Field of Screams

Posted on December 12, 2006 by onesanevoice

There exists in this world a tiny microcosm of life where all collective human mannerisms and possible outcome of events converge.  It is called Little League.  If you stood in one place long enough you would be treated to a series of vignettes that could best be described as an Ingmar Bergman film starring Sylvester Stallone.  You’d get drama, adventure, male bonding, gut-wrenching emotion and enough salted snacks to bloat the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders which is something I’d like to see.

It is a widely held belief that everything is reflected on a ballfield.  If you’re a happy-go-lucky kid and you strike out or miss a grounder, your reaction will probably mirror your basic nature.  Conversely, if you’re a success oriented CPA, dentist or computer systems analyst managing the team the happy-go-lucky kid is missing grounders on, your reaction might be somewhat predictable as well.  Throw some borderline hysterical parents into the mix and you’ve got a show you could charge admission to.

Our son is eleven now and has been playing on Little League teams for five years.  Generally, his competitive spirit has resulted in crowd pleasing displays as in the time he hurdled an empty baby stroller to catch a foul ball.  But occasionally his passion goes beyond the bounds.  This past season on his basketball team there was a memorable moment where he went for a loose ball against a guard twice his size.  Son’s team was down and he knew they needed this possession but he also didn’t want to get pulverized.  So he barked at the kid.  Imagine a player coming at you full speed growling like a Doberman.  His opponent backed off, totally spooked and possibly wondering if he’d had all his shots.  Son took it to the basket with a pretty layup but afterward was admonished by the officials and his coach for making animal noises on the court.  Another Kodak moment.

Last year my brother managed his son’s farm league baseball team of six and seven-year-olds up in Westchester.  During one game his star slugger came into the batter’s box without a helmet.  Brother went over to him with the piece of equipment he needed but the kid said no, he wasn’t wearing one today.  He spent all morning spiking his hair and this would mess it up.  My brother hunkered his 6’4″ frame down to ground level to stress the importance of a batting helmet without unduly intimidating his player but it was no go.  Finally, he summoned the boy’s mother from the sidelines who looked at Brother horrified when she heard the story.  “Are you kidding?” she asked, annoyed.  “He can’t wear that thing.  He spent all morning on his hair.”

I once bore witness to a farm league game where a six-year-old who hadn’t had a hit all season finally whacked one to the outfield.  As he rounded third base his deliriously happy father went tearing onto the field and grabbed him in a bear hug before he reached home.  The ump called the runner out but the kid’s parents didn’t care, they were so happy.  That kind of thing can fly in the farm league but once you get up into the older divisions any parent who might try a stunt like that would be tackled to the ground and forced fed pretzel nuggets until the ambulance arrived.

But the essence of Little League, and the many faceted ways in which it demonstrates who we are and what we bring with us, was highlighted several seasons ago during the divisional playoff game.  It was just before the last inning and the coaches were giving the teams their final talks.  I was within earshot of the opposing team’s huddle and I heard their manager’s inspirational words:

“Okay, guys, the time has come.  We’ve been waiting a long time for this and there’s been a lot of preparation.  I want you all to take a deep breath and go out there and push for the win.  You hear me guys?  I want you to push hard!  Now let’s go!”

“Wow,” I said to the woman next to me.  “That was quite a rally speech.  What does this guy do for a living?”

“He’s an obstetrician,” she deadpanned.  And for me that said it all.

Copyright 1995 by author

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Party Momster

Posted on December 6, 2006 by onesanevoice

For the past few years it has been practically illegal to buy a pair of jeans that did not display some portion of your underwear.  Now that I’m adjusted to wearing low rise boot cuts the fashion industry is trying to bring back the straight leg skinny ones.  The Gap has even exhumed Audrey Hepburn to advertise them which must certainly be against the law and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Before my daughter pried me out of my ‘mommy’ jeans and into her own version of Project Runway, I spent several years channeling Stevie Nicks in her ‘Gypsy’ days – retro peasant skirts with velvet tunics and faux motorcycle boots.  The motorcycle became a reality, though.  In the fall of 2000 I remarried a lovely man who rides a classic Honda from the ’70s.  Equipped with factory exhaust.  I don’t know why that’s impressive but it always elicits a low, respectful whistle from the other weekend warriors Husband chats with when we’re stopped at lights.

In the two years after my divorce and before I met Husband, I was a single parent to two teenagers.  Very carefully, I began stepping back into a world I had been insulated from for the 18 years of my marriage.  Three people in one house all going on dates.  Talk about worlds colliding.

At first I perused personal ads and circled the ones I might call if I ever decided to call any and how likely was that?  One day I finally did and wound up having an annoying conversation with a man who assured me that he only cheated on his wife because she cheated first.  I silently vowed to screen the ads more aggressively.  The next call seemed to be more promising.  Until I realized with horror that I was speaking to the father of one of my children’s classmates.  Of all the gin joints in all the world. . .

Outside the house, I discovered that new roads require different travel companions and I was suddenly out of sync with my married friends’ lifestyles.  A gathering of former coworkers from a newspaper I had recently left put me back in touch with Suzy, 12 years younger than me but also newly divorced.  Wickedly clever, Suzy was all highlighted hair, tight clothes and enormous boobs she referred to as ‘the boys’.  Suzy wanted to go out.  I said I’d go with her.

These are dance clubs, she advised me, and you need to look like you belong there.  So I found myself standing with Suzy in my walk-in closet one evening surveying the surroundings.  “Okay,” she gestured expressively with her long, metallic painted nails.  “Where are your club clothes?”  I looked at her.  “Are you on crack?  I’m 43, Suzy Q.  I drive a navy blue sedan.  There are no club clothes.”

Undaunted, she began pulling things off hangers and tossing them at me until we were both satisfied.  She that I was showing enough skin and me that I could risk running into someone I knew from real life without being mortified.  Looking at myself in the mirror, I reflected – in the glow of Suzy’s body glitter – on how many different incarnations a person can have in one lifetime, even wearing the same hat:  New mom, soccer mom, stay-at-home mom, PTA mom, working mom, divorced mom, dating mom, remarried mom.  Always something new to learn.

For instance:  Flocked velvet Steve Madden platforms make anything else you put on scream I’m ready to dance!  In case you didn’t know.

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Score One for the Mighty Ducks

Posted on December 2, 2006 by onesanevoice

There are times when the forces of nature combine with the forces of bureaucracy to bring about a situation so bizarre as to be both absurdly amusing and just plain hard to believe.

Such an incident occurred recently in the life of Mrs. C, a nearby resident of my town living not far from one of the village waterways.  One morning her 18-year-old daughter, Lorraine, discovered a large, displaced water fowl lurking deep within the recesses of their front shrubbery.  Known as a young woman generous in her love of both domestic and wild animals, Lorraine had managed over the years to transform her mother’s residence into a halfway house for anything wearing fur or feathers.

After several days of attempting to lure the duck out of their bushes, Mrs. C. finally telephoned the Village for assistance.  Her call was directed to the Department of Bay Constables who arrived in a large, imposing vehicle, heavily armed.  They quickly surrounded the bush, prompting Mrs. C. and both her daughters to wonder if the duck claiming squatter’s rights on their property was wanted on other charges as well.

When the constables could not coax the duck out of its retreat, they proceeded with great care to physically remove it, thereby discovering a cache of eggs snugly nestled where the duck had been planted.  Mrs. C.’s family was about to be enlarged.  “I told the constables to just bring the duck and her eggs back to the creek,” said Mrs. C., “but they said nothing could be moved until the eggs hatch.  I said ‘When will that be?’ and they told me, ‘Twenty-eight days.’  I said, ‘Are you kidding?  I’ve got to listen to my dog bark at that bush for 28 days?’  I couldn’t believe it.”

To her further amazement, Mrs. C. was then informed by the constables that if any member of her family attempted to move or disturb either the duck or her eggs, they could be subject to fines or imprisonment under the Federal Wildlife Act.  Since ducks are migratory birds they are protected by an agency of the federal government.  The constables promised to check regularly to make certain that this particular duck was being properly treated.  She was to be fed a diet of cracked corn as well as given a supply of fresh water at all times.

“There’s more,” sighed Mrs. C.  “The ducklings will think the first creature they see when they hatch is their mother.  If it isn’t the mother duck, they’ll reject her for the impostor and probably die from neglect.  So now we have to keep our dog, Cody, away from the bush or he could wind up being the parent of ducklings.  And I’m thinking, why my house?  Do you know why that duck picked us?  Because she knew my daughters would do everything possible to take care of her.  Trust me, this is not a stupid duck.”

The house in which the C. family resides now sports a tarp over the front bush to protect its tenant from the elements.  Cody the dog is being closely monitored lest he be slapped with a paternity suit.  And through all of this Mrs. C. merely shakes her head, wordlessly conceding that once all bets are in, the smart money is on the duck.

Copyright 1997 by author

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Just a Matter of Taste

Posted on November 28, 2006 by onesanevoice

I had been looking at a particular shirt for weeks every time I passed through the mall.  It was one of those bright floral designs in a rayon fabric that the label demanded be hand washed in cold water.  But I knew from experience that if I bought it I’d toss it in the machine on the warm water permanent press cycle along with everything else.  If it survived the ordeal it would then become my favorite shirt because the two of us had bonded together to outwit the manufacturer’s instructions.  I don’t just wear my clothes.  I have relationships with them.

The day I finally stopped to try on the object of my desire, I was shopping at the mall with my teenage daughter.

“There it is!” I pointed excitedly at a rack of shirts from across the aisle.  My daughter looked at me stone-faced.  I gently removed one from its plastic hanger and slipped it on over my T-shirt, rotating my body slowly in front of the mirror to catch the full glorious effect.

“What do you think?” I asked my shopping companion.  She watched me in the mirror, expressionless.  She chose her words deliberately.

“I don’t know, Mom.  It’s not really you.”

“What do you mean ‘not really me’?  Who could you see wearing a shirt like this?”

“Someone with no taste,” she replied somberly.

I looked at my willowy daughter, clad in thigh-high cutoffs with strings hanging to her knees and an oversized T-shirt bearing the emblem of a national motor oil company.  Something told me her fashion advice was sound.

This made me wonder if I had somehow crossed that imaginary line where a woman can no longer distinguish between what is in style and what is flattering or age appropriate.  You see evidence of this everywhere.  There’s the 50-year-old lady walking next to you on the street in a cropped baby tee, bicycle shorts and a silver bead necklace with her name spelled out in blocks.  You want to tap her on the shoulder and say, “Excuse me, madam.  Get a grip.”

My personal nightmare involves the flip side of this fashion debacle.  I fear becoming my grandmother.  I know that at some point in a person’s life, they no longer care if they walk out of their apartment in a house dress and foam slippers because they have more pressing concerns to occupy their thoughts.  However, I have a deal with my friend Caryn.  If at any time in our life one of us sees the other leaving the house wearing something that reveals the tops of wide-band taupe knee-hi’s, permission is granted to shoot first and ask questions later.

In the meantime, I try to accept and even praise the styles my kids have adopted.  I tell my 12-year-old son that it is very wise of him to purchase men’s extra-large clothing for his barely 5-foot frame because this will cut down on shopping time and expense when he is fully grown.  It is only when passing clusters of students in front of the high school wearing jeans with knee-level crotches that I have been known to absent-mindedly comment that this is one fashion statement I simply do not get.  At which point my daughter reminds me that I’m not supposed to get it.  It’s not for me.

Perhaps the key is to have faith in your own personal sense of style and follow it with confidence.  Only yesterday, I purchased a pair of pants in a delicious cinnamon color that match absolutely nothing in my closet.  I held a brief conference with my hanging clothes and we’re all agreed.  I’m going back for the rayon shirt.

Copyright 1996 by author

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We’ll Leave the Light on for You

Posted on November 22, 2006 by onesanevoice

I heard a key turn in the front door lock at 3:30 this morning and I knew it was my son.  He likes to make the 5-hour drive home from college in the middle of the night to avoid interstate traffic.  Actually, he says the ride from out of state is always smooth until he hits New York.  Then it’s mayhem.

We only see him now for holidays and then briefly at that.  He’s a senior with a full course load and a full-time job, always busy planning his next step.  The road to adulthood has been a journey entirely his own and although I was always part of it, over the years I have felt alternately like a bridge and a roadblock; a negotiator and a hostage.

Ever since my kids were past elementary school, I have been out of the house with them in the morning, going to work, always busy.  So when Son walked into the kitchen at 10:00 in the morning and found me at the table drinking coffee and reading the paper in my jammies, his mouth dropped open and his eyes went wide.

“So this is how it is now?” he demanded, eyebrows arched and mouth grinning.  Apparently, my announcement at the end of the summer that I was beginning a self-imposed sabbatical was only so many words until the pajama sighting.

“I’m freelancing,” I sniffed.  He tousled my hair playfully and squeezed my shoulders.  “You deserve it, Mom.  You should take it easy.  You’ve been a great mom.”

In spite of the fact that it sounded like a eulogy, I was deeply touched.  The road to where he is now was not an easy one – either for him or with him – and it is something we can talk about now, he and I.  At 22, he still has the swagger that made more than one teacher from his early years confide to me, “He’s smart and cute and the other kids think he’s the coolest thing but sometimes I just want to kill him.”  Although I always questioned the wisdom and ethics of teachers speaking this candidly to a parent, I nonetheless felt their pain.

But on this day, we sat and chatted about school and work and life.  I told him how proud I was that he made the dean’s list and had been promoted to general manager of the off-campus food franchise he’d worked at since sophomore year.  I asked if he was satisfied with the college student staff of workers he had painstakingly assembled over the summer in preparation for the new school year.  He shrugged.  “They don’t really have my work ethic, y’know?  They’re kids.”

I smiled at the unintended irony and asked him if he’d had to let anyone go yet.  He said, “Sure”, as if it was no big deal.  I was intrigued.
“Really?  You’ve fired people?  How do you fire someone?”
“I tell them not to come back.”
“Just like that?  ‘Don’t come back’?”
“Well, I try and say it so they know what the situation is.  There was this one kid who would show up for the wrong shift or not show up at all.  So after it happened three times I called him up at home and told him we had a problem.  He asked me if I wanted him to switch shifts.  I told him I wanted him to switch jobs.”

Running a business is like walking a tightrope, Son has discovered.  He has to please the customers, manage the workers, answer to the owner and keep an eye on the bottom line.  Sometimes maturity is what happens in between taking final exams and paying the electric bill.

I know I’m not unique in having high hopes for my kids.  We all want our children to have happy lives, fulfilling personal relationships and satisfaction from the work they have chosen.  We cherish the belief that we have given them the foundation to build on and in turn leave their own mark.  And if it turns out that they are the mark that we leave behind, it seems like more than enough.

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Excerpts from Parenthood

Posted on November 16, 2006 by onesanevoice

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity has no correlation to raising children.  Kids age and change by the nanosecond while their parents gaze at their own image in the mirror and wonder when that 20-year-old suddenly turned gray.  It is through our children that we gauge the passage of time, each milestone they reach bringing us to new landscapes at ever increasing speeds.

In the beginning, we watch them take their first step, then suddenly we’re watching from a distance as they cross the street without our hand at the end of theirs.  Before long, they’re sleeping at other people’s houses and soon a summer comes with a date circled on a calendar marking the next time we’ll visit them.  From the moment our children are born they’re leaving us.

Along the way they make some thought provoking pit stops.  I am reminded of a day when we had just moved into our new home and the children were very young.  It was pouring rain and I had to be at a destination an hour away on unfamiliar roads.  As the kids piled into the car they were full of questions:  Where are we going?  How long will it take?  Will we pass a Toys ‘R’ Us?  I told them that before we began our trip, they could each askone question, the most important thing they wanted to know.  Then they had to be as quiet as they could for the rest of the ride so I could concentrate on driving.

Son’s three-year-old voice piped up from the back seat with his most important question, “Got any gum?”  I tossed some Trident over my shoulder and he snagged it midair, giggling.  One down, one to go, I thought, awaiting Daughter’s question.  Her six-year-old eyes met mine in the rear view mirror as she began to speak.  “Why is it,” she asked, “that some people think we came from monkeys and some people say Adam and Eve?”

I held her gaze in the mirror for the longest time wondering where in the world this child came from.  But a deal was a deal and Daughter deserved an answer.  So as we sat in the driveway under a darkening rain, I delivered my best interpretation of man’s creation according to the Bible versus the theory of evolution.  Darwin by the dashboard lights.

Conversations with Son would prove to be equally challenging.  The first summer he went to sleepaway camp, one of our long-awaited pre-scheduled phone calls from him sounded like this:

“Hey, sweetie!  How’s it going?”
“Great, Mom.  This was the coolest week.”
“Oh, yeah?  What happened?”
“We went to Great Adventure.  And it didn’t even matter that I was in a wheelchair.”
“What?!  Why were you in a wheelchair?”
“You can’t go to Great Adventure on crutches, Mom.”
“Excuse me?  Why were you on crutches?”
“The camp doctor didn’t think the knee brace was helping anymore.”

In a flash, my old high school math classes suddenly made sense.  The entire time we were sitting through algebra, we always wondered when in our lives we would ever need to use this ludicrous skill.  Then we became parents and found ourselves in conversations like this and realized that we were dealing with an algebraic equation.  We were once again desperately searching for the “x” that would solve the puzzle and make sense out of chaos.

“Hello?  Why did you have to wear a knee brace?”
“It doesn’t matter.  Did you know that they let you go right to the front of the line if you’re in a wheelchair?  We went on the Viper twice.  It was the best.”

Then again, just like on the math final, sometimes we never actually locate “x“.  We just write it off to a multiple choice guess and move on.  In school this is called trusting your instincts.  In life, it’s known as parenting.

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Buy Me a Volvo

Posted on November 13, 2006 by onesanevoice

There’s a commercial on TV these days that just gets me.  It’s one of those ‘Who would you buy a Volvo for?’ spots that has this little girl about four or five being seat-belted into the car by her very caring, yuppie father.  She’s yammering away in that little kid way, non-stop words winding all around, sounding like they’re going to make sense any minute but maybe not.  And the dad, straight out of central casting as everything you would want in a sperm donor, just can’t take his adoring eyes off her in his rear view mirror even as his mind frantically searches for what the hell she could possibly be talking about.  What parent doesn’t know that sensation?

The reality-check feeling, though, is when your kid says something exactly true.  Back when I used to seat belt my kids in the car, our family was on our way to a wedding and their father was complaining about one of his schmucky relatives and how much he hoped he wouldn’t be there.  He kept using the word schmuck instead of the relative’s name thinking that would somehow immunize him from being overheard in the back seat.  So after we’re at the wedding about a half hour, I find out that Daughter, who was about the same age as the little Volvo girl, was going guest-to-guest asking each guy, “Are you the schmuck?”

More champagne over here, please.

When Son was about that age, his father participated in Career Day at school.  That’s the day when a kid’s parents with hopefully interesting jobs show up and tell all about what they do and why it’s important.  His dad, a podiatrist, took with him a sports page photo of Doc Gooden going into his windup as an example of how much we rely on our feet to support us.  He held up the photo and asked the class, “Can anyone tell me what Doc Gooden is doing?”  To which a little boy called out, “Six months in rehab.”

Ok, make it a vodka.

Even better than kids saying what they shouldn’t is adults you admire revealing a hidden thought. Daughter’s preschool teacher in Brooklyn was nearly a saint; calm and fair with a Buddha-like smile and endless patience.  On a trip to an animal farm that I helped chaperone, one of the classmates was so impossibly obnoxious that he became my pick for Birth Control Poster Boy.  After he tormented a gentle horse to the point that the animal bit him, the farm’s agitated director came over and apologized profusely.  With little Monster Boy wailing and the director wringing her hands saying the horse had never done anything like this before, I distinctly heard St. Teacher mutter under her breath that the horse had chosen wisely.

Buy that lady a drink.

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The Scent of Forgiveness

Posted on November 5, 2006 by onesanevoice

In the newspaper today, there was a story about a crime victim who had taken her own road to reconciling the wrong that had been committed against her and the young man who perpetrated it.  It is the lesson of an open heart and all that comes from forgiving.

Two years ago Thanksgiving, a woman driving on a local highway fell into the path of a car full of bored teenagers on a low activity night.  As a prank, one of them threw a frozen turkey out the window that smashed into the woman’s front windshield, shattering her face.  The teens were all up on charges with varying punishments, but the young man who threw the projectile was looking at 25 years.  In an act that surprised all concerned, the victim asked the court for leniency on his behalf, believing that a young person’s life should not be defined by one tragic choice, even as her face would forever bear witness.

The teen served his 6-month sentence and is now doing community service.  And so is the victim.  She tours schools and speaks to the newly formed student clubs, Students Against Destructive Decisions, as an example and an inspiration.  All the laws and powers of a justice system pale in the face of an act that can only be called spiritual.

Which brings us to the Amish.  Mark Twain once said, “Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”  The wave of sadness, awe and ultimate respect the nation felt after the tragedy at Nickel Mines is testament to the power of goodness in its purest form. But how do we get there?

On a good day, the most forgiving we have to be is for the elderly driver who cuts us off twice as we enter the parkway.  But, oh the bad day.  When achieving acceptance is the farthest we can go and actual forgiveness seems to slip through our fingers like sand.  A Wise Man I once wailed to about a personal betrayal smiled at me and replied, “And who ever said you were exempt from getting screwed?”

We really are all a neighborhood.  We know that bad things happen to good people.  We keep our eyes open.  Do we keep our hearts open?  The best neighborhoods are filled with people who look out for one another as well as themselves.  I believe this is called humanity.  Or, maybe, salvation.  If it were a sound, it would be Ray Charles.  If it were a taste, it would be hot chocolate on a freezing day.  And if it were a scent, it would be violets.

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Pretty Poison

Posted on October 28, 2006 by onesanevoice

It is irresistible.  And yet horribly wrong.  Three layers.  Chicken, sweet corn, mashed potatoes.  Covered with cheese and gravy.  The KFC Bowl.  As the delectable mouthfuls travel down your throat and throughout your body, no living organ escapes the flood of homey goodness, trans-fat and cholesterol.  A fate sandwich.

My grandmother lived to be 100 and ate anything she craved.  A handful of roast beef carved at the deli counter she ran.  Eggplant smothered in parmesan cheese and tomato sauce.  The second mound of a Mounds bar one of us left behind.  Healthy as a grandmotherly horse.  I remember calling her one year down in her Century Village condo with the greeting, “Happy birthday, Grandma!  How does it feel to be 95?”  She thought for a beat and then replied cheerfully, “Pretty good, but you know, it’s not like when I was in my 80s.”

My other grandmother, who we called Bubbe (Yiddish for grandmother, not a redneck reference), also lived into her late nineties with no dietary curfews.  Family legend has it that in her younger days she liked to bend the elbow a bit and even played the numbers.  I’m told she used to send my father to the corner to place her bets and buy her a beer.  This was back before they started proofing 8-year-olds.

If either of these fine women were alive today I’m certain the words “cheesy gordita” would be in their vocabularies.

My kids eat healthy.  Perhaps in response to my almost insanely pedestrian culinary preferences.  Son broils salmon in dill sauce.  Daughter makes her own chicken soup with organic vegetables.  Kids.  Always rebelling.  One minute they’re devouring the Toys ‘R’ Us Big Book, turn your back and it’s the Williams Sonoma catalog.  They fret about my Wheat Thins.  Daughter brings me tofu purees in tupperware.  “You can put this on anything,” she assures me.  I’m sure I could.

And until I do, if there is a fried clam anywhere, I will find it, I will catch it, and I will eat it.

Now who would you rather chow down with?

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Roots and Wings

Posted on October 19, 2006 by onesanevoice

Time goes on and changes need to be made.  As a Taurus, I’m not so good with changes.  Which is why the house is still cluttered with the belongings of people I once gave birth to but have now moved on.

A request was issued to these individuals that the next time they find themselves in their former bedrooms they go through drawers and closets and place any items they no longer EVER want into large trash bags and leave them in the middle of the room.  The request is honored.  Three months ago.  I get so used to seeing the trash bags I forget they’re not furniture.

So I arrange for the Vietnam Veterans of America to come pick up our driveway full of discards.  This is my charity of choice because this was the war of my childhood.  I recall sitting on the floor of our living room as a teenager as our entire family watched the televised draft lottery.  Random birth dates scrolling across the TV screen that would determine whether my brother went to college the next year or Southeast Asia.  He went to college so I think of those who didn’t.  Talk about Reality TV.

Daughter comes to help me prepare for the pickup and we haul Son’s bags to the curb.  She lives in the city and he’s at an out of state college.  I reach randomly into one of his bags and pull out a sweatshirt from the 7th grade, that’s good, and a parking ticket from last year, that’s not.  Daughter laughs.  “Well, you said to pack up everything we didn’t want,” she reminds me.  I put the ticket in an envelope with a note that the Veterans won’t pay this and mail it out of state.

Don’t look in the bags.  That’s the rule.  If the bags get opened we’re done for.  When I was my kids’ age and scoured my childhood home for the things I would bring away, I was surprised that some of the items I kept weren’t even my mementos.  I still have a Cub Scout plaque, Troop 246, that belonged to my brother.  Every Friday night my brother and my den-mother mom would go to the meetings.  My dad and I would watch The Flintstones and eat graham crackers smooshed in milk.  His plaque, my memory.

After the truck leaves we feel light and giddy.  Getting rid of baggage always does that.  I drive Daughter to the train station and watch her bound the steps, two at a time, a dedicated professional, teacher and grad student.  In a Hello Kitty t-shirt.  Ah well, rules were made to be broken.

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