Legacy Writing 365:79

Is it innate, the different way we carry our books according to our gender? I have to admit that in all my years of seeing students pre-backpack, it’s most often done this way. Does it have something to do with the different ways our body strength develops?

Debby’s books look like they weigh more than she does. Both Debby and David seem to be having enough trouble trying to get to school not to want to turn around and have their picture taken. But I love this photo. I was probably somewhere behind my mother–I wonder if I was happy to see them go, wished I were going, too, or wanted them to stay home? I can’t remember that far back.

I think I remember these dogs, but I may just remember photos of them, including one of me with them. As family history has it, this was the time in my life when my favorite animal companion was a one-eyed chicken. I don’t remember her at all.

Looking at these dogs–aren’t they collie mixes? No wonder I cried so hard that I had to be sent to bed while we were watching Lassie, Come Home. And NO, Debby, I still haven’t watched the video of it you so gleefully sent me a few years ago. As far as I know, Lassie’s still out there wandering around and making little girls hysterical. Bitch.

Legacy Writing 365:77

I trust you all had a happy St. Patrick’s Day. My mother had this bumper sticker on the car she drove for a thousand years (I think it had around only 35,000 miles on it when she got rid of it):

I would have sworn I had a picture she took of the car to show off the bumper sticker, but after looking through about thirty of her photo albums, I came up with nothing. However, I did stumble upon a photo of my brother when he was a young teenager. There’s nothing Irish about the shot unless you count David’s last name and my mother’s green curtains.

I think he looks very cool (sorry about the damaged photo). This is the age he was when my clearest memories of him begin. I kind of idolized him, even though he tormented me. It was his job as a big brother. He also looked out for me.

In the past I’ve taken embarrassing photos of Margot, Guinness, and some of their friends on St. Patrick’s Day. Sadly, they’ve done no posing today–though I suppose I could take a photo of them sleeping and pretend they’re passed out after drinking green beer.

Sugar, on the other hand… She’s spending the weekend with us, and I caught her hanging out with a new friend who brought her a bone.

Right after this photo was taken, he sold her to the Gypsies. You just can’t trust those leprechauns. Anyway, no need for you to pick her up Sunday night, Rhonda and Lindsey. She’s not here. Seriously.

Legacy Writing 365:76

Remember how I said that our dog Pete liked a few people and didn’t like others? Tom’s brother Jeff was one of the people he liked. And it went beyond just tolerating him. He never minded if Jeff picked him up, held him, played with him. They were buddies.

Christmas of 1997, the Tom family all traveled to Houston to be with us, which was very generous of them. I took this photo of Pete and Stevie flanking Jeff in Tom’s old recliner.

I shared the photo with some of my online friends to prove that Pete could be a good dog. He could! Most of them were skeptical, but a couple of years later, our friend Steve C decided on his first Houston visit that anything Jeff could do, Steve could do, too.

No one was bitten that visit. Except maybe Jim’s boots.

Legacy Writing 365:75

Assistant Principal Cochrane

It’s been a long time since I was part of such a system, but as I recall, students received detention slips for various infractions. After so many detentions, the student could receive a one- to three-day suspension.

Having to stay after school in tenth grade wouldn’t have been any big deal for me. I was there anyway, waiting for my father to finish his work day and drive us home. However, I’m sure as the school’s assistant principal, he wasn’t exactly delighted to receive this slip for his files.

When the school year ended and the files were all tossed out so we could start with a clean slate the following year, Daddy gave this one to me to keep as a souvenir. See? Those things DON’T go on your permanent record and follow you around all your life.

On this Ides of March, it’s only fitting that I should note that Coach Deerman, who busted me for chewing gum, is the man who taught us Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. And I can still recite from memory:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones…

Clearly, Shakespeare, too, bought into that “permanent record” myth. Then again, our misdeeds may live on…when we put them on our blogs.

Legacy Writing 365:74

Wednesday afternoon, Tom and I drove our nephew Aaron a couple of hours outside Houston to meet up with his mother. During his visit here, I didn’t make him do anything nefarious (Lynne!) or take him to get a tattoo, so I’m betting he’ll get to visit us again. That’s certainly what five dogs are hoping, as well as the human Compounders.

As we drove through the countryside, we could see the first faint dusting of wildflowers. Anyone who lives near Texas’s Hill Country goes out sooner or later to see the gorgeous wildflowers growing alongside the roads. And it’s a rite of passage for every Texas child to be photographed sitting in a field of bluebonnets, Texas Paintbrush, Indian Blankets, greenthreads, winecups, primroses, or any combination of those.

My first spring in Texas, Jess was about seven, and I snapped this photo of him on an excursion to the country.

This is a photo Lynne took of Jess’s daughter Lila, when Lila was just over a year old.

Sometimes it amazes me to realize I’m seeing Jess’s child do the same things he did. Still, I’m not a grandmother. Lynne is. Can’t figure out how the math works there.

I am an aunt, but I didn’t make Aaron jump from the car and pose for me, since the flowers aren’t in full bloom yet. Our way of celebrating Pi Day was to eat lunch together at Happy Fatz, where we split this dessert. Okay, it’s not officially pie. It’s cheesecake. But it looks like pie. So close enough!

Randomness

Some random things to show I don’t live completely in the past.

Writers.

Recently, Tim and I attended Michael Thomas Ford’s signing at Murder By The Book. MTF looks very solemn in this photo, as he was listening to a question from a reader. But there were a lot of laughs at the event, because he’s a funny man. He was there to promote the third in his Jane series: Jane Bites Back, Jane Goes Batty, and Jane Vows Vengeance.

Current-day Jane Austen as a vampire whose nemesis is the undead Charlotte Brontë; who finds love and unusual potential mother-in-law conflict in upstate New York; and who can talk to three-legged chihuahuas and ghosts: What’s not to love?

Aesthetics.
Coke introduced the white polar bear can to raise awareness of the threat to the polar bear and its habitat due to climate change. In partnership with the World Wildlife Fund, Coke committed three million dollars to the campaign. Consumers reacted poorly to the Coke can, either because of their devotion to the color red or because they confused the white can with Diet Coke’s silver can. Coke stopped production of the white polar bear can and now shows the bears on the traditional red can. I’ll bite my tongue on all the things I could say about this–except to note that I loved the white can.

Art.

We had an honest to goodness Craft Night last week! Lindsey and I both painted. I’d vowed that when Project Runway All Stars ends, I’d return to working on the Bottle Caps and Friends series.
I hope to hang it somewhere this year.

Adorability.
Last October, I spied this tiny Starbucks cup at Target and shot it (left). As adorable as I found the shot-glass sized cup, there was no point in sharing the photo because of the lack of scale. Then on a recent drive-through, I was given a little sample of Starbucks cherry pie in one of the shot-glass cups. Notice how the logo has changed in the interim, with the Starbucks name vanishing to leave only the mermaid.

Family. Our nephew Aaron is visiting for a few days. On Monday, he, Tim, and I went to Houston Camera Co/op so Tim could look at external flashes; Aaron could look at potential new cameras (he’s going Canon, because that’s what he’s learning on, and Canons still make me drool, even though I’m a Nikon owner); and I could learn what to do about the smudge that I keep having to photoshop out of all my pictures. The REALLY helpful gentleman (pictured with Aaron, beyond Tim in this photo) who assisted me has SOLVED MY PROBLEM by showing me how to get to the innards of my camera (if ONLY I’d read the manual–bad tech writer!) and delicately clean away the smudge. This will save me a lot of time with my photos, so I’m quite happy.

Home. I saw a photo online of a grouping of globes displayed in a home. I liked it, but I have only one globe. I moved it from my office to my living room and added some of my crystal balls, my Manhattan snow globe, Tom’s childhood marbles, and other globe-shaped items next to it. There are twinkly lights there, too, so the crystals glisten at night.

Friends. In addition to being my nephew Josh’s birthday, March 12 is my late friend Tim R’s birthday. We dropped by the cemetery to leave wind chimes on his crape myrtle. I wonder if they’ll still be there the next time I visit? I say that not because people steal things, the way they stole from my parents’ gravesite. The other things left over the years are all still there. I just don’t know if it’s too big to be allowed to hang from the tree. We’ll see!

Legacy Writing 365:72

Dear Josh,

The summer between my junior and senior years in high school is one I remember very well. You’d just been born in March–but in Bruce Springsteen’s homeland, so I’d only seen photos of you. When your mother said the two of you were coming to stay with us that summer, I had no idea what to expect.

I’d learned a lot already because of your cousin Daniel, who was then more than a year old. For example, I’d had to accept the hard truth that I was no longer the baby of the family. That all those presents under the Christmas tree were his. That baby birthdays are a much bigger deal than teenage birthdays. That learning how to say your first words and take your first steps and eat your first solid foods and all that stuff eclipsed family excitement over getting a driver’s license or opening your first bank account or going to your first prom.

That little rat!

But that’s not all Daniel had taught me. Because of him, I learned what it was to truly love another being without condition. To want only the best for him. To hope every single day that he’d be safe and well. To suffer through each earache and sneeze and bump as if it were my own. To feel like my heart might explode out of me when he laughed or did something adorable. To see the world through his eyes and know again what wonder and amazement even the tiniest, seemingly most insignificant, things could evoke.

Then what worried me was… What if I only had enough space in my heart for one? If I loved you, would that take away some of my love for him? If I thought you were amazing, did that somehow make him a little less amazing?

And then you arrived, and I learned what parents and very fortunate aunts know: Love never divides when you give it. It only multiplies.

Oh, the joy of that summer. Your mother and I shared a bedroom again, as we had as girls, only you were in there, too. Every day the first sound I heard was either you crying or you laughing, and both were okay with me. Instead of being a surly teen who wanted to sleep in, I couldn’t wait to hang out with you. I’d hold you, watch your eyes get huge as you took in the world. I’d change your diapers without complaint–um, even that time you wee’d again as I was changing you, and the stream landed on the “Certificate of Going Steady” I’d painstakingly hand-lettered for my boyfriend. I’d give you bottles, walk with you in the yard–although you must understand, I had to compete with your mother, grandparents, and the aforementioned boyfriend for that privilege.

You had the biggest laugh, and everyone laughed with you. Your angry tears were just as booming, and your whole body would turn red with rage when you cried. I’m sorry to say, the crying made us laugh, too, that anything that small could hold so much emotion. We found our old Polaroid Swinger that summer, and these terrible black and white photos are from it. They looked fine at the time, but now you can barely see the images in person. Scanned and adjusted, they look like they were taken using some of those cool hipster applications that are all the thing these days. From the beginning, you were cutting edge and ahead of your time!

School friends came over that summer, and Debby and I had bought two big posters for coloring with felt tip pens. My poster was of fish in the ocean; hers was of flowers in a garden. We all sat around the dining room table coloring them. You’d lie next to us or sit in our laps, cooing to yourself or “talking” to us while we colored. Your presence made the days cheerful and fun (and I think it should be noted that years later, when that summer’s boyfriend had his second son, he named him “Joshua David,” same as you).

You made my last “childhood” summer magical for me, and created a love in my heart that has never diminished, never felt anything but pride in you. I love you so much and hope today you’re having a happy birthday. I’m glad to be counted among all the people who are thrilled you were born.

I love you,
Aunt Becky


Infant Josh with Grandmother Dear

Legacy Writing 365:71

Tim and I were talking about the concept of “hometowns” a few days ago. Being an Army brat, I never felt that I had a hometown. Even though we mostly stayed in one area during the last seven years of my public school education before I left for college, we lived in three houses in three towns and it involved three schools.

My father did have a hometown, however, a place where he came from two families whose ancestors had helped found the town. He grew up knowing everyone and everyone knowing him, and he had a lifelong best friend. When he left the Army after World War II, he went back to that hometown. I’m not sure exactly what he did then unless it was to try forgetting the unforgettable, to learn how to live again within the embrace of a family who loved him, and to breathe and survey a familiar landscape.

His best friend was Jess, and since this photo doesn’t have names on it, I’m assuming this is Jess (on the left) with my father. It’s dated, so I know it was taken the year my father married my mother, possibly taken by my mother. Four years after it was taken, my father was in school at Alabama, he and my mother had a three-year-old and a five-month-old, and Jess died when he wrecked his car on a country road outside their hometown.

My father rarely told stories about the friends he lost in war, but he did talk about Jess. It was a loss that always stayed with him.

Trying not to name names here–don’t want to get anyone in trouble!–but I was recently in a conversation about the impatience of the young for the elderly. My friend had read an online account of someone who was beyond exasperated about having to wait in line at the grocery store while a senior wrote a check. She ranted about old people shopping, about not using debit cards, etc. This person’s diatribe appalled my friend enough to make her write a satirical response, in the manner of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” which probably went right over the enraged shopper’s head.

Yes, we live in a fast world, and yes, it’s sometimes populated by people who don’t and can’t live at a fast pace. But when I see old people, I think of the infinite stories of their lives: their triumphs, their losses. Their great loves and heartbreaks. All the experiences that make up the few decades they get on this planet. And even if they never travel very far from their hometowns, the journeys they’ve made with their hearts have been a long adventure as noble and perilous as any we read in books or see in movies. The least we can do is show a little courtesy when they move more slowly than the rest of us. Because actually, we’re only rushing toward the same place where they’re living.

Legacy Writing 365:70

This is Cousin Ruth. We’re at my Uncle Gerald’s house (Gerald was her uncle, too–he was a brother to both her mother and mine). Ruth’s petting our dog Dopey. It wasn’t this visit, but it was a visit to Uncle Gerald’s house when the Terrible Turtle Incident happened.

I know I haven’t really shared a story here, but probably I should get permission for this one. Meanwhile, enjoy a glimpse of the Best Dog in the Entire World, Dopey Dan Cochrane.

Legacy Writing 365:69

My mother once told me that this was my favorite shirt when I was that age–five/sixish? She said I wanted to wear it all the time. Sadly, it came to a bad end. I was running a fever so high that my parents took me to the emergency room, where an IV was immediately started. I was still dressed, so a nurse had to cut off the shirt later. Mother said I didn’t cry about any of the other stuff that was going on, but I did cry about my shirt.

Not meaning to sound pathetic here, but by that age, I’d had a lot of experience with hospitals and such. I think in general, kids are stoic. It’s parents and families who sometimes need to step into another room and fall apart. My sister, who spent many years as a pediatric nurse, once told me seeing all the ways children can be ill made her grateful every single day for her healthy children.

For those of you dealing with sick children, I hope you’re finding all the support you need. The bad parts won’t be what your kids remember. They’ll remember the comfort of having you with them.