You Need A Watch!

It was 1970 and Susan and I and our parents were in Florida for the Christmas holiday. Our Grandpa and Grandma Anderson had rented a cottage right on the beach side–a walk out by all definitions. On Christmas morning, the wrapped presents for our grandparents–the ones that Dad had loaded in the trunk before our departure to drive the 24 hours required to get from northern Indiana to Ft. Myers Beach, Florida–lay beside a little tabletop tree. But, there were so many more presents. Where did they all come from, I wondered. Among them, with my name on it, was a personal tape recorder and player. It even came with a handheld microphone.

Months earlier, I had written tape recorder on my Christmas list, something I had no expectation of actually getting. It was an expensive item for a twelve-year-old to request. Tape recorders, for personal use, were all the rage. They were the hottest of hot items with a $100 price tag. That’s over $700 in today’s dollars. But, because Dad loved gadgets of all ilk, especially those that were audio in nature, he was as keen to get one for me as I was to have one. 

I can only imagine the discussion he and Mom must have had about getting such a luxury item for a kid, but clearly Dad won the argument. He must have won the argument long before Christmas Day arrived because not only did I open the tape recorder with the widest of wide-eyed surprise, but there was also a box of 12 cassette tapes. Six of the tapes were marked in Dad’s engineer-trained printing. He had spent time, probably after Susan and I were in bed, recording music on to the tapes from his favorite LPs. The other six tapes were blank.

After all the presents had been opened, and while Susan and I waited for Christmas dinner to be served, she and I took the tape recorder and its microphone into the walk-in closet in our grandparents bedroom. There, with the door closed, we slipped a brand new cassette tape into the machine and began recording ourselves. We’d say some silly thing and then we’d rewind to listen to our voices. We’d then crack up laughing. 

At some point, we decided to turn on the recorder and pretend to act out a play of sorts. I said, “Let’s pretend that you’re a salesperson and I’m the customer.” Six-year-old Susan nodded as she stroked the hair on her new doll. I further instructed, “I’m going to come into the store looking for something to buy, but I won’t be sure what I want. So, you’re going to try to sell me….” I looked around the closet for inspiration and spotted my grandfather’s wristwatch sitting on the built-in dresser. I grabbed the watch and continued, “...this watch!” Susan dubiously looked at me but agreed by taking the watch from me. “OK, let’s start,” I said as I pressed down the Record button.

Customer (Me): Hello.
Salesperson (Six-year-old Susan): Hello.
Customer: I’m looking to buy…
Salesperson: A watch!
Customer: No, I was thinking something more like a…
Salesperson: A watch!
Customer: No, I really don’t need a watch.

Salesperson: Yes, you do. It ticks good, it will always tell you the time, and even baby spit up won’t hurt it at all.

Customer snorts a laugh: That’s all very fine, I’m sure, but I really don’t need a watch.

Salesperson looks around the closet, spots a deck of cards, and fans them out as best as she can with her little hands:  I’ll tell you what, pick a card, any card.

Customer: Why?

Salesperson: Just do it. You’ll see.

Customer selects a card and shows the card to the Salesperson: Queen of Diamonds.

Salesperson: That’s the lucky card! You win the watch!!

Customer: But I don’t need a watch! 

Salesperson angrily desperate: YOU NEED A WATCH!

Customer: Wouldn’t I need to pay for it?

Salesperson: The bill will come in the mail.

Not only did the tape recorder and player bring joy to us all throughout the next several years, but that first recording of our little play exchange absolutely sent our father into hysterics. He loved listening to that recording over and over. And the punchline became a favorite for all sorts of moments for decades to come. At the most tense of family moments, just a shrug and those seven words: The bill will come in the mail, could diffuse the situation, and bring a smile to everyone’s face. Even our mother would have agreed that it was a $100 well-spent.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2021

Thanksgiving Reminiscence

 

Thanksgiving on the campus of a private boarding school is a wholly unique experience. A recent trip to Phillips Academy in Andover reminded me of how different the break is for faculty than it is for students. 

For students, exams are over before the start of the preceding weekend. It is a long enough break—a 12-day span—for even those who live on the other side of the country to fly home and enjoy some family time. After the students depart, faculty still have exams and papers to grade, comments to write, and grades to post before they can begin a very short respite that ends after just five days. 

Five days, to those in other fields of employment, might seem like a luxury. But, the private school teacher often works 14-hour days. The hours add up by the time one accounts for class prep, classroom teaching, coaching, dorm advising, tutoring, grading, parent communications, disciplinary actions, committee meetings, and other attendant duties that might be needed in the dining hall or at extracurricular student activities. A private school teacher, as in loco parentis, might be awakened in the middle of the night by noise in the dorm she is living in—one’s advisees are teenagers, after all.

With students gone for the break, however, faculty embrace a more normal schedule and routine while completing their end-of-term paperwork. The flurry to grade and write and post in time to meet administrative deadlines finally ends by mid-afternoon on the day before Thanksgiving. 

My husband and I used to get in the car and drive a couple hours to spend two nights with his relatives for the holiday, but once his family moved away from New England, making any kind of a trip didn’t make much sense for such a short period of time. A couple of our faculty family friends were in a similar situation, which led us to all bind together and create a unique family of our own for the celebration. 

As children were added to the mix over the years, our Thanksgiving Day get-togethers grew, just as they might in a traditional family setting. We took turns hosting—the host always made the turkey—and everyone brought a dish to pass. It was during this time that I began making a Silver Palate carrot and sweet potato puree, which we all dubbed Beta Carotene, and is a favorite to this day. 

One Thanksgiving, when we were the hosts, it was decided that we would have a children’s table separate from the grown-ups. By this time, and within viewing distance, the kids were all old enough to be trusted to manage their table manners without too much intervention. Having a children’s table meant that the table for the grown-ups could be set a bit more formally than in the past. I consulted a guide to creating beautiful table arrangements and bought a few decorative items to enhance the design. Among my purchases were a number of candles.

Our fellow faculty members and their children began to arrive shortly before 2:00 just as I was putting the finishing touches on the table setting. Of course there were many offers to help, but, except for lighting the candles, everything was in wait for the turkey to come out of the oven. 

The children immediately got out the board games and settled in to play before dinner was served. Wine was poured and toasts were offered among the adults. The aroma of pies, vegetables of all sorts, and the resting turkey filled the air as our family of friends got cozy and talked about reaching the finish line of the fall term. Amusing stories relating the ubiquitous antics of prep school students were a form of one-upmanship among the teachers, and we laughed together over the more absurd.  

English by birth, Ian could always be counted on to relate his stories with clever puns and double entendres as he held court between the dining area and the living room. I chuckled, too, as I struck the match to begin lighting the candles on my beautifully set table. The smell of the sulphur from the match head filled the air. As a hyper-aware science teacher, Ian glanced over his left shoulder to check the origins of the odor. Two candles had already been lit, and I bent down to bring the flame to the wick of the third. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ian put down his drink and in two strides come to my side. He clapped my hair with both hands as a more acrid smell filled my nostrils.

I stared at him in total perplexity not knowing what in the world had possessed him to dash over and clap my hair. “You were on fire,” he calmly said. A quick look in the mirror confirmed that, indeed, my hair was slightly singed. Apparently, while leaning down to light a candle, the ends of my shoulder length hair had touched one of the already glowing flames. Ian’s experience in science labs over the years had given him the instincts required to act quickly. Thank goodness. 

On that Thanksgiving, as we went around the table declaring what we were thankful for, my tribute was to Ian. “I am thankful that Ian was near enough to see that I had just inadvertently lit my hair on fire, and savvy enough to put out the flames.” We all raised our glasses as Ian gave his familial response to my tribute, “You’ve always flamed to please.”

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2021

 

Day of the Dead

 

What better time to blog about the dead than on the eve of Halloween?

Our great-grandmother Heller, Anna Martha Mathilda Rodenz, was born in 1882. When she died in 1972 at 90 years old, I was 14 and my sister, Susan, was 8. 

Anna was our mother’s paternal grandmother. A first generation American, she was born in Wisconsin to German immigrants. Her husband, our great-grandfather, Ferdinand Frederick Heller, was born in 1875 in what was then called Prussia. But he had already been dead for over 30 years—cirrhosis of the liver—by the time this story took place.

Anna died on a Thursday. As was tradition in the Lutheran church, her body was whisked off to the funeral parlor for preparation for a Saturday burial. The visitation was scheduled for Friday evening.
It was a three-hour drive to Edgerton, Wisconsin, for us, so Dad left work early and we departed as soon as school was out. Upon arriving at my mother’s childhood home, there ensued a tense, but not heated, discussion among the grownups. Our parents were firmly advocating that we children should experience the full ritual of Great-grandma Anna’s wake, funeral, and burial. My mother’s brother and wife were firmly advocating that their children, our first cousins, should not. Our Grandma Heller—Anna’s daughter-in-law—agreed with our parents that we should be present to witness everything. And, thus, it was decided that Susan and I would attend.

The parlor of the funeral home where Anna’s body lay in her open casket was softly lit. The air was infused with the barest hint of formaldehyde mixed with the scents of carnations and roses. If one listened very carefully, organ music could be heard in the background of the murmuring condolences of the attendees: I’m so sorry for your loss; Anna was such a wonderful person; I’m sure you will miss her very much; She lived a good long life; She’s in a better place.

Along with our Grandma Heller, Susan and I sat on a sofa about six feet from the casket. We could see the dozens of mourners milling about the adjacent room. Every so often, someone would come in to view the body in the area where we were sitting. Some would take a quick glance and leave, some would linger for a moment or two, some would reach their hand into the casket and touch her, and a few people leaned in to give her a kiss. The spectacle, along with the room’s temperature, gave Susan and me the shivers.

Anna’s white hair, which hung to her waist when completely let down, was neatly braided and coiled atop her head as she had traditionally worn it. Her dress was of white polka dots on a black background. The neck was embellished with a white lace collar. Her ringed left hand had been placed over her right wrist with a folded lace handkerchief tucked beneath it. She really did look like she was sleeping. People said: Doesn’t she look good? They did an excellent job. Susan and I were perplexed by these comments. Anna, indeed, looked just as she had when we last saw her at Christmas time. We supposed this is what they meant by her looking good. She looked good for a corpse, in any case.

Susan snuggled deeply into our grandmother’s side, averting her eyes from the body. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Grandma said soothingly. She then coaxed us both to stand and approach the body. I don’t have any memory of feeling one way or the other about the body, but Susan clearly did not like being there. I thought back to the earlier discussion about whether we children should attend or not, and in that moment, while watching my sister’s discomfort, agreed with my aunt and uncle that like our cousins, who were 10 and 8, Susan was too young to be here.

Our grandmother coaxed us further as she placed her hand on Anna’s hand. “See,” she said, “you can touch her.” With our grandmother imploring us, we took turns reaching our hands into the casket to touch Anna’s cold dry skin. There was no consolation in this gesture. We knew she was dead, and what that meant.

I know our grandmother had nothing but good intentions, as did everyone who had agreed that Susan and I should be there. I think they rationalized that death is natural and should be treated as just another moment in the cycle of our being. But, for Susan, it was a trauma. The horror of it haunts her to this day. And maybe because I remember it in such vivid detail, it was a horror for me, too. 

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2021

Six Degrees of Katrina

Author’s Note: Now 16 years later, I am finally publishing a story I wrote in 2006, shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Its message continues to resonate as so many of us and our loved ones currently experience natural disasters of all ilk.

My first introduction to the concept of the entire human population being connected by linking acquaintances with strangers was when I saw John Guare's stage play Six Degrees of Separation. According to Wikipedia, however, it was Hungarian writer Karinthy Frigyes, who first proposed the notion of linkage in her short story called Chains. 

As Americans continue to live through the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and, on its first anniversary, relive its horrors through documentaries, tributes, and interviews, it occurs to me that every human being could make a personal connection to the disaster. If we would just take the time to discover the links that separate us from those who experienced it firsthand.

My own connection begins with my daughter, Ariel, a full-time student at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, who needed to renew her passport. The student visa the United Kingdom issued to her further complicated the process but with nine weeks before her departure, there seemed to be plenty of time. She filled out the paperwork and paid for an overnight delivery of her application and old passport to the office assigned to the Nashville region. It was located in New Orleans.

One week before her scheduled flight, she mentioned that her passport had still not arrived. I checked the calendar and noted that even in the worst of bureaucratic times, six weeks turnaround was a normal expectation. It had now been eight weeks. I looked at the receipt from the overnight service she used and saw the New Orleans address printed on it. Instantly an image of a government office with five feet of standing water appeared in my mind. I saw desks jumbled in a pile, mangled in-baskets, papers of all kinds waterlogged beyond recognition, filing cabinets turned over with hundreds of file folders growing mold and mildew, and my daughter’s newly issued passport floating on the surface of the stagnant water. I imagined the woman who officially stamped it on the Friday before Katrina hit, placing it in her out-basket ready for mail pick-up on Monday morning. But, on Monday morning, that woman would be doing her best to pack up her family and find a way out of the city, her out-basket the furthest thing from her mind.

The National Passport Agency website instructions for those in need of an immediate passport were not encouraging. However, the site gave an emergency number for those with an urgent need. Ariel spent the next two days phoning the number and waiting for hours before then getting disconnected. She persevered, managing at last to get a real person on the phone. With only five days before her departure, she was instructed to fill out a new application and send the package overnight to the Miami office, making sure she wrote “Hurricane Katrina” in the reference area. She was promised that it would be processed within two days and sent back to her overnight. As we counted up the days and factored in a day or two extra, my mother unhelpfully insisted we call Senator Frist and demand his intervention. I willfully ignored her because I thought the very suggestion that he should care about this problem was ridiculous. Her persistence was finally rewarded with my hot-tempered response, “Mother. I am not going to call the Senator when he more than likely is inundated with calls from people in a panic about how they’re going to recover the corpses of family members.” I later felt terrible about the outburst although I never apologized.

In an effort to relieve some of our stress, I called the airline to explain the situation and asked about postponing Ariel’s flight. They gave us good news. Due to the circumstances, they would rebook her for no additional charge. Furthermore, if the passport still did not arrive in time, they would accommodate another rebooking as well. 

There turned out to be no need to rebook a second time because, contrary to what I initially imagined about the woman working in the New Orleans office, she had, per emergency office protocol, sent all her work to the Miami office. Upon receiving Ariel’s second application, the clerk in the Miami office was able to locate all the original paperwork. She finished processing it and sent it by two-day express. 

On the morning before Ariel’s rescheduled departure, our postman trotted up to our front door where he dutifully handed the National Passport Agency envelope to my relieved daughter. Thus completed the human links of our particular connection to Hurricane Katrina.

As we all participate in the remembrance of the event and witness the continued struggle of those who are still displaced, let us be aware that we are all connected in some way to each and every one of those individuals, unknown and unexplored though those connections might be.

Many people have recently been posting to be kind to one another. This is good advice as with just a bit of a scratch beneath any surface, we can find that we can link ourselves to each person on the planet.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2006

Learning to Swim

The outdoor pool tank is ten feet deep. There is no shallow end. Families take refuge from the summer heat in its cool waters, pumped underground from Lake Michigan. A hundred people of all ages, legs churning, tread water. 

Some swim with their heads above the surface while others frog-kick their way several feet beneath it. Splashing sounds fill the air as bodies cut through the churned up water. They dive or jump off the board, creating waves that slosh against the sides of the tank. 

Mr. Pershon, a muscular bulk of a man, sits perched in his lifeguard’s chair scanning the tank with his sharp scrutinizing eyes. His whistle at the ready for even the most minor of infractions, he bellows to this one and that one keeping everyone in line.

I am eight years old, a non-swimmer, and have been invited to the Country Club pool by Henry and Togni, my new next door neighbors. They thrash about in their play while I carefully hang on to the wall by keeping a firm grip on the filter channel that forms a sort of gutter along the entire perimeter of the tank. I am not afraid to let go and peer with open eyes beneath the surface to try and catch a glimpse of the action. I can hold my breath really well.

Chlorine has not been added to the water from Lake Michigan that fills the tank. A few years from now, an ecological imbalance in the Hudson Bay area leads to the migration of freshwater eels into the Great Lakes region. The eels will decimate large numbers of salmon who normally feed on a fish we call alewives, also known as sardines. Having no other natural predator, the alewives flourish into the tens of thousands. The Great Lakes, unable to produce enough of a food supply to support the burgeoning population of alewives, become their Grim Reaper. The dead silver bodies will glimmer on the surface of the lake reflecting the sun. They will wash ashore to a sandy graveyard where they will rot and fill the air with a ghastly odor.

In order to try and control the odor, each neighborhood will organize clean up details. On our appointed day we will go to the beach with shovels and dig deep trenches to bury the fish. The smell will be nauseating as, wave upon wave, the dead fish will keep coming. When the fish are pumped into the Country Club pool, Mr. Pershon and other club employees will scoop them out. But during that future summer, none of us will feel much like swimming anywhere.

It is still this summer, however, and as I peer into the clear water, I can see kids diving for pennies and others hoisting themselves out of the pool. As I watch this underwater world, I let the air I have sucked into my lungs slowly bubble out through my nose and mouth. As I do so, I slip a little bit further under the surface and listen to the muffled sounds. There is a pleasant lull to the soft tones like holding down the left pedal on a piano. It takes the edge off the sharpness of each note. I smile quietly to myself as the last of the air leaves my lungs. I reach for the gutter on the side of the pool—my exit from this world that is so much like the womb, my entrance to the world above. But, I can feel only the flatness of the tank wall. Its rough concrete nubs are like gritty sandpaper on the palms of my hands as I pat the side searching for the gutter I need to earn a purchase to the surface. Panic begins to set in and only the imagined sound of my own voice screams, Where is the pool edge? Pat, pat, pat. All I can feel is wall as I fight the desire to take a breath. 

I am somehow out of the water before I can quite comprehend what has happened between the second I thought I was about to drown and the second Mr. Pershon starts yelling, “Get yourself over to the baby pool until you learn how to swim!” 

It would seem he has plunged his great paw of a hand into the water next to my struggling body, dug his fingers into my armpit, and pulled my eight-year-old, fifty-pound self out of the water before promptly depositing me on the white concrete deck. If the truth be known, I’m sure I scared him to death. His adrenalin pumping, he was no doubt prepared to perform mouth-to-mouth and call the emergency personnel until he heard me inhale a great gasp of air. Anger replaced his fear. 

Humiliated, I sit down on the edge of the baby pool where moms in pointy-cupped one-piece bathing suits wearing Jackie Kennedy sunglasses, dangle their feet in the pee-infested waters of their two- and three-year-olds as they chat inanely of bridge parties and meatloaf recipes.

Togni and Henry come over to where I am sitting and ask what I am doing but I am too embarrassed to tell them the truth. “I’m not feeling well,” I lie. I tell them I’ll see them back at home. I then find my towel and, eyes on my feet, kick a rock the mile walk home.

The lonely walk home gives me a chance to think about what has just happened. I’ve talked to other people over the years who, due to near-drowning experiences, are now afraid of the water. 

I am not afraid. I am angry at not being able to swim and want more than anything to prove to Mr. Pershon that I am not a baby. I decide I must campaign my mother for swimming lessons. This won’t be easy as I remember what happened between us a year earlier. Mesmerized by my grandmother’s ability to play the piano, I begged my mom to let me take lessons. She and her own girlhood piano lessons had been a waste of money. I must have driven her crazy with my relentless appeals because she finally gave in. Upon her acquiescence, however, she sternly and angrily warned, “You will practice a minimum of 30 minutes a day. No excuses, no crying, and not a word of complaining.” At its moment of issuance, I couldn’t imagine why I’d ever want to complain or cry about practicing piano. I soon found out but didn’t dare tell her. 

As I ruminate on how I will approach getting swimming lessons, I figure what had worked for piano will have to do—I’ll nag her until she relents.

Resolved but wary, I walk in the door of our home dragging my towel behind me like a scolded animal drags its tail. Mom takes one look at me and knows there is a problem. “What happened?” she asks sympathetically as she places a dish of applesauce on my sister’s high chair tray. Without preamble, I moan in earnest, “You’ve just got to let me take swimming lessons.” She adds a sippy cup of milk to Susan’s tray before answering, “I suppose the YMCA must offer lessons.” 

It was always that way with Mom. She’d fight you on one thing and then let you do another seemingly similar thing without blinking an eye. I never ever figured out which way she’d go. It probably had something to do with her emotional attachment or detachment to the subject matter. She hated her own piano lessons and therefore thought I would too. She loved swimming in the pond when she was a girl, therefore I would too. It was probably that simple, but a child can’t philosophize like that. 

I began as a Tadpole at the YMCA and quickly advanced to Sharks. I never got a chance to show Mr. Pershon my accomplishments. By the time I made it back to the Country Club pool, he had retired.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2021

Table Rock Lake

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Dad would get on vacation kicks that we would take year after year to the same destination. Whether in an effort to perfect the experience or whether he, like an old LP record, got his directional needle stuck in a skip, I couldn't say. During three consecutive summers, we spent one of Dad’s vacation weeks in the Ozark Mountains on the southernmost border of Missouri—a stone’s throw from Arkansas.

Our destination near Branson was only a ten-hour drive from our home, but we always made an overnight stop either in Springfield, Illinois, or St. Louis, Missouri. Business friends of Dad’s lived in these places and playing golf with these men was a favorite pastime. My sister and I especially liked our stops in St. Louis where there were plenty of other kids among the families of Dad’s friends and plenty of kid-friendly things to do. Mom’s friendships with the wives was in evidence and always put her in the best of moods. 

After a bit of city fun, it was on to the mountains. The last hour of the drive was one my sister dreaded. The winding hilly roads made her car sick. Soon, however, we reached our cabin on Table Rock Lake.

When Dad first told me we were going to a cabin, I was nine years old and envisioned a structure akin to where Abraham Lincoln was born. But, as we pulled into the gravel driveway, we were greeted by a lodge-size house that could sleep 24.

Walking inside for the first time, I saw that the misnamed cabin was filled with man-things like guns locked in cabinets and fishing equipment with barbed hooks. An eight-foot long blue marlin with its long sword nose hung over the fireplace. A stuffed bobcat showing fiercely bared canines sat perched to the right of the mantle. On the floor was a black bear skin rug. The head rested on its chin with an open mouth showing a full set of ferocious yellow teeth. 

During our first summer on Table Rock Lake, Mr. King, my dad’s boss, drove the few short miles from his own lakeside getaway to welcome us. He came to drink Snappy Tom Bloody Marys with my parents. He was always a prankster and talked my three-year-old sister into putting her hand in the bear’s mouth. “See,” he soothed, “He won’t hurt you at all.” Just as she was about to believe him, “Rawrh!” he growled. You never saw a little kid’s hand jerk back so fast as her’s did. All the grown-ups thought it was funny but from that point on, Susan gave that bear rug a wide berth, and I dare say she carries the trauma of that moment with her to this day.

Tammy and Wilbur were our down home neighbors on man-made Table Rock Lake. They earned their living as caretakers for the dozens of vacation homes lining the shore of just one tiny little finger of the 43,000 acre lake. Wilbur’s 300-pound body jingled with the keys he carried—keys that opened the modest as well as the monumental and included sheds and boat houses. There were always kittens to play with in Tammy and Wilbur’s yard and bluegills to catch with bamboo poles off their dock. Tammy could make what Wilbur described as a mean biscuit and they both looked as if they’d eaten more than their fair share of the buttery morsels. 

In the two following years, various friends of our family joined us. The week of our second summer, the Ulbrichs stopped by for two nights on their way to Yellowstone.  In our third year, the Moores and the Fischers spent five days with us. During these fun-filled family unions, which included boating, swimming, and celebrating the Fourth of July with ill begotten fireworks, we kids slept in a large room where pull-down twin beds—six of them altogether—disappeared into the wall during the day giving us space for an indoor game of wiffle ball. We marveled at the ten-point rack of a stag’s head hanging on the wall in our bedroom area. “It’s so cool,” one kid said. I stared up at the buck’s glassy black eyes considering whether I agreed or not.

One day of our vacation each year was spent at Silver Dollar City amusement park where we panned for gold, rode roller coasters, and watched a reenactment of a fight between the Hatfields and McCoys. On the one Sunday of our stay, we got in the little fishing boat and motored over to a nearby cove to attend church. While recently watching the popular Netflix series Ozark, I wrinkled my brow at a scene that depicts attendees of a similar church gathering receiving their weekly purchase of heroin. Fiction is often based on reality, afterall, so it gave me pause. 

The possibility of the area’s seedier side notwithstanding, our summers on Table Rock Lake were idyllic times. The romance our dad had with the place went as far as the purchase of a lot in a development where he and Mom envisioned a place for their retirement. But that idea, too, was short-lived. By the time I was 12 years old, a new vacation kick took hold—two weeks in Florida every December where Dad could play golf every day if he chose. 

Table Rock Lake became a distant memory after Dad took a job in Florida and moved us there in 1974. The Missouri lot was sold to pay for my college education, and Mom and Dad embraced a life bathed in yearlong sunshine and warm weather—a permanent vacation, Dad often said. But, I will always have a fondness for the memories I made on Table Rock Lake, except for maybe those taxidermied animals. They were pretty creepy.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2021

Kissing Myrna

Brenda was our favorite. When I listen to Dar Williams's song, The Babysitter, I think of Brenda with her long blond hair and how she made everything fun. She was such a great babysitter, the neighborhood parents competed with one another to be the first to call and book her for their nights out.

When my parents were not quite quick enough to be the first to call Brenda, when the Elenzs or the Strackes, or the Keltzs beat them to the punch, we ended up with either Cathy or Myrna. 

An evening with Cathy or Myrna meant boring. It meant we would be ignored while our babysitter talked on the phone to her boyfriend, or watched television. It meant going to bed on time—no playing hide and seek or draping the dining room chairs with blankets to make forts, or listening for our parents’ car to pull into the driveway so we could run to bed before they came through the door. Cathy or Myrna as a babysitter meant a blah, boo, hiss night. It meant that the neighborhood kids who had Brenda as their babysitter would be bragging about it for days afterward. 

Myrna wore heavy eyeliner and thick mascara. She had dyed black hair and wore a leather choker around her neck. I don’t think she smoked, but she had a funny smell about her. Maybe it was the hairspray she used to puff up her pageboy hairstyle, or maybe it was a mustiness in her clothes. As an eight-year-old, I couldn't identify the scent, but I didn’t like it.

Myrna’s family lived just two doors down from us. Their property hardly had any yard at all. What green space they did have was more woods than yard. Tucked into the wooded area was a little playhouse. The one-room playhouse was the exact same style as the family home—white clapboard with green shutters. I envied that little playhouse. Myrna’s mother told us neighborhood kids that we could play there anytime we wanted. We rarely did because even though we were invited, it still felt like we were trespassing if ever we went into the little house. 

One day, I ventured into the wooded area and wandered into the playhouse. There was a tea table and two child size chairs—not much to spark the imagination of a third grader. Nevertheless, after getting over the notion that I shouldn’t be there, I swept the floor with a broom that had been left in the corner, and talked to my make-believe husband and children. A noise interrupted my play and I looked out one of the windows to see Myrna approaching the door of the little house. My heart began to race with the fear that this definitively Goth teenager might scold me for being there.

She entered the little house and I froze. But she was very nice to me. She asked me what I was doing as she took a seat on one of the small chairs. I told her I was pretending to clean up the house while my husband mowed the lawn and my children played in the yard.

“Oh,” she said, “you have a husband?” I was delighted that she seemed to easily join my make-believe world. It was something Brenda would have done. The notion that Myrna was doing it, too, was exciting. Maybe Myrna wasn’t such a bad babysitter afterall, I thought. 

Myrna then said she’d pretend to be my husband and said things like, “I’ll do that, dear, you’ve had a hard day,” and “I think the children are ready for bed, don’t you?” We went about tucking in our children for the night and then sat down at the tea table with our pretend dinner. She said, “This is delicious, how ever did you manage it with all the other chores you’ve done today?” We then laughed and giggled knowing we were just being silly.

After our dinner, we washed the dishes and put them away in imaginary cupboards. Myrna then said, “Well, darling, I think it’s about time for bed, don’t you?” I agreed that it probably was. “Here,” she said as she pulled one of the chairs to the middle of the one-room house, “I think you need to be just a little bit taller.” She instructed me to stand on the chair. Doing so made me just tall enough to be face-to-face with her. “Husbands and wives kiss before they go to bed, don’t they?” I agreed that they did. 

Myrna then pressed in close to me. She put her hands on either side of my head so I couldn’t move around much. She then pressed her lips hard against mine. My eyes widened not knowing what was going on. Her eyes were closed and she breathed heavily against my cheek. She kept pressing and pressing and breathing heavily. I could smell that smell I didn’t like, and I got scared, but didn’t know what to do.

When she released me, I could see beads of sweat on her upper lip. “Let’s do it again,” she said. Without giving me a moment to think, she grabbed my head again, almost tumbling me back off the chair, and pressed her lips hard against mine again. I held my breath the second time because I didn’t want to smell her. The smell of her was making me sick. 

Just at the moment when I thought Myrna was going to kiss me a third time, I heard my mother calling and ringing the bell she used to indicate it was time to come home. “I gotta go,” I said hurriedly as I stepped down off the chair and scurried out the door. I ran through the woods and down the street to my house. 

I never told my parents about what had happened, and miraculously Myrna never babysat us again. If Brenda was busy, Mom and Dad called Cathy. But I don’t think it was because they knew anything. I think they, too, didn’t really like Myrna. Maybe she smelled funny to them, too. In any case, I was only eight years old, and she was sixteen.  

It would be decades before I realized I had actually been assaulted and violated. And decades more before I got the courage to write this story down.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2021

An Accidental Gift

My name was Ruth. I lived to be 94 years old, and I took a secret to my grave—a secret I'm going to now tell you.

Father could swear with the best of them, but not in front of us children. He avoided our mother’s chastising scowl whenever possible. But when he would yell, “Old Man Kinney is a son of a bitch!” Mother let him get away with it because she thought so, too.

The Kinneys owned the 200-acre farm upon which we lived and worked. We owned the livestock, which included dairy cows, horses, pigs, and chickens, and we owned the machines and equipment. But the Kinneys owned our house, and our tobacco barns and other buildings, including our silo. In Rock County, Wisconsin, the Kinneys owned just about every farm’s land and buildings. 

The Kinneys had settled on the Rock River during Territory times. Their ancestors had fought in the Black Hawk War of 1832, three generations in the past by the time I was born at the end of 1918. By that time, the Kinneys owned over 10,000 acres and were the wealthiest people this side of six counties. And they made sure everyone knew these things about them.

On those days when Old Man Kinney would come to collect the rent, Father would put on his Sunday clothes in preparation for the visit. Mother would make tea and her county fair award-winning pie crust with a seasonally befitting filling. Old Man Kinney would sit in the parlor  in Father’s best chair, drink our tea, eat our pie, and then say, “Welp! Best be gettin’ on to the next farm.” He’d stand and hold his hand out, not to shake Father’s hand but expecting the envelope full of rent money to be placed in it. He’d then stand there and count it like he thought he might get cheated or something.

After he left, Mother would straighten up the parlor, and wash the dishes all the while clicking her tongue to keep herself from succumbing to the urge to swear like Father.

All us girls at Milton Academy knew who Calvin Kinney was—we’d seen him from afar plenty of times. Old Man Kinney’s oldest son was tall and handsome. He wore bespoke suits and fashionable hats. I always thought he looked like Errol Flynn, but my sisters thought he looked more like Clark Gable. When the announcement of Calvin’s engagement to Margaret Goodrich appeared in the Janesville Gazette in early 1938, you could almost hear the sound of hearts breaking. 

The Goodriches were the second wealthiest family in the county. Margaret Goodrich was considered the most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen. But, my sister, Irene, bragged, “Ruth is far more beautiful than Margaret.” I didn’t feel quite right about agreeing with her, but I sort of thought so, too.

It’s not that I thought I could steal Calvin away from Margaret or anything like that, but that same year of 1938, I finally actually met him while working as a receptionist at the Janesville Assembly Plant where they made the Chevrolet Master—a beaut of a car. Calvin was a line manager, which meant he never got his hands dirty. Old Man Kinney had made the connection for him through Margaret’s father, who had the tire contract for the Master. 

The 5:00 PM shift whistle had just blown, so I unlocked the drawer where I kept my purse and gloves to get ready to leave for the day. Before I had a chance to put my coat on, however, a call came through on the switchboard. I stuck my headphones back on and reached over to the board to answer. At the same time, Calvin Kinney walked into the reception area. 

“Janesville Assembly Plant, how may I direct your call?” I said. 

My brother, Art, said, “Hey, Sis, can you get a ride home with anyone? Or maybe stay in town for a bit?”  I must have frowned because Calvin, too, got a frown of concern on his face as he listened in on my side of the conversation.

“Uh, sure,” I said as my eyes met Calvin’s and we proceeded to stare at one another.

Art asked, “You got a nickel?”

“Yes,” I answered.

Art said, “There’s a payphone in Woolworth’s. You could go there and just give me a call in about an hour if you still haven’t found a ride home?”

I agreed without asking him what the problem was. He wouldn’t have told me anyway. When I unplugged the cord, apparently still looking worried, Calvin asked, “What’s the problem?”

I said, “My brother usually picks me up from work, but something has come up and he’s asked me to try and find another way home.”

“I can take you,” Calvin offered without even knowing who I was or where I lived. Or so I thought. “You’re one of the Anderson girls out near Lima Center, right? One of my Dad’s properties?”

It irked me to hear him say this as if the Anderson girls were his Dad’s property. Something sassy came to mind but I was never good at being rude, even when the occasion might warrant rudeness. I answered, “Yes, that’s right. I’m Ruth.”

“Yes, Ruth, I thought that was your name.” He continued to look at me—a bit too hungrily for someone who was engaged to Margaret Goodrich—but I ignored the look because I needed a ride. “So, may I drive you?” he asked again.

I picked up my purse, gloves, and coat and said, “Yes, that would be very nice.” I might have blushed as I suddenly felt a bit warm.

Calvin directed me to come with him to his office so he could get his coat, Fedora, driving gloves, and the keys to his car. He helped me with my coat, and, putting a slight pressure on the small of my back, guided me out the door to the dark parking lot.

“Do you have any pressing need to get right home?” he asked. I told him I didn’t but that if I wasn’t home within an hour my brother would be expecting me to call him from the Woolworth’s payphone. Calvin then asked, “Have you ever eaten Chinese food?” I didn’t even know what Chinese food was so I told him so and he smiled at me with the most beautifully straightened teeth I’d ever seen. “We’ll stop at Woolworth’s so you can call your brother to tell him you’re going to get something to eat with a friend who is also going to drive you home. Will your brother want to know who your friend is?” he asked looking just like Errol Flynn when he gave his most sardonic smile to Olivia de Havilland in Captain Blood. I nearly swooned in wide-eyed response but told him I didn’t think he’d ask. “Good,” he said as he tucked my arm in his and walked me out to his car.

His maroon 1938 Chevrolet Master must have been fresh off the assembly line because the moon was perfectly reflected in its paint. The air was cold. We could see our breath even after settling into the cushiony bench seat of the car. Woolworth’s was only a few blocks away. I jumped out of the car, made my phone call—Art did not ask who my friend was—and Calvin drove us to the Cozy Inn Chinese Restaurant.

He ordered for us both. “Egg Roll, WonTon Soup, Beef Chop Suey, Chicken Chow Mein, Shrimp Egg Foo Young, and Pork Fried Rice.” I thought it sounded like an enormous amount of food. He turned to me and asked, “Wine or beer?” I’d only ever had beer, but knowing wine to be a more sophisticated choice, I said wine. “White or red?” Red, I said with no notion as to what I was doing. “And two glasses of red wine,” Calvin told the waiter.

By the time we left the restaurant, we had spent two glorious hours talking about all manner of subjects. Most boys I’d been around, especially my brothers, made me feel like I wasn’t very smart, even though I always had gotten good grades in school. Calvin, on the other hand, seemed to hang on every word I said. It was pretty exhilarating. The wine might have helped. Not sure how many glasses he had drunk, but the two I had were definitely fogging up my head. I felt giddy and special.

“Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?” Calvin asked me after we got back into the car. I turned my gloved hands over and over in my lap and whispered no. “Well, you are,” he said as he turned the key and gave the car gas. 

He headed out of town on East Milwaukee toward the County Road, which was the long way to the farm. I felt a little shy about asking but said, “Why are you taking the long way?” 

Calvin said, “I’m going to open her up and show you what this baby can do.” I had no idea what he meant by that and it scared me a little. Calvin then started to tell me all sorts of things about the car: what its top speed was, what its range was, how much gas it held, how much horsepower it had. He explained what horsepower meant, and what a transmission was. When he made the turn onto the County Road, he said, “Are you ready?”

I looked at him and said, “I guess so,” but I did not know what I should be ready for. Calvin pushed hard on the accelerator. I was involuntarily pressed back into the seat. The old stalks from last year’s corn crops, covered in last week’s snow, whizzed by on both sides of the road. “Wow!” I shouted above the roar of the engine.

“It’s great, isn’t it?” Calvin asked, turning to see the look on my face. We smiled at each other. The turn for North Taran was ahead and approaching fast. The headlights of the Master illuminated more of the old stalks of corn. I pushed my hand against the dash because it didn’t seem like Calvin would be able to make the turn, but he pressed hard on the brake. The car screeched around the corner and my body slid toward him on the seat. My head touched his shoulder before I was able to right myself. He moved his foot back over to the accelerator and pressed down, which made my body surge backwards again. “I told you it was an amazing car,” he shouted with a euphoric edge to his voice. A few moments later he said, “Yes! Sixty-five miles per hour!” He was fixated on the road, his eyes wild with joy. My heart was racing in tune with the engine as I imagined the cylinders he had described pumping up and down. Yes, it was thrilling, but I was now scared. The wine, which had given me such a mellow feeling only minutes before, seemed to suddenly evaporate. My head cleared and I could see by the look on his face that Calvin was not thinking straight.

“Calvin, please slow down,” I said. He ignored me. The turn for US 59 was just ahead and coming on much faster than the last turn. Calvin wasn’t moving his foot over to the brake. “Calvin, please!” I begged. And that’s the last thing I remember of being in the Chevrolet Master. 

By the time I awoke, ten days had passed. 

My eyes fluttered open to the blurred sight of my sisters, Irene and Bea, standing on either side of me. I looked from one to the other, blinking away the fuzz. 

“Ruth, Honey?” Irene said, staring down at me. Bea squeezed my hand and I turned to look at her. 

I concentrated hard, forcing my eyes to come into focus. “What happened?” I asked. 

Over the next hour, so many things happened I can hardly recall it all. I was asked a bunch of questions like the date, the year, the president’s name, my address, my age, my birth date, my full name, and what was the last thing I remembered. Several different doctors came in. One tested my vision, another my hearing, one examined my head, and the last one explained why my leg was elevated and hanging from a contraption attached to the ceiling of my hospital room.

Mother and Father arrived looking more stern than relieved to see that I had regained consciousness. Mother placed her hand on my forehead and ran her thumb across the 27 stitches just below my shaved hairline. “It’ll grow back, you’ll see,” she said with a hint of tenderness in her voice. 

Nodding his chin toward my leg, Father said, “You’ll have to stay here until you’re able to use crutches. Doctor thinks that should be in another two weeks.”

 “Two weeks,” I whined.

“Look girl, you’re lucky to be alive,” he said as the creases in his forehead deepened into a scowl. He wasn’t angry. Anger was a familiar emotion for Father, and we all knew it when we saw it, though I have to add that we girls were never on the receiving end of it. No, it wasn’t anger, it was something I didn’t recognize.

During my convalescence, one or more of my sisters came to visit me every day. Mother came twice each week, and each of my brothers came once. Father didn’t come back after that first time. The land didn’t need much attention in winter, but the livestock did. Winter was also the time for preparing and fixing all the machines and equipment, which is what kept all the menfolk in our family too busy for more trips into Janesville to see me.

A few days before I was going to go home, my oldest brother’s wife, Maxine, came to visit. She worked full-time at the Ford garage in Edgerton. She and Marv had a six-year-old son and she apologized for not being able to visit sooner. Mac, as we called her, sat down next to my bed and took my hand in hers. “What in the hell happened?” she asked. I smiled because Mac didn’t think a thing about adding a swear word here and there to pepper her vocabulary.

I told her everything I could remember up to the moment when I couldn’t remember anything else. “Do you know what happened after that?” I asked her. She explained that what Marv had told her was that Kinney had missed the turn on US 59 and run the car straight into the Jansen’s cornfield. 

Maxine said, “Your head hit the dash, which is where you got that big gash, and then when the car finally came to a stop some 20 rows into the field, your whole body must have slid forward because they found you all crumpled up under the glove compartment in the area where your feet are supposed to be.” 

I was sure glad I couldn’t remember any of that. “Is Calvin okay?” I ventured to ask.

“Bumps, bruises, a broken hand, I think,” she said. She then looked over her shoulder to check to make sure no one else was coming into the room, and leaned in closer, lowering her voice. “He and Margaret Goodrich have moved their wedding up to next Saturday. They say it’s because with a scare like this accident, Margaret wanted to marry as soon as possible so she could be the one to take care of him.” Still leaning in close, Mac turned to look behind her again before she added, “The story is that he was in the car alone.” She waited while that sunk in for a moment and then continued, “He says that he must have hit a patch of ice just before the turn, which is why he slid off the road into the field.” Mac then sat back into her chair and waited. She tilted her head to the left, and waited. She tilted her head to the right, and waited. “Well, what do you have to say about that?” she asked with an urgency creeping into her voice.

It suddenly occurred to me that I’d better keep my mouth shut until I had a chance to talk to Father. Remembering how he had behaved when he came to visit me, I knew something was going on. So I let Mac wait and said nothing.

“Well, I understand if you don’t want to say anything,” she finally said in a contrite tone because she knew she’d been prying.

Father was the one to come pick me up when I was released from the hospital. He came alone, which was unusual in itself. He was very solicitous of me, another clue that something unusual was afoot. After he helped me into the front seat of the farm truck, he reached into a canvas bag lying on the bed of the truck and pulled out two goose down pillows. He then used these to pad around my leg to keep it from jostling around too much. I stared straight ahead out the windshield not wanting to make eye contact with him. Something was definitely up.

He took the same route out of town that Calvin had taken—the long way home. “This is the way he went that night isn’t it?” I nodded but still kept my eyes on the road ahead. A few tense minutes ticked by and then Father said, “I’m going to tell you something, Ruth, and then you’re going to know something that no one else but me and your mother knows. Even if your brothers suspect, and I don’t think they do, they don’t know any of what I’m about to say.” As he made the turn onto North Taran—I remembered how my head had bumped against Calvin’s shoulder. Father looked over at me and I met his gaze. “And you’re never going to tell anyone what you know, understand?” I nodded my head yes. 

Father explained that the Kinneys wanted to cover up the fact that Calvin had been galavanting around with another girl the night of the accident. If Margaret’s father ever got wind of such a thing, he would never let Margaret marry “that good for nothing son of a bitch,” Father said. “Old Man Kinney thought I’d just quietly obey his wishes seein’ as he practically owns our family. But I told him that his son had nearly killed my girl, and if he thought I was going to be quiet about it, he was sorely mistaken.” 

Father slowed down at the turn for US 59 and pulled over to the side of the road. “See that swath of mowed down corn stalks?” I nodded again. “I thought you was dead,” Father said. Tears welled up in his eyes and I felt my bottom lip start to quiver. “But everything’s all going to be just fine,” he said, letting out a big sigh. “When Old Man Kinney asked me what it would take, I knew I better go big or go home. He stood to lose a lot more than I did with his plans for merging those two fancy empires together through that marriage.” 

Father looked over his left shoulder and pulled back onto the road, signaled, and turned right on US 59. “So I told him he could deed the land and buildings over to me and that would be the last he or anyone else ever heard from me or my kin on the matter.” I turned my head and stared at my father. “That’s right, Ruth. We are landowners now. All because that stupid Kinney boy couldn’t take his eyes off my beautiful daughter, got drunk, and ran a perfectly fine car into a god damn cornfield.”

We were silent the rest of the way back to the farm. Father parked the truck on the side of the barn in its usual place. He got out and came around to my side to help me out. He made sure my crutches were properly placed under my armpits. But, before taking even one step I asked, “Why did you tell me?” 

Father looked down at the frozen dirt driveway for a moment before bringing his head back up to meet my eyes. I could tell he was struggling to find the right words. I expected him to tell me it was none of my business and all I needed to know was that I wasn’t to speak a word about it but, instead, he said, “As terrible as this has been, worrying for days about whether you would ever wake up, wondering...if you did...whether you’d be able to walk, talk, or have a notion of any kind still left in your head...you’ve given your family a great gift. We own this land, Ruth. It’s a legacy Mother and I will be able to pass on to Art, Bob, and Harold. Being able to do that is something I wanted you to know about, and feel proud about, even though it’ll always just be between the three of us.”

I did feel proud. Father put his arm around my waist to help steady me as I maneuvered the crutches to move forward toward the house. I suddenly thought of something. It didn’t even occur to me to ask about why us girls weren’t included in that legacy. Women just weren’t in those days. They didn’t inherit. They were expected to marry. But I did wonder about my other brother. “Why isn’t Marv included in the legacy?”

Father was matter-of-fact. “Marv chose a town life. He no longer lives on the farm.”

Usually I wouldn’t question my father’s way of thinking, but I was feeling imbued with a small bit of power so I pressed him. “But, he still works the farm all the time.”

Gruffly, Father said, “He chose a town life, Ruth. That’s all there is to it. And no one is going to know about the legacy until the day I die, ’ya here?” I knew better than to pursue the topic any further. I knew that by the time Father passed, this accident would be so far in the past that no one would put two and two together even though the date would be right there on the deed. 

After Father and Mother were gone, and for the rest of my days, I had to listen to my brothers mythologize about how Father had saved and saved and eventually had purchased the farm. And I had to listen to my sister-in-law, Maxine, grouse about how much work she and Marv, and later my nephew, Lennie, had put into the farm “without so much as a small token of appreciation.”

Calvin and Margaret were always appearing in the newspaper for one thing or another. If it wasn’t the birth of another child, it was a ribbon cutting for something or other. Once Calvin was serving in the Wisconsin State Assembly, articles about him even ran in the Chicago Tribune. I saw Calvin just one time in the years after the accident. It was in 1947 when I traveled back home with my two-year-old daughter for Mother’s funeral. We were waiting for Father to pick us up at the train station when I saw Calvin come out of the First National. I know he saw me. I almost waved. But he thrust his chin higher and hurried off without acknowledging me at all.

My name was Ruth. I lived to be 94 years old, and I took a secret to my grave.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2021