legacy writing – Page 30 – beckycochrane.com

Legacy Writing 365:133

I think the first Bruce Springsteen song I ever heard was “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City” from 1973’s “Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ.” I can’t claim any great prescience about Bruce’s stellar future; I was drawn by the album title because my nephew Josh happened to be born in Asbury Park. But I’m a sucker for a song that tells a story, and I loved that one. Somehow I missed the next album until later, “The Wild, the Innocent, & the E Street Shuffle,” but boy was I blown away by 1975’s album, “Born to Run.” I kept bugging the crap out of everybody–have you heard this guy, Bruce Springsteen? He’s GREAT! And everybody pretty much ignored me. I think I was living in the wrong place. However, my early faith has been reaffirmed millions of times over by Springsteen’s long career and many brilliant albums.

I always go back and forth between saying my favorite song of all time is Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” and Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.” I used to teach “Thunder Road” alongside Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress” to college freshmen as great examples of the carpe diem theme.

I’ll never forget the excitement of driving from Tuscaloosa to Starkville for this–so many cars on the highway had “BOSS” and “SPRINGSTEEN” and “BRUUUUCE” written on the windows in white shoe polish, making strangers seem like fellow pilgrims.

Notice those tickets cost $9.50 each–you wouldn’t see that today! But as an indicator of how much I loved Bruce, you should know that my budget for buying groceries for two people at that time was SEVEN dollars a week. A WEEK. Times were hard, but Bruce was worth it.

Along about the time my mother took this photo of Debby holding up my Bruce Springsteen calendar in Mother’s apartment just outside Tuscaloosa (an apartment I’m pretty sure was wiped out in 2011’s monster tornado), my love for Bruce had a little tarnish marring its shine. I was put off by the scandal of his first marriage breaking up when paparazzi caught him nuzzling bandmate and future wife Patti Scialfa on a balcony in Rome. I still bought his music, but it wasn’t until a few years later, when I was older and wiser, that I realized while watching a video of Springsteen and Patti singing together how powerful their bond is. The expression on her face and the love in her eyes was the stuff novels–and songs–are written about. In fact, they’ve now been married for almost twenty-one years and raised three children outside the glare of publicity, so kudos to them for that.

Also: This is a totally great article (including wisdom for those who create) in Rolling Stone: an interview of Bruce by Jon Stewart. My take-away quote, about how our formative years remain with us:

I have a metaphor. I say, “Look, you’re in a car, your new selves can get in, but your old selves can’t get out.” You can bring new vision and guidance into your life, but you can’t lose or forget who you’ve been or what you’ve seen. New people can get in, but nobody can get out: The child from 1950, he doesn’t get out. The teenager, the adolescent boy, no one can get out. They are with you until the end of the ride, and you’re going to pass a certain amount of them on.”

Bruuuuuuce!

Legacy Writing 365:132

Love this photo of Daddy working on the riding lawn mower because:

Bell bottoms!
I know Mother was in the house feeling dubious about his mechanical skills.
I’m sure he did not know I was lurking with a camera.
There’s a good shot of my old Monte Carlo in the background.

Inside family joke: A couple of days later, You Know Who probably made that lawn mower able to cut grass all the way to Birmingham and back.

Legacy Writing 365:131

Whenever Lynne’s dog Paco is at The Compound, his favorite thing in the world is being held by Tom. I always say he’s trying–futilely–to take our late dachshund Pete’s place. I’m not sure how often Pete’s paws actually touched the ground the first couple of years of his life. Tom was always holding him, unless Pete was walking Tom on a leash. Nobody had any doubt that Tom was Pete’s favorite, or that Pete was the boss.

Here they are in 1989 taking a nap on the couch.

Legacy Writing 365:130

My mother, pictured here in the center, was in her mid-sixties when she volunteered as a Pink Lady (though by then they were called “Auxiliary Volunteers”) in the hospital of the small town where she was living. This might have been the last of decades of her volunteering in hospitals, libraries, schools, and museums.

For many years, she was a Red Cross volunteer. I don’t think I have a photo of her in her Red Cross uniform, but I do have some of her pins, along with other volunteer pins, pictured here:

One time Olivia de Havilland was coming to the town where we lived—I’m not sure if I was in high school or college then. But my mother, knowing how much I love the actress, went to the airport hoping to get her autograph for me. It just so happened to be one of the days Mother worked at the hospital on our nearby Army post, so she was in her Red Cross uniform. Miss de Havilland had been a frequent visitor to hospitals during World War II, plus—a passionate reader—she once recalled that the first book she ever read was written for the benefit of the Red Cross in World War I. So my mother may have been right in her belief that it was her uniform that made Miss de Havilland stop and not only give her an autograph but spend a few minutes in conversation with her.

Sadly, though that autograph was among my most treasured keepsakes, it has been misplaced for years. Maybe one day it’ll turn up tucked into some other papers—but I’ll always appreciate the kind hearts of the two women who gave it to me.

Legacy Writing 365:129

My Vacation Reading Club certificate from the bookmobile (though they got my middle initial wrong), and the front cover of my Carnival of Books reading list from when I was age six.

Tuesday on Twitter, Timmy, Steve B, and I talked about library cards and bookmobiles. I know I always had library cards, but I don’t remember getting them (except the last one I got for Houston’s library downtown). But those steps up into the bookmobile, the smell of the books, even the way the air conditioner felt–those memories are as vivid as if they happened only weeks ago. It was SO EXCITING the day the bookmobile came.

I filled out the first few lines of my “books read” myself, then my mother took over, probably because I kept messing up the authors’ names. I may eventually look up all of these books and see if any of them seem familiar. For example, I don’t remember reading H.A. Rey’s Cecily G. and the 9 Monkeys, in which Curious George makes his very first appearance.

And clearly my appreciation of things that sparkle must have begun with Paul Brown’s Sparkle and Puff Ball.

Does anyone remember any of these books?

My mother must have, because many years later, when The Boyfriend brought us a dog to rehome when her family moved out of the country, my mother renamed her Ling Toy (No. 18, Glen Dines’s The Useful Dragon of Sam Ling Toy).

Back cover:

Legacy Writing 365:128

Back in September 2007, I wrote a rambling post (I know this shocks you) that ended with a photo of the Moleskine that Marika sent and personalized for me with stickers of Maleficent, Diablo, and the owl from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. That book has become the repository for many a memento–so though it hasn’t been used technically as a journal, it does tell a story (including many of my political views, movie favorites, voting records, organizations I support, photos that are special favorites of mine). As you can see, though there are some blank pages left, the Malefi-skine has been well used.

No worries about running out of space, however, because Marika has, on separate occasions, sent two more.

While reading a post on Dawn’s blog, I began to remember how I once stumbled over my Morning Pages several years after I semi-did Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I was surprised back then to see that many of my writing hopes had subsequently come true. So after reading Dawn’s post, I decided, I need to keep a manifestation journal. When I went looking for the extra Moleskines, I discovered that either Marika or I had put a sticker she also sent me on the front of one of those blank books.

There’s nothing wrong with being a dreamer. Put the work with your dreams, and they can come true. Thanks for the reminder, Marika and Dawn. On with the Lennon-skine.

Legacy Writing 365:127

May 14 is my brother David’s birthday. When the family was together recently, I got to retell one of my mother’s favorite stories.

When he was about the age you see him in these pictures–a toddler–Mother put him down for a nap one day. Then she and a friend sat on the porch to talk.

After a bit, Mother looked down the road and saw a woman holding the hand of a child and walking in her direction.

“That baby’s probably about the same age as David,” she mused.

The woman and child came closer. She laughed and said, “That child even looks a little like David.”

A few seconds and another glance later, she said, “That little boy is David!”

Apparently he’d taught himself how to climb over the rail of his baby bed and slide head first to the floor. He then made his escape through the back door and trotted down the road wearing nothing but his diaper. He was spotted by a stranger. She took his hand and began walking him in the direction he’d come from, sure sooner or later she’d find a frantic mother.

He still loves to walk, though he’s often guiding other people over mountainous terrain in the western states. And now he knows to dress appropriately.

We’re all thinking of you with love on your birthday, David, and we’re glad you always come back from your travels with stories to tell.

Legacy Writing 365:126

A very happy Mother’s Day to all of you who are mothers–whether by biology, fostering, adopting, step-parenting, or acting as mother figures to those with whom you share a profound bond of love. I was fortunate to have the mother I did, and I also had others who nurtured and taught me, like Elnora and Pollye, and of course my wonderful mother-in-law Mary.

My mother loved to work crossword puzzles. Reading gave her a rich vocabulary, and the puzzles made good use of it and added to it. It’s a pastime my sister also enjoys, and when Debby was here recently and finished the book she was reading, she said she needed to get a crossword puzzle book. I still had the last two–and a pack of mechanical pencils–that I’d bought for my mother not long before she died: the giant puzzles with easier words, so they wouldn’t frustrate her.

I gave one of the books to my sister–I think only one puzzle had been started and left unfinished by me. I kept the other one, and found this puzzle that I’d done, probably while sitting next to my mother as she slept.

Notice that number 11 across is “mama”: the clue was “She’s remembered.”

She surely is.

Legacy Writing 365:125

Earlier today, I tweeted, “Ever notice there are times in your life when music feels like an enemy instead of a friend?”

Then as I was looking through the photo album to which I returned Jeff’s picture (see earlier post), R.E.M. sang, “I’ve found a way to make you…I’ve found a way…A way to make you smile…At my most beautiful” just as I saw this photo. And it’s true. They do always make me smile and they are at their most beautiful every year they’ve been part of my life. There is nothing in the world like being Aunt Becky.

Legacy Writing 365:124

Today is the birthday of my late friend Jeff. Later tonight, we’ll be celebrating Rhonda’s birthday belatedly, so I’ll eat a cupcake in his honor.

Jeff had a tendency, when introducing me to a large group of people, to say, “This is my friend Becky. She’s a [fill in the blank with something random to see how everyone, including me, would react].” Among many great times I had in Jeff’s company was one of his Christmas parties. When Tom and I walked in, Jeff put his arm around me and announced to the room, “This is my friend Becky. She’s a witch!”

Anything I knew about being a witch came from watching “Bewitched” or listening to Stevie Nicks songs. But I leapt into the conversational cauldron feet first and never lacked for interesting discussions the rest of the night. I might have even made up some incantations while Tom rolled his eyes and hung out with Jane, Eric, and John.