Almost Grown in Ohio

Lipstick on a collar,  a missing undershirt, that bar smell, yelling and a quiet moment when my dad said, “Honey, your mom will need you now, but I will miss you.”  The smell of leather, and gasoline filled my nose in the back of a late night taxi until we were delivered to  a shabby, green shag carpeted motor inn, somewhere in West Virginia.  There we waited, eating saltines and Vienna sausage.

“Fifty-thousand-pounds-of-juicy-flubber, incoming! Get out your elephant gun!” This chant, directed at me, was the parenthesis of my ninth summer. Character building blocks stacked up fast the summer my mother and I moved into my aunt’s house, already filled with her five children.

My cousins, three girls and two boys, surrounded me in age. The oldest of them a girl and boy on the verge of adulthood were pot-smoking, blank-eyed, who-gives-a-shit types.  Next in order of age, Cindy, Gene, Me and Linda. They were scrappy, lots of fun, except when the weren’t. Like a pack of dogs, children who grow up together bond and usually have their own hierarchy. Generally, there is a leader and the other kids take turns as the scapegoat for various kid mischief. However, add a strange pampered only dog kid to the herd and the newbie will become the constant easy mark. The new kid will either tuck tail and run, take it, stand and fight or find a protector. Normally the parents can be counted on for assistance,but that summer of 1971 the moms were engaged with feminist freedom and the dads were absent. The dog – shit! I mean kid pack got to run wild.

Linda, the youngest and previous frequent target found me busy with my daily chore, watering the jungle of plants blocking the only big window in the house, “Hey, fatty come upstairs and see what we found! It’s sooo cute.”

Like a starved hound, I followed her up the shallow attic stairs to the sleeping quarters shared by all the kids who did not spend their days stoned. Banging my shin on the end of one of four twin beds got a short laugh from my waiting cousins, Gene and Cindy.

Turning back to their excitement, Gene beckoned me, “We found a mouse and it went under the door, come look, he is just sittin’ on the beam.”

He opened the forbidden door wider and I looked in just as my shoulders registered the hand pushing me hard. The fiberglass insulation padded my fall, the door slammed and the slide lock scrapped, barely audible over the laughter just outside the door. Then silence. During my time of attic incarceration, I learned that I was an optimist, optimistic that they would open the door as quickly as they shut it. After an hour, optimistic that a Bewitched nose twitch would unlock the door. After two hours, optimistic that I would not die of heat and itching legs. Of course, I had no idea how much time went by. I can tell you watering the plants was a morning job and me and my bleeding legs were let out just before *Flippo’s Early Show, an early afternoon kids program.

It was Gene who opened the door and whispered, “Tell, and it will be twice as long tomorrow.” (Reading this paragraph over again, trying to make my lesson come at the end, like the pattern for the rest of this tale and I can’t do it. Except to say that I just now learned that I told time by events in the day rather than a clock and I still do that. Come over after supper is my favorite invitation.)

A scuffed and worn dresser sat under two dingy attic windows. It was a common perch for us on the sweltering days when we hoped for a relieving breeze. This particular day Linda held the coveted spot. She had even pulled the screen out of the window and dangled her legs outside.  Gene entered the room, lunged towards Linda, pushed her lightly, enough to scare her as he had intended. What he did not count on, at least he said, was that she would fall out of the window and be fortunate enough to only break her arm**. They blamed me. I tried to stand up for myself but three against one… I was on dish duty for the rest of the summer and my privilege to go to the Ohio State Fair was revoked. I learned if you take a stand sometimes numbers need to be in your favor.

The days did finally start to turn cooler. The Ohio State Fair was in full swing and I sat home.  Each night as my cousins left for the fair, they taunted, “Lots of elephant guns at the fair good thing you ain’t going.”  “yeah, besides more cotton candy for us!” My oldest  pot-smoking- male- cousin, Ed,  caught them at it one night. “Hey you little fuckers, leave her alone, in case you are such dumb shits let me point out she’s not fat and she is getting some cute little tits.”  My dysfunctional hero. I learned sometimes a champion comes in unlikely circumstances.

School started, I entered my new class, lean and ready for most anything.

*Flippo’s Early Show: Those of you who grew up in central Ohio in the 60’s and 70’s will know who this is. If you didn’t, think MTV’s pop-up videos only with a clown as the bubble pop-ups and movies instead of videos.

**I was not exonerated from this event until we were all in our twenties at a family reunion. I don’t think my own mother even believed me until the truth came from my cousin Linda. Another lesson, sometimes you have to wait a long time for vindication!

Tokonoma

Tokonoma definition: (in a Japanese house) a recess or alcove, typically a few inches above floor level, for displaying flowers, pictures, and ornaments. Usually changed daily to stimulate the senses.

A small white envelope waited just for me in the top drawer of my grandaddy’s desk. My small six-year-old hands could barely reach the envelope, but Grandaddy always stood back and watched while I tried. He knew how to build excitement over the smallest things. I already knew the envelope would be filled with butterfly and moth wings, but just what variety and how many was the mystery. Grandaddy worked for a car dealership that also did mechanical work. Whenever cars came in for a tune-up, Grandaddy checked the front grills for the beautiful creature’s wings so that they might live on in his grandaughter’s collection of stuff.

So began my fascination with what came to be known as gifts of nature. Visit any of the homes I have lived in over the years and you will find, rocks tucked into a bookcase, feathers in glass jars, and flowers that dried naturally in autumn’s cold winds placed just so on a dresser. When I had children they thought it at once cool and then later gross. My eye for nature’s gifts grew keener over the years. A discarded snake skin barely visible in the rubble beneath a tree was one of my coolest finds. None of my children seemed to have inherited my genetic wonder gene. So it has been a solitary pursuit for many years, until a year ago.

I first noticed the thigh bone of a chicken bleached white in a little wooden bowl reserved for white sea shells. If not for its slender shape, it may have gone unnoticed by me for some time so close was the color to the shells. Questioning my husband as to the origins of the bone, his slightly disgusted face told me he wasn’t the culprit. A few days later I was walking the dogs with my grandson and he asked if I had found the ‘human’ bone he left for me. He insisted the bone was a finger bone, washed up on the beach, probably left over from a shipwreck. And so, the bone holds it’s place of honor in the wooden bowl filled with white sea shells.

Since finding the bone, my grandson, now eight, has presented me with a perfectly preserved cicada carcass, a mummified tree frog, a black rock shaped like a heart, and a brilliant lime green acorn he found in a pile of ordinary brown acorns. On his birthday, I gave him a small white envelope, it held wings of the grill. He got an old glass salt shaker from his mom and carefully placed the wings inside, so he could see them all the time. The wings sit carefully placed on his window sill in an otherwise disorganized chaos of legos and other boy detritus.

I read about a tokonoma many years ago and always thought the relationship between the things of beauty found in nature littering my home was similar. I did not have an alcove specially set aside for all my treasures, but I loved the idea. Since I have found my fellow collector we have cleared a small alcove on a shelf: The alcove framed by two old volumes of Kipling holds our finds now. We add and take away from our tokonoma as we feel like it. It is ever changing and always beautiful. Recently, he found a large shark’s tooth scarcely peeking from the sand. He has the eye. He gets that from me!

Our current collection: A big and a small pinecone, a shark’s tooth, a beaver tooth, a smooth rock, a dried Japanese Lantern pod, a whelk, a starfish found dead after hurricane Matthew and a miniature pitcher of weeds.

Straw Hat

I wrote a longer version of this story almost eight years ago for a family reunion. My daughter did the illustrations. We printed it using Shutterfly and read it to the children (well really everyone, we just targeted the children). It was our way of sharing some stories of our family with the next generation in a way that might not bore them to tears. Each person that encountered Olivia read their portion of the story. There was a chapter for my mom and my aunt now both omitted for the sake of those not familiar with our family. Their stories have been incorporated into this newer version, however. This story is the basis for some of the flavor of my blog, I Just Made That Up, or It Really Happened. I have never shared it on my blog. Now the time has come, we have added more children to our family and i would like to improve the original before I add more to it. I’d like to take advantage of my writing friends and my Yeah Write friends for editing, suggestions, what works, what doesn’t. To that end, I am submitting this to Moonshine, because there are no rules to length and genre right?  Thanks for reading!

Olivia spied the old straw hat hanging in her grandmother’s house. It was just what she needed to finish her playing-outside-costume on that sunny, hot day. Olivia’s neck was adorned with a flower chain fashioned from morning glories and her wrists sparkled with golden bracelets. She grabbed the hat and placed it on top of her silky brown hair and skipped out of the house. She couldn’t wait to see what adventures waited.

A thrill of excitement hit Olivia as she spotted Aunt Hannah in the garden. She twirled and whirled her way over to her Aunt wondering what magical thing she might have found in the garden. Her Aunt was always looking for bugs, toads, and lizards and usually had some scary thing to show her.
“Hey Aunt Hannah, what are you doing?” Olivia bounced up and asked.

“Well look at you, Miss Olivia! ” Aunt Hannah’s blue eyes sparkled with laughter as she let Olivia behold the June Bugs collected in the purple beach bucket.

Olivia squealed with delight and shrieked, “ewwwww, what are those?”

“June bugs, I’m picking them off my roses because they like to eat them. Hey, I know that Hat!” Aunt Hannah said wiping her brow.

Olivia turned a pirouette and said, “Don’t I look pretty?”

“You look very pretty. That old hat that you have on your head belongs to a memory I have. “Before you were born, your great-great-grandmother, Lucille, wore that hat in her garden. Later in the evening, resting on her porch, her straw hat fanned the cool night air around her face.”

Her Aunt took the battered hat from Olivia and fanned Olivia’s small face, “Feel the breeze, Olivia? If I close my eyes I can almost smell the cool Georgia night air.”
Olivia closed her eyes but she only smelled, well nothing really. “No, Aunt Hannah, I don’t smell anything.”

Her Aunt smiled at her and said, “that’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.”

Olivia’s round brown eyes landed on the green-blue iridescent flash of a June bug, jamming the hat back on her head, she ran along.

Around the corner of the yard, Olivia ran, and bumped right into her to her Aunt Claire’s chair. “Olivia, you look just like a movie star!”

Olivia giggled because to her, Aunt Claire was so glamorous, “Aunt Claire, can I get tanned with you?”

Claire replied, “of course, put some sun lotion on so you don’t burn.”

Just then a quick breeze skittered the straw hat right off Olivia’s head, her Aunt’s sun-browned arm reached out and caught the hat.

“Hey, I know that hat, it belongs to a memory I have.” Olivia finished putting the lotion on her lanky arms and legs while her aunt told the story.

“When my mother, your grandmother, Ma Kay, was young she liked to walk down to her friend Beverly’s house to sunbathe on the roof of the porch. In those days they used baby oil on their skin to tan and lemons in their hair to lighten it. MaKay’s grandmother scolded the girls often, believing a young lady should have creamy white skin and natural hair. Many times MaKay would find her grandmother trying to tie this old straw hat onto her head before she went out to play.”

Before handing the hat back to Olivia, Aunt Claire held it up to her nose and breathed deeply, her eyes closed, her head tipped back in the sun. “Smell that Olivia? Baby-oil and lemons?”

But Olivia still did not smell anything. Aunt Claire smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.” Hearing her mother’s laughter, Olivia ran off to find her.

“Olivia, you are just the girl I was looking for,” her mother said.

Olivia began climbing up on the picnic table and jumping off over and over again, “Mother do you like my playing outside costume?”

Her mother smiled at her warmly and with a soft, sweet voice said, “I do love your costume, it’s the perfect thing to wear while planting seeds, would you help me with these?”

Olivia climbed onto the picnic table bench, rolled up her sleeves, pushed back her old straw hat, bracelets flashed in the sunlight, eager to begin helping her mom push the seeds into the dirt filled pots.

Reaching for a watering can Olivia’s hat brushed her mother’s arm and her mother said, “Hey, I know that hat, it belongs to a story I remember. A long time before you were born, when I was a girl just about your age, I helped my great-grandmother, Lucille, plant tomato seeds in little pots in the house. It was early spring, which meant it was still cold out. But my great-grandmother wanted to have tomatoes big enough to plant outside when the weather turned warm again, so we started our little plants from seed there at the kitchen counter. After we planted them I would go over to her house every day to water them and see if they had sprouted yet. It seemed like forever until they sprouted but when they did, they grew so fast and before I knew it the time had come to plant them outside. My great-grandmother showed me how to plant them in the cool damp earth, how to fertilize them with crystal blue miracle gro, and how to pick off the “suckers” so that the tomatoes would grow strong and tall.”

Mother’s long beautiful fingers lightly touched the brim of the hat on Olivia’s head, she closed her eyes and said, “Smell that Olivia? It smells just like sweet damp earth, and the fresh green smell of tomato leaves.”

But Olivia couldn’t smell it, she shook her head, no.

Mother just smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.” Now Olivia, ran off to find her grandmother, MaKay.

Spying MaKay under a plum tree, she snuck up on her and yelled, “BOO!” The basket of plums she had collected scattered to the ground.

“Olivia you scared me!”

MaKay reached out to tickle her while they bent to gather up the plums. Olivia’s hat fell on the ground and MaKay picked it up, flipped it over and began to put plums inside the hat.

“Hey, what are you doing? That’s part of my playing outside costume!”

MaKay replied, “Of course it is. Hey, this hat belongs to a memory I have. I once used this very hat to put plums in at my grandmother, Lucille’s house. She always let me pick plums from her trees when it was time to make plum jelly. We filled up so many pans and buckets of plums that sometimes we had to use this old hat to hold more. After we washed all the plums for my grandmother, she would bring them in. The kitchen and soon the whole house would be filled with the sweet candy smell of simmering plum jelly.”

About to take the hat back from MaKay, Olivia said, “MaKay, I bet if you hold this hat and close our eyes you will smell something.”

Playing along, almost afraid of what smell Olivia had in mind, MaKay leaned in, closed her eyes and smelled. “Olivia, I smell plums do you?”

Olivia did smell plums but only because MaKay had just poured some out, so she said, “I don’t think I smell old plums from your grandmother’s yard.”

MaKay smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.” About that time, Olivia noticed the porch swing was moving so she ambled over to investigate.

Olivia was feeling a little sad that she could not smell any old memories in her now enchanted straw hat. Sadness banished quickly when she realized her sister and cousin were hiding under the swing. As she got closer she realized they weren’t hiding at all, just trying to catch a little green lizard. When Olivia’s sister, Mia saw her, her mouth dropped open glimpsing the beauty of Olivia’s playing-outside-costume. Her cousin Autry’s boyish grin had nothing to do with Olivia’s finery and everything to do with the lizard pursuit. Unable to ignore the temptation to catch a lizard in their bright green lizard-catching-net, both girls forgot about the costume. The three set off on their imaginary safari looking for the elusive lizard. They crawled through sweet smelling jasmine, lifted up scratchy dry dune grass, and combed the freshly cut green lawn. They never did find that lizard again. Instead, they ended up in a heap leaning against the side of the house giggling. Olivia slipped some of the shiny bracelets onto her sister’s arm. Autry plucked one of the flowers from Olivia’s chain and inhaled deeply before trying to eat it. Boys are weird thought Olivia.

Mia wanted the hat too, so she took it off her sister’s head and placed it on her own. At that moment, a slow smile turned the corners of Olivia’s mouth up. Reaching over to straighten the hat on Mia’s head, Olivia asked the little ones, “Can you smell the jasmine and green grass on that hat?”

Both Mia and Autry sniffed the hat, “we don’t smell nothing but straw.”

Olivia just smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s just a memory and I have only just given it to you.”

Mama Lost Her Marbles

After a quick rap, I just walk right on in and straight back to the kitchen. I know that’s where Zilla’ll be.

“Plum smells mightly fine back here! What’s in the pot, beans?”

Zilla turns away from the steam over her range to take a glance at me, “Yessim, hand me that spoon yonder there would ya?”

Handing off the spoon, I hear the stomping of boots, “’bout ready I hope, directly those young ‘uns will be piling up in here.”

“Naw, you know they’ll have to mess and gaum some first. Come on to the table, we got time to set a spell. Tea?”

Sipping that cold sweet tea loosed my tongue some cause afore I knowed I was jawing about Hank’s retarment. “He ain’t got nary a thing to do but aggervate the dickens out of me. Me and him took to exchanging some words last night over dern marbles.”

“I knowed you was all tore up right off.” Zilla eyed me. She has a head for readin’ people.

“Firstly, them is Mama’s marbles. Next off, she likes colors mixed – like in each jar. Last off, Hank gave ’em a good sort’n. Blues with blues, reds with reds and the like.”

“Lawd, Lawd, I bet your mama was all fired up.” Zilla loved a good tangle.

“The worst of it ain’t even been told. Mama took up her jars went back yonder behind the fence and hid ’em but good. So good she cain’t find ’em. It’s likta kilt her. Hank’s out there a-hunting them marbles everhow he can.”

Always thinking, Zilla spoke the gospel, “You better get you some more marbles. Likely, your mama won’t be right with her marbles lost and all.”

* The way my Virginia family spoke. Retirement=retarment; Wire= ar; Tire=Tar etc.Adding “ly” to some words: Migthly, Firstly, etc. Mixing up the word “ever” with “every”  everway; evertime, everhow. It was a colorful and musical way of talking to my ear. I miss it.

 

Kung-Fu

I am leaning on a grocery buggy in the lobby of the store of our frozen town in West Michigan. I am waiting for my husband to drive up so we can load our groceries into the car. I am not lazy, just practical. You can not push a loaded grocery buggy through frozen snow ruts in parking lots in late February. The floor mats in the lobby smell of several days worth of wet boot wiping. Spring is still several months away. And I have my resting bitch face on, although it’s the early eighties and it will be some time before that phrase is officially coined.

My non-reverie is broken by a young black man asking me a question.
“Does a sister need some cheering up?”

I looked back blankly for a second before replying, “Oh I’m ok, just waiting for my ride.”

“I seen you been in here for a while, lots-a scraping to do, bout four mo inches come down. I got somethin to put a smile on that pretty face.”

“Uh..” was all I got out before he busted into the Kung-Fu Fighting song.

*Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting
Those kids were fast as lightning
In fact, it was a little bit frightening
But they fought with expert timing

There were funky China men from funky Chinatown
They were chopping them up
They were chopping them down
It’s an ancient Chinese art
And everybody knew their part…

My unlikely troubadour sang all the verses, danced, kicked and did other “funky” stuff. A crowd gathered. When he was done he politely kissed my hand, bowed and boogied out the door to the applause of the now full lobby.

Shortly, I spotted my husband driving up.

This is my go to song for February. I don’t hate February at all anymore. And yes, I have go to songs for all the months…

*Lyrics by Carl Douglas

Mama Ciele

Rangy, rows of Pecan trees drip over my rural route,
sweeping me along in a direction there about.
A blush of red peeks just ahead,
my destination marked by roses, memories from my head.
A tiny clapboard washed in hints of green,
the crowning glory a porch now seen.
Delighted wings take my heart I am home, I am home.

Wrapped in the comfort of a time-worn chair,
She gently combs and plaits my hair.
Joining the buzz of night bug, cicada, and katy-did,
comes the rain on tin answering prayers most bid.
She hums a tune without words ’bout leavin’
‘If we never meet again this side of heaven…”
Peaceful wings take my heart I sing, I sing.

Work-worn hands yet easy and fine,
smoothing  cool sheets  on the line.
Flashing blue eyes twinkle and spark,
with tales of fantasy, I hate when it gets dark.
Time for bed, falling asleep counting knots on pine walls,
her soft snoring just down the hall.
Shining wings take my heart I dream, I dream.

 

Epilogue:
Gone now, an emptiness left in time and space,
progress stands in her home’s place.
I hum a song with no words, a little blonde boy,
snuggles close with his toy.
I look at my own hands, work-worn, nails torn,
I am content yet I mourn.
Gentle wings took her home, took her home.

Dragging Canoe

I think every family has some legendary tale repeated from generation to generation regarding some scandalous ancestor or ancestry. Perhaps even several stories float about in most families as they do in mine. One such historical narrative in my family was so “bad,” that a division opened up in our family. Those who believed and those who denied.

I am the daughter of one who believed  and was willing to claim the story. I remember it from the earliest years of my life. My father, whom I called Daddy, was a great fire maker, banjo picker, singer, storyteller and beer drinker. These talents usually came together four or five times a year when my uncles, aunts, and cousins would gather at my grandmother’s. The fire would signal the mothers to come out from the kitchen and the kids to settle down after the excitement of chasing fireflies. The men picking and tuning banjos and guitars promised a different kind of excitement, one that I can still feel stirring in my chest at the sound of a banjo and the smell of smoke. My cousins and I got to stay up late on these occasions, blind eyes were turned to us as we snuck sips of beer from our daddies and sips of lime daiquiri from our mamas. Soon the singing would begin.

Everything from Bobby Goldsboro and Roger Miller to Hank Williams and Johnny Cash was played, we hummed when we didn’t know the words. As the drinks flowed the music got messier, there was more humming and a general mellowing prevailed. It was then that the stories got trotted out. Against the background of soft strumming, Daddy told about the Cherokee Warrior Chief who led raids on southern colonists. His story was bloody and scary in my memory, the details vague except for the final statement always directed at me, his only child, “And that’s the story of your great-great-great grandfather.”

The days of my childhood were long gone when I started seriously researching my family’s genealogy. I always remembered that one story and that I might have Cherokee blood running through my veins, so I was ever on the look-out for the proof.

Five years ago, while on a cemetery expedition I found a memorial marker that read,
Nathan Ward
Sara (an Indian).

I knew them to be my fifth great-grandparents, I did not know she was “an Indian.” Soon after I discovered the division in our family. It seems that a living second uncle of mine was so outraged at the thought of “an Indian” in his family tree that he re-wrote history in his book. He did this with the support of many on his side who no doubt had heard the stories. I do not understand the depth of prejudice that would lead someone to deny their heritage. I have never been persecuted or discriminated against in any real way so I will reserve judgment of my uncle on this issue and I will not name him or the title of his book. I will, however, point out that he has perpetuated a mistake in our family tree by giving Sara an entirely different set of parents. He wrote the book about twenty years ago and it has been used as a reference for almost that many years. Further, he fought the historical society who placed the memorial marker in the old cemetery, he did not want Sara to be noted as Indian. The advent of records on the internet and the more recent DNA projects have proved that my uncle’s book at best is in error, at worst may be peppered with lies.

Last week through the magic of DNA, large scale genealogy projects and other documentation, I have discovered that Sara, my fifth great-grandmother was Naky Sara Tatsi Canoe Brown Ward daughter of Cherokee Warrior Chief Dragging Canoe. Daddy was right with the exception of a few greats. I have been telling anyone who will listen about this discovery. I have also been singing these lyrics over and over again, “Cherokee Nation, Cherokee tribe, so proud to live, so proud to die…” In my head, I sound just like Cher who sang my favorite version of this song. I imagine my dad singing along, minus the banjo.

The One That Got Away

I got home late from work, hot, sticky and hungry. My phone lit up when I pulled it out of my apron pocket. The need for a brisk and clean shower was more powerful than the pull of the vibrating phone. I threw on my coolest cotton p.j.s, made some nachos and settled on the couch with my latest Prey novel by John Sandford. This is one of my favorite times of the day. My husband is asleep, work is over and I can stay up late, with nowhere to go in the morning.

The renewed vibrating of my phone reminded me I needed to check in; a little alarmed because no one texts me after eleven pm. It’s an old friend from high school- both times. He is letting me know that he will be in my area on vacation with his family. They will be here in a few weeks, maybe we could get together. I have not seen Joe for over twenty years, could be fun.

Texting about three times a week, I find out that he does not love his wife. He has two children, a boy, and a girl, grown. The daughter lives in the same house with Joe and his wife. The daughter, a single mom, also has her ten-year-old daughter living in the family home. He does not mention his son. He works nights and would like to call me on the way to work. For the first time, a faint, almost not there alarm goes off. Why can’t he call me during the day on a day off?

The first phone call came about nine o’clock one night, my husband was home and I cajoled him into talking too. See we all went to the same high-school. It was awkward, my old high-school buddy referred to his wife alternately as the “old battle-ax,” and “the old ball and chain.” Who talks like that? He made a point of telling us that his wife would not join us for dinner but that he would like to meet up for some seafood. After a bit of bragging about the famous people he rubs elbows with through his work we hung up.

He called me three more times, I answered the first and dodged the last two. The first call was enough. It began innocently enough remembering old times. We had several classes together our senior year. It ended with him telling me that I was “the one that got away.” Nervously laughing I pointed out that we never even went on a date. I don’t know this guy anymore. He said he never had enough nerve to ask me out, but if he did and now I quote, “It would not have been our last date you wouldn’t have wanted to date anyone else ever again if you know what I mean.” No, I don’t know what you mean. I hung up soon after.

For the next week, I could not stop thinking that I was “the one that got away.” Even if I might have got away from a jerk, I decided I was flattered. I imagined showing up for dinner looking pretty hot for a fifty-four-year-old. I also imagined wearing a mu-mu and no make-up. I debated cutting my hair, what color would I paint my nails? Should I tell my husband that he said I was the one who got away? I imagined being terribly witty and extremely interesting. I thought about what it would feel like to sit across the table from someone besides my husband who might like me “that way.” I was giddy and disgusted.

The day of the dinner date arrived. My husband and I were looking forward to a night out with grown-ups that weren’t our family. I never shared my private musings with my husband or what Joe had told me. I was a little nervous, but I had decided it would be fun to go out on a date with another man, my husband in tow. Really what is wrong with me? I was on a big high. Three hours before our dinner, I received this text from Joe, “Change of plans we are heading home now, hope to see you next time, will call soon.” Well huh!

My husband and I went to dinner anyway. I was terribly witty and extremely interesting. My husband was thoughtful, laughed at the right times, and he held my hand. I gave a little thanks that we did not get away from each other.

Royal Rose

The bar-b-ques were one of the few chances Lucy had to glimpse a tangible piece of her past – her grandmother’s dishes. One of her cousins could always be counted on to flounce in flourishing one of the coveted dishes laden with corn bread or freshly sliced tomatoes. The dish would claim a prime location on the table in spite of its humble holdings. A whole set of Royal Rose china belonged to their beloved grandmother. Every time Lucy saw them tender memories of her grandmother and her own dear mama engulfed her heart.

The last memory of both her grandmother and mother together was Christmas day when she was five. The glow of the candle-lit table provided the perfect backdrop in her mind. Nine places were set. Her grandparents sat at each end of the large oak table, her mother to the left of her grand-dad and her father to the left of her grandmother, she and her siblings filling in the rest. The table was covered in finely embroidered white cotton cloth. She was given the honor of carrying the gravy dish to the table, she remembered carefully placing one foot in front of the other in an effort to not spill a drop. Her mother and grandmother smiled quietly as she successfully placed the dish on the table. The memory ends there. Her sweet mother would be dead by Valentine’s Day and both her grandparents would be claimed by influenza Christmas Eve four years later.

When her grandparents passed, her uncle – her mother’s brother – a dentist and only surviving child of her grandparents swooped in and packed up “the good stuff.” This included the lovely set of pre-depression china. After her mother’s death her father, a farmer, had sent her and her only sister to live with her grandparents. This arrangement lasted for two years until her father found another wife. Those two years turned the five-year-old Lucy into a stoic and mature almost woman. She was the one who had lovingly washed the china each Sunday after dinner for the last year. Now her silly, childish, spoiled cousins, one a year older, one a year younger than Lucy would possess the precious dishes.

At age thirteen Lucy gave birth for the first time to a son, she was unwed, her father forced her to give the baby away. Lucy had been raped by the neighboring farmer, who was married with children of his own. At fifteen she was married for the first time. She quickly gave birth to a son and a daughter all before her third wedding anniversary and her nineteenth birthday. The bar-b-que was scheduled for the day after her 20th birthday. Already showing with her next child she did not really feel like going; but, she could not miss the opportunity to see which dish would appear on the table in a mocking gesture made by her ninny cousins. They could never know that what they thought of as a stab to her heart was really a gift. A gift filled with the shimmering glow of candles on a table abundant with love and food.

She stopped cold when she saw the chipped edge of the square moss rose serving bowl. Over her shoulder, she heard the grating whisper of her cousin. She learned that many of the dishes had been broken during their recent move to a bigger house. This was the last bar-b-que with her mother’s relations she ever attended.

She told me this story  when I asked why her oddly matched serving bowl had a chip in it. She also told about her quest to collect rose patterned dishes; over the years collecting two different sets of rose patterned china, each called Royal Rose, one from Japan, one from Germany. She never did find any to completely match the original china made in Poland. As for the chipped dish, she stole it at that last bar-b-que, unable to bear the thought of any more harm befalling all that the dish represented.

I am Lucy’s granddaughter and I have just passed on sixteen place settings complete with three serving bowls, one with a chip; two serving platters; salt and pepper shakers; and a gravy bowl to my daughter along with this story. While telling the story my four-year-old granddaughter wandered over, sat down and listened with wide eyes.

A Slight Tilt of the Head

The color enhanced black and white photograph remained on her bureau more than thirty years after the subject’s death. A smooth man’s face with kind eyes stared out from the photo. His head slightly tilted with a subtle wry smile faintly playing around his mouth. A stranger to this man might mistakenly guess this to be a handsome man with a good joke to tell. Those who knew him and his life knew the cocked angle hid a secret. And the not quite smiling eyes spoke of pain rather than joy.
His name Walter Greek Daniel, my paternal grandfather. I loved to examine his picture as a child. His violent death occurred about ten months before I was born. I learned his story slowly and secretly over the years. My grandmother loved him and never allowed a negative word about him to pass her lips. She also did not tolerate it from others. The very first story I heard led to my fascination with his photo.

I was about five when I overheard my dad tell someone, “The best thing that ever happened was when my father got pushed down some stairs in a bar fight where he lay dead drunk  They got him to the hospital too late. My old man managed to survive but not for long, he died a few days later in the hospital. I knew Mother would be safe.”
This little snippet of information grew in my mind to legend with a more romantic flair. You see my dad was somewhat of drunk also. Handsome and charming but a drunk none the less. So I took the secret words, considered the source and reinvented it as I gazed at my grandfather’s photo.
“Dashing family man risks his own life in the effort to save a mysterious stranger from the perils of a dimly lit stairwell after a night of dancing and drinking. Sadly, our hero survived only hours after his fall. Wife and daughter were beside his bed as he passed into glory.” This would be the headline story if my musings came true.

I needed a hero. Even a generation old hero was better than the non-hero dad I thought I had. Turns out my dad would be a hero, but I would not know that until his death nearly thirty-five years after my early fascination with the photo on the bureau. As a child, I lived varying miles from grandmother’s house but every summer we visited. Every summer included a meditation-like visit with my grandfather’s photo.

As the years passed I heard more secret stories. My grandfather did drink to excess and laid very rough hands on my grandmother, my dad, and my aunt. Two younger children, both boys, my uncles escaped most of the abuse. At a young age, he was involved in a serious car accident, this would have been in early 1930’s. The accident left him with a crushed check bone that left his face sunken under one eye. It caused him a lot of pain and he was known to grimace quite often with the sharpness of the pain.

Now I look at that same photo and know that he hated the crushed side of his face and always tilted his head to minimize the effect. His slight smile more of a sneer. I also know that my aunt forgave him and looks forward to being reunited with him in heaven. She prays every day that he found a way back to God in those last hours of his life. I know that if it weren’t for him there would be no me. One more thing, sometimes a slight tilt of the head is just that but sometimes it hides a secret.

My grandfather really was found at the bottom of the stairs in a popular bar. He did drink. He did abuse. He also taught school. He told good stories. He was not happy. He loved my grandmother a lot. She loved him. This is all I know for sure.