I'm having a love/hate relationship with my flag today. I love the flag that is a symbol of my country, but I'm frustrated by the piece of cloth that is wrapped for the twentieth time around the beam on the front porch. I've just come in from pulling it loose yet again.
When we moved into this house we put up a bracket to hold the flag pole. It was screwed into the bricks between the front porch and the garage but when I went to put the flag up for the first time this spring, I found that one of the screws had pulled loose from the mortar and the bracket wouldn't hold the pole. It was probably just as well. When the flag hung from that pole it was always twisting around and tying itself in a tight knot. It looked like a big red and white swimming pool noodle sticking out from the house. Not very patriotic.
I kept going out to take it off the pole and re-hang it but once, about an hour after I had unfurled it, our sweet young neighbor knocked on the door to ask if we were okay. Apparently I had hung the flag back upside down, which is a universal distress signal. She said she just wanted to know if it was all right if she fixed the flag but I'm pretty sure she thought she'd better check on the old people next door once again.
So then I decided to climb the ladder and hang the flag straight out on the beam across the front porch. I hammered nails in the beam and stuck the grommets over the nails and tried to hammer the nails straight up. Now the flag is dividing it's time between flapping wildly in our Oklahoma wind, wrapping around the beam, and knocking into the robin's nest that is on top of the beam.
I'm not going to give up, though. It is important to me that we hang the flag out. I remember the story about how Al Quaida bragged that they would change the look of America on 9/11...and they did. After the attack, flags flew from almost every house on almost every block in all kinds of neighborhoods where they had never been before.
Don't tell him I said so, but my husband has been known to sniff pretty loudly when watching a sad movie, but it takes a lot to make me cry. However, when the flag comes past me in a parade, or when they unfurl it onto a baseball field, or I look up & down my street and see flags flying at my neighbor's houses, it brings tears to my eyes every time.
One flag we owned had rested on the casket of my husband's step-father, a World War II veteran. My brother was in Korea. My husband's brother was a Marine in Viet Nam and some of my friends from high school died there. Our son was deployed to Kyrgyzstan, where he patched up soldiers who were wounded when they flew in and out of Afghanistan taking supplies to the troops.Today one of our nephews just graduated from Army Ranger school and is getting ready to leave again, and another is in Afghanistan now.
All of them have sacrificed for my right to fly that flag, and untwist it and run out into the rain and bring it in and climb up on the ladder and pound the nails to try to keep it up there; to go online and search till I found a flag that was "Made in America." They've gone and left their homes, their families, the way of life we are enjoying today. Thousands of others have lost arms and legs and even their very lives to allow me to fly my flag.
I think I'll go pull it loose again. That isn't too much trouble, considering.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Performance Anxiety
Yesterday we got up even before the dog woke us so we could hurry over to the Tulsa Community College Performing Arts Center to get a good seat to watch our granddaughter, Hayley, perform a couple of numbers from "Little Shop of Horrors" with the members of the theater class she has been attending all school year. We sat for two hours through, approximately 4,327 other kids singing and dancing, some of them quite amazing (in many senses of the word) and finally, in the last fifteen minutes, Hayley and her group came out. She was third from the left, as I had to continually point out to her PawPaw, but I don't know why he had trouble finding her among all the twenty other girls in green polka-dot dresses; she was obviously the one with the most talent up there!
Then we jumped in our car immediately after the show and drove two hours down the turnpike to watch our second granddaughter, Emily's, dance recital, following the MapQuest map to the Luther, OK school administrative building instead of to the high school where we were supposed to be. Thank the Lord for cell phones because by staying on the phone with our son through all the turns we made it to the right place just in time to sit in another Performing Arts Center and watched another group of kids performing their hearts out and, amazingly enough, our granddaughter was the best one again! What are the odds?
In the weeks before, we had attended our grandson, David's, band concert (the star trombone player!) and almost all of Miranda's softball games. (She may not have been chosen MVP but I'm sure it was only because her Dad was the coach and didn't want to appear to show favoritism.)
Things are different now than they were in the last century when I was a kid. I didn't know anybody who took ballet or even played organized sports. It may have been that no one we knew could have afforded to pay for any such thing or it may have just been that kids were too busy playing in the neighborhood to have time for lessons and so on, but if they happened anywhere, I didn't know about it.
The closest I ever got to a recital (I wouldn't have recognized the word) was a performance that my fifth grade class put on one time. It was going to be on a Wednesday night, so I knew my parents wouldn't be able to come since this was also Prayer Meeting night and my dad, being the preacher, would be at church instead. My mother was always dutifully at his side. I'm pretty sure here in the Bible Belt a school function wouldn't be held on Wednesdays but in St. Louis, this was the regularly scheduled PTA night. My parents had never been to a PTA meeting for that reason.
The sketch was a depiction of Alice in Wonderland's encounter with the Queen of Hearts. Everyone was going to wear kind of a cardboard sandwich board of one of the cards in the hearts suit and march around in formation. Immediately I knew I had a problem: playing cards was considered a sin for Baptists in that part of the world and if I couldn't play them, how could I be one? I don't remember if I thought of it, (being either a child prodigy or just desperate to not be left out) or if one of the teachers did, but someone remembered that I was in possession of a lovely red formal with a poufy skirt from when I was a junior bridesmaid in my sister's Valentine's Day wedding. Perfect! I would wear that dress, march around imperiously, and be the Red Queen. I could shout "Off with her head!" while all the playing cards marched around me. Suddenly, I was the star! (I don't even remember if there was an Alice. She was inconsequential to the Queen, at best.)
Now, whenever Miranda gets up to bat at her softball games she looks over to the stands and yells, "PawPaw!!!" to be absolutely sure that he is watching her and she is never disappointed. I, on the other hand, did not expect to have any family members in the audience at DeHart Elementary School when we put on our performance. I don't recall that it bothered me; that's just the way it was. My mom had dropped me off at school and gone on to church, I guess, and I felt lucky that I was even able to be there myself and not at Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting.
The music swelled, the Ten of Hearts, the Nine of Hearts, the Eight of Hearts and all their...ahem, co-horts...began marching around the stage. Soon it was my cue and I glided out onto the stage, red skirt swaying, ready to say my line. And there, front and center in the audience, was the whole congregation of Mary Ann Baptist Church's Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, with the preacher and his wife on the front row.
Did he call off Prayer Meeting for that night? Of course not. They just relocated, my dad told me later, and had the meeting in the school auditorium. I'm not sure what those good Baptists thought about having all those sinful playing cards marching around, life-sized, but I know that the preacher's daughter has never forgotten seeing them all there. And my dad was pretty sure I was the best, most talented kid on the stage.
Then we jumped in our car immediately after the show and drove two hours down the turnpike to watch our second granddaughter, Emily's, dance recital, following the MapQuest map to the Luther, OK school administrative building instead of to the high school where we were supposed to be. Thank the Lord for cell phones because by staying on the phone with our son through all the turns we made it to the right place just in time to sit in another Performing Arts Center and watched another group of kids performing their hearts out and, amazingly enough, our granddaughter was the best one again! What are the odds?
In the weeks before, we had attended our grandson, David's, band concert (the star trombone player!) and almost all of Miranda's softball games. (She may not have been chosen MVP but I'm sure it was only because her Dad was the coach and didn't want to appear to show favoritism.)
Things are different now than they were in the last century when I was a kid. I didn't know anybody who took ballet or even played organized sports. It may have been that no one we knew could have afforded to pay for any such thing or it may have just been that kids were too busy playing in the neighborhood to have time for lessons and so on, but if they happened anywhere, I didn't know about it.
The closest I ever got to a recital (I wouldn't have recognized the word) was a performance that my fifth grade class put on one time. It was going to be on a Wednesday night, so I knew my parents wouldn't be able to come since this was also Prayer Meeting night and my dad, being the preacher, would be at church instead. My mother was always dutifully at his side. I'm pretty sure here in the Bible Belt a school function wouldn't be held on Wednesdays but in St. Louis, this was the regularly scheduled PTA night. My parents had never been to a PTA meeting for that reason.
The sketch was a depiction of Alice in Wonderland's encounter with the Queen of Hearts. Everyone was going to wear kind of a cardboard sandwich board of one of the cards in the hearts suit and march around in formation. Immediately I knew I had a problem: playing cards was considered a sin for Baptists in that part of the world and if I couldn't play them, how could I be one? I don't remember if I thought of it, (being either a child prodigy or just desperate to not be left out) or if one of the teachers did, but someone remembered that I was in possession of a lovely red formal with a poufy skirt from when I was a junior bridesmaid in my sister's Valentine's Day wedding. Perfect! I would wear that dress, march around imperiously, and be the Red Queen. I could shout "Off with her head!" while all the playing cards marched around me. Suddenly, I was the star! (I don't even remember if there was an Alice. She was inconsequential to the Queen, at best.)
Now, whenever Miranda gets up to bat at her softball games she looks over to the stands and yells, "PawPaw!!!" to be absolutely sure that he is watching her and she is never disappointed. I, on the other hand, did not expect to have any family members in the audience at DeHart Elementary School when we put on our performance. I don't recall that it bothered me; that's just the way it was. My mom had dropped me off at school and gone on to church, I guess, and I felt lucky that I was even able to be there myself and not at Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting.
The music swelled, the Ten of Hearts, the Nine of Hearts, the Eight of Hearts and all their...ahem, co-horts...began marching around the stage. Soon it was my cue and I glided out onto the stage, red skirt swaying, ready to say my line. And there, front and center in the audience, was the whole congregation of Mary Ann Baptist Church's Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, with the preacher and his wife on the front row.
Did he call off Prayer Meeting for that night? Of course not. They just relocated, my dad told me later, and had the meeting in the school auditorium. I'm not sure what those good Baptists thought about having all those sinful playing cards marching around, life-sized, but I know that the preacher's daughter has never forgotten seeing them all there. And my dad was pretty sure I was the best, most talented kid on the stage.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Pomp and Circumstances
There are wonderful pictures of graduates turning up on Facebook these days, from Pre-K, complete with cap and gown, to college. It makes me sentimental for my high school graduation ceremony.....if only I could remember it.
Dennis tells me that is a blessing. I asked him about a detail the other day and he said "You don't want to know." Well, it was the sixties, you know, and you've heard what things were like back then, but it wasn't that my mind was "elsewhere". It is more like when something traumatic happens in your life and you block it out in order to survive with your sanity intact. Okay, the sanity question is still out, but still.....
I do remember that it was in St. Louis, at Ritenour High School. I remember that it was very hot that summer. Back when I was a kid, school started after Labor Day and we didn't get out till the first week or so of June, so it must have been around that time. Heat in St. Louis is hotter than other places. I think it has to do with the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers and several other smaller rivers all together there. A temperature of 93 degrees doesn't sound too bad but when you multiply it by the 98% humidity it feels like 9,114 degrees. Or thereabouts. The air is thick. You feel like you need to make swimming motions when you go outside. That's the kind of day it was.
Air conditioning was a new thing back then, at least around where I grew up. Movie theaters had it, and some grocery stores. They would have a sign on the front door that said "Come in. It's Kool inside!" in blue letters to denote ice and a picture of a penguin sitting on an ice block and when you stepped on the magic mat on the threshold that opened the door, cool air would rush out at you and it was heavenly until you had been inside awhile and wished you were wearing a sweater. But I didn't know anyone who had air conditioning in their home and Ritenour Senior High School certainly did not. Accordingly, the graduation was scheduled for outside on the football field.
I'm not sure where the audience sat, the bleachers, I guess. There were a whole lot of spectators because our class was one of the first of the Baby Boomers and it was huge and everyone had grandmas and grandpas and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins, at least. I think they had put folding chairs on the ground for the graduates. We gathered in the gym, getting ready to march out onto the field in alphabetical order. Because the locker rooms were right there, several of us had decided to wait to put on our robes ---boys wore black, girls wore white---after we got to the gym.
Remember how hot it was. I was wearing a white chiffon dress with a full skirt that required a small can-can slip, and long sleeves. I had spent two weeks finding that dress and I had worn it for National Honor Society (there are pictures of that ceremony, that's how I remember what it was), but it was so hot! So, we had those long robes, they zipped up the front, I think, and completely covered us. A robe is like a dress, right? Why wear two? I took off my chiffon dress and the can-can slip, left them in the locker room and wore just the robe over my underwear. Who would ever know?
Now, here's where my memory gets shaky. I don't remember anyone speaking, any awards, any handshakes. All I vaguely remember is someone droning names: ....Roy Bell....dramatic pause....Barbara Brinkhorst....dramatic pause....Larry Brock... on and on. It was stifling. I wanted to nod off from the boredom and the heat. But then there was a cool breeze. A few clouds. A teeny rain drop. Just one. Then a few. The pauses got shorter, the graduates walked more quickly, the rain came faster and soon it was PatriciaPhelenJerryPostelwaitePatriciaPounds (that was me). I ran up the stairs to the stage, dashed across the slippery boards, grabbed the fake diploma (you had to wait for them to send you the real thing in the mail for some reason) and galloped down the other stairs in the pouring rain. It was not a light shower. It was not a small rain. It was, as we say in Oklahoma, a gully washer.
It would have been lovely if I had moved across that stage so quickly that no one saw me, but this was not the case. I have heard from quite a few people that many in the large audience did see me. Much more of me than I ever intended. It could be that I was the unwitting inspiration of the Wet-T-Shirt contest of later years, only with more class, of course. Who knew a sopping, dripping, white graduation gown would become completely transparent when wet?
For some reason, there are no pictures from my graduation. I will just have to wax nostalgic over everybody else's.
Dennis tells me that is a blessing. I asked him about a detail the other day and he said "You don't want to know." Well, it was the sixties, you know, and you've heard what things were like back then, but it wasn't that my mind was "elsewhere". It is more like when something traumatic happens in your life and you block it out in order to survive with your sanity intact. Okay, the sanity question is still out, but still.....
I do remember that it was in St. Louis, at Ritenour High School. I remember that it was very hot that summer. Back when I was a kid, school started after Labor Day and we didn't get out till the first week or so of June, so it must have been around that time. Heat in St. Louis is hotter than other places. I think it has to do with the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers and several other smaller rivers all together there. A temperature of 93 degrees doesn't sound too bad but when you multiply it by the 98% humidity it feels like 9,114 degrees. Or thereabouts. The air is thick. You feel like you need to make swimming motions when you go outside. That's the kind of day it was.
Air conditioning was a new thing back then, at least around where I grew up. Movie theaters had it, and some grocery stores. They would have a sign on the front door that said "Come in. It's Kool inside!" in blue letters to denote ice and a picture of a penguin sitting on an ice block and when you stepped on the magic mat on the threshold that opened the door, cool air would rush out at you and it was heavenly until you had been inside awhile and wished you were wearing a sweater. But I didn't know anyone who had air conditioning in their home and Ritenour Senior High School certainly did not. Accordingly, the graduation was scheduled for outside on the football field.
I'm not sure where the audience sat, the bleachers, I guess. There were a whole lot of spectators because our class was one of the first of the Baby Boomers and it was huge and everyone had grandmas and grandpas and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins, at least. I think they had put folding chairs on the ground for the graduates. We gathered in the gym, getting ready to march out onto the field in alphabetical order. Because the locker rooms were right there, several of us had decided to wait to put on our robes ---boys wore black, girls wore white---after we got to the gym.
Remember how hot it was. I was wearing a white chiffon dress with a full skirt that required a small can-can slip, and long sleeves. I had spent two weeks finding that dress and I had worn it for National Honor Society (there are pictures of that ceremony, that's how I remember what it was), but it was so hot! So, we had those long robes, they zipped up the front, I think, and completely covered us. A robe is like a dress, right? Why wear two? I took off my chiffon dress and the can-can slip, left them in the locker room and wore just the robe over my underwear. Who would ever know?
Now, here's where my memory gets shaky. I don't remember anyone speaking, any awards, any handshakes. All I vaguely remember is someone droning names: ....Roy Bell....dramatic pause....Barbara Brinkhorst....dramatic pause....Larry Brock... on and on. It was stifling. I wanted to nod off from the boredom and the heat. But then there was a cool breeze. A few clouds. A teeny rain drop. Just one. Then a few. The pauses got shorter, the graduates walked more quickly, the rain came faster and soon it was PatriciaPhelenJerryPostelwaitePatriciaPounds (that was me). I ran up the stairs to the stage, dashed across the slippery boards, grabbed the fake diploma (you had to wait for them to send you the real thing in the mail for some reason) and galloped down the other stairs in the pouring rain. It was not a light shower. It was not a small rain. It was, as we say in Oklahoma, a gully washer.
It would have been lovely if I had moved across that stage so quickly that no one saw me, but this was not the case. I have heard from quite a few people that many in the large audience did see me. Much more of me than I ever intended. It could be that I was the unwitting inspiration of the Wet-T-Shirt contest of later years, only with more class, of course. Who knew a sopping, dripping, white graduation gown would become completely transparent when wet?
For some reason, there are no pictures from my graduation. I will just have to wax nostalgic over everybody else's.
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