Category Archives: Family

August 16, 2012 · 0:00

Hot Diggity Dog!

I grew up poor and white on the Gold Coast of Connecticut in Fairfield County.  Yes, I grew up surrounded by beautiful mansions of the very rich.  My family?  We were really poor.  One bathroom, share-a-bedroom poor.  No heat those first few winters-poor.  Clothes that weren’t hand-me-downs were bought at Barkers, the local discount department store.  Way before saving money and Targét became cool.  Barkers was decidedly not cool.

The Gold Coast. That house on the left behind the trees has a ballroom. Literally. They held Cinderella balls there. Or Gatsby balls. They didn’t invite this guttersnipe, though.

We never complained.  Not that we didn’t want to, but it did no good.  Once, my sister Judy complained:

“None of my friends have to buy their Easter dresses at Barkers,” she began to whine.  She stopped when she saw that Dad had overheard her.  She knew what was coming.  So did I.

“Well,” said Dad, “you’ve never gone to bed hungry, have you?”

Judy and I exchanged looks.  It was coming.  The hot dog story.  That was the reason we never moaned aloud about our penury.  We knew we’d have to hear the hot dog story.  Again. And we’d have to figure out what “penury” meant.

“When I was your age,” Dad continued,  (Judy and I tried not to look bored)   “When I was your age,” he repeated, “the Depression was on.  My Dad, your grandfather, who built some of the houses around here, couldn’t find work.  No one was building.  No one was hiring.  No one was paying for anything.  No matter how hard anyone was willing to work, there was no work.  No way to feed the family.”

“There were seven of us.  And I remember being hungry.  Going to bed with an empty stomach because I made sure that my mother would have half of my share.  Whatever we had.  One night I remember I had to go to the store to get two hot dogs.  That night, there were two hot dogs and some beans for dinner.  And that was a feast.  For seven of us.”

The story never had the impact on us that Dad intended.  It made us roll our eyes.  It made us certain that he was exaggerating.  It made us feel embarrassed that he was even more poor then than we were now.

Of course we didn’t go to bed hungry.  We lived in America.  Duh!   Kids don’t go to bed hungry here!  Jezum Crow!

But you know, our friends were oblivious to the idea that there were things that folks like us couldn’t afford.  They didn’t understand why we weren’t jetting off to the Caribbean or to Europe or to Disney the way they did.  They didn’t understand that we couldn’t be in the school play because we couldn’t afford the special (very expensive) skirts that became the von Trapp children’s outfits that were supposed to come from Maria’s drapes.  That we couldn’t even bear to ask our parents for it.

Lack of money was something that our friends simply had never experienced.  They weren’t intentionally callous, they just didn’t get it. It was like trying to explain music to a someone who had never been able to hear.  Possible, but challenging. And it took a lot of work.

Now I tell you this story so you know that I have been surrounded by rich people.  So I’m familiar with just how completely oblivious folks can be if they have never had to live on nothing more than two hot dogs and some beans.

Today, I would give anything to have Dad deliver his hot dog lecture.  And I know just who needs to hear it.

You see, today I read an interesting article about Ann and Mitt Romney, and how poor they once were.  Yes, it’s true.  Mitt and Ann were once poor. Ann said so in an interview in 1994!

I was astonished.  Aghast.  I wished I had a couple of hot dogs to offer them. (Sadly, they now have a “no dogs” policy.)

Ann tells the gut-wrenching story about how they once lived in a basement apartment with no carpeting.  They had to eat tuna and pasta.  They didn’t entertain.  They struggled.  They had to sell stock to pay the bills!

Yes, the poor Romneys.  [Hanky, please!]  All they had to live off was the stock that Mitt’s Dad had given him for his birthdays.  Stock that had started at $6 per share but ended up at over $90.  And, hard swallow here, Mitt and Ann were chipping away at the principle!  Eating their seed corn!  Whatever would become of them?

Imagine that.  Just imagine having to sacrifice so much.

So I totally get how big-hearted they must be.  How they understand the plight of the working poor, how they understand the sacrifices needed to achieve success.

Because all you really need to do to succeed in today’s world is to get stock from your parents.  Duh.

Mitt and Ann in rags. Very formal rags.

Related articles:  http://www.samefacts.com/2012/01/income-distribution/mitt-romney-and-ann-the-students-struggling-so-much-that-they-had-to-sell-stock/

*     *    *

As a kid, I really did feel like I was poor.  But I wasn’t.  As an adult, I learned that there really were poor people, people who went to bed hungry and whose children went to bed hungry.
I also learned that “The Poor” does not include folks who live by selling bits and pieces of their stock portfolio.  There is a big difference, and it’s not just in perception.  It’s in reality.

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August 14, 2012 · 0:00

Forward, Crush!

One idiom that I’ve always found, well, odd, is this:  “That’s the greatest thing since sliced bread!”

Huh?

To me, going back to unsliced bread after years of Wonder Bread was a revelation.  It has taste!  It doesn’t dissolve in water!  It is something on which I could actually subsist.  Well, with a little water thrown in.

Sliced bread?  Mostly I think of that white spongy crap, although nowadays the mega-bakeries are trying to actually make bread that tastes good.  But there is a ways to go.

Me, I don’t bake bread; my husband did back in the day when we had time and smaller waistlines.  Me, I bake other stuff.  My carrot cake recipe is to die for (with so much butter that is literally true) but I don’t make it very often because, well, when we celebrate birthdays we would prefer not to expire before the next.

But I do like to cook, and mostly it is from scratch when I have the time and energy.  And while those are often in short supply those days, well, I do enjoy whipping up a meal without opening a box, without opening a can, and without pulling something pre-made out of the freezer.

Someday when I retire, I expect to do more cooking, more experimenting with world cuisines, the way I used to when I was home with my son when he was a child.  We had a blast, made messes and cleaned them up.  Discovered delicious and not so delicious dishes.

But sometimes a girl must draw the line.  And I found the exact location for that line today in the Williams-Sonoma catalog.  Because today Williams-Sonoma has gone too far.  Or it wants me to go too far.  Or maybe they just think that I have unlimited counter-space.

Today, they not only want me to make absolutely everything from scratch, but they want me to grind my own grain with which to make it.  And there are different types of grain grinders to choose from!

There’s your conventional hand-crank grain grinder for those looking for a workout. (Williams-Sonoma Catolog)

Or for the ones who want full convenience while grinding their own grain, there is this one:

The fully-electrified version so that you don’t have to do anything yourself, which, of course, kind of defeats the purpose if you ask me.

Why not choose them all!

But you know, still I wonder.

My ancestors were farmers, and even they didn’t grind their own grain.  They took the grain they grew to a mill where it was ground for them by the miller.  That was considered progress from the days where my ancestors’ ancestors had to pulverize the grain on rocks, scrape it up and figure out how to get it into the crock pot.

I’m just worried that the next step in being the perfect chef will force me back in time even further.

I fear I will have to revert into a hunter-gatherer.  Otherwise I will not be able to keep up with the neighbors.  Sigh.

Good thing there is a magazine that’ll help me get there.

Yup, it’s back to the land. I just need my glossy mag and my loaded mag.

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Filed under Conspicuous consumption, Family, Fashion, Gizmos, Gun control, History, Technology

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August 9, 2012 · 0:00

Ghosts

She didn’t really seem the type, so I am really surprised that my sister Beth has begun haunting me.  She was always a quiet, fairly unassuming person. Yes, she could be a pain in the ass, but hey, we’re related — what would you expect? But haunting?  Isn’t that beyond the pale?

Saturday is the 3rd anniversary of my eldest sister Beth’s passing.  And it took her that long to start rattling her chains.  Yes, it started today.  And I’m the one she’s rattling them at.

It started today because today I attended a funeral.  And the funeral was at Arlington National Cemetery.  That woke Beth up.  It made her realize that I failed her.  It rattled her.

You see, Beth was a nurse.  She switched back and forth between working in the neo-natal intensive care unit and the psychiatric unit of hospitals across the country.  Two specialties and a variety of hospitals helped her keep fresh.  But nursing was her identity.  Ever since she was a little girl, well, she was going to be a nurse.  There was never a doubt in anybody’s mind.  And that is because she wanted to be like her hero, Tantelise, my namesake.

Tantelise (pronounced Tant-a-lease) was our great aunt on Dad’s side.  And from the stories I’ve heard, she was a seriously cool woman.  She lived near us when I was really small, but died when I was only three, so all I really know are a few second-hand stories.  Beth heard them first hand, and modeled her life on them.

Of course, Tantelise was a nurse.  She was, in fact, one of the founding nurses of the International Red Cross, which, at least according to family lore, came into being in the early 1900s.  Tantelise had incredible stories about nursing the wounded, the soldiers from the trenches, the victims of the gas, the amputees.  None of the stories I heard (second-hand) made me want to become a nurse.  But they captured Beth’s imagination.

In about 2004, Beth called me up and asked for my help.  The idea had been brewing in her mind for years.  Since I was in the DC area, well, it was pretty much up to me.

“Lease,” she said, “we need to get a memorial to the WWI nurses in Arlington National Cemetery.  We need to get Tantelise in there.”

(Google Image)

I immediately thought it was a stupid idea.  And of course I was right. But it was so important to Beth that I agreed to help.  I chatted with our cousin Betsey, keeper of the family junk; Betsey was equally unenthusiastic.  But I told Beth I would do what I could.  After all, I work right next to Arlington Cemetery.  How hard would it be for me to make some calls, go and talk to folks and be told by non-relatives that it was a stupid idea?  I figured it would be pretty easy to shut Beth up with strangers on my side.

But of course making phone calls, well, it ain’t what it used to be.  Because in the olden days, you know, 15 or so years ago, someone answered the phone when you called.  Yeah!  Imagine that!  Humans!  Sadly, that doesn’t happen so much any more.

So when I made my calls, I got to run around the phone circuits.  I found no live people in Arlington National Cemetery.  At least none that could help get me what Beth wanted.  I gave up fairly easily, actually.  I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere.  And I tried and failed to convince Beth that it was a stupid idea to try to get Tantelise memorialized in Arlington.

Why didn’t I work harder?  Why did I give up so easily?  Why was it a stupid idea to begin with?

After all, Tantelise and her fellow nurses were truly heroes.  They crossed the Atlantic to Europe to nurse European troops hurt in battle.  They went at their own cost.  They risked their lives.  They did it in long, hot, itchy wool skirts.  They helped an unknown number of men, many of whom would have died had those nurses not been there to help.  Many more died somewhat more easily because there was someone to hold their hand, to wipe their brow, to say “I’m here.  You’re not alone.”  They helped the soldiers in the way nurses throughout the years have helped their patients, by being there with them.

The work of this group of nurses was so deeply appreciated that, when it came time for them to return home to the U.S., Kaiser Wilhelm himself suspended U-boat traffic to allow these nurses safe passage.  Imagine that.  He suspended a vital part of the war for them.  Out of respect and appreciation for the work they had done, he ensured that they would survive.

This was NOT going to happen to the nurses. (Google Image of the sinking of the Lusitania.)

So why is it so unlikely that Tantelise and her compatriots would have their names in Arlington National Cemetery?  Why shouldn’t their service and sacrifice be recognized?  Why shouldn’t Beth’s idea come to pass?

Ummmmmm … They were working for the wrong side.  Oops.  Yes, Tantelise was nursing the German soldiers.  She was a first-generation German-American, and she went to Germany in the years before the U.S. entered the war.  She went when it wasn’t at all clear that the U.S. would enter the war, and if so, on which side.  When the U.S. did enter the war, well, that’s when Tantelise and her fellow nurses were given safe passage home to their country, America.

It is a story of heroism, of sacrifice, of nobility.   And of course, a story of choices.

Sigh.  I may make a few more calls, but, you know, I’m still pretty sure I will be still unable to get Tantelise and her colleagues recognized.

But there is an upside.  At least I’ll have my sister around again.  And I’ve missed her.  Go ahead, Beth.  Rattle away!

Me, Judy, Beth in 1995

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August 1, 2012 · 0:00

All the Cool Kids Are Doing It

It’s Angie’s fault.  Or Darla’s.  Maybe it’s Peg’s.  Or all three.  Mostly, I blame Angie for pulling this memory out of my subconscious when she entered this post, An Epic Adventure in Babysitting in Darla’s Psst! Hey…Wanna Hear Something Really Embarrassing? contest.  Then Peg threw her story in too, with The Substitute Babysitter.

Since all the cool kids are doing it, well, here is mine.  Don’t hate me.

 *     *     *     *     *

Unlike my cooler blogger sisters, I loved to babysit.  I was born to babysit.  And I had the best job on the planet.

Mr. and Mrs. F went out every single Saturday night, from 7 to 11 or so.  They had two really nice kids, a huge colonial house and a swimming pool.  At about 12 I started supervising kids in that pool, in spite of the fact that I bear no resemblance at all to Michael Phelps.

These folks were rich, but incredibly nice.  And they loved me.

Their house was huge, and quite old, which meant it squeaked and made all kinds of noises at night.  My much smaller house was old, too, so I was pretty much used to the noises.

But it was 9th Grade that year.  I was reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote for English class.  Yup.  Reading about the slaughter of an entire family in their home.

To make matters worse the F’s house was being renovated.  So after the kids went to bed, I hung out with the terrifying book in a part of the house I was unfamiliar with.

There were noises.  Of course there were noises.

There were footsteps.  Upstairs.

Was it in Hadley’s room, at the top of the stairs?

Or was it in Scotty’s room, a few footsteps down the hall?

I knew it was in one of the two.  I could hear it.  Clear as a bell, on the hardwood floor upstairs.

So I did what any dedicated babysitter sitting next to a fireplace would do.  I picked up the poker.

I don’t want to kill anybody, I thought.  So I put it back.

I picked up the little shovel.  The spade.  I was ready to protect those kids no matter what.  And I crept up the carpeted steps.

I looked down the long, hallway.  I didn’t want to alert the killer to my presence, so I didn’t turn on the light.  The carpeted hallway was lit only with one measly nightlight.  But the thick white carpeting helped me see that there was no burglar/murder there.

But there was plenty of space for the burglar/murder to hide.

I walked into Hadley’s room.  She was sleeping soundly, still alive, because I could hear her calm breathing.

I had just walked into Scotty’s room when I heard true, distinct footsteps downstairs.

This time I knew it wasn’t my imagination.  Because I realized that I wouldn’t actually have heard footsteps upstairs because the carpeting was thick and luxurious and the kids were always getting out of bed and sneaking up on me.  (It would have been helpful had I remembered that earlier.)

But the footsteps downstairs were on hard wood.  They were real.

“Elyse?  We’re home!”  Mr. and Mrs. F had come home.

And there I stood in their son’s bedroom, with a shovel in my hand.

Trust me, it’s scary at night. Alone. While reading In Cold Blood. (Google Image)

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July 30, 2012 · 0:00

Run! Hide! Fight!

Some tasks only seem Herculean at first glance.  Then they become impossible.  Take the one I got this morning.

“You gotta help me with this, Elyse,” said Robert, our Human Resources Manager.  “I spent the better part of a year editing and improving this, and still nobody will read it.”

“It’s our Employee Manual, Robert.  Of course nobody will read it.”

“But they need to read it,” he said.  “Otherwise the staff  won’t know when they’re breaking rules.”

I stared back at him blankly.  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said, thumbing through the four-inch binder for the first time myself.

“Give it some pizzazz, make is shoot off the page.  You know, Jazz it up!”

“Robert,” I said, holding up the tome, “this is the written equivalent of Muzak.  Elevator music.  It cannot be jazzed up!”

He looked so pitiful that I added, “I’ll see what I can do.”  Guilt gets me every time.

Robert left my office, and I plopped the Manual down on my desk and ignored it.  It was an impossible task.  So I clicked on the internets to gear myself up for drudge work.

And what to my wondering eyes should appear?  Someone else was working on their office manual and making recommendations!  Seriously!  I couldn’t believe my luck.  I knew that all I had to do was add this information to the front of the Manual and it would certainly capture everybody’s attention.  Yes, I can follow the lead of the City of Houston Mayor’s Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security!  That’s how I can jazz up our company manual.  I’ll include information on “Surviving an Active Shooter Event!” 


That will certainly catch that unsuspecting new employee’s interest!

Whoo-hoo!  “I am so underpaid,” I thought.

Don’t you think this is a wise prep for life in today’s workplace?  Shouldn’t we all be trained to “Run.  Hide.  Fight”?  I don’t know about you, but “Duck and Cover” served me really well way back when.  And nothing at all happened to me then.  So clearly these Public Service Announcements work.

That’s all you need, isn’t it?  Isn’t it?

Or did I get that moral wrong?  I’m trying to remember what happened.  Let’s see.  Duck and Cover.  Duck and Cover.  Oh yeah.  That came out after the Soviet Union developed its first nuke!  When they could hit us with one too!  Me, I got my exposure to it during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962 when the threat of nuclear war was real.  Funny thing, though. Duck and Cover was actually way less effective than President Kennedy’s blockade.

And what has happened since?

Hmmm.  Let me think.  We and the Soviet Union (now Russia, in case you missed something) have been behaving ourselves, more or less.  Nuke-wise, anyway.  Because a nuclear war?  That’s unthinkable.  We all know that.

You know what else is unthinkable?  Random gun violence every day in America.  It is unthinkable that we have to worry every day that some crazy person is going to come into our offices, our schools and our movie theaters and start shooting.  And that others will defend their “freedom” to do so.

Just like governments have learned how to co-exist with nuclear weapons, we need to figure out how to get along with guns (because they, sadly, ain’t goin’ away) but without gun violence.  To me that means we need fewer guns, especially fewer of the sort that can shoot and kill lots of folks without much effort. But I am willing to compromise.

Because these other precautions?  They are closing the barn door after the horse has run out; and I for one am tired of beating that dead horse.

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