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It's been difficult for me—more difficult than I've let on—to watch my granddaughter grow up in, shall we say, bohemian circumstances. Before she was born, I considered the prospect in all its distressing details, and resolved to do what I could to provide my granddaughter with some structures that would minimize the worst tendencies of her parents. And I must say that the results have been satisfactory. Despite having a mother who still styles herself a radical environmentalist and a father who lost most of his hearing playing in a punk rock band, Samantha, now in her twelfth year, commands several advantages in life: she seems to move with equal confidence through the corridors of her very good school and on the streets of her ethnically mixed neighborhood; she has two parents who speak to each other, civilly if not affectionately; two houses in said neighborhood, both in reasonably good repair and both mortgage-free; and two grandparents who are willing to step up for occasional child care duties.
My relations with Dorothy Shepanski, Samantha's other grandparent, have always been cordial, even pleasant, if hardly intimate. Twelve years ago, after Lisa had become pregnant and announced her intention to have a child out of wedlock, I sought out Dorothy. She responded to my request for a meeting with charm, grace, and a wholly appropriate reserve. I could tell that her loyalty to her difficult, talented, adult son was every bit as deeply rooted as my loyalty to my difficult, talented, adult daughter. In the years since, Dorothy and I have accepted our symmetrical positions in Samantha's family tree, knowing full well that ours is a contingent alliance: we both want the best for Samantha, and as long as Samantha's parents agree on what that means, Dorothy and I will agree as well. At Samantha's birthday parties, I've learned to avoid mentioning my corporate clients, lest I agitate Dorothy's liberal Catholic outrage at the profit motive; for her part, she has learned to keep her views on war to herself, lest she and I promptly re-enact the Oxford Union debate of 1933.
Which is why, earlier today, I found Dorothy's lack of cordiality so notable. My daughter Lisa has been in Boulder, Colorado for the past week, leading workshops at a retreat for community organizers. In her absence, the primary child care responsibilities have fallen upon Samantha's father, Gary. And it was he who called me yesterday, in need of a favor. Gary seemed to be in a state of mixed elation and overwork as he described his dilemma: an exhibition of his paintings was opening that night at Centro de Barrio Lange, and though it might seem a relatively minor affair, a few paintings hanging at a neighborhood community center, the curator had connections, the other artist was from L.A., people from New York were coming. Samantha would attend the first hour or so of the opening, then Dorothy would pick her up, but the schedule got tight on Saturday, when the people from New York wanted to take Gary and the other artist out to lunch and Dorothy had matinee tickets for the repertory theater. Gary is not a person who finds it easy to ask for help; beneath his bluster the awkwardness was almost painful to perceive; though I daresay that if his artistic career continues to advance, he will get much better at this sort of thing. In any case, I agreed to take Samantha; it would be, as always, my pleasure. I would be at the Tangled Bank; Dorothy could drop Samantha off on her way downtown to the matinee.
A brief meeting of the executive committee had come to an end not long before; I was sitting at a table in the main room of the Tangled Bank with Melissa, a fellow board member who has taken on a rather large job: temporary director of the center. Our discussion included a few budgetary matters, and the progress of the search to find a permanent director. Perhaps we had finished with the official business; perhaps the conversation had moved on to lighter matters; perhaps we were talking about her child, or her research, or the politics of the biology department. It is not unlikely that we were laughing when Dorothy appeared in the door.
"Samantha's on the nature path," she said.
"Dorothy," I said. "Come in."
"Louise is in the car," she said. "We're running late."
"Of course," I said. "Is it still the Chekov?"
"You might want to talk to that child," she said, and was gone.
Showing posts with label Dorothy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dorothy. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Dorothy, January 12, 2008
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St. Stanislaus Parish, $1,820. They always send her a receipt, first thing every January, which is nice, but Dorothy takes out a calculator and adds it up anyway. $35 a week. You wouldn't think it would come to that total, the sevens turning into sixes, but somehow it does. Is it still the right amount? Dorothy reaches across the dining room table, and finds a hand-written sheet on one of the stacks of paper. In 2007, her gross income was about $36,000, what with Social Security, her mutual funds, and the annuitized payment from her husband's life insurance, about a thousand more than the year before, the mutual funds did a little better this last year, so for this year Dorothy will continue to follow Father Wilkes' formula, and start putting checks for $36 in the envelope each week. One dollar more each week, it doesn't really seem to matter, except when you look at yourself in the mirror, that's what Father Wilkes used to say. His formula was simple—however many thousands of dollars you made last year, before taxes, give that many dollars weekly to the parish. He called it "half-tithing." Father Wilkes expected that you would tithe, of course, but he only expected that half of your tithe would go to your church. Dorothy liked that—the acknowledgment that her other giving was, well, valid. It wasn't the only reason Dorothy had stopped attending her suburban parish in the 1980's, and started driving in to St. Stanislaus, in the old Polish neighborhood near downtown, where because of her name, Shepanski, everyone thought she was one of the old-time parishioners coming back, but of course she wasn't, her maiden name was Sullivan, and Walter had come from Pittsburgh, not from any parish around here. No, it wasn't the only reason, but it was part of it. Her old pastor had looked at every other charity in the world as competition, practically enemies. Father Wilkes had been so much more reasonable. Dorothy still liked Father Wilkes, in spite of everything. Centro de Barrio Lange, $125. Dorothy has found the shoebox where she keeps the notes she writes herself about her charitable donations. She takes out a new sheet of paper and begins to add them up. Friends of the Parks, $100. It still upsets Dorothy that the county won't keep up the parks the way they used to, it offends her to be asked for money to support something that tax dollars ought to take care of, but Dorothy gives anyway, the parks are too important. Northern Day School, $100. Samantha's school, too rich for Dorothy's blood, but she feels obligated to contribute something, a school like that, she wonders if they get annoyed at $100 checks, the way waitresses get annoyed if you leave pennies on the table. Public Radio, $100. The young man on the phone allowed as how the station would take any amount, but he kept talking about their minimum suggested donation of $75. Then as soon as Dorothy agreed to the $75, the slippery young fellow tried to talk her into upgrading to the $150 level, saying how at that level she would get a discount card that she could apply to various cultural events around town. Dorothy let him read her the list, but the only one Dorothy would be interested in was the Repertory Theatre, and she and Louise already had season tickets to that. So after half an hour of discussion with the young man, Dorothy proposed a compromise—instead of $75, she would give $100, sort of a $25 tip, and they could keep the discount card for someone who wanted to go to the symphony, and the nice young man eventually agreed that was good solution. Public Television, $160. Dorothy shakes her head as she reads the note, how ridiculous these so-called "gifts" are! For her donation, she received a set of four "Comfort Food" cookbooks as a thank you, and a note telling her she must reduce her IRS deduction by $40 for "fair market value." Well, she thinks, the IRS can figure it any way they want, for her own personal purposes the donation was $160, those cookbooks weren't worth a damn anyway. Catholic Relief Services, $75, Doctors without Borders, $50, American Friends Service Committee, $50. She doesn't know which one does the most good, so she spreads it around, her little bit. Save the Children, $336. $28 a month for the child in Sierra Leone. Her friend Louise sponsors a child too, and Louise puts the photos and letters and drawings from the child on the refrigerator. Dorothy can't do that—the shame of having so much more overwhelms her. She reads the letters, looks at the pictures, then puts them in a drawer. Tangled Bank Nature Center, $250. Louise had suggested the two of them make their gifts in memory of Professor Jorgensen, but Dorothy had quietly refused. St. Stanislaus Stained Glass Restoration Fund, $75. It had broken Father Wilkes's heart to have to cover those gorgeous windows with Plexiglas. Dorothy didn't care much for the new pastor, Fr. Knoll, but this was one project where she had to support him. American Heart Association, $300. Walter died in 1968 at the age of 47. She was 42. Gary was only 12. In the late 1980s, she had opened a mailing from the American Heart Association, asking her to make a donation in the memory of her late husband. She threw the mailer away, offended. How did they know he had died of a heart attack? And how did they track her down, twenty years after the event? But the next year, the mailer came again, and this time she put it on the table. Maybe she should call them, and complain. The next day, when she was volunteering in the rectory office, she took a coffee break with Father Wilkes. She told him about the mailer, how offended and angry it made her. She had never considered that her husband had died of a disease, simply that he had died and left her, that's the way it was. At the end of the coffee break, Father Wilkes gave her absolution. Father, she told him, I wasn't going to confession. Yes you were, he said. He suggested she join a widows group. She resisted. It was so long ago, she told him, I've been widow for twenty years. He kept urging her. She finally joined. She didn't like most of the ladies, especially the ones who made whatever disease their husbands had died from into a cause. Death was just death, she thought to herself, not a personal insult. Eventually she spoke up and said so to the group. The other women didn't know what to say. But they weren't all bad, the widows. There were some women she didn't mind listening to, the ones who were having troubles with their kids now that the fathers were gone. She tried to tell them what Gary had been like in high school, how he had always been in trouble with school, but never in trouble with her, not really. Maybe some of the women understood. There was one other "veteran" in the group, a woman, like her, who had been widowed a long time. That was Louise, the beginning of a friendship. Anyway Dorothy had kept going to the group for several months, until they changed the time and it didn't fit into her schedule anymore. And the next year, when the begging letter from the American Heart Association came, Dorothy made a memorial in her husband's name. And every year since.
St. Stanislaus Parish, $1,820. They always send her a receipt, first thing every January, which is nice, but Dorothy takes out a calculator and adds it up anyway. $35 a week. You wouldn't think it would come to that total, the sevens turning into sixes, but somehow it does. Is it still the right amount? Dorothy reaches across the dining room table, and finds a hand-written sheet on one of the stacks of paper. In 2007, her gross income was about $36,000, what with Social Security, her mutual funds, and the annuitized payment from her husband's life insurance, about a thousand more than the year before, the mutual funds did a little better this last year, so for this year Dorothy will continue to follow Father Wilkes' formula, and start putting checks for $36 in the envelope each week. One dollar more each week, it doesn't really seem to matter, except when you look at yourself in the mirror, that's what Father Wilkes used to say. His formula was simple—however many thousands of dollars you made last year, before taxes, give that many dollars weekly to the parish. He called it "half-tithing." Father Wilkes expected that you would tithe, of course, but he only expected that half of your tithe would go to your church. Dorothy liked that—the acknowledgment that her other giving was, well, valid. It wasn't the only reason Dorothy had stopped attending her suburban parish in the 1980's, and started driving in to St. Stanislaus, in the old Polish neighborhood near downtown, where because of her name, Shepanski, everyone thought she was one of the old-time parishioners coming back, but of course she wasn't, her maiden name was Sullivan, and Walter had come from Pittsburgh, not from any parish around here. No, it wasn't the only reason, but it was part of it. Her old pastor had looked at every other charity in the world as competition, practically enemies. Father Wilkes had been so much more reasonable. Dorothy still liked Father Wilkes, in spite of everything. Centro de Barrio Lange, $125. Dorothy has found the shoebox where she keeps the notes she writes herself about her charitable donations. She takes out a new sheet of paper and begins to add them up. Friends of the Parks, $100. It still upsets Dorothy that the county won't keep up the parks the way they used to, it offends her to be asked for money to support something that tax dollars ought to take care of, but Dorothy gives anyway, the parks are too important. Northern Day School, $100. Samantha's school, too rich for Dorothy's blood, but she feels obligated to contribute something, a school like that, she wonders if they get annoyed at $100 checks, the way waitresses get annoyed if you leave pennies on the table. Public Radio, $100. The young man on the phone allowed as how the station would take any amount, but he kept talking about their minimum suggested donation of $75. Then as soon as Dorothy agreed to the $75, the slippery young fellow tried to talk her into upgrading to the $150 level, saying how at that level she would get a discount card that she could apply to various cultural events around town. Dorothy let him read her the list, but the only one Dorothy would be interested in was the Repertory Theatre, and she and Louise already had season tickets to that. So after half an hour of discussion with the young man, Dorothy proposed a compromise—instead of $75, she would give $100, sort of a $25 tip, and they could keep the discount card for someone who wanted to go to the symphony, and the nice young man eventually agreed that was good solution. Public Television, $160. Dorothy shakes her head as she reads the note, how ridiculous these so-called "gifts" are! For her donation, she received a set of four "Comfort Food" cookbooks as a thank you, and a note telling her she must reduce her IRS deduction by $40 for "fair market value." Well, she thinks, the IRS can figure it any way they want, for her own personal purposes the donation was $160, those cookbooks weren't worth a damn anyway. Catholic Relief Services, $75, Doctors without Borders, $50, American Friends Service Committee, $50. She doesn't know which one does the most good, so she spreads it around, her little bit. Save the Children, $336. $28 a month for the child in Sierra Leone. Her friend Louise sponsors a child too, and Louise puts the photos and letters and drawings from the child on the refrigerator. Dorothy can't do that—the shame of having so much more overwhelms her. She reads the letters, looks at the pictures, then puts them in a drawer. Tangled Bank Nature Center, $250. Louise had suggested the two of them make their gifts in memory of Professor Jorgensen, but Dorothy had quietly refused. St. Stanislaus Stained Glass Restoration Fund, $75. It had broken Father Wilkes's heart to have to cover those gorgeous windows with Plexiglas. Dorothy didn't care much for the new pastor, Fr. Knoll, but this was one project where she had to support him. American Heart Association, $300. Walter died in 1968 at the age of 47. She was 42. Gary was only 12. In the late 1980s, she had opened a mailing from the American Heart Association, asking her to make a donation in the memory of her late husband. She threw the mailer away, offended. How did they know he had died of a heart attack? And how did they track her down, twenty years after the event? But the next year, the mailer came again, and this time she put it on the table. Maybe she should call them, and complain. The next day, when she was volunteering in the rectory office, she took a coffee break with Father Wilkes. She told him about the mailer, how offended and angry it made her. She had never considered that her husband had died of a disease, simply that he had died and left her, that's the way it was. At the end of the coffee break, Father Wilkes gave her absolution. Father, she told him, I wasn't going to confession. Yes you were, he said. He suggested she join a widows group. She resisted. It was so long ago, she told him, I've been widow for twenty years. He kept urging her. She finally joined. She didn't like most of the ladies, especially the ones who made whatever disease their husbands had died from into a cause. Death was just death, she thought to herself, not a personal insult. Eventually she spoke up and said so to the group. The other women didn't know what to say. But they weren't all bad, the widows. There were some women she didn't mind listening to, the ones who were having troubles with their kids now that the fathers were gone. She tried to tell them what Gary had been like in high school, how he had always been in trouble with school, but never in trouble with her, not really. Maybe some of the women understood. There was one other "veteran" in the group, a woman, like her, who had been widowed a long time. That was Louise, the beginning of a friendship. Anyway Dorothy had kept going to the group for several months, until they changed the time and it didn't fit into her schedule anymore. And the next year, when the begging letter from the American Heart Association came, Dorothy made a memorial in her husband's name. And every year since.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Lisa, November 12, 2007
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After lunch, we took a walk in the old German graveyard, and for the first time all day, Sam dropped her sullen act.
"Look Mom, this one died when she was a baby."
She grabbed my hand and pointed to a gravestone.
Margaretha Schwab. Born June 3, 1842. Died August 12, 1842.
"1842," I said. "This was practically the frontier back then. A lot of infant mortality."
"That means babies dying, right?"
"That's right."
We walked toward another gravestone, her hand still in mine.
Hanna Schwab. That must be the mother. Born 1823, Leipzig. Died 1867. Here. That would be...
"Sam, what's sixty-seven minus twenty-three?"
"Forty-four."
My age. When Hanna died. How many more children did you have, Hanna, after losing Margaretha at...
"What's 42 minus 23?"
"Oh god, Mom. Nineteen." She looked at the stone. "You're figuring out how old she was..."
"Yeah."
"The gravestones are so gross," said Sam. "Somebody should clean them."
"Those are lichens," I said. "They grow on the old limestone. The calcium neutralizes the acid rain. It's a good place for them to grow."
"So they shouldn't clean them?"
"I would leave them just the way they are. Graveyards are good for nature."
We strolled quietly among the stones, still hand in hand. Keydel. Otterbein. Baum. Walsch. In England, they teach nature courses in graveyards. Rocks and weathering. Human populations. Biodiversity.
"Mom," said Sam, "are you a Wiccan?"
"I don't think so," I said. "I'm not very religious."
Who needs a nature center? You could hire the buses, set up day tours. Would that work here?
"Grandpa's an Episcopalian," said Sam. "And Dad says he's a half-assed Taoist—"
"Is that so?" I said.
"—and Grandma Shepanski is a Catholic, and that leaves you."
An old truck rumbled by on County E. There must still be a few working farms around here. The driver probably wouldn’t dream of stopping at the old church, now that it's been converted to a little café. What would he make of a busload of eco-tourists? Those old guys have a different relationship with the land—harsh. Hateful, sometimes. But intimate.
Sam tugged at my hand. "Mom! I'm asking you a question! What religion are you?"
"I'm not much of anything," I said. "Are you doing a report for school?"
"No," she said. "I'm just curious. I read a book on religions of the world."
I suppose this place could make you feel religious. Very quiet and peaceful. But then as soon as you think about it—as soon as you focus on the quiet—you can hear the highway. No buzz of transcendence. Just the distant angry roar. What is it? Ten miles away?
"You worship nature, don't you Mom?"
"I don't know about worship. I fight for it sometimes."
The wind shifted a little, and for a moment it filled my ears, masking the sound of the highway. The bleak November wind that Hanna Schwab would have heard, the season after baby Margaretha died, while her husband cleared the land, not primeval forest, but a forest a century or two old, grown unchecked since the European microbes had decimated the native population. You and your husband didn't need to fight the Indians, did you Hanna? Smallpox had done that already.
Sam let go of my hand, and ran off to study something—a few yards away. Under that bush—what is it?
I hope you had a daughter, Hanna. One that lived.
After lunch, we took a walk in the old German graveyard, and for the first time all day, Sam dropped her sullen act.
"Look Mom, this one died when she was a baby."
She grabbed my hand and pointed to a gravestone.
Margaretha Schwab. Born June 3, 1842. Died August 12, 1842.
"1842," I said. "This was practically the frontier back then. A lot of infant mortality."
"That means babies dying, right?"
"That's right."
We walked toward another gravestone, her hand still in mine.
Hanna Schwab. That must be the mother. Born 1823, Leipzig. Died 1867. Here. That would be...
"Sam, what's sixty-seven minus twenty-three?"
"Forty-four."
My age. When Hanna died. How many more children did you have, Hanna, after losing Margaretha at...
"What's 42 minus 23?"
"Oh god, Mom. Nineteen." She looked at the stone. "You're figuring out how old she was..."
"Yeah."
"The gravestones are so gross," said Sam. "Somebody should clean them."
"Those are lichens," I said. "They grow on the old limestone. The calcium neutralizes the acid rain. It's a good place for them to grow."
"So they shouldn't clean them?"
"I would leave them just the way they are. Graveyards are good for nature."
We strolled quietly among the stones, still hand in hand. Keydel. Otterbein. Baum. Walsch. In England, they teach nature courses in graveyards. Rocks and weathering. Human populations. Biodiversity.
"Mom," said Sam, "are you a Wiccan?"
"I don't think so," I said. "I'm not very religious."
Who needs a nature center? You could hire the buses, set up day tours. Would that work here?
"Grandpa's an Episcopalian," said Sam. "And Dad says he's a half-assed Taoist—"
"Is that so?" I said.
"—and Grandma Shepanski is a Catholic, and that leaves you."
An old truck rumbled by on County E. There must still be a few working farms around here. The driver probably wouldn’t dream of stopping at the old church, now that it's been converted to a little café. What would he make of a busload of eco-tourists? Those old guys have a different relationship with the land—harsh. Hateful, sometimes. But intimate.
Sam tugged at my hand. "Mom! I'm asking you a question! What religion are you?"
"I'm not much of anything," I said. "Are you doing a report for school?"
"No," she said. "I'm just curious. I read a book on religions of the world."
I suppose this place could make you feel religious. Very quiet and peaceful. But then as soon as you think about it—as soon as you focus on the quiet—you can hear the highway. No buzz of transcendence. Just the distant angry roar. What is it? Ten miles away?
"You worship nature, don't you Mom?"
"I don't know about worship. I fight for it sometimes."
The wind shifted a little, and for a moment it filled my ears, masking the sound of the highway. The bleak November wind that Hanna Schwab would have heard, the season after baby Margaretha died, while her husband cleared the land, not primeval forest, but a forest a century or two old, grown unchecked since the European microbes had decimated the native population. You and your husband didn't need to fight the Indians, did you Hanna? Smallpox had done that already.
Sam let go of my hand, and ran off to study something—a few yards away. Under that bush—what is it?
I hope you had a daughter, Hanna. One that lived.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Arthur, September 28, 2007
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Dorothy needed someone to take her shift at the center, there was a funeral she had to go to, Louise's friend Marian or Marianne or something like that, I'd never met the woman, not much point in me going to the funeral, so I said, Sure, I'll take your shift. Volunteer Greeter, they call it, you just sit by the door and say hello to anyone who comes in, they want the center to be open to drop-bys, even the teenagers in the park, and apparently having an old fart at the door prevents vandalism, I don't know how, I sure as hell couldn't stop those teenagers from indulging their destructive tendencies if they were so inclined, but you know, it works, you just look 'em in the eye and say Welcome to the Tangled Bank, have a look around, and the kids calm right down. That's only when they come in, of course, the rest of the time you're on your own, this was the 3 to 6 p.m. shift and there was one kid playing the ecology video game for a while but then his friends came and got him and that was that. When the place was empty I walked around, straightened up a little, I wasn't going to get out the spray bottle like Dorothy does but I do my part. I found a book on one of the tables and I was going to put it back on the shelf where it belonged but it wasn't a science or nature or ecology book, it was some sort of adventure book for girls, Wilhelmina and the Cro-Magnon Cave, maybe it was Cavern, I figured it must belong to that girl, the daughter of the director, she was always hanging around reading, kind of a sullen girl, but maybe all girls are sullen at that age, about the same age Betty was when she decided the neighbor lady was her best friend, going over there every night to help her with her collections, never understood what that was about, tearing pages out of magazines and cataloging them, now I don't think that neighbor lady was a bad influence, what was her name? there were a lot of people in Terre Haute who worked at the Federal Prison, we were very tolerant of those occupations, still a forty-year-old divorced woman, what was she? A nurse? A librarian? hell, I suppose she was alright, a little eccentric, said my wife, and Betty will have plenty of time for boys later on. I read a few pages of the book, there was nothing else to do, I didn't expect it to be be my cup of tea, but they got right to the cave drawings, I've always been partial to cave drawings, and it was set in 1918, the year I was born, Austria or Switzerland or some such place, but then they came out of the cave and went back to the boarding school and started giggling and that was enough of that book for me. A few minutes later the director came down the stairs, carrying one of those white bankers boxes, I didn't have any idea she was up there in her office, she must have been working there the whole time. I offered to carry the box for her, it never hurts to make the gesture, and she stopped and looked at me funny and eventually smiled and said no, no thanks, she had it under control. So I showed her the book and she said, Yes, that would be Samantha's, and I put on top of her box for her and asked if she would be locking up at six o'clock because I didn't have any keys. Then she finally put the box down and found some keys in her pocket and handed them to me and said that I could lock up, that would be good, and she picked up her box with book balanced on top and headed for the door, kind of in a hurry I'd say, but I called after her and asked, What should I do with the keys? and she turned and said I could keep the keys, for all she cared, because she didn't work there anymore.
Dorothy needed someone to take her shift at the center, there was a funeral she had to go to, Louise's friend Marian or Marianne or something like that, I'd never met the woman, not much point in me going to the funeral, so I said, Sure, I'll take your shift. Volunteer Greeter, they call it, you just sit by the door and say hello to anyone who comes in, they want the center to be open to drop-bys, even the teenagers in the park, and apparently having an old fart at the door prevents vandalism, I don't know how, I sure as hell couldn't stop those teenagers from indulging their destructive tendencies if they were so inclined, but you know, it works, you just look 'em in the eye and say Welcome to the Tangled Bank, have a look around, and the kids calm right down. That's only when they come in, of course, the rest of the time you're on your own, this was the 3 to 6 p.m. shift and there was one kid playing the ecology video game for a while but then his friends came and got him and that was that. When the place was empty I walked around, straightened up a little, I wasn't going to get out the spray bottle like Dorothy does but I do my part. I found a book on one of the tables and I was going to put it back on the shelf where it belonged but it wasn't a science or nature or ecology book, it was some sort of adventure book for girls, Wilhelmina and the Cro-Magnon Cave, maybe it was Cavern, I figured it must belong to that girl, the daughter of the director, she was always hanging around reading, kind of a sullen girl, but maybe all girls are sullen at that age, about the same age Betty was when she decided the neighbor lady was her best friend, going over there every night to help her with her collections, never understood what that was about, tearing pages out of magazines and cataloging them, now I don't think that neighbor lady was a bad influence, what was her name? there were a lot of people in Terre Haute who worked at the Federal Prison, we were very tolerant of those occupations, still a forty-year-old divorced woman, what was she? A nurse? A librarian? hell, I suppose she was alright, a little eccentric, said my wife, and Betty will have plenty of time for boys later on. I read a few pages of the book, there was nothing else to do, I didn't expect it to be be my cup of tea, but they got right to the cave drawings, I've always been partial to cave drawings, and it was set in 1918, the year I was born, Austria or Switzerland or some such place, but then they came out of the cave and went back to the boarding school and started giggling and that was enough of that book for me. A few minutes later the director came down the stairs, carrying one of those white bankers boxes, I didn't have any idea she was up there in her office, she must have been working there the whole time. I offered to carry the box for her, it never hurts to make the gesture, and she stopped and looked at me funny and eventually smiled and said no, no thanks, she had it under control. So I showed her the book and she said, Yes, that would be Samantha's, and I put on top of her box for her and asked if she would be locking up at six o'clock because I didn't have any keys. Then she finally put the box down and found some keys in her pocket and handed them to me and said that I could lock up, that would be good, and she picked up her box with book balanced on top and headed for the door, kind of in a hurry I'd say, but I called after her and asked, What should I do with the keys? and she turned and said I could keep the keys, for all she cared, because she didn't work there anymore.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Betty, June 30, 2007
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I was at Van Buren Hill—a nice place, my first choice among all the places I'd been looking at, not disgusting or depressing, but not full of Republicans either. I was doing quick calculations in my head—multiply dollars per month by twelve to get dollars per year, then add years—how many?—to eighty-nine, when the case worker asked for proof of residency.
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Usually a utility bill," he said.
"Is it required?"
"Well there's a different fee structure for out-of-state residents." He looked at me and smiled. "We do get some funding from the state."
I smiled back. "Really. What's the difference?"
"Oh, at the level of care we're setting up for Arthur"—he used Dad's name as if he were talking about a kindergarten student—"the difference would be about five hundred a month. At the assisted living level—let's see, that would be about twelve-fifty. Two thousand for in-state, thirty-two-fifty for out-of-state."
I thought for a moment.
"All the utility bills are in my name," I said. "Except for his cell phone."
"Cell phone?" he said. "Do the bills have the street address?"
"I think so," I said, but in fact I knew so. I had bought Dad a cell phone and a national plan five years ago. The bills had his name on them, but they came to my house, and I paid them.
"That'll do," said the case worker.
And so I needed Dad to be discreet. For a month or so. Till he settled in.
"Try not to talk about Terre Haute." I said. "Or the house."
"What else will I talk about?" he said.
"You don't have to lie," I told him. "Just... push that stuff back into the past. Act as if you've been living here for a few years."
After all, he has spent at least five or six weeks a year visiting me. For a good decade or so. It's not as if he's unfamiliar with my house, my neighborhood, and therefore, ipso facto, his new official state of residency. And people know him around here—in a way. The clerk at the bakery would see him every day for a week, she even got to know his breakfast order, coffee and a scone, no butter, and she would recognize him when he returned, two months, three months, four months later, and joke with him about having his breakfast somewhere else. He enjoyed that.
Of course, there's a lot of turnover at that bakery. There was only the one clerk who remembered him, and she's gone now.
Ten years he's been coming, or, actually, ten years I've been going to get him. Every school vacation and twice each summer.
He moved into Van Buren Hill today. One day before the end of the month—no extra charge, said the case worker. They call them case workers but they're really sales agents. This guy was okay, though.
The movers were carrying the flattened cardboard boxes out of the new apartment and I was taking care of the last few bits of paperwork when I noticed that Dad wasn't around.
"Don't worry," said the case worker. "He's probably meeting his neighbors. Everyone's very friendly here."
We found him in a little alcove near the elevator, sitting on a bench, talking with two women about ten years younger than himself.
"That's wonderful," he was saying as the case worker and I approached. "We don't have anything like that in Terre Haute—"
"There you are!" I said, maybe too loudly.
"You must be his daughter!" said one of the women. She stood and shook my hand. "My name's Dorothy," she said, "and this is my friend Louise. We've just invited Arthur to join us on an expedition."
I was at Van Buren Hill—a nice place, my first choice among all the places I'd been looking at, not disgusting or depressing, but not full of Republicans either. I was doing quick calculations in my head—multiply dollars per month by twelve to get dollars per year, then add years—how many?—to eighty-nine, when the case worker asked for proof of residency.
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Usually a utility bill," he said.
"Is it required?"
"Well there's a different fee structure for out-of-state residents." He looked at me and smiled. "We do get some funding from the state."
I smiled back. "Really. What's the difference?"
"Oh, at the level of care we're setting up for Arthur"—he used Dad's name as if he were talking about a kindergarten student—"the difference would be about five hundred a month. At the assisted living level—let's see, that would be about twelve-fifty. Two thousand for in-state, thirty-two-fifty for out-of-state."
I thought for a moment.
"All the utility bills are in my name," I said. "Except for his cell phone."
"Cell phone?" he said. "Do the bills have the street address?"
"I think so," I said, but in fact I knew so. I had bought Dad a cell phone and a national plan five years ago. The bills had his name on them, but they came to my house, and I paid them.
"That'll do," said the case worker.
And so I needed Dad to be discreet. For a month or so. Till he settled in.
"Try not to talk about Terre Haute." I said. "Or the house."
"What else will I talk about?" he said.
"You don't have to lie," I told him. "Just... push that stuff back into the past. Act as if you've been living here for a few years."
After all, he has spent at least five or six weeks a year visiting me. For a good decade or so. It's not as if he's unfamiliar with my house, my neighborhood, and therefore, ipso facto, his new official state of residency. And people know him around here—in a way. The clerk at the bakery would see him every day for a week, she even got to know his breakfast order, coffee and a scone, no butter, and she would recognize him when he returned, two months, three months, four months later, and joke with him about having his breakfast somewhere else. He enjoyed that.
Of course, there's a lot of turnover at that bakery. There was only the one clerk who remembered him, and she's gone now.
Ten years he's been coming, or, actually, ten years I've been going to get him. Every school vacation and twice each summer.
He moved into Van Buren Hill today. One day before the end of the month—no extra charge, said the case worker. They call them case workers but they're really sales agents. This guy was okay, though.
The movers were carrying the flattened cardboard boxes out of the new apartment and I was taking care of the last few bits of paperwork when I noticed that Dad wasn't around.
"Don't worry," said the case worker. "He's probably meeting his neighbors. Everyone's very friendly here."
We found him in a little alcove near the elevator, sitting on a bench, talking with two women about ten years younger than himself.
"That's wonderful," he was saying as the case worker and I approached. "We don't have anything like that in Terre Haute—"
"There you are!" I said, maybe too loudly.
"You must be his daughter!" said one of the women. She stood and shook my hand. "My name's Dorothy," she said, "and this is my friend Louise. We've just invited Arthur to join us on an expedition."
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Dorothy, June 19, 2007
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Yesterday, for the first day of class, Louise insisted on driving me. I told her that I had been driving every day, everywhere I wanted to go except those few places where she was also going, places that didn't seem to me much different at all from all my other destinations, to which she replied that I had obviously been driving much too much, and if I didn't want to have that cast put back on my arm I needed to take a break now and then, and as far as she was concerned the issue was closed, but of course she kept talking, it would be silly for both of us to drive and park our cars right next to each other in that tiny parking lot where it was so easy to hit the dumpster with your taillight when you're pulling back out, and it made more sense for me to be in her car as her navigator, as it was only my wrist which I had broken and not my neck, leaving me fully capable of turning around and looking out the back window when needed. I listened to her and eventually I agreed, because in fact my wrist had been hurting me, it had kept me up most of Sunday night, and I even had begun to wonder if I had been driving too much.
We drove into the park and Louise pointed to the new benches and picnic tables and we talked about how much nicer the park had become in the past few years, how upset we had been four years ago when Professor Jorgensen had moved the Elder Summer Science Series from a classroom at the university to this park where none of us had set foot in years, some of us remembered taking our kids there for the swimming pool, which was the nicest one in the city in the early 1960s-but all that ended a few years later with the riots, not the swimming pool, but our coming there with our kids. We both agreed that even though we had been upset at first, it had all worked out for the best. Louise said that Professor Jorgensen had been very brave to build a nature center in park with so many troubles, and I told her that I didn't think Professor Jorgensen was the one who actually built the nature center, it was that Deveridge girl, Lisa, the attorney's daughter, but Louise said that even if the girl had been the one to do all the work and appear on television all the time, it was obvious that Professor Jorgensen had been in charge, and I decided not to correct her, because sometimes it's better to seem as if you only know what you've read in the papers.
There were only two other cars in the parking lot and Louise recognized one of them, I don't know how she does it, all cars look the same to me. It's those Lutheran ladies, she said, and I told her to shush, she knows very well I don't like it when she labels everybody by what church they go to. They're such flirts, she said, and I knew what she meant, because the Lutheran ladies had only started coming to the Elder Summer Science Series two years ago, after Sonya, Professor Jorgensen's wife, had died, but all I said to Louise was that I hoped she could be ecumenical.
Inside the center the Lutheran ladies were looking at the posters of Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes designed by the high school class, and at the other end of the room, typing on a laptop computer, was a young girl, maybe thirty years old. It must be his new assistant, whispered Louise, those Lutheran ladies don't have a chance, and I didn't say anything but I noticed the wedding band on the girl's finger as she typed.
Then Louise walked right over and introduced herself to the girl. And the girl looked up and smiled and said her name was Melissa, she was an assistant professor in the Biology Department, and gathered us all together, and said that and even though she had never really worked with Professor Jorgensen as he had retired from regular teaching moved away, except for the summers, before she was hired, she was honored to take over a program which he had started, and she was so delighted that we had all decided to continue with the program, it was really a wonderful tribute to a great man's memory.
At which point she looked at our faces and realized that we had all come to the class expecting to find Professor Jorgensen.
None of us had heard the news. Not even me.
Yesterday, for the first day of class, Louise insisted on driving me. I told her that I had been driving every day, everywhere I wanted to go except those few places where she was also going, places that didn't seem to me much different at all from all my other destinations, to which she replied that I had obviously been driving much too much, and if I didn't want to have that cast put back on my arm I needed to take a break now and then, and as far as she was concerned the issue was closed, but of course she kept talking, it would be silly for both of us to drive and park our cars right next to each other in that tiny parking lot where it was so easy to hit the dumpster with your taillight when you're pulling back out, and it made more sense for me to be in her car as her navigator, as it was only my wrist which I had broken and not my neck, leaving me fully capable of turning around and looking out the back window when needed. I listened to her and eventually I agreed, because in fact my wrist had been hurting me, it had kept me up most of Sunday night, and I even had begun to wonder if I had been driving too much.
We drove into the park and Louise pointed to the new benches and picnic tables and we talked about how much nicer the park had become in the past few years, how upset we had been four years ago when Professor Jorgensen had moved the Elder Summer Science Series from a classroom at the university to this park where none of us had set foot in years, some of us remembered taking our kids there for the swimming pool, which was the nicest one in the city in the early 1960s-but all that ended a few years later with the riots, not the swimming pool, but our coming there with our kids. We both agreed that even though we had been upset at first, it had all worked out for the best. Louise said that Professor Jorgensen had been very brave to build a nature center in park with so many troubles, and I told her that I didn't think Professor Jorgensen was the one who actually built the nature center, it was that Deveridge girl, Lisa, the attorney's daughter, but Louise said that even if the girl had been the one to do all the work and appear on television all the time, it was obvious that Professor Jorgensen had been in charge, and I decided not to correct her, because sometimes it's better to seem as if you only know what you've read in the papers.
There were only two other cars in the parking lot and Louise recognized one of them, I don't know how she does it, all cars look the same to me. It's those Lutheran ladies, she said, and I told her to shush, she knows very well I don't like it when she labels everybody by what church they go to. They're such flirts, she said, and I knew what she meant, because the Lutheran ladies had only started coming to the Elder Summer Science Series two years ago, after Sonya, Professor Jorgensen's wife, had died, but all I said to Louise was that I hoped she could be ecumenical.
Inside the center the Lutheran ladies were looking at the posters of Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes designed by the high school class, and at the other end of the room, typing on a laptop computer, was a young girl, maybe thirty years old. It must be his new assistant, whispered Louise, those Lutheran ladies don't have a chance, and I didn't say anything but I noticed the wedding band on the girl's finger as she typed.
Then Louise walked right over and introduced herself to the girl. And the girl looked up and smiled and said her name was Melissa, she was an assistant professor in the Biology Department, and gathered us all together, and said that and even though she had never really worked with Professor Jorgensen as he had retired from regular teaching moved away, except for the summers, before she was hired, she was honored to take over a program which he had started, and she was so delighted that we had all decided to continue with the program, it was really a wonderful tribute to a great man's memory.
At which point she looked at our faces and realized that we had all come to the class expecting to find Professor Jorgensen.
None of us had heard the news. Not even me.
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