A mother's summer

Growing up, we always knew when summer was around the corner.   The window screens, chalky and grey, would appear from the basement, smelling musty and faintly of past summer storms.

Magnolia blossoms filled some of our backyard trees with their delicate pink petals; like soft, flushed skin.  Their perfume was a reminder, deeply felt, of the coming season.  The flowers were fleeting – they’d wilt with the first cold rain.

In circles around the trees, lime-green shoots pushed up through the litter of unraked leaves and brittle branches left from the fall.   Exotic plants, forgotten under the winter snow, also began to emerge.  They transformed overnight in the first warm days of May, a photoshopic change in hue from brown to deep green.

We’d escape outside with the new season, and we were filled with the same excited emotions as if we’d found a favorite toy that had been presumed lost forever.   It was back.

Out on our front sidewalk, next to a giant elm tree, there was a section of slab tilted up like a small step, where a root had lifted it.   Its surface pocked and pitted, it was several inches thick, heavy and immense and immovable.   None of us could lift it an inch - and we often tried.   Although the tree was eventually lost to Dutch elm disease, its roots left their mark long after it was cut down by city workers.

Summer also marked the beginning of my mother’s annual but unofficial camp program.  We all learned at an early age that the agenda for our summers wasn’t really ours.   It was all hers. 

Vacation Bible school was a frequent offering.  It wasn’t Catholic, but since they used the Bible and it kept us busy, it was just as good. Besides, our memories of the school are exclusively about the packages of ice cream they distributed - with their own wooden spoons.  Rarely did we remember what was said about the New Testament.

An important and imperial rule was about television.   There was strictly limited access.    Sometimes, my mother would make good on her threats – she really would cut off the cord to the television.   To her, it was “canned laughter” and crap, and not part of the summer program.   Now we agree.  But we didn’t think so at the time.

The campers liked sleep overs, but they were infrequently allowed.   When Meg would be allowed to sleep at a friend’s house, family legend has it that Marge would show up early the next morning to bring her home.   She’d arrive at the friend's front door and say, “Meg, time to come home, you have chores to do.”   Like we were Amish and worked on the family farm.

My mother registered all of us for swim lessons every year.   They were held at Memorial Park.   We rode our bikes there, and it was miles away (really).   Sessions began in early June, and started with students sitting lined on the edge of the pool, shivering and fearful.    The Park District somehow managed to get the water colder than actual tap water – which in Chicago was frigid.   Even by August, we all needed to “get used to it” before it was tolerable.  And that meant goose bumps and purple lips.  

“Get Meg out of the pool, her lips are blue,” my mother would announce to any nearby sibling.   Meg would be shivering, arms across her chest, but saying she was fine.   Mom knew.

Sports were encouraged.   We erected a basketball hoop against the coach house.   The backboard was held in place by two-by-fours, which needed to be re-nailed every year to keep the whole structure from swaying each time the ball hit the rim.   We’d compete for playing time on our own court with the neighborhood brothers, who taught me my wicked turn-around jumper - one that I can still hit even today.

As summer progressed and the days became hotter, the box fan would spend more days standing in the doorway, thrumming along with the cicadas.   We had spent the humid days doing chores, riding bikes, caring for infant siblings, and a thousand other things.    As the years progressed, my mother had us working various jobs (to which she had applied for us).   In high school and college, she had us enroll in volunteer programs in Central and South America, and our curriculum was advanced to a level none of us thought possible.  

One of my mother’s greatest legacies is her boundless and remarkable energy.   It was enough for everyone.   She created endless projects and endless opportunities to fill our days and our minds.   She was the principal, the teacher, the den mother, the head nurse, the groundskeeper, the game warden, the mother nun, the librarian, the counselor and the gym coach.   She could do it all – and she did.    And we followed.   Ok, we resisted much of the time.   But we learned to appreciate it - and we learned to love her for it.

Those summer months flashed by so quickly that many are lost to our memories.   But some moments are clearly remembered.   Like riding our bikes over the crack in the sidewalk that had been lifted by the giant tree, its branches reaching high over our street in a panoramic and protective arch.

The summers my mother created for us helped us build roots like those.   And today we push through life’s challenges as if they are the lightest of concrete blocks.

Each of us has been filled with energy and purpose - vividly so.   As artists, scientists, teachers, businessmen, or just especially good mothers and fathers, we can look back on our summers and, in part, understand why.   

And we’re glad she cut the cord to the TV.   Even if we didn't seem so at the time.

Hey Ghost

Hey ghost
you really don't fit in here
in that Victorian costume
of see-through, sepia design

It might have been cool once
Now it's not to wear drag
Clinton and Stephanie would both tell you
it's not for the ghost about town

Those pale ivory buttons on your brown shoes
are quite out of style unless you're name Ida
But they make for good thumping
up and down the front stairs
 
And the orb
yes, the orb that you sent to my room
How couldn't I notice that thing?
It scared my cat crazy - she scratched my right arm

Come on
I know you can talk
Basement and attic, you murmur and moan
So, "Meg...." in the white noise
won't really scare me
when I tune in my Sony TV

And don't think I'm psycho
No matter how much
you wish and you whisper
you won't get me anywhere near
The coachhouse upstairs

I'm happy and normal
with people from around here
I don't miss Ms. Jacobs or Riley or Gen
And don't want to talk to the girl they say jumped

Hey ghost
You are starting to really annoy me
I'm about ready to call
my friend Father Kret
And then who will be scared?

My green Scwhinn Varsity

From Memorial Park

On the fourth of July

To Beverly Bank

And hot August skies

Flinging on down

old Devil’s hill

Gripping green tape

And ready to spill

And I shouldn’t have left

my favorite 10 speed

My varsity bike

all shiny and green

On the Prospect back porch

unlocked for the night

Without a mean dog

or even a light

To keep out old Charlie,

Fulloflove indeed

My bike in exchange

for a bagful of weed

Jesse's Paint Shop

Out on the key

at a paint shop named Crow's

There's an artist named Jesse

With a pin through his nose

He sits on his stool

and works his designs

lost in his thoughts

to the tunes of Rammstein

At the beach and the bay

the dock and the pier

you see works by Jesse

everywhere here

Butterfly wings, looping and flowing

alien faces, teeth and eyes glowing

Dear mother Alice, in memory of

lost to the seaweed out in the gulf

Girlfriends and wives, now past their best

are recorded on forearms

and painted on chests

Now raising their babies

In Venice and Port Charlotte

The girls have tatts too,

from their days as beach harlots

Wanna be cowboys with testosterone threats

spelled out by Jesse

there on their necks

Crosses galore,
thorn rings and thorn roses

they're part of the band
on their bellies and noses

Jesse's own gallery, in stores and in shops

in high concentration

in the IHops

At the beach, in the sand,

in the sweat and the brine

the tattoo creations, they swim and they shine

There isn't some skin

no matter how teeny

that Jesse's not painted

in a bikini

In a black Scorpions tee shirt, his industry grows

and Jesse's the king - he makes it up as he goes

And Jesse's great helper, what makes it all run
is a sharp clear brown liquid
known around here as rum

As it flows through the crowd on the key and in bars
folks think of Jesse
and get into their cars

They come out to Crow's, open 24 hours
and start out with thoughts of a tiny red flower

Then they get almost naked and pass out on cue
and Jesse starts working
with greens and with blues

By the time they awake,
the confederate painter
has painted himself
a huge alligator

It's there on his calf,
right there on her thigh

It must have looked cool
When they were high

Wake up, my boy

Wake up, my boy

it's time you get started

the coffee pot's on

and the cat has departed

It was a long x-box night

dead cowboys and soldiers

dancing in death

at your wireless controllers

But now here's today

it's here, it's right now

the sun has come up

and so have the cows

And if I have to, I'll say it
on this morning so clear
the perfect alarm clock
"Hey, lookie here"

Tucker's hotel

Out on the highway
on the old Tucker place
Past the faded red barns
and the old missle base

There's a brand new hotel,
built just last year
And it's really not far,
but it's really not near

The Bobs looked at prices
and decided they needed
a place not too fancy
the lot not too weeded

So I drove my white rental
down the straight asphalt track
Past a barbed wire fence
and the weathered old shack

Past the tall skinny pines
and gnarled oak trees
And way past the sign
for the new Applebees

I looked out the window
at the browns and the grays
And the light yellow greens
soon to be maize

They flashed past the windows
in a blurred country scene
Complete with the cattle
and the pigs that looked mean

The black and white cows,
well they just didn't move
They stomped muddy hoofs
and they snorted and stewed

They stood and they stared,
and they chewed and they chewed
They stood in the grass
and they moo'd with their mood

I stepped from the car
and into the gravel
And cursed out Obama
for making me travel

Its healthcare reform and ARRA!
That has me out here for almost no pay...

The lot was deserted
and smelled like manure
which must drift across
from Tucker's, I'm sure

He sold a small corner
of his vast fields of green
Now he's got cows on both sides
and this hotel in between

It's a Holiday Inn,
no wait, it's not that
It some kind of new place,
generic and flat

With carpets and curtains all shipped in pre-made
They're flimsy but cheap, just the right grade

It's a Stay-Inn-Motel
it says on the sign
And when the Bobs saw the prices
they thought it'd be fine

It's not, after all, Miami or Spain
Just a little hick town, without even a train

The front desk was spartan,
one phone and one clerk
and she stood there and waited
and smiled with a smirk

The Stay-Inn was empty
she said it was growing
And that would help Tucker
cut back on his mowing

With my bag and my laptop
and a hope the key fit
I trudged up to my room
like it was the Ritz

It had little shampoos
a cheap plastic alarm
And a full view of Tucker's
his cows and his farm

I went to the window,
looked out it and sighed
They Bobs aren't just cheap,
they're also quite blind

I'd find a way out, get past all those rules
That had me out here, a country-bound fool

Then I saw the old man,
on top of his rig
A green John Deere Lexus,
really quite big

He leaned back and he smiled
and winked up my way
And he turned and he laughed,
and I knew right away

That Tucker had been out here
alone with the birds
With only his pigs
and the cows and the turds

And for just a few acres
of grass and of dirt
he bought off the Bobs
and the Stay-Inn white shirts

So I look out the window
and think, "ain't it a bitch?"
how that old farmer Tucker
got himself rich

There might be clouds

Stepping to the window in the morning, I know most people are cheered if they see the sun's radiance filling the sky.  Not me.  And I don't know why.

Maybe it's a gene scientists will eventually discover.  Until then, it's just a membership in an odd club of people who like stormy skies.  Cloudaphiles.   Neurotics who are inexplicably drawn to complex formations, threatening skies, and contrasting yellows and blues and greys. 

It's not that I don't like the sun.   But after a while, it burns me out, like a bright blue fabric sitting in some Arizona store window.  I become faded; pale blue and brittle.  

There's no background quite like a distant and low rumble that moves across the horizon and stretches back and forth across the low parts of the audible sound spectrum.

And I think the gene may have been passed on.  As we stood in the garage last week, Thomas and I watched a rare spring rain pound down upon the driveway and live oaks.   He suddenly peeled off his shoes and spun out into the maelstrom.   He splashed into the puddles along the curbs and swung in the backyard hammock.  

When he came in, he said, "Dad, isn't this AWESOME?"  What could I say?  Yep.  

So, when I wake up, I look at the window and think, "This might just be a good day.  There might be clouds."

Spring Break

Turquoise Pencil Blog has been on a Spring hiatus - I will be back writing soon

McElligot's Pool

It was a fall-like Florida afternoon.  In the small pond the waves still held their ultramarine chill - they had not yet been baked into the moss green hues of summer.

On the bank, Matt sat in the scratchy St. Augustine grass, armed with the lure sent from his grandpa from the shelves at Bass Pro Shop.   He watched his line and wondered if the weed killers had finally finished off all the fish.

A neighbor from across the shore called to him, leaning against the curved trunk of the palm tree in his yard, a shovel across his shoulder.

"Young man," he called,
You're sort of a fool!
You'll never catch fish
In McElligot's Pool!"

Mat squinted at him in the brightening sun, tucking his knees up under his chin.

“This pool is too small
And you might as well know it
When people have junk
Here’s where they throw it

You might catch a boot or you might catch a can
Or a even a Christmas tree, thrown in by some man

But if you sat fifty years

With your lures and your wishes
You’d grow a long beard before you’d catch fishes"

The bass have all fled
They came down with the flu
With their stripes falling off
And their scales turning blue

So they fled for the East
They schooled up the whole crew"

It's the mid-winter jicker - the weather’s been crazy!

They had to move out - or start pushing daisies"

"Hmm", Matt rubbed his chin as he thought
That's sounds sorta right
I've been fishing for hours without one single bite
And it seems like forever since a fish has been caught

But this might be a pool like I've read of in books
Connected to one of those underground brooks
An underground river that starts here and flows
Right out to Key West - well, who knows?

It might flow along, under the drive

Down past the highway, I-75
Under the cattle, the palmetto in rows
Past Mrs. Umbroso hanging out clothes

This might be a river
Now mightn't it be, connecting McElligot’s pool with the sea
There could be some fish or sea-skimming skator
Skating upstream to hook up with me later

Some very smart fellow, like a guidefish or scout

Might point out the way
And map out the route
So if I wait long enough; if I'm patient and cool
Who knows what I'll catch in McElligot's pool?

I won't be surprised if a dogfish appears!
Complete with collar and long flappy ears
And if it looks just like Molly I won’t be displeased
With her cousins like tarpons and whales in the seas

Oh the fish that I'll see - I know that they're real!

A seahorse, a cowfish, a two-headed eel!

Or the one with the sunburn, the saw, or the drill

The checkerboard belly, he'll be here - he will

Or a fish that's exotic, from far-off Myakki
Weird and mysterious and really just whacky
Like the fall-jumping fish - well it's really a newt

It floats through the air on its own parachute

But the biggest of all

Is something way bigger

And it's some sort of kind of a thing-a-ma-jigger

A thing that's so big, if you know what I mean

That he makes a whale look like a tiny sardine

And that's what Matt found, casting his line

Into the cold and chill waters with a slight hint of brine

He used that old lure his grandpa had sent

And his pole strained and stretched and it bent and it bent

And out popped this fish, and boy, was it cool

It was something right out of McElligot’s pool

Thank you to the master of the trisyllabic meter, Theodor Seuss Geisel.

Credits: Author Dr. Seuss
Country United States
Language English
Publisher Random House
Publication date
1947 (renewed 1974)
Media type Print
Pages 64 pages
ISBN 978-0-394-80083-7

The little things that are forever

In our garage, somewhere at the bottom of a bin, there's a special book, its pages worn and creased.  It's titled, "Love you Forever," written by Robert Munsch.  

The book was a favorite in our home, and starred in countless appearances before naps and bedtime.  Even looking at its cover here brings back memories of all of the places we read it, and of the bookshelves and closets where we hunted for it at storytime.

This book follows a boy through his life - and his mother's love for him.  Whether he's flushing a watch down the toilet as a toddler or being a terrible teenager, the mother always shows him unconditional love.  Eventually, the boy expresses the same love for her, and holds her tenderly in her days as an old woman.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day.  A study that found that about 15% of women send flowers to themselves at work on that day.  No one should have to pretend that they are loved.  Everyone should know the love that Robert Munsch writes about. 

To me, love isn't delivered with roses or found in someone else's words pulled from a store shelf.   It's demonstrated in small and personal moments.  These moments are sometimes not fully appreciated until they've long passed.  Then we remember them in the sweetness of their context.  

I have had many.   Here are a few that come to mind:

-  a teenager, holding your hand in the car
-  a 12 year old that smiles as you joke with his friends at a birthday party
-  the car your parents help you buy when you're in high school
-  a present bought for you on your sister's birthday

-  a mother taking you for a milk shake after your doctor's appointment

-  a father who arrives at the hospital to be with you when you're expecting your first child

-  siblings that hug each other when they come home from college

-  a hand-made cowboy blanket for a nephew, with his name embroidered on it

-  a text message that says, "Hey, dad" but I know means, "I love you, dad"

-  a wife who says she misses you

-  a daughter who is still comforted by tiny pieces of her first blanket

This book, "Love you Forever" has sold 15,000,000 copies worldwide.   And the reason so many people have this book on their shelves is because it tells a universal story of simple, unconditional love; unwavering and unchanging throughout a lifetime, illustrated in small ways, each day. 

It's the kind of love I've known - and what I think about on Valentine's Day.

Two Face the Barber

Andrew clung to me, clutching his Batman, as we walked toward the Barber shop.  It was in Deerfield, across from the railroad tracks.  Tommy tried to keep up next to us; a brave sidekick oblivious to the perils that lay ahead. 

It was Andrew's first haircut (from anyone other than me) and he was 6 years old.  He didn't know what to expect, but I said it was going to be fun; that he'd get to sit up high on the red leather chair.  And that it would all be perfectly harmless.

The tiny place was bustling on that first Saturday morning; crowded with old men getting their nose and ear hair clipped; reading magazines and newspapers.  

When we stepped inside it might as well have been a busy cowboy saloon crowded with outlaws, filled with smoke and hats and big leather boots.   Three barbers were lined up in a row, industriously snipping and buzzing away.   Tommy climbed up into one of the metal chairs that stood against the wall for a better view.   Andrew gripped tighter and said "Dad let's go - please."  

The dirty black and grey hair clippings that littered the floor were scary enough by themselves.  I looked at Andrew's silky blonde hair and felt a knot in my stomach. 

One of the barbers, an older man, looked at the three of us and said, "All of you?"  I shook my head and said, "No, just him."  Andrew started to cry.  "I want to go."   Tommy had now climbed up precariously on the chair for a better look at the tool calendars.  Maybe leaving wasn't such a bad idea...

One guy noticed our situation.   As he finished with his customer, he said, "You like Batman?"   Andrew looked up and nodded his head.   The man who had asked was a big guy, wearing a light blue smock, open to a red flannel shirt.  But his face was startling - he had a huge purple birth mark that covered half of it.  

When Andrew saw him, he dug his head into my shoulder.  "Oh no, it's Two Face."   A few people overheard and smiled.

Two Face, Batman's arch enemy, had been found, and he was here waiting to cut Andrew's hair on our very first trip to a barbershop.  Great. 

"Look," the barber said to me, "I understand, that happens a lot.  It's really OK, he can wait for one of the other guys."

"It's just that this is his first time," I apologized, "and he is a little scared."  So he motioned another customer up to the chair.  Andrew waited for someone else.  When it was finally his turn, I settled him up and on to the booster.  His face scrunched and reddened and tears trickled down his cheeks.   In the end, I sat in the chair holding him, and the barber finished a very hurried job.  Blonde hair fluttered to the floor among the other clippings like feathers falling on lava rocks.

Two Face met us at the door with suckers.  He said his name was Russ, and he told Andrew that he looked great and asked us to come back next time.  We hurried out, our suckers coated with hair clippings.  Andrew told me he never wanted to go back.  Except we did.

A few trips later, Russ was the only barber there, so Andrew bravely but reluctantly climbed into his chair.  And we began to know that Two-Face wasn't what he seemed.  Between clippings, he'd reach over and show off a picture of himself catching a muskie or bass on a fishing trip.  Or he'd let Andrew hold models of cars or motorcycles he liked and kept in the shop.  There were many pictures of a carefree Russ riding his motorcycle in Wisconsin. 

And he'd talk to Andrew about Batman; his favorite characters and which ones he had at home.  Russ said he thought it was cool that the boys called him "Two Face".   Eventually, Russ became their favorite and only barber.   They'd wait patiently for him, pointing at the pictures and models, discussing Russ's great adventures.  He had won them over.

Mysteriously, we also saw him at church.  He was sometimes hard to recognize in his Sunday clothes.  But he'd turn, and he was undeniably Russ.  "Dad", they'd say, "Two Face is over there, see him?"

One Saturday morning, when Andrew was 11, we made our way over to the barber shop.  We walked in and looked around, not seeing him.  It was very quiet. ""We have an apointment with Russ," I said, as we sat down.

The other two Barbers looked at each other, and then at us, solemnly.  "Sorry," one said to us, "Russ won't be in today.  There was an accident last night and he passed away."   They didn't even asked if the boys still wanted a haircut.  They must have known - there was no one else that could do it. 

And so, Two Face slipped out of our lives.  He felt stolen from us.  He had met his tragic end on his motorcycle, his hair streaming behind his head in the wind.  Perhaps we could have imagined he was fleeing from the Batmobile, one side of his face laughing and the other in a sneer. 

But that wasn't the Two Face we knew.  The man we knew was Russ, a gentle giant.  His seemingly cruel face masked a soft-hearted and benign character.  He was a man whose office held toy models of his favorite bikes and cars, and adorned with pictures of him standing in his bass boat. 

When we saw him in the back of the church at Holy Cross, we understood that he really was more than a scary-looking guy with a purple birthmark.  He may have looked like an evil archenemy, but he was really a superhero. 

Thanks, Two-Face.  We really miss you.