Baptisms

   My first baptism occurred when I was 12.  It was at Fernwood Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas.  Of course, being Baptist meant I would be immersed in the baptismal font which was up behind a wall above the choir loft.  The choir loft was behind the altar in the church.  The baptismal font was hidden behind a curtain except on the Sundays when people were baptized, so it was a mysterious sort of place for a 12 year old.  I remember standing in the "wings" as it were, waiting my turn to walk down into that water toward Brother Bob, as we called our pastor, and turning around to lay backward into his right arm as he lowered me into that water and said he baptized me in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.   I just trusted that he wouldn't drop me.

   Recently I have commemmorated that baptism while on a trip to the Holy Land.  This time I walked into the chilly, dark blue-green water of the Jordan River at Yardent.  This time I had a Methodist pastor on either side of me to make sure I wouldn't fall.  I was blessed by them to remember my dedication to a Christian life.  This was a highlight of my pilgrimage to the land of the beginnings of my religion.  A long line of us stepped into that cold water and made our way out to our leaders.  We all felt an exhilaration and a new energy.

On A Clear Day

                               

I fumbled through the last rack of sales clothes, deciding to keep what was left of my five dollar weekly allowance as Patricia shouted, “Time to get back to campus.  It’s nearly one, and chapel starts at two.”  We three girls hopped into Carla’s 1960 white Impala and drove back to Texas Wesleyan College.

Carla parked the car behind the dorm, and as we reached the covered walk between the dorm and the cafeteria we were met by five or six of our dorm mates, all flustered and crying, running up to us and shouting.  Suddenly it hit me what they were saying, “He’s dead.  He’s been shot!.  The president is dead!”

“He is not!” I said, laughing.  “You’re teasing.  Why, I just got back from seeing him in downtown Ft. Worth.”

In truth, it had been at least three hours since I saw President Kennedy,

John F. Kennedy (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

but time shrank for me at that instant.  Tears welled in my eyes as the truth sank in.  All I could see was myself standing in a thinning line of people at the end of the motorcade route leaving Ft. Worth that morning for the President’s flight to Dallas.  My classmates and I stood on the blacktop street in the front row, the morning sun filtering through evergreen live oaks, yellow leaved pin oaks, brown leaved red oaks and the bare branches of stately pecans and red buds.  Birds flitted, and some lit atop telephone wires criss-crossing the street. People behind me laughed, cheered and waved.  No barricades separated the crowd from the motorcade. Suddenly, the black Cadillac convertible slowed directly in front of me for a few seconds.  In the back seat sat The President and Mrs. Kennedy. His smiling, blazing blue eyes lit up a tanned, leathery face, his hand raised in a wave, a shock of caramel blonde hair caught in the slight breeze. Mrs. Kennedy wore a light cranberry wool suit that had a darker trim, a matching pill box hat adorning flowing brunette hair, her hand up in a demure wave, deep brown eyes accompanying a slighter smile.   I could have reached out and touched them.  How alive they were, how vibrant!  They filled the air around us with the electricity of a charisma that reached across the void between us and touched me as if I had actually walked over and shook the President’s hand.    Enchantment filled my heart.  I thought I might as well be dating Elvis as to be this close to the first couple!

As I snapped back into the moment at hand, I joined the huddle of college girls who wailed and moaned, and I thought through my own tears, “What will we do without him?”

-30-

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Autumn

Proserpine is Gone

Oh, our beloved Proserpine is gone!
The sad brown leaves dare to dangle there
upon the limbs of trees bare as the bone
awaiting death that comes with Autumn's air.

The underworld again holds solemn sway
upon the earth. A melancholy time
restrains the joy and light of ev'ry day.
We see this is a season most unkind.

Old Hades holds the earth in bondage cold.
Fair Ceres mourns and all the flowers fall.
But she has raised a cry both meek and bold
for Proserpine's return unto us all.

Soon sadness will give way to rising cheer
As new hope springs upon the coming year.

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Attention

Attention

The sunrise works to burn away the white mist

That lingers lovingly above green mountains.

A whales’ spume vanishes against the shoreline

And blue glacial ice thunders

Into the silt grayed waters of a bay.

Awaken to this beauty,

This wonder that passes by

While you read in a deck chair

Or sip martinis at the Lido pool.

You must change your life.

Churning, 1948

“Grandmother, whatcha doin? What’s that thing?” I point at a brownish-gray barrel in front of her.

“It’s a churn, honey.  I use it to make butter. See, the cream is inside.”  She opens the top of the churn, and I, not much taller than the churn, look in.  I smell warm milk and wet wood. 

“Can I do it?”  

“It’s a lot of work, dear.  You have to push the paddle up and down very fast and hard to make butter.”  She looks at me, eye to eye, from her seat in the chair, sitting forward, feet planted firmly, knees pressed into each side of the churn, holding the paddle handle.

“I can do it.  Please, please, please let me do it.”

“You can try for a little while.”  Grandmother smiles and gets up from the chair.  I scramble to take her place.  I sit forward and hook my knees over the front edge of the wooden kitchen chair.  My 5-year-old legs dangle down.  Grandmother pushes the churn closer so I can reach it.  I scoot up to the chair’s edge to squeeze my knees into the churn like she did.

I take the churn handle.  I push down and pull up.   Ugh!  Cream is heavy.  Sa–losh, sa-losh, sa-losh.  I churn, making butter like Grandmother does. Never mind that the sa-loshing goes slowly.  Never mind that the paddle stays low in the churn.  Never mind that the chair begins to rock. 

“Here, honey, let me finish.”  Grandmother reaches for the paddle.

“But, Grandmother, I just started.”

“ Oh, it’s been a good ten minutes. You seem to be getting tired. You can do some more tomorrow morning after Granddaddy milks the cow and I strain the milk and skim the cream.” 

“Okay.  What can I do now?  Can I get the eggs?”

“Maybe later. We’ll go together.   Want to sweep the porch?”

“Okay.” I grab the too-tall broom and drag it outdoors, humming. 

Boy, Grandmother has fun things to do.

The Parlor, 1952

     I hurry home to watch “Howdy Doody” every afternoon in the blue-carpeted parlor of Mammaw’s house.  My first stop is in the back bedroom to scoop up my two-month-old cousin Jarrell and carry him through the series of French doors that connect the rooms in the hall-less house. I carry Jarrell to the parlor and place him on the gold satin camel back sofa while I arrange our child-sized rocking chair in the middle of the rectangular room, facing the small black and white RCA TV.  Light filters in through white lace curtains and ivory colored paper shades that dress the three east-facing windows behind the sofa.  Behind us, as I laugh at ClaraBell and cuddle Jarrell, sits one of the two front doors to the house, accompanied by a tall window also dressed in lace and ivory. At Christmas, a seven-foot blue spruce tree stands in front of this window, casting its magic and waiting for Santa.  Before us, behind the TV that now shows Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring’s face, rises the unused fireplace, flanked by two deep window seats.  Sometimes I look in the window seats to see what Mammaw has.  They smell of very old paper and dust and I sneeze.  I sometimes sit in these window seats and read or listen to the tall phonograph that stands near the French doors leading into the family room.  Sometimes my Aunt Helen, Jarrell’s mom, will play Frank Sinatra  or Nat King Cole records on it.  A gilt oval mirror, baroque in manner, hangs above the fireplace, so high no one can see into it.  It reflects the wall above the front door opposite it, and only the tallest people can glimpse the top of their heads as they walk by.  Jarrell and I have the room to ourselves these afternoons. Holding Jarrell in my lap so he faces forward, I rock as we watch Buffalo Bob and Howdy interact with the Peanut Gallery.  No one comes into the room to trouble us, and all too soon the show ends. I take Jarrell back to his crib in the back of the house and give him a hug and a kiss.  Tomorrow will soon be here, along with Howdy and all his friends. 

French Riviera, 1994

Hallie, my travel buddy, and I hop into our rental car and begin our trek to VilleFranche-sur-Mer.  We leave Arles this early June morning to traipse along the autoroute, following the signs to aix-en-Provence and Nice for the sole purpose of avoiding Marseille.  We feast on the sights.  Yellow and pink flowers and green shrubs mass the mountain roadside while red poppies peep through.  At Brignoles, we drop down onto the low corniche, or coastal highway.  Steep white cliffs outline the teal Mediterranean.  The narrow path snakes along steep foothills toward St. Tropez.  Here, however, teeming tourists, tangles of yacht masts, clustered fishing boats, and the water's glint obliterate any view.  Traffic flows like cooling lava.  Hallie pushes the car past the resort's limits, toward St. Maxime where the sea changes to aqua, and white sand beaches sparkle.  Between Frejus and Cannes, red porphyry rock relinquishes territory to mansions and estates perched atop and alcoved into the cliffs, canopied by deep green umbrella pines.  Pink, purple and fucshia bougainvilleas paint the homes' otherwise white neo-classic facades.  We value the snail-like pace of fellow ganderers.

Devoted Wednesdays

For several years I devoted Wednesdays to Aunt Dot, who lived to be 90.  We made weekly forays to the hairdresser, lunch somewhere, and the grocery store.  But September 30, 2005, became a breakfast day, so we went to Nikki's, Aunt Dot's favorite.  Aunt Dot, standing five feet tall and weighing 103 pounds, ordered 1/2 pound pork chops, three eggs, hash browns, biscuits and gravy.  She ate the meat, the eggs and a biscuit.

As she waited for the order, Aunt Dot smoked a cigarette and drank a cup of coffee.  Practically a chain smoker, she claimed she never inhaled.  "That's why I made it to 90," she would say.  She called herself the "Last of the Mohicans" because, being the eldest of four siblings, she alone survived in 2005.  The "baby" died in 1995 at age 64.

"Next week we'll go to Cappuccino's," Aunt Dot said.  This is an Italian Bistro we frequented to the point that they begain mixing mimosas the minute they saw her little white head bobbing toward the door.  Sometimes she fooled them, asking for a Bellini.  They treated her like a queen, setting up a smoking place on the patio after the meal.  She loved the attention.  Here, too, she ordered large: Italian sausage with pasta, lobster bisque, and Caesar salad.

Some Wednesdays we spent at the podiatrist or the dentist.  But we never missed the hairdresser or the meal.  Toward the end we began sharing a dessert together.  Turning 90 brought out the carpe diem in Aunt Dot.  She bought ingredients for eggs benedict and mimosas and made herself Sunday morning feasts.  After a long day of chores and gadding about, we shared mimosas and chocolate goodies.  Before leaving I would say, "you be good now."

She responded, "Well, I can't promise, but I'll try."

Aunt Dot lived alone until Thanksgiving 2005.  "I can do it," was her main mantra.  "I can unlock the front door," - "I can put that away," - I can carry my own glass to the table."  A bit of a trick for someone using a cane.  I followed her around the grocery store, reaching for the high things, but only if she asked.

She fell and broke a hip in November and moved into a rehab center.  I showed up every Wednesday.  She never fully recovered, dying February 3, 2005.  Wednesdays have been tame.