I was one of “those girls”.

I was born with the horse crazy gene.  We can’t help it.  It’s some kind of genetic anomaly.  It is NOT, by the way, a good genetic anomaly to have when growing up on the south side of Chicago.

There was a contest when I was about five.

At that time, there was a candy bar called a “Charleston Chew”.  It was invented in 1922 and named for the dance not the city which the dance was, in fact, named for.    But the Charleston Chew was yet another candy bar amongst the myriad that I spent my allowance on at the local dime store.  (Sad that there are very few, if any, dime stores left. Now it’s all box stores.)  This particular candy bar still exists today with many morphings and leveraged buyouts and corporate shufflings into it’s current existence and owned by Warner Lambert.   These are the same people who merged with Listerine, and Nicoret.   Candy, mouthwash, and an end to nicotine.  Hmmm.

In 1963, however, the Charleston Chew sponsored a contest to win a pony.  If memory serves, you had to eat as many Charleston Chews as possible and send in the wrappers with your name and address.

Because of this, from this day to that day, I cannot look at a Charleston Chew.

I WANTED THAT PONY!!!  NO!!! I HAD to have that pony…

It would free me from driving with the old man on “errands” on Saturdays.  Riley’s Meat Market for the week’s worth of meat.  Then to the Sinclair gas station where the guy with the weird thumbnail would clean the windows.  The home stretch was in sight when he took me to the bar to stop for a beer and gave me a couple of dimes for the juke box.  (If anyone is reading this who is too young to remember, think GIANT ipod filled with vinyl things called records or LPS.)

Finally, we would be heading home along Western Avenue, and past the Evergreen Park Plaza.  It was one of the prototypes for the malls of today.

WAIT!!!  They were having PONY RIDES!!

STOP THE CAR!!!!

NOW!!!!

No one, and I do mean no one, can pitch a hissy fit like a horse crazy red head with a captive audience like a five year old girl in danger of missing an opportunity to get in the saddle.  The car stopped.  My father was the Neville Chamberlain of Evergreen Park.  He was very big on peace at any price.  The price here was fifty cents.  That was two weeks allowance in my world.  I negotiated down to a fifty fifty split.

I then spent my three turns around the wheel of ponies trying to convince the teenage boy to untie the pony and let me have the reins to take him for a spin.

There is nothing, NOTHING, more unreasonable and stubborn than a Shetland pony. They are amongst the orneriest creatures God forgot to leave off the ark with the unicorns.  The number of little horse nut girls in braids who have been tossed by deceptively cute little shetland ponies are beyond legionnaires at Beau Geste.  It is an unspoken rite of passage. Fortunately, from the back of a Shetland pony, it is a short way to the turf. These ponies were bred to be short, go into Welsh coal mines and pull carts of coal.  Tough doesn’t begin to describe their particular personality disorder.  Welsh does. (Kidding.)  Damn good thing they are largely and perpetually cute.  Think Bonnie Butler in “Gone With the Wind”.

So when the Charleston Chew contest came along, I had it all figured out.  I would eat the entire production line of “Chews” if I needed to.  The pony would be stabled in the detached garage that was accessed by the typical alleys of city life.  I would ride “Thunder” up and down my alley and brush him and love him and go in and watch reruns of “My Friend Flicka” or “Mr. Ed”.

That’s it!  I would teach him to speak like “Mr. Ed”….

My father was somehow, and for whatever reason, somewhat resistant to this business plan. God, my childhood was ensconced in, and surrounded by, unreasonable adults.

Needless to say, this campaign went down in flames like McGovern’s, Goldwater’s, or Mondale’s.

Aah, but the horse crazy gene refused to yield.

I did everything, and I mean EVERYTHING I could do to earn money to ride horses.  I babysat, for God’s sake!  I was an only child and was never going to have kids.  This should have been shared with prospective “clients”.  But another fifty cents and I could garner another magic hour on a horse.  In a rare lapse of business acumen, I agreed to watch THIRTEEN weeks of PBS series (then a neophyte channel) and give a report for TWO hours (straight) of riding. Pointless root canal work sans novocaine would have been a better deal.

For more money, of course.

I think my parents were waiting for this “phase” to end.  Everything was a phase during that period of time.  It was the narcotic of parenthood.  As in “it’s just a phase, it will pass.”

I didn’t get that memo.  I continued to to everything and anything I could to get my butt on the back of a horse.  I founded a riding club or, excuuuse me, an “Equestrian Club”, at the high school that was built and opened for our part of the baby boom.  I argued with my neighbor, Moose, the football player that I was an ATHLETE whilst he was merely a “jock”.

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.”  He was a very wise soul who had the rare male variance of the horse crazy gene.  Where I live now, a horse is largely viewed as another method of transportation and utility….  Bulldogging and team roping are varsity sports along with the other rodeo events.

My husband gave me my first horse after we were married.  All mine.  Finally.  He also, God bless him, said “Go for it.”

I went for it. Big time.  I trained this barely broke monster whose attitude and stubbornness lined up perfectly with mine.  And for two years we showed and competed in the hunter divisions  almost every weekend.  I got a new saddle for my birthday and donated the forty year old relic I had gotten for free to the school saddle pile.

There were also occasional forays into fox hunting.  That’s where forty horses and riders are tearing over hill and dale at top speed and jumping whatever gets in their way.  Think extended roller coaster ride.

I won ribbons.  Lots of them.  And I got pregnant.

Something changed even when I went back to the competitions.   Pre-motherhood, I would jump anything you put in front of me.  I would love to see just how high we could go; or rather that was when my trusty steed wasn’t slamming on the brakes and having me kiss the turf.

There came a time when I knew that the mommy track and the horse show track would have to part ways.  My heart knew that I had to put the time into my children and there would always be another horse.  Once I reached that decision, it was okay.

Flash forward eight years.  Everyone was in school and I could carve out the time during the day to regain my skills.  I found a great trainer out here in the wild west that taught hunt seat equestrian skills and had all the gear to resume what I thought was still my passion.

I was wrong.

In that hiatus I discovered, at least in this venue, that I had grown cautious.  It was no longer a thrill to teach a 1500 pound animal with the brain the size of a walnut and a serious flight reflex to hurl the two of us over a large obstacle that it normally viewed as  a corral.  Fear is too strong a word.  It was more of a niggling concern that I just didn’t want to risk pain and rehabilitation.

When you ride horses  long enough something, even in pure percentages, is bound to occur.  Horseback riding had become a “have to”, not a “want to”.

I had my numerous ribbons made into a quilt that hangs in my office.  It  sits near the pink hard hat that was given to me  by a dear friend when I became the general contractor on this house in which we now reside in the wild west.  The next adventure.  (Thanks Reg)

I have to say that I don’t really miss my bridle time.  I have my “hero” pictures.  I have the memory of soaring from the earth, my (un)trusty steed and I.  I still enjoy the occasional trail ride. Mostly those are spent with my daughter.  But it was time to hang it up.  And it was the right time.

Time to fully embrace the next phase of my life and “go for it” in a different way.

I discovered late in life, that I had REALLY only been jealous of one friend in my life.  Arlene. She is as wonderful, kind and generous person who has ever walked this earth.  BUT, she got to see the Monkees in concert in New York for one of the few times that Jimi Hendrix opened for them.  Citing “artistic differences” with one extension of the third digit he took his leave when all the hormental teens were just screaming for Davy.  What a moment.

I waged a full throttle, redheaded campaign to be allowed — at the age of ten (almost)– to be allowed to go to the Arie Crown Theatre to go and see them.  I had it all mapped out.  I had the train schedule and had saved for cab fare (at fifty cents a week).  (Having questioned my oblivious father what cab fare cost from the Northwestern Station to Arie Crown).

I was set.

They said “NO!!!”

I may forgive them eventually.  Haven’t yet.  How unreasonable could any set of parents be?  I certainly had the worst set of THE most unreasonable parents in the world.  I didn’t fail to tell share that fact with them endlessly.

I battled every Monday night to have ONE half hour with the four boys my pre-hormental “Pre Fab” guys provided for me.  It martyred my father.  I’m sure, given everything else, he received beatification on that fact alone. But I refused to be his remote control for the four channels on the air (pre UHF) unless I could have that time with the Monkees.

Later that same year, I got into an MAJOR argument with my much older brother that the Monkees, were SO much better than the Beatles. This conclusion was drawn by WLS-AM (when their was only AM radio and before eight tracks) His head almost exploded all over the wall of his 1963 Chevy Nova.

“Monkeemania”, as it was called, carried me through a major transition in my life.  One day, I was in Ellen Puschak’s basement listening ENDLESSLY to “More of the Monkees” somewhat quietly (her dad was a  Chicago fireman) and the next we were in the “farm country” of the northwest suburbs where they still grew corn. and I could walk three blocks away and ride a horse (or something that resembled one).

I understand they started out as manufactured.  They were one of many sixties bands that were — especially the “bubble gum” bands.  But they found a way to take control and make it real.  Their version of the Christmas hymn “Riu Chiu” remains one of my all time favorites (in an episode that also starred “Eddie Munster” aka Butch Patrick).

I was just another pre teen praying for Marcia Brady hair, breasts, (not necessarily in that order) and madly in love with the Monkees.  Every day I set out to be “groovy” and failed miserably.  But I was an unabashed Davy Jones fan.  One of the two fan letters I wrote in my life was to Davy.  I remember it is how I learned to spell the word offense.  In professing  my undying love for Davy, I constructed the following sentences: “I love Davy because he loves horses.  No offense to you other three fellows, but I do.”

The lack of a response did not deter me.  Given my size at the time, I had a jockey school all picked out in California.  I planned on going there when I turned sixteen and dropped out of school.  I would become a licensed jockey and meet Davy Jones and prove worthy of his love of horses.  I did not share these plans with the folks for obvious reasons.

I grew too tall to become a jockey, never having achieved grooviness.  I took up showing hunters in little shows near home. I stopped fighting with my hair. The Monkees broke up and life moved on.

Flash forward to 1997.  Having failed to get tickets to the 1986 reunion tour, the three remaining Monkees were touring in Minneapolis where we were having our annual family reunion.  I grabbed two tickets for my beloved niece, Katie and myself.

I felt a little ridiculous but triumphant.  After all, I had waited thirty years to get to see these guys perform.

What happened next amazed me.

When we got to the theatre, there were literally hundreds of women my age and slightly older with posters, journals, photos and all sorts of memorabilia hoping to get a few seconds with the band.

And here I thought I was in need of intervention…

It was a great show.  It was very family friendly with Peter, Mickey and Davy joking about handing out Advil to the girls in the “mosh pit”.   They knew their fan base and had a genuine affection for them.  They commiserated with the poor husbands who were dragged along to keep their wives from throwing their granny panties on the stage.

It was such a great, though belated, experience.  Several years later I took my daughter to another concert/semi-reunion in 2001 and was lucky enough to see Davy Jones last summer.  His fan base was still just as strong as ever.

I find myself very sad.  It a chapter from my childhood that is permanently closed.  Many with more street cred to their names have commented on the untimely demise of Mr. Jones.  But I had to try to put down the impact, however subtle, he had on my life.  I never got the Marcia Brady hair, the breasts did come eventually, but Davy and I had horses in common.   We had that thread.  And I’m glad he was around his horses when his time came.

Davy once said he was a very private person living a very public life.  I thank you for the public part and am very glad that your funeral yesterday provided you the privacy you craved.

He is missed by many.  And by a little girl who ended up in a grown up body.

I have done numerous eulogies over the course of my adult life.  Like some contrapositive   variation of tender mercy, I have had the privilege to help people send their recently deceased loved ones off to the choir invisible.  It is a calling that sucks, quite frankly.  Someone I know and love dies in order for me to be called into action.  While  loved ones are on their knees, I am pounding out the words that will give their lives proper homage.

The first eulogy I ever did was for a man I had met only once.  He was my (then) future father-in-law, Dr. Harley M. Sigmond, M.D.

In  July of 1988, my (then) boyfriend invited me up to the “lake place” to meet his siblings and his mother, who had retired there with her husband after he had a stroke that left him paralyzed on the right side and aphasic.  The only words he had left were “Yes, okay” and “God damn no.”

I had no trouble engaging in a conversation with him:

“Dr. Sigmond, I see you are watching the Cubs game.”

“Yes, okay.”

“Are they winning?”

“Goddamn, no!”

“Do you think they have a chance?”

“Goddamn, no!”

“Wait until next year, eh?”

“Yes, okay!”

He gave his son a big thumbs up with his good hand.

He passed away, two months later while I was again visiting the family with my husband to be.  Having lingered in the hospital for a week after another stroke, he came to his peace.  The timbre of the weekend immediately changed.

My husband’s family is an exclusionary lot.  They grew up in comfort and privilege and the best way to phrase this is that they are not very welcoming.  It takes them out of their safety zone.

I was now about as welcome as a good case of the plague.Except for my husband.

He entreated me to stay and help him through the weekend.  He needed my support as everyone else was methodically making arrangements and planning the menu for after the service.  I understand this was their way of coping.   But it was NOT what my husband needed.

“She can stay if she wants to,” was my future mother in law’s frosty response to his entreaty.

I ended up taking a lot of walks to stay out of the way.  This pleased them.  They complimented me that I “knew when to leave”.  It was a survival mechanism for me as I negotiated the cultural mine field.

But my future husband was becoming increasingly more frustrated.  His needs in honoring his father were not getting met.  At all.  All the other family members are introverts, task oriented,  and repress their emotions.  No one ever addresses the 300 pound Magilla in the living room.  Eric was (and is) every bit as gregarious, curious, boisterous and welcoming as his father was.  He needed desperately to find a way to convey the essence of his dad to the people who would be attending the memorial service.  I could feel his frustration reaching the boiling point.

I pulled him into the little office area in the back of the house, fired up the computer, and said, “Start talking and I’ll start typing.”

We writers are an odd lot.  We process things by putting them into words and, sometimes, putting those words out to be scrutinized.  Some writers are better at the latter than I am.  But either way, it is a direct circuit from brain to heart to fingers on the keyboard.

Except this time.

This time, he began to speak of his dad and all the man’s qualities, virtues and faults.  The words came from HIS heart to MY heart and out my fingertips onto the keyboard.  I was certain that the spirit of Harley was between us with the necessary cosmic jumper cables completing this incredible circuit.  It was all I could do to keep up.

‘Twas truly one of the most amazing experiences of my life up to that point.

The whole process took about 30 minutes and here is the product of that magic time as we said goodbye to Harley.  His parting gift to me was an entree into his family:

A Tribute

From time to time on this earth, God puts a very special human being amongst us.  Usually such people go through life quietly committed to their fellow man; doing good acts and expecting only the reward of a good feeling in their souls.  When such a person come to us, lives his life, and quietly leaves us, there are moments of mourning that are all too fleeting.  These moments are cut short by a need to get on with the day-to-day matters of life.

Comforting words are spoken.  The final ceremony is performed.  Those closest to these very special people miss them.  But we all continue on.

And they would want it that way.  While the words are fleeting, and the necessities of day to day life do, indeed, call us onward, we fee acutely the loss of Harley M. “Sig” Sigmond.

There will always be other orthopedic surgeons to fulfill the societal function — heal the sick, fix a broken bone, make “all better”.  But the true loss is Sig’s compassion and his quiet commitment to his fellow man.

No one could “make all better” like Sig.  Through a lifelong, selfless, commitment to others, he conveyed the love, understanding and respect for life and for the betterment of others through his efforts.

Sometimes, when you meet a man on the street and shake his hand, you come away from that brief encounter with a smile — though you can’t say why, exactly — and a better outlook on life.  Sometimes, it’s a pat on the shoulder to someone who is depressed.  Sometimes it is a smile for the frustration of a child.  Sig was a man who lived for others and reaped his rewards in those who remain to convey the love and understanding he instilled in all those he touched.

For this reason, we gather.  We shed some tears.  We break into a smile at a fond remembrance.  We remember and feel again, the warm glow of his hugs.  And we receive, without any surprise, the deepest condolences of his residents, his patients, and people in the community.  They too will occasionally remember Sig’s smile.  The glow will carry on.

We do not come together to praise a man of perfection.  To make a man like Sig an icon would be to do him an injustice.  We must also remember the warmth of his imperfections.

“Cut the mustard and get it done.”

“Daddy’s coming down the hall with a broom.”

“I’m going to get the Great Persuader.”  (An item of mystery to this day.)

To convey a sense of discipline in order to create a long term good, one must sometimes be a tough guy.  Sig also took on this role with relish and gusto — as he did in all things.

He is remembered most of all by his children.  In the same exuberant manner in which he lived, he has left this earth with four variations on the theme of Sig.  Each one has his special imprint and his sense of right and compassion toward his fellow man.  All will continue to smile and remember their Dad.  Though the pain of their loss is acute right now, when they smile they will know he is with them still.

“Yes, okay.”

We were engaged two months later.

When I lived in the suburbs of Chicago, it was understood that you started signing your kids up for sports teams by age four.  From then on life was lived largely on a field of some sort with a folding chair. (God bless the inventor of the current model with shade, foot rest, and the all important cup holder.)  Snack parents and coffee parents were assigned at the beginning of the season and life was now mapped out for the duration.  A date with your husband?  Why the awards banquets of course.

I’m not complaining.  We have tons of video and photos.  There is the sweet moment of my daughter and her friend Bess doing the macarena and hugging as the ball dribbled into the goal at soccer.  My husband would take the twins out into the back yard with the giant plastic bat and ball and play a variation of baseball.  In this version, he would not tag them out.  Rather, he would get the ball and chase them around the “bases” yelling, “I’M GONNA GET YOU!”

Not knowing any different, both boys applied this principle to getting the opponent out in  T-ball.  That’s another I have on video.

But, as any parent discovers, the level of competition moves glacially from the sweet to the intense.  The barometer is cranked up on expectations.  It is rather insidious, I think.  Suddenly, at eight years old, it is a tragedy if your child is not invited to try out for and consequently make a travel team.  (They’ll never make the high school team if this doesn’t occur.)  Really, EIGHT?

Many people find themselves with three kids in three different sports in three different states on any given weekend throughout the year.  When my daughter expressed an interest in Irish dancing, I discovered I/we would be expected to spend thousands of dollars on costumes and compete in feis in St. Louis over the Thanksgiving weekend.  Otherwise, your daughter would never have a chance.  As with everything else in life, there were “better” clubs and “lesser” clubs.  Okay, take that off the list.

It’s not that I didn’t support or encourage my childrens’ interests.  We emphasized fun.  Everything in life would be ramped up soon enough.  We found sports teams in less competitive suburbs, since the Olympics were not our goal.  Our daughter and twin sons were happy with this decision.  After all, we strongly advocated the ancient Greek philosophy of a balance between body, mind and spiritus.  They enjoyed the teams and sports of which they partook. My husband and I also got our weekly date, an integral part of the dynamic of our marriage.  We retained the integrity of the family we had worked so hard to build.

We vetoed hockey because the five year olds could only have the 5:30 a.m. time slot.  This was before a Chicago father encouraged his young child to check a kid so hard he ended up paralyzed and another father was stabbed in a fight in the stands.  Hockey is a tough sport.  But felonious assault by the spectators?

Chicago area soccer clubs were beginning to speak of advocating “silent Sundays”.  Even positive comments (which were legion in our area with a couple of exceptions) were to be banned.  Parents  were to stand in silence on the sidelines.

That was just another grain of sand in the hourglass of our decision to leave.  From the sublime of the macarena and a hug to the silence of “support” for team spirit.

When we moved out here to the wild west, I was warned that this was a tough town.  I smugly laughed.  I had lived with the pros for all my life.  This was bush league.

Or maybe not.  I had not anticipated small town infrastructure.

One of the first jokes I heard here was “Why doesn’t  South Dakota have a professional team?”

Answer: “Because then Minnesota would want one.”  (Sorry neighbor.)

But when you live in one of those states that doesn’t have a pro team or has “only” a semi-pro team, the focus of competition becomes primarily high school or collegiate.  There exists a “Hoosiers” mentality.  EVERYONE in town shows up to the high school games for football, soccer, basketball and American Legion baseball.  People who no longer have kids on teams still follow them and attend the games.  The retirees are a fixture.

My one-minute older son plays basketball.  Last year, right at the beginning of the season, he sprained his shoulder at the local ski hill and spent the greatest part of the season riding the bike in practice.  When he finally was medically cleared, he spent the season warming a chair and being supportive of his team. This year, when he wanted to go out for the team again, we revoked his ski pass.  He was completely okay with that decision.

He made every practice and came home tired.  I knew he was working hard.  The coach, at the beginning of the season, held a parent meeting where he stated very clearly that he would happily meet with any parent to discuss anything EXCEPT play time.

I can completely understand that policy, having experienced helicopter parents on steroids.  But after game five of driving all over western South Dakota, only to see my son’s buns in a chair for the duration, I began to empathize with those whirlybirds back “east river”.

But I honored the policy.  Rather I encouraged my son, a man of few words (usually seven or ten a day – at least toward his folks) to go to the coach and ask what he needed to work on or what he needed to do to get play time.

“Keep working.” was the reply.

I could feel my son’s pain and frustration as the season progressed.  There were a couple of other kids in the same situation.  We watched these kids continue to warm the chairs and support the rest of the team.

It turns out that there were two basketball camps last summer.

Cultural aside:  When we moved here, everyone assumed that you knew where everything was located, what events were impending, at what practice venue and who needed to be there. No flyers, e-mails, or phone trees are ever utilized.

My son missed the first basketball camp because he was on a two week, sixty mile hike with the boy scouts that had been planned for sixteen months.  Apparently, carrying around a sixty pound pack for fourteen days doesn’t count as conditioning.

It turns out the coach was only playing the kids who had managed to make the camps.

Last night was the last game of the season.  We were playing a team from Rapid City that is known for their basketball team.  We were getting trounced.  But Mom and Dad were on their stadium chairs courtside being supportive.

Last two minutes of the game.  IT HAPPENS!!! My son got to play.

In two minutes time: a block, a rebound, a steal and a basket.

I can guarantee that my son heard us in the bleachers.  Take that coach.

I’ll dine on this for months.  And I thank my son for “allowing” me (sort of) to hug and kiss him in the high school gym.

Aaaaaah.  Sometimes standing on your tongue and letting your child handle the situation yields really GREAT moments.

I bill myself as an only child.  This is technically true but I do, in fact, have a half brother.  We share the same mother.  She had bad taste in husbands.  Mom was drawn to self absorbed men incapable of thinking of anyone else.  We were planets orbiting around them.  That was our sole purpose as far as they were concerned.

The first was a philanderer who left her when my brother Rick was four.  The father had nothing more to do with his son when he left her for another woman and allegedly proceeded to produce six or seven more half siblings through a string of a couple of more marriages.  I know Rick was curious about these siblings but never worked up the courage or gumption to pursue his curiosity.

Then our mutual Mom met and married my father.  I think that she thought she was getting out of her personal hell and into the 1950′s version of the “dream”.  Marry a doctor or lawyer, get a house in the ‘burbs and live happily ever after. But my father was a facsimile.

He was  a very troubled man.  He had many demons surrounding him.  He was bisexual at best and an alcoholic.  Though very intelligent and sometimes very witty when he wasn’t being cruel, he let his demons run his life while hiding behind the disguise of white bread respectability.  I am afraid that my brother, already once betrayed, walked from the frying pan into the fire.  He saw the man behind the mask that my father wore to the public and it wasn’t pretty.  I didn’t know any better and this in some ways saved me.  I thought everyone’s dad came home and drank scotch until they passed out in the chair.  In fact, I looked forward to it.  I would wait patiently for the inevitable sound of his sonorous snoring that signaled his unconsciousness.  Then I could watch what I wanted to watch on television.

Dysfunction, it seems, was the new normal.

Rick left home as soon as he could and married and started a family.  I, as the favored child, stayed within my cocoon oblivious to the cracks in the fuselage.  Maintaining the facade, Rick and his wife did not live too far away and would come to visit for compulsory occasions.

Just across the street from our home, there was a small playground.  On one occasion when Rick and his family were visiting, we took his two daughters over to play there.  While the girls were playing on the slide, he and I sat down on the swings.  Slowly at first, but with ever increasing vigor, Rick and I began to swing and pump, swing and pump, gaining a semblance of altitude and momentum.

There was nothing between us but these moments accentuated by the pause in centrifugal force at each end of the arc our swings made.  A pause in which we defied gravity and levitated.  At the acme of each arc, we hung suspended in air and looked at each other and smiled. It was a bond that dissolved all competition, resentment and alienation between us.  The favored child that proved my father’s manhood and the unwanted son shed those bonds and labels if only for the time being.

I will always remember that feeling.  I can recall it with perfect clarity even now, some thirty years later.  The perfection of this rare time with my bro on a sunny day where our feet seemed to touch the clouds.  And all was good and warm between us.

Unfortunately, feelings and moments don’t last.  Can’t last.

My relationship with my brother got increasingly more and more toxic.  The chess game that was my family’s dynamic got checkmated.  I moved out of the state eight years ago and he doesn’t know I left.  There has been no communication since my mother’s funeral fifteen years ago.  I probably have grand nieces or nephews, but I don’t know how many, nor who my nieces married.

I understand this happens a lot more commonly than I thought.  Sibling relations are complex and fraught with resentment and estrangement.  I have come to accept the fact that there most likely is not going to be a Hollywood ending to this scenario.  It is what it is and it is most important to put our myths to bed.

When I think of him now, I remember that magic series of moments suspended in mid air; just he and I defying the inevitable forces of nature.  Time stopping for a fleeting second or two, stuffed with happiness on the swings in a park.

I wish him well.

Though most people delineate between the two with the glass half-empty or half-full metaphor, I think it is far more complex than that.  Rather, each side is fraught with some subtle differences.  I live by the metaphor about the little girl who wanted a pony very badly and her fairy godmother came to her and gave her a bag of horse manure.

The girl gave a cry of delight and proceeded to rip open the bag and dig through the horse manure with both hands.  Her fairy godmother was astonished and asked whatever was she doing.

The little girl replied, “I ‘m digging to find the pony!”

The optimist greets each day an urge to explore all that is possible in the day ahead.  Though they do not necessarily spring forth humming show tunes, as the day unfolds, the power of the good of the world unfolds simultaneously.  If it rains, the optimist looks for the rainbow.

The pessimist denies that they are one.  But they prepare for rain by carrying an umbrella and expect to be splashed when the rain begins; most likely from the taxi that blows by ignoring their hails.

But in each case, pessimist or optimist, the origin of his or her outlook is not predetermined.  I firmly believe that is an unconscious decision that can be remedied by being made consciously.

My name is Mary and I am a recovering pessimist.     I have left the dark side.  I have crossed over to the light.  I hope my optimist’s membership card is in the mail.

I met an elderly man recently who has numerous medical issues.  He is diabetic.  As a result of this terrible illness, he has lost six of his fingers and both his legs below the knees.

But he gets up each day and a friend comes and helps him into the truck and they go out to the fields where he oversees his livestock.  Though grateful for the assistance, I’m quite sure he’d find a way to do this no matter what.  He is glad to be alive, quick to tell a joke, and thankful for “all the Lord has given me”.

I met a woman recently who drives a new car, has lovely clothes, and lives in a wonderful condominium.  She has enough free time to golf and travel and is blessed with good health.

But she is alone.  She is divorced, alienated from her children and spent Thanksgiving weekend alone.  When you talk to her, she will tell you that none of this is her doing.  Everyone else is at fault.  She questions why life took this turn and sees nothing but loneliness ahead.

I wished that I could introduce these two people.  Alas, it is highly unlikely, though one can hope. The optimistic elderly man could have, I believe, given this elegant unhappy woman an example of how the optimist can potentiate a change for the better.  That life is a gift that you can mold to your needs with a seed change in perspective.  That’s all it takes.

There are two kinds of people: optimists and pessimists.  My cell phone ring tone is “Always Look On the Bright Side of Life”, from Monty Python.  Sums it all up for me.

Basically, on Christmas morning, we opened the presents and that was that.  We all retreated to our respective corners; Dad poured the first in a long series of scotches, and the television came on.  Not Scrooge per se.  Just not the Norman Rockwell painting that we all were taught to buy into as part of the Christmas myth.  I personally believe that Mr. Rockwell did us a great disservice.  I realize that there are families out there that have experienced those holiday moments he depicted.  The bar was unrealistically high for the majority of us.  I also think those families depicted in the painting are fewer in number and there are far more who watch Aunt Hattie nip at the scuppernong wine while Uncle Fred pretends to doze because he won’t have to listen to Aunt Edna’s description of her most recent hemorrhoid surgery.

When my brother married and left the house, his wife took over the Christmas “festivities”.  She did this, in part, over outrage that we would have people who “weren’t family” join us for Christmas Day.  When I became engaged to my husband, I told him that I would only ask him to experience that particular edition of Christmas once.  This gathering at my brother’s house was quite orchestrated.  It was a step up from those experiences of my childhood.  But it was a very small one.

“How bad can it be?” he asked.

I only smiled.

When we arrived at my brother’s house, an instantaneous ritual occured.  We were always led into the living room, while her (comparatively) large Italian family flopped on the couches in the den, having been authorized to arrive two to three hours earlier.  They had had “their” Christmas.

We opened our presents and then joined the other “floppies” glued to the television.  (There is some continuity here.)  At one point, my then fiance tried to engage everyone in conversation by bringing up what a blessing that the Berlin Wall had been torn down and the world was a freer place to be.

They looked at him like he was from Mars.

Time for dinner.  THE Christmas dinner.  Mr. Rockwell’s scenario was nowhere to be found.

Instead, we would be served the remains of the leftover turkey from the night before, when her family celebrated not only Christmas Eve, but her brother’s birthday of the same day.

Leftovers?  Christmas?

My fiance walked out of that situation practically foaming at the mouth like the “old man” cursing Bumpus’ dogs in the movie “A Christmas Story”.  (Probably a more common description of the yule season than one would suspect.)

That was that.

Within two years of our marriage, we had our daughter and the hopes of more.  Referencing the “old man” in “A Christmas Story”, we developed a routine of swearing the Christmas tree into it’s glory.  I made egg nog.  Friends would stop by for a bit of cheer and to watch the God damniting up the Christmas tree.

I came to understand that Christmas was about these traditions we created; not the manufactured expectations fed to us by a commercial spoon.  I came to love our version of Christmas.  Especially Santa.

We came to be good friends with Chuck and Maureen.  Their sons were grown and out in the world and Chuck chose to be Santa every year.  We would put a pillow case of presents outside and leave the door unlocked.  Sitting in the living room and reading to our kids, Santa would suddenly appear from the vicinity of our kitchen.  ”Caught” again.  We came to share this with our kids friends and Chuck did this every year until we moved away.  He did this even after his son suddenly died three months before.

When we moved, my twins were eight years old.  One of them was particularly anxious at yuletide that year.  Would Santa find us?  Would we catch him as we always had?

I explained that Santa had to cover the eastern and central time zone first and we would most likely be in bed by the time he got to mountain standard time.  His Christmas list that year had one glaring request:  ”Santa, please prove to me that you are real.”

OMG!!

But since there are no coincidences, Trevor’s third grade teacher stepped in.  She is an incredibly generous, kind and uplifting person and happened to have a friend who lived in North Pole, Alaska.  If I could draft a letter from Santa, she would see that it was postmarked from there.  I share it here with you:

December, 2005

Master Trevor Sigmond

Spearfish, South Dakota 57783

My Dear Trevor:

As you know, it is a very hectic time of year for me.  I got your Christmas wish list as well as Chelsea’s and Connor’s.  I know that you have been a very good boy.  You always are.  You work hard at school and are kind to your friends and always do what your mom and dad ask you to do.  You have made a great improvement in getting organized too!! I am proud of you.

You are getting this letter because it was one of your Christmas wishes.  Thank you for still believing in me.  When boys and girls get to a certain age, they start thinking too much, instead of listening with their hearts.  This, unfortunately, is part of the process of becoming a grown up.  It doesn’t have to be; there are plenty of grown ups out there who trust in the miracles that come around every day – in all shapes and sizes.

There is more magic in this world than people know.  Because they can’t see it, they think it doesn’t exist.  Be one of the special ones who will continue to believe in all the magic that the world has to offer.  You were lucky to catch me each Christmas Eve when you and your family lived in Illinois.  South Dakota is later on my route.  But, just because you don’t see me doesn’t mean I don’t exist.  And my spirit will always be in your heart.  Keep the spirit alive.

Don’t fret if you do stop believing for a while.  I will always believe in you.  One of the gifts I give a lot of lucky grownups is the miracle of children.  It helps them remember me and believe all over again.  That is some of the magic that you, Connor and Chelsea have given to your mom and dad.

Merry Christmas, Trevor.  And it is signed by Santa. (No, not in mom’s handwriting.)

He still cherishes (though secretly now) the “BELIEVE” ornament that came with the letter.

Whenever I feel too stressed about “creating” Christmas, I go back and read those words. If I never write anything else, I am proud of that.  It keeps me grounded in the fact that Christmas is about gathering, connecting, loving.  Even Aunt Edna.  It is not about glitz and Black Fridays and stressing in anyway.

So this year, the family is getting “experiences” that will become memories to cherish.  It beats the heck out of yet another Nerf gun….

The Christmas card will wait until my daughter can get home and we can have, yet another, family portrait.

Blessings of the season to  you all.

I am listening to a cover version of the song by the late and amazing Stan Rogers.  It is entitled “45 Years from Now.”.

Part of the lyric is. “I just want to see your smiling face 45 years from now.”

It is “our” song.

I am an unabashed folk music nut. It probably originates in my South Side Irish roots.  I was just old enough (well, sort of) to be able to go to the Earl of Old Town in Chicago and ride  the wave of the folk music wave of the 70′s.  Steve Goodman (Chicago Shorty), John Prine, Bonnie Koloc, the Holstein Brothers, Jim Post, Stan Rogers.  All of it was magic.  They are the modern troubadours who brought tales of current events through song (with the approval of the King or the local lord, Earl Pionki).  It is a time honored tradition that I hold close to my heart.  Many happy memories.

I didn’t meet my soulmate until I was almost 30 years old and realizing that I had made a huge mistake and married a human potato because it was time to do it.  Everyone else had.    I had just given up hope that my “must be with” was out there.  Time to settle.  Not a good idea – for either of us.  Time to settle?  It seemed to be time to embrace the suburban/urban “dream” that turned rather quickly into a nightmare.  That’s another story for another time. It took only the short time of about six months to find that I  couldn’t swallow another day.  I was on my way OUT!

And then I met him…

As of this moment, we are heading toward our twenty third anniversary.  It is too small a number for the amount of love there is between us.  We speak a great deal about “what if?”.  What if we had met earlier?  We wouldn’t have had the maturity nor time  nor patience nor persistence to make it work.   Everything happens in perfect time. It is a simple but very powerful lesson.

But it is Stan’s words that resonate with us the most and are quoted between us on every anniversary, birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day.  You get the idea…….

“I just want to see your smiling face forty five years from now.”

That would make him 105 and me 98.

I still plan and hope to be chasing his cute tush around the extended care facility.  Him in a wheelchair and me in a walker.  Hand in hand.

If I were you, I’d bet on me.  I waited too long to find him.

And I’m so very grateful for every single moment we have.

Even when he doesn’t close the cabinet doors.  (How hard is that?)

But, I just want to see your smiling face forty five years from now.

Not me!!  At least not most of the time.  But it wasn’t the case earlier this month.

We recently held our thirty fifth high school class reunion in the Chicagoland area, not far from Buffalo Grove High School where we had matriculated in 1976.  Disney couldn’t even begin to create any of the magic that occurred.

We are the baby boomers.  The last of them.  Well, almost the last of them.  The last of them have just turned 50 last year.  They are the ones who are opening their mailboxes to their AARP magazines and are thinking, “I’m too young for this shit!”

We have accepted the subscription.   I am resigned to my fate, so to speak.  I am grateful that Clotho spun my life thread well; that Lachesis has her measuring stick out yet.  (I don’t want to know the length remaining.)  Most of all, I am grateful that I do not see Atropos on the horizon with her “abhored shears”.

Growing up is mandatory, what you do with it is optional.

So this member of the last of the baby boomers recalls moving to the suburbs from her south side Irish roots since 1880 and landing in “farm country” of the northwest suburbs of Chicago in the late 60′s.  As it was then in days of yore. There were many others who did the same thing as has been documented in so many ways.  What was borne of that were many families with similar demographics arriving in the same place at the same time.

Lots of kids the same ages.

Result?

A large group of us starting school together.  In my case, from fourth grade onward through high school.

So, we were a tight crowd.  Though we didn’t know that then.  It was merely a given that we would all go to school together forever.  At least that was the case in my little bubble of existence.

Forever ended June 8th, 1976, with a mortar board and a diploma.  Everyone scattered and headed down life’s road.

High school was a good time in my life.  I had my gang of friends.  Our idea of a wild Friday night was pizza at Barnaby’s and the high school basketball game while grooving to the tunes of John Denver.

Okay, I admit it.  I was a complete dork.  Hey, it was the 70′s.  Think leisure suits.

I am a historian.  I keep records.  I do genealogy.  I scrapbook memories to save them as part of my legacy to my children.   I find the past fascinating and love unlocking it’s secrets, both good and bad.  I found a counterfeiter/horse thief in my family tree who ended up in Auburn Correctional in upstate New York.  I think it lends character development.

Another George put me on a very special path.  His name was George Bastable.  He was one of my 4th grade crowd.  Good, kind, athletic, handsome, funny.  We ran into each other at every reunion.  He was a beloved eighth grade teacher in Florida who had been lost for a while but clearly found his way to contentment and abundance.

George died of a massive heart attack on July 4th 2009.

At that point, another dear friend was abandoned by her husband of  thirty four years due to a massive case of rectal cranial inversion and a bimbo on Facebook.

We need some cheering up here.  A reunion!  We’re not getting any younger and it is too long to wait for the 40th.  Hired a company, picked a venue and a date and let the chips fall.

I was REALLY stressing about this, because I had been pushing for it since 2009.  And I can be pushy.  Sorry.  It’s a character flaw and I am working on it.  (Among several others.)    My motivation is honorable in its intent.  What if it was a flop?

There we were.  Fifty somethings all wondering who put THAT monster number behind our names.  We all recognized each other immediately and the magic began.  Eat your heart out Disney; no animatronics here.  The real Magilla.  We WERE eighteen again.

It is hard to find the words.  My friend, Steve Moore did it far better than I.  I am proud to be considered a single malt friend and add his link below.

We closed the venue.  We closed the bar.  We closed the lobby.  The hotel opened a closed restaurant for us to get us to behave.  We dug up snacks and continued on until it was beginning to make sense to stay up all night.  NO ONE wanted the night to end.  EVERYONE wanted just a few minutes more of what existed between us, knowing the moment would slip away and become a cherished memory.

The last deed I did was to lift a glass to George.  They both were there.  One was a charming centegenarian applauding how well we achieved eighteen again.  One was smiling knowing we knew he was in the room feeling our affection.

The memory lingers.  The smiles remain.  The magic abides.

Carpe diem.

Here is Steve’s link:  http://www.gmancasefile.blogspot.com/2011/11/single-malt-friends.html

When we lived in Chicago, there was a very strong alumni association.  The Yale Club of Chicago hosted an annual scholarship ball and the broadcasting of  ”THE Game” every November.

There isn’t a strong alumni association out here.  The nearest official chapter is six hours away.  Though there are a couple of “bulldogs” in Deadwood.  (Yes, THAT Deadwood.)

In July and the onset of “Rally Week” looming large; on a regular Thursday evening, the phone rings.  It is the hubby saying he is on his way home and what’s for dinner.  (Wild caught Alaskan Salmon, thank you very much.)

Great.  See you in ten.

Ten comes and goes and the phone rings again.

“There are two Yalies in the process of bicycling up our road and our rigorous hill to come for dinner.” he says.

“WHAT!?!?!”

He repeats himself.

Hostess overdrive kicks in, though I have plaque on my warming rack that says “Martha Stewart doesn’t live Here”.  I have ten minutes to set a table, double the amount of salmon and make it look like I am doing this calmly.  Not because they are Yalies.  Because our road is gravel, our house is two miles in and THEN you begin the ten degree incline, half mile climb to our home.  The directions include phrases like “turn right at the buffalo herd;  go past the abandoned ranch.”

Fortunately the hubby arrives before the two cyclists.  He explains the situation.  Driving home on the side highway which leads us home, he spies two cyclists with “YALE” on the ass of their biker shorts.  Screeching to a halt, he manages, in one fell swoop, to convince these two that:

1) He is not a stalker or an axe murderer.  He is only a South Dakotan and this is what South Dakotans do.  They slam on the brakes when they see someone that they have something in common with.  (Or when they hit a deer and they can still harvest the meat.)

2) He is an alum and “mi casa es su casa”  by virtue of the imprint on your derrieres.

3) His wife, moi, is guilty of this sort of behavior with anyone with Illinois license plates.  (To a milder degree of course).   But I consider this normal.

Rachel and Will are grad students at Yale and were biking across the country on summer break.  Wonderful people who were more than grateful for wine, salmon, and CDs of the Whiffenpoofs on the stereo.  Most of all the gratitude flowed for a clean bed that is too big for a tent and hot showers.   The evening passed with jocularity immentibus.  It was great to have such stimulating conversation.

Until these two decided to tell us about the next leg of their planned sojourn.

They had approximately nine days of time left and were planning on cycling across our adopted state and getting to Chicago.  We pulled out the atlas.

When I have visitors who are driving here, as we often do, I always advise them where to get gas, food and the other essentials.  I do this because central South Dakota is a vast expanse of wild prairie with very little opportunity to refill or empty ANYTHING.  I had friends who were waylaid by a snowstorm in late March for two days.  They were fortunate enough to grab the last hotel rooms in Murdo as the highways closed around them.  Forced to hang out in the local bar, ass well as deplete all local supplies; they came away with some of the funniest blue jokes I have heard in a while.  Adventures have their advantages.

I talked with them about the insanity of this particular leg of their adventure.  I mean the whole reason we were even having this conversation was due to the fact that a somewhat eccentric and outgoing alum had pulled them over.  There is the true and accurate description of needing a camel caravan full of water just to get across the bulk of the the state.  There is also the trivia fact that South Dakota’s capitol, Pierre, is the only state capitol in the Union that is not on an interstate.  Both are facts, not fiction.  Especially if  you are biking across it.

They saw the light of reason.

The next morning, I was happy to drive them the hour drive down to “The Faces” as we call Mt. Rushmore.  With a fond farewell, and bon voyage, I headed home.  They headed east.  I was not without a moment or two of envy.  Costco’s presence comes to mind.  Whole Foods leaves me green with envy.  (Can anyone put me in touch with the CEOs so I can look pitiful and beg?)

But then it occured to me.  The HAPPY thought occurred to me. This would NEVER have happened in Illinois.  Not in my part….

We still, out here, DVR “THE Game”.  This year, it is because my husband and sons and a couple of pals will be pheasant hunting a couple of hours away.  I have learned to make a mean pheasant stew.

I guess the moral of the tale is: “There are advantages to having “Yale” tattooed on the derriere of biker shorts.”

Boolah, boolah.