Milestones

This week marks a significant birthday for me. I will achieve an age I never imagined I would be: 65. 

My last birthday was a strange one, because I became an age that my mother did not live past. Now I will be older than she ever was. I think she hated growing old, and that passage was made harder for both of us by my teenage flourishing at the same time she was navigating menopause. I don't know -- I'm just guessing. We never had the chance to discuss it, and maybe we never would have discussed it, even if she had lived longer. But being this age has given me new insight into her experience. 

Now I am looking into chronological territory inhabited by my dad (who lived to 76) and his mother (who lived to 93). Those are the milestones of my future, still in the far distance. 

A milestone birthday does make you think about things, though. 

My friends are retiring and I am so happy for them. I don't feel envious; I like my life as it is. (I wouldn't turn down that winning lottery ticket, but otherwise . . .  no changes needed.) I expect to keep working, partly because it's smarter financially and partly because I enjoy it. My job is high satisfaction and low stress, and I'm very happy to keep rolling along there, still good at what I do. 

Horseback riding continues to be a great joy. My schedule is flexible, the people are wonderful, and Riddle is a willing and generous partner who takes good care of me. I'm so glad I started again just a year ago. I will continue as long as I'm able, and I think continuing will help keep me able. 

I wish the Medicare salespeople would Quit! Calling! Me! as I am not signing up for anything. One of the benefits of working is keeping my employer-provided insurance. Medicare would not be cheaper or better. (I checked.)

I am changing my attitudes about things, though, well aware (in a cheerful way) that I have limited time left. 

Less time dedicated to "self-improvement" and more time at home in my skin. 

Less concern with what others think about me and more concern with what I think about me. 

Less volunteering to serve every need and more availability for what matters most. 

Less putting things off for "someday" and more commitment to enjoying things now. 

Right now, also: less salad and more cake!     

Hooray and Goodbye

I'm so happy to be celebrating another championship for my favorite team, the Boston Red Sox. I inherited my loyalty from my dad, who followed the Sox all his life and faced all the classic disappointments -- including the legendary debacle in 1986 -- but didn't live long enough to see them win a World Series. 

I thought of him when I was at Fenway Park this summer, and I'll be thinking of him when I see the 2018 banner, next time I visit.

Goodbye, summer. Now it's a long wait until spring . . . . 

Nothing But Fun on Labor Day Weekend

Oh, the joy of a little bit of almost everything: a visit with Kayak Guy's family, the beach (snorkeling, seashells, fishes, and a giant manta ray), and horses -- plus eating, reminiscing over old photos, and lots of laughter.

Perfect!

Blowing Rocks Beach

Butler

Radar

Kayak Guy's parents, Marshall and Mary

Happy Father's Day, Dad

My dad is the one standing on the left with his hand to his mouth, eating a candy bar. These guys were pretty hungry. When this picture was taken, he and his fellow Marines were being transported out of a jungle on Guadalcanal, where they had been holed up for 17 days straight in monsoon weather. Dad said he never took off his boots and his feet developed jungle rot. He also came down with malaria. My dad and his unit also fought in battles on Peleliu and Cape Gloucester. If you happened to catch "The Pacific" episodes that recently aired on HBO, the series depicted my dad's outfit, the First Marine Division.

Dad, who was 19 at the time, said some of the other Marines in the picture didn't make it home. He was one of the lucky ones who did. Otherwise I wouldn't be here today.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.

April Fool

April Fool's Day was a free-for-all at my house while I was growing up. It might not rate on the scale of other families, where there were lots of brothers and sisters to take part, but it was a very lighthearted day for the three of us.

If you forgot to be on guard, you were likely to put salt instead of sugar on your cereal, or be served shaving cream instead of whipped cream atop your dessert. My father and I were the main perpetrators, with my mother as a willing or unaware accomplice, depending on the joke. We never played any tricks on her, low comedy not being her strong point.

The most successful April Fool's Day ever went down like this:

I announced at breakfast, having had no trick played on me yet that day, that I was too old for April Fool's foolishness and was not planning to participate that year. My father agreed that was an excellent idea. It was time for me to put away childish things and start acting like an adult.

We kept up this ruse all day long, and laid it on thick at dinnertime, too. Apparently we dissed the family tradition once too often, because my mother lost her temper with us and turned on the silent treatment. That made for a rather strained end to a day without hilarity.

But all was not lost! In the midst of all my pronouncements, I knew that I'd spent a few minutes earlier in the day short-sheeting their bed. So there was a little surprise waiting for my father, who always turned in first.

What I didn't know was that my father had spent a few minutes earlier doing the same thing to mine!

I don't remember who fell victim to the joke first, but much hilarity ensued when bedtime rolled around. And the victim got sweet revenge only a few minutes later, when the second half of the joke was activated. The joke turned out to be on my mother, as well. It was a perfect storm.

That was the last time I celebrated April Fool's Day at home. I was off to college after that, and April foolishness was never quite the same. But I would often get a message from my dad on April 1, even years later, indicating that a "Mr. Lyon" had called for me at my parents' house and could I please call him back at so-and-so number. Which was the number of the local zoo. I fell for it, once, too. "Hello, may I please speak to Mr. Lyon?"

Happy day and happy memories everyone. And don't forget to play a little joke along the way.

Man-Cooking in Two States

C.S. went to visit his folks this Christmas and they had a deep fried turkey. No photos of that, unfortunately. But heating the oil involved quite a lot of equipment and supervision by various male relatives.

Meanwhile, my Yorkshire pudding was a big success. The Making of the Pudding was quite a production when I was growing up: my father's contribution to Christmas dinner and a source of tension, in case it didn't rise. As with a souffle, an essential part of the process is not opening the oven door to check on how it's doing, lest it "fall."

I'm not sure if the closed door is actually necessary, or just a local rule designed to increase anticipation within the family and reflect greater glory upon the cook.

Now that I've inherited the Making of the Pudding, thank goodness for ovens with windows and lights! I had a lot less to worry about while I was heating the gravy.

Department of Snappy Replies

Willow over at Willow Manor posted about a funny response to a phone solicitor's inquiry, and that reminded me of a few quick rejoinders that became legend in my family.

I tend to be rather flat-footed in the repartee department, so I can appreciate the quick thought and nimble wit it takes to deliver a really good response on the spur of the moment.

And so, without further ado:

Snappy Reply #1:

My dad, answering the phone: Hello?

Caller: Who dis?

My dad: Who you?

Snappy Reply #2:

My mother, answering the doorbell: Hello?

Religious stranger: Good afternoon, M'am. Have you been born again?

My mother: Good Lord, no! We're Episcopalian.

The Inside Out of Anger

Ruth over at synch-ro-niz-ing posted about Anger recently, and as often happens, reading her post caused me to think more deeply and carefully about her subject than usual. She also reminded me of the day I received a precious piece of insight into my own impulse to anger, one that has served me well in the years since.

It happened at the time that my mother was being diagnosed with lung cancer, the cancer that had been growing for some time but killed her within 30 days of her first doctor's visit. I was 26, newly married, and badly equipped to cope with the reality of her illness. I mean, I was doing my best, but as I look back at my young self, I realize how little I knew about life and how few emotional resources I had to share with her, even as I was trying to cope and help my father cope, as well.

Because Mama always spent money on the family before she spent it on herself, she didn't have a decent nightgown to wear in the hospital, so I took myself off to the local department store to buy her a pretty nightgown. This was probably a poor effort to comfort her on my part, but it was the best I could do. And I know she was embarrassed by what she had to wear. So.

After I made my choice and walked up to the counter to pay, the telephone rang and the clerk answered it before waiting on me. I could only hear one side of the conversation, but I could tell that the person on the other end was shopping for perfume and asking many questions about different brands, different sizes, and different prices. This meant the clerk had to find the key to the display case, open the case, pick up the boxes in their various sizes, check the prices, relay the prices to the person over the phone, and then repeat the process with another brand in another case. It seemed to be taking a long time.

Meanwhile, I was standing there waiting to pay for my mother's nightgown. It didn't take a long time for me to reach the boiling point. I wanted to scream at the clerk: "I am an actual customer, here in your store! I am here with my money to buy your merchandise! You are spending all this time on someone who isn't even here, someone who is just price-shopping! And I'm standing here waiting to buy a nightgown FOR MY MOTHER WHO IS IN THE HOSPITAL DYING OF CANCER!"

If I had opened my mouth, this speech would have come out at the approximate volume of a steam whistle.

But it only took a moment for me to realize: These people don't know any of this. It doesn't show, it isn't written on my forehead, there's no sign over my head, there's no visible weight on my shoulders. There's no point in being angry with them. They just don't know.

So I didn't open my mouth. I waited, and my mother got her nightgown that day, eventually.

Since then, when strangers behave badly--cut me off in traffic, or speak rudely, or butt in front of me in line--I may speak up, if it seems like the right thing to do. But I'm also likely to view their bad behavior with compassion, and not say anything at all. I had a good reason to behave badly that day. Maybe they do, too.

About My Mom, On Her Birthday

I've written about my dad a couple of times, without saying anything about my mom. It seems right to do this now, though, even knowing she would NOT want to be blogged about.

It's Mama's birthday, but no way am I going to discuss her age. On her 40th birthday, she was so depressed that she spent most of the day in bed, reading and smoking cigarettes. Around 4:00, she started calculating and figured out that she was only 39. So she got up and made dinner, like always.

Over time she shaved off a few more years, so I can't say that I know her real age, anyway.

Mama was very beautiful and athletic. That's her on the right.

Mama met my father at the water cooler at work. She always said she fell in love with him the first time she saw him in tennis shorts. Apparently she really liked his knees. I bet he liked her knees, too. (Here, she has a hat, he doesn't.)

They made a handsome couple. First in California, where they met.

Later in Florida.

Mama was head of the altar guild for a while (she's second from the left) and she and my dad were part of a fancy social set. One time the Premier of Antigua visited my father's business and they threw a big party for him. My mother got out her Emily Post book and handled everything herself, including all the protocol. Not bad for the daughter of a railroad engineer from Peoria, Illinois.

Mama never worked outside the home after she married my dad. She made a beautiful house for us instead. We always had a full dinner, with china, candles and fresh flowers from the yard on the table. And when my dad traveled for work, our big indulgence was to get Kentucky Fried Chicken and eat in front of the t.v.

Mama sewed all our curtains and slipcovers. She made fabulous Barbie clothes. She made almost all of my clothes, too, even when I was in my 20's. She made my wedding dress.

I think Mama missed having a career, though. I think she wanted to be a lawyer, because she sure wanted me to be one. "Or at least marry one," as she used to say. College was required, not optional.

When Mama got lung cancer, she didn't go to the doctor until it was very advanced, and she didn't fight very hard. Her two dearest friends had already died from it, after having surgery and some very primitive kinds of chemotherapy and radiation that amounted to torture.

Mama thought she saw the writing on the wall when she got it, too. She died within a month of her diagnosis, and she never even got signed up with hospice.

I was 26 and had been off to college, and then married and moved away. I was just getting to know her, without all the teenage mother-daughter push-pull. I thought there was plenty of time.

Another Birthday Story

C.S. and I figured we could be meant for each other when we discovered we were born one day apart. That means we get to celebrate Birthday Eve, like New Year's Eve, where midnight means his birthday and my birthday touch.

It also means we add our birthdays together and celebrate that number instead of our own personal numbers. It helps take the sting out of the magnitude of the personal number. Trust me, this year the total of our ages is one seriously large number.

Rather than dwell on that . . . .

I'm adopted, and my parents took me home from the hospital when I was three days old. I don't know who my biological parents were. Because everything was prearranged, I went straight from the baby window to my new parents. It was kind of a family joke that when they handed me to my mom, she handed me right off to my dad. She was so excited and shaky, she was afraid she'd drop me.

Here's the scene almost one year later, at the first in a series of birthday parties. I've heard tell that I was afraid of the beach ball, but you can't tell from this picture. I'm thinking that fear was probably counterbalanced by my first encounter with birthday cake.

A Birthday Story

My mother's Southern accent is so twangy that when she and my Dad were living in upstate New York way back when, a cash register clerk once instructed a bagboy to "Take this lady's groceries to the first foreign car you see because I haven't understood a word she's said."

Her Southern heritage helped get me delivered, too. The story goes that Dad dropped Mom (and unborn me) off at the hospital on his way to work. I guess it was a different time back then, when the husbands weren't part of the delivery process. At any rate, I was being stubborn and Mom was in labor for quite a long time -- so long that my Mom must have told the nurses her whole life history and about growing up in the South. She still tears up every time they play "My Old Kentucky Home" on Derby day. But I wasn't budging. Finally, out of desperation, they decided to point the bed with feet pointed south, hoping that would improve their luck. And out I came.

Mom called Dad to deliver the news, and he raced to the hospital to see the both of us. I lived a chunk of my life in Kentucky and Virginia -- and live now in Florida -- but I don't have a lick of her accent. It wore off during the time I lived in Ohio and Illinois, and so I speak in the Midwestern tongue even though I'd probably classify myself as more Southern than anything. With me, there's never any confusion over where the supermarket bagboy should take my groceries.

Things My Father Taught Me

How to float on my back in the ocean. He could float for hours. Once I think he actually dozed off.

How to throw a football, play poker and stay loyal to the Red Sox. I was a bit of a tomboy.

How to catch lizards, frogs, and flying squirrels in a shoebox when they get into the house. We could never seem to remember to put the cap on the chimney in time.

How to stay calm in a crisis. I never heard him raise his voice. I never saw him angry or frustrated. I never knew him to get excited about anything bad. A game-winning home run or a successful rocket launch, sure. But the other stuff? Not worth it. As a prime example: one morning he came downstairs carrying a 4-foot rat snake. He found it in the bathroom, draped around the ornate gold frame of the bathroom mirror. He said that while he was shaving, he kept looking at the mirror, trying to figure out what was different about it. Finally he realized there were two eyes looking back at him! So he grabbed the snake by the back of the head and carried it downstairs to show us, before releasing it outside.

It never rains at the golf course. Even when the weather was nasty, he always disappeared around 7:30 a.m. on Saturday and reappeared about 1:30 p.m. That was his time and nothing ever interfered. Except I got married on a Saturday morning. It may have been the only time he missed a Saturday in 50 years. He teased me a lot about that, but I don't think he really minded. He told me a lot of jokes while we waited in the back of the church, so I wouldn't be nervous.

A bedtime story always begins like this: "It was a dark and stormy night in the Adam-rondacks. Three men were sitting around a campfire. One was tall and slim and his name was Slim. One was short and fat and his name was Fat. One was medium sized and his name was Mac." From there, no telling what would happen. But Mac was always the hero.

When you fix things, go ahead and make a big mess. The most important thing is to fix the problem. You can clean up afterwards. If anyone challenges your methods, say "We works dirty, but we does a clean job."

One festive piece of clothing goes a long way. Just be sure you can still fit into it from year to year. Daddy had a red velvet vest that he wore every Christmas that I can remember. Add that to "the uniform" and he was good to go.

A good pun is a gift that keeps on giving. Even now I find myself saying "Hasta banana" instead of "Hasta manana."

It's a good life if you don't weaken. If we have a family motto, this is it. Daddy died in his sleep 18 years ago. He was 76, and he was still playing golf three times a week.

And I'll always be my father's daughter.

On Mother's Day

Miss you, Mama.

More About My Dad

The nice thing about a "uniform" is that you feel properly dressed in so many different situations.

It works when you're carving the turkey at Thanksgiving.



It works when you and your daughter need to put the flag up.

It even works when you're spending your Sunday evening doing a friend's taxes.

When you start out as a handsome young executive . . .

you wear the uniform a lot, and you still look pretty good when you retire . . .

and exchange that uniform for a different one.

Some people might say you look your handsomest in your golf clothes.

Well, most of the time.

Happy Birthday, Daddy

Today my father would have been 93.

If I'd thought about this slightly more in advance, I would have some photos scanned in to show you. But instead I have only verbal snapshots.

My father grew up in New Hampshire on a farm. He rode or drove a horse to school, left it in the livery stable during the day, and then returned home on it in the afternoon. His father was a horse trader and took pride in always having the fastest horse around. Daddy occasionally got into a few "drag races." One of my favorite family stories tells how he'd done my grandmother's grocery shopping in town one day and on the way home, he took a corner too fast and tipped the sleigh over into a snowbank. Some of those groceries weren't found until spring! I think racing may have figured into this story, but he never admitted it.

My father studied engineering and worked for Westinghouse in Boston. He used to go to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox when you could get in for 75 cents and popcorn was a nickle, or some such other ridiculously low prices. He and his Boston buddies also used to stay home, play poker, and listen to the game on the radio. I inherited my team loyalty to the Red Sox from him. It's hereditary, you know, because why else would anyone sign on for large annual doses of hope and disappointment? I'm one of those people who cried when they won in 2004, because although he never stopped hoping that This Is The Year, he didn't live to see it.

My father came to Florida in 1953 on a two year assignment for the space program. He never left. He said he'd already seen enough snow to last him a lifetime. He went to work every day wearing a short-sleeved white shirt, a skinny tie with a tie clip, dark pants, and shiny black shoes. For a while he had glasses with thick black frames. A friend's father worked with my dad and we saw a picture of them getting a safety award once. I said, "Byron, I think our fathers were nerds!" And he said, "Nope, our fathers were rocket scientists."

My father played golf three times a week. There may have been some betting involved. Even when it rained all day on Saturday, my father never came home early. He used to say, "It never rains at the golf course." All his golfing buddies came to his funeral in their pastel golf clothes. One of them said to me, "I played golf with that bandit for 40 years." Even the funeral of one of their own wouldn't stop them from having a good round that day.

Among other things, my father taught me that when you go in the ocean first thing in the morning, you need to shuffle your feet so the stingrays will know you're coming and swim away. Years later, I taught my kids the same thing. I never felt very brave about this method, even though it works. But when you're the parent, bravery is your department. Even now, when things get tough, I sometimes remember my father saying "Oh, don't worry about it. Just shuffle your feet."