SOUND OFF! - On the Air

Mon Dieu! It would appear to be Wednesday as I write and I distinctly recall muttering something about continuing our discourse on "the morrow". Time passage being the elusive/subjective little bugger that it is, we shall just have to proceed as though no beats were 'skipped', no promises broken. I WILL say that the marshalling of memories, reaping of relevant recollections and assemblage of the activities associated with my Mrs. First Lieutenant-days back in the VERY tender times of our union takes its toll - emotionally, intellectually, sartorially even, ie, what WAS I wearing that day. . . . .

It was Halloween. And while Daddy was amusing himself with the preparation of lectures, selection of public service footage and distribution of appropriate 'dress' for the sailors under his charge while they would be on liberty in port at Recife, Brazil (known for it's beautiful women and not so STD's), I was 'creating' young Philip's costume. Given his assumed , previously-mentioned, newly-developed aversion to speaking, we had agreed that he would be Harpo Marx cum massive multi-colored curly wig, loud rubber ball-controlled horn and white face with deep red painted smile and cheeks - this last applied with a palette knife. As he clumsily boarded the pre-school bus on foot-long lime-green plastic shoes bound for the party at St. Peter's, I was pleased, he excited, the other kids ebullient and the driver badly in need of aspirin.

I had to be back by 12:30 - drop-off - and so had 4 hours to dress, drive the 20 minute trip to 'downtown', interview with the Director of our local CBS affiliate News Director, Jim Mays, and, after cajoling, cringing but convincing him that he really needed a fresh face and fluently-articulating news reporter, return home jubilant, my new roots with the rootless and newsworthy, my new label: 'live reporter'. Mr. Mays was lounging at his enormous, seaworthy desk, hands behind his head, fingers entwined and supporting his half-balded head, feet crossed at the ankles, resting on the desk blotter and smoking a cigar. (Soooo prototypical.) I entered, nattily-clad in a navy and hunter green plaid wool suit, pleated skirt, crisp, white blouse, gleaming penny loafers trying to keep my focus as sharp as those knife-pressed pleats. Which was a challenge, what with the billowing, enveloping cigar smoke. "And you are?", he crooned hoarsely, by way of introduction.

My mind whispered, "no one, really" but I heard Mrs. First actually iterate "Lorane Leavy.". What followed was a halting, apologetic explanation of the purpose of my audience with the News Director followed by a sighed exhalation of cigar smoke punctuating his long, beady-eyed, squinting stare. Then, in that unmistakable this-interview-is over tone of voice, he allowed as how one needed either a degree in broadcast journalism OR six months on-air experience to even be CONSIDERED for employment as a field reporter. "Come back when you have either one and we'll talk." He took a phone call and I my leave.

Dazed and disappointed, I found the street and leaned against the black marble building face - staring. At some point, the mural of the scene across the busy avenue became sharp enough that I recognized the somewhat familiar landmark of the glass, bubble-shaped building that filled the street intersection's corner - the WNOR AM-FM radio broadcasting studio. There was a small sign lodged in a pane section steel support the words on which seemed to be undulating, "N-O-W-H-I-R-I-N-G" And I was across the street, panting/banging on the steel back door. Within a 5 or so minute blur of time, I was seated in a darkened room, given several sheafs of paper, instructed to review them and then - from somewhere behind a large pane of glass - a voice-wearing-headphones boomed, "Whenever you're ready, honey!".

I'd been asked to read - into a small, black, standing mike, - the contents of: "60- SECOND SPOT: FIRST AMERICAN BANK - DEMO". (BRAIN: "This is an audition! DO something!"; Lorane: "Do WHAT?"; BRAIN: "Read the damned thing!"; Lorane: "I don't know anything about BANKING!"; BRAIN: "Then sing, "Let My People Free", whatever! Or leave because you've got 45 minutes before Harpo gets off the bus at the ole casa!") And so it went and Lorane steeled herself and in a clear, loud, up-beat voice chirped some foreign jargon for 57 seconds, being certain to REALLY "hit" - as they say - the tag with carefully executed enthusiasm (commercials SELL things, right?) . . .AND, a subSTANTIAL penalty is required for EARLY WITHDRAWAL!!!!". And 'headphone's shouted "CUT!!!"

There followed a brief-but-thorough explanation of the meaning of the words I was to read oh-so-smoothly-and intelligently. Then. "Again. . . On 3. . .Three, two, one" and he pointed at me. (Never thought that was fair. "On 3" should begin with 1.") Anyway, I re-read, Mr. Director - Tony - re-played back, pondered, looked at HIS watch (I mean I was the one who had to speed home to grab Harpo before he hit the furniture with that "no-enzyme-detergent-can-touch-THIS" body.) and simply, somewhat sadly, said, "Be here at 8 tomorrow morning. Marcie can only go through it with you one time. You'll be doing the 11 to 2 PM slot and she's being transferred to Texas Monday." Tomorrow was Saturday. I'll have to bring Har. . . uh. . Philip to the studio. Who's going to. . . and so on and on and then I was home for, "Guess what? Mommy's going to be on the radio!"

To say the least, we got off to a rocky start. Marcie was a WONDERFUL, KIND, PATIENT and gone-by-Monday Navy wife who had been on the air for three years. A Navy wife, she loved the very 'happiness' of the job of playing popular music from new and old but always popular albums; it kept her from constantly wondering how things were going for her Navy Seal husband; it provided an outlet and friends - other young women, in similar circumstances, who were fortunate to be among the ONLY "ALL FEMALE" FM RADIO MUSIC PROGRAM IN THE AREA! And it was BECAUSE Marcie was such a talent - technically and personally - that she occupied the Prime slot 11 AM to 2PM - the most listened-to time frame. This explained the affect (worried, almost panicked) of the Programming Director, Tony, when he interviewed me. He'd had the same notice given to Marcie by the Navy - 2 days - in which to make the transition: Marcie to ???? And Marcie 'd had 2 days in which to ready herself and their little girl for a huge move/change. But she wrote lengthy notes for me, outlining the format of the "show" with specificity; provided me with tapes of old programs; found FCC leaflets and bound notebooks containing rules, laws contact information and graphics of equipment, its function, operational info as well as bequeathing me her very own professional (expensive) headphones-cum-jack.

Briefly, the format was a 4-quadrant hour during which your hostess actually spoke four times - "top of the hour, 15 minutes past, bottom of the hour, 45 minutes past & back to the top". We began with the recap of the previous 15 minutes; station ID ("call letters"); the time/date; our slogan, eg, "We've just been listening to Elton John, Helen Reddy and the Eagles. (short "ring tone") It is eleven AM on this Monday morning, November 3rd, 1972. I am Lorane Knight reminding you to "Hear the top hit albums, twenty-four Hours a day on WNOR - FM, Naw-fuk". (There was actually a piece of paper taped to the console, just behind the microphone, with those letters thusly printed - the phonetics of our fair city. So MANY people insisted - and still do - on saying Nor-folk or Nor-ferk or some such so management insisted all of us use the 'piece-of-paper' rendition. Because it is correct.) At 15 minutes past the hour, we did another music ID recap AND (THE MOST popular aspect of our format as per our polled listening audience) three of the day's HOROSCOPES!. There were some 'fans' who ONLY tuned in every 15 minutes as we preceded the top of the hour routine with the last three Zodiac reports.

Tony christened me Lorane Knight to protect anonymity and worked on my "radio voice" which, as per the station's rating indices, should be soft, feminine, warm, almost unobtrusive. The microphones were old and 'unidirectional' so you had to position your mouth and project your voice directly at the mike or the pick-up was spotty. (With an omni-directional mike, you could be physically reaching and turned to the right to prepare for pushing a commercial button and you'd still be picked up when speaking.) Modulation & volume were "issues" as well in achieving the WNOR "radio voice". Fortunately, the engineers were a helpful bunch and Tony was FINALLY satisfied with my "voice" after the guys actually put a white sports sock over the thing to mute & soften my apparently grating sound. Tony was also constantly watching/listening so as to "help" me achieve the very BEST DJ performance AND not breach any FCC rules. The glass studio - visible from the outside - was bisected by a glass wall such that half was FM & half AM. Tony spun 45's in the same time slot as I on the AM side while I "q-ed up" (one prepares to play/air/bring volume up on the next song of an album by placing the needle down 'between songs' & rotating the 'platter' slightly counter-clockwise) I mention this physical arrangement so that you can appreciate how easy it was for Tony to monitor EVERYTHING I said & did.

The headphones are key. If you are just standing in the room, you don't HEAR anything. You only hear the music through the headset. You monitor sound & quality with gauges with needles on the console. BUT. although YOU can only hear through the headset, THE LISTENING WORLD can hear any/everything that is audible IN THE STUDIO. Thus, when broadcasting, the CRITICALLY IMPORTANT "On Air" neon sign is VERY conspicuously LIT. (Of course, this, too is controllable. Pushing a button MUTES studio sounds, ONLY "airing" what is audible through those headphones. And this is the mode utilized. UNLESS the DJ is speaking/airing. At these 4 times per hour, there MUST be TOTAL silence in the studio. That's all ya gotta know. Really. So, pretty soon, I settled into a routine, even developed a following of sorts.

The First Lt/Commander was now retired from the Navy and specialized in Emergency Medicine. So I had all of my "ER FANS". That can be a gloomy place at times, so I'd (sub rosa, of course) play some cheer-up stuff for them - at the magic noon hour. Only they knew about it. Beginning at 11:45, I play a special trilogy, eg, the "Anticipation/Lay-Lady-Lay/(topped off with) The Stripper by David Rose" ending at the top of the hour break. OR, they also liked the "Bennie and the Jets/Look What They've done to My Song, Ma/ Maggie May" combo. We started to get mail about these favorites - happy, complimentary mail. Same with "Dock of the Bay', "Joy to the World", "Lean on Me", "Brandy", "Mockingbird", an occasional "Brand New Roller skate" or "Where the Iguanas Play".

We had fun - promos - (One involved a staged pseudo hockey game (using brooms and tennis balls) on the Scope triple A hockey rink. We (WNOR -FM DJ'S) were pitted against the McDonald "Quarter-Pounders" (a group - unbeknownst to us - of McDonald employees weighing 175 + one quarter lbs.) It was the half-time entertainment at a real hockey game. All of our family/friends came. We wore jeans & WNOR-FM T-shirts & sneakers; The Quarter Pounders had snazzy uniforms in McD colors. We saw them for the first time only seconds before face-off. Oye. I actually (accidentally) got the ball & "broomed" it ALL the way to the goal with around 1 K pounds in tow. SCORE! BY LORANE KNIGHT! Laughter all around because she "SCORED" FOR the "Pounders"! The fam and ER staffs were SO proud. And Tony. . . .

Well, he was serving some cold shoulder that Monday. I, on the other hand, was kind and jovial. Adult, if you will. At one point, he stormed in and informed me that we barely escaped being fined by the FCC because I had been in violation of a rule which forbid the playing of the same some in a seven day period. They were not happy with my daily, dedicated trilogies. Oh. well. He dashed off to a meeting. I found my favorite Jonathan Edwards album & Q-ed up "Sunshine Go away Today". (Unfortunately, didn't notice Tony sneak in to the studio - meeting cancelled, and listening as I pushed the 'magic button' and belted along with Jonathan:

Sunshine go away today; Don't feel much like dancing

Some man's gone, he's tried to run my life; Don't know what he's asking.

He tells me I'd better get in line; Can't hear what he's saying

When I grow up I'm going to make it mine; but these aren't dues I been paying.

How much does it cost, I'll buy it; the time is all we've lost, I'll try it

But he can't even run his own life; I'll be damned if he'll run mine, Sunshine.

Sunshine go away today; I don't feel much like dancing

Some man's gone, he's tried to run my life; don't know what he;s asking.

Working starts to make me wonder where; the fruits of what I do are going

He says in love and war all is fair; but he's got cards he ain't showing.

Sunshine come on back another day; I promise you I'll be singing

This old world, she's gonna turn around; Brand new bells'll be ringing.

OOOps. Gotta go. FBI - BOMB SCARE. We have to evacuate the building. I q-ed up Don McLean and "Bye, bye. . . ."

L. . . . .

Now Hear This

Soon after we were transplanted to Virginia by the Navy, I sensed that I was not going to be a good little 'Mrs. First Lieutenant'. I say this because within 2 weeks of becoming a Virginian, my husband received orders to report to the USS Harold J. Ellison, a destroyer bound ("I'm sure it's one of those dinghies - figuratively speaking/sailing, used to taxi/outboard you to the HOPE. That was the deal. A HOPE doc, Viet Nam, surgically putting the injured, oozing, US fighters/fliers back together again. ) But, what ho! The HOPE has been recalled, you say? Your really are going to be on a - flagship destroyer? For nine months? And your fleet, most ably-commanded by a 'Commodore', (and I thought Perry was the last of the breed) will deploy for the Mid-East? Friend;y mission? Maybe see you in six months if we can rendezvous in Weisbaden? Baby Philip will love Christmas in Germany with little cousins, romping about in suede liederhosen, lucky to be in the Navy and visiting Air Force godparents-cum-two-little-boy-cousins? OK, then. We're all in this together and apart. Bye. . . .

And so it was that I began my lone epiphany as a military wife - so recently civilian, working blissfully in the first coronary care unit in the country in NYC and then equally blissful re: becoming a mother of our tow-headed, blue eyed, fair and lively and TRES Irish-looking now 11 month-old son. What to do? Mrs. Commodore - as she referred to herself via telephone introduction-cum-invitation to my very FIRST white-gloved, summer- chapeau-ed, be-ribonned and crisp "Luncheon" as an officer's spouse, ie, Mrs. First Lieutenant. (I had so recently shunned NOW because I HAD an identity - indeed it was printed right there on my social security card, nursing and driver's licenses - and had NO concept/inclination to 'become' Mrs. first Lt.". Well. We soldiered/sailored on, Philip and I, and it wasn't long before we were 'manageing", coping with Daddy's absence, following his travels on a map that consumed our dining room wall and was dotted with brightly-colored pins marking the exotic/alien ports at which the Harold Jack, and, therefore Daddy, parked/anchored whilst being militarily friendly. And Daddy was the best doc - had the lives of the entire fleet 5-10 other destroyers - in his red-white-and-blue-gloved and capable hands. (Performed a circumcision on one hapless fellow while rounding the Cape of Good Hope - more on THAT human bandage in another outing.)

We busied ourselves with coping, pre-school, learning to remember that "peach" was, in the South, a 4 syllable word and remembering to tell everyone with whom we were forced to interact to "Have a nice day!". The time came when the speech thing started to become an annoyance. (Philip elected to speak as little as possible) I, ever vigilant and 'in touch' with my environs (when you grow up in Brooklyn, it becomes part of your essence. You could call it 'survival', even). Anyway, I was MOST irked by the seemingly casual and widespread phenomenon of MISPRONUNCIATION which was de rigueur among the broadcast journalism set. So intense and un-palatable became this negative awareness, that I vowed to intervene. Thus began my long association with broadcating, writing, acting and - at least in my humble situation and trappings - a rabid determination to effect change. I must confess that my activities could never be characterized as altruistic. Rather, I enjoyed the challenge. The challenge of insinuating myself into these public forums - broadcasting, acting, teaching creative writing - and somehow succeeding in becoming a part of the genre, all the while - and with conscious determination executed with an oh-so-subtle performance - "talking right, if you will, and varying the old vocabulary almost indiscernibly so that, as a community - of neighbors, fellow-military servants, friends and worker bees, we could "evolve" elocutionally and conversationally. (Getting that word-to-paper transition was going to take time, but I was thrilled with the receptiveness of the unwitting students.

I hope to introduce you to some local luminaries in many public arenae as we go along. And, to be sure, you'll suffer through - as did I - the embarrassments and public indignities brought upon this writer all by herself as she verbally and technically stumbled through the vagaries of being a disc jockey, community theater actress and published writer in Hampton Roads. I hope you will be able to laugh with and not just AT my foibles - God knows I certainly did lest I became doubtful of the "kindness of strangers" and boarded that proverbial 'streetcar' bound for rejection and confinement. On the morrow, then, some bizarre vignettes associated with "Lorane Knight" (on air ID) and how she became one of the very few female DJ's in the seventies and then - because you will have earned it - a glimpse into the talents of the truly gifted on air personnel during this era in this venue. For now, having delved (I trust not too overbearingly and at too great a time span) into dear Cassie's travails last evening, Orpheus again whispers and I'm dashing to his embrace. Later, L. . . .

I Knew You When We Both Knew Nothing and Now That's Changed

Three point game. . . . Seven minutes to go.... [Cut to commercial] And the mind wanders. Always happens when I'm tense. No 'Grace under pressure' here. Just me, although it would have been decent for Grace to show. I'll just think about good friends who always showed. Brings Cassie, a dear high school buddy to mind. And that day a shared 'friend' popped in on her.

Seven silver cups hanging from seven equally-spaced c-hooks screwed into the bases of the kitchen cabinets. Christening presents from Bill's mother. The kids use them every day. I've never looked at them from here. That's because in the nine years we've lived in this house, I've never sat on the cushioned window=seat side of breakfast nook. They look warm, happy - the cups. And the silhouettes. White paper profiles mounted on black. The silhouettes. They make the kids look like they all have overbites. And they didn't even have front teeth when I did them. But then I'm not an artist. Just a wife and mother who couldn't sleep and came down to her kitchen at five A.M. , made coffee and sat on the wrong side of her kitchen table clutching HER favorite mug - "4 Mom 4 all you do from us 7" - and sorting. Thoughts (finished the socks at midnight)

It's more like brooding, really. Because I've been talking to Mary. She always makes me feel like I'm missing some very big point. Taking everything too lightly. We were close friends in high school. We lived near each other for ten years in NY and she became a friend and not so much fun. I don't think she liked marriage and kids.

You see Mary worked as a secretary on Wall Street (whilst I went to Queens College - English major/cheerleader until Bill and I were surprised = as was the cheering coach - that we were in "the family way" as well as the family's way, as you can imagine!) and married Tom - bonds. Then after schlepping around (Mary's phrase) for ten years, she got smart and educated and a PhD in Educational Psychology. She also had two children - Jennifer and Timothy - while schlepping and ignored them while getting smart. Mary. Slim, blond, angular, with deep-set, watery-blue eyes and a deeply nasal voice was now dumpy and terribly earnest in her deeply nasal fashion. Me? After Queens College, Bill - banking - and I married because we were deeply in love, Catholic and careless and having Nancy, the first of our seven children. Me. Cassie. Slim, vivacious, auburn-haired, brown-eyed with a deep but non nasal voice was still slim and clowned a lot. I've always believed in love, laughter, children and laughter. But apparently I never got "integrated" and smart - Mary says.

She called me six months ago to announce getting PhD'd. I was thrilled for her. Sounded REALLY happy. Then she called again the following month to see 'how I was doing'. Then it was a call a month to get me motivated toward self-improvement and get at what Mary seemed to feel were the many maladjustive tendencies which were hampering my "process". "What are you going to DO with your life," she'd ask. "What do you DO now?" And I'd hang up feeling stupid and threatened and spend the week wondering if those were trick questions or what. What do I DO?

I eat right and exercise and Bill loves me. I read a lot and roller skate. The kids see me as a Mom to be proud of and have fun with and never have to worry about prepositions during. But Mary made it sound like the nineteen years I'd just spent with my family having what we thought was a good time, have been squandered in aimless dalliance, just so many idle moments strung together into a chain which effectively choked my personal development, stifled my exposure to life - in the cosmic sense. She STRONGLY suggested I hot-foot it down to the nearest community college and gobble enrichment credits before it's too late. "Too later?", I'd ask. "Those kids are going to be gone some day, Cassie, and just WHAT will you be prepared to DO?" I'd point out that three of my children were still under ten and are emitting no true sense of exodus presently. "That's just it. You are ENTIRELY focused on Bill and the kids." (A fact I believed was in the + column - even among the astigmatic PhD'd crowd - what with easily-opened bottles of lye and bleach lurking about, available for tampering.) She spoke deliberately, tutorially, sometimes very slowly - as though speaking to somebody with the IQ of a box of frozen snow peas.

I was showing what was termed in academic circles as no respect for the concept of wholeness. And the way to reach that, it seemed, was to split your time between family and school - or SOME 'other'. Otherwise, you remain neurotically attached to the home environment in addition to being subjected to remarks like, "Why don't you and Bill come up this weekend. The Olshefskis are coming. You'll love her. SHE didn't go to college, either." (That was Mary at her subtle best.) She meant well. And frankly, I dreaded that leaving-the-nest syndrome. I just had to figure that I'd think of something when the time came. In fact, I DID have plans. But I couldn't think about that at the moment. It was five thirty and I was feeling very edgy and defensive. My own fault. I'd never learned how to say "no". And now there'd be a confrontation because

Mary was coming down that day. Driving the two hundred miles from Boston to Westport to see me - and analyze and save me. From What? Myself, I guessed. She and Tom had visited the previous month and while the guys shot hoops, Mary'd mapped out a plan that would have me all educated and ready to assume my place in our culture as a mature, informed citizen by the time our youngest was finishing grade school. I'd meant to tell her that I wasn't interested but couldn't get a word in. So I just figured she'd soon get a job and not bother me any more. (PhD's DID work, right?) She'd said she was interviewing but wanted to get me settled first. Ahh. What price friendship? Or wholeness? Or asparagus, for that matter?

I liked it better when she wasn't 'saying' anything. We really hadn't TALKED in nine years = not since we'd moved from the islands, Long and Staten. In fact, our last meaningful chat had been on moving day = mine. Bill had taken the three oldest kids and followed the moving van. I kept the baby and my Hoover upright. I was giving the outgrown house one last nostalgic, split-leveled sweep when Mary'd popped in. She'd brought coffee, prune danish, Marlboros and advice. I only needed the Marlboros but badly enough to be gracious about the rest.

She looked SO natty in her Villager blouse, crew-necked sweater, flannel slacks and tassel loafers. She sat on the floor near the window seat and arranged danish, napkins, cardboard cups of coffee on the sill, setting the lids out for ash trays. I was winding our ten year-old Hoover cord around its frayed hooks. "Cass. Why don't you leave that dangerous dinosaur here. It would be symbolic. I told Tom I'm not taking any of our tired relics up to Boston. (Did she mean Tom wasn't going?) New job. New city. New home means new appliances, you know? (I wondered if a "husband" was a clever psychological euphemism for "appliance.) I'm sure Bill would spring for a new vacuum cleaner."

"Wouldn't think of it, Mare. Just spent thirty-seven dollars and a rainy Saturday overhauling the old girl. We are rarin' to take on the 'new' dirt." I extricated the furniture brush from the baby's hand. He'd been meticulously moving a large hill of ashes out of the fireplace and on to the just-swept floor. He was two, a quiet child who entertained himself easily. I gave him the little net sack of matchbox cars (already 'packed' in my purse) and hoped he wouldn't get interested in he danish because the divine Ms. Hoover was prepped for her exit. "Cassie, come and sit. Coffee's getting cold and we have to talk."

I sat and lit a butt. I could see my old Buick wagon - sagging but SO ready to leave. As was I. Not so with Mary who obviously had something pithy to say. I leaned back against the wall, pulling my knees up and hugging them to my body, trying to let IT say, "O.K., Mary. What's on your mind?" And then, "How are you and Bill doing - really?" She was referring to the fact that right after the baby was born, I had announced I wanted a separation. Now I ALWAYS want SOMETHING after giving birth but THIS baby's post partum period had been PARTICULARLY flamboyant. Bill'd been working and going to night school in the city. Often he'd stay at his mother's, too tired to face the drive back to Long Island where I sat basking in the luxury of being twenty-six and the mother of four. I'd been feeling terribly neglected, trapped, victimized. Bill suggested we seek counseling; we did; it was great. We'd begun talking more, going out - even if we were tired, making plans. The counselor had suggested I go back to school and I did - and did well. Needed it while Bill was finishing up. But. That phase of our life over, I had no wish to continue. I needed Bill and the kids more.

"We're great, Mary. Really." The baby was straining to get at the danish - leaning over Mary's leg. But she was too intent to notice. I gave him the whole bag. "You know, Cassie, at first I thought it was very selfish of you - and vain - to go back to school. And I still don't know how you managed. I mean, when did you SLEEP?" "Mary I only took twelve credits in two years. And I wish you'd told me how you felt. I was looking for a reason to quit."

"No, Cassie. I can tell you feel differently about yourself. You're smart and you know it now. You're not in any way inferior to Bill and now HE knows it, too."

"I didn't feel inferior to Bill, Mary. I missed Bill. But you're right about my self image. I see myself in a far more enlightened fashion now that I've read Moby Dick. And not a day goes by that I don't ponder, with impishly superior interest, one of the GREAT questions. Like, how DID Wagner and his music tie in to fascism? To his mother?" I started to laugh. Mary didn't.

"Don't put yourself down for my sake Cassie. I'm so proud of you. And I think the kids will respect you more now, too."

The baby had torn the pastries into cubes with which he was respectfully building a sticky little village for his cars. I was glad I hadn't packed the Hoover and becoming piqued with Mary's commentary on my lousy twelve credits.

"Well. I have something to tell you. I've enrolled in Boston College. I'll be starting in January - after we're settled in."

"Mary, I think that's great."

"I've been thinking about it ever since you started going. We're SO much alike, Cass. It never occurred to me to look at you if I wanted to see myself. I watched you change when you went back to school." She stopped to sip some cold, cardboard coffee and light a cigarette. As she inhaled, she started to laugh, then choke. I slapped her back broadly, relieved that she was laughing. Enough of this soul-searching, Mary. Let's just have a few laughs about old times. Then you can head out for Boston and your new life and appliances and I'll lock up and launch the rest of this day with the baby and Hoover.

"What's so funny?"

"Cass, (looking around at the canary yellow walls) do you realize that it was when you went back to school that you re-did the house?" She got up and walked over to the fireplace, her loafers clip-clopping on the hard wood floors. "And YELLOW in the living room." Her body was tensing. She was really pumping up. "YELLOW. That's SO significant, Cass." She wheeled and marched toward the dining room (which was done in a rusty orange with celery trim) and I got fearful that she would get some time-consuming mileage out of this bizarre 'color thing'. I wished I'd still had my furniture so I could have taken the chair Mary would have been siting in and move it out onto the front lawn. While she marched, the loafers did sort of a hollow clip-clop, clop. The baby was trying to imitate the sound with a car. I didn't dare ask the significance of yellow. Mainly because the kitchen was red and the way things were going, the living and dining rooms were just appetizers. I had to be in Westport before dark.

"Mary, I've always enjoyed painting and papering. Remember all the stuff I did on Lloyd Street?" That was a fifth floor, two-bedroom walk-up in Brooklyn. Our 'starter mansion'.

"Cass. You painted prison bars on the walls in the kitchen."

"That was a joke, Mary."

"No it wasn't. Not really. C'mon, Cass. Admit it. Things were rotten and you found a way out. And I'm getting out too. No more schlepping and cleaning and waiting on Tom and the kids. It's a dead-end street. Look at my mother."

She was kind of 'leaning' on the Hoover, now. "What does it get you, Cass? Tired, dull, alone. That's what. I will NOT become my mother and I have YOU to thank."

I could only focus on the ironies - comic and sad. It kept me from saying, "Let's not get in to 'mothers."

Mrs. O'Brien. A large, white-haired woman with a lusty laugh. I remembered her ironing the church altar linens while we stuffed our faces with her PERFECT, home-made jelly rolls and listened to her funny stories about old-time Irish politicians. She still ironed and baked and campaigned for young Irish politicians - and laughed. MY mother went, as they used to say, to business. A secretary for a fork-lift company - and an alcoholic. She still worked and went on week-long toots whenever she felt vaguely depressed. She was often depressed. No, Mary. Let's not 'do' mothers. I got up to collect the droppings from our brunch.

"Look, Mary. It sounds like you're really going to enjoy school. For me, it was just a time-filler. Bill was just so BUSY."

She looked puzzled, a bit let down. I looked at my watch. I thought of Bill, the kids and the Seven Santini Brothers trying to decide where to put furniture and seventy some-odd boxes in Westport. I walked over to Mary and gave her a quick but very hard hug. "I'm so happy for you, Mare," I was. I cared about Mary. We had shared alot. And I wanted to say, "I'll miss you," but it didn't come out. Instead, I said, "now, for old times' sake, won't you schlep this Hoover out to the car? I'll scrape this mess up and follow on your loafered-heels with the baby."

"Where's Yippy?"

"Gone. I took him to a vet in East Meadow."

"Are you going to pick him up now?"

"No, Mary. I'm not going to pick him up at all." We were outside. I shut the door and ran my fingers over the knocker. This house had been good.

"Cassie. Is Yippie sick?"

Yippie was an incorrigible, destructive gray terrier who had recently taken to snapping at the children. Nobody liked him.

"No. I found him gnawing on my new leather wallet this morning. Ruined it. So, after everybody left, I took him to this vet who boards animals. I said, "I'd like to board my dog. We're going away." He said, "How long will you be gone?" "I don't know," I said. "Has he had his shots?" "No. You'd better give them to him."

"Cassie, that's crazy! And it will cost you a fortune when he finds you."

"Don't think it will, Mary. Gave him a phony name." She was actually laughing with me. I buckled the baby into his seat and walked around to the driver's side. We hugged each other again. She slapped the rusted fender. "Hey. Are you going to be commuting to school in this old hog?"

"Mary, I. . .We'll see." Could I tell her I was pregnant? SHE was matriculating. I was GESTATING and that was that?

"I'm going to miss you, Cass."

"I know. Now Mary, let's not start slobbering.. I'll just get in and go - real fast. I'll call you."

"You're right. Go, Go." And I did.

And it's six A.M. and she's probably getting into her car while I'm getting another mug of coffee and nervous. Bill will be down soon. IS it inappropriate to want to raise children instead of your cosciousness?

And then the kids.

I don't think I'm dull and tired. I'll ask the kids what they think. Maybe I'll just ask the baby. Then I'll pick up some prune danish and be back by en because I don't run away from adult confrontations. "I'll try to get down around ten thirty so why don't you send the baby to play group," she'd said. "Then maybe we can have a few sane hours together."

"Sounds great. I'll plan a four hour brunch."

"Just make sure you're there. Write it down somewhere, Cass," she'd laughed. I didn't. You know you have a history of running away from adult confrontations."

She's been harping on that theme since my father died two months ago. My father - and I use the term loosely - died of cirrhosis in a VA hospital in New Jersey - where he'd been for two years (since his second wife's death.) My parents divorced when I was a year old. I saw him once, when I was in high school. I brought Bill to meet him after we were married. And I saw him two weeks before he died at the hospital's request. Because despite the fact that Dad never "kept in touch" I'd been listed as 'next of kin'. I thought that last visit would be traumatic, moving. He was obviously sick, but comfortable. Tried to talk about his grandchildren - showed him pictures of the fam. He smiled and said Bill reminded him of a drill sergeant he'd had in 1944. That's what we talked about - strangers talking to strangers. He asked me if I'd brought anything to toast our reunion. And then he went to sleep and I to pieces. That cry was good. The doctor called when he died. Would I please come and retrieve his effects - twelve sets of underwear, a shaving kit and dentures - and take care of the funeral arrangements. I requested cremation and the mailing of his effects. My problem was telling my mother. Still haven't. Mary couldn't believe I was putting it off.

"Cassie. WHY haven't you told your mother?"

"Well, she's just going to go off on one of her toots and I can't decide whether to do it here - which is so bad for the kids - or at her place. Then I'll be worried about finding her unconscious or hurt somewhere." Mimie (what she likes to be called) has been doing so well for a few months. I hate to blow it.

"You know, Cassie. This reminds me of Yippie."

"No. Yippie didn't drink, Mary."

"I'm serious. You couldn't face putting the dog to sleep or selling it so you just abandoned it. Now, you can't face telling your mother her HUSBAND has died so you're avoiding it."

"I hardly think that constitutes a pattern, Mary."

"Cassie. Mimie has a right to know and you have a responsibility."

"You're right, Mare. I'll tell her." And I'll see if maybe she'd like to share his effects. I'll take the lowers and give her the uppers. Final payments.

Mimie hadn't confronted Dad in 30 years. We'd been confronting her drinking for as many. I think I'll wait to tell her. And I think it's six thirty because Bill's coming down.

"How's the old prep this morning?"

"What are you doing down here, Princess?"

"Thought I'd surprise you with coffee. . . ."

"You've been down here since five, Cassie."

"But I've been down here since five and drank it all so no surprise."

"No problem. Only have time to tell you I love you and hope you getrid of Mary before I get home."

"She's not staying for dinner - has to go in to the city to see her sister. Why don't you want to see Mary?"

"Because she bores the shit out of me, sweetheart. AND seems to upset you and that upsets me."

"Mary's just opinioated and now knows SO many more things about which to have an opinion. Makes her . . . interesting. Always up for a debate."

He's just nodding and, damned it, I had two cigarettes lit.

"Shit, Bill. she makes me feel so stupid. And maybe that's good or maybe it stinks."

"Look, Cassie. Mary's recently all PhD'd and all full of herself. You can see that. And she'd been practicing - psyching everyone out. Tom's been praying for her to get a job. Tired of having his covert neuroses served every night with his TV dinners."

"She does TV dinners?"

"Told me you should get a career. If THAT'S what's bugging you, go for it. I'm behind you. But you said you weren't into a 'career'."

"I'm not. I mean I have plans but they don't feature going back to school."

"Tell HER that. Tell her 'I have plans, doctor. Thank just the same.' What plans?'

"Do you think I shun mature confrontations?"

"Certainly not. You sleep with me."

"So then, do you think I shun mature confrontations?"

"A gal who handles all bills and bank accounts for a family of nine can confront with the best of them."

"She really serves Tom and the kids TV dinners?"

"You really have 'plans' that I don't know about?"

"Yes. Didn't want to tell you till I saw how it went."

"So how's it going?"

"It hasn't. Till next Tuesday. Dr. Rosen called me - if you must know."

"Oh. Adult confrontation? I mean I can wait till next Wednesday to see how it goes."

"DOCTOR Rosen has asked me to DO the walls in his new suite downtown. Heard about my papering."

"AND I make ALL decisions."

"Great! WHY didn't you tell me? Are you thinking of a business?"

"Maybe. Eventually. I-like-to-hang-paper! There. Do you think that's weird, Bill?"

"Not unless you're hanging it on Dr. Rosen. AND - you're smiling!"

"I'm going to call it - ready? - 'Cassie's Hang-Ups'."

"Terrific. And tell Mary,"

"She's coming down to get my Karma straight for me and I say, 'Thanks. But I'm busy and then I'm going to hang wall paper?"

"Yup. And then thank her for coming, hate to give you the bum's rush but have to get ready for an adult confrontation in the city at eight. I'll get tickets to something and we'll celebrate."

"Actually, I love the whole idea and I think - KNOW -I'll be good and I think I'm going to cry. . ."

"Right. 'Bacon and tears in the morning; Champagne and laughter at night."

His hug feels very proud. Hope mine feels grateful. I'm glad Mary's coming down today. She's an old friend, you know. We're very different. She loves prune danish and I do not. And some sequitors are perfectly logical and some are non.

Later. Oh, and wait'll next year. L. . . .

You Make Me Want to SHOUT!

Delightful break in the ubiquitous football action - spent a day and a half with our three year-old granddaughter, Emma. Lunch, stories, pre-dance class "rest", (nostalgically fun) delivery of pink tutu-clad "Isadora-in-training" free-form dance "movement" pupil (Never watch, honest) but DO listen. LOVE the happy/tappy strains of "I'm Just a Broadway Baby" 'stage-shouting through the walls), our house for a "sleep-over (a little din-din then hot tub apres shower whence we water romp with giant rubber duckie - ". . .put tail in, put tail out, put tail in and shake it all about. Ya do the Wackie Quakie and you turn yourself around. . ." to BIG GIGGLES), a little "Happy Feet" penguin CD, nite-nite and jubilant anticipation - starting @ 6 AM - to seeing a touring production of "Thomas Saves the Day" at 10:30 AM! We're going to really SEE and HEAR that wonderful little 'loco' THOMAS!

It was a dreary, windy, rainy, day OUTside BUT WE were on cloud 9, squinting from the glow of pure joy, as we sloshed with the throngs from parking lot to (seemingly miles-away) "Entrance" to the Ted Constant Convocation Center of Old Dominion U. In Norfolk, VA. Got baby brother Charlie an "official" Thomas-the-train-engineer hat for the beach this summer, wildly colorful, strobe-like "Thomas" flashlight for Emma, then. along with Poppy and Aunt Margie (visiting for surgery; legally blind), we efficiently made our way (stopping only for popcorn) to our Row H (for HAPPY) center, level 1 seats in a record-breaking, sopping wet - from rain - 32 minutes. Got ALL situated/settled in; explained the importance of the tech engineers (they were set up 8 -10 yds in front of us) re: sound, lights, doing all the "stuff" that would make THOMAS' show run without an 'un-hitch'. And then that magic moment: House lights going down, stage skrims lighting up, and the FOLLOW SPOT - neon-bright and embracing our narrator. He lays out the plot-line: Big storm last night, power out, annual "Lantern day" Festival will be ruined - UNLESS -you got it: "THOMAS SAVES THE DAY".

And then "Modernity" settles, like a rude, rough, torn and obtrusive blanket. Having been instructed that CELL PHONES AND FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY were strictly 'verboten', at least half of the boorish, thoughtless, witless, clueless ADULTS - accompanying/supervising - a tot community of close to a thousand, ranging in age from the abhorrently inappropriate first-and-only-child, among the toddlerhood genre for a mere 3-4 months to the far-more-apt and trying- to-'get-into-THOMAS' 3-5 year-old set - wbip out their ever-handy/available/"sent from my's" so that - ready? - they can either conduct vapid conversations with their peers OR (and certainly a brand new form of shocking breach-of-taste-phenomenon for this 'hexagenarian', ie, taking photos with their pudgy, hand-held devices of THEIR PROGENY ATTENDING/ENJOYING a well-done, well-rounding- imagination-developing, educational, colorful, enriching, etc, event bountifully/at-impressive-imposition,-presented, parentally-inspired/executed EXPERIENCE. And (pu-leez pardon the cliche) adding insult-to-injury (as re: the innocents, the producers, performers, THE very "THOMAS" icon itself) physically manipulating, interrupting these sub-minors' attention/enjoyment of the production to record (again - for 'the Jones' & the grandparents) images of these same innocents enveloped in the arms, laps "Baby Bjorns, etc) of the "because we care-are-involved-informed-coper-raising-on-a-wet-Saturday-morning" parents/primary-care-givers.

Such was the distorted experience for moi, that, when (as the story-line theme was 'working together) the cast (throughout) called for audience 'help'/participation, that Emma and I (poor child followed my crazed lead) WILDLY "choo-choo-ed; clap-clapped, shrieked 'GO THOMAS!'/ 'GO TEAM!'" to those painful decibels that used to only be reserved for the "Peppermint Lounge" in the 60's. So there. I said it. I was not amused with the audience/current trend in take-your-kid-to-a-family-"thing" demonstration today. All commentary/response/explanation invited. QUESTION: WHY would you attend a LIVE children's performance only to 1) ignore the performance, 2) distract the attending child from experiencing/ enjoying the performance and 3) go to a great deal of trouble/physical discomfort/expense only (APPARENTLY) to utilize YOUR digital toys such that you could 'PROVE' to posterity that you, as a parent, were the "s___"? Ya know, they made ME want to SHOUT! Emma had a ball. And, ". . . that's what it's all about." Later, L. . . .

I knew you When; We Both Knew Mothing and Now That's Changed

PS

Almost forgot. Of ALL the things I wanted you to know about Grandpa. TaDa!

I give you,

"WILLIE'S WINDOW"

NOW you get the picture - of Vincent William Grocki. That's all, folks. I mean, that's what's left - in the imagery department - after last night's outpouring. Blank tape. It happens. Akin to "blank page". And, well, gotta get ready fo 'Da SOUPA BOWL'. Later, L. . . .

The Biography of an Exit

It's amazing how tall people can look when you're five years-old. (No. I'm not kneeling. Long-term memory's good, that's all. I don't mean that's all that's good. I mean, what was I saying. . . .?) Of course you don't realize how distorted your perception was until you look at pictures of yourself standing next to the tall one. THEN you can see the proportionate height difference. The real shocker comes many (many) years later when you happen along the same photo and the giant in the tall one is back again, this time to stay. My Grandpa had this kind of tall. I knew him best when I was five.

Dad worked the four to midnight shift at the plant and Mom worked from nine to four during the day so I spent a lot of time at other people's houses. But that year that I was five, I spent most of my time with Grandpa. The first half of that year we went out a lot. We would walk to where he worked, in the factory neighborhood. People would stare at this odd couple - silver straight hair pushed back by his broad forehead which was up-staged by his broader grin. He'd be wearing a work shirt with pants slung low to accommodate his doughy pot belly. And me, little girl with long, chestnut brown 'bah-sie (as in "kielbasi") curls (thusly disciplined with rags every night while still wet & very bumpy to sleep on. My hair was just as straight as Grandpa's), neatly tied back with ribbons, dress starched and standing at attention around skinny legs set in white anklets and Mary Janes. And I would stare at the factories.

Leviton was the biggest. They made electrical things. They actually closed the street that ran between their two buildings to public traffic. I mean Grandpa could remember playing stick ball on that street. No more. (no-sticky-no-walkie-no-touchy/keep-outie) So, when someone pushed you around in Greenpoint, you could glare, "Who d'ya think ya are, huh? Leviton?" and everybody got it. Grandpa said the Levitons weren't pushy, though. They were smart. And I wondered where the Leviton boys played (did they?) and if anyone pushed them around.

Then there was Sucony Gas and Oil, spread out right down to the river, with tanks and towers that burped out the soot and smoke that covered my mother's sheets if she didn't get the clothes in off the line before noon. (Now this used to make Grandpa nervous. Not the soot. The clothes line routine. Mom was short, did EVERYTHING quickly, efficiently. And our railroad apartment was on the fifth floor. I just KNEW he pictured her going ass-over-head with a clothespin in her clenched teeth.) After Sucony came the glue factory - which smelled like rotten eggs. Grandpa said they used horses' hooves to make glue. I cried. He understood. I held his yellowed, calloused hand and jumped over the oily puddles and broken glass. And he reminded me that lots of kids' daddies had jobs because of Leviton, Sucony and glue.

His shop was on the second floor of a furniture factory. Grandpa made reed baskets and furniture. (I'd heard that Grandpa used to OWN - as in Liviton - THREE furniture stores. And then there was a crash and some things you don't ask about.) The long strands of wet reed hung from a string strung horizontally near the ceiling. The old men took the just-right-wet-enough strands and braided them, twisting and pulling until you began to see a cradle, or a rocking chair being born. Pretty things. And pretty things were made slowly, Grandpa said.

Sometimes, we started out for the shop, but didn't get there. We'd go to the park and feed the birds or "listen to what the leaves were saying." And I knew he was missing work and Gramma would be mad and he'd sing, "You gotta GIVE a little, TAKE a little. . ." and if she was still mad he'd sing "Peg 'O My Heart". Usually you'd laugh just to see him burst into song like that. And, too, Gramma's name wasn't 'Peg'. So. Well, I guess he used "Peg 'O My Heart" the way some people used, 'pain in my ass' and, well, Gramma laughed. Everybody laughed - especially at the tap dancing that went with the singing. Except for the routine he liked to do on the kitchen table. I loved it. Gramma hated it. (The top of their table was some kind of porcelain-covered metal - PERFECT, ESSENTIAL even, for the wonderful tinny ring, the very heartbeat of tap dancing. Even then, I had the feeling Stella didn't 'run deep', 'ya know?)

Anyway, I digress. (imagine) We also had lots of friends to check up on. Frank, the pretzel man, would be by the park. Frank had shiny, white whiskers and a pipe. He also had a pushcart filled with steamy, hot, fat pretzels. You could get mustard but we liked them plain. So did the birds. The cart and the lid that covered it were pale blue and dressed with giant pretzels rendered by Frank in oil paints. Grandpa said that Frank was an artist and lived all by himself. His wife and kids had left him - would pass him up in the street. This wife couldn't "know" a pretzel man/artist. I didn't understand that. Grandpa said some day he would take me to Frank's rooms. He really wanted me to see these paintings, not prove anything. It would be a treat. Kids used to make fun of Frank's Italian accent and I would smile inside because I knew that he was SPECIAL and nobody could hurt him - not even a Leviton.

On the days we didn't get pretzels, we'd walk to the north end of the park (McKaren Park - named for an Irishman who grew up with Grandpa in our mostly Polish-Italian section. Grandpa said, "Everybody's the same - American." There, right behind one of the ballfields, was what I called the onion church. It was Russian Orthodox. A beautiful, white onion growing up into the sky. We were Roman Catholic so my parents said we couldn't go inside the onion church. Grandpa laughed when I told him, Said God had all kinds of houses and HIS problem was getting people IN not keeping them OUT. Naturally we went in - and returned often. God had some neat houses.

Sometimes we'd watch a baseball game and eat a hot dog with sauerkraut. I noticed that the hot dog man was charging some people more than others - much more. I'd hear "fifty cent", then "twenty-five cent" then "two dollar fifty cent." Or "FOUR DOLLAR TWENTY FIVE CENT" so I told Grandpa. Thought he should tell the guy we were on to him. Turns out the guy was a bookie. Actually, the way Grandpa told it, he was kind of like the man at the bank. He took their money and put it away for them. Didn't seem odd at all. Lots of people we knew had two jobs.

We always saw Mrs. Gerardi - talking. She tried to make it look like she was sweeping or beating rugs or something but we figured she just brought all of her cleaning junk out to make it hard to pass without stopping to tell her the latest. And if you didn't have a story, you'd better cross the street because when Mrs. Gerardi said, "What's new?", she meant business. She only asked us once. I immediately looked up at Grandpa who was looking up at the sky. He never broke stride. He just said, "Can't you see I'm talking to the Sun, Panie?" (Which means "Mrs." in Polish)

Then there was Ray Ray - who usually hung out around the fire house. He was a big kid - around twelve, I guessed. They said he was 'retarded' and I had trouble understanding him so I asked Grandpa where he was from ( the whole neighborhood had an accent). "Where's he from?', he said, (and this really got me). "What does it matter where he's from? We're all here together." One day when we were talking to Ray Ray, he said, "I have a present for you.", and he gave Ray Ray a plain block of wood. He took it, held it in his stubby, very white fingers and turned it around and around. Grandpa took out his pocket knife and showed the both of us how to whittle. Then he gave the knife and block of wood to Ray Ray who took them and grinned and drooled and set to work. We left him like that. He was too busy to notice. And Grandpa said, "You watch. Ray Ray is going to make pretty things."

We didn't get to watch too closely because all of a sudden Grandpa announced that we weren't going to be going out much for a while. We had important stuff to do at his house. So we started spending a lot of time at Grandpa's. (Actually, everybody called it "Gramma's" but she must have been very short because I distinctly remember that Grandpa filled the place.) Now, basically, you COULD say that one gray, sooty block of eight and sixteen-family row houses was pretty much like any other in Brooklyn. But if you did, you'd be wrong about at least one block - India Street - that I know of. That's because India Street was Grandpa's - 183. As I swung around the corner - sort of spiraling - one hand on the subway pole, straining to see the other end of the block, there he'd be, draped on one elbow at his window, five flights above the stoop which rested on the rock of garbage that had - from time to time - been dubbed, "the sidewalks of New York." That's how it went. You had the cracked and chalked cement at the bottom, then the black pickets marching up to the chipped door frame, then the four strata of venetian-blinded or shaded windows - all TOPPED by Grandpa.

I always took the time to enjoy the variety of ethnic cooking, laughing and yelling as I climbed the four flights of steel=tipped steps leading to Grandpa's. I especially liked and savored the smells because that was one thing you never found at Grandpa's. To be fair to Gramma, you might find the occasional aroma of fresh kielbasa but it succumbed completely to the admixture of Sloan's Liniment and beer. Anyway, I'd be breathless and burst in, face to belly button with Grandpa, who'd smile and shake his head as if in wonderment at this miracle he thought was me. We'd walk from the kitchen (nothing happening there), through the two bedrooms and into the parlor where we'd light by the American flag, which stood ceiling-high (no matter how old or tall you were) in the corner, by Grandpa's window.

His maroon, horse-haired chair tickled my arm and the backs of my legs. The rest of me was stroked by the fuzzy flannel of his robe, as I always sat on Grandpa's lap. (The robe was something new. The slippers, too. Same work shirt and pants, though. He told me many gentlemen wore robes when they came home from work. But he wasn't working. Said they called them 'smoking jackets'. He didn't smoke. Whatever. I decided it was his 'window outfit' because that was our post.)

Here, he explained all about life and people. The window was essential, you see because from there we had all the props - real and/or imagined - at our disposal. Some days we looked straight out and talked about crowds and ships and factories and what they were and did - for, by and to us. Some days we'd focus on looking down and watching the movements of India Street - its cars, its kids, its vendors, its sewers. Sewers, in fact, introduced me to what I might now call the notion of ambiguity. Grandpa just said sewers are good and bad. The city empties its bowels into them daily, but, viewed from atop, as it were, they were measures of athletic achievement. If you punched or hit a Spalding ball two sewers far, it was an automatic home run.

Grandpa and I had a favorite game which I might as well tell you about since probably no one from India Street will be reading this. On days that looked especially gray, inside and out, he would take a fresh piece of chewing tobacco and give me a tiny piece. After we had worked up a lot of spit, he would say, "Let's aim very carefully and try to hit the next Ford." - or Plymouth or whatever he decided would be the target. Now you may cringe. And I can understand that. But let me tell you this feat is both art and science and God, it was fun. Especially trying to look innocent when you missed the Ford and got the fedora.

Sometime, I don't remember exactly when, Grandpa didn't seem to be having as much fun as I was anymore. I figured he was bored. Some days, though, he'd say he was tired and sigh a lot, "Matka, Matka," or "Boze, Boze," which mean Mother and God respectively in Polish. He'd even go with a "Matka Boze" every now and then, which had me a little worried. I guess he figured me out because one day he said he said he had something very special to show me. He checked to make sure Gramma wasn't around - a touch that transported me skyward as a rule because I loved intrigue, especially when it meant he was putting one over on Stella.

Anyway, he goes to his dresser, which smelled like English Lavender (Stella's smelled like moth balls, What can I say?), reaches way in the back, and reverently extracts a holy card-sized picture which had been bound over and over again with tape, now yellowed such that I could hardly make out the image. "This," he said in a harsh whisper, "is the Black Madonna. I speak to her every night. I always have." He was holding back tears now, so I could tell this was serious. "Last night", he continued, "my Madonna began to cry." I was anxious to assuage his obvious pain and pointed out that whatever it was, it must be over because she wasn't crying any more. He said, "Look closely." I did as I was told.

There it was. Now, unmistakably, a large tear was sliding down from her suddenly discernible, heavily-lidded eyes. Naturally I asked him why she was crying. He said it had been going on for a while (probably the whole time I thought he was being bored) and that he didn't even know himself why until last night when she had finally told him. He reminded me that Stanley, my father's youngest brother, was fighting some big war for us over in some place called Korea. He had been talking to his Madonna about God sending Stanley home safely. Well, it seemed that when push came to shove, Grandpa had ( I'm sure in a wildly careless moment and if you'd known Stanley, you'd be sure, too) made a deal with God. If God brought Stanley back, Grandpa would go. I couldn't believe it. I was frantic. Wasn't there time to reconsider? Couldn't Gramma go instead? Is THAT why the Madonna was crying? See. Even SHE thinks it's a rotten idea! My pleas and arguments were endless and to no avail.

There was a fair amount of crying going on in our house over the following few weeks. I figured Black Madonna must have leaked the story. Who else knew? Then, one Saturday morning my brother and I went to the dentist while Mom went to Grandpa's - which she had been doing a lot of lately. When she came home, I didn't tell her about my filling because she looked like she had lost something very big and very important. Actually, it was something very, very tall. Grandpa was gone. They were saying he died of cancer. They were also saying, with tears of sadness and joy, that Stanley was coming home. Stanley, who was so SHORT! I'll never figure God and Grandpa out on that one. Didn't seem fair when I was five.

Now that I'm very much older, it still doesn't seem fair. I can still hear him, though, "You gotta give a little, take a little, and let your poor heart break a little. . .the story of love". Love is the tallest thing I know - his kind of tall. . . .L

The Making of a Magician

Presto! Change-O! And She's all grown up and integrated. Obviously. Having completed the job of "image association" - a task necessarily subjective and loaded with possibilities for errors generated by protective measures on the part of the very psyche one is trying to examine/understand - I focused on being formula-faithful and was ready for the arduous task of analysis. (What's it all about, Alfie?)
I concluded, among other things, that while I was watching, another part of Me had died in 1980. I remembered that other part of Me - the child who feared reality and mortality - and how she'd spoken to me and helped me through my recent change. So I'd evolved but didn't see what it was that was being replaced. I mean I had just let that part of Me LEAVE without taking notice! And you know I just hate not knowing the 'becoming part' yet, so sometimes I just make it up. (Mom and Uncle Paul understood and heeded their warnings. So why not Me? That's what "creative" is all about. By definition, even.)
So. It's going to happen this year, I decided. This will be the time frame during which I shall discover just how I'm SPECIAL. All the disturbing experiences of my childhood seemed important, relevant. I wanted to CALL the people who had played it out with me BACK so that I could better understand why it was important. I will, even though it HURTS. Because this THING of potential BRILLIANCE - as it ages - can either embellish or destroy. I knew it had to be about harnassing the intellect (head) and the emotions (machinery of creativity). This will be the task - to write the STORY. So I would need SENSITIVITY, HUMOR, FINESSE. Had to get the kinks out. The trappings of the good and the bad writer can be equally uncomfortable. So. If I'm to bear discomfort either way, why not go for the gold? ONLY immaturity (pictured above) stands between me and the talent of one who has acquired the wisdom and grace of age with EASE. My life IS my STORY, and the more aware I become of the 'MEs' in my cast, the easier the process will be. I must be still, LISTEN ever to the disturbing so that I will BE READY to appreciate the THRILLS. Most probably, I was able to play an active role in this change long before I realized it.
Now I knew that in trying to forget my mother's death, I engaged myself in many and diversified activities. Sometimes I felt guilty 'carrying on' with such apparent aplomb and enthusiasm. Feelings during this era were just as diversified and erratic as my activities. I was all tied up in being busy, treating myself to pretty things to compensate for the enormous loss and empty space in my soul. Then came a more controlled and deliberate approach to dealing with the loss and grief. I was pregnant. Had to slow down and reflect. (Fought it for 3 months. I kept running. I'd read that a gal in Arizona ran 6 miles a day until the day she delivered. But after 3 months I began spotting and, feeling I'd taken the very life that I'd been given, came to a screeching halt.) Finally, I poured the entire experience onto paper, saw it perhaps for the first time without any distractions, in chronological order, until death did us part. In a story called "Last Scene Wearing Thin" I delivered a combination of emotional, physical and theatrical imagery which mediated the pain nicely. Having thusly purged myself, I had to move ahead. When the direction of the move became clear to me, a concomitant, PROPELLING force was felt. I had to lose some old Me baggage, stop foundering. Channel. Right:

Her mind lives in a quiet room, a narrow room, tall. With pretty lamps to quench the gloom and votives on the wall.

There all the things are waxen neat and set in decorous lines. And there are posies, round and sweet, and little, straightened vines.

Her mind lives tidily, apart from cold and noise and pain. And bolts the door against her heart out waiting in the rain. _____ Dorothy Parker

Because, as you will see, dear reader, 1980 did indeed become a benchmark
year of change for Me but although all of my intense pursuit of understanding what I MEANT, this quest for awakening intuition, although noble and respectable, could in no way substitute for this living, living, living - and dying - that followed. Studying things like "transcending duality" - you know. Like when a toddler figures out where the I stops and the thou begins - is neato academically. For the present I think knowing that I am NOT the two soft-cooked eggs upon which I gaze is appropriate and sufficient. In my dotage, it seems I resent this arrogant posture towards "duality" assumed by some psychological scholars.

Or how about the "interpersonal imagery exercise" that was popular in that heady era. At the time I found it interesting and helpful - despite the fact that I was seen as Anne Boelyn. But the shores of the Chesapeake Bay remained unruffled and constant in the face of its falling out of vogue. To be sure, I stand scarlet-naped having just spent two days explaining how important it is to consider your dream world as true reality, and your ordinary waking hours as a dream. Go for it. And then see how popular you are in the corporate structure at board meetings when you admit to a cash flow problem but want to discuss instead a place in the executive lot for your unicorn.

Another popular find in the REM labs at the time was how surprising it was to see how much memory changes experience. I've already forgotten the first three pages of this post and this is only page five. I still run into a then-classmate who felt that remembering her dreams enriched her life. This same gal has discovered hidden meaning in Campbell's soup labels after translating them into Celtic. And we all remember how popular "personal integration" was then. But now that I'm among those fallen out of the hermetic circle, did that refer to schizophrenia or busing or both? I saw in my own notes, "When one begins to own projections (by Kodak or Jung?) one finds the guru within." In the words of a Zen Master, 'Who's to say if this is good or bad?' - or even possible for the Western mind?

Again in my own quill, "If you are serious about wanting to fully experience both the right and left hemispheres of your brain" (I found only 3 bus drivers, 6 realtors, 2 dental hygienists and one Beagle in Virginia Beach who actually admitted they were not. (The Beagle is in analysis, however, so stats may change.) And finally, (don't you love that word right now?) I had noted that "Many of the constraints and limitations in one's life can be attributed to lack of imagination." I can think of at least 6 million Jews who would have argued this point.

In the end, it seems at this juncture, it IS largely smoke and mirrors. You are at the mercy of your life's experiences so have faith, hope for charity in its many forms and, as my father always said when things 'didn't turn out well', "Ya live, ya learn and ya die stupid, kid." Later, L. . . .

The Making of a Magician

Presto! Change-O! And she's all grown up. Obviously. Having carefully parsed out all of this dream imagery, I began the arduous, necessarily subjective but nevertheless formula-faithful task of analysis. (What's it all about, Alfie?) Among other things, I concluded that while I was watching, another part of Me had died in 1980. I remembered that other part of Me - the child who'd feared reality and mortality - and how she'd spoken to me, helping Me through my last change.