My dear, let us don our disguises!

When my adult daughter and her country music lovin’ friends invited my husband and me to go with them to the honky-tonk for cowboy dancing, I had a moment’s pause.  Let’s face it, how many cowgirls do you know named Victoria?  I have no problem having high tea at the Empress Hotel, but riding bulls among the beer crowd is Greek to me.  But when one’s children want you to hang out with them and their friends, one would be willing to do just about anything.  Zip line, even.  But that’s another story.

I figured disguises were in order.  My husband, who wears a tie to work, was told by Daughter to put on some jeans and a white shirt.  Somehow his Kirkland brand baggies, the Ralph Lauren white shirt, and the black loafers just did not seem too cowboy. 

“Well at least the shirt says ‘CHAPS’ on it,” he said.  “Don’t cowboys wear chaps?”

But then he put on the black Stetson that Daughter got him for Father’s Day.  First time he’s worn it.  Hold yer horses, Jee-hoshephat, and other cowboy exclamations.  No one was ever going to look at his Kirkland jeans.  Whew!  Lordy be!  Get me a fan!  My fantasy man just walked out of our own bedroom.  He blushed a little when cameras started flashing.  Hot is hot.

So now I had to go find a disguise.  Hmm.  No problem with the honky-tonk badonkadonk.  Got that in spades.  But I also have the badonka-middle and badonka-thighs.  I could hear Daughter yelling, “Just put on a pair of tight jeans, Mom.  Let’s go!”

All my jeans are tight, but not in the right places.

I figured swirly skirt would work.  I’ve got a dancing dress I wore on a cruise last year.  It doesn’t have any bling on it but at least it is not a turtleneck.  Is it okay for older women to show a little cleavage or is that gross?  I guessed it was okay, even though my skin could pass for seersucker.  We were in a hurry after all.  I didn’t have time to lose 30 pounds.

Daughter thought I should wear her cowboy boots.  With a dress?  Evidently this is okay.  I stuck on every turquoise bracelet I own and Daughter and her friends shrieked and cooed over how “stinkin’ cute!” I was. 

Funny how they know how to manipulate me into the car.

I practiced a few loud “Yee-haws” in the car.  What does one say when one flies off the mechanical bull?

When we walked into the place, I was so proud to be next to the handsomest cowboy in the whole joint.  I held his hand like someone would steal him away.

He bought himself a $10 beer, I mentally calculated what I could put in my grocery cart for that.

We parked ourselves by the dance floor to study the dancing and figure out if we could do it.  We could not peel our eyes away from Daughter, who we thought was everything adorable and precious and happy.

Her gay friend asked me to dance, but he bobbled along so that it was impossible to follow him.  Even when he shouted “slow, slow, quick, quick” I couldn’t get it. 

“C’mere honey, we are going to do it the old fashioned way,” I declared.  I pulled him up next to me so I could feel which way he was going to bobble next.  The poor frozen guy had a look of horror on his face, fearing that his friend’s mom was coming on to him.  Such was not the case, let me assure you.  Gay 29 year olds don’t do it for me.  Besides, see that guy in the black Stetson?

I danced with the guy in the black Stetson next, and we held each other like we’ve been doing since 1974.

“I don’t think this is how they dance here,” he said.

“They dance any old way they feel like it,” I assured him.

“Well, then I guess we who actually belong to the old way can do whatever we feel like too,” he laughed.

Tummy to tummy we foxtrotted around and gazed into each other’s eyes. I think there might be something to this honky-tonking.  It was hard to go home and shed our disguises.  Even when our Daughter pointed at us and said to her friends, “Look at them!  Aren’t they cute?” 

Midway Island 1963--Remembering When President Kennedy Was Assassinated

We boomers (and older) can all recall it—where we were when we heard the news that President Kennedy was assassinated.  In my case, I was in Miss Howerton’s 4^th grade classroom.  It probably wasn’t unusual to have heard it in school, except we were far out in the middle of the Pacific, on Midway Island.

When Kennedy was assassinated in November of 1963, the world was mired in the Cold War.  Midway Island’s played a vital role in defending the United States against a Soviet attack.  The island was the tail end of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line, which was a series of radar stations that stretched across the Arctic to give an early warning should the Soviets launch something at us.  Over the Pacific Ocean, there were no land-based radar stations, and so detection depended on big planes called Willy Victors, which flew seven hours up to the Aleutian Island radar stations and seven hours back, thus providing radar coverage 24 hours a day over the ocean.  There were always concerns that the Soviets were going to take over Midway Island and thus cripple our defense, for the cold war was in the height of its shivering flu.  Any tipping of the balance of power was cause for concern, and the assassination of an American president was like kicking an ant hill. 

On Midway, when there was some cause for alert, such as a tsunami warning or Bay of Pigs concerns, they blasted an air raid siren and we were under General Quarters.  This meant we were to leave school and rush home, then stay locked inside the house.  Locked is questionable, as I don’t recall having a lock on the front door.  Latched, maybe.

At the sparkling white George Cannon school, the bikes stood neatly parked in bike racks.  There were no cars on Midway, as it was only a mile long or so.  Everyone rode bikes.  Moms went grocery shopping on bikes with huge baskets that could hold two grocery sacks.  Dads went to work on fancy “sports car” 3 speeds.  Kids all rode their coaster brake bikes everywhere, so the bikes were all stabled in the school’s bike racks.  Recess was over in the modest field that sported a small playhouse and meager swing set.  We now sat doing social studies worksheets.

An enlisted man in a blue denim shirt and dungarees walked into our classroom.  Something was up.  Enlisted men NEVER walked into the classroom.  He wasn’t someone’s father, as no child shrieked with delight at seeing their daddy.  He walked over and whispered solemnly to Miss Howerton.

This went on for some time.  We 4^th graders pondered this.  It wasn’t General Quarters, as no siren went off.  Therefore, it was no emergency.  This sudden interruption was not from the principal, so it wasn’t a school matter.  But the looks on both their faces meant that it was something big.

War?  Were we are war with the commies?  We children feared the commies like the boogie man.  A commie was the Black Plague, he was the devil, he was the Nazi of our time.  If we were at war, it did not take a genius to figure out that Midway was in danger of being invaded.  Did that mean that we would be occupied?  Or were we to be prisoners of war?

Presently the enlisted man left.

“Boys and girls,” said Miss Howerton.  “The president has been assassinated.”

We looked at her blankly.  What did assassinated mean?  Was it like “elected” I remember silently wondering?  We guessed no, for we would have known about an election, as we were well aware of the Nixon-Kennedy election and how looooong that took.

Teddy Hanson raised her hand and asked for a definition of assassinated.  Miss Howerton now realized why her news had not shocked us, and said that he had been shot and killed.

I still don’t think we reacted as she wanted, nor expected.  It was sad, of course, but none of us knew how it would affect us.  I remember figuring that America would just have to get busy and elect a new one.  I guess we were pretty much used to hearing that most of the presidential heroes had died.  It wasn’t much different than hearing that George Washington died and Abraham Lincoln was assassinated years ago.  It seemed like that was just what presidents did. 

We talked about it later on the playground.  At this time, very few of us had had experience with death.  My only brush with it was when a goldfish had died and my mom unceremoniously flushed it.  I’d never been to a funeral, didn’t really remember my grandpa dying when I was barely four. I had little understanding of the historical impact of a president being assassinated, the finality of death, or death’s customs and grieving. 

We had a television broadcast on Midway and there were lots of scenes of the funeral, but I grew weary of the process of dispatching the deceased and ran outside to play.  I was surprised at hearing a neighbor woman saying that she cried a little when watching the funeral.  Endless streams of black cars on a tiny black and white TV did not move me to tears.

A woman I met at a church softball game recently told me that she was an adult on the day she heard JFK had been shot.  She said she was so disappointed that he would not fulfill the rest of his term, and hopefully a second one, as she really had hoped that his destiny would be to lead America to greatness, to think beyond our own personal concerns and strive to help the nation if not the world, move forward in common brotherhood.

In an era when fears and polarization had led us into a Cold War, I can see what hope America had placed in their young president.  Perhaps he would not have been able to lead us to the brotherhood he had dreamed of.  But who knows what one person can accomplish, what we ourselves might be able to do if we have the courage and conviction?  After all, during his administration, a miniscule island named Midway was able to successfully stand as the anchor line of great defense. 

The Delights and Dangers of Childhood on Midway Island during the Cold War

There is something about living on a teensy island a billion miles from anywhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that fosters a sense of detachment from the world.  Although we weren’t separated from the dangers of the Cold War and politics on Midway Island, my two brothers and I delighted in living on this seemingly idyllic island. We loved Daddy taking us to the beach after work or on the weekend, and couldn’t hop on our bikes fast enough when he said the word. 

The sugar white sands at the beach, although pristine to look at, were actually dead coral, and were rough on the feet, so we tried to protect our feet by wearing flip flops.  This made it worse, as the rough white coral sand got caught between the toes and made us bleed.  One just put up with such things, much as we put up with disgusting canned milk, brackish water coming out of our house plumbing, and mosquitos.

The turquoise waters were warm and a delight to swim in, but only my older brother was much of a swimmer.  My younger brother, who was in kindergarten, and I who was in third grade, could not “swim” without the aid of snorkel, mask and fins.  Without the mask and snorkel, the crawl stroke was beyond me, as was the breast stroke’s complicated timing.  I could sorta do sidestroke.  But one the mask and snorkel were on, we were freed from breathing problems and used the flippers to propel us up and down the beach looking for shells.  Dad and Mom watched us and set reasonable limits.

The grand prize for us to find in the shallow water we were permitted to traverse was an auger shell.  I still have a good sized one we found.  It sits to this day on a shelf in my living room. 

In spite of the pristine look of the lagoon, dangers lurked.  The most common peril for wee swimmers was the man o’war jelly fish.  They stung like fire, I still clutch my right arm when talking about them.  We had swimming lessons at the beach in the summer, and the man o’ war’s blue stingers were nearly invisible in the turquoise water.  I got stung one day, as did many other swimming lesson pupils.  They found a delivery truck somewhere and took us to the dispensary, then called our mothers.  I don’t know why they took us to the dispensary.  They merely looked at us and said, “Yep, you’ve been stung by a man o’war, all right. Go home.”

Mom came to fetch me and I walked beside her going home.  Wasn’t far.  A block.  Nothing is far on an island that is only a mile or so long.  Mom let me lie down on her bed and I stared at the huge welts on my arm.  She read to me, but it didn’t help much and I probably cried a lot, but I got over it in a day or two.  From then on, I kept a wary eye around me when I went swimming.

The birds by the thousands came to Midway to mate and lay eggs.  Very few people can live on an island full of birds and not get pooped upon.  It happened to me when I was riding to school.  Plop—right on the side of my head, streaming down into my ear and on my dress.  The culprit in this crime was a fairy tern.  Fairy terns are alabaster birds with jet black beaks and eyes.  They swooped and launched attacks on interlopers of their nesting areas.  “Nesting areas” is a misnomer, as they didn’t build nests.  They laid their sticky eggs in the crotch of a tree, then the chick was reputed to hatch feet first and cling to the first thing it could latch onto.  They would sway and bob in the breezes, never falling from their perch.  Third graders who went whizzing by on their bikes better watch out for fairy tern parents who carry a load like the Enola Gay.

Bosun birds, also called tropic birds, did not nest in trees, they just found a spot on the ground and laid an egg.  Bosun birds had shriveled little feet which did not allow them to walk.  In those days, dogs were allowed on the island, and when one threatened, the birds would screech a cacophony, actually turning pink.  It was a strange site, but it seemed to dissuade attacks.  I’ve come across quizzes that ask which is the only bird that can fly backwards.  The answer claims it to be hummingbirds. Ha!  Bosun birds can too.  The bosun had a long, thin red tail that they would drag in the water as a lure while flying backwards, then plunge upon the unsuspecting nibbling fish to gulp it up for dinner.  The fish must have never known what hit them. The poor bosuns faced a peril of their own.  They were nearly wiped out as a species during the 1800’s when the millinery trade fancied their thin red tailfeather.  I don’t think turning pink did much to scare off someone intent on making a hat out of them.

We had baby gooney birds (Laysan albatross) by the thousands, fluffy little balls of charcoal gray, with tiny little hooked beaks like their parents.  It was a delight to watch the parents build a nest, lay their eggs and tenderly nuture their young.  When for some reason an egg did not hatch, and the perplexed and disappointed parents were sometimes given a tennis ball, for the rotten eggs were prone to breaking and smelled foul.  Occasionally a gooney died, and I learned for the first time what a dead animal smells like when left in the heat for a week.  Death came to the birds in senseless lottery, and  we rode our bikes past it quickly, holding our noses and taking a different route next time.

Once the babies fledged, they made their way down to the beach, where the jaws of tiger sharks waited.  The adolescent birds flailed and flapped in the water, trying to learn how to fly, plopping back down in the water to rest.  It was a siren call to the sharks. When sharks were spotted in the lagoon, a red flag was hoisted, but we children whispered horror stories about a supposed two year old child that was eaten when no red flag had been posted.

That was the nature of things on Midway Island.  Hidden dangers lurked.  The pristine waters held peril, birds lived on the edge of death and extinction, and the so-called Camelot days of the Kennedy administration stood ready to launch atom bombs.  

Yet bosun birds have made a good comeback from near extinction.  Thousands upon thousands of beautiful goonies made it maturity, to grow their magnificent twelve foot wingspan and discover the art of soaring for years at a time.  And we kids made it through jelly fish stings, sharks and even canned milk.  We swam, found shells, and grew up through the Cold War to one day discover magnificence in our own time, when the Berlin Wall come down. 

Were you alive during the Cold War?  Was your childhood filled with fun and dangers?

Little Slice of Heaven

I remember when I watched my newborns sleep in the bassinet, and their little pouty mouths sucked in their sleep because they were dreaming sweet dreams.  I remember little chubby legs in bubble outfits, sweet wispy curls on the back of their necks, and sending them off to school in uniform and a lunchbox nearly as big as they were.  I watched them in school concerts, I handed them library awards, I videotaped them in horse shows.  In the hot gymnasium, I watched them get their diplomas.

I sent one off to the Army, and fly the flag for her every day.   I tried not to cry as the other walked up the aisle.  It could have been over for me, but it isn't.  I am SURROUNDED by kids, the best teenagers you could ever hope to have.

Last night we went out on the Sea Scout Ship Odyssey.  There were a lot of them as our unit has been getting more and more members lately.  I just like to listen to them, ask them questions and see them smile.

So there we were, on a perfect June evening in Tacoma's Commencement Bay.  Was the moon coming up over Mt. Rainier?  Was the side of the mountain aglow in pink wash from the sunset?  Was Vashon Island the perfect green backdrop for the chugging ferry boat and sailboats puffed along in the breeze?  I don't know.  I wasn't looking at that.  I sat in the cockpit, squeezed in among fellow sailors.  They were laughing and telling stories about their camping trips and what fun we are going to have when we go north next week on our 11 day voyage.  They gently teased me about the veracity of my stories and told me how eager they were to hear "The Upper Berth" and "The Lavender Ghost".  A former Sea Scout, now a college graduate, was out with us last night and it was so rewarding to see the fine accomplished woman she has become.  The breeze on my face, the silken evening, the laughing kids.  It was a slice of heaven.

My favorite quote by John Muir so often comes to me in such happy moments:
"Oh these vast, calm, measureless mountain days
Inciting at once to work and rest.
Days in whose number everything seems equally divine
Opening a thousand windows to show us God."

Timed Tests or Puzzle Solving?

How many times do we have to take timed tests in school?  Most tests are timed.  Consequently, it has been reinforced in most of us that we are in a hurry.  In a society with deadlines, this makes sense.  However, I’ve noticed when doing puzzles, this is my overriding concern.  Hurry up!  Finish!  Go faster!

I suspect that there are a lot of people that don’t stick to finishing a puzzle simply because they are in a hurry, eager for the answer, or think it is too hard.  I know that if I slow down, I do better, but even more surprising is that I often solve a difficult puzzle when I give it an extra effort, even if I don’t think I have the knowledge.  Let it rest, then come back to it.

This past week I visited my daughter’s classroom and read various signs around the room, urging the students to persistence.  The students were encouraged to ask specific questions rather than saying “I don’t get it.”  They were reminded that problems might seem hard because thinking is hard, and some problems require lots of thinking.  They were encouraged not to be cursory nor cowardly in tackling problems.

Think how eager we are to tell children what the right answer is if they begin to struggle.  Consider what the future would hold if we had more “tests” wherein the goal was to solve a problem rather than finish in a certain amount of time.  We might be surprised what we can do.

Creating Sock Puppets and New Sewing Terms

Sock puppet day Mrs. Logan’s fifth grade class! Their upcoming fairy tale theater will feature either the Three Little Pigs or Little Red Riding Hood, so they will get to do lots of funny voices and overact to their hearts content.

Mrs. Logan didn’t have to ask me twice to come and bring my fabric and craft leftovers.  There were pipe cleaners, googly eyes, plenty of fabric scraps to create with.  Some kids had a bit of trouble visualizing how to move from their two dimensional drawings of proposed sock puppets, to actually creating a three dimensional puppet.  A few snips with the scissors on some pink felt is easy to demonstrate, and soon pig ears, snouts, and creative curly tails were sprouting. 

   

The wolves grew fangs out of pointy fabric, and one girl even found some real fur in my fabric scraps from a historical reenacting project.  Her furry wolf looked great.

A boy wanted a hat and with glue and pins, we made one just like his drawing.  Now a hunter could creep through the forest.  The sock puppets came out pretty well indeed.

One girl decided her Red Riding Hood needed a basket, and we cut paper strips out of a spare manila folder.  She and many of her friends had never seen a basket woven out of strips before.  Goodness, when did we baby boomers learn to make Easter baskets?  First grade?  These kids can figure out cell phones, photoshop and computers like lightning, but I am amazed they’ve never seen a basket woven out of paper strips.  Glad a boomer like me still has a few tricks up her sleeve.   

Grannies, Red Riding Hoods and pigs are so much fun!

But the interesting aspect of the day was a new concept I learned that had to do with sewing terms.  A student wanted a gathered apron for Granny, and I found a sewing kit in my purse.  I showed her how to knot the thread the quick and easy way, and take a few running stitches. The girl mused that it should not be called a “running” stitch, but rather a “swimming” stitch because the thread swims up and down along the fabric.  True!  So it shall be throughout all time to me and anyone I can influence.  Tommy Smothers, are you listening?  Because of you no one in America has frogs saying “croak” anymore.  Frogs say “ribbit”. 

Now here is a better way to describe a sewing stitch.  It swims up and down through the fabric and should be called the swimming stitch.

Of course! 

What a fun day we had creating and learning from each other.  

Seedlings

Yesterday some of our family and friends brought over their dogs and we put them in the backyard to romp.  They had a great time running after their toys and chasing each other through the rhododendrons.  So we left them out there, only to be horrified a short while later. Where my vegetable garden used to be were now craters that aliens could spot from Mars. Wilted seedlings lay on the grass.  The dogs had dirty noses, filthy paws, happy doggy grins as they stood in the middle of my destroyed vegetable garden. 

Which reminded me of a time a while back we took in a foster child.  Not that she dug up my vegetable garden, but the outcome was similar.  Who could be a foster child without a suitcase full of issues?  There were a lot of them, and we diligently worked with a therapist and teachers to help this girl.  The issues were too great however, and they determined our home was not the best place for her and she moved on.  It left some battle scars upon our family.

Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote a sonnet I had to go look up both then and now.  It’s about a farmer that has lost his entire crop to a flood:

“The broken dike, the levee washed away,

The good fields flooded and the cattle drowned,

Estranged and treacherous all the faithful ground,

And nothing left but floating disarray

Of tree and home uprooted,--was this the day

Man dropped upon his shadow without a sound

And died, having laboured well and having found

His burden heavier than a quilt of clay?

No, no. I saw him when the sun had set

In water, leaning on his single oar

Above his garden faintly glimmering yet…

There bulked the plough, here washed the updrifted weeds…

And scull across his roof and make for shore,

With twisted face and a pocket full of seeds.”

Hope.  What gardener doesn’t plant with that great commodity?  Who doesn’t love children without seeing what they might become?

So I’m sitting in my chair by the window with the book of poetry in my lap, gazing out at my garden. I think a lot about that little foster child and hope no matter where she is today that she is growing and blossoming wherever she is replanted.  God bless her now and forever.

I put the book away and slip on my boots.  I’ve got packets of seeds I need to go re-plant.