Re: Last Friday's posting

For a long time during my adult years I thought loquat was not real. I had not seen one since my childhood. Perhaps I dreamed it. I might mention it to someone who thought I meant kumquat. I didn't mean kumquat. It is not the same fruit at all. Most people have never heard of a loquat.

I was troubled by this, since I think I have a good memory and was sure I had seen and eaten loquats. Yellow, delicious, large brown seed inside.

But have you ever seen one or even heard of such a thing? Does the market where you shop have them? My guess is, No.

So I looked it up.

Loquat: 1 a small evergreen tree (Eriobotrya japonica) of the rose family, native to China and Japan 2 the small yellow, edible, plumlike fruit of this tree.

I feel much better now.

What I Remember

I've read that photographs define memory, that is, they limit it so that the photograph becomes the memory. I don't know if I believe that, but today I want to write some memories I have no photographs for.

The miles of oil wells we would see as we drove south from Santa Monica down through Long Beach. We went down the coast--and I don't know how often--to Oceanside where my dad owned a five-acre farm.

The miles of orange groves on such drives. Orange County named so for a reason.

The big black 1939 Studebaker we rode in the time we had a small wreck. My dad ran the Studebaker into the back of a stopped car--at a red light, I think. My sister Lucile bumped her lip pretty hard and for weeks, or so it seemed to me, walked around with a wet washcloth held to her lip. We came back from Oceanside in a different car, maybe the gray 1940 Nash.

The ocean up and down that California coast. I could watch it forever. My dad and mom loved the ocean, too.

Hyperion's tower sticking into the sky from atop a cliff overlooking Playa del Rey--the Beach of the King. Hyperion was a sewage treatment plant. I'm pretty sure the treated sewage went straight into the water we swam in. Duh, Carol. That's why the plant was right there above the ocean. I didn't like the idea of that.

The tower might have been mistaken for a light house because it could be seen for many miles. Named for its size, I'm guessing, because I can't think the look or function of the place resembled its namesake from Greek mythology.

The round concrete fire pits on the beach at Playa del Rey; beach parties at night with fire in a pit for warmth and for roasting hot dogs and marshmallows; the ocean warmer than the night air; the stitched gash on my brother Sterling's forehead--he hit his head on a fire pit during a nighttime beach football game. I wasn't there.

This when I was maybe nine or ten. He came home from the hospital and slept a long time. My mother told me to be especially quiet upstairs, not to disturb him. I was tip-toeing down the stairs when he woke, and he walked down behind me like a mindless zombie. To scare me. It worked. I was frightened by the whole thing anyway, wondering if hitting his head hard might have given him amnesia--I'd heard about that on radio dramas and mysteries--or if time in a hospital or stitches or whatever might change him.

My excitement whenever I got to go to the beach, day or night. The hope, as a teenager, that I had chosen the "right" beach. Some were better than others, though I wasn't sure why. Maybe the waves, maybe the people who went there.

Of course, the beach was always more fun with a boy, especially if it was Wayne. No photo for that. I still feel it.

So there. A few words from my memory. I've also read that writing your memories limits them. They become no more than the words you've cast them into.

That I don't believe.

A Day Like This

Wayne and I lived about three full blocks away from each other. That put us in different elementary schools--his John Muir, mine Washington.

His school was on a busy corner: Ocean Park and Lincoln Boulevards. The big blue Santa Monica bus came down the hill on Ocean Park boulevard many times every day. Wayne told me of seeing their teacher get hit by a bus one day. It was a fatal accident for her and frightened those children who saw it. They had been taught not to cross in the middle of the block. The teacher knew, too.

Thank goodness I saw no such accidents at my school, although the other bus company had a route along 4th Street. Washington School was on Ashland Avenue and 4th Street. Busy enough but safer, apparently.

I know Wayne walked to school, and so did I. I could go either of two ways--out my front door, down the two dozen steps, and straight on Ashland for two blocks, or out my back door and up the hill to Raymond, then left, make the jog at 5th where Raymond picked up again and walk the long block to the school. Raymond ended at my school. This was the back way and slightly longer, but there was a loquat tree in a yard along that way. I had a few loquats on those walks, sometimes picked up from the ground, occasionally right off the tree. That's called stealing, but they were very good.

That we went to different elementary schools was fine. We sort of knew each other at church in those days, but it wasn't until high school that we became friends.

I think of this now because today is the first day of Spring, 2009, here in Boise, and the weather has been pleasant, so that a person could walk to a friend's house.

Wayne walked to my house many times during our high school years. He would knock on the back screen door and come in through the kitchen. He might find my dad there or my mother or Lucile or even me. We might just stay in the kitchen and talk. I would sit on the counter while he leaned against it. Or we might sit in the den or out on the porch swing. We rarely took walks, don't know why. Weather was not a factor then as it is here. We grew up in Santa Monica, and it was generally pleasant, sometimes fog in the early morning coming in from the ocean and soon burning off in the sunshine.

When I had enough courage, I could walk to his house. Up to Raymond, right to Highland, left to where Hill Street cut into Highland, then right down the hill to his house. Such a visit took courage, because I was a long time becoming sure of Wayne's feelings for me. Not all my fault. Not all his. Just part of the story.

Today is Saturday

We ran errands today, Ann, Charlie, Johnny, and I. Specifically, we went to Michael's to pick up the picture they were framing for Ann and Jeremy. It wasn't ready, which we learned after spending about an hour there.

When it got to be about 1 o'clock, we decided lunch should be now and told Charlie we would go to a restaurant. He knew right now what he wanted: fries and ketchup. No surprise there.
But we're not going to that kind of restaurant, we explained.

"What kind of a restaurant are we going to?" he asked.
"Costa Vida," we answered.
"I don't want to go there. I want to go to a different restaurant. I like a different restaurant. A different restaurant is my favorite."
I said, "I'm sorry, but Costa Vida is where we are going today. You can get a cheese tortilla there."
"I don't want a cheese tortilla. I want fries and ketchup. McDonalds is my favorite restaurant. Let's go to McDonalds. Please."

Johnny slept.

"There is no McDonalds near where we're going," I said to Ann.
Ann said, "Charlie, Grandma and I don't like McDonalds. We're going to a tortilla restaurant." And that made Charlie cry. I thought it might. It's true, though.
Charlie said, sobbing, that he wanted to go to McDonalds, and, crying harder now, "I want you to like McDonalds, Mama."

Ann said, "You need to calm down, Charlie."
"Okay," he said, trying hard to stop crying. But he was upset, close to panic. I remember that feeling. You're a little kid, and it looks like you're not going to get what you want, and you have no power. It's panicky.

Ann and I are grown-ups. We have the power in this situation. At least today we do. And we are not heartless. "We'll see what we can do, Charlie. We'll see if we can find a place to get you some fries."
"Okay," still crying.
"Charlie," Ann said, "You need to calm down."
"I did calm down, Mama, but the tears are still coming." (And who couldn't love that?)

We told Charlie we would get him some fries and ketchup.
"And a soda? I want fries and ketchup and a drink." He was still crying a little, but not pushing things, just telling what he wanted. We could get him a drink at Costa Vida and told him so.

Ann wondered if we were caving in and maybe should hold a firm line. I said, "No. We're going to lunch for a treat, and it should be a treat for all of us."

She found a hamburger place, we went to the drive through, got his fries and ketchup, and took them to Costa Vida, where he got his soda and where, it turns out, he did want a cheese tortilla after all. He was happy, and so were we.

Andrew Harold Schiess

If you think he likes his middle name, think again, and I learned just this year he's not crazy about his first name. Don't know how he feels about Schiess.

Andrew is 38 today. He went to lunch with his mother today. Her treat. She loves this boy, although she knows he is a man. He is her third son, fourth and middle child. And, of course, there's a story in that data. I'll leave it to him to tell.

Here's how Andrew's mother sees him. A good person, with goodness in him. That is not redundant. His goodness is manifested in the way he treats others with kindness. She thinks he is a good dad and a good husband to Michelle.

He is honest. He is intelligent and quite well-read.

And he is quick of wit. His brother Wayne says he is the quickest of all my children. (This declaration may get comments.)

I, Andrew's mother, have written elsewhere and elsewhen about the special bond I feel with Andrew because of his first difficult year, when for several months his poor stupid mother was starving him, not intentionally. But to her credit--my credit--she reversed that sad and destructive spiral. Good for her, and good for Andrew and thanks to him for his sweet temperament and endless patience.

Happiest of birthdays, Andrew.

Lola (Second Try) because yesterday it didn't show up in the blog

Monday, March 2, 2009

It's Lola's birthday. Lola my mother and Lola my daughter.

Lola Nelson Brimley, born 1899; Lola Schiess Scaggs, born 1968 and named for her grandma. I call this a good day.

Lola, my daughter, is a wonderful girl (okay, woman), and so was my mother. Both pianists, both bright and good. I mean good, as in just good people. Both natural born teachers. Both a favorite among people who know them.

My mother was a small bundle of talent and energy and opinion, standing 4'9". Lola is taller at 5'6" and thinner but with no less talent. I don't know that I'd call her opinionated, but I know that from her dad she inherited the gift for figuring things out. Which makes me think of . . .

2/23/03 Sunday

The day has had its moments. Lola punctured her hand with the Phillips head tip of a drill. She called in tears. It hurt—a deep wound—and it frightened her. If Dad were here, she said, I could just ask him to come over and look at it and he would know what to do.

It’s true. But I went. She had washed it and bled it and poured hydrogen peroxide in it. Those were all the right things to do. Then we tried to know if she should get a tetanus shot. Ask-a-nurse says yes. Jeff says no. I’m inclined to agree with him because Lola is nursing the baby and doesn’t know what effect the shot might have on him. I worry, of course, because I’m her mother and do not want her to take any chances. If Wayne were here, he would know.

Six years ago. It was a nasty puncture. It hurt me to see it. And I know that her dad's death the month before made the wound seem worse, more painful, more frightening. If there were lines between the injury and the sadness we were feeling already, they got blurred. It was just a sad little drama that day in the living room of her house.

We made a shaky decision, trying to look beyond our worry and the what ifs we had spoken of. No tetanus shot. It turned out well. Lola has a mark in that web between the thumb and first finger, but she suffered no permanent ill effects of the injury.

This is The Widow's Chronicle, after all, and there is nothing in my life that is not part of it.