The Wedding Gown

My wedding gown was a soft ivory color, with beaded work and lace around the neckline. I bought it from a place in the French Quarter at Tanglewood Mall (that whole area no longer exists), obtaining the whole get-up for less than $300 because the dress was torn. Fortunately, it was torn in a place where I needed it taken in and so it looked good as new.

After the wedding, my mother had the dress cleaned and then she stored it in a cedar wardrobe at her house. In 1989, lightning struck the roof of her home and fire destroyed a good portion of her house.

My wedding dress was not destroyed, but it was severely scorched and smelled of smoke. My mother had it cleaned and gave it to me. It still smelled terribly of smoke and so I asked my mother-in-law to store it in her basement, as I had no place to keep it.

Fast forward 20 years. My mother-in-law the other day was cleaning out her basement and so my husband brought home my wedding gown wadded up in a bag. I have no idea what happened to the hat; maybe it burned up in the fire, I don't recall.

Yesterday I noticed the bag with the gown in and it and pulled the garment out. It is no longer ivory but instead is a muddy brownish color, a result, I suspect, of the cleaning used to try to remove the smoke. The lace is shriveled from where it melted in the fire.

I had thought to take pictures of it but it looked so bad that I did not want to make a visual memorial of it. Instead I stuffed it back into the bag, noting that it still smells of smoke despite the cleaning and the passing of many years.

It is destroyed.

It is time to send this to the dump, but somehow I can't bring myself to do that.

Love is a Rose

When I was young, my inquisitiveness led me to ask questions of everything. Why were people on the earth? Who made the sky? Why do airplanes disappear in the Bermuda Triangle?

And the biggest question of all: What happens when we die?

My mother would answer my questions as best she could. These often turned into meandering conversations that never answered the question but instead acknowledged that I was making important inquiries into mysteries that really have no answer.

In the summer of 2000, my mother was dying of pancreatic cancer.  One day while she was in the hospital, she asked me what I thought would happen when she died. I said I didn't know.

"I want to send you a sign that there is something beyond," she said. "What would you recognize?"

I thought about this for a while, running my mind over the things in my house and in my yard. "Send me something orange," I finally said. "I don't have any orange in the house or the yard."

I did not forget this conversation but I also did not expect much to come of it. Nor did I mention it to anyone.

For my birthday the next year, my closest friend gave me a rose.

I planted it. It took a long time to bloom, but it's first bloom appeared in August, 2001, a year after my mother passed away. The bloom was a lovely orange.

And it has bloomed a lovely orange for me in late summer every year since.

Hills

Sometime between 1970 and 1976, my grandfather would load up his white Ford with a blue interior with his two youngest sons, his two grandchildren, and his wife and head south for a day-long trip.

Our destination was Hills Department Store in Christiansburg and then to Floyd County.

Hills to my young eyes (somewhere between 7 and 12) was a marvel to behold. It held aisles of goodies unseen elsewhere, for in this age there was no Tanglewood Mall and definitely no Valley View. Most certainly there was no Walmart.

No, we had Hills. The store was a shiny wonder, neat, clean and full of stuff. I was intrigued by little statues of ponies and horses, Johnny West dolls, and  action figures (I never was much on Barbies or baby dolls.). Usually we went sometime in the summer, I suppose during my grandfather's vacation. Our small fists clutched a few dollars as we sought out treasures that we could not find at Newberry's in Salem (now a bank, I think) or at Arlan's on Williamson Road (where Happy's Flea Market is now).

They also gave away popcorn!

Once those purchases were made - and what a time my grandparents had rounding us kids back up and getting us in the car and away from the wonderland - we headed to Floyd (I think). I am sure we stopped to eat somewhere but it was our next destination that I awaited.

This was a store called either Sunnyside or Sunnybrook, I cannot be certain, that also held marvels. These marvels were a little on the darker side and appealed to my sense of the macabre; skulls, crossbones, dragons - things not of this world but of the imagination. I recall the store had two levels and the one which the kids gravitated to was not the level my grandparents visited. I do not recall what they purchased there but I know I sometimes regretfully saved my money whilst we were in Christiansburg in hopes of finding some strange and bizarrely enchanted piece to clutch and take home. I usually was rewarded.

I was reminded of these scarce but welcome expeditions when I was in Walmart this morning. Trips to this all-purpose mass department store depress me but are unavoidable. Sometimes it is the only place you can find what you need.

As I roamed the aisles searching for a salad spinner (which I found but did not buy), I couldn't help but think about how despairing I feel whenever I go into the big box store. Looking around, I saw people hurrying about their business, eyeing the yellow smiley "lower price" tags, faces unsmiling, bodies bent and broken.

I wondered what was the point. There was no wonder here, no delight in seeing something for the first time. It all looked tired and stale. Not to mention how bleak my thoughts grew when I thought about all of the poor underpaid foreign workers who have slaved to make $3 a day so that I could buy a salad spinner for $2.47.  Or the poor cashiers who make minimum wage and have no benefits but do have swollen feet and aching backs.

I once edited a book for a wealthy old gentleman. In doing this, I spent many hours in his home. His wife, complaining one day about his array of papers strewn about the living room, asked me what I suggested for organization. A filing cabinet, I replied.

When she asked where she might purchase one, I suggested Walmart.

"I do not shop at Walmart," she huffed. "I would never set foot in that store. I am surprised that you do."

I explained that I otherwise could not afford some of the things I needed if I did not shop at Walmart. Apparently she had been a woman of privilege for so long that she had forgotten that not everyone - actually most people - could not afford to hold to principles. I gently reminded her of that fact.

Department stores have a long history in this country. From five and dimes to Walmart, they have been the places where Americans shop.

Somehow, though, I don't think they are really the places where Americans dream.

You Can't Go Home Again

Even though I am a Botetourt girl through and through, and despite the fact that I can count back many generations to ancestors who settled here when Native Americans roamed the land and cougars scared the deer, I have not lived every single year of my life here.

The first seven years of my life were spent in Salem, mostly in the house you see above. My mother and father moved the family to Botetourt in 1971, to land just minutes from my maternal grandfather's homeplace.

My memories of the little house in Salem are fragmented. Sometimes they are funny, frequently scary, and often things I'd rather forget.

That tree on the right, for instance, holds a memory of terror for a four-year old. I was playing house around the tree. I vividly recall my doll (called my Grandma Doll because she had white hair) and a little chair that I sat her in. The tree too played a role in my little imaginary game. For some reason I determined it had been a very bad tree indeed and therefore must be whipped. As I stepped around to give the tree its due with a little limb from itself, I glanced down.

A golden snake had curled itself around the tree trunk. I panicked and raced inside. My mother was getting ready to go to work. I was so terrified I could not speak. Surely the word "blathered" was invented for such moments.

I remember my mother's anger and fear. Anger because I couldn't get out what had frightened me and fear because I was so terrified. Finally, I blurted out, "Snake!" between my tears and fits of crying. She went outside to look and then called my father. He was a policeman at the time. He came home and dispensed of the snake, which apparently was in such a state of bliss that it had made no move in all the time that took.

Earlier this week I cruised with a friend in search of my old house. It had been over 20 years since I'd last gone too look for it and I wasn't sure I would remember it. I drove by it once and wasn't 100 percent sure it was the right place, but on the second drive-by I viewed the tree from an angle that made it familiar. The snake memory came roaring back to me as if it were yesterday.

Other memories from this house involve red carpeting, hands being slammed in doors (not on purpose), learning there was no tooth fairy or Santa Claus (I figured that out at the tender age of five, alas), having my eyes burn from sand in them from my sandbox, eating a wild onion in the backyard (and then not eating onions again until I was past the age of 30), my brother eating a box of aspirins, my dolly getting burned up on the stove, box-kite flying, blood, a ghost sitting on my bed, my mother passing out in the floor because she was ill, and an assortment of other wild visions that race through my head when I consider my childhood.

But it is Botetourt that has my heart and my soul, though some might consider me a transplant in spite of  my family roots here, long, deep and strong as they may be. Still, I suppose I owe some allegiance to that tiny little girl who once tried to spank a certain tree.

A Lovely Memory

Last week my aunt called and told me she'd found something amongst some of my grandmother's items that she thought I might like.

After a visit, she gave me two little Grandma and Grandpa banks. I was delighted.

I gave these to my grandparents in 1974, when I was 11 years old. I vividly remember their purchase. My parents were Christmas shopping in downtown Roanoke and we went into the Mr. Peanut Store. The Peanut Store had a Mr. Peanut roaster and a big statue of Mr. Peanut, complete with monocle and top hat.

Aside from peanuts and candies, the store offered a variety of gift items. And on a shelf were the Grandma and Grandpa banks.

I had to have them for my grandparents. I thought they were cute, different and a bit of a joke because they were a retirement fund in pennies.

My grandmother loved them, probably because I gave them to her, and she placed them in a spot of honor on her small secretary. It had a shelf with my favorite books - a selection of great literature (The Silver Skates, Huckleberry Finn, etc.) and her treasure of Little House on the Prairie books. For years the little banks sat separated on the shelf, one on each side of the books.

As the years passed and my grandmother sold her things and her home for her personal care, not to mention a move to Georgia to live with my aunt for a while, I wondered about the little banks. I figured they went out in a yard sale long ago.

I mentioned them to my aunt once in a conversation, asking if she remembered them. I did not expect her to find them, so I was very pleased when she did and then gave them to me.

Grandpa and Grandma now have a place of honor on the shelf in my living room. I daresay they will mean nothing to anyone else in the future, but for me they are a treasure of a memory - a remembrance of myself as a young girl, eager to please her grandparents, and the delight my grandmother took in showcasing something so ordinary.

Dogs

Lately, I have wanted a dog.

Folks who know me will be surprised. Not because I dislike animals, but because I am highly allergic. I am go-to-bed-for-a-month allergic, not just watery-eyes-and-sneezing allergic. When I am around cats and dogs, I choke up, my asthma goes nuts, I lose my voice, my head stuffs up and feels like a big hot air balloon, I have vertigo and I can't stand up. I am quite sick and it lasts for weeks, not days.

So I don't have inside animals.

But I used to.

Growing up, we had lots of dogs. I am not sure I can recall all of them. There was Prince and Princess, two Dalmatians. I think one of them was run over by a milk truck (this was when I was very small and we lived in Salem for a while). There was a German Shepherd whose name I can't remember. Lady? Maybe. And there was a dog named Jinx in there somewhere. Seems like there was a parade of dogs before I was six years old.

We had a dark poodle named Heidi for a very long time; she had puppies, and one of those was Major. We had him for a long time, too. He was white. He died in my brother's arms one day; he had been chasing me in my car as I left for one of my first solo drives. I was 16.

Schooner was a collie or maybe a collie-German shepherd mix. He was around for a very long time, too. He died after I married and left home, I think.

Trixie was my mother's dog; she was a black mixed mutt, rather small. There was another at my parents house about this time whose name escapes me as well. These two dogs came about the time I was leaving home.

My dog, the one that was mine alone, was Ginger, and I purchased her at a flea market in 1984. James and I hadn't been married but a year. I was home alone much of the time and I thought a dog might help.

Ginger was part Eskimo Spitz and part something else, maybe terrier. She never was very big, and unfortunately about this time my allergies worsened (or maybe I finally figured out their cause) and we had to keep her outside on all but the coldest nights. She had her own little house and a blanket, though. I kept the house filled with cedar shavings and I bathed her and combed her, but I did all of that outside. And I had to wear a mask.

She moved with us up the hill from the little house we'd rented from my husband's grandmother, but she didn't like her new home. For a long time I had to drive down the hill and gather her up because she kept going back to the old house. We finally had to pen her up, which I hated, but it was better than letting her wander to the road where the cement trucks raced.

Every day when I came home from work or school, she jumped up and down and greeted me like I'd been gone for weeks. When I began working at home, and we could let her out of her pen because I was there to watch her, I would rise from my desk periodically and tap on the window glass to draw her attention. She would wag her tail and bark at me and sometimes she would put her two front paws on the house and stand on her hind legs, her tail wagging, while she looked in at me. Often I went to the door and bent down and petted her. Then I washed my hands. Damn allergies.

Ginger lived for 17 years, or 119 years in doggy years, which was a very long time for a small dog. I like to think we took good care of her even if we did make her stay outside. She became very feeble and arthritic and when she seemed to be in so much pain that it made us cry to watch her, we put her to sleep. That was in 2001; a double whammy because my mother had passed away about seven months prior.

We did not get another dog. For months I would go to the window and look out, expecting to see her waiting for me. I looked for her every time I drove home. Finally, I stopped hoping.

These days, I have the deer, the rabbits, and the cows, but they are not the same. Some days you want to be licked. You want to feel fur. You want to feel a cold nose under your arm. (Ginger used to poke her nose under my arm, asking me to rub her.) You want to see someone waiting for you. You want that unconditional love.

I know I won't get another dog; my allergies are too bad now. They are worse than they ever were. I can't even visit the homes of friends who have pets, I don't care how much they dust and vacuum. I couldn't love on a dog, couldn't have it inside. I couldn't properly care for a dog and that would be unfair to the animal.

But some days, I want a dog.

Remembering a Halloween

My favorite Halloween occurred when I was a teenager. My friend Revonda and I ventured out to a haunted house, I think it was in Vinton.

The haunted house was properly spooky; lots of blood and gore. We clung to one another as we wandered through, shrieking at the appropriate moment.

Near the end, a werewolf came after us. He growled, snarled and then removed his mask. "I've been watching you two. You chicks look hot," he said (or something like that). "Wanna meet me after I get done here? I'll give you a real treat."

Yes, the werewolf tried to pick us up. He was really on the, um, prowl. We declined as we both had curfews. Not that we would do anything like that, anyway. We were good girls.

I think about my friend every year at this time. I haven't seen her since about 1985. After I graduated we stayed in touch; I floundered around, much as I am now, in an effort to find my niche, and she went to William and Mary to study public administration.

In 1982 I drove to Williamsburg and visited with her for a weekend. I had just met my future husband-to-be, though I didn't know that yet, and so we were all girl-giggly over the prospect of my having a steady fellow.

Revonda never returned to Roanoke. She married and lived in Norfolk a while, then moved to North Carolina where she divorced, and is now in Montana with her second husband. We send Christmas cards every year, and occasionally but not often exchange emails. She's definitely traveled around much more than I, and I suppose maybe lived more than I. She's some kind of top official where she lives.

A few weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon, I looked up her number and called her for no reason other than it was October and I was thinking of her. We had a nice long chat, catching up on family and friends.

We both remembered the night the werewolf tried to get us in the back seat of his car and wondered if the wolfman ever got his girl. I kind of doubt it; he definitely needed some new pick up lines!

A letter to myself: if I could change things

Dear Anita,

Here you are, age eight or so. What a young thing! Your whole life is ahead of you and you have no idea what you will accomplish or what you will face.

First, let me tell you that you will grow up to marry a wonderful man. Of all the things in your life, this is absolutely the best. Together you will face several hardships, the most challenging being your inability to have a baby of your own. I hate to break such news to you now but perhaps it is better that you do not long for what you will never have. Instead you will find comfort in your husband's nephews and your brother's children. While it is not the same it will be fulfilling enough, I promise.

With that foreknowledge, I urge you to consider a career as a teacher. I think you will find that quite satisfactory and it will make many things in your life much easier. This is not the career path that I chose, not at all, and it is too late now for me to consider it. I am old and set in my ways; you, however, still have time to move forward and will not find the school setting completely foreign, as I do now when I return to those hallowed halls.

Alternatively, study law. You would make a good lawyer one day. Consider being an estate lawyer; you relate well to older people and this would be a good career path for you.

I know you love to read and write and hope to make writing your career; I beg you, don't do it! The future holds changes you cannot imagine and that way lies only heartache. Turn from it and pursue something else. You can write as a hobby and that will be enough, trust me. In this, (and perhaps only this) your parents are right.

Complete your education, all the way through college, and let nothing and no one stand in your way. You're a smart young lady even at the age of eight, and your brains (so far) do not diminish. Sometimes I think you're too smart, one of those people who know so much that functioning becomes problematic. Don't let that happen to you - keep your feet on the ground and your mind on reality. Tend to gardens so that you connect with the earth. It is very important.

I firmly believe that you and the man I love are destined to be together, and with that thought in mind the changes I am suggesting are with the knowledge that you will always be loved and be with him. Perhaps you will marry at a later date, though, like after you have finished college.

Other things you must do:

1. Exercise. I know you don't like to sweat, but I am afraid you will end up looking like a blimp. I did not exercise much when I was young and I regret it very much now. So go one, move that body!

2. Take up yoga, tai chi or other eastern activities. Don't worry that your family will think you are strange; find some books in the library on these types of activities and study them. Your family will always think you are strange regardless of what you do, so you may as well stop trying so hard for their approval and take care of yourself. I so wish that I had done that.

3. Find your spiritual self. This may be in the organized religions or it may be in something else, like Buddhism, or it may be your own personal beliefs. This may be hard for you until you turn 18 because of your surroundings; I know your parents eschew religion in all forms and things do not go well in your teens when you will begin pursuing these matters. Take heart and stand strong. You will need and want this anchor later in life.

4. Learn to cook. And I mean more than mashed potatoes and chicken. You will find great satisfaction in this skill if you can master it. I did not, and it is something I regret. Apparently I am now too old to figure it out.

5. Do not stop playing the guitar. Yes, I know you don't play now but you will soon, trust me. Take your piano lessons to heart and don't give them up too soon. Your music will be a fine companion for you all of your life if you don't let it slip through your hands.

I wish I had received this letter, read it and took it to heart when I was of an age to make some changes. What a difference it might have made!

If you do not follow my advice, let me tell you what is in store for you. You will marry at age 20 (the best part of your life, but that's awfully young to be married!). Your education will be received in fits and starts and you will be 30 years old when you finally receive your degree. Constant striving to please others will take a toll on your body; you will gain weight, you will be out of shape, heart disease is in your future.

I beg you, young Anita, take the better road.

Your loving older self,
Anita

The Fincastle Festival

On Saturday, I woke up in a mood so foul I am sure that birds fled the area around the house out of fear of my blackness.

The reasons for my poor state of mind shall remain unmentioned, but suffice it to say that it would take a great deal of sunshine indeed to lighten the dark scowl from my face. And no amount of cold cream was going to ease the lines in my eyes and forehead.

I was in this poor frame of mind when I ventured to Fincastle to see what they are now calling "Heritage Days." I went in hopes the blue skies might cure me.

For over 30 years, up until about 2003, I suppose, Historic Fincastle Inc., (HFI) a preservation group, put on a festival. The Fincastle Festival was actually one of the first festivals around, and it was a big deal indeed. Thousands of people attended. Crafters and vendors number in the hundreds. The art show was lauded up and down the east coast.

But that was long ago. The festival waned in the 1990s, in part because neighboring localities began putting on their own affairs. Salem had the audacity to launch her festival on the exact same weekend, which cut into Fincastle's festival attendance significantly. Salem, after all, is much closer for folks in Roanoke. So to Salem they went.

The Fincastle Festival was holding its own in 1998 and 1999, when I was president of HFI. The organization was struggling at that time. Its membership was failing, as organizations sometimes do, and most of the volunteers were older and tired.

Money raised from the Fincastle Festival went to historic restoration projects around the town. Funds saved many of the quaint buildings in Fincastle, including the Early Cabin, which HFI now operates as a kind of town museum, the Hayth Hotel complex, which a friend now owns and operates as rental apartments, the Blacksmith Shop at Wysong Park (and the park itself, both of which were restored primarily by the Wysong family with assistance from HFI), the Old Jail Building, the Douglas building, located across the street from the Botetourt County Courthouse, and the Helms-Ayers House, among others.


The Douglas Building


The Early Cabin

But the organization had not done much that was noteworthy for about 10 years when I took over the helm. The group needed a project then and apparently still do. It has been a long time since I have heard anything exciting about the organization.

Anyway, the festival in 1999 was not as grand as it had been in the past and I was eager to make it a better event. We needed more volunteers to help out, so I attempted to bring in other supporters, including the Botetourt Chamber of Commerce. However, the HFI Board of Directors ultimately decided they wanted to stay in charge of the event.

Personal matters came to the forefront and after two years I left my post as president and shortly thereafter the entire organization to deal with these issues. The organization eventually went off more or less in the direction I had urged, creating a separate "festival" arm of HFI and hiring a director.

But the festival was proving burdensome and eventually they dropped it in favor of other fundraising efforts. I did not return to the organization, in part because the group changed its focus. I am not sure what they are actually raising money for these days.

In any event, on Saturday I headed to town with memories of past festivals in my brain and my mood as black as a midnight under a cloudy, rainy sky.

After walking a ways, I discovered I had left my memory card for my camera in the computer at home and I didn't have a spare. I had hoped to at least take pictures for this blog, but alas, that was not to be.

This did nothing to help my mood.

I headed up Roanoke Street and found about four artists selling their work. Around the corner on Main Street were another five or six. I think all together there were about 25 vendors scattered about the town.

Walking around Fincastle is difficult for many people. It is hilly and the HFI folks would do well to place things a little closer together next time. People don't want to walk that far for a few things, particularly with nothing in between to draw their attention to something other than the long trudge up a steep hill. I considered it my exercise for the day.

I saw a few people I knew, including a dear friend, a fellow writer, and one of my old professors at Hollins. She put an arm around me and said, "Is it true they fired you from The Fincastle Herald?"

I had to explain that I had been freelancing for the newspaper all along; it only looked like I was on staff because I wrote so much for them, and that they had cut their freelancing budget. She waved away my explanation. "It doesn't matter, you're still not writing for them, and it shows. The paper is terrible," she said.

While I was happy to hear I am missed, I was very concerned about the rumor of my being "fired" when that is not at all what happened. It would be more accurate, though still not correct, to say I was laid off. Anyway, obviously this conversation did not exactly make me feel any better as I wondered who else was thinking that I had been fired. I have a reputation to consider, after all.

I trudged around the block, apparently missing a good deal of activity around the Courthouse, and eventually headed toward my car. I ran into Mrs. Roanoke RnR in the parking lot; she has a much better synopsis of the Heritage Day event on her website, which I urge you to check out for a less bleak outlook. I told her I thought the event was sad, and in comparison to other years, it was.

She, however, enjoyed her day and I am very glad that she did. I have enjoyed reading her blog entries about the day. My foul mood had so colored my landscape that I had forgotten how charming Fincastle can be so I have been pleased to see it again through her eyes.

Naming my teachers

I recently saw a request from Diane at Snappy Finger (or Blue Ridge Gal, she keeps changing the name, stop it, Diane!) on Facebook for the name of her third grade teacher, and that made me think. Do I remember all of my elementary school teachers?

Kindergarten at East Salem. I don't remember! I know I had one, though.

1st grade at East Salem. Mrs. Zircle. I recall her as being very mean and sending me home in tears; I remember my mother telling me at some point that her husband had passed away and I should be kind to her. A bit difficult for a six-year-old to understand, I would think.

Breckinridge Elementary School

2nd grade. Mrs. Wright. She was the first teacher to insist on calling me by my "real" name as opposed to the family nickname. I will always be grateful to her for that.

3rd grade. Mrs. Fairfax. She was very kind to me, especially since I think this was the year I started missing an average of 30 days of school due to asthma and related bronchial issues. One of my main memories about third grade has more to do with my parents than my teacher. My father had asked me if there were any black teachers at the school, and I had told him no. When the parent-teacher meeting was held, lo and behold there was my teacher, Mrs. Fairfax ... and she was black. I received a beating for lying. I tried to explain to my father that I just never noticed that she wasn't white. He didn't believe me.

4th grade. Mrs. Lanning. Two incidents with this teacher. In one, she stopped the class mid-discussion and called on me. "Anita, who did your hair?" she demanded. "It looks terrible." My mother had done my hair in some kind of strange part and plait that morning. I never again let my mother do my hair. In the other, Mrs. Lanning sent a note home demanding my parents attend the parent-teacher meeting. She told my parents that she didn't know what was going on at home but obviously there were problems. "That child will not hug anyone," she said. "She yearns to be hugged and sometimes she just stands beside me, very close. If I touch her she flinches, though." My mother berated me all the way home for ... well, not being huggable, I guess. In spite of these incidents, I loved Mrs. Lanning and I was teacher's pet.

5th grade. Mrs. Prease aka Mrs. McCullough. Mrs. Prease cried all through the school year. She really should not have been teaching. I don't know what was going on with her in her personal life but she spent a lot of time with her head on her desk in tears.

6th grade. Mrs. Nofsinger. She was a very old woman who chewed tobacco. She was the most difficult teacher in the school. I thought she was terrific.

Bible Study. We actually had a Bible study course from 4th-6th grade at Breckinridge. Fourth grade must have been a bad time for me, because Mrs. Caldwell, the Bible study teacher, made fun of me in Bible study class because my church attendance book was empty. My family did not go to church. After that I requested to be excused from Bible study and I was sent to the library along with three other children whose parents did not want them in Bible study. I loved learning about the Bible but I didn't appreciate being scolded for something I had no control over.

343 on 9/11

Remembering the 343 firefighters who died in the Twin Towers in New York City on 9/11, so that others may live.

The Old Guy

I've know him now for about 10 years, this old man.

He was old when I met him, but still spry. Still working full time, even though he was hitting 80. He was writing a book and needed an all-around girl, an editor/typist/go-for who would help him out with this years-long project.

The day I went to meet him, I arrived at his house. I was smartly dressed, and courteous. I called him "Sir" and "Mr."because he had earned those titles and I have a deep respect for my elders. As we sat talking about his project, his wife came in and told me she'd backed into my car.

My brand new car, a 1999 Ford Taurus. The rest of the interview is a blur in my mind as I wondered what kind of damage was done. I do remember he wanted to start working immediately, as in, right that minute, when I thought I was only there for an interview. I gamely settled into what would quickly become our routine.

He sat on the couch, books spread all over the coffee table, while I perched in a winged-tipped chair. It was very Victorian, the way we were working. He didn't like a laptop between us and insisted on dictating while I wrote it all down by hand. His thinking was slow and deliberate, and there would be long pauses between sentences. I don't mean seconds, but minutes, enough time that I sometimes would wake with a jerk when he said something because I might drowse in the warm house.

Sometimes he took so long I would check to make sure he was breathing. I took in every inch of the living room. I stared hard at a bizarre picture over the fireplace mantle, a scribble that ultimately depicted the manager scene, complete with bowed heads and angels, if you could finally figure it out. I puzzled over an oil painting of an old woman. The painting was dark and black, the colors so faded you could scarcely tell they were there. I decided at some point that the woman was the old guy's mother. The two pictures did not go together at all. One was modern "art" and the other was not.

We worked this way almost twice a week for about seven years. He thought and occasionally dictated while I sat poised with my pen, ready to write, and prayed I did not fall asleep. It was not solid, not every week, and there were times we skipped months. He took a long break to recover from heart surgery. I had my annual illnesses in spring and fall. He agreeably waited until I was well enough to get back to work.

Occasionally we strayed and he would work on another writing project, an opinion letter for the local daily, something like that.

He continued to go into his office every day. I admired him for his efforts, working when he really didn't need to. Not giving in and giving up.

We had one spat during the course of working, when I was going through something and found my patience thin. We'd work for three hours and sometimes only come up with two or three paragraphs. It frustrated me. It was painstaking, deliberate work and sometimes as I waited for the next sentence I simply wanted to yank the words right out of him.

He seemed to comprehend that I was, truthfully, bored, and he made an effort to be more ready for me, to have his thoughts together better, and our hours planned so we could proceed. I gave myself a talking to about my attitude and we moved on, him thinking, me waiting, and eventually the book, all 600 pages of it, became a reality.

When our work was complete I did not hear from him much. I did not think about him growing old and feeble. I saw him as he was when I left him. I did not remember that old age is a wicked taskmaster, and at some point the crack of the whip breaks every one.

I saw him over Christmas, and he was looking much older. He was using a cane, and I could tell his vision, which had always been bad, was worse. He was still driving but I had long thought he should have handed over his keys. His is 90 years old, after all.

He called me this week to tell me he had a little project. He needed his girl for about 10 hours of work.

I found him much changed. He is confined now to a wheelchair, his eyes gone so that he cannot read unless something is in 24 point type, and even then he struggles. He hasn't shaved in about two months, I guess because he can no longer see to do it. His voice is still strong and he still has his wits, his sense of humor, and his desire to be a part of the human race. He has enough money that he can hire someone to stay with him and his wife, who is also quite unwell, and he can bring in someone to read to him, and call for me when he needs a hand.

But even the wealthy cannot stay the hand of time, and it has caught up with him.

It makes me sad, but happy, in a way, because he is still fighting. He will not go gentle into the night, this old guy. He seems to have accepted his blindness and the lack of use of his legs, but he is still fighting.

I wish I could tell you his name.*




*I have too much respect for him and his privacy to reveal who he is.

To the moon

I cannot let the 40th anniversary of the first moonwalk go by without recalling where I was.

At Grandma's house in Salem.

I would have been six years old, and I remember sitting cross-legged in her living room, watching as the astronauts walked on the earth's satellite.

What I can't recall is how I came to be there. I have always been fascinated with space and the space program, so I like to think that little six-year-old me, who by that time was reading the newspaper front to back, just like today, knew that this was a momentous occasion and deemed it worthy of a time-out from playing with action figures and GI dolls with my brother and young uncle.

Most likely my grandmother called us in and told us to watch. Oddly, I don't recall any one else in the room with me at the time. My uncles would have been 5 and 9; surely the older one was there, too. My brother would have only been three, so he may not have been present.

In the past I have had people tell me they remember seeing this at school, which always confuses me. Unless there were a lot of folks in summer school, I think most likely they were at home. Maybe they remember seeing it for the first time during a replay of the event while they were at school?

This made me doubt my own memories of seeing the original actual broadcast at my grandmother's, but these days I am fairly sure my memory is accurate, if old.

We have not made a similar accomplishment since, and indeed we seem to be in a decline, moving from greatness to not-so-great. I am not sure from where this comes but that is my perception, anyway. Seems like all we care about as a people are our individual pocketbooks and not anything as a community or society. There is no collective love of the greater good running rampant around here, anyway.

I hope that someday during my lifetime I will see some other wondrous event that parallels this one, a positive step, a hope and triumph that does not lead to war and violence. Maybe a trip to Mars?

Jane and Fred

When I was small, I had a Disney jukebox toy.

It played popular Disney songs, including
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Do Re Mi.

I tried to find a picture of the jukebox online but failed.

At any rate, I sang these songs at the top of my lungs, and with great gusto. I am sure I drove my parents crazy.

In the Do Re Mi song, I sang one line incorrectly.

Instead of:

Te, a drink with jam and bread

I sang it

Te, a drink with Jane and Fred.

Jane and Fred made perfect sense to me. Of course you would want to have tea with your friends, Jane and Fred. Why drink alone?

Even after someone told me I was singing it wrong, I didn't believe them. I was an adult before I realized I really was singing the line wrong.

I have no idea what that means but my last entry, the Do Re Mi dance thing on youtube, made me think about it.

Remembering 1970s music

Yesterday as I cleaned house I listened to the 1970s station on satellite.

At noon, The American Top 40 with Casey Kasem. The show counted down the Top 40 records in the United States.

During the first 20 minutes of this rerun from sometime in the 1970s, Kasem gave a shout-out to "great radio stations like WFIR in Roanoke, VA".

Ah, yes. WFIR was the top music station in those days. It was not talk radio like it is now. It was an AM station back then too.

It rocked.

Here's a history of the station; it's the second oldest in the area.

On Sundays I sat in my room and listened to the American Top 40 on WFIR. Often I had a tape recorder running and I would tape my favorite songs to listen to at night.

The radio reception where we lived was pitiful when the sun went down, so this was a necessity if I wanted to hear these new tunes before I could get the vinyl. I suppose nowadays I'd have the copyright police after me. Definitely a different time.

Anyway, listening to those songs eventually led to buying the vinyl.

In the late 1970s the station changed its format. FM stations became the thing; K92 and Q99 became the stations to listen to. I still listen to Q99; I guess I have been listening to that station now for almost 30 years.

And of course I bought record albums.

In those long ago olden days, vinyl was king. You wanted big speakers and loud bass. If the record skipped on the player, you fixed it by placing a penny atop the needle so the arm would stay down.

There were many a night I spent in front of my record player trying to learn a song on the guitar, jumping the song back to whatever lick of rhythm I was trying to conquer.

Nowadays I don't hear a current American Top 40; I couldn't tell you what the "number one song in America" is today.

I listened to a mix of everything but mostly bought pop music albums. And disco.


My husband is an straight rock and roll kind of guy; when we married we merged our album collection. His was full of The Rolling Stones and my was full of one-hit wonders and southern rock.

Now we have all of these record albums and nothing to play them on, so I am always glad to listen to the songs of my youth on the satellite.

Nothing makes me clean like a good strong beat and a little rock-n-roll.

GroundHog Day

Yesterday was such an incredibly warm day that it was hard to believe that not long ago the land was coated in ice.

I stepped outside in my shirt sleeves and moved cautiously around the yard. My roses looked like they were surviving in spite of the frigid temperatures we experienced in January. I could smell change in the air even though we're not out of winter yet.

Today the ol' groundhog pops out and sees his shadow (or not). This day always makes me sad because it reminds me of the one time I actually shot and killed an animal (I also once shot a snake but I didn't feel too badly about that.).

It was a warm spring day and the dog, who was on a chain because she tended to wander at this point in her life, started barking.

Ginger was a small black dog, part terrier, part Eskimo Spitz, mostly mutt. She was facing down a groundhog that was as big as she was.

My dog was at a disadvantage because of the chain. She kept hopping and moving around and the groundhog kept chasing her, moving forward, then sometimes backward.

I couldn't tell if the groundhog had bitten the dog, but it seemed imminent if it hadn't already happened.

This continued long enough for me to call my husband (who was of course at work) and ask him how to chase the groundhog off.

The fact that the groundhog was after the dog meant the animal likely was sick, my husband said. He feared it might attack me.

I know how to shoot a rifle and I have my own .22 caliber gun. I loaded it and opened the back door. I raised the gun and in one shot I felled the groundhog. It dropped without a twitch.

The dog was very excited and had a scratch across her nose that went near her eye but otherwise seemed fine. I called the vet and he checked her shots and advised that my Ginger would be okay because her shots were all up to date. The wound did not seem to need stitches.

However, I felt very bad about killing the groundhog, even though it seemed I had no other choice if I wanted to save my dog. Even now, 20 years later, I still wish I had found some other way to go about it.

And every groundhog day, I am reminded.

P.S. Ginger came to us in 1984 and she died in 2001. I haven't had the heart to get another dog.

Wintry Mix

The weatherman says it may snow or sleet or send freezing rain down upon us. One forecast calls for "freezing dribble" tomorrow and "freezing rain" on Wednesday.

I won't be driving in either if I can help it. I do not do ice very well.

I remember when we used to have real snow in this part of Virginia. Snow drifts climbed as high as the windows on the big yellow school bus.

We went to school while the dirt roads were still covered, with chains on the bus wheels knocking against the hub covers. The sound was ferocious, a horrid echo like gunfire inside the bus.

I guess that would never happen now; students no longer go to school with chains on the buses. One flake falls and the school doors close.

One year it snowed and we didn't leave the farm where I grew up for nearly a month. Schools were closed for a very long time. By the time we returned to class even the most school-hating bad boy was glad to get out of his house.

I remember one year the snow was about 16 inches deep. The moon came out bright and huge. The air snapped with cold. My parents and my brother and I, sleighs in tow, went traipsing across the fields and up into a new road that had been cut on the neighbor's property. When we could ride the sleighs downhill we did so; otherwise we took turns pulling one another (my father of course did most of the pulling).

I think I was 14.

Those deep snows left us in the late 1980s and except for an anomaly in about 1993 have not returned. We had about 24 inches in 1993; that snow knocked out our power for 10 days. My husband and I heated the house with the fireplace and when the roads cleared I drove to Salem to take a shower at my grandmother's house. That was the most welcome bath I ever had in my life, after having had sponge baths for a week.

Here is a Roanoke Times story about the winters we used to have.

There is something serene and compelling about snow. It makes the world pause and take a breath.

And I think right now a great many of us really do need to breathe.

The Rose

Last night I watched the movie "The Rose" with Bette Midler. I had not planned to watch it but was too tired to read.

We have over 100 channels and there never seems to be anything on.

I saw The Rose in the theater in 1979. I went with my friends. We played together in a Top 40 cover band at that time and this seemed like a good movie for a bunch of wanna-be musicians to take in.

The movie is about a young rocker who just wants her life back but her agent/manager/producer wants her to keep working to make him money.

She does drugs and at the end, dies. Or at least the movie implies she does. I prefer to think she went into a coma and eventually woke up and went on to live a quiet life.

I suppose it is a thinly-veiled Janis Joplin movie.

Bette Midler does a great job in this movie. The song "The Rose" brings tears to my eyes nearly every time I hear it.

I remember when I saw the movie in the theater, us girls in the band were bawling when we left.

I did not cry last night when I watched it but it sure made me feel kind of sad.

The Break of Dawn, Christmas Eve

One of the Christmas myths that caught my fancy when I was very young was the legend of the talking animals.

At midnight on Christmas Eve, the animals in the barn would wake and speak. They would tell one another the story of the birth of Baby Jesus.
The donkey would say that because of his ancestor, Jesus was born in Bethlehem and not in the countryside.

The dog would say that his ancestor to protected them, keeping harm from Mary and Joseph.

The dove would say that her ancestor cooed the little baby to sleep.

The cow would say her ancestor offered milk to the wee child. And so on and so forth.

It was my fondest wish to hear this.

My parents did not spend Christmas Eve at home, generally, so neither of course did us children, my brother and I.

We went to the Webbs, a family who lives at the foot of Caldwell Mountain not far from where I grew up. These folks have been friends of my father’s for longer than I am old, and on Christmas Eve their house was full of loved ones.

The adults would pick guitars and sing carols while the young ones shrieked and chased each other up and down the stairs.

We were often joined by my aunt and uncle, who went with us for the singing, music and fun. My aunt, who is from Salem, tells me she has missed only one Christmas “in the country,” since 1970.

I remember a fireplace crackling merrily, the smell of chocolate chip cookies and the odoriferous wafting of the smell of cedar from the hand-hewn tree, fresh off the farm. There was lots of camaraderie and lots of noise.

Back at my house, I had a dog that I expected to speak at the appropriate hour, so my anxiety tended to grow as the evening wore on. Would we be home in time for me to hear the Christmas magic?

Generally speaking I think we were home by 11 p.m.

I, of course, was sent to bed almost immediately because Santa Claus was on his way and he would not stop for a little girl who did not go to bed.

Year after year I fell asleep before midnight. And finally, when I was almost too old to believe in myths anymore, I had the bright idea of taking the dog to bed with me and staying up to hear what he had to say.

I remember staring intently at Major, the white poodle, in the moonlight.

Waiting. And waiting.

The next thing I knew, my brother was shaking me. “Santa came! Get up!” he whispered.

And in the excitement of toys and presents around the tree, I forgot what I had been waiting for.

I remembered later in the day. I went to my mother with my complaint. “I don’t think the animals really talk,” I said, noting that there went another childhood fantasy out the window.

My mother hugged me. “Of course they do,” she said, pulling my hair from my face. “You fell asleep is all.”

I shook my head. “No Mama. I watched Major and he never said a thing.”

“Then you must have blinked.”

Surprised, I asked what she meant.

“Do you know exactly when night falls?” she said. “Or when the sun comes up and it is daylight? Can you catch those moments?”

I shook my head.

“If you miss the exact moment when it is midnight, that very second, then you can’t see the magic work,” she said.

“It’s just like catching the break of dawn.”

Christmas 1975

On a December Saturday in 1975, a day much like today, my parents dropped my brother and me off at my grandparents to stay the night.

Dad was the front singer in a Top 40 music band that in the 1970s was well known throughout the valley. It was called Music, Inc., and he and Mom were out most every weekend.

On this December night, I fell while playing with my brother and my two young uncles (I was 12; my uncles were 11 and 16; my brother was 9). My right wrist made a sickening noise as I hit the cement in the basement.

Grandpa rushed me to the emergency room, where x-rays revealed fractured bones. I returned home in a heavy cast. No Velcro removable cast for me; I don't think they made them at that time.

My mother had been informed of my accident and she came to get me instead of leaving me there for the night. She opened the door and walked into my grandparents living room. I saw her and promptly passed out cold in the floor.

The cast was burdensome. I couldn't participate in band class, where I was taking flute. I lost the first chair position to my nemesis, Angie. Every six weeks or so it seemed we swapped first chair position. Since I couldn't play it was no longer mine.

I was in the 7th grade. This was my first year for half-year exams (I wonder if they still give those). The cast had my fingers spread apart so that I couldn't hold a pencil (and I of course was right-handed). I tried to write with my left hand but the scrawl was so bad that my teachers opted to give me oral examinations.

Christmas Day came and went. I don't remember anything I received as a gift. A few days later, my mother and I sat in the living room trying to sort through gifts and put things back in order. My father and brother were out doing farm things.

My mother was depressed and in a very foul mood. I remember crying while we worked because her unhappiness was contagious. I was pretty useless with my arm in a cast, too.

A knock on the door startled us. The neighbor burst in the door. She had run all the way up the driveway, which was about 1/3 mile.

My father had run over my brother with the tractor. He had scooped him up and the neighbor's husband was driving them to the hospital.

I was still in my nightgown. My mother hustled me into the backseat along with some clothes and told me to change as we drove.

She sped quickly down what then was a dirt road and headed toward the hospital, going so fast that when she unexpectedly slid through a curve on Catawba Road I fell into the car door. I landed against my cast; the pain in my wrist was enormous. But I didn't say anything.

At the hospital, we found my father in tears. He had been scraping the dirt driveway with a scraper blade on the back end of the tractor. My brother had been riding on the blade. He fell between the blade and the rear tractor wheels. My father dragged him quite a ways before he heard my brother yelling "Daddy help me!"

When my father stopped the tractor and shut it off, the back wheels rolled backwards, up over my brother's chest.

My brother suffered a concussion, broken ribs and other injuries. As a result of his head injury, his eyes went crossed. He was in the hospital for at least a week.

I spent New Year's Day night with my grandparents. My father had a gig to play with his band and my mother was staying at Community Hospital with my brother.

Late that evening, my grandfather, who was 56 years old, said he wasn't feeling well. Not long after, he collapsed.

The ambulance came and he and my grandmother went to Lewis Gale Hospital. I tried to call my mother at the other hospital but the switch board wouldn't put me through to my brother's room, not even when I said it was an emergency. They told me I could reach her at 7 a.m.

I remember calling her right at 7 o'clock to tell her her father was sick.

About three hours later, my mother came into my grandparents house, crying. My grandfather on January 2, 1975, died of a heart attack.

My brother left the hospital in time to go the funeral but he did not. He was still a little boy, after all.

After months of therapy, his eyes straightened out. The rest of him seemed to be okay, too.

When my wrist continued to ache my mother took me to the doctor, where another x-ray showed I had broken it again. I was in a cast on that arm for about 12 weeks straight.

I'm not sure where that memory came from; I think it is the ache in my wrist today that reminded me the thing probably hurts for a reason. I don't think I've ever written about that dreadful time before.

But that was the holidays in 1975.