There Goes the Neighborhood

One of my favorite childhood memories is of a boisterous, after-supper game of "Kick the Can" with the neighborhood kids. The rules have been forgotten but not the sweet smells and cricket sounds of a summer night. Nor the fleet-footed freedom of running in the dark. Nor the sound of my mother's laughter as she and my father visited on the front steps with the folks next door. Children and adults, nurtured by companionship, shared the reassuring pleasure of being neighbors.
     Today the old concept of a neighborhood as a support system has nearly disappeared. If one is willing to risk the urban dangers of an after-dark walk around the block, one invariably sees the flickering eye of the TV staring back at families hypnotized into immobility. Once part of a gregarious community, the American family has  become an assemblage of quasi-alienated beings living in climate-controlled isolation.
     During his lifetime my father tended to blame the ills of the world on overpopulation, and maybe he was right. Perhaps it's the threat of too many others trespassing upon our personal space that makes us overprotective of it. 
     Consider, for example, the varieties of solitaire available for download on computers, iPhones, and iPads--Fan, Pyramid, Baker's Dozen, Klondike, Spider, Montecarlo--games popular for their ability to be played solo. And although Facebook and Twitter purport to be "social networks," they are in fact anti-social in the sense that they encourage members to exchange thoughts from a safe, electronic distance instead of seeking out friends to engage in lively, face-to-face conversation.
     Unfortunately, on the altar of electronic communication we are sacrificing the art of human sharing. Neighborliness, it seems, is a luxury we can no longer afford.

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Playing by the Rules

I have always envied behavioral psychologists and philosophers the orderly lives they lead. How consoling it must be to know the meaning of life and to have a clear understanding of the rules for living it. Without rules, of course, our day-to-day existence would be fraught with confusion and frustration. Come to think of it, even with rules, life can get pretty chaotic.
      Bartlett's Familiar Quotations credits Cyril Northcote Parkinson as having said, "Work expands to fill the time available for its completion." There is no truth to the rumor that it took him seventeen years to formulate his hypothesis. I take credit for proving it on a daily basis.
      In an attempt to organize myself, I have made an inventory of other rules that seem to influence my behavior. Why, for instance, after carefully coiling the power cord for my laptop and stowing it in the computer case, does it reappear with all the order of a plate of spaghetti? There must be a rule about cords and ropes and garden hoses that I haven't yet put into words. 
      Although the Library of Congress won't acknowledge it, somewhere it is written that "wire coat hangers will tangle," that "elevator occupants will face forward, eyes up," and that "rain will fall on car-washing day."
      Another rule I've noticed seems applicable to all cities--Savannah included. It is not my fault that my holiday and birthday cards frequently arrive several days late. It's because of the rule
that states, "When driving in search of a mailbox, all will be located on the wrong side of the street."
      I've come to understand that the solution to dealing with disorganization is to recognize these immutable laws in order to anticipate them. Then, when chaos reigns anyhow, it's comforting to remember Universal Rule Number One: "If anything can go wrong, it will."

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Royal Flush

A few more words about toilets--and then I promise to stop.
     On a visit to the National Railway Museum in York, England, Prince Charles revealed a facet of his personality heretofore unknown: In fourth place, after God, the Queen, and Camilla, His Majesty loves old toilets. Collecting antique loos is his hobby.
     At first glance his preoccupation with this underappreciated art form seems frivolous. Perhaps even--kinky. Why can't England's future monarch indulge in a respectable pastime such as collecting stamps? A stamp at least you can lick.
     But upon further consideration, I realize His Royal Highness is performing a public service in keeping with his station. By elevating the loo to a position of royal importance, His Majesty encourages his subjects to improve the quality of British plumbing to the point where every Englishman can be flushed with national pride.
     His interest in loos no doubt stems from his concern for the state of the British economy. Consider the number of jobs his hobby provides: He must employ experts to authenticate, polish, and restore his collection; a crew to swab and disinfect the "commodious" rooms in which they are displayed; another team (perhaps pub patrons) to test them on a rotating basis to ensure their proper functioning; and a security force to maintain crowd control and to prevent theft.
     Prince Charles, whose royal ancestry spans centuries, is a living symbol of Britain's colorful history. It is only fitting that his chosen hobby reflects his sensitivity to the past, for "old" is the the operative word to describe his collection. His highness dismisses the hip, color-coordinated models of today. He cares not for racing stripes or stenciling. The decadence of chrome controls and padded seats is contrary to his taste. Any old loo that was good enough for King George III in 1800 is good enough for the Prince of Wales and Edinburgh in 2011.
     In addition to wiping out unemployment and lifting the lid on national pride, Prince Charles has demonstrated an admirable empathy with his subjects. He who will one day wear the crown of England does not eschew the thrones of lesser men.
     After his coronation, I shouldn't be surprised to see other influences upon Great Britain resulting from his patriotic preservation of chamber pots. Perhaps even "God save the King" will give way to "Skip to My Loo."
     It won't be the first time Brittania waives the rules.

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To Pee or Not to Pee--That is the Question

I feel compelled to say a few words concerning public restrooms, about which there is so much to be annoyed.

Let me begin with the ladies' room at an upscale restaurant where the uniformed “attendant” sits in a comfortable chair all day not reading anything in order to be on her toes when I come in to indulge in a private moment. I then rinse my fingers, give her a smile, and opt for a duty free paper towel—despite the fact that she offers me a freshly laundered terrycloth square that will cost me money to use.  If, I hear you ask, preferring  a paper towel is a social faux pas, why even make it available? To reveal just what a cheap, déclassé clod you are, of course. Don't you know anything?

There is always—not a saucer, which invites change—a brandy snifter containing a dollar bill, strategically placed for maximum embarrassment should I opt not to contribute.

Now I know this woman has had a hard life.  She grew up in Columbia, where thieves would snatch her dentures if they could realize a profit. But here she is, with or without documentation, “working” in the USA—meaning she gets to sit all day in a clean environment wearing a uniform for which she has not paid, to panhandle me when I have to forgodsakes pee.  Give me a break.

            In about 1855, when I went to Europe with a college tour, I discovered that public toilet facilities in Italy (a civilized society that should have known better) and France (which did, but didn’t give a damn) were often little more than reeking holes in a wet cement floor. These became popular well before women wore slacks, which, before letting fly, had to be removed in order for one’s feet to be placed in the appropriate footprints—to the right and left of the pee hole. If their aim was Gallic (or Italic), they didn’t spray their ankles. 

Mine wasn’t, therefore I did.

            Somewhere in an old journal I kept a collection of European public toilet paper. The Germans may have given it away for free, but in the (a-hem) end I’d gladly pay for something better. Reynolds markets the same thing in this country as “wax paper.”  In my second most compromising position (right after the gynecology chair), I tried valiantly to employ this product as a wipe—only to find it creatively and malevolently non-absorbent. From then on, I always carried tissues in my purse.

            Part of my resentment about public facilities, whatever the country, stems from high school, when I had a temporary friend whose father had made millions. Since my father had not, this was a mark in her favor with me, a person always curious about how “they” lived.  She had a room with a pink telephone, a back yard with a swimming pool, and a cavernous house with a private screening room.  Mummy and Daddy possessed all the right memberships and occasionally included me in their family jaunts “to the club for buffet night.”  Nothing wrong with that. 

What was wrong, I would soon discover, was that her father made his millions by locking desperate mothers with toddlers, over-beered teens, and weary travelers out of the toilet unless they paid for the privilege. Yes, this man invented “Nickelock” (later “dimelock” and now, if it still exists, probably “dollarlock.”) Nobody in that family—my friend especially—had ever considered the basic inhumanity of this device.Remembering the times I crawled beneath the door because I couldn’t afford to pee, I dropped her like a stone.

            Every women using a public toilet assumes that at any given moment someone will reach over (or under) the door to swipe her purse while she’s in that “Ahhhhhh, thank God” stage of urination.  Thoughtfully, some male (who no doubt never peed while clutching his purse protectively) designed special purse hooks that prevent an easy snatch. But they are always anchored so high on the door that the emergency tissues in my purse can’t be reached while assuming the classic hover-squat mandated by my mother. (“Imagine the HIV, the leprosy, the genital warts you could bring home to this family!”)

            The most offensive public facility has to be the Port-o-let, which never has toilet paper and smells so vile that wetting one’s pants quickly becomes, um, the solution of choice.

            I, who grew up amid a bevy of brothers, have never envied males in any other way. But I must admit that when nature calls, their anatomical design makes life a lot easier. 

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Best Laid Plans

All my life I've been a planner. At age eight I promised myself I would dive off the high divebefore my ninth birthday--and I did. At sixteen I planned to pass my driver's test the first time--and I did. When the college of my choice accepted me, I determined to show my father I could graduate on the Dean's List--and I did. My post college plans were to marry, produce two children two years apart, get a master's degree, and have a career. All those things happened just as I planned.

     Lately, however, my planning hasn't been working out. Case in point: When my seventeen-year-old cat, Sam, succumbed to gravity last August, my plan was to wait an appropriate mourning period, then return to the Humane Society and adopt two senior cats, young enough to keep each other company but old enough not to outlive me. Then fate intervened.
     It was definitely not my plan for my husband of forty-four years to fall in love with another woman--a secret he managed to keep from me for about two months. When the truth of his affair surfaced, he did the honorable thing and introduced her to me, and in an instant I understood why he was so smitten.
     His inamorata now lives with us--a combination of shihtzu and poodle, which makes her either a Pooshitz or a Shitzpoo, depending on the time of day. We named her "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," a ten-month-old rescue puppy who has now been spayed, inoculated, chipped, clipped, and laundered--not necessarily in that order.
     She has come to us housebroken, presumably by the same person who abandoned her. (The first fills me with gratitude, the second makes me crazy.) Shy at first, Lucy has now assumed responsibility for all furry or feathered critters in our fenced-in backyard.  Everything makes Lucy happy--kibbles, her chew toy, riding in the car, tickle games, and any sentence that includes the word "go."
     As Robert Burns once cautioned, "the best laid schemes 'o mice an' men gang aft agley,"
but in this case, I couldn't be more pleased.

Thankyou, Harry Burn

The long slog toward equal rights for women began in 1792 when uppity Mary Wallstonecraft published her feminine treatise Vindication of the Rights of Women. 
    At the time the prevailing opinion was that women are "created to feel rather than to reason" and that any power they aspire to "must be obtained by [their] charms." Mary, on the other hand, regarded "delicacy of sentiment" and "susceptibility of heart" as synonymous with "weakness."
    Her ideas gradually caught fire with other outspoken women, one of whom was Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She drafted a Declaration of Sentiments stating that if women were to be bound by the government's laws, they should be granted an equal say in its operations. This eventually led to the Equal Rights Convention of 1848, held in Seneca Falls, New York, and attended by 260 women and 40 men. It ended with 100 votes--cast by both sexes--approving a resolution that "secured to women equal participation with men in the various trades, professions, and commerce."
    The torrent of sarcasm and ridicule that poured forth from the pulpit and press didn't discourage Stanton. "Just what I wanted," said this 32-year-old warrior. "It will start women thinking, and men too. And when men and women think about a new question, the first step in progress is taken." Sadly, when she died 55 years later, her life's ambition--equality
under the law--was still unfulfilled.
    One hot August afternoon in 1820, the Tennessee House of Representatives--after much heated debate--had reached a 48 to 48 deadlock concerning ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment that had recently passed in the State Senate. When the speaker moved to table the issue until the next legislative session, and thus practically assure its defeat, Harry Burn, a 24-year-old Republican lawmaker, thought about the letter that he carried in his pocket. "Dear Son," his mother had written. "Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt . . . Be a good boy."
   Harry had never wanted nor expected to cast the tie-breaking vote, especially since it might compromise his upcoming bid for reelection. But when the clerk called his name, he honored his mother by voting "aye" for women's suffrage, and thus guaranteed that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by . . . any State on account of sex." Thanks to Harry Burn, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified 91 years ago today, August 18, 1920.

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The Dirty Dozen

About a hundred years ago, I kissed my mother good-bye and climbed to the second floor of Denison University's Stone Hall to meet my fellow freshmen for the first time. By the end of the second week, twelve of us had become friends--gathering nightly in one suite or another, playing bridge, dishing, sharing experiences. We called ourselves the "Dirty Dozen" for reasons no one remembers, and as semester followed semester, our friendship grew. We borrowed clothes and class notes; we found each other dates; we celebrated each new romance and mourned the breakup of old ones.
   Two left school to marry in junior year. Two more transferred to other colleges. The remaining eight of us graduated together, eager to begin our adult lives yet vowing to write, to visit, to call.  A few of us went on to graduate school; all married and started families. Our lives diverged, and eventually we lost touch.
   One day in 1983 my mother called from Ohio to say that a letter for me had arrived at her home, where I hadn't lived for more than twenty years. One of the Dirty Dozen was trying to locate the others with the thought of planning a reunion--no easy task given that we had scattered to California, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, Massachusetts, Ohio, New Jersey, and London.
   Thanks to her persistence, a date for the first gathering since graduation was confirmed. All we needed was a place to rendezvous. Without missing a beat, my mother volunteered her country home--large enough to accommodate twelve guests and isolated enough that we could make all the noise we wanted. She promised to arrange for a caterer, to ready the beds, and to vacate for the three-day weekend.
   On my flight to Ohio I recall wondering what on earth we would talk about. Would we find anything in common after all these years? Since my parents belonged to a country club, I thought if worse came to worst, golf, tennis, and swimming would help to fill the time. This, I said to myself, will either be the longest or the shortest weekend of my life.
   My mother and I sat on her screened porch listening for the sound of a car coming up her long, winding driveway, bearing the Cleveland contingent--the first four DD's to arrive.  When we heard a "beep-beep," we hurried to the turnabout, our hearts thudding with excitement. There was the Cleveland car, and just behind it another, and another, and another. The Dirty Dozen had converged at my mother's gate within seconds of each other from all over the country! The doors burst open, and twelve young girls with middle-aged faces flung themselves into each other's arms, laughing, hugging, weeping, and laughing some more.
   We never used the tennis courts. We ignored the pool. We put on our pajamas after dinner and didn't change out of them until the next afternoon. Among us we counted eight original husbands and four replacements; three teachers and two realtors; eight Republicans, one Democrat, and an Independent; six golfers and one sailor, two agnostics and five Protestants, two smokers, ten pairs of pierced ears, twenty-three breasts, six uteri, and one person who, until then, had never heard of the "G-spot." We talked and laughed until our voices grew froggy and our faces cramped. It turned out to be the longest and the shortest weekend of my life.
   Since that remarkable first reunion twenty-eight years ago, the DD has met every summer in a variety of locales from a rustic house in the Michigan woods to a borrowed beach house on Cape Cod. Every weekend we spend together enriches our lives and strengthens our bond. We remain the Dirty Dozen, even though two of our members have left the world.
   How can I explain what this sisterhood means to me? Now that much of life--homemaking, child rearing, career building--is behind us, we have--as Ossie Davis predicted--"become more than ever who we always were." But when we gather for our weekends, it's not to reminisce. Nor is it to discuss husbands or grandchildren or aging parents or, God help us, the state of our health. It is to measure our own lives against the those with whom we share a common history, to seek information only a same-age sister can provide.
   Last weekend we met in Pennington, New Jersey, to update each other about ourselves and to own what scares us, excites us, makes us sigh with pleasure. As always we gave voice to our plans and dreams, revealed what's working and what's not, and listened to each other without judging. And that's what the Dirty Dozen does best.

             Dede          Sally            Susan          Carole                   Lee      Lyda        Rhea

     [Missing from the photograph are Lynn, Cynthia, and Harriet]

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The Cat Who Came for Breakfast

He appeared at our kitchen door one rainy morning looking like, well, something the cat dragged in. He was soaking wet, had protruding ribs, and was missing a chunk from his left ear.  He didn't meow, he chirped as if he'd been raised by grackles.

   "Don't feed that cat," I said to Fred, "or he'll never leave."  So, of course, Fred did--and the cat didn't.

   He set up housekeeping under our back deck, never letting us pet him, but roaming the neighborhood at night and returning "home" each day to empty a bowl of kibbles. Bed and board greatly improved his appearance. His ear mended, his ribs disappeared, and his bright orange fur began to glisten in the sunlight. We named him Sammy Davis, Jr., our very own Golden Boy.

   Sam was a happy cat--but lonesome. Over and over he tried to ingratiate himself with Callie, our pretty female cat, but she would only hiss and walk away. 

   We decided if he was going to fraternize with other neighborhood cats, we should have his health checked. But how? Street-wise and wily, he wouldn't let us get close enough to grab him. So we stopped filling the kibble bowl for a couple of days and caught him in a humane trap. Off to the vet he went. 

   Our instructions were to put him down if he was diseased, and to nip him in the bud and inoculate him if he was healthy. The news was good, and he came home the next day. Not much time passed before he began to accept an occasional scratch behind the ears, and he seemed to have lost interest in his nightly wandering.

   Except once.

   One afternoon we looked out the kitchen window and saw Sam with something in his mouth--a bird? a rat? Upon closer inspection we saw that it was a barely weaned kitten that he had carried home over the high board fence. Fred likes to think Sammy went out for one last peregrination and ran into an old girlfriend, who said, "I bore her, I weaned her, now you raise her."

   Sam didn't mind that she was a really ugly kitten, who looked to me as if she'd been fashioned from leftover pieces of others people's cats. He loved her and cuddled her and licked her face and ears. We named her "Pie" because of her coat of many colors.

   Sam took to fatherhood like an old pro.  When Pie needed to suckle, he would lie on his back and indulge her to whatever extent he could. So that she could defend herself, he taught her to play/fight, letting her sneak up behind him to pounce, then roll over helplessly as if she'd gotten the best of him.

  When Sam's kitten died of cancer at age five, we were afraid we would lose him, too, so bonded were the two. But Sam was stoic. After two days of investigating every closet and cranny, he went on about his business and continued his attempt to court Callie.

  It took him fourteen years, but he finally won her over. On warm, sunny days we would find them sleeping beside each other out on the deck. On a wintry day they would snuggle together in the wicker basket in front of the fire. And of course all four of us shared our bed.

  Last Christmas, Callie died at age sixteen, and shortly thereafter Sam began to lose weight and have other health complications. Trips to the vet became more and more frequent. Yet Sam handled it with the same stoicism he had always shown, never once in seventeen years using a claw or a tooth inn protest. There are cats, and then there are great cats.  Sam was one of the greatest.

   We did our best to medicate him and to encourage him to eat, yet once an eleven pounder, he now weighed five. "When his quality of life is nil, we'll know it's time," we said to each other. And that time turned out to be this morning--June 18, 2011.

   Our thoughtful vet put us in a room by ourselves and let me hold my golden boy until he left the world.

.

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Voila! The Square

Some genius has made my life a lot easier by designing the “Square.”  It’s a marvelous little piece of technology that attaches to my Droid phone via the earphone port, allowing me to accept a credit card payment for one of my books or paintings from someone who carries neither checkbook nor cash.

       The best part is—both the Square and the app that operates it are FREE!  My only expense is a per-transaction charge of 2.75%.  For example, my novel Spirit Willing: A Savannah Haunting sells for $20, so when someone buys a copy from me using a credit card, $19.45 goes directly into my bank account, and the other 55¢ goes to www.squareup.com. My customer will receive a receipt via email, which I provide by keying in his email address and clicking “send.”

       The app records the amount of the credit card purchase—as well as cash purchases—for bookkeeping purposes. And if I wish to do so, I can use my phone’s camera, accessed by an icon on the app's home page, to photograph the item purchased and/or the buyer himself.

       The Square works with iPhones, iPads, and Droids. It accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover. What a cool concept!

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National Read Across America Week

This week the country is celebrating books in general and the 107th birthday of Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) in particular.
     A successful cartoonist, he wrote much loved children's books that subtly promote racial equality, respect for the environment, generosity, ecumenism, and world peace. I once assigned The Butter Battle Book to my college composition class in hopes that the absurd warfare between the "Yooks" and the "Zooks" would spark lively debate and provide good fodder for essays on the subject of nuclear arms. It did. The book became a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year."
     My husband and I chose to honor Dr. Seuss by volunteering to read Green Eggs and Ham and Horton Hears a Who to kindergartners at Garrison Elementary School for the Arts. We each wore a red-and-white-striped-cat-in-a-hat for the occasion, and audience participation needed no encouragement.
     The school, by the way, is WONDERFUL!  We walked down halls showcasing student drawings and paintings, saw a dance class in progress, heard a sixth-grade orchestra rehearsing, and noticed a classroom full of electric pianos enabling students to practice while wearing headphones. As we were leaving, a fifty-voice chorus of eighth-graders stood in a circle in the first floor gallery and sang a lovely six-part round, their teachers conducting from the center.
     Yes, an academic curriculum--math, science, and English--is an important part of the plan.  But unlike most schools, the arts are valued and encouraged at Garrison, where artistically inclined children are swaddled in a nurturing environment.
     Dr. Seuss would approve.

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