Theo

         My newest grandson had a birthday on January 20^th! He turned a whole year old and is an absolute delight with his smiles and his pointing to everything, his bits of sign language and his studying my face intently when I’m being goofy with him. Here is what I wrote for his birth last year – upon review of the following paragraphs, I seem to ramble on a bit about my retro couch, perhaps to distract from the politics of the day. Perhaps that explains Theo’s careful study of me when I am around.

        

The Dude studying the camera/phone!

         Well wouldn't you know it? The baby decided to arrive on his Great Aunt Michelle's birthday and twenty minutes past the inauguration of the new President! Friday, January 20^th. It all started on Thursday – the day before; Tony, the Dad-to-be, and Sarah, the aunt-to-be, were called. Tony came home from work, and Sarah packed up her family and drove from Chapel Hill to Athens. There are lots more details from the day, but they are Amanda and Tony's story to tell. Suffice to say that things were happening such that Amanda needed to be admitted to the hospital and things were not happening such that labor progressed slowly all through the night.

         Sarah's husband, John, brought their kids to our house to spend the night. John said that Amanda's water broke. And that prompted my own story - the day that Sarah was born, my water broke around 5:30AM. I was sleeping on the couch every night all through the pregnancy, Amanda's pregnancy too – it was weird at the time, and sounds even weirder now – but I could not sleep on the bed – perhaps it had something to do with the couch having a back? – I don't know. But I was on the famous retro couch – one of the first pieces of furniture I purchased when I moved into my first apartment in Buffalo in 1977. It had a plaid pattern with brown and burnt orange stripes – burnt orange was in style back then – the rug I bought for the apartment living room was solid burnt orange.

         Years ago Sarah told me to never give the retro couch away because she wanted it. In fact, Sarah is the one who nicknamed it the retro couch. But then years went by – I kept waiting for Sarah to say she was ready for the couch. Finally, when I asked her, she said that the wanting of the retro couch had passed – and she absolutely did not want it anymore. More years passed – I guess I thought she might change her mind for nostalgia’s sake. So in that time, John and then Tony got to know the retro couch.

         When I mentioned to John that my water broke on the retro couch, well, it was all that much weirder yet again because that is a couch John has sat on himself!

letting go of the retro-couch 2016

         Anyway, I got rid of a lot of stuff last summer after we got new carpeting – it occurred to me I could finally part with the retro couch – but not without taking a few pictures first.

         So, back to the birthing....I thought I could be more helpful babysitting Virginia and Horatio in Lawrenceville while Sarah assisted in the delivery room at the hospital and John worked. But Friday morning, when John, the kids, John's Mom, and I were at Shoney's in Sugarloaf Mills enjoying a wonderful breakfast buffet, we got word that Amanda's labor had just picked up, and I realized I wanted very much to be at the hospital waiting room if John and Grandmommy could watch Horatio and Virginia.

         When I parked, found my way through the three towers of the hospital and at last got to the correct floor and waiting area, John called and said he just had word the baby was born – a boy named Theodore Frederick – he and Mom were doing just fine! Sarah came to the waiting area and sat with me while the new parents and baby moved from delivery to their own room.

         And then I got to meet the baby! A perfect little bundle – 7 pounds 10 ounces and 20 ¼ inches long.

         With his birth coming 20 minutes after the inauguration, I have been heard to say more than a few times since then, Theodore is our light in the darkness. May we not despair!

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Michelle

Butcher at the Oak Alley Plantation

               Sunday my brother Eric called and chatted with Mike a bit about music, and then when I got the phone, he told me all about their trip to New Orleans. January 20^th is Michelle’s birthday, and at Christmas, Eric had wondered, what to you get the woman who has everything? And the answer is – a trip to New Orleans for her birthday. They had never been before – so what a great idea!! Yesterday we even got the postcards – St. Louis Cathedral and one of the cemeteries (I love postcards)!

         Here is a paragraph I wrote for Michelle’s birthday last year and to the left here is a picture from her celebration this year.

                 January 20^th is the birthday of my sister-in-law, Michelle. She is married to my brother, Eric. Michelle and Eric met eons ago when both were working at the Sheraton in Buffalo, he in the restaurant and she at the reception desk – the story of their first setting eyes on each other is delightful and you should ask them to tell it to you if you get the chance.

         One of Eric's nicknames for Michelle is Butch which came about because Michelle likes to keep her hair very short, and one day after a particularly close clipping, Eric called her Butch, as in butch cut which is similar to a buzz cut. The nickname stuck, and it has been fun during the years to hear Eric call out Butch or Butcher and see the reactions of strangers who are near!

         A story about Michelle that stands out in my mind, besides the three wonderful children she and Eric have, and the glorious needlepoints she has made and framed all over the house, and her new hobby of stain glass creations, and so many other things, has to do with their very first house in Cheektowaga, New York. There was a lot of remodeling Michelle and Eric decided to do on the house – it was their first time doing any kind of renovations. One late afternoon in the midst of their work on the house, Eric stopped to make dinner. When the food was ready, Eric called Michelle to come eat. Eric and Michelle got to the table at the same time – Eric with a dinner plate in each hand, and Michelle with a hammer in hers!

         One of the many things I marvel at about my brother and his bride's relationship is that every time Michelle walks into a room that Eric is in, Eric stops what he is doing, goes over to her, and they exchange a big hug and a kiss. I try to take a picture each and every time I witness this – I could make a page-a-day calendar out of all the pics we now have! How awesome is this? It is something I hope their children never ever take for granted, and I don't think they do.

         There are so many many more wonderful things I could say about my sister-in-law. Michelle is one of the finest people I've ever known – and I know the family is going all out to make sure she has a very happy birthday today!

         And January 20^th, 2018 was no exception!

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Wiping the Death

         On our way to Alabama last Saturday for a storytelling festival in Troy, Mike and I listened to NPR for a while on the radio in the truck but eventually changed the station to the Beatles. All Beatles all the time. And whenever we listen to the Beatles station, I invariably flash back to a memory from junior high.

         I was in eighth grade when Eleanor Rigby was released as a single and played on the local AM radio in Buffalo. And one day, a classmate who was a year younger and rode my bus asked me a question about the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby as she sat beside me for the ride home from school.

         “Is Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave? Or is Father McKenzie wiping the death from his hands as he walks from the grave?” The serious look on her face as she asked is etched into my brain as much as the image of death being brushed off one’s shoe is forever in my memories begging the question, death or dirt? I had assumed the word was dirt, but when she asked, I had to think about it, I couldn’t say it was definitely dirt. And that got me to listening extra hard to the lyrics every time I have heard that song in the many many years since.

         Of course, in today’s world there does not have to be a question about song lyrics. One can just Google the song title, and the words appear. Father McKenzie wiped the dirt from his hands as he walked from the grave. Alas, finally knowing the answer is somehow not as satisfying as carrying around the question.

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Memorial Aud Cold

         “Are you cold?” It was a Saturday night, and we were walking out of the theater in Andalusia, Alabama at the Lurleen B. Wallace Community College after a performance of the Nutcracker Suite in early December. Snow had hit the South the day before – from Texas east to the Atlantic – Georgia had taken quite a hit. But the precipitation was predicted to be over during the early hours of Saturday morning, and black ice thawed by 10AM, so we proceeded with our plan to see Mike’s niece’s son in the Nutcracker, a five hour drive away. The ride along I-85 was a pleasant one – the sun had come out, the highway was dry – the only surprise was the amount of snow we saw on the sides of the road all the way to Montgomery. It wanted to stick around!

         The ballet was beautiful, and when it was over, Mike and I headed out to the parking lot. That’s when Mike asked if I was cold. The temperature was dipping, and I was starting to shiver.

         “Yes, I am cold…….but not Memorial Auditorium cold.” What I meant by that was I was beginning to shiver from the cold, but my teeth were not chattering. Chattering teeth is Memorial Aud cold.

         I don’t think Mike had ever heard me use that expression before, and I kind of surprised myself when it slipped out of my mouth at that point in time.

         In college, during basketball season, my best friend, Laura, and I would drive downtown together in her car to watch the Griffs play. Their home games were at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium – the same place that the Buffalo Braves played basketball and the Buffalo Sabres played hockey. We would park on the street somewhere – not about to pay for parking if we could find a free spot. Walking to the Aud from the car was usually a block or two – not too far. And early in the basketball season – November and maybe into December, we would have our winter coats with us, but we would leave them in the car and walk to the Aud without them. It was cold out, but not so cold that we couldn’t do without coats for a block or two.

         At that early part of the season, I couldn’t imagine it ever being cold enough to need our coats to walk from the car to the Aud and back again.

         Winter progressed. The temperatures dipped. We went to the home basketball games. And one night as we climbed back into the car after the Griffs played, I realized that I did not recall when we had started wearing our heavy coats to and from the Aud – it had just turned so cold that there was no need to think about it – we wore our winter coats. And in spite of our woolen wrappings – we were still cold.

         And I shivered, shivered to the point that my teeth chattered, loudly, all the way to the watering hole where we celebrated after each game. After a few weeks of this, Laura asked me to please stop chattering my teeth. I couldn’t. They made that noise of their own accord.

Actually, I could have stopped them if I tried hard enough – but I was just so dang cold! Nowadays, when my teeth get to chattering, which is not very often, living in Atlanta, I think of it as Memorial Aud cold.

         So when Mike asked that night in Andalusia if I was cold, I was beginning to shiver, but my teeth were not chattering, so I was not Memorial Aud cold – and I was just fine – not what a Buffalo-raised woman would call winter at all.

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Only the First Beer Matters

     Eighty-nine years ago, January 3^rd, 1929, my Uncle Jim was born at home in Buffalo, New York. My Grandmother told me that she had been to see the doctor the day before, and the doc said the baby would be another week or so. That night there was a huge snowstorm as my Grandmother went into labor. I don't know whose journey was more difficult, the baby getting born, or the doctor trudging through the snow – either way, my Uncle Jim arrived before the doctor did.

        There are many stories I could tell about my Uncle Jim. There were the adventures during the years the family lived in Newark, New Jersey during the Depression – Jim would run loose in the neighborhoods. Often he would listen to outdoor parties going on, climb over the fence, and hang out with everyone as if he were an invited, albeit eager to get at the food, guest!

        One time Mom caught Jim and John, another brother two years older than Jim, in the garage smoking a cigarette! They were still young boys at the time and Mom was even younger. She hollered that she was going to tell on them! So Jim stuck the cigarette in Mom's mouth and then laughed at her and said if she told on them they would tell on her!

        As a teenager, living back in Buffalo once again, Jim got a job with a house-moving company! How my grandmother allowed this, my Mom always wondered – but it was how things were at the time. Jim, as a young, lean teen, was a good size for crawling under the house that was being moved – to hook up equipment – oh my gosh!

        When Jim and John were in their late teens, they would sneak out of the house at night after my grandparents had gone to bed. The boys would quietly open the garage door and then back their Dad's car out of the driveway. They backed the car out without turning on the motor – because that would make noise! Once on the street and a safe distance away, John and Jim would turn the motor on and drive around all night! When they got back home, they would turn the odometer back to where it was when they got started that evening; they would turn off the motor, and push the car back into the garage, quietly close the door and return to the house. It sounds too far-fetched to think their parents never knew about this, but the siblings maintained that there would have been hell to pay if either their father or mother had caught them at it!

        Years later, when my Uncle Jim was married and had children of his own, his daughter was learning to drive, and one evening she asked if he would go with her as she drove to the store. Uncle Jim said sure, and then he went through an elaborate production of getting into the car with as much protection on as possible. This included buckling himself into the middle of the backseat and wearing his son's football helmet!

        Two summers ago, when my brothers and I and our significant others were in Vermont vacationing together, Clark and Eric recalled a quote of Uncle Jim's that I just had to write down, lest I forget, and now I put it here for posterity. When trying to choose which beer to drink from all the choices that might be in the cooler and/or refrigerator, Uncle Jim would say, “It's only the first beer that matters.”

        My Uncle Jim's life was and legacy is so much more than what I could possibly say here in just a few words, but today I will drink a beer in his honor and pen these anecdotes in A Sharper Stick in the Eye!

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Read All Over

     Tonight’s suggested theme for Stories on the Square Gwinnett – true personal storytelling, mostly for adults, is black and white. I have mentioned in Sharp Stick in the Eye my delight in the color scheme of black and white for the month of January to nestle nicely between the bright colors of December and the romantic reds of February. There are so many objects that are black and white, along with the concepts of black and white extremes – I thought the topic would make for good storytelling material.

         So then I had to come up with a story too. Naturally, my mind went to newspapers – as in “what’s black and white and red all over?” Answer – the newspaper, and red/read is a pun. Maybe convoluted, but that’s the route I took to start thinking of personal stories that involve the newspaper.

         And I remembered an incident from my youth. Mom had to drive to downtown Buffalo one day. This was very unusual. I think she had jury duty – so that would explain it. She drove into the city by herself and then parked in a public parking ramp. When Mom got home, she was really mad. Apparently the parking attendant had been rude to her. I don’t know if it was verbal abuse or perhaps sexual harassment – at my age I would not have been privy to the details especially if the latter. But she was mad.

         So angry that she wrote a letter to the editor of the Buffalo Evening News! Mom was going to let the world know that she had been treated badly! She was going to make some figurative noise!

         I was really impressed. My own Mom wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper!

         And what’s more, the newspaper called Mom on the phone!

         They thanked her for her letter to the editor.

         And then they asked her a question. If the matter she wrote about in the letter was taken care of privately – it was taken care of – would it be all right if the letter was not published in the paper?

         Mom said that would be fine.

         Mom had affected a change by writing a letter to the editor!

         If you are like me, when you have children, you often hear a still quiet voice telling you to be a good example. And lots of times you bend over backwards, expending lots of energy and dwelling out of your comfort zone, to be a good example, and subsequently you see your children not absorbing it. And other times you aren’t even thinking about anything, just reacting, and that’s what sticks with the kid! Mom writing a letter to the editor of the newspaper really got to me. She wasn’t a rabble rouser – in fact, most of the time her advice to any of us was don’t rock the boat. But man, that letter she wrote made a difference – not only to the parking attendant and the parking company and the newspaper, but to the daughter who saw first-hand that a person can make things happen!

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Conversation Shakers

Christmas of 2017was almost upon us when I remembered the Publix Mr. and Mrs. Claus salt and pepper shakers on the top shelf of the cabinet behind the flour and sugar canisters. I retrieved them along with the Publix turkey salt and pepper shakers and the Publix Mr. and Mrs. Snowman shakers.  All six of them on the dinner table made me smile. And at the next meal, Mike asked what turned out to be the question of the season, how does one know which in each pair of shakers is the salt, and which is the pepper?

I shared my logic: it has to do with the number of holes in the top – one has three holes and one has two – and I figure that we all over-salt our food, so I put salt in the shaker with two holes to slow down the pour, and pepper in the shaker with three holes. Since Mike is someone who feels nothing can be over-salted, and since he is naturally suspect of my logic at any point in time, he googled the question.

And the first thing that came up in the search was the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum. And which shaker is salt and which shaker is pepper? is listed as the site’s most frequently asked question! Who knew there was such a museum and that there was such an interest in which shaker is which? The museum is in Gatlinburg, and of course it is now on our list of places to go. The answer to the question is – it depends on preference and availability which goes in two holes and which in three.

Isn’t it so refreshing to know that in today’s politically divided world – there is still an issue out there where it is okay for the experts to sit on the fence? We can accept that some people put salt in the two-hole shaker and some put it in the three-hole shaker, and there is still peace in the land! Not at all like the question of which way to hang the roll of toilet paper!

We took a selfie with the six shakers and posted it on Facebook with a Merry Christmas message and the question of how to tell which is which? Oh my gosh, did that picture and comment get a lot of attention and fun responses! Who could have guessed?

My brother Clark was most succinct in responding “Guys, the fun is guessing which has which.” And so it is!

The shakers reminded Facebook friends of the television commercial of a few years ago starring the Publix Pilgrim salt and pepper shakers, which then brought back memories of Publix holiday commercials over the years which are so sweet and sometimes tear-jerking.

And that got me to remembering salt and pepper shaker gifts from the past. When we lived in Oklahoma, some friends were moving away and other friends were hosting a going away party for them. I found salt and pepper shakers in the shape of cowboy boots that said Oklahoma up each boot. Gaudy enough for the friends to remember their days in Oklahoma always! And when my nephew, Ben, was getting married to Caitlin, I wanted to get them something unique. After much head scratching, I remembered how Ben would giggle over Grandma Mary’s Garfield books whenever he visited her in St. Augustine. I googled, and came up with a Garfield and his girlfriend, Arlene salt and pepper set. I don’t know which is salt and which is pepper, but they were magnetized such that Arlene is kissing Garfield when the shakers are placed close enough. Again, quite gaudy, but I hope they bring a smile at the table!

      We brought the question of which is salt and which is pepper up at the different holiday tables we frequented this past week. The discussions were lively and somehow comforting! The shakers of the Christmas of 2017 added flavor to our food, spice to the conversation, memories of holidays past, and maybe even a glimmer of hope of peace for the future!

Welcome to the first entry of my Sharper Stick in the Eye blog. It is a sequel to Sharp Stick in the Eye, a blog which consists of three hundred sixty-five memories – a memory of mine was posted for each day in 2015. I am a storyteller whose favorite story form is personal narrative. I share stories from my own life and stories passed down from family members. Sometimes people tell me they don’t have many stories from their lives, and I wanted to prove through the blog that if I can come up with 365 personal memories, surely others could have many memories too, some of which could be developed into stories that might shared within the family or told to others to entertain, empathize, and better understand the human condition.

Writing Sharp Stick in the Eye was a rewarding experience. I learned a lot about myself fleshing out memories that had only been on the surface of my consciousness. My family members who read the blog understood me better. To quote my daughter, Amanda, “it explains a lot.” And beyond family, I’m not sure anyone read any of it. And somehow, that’s okay with me. It’s there.

 When the project was finished, I thought of more memories, and I missed writing the blog. So I decided to do a sequel – three hundred sixty-five more memories, if I could come up with that many more. However, the goal of posting once a day is a bit much. Scrambling around with my brain mostly in the past so as to meet a deadline is not much fun for my family. Living in the present is something I’d like to do with them.

 And with all that in mind, the sequel, Sharper Stick in the Eye, will be written as memories come to the surface in my daily living (and I hurriedly scribble down a note), and I’ll post when I get the chance, and the blog will be finished after 365 entries, and that may take years. Let’s find out together.

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