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...

Family Legacies

My paternal grandmother, Winnie Gabriel – whom I called “Ma” - was the quintessential country housewife. In my grandparents’ home in Mount Mourne, NC, she cooked like a whiz, and she made beautiful quilts. A patchwork quilt she crafted is one of my most cherished possessions. Ma gardened, and her favorite flower was the zinnia, probably because it was a bright, colorful, hardy flower.

She also knitted. When I was a little girl in the early ‘60s, I was endlessly fascinated by her knitting needles. She attempted to teach me, but I just didn’t catch on. That was okay, though. She baked with me, taught me how to roll out biscuits, and took the time to play Old Maid with me on their front porch.

She was also artistic and musically talented, things I didn’t know until recently. As a young girl she played the guitar, and I believe that’s where I got my own talent for it. But I digress.

In 1965, my parents separated and it was a deeply sad time for our families. My mother took us right after Christmas and we moved to Charlotte, 90 miles away from my father. The divorce wasn’t pretty.

Family was everything. My grandmother, who loved her grandchildren unreservedly – in fact, she and my grandfather helped my aunt bring up her children after my uncle died at a very young age from heart disease – was devastated at the thought of losing two of her grandchildren due to a broken family. She attempted to help make that next Christmas a good one for my younger brother and I. When I opened a package from her that holiday season, I found a beautiful pair of knitted slippers. I can see them now. They were bright red – one of her favorite colors – and had little bells at the top that jingled when I walked. My sweet grandmother had crafted a gift of love and wanted to make sure my little feet were warm. Even though they slipped off my heels when I walked, I wore them. They were a link to my Ma and Pa and my old “normal” life.

As things sometimes happen, the slippers disappeared long ago. However, I’m honoring Ma - who died in 1988 - the best way I know how. I can bake a darned good biscuit, though I’m still trying to master her fabulous fried chicken and the fried squash. My favorite flower is the zinnia…and I delight in knitting for my little grandchildren. As for passing along things Ma taught me , Livvy and Julie have the biscuits down pat, and they’re nagging me to teach them to knit. This summer they will learn how to use needles and yarn, and we will plant zinnias in red, with maybe a little pink and white mixed in.

Ma, you left a fine legacy behind.

Confessions of a Television Addict

In an effort to economize because I now have a hefty car payment, a couple of weeks ago we let our satellite television subscription go and decided to switch to cable. Since we had no digital converter box, for two weeks I was reduced to Netflix on my laptop and had to wait over a week to watch the latest episode of "Raising Hope" on Hulu.

I was jonesing worse than a heroin addict. No nightly reruns of How I Met Your Mother! No 2 Broke Girls on Monday nights, let alone my weekly Raising Hope fix! (They've been renewed for a third season. I never thought I'd utter the words "Thank you, Fox", but in this case I'm more than happy to do so.) I wasn't able to get ready for work in the morning to the accompaniment of the early WBTV news, which almost killed me. John Carter and Christine Nelson, I missed you!

The cable installer showed up today and I almost kissed his feet, though he took way too long to do the install for my taste. I was pacing and biting my nails. After he left, I grabbed my shiny new remote, began channel-surfing like any good TV addict and found the greatest station in the world - MeTV. It's been available in my area, but my satellite service didn't carry it. Folks, this station is better than TVLand and carries some excellent classic TV programming without edits. They're running "That Girl", "Family Affair", "The Untouchables", "Car 54, Where Are You", "Thriller"...the list goes on and on. Best of all, the shows carry the network ID at the end. I watched the end of Bonanza today - which yeah,yeah, I know it's on TVLand - but TVL doesn't bother to run the NBC ID at the end! When I saw the legendary NBC snake at the end I got cold chills. Larry Mathews - little Ritchie Petrie - does a promo for the Dick Van Dyke Show!

I'm watching The Wild, Wild West right now (which was always one of my mom's favorites), and even though Jim West has amnesia he hasn't forgotten how much he loves the ladies. Ed Asner is playing a baddie who's stealing a vaccine.

Batman's on later this evening, followed by Lost in Space. I'm going to curl up in my recliner with a blanket and relive my childhood for a little while. Sigh. I'm in heaven. Now, if I could only watch this on a huge "Magnificent Magnavox" console in my grandmother's den, I'd be euphoric.

I'm practically dancing.

Eavesdropping on Conversations

Okay, it wasn't eavesdropping.  The conversation was conducted right in front of me.

My eldest son stayed here over the weekend, draping his 6'2" frame over a love seat.  (That's how you keep your adult kids from coming back to stay.  Don't give 'em a comfortable place to sleep, take away the satellite remote and watch stuff they hate, and never, ever let them check their Facebook on your laptop.  They'll be there 48 hours, max.)

His best friend, who is probably six feet tall, bald and huge and looks like Mr. Clean, had to go out of town overnight and needed my son to come over and walk his dog.  Since Best Friend has no girlfriend and no children, this dog, who is a hyperactive Jack Russell mix, is his baby.  Eldest son went over and did his duty...and later that night had to report back to his friend about the dog.  The conversation went like this:

"Hey, dude.  Yeah, you got back okay?  Cool.  Frisky did what?  Dude, I swear I took him out for a walk.  Yeah, I promise.  Hey, ask my dad.  He drove me over there.  Yes, Frisky pooped."  (He didn't use the word "pooped", by the way.)  "Yes, he did, I swear.  What did it look like?  Are you freaking serious, dude?  Well, he laid two or three and they were about as big around as a hot dog and maybe five inches long apiece.  No, he didn't have diarrhea."  Pause.  "Did I feed him anything besides what you normally do?  Dude, would I give Frisky anything you wouldn't?  My feelings are hurt."  Another pause.  "Okay.  No problem.  Peace out."

Eldest son turned his head and noticed me staring at him.  "What, Mom?"

Sometimes there are no words.