My mother sang. She sang when she worked, she sang in the car, she sang silly songs and story songs for her children, and she sang us to sleep.

When she was in the one room school house she had attended, she had sung bass in the choir. Really! One year they went to the state choral competition.

Her voice was deep as the night and as rich as the cream that rose to the top of the milk she drew from the cow when she pulled at the teats and sang songs in rhythm with the sound of the milk squirting into the bucket.

If my memory serves me, the first song I can remember hearing was a lullaby titled (I think) The Sheeps and the Shoats. Not grammatically titled, but memorable. The first two lines of this song were, probably, the first song lyrics I learned.

“Oh, the sheeps and the shoats am a goin’ to the pasture.
Said the sheeps to the shoats, “Can’t you walk a little faster.

I would sing that part with my mother, then she would finish it and I could go to sleep.

She sang the traditional lullabies, as well; All The Pretty Little Horses, Hush Little Baby, Rock-a-Bye Baby, etc., and sweet and slow songs, such as, Sleep, Kentucky Babe. But, she also sang us story songs.

I don’t remember how old I was when she first sang Little Joe, the Wrangler to me or Little Redwing. I remember crying at both of these songs and my brother, Orville, comforting me.

Mother almost always sang when she cooked. I have no idea of how many songs she knew, but her tastes were eclectic and she had a song, with an appropriate rhythm, for almost any dish being made. All of us, including my father, loved to hear her sing, and, as soon as we began to learn the words, she encouraged us to sing along. So, she would be peeling potatoes, one of my brothers shelling peas, another putting coal in the stove, and my sister setting the table, and mother would be singing St. Louis Blues, or Stardust, or Love Letters In The Sand. (I know many people who think that last song was written in the 50s, since both Fats Domino and Pat Boone recorded it then, but, it was first recorded in the 1930s, which is when my mother learned it.)

She sang songs I’ve never heard anywhere else, Put On An Old Pair Of Shoes (a depression ditty), and ‘Tis Autumn (also, I think, out of the 30s). And, of course, Brother Can You Spare A Dime. She also sang show tunes; Irving Berlin, Lerner and Loewe, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and the blues. Bessie Smith had nothing on my mother, she could wail with the best of them.

And there were also the silly songs. Alexander’s Ragtime Band, The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze and, Don’t Go In The Lion’s Cage Tonight. When she was a teenager, in the late 1920s, parodies of songs were quite popular. She did a wonderful parody of Silver Threads Among The Gold. One of my favorites was, She Was Only A Bootlegger’s Daughter, and she sang an amazing song that was a combination of lines from at least ten songs that started with Oh, Columbia, The Gem Of The Ocean, and included The Little Brown Church In The Dale, and, Mrs. Jinks of Madison Square. It took me years to learn that one.

We never attended church, but my mother was a deeply spiritual person, so she also sang songs of faith; traditional hymns such as The Old Rugged Cross, and the wonderful spirituals like All God’s Children. We learned these songs, too.

My mother also read. She loved books, fiction and nonfiction, and was interested in, virtually, everything. She shared this love of books and the love of knowledge, for its own sake, with all four of her children.

One of my earliest memories is of the four of us gathered around our mother while she read to us. We didn’t hear childrens’ books, that I remember. The first title I can recall was Smokey by Will James, a great writer of western stories about, not just the cowboys, but, also, the horses they rode. We had a horse named Satan, and I had been ‘riding’ him with one of my brothers since I could remember, so I felt a great affinity for our equine friends.

When I was around f my mother read a series of western novels to us, and, to this day, I wish I could find them again. They were written around two cowboy friends, and the only clear memory I have of these books is how good they were. One of the men was from Mexico and his name was Don Saturnino, an opportunity for mother to explain what saturnine meant. How we all enjoyed them.

By the time she was reading these books, we were aged four, seven, nine, and eleven, and we still loved to hear our mother read to us. The three older children were already reading on their own, but that didn’t matter. Nothing was better than hearing our mother’s rich, mellow voice bring the stories and people to life.

We didn’t always have a radio. We didn’t have a television until nineteen-fifty-six. We couldn’t afford the movies very often. We didn’t have much by way of money.

But, we had a mother who sang to us. We had a mother who read to us. We had the richest of lives.

RECORD OF BIRTH

The first day of fall 1953, the air is warm and all indicators predict a near endless Indian summer. The Michigan humidity is still as high as the temperature.
Ma, at age forty-one is getting old to have babies but her Catholic upbringing will bring me into the world just as it did the four children she borne before me. She does not questions her life or the missed opportunities she will face with one more child to care for, a husband who drinks to excess, or a full time job with General Motors Company. She is pregnant and will have her child, for better or worse.
It is September 22 at 10:04 P.M. at Saginaw General Hospital and from whence I came is an enigma to me. I floated freely in a liquid that has a viscosity similar to heavy water while my world is surrounded in darkness. The loudest sound is a constant beat of my heart which is synchronized with one that is ten times louder and creates a sonic wave as it follows or leads the murmur of it’s own sound syncopation.
This beating changes as quickly as her outside environ changes. When she moves or becomes tired or excited it plays through me as an orchestra.
I can feel changes in myself if anything is ingested in her system. In unison our hearts will beat faster when a hot liquid passes by me into one of the large organs that I neighbor within my darkness. It makes my blood move faster and my mind become more alert to the other organs that share my space. After time, a rush of sweetness enters my system that causes me to speed up but it quickly fades away and leaves my body and mind wanting more.
Other changes to her effect me quickly. A scare or anger will cause her blood to change and the effect is a charge upon me that makes me uncomfortable and antsy in my confinement. Most of the time I am happy and at ease and my thoughts are allowed to move freely. I hear the muted sounds of voices and lyrical sounds that calm her and, in turn, me.
There is suddenly a big change as a short time before my mother spent much of our time in a loud cold area. The thrum and drone of loud noises and heavy vibrations are always present. Mostly it is the discomfort of her that is most disturbing. I am happy when these long periods end and I am taken to a quiet warm place, away from these annoyances that rack her and made me weary.
It has been two months since those noises disturbed my life and, in this quiet place that is warm and comfortable like mine, I can tell that she tends two other beings and they show little regard for me. Besides the other voices of those she tends to, there is a bigger voice. One that seems to command all. He is the top voice among these beings I am slowly learning about.
A day arrives and she is very nervous. This food that pulses through me is different from any I have experienced so far. In a moment, we are quickly moved to another spot. This place is very cold and the noises are orchestrated to one purpose that seems holy intent on bringing like beings such as me into their orbit. I am nervous about launching from the safety of the cocoon I have inhabited, for my known time of existence, into the sphere of theirs.
Suddenly the fluid that I have floated in is drained away and I feel myself being brutally grabbed and forced from the safety of my domain. The darkness is replaced with light so strong that it burns my eyes.
My scream set chills down the backs of the others that are present, as the sound is almost blood curdling. A strange being cutting through a cord that attaches me to my life force brings on these screams. I am so loud, I frighten some of the other mask wearers, as they think there is something wrong with me. He turns to her and exclaims, “Congratulations, you’re the Mother of a healthy happy, boy.”
Within moments, having suffered the injustice of squeezing through a canal, half the size of what would have been only very uncomfortable, my eight pound nine ounce body is held upside down, struck, and brought back to a cold table. There I am lain out, and again the tall masked being, using a sharp instrument, removes part of the skin around my prepubescent penis. I can only scream louder.
My under formed mind can only wonder what they will do next in this, their performance in pain, as to how I have been welcomed into this wold.
Even my cries to be fed are ignored as I feel my stomach is completely empty and the need for sustenance is all consuming in my newborn psyche. Finally an object, filled with a foul tasting liquid, is forced into my suckling mouth. The soft nipple is foreign to me and it takes me a moment to understand that pulling the vile formula into my unused mouth, down my new throat and into my empty stomach will help quash this overwhelming feeling of abandon and starvation I am realizing.
Having suffered the harsh treatment of the large, white clothed mirages that move before my unfocused eyes, I begin to understand their industrious running about the cold white room, I know my cries of disapproval will not be heeded and I had best slurp away on what has been offered before they change their mind and come up with some other torture to inflict upon me. I fear that if they remove the nipple it will force me to dine upon my fist again as I had to before in the safety of the dark, warm, liquid chamber that I had been lost in for so long.
And then a magic moment happens, I am wrapped in white softness and brought over to the only being that I have known from my earliest recollection. I already know that she is my Mother, my protector, and my life force. My mind fills with a new feeling, that of love, and I understand this woman who I know by, by smell, taste and caress, will protect and love me as no other. Even through blurred vision and the confusing sounds I can make no order of, I still understand the warmth of her words as she comforts me.
“Timothy James, that’s your name. Look at the all your hair and you’re so big too,” She cajoles.
She holds the bottle higher and I go from sucking air to again tasting the thick liquid that the big woman in white had given me earlier.
My Mother, as I will always know her, turns me onto my stomach and gently pats my back. I reward her with loud angry burps and then roll my head to look into her beautiful face and shining eyes.
Just as I begin to fall asleep another stranger whisks me from the first safety I have felt in a long time into another room. Barely able to hold my head up, I gaze about and see many more small beings like me. They are all in tiny lookalike cages with the only difference being the colors of their coverings. Some are yellow and the others, like mine, are blue. This room is very warm and feels like the wet place that I had floated in and come from so long ago.
As I am lain in the small-railed bed, I see I am on display. There is a big clear opening, which allows beings to appear, but the noise that they make is non-existent. Through this opening I see a tall balding being and a short one with long hair and they are pointing at me as if they know me.
For some reason I am not afraid of these people and I can tell they know and love me already. They smile and contort their faces to attract my attention. I think they are weird and scary looking so my bottom lip extends and without warning water flows from my eyes again blurring my vision. This is followed with the same screams I had earlier but there is not pain with these screams, only a sense of unknowing.
The two look at each other and start to laugh. The tall one takes the other’s hand and guides her away, leaving me alone. I am not sure if I like this abandonment, so I continue to cry until one of the white beings placates me. She whispers in a soothing voice and lays me on my belly. I am exhausted, as I have seen more in the last moments than I can remember since the time I existed. I fall away from the light and the sound and breathe deeply and dream of the warm liquid place that I long to feel again.
When I awake I again have the feeling that I need the vile liquid as my stomach is again empty but more than that, I want the Mother and the two people outside the room to look at me and make faces. Shortly, I am brought back to her and the other two are there to look upon me, but this time, I hear their voices and am comforted their sounds and loving touches.
In a short time I am removed from the caged bed and brought to a new place. There are no more white beings, just a lot more beings and they love and coo over me as if I am something new and different.
Within weeks I have learned and know how to get the attention that I want. The crying jags seem to works best but they seem to bother the tall one. My Mother/protector is much more patient with me.
It has been quite some time and so far so good. The change has been big from the darkness to the light but I think I will like it here.

ADAPT TO IT

March twenty ninth, nineteen forty three I ran to the very large and heavy bronze doors of
PS 225 ready to run down the twenty five or thirty steps leading to the street where I was in a hurry to kiss my mother get home and change clothes so I could go roller skating in the school yard which was directly across the street from where I lived. The windows of our forth floor apartment in a six story building overlooked the school yard where ten, twenty or even thirty pairs of eyes watched over all the children as we played.

Before I left for school that morning I carefully placed the red, yellow and green shoelace my skate key was attached to and hung it on the door knob as I ran out the door not wanting to be late to class. I hated school and I hated my teacher who was cruel and I hated not being home with my mother who needed me and I hated when she cried and when she would sometimes not be aware that I was standing beside her wanting to feel the baby in her stomach Before I left for school that morning, and all the mornings before that for the past two weeks she warned me that she may not be waiting at the bottom of the staircase for me and that would mean that our new baby had been born.

The doors pushed open as children who behaved all day, sat at their desks, did what they were told for five hours burst through the doors as though they were paper whooping and jumping releasing their pent up energy and I was no different. But my mom wasn’t there and I held my breath and suddenly the restlessness in my legs that made me feel I had to run and jump and bounce disappeared replaced by a paralysis. My Uncle Harry was there to greet me holding a boot sized box covered in wrapping paper. I slowly walked down towards him and in silence reached for the present. Don’t tell me I shouted inside of myself. But Uncle Harry didn’t hear me and said “you have a little baby brother.” And just as I couldn’t control my legs before I couldn’t control the words that poured angrily from my gut. “Tell my mother that I don’t want a stinking brother. I want my sister to come back.”

I don’t remember if my uncle took me and held me. Or maybe he yelled at me and maybe I ran away. I do remember wondering if now I’m no longer their only child will they still need me.

. When my brother was born after my older sister Carol had died confusion remained with me even as the weeks, months and years passed. I adapted to my role in the family as the oldest child of two children. Yet to my parents there were three children and I would always be the middle child even though only the two of us lived in the house attended school and parties and celebrations. Carol was tucked away in the crevices of my mind to be awakened in my adolescence. My brother never knew about her until he was older and could comprehend her role. When I started writing about her and sharing my stories with him and his wife we both began to see our little nuclear family so differently. He saw my loss, I saw his confusion. I started life in a family filled with laughter; he was born into sadness and tears. We both came from the same family, same parents, house and neighborhood. Only my family had three siblings and his only two.

In April 1941 Pearl Harbor was a great place for anyone in the military to be stationed. Beautiful beaches, sunshine, lovely girls; it couldn’t get any better. The citizens of America didn’t know what was coming on December 7th, and, surprisingly, the people who knew my mother (the majority of them, anyway), didn’t know she was going to have a baby. To many of them I was almost as big of a surprise as Pearl Harbor turned out to be, only (I think) more pleasant.

I was born, the last of four children, in the hospital in Greeley, Colorado. I was the only one of the four to be born in a hospital, and, when she went into labor and had to go to the hospital, at the check-in, the nurse asked her why she was there. My mother said she was going to have a baby, whereupon the nurse asked her when the baby was due. My mother replied, “In about two hours.”
She really didn’t look pregnant.

My mother told me of visitors who would drop by, in the weeks after my birth, and ask who the baby belonged to, and were speechless when she explained that I was the newest addition to her family.

“But,” they would comment, “I saw you last month and you weren’t going to have a baby, or, in one case, “I saw you last week and you weren’t going to have a baby.”

“Yes,” she would reply, “I was. It just didn’t show.”

What a difference in cultural attitudes between then and now.

Then, women didn’t talk about their pregnancies to anyone but their intimate friends and family. If they worked outside the home, chances are they would have to quit at the first sign of the coming ‘bundle of joy’. Baby showers were held, but they were nothing like the “blow-outs” that people have now.

In 1941, women who were ‘expecting’ wore smocks to cover their stomachs, they, definitely, did not appear on the covers of national magazines, nude, with the “bun-in-the-oven” hanging out for all the world to see.

However, in the kind of work my mother did, at the time, pregnancy didn’t matter. She was working in the fields in Eastern Colorado, and, by the time I was four or five months old, she was back in the beet fields, topping beets. You had a knife and you walked along the row, where the beets had been dug out, and bending over, almost constantly, you cut the tops off of the beets and tossed the beets one way and the tops the other.

While she worked, my oldest brother, Orville, took care of the rest of us children.

My sister was three years old, Billy was five, and Orville was seven. He was a great kid and, according to my mother, dealt with the responsibility very well.

My sister was almost three years old, when I was born. She was skinny, sickly, adenoidal, and, always, unhappy. My father shouted at her, a lot. He was not what you could call a good parent.

I was born healthy, happy, and pretty. She hated me from birth. Conversely, my father decided, for whatever reason, to dote on me. She hated me even more.

Oddly enough, forty-one years later, I received a call from my sister. She told me that she had been in therapy for almost two years and had come to the conclusion that it wasn’t really me she had hated all those years, but, my father. She then apologized, whereupon I told her, “It was no big deal.” I’m not sure that was the correct answer.

But, I diverge. This story is about the time when I was born.

Poverty both simplifies and complicates life. It simplifies it in that you don’t have to do a lot of shopping for the new baby; I wore what the friends and family ‘handed down’ to me. Luckily, the rest of my relatives were not poor, so I ended up with some pretty cute clothes.

The complications came with: trying to figure out where to put six people in a two bedroom house, trying to pay the doctor and hospital bills, thinking of ways to feed six people on way too little money, and being a ‘working’ mom and take care of the house and children at the same time.


Luckily, I was a very healthy and good-natured baby, because my mother had her hands full with both Billy and Dolores, who were prone to catch every cold and virus that came by; at one time they even had pneumonia at the same time.

I am filled with wonder when I think of the hardships my mother endured without a word of complaint. When she told the stories about our family, there were many references to funny or strange things that happened, so that you got a sense of shared laughter and closeness, rather than a feeling of despair in the midst of grinding poverty.

For example, one of the stories I always laughed at the hardest, when I was a child, was about the winter of 1941, months after I was born.
Work had been very hard to find, for my father, and work in the fields, in Colorado, stops when the harvest is over in the fall, so my mother wasn’t working, either. They had looked at the finances and determined that they could afford one box of shotgun shells, and my father was an excellent marksman and was sure he could supplement what they could buy with rabbit, pheasant, and whatever other small game could be found on the plains of Eastern Colorado.

A friend had given them a calf that had been born late in the season that he didn’t want sucking on its mother, and had, also, given them some sacks of corn to feed it through the winter, with the thought that they would have a young beef to butcher for meat in the spring.

Mother ground the corn by hand, so she could make cornmeal mush and cornbread, and a wondrous food called ‘cornmeal gravy’, and she and the three older children went out and gathered wild hay, along the roads, and grass to feed the calf.

One day my father went out hunting and brought home a gunnysack with a number of ducks he had brought down with the shotgun. He (the mighty hunter) emptied the sack out on the kitchen floor and one of the ducks rose up and began staggering around. The three older children screamed with laughter and caught the duck, then, of course, didn’t want it killed. So, for the rest of the winter, they gathered food for the calf and the duck they named Elmer.

At no time, when she told the story, was it about being poor. It was always about the family, our strength, as a family, and the crazy things that happened in our lives.

My mother always made me feel like my being born was a special thing, not an added burden to a woman already weighed down by the cards life had dealt her.

Autobio. Week 2

Our Song

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
It was our song.
My Grandpa sang it to me
in his deep bass voice.
when I was three.

Sometimes Grandpa would
whistle our song.
He tried to teach me
how to whistle.
I couldn’t whistle
when I was three.

You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away.
I loved sitting on his lap
feeling his deep voice
vibrate through his chest
and
looking into the pockets of his
bib overalls.
The snaps were a shiny copper color and
each one had a letter engraved on it.
But I couldn’t read
when I was three.

When I went to my
grandparents’ house
I could usually find grandpa
in the living room
in his
brown overstuffed chair.
He had kind brown eyes and a bald head.
I’d crawl up into his big lap and feel loved.
He didn’t smile often, but he always
smiled at me.
when I was three.

Grandpa’s favorite kind of candy
was in the candy dish that sat
on the big lace-covered
dining room table.
Sugar coated orange slices
were a special treat
for me
when I was three.

Sixty years later
I became a grandmother.
I rocked my infant
granddaughter to sleep,
And sang our song
You are my sunshine
My only sunshine

And remembered a time
not so long ago
when my Grandpa sang to me
when I was three.