My poor mother had a hard time finding some library to take them when I no longer wanted them. Kids loved them, but I guess they are not considered fine children’s literature.

In my public school, books were included in the deal. Mercifully, I was not given the option of retaining my elementary and high school texts. I did manage, some years later, to get a copy of Dick and Jane, my first reader. Later, when I was a student teacher, I managed to acquire a copy of English Grammar and Composition – the 12th grade edition (the one that has EVERYTHING in it).

College textbooks were easily sold for the first couple of years, but as I got closer and closer to graduation and the books became more relevant, it seemed more important to keep them. I still HAVE them. Not that they are good for much anymore.

Graduate school texts – well, you never get rid of those, right?

Meanwhile, while I have been accumulating textbooks, the whole world has changed. It used to be necessary to hold information close to you, just in case you needed it.—even if it was outdated. Now, it is easy to find information just when you need it. So, why do I have all these old textbooks, mostly written by dead people?

Then there are the paperbooks. You pay good money for them, so why get rid of them? Well, at some point you know you have read them and will likely never read them again. I do manage to get rid of many of mine, but my husband never has, to my knowledge, parted with a single one. In his case, maybe it is excusable, as he often re-reads them.

This week, I have been thinking about books a lot. I just seem to collect them. I don’t really mean to. It just happens. I attend luncheons and conferences and authors speak. They autograph their books, and I buy one almost every time. Who could resist?

Then there are the medical reference books. True, they have come in handy over the years. I don’t know why I have a small shelf filled with them. Pre-Internet I had to deal with the prolonged deaths of both of my parents. I was hungry for information. So as a result I know more about obsolete treatments for lung cancer and heart failure than the average person.



Costco is a dangerous place for a book lover. They have all of these great books at very cheap prices. They have the latest and greatest in hardback that can easily slip into the cart next to the Feta cheese, underwear and towels.

Regardless of the reason, I have a lot of books – too many books! I should have been going to the library all these years. After all, I am trained as a librarian and worked as one for twenty years. You would think I would get the idea! Sure, sometimes I do actually go to the library, but not often enough. You see, all the books that somehow make their way into my life are there waiting in patiently in line to be read. I wouldn’t dare introduce a borrowed book to jump in line ahead of them all.

I did get behind on my reading. It has to do with eyeglasses. If you can’t focus on type, you can’t read books. It is that simple. It turns out that I am a polycarbonate non-adapt. That means that the expensive polycarbonate lens I spent good money on (because they are supposed to be better than plastic or glass) don’t work for my eyes. Now I have plastic lenses and can see again. That means I can read books again!

But, now what to do with all those books! I am going to give a bunch away. Maybe I will give them to the Rotary club to send to people all over the world. Sometimes I wonder what the people in Senegal really will do with my old psychology text from 1965. But maybe some person hungry for knowledge will dwell on every word and this book will change that person’s life. It gives me comfort to think that anyway!

Freckles

I first knew something was different about me when I was very small – maybe about three years old. We would go to Florida and I was not allowed to go to the beach between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. – EVER, even if it was cloudy.

My mother said that I “fair skin” just like my grandmother. My grandmother DID have very light skin and she didn’t seem to have any freckles – at least none that I noticed. She was born in 1890 and must have spent many hours wearing a sun bonnet and long sleeves. She said she used buttermilk on her skin to keep it pretty and white.

By the time I was full-fledged kid about 8 years old, I had freckles all over my arms, face and legs. I somehow thought if I used suntan lotion the freckles would magically run together and turn tan and I would be “normal.” Alas, it never happened! I would use suntan lotion and wait for the tan. Instead, I got sunburn. I discovered Noxema at a very tender age, later followed by Solarcaine. It was clear to me that I was condemned to a life a freckles, while all of my friends were turning gloriously tan.

As a teenager, I really started to hate my freckles. My friends were sunbathing and I wasn’t. I simply couldn’t without blistering. There was no sunscreen, just suntan lotion and it didn’t do anything much for me. The only thing for me to do was to stay out of bright sunlight for extended periods.

Then along came a miracle product—QT. All you had to do was to smear this stuff over your body and presto, you turned a golden tan. From a freckled kid who couldn’t tan, this stuff seemed like a miracle. But then I tried it and found that I was left with orange streaks that made me look really strange. It took a few weeks for them to fade and I swore – never again.

At about age 20, I was a Girl Scout camp counselor in southwestern Georgia. One camp director decreed that we would lead the kids on a “forced march” of about 7 miles over red clay back roads. The camp director euphemistically called it an “endurance hike” and there was no escaping it. The chosen day was 97 degrees in the shade. We staff members begged the camp director to cancel the hike, but she was determined. Some little girls passed out and were close to heat stroke. It was a nightmare, but I made it to the end. The back of my neck was SO sunburned that big water blisters lined the back of neck from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. My recovery took days and I could only wear a white T-shirt to reduce the risk of infection. I know if I ever get skin cancer that will be the place.

Steve and I took our honeymoon in 1969 to Puerto Rico and we even took a flight over to St. Thomas. Steve’s mother, who has always been knowledgeable in health matters, told me to buy a product called “sunscreen.” It had a magic ingredient called PABA. I did and it worked – this was the miracle I had been waiting for all my life.

I had long since given up on the idea of being tan. I just didn’t want to get sunburned – not because I was afraid of skin cancer. I just didn’t like being sunburned – it hurt and was messy!

Between sunscreen and care to stay out of the sun I managed to avoid sunburn for a couple of decades. In one weak moment, I was talked into using some “quick tanner.” They SAID it was different from the stuff when I was teenager. It would not turn me orange. Well, of course, it DID turn me orange and it looked awful. I felt really stupid and vowed “never again.”

At this point, I have resolved that I will never be tan. There is nothing that can change that. It was so nice to be in Scotland among lots of people with skin just like mine.

Last year, we took the grandchildren to an amusement part in Pennsylvania. We took a boat ride with a young black girl about ten years old. She was very chatty and told me with great excitement about her trip thus far. But I could see she was staring at me. Finally, her curiosity got the better of her and she asked, “What are all those spots all over your arms?” I tried to explain about my ancestors from Scotland and “fair skin.” She smiled and nodded and was clearly still puzzled.

Not too long ago, I met some ladies who had gone to a store in Ocean City, Maryland and had their full bodies spray painted. The indignity of it all won out over the temptation . But I have a feeling if I were spray painted “tan” I would look downright strange and no doubt, orange! But it is an interesting thought!

This weekend we took the grandchildren whale watching off Cape May, New Jersey. The boat was to leave at 1 p.m. We joined the other tourists on the uncovered top deck with the best view. I came prepared with sunscreen and lathered us all up with the stuff, especially the back of my neck. But after about five minutes, I couldn’t take it anymore and went below. The others soon followed. In my old age, I know discretion is the better part of valor.

At age 60, I am freckled and that is just the way it is going to be. I know that I am more vulnerable to skin cancer than the average person. I no doubt look my age, but I really don’t have a lot of wrinkles and my skin is in decent shape. I don’t get freckles on my face anymore—just mostly on my arms. I imagine this is because I wear foundation that blocks the sun enough to withstand regular activities.

These days they tell people not to suntan, and to always use sunscreen. Pale and pasty is still not “in,” but I don’t care. I am what I am, and I have learned to love my own skin. It is the only skin I will ever get, so I might as well be content with it.

Chicken

Growing up in the South, chicken was mainstay of our diet. My grandmother could fry a chicken like nobody else, not even my mother, and certainly not me – not even using the same skillet and following her directions fifty years later. I think bacon grease was the key ingredient. We always kept a jar of bacon grease next to the stove and used in liberally for frying, supplemented by Crisco. Nobody thought about cholesterol. Bacon grease was perfect in green beans, although fatback is the more conventional artery clogging choice.

My grandmother died at 67 of a massive heart attack; my grandfather had “hardening of the arteries” and died at 86. Hmmmh….could there be a connection?

Of course, I loved fried chicken and I even hummed when I ate it, I loved it so much. I always had the drumsticks – that was my right as an only child. My grandmother or mother always cut up our chickens and did it a certain way so that there was a “pulley bone.” It as a pulley bone because played a game with it before eating it. One person pulled on one side of it and the other person (preferably a visiting kid, but an indulgent aunt would do) pulled on the other side of it. The person who got the longest section “won” and your wish was to come true. Now, of course, the pulley bone is just part of the breast unless you buy your own whole chicken and cut it up.

In those days, chickens didn’t have huge breasts. The white meat was moist and tasty. But compare that with today’s average “D-cup” size chicken. No doubt all the hormones they are pumping into chickens enlarge their breasts while doing a number on the taste, not to mention the nutrition.

Thinking of chicken parts, always brings to mind my sorority sister, Sally (not her real name), at Auburn University. She is a wonderful person, successful, bright and articulate. But, apparently she grew up without any personal acquaintance with chickens. One day I was working as a graduate assistant in the Curriculum Lab (educationese for library) and in came Sally looking quite distressed. She had just been kicked out of elementary school art and told not to come back to class until she had seen a chicken. Obviously, it was far easier to go up one flight of stairs and ask to see a picture of a chicken than it was to seek out a live one – even when attending an agricultural college (i.e. cow college). Sally explained that the assignment was to draw a picture of a chicken and she had drawn one with four legs. I patiently explained that chickens had two legs. Sally questioned that, “they have the long legs in the back and the short legs in the front, right?” In some parts of the South, drumsticks are referred to as “long legs” and thighs are referred to as “short legs.” Sally got no end of good natured ribbing and a few weeks later we happened to be out in the country and actually sought out a real-live two legged chicken for her inspection.

So much for fried chicken – let’s go on to other popular preparations. Sometimes my mother smothered chicken. You coated it with flour, added some water and butter, and put it in a heavy deep skillet in the oven. Another favorite was chicken and dumplings (reserved for special occasions because the dumplings were so much work). Sometimes we had chicken pie – vegetables, just chicken and pastry – yum! Sometimes we barbequed it (but never on Sunday). Roast chicken was a Sunday treat.

My mother loved to make chicken tetrazini (and frankly, so do I) because it is a great party dish. Whenever she made it, she made a second casserole which she froze. That way we had an extra dinner for some night when there was no time to cook. When she had her heart attack (yes, she had one too at age 59 and survived), she was in ICU and insisting that my father and I go home and heat up chicken tetrazini from the freezer. We would have been just as happy with 2 couple of Reeses and Coke from the machines, but we went home and dutifully ate our chicken “tet” (as we called it).

I remember going to Marshall Durbin with my mother and grandmother to buy chickens. They only sold chickens and it was widely believed that they had the best chickens in Birmingham. For my grandmother, shopping at the chicken store (I guess it would be properly called a poulterer) was a luxury. She used to tell of her days on the farm growing up and she had to kill the chicken in order to have it for dinner. They used to pick up the poor chicken and spin it around by its head, effectively “wringing its neck.” I have no idea how they kill chickens today at the processing plants, but wringing seems unusually cruel.

My father apparently went through a stage of wanting to “raise chickens. “ This was in the late 1930s I think. I can’t imagine what possessed him to do this. From what I hear, however, this was a fantasy many men shared in that time frame – perhaps an urge for a simpler life. From what I hear, the chicken raising didn’t last very long or involve many chickens. By the time I was born in 1946 there were no chickens and there wasn’t a lot of conversation about growing them either. I don’t think it turned out to be nearly as much fun and it was rumored to be.

At any rate, here it is 2006 and I had chicken for dinner. I bought it pre-roasted at Costco, along with a new tea kettle, plastic bags, vitamins and supplies for the office drink machine. Pre-roasted chicken isn’t bad; Steve will actually eat it and not complain and it lasts for a couple of meals. Of course, the best part is the part I am not supposed to enjoy – the skin.

That’s the thing—you are just supposed to eat the white meat; and if it is dry and tough, so much the better. In fact, lots of people buy their chickens in little frozen blobs of breast meat and when you cook it on the George Forman grill it has absolutely no obnoxious fat.

I don’t have fried chicken often, and when I do I feel positively decadent. Of course, I don’t save bacon grease and I don’t keep shortening, so I have to use Canola oil. It isn’t quite as tasty, but it is tasty enough to remind me of another time. And if I fry some okra along with it and maybe even fry some corn, I can pretend it is 1954 and Sunday dinner.

Garden Hoses

I grew up calling a garden hose a hose pipe. My husband thought it was a very strange and redundant way to refer to a simple hose. Obviously, hose pipe was a term that evolved. I can just imagine a time when there was no such thing as a garden hose. There must have been pipes for watering flowers. Then someone came along with a flexible rubber tube and the hose pipe was born. There is probably some relation with hosiery, but I am not going to go there.

My grandmother used to water her flowers every night and she let me help her. She showed me how to use my thumb to intensify the spray. Sometimes she used a nozzle. She would set it so that the water would spray out in a fine mist over all of her flowers. I don’t remember watering the grass very often, and there was no such thing as a lawn sprinkler. Somehow the grass did OK, content with rainwater.

We used to use the hose to fill the plastic wading pool, but the one thing I simply was forbidden to do was to drink from the hose. Somehow there was a connection between polio and drinking from the hose. Some of my more raucous little friends did sneak and drink from the hose, and fortunately they didn’t get polio. Of course, I was an obedient child and didn’t drink from the hose. I must confess, however, that I sometimes did enjoy a squirt from a water gun (which has been filled by the hose), applied directly to the mouth. Nobody seemed to notice. All of this became moot once the Salk vaccine hit the streets. From a kid’s view this meant – finally we can drink from the hose.

When I was a teenager, we moved to the suburbs and we got a big lawn. The big lawn required a sprinkler. We had one the kind that flipped-flopped back and forth; the kind you could easily dash through to get to the mailbox if you were fast. We had a special faucet at our house that allowed us to get high pressure. Apparently the faucet was somehow hooked up directly to the water line. My father would use it to wash down the driveway and the sidewalk, as with that big lawn came lots of pine needles.

There was a decade in which hoses were irrelevant to my life. I was in college and as a young married couple we lived in an apartment.

We moved to California in 1971 and got a sudden immersion all things related to watering. Our first home was in Highland, California, near San Bernardino. Without imported water the place would look like a desert. There were months on end without any rain. Some folks gave up and paved their front yards and painted them green; others opted for the Astro-turf effect. Our house, fortunately, came with built in sprinklers in the front yard, but the back required constant watering. Our sprinkler heads were “Rainbirds.” People in the know bought Rainbirds because they were high quality and wo rked great. The sprinklers were not everywhere they needed to be, so watering was a daily necessity for most of the year. Of course, brush fires are a way of life in Southern California. I recall once using the hose to soak our wooden fence and the wooden shingles on our roof, as a fire endangered us.

When we got to Maryland in 1976, our new house didn’t have any sprinklers built in. We found a Rainbird unit we could mount on a garden hose and endured 16 years of occasional watering when the rain was not sufficient. Mostly we didn’t do much with our hoses in those years. We would spritz off the porch or carport floor sometimes or wash the spiders off the house.

Thirteen years ago, we built a new house and we installed a sprinkler system. Yes, we used Rainbird heads. This sprinkler system is tied in with home automation unit. We can set the sprinklers to go on at a certain time every day, but there’s more! We can turn them on remotely from anywhere using a phone. Not that we ever do, but it is nice to have that capability I guess.

We put a hot tub room in the basement of our house. At first it was great! I had the room filled with lush plants and watered them using a hose with a spray gun attachment. Yes, we designed the room so that it used outdoor materials, so getting the walls wet is not a problem. Of course, the hot tub broke and is now on Steve’s to do list. The plants that didn’t die, got moved upstairs and the hose sits idle in its custom designed box.

This house came complete with lots of decks and they seem to always need cleaning. Just washing them off with the hose won’t cut it. We must power wash them. For years Steve insisted on doing all the power washing, but eventually I got impatient and asked him to teach me how to do it. Of course, now he has opened Pandora’s box.

I have to say I get a charge out of power-washing. I feel like an avenging angel setting the world right. Step by step I make the decks look brand new again. The power is great. Now if I could only have enough strength in my hands to connect the hose tightly enough so that it won’t drip all over the place.

A Smoker's Tale

Both of my parents smoked, and as a child growing up I didn’t think much about it. Many grownups smoked – in fact, most grown-ups, who weren’t really old, smoked. My mother smoked Winstons and my dad smoked Kents. My mother drank a lot of Cokes and the combination of a Coke and a cigarette punctuated the completion of each major task. For both my parents, the morning started with a cigarette and ended with a cigarette. From the Lucky Strike Hit Parade, to a barrage of TV tobacco commercials, to magazines with pages filled with cigarette ads, cigarettes were part of our culture and a part of my daily life. I couldn’t smell it; it was around me all the time.

I went through a period when I was an adolescent when I thought smoking was a disgusting habit and I vowed I would never do it. But vows are easily broken when the pressures of teenage life kick in. About the time I was a junior in high school, I noticed that the “cool kids” smoked. And, being a normal teenage girl, I longed to be “cool.” Soon the pressure mounted and the temptation was just too much. One night when my parents were away, I tried it. I coughed and sputtered, but I felt so “cool.” During the remainder of my high school days, I smoked very rarely and even then, I didn’t inhale (really, I didn’t.)

In college, almost all my friends smoked. Cigarettes were sold freely; there was even a machine in the dorm next to the Coke and candy machines. By spring, I was hooked on Newports; I preferred the menthol flavor. I guess about my sophomore year in college, my mother confronted me. She said that she knew I was smoking and I might as well do in front of them. She also told me that she didn’t see anything morally wrong with it; just that it was not too good for you (but it 1966 and the evidence was sketchy and my father said he didn’t believe any of it!). So I kept on smoking and now smoked more and more. I was a grownup and I was still not “cool,” but I was hooked. Cigarettes were only about $.35 a pack, but still a costly habit.

I smoked all the way through college and grad school. I preferred to study at the dorm rather than the library because they made all the smokers sit in one room at the library and it made me cough. My library research was probably weaker than it might have been had I been a non-smoker.

Shortly after I got my masters I married Steve and he also was a smoker. Being a purist in many ways, he smoked unfiltered Pall Malls. They made me gag. Somewhere along the way I switched over the Benson and Hedges 100s. They had a really smooth taste and lasted longer. Besides, we could get our cigarettes really cheap at the BX. I think they were only about $.20 a pack.

When I was pregnant with David in 1971, I confess I didn’t totally stop, but I still had one now and then. There was some “talk” that smoking could be harmful to a developing fetus, but it mostly seemed like talk. Still, I took it seriously enough to cut way back. My mother had smoked all through her pregnancy with me and I turned out OK.

My parents continued to smoke and we did too! The years crept by. When we would visit my parents, a regular ritual was the trip from Vestavia south across the Shelby County, Alabama line for cheap cigarettes. All four of us puffed and puffed away.

Steve, my husband, suddenly decided to quit. I am not sure exactly why he made that decision, but he did it “cold turkey.” He smoked his last cigarette the night that Nixon made his famous “I am not a crook speech.” About a week later my parents came to visit us in California. Steve was not a pleasant person to be around – not surprisingly.

But time passed and in 1976 we moved to Maryland. Steve never smoked again and I continued to smoke and smoke away. Everyday I worked on fixing up our new house and every day I seemed to smoke more and more. By February 1977 I was up to 2 ½ packs a day. I had tried to stop a few times, but with no luck. I tried the low “everything” cigarettes, NOW, but just smoked more of them.

Then on March 23, 1977 everything changed. My mother had a massive heart attack and had to be resuscitated. It was a nightmare that went on for weeks and weeks as she clung to life in a Birmingham hospital ICU. My father and I sat in the waiting room and smoked and smoked—I guess I was smoking three packs or more a day during that period and living on Cokes, cheese crackers and candy from the machine. I gained 15 pounds. Whenever we went into see my mother in ICU, she said she would ask for a cigarette. She could smell it on us! Of course, smoking was not allowed in ICU (although it was in regular rooms).

The one day in April 1977, her conditioned worsened. The doctors told us she had a 1 in 5 chance of making it through the night. But if she could survive the night she had a good chance of surviving long term. I sat in a lounge chair at midnight in the ICU waiting room and I made a silent prayer to God that he would let her live and if he did I vowed that I would never smoke another cigarette until the day she died. She DID make it through the night. She lived another ten years.

I think my deal with God was pretty powerful and the other factor in my quitting was that my world was turned totally upside down. I fashioned a plastic tube and stuffed in with peppermint. I sucked on it A LOT. I knew that smoking was as much a physical addiction as a mental one. There is something about the movement from hand to mouth that is very addictive. For months after I stopped smoking I would smell the tobacco odor whenever I showered – as if it was coming from my every pore stimulated by the hot water. I cleaned my house and removed the yellow scum from everything. My health started to improve and my energy level soared. There was no longer the need to punctuate every accomplishment with a cigarette. With in a year, I found myself employed in a private school where smoking was not allowed.

Gradually, fewer and fewer of the folks I associated with smoked. I found myself disliking the smell of tobacco. In particular, I couldn’t stand to smell the brand my Dad smoked.. For some reason, that brand make my eyes water and gave me a sore throat. Whenever I would visit him, I asked him to smoke another brand – any other brand! In general, however, as the years went by I came to hate the smell of smoke, although every now and then I got the urge to smoke. But I never gave in.

Meanwhile, my mother was doing well after open-heart surgery. She never smoked again, while my father continued. She didn’t like the fact that he still smoked and he tried to smoke more often outside. He still didn’t think there was any real health issue with smoking.

Ten years after my mother’s heart attack, she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. That diagnosis rocked my world! And to compound the problem, her doctor told my father it was his fault; that it was his second-hand smoke that gave her the cancer. He was never the same after that. He was there lovingly for my mother throughout her year-long illness. He never smoked in the house while she was there. More and more of her time was spent in the hospital.

One afternoon, he left the room for a smoke and I stayed there with her. It was at that moment she stopped breathing and despite a Code Blue and about eight hours of manual respiration, she was gone. I have to admit that in the flurry of activity, the signing of the big black and the realization that she was really dead, there came to fleeting thought that “this is when I supposed to have my cigarette. I don’t have to not smoke anymore.” Then, of course, there was no power on earth that could make me smoke. I had just witnessed my mother’s year long struggle with lung cancer! What a bitter irony!

My father suffered greatly after my mother’s death. Depression took its toll. He loved my mother so deeply and the doctor’s words blaming his second-hand smoke for her death kept going around in his head. Within less than two years, he was dead from congestive heart failure. I honestly think it was a broken heart.

My parents were amazing people. My mother was talented, creative and probably the most all around capable person I have ever known. People loved her outgoing personality and her zest for life. My father was brilliant; he was an inventor; he was a leader in his community. He was the man who first transmitted data over a telephone line – really! And yet, these wonderful and bright peoples’ lives were damaged by tobacco.

My parent’s things were coated with the same yellow scum that coated everything in my house years before. I cleaned it off furniture, art, crystal and more. I found that Dow bathroom cleaner would take the scum off the furniture without damaging the finish. Some of my parents; furniture was very special because my mother had refinished it. My favorite piece is a chifferobe that belonged to my grandfather and which my mother lovingly refinished. It stands in my entrance hall today.

What about me? Was I damaged too? Certainly, the 14 years I smoked were not good for me, nor were they good for our son (who fortunately has never even been tempted to smoke). Once I had a doctor tell me that if I had not quit, I would have been dead by now. That was probably 15 years ago. It has been 29 years since I smoked a cigarette. I am not around smoking any more. I request non-smoking seating in restaurants. There is no force in this universe or amount of money that could make me smoke even just one cigarette. I know that if I had even one, I would be hooked!

Soon after my mother’s diagnosis I became a volunteer for our local American Cancer Society. I guess it was my way of striking back. After her death, I continued to volunteer. It seems that our County has an unusually high cancer mortality rate and the cause is not clear. I was intrigued by this problem and agreed to work with our local County to chair a Cancer Task Force. This seventeen member multi-disciplinary task force looked into possible environmental and lifestyle causes of cancer, including lung cancer.

And, so here’s the kicker! I was running a meeting of the task force one evening and speaker was an expert in the causes of lung cancer. The expert reviewed various lung cancer types one after the other, but did not mention oat cell. Oat cell is kind of lung cancer that killed my mother; it is aggressive and fast growing. The expert’s response literally blew me away! I felt light-headed; I could believe what I was hearing! Oat cell cancer lung cancer is connected with chemical exposure more than smoking. Huh! My mother didn’t mess with chemicals. So, I asked “what kind of chemicals?” In an instant I knew that everything we had thought about her illness and how it happened was wrong. It turns out that the chemicals that often cause oat cell lung are the kind that were used to refinish furniture. My mother LOVED to refinish furniture. That was her hobby. Patience was not one of my mother’s virtues. She used the most powerful chemicals she could buy to strip off the old finish and she never wore a mask. She was not known to be a person who took the directions and precautions all that seriously. Usually she did her work with the garage door open, but little other ventilation.

Had we but known! My father would not have tortured himself with guilt about the second-hand smoke. My mother would have surely been more at peace with the whole situation. She was someone who always wanted to get to the bottom of a problem and find out what went wrong. Sadly, neither of them ever knew.

So, maybe it wasn’t the cigarettes after all! Still no doubt they made the situation worse.
Did this outcome change my opinion about smoking? No way! It is a terribly addictive habit and I personally will NEVER smoke again. Still, those 14 years may get me one day. No more smoking and no more furniture refinishing for me.

And, what about our task force? We never could get to any “smoking gun” for the cause of cancer in Anne Arundel County. What we do know is that with a lifetime of human behavior it is difficult to isolate the variables that may lead to death. More likely it is a confluence of factors that come together for any individual to make the cancer kick in. Lifestyle, environment, and heredity all matter. It is clear that more of these factors come together in our area than in most places. One thing for sure, we are on our own in this. The government can’t protect us from ourselves. Smoking is bad for you; chemicals can harm you; our environment has many problems and no one really knows what they all are. Smoking is a nasty, stupid habit that can destroy your life.

I see young women today smoking. Despite all the evidence, they keep on smoking. If only I could somehow make them understand.

Funerals

When my grandmother died on June 5, 1957, life was never the same for me. I had just turned 11 a couple of days before. I simply couldn’t believe that she was gone. It was horrible. That was my first real acquaintance with death and I hated it. My mother planned the funeral and did what she could do to make it a good funeral, as such things go. She was very pleased that so many friends came to the funeral, sent flowers, and came back to the house afterwards. From my perspective, it was gut-wrenching. I was old enough to understand about death and its finality, but not old enough to accept it.

Over the years, I have been to many funerals – some for dear friends and relatives and others for acquaintances. My grandfather died a few years after my grandmother. Nothing, however, prepared me for the pain of having to bury each of my parents decades later.

I come from the South and down South, when people die, they are embalmed and put in a casket for viewing. The funeral follows the funeral home chapel or at the church, with the burial to follow. Everyone then comes back to the house for a pot luck spread in honor of the deceased. Depending on religion, there might be something to drink. In my family, we congregate in Birmingham at the Embassy Suites (with free drinks, free breakfast and nice suites). We have been to so many family funerals where we opted to stay there that my son calls it the “death hotel.”

My mother used to always take the same thing to funeral gatherings. She made a molded chicken salad, done up in individual gelatin molds. When she died, one of her friends made her recipe for the funeral. My mother would have been proud.

When my father died, he was living in a retirement high rise. His two bedroom apartment was way too small to accommodate a funeral gathering. He founded the Chamber in the town of Vestavia Hills, so the town leaders got together a gathering at the local library. It was a fine tribute.

These days more and more people are getting cremated. That thought used to make me shudder. Now it isn’t so bad. I am not sure I could do it though, but I guess if I was dead it wouldn’t matter anyway. Of course, I am an organ donor and can’t imagine any better final gift.

As I approach 60 I am not comfortable contemplating my own mortality. Not that anyone really is! I could just ignore the whole subject and let my family figure out what makes sense for them to do. After all, funerals are really for the living! They give a sense of closure. On the other hand, I suppose I should do the really responsible thing and figure out something that makes sense to me. That would be kinder than giving them one more thing to worry about.

Lots of things have changed over the decades. Open caskets are less popular. Personal tributes are generally done, as opposed to the generic funerals of the past. Memorial services weeks later are a popular option. Charitable donations are preferred over flowers. Guests don’t have to wear black. Cremation seem more common than in the past. Internet tributes and Web pages are sprouting up. In Maryland there is a big public dispute about the appropriateness of roadside memorials. I spoke with a friend recently who reported going to her first “PowerPoint funeral.” As Bob Dylan said, “The times they are a changing.”

My Treo - The Little Magical Computer

Just over a year ago I was wearing a pager and carrying a cell phone and a pda in my purse. I seldom left home without my laptop computer. It took all of this equipment just to keep me organized and in touch, especially when I traveled. I spent two hours each evening, after a busy day at the office or after a day of travel, just dealing with my email. In short, I was a slave to my equipment; my shoulders were dragging from hauling all this stuff around; and I longed to make a change.

Finally, my excuse came along. The pager started to fail; the cell phone couldn’t hold a charge. The blue paint chipped off the Zire. These were all clear indications that the time was right.

At first I thought I would get a Blackberry. People who have them seem to love them. But I loved my Palm Zire and on a whim checked to see what Palm offered. I was amazed to see that they had a product that would replace my cell phone, my pager, and my pda and also do email. I read the reviews and I was hooked. It had to have a Palm Treo 650.

No, I am not getting any money from Palm for writing this. They have no idea that I am doing this. I just love my little Treo and want to tell the world about it.

Is it perfect? No! It sometimes has to reboot and sometimes it gets as ornery as any computer I have ever dealt with, but its good qualities far outweigh its bad.

Is it addictive? You bet! Just having the capacity to deal with things almost in real time is a bit of a rush. But, the most amazing thing I have found with the Treo is that it allows me to capture little snippets of time that would otherwise be essentially wasted. And that alone is a precious gift.

Can I live without it? Of course, and life is actually very calm without it. But I would rather know what is going on and deal with it immediately when I can. That keep small problems small and I don’t have to waste time worrying about what “might be happening.”

Documenting Our Lives

When I was kid I was given a diary. Each day I wrote what I did. In those days, I was a lot like the kid (arts commercial) who recounts his day in monotone at the dinner table. I went to school. I went to Brownies. I went to the grocery store with my mother. She bought chicken. We had fried chicken for dinner. I watched I Love Lucy. I read a chapter in the Bobbsey Twins and I went to sleep. My, what an exciting life!

I couldn’t imagine why anyone would be interested in reading that and I couldn’t think of anything else to say. But, for about 3 weeks, I dutifully wrote an entry each day and locked the book with a key. So much for keeping a diary!

When I was in junior high and high school, I faced what I now know was normal teenage angst. From my perspective it was a constant “tug of war” between the desire to be popular and the desire to make good grades. If you made good grades you were condemning yourself to be a social outcast. I got my first taste of depression and I reveled in it, writing my deepest darkest thoughts in what might be called an “occasional diary.” It wasn’t a diary at all, rather a three ring binder left over from “speech lessons.” I hid it when I went to college and I don’t think my mother ever found it. I took it when we cleaned out the house.

In college, I was really too busy to write down much of what I felt. But sometimes, when depression would grab me, I would turn to my old trick of writing out my feelings. Most of that stuff went out with the dorm trash, but it was therapeutic.

For decades I never wrote anything personal and I didn’t keep a datebook. I didn’t need one; I could remember my schedule (that was when I was younger and still had an agile brain).

My parents, on the other hand, were living busy active lives and both of them kept calendars in 8”x10” calendar books. My father’s was mostly just a record of his appointments and speaking engagements. My mother’s, however, got progressively more personal. Hers was more of an after-the-fact documentation of how she spent her days. In some respects, it resembled my childhood “diary.” When she was diagnosed with lung cancer, she started recording her medical appointments, as well as how she felt each day. She knew she was documenting the end of her life.

Both of my parents are gone now. I still have their calendars stuffed carefully away in the attic. I can’t throw them away, because to do so would be to not value their lives. Maybe in another ten years or so I will read their calendars again and look for similarities in my own life at their age.

Meanwhile, over the years, various people have suggested that I journal. They would have me take use a journaling book and with pen and ink write down my innermost thoughts. I tried it. Truth is I don’t do handwriting very well these days. I think far faster than I can write so I end up with skipped spaces and funny looking letters. Sure, I can make to write a check and sign my name on a charge slip. I can even write a post-it note of instructions for a staff member. About the longest document I write these days is a handwritten thank you note. Truth is, handwriting for me in now agony. I can type on my Treo far faster and more accurately than I can handwrite. Sad, but true!

The next logical step was to try journaling on my laptop. For a few months last year I documented my struggle to lose weight and exercise. I found myself journaling, but it took up too much time. The diet failed, as did the exercise program. So that was the end of journaling. Will I try it again? The diet and exercise -- yes. The journal – not likely.

Then along came blogging. I had been reading about blogging for some months. When I was ill with the flu I decided that it was time to find out more about how to blog. Within half an hour of finding out how to blog, I was blogging. At first I thought I could do it every day, but after a while I soon realized that once a week was about the right pace for me. Honestly, I am enjoying writing my blog and I am also enjoying your positive feedback. It always surprises me that people are reading. I expected that some FacetsWoman readers would read it, but now I find I have readers from other parts of the US and even one reader from Scotland.

Comparing journaling with blogging, I have to say I like blogging much better. With journaling the idea is that other people WON’T read it and you go to some effort to keep them from reading your innermost thoughts. With blogging you write stuff (admittedly not always your most innermost thoughts) with the idea that someone might read it. For me that makes it a lot more fun!

Ironing

My grandmother ironed A LOT. I think she really somehow enjoyed it. She was very good at it. Actually she taught me to iron when I was very young. I used to be assigned all the handkerchiefs. My father used white handkerchiefs, and they were frankly pretty dull to iron. My grandfather, on the other hand, used handkerchiefs that were white in the center with colored borders. Some were blue and others brown. His were much more exciting to iron. What I especially liked was folding all the corners just so.

Ironing in those days involved sprinkling first. We had a Coke bottle with a sprinkler head on top it of. Before you started to iron a piece, you had to sprinkle it first. I think most things had been pre-starched first, so the water seemed to wake up the starch.

Sometimes the maid would also help with the ironing and my mother would also iron. My grandmother, who was in charge of ironing in our household, kept the frilly dresses for herself and for my mother to do. The maid did the really boring stuff and I did the easy stuff. In retrospect, we spent a lot of our lives ironing. Mercifully, only one person could iron at once. Summer days were especially hard; the iron was hot and the sweat poured off of us in the Alabama heat. The oscillating fan helped a bit.

My uncle somehow came by an electric ironer and gave it to my Dad. This is an example of appliance that never really hit the big time. My mother was happy to get it, but using it was a different matter. It was OK for tablecloths, but not much else.

Men’s shirts were always sent out the laundry. They came back stiffly starched and wrapped around what we called “shirt cardboard.” My father’s shirts, like his handkerchiefs were always white and he liked them heavily starched. No pink or blue shirts for him. My grandfather, on the other hand, preferred striped shirts with white colors. He always wore a collar pin that connected the two corners of his collars. His shirts were very interesting! He used to let me help him pick out his clothes each night. It was fun to coordinate his suit, with his shirt, tie, handkerchief and socks. Between the two of them, they used 10 sheets of “shirt cardboard” every week. This means that I had an endless supply of “shirt cardboard” for drawing or school projects.

When I was in high school, I liked to wear oxford cloth shirts with Peter Pan collars. My mother hated them because they were so hard to iron. By then I was not too interested in ironing (strange how that happened) and she had to pay the maid to iron them. She could have sent them to the laundry like my Dad’s, but that would have been too expensive – besides, they wouldn’t look right all stiffly starched like his. I think that was one of the best parts of my going to college; I took my oxford cloth blouses with me and ironed them myself.

In my dorm, they had something called the “Ironing Room.” There was one of every floor. They may have still them for all I know. We spent a lot of our time in college ironing and soon gained an appreciation of the drudgery ironing involved. Still, it was a necessary evil.

About the time I graduated from college, things started to change. Men were wearing “wash and wear” Haspel suits. Some fabrics were coming out that didn’t need ironing. My father was wearing “permanent press” shirts. These new fabrics were a mixed blessing. We hated to iron the old cotton stuff, but these new fabrics felt a bit “slimy” and were hot in the summer. Most of us had some of each.

I recall back in 1969, when we were first married, we had dinner with a couple who lived in the apartment across the hall from us in Illinois. Steve spilled something on the tablecloth. The hostess replied, “That’s OK. It’s wash and wear!” My engineer husband still chuckles about the idea of a “wash and wear” tablecloth.

Enter POLYESTER! I was in California at the time and embraced it. Hooray, no more ironing ever! The stuff was ugly and it was hot, but everybody was wearing and loving it! The ironing board was stuck in the back of the garage and iron stuffed in the closet. Until we moved to Maryland in 1976, we lived in an ironing free bliss. Sure, you had to be quick at getting to the dryer and hanging things up, but it beat ironing.

At the time when we were in California, Steve was in the air force and wore a wash and wear blue shirt and polyester trousers. Rarely, he would have to wear fatigues and they had to be ironed. I soon tumbled to fact that they are best handled by the laundry. The irony – the thing he wore to do dirty things had to be starched and ironed! The uniform he wore daily as an “officer and a gentleman” could come right out of the dryer onto the hanger!

In Maryland, polyester was not as prevalent as in California. In fact, it was going out of style in 1976. But, I still had a lot of it and wore it. Within a few years, however, it was gone from my wardrobe. What remained was a mixture of “wash and wear” fabrics, wool (that mercifully seldom needed ironing) and things that had to go to the drycleaner.

Soon, I started ironing again and I wasn’t enjoying it either. The spray starch I had discovered in college was now my best friend. But I wanted us all to look good and ironing seemed the only way. How I hated it! My husband preferred the softer feel of un-starched shirts, but they often still needed ironing.

My son wore oxford cloth shirts in high school and they had to be ironed. Guess that is nature’s revenge. I taught him how to iron them and he took care of them himself in college! Shortly after he married, I suggested to his wife that she send them to the laundry. She took my advice! His come back from the laundry handing on hangers and he is happy.

After 37 years of marriage, I am on my third iron. The one I bought in about 1978 recently died. I bought the new one at Costco. It is digital and wonderful and it is heavy enough and large enough to do a really good job. Does it make my like ironing any better? No! But it does seem to go faster.
Unlike in my grandmother’s day, ironing is not a big part of my life. It is something I do when I have to (because I need to wear something) or when I am on one of my “organized” kicks. Still, it is necessary sometimes.

My husband no longer wears a coat, tie and white shirt to work. He wears plaid shirts without a tie. His employer, like many others, has changed their rules and he is very happy to go to work in a plaid shirt (the plaid is not required, but he IS an engineer and they seem to like plaid for some reason) and slacks. If I am fast, his shirts don’t need much ironing, but they do need touching up a bit. The microfiber slacks are great – no ironing required. I have learned to send the Dockers to the laundry.

I stopped wearing oxford cloth blouses decades ago and I hate “fat” polyester. These days I wear knit tops most of the time and mercifully they don’t need ironing. Some of my slacks require ironing; others don’t (a tough of polyester is just fine, thank you). I have to iron many of my blouses, as I wear them over my knit top in the summer time. More ironing is one thing I dread about the summer. Right now, I have loads of stuff I washed at the end of last summer that I need to dig out and iron. And by now, it is all really wrinkled.

I have a fancy laundry room in my house with a small pull-down ironing board. It reminds me of the ironing room in my college dorm. I put a small black and white TV in there for use while ironing. BUT, I kept my old standard size ironing board. It is now set up in my sitting room, calling to me every night. One night soon, it will grab me. I will turn on the TV and take pleasure in ironing my husband’s shirts just so and remembering my grandmother.

Meanwhile, however, there is this wonderful stuff put out by Downy and it is magic. You can spray it and wrinkles go away on all but the seriously wrinkled. I never travel without it. While it is not a complete ironing replacement, it really does help!

Will future generations iron? Thirty years ago, I would have said “never.” Now I say, “probably, but only when they can’t figure out how to get out of it.”

Bed Linens

When I was a kid beds came in three sizes: double, twin and cot/rollaway. There were no queen or king size beds and nobody seemed to notice that they didn’t exist. Mattresses were relatively thin by today’s standards and there was no such thing as a pillow-top on a mattress. Ticking was all blue and white striped. Pillows came in one size – the modern equivalent of “standard.”

From the time I was about four on we always had a clothes dryer, but one simply didn’t use the dryer for sheets. Instead, sheets were hung out on the line to dry. Bottom sheets looked pretty much like top sheets because they had not yet invented fitted sheets. I think the reason everyone liked to dry the sheets on the line is that they didn’t come out very wrinkled and they smelled nice.

In those days, sheets were white and not made out of permanent pressed material. They were always washed in hot water with bleach and bluing, ensuring a bright white. It was important to have bright white sheets. I don’t remember anyone ever ironing sheets in my time, except for the period when we had an ironer (which turned out to be of little value except for sheets). I do, however, vividly remember ironing pillowcases. My grandmother taught how to iron pillowcases—a skill I still practice today.

Sheets came in two types – muslin and percale. Nobody talked about thread count, but the greater the count, the better the sheet. “Nice people” used percale. Muslin was considered a lesser product. I could only assume that poor people slept on muslin, but it was OK for them (since they were poor and all).

Pillows had feathers in them until about the time I was in elementary school; then they started being made out of foam rubber. My father HATED foam rubber pillows and one day made quite a stink about it. My mother went out that day and bought him a new pillow. That pillow was made of goose down and cost $35 – a princely sum in 1950s dollars. I still have that pillow; it is by far the best pillow we own and I use it in the late evenings to rest my head on while I watch TV. It still has its tag on it – you know the one that you can’t remove “under penalty of law.” We are a VERY law-abiding family. That pillow is about 52 years old and it still has its tag!

Department stores used to have “white sales” – even after bed linens came in an array of colors. For all I know, they still DO have “white sales.” I just don’t pay attention to stuff like that any more, as I have a lot of sheets (and that’s another story). Now and then I do buy some sheets for our king size bed, but rarely and usually when I stumble on them cheap at some place like Costco (more on that later).

When I was about six my mother went to one of those “white sales” and got really carried away. Knowing my mother, it must have been quite a sale. She bought all sorts of colored sheets and they were even monogrammed in fancy white script letters. I had some that said PEH (Patricia Elizabeth Humphreys). They were soft pink, giving me the hint that soon she was going to paint my room pink (and she did). She also bought a set for my grandparents (who lived with us). Theirs were soft green to match their bedroom. For herself and my father she bought a pinkish raspberry color. All in all, we were pretty hot stuff with all of our monogrammed sheets in pastel colors.

Bedspreads were generally white or beige and lightweight, with little bumps in them, otherwise know as chenille. There were no pillow shams or comforters. You just pulled the spread up over the pillows (which had been rolled), after the sheet and blanket had been pulled up, pulled up the sheet and blanket and tucked them in, added a couple of throw pillows and the bed was made. I wonder why you can’t easily buy chenille bedspreads any more. They were all made by a company named Bates --- I wonder if they have a Web site? Hmmmh…

My favorite bedspread was brown, with little fuzzy cowboys on it. It was too big for my bed, so they put it on the cot in the hallway up in the attic by the attic fan. I don’t recall any ever sleeping on that cot, but it was nice to know it was there. I still have that bedspread. When our son was little I used it sometimes on his bed, but he was never that fond of it. It I now up in the cabinet above the washer and dryer with a few other odd bedspreads I am holding onto for some reason.

When I went to college my mother took me to JC Penny’s and we got matching sheets and towels. My sheets were pale apricot color, as were my towels. It was some sort of warped tribute to the Auburn University colors, orange and blue. Besides, I liked pale apricot; it went well with my freckles. My mother made me pale blue bedspreads.

These sheets served me well through graduate school, but when I got married it was time for new sheets. Permanent press was new and hot, so some of my gift sheets were permanent press and some were not. Guess which ones I still have.

In the late 60s and early 70s sheets were, like everything else, very colorful. Flowers were big and bold and the colors were bright. Bottom sheets were fitted and sometimes were a solid color in contrast to the bold print of the top sheet.

When we first got married we bought a king-sized bed. My husband is 6’5” and didn’t like for his feet to hang off the end of the bed. He selected the mattress and it turned out to be not very good and made of foam. By about 1973 it had to be replaced and we were in southern California at the time, courtesy of the air force. We went to the local mattress store and bought a mattress; it was a California king. None of our old sheets fit it because California kings are shaped differently from regular kings. Of course, we didn’t know that when we bought the mattress.

For the life of that goofy mattress, we bought California king sheets. By 1976, we were in Maryland, in the land of regular kings. California king sheets were not to be had at any price. So, we got along without new sheets, save those purchased on an occasional trip to San Bernardino (our old home) and the local Pic’N Save.

Eventually, the California king mattress wore out and we bought a regular king. The old sheets that were wedding gifts fit again and we could buy new sheets at almost any store. Ah, the freedom!

Then that mattress wore out and we bought a new one. It was somehow thicker than the old one and the old sheets (including the California kings) didn’t fit. They would spring off at the corners. Undaunted, I purchased some garter like contraptions to hold them on against their will. These little devices, that resemble a garter belt, stretch diagonally across each corner of the fitted sheets.

I bought some new sheets and they fit my new mattress just fine. For a time we were in sync – but only when I used the newest sheets.

Then I bought some more new sheets and the bottom fitted sheets were WAY too big. Not only did I not have to use the garters, I had to fold them over in the corners. Strange, I thought! Maybe they think they will shrink. Then I discovered the sad truth, the new sheets were designed for pillow-top beds. So once again, my mattress is out of sync with my sheets.

While I was going back and forth with sheets for the king size bed, I was quietly collecting twin and double sheets. My grandmother gave all of her sheets to my mother and so did my aunt. When my mother died, I got all of her sheets. Conveniently, I also got all the double and twin beds. The sheets fit the mattresses until we had to replace one twin mattress. The only kind we could buy had a pillowtop. Now my antique sheets don’t fit anymore on that bed and I have to use the old garter things, now unneeded for the king-size bed.

I still have the old chenille bedspreads on three of the beds in the house, but I have quilts for all the beds (but they are too good to use). One bed has a quilt on it. Our king size bed has a comforter that won’t cover the pillows because it is too short (but that has to be OK, as I like the comforter) and the pillows look OK in their cases. No way am I going to pull them out of pillow shams every night. Do people really do that?

What’s next? Probably a king-size mattress with a pillow-top. Only my newest sheets will then fit at all. My newest sheets are flannel. I never heard of flannel sheets when I was growing up, but in recent years I decided to try some of them. My husband insists on cutting the thermostat back at night and those flannel sheets feel great on a cold winter night. They aren’t percale, nor even muslin – oh the shame of it all! They are what might well be described as “Yankee sheets.” They are OK for winter, but not for the other seasons. Percale is still required!

Yesterday I was at Costco and looking at king size sheets. They had some for $59.95 that were of fine percale and soft colors popular today. I was tempted, but $59.95 still seems like a lot of money for sheets. I’ll have to give it some more thought and see how bad the ones I have really are. This is a major investment after all. They had some others for $35.99, but they were made out of jersey. For a brief moment, I contemplated getting a set of the jersey sheets, but I decided my self-esteem required percale. After all, I am a southern lady and a southern lady doesn’t sleep on muslin, much less jersey. Isn’t life strange?

Keeping Cool

When I was growing up, we didn’t have air conditioning, but neither did anyone else we knew, so we didn’t miss it. Alabama summers were hot and sticky, but we used fans to keep us cool. We had several of them, including a big one that sat on the floor and oscillated. You were hot for a while, but then the fan would blow on you and cool you instantly. Sweating was something you did all the time, all summer, not just a physical phenomenon that happens at the gym (but then nobody went to the gym except boxers). Nobody ran unless they were in a hurry to catch a bus!

My father really did NOT like to be hot and, although our house was sheltered by lots of trees and we had our fans, it wasn’t enough for him. One day he came home with an enormous fan. It was 4 ft. square and was mounted on the wall in the hallway at the top of the stairs in our attic. When that thing was on, it would blow women’s dresses up over their heads as they walked up our attic stairs (fortunately, the only women who walked up the stairs were in our family or those specifically invited to go upstairs and watch the fan, so it was OK). Obviously, my parents didn’t want me to be sucked into the fan or put curious young fingers in its invisible spinning blades, so they covered it with hardware cloth. After that, we were comfortable most of the time. All we had to do was to open the windows and gale force wind swept through the house.

While we were staying comfortable at home with our monster attic fan, central air conditioning was taking over the commercial world. Department stores, hotels, and grocery stores were installing air conditioning and bragging about it far and wide. Wealthy people were air conditioning their homes, but most new homes still came sans air conditioning.

We moved “over the mountain” in 1958 to a lovely home in the suburbs. It too had lots of trees, and it even had a small attic fan in the ceiling in the hallway. The fan was about half the size of fan the old house and it had louvers over it that opened when the fan was on. It did an OK job, but not for the basement (where my mother sewed). My parents bought a window unit for downstairs. But within a year, my father decided to install central air conditioning. He and my mother wrapped the ducts with insulation and suddenly we were among the elite with a cool house!

The schools were not air conditioned in those days. My high school, which was among the newest and best, had window units for the principal’s office and the guidance counselor’s office. The rest of us coped with the summer heat the best we could. School was out in late May and didn’t start again until after Labor Day, so we never had to deal with the worst of the summer heat.

In 1968 I went to college at Auburn University and I remembered what it was like to be hot again. I had a small fan that usually lived in the window, sucking in air from the outside and circulating it in my room. I remember that one particularly hot night I improvised a cooler by taking a Styrofoam ice bucket and filling it with old pantyhose. I then cut out the bottom and stretched a panty hose leg around over it, creating a cover. Then I taped the ice bucket to the fan. I poked a hole in the top side of the ice bucket and poured water in, saturating the pantyhose. In effect, I created a “desert cooler.” It was similar to my little invention for cooling myself in the car (see road tirp article). It was better than nothing!

In my junior year, I got to move to a new air conditioned dormitory. Life was good again, but I did miss having the windows open in the evening.

In graduate school, I had an apartment that was air conditioned, so I was comfortable and didn’t have to cope with the hot days. In the evening, if it was cool, I could turn off the air conditioner and open the windows.

Then in 1969, I married Steve. Steve grew up in New York City and sweltered through summers without air conditioning. Our first apartment in Illinois was air conditioned and we went straight from heat to air conditioning and that suited him just fine. He doesn’t like humidity and pollen can set off his sinuses. I hated having to have the windows closed at night.

When we moved to Southern California in 1971, we bought our first house. It had two desert coolers (evaporative). There was a large one on the roof, and a smaller room in the wall of the family room. These units were remarkably similar to my earlier inventions. They used automatically wetted excelsior pads and a fan to circulate the air. The folks next door had central air, but most of the time our house was cooler. In that kind of heat central air can only do so much. The desert cooler on the roof would often need new pads or get stopped up and Steve would have to do on the roof to fix it. I bought him some special shoes for this purpose at a local athletic store. They were funny looking shoes – orange suede, with a swoosh stripe on the side, made by a company I had never heard of – Nike. I wish I had bought another pair as an investment. Just think what they would go for on eBay now!

When we moved to Maryland in 1976, we bought an air conditioned house. Steve was happy; he could have heat in the winter and cold in the summer and never have to open a window. The house had a built in attic fan and I would have preferred to use on those nights that were not all that hot. But that was not to be. When he was away, I would open windows and air out of the house.

When we built the home we are in today in 1992, we air conditioned it and we also installed an attic fan, at my insistence. This fan is SO noisy and doesn’t do much to cool the house. It is, however, useful when clearing the house of smoke after a cooking accident. Steve is still very happy to go from heat to cool and never open a window. But on lovely Spring nights like last night, when he is away, I enjoy opening the windows and turning on the ceiling fans. I slept SO well last night and was awakened by the birds this morning.

These days almost everywhere you go there is air conditioning. For that reason, it never occurred to me when I went to Skyland Drive last summer to work on my business plan that they didn’t have air conditioning. I had only been there in the past in the Spring and Fall. There was NO way I was going to get any work done in my room in the sweltering 90 degree plus July heat. I got in the car and headed for the nearest Walmart, in Luray, and bought an oscillating fan on a stand. Once I had that fan, I was cool and comfortable and I could think. Most of all, I felt like a kid again! And I could sleep with the windows open!

Road Trips

I remember traveling with my parents when I was a kid. We would pack the car to the limit and head cross country from Birmingham to Boston or LA or Denver or Florida. My father seemed to feel that on good day you had to make 600 miles. This was not 600 miles at 65 mph on the Interstate. This was 600 miles on US Highways, like US 66 and US 11. We loaded up the car with an ice chest, packed with Coca Colas. When the ice melted, we looked for an ice house, as each small town had one.

At the end of each day, we would stop at a motel. We didn’t make reservations; we just picked a decent looking place at the end of the day. The chains were too fancy and costly for us. Usually my parents got a room with a double bed and a rollaway for me. By today’s standards the places we stayed would be considered motels of “last resort.” But in those days they were clean and sometimes even air conditioned. Some even had a tv in the room and maybe even a swimming pool. Usually I think we paid about $10-$15 per night.

I learned to look out the window when traveling and the savor the joy of open windows in the sweltering summer heat. Even mile after mile of Kansas, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico wasn’t boring. I took imaginary photographs of scenes along the road, carefully framing each scene in my head.

When I was grown and married and the mother of an infant, we still had the travel cross country, as plane fare was too costly. With the freeways, travel was faster, so the 800 mile day became possible for us. Why not? We were young and full of energy! We opted for the major motel chains. Our son needed a crib and not every motel had one. We went from stopping when we were tired, to mapping out a route and making reservations well in advance. At that time we lived in southern California and our families were back East! You haven’t lived until you have traveled from California to New York to Alabama and back with a three month old in a two door ’71 Dodge Dart. When they dropped the speed limit from 70 to 55 mph it added a full day to our last trip!

I have now been in every state I think but North Dakota and Alaska and I’ve seen the countryside up close and personal. We now can afford to fly on vacation travel, especially since we have loads of frequent flyer miles. Still, however, sometimes it makes sense to drive.

I think I have driven the full width of Texas for the last time. But when we are headed for someplace along the East coast, the car is the way to go. I don’t mind sharing in the driving with my husband and we make enough rest stops and meal stops. Is the trip up the Jersey Turnpike boring? Or how about Virginia as seen from I-95 or I-81? These are long boring rides, but so is sitting for two hours in the Atlanta Airport.

A new kind of trip has entered my life in the last few years, and that is the “road trip with girlfriends.” I realize “girl” is perhaps not the best way to describe my friends, most of them 50+. But you get the idea! It is more the “spirit” of “girlhood.” We love the men in our lives deeply, but sometimes it is fun to just get away with the “girls.”

Women understand the “art” of shopping. My husband, on the other hand, wanted to buy two shirts in Gatlinburg at the Van Heusen outlet. He walked in; picked up two shirts in his size (all in less than a minute) and was quickly in line at the cashier. Had he been a woman, he would have first scoped out the whole store, zeroed in on about half dozen blouse candidates; felt the texture of each fabric; selected at least three for purchase and perhaps picked up a pair of coordinating slacks. Any self-respecting woman would then consider trying to pick up a matching purse and shoes, and maybe a sweater to match. This process could take up to two hours, finished up by a restroom break and lunch and a few more stores, just in case.

Women tour differently too. Men want to know all the facts – what happened when and to whom. If a war was involved, all the better, and who was the commanding general? On the other hand, we women want to know what was life really like in the historic place in question? What did they wear; how did they spend their days?

When looking for a hotel room, women want security, cleanliness, and convenience. Good food and a smoke-free bar are appreciated. But if there is a spa where you can get a massage – so much the better. Affordable is better than expensive, but scuzzy won’t cut it.

Women like to act on impulse! “I know we planned to do X, but, hey, here is Y and it seems like more fun! Let’s do it.” And if we can experience something of the local culture, that is a big plus!

So let’s face it, husbands and men friends are great, but to really enjoy travel, it is best to go with “girlfriends.” You laugh; you relax; you share memories and you build friendships.

I just returned from a five day road trip to Charleston with three fellow Facestwomen. Nancy Badertscher, Jane Tyson, and Barbara Polito and I had an incredible time. We squeezed every ounce we could out of our time in Charleston. In my next entry I will hit the highlights.

Gatlinburg, Tennessee

My mother took me to Gatlinburg when I was very small; I was about four or five years old. We had a good time; we rode the Incline Railroad, stayed at a motel and bought fudge. I always treasured that trip; one of the few times my mother and I went anywhere with just the two of us. Of course, we traveled, but always with my Dad. I have no idea why my father was not along on this trip. I can only speculate that he had planned to go, but couldn’t at the last minute and my mom didn’t want to lose the deposit. But for whatever the reason, I was in Gatlinburg in about 1950 with my mother and I always wanted to go back.

In the mid-70s, Steve and I, along with our son, went back there—just passing through. I remembered a sleepy little mountain town. What I found was a “tourist attraction.” It seemed overbuilt and far too overdeveloped to please me. I had no interest in going there ever again.

Then about eight years ago, an old friend offered me a week at a Gatlinburg timeshare. The price was right – FREE. There was that business about the condo fee every year and the fee to join Interval International. Still it seemed like a bargain. After all, we could trade the time for anywhere in the world.

And for the first few years, we did exactly that. We traded for Cornwall and Myrtle Beach. We banked our time. We missed one year all together but failing to make our deposit on time. Still, it was a good deal.

Then one day we got a notice from the Club Chalet that “our” unit was going to unavailable for some weeks because of a problem associated with a landslide and the small creek that runs THROUGH the cabin and the need to build a retaining wall and redecorate the unit. Now we were curious – just what kind of place is this anyway? A landslide, a creek, a retaining wall?

So, we decided to actually “use” our time and go to Gatlinburg and stay at our cabin. That was several years ago. When we arrived one dark, rainy, and foggy March night to start our week, we discovered that “our” unit was STILL not available, due to all the remodeling work. They had, however, assigned us to a similar unit.

Right before arriving at the timeshare office, we had gone about 2/3 up Ski Mountain Road, and had just passed the most incredible hairpin turn I have ever seen in my life. To find the unit reserved for us, we had to follow a map. It seemed easy enough, a few roads and a few turns. Well, not exactly! The roads off Ski Mountain Road are all the same – narrow spiral ribbons of asphalt, with edges that drop down about eight inches. The thought of hooking a wheel is terrifying because you will instantly “flip” down an embankment into a ravine and die a horrible death!

The chalet (they call them that in Gatlinburg) that first trip was really nice and had an incredible view – no wonder it was near the top of a big mountain! Three bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and dining room, plus three baths. Not bad for two people! I was supposedly "just like" our chalet, just minus the creek and the retaining wall.

That first trip, we went to see “our” unit and discovered a construction crew hard at work. We didn’t bother them for a tour…we knew we would be back. This place, crazy as it was, was actually starting to appeal to us. Sure, the town of Gatlinburg was even more “touristy” than it had been in the 70s. The “strip” (maybe it has some other name) between Pigeon Forge and Sevierville is every bad hillbilly cliché wrapped into one. It is continuous series of miniature golf, “Dixie” shows, catfish places, “As Seem on TV Stores,” motels of all stripes, outlet malls, and pancake houses. I can’t believe this place can support so many pancake houses!

We did go back the next March and actually stayed at our chalet. Sure enough, it had a BIG new concrete retaining wall behind it and still a stream trickled through the basement. It had been redecorated and was actually quite pleasant, and it was certainly quiet.

We felt more comfortable than the first trip. We knew where to find a good grocery store and had found a few good relatively authentic restaurants the previous trip. Some friends came up from Alabama to join us for a few days. Being with friends gave us an excuse to do some things we had resisted the previous trip, like ride the aerial tramway up to Ober Gatlinburg, at the top of Ski Mountain.

This past week, we went back yet again, mostly because we failed to deposit our timeshare with Interval on time to get the better trading opportunity. The two previous trips we had spent considerable time in our cabin, just working. That was what made it appealing – the opportunity to get some work done. We felt we had already seen everything we really wanted to see. After all, we had driven through the width of Great Smoky Mountain National Park, including the driving nature trail (really), toured Cade’s Cove, shopped at the outlets, walked through town and looked at the shops, and even visited an As Seen on TV store. We had eaten at some interesting restaurants and had lots of barbeque, steak, catfish and trout. In Gatlinburg there is a restaurant that specializes in trout (pretty good too – trout a lot of different ways). No, we have not gone to any of the shows. The thought of men in Confederate and Union army sequined uniforms racing on ostriches was not tempting enough to lure us to the Dixie Stampede (maybe some year). And Dollywood is closed in March.

This trip we mostly worked, and worked, and worked. Steve set up his laptop at one end of the table and I at the other. We tried to go out once each day and get back by sunset, after an early dinner. Those roads are scary enough in the daylight! The “designated driver” among us (only the two choices) agreed to not drink any wine with dinner. Those roads and even slight intoxication do not mix!

This trip we found a few more things of interest, including the Gatlinburg Arts and Crafts Community. This is a few clusters of interesting craft shops off the beaten path. They have everything from pottery to brooms. I picked up a few interesting items to feature on the FacetsWoman online boutique.

As we were leaving the craft shop area, I noticed a sign on the side of the road. It said Buckhorn Inn, since 1938, Dinner by Reservation. The sign was in great condition and road looked inviting. We soon came to an enclave of white clapboard cabins and main building reminiscent of the Gibson Island Club. Yes, they could take us for dinner. Dinner would be at 7 p.m. and the menu was clam chowder, salad, trout, green beans, rice, and marscapone cheesecake, for $30 a person (expensive by Gatlinburg standards). If we didn’t want trout, we could have chicken. They don’t have a liquor license, but if we bring our own wine they will serve it. Our immediate reaction was very positive. We were ready for something quirky and casually elegant. We arrived back promptly at 7 p.m. and were seated in the dining room at a table for two, among about a dozen other tables. The food was fabulous, as was the service! On the way out, we picked up a brochure. They are a B & B, and the cabins are upscale, but still reasonable. They have an estate with nature trails and a labyrinth. I definitely want to come back—maybe as an overnight guest.

This trip we set aside one day for exploring – no work, just clear our brains! We opted to make the car trek to Catalochee settlement. From our cabin, it is about 60 miles each. On the way there we chose the shorter, more scenic route (aka back roads). The last 15 miles or so of the trip was on gravel roads, around hair pin curve after hair pin curve. Thank goodness it was a beautiful day. Cataloochee Settlement is one of those very quiet little tourist destinations that most folks never visit. At one point it had nearly two hundred buildings. Today, just a handful remain. The townspeople had to leave when the Park was formed. There was a church, a school, and a few houses, barns and cabins, all along a quick running and broad mountain stream. Small blue butterflies darted about and each wooden surface was peppered with ladybugs. It felt good to be outside!

I guess what I am saying is, there is more to Gatlinburg than meets the eye. We will continue to trade our time share out some years, but some years we will go back for a quiet week at our cabin with the BIG retaining wall and stream through the basement. And, for sure, we will plan on dinner at the Buckhorn Inn.

How I Work

I just read an article in the March 20 issue of Fortune called “How I Work.” They interviewed some important people about their work habits. The range of responses was incredible. These folks ran from the techno addicted to the technophobic, with some in between. Imagine --- Wynton Marsalis has never written an email. Senator John McCain has his wife do things for him like print boarding passes. Other people, important people who run big corporations work hard, read hundreds and emails, and are glued to their Blackberries. Clearly, success in our modern times is not defined by how well you use the electronic tools we have. What then is it based on – honestly, I have no idea!

I am often asked how I manage to get everything done. People who know me well know that I have diverse interests, both professional and personal, and that I am involved in community work. Honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way! The thought of a quiet retired existence makes me shudder.

Reading this Fortune article made me stop of a moment and ask myself, “How Do I Work?” Is it a good way to work? What if I changed the way I work? Would I then make lots of money and be wildly happy? Interesting thought!

Each morning, I lie in bed about ½ hour and just think about the day ahead of me. What do I have to do? Where do I have to go? What am I going to wear? What do I want to accomplish? Often I will contemplate a solution to a challenging problem. I find this time of morning I am at my most creative. Often my dreams give me ideas that trigger solutions to problems.

Once fully awake, I grab my Treo from my bed-side table and verify my schedule. Am I really doing the things I thought I was doing? Did I leave anything out? What email has come in overnight? Did anyone sign up for an event? Who? (People sign up for things at the strangest hours). Usually there is email from Amy, my accounting consultant. I try to get her whatever answers she needs from me early in the morning.

I shower, get dressed, eat something and arrive at work about 9:30 a.m., already fully caught up on my emails, having read my email on my Treo. I typically go through the office and talk with my employees….do they have anything they need of me before I get going in my day? Usually Most days I have appointments scheduled from 10 a.m. until about 3 p.m., with some breaks in between. I use those breaks to review my email, review my paper mail, review printing and Web project proofs, send specifications to printers for bids, and deal with issues that come up. More often than not I have a lunch meeting. About once a week our VP, Nancy Badertscher, and I go to lunch and review project progress.

Those appointments I have each day, who are they with and what are they about? This varies all over the place. Often they are with clients and prospective clients who want me to put together a proposal. Sometimes (though rarely) I need to meet with small groups of employees about a project. Maybe one every couple of weeks, I meet with someone who has asked for an appointment for advice in finding and job or becoming involved in community work. Of course, I never turn down an interview with the press and have one or two of those a month. There is the occasional off-site meeting, in addition to lunch once or twice a week at nearby Mezzanotte with clients and business associates.

Most of my volunteer community work I do in the evenings, as much of it involves going to meetings. Board meetings typically start at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. and run until 9 p.m. Fortunately, I don't have meetings every night.

Focused time is the thing I find hardest to find. The best way for me to complete a really challenging project is to designate a day (or even a morning) to work on it and nothing else. Saturday is my “best” work time each week. I can work at my office all by myself and focus very narrowly on what I want to accomplish. I guard my Saturdays! Between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. I can accomplish as much as I could in a week at the office. Sometimes, however, I will take a Saturday and just play – just is important too!

Yes, sometimes I also work on Sunday afternoons. Sunday night is usually “family time” when our son and his family visit or we go to their home. Effectively this means I have three hours each Sunday afternoon to “get something done.”

Another technique I use is to isolate myself for a week to do the really “tough” work – the business planning in particular. I run three businesses; they interact with one another in many ways; each of them has a plan and goals. I have to stop living in “real time” in order to do the analysis and reflection needed to keep them moving forward. My strategy is to dedicate two weeks away each year for just this purpose. Sometimes my husband goes with me; other times he doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter that he is with me, as he brings similar work for himself. We can go out for dinner in the evening and enjoy ourselves.

As I write this, we are at a cabin on a hillside overlooking Gatlinburg, TN. It is snowing outside and we are inside working happily, each at our respective ends of the dining room table. We both have laptops and Treo cell phones (with good reception) and there is a printer/scanner on the table between us. There is no high speed Internet, but there is a local number we can use for dial-up. We only need the Internet to send files and search the Web, as we have the Treos for email. It works! We are in the first day of our spring retreat. I spent the morning organizing my temporary office and reviewing my work notebooks to re-sort priorities. I am doing some clean-up work on my laptop to make it run faster.

But regardless of where I work or when I work, I must be organized. I would like to say I am totally paperless, but that isn’t so. What I can say is that I don’t have any more paper than is necessary and what paper I do have is well-organized and that organization matches the organization of my laptop.

I think there are three kinds of people on the world: pile-people, file-people, and notebook-people. I never have been a pile person and quite frankly I have a hard time comprehending that approach (although it seems to work OK for those who are so inclined). I used to be a file person and still am where some things are concerned – like contracts and financial documents—pieces of paper that for sure really, really need to be kept. But within the last year I have become a notebook person.

I think notebooks are easier to deal with than files. A plus is that you can use those nifty clear vinyl sheets and stuff them full of all the papers related to a project. Another plus is that they don’t spill out all over the place.

My notebook system is really simple. I have one notebook that has all of my empty plastic sleeves and blank project/consultation forms. I have one LITTLE notebook for the stuff I must do within the next few days. That way I am not overwhelmed looking at how much stuff I really must do. I have another notebook for things I have to do soon, but not immediately. Then there is another notebook for stuff I would like to do eventually – good ideas that are not a priority. I have two pending notebooks – one for things that are simply in some body else’s court and another for things related to money that not resolved (such as pending proposals). Finally I have BIG archive notebook for all the thing I have taken care of. I have to start a new one each quarter. It takes about two hours once a month to go through my notebooks and re-shift my priorities.

Similarly, my computer is set up to focus on priorities. One nice thing about Eudora, our email program, is that it allows you to “find” any word in any message. As a result, I don’t have many folders for Archived email. Instead I have one email archive per year. I have a TO DO mailbox and a HOT mailbox. It works!

One last thing, I try to combine work and play when possible. If I have a business trip to a city, I will try to stay over another day (on my own money and time) and go to a spa, shop, and experience the city. My vice president shares this same guilty pleasure, so we have fun in our little “after-event” adventures and come back refreshed.

These are the techniques that allow me to keep sane while dealing with lots of shifting priorities. By far, however, the greatest tool that has enhanced my productivity is my Treo (cell phone that gets email and more). While traveling, or even in the average workday, I can view and answer my email on the fly. I figure this saves me two hours each day!

Am I a workaholic? Maybe, but I also play hard, on those times I allow myself to play. I may not lead a balanced life daily, but I certainly live an interesting life. In the end, I think there is a balance there – just over the course of time, not daily. Is that good or bad? Who knows?

Women in Afghanistan

When I was growing up I didn't think much about Afghanistan, nor did I as a college student or an adult. In fact, I don't think I thought about it at all or even knew where it was.

For a year or so prior to 9/11, I got occasional emails about how horrible things were for women in Afghanistan, and then shortly after 9/11 the pace quickened. This is an excerpt from an email message that was sent to me on October 8, 2001.

Madhu, the government of Afghanistan, is waging a war upon women. Since the Taliban took power in 1996, women have had to wear burqua and have been beaten and stoned in public for not having the proper attire, even if this means simply not having the mesh covering in front of their eyes. One woman was beaten to death by an angry mob of fundamentalists for accidentally exposing her arm(!) while she was driving. Another was stoned to death for trying to leave the country with a man that was not a relative.

I remember this email. It was filled with similar anecdotes, and I have to say it got my attention. It was not the first email I had received about the plight of women in Afghanistan, but it was the one that really got to me. The others I had passed off as email foolishness... nothing in today's world could really be that horrible! WRONG!

I have been to Dachau and I wondered how the people in this lovely little German village could have possibly not noticed the German death camp in the middle of town. Now we live in a Global Village and I find myself wondering -- are we just like those people in Dachau when it comes to pretending not to see what is happening in Afghanistan?

Back in 2003, I met Fahmina Vorgetts, an Afghan woman now living in the United States. She is a woman on a mission. She owns a rug shop in Annapolis and uses the money from the sale of Afghan rugs to to help the women of Afghanistan. But more than money, Fahima gives of herself -- her time, her energy, her many talents. Listening to Fahima and seeing her photos from Afghanistan left me with no doubt in my mind that the lives of Afghan women are horrible by 21st century standards -- even today when the Taliban are no longer in power.

Last week, Fahima spoke to a group of 74 attendees at a FacetsWoman event we called "Women of Afghanistan: An Insider's View." Fahima, who works as an advisor to Women for Afghan Women, has taken on the challenge of helping Afghan women build a better future for themselves. She is teaming up with women (and caring men) to build schools, provide women with computers, dig wells, build good will and more. We saw dozens of photos of Afghan women in make-shift classrooms, using improvised chalk boards, but learning to read and write. Their country is in ruins, but their grit and determination to succeed shows on their faces.

We also saw the faces of Afghan orphans. Their eyes have a vacant look that penetrates your soul. It is hard to explain the depth of emptiness found in their eyes. Their ranks continue to swell, and one must wonder what their odds are for a good future, even by current Afghan standards.

There were photos of the charred faces of scarred women in burn units. These women have poured cooking oil all over themselves, then set fire to the oil. This low-budget and horribly painful form of suicide is seen by some Afghan women as the only way to escape the pain of the lives. Some Afghan women also kill their children the same way for the same reasons. The women and children who don't die end up in under-staffed burn units as low priority patients, lost in a living hell.

Our FacetsWomen were clearly moved by what they saw. Cash donations that evening, made directly to Women for Afghan Women, exceeded $1200. Many women brought clothing and school supplies to the event, so that Fahima can take the items in one of her frequent shipments to Afghanistan.

For many of our FacetsWoman attendees, the catered Afghan dinner that evening was their first taste of Afghan food. The tasty chicken kabobs, rice, salad and baklava harkened to a happier time in the life of Afghanistan. For those who are interested, the caterer for the evening was Maiwand Kabob, 5467 Harpers Farm Road, Columbia, MD 21044, Ph: 410-992-7754 or www.maiwandkabob.us.fm.

We hope that someday the women of Afghanistan will enjoy the same opportunities we women now have in the US. Sure, many doors are still closed to us and our salaries don't match those of our male counterparts, but we are free in so many important ways. As one FacetsWoman put it, "Tonight, before I came here, I was focusing on spending money to re-d0 my bathroom and get a new bathtub. Now I realize how fortunate I am to have a bathtub at all."

Old Age

It is amazing how your perspective on old age changes as you age. At one point in my life I honestly thought that anyone who was over 40 was getting on up there; someone at 50 was over the hill; and at 60 you were definitely old. I saw those in their 70s and 80s as really, really old.

They say that 60 is the new 40 and the 80 is the new 60. I choose to believe that. Why not? At 59 I really don’t feel old. Sure, some work days are long and babysitting the grandchildren leaves me a bit tired. But I don’t think I feel “old” the way my mother and my grandmother felt “old.” My mother died at 69 and her mother at 67. Here I am at 59 and going strong!

They had various aches and pains. I just have colds, flu and an occasional infection. My joints don’t ache and I still have all my teeth. My hair has turned grey and I like it OK that way. My face looks a bit saggy in the mirror, but it isn’t a mass of wrinkles. I am overweight, but then I have been for the last 50 years, so what else is new?

But from what I read, time is catching up with me. My bad habits (like enjoying food and not enjoying exercise) will soon take their toll. I imagine I am not too different from many of my babyboomer colleagues. We are in denial about encroaching “old age.” If we don’t give in to it, maybe it won’t happen! Yeah, right!

Life keeps going by, day after long-day. I keep working from 8 in the morning until 9 most nights. My body isn’t that active, but my mind certainly is working overtime. They say if you keep your mind agile you will keep your mind longer. If that is the truth, mine should be in good shape long after my body has given out.

Despite my protests against aging, I find myself reading the obituaries daily. Often I see someone I know – a friend or an acquaintance. Sometimes the deceased is younger than me. Most often the cause of death is cancer or heart disease. I take a deep breath and thank God I am still alive.

I wish I could look at each day as a gift; I wish I could do only those things that were good for me; and I wish I didn’t have to face the fact dying is inevitable. I saw an article in the paper the other day that said, “Test predicts odds of dying if you are over 50.” I don’t need a test – the odds are 100%. But in the meantime, let’s all us boomers enjoy life. There are no second chances!




I

Snow

The first time I saw snow I was about three, but I was sick and couldn’t go outside. I watched out the front window as my parents and neighbors slid down the snowy sidewalk on the coal shovel and garbage can lids. Now it is hard to imagine my parents ever doing such a thing. But they were young; why not?

The next time it snowed I was able to go outside and I had a snowsuit with stirrup pants. The little blue snowsuit had a furry hood and a furry collar. I thought I was pretty special when I put it on. My mother helped me build a snowman each snow!

When I was in elementary school, it didn’t snow very much. I do recall that it often snowed on Valentine’s Day. Those snows were not big or particularly troublesome, just white and beautiful!

My days in junior high and high school coincided with heavy snows. Birmingham simply was not prepared to deal with snow, so an inch or two of snow and everything closed down. One winter when I was a young teenager was particularly snowy. They were building a new four lane highway down Shades Mountain; when it snowed the road happened to be graded, but not paved. All of us spent magical snow days literally sliding down the mountain on sleds. Of course, we had to walk back up the mountain each time, so a few trips and we were done for. Hot chocolate shared around the kitchen table was a special memory.

Whenever snow started to fall, every teenager became glued to the radio. One by one, we listened while they closed the highways. We knew that once US 31 south of the city was closed, there would be no school. It was usually several days before the road graders could clear the highways – especially if we were hit with an ice storm. This gave me plenty of time to wear “Uncle Will’s boots.” Uncle Will was my grandfather’s fraternal twin brother. He died around the turn of the century, but somehow we had his boots. They fit me and I loved them!

I remember one New Year’s Day when we lost power for a couple of days. Our neighbors with electric stoves were hurting, so my mother invited everyone in for New Year’s breakfast. Since my father worked for the gas company, we had a gas stove and could cook. That breakfast still is a treasured memory.

I married Steve in 1969 and moved to Lebanon, Illinois. There they have REAL snow. I learned to drive in it. Driving on snowy roads was the only way I could get to my graduate classes at SIU. One time on April 1 it snowed three feet. Now that was enough to get them to close the roads!

When we moved to San Bernardino, CA, I learned that snow was more of an entertainment destination than an act of nature. I can recall one snow of about 1/4 “ ever falling in San Bernardino. But snow was easily found. All we had to do was to drive about 30 miles to Big Bear Lake, Lake Arrowhead or Forest Falls. We used to take our small son sledding for the afternoon, then drive home on bone dry roads to 60 degree winter temperatures. In a way, it was surreal!

We arrived in Maryland in 1976 – in time for some wonderful snows. Our son, now capable of sledding without Mom and Dad, loved gathering his friends (ages 5 – 14) in the back yard. We had the best hill in the community! When we fenced our backyard, we put in a large gate that allowed the kids to sled on through to the woods. The kids built snow houses, snowmen, had snowball fights and enjoyed hot chocolate around the kitchen table.

We missed many Maryland snows by going to Alabama for Christmas for decades. And in Alabama we experienced incredible ice storms.

Our son grew up; we sold the house with the hill in back and bought another house on the water. There is no hill for sledding; and there isn’t much driveway to shovel. We love watching the snow fall on the trees behind our house. The creek freezes over and becomes white with snow. The sailboats are the only dots of color. It is beautiful and peaceful! Our grandchildren are just a few miles away, but we don’t see them when it snows. They stay safely at home, go sledding, and enjoy hot chocolate around their kitchen table.

Living in Maryland for thirty years, I have learned to drive on the snow pretty well. I know to carry kitty-litter and a snow shovel, plus some metal gutter grates to drive out of the snow on. I have AAA in case of emergency and have a blanket in the trunk – just in case. I know how to clear my windows with a credit card almost as well as with a special ice scraper! I carry a walking stick with a point on the end for use on the ice. I have enough experience to know when it is time to leave the office in a snowstorm and still arrive home safely.

And with all of that experience with snow in all those places, there is one thing I have never experienced…a White Christmas!