Category: Stories

The Guy With the Skirt

Photo by Oddman47. Not the guy in my post!
I live in a small town in the Hudson Valley, not in the big city, although it isn’t far away.  Most of the people who live here commute to New York City or work for a company nearby, and a few work for the people who live in the area.  It’s become increasingly more expensive over the years, both for real estate and the cost of living.  So the people who live here are less working-class than they were 20 years ago.

On the other hand, there is a wider variety of ethnic groups than there were several years ago–everybody isn’t Irish or Italian any more (although plenty still are.)  But people tend to be prosperous and suburban.  You don’t see women with multi-colored hair or men with multiple piercings.  We’ve started to see bushy beards and tattoo sleeves as hipsters have started moving in to raise families.

There’s one guy who is different.  He’s lived here for several years.  He is big, brawny, with long grey hair and a grey beard.  He looks like he ought to be riding a Harley.  Except he wears a skirt.

He is not the least bit effeminate.  He wears athletic socks and running shoes, flannel shirts in winter and voluminous dress shirts or t-shirts in the summer.  And he wears them with a pleated or gathered skirt, sometimes in denim, sometimes in a lighter cotton fabric.  Once I saw him in a wool kilt, but only the once.  His skirts generally come just below his knees, so he can walk along with an easy stride.  Sometimes in the summer he wears a broad-brimmed straw hat, like people wear in the tropics for sun protection.  So far as I can tell, he doesn’t wear jewelry or makeup.

I have seen him walking along the sidewalk with grocery bags, by the main road that runs through the river towns.  I saw him on a winter day picking his way along the sidewalk through the snow.  In a flannel shirt and a gathered skirt.

Every time I’ve seen him I was driving, so I’ve never had a chance to ask him what his story is.  I’m not sure I could be rude enough to do that, anyway.  Does he find pants constricting?  Does he sew his skirts himself?  They’re pretty big, like him, so I don’t know exactly where he could buy them ready-made.  Is this some kind of political stand against sex roles as defined by clothing?

Whatever his reasons, I admire the way he does what he wants without regard for public opinion.  I hope no one hassels him for wearing his skirts.  And I’d love to know why he does it.

Small Pleasures, Summer Edition

Summer doesn’t officially end until the autumnal equinox on September 22, but for most of us Labor Day weekend spells the end of summer.  My teacher friends are already going back to work!  So this is a short recap of inexpensive summer pleasures.  I hope you’ve already enjoyed most of them.  If not, you have two weeks!

  • Pedicures.  There’s something about bright toenails that always cheers me up.  Getting your nails done is cheap in my area.  But I spent many a day in my youth with Revlon or Sally Hanson products, striving for the perfect red.  Boys, please don’t do polish unless it’s black!
  • Homegrown tomatoes.  The season is peaking here, but it won’t last much longer anywhere.  Get ’em from your neighbor, get ’em from a farm stand, but don’t miss that juicy flavor.  A childhood favorite:  Sandwich with toasted white bread, mayonnaise, thick slices of tomato, sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Add bacon to that, and you have heaven on earth.  Purely southern edition:  Hot biscuit with butter and thick slice of tomato, salted and peppered.
  • Re-read a favorite book.  Some of my friends think this is crazy, but I count a summer wasted that doesn’t include either Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion.  Romance novels and Agatha Christies count as well–whatever makes you feel relaxed and good.
  • Ride a bike.  Not a racing bike with all the paraphernalia, just a plain old bike like a beach cruiser with coaster brakes.  It’ll make you feel like a kid again.
  • See a movie in an actual movie theater.  Bonus points if you can find a drive-in and stay awake through the feature!
  • Go to one last free outdoor concert.  Especially since the heat has finally broken, it’s a great time to hear music in the open air.  This is a pleasure that definitely disappears when fall draws in.  It’s extra fun if you can bring a picnic, especially one that doesn’t take a lot of work.
  • Baseball.  They don’t call them the Boys of Summer for nothing.  If you’re not a baseball fan, then watch anyone do something that requires them to run around in the hot sun (and you to watch.)
  • Get one small thing that reminds you of this summer, whether it’s a photo, a postcard or a picture torn out of a magazine, and put it on your refrigerator or bulletin board.  Do not look at it until the first rainy day in November.

Let me know if there are any other pleasures I forgot.  Grilled hot dogs?  Watermelon?  Kickball?  And enjoy the remaining days before the leaves begin to fall.

 

Time, Time, Time, or the Alarm Clock

Photo by Alan Cleaver
I have an emerging alarm clock crisis.  This is not an issue, I find, that most people deal with these days.  Kids use their mobile phones as alarm clocks, as well as wristwatches, and have just about made those timepieces obsolete.  Watches only survive as fashion items and status symbols among the young crowd.  The bedside clock has become a charging stand for your iPhone or iPod.

However, some of us still like to have an alarm clock on the nightstand.  My problem is that I want an analog, silent, not-illuminated alarm clock with hands that glow faintly in the dark–in short, I still want the G.E. electric alarm clock I have had since I was in high school decades ago.

My parents gave me that clock so I could be responsible for getting myself up and on the school bus at the crack of dawn.  They were up, too, but the idea was that I needed to learn to do it myself, because they would not be there to get me up when I went away to college.  I was never a heavy sleeper, so one buzzing alarm was enough.  I carried the clock with me to college and after, and never saw the need to replace it.  Clock radios?  I didn’t want to hear music at that hour, much less talk.  Battery operated?  Only if I had to travel.  I never thought about the little clock at all.  I realized this is the last remaining appliance my parents gave me.  Pretty amazing when you think about it.

I love this clock and it has served me well, but the alarm seems to be wearing out.  It just hums now instead of giving a full-out buzz.  Frankly, at its age, I can understand, and most days a hum is enough.  But what if I really need it to wake me?  So I started on a search for another clock this weekend.

I know you’re thinking, why not just get a digital clock and shut up about it?  The answer, my friends, is the amount of light those blasted LEDs put out.  When I sleep in a hotel room, I cover the standard bedside LED clock-radio with pillows to block the light.  I need it dark to sleep!  Okay, so why not get a clock that you have to push a button to illuminate?  Well, unfortunately, I wake up a lot in the night, and I think that Indiglo is disruptive.  And I’d have to reach over the cat to hit it, most of the time, which would certainly wake me up all the way.  How much simpler it was when I slept like a log through almost anything!

I bought two different clocks this weekend and returned them both.  One had all the attributes I wanted, except it was battery-operated and ticked so loudly it could wake the dead.  The other was silent, but had a light-sensitive face that immediately illuminated in the dark and couldn’t be turned off.  So I searched Amazon and finally googled every attribute I wanted.  The Seiko is in the mail, and we’ll see if it performs.  If not, I may have to enter the age of iPod/iPhone as alarm clock, but I will be unhappy!

Good Friends Are Hard to Find

Best friend in college! Ok, Sallie was too.
This article in the New York Times style section today made me stop and think about the nature of my friendships and how they are changing.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of-making-friends-as-an-adult.html?ref=style

I thought it was wrong about some things, however.  Are your best friends throughout life the ones you make in high school and college?  I think that’s unlikely, unless you all stay in the same area, have the same educational and financial circumstances, and see each other often.  Like the article says, proximity and time to build a friendship are essential.  If you move away, things change.   It’s easier to make close friendships when you are in high school and college, but that doesn’t mean they will stand the test of time.

All of us have work friends, neighbor friends, friends we share interests with, and for people with families, your kids’ friends and their families.  How does that progress to become the friend you call when your mother dies, or that you can ask to feed the cat, or the friend you can wake up at 2 a.m., or the one who will take you home from the hospital?

My closest friends now began as acquaintances, work friends, or people I met because we shared an interest.   It took years in most cases before they became intimate friends.  We helped each other out and learned we could count on each other.  We learned we had fun together but that our relationships didn’t have to be only fun and games.

And what do you do when those relationships begin to change?  Some people get busier.  Others, while still working, are no longer working full-time and are away for weeks at a time on vacation or travel.  Some get richer, some get poorer, some are unemployed.  It’s difficult when you’re no longer all at the same level and able to afford the same things.

All I know to do is to try to share new experiences with good friends as well as remembering the past, and to try to stay flexible as circumstances change–and try not to be hurt if close friends become a little more distant.   And I keep an eye out for potential new friends at “entry level.”  You never know if you’ll find another BFF.  And life is too lonely without people who are more than just casual friends.

 

Recipe: Juanita’s “Rocks” Cookies

Rocks Cookies
Rocks cookies fresh from the oven

This recipe actually comes from my sister Juanita’s neighbor, whose mother made them in rural Pennsylvania.  Juanita sent me some at Christmas last year, and I liked them because they have that Christmas smell (see last week’s post).  Also they will keep for a week or two in a tightly closed plastic container, which is a plus sometimes, and they freeze well.

Anyway, I thought of them when I needed to make cookies for my book group, so I called Juanita and got the recipe.  When I baked them, they didn’t rise, and they cooked faster than planned.  Hmm, I said to myself, and called my sister Glenda.  Glenda said, maybe it’s because you used a dark cookie sheet?  Then she read the recipe to me, to make sure I had it all.  Woops!  I had left out the baking soda.

End of the story:  even without baking soda, they tasted fabulous.  So I took them to book group, and they snarfed them down, and requested the recipe.   Juanita called afterwards for a report, so I had to admit my mistake.  She laughed, and said the first time she made them, they ran all over the pan.  Her neighbor forgot to mention the flour when she gave her the recipe!

So here’s the deal.  If you want them the way they are supposed to look, and with the texture they are supposed to have (a little bit puffy and cakey), follow the recipe precisely.  If you have dark cookie sheets, lower the temperature by 25 degrees!  If you want them chewy and not puffy, leave out the baking soda.  It works just fine.  Also, this recipe can be halved.  It makes an inordinate amount of “rocks.”  P.S.  For some reason, this image will not rotate!  Makes me crazy.  Just turn your head sideways to see what the non-baking-soda version looks like.

“Rocks” Cookies

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

4 eggs

3 cups regular flour

1 lb. each of chopped dates, raisins, and chopped walnuts

1/2 teaspoon each of allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt

1 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in a little hot water

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs.  Add dry ingredients and baking soda (batter will be stiff).  Fold in the dates, raisins, and walnuts.  Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes (if using dark cookie sheets, bake at 325 instead).  Makes 5 – 6 dozen.

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Something a Bit Different: A Villanelle

I was a bit stumped for a subject today.  Then I started feeling a bit melancholy about how quickly spring was passing–I can feel melancholy about almost anything, which is one of my great failings.  Anyway, I remembered this poem I wrote a few years ago because I wanted to try a villanelle.   Here is the Wikipedia definition:  A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain.

I wrote it just to see if I could.  Villanelles are not supposed to tell a story–they are more of a verbal dance.  So here it is.

Spring Song

You are gone, but spring has come at last

As it does every year, without remorse,

Smiling harbinger of everything that’s passed.

 

Fields of yellow flowers, the fierce green of grass,

The sullen river swelling in its course—

You are gone, but spring has come at last.

 

The black hole in my chest was once so vast

A cavity, it sucked in all light with its force.

Smiling harbinger—of everything that’s passed

 

Spring sings, in the mockingbird’s pastiche.  Fast

And faster, notes pour from the source.

You are gone.  But spring has come at last,

 

Though I would stop it, break the iron cast

Of seasons always changing.  There’s no recourse,

Smiling harbinger.  Of everything that’s passed

 

I cannot be forgiving.  Life’s too fast

Or, then again, too slow to stay, of course.

You are gone, but spring has come at last,

Searing me with everything that’s passed.

Dogwood Winter

This spring is a bit out of control, too early, too much, too warm too soon. The last few days we’ve had a cooler spell here in New York, which reminded me of the “winters” Mother taught me about.

Spring in Tennessee normally comes in an orderly, predictable fashion. Usually it starts in February with the forsythia and crocuses blooming. By March spring is well under way, with gradually warmer periods interspersed with cool spells. The redbuds bloom, then the dogwoods. Finally, in April the blackberry bushes flower.

Cool spells tend to come right when these bloom, and apparently this was always so. Mother and my aunts and uncles all referred to “redbud winter,” “dogwood winter,” and “blackberry winter” as if these were known dates on the calendar. I suppose to a farming community they nearly were.

I guess this is dogwood winter we’re having now in New York, if such a thing exists up here. Everything is out of sync this year. The Bradford pears (stinky, showy things) burst into bloom two weeks ago, along with the Japanese magnolias, which were nipped by the cold and have turned brown. Yet the dogwoods have not bloomed. So I hope they were spared the cold and will open soon.

Sometimes I feel very far from the farm. I’m glad to be working with my brain instead of my back, and God help anyone who had to depend on me to raise food! But I miss the patterns of planting, cultivating, and harvesting. There’s no seasonality to working on a computer. But even here spring intrudes, bursting out along the parkways, in yards, in the scattering of woods.  It’s time to think about planting.  It’s time to grow.

The Easter Fair in Prague

Czech Easter eggs, from Wikimedia
The last time I took a vacation out of the U.S. was in 2002.  At a fundraising auction for the Y I belong to, I won two round-trip tickets to anywhere British Airways flew.  The hitch was, you had to connect through London.  I considered South Africa, but didn’t really have enough vacation time to make such a long trip worthwhile.  And I wanted to go somewhere I hadn’t been before.  So after much consultation and research, I went to Prague in March 2002 with my friend Dana.

The tourist season had not yet begun.  It was still cold, very grey and rainy.  The castles in the countryside around Prague had not opened for the season, and some of the tourist attractions in the city were closed.  But it was still lovely.  There were free concerts every day in churches and concert halls.  The beer halls were lots of fun–we quickly learned how to order in Czech, and there were any number of Americans there as well.  The streets were dark and medieval, but the people were friendly and spoke a little English.

We shopped for garnet jewelry, which is a specialty of the Czech Republic, and dined in snug, Art Deco restaurants.  We walked the rain-slick streets and went through the remains of the old Jewish quarter.  After the horror of the Holocaust, there are almost no Jews in Prague to this day.

One day we went to the Easter fair, which was set up in small booths in the main square.  Most of the booths were selling plastic garbage made in China or cheap tourist crap, which you could buy anywhere.  But a few of the booths were selling Czech Easter eggs.  Some eggs are decorated by making patterns with wax and then dying the shells.  Others ar dyed and then hand-painted.  Somehow the maker gets the interior of the egg out of the shell without breaking it, I think before dying it.  Then a ribbon is glued to the top or strung through a hole at either end so you can hang the egg on a branch placed in a vase.  The booths also sold woven branches with crepe paper streamers on the end in their traditional spring colors:  pale green, yellow, sky blue, and red.

The eggs were sold in small egg cartons.  I brought six home–and two broke in transit.  I just opened the carton and looked at them, and another one has broken.  Something so delicate was not meant to survive, even wrapped in bubble wrap.  My cat would undoubtedly destroy the remaining ones if I put them out.  So I’ll leave them in their carton, to remind me spring is coming, and that it is a delicate season.

R.I.P. Don Cornelius–I Miss the ’70s

Photo by Cottonball 09 from Wikimedia
I was saddened this week when Don Cornelius died.  I hadn’t thought about “Soul Train” in a long time, but immediately the theme song and the animated train popped into my head.  “Soul Train” was “American Bandstand”‘s cooler, funky brother, in every sense of the word.

The crazy clothes, the free-form dancing, talk of brotherhood and tolerance–say what you like, there were a lot of good things about it.  And who didn’t love the Jackson Five?  Who can sit still when you hear those silly songs?

I went off to college with a pair of pinwale corduroy elephant bells and a matching print blouse with four-button cuffs and a collar that went halfway down my chest.  I had a baby-blue knit midi-skirt that I wore with my roommate’s white knee boots, which were embroidered with flowers.  Embroidery and ethnic accessories were big.  I embroidered stuff on a chambray shirt for the guy I dated my sophomore year.  He made me a beaded necklace which was too small to go over my head and didn’t have a fastener (oops).

My black friends were heavy into the SuperFly look.  Even some of the white guys were.  Someone who will remain nameless (to protect the guilty) wore green plaid cuffed bellbottoms with gold-and-green leather platform boots and a brown leather jacket.  Believe me, Elton John looked normal back then.  My friend Ed kept his “Sergeant Peppers” suit well into the ’80s–brown tweed, four buttons, epaulets on the shoulders, and flared pants.  He wore it with a brown leather coat.  He was stylin’, for sure.

And the music had a good beat, you could dance to it.  That’s probably why disco refuses to die out as wedding and party music.  You can’t really dance to the Police, as much as I loved them later on.

Enough nostalgia, already–this is not something I normally indulge in.  To paraphrase Woody Allen, life is like a shark.  You have to move forward or you die.  There are a lot of things about the ’70s I don’t regret leaving behind, like discrimination against women being open and legal.  But just one reminder for us all–the Equal Rights Amendment did not pass, and in this advanced 21st century, we still do not have equal pay for equal work.  Boogie down on that.

Sword Drills and Coals of Fire

With Chico, about the age I participated in sword drills
Every once in a while I feel a little lost in space here in New York.  This is my home, and I love it, but my Tennesee upbringing tends to come out at inconvenient times.  I was talking to a woman who is a chaplain on Friday, and she commented on the difficulty of working with a colleague of another religion.  “I think he doesn’t like me because I’m a woman, but I just keep being nice to him,” she said.

I replied, “Heaping coals of fire on his head!”  She looked at me like I had lost my mind, and said, “No, no, killing with kindness.”  I agreed, somewhat abashed.  Then I came home and looked it up in the Bible.  Sure enough, Romans 12:20-21 says, “Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.”

I’m certainly no Bible scholar but I was brought up Southern Baptist in Tennessee some years ago, and Bible study was part of my youth.  We memorized verses, and many, many verses were expressions that my parents, aunts and uncles used.

“The ox is in the ditch” was one that probably seems obscure to most people.  It comes from Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.  In his story, the religious teachers passed by an injured man who was lying by the road because it was the Sabbath, and they were forbidden by Jewish law to work on the Sabbath.  The Samaritan stopped and helped him.  Jesus seems to say in this story that human need is greater than religious law.  And he says, “Which of you will have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit on the Sabbath day, and will not pull him out?”  So in the South it came to mean, an unavoidable job that has to be done, even on a Sunday, or an excuse to do something on a Sunday.

Sword drills were another odd thing we did in Sunday school when I was a teenager.  A sword drill was a find-the-Bible-verse contest.  I was a keen competitor (I’ve always been a Type A, I’m sorry to say).  Basically you had to know the order of the books of the Bible and have fast page-flipping skills.  The competitors would stand in a circle so you couldn’t see each other’s Bibles.  The Sunday School teacher would say the book, chapter, and verse, such as “2nd Samuel, 12:1.”  The first person to find it was the winner.  One lived in dread of the obscure books of the Old Testament.  I’m not even sure how to spell Habakkuh now (woops!  just looked it up, Habakkuk).

Putting aside any religious effect on me (probably less than my parents hoped), the Bible study enriched my life with stories, poetry, and quotes I would find in literature as an adult, and expressions that added salt to the blandness of speech.  Robbing Peter to pay Paul, anyone?