May 5, 2024 Stroking my ego

I’m reading a very depressing book, “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri. This is pretty much the opposite of who I am because, if anything, I tend towards the overly optimistic. In addition, this book of short stories is mostly about Indians from Southeast Asia who are living in Great Britain or America. I have no reason to be drawn to them at all. Ms. Lahiri, however, won a Pulitzer for this book and she’s doing an excellent job of breaking my heart at the sorrows of people who are being let down or abused by their circumstances and life. Sigh.

When I’m not reading, which I really only do while I eat lunch, I’m getting ready to leave for the summer. This is an exercise I have done for many, many years, since at least 1997, so I’m pretty well practiced. Yet, I seem to enjoy making tweaks and additions to it every year.

This year appears to be the year of removing. I retired nine years ago and three years ago I began to seriously work on taking off excess weight, and this was before Ozempic – which I’d love to take, but that’s a different memoir altogether. Anyway, I had kept my entire professional wardrobe thinking I could take in the clothes that were getting too big. Or, based on prior weight-loss episodes, there was a better than 50/50 chance I’d gain all the weight back and then some. But when I sat down at the sewing machine one day with a blouse, I realized I couldn’t just put in some darts. There was so much excess fabric I’d need to take the entire blouse apart. I’m certainly not willing to do that.

So I started looking at the clothes in the closet with a much more critical eye. Just exactly when will I be needing executive style clothing again? I’d already taken in the waistband of some of the slacks, using them as gardening clothes. The oldest of the blouses were likewise in use as weeding and pruning ensembles. I don’t think the blazers and Ralph Lauren blouses have a role in my life anymore.

In the meantime, I discovered thrift store shopping. I’m a pretty frugal person to begin with and usually refuse to pay more than I think an item is worth. One day, simply by chance, I walked into a place called Orphans Rock in Mt. Dora, it’s associated with the First Baptist Church of Umatilla. The cashier was calling out, “We have so much inventory, that everything is half price”. Five pieces of clothing, a set of 4 drinking glasses and a little coffee carafe later I left, three dollars and fifty cents poorer. Ralph Lauren be damned! The clothes in the closet were folded up, bagged and taken to the thrift shop. So that’s that.

Back to lunch and depression. Now I’m cleaning in the dining room where yesterday I removed from a small chest I keep there, a thick three-ring binder once again from my previous career slash life. It had many, many clear plastic pockets that were filled with notes and cards. I knew I could use two of them to hold the Friends of the Library Scholarship Award certificates I’d printed. I was still suffering from the heartlessness in the book of Dev who had married Twinkle four months previously, but didn’t like the fact that she wanted to keep all the Christian things she kept finding in the house they’d just bought. I started removing from the clear plastic pockets all the notes from students, the required faculty photographs I had to have taken yearly, and the certificates, meaning to throw everything away.

Well, maybe not the award from the University of Miami for outstanding counseling. And here was the thank you note from Natalie, who was the reason I got that recognition. She was certainly a bright young woman, her mother was undocumented, father was who-knows-where, and her mother told her to never, never, never tell anyone that she had had tuberculosis. I’m only telling you. The University of Miami was the perfect school for her, the exception being she had absolutely no money to attend. 

What to do? The George Jenkins Scholarship, of course. George Jenkins? Name doesn’t ring a bell? You ever hear of Publix supermarkets? He’s the founder. And the scholarship his foundation awards is a full-ride including everything: tuition, fees, books, supplies, room and board and a stipend. I made sure that both Natalie and I knew every inch of that scholarship and everything written about it and previous winners. I wrote her letter of recommendation and edited and helped her polish her application until it was shiny and bright. And I made myself even more known to UM’s Admission’s and Financial Aid offices. My alma mater, after all. I knew she had a solid chance, but a chance isn’t a guarantee. So when I got the call from UM saying she had won, I cried, Natalie cried, even Wally, the Guidance Director cried. It was a good day. Can’t throw that away.

So I didn’t throw away the quite unflattering pictures of a much younger, much heavier me. And I kept all the cards and notes. Someday I’ll decide I no longer want or need this ego stroking, “What would we have done without you Ms. Roher”, “You worked harder than we did”, “You’re the best counselor I could ever imagine”. But this memoir will remain online on my blog and I’m going to include a piece one of the student’s wrote for English class, because it’s clever and funny and says a lot of truth about who I was and what I did. They must have been studying Chaucer and this is a parody.

Paul Chestnut 

Professor Thompson 

ENL 2012

February 25, 2010

The Intruder to Chaucer’s Pilgrimage 

And on the pilgrimage there was a BRACE Advisor.

She knows what’s best because she is wiser.

“Good afternoon, I am Mrs. Roher,

Your email account will believe it’s in the First World War. 

My daily emails will make you insane,

Just remember they are for financial gain.”

She hides in a cubicle at her desk.

Her love of scholarships can be seen as grotesque. 

Every year she gives away millions of dollars,

Attempting to help a community of scholars.

Her office is adorned with cute, little knick-knacks,

Here she hides, sending silent internet attacks.

Hunting and Gathering

Hunting and Gathering

I have many memories and stories about my mother picking wild raspberries at the cabin in northern Minnesota. And I remember thinking it was ‘crazy’ that after she turned them into jam, she’d put all those jars in the trunk of whatever giant Buick they owned at the time, and drive it all back to Florida.

It didn’t take very long after they had passed away, the cabin was mine and I could be there by myself, before I too came under the spell of these tiny, red, fragrant, flavorful jewels. An odd thing I discovered, is that a berry patch that had been productive for years could suddenly disappear. Truly this just added to the mystique. And the fun. Because now I had to go searching – in the forest – for a new patch. I’ve always loved true stories about women who would have grand adventures by themselves: “Where the Pavement Ends” by Erika Warmbrunn who biked from Mongolia through China and Viet Nam, and Mary Kingsley, who in the 1890’s, traveled alone in West Africa collecting specimens and studying anthropology. Yes, I actually see my berry hunting slash picking in that same light. And in a self-diagnosed case of, “even crazier than my mother”, there was the year when I was still working, that I too made and canned the jam and spent at least fifty dollars on postage shipping it back. Even with my oh so careful packing several of the jars broke.

Sometimes I would take whatever car I kept there on these hunts, which would occasionally require turning a too large car around on a too small dirt track with a drop off into the unknown on one side and mud on the other. Sometimes I had access to Don’s four-wheeler, which was much easier to maneuver but wouldn’t take me as far as I’d like to go. Nonetheless, I have gone to the end of many of the local dirt roads. The most productive ones are those built by lumber companies. They aren’t maintained, so they can get pretty rough after many years, but wild raspberries really like to grow in the remains of fallen and rotting stumps. If this sounds like it could be dangerous, it really is, especially the older and less agile I become. It’s not great for the car either.

Last summer (2023) was particularly interesting because I was completely out of spots. Additionally, I had a new-to-me 2017 Honda Fit, which is small and pretty low to the ground. I kept my ears quite open for any hints of spots from friends and neighbors and there were a few. The old Brimson/Toimi rock pit, which had a picturesque creek running by it and some very large piles of rocks, but only enough berries to eat as I walked along. There were no large quantities of berries as it was too sunny, flat and dry. And I tried the Otto Harris Lakes Rd, even walking down the old track, now gated off, that I thought was the way to another rock pit my mother used to frequent. The abundant flies and mosquitos however, made me turn around before I got close. And there wasn’t a hint of the plant as I drove slowly next to the road’s edge. As I’ve been on this hunt for many years, I’ve become pretty adept at identifying a raspberry patch, even from a distance.

But then I decided to try a road I’d never gone down even though it’s closer than other spots that used to be productive. I think the stop sign at its entrance for cars coming down that way made me think this might lead to housing. Oh not at all! As a matter of fact within less than an eighth of a mile the road became a track with grasses in the middle that reached halfway up the car doors. I’ve learned that those grasses can hide some surprises for the underside of the car. Sure enough, at least one rock big enough to make a nasty scraping noise made me wince. Now the tree branches are right up against the windows so there’s no possible way to turn around and I’m climbing up a hill too. Just as I’m thinking this may have been a poor idea, the woods on the left side thin out and there’s a big level area with grasses so tall I can tell no one’s been here for quite some time. Could there be berries anywhere around? The only way to tell is to get out and search.

Yes, this certainly is an area that was logged and those spindly poplars have quite a few raspberry plants in front of them, but because they’re so exposed to the sun the quality of the berries is poor. But behind them and down an overgrown incline is just what I’d been hoping for, the raspberry mother load.

I was prepared. I have a hat with a mosquito net, a little blue pail and a gallon sized plastic bag. So, gingerly, I move towards unknown footing. As I keep a hand on the poplar tree trunk, which my fist can almost encircle, I smile as I can see a small twinkle of red. Raspberries are good at keeping themselves shaded under their own leaves, and I’ve also learned that after I’ve picked through a spot, if I turn around I might find many more berries I couldn’t see from my original angle.

As is often the case with a great spot, this one came with obvious dangers. I can’t see what’s beneath my feet because of the tall grasses and whatever's down there will give way as it’s a collection of fallen branches, large and medium-size rocks, and old, rotting stumps. Perfect nutrition for the plants and a great way to wind up with a broken ankle in an area with limited, at best, cell phone coverage. But the berries over there, just out of arms reach are the most enticing, naturally. Eventually, I’m at the bottom of this depression, sitting crookedly on a jutting boulder with my feet straddling a dead tree limb that obviously won’t hold my weight.

I see I’ve forgotten to mention that wild raspberry plants have thorns. Just one more reason to be careful. If you pull up gently on a raspberry leaf you can often see where the berries are and can then pick them from below and thus keep away from the prickers.

So I’ve picked about three fourths of a gallon and it’s really time to go. But getting up, with one bad knee, the other in the ‘not great’ category and the footing being non- existent, means spending a few minutes surveying my options and repositioning myself on the rock before I can eventually creep towards a possibly more stable area. At last I stretch up and grab a flimsy poplar limb that, nevertheless, holds my full weight as I use my arms to lift myself to standing and then that limb becomes the rope I use to get back up to flat ground. Phew!

Now with berries intact – there have been times, pre-baggie, when I’d stumble and drop half the contents of the pail – I triumphantly get back in the car, turn it on, crank up the air conditioning because this is August, and feel I’d won. What satisfaction. Backing the car up, however, there is an odd sound. Is that something? Well never mind. Turns out I’m only a mile from the stop sign, which is only 5 miles from the cabin. Back on pavement there really is a loud dragging noise coming from under the car. I pull over thinking there must be a branch dragging, but I don’t see anything sticking out so I drive home and turn my attention to the berries, figuring I’ll handle whatever that noise is later.

Later is the next day when I’m planning on driving the forty-five miles to Virginia, Mn for groceries. The berries I don’t plan on eating fresh are in the freezer. I’d forgotten all about the noise, but it only took a couple feet before the dragging sound began. Rats! I’m dressed for town but now I have to get down on the ground to remove whatever branch is surely lodged under there. Luckily, I keep an old sheet in the back so my clothes stay clean but what I see gives me major anxiety. There’s no branch under there. A part of the car under the engine is hanging down touching the ground. No, I can’t call triple A from the middle of a national forest. My only option is to drive to Virginia with the noise becoming more threatening the faster I go. What to do? Go more slowly and maybe get stuck or the car starts on fire from the friction, or go faster and pray? I do a bit of both.

Well, I made it and pulled into the Valvoline oil change place that I’d been to before and was the nearest car place. The person who waves you to the correct bay waves me to the left to wait behind the car there when he notices something, puts up his hand for stop and then waves me over to an empty bay on the right. I pull in and stop and he comes over and says, “Well, what’s going on here”. “So I was out picking raspberries in the forest” ... He starts laughing and calls to the young man who’s down in the pit. “Whaddya see?” I didn’t hear the response but evidently there’s a plate under the car that protects some part of the engine, that had been held on with an expandable plastic anchor. Felt like it was my lucky day when they had something that would work. In less than 10 minutes he’s waving me out. “How much?” “No charge.” “No, that’s not right. Your time is valuable. Is $20 okay?”

So that’s my 2023 berry picking adventure. To me it’s just as satisfying as biking through China or trudging through the jungles of the Congo. Plus, I have every intention of returning this summer, especially now that I know to be very careful and aware of where I drive and where I park.

And those berries?
Here they are ready for the freezer.

And here’s the wild raspberry compote over a flan with a vanilla wafer crust.

Now, don’t tell anybody about my spot. It’s a secret!

 

 

For memoir group on March 11, 2024 

My Birthday

My birthday is in mid-July. Before I was school age, this was fine, and my mother noted that it never rained on my birthday so the celebrations were outside in the backyard. The cake always had a doll in the middle and the cake was her skirt and bodice. I thought they were so pretty and was quite proud of them.

Along with the cake, she gave the other children a gift. The gift came from a warehouse out in West Duluth that I surely visited once because the image of a dark, cavernous place with a wooden floor and wooden bins is in my memory. I think I must have been too little to be able to see over the side of the bins because I have no memory of the toys at all.

These birthday parties must have gone on into elementary school as well because there are some pictures that include not only my cousins and the neighborhood children, but classmates who didn’t live close by. The most “important” guest in retrospect, was Bobby Zimmerman. Why was Bob Dylan at my birthday party when I was about 4 years old? I thought that he might be a relative, but I can’t find any last name from his family that matches any from mine. Most likely his mother or father are related to a relative or friend of my family and perhaps they were in town (we lived in Duluth, the Zimmermans lived about an hour away in Hibbing). Bob would have been 11 or 12 so I’m sure he would not have been interested in 4 year old’s, but cake and ice cream are always welcome treats. This is as close as I come to stardom.

The later school-years meant that I wasn’t one of those lucky kids who got to have a birthday party in class. And after age 12, when my parents bought the cabin, I was alone with one or both of them at the lake. I have no memory of any celebration, but as I am the only child and I was quite loved and my mother loved to make cakes, I’m guessing they must have celebrated it. As far as gifts go, nothing that rises to that level of special has made it into long-term memory.

Through my teens and all the way to my 50’s, I have no idea what I did for my birthdays. I know what I didn’t do. I didn’t ask anyone to do anything special for me. I was often annoyed when my cousin would set up a party for her birthday at a restaurant and those of us who were invited were expected to pay for her meal along with giving her a gift. While I found that rather rude, it’s exactly the same thing my sister-in-law did. Seems I’m the only one who thinks this isn’t the nicest way to treat your friends.

After1995 I’ve spent every summer at the cabin on Cadotte Lake in the Superior National Forest in Northern Minnesota, about two hours south of Canada. It became mine a few years earlier when my parents felt they could no longer spend the summer there. Anyway, starting in 2013, I decided that for my birthday, I’d do something I might have thought of, but never did. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to drive to Beaver Bay, on the shores of Lake Superior, about 35 miles away, and stop at every creek on the way, take a photo of the identifying sign and check out the creek for future picnic possibilities. I’m wild about picnics. So starting with Apple Creek, there was: Toimi Creek, Petrell Creek, Nelson Creek, Store Creek, Breda Creek, Maki Creek, Murphy Creek, Sullivan Creek, the Cloquet River, W. Branch of the Beaver River, Big Thirty-Nine Creek, Little Thirty-Nine Creek, E. Branch of the Beaver River and finally, Lake Superior.  Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes has probably four times that many creeks. This trip didn’t have the most auspicious start because shortly after I pulled to the side of the road by Apple Creek, a State Trooper pulled up, got out of his car and asked if I was okay. “Yes, it’s my birthday and I’m stopping at every creek between here and Lake Superior”. The look on his face was, “Okay lady, you’re obviously crazy, but you do you”. When I got to Beaver Bay, I went to the ice cream shop and treated myself to two scoops of black licorice ice cream. Yummy!

Every year since, I’ve done something on this order. I’ve gone to the farmer’s market in Finland, Minnesota, to Palisade Head on the North Shore of Lake Superior, which is 1,1 billion year old and 335 feet above the lake (what a gorgeous view), to a Finnish pioneer homestead quite close by that’s been well preserved from about the 1850’s, to Black Beach, which is really black because the sand is made from the tailings of taconite that are mined pretty close to me. Taconite is a low grade of iron ore and all that remains in those mines now that the rich ore has been removed and turned into steel. Sugar Loaf cove that was used as a holding area for cut trees before they were loaded on boats and taken to saw mills. 

Northern Minnesota has been famous for natural resources since its discovery and even today that’s true. The latest find is helium which has been found about 40 miles north and west of me. Happily for me who doesn’t want to live there full time and isn’t looking for a mining job, the current Federal administration has been able to stop the plans for copper mining. There has never been a copper mine that hasn’t leaked arsenic into the surrounding watershed. The dilemma is that these are very good paying jobs and the area has very little else available. 

This past summer I went to the Sax-Zim Bog, a preserve that is most famous for the owls people frequently photograph in the winter.

And this coming summer – 2024? So far I don’t know. Sometimes I use Google maps to view the area and see if anything interesting pops up. That’s how I found the bog. 

I think there are two important things about this exercise: first I honor myself, which I think is important, and second I learn more about the area, it’s history and it’s beauty.

Covid-19 and me

     Whoever you are, I'm pretty sure you've heard about the worldwide pandemic of Covid-19.  My experiences during that strange time aren't unique, but they're mine and maybe you wonder what I did then.

    The 19 in the name is the year this virus was discovered and became a pandemic, autumn 2019.  For me basically two things happened, everyone completely freaked out and life remained almost exactly the same.  I was and am retired, so the fact that businesses closed with the exception of groceries and hardware, made little impression.  It made some, of course.  At first we were advised to use grocery delivery services, which I did, and then I watched a YouTube video about how you should sanitize all the packages.  Did that too.  Wiped down cereal boxes and canned vegetables. Not for long however - I was too lazy.

    It became almost impossible to find rubbing alcohol and by the time I thought to get some sanitary wipes - the shelf was bare.  Many shelves became bare.  So I bought some baby wipes. Luckily I had the alcohol and I just poured a lot of the bottle into the baby wipes - presto - instant disinfectant.

    The President was Donald Trump. Love him or hate him, those were some pretty interesting news conferences.  I've read that he didn't want to scare the population.  We were scared enough without any encouragement, information or lack thereof from him.  It didn't take long to hear news about people dying.  Lots of people.  Mostly older people (that includes me?) with health conditions and woe to them if they lived in a nursing home or anyplace with lots of other older people.  One of the aides, inevitably it seems, would be sick - with or without symptoms - and the next thing you know - more dead seniors.

    But younger, healthier people were dying too.  From the news, I think New York City should be a village by now.  So many dead that refrigerated trucks had to be brought in because the morgues couldn't handle them all.  Doctors and nurses and all hospital personnel were stressed to their limits.  Some sickened, some died, some took their own lives, many simply left the profession.  People would go to hospitals and leave gifts and food for the staff - just to be encouraging.  There is still a lot of turbulence in the medical profession especially among nurses who have gone on strike and not always for more pay, but to demand more staff.  One of the issues is that "traveling nurses" are much in demand and command very high pay, so hospital nurses feel their patients are not getting appropriate care.  But I digress.

    It really didn't matter to me that restaurants closed.  I was perfectly happy getting a Junior Whopper from Burger King - no contact.  Plexiglass barriers went up all over the place and stayed up for three years.  We were told to wear surgical type face masks.  Those went out of stock instantly and were then reserved for health care workers.  People began sewing and donating masks.  I remember reading about it on Facebook right here in Eustis.  Timothy Totten, who I'd met at an event some time previous was spearheading the local effort.  I made my own mask from an old kitchen towel.  

    But I had a life to live and one item in that life was a car to be bought and left at the cabin in Minnesota.  The previous car had completely died on the very day I was scheduled to drive it to Duluth, leave it at Don's garage and take a cab to the airport.  No car and the airport an hour away.  I called a friend at a lake across the road, Ken Swanson, and begged him to take me.  He did.  He and his wife Bonnie have been life savers a number of times.  

    This exercise in car buying during a pandemic wasn't as tough as you'd think.  Cars are still available, car lots are open and you can search inventory pretty easily on line.  I knew the car I wanted. I love cars that look like boxes, but turns out the car I liked - used of course - didn't have any of the things I needed.  Number one was gas mileage.  Yes, gas is cheap in 2019 but we all know that won't last forever and if I leave the cabin, the nearest destination is twenty miles away and a weekly grocery run is forty miles, one way.  After doing the research, it turned out that the perfect car for me was a Honda Fit; forty-five mile per gallon, more interior space then imaginable (is it a tardis? Never heard of a tardis?  Research Dr. Who) and a few used one are in the area.  It looks like a bubble, but never mind.  I was willing to pay $10 thousand.  Unfortunately, the going price was $13,000.  But by searching just a little farther there it was in Daytona: 2017 red Honda Fit, 35,000 miles, $9,995.  I called so they knew I was coming.  What they didn't know was that I had stumbled on some information to my benefit in my research.  Turns out that Florida has a statute that says dealers are not allowed to charge any items they make a profit on if it's not on the sticker.  Almost no one knows about this, so dealers simply ignore it.  I played somewhat the dumb consumer to the salesman; did he know about this statute?  I showed him the photo I'd taken of it.  Dealer Prep Fee?  I don't think so. He said he had to talk to the manager.  I was more than prepared and told him, "take your time, I've brought a book".  The manager came out in record time.  We did the deal and the car was mine.  They even delivered it.

    I had to drive the 1,500 miles without touching anything unless I'm wearing gloves or talk to anyone without being at least 6 feet away and preferably wearing a mask.  Turned out to be pretty easy as not many people were driving anywhere. Motels and gas stations were turning somersaults to prove they were doing everything to make you safe and McDonalds drive-thru is still in business. At the end of summer I flew home and while it was surreal to be in a quiet airport with no line at security and keeping 6 feet away from everyone, it wasn't unpleasant.

    By late fall, a vaccine was being promoted, however getting one was proving to be a challenge.  But I had some dumb luck.  I was out in the yard when my neighbor Jerry drove by and stopped for a minute.  He was on his way to Ocoee to get the shot because his daughter is a nurse there.  Turns out I could qualify too as a friend.  He told me the website and I made the appointment immediately and was vaccinated that week, January 2021.

    Many every-day items became scarce.  Toilet paper is the one often talked about.  With most people staying at home - schools and businesses are closed - this is something we all need and people hoard it while factories can't keep up with demand.  There was a bird flu and eggs disappeared and those available were triple the price. One week I really had a desire for rice.  Nope.  No rice on the shelves at all.  It wasn't unusual to walk down a grocery aisle where most of the shelves were completely bare.  

    Somehow, I never got sick, nor do I personally know anyone who died.  Almost four years have passed since March of 2020. Many of the plexiglass barriers are just now being removed.  But grocery delivery is booming, as is delivery of just about everything.  Very few people still wear masks and I usually assume those who do have some health condition.  Times are still very odd though.  Prices of many things are much more than pre-pandemic, although some are coming down.  Interest rates are going higher and higher to try and bring the inflation under control.  

    There have been and will continue to be consequences to shutting down the world.  I'm most concerned for young people who were forced to stay home without the company of friends and have their schooling online.  Behavior issues from lack of socialization may be a consequence as well as other mental health conditions.  The cost of housing is higher than many people in lower paying jobs can afford so homelessness is increasing and out of control in many larger cities.  

    This pandemic resulted in major changes in many areas of life and change is always difficult.  Yet change is one of the only constants in the universe.

A Very Strange Dream

     I never remember my dreams.  But one night around 2010 I had such a vivd and terrifying dream, I never forgot it.  And, in one sense, it came true.

    It's a beautiful day.  Crystal clear.  The sky is a wonderful shade of blue without a cloud in sight.

    I'm alone, driving a car that's very comfortable but not familiar, and I'm on a lovely highway. I feel perfectly content. There's no one else on this highway at all, and there's no scenery because this lovely expanse of road has concrete on both sides that obscure my vision left and right, plus I'm sure it's elevated.

    Off in the somewhat far distance I see a city sparkling in the sun.  It's reminiscent of the Emerald City Dorothy sees in the Wizard of Oz.  I'm thrilled to be heading there.

    Suddenly and too soon for me to take any action, the road just ends and I'm plunging over the edge to my death.  

    And then I wake up.

    It's morning and I'm terrified.  What was that all about?  Why am I dreaming about my death?  I told friends and colleagues at work who were sympathetic, but after all, dreams are strange, right?

    This dream plagued me for days.  I do think that dreams are a way we work out things that happen in our everyday lives, but I couldn't think of anything related to this until I remembered ...

    About two days before the dream I'd received notification from the Social Security Administration about my retirement that was 4 or 5 years away.  It was one of those government mailings where you have to tear off the sides and the top and it had a lot of that "fine print" governmentese, that requires careful reading. I'd read what it said, but didn't realize that my brain was working out what this meant for me and how I would respond.

    When I connected this to the dream it all fell into place.  That beautiful city? That's how I felt about retirement.  And the road there?  That's where I was - happily enjoying a career I loved.  The road ending?  Of course it would.  My death could be my fear of the unknown.  How would I handle the transition to who I would be if I didn't define myself by my work?

    Once I realized this, I smiled to myself.  I didn't forget the dream, far from it, I can still see it all clearly.  But now I live in that beautiful city of retirement and it is even more beautiful than I imagined.  

    While I do think longingly and so fondly of the career I had, when I look at the life I've been able to create for myself it's amazing.  I have old friends and new.  I have communities in both my northern and southern homes.  I get to do things I've looked forward to and have chosen to do things I would never have guessed would make me so content. As for dreams, I haven't remembered any since then.

    

About Mom - Part 2

About Mom – Part 2

    So Sara Abrams gets off the train in Duluth, Minnesota in 1945 or 1946 after having spent several years on islands in the South Pacific as an Army nurse. Then what?

    The story becomes a little odd to my mind because of the way she gets engaged to and marries my father, Paul Winer. To hear my mother tell it, my father’s mother Jennie Winer, “went around telling everyone that her son was marrying Sara Abrams”. That’s it? No love in bloom? How did he propose? Why didn’t she go back to New York City? I can’t answer any of these questions. Maybe she wanted to stay with family in Duluth? Maybe he was a stable Jewish guy who was a professional? No clue? But in March of 1946 or 1947 they were married.    

    July of 1949 I showed up. They both wanted children but it turned out she had something called a “tipped uterus” which made it very difficult for her to carry a child to term. She had two miscarriages before I was born and two after. That must have been very sad for them, but neither one talked about it and I never thought to ask – being one of those spoiled brat only children we’ve all heard about.

    I’m really not sure about the power dynamic in their relationship, but I’m quite sure my mother was comfortable wearing the pants.  And sometimes I think that was okay with my father too.

    So it’s post war, the economy starts booming, next on the checklist turns out to be a house – they were living with my mother’s mother – which, honestly, couldn’t have been great. So they buy a two story, three bedroom one bathroom house with a basement at 2021 East 9th Street. Nothing fancy, but that’s where I grew up. The phone number is Randolph 4-4130. Strange how many of us Boomers remember our home phone numbers.

    Duluth has an economic divide. Wealthier people live on the East side, poorer on the West.  My high school had the not very imaginative name East High. Kids from the other schools (Central, Denfeld and Holy Rosary) called us “Cakes”, because we could afford to eat cake I suppose. Or maybe it’s the Marie Antoinette saying – let them eat cake. My dear friend Don, who went to Denfeld, will still call me Cake, when he wants to accuse me of being "uppity".

    Next on the list is their own pharmacy, Paul’s Reliable Drugs, between first and second Avenue West on 1st Street. Evidently, they had this when I was young enough to need 24 hour care because my mother hired people to be with me during the day. I have no memory of any of them, but my mother had guilt about it.

    My father was the pharmacist and my mother took over the cosmetics counter. There was one other person who worked at the cash register in the front and Don Pasek was the assistant pharmacist and bought the store when my parents retired in 1967 and we moved to Hollywood, Florida. My mother was one heck of a crackerjack saleswoman and got all into a company called Allercreme. Today you can only find it on EBay –and don’t use that stuff, it stopped production in the late 1980’s. Anyway, it was Texas Pharmaceuticals and it’s big thing – ahead of its time perhaps – was being hypoallergenic. She sold the heck out of that stuff, enough that I remember my parents were invited to visit the company and treated as quite the VIP's.

    At home, Sara Winer had a tendency to revert from time to time, to 1st Lieutenant Abrams. She was in control! The bad news is she has a very stubborn daughter. But generally, what Sara wanted, Sara got. I learned how to make a bed using nurses corners and the bottom sheet had to have the majority of its length tucked under the head and torso because that’s where the body moves the most in sleep. The things you remember!

    I also had to learn to play the piano. This was something very dear to my mother’s heart as she had so desperately wanted a piano as a child. Poor as my grandparents were, they got her one. But Terri, being given things her heart didn’t desire, wasn’t all that keen on practicing. And she was rebellious by nature along with being stubborn. The story goes that one day I got good and mad and kicked the piano. Maybe I was 8 or 9 years old. Mom walked over and kicked me. It was a shocker all right. Evidently, I never kicked the piano again, but I didn’t make much of an effort to practice either. Fast forward and one of the things I wanted very much after I got married was a piano. I still have that Baldwin spinet and I play some of the same music she played. She was a much better pianist. I make the same mistakes on the same pieces I made when I was 12. All classical. Oh yes, I am my mother’s daughter. I remember occasionally asking my husband what he’d like me to play. Invariably his answer was “softly and far, far away”. Ha, ha, very funny.

    Another point I remember about her was her desire to be a vaudeville star. A showgirl I suspect, because she would occasionally enter a room (when it was just me there) as if she was entering a stage as a Flora Dora girl or some such. Skirt or apron in hand she’d flounce in humming or singing some tune. I was, a. annoyed and b. embarrassed. MOTHER! Sheesh. In retrospect, it’s so adorable.

    After some years, my parents would take the entire month of March as a holiday. The store operated without them and they drove (the Buick Le Sabre) to Miami Beach to the strip of small motels. For the first year or two of this, I was looked after by my mother’s mother. Then for a couple years they took me out of school and I brought a month’s worth of schoolwork with me. I did some of it – but - lazy student here. But then they decided that I could be left home alone. I had done an excellent job of pulling the wool over their eyes and had convinced them that I was trustworthy and could take care of myself. This was partly true until I was 16 and had a learner’s permit. What I learned about myself is that I can be quite devious. At this time they had two cars. My mother had a Buick Skylark. Do you know, that if you put in the key, turn the ignition to ALT, you can then pull out the key and as long as you don’t turn the ignition all the way back to OFF, the car can be used just as if you have the key? So Terri had a car for the entire month of March and could drive herself and her friend Susie to school daily instead of walking and even went to a concert, after which there was a terrible blizzard and it was simply dumb luck we were able to get home, put the car in the garage and the snow covered up the fact that the car had been used at all. I told her all about it 20 years later. She was very annoyed. Ha ha.

    Beginning in 1967, she and my father moved to Hollywood, Florida 3501 Jackson St, Apt 402.  I attended the University of Miami. As the years passed, my focus became myself, then a boyfriend I acquired, Jan Roher by name who I married in 1973. So the comings and goings of Sara and Paul became very much background noise.

    During the winter they spent time with friends they made in Florida and in the summer they drove to “the cabin”. Then came stories of the bears in the yard: rolling the heavy steel garbage burning drum like a circus performer, getting a paw stuck in the top of the drum and waving it around in the air until he was

 able to peel back the wired-on steel cover and free himself, and my all-time favorite, the bear who was sitting on the front stoop at dusk while my mother was inside typing and my father, who had come in from fishing was hiding behind trees in the yard while screaming her name – Sara! Sara!. This noise encourages the bear to amble over to the side of the cabin. My mother finally hears him screaming, comes out on the low stoop and with great annoyance says, “what do you want”. “There’s a bear”, and the bear sticks his head around to the front. Lieutenant Abrams (I think) grabs her ever present Donna Reed style half apron, shakes it at the bear and says, “shoo, shoo”. The bear shoo’d.

    Another famous story involves not only a bear but includes a favorite cabin activity, raspberry picking. She would pick gallons of berries, turn them into jam and sauce, put them in jars and drive them back to Florida. If you’ve never had wild northern raspberries, they resemble store bought in color only. In size, they’re about a third of cultivated, and in flavor, at least 5 times more flavorful. So, one hot and sunny, probably August, day, Sara and Kathy Babcock, who lived down the road but not on the lake – but who also been a nurse – decide to go berry picking at a nearby gravel pit. The picking is good and they wander farther and farther from each other. In the meantime, it’s also getting hotter and hotter and my mother removes her blouse. Suddenly, Kathy screeches, “Sara, a bear!”. My mother’s reaction was to drop her bucket and cover her bosom – she was wearing a bra. The bear left and mom and Kathy were left breathless with laughter. I’ve heard all these stories so many times.

    Eventually, in her late 70’s, mom felt she was no longer able to make the trip. Neither she nor my father were accustomed to air travel and she had begun to show signs of dementia. The last year they were there together was 1993. They returned to their Florida apartment and I spent more time there as the years went on and I realized she was becoming less and less able to care for both of them. In 1998 she began having abdominal pain that she ascribed to the fact that she had drunk a free sample of Diet Pepsi from a vendor at Publix. Turned out to be cancer, of course. The surgeon operated, realized it was too advanced and closed the incision. By luck, there was an empty apartment on the same floor as my parents that the administration allowed me to rent by the month. I contracted both Hospice and a home health care agency, so she had care around the clock. Whatever medications she was given were great as she didn’t seem to be in any pain. She enjoyed seeing friends who visited. My father was just down the hall, although it was hard on him. And she passed away quite peacefully two weeks later.

    My memories of her are quite strong. She was amazingly loving to me – her only precious child – but she wanted me to take after her in ways that weren’t natural to me. I was very introverted, tended to be chubby, then overweight, then obese and her disapproval made me angry and resentful. I didn’t care for science and I’m sure that was a disappointment. But I did give her the grandchild she desperately wanted.

So sorry I made her wait 10 years to have him. What torture that must have been. 

    Many things now in my house were hers. Some I like, some I simply can’t seem to part with. Turns out I have her adventurous spirit, her positive and loving nature and the same desperation for grandchildren – thank heaven for twins!