over the river and through the woods

As I have mentioned before, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. When I was a kid, we used to go to my Aunt Louise's house. It was a big deal. I knew that because we all got new outfits. My mother would bake pies - pumpkin and pecan - contributions that would travel well, as we had the farthest to go.

As we drove along country roads, we passed an old stand-alone silo with "Fresh Cows" painted down the side of it. (Always a mystery to us kids, and I am still not exactly sure what it means.) We passed the prison farm, where on summer days we would sometimes see the inmates playing baseball or sitting on the bleachers cheering each other on. We saw cars pulled off the side of the road, and sometimes, we would see the hunters who had left them there heading out into the fields and woods. We drove through tiny crossroad towns with names that we loved: Erhart and Mallet Creek and River Styx.

My dad avoided the highways, so it took us a little longer than it might have, but when we finally arrived, we headed straight for the warm, fragrant kitchen. Aunt Louise would open the oven door so that we could see the huge turkey that seemed to fill the whole oven, already golden and glistening. I was instantly hungry, even though it was hours until dinner time. I still don't think anything compares with the aroma of a turkey or a chicken roasting in the oven.

As much as I loved the holiday meal, it was being with my extended family that made it a truly special day for me. We weren't a very big family, really. My widowed grandmother (my grandfather had died when my dad was only a child) my two aunts and their families, and the five of us. My dad was quite a bit younger than his sisters, so our cousins were all older than us. I just adored my older cousins, and they loved me right back. I hung on every word they said, and when I was very young I literally hung on them.

There wasn't enough room at the big oval table in the family room for all of us, so of course we sat at the kids' table. The problem with that was my brothers and I were the youngest kids, so it was just the three of us. It wasn't much fun to sit only with each other, as we did every day. One of our kind-hearted cousins, Butch or Greg, would come and sit with us, however, and I immediately felt included again.

It was dark and cold outside when we finally left, and sometimes my brother Bill would fall asleep on the way home, his head resting heavily on my shoulder. Truth to tell, sometimes I fell asleep, too. It's kind of funny. We spent our Thanksgivings there for maybe five years in a row - I don't know why we stopped going, I do know my aunts never liked my mother - but those five or so days are some of the best memories I have of my childhood.

I don't think my own kids have ever liked Thanksgiving all that well, and I am sorry for that, but it doesn't change how I feel about it. Everyone is on their way home to me today, and I couldn't be happier. I am glad we will celebrate the holiday here one last time before we move. It feels right to me.

isn't it ironic?

I grew up on the wrong side of town. I don't say this for dramatic effect - it is a simple statement of fact. In our small town, the four junior highs fed into the one huge high school across the street from our house. The neighborhoods that populated the junior high schools on the east and north sides of town were considered "good". The other two --- were not.

I didn't know all this, of course, when I was in elementary school, and I loved my elementary school like I have never loved any other school. We walked home for lunch every day and back again, so I actually walked past Wesleyan Village (called the Methodist Home in those less PC days) four times a day. I considered myself incredibly fortunate when my elementary school became a junior high school at just the right time for me to keep attending classes there. I went to school at Franklin School, later Franklin Junior High, for nine years. My friend Beverly and I walked the empty halls one last time on our last day of classes there. I never went back.

The following fall I started classes at the high school in whose shadow I had lived for as long as I could remember. The multiple buildings took up a whole city block, and like all new freshmen (although I believe we were actually sophomores when we started there) I was sure I would never find my way or make it to class on time. In fact, I still dream of forgetting the combination to my lock or not finding my locker or the classroom where I need to be. Common nightmares, I know.

By the time I entered high school, I already knew that I did not live on the right side of town and I had not attended what was considered a good school. And some of the girls who attended the schools on the north side or the east side never let me forget that. Others were kinder and more accepting, but by my senior year when they finally allowed me into their group, I no longer wanted to belong. The boys from the "good" schools were always nice to me, and I never knew for sure if it was because I was a pretty girl or because my dad served them 3.2 beer whenever they came over. It didn't really matter, I guess.

All this is prelude to saying that my dad told me yesterday that one of the reasons he is unhappy at Wesleyan Village is because it is in such a bad neighborhood (!) and he is uncomfortable walking around there. I will admit, the neighborhood has deteriorated in the 30+ years since we lived there, but that just irritated the crap out of me! It wasn't a nice neighbhorhood even then, but he considered it to be a good enough place to raise his family. Now it is not good enough for him.

Life is funny, I guess, and I know it's better to laugh than to get pissed off about it. But, honestly!

random memories of a small-town childhood, part 237

Before there was Walmart, mothers actually bought quality clothing for their children. When my brothers and I were little, our mother generally took us clothes shopping at the Jack & Jill Shop on Broad Street. We went to Weiss Shoes next door where they carried Red Goose Shoes when we needed shoes, although I know they sold shoes at Jack & Jill's as well. I know this because I remember very clearly the little painted wooden chairs where children sat as they tried on shoes. The chairs were painted to look like brightly-colored seated clowns, so when you sat in a chair it was as though you were sitting in the clown's lap. Those chairs creeped us out. Because as children know, clowns are innately creepy. At the same time, we were fascinated by them, and we crawled along the row of four or five of them from lap to lap as our mother shopped and chatted interminably with the shop owner. She was a talker.

The winter I was five or six years old, I needed a new coat to wear to church. My mother had promised me that I could pick it out myself, and I was thrilled at the prospect. We walked downtown to Jack & Jill's, and I picked out a purple wool dress coat. I don't remember anything else about it, but it was very purple. I loved it. It turned out to be not at all what my mother had in mind. "How about this one?" she asked me, holding up a somber tweed coat with a black velvet collar. "It has some purple in it," she said, pointing to some little nubs of color in the fabric. So much more appropriate to wear to the hoity-toity Congregational church where we attended, but never belonged.

More than fifty years later, I still remember a small girl's disappointment in the choice she wasn't allowed to make. But you should see the beautiful purple suede jacket I wear now.

who could turn the world on with her smile?

Ali was already sick when I met her. In a way, I met her because she was sick. She came into the little yarn shop where I worked and asked to speak to the owner, who, of course, wasn't there. So Ali told us her story. She had brain cancer. She was on disability, so she wasn't allowed to work for pay. But the chemo seemed to be working and she was feeling a little better, and she just got so bored sitting at home all the time. Could she volunteer at the yarn shop? Could she just hang out there? We encouraged the owner to go along with the idea. We thought we were doing something nice for a sick girl. It never entered our minds that Ali would do so much for us.

Ali was so positive, so upbeat, so glad to be alive, I think. She had a beautiful smile and the most wonderful, unexpected laugh. And she laughed all the time. And she talked all the time. That girl could talk! We learned a lot about Ali in the short time that we knew her. We learned that she had been in college at McGill when she became ill. That she had come home to Cleveland to receive the best medical care available to her. We learned about the guy she was dating and the friends she had and the trips she and her mom took together. A trip to the west coast to see her brother and sister-in-law. A trip to Paris - the trip of a lifetime. We celebrated with Ali when she went back to Montreal to receive her degree. We worried over her when a dizzy spell at the shop one day turned into a trip to the hospital, and the discovery of another brain tumor. And when the shop closed unexpectedly last fall, we lost touch with her.

Today Ali died. As I read the announcement on Facebook, and my eyes filled with tears, I realized a song was playing in my head:

Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it's you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it.

I think Ali would have loved that. I think she would have laughed.

going for a ride

I remembered a car trip on a summer day. Just my dad and me – my favorite way to travel. No little brothers to share his attention, no mother to doze and snore in the front seat, admonishing us all to shut up - just the two of us speeding along quiet country roads. In those pre-air conditioned days, all the windows were rolled down, letting a wall of hot summer air rush in.

Sometimes I sat up front, on the long bench seat next to my dad. If I got tired, I lay down and rested my head on his leg as he drove along, his freckled left arm turning pink, then red in the bright sunlight. Sometimes we sang together – but not the songs you might think. “’Twas a cold winter’s evening, the guests were all leaving…” we would begin, and we would sing one of his old college drinking songs with great gusto. My mother despaired that neither of us could carry a tune, but we liked each other’s singing just fine.

Although I liked to sit up front next to my dad, that day I had clambered over the seat, and lay stretched out on the back seat, my bare feet (a no-no when my mother was along!) propped on the open window. It was hot in the car and the air blew in the windows with a monotonous roar. I stared absently at my wiggling toes as the telephone poles rushed past, the wires between them looping quickly by. It was a moment of pure contentment that I have never forgotten.

I wondered at first why that memory came to me yesterday as I drove home through the fine, driving snow of a January afternoon. I had spent the day with my dad, trying to get some of the myriad tasks accomplished for his move to an assisted living facility a block away from the house where I grew up. We made several stops: the doctor’s office, the pharmacy, the bank. At each stop, the seatbelt in my car confounded my dad, as he pulled the wrong end of it or couldn’t click it safely closed. Each time I did it for him.

My dad drove me, and now I drive him. It’s really pretty simple.

day tripping

I went to see my dad yesterday. I have done a pretty good job of seeing him every month this year. It's a little trickier in the summer because he doesn't use air conditioning and I can't stand the heat. It has been cooler than usual this year, however, and yesterday was a good day to visit him. I drove through a thunderstorm on the turnpike (always exciting) but other than that, my trip was uneventful.

I really enjoy my visits with him, and never know what new insights I will come away with. Yesterday, he said to me, "You had something I never had - an electric train. It was under the Christmas tree for you nine days before you were born. Did you know that?" Actually, I didn't. My electric train is part of my earliest memories, it's true, but I never knew that he bought it for me (his first child) before I was born. It makes sense, though. I have seen photos of my mother that Christmas - hugely pregnant with the child (me!) that would be born right after the new year on January 3rd. My parents certainly didn't know whether I would be a boy or a girl, but I have a sense that my dad didn't care. His first child would have an electric train.

I do remember riding the Rapid to Cleveland with my dad when I was very young to go to a train shop somewhere downtown. I have a sense that it was a small shop - long and narrow with a high ceiling, but that could just be a child's perception. I don't remember anymore what we bought there. Maybe it was the automated box car with the conductor who kicked boxes out onto the platform. Maybe it was just some more track. My dad must have taken a child's delight in the small, crowded shop and everything that was in it. He was so young then - not yet 26 when I was born.

As an odd aside, I received my first electrical shock as a small child when my dad allowed me to plug the transformer into the wall socket. He didn't realize that my tiny fingers were touching the metal prongs of the plug. I was more surprised than hurt, and learned a life lesson I have never forgotten.

I have really struggled in recent years with the concept of passing time and with memories of places (and people) that no longer exist. For some reason that I don't really understand, spending time with my dad makes me feel better about all that. It's a win-win situation.

what was that?

That was a little black dog named Muffin. When the days were hot, Muffin's family all went to the country. We're off to the country, they said, and you're going, too, Muffin.

Thus begins a record I must have listened to a thousand times when I was a kid. Muffin's family loads him in a "travel box" where he can't see outside, but he can hear. The rest of the record (both sides of a small 78) is a series of sounds, followed by the narrator's voice asking, "What was that?" over and over and over again.

My brother gave me a stack of old records some years ago, and Muffin in the Country, as it is called, was among them. I was delighted to have it, although the record doesn't play all that well anymore, since my brothers once tried (successfully, I must admit) to play it with a straight pin as they manually spun the turntable. We did mange to listen to it, however, and more importantly, Ben taped it so that Tom and Julie could listen to it. It is almost as familiar to them as it is to me; so much so that for a while "Muffin" was in the running as a name for Rufus, because he is a little black dog, after all.

Last month, when Ben and I were at the flea market in Hartville, I was looking at a booth full of old chilren's books when I found a paperback called The Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown, an author best known for writing the children's classic, Goodnight Moon. I picked it up because I loved the graphic style of the cover. It was a re-print of a book first printed in 1939, and it seemed very 30's-bustling-big-city to me.

Imagine my delight when it turned out to be a book about a little black dog named Muffin! The format was very similar to my beloved record. Poor Muffin got a cinder in his eye, and when his family took him to the vet, a bandage was put over his eyes until he was healed. So, once again, Muffin couldn't see, but Muffin could hear - all the sounds of the big city, as it turned out.

I started sifting through the stacks of books to see if I could find, possibly, Muffin in the Country, as well. And I did, under the title, Country Noisy Book. I also found an indoor noisy book and a winter noisy book. I think I bought all four of them for two dollars.

What a find! Are these books worth more than I paid for them? They are not. But how delighted I am to have them anyway.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Bill!

Today is my brother's birthday. I won't tell you how old he is, but I will say that I was seven years old when he was born, so he is my "baby" brother. I remember my mother being pregnant with him, and I most especially remember the day he was born.

I had just finished the first grade, and at my elementary school, we traditionally went back for an additional morning to pick up our report cards, which would tell us if we had been "promoted" to the next grade. I would be allowed to take my younger brother, Tommy, along, and we could wear shorts to school - something our strictly-enforced dress code did not allow during the school year.

I woke up excited that morning, and found my mother awake and pacing the house. "I think today is the day, honey," she told me. "I think I will have the baby today." "No! Oh no!" was my reaction. "Who'll comb my hair for school?" It is important to know that I wore my hair in a "pixie cut," a hairstyle popular for young girls at that time. It was short, short, short all over, and I can't imagine that combing it was too difficult. My mother assured me that my dad's sister, Aunt Isabel, had already been telephoned, and she, along with my grandmother and cousin, were on their way. They lived over an hour away, however, and I knew they wouldn't arrive in time. My dad would have to comb my hair.

Tommy and I went off to school, and I can remember the two of us sharing the seat at my desk as we waited for the report cards to be handed out. My teacher, Miss Pressler, sang in the church choir with my mother, and asked if she had had the new baby yet. "She's at the hospital now! She's having it now!" I was thrilled to have such important news.

As we started the walk home with dozens of other newly-promoted children, my aunt drove up, yelling out the window, "She had a boy! You have a new little brother!" Then we hopped in her car, and as she drove us to the grocery store to pick up food for lunch, Tommy and I tried to understand what this new addition to the family would mean for us. For one thing, it meant that he would be the one to share his bedroom with the baby, and not me. It meant that the wicker bassinet that my mom had spray-painted baby blue out in the gravel driveway was the right color. And it meant that I would stay my daddy's girl, which was pretty important to me.

We didn't see Billy until he came home from the hospital, of course, and the first clear memory I have of him is in that blue bassinet at the foot of my parent's bed. He had wispy red hair, but it was his little face that was bright red, as he exercised his new lungs and wailed. Tommy and I were fascinated and appalled. We weren't allowed to cry like that.

The memories tumble out after that, and I see my mother holding him and singing, "Oh where have you been, Billy-boy, Billy-boy? Oh where have you been, charming Billy?" I remember learning how to change his diaper and give him a bath, and I remember the endless trips up and down our short, dead-end street, pushing him in his stroller. But I also remember the soft, orange curls that sprang up all over his head and how he would nuzzle into my neck and fall asleep, even on the hottest summer days. Oh yes, I loved my little brother. And I still do.

Happy Birthday, Bill.

is a puzzle-ment

On Saturday we decided to take a drive south on Rt. 43. We stopped at Helen's Kitchen in Hartville for lunch, then headed further south to the aptly named "Rt. 43 Antique Mall". We don't go there very often because there really isn't much of a turnover in merchandise, but I find that what we see there changes from time to time. I guess we look with different eyes.

A couple of years ago, Ben found an old plastic glow-in-the-dark Christmas tree ornament like the ones he remembers from his childhood. Over the years I have often seen Brownie box cameras like the one we had when I was a kid, but when we were there last fall, I found a complete set still in the box, like the one that sat on our bay window seat for so many years. It was hard for me to leave it behind.

This time it was old jigsaw puzzles that caught my eye. I mean really old. I would guess from the 1940's. I was mesmerized by them. I have always loved working jigsaw puzzles. I can well remember two puzzles from my earliest childhood. Each puzzle probably had about ten thin, cardboard pieces. One was a baby carriage in pastel colors that didn't really hold my interest - it didn't even have a baby in it. The other one, however, utterly fascinated me. It was a fishbowl with two orange goldfish in it. There was a gray castle with a wavy green piece of seaweed next to it. I worked that puzzle hundreds of times. I knew how it tasted. (Although I had to be careful not to warp the pieces when I licked them.)

I can also remember a couple of Zorro puzzles, based on the T.V. series, and I know that we got a Sleeping Beauty puzzle not long after the Disney movie came out. My brothers were never the avid puzzle workers that I was, and often wanted to help after the hard work of sorting out the border pieces was done. I didn't like that.

I was still a child when I was allowed to work some of the easier puzzles my parents had. (I hesitate to say "adult puzzles.") I loved the one with the blooming trees and the duck pond in the foreground, and the winter scene in shades of blue, with children skating on a frozen pond. I liked interlocking puzzles best - I still do - but I also loved the oldest puzzle with the thick, thick pieces that didn't interlock at all. It was an old Tuco puzzle; an old farmhouse with a garish purple and orange sunset in the background. It is in my attic now, along with dozens of others.

I think jigsaw puzzles contributed to my life-long love of art. Most of the puzzles we had were based on paintings, some of them well-known. I pored over their vivid colors and visible brush strokes. I remember particularly a Dutch windmill and a Utrillo street scene. Later we had a Norman Rockwell, a Klimt garden, and American Gothic by Grant Wood. Those are all in the attic, as well. Julie and I bought a jigsaw puzzle just this past Christmas season. It is a painting of skaters on the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center, with the huge Christmas tree in front of the towering skyscraper.

Of course I bought a couple of old puzzles on Saturday. I haven't worked them yet, and there is always the danger that one - or more - of the pieces will be missing from an opened puzzle box, but it seemed worth the risk. Maybe I'll spread one out on the card table tonight and start sorting out the border pieces. There are worse ways to spend an evening at home.

wanna go for a ride?

Ben and I were having a meandering morning conversation at breakfast when he mentioned something about "putting up preserves." I immediately pictured The Spider Room in the basement of our old house with one lonely jar of preserved something sitting on one of the shelves. The preserves were already there when we moved in in the spring of 1955, and as far as I know were sitting there still when my parents moved out more than twenty years later.

The Spider Room? Doesn't every house have one? Hm-m-m... perhaps not any more. It was a small room in the basement of our house on West 6th street that was lined with shelves. It was where the conscientious 19th-century homemaker would have stored the fruits of her hard work throughout the late summer months. Gleaming jars of canned tomatoes and pickles and jams and jellies would have filled the shelves of the cool, dark room.

It probably wasn't festooned with spider webs back then, the way it was when our young family moved in. By naming it "The Spider Room" my dad pretty much guaranteed that although we might open the door and peek in occasionally, there was no way my brothers and I were ever going to actually walk into the small room and risk being closed in there with all those spiders - whose handiwork was obvious even to us. We knew they were in there.

It is not surprising that my thoughts should have drifted back to the old house. I think about it often now that it is gone. It is harder to let go of than I thought it would be. I mentally wander through the rooms of the house where we live now and try to find things that we had at the old house. The dresser in my room, the bedframe in Ben's room, the disassembled crib in the attic that my brothers and I and my own children all slept in come to mind. I have Dobbie, of course, the bright red wooden rocking horse that I rode every morning when I came downstairs, according to my dad. It's not much, I guess, but I'm glad to have what I do.

I will come to terms with this because I have to, but the process may take a little longer than I had anticipated. I hope you don't mind coming along for the ride on the occasional trip into my past. I appreciate the company.

no, no, they can't take that away from me

There is no longer a house at 419 West 6th Street. In fact, there are no houses at all on the north side of West 6th Street. When I was in Elyria yesterday, a thick blanket of snow covered the now-empty lot where four houses and a 3-unit apartment building had until recently stood. I was surprised at how small a space those houses and their yards had occupied. That row of houses encompassed my whole world when I was a little girl.

It was sad, indeed, to see them all gone, but the white blanket of snow gave the area a clean, fresh look that it hadn't had for a very long time. And, really, even when the houses were still there, the world that I remember was long gone. I'm sure more than forty years have passed since the last time Granny Getz walked slowly down the street, returning from her trip downtown to have her scissors sharpened. Longer still since Mrs. Pusbach moved away, telling her neighbors sharply, "Timbuktu!" when they asked where she was going. No one was there who remembered when Mrs. Seymour came every day to care for Mr. Sotherden in his little house where he lived all alone.

The overgrown, empty lot next to our house became an apartment building in the early sixities, and I remember that my brothers and I watched the construction every day. I was especially fascinated by the bricklayers. I found their quick, precise placement of row upon row of bricks machine-like and hypnotic. I can see myself looking out our big kitchen window, with its sill low enough for a child to sit on, watching their steady progress. That building is gone now, too.

Most importantly, of course, my house is gone, and I am trying to make my peace with that. I tell myself that it was really a mercy killing - the old place had looked pretty bad for a long time. And, after all, it hasn't changed a bit where it really counts - in my memory. As Kurt Vonnegut said, "The big show is inside my head." Inside my head, I am still pedaling my tricycle right to where the sidewalk ends just past Mrs. Pusbach's house, endlessly pushing my baby brother up and down the street in his stroller on hot summer days, and receiving my first kiss on the front porch swing. (Yes, I really did.) Those are things that won't ever change, no matter what stands on that little strip of land on a dead-end street.

random thoughts about the holiday season

For many years, December has been the most stressful month of the year for me. Even this year, when I lead a virtually stress-free life, I found myself filled with anxiety when I thought about all the things I "had" to do before December 25th. All the shopping, all the mailing of packages and Xmas cards, all the baking, all the decorating, all the gift-wrapping, all had to be done, by me, to the most exacting standards - mine. However, since I actually have time this year to just sit and think, that is exactly what I did: sit and think about it.

First of all, a little history might help. When we were kids, my mother always got "sick" on Christmas Day. To this day, I don't know what that was all about. I have a couple of guesses, but that's all they are, guesses, and I'll not share them here. In the event, what that meant for us was that she laid down on the couch in the living room, covered by a blanket, and told us all to be quiet so that she could rest. Now, the living room was where our Christmas tree was and where all our presents were, and was the only place we could play with them on Christmas Day. To say that she ruined the day for her children would simply be a statement of fact. Fortunately, from the time we could read, we always received books among our presents, so at least we could quietly read. Definitely not a model for how I wanted my own kids to spend their holidays.

When Tom and Julie were little, I was, by choice, a stay-at-home mom. I wanted to make their Christmases special in every way, and because I was the one at home with them, a great deal of the work that went into a big production fell on my shoulders. And that was fine. But, as things do, the celebrations got bigger and more elaborate as the years passed, and I began to feel that it was all just more than I could handle. I just kept feeling that way, year after year, even as Ben and the kids quietly took over more and more of the tasks that I found so overwhelming. I haven't baked a sugar cookie in years, for example, and yet, every year we have them with the thumbprints and the nutballs and the Constant Comment tea that make up our holiday desserts.

That's just one example. I'm sure if I thought about it, I could come up with a dozen more. My family has, in fact, taken over most of the tasks that threatened to paralyze me with anxiety over the years. I just never realized it before now. All I really have to do is acknowledge their help and sit back and enjoy the season. That's actually what they want me to do. Aren't I lucky?

Thanksgiving: it used to be about family

Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday when I was growing up. We used to go to my Aunt Louise's house in Canton for our big family dinner. Aunt Louise was my dad's oldest sister, and she and her husband, Uncle Virgil had three children, my cousins Butch, Barbara and Greg. My Grandma Fischer, my Aunt Isabel and my cousin Dave, who all lived together, would be there, and sometimes Uncle Virgil's mother, Mrs. Smith, would join us, as well. Assorted dates and, eventually, spouses of my cousins were sometimes present; it seemed like there was always room at the big table set up in the family room.

My dad was a lot younger than his sisters, and so, of course, we were a lot younger than our cousins. We were the only ones who had left Canton, and, in addition to that, the rest of the family did not like my mother, so we really were the odd ones out. I don't know that either of my brothers liked going there as much as I did, but I loved it. I think I was too much like my mother for either of my aunts' liking, but I was the little princess my boy cousins doted on, and I loved them all right back. In my dad's family I was called "Anne Louise", sharing a family middle name with my cousin, Barbara and, later, her daughter, Chrissy. Being relegated to the kids' table wasn't so bad when at least one of our big cousins always sat with us.

When Ben and I were first married, we spent our Thanksgivings at his parents' house in South Euclid. I loved being there for my favorite holiday. His younger sisters, Liz and Laura, and his brother, Vic, still lived at home then. Later, after they were married, Laura would be there with her first husband, Al, and Liz's husband, Jim was there, as well. My mother-in-law makes the best stuffing in the world - my favorite part of the meal - and she always made enough for us all to have second and third helpings of that and everything else. (They are Italian, after all.) I thought we would always spend our Thanksgivings together that way.

We have been hosting Thanksgiving dinner since we moved to this house seven years ago. My dad and my brother always drive out, and when Bill was dating Laura, he used to bring her along. Tom and Julie were always home for the holiday, and I remember one year Andrew was here, as well, so we set up a "kids' table" for the three of them - probably the only time my kids were relegated there. It is a huge amount of work, but what a great feeling when it is all cleared away, the dishwasher loaded, and the turkey carcass simmering in a stockpot.

This year, Tom and Kristy are in Oklahoma with her family, and my dad and Bill don't want to make the drive. I'm not sure yet whether Andrew will eat here or with his family. Chances are it will be Ben, Julie, and me for dinner. I never imagined our Thanksgivings ending up like this. Well, the food will still be good, even though I never did learn how to make stuffing like my mother-in-law.

memories are where you find them

I finally got around to folding the clean cleaning rags in the laundry basket that had been kicking around the basement for a couple of weeks. Surprised to learn that I fold cleaning rags? Well, that's what I was taught to do, although I have at least rebelled against my mother's strict system of sorting the rags into three distinct piles. There was the dusting pile, made up for the most part of old t-shirts. 100% cotton only - synthetic blends need not apply. There was the window-cleaning pile, mostly thin old cotton sheets that had worn through where our feet had restlessly kicked at night. Finally, there were the old towels, saved to soak up all the spills and accidents of a growing family.

I am happy to just get the rags folded into one neat pile. They are predominantly old towels, I find. Bath towels and wash clothes, hand towels and dish clothes, worn thin from repeated use. Some of the blue and yellow bath towels go back to when we lived on Longford. The pink and green patchwork-patterned ones (they look as bad as they sound) date to before the bathroom re-model on Denison. Some of the kitchen towels we took to Chincoteague and back, to the little house on Lewis Street where we stayed each summer.

There are not just old towels in my clean pile of rags, however. I find pieces of Ben's old flannel shirts, that always seem to grow too short in the sleeves before they can wear out. Oxford cloth shirts that he wore to work make excellent cleaning rags, and I find a few of those, as well. I don't find any of the kids' old clothes, and that puzzles me at first, until I remember that we always gave those to someone we knew with younger children or bundled them off to Goodwill.

The remnants of my own old clothes are the most poignant reminders of the past. Here is a panel of those flowered Liz Claiborne shorts I wore when we took the kids to Disney World. How I regretted wearing shorts that had to be unbuttoned and then un-zipped for each of my many trips to the restroom! Here is the front of that over-sized New York Yankees t-shirt I bought to wear when I was pregnant with Tom. It reminds me that I saw my first major league baseball game during that pregnancy - the Cleveland Indians played the Yankees. (Reggie Jackson hit a solo home run in his first at-bat.) I don't seem to have a single remnant left of my dad's old flannel shirt. I wore that all the time when I lived in the dorm, and for many years after that. When it was beyond wearing, I cut it up for cleaning rags. It seems even those are gone now.

That's the interesting thing about it, I guess. The cleaning rags just wear away over time, some taking longer than others. As I fold them, I remember. It's not such a bad thing.

lost and found

Well over fifty years ago, my dad worked at Timken Roller Bearing in Canton. When I was a little girl, he had a couple of roller bearings in his top dresser drawer - a place of utmost interest to every child, I think. One of the bearings was about an inch in diameter, and the other one was at least twice that size. I was utterly fascinated by their intricate design and by the smooth movement of the rollers. (Don't know what a roller bearing is? Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapered_roller_bearing)

When I was in elementary school, I received a house key for the days when my mother would not be home when I got there. (Our "house key" was actually a big skeleton key, but that is a story for another time.) I had a key chain for that one key, and my dad gave me the smaller of the two roller bearings to put on it, as well. I was so proud and excited! Other kids had house keys, but no one had ever even seen anything like my roller bearing.

Although even as a child, I was not prone to losing things, I lost that key chain. It is not an exaggeration to say that I was devastated. I didn't care so much about the house key, but my roller bearing was gone. My dad walked the five blocks back to school with me, searching all the way there and back, but we never found it.

He always kept the remaining roller bearing in his top dresser drawer, but whenever he would let me take it out, it only served to remind me of the one I had lost. When I was at his house earlier this week, he started to tease me about losing that roller bearing, and I think my response surprised him. "I still feel bad about that!" I told him. "I can't believe I lost it. I never lose things." It was my turn to be surprised by what he said next, "Well, would you like to have the other one?" I looked towards my brother and asked him, "Would you mind if I had it?" "No, I don't care," was his immediate reply. "I think it's in my room, actually. Let me get it for you." He gave me the roller bearing.

I look at the roller bearing from time to time where it sits on my desk as I write this. I pick it up, feel its familiar heft in my hand, and spin the rollers. It's not as shiny and smooth as I remember it, but it is, after all, almost fifty years older. I don't know if I can articulate how much it means to me to have this here. I hope this post will serve to do that.

random thoughts on Tom's birthday

Today is my son's 27th birthday.

He is named Thomas for his uncle and he shares the middle name Joseph with his father and grandfather.

Ben was working the night shift the week Tom was born, so I was home alone when my water broke in the middle of the night. I jumped out of bed, and stripped the sodden sheets off the mattress before I called him.

Some time in the middle of my seven-hour labor, I told Ben, quite sincerely, "I changed my mind. I don't want to do this right now. Let's go home." He dissuaded me.

Although my labor and delivery were quite normal, Tommy (as he was called then) and I stayed in the hospital for five days after he was born, which was standard for that time.

When Ben's parents came to visit us in the hospital, his father looked at our three-day-old son and told us, quite solemnly, "Before you know it, he'll be in college." We laughed at the time, but now I would amend that to, "Before you know it, he'll be a married adult living in a big city far away."

My own father was out of town on business when Tom was born, so was unable to visit us in the hospital. He did, however, bring our infant son a souvenir of his trip.

Since Ben and I are both eldest children and we were the first in our circle of friends to get married and have a child, we pretty much raised Tom in a vacuum. We really knew no other children to compare with Tom, and although we thought he was quite amazing, we didn't realize how far above the norm he was for some time.

We kept waiting for Tom's remarkable blue eyes to turn brown like ours, but they never did. He still gets comments on how beautiful his eyes are.

Tom's first year was one of the best years of my life. I felt as though I grew and changed almost as much as he did. I loved being a mom. I still do.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Tom! I love you very much.

let's go peek in the windows*

Even though Rufus and I hurry out every night as soon as I clean up after dinner, it is inexorably darker each night than the one before. We usually leave the house around 7:00 and are back before 7:30. Of course I know by December it will be quite dark out at that time, but hopefully we will be used to it by then. I am trying to memorize where all the uneven places in the sidewalk are now so that I don't trip, as our neighborhood is surprisingly poorly-lit. People don't walk much, I guess, particularly after dark.

One of the things I love about being out and about in a neighborhood at that time of day is that I can peek in the lighted windows of the houses as we walk by them. I have always been fascinated by that magical time late in the day after people turn the lights on in their houses but before they pull the drapes. The small town where I grew up had a well-known gay man who, surprisingly, was well-liked by the community. If I walked by his house in the early evening, I would always see him and his partner seated at a table by the front window, having dinner together. They were the picture of normalcy, and I learned something from that even at an early age.

I also learned a lot about how to decorate a home from observing how other people had decorated theirs. There was no attempt at an attractive decor in the house where I grew up, and as a child I was fascinated by the tableaux I saw through lighted windows as we walked downtown in the evening or as I accompanied my dad on a walk to the neighborhood carry-out for a six-pack. I particularly loved to see a small lit lamp on a table in front of a window or an overstuffed chair with a gooseneck lamp for reading right next to it. I loved the striped wallpaper in dining rooms and the cheery curtains framing bright kitchen windows - all the things we never had when I was growing up. I wonder if children from happy families peer so yearningly at other people's lives.

I still love to peek in at prints over mantelpieces and dimly-lit stairways leading up into darkness, but I also enjoy turning up our own driveway and seeing a comfortable-looking room bright with color and full of books and pottery and prints on the walls, and lit by a lamp in the front window. I don't have to keep walking past this home. It's mine.

*This may be such an inside reference that no one gets it anymore but me. I don't know if that's sad or just pathetic.

I love my library

I went to the local public library today. Although, here in Kent we don't have a "public" library, we have a "free" library. Now, I like that distinction, but my cousin, Dave, says it is just like us fucking hippies in Kent to have a free library. I have tried to explain to him that it is called the "free" library to differentiate it from the old concept of paid subscription libraries, but those of you who know Dave know how he would react to that.

I have tried to like the library in Kent, and I am still trying. The good citizens here actually passed a levy to build a big, fancy, new library. They have attached it to the old Carnegie library, which I feel was a mistake. The old library sits forlornly off to one side, looking dowdy and small and slightly embarrassed. Maybe I am just resentful of the fact that the old library here in Kent was saved, while my beloved old library in Elyria was thoughtlessly torn down.

Words fail me when I try to describe how much I loved that library. It was in the old Reefy house on Third Street across from the old YMCA. The house had a big wraparound porch, and the late return box was actually a big wooden box that sat on the front porch. To get to the children's room, we had to go outside and down the steps on the side of the porch. There was a separate entrance, and inside the door, sandstone steps led down to the Longfellow Room, as the children's basement room was called. The sandstone steps glittered and crunched underfoot as we walked down them. Miss Vivian Hackett was the children's librarian, and Miss Yarish - who liked my brother, but not me - worked there, checking out books, until she got married.

My family always walked to the library - which was a good thing, as there was virtually no parking. I walked there with my dad, I walked there with my mother, and when we got a little older, my brother, Thomas, and I walked there together many times. When we were children, we were only welcome in the children's room, and our cards would only check out books down there. Needless to say, there were no CDs or DVDs or video games. The books were enough. And how proud we were when we were allowed to switch to adult library cards and check out books from the big upstairs library. After that, we never went back to the children's room.

There were small reading rooms across from the circulation desk, and old men sat at the long wooden tables there, reading the newspaper on wooden dowel rods. I longed to be a grown-up and read my newspapers that way. Alas, by the time I grew up, that library was long gone, and I have always had to read my newspapers the regular way. A new library was built in the late 60s, and the church next door bought the property and demolished the old one.

Of all the places now lost to me, the door to that old library is the one I long to walk through more than any other. With Thomas Wolfe, I lament, "O lost."

sad news, indeed

I got an email from my brother, Bill, with the sad news that his friend and neighbor, Joe Boyson, had passed away. I know Bill and my dad will miss Joe very much, even more than they miss his old dog, Jake. But the death of Joe Boyson is also a loss for the city where he spent his whole life, repairing shoes in a little shop on the main street. I know, people don't get their shoes repaired anymore. They throw them out and buy new ones. But the American Shoe Repair shop was one of the few remaining links with the bustling city that Elyria used to be, and with Joe gone, one more reminder of that time is gone, as well.

When I was a little girl, it seemed like every trip downtown included a stop at the shoe repair shop. My dad's wingtips needed re-soled or my mother's purse strap had broken. My brothers and I loved going in there. The dark, narrow shop had a wonderful smell. It was the smell of shoe polish and leather, of course, but also the smell of the belts and pulleys and brushes on the well-oiled machines behind the half-wall at the rear of the shop. How exciting it was when the machinery was actually running!

We were fascinated, as well, by the row of six or eight raised chairs along the wall to our right. In all the many times I went in there, I never saw them in use, but they were shoe shine chairs. The customers would sit resting their feet on the two narrow iron stands in front of each chair to have their shoes polished. We were not allowed to clamber up onto the tall chairs, but I always wanted to.

Along the left-hand wall of the shop was a large wooden shelf with cubbyholes holding the shoes and boots and purses of Elyria. Each of them had a tag on a twist of wire so they could be claimed by their owners. On the counter, there were racks with little drawers holding shoe laces of every size and color, and a round spinning rack that held little tins of Kiwi shoe polish in a dozen colors. Cordovan was always my favorite.

Old Mr. Boyson, Joe's dad, would be behind the counter, and to me, he looked exactly like the cobbler in every children's book I had ever seen. He was short and bald with bushy white eyebrows above glasses worn low on his nose, and he always wore a dark apron over his white shirt. When Joe was there, as well, he was usually working in the back, and I picture him wearing a sort of smock, like a druggist would wear. He was tall, with a full head of dark hair, and I am surprised to think how young he must have been back then.

Joe is gone now, and the shoe repair shop closed. It is a loss for his friends and neighbors, and a loss for his city, as well. I hope he will be remembered by them all. I know I won't forget him.

a slice of cantaloupe on a summer day

It's easy to eat healthier this time of year, what with all the local fruits and vegetables available at the grocery store. I had a taste for melon today, so while we were shopping, I picked out a cantaloupe. I'm not very good at picking out cantaloupes. I know that there should not be any obvious bruises and that the melon should be heavy for its size and have a nice hollow sound when you thump it. They all sound hollow. I always sniff the blossom end for a nice cantaloup-y fragrance, but I never smell anything. I do my best.

Since just the two of us are at home now, it will be hard to eat the cantaloupe while it is still fresh. I cut it in two and wrapped half of it to store in the basement fridge. I usually cut the other half into quarters, then cut the skin off so that I have ready-to-eat slices. It's convenient that way, but I think the slices get slimy faster, so I decided to leave the skin on each quarter. The cantaloupe had an appealing, fresh smell and I thought to eat a piece right then. I spooned out a bite and tasted it. Melon-y and delicious. But, something was missing. I lightly sprinkled salt across the slice and tasted it again. Perfect.

As I do every time I eat a cantaloupe, I thought of my Grandpa Bulat. I thought of a summer day when I was a small child at my grandparent's house. My grandpa had come in the house from working outside (he was always working outside) and my grandma handed him a bowl with a freshly-sliced section of cantaloupe in it. He sat down next to me at the kitchen table, lightly salted the cantaloupe, dug his spoon into it, and ate it with the greatest satisfaction and relish. He was not making a show of it for me - he was not that kind of grandpa. He was enjoying his food - every bite of it. I watched him as he ate, and I knew nothing had ever looked more delicious than that melon as my grandfather ate it.

My mother couldn't understand why, for years after that, I insisted on salting my cantaloupe before I would eat it. "It doesn't need salt," she would say, "it's fine the way it is." "But this is how Grandpa Bulat eats it," was always my reply. I always remember my grandpa when I eat cantaloupe, and nothing would make me happier than for you to remember him, too.