I will always take care of you

Our first home in Sheffield. Mom tended bar at the Harmony Club, to the right, outside the picture.

There it is. I can see the layout of this, our first house in Sheffield, in my mind’s eye.

The living room was the first room you would see. Straight ahead from the front door was the bathroom. There was a floor register, a big square one, in front of the bathroom.

There was a bedroom to the right, then the kitchen, also to the right. Just off the living room, a little to the left, was another room, probably a bedroom.

I remember a lot of what happened there. And there are some things I wish I could forget; maybe someday I will.

One thing that sticks in my mind is the overwhelming love I had for my baby sister when she came to live with us. I knew nothing of how she got there. One day she wasn’t in our home, the next day she was. I couldn’t stop staring at her and touching her forehead.

One day something weird and scary happened. Mom looked out the front window and saw a flame of some sort coming across a wire leading toward our house. She did whatever moms do, and I stayed stuck next to my new sister. I looked into her eyes, and taking my cue from Mom’s fright, I whispered to Diane, “I will take care of you. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

Big words for a kid my age, but I was a little ahead in the reading department and I remember telling my sister, in whatever words I used, that I would always protect her and I wouldn’t let anything hurt her.

I’m sure grownups took care of the fire-on-the-line incident. I’m not sure what I would have been able to do if the flame ever hit our home. I just knew I loved this little person so much I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

All these years later, that promise has been broken so many times I’ve lost count. What I didn’t understand back then is that I wouldn’t be able to shield Diane from heartache and all kinds of other pain, no matter how hard I tried. We both know that would be impossible.

What we also both know is that during those times when we’re hurting and crying and angry, we can count on the other one being right there in the middle of it all. We do it without a second thought. The love from all those years ago is as strong as it ever was.

I couldn’t have asked God for a better sister. I’m thankful she knows that.

Hallelujah, the Sound of Silence and more

Mom and me, standing outside Mom’s Cafe in Annawan, Illinois

 

I have some weird music on my country playlist.

First of all, I have to have music in my life. According to my mom, my dad was in a band and I think he played the accordion – definitely not one of my favorite instruments. Turns out he was in that band for 40 years.

Mom wrote music. She claims she wrote the lyrics to I Can’t Stop Loving You, sent it off, and it was stolen by someone and recorded. Back in those days she wouldn’t have had any proof she did it unless she somehow made a copy or did something to prove she wrote it. It would have been in the mid-1950s.

Here’s what Wikipedia says:
“I Can’t Stop Loving You” is a popular song written and composed by country singer, songwriter, and musician Don Gibson, who first recorded it on December 30, 1957, for RCA Victor Records. It was released in 1958 as the B-side of ” Oh, Lonesome Me “, becoming a double-sided country hit single.

Well, the timeline sounds about right, and for personal reasons, the date seems even more so.

So I’m guessing my love for music (and my sister’s) comes from Mom. Sis leans toward soft rock, and I’m full-on country, even though today’s country sounds nothing like it used to. I still love it.

I did add some odd songs to the playlist because I didn’t want to switch between them. One, “Hallelujah” by Pentatonix is there. So is another one by them, “The Sound of Silence.” That rendition gives me goosebumps. That was a favorite song of mine for years.

Stand By Me is there too – and when I hear it I remember the night we all went to the movie of the same name. We lived in Tucson at the time and that story simply stunned me in all kinds of ways. The boy who wanted to be a writer; parents that weren’t really “there” or, maybe worse, they belittled their kids; bullies; secret passwords, and all kinds of other kid stuff.

I remember when the movie ended I was sitting alone. The guys had gone out, but I didn’t want the night to end.

Okay, here’s one more: The Git Up by Blanco Brown. I guess it does go in the country list, but my main reason is I fell for it after watching umpteen videos of The Git Up Challenge on Facebook. Oh. My. Gosh. I do hope some folks here in town will get in on that – I’d love to see it. Maybe some of you could get the word out?

Well, it’s almost time to switch off the TV and turn on the tunes. See you all tomorrow.

That little home, full of memories

Ah, Atkinson Street.

It’s the weirdest thing: I can remember every room in that house. Memories are so stunningly clear, yet I couldn’t tell you what I had for breakfast yesterday.

Through the front door is the living room. To the left was our bedroom – for all three of us.

The dining room was off the living room, and the bathroom was on the right.

The kitchen. Well. The tiny table folded up against the wall beneath the window. The stove was in the corner. There was a big, black furnace of sorts – we had LP gas, when we could afford it.

There was a back porch off the kitchen, just past the sink with the water pump. And off the back porch was a stoop. Down from there you could find Diane and me digging dirt under the big tree, making mud pies.

In the summer, boxelder bugs covered the front door. From a distance I could see hundreds and hundreds of them, and I couldn’t make myself go into that door. Diane, even at so young an age, didn’t seem to have a fear of bugs like I did; in fact, if I ticked her off, she chased me with one kind or another and threw them at me.

Summers were heavenly. We played outside all the time. Some nights Mom popped a roasterful of popcorn and we headed next door to Clara’s and Amy’s house to sit around outside. The grown-ups talked, we chased lightning bugs – the only bug I would handle.

Winters were brutal. Mom closed off the house room by room until all we had was the kitchen. The heat would go out, the oven would go on, and the three of us would huddle together, in our coats, on a rollaway bed. I remember one day when a straw stood straight up in a frozen Pepsi bottle on the little kitchen table.

As I look at the house now, through the photos, I can see the back porch is gone. The trees are absolutely enormous – and beautiful, to me. The good memories far outweigh the bad ones, and for that I’m thankful. All of those will go into the memoir – for my sister and me.

The mulberry tree, the bunnies, the dolls, the bathroom Mom put in by herself, the little red wagon, Grandma Daisy (and Jack), the couch with the Very Bad Spring, the fried chicken, eggplant, and pineapple upside-down cake with cherries.

So there you have it. I think of this tiny home in that small town as the house that built me.

Thanks for reading.

The house that built me

“I know they say you can’t go home again….”
(from The House That Built Me – Miranda Lambert)

When we moved back home from Tucson in April of 1989, I knew it wouldn’t be long before I took off for Sheffield, to see the small town where we lived until the early 1960s.

As I drove into town I glanced to the right and saw a small house set a ways back from the highway. Mom, Diane and I lived there behind the tavern that used to be called The Harmony Club. Mom worked there as a bartender and cook. I can remember standing by the side of the highway waiting for the school bus.

We moved to Atkinson Street at some point. I think Mom had to quit her job, and we went on some sort of public assistance. At that point she wasn’t sick yet, and I can remember having a lot of fun in that neighborhood.

I drove there, in the summer of 1989. I had no trouble finding the place.

I parked across the street, took out my digital camera and snapped away. All kinds of thoughts went through my mind, memories too many to go into here.

Down the road a piece was the country road I walked that took me to grade school. I drove down the road this time, glancing left at where I’d skittered past a big, black bull when I was just a kid scared out of her mind.

I made my way to the school. I walked around the outside, then went inside the front door. Teachers were packing up and getting ready to leave the big old building for summer vacation. When I told a woman that I used to attend there, she graciously allowed me to roam all over.

I went to the first-grade room and couldn’t believe how small it seemed. The cloak room had a row of low hooks for the kids, but inside the classroom it was different: there was a computer. Granted, in 1989, it was the big, boxy type, but it jarred me out of the past.

After a visit to the gymnasium where I replayed Christmas plays and such, I left for another ride to the house.

I had no guts at this point. I wanted to knock on the door and step inside the past. I really did. But that house made a huge impression on me, and I can describe it without going inside.

The other day I asked a sweet friend if she could find the street address for me so I could add that to my memoir, September Sisters. She found it, and it all came flooding back, stronger than ever.

Tomorrow I’ll share more. I can say with certainty that the house on Atkinson Street is, indeed, the house that built me.

Finally, Mom’s turn to learn love

Mom and me

 

This one is a favorite of mine, for obvious reasons.

Prejudice has been a touchy subject with me for as long as I can remember. The worst part is, mom tried to teach us bigotry with her words and by example. Sis and I never understood it and have fought it all our lives. Mom finally did get the message though, and she learned from the only one who could have taught her.

            As a parent, it’s been my heart’s deepest prayer that our children would follow only the best examples of my life and never, ever emulate my shortcomings. I tried doing that with my mom but I’m not yet sure if the effort has been successful.

I don’t swear like mom did, nor do I smoke. I laugh – a lot, something she rarely did. Mom could cook like no one’s business and I’m not too far behind her there, yet there is more to learn.

Mom could juggle the bills with little money and I can do that, too. I think that sis and I handle stress better because we learned what works and what doesn’t. We consider that a major accomplishment.

There is one lesson, though, that mom unwittingly tried to teach early on that I never accepted. It’s a touchy subject with me, always has been.

At the young age of about seven or eight years old, mom tried to teach me to be prejudiced against anyone who wasn’t white. Sis and I were raised in a tiny town that had only one Hispanic family; the rest of the place was white. Mom told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to hang around with the daughter. The only reason she could give was that the girl had brown skin. She was different and that somehow made her inferior to us.

What a complete bunch of hooey. I knew it in my child’s heart then and I know it now. Mere words cannot express how thankful I am that I never bought into that mind-set.

I believed mom for a lot of things, important things, but this is one trait that completely confused and infuriated me. No one told me that mom was wrong; I just felt it. Instead of shunning this girl, I sought her out. She taught me how to ride a bicycle – her bicycle. We laughed together, played together, told each other little-girl secrets. She was my friend.

When we moved to Kewanee, sis saw for the first time in her life that there were people other than white. It freaked her out and it took quite a little while to get her to accept the obvious. She should have never had to experience her introduction to normal life like this, but it happened because our mom thought it best to raise us that way.

My guess is, and it’s probably right on the money, that mom’s parents passed on their racial ignorance to their children who in turn tried to pass it on to their children. Sadly, in many cases, the prejudice legacy is a success.

Sis and I learned first-hand how it feels to be looked down upon and humiliated, not because of skin color but because of social status. Wearing hand-me-downs, being raised by a single mother, using food stamps, living on welfare – all of these were reasons why we were shunned. We could identify and it was heart-breaking.

Mom got a lesson she never forgot when she became ill. On a two-week stay in Chicago’s Research Hospital, our mother shared a room with a lady who was not white. We found out later that mom did not have enough money to buy the extras, like snacks and such, and she got terribly hungry. Her roommate offered her some fruit that her family had left for her. Out of sheer hunger, mom accepted the apple.

At 2 a.m., mom’s roommate found her in the bathroom scrubbing the fruit until the skin almost came off. She waited until the water was turned off. Her soft voice reached inside mom’s heart like nothing else had. “You won’t get any black germs from the apple, Tony,” she said. Then she smiled and turned away.

Mom changed in a big way that day and she never looked back. What sis and I find precious is that she shared that experience with us repeatedly. We think she told us about it often to try and undo the years of wrong-headed thinking that never took hold in her daughters’ hearts.

It was only an apple, but mom learned what sis and I already knew. We were so happy she found out that love comes in all colors, a lesson every parent should hope to pass on to their children and grandchildren.

 

 

She dressed me in a red coat and the rest is history

(I know Mom loved us, but this did happen and while it’s funny now, it was shudder-worthy at the time.)

Gosh, we do stupid things sometimes. Some of those include wrong-headed decisions when raising our kids. And some of us just don’t stop and think before dressing our little girls in red coats and sending them down a country road to school.

            As you read this little ditty today, I want you to know that the memories came to mind because this is my birthday week. My mom comes to mind during this time; after all, I am here because of her. And while she was an undoubtedly unique woman, mom gave sis and I some laugh-out-loud things to talk about for years to come.

I don’t remember where she got it, but one memorable Sheffield winter, mom found me a bright red coat to wear to school. It must have been warm and protective because our mother would not settle for less. There was, however, one humongous flaw she overlooked.

We lived on East Atkinson Street at the time and I walked to school. About half a block west, then south down a long country road and there it was. I loved school then; the memories are almost all golden.

If one spends any amount of time along country roads they may notice that a lot of the area contains farm animals. One unforgettable big, frightening animal that comes to mind is a bull. That’s right – mom dressed me up in a bright red coat and sent me walking to school right past a bull.

Winters could be brutal to little kids back then. You’ve seen the movie, “A Christmas Story”. We got our tongues stuck to frozen flag poles or outdoor water fountains. Kids pushed us into snowbanks. We would fall on the ice, get up, fall again and repeat. And who could forget those bright plastic boots? Those things could rub a ring around your leg that would give you something to think about all morning.

But I have to say that nothing beats the experience of being met by a gigantic bull every winter morning on the way to school  He’d see me coming from a long ways away – I must have really stood out with my bright red coat against the white snow. Do you have any idea how deathly quiet it is on an early morning in the country? You’re outside, alone, and you hear the crunch of the ice-glazed snow as your feet make their way down the unplowed road.

You hear an odd sound coming from the field on the left, and here is where you, as a little girl have to make a decision. Stand still and hope the big cow goes away, or run and pray he doesn’t chase you. Or, you could do like I did, and scream bloody murder in the middle of the road.

No one came to my aid, not that I can remember. Somehow mom found out what was going on, maybe someone did hear me and figured out what was happening. Gee, I wonder what they thought of a mother who would do such a thing.

When I asked sis if she remembered this whole episode, she laughed and laughed. Oh, yes, she said. But she added that she didn’t know why mom did it. Hubby put in his two cents and offered that my mom was trying to get rid of me. Yeah, that’s a hoot.

I loved my mom, and I miss her a lot, especially now. I’m a bit reluctant to admit that the name she gave me was an embarrassment when I was in the second grade so I changed it to Judy.  I walked up to the front of the room at the beginning of the school year and informed my teacher of my name change, but she refused to acknowledge my instructions. I stayed with “Judy” for almost the whole day.

Last winter a lovely person bought me a new winter coat – a deep royal blue and it’s a long one. It’s warm and flattering, and I have the perfect hat to go with it. Trouble is, last year I was hobbling around using a cane. With the long coat, cane, hat and my glasses, I apparently reminded a very special friend of someone.

First, there was the laughter. She threw back her head and giggled when she saw me. “I’m sorry,” she choked out, “but you look like Mrs. Peanut!” Well, okay, she was right. That got the rest of started and everybody concurred. It’s not the name I’d pick for myself today, but you have to admit that what I am about to tell you is incredibly ironic.

The woman who gave me the name of Mrs. Peanut is actually one of my best friends. Her name is Judy.

The girl in the window

Mom, holding me outside Mom’s Cafe in Annawan

In my dream there is the small kitchen with the window facing the sidewalk that leads to town. White eyelet curtains move quietly in the warm, lilac-scented breeze. The girl, chin resting on folded arms, watches as a young woman makes her way toward town.

It’s almost always the same dream; sometimes, though, the point-of-view is reversed as the young woman turns back toward the tiny house and her eyes lock on those of the girl in the window.

There are no sounds of birdsong, no voices, and I’m sure the smell of lilacs is simply imaginary. What matters here is that the young woman and the girl are the same person.

I started having this dream after I read somewhere that we should ask ourselves this question: Would the person you were as a child be happy with the grownup you’ve become?

On Mother’s Day there are countless columns written about the subject. I’ve written about my own mom many times, but the other day I was thinking about those who will face the holiday alone for the first time without their mother. If the son or daughter had a close relationship it will be hard. If they didn’t, it will still be hard.

The bonds between parents and children are infuriatingly complex, but that doesn’t stop us from trying to unravel the mystery.

Mom and Dad divorced when I was a baby. I met Dad once for about an hour in 1975. He died 18 years later on Christmas Day, 20 years after my mom passed away. In February a small envelope came in the mail that held photos of my mom, dad and another relative, along with a note from someone claiming they had found these among their late mother’s belongings. 

There was a promise of more to come, and indeed there were more photos. I saw my mom and dad as a happy couple, my dad and his horse, Goldie, and more. So many smiles, so long ago.

Sis and I grew up with a single mother who had her own jaded view of the world. She disliked and distrusted anyone who was not white, all churches, and most men. We could have grown up to be racist, non-church-going, and men-haters but we made our own decisions in spite of the way Mom lived her life.

Sis and I became good cooks (like Mom), and while I seem to have inherited her love of the dark and creepy horror stories, I also love music and poetry.

As grown women, and as mothers and grandmothers, Sis and I are hopefully examples of love and acceptance. We’ve tried (and mostly succeeded) in weeding out what we perceived to be unacceptable traits in Mom while trying to hold onto the beautiful parts of her that made her who she was.

We want our children and grandchildren to find all the good in us. Embrace it and pass it on to future generations.

For some, that would be the best Mother’s Day gift ever.

The town that built me

Mom – I see her beauty in my little sister

 

“I know they say you can’t go home again.” (From The House That Built Me by Miranda Lambert)

The next line says, “I just had to come back one last time.”

And I did.

My memories begin in Sheffield, Illinois. The earliest one is of me leaning over my baby sister and promising her I would take care of her. We lived in a house behind the tavern where our mother worked as a bartender and cook. I was being protective of my sister because there was a fire beginning on a line coming toward the house. Everything must have turned out fine because we lived there for some time after that.

I only remember one doctor from those days. His office was almost downtown and as far as I can recall, was actually a house. One fall day I decided to trek from Kewanee to Sheffield and check out the museum.

A little backstory: After living in Tucson, Arizona for over five years from 1983 to 1989, we moved back to Kewanee. I began writing in Tucson and I was itching to go back to where I grew up to take some pictures and write.

I drove around and saw that the downtown looked familiar. I drove past our houses – the one behind the tavern and the one on Atkinson Street. From there I went past the school, then headed back toward town.

At the museum I was glad to see that they had at least one whole room set up to replicate the doctor’s office. Well, who’s to say it was exactly the same? As a kid I remembered the toy room and the front desk where the nurse took our information. Ah, and the lollipop jar.

I was in the doctor’s “office”, writing and snapping pictures when I heard someone behind me. “What are you doing?”, she asked, arms crossed and a suspicious look in her eyes. This was the museum’s director or whatever she was called.

I told her this was my doctor’s display, he treated me, my sister and mother. She wasn’t impressed. In fact, she told me I wasn’t allowed to write anything or take pictures.

I was too flabbergasted to protest much, and she wouldn’t leave me by myself so I recorded what I was seeing in my head and when I got to the car I wrote down what I remembered. The woman stood in the front window, arms still crossed, her face still a scowl.

What she didn’t know was that this same doctor came to Kewanee shortly after we moved from Sheffield to tell our mother he could no longer treat her. Mom was heartbroken and scared out of her wits as she called out after him to please stay with her as her doctor.

Mom had been recently diagnosed with Scleroderma and the doctor had no clue how to deal with that, so he left her – and us.

I didn’t go “back home” that day to make trouble or dredge up bad memories. Nor did I intend to smear the man’s name or reputation. I simply went there to solidify some childhood memories and I met up with someone who tried to stop that, whether she realized it or not.

I know the song says that some say you can’t go home again. I say you can – even if it’s only so far.

Margi
Thursday, February 14, 2019

 

What did you want as a child?

This column ran in March, last year. I really did have it all, and I appreciated it.

“I think life experiences are different for people who know what they want as children.” (Bell Hooks)

There was a writing prompt I read the other day that got me thinking. “The most ridiculous thing I believed as a child was….”

Hmmm. For me, there wasn’t just one.

I believed there was an evil elephant and giraffe who danced in a closed room in our house in Sheffield. This was the first house I remember, the one on the highway and behind the tavern where Mom worked as a cook and bartender.

I believed God lived in the Sheffield water tower. If you wanted to talk with Him you had to climb up there and if He didn’t want to talk with you, He slid banana peels down so you couldn’t get there.

I believed, like Stephen King says, that books were a uniquely portable magic and the stories would take me away whenever Life got to be too much for a kid.

I believed adults (teachers, Mom, aunts, uncles and neighbors) would protect us from bad things. For the most part, that was true.

I believed racism was one of the stupidest things – ever. I didn’t even know what it was called, but I knew when I was ordered to have nothing to do with a sweet grade school classmate that I would do just the opposite. Sure, I got scolded for it, but I didn’t care one bit.

I believed Mom when she told me I’d go blind for reading too much. But I didn’t stop; I just made plans to learn some other way to get my stories as soon as my sight began to fade. Hasn’t happened yet.

I believed, from a teen’s viewpoint, that I would marry someday and have a mean husband who wouldn’t treat me right, and that I would drown my sorrows by drinking lots and lots of wine. I must have been reading the wrong books and listening to the wrong gossip because that never happened.

I also believed, at around the same time, that my dad desperately wanted to meet his almost grown-up daughter and that he waited and watched outside the high school so he could see what I looked like. I sat in the library, looking out the windows and imagined him in one of the parked cars. He was never there but that didn’t stop the hope that one day he would be outside, anxious to see me.

I believed if I did work outside the home I would be in the same job until the day I retired. Wow, was I wrong about that one.

I believe that the quote above is worth reading more than once. As a child I wanted to marry, have a family, a job I love, and be able to read as many books as I wanted. I knew what I wanted as a child and I have all I need as an adult.

Belief. It’s a powerful, wonderful thing.