Busted! (Literally and Figuratively)

Busted for a bust that is busting out. I needn't say another word - frankly I'm at a loss. This lovely photo speaks for itself.

I will just credit the photographer, my cousin's wife Beverly, who caught me off guard and unprepared, and gave me a portrait suitable for framing and hanging on the refrigerator.

The same one that houses the ice cream sandwiches.

My Big Fat Texan Family Reunion

A couple of months ago, my Aunt Lois Ann called me up and invited me to a Jackson Family Reunion. Aunt Lois Ann is the wife of my Uncle Howard, one of my father's two older brothers. A few years back we missed the opportunity to go to another one so this time I was "in" immediately.

Both my mother and father were born and raised in El Paso, Texas. Once married, they moved west and after a few migrations (including a year or two back to El Paso where I attended kindergarten), they settled in Fremont, California where my sisters and I grew up. The rest of the family - on both sides - stayed in Texas and so we didn't see them often.

As it happened, primarily because great grandma lived in Sacramento, I grew up knowing my mother's family better. My mother had one sister, my darling Aunt Barbara, and I saw her children much more frequently. By that I mean probably every three years or so.

We saw more of my father's family, the Jacksons, during that couple of years when I was very young and living in El Paso. I have strong and very wonderful "snapshot memories" of my Jackson aunts and uncles and cousins from back then. As well as some rather vivid ones from a trip we took as a family when I was 12 and one I took on my own at 13. And those were the last because with very rare and brief exception, it would be 40 years before I would see any of them again. And that would be just this past weekend.

We would be a gathering of descendants of Maggie Cown and two of her three husbands. (She was a dear grandmother but peculiar, to say the least.) I wanted all of my girls to come. None of my daughters, nor my husband had ever met this side of the family and I had no idea when they might get the chance again so we drained the vacation fund and all of us flew out for the event.

Neither my father nor my mother were particularly fond of El Paso and having grown up in California with its lush and diverse landscapes, oceans, mountains, and hills, seeing the flat deserts and dry mountains of El Paso as our plane flew in to land left me feeling a little depressed. I fought against a black mood as I had already had my traditional meltdown before leaving for vacation that morning. We got into our rented van and began our trip to Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Dennis (my cousin Kerry's son) had provided detailed directions which should have been more than enough but El Paso seems to have a law against street signs so we got lost for an hour before getting out of town. Once out though, we headed north for New Mexico for one long, straight, flat drive with nothing but desert and strangely flowering cactus (that looked like they had been designed by Dr. Seuss) laid out for us as far as the eye could see. I could not imagine living here. Once past Alamogordo though, we headed into the mountains and just like Dorothy opening the door Oz, the picture went from black and white to color.

I started to get a pit in my stomach. Not only had my family never met "the Jackson's" before, I would, for all intents and purposes, be meeting them for the first time. Jean Ann was my only cousin whose husband I had met. And I was 12. I had never met any of my other cousins' wives. I hardly knew the oldest of my cousins, Randy and Larry at all. Sons of the oldest brother (Uncle Fred), Randy and Larry were all grown up and married when I was little. I had never met any of the cousins' children (all now in their 30's, 40's, and 50s). And what's more, in my mind, the images of Uncle Howard, Aunt Lois Ann, Jean Ann, Kerry, Rodney, Randy and Larry were still from 1969. Oh my god! Had I made a mistake? Was it too late to turn back? With so few shared experiences and very different lives, I suddenly felt as though I had brought my family out for what would surely be a long weekend of extended awkwardness.

I was nearly jumping out of my skin by the time we pulled up to this marvelous lodge in the beautiful mountains and parked in front of the compound the family was staying in. I squinted to see if I could recognize anyone sitting on the patio. No, I could not. But suddenly, Aunt Lois Ann came running up to our car and I was in her arms like the "Prodigal Son". Seeing her was an emotional experience and I was glad I had my sunglasses on. I was going to be fine. One by one, I was reintroduced to my family and I honestly felt like I had come home. Upon seeing my Uncle Howard, I noticed for the first time how much he and my dad looked like each other - and how both of them looked like my grandmother, Maggie.

After about 15 minutes of introductions I sat down and started melting into the Jackson pot. Everyone was significantly older, but the same. In all, there were 25 of us - including my cousin Kerry and his wife's (Beverly), son's (Dennis) partner's (Todd) German grandmother Omi (Did you follow that?) Plus two dogs.

There was no end to the food and drink (and I mean drink) that had been set up over the pool table-turned-buffet. All the Tex-Mex favorites. And in no time at all, some little seed of "Texas Twang" in my brain sprung to life and I was dropping the "g" on my "ings" and saying "y'all" and talking with a hint of that soft, clipped Jackson accent. That first night, we celebrated Jean Ann's 61st birthday and Uncle Howard's 83rd.

The room(s) my family shared were beautiful. Two bedrooms and a sitting area with fireplace, a spa like bathroom (with huge jacuzzi tub) and a private balcony with wooden rocking chairs overlooking the trees. But I took little advantage of it. I didn't want to leave my family. The die-hards (me included) were up well past midnight the first night. I wanted to catch up on everything and there were years to get filled in on - but finally, I crashed and fell into bed.

At 5:00 a.m. I awoke to sounds in the common area. I got up and there were Randy and Rodney peeling potatoes and cooking up bacon for breakfast. They had already been to the store. I cannot fathom rising that early but this, apparently, is the norm for them. I put on a robe and sat down for some coffee and fun. One by one over the next hour, all the family made their way in. And we started "Day 2".

During the course of the day, family wandered in and out of that common area, giving everyone a chance to visit as a group and individually. We reminisced. I remembered thinking Jean Ann was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I was crazy about Rod and Kerry as a kid. In fact, I had a killer crush on Kerry. I remembered Rodney's kind words to me as a gawky, goofy 13-year-old living under the shadow of my sister Linda. He told me I was pretty and I will never forget it for as long as I live. Howard and Lois Ann were easy, comfortable and fun. I remembered Randy and Larry's parents, Uncle Fred and Aunt Jerry (both gone now) and how great they were. Both Randy and Larry are very much like their dad as I recall him. I remembered Randy throwing my sister Lisa - just a baby - into the air and catching her - and my mother nearly having a heart attack over it. Camping when Linda caught a frog. Swimming and riding horses and hearing the sounds of the Everly Brothers and Ricky Nelson emitting from Rodney and Kerry's bedroom. Being so excited when Jean Ann got married to Richard and had a baby, Kay Ann, now 41.

While not all of them could make it, I did get a chance to meet some of the "kids" - all in their 30's. All were truly wonderful people. I warmed immediately to Rodney's son Jeffrey who walked up gave me a big hug upon meeting me. He bought his lovely wife Diana all the way from Tennessee. Jean Ann's son, "little" Richard came with his partner, Henry, and was incredibly easy to talk to. He shared with me his interesting, often poignant, story. Dennis, Kerry's son, came with his partner Todd from Dallas. He had a big hand in orchestrating this reunion. Both were lovely people.

And everyone embraced my family as if they had been around all their lives. In return, my family instantly loved everyone - although keeping names straight was a little tough for them.

There was a little bit updating but mostly it was just a lot of getting to know one another now. There was no way to possibly fill a 40 year gap. Yet there was effortless acceptance and love. We were connected strangers. As schmaltzy as it sounds, we belonged to one another. Family is more than genetics. I love them all. Howard and Lois Ann. Randy and Mary Jo. Larry and Ida. Rodney and Marsha. Kerry and Beverly. Jean Ann and Richard. Jeffrey and Diana. Dennis and Todd. Richard and Henry. My family. Even Omi, who remarked that she had never been around a family who had such a good time being together. And I was so sorry my dad wasn't there.

Of course, I had to have one regrettable experience. I had heard that little Richard was a great singer and I begged him to sing. He declined. Finally I told him that I would chew a wad of Jeffrey's chewing tobacco if he would sing. He continued to decline. But Sunday morning, as we were all getting ready to leave, he opened up with a gorgeous rendition of "The Lord's Prayer" a cappella. It was really marvelous. But when he was finished I had to put a wad of chewing tobacco in my cheek. And let me tell you, I would have rather eaten a bug. But it was worth it.

Maggie Jackson 1901-1989

Sacramento

There is nothing so wonderful as taking a trip back to somewhere really fabulous from your childhood. And the quickest way to get there is via some song that you'd forgotten about.

Today, I was listening to Nat King Cole's rendition of "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley's Square". Something about the strings and the harp and his smooth, velvet tones took me back to the early-sixties - when his style was so popular - and I was back visiting Great Grandma in Sacramento.

Grandma Florence (shown here in the 1920's) was a disagreeable old woman but she had a marvelous old house on Q Street. It was a corner lot and it smelled sweet and musty inside. The bathroom had its original tile and a bear claw tub. Powder and lotions were everywhere and her toothpaste was a powder that came in a can. She wore flowered dresses and had her short brown/gray hair in tight pin curls. And she had an high pitch voice that shook with old age. Thick cat-eye bifocals. She remembered traveling as a very young girl in a covered wagon. She remembered riding in a stage coach. And she remembered being terrified at the sight of Indians (who were very friendly). Its very hard to imagine that I knew intimately someone who rode in a covered wagon. But she was born in the late 1880's on a Christmas day. (I was 28 before she died.) She met her first husband, my grandmother's father Lars, when she was only a very young girl. She fell into a pickle barrel at a dance and screamed with laughter. Story has it that when Lars heard her laugh, he told his friend: "I'm going to marry that girl with the laugh." Anyway, he did. They had three children together - one being my grandmother (whom we called "Mother" because that is what our mom called her). Lars was killed in a car accident when my grandmother was still a little girl. This happened in the early days of automobiles. She never got over it. And how could you?

Grandma Florence wasn't easy to warm to. My mom didn't like her. She had gone to live with her for a while when her own father died. She was only nine at the time, I think, and Grandma hadn't been very nice to her. She told me a story of being so angry with her once, that at the age of 9 she yelled at her: "When you die, I am going to wear red to your funeral" and then she ran out of the house to escape a spanking.

I had my own unfortunate run-in with Grandma Florence. One summer - on a miserable hot Sacramento afternoon, I left our room to go to the kitchen for water or something. And there, in the kitchen with her back to me stood my grandmother her dress held up to her waist, wearing no underwear - just her saggy old backside showing as she stood in front of an electrical fan. I didn't know what to do! I was in a horrible prediciment. Before I could decide, she turned around and saw me. Startled and embarrassed, she proceeded to scream at me in that high pitched shakey voice and I think if she could have killed me, she would have. I just kept saying I was "so sorry". And I really was - the whole experience was unpleasant for me. I couldn't tell what was worse, being yelled at or seeing my grandmother's ancient rear end.

But grandma's house was a child's dream. Seceret passage ways and mysterious old architecture. It had an enormous front porch and you could jump and dance and play on it and wave to anyone passing by. She lived near a park and we would visit it daily. I loved that old park with its big beautiful trees and and squirrels everywhere. It didn't have swings or anything to play on but being there felt magical. Even way back then, that park felt old with history. Like stepping into a painting.

Her house was on a perfectly square block and we would walk around it, holding grandma's hand to go to the Rexall drug store and we would always get a Popsicle. Inside she had a little telephone alcove in the wall that I thought was really cool. And her phone was old fashioned. Her furniture was old but wonderful. She had a fabulous old victrola that had a turn table covered in felt and a very heavy arm and thick needle. My sister Linda and I played the original cast album of "My Fair Lady" on that victrola for hours and hours. I still have every note of that score stored in my head and can play it at will. Rex Harrison talk/singing "I'm an ordinary man who desires nothing more than an just ordinary chance to live exactly as he likes and do precisely what he wants..." (In fact, that particular song takes me to Q Street as well. I can even smell the house.)

We slept in the bedroom right next to hers and had to go through it to get to ours. She had a picture of the famous painting of "The Last Supper" on wood hanging over her bed. It scared me.

We usually visited when her daughter, my grandmother (Mother), came from Moab, Utah to visit. And when that happened, we got to see the whole family. Uncle Ken (the eldest son and an elder of some stature in the Morman church) and his wife Thelma. Thelma was a brassy woman with bright orange hair that she wore in a tall beehive. She was a successful woman who made a lot of money running her own nursery school. An absolutely larger than life character. She would stand tall and wouldn't bend her head to look at you, she'd just lower her eyes. That stance let you knew she was in charge but she talked to you like a grown up and asked questions about you that made you

know she really was interested and so you knew she loved you. She chewed Dentene gum constantly and if she had been in Chicago as a young girl she might easily have dated Al Capone instead of Uncle Ken. She just was large and loud and sexy and you could tell she loved a good time. But she was absolutely no-nonsense too. I can't imagine ever crossing Aunt Thelma. Uncle Ken was diminished in her presence so I don't think great grandma ever approved - and I think Thelma knew that but she didn't seem to mind at all. (After Kenneth died, Thelma went a little wild and became Mother's buddy - having recently been widowed herself. Thelma coaxed her out into the dating world of the elderly. I guess Thelma had a few flings. Then she had a massive stroke that rendered her immobile and without speech for the rest of her days which was a tragedy I felt deeply. Her grown children however, having been raised strict Mormons believed it to be a punishment from God for not living purely after their father had died. My mother's cousin Sherene, a nightclub singer, thought her mother "got what she deserved". What idiots.) Here they all are in earlier days: My mothers' parents, Grandpa Fred (whom I never knew), Grandma (Mother), Kenneth, Thelma, and the baby, Damont.

Uncle Damont was a favorite but he had a highly unstable wife, Louise. Mother told me that Damont married her because he felt sorry for her. That may be true, but how tragic. Louise was so out of touch that he rarely brought her along but he did bring along his damaged girls, Deborah and Vicky, who were our age. They were our playmates but the older we got, the stranger they seemed. My parents discussed taking them in to get them away from Louise's influence and craziness but the task of helping them was overwhelming and so it never happened. Damont had been in World War II and had been in an army jeep when his buddy sitting next to him took a hit and had his head blown off. This "changed" Damont (as one can only imagine) in a very significant way but I didn't know how because I only knew him after all that had happened. My dad and Damont got on very well. Damont had a boat and sometimes we would go riding. But everyone felt sorry for him. However, I always thought he was dear and I loved him.

Great grandma had three sisters - Echo and Alta and one who's name I can't recall. Alta was my grandmother's favorite. Well into her seventies her leg became diseased and the doctor told her that she had a choice - they would either have to remove her leg or leave it alone and she would eventually die. The doctor expected her to choose the later, given her extreme advanced age. Instead she replied, without missing a beat: "Cut the son-of-a-bitch off!" (Mother loved that story!) They lived in Susanville. We rarely saw them but one of them had twin sons who would drop by occasionally. Their names were Donny and Lonny and great grandma adored them, in the same way she adored Liberace. I didn't know anything about anything back then, but I knew that Donny and Lonny were different in the same way Liberace was.

Great grandma would watch Lawrence Welk every Sunday and I would watch with her. I grew to love that show and every now and again I will watch a rerun of it to make me smile. She would also read your fortune and talk of how she "knew" when someone had died. There was craziness in that house but I was oblivious to it. For me, it was a glorious adventure every time we went and I always looked forward to going.

When Mother came to visit, that was the best of all. She was always so delighted to see us and she would take us everywhere. I remember getting dressed up (with gloves!) and going to downtown Sacramento to shop. We would beg her to let us wear lipstick and she would hold our faces by the chin and pat her lipstick tube on our lips - we got absolutely no color on them but we felt grown up. I loved her speaking voice. It was so calm. She was a young grandmother and was very attractive. She dressed well. And she loved on us so hard that you could live on it for a year.

I'm sure there are photos from that house. The only one I can find is one I already posted on July 3, 2009 - if you're interested. Recently I did an arial map search for that house. It appears to be gone, replaced with apartment units. It broke my heart. I will never go there again. The thought of it bring tears to my eyes. I much prefer to keep it exactly as it lives in my memory. Especially at night. Walking outside in the light of old fashioned street lamps under the canopy of beautiful, mature and gnarled trees, if you ventured up just a block or so, you could see the dome of the state Capital Building, lit up like gold. And it was beautiful. And to me, aspirational. Powerful. Grand. Elegant. Like a castle and I was Cinderella waiting to grow up to go a ball there. Magical. Comforting. Promising. And all was right with the world. Just as it should be when you are a child.

Baby Fix

So friends of mine just had a baby girl. And I am so grateful. Because I needed a fix really badly. What is it about little teeny-weenie just-born babies that melt you to the very core? I confess I am completely smitten. But I do think that I have passed from the "wishing I could have one" to the "wishing I could borrow one" phase of my life.

When I found out I was pregnant with Grace, my neighbor said she could hear me screaming. One evening when I was only slightly "late" Bob and I were watching "Mrs. Miniver" on PBS. During the break, I took the pregnancy test and saw only the faintest, barely visible line in the window. So I sighed a sigh of melancholy and relief and went back into the front room to watch Greer Garson be the most admirable of mothers. Thankfully, I wouldn't have to measure up to her.

The next morning (because there were two tests in the box) I decided to take the test again, only this time, right before my eyes I watched a neon bright pink line appear in the window as though it were screaming at me. And I screamed back. Like Jamie Lee Curtis in a horror film.

Here I was 41 years old, with 3 daughters nearing two digit birthdays and suddenly, staring at the fact of my being pregnant, I was no longer thinking sweet beautiful baby. I was thinking diapers and car seats and diaper bags instead of purses and no sleep and being pregnant for 9 months and looking pregnant for 9 years and spit up and potty training and baby-proofing and baby-sitters and toys that make noise and five-years-till-kindergarten and six-years-to-all-day-school and colic and bottles and willfulness and toddlers who follow you around with their arms up crying because they want to be held 24/7 and Play-doh in the carpet and teeny, impossible-to-see Polly Pocket doll accessories and Lego's you step on that send you through the roof with pain and, and, and...

Of course what I got was a sweetie baby who melted my heart just like the first three did. And I fell in impossible-to-express love. Just like the first three. And it has been wonderful.

But I got the other stuff too.

So now - now I feel so fortunate because I know people with a baby and I get to hold this teeny little angel and coo and melt and smoosh and nuzzle - and then I get to go home. And sleep. Without a Diaper Genie by the bed.

And I have to tell you, she is beautiful. And her mom sent me a picture of her wearing the onesie I decorated for her at her shower. And I love this photo because you can see how her whole little bottom can fit in the palm of your hand. And I love that so much about babies. I love it so much that I think I have to go over tomorrow and hold her little bottom in my hand.

So congratulations my friends, for having your beautiful baby. You are so blessed and you are in for the most wonderful experience of your lives.

But you should know, she won't really poop rose petals.