Oh Christmas Tree

Picking out our Christmas tree every year was always a major ordeal. Unbeknownst to us kids, it was Dad's job to take us out tree-shopping so Mom could sort and wrap the Christmas presents.  It was her way of making sure we were out of the house for an extended period of time and that Dad did something towards Christmas preparations.  But that wasn't the part that was the ordeal.

The ordeal came because no matter what, Dad and us girls never, ever picked out a tree that suited Mom.  That is until we came up with the idea for the Christmas tree lunch.

When we were very young, we would go to a nearby fruit and vegetable stand called "Jigg's."  Jigg's sold produce in the summer, pumpkins in the fall, and Christmas trees in the winter.  After Christmas, Jigg's would close up shop until spring.  The stand was on the way to church and school, and I always knew Christmas was coming when those triangle-shaped stands went up right before Thanksgiving.

There were always a couple of dozen trees hanging in the stands as well as a nearby pile to choose from if the ones hanging up didn't work.  We'd walk through the rows, looking at the merits of each tree, turning it to check for bare spots, making sure the trunk wasn't crooked, measuring the height.  It had to be about 7 feet tall and a douglas fir.  Mom liked that kind best because the branches were sturdy enough to hold the lights and spaced far enough apart to showcase the ornaments.

We would look and look, and I always felt bad passing by the ones that didn't measure up, until we finally found the right tree.  The worker would saw the bottom off and rope it to the roof of the car, and we'd head home anxious to show Mom this year's tree.

But every year, there was something...it was too short or there was a bare spot or the trunk was crooked...It didn't matter that once the lights and decorations got on, it would look great.  The imperfections just screamed at her, and that's all she could see.

Finally one year, after an argument because we'd brought home a tree that was so short we had to place it on milk crates covered with a sheet to make it tall enough, Mom suggested that next time we go to the tree stand in the Consolidated parking lot.  "You need to go to more than one place!" she said. "You need to SPEND SOME TIME looking for a tree!"

So the next year, we skipped Jigg's and headed over to Consolidated to see what their trees looked like.  We looked and looked.  Up and down row after row until we couldn't remember where we saw a tree that might have worked.  Finally, we found one that maybe had a bare spot or maybe a crooked trunk, but we didn't care.  We'd been looking for a Christmas tree for a couple of hours.  We were cold and hungry and just wanted to go home.

When we pulled it off the top of the car and showed it to Mom, she still wasn't satisfied even thought we'd gotten the tree from the lot she suggested.  My dad just shook his head and mumbled something under his breath and plunked the tree down in a bucket of water until we could get it inside to decorate.

At some point the next fall, my mom and dad were enjoying an evening with a couple they were friends with, when Mom and the other dad hatched a plan for the dads to take all of us kids over to Indiana to cut down our own tree.  We all thought that was a great idea! Visions of trekking through the snowy woods and finding the ultimate Christmas tree illuminated by a single sunbeam permeated my every thought.

On the appointed Saturday, we loaded into a leisure van my dad had borrowed from one of the Chevrolet dealers he knew, and we drove over to Indiana.  This was not a Christmas tree farm in today's sense of the word.  This was a farm that had an occasional Christmas tree-type of tree on it that we could cut down. We piled out of the car, the dads carrying axes, and headed into the woods to find "the tree," but all we could find were cedar trees, and we knew Mom wouldn't go for that at all.  We hiked and hiked, and it was cold.  I don't think we were even on the tree farm property at this point, but finally we found a tree that we thought would work.  It was nice and full and had a straight trunk and no bare spots, so we claimed it as ours.  Our friends found a tree too, and Dad and Mr. B proceeded to cut them both down.

Did you know that a tree out in the woods looks a lot smaller than it is in real life?

We hauled that tree back to where we parked, but we couldn't get it in the van.  It was too tall.  We got our friends' tree loaded onto their car, but ours wouldn't fit.  And as we tried one way and then another, the back window broke out of that borrowed van when someone tried to close the rear door and hit the trunk of the tree.

Needless to say that Dad was the unhappy one that year.

So, Jigg's was out.  Consolidated didn't work.  Cutting down our own tree, while scoring us a great tree, also incurred a broken van window, so that was a no-go.  It seemed like nothing we did worked.  We'd never find a tree that was the perfect tree.

The next year, with a sense of dread but a determination to make Mom happy, we piled in the car and headed out yet again.

"Where are we going this year?" one of my sisters asked.

"It doesn't matter where we go," I said, "we will never get the perfect tree."

The gravel crunched under our tires, as we pulled into Jigg's for the umpteenth year and tumbled out of the car to look.  And right away, we found a pretty good tree.  Not too tall, not too short, not too many bare spots, fairly straight trunk...So we bought it.

There was just one problem...If we went home already, Mom was sure to find something wrong with the tree, and then she'd tell us that we hadn't shopped in enough lots or spent enough time looking at trees...

So after we tied the tree to the roof of the car, Dad said, "Well, we can't go home yet.  Want to go to lunch?"

And that's how our Christmas tree shopping tradition started.  We'd go to one lot, pick out a tree, and then go to lunch. Sometimes we'd go to McDonalds, but we usually went to Mr. Gatti's so we could each get that personal sized pizza we so loved.  We'd even park in the back in the off-chance that Mom would be driving down Dixie Highway and see our car parked out front and wonder what the heck we were doing at Mr. Gatti's.  When we came home, we'd tell Mom that we looked all over and finally, FINALLY found this tree.  And you know what?  She usually loved them!  We had found the recipe for the perfect tree.  It had nothing to do with bare spots or straight trunks.  It had everything to do with spending the right amount of time looking for the perfect tree that made it so.

We didn't tell Mom for years.  In fact, I think I was well into my late 20s or early 30s before we finally spilled the beans.  She was not amused.  But those days of the Christmas tree lunches are some of my favorite memories, and I wouldn't trade them for the most perfect tree in the world.

Christmas Savings

The bank was in what had once been an old fish and chips restaurant. I remembered eating there and trying to like the food because I loved how the windows looked as if they belonged on the captain's quarters of a pirate ship.  The panes were small, with a yellow cast to them, and I used to pretend like I was on the ocean whenever we ate there.

But now it was a bank, and we stopped in after school once a week for Mom to deposit money in her Christmas savings account.  I hated that.  I was too little to wait in the car, and the inside of the building no longer looked like a pirate mess hall with heavy wooden tables and chairs.  It was just a regular old bank.  Boring except for the windows, but even they weren't the same.

Mom was diligent about putting money in the Christmas savings.  She opened it in the summer and paid on it regularly.  I'm not sure where she got the money because she wasn't working at the time.  Probably it came out of the grocery money or maybe my dad slipped her a $10 bill every week.  Regardless, every week, we'd stop at the bank that used to be a fish and chips restaurant and make a deposit.

Once she started working at OLC, she opened Christmas savings for my sisters and me.  At the end of the payment period, right around Thanksgiving, we'd each get a sweet $25 to use to buy presents for our loved ones.  That seemed like a ton of money to us back in the day.

I would try to budget out how much to spend on each person and found out that $25 didn't go very far once I got down to it.  I figured Mom and Dad deserved the best presents, so I'd allot $5 each for them.  Then there were my sisters at $2.50 each, my grandma and whichever cousin I drew for the gift exchange at Granny's house, and if there was anything left, something for my friends.

My dad was easy.  Every year, all he asked for was "shorts (boxers), shirts (undershirts), and socks (Gold Toe, either blue, brown, or black).  Occasionally, he'd ask for a tie, but Mom would have to go in on that with us, so we usually stuck to the usual, the difference being who had to give Dad underwear that year.  I can remember standing in the Men's Department at Bacon's in Shively agonizing over which pair of socks to get Dad.  The wall was filled with all shades of blues, browns and blacks.  Thin or thick?  What about a pattern this year?  Nothing crazy, just tone on tone, but maybe a dot or a different weave???  No, just the usual.  Gold Toe, blue, brown, or black.  If they were on sale, we could get two or three pair for $5.  It was always a score when that happened.  "Three pair of socks!  Yes!"

The shorts and shirts were standard Hanes or Fruit of the Loom, again whatever was on sale.  And always white, always boxers, always crew necks.  Never plaids or briefs or v-necks.  Same ol', same ol'.  So getting to be the one who got to buy Dad socks was something!  At least you had a choice.  Regardless, we took pride in wrapping everything as nicely as we could, and when he opened each one, Dad would say, "Shorts!  Just what I needed!  Thank you!" like he was thrilled to get new underwear for Christmas.

Mom was harder to buy for.  We always wanted to get her something special, but what can you get special for $5?  I remember going to the Ladies' Department, again at Bacon's, and looking at house slippers, which was something she regularly got.  They would max out my budget and then some, but they were so soft and new, in pinks and powder blues with roses embroidered across the foot...Mom's slippers were always worn and even washing couldn't take the dirt out after awhile.  One of us usually got her a pair of slippers, nothing fancy though.  Just regular Dearfoams.  Terrycloth mostly.  Closed toe.  Anything else was too hot.

I can remember going up to Otto Drugs and buying Mom a bottle of Oil of Olay or a necklace from the jewelry counter.  One year, she had a Home Interiors party, and there was an alabaster owl that was in my budget.  I was determined to get it.  I sidled up to the party rep and whispered what I wanted to do.  She promised to help me and keep it secret from Mom.  I handed over the $4 that the owl cost and waited for what seemed like forever for it to come.  I don't know how she did it.  My guess is that she told Mom of my plan, and Mom played dumb, but I got the owl and hid it under my bed until Christmas morning.  When she finally opened it, Mom was so surprised.  "How did you get this without me knowing?" she asked.  And I'm fairly positive it did not fit with any of her home decor, but that owl sat on the end table in the living room for years.  She even wrote a little story about it, and when we cleaned Dad's house out, I brought it home to mine.

My sisters would get gloves or a jewelry box or some such trinket. My grandma...Rose Silk lotion. My friends would usually get a LifeSavers candy book (tangerine, please) or a giant candy cane.  In a good year, they would score a one-pound Hershey's candy bar.  Again, Otto Drugs was the place to shop.

All of this to say that the whole process of saving the money (although it wasn't mine to start with), planning a budget, and buying presents for family and friends was such a thrill.  It was challenging for me to figure out how to make it work to get something for everyone, and I felt so smart when I was able to do it.

And I know my parents and my grandma could have bought their own underwear, slippers, or lotion, but it didn't matter to them what they got as long as we made the effort to pick it out.  It was the process not the present, and I never, ever felt like Mom or Dad was disappointed in what I had given them for Christmas.

I think that is lost today.  We get so wrapped up in the gift that we forget the giving behind it.  This Christmas, I hope we can all remember the thrill of giving a new pair of Gold Toe socks or a beautiful alabaster owl.

Christmas 2016

Christmas 2016

On the morning of August 31, 2016, my kids gathered in the kitchen before the girls left for school for one more group hug.  They do that a lot, those three, but the hugs usually end up with Kyle tickling the girls and hilarity ensuing. Not so this particular morning.  This time, the hug ended with tears and “I love yous” and “I’ll miss you so much” Kyle was leaving later that day for a semester studying at the University of Luneburg in Germany, and the hug was their goodbye.  He would be gone when they got home from school. 

Kirk and I drove Kyle to the airport, checked his bag, and walked with him to security.  We got our hugs too, along with final words of wisdom…Keep a copy of your passport with you at all time…Don’t leave your things unattended…Pay attention to your surroundings…We stood there while he passed through the gate, got his shoes back on, and headed down the terminal, getting smaller and smaller until he turned the corner and was out of sight.  I cried then.  I felt like that dad in the car commercial handing keys to his daughter who he still sees as a preschooler. 

Kirk headed on to work, but I wanted to stay until Kyle’s plane had taken off in case there was a delay.  I decided to drive over to the cell phone lot and watch from there.  I texted Kyle to see where he was on the plane, and luckily, he was on the side facing me.  I waved.  He said he saw me.  I stood there watching, waiting until the plane pulled away from the terminal and began to taxi down the runway.  Tears streaming down my face, I jumped up and down and waved my arms as it lifted off, hoping Kyle could see me as he began the adventure of a lifetime.  He will miss Christmas for the first time this year (he’s spending it in Ireland, so don’t feel too bad for him!) and gets home on Jan. 4.  We can’t wait to see him!

Kyle is not the only one who we had to let fly this year.  Claire spent 5 weeks at Morehead University this summer participating in the Governor’s Scholar Program.  Then she spent another week doing service work in Kentucky with Y-Corps, so she was gone for much of the summer.  Now she is busy finishing up college applications and scholarship essays.  I can’t believe she’s almost in her final semester of high school. 

Emily and I hung out a lot this summer.  It was nice, but weird, just having one child at home.  For most of  July, we drove back and forth to New Albany as she rehearsed for Hairspray with New Albany RiverStage Theater.  She started Sacred Heart and jumped right in and got a role in 42^nd Street, joined the Y-Club and the choir.  She’s made tons of new friends and loves school.

Kirk celebrates a year at The Jump Agency and is still doing National Guard on the weekends.  I got a very part-time job at…wait for it…Locust Grove!  I’m working on the occasional weekend in the Visitor’s Center doing visitor center things.  I have spent enough time there over the years, might as well get paid for it!

As we wind up 2016, may you find yourself surrounded by the ones you love, embraced in the biggest group hug you could ever ask for, and may it always end in hilarity!

Peace!

Dear Mr. Miranda

 

Dear Mr. Miranda,

 

I admit I was late to board the Hamilton train.  I didn’t want to get caught up in all the hype, jumping on the bandwagon for the “greatest musical of our time” kind of thing.  So I put off listening to the songs despite everyone I knew saying how amazing it was. 

 

I am a costumed interpreter (CI) at an historic home here in Louisville.  The people who owned the house where I reenact were friends with our founders. George Rogers Clark and his brother, William Clark, and their friends and relatives were mighty unto themselves. The older brothers fought with Washington and Hamilton and Lafayette.  They knew Madison and Jefferson and Burr.  In fact, Aaron Burr visited Locust Grove in 1806 when he was “taking a leave’” from Washington after the duel that killed Hamilton. 

 

About a month ago, our CIs were asked to attend the preview showing of "The Making of Hamilton" down at the Kentucky Center for the Arts, sponsored by PBS/KET.  We were doing a joint promotion of all things related to the musical here in Louisville.  I donned my best Regency dress and put my hair in a turban and proceeded to spend the evening inviting people to Locust Grove to cross the same threshold that had once been crossed by Aaron Burr.

 

When time came for the showing, I joined the rest of the attendees and went into the theater to watch.  I admit it….I was hooked.  From the very first song, I could not get your words out of my head.  I came home and immediately pulled the music up on You Tube and began listening non-stop.  I watched the documentary again, this time with my husband, and he became hooked as well.  We loved how you changed the lens through which we view history.  How the players are all people of color.  How you made our past become present.  It was incredible.

 

I don’t know your politics, but these past couple of weeks have been rough for me.  I’m a white, middle-aged, Catholic woman, living in upper middle class suburbia, and I am devastated by the election and all of the hate that has risen to the surface because of it.  It has been hard to wake up every day with the knowledge that our new president is someone like Donald Trump. 

 

Today, I decided to put my headphones on and go mulch the leaves in my lawn before the cold sets in.  I set my music to the Hamilton tracks and went to work.  As I walked back and forth across my yard, your words became so present to me that I began to cry.  

When Hamilton says to Burr, “If you stand for nothing, Burr, what will you fall for?” I realized I will need to be willing to stand up for what I believe, even more now that the election has unleashed so much bigotry.

 

As the Schyler sisters sang, “Look around.  Look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now,” I realized that for all that has gone wrong in my life these past few weeks, I really AM lucky to be alive right now.  In this time.  In this country. 

When President Washington sang, “Teach them how to say goodbye,” I thought of President Obama welcoming Trump into the White House last week, teaching all of us that we don’t always get our way and for this experiment in self-government to continue to succeed, we have to look to our past for examples of greatness and follow those examples.

 

When “The World Turned Upside Down” came on, I thought, “Yeah.  That’s about how I feel right now.”  My world was turned upside down last week, but I took heart from the song. 

 

The whole time I was working, listening to the music, I kept thinking about my ancestors who fought in the Revolution and my ancestors who left Europe in the last century to come to America.  I kept thinking that we are greater than the hate.  We are better than what we appear to be right now.  I thought about how our ancestors sacrificed so much for the freedom they so desperately desired, and I became more determined to stand up for those freedoms today.  Your music made me feel empowered to speak up going forward, to not be afraid to stand for the rights of everyone and to call out the wrongs that I see when I see them.

 

I’ve not seen Hamilton, but I hope to someday whenever it comes near Louisville.  I know I will cry the whole time.  Thank you for such a powerful gift to the world. 

I Am Voting

I am voting for my grandmothers, both of whom were born before women could vote. One, raised in France, was sent to every school a girl could attend because her father wanted his children to have the best education possible and did not want their gender to be a barrier. The other, raised on a farm in rural Kentucky, went to a one-room school house and never graduated from high school. Both of them became productive members of society and raised good families and daughters who believed women could do anything. 

I am voting for my parents, who had only daughters, who taught us that we were capable and smart and could do anything we wanted. My parents, who raised us to believe that everyone was equal; that discrimination was wrong; that the color of one's skin didn't matter; that we should share our bounty with the less fortunate; that we should take care of the Earth that God made for us; that is it okay to disagree, but that it is not okay to be disagreeable.

I am voting for my dad, who was a precinct captain, and who let me canvass the neighborhood with him every election. I hung out the car window, putting flyers in mailboxes as he drove through the streets where we lived. My dad, who worked the polls every year, who got up at 4:30 a.m. to drive into town to get doughnuts for the workers and stayed until the end of the day. My dad, who would bring the election printouts home, spread them on the kitchen table, and sometimes let us call in the results to democratic headquarters. 

I am voting for my mom, who took us to the polls with her; who let us pull the lever to shut the curtain and then flip the smaller levers to vote for our candidates. My mom, who didn't go to college, but who made sure that her daughters did. My mom, who worked in a school for nearly 30 years as a teacher's aide, and raised hundreds of children and was dearly loved by all.

I am voting for my husband, who is a member of our armed services, who has spent 25 years defending our freedoms. My husband, who has been my partner for a quarter of a century, who believes that my job as a stay-at-home mom is equally important to our family as his; my husband, who is helping me to raise a son who believes that women are equal and our daughters, who believe that they are equal. 

I am voting for my son, who is seeing that the world is not always a nice place; who is trying to make it better; who stands up for his sisters and for women who are marginalized; who will lead his peers as the next generation of young men become old enough to make a difference.

I am voting for my daughters, who are beautiful and smart and can do anything they set their minds to. I am voting for my older daughter, who just last month, was called "sweetie" and "dear heart" by a male professor at a college she visiting to see if she wanted to attend in order to study chemistry. I am voting for my younger daughter, who doesn't take any crap from anybody, who once told a boy who said something mean about one of her friends, "That's my friend, and if you can't be nice to her, then I don't think we need to go out anymore."

I am voting for my 88-year old aunt, who I am taking to the polls on Tuesday. She needs a walker to get around. She has macular degeneration and is nearly deaf, but she wants to vote for the first woman president. 

Finally, I am voting for the best qualified candidate to come along in many generations. A woman who understands the intricacies of the world we live in today. A woman who is cool under pressure and compassionate to the less fortunate. A woman who knows what it is like to have to make tough decisions and who won't make them lightly. A woman who believes that America is already great and who will make it even better. 

I am voting for Hillary Clinton. I hope you will too.

The System: College Admissions and Scholarships

I am exhausted with the college application process, and I am not even the one applying to college.  The whole system is a game, and I, for one, am just plain disgusted with everything about it.

For Kyle, choosing a college wasn't such a big ordeal.  He was a good student with a decent GPA and an above average ACT score.  He had a solid resume with activities and service.  He could have gotten in pretty much any of the schools he applied to, but his scholarship opportunities were minimal.  He didn't really know what he wanted to do, but he knew he wanted to graduate with as little debt as possible, so he decided early on that he'd attend an in-state, public university in order to use his KEES money and get in-state tuition.  Luckily for him, he scored a coveted full-ride scholarship at UofL because of all of his civic involvement during high school.  Had he not gotten that scholarship, he would have probably ended up at UofL or Northern Kentucky University or Western Kentucky University, and it would have been fine.  The merit scholarships he received were enough to offset the majority of the tuition, and he would have had to take out only a few thousand dollars of loans.

Claire, on the other hand, is in a quandary.  She is my most academically gifted child with an unweighted GPA of 4.0 and weighted well into the mid 4.5 range.  She's taken the hardest classes at school.  She's involved in several clubs.  She's danced since she was four years old.  She works at a nursing home.  She is a Kentucky Governor's Scholar.  But her ACT score is at the bottom end of "full ride."  

Claire is a perfectionist, very methodical, and takes her time in order to ensure accuracy.  Therefore, even though she gets 100% of the questions correct when taking the ACT at home un-timed, she fails to complete some of the sections during the actual test and has to guess at the last few, missing enough to keep her from attaining that magic number that equals "Major Scholarship" even though she scores high enough to get accepted to pretty much any school she wants to attend.

So we are left with this:  she can get in; she can get good scholarships, but we can't pay for the rest of the tuition without taking out tens of thousands of dollars in loans.

And this is where the bullshit starts.

Thankfully, we are able to afford ACT classes and a private tutor for her.  After her first ACT test, we paid for her to attend a week-long class right before the next ACT, and she was able to bring her score up about 4 points.  The next couple of times she took the ACT, she would go up in one area and down in another, getting basically the same composite score, which, while high by most any standard, wasn't high enough.  

So we paid for a private tutor.  She went twice a week for several weeks to work on speed and short cuts and tricks of the trade.  We are waiting to see if her latest score improves, and I hope it does, because we've spent nearly a thousand dollars over a couple of summers trying to help her reach that magic number.

But here's the thing...what about kids from families who don't have the money to pay for a private tutor?  What about kids who don't have the guidance from home?  It's not fair to kids who may be just as smart or smarter than Claire not to have the same advantages she had.

And then there is the Common Application.  This fabrication of a college application is so much crap that I don't even know where to begin.  Okay, let's start with the essay prompts.  

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

 2. The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

3. Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?

4. Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma - anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

5. Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.

But you can't write about the death of someone you love, and you can't write about a sports failure, and you must make it "unique" and grab the reader at the first sentence. Claire has been working on hers for weeks, but she just can't find the right tone or idea.  She knows the admissions people are looking for that certain "uniqueness" in the essay, and she is stuck.

Again, some kids are able to hire writing coaches who help them come up with a topic, do a rough draft, write, edit, and then turn it in.  We haven't done that yet, but I know people who have.  Good for them if they have the money.  We could, I guess, but I just don't want to.  It shouldn't be necessary.  

There are people who are able to hire college counselors who do nothing but help their kids submit applications, prep for the ACT, do mock interviews, etc., all in the hopes of getting the full-ride.  And that's great...for those kids.  But the majority of people in the good ol' USA don't have that luxury, so what we are creating is a privileged class of college students who get the scholarships and the full-rides over kids from families who can't afford all of the one-on-one.  I admit, we are a part of that first group.  It's hard not to do it if you can, and it will benefit your child.

Meanwhile, we have all of these colleges and universities coming to the high schools, touting their institutions of higher learning, getting the kids all psyched up to go on a campus visit.  And we go, and we love it, and then we see the sticker price, and leave with our mouths hanging open in shock.  

Claire would like to maybe go to the University of Pittsburgh or St. Louis University.  We visited both last week, and the campuses are amazing.  The dorms at SLU are all new.  The workout facility is fantastic.  The opportunities for study abroad are top notch.  They even have a satellite campus in Madrid.  But the tuition alone is $40,000 a year plus fees.  Room and board another $12,000-13,000 a year.  If Claire gets the maximum amount of merit scholarship possible, she would get $76,000 over four years.  Nothing to sneeze at, for sure, but minus $76,000 from $210,000, and you are left trying to figure out how to come up with another $132,000.  

Sure there are grants and loans.  We filled out the FAFSA with Kyle, and we make too much to get any grants and not enough to afford the tuition without taking out the loans.  A student from SLU called our house after our visit asking if we had any questions.  I laughed and asked how do people afford SLU?  He replied that many of his friends get 50% tuition through scholarships.  Okay, great.  But that still leaves that tiny issue of where to come up with the other 100K.  

The University of Pittsburgh, Centre College, Hanover College, the University of Dayton...all of them were the same.  $40,000-55,000 a year.  Probably half tuition in merit scholarships.  We have to come up with the rest.  All of them offer full-rides, but maybe 10-20 max out of thousands of applications.  She could very well get one, and she might, but if she doesn't, then what?

So we are looking at in-state, public universities as a back-up plan.  I've told Claire she can apply for any school she wants.  She will also apply for any full-tuition scholarship she is eligible for at these schools (again with the "tell about a time you failed" essays).  But unless she gets a full-ride to one of the other universities, she will be going to UK or UofL or WKU.  Kirk and I feel very strongly that we don't want our kids to graduate with a mortgage payment unless they have a house to go with it.

Silent No More: Thoughts on the sexual harassment in my life

After the videotape of Donald Trump and Billy Bush surfaced yesterday, Kelly Oxford, a writer in LA, started a tweet storm with the hashtag #NotOkay.  She asked women to share their stories of sexual harassment, writing about their earliest memory of inappropriate behavior against them.  I started thinking about the times I was harassed over the years.  I remember my first experience, since it is seared into my brain because of the shame I felt at the time, but then an avalanche of unwanted and unwelcome sexual advances and comments started flowing through my mind.  I thought I would write them down.

My earliest memory of harassment happened at the end of sixth or seventh grade.  One of our classmates was having a pool party after the last day of school.  My mom sent me to school that day with my new bathing suit (a cute, rainbow two-piece that I loved) and my Garfield beach towel.  We walked over to her house en masse, joking and laughing on the way.  Her pool was above ground with a small deck around it, set back from her house and the patio where the moms sat to chaperone.

We changed and jumped into the water.  It was cold, but we were so excited to be swimming for the first time that summer, that we didn't mind.  We had chicken fights, kids were dunking each other, and  doing cannonballs off the deck.  Some got out to get food; others, like me, stayed in.

I was hanging with a friend when a group of boys came up and surrounded me and started splashing me in the face.  As I tried to splash back, I heard one of them yell, "Grab her!" and two boys grabbed my arms and two grabbed my legs and held me back against the side of the pool.

My immediate fear was that I was going to drown.  Water was splashing over my head and I was gasping for air.  All of a sudden, one of the boys went underwater and grabbed my bathing suit bottoms and pulled them down.  He came up shouting, "I can see her hairy bush!"

The boys holding my arms and legs let go, and all went under the water to get a glimpse of my pubic hair before I had a chance to get my suit bottoms up.  I pulled them up as quickly as I could and got out of the pool and ran to the patio, where the moms, oblivious to what was going on, sat drinking Tab and talking.

I wrapped myself in my beach towel and sat in the sun, ashamed and humiliated.  I felt vulnerable and angry, and I never told a soul.

That was just the beginning.

During the last couple of years at my Catholic grade school, I continually had my uniform skirt pulled up so the boys could get a glance at my underwear.  Once it was on a tour of the museum at the Cathedral of the Assumption downtown where we were learning about our faith before our Confirmation.  Once I was having my period, and blood had leaked onto my underwear.  I told my teacher, and instead of admonishing the boys to keep their hands to themselves, she said maybe I should start wearing shorts under my skirt.  I finally did, but I should not have had to do that.

I was an early bloomer.  I hated my breasts.  I had one shirt that I wore nearly every day that smashed me down enough that I remained flat-chested as long as possible, but it wasn't long at all.  I was very well-endowed for my age.  Boys in my class would hold me down and feel me up or "accidentally" bump into my breasts.  I had boys give me "titty twisters."  I was called "Jugs" and "Tits."  I began to slouch to cover up my figure.  My mom used to get after me all the time to stand up straight and put my shoulders back, but I was afraid if I did that, it would only bring on more "titty twisters," more groping, more condescending language.  I felt humiliated and ashamed of my body.  Still, I never said a word.

Most of high school was spent in an all-girl environment, and I had steady boyfriends for much of the time, so it wasn't too bad.  I did have a date with a guy my senior year who just randomly pulled into a bank parking lot on our first date and started trying to feel me up.  We only went out once.  Another guy got angry with me because I told him to stop trying to touch my breasts.  He said, "Well then why did you agree to go out with me?"

I worked as a cashier at a family grocery store.  Our assistant manager was good friends with the owner and harassed me constantly.  "What size bra do you wear?" "Sharron, bend over and let me see you pick up that pencil" that he had dropped on purpose.  He would come up next to me while I was ringing someone up and stand as close as he could and brush his body against mine. He was about 6'2" and had played football.  I am 5'4".  Imagine how powerless I felt.  As an assistant manager, he was in charge of closing the store, and often I was one of two female cashiers working to close of the day.   He and the other male workers would make crude comments after the doors were locked.  The other female workers and I could do nothing.  Who could we tell?  He was friends with the owner.  We knew if we said anything, the harassment would only get worse.  I finally quit and went to work somewhere else, but I shouldn't have had to do that.  I never told anyone why I left.

I was at my general practitioner's for my annual pelvic exam when I was about 21.  My doctor did the vaginal exam with a nurse present but then came back in before I had a chance to get dressed.  He started flirting with me and asked me out to dinner five minutes after having his fingers inside me doing a Pap smear.  I sat on the exam table in a paper gown, the stirrups still out, no idea what to do.  I told him I had a boyfriend.  I felt gross and violated and still, I never said anything.  Who would I tell?  I didn't know.

I had a favorite high school teacher, who I respected and admired, ask if he could kiss me.

I had a youth minister tell me that if he was 20 years younger, he'd ask me out.

I had a priest tell me that if he'd met me 30 years earlier, he wouldn't be a priest.

I had an army officer tell me that pregnancy looked good on me because it sure made my boobs big.

I've been called a "MILF" by students where I was substitute teaching.

There are more, but you get the picture.

I'm not commenting on Trump.  I am saying that I have been harassed throughout my life, starting when I was 12 years old.  I know I am not alone as evidenced by #NotOkay.  This happens every single day to women all over the world.  I know my experiences are not as bad as some women have had, but they were bad enough over the years to bring me shame and humiliation and to make me embarrassed about my body.  It has taken me a long time to feel good about how I look.

I don't want my daughters or my nieces to ever experience what I did.  I have spoken with my girls about what I went through and told them to speak up.  To say stop.  To tell someone if anything like this ever happens to them.  I have told my son that he is never, ever to do or say anything to demean women, and that if he ever sees it happening, he is to speak up, to stand up against it.

So for all of those years that I remained silent, I will stay silent no more.  It was wrong in 1979.  It was wrong in 1987.  It was wrong in 2005.  It is wrong now, and it needs to stop.

I Knew You Before I Knew You

My older daughter, Claire, works in the dining room of a nearby nursing home.  She loves her job and the folks who live there, and they, in turn, love her sweet, smiling face.  I think watching my dad's decline, as hard as it was, gave her a sense of compassion for the elderly, and she treats them with much dignity.  More than once she has said, "They used to have lives outside of this nursing home..."

One gentleman, Mr. Farmer, reminds her of her Poppy.  She told him when she first started working there that he reminded her of her grandpa, and he said that she reminded him of his granddaughter.  They became friends, and Claire has gone in to visit Mr. Farmer on occasion, taking him coffee from Starbucks and listening to tapes of the songs he wrote when he was young.  He has Parkinson's now, and can no longer sing or play the guitar, but he was quite the musician at one time.

Mr. Farmer has a roommate named Elmer who has lost use of one arm.  Elmer is a little bit crotchety and sarcastic and teases a little hard. He was married 3 times and swears a lot.  Claire says he always asks her if she's got a boyfriend and if she's married yet.  She said he doesn't smile much.  She treats him kindly and said she feels guilty going to see Mr. Farmer and not Elmer.

Last week, Claire went in to work early to visit Mr. Farmer and try to figure out how they can get people to play his music.  She was telling me about the visit and how Elmer came in and was kind of jealous because nobody really comes to see him.   I asked her how come she called Mr. Farmer "Mr. Farmer" and Elmer "Elmer" and not by his last name.

She said, "Everybody just calls him Elmer.  I don't know why."

For some reason, I asked if she knew his last name, and she replied, "Yes, it's Walton."

"Elmer Walton?" I replied with surprise. "Did he own a barbershop?"

"I don't know," she answered, "but that sounds right.  I can check this weekend when I work.  Why?"

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In 1998, Kyle had really bad hair.  He had cowlicks all over his head, and his hair stuck out like straw.  No amount of product could tame that mop.  He hated getting his haircut. Fought it.  Cried and screamed.  Sometimes I'd have to hold him on my lap to get through it.  Cookie Cutters was a no-go with all of the cool chairs and movies and balloons at the end.  There was just too much to distract him.  Supercuts or Fantastic Sam folks could not get the haircut right, and he'd end up looking worse than when we went in.  What he needed was a good, old-fashioned barbershop, and I found one just down the street from our house in the old neighborhood where we lived.

You guessed it...Walton's Barber Shop.

Walton's was the kind of place your dad would have gone to.  It was in the front room of an old shotgun house on a busy road.  The name "Walton's Barber Shop" was painted across the picture window and two old time barber chairs were set up in the space.  Jars of blue barbacide, clippers, and a brush sat on the shelves behind the chairs, and big mirrors covered the back wall.  A Coca Cola clock hung between the barber stations and under it was a calendar from the local car dealership.  A television set to the race of the day was mounted in the corner.  Red leather chairs sat along the side, some of them so old the leather had cracked.  Stacks of magazines piled in baskets next to the chairs, and a bin of Legos was available for any kids that might have to wait.  But the clincher was the bucket of Bazooka Bubble Gum on the counter.  I saw that and knew this was the place for a haircut for Kyle.

The barbers were brothers who had turned their mom's house into a barbershop.  It had been there for many, many years, and sometimes one or both of them would be there, either one able to whip Kyle's locks into shape.  He loved going to Walton's.  They always treated his three-year-old self like a grown up.

"You got a girlfriend?" they'd ask.  "You married yet?"  He thought it was so funny that grown ups would think he was old enough to get married.

They would pull out the bench and set it on the arms of the barber chair, help Kyle up, and get to work.  He never fussed.  He never complained.  He just climbed up onto the bench and sat still while one of the Walton brothers went to work, buzzing and clipping and powdering his neck off.  When they were done, he'd get two pieces of gum.  One for now and one for the road.  They'd shake his hand and tell him to watch out for the girls, and send us on our way.

One day when Kyle was 3 1/2, I documented his day in pictures and turned it into a book called Kyle's Day.  He got a haircut that day, and I took some pictures of him at Walton's.  We went to lunch afterward and then to a church picnic.  It was an ordinary day in our lives, but special too.  I made a book for his grandparents who lived out of town and kept a copy of us.  He loved reading it.

Kyle getting a haircut from Elmer's brother.  I wish I had a picture of Elmer.

Notice the tightly closed hand holding the coveted gum.

As Claire got older, and hard to keep down, she'd end up on that floor full of hair happily playing with the Legos while Kyle got his hair cut.  Gross, for sure, but it was once every couple of months, and I'd just throw both of them in the tub to get them cleaned off after a visit to Waltons.  She felt so grown up when she was finally allowed to have gum.

We stopped going to Walton's after we moved when Kyle was in kindergarten.  We tried getting a haircut there a few times, but it was out of the way, and he was old enough to go to Big League Barbers in the shopping center across the street, so that's what we did.

A couple of years ago, I was driving past Walton's and saw that it had closed.  It made me sad.

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When Claire went to work last week, she found Elmer and asked him if he'd ever owned a barbershop.

"Hell yeah I did," he replied. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh my gosh," she said, "you used to cut my brother's hair when he was little!  I used to come in there with my mom and Kyle and play with the Lego blocks you had in the corner."

He replied,  "Well, isn't that something?"

"And you had a big bucket of gum!" she said. "I loved that gum!  I have a lot of memories of going to your barbershop!"

She smiled.  "Elmer," she said, "I knew you before I knew you!"

His face began to soften, and then it was his turn to smile.

The Wallet

I have no memory of the kind of wallet I carried before I got this one.   I’ve had it so long that I don’t even remember exactly when I got it.  High school?  College?  Probably college, but I’m not sure.  My mom gave it to me for Christmas, I think, or my birthday.  I remember she told me she agonized over what I would like, and settled on a practical, brown leather wallet similar to the one she had carried for years.

My wallet at the end of its life.

Her wallet was so full that it wouldn’t snap closed.  Besides her driver’s license and credit cards, it housed a little cash, photos, grocery lists (many were months old), receipts from Melton Food Mart, Target, and The Dollar Tree, holy cards, an “I am a Catholic. Please call a priest” card, odd scraps of paper with phone numbers or address on them, and an occasional quarter or dime that had found its way in between the papers when she dropped her change down into her purse.  Her checkbook and register were in there as well, although most of the time, her register was full, and she would write the check number and amount along the edge or back of it.  I don’t think I ever saw her balance it.

I asked her once how she ever found anything in that wallet and suggested she needed a new one.  She said liked her wallet and knew where things were.  She still had it, still stuffed with stuff, when she died.  I went through each piece of paper and holy card and receipt later, and kept a few things.  They were like little snapshots of her life.   The paper with the phone number from St. Elizabeth’s is where my sister had her daughter in 2004, but I kept it because Mom had blotted her lipstick on that piece of paper.  The Holy Family holy card was from a friend at church, and the Blessed Mother card was from one of my mom’s best friends. The picture of Kyle was taken his first Christmas when we lived in Hawaii.  The other inspirational cards and quotes just reminded me of how she lived her life:  for her family, with faith.

The items from my mom's wallet.  I keep them in my jewelry box.

                                          

Even though I didn’t really like this wallet when I got it, I kept it.  It looked like a “mom wallet,” and I was 19 or 20, but I didn’t want to hurt my mom’s feelings by taking it back. Then I moved to Texas, and it became a kind of connection to her.  It followed me to Arizona then Hawaii then back to Kentucky.  It got worn around the edges and the inside started wearing out, and I really needed a new one.  Then Mom died, and I just couldn’t let it go.

Over the years, my wallet filled to the point where I could no longer snap it closed.  Receipts from Kroger and Qdoba; rewards cards from Kinney Dance Store and The Popcorn Station; library cards and photos and holy cards made closing it all but impossible.  My only hope was that everything didn’t fall out inside my purse.  Once in awhile, I’d cull through things and get it to where it almost snapped, but that would never last long.  Soon, it would be popping open again.  One of my girls suggested I needed a new one.

This past spring break, we were staying with 8 teenagers in a rental house in Florida, and I wasn’t positive they’d remember to lock the door when they left.  I’m pretty safety-conscious, and so I always hide my wallet whenever I’m on vacation and not taking it with me.  This time, I put it in a pair of pants in my dirty clothes basket.  It stayed there all week with no problems.  Then on the last day, I did laundry.  I forgot my wallet was inside the pants, and when I opened up the washing machine, a big ball of wet paper gunk greeted me.  Credit cards and my driver’s license were stuck to the drum.  My wallet was destroyed.  So were my photos and my holy cards and the snapshots of my life over the past 25 years. 

After the wash.

I tried to dry my wallet out, but it was beyond help.  The only piece of paper that wasn’t shredded was a Christmas list from when the kids were little.  I’m thinking 2009 because it says Dad owed, “$10 poinsettia,” and Kyle was selling poinsettias when he was in 8^th grade.  It took me back to see what my kids were getting for Christmas that year.  It’s been a long time since I’ve bought them toys, and it made me nostalgic to remember that.

   

Christmas shopping list, 2009

I finally tossed my poor, sad wallet into the trash.  I took a picture of the Christmas list and then threw it away too.  I called my friend to see if she had another holy card she could send me to put in my new wallet whenever I get one.  My credit cards, reward cards, and IDs are in a Ziploc bag in my purse until I can figure out whether I want a practical, brown leather “mom wallet” or something more fun.

Not that there’s really any doubt what I’ll end up with!