It is now 2010, (and it will be 2011 before it is all said and done, so far this little diatribe has taken 3 weeks to write. Mainly because of the subject. I do not claim to do her justice; because words are not enough for her scope and her, I shall say soul and I say that because well...)
then it was 1971...
First class 10th grade, me a 15 year old guy, tall skinny and unruly hair. Her thin, strawberry blond and hot pants. The attraction was...well, automatic.
She invited me home for snacks after school one day and I could not say no. I went to her house and found her father lounging on the couch as we went into her room. There were tunes and pot and conversation that went on for hours, then hunger struck. We ate peanut butter toast, Fritos and lemon-aid. While telling jokes and stories there was a noise at the front door. Little did I know, the closest friend I would ever have was coming through that door.
Call her Mom, Rae, G-ma or as I grew to know and love her simply "MA", she was the most incredible woman I will probably ever meet. Here was this woman who, no thanks to an "unavailable" husband (glug glug), raised 5 children and ran a house, all on a "fixed income", see, she was a manager for the phone company.
She seemed to take only one quick look at me before she said "hey you; wait a minute" or something along those lines, anyway I stopped, turned and walked toward her. My first lesson was about to begin. 'Don't go around with your head down, you can't see anything that way'. she then went to the fridge for some dinner for the kids.
On the way home I did what "Ma" said and walked with my head up and found myself walking a little bit taller and thinking about this Lady I had just met, and pondering; just who is this Lady.
My relationship with her youngest daughter grew, and my awe of "Ma" also grew. I spent more and more of my afternoons in this house and time flew by.
The daughter and I did a lot of things that were less than legal, though never wrong, with me sort of trying to hide these things from Ma. What a waste of time that turned out to be, she seemed to know everything and more importantly she knew what was important, sort of separating the wheat from the chafe.
For reasons that I still do not understand she took a decided interest in me and what I thought; how I saw things ,and just as importantly why. This was the first person who seemed to care about the root of what made me who I was and as it turned out who I was to become.
One day I went to her house, when I knew her kids would not be there, so that we could have a talk. This, little did I realize, was a walk through a door I would look forward to walking through for the next 30+ years. We talked and talked, about things and nothings and MY GOD could she laugh (some times from her shoes) but she could also argue. Well it does take two to tango, and it also takes two to argue.
And argue we did though NEVER, well almost never, in anger. Arguing seemed to be the thing that I could give to her that nobody else could. Such a small gift to give to the LADY that gave me so much. We would argue over politics (though we were both true BLUE Demos), we would argue over the way her sons acted when we ran out of things to argue over; but the one thing, the one big thing we would argue over was the PHONE COMPANY!
She was one of the last true "BELL SHAPED HEADS" and I was, and still am, a dirt worshiping tree huger who is anti and non trusting of corporate America. It was with this little difference of opinion we had the most fun, my God was it fun.
It seems that we were both right so there could be no winner and more importantly there could be no looser, there was just fun dialogue.
Well it had to happen and one day we ran out of thing to say, for or against, the PHONE COMPANY and she told me that "You don't work for the phone company and so you don't know the phone company so I don't want to hear another word from you about it!" OK then.
I had another 40 hour a week job that I didn't care one way or another about when I saw in the paper that the PHONE COMPANY was hiring. Well I said to myself "This is an opportunity" and picked up the phone.
About a whole year later they called and being a Veteran they hired me pretty quick.
A few months went by and I had gotten the hang of the whole "tel-co" way of doing things so I went back to "Ma's" table and said pretty as you please "So what do you think about this FU*%ing phone company?!" Knowing she had no where to go, she smiled and looked at me and said, for the first time, "Fuck". This was the first of many secrets that "Ma" and I would share over the coming years.
I have so many memories and stories about "Ma" and I would truly love to share them with you now but this is running a bit long, so maybe next time I'll tell you about "stems and seeds" or...
My relationship with her youngest daughter grew, and my awe of "Ma" also grew. I spent more and more of my afternoons in this house and time flew by.
The daughter and I did a lot of things that were less than legal, though never wrong, with me sort of trying to hide these things from Ma. What a waste of time that turned out to be, she seemed to know everything and more importantly she knew what was important, sort of separating the wheat from the chafe.
For reasons that I still do not understand she took a decided interest in me and what I thought; how I saw things ,and just as importantly why. This was the first person who seemed to care about the root of what made me who I was and as it turned out who I was to become.
One day I went to her house, when I knew her kids would not be there, so that we could have a talk. This, little did I realize, was a walk through a door I would look forward to walking through for the next 30+ years. We talked and talked, about things and nothings and MY GOD could she laugh (some times from her shoes) but she could also argue. Well it does take two to tango, and it also takes two to argue.
And argue we did though NEVER, well almost never, in anger. Arguing seemed to be the thing that I could give to her that nobody else could. Such a small gift to give to the LADY that gave me so much. We would argue over politics (though we were both true BLUE Demos), we would argue over the way her sons acted when we ran out of things to argue over; but the one thing, the one big thing we would argue over was the PHONE COMPANY!
She was one of the last true "BELL SHAPED HEADS" and I was, and still am, a dirt worshiping tree huger who is anti and non trusting of corporate America. It was with this little difference of opinion we had the most fun, my God was it fun.
It seems that we were both right so there could be no winner and more importantly there could be no looser, there was just fun dialogue.
Well it had to happen and one day we ran out of thing to say, for or against, the PHONE COMPANY and she told me that "You don't work for the phone company and so you don't know the phone company so I don't want to hear another word from you about it!" OK then.
I had another 40 hour a week job that I didn't care one way or another about when I saw in the paper that the PHONE COMPANY was hiring. Well I said to myself "This is an opportunity" and picked up the phone.
About a whole year later they called and being a Veteran they hired me pretty quick.
A few months went by and I had gotten the hang of the whole "tel-co" way of doing things so I went back to "Ma's" table and said pretty as you please "So what do you think about this FU*%ing phone company?!" Knowing she had no where to go, she smiled and looked at me and said, for the first time, "Fuck". This was the first of many secrets that "Ma" and I would share over the coming years.
I have so many memories and stories about "Ma" and I would truly love to share them with you now but this is running a bit long, so maybe next time I'll tell you about "stems and seeds" or...
3 comments:
All these years of knowing you and then find there is still more to know. I do love you so.
Great vignette from your life! Would love to hear more.
Thank you Dee. I will post more.
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