safe in my bed with my stuffed animal friends

i loved stuffed animals and they were my friends. i got them mostly at easter or maybe birthdays. i remember my first big attachment which was a stuffed animal made of terry cloth. i picked all of the little loops off of it, like plucking a chicken. it went away at some point, no doubt disposed of by my mother, who apparently had no attachment to them or any way to understand their importance to me.

my all time favorite one was the calico cat that my grandmother made for me from a pattern. there was the blue gingham dog, which she made for my brother, and the red calico cat that she made for me. these were the animals from the famous poem about the gingham dog and the calico cat ("side by side at the table sat...") the year she gave it to me she typed up the poem on a piece of cloth and my uncle raymond framed it for her to give to me. it hung in most of the rooms i lived in until i was way into my adulthood. i think now it is in the cedar chest, along with the gingham dog and the calico cat stuffed animals, all wrapped in plastic to preserve them from their deterioration.

i took the cat everywhere when i went out overnight, but mostly to her house, as i rarely spent the night with any other relatives. mamama was always sewing the cat back together, as the material was flimsy and the tail curled in such as way that it got ripped in the curve. the cat was two sided, one side perfect, and the other side showing patches from the fight between the gingham dog and the calico cat.

my uncle jack gave me a lovely white cat that had real fur of some type, probably rabbit. it was made of leather and the cat was laying down like a cat would. it wasn't two dimensional like the calico cat. there were assorted easter rabbits and other stuffed things. whenever we had bad thunderstorms, i would gather them in my bed with me for protection. i would prepare for having to leave the house if it caught on fire, and i had all the animals with me. at one point i had five or six. what i remember most, however, is my mother coming in at night to check on me and her ripping them out of the bed and throwing them on the floor, not allowing me to have them. i never understood that. what was the point? she continued that tradition even up to when i was in high school. i wonder now how she could have done that to me, and why she would have done it. what harm was there to have stuffed animals in a bed with a little girl?

on the top shelf of my closet is a collection of some stuffed animals from my adulthood and austin's childhood, including pastel, the bunny given to him by aunt grace. i have elephants that my grandmother knitted over old plastic legg's eggs and a sock monkey that warnie gave me when i was in college. the beautiful white cat is also on that shelf along with a moose that bebo's mother gave him and i inheirited and some camels. i like looking at them holding down the shelf while i grab clothes on hangers below their shelf. one thing is for sure: they don't move unless a cat takes them out. and one other thing is for sure: there will be no mom throwing them out.

now i lay me down to sleep...

When I was around 10 years old, i remember having to sleep in my brother's room in one of his twin beds. i believe that my grandmother was home from the hospital and using my room. the bed was next to the window, facing towards norfolk. at the time, a lot of the housing development had not been developed, and i could lie in the bed and see in the distance a radio tower blinking red. i remember watching it blink, thinking about how far away it was, or how close. it was relaxing, and comforting and the world was quiet out there and there was this sense of a whole world out there that was stable and calm and consistent, just like that light. sometimes when i try to go to sleep at night and can't, i think about that vision, that little light, and it is a good memory. i didn't think i had a lot of them from my childhood, but now that i am trying to think of those things, they are coming back.

i had my own room and it was my refuge. another calming remembrance was the radio. for christmas one year i received one of those white plastic box radios. i thought this was a great thing! in those days it was only AM radio, and in norfolk there were two rock n' roll stations, WNOR and WGH. but there was a greater world out there, and i often waited until after i was sent to bed to surf the airwaves and discovered so many different radio stations from far away places. these were all 50,000 watt stations, and because they were at the top of the broadcast span for AM radio, their strong signals reached all across north america. one of my favorites was WKBW in buffalo, ny. at night they ran a serial called CHICKEN MAN ("he's everywhere! he's everywhere!) and i liked tuning in. it wasn't that the serial was so great, but that it was something different. i also remember hearing the song "They're Coming to Take Me Away (HAHA)" which was certainly not on the top 40 in norfolk! listening to the radio was another escape for me at night.

when i was in college, i did a radio project for one of my communications classes, and for that project i started at the low end of the spectrum of AM radio and mapped out where each signal came from on a united states map. i learned a lot about how radio waves travel, how they fade in and fade out. i would hang on, listening to commercials to identify the stations. what was really amazing to me was that i was able to pick up stations west of the mississippi river, and their call signals started with a K. this seemed amazingly far away from richmond, a whole world away. i was able to tune into hockey games from quebec and toronto, some of them being broadcast in french. at the low end of the am band was the booming radio cuba which you could pick up, day or night. it was the communist answer to radio free europe and it was all in spanish. i was able to pick up the usual strong signals: WOWO in ft. wayne, indiana; WLS in chicaago; WBZ in boston, WABC in new york city. when i first went to college in 1974 there was no FM radio. the first local station for that was in roanoke and it didn't happen until the end of that freshman year and you had to have a radio with both am and fm bands on it. my car radio did not have fm. often i would be out at night and pick up the stations mentioned above. they were the only choices, as all the am stations in that part of the state were low wattage and went off the air at sundown! having something end at sundown seems absurd today, considering everything is instantaneous. the two chicago stations were very clear, as was WOWO, and i used to enjoy tuning into them in the car late at night, and i especially enjoyed turning my friends on to the fact that they could find music after dark if they looked for it!

in 1970 my family went cross country to colorado to a dude ranch and on the return trip we stopped in chicago to visit my cousin who was in the navy there. i spent the visit in their kitchen with a portable radio scanning the waves and i was blown away to hear WRVA in chicago. i had not realized that it was a 50,000 watt station, and because i was in the center of the nation, i was able to pick up stations in kansas city and st. louis. all this was fascinating to me, and i asked my uncle teddy about the radio because he was a ham radio operator. he explained to me about skip, which is radio waves bouncing off the cloud cover. he told me that they were traveling better at night because there was no sun interference and that if it was cloudy, the signals would travel even further. with each bounce, a signal got weaker, so sometimes you would just get a brief piece of broadcasting, but enough to know that there was a whole different world and culture out there.

i am grateful for the am radios i had as a child. that white box radio was my step up from the tiny transistor radio that i first had, the one with the screw in antenna and single white earphone. the first time i ever heard the beatles was walking around our block to visit my friends and then suddenly there was "I Saw Her Standing There." i listened to it in the car on christmas day, a rare christmas when it was snowing heavily in norfolk and we were headed for my aunt and uncle's house for christmas breakfast. going over the lakewood bridge, i was listening to the local radio station talking about the snow, and this was exciting and scary as we headed over a very narrow two lane bridge.

my nighttime radio memories were not always rooted in faraway stations and rock and roll. i often spent the weekends with my grandmother, and she had a beat up old green portable battery radio and i sometimes listened to it at night after we went to bed. she always dropped off quickly and snored horribly. i would lay in the bed, wide awake, watching the street light change colors and then the oncoming traffic coming towards me, headlights making streaks through the blinds and across the far wall. over and over, people traveling in the dark, but the lines going nowhere. but then she got the radio, and it wasn't new. i think one of the boys at the naval base in her office gave it to her, maybe because he was shipping out and had no need of it. one saturday when she first got it we went downtown shopping, but returned late in the afternoon. she gave me a blanket to sit on, and i went out on the front lawn with the radio, almost like a picnic by myself, and watched the traffic and listened to the radio. i remember little green insects hopping on and off of it, and that the radio had some battery acid places on it where old batteries had leaked. but that night i went to bed ahead of my grandmother, and tuned in a easy listening hampton station, one with music that was jazz or 60's cheesy elevator music and for some strange reason that, too, was comforting. maybe because it was so different from rock and roll, maybe because it was all classical instrumental and quiet. i don't remember turning off the radio, but i know that i listened to that easy listening station more than a few  times at her house, and it was part of my being safe and relaxed there.

a few times i went to sleep in my parents room and they had a radio in the headboard of the bed that was always tuned to WTAR am radio, which had a program called NIGHTRAIN and they played smooth 50's instrumental music, things like mantovani or orchestra music. no worda again. i didn't listen to that much, but i eventually appreciated it, as i was not allowed to change the station and i wasn't in there very often to go to sleep, only temporarily and on special occasions.

i suspect my attachment to all things musical comes from find it comforting in all ways. just looking at the blinking red light on that not so distant radio tower in norfolk was transporting to me. it led me to the airwaves and escape to faraway places that i wanted to go to, but was too afraid of going to. i didn't have to leave the comfort of my room or the places i felt safe. i just had to have a radio.



55th birthday

Today is my 55th birthday and i have had a good day. :)

i was awakened to the sound of two former students, jeremy and james, mowing my lawn. this had been prearranged, but i was still happy about it. the lawn had gotten pretty shaggy, and worrisome. one problem out of the way!

after fixing myself a breakfast of hash browns and watching some tv, i went up to take a nap, and was awakened by two birthday phone calls. the last one was from jen chambers, who was in the santa fe flea market at the stall where i buy my green chile powder! i talked to chef assi on the phone, ordered a pound each of the chef's blend, green chile powder, and chipotle chile powder! so, finally, i got my chile powder! hurray!

i got up and then meg called and she came over with colton and tara and they took away, finally, the chair and hassock that the cat's shredded! again, hooray!
Pam called and came down, and we hung out and chit chatted and got caught up. then we went to applebee's for dinner and came back. my great neighbors, the partridges, came over with homemade birthday cards and 4 huge chocolate covered strawberries! YUM!!!

i have gotten a lot of nice birthday greetings on facebook and phone calls from family, including the animal, who told me my birthday gift was that he wouldn't get another DUI...hhahahahah. some people have texted me birthday greetings as well.

a lot of time i think i am alone, but i don't know why i think that. i do have friends and people who care about me. i am learning at 55 to believe that. i am in a pretty good place right now and i hope i can stay there.

On Ann Reeves 80th birthday...

What you didn’t know about ANN REEVES and what I have learned from her!

My association with the illustrious Ann Reeves began approximately 40 years ago. On the first day I met her, I learned a lesson about GENETICS. I was amazed at how much Cindy looked like her mother. And in consequent years, I learned about cloning when I met Ann’s mother, who was from Baltimore. It was amazing how all three of these women looked alike! It was also amazing how great a geneticist she is, as she managed to create a child who looked like her through ADOPTION. My first lesson at being stupid..

Things you don’t know about ANN…

1)   She created the FOOD NETWORK. How do I know that? Well, she is a meal planner. I found out this in 1972 when I ate lunch with Cindy and MJ Kelly. MJ was guaranteed to have some sort of exotic lunch food, like granola or tuna fish in a small thermos. For me, tuna fish for lunch and in a PLASTIC SMALL THERMOS was foreign, but the true lunch wonder was CINDY’S lunch. Food network meal planning: Cindy had 4 course lunches! I was eating mystery meat from the cafeteria, but Cindy! She had Chef Ann packing for her. This is where I learned that CEREAL IN A BOX IS ITS OWN FOOD GROUP! This is where I learned that Fritos came in little individual bags! This is where I learned that you could have DESSERT in a small, individualized packet! And CINDY LEARNED TOO! The miniature Mohr men have grown up knowing that COLD CEREAL IS THE BOMB! IT CAN BE EATEN FOR DINNER! AND AT NIGHT! AND IN THE CAR! Who was responsible for starting this food movement? ANN REEVES!!! 1974

2)   Ann has a great appreciation for music! How do I know? I frequently brought my guitar to her house and sang homemade bad songs and ANN LIKED IT!!! Cindy had a piano! And she could play it! I could only marvel. And get this…It was at Ann Reeves house that I held in my hands the only BUDDY HOLLY AND THE CRICKETS original album! Who knew Ann was a devoted scholar of early rock and roll? She must have passed that on to Cindy, who thought I WAS A GREAT MUSICIAN!! You go, ANN! And by the way, I expect that album to be willed to me when you go to the great Woodstock in the sky!

3)   Ann is a financial planner. She early on invested in the U. S. Postal Service. How do I know? Because Ann is only one of Three people that I know who still use the Postal Service, otherwise known as Snail Mail. I know this because she is one of the only persons who still sends me Xmas and Birthday cards, in particular Birthday Cards. I have always relished looking for the Ann Reeves card amongst the credit card applications, 20% off discount cards from Bed, Bath and Beyond, and past due notices from my many doctors. However, considering the state of the Postal Service today, I am sure Ann has wisely decided to cut her losses and no longer invest in that stock. So, here, Ann is your excuse for NOT sending me a birthday card this year!

4)  Ann taught work ethic! Cindy was the only person I knew who had a job and worked it…forever…They had to finally CLOSE LaVogue in the Cloverleaf Mall before she left there! As a result, Cindy had nice clothes, her own car, and learned the fine art of dealing with fashionistas and their whining with a smile. I learned that working at LaVogue was better than being a waitress at Lord Hardwickes, and that working during the school year AND taking advanced classes was a possibility. Balance! Something Cindy had that I did not!

5)  I learned about the fine art of family planning from the REEVES! This translates into this: ONE CHILD IS GOOD!! ONE CHILD IS ENOUGH! I am thinking “Look how well adjusted Cindy is! She is happy! She loves her parents and never, ever bitches about them! She knows her heritage  (Can you say Tangier Island?) She smiles a lot! She can do MATH!!! So I attempted to follow this family planning model. Ann MUST have been much better trained at this. I,  too, only have ONE CHILD. And he is good at Math! And he is happy…However, he has the attention span of a hamster, and his idea of heritage is knowing who his immediate relatives are! Cindy was NOT an athlete, which was probably a wise choice on the part of Ann and Bill NOT to get her into sports. I failed to catch that particular lesson on child rearing, as I have spent most of my adult parenting time enjoying the fine art of using a port-o-potty at any of 10 gazillion ball fields and I can tell you all about a splitter, a fastball’s velocity, and how much of an ass Brian O’Connor, the head baseball coach at UVA, is. Ann was spared these experiences…oh, how I sometimes wish I had studied her parenting skill a little closer! I should have DONE THE MATH! Cindy tutors children in math, and I have a child who was two years ahead of his own grade in math, but is majoring in baseball and couldn’t find his ass with two hands…

6)  Ann Reeves invented the instant cocktail! It was called BRASS MONKEY. I never understood why anyone would call a drink Brass Monkey until I experienced it at the Reeves bar before a hockey game. I recall this alcoholic moment with great clarity, one of the few times that I had ANY clarity when consuming alcohol. Ann and Bill had invited Tom Mohr and I for dinner. Bill had his usual spot outside grilling some sort of meat and drinking a beer. In between flipping burgers, he and I would engage in meaningful conversation, which consisted of Bill saying “When you gonna get married?” And me saying something like “Hell, I don’t know.” In any case, Ann fixed me this wonderful drink, which knocked me off my socks. Cindy, Tom and I went to the Richmond Robins hockey game, where I learned that hockey was very confusing to watch when you are drunk. So I went to sleep between innings, or quarters, or whatever the hell they call it when the Zamboni comes out and shines the ice. This is where I am convinced that Ann was clairvoyant. She knew Tom was right for Cindy. So she got me drunk so I wouldn’t be able to talk, and the normally quiet Cindy had no choice but to talk to Tom. Ann took me out of the picture, created a love match for her daughter, and I got a good nap and never went to another damned hockey game again!

7)  Ann Reeves has taught me kindness, generosity, and humor! I have to say that being able to hang out with the Reeves gave me another whole view of what a happy family can be! I learned a lot about how a loving parent can create a great kid by being interested, supportive, loving. The Reeves gave Cindy all the tools to be a great person. This was a good thing to see and a good thing to remember. I have a quirky relationship with my son, but he does tell me secrets. I know WAY too much stuff that would send most parents into a tailspin, but I have to think that part of that is that I listen and I know Ann did the same with Cindy. I know that Ann is, to me, the epitome of the grand Southern Lady! So I am gifting her with a new way to spend her Mint Julep years! It is called FIREFLY…alcohol infused tea! You can sit outside on a nice night, make yourself a nice stiff drink disguised as TEA, and watch the fireflies! How Lovely! I salute you, ANN, the lovely Southern lady!

i forgot i could write...

tonight i went back and reread the blog i wrote in 2006 about my adventures in new mexico and colorado with pam.

that was a truly enjoyable road trip, and i had forgotten much of what i had done. as i read, however, i came to appreciate the fact that i am a good writer. at times i laughed out loud. at times i smiled to myself because i knew as i read it that it was quality work.

as i type away tonight on this blog, i realize that i do still have the potential to go back to writing well. i am very rusty. really rusty, actually. i don't feel much of a flow going as far as creativity is concerned. but i am also open to the concept that i have to start writing something, anything, on a more regular basis. if i practice, i may get my chops back.

sometimes i think about my love for music when i was younger and my absolute need for years to play my guitar and sing everyday. for a long time i routinely played at least 2 hours daily, and that included after i got out of college and was working. it was part of who i was at the time.

and now the guitars are hanging up on the wall, and playing them is surely not quite the pleasure it once was because i REALLY am out of shape in that area. but i do pick them up every once in a blue moon, stand around playing along with the records, singing. i know that doing that does make me sort of happy. it also makes me a little sad to know i won't probably ever be able to be as good or as passionate about this as i was as a kid. i have a tendency after awhile to sigh and put the guitar back up, sort of sad, sort of mellow, sort of tired, sort of happy. i can't imagine what it would be like to be a performer at my age, especially when your voice starts to go a bit, your guitar playing isn't what it was, isn't as fluid, isn't as crisp. i imagine it would be pretty hard to face that, especially if it defines who you are in your own mind. i didn't pick a profession that had me retiring as a lesser version of who i was in the beginning. that comes from not having a job rooted in a lot of physicality. i have a brain centered career. the more i do, the more i add to my brain, the wiser i could become...well, that is as long as i don't start to have the brain farts on a constant basis! :)

so i will continue to sit in front of computer at 2 a.m. on a friday night listening to old 70's tunes, scratching the rotating parade of cats who are walking in front of the computer monitor, blocking my view, slowing me down, demanding attention. i stretch my neck, yawn, try to find a reason to stay here and keep writing. i would like to just lie down right here and not move. i'd like to stop yawning. i guess i should just stop typing now and go to bed...yes, i think i will. good night, muses of writing.

refocus

the night before i returned to school i woke up around 5:30 from a dream that involved my old friend MJ. as i lay there in and out of sleep, i was drawn into a calm place in which i suddenly felt as if i had finished a mission. it made me a bit sad. i have been skipping around the subject of mortality a lot in the last few month, most likely induced by my slow bodily disintegration. not that i haven't been calmly coming apart for a long time, but it is getting harder, and after long periods of just feeling tired and unmotivated, it gets hard to refocus and find something new to concentrate upon. a good day, one in which i felt pretty ok and had some satisfaction about how i spent my time, can do wonders for my motivation.


i had been in sort of zen state of calm despite the left turn i have had to take with my relationship with austin. i sort of felt like i was completed with the missions. there didn't appear to be anything else that i felt like i had been sent to do or achieve. so i just laid there, sort of sad, and sort of resigned.


on the way to work i came up to the first stoplight after i got off the interstate and the light turned yellow. i had one of my moments of hesitation about whether to shoot the light or stop. usually, i shoot it. this time, i slammed on the brakes.


i didn't realize how hard a stop it would be, and i skidded to the lip of the intersection. rightly so, i had braked, for the light was at red by the time i came to a halt.


my foot was solidly planted on the brake still as i happen to glance into the rear view mirror in time to see a huge white tree trimming truck, complete with trailer, barreling full blast right towards me. i saw him sliding sideways trying to miss me, but i knew it was coming and could only watch...


and then he somehow slid past me into the right hand lane and roared across the intersection well after the light had turned red, seemingly not slowing at all, even after he had cleared the intersection.


it seemed like i sat there for 2 minutes with my foot frozen on the brake, stunned. it was more of a shock, however, the next day.


for a week i had had something annoying rolling around in my trunk, and i had been too lazy to get out and check on it. i was at WAWA filling up the car with gas, and i was going to head from there to charlottesville to deliver austin's baseball playbook to him. while i was filling up the gas and had the time, i opened the trunk.


what had been rolling around was the full tank of propane gas that i had purchased the week before in anticipation of hurricane irene and not being able to cook. the empty 5 gallon gas tank that i had never filled up was also in there. then i got it.


i took the detour home to rid myself of those items and spent some wondering time. wondering why i had not immediately taken those things out of my car when i had returned the day i got them. normally, i am phobic about driving with gas in the car, period. how i could have ridden around for a week with flammables in the trunk is beyond me.


but what was NOT beyond me was the fact that had the trimming truck hit me, i would have been immediately incinerated.


i got the message. i still have work to do.

music is a circle game

at this point, a normal person would be in bed. but here i sit, typing, listening to music from my past, and it seems to me all a circle game. i just keep coming back to the same soundtrack and it makes me happy and sort of mellow.

the edges of those teenage memories aren't really sharp anymore. sometimes it is like watching a blurry tv with the sound turned down. and then other times i listen to the music and see myself in my bedroom with my guitar trying to play a peter, paul and mary song, getting up and resettling the needle back into the same groove, again. i just never got tired of listening over and over to the same song until i had it down. a lot of time spent in my bedroom sitting on my bed, playing a song, no one hearing me do it. i liked playing, i liked thinking about performing in front of people, you know, the rock star thing. but really, i just wanted to play. i never could learn to read a lick of music, no matter how hard i tried. but i could play by ear and read chords out of a book. but music...nope. and i never did get over the awkwardness and nervousness i felt when performing in front of a crowd. alcohol helped a lot once i got to college, but in high school i didn't have much to soften the anxieties.


joan baez and peter, paul and mary. folk songs. then jim croce records and john denver's greatest hits. and there were others - cat stephens, loggins and messina's first album, sittin' in, and then linda ronstadt's heart like a wheel album. one linked to another one, and on to the 45's of carly simon and anticipation and you're so vain. roberta flack's first time ever i saw your face, hey, that's no way to say goodbye, killing me softly.

the odd thing about this circle game is that 40 years later in my head i still come back to that bedroom, stand around with my guitar, look out that window and down that long driveway and it isn't the same as it was 40 years ago. it wasn't a happy time for me, period. as a matter of fact, it was pretty fucking miserable. but time has done the right thing, i guess. it has blurred the sharp edges of life a bit, softened them. but it has left the good stuff, the music, sharp and crisp and vital. it brought me a lot of pleasure, a lot of confidence, a lot of escape then. and it does the same for me now.