Two things occurred to me tonight that made me wonder just how underdeveloped my frontal lobe was as a teenager, or whether I was in possession of one at all.
Memory #1
When I was a teenager, maybe 14, my very smart but reckless brother, Steve, and I were supposed to be at a teen church group meeting. It’s the only reason that Dad would let Steve take the car.
Instead, because of the rebels that we were, we decided to go for a joyride. So, we took off over the St. Johns bridge that crossed the Willamette river. I think Steve had the bright idea to go to visit his girlfriend, Kathy, who hadn’t shown up for the group meeting, either.
St. Johns Bridge
At the South end of the bridge, one must make a sharp right turn or a sharp left turn or opt to run headlong into the rock mountain at the end of the bridge.
As we approached the intersection, Steve asked casually, “which direction should I go, left or right?” I didn’t answer quick enough so Steve stupidly ran head long into the mountain, totaling Dad’s car. (This was just the first of many car accidents Steve would have.)
Steve at least had the sense to throw himself across the seat but it didn’t hinder me from sliding down onto the floor. It did stop me, however, from crashing through the windshield or cracking my face on the dashboard. I’m sure that we were speeding since Steve had a tendency to speed and a predilection for danger.
He broke the rear view mirror with his body but he saved me from certain death or at least serious injury. We came to a sudden halt with a loud crash.
Steve hadn’t even applied the brakes. He pulled himself into a seated position and I pushed myself up off the floor. I noticed first of all that my pantyhose were destroyed. My reaction was not concern for our well being or for the car or for whether Dad would kill both of us or not, instead I exclaimed, “O, my God, my nylons”.
We’re alive to tell the story, which means that when the police brought us home, Dad slumped down in the doorway and cried… instead of killing us.
Memory #2
As many of you know who follow my blog, I contracted polio when I was 5 years old. Fortunately, I was only permanently affected when the deltoid in my right shoulder atrophied. As time went on, complications arose because of this and I had to have surgery to fuse the humerus (the upper arm bone) to the scapula (shoulder blade). This was long before joint replacements, so my orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Marxer, attached the two bones with what can only be described as a big deck bolt.
By this time I was in high school and was a growing young girl. After the surgery, I was in a cast that covered my torso, my arm, my shoulder and held my right arm out in front of me and a little to the side at a right angle. Needless to say, it weighed a ton, at least it felt like it. It rested on my right hip and to this day I have an indentation where it rested. And worst of all, the cast covered my right breast but not my left breast.
This is a pretty good likeness to the cast that I had except the arm on mine was held out at a right angle from my body and reached down to my hip bone where its weight was completely supported by my hip.
Since I was developing, my biggest concern was whether my left breast would grow larger than my right breast with my right breast being stunted under pounds of cast plaster.
Since my physician put a large bolt in the joint to hold my arm in place and since there wasn’t a deltoid to hold it in, I was in extreme pain as it healed and as the bone grew over the bolt.
Eventually the cast came off. But it wasn’t long before the the new, delicate bone broke and I had to go in for a second surgery. This required another cast. As those who have had bone surgery can attest, bone surgery is extremely painful. But what was my main worry? Why yes. It was, once again, whether my right breast would be able to grow as freely as the left one.
I had to put aside my embarrassment and gather all my courage to ask my doctor if my worries had any validity. To my chagrin, he didn’t have an answer for me. Most likely he didn’t have many teenage girl patients who had one breast in a cast and one breast out.
Like with my worries about my nylons being ruined in the car wreck, there I was having serious bone surgery and I was more concerned with my boobs than the health of my shoulder.
As it turns out, my concern was not baseless. Indeed my left breast is larger than my right. I will never know if it is because my right pectoral muscles were not as strenuously exercised as my left or if my conjecture was accurate… the damned cast inhibited equal opprtunity for growth.
My mom loved getting and giving cards for all occasions. At Christmas time, she had a list a mile long because she had a very large family and many friends. When a card would come in from someone not on the list, they would be added.
My cards this year.
Mom would set up an aluminum TV tray (remember those?) in front of her living room chair. Beside her was a tall stack of cards with envelopes and her list with names and addresses. From right after Thanksgiving until her list was complete, this is where we would find her, when she was not at work, or cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, shopping and wrapping presents.
For Christmas, as the mail came in, she’d cover the fireplace mantel with cards, then when there was no more room, she’d tape them on the door jams in the living room. Every year, when the holiday season was over, she would gather the cards and stash them away in a box along with her list.
Mom and me in 1966. See the Christmas cards?
When Mom passed away, it was hard to throw away her memories that were her only treasures. She didn’t leave us money or property but she left us something more precious, her unconditional love for everyone. Cards and photos and letters were overwhelming as evidence.
I’ve never sent cards at Christmas. Kristi (my sister) had taken over this tradition from Mom. But this very special year, my cousins (on mom’s side) and I decided to send cards to each other. We needed to say, “I love you” in a very tangible way. Some of us are very alone or suffering in other ways. There are well over 40 of us. In such a large family, one never knows what heartbreak might be.
I can’t tell you how much this has meant to me. I could feel Mom stirring in my heart and see her in my mind’s eye, sitting in her chair, head down, handwriting her cards as I wrote my cards, addressed the envelopes and stuffed them into the mailbox.
And now, I rush to get the mail everyday to see who has sent me a card. I think it’s my turn to keep the tradition, Mom.
This has been heartwarming in a cold and dark night. Our world has been turned upside down and this small gesture of sending and recieving cards has brought much needed joy and comfort. Thank you, cousins.
It’s a beautiful August day. The sky is a light shade of blue without a cloud in sight. The trees are a trillion shades of green and a light breeze is blowing. You know what I’ve been thinking about? My thoughts travel back to my childhood. I’m remembering summers when I was between the ages of about a 6 and 14. By the time I was a teenager, I no longer yearned to spend days with my parents and my siblings, though I did. But from my earliest remembrance until my teenage years, I remember summer days spent either camping at the coast or weekends on Sauvies Island.*
Summer days day-dreaming
I remember the picnic tables under the shade of the cottonwood trees. The fluffy seed pods slowly drifting down from above and onto the tables and covering the sand with the sticky seeds and fluff. Everyone would join to drag the heavy wooden tables to just the right spot making sure they were level and fully shaded.
Mom and Dad, Grandpa and Grandma and Auntie Wilma and Uncle Bob or Uncle Jim, depending on who she was married to at the time, would carry down coolers full of Kool aid and hot dogs and buns and chips of all kinds and watermelon. Mom would set up the camp stove and Grandma and Auntie Wilma would spread the tables with oil cloth. Mom, Grandma and Auntie Wilma would have made potato salad, coleslaw and maybe a macaroni salad or a three bean salad. We had plastic divided picnic plates in primary colors and I think we had regular silverware and paper napkins and colorful stacking tin cups. Dad and the other guys, would carry from the trunks of our cars, folding chairs and their fishing gear.
The fishermen: Dad and Uncle Bob
Dad and Uncle Jim (or Bob), Grandpa and Steve would carry their poles down to the rivers edge and cast their bobbers, sinkers and hooks into the water setting them up into their pole holders set firmly in the wet sand. I don’t remember a time when they didn’t take creels home full of fish. All the while, Mom and Grandma and Aunt Wilma set out the food.
Grandpa and Steve and I
I remember clearly how hot the sand was and how far it was from under the shade of the cottonwood trees to the edge of the river where the sand was cold and wet under our feet. We wore thongs that would inevitably break between our toes and hurt our feet as the rubber folded under our soles. So, mostly we were barefoot.
I can clearly remember one of my swim suits. It was a vertical striped black-and-white cotton suit that ballooned from my waist to the tops of my thighs. I can’t really remember whether I loved or hated that suit but I wore it a lot. I was embarrassed when the balloon part filled with water making me look ridiculous.
Dad and us kids in the ColumbiaOMG! There I am in my balloon suit.
We’d take towels with us as we ran towards the river’s edge as fast as we could with Mom shouting a warning not to go too deep. We spread them out where they would heat up under the hot sun. Kristi and I put a toe into the water first just to see how cold it was. Then we’d slowly wade out to our ankles, then to our knees, then to our thighs and then to our waists and once we were up to our waists, we would plunge under the water. Steve had already run in full blast, splashing us and making us scream. Mom’s predictable saying was, “Don’t scream and he’ll stop”. But he never did.
Us kids and Dad on the Island
These were the days when the Colombia was clean, and not yet designated as the 5th hottest river in the world due to the mercury content. We’d swim and we’d dive under the water opening our eyes to see each other’s legs so we could swim between them. We’d open our eyes to look into each other’s faces and try to talk, swallowing big gulps of river water. We’d do handstands and see who could stand the longest with their feet in the air. We’d swim until exhausted and then we’d run out of the water and up the beach to our hot towels burning our feet, saying hot, hot, hot” to collapse on our stomachs and doze. We’d bury our feet in the sand and we’d bury Steve up to his neck.
Me – a topless bathing beauty
Soon, we’d run back into the water washing the sand from our legs and backs and arms until Mom called us to come and eat. We’d spread mustard and ketchup and relish on our hot dogs and eat them walking around in the sand until Mom told us to sit at the table and handed us a plate with salad and chips and a cup of Koolaid. We almost always got sand in our food. But Mom would just tell us to eat it anyway, saying, “a little dirt never hurt anyone”.
I remember the smell of Coppertone sunscreen. We didn’t call it sunscreen then, it was suntan lotion. Mom would slather it all over us but because we were in-and-out of the water and in-and-out of the sand and off and on our towels, the lotion didn’t last long on our bodies and we’d burn in early summer but by August we were all tan enough that the burning was over. Mom always said that we were as “brown as berries”. *
Mom and Grandma would mostly sit in the shade but Auntie Wilma would come and lay in the sun with us and swim and she had a pole in the water, too. She had won trophies for swimming and diving and had spent most of her time in the outdoors except when she was bowling or working as a soda jerk. It was from her that I learned to put iodine in baby oil and rub it on my body so that I would tan even more. But that wasn’t until I was a teenager wearing a leopard skin bikini.
This is how our weekend days would go in the summer months when we went to picnic on Reeders Beach on Sauvies Island.
Dad had a 14′ boat and if we weren’t on Sauvies Island picnicking and swimming, he would take us out in the boat, either on the Willamette River or the Columbia or we would start on the Willamette and boat up river on the Multnomah Channel to the Columbia. I remember the smell of gasoline when we would pull up to the gas station dock where he had the attendant fill up our tank for our outboard motor. I remember how small I felt when a large tanker ship heading up the Columbia would pass us and the giant swells they would make would toss us up-and-down.
This is where we learned to swim. We wore bright orange cotton life jackets filled with kapok from Sears. They were belted on with canvas straps fastened with silver D-rings. We always wore them in the boat. Dad tossed us overboard. When these life jackets were wet, they must have weighed 25 lbs. Of course, he had taught us to swim off shore first but that was not in deep waters. He expected us to be expert swimmers. Once we were good enough, he would stop the motor out from the shore of a sandy beach and we would swim to shore without our life jackets and then he would motor the boat and anchor just off the shore, where we’d spend the day away from popular beaches.
Us kids in the boat with Dad
We’d eat salami, bologna and cheddar cheese on saltine crackers and cookies and chips. Dad drank beer and we had bottled Fanta sodas that left out mouths dyed orange, red, green or purple. As the sun began to set, Dad would motor back to the boat launch, with us kids mesmerized and half asleep rocking in the waves. Sometimes Dad would speed along and we laughed as the boat would slam up and down as it hit the waves, spray soaking us.
I remember Dad looking out for logs in the water. One collision would have spelled disaster. These logs would have broken away from one of the many mills along the rivers or from a barge towing a huge raft. They were frequently found, water logged and partly submerged. A real danger to boaters unaware.
Once we were at the boat launch or if we were loading up from a day at Reeders Beach on Sauvies Island, us kids were not allowed in the car, coated in sand. Mom would take us one by one and rub us down with a rough Turkish towel. Kristi and I would squeal in agony while Mom sandpapered our soft and sun burnt skin until almost every grain was left on the ground beside the car. Steve was on his own except for his feet, which Mom scrubbed mercilessly.
Not only were we instructed to eat sand at picnics and were rubbed nearly raw to remove all sand, but if we had a wound from scrapes and cuts, Mom scrubbed the wound to remove gravel and dirt or picked out bits of glass, ignoring our cries for mercy, she’d then pour Mercurochrome* on them to add insult to injury. Mom was a nurse who took her children’s health seriously. We never had an infection but all summer long we were stained red and pasted with band-aids.
These summers on the Island were some of my best memories. Of course, there were others, like camping at the coast in Florence at Honeyman Camp Ground, but those are stories that will come later. One summer Roy Rogers, Grandma’s cousin, was at the family reunion. During his stay, he had his speedboat with him and he spent the day with us at Sauvies Island. Yes. That Roy Rogers. But that’s also a story for another time.
Time spent sitting on the porch, looking at the sky and listening to the rustle of the leaves in the wind and remembering and writing these memories has been a wonderful way to wile away a summer’s afternoon.
Notes
*The phrase, “brown as a berry”, seems to date back to Geoffrey Chaucer where it appears twice in The Canterbury Tales (ca. 1380s). If you Google the phrase, you’ll be met with some further, and quite interesting information.
*Mercurochrome, in its original form, is now banned in many countries, including the US, because of its mercury content.
*Sauvies Island was just a little over 11 miles on Hwy. 30 from our house in St. Johns. It was first named Wapato Island, and is now mostly farm land. Before Europeans took the land, it was home to the Multnomah branch of the Chinook Indians with about 15 villages and a population of 2000 people. It is one of the largest river islands in the US
When we were married, Jack used to make leather goods, that included purses and sandals. He started to sell them when the Rose Festival Center was in the park across from the Lloyd Center Mall. It was probably 50 years ago.
What I have left of these is this purse he made for Mom and the tiny, little sandals he made for Hannah.
I clearly can recall the smell of leather, dye, Lexol and rubber cement. His workshop was set up in our small front room and a stump was installed where he cut and hammered and finished his handmade goods.
Scraps of leather and tools were scattered all about. His fingers and the floor were stained with shades of warm browns, soft reds and black and deepest blues.
I was the blessed recipient of purses, belts and sandals and small wallets of latigo and soft suede of many colors.
I miss that workshop that was our tiny house. I miss the sounds and the smells and Jack’s ability to create works of art from leather.
And this is what life is made of, memories and scraps of leather.
I have no importance here. I try to talk to everyone. But no one talks to me. When I join in conversation, I feel their disdain. I have nothing authoritative to say because I am not an expert on anything, they say. Look it up, they say, with a slight sneer contorting their lips.
When I explain that my education and experience and research gives my opinion authority, I am scoffed at.
When I talk I am ignored or am made to feel foolish or am misinterpreted
I sometimes feel loved but that changes moment by moment. I reach out to embrace. I have been told not to embrace. I embrace too much. No one reaches out to embrace me.
No one consults me and if I offer the wrong advice, words chastise me.
No one tells me where they are going nor if they are going.
I don’t feel welcome at the table.
I ask all the wrong questions. Words and looks say I sound stupid. I have been told that my questions are stupid.
Sometimes none of this is true. Sometimes I want to run away.
I don’t remember when I wrote this but it holds sweet memories of Christmases past.
………………………………………………
Many a Christmas I remember well.
The fragrance of fir boughs,
The sound of Daddy reading our favorite stories.
Covered feet tripping to the edge of the bed,
Two blue eyes and two green and small soft noses,
Red lips whispering, “Mommy, Daddy? Is it time?
No, we would murmur, drowsy from a deep winters sleep beneath warm heavy quilts.
The shush, shush of tiny feet making their way back to bed.
Our hearts thumping with Christmas joy.
The coffee first. Daddy lit the fire.
Popping the sweet cinnamon rolls into the oven.
Sitting so close to the tree that I could hear the twinkle of clear glass icicles, were two dear children with cheeks a-glow, waiting with bated breath.
Now it’s time.
One by one, each gift was opened.
Steam rose from our cups and laughter filled our hearts.
Yes, tears fell and shoulders shrugged and love was there.
I finally retired in October 2014. My sister, Kristi, had retired about a year before me. One day we met for coffee at an intimate cafe in Woodstock to celebrate.
Kristi’sMine
We bought these cups as a symbol of our promise to be companions as we aged, to take trips together and maybe even one day to live together. Little did we know that within just two weeks, she would die in a terrible car accident.
Two days ago I was drinking coffee out of my cup and I thought about these promises we made to one another. I wondered if Kristi’s kids had found her cup amongst her things.
I sent them a message and in a short time, I got a message back from Sharon, her oldest daughter, with a photo of the cup saying that she drinks out of it often.
I cried for loss but also for gladness. A girl could not have had a better sister. My memories of her span 64 years, so they are many.
When she was only 3 years old, and I was only 5, I contracted polio, and for the rest of our time together, she did for me what I could not do for myself. She was my confidant. She was my buddy. She was my heart.
I miss her so. When I drink from her promise cup, my heart fills to overflowing. I’m so happy to know that my promise cup to her still exists.
Once upon a time, a tiny baby fox was born into the big world of a forested wilderness. Only a few days after she was born, she found herself so very alone. She knew not where her mother and father had gone. She was not yet old enough to find her own food nor did she know where to sleep or even how to find her lost family.
It was getting dark and she was very, very hungry and very, very cold because the snow had not yet melted on this side of the mountain. She did not know, though it was August, that the snow never did melt here in the deep shadows of the trees and the crevices of the great mountain. She did not know either that new snow would soon be on its way.
At first, she laid down to cry, and cry she did until she was so tired that she almost fell asleep, exhausted. But she was so little that even if her mommy was around, she would not have heard her. Her mommy by this time had gone very far away but the baby fox could not have known this.
When the baby fox stopped crying she became quite still. She began to listen to the sounds all around her. She could hear the babbling stream, the wind in the tops of the trees and many more sounds that both scared and intrigued her. Just beyond a fallen log and a tangle of branches and piles of leaves, in a not too distant tumble of rocks, she heard some soft mewling sounds that she thought was familiar. Maybe it was her mommy and daddy.
But, by nature, she was a cautious little fox, so she crept slowly over the log and sniffed the air and perked up her ears, the hair on her back stood on end and her tail stood out from her in a rigid line. But she was so cold and hungry and so alone that she moved closer not knowing the dangers in the forest. She did not know that she could easily become someone’s dinner. She moved as silently as she could from behind a giant tree, listening to the soft noises and feeling, even from her hiding place, some warmth. She could not resist her curious nature or how hungry and cold she was. She also could not know that she might not survive the cold night.
When she was close enough to see the other creatures, she didn’t know that they did not look like her. She didn’t even know what she looked like. Her mommy was gone before she could even see very well. She had just opened her eyes. But she did remember how her mommy felt so warm and how she smelled so sweet. These creatures smelled different but she could only think of how cold and lonely and hungry she was.
When the little family of four kits and a momma saw her, so tiny as she was, they let her climb among them, even letting her wiggle in beside the other babies, who were not much bigger than her. They shared their food of mice and voles as the daylight faded. Soon the baby fox was sound asleep, warm with a full belly, snuggled down in the cave of rocks lined with dead leaves and the soft sounds of the family sleeping.
The baby fox grew there and played there for some weeks. But soon, she was old enough to leave the safe haven of the den. The other babies had grown much bigger than her and she could no longer fight them for the food that their momma brought them. And besides, the momma was leaving them alone for longer and longer times.
Because she was a smart little fox, she learned to hunt and forage for food by watching her adopted brothers and sisters as they ran after their momma. She was also leaving the den, tumbling up and down the hills and running to the stream to hunt for fish and other small animals and had even slept under the stars for one night. She had learned to watch the skies for owls and hawks and to watch the trees and ground for other animals who were hunting for food. She sensed that she would serve well for breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack for the many creatures of the forest. She even had been warned to stay away from the two-legged animals that wandered among them smelling of bitter iron and steel. She had seen many small animals stuck in horrible jaws where they writhed and cried until they slowly died in agony.
But she was as clever as any fox could be and her strongest desire was to find others who looked and smelled like her. She knew that without her adopted family, she would not have survived but she sensed that it was time to leave. She loved her foundling family but was found lately following the tracks of others with a scent like her own.
Kristi gave me this scarf for my birthday on September 13, 2014. It was a warm evening and we were sitting in the glow of the candles on my front porch with Steve and Dee and Dhillon. We were sipping on gin and tonics and laughing about everything. Kristi knew that I loved handmade things, so she had this made for me. I hugged her and kissed her and cried. Her birthday was coming up in five days and I hadn’t planned anything for her yet, but we were planning a trip to the beach and I would get her something then. Something that she would choose.
How lucky we were. She was retired and my retirement had started just two weeks before. We had plans galore and she didn’t know it but I was hoping that one day we would be two old women sharing a house together.
That night we didn’t know that we had only the next 30 days with her. She was suddenly swept out of our lives, forever. You can only imagine what this scarf means to me.
This morning as I bundled up to take Yum Yum out for a walk, my scarf was not on the shelf with my hats and gloves, so I grabbed one of Hannah’s, figuring that I had worn mine upstairs where I might have left it.
Yum Yum and I had traveled about nine blocks, and there was my scarf, lying in the grass, strewn with twigs and leaves. “What?? That’s my scarf.” I quickly picked it up, expecting it to be wet and dirty and at least smelling like a dog or two had left their territorial mark on it. But no, it smells sweet like a cold and fresh autumnal morning.
Ancel said there was a force field protecting it. Yum and I never walk the same way twice but this morning, we passed where my scarf lay waiting for me.
eyeamdust 