Abby And Her Locks Of Love

   

Mountain-Democrat photo -  Pat Dollins

Last week I had lunch with six-year-old Abby McGloughlin. Her mother, Bre, was allowed to accompany her as long a Bre promised to behave herself and eat all her veggies. I’ve known Bre for about 15 years, getting acquainted with her on-line when she was quarantined for a year while recuperating from leukemia. Her meds had knocked her immune system down, so her social life was limited to chatting on her computer.

Bre and her husband, Stephen, are both from Ireland and we share a liking for Celtic music. As it happens, Bre had sung Gaelic ballads in a heartbreaking contralto before the leukemia meds took away her singing voice as well as her immune system. She even cut a CD for her church, a Protestant denomination.  Seems that Bre cast aside centuries of her family's Irish-Catholic history to become a Baptist. “They seemed to have more fun” she explained when asked why.

For her, church attendance should not be a grimly pious occasion, which she demonstrated by such stunts as putting a motorized shark fin in the baptismal font prior to a service. When the pastor finally noticed, he looked right at Bre. As did the entire congregation. Bre put on a “Who, me?” expression and feigned innocence.

In addition to losing her singing voice and immunity to bacteria, Bre also lost custody of her three daughters and three stepdaughters as a result of the disease, but managed to keep her three legged turtle, Tripod, and formed a circle of new friends and admirers on-line while housebound.

Once her quarantine was over, Bre organized Wednesday Night Pizza at a pizzeria for the eclectic bunch she had befriended via computer. They included a locomotive engineer, a commercial pilot, a computer geek or two, a 15-year-old girl whose sneeze could open a garage door, a few college students and one unemployed writer. All we had in common was an affinity for computers and a deep affection for Bre.

We both moved to different areas but kept in touch now and then over the years. I didn’t know about Abby until recently. We agreed to meet for lunch at a restaurant halfway between Sacramento and her pastoral home in the Sierra foothills where the McLoughlins moved to escape Sacramento's urban sprawl.

We met at the Panera sandwich emporium in Folsom. Bre brought Abby with her. My usual attitude toward children is that they should be locked up until they are 30, but Abby promptly improved my thinking. When we met, she looked at me with eyes as blue as the lake waters of  Lough Derravaragh on a clear Erin day, extended a small hand and said, “Hello, Mr. Mike,” with the poise of someone many years her senior. While Bre and I chatted about boring grownup stuff, Abby quietly amused herself by drawing Bre’s initials on a napkin while I quietly fell in love with that kid.

I’m not the only one, as shown by the following newspaper article from the Placerville Mountain Democrat:

　

Locks Lost For Love: Girl gives up foot of hair for children with cancer

By Rosemary Revell
Mountain Democrat staff writer
February 21, 2010

Abby McGloughlin of Placerville used to have hair that fell like a waterfall down her back to below her bottom, but now she has hair that just reaches her shoulders. Abby, 4 years old, had 12 inches cut off so that she could donate it to Locks of Love, an organization that provides hairpieces to disadvantaged children suffering from medical hair loss caused by chemotherapy or disease.

Abby is the daughter of Stephen and Bre McGloughlin of Placerville, and she attends Montessori Country Day School. She is quite precise about her age, saying “I’m 4 and three-fourths years old” and equally articulate in explaining why she gave her hair away. “I want to give my hair to someone who doesn’t have any hair,” she said.

Abby’s mother explained that in October, Abby saw a program on the Discovery Health TV channel.  “She saw a little girl who was 5 and had Alopecia, a condition where you can’t grow hair. She’s had the idea to donate her hair since then,” although she admitted that she and her husband tried to talk Abby out of her donation.

“Her hair’s been growing since birth. I only trimmed it once when her brother Brendan put bubble gum in it,” said McGloughlin.

Dressed in a red valentine dress, Abby hopped up and down and swung her little purse back and forth on the big day. She appeared excited and happy that the moment had finally arrived when she could give away her hair. Abby was ready for the shearing, but her parents were not.

“My husband couldn’t bear to come today. He’s worse than I am. She’s daddy’s little girl,” said Bre McGloughlin.

McGloughlin herself came bolstered by the presence of two of her friends. The big event took place at Super Cuts on Golden Center Drive in Placerville, “the only salon I found that worked with Locks of Love,” McGloughlin said. Nine people were in the salon, but Abby did not seem to be intimidated by their presence.

Hairstylist and salon manager Laura Winter seated the little girl on the big salon chair, draped her, brushed her hair out, bundled it into a pony tail, and trimmed off 4 3/4 years of hair growth in just seconds. Then she dampened Abby’s hair, trimmed it to be even and blew it dry. The new Abby was revealed as every bit as beautiful as the old Abby - inside as well as out.

“I’m going to grow it out so I can donate it again,” she said, apparently unfazed by the loss of an entire foot of hair.

Abby has two brothers, Matti, 6, and Brendan, 8, and Bre McGloughlin said she and her husband, who is from Ireland, have raised their children to care about others - although McGloughlin admits it backfires from time to time.

“Brendan came home from school one day without his shoes. I asked him what happened to his shoes, and he said, ‘There’s a boy in my class who didn’t have very nice shoes, so I gave him my shoes,’” McGloughlin said.

Wendy von Haesler, one of McGloughlin’s friends who accompanied her to the salon, said, “Their mom and dad are such wonderful people. They are very giving. She is a giver - always giving, giving, giving.”


Comments?

I enjoyed the essay and the story. Chloe, 6, my granddaughter, said something that amused me. I was babysitting her in a motel room in Oklahoma City. I took off my shirt and lay on the bed. I still had a T shirt on. She later told her parents that Pappy had taken off his shirt and lay on the bed, and it was awkward. -- Ken
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Great posting, Mike - very touching! Two of my granddaughters do the hair thing regularly -- they're so spoiled they spend most of their time just growing their hair. -- Cyn
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Well Mike, you're approaching tearjerkers. What a wonderful child. It seems European children are raised a little more thoughtfully on average. Maybe there's no baby talk. -- Wht
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Mike...that was a beautiful article. Such lovely people! Thanks, as always, for sharing. -- SOY
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Great piece, Mike. -- L. G. Vernon
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Love this! -- Juli
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What a beautiful article. -- Pamela
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Mike, this was a lovely story, and how fun that you and Abby and Bre had lunch together. Please give my best regards to Bre and her family next time you see her. -- Shannon
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I'm real glad that you sent me this story. I'm glad you were ready to share it. And perhaps you only suggested we needed tissues because we might be more moved than you, but I doubt it. I wonder if your tears are stuffed into a pocket somewhere or if they can ever been seen. Whatever the case, good on you for the words. And good on you again for knowing that sometimes there are moments that we just watch, wordless, and are amazed. -- Zoey
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Very loving piece, Mike. Would that more of us learned how to give at that age, and did not forget.-- Kent
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That was a beautiful story, Mike. Thanks for sharing it with me. -- Amanda
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Remembering Edie

Edie and I had a lot in common. Our birthdays were a year and a day apart; we‘d lived in the same Alaska city as kids but didn’t know each other then; we both liked the ballads of Gordon Lightfoot; and we were both majoring in English at the same community college where our British literature instructor took an avid interest in the two of us, although for vastly different reasons.

Edie was also smarter than me. If I got a B on a paper, Edie got an A. If I got an A, Edie got an A+. She was a natural writer. He her prose was concise and uncommonly witty for the turgid style and fussy formats inflicted by English departments on the undergraduate hoi polloi.

I was not intimidated by Edie’s literary superiority, nor envious or sullen in the manner of morbidly sensitive English majors who have all the social graces of poison clams when encountering their intellectual betters. Hell, Edie turned me on, and I let her know it with all the subtlety I was capable of at the age of 24, when my hormones ruled my head.

She let me down gently, explaining that she and our Brit Lit instructor were lovers. She was divorcing her husband, had custody of her six-year-old son, lived in a 3-room cabin built in the 1930s, and subsisted on child support payments and county welfare assistance. In short, she was not available for horizontal fun or even an upright quickie over the kitchen sink. At least not with me, but said she could always use another pal. She was astute enough not the use the phrase “just friends,” when describing any future interaction between us, which is the Alcatraz of male-female relations. Hard to escape.

The Brit Lit instructor was also married, natch, and had three kids and houseful of Welsh Corgis. But he was a handsome devil; half Cherokee with a dark brooding manner and a Van Dyke beard that gave him a menacing Mephistophelian look that many young women with poetic aspirations find irresistible. He completed the ensemble with a closet full of turtleneck shirts, corduroy jackets with leather patch elbows and several pairs of Birkenstock sandals. The Compleat Humanities Professor.

He had discovered poetry as a Marine, of all things, aboard a troop ship bound for Korea, of all places, during the height of American involvement in that stalemated war. After the service, he enrolled in U.C. Santa Barbara where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English, followed by a master’s from Yale. Then he began an itinerant career as a teacher, refining his angry seeker-of-truth-and-beauty act at 11 year junior colleges in 11 years before settling down at our marvelous little campus in the redwood country of California’s north coast.

There were other complications, or course. A large rolling tank of female assertiveness who taught American Lit zeroed in on him as mating material and campaigned relentlessly for his attention. And Edie?  She was being wooed by a humorless biology major and poet manqué who’d spent five years in community college to avoid the draft.

Edie would sometimes invite me over for a spaghetti dinner. I’d bring a jug Red Mountain wine and we’d talk about books, poetry and listen to Gordon Lightfoot’s latest release that I’d liberated from the radio station where I worked alone as a DJ five nights a week.  She would ask my advice on what she should do about her love life. Even then I knew the last thing she wanted was advice. What she wanted was an accomplice, or at least a confidant. Edie had another male pal for the same purpose, a married middle-aged projectionist at one of the town’s two movie theaters whom she also visited at work.

Edie was definetely not a woman’s woman, yet her closest friend was a woman named Donna who served as surrogate sister and a partner in mischief.

I got snagged into one of their stunts. When Edie was perplexed about being in a pickle between her lover and her suitor, she and Donna put on their shortest skirts and made a cockteasing run at a fleshpot bar that catered to the college crowd. They met two Canadian boys at the bar who were touring America on a motorcycle. One of the boys claimed to know his fellow countryman, Gordon Lightfoot. Hearing that, Edie dialed up her erotic wattage and almost exuded a fog of mating musk. By the time last call was announced, Edie and Donna had decided to continue the party at Donna’s, which was nine miles away, and left the bar with the Canadian lads in tow, everyone piling into Donna’s car.

The night air cooled Edie‘s libido and assailed her with second thoughts. She called me at home and rousted me out of bed. In a panicked voice, she said there were “two men in Donna’s house that we can’t get rid of,” her tone implying that they were about to be raped at knife point by two Hell’s Angels.

I was at banging on Donna’s door within 10 minutes. One of the supposed brutes, who looked about as menacing as a 13-year-old, was dozing on the couch. The other pillaging Visigoth was hiding in the kitchen, trying to squeeze himself into the narrow space between the refrigerator and the wall. I sighed, looked at Edie and Donna in sleep disturbed disgust, and offered to drive the unlaid Canadian lads back to their motorcycle. “You‘re saving the dragons!” Edie wailed as I herded the frightened and bewildered boys out the door. I didn’t speak to her for a month after that.

True to form, the Brit Lit prof quit our college after a year and took a job teaching at a community college in Calgary, Alberta, and wanted Edie to move to the same city and continue to be a friend with benefits. She was still being pursued by the draft dodging perennial student too. She asked me what she should do. Well, I said, you can move to strange cold city where you don’t know anyone, rent a furnished room and wait by the telephone, or you can stay here and give your draft dodger a chance.

What she did not know about the draft dodger was that his mother was a letterhead partner in an accounting firm with offices in San Francisco, New York and London. She also owned a summer home in one of the gated communities of the Sonoma Valley wine country. I did know that, but kept my mouth shut.

Edie stayed put and eventually married the draft dodger, whose mother always wanted a daughter and who showered Edie with presents, including two weeks in London at one of Europe’s grandest hotels, Claridge’s, where visiting kings and presidents rest their weary heads, and where rates begin at $600 USD per night. She wrote to me on Claridge’s stationery reporting that she was seeing places we had only read about: the Tower Of London, Mayfair, the British Museum, and that she could not stop crying. “I was out walking around in tears from just being in London when I saw a small brass plaque on a gate. It identified the house behind the gate as the home of William Blake! That started another crying jag!”

Not bad for former welfare case who'd lived in a three room shack.

She and her husband returned to northern California. He adopted her son, became serious about college, earned a master’s degree in biology, and got a job with the state Department of Fish & Game in the San Jaoquin Valley.  Edie was hired as a case worker for the county welfare office, since she knew the system so well, and her mother-in-law bought a house for the new family about 35 miles from where I had moved. I’d stop by now and then. The year was 1978.

Edie did not look well at all the last time I visited. Her surrogate sister Donna was present and appeared to have moved in. Edie’s actual sister, Bernice, had also taken up residence. A feather of foreboding touched the back of my brain.

“You look like hell,” I said. Mr. Tact.

“I’m sick,” she said.

“How sick?”

“Very.”

“Got the Big C?”

“Yes.”

“Mammary? Cervix?”  Mr. Sensitive.

“Lung.”

“How much time?”

“Maybe a month. Maybe three to six months if I take chemo, which I won‘t.”

"God damn it!" I yelled and threw my hat against a wall. Donna and Bernice looked at me sympathetically. Edie had been a light smoker. A pack of her favorite menthols would last her a week, but her susceptibility to lung cancer may have been genetic. Her father had died early from the same disease.

A month later Edie was dead.  She was 34 years old. Her husband was with her at the moment she died. "She woke up, smiled at me, closed her eyes, and that was it," he said.

What brought all this on was my recent visit to the VA hospital in Sacramento, where I was diagnosed with emphysema. I was not surprised. I’ve been a heavy smoker for over 50 years. I once asked a cousin of mine, who had been an emergency room doctor for many years, what was the greatest single cause for emergency room visits. Alcohol? Drugs?

“Lifestyle choices, “ he said.

The key word is choices. I seem to have made some poor ones. Well, shoot. The best I can do now is to take it easy and not sweat the petty stuff or pet the sweaty stuff, as another former teacher of mine once said. She died from lung cancer too. Another smoker.

I’ve almost reached my allotted three-score-and-ten of longevity anyway. Like other old farts, I’ve been wondering about an afterlife, in which I don’t really believe. But if there is one, I’ll consider Mark Twain’s counsel: “Heaven for the climate. Hell for the company.”

An easy choice. I’m accustomed to lousy climates and I’ve always been gregarious. I just hope I can go as gently into that good night as my friend Edie did. Even now, she remains a guide.

Comments?

As always, well done, poignant, up, down and around every emotion. Hang in there kiddo, I'm still smoking, 3 score plus 10 and refuse to give in. We will surprise everyone! -- Linda

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I've got a couple of friends here with emphysema, and as long as they follow their doctor's orders, they live pretty well...so, quit smoking, and follow your doctor's orders. -- Shannon
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Mike...lovely piece about Edie but I'm so sorry to hear that you are not well. I hope that with good medical attention you will be able to keep it controlled for many years. -- Soy
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It's never too late. Please, please take better care of yourself. Otherwise, who will send me such evocative stories? My life is made richer from reading what you've written over the years. Your stories, while personal, always touch upon the universal somehow, and what makes us so very human. --Tab A

Will you be my agent? -- MB
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I'm sorry to hear you have emphysema. That is a disease that can be lived with for years. I presume you know that. If you take care of yourself, and do what the doctors tell you, you may have many good moments -- and years -- remaining. -- Ann C.
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Gloomy, schmooomy.....good writin' is good writin'....all the good writers got lung disease...keep writing up til the last breath (pun intended), and never, ever apologize! you are beeeeauuuutiful...never forget that. -- Canny
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Hello Mike, just a quick word here .. 3 score isnt long enough , get greedy , get angry get a few more decades damnit..get a lung . Sorry Im so busy I'd come cheer you up wirth hookers , wine some good cannibis in cookies or brownies. Whatever it takes, buddy -- Nick and Amy in Arkansas
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Please do not leave. I need you living even if you do not write often. -- Fay
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You've never made me cry...before. -- Bach Lennon

Didn’t mean to do that. Just meant to spread a little gloom. -- MB
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Beautifully written, but so sad to hear that you're not well. Hugs, prayers,and warm, healing thoughts. -- Kerry

Appreciate that. -- MB
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Thanks. I needed this. Just posted to Facebook.-- Sum
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Another beautifully written essay, spanning details to the big unknowables. -- Galen
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As I get older, I, too, often think of my mortality, and what lies beyond. Of course, we don't really know unless we embrace the beliefs of the Believers, and, of course, that is at best something I only speculate about and raise my eyebrows. Still, there might be something to it. After all, I fancy thinking that when I go, my father will be waiting for me. I've missed him for eighteen years and I really would like to hug him again on some puffy white cloud. -- Zoey
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Nice, descriptive writing. The college scene was too much for me. That and the drugs! -- Gambatay
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Poignant ..loved it -- Juliari
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Mike, I don't know about an afterlife. I just know that people who face it with dignity are to be admired. God help us all with that. -- Wht
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I enjoyed reading the essay. I am sorry about your illness. I am thinking about writing about some embarrassing experiences for my next newspaper column. Here are two experiences that you might find amusing. When I was a freshman at Yale, I was on the front row in a psychology class. The professor started talking about sex. I fainted and fell on the floor dramatically. The professor asked a student to escort me to the infirmary. Another time I was standing in a bookstore in Grand Central Station. I was reading a passage in a book about the sex habits of French girls, and I fainted again. I later was able to enjoy sex without fainting. I do not remember what the book said about French girls. -- Ken

Gee, Ken, some women mind find that fainting quirk endearing, if it didn’t alarm them. They might even invite some of their girlfriends to watch, which could lead to some intriguing possibilities. MB

Planned Parenthood And The Girl Scout Cookie Conspiracy

It’s about time! At last, a powerful beacon of conservative reason is illuminating the rocks and shoals of corrupt left wing immorality!

I am referring to Rep. Bob Morris (R-Indiana) and his shocking disclosure that those commie pinko Girl Scouts of America are in league with the dark forces of that spawn of Satan, Planned Parenthood, in promoting homosexuality and abortion on demand.

Right thinking Americans have suspected as much for years. “Take those cookies, for example,” said a spokesman for the George W. Bush Liberty And Literacy Foundation, “they are a gateway cookie that could tragically lead to a birth control or morning after pill addiction. We’d then have to divert tax revenues from defense and into addiction recovery programs, which could even lead to financing godless projects like stem cell research.”

As for homosexuality and abortion, the parent of a 12-year-old Girl Scout in Sacramento, California, reported that her daughter summed up, in one word, the consistently uniform sentiments of her pre-teen peers regarding those issues: “Ewwwwwww!” I don’t think Rep. Morris need lose too much sleep over that one.

And what about the Girl Scouts’ connection with Planned Parenthood and its sinister agenda? Well, in 2004, the Blue Bonnet Council of the Girl Scouts in Waco, Texas, endorsed a Planned Parenthood education event without donating money or sending a Girl Scout to hand out pamphlets. Even so, the right thinking citizens of Waco boycotted Girl Scout cookies and formed their own scouting organization, American Heritage Girls. However, their kneejerk commie liberal neighbors retaliated and bought a record amount of mints, samoas and tagalongs, no doubt sending the cookies to their Communist masters in Albania, North Korea, or worse, California.

I had my own brush with the Fascist tactics of Girl Scout storm troopers when I was registering voters in 2010. I was stationed at a supermarket entrance with registration forms on a small table, two folding chairs, and wearing a pleasant expression when a carload of green uniformed Girl Scouts swarmed the place, unpacked their cookies, and began ambushing shoppers like snipers. Of course the little wretches charmed the bejabbers out of everyone, except me, I moved to a different location, only to be told that the Green Pestilence had infected every frapping supermarket in town.

I called the boss about my predicament. “I know, I know,” he said. “They’re everywhere. Do the best you can.”

So, I set up my little operation at a supermarket near my place for a quick getaway, and yes, the little sugar merchants were there, too. If fact, I thought maybe I was in a bad mood because my blood sugar was low. So I bought some thin mints from The Enemy and felt just fine after eating six or maybe a dozen cookies.

Maybe Rep. Morris should do the same. Might give him the strength to combat other Communist threats, like the Visiting Nurses Association and those collective agriculturalists in the radical wing of 4-H. Imagine babies being fed milk from commie cows that graze on grassy knolls! The mind reels!



Comments?

I'm going "armed" to Publix, as soon as I can find a "cookie shooter." Will let you know how the Scouts vs the consumers fracas turns out. You're an inspiration, as always. - Linda B
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I took the liberty of posting this piece on my facebook page--great job! -- Bgrant
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That was wonderful. I haven't laughed so hard in ages. You really pointed a finger (not saying which finger) at the fear based over-culture of our country. Honestly this piece of work should be in the Washington Post and NY Times. -- Mary Pat
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I have 3 boxes coming today -- Lynda
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Poor Tomatoman....You are clever and witty, but you are also a useful idiot of the left. Anyone can twist anything into a tale of stupidity, which you do in fine fashion. Politics are not your bag. I am all for Planned Parenthood, they keep crime down. Don't need to pretend they are all about women's rights. -- Placebodomingo

The political right needs no assistance in fostering stupidity. MB
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You said what needed to be said and ably. I am a former Girl Scout, and this news story made me wish I could rip my Orienteering, Sewing, Abortion, and Cooking badges off my old uniform. I left scouting before obtaining my Lesbian badge, a regret to this day, as it would have greatly expanded the available dating pool now...women live longer. Thanks for another fun read, Mike. -- Linda
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HAHAHAH man yah too much - I love the angle you took in dealing with these people to the right of Darth Vader and their absurd logic nonlogic. Send me more ! -- Goxando

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Mike - this one should be a national editorial. Your best!! -- Diane
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Great piece, Mike. Those girl scout racketeers need to be exposed. -- Sunne

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I'm amazed - and really shouldn't be - that just when I think maybe somebody out there in Twisted Politician Land has a forward-thinking, prioritized-rationally, sensible comment to make backed up by a plan that actually makes sense, something like the Satan and Girl Scout Cookies surfaces as a topic of "important" conversation. Heh...I chuckled at your piece knowing you have it figured out as well.

I happen to think that the government should keep its rather sticky fingers out of my vagina and anyone else's as well, and as for Girl Scout Cookies....I really could eat a dozen of those chocolate covered mint ones at a sitting. You can't tell me that politicians across this land have not consumed those overpriced little morsels themselves under the cover of Darkness. Fun piece. Always entertaining. -- Zoey
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Hahahahahah!!!!!!! You're such a great writer, Mike. These things need to be in national syndication as a weekly column written by you, in the very LEAST. (yikes, are they?) Well, and of course, books, films, you have all the talent to be an Oscar Winner if you like..sharing this stuff with me is like having Spielberg call me up to say, how you doin? Great work. -- Amanda

Your check is in the mail -- MB　　

The Driver's Tale - A Valentine's Day Reprise

 

The limousine's privacy panel was up and I had no idea what the couple in back were doing as I drove them to San Francisco last night. Whatever it was, they were quiet about it as the big, powerful Lincoln whispered along the concrete ribbon of Interstate 80 through the valley towns of Dixon, Vacaville, and Fairfield, then up the gradual slope of the Coast Range.

 
The couple in back were treating themselves to a limousine for their night in San Francisco. Their destination was the Teatro Zanzinni on the waterfront section known as The Embarcadero, where wharves and warehouses have been converted into restaurants and shops. The Teatro Zanzinni is a dinner theater featuring light opera and Cirque Du Soleil-like performances, and where a waiter may burst into an aria from “Turnadot” as he appears bearing platters of Himalayan red rice paupiettes with tomato ginger coulis. 

 At four-thirty that afternoon I had eased the stretched Lincoln through the residential streets of Davis, a college town amid the tomato and rice fields of the Sacramento Valley. Kids stopped playing basketball at a curbside hoop to stare and wonder who was going where. Curious neighbors tending their yards looked up and wondered the same thing. I found the address I had been given for this evening’s guests, a beige, two story stucco home. I parked, leaving the engine running with the secondary alternator whirring as it powered the lights, the heater, the stereo and DVD player in back.

Time to make just one more check of the ice bins, the glassware, and set the classical station at low volume on the stereo. Then adjust the temperature and fan settings on the illuminated blue panel over the seats in the back. A quick examination of my personal appearance reflected in the tinted glass of the long side window, and I’m ready for my guests.

The car was reserved in the wife’s name as her treat for the evening. She answered the doorbell. “Thank you for coming,” she said in a warm, gracious manner, and I silently resolved to make my contribution to this couple’s evening especially memorable in the pleasantest way possible, instead of perfunctorily delivering them from A to B, like pizzas or freight. She had a bottle of imported champagne in her hand, which I offered to put on ice in the car.

We had already supplied a bottle of some quick ferment paint remover, which I cannot persuade the young owner of the limousine company not to stock. 

“You can’t serve this horse piss,” I say. “People around here know their wines. At least throw in a bottle of Korbel Brut.“ But he sticks with the cheap stuff. A false economy. We’re in the business of providing prestige, however illusory. We should at least serve prestigious bubbly.

My guest signs the contract and credit card slip, then apologizes because her husband is still primping upstairs. “Men,” she sighs with mock resignation. “Never ready on time, always fussing with their makeup and hair.” Her husband emerges a few minutes later. “Thank you for coming,” he says, reinforcing my determination to give these people extra care. “Our reservations are at six,” he says.

Uh oh. We have 72 miles to cover in 90 minutes. We'll be on an older, narrow Interstate on a Friday evening. Only two lanes in each direction. An accident, or an elderly Asian doing 50 in a Toyota, can slow traffic to a crawl for miles. Then there is Bay Area traffic. Not a moment to lose.

Westbound traffic isn’t so bad. Most of the cars are heading east, toward Reno. We ascend the coast grade at American Canyon, then over the crest and down toward the lights of Vallejo on the north shore of San Francisco Bay. I glance at my watch. Forty minutes to the Embarcadero. No way we’ll be there on time. We'll be at least 15 minutes late, but I say nothing, steering the big Lincoln in a gradual weaving pattern between lanes of traffic for optimum speed without attracting the unwelcome attention of the California Highway Patrol, and without causing any champagne spillage in back.

We cross the bridge over the Carquinez Straits at 70, where the Sacramento River flows into San Francisco Bay. We pass the big C&H sugar plant at Crockett on the left, then through the east bay cities to Oakland and to the double decked Bay Bridge, garlanded with a necklace of white lights against the evening sky.

Ten minutes to go. The car is equipped with a state issued transponder. That means we can pass though the Bay Bridge toll gates without stopping and ascend the ramp to the upper level of the two tiered bridge, the view partially obscured by a high steel rail. Then down through the tunnel at Treasure Island, emerging from the tiled tube with a vista of San Francisco, rising in tall, giant blocks of glittering lights from the blackness of the Bay.

We’re five minutes overdue. Silence in back. They’re taking in the view. Look! Look! San Francisco! A city perpetually celebrating, knowing it’s on the brink of destruction from earthquake or ocean and not giving a damn. San Francisco, a city named for a sinner turned saint, and where most of the sinners and saints wear smiles of amused tolerance toward any and all who visit. Port cities welcome the world.

I take the first exit off the Bay Bridge, Fremont Street, a narrow, sharply curved channel of cement. Then an immediate left, followed by a quick right onto Howard Street, doubling back toward the Bay to The Embarcadero. My attention is on amber alert for tourists in rental cars given to sudden moves: “Turn here, Mustafa!” Crunch.

Unscathed, we make a left on The Embarcadero and slide past warehouse docks where clipper ships once moored. Nowadays most Bay Area bound cargo is handled at the huge container port on the Oakland side, so the warehouses have been renovated into shops, parking garages and restaurants, like the Teatro Zanzinni. I stop in a no stopping, no parking, no nothing zone and open the curbside rear door.

“We’re 15 minutes past your reservation time,” I tell my guests. They seem surprised. Mrs. Guest looks at her watch. “No, we’re early,” she says. “Our reservations are at six-thirty. Did I say six? I’m sorry. I meant six-thirty. Oh, and that was a very nice ride. Very enjoyable. Thank you.”

I inwardly sigh and hand her my card with my cell phone number printed in a very large font, one easily read by inebriated guests. I suggest that she call me just after the server brings the dinner check. “I’ll be parked about five minutes away, “ I say, wondering if that’s at all possible at this hour. The stretched Lincoln needs a lot of parking space, something as rare in San Francisco as tent revivals for evangelicals.

But I get lucky. I find an almost empty street in a warehouse section above The Embarcadero and park. I fish a book out of my valise, Joan Didion’s The Year Of Magical Thinking. The book is Ms. Didion’s account of dealing with the deaths of her husband, author John Gregory Dunne, and their daughter, Quintana Roo, within two months of each other. She writes: “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.”

Thoughts of death, my own and those of my friends, have been humming quietly in the back of my mind for several years now, but one never expects death to be sudden. Or messy. Often, it’s both, and we know that, but we hope to simply drift away, as if going to sleep. 

I also think we instinctively know when death becomes imminent. Our desire to savor life at its fullest diminishes. Some of us become cranky, Others gradually become patient as the ailments of age emerge. Still others start backfires of physical activity to ward off the shadows of depression and lethargy. But such strenuous exercise which may jar something loose internally and hasten an untimely demise.

I put the book aside and doze in the limousine until my cell phone rings. Mr. and Mrs. Guest are ready now. I check the back of the car for litter. The bottle of cheap wine is unopened. I told the boss not to serve that stuff. If there was a wino or a market basket recycler around, I’d give him the bottle. I’ve done that with bottles of liquor prom kids thought they’d hidden, not realizing that I know all the hiding places in the car, and that I was once an underage drinker myself.

But that was an eternity and the blink of an eye ago.


Comments? Critques? Threats Of Litigation?

This Valentine's Day piece is the best...I felt like i was there. --Angel
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You have captured the mood of the job and as usual give insight into a situation. Of course the main thing is you made it entertaining. -- Wht
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Lovely post, Mike -- Cyn
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Wonderful story Mike...thanks so much for sharing it. If it hasn't already been brought to your attention, I came across a typo you might like to correct.... I think you meant "through" [then though the east bay cities to Oakland] ….Thanks again Mike. -- Soy
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I can almost see the passing scenery, dimmed somewhat by the tinted windows, 'Materman...lovely stuff, as usual. -- Shan
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Loved this! Happy Valentine's Day! -- Juli
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A day late but not a dollar short. Great story. I could almost see the area I visited only once, but now would love to visit again. Thanks, as always. -- Linda
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Thanks. I know San Francisco. Walked that Embarcadero all the way to the Golden Gate and back- 5 or 6 miles. Great stuff! -- Gambatay
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I recall this one...liked it then: still great! Here's a reprise of one of mine, first published in 1991:

A Valentine's Day Love Story: A Perfect Couple

by Linda Fields

There are some species that mate for life. There are more, I suspect, like Homo sapiens, that mate for as long as it is unilaterally convenient. Thus, total commitment today, in a long-term relationship, is both a novelty and a situation deserving of special recognition.

One unique couple with whom I worked closely for many years had such a union. They stood side by side for over twenty-five years. Oddly enough, it was not love at first sight but an arranged marriage. Furthermore, the matchmaker who paired them did so only because they looked right together, nothing more.

Their marriage of convenience endured for a quarter of a century, not because things always went smoothly for them, but despite the everyday annoyances and minor disasters that befell them.

She never worked outside the home but labored hard at domestic chores with nary a day off for reward. When children arrived and added to her work load, she silently and patiently adjusted to the added burden, putting up with nuisances like frogs, snakes, and what have you, with an equanimity that all but defied the three little boys who tried (but failed) to push her past her capacity. She actually hummed as she slogged through seemingly constant agitation. And while much of her life was in a spin, she never allowed the turbulence to upset her balance.

Typical of many relationships in the 1960s, the couple easily slipped into, and assumed, clearly defined and delineated, albeit never equal, roles. As unfair as it seemed, when it came to the division of labor, he seemed to get the less strenuous tasks. But they were so ideally suited to each other that his work seemed to take up where hers left off, perfectly complementing her.
.
He worked with a passion--a heat that seemed to burn within, yet one would never suspect his inner fire from the cool facade he maintained through his rough and tumble life.

And so it went for many years, both dutifully committed to the roles they had contracted to play. Alas, even perfect mates must accept the sad fact that one of them will outlive the other. One steamy August night, while washing a load of towels, a menial though necessary chore, she made the ultimate concession to her advanced age and progressively weakening condition. I believe she died painlessly. Though he valiantly tried to continue without her, he succumbed the following morning.

Did he die of a broken heart? Did he simply lose his will to go on? I'll never know, but I like that rather romantic explanation of the nearly simultaneous demise of my perfectly matched, avocado green, jumbo capacity washer and dryer.

Now that  appeals to my overly developed sentimentality coupled with a muscular appreciation for the comic in your surprise conclusion! -- MB

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This would make a good start for a book. A mystery-love story. Or beginning of a script for an episode of "Alcatraz?" Great observation of detail. Everyone who has been to San Francisco loves it, and those who haven't been there want to go.-- Eve

Whew! For a moment I thought you meant Alcatraz. -- MB
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I delighted in the limo ride and in Linda’s story -- Fay

The Dating Quiz

I found this on Craigslist. Author unknown.  MB

I had some doubts about meeting someone decent on Craigslist, but I thought I'd check it out. The women4men section yielded nothing worth responding to. Now I did notice someone had a quiz. It was lame so I didn't answer. I made my own:

1. First things first, what's your excuse for being here?

a. Sheer entertainment. But the post was interesting so I had to respond.

b. Sheer entertainment. The post was interesting and I had to respond, but I have no intention of ever meeting you.

c. I can't con anyone into going out with me in real life.

d. I can't find anyone to go out with in real life, because every guy I have run into is the same, typical, sacramento-area asshat.

e. I can't find anyone to go out with in real life because I am a pretentious twit.

f. Who needs an excuse to be here? In fact, once we do meet, I will enthusiastically announce to everyone this is where we met!


2. How long does it take you to get ready for work?

a. Work? As in, a job? Not applicable!

b. 10 minutes. I barely even brush my teeth. Brushing the top row is good enough.

c. 11-90 minutes.

d. 90+ minutes. I have to look good... gotta have SOME way to compensate for my mediocre work performance.


3. What is your educational level?

a. High school

b. GED (Good Enough Diploma!)

c. Bachelors

d. Masters

e. PhD, JD, MD, etc. (but I am not a dork)

f. PhD, JD, MD, etc. (and yes, I am better than you for it.)

4. What is your occupational status?

a. None, still in school.

b. Still in school, but have a job, thus I have no time to actually hang out with you.

c. Still in school, have a job, and still have time to hang out with you because hey, who needs sleep?

d. No more teachers, no more books. I work.

e. I work and it is my life.

f. I have a sugar-daddy. But he's too old to take care of *some* things if you know what I mean, so that's why I'm on Craigslist.

g. I got laid off. Thanks George W. Bush.

h. I'm on welfare and love it. Thanks Bill Clinton.

i. Unemployed trust fund baby!


5. How do you like your job?

a. Eh, It pays the bills, because we don't all have a sugar-daddy, welfare, or trust fund.

b. It sucks, and I will make sure you hear about it every...single...day.

c. It sucks, but it's a means to an end, and how I spend the rest of my time keeps me sane.

d. It's a good job. I think I make the world a better place.

e. It's a good job. Selling cocaine makes the world a better place.

f. It's my dream job.


6. How long does it take you to get ready to go out?

a. Go out? As in, have a social life? Not applicable!

b. 10 minutes. I'm secretly a man.

c. 11-90 minutes.

d. 90+ minutes. And you will wait, and like it, because that is just the beginning of my high maintenance regime. Wait 'til you see the purse I have purchased to carry my fu-fu fluffy ass dog in.


7. On that note, what kind of pets do you have?

a. Pets?  No thanks, I'm allergic.

b. None, I live in a place with a totalitarian management regime that prohibits any animal companionship.

c. One cat. That's all I need.

d. One small dog. I have to have something to put in my dog purse.

e. One large dog. Because I have possible underlying insecurity issues.

f. Multiple cats. Cat lady in training, hell yes.

g. Multiple dogs. Because I love spending hours repairing/restoring the furniture the dogs damaged.


8. What are you looking for in a guy?

a. A guy? As in, a male? Sorry, lesbian here. Not applicable!

b. Anyone NOT like my ex.

c. Hmm, not sure, I play things by ear and determine compatibility as I meet people.

d. I have a long list of requirements for a guy. See above answer about my being a pretentious twit.


9. What is your ideal vacation?

a. Who needs a vacation when you don't have a job!

b. Vacation? Who has time for a vacation?

c. My job is a vacation.

d. Going to Grandma's in Altoona.

e. Going to the beach to catch up on reading and catch some melanoma.

f. Going to another country.

g. Going on some outdoor expedition trip. I like vacations that leave me more exhausted than I was before I left.

h. Going on a humanitarian mission because someone, somewhere needs 1000 pairs of shoes dropped off in their village.


10. What kind of music do you like?

a. Music?  Who has time for music?

b. Stuff you have never heard of. Because I'm on the cutting edge of what's good.

c. Stuff you have never heard of. I make sure to listen to that, because it makes me feel like I'm better than everyone else.

d. Whatever's on the radio. I'm not picky.

e. Whatever I can download illicitly for free.

f. I MAKE music. And I'm damn good.

g. I make music, and I'm not that good, but I can definitely rock it with a didgeridoo.


11. What do you do to keep healthy?

a. Ummm what?

b. Work out incessantly. I vill break you.

c. Work out enough, but definitely don't have veins popping out of my forearms.

d. Who needs to work out when you have these genes!

e. Who needs to work out when you never eat?

f. I don't have time for that crap.

g. I have a gym membership, and I will start using it soon. I know that was my New Year resolution in 2008, but I mean it this time.


12. What are your thoughts on religion?

a. It's a crutch for people who can't think for themselves.

b. It's something I was raised with, but don't give a damn about now. Pun intended.

c. I go to church every week. Sometimes more than once. In fact, I'm late for it right now. Praise tha lawd.

d. I only go to church on major holidays, because I know "God" will forgive me for not going more often, so why bother?

e. I am spiritual but not religious, because I have things figured out and don't need someone preaching it.

f. I belong to a religion you've never heard of. But we did have a compound in Waco, Texas a while back.

13. You and I take a trip to BeverageLand. It's 5 p.m. What do you get?

a. Water. I'm a square.

b. A sports drink. Because I don't realize that those are only for physical activity lasting 45 minutes or longer.

c. Juice.

d. Tea. Honest Tea.

e. Coffee. Caffeine addicts, unite!

f. A pint of pilsner. I was Bavarian in a past life.

g. A pint of Guinness. I was Irish in a past life.

h. A half gallon of vodka. I was Russian in a past life.

i. A glass of Absinthe. I just watched Eurotrip and just have to see what all the fuss is about.

j. A fruity, girl drink that contains more sugar than alcohol.

14. Can you cook?

a. Do ramen noodles count?

b. No, but I will do the dishes if you do.

c. No. Cooking would mean getting my hands dirty. Ew.

d. Yes. But I'm terrible, though you will be expected to pretend to like it.

e. Yes, it's my job!

f. Yes, but I can only bake desserts. I realize that does you no good except having something to bring to holiday office parties.

g. Yes, and I would make that Rachael Ray tramp cower in fear of my casseroles.



　　

15. How are you in the bedroom?

a. The way you ride a thouroughbread should be copied by every woman that wants to keep a man.

b. You give the best oral in the world your mouth brings more pleasure than any one man can handle and u like doing it.

c. You give good oral but you dont like to do it only if the guy is lucky.

d. Your nothing but a mammal and you just like to be bent over like they do on the discovery channel.

e. You like girls also and your against the saying that 3 is a crowd

f. You failed kindergarten and you dont want to share.

16. Can you dance?

a. Are you kidding?  White girls can't dance!

b. Only when severely intoxicated.

c. Yes, but I only do it when no one is around. Though I admittedly gawk at myself in the mirror while doing it a la Footloose.

d. Yes, especially at raves, while sucking on a glowstick and popping *E.

e. Yes, I would make the cut for Dancing With the Stars, but they once paired me with David Hasselhoff's hairy chest so that was the end of that.

17. What kind of first date is ideal?

a. Anything involving food.

b. A movie, because having an actual conversation is entirely overrated.

c. Coffee. I will have my laptop and sudoku puzzles with me in case things get lame.

d. Beer. Football. Tailgate. What more could one ask for?

e. Anything with an adrenaline rush.

f. None of the above. I answered before that I wasn't meeting you, so get the hint already. For whatever reason I wanted to continue answering this quiz because I have no life.

There. That's all I can think of at the moment. Feel free to add your own creative answers if mine don't work for you.

Comments:
　
That's hilarious!!!! -- Pam
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Very funny, and lots of truth there! -- Debra Lynn

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“…90+ minutes. And you will wait, and like it, because that is just the beginning of my high maintenance regime. Wait 'til you see the purse I have purchased to carry my fu-fu fluffy ass dog in.” ---and since it's Cali, this is a guy answering, right? :D -- Shag

Uh, no. We guys haven’t carried purses since the 70s, not even in California. -- MB

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Wish you were closer. We would have a non-date and I would give you lunch or supper. Happy new year. -- Fay
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Haaaaa!! Great read:)**** -- Juli
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That is cute. Happy Tuesday. -- Cousin Sandy
　

The Green Cake Memoriam

My mother would have been 98 years old on January 1, a date which even the most negligent son could not easily forget, and I was a pretty negligent kid after leaving home at 17. Ours was not an amicable relationship in those days. She would have gladly stuffed me in a bottle and floated me out on the Japanese Currrent when adolescence smote me, and was disappointed that she couldn’t do the next best thing: sign me into the Navy by the time I was 15.  I was ready to go myself, to run away to sea, but we both had two years, during which  I rehearsed my James Dean act.

Perhaps I’m being more egocentric than usual, but I think being stuck with a teenaged me was a major reason she annually donated money to Planned Parenthood later in life, hoping to spare other women the heartbreak of seeing their unplanned bundles from heaven turn into surly teenagers from hell. I was, as the kids say today, a whole lot of not fun.

Yet an early memory of mine uncaps a well of positive ones that override the Dark Ages of my teenaged years. It’s about a green cake. When I was five years old, I asked her to make a green cake. I don’t know why or where I got that idea. Green cakes, or even pictures of green cakes, were not common in Bethel, Alaska, where we lived at the time and where my dad was a bush pilot. He often took me on his twice-weekly mail flights to villages along the lower Kuskokwim River and on the coast of the Bering Sea.

I made my request for a green cake prior to one such flight. When we returned, there it was on the dining room table, a triple layer cake with snowy swirls of pale green frosting, my mother seated beside the table and smiling in anticipation of my reaction, which I imagine was one of wide-eyed delight. I did not know it then, but my visible joy was her payoff.

I got the same look that year when she brought home a bakery box and told me to open it. Inside was a little gray kitten looking up at me and wondering if I was its mama. My own mama’s delight at my delight was later nullified when she caught me trying to teach the cat how to fly. Cats do land on their feet, you know.

Every year my dad would ask, “Well, stinkpot, what should we get mom for her birthday?” Every year I’d say the same thing, so every year she acted pleased at getting another bottle of Yardley’s April Violets perfume and a box of Yardley soap. Later she switched to White Shoulders. I would eventually intuit that giving a woman, any woman, anything along with a box of soap for her birthday is not one of the great ideas of modern man.

Fast forward a decade. I’m in the back seat of the family car. Mom and dad are driving me to buddy’s house for a party. No self-respecting sullen teenager wants to be seen in a car full of parents. Even two parents makes a car full of parents. So does one parent, come to think of it. I ask to be dropped off a block away. “Why suuuurrrre!” my mother brightly chirrups. “We’ll just go on ahead and tell your friends you’re on your way!” I can’t help but laugh and ruin a perfectly good teenage sulk.

1961: JFK is president.  Regular gasoline costs 27 cents a gallon.  The minimum wage is a $1.15 an hour; average annual income is $5315.  In April, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space with American Alan Shepard following in May. The Cold War gets colder when the Soviet Union and East Germany build the Berlin Wall. In Florida, the CIA and Cuban exiles plan an amphibious assault on Cuba’s Bay of Pigs, and American newspapers take note of an increasing U.S. military presence in a little known place called Viet Nam. A very small part of that buildup is a 17-year-old seaman apprentice name Mike Browne.

“How long will you be gone?” my mother asked when I was home on leave just prior to shipping out.

I repeated what I’d been told: We would be home-ported in the Philippines for one to three years. (It was 28 months.) Mom put her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. “That’s like the days when your grandfather sailed,” she finally said in a broken voice. Her father had been a quartermaster on one of the last of the sailing packets at the turn of the century.

Mom had gone through WW2 with one brother in the Navy and another in the Merchant Marine. Another brother would serve in the Navy during the Korean War. My older half-brother, who was raised by his father’s family, had been in Army during the late 1950s. He had literally guarded New York City from aerial attack as the Army’s top rated radar operator at a surface-to-air missile site, and mom well knew the value of letters and goodies from home.

So I would get parcels of newly published paperback books, such as Catch-22, Nine Stories and The Adventures of Augie March, along with enough cookies and candies to share with my buddies, plus news from the home front, like dad’s on-going efforts to evict a skunk with an attitude from under the house. It was more of a hit and run campaign of harassment rather than a foolish frontal assault, but it worked. The skunk finally got fed up and moved to someplace where the landlord was not so crabby.

Home on leave in 1964. The mailman gave me hell one morning. “You’re mother is down here every day waiting for a letter from you. Now you start writing her more often. She worries about you, so get on the ball.” Okay okay okay. I could take a hint, and did.

I was out of the Navy the following year and briefly tried living at home, but I was also 21 and had become accustomed the seamier benefits of being an adult overseas, which would not make for a Norman Rockwell motíf of familial harmony in my parents’ house. Like the huffy skunk and Huckleberry Finn, I lit out for territory.

My parents moved to New Mexico for the last years of my father’s life. They bought a mobile home in Santa Fé.  Mom took a part time job in a hotel gift shop and got involved in state politics when the mobile home park management jacked up fees with no prior notice. She joined the American Mobile Home Association for muscle and lobbied the state legislature on behalf of tenants’ rights. And won.

A man who’d been watching her bang on the doors of closed meetings in the capitol and had heard her testify before committees approached her one day. “I’ve picked the last three lieutenant governors of this state,” he said. “Would you be interested?”

She declined, saying she had a husband at home who was very ill. She later asked a friend, whose venerable family name is attached to an entire county, who the man was. Turns out he was the heir to the Phillips 66 petroleum empire and played political kingmaker with the enlightened self interest of resident royalty.

My father died in 1979. He didn’t “pass away,” a euphemism my mother hated. “He died,” she said. She scattered his ashes among the little piñon trees and the flowering jack oaks of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, and quietly mourned for the next seven years.

Part of her grief recovery was moving back to her native northwest, enrolling in a college literature program at Western Washington State University that mixed older adults with young undergrads, academically and socially. She lived in campus housing and often hosted buffet lunches for classmates and faculty in her apartment, everyone sitting cross-legged on the floor, nibbling from paper plates and arguing about phallocentric metaphors or maybe Hemingway’s placement of commas.

She also volunteered at a Native American bookstore in Seattle and would send me cases of remaindered books, including a coffee table edition of George Orwell’s 1984, a facsimile of Orwell’s original handwritten manuscript, corrections, marginalia and all. Orwell was not a doodler and the pastoral sex scene between Winston and Julia was not broken by a penciled memo to pick up “2 lbs sugar, get shirts at cleaners.”  Pity.

Mom’s health declined after two strokes a year apart. I was summoned to Seattle to help relocate her to an assisted living facility in 1999, and again the following year to place her in a hospice where she died. During the move from the assisted living place to the hospice, I discovered that a maid had been systemically stealing mom’s jewelry, clothes, and even a little stoneware bear that my brother and I were using as a doorstop when moving mom’s possessions into storage.

I had a quiet chat with the facility manager, mentioning that one of mom’s nephews was an attorney and past president of the state bar association whose acquaintances included a prosecutor two, and that my own range of acquaintances encompassed an investigative reporter for the Seattle Times. Overkill, maybe, but as my brother told me when I myself was having mom trouble, “You only get one mother,” and ours was being looted. By the time my brother and I returned for the next load of stuff, mom’s jewelry, clothes and the stoneware bear had magically reappeared.

But mama drama was not over, even in the hospice, where a giant black orderly sensing that she may have a fortune in buried coffee cans somewhere, persuaded her to let him take her to Costa Rica -- which has a non-extradition policy with the United States. If the guy had not been black, my brother would have been more amused than unhinged. Another intervention with a facility manager, and no Costa Rica. What a wet blanket. Children are the strictest guardians of their parents’ morality.

Toward the last she could not speak or move without assistance. I would sit beside her bed, reading, her hand reflexively holding one of my fingers. I would look up to see her looking at me with clouded eyes that had faded from hazel green. She reminded me of Garrison Keillor’s comment, that optimism “is an elderly parent looking at her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.”

I was not present when she died, and she had left a living will specifying no extraordinary measures would be taken to keep her alive. She remembered how miserable her own mother was at a similar time, holding up her wrists and pleading with her eyes to have mom remove the IV needles that were keeping her alive beyond her allotted time. “Please honor my wishes," mom had written to my brother and me when she sent us copies of her living will.

And so we did.  Among those wishes was a desire to be cremated and have her ashes scattered at sea, which my brother accomplished off the Oregon coast. I know that coast. It’s green, greener than a green cake and a mother's hazel eyes when looking at her five-year-old with love. Or even her middle-aged one for signs of improvement.


Comments and critiques are welcome, especially flattering ones.  Reply via 3-mail, tomatomike@aol.com


Terrific, 'mataman.... I can see the James Dean you, and  the mom who took matters into her own hands and  loved life.  Loved it...thank you.  -- Charrie

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Your memoriam is a touching reminder of her birthday. We all, sooner or later, have that 20/20 hindsight and our appreciation is expressed in many ways. -- Beverley

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Damn, I cried over this. Lovely, lovely story. Such a wonderful way to honor your mom. You do write so well...publish, dammit! -- Brix

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Wonderful story Mike...had to smile about the Planned Parenthood donation, you teenaged rascal!! -- Soy

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This was a wonderful declaration of that love, and a glimpse into the storied life your mother lived. Very well done, Mike. Well done, indeed. -- Shan

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Awwwwww, mater, what a sweet loving tribute, you old marshmallow you! --  Canids
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“Why suuuurrrre!” my mother brightly chirrups. “We’ll just go on ahead and tell your friends you’re on your way!”  Your mom rocked!!!!!!! -- Pirate
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"There's no crying in e-mails!" Well, maybe just a few sniffles. I love your mother.  Thank you for sharing. -- Beatysr
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I enjoyed the honest look at your life and parents. I hope that your time in the military was valuable in some way. -- Ken

Oh yes, in more ways than one. -- MB
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This one in particular touched my foolish mom heart. -- Amanda
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I'm special. The only thing I want is soap. And socks, if it isn't asking too much. -- Shag.
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Oh Mike, thank you so much for introducing me to your green-eyed mother -- Fay
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This piece truly shines. It brings me to the many pieces of a life with my father whom I loved as much as I love my own kid. Damn, I miss him every day. I remember his speaking voice, his laugh, his facial expressions, his hands, his walk, his way of handling things, his politics in all situations. It comes to us at a certain age, I think, these pieces of who a parent was in the round, and we acknowledge the impact he or she has made on our lives.

I trust in this piece you know as I do that there is a kind of grace and gift in such things as green cakes. My father made me stainless steel necklaces, different styles through the years, and did the same thing for my daughter whose first one was so small that it looks like a bracelet. Beautiful, handmade circles of love for "his girls". Not a green cake, but just as memorable.

Your piece this time brought me to tears - the good kind that remind one of the luck, or some divine plan that handed our tiny bodies into the hands of someone quite grand, though to others, may have appeared to be ordinary. Fools.  -- Zoey
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That was lovely.-- Mary Pat
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Keep on writing, buddy! There is "a little something" that makes your texts sound great! Probably humanity? -- Gerard
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Very nice, Mike. I actually got choked up a little. Oh, how your mother would have loved to read that. -- Eoaken

She would have proofread it for errors and ordered a rewrite. -- MB

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That was a really good one.  Also,  I loved your statement that you were "rehearsing your James Dean act."   Clever way to put it -- Eve


It didn't win any Oscars.  -- MB

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I  loved the story of your mom !!! -- Pinky

The Santa Memos

24 - XII - 2011

From: S. Nicholas-Claus, CEO, Toys ‘n  Ammo, Inc.

To: Ichiban Tanaka, Correspondence Section

I am in receipt of the letter from 10-year-old Jerome X  “axin’ for an AK-47”  that you forwarded for consideration.  While young Jerome’s motives in making such a request are unclear, I think we may assume they are not in the traditional holiday spirit of giving and goodwill toward all.  Accordingly, I have marked young Jerome down for a lump of coal in his presumably shoplifted stocking.  Please exercise some presence of mind before forwarding such requests.  Also, I passed young Jerome’s request for actual weaponry to the Charleton Heston Second Amendment “Cold Dead Hands” Foundation for action as its officers see fit.

SNC
___________________________________________
　
From: Ichiban Tanaka, Correspondence Section

To: S. Nicholas-Claus, CEO

Aw, jeeze, boss.  Nice job of passing the buck.  You know damn well those Cold Dead Hands people will probably give the kid an AK-47 with enough of our ammo to shoot up every Korean convenience store in sight.  Think of the PR implications.  Can’t you compromise and give the kid a crossbow and some rubber-tipped arrows?  Maybe a suit of cammies and a Rambo headband?  Anyway, I’m sure the kid will only use the lump of coal to break a window.  Just a thought.

IT
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From: S. Nicholas-Claus, CEO

To: Ichicban Tanaka, Correspondence Section
　
Look, Tanaka, as long as you’re thinking, think about this:  I’ve got a shitload on my plate today and don’t have time to screw around, especially with a request from some pissed off kid who wants an automatic weapon for Christmas.  The fricking elves are taking union again, PETA is busting my chops about reindeer abuse, and Mrs. Claus is taking karate lessons.  As for you, you’d better start thinking like an executive if you ever want to get out of the mailroom, otherwise you and your entire shop just might get outsourced to Bangalore and you’ll be standing in line for government cheese.  Christmas only comes once a year, man, so get off your ass and get with the program!

SNC

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From: Ichiban Tanaka, Correspondence Section.

To: S. Nicholas-Claus, CEO

I took your advice and got off my ass.  FYI  I’ve been on the blower with Sony-Halliburton-Mattel’s people in the Caymans and they’re ready for a hostile takeover of your entire operation, lock, stock and sweatshop, and you’ll be out on your fat can.  Now who’s going to be in line for government cheese, seeing as your Christmas goose has just been cooked?

IT
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From: Jean-Jacques Mountbatten, CFO, SMH Financial, Cayman Islands, WI

To: S. Nicholas-Claus, CEO, Toys ’N Ammo, Inc.

We regret to inform you that your offer of 12 tons of government cheese has been rejected by our board of directors in consideration for tabling Mr. Tanaka’s proposed acquisition of our North American operations.  However, the board is willing to reconsider this position in exchange for a squadron of F-18 fighter jets and an introduction to Jennifer Lopez.  As an alternative, perhaps you and Mr. Tanaka can amicably settle your differences in the spirit of the season.

JJM

P.S.  We would still like to meet Jennifer Lopez.
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From: S. Nicholas-Claus, CEO

To: Ichiban Tanaka, Correspondence Section.

Look, let’s let bygones be bygones.  I have no intention of arming kids with automatic weapons or passing out lumps of coal to pre-teen felons.  Now then, let’s all get back to work and put this unpleasantness behind us. Oh, one other thing:  I seem to have misplaced my Rolodex.  Do you have a contact number for a person named Jennifer Lopez?
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From: Ichiban Tanaka, Correspondence Section.

To: S. Nicholas-Claus, CEO

Who?

IT

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Comments?

My son is a firefighter/emt/paramedic in South East DC (a location where many residents demand their cheese because it's owed them from 400 years ago to the present and on into the future). He stopped by tonight to exchange gifts because he chose to work tomorrow to let guys with families stay home. As he was leaving, he commented that tomorrow was going to be busy because it's certain someone will get new bullets for Christmas, and will want to share them with others. In that case, it certainly is better to give than to receive -- Brat
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I knew you would send me something for Xmas Eve -- Fay
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Wow! Where do you get your inspiration? Nicely done! -- Gambatay

Warped mind -- MB
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My son is a firefighter/emt/paramedic in South East DC  (a location where many residents demand their cheese because it's owed them from 400 years ago to the present and on into the future.)  He stopped by tonight to exchange gifts because he chose to work tomorrow to let guys with families stay home.  As he was leaving, he commented that tomorrow was going to be busy because it's certain someone will get new bullets for Christmas, and will want to share them with others.  In that case, it certainly is better to give than to receive.  -- Brat

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I knew you would send me something for Xmas Eve -- Fay

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I enjoyed the humor.  I hope that Santa was good to you. -- Ken

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I like this one a lot, shows insight into how the psyche works! -- Ig
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I'm not much into owning guns, but then, admittedly it has a lot to do with anyone owning one and not just police officers and Bubba targit-shootin' at empty Bud cans sittin' on top o' Larry Jimmy Billy's old Buick. I'm just scared of 'em, and I admit it. Not realistic to think we can keep these things out of the wrong hands no matter how much I talk about it, so I guess I'll just curl up with my Tropical Orchid body splash and pretend I didn't hear any gunfire. -- Zoey