remember the day distinctly, it was the mid sixties and I was standing in the girls locker room with my shirt unbuttoned just enough to reveal (to anyone who might want to notice) that I was wearing my first training bra. The gleeful shouts of my classmates echoed amongst the metallic clanking of the locker doors, and Kit Spaulding jostled me to get at her locker beneath mine. The training bra was little more than a glorified undershirt, whose only bralike feature was the clasp in the back. It was also unclear what I was in training for, since there was clearly nothing to “lift and separate” as advertised by Maidenform. Perhaps the advertising geniuses wanted to take a page out the cigarette industry and get pubescents hooked on their trainers early on and create a life long devotion to the Maidenform brand. Personally, the only thing that I was in training for was a slowly emerging pubescence that seemed to lag behind the other boy-crazy girls in my class, like Debbie Brown or Gail Chandler.
I remember looking down and noticing that the bra was adorned with a demur pink ribbon and feeling very conflicted. On the one hand, I certainly wanted to join my peer group and announce my anticipated puberty, but I wanted to do it quietly and discreetly without someone coming up from behind and snapping the strap and yelling, “snap, snap you are a turtle now!” I tried to figure out how I could somehow simultaneously whip off my school shirt and slip into my gym uniform, and then of course I would have to repeat the performance at the end of the day. I stood there quietly as the voices died down and my classmates skipped off to field hockey practice oblivious to my tense rite of passage. When no one was left in my locker row, I achieved my goal of anonymity, but then was disappointed that nobody had noticed.
I certainly did not realize that I was also entering into the confusing roles of the bra as function, fashion and sexuality. The word bra did not even come into existence until the early 1900s, when some one came up with the clever idea to support the breast from above (i.e. the “over the shoulder boulder holder”), rather than a corset that pushed up the breasts from below. Until the 1940s when the “life and separate” era began, breasts were generally not considered individually, but rather were referred to collectively as the bosom. The late 1940s also saw the introduction of the bikini, and the blurring of the distinction between outerwear and underwear began.
My concept at the time was that bra was most definitely underwear, but even so the rules were very confusing. The standard school outfit was a white cotton shirt, and the back of the bra was clearly visible beneath the shirt, particularly if you bent over or extended your arms. This was perfectly acceptable. Sometimes you could get a glimpse of the front of the bra – this was not optimal, but within the realm of acceptability. However, if you were wearing a sleeveless shirt and the bra strap wandered off your shoulder and was directly visible – well that was borderline trampy. Acquaintances might titter or feel sorry for you, but true friends would take you aside and would say with whispered urgency, “Your bra strap is showing!” The only thing that could be more embarrassing was pubic hair went public and peeked out of a bathing suit. Panicked reparations would then ensue, which sometimes involved pinning the strap to the shirt. But then of course you could not let the pin show or pucker the shirt. Therefore you had to carefully fix the strap to the shoulder seam. There were certain recalcitrant bra straps that always slipped down the shoulder, and it was just safer to just throw them away. (In fact I do the same thing for underwear that habitually wedges or socks that fall into my shoes.)
The other acknowledged function of the bra was to address the visible nipple. Lightweight bras could certainly be very comfortable, but might not be up to the task if the weather turned nippy. In the 1970s Farrah Fawcett rose to fame based on a poster showcasing her tousled hair and gleaming smile. But I think that the unspoken appeal was the novelty of one very visible nipple beneath a clinging red bathing suit. I am still startled to see the sturdy nipples of both of the Williams sisters as they hustle around the tennis court. I just want to reach into the TV set, tap them on the shoulder and save them from embarrassment in front of millions, “Girls, your nipples are showing.”
Then of course there were rules governing bikinis, which were only considered outerwear but only when worn near water. I remember the movie Lolita where the young minx was lounging in the back yard in a tease of a white bikini top. However, the sprinkler was on and so what looked like a bra became acceptable outerwear. While bathing suits can be worn with impunity either pool, sea or streamside, getting to and from the water requires a transitional outfit – the beach cover up, which is strictly limited to short errands such as pumping gas or returning a movie, particularly if the cover up is see through. For example, I have never seen anyone in a gossamer cover up in the public library or at a waitressed restaurant. We had a back yard swimming pool, and my mother would spend most of the summer in a bathing suit, which was far from a bikini, but more like a one piece romper. However, every time that she needed to go on an errand, she would dutifully change into a top and shorts (which were not that different from her romper), and then change back when she returned.
As confusing as this situation was, there was further upheaval a mere five years later when bras became the symbol of sexual repression and plumes of acrid smoke from burning rubber became the stuff of the nightly news. At this point I was in the college, and by the time the sexual revolution filtered down to my apolitical level, the only message that I got were that bras were now optional. Sounded good to me from a purely practical point of view – less clothes to buy and less laundry to wash. I did not have big breasts sloshing around that needed support and therefore bras seemed totally unnecessary. The visible nipple was still an issue, but that was solved by wearing thicker cotton shirts. Those Mexican wedding shirts were quite ideal - my favorite one was an otherwise light weight see-through cotton shirt but with two columns of embroidery positioned directly over the nipples.
After college I went to medical school and then onto motherhood, so I was completely distracted and unaware of the changing cultural mores. When I finally came up for air, I was appalled to notice teenagers walking around with visible bra straps – where were their friends to give them the heads up? But with careful scrutiny, I discovered that the bra strap taboo was over - in fact visible bra straps were everywhere, underneath camisoles, or criss cross straps beneath a tank top, where the visible straps could only have been intentional. But mentally I was still stuck in front of my grade school locker thinking, “Hey, your underwear is showing!” I interviewed a teenager who educated me on the different classifications of bras. Your underwear drawer now included bras with “cute” straps that were intentionally visible and color coordinated with the camisole or tee shirt. However, these were distinct from your everyday bras – ratty cotton bras with white elastic straps and potentially yellowed out armpits were still worn, but only when there was no possibility that they would be seen. It reminded me of the old adage to always wear clean underpants to bed in case your house burned down and you were forced to flee into the streets with nothing but your underwear on.
Then there was the emergence of the bra as fashionable and sexy lingerie – seems our culture was finally catching up to the French here. While past Sears’ catalogs featured disembodied photographs of sedate bras with a dash of frill, Victoria’s Secret created a buzz by featuring full frontal photos of models wearing nothing but elaborate come-hither underwear and high heels. Now when I get dressed, the shoes are the last thing that I put on, and the first thing that I take off when undressing, so the combination of ostensible underwear and heels made no sense. Furthermore, instead of being a second tier tawdry underwear model, the top Victoria’s Secret model was touted with the same breathless admiration and celebrity as a swimsuit model. There was an episode of Seinfeld that captured this dilemma of bra as outwear vs. underwear. Elaine had a big-breasted childhood friend named Ellen Mishki who irked her by always going braless. Elaine decided to give her a white bra for her birthday, which Ellen then preceded to wear as outwear beneath an unbuttoned blazer. As she nonchalantly walked down the street, Elaine was even more irked to realize that she got more stares and whistles than when she jiggled braless down the street.
Into this confusing mix came the sports bra, which by its very name suggested its ambivalence as under vs. outer wear. Ostensibly the sports bra was not designed to be sexy but engineered to tamp down the heavage of the cleavage, although Serena Williams seems to outheave even the best efforts of the Nike engineers. The convention seems to be that the sports bra can be worn as outerwear while jogging, extending its range beyond water limits of a swimsuit, but similarly, a sports bra is considered underwear in other venues. Recall the performance of Brandi Chastain, the US soccer player who scored the winning goal in the dramatic gold medal game against China in the 1999 world cup. She ran halfway across the field then took her shirt off and waved it over her head, revealing her black sports bra. Cultural anthropologists could probably create a thesis focusing on the demongraphics of those who regarded this performance as a strip tease versus a simple celebration. I was in the startled strip tease camp, while my daughter said, “Its no biggie, it’s just a sports bra, mom.” While it may have been a sports bra, the key fact seemed to be that she had taken off her shirt to reveal it, and that was stripping, regardless of what lay beneath.
Forty five years have past since my first steps into the world of bradom, and like many other fashion trends, I have chosen to be a bystander. To me the everyday bra is still resolutely underwear, and an exposed bra strap still makes me anxious. I’m an old dog averse to new tricks and I like of the comfort of the bra as nothing more than a functional piece of clothing. Its simpler that way.
Thoughts on Bras
1. Puberty is a complicated transition with many different - - - - -
But a simple training bra is one common way it starts.
2. A visible bra - - - - - used to make you want to cringe and die,
But what was underwear is now outerwear seen by every naked eye.
3. When a large breasted athlete has a problem with her cleavage
She wears a sports bra that - - - - - her breasts to diminish any heavage.
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Thrown Under the Bus
his spring, on an ill advised impulse, I signed up for a ladies’ ice hockey league, where random teams were formed based on the self ranking of the players. I originally had no interest, but then I was contacted directly and urged to participate. This was the first time I had ever been pursued athletically and I fell for the cheap compliments. In reality, the league was short on goalies, and they knew that I had access to pads and a helmet. At the first game, our “maroon team” was asked to sign a roster, which included recording your birthdate. When the sheet came to me, I was horrified to see that most of my team mates were born in the 1980s, and I was at least 20 years older than everyone else.
As we got on the ice, everyone was trying to size up both team mates and opponents, and it quickly became obvious that there were a couple of very experienced players on both sides, a few serviceable players, and a smattering of deer in the headlights. The ringers were wheeling, preening and making theatrical stops that sent sprays of ice chips aloft. As they passed me with their well muscled crossovers, I could hear the ice succumb beneath them with a deep seated knuckle-cracking crunch. I quickly realized our ringer was the short girl with the buzz cut and the tattoos. Since she played defense, she was my new BFF.
In my previous league at the Winter Club, shots rarely were airborne, and my basic and somewhat successful strategy was just try to take up space in the goal, not get hurt and not do anything stupid (aside from playing hockey in the first place). During the warm up, I was getting peppered with shots all over my body; one ricocheted off my helmet. Although I basically felt adequately padded in swaddling/waddling clothes, there were two vulnerable spots; my pubis bone (there is no built in padding in the pants since men always were cups) and my neck. I had gotten hit in the pubis bone once before at the Winter Club. While it stung at the time I forgot about it until I noticed an angry bruise in the shower later on. I initially thought that a big leech had taken up residence in my near nether regions. I motioned over to my faithful husband Nick and asked him to find me some protective equipment. I turned down his first offer of his Forbes magazine and sent him scurrying off to the locker room to find a ratty old “Jill” cup from my hockey equipment. When he rushed back to the ice, the game had started, so Nick gave the cup to the startled ref who delivered it to me in the nets, where I quickly shoved it down my pants. As for my neck, I just had to keep my chin down.
In one of our first games, we were totally outmatched, and while I know that it is poor form to complain about your team mates, the phrases, “fish in a barrel,” “sitting duck,” “hung out to dry,” “left twisting in the wind,” and “thrown under the bus” come to mind. When I saw that girl in the white pants gather up the puck at the other end of the ice, I know that I was in trouble. She steamed up the ice, while one by one my defenders evaporated like (you pick ‘em) 1. a popsicle on a hot day; 2. New Year’s resolutions by the following week or 3. cash in your wallet; 4. promises from children to keep their rooms neat; 5. socks in the dryer. And there I was, a 50+ AARP candidate with limited goalie experience, face to face with a large 20 something Canadian farm girl who had honed her power game by playing hockey on the backyard pond with her brothers. And all this happened within the first minute of the game.
While the margin of victory quickly mounted and neared the double digit mark, I am pleased to report that I did not do anything stupid, given what I am willing to do as a goalie. My skills, such as they are, are very limited by the fact that I make it a point not to fall down on the ice, for the simple reason that it is very difficult and time consuming to get up. And I did do one good thing, which is recorded in the fanagram below.
When I joined the - - - - - of women hockey players I got in over my head,
I found that I couldn’t stop or turn so I offered to be goalie instead.
With all the padding I wore I didn’t think that I would fear what I faced,
But with each onslaught, I went weak in the knees and my heart always - - - - -.
In one game, the slapshot from the point - - - - - toward me faster and faster,
I trembled and put up my glove to avoid the oncoming disaster.
But then I heard that wonderful thunk and a thud that all goalies love
If I had - - - - - to open my eyes, I would have seen the puck in my glove!
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Maryam and Me
had been working for a medical consulting company in San Diego on and off for 6 months, and the company seemed to be teetering on the verge of collapse with both staff and clients evaporating on a weekly basis. One day I called and got no answer whatsoever, so I assumed that the inevitable had happened. The next day I was surprised to hear that everyone had been evacuated because of the San Diego fires. It seemed that this company couldn’t catch a break. And then suddenly a ray of hope – I received an email announcing the arrival of a new stemwinder/rainmaker who was going to turn the place around.
Cynthia was one of the few remaining on-site staff, and when I called her to ask what was going on, she said, “Oh, you haven’t met Maryam yet, I’ll transfer this call. I think that you will like her.” But there was a tiny note of hesitation in her voice, a slight qualifying catch which very clearly sent the exact opposite message that 1. Cynthia didn’t like her; and 2. I probably wouldn’t get along with her either.
But I had barely time to process this hidden message when Maryam got on the phone. I was immediately taken aback by her fast talking and extremely LOUD voice, such that I had to hold the phone away from my ear. She also had a hair trigger braying laugh, and ended each sentence by saying BLAH, BLAH, BLAH in a thick New York accent. “Elizabeth, you’ll have to get your ass out here so that we can get to know each other, have some dinner together and BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!” At one enthusiastic moment, she uttered two triplets, “BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, YADDEE, YADDA, YADDA.”
It was also apparent that this woman was extremely insecure, because she would pepper all of her conversations with how many journals she had published in, how many people she had previously managed and how many languages she spoke, including Farsi. Three weeks later, I headed out to San Diego to meet Maryam in person. Just before I left, she called and brayed, “Elizabeth, it is pretty warm out here, so if you bring the wrong clothes, I just want you to know that I will lend you some of mine.” This was a multi-layered ick factor to be sure – not only the thought of borrowing a stranger’s clothes, but I was absolutely certain that my limited sense of style would not overlap in any way with Maryam’s.
As I walked into the office I thought about all the long distance telephone relationships I have had throughout my career, and the interesting “reveal” when two phone pals finally meet in person. I remember one physician from Montana that I had talked to extensively. We had many conversations about our shared interest in skiing, with Jim telling me he enjoyed hiking up into the mountains with skins on his skis. I had created an image of a strapping young mountain man in the full flower of physical prowess, so when I finally met him, I was stunned to see that he was an old man on the brink of retirement.
I knew that whatever image I tried to conjure up for Maryam would be exceeded by the face to face meeting. However, I was not prepared for the vision that greeted me with a big bear hug. It was hard to absorb the complete package all at once. First, there was make-up slathered on so thickly I could only assume that she was trying to conceal some disfiguring skin disease. The eyeliner and mascara were equally thick and bright red lipstick seemed to stray over the lips’ natural boundaries. Her shag hair was multiple hues of blond and gold with no attempt to conceal dark black roots. Now I realize that I am behind the times here, but my concept of dyed hair has always been that it is supposed to be utterly discrete – one of the original slogans of Clairol was “only your hairdresser knows for sure.” I guess that the pejorative concept of the bottled blond is gone, but in my mind Maryam was even pushing that concept.
The shirt had a plunging neck line revealing both the bra and its jiggling contents. She might have had make-up on her chest, but I didn’t want to stare. Both the diaphanous shirt and tight little skirt she wore were covered in some sort of fringe, and when she walked the fringe swayed in unison. When she laughed, which was constantly, her opened mouth revealed a piece of apple green chewing gum skittering across her glistening tongue.
After a series of meetings with clients who were also visibly startled to receive a hug, Maryam walked into my office, and said, “Elizabeth, I think that you are too uptight, I am going to take you SALSA dancing tonight – we’ll go out and get margaritas and SALSA dance. What is your husband’s number, I’m going to call to get his permission to take you out on a WILD NIGHT!” Experience has taught me that it is far simpler to be noncommittal than say no, so I just shrugged and said , “let’s see what we feel like.” Ultimately she suggested that we go out to dinner to get to know each other better. We ended up at some wretched Chinese restaurant sitting in a sun porch that intensified the setting sun on Maryam’s face. I felt my forehead getting moist, and as I glanced at Maryam’s, I spotted tiny drops of sweat trying to escape through the cracks and crevices of her thick make up. I felt like I was looking at a miniaturized version of the signature geologic event that has shaped this earth - the relentless force of water ravaging the landscape with ravines and mudslides.
Maryam first talked about how difficult it was to be a working woman in a male dominated field and how hard it was to get respect. I wanted to tell her that her problem could be solved if she stopped dressing like an aging Hooter’s waitress. When I didn’t respond to her bid for compliments she asked, “What do you like to do on the weekend?” I knew that whatever I said would seem so sedate and settled. But I also knew that she was desperate for me to ask her what she did, so I took that bait. “Well,” she said, “Since we are going to be working closely together I am going to tell you something that I don’t really want the other staff to know. I am a black belt in karate.” This certainly beat my list of birdwatching, knitting, playing sports and fiddling around with words. “Maryam,” I said “how do you actually do karate, do you enter tournaments or what?” “Well I do enter some tournaments,” said Maryam, and then leaning towards me and with a hushed conspiratorial tone she said, “I am actually an expert in num-chuks.” My only knowledge of num-chuks harkened back to the Mutant Ninja Turtles, cartoon characters that were very popular when Ned was 6 years old. Num-chuks were blocks of wood held together with chains that the turtles swung around their heads with lethal force. “Maryam,” I said, “don’t you get hurt with those things?” “Yes,” she said and smiled, “but I don’t mind.”
Maryam was gone after a blazing 11 week tenure, and all of us survivors relish telling seemingly endless anecdotes about this unusual woman. It turns out that she told everyone about her num-chuks, and also told everyone that it had to be an exclusive secret that she wasn’t going to tell anyone else.
Maryam had long lashes caked in mascara and thick lipstick the color of - - - - - - -,
And midst her plunging neckline swelled a pair of jiggling boobies.
Now anyone who - - - - - - - her face in such thick makeup must have identity issues,
But Maryam vowed she was a confident woman who had paid her dues.
She said that nobody would be better or - - - - - - - at schmoozing clients,
And on the surface of it she looked like the picture of assured self reliance.
But when she constantly listed the many journals that she had published in,
I realized that her ego was as easy to - - - - - - - as the skin of Queen Victoria’s kin.
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The Last One Picked
irls’ grade school sports in the pre Title 9 days of the late 1960s were a decidedly low key affair, and presumably were included in the curriculum on the basis of the “sound mind, sound body” principle. There was no such thing as traveling teams, no parental involvement and no aspirations for college scholarships, simply a bunch of kids playing field hockey in the fall, skating in the winter (just skating around for the pure exercise of it) and softball in the spring. However, beneath this benign surface there boiled all sorts of jockeying for identity and social stature.
I think that our class grouped itself into several cliques: the boy crazy girls, the horse crazy girls, the sporty girls, the brainy girls and everybody else. Of these only the sporty girls could be self defined. The boy crazy girls were defined by the fact that boys pursued them, the horse crazy girls were defined by the fact that they had a horse, and the brainy girls were defined by the honor roll that was read and posted each quarter. Perhaps this is why divvying up teams was such a high stakes affair.
These cliques were pretty much mutually exclusive. I don’t think that any of the boy crazy girls would be considered brainy, in part because academic achievement was not a big turn on for the boys. And the horse crazy girls, well they were just in their own world as they galloped across the field whinnying. Although I occasionally flirted with being brainy, my identity was pretty much based on sports,. Therefore it was a big honor when the sports teacher selected me, along with my friend Kit Spaulding, to be captain of the softball team one afternoon. There in a row in front of us stood all our classmates squinting in the afternoon sun, wearing baggy green cotton shorts, and cute white button down shirts with Peter Pan collars, this being in an era before t-shirts were ever considered appropriate outerwear for girls. Some of my classmates were hopefully punching their fists into their mitts, some staring directly at me, some looking down and rubbing their shoes into the dirt.
At this instant, I felt the weight of responsibility that had been thrust upon me. Kit and I quickly made our selections, moving through the athletic, marginally capable, and then the totally inept. With horror, I realized that when there were only two left it would be my turn to make my selection. I felt like I was taking out a dull needle and stitching the scarlet letters “LOP" onto a fragile adolescent psyche - “Last One Picked,” the eternal stigma of schoolyard shame.
And there it was. Ty Winterbotham and Gale Runnells stood before me. Ty was relatively new to our school, and her almost translucent skin and thin frizzy hair made her an unfortunate target of casual adolescent cruelty. But the odd thing about Ty was that she was totally oblivious to our scorn, thought that the “kick me” sign pasted to her skirt was a laugh riot, and tolerated other meannesses with amazing good humor. She was the type of person who would not realize that being sent to play right field without a mitt was a form of damage control, rather than an affirmation of her fielding abilities. Ty would not understand the horror of being the last one picked. I did not know Gale Runnells particularly well, other than I seem to recall her nickname was Punnells. She was tall, clunky, totally unathletic and always seemed to have an unhappy look on her face. I had no idea what to do. Kit stood quietly next to me. Although the last one picked would be on her team, her hands would be clean and blameless. On an impulse, and perhaps in atonement for past sins, I picked Ty, who gratefully skipped over to my team, while Punnells trudged over to Kit’s team.
I have no recollection of the sad little game we probably played, but as we were filing back to the locker room to take our showers, Punnells came up to me and said, “I didn’t appreciate that you didn’t pick me. I know that I am not good at softball, but my mother told me that there was an accident when I was born and my right arm is weak and that is why I cannot throw well.” I was stunned. In the tight gossipy world we lived in, I felt sure that I would have known that Punnells had a birth mishap. For example, it was common knowledge who was adopted, whose parents were getting divorced and I had even overheard at the grocery store about a mother’s affair with the golf pro. I felt that I had been put into an impossible situation and it was utterly unfair to spring a disability on me after the fact. Even the meanest person would not make a disabled person the last one picked.
I struggled with my guilt for years, until I ran into Punnells at some black tie event, where she had emerged as a stunning, slim, glamorous beauty, a real boy crazy girl at last. I began to think that Punnells was brilliant and had skillfully invented her “damaged at birth” story to inflict maximum revenge. Mission accomplished.
Last One Picked
The day - - - - - - up as captain, I thought it would be fun,
Until I realized it meant that I had to cruelly single out someone.
I would designate the last one picked, and certainly it couldn’t be - - - - - - ,
That I would stigmatize, humiliate and likely destroy someone’s precious pride.
- - - - - - , Ty and Gale stood before me, the last two left and I had to name a name,
I don’t know why, but I picked Ty and poor Gale was never quite the same.
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Line Management
or the past 50+ years I have celebrated Christmas in exactly the same way – family get togethers and toting casseroles from suburb to suburb, trying to make sure that everyone had the same quality and quantity of gifts and filling up stockings with crappy little shit. Two years ago as I was gathering stocking stuffers I noticed the exact untouched pile of deodorants, socks and ramen noodles on our son’s bureau from the previous year, so I just scooped them up and recycled them. As teenagers, all the kids really wanted was some money, but it was just too crass to hand over a check on Christmas morning, so for a couple of years I made up a Christmas Jeopardy game – Family pets for $10, please!! But even that was getting stale. It was time to get out of town and put Christmas behind us.
So with great foresight, researching and planning, we arrived at O’Hare airport as 6:30 AM on Saturday, December 23rd to start the first leg of our trip to Ecuador. It had never occurred to me that this was possibly the busiest travel day of the year, but as we entered the airport, we were greeted with an absolute seething mass of people. It was an overwhelming morass of gridlocked families, huge baggage carts trying to pick their way through braided lines of jostling people, all encompassed in an atmosphere of frustration, panic and weary resignation. Everyone realized that there was no way that you could get through the sequential bottlenecks of baggage and security to emerge free in the golden land beyond toward the beckoning gates.
And there we were the four of us, feeling absolutely doomed and helpless, witnessing the first domino tipping and slowly falling. If we missed our flight to Miami, we would likely be a day late to Quito, in which case our guided trip would have to leave without us, and we would probably only be able to catch up to them via an airlift to the Amazon basin. But one thing that I have always told my kids is to make sure you are in the right line and best line, and not to just stand meekly in amongst the other herded masses. So I told them to stay put in the doomed line while I reconnoitered. In some airports there is a secret check in counter around the corner that is ostensibly for checking oversized baggage, like a bass fiddle or bicycle (please don’t tell anyone else). One year when many flights were cancelled, I was able to triumphantly break through the clutter and successfully rebook to San Jose, saving a weekend trip to San Francisco. But no such luck here.
The clotted crush of people and merged lines may it hard to notice, but I spotted one line that had only four or five people in it. As I approached I saw that it was marked “For Airport Personnel” only. But I also noticed that one young woman in this line was clearly not personnel. She was wearing tight fitting jeans, some sort of abbreviated top displayed her taut midriff adorned with a belly button ring, and was saying, “Like when I get to Cabo, like I am really go to get tan.”
“Do you work for the airlines?” I asked her. “No, she said,” someone just told me to stand here.”
“Well guess what I said ,” I said, “That the same person told me to stand in this line next to you. Could you please save my place so that I can find the rest of my family?”
She was clearly unwilling to commit to saving my place, since we both knew were on the knife-edge of disaster, and she, understandably, did not want to be responsible for the downfall of our vacation. But I hurriedly corralled the rest of my family and established our undeniable and resolute presence in this line. Although I was still as tense as a tick, I now had a plan that had some chance of success, and I felt a moment of superiority as I surveyed the scene. It occurred to me that this barely controlled airport chaos represented the foundation of democracy. Democracy can only work when there is some respect for the law and for rules. As I looked around I realized that my fellow Americans were by and large willing to follow the rules and meekly stand in futile lines waiting their turns.
And then with horror, I realized that one of the American airlines service representatives was escorting people to cut in line ahead of us. He looked at us and said “I’m sorry, these folks will be late for their plane unless they check in.” At this moment, I realized that this guy was tugging at the very fabric of democracy – bribery. Clearly these desperate and clever families had slipped the airport guy a $20, $50 or $100 to skip ahead of the line. Yes perhaps I had stretched the rules a little bit by finding a better line, but bribery was clearly breaking the rules. There was now only one person ahead of us in the line, and I knew that we had to make it the finish line quickly before our little democracy collapsed into chaos - at any moment this line could be over run with people claiming that they would be late for their plane. And certainly the majority of us were well-heeled vacationers and not a desperate people trying to escape the icy grip of Communism, but a scene like the last plane out of Saigon came to mind.
And then we were through. Last step security. If could have hoisted this heft, I would have done a cartwheel though security in my stocking feet, but I settled for a grateful jig. We made it to our gate with 20 minutes to spare, and I became the Mom Who Saved Christmas.
The airport was jammed and without a - - - - - - - - plan I knew we’d be late
Unable to check our bags, get through security and get to the gate.
Unless there was some sort of miracle and the line magically diminished,
I knew that our Christmas vacations was totally - - - - - - - - .
I should have just - - - - - - - - my wallet to find money to give to the counter clerks,
Because now I now that bribery is the best way to grease the works.
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Family Car Ride
lthough the seven hour car ride to our vacation spot has remained largely unchanged over the past 40 years, the context has gone through several evolutions. As kids, the absolute keyed up anticipation of summer vacation made the trip endless; with 5 kids there was endless fidgeting in the car, siblings crossing imaginary lines and getting punched as promised and endless "when are we going to get there’s." These trips in the 60s were without benefit of CDs or even tapes. Only AM was available, and the best hope was that there was a Cubs game to listen to, although generally in a losing cause, with the reception slowly evaporating along with the Cubs hopes, as we inched our way further north. It wasn't until I had children of my own that I realized the torture of the drive, endlessly trying to entertain or disentangle twitchy children, accepting the futility of an enforced seat belt policy, and in general just enduring and wondering whether "family vacation" was really just an oxymoron like "butthead" or "military intelligence."
The teenage years were probably the golden years - a newly minted driver's license, minimal responsibilities, a car at your disposal, gas paid for, vacation paid for, it was freedom. You were a roll, screaming along the highway with the music cranked. I was a new driver driving with Butch Turner and Bill Campbell when I passed my first car on a two lane road. We were listening to a live concert of some sort on our 8 track, which coincidentally erupted in wild applause just as I completed this minor coming of age achievement. Bill said, "for her next number Bobbie will pass a truck and a semi." Perhaps now I have also entered another golden phase, although the lack of responsibilities of the teenage years are long gone. But the kids have gotten to the stage where they can read on their own in the car, and even help in the driving. As we prepare for our trip up north this year, I realize that I am now passing the baton again, the fifth generation to do so. Our son is now old enough to drive by himself and I see that he has got his iPod in order and is ready to roll.
Preparations for the trip would start a week before the target date as everyone began assembling items in the front hall. This was the great beauty of a car ride; you really didn't need to pack things, they could just be flung into the trunk. What an odd assortment - various boots and shoes, a new doubling cube for the backgammon board, paper bags with bottles of booze, a carton of cigarettes for my father, a Sears catalogue, and inflatable raft and other odds and ends. The entire car, probably a big boat of a station wagon with faux wood paneled siding, would be packed the night before we left. Since there was no particular concern about seatbelts, in fact there may not have been any, we were free to create little nooks for sleeping and reading, by stacking and moving the bags around. I am sure there were endless discussions about who "dibs'ed what seat. Then we were left to wait for morning and although we would have eagerly foregone the basic necessities of food and water to be on our way, we had to have breakfast, clean up breakfast and also clean up our rooms. My mother obviously saw an easy way to apply leverage.
My mother hated to stop for the sole purpose of going to the bathroom. As our family never shied away from a competition, my mother would announce a reward for the person who could go the longest without having to go to the bathroom. I don't think that there was actually a prize, but there was a powerful incentive to avoid penetrating questions such as "how badly do you really have to go", or "are you sure you can't make it," or "why didn't you go when we stopped for lunch?" While perhaps not healthy, this speeded up the trip immeasurably. I guess that I am proud to say that I usually won the contest and that this acquired skill has come in handy over the years. Occasionally, some one would bring a friend along, who would be forced into the contest. I can't imagine the consternation this poor child must have felt, who perhaps did not know the entire family well, and certainly not my parents. What could the rest of the vacation be like?
Car games were the staple of entertainment, and my mother was in charge, generally creating variations on standard games like "20 Questions" and "Bingo". We had quickly grown tired of the stale car bingo cards we had, which had such pedestrian items as "bird on a wire," or "tow truck." My mother quickly set about spicing up the game and created "Dingo Bingo. She improved the "Bingoes" we had to find, and improved the scoring. For example, "bird on a wire" and "tow truck" and "cow" were nixed and replaced by more interesting categories such as "religious lawn decoration," “man with a hairy back” or “bra on a clothesline.” Each had a point value based on the degree of difficulty.
Then she created a new category called "Dingoes." These were easy to find items, like "American flag" or "dog," but they were only scored if you could find them in combination with something else. For example, if you could spot a dog standing next to religious lawn decoration, you added the dingo score to the bingo score. There was also some sort of bonus if you could find two bingoes together. You could also apply for a special award if you saw something unusual. My brother recalls that he got extra points for spotting a man standing on his hands on a golf course, and a women in hair curlers juggling. These innovations added a major element of strategy to the game. For example, you wouldn't just want to score the first man with a hairy back you saw, but you may want to hold out for a simian man standing next to an American flag. Your strategy might be tempered by other conditions. Certainly it would be easier to find a man with a hairy back in the summer, and religious lawn decorations around Christmas. However, I recall one well known house - in Crivitz perhaps - (something memorable happened in Crivitz, but I am not sure if this is it), that kept its religious lawn decoration - some sort of Creche - up all year.
I have always believed that Dingo Bingo has immense commercial potential. At one point my mother wanted to sell the concept to McDonald's; the Dingo Bingos could be printed on their paper placemats, which then could be reused for the game, if not overly smeared with grease and catsup. Like many other of my mother's cottage industries, this one did not quite get off the ground, but it might be worth another try. Aspiring entrepreneurs can contact me by e-mail.
Every summer vacation we pile into the car for the seven hour car ride,
Where the scenery consists of endless farmland passing slowly by - - - - - - -.
The - - - - - - - journey is enlivened by my mother’s unique Dingo Bingo game,
Where entries such as nose picker or splattered road kill are her claim to fame.
But when the farmland - - - - - - - and is replaced by forest just north of Green Bay,
We all shout and cheer because now we know we have gone more than half way.
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Slipping Out of the Demographic
ge 50 has always been considered a significant milestone, spawning endless parties, toasts, silly hats and, dare I say it, trite doggerel. However, I have come to regard age 50 as merely another year, significant only because of our 10 digits and the resulting base 10 method of counting. Far more significant is age 54, the age when most advertisers regard you as nothing but worthless chaff as they hone in on the more desirable 18 to 54 age range. Here is where they concentrate their advertising dollars, thus driving entertainment options. I find myself slipping out of the desirable demographic. Increasingly TV shows are a total puzzlement and the ads indecipherable. (In a related development, the TV clicker has acquired the complexity of an airplane dashboard and somehow our marginal TV viewing keeps getting interrupted with shows about Hulk Hogan that have inexplicably been recorded.)
The situation reminds me of my splendid bowl of fresh raspberries, which nature has devised as nothing more than a way to disperse the seeds - attractive packaging hiding the real agenda. I adore raspberries and keenly await each summer as they come into season, putting them in yogurt or on toast. Although I would never buy cream expressly as a raspberry vehicle, on the few occasions that there is some cream left over a previous night’s party dessert, I will indulge with a bowl of raspberries and cream. In joyous anticipation I will note the small glistening globules of cream clinging to the septated raspberrylettes - a vision of pure beauty. And then like a bear or a bird, I will pass the seeds, the whole point of the exercise.
If only advertising were so painless. However, nature has not caught on to our efficient whisk-away plumbing system and continues to spew forth. Advertisers, however, are on to the game. Through countless focus groups, research and demographics they have concluded that I am fallow ground, and whatever seed they might present, however attractively packaged, will remain infertile, spawning no impulse purchases, no wild spending, no change in habits. So at age 54, no one bothers to serve me any fruit.
You might think that turning 50 was bad, but I’ll tell you what is worse,
When you get to 54, you’ll really want to put the time clock in - - - - - - - .
On the basis of focus groups, demographics and many other studies,
Advertisers - - - - - - - their budget for the young and not us fuddy-duddies,
No penalty is - - - - - - - , TV has become a wasteland, barely worth a look,
Rejected, neglected and disaffected, now I reach for a book.
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The Vindictive Snack Mom
greeted my first assignment as snack mom with undiluted pleasure. Like many of my contemporaries, I had delayed childbearing into the thirties, and had only two children. Now was the time for commitment to participate intimately in the life of my children and to bear witness to every school pageant, field trip and sports event. And if the new system required snack moms, then I was going to be one kick-ass snack mom, with creative and healthy snacks. The initial enthusiasm quickly soured by the second semester; instead of hand baked goodies, like everyone else I rushed to the store to get a box of just-in-time sugary Teddy grahams (who came up with that genius marketing idea) and a jug of sugary juice. I didn’t want to buck the system right away and become a pariah amongst the other attentive moms, but it did seem to me that children could bring their damn snack, thank you very much!
Snack mom is also very akin to the Halloween greeter, who must sit by the door for several hours and dispense candy to waves of unknown children. In one of the neighborhoods we lived in, our street consisted of houses that were fairly close together with short driveways, a very efficient street to trick or treat on. As the years went by, I realized that carpools were arriving on our street from adjacent suburbs, where I guess the trick or treating was less fertile. I would see a car pull up at the end of the street and disgorge six or seven kids with barely a token costume on. The car would wait while the kids made their way down our block, where they would then be picked up and moved to the next block.
Trick or treating was a two adult job, one to escort the kids, another to man the homefront. For several years in a row, Nick managed to be out of town for Halloween, so I had to juggle both responsibilities. I didn’t want our house to get egged, so I put a bowl of candy on our doorstep with a note asking children not to be greedy and take one candy each. When I came back after about an hour, all the candy AND the bowl was gone. The next year, I simply spread the candy out on the porch on top of some newspaper. One year I got home from work a little bit late, and Vashni, our babysitter from India, was fielding the first trick or treaters. She was entirely unfamiliar with the traditions of Halloween, so was quite perplexed when children came to the door asking for candy. She rushed around the house to find something to give the children and ended up putting a popsicle in each of their trick or treat bags!
I think that my mother shared the same frustrations, but she got very inventive about venting them. I remember that she would take a piece of raw liver in her hand, and ask all the older trick or treaters to shake hands with her. They would be left with sticky calf’s blood on their hands. I can’t imagine that this would be tolerated in this day and age, and would expect a summons from the police or children’s services. There was also a group of boys that mother particularly disliked, because they always took large handfuls of candy without any words of thanks. One year she got a whole bowl of tapioca and dotted some decoy candy on top of it. When the boys showed up, she offered them the bowl, and said, “We have too much candy this year, so just dig in as deep as you can!”
I thought that I would outgrow snack mom responsibilities as my children got into middle school, but then came the list of snack moms for all the soccer games. There were two snack moms for each game, one to provide the cut-up oranges at half time, the other to bring juice and a cookie at the end of the game. Some of the parents went whole-hog and arrived with a cooler on wheels lugging it across to field 13, or wherever we were. The kids would dig into the snacks, and then litter the ground with orange peels, water bottles, candy wrappers, etc. We then got an announcement asking the snack moms to stay after the game, since if there was too much garbage on the field, the team would be assessed a fine by the city. As the home team, this meant that we also had to pick up after the visiting team. I frankly snapped at this point and my revenge is recounted in the fanagram below:
I resented the concept of soccer snack mom, but the real coup de grace
Was watching greedy kids - - - - - - - open cookies, throwing garbage on the grass,
There were no thank yous - each one seemed a rapacious - - - - - - -,
I was so annoyed, I immediately began devious plans to retaliate.
My resolve was like - - - - - - - as I planned my counter attack,
Should I spike the juice, or perhaps give them a moldy snack?
When I found some lemons my plan began to crystallize,
I mixed them in with cut-up oranges for a - - - - - - - surprise!
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Childhood Sins
he first distinct memory of my childhood is unfortunate, mainly because I always wanted to be a good girl. It was in junior kindergarten and Emily Clow and I were tussling for a block. I prevailed and then hit her in the head with it and was banished into the corner for a time out. I was further humiliated because I was not allowed to participate in the May Pole dance and had to sit and watch with the senior kindergartners, who wondered why I was so isolated. I distinctly remember wearing a pair of green twill shorts that opened with a flap like sailor pants, and there were three white buttons on each side of the flap and white piping.
I can’t remember why we were fighting over the block, quite possibly I was provoked and Emily deserved what was coming, but I know that I was particularly irked because Kathy Washburne and I were told by our mothers that Emily had to be our friend since Emily’s mother was their friend. This seemed to be particularly unfair even though we both liked Emily and she is still a lifelong friend. Kathy and I took out revenge on our mothers by secretly drawing stick figures of Emily with green stuff coming out of her nose. I also silently vowed that I would never hand pick friends for my children. This is part of the novelty of the memory - that at the age of 5 I would have such a distinct image of myself as a mother, and further that this image had totally changed by senior kindergarten. In the next year’s 1958 yearbook our class was all asked what they were going to do when they grew up, and my response was a very tepid, “I guess I’ll be a mother,” as if sadly accepting the affluent suburban stereotype and reluctantly foregoing any consideration of alternative careers.
The next seven years went swimmingly well as far as being a good girl went. While I am sure that I inflicted the usual array of casual childhood cruelties, they were all unintentional and I have no memory of them. However, I hit a major derailment in 7th grade when a new student with the improbable name of Ty Winterbotham arrived. She was extremely frail and fragile looking with wispy and frizzy hair - an immediate outsider. Further she was saddled with an overbearing and buddinsky mother who made her life difficult. Ty had an open and engaging personality, which made our disregard even more cruel. I am glad to say that it was not me who plotted to put the “hit me” sign on her back, but my quite compliance was equally cruel. I still remember her unwittingly skipping down the hall with us dissolving in laughter as we saw the sign stuck to the hem of her skirt. When she discovered the sign, probably after someone smacked her in the head, she removed it with a huge smile, grossly misinterpreting this attention as acceptance.
Let’s see, it has now been over 40 years since I have been trying to make it up to Ty, and I still can’t seem to get it right. Ty and I have stayed in touch over the years, particularly since she also went to medical school a few years behind me. I was working as a pathologist and was on duty on the day of her wedding, which I had accepted. As the weekend pathologist, I was in charge of processing all specimens that were removed at surgery, which were divided into “bigs” and “littles.” “Littles” were anything that could be crammed into a cup, such as an appendix, a gallbladder, pieces of a prostate, etc, and “bigs” were everything else, which included a lung, a bowel, a hip, etc. There were some days where I thought I could create a whole person if I stitched all the specimens together. Anyway, on this particular day, I was awash in “bigs,” particularly a big pile of placentas that had to be processed. Even though I was completely gloved and gowned, I still needed some serious cleaning up before I could consider going out in public. I suppose if I had really rushed I could have made Ty’s wedding, but I just didn’t go, basically blew it off.
The next day, Ty called me. Here it was the first day of her wedded bliss, and the top thing on her “to-do” list was to call me and ask me if I was okay because she had missed me at her wedding. I was stunned, how could she possibly have noticed that I wasn’t there in the presumed throng of people? Years later, I suddenly thought that perhaps this wasn’t the large society wedding that I had envisioned, but an intimate affair, with me, a noticeable no show at the head table. Still guilty about the 7th grade incident, I was now in a very deep hole. I tried to explain about bigs, littles and placentas, but it was clear that Ty realized that her wedding was not a priority for me. That was perhaps 25 years ago, and I have still made little progress out of my hole. I clearly need to talk directly to her, but in addition to trying to be a good girl, I am also a non confrontational girl. Perhaps I will include her on the fanagram distribution list and she will read this as a belated apology.
Please gather around all kith and - - - - ,
I’m here to confess my childhood sins.
Kathy and I were mean to Emily I suppose,
When we drew her with mottled - - - - and runny nose.
I picture Susan as she - - - - the sign that says “Please hit me in the head”
We taped it to Ty’s back and laughed when people did what it said.
My heart still does - - - - as I think of those cruel times and bitter tears,
But please, hasn’t the statute of limitations has run out after 40 years?
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Living the Dream
was over 30 years old by the time I finished my college, medical school and residency training. One of the most joyful aspects of this feat of endurance was the realization that I would no longer be subjected to standardized tests. The guiding philosophy of the medical school I attended was not to train you to be a good doctor, but instead to train you to pass the medical boards on the first try. Therefore, all tests were in the style of the medical boards consisting of a dreary procession of multiple/multiple choice questions on isolated medical factoids.
And with all this testing came the periodic nightmares that have achieved the status of urban legend among college students, who just refer to “The Dream.” The dream consists of some sort of variation of anxiety over the final exam. A frequent version is the panicky realization that you have forgotten that you had signed up for a course and are totally unprepared for the final exam. My anxiety dreams tended to be more organizational. For example, I would dream that I had a pencil box full of No. 2 pencils, but none of them would have an eraser, or all the pencils would have jumbo erasers but be unsharpened. In other instances, I would be rushing around dark unnamed corridors desperately trying to find the right classroom, or there would be some sort of veil over my eyes so that I could not find my way through the corridors. Anxiety about public speaking was an odd variation of the dream, where my mouth would inexplicably accumulate some sort of debris. In the dream, I would attempt to discretely scoop all the material, and then struggle to find someplace to dispose of it, all the while the debris was accumulating again. With the formal end of my academic career, I thought that these dreams would vanish.
But my anxious dreaming mind quickly found a new outlet - getting to the airport on time. I would dream that I couldn’t find the correct suit case, or my clothes or the ticket would be missing, the car didn’t have any gas, the keys were gone. Perhaps these dreams were built more on actual experience, since each one of these events has occurred in isolation. But then one day last summer, all aspects of the dream came true in one epic trip to the airport to pick up Ned and Susie. I knew this airport pickup was going to be slightly more complicated than usual in this post 9/11 age, since neither of us had cell phones, but I felt confident that I could get to the airport, park and meet them in baggage claim.
At the appointed hour, I went to the garage to get into the car, and was aghast to see that both of our cars were gone. We had recently moved into the neighborhood and I did not feel comfortable in asking for this somewhat aggressive favor from our swanky neighbors. I then hopped on my bike and madly pedaled over to my father’s house, assuming there would be an idle car, particularly since he no longer drove. As I huffed and puffed into the driveway, I was stunned to see a totally empty driveway and house. I was seriously running late at this point, so I took a big gulp and decided to call my parents’ life long neighbor Mrs. Reed. Now I have come to know Mrs. Reed as a generous and loyal friend, but growing up, she was a figure of imposing authority, and somewhat persnickety in her tastes. I was afraid of her then and those feelings had lingered for over 40 years. I remember once saying to her, “Mrs. Reed can I ask you a favor?” and her response was, “Well you can always try.”
Mrs. Reed immediately responded to my plight and minutes later I was on my way in an immaculate Volvo. I wanted to return the car to her in the exact same condition, so I mentally noted which radio station was on, the position of the seat, and the gas gauge. My perilous situation seemed to have righted itself - until I reached the first toll booth and realized that the Reed’s car did not have an EZ pass and I did not have any change. Now normally I would just blast through the EZ pass, which I have done several times in my mother-in-law’s car, but I did not dare to do it in Mrs. Reed’s car lest she get a ticket in the coming months. I then resorted to a strategy that I had often used with the kids. I figured that no matter what I did, I would always be an embarrassment to them, so why not do something that truly deserving of their embarrassment? Therefore, whenever we were at a toll booth, I would stop, open the door and pick up the loose change abandoned by people whose errant toss had missed the toll booth. I would point out to the kids that some people were willing to just throw money out the window, but not this family. The kids would roll their eyes and slink down in the seat as I picked up dimes, nickels and the occasional quarter. Now this strategy came in handy. The toll at this booth was about a buck, so I had to park the car at the side of the road, and scrounge at several different toll booths until I got enough change.
I breathed a sigh of relief as now I was in sight of the airport, and only about 15 minutes late. As I drove toward the parking lot, I was horrified to see that for the first time ever, the parking lot was full, and all cars were being directed to remote parking, which required taking a tram back to the terminals. I had erupted in a nervous sweat at this point since I had no way of communicating with Ned and Susie, and decided to try my luck at the international parking, which was much closer than remote parking. However, mine was not an original thought, and I joined a competitive sea of cars jostling and milling around trying to nab the first open spot. I almost got side-swiped in the precious Volvo as someone aced me out, so I decided to try a more focused strategy my mother had once used. I drove to the spot where people were exiting from the terminal and spotted an overburdened and bleary eyed couple and offered to give them a ride to their car if I could have their spot. Success! I raced into the terminal, wild eyed, sweating, and disheveled, to find Ned and Susie peacefully waiting for me. I relaxed as well, and we turned around and headed back to international parking. However, as I stood on the sidewalk, I suddenly realized that in the rush of getting to the airport, I had neglected to notice the color, style or license plate number of the Reeds’s car nor could I remember what row I had parked it in …
If you have a huge gap between what you need and what you’ve got,
You might not care if your tossed coin misses the toll booth - - - - .
But for - - - - of people throwing money out the window is the epitome of waste
And typical of slothful Americans whose wanton excess is in such poor taste.
So if you want to participate in a most lucrative - - - - and found,
Just open the door next to the tollbooth to find coins strewn on the ground.
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When Jesus Walks
unday our carillon bell choir was scheduled to play during the prelude and the offertory. The prelude is a snap, since this is when the congregation is filing in, and the noise drowns out any mistakes that might be made. The offertory is another story. It is drop dead quiet and all eyes are fixated on the choir, standing in the front wearing these ridiculous royal blue robes. The robes are made out of some sort of dense unbreathable polyester concoction, so that you are essentially trapped in your own escalating body heat as all eyes are upon you. In addition, the mature age of our ladies choir guarantees that at any moment several members could erupt in a torrent of hormone-induced sweat, which cannot be discretely addressed since both hands are gripping the bells. At one particularly suffocating moment, I likened these robes to the memorable coat of gold paint in the James Bond movie, Goldfinger. The poor starlet died because they did not leave a space at the base of the spine for the skin to breathe.
For the offertory, the choir director had selected the piece, "When Jesus Walks." Apparently this is an established hymn, but the composer had turned this into a jazz piece, and for the entire 5 months we rehearsed this, I never did hear the tune. I only had 4 bells to play, the low E and F and the accompanying sharps and flats. The rhythm was very wacky, abruptly switching from 4/4, to 2/4 to 3/4 and then to something called 5/4. In general, I am most comfortable with a good stolid march, like Onward Christian Soldiers, so this was bewildering. Also you were supposed to hit the bells differently at different points in the piece, some rung normally, some muffled into the foam pad on the table, some struck with a mallet, some waved in the air, and this was more than my unmusical mind could process. And in the first two measures I was the only bell that played, where I was responsible for establishing the pace and rhythm, and in the last measure, I had a little solo run. So my focus was on the beginning and the end, and I figured that any success over the seven middle pages would be just gravy.
When I first started playing the bells, I diligently tried to play all my notes, which I carefully circled in different colors on the sheet music. But as time went on, I realized that I did not have to play all the notes, particularly since I was assigned to the low bells that do not carry the tune (however, in this piece I could have been playing the tune but just didn't realize it). I could judiciously delete a few notes here and there without telling anyone, and have a stress free experience. How does the saying go about the slippery slope of compromise? "God grant me the wisdom to play the notes I can play, and delete the ones I can't and the grant me the wisdom to know the difference."
However, I got it in my mind that I was going to nail this sucker, and after we played the prelude, I took the sheet music back to the pew while awaiting the offertory. Through various hymns, sermonettes for youth, announcements, joys and concerns, etc, I tapped out the beat on my knees, using my palms for the ploink and a closed fist for the doink. In the background I could hear the minister nattering on about how humans were as dumb as sheep that inadvertently walk off cliffs, or walk into a corner and can't back out. I was a bit irked to be compared to a dumb sheep, but I guess the take home message was that we are so lucky to have someone like JC be our shepherd.
Anyway as the sermon ended, I leapt up full of confidence. I should have stuck to the original plan. The first and last measures were flawless, but the middle was seriously lacking in gravy. Ploinks were doinks, and sharps were flats, and I felt about as clueless as a sheep stepping off a cliff. The conductor was desperately trying to shepherd us through this nightmare and to her credit everyone arrived at the end at the same time for the final chord. She managed a wan smile and quietly said, "good work ladies, that was a hard piece." In the aftermath between services, I was delighted to learn that everyone misplayed notes. One women said that when she was frantically trying to turn the page, she grabbed several pages by mistake. This is actually quite easy to do, since we are required to wear cotton white gloves similar to the ones that Mickey Mouse always wears, and consequently lose any tactile sense. However, this women turned so many pages at once that she ended up briefly playing an entirely different hymn, and then when she realized her mistake could not find her way back home!
Before the - - - - - of the hymn my nerves jangle and quiver,
But as the conductor raises the baton, its time to stand and deliver.
I only have four - - - - - to play but this piece has an odd jazzy beat,
I freeze up and miss so many of them that my defeat is complete.
I think I hear a smattering of snickers, moans and groans,
As the congregation winces at the sound of the dissonant - - - - -.
Am I the culprit, the mill - - - - - around this choir's neck?
Hey - the minister insists we're not perfect so I say "what the heck."
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Road Trip
have made the seven hour car ride straight north and back about 4 times per year. While sports radio is entertaining, once you get north of Green Bay, both Milwaukee and Chicago reception is sketchy, and you delve into the more rural menu of polkas, religious talk shows and recipes for tater tot casseroles. Therefore, I have gotten into the habit of prefacing each trip by a visit to the local library to pick up an audio book. There they have an extremely eclectic collection of such things Bill Clinton memoirs, ancient Agatha Christie mysteries, a few potboilers and some classics like Shakespeare and Dickens. For this trip, Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov caught my eye. I was familiar with both movie renditions, the first starring James Mason in the late 1950s as the pederast Humbert Humbert, and the more recent 1990s version starring the magnificent Jeremy Irons. Both were scandalous, as the story told in luxuriant detail the Englishman’s obsession with prepubescent “nymphets,” specifically his orphaned stepdaughter. I had found it odd that the second version was considered so salacious that it went straight to video and never hit the big screens. This was a testament to the power of suggestion, since there are no overt scenes of improper behavior in either version, and certainly one sees much worse on the nightly news, talk shows, and primetime network fare.
So somewhere north of Milwaukee, I popped in Casette one, and immediately realized that the reader was none other than Jeremy Irons, whose sonorous tones were simultaneously reptilian, lecherous and utterly compelling. The writing style, lost completely in the movies, was gorgeous, a tour de force of relentless alliterations that carried the story along while concealing the fact that I was basically listening to soft porn. Any less masterful style would have rendered this story into just another tawdry episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. That Bill Clinton could write of his amorous debacles so well. So I would heartily recommend Lolita for your next long distance journey, but would caution you to pay attention lest you carelessly swerve into oncoming traffic. I myself was happy to arrive home safely with only one speeding ticket (70 in a 55 MPH zone, but on a totally deserted stretch of highway where only total losers would adhere to the speed limit) and one warning (53 in a 45 MPH zone in a tiny town that presumably makes a tidy sum out of their contrived speed trap.)
And so the following is an attempt at the writing style of Nabokov’s Lolita. As I type this, I wonder if my little fanagram project has gone overboard and I have grown soft in the head.
Lolita
By Humbert Humbert
Ah my nymphet, with languid limbs and dewy - - - -,
Your bare necked tawny nape, and puerile hips,
Your feckless sibilant - - - - is the essence of pure bliss,
And beckons me forward to proffer a clandestine kiss.
I lie helpless and bewitched in your tremulous thrall
Into your voluptuous abyss, I - - - -, tumble and fall.
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Let Yourself Go, Part 1
ne day I was sitting in the kitchen as my mother arrived from the grocery store and starting unloading groceries, as she had probably done almost once every day for at least 30 years. But she hummed and there was a joyous zip to her step. She suddenly turned to me and said in a triumphant tone, “You won’t believe it. I saw Susie in the grocery store. I have not seen her in about 10 years, and she has LET HERSELF GO!” I had only heard of Susie by reputation as an elegant member of Lake Forest’s social elite, but my mother offered me no further details on this peculiar nugget of information, probably because she did not want to display the cattiness she was secretly enjoying.
Quite likely glamorous Susie was the life of a party, surrounded by a phalanx of sycophantic men only too eager to laugh at her jokes, pour her a drink, or swing her around the dance floor. Lake Forest was populated by a swell set, who might hire the band Cream to play at their daughter’s debut, rocking out on a dance floor placed at the bottom of an empty swimming pool. While this might have been Susie’s milieu, it was not something that my parents were part of, I think by mutual agreement. I never thought of my mother as a beautiful woman. Several times she confided in me that when she was younger, some people thought that she looked like Ingrid Bergman. However she always said this with a roll of her eyes and a shake of her head, implying that everyone was crazy to think that she could ever aspire to the cool elegance of this international movie star. While I could see the vague resemblance to Ingrid Bergman in pictures of her in her twenties, at this point she was deep into the throes of mothering 6 children, and clearly had no time for elegance.
My mother never had any interest in style, almost to the point of excess. She could spend the entire day in a one piece bathing suit that looked more like a children’s romper. She loved playing tennis in her bathing suit, and on the occasions that she was required to wear white, she seemed to delight in producing some rumpled old outfit, and completed the look by wearing black socks.
She abhorred shopping and had only a couple of outfits for the few formal parties that my parents did attend. One of her classic outfits was her pink “peek-a-boo” dress. This dress featured a really rather sedate rectangular cut out centered above her modest cleavage, but she loved pasting things into the cut out. I remember one evening she sailed off to a party with S&H green stamps decorating her chest. Collecting green stamps did not carry any social cachet in Lake Forest, and in fact was something that you would only do very discretely, but my mother chose to blatantly wear them on her chest. Another evening she pasted dark black dog hair in the cut out. I truly don’t think that this was premeditated and was not designed to send any particular message, she just wanted to cause a stir. I envision her looking into the mirror, thinking, “How should I enhance this dress tonight,” and glancing around the room, she spotted the lazy dog, grabbed some scissors and thought, “That’s just the ticket.” My father was so horrified at this performance that he banned the peek-a-boo dress to the back of the closet, never to be seen again.
Clearly from a starting point of Ingrid Bergman, my mother had “let herself go” in terms of elegance, but she did it such a conscious and refreshing style. Perhaps she knew that she could not compete with the upper echelon, but more likely she simply had no interest and considered this a losing long term strategy anyway. Certainly, my mother craved being the life of the party, but her strategy centered around playful humor and clever wit. In addition to her sartorial tweaks at elegant society, she was always ready to entertain with a poem or skit to commemorate birthdays and weddings. She amassed all these efforts into a bulging blue binder. Leafing through it I can see the passage of time, with poems written for the same person on his 40th, 50th and 60th birthday. I can envision party after party where she arrived with a guitar that she discreetly hid in the coat closet, waiting for the right time for her performance. Leaping up after dinner, she would begin her serenade, which frequently included a chorus that all the celebrants could raucously participate in.
Susie might have burned brightly, but as my mother so triumphantly realized, Susies’s tenure in the spot light inevitably succumbed to age and disrepair, while my mother could still command the stage and bring the house down well into her 70s. I remember one time when I was about ten I asked my mother what the word “sexy” meant. She replied, “It is a woman who is really fun and makes men laugh.” Even as a 10 year old, I thought that this definition was missing some key ingredient, but it was not one that mattered to my mother.
If you want to live - - - - - - - as a society queen,
And epitomize glamour and monopolize the party scene,
You can’t let yourself go, and will need to count each calorie,
And you must amass a wardrobe that looks like a stylish fashion - - - - - - -.
If you rely only on looks, you must treat aging like an - - - - - - - that must be treated,
But the ravages of age are a force that is not easily defeated.
Better have a plan B, because eventually wrinkles will line your face,
And you might be - - - - - - - forgotten as younger women clamor to take your place.
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Let Yourself Go, Part 2
y father began to contemplate retirement in the early 1980s, and thought computers might be a suitable focus for his newly acquired free time. When Nick spotted a computer seminar, we thought that this would be the perfect introduction. As the speaker tried to explain the difference between RAM and ROM, I could see that he was rapidly losing his older audience – eyes were glazing over. Then one older gentleman raised his hand and asked a simple question about spread sheets, “Who types in all the information into the computer?” The speaker was visibly nonplussed by this question, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Why you do of course.” I could see all of my father’s age group absolutely shut down, and the speaker totally lost his audience. My father’s working life came equipped with a secretary, and I don’t think he knew how to type. The only vague sense that he had of computers was that they were supposed to make his life easier. This clearly was not going to happen if he not only had to learn how to type, but also know what to type in if he wanted to use the computer to prepare a spreadsheet.
From that point on, my father just new technology go. Occasionally, he would ask, “What is this cyberspace?” Nick emerged from some family event exulting that he had finally explained cyberspace to my father, but multiple other family members chimed in that they had provided the same explanation. Basically, Dad really wasn’t that interested and just used cyberspace as a conversation device. He had decided that it wasn’t worth it to keep up with technology and that he was old enough to manage without it. After he retired, he developed two hobbies that probably had not changed since Ooga MaGook invented the wheel. He would spend hours in his wood shop with sandpaper, a screwdriver, hammer, rags and other simple tools. At his hobby farm, he could be found in the barn in his fancy cable knit sweater shoveling manure or lifting hay bales onto a cart. This strategy worked for about 20 years, but as technology evolved at a dizzying pace, he suddenly found himself totally out of touch with technologies that had now been woven into every day life – microwaves, cell phones and the internet.
One day I spent a great deal of time trying to explain to Dad the difference between a microwave and an oven. Of course, adding to the challenge was the fact that my father was a traditional husband who had never cooked anything, and probably didn't want to learn. I painstakingly explained that while you could put tinfoil in the oven, you could not put it in a microwave, and while you could put Saran wrap in the microwave you could not put it into the oven. The next day I arrived and was horrified to see that he was heating up a Styrofoam cup in the oven. Although I considered the difference between a microwave and oven pathetically obvious, I also realized that this type of distinction might be difficult to keep straight if I was starting from square one, as my father was. Another time he was at our house and spotted a bicycle cable that was tightly coiled and had a fancy looking lock holding the coil in place. “Is that a new kind of computer?” he asked. I initially thought I might be in the same realm as the psychiatrist who had written the book, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.” Then I realized that my father had no concept of what a computer might look like and had probably only heard how computers were getting smaller and turning into “lap tops.”
We have a basic strategy for whenever my father comes for dinner involving the good scotch, shrimp with cocktail sauce, no vegetables, and after dinner some sort of internet demonstration. He has been particularly interested in Google earth, where we were able to show him an aerial view of his own back yard, his child hood home and the boarding school he absolutely detested. Iron ore ships on the Great Lakes or antique cars are another abiding interest. But even as he was looking at the amazing technology of the internet, his basic question had not changed in 25 years. “Who types in all of this stuff?” he asked.
I tell this story not to poke fun at a lovely older man, but to wonder if I am unwittingly making similar decisions that will come back to haunt me. Without at least a toe hold on a virtually vertical learning curve, in several years I could be as befuddled as my father. Maybe I have already made this fateful error. I have never really needed a cell phone, as most of my work is done from home with minimal travel demands. Additionally, I felt that I was making a noble (if wrongheaded statement) about the folly of instant access. One time on a business trip I was supposed to be picked up at the airport by a car service. When there as no sign of a ride, I realized the folly of eschewing a cell phone. It was late at night and there were few stores open, so I had to wander around looking for change for the pay phone. Ten minutes later I was again wandering around looking for a pay phone. When I finally called the car service number, the phone rang in the pocket of the slovenly person sitting next to the phone eating a greasy hamburger. My ride had been sitting right next to me.
Now I get extremely anxious if we are driving in a car and Nick hands me his cell phone to make a call. While the first generation of cell phones resembled real phones, twenty years later and umpteen successive generations of blending cell phones with computers and hifis, this cell phone bears no relationship to what I would consider a phone, in fact it looks like a miniaturized airline cockpit. Nick would get exasperated as he once again tried to guide me through the steps, which involved double clicking, scrolling and negotiating a miniscule key board. In one instance, I hesitated and held one key down too long and the “phone” interpreted this as a signal to call the last number received and I ended up calling myself.
Clickers now dominant our lives. As a child I was amazed that my parents grew up without TV. Now my children are amazed that I grew up watching TV without a clicker. A profusion of household appliances now come with clickers, including a floor fan where one of the clicker selections is “breeze,” which translates to a random selection of fan speeds to simulate the real outdoors. We stayed in a ski condo once where the table in the living room had 6 clickers artfully arranged in a fan shape. I knew there was no way that I could decipher this array and actually was looking forward to a weekend of cards and board games. However, the teenager in our midst got both the DVD and TV up and running in no time. I have tenuous control over our own TV clicker, but often call on Nick for more problematic issues. One time the dog rolled over on the clicker and the TV went black; the situation was only resolved by a phone call to India. As part of Nick’s job, he often visits his clients in their home. One of his value added services is to coordinate clickers, if needed.
So what do I keep, and what do I let go? I will think about it this afternoon as I seek refuge in digging weeds with a shovel.
Technology advances every day as the earth - - - - - - -
With new innovations that the human mind creates.
Ancient Egyptians were probably puzzled by the - - - - - - - stone,
Now, millennia later, I am just as flummoxed by a cellular phone.
If keeping up with technologies is something you dread,
Watch out, soon your - - - - - - - will need a clicker to pop up your bread.
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Pathologic Memories
s an anatomic pathologist, I am frequently in a dilemma when asked what kind of work I do. For non-physicians the answer almost invariably requires further explanation. Sometimes I include the explanation all in one breath, “I’m a pathologist. We do autopsies and analyze anything that is removed at surgery, like an appendix or a lung.” Most people outside the medical world have some vague idea of what a pathologist does, but this idea generally conjures up grisly images. For many, pathology is equivalent to blood and guts, and a pathologist is some sort of social misfit working in some dank and poorly lit basement. “OOO – doesn’t that have something to do with embalming?” asked one visibly nervous secretary.
During my residency, I had collected various specimens from autopsies that showed the evils of smoking and drinking, including lungs and livers riddled with cancer or hearts showing the effects of hypertension or atherosclerosis. They were all stored in a large bucket of formaldehyde that I would take to schools for a very vivid demonstration of the consequences of poor life choices. At one school, a student raised her hand and earnestly asked, “Is someone making you do this job?” One day my friend Rudd peered into my trunk and said “what’s in that big bucket?” She was so intrigued that we immediately had an “organ recital” on her driveway, but her equanimity was unusual.
Pathologists also don’t get much respect among the physician community. The image is typically of the socially inept or English-as-a-second-language misfit who can’t hack it on the front lines of medicine. It is perhaps not surprising that pathology departments are often located in the basement of the hospital. There is a long standing joke stereotyping the different medical specialties, “Internists know everything and do nothing, surgeons know nothing and do everything, psychiatrists know nothing and do nothing and pathologists may know everything, but they are always a day late.”
While television and the movies have generally portrayed physicians as over-sexed and overworked surgeons, pathologists have been largely ignored, with a few notable exceptions. In a 1972 movie, the “Carey Treatment,” James Coburn plays the title role – a pathologist, of all things, who sets out to investigate the botched abortion and subsequent death of a colleague’s daughter and predictably becomes embroiled in the violent world of a drug cartel. Dr. Carey embodies all the traits usually reserved for surgeons. He is handsome, assumes that M.D. stands for “major deity” and surrounds himself with beautiful women. He even mouths off to a surgeon over the OR intercom, “Do you want the diagnosis now or do you want it right?”
The high point of the movie is when Dr. Carey, hospitalized for stab wounds, tussles with a would-be assassin. When Carey gets the upper hand, the drug-crazed killer offers him a deal and begins to pray. Dr. Carey then says the immortal words that have stereotyped surgeons for decades, “There is no God in this room, I make all the decisions.” The writers of this movie must have thought that it was necessary to explain why a lowly pathologist had acquired the persona of a surgeon. Early in the movie Carey confesses to one of his girlfriends that all he ever wanted to be when he grew up was a surgeon, but that “it didn’t work out.” While the movie does manage to make a pathologist look like something better than a feeble misfit, one also gets the impression that such a career should not be anyone’s first choice.
While casting Carey as a pathologist seemed like a curious choice, it began to make more sense when I realized that as a pathologist Carey can be both a physician and a detective, blending two of the basic staples of TV. The TV show Quincy picked up on this theme. Quincy was a crusading pathologist who risked his life to investigate crimes. When we first met, my future husband decided to watch a “Quincy” episode to learn about what I was doing all day. He was aghast to learn that pathologists routinely got shot at in the course of their work.
In 1982 I looked forward to the premier of “St. Elsewhere” which was billed as a real life look at residents in a decaying urban hospital. However, from the first episode, it became clear that the writers had pegged the pathology department as the source of black humor. Dr. Kathy Martin is a totally spacey pathologist and incidentally a nymphomaniac. She seduces her living conquests on the mortuary tables and later gets raped there. Another particularly grisly story line featured a pathologist selling body parts, specifically severed heads. “St Elsewhere” didn’t do pathologists any favors by portraying this specialty as a type of punitive purgatory for wayward internists. When Dr. Peter White is accused of Dr. Martin’s rape, all other medical privileges are stripped and he is sent (to the basement of course) to dabble harmlessly in pathology until the charges are investigated. While he cannot treat patients, apparently he can practice pathology without any particular training.
CSI:Crime Scene Investigation is a current family of TV shows that builds on the basic Quincy formula, with a lot of extra sex and technology thrown in. Instead of the aging Quincy, the detectives are either hunky men or women with exceptionally tight low cut shirts. In Quincy, the opening credits featured the grizzly pathologist in front of a line of policemen. Quincy says, “Welcome to the wonderful world of pathology.” As he rips the shroud off one corpse, all the policemen faint like a row of falling dominoes. CSI certainly includes plenty of blood and guts, but manages to glamorize the whole mess with exquisite slow motion simulations of bullets splintering skulls and shredded arteries spurting blood. The set is filled with all sorts of prop machines with blinking lights while the cast meticulously recreates crime scenes in artfully underlit sets of dark blue light.
Now I have worked in the city morgue, and I can tell you it was nothing like CSI. Every morning we would file into the over air-conditioned morgue that was so brightly lit you wanted to put on a jacket and sun glasses. Corpses gathered from the previous day were arrayed on stainless steel autopsy tables. You were supposed to eye all the bodies and then go stand next to the one that you wanted to work on. It was like picking out a blind date, only a whole lot creepier. There was occasionally a murder case, which was a lot more work than the “DIBs” patients (i.e. dead in bed). It was assumed that these poor souls had died of natural causes and thus warranted no more than a cursory autopsy. Occasionally the chief coroner would sweep into the room like a minor deity, particularly if there was some case that might require a press conference. Dr. Stein had become a faddish celebrity in Chicago when corpses of dozens of victims were unearthed under the basement of John Wayne Gacy, who held the top spot of serial killer for several years. Dr. Stein also was in the news during a prolonged heat wave in Chicago that killed many elderly people. I remember his complaint was not so much that the people had died, but that he was running out of storage room in the morgue.
Certainly forensic pathology has advanced in the past 25 years with fluids and fibers taking center stage, but even discounting the march of technology, it didn’t look like Dr. Stein contributed anything to the examination, and certainly the pathologists in the morgue were no crusading crime fighters like Quincy or the CSI cast. I remember one beautiful spring day we all felt like a road trip, and someone suggested that we visit a crime scene and try to find a bullet. Four of us hopped into someone’s convertible and arrived at what looked like a peaceful leafy neighborhood. We walked around to the back to inspect a porch where the crime had supposedly been committed. A bunch of neighborhood residents were hanging out on the porch, some were smoking dope. When we explained who we were, the residents visibly relaxed, and one said out loud to the group, “Don’t worry, its not vice, it’s just homicide.” We chatted with the folks for a while, made a token look for an embedded bullet, and then called it a day, headed back to the office, and wrote up a report saying that despite a diligent search, no bullet was found. No estimating angles, laser beams tracing a bullet’s path, and no discussion of whether or not the weapon was a Glock with a right twist.
So what do I care if the TV shows are unrealistic? With three different versions of CSI on the air, all in endless reruns on cable TV, I should embrace the newfound glamour and respect for pathologists. When someone asks what I do, I will now say with pride and conviction, “I am a pathologist, like CSI on TV. We solve crimes and make the world a safer place.”
As the autopsy starts, the pathologist reaches for her - - - - - - knife,
Slices open the body and searches for why this soul lost his life.
She inspects lungs and bowels that still glisten and quiver,
And samples each organ by cutting out a representative - - - - - -.
It turns out that human - - - - - - look just like what you buy at the store,
That’s why she has no longer eats organ meats for dinner any more.
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Shakespeare Wrote Doggerel
or about 2 years my mother and I worked together on a book of children’s poetry called Ned’s Journal, which described the “small and big life adventures of Ned,” a 10 year old boy. We were pleased to secure a publisher, Tatra Press, whose only previous publication was a guide to men’s clothing. While the book sold briskly in the 60045 zip code, sales fell dramatically off outside our home town– in fact there were virtually none – but that didn’t really matter. The principle goal was to get the book published.
My mother-in-law, who fashions herself as an arbiter of art and good taste, took a look at the book and said, “Why this is doggerel!” I bristled and gave Pat an unrecognized withering look. But then I realized that Ned’s Journal had that universal doggerelish beat of da-DAH, da-DAH, da-DAH/ dah, DA-da-da, DA-da-da dah. Then my pride of authorship kicked in and I thought yes, Pat is right, this is doggerel, but it was damn fine doggerel. The issue really was why doggerel was dismissed as an art form. I wondered how this poetic genre had gotten its poor reputation but had to go no farther than the on-line definitions of doggerel.
From Wikipedia
Doggerel describes verse considered of little literary value. The word is derogatory, from Middle English. Almost by definition examples of doggerel are not preserved, since if they have any redeeming value they are not considered doggerel. Doggerel might have any or all of the following failings:
• trite, cliche, or overly sentimental content
• forced or imprecise rhymes
• faulty meter
• misordering of words to force correct meter
From www.dictionary.com
dog•ger•el
n. Crudely or irregularly fashioned verse, often of a humorous or burlesque nature.
The derogatory tone of both these definitions is dispiriting, one can almost sense the contemptuous sniff from the anonymous Wikipedia author. If one judges literary value by what is taught in colleges, well, yes, doggerel may be wanting, but my contention is that doggerel is important to our lives and it should not be so cavalierly dismissed as an art. How many wedding albums include yellowed pieces of paper memorializing the awkward verse of a toast, how many birthdays and anniversaries are enlivened by friends and family standing up, willing to embarrass themselves by singing a poorly metered verse in a quavering and off-key voice? Such efforts are typically greeted with joyful groans and cheers in acknowledgement of the creative effort reflecting heartfelt good wishes. We all might like to write sonnets like Shakespeare, but realistically we settle for doggerel.
According to Wikipedia, overly sentimental content is a fatal flaw, but as I was sitting in church this past Sunday leafing through the hymnal, it occurred to me that many of these Presbyterian hymns could be classified as doggerel based on sappiness, to wit:
“Now the darkness gathers, stars begin to peep,
Birds and beasts and flowers soon will be asleep.
When the morning wakens, then may I arise,
Pure and fresh and sinless, in thy holy eyes.”
Don’t you agree that these verses to the hymn “Now the Day is Over” seem trite and oversentimental? And I am sure that I could find other hymns with off kilter meter to show that our treasured hymns fulfill multiple criteria for doggerel.
The online dictionary definition also states that doggerel can be defined by its “humorous and burlesque nature.” Here I see an opportunity to elevate doggerel to the rarified status of Shakespeare, since this towering linguistic icon suffuses all his plays and sonnets with incessant sexual puns and innuendos – the type of sophomoric puns that could be punctuated by a rimshot and an audience groan, progressing to burlesque, bawdy and then downright raunchy references. Shakespeare had the challenging task of appealing both to the masses and the English courts. Plays were wildly popular in Elizabethan England, and it is estimated 1 in 8 Londoners went to a play every week, ranging from the lowly laborers and apprentices, to country gentlemen, to aristocrats to Queen Elizabeth herself. Apparently bawdy and raunchy sexual wordplay was a real crowd pleaser across the entire spectrum of society.
The sexual puns that would be obvious to Shakespeare’s audience are now interpreted by modern readers as the epitome of English eloquence, simply because half of the time we probably don’t realize what Shakespeare is really talking about. By cross referencing “doggerel and Shakespeare” into Google, I stumbled across an interesting book called “Filthy Shakespeare,” which translates Shakespeare’s jargon into today’s vernacular. One of the first things you appreciate is the overwhelming number of idioms for “penis.” Basically you can assume that anything that is longer than it is wide is a phallic symbol. Also Shakespeare’s name itself is a sexual pun, since Will was a colloquialism for penis, vagina and sexual desire. And sorry to report this, but the word Shakespeare can roughly be translated to “masturbator.” So you can only imagine the kind of teasing the poor kid had to put up with.
Examples of Shakespeare’s idioms for male sexual organs include (but are certainly not limited to): beggar, carrot, dewlap, holy-thistle, instrument, kicky-wicky, little witness, needle, pizzle, potato-finger, pudding, three-inch fool and weapon. The corresponding female idioms are more numerous than males and include bird’s nest, bogs, dearest bodily part, low countries (including the Netherlands), medlar, rudder, salmon’s tail, snatch, tongue and velvet. Puns on sex itself include: boggler, change the cod’s head for the salmon’s tail, dance with one’s heels, dribbling dart of love, fill a bottle with a tun-dish, horsemanship, nose-painting, paddling palms and tickle one’s catastrophe. And I am just scratching the surface here.
Shakespeare certainly did not have to depend on clever idioms to get his point across. The following is an example of his signature word play, where the word “will,” repeated 13 times, can mean either Will (referring to a Christian name), or “will” referring to either a penis or vagina. In this sonnet, the Poet wonders if he can join the ranks of the Beloved’s lovers:
Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus.
More than enough am I that vex thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
With thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store;
So thou, being rich in will, add to thy Will
One will of mine to make thy large Will more.
Let no unkind no fair beseechers kill;
Think all but one, and me in that one Will.
Okay folks, here is the translation from one Paula Kiernan, author of Filthy Shakespeare:
“While other women can only wish for sex, your sexual desires are fulfilled by your Will, and you’d get my penis in the bargain, in fact you would get an excess of sex.
I can perform better than all of your lovers put together and I will keep tormenting you with my sexual advances.
Will you not, with that vagina of yours which is large and spacious from so much use by other men, let me hide myself in you?
Are other men better endowed, and I cannot measure up?
The sea is all water, but it still receives rain, and adds to it abundantly. It’s the same with you.
Even though you are already rich in the number of your lovers, I am asking that you accept me as a lover. I am already aroused and my penis has grown larger.
Please stop saying no to my reasonable advances. Think of all your lovers as being a single one, and treat me as the only one that you desire.”
Now that we know what Shakespeare was talking about, I certainly think that this sonnet meets the burlesque and humorous criteria defining doggerel. I thought it might be quite challenging to show that Shakespeare also meets the second important criteria for doggerel – that of faulty or awkward meter. However, we need look no farther than the fourth line from the bottom (So thou…). The sonnet is written in iambic pentameter, meaning that there are 5 pairs of words, with the accent on the second word in each pair. Each line should thus contain 10 syllables, but low and behold, this single line contains 11 syllables. Apparently Willy Shakes has played fast and loose with the rules of the sonnet game, force fitting the word “being” into one syllable!
I rest my case. Shakespeare wrote doggerel.
So the next time you raise a toast at a birthday, wedding or other event, and stand to read your little ditty, hold your head high - you are in the company of greatness.
Doggerel in honor of Shakespeare
For centuries mothers have had to - - - - - - their children to pick up their clothes,
I imagine a conversation between Ma Shakespeare and Will and here’s how it goes.
“Mother I doth protest mightily that into my quarters you have - - - - - -,
And methinks your accusations of irksome slovenliness are wrongly charged.
I shall be - - - - - - in whatever artful raiment I so chooseth and what’s more,
‘Tis much simpler to pluck my garments when they are strewn on the floor.
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My Saggin' Wagons
couple of years ago we decided to break the pattern of our holiday celebrations, unchanged for the past 25 years. Instead of traipsing from one suburb to the next to touch bases with as many family members as possible, we decided that the four of us would take off on a family vacation where the stress of Christmas and gift giving could be placed into the deep background. So off we went on a guided “multi-sport” adventure to Ecuador, featuring mountain biking, horse back riding and river rafting.
It was there at 8,000 feet in the Andes that I experienced the pleasures of the sag wagon, the vehicle that discretely follows behind you to transport the luggage while you are riding a bike, or to basically piece up the pieces in case you falter. As we headed off on our bikes on the first day, I knew immediately that I would need the sag wagon early and often. I am not a strong cyclist, and was further hobbled by the challenges of the high altitude and the uneven cobbled streets. Plus as I scanned the rest of the group, I noticed that some of the other members were unveiling full spandex outfits, a style that is not only useless for me, but also particularly unbecoming. We took off following along a ridge on a high slope. As a Midwesterner used to totally flat rides – in fact I don’t think that I have ever used more than 2 or 3 gears – I was immediately intimidated by the undulating course. Well at least I should be able to coast some of the time, I thought. However, going downhill was even more difficult than up, since you had to creep along to avoid the potholes. Using the brakes going downhill is not a good sign for an amateur cyclist who doesn’t like going up.
I immediately fell behind and soon I spotted my family and everyone else two curves ahead of me and getting smaller all the time. It heard a car sputtering behind me and as I stopped along side the rutted street I saw the blessed sag wagon. Now here was the quandary – what kind of help did I want? I certainly did not want to hold back the rest of the group who would have to periodically wait for me as I lumbered along, but on the other hand I did not want to make it so pathetically obvious that I was such a weenie. I hit upon an artful compromise. I asked the sag wagoneers if they wouldn’t mind stopping for a smoke or a drink at a café and then they could catch up with me, give me a ride to within a reasonable distance of the lead group, then they could have another drink or smoke, and then repeat. That way I could leap frog along the route, triumphantly arriving at the lunch spot within 10-15 minutes of the rest of the group.
The system seemed to work, though the sag staff was probably awash in drinks and dizzy from nicotine by the time I arrived. The luncheon spread was set out in a grassy meadow overlooking a picturesque valley. I realized that I also had a sag wagon team ahead of me, to arrange the lunch, pick out the picnic spot, make the hotel reservations, and probably prepare contingency plans if it was pouring rain. I guess we are all a collection of intertwined emotional, psychological and physical sag wagons for each other, and the definition of a vacation is when you can set your own sag wagon down and hitch yourself to another. And when you have sag wagons both fore and aft, well -- what you now have is a more expensive vacation.
The next big biking day was more promising. We drove to the top of a mountain and the idea was to coast down. How hard could that be, particularly since this time instead of a rutted cobblestone road, it was a semi smooth paved road. I felt quite confident that I could keep up with the spandex group – any idiot could coast. I had forgotten about the sag wagon, assuming that I would not need one, and then I smelled the unpleasant odor of diesel gas, and there it was right behind me. I bristled – clearly I didn’t need a hovering sag wagon in this situation. There are times where you obviously need to circle every available wagon, there are times when you want the sag wagon in sight, and others where you just need the concept of a sag wagon, and there are situations where others can mercifully call in a sag wagon for you. It was going to be hard to explain the subtleties of the length of the tether in my broken Spanish. I wanted to tell them to take a long break, in fact as long as they wanted and just make one run down the mountain at the end of the day to make sure that I wasn’t splattered on the pavement. Jose and Marcos settled in and I coasted down.
Pretty soon I was truly in the middle of nowhere totally wrapped up in a thick mist. Every now and then the clouds would part to reveal a stunning view of patchwork subsistence farms and the occasional cow. I moved steadily along and when the mists parted again I realized that once again I had fallen hopelessly behind. Perhaps I was more timid than I thought and was not willing to fly down the twisting and turning road, which had multiple blind turns where you could get absolutely flattened by an oncoming truck and thrown over the steep and rocky slope next to the miniscule shoulder. I tried to rationalize my slow pace by pretending that I was more appreciative of the scenery and the few birds, but the truth was that I was going as fast as I could. Pretty soon the small dots of my companions disappeared entirely and I was alone. There were several forks in the road and I just guessed the route, choosing the one that seemed to head down the most.
I began to feel nervous – I had no identification on me and no money – it was all in the sag wagon that I had so casually dismissed. I could envision the headline –“Unknown Amnesic Tourist Nursed Back to Health by Remote Ecuadorian Farmers.” Although I was close to pushing the panic button, I realized that the lack of sag wagon would make a better character-building story, of triumph over adversity and of dogged persistence - though perhaps not on the same scale of the survivors of a plane crash in the Andes who fended for themselves by cannibalizing their fallen companions for several months. They finally realized that everyone had give up on them and no rescue was coming - they were entirely on their own. Then one of them heroically climbed out of the Andes wearing nothing by his soccer shoes and a thin parka.
I snapped out of my daydream as I again smelled the sweet scent of diesel. I knew that I could have made it if I wanted, but I didn’t want to keep everyone waiting. Besides, I was on vacation, and this vacation came with a sag wagon at my beck and call. I hopped in and coasted down the mountain.
Even the most confident CEO full of bravura and - - - - - - -
Can have a crisis of confidence or a nervous fluster.
His sag wagon may be discrete - - - - - - - or maids or even his wife
Who all try and pick up the pieces of his messy life.
Other days he lies on a couch and talks to a shrink
But most days he prefers something ------- like the gin that he drinks.
