Grandma

My paternal grandmother, Jennie Berkstresser Robertson Smith, ‘Grandma’ to us, lived in the house next door to us when I was growing up. It was the house where my father grew up with the fig tree and the tangerine trees that his father had planted. Born in 1887, Grandma came to California from Oklahoma via Colorado in 1920. Dad used to say part of her trip was by covered wagon. I know she didn’t fly on Southwest.

She gave birth to nine children. My grandfather, father of all those children, died as the result of an auto accident when the ninth child was still an infant. It being the onset of the great depression, Grandma sent three of her nine babies to relatives to raise, and her oldest came home from college to help support the family. She had six sons in a row, and then three daughters. All six of the boys joined the armed services during World War II. I often thought of grandma at home during the war years, worrying about the safety of six sons at once. Hers is a life story that wasn't uncommon for its time but it always impressed me as heroic.

In the 1960s when her rambling old house was too big for her to take care of she moved to a singlewide mobile home in our backyard. I liked the arrangement. It was very convenient for me to drop in on her where she was sitting on her sofa knitting and watching TV. Because grandma was losing her hearing I never had to ask her to turn the volume up, we got Password and the Price Is Right at maximum decibels. I liked sitting with her. Every now and then I would shout something to her, but mostly we just sat and watched TV together. Grandma was a member of the Rebekah Lodge, an organization affiliated with the Odd Fellows Lodge. I never knew much about them except when Grandma went to a meeting she wore a beautiful formal gown and smelled very nice.

As Grandma got older, her sight and her hearing grew dimmer. She spent her last years in a nursing home with very little that she could see or hear. As I become more dependent myself, I think of her often. I wonder what she was thinking as she stared at the wall, as others bathed her and dressed her. I hope she reran these stories of her life in her head that now, at long last, I get to put on paper.

Summer Solstice

This past weekend Tom and I went to Santa Barbara. It was the weekend when Santa Barbarians celebrate the summer solstice. They have a wild and crazy parade and the people of the community generally whoop it up. The origins of this dazzling celebration lie in the community spirit and appreciation of artistic expression; there is nothing like it anywhere else. Artist and mime Michael Gonzales, conceived the Parade in 1974, to celebrate his birthday. From its humble beginnings as a group of street artists, the Summer Solstice Celebration has evolved into a street carnival of more than 1,000 parade participants, complete with extravagant floats, whimsical costumes and creatively choreographed dancing ensembles.

We also went to see the play, “Loot”, by Joe Orton. The play was a charming little farce with a horny buxom nurse, stolen cash, a hidden corpse… well you get the idea. It was very appropriate for the Solstice Weekend. I was also reminded of the story of the play’s writer. Orton was a fast rising gay artist in London in the1960’s. The Beatles had asked him to collaborate on a movie. He'd written several plays and Loot was one of those that had made it to the West End. Orton was a colorful character, quoted as saying: “The kind of people who always go on about whether a thing is in good taste invariably have very bad taste”


On August 8, 1967, Kenneth Halliwell, Orton’s lover, killed Orton and then killed himself with an overdose of Nembutal. Apparently Halliwell was jealous of Orton's success and tired of being abused by his more attractive lover.

Maybe a lesson we can take from Mr. Orton’s brief, shining life is this: be kind to your friends and join a parade every chance you get.

Another Door

I was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis in 1997, after a year of being poked and prodded by neurologists trying to figure out why my feet were numb. Immediately following the session with the doctor where he showed me the MRI scans and told me there was no treatment, I went to my husband’s office and we cried together. 13 years later I’m in a wheelchair all day and in bed at night. Mind you I have a fabulous wheelchair, and a very comfortable bed.

For some reason years ago, my immune system decided to attack the myelin sheath on my nerves. I’ve read lots of theories about why this attack takes place. I changed my diet – gave up ice cream and milk – and anything else a human being might enjoy eating. I’ve had mercury fillings removed from my teeth. I’ve prayed and meditated and tried to stop thinking unpleasant things about other people. I continue losing feeling and control in my fingers and hands.

For five years after I was in the chair I drove a van equipped with hand controls. Even after I had to retire from full-time employment I was able to volunteer for efforts important to me. Then one day I pulled out of our parking garage and found myself unable to turn onto the street. After a little rest I returned to the parking place and never drove again. I couldn’t bear the thought of running into some poor innocent because I suddenly stopped being able to control my vehicle.

I comfort myself by thinking things like: at least I can still see (MS frequently blinds its victims), at least I can still talk (the progression of paralysis will eventually take my vocal chords and swallow capability), at least it’s not ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis takes people from healthy to paralyzed to dead in about five years). I am fortunate to have Tom who is always thinking about better ways or different ways to get things done.

Through the years Tom and I have had a good laugh at my foibles like bathroom accidents in unusual places. But even those eventualities lose their humor after awhile.

A friend of a friend recommended that I fly to Monterrey Mexico to receive a special infusion treatment using stem cells. Since it would have cost about $40,000 I paused to think about it. I'm glad I did because last month 60 minutes on CBS ran an exposé on the medical clinic doing stem cell treatments in Monterrey Mexico. I decided not to pursue that treatment option. I've had trouble getting Steve Croft's face out of my dreams, "and you spent how much on this cockamamie idea?"

On Wednesday I had an appointment to get my haircut. As the hour drew near I began to open the door, which has a powerful automatic closure device attached. Every time I pulled the door open a few inches it would slam closed again. I called my neighbor Hallie from down the hall to help. She wasn't home. I called my neighbor Chris, the police officer, to see if he was home and could help. I left a message since he wasn't home. Finally on the fourth try I got it open and got myself out. With some relief I locked the door and headed for the barbershop. Tom and I were both at the barbershop at the same time, when we got the call. Our lobby attendant called to alert us because the police had arrived and wanted to look in our apartment. We assured them I was fine. I rolled home as soon as possible and was glad to see the door had not been knocked down. Another day another adventure.

The Phrog Pack

When we were in high school, football was king. Football tryouts for freshmen began in the middle of August when average temperatures hovered around 100°. I went out for football for one day. I ran around the track four times, threw up and decided there had to be a better way.

In the spring I tried out for the swim team. As I remember it everyone who tried out made the team, if you didn’t drown. We were a ragtag group of farm boys. Some of us swam very well, most of us managed to make our turns without hurting ourselves. As one of the spring sports we knew we swimmers had to distinguish ourselves or we would get lumped in with tennis and golf and track. So we gave ourselves a name (The Phrog Pack), published a regular newspaper and created a team flag that was flown at all of our meets. We were coached by a unique individual named Al Robelot. He was a Cajun who grew up in Louisiana and fostered rumors about himself as a wrestler of alligators. During football season he was a coach for the defensive line. He brought intense dedication and enthusiasm to the swim coach assignment. At one point in our junior year he had us reporting twice a day for practice, before school at 6:30 AM and after school as well. That year I almost developed gills.

Thanks to Coach Robelot and our band of brothers we won the league that year. (I would be remiss if I didn’t mention our one girl on the team. Shakeh put up with all our teasing and swam for the team as well as for her own glory.) The Phrog Pack was a formative phase in my development. Never have so few worked so hard for so little glory and enjoyed it so much.

Our First House

Tom and I went looking for our first house together during a very hot real estate market in Southern California. We had our measly down payment ready. Our realtor, CJ, said there were only three houses in our price range and she would take us to see them all. We got into her car and she drove us to the first house. Aside from the fact that it was in an unattractive neighborhood and was missing the front wall… I’m sure it was perfect for someone… else. We went to the second house and had just stepped inside when a loud rumble began. I grabbed the doorway thinking that maybe this was the big one. It turned out that the railroad tracks where a dozen yards from the backdoor. We moved on to the third house, CJ said that the tenants had just arrived home and we could only get a quick peek inside. It was the worst house on the block, always a good investment choice. It had been rented for many years and suffered from obvious neglect. The carpets were avocado green, the yards were overgrown and we never saw the bathroom because someone was in it. We made an offer the same day. Well, at least it had a front wall.

For a couple of gay boys, Tom and I plunged in with uncharacteristic gusto. We tore out all that old carpeting and had the hardwood floors refinished. We replaced the hardware on every door with the best that Home Depot had to offer. We painted everything inside and Tom’s dad painted the entire outside. The kitchen was paneled in that knotty pine so popular in the 1950s and we thought we could modernize it by sanding it down and bleaching it. So we got a belt sander at Sears. We discovered that when you press a belt sander against the wall it has a tendency to travel. So we struggled for a full day trying to keep the belt sander from leaving the kitchen on its own power. At the end of the day the walls were sanded, albeit with several deep gouges- and there was sawdust all over the house. For weeks thereafter our favorite exclamation was, “How did sawdust get in there?”

There was no hardwood on the floor of the third bedroom, so we decided to purchase a carpet for that space. Back to Home Depot we went and purchased a very modern charcoal gray floor covering, like you might see on the floor of an Amtrak train. I measured for the new carpet keeping in mind what they say, “measure twice cut once.” So imagine my surprise when we got the new carpet home and I unrolled it in the bedroom. I had to look up from the floor at my husband and say “really- I measured.” Since the carpet was about 3 inches short of the wall we determined the best course of action was to paint that strip of the floor the same color as the carpet. Problem solved!

A year later Tom got a fabulous job offer 200 miles away. So we reluctantly said goodbye to the new flooring, freshly painted walls, gleaming doorknobs… I could go on but I can’t see through my tears. Our first house together turned out to be a glistening jewel of our mutual labor embedded in our memories forever.

Cyrano and Mr. Casper

When I was in high school I was privileged to learn from a teacher named Bill Casper, who was affectionately known by his students as “the ghost,” because his name invoked the memory of a friendly cartoon character and because he had a habit of sneaking up on you when you were thinking of doing something wrong. Unfortunately he had a congenital defect that left his limbs short and all his joints painful. He had responsibility for speech and drama programs at the high school and he dedicated long hours to preparing students for their best presentations. I participated in both speech and drama, therefore I spent some long hours with Mr. Casper. One memory of our long association stands out for me.

I had stayed after school to work on a speech and we were the last ones left in the classroom. I was sitting on the floor and Mr. Casper was sitting on the chair of one of those student chair/desk combos. I had encountered a speech from the play called Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand. Mr. Casper volunteered to tell me the story of the play so I settled on the floor at his feet. For the better part of an hour I listened with rapt attention to the story of the fabulous swordsman with the extremely large nose. I heard how he fell in love with Roxanne and had no hope of capturing her attention because of his common looks, and how he then helps his handsome young friend, Christian, woo Roxanne by ghost writing his love letters. Finally when Cyrano returns wounded from the wars, he sets the record straight with Roxanne and dies in her arms as the plume from his hat flutters to the ground.

Mr. Casper was a superior storyteller. As we sat in the fading light of late afternoon I was completely transported by the tragedy of a man, beautiful on the inside, not so perfect on the outside. Cyrano and Mr. Casper, my hat’s off to you both.

The barbershop

I get my hair cut at an old-fashioned barbershop downtown. The two barbers there have been on the job for many, many years. They have Playboy magazines on the table, a shoeshine stand in the corner and a striped barber pole outside the door. It is the quintessential barbershop of Norman Rockwell’s youth. In a nod to modernity, a television set sits in the corner and plays Fox News all the time. The other customers are an interesting mix of retirees, downtown professionals, and curmudgeons.

During a recent haircut I was seated next to a customer in his mid-60s who spoke to his barber in a loud clear voice. He was reciting the typical tea party political line about how the proposed health insurance revision in Congress would sink our country. I sat and listened politely for as long as I could take it. Then I spoke up saying something like, “it’s not health insurance that will sink our country; but another ill-fated Bush war in the Middle East.” He exploded into a diatribe about socialism, taxation without representation, and how the hard-working people of America are being crushed by socialists in the White House. His barber quickly finished him up and ushered him out the door. My barber began apologizing to me and explained how the fellow just likes to hear himself talk.

When I left the barbershop and crossed the street I encountered a man with a handheld sign that said: “Obamacare will ruin this country”! I rolled up to him and asked what that meant. He said something about the hard-working people of America being crushed by Socialists in the White House. We talked for a few minutes more and I explained the benefits of universal health coverage. He didn’t seem particularly interested in dialogue, but was rather wed to a half dozen catchy one-liners. “The cost of this program is way too high, we can’t afford to insure every illegal immigrant, the debt will weigh down our children and grandchildren.” I thanked him for the conversation and rolled along the sidewalk, grateful that I live in a country where we could all have our say.