The Bo-Betsy Stories: Chapter Three

 Eight years ago while approaching the long-anticipated empty nest, I started Old Minivans Die Hard, a blog filled with brutally honest stories of motherhood. The nest never went full-throttle empty for long, rather it remained fluid, morphing from half-full to half-empty to fully-full. Over the course of those offspring-juggling years, I feel as though I’ve told all the tales I have to tell. 

But sometimes you just have to go back to the beginning. 

 

The Bo-Betsy Stories, written for my Day One friend Margaret to read to her children, are innocent tales of a time gone by. They offered our kids a candid look at what life was like for us growing up and allowed me to subtly share the good, the bad and the ugly of our formative years. 

 

I’ve changed the names and some defining details to avoid unintended humiliations, forced retractions and potential lawsuits. My hope is that I’ve captured the essence of a childhood grounded in a much less complicated world and that you’ll see yourself, or your ancestors, in this storyteller’s stories.

 

And so, with nostalgic delight, I welcome you to the next chapter of my blog: The Bo-Betsy Stories.

The Bo-Betsy Stories 

A long, long time ago, when your mother was just a little girl, not much older than you are now, she had a friend named Bo-Betsy. Bo-Betsy lived not right next door to your mother, not in the house next to the house next door, but in the house next to the house that was next to the house next door. They lived on Woods Road, a road with lots and lots of trees and lots and lots of kids to play with. Woods Road was a magical place because if you lived there, it meant you would always have friends to play with. For the rest of your life. 

 

Chapter Three: The Trouts

Your mother and Bo-Betsy loved to read. As a matter of fact, Bo-Betsy learned to read before she even went to kindergarten. Your mother wasn’t quite as quick, but not wanting her friend to outdo her, she soon caught up. They read Charlotte’s Web. They read Winnie the Pooh. They read all the Bobbsey Twin books. They read Pippy Longstocking. But their favorite book of all was Harriet the Spy.

 

Harriet the Spy was a character who would sneak around and spy on all her neighbors. She’d peek in windows and under doors. She’d creep through the woods and hide in cars. She’d listen to people talking and she’d keep a diary – a tiny little notebook where she wrote everything down.

 

One summer day when your mother and Bo-Betsy were particularly out of sorts, they decided to play Harriet the Spy. Your mother was Harriet and Bo-Betsy was her special assistant, and the keeper of the diary. After all, she was the one who grew up to be a writer.

 

They put on black T-shirts and blue jean shorts with lots of fringe to camouflage themselves from any random Neighborhood Gang members, mailmen, or TV repairmen who happened to cross their path. They tossed off their flip-flops and laced up their fastest sneakers – just in case they had to make a run for it.  Bo-Betsy nabbed a pocket-sized notebook from her father’s desk in the den and off they went out onto Woods Road.

 

The first place your mother and Bo-Betsy decided to spy on was the very secretive, very scary, very dark and gloomy house down the street nestled deep in the woods between the Wert’s and the Siefert’s houses. This house, where the Trouts lived, looked like a cottage in a fairy tale, the kind in which evil things happened. No one had ever seen Mr. or Mrs. Trout. But everyone knew they were very old. And very ugly. And very, very mean. 

 

Your mother went first. She was always the brave one. Bo-Betsy lurked behind, but not too far behind, because your mother kept turning around hissing, “Come on! Do you want to be Harriet the Spy’s special assistant or NOT?” 

 

Bo-Betsy did want to be Harriet the Spy’s special assistant very, very badly, so she crept down the driveway —slowly, slowly, in itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny steps. It wasn’t the longest driveway on Woods Road, but it certainly was the creepiest. You see, the Trout’s house had a very peculiar front yard. There was no grass. It was all trees and bushes and this stuff called pachysandra. Almost every house on the road had clumps of pachysandra somewhere on their property because there were so many trees that it made it hard to grow nice, thick, green grass like you see all over suburbia today. If half the lawn was filled with ground cover like pachysandra, or myrtle, another Woods Road favorite, it made it much easier for the local teenagers to cut the lawn. But, the Trout’s was different. It was overrun with pachysandra and myrtle and leaves and twigs and all kinds of wild weeds filled with all kinds of evil spirits. 

 

Suddenly, there was a crick, crack, crackle in the woods. Your mother jumped. Bo-Betsy jumped. Bo-Betsy turned and started running as fast as she could back up the driveway, her heart pound, pound, pounding. She had never been so scared in her life. Finally, and timidly, she turned around to see if your mother had been captured. But there she was, half-way down the driveway with her hands on her hips.

 

“That’s what you were afraid of,” your mother laughed, pointing into the wooded front yard. 

 

Bo-Betsy slowly started down the driveway again. Step-by-teeny-tiny step.

 

“You are such a scaredy cat!” your mother said. “It’s just a silly squirrel!”

 

By then Bo-Betsy’s heart had stopped pounding so she laughed it off and walked nonchalantly back down to join your mother. Very bravely, they snuck around to the backyard and right up to the window next to the big wooden door at the corner of the house. Bo-Betsy stopped for a minute to jot down some notes about the big adventure.

 

“C’mere,” your mother whispered, signaling Bo-Betsy to join her. “Hurry up! We can see right into the kitchen!”

 

Bo-Betsy shut her notebook and slipped the pen behind her ear like she had seen her own mother do when she was making her grocery shopping list. She scrambled over to join your mother who was standing on her tiptoes on top of a big, big rock, her chin resting on the brick window sill.  

 

“What in the world are you doing?” a big, deep voice bellowed.

“Ahhhh!” Your mother and Bo-Betsy screamed at the top of their lungs and toppled right off the big, big, rock. Over and over they stumbled until they landed on top of each other in a heap on the ground. 

 

Standing over them was a very tall man. Taller than Bo-Betsy’s father. Taller than your grandfather. Taller even than Wilt Chamberlain who was a very famous and very tall basketball player. He had white tousled hair and a long white beard and boots that were bigger than the biggest boots in the whole wide world. He was towering over them with his eyes narrowed as they quaked in fear.

 

“So, which one of you is going to answer me?” the tall man demanded. “What in the world were you doing, peeking in my window?”

 

Now, Bo-Betsy who always talked too much, and even more so when she was scared, started right in.

 

“We were playing Harriet the Spy and we were spying on you because everyone in the neighborhood is scared of you because your house is hidden in the woods and no one’s ever seen you and…”

 

Your mother elbowed Bo-Betsy hard, right in the gut.

 

“Come with me,” the tall man said and reached out his hand to help the girls up. They were very, very scared as they followed him through the big wooden door into his dark and creepy house.

 

The tall man pushed the door closed behind them.  

 

“Mrs. Trout,” he called to his wife. “Look who I found looking in our windows.”

 

Into the room came a teeny-tiny woman, about half the size of the tall, white-haired man. 

 

“Aren’t you the little Sommerville girl?” she asked in a voice as teeny-tiny as her stature. “And, you. You’re a Hunsicker, aren’t you?”

 

The two of them nodded wondering how in the world this woman, whom they had never seen, could possibly know who they were. 

 

“Well, then. Come on in and have some cookies,” Mrs. Trout said.

 

Your mother poked Bo-Betsy in the gut again as they moved slowly into the kitchen, fully expecting to find fried frogs feet and pointed pigs toes and baked boys ears and little girls eyes boiling in pots on the stove. But what they found instead was the cutest little kitchen with yellow cabinets, red and white checked curtains and a red Formica-topped table against the far wall. On top of the table were yellow and red flowers spilling out of a blue ceramic pitcher and a plate of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies. 

 

“Careful,” Mr. Trout whispered as your mother reached for a cookie. “They might be poisoned.” 

 

But your mother, who was braver than brave, took a big, defiant bite right in front of Mr. Trout. Bo-Betsy held her breath waiting to see if your mother would conk over and die. 

 

But she didn’t. She just smiled and said, “These cookies are great!”

 

So Bo-Betsy who even as a grown-up can’t pass up a sweet, took a cookie – and then another and slipped a few in her pocket to take home to her guinea pig, Albert. Your mother ate three cookies, which was a lot for her, and then she was full.

 

“I can’t wait to put this in the diary,” your mother said. As if she were the one who would be doing the actual writing. 

 

“And just what will you write?” the man, who didn’t seem so tall anymore, asked.

 

“I’ll write about all the dead bodies we found inside your house.”

 

Everybody laughed and laughed. 

 

The Trouts ended up being as nice as any grandmother and grandfather you’ve ever known. But for years and years after the days of Harriet the Spy, your mother and her special assistant, Bo-Betsy, kept the secret of the Trout house. Because of all the kids in the whole Neighborhood Gang, your mother and Bo-Betsy were the only ones who cared enough to find out the truth. And they weren’t about to share that truth with anyone.

 

Which is why to this day, whenever Lois Houck, Peggy Ricketts, Tommy Dickinson, (or his little brother, Bobby), Susan Hetherington, Susan Hunsicker, Susan Wert, Susan Evans, Stevie Betz or Buzzy Gallagher pass by the Trout’s house, they still shudder and move just a little more quickly. 

 

But your mother and Bo-Betsy not only found two new friends, but learned a valuable life lesson that day. Just because someone says bad things about someone else, doesn’t mean you have to believe it. You have to find out the truth yourself. And when you do, you must always, always be willing to rewrite the story. 

 

 

 

 

The Bo-Betsy Stories: Chapter Two

 Eight years ago while approaching the long-anticipated empty nest, I started Old Minivans Die Hard, a blog filled with brutally honest stories of motherhood. The nest never went full-throttle empty for long, rather it remained fluid, morphing from half-full to half-empty to fully-full. Over the course of those offspring-juggling years, I feel as though I’ve told all the tales I have to tell. 

But sometimes you just have to go back to the beginning. 

 

The Bo-Betsy Stories, written for my Day One friend Margaret to read to her children, are innocent tales of a time gone by. They offered our kids a candid look at what life was like for us growing up and allowed me to subtly share the good, the bad and the ugly of our formative years. 

 

I’ve changed the names and some defining details to avoid unintended humiliations, forced retractions and potential lawsuits. My hope is that I’ve captured the essence of a childhood grounded in a much less complicated world and that you’ll see yourself, or your ancestors, in this storyteller’s stories.

 

And so, with nostalgic delight, I welcome you to the next chapter of my blog: The Bo-Betsy Stories. 

 

 

The Bo-Betsy Stories 

A long, long time ago, when your mother was just a little girl, not much older than you are now, she had a friend named Bo-Betsy. Bo-Betsy lived not right next door to your mother, not in the house next to the house next door, but in the house next to the house that was next to the house next door. They lived on Woods Road, a road with lots and lots of trees and lots and lots of kids to play with. Woods Road was a magical place because if you lived there, it meant you would always have friends to play with. For the rest of your life. 

 

 

Chapter Two: Kit and Pongo

One day, long after the metal trash can incident and long after your mother’s cut had healed, she once again attempted the no-pedal, no-brakes ride to Bo-Betsy’s house. She got on her blue Schwinn bicycle and pushed off from the top of her steep driveway. Down she went, fast, fast, faster, turning right at the street, soaring past one house, then another, until she got to the third house where Bo-Betsy lived. This time she was able to make it all the way up to the tip-top of Bo-Betsy’s driveway without pedaling. Without using the brakes. Without falling off. And without a single second of doubt. Because your mother had taken to heart the poster hanging in the principal’s office at Enfield Elementary school: If once you don’t succeed, try, try again. Another one of your mother’s favorite sayings was prominently displayed in her kitchen at 308 Woods Road: Live everyday as though it’s your last. And someday you’ll be right. But that one doesn’t have a lot to do with this particular story. 

 

Bo-Betsy was watching from her front lawn and screamed, “Bravo!” even though she knew that what your mother had done was very dangerous. After all, she had the scar to prove it. But Bo-Betsy loved when your mother did courageous things. Mostly because she was afraid to do them herself. 

 

On this sunny afternoon in the middle of summer, your mother and Bo-Betsy couldn’t decide what to do. So they just started riding their bicycles around and around in circles on the driveway. 

Here’s just a little background for you. Bo-Betsy, along with her two older sisters, one younger sister, mother, father, and their polka-dotted dog, Pongo, moved to Woods Road the month before she turned five years old. Mr. Hunsicker (remember, that’s Bo-Betsy’s father) bought the last empty plot of land on the street. Because he had been a builder before he started selling ALPO dog food, he was very excited to be able to oversee the construction of his dream house and to make sure the must-haves on his list came to fruition.   

 

Mr. Hunsicker was a very smart man. He knew that while the oldest of his four girls was only seven and the youngest about to turn three, that the years would start going by faster and faster, so fast that in a blink of an eye, there would be six drivers in the family. And while Mr. Hunsicker was a very smart man, he was not the most patient man, and had no interest in juggling cars in order to get to work in the morning. Not then. Not ever. He knew it would behoove them all to have a driveway big enough to fit all the Ford Pintos and Chevy Chevettes of their future. 

 

And so he added to his must-have list, an attached two-car garage for his yellow Ford Falcon and for Mrs. Hunsicker’s wood-paneled station wagon. At the last minute he had a bonus room built to the side of the garage for his workbench and his tools and all the bicycles and rakes and shovels. That side room is also where Tiny Tim and Albert lived, for the short time that they did. 

 

When you drove up, or walked up, or bicycled up the Hunsicker’s driveway, you’d have to turn slightly to the right to angle your way into the garage. The garage had a very big and heavy door that rolled up into the ceiling. Whenever the family came home from an outing, Bo-Betsy’s father would tell one of the girls to hop out of the car and open the garage door. Back then, a remote-control garage door was as foreign a concept as a remote-control TV. It was both an honor and a burden to be the designated daughter. 

To the left of the roll-up garage door was a flat wall behind which was the side room that contained the miscellaneous mess. This flat wall was big enough for a basketball hoop and strong enough to survive the many tennis balls slammed against it. It also meant that the driveway, which came right up to the corner of the wall, was big enough to park a party’s-worth of cars. Which meant it was big enough to play a game of pepper with the softball and big enough to ride bicycles on – up and down and around and around.  The only other driveway on Woods Road anywhere near that big was the Baker’s. Everything about the Baker’s was big. They were very, very rich. 

 

But the Bakers have nothing to do with this story, so let’s get back to the girls and their bicycles. Around and around and around they rode, your mother and Bo-Betsy, evenly spaced, evenly paced, like show horses in a ring. Just when they were beginning to get dizzy, not to mention bored, up the driveway pedaled another girl from the neighborhood. 

Her name was Kit. Kit and her brother, Johnny, lived way at the top of the hill on Woods Road. Kit had a gold bicycle with a white seat, with red and green and yellow and blue streamers coming out of the handlebars. Sometimes she would braid the streamers together.

 

As previously mentioned, Bo-Betsy had a dog named Pongo. In those days, dogs ran free. They didn’t have to be on leashes or behind fences or kept indoors. They roamed the neighborhood and lived a much freer life than kids and dogs live today – which also meant they had much more fun. Pongo was a Dalmatian. He was white with black and white spots, just like the dogs in the movie 101 Dalmatians. He was a very nice dog. Until he bit Walter Wilson. But it wasn’t really his fault. Plus that’s a story for another time.

 

Pongo ran around and barked as Kit came puffing up the driveway, but he soon lost interest and went back to chewing crab grass. Kit hopped off her bike, put the kickstand down and planted her feet wide apart with her hands on her hips. Kit was the smartest girl in the neighborhood. Smarter even than Bo-Betsy’s oldest sister, Susan. Though later in life, when they were much, much older and your mother, Kit, and Emily (that’s Bo-Betsy’s sister), shared an apartment in West Philadelphia, your mother sometimes wondered if perhaps Kit wasn’t the smartest one after all.  Maybe, just maybe, she had acted like she was the smartest for so long that everyone simply believed it to be true.  Regardless, it is a fact that Kit graduated from law school and got a higher SAT score than your mother’s and Bo-Betsy’s put together. 

“Guess what!” Kit said, sticking her chin way out. “Father just bought a brand-new sports car. It’s a bright red Triumph!”

 

“Wow!” your mother and Bo-Betsy said in unison. Father, as Kit called her father, never Dad, or Daddy, or Pops, or Pa, was a very important lawyer who took the train into the city every single day to right the world’s wrongs. Father was the last father on Woods Road they’d imagine would own a sports car. But your mother and Bo-Betsy were in complete and total awe, especially considering that most of the cars in the neighborhood were station wagons. This was an ultra-cool, two-seater convertible. 

 

“Can we come see it?” they asked excitedly.

 

“Nope,” Kit answered smugly.  “I’m playing with Cheryl Becker today.” 

 

Cheryl Becker was Kit’s next-door neighbor and had a beautiful sister named Donna. Donna was a cheerleader at Springfield High School and had a boyfriend named Doug who was on the football team. Everyone wanted to be Cheryl Becker, at least until they were much, much older and learned that all that glitters is not gold. But on that summer day, Bo-Betsy and your mother were very, very jealous of Cheryl Becker, who was clearly going to get to sit in the new sports car way before they did. 

 

Meanwhile, Pongo, somehow sensing the girls’ despair made his way back to the driveway. Always the protector, he walked slowly toward Kit’s bicycle where he very nonchalantly lifted his leg. And tinkled on the seat. 

 

Your mother and Bo-Betsy roared with laughter. Kit’s thick eyebrows squinched closer together. Her lips tightened in a snarl. Her cheeks turned bright pink. She blinked her eyes, once, twice, seven times. But it didn’t keep the tears from spilling down her cheeks. 

 

Kit was so mad, she didn’t know what to do. So she just hopped on her bicycle and rode on the tinkle-covered seat all the way home. Which, of course, made your mother and Bo-Betsy laugh even harder. So hard that they were afraid they too would tinkle in an inappropriate place. 

 

And although Cheryl Becker got first dibs in the sports car that day, when all was said and done (and so, so much more was said and done), Kit eventually realized that when it comes to your mother and Bo-Betsy, it is always much better to give than to receive. 

The Bo-Betsy Stories: Chapter One

Eight years ago while approaching the long-anticipated empty nest, I started Old Minivans Die Hard, a blog filled with brutally honest stories of motherhood. The nest never went full-throttle empty for long, rather it remained fluid, morphing from half-full to half-empty to fully-full. Over the course of those offspring-juggling years, I feel as though I’ve told all the tales I have to tell. 

But sometimes you just have to go back to the beginning. 

The Bo-Betsy Stories, written for my Day One friend Margaret to read to her children, are innocent tales of a time gone by. They offered our kids a candid look at what life was like for us growing up and allowed me to subtly share the good, the bad and the ugly of our formative years. 

 

I’ve changed the names and some defining details to avoid unintended humiliations, forced retractions and potential lawsuits. My hope is that I’ve captured the essence of a childhood grounded in a much less complicated world and that you’ll see yourself, or your ancestors, in this storyteller’s stories.

 

And so, with nostalgic delight, I welcome you to the next chapter of my blog: The Bo-Betsy Stories. 

 

 

The Bo-Betsy Stories

 

A long, long time ago, when your mother was just a little girl, not much older than you are now, she had a friend named Bo-Betsy. Bo-Betsy lived not right next door to your mother, not in the house next to the house next door, but in the house next to the house that was next to the house next door. They lived on Woods Road, a road with lots and lots of trees and lots and lots of kids to play with. Woods Road was a magical place because if you lived there, it meant you would always have friends to play with. For the rest of your life. 

 

 

Chapter One: The Metal Trash Can

When your mother was young, she was the proud owner of a beautiful blue Schwinn bicycle. It had shiny silver fenders and a seat that was half white and half blue with a big S that swirled through the middle of it. It didn’t have fancy gears or streamers coming out of the handlebars. It didn’t have a horn or a bell or a basket for carrying Pookie the cat. In fact, it was a rather ordinary bicycle, but one that your mother loved dearly because it got her where she needed to go. 

 

On this particular day, where she needed to go was just three doors down to the house in which Bo-Betsy lived. She could have easily walked and, in hindsight, probably should have, but there was always a chance that the two friends would want to ride their bikes around the Fairways later. The Fairways was what they called the neighborhood built on the edge of North Hills Country Club where Billy Andrews, Joey Rankin, and Pink-Pink-We-All-Turn-Pink-Cause-Harry-Rogers-Stinks lived. But more about them later. 

 

It was a Wednesday, which meant it was trash day. There were garbage cans at the end of every single driveway on Woods Road, except for in front of the Duncan’s house. The Duncan’s didn’t have any trash because they didn’t have any children. The houses that were filled with children, like Bo-Betsy’s and your mother’s, had two and sometimes even three cans at the end of the driveway – all waiting patiently to be emptied into the big, loud trash truck. 

 

And therein laid the first problem.

 

You see, back in the olden days when your mother was a girl, there was no such thing as a plastic trash can. There were no yellow or blue or green or black trash cans like those that you see nowadays. No, back then all the trash cans were metal. And all the trash cans were silver. 

 

Such was the scene of that spring day long, long ago, as your mother came flying down the driveway at 308 Woods Road. Her driveway was one of the steepest on the street, with the Gardner’s in close contention. It was so steep that once her father – who later became your grandfather – forgot that he was no longer a teenager and went so fast down the driveway on a skateboard that he fell off and broke his ankle.

 

But back to your mother. She was fearless. So fearless, in fact, that she didn’t put the brakes on the whole way down the steep, steep driveway and all the way down to Bo-Betsy’s house.

 

Therein laid the next problem. 

 

Faster. Faster. Faster she rode. Past the Sorenson’s white brick house, past the Edward’s barking English Setters, past the Hunsicker’s (that was Bo-Betsy’s last name) azalea bushes. The pedals were spinning fast, fast, faster than her feet could go, so fast that she had to make a split-second decision. Should she pump the brakes or go for the gold? The gold being the elation she’d feel, not to mention the subsequent praise, after making it all the way to the top of Bo-Betsy’s driveway without ever pedaling at all. And because Bo-Betsy’s driveway was steep, but only half as steep as hers, she knew what she had to do. 

 

Just as she leaned into the turn, just as she looked up to see Bo-Betsy’s wild red hair furling around her gap-toothed smile, just as she was getting ready to pump her arms above her head in victory…

 

CRASH! 

 

Your mother slammed into one of Bo-Betsy’s metal trash cans and fell off her bike, flat on her face. 

 

“AHHHHHH!” your mother screamed.

 

“OWWWWW!” Bo-Betsy replied.

 

There was an awful lot of commotion and Bo-Betsy’s mother, followed by Pongo, the family dog, came running out to the driveway. Your mother was standing up by now with blood pouring down her leg. But she didn’t shed a single tear. Your mother was really, really brave. 

 

Mrs. Hunsicker wasn’t quite so brave. She took one look at your mother’s torn-up leg, put her hand on her heart and said, “Oh dear. Go, go! Go on home and get that taken care of. Right away.”

Even though Mrs. Hunsicker had four children of her own, who were forever getting cuts and scrapes, she simply couldn’t stand the sight of blood. So your mother abandoned her Schwinn bicycle and hobbled all the way home to get her cut cleaned up by her own mother who was far less queasy than Mrs. Hunsicker. She probably should have gone to the hospital to get stitches, but if she had, she wouldn’t have a scar the length of her leg to remind her of the incident. 

 

Once the 23 Band-Aids were removed from her leg-long cut, your mother fully recovered and was able to ride her bike again. But in the meantime, word got out about her accident and someone, somewhere, decided that maybe metal trash cans were just a little bit dangerous. And that perhaps the fearless, the daredevils and even the basic bicycle-riding children of the world deserved better.

And that, my dears, is precisely why plastic trash cans were invented. All because of your very brave, but very scarred mother.

 

Just Another shot in the Arm

I wouldn’t call myself an anti-vaxxer. Rather, it's probably a case of being more like our former fearless leader than I’d care to admit. I have an irrational aversion to projecting weakness. I’ve barely had the sniffles in the last decade, let alone the flu, shingles, whooping cough, or anthrax. So, why would I bother with all those unnecessary vaccines?

Now, my kids, they're a different story. I offered them up as guinea pigs the day the chicken pox vaccine came out, friends and foes decrying, “Your future grandchildren will be born with two heads, four arms, red hair!” I later had them all shot up with the brand-new HPV vaccine despite other parents declaring it permission for promiscuity. If a vaccine was covered by insurance, my kids got it. After all, if they got sick, it would be I who would have to deal with it. 

 

Ten months or so ago, I was a soldier in the “I’m not getting a vaccine” camp, even though I knew far too many people who had been stricken, or gulp, died from Covid. It was an easy proclamation to make because, back then, I thought I had half-a-decade before I’d have to think about getting, or not getting a vaccine.

Yet, here we are. 

 

And there I was. Years – let me repeat – years away from 65^th birthday, perched at my computer, searching websites, registering, re-registering, filling out forms, refreshing browsers (plural), for hours on end in hopes of landing the coveted Covid vaccine appointment. 

 

Thanks to the Kathy and Jean’s in my life who would text me with “Go on NOW. The website’s live!,” I miraculously succeeded in getting my shot-in-the-arm last week. Because I am who I am and can’t keep anything to myself, I did what everyone else was doing and immediately posted when I became a card-carrying member of the first dose club. 

 

But, in my excitement about being one step closer to cocktails on a cruise ship, I forgot about the emotions that Covid unleashes. While I’m basically a rule follower, I’m also an instigator. The kind of instigator who encouraged Madge and Debbie to shoplift earrings from Korvette’s back in high school. Something I clearly supported, but would never in a million years do myself. The same kind of instigator who would rally friends and lovers to do everything in their power to get the vaccine whether they’re technically eligible or not. Yet I’d be way too sheepish to jump the line myself. 

 

In answer to all the read-between-the-lines Nice to take it from a 90-year-old with COPD kind of comments, no I’m not 65, but in my state I am "legal." I have my share of qualifying underlying conditions, any of which I would gladly trade for a waiting another month or two for the shot. 

 

So no, I don’t feel guilty at all about getting it. 

 

What I DO feel guilty about is all the people I may have infected before I got vaccinated.

 

Now, I know we don’t know what we don’t know, but if we go with the science like my friend Mr. Fauci suggests, then somewhere along the line, I unknowingly and asymptomatically contracted the coronavirus. In August, I had my first Covid and antibody tests, both of which were negative. In December, still no Covid, but came up positive for antibodies. Six weeks later, positive again for antibodies. 

 

I haven’t taken a whole lot of risks, though Covid has re-defined and re-categorized the term, making it mean different things to different people. I’ve so envied the posts and pictures of happy brides-to be at bachelorette parties, Tom Brady fans boomeranging beer mugs in indoor bars, and friends visiting loved ones, here there and everywhere. I’ve rolled my eyes at those who spent Christmas with their immediate bubble of 30 and those who rented an upstate Airbnb with a dozen of their closest and pre-tested (yeah, right) friends. I’ve wanted to be that babe on the beach, that throw-caution-to-the-wind chick, that invincible younger version of myself. 

 

But, it’s not about me. For once. 

 

And so, I’ve plodded along day after day, washing my masks, zooming my social fix, logging steps on my Apple watch. I binge my Netflix shows, add books to my Goodreads page, and dream of the day I can eat in restaurants, go on vacations, and kiss random strangers. 

 

Though somewhere, somehow, it seems I picked this thing up. But when, where, how?  

 

And so, the sleuthing begins. 

 

Was it that jogger who hocked up a loogie as I passed him on Queen Anne Road? That woman who sneezed as I stood obediently in my six-foot-apart circle at Home Depot? The daughter who came home for Christmas albeit with a negative test result? One of the aforementioned, but nameless Airbnb renters? The hygienist who scraped my teeth? The plumber who snaked my 100 year-old pipes? My sister on my mother’s back deck? The receptionist at the doctor’s office? The doctor herself? At the gym that I deem safer than my own house? The backyard, four-person birthday party? The friend of my son’s I hugged at Votee Park just because it seemed righter than wrong?

 

Shoulder shrug. 

 

I’ll never know. 

 

I don’t know if I spread it to anyone else. I don’t know if I can get it again. I don’t know if my body produced antibodies just because it likes me. All I know is that I never had a single sniffling symptom. 

 

“You watching Sound of Music?” my sister, Emily, texted the other night. “Your song is on.”

 

Emily remembers everything about me, including lyrics I’ve long ago forgotten I loved.

 

But, because I’m years – let me repeat – years away from turning 65, I still have glimmers of memory intact and knew exactly what she was talking about. But it probably has less to do with my cognitive and more to do with my innate understanding that despite those underlying comorbidities, those yet-to-be obtained life goals, those kitchen cabinets that don’t close - for some strange reason, I keep coming out on top. 

 

 

Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

 

But what, Julie Andrews, what? 

The only thing I can think of is rescuing Tiny Tim, that teeny-tiny tabby cat of a kitten that Margaret and I found on Woods Road, way back when. We saved him from the elements, protected him from the wildebeest, loved and cared for him for two full days. Until, of course, he was subsequently eaten by the family pet, Pongo, when someone unwittingly left the garage door ajar.

This Land Was Made For You and Me

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” my ever-loving spouse announced when he picked me up from the airport after one of my girls-only trips several years ago.

 

“What. Is. It?” I asked through flipped stomach, my mind running the gamut of possibilities. Perhaps he had painted the living room a lovely shade of lilac, or purchased a memory foam marital bed. Maybe he installed a new compost bin to reside on the back deck, you know, to make it easier for me to embrace. Or maybe he brought home a kitten, a puppy, a parakeet, or a friend for an extended stay. After all, we have the room.

 

“You’ll see,” he grinned. “You’ll like it.”

 

“I’m sure I will,” I grimaced, trying to remember how lucky I was to have a spouse who loved me.

 

And sure enough, as we pulled up to the front of our creaky old house, the house with the beautiful front porch, the house with the multi-colored dahlias and daisies and zinnias and marigolds lining the walkway, I saw the surprise. In all its glory.

 

Hanging from the brick wall, right outside my front window, the window I look out for hours and hours a day, the window from which I guard the neighborhood and measure the local puppies’ growth with every passing walk. The window from which I watch the pink dogwood tree bud, bloom, and turn back to green, while the woodpecker with the little red head pecks away. The window from which I watch the rain, the snow, the sun, as I work at my desk, stewing, sweating, cursing, and creating. Yes, hanging right outside MY window, was none other than the American Flag. 

 

“You’re kidding,” I said and my spouse’s face fell.

 

I don’t have anything against the American Flag, I really don’t. I believe it should be flown on all the flag-flying holidays. And absolutely, fly it high, fly it wide outside all the state buildings and libraries and sporting arenas and VFW halls across the continent. But not on my house. And certainly not every day. 

 

I’ve never been a God Bless America kind of girl. I’m not crazy about 4^th of July parades or the Star Spangled Banner. I don’t even wear flag earrings on the holiest of holy American holidays.

 

But I’m not a bad person. I’m just not particularly patriotic or overly political, though it’s been hard not to be in the recent past. I live in a very normal neighborhood with very normal people and as one who cares deeply what others think of me, I didn’t want any of them suspecting I was supporting a president we all didn’t support. 

 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the ever-sensible spouse said. “It’s our country. Not just the Republicans. Not just the Democrats. Flying a flag doesn’t mean you lean one way or the other.”

 

I raised my eyebrows, went inside and was thankful to see that the living room was still intact, still that pale shade of yellow, chipping at the seams. I sat down at my desk to scrutinize the trauma I’d have to endure. The American Flag was front and center, flying, furling, blocking my view, distracting my thoughts, making my insides shake.

 

So, this is how it’s gone for the past too many years. My hard-working spouse rises and shines a good four hours before I do. (Though in my defense, I go to bed at least three hours after he does). He walks the beast and places the flag in its post on the wall outside of MY window. I eventually get up, cringe, go for my walk, come home, take a shower, eat my dry toast, and then very calmly venture outside, remove the flag from its holder and stash it behind the yellow wooden bench on the front porch. There is where it remains for the rest of the day while I work at my desk with a clear view and a guilty heart. Guilt, only because that spouse of mine was so proud of his surprise. 

 

We don’t talk about the flag. It’s a silent game we play. He puts it out at 6 am. I take it down at noon. Every single day. 

 

This morning, I broke routine. I didn’t go to the gym (it’s very safe there, I promise, and if it proves not to be I’ll be the first to admit it), I didn’t go for my five-mile walk, despite being just a half-hour from completing The Midnight Library on Audible. Instead, I would dedicate my day to watching the peaceful transfer of power. 

 

By the time I emerged from my chambers, it was close to 10 am and the White House festivities were well under way. I filled my coral-colored Yeti with Diet Coke and settled into MY (note a pattern here) chair by the fireplace. I flipped on the TV and was greeted by a picture-less screen, blank but for a Sorry this channel is not available alert. 

 

OK. So, MSNBC is having technical difficulties, I thought. I’ll just watch CNN. And when CNN had the same message, I tried CBS. Then ABC. I even tried Fox. Nope. Cable down. Internet down. All of my connected Optimum devices, dead. My first thought was that it was Trump taking his last stand by crashing the system to make sure America couldn’t watch the inauguration. 

 

But, I have something called a smart phone and was smart enough to live stream from the palm of my hand. 

 

I have to admit, despite being a self-professed non-political person, I have never been so politically aware as I have been these past four years. I watch cable news ad nauseam and could pick Paul Manafort out of a crowd. I would tape Trump’s Rose Garden press conferences and watched him with a sort of rubber-necking incredulousness. Much to the chagrin of many family members and friends, I devoted way too much time trying to find the good side of Trump, the compassionate side, the human side. 

 

I pretty much gave up on that for good a couple weeks ago. 

 

I didn’t vote for Donald Trump, but I have a lot of friends who did. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and even wrote a blog in November 2016 with these very words:  Let’s hold on to the hope that maybe, just maybe, one day we will all look back, across our party lines, and be able to say, “He did it! He made America Great Again.” After all, stranger things have happened. 

 

Stranger things did indeed happen. 

 

While I watched the inauguration from my iPhone, I found tears, real tears, stealthily slipping their way down my cheeks. Being tone deaf, my love for Gaga is limited, but there was something that tugged at my heart when she belted out the National Anthem. Garth Brooks isn’t my all-time favorite country singer, but when he sang Amazing Grace, I did what I was told and sang along - albeit off-key - to Amazing Grace. I've never been much for poetry, but Amanda Gorman's cadence and content changed that part of me forever. And somehow, when Jennifer Lopez, who lost my admiration when she took up with a certain ex-Yankee, sang This Land Was Made For You and Me, I believed her. 

 

Even though I have never felt under-respected as a woman, and will never know what it’s like to be a person of color, it wasn’t until today that it hit me, really hit me, that the times they are a-changin’. And that we are one small step closer to liberty and justice for all. 

 

When Joe Biden solemnly took his oath, I was struck by an overwhelming sense of calm. I believed with all my heart that before us stood a decent and kind human being who was there for only pure reasons, starting and ending with love of our country. 

After viewing the pomp-less circumstance on my handheld device, I headed back to my unconnected laptop to do some long neglected work. I sat down at my desk, looked out my window at the furling flag, and smiled. 

 

Today, I will let it fly. 

 

Is it Here Yet?

I don't know about you, but I'm kind of Covided out. Yet I'd feel somehow remiss ending the year without writing one more Coronavirus missive. 

I can only recall feeling sheer unadulterated terror three times in my life. The first was in the final days of my first pregnancy, knowing that the permanency of motherhood was not only imminent, but irrevocable. The second was on the morning of 9/11 as I sat on a plastic-backed chair in a waiting room of a car dealership, watching as crashing airplanes changed the world. And the third time was this past March when I found myself on a cruise ship – despite Dr. Fauci’s warnings, despite my ever-loving spouse’s pleading, despite the Covid outbreaks surging at sea. But it was still all so new then. Who woulda thunk that each day of vacation would bring a new, terrifying story of shudderings and shuttings back on dry land? 

 

Since we were all in the same boat, we coped as all avid cruisers do. With an umbrella drink.  And another. And another. Until we were tippsily sure we were safe and sound. Though no matter how many umbrellas we collected, we never passed a Purell station without taking a double shot. 

 

We were the last mega-cruise allowed to set sail – unbelievably, to this day. We were the sole ship given permission to dock in St. Maarten that week because we were the only one with a completely Covid-clean manifest. I bought two silver bangles, at full-price, from a shopkeeper in Philipsburg who was petrified, knowing her business relied completely on cruise ship traffic. I’ve never taken the bracelets off.

 

I’ve been on many, many cruises but this was one to remember. I’ll never forget the buddies we bonded with on that roller-coaster of fear and fun, with all conversations eventually turning to Covid. Throughout the week, March Madness was cancelled, the NBA shut down, schools, casinos, bars, gyms, and hair salons were closed. Every day brought more chaos and uncertainty. I remember my gut sinking when I got the text from my friend, Janice, telling me her husband and his brother were both in the hospital. I remember how, with each passing day, we came to believe we were safer at sea than at home. But most of all, that cruise will be forever etched as a scar in my heart as it was the last one with my soul- and shipmate, Patty. 

 

Because, by October, Patty was dead. 

 

When I arrived back in New Jersey, I learned that my little town of Teaneck, whose claim to fame was that it was the first in America to voluntarily integrate its schools, was now known as one of the first to voluntarily quarantine its residents. I had returned to the epicenter of Covid-19 where toilet paper shortages and restaurant closures were the least of our worries. Our friends were sick. Our friends were dying. 

 

It was a really strange and scary year, especially back in March and April. I kept lists. A lot of lists. Lists of how many miles I walked. How many hours I biked. How many friends got sick. How many friends were hospitalized. How many friends died. And, in my trusty moleskin planner, I kept track of everything I did in 2020. You know, just in case it was needed for contact tracing. Or my memorial service. 

Never in a million years would I have thought that late-February dinner in Maplewood with Tom and Jackie Shea would mark one of two times I ate indoors in a restaurant. The second was in October when my sister, who I hadn't seen since Christmas, came up from Charleston. We couldn’t eat outside because it was raining but found a restaurant with a high-ceilinged atrium and wide-open windows. We shivered through our shellfish, but no one got Covid. 

 

Never in this friend-craved life of mine would I have thought I could count on two hands the number of times I socialized this year. We had only two back deck dinners with the Santostefano’s. In the best of times, we eat and drink them out of house and home, sharing a second Thanksgiving dinner cooked up by Jean, watching 4th of July fireworks with them, celebrating Christmas together, and spending the past umpteen New Year’s Eves bemoaning the fact that we “have” to go out. 

 

We had a couple of New York City, grab-a-slice and go meals on the sidewalk, and a lovely Indian summer dinner outdoors with the Riverols and the Pintos. In real life, I hate to eat outside, primarily because my extra cup of ice melts too fast. But, desperate times…

 

Monthly lunches with Ann and Gail were replaced with one single outdoor gathering at which Gail replicated our 101 Pub salads. She continues to feed my spirit by leaving containers of homemade tzatziki on my front porch. 

 

We couldn’t have a 95^th birthday party for my mother, but I was able to spend a lot of days on the Daisy Lane Deck with her and two of my sisters. 

 

I haven’t seen Karen and Theresa at all. 

 

Yoga with Ann and Holly and Kathy somehow didn’t translate to the screen. Maybe because I couldn't hear them breathing. So up until the beginning of December, which also marked the beginning of too cold even for the fire pit weather, the four of us bubbled together to grouse and gripe and share Covid war stories. Because it always seems to come back to Covid. 

 

In a normal year, I go away at least half-a-dozen times, often twice that many times. Since Covid, not counting the cruise because the cruise was technically pre-pandemic, I’ve slept outside my home exactly once. We canceled our annual jaunt to Maine, but in the middle of July in the calm after the storm, which turned out to be the calm before the storm, four of the college girls met at Jeanne’s in Pennsylvania. We sat somewhat distantly at her sprawling picnic table, getting closer and closer with every bite. But we all made it out alive, and the risk was well worth the reward. 

 

We were invited to four weddings in 2020, none of which happened. Two of the couples got married on the date they had planned and all four will celebrate or re-celebrate in 2021, hopefully without masks. 

 

I walked and walked and walked, air pods tuned to all-Covid, all the time, news channels. I had a constant loop of doom and gloom going in one ear and not going out the other. But as the new normal normalized, I found my diversions. I started borrowing audio books from my library and always had at least one book beckoning me by my bedside and another one encouraging me to walk -- just 1,500 more steps -- to get to the end of the chapter. I read or listened to 48 books this year, with The Heart’s Invisible Furies, Daisy Jones and the Six, The Great Believers, and The Rules of Civility topping my list.

 

I watched tons of TV. I even taped the Trump press conferences because the needler in me loved to see how long it would take before the journalists made him blow. I flipped back and forth from MSNBC to CNN to FOX to see who was saying what, and why. And, then I stopped. Not completely, but I scaled way back. 

 

Instead I began binge-watching. First Ozark, then The Americans, both crazy plot-twisting shows that made our current situation seem somewhat sane. My friend, Peggy, had been telling me for years to watch Schitt’s Creek. But, I don’t like nonsense, so I refused. When I finally gave in, I found it was indeed nonsense, but genius nonsense, and will go down as one of my very favorite shows ever. 

 

I went from being alone in my big, old house with my hard-working spouse gone for 12 hours at a stretch, giving me the freedom to write at will, take my shower in a not-steamed-up bathroom, and eat my salad greens (and secretly-stashed chocolates) without an audience, to a life of the spouse, the youngest child, and I together. All. The. Time.  But we’ve taken tons and tons of day trips, exploring the Hudson Valley, Central Park, and other hidden gems -- something we haven’t had time to do since our kids were contained and constrained in car seats. 

 

The daughter comes and goes from Brooklyn, getting swabbed more regularly than she does laundry. The middle one visited once, demonstrating our conflicting definitions of Covid caution. When California shut down again, New Jersey ramped up again, and everyone and his brother begged the country not to travel, he/we decided to keep him on the other coast for Christmas. I mailed him and his girlfriend, Taryn, a huge box of presents on December 14^th. They have yet to arrive. 

 

My weekly mahjong games with Susan and Janice have been tabled. My book clubs, church services, work meetings, and writer’s group have been relegated to Zoom. I miss my college girl weekends. Vacations. Weekend at the Woolley's. Restaurants. Chapel Hill reunions. Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania. Claire at my kitchen table. Leo’s friends sneaking in the side door. And yes, even yoga. 

 

I snickered as I pulled a fresh bayberry candle out of the kitchen drawer this morning, wondering if perhaps last year I had forgotten about this family tradition that is reputed to bring good fortune and good luck. 

But then I remembered rushing out of the house after cocktails with Jean and Tom on our way to dinner at Amarone’s last New Year’s Eve. Jean chided me for leaving a lit candle, knowing my fear of fire. I explained that it was bad luck if you didn't let it burn to the socket and simply moved the candlestick to the sink as my mother had always done. When we arrived home in the early hours of the new year, it had burned out. 

 

As I light the bayberry candle this afternoon, it occurs to me that it did do the job last year. 

Losing Janice Preschel and Phil Pinto and so many others to Covid seems so surreal. Jack Peters and Phil Rodgers' deaths still hurt my heart. And the pain of losing Patty feels like it will never go away. 

 

But despite all we have lost, all we have given up, and all of the ways the world has changed, all of us, and all of you, still have the good fortune of being able to burn the midnight oil into 2021.

 

Happy New Year!