Is it next semester yet?

I've given some thought as to what this blog should be about.  I've decided it's about me.  So, if it's something towards the book project, then that's what it'll be.  If it's a ranting, raving observational thing (much like my weekly column used to be), then so be it. 

This is what I'm thinking about today:   

A friend posted on Facebook yesterday that her 11 year old daughter proclaimed it was time to shave her legs.  After all, she's in middle school now.  It seems that oftentimes as parents, we think kids are all gung-ho on growing up and wanting to do things they aren't old enough to do.  As parents, there's one thing we forget - we did the same dang thing. 

After I spent a few days listening to that collection of cassette tapes recorded at slumber parties with my friends back in my middle school days, I found myself somewhere between amused and abhorred.  Sweet Jesus in a jumpsuit, for a bunch of midwest sheltered youngins' who went to church on Sunday in the early 80s, we sure talked about sex A LOT. 

A favorite, it seemed, was to play the, "How far have you gone?" game.  Well, since the majority of us might have snuck a kiss or held hands with a boy (the majority not including me), that game lost its appeal because there was no dirt to dish.  This evolved into the, "How far would you go?" game.  It was outright scandalous to admit which boy you might want to kiss, and how old you would have to be before you would do "it."   

I cringed when I listened to our comments, listing off the bases and saying, "4th base, all the wayyyyyy home" like Kevin Bacon said in "Footloose" comparing sex to the carseat going "all the wayyyyy back,"  if you know what he means.  Truthfully, if you'd asked us the previous year while still in the protective walls of elementary school about bases, we likely would have started talking about playing kickball on the playground at Poplar Grove, and how you have to be careful running to home (yeah, as if I ever got that far in kickball or with boys) so you didn't run into the big tree behind home base. 

A girl we met in middle school was knowledgeable.  I mean she really knew things about sex, and she wasn't afraid to share the nitty gritty.  I know somewhere in the recesses of my footlocker o'crap, there's a tape with a sex story she wrote about another friend getting it on.  The finer details of the middle school porn tale escape me, and for this I'm likely thankful, but I do recall a line about "zip grip, pull tab, crotchless panties."  While I couldn't quite wrap my young mind around what exactly that meant, and I kept trying to mentally picture what those drawers would look like, I take some solace in knowing now that it still doesn't make much sense. 

My friendship with this girl came and went during the remainder of my public school days.  Some years, we were friends.  Other years, we weren't.  While I remained close with those I'd formed an early friendship with, it seemed my circle of friends rotated depending on who was in my History class or who had the same lunchtime.  When she wasn't teaching me to put on eyeliner or enlightening me on making out, she tried to kill me.  Teenage girls with cars that go fast are never really a great idea.  Neither are a couple teenage girls riding in the back of a pickup truck at highspeeds on a crisp fall evening, that may or may not have done donuts in a churchyard. 

I'm not blaming this girl for ushering me into the world of the mysterious and unknown because I think it's the natural course of things for a young, curious kid.  I did my fair share of stupid before she came along, and she didn't trigger my desire to hurry up and grow up.  I was already in a hurry.  My friend mentioning her daughter's desire to shave reminded me of this.   

At about the fifth grade age, I decided I needed to shave.  The hair on my legs was blonde and fine, but this didn't stop me from digging through the medicine cabinet to find my dad's razor.  If safety was an option for razors at the time, my dad still lived life on the edge and used the double-sided blades that were, well, as sharp as a razor. 

I turned the bottom of the handle, which opened the top of the razor like a mouth.  Examing the blade in the razor, I decided I needed a fresh one.  I lathered myself up with some shaving cream, using probably half the can.  With the precision of someone who'd been doing it for years, I took my first swipe with the razor up the middle of my shin. 

Then it hit me.  Oh man, that stung.  Was shaving supposed to hurt?  I looked down at my leg.  The mounds of shaving cream around the area I'd tended to was turning a shade of pink.  I was bleeding.  I glanced at the razor, and there it was.  My flesh.  A four inch piece of my flesh that rolled up on the razor.  I'd peeled my flesh like I was using a vegetable peeler on a carrot.

I don't know if it was the blood or the piece of my skin that was once on my body and now on the razor, or the burning from the shaving cream entering my wound, but darn if I didn't get a little woozy.   I cleaned myself up and put about six bandages in a row to cover my wound, and swore I'd never shave my legs again.  I still have a faint scar. 

So, this need to hurry up and grow up, and do grown up things and talk about grown up stuff certainly isn't anything new.  We did it.  Our kids do it.  Our grandkids will do it.  Oh, to be young and stupid and needing to have the crap smacked right out of you by a well-meaning adult.

New Blog

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Back to school

I love this commercial.  As it notes, your own kids probably aren't going to react this way when you walk in the door with their supplies for the impending school year.  Well, not unless I happened to be your child. 

Call it a sick fascination, or just plain sick, but I loved getting new school supplies as a child.  I loved thumbing through blank notebooks waiting to be filled - especially the one serving as a journal for a high school English class.  I couldn't wait to use a fresh pack of Bic Banana markers.  A jar of paste or Elmer's rubber cement set my heart a fluttering.   The smell of fresh crayolas - the kahuna box of 64 with the built-in sharpner, oh please, please, mom.    They made me put my worries aside about whether I got a good teacher or if my best friend would be in the same class. 

The list sent home for needed art supplies told me exactly what kind of projects we might embark on in art class.  My mom groaned each year as she looked over the list of required supplies so that I might fully reach my potential in art class.  Oh, but I do know that groan, especially the several years that my sons' school decided kids should have two sets of supplies - one for the classroom and one for the art room.  My groan may or may not have been followed by a litany of well-crafted profanity.  What a pain the ass that was, not to mention pretty darn expensive, too. 

While I scoured the aisles and shelves for Fiskar round-tip scissors that sold out quicker in Wells county than bread and milk during a blizzard warning, my mom lamented over one thing - Prang brand watercolors. 

This is the original packaging that I remember.  In later elementary school days in the 70s, the metal box was replaced by a plastic one.  This was a great point of contention with my mom because Prang paints were expensive.  The cheap, prone to drying out, less than exciting Kmart brand water colors were much cheaper.  The one year she tried to get them past the art teacher, a note was sent home requesting that I come back equipped with the proper paint.  Although I suffered the embarrassment of not following directions, it wasn't so bad because I got to use the Kmart ones at home.  Well, until I got caught coloring my Barbies' hair with it. 

There was something about those Prang watercolors, unused, so vibrant and inviting,  that gave me this artsy feeling of well, having an ounce of artistic ability in my body.  Sadly, I really didn't.  That didn't stop me from loving those art supplies.  I'd pack and repack my artbox, not particularly caring if the jumbo box of crayons didn't fit.  What mattered was that I had 64 colors at my disposal for artistic expression.  If could somehow accent my collection with a Pentel outlining marker (silver with red outlining preferably that could give you a high before you knew what being high was all about) or a bottle of glue with the dauber top, I knew it was going to be a good year in art. 

As I hinted, I certainly wasn't the best at art in my class, but I also wasn't the worst, either.  This mainly because as one might suspect, art class was co-ed and most boys didn't have that desire to create a festive holiday piece such as this shamrock with some tissue paper cut into squares, a pencil eraser, and some glue.  As a mother of two children of the boy variety, I know most can't be bothered by expressing themselves creatively.  I probably didn't earn the S+ grade in the class for my picturesque drawings so much as my effort counted.  I really did want to be good at it. 

These projects were my favorite.  Try as I might to recreate the project at home (after the art teacher would often set out scraps and leftovers for us to pick through and take if we wanted), it never really was the same.  Perhaps, it was because we sat somewhat quietly at tables with the teacher's instruction and without the distractions of cartoons, dogs, and siblings.

My second favorite project types involved this.  Mod Podge.  How thrilling it was to catch a rumor that we'd be Mod Podging something as our next project.  Some tissue paper glued on a hunk of paper, brushed with this wonderous creation could create a stained glass window, mosaic type effect.  From experience, I can tell you that glue doesn't work if you're trying to do a little Mod Podging at home. 

 

Nothing beat a good paper mache project, either.  Especially the ones that used a balloon as a form.  Most of these projects took place in the classroom, and I'll never forget the teachers who trusted us to hold the corsage pin and pop our own balloons.  My dog loved the one we made in first grade - wrapping pieces of yarn around a balloon to create an egg shaped cage-like deal that we stuffed with Easter grass.  I can't remember what we shoved into it, but I'm guessing it was some sort of little bird like the ones you can buy in a craft store.  My mom loved the my project even more than the dog when she had to extract Easter grass from the dog's butt. 

Of course, I'm much older now and so are my kids.  A few notebooks, some pencils and pens, maybe a 3-ring binder constitutes back-to-school shopping now.  Blank pages and a good ink gel pen still call out to me.  As does a nice set of art pastels.  I don't know what I'd do with them because while my mom and sister can draw, paint, sketch and do all sorts of things artistic, I know my limits.  Still, there's something about school supplies that at least gives me the feeling that maybe I could create something beautiful and awe-inspiring. 

....and I just happened upon a recipe for homemade Mod Podge. 

And so it began

On February 8, 1969, a meteorite weighing over 1 ton fell on Chihuahua, Mexico, the last edition of the Saturday Evening Post hit the newsstands, and I made my appearance in the world.   

Try as I might, I’ve never gathered too much information about the day from either of my parents.  When I’ve asked, I’ve learned it was cold and rainy.  There was no blizzard, no mad dash to the hospital on the back of a snowmobile, no giving birth in a car along a rural road somewhere.  Nothing to write home about.  For all intents and purposes, the best I can figure is that it was your average Saturday, except for those folks in Mexico.  I imagine they remember it clearly, especially anyone in the meteorite’s path.   

My mom shared a few details, none of which is the making for stories you tell your kids or grandkids.  I've searched for clues in my nearly untouched baby book, reading it cover to cover looking for anything that might tell me more about the day I was born.  The section for comments made by family members upon my arrival were mostly blank.  Perhaps, my arrival left everyone speechless because my dad was the only one who had something to say.   

According to Mom’s fine penmanship he said, “That’s a huge weight off my shoulders.”  I asked her what this meant because it didn’t make a lot of sense to me.  She didn’t know, but she assumed it meant he was relieved.  But, by the tone of her voice, I could tell she was the one who felt she had more right to feel relief because he spent his time in the waiting room while she was laboring and delivering.   Some men would refer to this as the good ole days.

While my first few days remain a mystery, the one thing I do know for certain is that following my birth, my parents took me home to the house trailer where they resided.  I spent my first five years surrounded by family.  We lived next door to my mom's parents.  On the other side of my grandparent’s house set another house trailer where my grandma’s mom lived, my great-Grandma Jones.  Now if that wasn’t enough family to pack into a few acres, my grandpa’s mom lived in the house with them, Grandma-Great, as I called her.   My dad’s parents lived just a mile away.  I grew up thinking everyone’s family was as accessible as mine. 

Some of my earliest memories are a bit sketchy.  Some might not be actual memories of my own, but those created by thumbing through photo albums and shoeboxes full of photographs that never found a home in an album.  Some might be stories that were told to me time and time again, and through the telling and listening, became my stories.   

Seldom do I need to turn to others to jog my memory.  I am the retainer of moments in time.  I am the person you call when you can’t remember the name of the boy who dressed like Johnny Cash in fourth grade or who the girl was who played guitar on the long bus rides home.  Events with no meaning and those that shaped the person I am today come back to me.  The good, the bad, the inconsequential.  They are all there – resurfacing unexpectedly, conjured by the senses, similar events, and sometimes for no apparent reason at all.  They reside in journal entries, weekly columns, and stories I tell my own children about what it was like when I was growing up.  Sometimes pleasurable; other times, painful.  A gift.  A curse.   

The brain works in strange ways.  What we remember and why is a mystery.  I don’t have the slightest idea why, or even how, I remember the things I do.  I’m definitely wired differently than the average person who will ask me, “How do you remember that?” to which I reply, “How can’t you remember it?” 

There are things I remember with most certainty.  I know these early recollections are mine:

My baby brother was born in September of 1972 when I was about 3 ½ years old.  On the day he came home from the hospital, I sat beside Mom on the couch, on a pillow just as she, and held my T-bear in my lap while she cradled the tiny newborn.   

Grandma-Great kept her post rocking in her chair listening to the Christian station on the radio.  She lost her vision to glaucoma in her 30s, and oftentimes, one of her eyes peeked open revealing the bluest of eyes.  When I look in the mirror, I recognize the blue. 

Grandma Jones had a chamber pot in her bedroom.  It was the greatest source of intrigue I had encountered in my young years.  She didn’t have to trek down the short hallway in her house trailer at night to use the bathroom.  She had a toilet right there in her room.  It was nothing short of magical to me.  If I made an extra strong argument that I couldn’t hold it any longer, she would let me use the chamber pot, not once complaining about having to empty out the metal bucket.  

One night, when I was supposed to be in bed, I got up to find my mom watching TV while eating Seyfert’s BBQ potato chips and drinking milk.  Instead of making me go back to bed, she let me join her.  The chips never tasted so BBQ-y and the milk never colder.  It’s probably one of my favorite memories.    

Sometimes, there is little importance to the things I remember.  I mean really, how pivotal was it that I got the wrong crocheted shawl after a family dinner and my second cousin took home mine instead?  The exchange of shawls went peacefully, and I couldn’t have been more than three years old at the time.  Yet, I remember, but I couldn’t fathom a guess why.   

Maybe on that day I was born, uneventful as it was on earth, they were running low on special gifts and talents.  As they rummaged around the bins labeled athlete, dancer, artist they turned up empty-handed.  There in the corner, possibly, there was a bin they didn’t often dip into.  Instead of being blessed with the legs of a dancer or the stamina of a basketball player, I was given a different gift.  The gift of a phenomenal memory.  

These stories, including the devil who drove a station wagon,  are what I remember. 

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day...when I was 12 years old

This week, during some much needed alone time, I came across six cassette tapes that were recorded in the early 80's.  Cassette tapes.  Remember those?  They were played in a tape deck or tape recorder at the time.  Rewind.  Stop.  Fastforward.  Pause.  Record.  Please remember to punch out those little tabs on the top if you don't want to accidentally record over something important.  However, if you changed your mind, and "Electric Avenue" was no longer your favorite song, and you now wanted to recorded, "Our House" from the Coca-Cola Top Nine on WMEE, a piece of clear tape could solve that pesky problem of poked out tabs. 

Note that the manufacturer of these cassettes is Kmart.  The best place to shop on a Friday night after my dad took us to supper (yes, supper.  We ate supper then.  Lunch was called dinner.  It's a confusing concept to my husband who was raised in a upstate NY.  He's never had supper until he married me, and to avoid confusion, I gave up saying what we'd have for dinner because he was expecting meals at times I had no intention of cooking them.)  I can only wager a guess that a great portion of my $5/week allowance went towards the purchase of 60 and 90 minute blank cassette tapes for my tape recorder that I got for Christmas when I was in seventh grade. 

I was going to say it looked a lot like that one. 

Except it didn't.  It looked like this.  I remember because of the high tech record and play button combination.  When play was pressed, the small orange button remained in the up position.  While recording, the orange button was pushed down as well. 

I'd often been asked what was the best gift you'd ever received.  I think thoughtfully, as one should do, and I'd say something like my children, or meeting my husband.  Maybe I'd wax romantically and say it was my first engagement ring that my husband bought before we ever laid eyes on one another (that's another long story for another time).  I'd like a do-over on all those answers because that Panasonic tape recorder, hands down, was the greatest gift EVER. 

It strikes me what a different era this was.  When photos were taken, you didn't just randomly point and shoot as we do now with digital cameras and cell phones.  No, it cost money - to buy film and have them developed.  Photo ops were few and far between.  Of course, there is photographic evidence that I did have a childhood.  My family didn't do the home movie thing, and again, there was an expense to that as well.  I know some people who have home movies, but in most, there's an underlying theme of conserving film just in case something more important happened that needed to be saved for posterity. 

My tape recorder and a blank tape afforded me the luxury to capture moments, that for all practical purposes, didn't necessarily need to be preserved for posterity.  I'd hit record, oftentimes unbeknownst to my friends who were being recorded at the time.  So, I broke the law and didn't know it.  Had I known you were to inform someone they were being recorded, I probably would have lied awake at night waiting on the FBI to show up and haul me off to the pokey.  Copyright infringement would be the other crime I could be charged with because I recorded TV shows by holding my recorder up to the TV.  Why it was important to have audio of "The Muppet Show" or the "Solid Gold" escapes me a little now.  But, again, it was a different time.  VCRs were a technology still a few years out. 

One tape snippet I've listened to at least a dozen times.  It was a sleepover, and my best friend was staying the night.  The tape recorder set in the background capturing a moment that was neither spectacular or noteworthy.  We talked about boys.  We talked about what we did that day.  We giggled.  A lot.  My dog at the time was a Bassett Hound named Bosley.  He was the greatest dog EVER, but that's a story for another time.  Wherever there were kids, this hound could be found.  And naturally, this meant Bosley had joined in on the sleepover festivites. 

By joining in, this meant he was trying to snag an empty sleeping bag or pillow for his own.  He must have crawled between us because the conversation focused on him for a good bit of time trying to convince him to just lie down and go to sleep. 

"Go to sleepy time, Bosley dog," I coaxed to him.  I was somewhere around the tender age of 12, but I spoke to him as if he were my human baby. 

And then, I started singing to him.  "Go to sleep my baby, my baby, my baby."  My friend joined the lullaby and we both sang to Bosley. 

Either he fell asleep, or we forgot it was our mission to lull him into slumber, because we both got up to do something and ditched the poor pooch.  Walking and banging around on something is heard in the background.  My friend and I both come back, giggle over something, and go about getting the dog back into the position we preferred. 

"Bosley, you're in my seat.  Can I sit with you, Bosley dog?" my friend asks him.  "You're a good boy letting me sit with you."  A few moments of silence pass, and then she says, "You're a stinky dog.  You know that? You stink.  Why am I letting you sit with me when you smell bad?  Kelly, why am I hugging your dog?" 

I'm still at a loss to explain how exactly listening to these recordings impacted me.  I'd thought of Bosley many times since then.  I've thought about our countless sleepovers and how we amused ourselves by making recordings.  Sometimes, we'd even use them as blackmail if someone happened to confess which boy was the cutest or who'd we like to kiss.  They're the closest I come to having home movies of my youth, and I'm reminded of a time that wasn't perhaps simpler, but my life was much simpler.  There's something about my dog partaking in the moment that's left me a little melancholy, perhaps. 

I spent way too many hours listening to these treasures from the past.  I'm still not done.  One hour in, though,  I reached the conclusion that I was thankful for three things - that I stopped giggling incessantly, that I stopped recording myself singing, and for the technological advances since the early 80s.

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Coming soon....

....or before 2012.

We'll Try This Again

I once was a writer. Meaning I got paid to write weekly. A small sum, yet it still gave me license to call myself a writer. Well, a year has passed, and I haven't written anything but papers for class, grocery lists, and emails.

So, here we go....

I'm no stranger to dogs dying. I understand the whole circle of life thing. People, as well as dogs, are born. They die. From start to finish, there's pleasure and there's pain. One hopes that the pleasure outweighs the pain, and eventually time works its magic to heal the latter and remind you of the previous.

One of my earliest memories, early in that I was maybe three at the time, finds me at the bathroom door, curious what my mom was doing with wet, tiny puppies in her hand. She raised Pomeranians, and for whatever reason that remains a mystery no matter how many times I've inquired about this memory, the mother dog deposited her newborns into the toilet. Six plops into the toilet water. My mom was trying to revive the nearly drowned pups. I didn't understand what was going on, but I remember the horror I felt, and my dad whisking me away from the door. Likely for fear I'd get attached to dogs that would be a source of income when put up for sale, I never got too friendly with any of the survivors.

The first dog I ever had died before I even got it home. Her name was Butterscotch, and she was the sweetest little beagley thing I'd ever laid eyes on. That's not saying much since I was about five at the time. We'd moved into our new house that fall, and I was promised a puppy. My grandparents' neighbor raised coon type dogs, as did my grandpa, and since Butterscotch was the runt of the litter, the man said I could have her. Grandpa agreed to take care of her until she got a little older.

I remember checking in on her when I visited - begging to go out to the little red barn, lift the lid on the box, and scoop her out. She had that sweet little bald puppy belly, and smelled like a combination of straw bedding and puppy breath. She was heaven in my lap. One day, I was informed that she died when I asked if I could go see her. I was only subdued from wallowing in grief by the promise of one of my grandpa's pups.

Enter Jake, another beagle type, who was my best friend, if only for a short time. He helped make my rounds with me, playing in the barn, gathering eggs, antagonizing my arch-nemesis Roger the rooster. We had fun.

A kid needs a dog, I think. Jake wasn't long for this world, however. The story I got was that he supped on rat poisoning at the neighbor's. Now, though, it makes me wonder. How did my parents know this? I don't know. I don't think I will ask, either.

At any rate, dogs came and went a whole lot in those years. Strays, which made the best pets, showed up. Some left under suspicious circumstances as Jake did, and others were taken out by a passing train. Getting the wheelbarrow and a couple shovels to scoop the unlucky remains hardly fazed me.

But, the dogs in my adult years have stuck around a lot longer, kept from trains and poison. Wedging themselves deeply into my heart and life, and leaving a sizable hole when the universe beckoned them from this earthly plane. People say (and who these people are leaves me curious because they do say a lot, some of which is actually quite prolific and deep) that death becomes easier to deal with when you get older. I'm afraid I might have to call foul on it. People also say they understand and offer their empathy, or well-meaning sympathy at the least. Again, I'm not sure anyone totally understands unless they are in the throes of the kind of grief that pours a cup of coffee, grabs a 1,000 page novel, and sits down with you for quite a stretch until the sting starts to wear off.

My almost fourteen year old dog died about three weeks ago. I had to have him put to sleep after a stroke that left him unable to walk. He'd flirted with death for a couple years, having a similar spell that I was able to coax him out of. This time I knew it was different. It broke my heart, but as I'm told, this is too is another life lesson that creates a nasty scar that breaks open and oozes just when you think it's healed.

I remember after burying my sixteen year old dog some years ago that I never wanted another one. I didn't think I could endure that life cycle of pleasure and pain again. But, I did get another dog then, just as I did this time around. The same day my youngest came home with a little black puppy who plopped down beside me on the couch and hasn't left my side since. He'd lived in a barn with his mom and littermates, and had that same straw bedding smell, and was complete with the bare puppy belly and puppy breath. I was also informed that his daddy was a coondog variety, and his momma was a Lab. This is what reminded me of Butterscotch, my first dog that never became mine.

This little booger certainly hasn't taken the place of my old pooch, but he's made the loss a bit more bearable. To paraphrase a quote I came across, grief is crying over that which had brought you pleasure. This perspective, however bittersweet, brings comfort in the understanding.

I miss him. I still glance to the floor at the end of the bed expecting to see him sleeping there. I've reached over to pet the new pup after seeing black from the corner of my eye expecting it to be my constant companion of thirteen years. My family and I have reminisced, and I see in hindsight that he hadn't been the dog he was for a long time.

I'm not convinced, as they say, that death becomes easier to accept and deal with as we get older. Perhaps, it's that we accept it is a part of life, a part of the cycle of start to finish. It doesn't lessen the grief or hasten its departure. Truly, we grieve that which brought us pleasure and happiness. That much I can accept.