Gaston Studio AKA Jane's Blog

Missing Again

2011-08-11T10:46:00.000-04:00

Guess I'll be missing in the blogosphere again folks, as I sure haven't posted anything in a couple of weeks and know that I won't be posting anything in the next few weeks. Too much "life" going on right now and although nothing serious, it is infinitely timeconsuming!

You guys all have a good time for the rest of your summer. Keep cool and I hope to see you all back here soon.

Jane

The People Whisperer

2011-07-18T07:25:00.000-04:00

You guys all know that I have a toy poodle named Lexi but have I told you just how well she has me trained?

This bunny has since "died" and her newer one is smaller and already has one missing ear.

Lexi loves to play “ball” with her stuffed bunny rabbit and the way this happens is I throw the bunny and Lexi chases after it, way ahead of where the bunny will be thrown, looking over her shoulder like a Linebacker or something. She looks at the bunny for just a couple of seconds, daring it to move, before she snatches it up and brings it back to me… well, not exactly back to me, but well within two arm lengths (she said, sarcastically).

I tell her to “leave it” which means she’ll nudge the bunny closer to me with her nose, but only a few inches and that’s when I grab for it but Lexi’s always, always too fast for me. After I say “leave it” a few times, Lexi will then casually look away, giving her little old lady master time enough to make contact with the one-eared stuffed bunny… and then, we start the process all over again.

Somewhat like a cat, Lexi doesn’t trust anything that’s new to her. I can bag up the trash, for example, and place it beside the door to take out later. When she sees the bag just sitting there, minding its own business, it’ll startle her for just a second. Then she’ll stand back, pushing her nose forward until she just barely touches the bag with the tip of her nose, then she jumps back as if electrocuted. She does this little “dance” several times before she realizes that she is not being challenged by the bag, and she’ll relax somewhat.

When I was painting the staircase recently, I blocked it all off to all people and animals for a couple of days. When it was all finished and opened up again, I called to Lexi to let’s go outside and take a break. Lexi came to the head of those stairs, looked at them as if it was Mount Everest and refused to even put one foot on the first step. Nope, she stayed at the top of the stairs, wagging that little chopped off tail of hers (her nickname is Wiggle Butt) and would look at the stars and look at me; look at the stairs and look at me… until I picked her up and took her down the damn stairs. Now, a couple of days later, she still won’t come down the stairs but at least she’ll go up them. Go figure.

Lexi loves to play “keep away” with a little rubber toy that lives in the backyard. What this means is that I pick up the rubber toy and throw it for her. Lexi bounds after the toy and brings it back, places it near my feet and what occurs next is what I refer to as our daily aerobic exercise. I reach for the toy; Lexi grabs it and darts away to my left. I sort of stoop over and dart in her direction, but then Lexi changes direction and darts to my right and then continues on behind me. All this is within a few feet of where I’m standing and with the end result being that she’s literally running circles around me while I laugh my head off trying to catch the little devil.

Lexi loves to ride in the car but of course she wants her comfort too.

She doesn’t come when I call her, but prefers to lay on the floor, belly exposed in all its pink glory, until I come to pick her up. She steals at least one piece of Morgan’s food (my daughter’s 14 year old Shepherd) every time we pass Morgan’s food bowl on our way out back.

So you see, Lexi is an accomplished People Whisperer. I know this and accept it for what it is… Lexi has me firmly wrapped around her tiny little paws.

Jane

Finally…it’s up for sale!

2011-07-11T08:03:00.000-04:00

I’ve been missing in the blogosphere for quite some time now and it’s all due to getting this old house ready to put on the market and finally it’s ready and has been listed on historicproperties.com and I’ve set up a website at gastonhousenc.com which offers photos of all but one room right now. Click on this link and you’ll see what I’ve been talking about.

Wayne A. Mitchell historic home

For the past couple of months, I’ve been working on such projects as refinishing a few rooms downstairs, namely the dining room, living room and foyer. This was done by Sandi and me after I learned everything I could from the men who were refinishing the entire upstairs flooring as well as watching a couple of DYI videos on YouTube. It’s not a hard job but you sure have to work fast which is why Sandi and I did everything in tandem.

Part of the dining room

When I wasn’t working on the floors, I was patching the walls from personal photos that were removed from several walls and repainting those. Or I was packing up personal or excessive “stuff” to be put into storage. You may think this all could have been done in less time, and you could be right, but also during the same time period I went to visit my new granddaughter in Atlanta and shortly after returning, my other daughter and grandchildren, Erika and Blake, came for a visit.

Blake, me, Lydia and Erika.

Me and Toni, Erika and Blake's mom

I still have to paint and install quarter round in a few rooms, and finish repainting the back hall stairwell, as well as do some touchup in the kitchen, but all in all, it’s largely done so I think it’s safe to say that I’ll be again writing weekly posts for my blog and can begin visiting my blogging buddies again on a regular basis.

I hope this finds you all in great health and that you’re thoroughly enjoying your summer.

Jane

P.S. If you know of anyone who wants to buy a really, really big historic house in eastern North Carolina, give me a call… I’m talking kickback here!

　

nightmare floors

2011-06-06T09:26:00.000-04:00

I've been away from Blogland for several weeks while having our upstairs floors refinished and for a couple of weeks, I was literally living among piles of furniture, the smells of floor sealer and varnish, and extra fine sawdust. Although the end result is fabulous, I'd never again want to stay in the house while floors are being redone.

The hardest part was cleaning up all the fine sawdust after it was over and even though I hired someone to help me do this, it was a huge job. Almost as hard was having my life completely disrupted and more or less out of my control.

But it's done now and wanted you to see the dramatic before and after photos; so dramatic because for over 30 years, our old house had been turned into three apartments and was run by a slum landlord which generally guarantees tenants who don't take care of their abode.

Bear with me as Blogger doesn't want me to place the photos exactly where I really want them, so they're kind of all over the place.

Hope to be back to blogging and visiting real soon.

Back hall.

Back hall now.

Small guest room.

Small guest room after.

Large guest room before.

Large guest room now. Bed wasn't made so only took a partial photo.

This is part of my living room in an "after" photo; forgot to take a before!

My bedroom in the process.

A corner of my bedroom after.

My dressing room...

...and my dressing room now.

Upstairs front hall.

Upstairs front hall looking into my workroom.

Part of my workroom/studio.

Little White Lies

2011-05-09T07:41:00.000-04:00

A repost of an incident that happened to me some time ago in Bahrain. As implausible as it may sound, it really happened exactly as I describe it here. Enjoy.

This was in the mid-80s, not too long after I arrived in Bahrain and went to work as PR Manager of the Gulf Hotel. I was the only American working in the hotel, which absolutely wouldn’t have been able to operate without its masses of foreign workers, but I digress.

The GM was naturally, Bahraini. Let’s call him Mohammed B., because, well, that’s his name. He was a really cool guy, about my age (I was 40 at the time) and he was pro-American (at least he was unless Yasser Arafat was on the premises!) and he was very proud of having the only American hotel PR manager on the island, among all the Brits.

As part of my job description, I promoted and generally ‘took care’ of the entertainment groups that we hired for the restaurants and lounges. These artists were always hired for at least a two month stay and we housed and fed them in the older el of the hotel (where I also had an apartment).

At this particular time, we had a great, small band from England playing in the Al Murjan, which was our 5 star restaurant. The lead guitarist/singer was a real hottie, so naturally we started dating. This usually meant we would meet up at 10 after their last performance, go back to his place where we would party for several hours. I used to be able to stay up half the night and not be the worse for wear to begin work at 8 am the next morning. Boy, that’s gone out the window!

Let’s call the guitarist/singer Barry, because that’s his name. He was a lot of fun and we would almost always partake of some weed at these nightly parties, along with the rest of the band and a few invitees I had befriended along the way. I know, I know, you’re probably disappointed in me now, but hey, I did inhale and I did enjoy it, and you might as well know it now.

One morning, I had just gotten into my office when I had a phone call from the GM’s secretary, Melinda, who was about my age and always very friendly, but that’s about where the similarity ended. Mel, as we called her, was from the Philippines, married, and working to send money back home as did most of the foreign workers in Bahrain. Mel told me Mohammed wanted to see me right away.

When I got to Mel’s office, (right outside the GM’s office, of course), the conversation went like this:

Me: "Hi Mel, how are you doing this morning?"
Mel: (very serious) "Fine, Jane."

Me: "Great. What’s up? You said Mr. B. wanted to see me."

Mel: (staring right into my eyes) "Yes, he does. But first, this package arrived for you."
(I had noticed a small package, about 6” square, sitting on her desk.)

Me: (excited) "Really? I wonder who it’s from? I wasn’t expecting anything from home."

Mel: (still very serious, still staring directly) "It’s not from the states, it’s from London."

Me: "Really? I don’t know anyone in London who’d be sending me anything."

Mel: "Are you sure? It’s addressed to you with your apartment number."

Me: (totally innocent but knots suddenly had appeared in my stomach) "Well, let’s see what it is." (and I reached over and picked up the package, which was already opened)

Me: (still innocent) "Oh! It’s been opened."

Mel: (still staring, even more serious) "Packages to our (since when did she become part owner of the hotel?) employees are always opened at the post office before they send them to us. This one is quite interesting."

Me: (feeling not so innocent now, but still not sure why) "I didn’t know that, but that’s okay." (I opened up the flaps and inside sat a large baggie, filled to the brim with marijuana. Oh shit!)

Me: (still kind of innocent but now understanding the stare) "Oh, someone sent me some oregano! I wonder who?" (I closed back the flaps and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a complete return address and the name of some guy I’ve never heard of.)

Mel: "That’s oregano?"

Me: (smiling but stomach churning; I’d heard they beheaded you for lesser offenses in the Middle East) "Oh yeah, but I don’t know why he sent so much!"

Mel: (staring really hard now) "I thought you said you didn’t know anyone in London?

Me: (butterflies batting at my stomach walls) Well, I don’t really know him, but I mentioned to Barry that I’d love to have some fresh oregano because I make great spaghetti and I guess he asked one of his friends to send it to me." (not bad for on the fly!)

Mel: (cocking her head to one side) "Are you sure that’s oregano?"

Me: (this took some guts here) "Sure!"
(I opened the baggie, took out a few sprigs, brought it up to my nose and took a big sniff, then offered it to Mel) "Here, smell this. Really fresh!"

Mel: (never taking her eyes off mine, she took the sprig and smelled it) "I’m not sure this smells like oregano."

Me: (really winging it now!) "Well, to be honest, it doesn’t smell like the fresh oregano I get back home either, I just figure it’s another species... like Cuban oregano."

Mel: (still staring, but not as intently) "Well, if you’re sure it’s oregano."

Me: (the butterflies are still churning) "Oh, I’m sure all right. I’ll have to get some more things but I’ll let you know when I’ll be cooking spaghetti… you’re invited for sure."

Mel: (a wee bit of a smile now) "Okay. Let me know when."

Me: (getting up and getting ready to get the hell out of there) "Hey, I thought you said Mr. B. wanted to see me."

Mel: "Well, he did, but it was about this package and he told me to find out what it was."

Me: "Oh, so he doesn’t need to see me now?"

Mel: "No, that’s okay."

Me: (feeling the butterflies abate a bit) "Oh, just tell him it’s oregano and I’ll let him know when I’m cooking spaghetti too". (knowing damn well he wouldn’t come!)

Mel: "Okay, see you later."

Me: "Take it easy."

After I fled from Mel’s office, I went straight to Barry’s apartment, and banged on his door… loudly. The gist of our conversation contained snippets such as:

“What the hell were you thinking?”
“Hey, it’s a little surprise.”
“Why the hell did you send it to me?”
“I didn’t think they’d open your packages.”
“I could have gotten deported, you idiot!”
“My God, there’s almost a kilo here!”
“Don’t you EVER use my name on anything like that again!”
“Hey, could I hide it in your apartment?”
“You fuckin’ jerk!”

She's having a baby...

2011-05-02T07:27:00.000-04:00

...and her name is Lydia.

My only son and his wife, Jeny, are having my third grandchild this morning so I'll be taking a break for a while folks. Can't wait to see her as my son has very dark red hair with hazel eyes and Jeny has almost black hair with dark brown eyes; I just know Lydia will be a knockout.

Lydia is Bill and Jeny's first and I hope they'll have a boy next time. My son is so excited, he can hardly contain himself. He's always wanted a family and it's now finally happening!

You guys take care and I'll be back in a couple of weeks.

Jane aka Nana

From Savannah to Bahrain

2011-04-25T07:30:00.000-04:00

Since I'm busy prepping and painting the dining room woodwork, I'm offering up a repost today; and since Bahrain has been in the news a lot lately, I thought you might be interested in how I came to live there for 3 years.

When I first went to Bahrain it was early 1983. I was on a 3 month tourist visa sponsored by Ebrahim somebody, the CEO of The Amari Flight, because you had to be sponsored by a Bahraini to get into Bahrain.

The Amari Flight is the name given to a group of jet airliners owned by Sheikh Isa Bin Sulman Al Khalifa, the reigning monarch at that time (Sheikh Isa died a few years back, so his son, Sheikh Hamad, is now Bahrain‘s Amir. My little trip to the Middle East came about in a round about way, as things often do.

In my hometown of Savannah, Georgia, there was, at the time, the Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation which sold and serviced the famous Gulfstream business jets, known simply as G1, G2, etc. Sheikh Isa (as we liked to call him) owned a couple of G2s and they were regularly serviced in Savannah. Sheikh Isa’s maintenance engineers always came with the jets when they were being serviced and I happened to meet the chief engineer, Ralph, and one of his mates while carousing on River Street one evening in the mid 70s.

Ralph and I hit it off and when he was in town, we dated. We also kept up communications with letters and phone calls, and I admit to being quite envious at times when he would call me from various exotic places. You see, Sheikh Isa was actually afraid of flying and he refused to do so without Ralph and at least one other engineer on board.

According to Ralph, Sheikh Isa was always so glad to get to his destination that after each flight, he gave expensive presents to everyone on board: all pilots, all stewardesses (well, that’s what they were called back then!), and all engineers. I happened to have been given one of these presents, a beautiful Cartier lighter with the emblem of Bahrain stamped on the front. (As you can see from the photo, I wore that sucker out over the years.)

So that’s how I met Ralph and had my connection to the small, oil rich island in the Persian Gulf known as Bahrain. And when I wanted to do something different with my life, this is where I went and stayed for 3 years.

When I left Savannah International Airport on that Delta L-1011, it was my first time going out of the United States. But by the time I repatriated to the States in 1995, I had visited many different countries, much to my pleasure.

To make this story shorter, I got a job as PR manager of the Gulf Hotel, one of the many 5 star hotels on this 27 mile long island. I was a happy little camper with this job because it surely paid well, and included a fully furnished apartment and all my meals.

Besides trying to adjust to the overall culture shock, one of the first things I did was learn what to do and not do in the company of Arabs.

~Never offer your left hand to shake (who does that anyway, The Fugitive?).
~Never cross your legs so that the souls of your shoes face towards anyone (since I‘m a southern lady, I‘d never do that anyway!).
~Never give alcohol as a gift (why the hell not? Bahrain is the playground of the Middle East!).
~Present a gift to the host, never the hostess and always with both hands (shoot, I was thinking you could just toss it to him as you came through the door).
~Never discuss business at a social function (some of our politicians could use this advice).
~Never turn down the offer of coffee or tea (but both the tea and coffee taste like sludge!).
~If the meal is on the floor, sit cross legged or kneel on one knee (I thought this would be really hard to do at the table, then I learned most meals are served at floor level, on a mat.)
~Never let your feet touch the food mat (these people really have a foot fetish, don‘t they?).~Eat only with the right hand (the left is used to wipe when you’re in the desert, if you‘re a
Bedouin that is).
~Try a bit if everything that is served (even if you don’t recognize it).
~Honored guests are often offered the most prized pieces such as a sheep's head (I tasted sheep’s brain and it was disgusting!).
~It’s considered polite to leave some food on your plate when you’ve finished eating; this shows that your host has showered his guests with generosity and abundance (food, hell, I’ll take another Cartier lighter!).
~Never eat or drink anything in front of an Arab during Ramadan! (more on this later).

Another great difference in culture is personal space. They get right in your face and this is not only acceptable but the general rule. You try not to keep backing up but it usually winds up looking like you’re doing the tango. Seriously though, the toughest thing I had to remember is not to jump straight into talking business. I knew what I wanted, so ‘let’s get to it‘ was my attitude; but I learned.

I think what surprised me the most is that it was truly a party island on the weekend -- which consisted of the entire day on Friday. On Thursday afternoons, Muharraq International Airport was kept busy flying in Arabs from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen, etc., because back home, they weren’t allowed to drink but in Bahrain, they went crazy. We were always fully booked on the weekend and there was always a few young Arab studs (and some old ones) who got drunk and caused a bit of trouble in one of our many restaurants or lounges. A heavy sigh of relief overcame the hotel on Saturday morning when most would be flying back to their home country.

As I was leaving Bahrain in 1986 for Cairo, they had just begun building the 25 kilometer causeway that now links Bahrain with the Gulf mainland through Saudi Arabia. A second causeway to Qatar is due for completion in 2010 – at 40 kilometers, it will be the world’s longest so I understand. Thank God, I left when I did. I can just envision the Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Mercedes, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis rolling into the hotel on a Thursday afternoon! And yes, these were typical of the cars they drove.

Sorry you can't read the enclosed caption about the photo of me in the galabayea (for women, this is a long decorative robe that comes in many colors and designs and is totally comfortable); it says tht I'm dancing with a big wig of Gulf Air, whose name I can't remember.

Another thing that was amazing to me was how the Arab men kept their
thobes so pristine white all the time! It was hot and humid in Bahrain, yet these men walked around in long sleeved, snow white robes that hung to their ankles. Their headdress consisted of a white skull cap, tagiyah, worn under a large square of cloth called a ghutra. The ghutra could be all white, or red and white checked (black and white checked, such as worn by Yassar Arafat, usually indicated another tribe). And on top of the ghutra was worn an agal, a thick, double braided rope, usually black, although many sheikhs wore gold agals as a status symbol.

Let’s end this little introduction here but there will be more on Bahrain and/or Egypt in a later stories, coming to you in no particular order except as they float into my head.

Jane

Elf Dust

2011-04-18T07:08:00.000-04:00

One of our friends in Savannah, Jeanne, used to give the best parties and one of her specialties was Halloween where everyone was required to attend in costume. The Halloween party in 1966 was the most talked about, however, and involved my then sister in law, N.

At the time, N lived with Bill and I and she wanted to go to Jeanne’s party as an elf, so we thought brown and green and set about making her costume. We took an old green shirt of Bill’s and cut the sleeves and long tail into points, and belted it with a brown sash. On a pair of brown slippers, we added a curved and pointy piece with little brass bells and glued them on the toes of her shoes. We took an old felt fedora that we found in a thrift shop and I cut it into the shape of a cap with pointy edges, and we added a large, colorful feather in the band. N added some brown leggings, I made her a pouch out of brown felt to hang on her belt and N added a ton of gold glitter which represented fairy dust.

Since I was going as Jean Harlow, I wore a slinky black dress and bought myself a long red cigarette holder and… I bleached my hair platinum blonde. Bill would be coming to the party late after work, when he would swipe some black charcoal under one eye and call himself The Marlboro Man.

Jeanne has warned us all to arrive at precisely 8 pm and to remain outside on her front lawn until further instructions. We all knew not to be late for fear of being struck from next year’s invitation list so we all obeyed Savannah’s party queen. There were dozens of cars parked on the street as N and I arrived in my little blue MG Midget and anticipation filled the air as we all piled out of our cars.

We were all standing around on Jeanne’s lawn, admiring each others costumes, when suddenly Jeanne came dashing out her front door, dressed in a flowing white toga with a gold crown, as another friend dressed as a dashing pirate was hot on her heels, flashing his pretend sword in the air as Jeanne screamed “Help!”

As Jeanne continued screaming for help (she must have warned her neighbors in advance) she ran into the middle of us party goers as we all laughed politely. Then she threw her hand into the air, pointing at her roof. “There…” she yelled… “There’s my hero, he’ll save me!” Superman was indeed standing on the edge of her roof by this time and as we all watched with a wee bit of awe, he leaped down into the yard, cape flowing behind as he dashed to her aid, throwing a pretend punch at the pirate, who fell down obediently. We all applauded and cheered.

Dana, who was one of Jeanne’s best friends, had his mother make him a complete Superman costume. Dana was a handsome guy, had a head full of dark brown hair, wore horned rimmed glasses and worked at the newspaper like most of us, so he made the perfect comic book hero. It also helped that he was a very good sport.

After we had all “ooohed” and “awwwed” over Jeanne and Dana’s little opening number, we finally moved inside where the party began in full force. Drinks flowed, the music of the mid 60s was loud, and Jeanne’s party food was delicious as usual; she was famous for her shrimp dip and refused to share the recipe with anyone, but we all loved her anyway.

Did I mention that Dana was single and N had a huge crush on him? Well, he was and she did. At the time, Dana wasn’t dating anyone in particular at the time, so N figured it was her night to make an impression. She looked great in her elf costume and the couple of times she sprinkled fairy dust into the air and told someone to make a wish were funny. When N wasn’t sprinkling gold glitter on everyone, she was slow dancing with Dana, her head on his chest.

When Bill arrived about 10 pm, I told him that N appeared to be really inebriated and Jeanne was going to kill her if she sprinkled any more fairy dust into her carpet. Bill talked to his little sister but since it didn’t seem to make much of an impression on her, he just shook his head and joined into the festivities. N continued dancing with Dana, snuggled close to his broad chest.

Along about midnight, I noticed that N was conspicuously absent. I looked all around for her, asked everyone if they had seen her, and finally went outside where I saw my MG was missing. This threw Bill and I into total panic as we both knew N was drunk and definitely shouldn’t be driving. I could picture her wrapped around a telephone pole or worse, having killed someone in her attempt to get home.

Bill and I drove home as fast as we could in his car, our hearts in our throat. When we got home and I saw my MG parked in the driveway, we both heaved a sigh of relief, but we were both really angry at N. She was found sprawled on her bed, still in elf costume, and we shook her repeatedly so that we could yell at her like any good brother and sister in law would do, but to no avail. Thankfully, the girls had spend the night with Bill’s other sister, so they had not been disturbed.

The next morning, Bill and I lay in wait for N to wake up so that we could tell her just how irresponsible she had been; first by drinking too much, secondly by throwing glitter all over Jeanne’s carpets, and finally by taking my car without my permission and not driving under great influence.

N was apologetic to say the least and said she just couldn’t understand how she had gotten so drunk so quickly. Much later, we learned that Dana’s mother had used airplane glue to affix the huge “S” to the front of his costume, where N basically had her nose the entire evening.

On Monday morning at work, we also learned that Jeanne was still trying to vacuum up the glitter and that we would definitely not be on her invitation list for 1967. Some of us still talk about that Halloween, and many decades later, Jeanne finally laughed about it.

Jane

The Honeymooners (sort of)

2011-04-11T07:14:00.000-04:00

For a year or two, I was marketing manager of a very large McDonald’s franchise in southeast Georgia and South Carolina back in the mid 70s. The owners were generous in sending me to conventions and let me tell you, McDonald’s knew how to put on a show. They used the latest (at the time) in technology and obviously had hired some of the best in promoters.

The first convention I attended was held in Chicago for an entire week. I came to McDonald’s from a nonprofit agency where money was scarce, so when I attended the welcome ceremony, I was in total awe and so pumped up, I was ready to take on world peace.

After the elegant dinner that first evening, I later met a couple of guys in the hotel’s bar who were best friends, both actually from Chicago and both lawyers. They were attending a seminar on some kind of law at the same hotel and we three were instantly attracted. Don’t worry, I’m not going to be telling you about a ménage a trios’ although that probably would have been fun with these two.

But, as you’ve probably already surmised, I did hook up romantically with one them and we spent several nights in my hotel room, the first one being the most memorable. Now that you’ve got the picture this is what happened.

About 7 a.m. on the morning of a very nice “after,” we were woke up by a knock on my door. I had set my alarm for 7:30, so we were both still very much in the throes of deep sleep. My friend turned to me and asked if I had ordered room service for breakfast. Nope, I told him, and I’d barely gotten the words out of my mouth when there came a pounding on the door.

My friend got up, went to the door and looked through the peephole… then he jumped back as if something had pushed him roughly away. He turned to me and said:

He: “I don’t believe this! Art Carney is pounding on your door.”

Me: (Throwing the covers back, I bounded out of bed) “What?”

He: (Eyes wide and looking a bit dazed) “Art Carney! You know, the guy on The Honeymooners.”

Me: (Rushing to the door to look for myself) “No way.”

About this time, the pounding increases and I hear someone shouting: “Hey, wake up in there!”

Me: (Laughing out loud as I indeed see Art Carney through the peephole) “What a way to wake us up!”

Carney: “Get the hell up! I can hear youuuuuu!” he says in singsong. He’s wearing his Honeymooners get up; the slightly crushed hat, the open vest over a tee and the baggy pants. And he’s pounding on the door with a toilet plunger.

He: (Wrapping himself in a towel) “I can’t believe this.”

Me: (Still laughing while putting on my robe) “I can! These people are serious marketers.”

I opened the door just as Mr. Carney was about to pound one more time. He looked over my shoulder at my friend and said: “All right, now that I’ve got youse guys up, I have a little something for you. Out of sight was a room service cart. He draped a linen napkin over his left arm and rolled that cart right into my room, smiling widely all the time. After he positioned the cart with a flourish, he said: “ It’s only croissants and coffee for one but from the looks of youse two, I don’t think you’ll care.” And out he marched, closing the door softly behind him.

After Mr. Carney left, my friend said: “You know, I was born and raised in Chicago and I see famous people all the time in the restaurants, on the streets, whatever. But I must say this is the first time I’ve had one wake me up in a hotel room. I can only imagine how much they must have paid him to do that.”

Art Carney was, of course, the only thing we convention attendees talked about that morning before the seminar began. And it was during these early morning conversations that I discovered he had not actually taken the room service carts into each room, but just presented them to the occupant in the hallway. Guess he had a soft heart for lovers, new or old.

Jane

Leisure Suit Switcharoo

2011-04-04T06:45:00.000-04:00

In the late 60s I started sewing, using my mother’s old, but electric, Singer sewing machine. I would go to the cloth store and buy a pattern and then the cloth and whatever else I needed to make a particular outfit. I began by making play clothes for my two young girls, Toni and Sandi; you know, shorts and pants. But after I purchased a book on sewing, I began to venture out into more complicated patterns like dresses for us girls.

Not wanting to leave out my husband, Bill, I bought a pattern for a casual shirt, some great linen blend material, and darn if it didn’t turn out really well. He wore it with pride to many weekend parties we attended in those days. After I had made myself a couple of pair of dress slacks learned how to put in a decent zipper, I figured what the heck, I’d make Bill a leisure suit as a surprise.

Now remember the time folks. We’re talking pastels, flared bell bottom pants and contrasting stitching. That’s right; the material I bought him was Robin’s egg blue because I knew it would complement his gorgeous hazel eyes. And I bought a much darker blue for the contrasting stitching that would sort of… well… outline everything. It’s called top stitching.

If my memory serves me correctly, it took me about a month to make this leisure suit because I could only work on it secretly when Bill wasn‘t around. But it was going well and I was getting more and more excited as it all came together. The girls were excited too because I had sworn them to secrecy; sometimes if we were all having dinner together, they’d look at their dad and burst into giggles. All so that when he asked them what they were laughing about, they could say in unison. “Nothing!”

When I finished the suit, I put it away until the following Saturday when I knew we would be going to have dinner with some friends at their house. But as the girls and I were so eager, I presented it to him that Saturday after lunch. I wish you could have seen him: his eyes lit up and his smile couldn’t get any wider. This is what was said:

Bill: (Holding the jacket up and looking it over)“You made this?”

Me: (Beaming) “Yep, all by myself.”

Bill: (Now holding up the pants) “I just can’t believe what a fantastic job you did babe.”

Me: (Still smiling and feeling rather proud of myself).

Bill: (Putting the jacket on) “I’m going to be the envy of everyone at our next party!”

Me: (Looking closely at the jacket; smile fading as realization dawns). “Oh my God!”

Bill: (A confused look on his face) “What? What’s the matter, it fits great.”

Me: “Yeah, it fits great… but I switched the sleeves.”

Bill: (Holding his arms out). “I don’t see anything wrong, they’re the perfect length.”

Me: (Sadly peeved) “Yes but look at the cuffs, see how the left one buttons over and not under? I switched the sleeves!…take it off, I’ll have to rip them out and redo them.”

Bill: (Pulling the jacket front together around him with both hands) “Nope, I love it just the way you did it.”

And you know what friends? He wore that darn Robin’s egg blue leisure suit to our friends’ house that evening and to every party we went to for the next several week. “Look what my wife made me!” He’d say, as he strutted, proud as a peacock.

As for the discovery of the switched sleeves by others, I only remember one guy saying anything about them and Bill told him flat out: “Doesn’t make any difference to me… she made this with her own two hands, just for me and it fits perfectly.”

My best friend, Betty, was an incredible seamstress and when I told her what I had done, she laughed so hard she almost peed her pants. But she admired Bill’s attitude and told him so. Me? I never switched sleeves again on anything I made… ever.

Jane

Something sharp this way comes…

2011-03-28T07:32:00.000-04:00

As a child, I loved to stay for a couple of weeks with my grandmother Ruby at her country home every summer, an hour outside of Savannah. My mother’s only brother, Bobby, was only 6 years older than me and I idolized him. For the most part, he indulged me in wanting to do everything he did except when he was off with boys his own age, getting up 12 year old boy things.

Uncle Bobby would take me hunting with him, using his BB gun while we looked for the wild quail in the nearby woods. He and his friends let me play Monopoly with them on summer afternoons, if they were not out looking for girls to tease. He made me a puppet theatre out of old wood found in the shed and grandmother sewed me clothes for the puppets Bobby whittled out of small blocks of wood.

Bobby loved to whittle and he had a pocket knife just for that purpose, although I’m sure he found other ways to use it, being a young boy in rural Georgia. I was watching him whittle one afternoon, as we sat on the front porch alone. I had often asked Bobby to teach me to whittle, but he always told me that I wasn’t allowed to handle the knife, as it was very sharp. Like any other 7 year old little girl, I nagged him until he finally relented.

He picked up a new block of wood and asked me what I wanted to make out of it. I told him a horse but then he explained that an animal like that was very difficult for my first time, so he suggested the face of a bunny rabbit. Not wanting to deter him from the promise of teaching me to whittle, I quickly agreed.

Bobby then preceded draw a bunny face on the small block, and explained to me how to hold the wood. But, more importantly he told me, was to always hold the knife so that the blade pointed away from my body. He also explained how to first carve the wood to get the shape of the bunny face before I got to the details. And then, he put the knife in my hand and watched closely while I began my first attempt at whittling wood.

He was extremely patient with me and that wasn’t easy to do as I was so excited; both at having a forbidden object in my hands and at the thought of carving something that would be totally of my making. About an hour went by when Bobby told me to let’s go inside for a glass of iced tea. I spent a couple of minutes whining that he could just bring my glass outside because I was at a very important part of my carving and I just couldn’t stop.

With renewed warnings of being careful with the knife, Bobby went inside. That was my opportunity to ignore him altogether and whittle my way, so I quickly turned the knife handle around so that the blade was coming towards me, convinced I could do it faster than way. You know what happened next.

I was holding the wood in my left hand, as I’m right handed, and I was just slicing through that wood in good time when the knife slipped and cut into the knuckle of my pointy finger. The knife was so sharp that I barely felt the cut but I did see the bright red blood begin to flow, that was about the time that Bobby came through the screened door and almost went into shock.

He quickly took off his t-shirt and wrapped it around my finger but the blood just kept on coming. He then tore off a strip of his shirt and put a tourniquet behind the cut and that did the trick. We looked at each other and knew instinctively that it was in both of our interests not to tell my grandmother what happened. Over the next few minutes, Bobby took me around to the back of the house to hide me while he snuck inside to get iodine and bandages.

He had to wait to clean the wound until he was sure it had actually stopped bleeding, and during this time, he would unwind the tourniquet and rewind it tightly again and again. After several agonizing minutes, when he was sure I had not cut into a vein and wouldn’t bleed to death, he cleaned the wound before administering the horrible red and stinging iodine.

At this point, I had yet to shed one single tear. I’m positive this was because I was scared to death of my transgression being discovered and the punishment that would surely follow. But when he poured that iodine on the wound, I yelled out, burst into tears and it took a few minutes for Bobby to sooth me quiet again.

It turned out to be fairly easy to hide what I had done because any time I had hurt myself in any way, I always wanted a huge bandage to cover it and my grandmother always accommodated me. We both decided it would be better to keep out of grandmother’s sight until it was necessary for me to make an appearance at dinner, so Bobby yelled into the house that we were going hunting for a while.

We did go into the woods where we wandered around for the next hour or so, and discussed in detail that I would explain the bandage by saying I had scraped my finger on a barbed wire fence. So it was at dinner that evening, when grandmother Ruby anxiously wanted to unwrap my finger so that she could properly clean it, that Bobby quickly explained he knew exactly how to do that, and do that he had. Since I had drawn a bunny face on the bandage, grandmother acquiesced by telling me how important it was to keep it clean and redressed each day until it healed. And it took a few days for that to happen, for sure.

It was years before Bobby and I confessed and that was only after my mother had taken me to the family doctor for a checkup and he noticed my finger was not exactly straight. He was the type doctor that always checked the fingernails for signs of possible internal problems. As it turned out, I had cut a muscle and since it had not been splinted while healing, the consequences are that my finger points upward against its will. I’m just glad it wasn’t my middle finger I had cut.

Jane

Young and ignorant...

2011-03-21T08:08:00.000-04:00

Still busy folks, so am reposting the following story about hate and racism.

As a young, working mother in the late 1960s, I never read the newspapers and rarely watched the news on TV, something my husband always scolded me about. I was too busy raising two little girls, cooking meals and cleaning our small house, and working a full time job as an executive secretary at one of the big Savannah hospitals.

There came a time when I left my job at Memorial Medical Center and was job hunting again, so I signed up with Kelly Girls or some other similar business whose name I can’t really remember. And lo and behold, a couple of days later, I got the call.

The lady told me there was a job opening for an executive secretary at a lawyer’s office and the best part was, it was located literally around the corner from my house. She told me he had recently relocated from Atlanta and was expecting someone to just come in and hit the floor running. So we set up an appointment.

When I went for the interview, I met a middle aged man with a limp. The office was actually part of a strip mall and he had rented one section which had 3 large rooms. There was cardboard boxes piled everywhere and his desk was a mess of papers so my immediate thought was, “Dear Lord, it’s going to take weeks just to get organized.”

But he had a glib tongue, as most southern lawyers do, so when he told me the salary and offered me the job if I could start the next day, I said yes. Actually, I was very excited. In those days, lawyers were akin to doctors and God when it came to employment opportunities, so I was flying when I left and couldn’t wait to tell my hubby that I not only had a new, good paying job, but as a lawyer’s executive secretary.

That evening as he was reading the newspaper while the kids were running around and I was cooking dinner, I told him about being hired by J. B. Stoner. To his credit, I’m sure I was emphasizing the salary and the locality of my new office, because pretty much all I heard from my husband was, “That’s great.”

During my interview, Mr. Stoner was happy to hear that I was excellent at setting up and maintaining filing systems, and he confessed that would be a big part of my job in the beginning weeks. When I got to the office, he pointed out a few boxes, asked me to start with the ones marked by states, and then he took off for meetings, or the courthouse, or whatever.

Inside most of the boxes I unpacked that day were letters, still in their envelopes, and I was shocked to see some of the letters had cash in them. So I set about recording the amount of cash received by name, address, city, state, etc. During this process, one or two of the letters caught my eye as there was things written very large and sometimes underlined several times for emphasis.

But, I didn’t really pay much attention to them at the time because I wanted to show Mr. Stoner just how efficient and organized I was. When he returned late in the afternoon, he was more than happy at what I had accomplished, and with a big smile on his face said: “This is going to work out just fine! I’ll take the money with me and deposit it tomorrow.” Okay.

And this is how my days went for over two weeks with two exceptions. I started reading the letters and was shocked at the hate that was in them. Evidently, everyone sending Mr. Stoner money were all pro-Nazi and hated all the blacks and Jews that ever lived; and I discovered boxes of a ‘hate’ newspaper entitled The Thunderbolt. All of this was very disturbing, so that evening at dinner, I told my husband of my findings and suddenly, I had his full attention. “Who did you say you’re working for?” he asked. And when I told him J. B. Stoner, he visibly blanched.

He then educated me about Georgia born Jesse Benjamin Stoner, Jr:

Stoner joined the Ku Klux Klan and was an officer at 18 years old. He helped Edward Fields found the National States’ Rights Party and served as national chairman of the KKK; The Thunderbolt was the official newspaper of the NSRP.

Stoner also headed a neo-Nazi organization he called the Stoner Christian Anti-Jewish Party. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a 1946 newspaper article quoted Mr. Stoner as saying that “being a Jew (should) be a crime punishable by death.”

He served as legal counsel for James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr.

He was convicted in the 1958 bombing of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham. After the jury sentenced him to 10 years in prison, the minimum it could impose under Alabama law, he disappeared for five months and was on the FBI‘s Most Wanted list; he turned himself in after several months of being a fugitive and served 3 ½ years.

Supposedly, he was ejected from the KKK, the John Birch society, and the American Nazi Party for being too much of a radical/fascist. He ran for various offices in the state of Georgia as well as for President of the United States. In 1984, he was permanently removed from the roster of lawyers who may appear before the United States Supreme Court.

I quit without notice the next morning, nervous as hell while doing so. Less than three weeks later, J. B. Stoner’s Savannah office was bombed. A few weeks after that, I had a visit from the FBI who wanted names, dates, etc. While I was perfectly willing to help the FBI, my husband went ballistic. “We have children, Jane! Are you crazy?”

It terrified me to think that we could be attacked because of the despicable knowledge I had learned in a couple of weeks, but I also felt it was my duty so we talked for a long time with the end result being that the FBI could not guarantee that we would be safe in our home. This was the reason I never testified but I’ve often wondered if what I knew would have been of any real value.

Of course, I didn’t remember all the names I had encountered, but many of them stood out for the sheer hatred that leapt off those letters and the amounts of money they contributed to back Stoner’s virulent cause. I’ve often wondered what drives this type of person and if we, as a nation, will ever change in this respect.

One good thing that came out of this was I learned to pay attention to the news and what was going on around me, and became a total news junkie.

Jane

P.S. I’ve only posted a couple of photos because frankly, it sickens me to look at them. One is of J. B. Stoner and the other is of the original KKK flag.

The Porcelain Doll

2011-03-14T07:05:00.000-04:00

A repeat from about a year ago. Back with you soon, live.

When I was 9, we moved to a house in Guyton, a much smaller city about an hour from Savannah. The backyard was huge and filled with fruit bearing trees, and I attended a grammar school where one of my mother’s male cousins taught. These were in the days that teachers were allowed to paddle students as punishment for indiscretions.

One day, my teacher/cousin caught a young boy chewing gum. He called the boy to the front of the room where he paddled him as we all watched and cringed with each resounding thonk. I learned much later that my mother had asked the teacher to make sure I saw a paddling so that I would “stay in line.” I was always a good student and liked school as it got me away from home; you can believe I never even considered chewing gum or talking in class after that little demonstration. This carried over into the home too, of course, because I didn't want that teacher telling mom that I had been bad, period.

That first Christmas, my mother must have been in a good mood because I received the most beautiful doll I had ever seen. She stood about two feet tall, had porcelain face, arms and legs and was dressed in an antebellum style gown which included a matching parasol, all in a gorgeous floral print of antique roses. I loved that doll and she spent her all her time on my carefully made up bed because I didn’t want her to ever get dirty. I can still see every detail of her in my mind’s eye, she was so precious to me.

This house was very large and had hardwood floors throughout. The hallway was vast, about 12 feet wide by 25 feet long. Many a Saturday morning, I spent hand waxing that hall to a shine in which you could see your face, and then I buffed it by hand. I had to hand wax the furniture too, but only in the living room as it appeared that my mother was only concerned with what visitors would see.

My other chores were clearing up after each meal, washing and drying the dishes, and mopping the kitchen floor. By this time, my mother had had my first little sister, so I had two young children to look after and entertain while she continued to read romance magazines on the couch but, to be honest, she also did the laundry, cooked meals, and cleaned the rest of the house.

I need to digress here just a bit. I’ve thought about this a lot since my mother died when I was in my early 30s and since I began blogging. I was diagnosed with endogenous depression in my late 30s and have since endured two more bouts of this phenomenon. Since this is genetic, I was convinced my mom must have also suffered from this same chemical imbalance, or something very similar, albeit untreated. In those days, menopause was treated with Valium and this is exactly what our family physician told mom was the problem when she finally sought treatment. This was in the 50s and wasn’t an unusual practice for physicians to indiscriminately dispense Valium. When a nephew was diagnosed with a bipolar problem a few years ago, I started rethinking my mother’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality.

But this was in the early 50s and I was a child. I had few friends because once some kid came over to my house and witnessed a Mr. Hyde incident, their parents never let them return and didn’t invite me to their house again. Of course, I played outside with other children, but it’s hard to develop a close friendship when you can’t get behind closed doors, giggle together and just plain share.

So back to the porcelain doll. On this particular Saturday in the spring, I was helping my mother make jam from some fresh fruit. My job was to hold the cheesecloth in place while she poured the cooked mixture into mason jars. I was tired because I had already waxed the hallway and was waiting on it to totally dry so that it could be buffed. I also wanted to go outside and ride my bike, hoping I would run into one of the neighborhood girls so that we could play together before it got dark.

Evidently, I let my concentration drift and pulled the cheesecloth too tight so that when my mom poured the hot liquid, it began running down the side of the jar. She screamed at me, I jumped, the jar crashed to the floor, and there was a mess to clean up.

I grabbed a dishcloth and began wiping up the sugary mixture while mom screamed obscenities at me. She could curse like a sailor and she didn’t hold back while calling me names I’m still too embarrassed on her behalf to repeat here. It took several minutes to get everything clean and back in order and while I cried the entire time, I felt thankful that she hadn’t taken the long, heavy steel spoon she had been using to my back. But she had other plans for me.

After we finished filling the jars, she calmly walked into my bedroom, took my beautiful doll off my bed and told me to follow her. I was immediately petrified but I followed her to a nearby oak tree. Her face was red and filled with loathing as she methodically beat my doll into pieces against that tree while I stood by, begging her to stop, and crying as loud as I’d ever done in my life at that time.

She then broke the parasol in two and ripped the chiffon fabric with her fingers, and then she ripped the doll’s antebellum dress into shreds. When she finished, she made me pick up all the pieces and throw them into the garbage can, then she asked me: “How does it feel to have something you love taken away from you forever?”

A personal item so beautiful, that I had loved so much, had been destroyed in a fit of rage because I had done something unintentionally wrong when I was 9 years old. After that, at least she allowed me to wallow in my sorrow, alone in my room until dinnertime.

I’ll never forget the shock on my dad’s face when she told him what happened and what she had done about it at dinner. Before bedtime, my dad came into my room and told me how sorry he was that mom had destroyed my doll. That eased the pain somewhat, but I never again was given anything to compare to that doll, and I was glad. Glad there would be nothing in my life I loved so much that could so easily be taken away with such finality.

Jane

NOTE: I sometimes write about these once painful events in my life because I hope they will help someone out there in blogland who may be on either end of this spectrum. There are many persons suffering from a mental illness that could easily be controlled if they seek professional help; I think my mother suffered from some kind of mental illness that forever went undiagnosed. If you know of a child in this kind of situation, please talk to someone who can help.

Tossing pennies…

2011-03-07T06:29:00.000-05:00

As a young child, I was a bit shy when meeting new people and making new friends, something I had to do often since my parents were apparently descendants of Nomads. Going into the second grade, I was at yet another new school in Savannah, this one called Romana Riley Elementary. It was a huge school and quite beautiful architecturally but that wasn’t something that interested me at the time. No sirree, what interested me on that first day was getting up those multiple stone steps and inside the brick walls so that I could eventually find my classroom.

Once again, I was going to be introduced as “the new student” and I dreaded having to stand up in front of the class while the teacher introduced me. This is the way they did it back in the late 40s; you didn’t just stand up at your desk, the teacher asked you to come to the front of the room while she told everyone your name, where you had gone to school last and then asked all the other students to help you fit in.

At least this time, my teacher seemed to be quite nice. Her name was Miss Carter and she was young, maybe in her late 20s, and slim and very pretty. What stood out though was her beautiful smile; when in full bloom, it literally lit up her face and drew anyone close by into its glow. I was going to like being in Miss Carter’s class, I felt sure.

Unfortunately, the girls in my second grade already seemed to have chosen their friends from the previous year and on that first day, it didn’t appear they wanted to open up their circle in the least bit. They barely spoke to me when we all went to the bathroom before lunch, and later, no one invited me to sit with them at their table. In their defense, I didn’t make much of an effort to start a conversation at the lunch table, and it took every ounce of fortitude I possessed to attempt to enter into an ongoing conversation. The little bit I contributed fell flat and after one or two of them stared at me blankly, I hid back into the safety of my shyness.

But I did want to have friends at school and felt surely there was a way I could break into the tight little circles; at least one of them. I gave the ways and means of this considerable thought and, after a couple of weeks, finally came up with a brilliant idea that would cost me every penny in my piggy bank… all 64 cents.

On the morning that would surely become my breakthrough, I loaded up my pockets with the pennies and headed off to school. I had a smug little smile on my face throughout the morning while I anxiously awaited recess time which followed lunch.

When recess finally arrived, I headed straight for the swings, climbed on and began pumping away like mad. As I reached the highest level on my back swing, I yelled down to the closest group of girls: “Hey, do you want some pennies?” Yep, I did, and I threw out a tiny handful of pennies and watched as the kids, boys and girls, came scrambling. I was going to buy me some friendship.

The kids were all giggling as they picked up the pennies from the ground, and not being totally stupid, I took my time in the distribution because I was having some real fun for a change. The giggling turned into pushing and shoving and soon caught the attention of Miss Carter who came over to see what the fuss was all about. At about the time I was on a good forward swing, one of the kids shouted: “Miss Carter, that new girl is throwing pennies for us!”

I watched as that beautiful smile of Miss Carter’s went from a glow to a glower. She didn’t say a thing as she beckoned me down off the swings and led me inside to her classroom. There, she sat me down and asked me why I was throwing pennies to the kids. By then, I knew I was in trouble, but wasn’t sure exactly what I had done wrong. So with tears in my eyes, I told her that I just wanted to have some friends.

Miss Carter heaved a sigh and set about explaining to me how she understood that being new in a school wasn’t a fun thing but that trying to buy friendship wasn’t the way to make real friends. She also told me how when she was young, she had a hard time making friends too because she was also shy. I couldn’t believe this young, vivacious woman was ever shy, so I asked her what I should do.

Miss Carter hugged me close to her and said that I just have to give the other kids time. She further explained that most of them had gone to first grade together and already knew each other, but that she was absolutely sure that they had had just as difficult a time as I was having the first few weeks of having met each other. Miss Carter said: “Jane, you’re a lovely little girl and I’m positive you’ll be making new friends very soon… especially after what you did in the school yard. But you must remember that true friends like you for who you are, not for what you give them.”

She was right, of course. When we went back outside, most of the kids gathered around me and the first thing they wanted to know was if I had any pennies left. I told them no, even though I had at least half of what I had put in my pocket that morning. That’s when most of them walked away except for two girls, Mildred and Peggy, who turned out to be true friends for a very long time… or at least until my parents moved to another school district.

This is a lesson for which I’m extremely grateful I learned at an early age.

Jane

Algebra, you say?

2011-02-28T07:01:00.000-05:00

I always had to struggle to just keep up with math in school, from the first grade onward. It never came easy to me except for memorizing the multiplication tables as memory wasn’t a problem; otherwise, give me a machine.

In the 9th grade, I was being taught algebra and frankly, I have no idea how I even passed the course. Although I did spend a lot of time at home trying to comprehend, I think it was my 9th grade teacher who was willing to spend after school hours with me that did it.

As I was entering the 10th grade, I knew I’d be attending Savannah High School as this was how the grades were established in the late 50s. I was excited because SHS was a Savannah landmark and it was the first step in my becoming an adult.

When I walked into my second year algebra class for the first time, I was in mild shock because it seemed that the school powers-that-be had put all the “bad” kids into that one class. There sat the James Deans of my time, along with their gum smacking girlfriends. Think Blackboard Jungle without the ultra violence.

The boys all wore the skinny jeans and white t-shirts with the left sleeve rolled up to accommodate their Lucky Strikes. The girls wore gobs of pancake makeup and clothes that were a bit risqué for the times: blouses buttoned way further down than the rest of us teens, and tight, tight skirts. No flouncy, poodle skirts with crinolines for these kids.

It was the first year for our teacher even though he was a bit middle aged at the time. We all found out that he was a former Drill Sergeant in the Marines but he sure didn’t look like the stereotypical DS you saw in the movies. He was a bit overweight, wore steel rimmed glasses, had thinning hair and had, in general, the look of a frightened mouse… and so was his demeanor.

I settled into this algebra class as best I could but it was hard trying to concentrate when on any given day the kids were shooting spitballs at the man every time his back was turned and rarely did they miss their mark. Occasionally, a spitball would be in route as he turned, and it would splat somewhere on his face or neck.

Then there was the noise factor. These kids paid no attention to the teacher’s request for silence and kept up a continuous chatter throughout each class. Most of the time, their backs were turned as they talked to their friends. I was totally ignored, of course. The girls pegged me for a “good” girl the minute I walked into the room on the first day.

I was panicky for the entire first couple of weeks and then I asked to speak to the teacher after class one day. I told him I didn’t have a good background in algebra and that I had a hard time hearing him because of the noise and constant distractions. His answer was to sit me in the first row and loan me a book about elementary algebra. The first brought accusations of Teacher’s Pet from my classmates and the latter brought nightly tears nightly as I struggled to comprehend the language of the book. It felt hopeless.

My parents weren’t much help as neither had even finished high school and didn’t know algebra from a hole in the ground. But one of my girlfriends spent many hours with me weekly helping me as best she could with the little she had to work with. At one point she said: “I don’t see how you passed 9th grade math!” It was embarrassing for me but I took help any place I could get it.

Then I went to the office and asked to be transferred. It seemed this wasn’t an option either because the principle flat told me she needed to keep me in that particular class “to balance” it out. WTF. She also said it was too late in the year to transfer.

As the year progressed, this new teacher would give me grades on tests that weren’t even close to reality for me, and he would always hold them up to show the class that “someone is paying attention.” Please, I begged silently with my eyes, which he totally ignored. When I asked my parents to go to the principal on my behalf, they just didn’t understand that I was being used by this teacher and that I wasn’t learning a thing about algebra. They firmly believed that the teacher would never give me a grade I had not earned. How wrong they were.

This, then, is how I spent one hour of each school day in the 10th grade. Fortunately, the stress I was experiencing didn’t affect my other classes as I made excellent grades in everything else I was taking. Maybe I was compartmentalizing even before I knew what that particular expression meant. So I “passed” 10th grade algebra with a B average.

The following year in the 11th grade, I heard that the former Drill Sergeant Algebra teacher was no longer at SHS. Good riddance. But knowing I had to face taking a 3rd year of algebra to graduate high school, I went to see the principal on my first day and didn’t leave her office until I was guaranteed a class where the teacher was fully informed of my situation and one who would be willing to spend tutoring time with me.

This wonderful Jessica Tandy look-a-like algebra teacher told me that the reason I was having trouble with algebra was because I had such a poor background in general math, so she had to bring me up to speed before she could help me with the algebra. That year, I skimmed by with a C- in algebra, and I earned it. My 11th grade algebra teacher had worked a miracle with me, because she was one of the truly dedicated teachers. At the end the school year she asked me what I wanted to become and I told her a journalist. She smiled and exhaled deeply saying: “Thank the Lord you won’t need advanced math for that!”

I say thank the Lord for her dedication.

Jane

Dating in the 90s

2011-02-21T07:07:00.000-05:00

When I repatriated to Atlanta in ’93 after having lived in Bahrain and Egypt for 10 years, I found a few things had changed which had not been obvious to me when visiting. The first was when I moved into my condo and called Ma Bell to get a phone. That’s when I learned that if I wanted a phone, I’d have to go buy one; this from a service representative who was obviously too young to know phones used to come from the phone company.

My second revelation came when I was in a department store with my daughter, Toni and saw an adorable little girl with her mother. I immediately started talking to the child, telling her how pretty she was when I noticed the mother giving me the old “evil eye” before she walked away, holding tightly to her daughter’s hand. That’s when Toni told me I should never begin a conversation with a child without first getting the parent’s permission. How sad is that.

But what really shocked me was how the men had changed when it came to dating. After being home about a year and knowing that it was really finished with me and Adel, I signed up with an online dating service. When I wrote up my profile, I decided to be perfectly honest for what I hoped to find in a man, published a recent photo and gave my correct age.

The first time I accepted a coffee date with someone, it didn’t really surprise me to discover the photo he had posted was not all that recent. But the real problem was that his false teeth reminded me so much of my ex-mother in law’s set, right down to the smile itself. I’m not even sure that I finished my coffee.

Next I had an afternoon drink date with a man who told me he was looking for a wife, full stop. He also said he already had plenty of friends and if I wasn’t good in bed, it wouldn’t work. I told him good luck on both counts and left.

Soon after, I had a coffee date with a man who told me within the first five minutes that there was obviously no chemistry, so he excused himself. I decided to order a Danish because the coffee was really good and I had brought a book in my purse so I was a happy camper. My momma didn’t raise no fool, no sir.

Then I met the professor from University of Georgia (UGA is in Athens, Georgia, about an hour and a half from Atlanta). We met, as usual, on a coffee date one afternoon and I was impressed with his demeanor, intelligence and his gorgeous blue eyes. Hmmm, this one might go somewhere, I thought.

After a few drink and lunch dates where we usually met some place halfway between the two cities, we had a proper dinner date one evening on my turf. He was staying nearby and, when he asked if I wanted to go back to his motel after dinner, my antenna starting going “boing, boing” …and loudly. So I just came right out and asked if he was married. He was and that ended my continuing to see old blue eyes. He said he was single on his profile. Bad boy.

Several more introductory coffee dates followed, but they seemed to be with the same person because they all said the same thing. They “knew what they wanted” and they wanted it right now, this minute. Sure most of them wanted marriage with the sex, but I wasn’t about to jump into anything, especially marriage, after leaving a 9 year relationship that didn’t work out.

What happened to taking the time to get to know each other? What happened to sharing a conversation that didn’t involve past relationships and what went wrong? What happened to snuggling, just for the sake of being close to someone you like?

But I didn’t give up, not just yet anyway. And finally I met someone who seemed to have the same values as I, and who didn’t want to rush into anything. So for the next several weeks, this guy and I spent quite a few evening in each other’s company, and I was enjoying every minute of it.

Then one night at my condo where we were having an after dinner brandy, I told him that I wanted to be completely honest with him; I told him I had twice had endogenous (clinical) depression and it was highly likely that I’d have it again some time in the future. He was quite nice about it, as he told me that he just didn’t think that was something he wanted to “deal with” as his wife was sick for a very long time before she died.

Of course, I explained what endogenous depression is like, that I could function completely, go to work every day, etc, but that in order to do so, I would have to take medication until my synapses began firing properly again. But I could tell from the look on his face that, either he didn’t understand, or he didn’t believe me, because soon after we were saying goodbye.

And that was that for me. I had given it the old college heave ho for a good year, this dating thing. I wasn’t getting anywhere I wanted to be, so I pulled my name off the website and never looked back. My job was time consuming as it was, and gave me great satisfaction, so I began getting home later and later. My cats didn’t mind and they didn’t judge me.

I just turned 69 in December and not for one minute have I regretted that I’ve lived alone for the past 15 years. I like myself and my own company and I actually like that I don’t have to consider someone else before making a decision about what I want to do or where I want to go. It’s a freeing experience, and perhaps not one I’d recommend for just anybody, but I’m a very happy and satisfied individual.

But I’m also glad I experienced the dating thing, albeit for only a year or so, because I learned so much about how people have changed over the years, especially myself. And that’s a good thing.

Have you had any "freeing" experiences of late?

A belted waist.

2011-02-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

My maternal grandmother Ruby was a rotund, short, lady. She stood just under 5 feet, so any excess weight she had revealed itself quite readily. I only remember seeing her like this, and would imagine she became this way through her wonderful southern cooking and the lack of any exercise except working in her garden.

Even as a child, I thought it a bit odd that she was overweight when her own mother was so thin. Most of my grandmother’s sisters were also very short but much thinner, and my mother always had a thin, elegant figure. My grandmother Ruby’s average day was spent taking care of her cantankerous mother, Rosa and taking care of the old tin-roofed country home in Pembroke, Georgia because Rosa refused to live “in the city.”

Savannah was an hour’s drive from Pembroke, so we saw them often, especially on Sundays when grandmother would cook as if for a battalion. Although it was not a farm by any means, grandmother raised chickens for the table and sometimes sold the extra eggs to a neighbor.

Grandmother Ruby tended her own small garden, filled with the typical southern vegetables, most of which I despised. And on the porch railing, just outside the kitchen door, she had pots and pots of peppers she used in her cooking as well as served fresh, on the side. I was fascinated by these peppers which ran the scale from sweet to mild to hot to you’d-better-have-a-glass-of-milk-handy-fiery.

She would sometimes serve venison after it had been cured in the smokehouse out back after her brother, my Uncle Johnny, had been hunting. If she wanted a beef roast, she had to purchase it from the meat shop in town as cows were not allowed at Rosa’s home… I never found out why, they were just not there. But grandmother did have a small pig pen, and once a pig became of age, Uncle Johnny would kill it and smoke the pork along with the deer.

Knowing how much we all loved her fried chicken, on most Sundays, grandmother would wring the necks of two chickens and then fry them up crispy and moist. After collecting green beans from the garden, we’d sit on the front porch and snap them, ready for grandmother to cook them with pork fat of some type. She also used pork fat in the turnips and collard greens if she were serving them as well.

Her mashed potatoes were filled with real butter and sweet cream and her homemade biscuits were to die for. Alongside the fresh peppers, she would serve fresh sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, also from her garden. And she would usually bake two fruit pies as cakes were not her specialty. This was all prepared on an old gas burning stove, fueled by bottled propane.

Sunday dinner at grandmother Ruby’s was always served in the afternoon, giving us enough time to wash the dishes and then digest the heavy meal until it was time to return to Savannah by early evening. Many afternoons as the adults sat on the porch and talked, I was running around in the yard with a too large belt around my waist. Winter or summer, I had that belt on, as tight as I could get it in the extra holes punched in by Uncle Johnny. And it was well known why that belt was important to me; I didn’t want to get fat like my grandmother Ruby, and I was convinced the belt would prevent that from happening.

The first time I showed up wearing the belt, I was asked about it and when I blurted out my reason, my mother turned bright red, grabbed me by the arm, and spun me around to swipe at my bottom. But my grandmother laughed, told my mother it was fine and I had a right to my opinions. Uncle Johnny stood to the side, holding his stomach he was laughing so hard, as he was well aware of my reason when I asked him for one of his old belts. So, because my grandmother had a good sense of humor, I was allowed to wear the belt anytime I wanted to… and I wore it all the time when I was 5, 6, 7 and 8 years of age.

Why I eventually stopped wearing it, I don’t remember. But I do know that when I grew up, my waist remained at 17 ½ inches until I had my first child, and then it never got any smaller than 18 inches. Was the belt the reason my waist was so small, or was I just immune to my grandmother’s meals? My mother cooked much the same way as her mother, so I was exposed to traditional southern cooking continually. Did I simply inherit the genes of my great-grandmother Rose and my own mother, bypassing my grandmother Ruby?

When I was a young adult in the 60s, hip-huggers became very popular and I, of course, wore them like everyone else. Then, one day, I heard on the radio that a study had been done about the history of women’s waists and their sizes. It seems that when women wore bustles (remember Scarlett and how she would get trussed up daily?), they had very small waists, and when they wore loose clothing, their waists expanded exponentially. That did it for me, I was convinced that the belt had been my savior and never wore the hip-huggers again.

I know this little tale is exposing my vanity, or at least the vanity I had in my 20s and 30s, but by the time I hit my 40s, I had learned that beauty is more important on the inside than on the outside. This is something my grandmother Ruby had told me, but I hadn’t always been an agreeable listener: beauty is as beauty does and that’s the way I’ve tried to live my life since.

Now, I’m 69 and, although I don’t have an 18 inch waist anymore, I do contribute to the doctrine of Dr. Oz and others who say our waist should be no more than twice our height for health reasons. I care about my health, but during Christmas holidays, it’s awfully hard not to want to get out that old belt and wear it for a month or two.

Jane

Was it real… or not

2011-02-07T08:08:00.000-05:00

We’ve already established that I have a vivid imagination so it won’t come as a surprise to you that it began when I was a young child. After my mother married my stepfather around 1947, we lived in a large basement apartment in downtown Savannah.

At that time, the downtown area was alive with families from all walks of life, much as it is today, having gone full circle. Our apartment was in the brownstone next to the corner and on the corner was a butcher shop owned and operated by an Italian family. Fresh produce could be purchased from the man who came by daily with a wooden cart overflowing with vegetables. Ice was delivered right to your door, as was fresh milk in glass bottles. One of Savannah’s famous squares was only a block away, and the elementary school I attended was just 4 blocks.

All in all, it was a terrific place to live, especially as a child. It was a time when children were allowed to play outside at night until right before bedtime, with no fears of evildoers. While we played under the giant Live Oak trees or in the vacant lot down the street, our mothers were usually nearby, trading gossip and recipes.

There were lots of children in that neighborhood and at any given time, there would be small groups of us playing together. On one particular Halloween night, I was playing in a group of about 8. We had already done our trick or treating politely as we were taught, chowed down on as much candy as we could before our parents took our bags away, and were play Ollie Ollie Oxen Free in the vacant lot, still dressed in our costumes.

On the outskirts of this lot were a couple of trees and it was from behind one of them that I saw the Devil. He popped his head out from behind the tree, horns and all, with one leg exposed and his long, red, sharpened tale whipping about. His eyes were yellow and stared right through me. I yelled and hid behind one of the larger of the boys, pointing across the yard towards the tree.

At first, they all laughed at me. It was, after all, Halloween night. But eventually they saw I was really scared and although stammering quite a lot, I was able to convey to that there was something behind the darn tree that shouldn’t be there. So three of the oldest boys swaggered over to the tree, looked behind it and announced there was nothing there. When I went over to see for myself, I saw they had told the truth. So what, then, did I see I wondered.

A few months later, and it was Christmas Eve. I was excited more than usual because I had a new father, my mother seemed happy and had been baking goodies like crazy, and I was still an only child which meant every single thing under the tree would be mine. Well, at least all the toys.

I had been put to bed and told to not get out for any reason, and that Santa would not come until I was asleep. Not long after being in bed, I could hear my mom and dad whispering to each other. I could hear paper rustling and I could smell the cinnamon and other spices of the cakes and cookies mom had baked. Sleep was not on my mind.

I knew exactly when my parents went to bed a few hours later but still sleep eluded my 6 year old mind. Rather, excitement was building in my little body, but I stayed in bed like I was told. Some time later -- I have no idea if it was an hour or three -- I heard a sound that made me sit straight up in bed. The tinkling of bells was heard, not once but twice. I strained to listen for more.

What seemed like an eternity passed but I think it was more like 15 minutes and then, I heard it again. The tinkling of bells… so delicate, so silvery, and I just knew they were the bells on Santa’s reindeer as they waited patiently for their master. Even then, I stayed in bed, but I fell asleep almost instantly, knowing in my heart, that Santa Claus had been in my house.

For years, I wondered if these events in my young life had actually taken place. I thought that maybe I had seen the Devil at Halloween because I had been a bad girl and he was warning me to shape up. And then I thought, shape up I must have done, or else Santa would never have let me hear his reindeer’s bells.

Anyone would tell you that these were just the imagination of a vulnerable yet creative little girl, but I prefer to believe they were signs. I was always considered a good child, but since that time, I became a very good child.

Jane

A Vivid Imagination

2011-01-31T07:04:00.000-05:00

I’ve always had an incredible imagination. I don’t mean just thinking about something but coming up, in my mind’s eye, with entire scenarios that are as real to me as the sun surely comes up over the horizon each day.

As an adult, this imagination of mine has caused me needless worry and stress at times, but it doesn’t seem to be something I can turn off and on, so I live with it. Here’s a prime example. I was married with my two young daughters and living in Durham, North Carolina with my husband, Bill so this took place around 1965 or so.

Bill was working at a large hospital, maintaining its radiology equipment. If there was a breakdown, he worked until everything was up and running again, sometimes late into the night. On this particular winter evening, Bill had called to tell me that he’d be late because of an emergency; don’t wait up and put his dinner in the oven, please.

The girls and I had dinner, we played some and then I got them a bath and ready for bed, then came a bedtime story as usual. So I was pretty busy until 8 pm and wasn’t too concerned that Bill wasn’t home already. I tried reading for a while, but my mind kept wandering. I tried watching some TV but nothing held my interest for more than a few minutes.

It had been raining most of the afternoon, which turned to snow around twilight. It had been coming down pretty good since then, so now there was a couple of inches on the ground. As I looked out the window for the hundredth time, I could see ice on the bare tree branches.

The TV became just noise, so I turned it off and went back to my book, curled up on the sofa with my cat, Bluebell beside me. The house was many decades old, so it had natural creaks and groans, as did the old oil fueled furnace as it turned off and on. This was when my imagination started feeding itself relentlessly.

What if, I thought to myself, Bill has had a wreck. I could so clearly see him lying behind the car wheel, bent from impacting a tree on the side of the road head on. I could picture Bill crushed and unable to get out of the car, no cell phones to call me or anyone for help.

As I imagined his multiple injuries and knew the route he would be taking, I knew also the mostly residential road would be deserted. The people of Durham usually hunkered down when there was ice and snow, so I knew no one would be along to help him get to a hospital.

I thought of what I would do; how I would tell the girls that their father wouldn’t be coming home that night or any other night. I knew I would move back to Georgia, to be close to my family and friends, so I imagined exactly how I would manage this on my own, and get Bill’s lifeless body back for burial in the family plot.

Then I began wondering if the life insurance would be enough to help us get a decent start on our new life. Would I be able to find a good paying job right away? I had no idea, but this made me start thinking of all my contacts in Savannah, and that I would need to update my resume.

Every now and then, I’d get up for the sofa and stand at the window, smoking a cigarette and watching the ice and snow pile up. I must have drunk 3 glasses of wine that night, which might have fed my already active imagination.

All I truly know is that when I saw the lights of a car turning into our driveway, I knew it was Bill. Home at last, safe and sound. He barely got into the front door before I was wrapped all around him, scolding him for not having called before he left the hospital, and telling him how glad I was to see him home safe.

I never told Bill about this scenario, or any of the others that followed throughout our married life. But at least on this particular winter night, I knew I could put my imagination away for another time and let it rest.

Jane

Friends Helping Friends

2011-01-24T07:56:00.001-05:00

Still down with a bad sinus infection folks, so am doing another repost. Bear with me.
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I seemed to have missed the entire New Year event as my daughter, Sandi, and I were helping Sandi's BFF Kathie, clean the house she had bought. Kathie is relocating from Virginia Beach Va and she had purchased an historic home in Kinston NC (about 2100 square feet) for an unbelieveable low price... because the man who owned it was a cat collector (as they call this obsession on Animal Planet) and a hoarder of everything else inanimate.

There were large rugs over the heart pine in every room, including the kitchen, and they were all saturated with cat urine. These had to be removed immediately as well as all the furniture and household items he had left "for her to use." Needless to say, these too were soaked and had to be trashed, so we spent the first two days just dragging all this stuff to the street for pickup.

Then came the job of actually cleaning. Thank goodness for those two funny ladies on How Clean is Your House from the BBC because they had reported some time back that the only way to remove the odor of cat urine is with vinegar... and it works.

Being animal lovers and owners ourselves, we all felt so sorry for the cats that had "lived" there as it was a horribly unhealthy environment. Yes, he had kitty litter boxes - at least two in every one of the 7 rooms -- but they were not cleaned out regularly so the cats used the rugs, the floors, even the lower kitchen cabinets and the gas stovetop.

Guess who had volunteered to clean the kitchen. The first thing we had to do was get the gas stove out of there because the pans underneath the burners were filled with cat urine and it had dripped down into the oven part. It was clear she was going to have to buy a new stove, but I was able to get everything else washed down with vinegar and finally, it all smelled and looked clean.

While I was in the kitchen and pantry, Sandi and Kathie had sponge mops and buckets of vinegar water and they were washing down the walls, baseboards and floors. Even though we had opened all the windows, we had to take frequent breaks from the oppressive ordor.

At any rate, many, many days later, the house was sparkling, free of odors of any kind, and ready to become the new home of my daughter's friend, her two cats, her ancient gerbil, and her middle aged Amazon parrot.

Once we all rested up, we attacked the large storage shed in the backyard. Fortunately, the cats didn't go in there so it was just plain dirty, but you can't imagine all the "things" he was saving. There were suitcases from every era, filled with vintage clothes; boxes and boxes of vintage Christmas ornaments and decoratioins; stacks of window blinds of every size and shape; stacks of wooden windows, also of every size and shape; rolled up, moldy area rugs; cans and cans of old paint; and rusted tools and hardware. These things too, had to dragged to the street for trash pickup.

You may wonder why anyone would bother purchasing a home in this condition, but Sandi's friend had just gotten a divorce and didn't have much money. She bought the house for $18,000 and a few months later, after she had installed a new HVAC system including new ductwork, and repaired the roof, the house was appraised at $85,000.

Unfortunately, the man took his cats with him, so they will forever be subjected to his "loving care." And since we don't actually know the address he moved to in Charlotte, we couldn't report him. The photo I've posted here is NOT from the actual house, but from my good friend Google Images.

Thanks for letting me vent about this friends, and just think of this post the next time you complain about your, or your friend's home, that needs cleaning... and thank the Lord that it's ordinary dust and dirt.

Jane

One Summer Afternoon

2011-01-17T07:34:00.000-05:00

Am reposting something that I wrote quite some time back, hoping that you all will enjoy it.

As a child, I spent almost all my summers with my maternal grandmother who took care of her mother, Rosa. Only 4’10”, Rosa was nevertheless a force to reckon with and was as stubborn a southern woman as you’ll ever meet... and she absolutely scared me to death.

Case in point, after my great-grandfather died, Rosa refused to go live in Savannah with my grandmother and her family. Rosa needed someone to take care of her as there were simply things she could no longer do for herself… like cook without setting something on fire.

So, my grandmother moved back to Rosa’s house in Pembroke, Georgia when I was about 5 years old and there she remained until Rosa died some years later. This was difficult for my grandmother because Rosa also refused to have any ‘newfangled inventions’ in her house. My grandmother had to draw water from a pump in the kitchen and had to wash clothes with an agitator type machine on the back porch. It had a wringer that clothes were pushed through to well, wring them out. This was my job, and I can’t tell you how many times I got my hand caught in that machine!

The house did have electricity, but Rosa, of course, insisted on kerosene lamps in the evenings. Rosa’s house was typical of those of the low-to-middle class in rural Georgia in the 30s and 40s. It was a three bedroom wood frame, with a tin roof (God, I loved to hear it raining at night, bouncing off that tin!), and it had very large front and back porches. The outhouse was located at the far corner of the back yard.

One of my older cousins, Joann, used to come spend at least two weeks each summer, and that was when I had the most fun because Joann was my hero. She was about 4 years older than me (I was 7 at the time) and had a tremendous knowledge about animals and insects. We would spend hours, walking the woods, cotton and corn fields looking for anything alive and she would tell me their proper names, their living and mating habits, and then quiz me to see if I had been listening.

Joann also taught me how to sing and dance to “Pistol Packin’ Mama”, a record played nightly on Rosa’s wind up Victrola that she only allowed in her house because her only son had bought it for her for Christmas one year. I’m sure there were other records, but that’s the only one I really remember.

The outhouse was a two-seater and it wasn’t unusual for two people of the same sex to be using it at the same time. One such time, I had done my business really quickly, and was just standing around waiting on Joann. And this is what happened that summer afternoon.

Me (just standing there): “Uh, Joann, what was the name of that snake that has the square things on the back?”

Joann (sitting on the throne): “That’s a diamond back rattler. And what else did I tell you about it?”

Me (kind of looking around): Uh, that it’s poisonous?”

Joann (still sitting): “That’s right! You get a gold star.”

Me (looking overhead): “Oh gee, thanks!”

Joann (sitting…): “What made you think of that right now?”

Me (pointing overhead where a full grown diamond back rattler was hiding out in the rafters over the door): “Well, I think that’s one up there.”

Joann (jumping up faster than lightening, running out of the outhouse with her panties around her knees): “Run, stupid!”

Well, I was actually already trying to run after her but she kind of pushed me out of her way to get a more direct path and she was screaming the whole way:

“Aunt Ruby! Uncle Johnny!” (Her aunt Ruby is my grandmother; her uncle Johnny is my grandmother’s brother.)

Before they even got out the back door, Joann yelled: “There’s a diamond back in the outhouse!” (She finally got her pants pulled back up, thank the Lord!)

So uncle Johnny (he was also my uncle, you see) ran back inside and came running back out with a rifle while my grandmother ran to the shed and got a hoe. Uncle Johnny took the hoe from grandmother and cautiously used it to open the outhouse door. Not wanting to stick his head in there to see exactly where that rattler was, he then used the hoe to poke around overhead until finally, this huge snake fell down into the doorway.

Uncle Johnny proceeded to shoot the snake (he was a crack shot with a rifle) but my grandmother, adrenalin pumping mightily, used the hoe to also chop off its head.

I ran over to see it up close but she grabbed me by the arm and said: “Don’t get too close, the poison is still in the fangs and it can kill you if you get any on you.”

Wow! Joann didn’t tell me that poisonous snakes can still be poisonous after they’re dead! And I made a mental note to remember that little tidbit. (Although, I later learned that the venom can only kill you if it gets into your blood stream, as for example, through on open sore.)

After things settled down, we had a really good laugh about the whole scenario. Well, Joann didn’t laugh as much as we did, especially when I mimicked her running away with her panties down around her knees. She never let me go to the outhouse with her again either..

Jane

My BFF, Betty

2011-01-10T08:29:00.000-05:00

Just about the time I turned 30, I became the Executive Director of the Georgia Lung Association (GLA) in Savannah. Our offices were located on historic Factor’s Walk and although they were huge, nothing had been done by way of renovations… but oh, what a view of the Savannah River.

I inherited one staff member, a porter named Robert who had been working for the GLA most of his adult life. I had a budget to hire a secretary and a program coordinator but of course, the salaries were very small, being a nonprofit agency. No problem hiring a young lady as my secretary but it was taking me some time to find someone I thought would be a good program coordinator.

In the halls of Memorial Medical Center one day, I literally ran into a Pink Lady named Betty and, after apologies on both sides, we had a cup of coffee and talked. It seemed that Betty had not worked since before she was married about 22 years hence, but she had been volunteering for most of that time. My instinct told me she would be perfect for the job and since she didn’t actually need the money, she agreed to give it a try.

At the GLA, my very small staff and I were responsible for the annual fundraiser of the Christmas Seal campaign, educational programs and their individual funding, and public relations about everything we did. As it turned out, my instincts were right as Betty proved to be a jewel and a terrific sport. I was big into ideas and Betty was the perfect person to follow up on them as she was highly organized.

Among the educational programs we ran annual was the Clean Air Campaign. During this time, we would conduct programs in the schools to try to teach kids not to begin smoking, and in the hospitals and clinics, we conducted programs on how to quit.

As with all our other programs and campaigns, I was constantly on TV and in the newspapers, publicizing the events and begging for donations. Of course, we were competing with all the other nonprofits when it came to donations and publicity, so I always tried to come up with winning promotions.

For our Clean Air Campaign kickoff this particular year, I arranged for a bicycle ride from the farthest end of Forsythe Park to the steps of City Hall, with the Mayor leading the pack. He was a good friend of mine and also a good sport… as long as it got his photo on page one, above the fold. Generally, the bicyclers were made up of my board members, a lot of local physicians, and anyone who was interested in antipollution of any type.

That year I decided Betty and I wound rent a bicycle built for two. Although neither of us had ever ridden one before, we were excited about trying it, plus I knew it would ensure me of another newspaper photo as well as lots of TV coverage. The bicycle rental place delivered it at the end of Forsythe Park for us and gave us a 30 second lesson on how to coordinate our pedal movement.

So there we all were, about 40 odd bicyclists with the handsome Mayor, John Rousakis, leading. I was a stickler for promptness, so at precisely 10 am that spring day, I yelled for everyone to take off. Betty was behind me on our bicycle, so without even looking back, I said over my shoulder, “Let’s roll!” And I took off at a good pace, wanting to stay in the rear, but wanting to keep up as well.

After just a few minutes, I said enthusiastically: “Isn’t this great?” But there was no response. I looked over my shoulder and saw Betty… about a block behind me. What the hell happened here? I turned around and rode back to find her laughing so hard, tears were rolling down her face and in one hand, she was holding the rear bicycle seat. When Betty laughed, her eyes would crinkle up and squeeze almost closed, and no matter how hard she was laughing, not a sound came out of her mouth.

I was anxious to get back into the fray, but it took several minutes for her to calm down enough to tell me that she had no idea what happened. After some discussion, we surmised that I, and my feet, were ready a second before Betty, and we had no idea that her seat was loose. So when I pushed off, she hadn’t quite gotten her pedals going and that’s when I rode right out from under her as she was trying to figure out why her seat was loose and get her feet on her pedals simultaneously.

We laughed together and started walking the bike toward City Hall, about 12 blocks away. I wasn’t too worried about the kickoff because I had arranged for one of my board members to speak at the end of the bike ride, so I knew he’d be holding court for the media. The mayor got his photo on the front page and we got some great coverage for the second annual Clean Air Campaign.

Our respective husbands got a big laugh at our escapade later that evening and Betty made me promise never to get another bicycle built for two. The next day, she sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers with a card that read: “I’m glad I hitched my wagon to your star!”

We remain friends today and she still crinkles up her face and makes absolutely no sound when she laughs.

Jane

P.S. No, that is not me and Betty, but thanks to Google images for the borrowed photos.

A Little Thought

2011-01-04T17:20:00.000-05:00

After returning from my long holiday trip to Atlanta, I woke up yesterday morning with a raging case of the flu or a severe cold or whatever. But today, knowing I needed to let everyone know where I've been and where I am, I crawled over to my desktop computer and reposted this little thought.... just for you.

**********************

I watched an ant climb a blade of grass this morning.

When he reached the top, his weight bent the blade

Down to the ground.

Then, twisting his thorax with insectile precision,

He grabbed hold of the next blade.

In this manner, he traveled across the lawn,

Covering as much distance vertically,

As he did horizontally, which amused me.

And then, all at once, I had what is sometimes

Called an epiphany, a moment of heightened awareness

In which everything becomes clear.

Yes, hunched over that ant on my hands and knees,

I suddenly knew what I had to do…

Quit drinking before noon.

(reprinted without permission from Carlton Cards)

Jane

Gaston Studio

The Big Green Box

2010-12-20T07:36:00.000-05:00

In my first years at the Georgia Lung Association, GLA, conducting the annual Christmas Seal campaign was a daunting task as everything was literally handled out of our small office with three staff, including myself. We had ancient typesetting equipment that was used to put our donor’s information on metal plates, which was then used to stamp out the names and addresses onto envelopes.

This machine made the most horrific and loud clanking sound, as you pounded out each character onto the metal. Thankfully, we were only making metal plates for new donors and updating the information on existing ones. I hated it when someone moved and we had to change an address.

After everything was updated, we began stuffing envelopes with the donor cards, that year’s Christmas Seal sheets and a return envelope for the donations. This was all begun each year in the early fall as it was time consuming, but we made the most of it all with lively conversation at our “stuffing” table… when the machine wasn’t being used, that is.

Here was where we discussed our personal lives, what books we were reading, and where we brainstormed about potential educational programs. The later is where we spent most of our time in planning and development what new programs we wanted to introduce or what we could do to keep the existing ones exciting.

Our porter, Robert, was an absolutely dear old black man who had been working at the GLA for most of his adult life. Besides keeping the place clean and in order, his job was also to take the stuffed envelopes to the post office as we completed them each day, and of course, to pick up the mail.

During campaign time, I always kept at least two cardboard boxes beside the work table, a couple for the new mail (read donations) and one for the processed envelopes. Each morning, Robert would dump the campaign mail in a box and each afternoon, he would take a deposit to the bank.

One morning Robert wasn’t there when we arrived, but one of his sons was. He told us that Robert was ill and he would be working for us in the afternoons to help out after his regular night shift job. This was so like Robert, to think of his job as a real responsibility and to provide in his absence.

The next morning, Betty and I arrived before my secretary, Susan. One glimpse told us something was amiss and it took just seconds to know that it was the boxes containing the contributions; they was missing. In a panic, we rushed around the office searching before realization dawned that they had been thrown out with the garbage.

We dashed around the corner to the location where the Dempsey Dumpsters were kept for our block of offices and, once climbing up on a projection at the bottom, I could see the boxes inside, envelopes spilling out amongst the coffee grounds, orange peels and sandwich remnants. I told Betty to go borrow a chair from the nearest office and by the time she was back, my high heels were off and I was ready to dumpster dive. But, never one to miss out on a PR opportunity, I told Betty to go call all the media.

When she returned, I was entirely in the dumpster, madly picking out stained envelopes, shaking the grime from them and tossing them out to her. A few seconds later, I realized the envelopes were landing on the street as Betty was in the throes of pure hilarity. When Betty laughed, her face got all squished up to the point that her eyes were only slits, and not a sound came out of her.

There I was, up to my elbows in other people’s trash and Betty was laughing at me. Of course, it only took me seconds to join her with my boisterous laughter and that was how the media found us. Me, hanging over the dirty edges of the dumpster bellowing away and Betty doubled over, holding herself while she squinted and laughed soundlessly.

It must have been a slow news day, because all 3 TV stations and a reporter from the Savannah NewsPress showed up almost simultaneously. The situation was a bit hilarious so soon the men and women of the press that I knew so well joined us… in the laughter not the dumpster.

That night, we sat around with our families and laughed again as we watched ourselves on TV, and of course they caught me in all my dirty glory. The next morning, several photos made the front page of the local news section and once again, the GLA was in the spotlight. Hey, when you're working for a nonprofit, you have to get publicity when you can.

Actually, the following year at our annual meeting, I won the State Award for Most Innovative PR for the Savannah office so I guess the ruining of the business suit I had on that day was worth it.

I'll be gone until after Christmas blogging friends, visiting my daughter and grandchildren in Atlanta, so I won't be visiting this week and early next week. But I do want to wish each and every one of you a safe and happy holiday.
Merry Christmas!
Jane
Gaston Studio

Christmas Seals and the Lorraine Cross

2010-12-13T07:13:00.000-05:00

This year, the American Lung Association (then known as the National Association for the Prevention and Study of Tuberculosis, NAPST) celebrates its 106th birthday and it all began in 1904 when tuberculosis was rampant in America and existing clinics were closing due to lack of funds. One such clinic, the Brandywine Sanatorium near Wilmington, Delaware was run by Dr .Joseph Wales who asked his cousin, Emily Bissell, for help. Ms. Bissell was an active member of the American Red Cross and had considerable experience in fundraising. Her mission from Dr. Wales was to raise $300 to keep Brandywine’s doors open for the winter.

Ms Bissell had recently read an article by a Danish-American journalist and social worker who wrote about the successful sale of Christmas seals in Denmark in 1904 that raised thousands of dollars for the TB association. Ms. Bissell borrowed money from friends, printed the first 50,000 Seals, got permission from the Wilmington postmaster to sell them in the post office lobby and sold the first Christmas Seal on December 7, 1907.

The first Seals were in an envelope on which was printed:

“Put this stamp with message bright
On every Christmas letter,
Help the tuberculosis fight,
And make the New Year better.
These stamps do not carry any kind of mail
But any kind of mail will carry them.”

She only raised $25 on her first day in the post office, but there began Ms. Bissell’s quest to succeed as she contacted the newspaper in Philadelphia. That newspaper campaign later came to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt who endorsed the Seals and by the end of Christmas that year, Emily had raised $3,000.

The following year, Ms. Bissell’s Christmas Seal campaign went national under the sponsorship of the American Red Cross. In successive years, the campaign eventually came under control of the then National Tuberculosis Association (later, the American Lung Association), and the double barred cross first appeared on a Christmas Seal in 1920.

This cross was a modification of the Cross of Lorraine, used by Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine and a leader of the First Crusade in 1099. It was later adapted by the American Red Cross into the thick barred red cross you see today. In 1920, the National Tuberculosis Association registered the cross as their new emblem and official trademark with its adaptation of using a single upstanding bar with two evenly space horizontal bars.

Over the years, the NAPST became the American Lung Association, ALA, as it expanded its fight to include all threats to the lungs. The ALA was the first organization to tackle smoking as the nation’s greatest preventable health risk and to make the connection between air pollution and lung disease.

Landmark victories include the Clean Air Act and the passage of a bill to give the FDA authority over the marketing, sales and manufacturing of tobacco products. The main aim in the later was to stop the tobacco companies from preying on children and deceiving the American public.

The Lorraine Cross was in my life daily from 1969 when I became Executive Director of the Georgia Lung Association, Savannah branch, and the next year, my son was born. But it came as a complete surprise to me when, a few years later and young Billy was 3 years old, he showed me his Oreo cookie and made the comment;

“Look mom, it’s the same as where you work.”

Lo and behold, there was the Lorraine Cross embedded in the design on top of each Oreo. It took my 3 year old son to show me to keep your eyes open all the time because you never know what you’ll discover.

So people, when those Christmas Seals come in the mail at your house, think about the air you breathe and the American Lung Association who works constantly to make it purer for you and your children. Oh, and don’t forget to leave Oreo cookies and milk for Santa this year.

Jane
Gaston Studio

Undulating through life

2010-12-06T07:09:00.000-05:00

As a 15 year old sophomore at Richmond Hill high school, my English teacher decided she wanted to put on Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window for the annual school play for which she was the director. I don’t remember her name, but I can describe her to a tee: she was about 55ish, rotund, only stood about 5’2”, wore black horn rimmed eyeglasses and wore her dyed black hair in a horrendous topknot where she also kept an extra pencil or two. And she rarely smiled.

I was to play Grace Kelly’s role of the wealthy girlfriend, Lisa and James Stewart’s role of Jeff was being played by a basketball player that I had a crush on named Carlton who, of course, spent the entire play in a wheelchair with his leg in a pseudo cast. I, on the other hand, had to walk across the stage several times as I was trying to convince Jeff that he shouldn’t be spying on people through their windows.

One afternoon at a dress rehearsal -- I was wearing this fabulous sweater dress that fit my 5’5”, 118 lb frame like a glove -- I was climbing up the “fire escape” when suddenly my English teacher yelled out “Cut!” and called me down to the auditorium seats where she was. I had no idea what I had done wrong because I knew my lines and thought I had also performed admirably up to that point. This is what happened:

Me: “Yes mam, what did I do wrong?”

She: “It’s not that you did anything wrong, it’s that you jiggled.”

Me: “Mam?”

She: “Your derriere Jane, it jiggled, especially when you were going up the fire escape.” She kind of snorted, then added, “You’ll have to wear a girdle or you can‘t play Lisa.”

Me: “Yes mam.”

I didn’t even own a girdle! Later, I told some girlfriends what had been said and was surprised to find out they wore girdles when they got all dressed up. I was aghast and when I got home and told my parents who both laughed. Mom said since we were about the same size, I could borrow one of her girdles. Dad didn’t say anything specifically because he didn’t discuss ladies underwear, but he smiled… a lot.

So, I wore mom’s girdle for the remaining dress rehearsals and my teacher was appeased. But I still felt as if something wasn’t quite right. When I tried to view the problem in the mirror, I didn’t see anything amiss; only a 15 year old butt that looked tighter than usual.

On the day of the play, I woke up, got dressed for school, gathered my dress, heels, girdle, etc. and went into the kitchen… where I promptly threw up in the sink. Dad was right there and when he told me it was just butterflies, I told him I was afraid I was going to jiggle across the stage and everyone would laugh at me.

At times, my dad could be cool. He patted me on the back and told me that, for sure, I would not be jiggling anywhere, not in that girdle. “And while we’re talking about it,” he continued, “You don’t jiggle; you just have the natural movement of a teenage girl.” I washed my face and took my butterflies to school.

After school that afternoon, we had another rehearsal and then we all ate some dinner that our teacher had sent over for us. We were all excited and a bit nervous waiting for 6 pm to roll around, but I didn’t tell anyone about the butterflies that were playing volleyball in my stomach. Fortunately, the butterflies took a holiday once I stepped onto the stage and the play went off without a hitch.

A few years later while a senior in high school, I was working as a weekend hostess at Antoiine's restaurant in downtown Savannah. One regular customer, an older man who owned a Savannah-famous jewelry store, stopped me one evening and said he always loved to watch me walking by because I undulated. I smiled sweetly and thanked him because although I didn’t know what the word meant, he was always a perfect gentleman.

When I got home, I discovered that undulate means “to cause to move in a smooth, wavelike motion.” right then I knew that this was really what had concerned my English teacher; she just didn’t want a teenage girl undulating across her stage, distracting the audience.

And just for the record, I never wore a girdle again.

Jane

P.S. Thanks to Google and the author of Undulation for the unauthorized image I've stolen.

John Connolly Series

2010-11-29T07:06:00.000-05:00

I don’t often read novel series because I usually will become disenchanted along with the way with the main character or because the author decides to change the main character in such a way that I don’t consider appropriate.

I picked up Every Dead Thing (published 1999) by John Connolly a couple of years ago at my local library and was introduced to the protagonist, Charlie “Bird” Parker, and became totally hooked. The problem was our very small library only had that one book by Connolly. Fortunately, I received a Kindle for my birthday from my kids, so I immediately downloaded Dark Hollow, his second in the series, and downloaded the rest that were available from Amazon.

Charlie Parker is an ex boozy NYPD detective turned private eye after his wife and daughter are brutally murdered and, tortured, he moves to Maine to try and get his life back in order. In this first novel, you meet two of Charlie’s best friends, Louis and Angel who quite often come to Charlie’s aid. Louis and Angel is an unlikely homosexual couple in that on the surface, they’re about as different as night and day. Louis is a stone cold killer and Angel an accomplished burglar, and I’m totally fascinated by them

As you read about Parker’s latest private eye pursuit, you learn in great detail about his past life, always woven into the current storyline beautifully. You also meet other regulars along the way, two of whom are my favorites and bring a bit of levity into the mix, the Fulci brothers: a pair of huge, bumbling types who essentially love to hurt people but generally get their “orders” messed up.

The one thing that makes Connolly’s Parker series different from other crime thrillers is that he introduces the supernatural into the mix, and the combination is breathtaking. And it’s never just your average supernatural, it’s always something of a macabre nature that is lushly described; actually, all his novels are lushly described. This is a phrase I’ve recently picked up from the discussions we‘ve been having over at my blogging buddy Charles Gramlich’s space, Razored Zen.

Currently, I’m reading his latest, The Whisperers, and although I can’t wait to turn the page, it’s also a major disappointment to look down and see that I don’t have that much further to go. Like many of my other favorite authors, I wait with baited breath until the next book is published.

John Connolly is an Irishman from Dublin, who used to work as a journalist for The Irish Times until he became a full time author. He won the 2000 Shamus Award for Best First Private Eye Novel with Every Dead Thing and to date is the only non-American author to have done so. Every Dead Thing was also nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel. Since then, his Charlie Parker series has won several other acclaimed awards.

If you’re into crime novels and aren’t afraid of a bit of the supernatural, I highly recommend John Connolly’s Charlie Parker novels… but begin at the beginning with Every Dead Thing. And unless you’re the squeamish type, I promise you won’t regret it.

Connolly’s Charlie Park series in order:

Every Dead Thing
Dark Hollow
The Killing Kind
The White Road
The Black Angel
The Unquiet
The Reapers
The Whisperers

Enjoy, then email me and tell me what you think.

Jane

Sophisticated Eva

2010-11-22T07:04:00.000-05:00

When we lived in Richmond Hill, just outside of Savannah, I befriended a girl named Eva who was one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever encountered to date. At 15, she was voluptuous before I knew what the word meant and looked enough like a 20 year old Elizabeth Taylor to be her twin.

Eva was street wise, a term with which I was not only unfamiliar, but am certain if anyone had explained it to me at that age, I still wouldn’t have grasped its true meaning. Perhaps Eva was so street wise because she had an alcoholic mother who was also an aging beauty and who was trying to live vicariously through her daughter.

All I know for sure is that Eva had knowledge about boys and life in general that was uncanny. Except for both of us being cheerleaders, Eva and I had nothing in common with the one exception of troublesome mothers. And I think the later was the reason Eva decided to take me under her wing and teach me about life, as she knew it.

One afternoon at her house, she had me sit down in front of her dresser mirror while she proceeded to teach me a multitude of poses and expressions to match any occasion. For example, if I was approached by a boy whom I didn’t already know, I was to hold my head down slightly, look up at him through my lashes and, after carefully placing my mouth in a small pout, I was to say something like: “Oh my goodness, you’re so tall/handsome/smart/athletic…!” After which, the boy would be so overwhelmed by my coquettish-ness, he’d fall all over himself asking me out.

I must admit, I wasn’t a very good student for Eva, as I was never very good at pretending to be something that didn’t come natural to me. When she tried to get me to arch my foot and point my toes while sitting, I’d just get a cramp. When she tried to teach me how to sway my hips just so while walking, I’m positive I looked deformed from the rear.

Like me, Eva was from a larger city. Unlike me, she hated Richmond Hill because, her words: “All the older guys are married.” You see Eva rarely dated guys her own age or even ones a couple of years older; no, Eva dated men. This too, added to my fascination with Eva and I was always asking her questions about dating. One thing she told me that I’ll never forget is this: “Don’t ever fall in love; just fall for someone rich.”

The thing was I didn’t have any problems getting dates. I was good looking and had a great figure which is about the only things boys of that age want to see in the girls they date. So it wasn’t as if I was Eliza to Eva’s Henry Higgins.

The following year, we moved back to Savannah. Lo and behold, after way over a year of silence, Eva phoned me one night. She and her date beeped at the house a bit later and that was a good thing because he was at least 30 and if my dad had seen him, I’d never have gotten out of the house.

But off we went in his swanky car, tooling toward downtown Savannah, Eva and I talking a mile a minute which is when I learned that she had dropped out of school and was about to get married to this guy, Frank. Married? I was stunned, so much so that I wasn’t paying any attention from the back seat as to where we were but I did notice that Frank was looking in his rearview mirror an awful lot.

Suddenly, Frank leaned toward Eva and whispered something to her. Eva looked behind me through the rear window in what I would describe as “nervously.” That’s when I asked what was wrong. My mistake. Eva looked toward Frank, he nodded at her and then she told me a story.

It seemed that Frank was an undercover detective for the Atlanta Police Department and he had been setting up a sting, with his partner, on some Mafia guys who were running a prostitution ring in Savannah. Frank’s partner had recently been shot by these same people and was in a local hospital which is why Eva was in town. We were now being followed by these Mafia people who were after Frank and they were both so sorry they had gotten me in the middle of the mess.

If I wasn’t nervous and scared before, I was now petrified that I would be killed in a car chase in downtown Savannah or worse, be shot to death by the Mafia. I had my whole life in front of me. My God, I was still a virgin!

As they were both filling me in, Frank was speeding down dark, narrow streets in what I would have described as undesirable neighborhoods. From what I could understand for the moment, Frank did a magnificent job of turning on a dime around corners into other dark streets, keeping ahead of the Mafia. After about 20 minutes of this, he announced he had lost them. Without thinking about it, I looked behind me and sure enough, there were no car lights, in fact, there were hardly any lights as I realized then we were way out in an industrial area on the south side of town.

A bit later, we stopped at Krystal’s to get a coke to go and as they drove me home, they both told me to keep the night a secret. Oh, I don’t think they had to worry about that! Who was going to believe me anyway?

A few years later, I realized it must have all been a hoax, something to entertain naïve little me. And I’ll bet it was entirely Eva’s idea because she lived for the dramatic. Eva and I saw each other only one other time after that night, and I’ve often wondered what became of her. Did she ever find what she was looking for, this lonely young beauty?

If you’re out there Eva, still laughing about pulling one over on an inexperienced teenager, just know that I’m laughing with you...now.

Jane

Raging Bull

2010-11-15T07:57:00.000-05:00

We lived in Guyton, Georgia for a year or two when I was about 8 years old in a very large old house on the main street whose name I’ve totally forgotten. The house was typical of being built around the turn of the 20th century, with a huge hallway separating various rooms on either side and ending in the kitchen on the very back of the house.

The front porch ran all the way across the front of the house and was filled with white rocking chairs, one of which appeared to be oftentimes inhabited by a ghost because it would rock of its own accord at times, with no apparent motivation. We were told the chair was the favorite spot of the wife of the original owner, and that she had actually died in that very chair one afternoon of a sudden and fatal heart attack.

It was my mother who had made inquiries about the rocking and I would listen to her talk to my dad about the stories she was told of this little old lady who refused to leave her home. It appeared she had a great sense of humor but was married to someone without one, and was often discouraged by her husband for finding humor in what he felt were unusual situations.

I wasn’t the least bit afraid of the ghost and would often sit outside and talk to her in whispers about my day. My mom wasn’t one to be interested in what was happening to anyone other than herself, and would interrupt dad would he would try to talk to me about school and friends.

I was kind of a shy child, so I felt the need to talk to someone and I found the ghost to be a good audience. She never talked back to me or asked questions, but I noticed that at those times when I was telling her about having problems making friends, the chair would rock faster than usual.

At the time we lived there in the early 50s, Guyton was still pretty much a rural place with farms just a bit down the road from the center of town where we lived, so it wasn’t unusual to see a stray farm animal who had broken through a fence, strolling down the street or sidewalk.

My school was just a few blocks away, so I walked to and from it each day, taking my time getting home so that I could deter my chores as long as possible, one of which was polishing that huge hallway on my hands and knees. What I would have given for a good Bissell polisher back then.

On one spring afternoon, I was strolling along minding my own business and dreaming about things young girls dreamed about in those naïve days when I heard someone shouting. It took me a moment to realize the shout was meant for me and when I finally looked, I saw a young boy across the street, pointing behind me and sort of hopping up and down.

When I looked over my shoulder, I saw a young bull charging down the sidewalk, head down. I was still a couple of blocks from my house and I started running as fast as I could, scared out of my mind but pretty sure it wasn’t Ferdinand coming after me with a bouquet of flowers. My feet were pounding the pavement. I had dropped my books some time back, and by now, there were several people watching and shouting from across the street.

I saw the gate to our fenced in front yard and, huffing and puffing, I reached it with the bull about 10 feet away. As I unlatched the gate and ran inside, closing it fast behind me, I was completely out of breath but safe. Safe because the bull didn’t stop at our house but kept on running full tilt. By then, having time to think about something other than my own death, I noticed there was almost silence around me. I looked across the street where a small crowd had gathered and saw people pointing at the porch behind me. The rocking chair was moving faster than ever before and had rocked itself so close to the edge of the porch, I was sure it was going over. Then, it suddenly stopped.

Several things then happened all at once. The farmer who owned the bull went roaring past in his truck; my mom came out the front door to see what all the commotion was about; and the people across the street began whispering among themselves. I explained to mom what had happened and she immediately sent me to retrieve the school books I had thrown to the sidewalk.

After I did my chores that afternoon, I went to sit with the ghost and tell her how scared I was when that bull was chasing me. She rocked quietly during my entire, one sided conversation and I felt better for having shared my fright with her.

After dinner that night, I heard my mom tell dad that when I left to get my books, she tried to move the rocking chair back into place, but she couldn’t lift it or move it. She said it wouldn’t budge, but that when she went back outside while I was doing my chores, it was back where it usually sat. She said the ghost was watching after me but dad laughed as he usually did when hearing tales of ghosts.

The next day at school, it seemed every kid wanted to know how it felt to be chased by a bull. And they wanted to know about our ghost on the front porch. They pretty much told me they were afraid of the ghost and that’s why they hadn’t come to my house to make friends after school. I told them the ghost was my friend and she was a good listener.

I didn’t have to worry about having friends after that day.

Jane

Horseback riding lesson: 101

2010-11-08T06:37:00.000-05:00

You may remember the little tale I told of my cousin, Joann, and the snaky out house some time back. Joann was about 5 years older than me and seemed to enjoy taking me under her wing and teaching me all sort of useful and interesting things.

Joanne’s parents lived on a small farm outside the city limits of Savannah at that time, near Bethesda Home for Boys. The farm was basically for their own use but they also sold extra vegetables to Bethesda for a small sum. They raised horses as well as vegetables and it was here one summer Joann taught me how to ride.

Joann was patient with me as she explained how to approach a horse, give him a carrot or apple, and treat him with respect and care so that he would trust you. She was patient as I struggled to understand and try not to be afraid of this huge but magnificent beast, but I was definitely scared.

We were not strong or tall enough to actually saddle the horses, so her brother, Joe Junior, did that for us. Then Joann made me take the bridle in my own little hands and walk the horse around inside the stable area. I was okay with the walking around but every time my horse snorted, I jumped a couple of feet, thinking he was mad at me and was doing to do something I probably wouldn’t like.

She talked to me the whole time we were walking the horses, telling me about the saddle, the bridle, the reins, etc., and then stepping onto a stool, she made me get on that horse. Then we went trough the steps of leading, turning and all that other stuff you’re supposed to know if horseback riding, and we rode around the fenced in area for quite some time.

After some time riding around, I felt my confidence growing and I didn’t think there could have been a sweeter horse anywhere else in the whole wide world. When Joann thought I had the hang of it, she said we were going to ride down the road in front of her house.

This road was paved and two lane, which meant cars would be going by and I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle that, but Joann said I was doing fine. So there we were, walking our horses on the grassy and dirt areas along the side of the road. She was trying to teach me how to hold the reins in one hand and I was trying it out when all of a sudden, a snake appeared right in front of us and the horses spooked.

They took off trotting or running, I’m not sure which. All I knew was that I had let go of both reins and was holding onto the horn as hard as I could, scared half to death, crying and yelling for Joann to stop him. It was only a couple of minutes I’m sure, but it felt like hours before she slowed her horse, came along beside me and grabbed my horse’s bridle. I almost fell off the horse, I got off so quickly and I sure didn’t appreciate the laughter I heard coming from my cousin’s mouth.

We walked back to the spot where we had seen the snake because Joann, being Joann, wanted to know if it was poisonous or not. There lying in almost the same place we’d first seen him, was a 5 foot rattlesnake, a wee bit angry because it seemed we had interrupted his dinner. There was a huge bulge in his middle. Joann told me to make sure he didn’t go anywhere while she ran off to get her dad and brother. She left me with that snake!

They all came running back and Uncle Joe proceeded to kill the snake with a hoe by cutting off his head. Joe Junior was curious, so he cut open the snake’s stomach and believe it or not, there was a baby bunny inside, alive but barely. Uncle Joe said the snake must have just swallowed the bunny as we came across him, which was the reason the snake wasn"t in such a hurry to slither away. Joann got a towel to wrap the bunny in, who was clearly in shock, and over time, she nursed that darn bunny back to full health.

Me? I just sort of stood back watching while all that killing and rescuing was going on, so thankful I wasn’t on the horse anymore, I didn’t really care what else was happening. I was still shaking from the runaway horse and, yes my friend, it was a very long time before I got back on one.

And that little bunny? Joann named her Hope and she was welcomed onto the farm with open arms by everyone as they all felt it was a miracle she survived the snake’s appetite for little furry baby bunnies. And she had all the vegetables she could steal from Aunt Josie’s garden.

Jane

Tina and the Teacher

2010-11-01T07:43:00.000-04:00

While in Junior High School, my folks had moved to Richmond Hill, a small bedroom community outside of Savannah GA. It was so small, only about 8,000 population at the time, that we students stayed in one classroom all day while the teachers rotated among us.

One of my teachers was a young man, probably in his late 20s, who had only been teaching a few years but already seemed to have lost his patience. I don’t remember his name, but because he wasn’t a favorite, we just referred to him as Teacher behind his back.

One of my friends was a girl named Tina who was a foster child. I had no idea, until I met Tina, what a foster child was and until my parents explained it to me. I didn’t have a fantastic childhood myself, but I felt for Tina who didn’t even live with her real parents and had to share a room with another foster child.

Tina’s foster parents came to our house one evening and asked my parents and me if I would tutor Tina in English. I had just recently come in second in the state’s essay contest, so I guess they thought I was some sort of expert. Anyway, we all agreed so we set up a schedule so that I would go over to Tina’s house and help her twice a week.

Writing, commenting and critiquing was, of course, required most for Junior High English, and I quickly learned that Tina had a fear of putting anything down in writing because of her lack of self confidence. Neither would she comment in class for the same reason. She felt her thoughts about things were of no value, so why share them.

Tina wasn’t all that talkative, and she didn’t let anyone get very close to her, so I wouldn’t say we were best friends but as we worked together over the ensuing weeks, we did become friends and I knew she had to learn to trust me. So, we spent a lot of our time together with me doing most of the talking, but eventually, she contributed. When she wrote her first report, which was actually quite good, the light in her eyes shone like a 1000 watt bulb.

Prior to all this, when in Teacher’s English class and Tina was called on to make a comment or read a required report, she would just sit there, eyes down, and not respond in any way. It had gotten to the point, in fact, when Teacher would call on Tina, he’d make disparaging comments to her and pass over her as quickly as he could.

After several weeks of tutoring, talking and writing, Tina felt she was ready to contribute in class, so as we entered Teacher’s classroom that morning, she was excited and kept her eyes up, waiting on him to call on her. This is what happened:

Teacher: “Tina, would you read your report…. Oh, excuse me” he continued without hesitation and looked around the room at all of us… “Tina never does her reports and therefore, she can’t read them, so we’ll just skip over her as usual” And then he added: “And don’t think that because you’re a foster I’m going to cut you any slack about your grades, because I’m not.”

That last part cut right through me. How dare he call attention to this in front of the entire classroom. How dare he not give her a chance. With my naïve, teenage heart thudding in my chest, I stood up.

Me: “You can’t do that! You can’t just skip over her like that; she has a report ready to read.”

Teacher’s eyes drilled right through me as he said: “Well, well, what’s going on here? Did you do her report for her Jane?”

Me: “No! We’ve just been working together and…”

Teacher interrupted me: “I don’t really care what you’ve been doing together!” He all but shouted, pointing his finger at first me, then Tina. “The both of you! Out! To the principal’s office and don’t come back!”

By this time, Tina was in tears and even though my heart continued its thudding, I also knew what Teacher had done was wrong. When we got to Mr. Tyer’s office, our principal, and I told him everything that has transpired, he wasn’t very happy. Of course, he didn’t say much in front of us but I could tell he was really listening and I could see in his eyes that he believed me.

That night after dinner, Tina’s foster parents came over and after talking to my parents privately, thanked me for standing up for Tina. I could tell my parents were both proud of me and surprised at the same time, because I wasn’t the type kid that would normally put herself out there. I also learned that Mr. Tyer had visited Tina’s foster parents earlier that evening and told them that Teacher would not be continuing out the year at Richmond Hill High School.

The next day, Mr. Tyer called me into his office and we talked. He had an inkling of what my own home life was like with a bullying mother, so he told me how special I was for standing up for Tina. I loved him for that. Many years later, after reflecting on that incident, I came to the conclusion that Mr. Tyer was telling me that I needed to stand up for myself and, eventually, I learned to do just that.

Jane

Don’t get in my face… or else

2010-10-25T07:43:00.000-04:00

While my dad was away in the Korean War, my mom and I lived with his parents in a huge apartment on Charleston Street in downtown Savannah. I loved this place because it had a balcony that stretched from one end of the apartment to the other, a division of ornate railings separated it from the neighbors on either side. And it had a large, screened in back porch, so on rainy days, there was always some place to play and stay out of the hair of the adults.

It was a great place to be because there were young families everywhere, so kids of all ages were in abundance. I became fast friends with one of the next door neighbor’s little girls, Elsie, and we could spend hours on one of the balconies, coloring and playing fiddlesticks. Another neighbor had a little girl named Mary Ann and although we played together fairly often, I never considered her one of my best friends because she was a bit pushy and wanted to always be in control.

At any rate, one of the things we little girls loved to do was play dress up and my grandmother Gay had provided me with a trunk in which I kept all the clothes, shoes, hats, scarves, costume jewelry, and purses that she and my mom no longer wanted.

All the rooms were very large and my bedroom was no exception, so I could have several girlfriends over to play dress up where we’d have fashion shows, tea parties or pretend we were out shopping. Since my grandmother looked after me while my mom was working, it kept us out of her hair and she was a good sport about pretending along with us sometimes.

One particular afternoon, there were about six of us girls playing dress up in my room. My grandmother’s maid made us a plate of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that she had cut into small triangles without the crust, and she had prepared some grape Kool Aid for my tea pot.

We felt so grown up and were pretending we out having lunch after having shopped all morning. Each of us had on a dress that we had hiked up around our waists with tied scarves, and we had on high heels, hats and all kids of sparkly things draped around our necks. A lively, inane conversation was heard, amid outbursts of giggles as we mimicked our moms.

All six of us were having tons of fun until Mary Ann decided she needed to get… and stay… center stage. She started making demands that we do this, or say that, exactly as she prescribed. At first we all just laughed at her and ignored, but she was persistent with her demands. Finally, hands on hips, Mary Ann came over to me and told me that since it was my room, I should make all the other girls do what she wanted. I laughed at her and told her nope, I wasn’t gonna.

Suddenly, the festive afternoon turned into a shouting match between two 6 year old little girls.

Mary Ann: “Make them do what I say!”

Me: “No, I won’t”

Mary Ann: “Yes, you have too!”

Me: “Nope.”

Mary Ann: “You better!”

This went on for several seconds with Mary Ann getting more and more into my face with each breath she took, so… I did the only thing I could to stop it all. I bit her on her sharp little nose that was stuck right up into my face. (Thank you fotosearch!)

At first Mary Ann just stood there, then she let out this piercing scream and grabbed her nose. Oh my God, what had I done? “Shhhhhhhh!” I kept saying, trying so hard to get her to stop screaming and crying but she wouldn’t have anything to do with me. Well, would you?

My grandmother came running and when she calmed Mary Ann down somewhat, she took the girl’s hands down from around her face and saw tiny little teeth prints, circling around the tip of Mary Ann’s nose. My grandmother paled and said all would be fine.

I explained to her what Mary Ann had been doing and the other girls chimed in, in my defense, but I knew I had done something terribly wrong and knew there would be consequences. As grandmother took Mary Ann into the bathroom and put a cold washcloth on her nose, she threw me a look over her shoulder that I’ll never forget. It said volumes of what was going to happen to me later.

Within minutes of this all happening, grandmother sent all the girls home but she personally walked Mary Ann to her apartment so that she could explain to the parents what had happened. Oddly enough, I later learned, the parents weren’t all that upset; they said accidents and she would be fine. I was told to wait in my room until my mother came home.

And at about 6 o’clock, in the door she walked, practically at the same time as my grandfather. I listened as hard as I could at the bedroom door, but all I could hear was mumbling, the door was so solid. But then, after a few minutes, I heard my mother laugh and my grandfather chuckle.

It seems that when all was explained to them, and while my mom and grandfather didn’t exactly approve of my means of retaliation, they both agreed I shouldn’t be punished beyond my time served that afternoon.

When I got a lot older, I learned it was my grandfather that insisted I not be further punished. He told me that he had never heard of anyone doing that to another person but that he could understand the impulsiveness of a child wanting to strike back at whatever was close at hand, in this case, Mary Ann’s nose. He also told me that there were many times he would have liked to do the same thing to someone who was “getting in his face” and he laughed again.

I wonder what a shrink would think of this particular impulse of mine.

Jane

I was being watched…

2010-10-18T07:35:00.000-04:00

The little converted two car garage Bill and I lived in for a couple of years actually had four rooms and a full bath. There were two bedrooms on one side, with the bath off the one in the back of the “house” and a very small living room and eat in kitchen on the other half.

The bath had a clawfoot tub, a toilet that you couldn’t use unless you closed the door, and a tiny sink in between. Over the tub was a regular size window and I only covered the lower half as I like a lot of light, plus we backed up to an unused field so I wasn’t concerned about being seen while in the bath.

Now, I don’t know about your guys, but when my girls were toddlers, they didn’t want me out of their sight. I learned early on that it was easier just to leave the bathroom door open so that I didn’t have to listen to “Mom? What are you doing? Or “Mom? When will you be out?” over and over again. Privacy, at that time of my life, was rare indeed.

So, when Bill suggested he take the girls out with him to do yard work one fine spring afternoon so that I could take a leisurely bath by myself, I jumped on the chance. And then I jumped into the tub after filling it with warm, scented water, opened my book and, as I lowered myself almost completely under water, I felt like I’d be able to relax for a change.

Outside, I could hear the girls squealing with delight, most likely at something silly their dad was doing to make them laugh, and I smiled. It was a beautiful day, all the windows were open to let in the balmy Savannah air and I could smell the scent of freshly mown grass. Heaven.

The relaxation didn’t last however, because after just a few minutes, my antennae went crazy. Suddenly, I just knew eyes were on me. I sat up and looked around to the window but could see no one. I tried to settle back into the water, but my unease wouldn’t go away and I began looking all around the tiny bathroom… outside the tub on the floor, on the walls, etc.

Anyone knowing my terror of cockroaches will understand when I say I was positive I had company and there was no way I was going to stay in the same room with a roach of any size. As much as I looked, I couldn’t find anything until… I looked up at the open door and there, sitting on top, was a green lizard, staring at me.

I screamed bloody murder, splashed water all over the place getting out of the tub and running into the bedroom, naked as the day I was born. Bill came running inside, telling the girls to stay back as he had no idea what to expect. I grabbed a robe, dripping water all over the place, as I pointed to the doorway. It took Bill a couple of seconds to see the lizard and then… he burst out laughing.

The lizard didn’t appear to be the least bit amused or even interested with all the commotion and he just sat there, staring at us until Bill reached up and snatched him off the top of the door. Bill took the lizard outside and released him into some shrubbery where Bill said he would be safe from me. I wasn’t amused either, especially since that pretty much ended my leisurely bath for the day.

Then... a couple of weeks later, as I was taking a bath while the girls were napping, I again felt like I was being watched. This time, when I turned around and looked out the window, a pair of human eyes stared back. Scared and shocked, I gasped, grabbed a towel and ran out of the bathroom but for some reason, I didn’t scream. I called Bill whose place of business was only a few minutes away and he was home in about 6 minutes.

When Bill went around to the back of the house, he saw where a bucket had been placed beneath our bathroom window which enabled someone to see in if they were at least 5 and a 1/2 feet tall. We figured it was a teenage boy, so we started asking around the neighborhood if anyone else had had a similar experience.

Unfortunately, we discovered the young man of 19 was the son of our landlords, who were embarrassed beyond words. A little more investigation and the kid admitted he was the peeping tom. It turned out that some of our neighbors knew it was him but, because his parents were such good people, they didn’t want to call the police. Neither did we after the landlords convinced us their son would be getting help for his little problem.

Needless to say, I installed full size window treatments in our bathroom immediately after this incident. Even though I never saw another lizard on top of the door or another peeping tom at the window, I was glad to have such keen instincts. And eventually, I did get another chance to have a relaxing bath.

Jane

“Hey Bill… is that you?”

2010-10-11T07:56:00.000-04:00

In our early years of marriage, Bill and I lived in a converted two car garage to the right and behind our landlord’s house. It consisted of two bedrooms, a living room and eat in kitchen. What can I say, it was cheap and since Bill was still helping his mom out financially, it was all we could afford.

Our landlord’s son was in high school, and his old red swing set was just outside our kitchen door, to the side of the house, and our landlord said our kids were to consider it their own. Since my girls were quite young, they both played on it constantly so there was a always a metallic jangling sound heard around our house throughout the daytime.

To make ends meet, Bill worked weekend nights as assistant manager at a nearby drive-in theater. This was actually great because I could watch all the movies I wanted for free. I would put a pillow in the backseat for my oldest, Toni, and another in the front seat beside me for Sandi, the baby. Bill would come out and visit us when he could get a break and bring me free popcorn and cokes.

Bill had to close up each night, so he always got home well after the movies ended. One Saturday afternoon, he had told me he’d be even later getting home that night because the manager was having a party for his employees to celebrate the birth of his first child. Free booze, whoopee.

I had put the kids down for the night and had gotten into bed myself with a book. Let me say here, while I was always paranoid about locking up at night, I wasn’t afraid to be alone in an empty house. And since this was in the early 60s, it was a different time for us all.

I have no idea what time it was, but something woke me up; a sound that was a bit familiar, but curious all the same. I immediately called out Bill’s name. No answer. His pillow looked indented, like he had laid down, and after I got out of bed, I noticed his clothes piled up on the little chair on his side of the bed. I called out to him again, but still no answer. Then I heard that sound again and recognized it as the metal jangling on the swing set.

Getting a flashlight, I turned it on and immediately went to open the kitchen door. I waved the light over the swing set and called Bill’s name again. Something was up because one of the swing’s was, well, swinging gently. Since there was no heavy winds, I knew something or someone had made the swing move and I felt pretty sure it was Bill. So, I took my trusty flashlight and proceeded around to the front of the house and there I found him, in all his glory. Naked behind the hedges, hands clasped around his more intimate area.

It seems that Bill had had too much to drink and, after the bed wouldn’t stop spinning, he knew he’d have to upchuck. He didn’t want to wake me or the girls, so he went outside via the kitchen and was in the process of giving his stomach some relief when he heard me calling.

When he saw that I had a flashlight and that I was determined to come outside looking for him, he dashed around the corner so that he wouldn’t be in the spotlight. Too late! Once we stopped laughing, he slept like a baby.

I don’t think there was anyone of my family or friends that I didn’t relate that story to over the next few days, and we all had a good laugh at Bill’s expense. To give him credit, he always had a good sense of humor so he laughed right along with us and would reenact how I had followed him around the house and into the yard, until he was exposed.

Fortunately, our landlord, the neighbors and the kids all remained in their beds, and never heard a thing.

Jane

The Aluminum Coffee Pot

2010-10-04T08:44:00.000-04:00

As a toddler, my divorced mother and I lived with my Grandmother “Mama” Ruby, Granddaddy George and my Uncle Bobby (my mother’s only sibling) in downtown Savannah. Someone else in our household on a daily basis was our maid, Janie. I loved Janie to death, especially when she would dress me in pretty little pastel pinafores and we’d go walking, sometimes to the corner confectionary, sometimes to the park, sometimes to the drugstore, but always hand in hand.

Janie had been with Mama Ruby for several years and they appeared to be friends as well as employer and empoyee. I remember seeing them sitting on the back porch during a break from cleaning or doing the laundry, sharing a cup of coffee and talking about their respective families while I nearby.

Among my favorite possessions was an aluminum set that included a coffee pot, plates, saucers and cups along with knives, forks and spoons. I would place my dolls and teddy bears at a small table, set the table and we’d pretend for hours, using water in my little pot. When I played with it outdoors, I’d “set a table” on the stairs, and Mama Ruby and Janie would smile at me and always made smacking sounds when they drank the water from the small cups I handed to each of them. Janie would say: “My, my child… that’s some good coffee,” because I always told them it was coffee I was serving.

The coffee pot actually had a glass top and the insert for coffee grounds and looked so much like my Mama Ruby’s coffee pot, I was convinced coffee could be made in it. This photo of a vintage set doesn't show the glass top or the insides, but otherwise, it's pretty darn close to the one I had.

Being a presistant little toddler, one day I asked Mama Ruby to make me some coffee in my very own pot. She and Janie looked at each other, and without a word, they both shooed me out of the kitchen, telling me they’d call me when they were ready.

Now in those days, your maid didn’t sit at the dining room table with the family, and our kitchen was very small with no seating, so I was in for a surprise when they called me to the kitchen. Since it was known that I clearly wanted all three of us to share coffee from my little cups, they had set quite a table for me to behold.

The oven door was lowered all the way down, there was a clean white kitchen towel spread over it and on top was a place setting for three, each plate holding a cookie. Janie had made fresh coffee in Mama Ruby’s pot and then poured some into my little aluminum pot, so you can imagine the look on my little face when she poured real coffee into our tiny cups.

We sat there for quite a while, eating our cookie and drinking our coffee (mine diluted with lots of milk, of course) and talking about whatever came to mind like we were all grownups. When I asked Janie if they had made the coffee in my pot, she just smiled at me and said: “Well child, I suppose you could say that’s a real coffee pot you’ve got there.”

At the time, I didn’t realize she had avoided answering the actual question, but I heard what I wanted to hear and I was beside myself with joy. Then Janie added discreetly: “Now you know you can’t be using your grandma’s stove Jane, but once in a while, we’ll make the coffee for you. Will that be okay?” With my three year old eyes solemn, I agreed.

After that special afternoon, Mama Ruby and Janie would set up the oven/table with my aluminum coffee pot set about once a week and we’d sit around eating a cookie, drinking coffee from my little cups, and talk and laugh with each other. It was heaven on earth for that three year old little southern girl.

It also taught me how to be a good employer to hired help as Mama Ruby set quite an example of working side by side with Janie, treating her like she was a member of our family, laughing and talking about things women experienced, not matter the age or race.

When I was in my teens and Janie was long passed from this earthly world, I asked Mama Ruby whose idea it was really and she told : “Lord baby girl, Janie loved you like you were one of her own and it was all her idea.” And that, too, was exactly what I wanted to hear.

Jane

Versatile Blogger

2010-09-30T07:32:00.000-04:00

The adorable Eddie Bluelights at Clouds and Silvery Linings has graciously presented me and 9 others with The Versatile Blogger Award, for which I’m very grateful and proud that Eddie thinks of me as versatile enough to include me among those he favors. A required part of accepting this award is to reveal 8 interesting tidbits about myself that, presumably, you don’t already know. So here goes… but remember, interesting is relative.

1. I’ve never broken a bone in my life (knock on wood!) and when I had a bone density test done several years ago when I was in my mid-50s, I was told I had the bones of a 25 year old. Accounting for time having passed and my rapidly approaching my 69th birthday in December, let’s assume that I now have the bones of a 35 year old. Why the hell then do these 35 year old bones ache all the time, is what I’d like to know.

2. Up until the time I was a senior in high school, I had never skipped school. About halfway through my senior year, I skipped one day for what I thought to be a very good reason… and my mother turned me in. I had to spend afternoons after school for an entire week in detention hall. Believe me, it was nothing like The Breakfast Club. Those people were truly scary!

3. When I was in junior high school, I won a literary contest at our school. My principal then selected me to represent our school at the state competition and… I came in second. I can’t remember the subject we had to write about, but I do remember being so nervous I was trembling the entire time I was writing my essay. I’m glad I didn’t let our school down and at least walked away with second place.

4. I have this odd ability of being able to identify movie stars just from hearing their voice without seeing their face… which I’m sure comes from being a huge movie buff. I’m sure I’ll find a use for this skill some day.

5. I discovered I was claustrophobic when I tried to go into the Pyramid of Cheops at the Pyramids of Giza when I first moved to Cairo. Unfortunately, it was while I was on the extremely narrow, one-way staircase leading up to the inner chamber with about 100 tourists behind me. This was no time to be polite so I just plowed my way through sweating bodies loaded down with cameras and carryalls, determined to block my escape. Once I saw daylight, the nausea and panic attack subsided but I never went into such a small, enclosed, dark space again.

6. Many years ago, I seemed to have been on a lucky streak when it came to found cash. It wasn’t unusual for me to come upon a stray $20 in a store parking lot every week or so, for example, and since it was cash, there was no way I was going to find the rightful owner. One time was particularly fruitful: when I went outside my courtyard door in Savannah one early morning, I found $350 in small bills, rolled up loosely, lying beside a tree. There was no one on the street, so I scooped it up and called a policeman friend of mine to ask him what to do. He told me to keep it and spend it wisely as it was most likely the dropped cash from a druggie. At the time, we lived in downtown Savannah where druggies hung out regularly. I shared it with my kids. These days, one is lucky to find a stray penny lying around, unclaimed.

7. When I was a preteen, I had a very full bottom lip which I thought to be abnormal, never having heard of Angelina Jole. Since I was just getting interested in boys, and I thought part of my face was unbearable to others, I started pulling up my lower lip with my teeth so that, at a distance, I would look “normal.” One weekend, my very beautiful 16 year old cousin and I were strolling down the street while she scanned the neighborhood boys her own age. I began biting my lip and, answering her question of “why”, she told me that my lip was very sexy to boys and don’t ever do that again. God, was I glad to know that what I thought of as an abnormal condition was actually an asset!

8. I’ve never ridden on a train even though my dad worked for Seaboard Railroad for several years and rides along the eastern seaboard would have been free. I thought I was to take my first train ride on The Orient Express when I lived in Cairo, but somehow, it never got scheduled. I’ll always regret that because that, my friend, would have been a huge first!

9. Just weeks after being hired as the Executive Director of the Georgia Lung Association, SE Branch, I discovered I was pregnant. Since this was my first job in management, I agonized over telling my Board of Directors for weeks before finally making my announcement at a board meeting. At first there was silence… then my president said: “Well Jane, since you’re the youngest Director we’ve ever had, this comes as a little bit of a shock… but a very pleasant one. We’ll be getting two for the price of one!” Boy, what a sigh of relief that brought… and I stayed with them for almost 9 years.

10. Speaking of the Georgia Lung Association, I won the National Public Relations award from the National Lung Association in the late 70s. This was for a project I spearheaded in preventing the Savannah Electric Company from firing up coal burners without first installing precipitators. You can’t imagine how proud I was when accepting that award in New York as I had competed with every GLA branch, no matter the size of the city they were located in, including New York City’s branch. As a result, I also won a similar award that same year from the Sierra Club for the project.

Now it’s time to pass along The Versatile Blogger award, so here are my required 10 choices, in no particular order:

1. Gumbo Writer who I’ve just recently discovered. Her blog is filled with wonderful, honest writings and great recipes of the spicy variety.

2. Bossy Betty, another recent discovery for me and a joyful one. You never know with Betty what you’ll find but it’ll usually be tempered with humor and fabulous photos of nature.

3. Jan’s Sushi Bar is always filled with humor along with even more fabulous photos and tales of her wonderful family.

4. Winds of Change, whom I’ve followed since my beginning in blogland. Pseudo proves to me, repeatedly, that there are still great teachers in America.

5. Cricket and Porcupine, a husband and wife team where you’ll never know what to expect… but whatever it is, it’s always said with honesty.

6. Pearl, why you little… is filled with acerbic wit, on a regular basis.

7. My Cleaning Lady Drives a Land Rover is constantly challenging all of us to view life in a variety of ways and always evolve.

8. Holding Patterns where Sandi is so much more than the crazy cat lady she proclaims to be.

9. Life at Willow Manor who educates us all with poems, genealogy, and a host of other subjects too “versatile” to mention.

10. Tales of Extraordinary Ordinariness where Suzy can put you straight on many, many subjects with her thoughtful musings.

I know you’ll enjoy every one of these wonderful bloggers, as I do on a regular basis… well, maybe not as regular as I’d like, but when I do visit them, they enlighten and enrich my life every single time.

Jane

Aunt Elma (aka Nedda)

2010-09-27T09:14:00.001-04:00

The absolute favorite of my newfound aunts was Aunt Elma who was one of my adopted grandfather‘s sisters; in fact, she was one half of the only twins in the Gay family. By the time I joined the family, Aunt Elma had long been married to Uncle George who opened a bakery after he retired from the railroad. Like all the women in the Gay family, Aunt Elma was tall but she didn’t inherit the large bone structure of the rest of her group, instead she was always very thin.

She taught herself to sew and became an excellent seamstress at an early age. Indeed, she made my two girls their Easter dresses every year and they were always of the finest cloth with exquisite detailing. Aunt Elma was unable to have children and since my two girls were the first grandchildren on either side of the family, they were spoiled by all, grandparents, aunts and uncles, even adult cousins, but especially by their Aunt. She was known as Aunt Nedda to my girls, because they couldn’t say Elma correctly at first; later, it became an endearing pet name that even Bill and I used.

I can’t say a lot about Uncle George as he was another silent, big gruff man but as a child, he did allow me to sprinkle Confectioner’s sugar over the doughnuts and pastries in his bakery when we visited, so maybe he wasn’t all bad. He seemed to tolerate my little girls, but he never attempted to entertain them in any way. So when Bill and I went to visit Aunt Nedda as a family on Sunday afternoons, we made sure the girls didn’t touch anything personal of Uncle George’s.

I so remember strolling through downtown Savannah with Aunt Nedda and the kids which we usually did when we visited them, partly to get the kids out of Uncle George‘s way. She always had an eye out for anything that could be useful (in her opinion) such as buttons. And if she saw a thread, she’s stop, pick it up and wind it around a finger, telling me you never know when it would come in handy for a small sewing job.

Since Uncle George was a Seaboard Railroad retiree, Aunt Nedda could ride for free most any place along the eastern coast. When the girls were as young as 2 and 3, she took them on their first train ride to visit some relative or other in Florida. On that day, I drove them to the station and watched as Toni and Sandi climbed onboard with Aunt Nedda, each hugging closely the huge Raggedy Ann dolls she had made them. They were gone for three days and had a fabulous time and it was the first of many, many train rides to come. She told a very proud mother that they behaved like little angels on every trip.

As Aunt Nedda aged, she continued her daily strolls but now when she walked, she would often release little toots along the way. She never acknowledged the gentle passing of gas, and didn’t expect anyone with her too either, so we would all just walk along, seemingly oblivious. When my girls asked me about it, I explained that it was something that could happen with age and they were to ignore it so as not to embarrass their aunt. Sometimes other kids were along for the stroll too, and they would giggle behind their hands and laugh out loud about it later. I often wonder if those same kids are now tooting in advanced years.

Aunt Nedda died many years after Uncle George, after a long bout with Cancer. When we were going through her personal things, it was incredible to see how much fabric she had accumulated over the years and never used. If she saw material on sale, she would buy it and store it until she needed it. Unfortunately, a lot of the fabric was dry-rotted and unusable; what she would given for Space Bags in those days, huh?

She also had the most amazing collection of buttons and spools, some of the latter partially filled with bits and pieces of different colored thread she had found and kept over the years. She used a treadle Singer Sewing Machine her entire life, never relenting to the modern electric machines. Aunt Nedda said her machine wasn’t broken, so there was no need to replace it. Someone in the family still has the old Singer, as well as her button and spool collections, some of which are surely collectibles by now.

We all miss Aunt Nedda even though she’s been gone now for decades. She made an indelible imprint on our combined lives and will never be forgotten as she’s often in our conversations… “Remember when Aunt Nedda made me that… Remember when Aunt Nedda said… Remember when Aunt Nedda did…what a legacy she left to us all. And I know she’s up there, continuing to guide in her gentle way.

Jane

The Other Cousins

2010-09-20T07:55:00.000-04:00

Now you know that I married a man who was my cousin by marriage, with no blood relation on either side. As you know, this was when I was about 14 and before he joined the Air Force. But I also had another “no blood relation” cousin named Johnny Unbehagen, son of Uncle O.C. and Aunt Dorcus. The Unbehagen’s lived in Galveston, so we didn’t see them but every few years.

But one summer, they came to visit and at the time, we were living in a big house on a waterway in Richmond Hill, just outside of Savannah. Since it was a waterway or creek, there was a long wooden bridge on stilts that led down to a floating dock. At the time, I was scared to death of the water and except for sunbathing and dangling my feet off the dock, I never went in.

Johnny and his siblings, however, were avid waterskiers and on the weekend they came to visit, they all jumped into the water, howling their heads off with joy. Now Johnny was a couple of years older than me and handsome as the day is long. He was very tall at about 6 feet, had dark blonde hair with a smile and twinkling eyes that would break your heart just to look at him. So naturally, I was flirting with him on that first Saturday morning.

But they, along with my family, were all splashing and waterskiing, and I was sitting on the dock, smiling and posing in my white bathing suit that I knew showed off my tan and figure perfectly. Finally, Johnny offered to teach me how to swim and waterski. I knew if I was going to get his attention, I had to get in the water. I also knew that swimming instructors had to hold up the body of the person learning so they wouldn’t drown. I had a plan.

By the end of the afternoon, I was splashing around and sort of swimming, and Johnny and I had a flirting war going on… until one of his brothers reminded him that I was his cousin. I quickly threw in that we were cousins in name only, as I was adopted into the family, but Johnny was convinced otherwise. So that put an end to that little flirtation.

Moving on, let me tell you about my honest to God, blood relation cousin, Kenneth Buckner, who looked like Val Kilmer in Val’s younger, better days. In fact, I’ll let you be the judge as his photo is posted here but personally, I think Kenneth is more handsome than young Val.

Anyway, Kenneth and I were pretty close when we were kids and had a lot in common such as reading and the love of nature. His mother, Aunt Annie, was one of my grandmother Ruby’s sisters (she had lots!) and our families were close back then and visited each other often as extended families tended to do back then.

About the time I became a full fledged, dating teenager at age 16, Kenneth joined the Navy at age 19. But that wasn’t a problem because we wrote long, detailed letters to each other and sent photos of people and places. When Kenneth came home on leave, we always spent a good bit of time together, especially in the evenings when I would take him into my group and we’d go to a movie or just hang.

On his last leave before he was to be discharged, Kenneth asked me to marry him. I was shocked to the core because I never thought of him as anything other than a fantastic friend and a relative that I loved as such. At first, I just said we couldn’t do that because we’re cousins, but he countered that we were second cousins and it wouldn’t make any difference.

I don’t know if you guys have ever heard of Tiger Ridge, located in the north Georgia mountains, but that’s what this incident in my life reminded me of; Tiger Ridge was very insular and known for inbreeding. In fact, if you ever had the chance to see Burt Reynolds in James Dickey’s Deliverance, it was partially based on alleged happenings at Tiger Ridge. And if you haven’t seen it, rent it because it’s Reynold’s best performance ever in my opinion.

At any rate, I finally had to tell Kenneth that I just didn’t love him like that and, from the look on his face, that statement appeared to break his heart. He told me he understood, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to love another girl the way he loved me and that, dear friends, just about broke my heart.

After this conversation, we didn’t write to each other as often once Kenneth returned to base, and it became clear over time that the deep friendship we had experienced as children and teens was never to be the same again. I’m sad to say that as married adults, we drifted apart so far that I didn’t even know Kenneth had died until two years after his passing.

Jane

Welcome to the Family

2010-09-13T07:13:00.000-04:00

I’ve mentioned that my mother divorced when I was a baby and married my stepfather when I was about 6. And, as I’ve also mentioned, my dad’s dad came from a very large family. When I met all the aunts, uncles, great aunts and great uncles, grandparents and great grandparents and the dozens of cousins, it was a bit overwhelming at first. But I quickly learned they were a life loving tribe and laughed loud and often.

One of the people I met at the time was Bill Williams, the oldest son of my new great Aunt Lois, who was a sister to my stepfather’s dad. Bill was a bit over 5 years older than me, so when we met, he quickly took his 11 year old self outside to play ball with his other male cousins. Needless to say, he did not leave a lasting impression on me.

When Bill was about to graduate from Savannah High School, he discovered his surname wasn’t Williams. It seems his mother had him by a different man, so his official surname turned out to be Gaston. (Are you getting the picture yet?) Aunt Lois said, by way of explanation, that since all her other 5 children had a father with the last name of Williams, it seemed easier to just call Bill by that last name too.

Bill joined the Air Force after high school, and had been accepted into the Air Force Academy in Colorado, something he was very proud of and wanted to share with his extensive family. So, on leave one summer, he turned up at our door to visit. I was just 14 and when in walked and saw this tall, handsome, dark haired stranger, my heart fluttered a beat or two... something my heart had not experienced before. And then I found out it was my cousin, Bill.

After Bill had been in the Academy for a little over a year, his mother had an accident that put her in bed for almost a year. Bill took a hardship discharge so he could come home, work, and take care of his 5 younger brothers and sisters, all of whom were still in school. By that time, I was just over 15 and Bill started visiting our home on a fairly regular basis.

At my age, and just beginning to really date, it never occurred to me that Bill was actually courting me in a way, feeling me out to see what I would think about us dating. He was my cousin and you don’t date cousins, even if they are only via marriage.

Over the next several years, I saw Bill off and on when he dropped by the house. It wasn't until he started dating a friend of mine that I started to feel something other than cousinly love. Okay, I was jealous; besides, this particular girlfriend wasn’t my best girlfriend, so I didn’t want him dating her. Of course, I didn’t recognize this feeling as jealousy, so I went about my merry way, dating anyone I was the least bit interested in.

Suffice it to say that eventually Bill and I got married and had 3 children of our own. When we visited everyone after the wedding, my stepfather’s family welcomed me into the family… again. Suddenly, Aunt Lois became my mother in law, and her children, who were previously my cousins, all became my sisters an brothers in law. Talk about confusion.

As our children got older, one thing they wanted to know was why I called their dad’s mother Aunt Lois when they called her grandmother. I explained about the adoption and since one of them had a friend who had been adopted, they sort of understood that their father and I were not really related, but "cousins" by marriage. They definitely understood that it was easier for me since I had been calling her “aunt” since I was 6 years old.

Jane

Happy Dan, the Storyman

2010-09-06T08:03:00.000-04:00

I was 11 when we got our first TV set. It was black and white, of course, as they all were back then, but dad and I were in heaven just the same. At the time, we lived in the downstairs apartment in a big house on Park Avenue (Savannah GA) and were friends with our upstairs neighbors, the Shepherds. They had two girls about my same age and we played together regularly. As well, our families would have dinner together often, so it’s safe to say I knew and trusted them both, but was especially fond of Mr. John Shepherd because he had a great laugh and was always teasing us girls.

One of my favorite shows, Happy Dan, the Storyman, came on every weekday at 5 pm and I was usually sitting on the floor in front of the TV so I wouldn’t miss a minute. A weekly regular of his program was to have a local artist come in and draw a simple scene. The object was for the viewers to draw their own version of the scene, send it in and Happy Dan would award a certificate to the best rendering.

One such afternoon, I was watching the show and the artist was just about to begin drawing when mom called me to set the table. Dad knew I was anxious so he told me he would do the drawing for me and then I could make my own drawing from his. When dad came into the dining room a bit later, he had an excellent picture of an angel, hovering… but so that I wouldn’t’ use his drawing, he had added a big cigar in the angel’s mouth, and in one hand, there was a jug with XXX on it, indicating booze. Mom laughed and dad both laughed.

The next day, I was on the front porch floor, attempting to duplicate dad’s drawing when Mr. Shepherd arrived home from work. When he asked me what I was doing, I showed him. He burst out laughing and said what I should really do is send in dad’s drawing but say he was 10 years old.

By the next afternoon, I had my drawing completed, sans the jug and cigar and as I prepared an envelope to send it to Happy Dan, I remembered what Mr. Shepherd had suggested. To this day, I still don’t believe what happened.

The following week when it was time for Happy Dan to announce the winner, was once again on the floor in front of the TV while dad read his newspaper close by. Patiently, I watched as he held up each entrant, telling his viewing audience the name and age of each child. And this is followed:

HD: Holding up dad’s drawing, “And it seems little Glen Gay, age 10, wanted to add a few items to his drawing and a fine one it is too.”

Dad: Dropping his paper, “What? What did he say?”

Me: “That’s your picture dad, Mr. Shepherd told me to send it in for you!”

Dad: Red faced with embarrassment, “He did what?”

Noises on the steps as Mr. Shepherd comes bounding down, laughing all the way.

Mom came into the living room, wondering what was going on.

Mr. S: “Hey little Glen, I see your picture made an impression on good old Dan!”

Dad: Still red faced, but trying to be a good sport, “I can’t believe you told her to do that.”

Mr. S: Still laughing, puffing on his own cigar, “Well, I was just kidding, but you’ve got to admit, it’s really funny.”

Me: Not having a clue, “Shhhhh, Happy Dan’s about to say who won!”

HD: “And the winner is little Jane Gay, age 11. Congratulations Jane, your certificate will be mailed to you soon.”

Me: “I won! I won!”

Mr. S: “Hey, congratulations Jane, that’s a fine drawing all right.”

Mom: “You mean you sent in the drawing your dad did?”

Me: Realizing something wasn‘t quite right, even though I‘d won the contest, “Yes mam, Mr. Shepherd told me to.”

Dad: “It’s okay baby, congratulations on winning. Your drawing looks great.”

Mom: “I’ll deal with you later,” she glared at me.

Dad: “No, it was all a mistake, she didn’t know John was kidding.”

Me: A sigh of relief escaping, “I’m sorry daddy, I’ll never do that again.”

Dad: Smiling hugely, “Oh, I know you won’t!”

True to his thoughts, dad never made another drawing for me to copy and he took weeks of teasing from Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd. My mother didn’t punish me, but she questioned my ability to understand the difference between someone teasing, or not. I wish I still had that rendering but, sadly, it’s gone by the wayside like so many other pieces of my past, but its so vivid in my mind’s eye, I could almost each out and touch it. Of course, today’s 11 year old would never be this naïve!

Happy Labor Day everyone!
Jane

The Lost Watch

2010-08-30T07:28:00.000-04:00

When I was about 8, my maternal grandmother whom I called Mama Ruby gave me a watch that had belonged to her. It was a good watch but with a simple, black leather band. I was excited as could be, but I was told I could only wear it for “dress” and only when mom and dad were around. I agreed and the watch usually resided in a little wooden box I kept on my dresser where all my other 8 year old treasures lived.

Often, mom, dad, baby brother Dan and I would go to watch a double feature at a drive in theatre on nice nights. If you’re old enough, you may remember parking on a little hill, pulling in the speaker and attaching it to a side window partially rolled down. Then you’d always light a Pic coil to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

Before the movie started, I’d go to the small playground that was located right beneath the huge screen, while dad went to the Concession Stand to get popcorn and cokes for us all. Mom would lay Dan down on a pillow in the backseat with me and when the cartoons and previews of coming attractions started, I’d be sitting on the edge of the back seat in the middle so I could watch between my parents shoulders.

Usually by the time intermission came, I was crossing my legs because I needed to go to the bathroom so badly. On this particular night, I must have drank more coke than usual, because I “needed to go” before the first movie ended. As I exited the car, I looked back so that I could remember where it was and then I counted the rows I crossed to get to the bathroom. I made it back just fine… except once I was back in the car, I realized that my watch was missing from my pocket. Why I had taken it with me, I’ll never know, but I knew it wasn’t there and I had to find it.

I waited several minutes, then told mom I had to “go” again. There was some banter back and forth, but finally she consented to letting me out, again, in the dark to go to the bathroom. Of course, my eyes were on the ground the entire time as I searched for the missing watch. And of course, I didn’t find it. It was no where I had walked and it was not in the bathroom. I knew I’d be in big trouble once mom found out, so I just didn’t tell her.

Over the next few months, I was asked a couple of times why I wasn’t wearing my watch when we dressed up to go somewhere. My excuses were numerous but it looked like my secret was intact; I was sure it was because I always crossed my fingers behind my back.

One night after dinner, I had stomach pains so my mom gave me some sort of concoction to relieve me. Unfortunately, it didn’t relieve anything and as the night wore on and the pains became increasingly worse, my parents finally took me to the emergency room. I was diagnosed with acute appendicitis and had to have emergency surgery. I had no idea what was really going on and I was scared to death.

When I woke up, Mama Ruby was the only one in my room. She told me that mom had gone to get coffee and dad had to go to work. I started crying. Thinking I must be in pain, Mama Ruby soothed me and told me it would all be over soon. I cried louder.

Me: “ I know I’m dying so I have to tell you I lost your watch.”

Mama Ruby: “You’re not dying, Jane,” she responded gently, “Your appendix just had to come out and you’ll be fine in a few days.”

Me: “I’m not dying?”

Mama Ruby: “No, but I think you’d better tell me about loosing the watch before your mom comes back.”

So I confessed and told her every detail of that fateful night. Then I asked her not to tell mom, and she promised she wouldn’t. A few years later at one of my teen birthdays, Mama Ruby told me she had told my mom, but she made mom promise not to punish me, telling her I’d been punished enough, thinking I was dying. And then Mama Ruby gave me a brand new watch for my birthday and I knew she probably sold eggs to get the money to buy it.

I never lost that birthday watch but I had to stop wearing it years later once the gold plate wore off and began turning my arm green. But that didn't matter to me because I knew it was a gift of pure love and I kept that well worn watch in my jewelery box for decades to come.

Jane

Off with the shoes!

2010-08-23T07:28:00.000-04:00

When I began first grade, my mom and I were living with her parents and brother in downtown Savannah, Georgia because my mom was divorced. Mom’s brother, Bobby, was only 5 years older than me, and I looked up to him with great awe and respect. Bobby was good about having a skinny little girl niece following him around all the time and he never made me feel like a third wheel.

At that time in the late ‘40s, the Colonial Park Cemetery, located on the corner of Abercorn and Oglethorpe, was a bit run down and many of the tombs and crypts were damaged. Decades ago, the Daughters of the American Revolution took control and today, it’s one of the most beautiful, albeit small, cemeteries you’ll find in the south. It was founded in 1750 and was closed for burials in 1853 but not before many Revolutionary War heroes were buried there.

Every day, Bobby and I walked to school together, taking a short cut through the old Colonial Cemetery. The first day of school, as we were walking through the cemetery, I suddenly stopped, sat down on the pathway, and took off my shoes. My ever patient Uncle Bobby asked me what I was doing. “They’re hurting so I’m not wearing them,” I replied. And I stuffed them in the large crack of a nearby tomb. I have no idea exactly what Bobby thought about this, but after just a few seconds of him obviously thinking about what he should do, he told me: “Well, you’re going to have to put them on after school and wear them home.” That was fine with me.

When we got to the school, Bobby made sure I was in the right classroom and then he took off, saying he’d meet me on the front steps at exactly 2:30 that afternoon. I remember clearly my first grade teacher as being a very nice lady who smiled a lot and had eyes in the back of her head. After we settled in, she called me up to her desk and asked me why I wasn’t wearing any shoes. I told her simply that they hurt my feet and I had taken them off, she smiled. When I told her I had left them in a tomb in the cemetery, she smiled even bigger.

Enroute home that afternoon, I found my shoes exactly where I had left them, and put them back on. When I got home, my mother was waiting, anxiously it appeared. The smiling teacher had called her at work and once my teacher was convinced that I actually owned a pair of shoes, she insisted that I wear them to school. My mother, I later learned, was really more concerned about the appearance I gave of not having shoes than she was that I went barefoot to school. While my grandfather snickered behind his hand, my mother instructed me in no uncertain terms that I was never to remove my shoes again when going to school. I agreed, meekly.

However much I wanted to please my mom, however, the shoes came off again and again to be stuffed into a cracked tomb. Once I learned I was the envy of every kid in my class, especially at recess, the temptation was much greater to me than the threat of a spanking. Although Bobby had his own set of instructions to not allow me to remove my shoes in the cemetery, he turned the other way each morning. I loved him for that.

So I spent many days of the fall and spring in my first school year, barefoot. And never once did my shoes go missing. At the end of the school year the following spring, my teacher gave me a hug and told me how great it was having me in her class… then she made me promise not to give my second grade teacher so much trouble about my shoes, saying that she might not be as tolerant as she was. I promised, but I had my fingers crossed behind my back.

The next year in school, my teacher was a large, tough, no nonsense kind of woman and she told me on the first day: “I know all about you Miss Jane, and you will NOT come to my class barefoot!” Somehow, I knew she meant it and so ended my days of being shoeless in school… but I sure had a good time while it lasted.

Jane

Galveston Was Pure Hell

2010-08-16T07:07:00.000-04:00

We settled into our new home quickly, although I had a rougher time settling in at school. My second grade teacher was Mexican and had a very heavy accent, which I had a hard time understanding much of the time. At that point in my life, I’d never heard the expression “everything’s bigger and better in Texas” but I would have gone along with the bigger part. All of my classmates were much bigger than me, taller for sure. And they made fun of my accent, a lot… especially the boys. Maybe it was in retaliation for me saying I didn’t understand the teacher when they didn’t have a problem at all; most of them spoke Spanish anyway.
So any time I raised my hand to answer a question from the teacher, a few of the boys would snicker loudly and reiterate what I said in a greatly exaggerated lilt. Many times I came home weeping, either because I had not understood exactly what the teacher wanted for homework, or because the boys brought unwanted attention to me.

My other major complain were the size and numbers of mosquitoes. It didn’t matter the time of day, they would swarm around me and dive bomb onto my skinny arms and legs. It was hard to play with the other girls at recess because I was so busy fighting off those blood sucking monsters.

Because mom was busy with a baby, oftentimes, it was dad that would commiserate with me about school, the mosquitoes, and my complaints in general. We would do this over sandwiches made of peanut butter and banana, which was my favorite. Regardless of what Elvis said, he did not invent this sandwich!

Dad began working for Uncle OC‘s construction company, but quickly found a job at a railroad yard. Since he was low on the seniority totem pole, he worked nights and so was always around when I got home from school. I usually went straight for a shower when I got home, to wash off the ever present Texas dust and to ease the mosquito bites. One such afternoon, I was singing in the shower, using a new word I had heard from one of my classmates.

After the shower, with a small smile on his face, dad asked me what I had been singing. So I told him I had learned a new word from one of the boys in my class, “And I know how to spell it too!” I said proudly. Mom came into the kitchen about that time and asked what we were talking about. Dad said: “Jane learned a new word at school today. Why don’t you sing it for your mom, honey.” I don’t know what tune I used, but over and over, I sang: “H-e-l-l, hell! H-e-l=l, hell!” with gusto.

Now my mom had a mouth like a sailor, but I wasn’t acquainted with it at that time. But after she and dad burst out laughing, they told me in no uncertain terms that “hell” was a bad word and I wasn’t to use it again, in or out of a song.

Another afternoon as dad and I were eating our favorite sandwiches, we talked about my usual complaints, but the conversation eventually led around to how much I missed Savannah. Mom was out with my baby brother, grocery shopping. By the time she returned, dad and I had decided to move back home. Unbeknown to me at the time, he had been offered his old job back at the railroad including his seniority, so it made sense to head back.

The next day, mom gave away all the perishable groceries, while dad and I went to tell Uncle OC and Aunt Dorcas and their family goodbye… and thanks for everything. We loaded up the old car again and believe you me, we were some happy campers when we finally got back home in. And we made it in time to bring in the grand new year of 1950.

Jane

OC and the Gulf of Mexico

2010-08-09T07:57:00.000-04:00

My dad was a pipe fitter at the railroad and because he was young and low on the seniority totem pole, he was among those to be laid off in the late ‘40s. Uncle OC in Galveston, Texas told us to come on out and he’d put dad to work in his construction company. So we loaded up our old car and began the longest journey in my 7 year old life to date.

When we arrived, we went straight to an apartment on stilts located right on the Gulf of Mexico that belonged to Uncle OC and Aunt Dorcas. It was on the small side, but very comfortable as I recall, although I wasn’t too excited about walking down steps that led right into the ocean at high tide out the back door since I was afraid of the water.

Uncle OC had arranged one of his famous weekend long barbecue fests to welcome us and introduce dad to some of his new workmates which was to begin the next day, on Friday. But that Thursday afternoon, Aunt Dorcas wanted us over for dinner with just the family which was my first introduction to them all. Aunt Dorcas, like all of her brothers and sisters, was tall and large boned.

Uncle OC was huge at about 6’3” with broad shoulders and a barrel chest. He wasn’t a hugger, and when he grabbed my hand to shake it, it completely disappeared into his. He had a head of dark, wavy hair and when he spoke, his deep voice boomed across the space and enveloped everything in sight. I was immediately afraid of him when he said to me: “My God you’re a skinny one! We’re going to have to fatten you up or else you’ll blow away into the Gulf of Mexico.”

My cousins were numerous and all boys with only one girl about my same age, Nelda Sue. (I had erroneously called her Jeannette in my previous post, but that’s another cousin!) And they were all boisterous and happy to meet another cousin in from the huge Gay brood. Uncle OC showed us around his spread and then we all went in to dinner. When I found out I was sitting next to Uncle OC, I was sure it was a plot of some sort but at a later age, I discovered it was because Uncle OC was partial to little girls; Nelda Sue could do no wrong in his eyes.

It seemed everyone talked at once over dinner except for Uncle OC who appeared to be concentrating on his food. Sitting on my other side, Nelda Sue talked a mile a minute about all the things we were going to be doing together, while her brothers good naturedly teased both of us. Aunt Dorcas was quizzing mom and dad about the family back in Savannah.

I was always a big eater as a child but when around people I didn’t know, I nibbled. So I was busy nibbling and trying to keep up with what everyone was saying when all of a sudden, Uncle OC nudged my arm and boomed out: “Eat! Eat! You’re too skinny.” After practically jumping out of my chair, I shoveled some more food into my mouth and then took a slice of bread from a loaf that was right in front of me. And everyone stopped talking all at once, while Uncle OC gave me a really weird look.

After what seemed to me like hours of total silence, Aunt Dorcas explained: “OC eats a lot of bread at dinner so I always give him his own loaf.” That when it became apparent there were two loaves of bread on the table, one sitting right in front of OC, the other more or less in the middle of the large table. It was sort of an unspoken rule that no one took bread from OC’s loaf.

The slice I took was about heading toward to mouth when the silence took over, so as Aunt Dorcas was explaining the second loaf, my hand had stopped moving. What was I supposed to do? I started to put the piece of bread back when Uncle OC said: “That okay, you need all the bread you can eat.” And he laughed so loud, I was sure the table shook. By that time, I didn’t even want the bread, but I took a bite that seemed to take forever to chew and swallow. I was sure glad when dinner was over and I was no longer under a microscope.

On the way home, I heard mom tell dad about her talk with Aunt Dorcas when they were washing the dishes. It seems that Uncle OC preferred white Sunbeam bread to any other, including her homemade biscuits, and he insisted that two fresh loaves be put on the table each night. Coming from a frugal family, Aunt Dorcas took what was left from OC’s loaf and refilled the “family” loaf, then glued the ends back together. She said no one ever guessed that one loaf was less than fresh but she wasn’t about to throw out perfectly good bread.

I also discovered that with all his bluster, Uncle OC was really just a big teddy bear.

My Great Grandfather John Gay

2010-08-02T09:37:00.000-04:00

My paternal great grandfather made such an impression on me as a child. His name was John Gay and he was very tall, very slim, and had a head full of pure white hair with a white mustache to match. He also had some sort of continuous tremor that wouldn’t allow his hands to ever be still but I have no idea what was the cause.

At my paternal great grandparents home in Savannah, Georgia, there was a sort of “keeping room” which was so large, it easily held the Empire dining room table that seated 10 as well as the huge, accompanying buffet and china cabinet. In a corner, by a window, was a love seat that seemed to belong to only John… because that’s the only place, except at the dining table, I ever saw and interacted with John.

On a sort of coffee table in front of the love seat, was a manual typewriter and a cigarette rolling machine. According to my great grandmother, who seemed to rarely speak, John was writing his memoirs, and she sort of snickered when she made this announcement to me for the first time when I was about 7.

You see, I was adopted into this German-Jewish family when my mother married my stepfather, Glen. My mother had only one sibling and my stepfather had only one sibling, but the family he came from was huge. Suddenly, I had more great aunts and uncles and cousins that I could have ever imagined, and it was a bit scary the first time I was taken to my great grandparents home to meet them all.

And although they were all extremely friendly, great grandfather John was the one I was most attracted to. He seemed to understand that I could easily get lost among the large and gregarious Gay family. My new father smoked cigarettes but he bought them by the pack at the corner grocery store. John’s sparkling blue eyes lit up when he realized without asking that I had never seen anyone roll their own cigarette, so he showed me how to do it.

This small, red machine was made of metal with some sort of canvas-like cloth. The photo I’ve stolen from Google Images shows a very similar machine, but it’s not the exact one John had. Anyway, John took out his tin of Prince Albert tobacco and a small envelope of rolling papers and told me to watch. He then proceeded to fill the dip in the cloth with a small amount of tobacco and he placed a rolling paper in a slot at the top. He next turned the handle slowly and like magic to my eyes, a perfect cigarette came out! After that, whenever I was visiting, I always rolled John’s cigarettes.

That was fascinating to a 7 year old, but also fascinating was John’s recounting of his family history, which was the basis of his memoirs. He showed me boxes of letters, written in the most beautiful calligraphic-like handwriting, as well as official papers of all sorts. But the one paper that always made the most impression on me was the letter one of his sons-in-law wrote to him before he eloped with one of John’s daughters.

O. C. Umberhagen married Dorcas Gay against her parents wishes because Uncle O. C. was of Cajun descent. In the letter, he declared undying love for Aunt Dorcas and promised to take care of her forever. Uncle O. C. took Aunt Dorcas to Galveston, Texas after they eloped, and true to his word, he took care of her and their five children. Uncle O. C. became one of the largest contractors in Galveston, his only daughter became a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, and one of his sons became Mayor of Galveston.

At the time John showed me the beautifully written letter, I had never met Uncle O. C. and Aunt Dorcas, and it would be a couple of years later before I did and, of course, that’s another story. But I was totally fascinated with John’s project and knowing this, we became the best of friends. I can easily picture John sitting on that love seat, his tall, lanky body slumped over his typewriter, his hands trembling as he picked out the letters with two fingers and his cigarette smoke spiraling towards the nearby open window.

Frankly, that smoke would have never taken a turn into the great room as great grandmother would have stopped it with a single look. She was a formidable woman, and sadly, I can’t even remember her name. I wanted to tell this story this morning so I didn’t consult my brother in advance, Mike, who has become the keeper of all the Gay family genealogy. Perhaps this will come later.

Jane

Alive... but still on hiatus.

2010-06-30T12:33:00.000-04:00

Some of you wonderful people have sent me emails inquiring as to whether I was okay and whether I was ever coming back to my blog. To the first, I say yes, but still super busy with other matters at this point in time. To the second, I also say yes, but I don't know when.

Since I was last here in March, I've had a lot to do other than the problems that took me away in the first place.

I've returned to painting with oils, but having forgotten how long it takes to dry to touch, have added a few shirts and pants to my ever growing "work clothes" pile. The upside is that oils are much more forgiving than acrylics or watercolors, so I'm having fun with them.
I've been painting the iron work around the 4 fireplaces in the house the Mitchelltown Preservation Society is renovating. Since this is with an oil based, heat resistant paint, it's not only smelly, but takes forever to dry also. When that's all done, I'll paint the clawfoot bathtub and gild the claw feet.
I've taken a Caribbean cruise which was kind of fun, but I'm not counting the days until my next unless it's somewhere in foreign waters.
We've begun work on renovating Sandi's master bedroom and walkin closet which will, hopefully, be finished in another week or so. I'm not holding my breath even if the house is filled with drywall dust.
I've had my hair cut badly two more times and can't figure out why, for the life of me, I can't get a good haircut in this town.
I've been to Atlanta twice since talking to you and both times, have had my butt whipped royally in Atlanta in a Box (Monopoly) by my 8 year old grandson whose strategy is faultless.
I'm working on forgiving my BMF, Alan, for having taken a trip to Russia before moi. I don't care if he was on business and his wife is Russian, I wanted to be first.
I've also been reading, even more than usual, as I find myself lying on the couch to ease my back in the afternoons. I've had friends say they envy my ability to read fast, but they forget it's also a costly hobby.

So, for those of you who are bearing with me for being away for so long, thanks so much to each of you. I hope you're all having a wonderful summer and I hope to be back with ya'll soon.

Jane

Taking a Hiatus

2010-03-08T07:01:00.000-05:00

I’ll be taking a hiatus for a while friends, as there’s much I need to do and things I need to see about. Nothing is wrong, if you don’t count my back problems, I just need a good bit of time to get these accomplished and in the process, won’t be posting or visiting for a while.

It’s 25 degrees right now at 7 am but we’re expecting a high of 60 today in eastern North Carolina so I know mother earth is about to give us all a break and make our surroundings beautiful again, filled with luscious color. Hope you all have a wonderful spring… as surely, it’s coming.

Take care of each other and I’ll see you in a few weeks or months, whatever it takes.

Jane
Gaston Studio

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

2010-03-03T17:39:00.000-05:00

If you guys want a good laugh, go over to Ask and Ye Shall Receive and check out the review I (sort of) got for my blog. It's a good thing I've got tough skin or else I might have felt bad about myself!

I had submitted my blog to be reviewed by this group months ago and frankly, had forgotten about it. Glad I did as the reviewer gave me some good suggestions.

Thanks Here in Franklin, glad I submitted.

What do you think?

Jane

Village Birdhouses

2010-03-01T07:07:00.000-05:00

We’ve had a lot of snow this season, especially for eastern North Carolina and only an hour from the Atlantic Ocean, and I’ve enjoyed it because it’s not usual. And it gave me time to do some decorative painting that I want to share with you because I had so much fun!

For Christmas, we had sold a good many of my birdhouses at our online shop, Gaston Studio, and I needed to replace them with more one of a kind originals. So, I decided to paint some birdhouses that resembled little village shops… isn’t that a brilliant idea!

Bare in mind I only use nontoxic paints and varnishes, so the little birds will be kept safe. You can see them all under New Items (and under Birdhouses, naturally!) but I wanted to tell you a little about them as you can’t see the sides and backs.

The first one is 1890 Antiques which resembles a Victorian house turned into an antique shop. It sports a “copper” roof which was extremely expensive even in ‘those days’. The two little “vases” by the front door are actually buttons; I covered the holes with amber beads and painted little posies coming out of them. There are white picket fences on either side and on the back is painted a tree, a shrub and a door that says “Emp. Only”. It has an amber beaded hanger.

Al’s Bait Shop was my next venture. It’s a six sides birdhouse, has a “tin” roof, and signs on the two front sides read “Open, Sale Today!” and “Lures, Live Bait, Tackle”. On the back sides are painted small fishing poles and a sign that reads “Fresh Worms.” It has a “silver” chain hanger. I thought of Otin when I painted this one!

Next is Angel’s Exotic Fish on which I painted round porthole type windows on the sides and back, then I glued and nailed brightly colored wooden fish I had found somewhere and thought I would eventually use. It has a pale green and orangey red beaded hanger.

This little condo birdhouse is called Kiddie Day Care and has little windows on all the sides and back. It also has a lime green clock to remind parents to pick up their kids on time and a brown beaded hanger.

My daughter’s favorite is the Paris Accessories one, probably because she has a shoe fetish. Under the perch is a colorful wooden purse and on the front sides are signs that read “Shoe Sale Today” and “The Latest in Fashion” and on each I painted a kitschy heel! On the back sides are tiny white picket fence pieces with flowers painted behind them, and on the very back is a door that reads “Exit.” This one has a rope hanger.

And last but not least is Ye Olde Flower Shop. Since the roof is so steep, I painted signs in the shape of flower pots that read “Fresh Flowers in Season” and “Best Selection in Potted Plants.” On one side are painted large potted flowering trees and on the other, topiary evergreens. Above the door is a wooden flower shape painted lavender with a brass flower button glued on top of it. It has an amber beaded hanger.

Like I said, I had so much fun painting these village birdhouses that I plan to do many more over the next few months. If you have any ideas for other kinds of shops, I’d love to hear them. Everything we do at Gaston Studio is one of a kind so I can't repeat the ones I've already done... although I can make the same type "shop" as long as I paint it totally different.

Something else new at Gaston Studio is FREE SHIPPING on everything except the items under Other Great Things, some of which are extra heavy and/or very large, but everything else is totally free shipping. Think about that for Mother's Day people!

Jane
Gaston Studio

3 New Awards

2010-02-27T08:33:00.000-05:00

These three awards were passed my way recently from three lovely ladies, Sandie at Chatty Crone, Jo at A Brit in Tennessee, and Sharon at Dances with God. Thank you sincerely ladies! And I’d like to honor each of you by passing them along to some bloggers that are fairly new to my blog roll:

From Sandie at Chatty Crone

And I'd like to pass it along to

Kathleen at Easy for me to Say

and to

Nancy at Life in the Second Half

From Jo at A Brit in Tennessee

Passing it along to...
Farmchick at It’s a Small Town Life

and to

Tabor at One Day at a Time

From Sharon at Dances with God

And I pass it to...
Joanie at Joanie’s Random Ramblings

and to Amy at She Writes

If you don’t have these women on your own blog roll, go visit them… you won’t be sorry.

Have a great weekend ya’ll!

Jane
Gaston Studio

Selling Places in Egypt: Part II

2010-02-21T07:33:00.000-05:00

On the home front, Adel was doing his best to convince me to stay with him. We were not just polite with each other. We had found in each other what we felt to be our soul mates, and you don’t just turn off feelings because of ill behaved children. At times, it was a bit strained of course, and we couldn’t seem to leave discussions about Nicholas and Jerome out of our conversations. Marguerite had finally agreed on the divorce settlement and I was happy for Adel because he would basically have unrestricted access to his kids. We both figured Marguerite’s boyfriend was putting pressure on her, finally.

Ian and I met regularly, as did our respective lawyers, and we finally worked out a price and contract that was beneficial to us both. One regret of mine is that I agreed to a one third cash payment up front, against a higher percentage of the advertising for a longer period of time. I would also be taking with me half of the cash amount of our apartment as I had bartered ad space for quite a lot of our furniture.

It felt good at the time but, I’m the kind of person that once my mind is made up about something, that’s pretty much it for me. I had decided to break up with Adel, sell the magazine and get the hell out of Cairo. So in August of 1993 if my memory serves me correctly, I boarded a fight to Atlanta and basically, left everything behind me. Unfortunately, I later discovered that I had sold my magazine to a thief and a liar.

A thief, because after Ian sent me a check for my second third of the agreed upon sales price and he sent me a check for my percentage of the ad sales for one issue, I never got another dime from him. A liar, because my plane had hardly left Cairo International Airport before Ian started making drastic changes in Places.
Adel called me at least once weekly, basically still trying to convince me to come back to him and Cairo. These conversations always ended with me crying my eyes out because I really loved Adel and I missed him. During most of those calls, I tried to convince Adel to transfer to the States for several reasons. The first of which was that I was tired of living abroad and being away from my children for such long periods. The second was that I wanted to be close when Toni decided to begin her own family. The third reason was even more selfish; I thought if Adel was actually living and working in the States, he’d very soon learn that Americans, for the most part, taught their children good social behavior and to be independent and this knowledge would change his opinions about the behavior of his own children. This was probably naïve of me, but it was all I had.

Also, during these calls, Adel would fill me in on the changes Ian was making in the magazine and how many complaints he was hearing from the big advertisers like TWA, Lufthansa, Aeroflot, Marriott, InterContinental, etc. Because Adel was General Manager of American Express, Egypt, a lot of his clients were the same as mine.

During another of these calls, I related to Adel that Ian was late with my last payment for the magazine sale and that, other than the first percentage check, I had not received another dime from him. When Adel called Ian for me, he was told that Ian was loosing advertisers and he just couldn’t afford to pay me yet. When Adel sent me the second copy of Places in Egypt after Ian took over, I could see why. It was nothing like the original travel magazine but so obvious that he was going head to head with Bill at Cairo Today… and I knew Ian would lose.

At that time, the community of Cairo that bought and read English language magazines was a small pool of the upper class only; there was simply no market for TWO English language news magazines. I immediately put in a call to Ian whereby we had a long, heated conversation with me reminding him that it was part of our contract that he would not make major changes in Places… and that he still owed me a lot of money.

That was the last time I spoke to Ian as he was never “in” anytime I called after that. Suffice it to say, after this lengthy tome of a story, that I never got paid another cent from Ian. I was told by Adel that the only way I could fight it in court, according to the lawyer who drew up the contract, was for me to return to Cairo and stay during a very lengthy trial. He suggested that such a trial would take at least 2-3 years. I suggested that Adel send someone to break Ian’s knees, but that didn’t happen.

Six months after I left Cairo, Places in Egypt magazine - my successful little baby - was no longer in publication and Ian had filed bankruptcy. Every year or so, my memories are filled with scenarios of my last months in Egypt and I think about how it had ended in heartache and disappointment. If I had to do it all over again, I would do many things differently for sure. After all, hindsight is so much more insightful than normal vision.

The moral of this story is to never do business with friends and especially never when living in a Third World country.

Jane
Gaston Studio

Selling Places in Egypt: Part I

2010-02-15T07:23:00.000-05:00

Having decided to leave Adel, I needed to sell my magazine, Places In Egypt, so that I would have as money as possible to take me with to Atlanta and begin a new life. I didn’t think there would be a problem, as the magazine was very successful by any standards. However, I was aware that when selling a magazine, you’re selling the reputation more than the lists of advertisers because they have the right to cancel their contract once the business changed hands.

Also, since I had been renting my suite of offices, my assets consisted only of my furniture, all used but in great condition, and my publishing equipment which consisted of the latest Mac and hard drive; a 5 year old HP LaserJet; the tiny Apple I had started with; and two old Selective typewriters. Not a lot of money involved here, to be sure.

By the time I decided to sell Places in Egypt, I had been in business for a little over 6 years. Although I then had a huge list of full page advertisers on annual contracts, they had been a long time coming. The only real competition I had was Cairo Today magazine which published mostly news and politics, while I dealt with travel and tourism. But, we shared some of the same advertisers so it was essential to keep the news of my impending departure a total secret. It was also necessary to keep it a secret from my secretary and sale team because they were all Egyptians and I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to leave for another job as soon as word got out.

On another floor in the same office building was housed a publishing company ran by an Englishman we’ll call Ian. He specialized in guides and an occasional book on Egypt and it was to Ian I offered to sell Places. I had talked to Adel about this and he agreed on two simple facts: the first is that Ian already had a publishing company and might be more interested than anyone else; and the second is that because Ian was not Egyptian, he would see the necessity to keep everything quiet until the deed was done.

When I first broached the subject with Ian, he played it “business cool” and didn’t appear to be at all interested but he said he would think about it. I emphasized the importance of secrecy and he totally agreed that my advertisers would leave in hoards once they found out.

A couple of weeks later, Ian set up a meeting for us where I met an American lady who was a bird specialist, we’ll call her Amy. It seemed that Amy was a potential backer with Ian on purchasing Places; he had published a book for her once and “printer’s ink” got into her blood, or so she said. At this meeting, I agreed to supply them with a copy of my ad assets with the promise that it was strictly confidential.

The very next day when the phone rang, my amin assistant, Magda, told me I had a phone call about the sale of my magazine. Ignoring her look of betrayal, I told her to close my office door and I took the call. It was from an Egyptian lady who told me she heard I was going to sell Places and she and her husband were interested in buying it. “How much do you want?” she asked. I was astounded, because Egyptians don’t do important business over the phone. I ignored her question and asked her from where did she get that information; she told me it came to her through a mutual friend who also knew Amy and Ian. Damn!

I hardly had time to think about that call because I had to go out and placate Magda. Thankfully, there was only one other person in the office at the time, an American writer named Jennifer. I gathered them in my office and told them a huge lie: while at a recent cocktail party where Ian was also attending, he asked me if I would sell it to him and I had told him, no, I wasn’t interested. Magda jumped on that because she had been Ian’s admin assistant for a year and when he let her go, I had hired her. They both appeared to believe my explanation. I next hurried down to Ian’s office to confront him and he laid all the blame on Amy. Whatever.

Over the next few weeks, several things occurred. Ian and Amy made a valid offer for my magazine; I met with the Egyptian couple who wanted to turn Places into a fashion magazine (I don’t think so!); I fielded several phone calls from large advertisers inquiring as to whether the magazine was being sold or not; and I had nightly conversations with Adel about how to handle all the crap raining down on me.

I trusted Adel’s opinions about the potential magazine sale. He said the most important thing was to assure my advertisers that Places would not change, at least not for several years. I agreed with him, so made sure that my lawyer included a paragraph to that effect in the contract I was preparing for Ian and Amy. I had talked to them both extensively about preventing a disaster with the advertisers and they agreed we would tell everyone that I was taking an extended leave of absence and that Ian would act as Managing Editor in my place.

Next, I made appointments with all of my advertisers to meet with Ian and myself to explain the made up situation which included that since my oldest daughter had gotten married, I wanted to be with her when she had my first grandchild. I know; Toni wasn’t even pregnant but I knew my advertisers would believe this lie. Adel and I agreed we would tell no one of our impending breakup until the magazine was sold and I was gone from Cairo.

This last bit was very difficult as we spent at least 3 nights each week at cocktail parties, receptions or some friend’s home for dinner. We were not living in a vacuum. On the home front, I was busy purging so that I could begin packing; I threw out many, many photos, documents, and correspondence which I have regretted ever since. Into the trash also went my copies of every issue of Places In Egypt I had published, but knowing how heavy paper is, I didn’t want Adel paying for international shipping of anything I didn’t really need.

Sorry folks, but this has to be continued next Monday.

Jane
Gaston Studio

After Marguerite

2010-02-08T07:09:00.000-05:00

If you read my last post, The Mystery of Marguerite, you’ll know who this person is. And you’ll remember 16 year old Nicholas and 10 year old Jerome, Adel’s children. This story is about why I finally broke up with Adel and returned stateside.

As I said before Adel was a devoted family man and loved his children. He felt a lot of guilt about his marriage breaking up and living so far away from his children; so much so, that in essence, he gave them everything they wanted.

Marguerite finally agreed to let Nicholas spend a couple of months with us in our apartment in Cairo. This was fine with me because we got along very well and generally had fun together even when Adel wasn’t at home. The trouble started when Nicholas brought his girlfriend for his second visit when they were both 17. Let’s call her Janine.

We put them in our guest room which was, thankfully, at the opposite end of the apartment to ours. On their first evening there, we naturally took them out to dinner and had a grand old time. Janine surprised me because she was very quiet even though she spoke English as well as Nicholas I felt at first that she must be really shy but the longer we sat there, the more she draped herself over Nicholas, giving him little kisses on his cheek every few minutes. Public displays of affection was simply not done in Egypt beyond holding hands in the mid 80s. It may be different now, but Adel was clearly embarrassed and aware of people staring at the young couple. I was sure Nicholas would be reminded later that he was now in a Muslim country and it didn’t really matter that we were all Christians.

Even though we had Massoud, our houseman, Adel and I did cooked dinner and cleaned up the kitchen in the evenings. But with Nicholas and Janine visiting, I was doing all the cooking while the other three spent time with each other in the family room. This was fine at first, until I realized a few days later that Janine was perfectly prepared to be waited on and didn’t want to lift a finger.

One evening, I yelled out to Janine to come set the table. I figured if I engaged her, all would be well, maybe she was just really, really shy. This didn’t work at all as Janine either didn’t know how to set a table or deliberately made it look like some three year old did, so I let that idea go out the window.

I usually got home before Adel, and I wasn’t happy with what I was finding each evening from their days of leisure… empty glasses, dishes and food wrappers on every surface in the family room which is where they watched videos, seemingly all day long. I cleaned all this up because I can’t stand a messy house, especially when it comes to food.

When I suggested to Nicholas one time that he and Janine pick up after themselves, he must have spoken to Adel about it because that evening, Adel told me he didn’t want me to do that; he would “speak” to Nicholas when needed. I stewed but reluctantly agreed. Adel’s expected “talk” with Nicholas this didn’t seem to make any difference though, and the days drug by.

Massoud came three days each week so he did the clearing up on those days, but after the third week of their “vacation,” I came home early one day to find Nicholas arguing with Massoud… shouting is actually a more appropriate word. Massoud was in his 60s and one of the kindest people I have ever met. Even though he saw no reason to polish the back of my silver frames and bibloes, the house was always sparkling after his visits.

After some intervention, I learned that Nicholas was complaining that Massoud was not cleaning their room. Massoud was very dark skinned, almost Nubian in that respect, but it was easy for me to see that he was blushing and very uncomfortable. When I opened the guest room door to investigate for myself, I was shocked at the mess: piles of clothes and messy dishes everywhere but what most shocked me was finding a collection of Janine’s dirty underwear thrown on the floor, in every corner. I was livid.

I sent Massoud home, telling him to not clean this room again. Then I told Nicholas in no uncertain terms that Massoud was not expected to pick up dirty underwear, especially those of a teenage girl. This is a Muslim country, I reminded him, and they need to respect that. I further added, through clenched teeth, that my house is not a damn hotel and I was tired of picking up after them everyday. During this tirade, Janine was cooling her heels in the family room, close enough to have heard it all.

After I finished with Nicholas, I stormed out of the apartment and intercepted Adel in the lobby. To give him credit, he was embarrassed for Massoud and said he would talk to Nicholas. It was very quiet at dinner that night, partly because I was so mad, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, including Adel. I retired to my bedroom early, with a book. When Adel came in later, he said he had talked “harshly” to Nicholas and asked him to speak to his girlfriend.

For the next few weeks, nothing actually changed unless you count the scathing looks Janine had for me on a daily basis. More and more, I stayed home when Adel took them out to dinner, saying I had work to do.
Adel and I had many arguments in our bedroom about those two teenagers treating our home like a third rate motel, and he reminded me that his children was not raised to do household chores, they had a daily maid in Switzerland. Well, whoop de doo. What happened to teaching children manners and how to act when a guest in someone else’s home? In my opinion, it’s never to late to learn.

When they left Cairo, I loaded up with cleaning supplies and scrubbed down our guest room. I hate to say this but it smelled like a boy’s locker room with an overtone of musty sex. I’m not a prude by any means, but there’s a time and place for everything. I would have killed one of my children if they had behaved this way in someone’s home.

Adel and I spent every evening arguing. It was clear to me after a couple of months that our differences in culture and raising children weren’t even close. These discussions and the lack of any real results drove a huge wedge between us. And it didn’t appear to me that our bond could, once again, be filled with love, compassion, humor and respect. Without these, there was no relationship.

It became obviously painful to me that I didn’t want to call Adel’s two boys my stepchildren and I never wanted to even see Janine in our home again. Eventually, I decided I couldn’t be married to someone who, out of guilt, allowed their children free rein in anything they wanted to do so I prepared to leave Adel and Egypt forever, after a 9 year relationship… and it wasn’t an easy choice.

I soon discovered selling a business owned by a female expatriate in Egypt is also not an easy thing.

Jane
Gaston Studio

The Mystery of Marguerite

2010-02-01T07:49:00.000-05:00

When I met Adel in Bahrain in the mid 80s, he was not yet divorced but had been estranged from his wife, Marguerite, for a year. As he told me, one day he came home to find she had left a note saying she was returning to Switzerland and would never come back; of course, she took the boys, Nicholas, 16, and Jerome, 8. He said she hated Bahrain, hated the private schools, hated the expatriates who lived there, and just generally hated that she was no longer in her native Switzerland.

A few years before going abroad, I had ended a 5 year relationship with a married man and vowed it would never be repeated. When I first began seeing Adel, I just figured it would be a short fling with someone who was really decent, intelligent, and thoughtful. Little did I know that love would enter into the picture after only a few short months.

Adel and I became a “couple” in Bahrain and it wasn’t long before I was staying at his apartment more than my own at the Gulf Hotel. We entertained quite a lot at what I was now calling “home” and I just ignored those people, both men and women, who told me what a horrible person Marguerite was.

It came as no surprise to my friends and family that I chose to follow Adel to Egypt when he was transferred, some 18 months later. And that’s when Marguerite started to become less of a mystery and more of a intruder on my happy life. Yes, I know she was still legally his wife, but she had agreed to begin divorce proceedings before I even met Adel. I wasn’t sure where I wanted the relationship to go just yet, but I wanted the time to discover this on my own.

Then began the telephone calls to our apartment from Marguerite to me. She didn’t speak English very well at all, so at first, she had a friend of hers call me. The basis behind every phone call was to convince me to “stop seeing Adel, get the hell out of Cairo and go back to America where I belonged.”

At first I was dumbfounded. I talked to Adel about it and he just laughed, telling me that Marguerite wanted the divorce as much as he did; that she had a boyfriend in Switzerland; and that they just hadn’t reached an agreement on the divorce settlement because she had put too many restrictions on his seeing their children and wanted way too much money. She saw me as a threat to the money part if Adel and I eventually married.

After I started hanging up when the friend called, I was shocked to find that Marguerite was sending letters to my daughters in Atlanta, telling them I was breaking up a happy marriage. I talked to them on the phone, assuring them this wasn’t the case and apologized that they had been pulled into a distasteful scenario.

By this time, Adel and I had been in Cairo about a year and had moved into a very nice apartment in Zamalek with a doorman. I usually got home before Adel, around 5ish. One day, someone knocked on my door. When I peeked through the viewfinder, I saw our doorman standing there, so I opened the door. But I had not gotten it fully opened when a woman jumped out from behind the man, hands raised in the air, and made a dash for me. Survival instinct kicked in and I tried slamming the door, but she was stronger than me.

There we were, pushing and shoving on both sides of the door like two banshees in the night. When the doorman saw she was not an invited guest, he pulled her back, allowing me to finally get the heavy door closed. I threw the bolt and stood against the door panting. Scared to death, I peeked through the viewfinder again, to see our doorman struggling with a tall, dark haired woman who I knew instinctively to be Marguerite. The doorman was pushing her toward the stairs, she hitting at him all the way.

Adrenalin was rushing through my body, but I eventually stopped hyperventilating and called Adel. He rushed home, talked to the doorman who related that Marguerite had told him she was invited by me for afternoon tea. Adel tipped him heavily and told him not to allow her back into the building. A few phone calls later and we knew she was staying at the Marriott, just around the corner. Adel called her and after a shouting match in French, I found out that he had told her to “go home to her boyfriend” and leave him, and me, alone. She insisted that she would go home after he signed the divorce papers allowing everything she wanted; he refused and said he would meet with her and their lawyer next month, as scheduled.

The next morning, we were getting ready for work when the doorbell rang and Adel went to answer it. He figured it was his driver, Ali, to let him know he was downstairs a bit early. I’m in my underwear in our bathroom, when I hear footsteps running down the long hall. My heart started pounding. The next thing I hear is a loud thump, then Adel came and closed the bathroom door, telling me to stay inside. I wasn’t going anywhere; I was too scared.

For the next several seconds, I hear shouting, then things quieted down to just plain talking. Since I don’t speak French, I have no idea what was said, but I could hear undertones. Adel was obviously very angry. Angry that she had come to our home, angry that she was making him out the “bad guy” when she was also seeing someone regularly, angry that she refused to be sensible about the divorce agreement.

Marguerite had never worked. I saw the agreement Adel had drawn up and believe me, he was more than generous with alimony, child support and college funds. But the fact that she wanted to heavily restrict him from seeing the children was what got to Adel the most. He was a family man at heart and worshipped his children; Marguerite was clearly trying to take advantage of this, especially since she was the one who wanted the divorce. It was several years later when they finally reached an agreement and got a divorce. Unfortunately, Marguerite had convinced young Jerome that his father’s girlfriend had broken up their marriage.

About a year after that incident in our hallway, Nicholas came to visit. He spoke excellent English and we got along famously from the first moment. It was two years later when Jerome came to visit at age 10 with his brother. Jerome spoke English but refused to speak to me directly so Nicholas apologized and spoke for him. Jerome refused to go anywhere if I was also going, so the three of them saw Cairo on their own while I stayed either at work or back in our apartment.

On his third day visiting, I came home one day to see that Jerome had taken a pair of scissors to some of my clothes and shoes. Of course he denied cutting these things up, but there was no one else in the apartment. Adel scolded him about it, and told me this was Marguerite’s doing; that she had poisoned his little mind against me. I tried to be understanding because Jerome was, after all, just a child. I endured dinners where I was totally ignored unless Adel or Nicholas talked to me.

After their divorce, Marguerite married her gentleman friend within a month even though she forfeited the alimony. She obviously didn’t want Adel anymore, but she also didn’t want anyone else to have him either. I guess she wanted him to go through life simply being the children’s father and nothing else. Nicholas came to visit every summer but Jerome never came to Cairo again.

To clarify things, I know perfectly well I was in the wrong by being with a man who was still married, and he was in the wrong as well. But we loved each other and felt that less overall harm was done since we lived together in another country. That didn’t make it right, we just thought it made it less harmful to the children. When this all began, I thought it was best to breakup to protect the children, but Adel convinced me that he would be getting divorced whether I was in the picture or not.

Adel developed ulcers and anxiety thinking about how Marguerite was poisoning Jerome’s mind against him, but it was evident to me that Jerome loved his father and the poison was directed at me and would be directed at any “other woman“ in his father‘s life. But I stayed, for 9 years.

Jane
Gaston Studio

My MG Midget

2010-01-25T07:57:00.000-05:00

When I was in my mid 20s and working as a secretary at the Savannah News Press, I bought my first car… a baby blue MG Midget that I absolutely loved. I don’t remember what year this car was made, but it was the year before they installed hand cranked, roll up windows, so my windows were of Plexiglas that could be slid open but if you wanted to take down the convertible top, you had to manually remove the entire window.

At that time, in the mid to late 60s, we were very active in the Savannah Sports Car Club so I had access to many friends who knew all about sports cars and they all said the MG was a gem, mechanically, so I bought it. And even if my husband, Bill, was going to be in the car with me, I drove it. God, it was wonderful hearing that engine gently roar when I downshifted. Myy girls loved riding in the tiny backseat to go to kindergarten but when I needed to go grocery shopping, I had to take the family car as the boot in my MG was so tiny.

So, there I was, tooling up and down the beautiful downtown streets of Savannah, Georgia on a regular basis when I had my first wreck. I had just pulled up to a stop sign on Wheaton Street, getting ready to take a right on Victory Drive. I had come to a complete stop when I felt and heard a loud thump. I jumped out of my MG and saw a woman getting out of her car, coming toward me. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t see you!”

You didn’t see me? You’re driving a Volkswagen, and you didn’t see me? Thankfully, she had good insurance because she shorted out my entire electric system which was housed in the boot. This, I discovered, when I took the car to Critz Motors where I had purchased it. They said it would take about a week to repair, so I left my little car.

Two days later, they called to tell me someone had broken into their fenced in holding yard and had stolen my top and manual side windows. They would replace them, of course, but the items needed to be ordered. Two weeks later when I picked up my car, I had brand new sliding windows with absolutely no scratches on the Plexiglas and a brand new navy blue top. I was in heaven.

A couple of weeks later, I was tooling down Highway17 en route to Jacksonville to see my sister in law, Norma and hang out on the beach. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I was looking forward to a long weekend away from work and the kids. The radio was on playing some Beach Boys song and I was singing with them when I decided to light a cigarette and slide open my window… that’s when the window fell right out of the car!

There was very little traffic, so I was able to pull over to the side of the road almost immediately. As I got out of the car, I saw a couple of cars that had been behind me swerve around to miss my window which had landed smack in the middle of the highway about 25 feet back. I started running toward it and I saw a Greyhound Bus was approaching.

There I was, standing on the side of the highway, waiting on the bus to swerve so that I could dash out and retrieve my precious window. But the bus didn’t swerve, the damn driver ran right over my window and so did the car that was following too close right behind him. I stood there with tears in my eyes, until I could dash out and pick it up. The metal frame was badly bent out of shape and the Plexiglas was no longer smooth as glass.

I cried as I put it in my boot, got back in my car and continued on to Jacksonville. I turned off the radio because I didn’t want to hear anyone singing unless they were lamenting about my poor window. It’s okay, I thought to myself, Critz will replace it because someone obviously didn’t install it correctly!

It took some talking, but I finally convinced Critz several days later that they were responsible for the window having popped out like it did. They said it would take two weeks to get one in and I said to call me when it arrived.

I went about my daily business and waited. I had put a towel in the car so that if it rained, I could jam it in the door and, somewhat, keep out the rain. Then, we heard there was a hurricane heading to Savannah and the newspaper needed volunteers to monitor the shortwave radios for updates. That’s what they did in those days.

Naturally, I volunteered for one evening after work because it was exciting and I wanted to be part of it. Since this was nothing new to Bill, he gladly stayed home with the girls.

So the newspaper set me up in this little room with an old manual typewriter and a shortwave radio that they had to show me how to work. By 8 pm, the rain was really coming down, beating tat tats on the windows, the skies starless and black as coal. But I had anticipated all this, having been born and raised in Savannah where storms and hurricanes were common place. And I knew that towel in my car would have been useless, so I was glad I had come up with another idea much earlier… which made front page news the following morning and gave everyone at the paper a good chuckle.

Unknown to me, our senior photographer, Gene Taggart, had been on the prowl for possible storm photos before night fell. The published article I saved has evidently been lost by the wayside, but at least I have the original photo Gene took and I still marvel at my ingenuity. And yep, the umbrella kept all the rain out of the car. The other photo, of me at the shortwave, I knew Gene had taken but it didn’t get published.

The hurricane didn’t actually hit Savannah, but the resulting rain storm was enough to give us all a good thrill, plus I had the additional thrill of seeing my beloved MG in the newspaper.

Jane
Gaston Studio

My Nail Tearing Project

2010-01-18T07:28:00.000-05:00

What I’ve been doing for the past two weeks while not visiting you, is recovering my chaise lounge and sofa with new fabric I had bought several months ago. Frankly, I knew my 16 year old cat, Tiger, wouldn’t be around much longer, so I wanted to wait until he had passed because he lived his last two years on my chaise lounge and it was badly stained.

Originally, Sandi and I were going to make slipcovers for the furniture, and I had, thankfully, bought lots of extra fabric. It was going to be great to be able to take the covers off and wash them when needed! Now I’ve never made slipcovers before but Sandi convinced me she had seen exactly how to do it on Trading Spaces.

Sandi said, “You just pin the fabric inside out close to the furniture, take it off, sew it and viola!”

So, three weeks ago on a Saturday morning, we got started on the chaise lounge. After a couple of hours, we’d manhandled the heavy fabric bolt over the chaise and had gotten several large pieces cut and pinned together for the back, front, and seat. We had cut the fabric for one of the arms, then decided to take a break.

That’s when Sandi next said, “Oh, oh. We can’t make slipcovers for the chaise, mom!”

I responded, “Why?”

Then I looked where she was pointing as she said, “Because the arms are two different lengths.”

I naturally said, “Shit!… I’m just going to have to cover them.”

Now what I do is not upholstering, it’s recovering. My toolbox consists of scissors, Eileen’s permanent fabric glue, quilting pins with brightly colored heads, a pair of needle nose pliers, a staple gun, chalk to mark the fabric, and an old credit card to spread the glue.

I had recovered two sofas over the years for Toni, so the following weekend, I began recovering my chaise lounge. When you’re recovering with fabric glue, you use the quilting pins to hold the new fabric to the old fabric until it dries; I always like to wait overnight. Then comes the process of pulling the pins out and let me tell you, most of them are glued in, so you have to pull really hard and in some cases, you have to use the needle nose pliers which naturally pulls off the pin head, then you pull out the needle like pin that’s left. I tore the fingernails on my right hand to shreds doing this, and in one instance, got a headless pin stuck in my index finger that went in one side and came out the other. Naturally, I used the pliers to pull it out, wiped off the blood, put on a bandaid to protect the fabric and continued the project.

Yesterday afternoon, I finished gluing on the trim, and I’m really proud of the finished pieces. I need to look for and buy some new sofa pillows, but all in all, I’m a happy camper with my newly recovered chaise lounge and sofa. Click on the photos to enlarge.

I sure hope that blue painter's tape will prevent Roscoe from scratching the backs of my chaise... am supposed to keep on for a couple of weeks until he gets used to the fact that his paws will stick if he tries to scratch the fabric. Wish me luck!

Jane

One Summer Day

2010-01-11T08:21:00.000-05:00

Another repeat guys, as I'm still super busy. Hope you're all having a wonderful New Year!

As a child, I spent almost all my summers with my maternal grandmother who took care of her mother, Rosa. Only 4’10”, Rosa was nevertheless a force to reckon with and was as stubborn a southern woman as you’ll ever meet... and she absolutely scared me to death.

Case in point, after my great-grandfather died, Rosa refused to go live in Savannah with my grandmother and her family. Rosa needed someone to take care of her as there were simply things she could no longer do for herself… like cook without setting something on fire.

So, my grandmother moved back to Rosa’s house in Pembroke, Georgia when I was about 5 years old and there she remained until Rosa died some years later. This was difficult for my grandmother because Rosa also refused to have any ‘newfangled inventions’ in her house. My grandmother had to draw water from a pump in the kitchen and had to wash clothes with an agitator type machine on the back porch. It had a wringer that clothes were pushed through to well, wring them out. This was my job, and I can’t tell you how many times I got my hand caught in that machine!

The house did have electricity, but Rosa, of course, insisted on kerosene lamps in the evenings. Rosa’s house was typical of those of the low-to-middle class in rural Georgia in the 30s and 40s. It was a three bedroom wood frame, with a tin roof (God, I loved to hear it raining at night, bouncing off that tin!), and it had very large front and back porches. The outhouse was located at the far corner of the back yard.

One of my older cousins, Joann, used to come spend at least two weeks each summer, and that was when I had the most fun because Joann was my hero. She was about 4 years older than me (I was 7 at the time) and had a tremendous knowledge about animals and insects. We would spend hours, walking the woods, cotton and corn fields looking for anything alive and she would tell me their proper names, their living and mating habits, and then quiz me to see if I had been listening.

Joann also taught me how to sing and dance to “Pistol Packin’ Mama”, a record played nightly on Rosa’s wind up Victrola that she only allowed in her house because her only son had bought it for her for Christmas one year. I’m sure there were other records, but that’s the only one I really remember.

The outhouse was a two-seater and it wasn’t unusual for two people of the same sex to be using it at the same time. One such time, I had done my thing really quickly, and was just standing around waiting on Joann. And this is what happened that summer afternoon.

Me (standing around): “Uh, Joann, what was the name of that snake that has the square things on the back?”

Joann (sitting on the throne): “That’s a diamond back rattler. And what else did I tell you about it?”

Me (kind of looking around): Uh, that it’s poisonous?”

Joann (still sitting): “That’s right! You get a gold star.”

Me (looking overhead): “Gosh, thanks!”

Joann (sitting…): “What made you think of that right now?”

Me (pointing overhead where a full grown diamond back rattler was hiding out in the rafters over the door): “Well, I think that’s one up there.”

Joann (jumping up faster than lightening, running out of the outhouse with her panties around her knees): “Run, stupid!”

Well, I was actually already trying to run after her but she kind of pushed me out of her way to get a more direct path and she was screaming the whole way:

“Aunt Ruby! Uncle Johnny!” (Her aunt Ruby is my grandmother; her uncle Johnny is my grandmother’s brother.)

Before they even got out the back door, Joann yelled: “There’s a diamond back in the outhouse!” (She finally got her pants pulled back up, thank the Lord!)

So uncle Johnny (he was also my uncle, you see) ran back inside and came running back out with a rifle while my grandmother ran to the shed and got a hoe. Uncle Johnny took the hoe from grandmother and cautiously used it to open the outhouse door. Not wanting to stick his head in there to see exactly where that rattler was, he then used the hoe to poke around overhead until finally, this huge snake fell down into the doorway.

Uncle Johnny proceeded to shoot the snake (he was a crack shot with a rifle) but my grandmother, adrenalin pumping mightily, used the hoe to also chop off its head.
I ran over to see it up close but she grabbed me by the arm and said: “Don’t get too close, the poison is still in the fangs and it can kill you if you get any on you.”

Wow! Joann didn’t tell me that poisonous snakes can still be poisonous after they’re dead! And I made a mental note to remember that little tidbit. (Although, I later learned that the venom can only kill you if it gets into your blood stream, as for example, through on open sore.)

After things settled down, we had a really good laugh about the whole scenario. Well, Joann didn’t laugh as much as we did, especially when I mimicked her running away with her panties down around her knees. She never let me go to the outhouse with her again either.

Jane
Gaston Studio

2010-01-04T09:03:00.000-05:00

Super busy lately so am reposting this tidbit about a recurring dream I had years ago for many years.

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For some reason, I've been thinking almost constantly about a recurring dream I had every single night for over 30 years. Here it is:

I’m standing in the small lobby of a hotel/inn in Switzerland. A man is walking down the flight of stairs in front of me that obviously leads to the rooms upstairs. I can see clearly that he is of medium height, has dark hair, but I can’t see his face as it’s blurred.

We obviously are together, because he walks up to me, we link arms and go through a set of double doors that leads outside to a small veranda. There are three other people on the veranda, and we begin to walk straight ahead but only go a few feet when we stop. (I never knew why, but the feeling was that we had to stop.) We then turn to our right and before us, in all its splendor, is the north face of the Eiger. I stare in wonder at the craggy mountainside… and the dream ends.

I began dreaming this nightly in my late twenties. I had never been to Switzerland at that time, and in fact, I had never been outside the US. Every morning I would wake up and try to analyze why I would be dreaming about a mountain that I’ve never seen in reality. And I don't ski.

Several years after I married, my husband said to me one day: “You always choose to travel the rugged path in life, when there are always smooth ones available to you.” This made sense to me at the time, so I felt that he had figured out my dream. But the dream continued, and every single night it would begin and end at the very same points in dreamtime.

In 1981, I found myself in Manama, Bahrain, living and working as PR Manager of the Gulf Hotel. This was a 5 star hotel that also had an older wing that was used for long term residents; one of these was a Latvian that I met and befriended. Sadly, I don’t even remember his name, but I do know he was an avid skier and we often had long talks in the evenings over a drink (or three) and talked about life. We’ll call him Ivan.

One such evening, he was showing me some 8x10s from his latest skiing venture and my heart almost stopped. One of these photos was the exact scene I visited each evening in my dreams! He told me it was the north face of the Eiger. Well, I knew which mountain it was. After all, I had seen Clint Eastwood's movie The Eiger Sanction like everyone else and I had read the book, but this dream began occuring long before either were made.

I felt intimate with this mountain by now so I told him about my recurring dream. Ivan wasn't very retrospective but he looked at me thoughtfully for several long seconds, then he gave me the photo, which I clasped to my bosom like a long lost friend.

Every morning before work, I would go down to the coffee shop and eat my breakfast, usually with the Food and Beverage Manager’s wife, who was a fellow American. I was excitedly telling her (can’t remember her name either!) about my conversation with Ivan and the photo he had given me... and the recurring dream.

During that time, Jean, her husband, joined us. All he heard me telling his wife was that I had no idea why we couldn’t go straight out on the veranda. The photo was lying on the table; Jean glanced at the photo and said: “I’ll tell you why. There’s a railing there because below is a huge dropoff"... and he rattled off some very large numbers in the thousands.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because the inn you were staying at where I always stay when I go to ski that area.” He named the inn which, of course, I don’t remember either.

Then he pointed to a tiny little spot on the photo and said: “There it is, right there.”

For whatever reason, I never had that dream again. Was it trying to tell me that I had many paths from which to choose in my life? But we all have many paths, some are rugged, some are smooth and some are a combination of both.

Was it trying to tell me that the man I married was right in that I always chose the hardest road to travel? Was it trying to tell me I would find the man of my dreams if I visited that small inn? Was it trying to say I was about to fall over the edge if I didn’t do something different? What the hell was it trying to tell me!

I’ve looked everywhere for that black and white photo but alas, I must have tossed it long ago. So I’ve inserted a borrowed photo from Wikipedia that is similar... but without Ivan posing on his skis in the foreground. This will give you an idea and the link to the Eiger will show you what the north face truly looks like: daunting, challenging, unforgivable.

What I'd really like to know is why is this dream in my thoughts so much of late when I haven't given it much thought at all since it was "solved" in the early 80s?

Have you ever had a recurring dream for a long period of time; and if so, did you ever resolve it to your satisfaction?

Jane

Gaston Studio

The Caterpillar

2009-12-29T08:05:00.000-05:00

I snuck away to spend Christmas with my grands in Atlanta and forgot to tell anyone in blogland! But am back now and exhausted, so hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and won't be too cold or snowed in to enjoy a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

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My last two posts have been about my oldest child and daughter, Toni, and how she liked to manipulate her younger sister, Sandi. They had very different personalities, for sure, and I thought I’d give you a little idea of just how different.

Besides being manipulative with Sandi, Toni was also a very domestic little girl. At age 2, without anyone asking her, she lined her shoes up side by side on her part of the shared closet floor. Toni liked her things put away and her bed was always made with her favorite stuffed animals nicely arranged. Okay, she was a bit older when she started making her bed, but the shoe thing and putting up her stuff was always there.

Sandi was just the opposite when it came to her things; there was always clutter on her side of the rooms they shared and she never picked anything up unless threated by me. Sandi loved school and she loved to read. What I learned really early was never to punish her by sending her to her room because she would just lie on her bed and read; she was in heaven. Toni, however, would suffer greatly from the same punishment.

The neatness versus extreme clutter became worse as the girls got older and there were often loud arguments about Sandi having left something of hers on Toni’s side of the room. I tried everything creative I could think of to get Sandi to become less messy, but nothing ever worked, even the tape on the floor to divide the room equally.

One evening, I was listening to a typical argument coming from their room, then I heard running, then I heard a sharp “Owwww!” followed by more sounds of obvious pain. I rushed into their room, found Toni sitting on Sandi’s bed, holding her foot and crying. Sandi was working very hard at keeping the very large grin from spreading further on her little face, but she failed. Toni had broken her toe while chasing Sandi around their room, trying to make Sandi pick up stuff that had landed on her side… divided equally by tape on the floor, by the way. Toni had broken the big toe on one of her feet when she ran into one of legs on Sandi’s bed while chasing her, most likely to do bodily harm once Sandi was caught. Since Toni perpetrated the incident, I couldn’t punish Sandi for simply trying to get out of her sister’s reach, but the next day, I removed the tape on the floor as it was obviously not working.

I often wonder if the neatness versus clutter was the main reason behind Toni’s unholy treatment of Sandi. Many years later, when they became adults and could laugh about it, they told me of the things Toni had done to Sandi, like tying her to a tree in our yard for over an hour, and like enticing Sandi and then trapping her in the attic by keeping the pulldown door closed with a broom. (I later learned that Sandi loved being in the attic because there was a huge box of books up there and an overhead light!)

When they first told me of these particular incidents, I was totally shocked because Sandi never squealed on her sister. And the fact remains that I was ignorant of this kind of treatment for many years, except for the manipulation which I tried to control by almost daily checking their individual belongings. But I was painfully aware of one particular incident of torture, intended or not.

The girls were about 10 and 11 when we moved to Durham, North Carolina for my husband’s job. We rented this really cool house that had tons of fruit trees in the backyard and was just down the street from their school. It also had a renovated attic room that was extremely large and could more easily be divided into spaces for the girls, which made them happier. Another plus was that I was able to land an executive secretary position at General Telephone & Electronics whose headquarters was only 1 mile from the house.

After school, the girls were instructed to call me the minute they got home and they were to do their homework before play, which I would check when I got home. It was spring and the fruit trees were flourishing, as were the caterpillars that lived in them. Typically, both of my girls were afraid of anything that had creepy, crawly legs and with my insane fear of cockroaches, I respected that and probably unintentionally nurtured it.

One day, Toni called to tell me they were home. I heard screaming in the background and knew it was Sandi. My heart went up into my throat as I demanded Toni tell me what was wrong with her sister, my vivid imagination running wild. Giggling, she said, “Nothing.” Sandi continued screaming indecipherable words and crying. I told Toni to stay right where she was as I was on my way. I yelled to my boss that I’d be right back, jumped in my car and left a skid mark in the parking lot as I pulled out as fast as I could. Exactly 6 minutes later, I pulled in under our carport and saw the girls… Sandi’s face was red from crying and she was still sobbing a bit but was no longer crying. Toni, on the other hand, looked guilty as hell.

I hugged Sandi close to me and asked her what had happened. When they got home, they headed to the back door which was usual, but along the way, a caterpillar had dropped down from a tree and landed on Sandi’s back. Toni saw it and told her about it which is when Sandi started screaming to get it off her, jumping up and down and frightened to death. Toni just stood there laughing, and only after hearing I was on my way home did she brush the bug off Sandi’s back with a branch.

I was furious at Toni for having let her younger sister suffer while she did nothing because had the caterpillar landed on her back, she would have been heard at my office. I was furious at myself for letting them become latchkey kids because we couldn’t afford a sitter. I grabbed Toni by the arm and told her how mad and disappointed I was at her, sent her to her room and grounded her for a week.

Then I asked where was the caterpillar because I sure didn’t want it running loose, ready to drop down on someone else’s back, namely my own. Toni looked at me and pointed to the left front tire on my car… and there was a smashed mess that I could only assume was the remains of a caterpillar after it was run over by a multi-ton car.

For one week, Toni came home, went to her room, did her homework and waited there until I got home from work. After dinner, she went back to her room and stayed until bath and bedtime. She was miserable and Sandi knew it. Sandi smiled a lot that entire week.

They became the best of friends as adults; Toni is still a neat freak and Sandi is still as messy as ever, but they accept each other as they are which is a tribute to their "differentness" and all anyone can expect. Today, they would defend each other to the death.

Jane
Gaston Studio

The Burning Bed

2009-12-14T07:50:00.000-05:00

I’ve told you how precocious my oldest daughter, Toni, is, but did I also tell you how she good she was at manipulation? Oh, she was a master at this, especially with her younger sister, Sandi.

After the little garage, we moved into a ‘real’ house, but the manipulation began as soon as Sandi was able to walk. And Sandi was a baby that refused to crawl! Nope, Sandi must have felt it would be a waste of time to crawl first, because one day, she just stood up and walked across the room at age 10 months.

Anyway, I was always conscious about buying birthday and Christmas gifts equally so that there would be no envy among the girls, but no matter what the toys were, Toni always wanted Sandi’s… and hers. They were taught to share their toys, but Toni was a little rough on hers at times. When her doll dress got dirty, she would talk Sandi into trading, and it was like this about any kind of toy... but it went further.

When we moved into the little brick house, we bought the girls twin maple beds. They were told not to color on the beds or put stickers on them. But sure enough, Toni did her own thing one day and placed two stickers of some sort on her headboard. I had already washed off crayon marks on her bed, but I didn’t remove the stickers. Over the next few days, Toni had tried to pick off the stickers with her fingernails, so that now, instead of just unwanted stickers on her headboard, she had a mess. I waited.

Our ritual at night was that after a bath and clean pajamas, I would read a favorite book to them. One evening, I had sent them to their bedroom while I cleaned up the bathroom, and told them to select a book. When I went in a few minutes later, Toni was lying in Sandi’s bed. When I questioned her, the conversation with my three year and two year old went like this:

“But mom, Sandi wanted my bed!”

“Sandi, did you ask Toni for her bed?”

“No mam.”

“Well, why are you in Toni’s bed.”

“She wanted my bed, without the stickers.”

“So, she asked you to switch beds with her.”

“Yes mam.”

I sighed.

“Toni, you cannot have Sandi’s bed. You put the stickers on yours, so you have to live with them.”

‘But mom! I can’t get the stickers off!”

I sighed.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s your bed, so get in it.”

And they switched. The next day, I removed the stickers from the headboard as I felt she had learned her lesson.

A few nights later, the electricity had gone off in our neighborhood, so I lit a couple of candles and gathered the girls with me on the couch to read their bedtime story to them. That’s when I realized that Toni was holding Sandi’s favorite stuffed animal and Sandi’s arms were empty. So I took the animal from Toni and sent her into her bedroom to get her own stuffed animal.

I began reading the book but a few minutes later, I smelled smoke. I jumped up and ran into the girl’s bedroom and sure enough, smoke was coming out from under Toni’s bed. Bill was not home as he was working a second job at night, so I yelled across the street for my neighbor’s husband. Chuck ran over, saw the mattress was smoldering so hauled it out to the street where he quickly corrected the situation.

When I questioned Toni, she said she had taken a candle to look under her bed where the stuffed animal was hiding and when she saw the fire, she was too scared to tell me. I could understand that, but it could have been a really bad situation, so I told her about the dangers of fire, lit candles, etc.

After the crisis was over, Chuck said that it wasn’t the mattress that was smoking, but the netting under the mattress so we quickly removed the tattered bits of netting. The mattress itself was fine, except for some gray smoke marks, so we declared it was safe to return to the bed. I could tell Toni did not want to sleep in her bed because even at that young age, she liked everything neat and pretty.

The next morning however, I found that some time during the night, she had talked Sandi into again switching beds with her. Of course, I made her change again and spoke to firmly about being responsible for her own actions, as much as I could with a three year old.

They kept those beds for several years, and at least twice more during that time, I would find Toni lying in Sandi’s bed and would make her change, once again. She didn’t like it, especially that it was a constant reminder of the dangers of fire and of her manipulation of her sister, but she slept in it. However, that lesson didn’t stop her manipulation.

Jane
Gaston Studio

Of importance and of no importance...

2009-12-10T07:30:00.000-05:00

I’ve been tagged by Ken at Grumpy Old Ken to list 8 personal facts, of no importance, but I’ve decided to also some things that are of importance to me alone, so here goes:

1) I’ve had a muscle spasm in my back for well over a month but the combination of therapeutic massage and chiropractic treatments make me feel there’s light at the end of the tunnel. This has curtailed much of what I normally do on a daily basis but I’ve read even more books that usual, which is a good thing.

2) Since my toy poodle, Lexi, has bad claws (read my post Lexi’s Claws) I usually do her grooming. Today, while using the clippers, I left my poor sweet girl shorter in a couple of places because I had the wrong clipper head and didn’t realize it at first! I refused to make it all shorter, so she’ll just have to wear a t-shirt when she’s in public until it grows out again.

3) I was made to wear a girdle while performing in Hitchcock’s Rear Window (play) when I was in the 10th grade. My drama couch, who was also my English teacher and a very, very old woman, told me I undulated when walking and she “just couldn’t have such indecency on a public stage.” She made me feel really bad about myself until I looked it up in the dictionary… then I felt very good about my teenage self.

4) Just recently, I did the evaluation part of Wii Fit Sports Plus, and discovered that my balance is really great and my age is 59 (I’ll be 68 on December 15), so that made me feel good because I haven’t exercised in many years and I continue to eat milk and cookies late at night when I can’t sleep. Go, Wii Fit!

5) When I was in the second grade, my grandmother gave me a watch that was her mothers. She, and my mother, told me to not wear it unless it was a special occasion. I was good about that part, but I was bad about carrying it around in my pocket. One night at a drive-in theatre, I lost it when going to the concession stand. No one knew until I was having an emergency appendectomy a couple of weeks later and I confessed to my grandmother on, what I thought, was my death bed. She forgave me, then told me I wasn’t dying.

6) I have a ‘dent’ on the top of my left hand where a classmate of mine stabbed me with her very sharp pencil in the first grade. Obviously, I incurred her wrath but for the life of me, I don’t remember how. Oddly enough, it didn’t bleed very long.

7) Also on my left hand, my pointing finger doesn’t point straight out; it actually points up from the knuckle. This is not a deformity I was born with, but a result of my own stupidity. When I was about 7, I was trying to “whittle” a piece of wood like my Uncle Johnny, with a pocket knife I wasn’t supposed to even know where it was, let alone be using it. Unfortunately, I was whittling with the sharp part facing toward me and I cut my finger just below the knuckle. Since I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing, I went to my much younger Uncle Bobby and he bandage it for me. Neither of us knew the tendon was cut and when it healed, it contracted, bringing the end of my finger up permanently. So when I point at you with that finger, just know I’m not trying to be rude, well, except for pointing, of course.

8) I married my cousin and that made my Aunt Lois suddenly my mother in law, and all her children, my cousins, suddenly my sisters and brothers in law. Actually, we weren’t blood related as I was adopted by my stepfather, but it did allow them all welcome me into the family a second time.

To pass this along, I’d like to ask some of my newer followers to take up the baton and tell whatever you would like about yourselves.

Brightened Boy

Chatty Crone

Cimba7200’s Thoughts

Life, the Universe and Everything

My Southern Touch

Smiling Sally

We’re all in a virtual world here, so don’t hold back.

One Year in Blogland

2009-12-07T07:33:00.000-05:00

Can’t believe I’ve been blogging for one whole year!

Of course, I received absolutely no comments on my first few posts, but we all have to start from nothing, right? I first began blogging to promote traffic to my retail website, but after a few posts about hand painted this and that, I thought to myself, this is really boring to me, so it must be to others as well. My consensus was, if I’m going to spend my precious time writing and setting up a post, it should at least be different from all the other people out there who also have retail websites.

So after a few posts in December with still no comments, I began posting about other things… and by mid-January, I had two whole comments; count them, t-w-o! And while I was trying to think about what I wanted to blog about other than my “stuff”, I was also trying to find blogs that I wanted to read and participate in. It took me a while to realize that everyone has a blog roll, and viola, I was finding blogs I actually liked! And then, I discovered following. Wow. How on earth did people like Vodkamom; David at Authorblog; and Willow at Life at Willow Manor have thousands of followers?

Anyway, finding that most of these people were blogging about their life, I thought that’s a great idea. I mean, I‘ll be 68 this month for heaven‘s sake; there must have been something I had done in that amount of time that was a little bit interesting. So I started blogging about things I had experienced such as southern cockroaches, a particular recurring dream, and about somewhat humorous faux pas in my earlier life.

Then I started getting more than two comments which really made me feel good about my writing, so in early April, I started writing stories of my living and working abroad and I was in heaven with lots of encouraging comments… lots to me is more than two!

Among my very first and most faithful commenters are Beth at What I Should Have Said; Michel at Facts Are Strictly Optional; Suzanne at The Question of the Day; Derrick at Melrose Musings; Sheila at The Quintessential Magpie; Fragrant Liar; Lou Cinda at Tattered Hydrangeas; Nikki at Blah, Blah, Blah Blog; and Words of Wisdom from a Smart Mouth Broad. And of course, my daughter, Toni at Dee-Zigns Jewelry, who had just returned to blogging.

These wonderful people found and followed me from the beginning and I want to thank them collectively for giving me the confidence to charge ahead... and I want to thank all of those who jumped on my little wagon and remain with me to this day. You're on my blog roll so I won't be singling you out, but I hope you know how important you are to me!

Then I discovered awards when Beth at What I Should Have Said presented me (and Michel) with a Tuesday’s Tribute award. What an honor it was to receive that first award, and each one that came after was received with equal humility and pride. And I shared every one of them, unlike some people I know named Michel. When I received my first Post of the Day from David at Authorblog, I was over the top.

Throughout the following months until the present, I’ve discovered and am following many fantastic bloggers, so many of whom I consider to be friends even though we’ve never met. And it’s this feeling of friendship and sharing and closeness that keeps me blogging and I imagine will continue to do so for a long time to come… or at least until I run out of stories and/or memory, whichever comes first. At my age, you can never tell.

So I want to thank each and every one of you who has ever read even one of my posts, and whether you’ve ever commented or not. I feel I’m being followed by some of the very best people in blogland and I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for letting me tell you my stories and taking the time to read them.

Jane
Gaston Studio

Our Little Garage

2009-12-02T07:21:00.000-05:00

I married for love, not money. When my husband, Bill, and I first married, we lived with his family for a short while, then we lived in the upstairs apartment of an old Victorian of my paternal grandparents in downtown Savannah. This was in the early 1960s.

When I became pregnant with my second child, Sandi, we moved into a two car garage that had been renovated into an apartment. It wasn’t the Taj Mahal, but it was clean and had two bedrooms which was perfect for my daughter, Toni, and soon to be new baby.

Toni was precocious and curious about all things. One weekend morning in dead winter, it had snowed overnight. Yep, the occasional snow in the deep south does happen, about once every million years. Toni slept in her crib, but had long since figured out how to climb out and on this particular morning when we woke, she had not only climbed out but had pulled up a chair and opened the lock on the front door.

Like any mother would, I panicked. I instantly pictured my adorable little blonde haired girl in her sleepers walking around in the freezing snow, alone and frightened. Okay, it was only two inches of snow, but I have always had a vivid imagination. Bill threw on a coat and ran to our landlord’s house to see if she had maybe gone visiting as they often kept cookies for her.

I was very pregnant but ran out to look in the back yard, screaming her name like a banshee. With the landlords, we split up to canvass the neighborhood. It was only a few minutes later that Bill found her, playing in the snow behind the church that was right across the street. Her little hands were freezing and her sleeper feet were soaked, but she was fine and smiling. Bill immediately installed a lock on the front door, too high for her to reach.

We had a huge yard but it wasn’t fenced, and it seemed every time I was busy changing Sandi’s diapers, Toni would decide to “go see daddy” and would wander away. She never went far before I finished what I was doing and ran to collect her, but she needed constant watching if she was outside.

In the kitchen was one of those old type refrigerators with the tiny little freezer at the top, but that was okay. It worked just fine but there was something about the handle that intrigued my then two year old child. Toni was constantly opening and closing the refrigerator and yes, it got on my nerves to be also constantly correctly her.

Bill was a very handy man so I knew to find the stud, hammer in a nail as a starter hole, then screw in the hook. One day I had been using the hammer to put up some hooks in the kitchen for potholders and was using the top of the fridge to keep the hammer and hardware. Toni was opening and closing the refrigerator door, as usual, and I was telling her in a firm voice, as usual, to stop. And, as usual, she wasn’t listening.

At that time, I spanked my children, on the bottom, with my hand, when they persisted in misbehaving. On this day, I had spanked Toni once and she had gone into her bedroom to pout, but soon, she was back in the kitchen, at the fridge door, opening and closing, opening and closing, and occasionally sneaking a peak at me to see if I noticed.

I noticed all right and on this occasion, I suddenly grabbed the hammer and started beating on the door handle. I beat that handle right off the fridge while Toni stood there watching me, her eyes huge in what I suspect was fright. It only took a few seconds to beat the handle off, and then I scooped Toni up in my arms, went into the living room and cried and cried. I couldn’t believe I had been in such a rage and did such a thing in front of my baby girl.

After the crying jag was over and Toni realized she was in no danger of being hammered by me, she went to play with her toys while I tried to figure out how to open the door so that I could make dinner for my family. When Bill came home that evening, I was embarrassed to tell him what I had done. He listened patiently, then rigged up a screen door spring that was attached to the remains of the handle and wrapped around the side of the fridge where it could be attached to a screw he had placed on the back.

In this manner, I used that same old fridge for the remaining two years we lived in that small garage. Since it was a fridge my grandparents wasn’t using, at least we didn’t owe our landlords a new one. Many times, if I wasn’t careful unhooking the spring from the screw in back, it would dart forward quickly and hit me in the stomach. I figured this was my pain for having subjected my daughter to my anger.

Many years later, Bill told me he could have put a new handle on the door but he didn’t because he wanted me to be reminded of how I had reacted to a child’s curiosity. He felt the situation could have been handled differently and, of course, he was right. Toni couldn’t open that fridge again but she would watch me as I unhooked and rehooked the spring and I was sure she was going to give it a try some time, but she never did.

Thankfully, this incident didn’t deter Toni’s precociousness or curiosity and I’ll tell you about some of her escapades in later posts. But this is a child who loved/loves me unconditionally and has become one of the best mothers I’ve ever known. Where she learned how, I’ll never know but I’m glad she did as I have two beautiful and well behaved grandchildren, Erika and Blake. I’m so proud of Toni for being her independent, creative self, and for being such a good mom.

Jane
Gaston Studio

The Workhorse Factor

2009-11-23T07:34:00.000-05:00

Since I told you about my first date and first kiss and how my mother spoiled most of it, I figured I’d continue along this line for a while.

Evidently, my mother and my biological father didn’t get along because they divorced when I was still a babe in arms. She never allowed him to visit, according to my maternal grandmother, so I never knew my real father. When I was about 6 years old, my mother married my stepfather and a couple of years later, he formally adopted me and my last name was changed.

My mother and stepfather had four children together, so I was 8 years older than my first brother. I remember so well when she was first pregnant, how her emotions and moods would change rapidly. My stepdad was a gentle, fun loving man who always had a smile for everyone. He didn’t like confrontations, so when my mother would ask him to do something around the house, he would just do it; but sometimes, he didn’t do whatever it was fast enough to suit her. This is when she would climb up on the toilet and scream like a banshee that she would jump off and kill the baby.

Dad and I would be scared to death because even he didn’t know this wouldn‘t kill the baby; I would just cry because I was sure it would. She would stay up on the toilet until he completed the task she wanted which could have been something as simple as taking out the garbage or fixing a loose handle on a cabinet door. This was the late 40s, and pregnant women were still being treated as if they were fragile. Once the task was completed, she came down off the toilet smiling and laid down on the couch “to rest.”

Most days, in fact, my mother spent lying on the couch reading romance magazines, even after the babies came. She would ask me to get her a cup of coffee or a glass of ice tea and I would hop to it. My jobs, at 8 years old, was to fold the laundry, wash the dishes, sweep the floors and mop the kitchen floor every night after dinner. My mom liked a clean house and if I didn’t do my chore according to her specifications, I was ordered to do it over and over until it was acceptable. Another job of mine was to entertain my baby brother and feed him a bottle once he was off breast milk. This wasn't exaclty a chore, but it sure took up a lot of my time.

On many a Saturday during school days, I would be responsible for changing my brother’s diapers, feeding him and generally keeping him entertained. Around the neighborhood, I was being called my mom’s workhorse; I know this because a couple of kids were laughing at me one day, and calling me that name when I said I couldn’t come out and play with them. Obviously, they had heard this from their mothers.

In order to keep peace around our house, my dad and I had to keep my mother placated. It was that simple. If she wasn’t happy, she would seize anything in her path to get our attention. One day when we were returning from the grocery store, she was arguing with him about forgetting some item. He apologized and said he’d go back and get it, but evidently that wasn’t good enough or fast enough for her because the next thing I knew, she had hit him full across the face with the baby bottle she had been feeding my brother.

I could see the milk dripping from his head and face while he tried to maintain control. Glass went everywhere, My mother sat there while my brother and I cried and stared him down. The only thing he said was that he would get us ‘settled’ in the house and go back to the grocery store. While he was gone, I received a beating because I didn’t refill the baby bottle fast enough. And yes, it was a beating because she used a switch she kept in the kitchen, cut from one of the young trees in the yard and she didn’t stop until I was bleeding on my legs. As I got older, she used a variety of other items.

Twenty minutes after dad returned and once my brother was put down, everything became ‘peaceful’ again. Peaceful meant that my mother wasn’t screaming threats at one of us, switching me for doing her bidding fast enough, or scowling at the world in general.

On Thanksgiving day, a few weeks after the baby bottle incident, she called my dad to dinner. He was in the living room watching a football game and said to give him three more minutes so he could watch the current play. My mother didn’t hesitate. Within those three minutes she had thrown every single dish, including the turkey, out the back door into the yard. I sat at the table holding my baby brother and trembled as I watched her race back and forth.

When my dad came into the kitchen with a big smile on his face that quickly turned to shock, he was furious. He grabbed her as she was tossing out the final dish and they wrestled for a few seconds while she cursed him like the proverbial sailor. When he released her, and asked her why she threw everything out, she calmly told him that the next time she called him to dinner, he better come. We had cheese sandwiches for Thanksgiving that year while the dogs in the neighborhood feasted.

We didn’t have airconditioning back then and winters in Savannah were mostly mild, so pretty much everyone had their windows and doors open. I saw several neighborhood women halfway hiding behind trees as they watched the unthanksgiving-like scene unfold. As I got older, I wondered if these scenes were why we moved so often.

It was years before I realized that this was not the way normal families lived. It was years before I began wondering why dad didn’t stop her from beating me with whatever was handy if he was home. It was years before I started wondering why she hated me so much.

Jane

NOTE: I’m writing about these once painful events in my life because I hope they will help someone out there in blogland who may be on either end of this spectrum. To bring to light, that there are many persons suffering from a mental illness that could easily be controlled if they seek professional help. If you know of a child in this situation, please talk to them or get them to someone who can.

A "for real" concerned author...

2009-11-19T14:32:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I posted a Dear So and So… about the book, The Hidden Man, and in my post I complained to the author, David Ellis, that there was a glaring mistake in the book. Mr. Ellis has kindly responded with the following:

"David Ellis has left a new comment on your post Dear So and So...:

Well, I couldn't help but notice someone writing about my book ...

... I understand the comments but it was NOT a mistake! Nor were they flashbacks. I think that is the source of the confusion.

Jason imagines / fantasizes several scenes, as he pines over his lost wife (Talia) and daughter (Emily). None of those scenes actually happened. They couldn't have; Emily died at 3 months. So, as Jason continued to project what life would have been like with Talia, he projects that there would be another child named Justine, and yet another on the way. Justine never existed. Just part of his continuing fantasies about Life-with-Talia, if she had lived.

Sorry for the confusion, but that's different than saying it was a mistake. It was not. Probably just a bad choice on my part. But I hope your readers aren't going to turn away from a good novel (if I do say so myself) over this issue.

Thanks,
Dave Ellis"

Looking back with this explanation, I can see that Jason was fantasizing about the life he could have had with his wife, child and children to be. I rarely do book reviews and the main reason is because I read so much and that’s what I like to do, read, not complain. But I definitely thought Jason was having flashbacks and a horrible mistake had taken place while the book was being edited.

For the record, I’d like to repeat what I said in my original opening statement… The Hidden Man had me on a roller coaster ride from the very first page and it kept me there until the very last page. When I turned off my Kindle, I had two thoughts: “I want to read more about Jason Kolarich in future books, and this will make one helluva movie.”

So, I apologize to Mr. Ellis for saying there was an editorial mistake in his latest book, but honestly, that’s exactly how it came over to me, the reader. My perception, right?
I aslo thank Mr. Ellis for actually caring enough to clear up my misperception by responding in my blog and to my personal email.

And finally, I would highly recommend this book, The Hidden Man, as well as any of his other books to anyone who wants a really good read. I'll be buying his next book, for sure, and I really hope Jason Kolarich will be the main character!

Jane
Gaston Studio