My Play Is Wondering Where I Went Today

The play I was trying to think of is Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author." It's something worth reading again every time you sit down to write a play. Another one is Moss Hart's "Act One". The screenwriter who wrote "Andersonville" told me he always read "Act One" again before he started another script.

I haven't written a scene today. In fact, I haven't even thought about it though I did write a scene last night. I have no idea where to go next, and again I want to know where I'm going before I write. I don't trust my characters to know the story. After all, I am the one who has to write it. The night is young as I have been sleeping late and staying up late so who knows; maybe I'll write another scene.

Right now, I'm more concerned about the swine flu, or H1N1 flu, or I guess we could say HoneNone if we spell it out. Last night I was even trying to review my algebra, permutation combination formula to see if I could get an idea where this flu is going in a short time mathematically. I'm sure the folks at the CDC have already done that, and that's why they are predicting a pandemic. I can't even conceive of schools closing across the country, much less folks not traveling by plane or subway or going to movies or sports events. I can't imagine what it may have been like in 1918. I hope I don't have to live through something like that, or die in a flu epidemic.

That is not an excuse for not writing on my play today. It's more I just didn't want to write on it. I wanted to be outside and repot my plants. I now have twice as many plants because I've been dividing ferns and repotting them in clean pots with additional fresh soil. I guess I will continue tomorrow until all my plants have had a little attention. I have thought of planting a garden. My dad's wife said you just put the seeds in the dirt and water them. It seems like it would be more complicated than that. I wish I'd helped my daddy with his garden all those years ago so I'd know how to grow vegetables.

It's amazing what I can think of to do instead of write. Maybe they all go together and in many ways are the same. Planting seeds is much like writing a play; you don't know if it will grow or not or if the fruit will die on the vine.

A New Play

I am trying to decide whether I want to write a new play. I'm going through this talk with myself that I don't have the right angle or I don't know for sure which way to go with it. I want the finished product before I've written the first word. Such a commitment--it's like getting married or something. Do I really want to give a couple of years of my life to the frustration of writing a play? The last one never saw the light of day other than being sent out to about twenty theatres. I thought I was over this phase of my writing life. Then today a friend mentioned I should write a play about something I've been dealing with lately and since I know the innerworkings of the situation.

I try to remember that play of all these characters wanting to be in the play and how the play basically writes itself after you get started and let the characters have their way. Right now I'm in the arguing stage telling them all to shut up because I am not going to write another play. I'll just write poems or short pieces on a blog. No more plays. I've already told the children they absolutely can't be in it as I don't want any plays with kids in it. Unfortunately, by the time you get to this point and are talking to your characters, you are writing the play.

One day at a time, I'm going to try to let this play go and ignore the impulse to write. I guess if in three days I'm still having these conversations with the characters, I will give in. However, in the meantime, I'm watching tv tonight.

Amnesia

Driving past landmarks I've lived with
and through intersections I know like my own backyard
I am lost, confused.
Did I have a wreck and not remember?
Did I fall asleep?
I know this city--the Coca Cola Sign
and Georgia State and Peachtree Street.
Forty-five years I've known downtown Atlanta--
the library, the AJC, the courthouse, Crawford Long, the Fox Theatre.
How did I end up at the Coke sign instead of the doctor's office?
No stressful interview or court hearing or jury duty.
No trip to appeal my taxes or file a homestead exemption.
No final exam to take when I arrive at GA State.
Today was a leisurely trip to the doctor.
Just check the skin, the rosacea, the eczema.
No cancer, heart attack or dialysis.
No early morning drive in blinding rain for an ultrasound.
But I am lost in my own neighborhood.

More Prunes with Pits

Wouldn't you know it, I go to Publix yesterday instead of Kroger, and what do I find? You guessed it, Prunes with Pits. So they haven't quit selling them both ways. So I looked at the various size cans and brands, with pits, without pits. Even Publix had their own brand of "Plums", then below it "Prunes." I guess that's in case we think prunes are very large grapes or something.

I actually look at the labels on the cans and notice that some add fructose. Now that's a good way to mess up something that is otherwise healthy. Then I notice there are premium prunes and just prunes, large cans, small cans, sealed bags. The sealed bags for some reason are more expensive than the cans or at least the cans that aren't really cans but cartons with a metal lid. After all my store research standing in the aisle of dried fruit, I again get the pitted prunes. I guess I just wanted to know they still had prunes with pits, but I didn't really want to pay extra to have the pits in the can.

No doubt everything old is new again. I also read last night an article in the May issue of AARP Magazine on the same subject except they titled it "They're Back (the 1930s, That Is." Then they showed pictures of Clark Gable with his mustach and Brad Pitt with his mustach. They proceeded with a chart of the trends with a column for then and now. My favorite, "Trouble -prone Yankee sluggers", then was Babe Ruth and now is Alex Rodriguez. I'm not sure Rod Blogojevich would like being the now for Chicago outlaw, especially when the then was Al Capone. It is a rather timely chart. Guess my mind was in the same place when I wrote about the prunes earlier.

As usual, I stand corrected once again. For anyone reading, there are still prunes with pits.

Prunes with Pits

Prunes were always a steady part of our diet when I was growing up. Mother would bring a pot of prunes to boil in some water and let them simmer a while until they were soft and juicy. They always had the pit. There was no choice of pitted or unpitted. I don't know when the stores quit selling prunes with pits, but I can't remember when I've seen them. You can buy store brand or several name brands, in a bag or a can, but they come without pits. I didn't think that much about it until this week when I ate a can of the most delicious prunes, juicy like my mother always fixed them. And then, I found one lone prune with a pit! In that I grew up with pits in prunes, I guess I wasn't surprised and didn't bite into it by mistake.

This rather insignificant incident made me start thinking about all the things that have changed in my lifetime. Sure, there are the major changes such as computers, missiles to the moon, and central air conditioning, not to mention cellphones and televisions without antennas. However, many of the changes probably are never missed unless someone or something reminds us of it, such as eating a prune with a pit.

I know for me some things I have kept the same, such as I still cook with a pressure cooker, the one that was a wedding gift in 1964. I prefer to make tea with Lipton's loose tea rather than a teabag. I use the same potato peeler, and nothing grinds meat like my meat grinder that you turn by hand. It makes the best chicken salad or ham salad.

Who misses party lines? Who misses Person to Person phone calls? My daddy would stand by the phone when we called long distance. We had three minutes; then we'd have to hang up as it was just too expensive to talk very long on these long distance calls.

Probably very few women particularly long for the days of garter belts and hosiery with seams. However, in many ways, it was probably more comfortable and definitely healthier than the tight crotch in the pantie of pantie hose. Stocking that you used with garter belts were more economical. At least you had two stockings to ruin before you lost the whole thing. With pantie hose, a run in one stocking and that's it. You throw them away, unless you are like me. I have always mended them if possible either by stitching the run when it first begins or painting the run with clear nail polish.

I'm sure there is no doubt that we are better off today with our technology and ways of preventing and healing illness. The early window air conditioners were better than the heat of a hot summer's night, but a long way from being really comfortable. They were always slightly damp even in the dry heat outdoors. A computer definitely beats typing an entire script over by hand and typing carbon copies. Who in their right mind ever enjoyed typing a term paper with a carbon copy if you wanted a copy of the original. Erasures on the copy were not an easy feat as the paper might slip; and when you retyped the word, it would be out of line with the rest of the words.

What I find interesting as I get older, now on number sixty-six in my life, is that from a very early age, everything was modern. It was the newest latest thing of its time so I never felt as though I was deprived because I didn't have a computer or I had to type term papers on a manual typewriter. I was thrilled when I got my first stereo as that was the latest. No, I didn't miss an ipod, nor do I today because I've never had one. I still play records with a turn table, though I must say cd's are a vast improvement over tapes and records as far as finding the song you want to play. However, I don't think you can't beat the sound quality of the turn table and records.

I would think that those of us who are over sixty could probably do with less and not miss it. I could adjust to most changes, but I must admit, I would hate to give up e-mail or the Internet. However, the one thing about being human is we do adapt; otherwise, we might still be living in a cave or for that matter, extinct. Maybe we should all take a week without any of the technology or modern conveniences just to see how we survive. Maybe that's why we have storms, a forced period without technology, a test to see if we can survive without what we think we have to have to live even one day.

Some Years Are Like That

There are years like that. I had one of those in 1967-68, the year I was pregnant with David and taught in a country school about an hour's drive from Athens. We were out there with the chicken coops in Talmo, part of Jackson County Schools. I shared a room with another teacher. Not team teaching, no, I mean we shared a room with a plywood petition between us. It didn't start off so bad.

The teacaher had been there forever, and to my young eyes she seemed to be 90 years old. They were building on to the school so we had to keep windows closed because of noise and dust, but we had no a/c. It was only an average size room, and each of us had our own group of 30 kids. We were barely civil by the time I left. I learned to be in different places than where she was. The hardest though was she would play the piano for the kids to sing while I was trying to teach my reading groups. She had a piano in her room and we had no public school music. I think she was related to everyone in the county, and I was a young pregnant wife of a graduate student teaching for the 3rd year, but the first time in 1st grade.

I don't think I ever even considered considering her as a friend. She would not have been a Facebook friend if we had had Facebook back then. Fortunately, I was too nauseated much of the time to care what she did. I was just getting through the day with one kid who was repeating first grade for the 3rd time, another kid whose dad was in prison and his mom in a mental hospital, a couple who literally lived in chicken coups, and a few others from the upper class whose parents owned the local meatpacking company or were school administrators. Any time I'd feel sorry for myself, a kid would remind me to be grateful when they shared in show and tell about finding some new toys and dishes at the garbage dump.

A Singer Sings

I'm fascinated with the recent interest in Susan Boyle, the singer on Britain's Got Talent. Everyone seems so amazed that she sings so well, and yet she's so plain and never dated. Somehow, somewhere, sometime we all forgot that's what singer's do. A singer sings. These days a singer needs to dance, pose in sexy poses, have back-up dancers, wear size six clothes.

I spent a year in the music school at Baylor. Most of the folks in the music department didn't look like Britney Spears. We always wore black for performances, that was true even in high school. The most ordinary singer sang well. Those with exceptional talent were actually very fine musicians, not glamour girls, models, dancers, just very fine singers. I do recall one girl in the music department who was later on a runner up for Miss Waco, but she ended up teaching 2nd grade at the same school where I taught second grade. When you auditioned, the dean didn't say, "Hm, you are really beautiful and you'd make the choir look so much better." I did have the dean give me a private audition, but not because of my looks, but because I had such performance anxiety I forgot my music.

Maybe today's generation doesn't remember Kate Smith. She was quite overweight and very plain, but a popular singer of her day. She wasn't the best, but she certainly did her share of singing on the radio and early days of TV. I remember her for some of her patriotic songs. Back when I was growing up, there were two worlds. The TV/Hollywood World was the world of the likes of Debbie Reynolds, and others who were attractive and also sang. Then there was the Music World, and we all became one, with one focused goal which was the music. We didn't get first chair French horn because we were cute. We didn't sing a solo with the choir because we had a good figure. It was all about the music, the rhythm, the staying in tune, the quality of playing or singing, the practice, the rehearsals.

I think some of the most dowdy looking people I've ever seen were a few music professors in college. They would have made Susan Boyle look like a fashion statement. I'm afraid I may be close to agreeing with one of our local retired music teachers here in Atlanta. "Shows like American Idol have set back music a hundred years or more." How many times do your hear the music of a really great musician on shows like American Idol or America's Got Talent. Often on PBS there will be a genuinely musical experience, but not on PrimeTime.

Sometimes, I'm amazed at what is called a song, that's not even mentioning the nonsense of the words. Why even bother with some of this or at least don't call it music, not when we have the likes of Schubert, Bach, Brahms. Maybe it should be in two categories: Music and Not Music.

I know I'm prejudiced, but most musicians study for decades to perfect their craft, and most of their singing or playing is devoted to church, weddings, funerals, small groups that only locals may ever hear of. For me, I used to play for Sunday School classes, the Kiwanis lunch meetings and banquets, and accompany a few singers, as well as the student recitals. Most musicians may sing or play with the local symphony. They may even be a lead singer, but you won't see them in the news or know their name, other than a small credit in the program.

I should qualify myself. I played the French Horn from age twelve. My greatest accomplishment was playing with the Baylor orchestra in "Rigoletta." I studied piano from the age of five. My favorite performance was playing on the piano a mediocre rendition of the Mendelssohn concerto with my teacher who played exquisitely. This was at a small recital of twelve other students at his home when I was probably fifty or older. For me to play the piece at all took hours upon hours of practice. There was no quick road to fame, and for me no road to fame. Every piece I ever learned took hours of practice whether it was a Mozart sonata or a Chopin mazurka. I abandoned any notion of being a concert pianist early on, after forgetting my music at the college audition before my freshman year. As I read today on an one of those meditation e-mails, don't quit something or you'll spend your life regretting it. I'll have to look up what was actually said later. I know we have to make decisions in our life, but sometimes we quit things that are really a basic part of our nature. It has nothing to do with a performance or a record deal or earning a living from this thing we begin and quit.

Here's the original quote: April 17, 2009 Quote of the Day
"If you must begin then go all the way, because if you begin and quit, the unfinished business you have left behind begins to haunt you all the time."
– Chögyam Trungpa

I will have to continue this later, my career in music. Meanwhile, I think I may go practice the piano. A Steinway Grand is for more than just dusting.

How often does the doctor call you with test results?

I know in the day when I was young and watched "Marcus Welby, MD" on TV, doctors seldom made housecalls any more. However, a doctor calling you with test results would not have been unusual. These days, there's a hotline you can call for results. If there's something wrong, the nurse will call you back if you call and ask about the results.

The nurse called me yesterday with the results from the ultrasounds. Today the doctor called to confirm those results with a little more explanation--the size of the tiny cyst and fibroid, as well as the one tiny gallstone in the gallbladder. Now I'm sure if I had had no insurance, I wouldn't even know of these as they don't cause any problem unless they get larger. The doctor felt the test results were very good, but she was still concerned about the weight gain. I weighted today after her phone call, and my weight is back to normal. A weeks ago it seemed as though I had gained ten pounds. I don't understand that at all.

I'm wondering if I could keep her as my doctor after she goes to New York to continue her four years of additional study in oncology. She has finished the fellowship now, and she'll be leaving in a few weeks. I told her to come back in four years. I know I will probably never see her again, but she will be one of the first doctors ever to call me with a report and such compassion and concern. I guess doctors just get too busy for the personal touch after they finally finish all their schooling.

Any way, it is nice to know that I am for now healthy, but I will continue my health insurance for as long as possible. Medicare isn't free, and the supplemental policies aren't cheap. But who can afford to go without health insurance these days?

Rozanne in the Kitchen, 1978

Some things change, and some don't. I still have the same kitchen and the same bottles I store pasta and beans in. I still wash dishes. Only now I'm 31 years older. Now I have a new stove, dishwasher and refrigerator, but it's the same 1930s kitchen, very small almost like a caterer's kitchen on a filmset. Now I'm single and 1978 was the year I divorced. I've been single more than twice as long as I was married. A sense of place has at least been a constant in my life these last few decades. The routines of shopping for groceries, preparing meals, washing dishes though often repetitive add to some stability in my life as I become older.

Something on Marriage

A woman should stay married
because of the second car discount
on her insurance premium,
health insurance, and his socks to wear.
She won't need an electric blanket.
She can go to a restaurant
and not feel like a pick-up.
He can tell the neighbors to be quiet,
fill her prescriptions, and fix supper
when she has the flu.
A woman should marry young
and never divorce or else
she'll have to pay her own rent.
A woman needs someone to take care of her.
Love is one thing, but marriage
is something altogether different.

From my cookbook, The Supper Club,© 1985, Rozanne.

This one is for Meats and Casseroles:

Apricot Pits and Bitter Almonds

She stared at me when she rang the pecans
for $2.99 a pound. She mumbled the price
of apple cider. Then she stared at me
when she rang the pineapple, coconut and raisins.
Finally she said in a clear voice,
"Don't they have any bags for the spinach."
She got her fingers muddy.
"Anyone else, anyone else," she said.
"Excuse me, mam, I forgot the tea in my basket.
"I'm sorry, you have to ring second ticket."
But really my trip to the farmer's market
was a useless remedy to my coffee addiction.
Like apricot pits and bitter almonds,
useless remedy for cancer, cyanide in the blood.
I stopped for coffee on the way home.


From my cookbook, The Supper Club,© 1985, Rozanne.

This one is for desserts. I wrote it at a time I was trying to give up coffee.

Home Garden

I bought packages of seeds for a garden
I've always wanted an asparagus garden.
When I was a child asparagus grew wild
on the hill across the street.
Early every morning I picked sprouts.
The package says it's worth the effort
and waiting three years for a crop.
But then the bed is permanent
with a crop for twenty years.
I spaded and pulverized the soil.
We'd plant a garden on Mother's Day.
Broccoli, squash and muskmelon,
cucumbers, cauliflower and asparagus.
Sunflowers, zinnias, and marigolds.
We'd make a garden this year.
The children would have asparagus in adulthood,
like the pecan tree
my daddy planted when I was a child.
I waited till noon. Plans changed.
The children' won't be coming home
for Mother's Day. In my hands
I hold twelve packages of seeds.


From my cookbook, The Supper Club,© 1985, Rozanne.

This one was for sauces, vegetables, soup, and sandwiches:

Home Sweet Home

"Home is best" I embroidered
on a tea towel when I was sixteen,
a young woman at the stove
and a cat nearby, a teenage girl's
dream of happiness in cross stitch.
With every stitch I dreamed
of the man I would marry,
the children I would raise,
the home I would have.
In those days a girl had a hope chest.
So I made tea towels and pillow cases
and samplers. All the women
of my family embroidered.
"Life had not reward nobler than friendship."
"Today is the first day of the rest of your life."
"Thank you for the world so sweet,
thank you for the food we eat."
"Home is best," stained spotted towel.
It's twenty years later and
I'm divorced. I'm a temporary typist.


From my cookbook, The Supper Club,© 1985, Rozanne.

This is the one for breads:

Woman Shopper

She'd been shopping today,
seven shopping bags full of cans
and all her belongings.
She sat huddled in a corner
her bas beside her
waiting for the bus I guess.
Why would she become a bag lady?

From my cookbook, The Supper Club,© 1985, Rozanne.

This one is for Salads:

Paper Dolls and Plastic Beads

We are little girls forever
repeating the memories of the future
with our paper dolls and plastic beads
and yearnings to be grown up
and play house with real dishes,
a husband and babies.
One day it is real,
but we must remember
we are little girls forever
with memories of the future
plus a grocery list.

From my cookbook The Supper Club,© 1985,Rozanne

I'm finished putting the notebook together, but thought I'd type a few of my poems. This one was in the section titled "Letters to Children."

Afternoon Practice

I play Chopin's Revolutionary Etude
to the Batman theme song on TV
while the egg timer ticks the minutes
till the clothes are ready for the rinse cycle
and I run down the stairs to turn the knob.
The washing machine timer is broken.
I tune out the TV
and the kids tune out the piano
and we both enjoy what we're doing
to the background hum of air conditioning
on this scorching hot July afternoon in Atlanta.
The bell rings before I finish the song.


From my cookbook The Supper Club,© 1985,Rozanne

These are from the cookbook I typed up for David when he was busy in plays in high school. Most of it I wrote while on this boring temporary job as a receptionist where I barely answered the phone.

Dawn

Waking to daylight
and the reflection of the prism
on the bedroom door
I know I've made it one more day.

From my cookbook The Supper Club,© 1985,Rozanne

This is my favorite for breakfast, drinks and punch. I wrote it right after the Iranian hostages were released and they said how wonderful it was to see daylight.

A Day with My Three Dogs

Meals, several times a day.
Michelle joined us.
Forgot to watch for wagging tails.
All comfortable.
Meals, several times a day.
Tails wagging.
We are all comfortable.
Hoover comes from yard
When he hears clicker.
Tails wagging, very happy.
Hunter comes from other room
When he heard me
Working with Hoover.
Episode, quick growl at backdoor
Over who would go out.
Had just been so happy.
Very good at supper.
Wagging tails, motivated.
Michelle is getting grouchy at door.

Rozanne
02/03/04

Is this a Poem? (After watching Andy Warhol)

I don’t understand this I don’t understand I understand this I don’t understand this I this I understand don’t I understand this I understand this I don’t I don’t this I don’t understand this this this I I understand don’t I I don’t this I don’t I understand I this I this this I don’t don’t don’t understand understand understand this understand I don’t I don’t I understand this I don’t don’t don’t understand I I I I I I I I I this I understand I understand I this I understand I don’t understand this I. Understand I this I don’t understand.

Rozanne
09/25/06

Blindness

My eyes are getting bad,
though not too bad,
just sort of bad
in that I can't see
the small print on the bottle
to find out how much lotion to put on my arm.
I have to reach my neck like a giraffe
over the frozen food counter
to see if I'm buying flounder or orange roughy.
I can't decipher red print against purple flowers and green lily pads.
I thought it was my glasses.
Yes, it must be my glasses that I have this problem
or maybe the cataracts are getting worse.
I've always had trouble seeing
so that's a good thing.
You don't really know you are getting older
just because now you can't see as well.

Rozanne
05/06/07

Dia de los Muertos

For Michelle, my sheltie

The dead always leave something behind.
My mother left her fingernail in her bed.
My dad left unpaid traffic tickets in his car
My mother-in-law left an angel paperweight
In her otherwise empty house.
My father-in-law left a black butterfly
Who on occasion lingers at my backporch.
My dad left more, the West Texas sunset,
A sun that filled the entire sky as he departed
And every now and then returns,
And my mother-in-law left me Michelle,
Now my Michelle, the sheltie
Who died today as I was bathing her
And she left some of her hair in the drain.
I found it there as I cleaned the tub
For a warm bath to relax and forget this day.
Her spot is empty where she slept
At the foot of my bed near the dresser
But her shrill bark pierces the silence
Of our All Saint’s Day vigil, disturbing me
And my two other dogs who sniff blankets
And bark at imaginary sounds
Now that Michelle is gone.
Mother, where are you when I need you?
Would you send me your prayers.

Rozanne
11/01/07

The Supper Club

These poems are from the cookbook The Supper Club I typed up for David when he was busy in plays in high school his senior year. Most of it I wrote while on this boring temporary job as a receptionist where I barely answered the phone or did much at all except write to stay awake.

Each section had a different poem. I think I called it The Supper Club because when we lived in Macon several couple friends of ours had a supper club. We got together once a month and met at different couples' houses. The host served the entre and the rest of us brought a salad, side dish or dessert. We all had small children so it was much cheaper to get a babysitter for the evening, then go to a friends house for dinner. There weren't that many restaurants in Macon, and they would have been more than our budget. This way we had a great deal of fun and spent less money. Sometimes, we'd all bring our kids, and that was fun too. Once we even took a trip to the mountains and rented a challet for all of us for the weekend.

That was a time in my life when we were all learning to cook and entertain, and we exchanged recipes a lot. Some of the recipes are from that era, but many more were passed on to me by my mother, grandmother, sister or friends over the years. This was before the Internet so you had to clip recipes from the newspaper or magazine, get recipes from friends or buy a cookbook.

Poems in The Supper Club Include:

"Something on Marriage"
"Apricot Pits and Bitter Almonds"
"Home Garden"
"Home Sweet Home"
"Woman Shopper"
"Paper Dolls and Plastic Beads"
"Afternoon Practice"
"Dawn"

From my cookbook, The Supper Club,© 1985, Rozanne.

The Black and White Story: That's the Way Things Were

It’s the cold winter’s night in the winter of my life, and I am getting old. I’ve seen the day pickaninnies, as my grandmother called them, picked cotton with their mamas and daddies on the farm. They’d ask my grandmother for soap powder to wash their clothes for school, and my grandmother said no. After they left, she’d say in a whisper to me, “I don’t know why they wait until it’s time to go to school to wash their clothes.” And I said nothing. I never said anything; I just listened and accepted things the way they were. I knew very young that I was better than the colored kids on the farm because we lived in the farmhouse, and Granddaddy owned the farm. They lived in the shacks, and Grandmother said that they always tear up the floor in winter for firewood so there’s no point fixing up the shacks, or as they were then known, the shanties. I knew that wasn’t true, but I told myself Grandmother knew about those kinds of things.

I was a fifth grader in North Chicago in 1953-1954 when the schools were integrated for the first time. Somebody flooded the restrooms at school and put chewing gum in the encyclopedias of the library. I was told the Negroes did it or as my mother said politely, the colored kids did it. My parents took me out of the public schools in North Chicago the next year because my sister was starting first grade. They told me they didn’t want Beth to ride that far on the bus. No would ever actually said it was so we’d be in an elite all white private school in Lake Forest away from the violence of the public schools because of integration.

We never discussed lots of things, and I never asked about it or even noticed most of the time. White only restaurants, white only stores, white only at the movie theatre! It would have been like me asking why was Lake Michigan blue or why did the ice cream shops close in the winter in Chicago area. Why were there ships in the harbor, why did the soldiers drill on Saturday mornings on the Naval Base? These things were all just part of my life. I didn’t even know what my daddy did in the military, and I never thought to ask him about it till years later. He then told me after I asked him several times that he worked in codes and ciphers and on weekends was officer on duty at the Great Lakes Naval Base. He would notify parents of casualties from the Korean War and make provisions for funerals.

I played “Good Little Eva” and “Good Little Topsy” in my technique book. My piano teacher never mentioned Uncle Tom’s Cabin nor did I know anything about the 19th century novel and that they were characters from the book. To me it was just my music book. Eva taught Topsy, showed her how to hold her thumbs just so, slightly curved, contacting the key at the side tip where the nail meets the flesh. Then Topsy practiced her lesson as I was to do. Eva was “gentle and good,” “pretty and dainty,” “flow’ry and quainty.” Topsy was “her dear little maid with her hair all a braid.” No one ever mentioned that Eva was white and Topsy was black--not me, my teacher nor my parents. But the pictures told the story. Eva was white, and Topsy was black; and they were in a flower garden. Eva was picking tulips, and Topsy was sitting at the base of the birdfeeder watching Eva pick flowers. When I finished learning the song, I gave both girls in the picture stars. I put a small gold star on Eva’s bonnet and a big gold star in Topsy’s hand. The only other black children illustrating the technique book was a picture of two little children in the dessert pointing to an Ostrich with his head buried in the sand. This was to illustrate a lesson to practice playing the 3rd finger while keeping the other fingers and thumb inactive.

We played jazz and Dixieland in the high school stage band, but we didn’t mention that it was Negro music. My only thought was I really wanted to play the piano instead of the French Horn for the stage band. But my playing was too much in the classical tradition to be spontaneous enough to play the piano for a stage band. A girl with no formal piano training but training as a drummer got the position because she had better rhythm and could read the chords better than I could. Yet as I grew older I always loved Dixieland, Scott Joplin, and ragtime right along with Beethoven, Chopin, Bach, and Mozart.

Even as a young girl, I always thought how fun it would be to play the piano for the USO (United Service Organization) and entertain the soldiers with ragtime on the piano. Sometimes on the base or TV we would see programs with various bands such as Spike Lee and his City Slicker orchestra, Guy Lombardo, Benny Goodman, or military bands and singers. So I guess that’s where I got the idea. The celebrities came out for the USO: Milton Berle, Bing Crosby, Glen Miller, Jack Benny, Mickey Rooney, Marilyn Monroe, Debbie Reynolds.

Now I’m getting old and I know because the memories are like reruns of “I Love Lucy”, “Howdy Doody,” or “Person to Person” with Edward R. Morrow. The movie stars and dignitaries of my youth are dying or already passed away. Many of the presidents have been buried, assassinated, impeached, slandered, reelected, forced to resign . . . some of all of this. I watched it on TV. I heard the live radio broadcast of the Kennedy death in the hospital and saw the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby on TV. I watched Watergate on TV as a young mother with my second baby, wondering if this wasn’t the worst thing that could ever happen to our country.

It was far different from the days of childhood when my Republican parents went to the Republican Convention in Chicago and Eisenhower was the nominee. They brought home scatter pins from the convention for me and my sister, an elephant and a donkey with little rhinestones for their body and eyes. I listened to the military bands play “Stars and Stripes Forever” and Kate Smith sing “America the Beautiful.” I watched Ronald Reagan, host of the General Electric Theatre in the 50s, become President of the United States and the first Catholic elected president. That was monumental as I grew up being taught that a Protestant should never marry a Catholic or Jew because they didn’t go to heaven. By the time Kennedy was elected I had change my point of views in many ways except that I still never dated a Catholic, Jew, or black person. I was strictly WASP, White Anglo Saxon Protestant.

My brain is a history book of the south and integration, and yet most of the archives in my brain I really never saw as they were. I didn’t ride public buses so that was not part of my experience. I expected black waiters when we ate out at Johnny Rebs, Aunt Fanny’s Cabin or Mammy’s Shanty in Atlanta. It was as normal that the patrons were white only as it was to have fried chicken and pecan pie. The young black boys at Aunt Fanny’s Cabin who entertained with buck dancing then walked around the room jingling a jar for tips was a highlight of the evening, right up there with homemade biscuits and cornbread. Yes, I went to the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, but I didn’t particularly notice that the blacks all sat in the upper balcony. Yet I knew it was all wrong though I seldom mentioned it to anyone. I’d heard of marches and integration in the news, but it was always somewhere else. I never participated in any of the marches and often just heard about it along with the other news on TV.

My high school was all white except for a few Mexicans. My college at Baylor was all white. The trouble in Little Rock, Selma, and Birmingham was always on a distant front, sort of like the Korean War. I had learned early as a child of a naval officer that the things over there didn’t affect my well being at home. I had quickly learned how to compartmentalize. The soldiers were graduating from boot camp to soon be shipped to Korea, but the marching and music was inspiring and patriotic. I remember thinking as a little girl that I’d even like to go to war myself. Usually though my fantasy was only to entertain the soldiers, like Bob Hope or the moviestars.

1/14/2009

Doctor's Visit

I have a doctor's visit tomorrow'; something's bothering me that I think I need to see a doctor about. Naturally, I have been on the Internet the last day or two checking symptoms. I now have many more symptoms than at first when I only had one. I've even diagnosed myself, several times. I probably have Sjogren's Syndrome as I do notice I have dry mouth, dry eyes, my skin breaks out, not to mention my original symptom.

I am very thorough in my research. So I continued to read several sites from Mayo Clinic to Johns Hopkins, not to mention WEB MD, and I came up with the possibility of cervical cancer or even ovarian cancer. I have acid reflux, fatigue, increased abdominal size, often symptoms of ovarian cancer. I do think to myself, however, I have always been fatigued since I was a child. I've had acid reflux for several years, and it is fine when I take Nexium or watch my diet. It could be that I've gained weight from eating too much food on filmsets and unneeded snacks before I go to bed or a piece of cake like the one I just baked and am waiting to ice with chocolate icing.

I have tortured myself an hour or so yesterday, then finally realized that is why I'm going to the doctor so she can do the diagnosing. Meanwhile I remember what the last office visit conclusion was, that I may want to consider hormone replacement therapy. Please, do I want to die in the guillotine or to be hung or to be burned at the stake? I hate this that the cure doctors offer you has a side effect of cancer.

Why don't they just suggest that I not wear panties, or avoid pantie hose and tight clothes. Maybe they should just give women a list: avoid taking baths, wearing panties or fitted jeans or pants, using toilet paper, urinating, and everything else. Also take hormone replacement and be vaccinated against cervical cancer to reduce your chances of getting cancer from taking hormones.

How can I go from a little burning in unspeakable parts of the body to cancer and the guillotine and suddenly becoming the patient, doctor and executioner all in one evening. For now I will forget all this until tomorrow as I am comfortable; and besides, the timer set for ten minutes went off and hour ago and I just now heard it so it is way past time to ice the cake with my coffee flavored chocolate icing. Then I'll have a small piece of cake and be very grateful I have health insurance for these little female annoyances.

April 8, 2009
I was ontime for my doctor's appointment. I am seeing a fellow in oncology at Emory. She will be leaving soon for a four year study in Buffalo in oncology. What a long education, for sure. Other than my $2.00 parking, I had no fees because of Medicare and AARP supplement. I would not have gone in today had I not had health insurance. Probably the original problem I went in for will call for hormone replacement or some such; however, she was concerned about my abdomen and weight gain. She ordered an ultrasound for the upper abdomen and the pelvic with transvaginal. She marked it urgency, ASAP. The soonest appointment I could get is in nine days.

It's interesting how we didn't actually say it, but with her being an oncologist specialist, we both knew what she was saying. She only said, "I hope it is just weight gain, but this isn't you." She couldn't feel the usual in her exam because of the bloating. I hated to tell her how many pieces of cake I ate last night and today. For sure that little holiday binge is over. I will freeze the rest of the cake for when I have company. She also wanted me to see a dermatologist in the next week as she was concerned about my skin. So I made an appointment with the dermatologist, but I can't get into see him for two weeks.

I'm sure this must be very boring, all these details. Who but Coleridge dare writes about his every physical ailment. I am struck by how different my life would be right now without health insurance. Maybe I'm just fine, but early intervention is so important in most illnesses. How often a patient goes in for a minor thing only to have the doctor find a more serious situation. I had a friend who went in for some congestion, but xrays revealed a very large tumor on the lung. Someone without insurance will be even more prone to self treatment with over-the-counter products and ignore small symptoms or chalk it up to one thing or another.

I have decided I don't have the energy to worry about more than one day at a time. I do know a fellow in oncology will be more picky about things than a general ob/gyn. But without insurance, today would have easily cost me $1000.00 when you include the ultrasound. I guess soon health care will only be for those who have insurance. That's another story though, there was a time I had no health insurance.