Christmas in Florida—1969

Arriving in Florida for the first time, ready to enjoy a green Christmas.

When our Grandma and Grandpa Heller retired, they announced to the family, “We’re going to become gypsies!”* They bought themselves a 26-foot Airstream trailer, hitched it to their Ford LTD, and started traveling all over the country to rallies sponsored by the Airstream Club of America. In late 1969, they announced that they would spend the winter in Ruskin, Florida, living in their Airstream. Our family was sent into a bit of a tailspin. It was unclear how much of an impact their decision would have on our usual Christmas plans. We had never missed a Christmas in Wisconsin. Everyone—both Mom and Dad’s entire immediate and extended families, except us—lived in Wisconsin. Christmas with Hellers, Hansens, Strickers, and Andersons of many generations had been the bedrock of the holiday season for my entire 12 years. But with Mom’s parents in defection, ideas began to spring forth in my dad’s imagination. As his enthusiasm grew, his ideas became contagious.

“I could play golf,” Dad mused in early October. “I could lie out in the sun,” Mom imagined in November. “We could wear shorts and t-shirts and go swimming?” Susan and I asked. Nods were our parents’ reply. By mid-November, the decision was made. We were going to make the drive to Florida and spend a green Christmas with our nomad grandparents.

The hardest part was telling my Dad’s parents. Dad made the announcement—more of a proclamation—during our Thanksgiving visit. Their response was stunned silence. My grandma and grandpa Anderson couldn’t believe it. “You won’t be coming for Christmas or New Year’s?” they asked with a hint of deep hurt in their voices. “Nope,” Dad said. Grandma Anderson tried the guilt-trip angle. It didn’t work. She then tacked to a more accepting but manipulative plea saying, “OK, every other year will be fine.”

Mom arranged for Susan, a kindergartner, and me, a sixth grader, to take three days off from school so that we could start our trip south a week prior to the holiday. We were given strict instructions about what to pack, and how much we could bring. Dad expertly arranged everything in the trunk of our Oldsmobile 98 including the wrapped gifts. Mom assured Susan that Santa would be able to find us in Florida.

The drive was a grueling 24 hours long, broken up into three segments. We left on a Thursday after Dad got home from work. The first segment was four hours long. We then spent the entire next day in the car—14 hours in all. To pass the time we sang songs to the radio, played cards and car games, slept, and sometimes grumbled at one another. Stops were for filling up the gas tank and going to the bathroom, but never for sitting down to eat a meal. We had poptarts and apples for breakfast, packed sandwiches, snacks, and thermoses for lunch, and McDonald’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner. All meals were eaten in the car. Shortly into the last segment of the long trip we passed the Welcome to Florida sign and Dad honked the horn. We were still another five hours from our grandparents Airstream park, but we soon started to see palm trees.

We stayed with our grandparents in their Airstream for 12 days. It was like camping. Grandma and Grandpa slept in the double bed that was the dining table during the day, Mom and Dad were in the berths on either side of the cabin between the kitchen area and the bathroom, and Susan and I were in sleeping bags on the floor. It was a good thing that the weather was just as we had dreamed about because being outside kept us all sane with such tight quarters for sleeping. Dad went golfing, Mom laid out in the sun, and Susan and I wore t-shirts and shorts and went swimming. On Christmas Day it was 68 degrees. Santa found us just fine. We had such a good time together that by the time we had to head home, we already knew we would be back the following year.

When Dad next spoke with his parents he made another proclamation when the protests to his news that Florida would be our Christmas destination from now on. He was blunt and to the point: “From now on, if you want to spend Christmas with us, you’ll have to come to Florida.” And that’s just what Grandma and Grandpa Anderson did the very next year.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2019

*In 1969, the word “gypsies” was in common usage, but is now considered a slur. I made the decision to quote my grandmother verbatim rather than edit her. I apologize if this is offensive to any of my readers.

The Next Chapter

I am about to embark on a new chapter in my life. The one I leave behind began in 2003. With no path for further advancement at the school we worked for in Connecticut, my husband and I decided it was time to move on. Pretty much the last place on the planet we would have imagined ourselves in was Nashville, Tennessee, but it was a fabulous opportunity for my spouse and we decided it was worth the risk. There were plenty of bumps in the aftermath of our move, and, ultimately, our marriage was unable to survive the worst of them. But in the greater scheme of things, Nashville has been my home for 16 years and was a significant chapter in my life.

A little over two years ago, I came to realize that there was no longer anything holding me in Nashville. It was time to start the next chapter. But, what would that be?

With a newly established portable work-at-home business, I could work from literally anywhere in the world, though I couldn’t actually afford “anywhere.” I had to be practical, and having a base of friends would be ideal. Thus, when I started discussing with friends and family the idea of making a change, it became clear pretty quickly that returning to Bradenton, Florida, was the move that made the most sense.

If my parents were still alive, they would be shaking their heads with ironic disbelief. I can hear my mother laughing aloud about my decision to return because our move to Bradenton in 1974 was everything but positive for me. Nevertheless, having graduated from high school there, I do have quite a few friends in the area—friends that I enjoy being with and truly love. But the even bigger draw is that my sister lives in downtown St. Petersburg—just a quick scoot over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. 

On October 31, I closed on the sale of my Nashville home, and a few short days later got in my 13-year-old Mini Cooper and began the drive south. I headed to Florida toward the most generous person I know—my sister, who has given me a great gift. Rather than try and coordinate both the sale of a house in Nashville and the purchase of one in Bradenton, she said I should stay with her in St. Petersburg after the sale before then beginning my final search for a new home. What a relief this was, and is.

Since arriving in Florida, I have started to work with a realtor in Bradenton. My aim is to be as close to the beach as I can afford. It’s looking like the distance will be somewhere in the four- to five-mile range. I might be able to ride my bike out to Anna Maria Island, or from time-to-time walk, thereby getting in my “steps.” In any case I’ll be close enough to make swimming in the Gulf of Mexico part of my regular routine. Doing so will be a bit of a dream come true as I’ve long wanted to, again, live near the water.

As my next chapter begins I am both excited and trepidatious about the uncertainty of how this move will turn out and how well I will weather the bumps on its path. During this season of Thanksgiving, I find that I am certain about one thing: how grateful I am for such a wonderful sister. I’ll do my best not to overstay my welcome. Thank you, Susan. I love you.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2019

The Unreliable Narrator

Years after I’d left home to marry and move quite far away, I kept obsessing about what had happened to my drawer full of letters. I had no memory of destroying them, and, yet, I couldn’t imagine I had been so foolish as to leave them behind. Afterall, they were filled with incriminating evidence that I would have rather died than have my mother find and read. The letters I obsessed over were those I had received from friends after I moved to Florida. They represented one side of a flurry of correspondence between me and at least a dozen of my closest friends from Indiana. Starting at the end of my sophomore year of high school and headlong through college, the letters I wrote and received kept me tethered to my old life—one I believed that without, I would die.

At some point, I had to conclude that I must have gotten rid of them. When I went through my parents’ home after they died and found no remnants at all of them, I was finally convinced of their demise at my hand. My parents kept everything. And to be fair to them, I’m pretty sure they would never have opened and read them. Still, their disappearance haunted me. I thought I would really have enjoyed going back through them. I thought I was pretty clear on who I was, what I had thought, the things I probably complained about and celebrated during those years, but I wanted validation.

A point of pride for me has been an unshakable confidence that I have a good memory. I rely on it heavily to come up with ideas for this blog. I often take liberties in my storytelling to make the story a bit more entertaining, but, for the most part, the heart and soul of the story is completely true. So, when one of those friends I had so ardently corresponded with during high school told me he had kept the letters I had written to him, I was quite intrigued. For several years he teased me about the “love letters” I had written to him and swore that one day he would give them to me to read.

The notion that I had written him love letters was ridiculous. I was positive that he had labeled them such to bait me. There was only one person from my youth for whom I had ever carried a torch, and it wasn’t him. I had never written to my true crush and he had never written to me. That story would forever rely completely on my memory.

A few weeks ago, my old friend handed me a manila envelope. He said, “These are the letters I told you about.” I took the envelope as he further instructed that I could take them home with me to read, but that he wanted them back. I thanked him and took them with the idea that I would transcribe them to then possibly use as fodder for my blog. I opened the first one and was completely shocked by what I read.

As I read through them, I had to keep reminding myself that I was only 16 years old when I wrote the first one, and not yet 19 when I penned the last. Nevertheless, as the narrator of my own story, I have to say that the letters clearly showed I was unreliable. How could I have been such a duplicitous and calculating little shit? There was no getting around it, I had been. Until being confronted with the evidence of my horribleness, I would never have believed it about myself.

Reading those letters launched me into a sort of identity crisis. For several weeks after reading and transcribing them, I dreamed about the things I had said in nightmarish ways. I couldn’t stop thinking about some of the language I had used, and the outright lies I had written to this unsuspecting person I dared to call a friend. I was, and am, ashamed of myself.

I’ve recovered a bit since then, but felt the need to atone for my younger self. I would like to explain to my friend my current thoughts about the content of those letters, but I think doing so would only make me feel better. I’m pretty sure that I would break his heart. Afterall, he’s been hanging on to them for over 40 years. The real takeaway for me is that I now know my memory isn’t as great as I thought it was. I’m also pretty sure I prefer my memory’s version as it’s quite a bit easier on the conscience.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2019

The Zoo

Mom and me at the Washington Park Zoo in the early 60s.

I’ve never been much of a fan of zoos. Even when I was a little kid, there was something about seeing those caged animals that didn’t quite sit right with me.

Unusually, there is a zoo only two miles from the home I grew up in. The Washington Park Zoo, in the 60s and 70s, was definitely of the before-animal-rights era. Whether it was as a toddler, or with visiting company, or on a school field trip, or with the Brownies or Girls Scouts, a visit to our zoo always left me feeling sorry for the lions, bears, baboons, and chimpanzees.

The Washington Park Zoo was mostly built during the Roosevelt presidency with funds from the WPA and is widely considered to be a national treasure. In fact, eleven of its buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places. I’ve been to the updated zoo a couple of times in the past several years, and commend the current mission, which according to the website is to house the “Species Survival Plan (SSP) animals, members of designated endangered species groups, and much more who are rescued misplaced exotic pets or non-releasable wildlife due to injuries that they sustained in the wild.” Knowing this helps in making sense of the three bald eagles that sit, albeit majestically, in a small enclosed space on low branches with no ability to fly.

The zoo of my childhood, however, had a much darker aspect to it, and yet, with two pinpoints of light.

The dark side of the era was the horrible conditions in which the animals were housed. Fashioned most probably from concrete, their containers were made to look like caves with both an exterior and interior viewing area. The bears and lions were chained and perhaps sedated as my memory is that they were all mostly sleeping. To me, they looked completely miserable. And dirty. Monkey Island was moated and completely caged in. There was a certain entertainment to watching the monkeys swing on the ropes and scurry about, but to imagine oneself for just one moment in reverse positions was to visibly shiver in horror. The baboons, with their red bottoms facing visitors, communicated their total disdain for exhibition. If they’d been able to give us the finger, they would have. And there were flies, hordes and hordes of flies.

When a baby elephant was purchased, a contest was held to name it. The only thing I could think about when I saw it was the Disney cartoon Dumbo. That story is not a particularly happy one, and though I was delighted to see this little Dumbo in person, I worried about its fate. In 1990 the zoo made the decision to no longer display elephants. The three they had at that point were relocated to a North Carolina zoo.

The pinpoints of light are illustrated by two stories.

Story One: I was a passenger in my best friend’s car when her mom suddenly pulled over to the side of the road, just past the eastern boundary of the zoo’s property. She put her hazard lights on and then hustled us four children out of the car. We were instructed to quickly climb the slight incline along the border fence. Just 30 feet from the car she stopped us and said, “Look!” I have no idea how she could have known what was happening, but we stood there and watched as a ewe gave birth to twin lambs. It was a mesmerizing sight as the lambs emerged from their mother’s womb, burst through the membranes that held them, and heaved in their first breaths of air. Within just a few minutes, they were on wobbly legs eagerly searching for nourishment. Such an astonishing thing to see with one’s own eyes—a sight that I would never have witnessed had it not been for the zoo.



Story Two: The father of a girl I went to school with must have been some sort of manager or overseer of the zoo. This girl called me up one day and excitedly invited me over to play with the baby lions her dad had brought home for them to take care of for a few weeks. The baby lions were each the size of a newborn human and behaved just like kittens. They rolled over on their backs and batted at little toys we dangled in front of them. They jumped at the toys we teased them with and looked at us with curious and questioning eyes. They were cuddly little darlings that had no notion of their fate. One nuzzled into my shoulder and licked my cheek. If not for the zoo, I would never have felt the breath of that little cub in my ear.

Walking through the zoo evokes images of both the horribleness and the wonder of seeing wildlife up close and personal. I think that a zoo, as a refuge for wildlife no longer capable of caring for themselves in the wild, is a worthy cause. But, for the mere satisfaction of human curiosity, I was, and am, definitively opposed.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2019

Learn about today’s Washington Park Zoo: https://www.washingtonparkzoo.com/

The End of Summer

Here in Tennessee, students have been back in school for nearly two weeks. Around the rest of the country, start dates vary, but I think by the end of this week, the rest will also be back in school.

I can’t quite remember what constituted our summer vacation dates in Indiana during the 1960s. But, I’m pretty sure we didn’t head back until after Labor Day. To the best of my recollection, the bookend events marking our weeks off from school were the Columbia Yacht Club sailboat race from Chicago to Michigan City and back in late June, and the Tri-State sailboat race from Chicago to St. Joseph, Michigan, to Michigan City, Indiana, and back to Chicago on Labor Day weekend.

On race weekends, the population of our Long Beach enclave and the adjacent areas along Lake Shore Drive would swell to even greater numbers. The inflated summer population made up of wealthy Illinois residents who owned second homes near the lake was already three times that of the regular school year. It was nearly impossible to drive a car down the narrow lakefront road in an attempt to reach Washington Park and get close enough to view the beautiful spinnakers of the sailboats as they made their way across Lake Michigan to the Michigan City Yacht Club. Nevertheless, Dad and I went every year to do just that.

During the summer of 1969, Dad and I arrived at the yacht club for the June event earlier than usual in an attempt to avoid the worst of the traffic. We roamed along the docks watching and waiting for the boats to arrive. Dad started talking to another man and I sat on a nearby bench happy that summer vacation was starting. A girl, about my age, came and joined me. We started talking.

Aurelia was from Winnetka, Illinois, just north of Chicago. She explained that her mother was one of six children and that her mom’s father had bought them each a home to summer at during the break from school. “Where is your home?” I asked. Aurelia said that it wasn’t really a home, it was more of a cottage, and that it was at Stop 20. “I live at Stop 20,” I said. I became very excited about the prospect of having another girl so close by. My best friend and her family were already away on their annual three-week road trip. Other girlfriends, too, were on family vacations, away at camp, and enrolled in day camp programs. Early summer was a tough time to find playmates. We talked a bit longer and found to our mutual delight that not only did we both live at Stop 20, but her family’s cottage was at the end of my street.

After all the sailboats were in, we went with our dads to head home. Aurelia and I wasted no time meeting back up. She showed me around her cottage, I showed her around my house. We met each other’s moms, and became fast friends.

Throughout the rest of the summer, we got together pretty often. I would wander down the street in the hopes she’d be home, and she would wander up the street to do the same. We played Sevens, a tennis ball game, Cat’s Cradle, different card games like Spit and Crazy Eights, and we rode bikes. When some of the other neighborhood kids returned, Aurelia joined in to play Hide ’n Seek, Kick the Can, and Chinese Jump Rope.

All too soon, however, the end of summer arrived along with the reappearance of the sailboat spinnakers. On the day the boats headed back to Chicago on the last leg of the Tri-State race, it was also time to say goodbye to Aurelia.

I wanted to give her something as a going away present, something I thought she would really treasure so she would remember me and the wonderful time we had together. I thought and thought, dug around in my closet through the things that I treasured, and found the perfect object. During a business trip to San Francisco, Dad had brought back two Chinese fans. Each had a unique and beautiful design on it. It was hard to decide which one to give up, but I finally settled on giving Aurelia the one with the dragon on it. I carefully wrapped it up in tissue paper and tied it with a red ribbon.

Excited to be giving Aurelia her gift, but sad that it would be a whole school year before she came back, I walked down to her cottage. When she came to the door, I said, “I brought you a little something to remember me by.” She looked surprised. She opened it up and exclaimed, in just the way I had hoped, how much she liked the fan. She thanked me several times. I started to say goodbye and wish her well, but she suddenly said, “Wait here a moment.”

I stood outside her door waiting for what seemed quite a while. Finally she reappeared with something wrapped in tissue paper with a red ribbon. I was puzzled as she handed it to me for I was not expecting anything in return. I opened up the gift to see a No. 2 pencil, already sharpened, with what looked like teeth marks on the end near the almost non-existent eraser. I looked up into Aurelia’s beaming face. I smiled, thanked her, told her to have a good school year, and headed back home.

I didn’t know what to think at the time. I couldn’t be sure whether I was insulted, regretful that I had given away such a treasure, glad that I was a much better gift giver, sad that the summer was ending, or annoyed that she had somehow diminished the moment. I still don’t really know what to think. What I do know is that the cottage was sold, and I never saw Aurelia again.

Copyright 2019, DJ Anderson

Teacher's Pet

A teacher is not supposed to have favorites. I’ve never been a teacher, but I imagine that keeping oneself from having them would be very difficult. Inevitably, a classroom will be populated with achievers who validate one’s confidence in being a good teacher, and underachievers who erode any confidence one may have gained. Students will come with their own set of capabilities and challenges, and when the capabilities align with a teacher’s passion, I’m sure it becomes even more difficult to stay impartial.

As a third grader, I already knew that a teacher should treat her students as equally as possible. So when Mrs. Wolff voiced a clear preference for my work over Peter’s, it was shocking.

Mrs. Wolff was very artistic. Her passions were literature and poetry, music, dance, drama, drawing, and weaving. She often gave assignments that combined one or more of these favorite subjects of hers. Consequently, while learning how to write in cursive, she gave us each the task of picking a poem from a large anthology of poetry about animals. Peter’s choice was a poem about a squirrel, and mine was about a bunny.

After choosing our poems, Mrs. Wolff had us practice copying out the poem using our best cursive handwriting. Once she was satisfied with our drafts, she had us commit the poem to a piece of specially lined paper.

The final versions of our poems were then affixed to the top half of a piece of 11x17 colored construction paper. It was now time to begin the second part of the assignment. We were to draw our animals using a variety of crayon colors. We were instructed to include a bit of shrubbery and background images in our final drawings. Unlike the poetry portion of the assignment, we would not practice our drawings.

With our final drawings complete, Mrs. Wolff affixed them to the bottom half of the colored construction paper. She then mounted all of our finished pieces to a long roll of white paper. She rerolled the paper and fitted it to the top and bottom cylinders inside an easel. By turning the crank at the bottom, we could view everyone’s piece of art one after another. To go in reverse, we’d turn the crank at the top. It was quite the contraption.

We all took a turn at scrolling through the art. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in silently comparing my piece to those of my classmates. On the whole, I thought mine to be pretty good, but I wasn’t a braggart, so kept my opinion to myself.

A couple days after the scroll was complete, Peter came over to me and said, “Your bunny is better than my squirrel.” I wasn’t quite sure how to respond as I actually agreed with him, but knew it would be rude to say so. Instead, I said, “Your squirrel is good, too.” He continued to disagree and I was determined to not yield to him. He then said, “I know. We’ll ask Mrs. Wolff.” This didn’t alarm me a bit because as I stated earlier, I was positive a teacher would be diplomatic. But, when Peter asked her, she didn’t hesitate before saying, “Oh yes, Debbie’s bunny is much better. And her cursive is also nicer.” I stood staring at her. I couldn’t believe it. I think I probably blushed when Peter turned to me seemingly unperturbed and said, “See, I told you.” At that I had to concede, but still didn’t say anything aloud. I was actually embarrassed, and a little horrified.

Being the teacher’s pet was not a good experience. After the incident with the squirrel and the bunny assignments, Peter took every opportunity to mock everything I did that earned a good grade or praise. “Teacher’s pet, teacher’s pet. I bet you get an A on everything on your report card too!”

I loved Mrs. Wolff. I would do anything to please her. She even invited me to have my lunch with her in the classroom one time. She told me all about her big vegetable garden and the pretty flowers she had planted around her home. I told her about taking piano lessons, and how much I liked to sing. She asked me to sing for her and I did. We had a wonderful time together. But, with every A and every positive word of encouragement, Peter’s taunting would lead me to mistrust whether I was actually achieving, or receiving something I had not really earned.

Talking to others who had Mrs. Wolff as a teacher, I have found that she really either liked you or she didn’t. There wasn’t a middle road for her, and she clearly didn’t hide her feelings from her students, which made for completely different experiences for Peter and me.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2019

Perfectly Naturally Ourselves

There’s no one in this world exactly like you. That’s terrific. Because it gives you a particular advantage over everyone else. You’re unique. But it also raises some very important questions. How do you combine the way you look, the way you move, the way you speak, the way you feel so it all comes together and reflects your own personality?

The opening paragraph on the first page of the Sears Discovery Charm School three-ring binder handbook was already becoming anachronistic when I took the class in 1972. But, my mother seemed to think I required some polishing and finishing, and in our Indiana town, this was as good as it got.

The class itself was predictable in terms of what we teenaged girls were supposed to discover about ourselves in order to become perfectly naturally ourselves. The topics included:

• Exercise 

• Diet 

• Voice/Speech 

• Modeling 

• Skin Care/Grooming 

• Make-up 

• Fashion

• Manners


I’m not going to get into the utter nonsense of the notion that make-up, fashion, and modeling, to name a few bullet points, would lead us to being naturally ourselves, but I am going to tell you about the woman who was our instructor and what sort of impact this class had on me.

Lyn Wilde Cathcart was all of 50 years old when I was in her class. She was beautiful and poised, and I’m sure she truly believed that she was perfectly naturally herself. She was to a great extent her own creation, albeit one based on the norms expected of a woman born in 1922.

Lyn and her twin sister, Lee, were known as the Wilde Twins and appeared in nine movies together. Lyn’s 2016 obituary in the New York Times read: “The Wildes were probably best known for befuddling Mickey Rooney in the 1944 movie ‘Andy Hardy’s Blonde Trouble.’” Lyn went on to appear in 10 other films, mostly uncredited roles, including as a chorus girl in the 1951 musical, “Show Boat.”

Though Lyn was not famous, in the 1960s and 70s, she parlayed her movie star looks and Hollywood resume into a career teaching teenage girls how to look and behave. She taught us how to act at a dinner table, walk like a lady, apply a sensible amount of make-up, choose clothing that fit properly, and basically be mannered and polite. The overall aim was to teach us girls how to live our lives as proper young women, packaged up to be beautiful examples of females who knew their roles and stayed within the confines of society’s definition. Lyn did a very good job. She was a paragon of what the ideal woman should look like.

The problem, of course, was that there was nothing perfectly natural about any of this so-called training. In point of fact, the whole thing was a paradox. There’s no one in this world exactly like you, stated the first sentence in the handbook, but Lyn then went about wedging us all neatly into the same mold. I was 14 years old when I took the 10-week long class. It took me three decades to shed the outer layer of this indoctrination. In so doing, there were many times when I felt I was doing something I shouldn’t—like I was being perfectly unnatural.

Becoming perfectly naturally yourself means bucking some norms. When you buck norms, you often get punished for daring to do so, making it very difficult to attempt. But it’s absolutely worth it because being truly perfectly natural is so much easier than role playing and acting a part. That is, unless you’re in a Hollywood movie.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2019

Hooligans

We weren’t bad kids, or so we had convinced ourselves. We were comfortable in our privilege. We were confident. We thought that if we were caught doing something that was against the rules (illegal even) our parents would somehow make it all right. But, we were never caught, and therefore enjoyed the risks we took without consequence.

The First Story

The parade float we seniors were making for the big homecoming game halftime show was mostly papier mâché. We would be playing our archrivals, The Hogs, in Friday night’s game so had devised an enormous spit to roast the opposing team’s mascot upon. There were just a few more details left to get the spit to actually turn, and the fake fire beneath it to look like real flames, but it was a Sunday afternoon, we were out of supplies, and our budget was spent.

“Does anyone know where we might get a few 2x4s, a box of screws, maybe some nails, and one of those thingamajiggies...oh, geesh I can’t remember what it’s called, you know!” said our class treasurer. She looked around at our group, but none of us volunteered. None of us, that is, until our class president said, “I have an idea.” He pointed at a few of us and said, “Come with me.”  

The four of us climbed into his Land Rover and he peeled out of the driveway and onto the main road. We all assumed we were headed to the store, but our president turned off the main road and, instead, headed toward one of the new developments.

Our little town was exploding with growth. Two new factories were about to open and people were flocking in from all over. New homes were being built practically overnight. When our president pulled into the driveway of a home that still had no walls, he said, “OK, let’s make this quick.” He pointed at me to grab a box of screws. “About two inches long if you can find them, but we can make anything work.” He assigned another person the task of getting nails and something I didn’t know what it was—probably the thingamajiggie—and he and one of the others headed toward a pile of 2x4s. We were done and out of there inside three minutes. We weren’t even professional thieves, and it was that easy; and we were as callus and unrepentant as if we made a living doing this. 

I could have called my dad, and asked him to meet us at the store. Any one of us could have done that. Any one of our parents would have gladly kicked in the few bucks we needed to finish that float, but we chose to be criminals instead.

The Second Story

My boyfriend asked if I wanted to go swimming at the country club pool. Our families were both members and went all the time. But this time, he wanted to meet there at 2:00 AM, long after it was locked up and closed for the day. It sounded exciting so I said, “Yes.”

Getting to the pool was going to be much easier for me, or so I thought, because I was close enough to ride my bike. He, on the other hand, would have to start up and drive the family car. 

The faint dings of my alarm woke me as planned at 1:30 AM. I ever so quietly got out of bed, put on my bathing suit, a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and slipped on my tennis shoes. I picked up the beach towel next to my bed and gently opened the door to my room. I froze for a bit to listen for my sister and parents. Everyone seemed to be sound asleep, including our little Yorkshire Terrier. I sighed with relief and made my next move.

I opened the sliding glass door to our patio where I kept my bike, crept outside, and then slid the door back into place. Before going to bed, I had unlocked my bike from my sister’s, and pulled it several inches away. I had anticipated that messing around with a lock in the dark and the possible noise of detaching the two bikes from each other might make too much racket. The last thing I needed was to wake my mom.

The next challenge would be opening the patio screen door and getting the bike out into the backyard. That, too, went without a hitch and I was soon cycling down our road toward the country club pool.

I couldn’t believe how nervous I was. Suddenly all sorts of things occurred to me that I hadn’t thought about before. What if a patrol car saw me? What if a neighbor saw me? What if I got hit by a car? What if there was some kidnapper out here? Clearly I was not very practiced at breaking rules. But on I cycled toward my destination.

I pulled into a side road just across from the country club to wait for my boyfriend. The minutes ticked toward 2:00 AM and my heart just wouldn’t stop racing. More thoughts of terrible consequences kept popping into my mind. What if someone in one of these homes thought I was an intruder? At ten after, I had just about decided that he had been unable to get away when I saw some headlights. I panicked a bit because I couldn’t tell if the oncoming headlights belonged to his car or not. I leaned into the shadows a bit more. The headlights switched off and I could then see that it was his car, going very very slowly. I eased out of the shadows and waved.

He parked the car, I left my bike next to it, and we walked over to the pool. Whereas my reconnaissance had been limited to getting out of my house without notice, his had included determining the best spot from which to get over the pool fence. There was a breachable place on the back side where the fence, due to the terrain surrounding it was much shorter. We tossed our towels over the top onto the pool deck, and then using natural footholds formed by the structure, scrambled up and over. It was easy.

We paddled around in the pool, kissed a bit, sat in the shallow end looking up at the stars, and then decided it was time to go home. We wished each other luck in getting back into our respective homes, and promised to talk in the morning.

Still dripping wet from head to toe, I opened the screen door to our patio and pulled my bike inside. And then our Yorkshire Terrier came running out through the dog door barking his head off. Busted! The patio light came on and my mind raced. With hardly any thought as to what I was doing I called out, “It’s okay Mom, I don’t see anything out here. Don’t know why he’s barking.” I froze in place as water dripped from my hair down my back. 

“Oh, you’re already out there checking?” she said. There was a long pause as I watched to see whether she would open the sliding glass doors, which thankfully had drawn curtains so she couldn’t actually see me yet. “Yes,” I said as I held my breath waiting. The light was switched off. The doors remained closed. I picked up the dog and held him close petting him for a minute while still nothing else happened. I was kind of afraid to open the sliding doors myself in fear that Mom would still be standing there, but I soon put the dog down and opened them up. She was gone. All the lights in the house were off and I could hear my dad snoring.

Not only had I trespassed on private property, I was guilty of breaking and entering. And, I was a liar. Thankfully, my privilege afforded me the chance to outgrow my hooliganism and live a crime free life thereafter.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2019

The Rescue

By the time I got back home, it was a good hour past my usual curfew. But instead of the usual lecture, I received a rare embrace from my mother. “Were you able to get her out?” she asked. I sighed and said that everything had gone just fine and that Barb was safe at Sharilynn’s house.

The evening’s ordeal had begun nearly four hours earlier. As was pretty typical on a school night toward the end of a semester, I went home after work, changed my clothes, and then drove over to Sharilynn’s. We were first semester sophomores at the local community college where we took several classes together. Exams were approaching, papers were due, and Sharilynn and I found that we could keep one another from getting distracted by studying together. Her mom, Louann, always had southern comfort food readily available, and I could smoke at her house—something my parents didn’t even know I did.

Sharilynn and I were in the midst of taking long drags off our Virginia Slims when the phone rang. “Sharilynn!” Louann yelled down the hall. Sharilynn picked up the extension in her room and said, “Hello.” After several uh-huhs, I-understands, and finally an I’ll-call-you-right-back, Sharilynn hung up the phone and said to me, “C’mon.” I followed her to the kitchen where Louann sat smoking a Winston. Sharilynn then launched into a story.

Our friend, Barb, lived with her mom, a younger brother, and her mom’s boyfriend in a nice apartment on the other side of town. Barb was estranged from her father because: “Mom says he’s a terrible son of a bitch who doesn’t care about anyone but himself. But, I hardly know him because Mom and he divorced when I was only six.” Sharilynn went on to explain that Barb had just called, was sobbing, and sounded really scared. Her mom’s boyfriend had been coming on to her for several months at this point, but, fortunately, it so far had only been talk. But today after school, he sat down on the couch next to her and put his arm around her. He said he was just being affectionate. Barb didn’t know what to do so continued to sit on the couch with him. Barb’s mom then came home from work and all hell broke loose. Her mom started yelling… at Barb! She called her a little whore, said she knew all along that she’d been trying to steal her boyfriend from her, and now had caught her in the act. Barb attempted to defend herself, but the boyfriend fueled the fire saying that Barb was just too beautiful. At some point Barb’s brother came into the apartment and their mom accused him of knowing about this and being a disloyal prick just like their father. Barb’s brother took refuge in his bedroom as the tirade against Barb continued. Then Barb’s mom said the unthinkable: “I want you out of here. Tonight!!”

Louann took another drag off her Winston, blew out the smoke, and said in her drawl, “Well, you’ll just have to go pick her up and bring her over here.” Sharilynn looked at me. I read her mind and said, “Of course. I can drive my car.”

Sharilynn called Barb back. Barb’s mom picked up the phone, sweetly answering, “Hello, Tanner residence.” Sharilynn was momentarily taken aback but managed to ask for and get Barb on the line. “Laura’s going to drive over there with me, and we’ll come get you. Make sure you have all your books for school, and clothes for a week. Might take us half an hour because we have to stop by Laura’s to explain to her mother what we’re doing.” The plan was in motion.

I was usually spot on when it came to predicting my mother’s reactions, but every once in a while she would completely take me by surprise. And one of those surprise times was about to happen. After explaining to her what was going on and stating the plan, I watched my mother pace around the kitchen like a caged lion. I had no idea what was going through her head. I was prepared for her to tell me that I’d be doing no such thing, that it was a school night, that I’d be out too late, that it was none of my business, just about a hundred other things than what she ultimately said. After a full minute of pacing, she turned to me, pointed her signature finger in my face, and said, “I want you to know something.” I braced myself. “There is nothing! Do you hear me? Nothing, that you could ever do that would cause me to throw you out of the house.” She was so close to me I felt the need to take a step back. I simply said, “OK.” Mother went on to give me permission to do what needed to be done, warned me to be careful, and stated that she’d wait up until I got home.

Sharilynn and I arrived at Barb’s a short time later. We walked up the steps to the second floor apartment, and knocked on the door. Barb’s mom opened it and said, “Hello girls! So great to see you. C’mon in.” It’s hard to explain how weird this all seemed at the time. We were invited to have a seat on the couch where Barb’s brother sat watching TV. He waved a little greeting to us. Barb’s mom asked us if we wanted anything to drink. We said we didn’t, thank you. A few minutes went by before Barb came out of her bedroom with a large suitcase and a duffle bag. “I’m ready,” she said to us. Her eyes and nose were red, her hair definitely needed to be brushed, and she generally looked like hell. We helped her with the bags, she picked up a stack of books, and we headed to the door. Her mom sang out, “Thanks, girls, take care!”

The three of us walked down to the car in silence, loaded the bags in the trunk, and then got in my car. Barb started crying again. Sharilynn got out of the passenger seat and climbed in the back to put her arms around Barb. When we arrived at Sharilynn’s, Louann was waiting with open arms to take Barb into her ample bosom for a big warm welcome. “The guest room is all ready for you, darlin’, with clean sheets. I put a bath towel on the end of the bed for you. Now you just don’t worry about a thing. We’ll sort everything out. No matter how long it takes, you are living here with us all safe and sound.”

It was another hour before I went home to fill my mother in on the rest of the evening’s story.

Over the next several weeks, Barb thrived at Sharilynn’s. Louann talked Barb into getting in touch with her father. He was so happy to hear from his daughter. Now remarried and living in North Carolina, he told her that she could come live with him after she finished her sophomore year. They started talking several times a week so that they could get to know one another, he flew into town for a long weekend visit, and then drove down to get her in the early part of the summer. He paid for her to attend the University of North Carolina to finish her undergraduate degree.

I can’t for sure say that everyone lived happily ever after, but it kind of feels like I should.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2019

The Perfectionist

“You’re such a worry wart,” said Mrs. Cleverchek. Even at only eight years old, Lucy’s forehead was showing the creases that would become permanently etched into her face by the time she turned 25. Mrs. Cleverchek continued to try and calm the child’s fretting over the animal drawing she was making for art class. But, Lucy was not satisfied with the way it was turning out. Her eyebrows scrunched forming a scowl just above the bridge of her nose, she pursed her lips, and grunted. Mrs. Cleverchek moved on to the next student knowing that there was nothing that could be done about a child so intent on perfection beyond both her years and abilities.

Lucy strived to be perfect. She clearly could see in her head the image she wanted to draw, but the crayons just would not cooperate. It was the same with so many things.

Just last week she had been given permission to invite her classmate, Donna, to ride the bus home with her from school for a playdate. Lucy was very excited to show Donna the collection of postcards she had received from all over the world after sending out six chain letters she had painstakingly typed all by herself. It had been an arduous task, one her mother had quite plainly discouraged. “Lucy, don’t be ridiculous,” she had said, “no one ever follows through with those things. You’ll be lucky to get one postcard.” But Lucy knew she would be different. She’d show her mother. And she had shown her. Lucy received 72 postcards from as far away as Australia, and as close as Chicago. It had been thrilling and she wanted to show Donna, who had only received one postcard.

When Lucy and Donna arrived home on the designated date, Lucy’s mom fixed them a snack. “Lucy, why don’t you go ahead and get your box of postcards so you can show them all to Donna?” Lucy flashed her mom a bright smile and ran off to her room to get the box. Lucy’s little sister, Karen, a first grader, hopped up into the kitchen banquette to join in. Lucy plopped the box on the table and opened the lid. She began with a postcard from London, England. Her sister, Karen, wanting to demonstrate some of her newly acquired reading skills, reached in the box to pull out one of the cards. “They’re mine!” Lucy said snatching away the card.

Tears began to well in Karen’s eyes. Her mom gently chided Lucy about sharing saying, “You have 72 postcards, Lucy, you can let Karen help show the cards to Donna.” But, Lucy only became more aggrieved. She stubbornly insisted that this was her friend, her cards, and her little sister could go do something else. The characteristic scowl appeared on Lucy’s face and she moved the box away from her sister’s reach. Karen reached across the table and pulled another card out of the box. “Mom!” yelled Lucy. With that, Lucy was sent to her room and Karen showed Donna the rest of the cards.

Professor Martin said, “What are you so worried about, Lucy? You have an A going into this final exam. Relax, you’ll be fine.” Lucy’s face, forming the now nearly permanent scowl, glared back at him. She held a stack of 3x5 cards wrapped both directions with rubber bands so that they wouldn’t accidently scatter if she dropped them. She had taken all precautions, studied diligently, and, as Professor Martin said, would do well on the exam. But she planned to do better than well. She planned to get a perfect score.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2019 (image by WavebreakMediaMicro/stock.adobe.com)

Comment Prompts

• Why is Lucy so determined?
• What can be assumed about her upbringing?
• What can be said about her relationship to her mother? Her sister? Her friend?
• What do you think about the mom’s responses?
• What can be predicted about Lucy’s future?

Écossaises

Solo performance has never been my forte. It really didn’t matter how well practiced I was, nerves always got, and get, the better of me.

I began piano lessons when I was 7 years old after begging my mother with a relentless passion that even she was ultimately unable to stem. Practicing every day for the required 30 minutes was hard work. In the beginning, the easy songs didn’t require more than five minutes. It was boring to keep playing through the same songs over and over, day after day. I would use part of the time to do my Dozen-a-Day finger exercises, which also became boring. Harder still was filling in the notes in my music theory book as I tried to learn the meaning of key and time signatures. As the years went by, my teacher, Mrs. Wendt, assigned me more difficult and challenging pieces. Eventually, 30 minutes was not enough time to do my workbook assignments, scales, adagios, and classical work. My practice time expanded to an hour.

Mrs. Wendt was a very demanding and exacting teacher. She occasionally would write at the top of my assignment book: FILE NAILS! The pieces I was working on became splattered with her many notations: Listen! Hold, soften, legato, resolution, lighten, rest, EASY! Her insistence made me a better player, but nothing seemed to help me become a better performer.

Lessons were once a week for 30 minutes. Recitals were held twice a year, and I dreaded them. Mrs. Wendt would decide which piece I would memorize for an upcoming recital, and then I would go to work trying to perfect it for the performance. I never was a great piano player. I lacked the passion required to be really good. I enjoyed playing, and was good enough to fool anyone who didn’t play at all into believing I was good, but I knew the truth. The truth was that I thought myself a bit of a fraud, and consequently, could never muster the confidence I needed to resolutely perform a solo for an audience.

On recital days, I would practice the piece several times just to make sure I had the flaws worked out. I would do fine at home, alone in the basement, playing the upright that had been given to my grandmother on her sixteenth birthday. But as I sat in my “Sunday Best” awaiting my turn to perform, my hands would begin to sweat, my stomach to churn, and my heart to beat at a quickened pace. I would be panicked into thinking I had forgotten how to play. I would glance at the music in my lap, which I knew I would have to leave on my chair when my name was called. I would play the music in my head just to make sure I really did remember the notes. Without fail, when I took my place on the piano bench, I would manage to get through the piece, but my fingers would slip off keys, I would often fumble the initial start to a key change, or miss a note in a turn, mordent, or trill. I would bow, as Mrs. Wendt insisted we do when finished, but I would be embarrassed that the perfection I had demonstrated at my last lesson, or even just that morning in my basement, had completely eluded me. I could tell Mrs Wendt was disappointed with me. The only redeeming aspect was that my parents, my sister, and the other guests didn’t seem to notice how many errors I had made. Or maybe they were just being really kind with their compliments afterwards, not wanting to add insult to injury.

When I was 14 years old, having taken lessons for seven years, Mrs. Wendt announced that she was going to enter me in the Indiana State Piano Competition. Competition? I had never competed in anything or for anything in my life. The thought was terrifying. She handed me the sheet music for one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Écossaises piano solos—number 6 in E-flat Major. Mrs. Wendt said, “The competition is in April, so there’s plenty of time. But I won’t lie to you. This piece will be very challenging.”

A country-dance in quick duple meter is the description for an Écossaise. With three flats—B, E, and A—a 2/4 time signature, numerous ornaments, and dynamics ranging from pianissimo to sforzando with crescendos and diminuendos, this piece goes lickety split. Because I wanted to please Mrs. Wendt, I worked relentlessly on it. I memorized it. I perfected it for her, for myself, for my family members...I took a Silver Medal in the competition. I think they were kind. My old demons accompanied me. But, speaking of accompanying, in addition to my competition, I was asked to be the accompanist for two other competitors—a violist and a bass player. They both took Gold, and to my shock, I did not get nervous at all when playing with them. I found I just needed a buddy! This held true for singing as well. I was a wreck if asked to perform a solo, but had no trouble at all holding my own when I had at least one other person to perform with.

At 16 years old and in my last recital with Mrs. Wendt, I performed Chopin’s Minute Waltz in D-flat Major, meant to be performed in two minutes. I probably took at least three minutes to get it done with plenty of mess-ups along the way. But, give me a piano duet...and I can kill it.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2019

To listen to a rendition CLICK HERE

A Letter to My Children

Dear Ariel and Aaron,

I spent most of the past year trying to wake myself up to racism and gender inequality in America. This is my attempt to tell you about some of the things I have done to re-educate myself, and to also acknowledge that I had very shallow viewpoints on these subjects during your growing up years.

The awareness that I was lacking in perspective, and the decision to make the effort to find out more about the real history of inequalities began several years ago. If I have to try and state the moment that I became aware of the privileged lens through which I had previously read and learned, I think I’d have to say it was when I read a 2014 Atlantic essay by Ta-Nehisi Coates about reparations. But it took me four more years before I seriously began reading, thinking, and forming my own thoughts about issues regarding race and sex—trying to distance myself from the very white-only language and myths that had informed the texts of my early education. My goal was to process enough substantive information so that I could have a discussion on these topics using clear and accurate historical information—maybe even learn to be persuasive. And so, I began. Or perhaps I should say I began with new intention.

I certainly was not ignorant of the writings of Malcolm X, Betty Friedan, Shulamith Firestone, and Martin Luther King, to name a few influential writers. I had read about the history of slavery, of the genocide of our Native American populations, of the history of feminism, and I knew about inequalities and white supremacy. But, I did not know to what extent the current economic and government systems still support so much of what I thought was behind us.

The first book I read was Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving. I’m not going to go into the details of what I learned, but I can say without equivocation that I found myself to be pretty clueless. I followed that book up by listening to a podcast from the Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) at Duke University called Scene On Radio. The second season, “Seeing White,” is a 14-part series on race and ethnicity in America. I listened to the episodes when I walked, but then I supplemented with additional reading: Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates; and Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I still have three more books on my list: The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter; Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi; and The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander.

The third season of Scene On Radio, “MEN,” debuted soon after I finished Season 2, so I started listening to it. I supplemented this series with the book: Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne. And I think I’m going to go back and reread Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex, and Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique because I think reading these texts again will be a completely different experience.

The reason I’m telling you both this is because I’ve come to understand how much my own background as a privileged white woman, who also was very much influenced by the patriarchy, came to inform how you were both raised. Thankfully, you have both had many many experiences of your own in an age when waking up to both racism and sexism in America is happening pretty frequently, and all around you. Though I’m essentially apologizing to you both for any racist and sexist lessons I taught you through my own ignorance, I want you to know that I have not by any stretch completed my education. Among my dearest hopes is to bring as many of my peers along with me as I possibly can. In the meantime, I am proud that you are both much more enlightened, much more open, and much more articulate about these issues. You have taught me much.

Love,
Momma

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2019