When my brother was ten he fell in a hole. Mom had told him not to play near it. But all his friends were so of course he went along. It wasn’t a deep hole and was close to home. It was deep enough that he could not get himself out. I was living and working in Richmond so I don’t know any details like where the friends were, or if with time he would have been able to get himself out. I do know that he was not in any danger and someone would have eventually found him. And that when he was late for dinner Mom went looking and found him shivering in the hole. After she helped him out, she gave him a stern tongue lashing reminding him that she had told him not to go near the hole. His rely was, “I guess some people have to learn things the hard way.”
Hurry Up! We’re Going to Be HAVING SEX Late for Church
writing is fun but I really want to draw you here…
The shock value of fuck is slipping slowly down the slope. F bombs are common from anyone. Any age. And are laughed off by all of us as fucking funny. Nothing shocking at all. Just an F bomb. Man the word is taking a beating. Cannot even hold its water as a sacred cuss word. No shock value of any value.
I got a lesson in deflated shock value as a five year old. My aunt and I are walking the few blocks back from town to the parsonage in Farmville, Virgina where we both live. She as a daughter. I as a granddaughter. It is dusk. On coming car lights kept glaring in my eyes. “Damn those lights!” I stamp my foot. Nothing. We keep walking. “DAMN those lights!” No response. “Didn’t you hear me I.G.?” She nods. And we keep walking. After all it was only damn.
One of my favorite childhood chants is one choosing who goes first in a game. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe catch a N word by the toe. I always use it over the boring one potato, two potato. Until one day Mom’s had enough. “Sandra Leigh!” she shouts out the kitchen window. I am told to never ever use the N word again. Ever. Good advise. But just listen. It does have potential as a shock word. Not. Let me repeat not to be directed toward anyone of African descent. But just as a shocking expletive. I mean does, “I can’t get the fucking toaster to work,” imply that the toaster ever had sex. Of course not. So using the N word in general terms to lay into something could work. But of course I really don’t advocate it. I just want a good shock value word. And fuck doesn’t do it any more.
Fucking shame.
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Work = Work With a Dash of Patience Thrown In For Good Measure
Make it Work
The life of a minister is never easy. You have to feed whoever stops by for Sunday dinner whether you can or not. You have to make it work. My grandmother could stretch a dollar six ways from yesterday. But compromise her standards? Never. Flour was cheap and her rolls legendary. She bought the cheapest A&P coffee beans and then when she perked the daily brew poured it through twice to make her bold black coffee the talk of the town.
She always saved string. Time was when everything was tied with string. It was never thrown out. Always reused. We all laughed at and loved that ball of string. Of course she saved and reused bacon grease. Doesn’t every one? And buying groceries? She would take the butcher to the mat over the price of a cut and the look of it too.
She could out Tom, Tom Sawyer. She taught me to love burnt toast. She would scrap the blackest parts off and convince me that it was the best way to eat toast. She taught me to love the chicken back, to actually beg for it and be relieved that no one else did. It was years before I caught on to her wiles. But long before that I was hooked on what she sold me.
She taught me to love to play with buttons. Something free in bountiful supply. While I sorted and made up endless button games, she turned collars and cuffs to give them new life. She would cut a thread bare sheet in half, then sew the two worn ends together so smoothly that no one felt the seam. She made it work.
That Dash of Patience
When I am a kid I have my first epiphany moment. I am bored. I beg the universe to tell me, “Why is this was taking so long?” I actually do not know what this is. But I need to know why it’s taking so long. I am told to use my time for something useful. I am sitting outside in a little bush fort I have created. It is a warm sunny day. This is not the answer I want or expect. I ponder. I decide to teach myself to read. I go inside and get a book. I take it back to my fort and really, really try to make sense of the patterns of letters. It is valiant. But to no avail. It is then that I realize that hard work with a lot of patience and I are going to become very close.
PSSS Have I Got A Deal For You
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Progress Can Be a Bitch Especially When You’re in a FOG About It
“We’re in a FOG! I can’t see you!” My friend and I are running behind a DDT truck as close as we can get to the sputtering machine pumping out noxious gas to kill mosquitoes. The mosquitoes that live by the thousands on our tiny island called Guam. We are not alone. Kids from all over the neighborhood join the ritual. It’s fun to be in a fog surrounded by only whiteness. Get as close as you can without keeling over from the fumes. And of course the truck is moving so you need to run, hold your breath, stop to catch a breath, then run some more before you get left behind.
The fog came in today while I was dashing around the monument. (Yes, yes I did dash on the runway.) And made me think of those evenings on Guam when we chased the DDT truck. Our kids wonder that I’m alive. They also wonder why they don’t all have six legs or three eyes.
This is MY Tumon Bay
Life on Guam. In the fifties. Perfect in every way. Mom said it. Dad said it. We live it. We three and baby sister Suzanne, born there mid-tour. It really is perfect. The weather is always warm, we have no windows or even screens, only louvers to close for privacy. Rain comes in showers and leaves just as fast. Flowers are everywhere. The war is over long enough that living standards on the AFB are comfortable.
Mom on the reef at Tumon Bay. Look how far away the beach is!
We are cautioned to not stray too far away from civilization because Japanese soldiers still hid in the hills. We mostly stay on base. There is hardly any civilization to stray away from anyway. Agana, the capital, is a tiny village. There are a couple of public beaches. You have to wear shoes because the coral will cut your feet. But the shallow warm water with no dangerous marine life is a child’s playground. It only gets deep beyond the reef.
We are warned to never get on the reef. A rogue wave can wash you off. Into the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean. Of course Dad has to urge Mom has to take on the challenge. Tumon Bay (you don’t want to click on that link, you really don’t) is our favorite beach. Dad can take our jeep (no seat belts, no doors) from the top of the towering limestone cliff to the sandy beach at the bottom in seconds flat. Beats any roller coaster I’ve ever been on. We swim. We bring our own lunch and snacks. We find incredible shells in tiny caves along the shore. We gather coconuts that fall from the palms. Take them home and after way too much work get to the succulent meat inside. The folks that visit Tumon Bay today haven’t the foggiest notion what slice of paradise they’ve missed.
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Filed under Beach Life, family, Life on Guam
A Flower by Any Other Name
“Pick it like so. Run your hand down the stem. Then snap. That gives you a long flower for your vase.” My grandmother, Mother Leigh’s, sage advise. And we all paid attention. Her love for jonquils, and us, was strong. She wanted every aspect to be as right as possible.
Our Oakland Road jonquil field.
Recently Emily and Donald chatted via FB about having daffodils in their own yards finally. And how it reminded them of home. Our Richmond home. We lived on an old daffodil farm. Blooms by the hundreds were ours for the picking every spring. Except that one spring when I thought I would be resourceful, and so when pickers came by asking if they could pick for cash I quickly said yes. The house was always overflowing with the bunches and bunches of blooms that we picked. And the fields were still full. But I should have known that they would pick the fields clean. And you only get one bloom per bulb each year. “Mom, where are the flowers?” Emily demanded when they got home from school. No undoing that mistake.
Three Chopt driveway
I too grew up surrounded by hundreds of jonquils every spring. At Mother Leigh’s Three Chopt antebellum home in Richmond, Virginia. Her semi-circular drive was lined on both sides by the blooms. She had a big aged formal garden in the side yard that in its neglected state grew nothing but daffodils. It was awesome. There was a birdbath in the middle surrounded by four patterned simple mazes defined by raised ground flower beds. The gardener always cut the grass so it looked tended. It just had no flowers except in the spring when it was a blaze of yellow.
Where we live now I’ve tried to get a few bulbs to grow. The moles always thwart my attempts. And I am no gardener. I am an admirer and acquirer. I gladly take garden bounty bestowed on me by others. And I richly admire all gardens with great admiration. It’s the growing that teases me. And so I paint my gardens.
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Filed under family, Richmond VA West End, Three Chopt Road
All You Need is LOVE
The original Wellington Rabbit
“Write that it is all about love,” the bunny whispers in my ear. He tells me that Easter is slipping in popularity and his story will help fix that. I listen and write exactly what he tells me. But before that happens, this happens.
A long time ago, call it two decades, Easter approaches. The children have always received a stuffed animal, often one of the Beatrix Potter ones. I ponder how to make it work this year as we have no money for traditional Easter bounty. I decide to make them each a stuffed animal since I already have fabric and stuffing on hand. I quickly pump out five identical rabbits complete with a cape and a sack full of colored cloth eggs.
The first book surrounded by the entire thirteen. Twenty years. 10,000+ words. 100+ illustrations.
Then I decide that the bunny needs a name and an introduction. A simple paragraph turns into a page and then more over the next few years. Other stuffed animals depicting the central characters emerge. The pages become a book, Wellington Easter Rabbit or the True Tale of How Wellington Became the Easter Bunny. He tells me what to write and I faithfully do so.
The first book is stitched together on my sewing machine. I make a pen and ink drawing of Wellington for the cover. This is great they all say, friends and extended family by this time. But we need more. Illustrations. Divide the book into chapters Donny suggests. So demanding, but they are right.
I get to work. Over the next few years their ideas for book 1 come to fruition. And then slowly at first but gradually picking up speed books 2, 3, 4, 5 and so on until book 13 (the final book in the series completed last year) become a reality. Some years Easter is so early and we are so busy that I only get half written. By this time the book has a format. Three pages per chapter, one illustration. Ten chapters. The half book years it is a to be continued offering.
Every year I wait until the eleventh hour to begin writing. I am always amazed at how well the story comes together. I mean I do know where it’s going, just not how it’s going to get there. Donny my incredible editor is always there to drop everything and see that the book looks as good as it reads. He polishes and polishes and then we make a dash to get books in the mail (because by this time the children are grown and have children of their own) in the nick of time.
This year I am somewhat relieved to not have the self imposed pressure of The Book to write. But I miss it and at almost the eleventh hour (again) decide to create a new series. A simple set of easy to read books using all the characters from the original series as they fit into the story. And so happy readers I introduce you to the Wellington Rabbit Adventure Series, book 1, The Case of the Disappearing Eggs. Love! Sandy & Wellington
Wellington Rabbit and the Case of the Disappearing Eggs
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Stringing Me Along
Nine dimension theory is not new to me. I just never knew what to call it. We watched Interstellar recently. The discussion that followed included conversation about a nine dimension reality, or as Drs. Neppe and Close put it “..we live in a 9-dimensional spinning finite reality, not just our traditional three dimensions of space happening in a present moment of time. The rest of our reality is hidden beyond our direct view.”
Thanks to dynamics from those other dimensions, I’ve been nudged, pointed in directions and saved by the skin of my teeth so many times, I’ve lost count. Starting with showing me how families with balance and stability live. It’s like those fairy tales where the good godmother cannot undo the princess’ bad fortune but can make it better.
Cabell Powell (she lived on the other side of Three Chopt Road across from me and had an enormous doll house) me, Patsy Tyler. Standing in front of us my cousin Jett Williams.
My early childhood best friend’s family in Richmond, Virginia is where I’m pointed first. She and I become friends in Kindergarten, or Junior Primary 1 & 2, as it is called at our school, Westhampton Junior High School on Patterson Avenue. We are not in the same class but we ride the bus together. Patsy likes me enough to seek me out. (I have only found this out recently. I always wondered how we became friends. Our mothers have little in common.)
We live about a half a mile from each other. Several huge antebellum houses with immense front lawns along Three Chopt Road, a small but very busy city street, create the separation. Her street, Mayfair Court, is a dead end reached by car via a little roundabout. Her neighborhood is a small population of brand new modest houses. Tree lined Kings Way Court with smaller antebellum houses on either side is on the Three Chopt Road side of the roundabout. A cut through city street, Pepper Avenue, lies to the east of Kings Way/Mayfair. To the west and on the same side of Three Chopt Road as Patsy’s house is where I live in a converted garage behind my grandparents’ Big House at 6414 Three Chopt Road. We call our house The Little House. It’s tiny but we have our own address, 6416 Three Chopt Road.
Patsy begins her quest to find me. She is only vaguely aware of where I might live. I get off the bus after her stop. She knocks on every door of those antebellum houses asking if anyone knows me. This is a five year old on her own mind you. (Her mother may have driven her from house to house but if she did I’m confident that she made Patsy do all of the inquiring.) Patsy’s persistence pays off, she eventually does find me. And that is the beginning of our life long friendship. Her family is everything mine is not. I thrive on its calm. I spend the night a lot. We practically pave a path between our two houses through those huge front lawns, or sometimes behind the houses. I’m sure all the maids know our wanderings well. Even after we move from Richmond and I only visit The Big House in Richmond for holidays the first thing I do (literally I make a bee line for the phone) when we arrive is to call Patsy. She always, absolutely always, includes me in anything going on. Cotillion, slumber parties, holiday house parties, school gossip.
Sandy’s Dad, Enos Winfrey, in a recent photo. He was a pivotal engineer in central Ohio for the Eisenhower interstate project.
My next nudge toward a realistic family life is in the direction of one that this time, I am drawn. We are living in Ohio by now. I see this soon to be forever friend, Sandy Winfrey, and her family at church. It is a new Methodist church and, prior to building, is meeting in the Etna Road Elementary School a half block easy walk from my house. Mom goes to the services some of the time. Sometimes twelve year old me goes by myself. Sandy’s family intrigues me. In an uncharacteristic move for me, usually very shy and retiring, (a nudge you see) I introduce myself and ask if I can sit with them.
Sandy and I hit it off. We become inseparable. We delightfully discover that both our families even spend Christmases at our respective grandparents’ homes in the south. Her destination is Winston Salem, North Carolina. We compare tales about the endless car ride that includes crossing over the Blue Ridge Mountains on narrow roads (no interstate yet) to grandmother’s house and back again.
Again this family is everything mine is not. Over the next several years, until we head off to different colleges and my family moves back to Virginia, I become even richer in good family dynamics.
I have learned the fine art of playing and partying sans drugs and with only a social drink or two from my parents. This is one of their finest attributes. They both have the ability and confidence to be the absolute life of any party sheerly on personality. And I have learned how to steer a family through the everyday, all the while making it fun, from my two strung together families. I am a fine blend.
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Filed under Spirituality
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
My parents, Starke Jett IV & Margaret Ann Boschen Jett. This photo pretty well sums them up, party and play and fight in between.
The title of this post could have been my parents’ theme. Life in our family was a yo-yo affair. Dad & Mom were at the top of their game when playing, few could out do them. And they always took us along. But this every day life befuddled them. They never could get the hang of it.
A friend recently posted a piece about marriage, divorce, staying together for the sake of the kids. Her thoughts are always well put, hit the target and make you think. She comments that staying together for the sake of the kids is a bad plan and one she and her husband will never follow.
I used to agree (and still do if there is physical or drug abuse). All through the years in my quirky dysfunctional family I dream of better. I yearn for my parents to divorce. Still we toddle on year after year. I figure that Mom knows her options and opts to finesse her cards in a way to keep things on a fairly even keel.
Then Mom tosses out a curve ball. She announces that she is throwing in the towel when my brother, the youngest, is college age. My mouth flies open. Why now? Why put us all through so much grief (Dad was classic bi-polar but few knew or used the phrase then) to now quit. Dad was philandering, but he had always been on that tack, nothing new to report there.
And so when she makes her grand announcement, I am pissed and confused for a long time. And then bingo one day it hits me. Sure we were in crappy places as a family much of the time. But we were also in some great places. Christmas and Easter were always magical times at my grandmother’s (Dad’s mother) antebellum home in Richmond. Were we split up as a family that would have never happened.
Summers spent on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay in the tiny cinder block cottage my grandfather (Dad again) built. No air conditioning, no fans even. Barely a bathroom. Most of the time we peed in the woods, and took dumps at the local filling station when my uncle would drive us up there because the toilet or septic was on the blitz. A shower that never worked but for thirteen people a hot shower inside was a lost cause anyway. Slashing a new path to the broken glass and rotting trees ridden beach through the undergrowth that grew rampart around the tall pines were standards. But it was ours. My family, my aunts, uncles, cousins, and we all loved it. Divorced, it never would have happened.
I can go on. Dad and I shopping for clothes for Mom. My parents together buying my first school dance dress. Spur of the moment vacations. Sundays at the zoo. The list is endless. As is my list of not great, not great at all, to down right miserable, horrible memories. But I count those as learning experiences of what not to do. I call it reverse learning.
Sure I don’t know what perhaps better things would have been in my future as a child of divorced parents. More peace probably. But I wouldn’t trade one day of my life with two child like adults constantly spatting and picking on each other for anything else. Thanks Mom for keeping the family together for as long as you did whether it was for the sake of us kids or otherwise, it is appreciated.
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Why Is EASY so Hard?
It’s not really.
1. Unschooling is the home school term. Provide the materials and motivation for the basics and let the rest fall in line. As a young teen, Stephen read an article in 3-2-1-Contact on Basic programing, kept following that thread until now he is a lead developer for PhishMe. I hadn’t a clue until recently. Unknown to me until all was said and done, Andrew decided that Lewis (middle school) needed to take college level Calculus in summer school at College of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City where he was directing the theater department and also taking classes before heading off to UNC-CH. And so he made it happen.
2. Bare butt training is the potty transition technique. Warm weather, or even a warm house, and a naked toddler body go together. Skip the diaper, provide a convenient porta-potty, clean up the mess (you do that anyway) and they’ll soon figure out the better way on their own.
3. Running on your own clock is the jogging lead. I used to run for set miles or set miles within a set time and drove myself crazy if I didn’t measure up. Now I run for a set time, never check the miles and really enjoy myself. I sprint, jog, walk occasionally but mostly to answer a text, or observe wildlife. I write. This blog, all the kids’ books I have in my mind. And I make up great stories about all the folks I pass.
4. Tossing a mixed salad and adding in some protein is the dinner throw down. After child number four was born I quit cooking. Not completely. But planned meals became a thing of the past. We ate healthy. I made a salad every night. The rest just fell in place. Pasta some night. Grilled cheese. Bean tacos.
Designed by soon to be dil’s brother’s girl friend’s dad. Got that right? Thanks Staples!
5. Making your own choices is the Camp OBX easy. When the grands come here for summer camp we provide a safe environment, a comfortable bed, lots of food options and transportation where ever they may want to go. The balance is up to them. They call all the shots. When they eat, what they eat, when they sleep, whether they get dressed. The ball is in their court.
6. Vacuuming every month or so is the new Tina Tidy’s advise. That is what my avatar name used to be. I was a zealous cleaner. Then when the last child rose from the floor (mano a mano with dust bunnies daily is a bit much) and walked in earnest I locked the vacuum in the closet. I let it out occasionally.
If you thrive on structure that’s your easy. If it drives you to tears, press the button. It’s that easy.
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Filed under Beach Life, family
Inner Beauty Won’t Get You Free Drinks
SandraBallART on Etsy
The best I do is make a weak effort. And follow the mantra of my grandmother. She’d powder her nose, put a dab of lavender water behind each ear, eye herself in the mirror and declare, “That’ll have to do. I’ll just rely on my charm to get me through.” Nothing wrong with that.
And then I meet Sandy. Diametrically opposed best describes my college roommate and me. She is a real southern beauty. She spends time on perfecting perfection. It works. All her prep time results in a look that oozes effortlessness. She has it down to a science. That beauty thing. But the best part, she doesn’t made a big deal or any deal about it all. She just knows that a good presentation is worth the work. And people notice.
RPI Reunion Weekend 2015
Recently we get the annual mailing for our college reunion. I look closely at the pictures. It looks like Sandy right there front and center. Later when I talk to her she asks if I’ve seen the mailing. “Is that you?” I ask. She acknowledges so and we both laugh over the hair. She has nothing to do with the mailing or the photo choices but there she is because the effort she made that day is on solid ground. It still sells.
I learn a lot from her. Even now years later and all of those in between, if I feel too lazy to make an effort, I say to myself, “Nash would do better.” We become known as Nash & Jett because two Sandra Leigh’s, imagine the odds, just doesn’t cut it. And I’ll take a few more minutes to primp and enhance that outer beauty.
Inner beauty depends on the best you can give the outer to help it shine. Just that simple. Thanks Nash!
