Having the Last Word . . .

2011-12-07T12:51:00.004-06:00

WORRIED ABOUT THE SOFT SPOT

I'd held a baby only once before when I begged my mother to let me hold my brand new cousin. "First wash your hands, then sit on the sofa," she ordered. She put Laura in my arms and knelt in front of us. "Hold your thighs together so you make a lap. Support her neck, prop up her head, keep your arm under her body, don't breathe in her face. Careful when you kiss her, watch out for her soft spot."

"What's a soft spot?" I asked.

"It's the part of her head that covers her brain. Now lower your voice or you'll startle her."

Laura started to wail. "Here, take her back, babies have too many rules.”

I steered clear of babies after that and then it happened again.

"Here, my phone is ringing, hold her for a second," my neighbor Lucy said as she thrust her baby, Kiki, into my arms. I was only five years old, a tiny kid myself, sitting on the stoop and munching on a Snicker's.

I pressed my thighs together to make a lap like I remembered from Laura and, poof, just like that, Kiki flipped out of my arms. I gripped her ankle; her pink rubber pants flashed the whole neighborhood. Clutching her leg, I hoisted her up to eye level. Lucky thing her brain didn't fall out of the soft spot. When I flipped her right-side up, she looked okay. Her face was as bright red as a flaming-hot jawbreaker, but her bonnet was still stuck on her head, and she wasn’t bleeding.

"Kiki," I scolded, "you can't just do a somersault whenever you feel like it." Kiki was screaming and not paying attention.

"I don't know why she's crying, maybe she missed you," I lied to Lucy, who hadn't seen her baby bungee-jump from my arms. I was glad Kiki couldn't tell her mother that she was twirling around upside down and almost bounced on the sidewalk.

Over the years, worrying about Kiki's brain caused me many sleepless nights. My brother's friend, Stevie, went to the hospital after he jumped off his garage roof while playing Superman. My brother, who was very smart, said Stevie had a concussion which meant his brain got jiggled in his skull. Even though Kiki hadn't hit the ground, I knew her brain had a good jiggle. Would she grow up to be normal?

"Whatever happened to Stevie after his concussion?" I asked.

"He got in trouble for playing on the roof, and his dad punished him."

"I mean what happened to his brain. Did he like start acting weird?"

"You're weird," my brother sneered, as he rode off on his Schwinn. "Something's wrong with your brain."

So all I could do was spy on Kiki to see if her brain was working right. Every time I'd see Lucy with her in the buggy outside, I'd push the mosquito netting aside and peer at her little bald head.

"How is she today, Lucy? Has she started to talk yet?"

"Oh, Sweetie, she won't be talking for a while. She's still too little."

I wanted to tell Lucy that, thanks to me, Kiki might never talk. I worried that she might get stuck in kindergarten for a couple of years because she had trouble learning then she'd end up like Butchie, down the street. My brother said Butchie was slow because he'd been dropped on his head when he was a baby. Butchie had to repeat second grade twice.

Being on the alert for signs of brain-damage was complicated by the fact that Kiki's family was strange to begin with--I mean, her brother's name was Jujube. Jujube! All the boys in our neighborhood had names like Joey or Junior--no one was named after candy that you bought when you went to the movies. On top of that, Jujube's ears were lopsided, and he kind of looked like he might not make it past fifth grade. To further complicate matters, Kiki and Jujube had different fathers because my brother said Lucy was divorced which meant she traded in her old husband for a new one. So it was going to be hard to know if Kiki was goofed up because of me or her loony tribe. I worried that I was going to have to take the whole blame if Kiki didn't turn out right, if she couldn't spell or add or subtract.

When I was seven, my Nana died and we moved into her old flat six blocks away. Though I didn't change schools, I did lose track of Kiki. I always prayed, though, that she turned out to be normal and that someday I could tell her it was an accident and please forgive me. I dreamed of explaining to Kiki that if she had brain problems it was partly her fault for acting like a kangaroo.

Kiki's caper set me up for a life of chronic worry, but, in fairness to her, I did go to Catholic schools where hijacking cerebellums and embedding neurons of fear was an art form.

At the age of seven, my First Confession, the day before my First Holy Communion, kicked off a deluge of anxiety when I toddled into the black hole of a confessional. A weekly Examination of Conscience required searching out every sin committed in thought, word and/or deed, by acts of commission or omission, intentionally or accidentally, either consciously or unconsciously, in rain, sleet or snow, in sickness or health, pre-conception or postmortem.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned..." was my Saturday afternoon mantra, a ritual that was supposed to "...stop God from crying over all the bad things you did during the week," said Sister Perpetua. I thought God must be nuts to cry because I'd rolled my eyeballs at my mother when she told me to dry the dishes. But just after I thought about the possibility of God being cuckoo, I realized the thought was sacrilegious so I'd wait in church all afternoon until the priests changed shifts and the refugee Croation priest, who spoke almost no English, came on duty. No matter what you confessed, he'd say, "Okay, tree r father, tree Hey, Marys. Go."

That I accomplished anything in school was astounding seeing that I was so busy dissecting, analyzing and seeking second opinions from my girlfriends on the gravity of my sins.

"Josephine, I know snitching is a sin, but what if I snitched on my brother because I heard him use a swear word? I don't think it's a sin because it did stop him from saying hell."
"Well, you just committed a sin yourself because you said the "H" word," said the pint-sized Elmer Gantry. "Plus snitching is a sin no matter what your brother did."

"Another sin just because I said the "H" word?"

"Yes, but it’s just a Venial--you only go to "H" for Mortals," she said.

I ran to Confession, and was relieved when I smelled beer through the little screen which meant Father Alky was on the other side. He probably didn't know what rolling eyeballs were since he too had language limitations. But then I worried that if he didn't understand me, his forgiveness wouldn't count so I added yet another sin by lying that I'd left my prayer book in the pew and fled.

I ran across the vestibule, and got in Father Steve's line. He had escaped the Communists too and his English was not the best, however, he was up on the latest sins. Sometimes you'd be waiting your turn and you'd hear him bellow, "YOU DEED WHAT?" Within minutes you'd see a blubbering eight-year old exit, and run down the aisle with his jacket pulled over his head hoping not to be identified. One time Peter Manzino crashed right into the baptismal font as he tried to make a break for it. Sister Praxeda caught him and dragged him back to the box. Pushing Peter to the front of the line, she made him go in and confess that he'd broken the baptismal watering hole. This time Father Steve's "YOU DEED WHAT?" shook the choir loft. I went in right after Peter, and the kneeler was all wet. I pretended it was holy water.

Over the next few years, my repertoire of sins expanded. Envy, wrath and eavesdropping reared their heads when my brother turned sixteen and got his first part-time job and a paycheck. His tales about the shoplifters, quick-change artists and crazy customers caused me to covet his exciting life.

Then came the day I had long prayed for: a Kiki update. Her mother popped up at my brother's store.

"Ma, remember Lucy, our old neighbor--Jujube's mom? She came shopping today."

My Dumbo ears flapped at the mention of Lucy's name.

"Oh, I haven't seen her in ages. How is she?” my Mom asked.

“She’s fine; she has a new husband and another baby.”

“How’s Kiki?” I blurted. "Is she alive?"

"Well, yeah," he said with a 'you are such a knucklehead' look. "Most people are still alive in fourth grade."

"I meant to say is she normal?"

"Yeah, I guess so," he said, "but they don’t call her Kiki anymore—she’s Katherine, and Jujube only answers to Jerome. He’s studying to be a detective.”

“Good for him,” my mother said.

“Yeah, it is, but Lucy’s really braggy. She said detective like it was a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” I chimed in. “She probably thought that with his uneven ears he’d never make it through school. But what did she say about Kiki?”

“Katherine,” he corrected me, and turned back to Mom. “Mom, do you ever brag about me?”

“No,” she said as she greased a pie pan. "Your father and I don’t believe in it. We expect you to do well, and we don't need to advertise."

“I get it, but I’d appreciate a little bragging once in a while.”

I agreed. “You could at least say something like my daughter is very intelligent.”

“Ma can't say that because she doesn't want to lie,” he smirked. And then he dropped a bit of gossip that was intended to make me jealous, but instead took a ton of weight off my heart. “Lucy said Katherine got to be May Crowning Queen because she got straight A’s.”

“Straight A’s?” I screamed, "You're kidding! Kiki, straight A’S—May Crowning Queen--wooohoo!" Bubbles of shock, disbelief, gratitude and relief fizzed in my head. "That’s the best! I can't believe it! Go, Kiki, go!"

“Mom, she is psycho,” he said, his mouth twisted like he was sucking on a dirty sock. "I'm positive that one day when you weren't looking, someone dropped her on her head."

ISRAEL HERNANDEZ LEARNS TO READ

2011-08-09T00:51:00.017-05:00

"Israel, I've repeated that word at least six times," I said. "You're making me crazy."

For five weeks, I had tried to teach him to read and he'd made no progress.

"Makin' you crazy? How 'bout me? At least you're gettin' paid to do this shit."

"That's true, but I'm not getting paid to bang my head against a wall. Come to think of it, maybe I am."

We both laughed. He was laughing, I'm sure, at the thought of me smashing my head--I laughed because crying was not an option.

Israel was just one of the many students stockpiled in warehouses called Educational Vocational Guidance Centers where I was assigned. If teens hadn't learned to read after a decade in the Chicago school system, and didn't have the courtesy to join the high-school dropout brigade of their own volition, they passed to the Educational Vocational Guidance Center where they got a lethal dose of shame and boredom and finally pulled the plug on themselves. For some reason, Israel refused to jump ship.

Day after day, this Mexican man-child, his legs bouncing like jackhammers, sat beside my desk as we slogged through an out-dated pre-primer designed to teach kindergartners. Who cared that black and brown teen-agers had little in common with Dick and Jane though, in this case, the lack of age-appropriate materials didn't explain, but only complicated, Israel's problems.

Long before Attention Deficit Disorder became the go to diagnosis for kids whose short attention spans and frenetic energy drove teachers crazy, Israel swaggered around the classroom, a roving ambassador of diplomacy, flirting, wisecracking and entertaining those easily amused. As the lone Hispanic in the cadre of black students, he fine-tuned his people skills and charmed even the most hostile competition. He hung out with the "baddest" of the gangbangers, but showed no allegiance to a particular gang, an astounding accomplishment.

Israel threw his lot in with any antisocial scheme which came his way, often cutting classes to head to the near-by Gold Coast to knock hipsters off their $2,000. Colnago bikes. He and Curtiss, his black amigo, would return to class, revved up and sweaty, spouting some cockamamie story about running to Curtiss' crib in the Projects to retrieve a forgotten math book, but the sleek Italian racer, parked in the gym for safe-keeping, announced another mission accomplished.

When cops showed up, Israel was never a suspect because the victim, too shaken to be precise, invariably told the cops he was robbed by a bunch of black kids. Since light brown-skinned Israel flew under the radar, he became the hood's Clarence Darrow, launching preemptive strikes to protect his posse.

"These guys didn't do nothin'. Leave 'em alone. We was all in gym class shootin' hoops."

The gym teacher, who never bothered taking roll-call, dittoed the explanation. Flimsy as it was, the alibi worked--the cops avoided reams of paperwork and the flash mob avoided the lock-up. Everybody was happy except for the injured party, but Israel said that the victim should've been happy too, happy that he didn't get killed.

Though he had just begun to sprout peach fuzz, Israel was a seasoned con man. He could sell you the Brooklyn Bridge and demand a tariff for the privilege of jumping off.

"You read good, Miss S, fast, like you got the words memorized," he'd say, "You're the smartest girl I know."

"Thanks, Israel. Now let's finish this chapter."

"I ain't doin' no more today. My brain's tired."

"Your brain would be fine if you'd use it. Let's finish this page."

"I use it, just not in school. Vowels? Come on, ya gotta be kiddin' me. Who gives a fuck?"

"You're right, Israel, this is a stone joke. I have a job to do, and I can't do it without your cooperation. We're wasting our time," I said, closing the book. "I'm done. You don't want to learn to read."

In a flash, his too-beautiful-to-be-wasted-on-a-boy eyelashes fluttered from a breeze of anger, but then, fast as Michael Jordan when he snatched a rebound, he reclaimed his bravado.

"You know, Miss S, you're smart, but you don't know everything. You don't have no clue about not bein' able to read. If you knew, you'd never say I don't wanna learn how to read."

"Well, what am I supposed to say? You come in here and clown around, you goof off, you entertain the class with your ridiculous behavior, and I'm supposed to think you care?"

"That's because I don't want nobody to think I care," he stage-whispered, the breeze of anger whirling into a tornado. "I don't want nobody to think I can't learn. Let 'em think I don't give a fuck. But you're smart, Miss S, you should know that's bullshit, you gotta' know not bein' able to read is a bitch."

"I can't imagine it," I said. "It's got to be a nightmare."

"A nightmare? Nightmare? Really, ya think?" he sneered.

"How'd you like to go out on a date and have to say I'll have whatever she's havin' cause you can't read the menu? Do you have any idea what I do when I wanna' take a girl to the movies and I don't know what's playin' cause I can't read the sign over the Rialto?

Well, Teach, let me tell you how I do it. I buy a newspaper and I fold it open to the movie part and I go home and I hope that my brother, Hector, is there so I can throw the paper in his lap. 'Find me a good movie,' I say, as I head to the bathroom.

'Find it yourself, asshole.'

'Come on, bro,' I yell from the bathroom. 'I'm in a hurry, I gotta take a shower. Just tell me what's playin'.'"

"Hector doesn't know you can't read?" I asked in amazement.

"Nobody knows," he seethed. "Nobody except you. Don't you get it? I'm ashamed. Besides, it's nobody's fuckin' business."

"I had no idea. I'm sorry."

"Sorry? What are you sorry for? It ain't your fault," he said, settling down, as though coughing up his secret had halted the cement mixer in his gut. "You don't have nothin' to be sorry for."

Nothing to be sorry for, I wanted to scream, you've got to be kidding, but instead I said, "Israel, I promise we are going to learn to read if it's the last thing we do."

"We're going to learn?" he said, flipping back to his cocky persona. "Miss S," he laughed, "you already know how to read. Just teach me, okay?"

"Deal. Tonight I'm going to write a story about this and tomorrow you're going to read it. We'll make a book about you, your stories."

"Cool. We'll call it Israel and Miss S--forget Dick and Jane. Dick. Can you believe that? Dick. I mean, what kind of fuckin' name is Dick?"

"I'm not going there, Israel. Here's a pass for Social Studies. You're late."

"I ain't goin' to Social. I'm meetin' Curtiss."

"Go to Social. Mr. A. will be mad if you ditch."

"Get real. Mr. A don't even know who's in his class plus he hates me. He says Israel is not a person's name--it's the name of a country. 'From now on, I'll call you Jew,' he said. I told him 'Hey, no problema, man, I'll call you Fuckin' Idiot.'"

Over the next couple of months we turned dozens of conversations into stories. We wrote and read about his family--his brother Hector's new car, his sister Rosita's son, getting busted, his father's accident, Lupe's brutal husband and the first time he read a menu. He wrote a poem about his brother Oscar and a song for his girlfriend. We wrote and he read, stumbling and stuttering, but he was reading. "Hey, Miss S," he crowed one day, "do you believe I just read that story about my ma's cooking, and I didn't fuck up one word?"

There was no stopping him now.

When we finished our Israel and Miss S spiral notebook, Israel announced he was going to write his life story. "I'm starting it with the day I was born even though I don't remember that much. I'll get my Ma to help with the details."

Mark Twain said when angry, count to four, when very angry, swear. That Wednesday morning, I was in swear mode. I discovered that some brainiac used a ballpoint pen to draw Gilligan's Island on the long-awaited globe that'd been delivered only two days earlier. I stood there disgusted over the fucked up world I was holding when Curtiss and Leotis charged through the door.

"Miss S, Miss S, Israel shot in the back las' night. He dead."

"Dead? Who? What are you talking about?"

"Israel, Israel Hernandez, he dead. He gone."

"They be washin' his blood right now by the alley on Division Street," Leotis added

I don't remember much more about the day--clusters of kids in the halls, girls crying, boys talking revenge, teachers saying "...what could you expect...it was only a matter of time..."

The following day, a note was scotch-taped next to the teachers' sign-in sheet.

ISRAEL HERNANDEZ IS BEING WAKED AT HOME TONIGHT

AND TOMORROW. FUNERAL SATURDAY MORNING

10 A.M. ST. DOMINICK'S CHURCH

Mr. A was signing in too.

"Are you going to the wake?" I asked.

"What the hell for?'" He went over to check his mailbox.

Curtiss was in a reflective mood as we walked over to Israel's house after school.

"Where you think he be now, Miss S?"

"Some place good, I hope. Maybe with his father."

"I'm thinkin' he be in heaven. I'm thinkin' God be sayin', "What the fuck you doin' up here, Lil' Man? Who tol' you you could come here?"

"Yeah, and he probably told God 'You can't tell me where to go,'" I said remembering his arrogant, defiant side.

"Yeah, I bet Jesus jus' be crackin' up."

The smell of flowers and the food heaped on the kitchen table lent a combination funeral parlor/restaurant air to the space. The hushed quiet of the packed basement apartment was interrupted by sobs as friends joined the crowd. All eyes darted to the entryway, the arrival of a white woman and a black teen-ager stirred whispers. I spotted Hector, an Israel clone right down to the thick eyelashes that had always reminded me of awnings.

"I am so sorry, Hector," I said. "This should never have happened."

For once, Curtiss put his swaggering self on hold as he extended his hand. "Israel be my frien'," he said.

Suddenly, from another room, I heard shrieks of La maestra! La maestra! and a little rotund woman, straight out of a Botero painting, shuffled toward me. "La maestra," she kept wailing, as though she was seeing an apparition.

Alternating between sobs and smiles, we spoke through Hector.

"My mother cannot believe a teacher would come to our house," he translated. "She is honored that you come here. She says that Israel told her you were the smartest woman he ever met."

I stood there, unable to cope with the attention and awe, fixated on the drain tile at her feet. "Tell your Mother Israel was a very smart and beautiful boy."

"Si, si," she sobbed. "Muy bonito."

"Tell her he wrote a story about what a good mother she is and he says she's the best cook in the world."

She took my hand and guided me to the wooden coffin which rested on the dining room table and contained the youngest of her children. Standing guard over their baby brother were Lupe, Raul, Juan, Rosita, Oscar, Sergio and Rico. We had written about them all.

Israel lay there, in a sort of mariachi suit--a dark jacket with huge lapels, a narrow string of black leather tied around the collar of a white ruffled-neck shirt, a red satin cummerbund and black pants. Someone had painted a little mustache on his upper lip with eyebrow pencil. His chalky hands held a rosary and his First Communion prayer book. I remembered the story about his First Confession when he'd asked the priest, "So why do I gotta' tell you all this shit?" He was seven years old.

"Let's go, Miss S, come on," I heard Curtiss mumble. "You can't make him come back to school wit us."

I handed Hector an envelope as we exchanged good-bye handshakes. "You know, Miss S, Israel had stopped throwing newspapers at me," he said, the tears slipping past the awnings.

"Dang, Miss S," Curtiss said as we walked back to school, "Israel be pissed off if he see that Maybelline thing they drawed on his face. He be too cool to look the fool. Why they do that?"

"I guess they wanted him to look like a man--maybe it's easier for them to pretend that he wasn't just a kid."

"Well, he be ashamed if he saw hisself."

"I don't think so, Curtiss," I said, "I know only one thing that Israel was ashamed of, and we were working on that."

2011-05-11T00:21:00.000-05:00

ABANDON ALL HOPE

The two ten year old girls raced in, an hour late for school. Wendy, the brains of the outfit, signaled she was going to launch into the latest episode of "How the World Turns in the Projects." Janell, from her perfect little rosebud lips to her parakeet ankles, exuded a don't mess with me attitude.

"Miss S, don't expect me and Janell to do no work today. We was trick-or-treating 'til twelve o'clock last night."
"Twelve o'clock? You were out 'til midnight trick-or-treating?"

"Uh-huh, we was out from after school and was jus' finishin' up when some Kings ripped us off. Tell her, Janell. Our pillowcases was filled to the top and they just grabbed 'em and took off."

"Wendy ain't lyin', Miss S, them bastards got it all 'cept the fuckin' Skittles we was eatin' an' it was pass ten o'clock," Janell testified.

"So you went home without candy?"

"No candy?" Wendy flashed the same you-are-so-stupid look she'd bestowed on me when I told her that third-graders shouldn't wear lipstick. "We got us some garbage bags, Miss S, and started all over again."

"Go to your seats, we're on page forty-seven."

Go-to-your-seats? Two ten-year old girls had been out on the street past midnight, and I was beyond shock.

To a kid from Catholic school, public schools sounded like mysterious gulags. The nuns' favorite threat, "If you don't behave, you'll be sent to public school..." made an impression that went unchallenged until I went off to the University of Illinois and saw firsthand that the parochial system didn't have the corner on education. So when I heard of a special Chicago Board of Education program designed to address a desperate teacher shortage, I applied. While contemplating what to do with my life, I figured I could try to provide kids with a trampoline to a better future.

I agreed to take twelve hours of education classes in night school and, on the spot, received a provisional teaching certificate. Few "provisionals" were there because it was their dream job. The men wanted the Viet Nam draft exemption; the females had visions of LBJ's Great Society and summers off. I joined the ranks because my father had declared that I'd storm Broadway with my Theatre degree over his dead body, and I needed time to determine how I was going to maneuver around the corpse.

We were an odd lot from big cities and small towns—twenty-somethings who hadn’t a clue that we were the "ye" Dante meant when he wrote Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

A week long in-service, paid for by Great Society dollars, qualified us to teach. We got the CliffsNotes version of The Psychology of the Inner-City Child, role-played parent-teacher conferences, signed mountains of forms, and had a "you've got a pulse/blood pressure normal" physical.

The last afternoon we were given sensitivity training by a dashiki-clad Reverend who raged about nobody wanting goddamned stupid honkies teaching Black kids. "The best White teacher," he declared, "will never compare to the worst Black Teacher!" Some of us were a bit taken aback by his diatribe, but many of the Ivory recruits admired "...his honesty for telling it like it is." I thought the Brother had it partly right, without a doubt, many honkies were stupid.

The Reverend needn't have worried about me invading his no-fly zone. In Chicago, zip codes pretty much determine race, and my assignment's zip was smack in the middle of Latin King turf with a few residents tossed into the mix who’d have belonged to the Klan if they hadn’t left Dixie.

In the gangbangers' stomping grounds, I learned what made for a successful provisional teacher. Showing up for work qualified dead men walking as SATISFACTORY. Those who prevented the children from killing each other were labeled GOOD and those who did both were deemed EXCELLENT. If you were a male gym teacher, you were EXCELLENT PLUS.

NO GYM CLASSES TODAY scribbled on the teachers' sign-in sheet was all it took to put Coach in charge of the building while the principal ran off to a Cubs game. Bonding over sports and tales of frat escapades, plus the on-the-job training, guaranteed a man, whose IQ was equal to the final score of a Bears game, a slot on the executive roster. It was no wonder that administrators, who evaluated struggling teachers, were often more incompetent than their quarry. Long before William Bennett, then Secretary of Education, labeled the CPS “…the worst school system in the country,” pathetic administrators and pitiful teachers were diligently laboring to earn the title.

In fairness, though, they did not destroy public education on their own.

In the 50's, Chicago had the largest parochial school system in the country supported by the city's huge Catholic population which formed a monolithic voting bloc. Since these voters neither used nor cared about the public schools, the Chicago machine decided that the system, a huge drain on the city's coffers, was expendable. The politicians did not intend to eliminate public education, they just didn't want to fund it. There was no grand exit strategy, the powers that be just walked away. And no one blinked. Decades before George Bush's No Child Left Behind Act became law, Chicago implemented the Throw Public School Kids Under the Bus Initiative.

The system never recovered.

Now we provisional teachers, unqualified, untrained and unprepared, were being foisted on an operation that had long been tottering on the edge of a cliff.

The assistant principal assigned classrooms—girls to the lower grades, men to the Upper Grade Center. I was given a "kindofa third/fourth grade class," by Mr. Second-in-Command who, no doubt, yearned for the day when he could play dead in the principal's chair. But he'd have a tough act to follow.

The day after Martin Luther King was killed, Chicago’s Westside went up in flames. No teacher was to leave early, the principal dictated, but with the action less than three miles away, tension was high. After lunch, when the melee was revving up to a full-blown disaster, but before Mayor Daley's infamous "shoot to kill" order, Captain Courageous chose to jump ship and had Coach drive him home. Unfortunately, Coach drove his convertible straight into the conflagration, where the angry mob tore into the canvas top. Coach was unable to shield our fearless leader from the unruly crowd. The following day word of the incident provided the silver lining in the catastrophic cloud.

But on my first day, I was not privy to the history of dysfunction. I had to hit the ground running which meant inhaling the Chicago Public Schools’ curriculum du jour known as Continuous Progress. I was baffled by the concept; in a school setting I assumed continuous progress was a given. I wondered if Stalled Progress and Intermittent Progress had been tried and found wanting.

Continuous Progress was based on a “spiral concept.” If a child failed to grasp short vowels, for instance, the teacher proceeded to the next concept. The unlearned material would be repeated somewhere up the spiral as the spiral continued spiraling. I'd yet to take a methods course, but the idea sounded like teaching a student to merge in traffic when he couldn’t get the hang of starting the car.

The primary grades were organized in divisions of P1, P2, P3 and PZ. PZ stood for Primary Zero, code for third-graders who could not function in fourth. To protect their self-esteem, PZ was invented.

"So you're the new PZ rookie," the man said when I answered his knock. “Good luck with those morons tomorrow.”

"Morons?"

"Yeah, I taught your kids last year. Well, I didn't actually teach them because they're incapable of learning. I tried for months to get them to add, and then finally I thought screw it and moved on to borrowing.”

"How did you teach borrowing if they couldn't add?"

"Well, I didn't teach borrowing because they couldn't get the hang of that either. They were hung up on place value so I just dropped math and concentrated on science."

"You just ignored math?" I asked, thinking he was pulling the newbie's leg.

"Yeah, Continuous Progress is great. If you get sick of teaching the idiots the same thing day after day, you just move on to something else. The fucking curriculum spirals."

"John Dewey would've put a gun to his head if he'd ever heard of Continuous Spiraling," I said.

"Speaking of guns, did I tell you I was a cop?"

"A cop? I thought you taught my kids last year."

"Well, I'm a cop too. During the day I teach, and at night I'm a Chicago cop."

"You cannot be serious."

"No, for real. I work the night shift for the CPD."

“You must be exhausted, teaching and holding down a second full-time job with so much stress."

“Nah, I just hide my squad under a viaduct and catch some z’s and, when I teach, I mostly sit. Gets a little tricky during tax season 'cause I do taxes too."

"You're quite the Renaissance man," I marveled. "How do you handle discipline? Pull out your gun when the kids act up?"

"Believe me, I felt like it sometime. These kids are wackos," he said. "I’ll give you a tip. If a boy acts up just make him wear a babushka, and stand in front of the class the rest of the day. Works like a charm. A little embarrassment, and they shape up,” he bragged. “Except for one kid, Ricardo—he really loves babushkas. He wants to wear lipstick too. I think he’s a fag—watch out for him. I called his mother in for a conference once, and she said he was the only one of her ten kids born with a veil over his head, and that's good luck. Tip number two--do not call parents--they're crazier than their fucking kids."

While the teacher/cop/tax man blabbered on, I fixated on a Thomas Jefferson quote on the wall behind him that said something like education is the antidote to the disease of ignorance. I wondered if the Renaissance man had come into teaching with a pre-existing condition or if he'd gotten infected on the job.

"Call me if you need anything," he said, "I'm the go-to guy around here when Coach and the principal run to Sportsman's to play the ponies."

"I'll count on you," I lied, closing the door. "Hey, by the way, what was your college major?"

"Phys Ed," he said, "I wanted to work for the Park District but teaching paid better."

I returned to reading the cumulative cards of my PZ students--thirty boys and eight girls, between the ages of nine and twelve. I expected to find scribbled notes about Eduardo's allergy to strawberries or Brenda Jean's routine tardiness, but the anecdotal comments, left by previous teachers, noted truancy, multiple school transfers, juvenile detention and incarcerated parents, trifling issues that indicated I just might be in over my head. That flash of insight was replaced by the scarier thought of the imminent influx of my PZ'ers. From the get-go, they needed to know that our classroom was open for business, they needed to think that I knew what I was doing.

I went to the Resource Room to find desks, textbooks, a blackboard and chalk.

“Materials?” asked the assistant principal. “Like what? Like what kind of materials?” He acted as if I’d requested chainsaws.
"Textbooks would be great," I said.

“Scrounge some second and third grade readers—they didn’t understand the books the first time around."

“I don’t even know where to start scrounging. I’m short thirteen desks.”

“Desks you need,” he conceded. “The kids have to sit somewhere, but you don’t need thirty-eight—absenteeism is high. I’ll send a few up later; I’m swamped right now. Downtown sent only half of our book order."

“Please could you maybe send up a blackboard and some chalk?”

"Do you think this is U of C’s Lab School? You have the dogs; just make sure they don’t get out of the kennel.” Noticing my shock, he changed his tone. “Look, I’m snowed under right now, but I think I have some geography books that I could send up when I get a chance. Use them until we get some readers.”

Just then the music teacher barged in. “Someone ripped out the keys on my piano. How am I supposed to teach music?”
“Use a flute,” the boss responded.

I staggered out of the Resource Room. An ancient busybody, who’d been looking for dictionaries with no success, followed me. “You new teachers kill me. In my day you made do with what you were given. When I didn’t have history books, I taught with puppets." She headed to the teachers’ lounge for a cigarette.

No readers, or blackboard, a piano without keys, puppets, PZ, spirals—by the end of the day, I figured the conscientious objectors turned teachers would regret burning their draft cards.

The next day school started more or less at nine o'clock though many students adhered to arrive-when-you-feel-like-it. It was not hard to identify the babushka brigade, amazing that Renaissance man got by with only one headscarf. By lunchtime it was obvious that the few students who wanted to learn had come to the wrong place. For the most part, the girls were passive, the boys' speedometers were set between leave me alone and watch out.

Often I wondered why I stayed. I wasn't earmarked for Saigon so I could have hit the door.

Maybe I stayed because I knew these kids could be subjected to much worse. After all, I was literate, drug-free, emotionally stable and I didn't inflict cruel and unusual punishment.

Maybe I stayed because I'd become attached to the kids. I respected eleven-year olds who fed breakfast to their siblings because mom was sleeping off a bender, students who missed school because they had to baby-sit and wrote their own notes claiming they were absent due to amonya. I had a soft spot for eleven year olds who read at the first grade level, for kids who were ten going on thirty. I was taken by boys who replaced lost textbooks with stolen library books figuring a book is a book, and besides, who cares? My heart went out to kids who trudged to school on snowy February days wearing gym shoes without socks.

And I adored spunky little girls who trick-or-treated 'til midnight.
I stayed, but for only the year.

2011-04-11T23:22:00.000-05:00

SAVING HER FROM NEVERLAND

"I'm working an eight hour day next Thursday."

"That's good," I said, intent on reading the latest issue of Vanity Fair.

"Mom, you didn't hear what I said," my 20something persisted. "I'm not working my usual three hour shift--he scheduled me for an eight hour day."

"I heard you, Honey. Eight hours a week won't hurt you."

"Won't hurt? You think that's a good thing--being a go-fer for my Art teacher for eight hours straight? Did you ever hear of throbbing feet or varicose veins?"

"Yes, Sweetheart, I have heard of the tortuous blood vessels, but you can get saline shots, the veins collapse, and you're not disfigured."

"Not disfigured? Is that your yardstick? I can work until I'm disfigured? Don't you care that I could get scoliosis and need to have a rod put in my back?"

Count to ten, hold your tongue, 25 is the new 15, I said under my breath.

"As I understand it, Darling, scoliosis develops in early adolescence so I think you're out of the woods. And I do care about spinal curvatures and, more importantly, I care about you."

"Well, it sure doesn't sound like it. Aren't you worried that I could get a collapsed uterus from being on my legs all day and never be able to bear children? That no man will ever want to marry someone who's physically flawed--that I could die a spinster painting landscapes in a nursing home?"

Her losses were escalating so fast I feared she'd have nothing left for the final chapter of her book I Am a Prima Donna.

"Yes, Angel, I do worry. I worry that if you don't get over your aversion to an eight hour day, you'll be living at home until you're menopausal. That, my love, is a very scary thought."

"Mother, you are heartless. I can't believe you support child labor."

"Child labor? I was married at your age, for God's sake. It's time you joined the real world."

"Don't try to change the subject, Mom. This isn't about just one eight hour day. I'm also on the schedule for eight hours next Thursday."

"Eight hours next week too?" I said, lapsing into my Dolly Parton voice. "Well ain't that sad. You should just put the paramedics on alert right now in case you pass out from fatigue."

"You're being sarcastic, Mother. Go ahead mock me, laugh at me all you want, but I'm under a great deal of pressure. If I'm chained to a job, I can't have a social life. Michelangelo probably had a better social life than I do even though he was gay and had to be in the closet."

"Look, I know eight hours a week cramps your style but, and you need to sit down for this, many people work eight hours a day on a regular basis, back to back, five days a week."

"I'm well aware of that, but I don't intend to be a slave."

"Slave? What are you talking about? A forty-hour work week is not fun, but living in a cardboard box is not exactly a blast either."

"You're suggesting I'm going to be living under a bridge? Thanks for the vote of confidence. When I finish my degree, Sarah, Kirsten and I plan to share an apartment in the John Hancock Center."

The Hancock Center? I didn't want to disillusion her by mentioning that, on their combined salaries, they couldn't afford a closet in the skyscraper.

"Interesting, but first you really should graduate."

"Don't you think I know that? That's why I'm trying to concentrate on my studies, but I can't do that if I'm always working."

"Always working? Eight hours a week? Are you serious?"

"Yes, I'm serious. Eight hours in one day is challenging because I really don't like my job. I mean working in the art studio is okay, but it's not my passion."

"Passion? Well if you'd quit changing majors like that Lohan girl changes rehabs, you just might finish up and follow your bliss. One semester you're majoring in Art Design, the next in Painting, then Art & Media Management, whatever that is. You probably won't believe this, Snow White, but some kids finish college in four years."

"You should be glad I'm staying in the School of Fine Arts. My friend, Ian, switched from Electrical Engineering to Dance. He transferred from Princeton to Juilliard in his senior year and he had a full-ride at Princeton."

"Well his parents must be brain-damaged to allow that. If you switch majors one more time, I swear your father is going to say teacher or nurse--take your pick."

"Mom, I could never be a nurse. They're on their feet eight hours a day. It's a very stressful job. I want a job where I can relax."

Was I watching a rerun of an ancient TV show where unsuspecting victims were placed in ridiculous situations while a hidden camera recorded their reactions? Surely someone was going to jump out and shout Smile, You're on Candid Camera.

"Relax? Sweetie, I have another news flash for you. One goes to a spa to relax. One goes to work so she can buy food, keep a roof over her head-- you know, the finer things in life."

"Yes, and many have heart-attacks before they're forty or they die of mesothelioma from breathing in coal dust."

"Well, you needn't worry about that. Last time I applied they weren't hiring at the coal mines."

"And that's another reason I'm in no hurry to graduate. There are no decent jobs out there. I should rush through college to work at Steak n' Shake? I don't think so. Are you aware there is a recession out there?"

"Really? You're kidding? I thought your dad lost our retirement nest egg in Las Vegas."

"Don't worry about retirement, Mom. If you fall on hard times, you can count on me to catch you. That's why I want to go to Florence to get my master's degree."

Bless her--her heart was in the right place--it was her head that was on another planet. The vision of being caught in a safety net that was one huge hole flashed before me, but it was immediately replaced by flares at the words Florence and master's degree in the same sentence.

"Florence? In Italy? You're joking, right?" Please, God, let the Candid Camera man jump out now. "Tell me you're kidding."

"No, I have to get my master's degree--a B.A. in Art is practically worthless. Do you remember when we were in Italy and I met Gianmarco? He suggested I do graduate work in Art Restoration at the Florence Academy. He said you can set your own hours. Can you imagine what it would be like to restore a Caravaggio?"

"Caravaggio?" I was setting some kind of record for responding to comments with a single word of incredulity. "Caravaggio? Did that Gian gigolo tell you how to finance this adventure?"

"Mother, you-are-putting-a-price-on-passion?" she wailed, as though I'd suggested she sell her firstborn, forgetting that she'd never bear children due to her fallen uterus. "That is soooo cynical. You follow a passion, not finance a passion!"

"You know, Cinderella, unless you find a glass slipper in your bottomless closet, you might have to put in a few eight hour days in order to follow AND finance your passion. Even Michelangelo had to make tough choices. Sculpting was his passion--he considered the Sistine Chapel project a huge distraction, but he needed to pay his bills."

"That's exactly my point," she said. "Michelangelo compromised, and he was chained to scaffolding for the next forty-years. What was he thinking?"

2011-03-11T00:24:00.000-06:00

DEATH VALLEY SPA
For the past four months, my friend Margaret and I'd been able to cobble together daily hour long walks, aided by the fact that she was in the midst of a contentious divorce and dissecting her almost-ex made the time fly. I was on a roll with these treks, and I was reluctant to jeopardize this long aspired-to accomplishment by accompanying my husband on a business trip to Scottsdale. I feared that without the almost-divorcee keeping my feet to the pavement, I'd slack off.

"I can't believe you're not interested in escaping a minus ten degree wind chill," he marveled. "People do walk in Arizona, you know."

"I know, but I'm afraid I'll be tempted to just sit by the pool and not move my butt."

"There's a resort that adjoins the desert. You can walk the Sonora trails, I'll golf."

By the end of the month we were in Scottsdale, and the morning after our arrival I was at the concierge desk.

"Did you want to walk Trail A or B?" the concierge asked.

"Which is easier?"

"Trail A varies from one to three shoes. Trail B is quite challenging," she explained. "One shoe is the least demanding, five shoes requires a lot of stamina. Don't forget to take water and a hat. It gets hot out there."

"I'm not going to be out long," I said, distracted by her spectacular turquoise jewelry. "I love your squash blossom necklace."

"Thank you, it was my grandmother's. If you're into Native American jewelry, you'll be in heaven in Arizona. Here's a map of all the jewelry shops in the Old Town area where you can do some serious shopping."

I stuck the map in my pocket. "Well right now I need to get some serious exercise."

"You came to the right place. I'm not a hiker, but our guests rave about the trails. Enjoy yourself."

"I will, and I'd better get moving if I want to check out the Navajo silversmiths this afternoon. I'm taking a pass on the five shoe route; just point me to the beginner's trail."

"Go behind the restaurant, between the tennis courts, past the gate, through the tunnel and you will emerge on Trail A. Have fun!"

Within minutes, I crossed into God's country--a landscape at once both brawny and delicate. Muted terra cotta, vibrant purples, and hazy greens stippled the scene. This was not the desert of pyramid fame, where I'd scorched my soles in the Sahara sand, but the desert of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly--the majestic stomping ground of Geronimo.

Nothing prepared a girl from the Prairie State for this vista.

I pictured Butch Cassidy galloping over the saguaro-studded hills, Wyatt Earp hunting down cattle rustlers, John Wayne lassoing varmints. This was desperado territory.

Setting forth, I almost twisted my ankle on my first step into the wild. 'Be careful in these flimsy sandals,' I reminded myself. 'This trail is not asphalt.' I noted a Visitors Center and a BE PREPARED sign, that smacked of overkill. Hikers should carry a gunnysack of paraphernalia. Some nut must have dreamed up the list while working on his Wilderness Survival Badge. For starters, he suggested a whistle, water, compass, map, knife, mirror, matches, candles and a blanket. Matches, around tumbleweed? Water, with no porta-pottys? A blanket in this furnace? Ridiculous. Besides, I was going for a walk; it wasn't as though I was Sacagawea on an expedition with Lewis and Clark.

I marched onto the one-shoe trail, the piece-of-cake one, where I'd planned to walk for a half-hour and then turn back, all the while keeping my eye on the Visitors Center. Every so often, I murmured good morning to a jogger or a dog-walker. "Oh, she's adorable," I gushed over a puppy who sported saddle-bags and a water bottle. I passed a few Girl Scouts laughing and a woman, on her cell phone, bleating, "Snowing again?...Well, it's absolutely gorgeous here." At every turn, I encountered desertscapes I'd only seen in movies in which cowboys fell in love with Indian maidens, and white men smoked peace pipes with the Chief. Images of gun-slingers, runaway stagecoaches and saloon hussies ran through my head.

Each time I thought to turn back, I discovered a new distraction--a giant cactus pockmarked with bird pecked holes, a mysterious rock pile, a jackrabbit zigzagging out of harm's way. Moseying from pillar to post, it occurred to me that I'd not passed a human for awhile, and the sun was bleaching out the aubergine highlights I got at the Buzz Salon just before we left Chicago. It was time to get out of Dodge, and fast.

I did a one-eighty, but when I turned around, the shiny roof of the Visitors Center was nowhere in sight.

You're a little off course. No big deal. You curved to the right when you entered, so just hang to the left. You should've worn a hat. Maybe I shouldn't have worn velour; I'm melting. The Center is just around the bend. Are these buffalo footprints? Do buffalo bite?

Then, an hour later, I knew I was in trouble.

Nothing looks familiar. Don't shed a tear, you'll dehydrate. Do they have desert rangers? Keep your wits about you. If only I could see a landmark like Sears Tower. I should have brought a knife or a mirror like the sign said, but what was I supposed to do with a mirror anyway? Too late now, you're toast.

Just as I was about to gather rocks to spell out "farewell," I spotted a metal marker with an arrow pointing to Trail 306 and another to Trail 100 in the opposite direction.

What's with the trail numbers? Where was the one-shoe trail? The U.S. Wildlife Service lures visitors into Death Valley, and can't even post an EXIT arrow? Just choose a trail--you have a fifty-fifty chance of being right. Turn to the left. You are not lost; you've just strayed a bit off the beaten path.

Before me was a two-foot high, log-shaped cactus lying on its side.

And then it clicked. You-are-lost. You are so lost. If you'd passed this heat-stroked, phallic symbol on the way in, you'd have remembered--it looks exactly like Margaret's description of her husband's erectile dysfunction.

I scanned for a human--a nomad, a migrant, a wrangler, even a gold prospector, anyone. I caught sight of a jogger.

"Stop! Stop!" I shouted, afraid he might not see me in the withering inferno. "Please help me," I begged. "I'm lost!"

"Relax. You're just turned around. Where do you want to go?"

"To my hotel--I'm a tourist."

"Really?" Just what I needed, a condescending savior, but I was in no position to call him on his attitude. "Where's your map?"

"The concierge gave me this map of the jewelry stores in Old Town, but it's of no help."

"A map of jewelry stores?" he asked with a 'there's no cure for stupid' look. "Alright, let's get you oriented. You see the sun overhead? It's a bit to our left because it's still early, so that's East. Now because it's late February it makes a bit of a wider arc as it crosses the sky to the...to the...?"

"To the other side?"

"Well, yes, but we call the other side the WEST," he said, taking a long draw on a tube connected to this CamelBak HydroFlo contraption strapped to his back.

I wanted to tell Mr. Professor that I hated Geography and Astronomy or wherever the hell you learn about the Big Dipper and the solar system, but I didn't want him to think I was direction-impaired.

"Now pay attention. This will always be East, that will always be North and this will always be South," he said, pointing to the three directions. "Where did you enter the canyon?"

"From the tunnel."

"Seventh Street or Seventh Avenue?"

"I have no idea. How many blocks is it to the Visitors Center?"

"Blocks? How many blocks?" he repeated, as though he'd caught me tossing beer cans on the trail. "Where are you from?"

"Chicago."

"Ooookay, so, now you know North and South. Do you see that dip between those two mountains, kind of looks like a camel's back?"

This whole town is camelback crazy, Camelback Estates, Camelback Country Club, Camelback Condo...

He interrupted my thoughts. "You're not paying attention. That's how we got lost, isn't it?"

Whose 'we,' Tonto? I'm the one who's lost, and right now I could be shopping for a turquoise bracelet in Old Town.

"Stay on this trail, and keep heading toward the dip," he continued. "Pretend you're a soccer ball rolling..."

Now I cut him off. "Dude, I understand sports only slightly less than I understand the solar system."

"Never mind. Do you see that white dot way down there?"

"The trash bag on the cactus?"

"That's NOT a trash bag. It's a woman in a white robe meditating. Head towards her. Follow the curve and you'll come to the iron railing you passed on your way in. You do remember the railing, right?"

"Yes, I lied, "I remember the black railing."

"It's green," he said, with a look that telegraphed, I'd flunk your ass, if you were in my class. "Grab onto it, it leads to the tunnel. By the way, your cell phone has a GPS."

"I only know how to make calls and text." He took a deep breath as though I'd just declared I was a saturated-fat addict.

"Well, next time, let's hope you come prepared," he said with a fake smile.

"Oh, I don't think there'll be a next time," I said. "Thanks for your help, but I'm pretty sure I'm done with the desert."

I could tell he thought that wasn't a bad idea. "You'll be okay now; just don't leave the trail." He took another swallow from his CamelHydroFlo and trotted off.

"Thanks a lot," I shouted after him. "You saved my life!"

He wasn't my kind of guy, but he did save my life. I could've run into a Peyote-munching gangbanger marauding the happy hunting ground. A century from now, a Boy Scout could have stumbled on my little carcass and wondered why a fossil was wearing a tiny jogging suit.

Within minutes, I spotted the shimmery roof of the Visitors Center. I texted Margaret.

GOT TRND ROUND IN DESERT. CLOSE CALL.

She responded within a second.

OMG! U CLD HV DIED!! FRND LOST IN PALM SPRGS DESERT OVRNGHT. RATTLESNAKES SCORPIONS ALMST FROZ 2 DEATH! IN A.M FOUND CAR IN PKG LOT ONLY 1 BLOCK AWAY! B CARFL!

That was the straw that, and I couldn't believe I had to say it, broke the freakin' camel's back. The next time I needed a desert fix, I'd order Blazing Saddles from Netflix.

Blueprint for an Eating Disorder

2010-01-19T13:50:00.018-06:00

Mary Lou Edwards

My brother, our family's first-born, had been finicky, only five pounds, colicky, a fussy eater. A strange baby for our family said my father's three sisters who were in the habit of birthing jumbo jets.

When my brother was but a week old, my father's eldest sister placed her two-month-old daughter, nine pounds at birth and gaining weight at warp speed, on the bed next to her new cousin.

"Oh my God!" my aunt exclaimed, "we've never had such a scrawny, pathetic baby in our family! How did this happen? He doesn't even look like he belongs to us."

Humiliated by the stamp of maternal failure, my mother vowed to rectify her mistake. She devoted herself to straining liver, mashing vegetables and pureeing perfect fruits to fatten my brother, hoping to make him worthy of the three arrogant aunts, the arbiters of family acceptance.

Her efforts were a waste—he gained not an ounce. Tony, the neighborhood druggist, prescribed weight gain tonics and appetite enhancers to no avail. The thin, bony infant developed into a slender little boy—adorable and bright, true, but shockingly "skinny and scrawny" blabbered the three crones.

Four years later my Mother was given an opportunity to atone for her sins. Again pregnant, she made novenas, not for a boy or a girl, but for a healthy baby that would eat. God answered her prayers.

Encouraged by the entire family, I was a "good eater" who redeemed my mother of her previous ignominy. I ate solids before I had teeth—eschewing mushy cereal in favor of pizza--a fabulous achievement. I preferred pasta to a pacifier. By age four, I could eat almost as much as a grown-up, cause for applause. I never refused seconds and always had room for more. I could eat dinner at home, supper at my Big Nonna's, a snack at Little Grandma’s, biscotti and milk at bedtime—all in one night.

I was a veritable mini-eating machine, the answer to my Mother's prayers. I put my monkey-jawed brother to shame as his cheeks puffed full of macerated food he refused to swallow.

"Okay, chew all night and you won't go to Kiddieland," my mother would threaten during dinner. "Look at your sister--she finished everything on her plate—such a good girl!"

My mother alternately lobbed shots of admonishment and approval, threats and compliments back and forth like some schizoid game of table tennis. "Please, Honey, eat," she pleaded, "Your sister ate her dessert and yours too because you didn't finish your meat."

Her head swiveled between the two of us as the drama of good and evil played out in front of Daddy, the scorekeeper, who cheered every swallow.

For all of the disappointment and aggravation my brother's eternal cud-chewing brought, my gobbling locked in my title as undefeated eating champion--a title that was not in the slightest way threatened even by the arrival of my baby sister. My chubby cheeks, wrinkly thighs and robust health clearly signaled that this sturdy twig would strengthen the hallowed family tree. The three drones were forced to reconsider their original disdain for my mother's genetic contribution.

"She is gorgeous," they exclaimed, "A perfect cherub! Look at those pudgy, strong legs! She's beautiful!" they cooed as I waddled about cookie in hand.

Then the cookie crumbled.

We almost never went to the doctor. Other than measles and mumps, we were healthy and, for the occasional sniffles, there was always Tony at Gabric's Drug Store.
Once, however, my sister, seventeen months younger than I, became lethargic and developed a croupy cough that wouldn't go away. Alarmed, my parents decided that a trip to the North Side—a world away—was in order to consult with our real doctor, the one who'd delivered us.

Russell Barrett M.D. was a massive, silver-haired general practitioner in the days before each body part had its own specialist. When not delivering babies, he amputated arms, repaired varicose veins, corrected crooked spines, cut out tonsils, healed ulcers and generally fixed whatever was broken. He diagnosed by sight and sound rather than textbooks and his booming pronouncements were indisputable though his expertise left something to be desired when dealing with the psyche. Once when my mom, whose daily responsibilities included the care of her terminally ill mother, octogenarian grandparents, perfectionist husband and three kids under the age of six, mentioned she was feeling a bit swamped, Doc prescribed she go downtown and buy a hat. That she had not a minute to breathe, was financially pressed, physically drained, mentally exhausted and emotionally depleted apparently escaped his medical radar. But he'd delivered three healthy babies, and had initials after his name so he had a lock on his sacrosanct status.

Dr. Barrett had seen neither my sister nor me since birth. As we entered his office for her appointment, his megaphone voice thundered,

"My God, what took you so long to bring her in—she looks awful!"

My mother was taken aback. "Does she really look that bad?"

"Bad?" he roared, "She's a mess. How could you allow this to get so out of control? This is a shame!

"Well," my Dad countered, "she's only been really pale the last day or two."

"Day or two?" he hollered, "This doesn't happen to a kid in a couple of days. Put her on the scale."

And, for the first time, everyone present realized he was talking about me.

"No, no, no, Dr. Barrett, we're here for the little one," my mother protested, "she's almost lost her voice from coughing so much."

"She'll be fine," he decided with a cursory glance at my sister as he rolled his chair back from the scale to his desk. "This one is in serious trouble."

My parents attempted to mount a defense.

"Doc, she's smart as a whip—her vocabulary is astonishing. She reads the Tribune to her Nonna all the time," my Dad offered.

"That's irrelevant—she weighs too much," he responded dismissively while scribbling on his chart.

"But she's a good swimmer and jumps double-dutch better than ten year old girls,” my Mother proffered. “She’s quite a gymnast—does birds’ nests on the rings."

"She's five and she's fat. The rest is unimportant. Put her on a diet!" he roared. "No more cake, no candy, no sweets, period! Do you hear me, Mother? Nothing in between meals, no snacks, no bread, cut out desserts. Are you listening, Mary! No cookies, skim milk, eliminate second helpings. I want to see a different kid in front of me when you bring her back in eight weeks."

He was glaring at my mother and had really worked himself into a lather. I wanted to ask my brother if a doctor has a heart attack does he go to another doctor or can he fix his heart himself, but then I figured my brother would say I was stupid so I just stared at the doctor's jacket which had Russell Barrett, M.D. written in red thread above a little pocket.

"What about the little one?" my Mother thought to ask.

"She'll be fine. Put a vaporizer on at night," Dr. God ordered as our family trooped to the front desk to make a new appointment.

I had a million questions leaving the doctor's office. Why didn't Dr. Barrett pay attention to my sister who was really the sick one? Why didn't the big fatso go on a diet himself if it was such a great thing? Why did he shout at mommy and not say anything to daddy? Why didn't it matter that I was smart and could read and swim? How could I change into a different kid? How do you lose fat—where does it go?
All these concerns were whirling in my head, but my mother looked very sad, and I didn't want to bother her with questions so I just whispered, "I'm sorry the doctor was mean to you. I promise I will stay on my diet so he never yells at you anymore." She squeezed my hand. “Really, Momma, you will never be ashamed of me again. I won’t ever get you in trouble.” She gave me a little, tiny smile that made me want to cry, but I couldn't cry and make her feel worse.

I had no idea, that over the years, the worst was yet to come for me.

The emaciated look of models and movie stars was speeding into vogue and voluptuous women were admired only in Rubens' paintings. Overweight kids reflected on a mother asleep at the wheel so there was no time to waste in preparing a girl for one-size-fits-most.
With the metamorphosis scheduled in eight weeks, the diet had to be fast-tracked and the scale god would decide my fate forevermore. In a culture that prized chubby babies, but looked askance at plump kindergartners, where mangia, mangia was a mantra, the goal would be a challenge.

Counting calories ranked right up there with counting blessings, and while health was important, image was almost on par so if lecturing, shaming and restricting were what it took to protect little butterballs from cookie jars and candy bars that was the way the ball bounced.

Overnight the fat little girl became the family’s designated obsession.

No sooner had we gotten in the car than my brother began what would become a childhood of sibling taunts.

"You can't go with Daddy to the drugstore for Green Rivers anymore!" he sneered. "You can't have milkshakes at David's or stop the Good Humor Man when he comes down our street," the teasing continued. "You can't have Italian lemonade when we go to Taylor Street because you are a fatty, fatty two by four!"

With this my mother, who adored her first-born son, reached over the back seat and smacked him in the mouth.

That slap was no match for the emotional hit I'd suffered.

At age five, I lost twenty pounds. My brother and sister gleefully consumed any contraband that accidentally came my way and snitched about any they were too slow to snatch from my hands. "We're only trying to help you. We don't want you to be a tub of lard," they sing-songed as they policed my every mouthful.

Everyone contributed her two cents about my diet, my body, me. My dad bragged they'd caught "it" in time. Sister Lucille, my kindergarten teacher, said now I could swing on the monkey-bars. Neighbors raved they didn't know me anymore. My Godmother said now my new body matched my beautiful face. Even the milkman said he didn’t recognize me.

But not everyone agreed.

"Madonna mia!" the three harridans lamented, "she used to be so gorgeous,” assuming, I suppose, my hearing had disappeared along with the weight. My friend, Connie, said she liked me just fine the way I used to be. The man at the shoestore asked if I'd been sick. Nonna wondered where her baby had gone. "You're disappearing before my eyes," she said in broken English.

No one noticed in the swirl of conflicting opinions my biggest loss had nothing to do with pounds. All of the qualities that had been praised and valued no longer mattered--being me was not good enough. The blueprint for an eating disorder had been drawn and the foundation built of words, mortared with mixed messages, would last a lifetime.

MLSE 01/10

When You See with Your Heart

2009-12-18T10:06:00.011-06:00

Mary Lou Edwards

Dear Lia,

Shortly after Thanksgiving, you sat on Santa’s knee in front of the magnificent Christmas tree at Marshall Field’s, and you gave him your not very long wish list—a baby doll, a bicycle and, of course, Barbie. You had only been in the United States for 6 months, but Barbie already was your new best friend.

Daddy hurried to Carmen’s Bike Shop to order your first two-wheeler, in part because he couldn’t bear to disappoint you, and also, I suspected, because he feared getting stuck assembling a last minute purchase.

“Please don’t buy a Barbie bike,” I begged as he headed out. “I’m already Barbie’d out.”

“I’ll look for a Susan B. Anthony bike,” he teased, “or maybe one with defiant little fists waving from the handlebars.”

“I’m serious,” I said. “Girls relate to their dolls, and, if Barbie was real she’d be 6 feet tall, weigh 100 pounds, and wear a 42 FF bra. Lia does not need to be a moving billboard advertising the shameless hussy.”

“Oh, stop it. If you feel that way, I’ll order a Flying Nun bike,” he said, as he kissed me good-bye. “And get shopping before the dazzling damsels disappear from the shelves."

I enlisted Nonna for the attack on Toys “R” Us before the hordes invaded. We found the Happy Holiday Barbie, the Stupid Barbie, the Malibu Barbie, the Doctor Barbie—a few of the many little anorexics you just had to have. Taking a deep breath, I tried to select the least offensive of the idols and settled on Veterinarian Barbie and Little Mermaid Barbie. Feminist that I was, I hoped not to run into any friends who might spot the pert-nosed, Aryan femme fatales in my shopping cart.

“Guard the cart with your life,” I said to my mother. These Barbies are hot items. I’ll track down the baby dolls.” Fortunately, the human-looking dolls were not in such high demand. I found two infant dolls--one for you and one for your sister, Gianna.

I returned to Nonna who was on guard-duty with the Barbie babes.

“What do you think of these, Mom?” I asked, holding up the baby dolls. “They drink a bottle, pee, and cry. Do you think the girls will like them?”

Nonna looked at the babies. “They’re adorable,” she said, “look at the eyelashes and little bonnets. They’re so lifelike,” she marveled, “but, Mar,” she smiled, shaking her head, “they’re brown.”

“Ma,” I said, “Are you kidding me? My kids are brown.”

“What do you mean, your kids are brown?”

“Mom, my girls are from Colombia. They’re not blue-eyed blondes. They have brown skin,” I said, incredulous that we were having this genetic refresher course in the middle of Toys “R” Us while, in the next aisle, maniacal parents fought over the last of the Teenage Mutant Turtles.

“Oh my God,” said Nonna. “I never thought about it, but you’re right.”

I’m right? Now it was my turn to be puzzled.

“Ma, you’re putting me on, right? I mean, you have noticed your adopted granddaughters have dark skin?”

“Well, I guess so,” she said. “Now that I think about it, I must have, but I never really paid much attention. I mean, what difference does it make? Who cares?”

Indeed, why would anyone care? When you see with your heart, you’re colorblind.

Love,
Mom

MLSE 12/09

Sometimes We Jump

2009-11-12T09:03:00.007-06:00

Mary Lou Edwards

“This is not a good idea,” I said to my daughter, certain my advice would be ignored.

Her illegal alien friend was handing over one of his many part-time jobs he no longer wanted. That she thought being the delivery girl for Toppi Thai Restaurant was the perfect job for a college student amazed me, despite the fact that I had witnessed many of her imprudent decisions in the past.

“Mom,” she tried to convince me, “Pablo says I can make $50 to $120. a night for 4 hours work. No taxes. I can study between deliveries. You are being a snob. This is a very cool job.”

“Cool job? Are you kidding? Lia, think about the wear and tear on your car, the teen-agers who will tip you .25 cents, driving in bad weather, the horrendous cost of gas, creepy strangers coming to the door,…”

She didn’t let me finish. “Mom, you’re being negative. I’m taking the job.”

Obviously seizing this opportunity of a lifetime was not my call.

Not a month into this lucky break, she became disenchanted with rude customers, poor tippers, mean dogs, wrong addresses, and kitchen help hitting on her. Just another day in Paradise I thought, taking a pass on the temptation to say This was your idea, Sweetheart.

I was intolerant of her complaints, though one day her grievance did send me into high gear.

“Mom,” she wailed into the phone, “you won’t believe this!”

“Were you robbed? Did you have an accident?” I shrieked, projecting my worst fears. “Are you Ok?”

“I’m fine, but you won’t believe what just happened. I walked into Dr. Cannon’s office to make a delivery and the receptionist looked at me and started screaming, ‘We didn’t order Mexican food! We don’t want Mexican food!’ She went crazy.”

“Why did she say that?” I asked bewildered.

“I guess she took one look at my Colombian skin and assumed I was delivering Mexican food.”

“You have got to be kidding,” I gasped, “that is incredible!”

“I know, Mom, I was shocked too. The lady really went ballistic.”

“Lia, what did you do?” I asked stunned.

“I just told her to calm down--that I was delivering their Thai food.”

“That’s all you said,” I probed, offended not only for myself but for my Colombian adopted daughter as well.

“What could I say, Mom? The lady was just stupid.”

“Lia, I would have thrown the food on the floor; I would have turned around and walked out, ” I said, jumping into my self-righteous, anti-discrimination mode. “She saw brown skin and assumed you were delivering Mexican food? Tomorrow I’m calling Dr. Cannon’s office to let her know she has a racist moron sitting at the front desk. The woman should be fired,” I ranted.

“Mom, stop. I told her it was Thai food and she settled down.”

“Lia, I would have opened the container and dumped it on her desk.”

“Mom, that’s crazy. Why would I behave like that?”

“Lia, to assume someone is delivering a certain kind of food based on the color of her skin is stereotyping. What would she say to a Black person who was delivering egg foo yong? What would she say to an Oriental pizza driver? Her behavior is outrageous.”

“Mom, if she has something against brown skin, that’s her problem. Who cares if she’s prejudiced? I just won’t deliver there anymore. You’re over-reacting.”

“I am not overreacting. I just hate jerks.”

“Then you’re prejudiced, Mother, prejudiced against jerks. If I’d known this was going to upset you, I wouldn’t have told you. I only shared it because I was so taken aback. The lady is pathetic.”

“Pathetic? Your illegal friend probably passed the job on because he’d met one too many Neanderthals.”

“No, Mom. Pablo gave me the job because his driver’s license expired and he couldn’t afford to get another counterfeit one. Did you know counterfeit documents cost a fortune?”

“Lia, I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation. You’re making me crazy. Would you please quit this stupid job?” I begged, smoke coming from my ears. “We'll talk later, I have to go."

I slammed down the phone, desperate to share my fury.

“Why don’t you find something else to worry about?” my husband suggested when I related the egregious offense. “Lighten up—it’s not illegal to be an insensitive clod,” he said blowing off my tirade.

I was incensed by his lack of indignation.

“Lighten up, lighten up? You’re telling me to lighten up when some ignorant wretch slaps our daughter in the face because of the color of her skin? You have the audacity to tell me to lighten up,” I shrieked.

“Calm down. You are over-reacting,” he said ignoring my pain.

“Overreacting? So you think I’m overreacting? You reduce my outrage to overreacting? I could just scream,” I proclaimed in my best Bette Davis voice.

“You are screaming, Honey. Don't get so excited. Did it ever occur to you that the woman might be allergic to tacos or maybe was having a bad day?”

“Oh, a bad day, that’s a good one--a bad day justifies racism,” I seethed. “Maybe if more people took action when they witnessed something like this, maybe if more people stood up…”

He cut me off. “Oh, I get it. This is your new action plan—dumping food on the floor. Flinging a piece of moo satay in someone’s face is fighting injustice. That is absolutely brilliant!" he declared, eyeing me as though I were some kind of unbalanced bag lady. "Saul Alinsky must be rolling over in his grave," he said referring to a legendary iconoclast.

“Okay, make fun of me. You know I'm not advocating throwing pad thai in people’s faces although, come to think of it, that'd be a novel way of dealing with disparate treatment," I said just to push my husband a little closer to the edge where I was already standing. "Oh, no, now I get it. You're mocking me because you envy my pluck."

“Pluck, pluck?” he retorted with an Elvis-like sneer. “Don't you think it a bit strange to make some tactless person’s aversion to Mexican food into a hate crime?”

Just then the phone rang.

“Mom, you’re not going to believe this.”

“Please, Lia, I can’t take any more tonight--I’m too aggravated."

“Listen, Mom, just stop and listen. This is the best. You know that Toppi owns Toppi Thai, right? And that her husband owns La Lupita?”

“Yes, I know that, Lia, we’ve eaten there many times.”

“Well, not anymore. La Lupita went out of business last week and Toppi is using La Lupita’s leftover bags. When I delivered to Dr. Cannon’s office I was carrying a La Lupita bag with a logo that says ‘THE BEST MEXICAN FOOD IN TOWN.’ The lady wasn’t commenting on my skin--she saw the bag,” she laughed.

“Oh-my-God, Lia. That is unbelievable. Imagine if I’d called Dr. Cannon tomorrow. She’d have thought I was a lunatic demanding the receptionist’s head on a plate.”

“Imagine if I’d dumped the food on the floor, Mom, that would have been so awful. I can’t believe you gave me such bad advice.” Then, going for the jugular, she proceeded, “I think you let your emotions get in the way. You tell me to count to 10 before I act, but you need to count to a thousand," she lectured. "You’re too quick-tempered. You’re not just a reactor, you’re a nuclear reactor.”

I had it coming.

MLSE 11/09

Crash Course

2009-10-11T20:00:00.003-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

Where did I come from—how did I get here? No one agreed.

My brother said "the stork brought me".

My girlfriend said "fairies delivered babies".

The girl upstairs said "babies were left on doorsteps".

My cousin told me doctors carried dead babies in their black bags and a mother gives life by breathing into the baby’s nose.

Raphaella (Raphy) Paradiso, my fifth-grade best friend forever, told me she saw some weird looking babies in glass jars at the Museum of Science and Industry.

“Raphy,” I said, “That is so stupid. Babies do not come in glass jars.”

“Well, I went to the Museum’s Chick Hatchery, and I saw with my own eyes baby chickens pop out of eggs. If a chick can crack out of an egg, why can’t a baby come packed in a jar?” she reasoned.

Maybe she’s right I thought. Everyone says I look like my dad. Maybe my mother picked my jar because I had eyes that reminded her of my father.

“That makes sense, Raphy, but you’re forgetting one thing. Mothers get babies from hospitals not museums,” I said with more than a bit of scorn.

“Not always,” Raphaella countered, “you heard Sister Praxeda tell the Christmas story about the stable, and you saw the eigth graders' Nativity play. Jesus was packed in straw. They didn’t show how he got in the manger in the first place.”

Just when I thought I was making headway with the puzzle, Raphy brought up another piece that added to the confusion.

“None of this makes sense,” I admitted. “They say Mary and Joseph left Nazareth on a donkey and she was great with child. I think they meant she was great with children.”

Raphaella, who’d obviously given this a lot of thought, said she’d found out in second grade that Santa Claus was a fake, that he didn’t fly over houses or come down chimneys, that it was all a big fat lie.

“OK, so Santa’s not real, but you’re not saying Jesus was a fake too, are you?” I asked aghast.

“Of course not,” she reassured me, “but I do wonder what exactly they’re talking about when I hear the Christmas story. For instance, what’s "a Virgin"? Was Joseph the father or wasn’t he?

And what the heck are swaddling clothes? And you know what else? I think the Three Kings, The Magi and the Wise Guys are all the same people.”

“They are the same, and they’re Wise Men not Wise Guys, though I don’t know how wise they were bringing frankincense and myrrh to a baby instead of a toy. But why,” I asked in exasperation, “are we talking about dumb presents and Santa? We’re supposed to be figuring out how kids are born, and we’re not even supposed to be talking about this.”

“I know,” Raphaella lamented. “My mother said I should always come to her if I have any questions, but when I asked where babies came from, she blew her cork. She said, ‘I’ll tell you when you need to know. I’ll tell you when the time is right.’ In my house, that means never.”

I was too embarrassed to tell Raphy how asking about babies almost got me killed.

Once during a family drive, my mother mentioned to my dad that a cousin was “expecting.”

Piping up from the backseat, I asked, “When is she due?” I was about eight years old and had no idea what that meant, but I’d heard a neighbor ask that of a pregnant lady, and I thought it sounded grown-up.

“When is she due?” my father shouted as he practically ran our car off the road and screeched to a halt. “Mary,” he thundered, “what are you teaching this kid? Where did she learn that? Who is she talking to,” he continued bellowing. “You’re not watching her friends,” he accused. “You need to talk to her teachers! This kid is out of control.”

The virulent tongue-lashing almost had my mother in tears and, cowering in the backseat, I vowed never, ever to get my mother in such trouble again, and I never did. Thanks to fear and shame, I remained ignorant for a very long time.

When I became a mother, I vowed no question would go unanswered and no subject would be off limits.

One day, when my daughter was about seven, I found her and her friend, Cara, playing with their beloved Barbies. There were about a dozen of the stupid strumpets swimming in the Barbie pool with a few boyfriend Kens floating around too. One doll caught my eye.

“Lia,” I asked, “what’s with Ken’s head on Barbie’s body?”

“Oh, that’s Barbie’s gay friend,” she chirped. “They’re going for a swim before they go shopping.”
I swear I heard a car crash.

MLS 10/09

Not Good Enough

2009-09-20T11:10:00.009-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

“Who do you think you are? You’re not a movie star. This is good enough for you.”

A freshman in high school, I was shocked when my dentist bellowed this comment with such fury. I sat in the chair perplexed.

“What are you talking about?” I asked the hulk who was barking in my face. “How do you know what I’m going to be? Why is this good enough for me?” I asked, as I held the small round mirror in my mouth studying the porcelain glob. The blinding, garish light illuminated the tiny white lump that was supposed to pass for a tooth. “This looks OK for a temporary fix , but I don’t want this forever.”

“If you don’t like it, don’t come back,” he shouted, yanking the little mirror out of my hand. “No brat is going to come in here and criticize my work!"

Now I was angry. I didn’t even care if he told my dad.

“You said you’d fix my tooth,” I said as I climbed out of the dental chair. “Don’t yell at me because you didn’t do it right. This doesn’t even look like a tooth--this looks like you painted a tiny piece of Tootsie-Roll white and glued it in my mouth. And don’t worry about me coming back,” I added, as I ran out the door, “I wouldn’t come back if my teeth fell out!”

I cried all the way home—partly because I was going to be in big trouble with my dad who revered the dentist because he had a college degree, and partly because my tooth looked like an eraser on top of a pencil.

My mother was cooking at the stove. I didn’t want to bother her because supper had to be on the table at 4:30 sharp or my father would…actually I didn’t know what my father would do if dinner wasn’t on the table because my mother was never a minute late. No one wanted to irritate a man whose tantrums were legendary. Sometimes his rages were pretty funny—a grown person acting like a spoiled baby—sometimes I’d aggravate him just to see him throw a fit.

“You’re home early. Why are you crying,” my mom asked as she bustled around the kitchen.
“Didn’t the dentist give you Novocane?”

“You won’t believe my snaggle-tooth,” I sniveled, hardly able to catch my breath. “I’m never going out again as long as I live.”

“Oh, stop it--let me see,” she said, squeezing my chin and forcing my mouth open. “Well,” she said after the inspection, “at least the tooth isn’t in the front. You’re lucky, you can hardly see it.”

“See,” I wailed, “even you think it’s bad. You can see it when I smile big. I’ll have to talk like a ventriloquist.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. The rest of your teeth are perfect. Are you going to let one little nub botched up by an incompetent upset you?”

I was about to start raving about her calling it a nub, a nub, my own mother calling it a botched- up nub, but I stopped in amazement.

“Did you call Dr. Matich incompetent?” I asked.

I knew she didn’t much care for him. Once I overheard her say to my father, “Jim, the man is so high and mighty. He puts his pants on one leg at a time like everyone else,” but she’d never say that in front of us kids.

“Momma, he is incompetent. I told him my tooth looked like a bitsy stub and he yelled that I shouldn’t come back, which is fine with me. I hate the guy.”

“Watch your mouth,” she warned.

“OK, then, I can’t stand him. He told me I’m not so important that I need a perfect tooth. He said this tooth is good enough for you.”

Hearing that, my mother, who had been hustling to make that 4:30 deadline, spun around from the kitchen sink. I didn’t know if the steam was coming from the pot of scarole she was draining into the colander or from her ears.

“He said what?” she snapped.

“You heard me. He said this ugly tooth is good enough for me,” I repeated.

“Well that bastard,” she blurted.

My eyes popped open like one of those push-button umbrellas. My mother never swore. Sometimes she said heck or darn, maybe dammit if she was really ticked, but bastard, never ever. I was shocked, and then, she said it again. "That bastard"—only this time she said it quietly and slowly as though I wasn’t even there, as though she was looking at a picture only she could see.

“Quit whining and sit down. We’ll get it fixed right,” she promised, “but what that bastard said is unacceptable.”

Whoa, that was the third time she swore. Was she forgetting that God was listening and she’d be punished? Getting a little nervous—about God, about 4:30—I said, “Mom, you’d better finish cooking.”

“Don’t worry about dinner, honey. This is more important,” she said, tapping her finger on the kitchen table.

Was she kidding--more important than my dad walking through the door at supper time?
This I had to hear.

“Never let anyone tell you who you are or what you’re worth,” she seethed. “ Never believe anyone who says you’re not important—that good enough is good enough for you! That arrogant bastard.”

Four times, that was the fourth time! She is playing with fire, I thought, but there was no stopping her.

“That arrogant bastard thinks he can look down on people because he has a couple of capital letters after his name—that he’s better than everyone else. He’s a poor excuse for a man.”

“Mom,” I said startled, “I’m mad, but you’re even angrier than I am.”

“That's because I was subjected to bastards like him when I was growing up."

That’s it. Here comes the lightning bolt. My father will come in expecting supper and find us slumped over the table.

“I encountered skunks who thought it was okay to treat people like dirt. I had a priest make me stand in the vestibule during Mass because I didn’t have a nickel for the collection basket,” she said as though she was scooping out a memory she'd buried long ago. “I went to a grocer who switched a loaf of fresh bread for a stale one, and said, 'This is good enough for your mother.'”

Now she was on a tear.

“Years ago, epileptics weren’t allowed to go to school. My father died in the 1918 flu epidemic, so my mother had to work. My younger brother, Salvatore, suffered seizures. He would come to my school and stare at me through the window. He longed to be like the other kids, but my teacher said he was a distraction--he wasn't good enough to come to school so I should stay home with him. 'Obviously your grandparents can't handle him,' she shrieked, in front of the entire class."

“Mom, stop! They were so mean. I feel like crying.”

“I’ll stop," she said standing up and kissing the top of my head. "Now set the table,” she ordered, noticing the time, “but don’t ever forget,” she said wagging a finger in my face, “you are better than no one and no one is better than you. That bastard had a hell of a lot of nerve.”

Two swear words in one sentence. God must be croaking.

I said a little prayer that God would forgive her as I put the last knife and fork on the table. My father walked in through the back door.

“What smells so good?" he inquired peering into the pot on the stove and pecking my mother on the cheek.
As he turned to hang his jacket, he noticed me sulking at the table. "How was school?”

“School was fine, but look at my ugly tooth,” I wailed, stretching my mouth so he could see the mediocre job.

“Give Dr. Mat time," he said, yanking on my jawbone to take a good gander. "When he’s finished it’ll look good as new—that’s only a temporary.”

“No, Jim,” my mother said, “that’s the finished product. Obviously that jerk's specialty is pulling teeth. He thinks that’s all people in this neighborhood deserve. He’s a bastard who thinks who he is.”

Oh, no, I thought, jerk, bastard. Dad's going to blow his cork. That’s almost worse than getting God angry.

“Really, daddy, it’s true. The tooth is finished,” I said trying to stem a tirade, but my dad paid no attention to the swear word. “Dr. Matich said I’m not a movie star—that this is good enough for me.”

“Really? “ he said, cocking his head to the side and narrowing his eyes. “Really? He said that? To you? Not good enough? Well, after supper we’ll pay him a little visit.”

I got the feeling my dad was going to go there and have a major tantrum, but I didn’t feel one bit sorry for Dr. Matich.

He was going to learn that we weren’t better than anyone, and no one was better than us.

MLSE 09/09

Don't Be Cruel

2009-08-31T15:52:00.015-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

"Ma'am," the lady from the Visitors Center responded, "This is Elvis Week. There ain't a room for miles around--not even one with a bathtub never mind a swimmin' pool. Why the whole town is jam-packed. Fans come from all over the world!"

Welcome to Graceland, a place we'd managed to avoid but finally agreed to visit thanks to the relentless badgering of Gianna, our 12 year-old Elvis groupie. Elvis had been dead since 1977. Twenty years later, I assumed he'd have very few fans left so I made no advance hotel reservations.

Having driven the last 400 miles in a rain storm, "no room at the inn" was the last thing I needed to hear. I had four little girls in tow, ourdaughters, Gianna and Lia and their friends twelve-year old Amy and seven year-old Elise. They'd been good sports for 800 miles, but it was obvious they needed to work off some energy. My husband's twitching eyes suggested he was a bit on edge, and the "are we there yet" and "we're hungry" whines were not helping matters. The single stroke of luck had been that I walked into the Visitors Center alone and no one else heard the dire news. If my husband found out that I'd not booked a hotel during Elvis Week, he'd go absolutely ballistic. I had to get to a phone. Please, God, take pity on me and come through with a last minute cancellation I prayed.

I spotted the Family Fun Buffet--a drenched purple dinosaur waved people into the parking lot. "There's Barney!" I cheered, "Let's eat here!" With the sigh of a martyr, George turned into the parking lot.

"Go ahead and get a table while I stop in the Ladies Room," I said as they tore out of the van and streaked through the monsoon. Exiting the van, I slipped and plopped into a puddle. The soggy dinosaur waddled over and giggled, "Mam, let me help you. You look like you're in trouble." If Barney only knew I thought.

Limping into the restaurant, I found the Yellow Pages and a phone and dialed six hotels in a row only to hear, "Sorry, booked solid." On the seventh, I hit pay dirt. Yes, they had a room and they were located right across from Graceland! Is this luck or what? I thought. It proved to be or what?

I found George in the dining area, cradling his head on the table, exhausted from the long stormy drive. Each of the girls was inhaling a plate of desserts--cupcakes, pie, brownies, ice cream, Jell-o and cookies--all smothered in marshmallow fluff.

I winced at George's willingness to let the inmates run the asylum, but something told me I'd be pushing my luck if I started lecturing on nutrition. Instead I herded everyone back to the van and gave George directions to the Graceland Hotel.

"How did you find this place?" my husband asked as we turned into the ominous parking lot. Huge, burly men in uniform surrounded the property. "It looks like they have good security," I observed. "Good security? Are you nuts? They're carrying shot-guns."

"Maybe the hotel wants to discourage the Graceland fans from running across to use the bathrooms."

Later I learned of Graceland's unusual historic odyssey. Long ago, when a local doctor built what was to become Elvis' Graceland, the property was in a very rural area far outside Memphis. Years later when Elvis bought the house, Memphis had grown some, but the area was still a good distance from town and semi-rural. In the last 25 years, however, Memphis had grown by leaps and bounds and Graceland now sat in the middle of a rough, drug-riddled section of the city, but the armed militia did strike me as a bit over the top.

The desk clerk's tattoos suggested he could be an Insane Disciple gangbanger, but his demeanor was more menacing.

"Whatta you want?" he barked, as though we were trespassers.

"You have a reservation for Edwards," I said, gawking at his inch long pinkie nails and the hotel's Early Trailer Park decor.

"Oh, yeah, yer the lady called a few minutes ago. Room for six. That's $400."

"$400? You must be joking," I blurted. Making a quick recovery, I said, "If it's not too much trouble, may we see the room first?" We did not need to get on the wrong side of this guy.

"OK," he shrugged, "we'll take the stairs--elevator ain't workin'."

"This place gives me the creeps," George whispered as we made our way up the dingy stairwell. "It's either a drug den or a whorehouse."

"It's convenient to Graceland," I whispered back, "we'll push a dresser in front of the door."

We exited the stairwell, creeping along like a company of moles. The hall smelled of cigars and sweat. The carpeting was threadbare and stained.

When the intimidating desk clerk unlocked the room, the kids tore past us and immediately stripped to their swimsuits. I wanted to accept this room, but a layer of grime covered the bedspread,carpeting and windows.

I had to think of a diplomatic way to back out of this deal without aggravating the frightening thug.

"Girls," I called to the boisterous brood, "we can't stay here. We need more beds," I added, as we made a beeline for the door.

"Stop!" the biker ordered. "You din't seen the beds in the adjoining room." The adjoining room was a miniscule closet in which two sets of bunk beds had been crammed. The soiled mattresses had no linens.

"Look," Elise crowed, "a clubhouse!" The older girls scampered up the ladder.

"I figgered they'd like it," the biker remarked. "You git sheets at sign in."

As I sagged into defeat, I thought to ask about the pool.

"Sir, where is the swimming pool?"

"Filled it with see'ment during the remodel."

"No swimming pool?" I exclaimed loudly so the girls would hear. Thank God, they did.

They flew out the door chanting we want to swim...you promised... They couldn't have been more appropriately obnoxious if we'd rehearsed.

"They prolly covered a few ho'tel guests with see'ment when they remodeled," George remarked, as we squealed out of the parking lot.

Within minutes, he stopped in front of a Buy Your Elvis Souvenir Here store. "I'm running in to buy Graceland tickets," he said. "You did such a great job creating this disaster, think about straightening it out, Sweetie."

Threatening bodily harm if anyone dared leave the van, I found a phone and called the Visitors Center with a gut-wrenching tale that happened to be true--four children, an exhausted husband, a marriage at stake and nowhere to go.

"Well, we do have a special facility for emergency situations," the Greeter drawled. "It's a ho'tel on the outskirts of town that is completely filled up, but during Elvis Week, and only during Elvis Week, Memphis allows them to subdivide their banquet room into small cubicles and put some fold-aways in--that's all I got."

"We'll take it," I said.

"Now, mind you, this is special for Elvis Week since it is against the Memphis Fire Code. The roll-aways are $50 per night. Check-in is at eight and check-out is at eight and there's a swimmin' pool under the escalators in the lobby."

My husband returned. "Did you find a room at Heartbreak Hotel?"

"No, but I found a cubicle with six roll-aways. Check-in is at eight."

"Cubicle? Check-in at eight?" He viewed me with narrow-eyed suspicion. "Are you sure this isn't a homeless shelter?"

"No, it's a Suckers' Shelter--the roll-aways are $50 each. Did you get the tickets?"

"As Elvis liked to say, I take care of business. There's a Silver ticket for$25 to tour Graceland, a Gold ticket for $40 that includes Graceland and Elvis' Auto & Cycle Museum and a $50 Platinum ticket that covers Graceland, the Auto Museum and Elvis' plane-the Lisa Marie."

"You did get the Silver ticket, right?" I asked holding my breath.

"No, no, Little Woman, I splurged on Platinum. Tomorrow, all Elvis, all day."

I should just slit my wrists now, I thought.

The aroma of chlorine stung our nostrils as we entered a lobby with a guitar-shaped pool. Good ‘ole boys in blue jeans and their girlfriends in Daisy Dukes were swan-diving off the escalator rails, beer cans in hand as Don't Be Cruel blared over the sound system.

"This isn't a pool," George shouted over the din, "it's a huge toilet. The bacterial count must be astronomical. If Elise contracts a flesh-eating disease, her parents will sue our asses off." Elise's parents were attorneys.

His point well-taken, I declared, "Girls, no swimming just yet."

"Please, please," Lia screamed in my ear, "could we at least put our feet in the water and let the fish bite our toes?"

"There are no fish in swimming pools, Lia," I snapped.

"Yes, there are," she insisted as she dragged me to the edge. "Look at the bottom!"

"Oh, my God," I gasped as I ran over to my husband who stood mesmerized by the Fellini-like scene. "You are not going to believe this. There is shit in the pool."
"
"Really," he said, "I'm shocked."

A bellboy with a bullhorn bellowed, "Edwards' room ready!"

"Oh, great," George said, "Jist win I was goin' ta order martinis fer the kids and let them chill by the toxic latrine."

Up the escalator and into the third floor banquet room, we found our cubicle with six cots, each covered with a white tablecloth, and the banquet room's refrigerator.

"I've never stayed in a hotel before, Mrs. Edwards," Amy announced. "Why is there such a big refrigerator in our room?"

"That's where you buy food," Gianna, who'd gotten us into this train wreck, explained. "It's filled with little bottles of whiskey and bags of peanuts."

Suddenly I realized we hadn't had dinner and it was ten 0'clock. Since the buffet binge, the kids had only had more sugar--candy bars, ice cream and gallons of Slushees. George volunteered to get some hamburgers. He returned with $20 worth of vending machine junk food.

"You're not going to believe this, but they lock the hotel doors at 10 to keep the ‘riff-raff' out."

"Mr. Edwards," Elise, the future mini-litigator piped up, "tell them we demand to get our suitcases so we can put on our pajamas."

"Oh, no this will be more fun," I interrupted, "We're going to eat Doritos and Twizzlers and then sleep in our clothes!"

"Yippeee," Elise shouted. "When I tell my Mom and Dad what we did on this vacation they're not going to believe it!"

"After Elise's parents finish with us, we'll lose our kids to the Department of Children and Family Services," George commented, "and I'm not going to appeal."

"Let's try to get some sleep," I said, confident he'd relent and appeal after a few months.

At six George announced it was time to rise and shine. No tooth-brushing, no showering--no dressing, for that matter, just breakfast and head over to Graceland. Arriving at eight, we found a huge crowd ahead of us.

"Probably everyone comes here first," my husband figured. "Let's start at the airplane instead."

After an hour and a half in the plane line, we entered the cockpit of the Lisa Marie, Elvis' beloved jet named after his only child. He must have decorated the plane about the time his drug use was spinning out of control. Only an hallucinogenic could have prompted 24 karat gold-flecked sinks and gold-plated seat belts. WARNING-DO NOT TOUCH! signs were plastered everywhere. Suddenly alarms and bells were going off and security was rushing the plane as though a sniper was holed up in the fur-walled bathroom. Lia was not in sight. Sure enough, she had jumped on Elvis' bed. Within minutes, we were escorted off the Lisa Marie. Being kicked off the plane suited me just fine.

We stood in line for only an hour at the Graceland Auto Museum to view the Pink Cadillac, Ferrari, John Deere tractor and Harley. This time the temptation proved to be too much for Gianna who climbed onto the King's Harley when our backs were turned and, again, Elvis' security force promptly took care of business. We were back in the broiling sun before we'd even seen Elvis's tractor.

Sensing I was near meltdown, George suggested a bit of shopping while he stood guard over our little terrorists outside. I ducked into the Elvis Store where I found a colossal supply of ashtrays, lamps, guitars, lawn mowers, teddy bears, teapots, brassieres--all with The Great One's Coat of Arms, a lightning bolt. The only thing not on display was a replica of the toilet seat he was sitting on the night he fell off the stool and died on the bathroom floor.

As I exited the store, I found Gianna wailing--she wanted to buy an Elvis guitar, Elise pouting--she needed an Elvis wig--and the other two arguing.

"I think they're hungry," my husband said. "Let's go to the Elvis Café."

They ordered Elvis' favorite--a deep-fried sandwich of bananas, peanut butter and marshmallow fluff with a side of French fries and a deep-fried pickle. The big girls shared a piece of Sweet Potato Cream Cheese Pie. Lia and Elise had Moon Pies.

We waddled over to Graceland where the line of mutants from another planet snaked around the block--75 year-old ingenues with lightning bolts tattooed on their breasts, dudes in high heels and make-up, a man in SCUBA diving gear and a lady with a raccoon on a leash to name but a few. Taking up the rear, Lia threw the mother of all tantrums-"I hate Elvis! This is the dumbest vacation I ever went on in my life! This is all Gianna's fault! I am sick of Elvis and his stupid songs!"

"Calm her down," George hissed. "People are staring."

"Staring? At us?" I ranted. "They're staring at us?"

"Mom," Lia, having tantrumed out, called to me, "what does 'Elvis sucks elephant dick' mean?" I spun around to read the graffiti that completely covered the five-foot stone wall surrounding America's second most visited historic residence after The White House. Amy ran over with an eye-witness report. "Mrs. Edwards, a guy dressed like Elvis just peed on the wall to clean off a space so he could write something." "Amy, maybe it was Elvis peeing," Gianna suggested. "That lady over there in the nightgown told me Elvis is not dead."

I could not fathom what I'd done in a past life to deserve this. Would our country make it to the new millennium, I wondered, and, more importantly, did we deserve to?

At last we entered the hallowed Graceland.

Saddam Hussein had nothing on Elvis in the home decor arena. The "jungle" den, the billiards room, the TV room where Elvis shot out the screen once when he didn't like the program, the gun room where he practiced target shooting, past his parents' bedroom, into the kitchen where he'd made his ‘heart-attack on a plate' snacks-we saw it all. We ogled his trophies, Gold Records, jewelry, costumes and awards. The only significant sacred site we did not see was the infamous bathroom.

The tour ended in the Meditation Garden where speakers, hidden under bushes, blared How Great Thou Art. A bit to the left of the swimming pool, flanked by the tombs of his parents, Vernon and Gladys, Elvis rests.

His autopsy revealed he'd ingested at least 10 different drugs, including morphine, within the last 24 hours of his life.

How many drugs, I wonder, would Elvis have taken if he'd known Michael Jackson would one day be his son-in-law? Would Elvis be included on the Platinum Tour of Neverland?

MLSE 08/09

Confessions of a Serial Forwarder

2009-07-29T11:59:00.007-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to never forward another email as long as I live…

I am done. Finished. Fini.

I will never pass on another funny joke, lifesaving tip, critical warning or virus threat. Call me selfish, but I’ll not even pass on a Code Red Alarm. I will no longer be the Paul Revere of the Internet. I will not attempt to brighten anyone’s day nor feel compelled to tell acquaintances that, like a thousand helium balloons, their friendship lifts my heart. I will not pass along Amber Alerts or Novenas to St. Dymphna, patron of the psychologically impaired.

I was never an irresponsible forwarder. I regularly snopesed things that came my way. If I got an email that claimed women who’d had breast augmentation survived the Titanic because their breasts served as life jackets, I verified it before hitting the SEND button.

I didn’t fall for the promises of a cash windfall stuffed in my next Whopper Burger if I said a certain prayer for our soldiers in Iraq. I didn’t believe I would contract leprosy if I let the flame on the Candle for World Peace, which has been circulating on the net since October 8, 1952, burn out.

I only disseminated material that would cheer-up shut-ins, brighten the days of the depressed or enlighten the imprudent who gave me their email addresses. I didn’t shot-gun messages to my 174 best friend contact list. Rather, I meticulously tailored my forwards to special interest groups—recipes to the Julia Child devotees, Amber Alerts to those who cared about their children, warnings to pet lovers about tainted cat food from China.

I didn’t betray confidences about my friends’ husbands who were undergoing sex-change surgeries or blabber about my manager’s son who was working his way through mortuary school by selling crystal meth.

In short, I was cyber responsible which is why this slip has shattered me.

My friend, an ex-nun, forwarded a story about two old ladies in a nursing home. It was not in the best of taste. I judiciously selected several girlfriends who enable my forwarding addiction, and carefully clicked bcc so no one else would know of their morbid fear of drooling away their golden years. I wanted to reassure them that, despite qualifying for Long Term Care Insurance, they need never surrender their prurient imaginations. I took every precaution. I refused to be known as the wreckless forwarder, one whose name on the You’ve Got Mail screen prompts DELETE. I abhor indiscriminate forwarders who willy-nilly send pictures of nursing baby cows, never once considering whether or not the recipient is into bovines.

I am prolific,but selective except for this one freaking time I goofed up.

My, oh my, you do have quite a sense of humor!

Please, God, no, I thought as I stared in horror at the computer screen. In a flash, I realized that, in my forwarding frenzy to get this oh, so important joke out, I inadvertently bcc’ed the name directly above my friend Susan Grote's, and sent the story to a professional acquaintance--a very reserved, genteel minister/psychotherapist.

“George,” I shouted as I ran up to our bedroom, “you are not going to believe this—I am mortified. Wake-up! I want to die!”

He continued to snore.

“George,” I shrieked, flipping on the light switch and tearing off his blanket, “wake up! I am totally humiliated. I can never show my face again! Get up—this is a disaster.”

“Lower your voice and turn off the damn light,” he growled, not at all grasping the gravity of the situation. “It’s midnight. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I just got an email from Rev. Grier, Dr. Grier,” I cried, kneeling at the side of our bed. “I cannot believe I did this. I am so stupid! I should not be allowed to own a computer. I am an idiot!”

“Could you please save your self-flagellation for the morning? I have to be up at six.”

“Oh, you don’t care! You don’t care that I’ve just humiliated myself--that I may have to live in a cloister for the rest of my life. Please! Sit up at least,” I said, turning the ceiling fan on high to get his attention.
Suddenly it was as though we were in front of a jumbo jet on the tarmac at O’Hare. Olivia, my cat, had come in to investigate the ruckus only to have her long hair blown back as though she were in a wind tunnel.

It worked.

He got up and stomped over to the fan switch almost twisting the knob off the wall. “O.K., O.K. I’m awake. I do care. I’m very interested in why you’re suicidal.”

“I accidentally forwarded a really, really offensive email to Dr. Grier. I mean really offensive!I’m so embarrassed I could die!”

“I warned you about sending that shit out all the time. Why do you insist on forwarding that crap?”

“I can’t help that I’m easily amused and besides, it’s not crap—they’re little jokes that just might bring a bit of sunshine into people’s lives.”

“Sunshine?” he exclaimed as though I was a schizoid bag lady. “If your friends need your junk mail to bring a smile to their faces, they’re in bigger trouble than you. Why don’t you just stick to sending out computer viruses?”

“Thanks a lot. I’m glad you woke up to tear me down,” I said in my best Meryl Streep voice. “I told you it was an accident. Do you think I wanted to send him an email about two old ladies in a nursing home?”

“Old ladies in a nursing home? Are you nuts? Look, I’m sorry if you think I’m tearing you down, but you are a maniac on that computer. It’s a wonder you have any friends left who will even open your stuff.”

“Well,” I said haughtily, “I happen to have 174 friends in my address book. I’ll bet you don’t have half that.”

“Look, I’m not having this stupid-ass conversation at this hour. Let’s get some sleep.”

“Sleep? No, no, listen to me! You haven’t heard the joke. It’s so outrageous I wish I could go into witness protection,” I moaned. “O.K., here’s the joke."

"You don't get it! I NEED SLEEP. I don't care about this nonsense! I do not care about the joke. I have a life!"

His insensitivity never ceased to amaze me. I ignored his unreasonable objections.

"Two old ladies in wheelchairs were in a nursing home. One old lady asks the other, 'Do you ever get horny?' The other says, 'Yes.' So the first old lady says, 'What do you do about it?' and the second old lady says, 'I suck on a Lifesaver.' and the first old lady says, 'Who drives you to the beach?'”

For a minute there was dead silence. He stared at me as though I were a postal worker with a gun. I could tell he was counting to a hundred. Finally he said quietly, “Well, wasn’t this a car crash waiting to happen.”

And that's why I will never again forward anything as long as I live. I don’t care if someone sends me a YouTube of Barbara Bush giving Barack a lap dance, I swear I will not pass it on.

O.K. Maybe I’ll call you on the phone and give you the URL, but believe me, that’s it.

MLSE 07/09

Life Has to Be Hard

2009-06-28T08:07:00.013-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

Life has to be hard. Not life was hard or life is hard or life can be hard. No, life has to be hard. This was my father's mantra.
Experiencing the Great Depression as a teen-ager, he observed the travails of the jobless. Land mines of economic destruction and desperation exploded around him, wounding not only his sense of personal dignity and self-worth, but also scarring those who would later share his life. The Depression, the economic vulnerability, were proof that God wanted life to be hard--its psychic imprint served as a constant reminder of His wrath.

From 1932 forward, good, beauty and accomplishment were viewed through astigmatic eyes that did not allow the celebration of life’s gifts or achievements. Hard work was the protectant; enjoyment the enemy.

He acknowledged God’s gifts, but dared not savor them because life had to be a struggle and the Great Scorekeeper kept a sharp eye out for those who searched for the easy way. A God who deprived the undeserving, punished the ungrateful and exacted a price from those who didn’t use their gifts correctly was not to be crossed. And because some people were not listening, despite Matthew, Mark, Luke and John having spread The Word, He deputized Jim, and Jim, my father, became God’s translator.

In the deaf community, there is a huge debate about the responsibilities of the translator. Does the translator relay the exact message of the deaf or a sanitized version? Does the translator communicate only the literal or tinker with intent, and, beyond that, does the translator interject what he thinks the deaf person really meant to say? In my father's world, we were all pathetic scofflaws, and in the colloquial sense, deaf and dumb too.

Dad interpreted what God meant—what God intended—what God wanted. In fact, his pipeline was so direct, he understood what God demanded even before God knew, and, because the Deity was preoccupied with wreaking economic havoc around the world and sorting through the wreckage, dad, familiar with the drill, filled the vacuum. Whether a trifling matter or major issue, he never strayed from the message—life has to be hard.

One didn’t really know how to drive unless the car was stick shift nor eat a genuine sandwich unless the bread was homemade. A four inch footing was insufficient for a proper concrete patio, a three foot pit had to be dug. A week's vacation involved mending broken screen doors, fixing appliances that were on their last legs and repairing squeaky floor boards in a rented summer cottage. Picnics required homebaked cakes and hauling 4 course meals a mile, under scorching sun and over burning sand, down to the beach. The inside of a refinished dresser drawer had to be as flawless as the top. And all because, in order to grow, in order to really live, life had to be hard. The tougher it was, the better one was, the closer one came to earning life’s gifts and God’s approval.

Swimming, biking, ice skating, chess were not pastimes; they were skills to be perfected through effort and practice. Hobbies were a waste of time unless one intended to incorporate them into a career.

College students, according to dad’s Gospel, needed to study two hours a night for each scheduled credit hour. In response to his constant badgering that I was a bogus scholar, who really didn’t value, care about, want, appreciate or all of the above, an education, I attempted to reason with him.

“Dad,” I tried to explain, “I carry 16 hours a semester. I’d have to study 32 hours a night.”

“Do you think they’re just going to hand you a diploma? Do you think life is a cakewalk?” he thundered. “There is no easy way out!”

How silly of me to think good grades indicated sufficient study when only blood, sweat and tears could provide real validation. How stupid of me to forget life had to be a bitch.

When life got too good, as sometimes happened, Dad would temper it with shame. Shame was the antidote to toxic enjoyment. Shame was the “go to” emotion that ensured one never forgot that life had to be hard.

As a kid, my brother was quite a good baseball player. He did not brag about it, but he made the fatal mistake of being comfortable with his competence, of knowing he had skill and talent, of believing in himself. Life was good for a 12 year-old gifted athlete--maybe too good. He needed to be cut down to size. He had to pay for his imagined adolescent cockiness. He needed to know that life was hard and, if he was not getting the message, then God would teach him and the great translator would deliver the news.

Once during a ballgame, my brother knocked the winning run out of the park. Thrilled with his accomplishment, he sauntered around the bases basking in the admiration of the crowd. My father was incensed and awaited him at home plate. Yanking my brother by the shirt, he shouted, “Who do you think you are? You need to hustle, move your ass around that field—run like you mean it!”
One can only imagine the embarrassment and humiliation my brother felt at being criticized and ridiculed in front of the crowd. But God wasn’t finished--sometimes life had to be extra hard.

Grabbing my brother by the uniform, God dragged him over to the coach. “Don’t count that run in the score,” He ordered. That homerun doesn’t count. The kid didn’t earn it, he doesn’t appreciate it,” He bellowed. “Take it off the board!”

Suddenly it was no longer about the winning homerun. It was about God running amok.

The boys on the team crowded around stunned. The spectators watched in amazement as though they could not believe their ears. The coach, astounded at the outrageous request, glared in disbelief. My mother stood frozen by God’s rage.
Actually, it was all my brother’s fault for forgetting that life had to be hard. God had no choice but to teach him a lesson he’d never forget, had no choice but to etch that reminder on his young psyche.
Dad continued to carry the message everywhere and never missed an opportunity to educate us about life’s trials. No event was too trivial or grand to ruin--one really didn’t deserve to be on the honor roll, dinner time was for eating not chattering, proms were nonsense, getting a degree from a world-class institution was a fluke and a great job was yours only because the employer had yet to find you out.

But as I grew, I started to question my father's "no matter what you do it's never good enough and you must always work harder" ethic. Despite his thinking we kids hadn't worked hard enough for the honor roll, we consistently made it so it couldn't have been by chance. Some slackers probably made it through the University of Illinois, but most degrees were hard won. Could it be that human beings weren't supposed to be perfect?

And then I heard about Louie Aparicio hitting a homerun and swaggering around the bases at a White Sox game. Perhaps life didn't have to be hard. Perhaps life is only as hard as you make it.
MLSE 06/09

Disgusting Four-Letter Words

2009-05-25T10:44:00.027-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

My friend, Domenica, maintained that after a woman got married, if she kept a clean house and didn’t get fat, she could be an axe murderer and no one would care. Men reserved a particular scorn for wives who did not keep a house spic and span or who, God forbid, “let themselves go,” but I feared the scorn of men far less than I feared household drudgery which I suspected caused brain damage. Polish furniture that was already shining? Scrub floors that weren’t even scuffed? Launder clean curtains just because it was Monday? I don’t think so.

I considered housework a form of domestic violence and C-O-O-K, I-R-O-N, and D-U-S-T offensive four-letter words. My aversion was not genetic. My mother’s housekeeping made Polish cleaning women look like slackers and she was a world-class cook on top of it. ‘Til today I rarely eat in an Italian restaurant since no dish ever comes even kind of close to hers.

I could claim I was intimidated by her extraordinary culinary skills, but I’d be lying. The truth was preparing, cooking, cleaning up three times a day, for a family that considered memorable meals an inalienable birthright, was just not part of my plan. I was not going to be trapped in a kitchen.

It wasn’t as though my mother didn’t try to steer me toward domesticity.

“Mary Lou,” she’d say as she stirred at the stove, “come watch how I do this.”

“I’ll know how you did it when I eat it, Ma,” I’d respond, trying to dodge the bullet.

“No, you need to see how I make it. Someday you’ll be sorry you didn’t learn how to do this.”

“Ma, I told you I’m going to college. I don’t need to know how to cook.”

“Don’t be stupid. College people eat. What are you going to do when you get married?”

“I probably won’t get married and, if I do, I’ll find a man who’s not that into food. Or I’ll marry someone who likes to eat out,” I said, thinking of solutions on the spot. “Then again,” I mused, “maybe we’ll just eat at your house every night or my husband will cook like daddy.”

“Cook like your father?” she responded, her eyebrows leaping to the ceiling.

“I saw daddy make eggs for breakfast once.”

“It was probably when Nonna was dying and I was sitting vigil at the hospital.”

“Well, it was the only time I ever saw him cook, but you never know. Look at Bo.”

My father’s friend, Bo, made the best sopresatta in the world. To this day, not here or in Italy, have I ever found anything that could compare. Just the thought of walking past his house and spying the mini-salamis hanging by their strings air-drying in his attic makes me yearn for giardiniera with fresh Italian bread.

“I could marry a chef. Ma, did you know women can’t be chefs?” I said, trying to take the spotlight off my recalcitrance. “I read that all of the world’s great chefs are men.”

“Sure,” my mother agreed, “when it’s a man cooking they call him a chef and pay him big money. Mothers, who make great food every day, are just plain old cooks.”

“But, Mom,” I teased, pecking her on the cheek, “you get paid in love.”

“I know. I know. I’m a lucky woman,” she smiled. “I always wanted to be a wife and mother. I’m not complaining.”

You should complain I thought. If I were you, I’d be complaining big-time. What is so rewarding about having 'floors you could eat off of' or shining kitchen tile every week with Jubilee?
Perhaps none of this appealed to me because I was a disaster at it. Even when I tried, I got it all wrong.

Once I attempted to help my mother with the ironing, but I had no sooner dug into the bushel basket when she yanked the iron cord from its socket.

“Your father would never wear such wrinkly underwear plus you scorched a pillowcase. You’re impossible,” she railed, as she collapsed the ironing board with a thud almost amputating my fingers. If I’d known that a burned pillowcase would be my ticket to freedom, I’d have scorched from the get-go.

Mama was right though--I was impossibly incompetent. I couldn’t even hang laundry right. I let the sheets drag on the grass because I forgot to use the pole to prop up the clothesline. I hung the socks by the ankle instead of the toes. I mixed articles of clothing instead of grouping them. And my towel hanging was a complete disgrace.

“Look at how you hang towels,” she said with disgust. “You’re using two clothespins for every towel and wasting clothesline between them.”

“Ma, you make it sound like there’s a clothespin shortage.” And I wanted to add, you have enough clothesline for the entire family to hang themselves, but I knew when I was walking on thin ice so I kept my mouth shut.

“Keep it up, Mary Lou, and you’re going to be in real trouble. Try following directions, for a change. Put one towel on the line and put a clothespin in the left corner,” she demonstrated, “then instead of wasting another clothespin, take the second towel and lap it over the first a tiny bit and use another clothespin to hold the two together, then add another towel and do the same thing and keep going until you’ve hung all the towels together. For every two towels you should only use three clothespins. I’ll watch you finish this row.”

“Ma, you have got to be kidding? This is moronic,” I argued, “I can't believe you expect me to do this. Let's just throw on a few extra clothespins and really live it up.”

“Capo tosto! You're such a hardhead, you never listen,” she scolded. “You think everything’s a joke. You’re hanging things willy-nilly. Put all the handkerchiefs together, all the dishtowels together.” Lowering her voice to a stage whisper, she added, “And hang the underpants on the inside clothesline where the whole world can’t see them.”

“Mother,” I protested, “I think the neighbors know we wear underpants and brassieres. I mean, what’s the big secret?”

“Shame on you--panties are private, hide them on the inside. Put the sheets and towels on the outside lines so the sun can get at them, and quit being a smart-aleck.”

I hated the tasks I was given, and I was always deemed too young for the jobs I coveted.

I yearned to sit on the windowsill, my legs dangling in the house, my torso outside, my face reflected in the glass, and pull the window sash down on my lap to squeegee. Jenny Next Door used to sit almost totally outside (because she had a long torso and stubby legs) on her third floor sill holding onto the frame with one hand, squirting her vinegar spray bottle with the other while her long black hair blew in the breeze. Gawking from my backporch, letting my Popsicle drip on my pedalpushers, I was amazed at her courage, mesmerized by her dexterity. Once, and I am not kidding, she even stood up outside on the window sill to reach the upper sash, one hand holding on, the other swiping the rag back and forth over the glass, and all the while yelling at her sons down in the yard who were chasing each other with a hammer. It was like watching a tightrope walker cross the Grand Canyon. I was in awe.

“Ma,” I begged, “please, if you let me wash windows sitting half outside like Jenny Next Door, I promise I’ll make them sparkle.”

“No,” she said, “you have to be at least fourteen to do that. The last thing I need is to find your body crumpled in the gangway. People would never stop talking and you’d probably leave the windows streaky.”

“We live on the first floor, for crying out loud," I whined. "I'll pull the window down tight on my thighs. You just don't want me to have any fun."

“Knowing you, Sarah Bernhardt, you’ll fall out the window and crack your skull just to get attention, and I’ll get stuck sitting with you in the hospital. You can run around on window ledges all you want after you’re married and your husband has to worry about you."

I think she knew, before I knew, that my ineptitude was a subversive form of passive resistance. Somewhere deep inside my little noggin I must have realized that if I excelled at domesticity, I’d be signing my own death warrant. My mother, however, attributed my aversion to a “...combination of laziness and reading too many damn books.” She refused to accept that I was beyond domestication.

One of her last ditch efforts was registering me for eight weeks of sewing lessons at the Salvation Army Settlement House (commonly known as "The Sal" where mostly non-Catholic urchins ran amok) but my mother was desperate. Perhaps she thought she’d appeal to my creative side but, alas, I continually jammed the sewing machine while trying to fashion her Mother’s Day gift of a tea apron. I assured the teacher my mom did not need a tea apron because she only drank coffee, but Mrs. Muscolino snarled, “You are making a tea apron and your mother will love it!” In the eleventh hour, when I burned out the pedal on the ancient sewing machine, Mrs. M took pity and gave me a needle and thread, but I had no luck with that either so I opted to staple on the waist ties. I considered glue, but I figured staples would hold up better knowing my mother’s propensity for obsessive laundering.

My teacher checked over the finished product. “What exactly do you think your mother is going to be putting in this pocket? It’s huge--almost as big as the apron. And the waist ties? They’re supposed to be equal in length.” Whipping off her measuring tape from around her neck, she said, “One of the ties is four inches, the-other-is-fourteen. Unless your mother has the waist of a wasp, this will never fit her.”

“Well, if the ties are too short she can give it to the lady upstairs. Her baby could use it as a bib,” I suggested, vowing never to sew another blessed thing as long as I lived.

On Mother’s Day, after we gobbled up the delicious frittata my mother cooked for the special occasion, my brother, sister and I brought out our presents.

She opened my brother’s first.

He gave her a breathtaking Our Lady of Fatima statue. Our Lady was standing on a blue plastic ball which my brother said was the world. I could see how he thought that, because it was round like the Earth, but it was all blue and everyone knew the Earth was only two-thirds water.

“I don’t think it’s the Earth, there’s no land,” I snapped, jealous that my mother was acting like he gave her a relic from the Vatican. Shooting me a dirty look and completely ignoring my input, my brother played his trump card.

“Ma, twist the globe—it opens.” Sure enough, she twisted and this huge black rosary fell out of the Earth. “Anthony,” she exclaimed, “I will treasure this forever.” He stood there beaming like an altar boy who gets to lead the casket out of the church after a funeral. I felt like snapping Our Lady off her perch, but I was not going to commit a Mortal Sin and risk going to Hell because of my brother. It was always obvious my mother adored him just because he was her first-born and only son. As far as she was concerned he could do no wrong, and she rarely punished him for anything. Once I saw him actually walk into our kitchen with his muddy baseball spikes on, and she barely yelled at him. The truth was if he had given her an elbow macaroni necklace, she’d have been just as over the moon so I pretended I didn’t care, but secretly I had to admit it was a very cool present. The way the Earth twisted open around the equator, and the giant rosary beads fell out, was extremely impressive.

My sister gave mom a floral handkerchief on which she’d embroidered MOTHER. I didn’t think it was a big deal but my mother said, “Oh, Anna, this is just what I needed. How did you know?” as though she didn’t have an entire drawer full of cleaned and pressed hankies.

“Open mine, open mine, Ma, I sewed it just for you at the Sal,” I said, thinking perhaps I should have evened out the waist ties before I wrapped it. My mother opened the box and pulled out the apron from the tissue paper. “Ohhhhh, isn’t this an interesting apron,” she said, as though I’d given her a stupid pencil holder made out of a ridiculous tuna fish can.

My brother, still smarting from the fact that I had pointed out Our Lady of Fatima was not standing on the Earth, interjected, “Apron? It looks like a cockeyed shopping bag, if you ask me. She didn’t even sew it—it’s a bunch of staples.”

“No one asked you, Anthony,” my mother said, shooting him the evil eye. “I’m sure your sister worked very hard on this.”

As my father sat at the kitchen table with a “what the hell is that” look on his face (he was into details like measuring and neatness) my mother looked up from the tea apron and said quietly, “Mary Lou, you must stay on the Honor Roll and do well in school. You will never make it as a housewife.”

After the apron caper, little was asked of me outside of picking up dog crap in our yard, running errands and drying dishes.

I could see I was a huge disappointment to my mother. She was getting very close to the final stage of grief, acceptance. Now I seriously began to beg for God's help with my domestic disability.

"Dear God, please send me a rich husband so we can have a housekeeper. My mother has told You over and over 'God, this girl will never learn to do housework!' and You know she is right. It would be nice if he's handsome, smart and likes to have fun too but, really, the maid thing is the most important. There's no hurry, You know I have to go to college first, but please start looking for him now because everyone says it's going to be impossible to find a husband interested in a wife who only wants to read books all day. If you can't find a rich one for me, at least find one who doesn't care about home-cooked food. I'm willing to do a little dusting and vacuuming plus I'll be happy to work as a nurse or a teacher. Please bless my family and friends and our dog Skipper. Thank You for listening. AMEN."

I said that prayer often, and it worked, sort of. God sent me a husband with all my requirements, except he was not rich, but, here is where I knew God was really on the job, my mother-in-law had been such a horrible cook my husband thought Cheerios with a banana was a gourmet dinner. If I so much as made toast, which I didn’t do often, he was grateful. Thanks to peanut butter and jelly, lunchmeat, cereal and carry-out, we did just fine. Occasionally I went all out and cooked, but I always seemed to miss the mark.

In a fit of madness one day, I decided to make fried smelts for supper. I have no idea what possessed me, but it sounded easy enough when I overheard someone say you just put oil in a frying pan and throw in the smelts. Had I done this and stayed in the kitchen, we might have actually had a home-cooked meal. Instead, someone called needing a phone number which I went upstairs to retrieve. As I stood on the landing returning to the kitchen, phone number in hand, black smoke billowed up the stairwell. Taking a deep breath, I flew down the stairs and out the front door, sooty and shaking.

Standing across the street from my house, I saw the smoke pouring out the front door,and I just knew my husband was going to be furious. Several months earlier, he had been really aggravated when the microwave door blew off while I was sterilizing my contact lenses, and that little caper had only involved replacing the microwave and patching a hole in the wall. I was sure he’d be over the top if the house burned down. Fortunately a neighbor called the Fire Department and the hook and ladder arrived minutes before my husband pulled up and jumped out of his car leaving it in the middle of the street.

At least a dozen firemen charged through the front door, giant boots flapping, pick-axes at the ready, smashing out windows.

“What happened? Where’s my wife?” my husband shouted as I came charging across the street to explain.

“Are you OK? What happened?” he hollered amidst the chaos. “Did something explode? Were you smoking? What’s going on?” he asked as the flames waved hello out the kitchen window.

Just then the fire chief, in a huge rubber raincoat with Chicago Fire Department emblazoned on the back, walked toward us.

“Don’t worry, sir. We’ve got this under control,” he reassured my husband. “It’s a run-of-the-mill kitchen fire—lot of smoke, not too much damage. We knocked out some windows and the cabinets are shot, but it looks worse than it is.” Turning to me, he said, “And you, little woman, better be more careful when you’re cooking dinner.”

“Cooking dinner?” my husband choked out, his eyes the size of bowling balls. “You were cooking? In the kitchen? At the stove?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I was frying smelts.”

“Frying smelts? Like fish smelts?”

“Yes, I wanted to surprise you by frying smelts.”

“What in God’s name were you thinking? Smelts? We've never had smelts. I cannot believe that you were trying to cook smelts?”

I was getting a bit annoyed with his shock and disbelief, acting like I’d never stepped foot in the kitchen. Was he forgetting I had almost savant-like talents for making chicken wings? Was he blocking on the fact that one Thanksgiving I cooked a turkey which wreaked havoc with everyone's digestive tract? It was not as though I never cooked.

“I wanted to surprise you by frying smelts,” I sniveled. “They’re not that hard to make.”

“Not that hard? You’ve practically burned down the freakin’ house. Whatever possessed you?”

“I don’t know,” I said shrugging, “all of a sudden I felt like cooking. Is that such a sin?” I wanted to add “you ungrateful bastard” but the neighbors were crowding around, jumping over the fire hoses ostensibly to comfort us, but really to be nosy. “I can’t explain what came over me."

A year prior when we were having the kitchen redone, the remodeler was peppering me with questions. “So what kind of fridge do you want? Side by side, freezer at the top, ice-maker on the door? Cold water dispenser? Twenty-four cubic feet?”

“Look,” I had told him, “I just want a plain old refrigerator. I’m not really into kitchens. If I had my way, we’d turn this room into a den, but my husband says that would hurt the resale value.”

“Yeah,” he had said, “most buyers are lookin' for a kitchen."

So we put in the new kitchen, and now it was in shambles.

“Promise me, look into my eyes and promise me you’ll never do this again,” my husband pleaded as the firemen gave the all-clear sign. “You could have been incinerated.”

“OK, alright, I promise,” I assured him. “If the smelts had turned out, I was going to bake you a birthday cake next week but now I won’t even bother.”

“Good. That’s why God invented bakeries."

About six months later, in another fit of impulsive recklessness, I decided to make an egg.

“Honey,” I yelled, “have you seen my frying pan? I’ve searched everywhere.”

With a look of alarm, he walked into the kitchen. “Yes, I did see the frying pan. Do you remember when you set the house on fire frying smelts?”

His tone of voice suggested I was some kind of demented pyromaniac.

“Well, during the blaze,” he continued in a Mr. Roger’s voice, “the firemen threw the skillet out the window. When the snow melted in the Spring, I found the pan and threw it in the garbage. Is this the first time you’ve noticed it’s gone?”

Apparently he’d forgotten he made me promise not to cook so I ignored his snide remark.

“Thanks a lot," I snipped, highly insulted. "You at least could have told me it was trashed. That was a very expensive frying pan I got for my shower and I hardly used it. Now I have to go to the hardware store and buy another one. How am I supposed to make an egg with no pan?"

“You're not supposed to--grab your coat," he said. "We’re going out for breakfast.”

Mama, reading those damn books paid off after all.

MLSE 05/09

Trapped by Circumstance

2009-04-20T19:20:00.022-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

“I don’t need a University of Wisconsin directory. I need a talented young lady like you to work for me,” the man on the other end of the line phone flirted.

Pushing the most recent edition of the UW Alumni Directory, dialing telephone numbers non-stop--busy signals, hang ups, rude refusals--made this alum’s response both intriguing and enticing.

Quickly perusing the bio of my potential savior, I noted I was talking to the owner of a well-known photography studio with an impressive Michigan Avenue address.

“Sir,” I responded, “I’ve had my offer of this directory refused, but I have never had such a creative rejection.”

“Rejection? Young lady, you come see me tomorrow and you’re hired!” he boomed. I had no idea what his job offer entailed, but escaping the hellhole of tele-marketing was too tempting.

“I will be at your office tomorrow right after work—at 5:15,” I said, wondering how I’d make it running in high heels from Wacker Drive to 620 North Michigan.

“See you then.”

From sweatshop to Magnificent Mile in one five-minute phone call? Maybe this would be the Chicago version of Lana Turner’s Hollywood discovery at Schwab’s Drug Store. I prayed I was worthy of the opportunity. I was the luckiest girl in the world.

The next afternoon I rushed up Michigan Avenue to Valhalla dreaming of working for this prestigious operation. With a bit of luck, I might be able to continue on a part-time basis when I started college in the Fall.

As I ran up the street, I thought of the time I had served at Rockwell Publishing with a hundred quasi-literate dialers, working on commission, elbow to elbow in a boiler room dive hawking this incredibly detailed piece of drek. Even on a good day, it was impossible to make a living wage, never mind my college tuition. Hour after hour we dialed Wisconsin graduates with a canned pitch designed to appeal to memories of their glory days. The spiel was lame, but it was worth listening to if only to hear our preposterous rebuttals when an alum was reluctant to waste his money.

If, for instance, someone said he couldn’t afford the directory because his house burned down, and he was destitute plus he just found out his wife was the arsonist who wanted him incinerated to collect on his insurance so she could run off with his best friend, I would have a perfect response. Even if he added he was contemplating suicide.

“Sir, now more than ever you need this directory. You cannot pass on this incredible resource. It is filled with names of contractors who will rebuild your torched house, stockbrokers who will make you wealthy, financial planners, divorce lawyers, criminal attorneys who will put your ex-wife in jail, insurance agents who will write a policy that will make your spouse wish she’d not acted so precipitously, and psychiatrists who will help you deal with the pain of betrayal by your best friend. And the support team will all be Badgers eager to assist a Badger brother.”

If, by then, the alum wasn’t begging for a copy of the directory, I’d continue.

“You will also have this handy referral to help you when you begin dating—hundreds of educated women who need not make money in the sleazy way your soon to be ex-wife tried, women who will renew your will to live. Cultured women who share your love for your alma mater bonding with you during Wisconsin football games.

I guarantee you will regret not having purchased the leather-bound edition since your copy will be dog-eared from constant use reaching out to your Badger family who share your Badger pride!”

Fortunately most of the alumni didn’t have such complicated problems, but I did use some variation of the above on most solicitations. Sterling Catch, who offered me the job, hadn't even heard my dazzling sales pitch. What impressed him so that he wanted to hire me sight unseen? Was it my precise diction? My sophisticated delivery? Did he detect the conviction in my voice?

But it didn't matter. Right then, as I hurried along Boul Mich, my focus was on my lucky break.

The Michigan Avenue address reeked of status and respectability. Mr. Catch awaited my arrival and, after a cursory interview of sorts, said I could start the next day. Having asked nothing about my education and/or experience, I figured he was just an excellent judge of raw talent. He was, however, a bit vague about my job responsibilities.

He said, “I am designing a position just for you. While I work out the details, you can familiarize yourself with the studio and staff.”

A job. created. specifically. for me? I was awestruck.

For the first week.

Then I realized Mr. Catch was the anti-Statue of Liberty, welcoming the hungry and tired, as well as the naive and stupid. He preyed on vulnerable souls.

Apparently years before, he had been the photographer of choice for the North Shore’s upper crust, but his glory days were behind him. After succumbing to too many glasses of bubbly and a plethora of sweet, young things, he was left only with arrogance and his extraordinary sales skills. Indeed, if Mother Teresa herself appeared in his studio, he would have considered seducing her. If she failed to recognize her good fortune, he would interpret the rebuff as her loss, and immediately shift into Super Salesman mode to offer her, at a greatly reduced price because of the sheer volume, individual portrait sittings of every forlorn wretch who had ever crossed her path.

Something in his life had gone awry resulting in vanities and character defects so enormous that even an Oprah intervention would have been wasted. His targeting the pathetic resulted in a staff that perfectly reflected his predatory proclivity.

Mandi was the Anna Nicole look-alike receptionist who had been married and divorced so many times she stopped changing her last name because of all the paperwork. She was late a lot and had many court dates. Her complex child-support and alimony arrangements, she said, required frequent tweaking, but I suspected the chronic tardiness and incessant lawyers’ calls had more to do with her nighttime activities.

Mort, the genius retoucher, smoked in the darkroom, and, I reckoned, drank the photo- developing chemicals in there as well. Like a mole, he ventured out of the darkness only occasionally, blurry-eyed and shaky, searching for “… that bastard Sterling!” who routinely demanded he do the impossible.

Theodosia Goodsell was a munchkin widow who suffered ill-health and was particularly vexed by self-diagnosed “neuralgia” which caused her to disappear for days on end. Only gallons of gin soothed her pain. On her good days, that is, the days she showed up in working condition, Mrs. Goodsell’s sales skills put even Mr. Catch's to shame. Her job was to call on the recently bereaved to offer them a once in a lifetime opportunity to order an outrageously overpriced oil painting of their newly deceased loved one. Unfortunately though, her frequent slugs from her thermos of “cough syrup” while telephoning potential patsies led to more than a few bizarre scenarios.

Irene, the resident artist, who executed these paintings was responsible for making the bereaved’s dream a reality. She spoke five languages fluently, but only enough English to keep us confused. Her salad days were spent fleeing the Nazis and now, because she’d lost everything in the war, including her academic credentials, she was reduced to painting over huge enlargements of snapshots. Often the head of the subject in the original photo was pea-size and Mr. Catch would insist Mort blow it up to 16x20, thereby obliterating the facial features. It was Irene’s job to paint a face that would be somewhat recognizable to the widow. Much of the time, not because of Irene's lack of expertise, the finished portrait would make a paint-by-number picture look like an Art Institute masterpiece.

Completing the off the wall cast was Evelyn Bates, a society woman who’d fallen on hard times. She never quite came to grips with the fact that life had relegated her to soliciting portrait sales from survivors of the dead. She took great pains to maintain the pretense of working “just to keep busy…” but her hopelessly outdated wardrobe, and tales of forty-years past soirees signaled her denial.

It was an unusual group, but even more peculiar was the fact that there was no photgrapher on staff. Instead we had a series of photographers who would apply for the "vacancy," work like demons during their unpaid month-long "audition" photgraphing weddings, bar mitzvahs and debutante debuts and pray they'd get hired. They would cover a variety of events so Mr. Catch could get a "valid sample of your work," but, alas, at the end of a month they never quite had what it took. "You are a competent photographer, but you're missing that 'certain something' I can't explain," Mr. Catch would say. "You're just not a good fit for my North Shore clientele." It was a brilliant never-fail scam.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari had nothing on us--a talented addict, a wacko single mother, an ancient alcoholic widow, a delusional has-been with a dying husband, a Displaced Person who had lost everything in the war, an "auditioning" photographer and a broke college kid.

Trapped by circumstance, desperate for work, we were a captive crew ripe for exploitation which Mr. Catch scented like a foxhound.

Outside of the events captured by the "probationary" photographers, the dearly departed were the headliners. In the days when Kodak Brownie box cameras were considered high tech, when certain socio-economic groups cherished a snapshot of a loved one the way blue-bloods revered a John Singer Sargent portrait, Mr. Catch carved a predatory niche, and he never looked back.

MLSE 04/09

Not Every Woman's Dream

2009-03-25T12:29:00.013-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

Long ago there lived a girl named Thumbelisa who did not want to be a bride. Actually, it was not being a bride that bothered her, it was marriage, but Thumbelisa lived at a time when most maidens became brides, when it was very important to be married.

Thumbelisa had studied the ancient civilizations and was not impressed with the Greeks who believed it “…a woman’s duty to remain indoors and be obedient to her husband” nor with the Romans who declared “…a woman had no rights. In law she remained forever a child.” Then there was the Jewish law that said “…a wife was owned by her husband.” Even when she dismissed these notions as relics of the past and set aside the biblical teachings that ‘a wife was to submit to a husband,’ ‘he will dominate you,’ ‘you are subject to him,’ she was still looking at wives in the village who were overworked, underappreciated, overwhelmed and undervalued. No, Thumbelisa thought, this is not something I want to do.

Her culture, however, dictated three choices--nun, spinster, wife. Exist under God’s thumb, suffer under the King’s thumb or languish under the Master’s thumb? Name your poison. She couldn’t fathom being dictated to by the Pope, perishing in a convent, much less subsisting as an old maid in the kingdom forced to live with her parents forever, so, by default, it was marriage. But, adding insult to injury, Thumbelisa had not even a poor prospect, let alone a worthwhile catch. “Settling” was out of the question. Bad enough to shoot her future from a cannon without tethering it to someone she’d “settled for” ‘til death do us part.'

She’d had a bit of a reprieve because the King believed every maiden should be educated—an unusual notion in the old kingdom. His theory was a maiden needed an education to fall back on in case she married a louse, not the most sterling of reasons to pursue learning, but she was not one to stand on ceremony. School bought her time, and she was grateful. Her family had always said, “Oh, she’s the one into books, not boys…” as though she had to choose between knowledge and knuckleheads, but schooling did postpone the moment of truth. Now, though, her education was complete, and she was eligible.

Thumbelisa considered running away, but leaving the village was treasonous. She prayed to St. Quirinus, Patron Saint of Obsessions, since that was what her problem had become. In a state of rapture, a vision appeared and spoke. “It is not the thought of sharing thy life that that thou fearest—it is the thought of having a husband! Get married,” the voice commanded, “and pretendeth thou are not. Catholics believeth in denial.”

Thumbelisa thought the solution peculiar, but she could not be choosy. She would get married and, in her mind, pretend she was not. She would search for a man who would become her best friend. They would fall in love, and, before she could back out, walk the plank of matrimony.

She switched her allegiance to St. Raphael, Patron Saint of Friendships and Good Marriages. If this plan was to work, if she was not to get cold feet, a short engagement was essential followed by a swift wedding. Then she would have a friend, a partner, a husband, and the dreaded word would no longer strike fear in her heart.

She called upon St. Jude, Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes, and before she’d even finished her Nine-Day Never Fail Fast, a prospect appeared.

A man whose values aligned with hers like tumblers in a lock giving access to a space that was safe and comforting. A person whose manner suggested he had no interest in using his thumbs for anything other than a gesture of encouragement. A friend who allowed her to be herself, who prized an independent woman, who wanted an equal partner. That--he was an impressive gentleman--handsome, tall and distinguished—was a bonus. Best of all, he had a great sense of humor--her knight without the armor.

She began to consider taking that leap of faith.

She was not so naïve to think him perfect. She’d been raised by King Perfect and that was a harrowing journey. No, this man was better than perfect—he was perfect for her.

From the outside, they were almost a comic study in opposites—tall/short, blonde/brunette, WASP/ethnic, agnostic/Catholic, reserved/brash. Yet though they differed in background, politics, personalities and demeanor, their hearts were of the same mold. They shared many a shortcoming, complementary ones too. But neither ever entertained the notion of changing the other, in part because they were smart enough to know that would be futile, but more importantly, because they loved and accepted the other just the way they were.

Her friend didn’t always understand her fears--some funny, some not so—but he respected them.

“If we wed," she would remind him, "I must keep my checking account, have my own coach, and work outside the castle. I will also maintain my friendships with my maids.”

That’s up to thee, if that is what thou desires, he would respond, wondering how the seed of dread had been planted.

“Also," she would persist, “Can we vow to love, honor and respect, instead of obey?”

“It is called wedlock," he tried to reassure, "but you will not be imprisoned."

If Thumbelisa survived one hundred plagues, she knew she could not find a finer man.
He knew she carried a lot of baggage; he had met the royal clan. She must have had, he thought, a lot of help packing those bags. He trusted she would divest herself of some of the items when she realized they no longer fit, if indeed, they ever had.

She had found the perfect traveling companion. For the first time, she trusted the journey could be equally rewarding.
Critical details remained. It was customary to have long engagements--less than a year raised eyebrows, but if she couldn't get past the betrothal quickly, she would never make it down the aisle and yet another hurdle remained--the King's imprimatur.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” the King inquired, when the Knight asked for Thumbelisa’s hand in marriage. “She is an awful lot of trouble, very strong willed--almost impossible to control, challenges my orders," he ranted. "You will have your hands full. Are you up to the task?”

Those comments gave the Knight a clue as to why her dread was so deep. He understood why she wanted the hoopla over quickly--how a long waiting period might provoke anxiety, cause her to doubt her choice, allow her fears to implode.
Yes, the King was vexed at the suddeness of the wedding, but he appreciated divesting himself of the thorn in his side.

They would wed the following month. The event would be put together in record time with just enough trappings to keep the villagers' tongues from wagging. There would be no engagement ring, a borrowed wedding gown, no bridesmaids, simple gold bands, a banquet small by kingdom standards. They would omit the word "obey."

The eve preceding the nuptials,though, King Perfect, who was not happy with the plans, ordered Thumbelisa to tell the Knight to get rid of his beard for the ceremony. “I would prefer a clean-shaven face,” he declared.

“He is perfect just the way he is,” she smiled.

The morning after as church bells clanged, Thumbelisa handed over her heart.

THE END

MSLE 03/09

Don't We All and Haven't We Always

2009-02-28T14:43:00.003-06:00

Mary Lou Edwards

When I write about my father, the picture painted can be harsh. It was a thorny relationship, I joked, because we were twins born thirty-three years apart—mirror images who shared generous hearts and quick minds, but also iron wills and fierce tempers—a volatile combination. Perhaps a lithograph, where oil and water don’t mix, better describes the bond, but I prefer heavy oils which never fade.

All paintings require contrast and balance, emphasis and proportion and perspective. No small task to see a picture when one is in it, distance oneself when love blurs the vision, or appreciate a child’s worm’s-eye view for what it is—justified, but limited.

The brush of humor blends rough lines, the stroke of wit softens glaring reality but, without perspective, the finished product is one-dimensional, without texture or shape. Creating the illusion of three dimensions by applying layers of heavy oil, scraped from the palette of emotion with tints of laughter and shades of hurt, is no substitute. Though impaired eyesight was corrected early on—I wore eyeglasses from third grade—it would take much longer for me to recognize my heart’s limited perception, clouded by circumstance, distorted by pain.

Age, however, changed my vision, allowed me to fly above the landscape, to get a bird’s-eye view of a sub-culture which rigidly defined the male role as man of the house, breadwinner, ruler of the roost and king of the castle. A culture that not only accepted certain behaviors, but expected and required them as well. A culture that revered rules, and valued authority over expression—where shame and fear kept people in line—where life was serious, tough, leaving no room for mistakes, risks or wrong moves—where there were no second chances.

New lenses improved my mind-sight. My expanded point of view neither justified nor defended; it simply clarified and validated. And that clarification and validation shifted me toward the light, toward understanding and compassion, allowing me to inch forward.

“At that time, in that culture” does not excuse the absurd or rationalize the unacceptable, but it does allow me to see the humanity of the man behind the behavior, a man who did his best with what he knew. And except for the psychopaths of the world, don’t we all and haven’t we always?

The mother who had her kid's feet x-rayed in the shoe store to insure a good fit, the grandmother who cradled the baby in her arms in the passenger seat, the parents who told their sons and daughters they weren’t smart enough, good enough, fill-in-the-blank enough to make them stronger, more resilient to life’s vagaries, were acting out of concern and love.

The doctor who prescribed a stiff cocktail for the overwhelmed patient, the experts who advised parents who’d lost children not to talk about it, not to bring it up, to just move on with their lives, the priests who counseled women to stay in abusive marriages believed they were operating in everyone’s best interests.

Mistakes made in the name of progress, in the name of honor, in the name of God, in the name of love.

Wearing my “at that time, in that culture” spectacles, I see that long before one is a parent, one is a human being with often too little time, too many demands, too much responsibility and too few resources. I realize some of life’s best lessons are about what not to do. I celebrate, through story-telling, the hilarious parts of my experience and I document the painful to weaken its hold.

Most importantly, I no longer evaluate yesterday’s mistakes under today’s microscope.

I accept that once I know better, I am obligated to do better. I am committed to not repeating errors, to speaking out when my gut tells me something is amiss. And if I miss such an opportunity, I pray my children know I did the best I could and extract every last bit of humor from my less than perfect parenting.

I hope they look back to the past to understand and appreciate, but not get stuck staring. I pray they have the moxie to paint their own pictures and the courage to include a self-portrait.

And finally I trust they will take responsibility for their lives and understand that, after all is said and done, they are the curators of their own collections.
MLSE 2/09

The Sleeping Baby

2009-01-26T09:25:00.021-06:00

Mary Lou Edwards

It made no sense.

Girls didn’t get kicked out of school.

Even boys didn’t get kicked out of school unless they were totally incorrigible, and incorrigible was loosely defined.

Bean the Fiend practically killed someone with a baseball bat, and he didn’t even get suspended. They said it was because the guy he almost murdered was colored, and colored people were not supposed to come into Bridgeport so he was really asking for it. But my dad said no human being deserved such treatment, and the incident was a dirty shame. Nothing happened to Bean and he should have been history.

Joey the Nut torched someone’s garage: he wasn’t expelled either. The grapevine had it that graduation was only a couple of weeks away so the nuns didn’t want to bother, but I suspected they were worried the convent would go up in flames if they dared get rid of him.

Two criminals skated, and the nuns wanted to throw me out?

The day before, Sister Margaret Anne, my six foot, seventh grade teacher, who sported more than a bit of a mustache, had clomped over to my desk in her huge black wing-tips and handed me an envelope. “Give this to your parents,” she barked. “I want to see them as soon as possible.”

In the days before teacher conferences were routine, when dads worked double shifts, when moms made tri-colored Jell-O molds and baked cookies from scratch, having your mother, never mind both parents, called to school was equivalent to an executioner’s drum roll.

I sat at the kitchen table preparing myself for something awful, but this?

“You finally did it,” my father announced as he hung up his jacket and pulled out a chair at the table. He and my mother had just returned from the dreaded meeting. “You got yourself thrown out.” Lowering his voice so as not to wake my sister, he continued, “Yes, the nuns have finally had enough of your big mouth. They want you gone—out of there—by the end of the school year. Shaking his head and raising his eyebrows with a you-just-never-learn look, he added, “I’ve told you a million times to watch your step.”

“Jim, stop it,” my mother said as she put away cooking utensils. I could not believe mom was fooling around putting away the dinner dishes at a time like this. Apparently she’d yet to realize my disgrace would instantly qualify her for The Mothers Who Failed Hall of Shame.

My heart was thumping; I thought my pajama top would fly up in my face. I knew my father was not joking because he had almost no sense of humor plus he had warned me, “Your smart mouth will get you in trouble one day. Mark my words.” It was clear that a girl who spoke out had a major disability. Sooner or later, she was guaranteed her Waterloo.

But it seemed so drastic.

True, I had gotten more than my share of checkmarks in kindergarten, but, for the most part, I had cleaned up my act. Gone was the girl who would not put her head down on her desk and rest quietly, wait her turn patiently at lavatory time or play well with others. I still had a few flaws, but not enough to warrant capital punishment. My grades were excellent. I’d read my brother’s copy of All Quiet on the Western Front by the time I was ten. I wasn’t perfect, but, unlike a lot of the troublemakers in my room, I never had to put money in the Mission Box for The Pagan Babies in China.

OK, so I finished my assignments lickety-split and spent time whispering and passing notes until the slow-pokes were done with their work. But I was also the one who helped other kids diagram sentences and drilled them on the state capitals. This was my thank-you for grading all of Sister’s spelling tests every week, for putting all the arithmetic problems on the blackboard every morning? This was my reward for spending my daily recess down in first grade dressing the brats who couldn’t even tell their right boot from their left? Would they really dump their star funeral mass singer who chanted countless dirges whenever another parishioner kicked the bucket?

My mother, noting the shock waves of disbelief and anger roll across my face, intervened.
“Jim, stop this nonsense,” she insisted, “tell her the truth.” My mom was trying to pull me in off the ledge my father was greasing.

As she stood at the sink filling Skippy's water bowl, she said, “You are being double promoted because of some test your class took. Your scores were very high.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you, Mary?” my dad interrupted. “She’s a giant pain and they want her out of their hair.”

Just before the meeting, my mother had taken a cake out of the oven and now she put it on the table. She believed food always made things better.

“Yes, they’re sick of putting up with her,” he said, while I sat there totally bewildered. “Sister didn’t want to be blunt, but I could read between the lines. She was trying to be nice.”

“No, that’s not true,” my mother shot back, cutting an extra big piece of chocolate cake for me. “Daddy’s just saying that because he doesn’t want you to think “who you are.” He doesn’t want you to get a big head,” my mom whispered, as though this all made perfect sense.

Was my father practicing his version of that old Italian adage about only kissing sleeping babies? If you kissed a baby when she was awake she might think she was really special, really important, and, God forbid, think “who she was.”

Sensing my confusion and getting impatient with this mind-game, my mother picked up the empty plates and put them in the sink. “Listen to me. Sister Benedict said you need to be challenged. On Monday, you’ll go to 8th grade for two months and then graduate. Now get to bed. It’s late.”

The drama was over, just like that. No one asked if this was something I’d like to do or what did I think. No discussion, just get to bed.

The thumping of my heart subsided, but the spinning in my head had only just begun. The master of mixed messages had added another chapter, Planting the Seeds of Self-Doubt, to his best-seller How to Destroy Your Kid’s Confidence.

For graduation I was given a stunning Art Deco wristwatch with a tiny diamond on each corner of its beautiful hinged platinum case. The square white-gold face had small, swirly Arabic numerals at 12, 3, 6 and 9. My mother confided that she’d objected to the expense, but my dad told her my present had to be really special to show me how pleased they were of my achievement. Why couldn’t he have told me that? Why couldn’t he just say, “Your mother and I are really proud of you.”

And then it occurred to me that, maybe as a baby, he'd only been kissed when he was sleeping.

MLSE 01/09

Out of Respect

2008-11-25T16:58:00.008-06:00

Mary Lou Edwards

I’ve had my share of culture shock as I traipsed through Europe, the Americas and the Middle East but nothing could have prepared me for my first encounter with a burqua clad woman on a flight from Rome to Beirut. Not pictures, not books, not stories—nothing could have prepared me for the searing image of the ghostly apparition.

A fastidiously groomed man in a Savile Row suit, Gucci loafers and a Rolex guided the ethereal shroud to its seat. Swathed head to ankle in a voluminous black cover replete with a plastic Darth Vader-like screen masking its face, it seemed like a character in “Night of the Living Dead.”

When the meal was served, her gloved hands flipped part of her veil forward creating a mini-tent under which she ate. Except for her feet, you would never have known it was a person—no skin, no arms nor legs, no voice.

I was simultaneously fascinated and repulsed though I’m not sure which part of the scene prompted my visceral reaction. After all, growing up with nuns exposed me to some very unusual attire and I was steeped in a religion which routinely vilified women as “occasions of sin” so it wasn’t as though misogyny was exactly foreign to me.

Maybe it was the proud, pristine peacock steering the faceless, formless figure down the aisle. Maybe it was the innocent faces of their children who would soon learn that, at puberty, the boys would become men and the girls would disappear. Maybe it was the realization that a change in geography could make any woman, myself included, an erasable nonentity. Maybe it was the neon jelly slippers that peeked from beneath the capacious black robe. Whatever it was, it overwhelmed my heart.

In Beirut, I shared the encounter with my Egyptian friend, Mohsen. “Ah,” he explained, “we Arabs respect virtuous women—that is why we require the burqua.”

Oh. My. God.

Years later, my daughter told me about helping to plan a Take Back the Night rally on campus.
“Hundreds of students,” she explained, “will protest violence against women. We’re going to chant ‘Yes means yes! No means no! However we dress, Wherever we go!’ It’s about victimization,” she declared, “about empowerment, too. But really, Mom, I think it’s about respect, don’t you?”

“Yes, Lia, it is about respect,” I replied, flashing back to the image tattooed on my soul so long ago. “Americans don’t always get it right, but we do keep trying.”

MLSE 11/08

Elephants in Limbo

2008-10-29T17:59:00.026-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

Long before learning to read books, I learned to read people. Having a father with a mercurial temperament was the catalyst, no doubt. Being on hyper-alert for glaring eyes, exasperated sighs, raised voices—the phonics of dysfunction—often, but not always, kept one out of harm’s way.

A subskill necessary for people-reading fluency was learning not to ask questions. Way before ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ became a part of America’s political lexicon, I’d been trained in ‘Don’t You Dare Ask’—a skill I so perfected a mere raised eyebrow, a simple sideward glance was enough to stop. right. there.

The list of verboten topics was endless encompassing everything from family history to current events. Further complicating the problem was the fact that no map existed showing where the land mines lay and an innocuous inquiry often detonated an explosion of confusion that neither education nor therapy could heal.

“Dad,” I asked as I knelt at the family plot in Mt. Carmel Cemetery, “why are Little Nonna and your brother and sisters buried here while Grandpa is all by himself at Oak Ridge Cemetery which isn’t even Catholic?”

“You’re supposed to be praying for the dead not asking nosy questions that are none of your business,” he said in his usual you-are-such-a-pain-in-the-neck voice as he tried to shimmy the old gravestone the years had pushed off center.

“Mom, why doesn’t Daddy talk to Uncle Joe?” I asked, after observing at a family wedding reception that some of my favorite relatives were seated at tables at the opposite end of the banquet hall.

“If you were supposed to know, Miss Nosy Pants, we’d tell you,” she answered, staring straight ahead.

Once I was peering through our venetian blinds watching the public school kids walk by on their way to class. My brother, sister and I had the day off in honor of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. “Why do mostly colored kids go to Ward School and only white kids go to St. Jerome’s?” I wondered aloud.

“I suppose because they’re not Catholic,” my Mother said in a tone of voice suggesting I should be on my hands and knees helping her wax the kitchen floor instead of staring out the window.

Ignoring the hint, I persisted. “Aren’t they worried about going to Hell?”

“I guess not. Go do something useful.”

“What’s in a CONDEMNED movie that makes it bad?” I asked my friend, Janice, as I searched The Motion Picture Ratings in The New World, the Catholic weekly newspaper, hoping to find a movie my parents would let us see. "Don't even look at the Condemneds," she warned, "or we'll be in big trouble." Then she added, with cantaloupe-sized eyes, "We're not even supposed to be talking about this stuff, but my aunt said Baby Doll is a dirty movie and that's why it's a C."

After years of “don’t be so nosy” and “mind your own business," hundreds of grimaces and rolling eyeballs, I came to believe that not only our living room, but everywhere I roamed, was a veritable elephant graveyard.

Would I never know why Uncle Salvatore lived in a hospital, what Uncle Gio died from or why colored people lived two blocks away but never crossed Wentworth Avenue? Even Nancy Drew, my favorite girl detective, would have been hard-pressed to solve these mysteries with every question stonewalled.

Years later, I could really relate to the rabbi who prayed at the Wailing Wall for a half century with no reward. “What does it feel like to pray for peace at the Wailing Wall for fifty years only to have your country in constant conflict?” he was asked. “It feels like I’m talking to a fucking wall,” he said.

I sympathized with the rabbi, but at least he’d never been subjected to the Sister Adorers of the Most Precious Blood. Trained as human walls to not recognize a straight answer, they specialized in teaching a unique blend of God’s Word and bizarre folktale.

As a student, I tried very hard to restrict my questioning to only those issues which truly baffled me since these harridans had no compunction about playing the ‘God will send you to Hell’ card to keep kids in line. There were times, though, when I just really had to take the risk and at least try to get some of this straightened out. I knew I couldn't get to the bottom of everything at once lest I be expelled as a "troublemaker" and shipped to the public school so I'd judiciously drop a question here and there.

“Sister,” I asked when she was not on the warpath, “why would God punish a baby and send it to Limbo forever just because she died before she was baptized?”

"God knows what is best for us," Sister said.

“Sister, if your body must be buried in a consecrated cemetery in order to go to heaven, what happens to people who burn in fires? What happens if someone dies in the forest and an animal eats him? Does he go to Hell?”

"Finish your assignment instead of worrying about animals in the forest."

“Sister, what happened to the Christian martyrs who were eaten alive by the lions in Rome? What if the lions left an arm or a leg? Would the arm and leg get buried? Would just the arm and leg go to heaven? Would God say, 'I know all things and I know who you are even without your head. Come on in anyway.'”

"You are making Jesus very sad with all of your silly questions," Sister hissed.

But I couldn't stop wondering and worrying--not just about the Coliseum and the Limbo babies and the forest.

What about my friend Catherine's mother who was getting divorced and going to Hell? Catherine said her mother told her it was better to go to Hell than stay married to Catherine's father. How could anyone, in her right mind, deliberately antagonize God with a statement like that? I could just hear God say, "Lady, you are toast!" I said a novena for her hoping to mitigate God's anger, but boy, she sure was asking for it.

And then there was the boy across the street who was killed in a car crash the very same Sunday he slept through Mass. All the busybodies said his mother set the alarm clock for him but he'd turned it off. Did he turn it off deliberately and say, "The heck with it. I don't feel like going to Mass today." or did he turn it off thinking he'd just lie there an extra five minutes and accidentally fall asleep? Big difference. If he intended to slap God in the face, he was burning for all eternity. If it was just a stupid mistake, God might have shown him some mercy and he'd just have to make a stop in Purgatory before going to Heaven. How long would he be stuck in Purgatory? Oh, no. I hoped God didn't take that the wrong way--I mean, I didn't really mean stuck. I knew Purgatory was a lucky detour around Hell--no one cared if it took a little longer to get to heaven.

I prayed God understood I wasn't trying to be a smart-aleck. I just really needed more answers, but I was getting the message, albeit slowly, that asking made things even more complicated. Maybe I was supposed to stop with the questions and mind my own business. Maybe there were some things I wasn't smart enough to understand. Maybe it was true that if it was in my best interests , they'd tell me.

I asked the priest about it in Confession but all he said was, "Bless you, my child, just believe," but believe what?

Did Father not realize I wanted to believe, but I was having trouble with some things that just weren't adding up?

Then slowly, as I grew up, I noticed more inconsistencies, many contradictions, even some big fat lies and no one said a word.

Why did priests, who took the vow of poverty, drive luxury cars and get new ones every year? Why were our nuns paid $8.00 a month? What happened to indulgences that were supposed to get me into heaven sooner? How was it that the wealthy got annulments while the divorced who had no financial resources were banned from the Sacraments? Why did exorcism vanish? Abortion is killing, but war, well, that depends? What happened to the $4 million dollars that the National Council of Bishops lost when Chicago's Cardinal Cody was treasurer? Why, for over 25 years did the Cardinal's divorced cousin with 2 kids always live across the street from him no matter where he was assigned?

The questions kept coming and they ranged from the ridiculous to the scandalous.

Cardinal George announced at a press conference that the Pope had declared Limbo a thing of the past. “From now on,” he proclaimed, “Limbo will no longer be taught.”

“Does that mean,” an obviously pagan reporter had the nerve to ask, “that Limbo no longer exists?”

“I didn’t say that,” said the tap-dancing Leader of the Flock, “I said the Papal directive states it will no longer be taught.”

Nice turn of phrase--world-class parsing that would make Bill Clinton envious, but, let's be honest, Limbo is so last millenium the Faithful consider George's proclamation white noise.

Let's save our energy, some said, for things that really matter. Does a Holocaust denier qualify?

"In the interests of unity in the Church..." the Pope recently UNexcommunicated a bishop who loudly proclaims that no Jews were gassed in Nazi death camps. After a disastrous two weeks of international outrage, the Pope backpedaled insisting no one told him--the German Pontiff--about this hate monger's horrendous reputation.

Could it be that the world's premier Christian asked one of his sycophants and was not given a straight answer? Or could it be he did not hear the answer because of the trumpeting of elephants chained in the Vatican's dungeon of Dogma?

I'll bet at least two of those Papal bulls, Hypocrisy and Pedophilia, are making quite a racket these days and the College of Cardinals better pray that Complicity does not rear his ugly head too.

MLE 10/08

The Torture Hour

2008-09-09T13:50:00.014-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

The dinner hour started in its usual manner with warnings of don’t touch, it’s hot, be careful. Mom placed a Pyrex platter on the table guaranteed to jump start every salivary gland on the planet. Wisps of steam rose from the bubbly gravy and stringy mozzarella smothered yet another culinary masterpiece. It was hard to believe that such an auspicious beginning, replete with the heavenly aroma of basil and olive oil, could turn into a meal from hell, but we’d been through the drill often enough to know the inevitable conclusion.

The minute my father opened the cedar-lined closet doors the drama began. Just hearing the creaky wheels of the cart that held the behemoth Magnavox reel-to-reel tape recorder roll over the slick wood floor would be enough to start the nervous snickers and stage whispers to mom.

“Please, Mom,” my brother begged, “don’t let him ruin our dinner again.”

“You know you hate it too,” I’d hiss. “Be honest, Mom, and make him stop.”

“I’m not hungry anymore,” my sister would whine.

“You kids had better be quiet,” Mom would warn, giving us a take-no-prisoners look. “Don’t make trouble and get him angry!”

By then Dad had threaded the huge circular wheels with the magic music recently captured on magnetic tape and was taking his seat at the head of the table. As we bowed our heads for the requisite murmuring “Bless us, O Lord, for these Thy gifts…” we knew the amen would signal the beginning of the torture hour also known as the music appreciation lesson. In reality, it was the precursor to waterboarding.

Even the heaping plates of fabulous food could not anesthetize us from the musical cacophony that was to ensue.

With the loud click of the PLAY button, the air was filled with Lawrence Welk leading his band of acoustic terrorists with “Ana one, ana two, ana three…” in a nauseating version of the Beer Barrel Polka or his Champagne Lady of Music warbling “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.”

By the end of the first stanza, the deterioration of the family dinner had begun.

With each grating, offensive squeak of the string assassins, my brother would grimace and clutch his heart as though being attacked, my sister would knock over a glass of milk hoping to get sent to her room, our dog Skipper would skitter off suddenly remembering a prior engagement and my martyr mother would be looking heavenward as though begging God to strike her deaf immediately. My father’s steely-eyed glares of disgust at this contemptible conduct elicited more wisecracks and uncontrollable laughter inevitably resulting in the family sin worthy of capital punishment—milk-pouring-from-someone’s- nose-who-was-acting-silly!

“It is sinful to waste milk and revolting,” Dad would intone and, at this point, the simple dysfunctional family dinner would turn into an event guaranteed to provide full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder.

Snapping the STOP button, he would launch into tirades about rudeness, ingratitude and stupidity interspersed with “You kids don’t know good music.” His tongue lashing about our being unteachable was rather paradoxical since it was Mr. Welk who would declare, “Myron and I will now do a solo together.” After all, we’d know the difference between the Roman numeral I and a capital I on a cue card and wouldn’t announce, “And now for a song from World War Eye.” but we were the idiots? The irony was knee deep but totally wasted on my dad who’d pontificate, “They don’t write songs like this anymore...” as “Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey…” blared in the background.

Actually my father’s harangues were more palatable than Welk’s prototype elevator muzak. Somehow our digestive tracts had become accustomed to my dad’s force feedings of ridicule and shame, but our lower GI’s never quite adjusted to the diabetic inducing renditions of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
MLE 09/08

Always Have a Plan

2008-08-16T23:28:00.021-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

“Park your car, Doc! Right here, Doc! Park your car, Doc!”

Those sing-song words meant the White Sox were at Comiskey and my brother and his buddies were making money.

Never being included in the action bothered me so I went to tattle-tale to my dad. I found him tuned to his transistor radio. “Dad,” I asked, “Anthony gets an allowance like me so why is he parking cars for money?”

“It’s always better to make your own money,” he answered, “then you can be independent and take care of yourself.”

The seed was planted.

“When I get bigger, I’m going to park cars and make money to take care of you and Mom,” I promised.

“Girls can’t park cars,” he said, just as Bob Elson announced strike three. But the Sox were winning and he wasn't ticked off so he didn't shoo me away. “It’s harder for women to make money because there are a lot of jobs they can’t do.”

“So that means I get an allowance forever?”

“No, it means someday you'll marry a man who’ll take care of you and you'll get a good education just in case something happens to him.”

“What if I can’t find a man who wants me,” I worried, thinking of Angelina down the street who never married.

“Well, you’ll have your education to fall back on so you can be independent and take care of yourself. Go play with your sister. The Sox are up to bat,” he said, as he turned his attention back to the game.

Did he just say, I wondered, that I could only be independent if something happened to my husband or if I didn’t get married? If you were someone's wife, you couldn’t be independent? But what if a woman’s husband said she could be independent?

I had more questions, but I knew better than to keep bugging Dad when he was listening to baseball. Why couldn’t girls park cars? Why were the boys telling men where to park—they didn’t own the street. Why did so many doctors go to the ballgame?

There was no asking my brother. He’d tell me to quit sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. Besides, even though boys thought they knew it all, they really didn’t. He probably wouldn’t know why it was harder for women to make money or how I could find a rich man to take care of me.

Luckily I had a good brain, even my brother said I was smart for a girl. I’d figure this out for myself plus get an education just in case no man wanted to marry me. And if no one wanted to marry me, that wouldn’t be so terrible; boys didn’t impress me. I mean, God didn’t even trust them to have babies. If I stayed on the honor roll, maybe I could even skip the marriage part and jump right in to taking care of myself.

True, Dad handed over his paycheck to Mom every Friday but was it really hers? She didn’t go to work every day and earn it. I almost never saw her buy anything for herself. Did she figure she was lucky not to have a job so she was happy to stay home and just cook, clean, mop, sew, bake, grocery shop, wash windows, iron, do laundry, scrub floors, take care of us kids, drag around the Electro-Lux and drink coffee? Was she glad she didn't drive and that Daddy took her everywhere it was too far to walk?

She was dependent with a capital D. For years she’d wanted to move out of the old neighborhood. She'd say, "Jim, let's buy a house,." but he'd always say, “Mary, now is not the time. We’ve got three kids to put through college.” Couldn't they vote on some things? But voting probably wouldn't make any difference because it would be a tie and Dad was always the tie-breaker. Sometimes she could say what she thought but she really couldn't change anything. He was the boss.

Long before I’d heard the perverse version of the Golden Rule, “He who has the gold, rules.” I figured dependency was not a good thing so I just watched how it all worked and finally decided that I'd have to make my own rules. One day after school I made my list based on things my Mom did or didn't do and which I thought would make a difference.

RULES FOR INDEPENDENCE

1. Make a plan.
2. Go to college.
3. Drive a car.
4. Get a good job.
5. Save my money.
6. Dye my hair.
7. Smoke cigarettes and wear lipstick.
8. Don’t listen to men.
9. Don’t let a husband boss me around.
10. Make my own decisions.

I found my Mother in the kitchen slaving over the ironing board.

“Mom,” I asked, "could you read these and tell me what you think? I made some rules so I can be independent when I grow up."

She put the iron on its little metal resting plate, picked up my notebook and began reading. Her first "hmmmm..." sounded like she was thinking "OK, not bad" but her next "hmmmm...", as she neared the bottom of the page, sounded like "Really now? Is that so?"

She was quiet for a minute as she placed my notes on the table and retrieved her still hot iron. Finally she gave me one of those what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you smiles, and said, "What you wrote is very interesting. In fact, the first five ideas are excellent, but I thought you hated rules."

"Mom, I don't hate all rules," I informed her, "just stupid rules like only taking ten books out of the library at one time. These rules are different. They're my rules. They're for when I grow up.".

"So you decide which rules are stupid and which are important?" she probed.

"Yes, didn't you read number ten?" I responded in a voice like Sister Mary Perpetua, my teacher. " I'll make my own decisions. I decide if something is stupid. I'll use my own brain to decide if something is important," I ranted, wanting to add, "And I already decided that ironing is a waste of time," but I bit my tongue. Instead I continued, "Number nine says no husband will boss me around. Did you read the rules carefully, Momma?"

She probably was thinking, "Oh, God, this girl is never going to get married. She'll be way too much trouble," but instead she said, “Well, Honey, going to college, getting a good job and saving money should help you take charge of your own life, but why on earth would you want to smoke cigarettes and dye your hair?"

I didn't want to tell her that Red-Headed Ann, a very glamorous woman who lived on the next block and smoked Viceroys always seemed like she was having a good time. She dyed her hair (my girlfriend Donna said you could tell because it was almost orange) and drove a convertible; I was impressed. I was embarrassed to say that not only did I plan to be independent but I wanted to be glamorous and have fun too. I just knew Red-Headed Ann wouldn't waste a minute ironing sheets and pillowcases.

As if reading my mind, Momma said, while maneuvering the hot metal point of the iron into the corner of my father's shirt collar, "You probably think smoking and dyed hair are glamourous. Well, let me tell you something. Smoking is bad for your lungs and dyeing your hair is expensive and turns your hair into straw so you'd better find out what you're getting into first." Then holding the iron down on the shirt for so long I thought she was going to scorch it, she added, "You have a lot to learn, Missy."

I thought she might be getting irritated with me, and then I was sure of it when she gave me a fake smile and said, "Just wait and see what happens when you fall in love and get married, Miss Smarty Pants.”

I knew by the way she smirked “Miss Smarty Pants” she was telling me there were things I was too young to understand and that, even with a plan, life doesn't always go your way.

I wondered if she’d had a plan that changed when she got married. I wanted to ask, but I thought she might feel bad if that was what had happened. The thought of that made me very sad so I changed the subject. "You're the world's best Mother! I love you so much. I just wish you had time for a little fun," I said.

In my head, though, I said, "It’s going to be different for me, Momma. You just wait and see."

MLSE / 8/14/08

Bionic-Footed Mom

2008-08-16T16:57:00.008-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

The logic behind an obese woman torturing herself in a girdle to look five pounds thinner always escaped me, but my reasoning skills totally vanished when it came to shoes. At 5’1’’ I counted on platforms to give me that long, lean look.

As newlyweds, we traveled to Central and South America with my shoe wardrobe consisting solely of platform espadrilles and high-heeled sandals. Not a pragmatic choice, but, of course, looking good is ever so important when crawling through ruins, and crawl I did. Had it not been for an eighty-three year old Yale professor lending me a hand as we trudged to Machu Picchu, I’d have been limping on my own.

After delivering his umpteenth “I do not understand your insistence on wearing those freaking shoes…” lecture, my 6’2” sanctimonious and sensibly shod spouse time and again left me in the dust. His admonitions only stopped when he became weak from altitude sickness (a big problem for tall people) and I transformed into the little pack mule lugging our bags through Peru and Colombia.

By the time we returned to the States I was ready for orthopedic boots, but I am a slow learner. I continued prancing in bound-feet type shoes for many more years until surgery and titanium foot rods brought my platform fetish to a halt.

I was delighted that my daughter sprouted past me as an adolescent. When she carried flip-flops to her prom “just in case,” I knew I had raised a practical fashionista capable of standing on her own two feet and in comfort no less. She would define beauty on her own terms. Her feet would would probably never trigger airport security.

MLE 07/14/08

Not a Permanent Solution

2008-06-26T18:48:00.009-05:00

Mary Lou Edwards

I wonder, if in the Land of Make Believe, these baby dolls have flashbacks about their first permanent wave. I know mine was seared into my brain. I was about to start first grade. Apparently neither the nightly ritual of winding endless banana curls on my fidgety noggin nor my non-stop whining about stupid boys yanking on my braids was appealing to my mother so her cousin Della the beautician’s suggestion of a hot perm seemed like the perfect solution.

Though I viewed the horrendous contraption with its black wire tentacles and gleaming steel curler clamps with great trepidation, my mom said I’d be too busy reading books to waste time on the nightly hair-setting ritual. This permanent, she promised, would end my hairy tales of woe; I’d be permanently beautiful.

It took hours to section my massive mane into appropriate sized chunks for the electric curlers. Only the promise of a fuchsia hair ribbon forced me to sit still atop two giant Chicago telephone directories. Finally a disgusting permanent wave solution was applied to each curler and Della threw the switch.

Immediately my head started hissing and steaming like a pot of boiling ravioli. With her eyes as big as the giant meatballs my Nonna fried on Sunday morning, my mother asked, “Della, is her head supposed to smoke like that?”

“That’s only steam,” said Della, “If her hair was burning, we’d smell it—singed hair smells disgusting.”

Looking at my mother’s popping eyeballs and smelling the stinking fumes sent me into orbit. My sotto sobs erupted into what would have been hair raising shrieks had not my head been so wired.

“This is an electric chair!” I screamed. “I’m turning into Frankenstein!”

My mother grabbed the telephone book highchair.

“Sit still,” she hissed. “If you fall off those phone books, you’ll be scalped like an Indian and you’ll have to wear a babuschka to school. Besides," she grinned, "You told me you wanted to be beautiful!”

That was true. I did want to be beautiful. I settled down.

A few minutes later the wires were disconnected, the hair unwound and a nauseating “neutralizer” was sloshed through my ringlets. Then my locks were twisted into pin curls and I was placed under a giant steel helmet for another hour to dry.

At last my tresses were combed out with the coveted fuchsia bow planted in the massive eagle’s nest of curls.

I was beautiful.

Two weeks later my hair was stick straight. The beauty maven said the “hot wave” didn’t take; she would give me a “cold wave.”

“No, no,” I told my mother, "No, thanks! No more torture. Being beautiful is way too much trouble.” And so it was and it is…

MLSE 06/27/08