"Are you sure you want me to take you to Minsky's Burlesque for your 16th birthday? My sister Goldie, ten years older than I, asked me a second time.
"You said you would take me to any show I picked and I've heard so much about Minsky's and still don't understand what it about. But, I know many of our leading comedians and vaudeville performers got their start in burlesque, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante are two I can think of now."
I dressed carefully, feeling very grown-up in my first pair of high-heeled pumps. I craned my neck to make sure the seams on my silk stocking were straight. I settled the black Empress Eugenie felt hat at an angle on my head, its black feather curling back on one side. I adjusted the little half veil over my eyes, pulled on a pair of gloves and my new black chesterfield coat with velvet lapels and felt a thrill of anticipation.
Goldie and her boy friend, Joe Callon, met me at Penn Station. We took a cab to Minsky's and stood in line with Joe who bought the tickets. I noticed there were many more men in line than women.
We entered the theater and an usher showed us to our seats. The red velvet curtain hid the stage from view, the lights were on, and a five musicians tuned their insruments in the orchestra pit in front of the stage. By curtain time, the theater was full. The house lights dimmed, the orchestra played a lively tune and the red velvet curtains parted revealing a park bench and a street lamp.
Placards at both sides of the stage proclained "Dunstan and Murphy." Two men strode on stage, one wore very baggy pants, had a prominent red nose and twirled a cane. The other, dressed like a business man walked to the bench and sat down. I really didn't understand the point of some of their lines, but the men in the audience laughed uproarously.
Next, a young woman, wearing a long sequinned evenig gown, elbow length gloves and a feather boa, strutted on stage in time to a syncopated beat. She sang in a tiny voice while slowly peeling off first one glove and then the other, until she finally discarded the feather boa and danced off-stage.
Next, a female singer. Again, I didn't think the song hilarious but the men did. She exited to vigous applause.
The next act used the park bench again but this act included a policeman walking his beat and twirling a nightstick. The man in baggy pants walked on stage and threw a crumpled cigaret package on the ground. The policeman arrested him for littering. The next scene showed the man in jail, a friend is visiting him and advising him to get a lawyer and fight the charge. Six weeks later, we see the man get out of jail, he has spent all his savings to pay the lawyer and the fine. In disgust, he clears his throat and spits on the ground. The policeman appears and arrests him again. His friend says, "Don't worry, I'll get your lawyer, we'll fight this." The other man pleads with him just to pay the fine. The red curtain closed and the house lights came on. Men carry large trays of candy and soft drinks went up and down the aisles during the intermission.
Livelier action after the intermission. The girl in the evening gown came out and sang another song, and pulled the evening gown off. She now wore little pasties on her breasgts and a g-string with a tassled, sparkling drape hanging down between her legs. She twirled and turned her back to the audience, swiveling her hips and pushing them forward and b back. She shimmied almost to the floor, and up again. As she got behind the curtain, she waved the g-string at the audience which again applauded vigorously.
The curtains closed, the house lights came on, the show ended.
"Well, sis," Goldie said, "What do you think of Minsky's Burlesque now."
I don't understand what all the fuss and publicity is about," I suppressed a yawn.
"The evening is still young, let's go have a steak dinner," Joe suggested. I drank a glass of burgandy wine with my dinner. It made me sleepy.

My Fingers Remembered by Cecile Betts
"What are you making, Mom?" my twelve year old daughter asked as she leaned over my shoulder to see what I held in my hands.
"I'm putting a picot edge around this baby afghan I just crocheted for my newest great nephew. I learned to crochet when I was only four years old." I finished the last stitch, tied it off and cut the yarn.
"Who taught you to crochet when you were so young, and what did you make?"
"My oldest sister, your Aunt Anna taught me to crochet after she married and me and Matty, Goldy, Dolly and my papa all went to live with her, her husband and his three children."
"Ten people, you must have had a big house."
"No, actually, it was not large, but the children slept 3 to a bed, and we put beds everywhere, even in the unfinished attic."
"But, you haven't told me what you made."
"Anna became pregnant immediately and prepared for her first child. She bought a wicker bassinet from Lord & Taylor and lined it with silk and draped lace around it. She bought a complete layette, little shirts, bellyband, and about 20 dozen birdseye cloth daipers."
"What's birdseye cloth?"
"People used flannel, gauze or birdseye squares for diapers, disposable diapers were not available as they are today. Birdseye cloth is a soft, cotton cloth used mainly for diapers then. And Anna put a hand crocheted lace edge around the diapers. That is what I learned to crochet more than thirty-five years ago."
I stood up, put the yarn and crochet hook away and found a cardboard box in which I placed the afghan. I wrapped the box in brown paper, tied it securely with string and put it aside.
"Will you teach me to crochet?"
"No, because I never learned to hold the yarn and crochet hook correctly, I am very awkward and slow. I'd rather have you go to a yarn shop and learn the correct way."
"Yes," my daughter repleid,"I'd like to make a crocheted sweater. I saw a beautiful one in the window of Northern Commercial."

MY LIFE SAVING PAIN by Cecile Betts

The day before Thanksgiving 2006 I sat in the lounge of the Florence Sylvester Senior Center in Laguna Hills after participating in a Balance and Mobility Class sponsored by the Emeritus Institute of Saddleback College. At 11:45 a lunch would be served. Suddenly I felt a sharp piercing pain in my right upper chest area. I’d never experienced that pain in that spot before. I thought maybe it is heart related. I put a nitro tablet under my tongue, felt the expected headache and waited for the pain in my chest to subside. It persisted. I placed a second nitroglycerin tablet under my tongue fifteen minutes later but the pain persisted. I walked back to the nurse’s office and told her about it.
“You can call 9-1-1 and go to the emergency room,” she advised.
“I don’t think it is severe enough to do that,” I answered.
I stayed for the nice lunch, and then returned home on the community bus. The pain persisted all afternoon, very sharp, very localized. Finally, at 6:30 that evening, I thought it might be a good idea after all to go to the emergency room. I have several cardiac problems including arrhythmias, ventricular tachycardia, leaky valves, right bundle branch block and have had by-pass surgery and a pacemaker. The paramedics arrived promptly, checked my vital signs, listened to my recital of the symptoms and I was placed on a gurney and wheeled out to the ambulance.
Ordinarily, from where I live, I would have been taken to Saddleback Hospital Emergency Room, but by a fortuitous coincidence the Saddleback Hospital Emergency was not accepting more patients and I asked the crew to take me to Mission Hospital. Records of my by-pass surgery, colenectomy and several episodes of hospitalization and various tests were on file there. On the way there, the paramedics received an order to give me a shot of morphine. I felt no pain when they deposited me in the Emergency Room.
“Please call my daughter and tell her where I am,” I asked the first nurse who checked my vital signs and then drew blood for various tests. Six hours later, after the x-rays of my chest and various other tests, they admitted me to the hospital.
On Thanksgiving Day, Dr. Qua, the house physician, walked into my room, introduced himself and announced, “We think you have lung cancer, we can confirm the diagnosis with a needle biopsy, but cannot do it today because they gave you coumadin in the Emergency Room last night.”
My first thought, this can’t be true, I’ve had colon cancer more than thirteen years ago, I was cured.” And next I thought, I couldn’t call my daughter and tell her I have lung cancer, not with all the problems she and her husband contend with. “Dr. Qua, would you please call my daughter and tell her about this.” Dr. Qua assured me he would do that. I never saw him again.
My next thought, I would refuse chemotherapy, I’d seen the way it destroyed the quality of life, and it only prolonged the dying. I also thought I have enough sleeping pills and other pills to take to put an end to this. But, then I knew I could not burden my daughter by committing suicide.
Later that afternoon, a lung specialist, Dr. Marquez, who would do the needle biopsy the next day, stopped to see me. I said, “I will refuse chemotherapy.”
“Slow down,” he said, “in your case chemotherapy is not even an option.”
The next day, I waited outside the surgery on a gurney, waiting to be wheeled into the surgery for the needle biopsy done along with a CAT scan so the doctor could guide the hollow needle accurately. I was conscious during the procedure since it only required local anesthesia.
Later that afternoon, Dr. Marquez appeared again, “It is malignant, Stage II,” he announced to my daughter and me. “What happens if I do nothing?” I asked.
“You will lose a lot of weight, the cancer will grow, and you probably will die within six months.” In a state of shock at this news, I spent another night in the hospital.
The next day, my daughter came with her van and took me home.
“Mom,” she said, “I looked up lung cancer on the Internet, I know you don’t want radiation but there is another option, surgery. The cancer is in the upper right lobe of the lung and is about the size of a half dollar. I think you should see an oncologist, and we need to find a good surgeon. You also need to have some more tests done by Dr. Marquez.”
I heard what she said, but it did not really register. I’d accepted the fact I would die within six months. I did not fear death, but I feared the manner of my death. I began to give my few valuable possessions away.
We found an oncologist, Dr. Howard Cheng, highly recommended, Dr. Marquez, the lung specialist and found Dr. G. Chino, a thoracic surgeon. But we could not get an appointment with Dr. Chino until the third week in January. However, we proceeded to have PET scan, other blood work, x-rays, blood tests, and lung capacity tests. All results were sent to Dr. Chino’s office. Meanwhile, my daughter and I discussed the odds and chances of my surviving surgery with Dr. Cheng and Dr. Marquez. I checked with my cardiologist also. Of course, if I did not have the surgery, death was sure, but there was a chance I might survive.
Finally, I saw Dr. Chino. By this time, in addition to a complete family medical history, he had a thick file containing all the test results. He told me, as Dr. Marquez and Dr. Cheng had both told me, that despite my age, nearly 90, despite my medical history and history of smoking for forty-five years, I had a 75 percent chance of surviving the surgery since the x-rays showed “clean edges.” Not sure exactly what that meant, I left the office in much better spirits than I’d known for the past two months. If I didn’t survive the surgery, if I died during the surgery, well, that was not a bad way to go. I’d know nothing about it.
That same afternoon, a call from Dr. Chino’s office said, “We can schedule surgery for one week from today, if you wish.” I replied, “Okay, one week from today.”
Another trip to Mission Hospital to complete the preadmission paperwork and tests. I would report to the Hospital by 5: the next morning. That evening, at about 8, a nurse called and said she had some questions the hospital wished me to answer. She asked the same questions I’d already answered. I protested, “But you have all that information in the computer.”
“Yes, they want me to confirm that it is correct,” she replied. “There is just one more question, are you anxious or depressed?”
I exploded, “You’ve got to be kidding. I have lung cancer, I have cardiac problems, and tomorrow a surgeon will cut and remove the upper right lobe of my lung. I might not survive the surgery. My daughter has a debilitating, incurable, terminal disease, my son-in-law is on dialysis, my son barely earns enough to live on, and you are asking me if I am depressed or anxious. Of course, I’m depressed and anxious.”
The nurse apologized, “I’m so sorry, my supervisor gave me this list of questions, I guess they didn’t really think about how the patient would feel.”
The last thing I remember about the next day, I lay on a gurney outside the surgery. I came back to consciousness in the intensive care unit. Conscious meant excruciating, unbearable pain. They ask the patient to rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the most extreme pain the patient has ever experienced. I would rate that post surgical pain at 100. And I thought nothing could be more painful until the surgeon came in and yanked the two drain tubes from my back. I screeched.
“We’ll have you walking tomorrow,” he announced cheerfully.
I looked at him, I could not get out of bed without assistance, I could not bear the pain of movement, “You’re crazy,” I said. The doctor looked surprised, “No one ever said that to me before,” he remarked mildly. I did not walk the next day; it was the third day after surgery.
After a week in the hospital, I transferred to a skilled nursing facility, which had an excellent physical and occupational therapy program. Most of the time, I could not eat the food, I’d ask for a nutritional drink instead.
Before I scheduled the surgery, I’d arranged for my cousin Mary to come from Georgia to help me at home for two weeks. And for my niece who lived in Florida to come and stay for a week when Mary left. I left the skilled nursing facility as soon as I could get in and out of bed, dress, shower, and get to and from the bathroom by myself.
Three weeks later, I returned home.
My goal, I wanted to resume my volunteer teaching at the Braille Institute, participate in the Writing Class and play Scrabble at the Club by the beginning of May.
I did achieve these goals. I still see my three stooges, the surgeon, oncologist and lung specialist, have frequent x-rays of my lungs, rest more than I did before, but I have my life back.
The strange thing is that neither have nor I never before nor have I ever since, experienced that sharp pain in the upper right chest, which impelled me to go to the Emergency Room. If not for that pain, I would not have gone to the Emergency Room; I probably would not have consulted a doctor until months later when it would have been too late for surgery or survival..
I feel I experienced Divine Intervention. How else would you explain it?

Assignment Character

The first time I saw him, he stood behind the bar in King Mountain Lodge at Mile 77 of the Glenn Highway. His jet black hair sported a little wave where he combed it back from his forehead. His eyes were a bright blue, his complexion ruddy and his nose straight and well proportioned. His high cheekbones hinted at an Indian ancestor. Six foot one, he had a forty-two inch chest and a beer belly which thickened his waist. He wore a white shirt, grey pants with a starched apron tied around his waist. He mixed alcoholic drinks, getting beer or soda from the cooler, and displayed a few slight of hand tricks. He laughed and joked with his customers.
I’d stopped at the Lodge on my way to my property at Index Lake because my two children wanted some soda and French fries to tide them over for the next two hours before I could prepare supper.
I saw him often that summer. I drove to Index Lake every weekend . I did not see him that winter but read in the paper his wife died.
The next summer, I again made a weekly trip to Index Lake, beginning in June just after the ice on the lake melted.
In July, he asked if he could call me when he came to Anchorae to buy supplies from the wholesalers there. I gave him my phone number. I was a divorcee but had not yet started dating, didn’t have time for it because I worked full time and went to stenotype school at night so I would be able to get a better paying job.
The next week he called me and asked me out for dinner. My thirteen year old daughter’s best friend had come to have dinner with us.
“You will have to take my daughter, Martha, and her best friend with us,” I told him.
“That’s okay,” he said.
After that first date, he called me every time he came to Anchorage and once in a while I invited him to have dinner with us.
He invited my 15 year old son, Donald to spend a week with him at the Lodge during the hunting season before Donald left to go to a military school in California. He urged me to come and visit him at the Lodge during the winter. He built a private ice skating rink for Martha.
When I knew him better, I realized he was basically shy if not behind the bar. The oldest of eight children of poor southern sharecroppers, he had little formal education because he left school to run the family farm when his father became ill and did not recover his strength after having typhoid fever. He taught himself many skills. He could do carpentry, electrical work, cement work, thread iron pipe, and knew how to use the wrecker to get a car from a deep ravine, seeming to have an inborn knowledge of the law of physics which states every action has a corresponding reaction. He came to Alaska in 1940, seven years earlier than I did. He’d worked in the gold and coal mines and when the war ended, he and his wife Agnes managed Alpine Inn for several years. He also worked at Gakona Lodge before leasing King Mountain Lodge from Ray Grasser.



I married him three years after I’d first seen him.

SEVEN MEN
By Cecile Betts

My name is not Snow White but seven men have lived with me, not all at the same time. In order to be able to live on my limited income, I found it necessary to share my home. Several of my friends did it and there was that popular TV series titled Thrree’s A Crowd , the story about two women and a man who shared an apartment.
I advertised and interviewed and selected Zack. When I specified that I would not permit smoking, alcohol, pets, overnight guests. Zack said, “I like to have an occasional little glass of wine before dinner.” I thought abut that and said, “Okay, I’ll write that into our agreement.”
Zack, a tall, heavy man, in his early seventies worked in an office nearby. He was neat, didn’t do much cooking, and spent a lot of time in his recliner in his room watching TV. I soon realized the occasional little glass of wine meant a quart carafe every night. But, since he didn’t disturb me, I didn’t say anything about it. However, he brought in a half gallon of vodka and in a drunken stupor fell out of his chair one night and could not get up from the floor. I called the paramedics who checked his condition and put him back in chair. A short time after that, my lease expired and I found a place I could afford to buy. Zack wanted to move into the new place with me, but I did not permit that. I lived with an alcoholic husband (who finally did quit drinking) and I did not wish to go through that sort of thing with Zack.
The next person who shared my home, Dick, a slender, balding man in his sixties, worked for an exterminating company. During our interview I explained, “There are two things I never discuss with the person who shares my home, one is religion, the other is politics.” Dick, a member of the Jehovah’s Witness church spent his spare time distributing pamphlets published by his church and in going door to door in other communities trying to make converts. He could not say a dozen words without quoting the bible or the brethren. He seemed obsessed about what he called “fornication.”
When he lost his job with the exterminating company he went door to door signing people up for delivery of dairy products. He also sold contracts for legal services and for direct TV. Divorced three times, he had seven children including one son in prison for drug related crimes. He complained that he thought he was paying too much for his room. I said, “Dick, if you are not happy, perhaps you should look for another place.”
Then, when he made an insulting comment, I told him I would give him 30 days notice. ‘
He did not want to move at that time and told me he could stay three months without paying anything and I would have to go to court and get an eviction notice to get him out. He was wrong. There is a California law which states in a situation where there is one lodger and the owner also occupies the premises, if the lodger does not vacate the premises after a thirty day notice he can be arrested for trespassing. Thus it becomes a criminal matter rather than a civil matter.
He must have consulted the lawyers he worked for and he did vacate on time.
Lucky, the third man to share my home, worked as a driver for a limo company. Six feet tall and chubby, he displayed skinny knock-kneed legs below the shorts he wore when not working. He told me had been n officer in the Army, commissioned in the field but had left after serving twelve years. Divorced with no children, he admitted he went through bankruptcy after the divorce. He quit his job after several months and tried to promote several pie in the sky schemes on the internet and finally was unable to pay his
Share until I gae him a three day notice and then he did come up with the money. The next month I again had to give him a three day notice so I decided I’d be better off without him. He told me every story, a check was lost, it took time to get it replaced, then it was an out of state check and would take two weeks to clear. When I confronted him, he admitted there was no check and he was broke. I told him he’d have to move since I could not afford to provide him with free housing. I had to put new carpet in that room after Lucky left as he’d evidently spilled a lot of a red liquid.
Mick, an Iranian taxi driver moved in a few days after Lucky moved out. Mick, separated but not divorced from his wife, had a daughter and granddaughter nearby. He also had a nephew who owned a liquor store in Huntington Beach. He worked for his nephew for a while in addition to driving a cab. He left early in the morning and returned late at night. He was always polite and clean. But after seven months, he left to return to Iran to look after his business interests there.
Bob, number five, had been staying with his mother who only had a one bedroom unit. Retired from a career as food service manager for a national hotel chain, tall and painfully thin, he always had a glass of ice water in his hand. He complained of an ailment which required him to take large amounts of a potassium supplement which necessitated that he drink much water. After eight months, he decided to return to Arizona and asked me to give him part of his security deposit two weeks before he left. I did so, and a few weeks later found he’d put nearly $200. in long distance calls on my phone.
Tim, another Iranian gentleman, in his early fifties, divorced with one child, seemed the perfect person to share my home. A self employed mechanical engineer, he almost begged me to permit him to help me.
Meanwhile, my friend Nancy, who also had a very nice man for the second bedroom and bath in her unit, had a cat, so did the gentleman. The new cat absolutely terrorized Nancy’s cat. Nancy called me and suggested we swap. I thought aout it and we talked it over with the guys. They were agreeable. We each benefited. Tim, despite our agreement had been smokng on the patio, I pointed out that if any of my neighbors complained he would not be able to smoke there. Nancy lived on the third floor of an elevator apartment and he could smoke on the balcony without disturbing anyone. Nancygained a nice man who did not have a cat. I gained a nice person with a cat and I could enjoy the cat without having to pay vet bills or cleaning a litter box, and Gene, Number 7, had a place to stay where his cat would be welcomed.
Not exactly Doc, Dopey, Sneezy, Sleepy, but each of the seven men who shared my home proved to be very memorable. And lest you think I am prejudiced against females, I did have a woman share my home on two occasions, but that is a separate story and the name of this one is Seven Men.