My dear Uncle, Ralph Ned Dodge, who passed at 92, was a very faithful cemetery visitor. One day, he complained to me that someone was putting stones on my mother’s (his sister’s) grave. He didn’t see them on other graves and could not understand the vandalism. He was very relieved when told that those stones each represented a visit from someone who was Jewish. I think it is a lovely tradition. He did, too.
Shortly after my father’s passing, I was in Venezuela with Miss Addie (I spent most of my time trying to see the six miles over ocean to Trinidad). Caracas is a scary city albeit possessing beautiful boulevards. There were army dudes on every corner replete with AK47s or the like. We toured Bolivar’s home and Mom enjoyed saying his name as the natives did. My Mom’s dear friend Yvonne, late now, had a brutal life until she managed to outlive the perpetrators … she was fearful of people and even of some delicate conversations. Miss Addie, in her infinite wisdom, linked the scary city to the name Bolivar and extrapolated it to mean danger so that Yvonne could simply say “Bolivar” and we all knew to shift to another topic. Mom went to Gr. 8 when she was kept to home to work in the house. However, she was one very smart cookie!!! All of us should have “safe” words for those who need them.
I was just speaking with my girlfriend, Peg Flanders, who lived next to us in Syracuse, and we got laughing over this Mom Story. When my Dad passed, I brought Mom to live with me … which she did for the next seventeen years. Miss Addie was about six or seven years into the Alzheimer’s when she came into the bedroom and awakened me. She said that someone was knocking on her bedroom window. I pooh poohed the possibility that anyone had climbed atop the garage and was knocking on her window. Addie prevailed and I went into her room to simply allay her fears. The cats were sitting on the little dresser under the windows as they often did and I was poised to do a melodramatic tossing back of the curtains. Well, I did just that. As fate would have it, at that very moment the tapping began in earnest. Outside, sitting atop the garage, and I am sure mouthing the words, “Here kitty, kitty” was a big raccoon. Somehow, he knew that there were cats in there and he was more than interested in a midnight snack. Miss Addie had not totally lost it and we both went back to bed.
My mother had a brilliant sense of humour. Nothing … no one was safe. My father saw me when I was two days old and next when I was two years old. WW II intervened between those sightings. He was so excited to see me that he woke me up at 2 am when he arrived home. My mother had created a little surprise for him. In his absence, she taught me to say, “I’se the Iceman’s baby!” I suppose his having a good sense of humour, too, made this funny rather than cause for divorce … that, and my having his hair, hands and feet … because I was a very Irish-looking West Indian kiddo!!!
My Irish mom learned to cook West Indian from my dad’s mother. You would be totally amazed at how many items can be curried. WI curry is green and not to be confused with East Indian curry that is yogurt based and usually white in colour. I took my lunch to school for all the reasons you can imagine. We, like the students, had about twenty-five minutes to wolf down and get back to class. So, of a day, something was awry in the building and we were on lock down. Not one to sacrifice lunch to circumstance, I whipped out my brown bag, unfurled the saran wrap and began to eat my pork chop. It was then that hell broke loose in Rm. 214. My babies, in unison, began to scream at me … “Don’t eat that pork chop! Green food will kill you! Mrs. Niles stop … You gonna die.” They were adorable and I was so pleased that they weren’t encouraging my untimely demise. Before the bell rang, I explained about the green curry but not a single soul would take a bite of my delicious and hasty lunch.
Like so many things from childhood, it was a good fourty years before I told this one to Miss Addie. I do believe that it was cause for several novenas begging for mercy on my immortal albeit tarnished soul. During my Senior year of high school, I had accumulated sufficient funds to purchase, for a grand total of $75, a ’51 Ford Victoria. The only reason that I was allowed to have a car was in anticipation of attending an area community college … once accepted to University, my Dad declared the car was a piece of history. So, it was a pretty cool summer being able to get from here to there in my own wheels.
My Mikey and I, always inseparable, spent that summer pretending to be adults. Sorta. As it came to pass, gas was not always easy to come by. Oh, it was plentiful and cheap but we didn’t always have money. However, not too far from home there was a wishing fountain. On one occasion, we liberated 15 cents to purchase some gas. We were not greedy. The pool was filled with nickels, dimes and quarters but we were raised not to take what wasn’t ours. Mostly. I suppose Miss Addie’s reaction to our miscreant behavior might have had something to with this wishing pool being connected to Holy Family RC Church. I believe that Mikey having been the Min. of Music at St Lucy’s for 25 years was atonement enough for him. I am still working my part in the escapade off. And, hoping that from his place on high that he is rooting me on.
For about fifty years of my life and many years more for my parents, the New York State Fair was on our list of to-do things. It cost fifty cents to enter for many of those years and we could bring our own food and drink. This worked out quite well for poor folks. Additionally, great acts (whose time had come and gone) were free in Empire Court!!! The best fun was in people watching … thousands upon thousands of men, women and children … old, young and in between … all dressed from Sunday go-to-meeting to barely attired. It was, at times, both fabulous and frightening. My parents loved the Fair. So, it made sense that on our way to her Memorial Mass in Syracuse that we make a stop at the Fair to give Miss Addie one more walkabout. There may be some who find this a tad bizarre but I promise you that my mother would have been the first to think this quite the hoot. As we wandering through the many exhibits and finally took a seat outside the Horticulture building and just simply watched the human parade pass by, we agreed that our box full of Addie ashes looked better than most of the souls traveling by. And, we could hear Miss Addie’s laughter somewhere high over head as she nodded in agreement.
Met a very nice man at his garage sale … Sadly, he felt compelled to tell me how Blacks bounced checks when he was a banker … He does this in sotto voce so the White folks browsing cannot hear … All my life I have been confronted by the choice to stay quiet or to jump up screaming, “You can’t see it in my face but such a surprise I have for you.” I don’t fight as much in these golden years … I just pray for my President. When someone is a real jerk, it is easy to deal with their racism but when a seemingly kind and good person lets it slip, that really tends to throw one off the game. At least, it does me. The truth of the matter is that many really mean no harm and are just repeating what they learned or what most of their family thinks. I have always been very proud of my cousins … never once did they call me a name … but like the vast majority of White folks, to them, you are what they see. In looking at me, they see White so I am White. That’s okay as long as I never forget from whence I came … and I never will. In fact, I once worked for an African American Superintendent who told me that I was the Blackest of all his administrators … I took it as a compliment.
This is a cautionary tale for youth and dentists alike. We had three dentists in Syracuse who were related … an older gent and his two middle-aged sons all practiced together down on Onondaga Street. I did not like my childhood dentist whom I swore cut back on novacaine to save a buck. So, I made an appointment with the dad figuring he had been in practice for a gazillion years and probably knew his stuff. I was seventeen and ready for the adult DDS. For a new patient, it was and is de riguer to take xrays. It used to take about twelve years in the chair to get results and by then my nerves were frayed … not nearly as much as they would be when he returned, held up the xray, and said, “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?” He saw the blood drain from my face as I thought of my father and what would be my abbreviated lifespan. He quickly said, “Oh, I am sorry. I am just kidding.” I somehow got it together and we spoke of my next appointment where the drilling and filling would take place. Sadly, before that next appointment, old Doc went to his eternal reward. I was given a new appointment with DDS Son #1. Before THAT appointment, DDS Son #1 joined the patriarch in that Great Dental Waiting Room in the sky. When offered an appointment with DDS Son #2, I declined. In my kid mind I feared that the retribution for the not-so-funny pregnancy scare might not be over … I magnanimously allowed the last surviving son to carry on and hoped he didn’t terrify any other miscreant high school girls. And, yes, I now know dental xrays are not a good barometer for telling if one is on the road to motherhood. Never did I tell the parental units this one!!!
Better, perhaps, an exposé … Whether we admit to it or not, we all have alter egos … some are superheroes, some are movie stars, some are serial killers … some drive big trucks in the dead of winter to punish bad drivers … whatever fantasy we might hold near and so very dear that others seldom are privy to it … we have them. For me, it is Alberta Fountainbleu. She has been with me for decades and I would not have it any other way. Kathleen is an Irish-Caribbean American teacher living in current time. Alberta is an African-American lounge singer, an ex-patriot living in the Paris of the 1930s. She left the US because of all the racial struggles and the inability to sing in clubs in Manhattan because of it. In Paris, she thrives. Kathleen, so I am told, isn’t ready for prime time but Alberta sings with great soul and passion. Both of my people love to sing “Summertime” and you never know which one will bring it out. If it is Alberta, honey, she will turn it out … if it is Kath, you will go out. While K still dresses as she did at 14, Alberta is stunning in beaded designer dresses and tiaras with feathers on them. K wears no makeup but Alberta is finely appointed. Kath couldn’t crawl atop a Steinway to save her life but Alberta glides to it like a dove to a magnolia branch. They are very different these two … one born in 1943, the other in 1910. They are sisters through and through. Neither could nor would wish to exist without the other. If you can, please share that alter ego who lives in you. We would love to know your better or lesser half. Be brave. Only my besties know of Alberta … now, you do, too. Please bring it on.
