Voices of Home

“To me, home was never a place; it was a feeling.  It was the way the people I loved said my name.”

I read this quote on Facebook and dissolved into a salty puddle.  I had just come off several weeks of emotional intensity so unyielding that I almost decided to run away to some remote town in Montana where no one would find me and become a waitress in a little diner; just go and live the simple, undetected life. Ridiculous, I know. One of the kids would sniff me out eventually.

Anyhow, ever since reading that lovely piece,I’ve closed my eyes and brought back those sounds; the different cadences, inflections and notes of my parents’ and grandparents’ voices.  All beloved, and the ones who meant “home”. For instance:

My maternal grandmother, Ynez. Pronounced exactly the way it looks – “Y-Nez”.  (My grandfather’s brother married a girl named Inez.  Ynez and Inez.  Only in the south!) I can close my eyes right now and hear Grandmother’s distinctive voice calling me by the nickname she and my mom used, “Sue-Sue” – given to me as an infant because I was born with skin so olive that I was nicknamed “Sue-Sue the Indian Maid”. Grandmother called me that until I seemed to outgrow it. I also outgrew the olive skin, much to my dismay.

It was to my Grandmother and Grandfather’s home that I was sent for weeks during a summer vacation, or when my parents both came down with hepatitis.  I was an almost pathologically shy child, so much so that any sort of new environment sent me into hysterics.  However, stepping into their home on Bell Avenue in Kannapolis was soothing and calming.  I knew I was safe there; I knew I was loved.  Grandmother was responsible for so much of that.

I can hear her voice as I would come in the back door of the house, having just arrived; “Well, hello there, Sue-SUE!”  And I would be enveloped in one of her wonderful hugs.  She smelled of a combination of the Revlon Moondrops moisturizer she always wore and the Camay soap she used.  The hug would be accompanied by a kiss on the cheek, leaving a red lip print.  And just like that, I was home and in the embrace of my grandparents.

When I woke up in the morning and my thick brown hair needed brushing, I would hear “SUE-Sue, your hair looks like an R-A-G-G M-O-P-P ragg mopp!  Let’s get that brush, honey bunch!” Points to anyone who gets the R-A-G-G M-O-P-P reference.

If we were getting ready to go somewhere, she would call:  “SUE-Sue!  Let’s go, kiddo!”  And off we would go, either to the grocery store or to the bank in her blue-green Chrysler Imperial, a car that was to me so beautiful and luxurious I was sure my grandparents were rich.  And Ynez herself was always stylish, not a brown bouffant hair out of place, lipstick perfect.  I never saw her wear pants in or out of her house, and she always wore heels, even though she had a hip deformity that must have made wearing those shoes painful. 

If I had been outside playing in the backyard until dusk, and needed a bath:  “SUE-Sue, you need a bath!  Shoo, kiddo!”; shoo being one of her favorite expressions.

She loved reading the Erma Bombeck and Ann Landers columns in the local newspaper, and if she found something particularly funny in them she would relate them, laughing hysterically until she became breathless.  We were all expected to understand exactly what she was saying when she couldn't talk.

Once my grandfather, H.B., came home from work, things would begin to wind down for the evening.  His was and is another voice that meant security…H.B was a little more reserved, and he could be stern.  He was an AVP in Finance for a local textile mill, and wore a suit and tie every single day of his life.  He even looked corporate in his pajamas.  However, under that stern, corporate exterior was a heart of mush.  My grandparents had a little Chihuahua mix named Butchie that they adored.  Every single night, my grandfather would pick Butchie up, take him into the kitchen and give him a little bowl of ice cream when I got one.  Pet chocolate marshmallow ice cream.  For the record, Butchie hated us grandchildren, and for the most part we gave him all the room he wanted.

In early 1966, my parents separated, and my mother took us home to Bell Avenue.  My grandfather paid extra attention to my brother, knowing that Lee missed our father.  I began to feel a little shunted aside.  However, I didn’t know how closely he was actually paying attention to me.  On television I had seen a little doll called “Twinkie”, manufactured by Marx.  She was a little rubber doll with rubber clothes and interchangeable wigs, and though I never said a word out loud, I wanted that doll.  Granddaddy must have seen the look on my face during a commercial, because several days later he came home from work and handed me a bag from a local department store.  He bought “Twinkie” for me.  He had the sweetness to give me something he knew I wanted but for which I wouldn’t ask.  I’ve never forgotten that.

Church was an integral part of their life.  Saturday nights would roll around and Grandmother would say, “Sue SUE, time to polish your shoes for church tomorrow!  And get a good bath and wash your hair!”  The next morning, we would get in the Imperial and drive the short distance to First Presbyterian, where Granddaddy was an elder and taught their Sunday School class.  I was always a little shy about going to the class for my age, so Grandmother would take my hand in her white-gloved one, walk me to Mrs. Goodnight’s class, and say – firmly – “Susan, don’t worry.  I’ll be here to get you.” I never doubted her.  To this day I can feel her gloved hand around mine.

There is one other voice from Kannapolis that is so much a part of my life. My cousin Cathy – only a few months younger than I – was quite often at our Grandparents’ home the same time as I.  She was blonde and slim while I was chubby and dark, outgoing while I was the opposite – but we loved each other unreservedly.  Around the time we were six or seven, the commercials for “Raid!” aired on TV – if you’re old enough you remember hapless bugs opening the door to a can of Raid – and we made a game out of that, one of us being the bug, the other the insecticide.  We did that for hours, incorporating our younger brothers and sisters if they were around.  I can hear it now, we children who played the bugs screaming "RAID!" – and bless her heart, it was rare that our grandmother ever threw us out of the house as we played.  I know without a doubt that to this day, for her own reasons, the voices of Grandmother and Granddaddy meant “home” to Cathy as well.  Her voice still says “home” to me, whether we are texting emailing, or talking on the phone.  She sounds like Grandmother – her laughter, her inflections.

I have children and grandchildren.  My children and I laugh, we talk, on occasion we yell.  A couple of them delight in making fun of the way I say their names.  But I hope to them that my voice means “home” to them, and that the way I pronounced their names will one day be a source of affection, warmth and love.

I've Still Got It

One of my granddaughters and I made an early-morning sojourn to Dollar General on Saturday.  Having no milk or cereal in the house pretty much constituted an emergency, and since the good ol' DG is right around the corner, it won out over the Food Lion that is four miles away.

Now, if you're a regular customer/devotee of the DG, you know that while they are a godsend in a pinch, they also carry the type of merchandise that eight year olds love to ooh and aah over.  So before we left the driveway, I gave Miss Thing the lowdown.  "We are going in there for cereal, milk and dog food...nothing more.  Do you understand me?"  I got an angelic smile and a "Yes, Nana", which I should have known was a con.  An act. 

We managed to choose cereal with a minimum of angst, grabbed a gallon of milk and a bag of puppy food, and headed towards the front.  Unfortunately, the route to the cash registers took us right past all of the little notebooks, journals, and writing materials that this child is so fond of.  She stopped and began running her hands over a faux patchwork leather journal.  "Oooh...don't you just love this, Nana?"  Then she cut those green eyes up at me and batted her eyelashes.

Being a seasoned mother and grandmother, I knew she was making a vain attempt at charm.  Putting a firm smile on my face, I said, "yes, it is very pretty.  Come on.  We've gotten everything!"

Her lower lip began to tremble just a little, and it would have been just enough to inspire sympathy if it had been anyone else but me.  "I love this, Nana.  Won't you buy it for me? Please?"

"No.  I told you before we came in here that I wouldn't be buying anything else.  Come on.  Let's go."

Nothing.  She gave me a mutinous look that said Hell no, I'm not moving until you buy me this $2.00 journal.  I shrugged and said, "I'm leaving.  Coming along?" I made my way to the cash register, throwing an occasional look behind me. Miss Thing was dragging her feet, face red, lower lip stuck out so far she could have tripped on it.

By the time I got to the register, MT was standing at the very end of the aisle, peeking at me from around a shelf of Halloween markdowns.  At this point Nana had had enough.  I pulled out The Voice. If you're a parent or grandparent, you know what I'm talking about...where you don't raise your voice, but you deepen and project.   It's an attention-getter.  I looked straight at her, pointed my finger, and said, "Julie, NOW!" She didn't lose the mutinous look, but she made tracks.

The cashier, who had been putting some merchandise away behind the counter, literally dropped a couple of boxes, looked at me and said "Oh, my gawd.  The way you sounded, I thought you were my Mama.  I almost stood straight up and said, 'Yes, ma'am!' I really thought my mama had come down here to bless me out!"  I beamed and told her she'd made my day. 

I've still got it.  Makes a nana proud.

Gift of Love

My grandmother, Ynez, was an accomplished seamstress.  Like any well-brought up daughter of the early 20th century, she learned to sew at her mother’s knee.   During the Depression days, she made clothes for the two daughters she had been left to bring up on her own, and on occasion very stylish clothes for herself.  And here I’ll digress just a little bit.  Back to her sewing talent in just a minute.

In 1948 she married the wonderful man, H.B., that we would know as our grandfather and they made a home together in the same neighborhood in which she grew up, in the Midway section of Kannapolis, NC.   Her two daughters, who called H.B. “Daddy”, finished their teenaged years in that house.  (They shared a bedroom, and the house had only one bathroom.  I can only imagine the fights.) My mother and her sister married in a double wedding in December of 1953, and almost three years later I came along, closely followed by my cousin Cathy in 1957.  Cathy and I were destined to be best friends.

When we started coming along, Grandmother’s sewing machine started to hum.  She loved her granddaughters and one of her greatest pleasures was sewing little clothes for us.  In my first formal  “seated” portrait at the age of 3, I am wearing a little dress that had a little red skirt and a white pique top embroidered with cherries, and had a little lace collar.  It was lovingly constructed by her.  

There are lots of warm memories associated with my grandmother and their home:  their ‘50s-chic kitchen with its pink appliances and black and white checkerboard linoleum, and the white painted miniature shutters over the kitchen window;  the den where we would watch television on their “Magnificent Magnavox”.  In the mornings, that den was always dimly lit by the sun coming in from the front  bedroom, and when a train would roll by from the tracks less than a block away, the house would shake just a bit.  This was where we kids would watch our morning TV shows such as “Captain Kangaroo”, and Joey the Clown on WSOC.  In the afternoons, she never missed watching Betty Feezor on WBTV, and she and Bernice, her housekeeper, would watch the “soaps” together while Bernice ironed.  To this day, when I smell steam or spray starch it takes me right back to the theme songs from “As the World Turns” or “The Edge of Night”.  My cousin and I were particularly entertained by the old “Raid” commercials, and made a game out of pretending to answer a doorbell and then run screaming, “it’s RAID!” from the room.  

And then there was sound of that well-oiled Singer sewing machine, run expertly by my grandmother.

Her machine was set up in the front bedroom, and she had her own dressmaker’s dummy.  I was always fascinated by it.  Her sewing basket, a light green wicker basket with flowers painted on its lid, was occasionally stored on some shuttered shelves in that front bedroom.  All of her notions were kept in it; her little appliques, her spools of Lily and Coats and Clark thread; snaps, hooks and eyes; her pattern tracers; and her dressmaker’s shears, a silver pair made by Wiss.  I remember her cutting out patterns with those scissors, carefully and precisely, and having to stand still while she fit clothes to me that were straight-pinned so that she could make sure they fit before they went on the Singer.  “Stand still, Sue-Sue…I’ll be done in just a minute.” And I would try to stand still and not complain about straight pins sticking me in the legs, arms or my stomach.

Ever wish you could back and recapture a moment in time? Or a day? There are times when I wish that, just for a little while, I could return to 1963 and my grandmother’s home.  Not to change anything, but to experience that love and security again.

And then, recently, I received a gift that brought it back to me.

My cousin Cathy is now not only my favorite cousin, but also my best friend and confidante.  We still laugh over silly things together and dish on our favorite movies and TV shows, but we are right there for each other in the best and worst of times.  Need advice?  We’ll dish it to each other in a heartbeat.  Since we live several hundred miles apart, thank goodness for cell phones and the internet.

She and I met for dinner a couple of weeks ago when she was in town, and she said she had a gift for me in the back of her car.  Right before we went into Nick’s in Gastonia, she opened the trunk and brought it out.  “Do you know what this is?”

In front of me was Grandmother’s sewing basket. My knees almost went out from under me.

We went in to dinner and spent several wonderful, wonderful hours talking, laughing and catching up.  Had I not had to work the next morning, it could have gone on longer. When we parted, I hugged her tightly and thanked her.  I couldn’t wait to get home and delve into the basket and its contents.

It was almost like having Grandmother in the room with me.  Spools of brightly colored thread, some dating back decades.  Bias tape, little appliques, snaps, hooks, eyes.  And buttons!  I was laughing through tears, wondering if she had ever thrown a single one out. Bags of buttons and several small containers of them, some basic, some cute, some downright elegant.  Her pattern tracers and a tapestry needle so big it almost looks lethal. Grandmother, what in the world did you use it for?

And…oh, my heart…her scissors. Her Wiss dressmaker’s shears.   I picked them up and ran my hands over them.  I was holding something she had touched over and over again.

This was more than a gift.  This was love and reassurance. I was touching my grandmother.

I have to admit that I’m not a seamstress, though I wish I were.  I’m a knitter.  But yesterday I needed to cut some yarn to change color, so I went to the basket and took out the shears.  Snip. Right through the yarn like a charm.  

The scissors will be cared for, polished and sharpened.  They – as well as the basket and its contents – will be cared for and cherished as a family heirloom.  I can almost hear Grandmother saying, “I know you’ll take good care of them, Sue-Sue.”

I will.  I promise.

High School Awkwardness and My Most Embarrassing Moment

I loved high school.  I can say that unreservedly.

As a child, I was almost pathologically shy, so much so that the simple act of riding a crowded school bus sent me into hysterics.  Phone calls were made to my parents on an almost daily basis from school because something as innocuous as a fire drill upset me.

By junior high, I had gotten over most of it, but by then I was a moderately overweight teenager with huge breasts, which made me a target.  Certain members of the football team and a couple of cheerleaders made me their pet project.  (I'm remembering YOU, former classmate who made it to the NFL and peaked early.) Lots of taunts and jeers in the cafeteria which I finally learned to ignore with the support of my small cache of friends, God bless 'em.

Then I made it to West Charlotte High School as a member of the Class of 1975 and found heaven.  Learned to have fun and that it wasn't a sin to talk when the teacher left the room.  I joined the choir, made it into the class with the gifted English students, and found my place.  I loved it.

Its halls were also where I had my greatest embarrassment.

In the 9th grade at Eastway Junior High, I won a journalism award for my work on the paper, and there was to be a ceremony for all of the winners.  My mother went to Julie's, THE place to buy cool clothes, and bought me a beautiful - for the early '70s, anyhow - dress.  It was white with navy blue stars sprinkled on it, and it had a navy blue belted sleeveless sweater vest that went over it.  I looked fabulous in it, so fabulous that if David Cassidy had met me back then he would have fallen in love right on the spot.

One morning in my first year at West Charlotte, I wore the dress to school, wanting to impress.  I was also wearing panty hose with, for some reason, my underwear OVER them rather than under.  I still don't know why unless I thought that was what one was supposed to do.

It was a cool fall morning.  I got off Bus 191 with my friend Jan and headed up the main hall, where I was thrilled to see that the guy I had a crush on, Steve, was walking directly in front of me.  Of course he already had a girlfriend - a cute little cheerleader who was really a nice girl - but I could dream, couldn't I?

About the time Jan and I came near the front office, I began to feel something strange around my knees, and a couple of girls giggling behind me. I looked down and promptly wanted to die.

The elastic in my underwear had broken and it was around my knees.  And it wasn't a cute pair of bikini briefs.  These were granny panties, the only ones that had been clean.

Kids all around me began to snicker.  I did the only thing I knew to do - I made it into the girls' bathroom, Jan laughing madly all the way with me, took them off and shoved them into my navy blue purse, meant to match my outfit.

My biggest relief was that Steve had been ahead of me and never turned around.

However, the story made its way all over West Charlotte High School by the end of the day.  When I walked into my late afternoon math class, a guy who thought he was being funny had written "Panties Dropper" on the blackboard and drawn a caricature.  The teacher, normally a humorless woman, cracked a smile and asked if I'd had a tough day, and made him erase it.  Great.  Now even the teachers were laughing over it.

Nobody remembered the fab dress, but they sure remembered the underwear. (The least they could have said was, "yeah, she lost her underwear but she sure looked pretty!") I became legend, and it was still being brought up when yearbooks came out in the summer - several people either signed it "To Panties Dropper" or asked if the elastic in my underwear was still good.

And yes, on occasion it's still brought up.

I wish I could still fit into that dress.

Where Was He Going, Anyhow?

I have a 26 mile commute to work each day.  Except for listening to Bob and Sheri each morning, the drive is pretty boring.  Once in a while I catch a good look at the strippers headed in to work at the local "gentleman's club" in the afternoon, or see a couple engaged in a heated argument on the side of the road.  And there was the day two women got out of an elderly Lincoln Continental at the corner not too far from the afore-mentioned strip club, cursing all the time because the driver was too drunk to take them to their destination.  I know that because they were yelling it at anyone who'd listen while dragging several garbage bags containing their belongings out of the car, and using very colorful language to describe their chauffeur.  If memory serves me correctly it was "Drunk old ____" and insert any adjective you wish in the blank.

I do love watching the planes come in low over Wilkinson Blvd as they approach the airport, sometimes low enough to hear them in the car.

Then, once in a while, the commute deals out a gem.

Not too long ago I was headed in to work.  It was just before seven on a gorgeous morning and I was sitting at a stop light.  A green '99 Taurus pulled up beside me.  (I know it was a '99 because my eldest child just got one like it, and I'm a stickler for details.) The Taurus' driver was - well - one of a kind.

An elderly gentleman was behind the wheel.  He had a full, long beard that ranged in color from yellow to white.  He had a meerschaum pipe clenched between his teeth, and it wasn't for show - he was puffing away at it, and smoke curled from out of his open window.  I think he was wearing a british racing cap.  Best of all, this dude was wearing full-sized headphones.  Whatever he was listening to must have been pretty interesting, because he stared straight ahead, listening intently and enjoying that pipe.

It was endearing, and it was funny.  I turned my head quickly to the left so he couldn't see me laugh, but it was the best thing I'd seen in ages.  I wonder where he was going - to the airport, perhaps?  What was he listening to?  Based on how he looked it might have been Sherlock Holmes on audio, or even Shakespeare - but you never know.  Good jazz or country-western music, even?

In any event, I kind of regret not catching his eye.  If it happens again, I'm going to smile, wave, and maybe even ask what he's listening to. And if it's Fifty Shades of Grey on audio it'll teach me not to assume anything ever again.

Requiem for a Lovable, Irascible Dog

Our dog, Spice, died this week.  He was fourteen and a half, a ripe old age for a dog. Right up until a couple of weeks before he began his decline, this was a hound who could still jerk us around by his leash and nearly off our feet with no trouble at all.

The house is extraordinarily empty right now.  My husband Mitch and I keep expecting to see him lying in the floor near the recliner, hearing his toenails click on the floor as he makes his way to our room, or following us to the refrigerator for his favorite snack, a Gwaltney Great Dog.  (Nope, we didn’t feed this dog IAMS or Science Diet.  He turned his stubby snout up at it.)  He also adored hot pork rinds and peppermint Mentos – which didn’t, ironically, help his notoriously bad breath one bit.

We got him when he was six weeks old, a ball of coal black fur and a mix of chow, pitbull, and boxer.  We eschewed names like Pepper and Blackie, and settled on Spice.  As he grew, it was plain that he was going to look more like his father, a full-blooded chow, than anything else.  He also began to take on a bit of a bully temperament and tried it out on one of our other dogs, an elderly chow that we called Jack.  Jack’s reaction was to calmly hold the upstart youngster down by his neck until he thought Spice had learned his lesson – then he walked away, but not before kicking dirt on Spice in his wake.  (That was Jack’s way of saying “up yours.”)

As Spice grew up, he became our protector.  No one entered our home that he didn’t approve of or know.  This worked to our advantage when a couple of our teenagers made friends with potential juvenile delinquents that came to visit.  Spice nipped both of them in the butt at one time or another – nothing serious, but enough to let them know he meant business.  One kid never came back; another, assisted by our son, decided to enter the house from a bedroom  window, thereby avoiding the dog. Among our kids’ friends, he became legend and earned the name of “Cujo”.  One of our daughters mentioned him to a high school friend a few weeks ago and the astonished response was “are you kidding me?  Cujo’s still alive?”

In most respects, he was unflinchingly brave and tough.  However, he had three weak spots.  We would have to confine him when our grandchildren or other folks came to visit, and he hated that.  Spice would bark and whine incessantly when kept in a room away from us.  He was also deathly afraid of storms and would cower behind a chair, or if we were in bed, would climb up and get between us and the headboard until the danger passed.  Finally, he wasn’t a big fan of water and hated having any part of himself bathed.  He screamed like an infant.

Spice absolutely hated anything that flew.  This included houseflies, birds, and airplanes.  On several occasions when he was taken out to do his business, he glimpsed a jet in the sky and nearly went crazy jumping up to try and grab it in his mouth.  One famous family incident included a Quaker conure named Bubbles who belonged to our daughter, Michelle.  We were careful to keep Spice and Bubbles separated, since Bubbles pretty much had free run of Michelle’s room.  One day I heard furious barking and squawking coming from the back of the house and realized the door was open.  I raced back to Michelle’s room to see Bubbles perched on the floor and Spice making an advance.  I held my hand out and Bubbles made his way up my arm and to my shoulder so fast he looked like a blur.   The door to the back of the house was kept firmly shut from then on.

Spice was unerringly loyal and made sure Mitch and I got equal attention.  If I went to the bathroom, he either waited outside the door or tried to follow me in.  Until we got a bed that was too high for him, he slept between us.  Had we been threatened, I think he would have given his life without a single thought. When we came home in the evenings, we were greeted with a cross between a bark and a whine that went on for several minutes, Spice’s entire body wagging.    If he had to go out, he would approach one of us, wagging his tail, and bark right in our faces until we got up and found his leash, which sent him into ecstacies; he’d turn so many circles that we had trouble getting his leash attached to his collar.

When my cat joined the household a year ago, Spice tolerated him; however, he drew the boundary lines and let “Cat” know that he wasn’t welcome in our bedroom.  That was his domain.  If Cat tried to tiptoe in, Spice ordered him right back out, which Cat respected.  I like to think they had a like/dislike relationship.  Cat loved to take a running jump and make a soaring leap and twist over Spice, which pissed him off no end.

Spice was a true garbage hound.  If I scolded him for it, he lowered his head and growled back like a teenager talking back to his mother, for which I “sent him to his room”.  Spice would stomp off to the bathroom, growling all the way.  Then he’d cry and whine until we let him out.  

He began declining about three weeks ago.  We began having to carry him up the steps after taking him out; the mere fact that he even let us do that showed us that he was finally feeling his age.  We ended up carrying him from room to room and feeding him by hand.  The evening before he died, we loved on him and told him what a good dog he’d been.  He was gone the next day.

The loss is more than bittersweet.  We’re so happy that he lived as long as he did and that he’s not suffering now.  However, we miss everything about him – having to put garbage out of his reach, his nagging us for a hot dog, his horrific breath; needing to put the vacuum cleaner up on a chair so he didn’t sneakily lift his leg on it.  We miss having to step over him when he refused to move out of our path.  I miss feeling him at my feet as I knit or read or watch TV.  We would give anything to have him barking at us to be taken out again.

He's buried near the back of our house in one of his favorite spots, a shady glade where he would plop down and rest for a minute during his outings.  He was buried with love, tears, and his collar and leash.  We planted seeds around his “place” (I can’t bear to call it a grave) that will sprout as blue forget-me-nots.  

He was a wonderful, irascible, irreplaceable dog. 

Something About Rainy Days...

I have never been depressed or disappointed when the local weatherperson (excuse me, meteorologist) comes up with a forecast of rain. Never.

There is something about a cool, rainy day that makes me feel secure and happy. If the skies darken and lightning begins flashing accompanied by a tympani of thunder, so much the better. And how pretty are flowers with raindrops perched on their petals?

It's raining today. I'm inside with an elderly dog snoring at my feet, the cat curled up in a ball beside my chair, a "Mad Men" episode on TV, and a book waiting to be opened. If a day could be called perfect...