Write It Down!

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I just spent ten days in Oklahoma visiting my sister and her family. This year, because of our recent Ancestry.com research, we found ourselves going through boxes of old family photographs, sharing stories with my nephew, and dredging up old memories. Our history has been passed down verbally and I’m fortunate my sister was listening…

Our search took us back to Alva, Oklahomafor a day-long visit to my mother’s past. I had spent weeks creating our family tree. The branches on my dad’s side grew longer and longer as we found great-great-great grandparents; but, my mother’s side ends quickly, leaving the tree lop-sided. We were hoping to find information that might answer why.  
Why did my grandmother, Lela, and her brother live with her maternal grandparents instead of their mother? Where was Lela’s only living sister during those years? She isn’t on any census records. Where did Lela’s father go? He apparently birthed many children in Illinois and disappeared. My great-grandmother is suddenly re-married to another man. Everyone is suddenly living in Oklahomabut not together. It has become a family secret that we are determined to solve.
We started at the county courthouse where we found our grandparent’s marriage registry, then on to the library where a gracious historian seated us in their genealogy corner and brought out a dozen dusty volumes. There was our great-grandfather’s photo with an article that described him as a successful farmer, a generous member of the community and a loving father who raised sixteen children and three grandchildren. Three. Perhaps Lela’s sister was simply missed in the census. We left with photocopied documents including a map of the old family farm, outside a town no longer in existence.
The house where my mother was born still stands. It is crumpled and sagging and sad. She was born prematurely following a still-born sister, and if our family stories are accurate, she was placed in a warm hearth – oven for many days to keep her alive.
Our next stop was the cemetery just on the outskirts of town. We lucked in and quickly found half the family, as well as some ancestors we’d known nothing about until that library visit. Lela and my grandfather are buried there. So is Lela’s mother with her second husband at her side. We spent another hot sweaty hour walking the rows of graves before finding the great-grandparents who raised Lela. I stood there gazing at their headstones and tried to visualize their harsh difficult lives farming the red clay dirt of Oklahoma, eking out a living and raising nineteen children.
There are still missing pieces, but it will take a trip to Illinois to search for them. We will do that next. In the meantime I’ve learned the lesson of writing things down and not relying on my children to listen to my long-winded stories. Stories they care nothing about at the moment, but will be dying to know in another thirty years when I’m gone. 
(Photo upper left – house where my mother was born, Alva, OK)

Father’s Day

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It might be easier to write about my dad if he fit into a category. Some dads are playful, and fun and teach you to play ball; some are super intelligent and teach you everything about math and science and history; some are go-getters, taking on the world, professional, wealthy, and admired; some are quirky, artistic, moody but unique.So as I write today in memory of my father, I can’t find a category to fit him. Not really.
He was a man of few words, a hard-working man who, with a grade school education, gave us a home, food, clothing and a lot of love. He fixed everything himself; he built everything by hand; he pinched pennies and he knew nothing about raising two girls. Had we been boys we might have known a different man. I’ve wondered about that recently. I grew up in the 50’s and was a girly girl – baby dolls and buggies, play kitchens, paper dolls and dress up.  I remember once serving him tea with my miniature china tea pot and cups. He’d have been happier I’m sure to have taught me to hit a baseball or throw a football around the yard.
But instead, he taught me to ride a two wheel bike, how to drive the car, and he put my roller skates on my shoes a hundred times a day when they fell off and I couldn’t use the key. He taught me to fish though he had to bait my hook. He put together a metal swing set with monkey bars and saved me more than once from falling to my death. He took me to the park and pushed me high on the larger swings. He drove us everywhere we could drive in two days and could find a cheap motel. He never complained when I slept through the entire trip on the pallet he made between the back and front seats or when I grumbled about being wakened to see the hot springs or monument or vista.
When I was fifteen he let me wash his car. This was no small thing. My dad’s cars were his pride and joy. Each Sunday after church and the fried chicken dinner he cooked each week, he would wash and wipe and wax every inch inside and out. I had to prove to him I could do it. He had taught met step by step when and how much to soap before rinsing, how to keep it wet until you wiped it down with the chamois, how often to ring it out to the right wetness to do the job with no streaks, how to use an old tooth brush on the rims of the tires, a q-tip along the vents and radio, a clean damp cloth on the dash, newspaper to clean each window. It was a minimum two hour process, but when it was waxed and buffed it looked like new.
Each year my dad put in a garden with endless tomato plants. And every 4th of July, he hand-cranked home-made ice cream in the old wooden bucket and tin freezer. Those became his legacy – tomatoes and vanilla ice cream.
They say I “got” the Poole temper, the Poole eyebrows, thick hair, dark skin, brown eyes, my dad’s quiet reserve. I’d like to think I also “got” his work ethic, his family values, his money management, and his faith. I’d like to hope that he was proud of me in my later years. The one thing I am certain of is that he loved us unconditionally.
(Oh, and dad, I forgive you the habit of driving an extra ten miles to save a penny a gallon for gas! He will understand.)

Who Do I Think I Am?

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Recently, my sister and I decided to research our family history, and I jumped onto Ancestry.com to begin. For the past two seasons, I have watched their Friday night TV program, “Who Do You Think You Are?” and I have been fascinated with the stories.
Within an hour, the celebrity finds his great-great-great grandparent. He goes to three or four destinations and is greeted by archivists anxious to fill in the blanks. Many times he flies of to England or Spain! And then, ta da,  family secrets are disclosed, shocking new is revealed! 
Ah, the stuff that media is made of!
After a week of bleary red eyes, a possibly permanent cricked neck and a sore back, it appears that I can’t get much past my maternal grandmother. I looked at census records that seem to begin after Nana married my grandfather at age twenty-one. I found one record of her living with her grandparents from age five to age eleven. But her mother and father seem to have never existed, even though they gave birth to five children in Illinois. Nana’s mother appears again after re-marrying later in life; her father has no birth certificate, death certificate or military record.
So where were those five poor children with no mother or father all those years?
Now this is the moment Ancestry jumps in and says, “We’re off to Carrolton, Illinois, where Connie and Peggy Poole will meet with historian blah blah at the state archives with some shocking news!” . . . commercial break.
I’m certain at some point we’ll be off to London for further research – perhaps a cemetery where our five times great-aunt is buried or to London Tower where our six times great-grandfather was held for treason.
I mostly write fiction where you just make this stuff up. It’s much easier than tediously straining your eyes at microfiche that has faded since 1860. One thing I do know –
After all this hard work, there better be a magnificent or devastating secret in our family closet to make it all worthwhile.

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originally posted May, 2011

I find myself today still missing those graduations so thought I’d re-visit my blog from last year.

My Heart Is There

            In twenty minutes the line of blue, black, or red nylon robes will begin marching into the stadium, caps at various angles, and tassels on the left. The first strains of Pomp and Circumstance will choke the throats of every parent in the stands of the stadium.  Moms will swipe away the first of many tears; dads will appear calm and stoic until their son or daughter’s name is announced over the P.A. system, when they will let loose a shrill whistle or a loud ‘that’s my kid’.
            I will not be in those stands tonight but my heart will be there. For ten years I felt like the adopted parent of a third of those students and I shed my first tear with the beginning march and beamed with pride at each and every name announced.  On those nights I had three hundred children, three hundred reasons to applaud and praise.
            I had spent four years with each of them and I knew them all. I knew their doubts and fears, their frustrations with teachers, their stressed out anger when their grades dropped and their smiles of pride when they succeeded.  I dried their tears when love fell apart, I counseled their decisions and hoped they’d make the right one. I pushed them to take the challenge of advanced classes, nagged them to study harder.  I threatened them when they skipped classes. I raced them to the school nurse and accompanied them to the hospital when they over-dosed. I stepped them through their parents’ divorces. I touched their hand when they had a positive pregnancy test. I cried with them and held them when class mates died a tragically young and senseless death.
            I dragged them to the school resource officer when they didn’t want to “narc” or press harassment charges and called child protective services after checking out bruises and black eyes. I met them outside the support group meeting and shoved them through the door to their eating disorder group. I listened to them rage at a parent’s incarceration. I bid them good-bye when they were forced to return to their country of origin. I carried balloons to classrooms and loudly announced scholarships and college admissions. I bragged on their role in the school play, the best dance performance of their careers, the winning touchdown, and the half-time performance of the marching band.
            I pushed, pulled and prodded thousands of students and sometimes felt I knew them better than the parents they lived with.
            And senior year, I counted their credits a dozen or more times making certain their grades and courses would culminate in this last night of their high school careers.
            In my mind, I watch with pride and tears as they walk across the stage, accept their diploma with their left hand, shake the hand of the principal with their right, and move their tassel to the left side of their cap as they walk back down the stairs, cameras flashing, horns blaring, friends and family calling their names. I grin; they were listening after all.
            Tonight I will not be there but I can visualize it all.  Every graduation is the same from start to finish. I can tell you that at 8:20 the principal will give his final speech following the two students chosen to speak to their classmates, after the introductions of the school board members, the pledge, the class gift to the school.  And at 8:30 he will say the same words he said last year and all the years before that. I am proud to present these graduating seniors and vouch that they have fulfilled all the requirements of the state of Arizona. The first student whose last name begins with ‘A’ will step forward; each row will rise and sit at the same time.  A half hour later caps will fly, parents will rush the field, sad graduation songs will play, and my heart will be there.

The Queen and I

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I don’t particularly relish the fact that the Queen of England is celebrating her 60th year on the throne. It makes me feel darned old! I remember – very vaguely but I do remember – watching her coronation on the tiny round black and white screen of our console TV. It sat in the corner of the living room, green-leafed wallpaper on the wall behind, the wood vent of the floor furnace to my right, wide venetian blinds on the windows and tan carpet on the floor where I sat cross-legged at age eight.
The young woman slowly moved down a long church aisle; her crimson velvet, and ermine edged robe carried by six maids of honor flowed behind her. It was like watching a fantasy wedding, and when they placed the crown of jewels on her head and proclaimed her the Queen, every eight year old girl with a television had goose-bumps.
I don’t remember for sure, but I’ll bet that Sue Sue, my one-year-older friend, and I played coronation in my back yard for days after. We reenacted every thing we saw, as kids for generations always have – that wonderful world of make-believe. We try on different personas, different lives, finding ourselves. When I wasn’t Sky King’s daughter, I was a teacher, movie star, wife and mother, and later a woman throwing one of three coins into the Trevi Fountain in Rome, or a private investigator on 77 Sunset Strip with Kookie as my partner.
Oh, my, the world has changed. Or has it?
Westerns are pretty much out of vogue, Monster dolls have replaced Madame Alexander, and Sean White took Kookie’s place as a the cool dude with long hair. We’ve been through Star Wars and actually went to the moon. Hoola hoops and jump rope are now interactive on Wii and PS2. Playing “teacher” now requires a smart board and computers, not penmanship. But good news — Strawberry Shortcake is back and Hello Kitty (no, not Wyatt Earp’s girlfriend) is in every store in Europe.
We may have fought Englandfor our freedom, but Americans are still quite taken with royalty. Last year little girls everywhere, including me, were glued to their 42’ plasma color televisions as they watched Kate Middleton marry her prince in that same Cathedral where Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England. Kate’s long white nine-foot train trailed behind her, a Cartier tiara held her veil. Just today news is that Pippa, Kate’s sister, upstaged a bride at a wedding over the weekend. Last week Charles stepped in as a weatherman on local news. Yes, we have a “thing” for the Brits as much as we criticize the Royal’s wealth and attention.
So now, for a full year, we will watch the celebrations of the queen’s sixty-year reign. It is her Diamond Jubilee, and she’s doing it up right. At 85, she deserves a big hullabaloo. And honestly, now that I think about it, I’m almost excited to tell my kids that I saw Queen Elizabeth crowned in 1953, as old as that makes me sound.

How Can You Not Be a Cat Person?

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It seems that there really are cat people and dog people. Most of my friends are dog people. Some of them will freeze if a cat gets too close. I always want to laugh until I remember how I stiffen at the sight of a large hound approaching. I will stop to pet a cute, small breed puppy, if it’s well behaved. 
It’s true, dogs are loyal to their owners; they can sniff out drugs. They do search and rescue and can be trained to assist the handicapped.  I had one dog that I attached to – a small Yorkie about the size of my cat, Hermione. Yeah, dogs have their place. But cats . . . they are simply fascinating!
Hermione is currently stretching her body three times its normal length, looking skinny in those five seconds and giving a morning yawn that should permanently separate her jaw. She just turned seven and is a black and white plain old American breed cat. She sat in the palm of my hand when I was coerced by a colleague at work to bring her home. I’ve always been a sucker for the runt, the under dog, the last one left.
            Sure dogs will retrieve a stick but watching Hermione stalk, then leap, then run from one end of the room to the other chasing the small red dot of a laser pointer is pretty darned entertaining.
They say dogs are smarter, have larger brains. I’m not convinced. They seem to always pick on dogs much bigger than they are and will even go after a cat which I know from experience is pretty dumb. A cat can claw out a dog’s eye in a quick second. Even I don’t mess with Hermione and I’m a hundred times her size. Sharp teeth and claws can leave your arm pretty scarred if you make her angry.
            Talk about entertaining. Just now she returned from her breakfast and stood in her Egyptian pose – front paws completely perpendicular, head erect, looking regal. Two seconds later she is racing full speed in circles —  around the room, on the bed, into the bath and her she comes to the finish line – back claws catching carpet, she lunges down the hall into the living room! She scores! Ok, — too much hockey lately.
She stretches out on the countertop as I get my cereal, turns over and pushes her neck toward me so I will stroke her from chin to tummy. And no, she is not allowed on the counters. When she’s ready to eat, the bowl better be full. She will not stop her mewling until it is filled – it is silly to try to ignore her. She’s learned how to turn on the kitchen faucet to get a drink by wetting her right paw and licking.
And seriously, is there anything funnier than bending down to fold and put away a shopping bag, only to find it’s too heavy to lift? Or what about putting new sheets on the bed and later finding a huge lump underneath?
            When I cry, she puts her cool nose on my cheek and licks away the tears. If I’m upset she curls beside me nudging so close she seems to weigh fifty pounds. When I pack my suitcase she circles it, looks at me, and stalks from the room with disdain.

Yes, I’m definitely a cat person. What gave me away? How can anyone NOT be??

Letting God Lead

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My morning coffee sits cooling on the antique dresser in my favorite room of the house. The rocker in which I soothed both babies moves me gently. It is my favorite room for many reasons. It is the smallest room which makes it cozy. It’s painted a soft sage green that gives me a feeling of serenity each time I remember to come in and sit. It’s decorated in American country with a simple white duvet-set edged in sage green beaded embroidery stitching and above the bed hangs a large framed picture that seems a copy of this very room: an iron bed between two windows, a grassy treed landscape beyond the sheer white curtains and a black and white cat curled sleeping on the crumpled bedding. My own black and white cat, Hermione, is now curled in the same position in front of the open window to my left. It is also my favorite room as I remember the person who painted it with me and for me not so long ago. And it is my favorite because it holds so many objects from my childhood – rag dolls, my porcelain birthday doll, a china tea cup, and paper dolls under the glass topped night table.
If I close my eyes, I can pretend that the cool morning breeze, being moved by the ceiling fan, is somewhere else. I visualize other places where I have lived – OK, MN, further north in Phoenix. Three weeks ago I was in Paris, a year ago in London, three years ago in Italy. I think of New York, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Rochester, MN, KS, OK, TX, WI, LA – all the places I have traveled, experienced, hated and loved.
I left my home state at age twenty-three. Days before the move, I asked my now ex-husband to show me MN on the map. I had visited five states in the central plains but beyond that, my geography was poor. A little girl from Enid, OK – naïve, protected, inexperienced, shy and frightened. Little did I know that one day I would fly in an airplane instead of traveling by car and that that would expand to all the places I’ve now been. I almost didn’t make that move in 1969 and sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like had I stayed. Would I have been happier, more content, more settled? I’ll never know, for none of us, except George Bailey each Christmas, can look back at the forks in the road of our life, just as we can’t see the future that lies ahead.
When I was a little girl I played “house” and all I wanted was to be a mother and a wife. Occasionally I lined my dolls up in rows while I stood at my easel chalk board. Then I began to buy paper dolls of Hollywood stars and one day I thought about seeing New York City. Those thoughts faded in high school and I assumed that after college I would settle into a small frame house in Oklahoma. I think back on that decision to make the long drive north to a state I’d never heard of, and I wonder…
There have been many rocky roads and hills and valleys on this journey as well as several major forks where I had to take a leap of faith and choose. I’d love to sit here and say what a wise woman I was – how brave and strong – but that would not be the truth. I sit here in this calm green room and wonder how I got here, as we all do.
For almost always, I have simply prayed and closed my eyes, and put one foot in front of the other and let life happen and let God lead. I have felt guilt for never returning home. I have felt sadness over the losses I have endured. I have felt tremendous fear at all the changes that faced me, and anger at those forced upon me. But this morning as I drink my coffee, as I drink in the beauty of this room, as I look at photos of children and France, as I email friends across the country, as I wish so hard I could see the next ten years, I also weep for what I’ve had, for what I’ve done, for what I’ve accomplished, and I say a prayer of thanks to God for leading me to this peaceful place and time in my life. I never have to be strong or brave when I let God lead. I know that whatever happens in the next ten years will be designed to complete my journey and is in His capable hands.

Oklahoma May Day

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It is May first, and I sit here wondering when I stopped giving and getting May baskets. Is there such a thing anymore? I’d need to ask around.  In Enid Oklahoma it was May Day, and it was a big celebration that took much preparation.
In grade schools, as we called them then, children spent days cutting out strips of pastel-colored construction paper and wove them carefully into square baskets with the guidance of the teacher. The last longer strip was carefully glued to each side to form a handle. White paste clung to tiny fingers as they held the pieces tightly as they dried. After the baskets were filled with hand-written folded notes of Happy May Day and good wishes, the children added candies or flower petals and carried them home. The baskets were carefully placed on door steps of neighbors or relatives or mothers. Leaning in to knock on the door, the children then jumped quickly from the porch and into the bushes or across the street and waited for the surprised recipient to exclaim over the basket and look from left to right trying to discover who had honored them with this gift of May.
The sixth grade girls had spent the day learning the basics of winding a May Pole. Long pastel colored streamers hung from the tall pole and each girl grabbed a ribbon and began the dance of weaving in and out and around and under creating the perfect design. You could hear the teachers instructing and occasionally yelling to “halt” when a mistake had been made. Then the music would start again and the weaving commenced until there was no more ribbon left to wind.
Across town, the high school was preparing as well. Ballots were counted and the announcement was made of May Fete King and Queen and their runners-up Court. Girls raced home to wash their hair and roll it in orange juice cans to dry under the plastic hoods of home hair dryers. Fingernails were lacquered and strips of black fake eyelashes were glued along liquid eye-lined lids. Ankle length dresses of organza, lace, satin and tulle erupted from clothes hangers on the backs of bedroom doors and a dozen net petticoats lined the walls on hooks or nails waiting to fill the dresses like air into a circle of four or five feet. In a few hours we would look like birthday cake dolls stuck deep into the center of  layers and layers of frosting. Our satin heels had been dyed the exact shade of our dress and the lapel boutonniere for our date sat in the refrigerator all dewy and fresh. It would be matched to our wristlet floral corsage a few hours later.
Somehow Spring Lake Parkhad been transformed into a wonder land of lights and roses and our parents sat in rows of folding chairs as we lined up in pairs to enter. The Rose Garden was in full bloom with yellows, white, reds and pinks and their aroma wafted in the air. Fire flies lit an early sky and the orchestra began to play. And in that magic we followed the May Fete Court as we floated along the side-walk around the lake, up and over the man-made water fall, and back full-circle. The chosen May Pole dancers twirled around three tall metal poles intertwining the multi-colored ribbons into things of beauty.
I wonder now, fifty years later, how much I accurately remember because as a teen we see through a gauze-like veil and everything is muted by innocence and rose-colored glasses and high school love. Ahh – to have some of that back. To see the world like Alicewhen she was very very small.
Years later I would notice what a small patch of ground the rose garden covered. And the lake seemed man-made and artificial and the water-fall seemed miniscule as well. But once a year in high school, we created May Fete and we left the park and pushed and shoved and squeezed our yards and yards of tulle into car seats and danced in the dark gymnasium and held hands at the punch bowl and kissed good night on the porch steps.
It was May Day, 1963, in Enid Oklahoma. I wonder if it is still celebrated today. I wonder if it was just a local tradition. I wonder if it was a national celebration. I wonder who my date was that year….

France Through a Daughter’s Eyes

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God seems to have a way of slowing me down when I can’t or won’t do it for myself. I returned from Paris a week ago and haven’t written a word or a story or a blog. So on Saturday He broke a water glass and let it fall directly on top of my right foot: not the left, oh, no! The one I drive with, lead with, count on. Six stitches in Urgent Care. So here I sit with my foot elevated, iced, swollen and throbbing. Nothing else to do BUT write! I know you’ve experienced the same type of wake-up call.
The Bible says that God spoke to people back then. Maybe there are simply too many of us these days for those direct conversations. We have over- populated our planet, after all. The stabbing pain in my foot reminds me that He’s still in control and speaks to me none-the-less.
 Seeing Paristhrough the eyes of a daughter is fantastic. Watching her eyes sparkle as the Eiffel began its hourly sparkle was such fun! Reaching the top of the Arc de Triomphe right behind her made all the huffing and puffing and heart-racing breathlessness worth every step (284 to be exact). Years ago Michelle and I went to the Monet exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum, and she bought a poster of his famous lily pond below the bridge at Giverny. As we stood on that very bridge with the water reflecting the willow trees and blue sky, and the gorgeous flower-lined path around the pond, we both felt the intensity of sitting where Monet sat, easel in front of him painting his glorious pastel colors on canvas.
Without realizing it, I took a photo of her taking a photo of Notre Dame through the pink blossomed cherry trees, as she gazed in amazement at the flying buttresses of the cathedral. Last year I stood in that very place with my son, so she and I crossed the street to have a Nutella crepe at the same outdoor creperie where Mike and I ate last year. Traveling with friends and spouses is exciting and fun, but going with adult children has a very special feeling.
When my children were little, I saw everything through the eyes of a child: their first circus, first ballet, first trip to Disneyland. Thirty eight years later, Europe was our Disneyland, and that feeling of experiencing it through them felt much the same.
After my daughter flew back to the states, I went to Avignonfor a few days. I was drenched in the history, dripping from the 1300’s palace, bridges, and walls surrounding the ancient city. It was amazing and I relished it, and at the same time, I missed sharing it with her and missed seeing it twice – through my own eyes and through hers.

Cursive

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Today I decided to share a poem I wrote recently with a question to readers — do you remember the teacher who taught you to write in cursive? I hope this poem brings back some happy memories of elementary school.

Cursive

In the pre-dawn lightness
the first dove coos
her five note song –
Oo ah oo – oo oo.

It is a red mug day with
coffee steam rising gently
below my nostrils
onto my reading glasses.

Pen on paper
I notice the careful way it fits along my fingers,
and ask myself to remember
the name of the woman who taught me cursive
and the name of the man who fashioned it.

I smile at my silliness
58 years have passed
since that cold linoleum basement-
room of Garfield Elementary.

My childhood eyes peer up and out
the casements windows filled with sun.
The cloak room smells of wool and rubber
from winter days long gone.

Years of white dust glistens in the air.
Back- row desks hold childhood carvings.
Balls, jump ropes and hop-scotch chalk
sit in the metal bin beside the door.

Down the hall the bathroom –
Where I refused to pee.

Valentine boxes decorated with doilies and red construction paper,
their open-mouthed slits wait impatiently
begging for twenty-one cheap
pre-packaged cards to prove I am equal.

May baskets and May-poles,
Santas colored carefully inside the lines.
Big Chief writing tablets, sharply pointed pencil marks
carefully touching lines above and below.

Crisp white collared plaids adorn my body.
Brown and white oxfords laced on my feet.
Newly permed brown curls frame my face in
front-row class pictures every year.

Charlie Brown teacher voices fill my head
Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah.
And on the dreaded playground
await memories of being chosen last.

Perhaps it was my lack of coordination
that made me strive so hard for stars and A’s,
pushed me toward perfection
that I never felt I gained.

Miss Benson, Third Grade.
Palmer Method of Cursive Writing.