I first visited New York City when I was about twelve. I looked forward to the trip with great anticipation. At last I would see all those places I had heard about. We drove in through the Lincoln Tunnel. We were low on gas; my father has been looking for gas station and now we were heading in Manhattan and he speculated that there would be no gas there either. But worse than that, he worried about running out in the tunnel. I sat in the backseat and ate soda crackers and drank a Coke. My mother and father shared worried looks.
We did make to into the city and to our hotel, without running out of gas. The hotel was the Commodore. Wow! It is am impressive city, and just a little bit scary for a 12 year old.
We had lunch at an “Automat.” We had never seen anything quite like it. The food wasn’t very good, and people we didn’t even know sat down at the table with us.
One meal, we ate a Jewish deli, but we didn’t know it was a Jewish deli. We got what we thought was ham, but it was very rare roast beef. They gave us seltzer water to drink. The only thing I ever remember anyone doing previously with seltzer water was when Clarabell (the clown on Howdy Dowdy) sprayed it. As Southerners, we thought the whole thing rather strange. We had Jewish friends, back in Birmingham, but they pretty much ate what we did, except for no pork or shrimp.
We went to the top of the Empire State Building. For some reason, I felt compelled to have hot chocolate there. I burned my tongue. While I have burned my tongue a few times in my life, this one was by far the most painful.
To get an overview of the City, we took a Circle Line Tour. I had a small camera with black and white film. I took pictures of absolutely everything I saw, most things being totally not worth film. I still have those photos.
We walked along 5th Avenue on a Sunday morning. My mother had dressed me up in one of the outfits she made for me-- a linen suit I believe. I had a matching purse and hat. My mother said I turned heads of 5th Avenue – this was always one of her favorite stories. I just remember being overdressed and self-conscious.
The next time I went to New York was 1964. I had gone to a conference with my parents in Atlantic City. I remember I had a really great nylon windbreaker with burgundy and navy flowers on it. I wonder what happened to it?
Anyway, we went to New York City for the day on a bus and we were going to the New York World’s Fair. By then I was 18 and this would be one of the last trips with my parents. But I was VERY excited to be going to the World’s Fair.
The bus went through the Bronx on one of the freeways. Traffic was all backed up, and I just remember looking out the bus window and seeing a man lying in the road; he looked dead. I can still picture the scene.
The World’s Fair lived up to its hype. I remember the Unisphere and all of its promise was a united world. I marveled at the house of the future and the cars of the future, and came away feeling that I had been given a glimpse into my adult life. For sure, it would be easier than my parents’ life.
The next time I went back to New York was December 1968. I was then 22, and going to meet my future husband’s family in Queens. My mother made me a beautiful green plaid wool suit with leather buttons, and I brought my best clothes. I wore my best black pumps and my camel hair coat.
His family was great, if not a bit overwhelming. He is the oldest of eight children, and I am an only child. “Nuff said. But they are wonderful people and welcomed me warmly – and still do.
Christmas was coming soon and we went on a shopping expedition. First, he needed some sort of electronic part in Jamaica. We rode the subway there, if we didn’t walk the whole way back to the shopping area at Queens Blvd., we came close. Somewhere along the way, we stopped at a record store where I bought at Glenn Yaborough album. We stopped a Macey’s and bought matching flannel nighgowns and hats for his two youngest sisters. (Steve’s Dad took photos of them in those nightgowns Christmas morning, and those photos are always source of amusement today). My feet have never been the same – so much for the black pumps.
Steve took me to meet both grandmothers, and I got to meet some aunts as well. Clearly, their culture and lives were very different from mine. The differences between suburban Alabama and Queens were hard to absorb.
But I guess we all passed our respective tests and we were married in summer of 1969.
We visited New York frequently over the years. It took a day and half to drive from Illinois and nearly a week from California. It was just about five hours away by car from Maryland.
In the decade of the ‘70s, we saw the city grow pretty dismal. Mostly we spent our time in Queens, but once each visit we would go to Manhattan. We would eat out and go to a play. I remember stepping over drunks, once being offered drugs while standing in a ticket line in Times Square, and being appalled by the filth and graffiti.
But the years passed by and the city started to change. The changes were gradual and they were subtle, but eh city did get cleaner; there was less graffiti. I began to appreciate the beauty of the city and its energy.
On September 11, I grieved for the city, as I knew life would never be the same. The bravado and brashness of the city with a big ego was gone. It was humbled and wounded, but it was still the Big Apple. There was still graffiti on the subway: there were still drunks on radiator grates. But there was still 5th Avenue and Central Park, and somehow both extremes of modern culture co-existing. But the brashness of gone!
As I write this, I sit on train going between Penn Station and BWI Airport. We are headed home. Actually, Steve and I have had a lovely weekend in the New York City. We had lunch with representatives of my printer from Hong Kong,. They are delightful people and it was so much fun to meet them in person. Steve suggested Fraunces Tavern so they could get some sense of US history. It was a great choice, as the food was well prepared and typically American.
We sat in the bar of the Waldorf Astoria and pretended we were rich enough to stay there without even thinking about the price.
We had another drink in the bar of our hotel, The Barclay. This is a very lovely, traditional hotel. Fortunately for us, we were able to trade my husband’s Priority Club points for a free night,
We had dinner at a small Italian restaurant near the theatre. No place special – just a small restaurant with good food and drink.
We went to a Broadway show, The Year of Magical Thinking, with Vaneesa Redgrave. It was an amazing performance!
By the time we got to the theatre my feet were hurting – not just a little bit, a lot! I thought the low-heeded black pumps would be comfortable. But candidly, they were no more comfortable than those black pumps for 39 years ago, except they do have lower heels.
New York is an exhausting place to visit. It is the relentless walking that wears me down. You would think after all these years I would know to wear comfortable shoes. Problem is -- I think I AM wearing comfortable shoes, but when put to the NYC test they turn lethal.
When I get home tonight, I am going to order some nice comfortable shoes --- forget if they are pretty or not. We’ll see. I’ll be back to New York in July.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Seasons
Each season in the South I grew up in was vastly different -- not only in terms of temperature, but in terms of how we lived, what we ate, and how we spent our time. When I reflect on those childhood days, I find myself longing to return. While I could go back to Birmingham, I can never go back and recapture those times.
In spring, the weather was restless and the vegetation amazing. Tornadoes were a frequent occurence in the Birmingham area, and we learned to just live with the possiblity that one day our lives would be totally disrupted by a tornado. But, for us, it never happened! The dogwoods and the azaleas provided a colorful backdrop for our lives in the spring. My grandmother planted flowers. We ate fresh strawberries from the curb market and slept with all the windows open at night. My grandmother wore housedresses, and we cleaned the house from top to bottom. The days were filled with the promise of new life.
Summer was heralded by the arrival of the lightening bugs. I used to catch them in a jar with holes punched in the top. That is what all the kids did without the vaguest regard for lightening bug life or death issues. Once at week we went to the curb market and bought corn, butterbeans, gren beans, black-eyed peas, yellow squash, okra, watermelon and cantalooupe. The farmers drove in all over the area and the food was fresh and luscioius. Summer afternoons were spent snapping beans and shelling peas, and they let me help. Sunday dinner was a feast with fried chicken, fried corn, butterbeans, and rice, along with peach pie. The grownups had iced tea with dinner. My mother punctuated each of her many accomplishments with consuming a Coca Cola and I got part of each one. The attic fan ran night and day and a gentle breeze swept through the house. My grandmother tended to her garden, and we would water it every night when no rain was forecast. Summer storms were powerful, with thunder and lightening and sometmes hail and high winds. The gutters running down our street (we were on a hill) became raging torrents. Then after each storm there was a period of extreme calm that resonated deep into your soul. Even the grownups seemed at peace.
Fall meant falling leaves, new school shoes, and new notebooks and pencils. I loved the fall! The colored leaves, the rich smell of woodsmoke, fresh apples, and the sense that I was a year older and wiser. My favorite fall memories are of cookouts with my parents and their friends. We used to go to the top of Shades Mountain and build a campfire in a small park overlooking the valley. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and the grownups told stories of before "the war." Fall meant Halloween and trick-or-treating. I always went as gypsy in a costume my mother had made me. It was a great costume by any objective skeleton, but there was a side of me who would have preferred to be a devil and wear a stiff (and tacky, according to my mother) store bought costume.
Winter was cold -- sometimes even below zero. We had a big metal therometer with the sole of shoe as a baskdrop for the the glass tube (my grandfather worked for a leather company). It was always a guess to see just HOW cold it was going to get! Birmingham is in the South, but it is colder than many places nearby because it is in the foothills of the Appalchians. Sometimes it would snow. Once I remember my parents sliding down the sidewalk in front of our house on garbage can lids and coal shovels. I was three and sick. I lined up my dolls in the living room window. When I did finally get to go out in the snow I had to wear a snowsuit. It was hard to get me in it, and harder to get me out of it. In winter we ate canned vegetables and fruits and potatoes and rice. On Saturday nights we had spaghetti and my parents invited their friends over. We had country fried steak, chicken pie, chili and potroast. We felt warm and cozy and stayed indoors.
Now I live in Maryland. After five years in southern California, I was ready to return to seasons in 1976. On the surface, one would think the seasons here are the same as in Alabama. The seasons here in Maryland seem less vibrant. We have azaleas and dogwoods in spring, bright colored leaves in the fall, snow in the winter, and storms in the summer, but it doesn't feel the same. Maybe it is because I don't actually interact with the seasons the way I did when I was a kid. The culprits are air conditioning, supermarkets with fresh produce year-around, no reason to be outside, and the changing perspective of old age. And now each season goes by so fast!!!
In spring, the weather was restless and the vegetation amazing. Tornadoes were a frequent occurence in the Birmingham area, and we learned to just live with the possiblity that one day our lives would be totally disrupted by a tornado. But, for us, it never happened! The dogwoods and the azaleas provided a colorful backdrop for our lives in the spring. My grandmother planted flowers. We ate fresh strawberries from the curb market and slept with all the windows open at night. My grandmother wore housedresses, and we cleaned the house from top to bottom. The days were filled with the promise of new life.
Summer was heralded by the arrival of the lightening bugs. I used to catch them in a jar with holes punched in the top. That is what all the kids did without the vaguest regard for lightening bug life or death issues. Once at week we went to the curb market and bought corn, butterbeans, gren beans, black-eyed peas, yellow squash, okra, watermelon and cantalooupe. The farmers drove in all over the area and the food was fresh and luscioius. Summer afternoons were spent snapping beans and shelling peas, and they let me help. Sunday dinner was a feast with fried chicken, fried corn, butterbeans, and rice, along with peach pie. The grownups had iced tea with dinner. My mother punctuated each of her many accomplishments with consuming a Coca Cola and I got part of each one. The attic fan ran night and day and a gentle breeze swept through the house. My grandmother tended to her garden, and we would water it every night when no rain was forecast. Summer storms were powerful, with thunder and lightening and sometmes hail and high winds. The gutters running down our street (we were on a hill) became raging torrents. Then after each storm there was a period of extreme calm that resonated deep into your soul. Even the grownups seemed at peace.
Fall meant falling leaves, new school shoes, and new notebooks and pencils. I loved the fall! The colored leaves, the rich smell of woodsmoke, fresh apples, and the sense that I was a year older and wiser. My favorite fall memories are of cookouts with my parents and their friends. We used to go to the top of Shades Mountain and build a campfire in a small park overlooking the valley. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and the grownups told stories of before "the war." Fall meant Halloween and trick-or-treating. I always went as gypsy in a costume my mother had made me. It was a great costume by any objective skeleton, but there was a side of me who would have preferred to be a devil and wear a stiff (and tacky, according to my mother) store bought costume.
Winter was cold -- sometimes even below zero. We had a big metal therometer with the sole of shoe as a baskdrop for the the glass tube (my grandfather worked for a leather company). It was always a guess to see just HOW cold it was going to get! Birmingham is in the South, but it is colder than many places nearby because it is in the foothills of the Appalchians. Sometimes it would snow. Once I remember my parents sliding down the sidewalk in front of our house on garbage can lids and coal shovels. I was three and sick. I lined up my dolls in the living room window. When I did finally get to go out in the snow I had to wear a snowsuit. It was hard to get me in it, and harder to get me out of it. In winter we ate canned vegetables and fruits and potatoes and rice. On Saturday nights we had spaghetti and my parents invited their friends over. We had country fried steak, chicken pie, chili and potroast. We felt warm and cozy and stayed indoors.
Now I live in Maryland. After five years in southern California, I was ready to return to seasons in 1976. On the surface, one would think the seasons here are the same as in Alabama. The seasons here in Maryland seem less vibrant. We have azaleas and dogwoods in spring, bright colored leaves in the fall, snow in the winter, and storms in the summer, but it doesn't feel the same. Maybe it is because I don't actually interact with the seasons the way I did when I was a kid. The culprits are air conditioning, supermarkets with fresh produce year-around, no reason to be outside, and the changing perspective of old age. And now each season goes by so fast!!!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Values
When I was a child, I recall the dinner table was the place where ethics were discussed. There was the man my father knew who cheated on his wife whenever he traveled on business. There was the vendor and neighbor who tried to bribe my father with amazing gifts. There was the neighbor woman who set fire to piles of leaves under my parents’ guests’ cars and who shouted profanity to their dinner guests when they went to move their cars. There were all women my parents knew who fell prey to a World War II era con man. My parents spoke with disdain about those unfortunate incidents and with good cause. I took it all in!
My own values got tested as a high school senior when the “friend” who sat behind me kept trying to hand me her chemistry final exam paper while the teacher was out of the room. She knew I had trouble with the questions, and she had a gift for chemistry calculations. I rejected her paper repeatedly and we never spoke after that. Graduation was the next day and we went our separate ways.
In college I watched other girls sneak in and out of the dorm, drive around town drinking beer, be promiscuous, cheat on tests, and break the drinking laws routinely. I never did any of that. I considered trying to buy beer one night, but ended up with a banana popsicle instead. I just don’t have it in me to break the rules (except for a bit of a lead foot on the accelerator which I don’t quite understand for an otherwise “goody-two-shoes.”)
Over the years I have encountered people without integrity here and there along the way. One woman stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from a nonprofit I helped found. We were devastated. A cleaning woman stole hundreds of dollars from my frail father. Someone walked into my office and took credit cards out of my wallet and once someone removed a credit card from my desk drawer. Just yesterday, I discovered thousands of dollars of fraudulent credit card charges on one of my business cards.
In business, there are always opportunities for kick-backs. Some are legally called commissions and disclosed. Others are under the table referral fees. This whole business is messy and very gray. But even so, I prefer the moral higher ground and only do what is legal and disclosed and what feels to me. If it doesn’t pass the “smell test” I won’t do it.
I guess we all have our own standards and mine are the result of a strict Southern upbringing. I can’t change it, nor do I want to! But the one thing I have learned is that my values are what they are, but I can't impose them on others -- nor do I want to. And that is the most important thing.
My own values got tested as a high school senior when the “friend” who sat behind me kept trying to hand me her chemistry final exam paper while the teacher was out of the room. She knew I had trouble with the questions, and she had a gift for chemistry calculations. I rejected her paper repeatedly and we never spoke after that. Graduation was the next day and we went our separate ways.
In college I watched other girls sneak in and out of the dorm, drive around town drinking beer, be promiscuous, cheat on tests, and break the drinking laws routinely. I never did any of that. I considered trying to buy beer one night, but ended up with a banana popsicle instead. I just don’t have it in me to break the rules (except for a bit of a lead foot on the accelerator which I don’t quite understand for an otherwise “goody-two-shoes.”)
Over the years I have encountered people without integrity here and there along the way. One woman stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from a nonprofit I helped found. We were devastated. A cleaning woman stole hundreds of dollars from my frail father. Someone walked into my office and took credit cards out of my wallet and once someone removed a credit card from my desk drawer. Just yesterday, I discovered thousands of dollars of fraudulent credit card charges on one of my business cards.
In business, there are always opportunities for kick-backs. Some are legally called commissions and disclosed. Others are under the table referral fees. This whole business is messy and very gray. But even so, I prefer the moral higher ground and only do what is legal and disclosed and what feels to me. If it doesn’t pass the “smell test” I won’t do it.
I guess we all have our own standards and mine are the result of a strict Southern upbringing. I can’t change it, nor do I want to! But the one thing I have learned is that my values are what they are, but I can't impose them on others -- nor do I want to. And that is the most important thing.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Memory Matters
I think it is great that just as my own personal memory is starting to fade, I was able to buy a new external hard drive with 250 GB of memory. I am sure everything in my brain would probably fit on that hard drive. Maybe I should start backing up before the real thing goes altogether. Interesting thought…
If I were to back-up my personal brain, what would I want to include? I would start with where I left my car keys and the TV remote, as well as my shopping list. But I could record all of that easily enough on my cell phone. Of course, sometimes I misplace my cell phone. More often than not it is lost in my purse, along with the car keys and the shopping list. I don’t, however, put the TV remote in my purse – except when I mistake it for the cell phone.
But wait a minute--- what about the rest of my past life? The childhood memories, my parents, my grandparents, teenage angst, college and grad school, the early years of marriage, our son, his family, my professional life. Yeah… I guess really need to keep all of that stuff as well. Without it, what meaning would my life have?
Of course, I could never “back-up” all of these memories successfully unless I wrote about them and then added video clips, audio clips, and a musical soundtrack. Sounds like a movie, doesn’t it? Or maybe a PBS special? But then what about smell? And who would care but me, making it all financially unrealistic.
But as I think about my life, I start to realize that it is all about interaction and synergy, not to mention context. Everything I do, I do within the framework of my life. Memory is not just as simple as pulling up a file on the computer. On the contrary, depending on the circumstances, I call up my memories in different ways. Sometimes I recall one thing, and others, another – different tidbits for different circumstances. So when I make a decision, I rely on my memory– it is just not the memory itself, but the conclusions I have drawn based on what happened and how I remember it. Sure, that makes sense, right?
Perhaps this is what truly distinguishes us from the machine we create. Computers, at least not the ones real people like us have, are not programmed for this kind of analysis. They won’t go back for us and look for files related to my current project and make a recommendation. Maybe the next version of MS Office will include something called Concluder. Well, I take that back, Amazon.com is coming close when it recommends books for me to order. Problem is – another program kicks in from the depths of my brain and that program says – you have already bought one book about that, do you really want another? It is not often that I totally immerse myself in a subject, but maybe I am odd. Imagine, however, what kind of program Amazon would need to figure out just what is going to tickle my fancy next!
I bought a new little hand-held video camera. The last video camera we bought was VHS recorder that traveled in a small suitcase and weighed down my shoulder when I used it to record. Then there was the little Super 8 camera from the early ‘70s.
Now I am the proud owner of this new little video camera gizmo. It shoots great quality video that it will record either on a small tape or a card. (the same kind of card used by my phone and my still camera—that has to be a good thing). Although I have a masters degree in instructional technology, I have to admit I am intimidated by the digital world. So I carefully read the directions and did exactly what they told me to do. Truth to tell, this little video camera works a lot like the VHS monster camera from the ‘80s and the Super 8 camera from the ‘70s. Once I understood that simple truth, I could follow all of the instructions. Basically, you have to take the lens cap off (that never seems to change), put the tape in, hit record and a red button comes on. There really are similarities.
Within the last week I purchased also purchased an exercycle. It is a nice one, like the ones they have at the gym (where I don’t go anymore because I don’t have time – i.e. too lazy). [This one came cheap through a friend who knew somebody with 600 of them in New Jersey in a warehouse ready of fast liquidation.] I am determined not to make it into a clothes rack –like I did with the treadmill (now banished to another room because it is too big, too ugly and too noisy, and too broken to live). This particular excercyle is a lot smarter than the one I got rid of last fall. That one I had for 30+ years and put a mere 25 miles on its odometer. Why? Because the thing was an instrument of torture. I tried three different seats and a sheepskin seatcover. Nothing helped! Finally it got relegated to the basement and last fall to Salvation Army. Of course, it was a gift from my husband, so he was not thrilled when I produced yet another exercycle for him to assemble a mere 30+ years later. I bring this exercycle up in the context of memory, because this is a “smart” exercycle. The last one, the cheapest Montgomery Ward had at the time, was not only uncomfortable, it was dumb. It only knew how far I had gone (not far) and how fast I was going (not very). This new one, on the other hand, has all sorts of sophisticated electronics. It has exercise programs built into it and it monitors my heartbeat (fast).. Of course, all of this has to be deciphered and an instruction book translated from some other language. What it comes down to is the same thing as with camera – you push buttons up and down and left and right and different things happen, depending on the phase of moon. Of, as long as I understand that I am fine.
I remember a time when things had a dial or two and maybe an on-off button. Today everything has buttons that change meaning, digital displays that only the 22 year olds who designed them have vision good enough to read, and more capacity than I want or need – or for that matter will ever figure out how to use.
But this 61 year-old is in there trying to take advantage of the digital world. I have a Treo, a digital camera, VOIP, a CD boom box, a digital iron, a DVD player, laptop and desktop computers, a card scanner, an all-in-one, a laser printer and now a digital exercycle and a video camera. I may not use them to capacity, but I use them! The problem really is with my personal internal memory. I just can’t remember how to push all of those tiny buttons in the right sequence to reveal all the possibilities, and once I do push them I can’t tell read the print. Oh well…
If I were to back-up my personal brain, what would I want to include? I would start with where I left my car keys and the TV remote, as well as my shopping list. But I could record all of that easily enough on my cell phone. Of course, sometimes I misplace my cell phone. More often than not it is lost in my purse, along with the car keys and the shopping list. I don’t, however, put the TV remote in my purse – except when I mistake it for the cell phone.
But wait a minute--- what about the rest of my past life? The childhood memories, my parents, my grandparents, teenage angst, college and grad school, the early years of marriage, our son, his family, my professional life. Yeah… I guess really need to keep all of that stuff as well. Without it, what meaning would my life have?
Of course, I could never “back-up” all of these memories successfully unless I wrote about them and then added video clips, audio clips, and a musical soundtrack. Sounds like a movie, doesn’t it? Or maybe a PBS special? But then what about smell? And who would care but me, making it all financially unrealistic.
But as I think about my life, I start to realize that it is all about interaction and synergy, not to mention context. Everything I do, I do within the framework of my life. Memory is not just as simple as pulling up a file on the computer. On the contrary, depending on the circumstances, I call up my memories in different ways. Sometimes I recall one thing, and others, another – different tidbits for different circumstances. So when I make a decision, I rely on my memory– it is just not the memory itself, but the conclusions I have drawn based on what happened and how I remember it. Sure, that makes sense, right?
Perhaps this is what truly distinguishes us from the machine we create. Computers, at least not the ones real people like us have, are not programmed for this kind of analysis. They won’t go back for us and look for files related to my current project and make a recommendation. Maybe the next version of MS Office will include something called Concluder. Well, I take that back, Amazon.com is coming close when it recommends books for me to order. Problem is – another program kicks in from the depths of my brain and that program says – you have already bought one book about that, do you really want another? It is not often that I totally immerse myself in a subject, but maybe I am odd. Imagine, however, what kind of program Amazon would need to figure out just what is going to tickle my fancy next!
I bought a new little hand-held video camera. The last video camera we bought was VHS recorder that traveled in a small suitcase and weighed down my shoulder when I used it to record. Then there was the little Super 8 camera from the early ‘70s.
Now I am the proud owner of this new little video camera gizmo. It shoots great quality video that it will record either on a small tape or a card. (the same kind of card used by my phone and my still camera—that has to be a good thing). Although I have a masters degree in instructional technology, I have to admit I am intimidated by the digital world. So I carefully read the directions and did exactly what they told me to do. Truth to tell, this little video camera works a lot like the VHS monster camera from the ‘80s and the Super 8 camera from the ‘70s. Once I understood that simple truth, I could follow all of the instructions. Basically, you have to take the lens cap off (that never seems to change), put the tape in, hit record and a red button comes on. There really are similarities.
Within the last week I purchased also purchased an exercycle. It is a nice one, like the ones they have at the gym (where I don’t go anymore because I don’t have time – i.e. too lazy). [This one came cheap through a friend who knew somebody with 600 of them in New Jersey in a warehouse ready of fast liquidation.] I am determined not to make it into a clothes rack –like I did with the treadmill (now banished to another room because it is too big, too ugly and too noisy, and too broken to live). This particular excercyle is a lot smarter than the one I got rid of last fall. That one I had for 30+ years and put a mere 25 miles on its odometer. Why? Because the thing was an instrument of torture. I tried three different seats and a sheepskin seatcover. Nothing helped! Finally it got relegated to the basement and last fall to Salvation Army. Of course, it was a gift from my husband, so he was not thrilled when I produced yet another exercycle for him to assemble a mere 30+ years later. I bring this exercycle up in the context of memory, because this is a “smart” exercycle. The last one, the cheapest Montgomery Ward had at the time, was not only uncomfortable, it was dumb. It only knew how far I had gone (not far) and how fast I was going (not very). This new one, on the other hand, has all sorts of sophisticated electronics. It has exercise programs built into it and it monitors my heartbeat (fast).. Of course, all of this has to be deciphered and an instruction book translated from some other language. What it comes down to is the same thing as with camera – you push buttons up and down and left and right and different things happen, depending on the phase of moon. Of, as long as I understand that I am fine.
I remember a time when things had a dial or two and maybe an on-off button. Today everything has buttons that change meaning, digital displays that only the 22 year olds who designed them have vision good enough to read, and more capacity than I want or need – or for that matter will ever figure out how to use.
But this 61 year-old is in there trying to take advantage of the digital world. I have a Treo, a digital camera, VOIP, a CD boom box, a digital iron, a DVD player, laptop and desktop computers, a card scanner, an all-in-one, a laser printer and now a digital exercycle and a video camera. I may not use them to capacity, but I use them! The problem really is with my personal internal memory. I just can’t remember how to push all of those tiny buttons in the right sequence to reveal all the possibilities, and once I do push them I can’t tell read the print. Oh well…
Monday, April 02, 2007
Bedspreads
For the last twenty years or so I have been having a bedspread issue. You see, I am accustomed to bedspreads that are big enough to fold over the bed pillows. That is the way bedspreads are supposed to be.
The newer bedspreads aren’t really bedspreads at all; they come in fancy sets for ridiculous prices and include pillow shams. I don’t understand the whole pillow sham thing. Does anyone really expect me to either sleep with my head on some fancy decorative fabric that matches the bedspread (or short imitation of a bedspread)? Or perhaps I am supposed to remove the pillow from the sham every night and then tuck it back into it the next morning. Yeah right! And imagine training a husband to do that!
For our king-sized bed I use a quilt-like comforter that is really very nice. It is white, light and feels good in any temperature. But, nice as it is, it won’t stretch over the pillows. I am one of those people who actually uses normal pillow cases on the pillows. They are made of the same fabric as the sheets. In frustration, I have given up and simply throw the pillows on the bed in their regular pillow cases. Then I have two throw pillows that get thrown into the crack between the two pillows. Does it look great? Absolutely not! On the other hand, it is simple enough. Of course, the first thing my husband does every night is throw the pillows on the floor with a sigh.
I have some really nice quilts that sometimes I put on the guest beds, but for regular every day guests (like my son and his wife and the grandkids) I opt for a chenille bedspreads. I have managed to hang onto a few of them in double and twin sizes. True they are a bit old and pulled here and there, but they feel just great on a summer night and fold over to cover the pillows the way they are supposed to.
I have been bothered by this situation for some time. I would love some new bedspreads – you know real bedspreads like the kind I grew up with. I tried to track down the manufacturer of some of my old bedspreads to no avail. Meanwhile, every morning when I make the king size bed I curse the fact that I just can’t handle the pillow sham thing.
Whenever I see a bed with pillow shams, I wonder --- do the people sleep on them or spend time every morning and every night stuffing and unstuffing the things? Maybe I am missing something, but for me life to too short to spend it trying to stuff or unstuff a pillow from something marginally big enough to hold it.
Hotels are a different thing altogether. They actually seem to find bedspreads that are long enough to cover the pillows. Could it be they are able to do that through mass purchasing? I guess if I came in with an order for 50,000 bedspreads I could get them any size I wanted.
But hotels these days also seem to have a fascination with pillows. Mercifully, most do manage to have regular bed pillows with regular pillow cases buried down under all the throw pillows and pillows in shams.
I do recall one Las Vegas hotel with only one regular pillow stuffed on the top shelf of the closet. Strange – but then Vegas IS strange. That hotel had some rawhide pillows too and rawhide fringe hanging from the bed. This room was part of a suite on the concierge floor. As we walked the door I was getting excited. They would put me in it for only one night because it was VERY special and they had no other rooms. The room was odd in many ways, including lights that would only dim - -not turn off and a phone outlet that sent my laptop into fits or error messages about high voltage. The next morning I was at the desk begging for normal room! I wish I could have seen the “rest of the suite.”
A few weeks ago we stayed at a rather nice hotel on Hilton Head. I have seen hotels with lots of pillows, especially in the last year, but this one took the prize. I didn’t count them, but I would estimate at least baker’s dozen on each bed. We threw them in a large pile in the corner of the room. I feel sorry for the poor maids who have to rearrange all these silly pillows daily.
At any rate, my problems are solved. I was thumbing through my copy of the Vermont Company Store catalog and they have bedspreads – real bedspreads that fold over to cover the pillows. They even have the chenille kind I grew up with, and also some lightweight summer bedspreads that don’t need ironing (not that I would ever want to iron a bedspread). I am getting my order together now!
The newer bedspreads aren’t really bedspreads at all; they come in fancy sets for ridiculous prices and include pillow shams. I don’t understand the whole pillow sham thing. Does anyone really expect me to either sleep with my head on some fancy decorative fabric that matches the bedspread (or short imitation of a bedspread)? Or perhaps I am supposed to remove the pillow from the sham every night and then tuck it back into it the next morning. Yeah right! And imagine training a husband to do that!
For our king-sized bed I use a quilt-like comforter that is really very nice. It is white, light and feels good in any temperature. But, nice as it is, it won’t stretch over the pillows. I am one of those people who actually uses normal pillow cases on the pillows. They are made of the same fabric as the sheets. In frustration, I have given up and simply throw the pillows on the bed in their regular pillow cases. Then I have two throw pillows that get thrown into the crack between the two pillows. Does it look great? Absolutely not! On the other hand, it is simple enough. Of course, the first thing my husband does every night is throw the pillows on the floor with a sigh.
I have some really nice quilts that sometimes I put on the guest beds, but for regular every day guests (like my son and his wife and the grandkids) I opt for a chenille bedspreads. I have managed to hang onto a few of them in double and twin sizes. True they are a bit old and pulled here and there, but they feel just great on a summer night and fold over to cover the pillows the way they are supposed to.
I have been bothered by this situation for some time. I would love some new bedspreads – you know real bedspreads like the kind I grew up with. I tried to track down the manufacturer of some of my old bedspreads to no avail. Meanwhile, every morning when I make the king size bed I curse the fact that I just can’t handle the pillow sham thing.
Whenever I see a bed with pillow shams, I wonder --- do the people sleep on them or spend time every morning and every night stuffing and unstuffing the things? Maybe I am missing something, but for me life to too short to spend it trying to stuff or unstuff a pillow from something marginally big enough to hold it.
Hotels are a different thing altogether. They actually seem to find bedspreads that are long enough to cover the pillows. Could it be they are able to do that through mass purchasing? I guess if I came in with an order for 50,000 bedspreads I could get them any size I wanted.
But hotels these days also seem to have a fascination with pillows. Mercifully, most do manage to have regular bed pillows with regular pillow cases buried down under all the throw pillows and pillows in shams.
I do recall one Las Vegas hotel with only one regular pillow stuffed on the top shelf of the closet. Strange – but then Vegas IS strange. That hotel had some rawhide pillows too and rawhide fringe hanging from the bed. This room was part of a suite on the concierge floor. As we walked the door I was getting excited. They would put me in it for only one night because it was VERY special and they had no other rooms. The room was odd in many ways, including lights that would only dim - -not turn off and a phone outlet that sent my laptop into fits or error messages about high voltage. The next morning I was at the desk begging for normal room! I wish I could have seen the “rest of the suite.”
A few weeks ago we stayed at a rather nice hotel on Hilton Head. I have seen hotels with lots of pillows, especially in the last year, but this one took the prize. I didn’t count them, but I would estimate at least baker’s dozen on each bed. We threw them in a large pile in the corner of the room. I feel sorry for the poor maids who have to rearrange all these silly pillows daily.
At any rate, my problems are solved. I was thumbing through my copy of the Vermont Company Store catalog and they have bedspreads – real bedspreads that fold over to cover the pillows. They even have the chenille kind I grew up with, and also some lightweight summer bedspreads that don’t need ironing (not that I would ever want to iron a bedspread). I am getting my order together now!
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Vacations
Vacations
Lately there has been a lot of buzz about whether vacations are best spent unplugged from work or connected. Of course, it would not have occurred to me 40 years ago when I entered the work force that one could really work while on vacation. It simply wasn’t possible, so we didn’t.
But somehow it has come to be that I actually don’t want to take a vacation without taking my work along. Somehow that seems like a contradiction -- a vacation with work. But I am not by myself. More and more people are taking recreational travel with cell phones and laptops.
There are those who, probably with some wisdom, say that it isn’t really a vacation unless you can totally disconnect and that you really do need a week or even more to truly feel refreshed. That makes sense in principle, but…
What good is it to try to relax for a couple of weeks while simultaneously worrying about what opportunities you are missing out on? This isn’t about trusting or not trusting staff. I’d trust my life with my staff members, but they can’t do what they can’t access or don’t know about and they can’t read my mind (though we often work on – “how Pat thinks.”)
As they say on TV, “life comes at you fast.” Absolutely! Every day of my life I must filter through tons of information from all sorts of places – much of it email. A jewel of an opportunity is likely to be buried in my Spam box with unlikely bedfellows. And if it is lost, it is lost. Ditto for phone calls.
Our offices are now virtual, so there is not a lot of difference between my home office and a hotel room in Chicago or New Orleans or Hilton Head – provided there is good phone reception and a working Internet connection.
And there’s the rub --- not every hotel has good phone reception and some don’t even have an Internet connection. And the more remote the location, the more likely this is going to be case.
The last two trips I have taken I have had to have my room moved due to either bad phone reception or bad WIFI. These aren’t options. They are necessities.
But I think it is important when traveling on vacation, or even when traveling on business, to keep the work load in perspective. My rule is simple – when I am on vacation, I am in reactive mode. I respond to other people, but I don’t start anything unless it is a rainy day and I have nothing better to do. Realistically, this means that much of what I need to do daily can be done on my Treo cell phone, and that includes email. For a short trip, I sometimes only take my Treo. With just the laptop and no Treo, I can count on about an hour each morning and about an hour each evening being spent on email. With the Treo, I can get by with only about half hour spent each evening on the laptop because I can handle all the email traffic in bits and pieces here and there.
Is going on wired vacation as much fun as going on an wired vacation? Probably not, but there is more peace of mind knowing what really IS going on rather than imagining what COULD BE going on. And the good part is that when you get back you don’t have to spend a week digging out and making explaining you were away.
I honestly prefer shorter trips to long ones. I love a Thursday through Sunday or Monday vacation and the recovery period when home is brief if I have kept up while away. I have learned that I can enjoy 8 or 10 little mini-vacations (sometimes just an overnight in a close-by city with my husband) in a year and really never miss a beat. At my age I don’t think that is too bad!
Lately there has been a lot of buzz about whether vacations are best spent unplugged from work or connected. Of course, it would not have occurred to me 40 years ago when I entered the work force that one could really work while on vacation. It simply wasn’t possible, so we didn’t.
But somehow it has come to be that I actually don’t want to take a vacation without taking my work along. Somehow that seems like a contradiction -- a vacation with work. But I am not by myself. More and more people are taking recreational travel with cell phones and laptops.
There are those who, probably with some wisdom, say that it isn’t really a vacation unless you can totally disconnect and that you really do need a week or even more to truly feel refreshed. That makes sense in principle, but…
What good is it to try to relax for a couple of weeks while simultaneously worrying about what opportunities you are missing out on? This isn’t about trusting or not trusting staff. I’d trust my life with my staff members, but they can’t do what they can’t access or don’t know about and they can’t read my mind (though we often work on – “how Pat thinks.”)
As they say on TV, “life comes at you fast.” Absolutely! Every day of my life I must filter through tons of information from all sorts of places – much of it email. A jewel of an opportunity is likely to be buried in my Spam box with unlikely bedfellows. And if it is lost, it is lost. Ditto for phone calls.
Our offices are now virtual, so there is not a lot of difference between my home office and a hotel room in Chicago or New Orleans or Hilton Head – provided there is good phone reception and a working Internet connection.
And there’s the rub --- not every hotel has good phone reception and some don’t even have an Internet connection. And the more remote the location, the more likely this is going to be case.
The last two trips I have taken I have had to have my room moved due to either bad phone reception or bad WIFI. These aren’t options. They are necessities.
But I think it is important when traveling on vacation, or even when traveling on business, to keep the work load in perspective. My rule is simple – when I am on vacation, I am in reactive mode. I respond to other people, but I don’t start anything unless it is a rainy day and I have nothing better to do. Realistically, this means that much of what I need to do daily can be done on my Treo cell phone, and that includes email. For a short trip, I sometimes only take my Treo. With just the laptop and no Treo, I can count on about an hour each morning and about an hour each evening being spent on email. With the Treo, I can get by with only about half hour spent each evening on the laptop because I can handle all the email traffic in bits and pieces here and there.
Is going on wired vacation as much fun as going on an wired vacation? Probably not, but there is more peace of mind knowing what really IS going on rather than imagining what COULD BE going on. And the good part is that when you get back you don’t have to spend a week digging out and making explaining you were away.
I honestly prefer shorter trips to long ones. I love a Thursday through Sunday or Monday vacation and the recovery period when home is brief if I have kept up while away. I have learned that I can enjoy 8 or 10 little mini-vacations (sometimes just an overnight in a close-by city with my husband) in a year and really never miss a beat. At my age I don’t think that is too bad!
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Aging
I don’t like to think about dying, but I guess at age 60 it is something worth contemplating. First we have aging, then dying. For most of our lives, we tend to think of ourselves as immortal.
I realize my body will simply cease to be one day. Maybe it will be car accident, or maybe cancer. Most likely it will be a heart attack. I guess a massive heart attack would be my preference. It is quick and in my genes to go that way! I would rather go quickly that to fight a long-drawn out battle with cancer. But, no matter how I go, I know the world will go right on spinning around without me. Those who care for me will grieve, but they will get over it and get on with their lives.
But in the meanwhile, I am dealing with aging. Like most boomers, I really don’t feel all that old. I certainly don’t feel like I am as old as my grandmother or even my own mother at my age. In fact, I don’t even feel like I am as old as some of my friends. Part of it I think is in the head. I look in the mirror and I don’t see a 60 year-old.
What I do see is the same person I have been seeing all these years. My face is a bit puffier and hair is gray (I prefer to think of it as naturally frosted), but who cares. Basically, I am the same teenage girl, minus the pimples and teased hair. I have never been one to spend a lot of time in the sun, so my skin is in decent shape and I don’t have a lot of wrinkles.
Despite the youthful way I feel, others can tell I am 60. Why else would they offer to help me to my car with two meager bags of groceries? Why else would they offer me the senior discount? Hmmmn… I guess it IS noticeable.
I realize my body will simply cease to be one day. Maybe it will be car accident, or maybe cancer. Most likely it will be a heart attack. I guess a massive heart attack would be my preference. It is quick and in my genes to go that way! I would rather go quickly that to fight a long-drawn out battle with cancer. But, no matter how I go, I know the world will go right on spinning around without me. Those who care for me will grieve, but they will get over it and get on with their lives.
But in the meanwhile, I am dealing with aging. Like most boomers, I really don’t feel all that old. I certainly don’t feel like I am as old as my grandmother or even my own mother at my age. In fact, I don’t even feel like I am as old as some of my friends. Part of it I think is in the head. I look in the mirror and I don’t see a 60 year-old.
What I do see is the same person I have been seeing all these years. My face is a bit puffier and hair is gray (I prefer to think of it as naturally frosted), but who cares. Basically, I am the same teenage girl, minus the pimples and teased hair. I have never been one to spend a lot of time in the sun, so my skin is in decent shape and I don’t have a lot of wrinkles.
Despite the youthful way I feel, others can tell I am 60. Why else would they offer to help me to my car with two meager bags of groceries? Why else would they offer me the senior discount? Hmmmn… I guess it IS noticeable.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Winter Power Failure
The power didn’t seem to go out very often when I was a child in Birmingham, Alabama. We had candles on hand for emergencies, but I honestly can’t recall more than two or three times when we used them for light, and that was in the summertime. I can’t recall a single winter power failure when I was a child.
But when I was a teenager, we moved to the suburbs. About that time, Birmingham started experiencing ice storms. The roads would close, the power would go out and the schools would close. We used the free days to go sledding, drink hot chocolate and tromp to the shopping center.
One power failure, I remember vividly. It was a New Year’s Day. Our next door neighbors were having a party, but they had no electricity and were unable to cook. We, of course (because my dad worked for the gas company) had the ability to cook (both on the stove and on the grill). We cooked everything and took it next door. All the neighbors, most of them cold and hungry, came to the party. I don’t think I have ever felt closer to neighbors in my life. We were all there, young and old, trapped in our own little world, and enjoying each others’ company, with a raging fire in the fireplace and hot food and drink.
I left for college and left the ice storms behind with my parents in Birmingham. The storms continued and they finally bought a generator. I was never there when they used it. Summer power failures were tolerable, but the winter ones were different and as they aged I think they reached the point where they couldn’t stand the cold nights. But I think what pushed them over the edge was the time that they used the burners on their new gas stove with the built in microwave oven above it to keep warm. The heat (because there was no exhaust fan) melted all the controls on the microwave oven.
But I went on with my life many miles away in places where ice storms didn’t happen or were rare. My parents had their generator and gas for the stove and coped the best they could.
We were in Birmingham with my parents for our last Christmas together. We all knew it would be our last Christmas and it was so strange. My mother was dying with lung cancer and had days left. The weather was strangely warm. An azalea bloomed by the back steps, despite the season. My mother loved azaleas in bloom. I sometimes think this one bloomed just for her.
Days after I had returned to Maryland from this dismal holiday visit, I got the call to come home. My mother was fading away quickly and I needed to get there. The weather was terrible in Maryland, but it was worse in Birmingham. I arrived in Birmingham in the midst of an ice storm. Power was out all over town, including my parents’ house. The roads had just been cleared and I was able to get to the hospital. Within two hours, another ice storm hit and the roads were once again impassable.
My mother clung to life and my father and I stayed with her at the hospital, taking turns sleeping on a recliner in her room.
Two days passed by; the roads were clear. We needed some things from the house, and my father asked me to go there and get them. We knew there was still no power, but it didn’t matter; I was only going to be there for few minutes.
The house was horribly cold. Even in my coat and gloves I shivered my way through the house picking up needed items. But what really got to me was that I felt like I was walking through a grave. Everything I touched was cold. Nothing seemed the same. And I knew nothing would ever be the same again. It hurt at a very deep level. I saw my mother’s things sitting there, knowing she would never see them again. And she never did and life was never the same. The power came back on before the funeral, but the life never came back to the house.
In Maryland, from time to time, we have lost power over the years in the winter, but usually not for very long. We have learned to live with it and expect it. I have a cupboard with kerosene lanterns, flashlights, and radios. There is a stash of firewood always on hand. And for most short failures, this is enough. In retrospect we should have kept my father’s generator, but we gave it to his brother.
But this power failure was different. Steve was away. The power went out early on Wednesday morning. It was no wonder, as all the trees and power lines were coated with ice, just like the roads.
That first day wasn’t so bad. I stayed busy chopping ice on the driveway and shoveling it away. I could read my paper by my new fluorescent lantern. I was able to check my email on my Treo. The roads were cleared and I could keep my business obligations.
The local coffee shop offered a warm refuge in the afternooon and a place to plug in my laptop and use the WIFI. I was one of about 30 people who set up shop there that afternoon. We were each alone with our laptops, dressed ever-so-casually, working diligently on whatever couldn’t be put aside, while sipping coffee to pay moral rent on our seats.
Steve got home safely and finished off the driveway and sidewalk. I brought chili home from the coffee shop and heated it up for dinner on the gas stove. We ate by the firelight and went to bed early, under layers of blankets and comforters. And we awoke to a VERY cold house. Steve dressed and left for work.
I dressed quickly and realized that I could not stay at the house and accomplish anything. It was just too cold. The thermometer in the bedroom read 42 degrees. By 8 a.m. I was back at the coffee shop with my laptop. I quickly realized that the cold, dark house brought back all those painful memories of my mother’s death. The pain of those memories was almost as bitter as the penetrating cold.
Throughout the day on Thursday, I checked to see if we had power at the house. The test was easy --- if I got a tone when dialing the fax machine I would know the power was back. But I got no tone – the phone just rang and rang. So I sat at the coffee shop working – breakfast, lunch and mid-afternoon snack and water along the way. I was once again trying to pay rent on my seat.
Various friends emailed me offering us a guest room and a shower. I thanked all. If it really got bad we could go to our son and his family’s house nearby. But I nurtured the firm belief that our power would be back before sunset and all would be well.
Steve called from the house about the time the coffee shop was closing (6 p.m.) and told me that the power was still out. He had called the Navy Lodge at the local Naval Station (near the Academy) and had us on the standby list for a room. It would be less disruptive for all if we went there than if we stayed with family or friends.
I came home and found that Steve had a fire raging in the fireplace and the lanterns lit. It didn’t matter. The house was still bone-chilling cold. The fire made little difference. Everything I touched was frigid. The horrible feeling associated with my mother’s death came back. I had to get out of the house. There was no way I could spend the night there – the physical and mental discomfort was too much!
We did succeed in getting the last room at the Navy Lodge. It was a nice room, just like a motel, and we had lights, heat and hot water. But I was determined that we should not just sit in the motel room and work. Instead we went to a movie and then out to dinner afterwards. During dinner I checked the power at the house and found it was on. We stayed the night anyway, and while we could have gone home and cooked breakfast, we chose to go to a downtown Annapolis favorite, Chick ‘n Ruth’s deli, and get a hot breakfast. Our evacuation actually turned into a bit of a mini-vacation.
This crisis is over now. The house is warm again and I am back on schedule with my work. But I am changed. I don’t want this to happen again. We aren’t as young as we used to be. They have a new kind of whole-house generator that you put in place permanently and hook up to the propane tank. I think that is what I want for my birthday this year!
But when I was a teenager, we moved to the suburbs. About that time, Birmingham started experiencing ice storms. The roads would close, the power would go out and the schools would close. We used the free days to go sledding, drink hot chocolate and tromp to the shopping center.
One power failure, I remember vividly. It was a New Year’s Day. Our next door neighbors were having a party, but they had no electricity and were unable to cook. We, of course (because my dad worked for the gas company) had the ability to cook (both on the stove and on the grill). We cooked everything and took it next door. All the neighbors, most of them cold and hungry, came to the party. I don’t think I have ever felt closer to neighbors in my life. We were all there, young and old, trapped in our own little world, and enjoying each others’ company, with a raging fire in the fireplace and hot food and drink.
I left for college and left the ice storms behind with my parents in Birmingham. The storms continued and they finally bought a generator. I was never there when they used it. Summer power failures were tolerable, but the winter ones were different and as they aged I think they reached the point where they couldn’t stand the cold nights. But I think what pushed them over the edge was the time that they used the burners on their new gas stove with the built in microwave oven above it to keep warm. The heat (because there was no exhaust fan) melted all the controls on the microwave oven.
But I went on with my life many miles away in places where ice storms didn’t happen or were rare. My parents had their generator and gas for the stove and coped the best they could.
We were in Birmingham with my parents for our last Christmas together. We all knew it would be our last Christmas and it was so strange. My mother was dying with lung cancer and had days left. The weather was strangely warm. An azalea bloomed by the back steps, despite the season. My mother loved azaleas in bloom. I sometimes think this one bloomed just for her.
Days after I had returned to Maryland from this dismal holiday visit, I got the call to come home. My mother was fading away quickly and I needed to get there. The weather was terrible in Maryland, but it was worse in Birmingham. I arrived in Birmingham in the midst of an ice storm. Power was out all over town, including my parents’ house. The roads had just been cleared and I was able to get to the hospital. Within two hours, another ice storm hit and the roads were once again impassable.
My mother clung to life and my father and I stayed with her at the hospital, taking turns sleeping on a recliner in her room.
Two days passed by; the roads were clear. We needed some things from the house, and my father asked me to go there and get them. We knew there was still no power, but it didn’t matter; I was only going to be there for few minutes.
The house was horribly cold. Even in my coat and gloves I shivered my way through the house picking up needed items. But what really got to me was that I felt like I was walking through a grave. Everything I touched was cold. Nothing seemed the same. And I knew nothing would ever be the same again. It hurt at a very deep level. I saw my mother’s things sitting there, knowing she would never see them again. And she never did and life was never the same. The power came back on before the funeral, but the life never came back to the house.
In Maryland, from time to time, we have lost power over the years in the winter, but usually not for very long. We have learned to live with it and expect it. I have a cupboard with kerosene lanterns, flashlights, and radios. There is a stash of firewood always on hand. And for most short failures, this is enough. In retrospect we should have kept my father’s generator, but we gave it to his brother.
But this power failure was different. Steve was away. The power went out early on Wednesday morning. It was no wonder, as all the trees and power lines were coated with ice, just like the roads.
That first day wasn’t so bad. I stayed busy chopping ice on the driveway and shoveling it away. I could read my paper by my new fluorescent lantern. I was able to check my email on my Treo. The roads were cleared and I could keep my business obligations.
The local coffee shop offered a warm refuge in the afternooon and a place to plug in my laptop and use the WIFI. I was one of about 30 people who set up shop there that afternoon. We were each alone with our laptops, dressed ever-so-casually, working diligently on whatever couldn’t be put aside, while sipping coffee to pay moral rent on our seats.
Steve got home safely and finished off the driveway and sidewalk. I brought chili home from the coffee shop and heated it up for dinner on the gas stove. We ate by the firelight and went to bed early, under layers of blankets and comforters. And we awoke to a VERY cold house. Steve dressed and left for work.
I dressed quickly and realized that I could not stay at the house and accomplish anything. It was just too cold. The thermometer in the bedroom read 42 degrees. By 8 a.m. I was back at the coffee shop with my laptop. I quickly realized that the cold, dark house brought back all those painful memories of my mother’s death. The pain of those memories was almost as bitter as the penetrating cold.
Throughout the day on Thursday, I checked to see if we had power at the house. The test was easy --- if I got a tone when dialing the fax machine I would know the power was back. But I got no tone – the phone just rang and rang. So I sat at the coffee shop working – breakfast, lunch and mid-afternoon snack and water along the way. I was once again trying to pay rent on my seat.
Various friends emailed me offering us a guest room and a shower. I thanked all. If it really got bad we could go to our son and his family’s house nearby. But I nurtured the firm belief that our power would be back before sunset and all would be well.
Steve called from the house about the time the coffee shop was closing (6 p.m.) and told me that the power was still out. He had called the Navy Lodge at the local Naval Station (near the Academy) and had us on the standby list for a room. It would be less disruptive for all if we went there than if we stayed with family or friends.
I came home and found that Steve had a fire raging in the fireplace and the lanterns lit. It didn’t matter. The house was still bone-chilling cold. The fire made little difference. Everything I touched was frigid. The horrible feeling associated with my mother’s death came back. I had to get out of the house. There was no way I could spend the night there – the physical and mental discomfort was too much!
We did succeed in getting the last room at the Navy Lodge. It was a nice room, just like a motel, and we had lights, heat and hot water. But I was determined that we should not just sit in the motel room and work. Instead we went to a movie and then out to dinner afterwards. During dinner I checked the power at the house and found it was on. We stayed the night anyway, and while we could have gone home and cooked breakfast, we chose to go to a downtown Annapolis favorite, Chick ‘n Ruth’s deli, and get a hot breakfast. Our evacuation actually turned into a bit of a mini-vacation.
This crisis is over now. The house is warm again and I am back on schedule with my work. But I am changed. I don’t want this to happen again. We aren’t as young as we used to be. They have a new kind of whole-house generator that you put in place permanently and hook up to the propane tank. I think that is what I want for my birthday this year!
Monday, February 05, 2007
New Orleans and Mississippi Coast Revisited
I went back to New Orleans after Katrina. We had been told there were two ways to help –come and help with the re-building or come and spend a few days and help out the local economy. Given my carpentry skills, the latter seemed more practical.
As our flight landed, the signs of damage did not seem to be immediately obvious – just an occasional blue tarp here and there. But in retrospect I realize that it must have been our flight path coupled with the fact that I didn’t know what to look for. On the flight home I noticed white FEMA trailers and blue tarps and swimming pools that without the usual blue shimmer dotting the landscape.
We stayed at a small time-share condo in the French Quarter. It was on Burgundy Street (pronounced Bur-GUN-dy by the locals). Our location was a good one in terms of overall convenience to things within the quarter. We made our usual rounds to our usual favorites, plus added some new destinations. On the surface, everything seemed normal. But the people who ran the businesses all seemed just a bit friendlier – eager to welcome us and thanked us for coming. This was most noticeable at the Palm Court jazz club and the Commander’s Palace (in the garden district). There were some tell-tale signs of damage and small things that showed that the Quarter had lost some of it sparkle. A walk down Bourbon Street was the same as always, though this time there were no big crowds. There were people there, all right, but they were not shoulder to shoulder.
Just listening to the nightly news or reading the Times Picayune it was clear that there was an underlying tension in the city. The murder rate is very high and people are still living in trailers while sorting through their ruined belonging and destroyed homes. Insurance companies aren’t paying and there is lots of misery that is not evident in the French Quarter or Garden District. Several nights of our visit were marred by extremely loud music and noise coming from a nearby bar. At times it seemed as though the crowd in the street outside the small bar must have totaled hundreds and the cars cruising the street in front of the hotel made a statement with their loud music and un-muffled engines. There was a tension in the air.
We rented a car for a few days and one destination was to see the home where my father lived in the 1920s and see what, if anything of it, has survived. The neighborhood, formerly quiet and well-groomed, was filled with the ravages of the storm, though 18 months had passed. The streets were stacked with debris and the houses still bore the giant X’s marked by rescuers. I was particularly drawn to one home that had scrawled in spray paint – “Owner took pets.” My family’s former home was there and still standing. It was one of the lucky few that obviously had been covered by insurance. A nice new façade was going up on the front porch and the house was being rebuilt.
Our travels took us along the coast to visit friends in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. While the damage in New Orleans had been heart-breaking, the damage in Mississippi was just appalling. In many cases, there was literally nothing left. We drove along US 90 between Gulfport and Biloxi. What had been a vibrant business area was just totally devastated. Churches were turned to twisted beams. I recall having once visiting Jefferson Davis’ home there. It was still there, but barely standing. There was a sign saying that locals were raising money to restore the home. We passed what had once been a nice seafood restaurant that I had particularly enjoyed – a place called McElroy’s. All that was left was a sign that said “McElroy’s will return.”
While the monster casinos (new since my last visit to the area) were heavily damaged, they seem to have all been rebuilt good or better than new and the parking lots are full of cars. This was one of the great contrasts.
Our friends on Ocean Springs took us to lunch at lovely little restaurant along the bayou. It has just re-opened and we were the ONLY people in the restaurant. Our friends drove us through the town of Ocean Springs (fortunately spared), and also through their old neighborhood. Their house was totally GONE. Their home had been on a nice piece of land overlooking the bayou. What I admire about my friends is that they didn’t let it get to them; they found another house, bought new clothes and furniture and got on with their lives. Clearly not everyone has been able to do that.
On our way back we drove through Bay St. Louis, a lovely little village where we had once had dinner with the same friends who live in Ocean Springs. The restaurant was gone – the town was gone. A wall remained with a mural on it, but most of what had been downtown was just concrete slabs and rubble.
The road along the coast was in pretty bad shape, but OK for driving. We repeated a drive we took about six years ago. Then there were majestic homes lining the non-water side of the road. They were surrounded by majestic trees. At the time I wondered how much a house like that would cost. Now those lovely homes are now simply gone! Often there is a FEMA trailer where a home once stood. Occasionally you will see something like a Quonset hut made out of inflatable plastic. Those are churches. Between Bay St. Louis and Waveland the destruction was unimaginable.
Rather than face rush hour traffic on I-10, we opted to stay with US-90 all the way back to New Orleans. We went through rural areas with homes with blue tarps and FEMA trailers; we saw large boats just sitting alongside the road with no water in sight; we saw piles and piles of rubble.
Our route took us back through St. Bernard Parish – one of the areas very badly hit. It was like driving through suburbia anywhere, but here everything is boarded up – the big box stores, the gas stations, the apartment complexes, the supermarkets. Here and there are signs of recovery, but the damage was clearly catastrophic.
This whole area was devastated, but the human spirit is very strong and the desire to rebuild is definitely alive and well. Will New Orleans and the Mississippi coast ever be the same? I doubt it, but it is clear that the soul of New Orleans, while battered and bruised, is still there and the music is still alive. It is also clear that the people of Mississippi will control their destiny and re-build their lives.
As our flight landed, the signs of damage did not seem to be immediately obvious – just an occasional blue tarp here and there. But in retrospect I realize that it must have been our flight path coupled with the fact that I didn’t know what to look for. On the flight home I noticed white FEMA trailers and blue tarps and swimming pools that without the usual blue shimmer dotting the landscape.
We stayed at a small time-share condo in the French Quarter. It was on Burgundy Street (pronounced Bur-GUN-dy by the locals). Our location was a good one in terms of overall convenience to things within the quarter. We made our usual rounds to our usual favorites, plus added some new destinations. On the surface, everything seemed normal. But the people who ran the businesses all seemed just a bit friendlier – eager to welcome us and thanked us for coming. This was most noticeable at the Palm Court jazz club and the Commander’s Palace (in the garden district). There were some tell-tale signs of damage and small things that showed that the Quarter had lost some of it sparkle. A walk down Bourbon Street was the same as always, though this time there were no big crowds. There were people there, all right, but they were not shoulder to shoulder.
Just listening to the nightly news or reading the Times Picayune it was clear that there was an underlying tension in the city. The murder rate is very high and people are still living in trailers while sorting through their ruined belonging and destroyed homes. Insurance companies aren’t paying and there is lots of misery that is not evident in the French Quarter or Garden District. Several nights of our visit were marred by extremely loud music and noise coming from a nearby bar. At times it seemed as though the crowd in the street outside the small bar must have totaled hundreds and the cars cruising the street in front of the hotel made a statement with their loud music and un-muffled engines. There was a tension in the air.
We rented a car for a few days and one destination was to see the home where my father lived in the 1920s and see what, if anything of it, has survived. The neighborhood, formerly quiet and well-groomed, was filled with the ravages of the storm, though 18 months had passed. The streets were stacked with debris and the houses still bore the giant X’s marked by rescuers. I was particularly drawn to one home that had scrawled in spray paint – “Owner took pets.” My family’s former home was there and still standing. It was one of the lucky few that obviously had been covered by insurance. A nice new façade was going up on the front porch and the house was being rebuilt.
Our travels took us along the coast to visit friends in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. While the damage in New Orleans had been heart-breaking, the damage in Mississippi was just appalling. In many cases, there was literally nothing left. We drove along US 90 between Gulfport and Biloxi. What had been a vibrant business area was just totally devastated. Churches were turned to twisted beams. I recall having once visiting Jefferson Davis’ home there. It was still there, but barely standing. There was a sign saying that locals were raising money to restore the home. We passed what had once been a nice seafood restaurant that I had particularly enjoyed – a place called McElroy’s. All that was left was a sign that said “McElroy’s will return.”
While the monster casinos (new since my last visit to the area) were heavily damaged, they seem to have all been rebuilt good or better than new and the parking lots are full of cars. This was one of the great contrasts.
Our friends on Ocean Springs took us to lunch at lovely little restaurant along the bayou. It has just re-opened and we were the ONLY people in the restaurant. Our friends drove us through the town of Ocean Springs (fortunately spared), and also through their old neighborhood. Their house was totally GONE. Their home had been on a nice piece of land overlooking the bayou. What I admire about my friends is that they didn’t let it get to them; they found another house, bought new clothes and furniture and got on with their lives. Clearly not everyone has been able to do that.
On our way back we drove through Bay St. Louis, a lovely little village where we had once had dinner with the same friends who live in Ocean Springs. The restaurant was gone – the town was gone. A wall remained with a mural on it, but most of what had been downtown was just concrete slabs and rubble.
The road along the coast was in pretty bad shape, but OK for driving. We repeated a drive we took about six years ago. Then there were majestic homes lining the non-water side of the road. They were surrounded by majestic trees. At the time I wondered how much a house like that would cost. Now those lovely homes are now simply gone! Often there is a FEMA trailer where a home once stood. Occasionally you will see something like a Quonset hut made out of inflatable plastic. Those are churches. Between Bay St. Louis and Waveland the destruction was unimaginable.
Rather than face rush hour traffic on I-10, we opted to stay with US-90 all the way back to New Orleans. We went through rural areas with homes with blue tarps and FEMA trailers; we saw large boats just sitting alongside the road with no water in sight; we saw piles and piles of rubble.
Our route took us back through St. Bernard Parish – one of the areas very badly hit. It was like driving through suburbia anywhere, but here everything is boarded up – the big box stores, the gas stations, the apartment complexes, the supermarkets. Here and there are signs of recovery, but the damage was clearly catastrophic.
This whole area was devastated, but the human spirit is very strong and the desire to rebuild is definitely alive and well. Will New Orleans and the Mississippi coast ever be the same? I doubt it, but it is clear that the soul of New Orleans, while battered and bruised, is still there and the music is still alive. It is also clear that the people of Mississippi will control their destiny and re-build their lives.
Monday, January 01, 2007
New Year's Day
Here it is New Year’s Day and I am ready for it. The Christmas decorations are down. Being a southerner by birth and upbringing, I subscribe to the tradition and superstition that it is bad luck to have a tree up on New Year’s Day. The last few years I have not been steadfast to this tradition, and have found myself with some lousy luck! So this year, I am playing by the rules. We may be the only house in the neighborhood without even a wreath on the door, but when Christmas is over, it is over. Never-mind that the reason for the tradition was probably that if you left your live tree up too long, it would turn into a brittle, fire-hazard of a dead tree and spontaneously engulf you and your house in flames just because you were stupid enough to attach a lighted candle to the tree.
As a child, we always had pork roast to eat on New Year’s Day, along with black-eyed peas. We really were supposed to eat hog jowl and it was ever present. Being a small child with no appreciation for yucky things, I only had the merest taste of hog jowl each year – just enough to ensure my good luck.
Over the years, this family feast has evolved to be almost there with Christmas in terms of the specifics of the meal. The pork roast is still there; the hog jowl is long ago dismissed as being silly and besides – where on earth would I find hog jowl in the state of Maryland? Certainly not in my local grocery store. We still have black-eyed peas, although they come from a can, rather than dried and in a bag. I have added my mother’s macaroni and cheese, cole slaw, and waldorf salad. Strangely enough, this same menu works for the 4th of July as well.
I come from a family of non-sports lovers. My parents would go to an occasional football game – well, in Birmingham, Alabama, that was what you did – a social thing, but not a passion – at least not for them. Of course, everybody knows that New Year’s Day features football. We made a point of never watching football on TV – especially not on New Year’s Day. Instead we gathered with family and friends (only those rare few for whom football has no special place on New Year’s Day).
Fortunately, I married a man without an interest in sports. So he indulges my little New Year’s Day ritual meal. It is, after all, a homecooked meal and he approves of the menu. My son and his family aren’t big on sports either, so it appears to be no great sacrifice for them to join us for this traditional meal.
Each year I make the same resolutions. Each year, within a few weeks, I have broken the same resolutions. It does get a little boring! Life comes along and sabotages all my good intentions. This year WILL be different….really it will! This will be the year I lose weight, make a lot of money, keep an immaculate house, spend ½ hour a day in quiet contemplation, and keep up with the ironing! And I really, really mean it!
As a child, we always had pork roast to eat on New Year’s Day, along with black-eyed peas. We really were supposed to eat hog jowl and it was ever present. Being a small child with no appreciation for yucky things, I only had the merest taste of hog jowl each year – just enough to ensure my good luck.
Over the years, this family feast has evolved to be almost there with Christmas in terms of the specifics of the meal. The pork roast is still there; the hog jowl is long ago dismissed as being silly and besides – where on earth would I find hog jowl in the state of Maryland? Certainly not in my local grocery store. We still have black-eyed peas, although they come from a can, rather than dried and in a bag. I have added my mother’s macaroni and cheese, cole slaw, and waldorf salad. Strangely enough, this same menu works for the 4th of July as well.
I come from a family of non-sports lovers. My parents would go to an occasional football game – well, in Birmingham, Alabama, that was what you did – a social thing, but not a passion – at least not for them. Of course, everybody knows that New Year’s Day features football. We made a point of never watching football on TV – especially not on New Year’s Day. Instead we gathered with family and friends (only those rare few for whom football has no special place on New Year’s Day).
Fortunately, I married a man without an interest in sports. So he indulges my little New Year’s Day ritual meal. It is, after all, a homecooked meal and he approves of the menu. My son and his family aren’t big on sports either, so it appears to be no great sacrifice for them to join us for this traditional meal.
Each year I make the same resolutions. Each year, within a few weeks, I have broken the same resolutions. It does get a little boring! Life comes along and sabotages all my good intentions. This year WILL be different….really it will! This will be the year I lose weight, make a lot of money, keep an immaculate house, spend ½ hour a day in quiet contemplation, and keep up with the ironing! And I really, really mean it!
Monday, December 18, 2006
Christmas Decorations
The Christmas trees of my childhood were always cedar. My parents bought them live at the local tree lot. The day we set up the tree was always special. The decorations were fragile and varied, many of them from the Depression era or World War II. Most of the ornaments were glass and fragile. The angel had paper wings and a scowl on her face, worthy of a Depression-era angel. The string of lights had large pointed bulbs in red, green, blue and orange. Invariably the lights were tangled and my father’s job (cursing the while) was to untangle them. Usually, when they were plugged in they didn’t work. And, of course, in those days if any one bulb was bad or one socket defective, the whole string didn’t light up. Daddy would patiently take his voltmeter and check each socket until he found the problem. Yes, our strings of lights often had black electrical tape splices. We finished off the tree by throwing strands of tinsel on it – always making a horrendous mess. Without fail, before New Year’s Day, the tree had to come down. Forget the 12 Days of Christmas. Down South we had traditions and our tradition was it was bad luck to have a Christmas tree standing on New Year’s Day. Usually we burned the tree at the corner of the backyard, where we burned all the paper trash.
Soon the cedar tree gave way to a spruce imported from some distant northern state. It still smelled good, though arguably as messy as the cedar tree. We added some new shiny ornaments, but the years went by and nothing much changed.
Then in 1958, the year we moved, we got modern. My mother bought one of those aluminum trees that were all the rage. She decorated it with matching pink ornaments and then at night we used a color wheel and spotlight to change its color from red, to the blue, to green, to gold. The pink ornaments really faded into the background. I remember sitting in the living room as a young teenager, thinking about how cool and modern our family was, as I watched the color of the tree change.
That same year, my mother added a hummingbird tree. She decorated a small, green table-top tree with small multicolored hummingbirds that clipped on. They had small fiber wings and tails and actually were very pretty and delicate – a nice counterbalance to the aluminum tree.
In the late ‘50s our next door neighbor taught my mother how to make soap Christmas trees. Actually, they were rather clever and certainly a good mother/daughter activity. We made a cone out of chicken wire, inserted a dowel, and then stuffed it with newspaper. We then mounted the dowel in a square block of wood. But, here’s the best part, we dumped Ivory Flakes and water in the mixer and whipped up this substance that resembled meringue. We added pink food coloring and “iced” the chicken wire tree with our soapy concoction. Then we added some tiny ornaments (just stuck them in the soap) and topped the whole thing with glitter. We made a bunch of them and took them to cheer up the sick and elderly, and, of course, kept one for ourselves. It stood proudly in the entrance hall to greet everyone who attended our holiday party. Fortunately, this was a one season venture!
But, within a few years the aluminum tree was passé. Ornaments in bright colors were back, along with twinkly lights in multi-colors. Once again, we had a live tree. By then I was in college and decorating the tree became part of my “home for the holiday” ritual.
By 1969, I was married and my young husband and I came home for Christmas from Illinois. When we arrived, we had the task for decorating the tree. But Steve never was into tree decorating, so my mother and I did it.
But by 1971, our son was on his way and we were in California with our own home. David was due December 23 and my parents were flying out to be with us for Christmas. I decided that it would be a good idea to do the tree early – just in case. I went to a discount store and bought green, gold, red and silver smallish dull coated ornaments (144 to be exact – 12 boxes of 12) and an artificial tree (we didn’t want to have a live tree with a new baby). I also bought one box of ornament hooks alleged to contain 144 hooks. So I was all set. On December 6, I set up the tree and discovered that I was short 23 hooks. Boy, was I mad and I called the store where I bought the hooks and complained. The answer was – “They were made in China --- you could have a few more or less than is listed on the box. Why not just by another box and you will be set for years to come.” Today that seems like prudent advice, but to an expectant mother, that was an unsatisfactory answer. Instead of indulging them by purchasing more hooks, I simply used some bent paper clips. That will teach them! David was born the next day!
The next couple of years we just decorated that same artificial tree, but the final year we were in California, we decided to go to the Christmas tree farm and cut down a fresh tree. David was older now and we thought it would be a treasured memory (I should ask him if he remembers – I doubt he does). For those five Christmases, my parents came to our house and we all shared Christmas with my uncle and his family who coincidentally lived in the same area.
Once we moved to Maryland, we resumed the tradition of going to Alabama for Christmas. Still, we put up the old artificial tree, decorated it and took it down before New Year’s Day. During those years, when David was growing up, we amassed a collection of ornaments – many of them handmade. You see, I was teaching and it was the norm for students to give teachers ornaments.
When we went to Alabama sometimes my mother already had the tree up before we arrived. That was OK with me, as I had already decorated one tree before we left. But one year I remember, we decided (most likely with David’s urging) that my mother needed a live tree and we went out and bought one. I am not sure how much she appreciated the needles shedding, but it seemed like a good idea. They used the same old decorations, and they seemed special.
The years drifted by. David went from a toddler to a teenager. The last Christmas in Birmingham was 1988. My mother was dying with lung cancer and we all knew it. It was a horrid Christmas. We made a feeble attempt at decorations. There was no party and Christmas Eve we had Chinese take-out. We had Christmas dinner and our friends, the Joneses, joined us, as usual. I did a lot of the cooking, as did Eloise, as my mother was too weak. But she couldn’t stand watching us mess up the gravy, so she threw us both out of the kitchen and did it herself. It was perfect, as always. That Christmas an azalea was in bloom at the back gate. My mother always loved azaleas. I can’t help but think this one bloomed in December just for her. By January 13, my mother was gone.
Those next two Christmases my father flew up to spend with us. We decorated our artificial tree in the family room and bought a new small artificial tree for the bay window in the living room. Daddy wasn’t well, but we tried very hard to enjoy the time together.
We moved into our new house in 1992, though it seems just yesterday and the house still seems new to me. David has been married for many years now and his wife and the grandkids help me with the decorations. I discovered I was allergic to poinsettias, so I have a good-sized collection of silk poinsettias that we pull out every year. I have a special cabinet under the eaves where I store everything. I put a wreath on the door (guess I have had that same wreath now for about 14 years). Most years we just decorate the small tree and put it on the table in the bay window in the living room. All the ornaments are different. Strangely, the only things that survived from those original decorations from my childhood are the cross-eyed angel and a couple of hummingbirds. We still put them on the tree. I have grown rather attached to the cross-eyed angel. I still have a bunch of those dull small ornaments from 1971, but the other ornaments are much more interesting to use and the tree is small. But, whenever we need more ornament hooks, we use bent paper-clips. I have never bought another box of ornament hooks. I guess now it is a matter of principle.
I look around the neighborhood and notice that some of my neighbors have extravaganzas with outdoor lights. I doubt that is something I will ever do. Not that I mind them, but I don’t know how in the world at age 60 I am going to get them up in the trees or strung along the edge of the house. Then, of course, I would still have to get them down by New Year’s Day. A couple of years there, though I slipped up and left the decorations up after New Year’s – talk about bad luck!! I will have them down by New Year’s Day for sure this year. I want 2007 to be my best year yet
Soon the cedar tree gave way to a spruce imported from some distant northern state. It still smelled good, though arguably as messy as the cedar tree. We added some new shiny ornaments, but the years went by and nothing much changed.
Then in 1958, the year we moved, we got modern. My mother bought one of those aluminum trees that were all the rage. She decorated it with matching pink ornaments and then at night we used a color wheel and spotlight to change its color from red, to the blue, to green, to gold. The pink ornaments really faded into the background. I remember sitting in the living room as a young teenager, thinking about how cool and modern our family was, as I watched the color of the tree change.
That same year, my mother added a hummingbird tree. She decorated a small, green table-top tree with small multicolored hummingbirds that clipped on. They had small fiber wings and tails and actually were very pretty and delicate – a nice counterbalance to the aluminum tree.
In the late ‘50s our next door neighbor taught my mother how to make soap Christmas trees. Actually, they were rather clever and certainly a good mother/daughter activity. We made a cone out of chicken wire, inserted a dowel, and then stuffed it with newspaper. We then mounted the dowel in a square block of wood. But, here’s the best part, we dumped Ivory Flakes and water in the mixer and whipped up this substance that resembled meringue. We added pink food coloring and “iced” the chicken wire tree with our soapy concoction. Then we added some tiny ornaments (just stuck them in the soap) and topped the whole thing with glitter. We made a bunch of them and took them to cheer up the sick and elderly, and, of course, kept one for ourselves. It stood proudly in the entrance hall to greet everyone who attended our holiday party. Fortunately, this was a one season venture!
But, within a few years the aluminum tree was passé. Ornaments in bright colors were back, along with twinkly lights in multi-colors. Once again, we had a live tree. By then I was in college and decorating the tree became part of my “home for the holiday” ritual.
By 1969, I was married and my young husband and I came home for Christmas from Illinois. When we arrived, we had the task for decorating the tree. But Steve never was into tree decorating, so my mother and I did it.
But by 1971, our son was on his way and we were in California with our own home. David was due December 23 and my parents were flying out to be with us for Christmas. I decided that it would be a good idea to do the tree early – just in case. I went to a discount store and bought green, gold, red and silver smallish dull coated ornaments (144 to be exact – 12 boxes of 12) and an artificial tree (we didn’t want to have a live tree with a new baby). I also bought one box of ornament hooks alleged to contain 144 hooks. So I was all set. On December 6, I set up the tree and discovered that I was short 23 hooks. Boy, was I mad and I called the store where I bought the hooks and complained. The answer was – “They were made in China --- you could have a few more or less than is listed on the box. Why not just by another box and you will be set for years to come.” Today that seems like prudent advice, but to an expectant mother, that was an unsatisfactory answer. Instead of indulging them by purchasing more hooks, I simply used some bent paper clips. That will teach them! David was born the next day!
The next couple of years we just decorated that same artificial tree, but the final year we were in California, we decided to go to the Christmas tree farm and cut down a fresh tree. David was older now and we thought it would be a treasured memory (I should ask him if he remembers – I doubt he does). For those five Christmases, my parents came to our house and we all shared Christmas with my uncle and his family who coincidentally lived in the same area.
Once we moved to Maryland, we resumed the tradition of going to Alabama for Christmas. Still, we put up the old artificial tree, decorated it and took it down before New Year’s Day. During those years, when David was growing up, we amassed a collection of ornaments – many of them handmade. You see, I was teaching and it was the norm for students to give teachers ornaments.
When we went to Alabama sometimes my mother already had the tree up before we arrived. That was OK with me, as I had already decorated one tree before we left. But one year I remember, we decided (most likely with David’s urging) that my mother needed a live tree and we went out and bought one. I am not sure how much she appreciated the needles shedding, but it seemed like a good idea. They used the same old decorations, and they seemed special.
The years drifted by. David went from a toddler to a teenager. The last Christmas in Birmingham was 1988. My mother was dying with lung cancer and we all knew it. It was a horrid Christmas. We made a feeble attempt at decorations. There was no party and Christmas Eve we had Chinese take-out. We had Christmas dinner and our friends, the Joneses, joined us, as usual. I did a lot of the cooking, as did Eloise, as my mother was too weak. But she couldn’t stand watching us mess up the gravy, so she threw us both out of the kitchen and did it herself. It was perfect, as always. That Christmas an azalea was in bloom at the back gate. My mother always loved azaleas. I can’t help but think this one bloomed in December just for her. By January 13, my mother was gone.
Those next two Christmases my father flew up to spend with us. We decorated our artificial tree in the family room and bought a new small artificial tree for the bay window in the living room. Daddy wasn’t well, but we tried very hard to enjoy the time together.
We moved into our new house in 1992, though it seems just yesterday and the house still seems new to me. David has been married for many years now and his wife and the grandkids help me with the decorations. I discovered I was allergic to poinsettias, so I have a good-sized collection of silk poinsettias that we pull out every year. I have a special cabinet under the eaves where I store everything. I put a wreath on the door (guess I have had that same wreath now for about 14 years). Most years we just decorate the small tree and put it on the table in the bay window in the living room. All the ornaments are different. Strangely, the only things that survived from those original decorations from my childhood are the cross-eyed angel and a couple of hummingbirds. We still put them on the tree. I have grown rather attached to the cross-eyed angel. I still have a bunch of those dull small ornaments from 1971, but the other ornaments are much more interesting to use and the tree is small. But, whenever we need more ornament hooks, we use bent paper-clips. I have never bought another box of ornament hooks. I guess now it is a matter of principle.
I look around the neighborhood and notice that some of my neighbors have extravaganzas with outdoor lights. I doubt that is something I will ever do. Not that I mind them, but I don’t know how in the world at age 60 I am going to get them up in the trees or strung along the edge of the house. Then, of course, I would still have to get them down by New Year’s Day. A couple of years there, though I slipped up and left the decorations up after New Year’s – talk about bad luck!! I will have them down by New Year’s Day for sure this year. I want 2007 to be my best year yet
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Closets
My bedroom when was growing up didn’t have a closet – not until my father built one when I was about ten years old. Everything I had fit nicely in my small white dresser. Actually, I don’t recall actually using that closet for my stuff, but my mother had it filled with dresses and shoes. My father built a closet in their bedroom, but he had his clothes in that one. My grandparents, who had the back bedroom had a metal cabinet where they hung all their clothes. Now that I think about it, that cabinet was awfully small…still they managed to be well-dressed. My grandmother kept her hats in boxes on top of the closet.
In that old house there was also a very large walk-in closet off the kitchen. It was a strange and mysterious place filled with out-of-season clothes, sheets and towels, the vacuum cleaners, and an assortment of things they had no other place for. Once a year they cleaned it out and it was a big deal.
The house also had a big walk-in pantry off the kitchen. They kept china and food in the pantry. One day I was outside and heard a large crash. A shelf in the pantry had collapsed and all of my grandmother’s fine china was broken. All I have left of it today are a few serving pieces that managed to escape.
When we moved to our new house, there was a closet in each bedroom and even two linen closets in the hallway. The closets were small by today’s standards, but luxurious by 1958 standards. There was no pantry, so my mother had one of the kitchen cabinets converted to a make-shift pantry – great for food and broom, however. She kept an overflow pantry in the basement consisting of metal shelves in the garage. She couldn’t resist a sale on canned goods, so we always had plenty of food on hand just in case of World War III. There were two closets in the entrance hall. She kept things like table leaves and baskets in one, along with tablecloths. In the other one, they had winter coats and all my father’s suit jackets. The basement had a huge closet under the stairs, but as time went on, the basement itself became more and more like a giant closet.
It’s funny, but I can’t remember much about the closets in my college dormitory, but I know we had them. What I do recall is that each summer we had to take all of our stuff home. I had a clothes bar that stretched across the back seat of the car – once I had a car on campus which wasn’t until my sophomore year. You could always spot the college students on the highways by their clothes rails.
When we first go married I had to share a clothes closet with my husband. That immediately proved problematic. Our first house, in San Bernardino, had two closets in the master bedroom, one of the house’s nicest features. It was luxurious! Still I overflowed my clothes into the guest room closet and had to do the seasonal closet swap.
But when we moved to Maryland in 1976, we bought a house with only one closet in the master bedroom. That was not a wise move. I gave that closet to my husband and for many years kept all my clothes in the guest room closet across the hall. Plus there was a large cedar-lined closet in the basement and I used that for my off-season clothes. It worked, but the seasonal trek up and down the stairs wasn’t fun. Finally, in 1989, I had had enough and we built another closet in the corner of the master bedroom and a huge pantry and two more closets. Life started looking up!
When we built our house in 1992, we knew we wanted LOTS of closets. We designed big walk-in closets for ourselves in an area off the master bedroom. Both have lots of built in shelving and mine even has a window. Recently I installed a small water cooler so I don’t have to go downstairs to get filtered water. Finally, I don’t have to do the seasonal clothes swap anymore. The result, however, is that clothes tend to accumulate unworn in the closet. Once a year I have to go through and get rid of things, otherwise that closet would totally max out and start overflowing to other rooms.
We put big standard type lighted closets in all the bedrooms and have three linen closets, plus a big walk-in pantry, a large entrance hall closet, office closets, and more. And, of course, we have managed to fill all of them.
The closets in my office are especially deep. They are designed to hold filing cabinets, and they do quite nicely. My office, on the main floor of the house, is designed for easy conversion to a bedroom if either of us should be incapacitated and unable to climb stairs. The filing closets quickly convert to clothes closets and the hallway closet, which now has shelving and a spare refrigerator, can be converted to hold a washer and dryer.
I guess with closets, you can never have enough. But in our house, we have sure tried to have to maximum we can. I love closets – they keep things handy, but out of sight. One of the hardships of being an early settler in the US was that most people didn’t have closets. I guess they didn’t have that many clothes and closets were taxed – so why bother! Oh, how the world has changed. Today there are whole stores devoted to closet systems.
In that old house there was also a very large walk-in closet off the kitchen. It was a strange and mysterious place filled with out-of-season clothes, sheets and towels, the vacuum cleaners, and an assortment of things they had no other place for. Once a year they cleaned it out and it was a big deal.
The house also had a big walk-in pantry off the kitchen. They kept china and food in the pantry. One day I was outside and heard a large crash. A shelf in the pantry had collapsed and all of my grandmother’s fine china was broken. All I have left of it today are a few serving pieces that managed to escape.
When we moved to our new house, there was a closet in each bedroom and even two linen closets in the hallway. The closets were small by today’s standards, but luxurious by 1958 standards. There was no pantry, so my mother had one of the kitchen cabinets converted to a make-shift pantry – great for food and broom, however. She kept an overflow pantry in the basement consisting of metal shelves in the garage. She couldn’t resist a sale on canned goods, so we always had plenty of food on hand just in case of World War III. There were two closets in the entrance hall. She kept things like table leaves and baskets in one, along with tablecloths. In the other one, they had winter coats and all my father’s suit jackets. The basement had a huge closet under the stairs, but as time went on, the basement itself became more and more like a giant closet.
It’s funny, but I can’t remember much about the closets in my college dormitory, but I know we had them. What I do recall is that each summer we had to take all of our stuff home. I had a clothes bar that stretched across the back seat of the car – once I had a car on campus which wasn’t until my sophomore year. You could always spot the college students on the highways by their clothes rails.
When we first go married I had to share a clothes closet with my husband. That immediately proved problematic. Our first house, in San Bernardino, had two closets in the master bedroom, one of the house’s nicest features. It was luxurious! Still I overflowed my clothes into the guest room closet and had to do the seasonal closet swap.
But when we moved to Maryland in 1976, we bought a house with only one closet in the master bedroom. That was not a wise move. I gave that closet to my husband and for many years kept all my clothes in the guest room closet across the hall. Plus there was a large cedar-lined closet in the basement and I used that for my off-season clothes. It worked, but the seasonal trek up and down the stairs wasn’t fun. Finally, in 1989, I had had enough and we built another closet in the corner of the master bedroom and a huge pantry and two more closets. Life started looking up!
When we built our house in 1992, we knew we wanted LOTS of closets. We designed big walk-in closets for ourselves in an area off the master bedroom. Both have lots of built in shelving and mine even has a window. Recently I installed a small water cooler so I don’t have to go downstairs to get filtered water. Finally, I don’t have to do the seasonal clothes swap anymore. The result, however, is that clothes tend to accumulate unworn in the closet. Once a year I have to go through and get rid of things, otherwise that closet would totally max out and start overflowing to other rooms.
We put big standard type lighted closets in all the bedrooms and have three linen closets, plus a big walk-in pantry, a large entrance hall closet, office closets, and more. And, of course, we have managed to fill all of them.
The closets in my office are especially deep. They are designed to hold filing cabinets, and they do quite nicely. My office, on the main floor of the house, is designed for easy conversion to a bedroom if either of us should be incapacitated and unable to climb stairs. The filing closets quickly convert to clothes closets and the hallway closet, which now has shelving and a spare refrigerator, can be converted to hold a washer and dryer.
I guess with closets, you can never have enough. But in our house, we have sure tried to have to maximum we can. I love closets – they keep things handy, but out of sight. One of the hardships of being an early settler in the US was that most people didn’t have closets. I guess they didn’t have that many clothes and closets were taxed – so why bother! Oh, how the world has changed. Today there are whole stores devoted to closet systems.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
The Environment
As a kid in grammar school, I heard about Smokey the Bear. It was a clear message. Don’t burn down the forest. Not that this was something I had even considered doing, or might do even accidentally. I didn’t smoke, nor did any of my eight-year old friends, and we didn’t even make campfires, except possibly under adult supervision. But we were definitely committed to the cause of conservation.
The years passed, along with the Civil Right Movement, the Vietnam War, the Feminist Movement and all manner of cultural changes. Then, in 1969 – I remember it well, people started talking about the environment. I was grown and married by then. My first thought, was how nice – this is a subject that everyone can agree on. From my limited perspective, it was going to be like all the other raging movements in the country, with the one exception that everyone would be in agreement. Naïve – you bet!
The Hippies easily embraced environmentalism. Right away, that turned off many people. If the Hippies like it, it can’t be important. I wasn’t a Hippie, but I thought taking care of the environment made sense. Not that I did much about it, but I tried to be responsible in my own backyard – whatever that meant.
In 1971, we found ourselves living in San Bernardino, California. Talk about a life-changing experience! Air pollution was REAL. The air was so thick with pollution that you could barely see a block away. We didn’t know we had a view of the mountains from our kitchen window until three months after we moved in. I felt lousy all the time; I remember my joints ached. One of our cars, a Dodge Dart, came equipped with California emissions controls. It cost more money because of it. It was clear to me that pollution wasn’t a matter to be taken lightly, and I made environmental responsibility one of the things that was important to me in voting decisions.
In 1976, when we moved to Maryland, air pollution was not on the local radar screen. Environmentalists were called “tree-huggers” and many thought them to be “over the top.” I kept my own belief system in place and tried to make a difference where I could.
In about 1977 I wrote a newspaper article about Severn Run, the headwaters of the Severn River. The story required me to walk the land with a ranger. I saw the effects of water pollution with my own eyes. From then on, water pollution was high on my list of environmental concerns.
Through my community work, I found myself leading an umbrella association, the Greater Severna Park Council, and a good friend was involved in the Severn River Association at the same time. He got me to attend some environmental coalition meetings. The goal was to bring all the community groups who cared about the environment together to take joint stands. It was a great idea, but it never really worked because of the independent nature of each organization. Still, the result was improved communication. For this group, water pollution was the main concern; air pollution was on the list, but pretty far down.
My work with the community, however, made me understand that in our area there are two major forces – development and environmentalism. In simplistic terms, people see business as anti-environmental and environmentalists as anti-business. But, of course, it is not that simple, and anyone who takes the time to try to understand the dynamic knows that. In my view, it comes down to – you don’t foul your own nest. Business groups in our area have environmental committees who do some fine work. Environmental groups are not necessarily against business, but they do expect business to play by the rules.
We live on the water, in the Critical Area. The 100 feet of our lot closest to the water, we can’t change. We can’t, for example, chop down the trees and plant grass. On the other hand, we did get a permit to build a walkway down to our pier. The older the home, the more the likeihold that the lot was stripped before the law was enacted. Personally, I love our natural backyard. The view changes dramatically with the seasons and we feel like we are living in the treetops.
When I chaired the County’s Cancer Task Force, I learned a great deal about our local environment. One thing I learned was that we do have air pollution issues here in Maryland that are getting more and more significant. I learned that the water pollution is causing problems for our fish, oysters and crabs. But I also learned that you can’t prove any of this causes cancer – at least not any one individual’s cancer. But should we be concerned? Absolutely!
These days I manage a regional carwash association. I have learned that it is much more environmentally responsible to use a carwash than to wash my car in the driveway. Of course, I never have liked to wash my car in the driveway. It is too hard, wet, and messy. Now, I can take my car to the wash and be environmentally responsible at the same time.
I imagine the major effects of pollution will be felt long after I am gone, but it would be irresponsible not to care. My grandchildren’s world could be much better than ours if we put partisan politics aside and unite around environmental issues.
As for me – I recycle my trash; I go to the carwash; and I think my next car might just be a Hybrid.
The years passed, along with the Civil Right Movement, the Vietnam War, the Feminist Movement and all manner of cultural changes. Then, in 1969 – I remember it well, people started talking about the environment. I was grown and married by then. My first thought, was how nice – this is a subject that everyone can agree on. From my limited perspective, it was going to be like all the other raging movements in the country, with the one exception that everyone would be in agreement. Naïve – you bet!
The Hippies easily embraced environmentalism. Right away, that turned off many people. If the Hippies like it, it can’t be important. I wasn’t a Hippie, but I thought taking care of the environment made sense. Not that I did much about it, but I tried to be responsible in my own backyard – whatever that meant.
In 1971, we found ourselves living in San Bernardino, California. Talk about a life-changing experience! Air pollution was REAL. The air was so thick with pollution that you could barely see a block away. We didn’t know we had a view of the mountains from our kitchen window until three months after we moved in. I felt lousy all the time; I remember my joints ached. One of our cars, a Dodge Dart, came equipped with California emissions controls. It cost more money because of it. It was clear to me that pollution wasn’t a matter to be taken lightly, and I made environmental responsibility one of the things that was important to me in voting decisions.
In 1976, when we moved to Maryland, air pollution was not on the local radar screen. Environmentalists were called “tree-huggers” and many thought them to be “over the top.” I kept my own belief system in place and tried to make a difference where I could.
In about 1977 I wrote a newspaper article about Severn Run, the headwaters of the Severn River. The story required me to walk the land with a ranger. I saw the effects of water pollution with my own eyes. From then on, water pollution was high on my list of environmental concerns.
Through my community work, I found myself leading an umbrella association, the Greater Severna Park Council, and a good friend was involved in the Severn River Association at the same time. He got me to attend some environmental coalition meetings. The goal was to bring all the community groups who cared about the environment together to take joint stands. It was a great idea, but it never really worked because of the independent nature of each organization. Still, the result was improved communication. For this group, water pollution was the main concern; air pollution was on the list, but pretty far down.
My work with the community, however, made me understand that in our area there are two major forces – development and environmentalism. In simplistic terms, people see business as anti-environmental and environmentalists as anti-business. But, of course, it is not that simple, and anyone who takes the time to try to understand the dynamic knows that. In my view, it comes down to – you don’t foul your own nest. Business groups in our area have environmental committees who do some fine work. Environmental groups are not necessarily against business, but they do expect business to play by the rules.
We live on the water, in the Critical Area. The 100 feet of our lot closest to the water, we can’t change. We can’t, for example, chop down the trees and plant grass. On the other hand, we did get a permit to build a walkway down to our pier. The older the home, the more the likeihold that the lot was stripped before the law was enacted. Personally, I love our natural backyard. The view changes dramatically with the seasons and we feel like we are living in the treetops.
When I chaired the County’s Cancer Task Force, I learned a great deal about our local environment. One thing I learned was that we do have air pollution issues here in Maryland that are getting more and more significant. I learned that the water pollution is causing problems for our fish, oysters and crabs. But I also learned that you can’t prove any of this causes cancer – at least not any one individual’s cancer. But should we be concerned? Absolutely!
These days I manage a regional carwash association. I have learned that it is much more environmentally responsible to use a carwash than to wash my car in the driveway. Of course, I never have liked to wash my car in the driveway. It is too hard, wet, and messy. Now, I can take my car to the wash and be environmentally responsible at the same time.
I imagine the major effects of pollution will be felt long after I am gone, but it would be irresponsible not to care. My grandchildren’s world could be much better than ours if we put partisan politics aside and unite around environmental issues.
As for me – I recycle my trash; I go to the carwash; and I think my next car might just be a Hybrid.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Furniture
Furniture has a way of sticking around long after its owners. Not that it is a bad thing, but as the generations go by, the amount of furniture to be passed along to the next generation multiplies. Some items must be given up or wear out, others just keep on going.
I thought it might be fun to trace what has happened to a few pieces of furniture from my childhood. You know…. where are they now?
My grandmother’s rocking chair: I honestly don’t know where she got it or when, but my mother told me that they had it when she was a small child. On one of the arms there is a small round hole that my mother apparently whittled out. My doubt my grandmother was not pleased. This rocker had a stuffed seat and padding on the T-shaped back. From what my mother told me, the rocker had not originally had a padded back, but that the wood cracked and she decided to upholster the back to match the seat. The night my grandmother died, in 1957, she sat in the rocker awaiting the ambulance’s arrival. She was having a massive heart attack. I can still see her sitting in the rocker in her nightgown, her face dripping with perspiration. I think in those days, the rocker was covered in blue fabric. The next year, we moved to a new house and my mother “re-did” the rocker to match the new house. She replaced the fabric with a rose velvet. For thirty-two years the rocker sat in the living room of my parents’ home. When my mother died, I inherited the rocker. I found a place for it in my living room. Then, when we built our new house in 1992, I saw that it had a prominent place in the living room. It is still covered with my mother’s pink velvet fabric. The chair is big and comfortable, and very special. I don’t know what wood it is made of…maybe pine, but it is stained mahogany.
My grandfather’s chifferobe: My grandfather was born in 1878 and I have been told that he received the chifferobe as a young man around the turn of the century. I don’t know for sure, but was told that it was made in England and shipped on the Mississippi to his home in Memphis. I suppose he must have used it between 1900 and 1940, but from its condition in the late ‘40s it was not used gently. The chifferobe used to sit on the back porch. The back porch was really an enclosed room off the kitchen. It has twenty-eight windows, the freezer, the washing machine, the dryer, a green cabinet for garden supplies, and the chifferobe. We kept paint, tools, the DDT dispenser, etc. in the chifferobe. Some of the drawers were missing hardware, so we would stick a screwdriver in the hole to pull out the drawer. The bottom board was rotted, like it had been flooded. When we moved in 1957, my grandfather and I begged for the chifferobe to come along. It found a home in the basement garage. One summer day, at about age 17, I decided it needed to be refinished. It always upset me to see such a beautifully carved piece in such terrible shape. It was go grand – even put together with pegs. So I refinished one drawer (stripped), the bottom one. It looked great, but life intervened and soon I was off to college. My mother saw its potential and took on the task of refinishing the piece. After months of painstaking work, a replacement bottom board (which apparently was some sort of special wood that had been blessed for a synagogue project – but matched perfectly and was available), and new hardware, the chifferobe made its way to the family room of my parents’ home. And there is staying, always with a silk fern on top, for another twenty-five years. My parents used it for storing all sorts of miscellaneous household items. My father closed the house in about 1990 when he moved to an assisted living apartment. The chifferobe came home with me. It found a home in our family room. When we built our new home, we designed it with the chifferobe in mind. It stands proudly on the entrance foyer wall. Behind the small mirrored door, we keep all of our emergency supplies – lanterns, tiny TV, radio,flashlights, etc. We keep keys, candles, wrapping paper, batteries, lightbulbs, vacuum cleaner bags, cameras and more in the chifferobe. I just put a new silk fern on top of it. It is still my favorite piece of furniture in the house.
My grandmother’s library table: My grandmother grew up in rural Clay County, Alabama. From what I have read about her Hatchett Creek Community, every respectable family had a library table prominently placed in the living room. Books were scarce and the library table was a place to display them. Library tables were high enough so that you could stand and look at a book on the surface of the table. When I was little, the library table was in the attic room my grandfather used as an office. Sometime in the mid-‘50s my mother decided to cut the table down (two large pedestal legs) and use it as a coffee table. She hired a man to do the job. He removed the veneer from the top, but on the bottom he left it in place and tacked it down. Although the table looked good, my mother was NOT happy with him for tacking down the veneer. Still, the table (tacked veneer and all) came to be my mother’s living coffee table. When my father closed down the house, it came to me. Like much of the furniture that I inherited, the table was coated with a yellow film (my parents smoked). In the rental moving van on the way up from Alabama, the heat melted the fuzzy fabric of the pads into the coating on the table. It took me many hours to remove all the fuzz and the yellow film, but today the table looks fine. It is still my coffee table in the family room. My mother used to keep the center drawer filled with playing cards. I never really have enjoyed playing cards, but I keep playing cards in that center drawer. You never know…maybe someday I will take up bridge.
My house is filled with items with this kind of history. I love them all.
I thought it might be fun to trace what has happened to a few pieces of furniture from my childhood. You know…. where are they now?
My grandmother’s rocking chair: I honestly don’t know where she got it or when, but my mother told me that they had it when she was a small child. On one of the arms there is a small round hole that my mother apparently whittled out. My doubt my grandmother was not pleased. This rocker had a stuffed seat and padding on the T-shaped back. From what my mother told me, the rocker had not originally had a padded back, but that the wood cracked and she decided to upholster the back to match the seat. The night my grandmother died, in 1957, she sat in the rocker awaiting the ambulance’s arrival. She was having a massive heart attack. I can still see her sitting in the rocker in her nightgown, her face dripping with perspiration. I think in those days, the rocker was covered in blue fabric. The next year, we moved to a new house and my mother “re-did” the rocker to match the new house. She replaced the fabric with a rose velvet. For thirty-two years the rocker sat in the living room of my parents’ home. When my mother died, I inherited the rocker. I found a place for it in my living room. Then, when we built our new house in 1992, I saw that it had a prominent place in the living room. It is still covered with my mother’s pink velvet fabric. The chair is big and comfortable, and very special. I don’t know what wood it is made of…maybe pine, but it is stained mahogany.
My grandfather’s chifferobe: My grandfather was born in 1878 and I have been told that he received the chifferobe as a young man around the turn of the century. I don’t know for sure, but was told that it was made in England and shipped on the Mississippi to his home in Memphis. I suppose he must have used it between 1900 and 1940, but from its condition in the late ‘40s it was not used gently. The chifferobe used to sit on the back porch. The back porch was really an enclosed room off the kitchen. It has twenty-eight windows, the freezer, the washing machine, the dryer, a green cabinet for garden supplies, and the chifferobe. We kept paint, tools, the DDT dispenser, etc. in the chifferobe. Some of the drawers were missing hardware, so we would stick a screwdriver in the hole to pull out the drawer. The bottom board was rotted, like it had been flooded. When we moved in 1957, my grandfather and I begged for the chifferobe to come along. It found a home in the basement garage. One summer day, at about age 17, I decided it needed to be refinished. It always upset me to see such a beautifully carved piece in such terrible shape. It was go grand – even put together with pegs. So I refinished one drawer (stripped), the bottom one. It looked great, but life intervened and soon I was off to college. My mother saw its potential and took on the task of refinishing the piece. After months of painstaking work, a replacement bottom board (which apparently was some sort of special wood that had been blessed for a synagogue project – but matched perfectly and was available), and new hardware, the chifferobe made its way to the family room of my parents’ home. And there is staying, always with a silk fern on top, for another twenty-five years. My parents used it for storing all sorts of miscellaneous household items. My father closed the house in about 1990 when he moved to an assisted living apartment. The chifferobe came home with me. It found a home in our family room. When we built our new home, we designed it with the chifferobe in mind. It stands proudly on the entrance foyer wall. Behind the small mirrored door, we keep all of our emergency supplies – lanterns, tiny TV, radio,flashlights, etc. We keep keys, candles, wrapping paper, batteries, lightbulbs, vacuum cleaner bags, cameras and more in the chifferobe. I just put a new silk fern on top of it. It is still my favorite piece of furniture in the house.
My grandmother’s library table: My grandmother grew up in rural Clay County, Alabama. From what I have read about her Hatchett Creek Community, every respectable family had a library table prominently placed in the living room. Books were scarce and the library table was a place to display them. Library tables were high enough so that you could stand and look at a book on the surface of the table. When I was little, the library table was in the attic room my grandfather used as an office. Sometime in the mid-‘50s my mother decided to cut the table down (two large pedestal legs) and use it as a coffee table. She hired a man to do the job. He removed the veneer from the top, but on the bottom he left it in place and tacked it down. Although the table looked good, my mother was NOT happy with him for tacking down the veneer. Still, the table (tacked veneer and all) came to be my mother’s living coffee table. When my father closed down the house, it came to me. Like much of the furniture that I inherited, the table was coated with a yellow film (my parents smoked). In the rental moving van on the way up from Alabama, the heat melted the fuzzy fabric of the pads into the coating on the table. It took me many hours to remove all the fuzz and the yellow film, but today the table looks fine. It is still my coffee table in the family room. My mother used to keep the center drawer filled with playing cards. I never really have enjoyed playing cards, but I keep playing cards in that center drawer. You never know…maybe someday I will take up bridge.
My house is filled with items with this kind of history. I love them all.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Being Female
As a child, I played with other neighborhood children without regard for who was a boy and who was a girl. I didn’t really seem to matter, and we all liked the same things – playing in the woods (a vacant lot), playing cowboys and Indians, building things with bricks and, as we got older, roller skating. My best friend, Mary Jane, and I did play dolls, but not when the boys were around.
Once, when I was about four, I was playing with my friend, Butch, (who lived in the house behind us). It was a hot Alabama summer day, and he took his t-shirt off. That seemed like a fine idea to me, as well, so I took off mine. When my mother saw me running about without a top, she got very upset with me. She told me that I had to put my top on “right this minute” and that I was never to do it again. Meanwhile, Butch was standing there with his bare chest for all the world to see. I looked at his chest and then at my chest --- as far as I could see they looked exactly the same. My response was, you guessed it, “That’s not fair.” But I put my top back on and got on with life, never to remove my blouse in public ever again!
About the same time, another of my little male friends and I were playing in cardboard boxes, scooting ourselves across the carpet by sliding the boxes. For some reason, he felt compelled to show “himself” to me. Of course, I was interested. I knew that boys were different, but the details were unclear. His mother caught him, and he got in loads of trouble. I suspect he never did that again with a girl until he was MUCH older.
The whole time I was in grammar school, the differences between boys and girls and how they were treated were really not noticeable that I can recall. We were all friends, and played together at recess. The boys wore pants and we wore dresses. They had short hair and we had long hair.
In that same time frame, the early ‘50s, it was clear that what was expected for women was very different from what was expected of men. Mothers stayed home; they cooked and cleaned and sewed. When they went out, they went out to shop. Some days it was to the local shopping center or corner grocery. Some days, it was downtown to the big department stores. My mother drove, but my grandmother never learned how. So, my grandmother either rode along as a passenger or stayed home and gardened (which I think she preferred).
As a child, I wondered what my life would be like as a grown-up woman. I wasn’t really all that interested in the “domestic” things my mother and grandmother did. I was fascinated that my aunt worked in a law office. That was, of course, because she never married and had to “support herself.”
By the time I got to junior high, especially 9th grade, things started to change. We started looking at boys not as friends, but as boyfriends. In those days, it wasn’t really possible to be “friends” with a boy. Friendships with boys had to be dating-type friendships. That was a definite change, but one I accepted with—that is just the way it is.
By high school, this was even more pronounced. Some boys became more or less “gods” because they were good football players. Some girls fell into the goddess role as beauty queens. The rest of us, both boys and girls, tried to find our way. We all wanted to go to college, and about 98% of our graduating class DID go on to college. The boys were looking for careers. We girls were not sure what we were looking for.
In high school, I was told to study hard so I could get into college. Actually, I think the girls in my high school did better academically than the boys. Mothers were pushing college (remember, this was the South in the mid ‘60s) on their female daughters as a way to find a “man,” and to learn how to do something in case the unthinkable happens and you have to support yourself. You could get unlucky and not ever find a man, or the one you find may die or, heaven-forbid, divorce you. Or you could pick a real loser who was not a “good-provider.”
The summer before college, I spent time with my girlfriends talking about the future. We all wanted to do something with our lives other than just be wives and mothers. “It’s not fair” kept coming up in conversation. One friend was going to one of the “seven sisters” girls’ schools. She had to read a book called the Feminine Mystique. She asked me if I wanted to read it, but I never got around to it until years later. I wonder…would it have changed me back then?
Upon arrival at college, it was clear the landscape had changed. This was Auburn University in 1964. There was many more boys that girls (something mothers, including mine, had mentioned repeatedly during the college selection process). And it was immediately clear that the boys got considerably more freedom than we girls. Not that we were exactly looking for freedom. Just living in a dorm and not having parents telling us what to do was a big change.
Girls HAD to live in the dormitory; there was one large dormitory for boys, but boys could live wherever they liked. There as a legal doctrine of “in loco parentis” that gave the university the right to control the lives of its female students – known in those days as “co-eds.” Since boys typically come with parents as well, we were always a bit puzzled as to why they didn’t have to have rules, too. “It’s not fair” was heard a lot around the campus.
State law at that time was quite clear on the subject of drinking. You had to be 21. At Auburn, this was interpreted as “girls had to be 21.” Boys could drink, and did drink – to great excess! The beer and bourbon flowed freely in apartments and frat houses. Obviously, the boys weren’t doing all the drinking, but the girls (who typically mixed bourbon with Coca-Cola) could be kicked out of school. In my dorm, we had to take turns standing at the desk and smelling our fellow students’ breath at the desk. My sorority sisters made a pact – if they caught a sister with alcohol on her breath, she would first be reported internally to the “standards committee” before being reported to the school. Meanwhile, the boys drank and drank and drank and nobody cared. “It’s not fair” was our only response, but we did as we were told (at least I did).
We co-eds had other rules that didn’t apply to the boys. We had to be in the dorm by 11 p.m. on weekends; and even earlier on weeknights. We couldn’t go out in public with our hair in rollers. Slacks were banned, except within the quadrangle (the area formed by the “women’s” dormitories). Shorts were totally banned except in the dorm. Auburn girls, in those days, wore raincoats a lot, even on the sunniest of days in the summer time. Meanwhile, the boys could wear whatever they wanted.
I decided to major in education, although I would have much preferred to major in journalism. My mother thought I would do much better as an English major in education because with a teacher’s certificate I would never be without work.
I did meet my husband at Auburn, and I got my degree in education. In fact, I then went on and got a master’s degree, also in education. Then what? I had played by all the rules and did all the right things.
That was the point at which the REAL issue started to come into focus. I had the degrees, and I didn’t want to save them for the unlikely event that my healthy young husband would die an untimely death. He was an air force officer, but he was not going to Viet Nam – so I felt the odds of him dying were pretty slim. Besides, we could use the extra money we would get if I worked. Also, in college the they told us that if you didn’t use your degree, you would quickly go stale (the world was changing so fast --little did they know) and never be able to work.
Once married, I became a military dependent. I hated that term. I was a wife – a position with special provisions. I got an orange colored ID card. I joined the Officers’ Wives' Club and tried to play my role as best I could, although I wrestled with it a bit. They brought in luncheon speakers to keep our minds occupied. I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing Maureen Reagan, Erma Bombeck, Tom Snyder, Blackstone the Magician and other famous people.
What I noticed about the other officers’ wives was that they were bright, capable women. Most didn’t work, but most had college degree or even advanced degrees. The ones who did work, took part-time jobs just to keep involved in their professions. I enjoyed getting to meet them and made some great friendships.
I worked full-time for the first two years of our marriage and I enjoyed working. We saved the money I made. In time, our son came along and I worked a bit as a part-time college instructor. I kept my hand in, and I enjoyed the deviation from a life of diaper changing and, later, preschool.
In these years, the country was in an uproar over the rights of women. I didn’t (maybe I should have) take the time to be involved then. I was too busy doing my own thing and making my own way. In my field, being education, there really wasn’t much of a problem with how women were treated. There were WAY more of us than men, and women often rose to the rank of school principal.
As time went on and our son started school, I tried working a full-time job and leaving our son in daycare afterschool. It didn’t work very well; he hated the daycare. Meanwhile, the company I was working for closed, and I could do something different.
I ended up accepting a part-time job in an independent school and my son could go to school there for free. It was a great deal for both of us and our hours coincided.
But it was not to last, and the school closed. With three other women, I started another independent school and through eighth grade my son and I had schedules that meshed. But, truth is, I often stayed after regular school hours – something he didn’t really appreciate.
The years went by, our son went to high school and onto college. Meanwhile I became an entrepreneur and started my own business.
I have typically hired women who are very capable and talented, but can’t stand the “stay at home wife” thing. That has worked well for me, and has led us to flexible scheduling and even now, virtual offices. Ironically, I now have the best of both worlds.
When I became executive director of a women’s professional association, I became more in tune with the history of women’s rights, and it became crystal clear to me that there really was (and still is a problem) with how women are treated, particularly in some professions.
At age 60, I feel I can do whatever I want to, and nobody is going to tell me I can’t do that because I am a “woman.” (With the exception of taking my shirt off in public – that would still get me in trouble!). But, what I have to say, in retrospect, is that I could have approached being in business much differently – more like a man would. But that is not who I am, and I have to do it my way!
I hope the young women out there appreciate just how far we have come as women. Looking back, I can thank my “bra-burning” contemporaries for forcing society to re-think how women are treated. I can’t imagine a state university today imposing special rules on female students or enforcing state law selectively on women-only. But are there still things that happen that make us say “It’s not fair.” You bet! There is still much work to be done.
Once, when I was about four, I was playing with my friend, Butch, (who lived in the house behind us). It was a hot Alabama summer day, and he took his t-shirt off. That seemed like a fine idea to me, as well, so I took off mine. When my mother saw me running about without a top, she got very upset with me. She told me that I had to put my top on “right this minute” and that I was never to do it again. Meanwhile, Butch was standing there with his bare chest for all the world to see. I looked at his chest and then at my chest --- as far as I could see they looked exactly the same. My response was, you guessed it, “That’s not fair.” But I put my top back on and got on with life, never to remove my blouse in public ever again!
About the same time, another of my little male friends and I were playing in cardboard boxes, scooting ourselves across the carpet by sliding the boxes. For some reason, he felt compelled to show “himself” to me. Of course, I was interested. I knew that boys were different, but the details were unclear. His mother caught him, and he got in loads of trouble. I suspect he never did that again with a girl until he was MUCH older.
The whole time I was in grammar school, the differences between boys and girls and how they were treated were really not noticeable that I can recall. We were all friends, and played together at recess. The boys wore pants and we wore dresses. They had short hair and we had long hair.
In that same time frame, the early ‘50s, it was clear that what was expected for women was very different from what was expected of men. Mothers stayed home; they cooked and cleaned and sewed. When they went out, they went out to shop. Some days it was to the local shopping center or corner grocery. Some days, it was downtown to the big department stores. My mother drove, but my grandmother never learned how. So, my grandmother either rode along as a passenger or stayed home and gardened (which I think she preferred).
As a child, I wondered what my life would be like as a grown-up woman. I wasn’t really all that interested in the “domestic” things my mother and grandmother did. I was fascinated that my aunt worked in a law office. That was, of course, because she never married and had to “support herself.”
By the time I got to junior high, especially 9th grade, things started to change. We started looking at boys not as friends, but as boyfriends. In those days, it wasn’t really possible to be “friends” with a boy. Friendships with boys had to be dating-type friendships. That was a definite change, but one I accepted with—that is just the way it is.
By high school, this was even more pronounced. Some boys became more or less “gods” because they were good football players. Some girls fell into the goddess role as beauty queens. The rest of us, both boys and girls, tried to find our way. We all wanted to go to college, and about 98% of our graduating class DID go on to college. The boys were looking for careers. We girls were not sure what we were looking for.
In high school, I was told to study hard so I could get into college. Actually, I think the girls in my high school did better academically than the boys. Mothers were pushing college (remember, this was the South in the mid ‘60s) on their female daughters as a way to find a “man,” and to learn how to do something in case the unthinkable happens and you have to support yourself. You could get unlucky and not ever find a man, or the one you find may die or, heaven-forbid, divorce you. Or you could pick a real loser who was not a “good-provider.”
The summer before college, I spent time with my girlfriends talking about the future. We all wanted to do something with our lives other than just be wives and mothers. “It’s not fair” kept coming up in conversation. One friend was going to one of the “seven sisters” girls’ schools. She had to read a book called the Feminine Mystique. She asked me if I wanted to read it, but I never got around to it until years later. I wonder…would it have changed me back then?
Upon arrival at college, it was clear the landscape had changed. This was Auburn University in 1964. There was many more boys that girls (something mothers, including mine, had mentioned repeatedly during the college selection process). And it was immediately clear that the boys got considerably more freedom than we girls. Not that we were exactly looking for freedom. Just living in a dorm and not having parents telling us what to do was a big change.
Girls HAD to live in the dormitory; there was one large dormitory for boys, but boys could live wherever they liked. There as a legal doctrine of “in loco parentis” that gave the university the right to control the lives of its female students – known in those days as “co-eds.” Since boys typically come with parents as well, we were always a bit puzzled as to why they didn’t have to have rules, too. “It’s not fair” was heard a lot around the campus.
State law at that time was quite clear on the subject of drinking. You had to be 21. At Auburn, this was interpreted as “girls had to be 21.” Boys could drink, and did drink – to great excess! The beer and bourbon flowed freely in apartments and frat houses. Obviously, the boys weren’t doing all the drinking, but the girls (who typically mixed bourbon with Coca-Cola) could be kicked out of school. In my dorm, we had to take turns standing at the desk and smelling our fellow students’ breath at the desk. My sorority sisters made a pact – if they caught a sister with alcohol on her breath, she would first be reported internally to the “standards committee” before being reported to the school. Meanwhile, the boys drank and drank and drank and nobody cared. “It’s not fair” was our only response, but we did as we were told (at least I did).
We co-eds had other rules that didn’t apply to the boys. We had to be in the dorm by 11 p.m. on weekends; and even earlier on weeknights. We couldn’t go out in public with our hair in rollers. Slacks were banned, except within the quadrangle (the area formed by the “women’s” dormitories). Shorts were totally banned except in the dorm. Auburn girls, in those days, wore raincoats a lot, even on the sunniest of days in the summer time. Meanwhile, the boys could wear whatever they wanted.
I decided to major in education, although I would have much preferred to major in journalism. My mother thought I would do much better as an English major in education because with a teacher’s certificate I would never be without work.
I did meet my husband at Auburn, and I got my degree in education. In fact, I then went on and got a master’s degree, also in education. Then what? I had played by all the rules and did all the right things.
That was the point at which the REAL issue started to come into focus. I had the degrees, and I didn’t want to save them for the unlikely event that my healthy young husband would die an untimely death. He was an air force officer, but he was not going to Viet Nam – so I felt the odds of him dying were pretty slim. Besides, we could use the extra money we would get if I worked. Also, in college the they told us that if you didn’t use your degree, you would quickly go stale (the world was changing so fast --little did they know) and never be able to work.
Once married, I became a military dependent. I hated that term. I was a wife – a position with special provisions. I got an orange colored ID card. I joined the Officers’ Wives' Club and tried to play my role as best I could, although I wrestled with it a bit. They brought in luncheon speakers to keep our minds occupied. I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing Maureen Reagan, Erma Bombeck, Tom Snyder, Blackstone the Magician and other famous people.
What I noticed about the other officers’ wives was that they were bright, capable women. Most didn’t work, but most had college degree or even advanced degrees. The ones who did work, took part-time jobs just to keep involved in their professions. I enjoyed getting to meet them and made some great friendships.
I worked full-time for the first two years of our marriage and I enjoyed working. We saved the money I made. In time, our son came along and I worked a bit as a part-time college instructor. I kept my hand in, and I enjoyed the deviation from a life of diaper changing and, later, preschool.
In these years, the country was in an uproar over the rights of women. I didn’t (maybe I should have) take the time to be involved then. I was too busy doing my own thing and making my own way. In my field, being education, there really wasn’t much of a problem with how women were treated. There were WAY more of us than men, and women often rose to the rank of school principal.
As time went on and our son started school, I tried working a full-time job and leaving our son in daycare afterschool. It didn’t work very well; he hated the daycare. Meanwhile, the company I was working for closed, and I could do something different.
I ended up accepting a part-time job in an independent school and my son could go to school there for free. It was a great deal for both of us and our hours coincided.
But it was not to last, and the school closed. With three other women, I started another independent school and through eighth grade my son and I had schedules that meshed. But, truth is, I often stayed after regular school hours – something he didn’t really appreciate.
The years went by, our son went to high school and onto college. Meanwhile I became an entrepreneur and started my own business.
I have typically hired women who are very capable and talented, but can’t stand the “stay at home wife” thing. That has worked well for me, and has led us to flexible scheduling and even now, virtual offices. Ironically, I now have the best of both worlds.
When I became executive director of a women’s professional association, I became more in tune with the history of women’s rights, and it became crystal clear to me that there really was (and still is a problem) with how women are treated, particularly in some professions.
At age 60, I feel I can do whatever I want to, and nobody is going to tell me I can’t do that because I am a “woman.” (With the exception of taking my shirt off in public – that would still get me in trouble!). But, what I have to say, in retrospect, is that I could have approached being in business much differently – more like a man would. But that is not who I am, and I have to do it my way!
I hope the young women out there appreciate just how far we have come as women. Looking back, I can thank my “bra-burning” contemporaries for forcing society to re-think how women are treated. I can’t imagine a state university today imposing special rules on female students or enforcing state law selectively on women-only. But are there still things that happen that make us say “It’s not fair.” You bet! There is still much work to be done.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Changes
There are times in your life when you know things will never be the same. The longer I live, the more of those times I have experienced. And it gets to be a more familiar feeling, but I am not sure it gets any easier.
The first time for me was when our next door neighbor had a heart attack. Uncle Leonard, as I called him, was a very special family friend. The day I heard of his heart attack, it was February 14, 1951. I was just five years old, but I knew he was going to die. I crawled behind the rocking chair and wept. Two weeks later, he was gone, but I knew it instantly and I grieved.
My grandmother died suddenly in 1957 of a massive heart attack. My life was blown away. Nanny lived with us and I loved her deeply. It all happened so fast; it was so unfair. A few years later, my grandfather was gone and I missed him very much.
We moved on December 1, 1958. I would have been contented to stay in our house in Bush Hills forever, but my parents wanted to be “over the mountain.” At the tender age of twelve, I didn’t understand the need to “have a new house” in the suburbs. The first week or so in the new house, I had nightmares. I wanted to go back to the old house; I missed my friends from grammar school. The new school was so different, and so were the kids. They all knew each other and they wore lipstick and listened to rock music. Life was so very different, and I hated it!
Weeks later, on Christmas Eve, my beloved cocker spaniel, Twink, hung herself. I had left her with her leash on in the full open basement of the new house. She had caught the leash under the door molding, fallen off the stairs, and was hanging by her collar. It was awful! The dog I loved so much was dead and it was my fault.
But life went on, and gradually I became accustomed to the new house, the new school, the new kids, the new dog and more. But my body was changing and I hated that too! Why did everything have to always keep changing?
Soon I found myself graduating from high school and off to college. I chose a big state university, Auburn University. There was a side of me that wanted a private, woman’s college, but the pragmatist in me won out. I felt it made more sense to experience the big university – to live in the “real” world and that was more important than challenging myself intellectually. Also, Auburn was a lot cheaper for my parents. My parents drove me to Auburn on a bright September morning in 1964. Several times along the way, I had to stop and throw up. I was scared to death.
The first few weeks at college were awful, starting with sorority rush. I was rejected by my mother’s sorority and that was so very painful. I ended up pledging another very fine sorority, which was actually a better fit for me, but at the time I was not so sure. I really just wanted more than anything in the world to go home.
But I stayed at Auburn, and four years later I graduated. By June of 1969, I had my master’s degree, also from Auburn. I hated to leave Auburn behind, but my time there was done.
Two weeks after getting my master’s, I got married to Steve. I wept the night before. I wasn’t sure I could go through with it. I would have to leave Birmingham and live in Illinois, a place I had never even been. I would have to leave my parents. Life would never be the same.
I remember the day we left our apartment in Illinois. I had come to love our apartment, not to mention my job at McKendree College and Lebanon, the little town where we lived. I could have stayed right there for the rest of my life. But the air force had other plans for us.
We moved to California is September of 1971. We bought a house and a car the same day, and the baby was due in December. I really didn’t enjoy our time in San Bernardino very much, although I met some great folks. Mostly, I hated the weather, the lack of seasons and the smog. But five years later when we left, I felt a sense of loss and remembered those things I had come to love – the sweet scent of orange blossoms, Big Bear Lake in the winter and Oak Glen and its apples in the fall.
When we left San Bernardino, Steve also left active duty with the air force. We spent our last night in town on base and stayed in the VOQ. Early that morning, Steve took my military ID to turn it in. The air force had been part of my life for seven years. I didn’t especially enjoy the officers’ wife role, but I played it well and I grieved when it ended. That morning I looked at the empty place in my wallet where the ID had been and realized that life would never be the same.
We moved to Maryland in 1976 and we bought a house where we lived for 16 years. I never really loved that house, but it worked for us. Gradually, we improved and expanded it and the more we did to it, the more we liked it. We raised our son in that house. It was a bit quirky and bit noisy (due to the high school right behind it).
Change was hitting me on another front. Within three years of each other, both of my parents were gone. My mother had lung cancer and died within a year of diagnosis. My father died on congestive heart failure two years later. I think his heart was broken.
After my mother died, my father sold the house. They lived in that house for 30 years and the years had taken their toll. My father still saw the house just as it was the day they moved in. He didn’t take it well when the real estate lady suggested refinishing the floors, putting down beige carpet and painting everything white. He had made the decision all by himself that it was time to sell the house and for him to moving to assisted living. Still, the process of cleaning out the house was too painful for him to watch. He became ill and had to be hospitalized. I did what I had to do and the house got cleaned out and sold. My father moved to assisted living. And I grieved for a life that would never again be the same. And it wasn’t!
We sold the house we lived in since 1976 in 1992, as we built a wonderful new house on the water. The day I turned out the lights in that house, the memories flooded back. The new house was better in almost every way, but it wasn’t the same.
Professionally, I have had to deal with change as well. When I worked at Wroxeter-on-Severn School from 1978-1980, I felt I had finally arrived. The place was like working in a castle. My office had antique furniture, oriental rugs, a stained glass window overlooking the Severn River. But it wasn’t destined to last. By 1980, the school was gone; it ran out of money. Packing up my materials to go home was tough!
The items that went home with me from Wroxeter soon found their way to the new school four of us from Wroxeter founded in 1980. I worked at Chesapeake Academy from 1980 – 1989 and it became a major focus of my life. But in 1989, it was time to stop working there, so I packed up my things and took them home. The school is still a part of my life as a member of the board of trustees, but it will never be the same.
In 1989, I started Bay Media and worked from my home. Within five years, I knew the time had come to get real office space and hire employees. The challenges were many, but we persisted and stayed in the first location for six years. Our rented space was sold to a tile distributor who intended to gut our unit and use it for warehouse space. Walking out of that unit was tough, but it had to be done.
We moved to a new office location in a nice professional center. I debated at that time whether I really still needed office space or not. I decided that I still required it, so for another six years, to 2006, we maintained physical office space. But the way we do our business kept changing and by Spring of 2006 I was convinced that we needed to go virtual.
Tonight I went to my office for the last time. We worked all day yesterday cleaning up everything spic and span; we spackled nail holes and painted over the logo on the wall. It all went back to white paint. For the last two months, we have been moving stuff out of the office. Everything is out now and I can breathe a sign of relief. But I am grieving tonight because I know things will never be the same.
The promise of a virtual business is invigorating and exciting, but is anything but comfortable. Many changes await, and I know each day will hold new surprises and challenges. But I will do what I always have done – embrace the changes, enjoy them, and eventually grieve for them when it is time for the next change --- the next chapter awaits!
The first time for me was when our next door neighbor had a heart attack. Uncle Leonard, as I called him, was a very special family friend. The day I heard of his heart attack, it was February 14, 1951. I was just five years old, but I knew he was going to die. I crawled behind the rocking chair and wept. Two weeks later, he was gone, but I knew it instantly and I grieved.
My grandmother died suddenly in 1957 of a massive heart attack. My life was blown away. Nanny lived with us and I loved her deeply. It all happened so fast; it was so unfair. A few years later, my grandfather was gone and I missed him very much.
We moved on December 1, 1958. I would have been contented to stay in our house in Bush Hills forever, but my parents wanted to be “over the mountain.” At the tender age of twelve, I didn’t understand the need to “have a new house” in the suburbs. The first week or so in the new house, I had nightmares. I wanted to go back to the old house; I missed my friends from grammar school. The new school was so different, and so were the kids. They all knew each other and they wore lipstick and listened to rock music. Life was so very different, and I hated it!
Weeks later, on Christmas Eve, my beloved cocker spaniel, Twink, hung herself. I had left her with her leash on in the full open basement of the new house. She had caught the leash under the door molding, fallen off the stairs, and was hanging by her collar. It was awful! The dog I loved so much was dead and it was my fault.
But life went on, and gradually I became accustomed to the new house, the new school, the new kids, the new dog and more. But my body was changing and I hated that too! Why did everything have to always keep changing?
Soon I found myself graduating from high school and off to college. I chose a big state university, Auburn University. There was a side of me that wanted a private, woman’s college, but the pragmatist in me won out. I felt it made more sense to experience the big university – to live in the “real” world and that was more important than challenging myself intellectually. Also, Auburn was a lot cheaper for my parents. My parents drove me to Auburn on a bright September morning in 1964. Several times along the way, I had to stop and throw up. I was scared to death.
The first few weeks at college were awful, starting with sorority rush. I was rejected by my mother’s sorority and that was so very painful. I ended up pledging another very fine sorority, which was actually a better fit for me, but at the time I was not so sure. I really just wanted more than anything in the world to go home.
But I stayed at Auburn, and four years later I graduated. By June of 1969, I had my master’s degree, also from Auburn. I hated to leave Auburn behind, but my time there was done.
Two weeks after getting my master’s, I got married to Steve. I wept the night before. I wasn’t sure I could go through with it. I would have to leave Birmingham and live in Illinois, a place I had never even been. I would have to leave my parents. Life would never be the same.
I remember the day we left our apartment in Illinois. I had come to love our apartment, not to mention my job at McKendree College and Lebanon, the little town where we lived. I could have stayed right there for the rest of my life. But the air force had other plans for us.
We moved to California is September of 1971. We bought a house and a car the same day, and the baby was due in December. I really didn’t enjoy our time in San Bernardino very much, although I met some great folks. Mostly, I hated the weather, the lack of seasons and the smog. But five years later when we left, I felt a sense of loss and remembered those things I had come to love – the sweet scent of orange blossoms, Big Bear Lake in the winter and Oak Glen and its apples in the fall.
When we left San Bernardino, Steve also left active duty with the air force. We spent our last night in town on base and stayed in the VOQ. Early that morning, Steve took my military ID to turn it in. The air force had been part of my life for seven years. I didn’t especially enjoy the officers’ wife role, but I played it well and I grieved when it ended. That morning I looked at the empty place in my wallet where the ID had been and realized that life would never be the same.
We moved to Maryland in 1976 and we bought a house where we lived for 16 years. I never really loved that house, but it worked for us. Gradually, we improved and expanded it and the more we did to it, the more we liked it. We raised our son in that house. It was a bit quirky and bit noisy (due to the high school right behind it).
Change was hitting me on another front. Within three years of each other, both of my parents were gone. My mother had lung cancer and died within a year of diagnosis. My father died on congestive heart failure two years later. I think his heart was broken.
After my mother died, my father sold the house. They lived in that house for 30 years and the years had taken their toll. My father still saw the house just as it was the day they moved in. He didn’t take it well when the real estate lady suggested refinishing the floors, putting down beige carpet and painting everything white. He had made the decision all by himself that it was time to sell the house and for him to moving to assisted living. Still, the process of cleaning out the house was too painful for him to watch. He became ill and had to be hospitalized. I did what I had to do and the house got cleaned out and sold. My father moved to assisted living. And I grieved for a life that would never again be the same. And it wasn’t!
We sold the house we lived in since 1976 in 1992, as we built a wonderful new house on the water. The day I turned out the lights in that house, the memories flooded back. The new house was better in almost every way, but it wasn’t the same.
Professionally, I have had to deal with change as well. When I worked at Wroxeter-on-Severn School from 1978-1980, I felt I had finally arrived. The place was like working in a castle. My office had antique furniture, oriental rugs, a stained glass window overlooking the Severn River. But it wasn’t destined to last. By 1980, the school was gone; it ran out of money. Packing up my materials to go home was tough!
The items that went home with me from Wroxeter soon found their way to the new school four of us from Wroxeter founded in 1980. I worked at Chesapeake Academy from 1980 – 1989 and it became a major focus of my life. But in 1989, it was time to stop working there, so I packed up my things and took them home. The school is still a part of my life as a member of the board of trustees, but it will never be the same.
In 1989, I started Bay Media and worked from my home. Within five years, I knew the time had come to get real office space and hire employees. The challenges were many, but we persisted and stayed in the first location for six years. Our rented space was sold to a tile distributor who intended to gut our unit and use it for warehouse space. Walking out of that unit was tough, but it had to be done.
We moved to a new office location in a nice professional center. I debated at that time whether I really still needed office space or not. I decided that I still required it, so for another six years, to 2006, we maintained physical office space. But the way we do our business kept changing and by Spring of 2006 I was convinced that we needed to go virtual.
Tonight I went to my office for the last time. We worked all day yesterday cleaning up everything spic and span; we spackled nail holes and painted over the logo on the wall. It all went back to white paint. For the last two months, we have been moving stuff out of the office. Everything is out now and I can breathe a sign of relief. But I am grieving tonight because I know things will never be the same.
The promise of a virtual business is invigorating and exciting, but is anything but comfortable. Many changes await, and I know each day will hold new surprises and challenges. But I will do what I always have done – embrace the changes, enjoy them, and eventually grieve for them when it is time for the next change --- the next chapter awaits!
Monday, September 11, 2006
Lawn Furniture
When I was very small, we had a glider and matching chairs. The set was made out of strips of white metal, with green trim. You could sit on the glider and move back and forth on a hot summer night. I used to love those evenings with my family on the front porch. The grownups told tales of the old days – often about World War II and what life was like. Sometimes I caught lightening bugs in a glass jar with hole punched in the top. Life was good!
In the back yard we had some wooden lawn furniture, but we seldom used it. In fact, I don’t remember ever using it. There were two Adirondack chairs stained dark red – probably to look like redwood. One day my mother told me I could paint them pink. I did, and the yard near the chairs was probably never the same.
When I was about nine my mother replaced the old glider with a fancy new one she bought at a warehouse sale. It had an aluminum frame and bright green vinyl cushions. It was definitely softer to stretch out on than the old one without cushions. I know sometimes when we had lots of houseguests she would bring the glider inside and fold the back down somehow and use it as an extra bed.
When we moved in 1958 we brought the glider with us, but got rid of the two old white metal chairs. My mother bought a round glass topped table with four matching wrought iron chairs. She also bought some of those fold up aluminum chairs with the straps that were all the range back then. We always kept a few of those chairs at the base of the driveway so we could sit out in the evening and talk with the next door neighbors. We also had an aluminum chaise lounge, but it and all the furniture lived on “the deck.” It was great having a deck all up in the trees, but it lacked the magic of the front porch at the old house.
The years went by and my mother bought a couple of really black wrought iron chairs. They went onto the deck and all of the aluminum fold up chairs went to the basement, eventually to be joined by some beach chairs (which my mother never would have bought, but probably won) which still grace my garage. We have never taken them to the beach because we always go to the beach on an airplane. Oh’ well!
Steve and I got married in 1969 and bought our own lawn furniture. We started out with two small aluminum chairs with green straps. In time, we added two r aluminum folding chairs with high backs, orange strapping, and a wooden handles. We bought a strapping repair kit. These served us well through our two years in Illinois and our five years in California, but while we were in California we were overcome by the urge to buy a redwood table and two bench seats. I think having a set like that was requisite to living in the state.
The lawn furniture moved with us to Maryland in 1976. The redwood table never really worked well on the screen in porch. The previous owners had used a spool from electrical cable for a table. We moved that monster to the yard, but it was hard to dispose of. Eventually, I decided to donate the redwood table to Chesapeake Academy for use in the summer program. By then it was 1983. I went to the local discount store and bought a square glass table with white vinyl trim. We kept our aluminum folding chairs for years afterwards until they finally rotted and I couldn’t remember what happened to the repair kit.
At some point along the way, they introduced stackable white plastic chairs. Of course, I had to have some, so I bought four and they looked with the glass topped table with the white vinyl trim. I had a hole in the center for an umbrella, but I didn’t bother with an umbrella because it would be sort of silly inside a screened porch.
In 1990, we built a big addition to the house and a deck. The screened in porch became a pantry and the white glass topped table went to the deck where it was joined by a smart new vinyl umbrella and about eight white plastic chairs. In addition, because my mother had died and my father was selling the house, I acquired their black wrought iron table and four chairs and their two black wrought iron chairs. The deck was full of furniture.
In 1992, when we built our new house, we ended up with lots of decks, two at the main level of the house and one great big one at the basement level. That is more deck than anyone could possibly need, but we have them now and I have to make the best of it.
We put my mother’s black wrought iron table and four chairs on the small deck off the kitchen. It was perfect for barbeque dinners with our son and his wife. It even worked OK with two very small children joined the family.
The old glass topped table with white vinyl went on the big deck off the family room, along with collection of white plastic stacking chairs and a white vinyl chaise lounger in failing health.
I told my husband I really wanted a glider. He surprised me with a wooden porch swing. It’s nice , but it is not a glider. My daughter-in-law bought me cushions for the porch swing and the chaise lounge. I bought a green topped container to keep them in and green cloth market umbrella for the table (since the blue vinyl one had long since gone to the dump infested with squirrel debris). In time the white chairs got really yucky, so they went to the lower deck and were stacked up for some future need – you never know! And we got high backed dark green ones instead. Not great with the glass topped table with white vinyl trim (maybe I should paint it, but Steve says that would “be a mistake.”)
The two good wrought iron chairs and matching table were set up on the lower deck where they began to rust after 16 years. Nobody ever sat on them except for few minutes now and then in all those years.
I bought two fold-up chairs with white plastic straps to go in the hot tub room in 1992. They are still there, looking new!
A few years ago, I spotted some chairs that folded up and slipped into a bag. Very clever, I thought, and immediately bought two. They were destined to become all the rage. Now you see them everywhere. We now own four, but the second pair are heavier with arms. Who needs arms? We take the lighter ones when we go to outdoor events.
Recently, I decided it was time to re-do our outdoor furniture. This time I was going to think the whole thing through and get some good stuff that was really “suitable” for the deck off the kitchen. I considered some lovely wooden furniture from the grocery store at a great price. I told my son and his wife about my plans. They reminded me that this furniture was likely made with wood from tropical rain forests. Jeez…that had not occurred to me. I would not want to personally be responsible for destroying the ozone layer. It is bad enough that I bought that redwood picnic table back in the 1970s.
The small round table on the deck off the kitchen was not big enough for four adults and two rapidly growing children. I went to a local store and bought a hexagonal table and chair for six. The chairs have nice beige cushions, so I had to buy a big bronze colored container to keep them in and a beige cloth market umbrella.
OK, so I did the one deck and it looks great in fashionable bronze and beige. The other big deck was still green themed. After all, it is OK to have different rooms in different colors, right! The same should be true of decks!
The lower deck became home to my mothers’ black wrought iron table and four chairs. It is starting to rust seriously (again – Steve repainted in once).
Over the next year or so I am anticipating having some more gatherings at my house and need the lower deck. My goal is now to get that deck and everything on it in shape.
So, all the white chairs went to dump. Steve said I could power wash them, but I tried and destroyed the finish. Besides the things chalk like crazy!
Now it seems that the last frontier is the wrought iron furniture. Clearly it has to be thrown away or painted. I considered getting rid of it; then I priced wrought iron furniture. I had Steve get some dark green paint and he has started the scraping and priming part of the process. Probably by the end of the fall it will all look great and can start rusting again with the winter snows.
So, now you have it – half a century of lawn furniture history and drama!
In the back yard we had some wooden lawn furniture, but we seldom used it. In fact, I don’t remember ever using it. There were two Adirondack chairs stained dark red – probably to look like redwood. One day my mother told me I could paint them pink. I did, and the yard near the chairs was probably never the same.
When I was about nine my mother replaced the old glider with a fancy new one she bought at a warehouse sale. It had an aluminum frame and bright green vinyl cushions. It was definitely softer to stretch out on than the old one without cushions. I know sometimes when we had lots of houseguests she would bring the glider inside and fold the back down somehow and use it as an extra bed.
When we moved in 1958 we brought the glider with us, but got rid of the two old white metal chairs. My mother bought a round glass topped table with four matching wrought iron chairs. She also bought some of those fold up aluminum chairs with the straps that were all the range back then. We always kept a few of those chairs at the base of the driveway so we could sit out in the evening and talk with the next door neighbors. We also had an aluminum chaise lounge, but it and all the furniture lived on “the deck.” It was great having a deck all up in the trees, but it lacked the magic of the front porch at the old house.
The years went by and my mother bought a couple of really black wrought iron chairs. They went onto the deck and all of the aluminum fold up chairs went to the basement, eventually to be joined by some beach chairs (which my mother never would have bought, but probably won) which still grace my garage. We have never taken them to the beach because we always go to the beach on an airplane. Oh’ well!
Steve and I got married in 1969 and bought our own lawn furniture. We started out with two small aluminum chairs with green straps. In time, we added two r aluminum folding chairs with high backs, orange strapping, and a wooden handles. We bought a strapping repair kit. These served us well through our two years in Illinois and our five years in California, but while we were in California we were overcome by the urge to buy a redwood table and two bench seats. I think having a set like that was requisite to living in the state.
The lawn furniture moved with us to Maryland in 1976. The redwood table never really worked well on the screen in porch. The previous owners had used a spool from electrical cable for a table. We moved that monster to the yard, but it was hard to dispose of. Eventually, I decided to donate the redwood table to Chesapeake Academy for use in the summer program. By then it was 1983. I went to the local discount store and bought a square glass table with white vinyl trim. We kept our aluminum folding chairs for years afterwards until they finally rotted and I couldn’t remember what happened to the repair kit.
At some point along the way, they introduced stackable white plastic chairs. Of course, I had to have some, so I bought four and they looked with the glass topped table with the white vinyl trim. I had a hole in the center for an umbrella, but I didn’t bother with an umbrella because it would be sort of silly inside a screened porch.
In 1990, we built a big addition to the house and a deck. The screened in porch became a pantry and the white glass topped table went to the deck where it was joined by a smart new vinyl umbrella and about eight white plastic chairs. In addition, because my mother had died and my father was selling the house, I acquired their black wrought iron table and four chairs and their two black wrought iron chairs. The deck was full of furniture.
In 1992, when we built our new house, we ended up with lots of decks, two at the main level of the house and one great big one at the basement level. That is more deck than anyone could possibly need, but we have them now and I have to make the best of it.
We put my mother’s black wrought iron table and four chairs on the small deck off the kitchen. It was perfect for barbeque dinners with our son and his wife. It even worked OK with two very small children joined the family.
The old glass topped table with white vinyl went on the big deck off the family room, along with collection of white plastic stacking chairs and a white vinyl chaise lounger in failing health.
I told my husband I really wanted a glider. He surprised me with a wooden porch swing. It’s nice , but it is not a glider. My daughter-in-law bought me cushions for the porch swing and the chaise lounge. I bought a green topped container to keep them in and green cloth market umbrella for the table (since the blue vinyl one had long since gone to the dump infested with squirrel debris). In time the white chairs got really yucky, so they went to the lower deck and were stacked up for some future need – you never know! And we got high backed dark green ones instead. Not great with the glass topped table with white vinyl trim (maybe I should paint it, but Steve says that would “be a mistake.”)
The two good wrought iron chairs and matching table were set up on the lower deck where they began to rust after 16 years. Nobody ever sat on them except for few minutes now and then in all those years.
I bought two fold-up chairs with white plastic straps to go in the hot tub room in 1992. They are still there, looking new!
A few years ago, I spotted some chairs that folded up and slipped into a bag. Very clever, I thought, and immediately bought two. They were destined to become all the rage. Now you see them everywhere. We now own four, but the second pair are heavier with arms. Who needs arms? We take the lighter ones when we go to outdoor events.
Recently, I decided it was time to re-do our outdoor furniture. This time I was going to think the whole thing through and get some good stuff that was really “suitable” for the deck off the kitchen. I considered some lovely wooden furniture from the grocery store at a great price. I told my son and his wife about my plans. They reminded me that this furniture was likely made with wood from tropical rain forests. Jeez…that had not occurred to me. I would not want to personally be responsible for destroying the ozone layer. It is bad enough that I bought that redwood picnic table back in the 1970s.
The small round table on the deck off the kitchen was not big enough for four adults and two rapidly growing children. I went to a local store and bought a hexagonal table and chair for six. The chairs have nice beige cushions, so I had to buy a big bronze colored container to keep them in and a beige cloth market umbrella.
OK, so I did the one deck and it looks great in fashionable bronze and beige. The other big deck was still green themed. After all, it is OK to have different rooms in different colors, right! The same should be true of decks!
The lower deck became home to my mothers’ black wrought iron table and four chairs. It is starting to rust seriously (again – Steve repainted in once).
Over the next year or so I am anticipating having some more gatherings at my house and need the lower deck. My goal is now to get that deck and everything on it in shape.
So, all the white chairs went to dump. Steve said I could power wash them, but I tried and destroyed the finish. Besides the things chalk like crazy!
Now it seems that the last frontier is the wrought iron furniture. Clearly it has to be thrown away or painted. I considered getting rid of it; then I priced wrought iron furniture. I had Steve get some dark green paint and he has started the scraping and priming part of the process. Probably by the end of the fall it will all look great and can start rusting again with the winter snows.
So, now you have it – half a century of lawn furniture history and drama!
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