Tari

Tari Lennon died last month; these are some words I shared at her service.

I met her 30 years ago, in a class at Claremont School of Theology. She breezed in, wearing a red wool cape and a matching red fedora. She was serving as the sole minister at a small UCC church in Thousand Oaks. She had received her Masters in Divinity from Union Seminary in New York years earlier, studying with Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich. She was taking some additional coursework at Claremont to complete a doctorate. I was enthralled by her ability to speak and capture the imagination of her listeners. Ours was a class about the use of story in the Scriptures, and Tari told the story of Ruth and Naomi, in ways we had never heard before.

We were in that class together for a semester and when it ended she and I talked about working together. She invited me to Thousand Oaks to meet a few people. So I drove up for what I thought was an afternoon meeting, which turned into an evening potluck and a congregational meeting. By the end of the evening, the congregation was inviting me to be the second person on their ministerial staff. That was sort of the way things happened with Tari, a meeting turned into a celebration, which turned into a hootenanny! And a job.

When Tari found out how much I was paying for a studio apartment in Thousand Oaks, she insisted I come live in her five-bedroom house with her. I was hesitant and wanted to guard my privacy, but I could see I was going to run out of money at those rental rates. So I moved into 3709 Consuelo. During the five years I was there we had several other occupants; we had a foster child named Casey, who stole the car one night. Hope Badner lived with us for a while, which was a delight. We made a heck of a little family, eating popcorn with parmesan cheese and watching late night movies on TV.

Tari took a sabbatical and did some studying on the East Coast; I flew back east to drive with her home. We stopped in Akron to visit Tari’s parents, Tilford and Ethel. I had heard stories of Ethel and Til, so I wasn’t looking forward to meeting them. We survived, and we escaped to continue our trip west. Fortunately, late in life, Tari reconnected with her sister, Corinne, and I know it was a great comfort to her.

After her time in Thousand Oaks, she served the Congregational Church in Laguna.

I know she made some good friends in Laguna; some of them are here today.

I'm something of a quiet person; I don't make too many waves. Spending time with Tari was always a good antidote, she had a talent for rustling up excitement. There were times in Thousand Oaks when she would drive up to my office in the late afternoon and ask ‘you want to go to dinner?’ If I said okay we might be off to Los Angeles for Indian food and a little known film. Five hours later we’d finally get home, and that's how the adventure would go.

I was so happy when Tari and Norma decided to combine households. I could just tell that Norma was one of those people who in the whirlwind of excitement, could remember where she put the car keys. They were a good team together, loving and careful, and laughing often

I will miss Tari, her perceptive political questions, her laugh, her big warm embrace. Have a good rest Cynthia Anne, you deserve it.

The Oscars

Several years ago, Tom and I got to go to the Academy Awards presentation at the Shrine Auditorium thanks to my brother Ric. We both wore our black tuxedos (I bought mine at a church rummage sale and it was in surprisingly good shape, just a little hole in the pocket.) We walked up the red carpet and into the auditorium. I could hear the people in the bleachers outside pointing and asking, "are they somebody?" Once inside the grand foyer we mixed easily with the honored guests. We saw Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, hanging onto each other as they stumbled to their seats. Tom bumped into Lynn Redgrave, literally. They both almost landed on the floor. This is in the days before Lynn had started Weight Watchers and was a more treacherous wrestling opponent.

Our glamorous evening was before the Academy had arranged for its new Kodak Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. The Shrine comprises the single largest proscenium style stage in North America providing more than 6300 seats. Over 60 years old, the Shrine is recognized as a historical monument. The original auditorium was completed in 1906 and burned to the ground on January 11, 1920. It took six years for the new auditorium to be completely rebuilt on the same site as the original.

Tom and I found our seats and enjoyed the show. Watching the Oscars in person is less convenient than watching them at home. You can’t pop up and make a snack whenever you like. During the commercial breaks, the lights go off on the stage and everything comes to a halt. You are warned about moving around during these breaks. People called seat warmers are scurrying to fill the seats of stars who get up for a restroom break. After his run-in with Ms. Redgrave, Tom was nervous about getting knocked over again.

It was a kick in the pants to see the stars in person, even Jack Nicholson was present to accept his award for “As Good as it Gets”. I guess the Lakers found a way to carry on without him that night.

The most enthusiastic winners that night were Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. They won the Oscar for their screenplay of “Good Will Hunting”, and while they may get nominated for more Oscars in the future, I can’t imagine they’ll be more excited than they were that year.

Aladdin Theater

When I was a senior in high school I got a job at the local movie theater, it was called the Aladdin, and was decorated with Arabian style carpets and paintings. I was pretty stoked. I thought having a job at a movie theater was the best of all possible worlds. After all, I liked movies and how hard could it be asking people to show me their tickets?

My duties in the new job included: taking tickets at the entrance, picking up cigarette butts out of the urinal, walking through the theater with a flashlight instructing people to remove their feet from the seat in front of them, urging rowdy children to be quiet, and during Saturday matinees-selling snacks and drinks to the crowds of kids at the candy counter. I didn't get to see that many movies from beginning to end. This was the old Aladdin Theater before it had been subdivided into smaller spaces. So there were a lot of seats to supervise and a lot of cigarette butts to pick up.

Mr. Van Gortel was the manager, an imposing gentleman of some girth. He would come through a couple of times each evening to make sure we were doing our jobs. Every once in a while he would send me behind the movie screen where extra supplies were kept. There was a big storage space behind the screen. The amazing thing to me was that you could watch the movie from behind the screen, albeit in reverse, and smack dab in front of the huge speakers. It was a little like being in the movie, like I could just ride the horses across the stage in once upon a Time in the West, or sing with the Von Traps in the mountains. The less attractive reality behind the screen was the open boxes of popped corn. These were for our busy times when Mr. Van Gortel would bring the already popped corn out and add it to the popcorn being warmed in the popcorn maker in the lobby. If you ever wondered why your movie popcorn was a little stale or chewy, consider this.

Every now and then a fight would break out between some high school boys in the theater. I could usually quell their enthusiasm with my flashlight, or a promise that the police were on their way.

My experience as a movie usher came to an end when I started to make real money as a pool lifeguard. But I’ll never forget my job at the Aladdin, and I’ll never eat movie popcorn again.

Going to the drive-in

In the late 1950s my family and I went to a drive-in theater to watch a movie. My father was substituting for the regular projectionist who had taken a two-week vacation. I don’t remember what movie we saw, maybe Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. The whole experience of watching a movie in the car was so unique. We three kids would go in our pajamas so that when we fell asleep in the car, our parents would just have to carry us to our beds upon our return home.

The drive-in was a fascinating experience. With the little metal speaker that would hang in your window, the big snack bar at the back of the space, the playground under the screen for the little tykes before it got dark. And then there were all those people sitting around you in their cars, in the dark. It was as if you were alone in the middle of a crowd.

By the end of the 1960s there were 220 drive-in theaters in the state of California. Today about 20 remain open. Home entertainment centers have changed our lives, but the drive-in experience is a memory that will be hard to erase.

Grapes

When I was a boy, our home was located in the midst of vineyards, Thompson seedless table grape vineyards, to be precise. I loved these grapes. When you pop one in your mouth it provides an explosion of refreshing flavor.

Viticulture was originally brought to California by Spanish Franciscan friars, who in 1769 began cultivating grapes at California missions in order to produce sacramental wines. It was not until the 1800s that the production of table grapes became popular.

So picture me if you can, a skinny boy of 11 or 12. I would go into the vineyards after the pickers were done. This is what the Bible called gleaning, (Leviticus 19:10), a noble tradition where the pickers would leave some of the fruit on the vine for hungry peasants like me who came along.

I would trundle home with my box of grapes and sit in front of the TV, eating as many of those delicious morsels as I could. I would stuff a handful of grapes into my mouth and chew and swallow while sitting in the cool breeze of the air conditioner. This was a little bit of heaven on a hot June afternoon. Of course within an hour I felt a little bit sick to my stomach. I guess even a little bit of heaven has its costs.

Speaking of costs, prices for table grapes in recent days were approximately $701 per ton. I don’t think I ate a ton of ‘em, but I probably owe someone some money.

Exams

In 1989 I took the exams to be a licensed marriage and family therapist. I had spent three years getting a masters in marriage and family counseling, and the license would give me the authority to practice independently in California and bill insurance for my work. I passed the written exam first time, but the pass rate for the oral exam was about 50%. Needless to say I was nervous about coming this far and not making it. I took a prep course that was widely touted as the best in the region. Tom and I were living together by then, so he helped me study my flashcards. By the time the test came around he could tell you almost as well as I whether a concept was Freudian or Jungian, and whether a Satir intervention would work better than a Minuchin intervention with a particular family.

The Oral exam was being held in the Hilton Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport. Since I needed to be there early for the exam on Friday morning, Tom and I went to the Hilton on Thursday night and took a room. I was very nervous. He did what he could to calm me down, shoulder rub, back rub, foot rub; enough said. I was fully prepared and completely relaxed in the morning. The exam went smoothly, I made no obvious errors. And then the waiting began

I don’t know if it’s better today, but in those days waiting weeks and weeks for the results of the exam was just what we had to put up with. It was during that waiting period that we sold our house and moved to San Diego. The idea was if I had passed my licensing exam, I could more easily find a job and make a living for us in San Diego. Tom would be making more money in his new job but it was still necessary for us to be a DINK (Dual income no kids) couple. So we moved into the future on faith, faith that I had passed. When I interviewed for possible jobs I told them that I had taken the exam and was still waiting for my result. I must’ve looked competent. I got a job offer. A month later the test result arrived in the mail.

I passed. I gave Tom full credit… and from time to time you can still overhear him quoting the great therapists of our time.

Ships in the Desert

A month ago my husband and I, along with two of our loyal friends, went to Coachella Valley High School, to join in the celebration of its 100^th anniversary. The school's steel reinforced concrete walls look very much like they did when I was in school in the 1960s. One feature I enjoyed even as a student was the way the campus was designed around a collection of connected quadrangles. As I recall, a lot of the student life could be conducted outside in the shade of the quads, because the weather wasn’t oppressively hot until June when school was out for the summer.

During our visit to the campus I was struck again with the design features at the entrance; large concrete structures that sweep up and over the roof look like the superstructure of a ship. And the corners of the buildings are rounded as if to cut through the waves more easily.

My understanding is that the architect of the original Coachella Valley High School was E. Charles Parke. So the design features that reminded me of a ship in the desert came as no surprise. It was E. Charles Parke who designed my grandparent’s home in Thermal in 1939. And that home certainly had some ship-like features. There was a round porthole window in the front door, a second-floor deck that wrapped around the east side of the house, rounded corners on the exterior walls, and a glass brick window in the stairway.

Parke was a Canadian, born in 1886, he became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. and moved to California where he set up offices in Riverside and Chula Vista.

Information about Mr. Parke is thin. I can only guess that the man who grew up in Ontario, Canada, was more accustomed to lakes than sand. But when he encountered the waves of sand dunes in Southern California, he couldn’t resist designing around some nautical inspirations.

The Floor and I

I grew up in a 900 sq. ft. house that my father had built with the help of his brothers. They installed radiant heating, a series of hot water pipes, in the concrete slab. On cold winter mornings the floor was toasty and warm. When I was 10, I must have weighed all of 65 pounds, and I was frequently cold in the winter. So in the mornings I could be found on the floor in the bathroom where the radiant heating worked most effectively through the linoleum. My sister would pound on the door and shout “Ronnie, get out of there; I have to get ready for school”. Sometimes my brother would join me, and then we were twice as difficult to budge.

In the 1970s I developed a primitive practice of yoga. I learned to take the position of the plow and stretch my legs and back. I was taught in the course of actor training that the floor was my friend. I was encouraged to get friendly with it and know where it was at all times. I’m not sure what actor training is like today, but in those days we spent a lot of time on the floor, being snakes and bears and what have you.

In the 1990s as MS began to impact my locomotion, I developed methods to assist myself. I would lean on furniture and eventually had grab bars installed in the bathroom. But like most humans, I get distracted. One weekend Tom was away from home visiting his mother in Florida. I was transferring from my chair to the bed with the aid of a tall pole installed in our bedroom. I could usually make the transfer in one smooth movement, but my legs didn’t really have the strength to hold me up. So on this particular evening, I pulled my pants off and accidentally slipped to the floor. I couldn’t get back up. I tried to crawl up into the bed, no dice. My arms weren’t strong enough. I thought about spending the night on the floor, I could pull bedding down on top of myself, but I would still have the same problem in the morning unless I wanted to spend three days on the floor. So I reached the phone off my nightstand, and called my next-door neighbor, the San Diego police officer. He came over and got me into the bed, and told me I would be surprised how many times the police get called for similar situations.

I don’t spend much time on the floor anymore. Today most of my transfers are assisted by someone. But if I make a misstep, my old friend the floor is still there, waiting to embrace me with open arms.

High School abuse

When I was in high school in the late 1960s I was the victim of a roughing-up. I had to walk through a long hallway to get from one class to another. I was late to class and found myself the only person walking down the hallway. But there were eight or nine boys lining the walls on each side of me. They were dressed in T-shirts and baggy denim trousers, the 60s version of what might have been called ‘pachuco’ style in the 1940s. As soon as I entered the gauntlet, they closed in on me and pushed me to the ground. Then they scattered my books around and kicked me in the ribs for good measure. As quickly as it all happened it was over and they dispersed. I got to my knees and picked up my books. I realized I could stand and breathe and nothing was all that damaged. I felt fortunate and went on to class.

In retrospect, I was probably the victim of opportunity. The event may have had some racial overtones, or some fashion implications, (because I wore some hideous slacks from JCPenney). All in all I got out of high school without much tribulation. Today when I read the alarming statistics about teenage suicide, I know a lot of it has to do with how teenagers treat each other badly. I know it’s not a new problem but it is a tragic one. A young person might get targeted for having bad skin or speaking with a lisp or wearing hand-me-down clothing. Whatever the catalyst, it’s no excuse for this treatment.

I had so many positive experiences in high school; in sports, in student government, in drama, that my brief encounter with violence was easily shaken off. I shudder to think what would have happened if being jumped was my daily experience, and my primary experience. I understand teenage despair. If a youngster feels different and isolated, it can feel like a lonely prison cell. Spread the good news; after high school it gets better.

See the ‘it gets better’ campaign on YouTube.

Names

I watched a royal wedding recently and I was interested to note the name of the groom. Prince William Arthur Philip Louis. His moniker evokes centuries of history- and a complex labyrinth of family relations.

My father’s name was Ewing Lee Robertson. I once asked my grandmother why she had chosen the name Ewing. Dad was her sixth son, and she said after all those boys she had run out of other names to use. She already had a Harry and a George and a Carl and a Glen and a Gaylon, so when she met someone named Ewing, she thought ‘That would be a nice name for a boy.’

Ewing was a fine man, honest and decent. He always left a place better than he found it. On his deathbed he said to my husband and me that he was glad we’d found each other and he encouraged us to continue taking care of each other.

As a young adult I wondered where my parents had come up with the inspiration for my name. My middle name is Ewing, and I’ve always felt privileged to carry a little bit of my father around with me. But my first name has no obvious familial origins. As a young adult, my politics began coalescing. And I started to worry that my parents had named me after a certain Ronald who had become governor of California. My mom reassured me that Mr. Reagan had never been a hero of hers. Long before him, she was enchanted with the name of another actor, Ronald Coleman. A film critic of his time said this of Coleman:

“For such a gentle man, he had a core of strength, an adherence to his own code of honor like steel - incorruptible and immoveable.”

Need I say more.

I believe that names carry a certain indescribable influence. They imbue a person with certain qualities and they radiate a personality before the person is fully formed.

Our niece and nephew, Jennie and Kevin, had a baby boy last month. He was their third child after giving our family two beautiful daughters, Ainsley and Hadley. I have to admit I was moved to tears when I learned they’d named the boy, Ewing.

Hospital Chaplain

When I was a hospital chaplain, I had an uncomfortable familiarity with death. I say uncomfortable because I was 35 years old and far from that significant threshold for myself. I say familiarity because I officiated at more than 60 funerals during those years and I sat by the bedside of many people who were about to die. I responded to the nurses who called every time an infant died. I don’t think any of us ever get comfortable with that. I sat at the bedside of many people who were facing their own deaths. Some of them talked about everything but death. However I distinctly remember some, who on the doorstep to eternity, could speak openly about what they thought and how they felt.

Take for example Rosemary, who was in the hospital for many weeks. She was battling cancer and always appreciated a visit from the chaplain. In my first visit at her bedside she said to me ‘I’m going to die soon.’ As matter-of-factly as if she had said I’m going to have my hair done tomorrow. I admired that kind of confidence, and I spent some time every day for three weeks with her. Rosemary had an easy laugh and liked telling funny stories. She had some worries about how her family would react to her death. But she herself wasn’t worried. I admired her tremendously and tried to carry her confidence with me.

I spent some time visiting the woman with emphysema. This was in the days when a patient could still smoke in the hospital. So wouldn’t you know it -there she was smoking a cigarette. The skin on her face was dry and leathery; she could only speak a few words before coughing. She said to me, “thank you for dropping by Rev. ‘cough cough’ no need for you to stay ‘cough cough’ I’m way past redemption ‘cough cough’.”

A 60-year-old woman was brought into the emergency room bleeding from her femoral artery as the result of an auto accident. She was able to instruct her doctors that she didn’t want any blood transfusions. She was a Jehovah's Witness, and her religion prohibited the use of blood products. This drove the hospital staff crazy. In their eyes it would have been so easy to save this woman’s life. But to refuse blood products seemed to them like sure suicide. I explained to her doctors that she had the right to refuse medical procedures, even when her rationale didn’t make sense to them. They kept her alive longer using a hyperbaric chamber and oxygenating what blood she had left. Eventually she died. Her family was relieved knowing that without blood transfusions she could go straight to heaven. Her doctors were flummoxed.

Throughout those years I considered my parishioners to be the hospital staff. Nurses who were on their feet all day and all night; respiratory therapists who went from lung to lung extending the breath of life where they could; social workers and discharge planners trying to find adequate arrangements for the discharge of very sick people. They were a dedicated and hard-working group, and I was privileged to be held in their loving embrace.

Osso Bucco

Tom made Osso Bucco for dinner a couple of weeks ago. Italian for a ‘bone with a hole’, this recipe calls for a slice of veal shank that gets simmered in broth and rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, clove and vegetables for 60 to 90 minutes. When it is served the Osso Bucco is falling-off-the-bone tender and delicious. The other advantage of this recipe is that when the meal is complete, a beautiful bone is left for the dog. We finished the meal in 40 minutes. Flash has worked on the bone for days. Tom and I sit and watch him try to chew on the inside of the circle. It provides hours of entertainment for all three of us. I know what you’re thinking: “these two are easily entertained.” Yes, we are.

There is something “old world” about this recipe. It takes time to cook, it makes the whole house smell delicious and you can’t eat it while standing over the sink. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the modern day shortcuts in the kitchen. Without them I’d weigh 80 pounds. But there is also a benefit from the

old recipes. Isn’t there? Am I just being sentimental? At one point in my past, when I had two legs to stand on, I made apple pies from scratch. Piecrust is a tricky endeavor, but when done well it’s a delight.

Flash just showed up to remind me that this piece is not about recipes, it’s about bones. The kind your dog will love.

Band Uniform

I did all four years of my secondary education at Coachella Valley High School, where the mascot was the C.V. Arab. Therefore our band uniforms were appropriate to the Arab culture. I'm not sure it was a uniform that any authentic Arab would recognize; they were more like your Hollywood version of an Arab. The uniform began at the top with a dark green felt fez. In Arabic it's known as a tarboosh. With a tassel attached to the top and hanging down the side, picture Matt Groening’s Akbar and Jeff. (That's probably why I turned out gay-- I was made to dress like Akbar and Jeff during my formative years.) Our shirts were made of gold satin with full sleeves and over that we wore a green felt vest. We wore green wool pants that were gathered in at the ankle. Picture Barbara Eden in I dream of Jeannie. The gold satin cummerbund helped tie the outfit together. My feet were big enough that the toes curled up of their own accord without any help from the costume designer.

The real miracle here was that they dressed three dozen of us in these costumes and put us on a hot street in the Coachella Valley carrying drums and tubas… and most of us survived. I suppose that all of this was good preparation for my years in the theater. I could say to the director in any given play ‘you want me to wear that?’ Sure, no problem.

Brokenhearted

I fell in love in my mid-30s and I fell hard. His name was Jay. We met quite by accident and ended up talking most of the evening. He was from out of town and living in my area because IBM sent him there to close down a local facility. The circumstances of his work assignment should have been a warning to me, but you know what they say-love is blind and a little bit stupid. He stayed over that night and for several nights thereafter. Over the next few weeks, we went for long drives and sang in the car. He cooked for me and bought me flowers.

I took him to my grandmother’s funeral where he met all the family. He interacted with my little niece and nephew with grace and charm. He talked with my parents in a way that put his higher education at Cornell to good use. We were both working more than full time, but we spent nearly every night together; he almost never went to the little apartment he had rented nearby. He flew to his home in the Bay Area and rented a truck to bring some of his things back down south. He brought his bed, which he said was more comfortable than mine so we put my mattress in the garage. He brought his big rocking chair, and we settled in to my place like a couple of honeymooners.

One morning I woke up and found him sitting quietly in the rocking chair. I kissed the top of his head and asked ‘is something wrong?’ He said no. That night when I got home his belongings were gone. My mattress was back on the bed. His clothes, rocking chair, brush and comb all gone. I called him at his old apartment and he said he just needed some air. I didn’t understand, I peppered him with questions. Air? Was I smothering you? He said he didn’t know; he just needed some time.

If you want to drive someone crazy don’t give him the complete story. Just give him enigmatic explanations like ‘I need some air’. Well, it drove me a little crazy. I started driving 20 minutes to his apartment at 10 PM at night and sitting in the parking lot trying to watch people coming and going. I knew what grief and depression could do to a person, my life became a prime example. I became sleepless and restless. I cried at unexpected times. I was brokenhearted.

After a month he told me the truth. He had left his lover in the Bay area and eventually came to doubt his decision. I was still a wreck. Over the next few months, through long talks with my friends and my therapist and a lot of rigorous exercise, I made a slow, deliberate climb back into mental health.

This is a dark story in my life that I have resisted retelling. But with time comes perspective. Six months after my fiasco with Jay, I learned that my friend Tom had become single again. I called him and made a date for lunch. As it turned out my heart had been broken… I like to think of it as broken open, to be ready for the love of my life.

My First Home (with a little help from my friends)

In the early 1980s I ventured to purchase my first home. It was a two-bedroom condo under construction. Set up into a hillside, it had a lovely view of the Conejo Valley and the builders promised it would be completed by June. But by the Fourth of July it was still nothing more than 2x4’s. I would go by every couple of weeks and supervise, but that didn’t seem to speed the process at all. After Thanksgiving I learned that construction had stopped because of a lawsuit. Evidently my two-story unit had emerged into the view shed of the homes on the hill behind me. It seemed that my lovely view of the Conejo Valley used to be theirs. In any event I left the builders and the homeowners to sort out this issue without me.

Come spring, the construction started again. And about 11 months after I opened escrow my lovely condo was almost ready for me. The sales office informed me that they would need $5000 in closing costs before I could move in. I said to them “And you are telling me about the closing costs now, after 11 months?” I had never purchased a home before; I was a real estate virgin. So these closing costs came as something of a surprise. I was as likely to come up with $5000, as I was to produce a Polaroid picture of the baby Jesus in the manger. I was very upset to think that a year of hoping and waiting would produce nothing but disappointment.

When I shared my distress with some of my friends at work, they said, “let us help”. So I borrowed $1000 each from five of my colleagues. They were so good about it, I told them I could pay them back with $35 a month. They smiled and said, “Take your time”.

Two years later I sold the condo for a nifty profit. (Oh the beauty of Southern California real estate in the good times.) I was able to pay off my colleagues, and put a down payment with Tom on our new home in Ventura. These friends and colleagues have a special place of honor in my memory. I hope you each have known such friendship in your life too.

Seventh-grade Friends

Beginning seventh-grade made me more than a little nervous. It was in seventh grade that young people in our community first changed clothes for P.E. and showered afterward. In retrospect I was making a mountain out of a molehill, or was it vice versa? As with many young people that age I was insecure about my naked self. I had an ectomorphic frame (tall and skinny) and I had no idea how my personal physical dimensions measured up to my peers. Once we all got in the changing room I undressed so quickly and avoided looking at others I was still pretty ill informed.

The changing room was not the only place I should have been worried about. I had experienced a growth spurt that made it difficult for me to place one large foot in front of the other without tripping. Expecting me to run and throw a ball simultaneously was beyond optimistic.

In 7^th grade, we also began moving to different rooms for different classes. So in the course of a single day we changed classrooms, changed teachers, changed clothes. It was a lot of change for a young person. Fortunately I moved to the seventh grade with a band of friends, loyal stalwarts. When I think back I realize I made a lot of difficult transitions, and good friends had eased the way. We expect a lot of our friends and my friends have come through, overlooking my weaknesses and walking shoulder to shoulder through the transitions.

The Dream

I had a dream one night while I was in high school. In the dream, my dear friend died in a motorcycle accident. I woke up in the morning and I was still crying. My pillow was soaked with tears. The dream was so real I sat in bed that morning trying to figure out if he was really dead or not. It wasn’t until I was at school later in the day and I saw him in the flesh that I could relax and let go of the dream.

The dream made me painfully conscious that I was in love with him. He was a fabulous young man, intelligent and athletic and funny. But he liked girls. I had listened to him for hours while he mooned over girls in our class. I could never tell him the true nature of my affection. So I loved him in silence, and dreamed my tragedy in private.

As I reflected on this private, personal memory, I thought about all the high school students today who are secretly in love with someone of the same gender. One of the most important tasks of adolescence is learning to fall in love. And yet for gay and lesbian youth, there are very few safe places to talk about it. Should they go to a teacher or parent? And what if at 16 years of age, this young person gets rejected, ridiculed or kicked out of their home? Could any of us have survived that?

There’s been a lot of media attention to bullying in high school. I believe it is time for parents and teachers to do the hard work of creating safe places for coming out. That means teachers and administrators saying publicly ‘our gay and lesbian students have a right to fair and kind treatment by everyone’. What a world of difference that would have made for me and the tender sprigs of love that I was learning to nurture.

Skip

Some people say there is no love as pure and generous as the love between our dogs and us. When I first met Tom he was cohabiting with a dog named Skip, a terrier of mixed ancestry who Tom adopted from the humane society. Skip tipped the scales at 15 pounds and was just tall enough to scavenge for snacks left on the coffee table.

Skip wasn’t sure about me at first. I seemed to be moving in without spending that required time in the pound. He looked at me as if to ask, “Do you have all your shots?” When I sat next to Tom on the couch Skip would bare his teeth at me and growl… grrr. But with time and cookies and walks, we won each other over.

I disrupted their idyllic life when we moved to Ventura, then we moved to that awful little two bedroom apartment in San Diego, and finally to a home that was worthy of Skip’s lineage. By the time we moved downtown Skip was getting pretty old. Cataracts obstructed his eyesight; his gait was uneven and wobbly. But then I was in the early stages of MS so my gait wasn’t all that commendable. I had a walker and found that the easiest way for me to take him outside was to put him on the shelf in my walker and push him in front of me. After a while, he began to lose his orientation and just wandered around the apartment bumping into the walls like the pinball Wizard.

It was hard for us to know if he was suffering. It sometimes took him a long time to stand up. And he would stop and stare, for many minutes at a time, as if in a trance. Tom and I had long talks about Skip’s quality of life. He had been such a vivacious and adventurous little dog; the contrast with this lame, old Skip was disturbing.

We took him to the vet early one morning.The Doctor met us at the door and ushered us to an examining room. He was very kind and reassured us. “ It won’t take long and it won’t hurt him”. It was just one injection and his breathing stopped. The tears ran down our cheeks and we sobbed out loud. The vet left us alone in the room with Skip while we cried. We hugged him and kissed him goodbye and hugged each other. Is it their innocence and loyalty that makes their passing so painful?

We wrapped Skip in a big beach towel, and carried him out through the waiting room, now filled with people and their dogs, cats and birds. They all silently watched our solemn procession go by.

We placed Skip on the back seat of the Volvo and began our funeral cortege through the places he had lived and loved. San Diego, (Beverly Hills, he liked the window shopping there), Thousand Oaks, Ventura, Santa Barbara and finally back to the humane society, where he started.

A month later his ashes came back to us in a wooden box, and it sits now on a shelf in our home, next to his picture and some of his teeth. It remains a wonder to me that such a little fellow like Skip could have such a big heart, and could so effectively fool us. All the while we thought we were taking care of him he was actually taking care of us.

Barefoot In The Park

In 1969 I played the role of Paul in our high school production of ‘Barefoot in the Park’. This was one of Neil Simon’s most popular plays on Broadway with over 1000 performances in the 1960s. Mine was the role played by Robert Redford in New York and in the film. I didn’t look like Robert Redford, but never mind- no pressure. It is a very funny script and we had a lot of fun keeping them rolling in the aisles.

Playing opposite me in the role once played by Jane Fonda, was a lovely high school senior girl named Kevin Crooks. She was terrific. And the script called for us to kiss each other at several points in the play…on the lips. I was a high school sophomore. Tall for my age but in most ways not experienced at all. You get my drift? The only women I ever kissed were my mom and grandmothers, and that was not the kind of kissing the script called for. When it came time for our characters to kiss, Kevin was very patient. She tutored me to kiss like a real heterosexual. (I suppose it helped that her name was Kevin, I could just close my eyes and imagine kissing anyone I’d like; Kevin Costner, Kevin Bacon-you get the idea.)

The play was set in New York City in the 60s so of course there were jokes in the script about gay people. I knew what gay people were, kind of. But they were mostly the butt of jokes even to Neil Simon.

The real balm that the play provided was the laughter. It was the first comedy in which I had acted. And I was surprised by how luxurious it felt to be the recipient of all that laughter. It billowed up from the audience and rolled over me. As long as they kept laughing I could do no wrong. You can be sure that Neil Simon is a genius when he puts words in the mouth of a high school sophomore and makes people laugh for hours.

Tomato Farming

When I was in college I came home to the desert to take summer jobs. One summer my brother and I worked for a hydroponic farmer putting in tomato plants. Hydroponics is a style of farming that avoids the use of soil. The plants are situated in gravel or some such inert composite. Nutrient rich water would be washed through the roots of the plants several times a day. It was a way of farming that helped to avoid plant damage by disease and pests. If you've ever seen a tomato worm, you know how important it is to avoid them.

We started at the site just before sunrise every day, shoveling gravel, pushing wheelbarrows full of seedlings, tying up tiny tomato plants and other tedious and laborious jobs in the hundred-degree heat. Our supervisor on the job was an old farmer who wore overalls and a straw hat and was in the habit of sitting in the shade and pointing and shouting at his younger slaves. I'm not sure how we got the job. I must have unknowingly hurt the feelings of one of my friends who, for revenge, recommended me to farmer John.

I had worked at other summer jobs; lifeguard at a pool and lake, usher at a movie theater, supervisor for a recreation playground. But never anything as hot and difficult as hydroponic farming. That summer job became a touchstone for me. When later in life I fell into some work that I didn’t like, I could always say to myself: ‘at least it’s not hydroponic farming in hundred degree temperatures.’

Italy

In 1998 Tom and I took a trip to Italy. I had been diagnosed with MS the year before and we decided we had better travel sooner rather than later. We chose a bus tour of Italy with a company called Perillo and they put us on a bus with a driver named Stefano and a tour guide named Anna. On our flight to Rome we met a couple that, it turned out, were active in the PFLAG chapter in Portland, Maine, and they spotted us because we wore matching rings. So we had made friends on the tour even before the tour began: An auspicious beginning.

Our tour guide, Anna, talked about life in Italy as we drove along in the bus. She was married with a couple of little children and she had the Italian point of view on everything from frozen pizza to the Pope. She noted the Italian national car was the FIAT, which stood for: “Fix It Again Tony”. Two particularly memorable sights on our trip included Capri and the Amalfi Coast.

From Sorrento we took a boat to the island of Capri. We thought it would be a good idea to take the little funicula to the top of the island and then walk back down the hill, but we got a bit lost and missed the funicula station -so we ended up walking to the top. It was a lovely walk past walled private gardens with luscious lemon trees. When we got to the top we were hungry for lunch. So Tom went into a little neighborhood market and stood with a gaggle of Italian homemakers in front of the refrigerated case. It was an interesting sight, Tom was about 2 feet taller than all of these women who were dressed in black and speaking excitedly in Italian; but they kept careful track of who was to be served next. They all pushed him to the front of the group when it was his turn to order. It was like having a dozen Italian mamas taking care of him. For lunch we had some cheese and salami and fresh bread, it tasted like it had been imported from the Italian deli in heaven. We also sank our teeth into a couple of peaches that might have been picked from the gardens we walked by on our way up. We were amazed! The peaches were so succulent; the juice ran down our chins as we delighted in the flavor. The Ralph's grocery back home never carried peaches quite like these.

After Capri, Stefano drove our bus along the Amalfi coast. I don't know how that road is today, but then it would barely accommodate two passing vehicles. If the bus came upon a car wanting to go the opposite direction we both had to stop and pull the rearview mirrors in. Then creep by each other while all the passengers held their breath, looking down the cliff to the Aegean. The Cathedral of St. Andrew in Amalfi was beautiful resting in its stone niche above the sea but I think the real lesson of the trip was: be sure you’ve got a good bus driver.

Gratefully Yours

As 2011 begins, I find myself counting my blessings. It requires a lot of helping hands to keep me rolling along. My husband Tom prepares food for me, lifts me into and out of bed everyday, pays my bills, and does the thousand little things my hands can’t perform anymore. Our friend Duane gets me through the shower three times a week and shaves and dresses me. A fresh shave is something I took for granted for many years, but now I particularly appreciate how it helps me put my best face forward.

I go to a local hotel to get my haircut and a doorman at the front of the hotel always opens the door for me. I used to be a little embarrassed by that much attention, but now it's just about the only way I can get in.

I had some trouble with my computer last week so we called our friend Mike. It wasn't just that his hands were better with cables and keyboards, his expertise got me back and running in a couple of hours.

Last week while Tom was out of town, our friends Jim and Pat brought over a meal they had lovingly prepared themselves. Carl stayed with me all week to take over the responsibilities that Tom usually fulfills. Last month I was home alone during the day and I really wanted something to drink. I had a small bottle of cranberry juice but I couldn’t open it; my hands just weren’t strong enough. So I put the bottle in my lap and rolled to the elevator thinking I might find a friendly neighbor eventually. Before too long an electrician, repairing some lights in the hallway, came along and provided a helping hand. The list goes on… but you get the idea. Happy 2011, may you know even half the generosity that I do this year.