TARNISHED TIARAS

THEME: RUMORS
Rumors generally grow deformed as they travel. ~ Edward Counsel

Ah, what fools we were, Ed and I, when raising our daughter Katie.  We can hear them whispering.  "Ellie and Ed didn't give Katie what every little girl should have - that all-important, rise-to-stardom opportunity."  And they’re right.  We didn't.  Shame on us. 

Because of our neglect, Katie missed out.  So determined to raise our child on good old-fashioned values, we neglected to provide that one life experience that would have sent Katie straight to fame. Little girl beauty pageants.  How could we have been so remiss?

And because of our selfishness, Katie now doesn't have a houseful of pageant nostalgia - the gowns, the ribbons, the awards, the trophies, the tiaras - to touch and pet and pine over - reminding her of those golden moments in the limelight.  And because her home is bereft of the icons of eminence, she has nothing to show her own little girl, who, at twenty-two months, is ripe for the pageant world. 

So - if we could do it over . . .

 . . .  we'd move to the South, where the good pageants are held - where pageant moms have an over abundance of beauty-contest enthusiasm and the morphologies of Pillsbury Doughboys.  We'd buy a house with shelving for pageant paraphernalia and plenty of room for prancing around in Las Vegas showgirl outfits.  We'd over-spend on contest necessities and cut back on non-essentials, like food, clothing, and the mortgage.  We'd keep cases of caffeinated beverages on hand for when Katie got the droops during late night rehearsals, and we'd bribe her with toys and MacDonald's when she refused to swish the boa across her butt.

I'd start right off calling Katie 'Princess' and 'Perfect Preciousness' and 'Sweet Cinderella' to raise her expectations of the general public.  She'd learn that she was the best, the prettiest, the cutest of all the contestants – far superior in all categories.  She'd learn to love being in beauty pageants as much as I loved sticking her in them.  And regardless of long car rides, musty motels, lethargy, and sitting for hours in itchy starched crinoline, she wouldn't cry.  I'd scold her  - in front of people - if she did, 'cause "Queens don't have meltdowns, Missy."

I’d enter Katie in contests as early as, say, two weeks old.  She’d wear something expensive, something beyond my budget, something over-the-top - perhaps a pink polyester flouncy tutu with sequins and baubles – something that stuck out - a layered shelf of petrified mesh.  She'd have pink striped leggings with sparkles and matching socks with treads.  I'd strap a papoose board to her back, making it look like she could hold her head up even though she was still wrinkle-red from a nine-month bath.  Talent?  No sweat.  Head Flopping.  Performing would be a cinch - just remove the board.

As she got older, I’d hire a pricy pageant coach so Katie would get the best of instruction in how to tilt her head and put on those Wow!  facial expressions – wide, batting eyes and plastic smile.

A professional make-up artist would transform Katie from natural child to tart – skin-toned cream to hide facial discolorations, pink cheek powder for the big-girl look, tomato red lipstick for the pouty look, black eyeliner painted to a cat-point just above the outside corner of each eye, neon confetti eye shadow that shimmered under the lights, and false eyelashes, thick and caked with mascara.

A hairstylist from some hoedown would tease Katie's hair and stick in curly, bleach-blond extensions, making Katie's head look like a yellow poodle sat there.  Katie would cry and whine, “That hurts.  You’re pulling my hair."

I’d tuck my spandex tank-top back under the belly pounds I’d put on special, and say, “Shucks, sweetie, y’all wanna to luk nahse for the jedges now, don-ja?  So shuddup and quit yer squeelin.” I'd talk like that because I'd want to fit in, being in the south and all.

She’d stand in the shower in her underpants and scream and cover her face with her hands while I spray-tanned her whole body orange-brown.  I'd say, "Hold steel, now.  Yer gonna git tha goo in yer ayes, iffin ya move 'roun."  And while the tan glop dried, Katie would walk like a pig farmer in manure so her thighs wouldn’t scrape together and mess up the layer of sticky fakeness between her legs. 

We’d practice her routine.

“Now swing your hips, baby girl – thas righ’ – now tear off yer skirt, yeah - toss it ta here!  Lookin’ guud!  Swish yer’ bitty butt!  One! Two! Tharee! Fouh!  Woo hoo! Y’all got it goin’ on!” 

And when she was called to the stage, Katie would be a darling in her strapless yellow puffy dress, lacy ankle socks, white Mary Janes, and coiffed up do with fake diamond fascinators clipped above each ear.  And she’d sway and slither and sashay across the stage with cutest damn frozen smile you ever saw, showing off those perfect white, flipper teeth,  throwing kisses and making eye contact with each judge simultaneously.

Then we'd sit in the hotel lobby and wait for the judges to announce the winners.  I'd munch on a couple of Paydays and Katie would finish off the last Mountain Dew. 

Katie would say, "Did I do good, Mama?" 

And I'd answer, "Coulda done betta, Suga' Pops.  Yer smyle was a tad stupid lookin'."  I'd shake my head in disappointment and sigh, "Cain't do nothin' bout it now.  S'all up ta them jedges."

Of course, Katie would win something.  Maybe not the High Supreme Queen or the Supreme Queen or even the Queen.  But she'd get a tiara and a trophy the size of church steeple and a stuffed animal.

Once in the car, I'd chew on another Payday and look in the rear view mirror.  Katie would be falling asleep, holding tight to her stuffed animal, streaks of mascara flowing down her cheeks. 

"Oops," I'd say, "Gotta git y'all may-kup remover."

I'd pick a peanut out of my teeth and turn onto the main highway.

"Ya know," I'd shout into the back, "y'all gotta work harder iffen ya wanna win." I'd pause and wait, but there'd be no answer.  

"Maybe next time, Honey Bee," I'd say to the road. "Maybe next time."

EVS 03/11

SWITCHING CHANNELS

THEME: FIGHTS
It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog.
~ Mark Twain

Sometimes my husband speaks from brain quarks. The other day, as we drove past the hideous concrete landscape of strip malls, auto dealerships, and fast food restaurants, Ed said something unintelligible to me in a nasally, Mr. Peavey voice. I thought he was referring to the ugliness.

“Huh?”

I expected him to say something funny about obese alley – those side-by-side hip packers: Taco Bell, McDonald’s, and Burger King, our personal favorite for veggie burgers and crispy chicken sandwiches. 

"I'm channeling Harrison Ford," he said.

I took a beat to reconnoiter. "Yeah, right,” I said. “Harrison Ford. A dweeb."

"No, really.  In BLADE RUNNER.  He talked like a weenie to get information from the snake lady - like this . . ." Ed squeezed his face into a prune. "Have you felt yourself to be exploited in any way? - Don't you remember?"

I didn't.

Then Ed asked, "Do you ever channel anyone?"

I thought about how I often I become our daughter Katie, especially when I'm excited - or mad.

"Katie," I said. "I feel like Katie sometimes. I hear her voice when I say stuff."

I smiled. Katie and me. One entity. I liked that.

"And then there's my mother. I feel like my mother - a lot - too much. I see her in the mirror - with that mouth and - Oh, God - I can't talk about it."

I looked at my hands, my arms – at my mother's knuckle-wrinkles, her undefined wrists, her dry skin and age spots. I yanked at my sleeves and recoiled, cringing at the likeness. I wondered if Katie felt that way.

"So," Ed said. "It's okay to channel Katie. It's not okay to channel - or resemble - or be – your mother? Ever write about that?"

***

Our grown daughter, Katie, an only child, and I have a remarkable relationship. At least, I think we do. According to Katie, we do. Ed and I live in the Chicago suburbs. Katie lives with her family in California. We see each other a few times a year, but our regular connection is by phone. She tells me, in great detail, about her life, and I tell her about mine. We give and get the truth – straight from the heart. Advice and all. "Mom - you're retired. You're supposed to relax and enjoy life now. You work too much on your projects. You need balance." Or "Katie –meeting someone in a parking lot? Some seller you found on Craig’s List? Someone in a white Cadillac? To buy an ersatz Louis Vuitton purse? You who locks her doors to ward off serial Killers? Hello!”

We joke, we laugh, we cry, and we compare notes about terrible, guilty pleasure TV shows - shows like "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" and "The Bachelor." Don't you think Camille is manipulative? Michelle is such a snake. Will Brad be sorry he chose Emily?

When Katie was a baby, I smothered her in kisses and hugs. "You can never spoil a child with too much love," a wise woman told me when Katie was little. I cemented that in my heart and gave Katie enough love to cover the planet.

Ed and I encouraged Katie to tell us what was on her mind - regardless of the discomfort it might trigger. We didn't censor her emotions, her thinking, or her reading material. When she was ten the book Coma was on our dining room table. I had read the first two pages and refused to continue. Katie picked up the book and walked toward her room. "I don't think you'll want to read that," I said.

"I can read it," she said to the cover. "I can read anything." And she disappeared down the hall. Ten minutes later she stormed into the dining room and heaved the paperback. It skidded across the table, plowing my grade book, pen, and first period essays onto the floor. "That's disgusting!" she said and plopped into a chair.

If readers remember, Coma is about an intensive care facility with brain dead patients suspended on wires from the ceiling. These "samples" are kept alive and healthy until there's a need for vital organs, which are surgically removed and then sold on the black market. I believe the first two pages of the book details one such surgical removal - not good reading for a kid, I wouldn't think. But the incident instigated a bunch of questions about blood, guts, comas – and the black market.

Through Katie's adolescent years, our patterns of communication paralled a yo-yo in motion. Katie continued to say what was on her mind: "I don't want to talk about it" followed "You know, Mom, there was drinking at that party."

Ed and I continued to guide her journey to responsible independence: "You need an adult driver to take you to the rock concert"  followed  "No, Barry can’t take you – he just got his learner’s permit."

Ed and I trailed at her heels with ready support as Katie leapt—then faltered, then jolted, then graciously cruised—into adulthood. 

I feel energized and comfortable when I channel Katie.

***

My mom was our small town’s delight. Everybody loved Norma Volckmann. A pro-active woman. A natural at everything – cooking, golfing, playing bridge, ice skating, knitting. Mom took meals to the needy, made better-than-best chocolate chip cookies and devil’s food cake, wrote clever ditties for celebrations, headed committees, and directed the church choir. Mom returned to college in her fifties and received her teacher’s certificate in special education, which she then taught with humor and grace.

What better mother could one have?

It probably happened in many households during my generation. Moms and daughters not very close. My mom’s lack of affection toward me probably came from her own upbringing. “Nobody ever showed affection or said I love you in my house when I was growing up,” Mom said once. "It just wasn't done in my day." She sighed. "We laughed a lot, though."

They did laugh a lot. My mother’s family of eight sat around the dinner table and gabbed and laughed until someone decided to cover the pie and do the dishes. They say laughter is the best medicine, but Aunt Bebe ended up with stomach ulcers, Uncle Charlie ended up with never-ending hiccups, Uncle Tuey ended up with an early heart attack, and my mother ended up with my father.

When my dad came to the house to date my mom, he'd sit in the living room and wait until Mom was ready. Dad didn't join in the table banter. “He was too shy,” Mom said. “An only child.”

Whole-hearted laughing didn't follow my mom into the home she made with my dad. Probably because of my father, who got nervous when people hung around the dinner table gabbing and laughing. He sat at the head of the table waiting for that part of the conversation when the laughing stopped and the arguing began. It was the potential arguing that made him nervous.

When I was a kid, we ate a dessert of surface humor – pie a la sterile punch line. Humor of least resistance. Nothing of significance discussed. World affairs? Intimacy? Religion? Off the table. Not allowed.

By the time I knew her, my mother used laughter to wash away anxiety. And she sighed - at everything. I suppose my mother had the nails knocked out of her when she made a home and family with my father. Instead of being a whole-hearted, easy laugher, my mother morphed into a sigher. She sighed at everything. She sighed when I asked for new shoes, she sighed when Dad brought in the zucchini from the garden, and she sighed when she looked out the kitchen window and watched the grass grow.

I avoided being anywhere, at the same time as my mother. Close proximity to my mother made me tense and self-conscious. I might have to talk to her, and talking to Mom made me feel agitated and awkward, as if my clothes were on backwards. Mom asked me questions – putting me on the spot about my friendships, or asking if I liked any of the nice boys. Always that word. Nice. It gave me the creeps. And then Mom would suggest that I phone my nice friends. “Why don’t you call your nice friends and see if they’ll come over?” Especially Danny Smithfield. “Now, there’s a nice boy,” she'd say, “Why don’t you phone Danny Smithfield?” making me uncomfortable and itchy. “Why, when I was your age, I had lots of boyfriends.”

If Mom had developed a closeness with me before I could walk or talk, then maybe I would have been more receptive to these heart-to-hearts. When we were together, like at church, or at the store, and ran into someone who played bridge with Mom, someone I didn't know, my mother made it look like we had a close mother-daughter bond. On one such occasion, Mom put her arm around my shoulders, an action as phony as Ritz Cracker apple pie, and introduced me.

“Agnes, this is my daughter, Eloise. She’s going into ninth grade in September.” Then she patted my arm and looked into my face, and said, like she was trying to impress her friend, “You’re going to really study this year, aren’t you, Eloise? We want you to get into a good college - like Colgate where your brother Dicky goes - well except a girls' college.” Then Mom turned back to Agnes and said, as if she were a martyr and I were a deaf mute, “She’s turning thirteen in November; she’s one of the youngest in her grade," she looked at me and tilted her head, ". . . and, well, sometimes it’s hard for her to keep up." She wiggled my shoulders. "Isn’t it now, Eloise?”

If shrinking into the woodwork had been possible, I would have disappeared altogether, slipping into nothingness, in order to escape the nods of sympathy and understanding for the mother of a dolt.

And to make matters worse, I always felt as though I were getting the short end of the proverbial stick, having been called naughty and lazy since I was a little girl. As it was, I endured my mother’s efforts to engage in conversation, but all it did was ratchet up my anxiety to higher levels of discomfort.

In September of 1988, when Mom and Dad celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary, my brothers and I gave them a scrapbook filled with a lifetime of photographs. Mom laughed at the early pictures of her and Dad. She oohhed and aahhed at the pictures of her first son. “There’s Dickie. What a sweet baby,” she said. She looked at Dick and said, “You were such a good little boy.” After several pages she came upon her second child. “Oh, look – it’s Davey.” She looked at Dave. “You had such funny ears. But you were real cute.”

Then, a few pages later, she came across a third baby. She stopped - and stared - and screwed up her face. “Who’s that?”

Everyone laughed. Everyone but me.

Someody said, “That’s Eloise.”

“Eloise? Oh, for heaven’s sake. Eloise?"  She studied the picture and screwed up her face. "She sure was naughty."

When Mom ended up in a nursing home with the onset of Alzheimer's, my brothers and I visited whenever we could. During one visit, while I was out of earshot, Mom told my sister-in-law Carol, that I was a wonderful daughter and, "I don't know what I would have done without her." Nice to know.

I feel stifled and parched when I channel my mother.

***

Ed pulled into Burger King. "I'm in the mood for a veggie burger," said Mr. Peavey aka Harrison Ford aka brain quark.

I laughed. It felt good to be me again. 

EVS - 01/11

SPOT ON

THEME: PAYING ATTENTION
I think the one lesson I have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention. ~ Diane Sawyer

My mother and father-in-law, Mary and Clint Searl, are 94 and 95 years old. They are in such good shape - body, mind, and soul - they could put most teenagers to shame. They'd probably tell you they're getting too old for this or too tired for that, but they have spunk and spirit and drive and a boatload of positive energy – the kind that adds spark to life and makes children giggle.

They tell the stories of their lives, most of which they've told many times, but which I never tire of hearing. Mom, the daughter of Austro-Hungarian parents and the eldest of ten children, growing up on a New Jersey farm. Dad, one of five children, growing up in a New Jersey mill town. They tell their stories, and I ask questions to stretch the details.

Mary and Clint live on Faulk Road in Wilmington, Delaware – close to the Pennsylvania state line - in the same house Dad built in 1950 for $5000. For years, until Delaware and Pennsylvania changed their northern border, Mary and Clint's back yard sat right on the state line - the arc known as the Twelve-Mile Circle - just east of the Mason-Dixon Line. Dad was dismayed when the two states moved their border away from his property line. Dad liked his deed the way it was. "Big part of history," he said. Eventually, and with great reluctance, Dad changed his deed to match the new boundary once he realized the muddle an out-dated deed would create for the executor of his will.

Until a few years ago Mom and Dad kept a lush vegetable garden - corn, squash, lettuce, tomatoes, beans, asparagus, peppers, peas – which were eaten right off the vine or jarred or canned or jellied or stewed or pureed for future home-made dinners. They cultivated their yard with maples and holly trees and elms, many of which Mary planted herself when she found sprigs out on the back roads.

More recently, Mom and Dad find simpler tasks to satisfy their need to be productive. They don't do the outdoor tasks much anymore – they've given up gardening, mowing the lawn, and plowing the snow. But Mom does Cryptic Byword every day and still makes lemon meringue pie. Dad continues his interest in stamp collecting and anything related to history.

My husband, Ed, phones his parents every day. He talks to his mom at great length about anything and everything – recipes, gardening, TV shows, the Pope, pedophile priests, condoms, corrupt politicians, lack of moral standards, and, of course, football and baseball, which Mom follows almost as much as Ed does, especially the Philadelphia Eagles and the Phillies. Then, when his dad gets on the phone, he and Ed discuss mechanical or technical issues – the importance of this engine, that genealogy, or the other form.

I usually don't get involved in these regular phone visits. The other day, however, when Ed was talking to his dad, I heard my name mentioned. When he hung up, Ed said, "Dad sent you something in the mail. He didn't say what it was, but he wants you to call him as soon as you get it."

The something I received highlighted Dad's appreciation for my writing. It was like getting a pat on the back in the mail. The envelope contained a greeting card with a photograph of Mary's garden, taken by my sister-in-law, Natalie Searl. Inside the card was a short note from Dad and a folded yellow legal-sized sheet of paper. The note read: Ellie, I scribbled this for something to do this morning. I figured it would be a good test of your skills in word usage. Dad.

On one side of the legal paper was a pen and ink illustration. On the other side was an accompanying story about Spot– the brown and white Springer Spaniel the family owned when Ed was a kid – and how Spot saved a lady's life one winter day during a terrible blizzard.

I knew the family had a dog when Ed was little, but Ed never told me much about him. I figured either Ed hadn't spent much time with Spot or too many years had diluted the memories. "Do you remember much about Spot?" I asked Ed. "Did you play with him?'

"He was an outside dog," Ed said. "He had his own house. Pretty much all I remember is I had to put him to sleep when he got cancer."

I phoned Dad to find out what he wanted me to do. As I figured, Dad wanted me to write up the story in a fashion that would highlight Spot's tenacity, his quick wittedness, his determination to get Mary's attention so Mrs. Gaynor would get some help. Dad didn't think he had captured the essence of the story in the little he had written. He wanted readers to see and feel the action.

He thought I could take his wording and his illustration and write a story that would zoom in on the dog running back and forth between the lady in the snow pile and the side of the house, stretching the chain, dragging it in the snow, yipping and barking and pointing, trying like mad to get Mary to notice him from her window.

But I think Dad told it quite well. And the precision of his illustration makes it complete.  Here it is in his own words – exactly:

"Spot Saves a Human's Life"

"Spot was a Springer Spaniel hunting dog who lived outside all his life. On this freezing winter day after an 18" snowfall, Mrs. Gaynor, our neighbor, attempted to break a path through the snow on a down-hill slope of over a hundred feet to Mary's back door. She fell and was unable to rise and would have died without Spot's drawing Mary's attention by barking and showing agitation by pointing and leaving chain marks in the snow.

Mary's attention was made to his behavior when he would point to her and then change his path and pointing to where Mrs. Gaynor was lying. Mary decided to go to the basement back door and saw what Spot was barking at, and rescued the victim and saved her life. She would have died before her son would have returned from work eight hours later."

I was thrilled that Dad thought enough of my writing to want me to fashion his story into a tale he thought he couldn't tell. However, if I had rewritten it, it would have become distorted, no longer a vision of Dad's memory, no longer a story straight from his heart that he could relate – with full ownership and authentic emotion - when people gather around the table over Mom's lemon meringue pie.

We all have stories to tell, and they are best told in our own voices. Maybe Dad will be dismayed that I chose not to rewrite the story of Spot's heroic rescue. But I'll bet Dad will be glad when I ask him to tell that story again – in his own words - the next time we visit. And his story will be spot on.

EVS 01/11

THE ESSENTIALS

ENDINGS - If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.
~ Orson Wells

It’s nearing the New Year - time to reconnoiter - time to think about how I’ve lived my life and see if my activities stand up to snuff. What unpleasantness could have been avoided if I’d been a better person? I don’t want to go into 2011 continuing behaviors that screech along the chalkboard.

Usually end-of-year self-scrutinizing comes in the guise of New Year’s Resolutions. However, this year I’ve decided to think of my life in terms of the Seven Deadly Sins. If I’ve fallen into the mire of sin, I'll cleanse my soul and waltz into 2011 with angelic purity.

Note: The sins aren't in the order I found them on the Internet. I alphabetized them. Makes me feel organized.

Anger: A variety of things anger me, and I should let those go as they create stress and might make me sick. But there are two individuals who rile me to distraction. One person is Mark Levin. He’s an evening talk-show host who rails against anything democratic – he's much like Rush Limbaugh, but worse. Mark Levin labels all liberals liars – all of them. I’m a liberal, so I'm a liar. He calls us names, like scumbag, idiot, and dolt. During the presidential campaign, he called Hillary Clinton “Her Thighness.” He referred to Barak Obama as Barak Millhouse Obama, drawing attention to his actual middle name, Hussein, so people would be afraid of him. Whenever a liberal phones Levin’s show, he hangs up on them, saying something like, “You don’t know squat, you moron.” However, he venerates callers who agree with his pro-right opinions. Levin and his cadre of like-minded thinkers seem to take delight in tearing apart the motives of the Left – you know who they are - those liars, those bleeding heart socialists - dangerous Commies who, apparently, have some grand scheme to DESTROY OUR NATION.

When I can’t sleep, I listen to the radio. Occasionally, I switch to Levin’s program to hear what he’s up to, but he agitates me so much I need Alka-Seltzer to realign my stomach.

Then there’s Sarah Palin. Almost everything about her makes me fume, but I became particularly irate when she killed a caribou on her Alaskan TV show. I didn’t see the show, but according to my source, Sarah Palin couldn’t kill the beast right away - she shot several rounds before she hit the mark. Actually, I heard that she gave the rifle to someone else - someone who could shoot straight and kill the poor thing. My research didn't produce evidence of that, so I guess she eventually put the bullet where it belonged all by herself. Then she took the caribou home to her family and showed it off, taking kudos for a good kill.

Sarah Palin insists that killing animals is Alaska’s way of providing food for their families during a winter drought. Makes me wonder how much freezer space Palin set aside for caribou steaks beside her Edy’s Triple Fudge Ice Cream, Ding Dongs, Lean Cuisines, and Green Giant peas.

My vitriol rose again when Palin bought a massive bear rifle so she could protect Kate Gosslin, her eight, Palin’s entourage, the helicopter pilot, and the camera crew from big, bad bears during a tricked-out overnight camping expedition in the cold-drizzle wilderness. “Don’t worry, I’ll save ya,” Ms. Palin sang as Kate shivered under the tarp. I envisioned Palin aiming the shotgun at a charging grizzly before hightailing it out of there, while Kate plus eight and the rest of the troupe high-fived the bear.

Looks like anger will be with me in the coming year. Mark Levin’s mouth and Sarah Palin’s gun-toting run for the presidency won’t be going away any time soon, and I’m not about to change my attitudes concerning either of them.

Envy: I’m envious of people who have nicer or better things than I. And I’ll agree that being envious of having things is harmful to the psyche, causing brain damage. However, I'm envious of all those writers out there who’ve published with the Big Houses. I’ve been writing two novels for a while now. In order to hit the shelves in national book stores, I have to finish one, hire an editor, make revisions, write a proposal, send query letters, find an agent, and land a publisher. Ed, my husband, has accomplished all of this – seven times. Two books and five anthologies. I’m envious of him. I can’t help it.

My writing partners and I self-published two excellent books. Both anthologies; both available on Amazon.com. ( Little Did We Know: Making the Write Impression by Bernadette Adora, Mary Lou Edwards, Carolyn B. Healy, Ellie Searl, 2009; and You Couldn’t Make This Up – Real Stories, Real Life by Ellie Searl, Carolyn B. Healy, Mary Lou Edwards, 2010). I’m proud of these two books (see Pride), and I intend to self-publish more of my writings. But self-publishing, as popular as it has become, isn’t the same as making a name for one’s self with, say, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Random House, or any other house of the “Big Six.”

Self-publishing is the wave of the future. Some well-known authors can’t wait for their contracts with the Big Houses to be up so they can go the self-publishing route. Because, in self-publishing, an author retains control - on-demand printing, fewer gatekeepers, more profit, and specialized distribution. It gives me hope that well-known authors respect the process of self-publishing. However, I suspect I'll have to break into the limelight of authorship before my self-published books go global. In the meantime, I’ll remain envious of those who are – in the limelight. It doesn’t look like I’ll give up envy any time soon.

Gluttony: A tough one. Gluttony can wreck the body, especially the heart. Overeating is stupid, unattractive, even deadly. But I’m a glutton when it comes to champagne and potato chips. Fill a flute with champagne, i.e., sparkling wine- we don’t buy the expensive French stuff - set it next to a bowl of Cape Cod or Tim's or an unrecognizable brand from Aldi, and I’m good to go. Extra dry ersatz champagne pairs well with a crispy, brown, kettle-cooked chip. That’s a Sunday afternoon feast – goes nicely with solving the New York Times crossword puzzle and watching football with Ed.

I'll try to ease off the indulgences, but I won’t give them up entirely. A smidgen of gluttony will go with me into the New Year.

Greed: I don’t want more things – I have enough “stuff.” That kind of greed I can do without. But is wanting more money considered greedy? If so, I’m guilty. Come to think of it, who isn’t? Doesn’t everyone want more money? The housewives of Beverly Hills have more money than God, but even they say they’re not satisfied with “the little” they have.

Why do people enter sweepstakes or buy lottery tickets or spend hours at a Casino? They want more money, that’s why. I’ve done all of those things - I admit it. Entering sweepstakes is the most disappointing, in my opinion. The chances of winning a million dollars a year for life are slim to slimmer. I stopped bothering with sweepstakes after my first entry. I’ve bought lottery tickets, but the most I’ve ever won was enough to buy another lottery ticket. I participated in a group lottery when the winnings were $300+ million. My $5 in the pool brought me nothing. I’ve tried my luck with other contests and I’ve bet on basketball games. I’ve played video poker at a casino.

I’ve allowed greed to lead me down its precarious path, trying my luck with Coke contests, March Madness bets, and slot machines - winning some, losing more, and getting grumpy.

There has to be one thing I can win, somewhere. Will I give up being greedy? Not likely. Who doesn’t want more money?

Lust: Why is lust sitting in list of sins? Lust? A sin? I suppose if you’re a pedophile or a pervert or a dirty old man, then, yes, you’re corrupt, and you should stop it. However, I don’t think that’s what the writer of the Seven Deadly Sins meant. I think Mr. Sin felt guilty about his overwhelming desire to bed women - or men. Perhaps he coveted someone, or several, in his village - the girl in the town square, his sister's husband, his neighbor’s daughter, the men in the field. His sense of perversion led him to label his sexual longing as nasty. And in order to assuage his guilt, he applied this nastiness to everyone for all time. “If you lust after others,” he probably wrote, “you’re a big fat sinner.” He wanted to add, “like me,” but that would have branded him a big fat sinner, and he couldn't have that, being the Decider of Sin and all.

Lust is a natural sensation and everyone experiences it. I challenge anyone to assert that lust hasn’t entered his or her arousal field at least once. I have lust for good-looking men. Take Chris Noth, the actor from “Law and Order,” “Sex and the City,” and his most recent show, “The Good Wife.” Now he’s one hunk. Then there’s George Clooney and my husband Ed. They’re all hunks. I’m glad sex exists. Can’t imagine life without chemistry. Can you?

Pride: This is one I display a regular basis, and I don’t care. I’m proud of many things I do, and I’ll say so in church if I have to. Sure, there are some things I’m ashamed of, but when that happens, I turn the shame around so I can be proud again. I like to hold my head high, and the only way to do that is engage in behaviors that make me proud of myself. What’s the alternative – walk around like a bad dog with my proverbial tail between my legs after I’ve accomplished something? Of course not, and nor should you.

Feeling pride is a gift we give ourselves after accomplishing a goal – any goal. “Good for me,” we say. Remember Minnesota's US Senator Al Franken when he played Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live? He’d look into the mirror and say, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me." It might have been comedy, but it sent the message: It’s okay to be proud.

I’ve received compliments from people who like me and enjoy my work. I even have an award named after me at Gurrie Middle School – the “Ellie Searl Writing Award.” Proud? You bet. I place my accolades into a pride bank I carry in my heart. Sometimes I take out a prideful attitude and wear it on my sleeve. And so should you. Yes, pride is a good thing. It’s staying with me in 2011.

Sloth: I don’t approve of people sitting around in their underwear watching TV until it’s time for supper. But I have to confess that it is 11:17 am on a Tuesday morning, and I’m in my bathrobe working on my computer as I watch TV. I’ve had my coffee and breakfast, I’ve checked my email, I’ve brushed my teeth, and I’m writing this portion of my blog. Now, is that sloth? Or is that attending to the important stuff before moving on to the morning routine, the mundane, the boring, like getting dressed so I can look presentable enough to answer the door without embarrassing my family?

I produce a lot of work - I write, post blogs, format books, design web sites - and because I have a laptop, I can do work anywhere. Most of the time I have music in the background for better concentration. But every now and then, I sit in the living room and turn on TV. And so what? So what if I watch it? So what if one of my favorite shows is “The Price is Right"? I know, most of the advertisements are geared to geezers, with their Hoverounds and Depends and AARP Life Insurance. I like the excitement Drew Cary brings to the show, and I can write while the drivel plays in the background. Is that sloth? Or is that multi-tasking? I sometimes watch “Jeopardy” and “Law and Order” and “Two and a Half Men” while I work. There was a time I thought “Two and a Half Men” was vulgar, and I refused to watch it. But now that I’m not in the business of providing a moral example for seventh graders, I have found the show to be kind of funny. Recently I’ve become hooked on “The Good Wife.” The show is set in Chicago, and stars Chris Noth, who is some hunk (see Lust).

Conclusion:  It appears that I'll start the New Year as I ended this one, savoring anything and everything that fuels my senses. I refuse to flatline my way through 2011. Those so-called deadly sins kindle my spirit. They’re the spark plugs of my soul, giving me energy, enthusiasm, and eagerness to greet the vagaries of life. Cease being angered by ne’er-do-wells? Stop my progress manifested by envy? Ban the enjoyment of sweet and salty? Lose the fantasy of making millions? Thwart my desire for hunks? Quit patting myself on the back? Never lounge in my pj’s? Nuh-uh.

Seven Deadly Sins? They're not deadly, and they're not sins. They're life affirming - and they're essential.

The Seven Essentials. Welcome 2011.

EVS - 12/10

S.M.A.R.T.

BOUNCING BACK - A hard fall means a high bounce . . . if you're made of the right material. ~Unknown

I received my Master's Degree in Guidance and Counseling in 1978 from Youngstown State University. I've never been particularly proud of that - Youngstown not the garden spot of the universe, and the local university not the finest example of scholastic institutions. When a university names its football team The Penguins, something's off kilter. Penguins can't fly, and they can't run. They flap. Football flappers? Not a good image.

Right from the start, I worried about the educational quality of that town. Higher learning I didn't expect. However, Youngstown State was the only school in the vicinity that offered a postgraduate degree in counseling, so I enrolled there a few months after Ed, Katie, and I settled into our apartment and Ed began his ministry at the First Unitarian Church.

I wasn't particularly optimistic for lower learning, either, but I hoped Katie's education wouldn't be a huge disappointment. We had moved from Fayetteville, New York, a suburb of Syracuse, where Katie had attended an excellent school.

While I studied Carl Rogers' Client Centered Therapy and role-played I-messages with fellow students at the university, Katie became ensconced in fourth grade at Harding Elementary School. Her teacher, Miss Miller, was a single woman who lived with her ailing mother, and who, according to Katie, couldn't get married until her mother died.

After a few weeks in her class, it became clear that Miss Miller doled out punishments and rewards according to an emotional pendulum manifested by the ups-and-downs of her mother's medical condition. Every morning, Miss Miller updated her students on her mother's health - skin rashes, knee pains, food allergies, spastic bowels – either to justify her bad mood or to receive commiseration from her class.

Katie gave us a running commentary.

"Miss Miller's mother's pills are giving her fits, so we had to eat lunch without talking."

"Miss Miller’s mother kept down all her supper, so we got two recesses today - with candy.”

"We have to write an essay about Being Appropriate because Miss Miller's mother is constipated."

Ed and I considered scheduling a conference with Miss Miller and put a halt to this dismal intrusion into Katie's education. No child of ten should be subjected to the slow demise of a teacher's parent. We weren't concerned with Katie's school program.  Her homework suggested that the curriculum included the ususal fourth grade material - multiplication, division, US geography, and the weather cycle - that a barometer measured air pressure, "Whatever that is," Katie said.  But we wanted to put the cabash on the personal issues brought into the classroom.

Katie was conflicted.  She didn't mind the stories because they provided a diversion from the tedium of classwork.  But she didn't like the unpredictability of Miss Miller's vacillating temper that accompanied the stories and the melancholy they spewed into the atmosphere.   Regardless of the dilemma, Katie didn't want us to intercede on her behalf.  She said she'd be mortified if we scolded her teacher for talking too much about her mother's ongoing health issues.

"I can handle it," Katie assured us. "I won't let it bother me."

At the end of the first quarter, Miss Miller announced that she refused to give students an 'A' unless they completed Extra Credit.

"A-students demonstrate exceptional effort," she told the class. "A-students submit more work than is required by the curriculum. That's what A-students do. B-students, on the other hand, do only what's required, and that's not good enough."

Katie refused to do extra credit. As far as she was concerned, she deserved her 'A.' Period. She had followed the entire program as it was presented to her - completing homework accurately and on time, acing her tests, participating with enthusiasm, and listening with baited breath to the health updates of Mother Miller.

The extra credit issue made Katie mad. She figured, probably rightly so, that Miss Miller came up with the extra credit idea out of frustration that her mother refused to die. To Katie, extra credit was a devise to lord it over somebody. "She can't bully her mother, so she's bullying us."

"I'm not going to do more work than necessary just so Miss Miller can feel better when she goes home to clean up after her mom," Katie said. "Just 'cause she's got extra work doesn't mean I should."

But Miss Miller stuck to her guns. Until Katie completed an additional project, she would receive a 'B.' Therefore, much to Katie's chagrin, Ed and I scheduled a conference with Miss Miller.

We found her to be polite and gracious. During our discussion, we dropped hints about discontinuing her ceaseless updates on her mother's health.

"Katie is sorry your mother is deathly ill," I said. "She cries a lot," I lied. "Maybe you could hold back a little on the, say, more distressing news."

Because Miss Miller agreed to stop talking so much about her mother, we agreed that Katie would do one extra credit project.

Ed spent the next week helping Katie build a barometer and teaching her what air pressure meant. Katie received an 'A,' and all was well. We think Miss Miller's mother died that summer because she discontinued her Extra Credit requirements the following school year.

Katie's fifth grade teacher recommended Katie for the gifted program after she demonstrated higher than average talent. It was during the parent orientation that Ed and I wrestled with the shortcomings of fifth grade. Ms. Cran, the fifth grade teacher and the leader of S.M.A.R.T. (Students' Minds Are Remarkable Things) announced, "The gifted program here at Harding will focus on essential communicable skills." Ed and I wondered which disease Katie would come home with first.

One of the early assignments of this gifted program was to research a famous person using the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Miss Cran assumed her eleven-year-olds knew how to use the guide - "You're all gifted," she sniffed. "You're supposed know these things." No instruction. No field trip to the school library. Nothing. Ed and I took Katie to the Youngstown library and taught her what to do.

One afternoon, Katie pounded up the stairs and slammed into the apartment. "I'll show her yet. One of these days I'm going to be famous, and then she'll see!"

"Oh, my," I said to Ed. "Let's get out of this town."

In February of Katie's ninth grade year, Ed accepted the position of minister at the Unitarian Church of Hinsdale, and we moved to the suburbs of Chicago. 

Katie attended Lyons Township High School, where she spent four excellent years building a solid foundation for the University of Wisconsin at Madison.   Badger.  Now that's a mascot.  An animal that can run up to 19 miles-per-hour and maintain its hold with utmost tenacity.

 

EVS 11/10

BURNING BRIDGES

OUT OF THE ASHES - It's best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix bird in you so you rise from the ashes. ~ Anne Baxter

Camping became our temporary way of life in June, 1970, when Ed, our almost-two-year-old daughter Katie, and I left our townhouse in Burlington, Vermont, and crossed the border into Canada, thinking we'd never return to the States again. As many readers already know, we had left our country for Canada because we didn't support the war in Vietnam.

We purchased supplies at the Hudson Bay Company in Montreal –green canvas tent, two-burner Coleman stove, three red sleeping bags, plastic dishes, eating and cooking utensils, wrought iron frying pan, two pots, five-gallon water container with a spigot, yellow and white cooler, picnic basket, clear plastic tarp, some rope, and a folding potty with disposable plastic bags that clipped under the seat.

For the next three months, our home was a tent, picnic table, and campfire in a string of campsites through Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and back again to Ontario. Camping with my family in the Quebec Townships and the Eastern Provinces that summer gave me a euphoria I hadn’t expected. The beauty of the Canadian countryside, combined with the joy of finding security in a new land, eased much of the grief I felt about burning bridges with our country, our neighbors, our friends, and our families - especially our families.

No one, aside from my brother Dick, knew we had left the states, and it was beginning to wear on me that I hadn't informed my parents we would live and work in Canada until the US Selective Service overturned its decision to reject Ed’s application for Conscientious Objector status – probably forever. Ed had told his mom and dad soon after we reached Montreal. They were distressed about their son's life-altering decision, but supportive and accepting nonetheless. My parents, on the other hand, would probably not be so generous. My father in particular. He wasn't the accepting type. He followed a strict set of societal conventions - conventions he designed, which included everything he did or did not personally endorse, regardless of the standards held by rest of the world. I figured our blatant act of unpatriotic behavior would push him so far over his acceptability edge, he'd be apoplectic. Ed and I decided it wasn't wise to explain our fugitive actions over the phone; it would be far more prudent to tell my parents face-to-face.

We set up our tent in a downpour on a wooded hillside in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and climbed into the warmth of sleeping bags. We read stories to Katie and listened to the rain pound against the canvas. When Katie fell asleep, Ed and I talked about how and when to tell my parents. It was time. I'd leave the next morning, and I'd take Katie with me so my parents could hold their granddaughter prior to the death knell of future visits to their home.

The rain beat down as Ed helped me pack the car and settle Katie into her seat.

"Be safe," Ed said, and we started the long journey to my hometown - 520 miles of two-lane highways through western New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, across Lake Champlain on the Essex Ferry to Westport, New York. The ten-hour trek in the rain heightened my anxiety. When mountains didn’t interfere with radio reception, music and local programs helped tamp my fears. Would we make it back to Ed safely? Would Katie be okay? Would I need car assistance? And to make the trip more nerve-wracking, my imagination played a continuous tape of the agreed-upon explanation of our decision to leave the US - to make Canada our permanent home.

I envisioned my parents’ overarching disapproval. I conjured up the reproaches, the arguments against our decision, the interrogation: What if you're arrested? Why can't Ed be a medic without arms? What will you do for money? Where will you work? How will you live? When will you come home? When will we see you again? I didn’t have answers to most questions. We could explain our war resistance decisions, but Ed and I hadn’t taken the time to address the issues of future living. Our one-step-at-a-time philosophy had given us enough courage to drive into Canada with the few items that would fit into our Chevy, shop at the Hudson Bay Company for supplies, and drive into the hinterlands of the Eastern Provinces – as though we were tourists on a very long trip.

Katie was a good car traveler. She switched between cooing and sleeping, waking long enough for a jar of chunky chicken and carrots, a couple of Arrowroot crackers, some tepid milk, and one diaper change - potty training not a viable option while using public toilets, camp ground outhouses, and a portable folding john with a disposable plastic bag clipped under its seat.

Our unexpected arrival at 9:00 pm sent my mom and dad into tizzy mode. “Why are you here at this hour?” . . . “What are you doing out in this rainstorm?” . . . “Where’s Ed?” . . . “Want something to eat?"

I put Katie to bed and joined my dad and mom on the kitchen porch. They rocked in their wicker rockers and watched the rain bounce off the porch steps. I sat on a side bench and tried to make small talk. At first, I considered pretending all was well, inventing stories about drives through the Vermont countryside and idyllic picnics on Three Brothers Islands. But I couldn’t bear the suspense. I blurted out my rehearsed anti-war, anti-draft message.

“Last September, Ed decided to become a Unitarian minister," I started. I cleared my throat, not knowing how my parents were about to take the next part of the surprise. "We don't approve of the Vietnam War, so Ed applied for Conscientious Objector status, telling the Selective Service that he intended to be a Unitarian minister. And last week he got a letter from them. They turned him down. Said he was being “expedient – ‘cause he’s a Catholic, and Catholics don't aspire to be Unitarian ministers." My nose ached. I could feel the tears collect. I didn’t want to cry. I wanted to be strong - sure of myself. If I had to answer questions, I wanted to be on top of my game. This was the hardest thing I ever had to tell my parents. "Then Ed got his draft notice," I said.

“Remember three Saturdays ago when you guys invited yourselves to lunch?” I continued. “Well, the day before that, Ed was supposed to report for induction into the draft - we were all packed and ready to leave for Canada. We went the next day instead. We’ve been camping across the Eastern Provinces ever since. Ed’s waiting for us now in Fredericton, New Brunswick - at a campsite.”  I breathed again.  And waited.

Silence.   Mom stopped her chair and looked at her hands. She wiped her eyes. I could hear the continuous splat of raindrops into puddles and Dad’s rockers squeaking over the wooden slats - back and forth, back and forth - like a metronome clicking the beat of expectancy.

Then Dad, who hated defiance, who riled against disrespect and shameful behavior, said, "If I were in your position, I'd do the same thing."

If ever there was ever a moment of glory, that was it - my dad showing unconditional approval of an act of what some called national treason. My heart softened for this man who had, for years, hidden his own heart under a boat-load of reprobation and disparagement.

Mom nodded, then shook her head. "Well," she sighed. "I guess we won't be seeing much of you then." She looked at me. "What about Katie?" She asked, as though Ed and I would send Katie down-stream in a basket while we made a new life on the other side of the border.

"She's fine." I smiled. "She'll be fine." I said, hoping that she would be fine.

As the evening stretched toward midnight, we talked about the possibilities and pitfalls of making a life in a foreign, albeit similar, country. I answered as many questions as I could and marveled at the calm with which my parents accepted the news of our decision and the significant lack of day-to-day strategies to make it a success.

The relief was palpable, turning my trip into an adventure, giving me hope for the future. Katie and I sang songs on the ten-hour ride back to Ed, who, regardless of the rain, would most likely have been enjoying his own adventures hiking through the woods or walking along the back roads of Fredericton. 

We arrived late Sunday evening - tired, relieved that the skies had cleared, and happy to be with Ed again.  Katie saw him first.  She ran to where he was sitting  - on the bench of a picnic table, huddled half-naked inside a sleeping bag.   Aside from walking to the outhouse with a towel wrapped around him, he had stayed the entire gloomy, rainy weekend in the tent - cold, wet, and miserable. Before Katie and I left for the weekend, we had placed a food-laden cooler and the water container into the tent, and the stove and kitchen supplies onto the picnic table, so Ed would have what he needed for at least three days. However, in our haste to get the explanation-party on the road, we had neglected to take his clothes out of the trunk. All of his pants, shirts, and jackets were in the back of the car as it made its way to New York and back. We had left Ed with enough to eat and drink, but nothing to wear save a tee shirt and a pair of red plaid boxer shorts.

Only Ed can tell you how it felt - stranded without clothes, semi-protected by a leaky canvas covering - for three days in the rain. His delight at our return rivaled the elation at finding a six-pack of Genesee and an all-night diner when lost for a month in the desert.

Despite Ed's discomfort, the news of my parents' unconditional acceptance at our decision gave us enough high-octane emotional fuel to continue our journey into the unknown. In September of that year, we became Landed Immigrants of Canada, rented a nice apartment on the Richelieu Canal outside Ottawa, Ontario, and found decent jobs. When we moved to Montreal in 1971, Ed enrolled in theological school at McGill University, I landed a job at Marian Hall, a youth protection home for girls, and Katie learned how to shop in French at the Farmers Market..

In 1973, Ed received a letter from the US Selective Service - he had been placed into the draft lottery system, and because his number wasn't called, he was no longer a candidate for the Draft. Apparently, FBI investigators reported that Ed had begun to study for the ministry - and Senator Patrick Leahy, then Vermont State's Attorney for Chittenden County, Vermont, refused to prosecute.

In the summer of 1976, the bridges rose from their invisible ashes, and we returned to live in the US, where Ed has been a Unitarian Minister ever since.

EVS 10/10

ACROSS THE GENERATIONS

CORRUPTION - Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

FAIRLAWN CEMETERY

Located in the Town of Prattsville, NY, on the left had side of the road on Rte. 23, about one mile past the bridge heading towards Grand Gorge. This cemetery is active and is in excellent condition.

Section 4, Plot 84

Louise A.K. Volckmann, b. 1884, d. 1957

Frederick P. Volckmann, b. 1883, d. 1968

I don’t remember much about my grandmother, other than she was very generous, sweet, and loving, and she adored my father, her only child. Her home smelled like violets and her lemon sponge cakes seemed to rise a foot off the plate. She married my grandfather in 1907 when she was 23 years old, and my dad, born in 1912, became a new love in her life. Her husband, my grandfather, spent the remainder of their marriage resenting that he would have to share his wife's attention with his son.

Grandma died of a massive stroke in the summer of 1957, a few days after her fiftieth wedding anniversary. A Volckmann family reunion combined with a golden anniversary party had been scheduled, so family members, already planning to attend, gathered at my grandfather’s house in Prattsville, NY, and rather than salute fifty years of marriage, they mourned the death of my grandmother.

Grandpa cried and handed out the monogrammed gold pens - party favors designed for the anniversary – now sad mementos of death. Grandma was laid out in the living room beside the grand piano, which my grandma promised to Dick after she and Grandpa died. The grandfather clock, promised to me, ticked in the silence. Friends and relatives sat around the edges of the room on silk-covered Victorian chairs, whispering about Fred and whether or not he would be able to carry on without Louise. My brothers, cousins, and I had to eat in the kitchen so we wouldn’t bother anybody. Grandpa sat in the corner of the dining room, his elbows on the table heavy with funeral food, and sobbed - his wife’s death rendering him inconsolable. Grandpa had lost the only person in the world who would accept him for what he was.

My grandfather was not a nice man. Whenever my brothers and I visited his house or sat with him at dinner or rode in his car, he seemed to enjoy being rude. He was never the kind of grandparent who delighted in being with his grandchildren. Instead, he’d grumble about us under his breath or just go about his business as though we weren’t there – so when he died eleven years after Grandma, not one of us shed a tear.

Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who thought poorly of Fredrick P. Volckmann because only five townspeople came to Grandpa’s funeral in 1968. And with the family members who felt obligated to go, a total of twelve showed up. It wasn’t that my grandfather lived so isolated in the Catskills that he couldn’t find any friends. My grandfather was such a curmudgeon that no one in or around Prattsville thought much of him. His many years of grumbling about this or that or the other thing gave him a reputation as the town grouch. So when he died, few noticed. And of those who noticed, few cared.

My husband Ed sat with me and our baby daughter Katie near the front of the funeral parlor and watched my dad scowl down at his dead father.

The undertaker sidled alongside the casket. “Does he look ok?” he asked. “I tried to give him some color. He was kind of pale.”

“He looks pink – and puffy,” Dad grumbled. “And where the hell did you get that awful suit?” Dad pointed to the ill-fitting beige polyester suit with brown piping. It bunched under Grandpa’s armpits and pulled across his belly at the button. “That’s not his.”

“Francis brought it over.”

“Who’s Francis?” Dad snapped. “You mean Florence?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. Volckmann.” The undertaker blotted his forehead with a yellow stained handkerchief. “Florence, yes. She said that suit was the one your father wore for special occasions.”

“Norma!” Dad called to my mother. “Did you see what they put him in?”

Mom sat in the back of the room speaking to Florence, Grandpa’s second cousin and family busy body, whom nobody really liked, but everybody tolerated because for the eleven years after Grandma died, Florence lived with Grandpa - keeping him company, being his traveling companion, doing the shopping and the laundry and the cooking and the housekeeping – something no one else in our family would have volunteered to do. Of course, once the will was read, it became very clear why Florence put up with Grandpa until he died.

Mom looked over at Dad. “What?” And, as was her style, shouted, “I’ll be there in a minute,” then turned back into conversation with Florence, not giving any more attention to my dad, the only one at the viewing, who, up to that point, had actually viewed the body of his dead father.

Ed, Katie, and I joined Dad at the casket. “I’m sorry about Grandpa,” I said, knowing I wasn’t really sorry but figured Dad needed me to be. Grandpa never seemed happy – growling to anyone who’d listen, complaining about us, his only grandchildren, that we weren’t grateful and didn’t acknowledge him enough. “I hope he’s happier in heaven.”

Dad nodded and wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “He looks horrible.”

Later that afternoon, the attorney came to my grandfather’s home for the reading of the will.

“Mr. Volckmann, your father left you the Cadillac, his diamond pinky ring, and the silver tea service,” the attorney said. He didn’t look up. No one looked up. “He left $3000 to each of the grandchildren, Dick, Dave, and Eloise. If they haven’t finished college, the money goes to their education.” The lawyer cleared his throat. “To Florence, he left the property, the barn, the house, and all the furnishings.”

No mention of the piano or the grandfather’s clock. I thought about the many visits to my grandparents’ house when I was a kid. I didn’t like my grandfather much, but I had fond memories of my grandma’s sponge cake, the vanilla pudding smell of the kitchen, the Little Lulu comic books in the bureau drawer, the huge bathroom upstairs where I played dolls on the green carpet, the whoosh of the waterfall in the river behind the house, the pine log swing in the back yard, the ferns that grew between the green slates of the side patio, and the red-handled pump under the arbor that drew cold water. Regardless of my feeling for my grandfather, I loved the house that rested in the center of the Catskill Mountains. And now it no longer belonged to our family. Now it belonged to Florence.

My heart broke for Dad at the reading of his father’s will. There Dad sat – the rightful heir to this lovely land in the Catskills - listening as his growing-up home was assigned to some distant cousin, a woman who had spent the past eleven years with a bitter old man so she could get her hooks into his valuable property. Dad was forced to relinquish his inheritance to a conniving woman we all thought was doing everyone a favor. How Florence got my grandfather to name her as his main beneficiary was unclear. That my grandfather didn’t leave the house, furnishings, and land to his only son was unfathomable – unforgivable. And the overwhelming hurt that must have caused my dad was incomprehensible.

It was at the reading of the will that it hit me. My dad was just like Grandpa. Disgruntled and forlorn. For years, I blamed my father for being a miserable, overbearing person. He seemed angry all the time – wanting his own way, finding fault with others, feeling left out, demanding attention, and chastising those who didn’t meet his standards, which was frequent. But after being confronted with my grandfather’s wretched disposition and his last will and testament, I realized Dad must have lived in a household of fear and emotional corrosion.

In spite of Grandma’s devotion and love, living under the shadow of Grandpa’s nastiness and constant disapproval, Dad never had a chance to develop into a confident, happy man. Grandpa didn’t offer my Dad the positive bonding vital to father-son relationships. Throughout his growing up years, my dad must have been under so much pressure to please his father, he didn’t notice his confidence was in a continuous process of decay.

Instead, Dad imploded, becoming uncomfortable in his own skin. His self-esteem diminished each time he didn’t meet Grandpa’s standards. With Grandpa’s constant disapproval, Dad must have seen himself as a failure. And with his energy being used up to please his father, his sense of self couldn’t develop.

My grandmother probably tried to mollify the ongoing humiliation, but with men like my grandfather, she didn’t have the wherewithal to combat the stifling oppressiveness. With my grandfather at the controls, Dad never learned how to love himself or the people around him. Instead, he learned to feel inferior, becoming full of insecurities, which he eventually protected behind a wall of fury and resentment – a fury and resentment that seeped into the life Dad started with my mother and into the home that raised my brothers and me.

“Of course, I will give it all back to you in my own will,” Florence said, in what was most likely an aberrant, fleeting state of guilt. But that never happened. She kept it all, willed it to her son, and our family never went to Prattsville again.

Family interactions are not simple incidents between two or more people in a household at any given time. Family interactions give birth to whole personalities, creating behaviors, emotions, and attitudes. Family interactions significantly impact the mind of a child, co-opting opinion, rearranging viewpoint, solidifying disposition, influencing judgment, ultimately defining character and sense of self. Once the child becomes an adult, the self-images gleaned from what seemed like simple family interactions are carried into, and beyond, the next generation.

Our job as parents or guardians is to recognize those destructive behaviors and interactions that erode the spirit and leap to eradicate anything that even hints of the insidious corruption of the soul.

EVS 08/10

“In a house which becomes a home, one hands down and another takes up the heritage of mind and heart, laughter and tears, musings and deeds. Love, like a carefully loaded ship, crosses the gulf between the generations. . . . Let us build memories in our children, lest they drag out joyless lives, lest they allow treasures to be lost because they have not been given the keys. . . . It is needful to transmit the passwords from generation to generation.” from Generation to Generation by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.