You Should Be Dancing

I do the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. Last week, and again this week, one of the answers was: The Bee Gees. Thinking about The Bee Gees put me in a nostalgic mood that recalled the first time I felt like I was a real dancer.

The ’70s was an era of discotheques, mirror bedecked balls hanging from ceilings, and black light ambiance. With the pulsating bass drum thumping of the music of Stevie Wonder, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Kool & the Gang, and, of course, The Bee Gees, it seemed that everyone was getting their boogie and groove on in order to feel the far out, diggin’ it, right on, times of disco dancing.

In early 1978, I met some friends one Friday at a local hot spot that was holding a dance contest ala the recently released and extremely popular movie, Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta as the Brooklyn youth trying to find the meaning of life on the dance floor. I wasn’t a dancer myself, and always felt a bit awkward trying to imitate those around me in some attempt to look cool. But I loved watching people who really knew what they were doing. The contest got underway, and I clapped and whistled my appreciation for the talented participants. After the winners had been announced, a finalist walked over to me and asked me if I’d like to dance. I was shocked, and embarrassed, as I responded, “I am so sorry, but I have no idea how to dance.” He smiled, held out an inviting hand, and said, “I’ll teach you.” So I hesitatingly and blushingly agreed even though I was in fear of making a fool of myself. Before I could give more thought to how foolish I might look, he deftly led me out onto the floor as the first several notes of “You Should Be Dancing,” by The Bee Gees, began. He told me to relax and not think about my feet. He then proceeded to execute a number of dance moves: handwraps, spins, throw-outs, catches, poses, and drops as the beat of the music continued. With a push of his hand on my hip or a pull on my arm to bring me close, it was amazing how easily he made it look like I, too, was a dancer. It was both terrifying and exhilarating. By the end of the song I was completely out of breath as this kind of dancing required some athleticism, but I was grinning with excitement. I thanked him many times over as he gave me a hug before heading off to find another partner.

Since then I have clung to the memory and the thought of someday learning how to really dance. I get completely tickled over dance scenes from movies like Funny Face with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn or Brigadoon with Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse. I get a big laugh every time I see the scenes of Tom Cruise’s lip-synching underwear dance to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” in Risky Business, Hugh Grant’s 10 Downing Street shuffle to The Pointer Sister’s “Jump” in Love, Actually, or Kevin Kline’s memorable response to Diana Ross singing  “I Will Survive” from In & Out. And when Lee Ann Womack’s “Dance” comes on the radio, I sing aloud with the kind of enthusiasm that makes fellow drivers wonder about the crazy woman in the red Mini Cooper.

At the wedding reception of a dear friend several years ago, another friend, Charlotte, and I sat at a table, chins resting in the palms of our hands, husbands staring glumly at the dance floor, both of us longing to be asked to dance. We both knew we wouldn’t be. Charlotte let out a big sigh and said, “My next husband will dance.” And now that I have what a co-worker calls a wasband, this notion of dancing being a qualification for a partner is finding some traction. Consequently, while recently visiting the new man in my life, I was delighted when he pushed play on a CD of music he thought I might like, and started dancing. He moved in close, took my hand, and twirled me slowly around. We danced like this through several songs, and then laughed at ourselves for both being just a little bit silly. But, man, it was fun.

You should be dancing. Aah, yeah.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2014

The Perfect Edges

“Huh,” Mom responded with her characteristic arched left brow and slight shrug of her shoulders. Her open newspaper was firmly grasped with thumbs and forefingers, and she continued to read through the bottom half of her trifocals without even a glance in my direction.

“But your edges don’t get crispy and curl,” I stated with a near accusatory tone. Mom continued reading with an air of having not heard me.

A holiday tradition, lefse was, and still is, a coveted addition to Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. Coveted because not everyone does, or even can, make it. The ingredients are easy to come by—potatoes, flour, oleo (a throwback reference to margarine), and a tad of salt, sugar, and half and half—but the equipment is another matter. The “griddle” is very specific, and can now be ordered, I suppose, on the internet, but when I decided to take on the family tradition and learn how to make it, I had to wait for my next visit to Wisconsin when I could go to the Farm and Fleet where any good Norwegian knows that anything needed for making lefse, krumkake, sandbakkels, or rosettes can be purchased on the spot. Making it also requires a good bit of time and patience as the process cannot be rushed. There are no shortcuts.

Lefse resembles a tortilla in both shape and size. The difference is that lefse is far more pliable, and much softer, especially around the edges. Potato is the base ingredient and flour is used to give the dough enough bulk for rolling each piece out nice and thin. The remaining ingredients give it just a tad of flavor. “Fixing” a piece of it requires some finesse. I have always eaten mine with a thin layer of butter and a sprinkling of sugar. But Dad would put everything from fried egg to leftover turkey on his.

When I was a child, it was my great aunt Bea, one of Grandpa Anderson’s sisters, who most frequently provided the lefse I ate during the holidays celebrated with Dad’s side of the family. Grandma Heller usually had it on the table for family get-togethers with Mom’s side of the family, but she never made it herself. She would have been the first to out herself on her domestic shortcomings—didn’t sew, cooked only plain food, and wasn’t much of a housekeeper—but nevertheless, Mom expended a lot of energy perfecting distaff functions, and thus proudly surpassed her own mother. Mom’s desire for perfection was no different when it came to learning how to make lefse, which she did with such righteous fervor that to try and subsequently learn from her was to learn the meaning of failure instead: “You haven’t waited for the potatoes to cool enough,” “You’re rolling it too thin,”  “You’re waiting too long to turn it,” “You can’t eat those now, they’re for Thanksgiving Day,” “Stand aside, [sigh of exasperation] I’ll do it.”

Therefore, my first real practice run was with my cousin Karen whose Grandma Rowen (not related to me) was such a consummate expert, she made half her year’s income selling lefse during the holiday season. Karen and I dutifully watched the videotape that had been recorded of Grandma Rowan in action, and then got busy making lefse for the first time. Did we have several irregular shaped pieces? Yes. Did we have a few pieces with holes where we had rolled too thinly? Yes. Did we have a couple where the desired brown spots were a tad too dark? Yes. Did we drink just a little too much wine? Yes. Did we have a blast doing it? You betcha! But it was the slightly too crunchy and curled edges that really bothered me most. None of the lefse I had eaten had this peculiar trait, which is why I told my mother about it many times over the years, hoping for her sage diagnosis.

The diagnosis finally came when Mom was quite literally on her deathbed. Or, rather, her death couch. I was in Florida for what I knew would be her last few days, and Dad asked if I’d make lefse for him. I said I would if he would peel the potatoes, which is the part I dislike the most. While Mom slipped in and out of consciousness, Dad and I went to work. At the critical point when it came time to add the flour, Mom awoke and rasped out what certainly was some sort of admonition as her left forefinger was pointed right at me as she spoke. She was difficult to understand at the end of her life because she had a tumor pressing on the part of her brain that controlled her speech.

I turned from the lefse dough bowl and asked, “What was that?” She again pointed her finger at me and said what sounded like, “Too much flour.” I mulled her statement over for a moment before it dawned on me what was happening here. “Are you trying to tell me that I use too much flour?” She nodded her head. “So you’re telling me that the reason my edges are too crunchy and curl up a bit is because I use too much flour.” She nodded again. I wasn’t angry with her. I was actually a bit amused because it was so quintessentially my mother in so many ways. “You wait until now to tell me?” I asked with a wry grin. Her big smile, the one that everyone remembers her for because it contained just a hint of mischief, appeared on her face as she struggled to then say, “But I tell you.”

I won’t go as far as to say that I make perfect lefse, that superlative will forever belong to Grandma Rowen. But I am thankful that almost the last words Mom said to me have at least helped me achieve perfect edges.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2014

Being Angelique

As a tween, I was obsessed with the 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows. In particular, I was fascinated by Angelique, the character played by Lara Parker. Angelique was a witch and a vampire. In particular, she was mysterious and held the main character of the show, Barnabas Collins, under her unyielding spell. I wanted to be her.

But, alas, I was a goofy, and in the current vernacular, nerdy and dorky, kid. I wasn’t clever about much of anything and basically watched television all the time. My neighbor Peter and I once had a Mexican standoff over who knew the most TV commercials. (He won.) So when it came to being like Angelique, I was a bit hopeless.

I wanted so much to be Angelique from Dark Shadows that I made a pair of vampire fangs out of white glow-in-the-dark goop in my Magic Oven with a Creepy Crawlers mold. The rubbery fangs could be positioned under my upper lip and, to me, looked pretty convincing as real teeth. Angelique would call out into the night to her victims, “Come to me.” She would chant the words over and over in an eerie tone as she focused all her energy on her target. “Come to me. Come to me.” The camera would switch back and forth between Angelique in her flowing white gown and the man she was so intently trying to telepathically draw toward her. He would resist knowing his fate if he answered her call, she would redouble her efforts if she felt him fighting her spell. I was captivated. In the end, Angelique always was the conqueror and won her prize. “Oh,” I thought, “to have that kind of power.”

During my Angelique-obsessed phase, my best friend, Evy, had a serious crush on Steve, a boy who lived several streets away. He had curly dark hair, and even at 12 or 13, showed signs of his future athletic physique. In Long Beach, there were pods of kids everywhere. Every street pretty much stuck to its own and didn’t do much intermingling, so seeing Steve outside of school would have been rare. This was especially true in the summer. We just didn’t stray off our streets much until we were closer to being in high school. In the summer of 1971, just before the start of eighth grade, Evy could hardly talk about anyone else but Steve. I could hardly talk about anything else but being Angelique.

In late summer I had an idea. Maybe if Evy and I concentrated hard enough we could summon Steve to us, like Angelique. One early evening I broke off the dried up stalk of a daylily to use as a wand. I waved it around Evy imagining that I was creating a magical aura around her. We then went to the telephone pole at the end of her driveway and pressed the palms of our hands against the splintery wood. We started chanting, “Steve, come to me. Come to me, Steve.” We both focused all our energy and every bit of our attention on his image. As we chanted we thought about him coming out of his house, walking in a sort of trance down Oriole Trail, and then wandering up Berwyn Avenue. We kept this up for a solid ten minutes. And then . . . it happened. Steve came riding his bicycle up our street. Evy and I started screaming.

Steve stopped to find out why we were screaming, which we refused to tell him. He talked to us for a few minutes and then rode off. We tried to summon him again a couple weeks later but to no avail. I couldn’t stopping thinking, though, that for one moment in time, I felt as if I were magic, that I had become Angelique. And Evy thought so, too.

On Halloween that fall, I fixed my hair in ringlets, applied some make-up, dressed up as Angelique, and wore my Creepy Crawlers fangs, so that I could feel the power of being Angelique just one more time.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2014

It Was 50 Years Ago Today

Though not actually a lie—more of a half-truth—I understand why my mother told it. After all, I was only six years old.

Assigned to the afternoon kindergarten class at Long Beach Elementary in the fall of 1963, I’d watch Bozo Circus while eating a bowl of Franco-American spaghetti or Campbell’s chicken noodle soup before getting ready to go to school. Mom would call out for me to hurry or you’ll be late.

Mrs. Miller, my teacher, was a kind-hearted woman close to 60 years old with beautiful white hair. Each month, with artistic flair, she’d draw a different color chalk illustration on the blackboard—apples and back-to-school books in September, pumpkins and fall leaves in October, and a great big gobbler of a turkey for November. In April she drew a huge pink and white Easter bunny. I remember because in our class picture my best friend Shaun Johnston is pointing to the bunny with her left hand. Her eyes are shut.

When I look at the class picture, I get the eerie sensation that it’s going to turn into a video any second and play the scene. But it’s just wishful thinking because I really just want to see Shaun open her eyes. Carol is perched at the top of our indoor slide, shaped like a giraffe’s neck. I’m sitting at a desk with a chalkboard top, my hair in a pixie-style cut. I know I have a hand full of candy in my lap because I punched the skirt of my dress down between my legs to form a pouch just before the picture was snapped. We’re surrounded by 20 other six-year-olds. Shaun’s towhead hair is blunt cut like a little Dutch boy, and her eyes must have blinked just as the shutter clicked. If the scene were to play out, Shaun would open her eyes and smile at me, Carol would slide down the long giraffe neck, and I would quickly scoop the candy out of my lap to keep it from falling on the floor.

My neighborhood was full of boys, so Shaun was my first girlfriend. We played together every school day. Sometimes we’d roll up drawing paper into cone-shaped crowns and pretend we were princesses, but mostly we’d just sit next to one another during art activity or get in line for the giraffe slide together. We’d also place our little pink sleeping towels on the floor next to each other for rest time. Mrs. Miller let us arrange our sleeping towels under her desk one time. Excited about such a privilege, we giggled through the whole rest time.

I asked my mom if Shaun could come over to play but she pretended she didn’t hear me. I kept asking until Mom finally said with irritation in her voice, “Stop asking me, I don’t know her mother at all.” This seemed to be a logical explanation at the time but years later I found out that Shaun’s family was Catholic—a word my maternal grandmother whispered whenever she absolutely had to say it—and probably the real reason Shaun could not be invited over to my house. I think we weren’t supposed to associate with Catholics.

A few days before the end of summer vacation and the start of first grade, I woke up as usual, got dressed, put on my red PF Flyers, and ate a bowl of Cheerios. I kicked myself away from the table and headed for the door. It was gloriously sunny and soon we’d all be back in school.

“Where are you going?” Mom asked suspiciously.

“Outside,” I said with a shrug to indicate the unsaid, “Of course.”

“Not this morning,” she said with great finality. “Go downstairs or in your room and play.”

I didn’t think I was in trouble for anything but I wracked my brain just the same trying to remember if I’d done something I wasn’t supposed to. I could tell Mom was in one of her moods, but risked asking the question, “Why?”

She stood holding a dishrag that she now began twisting tighter and tighter. I could tell something was wrong and I was expecting her to outline my latest transgressions to explain the punishment. I was, therefore, surprised when she said, “Because, there’s a bad man outside.”

A bad man? “Where is he?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Out on the beach somewhere. The police are looking for him and when they catch him, you can go outside.”

A bad man. The police. I hopped up on the sofa in our living room to look out the picture window and started imagining the bad man running along the sandy lakeshore with the police in hot pursuit. I imagined him tripping as a wave rushed up over the sand giving the police a chance to catch up. I wanted them to catch him quickly. I wanted to go outside.

It seemed like a long time but in truth it was probably no more than an hour. I’d crawled off the sofa and watched a baby show, Romper Room, where Miss Somebody was talking about being a “Do-Bee” and a “Don’t-Bee.” The only thing I really liked about this show was the big rubber ball with a rubber band attached. You wrapped the band around your wrist and then hit the ball with the heel of your hand. If you got it going fast enough, it was a lot of fun. I also enjoyed the magic mirror. “Romper stomper bomper boo, tell me, tell me, tell me do. Did all my friends have fun at play? Tell me, mirror, tell me, who?” Miss Somebody would then say, “I see Timmy, and Jennie, and Linda, and Sam.” Every day she’d name a bunch of new names but I don’t ever remember her saying Debbie. After Romper Room, I hopped back up on the sofa and joy! Gerry Beres was outside on his scooter. “Mom,” I shouted, “Gerry’s outside. Can I go out now?”

Mom gave a quick glance out the window, saw Gerry and said, “Just a minute.” She then went and called Mrs. Beres who must have told her that they’d caught the bad man because Mom said I could go out.

The first week of first grade was hectic. There were kids in my class that hadn’t been with me in afternoon kindergarten and only a few who had. Miss Hill seemed very nice but things were a lot different now. We were in school all day long for starters and we were going to learn how to read. Some kids already knew how, like Keith Mulligan who bragged about it all the time. “That’s baby stuff,” he’d boast, “I’ve been reading since before I started kindergarten.” It took me a few days to realize that Shaun was not in my class. In fact, I hadn’t seen her during recess either.

“Hey Mom,” I chirped one afternoon while eating an after-school snack, “Shaun’s not in my class and I haven’t seen her at recess either.” Mom was busying herself with preparing dinner but I saw her lips press together. Both Mom and Dad had this mannerism. If either one of them were about to have to say something unpleasant or confrontational, they’d press their lips together like they were swallowing the bitterness of the words about to be said.

Mom scraped some chopped up onion from the cutting board she’d been using into a skillet and said, “Shaun’s gone to heaven now so you won’t be seeing her at school.” I stared at the quarter-inch of milk left in the bottom of my glass and at the two slices of skinless apple still on my plate. “Did you hear what I said?” Mom asked when I didn’t respond.

I heard the onion start to sizzle in the oil in the skillet and replied, “Why did she go to heaven?”

Mom adjusted the heat on the stove and started stirring the onion with one of the wooden spoons she used to spank me with when I was bad. She pushed her glasses, which had slipped down her nose a bit, back into place and answered, “Because God wanted her and her little brother Cary to be with him now.” I knew this meant Shaun and her brother were dead. I knew that dead meant I would never see her again but I could see her so clearly in my mind. Our kindergarten year memories came rushing back and I could see us as if someone had made a movie I could watch. We were sliding down the giraffe’s neck, skipping around on the playground, playing fairy princess, giggling on our rest towels, standing in line to go to the toilet, crouching together against the wall in the hall during air raid drills, and dipping our paint brushes in the same color poster paint. I brought my plate and milk glass to the counter and left it there for Mom to clean up. She didn’t say anything about my not finishing the snack. That night, I said my prayers as usual. First, “The Lord’s Prayer,” which I had just learned and now said instead of “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.” Then my made-up prayer: “God bless Mommy and Daddy and Susan, Auntie Beth and Uncle Dick and Cousin Karen and Michael John. God bless the grandpas and grandmas and God bless Shaun and Cary up in heaven. Amen.” Mom listened to my prayer but didn’t comment on the addition of the two new names.

About a year later, I was very excited to learn that the family that had bought the Beres’s house next door had a girl just about my age. The thought of having a girlfriend right next door after all these years of just boys with their war games, police games, and cowboys and indians games was a dream come true. My paternal grandmother was visiting when I told her the news of the new girl coming to our neighborhood. As we walked around the neighborhood hand-in-hand, for the first time in nearly a year, I brought Shaun’s name up in the conversation. I told my grandmother how much I missed her and how much I was looking forward to having a girlfriend. I could see the pain in my grandmother’s eyes for something I did not have the capacity to comprehend as she squeezed my hand in hers and sighed, “Yes, that was quite a tragedy.”

I looked up at her quizzically and asked, “Why are Shaun and Cary going to heaven to be with God a tragedy?”

Grandma must have realized in that moment that I didn’t know the whole story but she covered up by saying, “No, going to heaven’s not a tragedy. I just meant that I understand why you miss her. I’m sure this new girl will be a great friend and you’ll enjoy having a girl in the neighborhood for once.” After I did find out the truth, my grandmother told me she felt terrible about not telling me herself what had happened, “It’s just that you were so young and the crime so hideous, it just didn’t seem right to let you know those kinds of details at such a tender age.”

I was 13 years old before I found out all the details. It was during home-ec class in junior high. There were three home-ec components each girl was to take during seventh grade—cooking, sewing, and child care. We were in Mrs. Satterley’s child care class talking about the various responsibilities of caring for children when somehow the subject came up. Always more interested in getting off-topic than staying on the subject of the class, the girls who already knew the story of the Johnston murders started spilling out the details.

The Johnstons lived next door to a single mother and her 16-year-old son. The son had been in trouble with the law for petty things like setting firecrackers off in mailboxes and building a small fire on the golf course. He was one of those kids that liked to pull the wings off flies and enjoyed torturing helpless animals. One afternoon he coaxed the Johnston children over to his house presumably to see something delightful in the crawl space beneath the house. There, he tied them up in such a way that as he applied pressure to the ropes, they suffocated. After seeing what he’d done, he’d fled the scene on his bicycle. When the Johnston children did not show up for dinner, Mrs. Johnston called the police. An investigation took place, the dead children were found, and a man-hunt began just as the sun was setting on September 2, 1964. Shaun was six years old and Cary was three. The next morning as the sun rose in the east and illuminated the sky over Lake Michigan, the police found the boy sitting alone in the sand, his bicycle in a heap next to him. He was arrested and tried as an adult. After his conviction, there was great talk of the death penalty. He was 16 years old and psychiatrists attested to his state of mind. He was found guilty but not by reason of insanity. He received a life sentence and was sent to the Indiana State Prison.

I sat in Mrs. Satterley’s class stunned by the details. I tried to conjure up happier images of Shaun and me on the giraffe slide in Mrs. Miller’s class but all I could see was a dark dug out space under a house with ropes tied around her little body. I started crying. I had never mourned for Shaun, and the flood of tears surprised and embarrassed me. Mrs. Satterley came over and placed her arm around me. Handing me a tissue, she apologized for allowing such a sensitive subject matter to be discussed in the class. I shook my head back and forth and sobbed out, “No, you don’t understand.” She squeezed me closer and Abby, who was sitting behind me, leaned forward and put her hand on my shoulder. “Shaun was my best friend but I didn’t know until now how she died.” There was a bit of a gasp as several of the other girls reacted to the revelation.

I think it was just one of those terrible things that Mom and Dad thought would just go away with the passing of time. I think they had absolutely no idea, even though I said “God bless Shaun and Cary” every night in my prayers, that I felt things as deeply as I did—that I loved her. I loved her for being my first girlfriend and for wearing black paten leather when I had to wear sensible saddle shoes.

Coincidentally, at the end of seventh grade, I received an invitation from Long Beach Elementary School to attend Mrs. Miller’s retirement party. It was to be held at the school on a Friday afternoon. I decided I would go, so on the appointed day, I hopped off the school bus and ran up the street to dump my books off at home. I then opened the garage door and got my bike out. I rode my bike the mile over to my old school and parked it in the bike stands outside. There were a lot of people there. The auditorium was packed. A refreshment table was set up near the stage and happy volunteers were pouring little plastic cups of punch for the attendees. There were cookies and brownies and Mrs. Miller was shaking hands with people who stood in line waiting to congratulate her. All around the perimeter of the room I noticed there were large poster boards. Each board had a year stenciled in black magic marker at the top and then the sheet was filled with little wallet-size photographs. I looked around and saw that from 1941 to 1970, Mrs. Miller had made a picture poster for each year she had taught at Long Beach. The morning kindergarten photos were stapled to the top part of the poster and the afternoon photos to the bottom part. Each student photo was labeled with a name. I scanned the room and found 1963. There were a few photos missing from the poster. I puzzled over the reason since one of them was mine. Just then I felt a presence behind me and turned to find Mrs. Miller standing next to me. She gave me a hug and welcomed me. “Why is my photo missing?” I asked her.

She smiled, “You must have an admirer. I’ve told the guests that they can take their photos off the posters if they like. That’s why when you look around you’ll see so many empty spots.” She swept her arm around the room to emphasize the fact for me. I turned back to look at the poster for my school year and saw the little picture of Shaun Johnston smiling back at me. I reached out and carefully detached it. Mrs. Miller smiled benevolently and said, “I thought maybe you might like that one.”

I looked up at her and exclaimed, “Her eyes are open.”

Mrs. Miller said, “Yes, they are.” She gave me another little hug and then went back to shaking hands with the people who were standing in line.

Shaun’s photo, which now sits on my dresser along with my children’s baby pictures, is a constant reminder of my very first best girlfriend. It was 50 years ago today that she died.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2014

The Personality Test

The preamble to this story is, in itself, a story, but I’ll skip it for now. Suffice it to say that I was newly wed, had just moved over 1,000 miles from home, had just learned that I would not be covered under my husband’s health insurance plan, that he, my husband, was nagging me about getting a job, that it was 1980 and the unemployment rate was over nine percent, that I didn’t know anyone in my new residence on the campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and that I was anxious for all of these reasons.

At the local savings and loan, where I made one of many initial attempts to find a job, I was asked to take a test, which consisted of several mathematical problems on about the sixth grade level. It was insulting. Then after making several phone calls inquiring about a job I’d seen in the newspaper, I landed an interview with a branch of the Household Finance Company over in Lowell and thought I’d finally hit pay dirt. I drove our six-cylinder Dodge van, which had no power steering over to hilly Lowell. There were no available parking spaces on the road in front of HFC and I finally had to face the fact that I’d have to parallel park on an upward slope of a nearby street. It was hell trying to maneuver that van. Luckily I was an expert parallel parker, but between the hill and the lack of power steering, I broke out in a sweat before achieving success.

The young man who greeted me when I arrived was about my same age, and his officious manner was anything but pleasant. We shook hands and I sat down in an uncomfortable seat in front of his banged up Steele Case desk, and smoothed the skirt of my power suit. After several uninteresting questions he said, “Well, as a matter of procedure, we ask all our applicants to take a personality test.”

A personality test?

He ushered me to a back room where he asked me to take a seat at a school desk. “Take as long as you like,” he generously said as he handed me six pages of questions and a number two pencil. In all, there were probably about 200 questions. They were all phrased in exactly the same format with the only difference being the last word: “Which would you rather (do , be, say, think about, try)?” A list of four items was then given and the instructions read: Mark with an X the item in the list you would MOST like. Mark with an O the item in the list you would LEAST like. Sounded easy enough.

I was about halfway through before I started to get suspicious about the reason for this test. (I was a bit naive.) I came to the following question:

Which would you rather do?

• Go to a baseball game
• Go to a wrestling match
• Go to the symphony
• Go to a Broadway musical

My antennae went up on this one because it seemed so obvious that, in general, men would answer one way and women would answer another. If I were a guy, I’d probably put an X next to either the baseball game or the wrestling match and an O next to the symphony or Broadway musical. I knew I was generalizing but I couldn’t help it. Now that I was tuned into the possibility, it seemed that every question was written with a gender or sexual orientation bias.

The final validating moment came around question number 175. I read:

What would you rather be?

• Stupid
• Lazy
• Mean
• Nice 

I knew in an instant the answer I should select for this proverbial lynchpin question—the only answer that I suspect HFC was really interested in. If I put an X next to Mean and an O next to Lazy, I was sure to get this job. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t because it wasn’t true. Besides, the place was a pit of an office, the drive over to Lowell was depressing, and parking was impossible. I looked around the dingy interior with its worn carpet, its walls in disrepair, and thought about the personality of the only prospective co-worker I had met, and decided I didn’t want the job. I wanted to flunk this test. I gleefully answered that I would MOST like to be Lazy and LEAST like to be Mean. I put my number two pencil down with a smile, waved good-bye to Mr. I’m-So-Great-Cuz-I-Work-For-HFC, and left Lowell for good.

Within a few weeks, I settled for a clerical position in the mortgage service department at the local savings and loan in order to get medical benefits. Within 18 months, I relocated for my husband’s next job, and started the whole job search process again. Except this time, it involved a switch in career path, from banking to educational communications—a change that has proven to be very rewarding. And I didn’t even have to be Mean.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2014

Sassafras Suntan Lotion and The Big Whopper

I learned to be an excellent liar. Mom bored down on me one time, confronting me with a lie and gritted out, “Never ever lie to me. I will always find out. It may not be the same day or even the next week. But, eventually I will find out.” Her omniscience was amazing and the threat of what would come next terrifying. But she also told me that I was guilty until proven innocent, which didn’t allow for questioning falsely reported or exaggerated tales. The gauntlet had been thrown down. If I was going to lie about something, a pre-emptive strike tactic might be the best. If I had any plans to lie about something that had happened and knew that the mom-network might get wind of the story, I’d better tell her about the incident before she heard it from someone else. That way, she would already know my version and might be suspicious of what she heard. I tested out my theory on a relatively low-level occurrence, and it seemed to work. I wasn’t pathological about lying because I was basically a well-behaved kid. But every once in awhile even a good kid gets caught up in a bad situation. There was one basic rule I followed: stick as closely to the truth as possible. But being a good liar is not something I was ever proud of. I’m still racked with guilt over the first big whopper I ever told.

Kathy Anderson, a girl who was relatively new to the neighborhood, and I decided to invent a product that would make us millions. We were about ten years old so the level of sophistication was pretty basic. It was the height of summer, and my mother had just taken up golf lessons at the country club. Consequently, she was away for the morning doing a round of nine holes with the ladies’ group. My four-year-old sister was playing at a friend’s house, so Kathy and I were on our own. The previous day, we had harvested the empty lot next door for sassafras leaves and plunged them into a bucket of water. Over night, the water had become thickened as a syrupy substance leached out of the sassafras leaves and into the water. After removing the leaves, we then rubbed what we called Sassafras Suntan Lotion on our bodies and imagined that it was turning our skin a beautiful golden bronze. Excited by our “discovery,” Kathy instructed me to run and get another bucket full of water so we could immediately start making another batch. We were going to be rich.

I ran into our yard, located my sister’s orange beach pail with the white plastic handle and went to fill it up with the hose. The hose was connected to the sprinkler watering the front lawn and I dared not go through the trouble of unhooking it. If I failed to hook it back up properly, I was afraid I might get yelled at. Undaunted, I brought the pail into the house, a place I was not to go while Mother was away, filled up the bucket in the bathtub and began to carry it back outside. Mom and Dad had just installed wall-to-wall carpeting in the living room and hallway (it was the in-thing to do in the late ’60s) over the top of beautiful oak wood floors. Just as I reached the end of the hallway carrying my bucket full of water, the white plastic handle popped off and the entire contents spilled onto the carpet. I was horrified at what probably amounted to be a couple quarts of water, as it seemed to be of flood-like proportions. But, my ten-year-old brain reasoned that it would quickly dry. I filled the bucket up again and went back to making Sassafras Suntan Lotion.

A couple hours later, my mother returned from golf, my sister in tow, and began making some lunch for us girls. I noted that the water spot was still very dark and very wet but still reasoned that perhaps my mother would not notice. Then, miraculously, my sister gave me an idea. She was only four but had talked my mom into giving her a big glass of water complaining that she was very thirsty. She then sat right behind the spot while we both watched television and waited for our lunch. I kept glancing back surreptitiously to see if Mom had noticed how wet the carpet was there when I noticed that my sister was spilling water on the very spot. An idea began to form in my head.

When Mom finally discovered the wet carpet, she had an absolute fit. Both my sister and I started crying. I lied about having anything to do with it accusing, “Susan was sitting there with that big glass of water.” My mother was so confused she didn’t know what to do and she was blazing mad. I suspect that she knew Susan had spilled some water, she could probably see that for herself from the kitchen. But, she couldn’t reason out how it could have been so much. We were both sent to our room, I presume without lunch, since we were both so upset. Mom tried to mop up some of the water with towels but I’m sure the padding was soaked as well and it was pretty hopeless. She placed a fan near the spot to aid in a more rapid drying rate. It smelled a bit at first but that went away after a couple days and it didn’t leave a stain except probably on the now hidden oak floor beneath.

We lived in that house for another six years before moving to Florida, and I never walked past that area of the carpet without feeling a pang of guilt—for the lie as well as for making my sister unknowingly complicit.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2014

Bowl and Doily Spider

During a recent morning run, I turned the corner to run the road that leads into one of the Greenway entrances, and was blown away by what I saw. There were thousands of them--maybe ten thousand--made more eerie by a morning fog and heavy dew. I did not have my camera with me. It then rained on Friday, and I forgot to go back on Saturday, but on Sunday when I was out for my walk, I took a little detour to see if they were still there. Not a one. I got as close to the brush as I dared, squinting and focusing with all my powers of sight, and could just barely make out the ghostly images, though I was half convinced I was hallucinating because honestly, were they there? I wasn't sure. So a few mornings later, I took my phone with me on my morning run knowing the morning wasn't nearly as dramatic as it had been on that first morning, but hopeful. Once again, I turned the corner onto the road leading to the Greenway entrance, and nothing, nothing, nothing, until there! In the distance a patch. One of the many phenomenal sights in nature, I suspect. Hauntingly beautiful.

You can read more about what this actually is by visiting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowl_and_doily_spider

Mama? Is College on the Big Road?

Before my son, Aaron, was old enough to go to camp or school, he asked me one night as I was putting him to bed, “Mama? Is college on the big road?” I was taken aback as I considered “the big road of life” and the depth of this philosophical question asked by a mere four-year-old. A moment later I realized he wasn’t talking about the big road of life. He was referring to the Interstate Highway System.

Aaron had always had a bit of a fear about the Interstate. Until he was nearly ten years old, every time we were about to get in the car to go anywhere he’d ask with trepidation in his voice, “Are we going on the big road?” There was no explanation that I knew of for his phobia. We were never in any car accident, not even a close call. But, he had this fear just the same. Consequently, it was always difficult to get him to leave the house for new experiences except when it came to sports. At fourteen, he still preferred to stay at home and this sometimes worried me about his future. Will he ever get on the big road of life? Will he ever leave home?

Well, the answer has now been revealed. And it is an unequivocal, “Yes!” Aaron is on the big road. On May 10, 2014, he will graduate from the University of Memphis with his degree in Sports Management. He is so excited about the big road. He has plans. Big ones. While taking the last few classes he needed to finish his degree, he has been holding down two part-time jobs—both aligned to his field of study. He also has negotiated summer experiences over the past few years that have helped build his resumé. And to top it all off, he is in a committed relationship with a lovely young woman who shares his desire to pursue a career in education. I couldn’t be more proud.

A couple months ago Aaron called me with that familiar sounding panic in his voice. He was about to become the primary renter of his apartment and consequently be in charge of collecting the rent and utilities payment splits from two new roommates. He had just learned that the electricity was about to be turned off because the former primary renter had called Memphis Light Gas and Water to cancel his responsibility. “What do I do?” Aaron asked me. I instructed that he needed to call the company, explain the situation, and, I assured him, whoever he was transferred to did this kind of thing every day, hundreds of times a day, and that he would not be made to feel like he didn’t know what he was doing. I suspect Aaron then took a deep breath, bracing himself for the unknown, before making the call to MLGW. Only a few minutes later he called me back to excitedly report, “I have my own account with the electric company!” I marveled at the cuteness of being excited about having one’s very own monthly bill. I think I got a tear in my eye.

As I prepare to watch my son step up on the stage of the FedEx Center on the campus of the University of Memphis to accept his diploma, I know I’ll be thinking of that four-year-old boy asking me, “Mama? Is college on the big road?” And I’ll be waiting with open arms to congratulate him afterwards to say, “Welcome to the big road, Sweetheart.”

Copyright DJ Anderson 2014 

Earl Lucas—A DeSoto Reminiscence

This week marks the 75^th anniversary of the DeSoto Heritage Festival in Bradenton, Florida. Though I am unable to attend this year’s festivities, I am keenly aware that there will be many who will celebrate this year while also mourning the death of a beloved member of the Hernando DeSoto Historical Society: Earl Lucas, who passed away on March 31.

The festival has gone through many transitions over the years since I served as their princess during the 1977-78 year, but one of the lasting legacies is the bond of friendship that is formed during the year between its four elected delegates who then serve in the roles of Hernando DeSoto, the captain, the queen, and the princess. During my year, those compatriots were Jim Ryan, Earl Lucas, and Nancy Guthrie.

The peculiarities, rituals, and long traditions of DeSoto are far too complicated to explain, so I’ll leave that to the genuinely curious to research on their own. The focus of this story is on Earl, who was not only my captain, but Queen Nancy’s stepfather, and a man with true heart. During our year together in DeSoto, Earl became a father figure, and along with wife April chaperoned Nancy and me on many occasions including attendance at other festivals like the King Neptune Ball in Sarasota. But it was our trip to and from the International Festivals Association convention in the fall of 1977 that I remember most.

Diary entry: October 7, 1977
Bradenton, Florida—Nancy picked me up at 5:15 a.m. Went to Lucas’s to load luggage on motor home. Left for Tampa 6:10. Plane left at 8:30. Long day followed with air travel to San Francisco (2-hour lay over) on to Honolulu about 2:00 San Fran time. Finally arrived in Maui at 8:00  (2 a.m. Bradenton time) Very tired. Checked into Lahaina Shores and went to sleep.

We stayed on Maui for a couple days prior to heading back to Honolulu for the convention. While there, Nancy and I were on our own during the day to go to the beach, have lunch, and spend time at the pool, but at night, Earl and April turned their full attention to making sure we girls were both enjoying ourselves and were safe. When we wanted to go to the Foxy Lady Discothèque located several miles from our hotel, they, along with a couple other adult members of our group (yes, Frank Eldridge, that means you!), got in the taxi with us. Earl and April sat a discrete distance from us, but were nevertheless very watchful in making sure their queen and princess were well looked after. I don’t recall feeling at all that they were being over protective. I liked the idea of their being near by. They seemed to have just the right mix of parental concern and understanding about our desire to be on our own.

After Maui, the details of being in Honolulu are a bit of a whirlwind blur as Nancy and I attended parties, luncheons, evening receptions, and prepared for the big event, which was riding on a float in the Aloha Floral Parade. During the day Earl and April were otherwise occupied with the business of attending meetings on festival fund-raising, designing community projects, and how tos on ticket sales and crowd control. However, they took time each day to take us somewhere special. One day the Arizona, another a Don Ho show, as well as a trip one evening to attend a full blown luau with hula dancer entertainment. I think what I’m trying to convey is that I was included as a family member in every single way, and felt keenly the warmth of their affection.

We returned to the mainland a week later through San Francisco, but this time Earl had a big surprise all planned out for us. We were to stay over one night in the Drake Hotel and spend an entire day in San Francisco before heading back to Florida on a red eye. Earl had been stationed in San Francisco when he was in the Navy as a young man and told us stories of being on leave. He couldn’t wait to take us to the Top of Mark to see the spectacular view of the city from the revolving top floor restaurant of the Mark Hopkins Hotel. For lunch he had arranged with a business associate to pick us up in a fancy Lincoln Town Car and take us to have sushi. I’d never had it before, but it was in San Francisco where I learned how to use chopsticks and ate raw yellow fin tuna dipped in soy sauce for the first time. And what trip to San Francisco is complete without hopping on and off the street cars, or getting chocolate at Ghirardelli’s? It was quite a day that I was treated to as if I was a daughter, not a guest.

After learning of Earl’s death, I searched around for a poem that might be appropriate to salute him and pay tribute to the kindness he bestowed so unflaggingly on me during our DeSoto year. I finally settled on “Crossing the Bar” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1889). It is thought that Tennyson wrote it in elegy, as the poem has a tone of finality about it. I offer it up now as a farewell to our beloved captain, Earl Lucas.

Crossing the Bar

Sunset and evening star,

    And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

    When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

    Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

    Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

    And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

    When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place

    The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

    When I have crossed the bar.

It is my sincere hope that every DeSoto queen and princess can reflect back nearly 40 years afterwards and have similarly fond and joyous memories. Happy 75^th DeSoto celebrants!

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2014

A Boy Named Robert

My husband Nathan was a month shy of his second birthday when his father dropped dead of a myocardial infarction at the faculty Christmas dance. Nathan’s mother, Marjorie, was home with 23-month-old Nathan, three-year-old Sandra, and 15-year-old Jackson, her son from her first marriage, when the high school principal, where her husband Robert was a teacher, called with the news.

When Marjorie married Robert Litman, the promise of a long and exhilaratingly happy future was all she could think about. His untimely death was a tragedy it’s fair to say she has never gotten over despite a third marriage and a fourth child.

Robert, or Bob as he is most often referred, is considered by the family to be a saint. “If only Bob hadn’t died,” is an oft-repeated family lament. It seems that everything that went wrong afterwards would never have happened if Bob hadn’t died. For instance, “If Bob had lived, Jackson would never have dropped out of high school.”

Bob’s California siblings called him Bobby. In turns they would often repeat: “Bobby was the most giving person you’d ever met.” “Bobby could fix anything and he’d do anything for you.” “If Bobby had lived, Uncle Lou would never have married that awful woman and sold the family homestead.” If the family were Catholic, they would have long ago appealed to the Pope to have Bob canonized for they tell of at least three miracles he performed during his short lifetime.

When it came to picking out a boy name for our first child, however, I could not reconcile myself to naming him Robert. A boy named Robert is never called Robert. He is called Rob, Robbie, Bob, or Bobby. Though I was somewhat concerned about a son having to grow up in the shadow of his grandfather’s ever-expanding sainthood knowing the inevitable comparisons would undoubtedly be made, what I was really worried about was that just about every boy I had dated before my marriage was named some version of Robert.

• First there was Rob Frasier. Rob wasn’t really a boyfriend. He had a crush on me in sixth grade. He’d chase me around our elementary school playground singing The Doors’ C’mon Baby Light My Fire. With his arms outstretched like the amorous Pepi Le Peu, Rob terrorized me nearly every day in an attempt to capture and kiss me. In eighth grade I finally agreed to go to his church-sponsored hayride with him. He was a member of a Christian Science church and I remember great debate in my family about whether to let me go or not. “They don’t believe in doctors,” my mother said. I couldn’t understand her objection. After all, it was just a hayride and hardly constituted, nor did I expect it to turn into, a marriage proposal. There was no need to set dates for a wedding as the hayride was the extent of our going out. 

• Bob Smithson never actually was interested me. But, I had a wild crush on him during ninth grade. My girlfriends thought him to be a perfect match for me. They encouraged my interest and made every attempt to throw us together. But, he preferred girls with large breasts, and this was an attribute I would never possess. 

• Then there was Bobby Dolzel. We had been friends since first grade and ever so briefly—two months in all—were girlfriend and boyfriend during our sophomore year of high school. But Bobby had another girlfriend lurking about—one who went to a private school and was rarely home. The day he fessed up, he proposed that I be his girlfriend during the week at school, and that the other girl could remain his weekend and summer squeeze. He had guts, I have to admit, but I turned down his offer. 

• There was another short-lived flirtation with a Robbie during my early college years. The attraction, now that I ponder it, is a bit of a mystery. I think maybe he was funny in that he had a great sense of humor. But all I really remember is that he was decidedly over weight, and we mostly sat around his apartment with at least another couple of people smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. 

Heaven forbid that one of these Roberts might one day find out and assume I had named a son after one of them.

After firmly resisting Nathan’s (and I suspect his mother’s) desire to further honor the sainted Robert Litman by anointing a grandson with his moniker, we finally settled on Alexander as our boy name for our first child. The arrival of our daughter, however, rendered further debate over a boy’s name completely unnecessary. And when our second child was expected, Nathan made no effort at all to insist on Robert again. By that point, he, too, understood the pathological attachment his family had formed for the name and was not interested in burdening a son with such an unreasonable and fantastical legacy.

Copyright DJ Anderson 2012

Mr. Reid’s Girls—Part II

Author’s note: The first part of this story was posted in November 2011 for those of you who would like to go back and read it.

I am home to visit my dad nearly 30 years after graduating from high school. My sister joins me for a couple days so that we can go through all of our mother’s clothes. Dad wants us to sort through everything because , he says, “I don’t know what’s worth giving away, or what you girls might want for yourselves.” I call one of my old friends, Abby Brooks, a girl I have kept in close contact with over the years, to see if she’d like to come over one evening while I’m there after my sister leaves. She does and, while Dad watches TV out on the glassed-in porch, we sit in the family room talking.

After almost two hours, Abby shifts around uncomfortably on the couch and says, “OK, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you for almost a year, but I’ve only just gotten up the courage.” Abby then tells me that a little over a year earlier she received a phone call from CiCi Howard. I am astonished by this news. Abby goes on to say that CiCi’s minister husband was on the other phone extension and that CiCi then went on to explain that her daughter had had a premonitory dream that involved Abby. “The whole thing was very strange,” said Abby. CiCi then warned Abby that, in the dream, her daughter, who CiCi gave more credibility to by insisting knew none of these names prior to having the dream, saw that Abby Brooks was in danger by continuing to be in contact with Laura Fischer. Me? Had I heard right? Had Abby just told me that CiCi Howard’s daughter had a dream with our specific names? It seemed highly improbable and undoubtedly completely made up and I said as much to Abby. I held my breath for a moment because I really didn’t know how Abby was feeling about this revelatory dream. Happily, she agreed that it was unlikely. Her only puzzlement was in trying to figure out why she had received this phone call in the first place.

I then told her about what I had witnessed the night of our graduation, something I had kept completely to myself all these years. Abby asked, “Did Mr. Reid ever say anything to you about it? Had he seen you that night?” Abby knew that I had seen Mr. Reid on numerous occasions over the years. Whenever I was home visiting, even after my children were born, we would often go to a Friday night football game over at the high school. Mr. Reid was “The Voice of the Wildcats.” He had announced the home games since 1964 with his beautiful baritone voice and commanding knowledge of the game. At halftime, I would go say hello and we’d hug one another with all the affection of old friends. He and I had even sung together at Abby’s first wedding where, during the rehearsal, we giggled and nudged each other like flirtatious school chums. “No,” I said, “I’m not sure whether he saw me that night or not. I’m pretty sure it was just CiCi who saw me, and whether she said anything to him at the time is anyone’s guess. He has never behaved as if he’s embarrassed about any knowledge I might have.” Abby nodded her head taking it all in, and slowly grasping the reasons why she received that phone call. “Do you think that phone call was all about feeling guilty?” she asked. I assured her that this was precisely what I thought.

Flash forward another two years and I’m looking at my Facebook news feed one morning while my father sits across from me at our kitchen island eating his breakfast. I scroll down the page and see that both Sharon Ford and Robert Garner have recently clicked that they like “Help Reinstate Marcus Reid as the Voice of the Wildcats.” I look up at Dad and ask, “Has Mark Reid been fired as the Friday night football game announcer?” Dad says he hasn’t heard anything and that nothing’s been in the paper. I click the link to do some more investigating. There are already over 500 fans of this page. It is Thursday, and the page was created just the day before. I read on the Wall that they’re hoping to get 1,000 names by Saturday night. As I peruse the comments, they are all highly supportive of the man. Many are outraged that he should be “treated in such a fashion after giving his life to the school.” I find the link to the Galveston Daily News article and click. Apparently Mark was called into the school to meet with the principal and the head football coach and athletic director. He was told, “It’s time for a change,” and that they’d like to do something nice for him as he steps down. The suggestion is to do some sort of send-off during halftime at the first home game. Mark refuses “the honor” preferring to just be done if that’s the way they want it. He is quoted as saying he’s perfectly capable and eager to continue in the job even though he’s 77 years old, but also says that he really wasn’t given that choice. I read through more of the posts and someone has said that they have found out that the school intends to remove his name from the dedicated building that bears his name on the Galveston High School campus. Could that really be true? And if it is, I am now pretty convinced that these are not isolated, whim-of-the-moment, the high school principal just wakes up one morning and decides that “it’s time for change.” Something most certainly has precipitated the need.

My imagine goes wild, for knowing what I know, how can these revelations be anything but completely related to what I know? And I am very probably the only person who is an actual witness to Mr. Reid’s indiscretions. Ahem, crimes. Regardless of CiCi’s culpability in the matter, the fact remains that she was his student and maybe even a minor at the time. Even if she wasn’t a minor, and a case could be made that she was a consenting adult, his place of power as her teacher disadvantaged her and he took advantage of that. How many girls were under his power over the years? Mark retired from teaching in 1996 after almost 30 years. Just a rough calculation brings me to a number somewhere between 120 and 150 with perhaps just one singled out girl each year. Maybe.

What I think is that the Galveston school board, or perhaps just the high school principal, has been questioned in some sort of fact gathering phase of a criminal investigation, of which Mr. Reid could himself be completely ignorant. Speculating further, the school has decided to take the PR hit up front in the event something more serious comes to light. Only time will tell, and perhaps nothing will come of it or my wild imaginings. There are statutes of limitations, after all, for these things. But, I can’t help but wonder whether the past has caught up to what was the future.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2011

Delivering the Mail With Grandpa

Before his retirement, my paternal grandfather was a rural route mail carrier outside Edgerton, Wisconsin. As a child, I lived three hours away in Michigan City, Indiana, so if I was to go along, it was always on a Saturday over a weekend when my family and I were visiting. I was too young to understand precisely the roads his route took, but as I look at a map now, I suspect we were mostly on East County Road 59 and M between Edgerton and Milton.

Grandpa could amaze me with an alphabetical recitation of each of the 50 states and their corresponding capitals as well as explanations about the then brand new zip code system and why it was going to revolutionize mail delivery. His driving and delivery style also was a source of amazement. Situated to the right of center on the bench seat of his green 1965 Chevrolet Impala station wagon, he used his left hand to maneuver the steering wheel, his left foot to operate both the accelerator and the brake, and his right hand to stretch through the passenger window to pull down the mailbox door, pull the outgoing mail from the slot, shove the incoming mail into the slot, slap the door back up, and ram the flag back down into place in what seemed like one fluid motion, before roaring off to the next house.

Grandpa’s day started long before I was even awake on the Saturday I remember best, for he first had to go to the post office to do all the sorting for his route. It was just before Christmas in 1967, just a few months before I would turn ten years old. He asked me soon after we arrived on Friday whether I’d like to come with him in the morning. He said he could really use my help because at Christmas time, there was a lot more mail than any other time of the year. I was excited to be his helper so agreed to go.

“It means you have to be ready at 7:00,” he warned.

“I’ll be ready,” I promised because I knew what we would do first before setting out for deliveries.

At 7:00 sharp, Grandpa pulled into the driveway with the way-back of his station wagon filled high with bins full of first class mail, small packages, fliers, magazines, and newspapers. He had spent the past two hours at the post office arranging the mail so that it was in the order of his deliveries to be as efficient as possible once he began the route. He had used a rubber band to wrap the first class mail, along with any special catalogs, magazines, or newspapers, in a bundle for each address, and had memorized which addresses would also receive a parcel. The fliers were all in their own bin because each house would get the same thing. These were the coupons for the grocery and department stores. My job would be to sit in the back seat (no such thing as seat belts at this time) and systematically go through the bins handing him the bundle for the address along with the fliers, and any packages.

“Ready to go?” he asked as he stomped snow from his boots.

“Ready, Grandpa,” I replied as I slipped my hands into my mittens.

I clambered up into the passenger seat and pulled the door shut in excited anticipation of our first stop—Wickes Pancake House. Grandpa ordered eggs, Canadian bacon, and toast, which he spread carefully with butter and “jel.” He had coffee, but I had a large glass of whole milk with my short stack of pancakes with butter and maple syrup. At 8:00 it was time to get started with the deliveries, and this time when I got in the car I hopped into the backseat so I could do my job.

One of the people on the route was Grandpa’s sister, my Great Aunt Bea. She knew his schedule so well that she was already trudging out to the end of her long driveway bundled up against the cold, galoshes on her feet that were at least six inches deep in snow, as we came around the corner and pulled in tight up against her roadside mailbox. “You can hand Aunt Bea her mail, Honey,” Grandpa instructed over his right shoulder. I rolled down my window in preparation.

Aunt Bea poked her head inside. “I was worried ‘bout your schedule today with all this snow,” she said in her Wisconsin lilt.

“Ya, it’s been a bit slippery for us,” he answered back with the same Norwegian accent.

“So, ya got a helper today, do ya?” she asked, gesturing to me.

“Ya, she’s a good little helper, our Debbie.”

“Well, of course she is. You excited ‘bout Santa?” I nodded my head, a smile on my face. “Oh ya, I s’pose since you’ve been such a good girl helpin’ out on the route and all. Well, best be gettin’ on I s’pose.” She took the mail from my hand and then handed me a round tin decorated with snowflakes. “That’s yer lefse,” she said to Grandpa.

He gave her a salute with his right hand and said, “See ya Monday night.”

“Oh, ya, sure, big party Christmas night, see ya then.”

Aunt Bea’s packet was the last bunch from the bin I’d been working through, so as Grandpa headed off to the next house, I put the empty bin in a stack I’d created on the far left of the backseat. I put the tin in the empty bin I’d placed in the middle of the seat, and then hopped over into the way-back to maneuver the next bin over onto the floor so I’d be ready in time before his next stop.

“Jenkins, with a package.” Grandpa called out. I already had the Jenkins bundle in my hand along with the fliers, so handed that over the seat to him. I then quickly scrambled into the way-back and grabbed the next package in the stack. I looked at the address to make sure it said Jenkins on it, and then scrambled back over to hand it to him, too. He took the package from my hand, the bundle of mail already ready, pulled in close to the box, opened the door, pulled the outgoing mail out, shoved the incoming mail and package in, shut the door, pushed down the flag, and handed me what had been in the box. We then repeated the same thing at every house until all the bins were empty.

At just about every stop that day, when Grandpa opened the mailbox door, inside there was a wrapped present or an envelope. The envelopes contained money as a thank you for upholding the postal code, “Neither rain nor hail nor sleet nor snow nor heat of day nor dark of night shall keep this carrier from the swift completion of his appointed rounds.” The packages all contained sweets of one kind or another. I piled the delicious sugar-infused treats of cookies, coffee cakes, homemade donuts, maple sugar candies, rum-soaked fruit cakes, and fudge into the middle bin I’d set up and couldn’t wait to get them back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house where I might be able to sample some of them.

“You know what I think is really funny Grandpa?” I asked.

Grandpa scooted over to the driver’s side and patted the passenger side up front to indicate it was time for me to hop forward. He glanced over at me and asked, “What’s that Sweetheart?”

“The first family on your route are the Amundsons, which starts with an A. The last family on your route are the Zeiglers, which starts with a Z. That means that the list of people you deliver to goes from A to Z. I think that’s funny.”

He smiled indulgently at me and said, “Ya, that’s pretty funny.”

Grandpa’s been gone a very long time now, but delivering mail with him is one of those unforgettable memories that I have always cherished. And eating those goodies he got that day was pretty nice, too.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2014