Tomb Sweeping Festival- China

Tomb Sweeping Festival 
Henan Province, China 
Spring 2012

Day One: Monday

April 3 is Tomb Sweeping Day.  The university was closed for three days so that students could go home to their families and sweep the tombs of their ancestors.  Most of my students did not go home. They stayed here on campus and used this time as an opportunity to study for the big English test that is being given in May.

I went with Selia to visit with her family. She is from a small rural village where her parents are farmers. She told me it would take about 2 to 3 hours to get there.  We left on Monday at 8:30AM and had to travel by taxi 2 hours to the nearest city.  From there we had to find the train station which was packed and for the first time really gave me a sense of just how populated China really is.  We had to wait an hour for the train. And fortunate for me, Selia had a sense of how crowded the train was going to be.  So she went yesterday and reserved two seats for us.  The seats were hard, dirty, filled with litter.  But it didn’t matter; the only other option was to stand.  Selia said the last time she went home, it was so crowded that she had to stand on one foot.

The train was an hour late.  But that didn’t matter.  We were entertained.  As people noticed me, they came over to Selia and asked the routine questions: “Do you know this foreigner”?  “Are you her paid interpreter or her student”?  “Is she Russian”?  “Where is she from”?  “How long will she be here”?  “Does she like China”?  “Does she know Chinese”?  “Can I take my picture with her”? “Can I talk to her”?  “Can you ask her something”?  “I have never talked to a foreigner before.”  Selia said the next time we travel together, she is going to get a name tag that states “She is my teacher; she is from America; she is 56.”

Once they got the OK to speak to me, they would swat down in front of me and look pensively, to the left and then to the right, for a moment.  It had to be just the right question.  What very important fact did they want to know about me?

“Do you like noodles?” asked one old man.

“Do you celebrate spring festival?” (Chinese New Year), a man around my age wanted to know.

“Is your weather like ours?” is frequently asked.

“Do you like Obama?” is often asked and then followed up with, “Me too.  He is a good man.”

“Is this your first visit to China?” is another favorite question.

And after I answered their singular very important question, they seemed proud of themselves.  And then the phone camera usually comes out and we pose for a photo and this person wanders off and the next observer sneaks in and the process starts all over again.

After 2 ½ hours on the train, we come to a city and now have to wait for a bus.  But it is raining and cold.  We are both tired and it’s been six hours since we left campus so I tell Selia that I want to take one of the beat up, old electric taxi carts.  I just want to get inside somewhere and get warm.  So I pay $4 for a ½ hour ride in this beat up, rickety old vehicle that takes every bump in the road with a dramatic bounce that causes every organ in my body to be rearranged.  But it beats waiting in the rain for a bus that is going to be overcrowded, smelly and no available seat.

We arrive at Selia’s village 8 hours after we had set out and it is just as I had imagined.  There are little brick homes with no running water, no heat, one electrical outlet, one light bulb, goats, an outhouse, litter everywhere.  There was very little commerce.  Old men sat outside the one store and talked to each other but mostly they sat in silence.

Her family is waiting for her.  She called them on the family cell phone that she insisted that her father get when she went away to college so she could stay in contact with them.  He only talks to her on this phone and when she comes home she has to check on the number of remaining minutes and any other maintenance it may need.  Her father never went to school so he can’t read or wrote. Neither can her mother.

They don’t embrace each other when we arrive.  There is no introduction of me so I go over and extend my hand to both parents and introduce myself.  It is awkward for everyone and Selia says something to them in Chinese.  There is never any introduction as to their names.  A sister in law comes in and I attempt to introduce myself again but again, I have created another awkward moment.  She does take my extended right hand with her left hand but she doesn’t know what to do with it.  This puzzles me because I had just had a conversation with my students about how to shake hands and they thought the Chinese were the only people on earth who shake hands.  They were surprised to hear that we were that civilized.

The house is part of a two house compound that is enclosed with red brick.  The older brother shares the other house.  Selia’s house is one room, about 12’ X 20’.  On the right wall are piles of their things. In the right corner is a large bed which Selia and I will share the next two nights. A sheet is hung from the ceiling and in front of the bed as a means to offer some privacy.  In the middle of the room are two small tables which serve as the dining room table.  There is a chest of drawers and that is where the leftover food is stored.  If something isn’t finished at one meal, it is placed in one of these drawers and served at the next meal.  There is a small TV, something from the 1970s.  And then against the other wall is the mother’s bed table. The father sleeps in the barn because someone in the neighborhood is stealing sheep so he guards the sleep at night.  The kitchen is a hut against the house. It has a huge wok and a few water buckets.  There is a basin that is used to wash dishes and hands. The outhouse is about 100’ away from the house.

The two goats graze in the dirt yard.  There is a vegetable garden and there is a storage shed for the farm equipment. It’s just got a roof and a back side.  It also serves as the father’s closet for his five articles of clothing.  There is a pickle jar.  The hoe is made by hand.  And there is litter everywhere.

The father wanders around the compound and keeps himself every busy.  The rest of us sit around in this dimly lit room, mostly in silence.  Selia will speak but the responses from her family are short and quiet. Someone brings out the 3 ½ year old boy’s school work.  It’s a singular piece of paper with Chinese words and English words.   He is already learning English and has memorized “Good Morning Teacher” and he can count to ten.  So he practices with me and his mother is very proud of him and she has him do it several more times and I make a fuss with every attempt.

I bring gifts for the family.  I have pineapples and apples and a large bag of figs that a student gave me.  I give the father a small pocket knife, thinking he is going to love this tool but he doesn’t know what it is and really, this tool is too delicate for the heavy, hard work he does.

Because I am the guest, Selia’s mother sends her to the store to buy meat for tonight’s dinner. She buys a dollar’s worth of slivers of beef which are added to the noodles.  We gather in the house and sit on small stools and share our food out of one bowl.  The mother pushes the meat to my side of the bowl.  The father sits off in a corner and he eats out of his own bowl.  Twenty years ago he had tuberculosis and he is afraid that he is still contagious so he eats in solitude.

It’s dark and cold now.  It’s raining a little bit.  There is no heat in the house so I am wearing all of the clothing that I brought with me: four layers.  And I am still cold.  The father has retired to the goat house.  So it is just Selia, her mother and me. I try to engage us in conversation but that isn’t going to happen.  The mother answers my questions but she doesn’t ask any in return.  And I wonder what she thinks of me.  Does she worry that I am pulling Selia away from her village?  Does she worry that Selia has left this lifestyle now that she has been away to college where she has been exposed to showers, hot water and the rest of the world.  What does she hope for Selia?  Am I viewed as a villain or a friend?  Does she think Selia will come home to the farm or she is resigned to losing her to the big city?

Its 9PM and its time for bed. I crawl in and seek refuge under the heavy quits.  My eyes are closed when I feel a tap on my nose.  I open my eyes and see the mother standing right there, extending the big flashlight to me.  She tells Selia to tell me to take it in case I need to use the outhouse in the middle of the night.  I show the mother that I brought my own flashlight but that isn’t good enough for her.  I have to use hers because it is bigger.  So I take it but know that I will not be using it because I stopped drinking anything five hours ago in anticipation of the awful thought of having to go out in to the cold, dark, rainy  night to use that dirty, smelly hole in the ground.

Day Two: Tuesday

When I get up, breakfast is waiting for me: a few hard boiled eggs in a bowl of noodles.  We drink hot water.  The grandchildren are with us and they are watching cartoons on the little TV.  Their mother is washing their winter jackets by hand in a small bowl outside.

Selia tells me we are going in to town to the market.  The sister-in-law pulls the electronic vehicle out to the road and we all climb up in the back of this little truck and off we go at 10mph through the bumpy streets of this village. All heads are turned as people notice me, the foreigner, in the back.  They stare without any shame and I wave to all of them which cause them to laugh uproariously.  They have never seen anyone so funny looking.

The town  has a Muslim community, one of very few in China.  So I see women whose heads are covered in modesty.  But that is the only indication of their religion.  There is no mosque, no call to prayers.

We head to the hospital because one niece needs to have her braces tighten.  There is a long line for the dentist and we are given a number.  After a half hour wait, we all get a seat right next to the dentist chair.  I notice blood drool everywhere.  The doctor has plastic bags on his hands and he has a mask covering his mouth.  But there is no protection for his patients.  I mention this to Selia and suggest that she tell the doctor that he needs to clean up his work area.  Then I notice that all of his instruments are not sterilized and they are sitting on a rusty shelf.  I tell Selia that I am leaving the room; it is too dirty and bloody.  She takes pictures to send to the local authorities.

I go out to the courtyard and there are many sick people leaving the hospital.  They are carried out by family members and placed in the back of their electronic trucks.  Their IVs are hooked up to them and they are hanging from a tree branch that someone has wedged inside the truck.

After our visit to the market, we head back to the village where the father is busy planting his summer garden.  The farm has been planted and now he waits for the harvest.  So he spends his time on his smaller garden.  This food will feed his family.

Selia and I go back to the town square and greet the same men we saw yesterday.  They are sitting here again today and they will be sitting here again tomorrow and the next day and the next day.  Again, we are the only females and Selia tells me that this is the first time she ever sat with these men.  They appear to be enjoying my company.  But they laugh every time I say something in English and they point at me and say something about me.  Selia tells me, “They are talking about you.”  But she does not translate what they say.  She leaves me for a little bit and I continue to speak with them as if they speak English and they respond in Chinese.

Selia comes back with some posters she has made.  She is on a campaign to reduce the number of illegal marriages in China.  People married before a certain age are not protected by the law and these marriages tend to end up in divorce which offers no legal protection to the spouses and very little protection to any children.  Her posters create a stir and maybe not so much because of the topic but because there is something to discuss.  The old men get off the seats on the wall and come over and read the posters.  A few men on motorcycles stop and read what is written and young children come over as well.

We then head off to Selia’s primary school and I am not prepared for such awful conditions.  I think listening to the 3 ½ year old nephew chant English to me last night really skewed my expectations.  The headmaster wanted me to see a classroom and with great pride, handed me a piece of chalk so I could write on the board to see for myself that the board is functional, which it wasn’t.  It was so old, it could not hold any of the chalk and nothing I wrote was readable.

The classroom was void of any paper, books, pencils, maps, displays.  There is no heat.  The students come to school at 8 in the morning and they leave at 430PM and they sit all day in their coats on these narrow, uncomfortable seats.

There is an English textbook in the headmaster’s office.  He keeps it there to keep it safe.  There is no English teacher so the young, under skilled, underpaid Chinese teachers teach themselves a little bit of English so they can teach their students.

The headmaster asks me if I would read a lesson or two out loud so he can hear English.  So I read from the tattered book, “Good morning teacher.  How are you?  Fine, thank you.”  And he is grateful for this opportunity.  I notice that he has a DVD player so I tell him that I will get my students to read some books and record them on the DVD player.  That way the students can read along as they hear the words.  He can’t believe his good fortune and he shakes my hand profusely.

We go off to visit an uncle in a neighboring village.  Selia’s mother comes along which is unusual.  She doesn’t like to leave her village.  The uncle is not home when we arrive but he is called home, “An American has come to visit.”  So he hurries home and I am offered apples and hot water.  We sit outside and he asks Selia if he can ask me a few questions.  His wife and Selia’s mother sit behind us and listen in, never adding to the conversation.  He wants to know if we celebrate the Chinese New Year in America.  Then he wants to know if my rings are gold.  “How much does this one cost?  How much does that one costs.”  I tell him that one of my rings is the wedding ring that my mother gave to my father.  He wants to know about them.  And I don’t even know how to begin to describe their lives in comparison to his.  So I just talk about their good qualities as parents.  And he understands me.

With great pride, he shows me his son’s new house.  It is two stories and six rooms, no indoor plumbing and the kitchen is still outside.  The rooms on the second floor are empty because they really don’t know what to do with all of this space.  They confine themselves to just two rooms in the house.  All of this new construction cost $20,000 to build.  The father wants to know if houses in America cost as much as his son’s house.  Again, I am at a lost as to how to answer this question.  Do I laugh at the absurdity of the comparison?  I tell him that our younger generation also seems to want more house than they really need.  And he agrees with me.

By the time we get back, it’s time for dinner and the mother opens up a drawer in the cabinet and pulls out all the food that has not been finished over the last day.  The father eats this food even though nothing has been refrigerated.  The mother makes tofu for me.  The TV is turned on while we eat and we are listening to Peking opera.  The parents listen in silence but intently.  Selia tells me that her father loves Chinese opera and dreams of one day seeing a live performance. But this man will never get to the Opera.

I am sitting on the mother’s bed and I look around and see that Selia has gone next door to visit with her nephews.  The father has gone out to put the sheep away for the night and the mother is washing the dinner dishes in the dark.  And I am sitting alone in this small, one room house, by myself in China, listening to Peking Opera and the moment strikes me as hysterical.

Day Three: Wednesday, Tomb Sweeping Day

Selia told me last night that her mother wanted her to get up early to go to the grandmother’s tomb.  An invitation was not extended to me and I do not ask to join them for fear of overstepping boundaries. But when I wake up, Selia is still in bed and the mother is gone.  Selia wakes up and tells me she is ashamed that she didn’t get up but it was just too cold and she didn’t hear her mother.

The mother returns.  She isn’t gone long.  Apparently the ceremony just entails taking fake paper money offerings and burning them on the graves for a few minutes. And then the day’s celebration is over.

We have breakfast and then we have to start preparing for our journey back. The mother, sister-in law- nephews and a few neighbors walk us to our bus stop.  We wait with the Chinese talking amongst themselves and Selia and I speak just to each other.  “What are you thinking?” she asks me.  I look around and tell her that I think she has left this village.  She has outgrown it.  So I ask her, “Where do you belong now.”  She does not know but she agrees with me. “You know“, she tells me;” I can’t even talk to my mother anymore.  I don’t know how she thinks anymore.”

The bus comes and Selia hugs her nephews.  Her neighbors wave to us and say goodbye.  Selia’s mother comes up to me and she extends her two arms as if we are going to embrace by arms only.  But I take her arms and pull her near to me and I hug her.  She pulls away at first but then she comes back to me and rubs her cheek across mine.  And then she lets go and walks away from me.

On our way to the train station, we stopped in to see one of Selia’s favorite teachers, her history teacher.  He is the one who suggested that she go to Sias University.  We met up with him in town. On the side, he runs a liquor store so we are going to stop by the store.

Selia has been asking me some political questions in private but now she has a bit of courage and she asks her teacher what he knows about Tiananmen Square.  He lowers his voice and Selia tells me that we (the western world) have the wrong perspective on the situation. The students were wrong and they were not good for the country.  Selia drops the conversation.

Next we wander to her high school.  Many middle schools and high schools in China are boarding schools.  Selia went to school that went for 14 days in a row and then she would have two days off.  Twenty-four girls shared a room.  There was no cafeteria.  Students ate outside in a courtyard, regardless of the temperature.  If it was rainy heavily, arrangements were made to eat somewhere inside.  There were no showers.  Students washed themselves outside in a common area.

I visited her senior classroom and the teacher let me speak to the 100 students seated in front of him.  I asked if any of them had any questions and one brave soul raised his hand. “Yes, yes”, he tells me, “I want to know how you spell the name of your high school.”  So I write it on the board and he comments, “OK, thank you very much.”

I go out to the courtyard during lunch and cause a commotion.  Everyone wants to take a picture with the foreigner.  So I pose and they laugh with great excitement. The first couple of pictures were with just one student at a time.  But as the interest grew so did the size of the group photo.

Selia wanted to go in to her old dorm room so off we went and lots of students followed us.  The room was packed and an administrator came running in to disperse the crowd.  She was shocked to see me somewhere in the middle of this unauthorized gathering.  We had to leave shortly thereafter.  My presence was just too disruptive.

We caught our train and then we had another two hour car ride back to campus and for the first time, as I opened the door to my room, I thought to myself, “It’s good to be home.”

An American Tragedy

An American Tragedy

 Some families experience unspeakable violence.

As a high school principal, I often call the local police.  They would come at my request to handle student fights, and petty theft and small drug deals.  But when they called on me, it was because of something much more serious in nature.

So when I see a police officer making his way to my office this morning, I held my breathe.  Did I lose a student to death? Who had been arrested?  Was there a terrible accident?  The officer enters the main office and acknowledges me with a facial gesture; I wave him in to my office.  I close the door and he draws a breathe. “Steve Norton’s mother is dead, we just found her and I need to talk to him right away.”

Each year, I have a ½ dozen students who lost parents to death.  But the police were never involved. So this is very, very unusual.

“What about the father” Where is he?” I ask.

“Sorry, I can’t talk about him.  We are under investigation.”

That is enough said.  I understood the police think the father murdered the mother.  I call my assistant principal in and apprize him of the situation. I instruct him to call for Steve’s guidance counselor and then I want him to go and get Steve and escort him to my office.

Gary too asks about the father and I don’t hesitate to tell Gary of my suspicions. “The father may have murdered the mother.”  The police officer neither confirms nor denies this accusation but he flinches. Maybe because he had not been secretive enough and now the cat is out of the bag. Or maybe he is relieved that I spoke the truth and he wouldn’t have to be so evasive.

Within minutes, the guidance counselor is at my door and I don’t recognize her.  I forget that Denise left today on maternity leave and we have a substitute in for the next 12 weeks. There is no time to ask for her name which I knew last week but right now I completely forgot because the door opens up and in comes Gary.  Steve is trailing right behind.  I ask Steve to take a seat and he is intimidated by all of these adults in the room.  The police offices had his back to Steve and this perplexes him.

“Did I do something wrong? “ Steve asks worriedly.

I look to the police officer but he doesn’t turn around.  It is clear to me that I am going to have to deliver this awful blow to Steve.

“No Steve, you aren’t in trouble. Have a seat, sit down. I have terrible news to give you.”

He sits down and I blurt out the news, nervous and saddened that this boy has to hear this from strangers.  He is shocked, speechless.  He doesn’t cry. He just puts his head in his hands and shakes his head in disbelief.  He rocks himself. And we just stand there, dumbfounded.

I continue to mumble on because I don’t think I could take the silence. I tell Steve how sorry I am but my words seem so shallow.   I tell him he can come to any of us for help and I begin to introduce his new counselor, but of course, her name has not yet come to me.  And so I stumble over this introduction with an awkwardness that appears thoughtless, insincere.

Then Steve asks me, “What about my dad. Does he know?”

The police officer does not respond.  I ask Steve if he knows where his dad is.

“He should be at work”, Steve quickly replies.

“Where is that?” I ask nervously.

Steve gives the name of the company where his dad works.  The police officer writes this down.

“Steve, do you have a cell number for your dad.” I ask.

“Yea” and Steve whips put his cell phone. “I’ll call him right now.”

“Wait”, I tell him.

“Why?” He is confused.

“Steve”.   I draw a deep breath, “I think the police think your dad may have caused your mother’s death.”  I can’t believe these words are coming out of my mouth. I want to throw up. No one else speaks and we are all silent.  Steve is stunned.  He doesn’t know what to do or say.  He just wants to get out of here.

The police officer finally tells Steve that they are gathering his younger brother and sister and bringing them to the police station.  There is another sister, who was sent home from school earlier today, due to illness.  She was the one who found their mother, dead, straggled, on the floor.  She is already at the police station.

The police officer wants Steve to come with him to tell the younger siblings. He is not really coherent; he isn’t crying but he is visibly distraught.  He doesn’t want to leave school in a police car but he wants to break away from here.  So Gary offers to take him.  He wants to go to the middle school and get his brother.  So Gary and Steve take off.  The police officer finishes up scribbling notes and then he leaves.

Casey, the counselor, and I are left alone and we don’t know what to say to each other.  We are filled with sorrow and horrified by the ugliness of what just happened.  After a few, long, painful minutes, I say to her, “well, welcome to Springfield.  Nothing like a baptism by fire.” It is all I could come up with.  I have no words of comfort for her, this stranger on my staff.  We sit in silences for a few more minutes and then she nervously excuses herself.  I tell her she can go home for the day. She doesn’t go home but I check on her later in the day. She is numb and I tell her that tomorrow should be easier. But she knows I can’t guarantee that.  And I just hope that she will return tomorrow.

Within the hour, the story broke and I am getting phone call after phone call from reports.  I do not speak to any of them.  The Nortons live a block from the school.  So by the end of the school day, the house had been corded off with police tape.  Reporters and their trucks are stationed right outside and the house had an eerie, deserted look to it already.  All of my students charge over there and start their own investigation.  And everyone is abuzz about this family’s misfortune.

By the end of the day, the father turns himself in.  He is filled with regret.  They had been fighting again and he had had it with her.  So he started to chock her.  But he claims he never meant to kill her.  Now he is terribly, terribly sorry.  He cries into the television cameras.

To add to this drama, one reporter went to Mr. Norton’s father.  With no shame, no thought of his grandchildren, Mr. Norton Sr. claims that the mother deserved it.  ”She was a real bitch”, he thoughtlessly says, “She drove him nuts.’

That night, I spend the evening, alone, in the darkness, dazed, trying to comprehend what happened. I berate myself for not having been gentler. For not having the right words to comfort this child in my care.  But I know that there are no right words for this ugly kind of tragedy.

Yesterday, four children lived in a home with two parents who fought all of the time.  Today, they lost both parents: one to death, the other to jail.  They also lost their innocence, their sense of security, stability, their home, each other and a multitude of other emotions which will haunt them forever.

Cane Training For The Blind

CANE TRAINING

Overwork School for the Blind

Philadelphia, PA

1965

Red robins, daffodils, crocus: the first signs of spring for most people.  But for those of us who grew up near the Overbrook School for the Blind, there was another sign of spring: the first day of cane training.  In the early spring, each year, on the first nice day, we would hear the tapping of the cane on the sidewalks, followed by the crisp, authoritative commands of “right, no that’s your left.  Go right. Slower, not so fast. Pick yourself up.”

And then I would spot them: a young boy, maybe six, and an adult trainer trailing close behind him. The man would have one hand on the boy’s right shoulder, guiding him gently from the back.

Our neighborhood was old. So many of the trees had grown so much that their root system emerged under the sidewalk, causing most of these slabs of concrete to protrude inconsistently. This caused a challenge to all new students.  How do you blindly maneuver through a course that has so many obstacles?

The boy would fall down as my family and I watched him from our front porch.  It would be painful for all of us.  This boy would cry and want to give up. The instructor would help him up and set him back on course.  And we would grimace in sorrow and pity as the kid tried again and then fell again.

“No” said the instructor, “you have to pay attention. Make short gestures.  Keep your cane closer to your feet and then you’ll feel the bumps”.

It was hard to watch in the early spring. But as the season progressed, so did the student’s skills.  And eventually, he would figure out his stride and he would begin to master the cane.  And as he improved, we would sometimes call out words of encouragement. Or we would clap for him. And he would raise his cane in appreciation, not always sure exactly where we were. His head swiveled as he tried to locate our sounds.

By the end of the summer, he would finally be on his own.  The guide would walk ten feet behind him as he confidently walked the distance by himself. And when he reached this level of skill, we knew we would never see him again.  His training was complete.

And as this season ended, we knew it wouldn’t be long before we heard the first sounds of next spring and a new child, learning to be independent.

Montezuma

In the Halls of Montezuma
Our Home in Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia, PA

1965

I decided to ask my siblings to write their stories of our childhood.  Our mother had just died.  Her parents were immigrants and we had very little information about their childhood.  My father’s family was dying off.  And so was all of our oral history.

“If we all write just 10 stories each, we could have 70 of them”, I tell them, hoping to ignite some excitement around my very clever idea.  They show absolutely no interest in my request.  They weren’t just indifferent to the project.  They thought it as stupid.

“You don’t even have to type the stories, I will do that for you and I’ll do all of the formatting. I will put a book together for all of us to have,” I pleaded with them.  They continue to be unmoved by my request.

“It must be nice to have no kids.  When you don’t have kids, you have time to waste on stuff like this, said one sister.

I never got any takers to write even one lousy story.  But occasionally, one of them would call me and say,  "hey are you still writing that stupid family book?  I have a story you could write, remember when…” and then the story would be retold to me no matter how much I pleaded with them to write it down.

They didn’t. Not one of them.  But consistently a few of them remembered one particular story.

It was 1965; our uncle, an officer in the Marine Corp, was serving a tour of duty in Viet Nam. We worried about him every day.  We prayed for him.  And every Friday, we added his name to the long list of servicemen who got letters from the students in our grade school.

At the same time, someone gave my father a cheap, play-by-numbers, electronic, squeaky keyboard.

We put it in the hallway and we all attempted to learn how to play it. I still remember Mary Had A Little Lamb: 321 2333 222 333 321 2333 322321. Sometimes I would get the threes and the twos mixed up.  That really messed up the flow of the song.

We learned Happy Birthday and Twinkle, Twinkle and Oh Susanna.  We all seemed to have a particular favorite.  However, we all felt a great need to learn the marine’s anthem, In The Halls of Montezuma.  We played that song too frequently and too poorly. It was dreadful but we played it with a thought that this act alone would bring our uncle home safely.

As my siblings reflected on this story, they all remembered how dreadful the others played. Individually, they all bragged they were the best.  But that is a ridiculous thought because, really, truly, I was the best.

A Bit of Beauty From My Garden

My back yard: I spend hours in my garden during the summer and I spend hours during the winter, missing my garden.

New Year's Eve- Times Square

New Year’s Eve- Time Square- 1978

My first year out of college was fun and freeing but it was also confining.  I loved being an adult now.  And having an income, as meager as it was, was so liberating.  But being responsible and confided to a 40 hour a week obligation did require an adjustment to my free spirit.  It limited my spontaneity.  It required me to get to bed at a reasonable hour each work night.  I had to iron my blouses now.  And panty hose ate up too much of my expendable income.

So my free time was cherished and I tried to make every minute count.  So when I got an invitation to spend New Year’s Eve in Time Square, I jumped with excitement.  Yes, I wanted to bring in the New Year at the most happening spot in the world.  Yes, this was one cool idea, an adventure worth bragging about.  “Yea, I was in Time Square on New Year’s” I would tell people nonchalantly as if to convey, where else would you expect me to celebrate the New Year.

So I packed a backpack and hopped a train to Penn Station.  I made my way to my friends’ apartment.  It was a one bedroom apartment and three of them shared the place.  The twin sisters shared the bottom bunk and Judy had the top bunk.  There was a fold out table in the kitchen.  And when the table was out, it blocked the door to the bathroom.  So if someone had to use the bathroom when we were eating, we would all have to get up, grab our plate and grab one of the bowls of food as well.  And someone dropped a leaf of the table.  And we all rearranged ourselves to let the other person out and then we waited until she finished in the bathroom.  And then she came out and we rearranged ourselves again.  And none of us cared about this inconvenience because that is the price you pay to live and play in this great city.

So now it was time to make our way down to Time Square.  Someone asked “how much money are you bringing.  How much money should I bring?  Should I bring it all?”

I offered a bit of caution.  “Only bring as much as you can afford to lose.  I’m not bringing my train money with me.  There are going to be lots of pick pocketers in the crowd.”  Well, you would have thought that a great prophet had just spokes because my line was quoted several times in the next hour as we all got ready for the big event.

It was cold and we bundled up and then drank too much blackberry brandy.  We had convinced ourselves that this drink would keep us warm, which it didn’t.  It only served to get us drunk quickly and then we had to go to the bathroom which was not available to us.  But this major inconvenience did not curb any of our drinking.

Crowds had already gathered.  The streets were crowded. Stores were crowded.  And excitement filled the air.  And my group of friends strutted through life with a sense of coolness that we thought we had earned.  Watch out Manhattan, we had arrived.

We made our way to Time Square and we were sandwiched in amongst thousands of people, most of them very, very drunk.  People were smoking pot.  Hustlers were luring drunks in to their card tricks and taking their money.  Merchants were selling knock off bags and scarves and hats.

We found a group of guys who shared their whiskey with us.  And after a few shots, some of us were trading shots for kisses.  And this arrangement seemed to be agreeable with all of us. We were having a good time.

The ball was going to drop in fifteen minutes and that is when a fight broke out.  I looked to my left and four or five teenage boys were rolling on the ground, wrestling each other.  The crowd forced an open gap to get out of the boys’ way.  The boys shot up and startled to run.  And then I felt someone push me and I heard the woman beside me scream, “Get him. He took my necklace.”  The woman was hysterical.  The boys had eyed her beautiful, expensive multi-diamond necklace just a few minutes ago and then they faked a fight as a way to distract all of us to pull off this perfectly executed robbery.  And I had just noticed her necklace, just moments before it was stolen. It sparkled so much under the street lights that it caught my attention. And now it was gone.

Now this woman wanted me to run after them and get her necklace back.  She was shaking and bordering on shock.  I told the woman that I would go find a police officer.  But I was not going to risk my life over this woman’s diamond necklace.  That’s why you have homeowner’s insurance.

When I didn’t move right away, she turned to the others in the crowd and demanded, “Go get them.”  But like me, no one complied.  But a police officer did arrive on the scene and he moved the lady out of the crowd.  But her anger and her disappointment in us lingered in the air.

I don’t remember watching the ball drop.  I was still absorbed by the robbery.  I couldn’t believe the thoughtlessness and selfishness of the robbers.  And I couldn’t believe the arrogance of the victim.  She was in this large, unruly crowd in her beautiful full length mink coat.  Her neckline was purposely exposed on this cold night and she proudly displayed her diamond necklace with 20 or 30 diamonds worth thousands of dollars. And then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.  And then she expected complete strangers to risk their lives to get her necklace back. And when we didn’t, she became angry with us.  And as I stewed over these last few minutes, I found myself becoming more and more angry with her.  She chose to call attention to herself.  She chose to display this beautiful necklace to this large crowd of the rich and the poor, the haves and the have- nots.  And the have- nots saw it and went for it.  She didn’t deserve it.  But she was careless and ostentatious and now she is the victim. But really, we were all victims because a cloud of anger and regret hung over all of us as others cheered for the end of one year and the hopes of a new year.

Put The Kettle ON

“PUT THE KETTLE ON”
My Mother's House
Philadelphia, PA
1962-1998

“I’ll miss the tea the most”, said Deb, my college friend.  We were at my mother’s grave site when Deb made this statement.  “I’ll miss the hours around the kitchen table, just talking and drinking tea.”

And I thought to myself, “So will I.”   While I had never taken these moments for granted, I never really thought about how lucky I was to have the pleasure of just sitting and talking with the good company of my good family.

At any time during the course of the day, my mother would call for the gathering of those who were interested to have a cup of tea with her.  But consistently, we had tea after dinner.  We ate dinner together every night and then we would clear the table and my mother would give the direction to “put the kettle on.”  It was large, maybe it held a gallon of water and the latch was taped with duct tape to make it easier to handle when it was hot.

There were usually lots of us at the table.  In addition to my parents and six siblings, my grandparents shared many, many dinners with us.  And from time to time, one of us would have invited a friend to dinner.  And frequently, the doorbell would ring and a neighborhood or two would meander in to the kitchen, my mother would gesture to those of us on the bench against the wall.  ‘Schooch down” she would say.  And we would scrunch together and make room for our neighbors who joined us at the table.

The water would boil, the kettle would whistle, tea mugs were scattered amongst us, a box of tea bags, spoons, sugar and milk appeared in the middle of the table. And then, one of us would start pouring cup after cup until everyone was served.

And then the stories of the day would begin. Being Irish, we had an unwritten rule, an understanding, that our stories didn’t have to be filled with facts.  There was really no concern for this.  They just had to be entertaining.  The stories had to be filled with great, vivid, humorous details. the truth was secondary, almost of little importance.

Sometimes we spoke individually and demanded everyone’s attention. Other times, multiple stories would be going on as small pockets of audiences had huddled together.

My father attempted to set the tone. “What have you done today to better the world”?  He asked this question every night.  And every night we laughed at him and dismissed him.  Instead we highlighted our days, our thoughts, and our focus.

Kathy spoke with annoyance about those of us who got in trouble at school.  This usually resulted in a reprimand to me from my mother.  Jimmy made fun of his teachers.  And my mother always took exception to this disregard for authority. Sharon told outrageous stories of classmates and their follies.  Christopher was quiet but spoke with pleasure of classmates who pulled one over on their teachers.  This too, resulted in a comment from my mother. Patricia spoke of her friendship.  I kept quiet because too much had already been disclosed about me.  Brian, much younger than the rest of us, struggled to find his voice amongst his loud siblings.

My grandparents spoke of their travels around the world and their lifelong friends.  My father, a lawyer, at the time, handled all of our disagreements as if he were a judge in a courthouse.  We would have to defend our position and present logic to our thinking. And no matter how rational we thought our argument was, we were always told that our adolescent thinking wouldn’t hold up in a court of law. My mother talked about art and her radio talk shows and injustices from her point of view.  She would critique the meal and then talk about tomorrow’s meal. And she would often use this time to present her list of what needed to be done around the house. Our neighbors told us of the happenings in their families. And our dinner guests usually said nothing; they just sat and tried to take it all in: this loud exchange of stories and random thoughts and sarcasm and laughter.

Sometimes, we would sit for an hour or more.  And then slowly, we wandered off, one by one, as obligations of homework called to us.  The last two or three who remained, stayed behind and cleaned up, leaving no trace of the conversations that had just occurred.

2/14/2011

Taking The Blind Kids to Church

Taking the Blind Kids to Church

Overwork School for the Blind

Our Lady of Lourdes Church

Philadelphia, PA

1966

I went to Catholic school.  So it was mandated that all of the school children go to mass together each Sunday.  We met in the chapel and each grade sat in its assigned area and roll was taken.  And if you were not at mass, it was expected that you arrive at school on Monday with a note from your mother with an acceptable explanation.

Our lay teachers weren’t there.  But all of the nuns were and they kept order with a firm hand and killer glaring looks.  No one was allowed to deviate from the expectation of sitting up straight, praying and kneeling.  No one, except the blind kids from the Overbrook School for the Blind.  They were pitied by the nuns.  So they were allowed to rock and occasionally, but not too frequently, grunt a noise. But when they strayed too far, a nun would comment, “Alright, that’s enough of that.  You can behave just like the rest of the children.  You’re blind remember, not retarded.” 

This did not usually stop the behavior because the blind kid was usually unaware that he was the target of the nun’s reprimand. Realizing this, she would have to go over and poke the kid to get his attention.  This would startle him for two reasons: (1) he had not seen her coming so he hadn’t anticipated her poke and (2) he wasn’t accustomed to being addressed in such a harsh manner.  So with no adult from the blind school to fend for him, he would coil up and try to make himself invisible from this unknown authority figure.

There was no adult from the blind school because we brought the kids to church on Sunday.   We, the sixth grades, were given that responsibility.  We were hand-picked by the nuns and it was our responsibility to be at the blind school every Sunday at 8:30 AM to walk the blind kids to church.

I remember being picked.  I was absolutely thrilled.  I was honored.  And I approached this responsibility with all the commitment as if I was protecting the President of the United States.  I made up my mind that no blind kid was going to fall or stumble under my care.

My first day of my new assignment was raining. It was cold and dark. It was midwinter.  But that didn’t matter to me.  I had important work to do that day.  I got up, put on my school uniform and walked proudly to the blind school.  I was on time, in uniform and ready to complete my assignments. I felt as if I should have saluted someone upon my arrival.

We met in the lobby which was completely dark. No one had turned on the lights.  We could barely see.  But then we could hear the kids coming down the hallway, their voices echoing and bouncing off the cement walls.  And I was filled with so much anticipation.

I was matched with Susie Hart.  She was a year older than me and a foot taller. She was very pretty and she held herself a little differently from the others.  She didn’t rock.  And she wore make-up. I liked her right away.

When it was time to leave, I commented to Suzie that is was hard to see because the lights weren’t on.  I was nervous about taking her down the steps in the dark.

“I don’t know why they don’t turn the light on.” I whined.

“Because we don’t need them,” she nonchalantly replied.

"Why?”

'We’re all blind.  We don’t need lights.”

Good point, I thought to myself. This thought had never entered the realm of my self-centeredness.

With that, she put my hand on her shoulder and confidently said, “Follow me; I’ll lead you out of here.” And out we went.

Tony: Even Tough Kids Get Bullied

Tony is 14, slightly built and caramel color.  His family is from Puerto Rico.  He stands out amongst his classmates who are predominately white, middle class and unworldly.  In this rural community, diversity is not embraced.  It is barely tolerated.

We are at the football dinner, celebrating the end of a successful season.  The seniors are roasting the underclassmen. One senior gets up and announces, “I know it is a little early but I wanted to be the first one to say to Tony, ‘Happy Father’s Day’.”  The crowd roars, to my horror.  How could anyone find it funny that a 14 year old boy is a father?  How sad to be in the midst of adolescence, trying to figure it out and just when life is complicated enough, you are now a father, at 14.

A few months later, I am in my office, long after school is finished for the day.  All the students are home and I am enjoying the quiet, going through piles of files on my desk.

Tony charges in through the open door, coming to a screeching halt.  He is out of breath, bent over and panting.

“Sorry. Sorry”, he says with some difficulty.

“You OK?”, I ask.

“Yea, yea”.  He straightens up now. I give him a glass of water.

“I just didn’t know where to go, so I ran here. I knew you’d be here”, he tells me.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s that Jason.  He’s after me again”.

No clarification is needed.  Jason is a bully. Not much bigger that Tony, he is a kid with a quick temper and an intolerance for most people who offer him the slightest opposition of any sort.

“He called me a spic and punched me.  Said I was a dirty PR”.

"Where is he now", I demand.

“No, no, it’s OK.  Let it alone.  I can handle him if I have to.  I just ran away.  I had to”.

The look on my face must have shown my surprise.  I didn’t think Tony would ever walk away from a fight.

“I’m not afraid of him”, Tony continues, “I know I could beat him up if I had to.  But my mom told me if I get in one more fight, I am going to be grounded for two weeks and I have to babysit my daughter on Saturday.  So I can’t mess with him right now.  Know what I mean? I’m not afraid of him”.  But he says this in a tone of some shame.

He caught his breathe and checks to see if Jason is anywhere around.  Deciding that it was safe to venture out again, he leaves just as quickly as he entered.

I go back to my desk and sit down.  I reply the conversation in my head, the absurdity of it all bounces around like clashing cymbals.

 

That's Love

That’s Love
Philadelphia, PA
1990

“That’s love.  He’s in love. What do you expect”, said my father, whose once black hair was now all white.  His bride of 40 years listened on as he explained why his youngest son was not home for dinner. The boy, age 20 had just begun to experience the joys of being in love.

“He’s in love.  Did you ever see the Jacques Cousteau show about the mating seals in Alaska?  They climb over all sorts of terrain to get to their mates. That’s love.  You brother is in love.  I remember when your mother and I were first dating.  We’d stay up all night until 6:00 in the morning.  Then we’d go to church together.  I’d go home and get to bed and wouldn’t get up until 5:00 in the afternoon. The first meal of the day would be dinner”.

He ascends the steps and the stops to look at this watch. “Look at me now.  Now it’s an effort to stay up beyond the 7:00 news”.  He continues to climb the steps while his bride stays in the living room, working intently on her needlepoint.

Till Our Last Breath

Till Our Last Breath

Bryn Mawr, Pa

May, 1998

My mother was dying of cancer.  She probably only weighed 85 pounds. We all knew we didn’t have much time left, maybe a couple of days but no more than a week.  And so we spent our days around her bed, telling stories, remembering family moments and trying to suck in every last opportunity to say what we had to say before it was too late.

We were approaching Mother’s Day.  So there were lots of cards from my father, siblings, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, neighbors and a lifetime of friends. These lifelong friends were coming and going to say their goodbyes to my mother.  Sometimes there would be three or four of them.  Some were feeble and there were not enough seats for them.  And as they left the room, I realized that not only were many of these old friends saying goodbye to her, it was probably the last time I would see then as well.  So I wanted to take care of them.

I brought in a few chairs from the other room.  And then I added a card table or two for their drinks. And I added a box of tissues.  It was a little junky looking, but now people could now visit in some comfort.

“Get all this junk out of here”, my mother said demandingly.

“What,” I said, just as I was positioning myself squarely in one of the seats I had just brought in.

“The room looks like a lobby.  I don’t like the feng shui. Get all this furniture out of here.”

I tried to explain to her that I didn’t put it all here for appearance.  Her visitors needed a place to sit.  And “besides”, I told her, “You have bigger issues right now than the feng shui of your bedroom.”  I reminded her that she was dying.

“I don’t care; I don’t like it. It’s my room. Get this stuff out of my bedroom.”

This woman could exhaust me.  So I leaned forward, looked right at her and asked, “When are you going to stop bossing me around.”  And then I sat back in my chair.

She got up on her boney elbows, using all the strength she could muster in her sick condition.  She looked right at me and as clear and as confident as she was in her prime, she said to me, “When am I going to stop bossing you around?  I’ll tell you when.  When the first one of us takes her last breathe.”  And then she lay down again, smugly and proud of her comeback.

I got up, laughed, and moved the furniture back to the other room.

DRUM CIRCLE

I love the rhythm of the hand drum. The pounding of the drum reminds me of a heart beat and it soothes me.  It tempers me.  It calms me, causing me to slow down, to stop and listen and after a while, my heart beat steps in sync with the pounding of the drums.

When I travel, I often across a drumming circle.  I will be in some third world country and stumble in to a remote village with no electricity, no television, and no radio. And after a day’s work and an evening meal, the villagers will have to entertain themselves.  They wander to the village square with drums in hand and sit with their neighbors and drum and dance and drink and tell stories.  I have been invited to join the circle but have always declined because I have no sense of rhythm. I can’t keep a consistent beat.  So, after too many refusals with too many poor excuses, I decided to enroll in a course on hand drumming.  I am going to learn to drum so that I, too, can join the drum circles.

I sign up for a course at the Main Line Night School in Ardmore, an area that is predominately white and Jewish, two groups of people who do not fit my stereotype of drumming circle participants.   We meet at the local high school where others are taking French cooking, and photography and oil painting and Italian and Tai Chi.

Our instructor is Jonathon and I don’t find this out through his introduction because he never bothers to introduce himself.  I have to go back to the course catalog to get any information on Jonathon. Not only is Jonathon not interested in sharing any information about him, he has no interest in us.  He almost appears to be put out that he is here, almost embarrassed that this is now his most lucrative gig: teaching middle class white people how to drum.  From his perspective we may have all looked the same.  But we were very different.

There was the nervous woman who wanted to get it right, so she records every lesson so she could go home to practice.  There was the 20 year old pot head who looked as if he toked up right before every class so he could get it just right.  There was the man with the expensive suit and the expensive drum.  There were the three high schools girls who moved in a pack and shared two drums.  There was the grandmother with the Birkenstock sandals and handmade crew sock. There was the wall flower who snuck in each week and hid in the back of the room.  There was the woman with the long white hair and long white body who looked as if she danced in her younger days.  But that window was now closed on her.  But she still wanted to be an artist.

And there was me.  I came in each week just as class was about to start and most weeks, I dropped my drum once or twice along the way.  But there was no real need to worry about my instrument. I bought my drum for $14.99 at TJ Maxx and if it broke, I would just buy another one.

So Jonathon would start class with the same line each week, “ok, let’s get started.”  There was never a “hello” or “how you are” or “does anyone have any questions”. He didn’t even bother to take roll; he just got started.

“Ok, tonight we are going to learn the samba.”

He would demonstrate the rhythm and then we would practice.  Then after a few minutes, he would raise his hand in utter digest and announce, “No, no, it’s all wrong. We’re not at a funeral here people. Liven it up.  Feel it in your soul. This isn’t supposed to be sad.  It’s supposed to be sexy.”

And the woman recording the lesson would write this comment down for future reference.  And the rest of us would be a little offended because quite frankly, we were being as soulful and sexy as we got.  Did he forget that we were white people?

So we would start over and he would play a different part and then one by one we abandoned our part and subconsciously began playing his part.  And he would stop us again but only this time with heightened frustrations.

“Focus people.  Focus. Don’t play my part, play your part.”

So we would try again.  Only this time, he didn’t even bother to correct any of our mistakes. He saw us as a lost cause.  He just let us play it through so he could move on.

“Now we are going to do a salsa”.

 And he would demonstrate and then he would practice with us.  And then we would try to drum on our own.  We would start out strong but somehow, somewhere we wondered back to the samba and no one really noticed. But then Jonathon did and this was as unbelievable to him as speaking out loud and vulgarly in church is for theirs. To show his disappointment in us, he would turn the pages of his music with an exaggerated gesture.  And he would shake his head in disgust.

He just couldn’t believe it.  And he would stop us and reflect, pause for a second or two because he was speechless. Meanwhile we were clueless because we thought we sounded pretty good.  We were gelling.  We were jamming.  No one had yet realized that we had started out playing the salsa and then somehow collectively moved back to a samba and didn’t even recognize it.  I admit it was a little shameful when he finally brought it to our attention.

Sometimes he would tell us about the days when he toured with Flip Wilson or played with Chick Chorea.  I don’t think he told us these stories with any interest in connecting with us.  It seemed as if he told these stories because he was thinking to himself, “Can you believe I used to play with those people and now I am playing with these people.” And maybe some of these thoughts dropped out of his mouth accidently and he had to cover this up by telling us a story.

His stories were always short and one sided. He never asked us anything.  He just gave us a few facts about his past and then we got back on track.  And promptly at 900PM, the class ended. And just as he opened with a consistent statement, he closed with the same consistently.

 “OK for tonight. Remember to practice.  You will never be good if you don’t practice."

  There was never a" goodbye" or "have a nice week" or" be safe getting home".  We were just told that we had to practice to get better and not for our sake but for his.

And we would return each week to the same routine.  And we followed Jonathan’s lead on interactions or lack thereof. We did not speak to each other. We all came in singularly and sat in our same chairs and never spoke to each other. It was as if we were all invisible to each other.

One week, I decided to talk to Pothead. He came in, disheveled, high and raring to go.  I don’t know why I told him this because I didn’t mean it but I told him that he was the best in the class; he had the most soul. He ate up that compliment like these words were coming straight from Mickey Hart, percussion master of the world.

“Hey, thanks dude,” he said with a slur.  And now he was pumped and aching to start pounding.  He wanted to jam.

So when Jonathan started us on our first piece for the night, this kid played with his entire drug induced heart and soul.  He banged with so much gusto I was afraid he was going to stick his thumb right through the top of his drum.

It was too, too much for Jonathan because he stopped all of us.  “Whoa, whoa, people stop for a minute. let’s get something straight” he said in his monotone. And without pointing a finger at this guy, Jonathan starts telling a story about a guy he knows who thought he was good because he was high.  And we shouldn’t confuse the two and then he looked right at the pothead. But the lecture was lost because pot head had his eyes closed, playing the air drum.  Meanwhile, the mad recorder made notes on Jonathan’s comments.  I could read them: drugs do not enhance talent.

I asked a question every week in spite of his indifference.  I really asked more as a statement of defiance.  His complete lack of interaction with us annoyed me.  I hoped my question would spark some follow up comments from the others. But it didn’t. They just waited patiently in their folding chairs; hands gently resting on their drums, just waiting for instructions from Jonathan on when to start again.  Jonathan would answer out of obligation and then he would redirect his attention to the distasteful task sitting in front of him.

At the end of our 9 class, Jonathan announced that next week would be our last week. So we have been asked to give a 15 minute concert in the lobby. There would be punch and cookies.  And we would follow the violin students and the chorus would follow us.

So Jonathan was going to spend tonight reviewing three styles. We were only going to play these three styles and nothing else.  We were told that we should just practice those three so as to not confuse ourselves.  While he may have meant this as an insult, it helped us keep focused.  And the mad recorder made note of this and when she finished, he continues, “And loosen up when we play.  Look like we’re having fun.” He must have thought that by next week we could do both of these things: play and have fun. But right now, we could only do one or the other. We were not at the point where we could play without being extremely focused, without being methodical in our movements.  We weren’t fluid yet. But he wanted us to relax and enjoy ourselves.

I arrived the next week and saw Jonathan which delighted me because I had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t show up.  I didn’t think he really wanted to be associated with us.

Once we had all gathered, we marched down to the lobby, had a few cookies and listened to the violinists. We were generous in our applauses because now we were musicians too and musicians have to support one another.

Then it was our turn to take the stage (actually it was just a lobby area with awful echoing acoustics). But we took our place and Jonathan inhaled deeply and held his breathe. He exhaled, raised his hand and began snapping his fingers.  He snapped the samba and we tapped to his rhyme.  He gave an introduction and he spoke with a tone of enthusiasm which I didn’t think was possible for him.  But he spoke pleasantly, like he was having fun with us. We played the first song and that drew a crowd.  There were maybe 20 people now listening to us. They were enthusiasm and seemed genuinely impressed with us.  They were generous with their applause.  And that was intoxicating. We got through the entire program and we loosen up with each song.

And when we were packing up, we all congratulated each other.  We were pretty pleased with ourselves. And we convince ourselves that we should take the course again next semester so we could play together again.  We spoke as if we were tight with one another.

When I looked around, Jonathan was gone. I stayed for the chorus.  And as I was leaving, I heard one white haired woman say to another woman, “Did you hear the last group, the drummers.  They were pretty good.”   I proudly picked up my drum, grabbed another cookie and went home.