Memories of that first little house are sketchy, at best. We only lived there one year.
We moved, but not far, to a house next to a working farm. I didn't have to share a room with my brother and my closet stretched so far that it could easily afford secret places in a game of hide-and-seek.
I didn't spend much time at home because the farm held my interest. I was in first grade now and the woman at the farm watched me after school until my mom got home. There must have been more than twenty cats roaming around. Lightning and Thunder were my favorites. I think one was fluffy and bright orange. I had heard that the color red enrages bulls, so I would purposely wear red when I visited the cows and bull in the barn, just to test the theory. Nothing bad ever happened. There was a goat that wandered around and sometimes my mom would look out to find it standing on our old Saab.
We children had no contact with my father. I suspect my mother was slowly making it through the divorce process with a man who was hard to pin down. He paid no child support. I never realized how poor we were.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Tex
My mom is the oldest of four children born to my Mormon grandparents. Grandpa graduated from BYU, never drank coffee or alcohol, didn't believe we evolved from apes, and had beliefs that my brother and I found odd and challenged when we got old enough to think for ourselves. I never really figured out whether my grandmother was a true Mormon or just went along with it all those years. She drank coffee and alcohol, smoked, and never gave her views on evolution. My aunt once told me that she caught my grandfather kissing another woman in the coat closet during one of their dinner parties.
My mother was impossibly tall and willowy. She was damn near as tall as my grandfather at 6 feet. She had dark hair, wide-set hazel eyes, high cheekbones and a square jaw. She was once approached by a New York modeling scout. My grandmother packed her up and took her in to see the agent, but she was rejected because she couldn't hold a quarter between her legs.
She grew up in Boulder and they moved to Ithaca when she was in high school. The other kids thought she spoke with a twang, so they called her Tex. That name didn't stick after high school.
She was an avid reader and artist. She had a penchant for fashion and I still have a stack of designs she drew while in high school. Her brother was seven years younger than she and the Twins eleven years younger, so my grandmother's monomaniacal matriarchal focus shifted from her eventually. Even though she lived at home while attending Cornell, she was more free to socialize and I suspect began to take full advantage. She dated many handsome bachelors and somehow ended up with the tall rower from Cornwall-on-Hudson.
She once confided to me that her year of graduate school at Syracuse was wonderful. She savored the freedom to study and be free again. It was the 1960s and she embraced the burgeoning women's liberation movement.
My grandparents offered to buy us a house in Ithaca -- but only Ithaca. My mother valued her independence and decided that we would break away and go it on our own.
We moved to a tiny town in upstate New York called Barneveld. We rented a cute little house in the country and she commuted into the Monson Williams Proctor Institute in Utica, where she was the librarian. She once told me she often pulled the little Saab over to the side of the road and cried on the way to work.
My mother was impossibly tall and willowy. She was damn near as tall as my grandfather at 6 feet. She had dark hair, wide-set hazel eyes, high cheekbones and a square jaw. She was once approached by a New York modeling scout. My grandmother packed her up and took her in to see the agent, but she was rejected because she couldn't hold a quarter between her legs.
She grew up in Boulder and they moved to Ithaca when she was in high school. The other kids thought she spoke with a twang, so they called her Tex. That name didn't stick after high school.
She was an avid reader and artist. She had a penchant for fashion and I still have a stack of designs she drew while in high school. Her brother was seven years younger than she and the Twins eleven years younger, so my grandmother's monomaniacal matriarchal focus shifted from her eventually. Even though she lived at home while attending Cornell, she was more free to socialize and I suspect began to take full advantage. She dated many handsome bachelors and somehow ended up with the tall rower from Cornwall-on-Hudson.
She once confided to me that her year of graduate school at Syracuse was wonderful. She savored the freedom to study and be free again. It was the 1960s and she embraced the burgeoning women's liberation movement.
My grandparents offered to buy us a house in Ithaca -- but only Ithaca. My mother valued her independence and decided that we would break away and go it on our own.
We moved to a tiny town in upstate New York called Barneveld. We rented a cute little house in the country and she commuted into the Monson Williams Proctor Institute in Utica, where she was the librarian. She once told me she often pulled the little Saab over to the side of the road and cried on the way to work.
Fall Creek Drive
We spent about one year living with my grandparents in Ithaca while my mom went to graduate school at Syracuse University. My grandfather was a renowned professor of Collective Bargaining/Labor Relations at Cornell and we lived in a stately white-washed brick home overlooking the gorge on Fall Creek Drive. Grandpa was an avid gardener, and I remember making the snapdragons talk by squeezing the petals in just the right way. (When my brother attended Cornell many years later, his friends noticed the house from across the gorge and named it The Secret Garden House, not realizing that it was his grandparents' house.) My grandmother loved having us live with her, especially my brother, whom she doted over. She had a baby grand piano that she played with fingers transformed by arthritis. She taught me how to set up and do dishes properly in the sink and I begged often for this privilege of standing on the stool and helping.
The house was beautiful, with a matching brick wall which stretched out around the back yard, culminating in a little building with a turret, where we kept the pet mice in the nice weather. My brother and I spent most of our time in the basement watching TV. The basement had many rooms with lots of interesting things to look at stored on shelves. Grandpa had a woodworking studio in the back room, which was always covered with shavings. My sister lived in the attic, where she had her own bathroom, of which I was envious. The house always had a certain smell, as if the windows were never opened.
I started preschool, my brother elementary, and my sister yet another in a long string of new schools. My mom would come visit on the weekends in her old Saab named Fritz. I don't remember this being a particular unhappy time, but I do remember dramatic and tearful scenes clinging tightly onto my mother's car door on Sundays when it was time for her to go back to Syracuse.
The house was beautiful, with a matching brick wall which stretched out around the back yard, culminating in a little building with a turret, where we kept the pet mice in the nice weather. My brother and I spent most of our time in the basement watching TV. The basement had many rooms with lots of interesting things to look at stored on shelves. Grandpa had a woodworking studio in the back room, which was always covered with shavings. My sister lived in the attic, where she had her own bathroom, of which I was envious. The house always had a certain smell, as if the windows were never opened.
I started preschool, my brother elementary, and my sister yet another in a long string of new schools. My mom would come visit on the weekends in her old Saab named Fritz. I don't remember this being a particular unhappy time, but I do remember dramatic and tearful scenes clinging tightly onto my mother's car door on Sundays when it was time for her to go back to Syracuse.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Jack Be Nimble
A number of my gentle readers have approached me in regards to the previous post about my father and have expressed a curiosity in hearing more. It's a story that's buried like an old bone behind the shed. But it's not buried deep and, if I clear away the weeds and overgrowth, it's easy to unearth. My own brother was surprised to read about my very first memory: my father leaving. He is 3 years older than I. My sister is 11 years older.
I don't have many stories or much information about my father or his family. My grandmother never saw us again either, even though she lived to be well into her nineties. But the stories peppered about casually have been gathered by this girl and hoarded like mementos in a special drawer . The time he called The Pentagon to give his input on an international crisis. The time he showed up with a (surprise) new Jaguar. The time he showed up with a (surprise) new Porsche...well, you have the idea.
Then there was the time he embarrassed her with her newest new friends in yet another new city for his yet-another new position at General Electric. He finally pushed her so far that she hit him over the head with an iron frying pan. She didn't speak of him often, and she didn't degrade him. But I clung to the stories as clues to this mysterious person who shared in making me and then disappeared.
My parents met at Cornell. He had been a Classics major and went on to get his MBA there also. He was a rower in an 8 that made it as far as the Olympic trials. He tested into GE's prestigious sales program. Our family moved frequently before I was born, which was stressful both for my mom and my sister. Things got rocky when they lived in New Hampshire and he commuted into Winter Street on rt. 128 near Boston. He eventually lost his job and came home with the grand idea that he would become a candle-maker. He bought vintage pewter molds and set up a fragrant laboratory of sorts in the basement. He would pack up the tapers and load them into the tiny trunk of his Jag and knock on doors in certain tony Boston suburban neighborhoods, charming the housewives with his good looks and charisma. This endeavor only lasted for one short holiday season.
Soon they moved to Schenectady, where my birth was yet another surprise arrival, and then Louisville, and then Zurich. I think we know how Zurich turned out. My mom knew this was no "business trip." With no money, three kids and that grey dog named Rima, we headed back to the States.
I don't have many stories or much information about my father or his family. My grandmother never saw us again either, even though she lived to be well into her nineties. But the stories peppered about casually have been gathered by this girl and hoarded like mementos in a special drawer . The time he called The Pentagon to give his input on an international crisis. The time he showed up with a (surprise) new Jaguar. The time he showed up with a (surprise) new Porsche...well, you have the idea.
Then there was the time he embarrassed her with her newest new friends in yet another new city for his yet-another new position at General Electric. He finally pushed her so far that she hit him over the head with an iron frying pan. She didn't speak of him often, and she didn't degrade him. But I clung to the stories as clues to this mysterious person who shared in making me and then disappeared.
My parents met at Cornell. He had been a Classics major and went on to get his MBA there also. He was a rower in an 8 that made it as far as the Olympic trials. He tested into GE's prestigious sales program. Our family moved frequently before I was born, which was stressful both for my mom and my sister. Things got rocky when they lived in New Hampshire and he commuted into Winter Street on rt. 128 near Boston. He eventually lost his job and came home with the grand idea that he would become a candle-maker. He bought vintage pewter molds and set up a fragrant laboratory of sorts in the basement. He would pack up the tapers and load them into the tiny trunk of his Jag and knock on doors in certain tony Boston suburban neighborhoods, charming the housewives with his good looks and charisma. This endeavor only lasted for one short holiday season.
Soon they moved to Schenectady, where my birth was yet another surprise arrival, and then Louisville, and then Zurich. I think we know how Zurich turned out. My mom knew this was no "business trip." With no money, three kids and that grey dog named Rima, we headed back to the States.
Reflection
My friend lost his dad this week.
It occurs to me that some fathers are dads, grandfathers, husbands, partners, role models, and best friends. How very lucky for those they touched.
It occurs to me that some fathers are dads, grandfathers, husbands, partners, role models, and best friends. How very lucky for those they touched.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Got My Splits
1 M Schmidt 47 MESC 17:20.94S F
32.30 1:07.23 1:42.61 2:17.85 2:53.09 3:28.25 4:03.32 4:38.22
5:13.16 5:48.01 6:23.17 6:58.25 8:08.19 8:08.19 8:43.48 9:18.47
9:53.41 10:28.49 11:03.41 11:38.31 12:13.24 12:48.13 13:23.00 13:57.62
14:32.34 15:07.32 15:41.89 16:16.44 16:49.49 17:20.94
1 Sam the Man 41 MESC 18:14.99S F
32.46 1:08.05 1:43.46 2:19.17 2:55.45 3:31.53 4:08.12 4:44.58
5:21.73 5:58.53 6:35.31 7:12.36 8:26.83 8:26.83 9:03.74 9:40.61
10:17.81 10:54.86 11:32.42 12:09.50 12:46.55 13:23.61 14:00.73 14:38.09
15:15.22 15:52.24 16:29.13 17:05.61 17:41.73 18:14.99
1 KGirl 44 NEM 19:22.54S F
33.14 1:09.99 1:47.56 2:26.12 3:04.41 3:43.27 4:22.30 5:00.75
5:39.67 6:18.72 6:57.63 7:37.13 8:55.95 8:55.95 9:35.50 10:14.92
10:54.68 11:33.79 12:13.12 12:52.60 13:31.78 14:11.37 14:50.41 15:29.70
16:08.83 16:48.16 17:28.06 18:07.30 18:45.79 19:22.54
It may have been a really small meet, but Mike S. is no joke. I may have taken it out a little too fast, seeing as my best 200 free is 2:25, my best 400 was previously 5:03 (went 4:54 at this meet), my best 800 was 10:52 (from 2 years ago).
400 free:
1 Kirsten Thompson 44 NEM 4:54.95S F
33.88 1:10.64 1:47.98 2:25.87 3:03.56 3:41.53 4:19.43 4:54.95
Hopefully this isn't all The Suit!!
32.30 1:07.23 1:42.61 2:17.85 2:53.09 3:28.25 4:03.32 4:38.22
5:13.16 5:48.01 6:23.17 6:58.25 8:08.19 8:08.19 8:43.48 9:18.47
9:53.41 10:28.49 11:03.41 11:38.31 12:13.24 12:48.13 13:23.00 13:57.62
14:32.34 15:07.32 15:41.89 16:16.44 16:49.49 17:20.94
1 Sam the Man 41 MESC 18:14.99S F
32.46 1:08.05 1:43.46 2:19.17 2:55.45 3:31.53 4:08.12 4:44.58
5:21.73 5:58.53 6:35.31 7:12.36 8:26.83 8:26.83 9:03.74 9:40.61
10:17.81 10:54.86 11:32.42 12:09.50 12:46.55 13:23.61 14:00.73 14:38.09
15:15.22 15:52.24 16:29.13 17:05.61 17:41.73 18:14.99
1 KGirl 44 NEM 19:22.54S F
33.14 1:09.99 1:47.56 2:26.12 3:04.41 3:43.27 4:22.30 5:00.75
5:39.67 6:18.72 6:57.63 7:37.13 8:55.95 8:55.95 9:35.50 10:14.92
10:54.68 11:33.79 12:13.12 12:52.60 13:31.78 14:11.37 14:50.41 15:29.70
16:08.83 16:48.16 17:28.06 18:07.30 18:45.79 19:22.54
It may have been a really small meet, but Mike S. is no joke. I may have taken it out a little too fast, seeing as my best 200 free is 2:25, my best 400 was previously 5:03 (went 4:54 at this meet), my best 800 was 10:52 (from 2 years ago).
400 free:
1 Kirsten Thompson 44 NEM 4:54.95S F
33.88 1:10.64 1:47.98 2:25.87 3:03.56 3:41.53 4:19.43 4:54.95
Hopefully this isn't all The Suit!!
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