Author Archives: Diana

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About Diana

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Sartorial Vagaries of Tucson

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We moved to Tucson from the Pacific Northwest, where gray skies and moderate temperatures abounded. We laughingly called rain, liquid sunshine, in an effort to not feel left out when the rest of the country experienced bouts, sometimes whole days of bright skies. The first year and into the second year in Tucson, I marveled that Dillard’s, Sears, and Penney’s stores offered sweaters and even jackets for sale. Why oh why would they have such useless apparel in the stores? I dressed year-round in shorts and sleeveless tops…for the first two years.

Then my blood became as thin as pomegranate juice. I discovered I NEEDED a sweater, especially when going into stores because of the excessive air conditioning. I needed a sweatshirt, sometimes a jacket, for winter, to wear with full-length pants. I began to need long underwear as temps dipped below 80° in November.

Relatives and friends who don’t live here think it strange. 80° is my bottom-line temperature now. Anything below that I consider frigid and requires supplementary attire to combat goose bumps. Long underwear is a staple. Heaven forefend if the atmosphere drops below 50°! I become bundled like an Eskimo. I scan internet ads for excursions to the equator.  Fortunately, those chilly temperatures only occur at night when I’m snug in bed with quilts and comforters and a warm hubby beside me.

On the other hand, I can comfortably live in 105°. Of course, I go from my air-conditioned house to my air-conditioned car to an air-conditioned store and back again. I’m not standing outside all day or working in the blazing heat. I worry about those who work in temps up to 115°. I asked Jeff, our landscape guru, how he and his team worked outside all day without expiring. He said they start early, at dawn, when the temperature is milder, and as temperatures rise, their bodies adjust. They are covered head to toe in protective clothing, so the sun doesn’t directly hit their skin, and wear big hats to shade their faces. They drink gallons of water. The dry desert heat evaporates perspiration before you even know you have sweated. They usually quit work around 3:00 pm, which is the hottest time of day.

Yesterday, dressed in a long-sleeve top under a long-sleeve sweater and long fleecy pants, I went to the grocery store. Bright sunshine lit my world. I watched people going in and out of the grocery store. I could pick out the snowbirds, winter visitors, immediately. They wore shorts and tank tops. They thought they were experiencing summer, that 68° and sunshine meant it was warm outside. I could only laugh to myself. It was exactly what I thought thirty years ago.

Twenty Lovers

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In the springtime of my life

I set goals, many goals.

One I knew I could easily quantify,

Twenty Lovers

The first was chosen carefully.

Who deserved to capture my virginity?

It turned out he was a virgin too.

All we needed was each other’s body,

Until we didn’t.

The second was better.

I knew what I hadn’t known before.

He was generous,

I was indulged, I learned.

He left me wiser.

The third was great.

Now I wanted more than his body.

I wanted his mind, maybe his soul.

He lit me from the inside.

Our passion was bright, hot, and short.

The fourth, well, they can’t all be good.

He took from me what I didn’t want to give.

He mastered me for a time.

I learned his game and left.

My ego dented, questioning my goal.

The fifth was, no is

The last in my life. Not merely a lover,

My love. Even if he leaves me

There can be no other.

He is my forever.

This poem is dedicated to those who were not fortunate enough to find their perfect love on the first try but did find it at last. This is a sample of stories they told me.

My Night in Jail

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In 1990, we had our house remodeled. The kids were all off on their own. To avoid staying in the mess during a six-week remodel, Ken and I decided to live aboard our sailboat Wind Dancer, which we moored at the Elliot Bay Marina in Seattle. We commuted from there during the week to our jobs in Bellevue. It was truly a wonderful summer. The remodel ended up being closer to three months – as remodels are wont to do. Sitting on the aft deck of the boat in the evening with a glass of wine, watching the lights come on all over the city, reflecting squiggly colored lights in the inky waters, was a magical experience. All was well and we were content.

My cousin came to town, her first time in Seattle. She stayed with my brother’s family since we obviously couldn’t accommodate her and her two kids on our boat. I wanted to show her around when I could, so we made a date for the weekend to go out to dinner and a little tour of the city.

We went out to a nice dinner, then I drove her to see some of the interesting sights and viewpoints. Summer evenings in Seattle are light until very late. Afterward, I was going to take her back to Bellevue to my brother’s house.

It was 11:00, night had come, and the streets of Bellevue were dark and empty. We came to a stop sign at the intersection where I would turn from the right lane to go to my brother’s, but I decided to turn left to show her something of interest that I had forgotten. I turned left from the wrong lane just as a police car drove over the hill behind us, and I knew they spotted my illegal turn. Again, there were NO other cars on the road in any direction, and I didn’t see the police car because it didn’t come over the rise of the hill until I was halfway through my turn. I knew they would stop me, so I immediately pulled over to the side of the street after completing the turn. Sure enough, the lights went on, and the police car pulled up behind me. A young female officer got out and came to my window with her flashlight.

“You made an illegal left turn. Let me see your license and registration.”

I pulled my driver’s license from my purse, got the registration from the console, and handed them to her.

“Have you been drinking?”

“Yes, I had a glass of wine with dinner an hour or so ago.”

“Ok. Get out of the car and take a breathalyzer.”

Now this is where things went wonky. Not more than a month before, Ken and I had dinner with an attorney friend of ours, and he mentioned apropos to nothing, “Don’t ever take a field sobriety test. They aren’t reliable. Go to the police station if they insist on a breathalyzer.”

“No”, says I. “I won’t take a field sobriety test.”

She was visibly surprised that I refused.

“Just wait in the car, I’ll be right back.”

She went to her car and was on the phone. Within two minutes, three other police cars appeared. My car was surrounded, one behind me, one in front of me, turned to face me, one beside me blocking the street, faced the side of my car, and a fourth on the other side drove into the parking lot of the business next to where I parked on the street and faced my car. All their bright headlights were trained on me, and their roof lights rotated a merry spectacle. It looked like we were in a concert venue, and I was the star attraction. Again, I emphasize, there were no other cars on the street during this time.

The officer came back to my car. “Get out. You’re going to do a sobriety test.”

“Fine,” I said, knowing I wasn’t the least bit inebriated.

“Take off your shoes. Walk a line heel to toe with one foot in front of the other. Touch your nose with your finger.” Etc. etc. I took off my high heels, and I really don’t remember all her directions, but my nylons were being shredded. I did as I was told. Meanwhile, six other police officers were standing around me and my car. My poor cousin was stuck inside, wondering what was going on. I surmised that I somehow had been misidentified as a serial killer or terrorist. I was mildly amused by all the attention, but tried to keep a straight face, figuring humor at this juncture would not be well received.

After the drunk test, the officer said, “You are under arrest.”

“Why?”

“You didn’t follow orders, you were unbalanced, I think you’re drunk.”

There were six other policemen around me, and not one of them objected or said anything. I knew I’d done exactly what she asked. Now I was surprised.

“What am I supposed to do with my car?”

“The woman in your car can drive it to your house.”

“No, she can’t. Our house is under construction. I live on a sailboat in Elliot Bay. She is visiting from Kansas and doesn’t know the area. I was taking her to stay with my brother when I made the bad decision to turn from the wrong lane.”

“Okay, she can follow us to the station, and your brother can pick her up. She can leave your car there.”

It was beginning to feel surreal, but I had no choice with seven police persons surrounding me. The police station was only two blocks from where I was stopped. No big deal for my cousin to follow them to the station. I was handcuffed and put in the back of the patrol car. The seat was a molded bench with a back, not anything like a normal car backseat. Wow, you do have to duck your head to avoid getting bonked when you get in the backseat. Another learning experience. All their cars made a U-turn in the middle of the street (definitely an illegal maneuver), and my cousin followed. I reiterate – there were NO other cars on the street. During the entire thirty or forty-minute procedure, only three cars came to that stop sign intersection. They could see the street was blocked by police action and quickly turned in the opposite direction from our circus.

My cousin called my brother from the station, and he came to get her. I was detained in the back and didn’t see him, so I couldn’t explain.  I was photographed, fingerprinted, and all my personal information was taken before I was ushered to a straight-backed chair against the wall. Two other people were sitting there in chairs. One by one, they were taken out. I don’t know why or where they went. Again, I was asked to take the breathalyzer. Now my stubborn streak kicked in. I declined the offer. Three or four police quietly conversed behind the desk with the arresting officer. I watched the goings-on with interest. They were obviously prepping her. Meanwhile, two drunks were brought in separately – two obviously drunk men weaving their way with officers holding them up. I watched as they were booked, etc. Couldn’t they see the observable difference between those drunks and sober me? An administrator type came over to me with a piece of paper.

“Sign this,” he said.

“Ok. Let me read it first.” I read it, and it had to do with agreeing to the charges and waiving my rights. After over a thirty years passage of time, I don’t remember exactly what the document was, but upon reading it, I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to sign.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not drunk, and this doesn’t appear to be something I want to sign. Can I make a phone call?”

“Do you have an attorney?”

“Yes, I’ll call him.”  At that time, we didn’t have cell phones, so I could not reach my husband on the boat for advice. I called our attorney friend, the one who told us not to do a field sobriety test. Unfortunately, he was asleep as it was about 1:30 am, so he didn’t answer his phone. On top of that, Bob is a real estate attorney, not a criminal defense attorney, so he probably wouldn’t have been much help.

“Well, I guess I don’t have an attorney.”

“We’re going to put you in a cell, now.” Two officers walked me down a hall to a nice, clean beige cement room with a sink, toilet, and bench-like cement ledge on the wall. They took off my handcuffs. The front of the cell was bars, just like on TV.  I wasn’t upset by the turn of the evening events, secure in the knowledge that I was not drunk. I was more curious and mildly amused. What would be next on the menu of procedural absurdities? Would I be strung up by my manacled hands like a ham with a lash applied to my naked back until I confessed to treason?  Ah, maybe a bit too dramatic.

I was in the cell for a while. Time was a blur. There were no clocks visible, and I don’t wear a watch. I was sleepy, but the concrete ledge didn’t invite sleep, so I sat on it leaning against the corner of the wall. Finally, an officer came to my little room and told me he would take me to the phone; they had the name of a public defender who would talk to me. I followed him and called the number he gave me.  The officer never left my side. The public defender (I’m sure awakened from his sleep and not in the best mood) said I was obligated to take the breathalyzer test and that I could call him the next day, and he would explain everything to me.

I took the breathalyzer, and they put me back in my cell.  An unknown amount of time again went by before they came to get me. The officer said, “Here are your keys, your car is by the front door. We will contact you about your trial.”

“What trial? I’m not guilty of drunk driving, only an illegal turn. Can’t I pay the ticket and go home?”

“No, you are charged with drunk driving, and you refused to sign the charge document, so it has to go to a judge.”

“What did my breathalyzer show?”

“You blew .01, that is why we are letting you drive home.”

“But I’m still charged with drunk driving?”

“That was what you were arrested for; now it has to be adjudicated.”

By that time, the sun was up. I drove to the marina and told Ken the whole story. He was surprised, but relieved to know I had been in a safe place staying out all night. I went instantly to sleep. Rocked by the boat’s gentle motion, I slept about four hours.

My trial was set for several weeks from that night. In the meantime, I met with the attorney who said I wouldn’t be found guilty of drunk driving but of reckless driving. It was the harshest thing they could legally charge me with, instead of a simple illegal turn. The police were unhappy with my attitude. The arresting officer was a rookie, and I had made her first arrest a nightmare.

By the time of the trial, we were back in our beautiful newly remodeled home. The night before my trial, I decided to dye my hair. I don’t remember the exact reason, but I did try to dye my hair. The next day, my hair was pink. I called my daughter and said, “Help, I have to go to court, and they’ll probably rearrest me for some obscure infraction if I show up with pink hair.” She called her good friend, who was a hair stylist, and together they got my hair back to a reasonable hue.

At the trial, the six policemen sat directly behind me as I waited for my case to be brought up. I waved and smiled at them. They didn’t respond. Were they trying to be intimidating? Why would all six men take time from their real work to watch my trial? The arresting officer testified with untruths. She indicated I got my registration out of the glove box, but I kept it in the console between the front seats. She said I was wobbly when I did the drunk test, I wasn’t. I finally got the clue about one of the reasons she thought I was drunk. She said my eyes were red and weepy. That was true. I had been with my cousin for several hours, and she was a smoker. She smoked in my car while we drove around, and my eyes burned from the cigarette fumes. I was called to testify and pointed out the officer’s mistakes about where the registration was, and that she said I was wobbly when I knew I was steady, and my eyes were red, but it was from cigarette smoke, not alcohol. I added that I blew a .01 on the breathalyzer, so I couldn’t have been drunk anyway. The judge said I had to pay a fine for reckless driving, but it wouldn’t stay on my record if I didn’t get any moving violations for a year. Then I had to pay the attorney a ridiculous amount to represent me with a pro forma script he could have recited in his sleep. Theater of the Absurd.

And that is the story of my night in jail.

His Hands

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His large hand enfolded my own tentative, smaller one on our first date, a move at once assertive but reassuring.

His hands cupped my face, tenderly bestowing our first kiss, third date.

His hand on the small of my back guided me around the dance floor on prom night, and then into our life together.

His hands took mine before God, friends, and family, and placed a ring on my third finger, left hand.

His hands that I crunched with intensity every time cascading labor pains racked my body.

His hand gently held the head of our newborn, her little feet barely reaching the length of his arm to the crook of his elbow.

His hands challenged his copper-miner father’s tough hands to arm wrestling duels – winning more than half the time.

His hand deftly translated an engineer’s arithmetic scribble into precisely drafted drawings of a bridge, or a building, or a subdivision with roads and utilities.

His hand, large enough to hide a baseball and manipulate the shape of a pitch with fingers across seams, two or four, so that it would float surreptitiously by or speed swiftly past a ready batter.

His hands devoted their strength to sensual massages of my body and much appreciated foot rubs.

His hands could fix a toaster or rewire a house.

His hands could stem a bathroom flood or change a kitchen faucet.

His hands cut firewood for our fireplaces.

His hands could adjust a timing belt on an engine or change a tire with dexterity and ease.

His hands mastered every tool needed to maintain our home and cars.

His hands painted every wall in our house with sometimes two or three colors in a room, the joining place of the colors knife-edged perfect.

His hands taught our grandson to build an RC airplane and fly it.

His hands, my safe place.

His hands changed when Parkinson’s appeared with trembling that became shakes, then quakes, until he could barely get a fork to his mouth using both hands.

His hands returned to peace after brain surgery calmed the quakes.

His hands, thin-skinned with ropey blue veins near the surface now weakened, no longer able to open pickle jars or pop champagne corks with aplomb.

His hands still reach across the bed at night to rub my back, soothing unspecified tensions that hide in the crevices of my being.

Jazz Hands – an essay on six degrees of separation

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I lived most of my life in Bellevue, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. I met my husband while still in high school. Ken was a senior at Bellevue HS, a rival high school. I went to Sammamish HS across town.

In the 1962 Senior Class at Bellevue, two men touched our lives in the six degrees of separation way. One was Peter Vall-Spinosa, whose father, Arthur, was one of the priests who officiated at my wedding to Ken in 1964.

Father Vall, as he was known to my family, was the priest at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, where my family attended from the time we moved to Bellevue in 1956. In the 60s, a new Episcopal church was founded in our neighborhood of Lake Hills on Bellevue’s east side. Our priest was Father MacMurtry, known as Father Mac. Father Mac and his family, a wife and two small daughters, lived across the street from us. On occasion, Father Mac would come to our house, where he and my dad would share a bourbon or two while discussing how to change the world.

I wanted to be married at St. Thomas, a beautiful Gothic-modern stone church, instead of the new church that was temporarily housed in an old school building until construction could be financed. Father Mac had to get permission from Father Vall, and both men officiated at our wedding.

The next connection was through Richard Reinking, a good friend of Peter Vall-Spinosa. Dick became a psychotherapist and treated Ken’s older sister during a troubling time in her life. In the 1970s, Dick’s sister, Ann, became famous on Broadway as an actor-dancer-choreographer. She came to the attention of Bob Fosse, a renowned theatrical choreographer and producer. She was his protege/lover. She was in productions of Pippin, A Chorus Line, Cabaret, and Chicago, among others. Ann then starred in the movie All That Jazz, based on Bob Fosse’s life, his marriage to Gwen Verdon, and his six-year affair with Ann. Ann and Gwen became good friends, and they collaborated in the development and production of the Tony Award-winning musical Fosse about his life and work. One of the dance moves used prevalently by and associated with Fosse is his stylized, energetic version of Jazz Hands.

Here are my six degrees of separation to Jazz Hands. I personally knew Arthur Vall-Spinosa, so it starts with him, then to his son Peter Vall-Spinosa, then to Peter’s friend and my sister-in-law’s therapist, Dick Reinking, then to Dick’s sister, Ann Reinking, then to Bob Fosse, who was known for Jazz Hands. TA_DA!

This is a fun exercise for a prompt – pick a person or thing and find a way to relate to them or it through six connections.

Vylette – Who Am I?

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Setting: The time, Spring 1931; Place – Fargo, North Dakota.

Vylette closed the door to Billy’s and Steven’s room quietly and turned to go downstairs. She had tucked the boys in bed after prayers and a short story. They were her older sister, Wilma’s, two sons aged nine and seven. There were two little girls in the family too. Olive, age three and baby, Eve, age one. Wilma had put them to bed earlier.

Vylette lived with Wilma, her sister’s husband, Harry, and their four children in Fargo, North Dakota about seventy-five miles from the family farm near Wolf Lake, Minnesota. At the farm she was the third youngest of ten children, many of whom were grown and left to start lives of their own. Her parents wanted her to go to high school in the city instead of the small country school. She was super smart, a straight A student, and showed promise as a distance runner. They believed she would have more advantages at the larger school.

Vylette was fourteen, a freshman in high school. She helped Wilma around the house and babysat the kids when she wasn’t at school or attending school events.

At dinner that night, Vylette asked Harry if she could have 50₵ to enter a cross-country race sponsored by the county. There was a prize of $5.00 for the winner, $3.00 for second place, and $1.00 for third. She loved running and would challenge the wind. She knew she could win.

Harry’s face went hard and sour at her request. He said they would talk later. She thought maybe she could talk him into it by offering to do extra work around the house and by splitting the winnings with him. He had not been very welcoming when she moved in with them last August, but she did her best to please him and make him see how helpful she was.

Vylette heard voices from the kitchen as she soundlessly descended the stairs. Harsh words from Harry were indistinct but definitely angry. She tiptoed to the doorway of the kitchen and stood out of view to listen.

“I want your bastard daughter out of the house by the end of school term. Three weeks. I’m not raising another man’s kid. She can go back to the farm or go live with one of your sisters.”

“But Harry,” Wilma pleaded. “She is a help to me. I haven’t been able to be a mother to her since she was a baby. We were married when she only four and I left the farm. Can’t she please stay with us through high school?”

“Fifty cents now for a race, school clothes, schoolbooks, and on and on. You need to take care of our kids. I’m not spending my hard-earned money on a bastard.”

Blood drained from Vylette’s face. Her knees were jelly. Tears streamed unbidden from her eyes. Bastard? She knew what that ugly word meant. Was she her sister’s illegitimate daughter? Her sister – her mother? Who was she? Why was this damning secret kept from her? She ran back upstairs to her small room, her breath coming in uneven gulps. She shut the door loudly; loudly enough, she hoped it would make her sister come upstairs. She couldn’t face Harry.

A few minutes later, Wilma opened the door. Vylette’s red, tear-stained face told the story.

“You heard,” Wilma said flatly. “I’m sorry this was the way you found out. I was going to tell you when you were older.”

Vylette wanted an embrace, to be held as she stood trembling in the middle of the room. Wilma offered no such comfort.

“You have to go back to the farm after this year at school. Harry is adamant.”

“I won’t go back to the farm.”

“You’re too young to be on your own. Would you go out west to live with Tyne in Montana?”

“Anything to get far away from here.”

Tyne was one of Wilma’s sisters. Vylette thought of her as a sister, too, but realized she was her aunt. Tyne owned a boardinghouse in Butte that housed men who worked at the copper mines.

“I’ll write her and ask if that would be okay. In the meantime, don’t cross Harry or he’ll send you back to the farm right away.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll eat by myself in my room and leave any room that he comes into. I hate him,” Vylette hissed. “I hate you too and what you did to me.”

“Vylette, you don’t know the whole story. I’ll tell you more when you have calmed down.”

“I don’t want to hear. Just leave me alone. Only three weeks and I’ll be out of here no matter what I have to do. Does Tyne know what you did? Do Mom and Dad know? Oh no, I guess they are my grandparents. Does the whole world know?”

“Of course, the family knows because I was your age, fourteen, when it happened. They accepted you and love you. You are part of the family, no different than any of us. Very few others knew and most of them moved out of town. It is a closely held secret.”

“But I am different. I’m a bastard. A nobody. I shouldn’t be born.” The words felt like rocks being vomited from her gut.

In June, Vylette went by train to Butte to live with her aunt, Tyne, until she graduated from high school. She worked in the boarding house and met the man she married while still in her teens, a copper miner who loved her and provided a good life for their family. The secret of her birth was never discussed again in or outside the family. It only became known to her children after they were adults, and Tyne divulged the part of the story that she knew to one of them. Unfortunately, the issue of mistrust was a big part of Vylette’s personality. She had a hard time being close to anyone, even her own children.

Ripples of pain across generations

Afterword:

In today’s world, children born out of wedlock are common and children do not carry the burden of public scorn. Two out of five United States’ births in 2022 were to unwed mothers. That was not the case in the early decades of the 20th century. At that time, pregnancies out of wedlock were scandalous and covered up. Now there are government programs designed to help the women who choose to birth children outside the sanctions of marriage. Although not ideal in the realm of childrearing, single parenting has been normalized. The mark of illegitimacy is not carved into a child’s personality in the way it was one hundred years ago.

This story is fiction but is based on rumors in our family. Vylette was born in 1917 in a small town in western Minnesota. She was part of a large farm family. What was not known to Vylette was that sister was actually her mother. Wilma had been “interfered with” when she was fourteen and become pregnant. Ashamed, she kept the secret of the man’s identity to her grave. The family surmised it was a neighboring farmer, a middle-aged man with a wife and children. That man was confronted by Wilma’s brothers, and he quickly left the area with his family. Vylette’s family became the owners of that neighbor’s property.

Vylette grew up believing her aunts and uncles were her sisters and brothers. It wasn’t until later she discovered in a vulgar way that she was illegitimate. Traumatized by the disclosure, Vylette’s life was forever colored by feelings of shame and degradation. Trust was destroyed. How could she trust anything if she couldn’t trust those closest to her? Those feelings permeated her personality and affected all her relationships for the remainder of her life. She kept a cold shield between herself and others, never having friends, and keeping her children at a distance. Childhood trauma leaves hidden but indelible marks on a person’s psyche and personality.

The problem with secrets is that facts buried in the story, like a body hidden in a shallow grave, can putrefy and work their way to the surface. There is space for corruption. All the people involved in this story have died. No one knew the whole truth except the two people involved. Was it rape or incest? Was the neighbor really involved; or was it a coincidence that they left town, and the family acquired the property at that time? Was that farm sold or was it payment for not reporting a crime to the authorities? Was it a boardinghouse or a brothel in Butte? Both were prevalent in the 1930s as a means for single women to earn a living. When no one speaks the truth, truth becomes conjecture and conjecture has no boundaries. The pain of a secret, like a rock thrown into a pond, sends ripples throughout many generations.

Thinning the Past

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Most of us have décor in our homes: Tchotchkes, pictures, bits and baubles, generational curios, memory laden echoes of our time on earth. My house is full of them. They bring a smile of remembrance. Occasionally I endeavor to thin them out. Endeavor being the operative word in that sentence.

Why, oh why, do I need a 10” yellow ceramic duckling in my curio cabinet? Because it was once a treasured keepsake for my mother. It was given to her by a friend she loved and lost many, many years before Mom died. I remember that friend, and I remember how much my mother loved the duckling. How can I toss it? It is a piece of my mom.

Some of the artwork was given as gifts by friends and family. We have porcelain figurines by Lladro given to us by our niece in Spain that are dear to our hearts. There are carved wooden figurines that Mom brought back after our trip to Germany. We have crystal and glass that dates back to great-great-grandparents.

Most of my walls are filled with photos of friends and family from great-grandparents to our grandchild. I can go to any room and reconnect with those people. We love to take out-of-town visitors to Tombstone and have a photo taken in old west period clothes. Our visitors have endured our obsession. Those pictures reside in various rooms. I chuckle about the memories every time I look at them.

We have collected artwork over our sixty-plus years of marriage that has significance for us. We remember the why and where of each painting and print. A print of praying hands by Albrecht Düerer (1508) graced my great-grandparents living room from the time I remember as a small child. On the back is written 1896. I assume that was when they acquired it.

Among our eclectic collection, we have two prints by Michael Parks, a Salvador Dali, a Diego Rivera, a Renoir, an Edward Hopper, native American drawings, as well as original paintings by close friends who are amazing artists. NONE of which I would part with willingly. I love looking at them every day.

Is it living in the past? Well, maybe, but we have so much more past than future, why not? I’m willing to add new mementos as they arrive.

It is popular among my friends to talk about divesting themselves of those “things” that won’t mean anything to their children or grandchildren. Much of my wall art and shelf dwellers were acquired when our children still lived with us and may evoke a memory or two. I admit the things we collected have no monetary value and will probably not be passed along. They still bring me pleasure and will until I die or become catastrophically forgetful. I want to enjoy them for the remainder of my life, and then, I really don’t care what they choose to do. I will be on to bigger and better things.

One of my favorites is a print of The Juggler by Michael Parks that is on the wall of my office. Our writing critique group had a prompt to write about a piece of artwork or a photo in our house, and what it means to us. This is a poem about The Juggler.

The Innocence of Childhood

Believe.

Anything is possible.

She balances on the precipice of flight

Into the season of ripeness;

Into a world

That doesn’t remember the magic.

She watches once more,

In wonder, the magician

Blindfolded to reality.

He balances

On the tightrope of life.

Juggling

Three lessons of childhood:

Love without borders, authenticity, curiosity.

She will carry these throughout life.

The Juggler by Michael Parks

Farmer Fables

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Traveling through the Midwest in 1985 on our odyssey* around the country, my family would stop in small towns for breakfast. It became apparent that Sunday mornings were a good time to be in one of those farm-town cafés. It was when the farm wives were in church and their menfolk were at the café waiting for them. From Iowa to Wyoming, we observed the same trend. Big strapping farmers would sit at tables of four, five, or more, talking about farm issues. In those small rooms, anyone could listen if you were so inclined.

One August Sunday morning, around 8 am, my family stopped in at Jimmy’s Café, in Marysville, Kansas. The sun was up, promising a scorching day. Fans were already whooshing at a steady pace, shuttling flies that rode the circulating air. The five of us sat at a table near the entrance and watched as farmers came in one or two at a time. The waitress, Kara, met them by name, and they greeted one another, taking their hats off as they took seats around a big table in the center of the room. She poured a generous mug of coffee for each one. Seven of them seemed to be waiting for another to complete the circle.  The eighth joined them a little late. He was an antique bowlegged codger, probably in his 80s, slighter in stature than the rest, with the gnarled, leathery look of someone who spent his life on the open prairie.  He had more the air of a cowboy than that of the farmers. He appeared to be the acknowledged patriarch of the group, the key that unlocked the beginning of discussions. They all ordered. Most said, “just the regular”. Besides talking about the weather and the importance of sustainable crops, they swapped stories of daring deeds associated with their arduous lives.

This is the story we overheard the old guy tell. The room was silent, spellbound.

“A few years back, I was old enough to know better, but I wanted to ride that bronco in the worst way. Every time I saw him, he eyed me with a certain meanness I knew I had to beat. I finally got my chance. I mounted him and he seemed to take it passable well. Then he collected hisself and became a dervish, whippin’ this way and that. His back buckled like a Halloween cat, and I lost the leathers. The fall would’ve been okay, but my foot caught in one stirrup, and I hung upside down, my head near touchin’ the ground. He didn’t stop, just kept a-goin’ and a-goin’, bouncin’ me up and down. I knew I was a goner. Any minute my head would crack open, and my brains would be splayed out for all to see. I was sayin’ my prayers, hopin’ God would forgive my sins, even the ones I hain’t done yet. I tried climbin’ up my leg but just as I would get near enough to catch the saddle with my hand, that darn horse would jerk to the left and I’d be thrown back down. I did it ‘bout four times and was wearin’ out. I near couldn’t breathe. Then an angel appeared. She stepped outta the K-mart, murmured something about stupid old man, and pulled the plug on the kiddie bronc.”

Silence, then loud laughter and knee slapping.

That was a hard one to top. It is the only café story of the many we heard that stayed with me through all these years.

*On August 12, 2024, I posted a wonkagranny story about a portion of the journey our family took through the 48 contiguous US states in 1984 & 1985. I will share more of our fourteen-month adventure in future posts.

Where Were You When St. Helens Blew?

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We are all at the mercy of Mother Nature. Indigenous cultures celebrate that fact, and historically set aside times and ceremonies to honor the power of natural forces in our human existence. No matter how much we think we are in control of our choices and our lives, Mother Nature may exert a force beyond our meager limitations. As a baseball fanatic, I’ve always enjoyed the phrase, “Mother Nature bats last.”  It is a reminder that we are guests here and need to respect our hostess. She has a resilience that we can never match. This short story is akin to an actual situation I knew of in 1980. The names are changed and events slightly altered, so I can call it fiction.

Sunday, May 18, 1980, a lovely, blue sky day in southwest Washington State. Three days prior, Prescott and Mira rendezvoused in Olympia from their homes near Seattle, then drove together in Pres’s 1979 Firebird; their destination was Long Beach on the Washington coast. Prescott was supposed to be on a fishing trip with old college friends in Eastern Washington. Mira told her husband she was attending a writers’ retreat in Vancouver, Canada. Their affair started a year earlier, and this was the meeting where they would decide what and how to tell their spouses.

They talked over the impact of the affair on their lives and that of their families. Pres had a three-year-old daughter whom he loved dearly. He loved his wife, but that love changed when he met Mira.

Mira loved her husband, but her commitment to him was forever altered when she and Pres met by chance at an organizational meeting for a new food bank, Second Harvest. Her passion for him overwhelmed her love for Mark.

For a year, they met clandestinely, a few hours at a time. They never spent a night together, or even an entire day. They were drawn to each other, an intangible force that neither could resist. It was a recognition that they were connected in a different way than their marriages. They talked and finished each other’s thoughts. Lovemaking was more fulfilling than any they had in marriage. An overpowering passion consumed them. They both acknowledged love for their spouses and were reluctant to confront them with the affair.

During the three days together, they realized that they couldn’t end their marriages; so, had to end the affair, a heart-wrenching decision.

A heavy gloom settled over them as they drove toward Seattle. They couldn’t look at each other; their throats were too dry to speak. They had just reached the intersection with I-5 that would take them to Seattle.

“Let’s stop for coffee,” Pres suggested.

“Nothing will change. We can’t delay the inevitable,” Mira said softly.

BOOM! The sound, a supersonic blast, rocked the car and sent it careening toward the center lane of northbound I-5. The air shimmied. Compressed air stifled sound on the highway like a blanket suddenly thrown over the scene. Ash and smoke enveloped the car. Pres pulled to the right side of the highway. Rocks pelted the Firebird from above, as in judgment.

“What’s going on? What’s that sound, Pres? Are we being attacked?”

The radio blared an alert that I-5, north and south, was closed. Mount Saint Helens finally erupted after months of threatening earthquakes. The Toutle River, carrying tons of debris, whole forests of tree trunks, and a tidal wave of water, raged down the mountainside, obliterating the highway.

Prescott pulled the car off on the right shoulder. Fire could be seen in the distance on the mountainside, and a plume of thick smoke rose miles into the morning sky. The sun was obscured, turning the blue heavens to black night. Other cars pulled off the road or turned to head south, moving slowly in dense darkness. Headlights were barely discernible. Cars, choked by the thick air, stalled out on both sides of the road.

Pres looked at Mira. “It blew. We’re screwed,” he said. “We have to go farther south to get out of this mess.” Stunned, he slowly pulled back on what he thought was the highway, avoiding other vehicles. Nothing was clear. This was not in the plan.

Caught by Mt. Saint Helens. Sunday, May 18, 1980 @ 8:30am, almost to Castle Rock from Long Beach, Washington.

A few minutes later, the Firebird’s engine sputtered and died. Mira and Pres huddled inside the car, not wanting to get out in the thick, toxic atmosphere.

“What next?” Prescott ran his fingers through his hair.

“Maybe they’ll find our bodies buried in ash, like Vesuvius.” Desolation crept into Mira’s voice.  “We won’t have to say a thing. It will be obvious. If we get out of here, we’ll have to fess up.”

Pres pulled Mira close. “Maybe that’s the message from the mountain. We can’t escape the truth anymore.”

An hour later, a rescue van from the National Guard drove up. The Guard picked up stranded motorists to take them to the Mark Morris High School gymnasium in Longview. The air smelled vaguely of sulfur. Was it hell? The ash-covered Firebird looked like a relic from a dark past; barely recognizable, a remnant of their guilt. Leaving everything behind, they got into the van.

Families and campers from near and far were packed into the gym.  Warnings issued by scientists and local broadcasts as early as March that an eruption was imminent hadn’t kept the curious away. Everyone wanted to see what an active volcano looked like before it blew. The mountain dictated on its own terms, in its own time, when it would unleash its fury. 

Warnings had not been a thought when Pres and Mira decided to meet for a long weekend. They weren’t going near the mountain. They went to the beach. They hadn’t taken into consideration that they would pass by Mt. Saint Helens on their way. All threats of an active volcano had been mere background noise to them. Their personal volcano was all they could think about. Would they blow up their families or stay the course, putting aside the love they had for each other?

They were deeply immersed in plans for a future together, but finally resolved to recommit to their marriages. They were on the way home, determined to reconnect with their spouses, but the mountain had other plans for them. A reckoning. Unexpected consequences. The mountain blew away their secrets, turning their marriages to ash. The future was undeniably altered.

There was a line of people using the phone to call loved ones. Mira and Pres waited for their turns. What to say? How to say it? Now the reality of their love would become evident.

I leave it to you, dear reader: Were they able to save their marriages, now that their affair was revealed? Did this event seal their future together?

The Red Invisible Thread of Fate – It’s Never Too Late for Love

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There is an ancient East Asian mythology about love and destiny. It is believed that a lunar god ties an invisible red string around the ankles or little fingers of two people who are predestined to be lovers. The string may stretch or tangle, but will never break because their soul connection has been foretold by the god. Despite challenges and distance, the string will pull these two people together at some point in their lives for a deeply rooted relationship as soulmates. Different versions of this story can be found in Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese cultures.

I know of four stories that can confirm this kind of soul connection that connects lovers even after time and distance separate them.

I recently read a book by Delia Ephron called Left on Tenth. It is a memoir of her life after seventy. Delia was the second of four sisters, all of whom are writers. Her eldest sister Nora is famous for writing Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, Silkwood, and others. Delia worked with Nora on projects as well as writing, directing, and producing on her own.

In this book, Delia describes the heartbreak and trauma of losing her older sister to leukemia and her husband of over thirty years to prostate cancer, all within a year. She writes about her own pre-leukemia diagnosis, a Damocles sword held over her head. Her story tells of reconnecting with an old acquaintance, Peter. He read one of her New York Times op-eds and contacted her. They had been introduced by Nora and dated when they were very young. Delia didn’t remember him or their dates. They corresponded by mail and phone calls. Then Peter flew from California to New York to meet her. They fell instantly in love. Love after seventy. Her story continues through the ups and downs of their courtship and marriage amid her health issues. Her story is sad, scary,  funny, upbeat and honest.

Delia’s book made me think of other latter-year romances I’ve known about.

My aunt Nina, her two brothers, and two sisters attended a country school in Sumner County, Kansas in the 1920s. She was the second of five kids. My father was her big brother. A petite, vibrant redhead, she had her sights on a music career. She wanted to move away from the small-town farming community. She had a marvelous soprano voice and performed in a variety of opera and musical comedy theatrical productions throughout her college years. She didn’t want to be a farmer’s wife.

As fate would have it, she fell passionately in love with a handsome farmer, Lee, who looked a lot like Clark Gable. She ended up living in the rural community she sought to escape. They raised their three boys on a farm, in very modest circumstances. At times, they had no electricity in their house. At one time, she had a pump at the kitchen sink and an outhouse, instead of indoor plumbing – not how she dreamed her life would be. She continued her love of music by giving voice and piano lessons and singing in her church choir. She got an LPN degree and worked as a neonatal hospital nurse for years after her family was raised.

Nina was widowed after fifty-two years of marriage. One of her schoolmates, my father’s childhood friend, Mervin, was at Lee’s funeral. Mervin and my dad kept in contact throughout the years after school. Both Dad and Mervin were in World War II, then attended college, got married with children, and went on to separate careers. Our families lived a few blocks from each other.  I went to elementary school with his two daughters.

According to family lore passed on by my father, Mervin had a crush on Nina most of their time in school. Mervin was a widower, having lost his wife a few years before. He asked Nina to join him at his sister’s house for dinner, a safe date. His sister, Margaret, and Nina had been friends at school, too.  He continued to woo her after their dinner date. She succumbed to his attentions. Within a few months, realizing they had a short future to enjoy, they were married. She was 76 and he was 80. Mervin was a successful businessman and had a large, beautiful home in the big city of Wichita. Nina was finally taken out of her small town, relatively modest life, to a much more comfortable future. They enjoyed their time together until Mervin’s death, two years later. Mervin made sure she was secure with an easy life until her death at ninety-two.

The third love affair I know of is that of my friend, I’ll call Rita. She is seventy. She divorced thirty or so years ago, worked in advertising and real estate, and raised her son as a single parent. She moved to Arizona but kept in contact with friends from her hometown in Indiana. Many of them she has known since grade school.

Over a year ago, she was contacted by Tom. They were in fifth grade together. He never forgot her and found a way to contact her after over fifty years. For months they spoke by phone and texted as they became reacquainted. Their phone calls soon lasted for hours. He flew to Arizona to meet in person and stayed with her for a week. They fell in love. Rita has had several health challenges over the last year, and Tom supported her here and at a distance when he couldn’t be here. Once they traveled by car to California so she could meet his daughter. He pushed her wheelchair on their adventures in Southern California. His devotion is inspirational. They phone and text daily, sometimes hourly, and are now talking marriage.

Another friend of mine recently told me her story about reconnecting with someone from her past and finding love again. Laura was a divorcee living in Colorado. Her children were grown. She attended a family reunion in California. An old family friend, Frank was also there. Frank and Laura had known each other since high school because he was her brother’s best friend. After school, both had married, and Laura’s family moved to Colorado. Although they lived in different states, they saw each other occasionally over the years at family events in California. Laura knew Frank’s wife and kids, and he knew her family. Her kids called him Uncle Frank because he was always invited to big family gatherings. At the reunion, Frank told Laura he had divorced after his kids grew up and left home, and he was single again. He asked her if she would like to go out to dinner. They did, and within a couple of hours, realized they had a connection beyond old friendship. They courted long distance between California and Colorado and were married within a year. They now enjoy their life together in Arizona. Her kids were surprised. “You’re going to marry Uncle Frank?” Her brother was taken aback too. “But Frank has been our friend for decades. What’s going on?”

And so it goes. It is never too late to meet your destiny.