A few weeks ago, my kids were joking about goons from the psych hospital dragging someone off to a padded cell. This reminded me of something.
When we lived in Kansas City, MO—in the same unforgettable 6-month period in which I stole a cat from our brain-damaged squatter neighbors and I was mistaken for a streetwalker—I was a substitute teacher for four different school districts around Kansas City.
The only people who substitute teach are a) recent education graduates trying to get jobs, b) moms who need a little work or are kindly helping out their kids school, usually at the request of the principal; and c) the freaks, weirdos and losers who will work for like, $30 a day, and can’t find other employment. The first two groups target the nice schools--they avoid neighborhoods where they wouldn’t feel comfortable, say, parking their car. So for the assignments in the rough parts of town, that left, group C), and me, Miss Pollyanna Happy Pants, skipping into schools with bars on the windows and police officers stationed in the cafeteria, eager to figure out which learning styles the children had!
In retrospect, I should have just worked at Barnes and Noble, and had a relaxing six months shelving books and sipping lattes. Anyway. My son’s comment about the men in white coats reminded me of my three days at The Orphanage. Until I got this assignment, I had no idea there were still orphanages. I found the facility tucked away in the woods all the way on the outskirts of the city. When I walked in and introduced myself, the ladies at the desk positively fawned over me. I think one of them actually hugged me. They led me into the teacher’s room and showed me they had baked me a cake. It said, “Welcome substitute!”
This couldn’t be good.
“We’ve never had a substitute show up before!” the lady at the front desk explained.
“Oh,” I said. “Heh.” I had accepted the job for three days. I was wondering if I could cancel it before lunch.
But, I took some cake and was led to my classroom. It was a beautiful building—modern, clean, and bright. (It actually reminded me of my cousin’s classroom in their excellent private Quaker school in Philadelphia.) It was by far the nicest classroom I had been in thus far in Kansas City.
A sweet, older lady who was a classroom aide gave me a rundown on the kids. There were only twelve of them, all in elementary school. As the kids filed in, the aide whispered to me: this girl was here because both parents were in jail. This boy’s family was homeless. And this little boy here, with the big blue eyes and spiky blond hair, had been found alone in an abandoned building, in a room full of animal feces. I remember his face to this day.
It turned out to be the easiest substitute job I ever had. I stayed all three days. Every day they made me cake. The kids were quiet and well behaved. The food in the cafeteria was really good, and I noticed the facility had a pool outside, covered up until summer. I noticed at one point that several kids did not have shoes on--their living quarters were attached to the school--and asked the aide why.
“So they don’t run away,” she said , as if I was an idiot. (Which, in this situation, I was. For a fact, I knew less about harsh reality than anyone else in the entire building—brand new teaching degree or not!) I looked outside at the woods and thought about how long I had driven to get here. I thought of a twelve year old kid walking along that road. I couldn’t imagine past that.
At the end of the third day, the kids started to act up a teeny bit. I was nice to them, and obviously, had just stumbled off Rich White Lady Stupid Planet. I was not in the least alarmed when one of the kids talked back to me—in another school, I had seen kids throwing chairs at each other with the principal present!—so a little lip from these kids did not alarm me. My aide, on the other hand, was really alarmed.
“You got to press the button,” she said. “He can’t act like that.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said, “No big deal. The day is almost over.”
The kid, hearing me defend him, threw a pencil across the room. The aide stood up.
“Press the button,” she said urgently. Mostly out respect for this lady who had been so kind to me for three days (not the typical substitute experience, I must say!), I pressed the big gray button on the wall behind my desk.
In less than ten seconds, two enormous men in white coats entered the room, looked to the aide, who pointed at the offender, gently lifted the kid off his feet, deftly removed his shoes, and took him away. He didn’t seem overly concerned—definitely not frightened—he had obviously been down this road before.
“But—“ I was so shocked I could not even speak before they had quietly closed the door behind them.
The aide shook her head and went back to her crossword. The other kids went back to their spelling. I hissed to the aide, “But where did they take him?”
“Oh, he’ll be in detention and talk to the counselor until he can calm down,” the aide said. “Don’t you worry. He’ll be fine.”
When I finished telling my own kids this story, fifteen years later, they too, were utterly speechless. I don’t know what shocked them more: that I actually did things before I had them, or that there were still orphanages, where kids were taken away by men in white coats if they talked back.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Indy, The Red Light District Cat
Before my husband and I got married, we spent six months living in Kansas City, Missouri. We lived in a neighborhood that was, ah, un-gentrified. Sometimes we would sit on the porch of our awesome 1930's Craftsman bungalow (the 1930's being the era when this neighborhood was up and coming) and watch the neighborhood moms get in a fist fight in the middle of the street. One time, helicopters hovered over the neighborhood for hours, looking for a missing kid who turned out to be under his own bed. When he was found, another fistfight ensued as neighbors blamed each other for the panic.
One night when we had some distant KC-area cousins visiting, we were all surprised to see an ice cream truck come trundling down the block. The cousins, who lived in the nice part of town, were too polite to say what everyone was thinking: "Huh. You would think this neighborhood was too sketchy for an ice cream truck!" The truck--close up, it was decidedly maintenance-challenged--rolled to a stop in front of the house where the kid had hidden from the police under his bed. Kids came running from up and down the street. Then the ice cream man appeared in the window: wild haired, unshaven, and not wearing a shirt, he grinned at the kids with perhaps four teeth, and started taking orders. Abe and I and the cousins were pretty much speechless. My cousin finally said, "You would think the ice cream man would have to wear a shirt. " We all nodded agreement. You would think!
Also in this interesting neighborhood (which was undoubtedly the most diverse I have ever lived in, with every ethnic group, and everyone from new immigrants to families that had lived there for generations), I was one time solicited while jogging. The guy who invited me into his truck for a good time had the grace to be really embarrassed when he saw the look on my face, which expressed plainly: "Holy sh*t dude, do you really think I am a hooker running around the park in these ugly sweatpants?" He was like, "Oh, hey, ah, sorry, sorry, man!"
One thing we liked about this neighborhood was that since hardly anyone appeared to have a job, they kept a good eye on our house while we were out during the day, and the neighbors were reasonably friendly, with mostly presentable homes and yards. One family, however, was in a class by themselves. Our landlord, Steve, who lived next door, cautioned us to never have contact with the family in the house two doors down.
"And I mean, never," he said. "They make their living by suing people! They'll accuse you of anything. Don't even set foot on their property, and don't ever let their grandson Anthony into your house."
This seemed odd advice, until we met Anthony. He appeared at the kitchen door one evening asking what we had to eat. Forewarned by Steve, I physically blocked Anthony from coming into the kitchen. (He was probably between 6 and 9 years old--it was hard to tell because this poor kid's growth seemed stunted, his hair grew in different colors, and his eyes didn't always look the same directions.) I gave him some fruit, as suggested by Steve. The next night, we were sitting on the porch and heard Anthony announce to a group of urchins--"Hey guys, I know where we can all get some FREE FRUIT!"
One day, an ambulance came to take Anthony's grandmother away (she was perhaps 42 years old, but looked about 112). We later learned from another neighbor that while Grandma was hospitalized (after receiving a beating from Anthony's grandfather) she "fell" out of the hospital bed, broke her arm, and was now suing the hospital. Another day, the dog catcher came and removed a pack of tied up dogs from the back yard. The dogs jumped delightedly into the van--possibly, death was preferable to staying tied up in that back yard. Steve told us that the family let chickens inside their house and often didn't have electricity or running water. He and his brother tried to buy the house--but found out that for $30,000, it would be a complete loss.
Thus, one day when returning from a walk after work, I was completely horrified, but not very shocked, to see Anthony out in front of his house, throwing a live kitten against the side of his garage. He lobbed the kitten into the crumbling stucco wall, watched it fall to the ground, and would catch it again when it tried to run away. It was absolutely pitiful. I stood and watched the kitten--it was a little gray tiger cat with no tail--as tried desperately to get away from Anthony, darting in a new direction each time. Each time, he would catch it, laughing, and whip it at the garage again.
From my place on the sidewalk--warnings from Steve ringing in my ears--I yelled at Anthony: "Anthony, stop it! Let that cat go!"
Anthony turned around and stared at me, the kitten dangling in his hand. He grinned right at me, turned, and threw the cat again.
"Tiger likes it!" he said. The kitten stared at me, frozen and terrified, its eyes begging get me out of here. I stared at Anthony. He smirked, raised his hand, and threw the cat again.
I realized Anthony would keep doing this for my benefit--all I could do was walk away and hope he would get tired of it. I went home, but I kept returning to the window to check on Anthony and the cat. In a little while, Anthony moved to the back yard, where he continued to toss the cat in the air. I went to the back steps once and yelled at him again across Steve's backyard. He turned toward me, gave me the finger, and proceeded to shake the cat as hard as he could.
I went in the house and called Steve in tears. He warned me once again to not go over to Anthony's house or make any contact with the grandparents and said he would call the SPCA. I agreed, and stayed inside where I couldn't see Anthony or the cat.
Many hours later, I was sitting on the couch while Abe studied--totally distraught about the kitten--when I heard a noise. A tiny mew--it was coming from the front porch. I ran to the door and opened it. There, on the wide stucco wall of Steve's porch, scarcely 5 feet from our own, was the little tail-less kitten. He faced me, squeaking, trying to make the leap from Steve's porch to our own.
Without a single thought as to the consequences, I ran down the steps in my pajamas, crossed the driveway, grabbed the kitten, and brought him inside. I looked at an astonished Abe and said, "We have a cat now."
We had him for sixteen years.
We named him Indy, after Independence Boulevard (my ill-chosen jogging route!), which was the red-light district in Kansas City, MO--so we would always remember that eventful six months.
A few days after I snatched Indy off Steve's porch, Anthony appeared at our front door. I hid Indy, who followed me everywhere, behind my back as I opened the door.
"Hi," said Anthony. He had a black cat in his hands.
"Hi, " I said, peering through the crack in the door.
"Have you seen Tiger?" he asked. "I can't find Tiger."
"Nope," I said, while the cat-formerly-known-as-Tiger squirmed behind my back, "Haven't seen him."
"Oh, " said Anthony, "Well, do you want this cat? He's Tiger's brother, Killer."
"Uh--" I said confusedly, as Anthony shoved the cat at me. I looked desperately at Abe, who then darted in behind me and grabbed Indy out of the way.
"Thanks." I took the black cat.
Anthony said, "Can I have some fruit?"
Epilogue
I have often wondered what happened to poor Anthony, and have reflected on the fact that the dogs and the cats all fared better than he did. I would place money on him being in jail, a serial killer, or dead. If he is alive, he would be nearly 30.
We kept the black cat, too, and named him Puck. As it turned out, Indy was a pure Manx cat--we assumed his tail had been sadistically cut off, and perhaps eaten, by Anthony's family, but this was not the case. Manx cats have short front legs, long back legs like rabbits, and personalities more like dogs. Last spring, eighteen months after Indy died, we got ourselves another Manx cat. He acts a lot like Indy.
One night when we had some distant KC-area cousins visiting, we were all surprised to see an ice cream truck come trundling down the block. The cousins, who lived in the nice part of town, were too polite to say what everyone was thinking: "Huh. You would think this neighborhood was too sketchy for an ice cream truck!" The truck--close up, it was decidedly maintenance-challenged--rolled to a stop in front of the house where the kid had hidden from the police under his bed. Kids came running from up and down the street. Then the ice cream man appeared in the window: wild haired, unshaven, and not wearing a shirt, he grinned at the kids with perhaps four teeth, and started taking orders. Abe and I and the cousins were pretty much speechless. My cousin finally said, "You would think the ice cream man would have to wear a shirt. " We all nodded agreement. You would think!
Also in this interesting neighborhood (which was undoubtedly the most diverse I have ever lived in, with every ethnic group, and everyone from new immigrants to families that had lived there for generations), I was one time solicited while jogging. The guy who invited me into his truck for a good time had the grace to be really embarrassed when he saw the look on my face, which expressed plainly: "Holy sh*t dude, do you really think I am a hooker running around the park in these ugly sweatpants?" He was like, "Oh, hey, ah, sorry, sorry, man!"
One thing we liked about this neighborhood was that since hardly anyone appeared to have a job, they kept a good eye on our house while we were out during the day, and the neighbors were reasonably friendly, with mostly presentable homes and yards. One family, however, was in a class by themselves. Our landlord, Steve, who lived next door, cautioned us to never have contact with the family in the house two doors down.
"And I mean, never," he said. "They make their living by suing people! They'll accuse you of anything. Don't even set foot on their property, and don't ever let their grandson Anthony into your house."
This seemed odd advice, until we met Anthony. He appeared at the kitchen door one evening asking what we had to eat. Forewarned by Steve, I physically blocked Anthony from coming into the kitchen. (He was probably between 6 and 9 years old--it was hard to tell because this poor kid's growth seemed stunted, his hair grew in different colors, and his eyes didn't always look the same directions.) I gave him some fruit, as suggested by Steve. The next night, we were sitting on the porch and heard Anthony announce to a group of urchins--"Hey guys, I know where we can all get some FREE FRUIT!"
One day, an ambulance came to take Anthony's grandmother away (she was perhaps 42 years old, but looked about 112). We later learned from another neighbor that while Grandma was hospitalized (after receiving a beating from Anthony's grandfather) she "fell" out of the hospital bed, broke her arm, and was now suing the hospital. Another day, the dog catcher came and removed a pack of tied up dogs from the back yard. The dogs jumped delightedly into the van--possibly, death was preferable to staying tied up in that back yard. Steve told us that the family let chickens inside their house and often didn't have electricity or running water. He and his brother tried to buy the house--but found out that for $30,000, it would be a complete loss.
Thus, one day when returning from a walk after work, I was completely horrified, but not very shocked, to see Anthony out in front of his house, throwing a live kitten against the side of his garage. He lobbed the kitten into the crumbling stucco wall, watched it fall to the ground, and would catch it again when it tried to run away. It was absolutely pitiful. I stood and watched the kitten--it was a little gray tiger cat with no tail--as tried desperately to get away from Anthony, darting in a new direction each time. Each time, he would catch it, laughing, and whip it at the garage again.
From my place on the sidewalk--warnings from Steve ringing in my ears--I yelled at Anthony: "Anthony, stop it! Let that cat go!"
Anthony turned around and stared at me, the kitten dangling in his hand. He grinned right at me, turned, and threw the cat again.
"Tiger likes it!" he said. The kitten stared at me, frozen and terrified, its eyes begging get me out of here. I stared at Anthony. He smirked, raised his hand, and threw the cat again.
I realized Anthony would keep doing this for my benefit--all I could do was walk away and hope he would get tired of it. I went home, but I kept returning to the window to check on Anthony and the cat. In a little while, Anthony moved to the back yard, where he continued to toss the cat in the air. I went to the back steps once and yelled at him again across Steve's backyard. He turned toward me, gave me the finger, and proceeded to shake the cat as hard as he could.
I went in the house and called Steve in tears. He warned me once again to not go over to Anthony's house or make any contact with the grandparents and said he would call the SPCA. I agreed, and stayed inside where I couldn't see Anthony or the cat.
Many hours later, I was sitting on the couch while Abe studied--totally distraught about the kitten--when I heard a noise. A tiny mew--it was coming from the front porch. I ran to the door and opened it. There, on the wide stucco wall of Steve's porch, scarcely 5 feet from our own, was the little tail-less kitten. He faced me, squeaking, trying to make the leap from Steve's porch to our own.
Without a single thought as to the consequences, I ran down the steps in my pajamas, crossed the driveway, grabbed the kitten, and brought him inside. I looked at an astonished Abe and said, "We have a cat now."
We had him for sixteen years.
We named him Indy, after Independence Boulevard (my ill-chosen jogging route!), which was the red-light district in Kansas City, MO--so we would always remember that eventful six months.
A few days after I snatched Indy off Steve's porch, Anthony appeared at our front door. I hid Indy, who followed me everywhere, behind my back as I opened the door.
"Hi," said Anthony. He had a black cat in his hands.
"Hi, " I said, peering through the crack in the door.
"Have you seen Tiger?" he asked. "I can't find Tiger."
"Nope," I said, while the cat-formerly-known-as-Tiger squirmed behind my back, "Haven't seen him."
"Oh, " said Anthony, "Well, do you want this cat? He's Tiger's brother, Killer."
"Uh--" I said confusedly, as Anthony shoved the cat at me. I looked desperately at Abe, who then darted in behind me and grabbed Indy out of the way.
"Thanks." I took the black cat.
Anthony said, "Can I have some fruit?"
Epilogue
I have often wondered what happened to poor Anthony, and have reflected on the fact that the dogs and the cats all fared better than he did. I would place money on him being in jail, a serial killer, or dead. If he is alive, he would be nearly 30.
We kept the black cat, too, and named him Puck. As it turned out, Indy was a pure Manx cat--we assumed his tail had been sadistically cut off, and perhaps eaten, by Anthony's family, but this was not the case. Manx cats have short front legs, long back legs like rabbits, and personalities more like dogs. Last spring, eighteen months after Indy died, we got ourselves another Manx cat. He acts a lot like Indy.
You'll Be Fine
When we were kids, my mom did not have a lot of patience for whining. A non-stop ball of energy, she, to this day, delights in digging large holes, tearing holes in things like walls and roofs (sometimes other people's roofs), fitting things in her car that don't actually fit, and getting more accomplished in a day at age 72 than most people do in a lifetime. She moves fast. She never had patience for my sister and I whining and complaining. Her stock answer to anything (collapsed tent, lost homework, concussion) was "For heaven's sake girls. You'll be fine!" And I have to say, she was usually right. After whatever crisis it was had passed, and maybe after some emotional upset --which is after all, part of life!--we were always fine.
This year, my older son started high school. I was a walking wreck. I couldn't sleep for three nights. My stomach was a mess. My son did not seem to be particularly worried- it was all me. Maybe it was because I can't believe he is old enough to be in high school, because he is only 4 years from "leaving home," or because my little pooky, who used to spend all day singing the "Dig Dig Diggy" song and calling Mr. FixIt on his plastic phone! is now shaving, saving up for a truck, and attending events where there is "twerking." (Yes, I have become a walking cliche--where did the time go? )
When my boys were little, they had to do a lot of things they weren't too excited about, like moving five times in elementary school, switching schools six times each, and going to endless camps and sports team in new neighborhoods where they didn't know a soul. Every time we arrived at a new school or camp, they would watch all the other kids hug their friends and form little groups, and then they would walk in alone, and wait until an adult took over.
"Don't worry," I would say every time, although sadness for them was liquefying my stomach-- "You'll be fine. I promise. It will be ok by the end of the day."
Every time we moved, the kids were excited for the cross-states trip (my husband was in the Air Force, which sent us all over the Midwest), the new house, their new bedrooms, and exploring our new town--that is, until the night before the first day of school. Then it hit them that none of their friends from last year would be there, and that once again, they wouldn't know a soul--and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I assured them again and again, "It's a whole new year, a new class, everyone will be making friends. By the end of the first day, you'll have a friend. You'll be fine. I promise."
We always moved in the summer and, despite my desperate attempts to meet somewhat normal looking people on the playground ("Hi! How old is he? Do you live near here? Wait, don't go!") -- we always completely failed to make any friends. It was the same every time--every single kid we met was either staying with a divorced parent and weren't near their own school, or they were visiting grandparents or cousins. Usually I gave up, totally depressed, not having made a single connection for the kids, and we went to visit their own grandparents for the rest of the summer.
At one camp where we parked the kids for a week so we could unpack the house, all the other boys in the bunk--all old friends from school-- made blanket forts at rest hour, walling out the two new kids who didn't have any friends. My kids said camp was great-- except for rest hour. My younger son dealt with it by reading a book or pretending to sleep, while the other one hung around the snack shop. They didn't love it. It wasn't great. But they knew it would be over in a week. They had learned the difference between something they just didn't like, and something that was actually bad. It wasn't bad. But it wasn't great. Unlike it Disney movies and sitcoms, real life is often like that.
I have watched in astonishment over the years as other moms (pretty much all moms--not any dads I can think of), have fretted, stressed, and completely freaked out over whether or not their kid will have their best friend in her class, on his soccer team, at camp, at Safety Town, on the bus--to the point where I have seen moms calling soccer coaches or gymnastics instructors or principals in hysterics--making threats, crying, and ranting to other moms about now it's not fair! My child can't be on that team or on that classroom all alone!
I always wanted to say, God almighty lady, you and your kid need a big dose of "You'll be fine!" So what if your kid has to walk in alone? Then what? Worst case scenario, no one will talk to her, she'll be a little bummed out for an hour, and the next time she's with her friends and there is a new kid all alone, maybe she'll reach out, because now she knows how it feels. Best case scenario--hey, she'll make a new friend. Both of these options are really not that bad! Especially if you remind yourself, these are we-don't-live-in-Liberia-or-Afghanistan-and-have-plenty-to-eat types of problems!
My older son got up at 5:30 am and took the bus to high school on the first day. Two hours later, I drove his younger brother to his school. I was freaking out the whole time, asking my younger son, did he think his brother would be ok? Would he find someone to sit with at lunch? Would he get stuffed in a locker? Would he get a whirlie? Would he get lost?
My younger son sighed and looked at me steadily with his big green eyes.
"Mom," he said calmly, "I promise. He'll be fine."
This year, my older son started high school. I was a walking wreck. I couldn't sleep for three nights. My stomach was a mess. My son did not seem to be particularly worried- it was all me. Maybe it was because I can't believe he is old enough to be in high school, because he is only 4 years from "leaving home," or because my little pooky, who used to spend all day singing the "Dig Dig Diggy" song and calling Mr. FixIt on his plastic phone! is now shaving, saving up for a truck, and attending events where there is "twerking." (Yes, I have become a walking cliche--where did the time go? )
When my boys were little, they had to do a lot of things they weren't too excited about, like moving five times in elementary school, switching schools six times each, and going to endless camps and sports team in new neighborhoods where they didn't know a soul. Every time we arrived at a new school or camp, they would watch all the other kids hug their friends and form little groups, and then they would walk in alone, and wait until an adult took over.
"Don't worry," I would say every time, although sadness for them was liquefying my stomach-- "You'll be fine. I promise. It will be ok by the end of the day."
Every time we moved, the kids were excited for the cross-states trip (my husband was in the Air Force, which sent us all over the Midwest), the new house, their new bedrooms, and exploring our new town--that is, until the night before the first day of school. Then it hit them that none of their friends from last year would be there, and that once again, they wouldn't know a soul--and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I assured them again and again, "It's a whole new year, a new class, everyone will be making friends. By the end of the first day, you'll have a friend. You'll be fine. I promise."
We always moved in the summer and, despite my desperate attempts to meet somewhat normal looking people on the playground ("Hi! How old is he? Do you live near here? Wait, don't go!") -- we always completely failed to make any friends. It was the same every time--every single kid we met was either staying with a divorced parent and weren't near their own school, or they were visiting grandparents or cousins. Usually I gave up, totally depressed, not having made a single connection for the kids, and we went to visit their own grandparents for the rest of the summer.
At one camp where we parked the kids for a week so we could unpack the house, all the other boys in the bunk--all old friends from school-- made blanket forts at rest hour, walling out the two new kids who didn't have any friends. My kids said camp was great-- except for rest hour. My younger son dealt with it by reading a book or pretending to sleep, while the other one hung around the snack shop. They didn't love it. It wasn't great. But they knew it would be over in a week. They had learned the difference between something they just didn't like, and something that was actually bad. It wasn't bad. But it wasn't great. Unlike it Disney movies and sitcoms, real life is often like that.
I have watched in astonishment over the years as other moms (pretty much all moms--not any dads I can think of), have fretted, stressed, and completely freaked out over whether or not their kid will have their best friend in her class, on his soccer team, at camp, at Safety Town, on the bus--to the point where I have seen moms calling soccer coaches or gymnastics instructors or principals in hysterics--making threats, crying, and ranting to other moms about now it's not fair! My child can't be on that team or on that classroom all alone!
I always wanted to say, God almighty lady, you and your kid need a big dose of "You'll be fine!" So what if your kid has to walk in alone? Then what? Worst case scenario, no one will talk to her, she'll be a little bummed out for an hour, and the next time she's with her friends and there is a new kid all alone, maybe she'll reach out, because now she knows how it feels. Best case scenario--hey, she'll make a new friend. Both of these options are really not that bad! Especially if you remind yourself, these are we-don't-live-in-Liberia-or-Afghanistan-and-have-plenty-to-eat types of problems!
My older son got up at 5:30 am and took the bus to high school on the first day. Two hours later, I drove his younger brother to his school. I was freaking out the whole time, asking my younger son, did he think his brother would be ok? Would he find someone to sit with at lunch? Would he get stuffed in a locker? Would he get a whirlie? Would he get lost?
My younger son sighed and looked at me steadily with his big green eyes.
"Mom," he said calmly, "I promise. He'll be fine."
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Martyr Moms
One day, after watching me chase my toddler son around all day long, my mom looked at me and said,
"You and all your friends are completely nuts. Why in God's names don't you put that kid in a playpen? "
I patronizingly explained to my mom (who had successfully raised twins) why I couldn't possibly put my baby in a playpen. A friend, who was older and more experienced as a mom, had recently set me straight on the evils of playpens:
"The child's job is to explore. How is his brain going to grow and develop when he is jailed in a a playpen? We would never have one of those at my house! "
Oh, crap! I thought to myself. I had been thinking the playpen was the greatest invention ever--but I was not about to limit my child's brain development by locking him in a cage! I shoved the Pack n' Play back in the closet and resolved to let my son have free range in the house so that he could develop normally.
Ha, ha, ha. As it turned out, we were pretty lucky our free-range toddler did not a) Burn down the house, b) Destroy any major appliances, c) Injure himself or others, or, d) Send his mother screaming into a psych ward.
As soon as Palmer started crawling at the age of eight months, there was nothing he couldn't figure out how to get his hands on. One time, I came out of the bathroom to find him actually swinging from the chandelier over the kitchen table (years before Sia came up with the idea)! Soon after that, he twisted himself completely up in the curtains on the sliding glass doors, got stuck, and managed to pull down the whole fixture--curtains, curtain rods, brackets, and bolts--before I even knew where he had gone.
People kept telling me to child-proof the house. We tried, but there was no such thing as Palmer proof. (Safety Kids and Graco should have thrown all their devices into our living room and paid us to test them--like the bears who test trash cans at Yellowstone National Park!) First, I bought a safety catch for the stove. Palmer watched me install it, examined it for about two seconds, swiftly ripped it off the stove, and snapped it in half. Then he looked at me in disgust like, What do you take me for, lady??
Another time I was lamenting to my neighbor that it was impossible to cook dinner with Palmer in the kitchen. My neighbor looked at me in pity and said, "Don't you have the refrigerator magnets? The alphabet? That's what you need. Those keep my kids busy for hours."
I looked at her in amazement. Of course I had refrigerator magnets--not only the alphabet, but an entire fleet of construction equipment and a whole set of gears with moving parts. These had kept Palmer busy for exactly four seconds--then he was off to empty the cabinets and throw all the pots and pans down the basement stairs.
When I told other moms about the things Palmer managed to do, they all looked at me like I was insane--and the worst mom on the planet. I did not realize, at the time, that we just had an extremely unusual baby. No one else's one-year-old pulled up vent covers and filled the ducts with Thomas trains, or figured out how to unlock bolts, or filled the dryer with tomatoes. My mother in law, who had seven children and a dozen grandchildren when Palmer was born, looked at me once and said, "He's as active as they come!"
The one place we had to actually lock Palmer out of was the bathroom: after finding him, at about nine months, crawling for the hot water faucet (he adored baths) and another day, about to drop a round wooden block into the toilet (it would have exactly blocked the pipes!)--we installed a latch high on the outside of the door. Palmer would sit and stare up at that latch, a look of grim determination on his face. He was in diapers, had no hair and couldn't talk--but by God, he was going to figure out how to get that door open! Soon after that, I found him standing on top of the cat trying to reach it. I realized that he had seen the cat jump up onto the counter-- he was hoping he cat could give him a ride all the way to the top of the door. (The cat was was not harmed in this incident!)
One day, I could not take it any more--possibly it was the day Palmer ate something out of the litter box while I was one the phone (I then called my husband, screaming). I retrieved the Pack and Play, set it up, and deposited Palmer in it with about four thousand books and toys. The look on his face was pure, indignant rage--What in God's name do you think you're doing, lady?? After about twelve minutes, I couldn't take the unholy screaming---and he was back out. He would have figured out how to get out of the playpen pretty soon anyway--since the cat hadn't worked out, he was already trying to drag chairs to the bathroom door.
As soon as Palmer was a little older I just tried to get him out of the house as much as possible. Since we lived in North Dakota at the time, this took a lot of effort, involving snow suits which made my child the approximate size of a llama, getting gas when it was ten below zero, and actually plugging in the car so it didn't freeze (to makes things even more exciting, my husband spent nearly all of that year deployed in the Middle East!) Every Tuesday I hauled Palmer to Kindermusik, which went over about as well as the refrigerator magnets. While the other kids were obediently doing the feather dance, Palmer was running down the stairs and out of the building screaming "NO MORE 'PEEP SQUIRREL!'" (My sister said later, "You're lucky he didn't kill someone after having to sing Peep Squirrel four times!")
After snatching Palmer out of the traffic in the howling snow (I could barely run because not only was the parking lot sheer ice, I also pregnant), I thought, there has to be a better way. A few days later, over coffee, I told my anti-playpen friend that I was thinking about putting Palmer in a toddler class a few mornings a week to try to regain my sanity and perhaps even go to the bathroom by myself a few times before the baby came. She looked at me with pity:
"I would never send my child to one of those-- programs. I want him with me."
I sighed. Her child was sitting quietly in his stroller, turning the pages of a board book. My child had unbuckled from his stroller, disappeared behind the counter at Starbucks, and was headed for the mop bucket. As I chased him down and grabbed him from out of the path if a startled barista, the guilt overwhelmed me again: of course I wanted my child with me. Only a bad mom would want to sent a two year old away. Right?
Wrong. When I had my second child, I got lucky: the first moms I met in our new neighborhood urged me to park my little tornado in preschool, pronto, and come along to Starbucks before I completely lost my sh*t! Which I was obviously losing by the second!!
And that has made all the difference.
This blog is dedicated to Teresa Degenhart, Mary McCafferty, and Karen Abney.
"You and all your friends are completely nuts. Why in God's names don't you put that kid in a playpen? "
I patronizingly explained to my mom (who had successfully raised twins) why I couldn't possibly put my baby in a playpen. A friend, who was older and more experienced as a mom, had recently set me straight on the evils of playpens:
"The child's job is to explore. How is his brain going to grow and develop when he is jailed in a a playpen? We would never have one of those at my house! "
Oh, crap! I thought to myself. I had been thinking the playpen was the greatest invention ever--but I was not about to limit my child's brain development by locking him in a cage! I shoved the Pack n' Play back in the closet and resolved to let my son have free range in the house so that he could develop normally.
Ha, ha, ha. As it turned out, we were pretty lucky our free-range toddler did not a) Burn down the house, b) Destroy any major appliances, c) Injure himself or others, or, d) Send his mother screaming into a psych ward.
As soon as Palmer started crawling at the age of eight months, there was nothing he couldn't figure out how to get his hands on. One time, I came out of the bathroom to find him actually swinging from the chandelier over the kitchen table (years before Sia came up with the idea)! Soon after that, he twisted himself completely up in the curtains on the sliding glass doors, got stuck, and managed to pull down the whole fixture--curtains, curtain rods, brackets, and bolts--before I even knew where he had gone.
People kept telling me to child-proof the house. We tried, but there was no such thing as Palmer proof. (Safety Kids and Graco should have thrown all their devices into our living room and paid us to test them--like the bears who test trash cans at Yellowstone National Park!) First, I bought a safety catch for the stove. Palmer watched me install it, examined it for about two seconds, swiftly ripped it off the stove, and snapped it in half. Then he looked at me in disgust like, What do you take me for, lady??
Another time I was lamenting to my neighbor that it was impossible to cook dinner with Palmer in the kitchen. My neighbor looked at me in pity and said, "Don't you have the refrigerator magnets? The alphabet? That's what you need. Those keep my kids busy for hours."
I looked at her in amazement. Of course I had refrigerator magnets--not only the alphabet, but an entire fleet of construction equipment and a whole set of gears with moving parts. These had kept Palmer busy for exactly four seconds--then he was off to empty the cabinets and throw all the pots and pans down the basement stairs.
When I told other moms about the things Palmer managed to do, they all looked at me like I was insane--and the worst mom on the planet. I did not realize, at the time, that we just had an extremely unusual baby. No one else's one-year-old pulled up vent covers and filled the ducts with Thomas trains, or figured out how to unlock bolts, or filled the dryer with tomatoes. My mother in law, who had seven children and a dozen grandchildren when Palmer was born, looked at me once and said, "He's as active as they come!"
The one place we had to actually lock Palmer out of was the bathroom: after finding him, at about nine months, crawling for the hot water faucet (he adored baths) and another day, about to drop a round wooden block into the toilet (it would have exactly blocked the pipes!)--we installed a latch high on the outside of the door. Palmer would sit and stare up at that latch, a look of grim determination on his face. He was in diapers, had no hair and couldn't talk--but by God, he was going to figure out how to get that door open! Soon after that, I found him standing on top of the cat trying to reach it. I realized that he had seen the cat jump up onto the counter-- he was hoping he cat could give him a ride all the way to the top of the door. (The cat was was not harmed in this incident!)
One day, I could not take it any more--possibly it was the day Palmer ate something out of the litter box while I was one the phone (I then called my husband, screaming). I retrieved the Pack and Play, set it up, and deposited Palmer in it with about four thousand books and toys. The look on his face was pure, indignant rage--What in God's name do you think you're doing, lady?? After about twelve minutes, I couldn't take the unholy screaming---and he was back out. He would have figured out how to get out of the playpen pretty soon anyway--since the cat hadn't worked out, he was already trying to drag chairs to the bathroom door.
As soon as Palmer was a little older I just tried to get him out of the house as much as possible. Since we lived in North Dakota at the time, this took a lot of effort, involving snow suits which made my child the approximate size of a llama, getting gas when it was ten below zero, and actually plugging in the car so it didn't freeze (to makes things even more exciting, my husband spent nearly all of that year deployed in the Middle East!) Every Tuesday I hauled Palmer to Kindermusik, which went over about as well as the refrigerator magnets. While the other kids were obediently doing the feather dance, Palmer was running down the stairs and out of the building screaming "NO MORE 'PEEP SQUIRREL!'" (My sister said later, "You're lucky he didn't kill someone after having to sing Peep Squirrel four times!")
After snatching Palmer out of the traffic in the howling snow (I could barely run because not only was the parking lot sheer ice, I also pregnant), I thought, there has to be a better way. A few days later, over coffee, I told my anti-playpen friend that I was thinking about putting Palmer in a toddler class a few mornings a week to try to regain my sanity and perhaps even go to the bathroom by myself a few times before the baby came. She looked at me with pity:
"I would never send my child to one of those-- programs. I want him with me."
I sighed. Her child was sitting quietly in his stroller, turning the pages of a board book. My child had unbuckled from his stroller, disappeared behind the counter at Starbucks, and was headed for the mop bucket. As I chased him down and grabbed him from out of the path if a startled barista, the guilt overwhelmed me again: of course I wanted my child with me. Only a bad mom would want to sent a two year old away. Right?
Wrong. When I had my second child, I got lucky: the first moms I met in our new neighborhood urged me to park my little tornado in preschool, pronto, and come along to Starbucks before I completely lost my sh*t! Which I was obviously losing by the second!!
And that has made all the difference.
This blog is dedicated to Teresa Degenhart, Mary McCafferty, and Karen Abney.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Child of the 70's: Agatha
One September when my sister and I were maybe nine years old, my parents, for the first time ever, went away together for a whole week, and our friends the Snyders came to stay with us. The Snyders, David and Sally, had two boys, Todd and Tris, with whom we got along with tolerably well, considering the fact that they were boys, and were older than us, and we really had nothing in common. (They liked sports, especially football and running, and anything involving speed, like waterskiing; and we liked playing Boggle, eating cheese and crackers, and lying around reading books.)
At the time, my parents were deep into their homesteading phase. David and Sally--who had most recently been living in a luxurious gated community in Panama--were now handed responsibility for not only the dogs, Louie and April, and our psychotic cat, Alice, but also two pigs (Statler and Waldorf), a dozen chickens, four turkeys, and four sheep (Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha, and Frida).
Manth and I were delighted to have the Snyders stay with us for a whole week. They made awesome food we had never even heard of in Massachusetts in 1979, like tacos, they played salsa music on the stereo, they had no idea what time we were supposed to go to bed, and they let us watch as much TV as we wanted. Compared to Todd and Tris---who frequently got in bloody punching matches over things like who got out of the car first--Samantha and I were probably a piece of cake (although we did occasionally get in our own bloody punching matches about things like who left Barbie's dress where the dog could get it!)
At that time, our absolute favorite thing to do was make tiny tree-houses, complete with furniture, for our vast collection of little rabbit- fur mouse dolls dressed in various professional outfits (I remember the nurse and the policeman) in trees in the woods. With Mom and Dad away, we were now free to do that for hours on end, uninterrupted by chores such as folding laundry, cleaning our rooms, or completing homework on time. It was bliss.
Manth and I were delighted to have the Snyders stay with us for a whole week. They made awesome food we had never even heard of in Massachusetts in 1979, like tacos, they played salsa music on the stereo, they had no idea what time we were supposed to go to bed, and they let us watch as much TV as we wanted. Compared to Todd and Tris---who frequently got in bloody punching matches over things like who got out of the car first--Samantha and I were probably a piece of cake (although we did occasionally get in our own bloody punching matches about things like who left Barbie's dress where the dog could get it!)
At that time, our absolute favorite thing to do was make tiny tree-houses, complete with furniture, for our vast collection of little rabbit- fur mouse dolls dressed in various professional outfits (I remember the nurse and the policeman) in trees in the woods. With Mom and Dad away, we were now free to do that for hours on end, uninterrupted by chores such as folding laundry, cleaning our rooms, or completing homework on time. It was bliss.
The first three days of the visit were peaceful. When Manth and I were done playing in the woods after school, we would head back up to the house to find tacos on the table, the boys doing their homework, and David and Sally having a cocktail and watching the news. Then, one day, on our way back from the very large tree deep in the woods where were constructing an entire mouse-sized apartment building with sticks and moss, we came across a scene of hideous carnage. Louie, our mentally challenged and hyper but very beautiful English setter, had somehow gotten into the pasture and killed the turkeys.
Hulking black bodies were scattered around. Heads hung limp or were torn off, and feathers carpeted the ground. Louie was dashing from carcass to carcass, his tail wagging frantically, absolutely beside himself with joy. Manth and I yelled at him, pulling him off the birds by his collar, and calling him what Dad would have no doubt called him at that minute ("Louie you goddamn sonofabitch dog!")
After dragging Louie out of the pasture and closing the gate, Manth and I ran screaming to the house. Sally came running to the door in a panic--had we been hit by a car? Bitten by a rattlesnake? Shot by poachers? I threw open the sliding glass door, sobbing, "Louie got the turkeys!" The entire Snyder family--the boys taking a moment out of pummeling each other for the remote control-- froze in disbelief. David and Sally--who were really city people -- stared at each other in abject horror. It was enough coping with our house in the country and the livestock--now there had been a massacre!
We all went down to the pasture-- David, running first, with a grim look on his face and probably thinking back to his time in the Peace Corps; the boys, shoving each other in an attempt to get there first; and finally, Sally, with her arms around Manth and I, trying to comfort us and telling us Louie couldn't help it--he was, born and bred, a bird dog. First David went and checked on the sheep. (Bjorn seemed a little freaked out, but they were all fine, huddled together in the farthest corner of the pasture). Then we all stood in the pasture, looking down at the dead birds, body parts, claws, feathers, and blood. Even the boys were reverently silent. Then David said, "Wait--weren't there four? There are only three here!"
He was right. There was one missing. A survivor! And then, Sally saw it: perched precariously in a huge pine tree over the pigpen, tilted sideways on the branch, her feathers disheveled, was one shell-shocked but surviving turkey.
Mantha said, "Let's name her Agatha."
At some point the next day, Agatha came down from the tree and began staggering around on the ground. When Manth and I got home from school, we rushed straight to the pasture to see her. (I don't know what David did with the bodies. Possibly he had to take a day off of work to bury our dead turkeys?) Louie had done a number on Agatha's tail---her rear end was now partly bald and she was missing all her beautiful tail feathers. Never, as a turkey, having possessed the most intelligent of facial expressions, she now looked like she had been hit over the head with a brick. Her head stayed tipped sideways. She made confused croaking noises and seemed unable to walk in a straight line. David and Sally watched her lurch around with their hands pressed over their mouths in disbelief.
Manth and I immediately decided we would spend every spare second with Agatha until she recovered from her trauma. We ran back to the house and loaded up with supplies: a selection of crackers (we weren't sure what she liked-I thought Cheez-Its, Mantha thought Wheat Thins;) a tub of Port Wine Cheese, two bottles of ginger ale, canoe cushions, and several different Trixie Belden mysteries. (We chose ones that made frequent mention of Trixie's chickens).
Then--ignoring the stares of complete, stunned disbelief from Todd and Tris (Todd:"You're going to read books to the turkey?") we headed down to the pasture, where we found Agatha wandering in the corner behind the raspberry patch. We set out canoe cushions down on either side of her, carefully placed the crackers within her reach, and settled down to read. She seemed to like it--she stayed pretty close to us (maybe it was the crackers.) When she ambled too far away we would get up and move our cushions, until it was dinner time and we had to bid her farewell for the night.
When Mom and Dad got back from their trip, David and Sally--who had been sitting silently in our living room for hours, in a state of suspended dread--greeted them at the door with such somber faces that my mom was sure for a moment that one of us must have died. When Sally tearfully told them that Louie had gotten in the pasture and killed most of the turkeys, my mom started laughing, "Oh, Jesus Christ, the damn turkeys! You scared me half to death!" Dad was a little more distressed, but since the culprits were his beloved dog and his closest friends, all he could do was mutter about the boys leaving the gate open (which was patently unfair, as the boys never went in the pasture, but Manth and I had no problem letting them take the blame--which probably didn't do a lot for our relationship. ) The the Snyders departed, the friendship still intact, the boys probably pondering the unfathomable weirdness of girls.
Manth and I continued our daily visits with Agatha for months-- until it got too cold and dark to be outside after school. Then Dad announced that Agatha would have to go live with someone who had a barn. After what she had been through, he did not have the heart to send her to the butcher --especially as she now had a name, cracker preferences, and a favorite Trixie Belden adventure ("#3-The Gatehouse Mystery!). We offered her to our friend Nancy, who lived down the road on a farm. Agatha lived through the winter in Nancy's barn, but sometime in the following summer, Nancy told us she had disappeared. We took it well--Dad reminded us that Agatha would have been Thanksgiving dinner had it not been for the massacre.
At some point the next day, Agatha came down from the tree and began staggering around on the ground. When Manth and I got home from school, we rushed straight to the pasture to see her. (I don't know what David did with the bodies. Possibly he had to take a day off of work to bury our dead turkeys?) Louie had done a number on Agatha's tail---her rear end was now partly bald and she was missing all her beautiful tail feathers. Never, as a turkey, having possessed the most intelligent of facial expressions, she now looked like she had been hit over the head with a brick. Her head stayed tipped sideways. She made confused croaking noises and seemed unable to walk in a straight line. David and Sally watched her lurch around with their hands pressed over their mouths in disbelief.
Manth and I immediately decided we would spend every spare second with Agatha until she recovered from her trauma. We ran back to the house and loaded up with supplies: a selection of crackers (we weren't sure what she liked-I thought Cheez-Its, Mantha thought Wheat Thins;) a tub of Port Wine Cheese, two bottles of ginger ale, canoe cushions, and several different Trixie Belden mysteries. (We chose ones that made frequent mention of Trixie's chickens).
Then--ignoring the stares of complete, stunned disbelief from Todd and Tris (Todd:"You're going to read books to the turkey?") we headed down to the pasture, where we found Agatha wandering in the corner behind the raspberry patch. We set out canoe cushions down on either side of her, carefully placed the crackers within her reach, and settled down to read. She seemed to like it--she stayed pretty close to us (maybe it was the crackers.) When she ambled too far away we would get up and move our cushions, until it was dinner time and we had to bid her farewell for the night.
When Mom and Dad got back from their trip, David and Sally--who had been sitting silently in our living room for hours, in a state of suspended dread--greeted them at the door with such somber faces that my mom was sure for a moment that one of us must have died. When Sally tearfully told them that Louie had gotten in the pasture and killed most of the turkeys, my mom started laughing, "Oh, Jesus Christ, the damn turkeys! You scared me half to death!" Dad was a little more distressed, but since the culprits were his beloved dog and his closest friends, all he could do was mutter about the boys leaving the gate open (which was patently unfair, as the boys never went in the pasture, but Manth and I had no problem letting them take the blame--which probably didn't do a lot for our relationship. ) The the Snyders departed, the friendship still intact, the boys probably pondering the unfathomable weirdness of girls.
Manth and I continued our daily visits with Agatha for months-- until it got too cold and dark to be outside after school. Then Dad announced that Agatha would have to go live with someone who had a barn. After what she had been through, he did not have the heart to send her to the butcher --especially as she now had a name, cracker preferences, and a favorite Trixie Belden adventure ("#3-The Gatehouse Mystery!). We offered her to our friend Nancy, who lived down the road on a farm. Agatha lived through the winter in Nancy's barn, but sometime in the following summer, Nancy told us she had disappeared. We took it well--Dad reminded us that Agatha would have been Thanksgiving dinner had it not been for the massacre.
A few years after that, an article appeared in our local paper: "Mystery Bird Alarms Neighborhood." The article described how some hikers on local conservation land been completely astonished to come across a hulking, bald-headed, bare-butted bird wandering in the woods. One person was quoted as saying, "It was the size of a golden retriever!" Someone else wondered if the strange bird was rabid, because of the way it walked in circles. Another person in the group thought it was some kind of rare vulture out of its normal habitat. Calls were made to Audobon, and volunteers were searching the woods for the strange bird (this was many years before wild turkeys made a comeback in New England.)
My dad re-read the article and realized the bird had been spotted in between our house and Nancy's house. He laughed so hard he nearly fell off his chair.
"Oh my heavens, girls," he gasped. "It's Agatha!"
Agatha was alive! Possibly, she was headed back to our house to find some more Port Wine Cheese, or find out how The Gatehouse Mystery ended--but we never saw her again. She might be out there still.
My dad re-read the article and realized the bird had been spotted in between our house and Nancy's house. He laughed so hard he nearly fell off his chair.
"Oh my heavens, girls," he gasped. "It's Agatha!"
Agatha was alive! Possibly, she was headed back to our house to find some more Port Wine Cheese, or find out how The Gatehouse Mystery ended--but we never saw her again. She might be out there still.
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Camping in the 70's, Part 2
When my older son was in the 4th grade at an excellent, but enormous, public elementary school, his class went on a three-night camping trip to the beach. You would have thought, from the preparations, that he was going on a mission to Mars, or, perhaps, to colonize the outer asteroid belt, with high risk of alien attacks and plague. The paperwork took six months. There were doctors appointments. Checklists. Waivers. Meetings. There were trips to buy thermal underwear, rain pants, thigh high rubber boots, and non-cotton hiking socks, all of which were required, and without which, your child would not be permitted on the bus (for a trip to the beach. In June.) Some parents just threw in the towel and said their kids weren't going.
Finally, after months of preparations, there was the all-grade parent orientation. (This was kind of like the meeting for the nature walk, on steroids.) Hundreds of parents filed into the junior high auditorium for a Power Point presentation on how each day at the camp would run, down to bathroom breaks, deodorant use, beverages, mosquito population, and approximate time of sunset. Then came the parent question and answer session, which as we all know, is the best part of any school meeting, and during which I never, ever wish I was doing something else, like washing out garbage cans, pulling ticks off the dog, or getting a Pap smear.
The first parent who raised her hand asked if the girls could bring hairdryers. She was very concerned that her daughter's head would get cold walking from the cabin to the dining hall, and that her daughter would get pneumonia. (In June! At the beach!) The next parent insisted that her son be permitted to bring his cell phone so he could call his parents at any time, and so she could reach him at any time--in case, I don't know, smallpox broke out and the whole family was on the verge of death during the three day trip to the beach. The next parent to raise his hand was a dad, who demanded that he see the OSHA records from the camp kitchen, as he was very concerned about ecoli in the salad bar (as if the camp had bins of bean sprouts and cauliflower sitting around all winter.) By the time we got into sodium levels in the food, ambient lights in the cabins, and emergency plans in case of sharknado, pirate attack, or gluten overload, I felt like screaming, Does ANYONE in this room understand the point of camping???
(I also, at this point, had intense sympathy for our poor public schools, which are pretty much hamstrung by all the insane, litigation-happy parents they have to deal with--it is a miracle the kids are still allowed to take any trips whatsoever!)
My family understood camping. My grandmother could pack for two weeks in the woods in two small bags. My father could live for weeks on saltines and peanut butter (and cigars). My sister and I --from about the age of 5-- packed our own bags for the trip. If we ended up with one pair of underwear and no flashlight--tough--we would only make that mistake once! When we got to camp-- after the mortifying, dog-saturated, 7-hour Okie-inspired road trip which had started at 5 am--we were responsible for unloading our own stuff out of the canoes, hauling it all to the tent site, putting up our tent and rain tarp, and setting up our stuff inside the tent. We also had to haul our aluminum cots down from the attic of the cabin, which we hated, because sometimes we found stuff like mouse nests full of disgusting hairless newborn mice (which my dad tossed into the woods, saying, "Don't worry girls, they'll love their new home!") The cots always had mouse dirt on them, despite the fact that we hung them on clotheslines. (Mom said, "Brush it off. You'll be fine.")
While Mantha and I set up our tent, located our flashlights so we find the tent in the dark after dinner, and changed into jeans to discourage the bugs, my parents set up their tent, opened the cabin, stocked the outdoor kitchen and fired up the Coleman stove. Usually my uncles and cousins came over to help with the heavy lifting, but by dark, we were all completely exhausted. After dinner we still had to haul water from the lake up to the fire and boil it to wash the dishes. Then we went back down to the beach to brush our teeth in the lake. Finally, Mantha and I would thread our way up the path to our tent, zip ourselves in and fall blissfully asleep in our Off-smelling, never-washed sleeping bags and our mousy cots.
One year, Manth and I woke up in the middle of a thunderstorm to the nasty sensation of water dripping on us. I looked over at Mantha and saw an enormous bulge hanging over her head: the wind had torn away the tarp (probably because we could not tie knots very well, or reach very high on the tree trunks,) and the canvas roof was filling with water. As soon as Manth sat up, her head brushed the bulge of water, and it began to run onto her sleeping bag. Then I realized my side had a smaller bulge, also dripping. My sleeping bag was already damp. I reached down and touched the floor--it was also wet, along with most of our clothes. We wordlessly found our flashlights, climbed out of the tent, and headed for mom and dad's tent.
This turned out to not be such a good decision. Mom and Dad, who had just gotten back to sleep after the thunderstorm, did not have a lot to say to us.
Dad said, "Go sleep in the cabin, girls!"
Mom said, "You'll be fine!"
Manth and I looked at each other in the beam of our flashlights and shrugged. Barefoot, we picked our way back down the path in the soggy pine duff, zipped open our tent, grabbed our sleeping bags, and ran up to the cabin. Then, silently weighing the prospects of going up in the creepy attic for new cots against getting our own cots from the tent, we headed back to the tent. We managed to get the cots out without completely flooding the tent, zipped the door back up, and made our third trip up the wet, rocky path in the dark.
In the cabin, we triumphantly set up our cots next to the wood stove, which was still smoldering, got in our sleeping bags, and went back to bed, relieved to have a real roof over our heads, even if it skittered with tiny mouse paws all night long.
We were four years old that summer.
Our parents felt pretty bad when they woke up and saw our tent completely collapsed. (For one panicked moment my mom, suddenly remembering that her last words to us were "You'll be fine," was afraid we were still in there, under a hundred pounds of saturated canvas!) But when they found us sound asleep and relatively snug and dry in the cabin, my dad said, "I'm really proud of you girls!" We were pretty proud of ourselves, navigating this disaster in the middle of the night.
And that, in my book, is the point of camping.
Finally, after months of preparations, there was the all-grade parent orientation. (This was kind of like the meeting for the nature walk, on steroids.) Hundreds of parents filed into the junior high auditorium for a Power Point presentation on how each day at the camp would run, down to bathroom breaks, deodorant use, beverages, mosquito population, and approximate time of sunset. Then came the parent question and answer session, which as we all know, is the best part of any school meeting, and during which I never, ever wish I was doing something else, like washing out garbage cans, pulling ticks off the dog, or getting a Pap smear.
The first parent who raised her hand asked if the girls could bring hairdryers. She was very concerned that her daughter's head would get cold walking from the cabin to the dining hall, and that her daughter would get pneumonia. (In June! At the beach!) The next parent insisted that her son be permitted to bring his cell phone so he could call his parents at any time, and so she could reach him at any time--in case, I don't know, smallpox broke out and the whole family was on the verge of death during the three day trip to the beach. The next parent to raise his hand was a dad, who demanded that he see the OSHA records from the camp kitchen, as he was very concerned about ecoli in the salad bar (as if the camp had bins of bean sprouts and cauliflower sitting around all winter.) By the time we got into sodium levels in the food, ambient lights in the cabins, and emergency plans in case of sharknado, pirate attack, or gluten overload, I felt like screaming, Does ANYONE in this room understand the point of camping???
(I also, at this point, had intense sympathy for our poor public schools, which are pretty much hamstrung by all the insane, litigation-happy parents they have to deal with--it is a miracle the kids are still allowed to take any trips whatsoever!)
My family understood camping. My grandmother could pack for two weeks in the woods in two small bags. My father could live for weeks on saltines and peanut butter (and cigars). My sister and I --from about the age of 5-- packed our own bags for the trip. If we ended up with one pair of underwear and no flashlight--tough--we would only make that mistake once! When we got to camp-- after the mortifying, dog-saturated, 7-hour Okie-inspired road trip which had started at 5 am--we were responsible for unloading our own stuff out of the canoes, hauling it all to the tent site, putting up our tent and rain tarp, and setting up our stuff inside the tent. We also had to haul our aluminum cots down from the attic of the cabin, which we hated, because sometimes we found stuff like mouse nests full of disgusting hairless newborn mice (which my dad tossed into the woods, saying, "Don't worry girls, they'll love their new home!") The cots always had mouse dirt on them, despite the fact that we hung them on clotheslines. (Mom said, "Brush it off. You'll be fine.")
While Mantha and I set up our tent, located our flashlights so we find the tent in the dark after dinner, and changed into jeans to discourage the bugs, my parents set up their tent, opened the cabin, stocked the outdoor kitchen and fired up the Coleman stove. Usually my uncles and cousins came over to help with the heavy lifting, but by dark, we were all completely exhausted. After dinner we still had to haul water from the lake up to the fire and boil it to wash the dishes. Then we went back down to the beach to brush our teeth in the lake. Finally, Mantha and I would thread our way up the path to our tent, zip ourselves in and fall blissfully asleep in our Off-smelling, never-washed sleeping bags and our mousy cots.
One year, Manth and I woke up in the middle of a thunderstorm to the nasty sensation of water dripping on us. I looked over at Mantha and saw an enormous bulge hanging over her head: the wind had torn away the tarp (probably because we could not tie knots very well, or reach very high on the tree trunks,) and the canvas roof was filling with water. As soon as Manth sat up, her head brushed the bulge of water, and it began to run onto her sleeping bag. Then I realized my side had a smaller bulge, also dripping. My sleeping bag was already damp. I reached down and touched the floor--it was also wet, along with most of our clothes. We wordlessly found our flashlights, climbed out of the tent, and headed for mom and dad's tent.
This turned out to not be such a good decision. Mom and Dad, who had just gotten back to sleep after the thunderstorm, did not have a lot to say to us.
Dad said, "Go sleep in the cabin, girls!"
Mom said, "You'll be fine!"
Manth and I looked at each other in the beam of our flashlights and shrugged. Barefoot, we picked our way back down the path in the soggy pine duff, zipped open our tent, grabbed our sleeping bags, and ran up to the cabin. Then, silently weighing the prospects of going up in the creepy attic for new cots against getting our own cots from the tent, we headed back to the tent. We managed to get the cots out without completely flooding the tent, zipped the door back up, and made our third trip up the wet, rocky path in the dark.
In the cabin, we triumphantly set up our cots next to the wood stove, which was still smoldering, got in our sleeping bags, and went back to bed, relieved to have a real roof over our heads, even if it skittered with tiny mouse paws all night long.
We were four years old that summer.
Our parents felt pretty bad when they woke up and saw our tent completely collapsed. (For one panicked moment my mom, suddenly remembering that her last words to us were "You'll be fine," was afraid we were still in there, under a hundred pounds of saturated canvas!) But when they found us sound asleep and relatively snug and dry in the cabin, my dad said, "I'm really proud of you girls!" We were pretty proud of ourselves, navigating this disaster in the middle of the night.
And that, in my book, is the point of camping.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Child of the 70's Part 4: Camping
Last week my son and I were at the local diner and ran into several other families from his class. Later, on I heard one of the boys say, "God, that was so embarrassing--I was with my mom and my little sister!" Considering these boys are all of eleven, I thought that was pretty funny. These kids have no idea what true embarrassment is. To experience that, they would have had to go backwoods camping with my family, in about 1979.
First of all, every summer, my normally well-dressed father, a college professor!--prepared for the trip by stopping bathing a few days ahead of time--he swore it kept mosquitoes away (and I have to say it worked, as my mom usually spent the trip swatting and slapping in agony, while Dad was pretty much immune.) Dad also stopped shaving the second the semester ended--by the time we went camping in the end of the summer, he was virtually unrecognizable.
Every year, Dad's preparations for camping got a little more elaborate. By the time we were about ten, packing took a week. We drove our blue Chevy van (the same one my sister couldn't figure out how to open when she was temporarily blinded), with two canoes and a kayak tied on top, and hauling a ten-foot Grand Lake Stream canoe on a trailer. Both canoes, the kayak, and the Grand Laker were stuffed to gills with sleeping bags, duffels, backpacks, camp mattresses, bags of food, canoe cushions, rod cases, dog beds, beer, toilet paper, and anything else we needed for two weeks in the woods. On top of that, the whole load was covered in tarps and garbage bags in case it rained, and criss-crossed with bungie cords and rope. Anyone might have thought we were emigrating to Newfoundland. Or being run out of town.
Most years, we brought my cousin Toby (who got carsick a lot) and we always had the two dogs--Louis, a spastic, low-IQ (sorry, Dad!) English setter who had been known to claw his way through a wooden door if accidentally shut in a room for more than 5 seconds; and our awesome, school-walking mutt, April. (Later this expanded to three dogs when we inherited Wolf, a fifteen year old deaf and blind Golden retriever with bladder problems, from friends who had moved to England.)
If that wasn't enough to make everyone in the state of Maine stare when we pulled into every gas station, one year, we decided, in a stroke of all-around family brilliance--to also bring our cat, Alice.
Did Alice exhibit an intense desire to travel? No. Did Alice do well in the car? No. Did Alice, ever, at any time, express any affection for anyone in the family other than Louis, and years later, Hannes, our German exchange student? No. If you tried to pick her up, she would slash you right across the face. If she was really mad she would pee on your bed. One time, in mid-slash, she got her claw stuck in my sister's nostril. (Mantha promptly launched her across the room screaming "That #$%ing cat!" She still has a scar in her nose.)
Why in the name of reason we all thought it would be a good idea to take Alice camping is beyond me-- there must have been a dearth of pet-sitters that summer?-- or maybe it was because of the mice infesting the cabin. (Since they had the cabin to themselves for 50 weeks out of the year, it was a losing battle.) But, decide we did. When it came time to leave at 5 am to beat why my dad called that god-damn traffic, we hooked Alice onto her leash, and headed for the van.
There were seven of us that time-- the four of us, my grandparents (in a separate car--they said they would see us at the lake!) cousin Toby, the two dogs, and Alice! Poor Alice. When she saw the dogs already in the van, she bolted in terror. It must have been my grandmother, Beep, who had been holding the leash--because instead of completely freaking out, Dad just followed the the rest of us into the woods after the cat, shaking his head (Beep was the only one of us he never would have yelled at!). Since Alice still had her leash on, even Dad didn't have the heart to leave her to strangle in the woods. As the minutes ticked by--further destroying our chances of an on-time 5 am departure--we all thrashed grimly around in the poison ivy, calling "Aaaaaalice! Kitty kitty kitty!" --as if she had ever, even once, come when called.
A few minutes later, my grandfather, Truman, a sworn hater of cats (no matter what Kipling said!)--stepped on Alice's leash, and she shot straight up into the air. We caught her, bundled her into the car--with more than a little bloodshed on my and Samantha's part--and we were off.
The first few hours of the seven hour drive to the lake, Manth and I sat Alice on the seat in between us, petted her, and read her passages from Trixie Belden. The dogs were banished to the plywood loft my dad had built in the back of the van. All day long Louis would hang his head over the vinyl seat, drooling copiously. We brought paper towels to wipe off the drool stream.
Alice seemed to be coping ok. We were thinking perhaps she even shared our passion for Trixie Belden. Then, she started panting. If you have ever seen this, it is not a good sign. It means your cat is absolutely frick-fracking miserable. But my family--showing about as much sense as when we failed to notice my sister's optic nerve damaging concussion!!--decided that Alice was panting because she was finally relaxed. Like the dogs!
Every time we stopped --for gas, fishing licenses (back when you could just park in front of LL Bean and run in and out for a license in ten minutes!) or foot-long red Maine hot dogs, my Dad would get out in all his unwashed, unshaven glory, and crawl around on top of the van checking all the ropes and swearing the whole time. The minute the car stopped, I would vanish and pretend to be with some other family. Toby, his carsickness not at all helped by the drool stream coursing past him on the back seat, usually bolted for the bathroom, and Samantha would close her eyes and pretend to be asleep.
My mom, cursing the three of us for our utter uselessness, struggled out of the van with both dogs, and Alice, who was now howling like she was being tortured, and behaved much like a sack of potatoes on a leash. Meanwhile, I wandered around the far side of the rest stop trying to look like I had come off a camp bus.
About an hour from the cabin, Alice hopped up onto the center console, in between my parents. She stopped panting. She stopped yowling. She looked calm. My dad, who had already cracked open a beer, (only on the dirt roads!) reached over to pet her (she never scratched him.)
"Now, that's a good kitty," he said, "I think she is going to do just fine."
We pulled into the lake in the early afternoon and all climbed out of the van, covered as always in dog hair and drool, and more or less ready for six hours of setting up camp (thus, the necessity of leaving at 5 am.) The dogs bolted joyfully straight into the lake. Manth and I tied Alice to a tree so she would be out of the way.
A few minutes later, my dad reached into the cup holder in the center console to clear the change out (someone might actually break into your car for a dollar in change in 1979). His hand went straight into something warm. A few minutes later we heard him yelling,
"AAAAAAAHHHHH! That miserable goddamn cat!"
Now we knew why Alice had calmed down for the end of the trip: she had sat very, very still, balanced carefully, and peed in the cup holder.
After a miserable 20 minute march to the camp on her leash, we shut Alice in the cabin. A few minutes later, three mice came literally flying out of the attic window, Alice in hot pursuit! She had a glorious two weeks ridding the cabin of vermin. She only fell out of a boat once, and best of all, she didn't get lost, and behaved herself on the way home.
Despite this, we never, ever brought her camping again.
First of all, every summer, my normally well-dressed father, a college professor!--prepared for the trip by stopping bathing a few days ahead of time--he swore it kept mosquitoes away (and I have to say it worked, as my mom usually spent the trip swatting and slapping in agony, while Dad was pretty much immune.) Dad also stopped shaving the second the semester ended--by the time we went camping in the end of the summer, he was virtually unrecognizable.
Every year, Dad's preparations for camping got a little more elaborate. By the time we were about ten, packing took a week. We drove our blue Chevy van (the same one my sister couldn't figure out how to open when she was temporarily blinded), with two canoes and a kayak tied on top, and hauling a ten-foot Grand Lake Stream canoe on a trailer. Both canoes, the kayak, and the Grand Laker were stuffed to gills with sleeping bags, duffels, backpacks, camp mattresses, bags of food, canoe cushions, rod cases, dog beds, beer, toilet paper, and anything else we needed for two weeks in the woods. On top of that, the whole load was covered in tarps and garbage bags in case it rained, and criss-crossed with bungie cords and rope. Anyone might have thought we were emigrating to Newfoundland. Or being run out of town.
Most years, we brought my cousin Toby (who got carsick a lot) and we always had the two dogs--Louis, a spastic, low-IQ (sorry, Dad!) English setter who had been known to claw his way through a wooden door if accidentally shut in a room for more than 5 seconds; and our awesome, school-walking mutt, April. (Later this expanded to three dogs when we inherited Wolf, a fifteen year old deaf and blind Golden retriever with bladder problems, from friends who had moved to England.)
If that wasn't enough to make everyone in the state of Maine stare when we pulled into every gas station, one year, we decided, in a stroke of all-around family brilliance--to also bring our cat, Alice.
Did Alice exhibit an intense desire to travel? No. Did Alice do well in the car? No. Did Alice, ever, at any time, express any affection for anyone in the family other than Louis, and years later, Hannes, our German exchange student? No. If you tried to pick her up, she would slash you right across the face. If she was really mad she would pee on your bed. One time, in mid-slash, she got her claw stuck in my sister's nostril. (Mantha promptly launched her across the room screaming "That #$%ing cat!" She still has a scar in her nose.)
Why in the name of reason we all thought it would be a good idea to take Alice camping is beyond me-- there must have been a dearth of pet-sitters that summer?-- or maybe it was because of the mice infesting the cabin. (Since they had the cabin to themselves for 50 weeks out of the year, it was a losing battle.) But, decide we did. When it came time to leave at 5 am to beat why my dad called that god-damn traffic, we hooked Alice onto her leash, and headed for the van.
There were seven of us that time-- the four of us, my grandparents (in a separate car--they said they would see us at the lake!) cousin Toby, the two dogs, and Alice! Poor Alice. When she saw the dogs already in the van, she bolted in terror. It must have been my grandmother, Beep, who had been holding the leash--because instead of completely freaking out, Dad just followed the the rest of us into the woods after the cat, shaking his head (Beep was the only one of us he never would have yelled at!). Since Alice still had her leash on, even Dad didn't have the heart to leave her to strangle in the woods. As the minutes ticked by--further destroying our chances of an on-time 5 am departure--we all thrashed grimly around in the poison ivy, calling "Aaaaaalice! Kitty kitty kitty!" --as if she had ever, even once, come when called.
A few minutes later, my grandfather, Truman, a sworn hater of cats (no matter what Kipling said!)--stepped on Alice's leash, and she shot straight up into the air. We caught her, bundled her into the car--with more than a little bloodshed on my and Samantha's part--and we were off.
The first few hours of the seven hour drive to the lake, Manth and I sat Alice on the seat in between us, petted her, and read her passages from Trixie Belden. The dogs were banished to the plywood loft my dad had built in the back of the van. All day long Louis would hang his head over the vinyl seat, drooling copiously. We brought paper towels to wipe off the drool stream.
Alice seemed to be coping ok. We were thinking perhaps she even shared our passion for Trixie Belden. Then, she started panting. If you have ever seen this, it is not a good sign. It means your cat is absolutely frick-fracking miserable. But my family--showing about as much sense as when we failed to notice my sister's optic nerve damaging concussion!!--decided that Alice was panting because she was finally relaxed. Like the dogs!
Every time we stopped --for gas, fishing licenses (back when you could just park in front of LL Bean and run in and out for a license in ten minutes!) or foot-long red Maine hot dogs, my Dad would get out in all his unwashed, unshaven glory, and crawl around on top of the van checking all the ropes and swearing the whole time. The minute the car stopped, I would vanish and pretend to be with some other family. Toby, his carsickness not at all helped by the drool stream coursing past him on the back seat, usually bolted for the bathroom, and Samantha would close her eyes and pretend to be asleep.
My mom, cursing the three of us for our utter uselessness, struggled out of the van with both dogs, and Alice, who was now howling like she was being tortured, and behaved much like a sack of potatoes on a leash. Meanwhile, I wandered around the far side of the rest stop trying to look like I had come off a camp bus.
About an hour from the cabin, Alice hopped up onto the center console, in between my parents. She stopped panting. She stopped yowling. She looked calm. My dad, who had already cracked open a beer, (only on the dirt roads!) reached over to pet her (she never scratched him.)
"Now, that's a good kitty," he said, "I think she is going to do just fine."
We pulled into the lake in the early afternoon and all climbed out of the van, covered as always in dog hair and drool, and more or less ready for six hours of setting up camp (thus, the necessity of leaving at 5 am.) The dogs bolted joyfully straight into the lake. Manth and I tied Alice to a tree so she would be out of the way.
A few minutes later, my dad reached into the cup holder in the center console to clear the change out (someone might actually break into your car for a dollar in change in 1979). His hand went straight into something warm. A few minutes later we heard him yelling,
"AAAAAAAHHHHH! That miserable goddamn cat!"
Now we knew why Alice had calmed down for the end of the trip: she had sat very, very still, balanced carefully, and peed in the cup holder.
After a miserable 20 minute march to the camp on her leash, we shut Alice in the cabin. A few minutes later, three mice came literally flying out of the attic window, Alice in hot pursuit! She had a glorious two weeks ridding the cabin of vermin. She only fell out of a boat once, and best of all, she didn't get lost, and behaved herself on the way home.
Despite this, we never, ever brought her camping again.
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