Innocence Ain't What It Used To Be

Since I was a teenager in the 1950s, my "awareness" of life and some of it's more "adult" themes was, at age 18, not what the youth of today would understand. Let's face it. When I was a teenager, "I Love Lucy" was the biggest show on television and "Lucy" and "Ricky" slept in twin beds. In fact, any time a married couple's bedroom was shown on television or in the movies, they had twin beds. Even in the 1960s, on the Dick Van Dyke Show, Rob and Laura Petrie had twin beds. All this is by way of letting you know that young, unmarried girls (at least those in the group I grew up with) lived in an atmosphere that didn't impart much knowledge about sex.

So, having set the stage, I will tell you about an incident that occurred on my first job after high school. A week after graduation, I got a position at Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company as a stenographer in the State Engineering Department. I was part of a "steno pool" of girls who took some dictation but mostly typed up huge equipment specifications.

In those days, the Telephone Company was preparing the way for "Ten Digit Direct Dialing". This meant the state was building a large number of microwave repeater stations to bring about this new technology. Each repeater had to have specifications written to include every nut, bolt, screw or other building material that was to go into the structure. As you can imagine, just one area of the building could generate 500 pages of listed items needed for the project. So we were kept busy transcribing the engineers handwritten notes onto "Multilith Masters" which would then be used to print off as many copies of the "specs" as needed for the people doing the building and installing.

Many of the engineers used block printing (all upper case letters) when they wrote their specs. One engineer in particular had the habit of making his letter "L" and the letter "C" look very much alike. One day about two months into my job there, I had typed a large spec for that engineer of the strange Ls and Cs. When the typing was finished, the spec went back to the engineer who had written it and he would get one of the other engineers to proof read it with him. This was a critical part of the operation as you might imagine. Mistakes in the translation from pencil to printed spec could cost thousands of dollars and massive delays.

So the spec I typed had been delivered back to Mr. Krebs, the engineer who wrote it, and they were proofing it. Up front, the steno pool was busy with new projects when we began to hear small titters of laughter. This quickly began to spread until it seemed the entire engineering staff was having a great laugh about something. Our Chief Steno, Nancy, who was only 22 years old but was married, and therefore an "older" woman, went back to find out what was going on.

Very shortly, Nancy came back and the blush on her face was remarkable. She quickly inquired, "Who typed up that spec for Krebs?"

I raised my hand, "I did," says me.

Nancy rushed over to me and lowered her voice, "Do you know what you did?"

Now, all the other stenos were crowded around my desk to see what was up. "No," I replied, truly puzzled.

Nancy took a breath, eyes wide with horror. "You typed a 'C' instead of an 'L', hundreds of times." But I didn't get it. Okay, so I'd have to make all those corrections. We had to do it all the time when we couldn't read the engineers' writing. But what was the big deal and what was so funny?

"But the word you were supposed to type was 'Lock Washer'. Don't you get it?" She was incredulous.

"No," I said. "So what?" Now the other stenos started to snicker as she leaned over and whispered into my ear the significance of the word I had typed over and over.

I was mortified, but the worst was to come. When she went back to the group of engineers and told them that even after she had explained my error to me, I still didn't get it, the laughter that erupted was even greater than before.

That was why a couple of months after that, they got another great laugh at my expense, and my reputation was sealed forever with these guys.

I had been called for dictation with one of the equipment and building engineers. He dictated a letter indicating they were trying to secure a Jeep with a "winch" on the hood for a project they were working on. I took the dictation, typed up the letter and returned it for his signature. The next thing I knew, the entire group was in stitches again. It seems that a "wench" is a young lady in some circles, and I had typed that the Jeep would have a "wench" mounted on the hood instead of the intended "winch." Who knew?

How Dry I Am

In 1942 when I was three, most small towns in Texas were "dry," and we lived in one. This meant that liquor was not sold in our town, and, in theory, drinking the evil brew was effectively curtailed. As always, there were ways around this situation. You could purchase booze in areas close by which were not "dry" and transport it back to your home, and this is how people who liked a little nip occasionally handled this mild inconvenience. But most of the residents were (on the surface at least) teetotalers.

My parents were both very young at that time. Dad was only 22 and Mom was 23, and they frequently had friends over to our apartment for an evening of socializing and beverage consumption. I was usually up and mingling with the guests during at least part of these evenings (there was, after all, no television in those days.) Plus, I had many relatives back in Fort Worth, which was not dry, and they all enjoyed a cocktail or a beer every now and then. So, to me, social drinking was a normal component of a party.

My Mom worked hard to get to know the townspeople and make friends. During the time we lived there, she was able to stay home and be a housewife, so it was important to meet people and establish relationships. A few months after we arrived, she achieved the thing she had been working toward. She was invited to a Tea being hosted by none other than the mayor's wife. It was to be held in the parlor at the Baptist church. This was the big time, and my Mom was delighted to be included. She decided to take me along, and in later years she described to me the events of that day in vivid detail.

I was a quiet, shy child and usually well behaved. On this occasion, I sat primly by my mother and carefully sipped tea from the china cup. Conversation became subdued as the ladies munched. It was not a lively, boisterous group. At least, not yet.

Daintily holding my teacup, I turned to my mother and said in a clear, penetrating, little-kid voice, "Mommy, let's pretend this is beer!"

A deathly quiet fell upon the very proper assembly. My poor mother turned a radiant red and smiled weakly. We left the party very soon after that. It was the last of her invitations from the town's elite.

Embarrassing Your Child - Advice From An Expert

Most parents have experienced some embarrassing moments, thanks to their offspring. The tiny tots have a tendency to throw tantrums and tell family secrets. Sometimes, in their childish innocence, they make comments in front of strangers that can reduce the parent to red-faced, squirming despair. It's just one of life's little moments and you pray for the strength to walk away with some dignity. At such times, your thoughts turn to the hope that someday, they too, will be parents and have their turn.

But my child didn't have to wait that long. She had her mother to do the honors. Without deliberate malice or forethought, I began paying her back when she was about eleven.

I've had a slight hearing impairment for many years, and I sometimes hear things "funny". So if I hear something that sounds strangely out of place, I repeat it to get clarification and it usually gives people a chuckle. When my daughter, Paula, was eleven, she didn't find much humor in the way I heard things. One day we were shopping for school clothes and she was showing me a shirt she found. What she actually said was, "Look, seams inside out!" But I repeated back to her what I thought she said, which came out "Look, a french-fried owl!" Except she claims that I virtually screeched the phrase in a loud, hey-watch-me-embarrass-my-kid, voice. She was, of course, mortified.

Skip ahead about 20 years. By this time, she had come to accept my weird way of hearing and enjoyed a good laugh when I came out with a strange version of what was said. So naturally, I had to find another way to embarrass her. However, I must stress that none of this has been deliberate. It's just that I sometimes say things in a way that should have been, shall we say, more carefully phrased.

We were Christmas shopping one Saturday very close to the Holiday. The crowds were huge and we had been going for hours. I was looking for a gag gift for my brother, David. A few weeks before while I was shopping I spied something I thought would be perfect. But I was in a hurry and didn't get it at that time. So on this day, I was trying to remember exactly where it was that I had seen it. We went from store to store without success.

The item I had seen was a duplicate of a thing I had purchased for my husband one vacation. It was a large, plastic ball that had the letters "Rx for Stress" emblazoned on it. It sat on a little stand and you were supposed to pick it up, slap it against the palm of your hand, and it would let out a blood-curdling scream from inside the black plastic ball. It was a great item to have on your desk for guests to amuse themselves with, and I knew my brother would get a kick out of it. But where had I seen it?

Finally, after hours had passed and we had tried the men's gift department in all the stores, all the gift shops, and the luggage and stationery stores, I had one last inspiration. The Broadway had a fabulous collection of similar gifts in their men's department, and I was certain it must be the place.

By this time, it was the dinner hour, and the store was practically deserted. We walked in and there, behind the counter, stood a very handsome African-American man. He smiled and asked if he could help. I sighed, leaned on the counter and said in an exhausted voice, "I sure hope so. Do you have any of those big, black balls, that when you slap them they scream?"

Paula gasped, the man looked both pained and frightened, and I suddenly realized how what I said hadn't come out exactly right. The universe stopped for an instant. I have to give the salesman a lot of credit. He recovered first and smiled helpfully. He said they did, in fact, have one of the novelty items, though it seemed to be broken. But I didn't care. I decided that I had no choice but to purchase it, broken or not, and I slunk out of the store with the useless thing tucked in my shopping bag. Paula trailed after me and as soon as we were out of the store, she started laughing hysterically.

I ended up giving the thing to my husband, hoping he could fix it. It worked a few times, but couldn't hold up to the slapping. So it now sits on his desk, right alongside the other one he received years before. When people ask why there are two of them, he gleefully tells them the story.

And that's how I got a bad reputation.

The Deathly Hallows - My Personal Take

Last night, shortly after midnight, I finished J.K. Rowlings' latest (and sadly last) installment in the adventures of Harry Potter and his companions from the wizarding world.

I'm not giving anything away of the plot when I say I was very satisfied with the ending. My admiration for the writing ability of Ms. Rowling increases each time I read her work. She does what so many of us would like to do: create a world and a cast of characters readers truly care about. And at the same time she gives us rollicking adventure, humor, and important moral lessons.

Much as been said about the phenomenal growth in the number of juvenile readers since the first Harry Potter book came out. For that reason alone J.K. Rowling deserves the praise and rewards she has received. But she also tapped into a world that appealed to the child still living inside adults.

I hesitate to describe a book about wizards, witches and magical creatures as "real", but on some level, she is able to make that world very real in important ways. How wonderful is it that today's children can read something so imaginative and still learn so much. Ms. Rowling based much of her wizard world on myths and fables that have been around for hundreds of years. And yet she breathed new life into them in ways that both charm and inspire the reader to learn more.

I find it sad that there are people out there who condemn these books as dangerous for young minds. We can only assume that these folks have not read the books for themselves, relying instead on second-hand reports of what they contain. The central message of the series has been that love is the most important element in life; that honor, truth, and helping others is essential to the soul's survival in the afterlife. You learn that greed, hunger for power, and betrayal of your fellowman is the path to the soul's destruction. I fail to see how this can be dangerous for children or adults, for that matter.

Count me as glad that years from now, young children will have the pleasure of discovering these books for themselves, and can begin the adventure of reading and developing their imaginations. My hope is they will be encouraged to read the books first, then enjoy the movies as a supplemental visual journey. By the end of this decade, all the movies will be made and available on DVD (or whatever medium is in vogue by that time). If you find yourself in a position to influence the learning of a child ten or fifteen years from now, I hope you will give them the first book, followed by the first movie, and then progressing along with the next book, next movie, until all have been experienced.

The child who learns to read books (and I mean real books as opposed to picture books or comics) will be set on a path of lifetime learning and creativity. And maybe, just maybe, our society will survive.

The Exploits of David - Part 2

Anyone who has been part of a family with more than one child can attest to the fact that the younger children often reach adulthood due to the benevolence of the older ones. Of course, if you personally happen to be a younger birth-order child, you might not agree with me. But I know older siblings will see it my way.

My baby brother, who is definitely no longer a baby, owes me his life. I was an only child for so long I had grown to accept it as my lot in life. While I sometimes wished for a sister to play with, and to stand with me against the tide of adult family members, I realized there were many advantages to my only-child status. By the time I was thirteen years old, I no longer gave it a thought, and I was well entrenched in my identity as the "only" one.

Then one drizzly, gray February morning I was home from school because I had a cold. I was sitting at the breakfast table with my mother after my father had gone to work. I was trying to eat my oatmeal and feeling generally "yucky". My mother got it into her head to cheer me up, so she said, "Well, I have something to tell you that will make you feel better. You are going to get a baby brother or sister in October."

I couldn't have been more stunned if she had told me she was actually an alien from Venus, and we were now all going to move back to the old home planet. I remember looking at her for a brief, stunned moment before I burst into tears. Now it was my mother's turn to be stunned. Here she thought she was giving me wonderful news that would make me jump for joy, and instead I saw my "cushy" position as sole dictator dissolving before my eyes.

Time passed, and by the time he was born, I had done a "180", and was eagerly anticipating this "bundle from heaven." The day he was born is another whole story for later telling. But it didn't take long for the gold on this little bundle to lose it's shine.

David's early years were quite an education for me. He was all over the place and into everything. There was the time when he was about three that he got into my purse. He stole all my change, completely destroyed two new lipsticks (along with their fancy jeweled cases) and smeared lipstick over everything in my room, including my furniture, bedspread, telephone, and walls. And any boyfriend I had was required to entertain the dear little tyke in order to keep company with me. But I was good --- I let him live.

Because of my father's job with the FBI, they got transferred when David was six. Since I was fourteen years older than him, I was already married and expecting my own child when they left Albuquerque and moved to first Monterrey, California, and then New York City, and finally to Washington, D.C. During those years, David grew into a teenager. Of course, by then he knew everything about everything.

It was really infuriating sometimes. Not only did he let you know that he had all the answers, he managed to convey that the rest of us were not all that bright. No matter what his parents or I said to him, he alone knew how things worked. The sad part was that he was frequently right. He would be warned of the danger of some action he was contemplating and he would ignore the warning. When the danger never came, he believed he was right about it being non-existent. After awhile, he thought he was truly invincible.

Because they lived so far away, I was spared most of this behavior. During that time, I saw him only once every two or three years. Don't get me wrong. I was fond of the kid, it was just this youthful cockiness that got to me sometimes.

One summer my husband, daughter, our miniature poodle, Pepie, and I were visiting my parents and brother at their home in Maryland. That year David was 17 years old and graduating from high school. Several extended family members also traveled there to attend the graduation ceremonies. On this particular evening we were all gathered in the living room watching TV. My brother was on the floor on his stomach, and I was sitting next to him, along with my daughter and Pepie. The dog loved to play and David was always rough housing with him.

Earlier that evening, Pepie had gone outside and found some chicken bones and scraps my mother buried in a distant corner of the back yard. He loved chicken, but we had to make sure he didn't eat too much, and that he didn't get any of the bones. When he did, he had a tendency to throw up. On this night, we were pretty sure he'd managed to eat some of the chicken, and maybe some of the smaller bones. So we were watching him carefully.

David started playing with Pepie, rolling him around, and I told him he'd better stop. I said the dog was likely to throw up if they played too hard. I thought this would definitely get David's attention because he was terribly squeamish and would be completely unraveled if anything like that ever touched any part of his body. But no. David knew better. The dog was just fine, he said. David would be able to tell if there was going to be a problem.

After a few more attempts to stop the play I gave up. Then, while David was lying on his stomach, chin propped in his hands, the dog got on his back and started nipping at his hair and neck. Pepie wanted to play some more. Suddenly he started his little heaving motion that I knew only too well. I said, "David, Pepie is going to throw up. You'd better get him off your back!"

David thought I was still just trying to alarm him, and said, "Oh stop worrying! He's just fine." At that moment, the dog let loose with a large portion of his stomach contents, right on David's neck and shoulders, soaking through his shirt. David yelled and jumped up like he had been hit with a lightening bolt. The rest of us were on the floor, doubled over with laughter because he looked so shocked and disgusted. He raced up the stairs, tore off his clothes, and got into the shower. All the while he was yelling, "Eyeeew, yuck, gross!"

I quickly put the dog out in the garage in case he wasn't finished, and my mother and I cleaned up the mess. David came back downstairs in a few moments, clean and somewhat humbled. But God wasn't finished with him yet.

Since we had so many relatives sleeping over, David and our cousin had been bunking downstairs in the living room. The cousin got the couch for a bed, and David gallantly took the vinyl patio chaise lounge mattress, which he put on the floor for his bed. During the daytime, the lounge mattress was stashed in the garage, out of the way. So about an hour after the "dog incident" (as it came to be known), we decided to turn in for the night. David went out to the garage to get the mattress and I went along to bring in the dog. It occurred to me that David should use caution and inspect the mattress before he brought it in. I thought the dog might have had another "accident" and the mattress could be soiled.

You would have thought the boy had learned something from his recent experience; but that, apparently, is not the nature of teenage males. Once again he saw no need for my concern, and as he reached for the mattress, his head was turned toward me to explain that I was just paranoid. In that moment as he lifted the mattress up toward him, it formed a sort of "taco" shape. I saw something liquid and pukey-looking traveling rapidly down the funnel shape of the mattress, and it was headed straight for David's chest. It was a slow motion moment. I opened my mouth to shout my warning, but before the sound could leave my throat, the vile mess was splashing on his chest, dribbling down his front. As it hit, his head swiveled back toward the onslaught and a scream of horror rose from his lips like the last anguished cry of a man falling from a tall building.

The dog, terrified, ran back into the house and hid behind the couch. The rest of the family, rushing to the door to see the cause of the commotion, were brought up short by the sight before them, slamming into each other, one by one. No one could have planned a better scene. It was like a Three Stooges movie. David flung the mattress violently from him and stripped off his shirt right there on the spot, in front of God and the entire assembly, and ran back up the stairs to the still wet shower.

It was a night that still lives warmly in our memories (well, maybe not so warmly in David's memory). To this day, all I have to do to cheer up my Mom or my daughter is to say, "Remember the night Pepie threw up on David?", and we're back in the moment, laughing heartily, and feeling vindicated that perhaps, after all, the lad wasn't always right!

Big, Big Anniversary

Today has been a day for nostalgic memories. I went to Santa Fe in my brand new car (a Toyota Prius) with my wonderful husband, and we marveled at all the changes along the highway and how far Albuquerque now stretches. I reminded him of the big anniversary I was celebrating today. Exactly 50 years ago tonight, I walked across the stage in the gymnasium at Highland High School and received my diploma! I can't believe it's been that long ago. But I look around at all the changes in the world and all the technology accomplishments since that night and I'm astounded at how much as transpired on this old planet.

This morning before we left, I saw the obituary of a classmate from that long ago class of 1957 and it reminded me again of how many others have left us since graduation. Standing on the school lawn for photos with my family that night, I couldn't think 50 years into the future. I was on the brink of my 18th birthday and the whole world lay ahead of me. Projecting 50 years ahead was more than my young mind could imagine.

If I could tell this year's class of 2007 anything at all it would be they should not be too anxious to have time pass. I remember when I was little how the months moved by so slowly. It seemed forever between birthdays, and Christmas was always something in the distant future. Of course from the perspective of someone who has only been alive 8 or 9 years, I guess it really is a long stretch. But children and young adults can't imagine the dizzying pace at which time speeds by once they've passed some of the milestones of life...graduation, college, starting your career, marriage, starting a family, buying your first home. All the "firsts" in life seem so far away and we long to be grown up and taken seriously.

But before you know it, you've achieved those milestones and it's just about living. And then you begin to see the first of the obituaries of your classmates. At first, they happen infrequently, but before long, it becomes a more regular occurrence.

I don't know about you, but crazy as it sounds, one of the more unsettling things is when the movie stars and celebrities of your youth start to pass away. You dread those announcements on the evening news that tell you another old favorite has left this world. Somehow my world seemed more intact when we still had people like Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland. Then there was Elvis. Good Grief! How could he be gone so soon! He was my fan crush as a teenager.

The thing is, I know there is no point in trying to convince the young that they will one day look back and regret they wished time to speed up. There is simply no frame of reference and no life experience to help them know this. They can listen politely as you "ramble" on about the "good old days", but they are too eager to make their own "good old days" to listen to somebody as ancient as we are now.

That's probably the way it was intended to be. Each person has to learn the lessons of life for themselves, and only after the days have passed into countless years, can they look back and fully appreciate the gift they were given. So instead of a lecture, I would say to them, "Enjoy each moment and each milestone. Most of them are treasures to look back on."

And Now A Word About Pedestrians

Yesterday I had several places to go for weekend errands. As usual, this required maneuvering my way through parking lots of the various stores I had business with. Once again I had cause to reflect on the bad habits and downright rudeness of pedestrians.

When I was a little girl, all the grownups in my life impressed upon me the necessity for watching where I was going, and never walking out in front of a moving vehicle. As my previous post mentioned (see "David The Daredevil") my parents preached this lesson constantly. Well, to be honest, my father was a police officer and always was strict about obeying all the laws.

So I taught my daughter the same rule. Never, ever step out into the path of a car unless you are very sure they are stopped and will not run you over. She learned her lesson well. In fact, one of her friends told her about an incident when he was a child and riding his new bicycle to the store for his Mom. He got to the stop sign and waited because there was a car approaching. The car (actually it was a van) stopped at the sign and motioned for the child to go ahead and cross the street. As soon as the little boy got in the crosswalk, the man gunned his engine and hit the boy and his new bicycle. The man fled the scene, leaving the child hurt and bleeding and his new bicycle a crumpled mess in the intersection. Fortunately a kindhearted man who had seen the entire incident, rushed to the little boy, gathered him up in his arms and took him home. It was a very small community and the good Samaritan knew the boy's family and where he lived. It's the kind of horror story you never want to hear about, but one of the reasons the lesson of watching traffic must be instilled at a very early age. But I digress.

Back to yesterday's outing and my ongoing frustration with people, young and old. I was driving slowly past the entrances of several stores in the complex on my way to the grocery store beyond. People were coming from the parking lot to go into the stores and people were leaving the stores to return to their cars. And here's my point. Not one person, not one, stopped as I approached the path they were taking. In fact, not only did they not stop, most of them didn't even glance in my direction. One man actually turned his head away from me as he stepped into my path. It was as if he was defying me to hit him.

So I have to wonder. Who raised these people? What kind of training and discipline were they given? Is it due to the times we live in where so many people think they are the only important creature in the world and everyone else has to look out for them and take care of them?

Or is this yet another example of the coarsening of society and abandonment of civility. Not only did my parents and grandparents teach me there was a little matter of self preservation involved, they also stressed this was just plain rude and "full of yourself". Being "full of yourself" was a major sin in those days. I was taught that although I was loved and special to my family, in the big scheme of things I was no better than anybody else and not entitled to special treatment by the general public. During those times, most people held the same views about this. You were also taught to "take turns" (and this was a biggy at school), to say "please" and "thank you", and to be civil to your elders. This was the way it was and every child was expected to be taught these lessons and to practice them.

When you get right down to it, if you respect others, you also learn to respect yourself. Children need social skills to survive and parents need to teach them. But the people I'm encountering currently are apparently not qualified to teach these lessons because they obviously never learned them, themselves.

So next time you are driving in a crowded parking lot, pay attention to the number of people you see who actually acknowledge you are behind the wheel of a two-ton killing machine and stop to allow you to pass. If you encounter a person who does, it will probably be me or my daughter. But keep in mind the story of the little boy and his bicycle. We may insist that you and your automobile go first and we'll just wait.