Reiss

“Toy-land, toy-land
Little girl and boy land
While you dwell within it
You are ever happy there...”

Mama is singing a different lullaby. This one means only one thing, Christmas is coming. The seasons, her moods, the world are all signaled by Mama’s songs. Her everyday lullaby is,

Little Man You’re crying,
I know why you’re blue.
Someone stole your kiddy cart away.
Better go to sleep now,
Little man, you’ve had a busy day.

When she sings that song, the world is OK. She’ s happy. Everything is as is should be.

Suddenly, Paul is in the army, Stanley, Ludger and all of the “of age” young guys in the family are in the army. Mama’s lullabies have a very different tone,

“When the lights go on again, all over the world...”

“I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces...”

I wonder why Mama never, like everyone else, sings Johannes Brahms' famous lullaby. But then, her lullabies are not always written to lull babies to dreamland, she sings the song that fits her mood of the moment. I wonder how many other babies are lulled to sleep with,

“Oh my man I love you so,
You’ll never know.....”

Is Mama a big Fanny Bryce fan?

The one I still can’t figure is,

“Even though you’re only make-believing
Laugh Clown, laugh.
Even though inside, your heart is grieving
Laugh clown laugh. “

I wish, now, there had been a hidden camera or, at least, a hidden tape recorder as Mama sang her children to sleep. The songs, played in the order they were sung, would be the perfect basis for a detailed biography told in lullabies.

Mama

The Magical Porch

What is it about a porch that makes it magical? Is it a connection to or a refuge from the outside world? For me it was a place to dream, a place to read, a place to play, and a place to meet with my friends.

Every spring the cherry tree next to the porch bloomed in profusion and gave off the most wonderful smell which my mother loved to rhapsodize about. She also loved when the yellow forsythia bloomed and the hyacinth, daffodils and tulips sprang up like little miracles from the bare earth.

The comfortable chairs invited me to read in the shade, next to the cherry tree. It was where I dreamed my dreams and entered an imaginary life. It was the attic room where Heidi peeked out at the stars. It was the Little House in the Big Woods. It was my Conestoga wagon lumbering across the plains to California. It was my Treasure Island. It was where I landed with the Swiss Family Robinson. It was my Never Never land and I was Wendy. It was the bleachers at Ebbets Field. It was where I helped Florence Nightingale nurse the soldiers in the Crimea. It was where I waited with Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy for their Papa to come home. It was my Tara.

I held hands with my first boyfriend in front of the porch and posed for pictures with my friends in all our finery at Easter time. I probably had my first kiss there (although I think that was at an eight grade graduation party when we played Spin the Bottle).

It was also where I watched and waited and listened and yearned.

I watched the older boys play stick ball or football in the street. The sewer cap in front of our house was home plate. I watched the horse and wagon lazily clop down the block, the old Italian man singing out his song, selling fresh fruit and vegetables, leaving the pungent smell of horse droppings behind. I watched as a man stood in the back of the garbage truck raking the trash level while another man would toss in pail after pail of refuse, trailing the sweet/sour smell of rotting garbage as they slowly made their way from house to house. I watched the neighbors come and go. Greeted some and ignored others. I suppose I imagined I could see but not be seen.

I waited for my friends to come over so we could share secrets, play with dolls and, later, talk about boys. Then I waited for the boys to come over. They did, sometimes in groups and sometimes alone. Sometimes just to hang out and sometimes to court me.

It was where we listened, my brothers and I, to baseball games on hot summer nights while Dad sipped a beer or two. It was where I had my first taste of beer in a little glass which had originally held shrimp cocktail. The distinctive voices of Red Barber and later Vin Scully calling the games would drift around our imaginations. Through their descriptions, we could see every play. Through their voices, we could be brought to ecstasies of excitement.

On long summer afternoons, I sat on the porch and listened to the hits of the day on a little transistor radio From the earliest days of rock and roll (Rock Around the Clock), the popular songs of Broadway musicals (On the Street Where You Live), and the sappy lyrics of love songs, I think I knew the words to all of them, although I can’t carry a tune to save my life.

On the porch, I yearned for something to happen. Anything. I yearned for my latest heartthrob to visit, I yearned to become someone different. I yearned to stay and, yet, I yearned to get away. I yearned for safety and for adventure. In reality, I guess I yearned to grow up. And now I sometimes yearn to recapture those long, lazy days so far, far away in the murky distance.

The magical porch was the place where I learned to think, to dream and to listen to myself. From it I went on dates, cuddled with boyfriends, emerged in my prom dress and eventually left to get married.

You can’t go home again but, one day about fourteen years ago, I did. As I pulled to the curb and got out of the car, I looked up at the house. I saw the window of my bedroom, and the window where my grandmother kept watch over the neighborhood. I saw the door where friends and relatives had come and gone. I saw my grandfather standing on the porch telling tales of his youth.

I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. It took my breath away. On the porch, the very same porch, my magical porch, was a man with his son, replacing some shingles. It was like déjà vu. This very well could have been my father and brother busy at the very same task forty years before. It rattled me so much I could hardly speak. Finally, I did introduce myself. He seemed not much interested in the distant past and although I longed to linger I wasn’t invited to do so. I turned my back and walked into the future, carrying with me the memories of that house and the magic of the porch.

The ringing phone seemed like part of my dream state, except it kept ringing, an itch that needed to be scratched, until I picked it up.

"Mom's gone," my sister-in-law cried.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'll tell George" and I hung up the phone.

I gently touched my husband and whispered, "your mother has died."

This was not unexpected and it was not a tragedy; Indeed, it was a blessing. She had been very ill for a very long time and, for the past several months, she'd been in a nearly comatose state. She had turned 80 in January but I doubt she knew it. She had four new great grandchildren born in 2007, but I doubted that she knew that either. She had not been, what I called, living, for a long time. I don't think anyone else would have called it living either.

Reflecting back on our nearly 40 year relationship, my mother-in-law and I had not been close. We hadn't started off very well. When I became engaged to her son, six months after meeting him, she said, "I don't want him to marry you. Nothing personal. I don't want him to marry anyone at his age." He was nearly 20 and I was almost 19. I felt grown-up and I was indignant --what did she know!

Many years later when my own son was about 20, I got it. 19 and 20 years old is too young to marry. What were our chances of success? In fact, back in those days (1970), since he was not yet 21, my mother-in-law had to sign and give permission for my husband to get married and she did. Later, at our wedding reception, a friend told me that my mother-in-law had cried because she was so certain we were doomed to failure.

In 1995, we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. I think she realized that we had beaten the odds and were in a solid long-term marriage. Now that we're closing in on our 38th wedding anniversary, I am convinced that she would be proud of us and what we've achieved.

She taught me how to make stuffed peppers, she never interfered in our marriage, our childrearing, or our life. Though we weren't particularly close, I am thankful each and every day for the great son she raised, who turned into a wonderful husband and father. And, I hope, wherever she is now, she realizes that he did okay too.

Memories – Part 2 by CMR

In order to accommodate our expanding family, my parents found it necessary to move. And, oh, what a wonderful place it was! It was a typical New England town, not far from Worcester. We lived upstairs in a two-story duplex. The rooms were large, and I had my very own bedroom. From my window I could see the town’s churches: the brown shingled Baptist Church, so squat and staid looking; and the brilliant, white Congregational church, with its slender spire boasting to the heavens (and the world) that “I am better than you”. We attended the Baptist Church, where my mother was the organist. But I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to choose my own church. Then I would certainly go to the Congregational Church.

In between the two churches was a common where townspeople gathered for Memorial Day and Fourth of July celebrations. Down behind the Congregational Church was the cemetery. Strolling along the gravel pathways was a pastime enjoyed by many on a Sunday afternoon. Then, past the cemetery ran the straight arrow line of the railroad tracks. Later, my Mother would warn me, in a matter-of-fact voice, never to go near the tracks; as the train swooping by would suck me in under the wheels. And that would be the end of me. I’ve always wanted to test her pronouncement, but never dared.

And now, as to my new brother: He was named “Fordyce Smith Marsh, Jr.” But we called him “Petey”, (thank goodness!). Petey was not very pretty, and he cried a lot.
I think there had been problems with his birth. Petey was what Mother called “a blue baby”, though he didn’t look blue to me—reddish, purplish maybe, but definitely not blue.

Petey was not exactly what I had expected. How was I going to dress up this squalling, squirming purplish creature and take him for walks, and tell him nursery rhymes? It seems to me that I spent a lot of time pushing the bassinet back and forth so mother could rest. Push-push, “rock-a -bye-baby”, push-push, fetch this, fetch that, “that’s a big girl”, “what a good mother’s helper”; then Petey was sitting up, Petey was walking, and I was teaching Petey all the things I had learned in my prodigious three years. I would show him how to stack my ABC blocks; he would knock them down. I would pull him up to a standing position; ker-plunk, he would sit. I would try to amuse him; Petey would cry. It’s time to go play -time to talk to my baby doll and stuffed animals.

Something truly amazing happened when I lived on Church Street. As I mentioned before, our house was upstairs. At the back of the house there were gray painted steps that led from the kitchen door to the yard below. The down-stairs neighbor was a nice lady and she and mother would occasionally borrow needed items from each other. On this day, my mother was loaning an iron to the nice lady downstairs. “Carolyn, please take this iron down to Mrs. ********”. So out the door I went, very proud to be the bearer of a shiny chrome iron. Now at age four, the stairs seemed to be very long and very high. The railing was quite a reach for my stubby little arms. So I decided to try skipping steps on the way down. First I would try skipping 1 step, then 2, 3, and maybe, someday, even 4 steps. I concentrated with all my might, and sure enough, I was able to skip a step. It was quite a jump, but I really could do it. Next, I tried skipping two steps. This took even more concentration. This time I literally flew down the stairs. I continued down the stairs in this manner and delivered the iron. Whether this really happened, I can’t say for sure. But I have had dreams of flying down those stairs, each time skipping more steps, all my life.

You know I would really like Charlie Brown to kick that football. Really. Every time I hold it, I think this time I’m not going to swoop it up. But then I see Charlie running towards the ball, his eyes narrowing as he focuses on the task. That’s when I don’t want him to complete the job. If he did it, it would be done. Final. The ball would go sailing through the air and through the goal posts. What would Charlie strive for then? This way it’s a perpetual challenge. Like climbing Mount Everest. To do it, Charlie has to keep thinking of ways to defeat adversity—mainly me. It keeps him sharp and alert and it makes me stay on my toes, too. Maybe one day Charlie will kick that ball, but I think he has a better chance of scaling Everest.