Boomer Babies Having Babies

“You mean I didn’t HAVE to breastfeed?” a new mother, whose name I won’t reveal for fear of anti-suckling shaming, exclaimed when I admitted that not one of my offspring’s lips had ever grazed my bare bosom. Apparently she thinks my kids turned out just fine despite the cruel and unusual Similac punishment I imposed upon them. 

My ever-loving spouse begged me to at least give breastfeeding a go, but my deep-seated body image issues, not to mention a strong dependency aversion (both fully disclosed before marriage) prevailed. He hoped to wear me down by colluding with the maternity nurse, asking her to voice the virtues of a mother’s milk, but sorry dude, it didn’t work. 

 

At my daughter’s first doctor’s visit, I asked the pediatrician if it was indeed necessary to sterilize her bottles and / or warm the formula inside. 

 

He didn’t say I shouldn’t boil the bottles but when pressed, admitted that as soon as I touched them they were no longer sterile. Unless, of course, I was going to go full-out with protective gear and instruments – but we both knew that wasn’t going to happen.

 

“There’s no medical reason to warm a bottle,” he said. “But think of it this way. Which would you find more comforting at 2 am – drinking something nice and warm or something ice cold?”

 

As this was just the beginning of our relationship, he was not yet aware of my abhorrence of hot drinks. Or warm drinks. Or any drink served without an extra cup of ice on the side. So he was a bit taken aback with my resounding response of “COLD!” 

 

He gulped (the first of many gulps in the course of our tenure together) and said to just be consistent with whatever I did. And so for every one of those three babies, I kept pre-mixed bottles of formula on ice, in a cooler, next to their cribs for their middle-of-the-night comfort. Oddly enough, though they all grew up to be healthy human beings, all three of them drink hot coffee. Something that has never, ever crossed my lips. 

 

It’s been 30 years since my first and favorite daughter entered the world. Twelve years since she left for college. Fourteen days since she last returned to do her laundry. Time and tumult has passed. Yet I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that kids her age and younger are having kids of their own. 

 

These are the very same kids whose mothers rode shotgun with me through my formative years. The kids whose mothers I drank shots with in college. The kids whose mothers were my very first friends when I became a mother myself. 

 

These are the kids who grew up with my own, waltzing in and out of our house with their Barbies and baseballs and (much later) bottles of Hennessey. I cheered with these cheerleaders, trick-or-treated with these witches and warriors, watched them win and lose countless basketball and baseball and football and softball and soccer games, packed them in the old minivan for adventures near and far, filled their bellies with gourmet-as-it-got chicken roll-ups and tacos, harked their herald angelic voices in church services and Christmas pageants and bonded with them over Duke losses as forever friends on Franklin Street. 

 

These are the kids who signed my daughter’s closet door with deep thoughts and dark sharpies. The kids who I found curled on couches in our basement on Sunday mornings. The kids who camped together on Woolley weekends. The kids I carted around and catered to for half of their lives. The kids to whom I offered unfiltered insights and light-hearted band-aids, assuring their tortured souls that one day they’d look back and laugh. Or at the very least, not cry. 

 

But cry we did – through funerals and failures, graduations and weddings. And just when we thought we were all emoted out, these kids went and started having kids of their own. Nothing, not even that missed free shot at the championship game, has tugged harder at my heart strings than watching them grow into parents themselves. 

 

Recently, the world has welcomed Leo and Theo. Hannah and Savannah. Demi and Dominic. AJ and Aspen. Ziggy and Zoey. Lila and Lia. Emma and Ellie. River and Win. Maeve and Maxwell. And Tommy the Third. 

 

Maeve’s baby brother is brewing, Kendall is still kicking from the inside out and Ava is bouncing around in her mama’s belly, anxiously awaiting life on the outside as an honorary Voreacos. And just today I found out one of my all-time favorites has a sonogram not yet shared on social media. 

 

I rejoice with every announced pregnancy, every gender reveal, every long labor of every one of these kids I've known and loved. But are they really old enough, strong enough, savvy enough to be parents themselves?

 

The answer, of course, is yes they are. Just as we were. But we wise old owls just have to hold our tongues, knowing that any opinions we choose to impart will be met with rolled eyes and blank stares. 

 

Just like way-back-when in a crowded grocery store line, I picked up my shrieking – and I mean full-out, flipping-out shrieking – infant, and a random woman waggled her finger at me crooning, “I see a spoiled baby.”

 

Just as on a separate but equal occasion, when my own mother who was oh so good about not voicing her thoughts, delicately suggested that my beet-red-from-crying baby was simply tired and that perhaps I should just put her in the crib and let her sleep. 

 

Or when their grandfather gently suggested how to break the 16-month old’s pacifier addiction – just mail it to me and tell him I’ll hold onto it for him. Or when my sister, who was watching our kids for the weekend, crumpled and tossed my three-page instruction manual when I walked out the door. I remember all too well those who denounced me for letting my kids watch television. For not letting them quit the team until wrestling season was over. For making them go to church. For strolling them through town in both 25 and 95 degree weather. For never having a monitor, let alone a video camera. For impeding their development with an in-home babysitter. For causing them trauma when they switched to out-of-home daycare. For introducing them to chicken nuggets and fries. For training them to nap every day at 1 pm so I could watch All My Children on TV, rather than watching all MY children. For not panicking when they fell. For calling Claire when they bled. For working too much. For working too little. For pushing too hard or not hard enough.

 

They were all right. Every single one of them. 

 

And now, with bittersweet humility, it's time to hand over the reins.

 

It's their turn to figure out proper pronouns and perfect preschools. To balance careers and childrearing. To choose between motorized bassinets and family beds. To puree the peaches, pre-chew the carrots, de-glutenize, veganize, or cancel the word treat. To find the fine line between over-parenting and under-caring. To decide between home school, private school, charter school, Catholic school, magnet school, trade school, public school or anything in between. To go with cloth or disposable, to buy the Volvo or the minivan, to promote or prohibit piercings, tattoos, TikTokking or yet to be popularized forms of expression. 

 

And now is our time to watch with the wisdom that only hindsight and heartbreak can endorse. We will love these new parents, support them, laugh with them and cry with them. We will watch with full hearts and open minds and closed mouths as they navigate the rocky road ahead. We'll slip up, we always do. And when we offer that ridiculously old-fashioned and completely unsolicited advice from which they recoil, we will simply smile, knowing there's one true thing amidst all the doubt. 

 

Despite all that we did wrong, it’s abundantly clear that we also did a whole lot right.

Good Neighbors

Despite an obvious and completely warranted devotion to their four daughters, it never occurred to my parents to vet the neighborhood before building a house on Woods Road. We’d end up having friends on our street, or we wouldn’t. Either way we’d live and perhaps even prosper. 

And if we didn’t, oh well. 

 

But fate was in our favor. Woods Road was an elongated horse-shoed enclave of forty houses varying in size, shape and personality. And within those houses were kids, so many kids, who spilled from kitchen doors into Four-Square games, Capture the Flag battles and bicycle races up and down the steep hill that really wasn’t very steep at all.

 

Because of the dense concentration of fun per capita, kids from adjacent neighborhoods emerged from the wooded lot next to the Bishop's house, cut through the Siefert's backyard, crossed over Station Avenue and found their way to Woods Road. 

 

And so, the Neighborhood Gang grew and prospered. 

Together we epitomized the last great generation of free-range children, reveling in the rumpus of spontaneous softball games, fearless fraternizing and unscheduled entertainment. We lived before helicopter parents sharpened their blades, before SAT tutors charged $100 an hour, before teachers got fired for drinking with students on senior class trips in the Bahamas. 

 

It was a childhood spent walking to Perkel’s Pharmacy for a five-cent candy bar, of calling phony numbers from party-line telephones and of climbing backyard tree houses built by our fathers. It was a time of holding séances in one musty basement and playing ping pong in another. Of rushing outside the second dinner was over and running in packs until dark. We lived in the day when we could (and wanted to) deliver newspapers at ten years old, babysit at 11 and work at the movie theater at 15. 

 

It was when a teenaged boy could expose his male member to 12 year-old girls – repeatedly – without fear of parents finding out, let alone being registered as a sex offender. When pulling the fire alarm in school was considered a prank, not a precursor to incarceration. It was when friends, not parents, picked you up and bailed you out. 

 

We left for college in wood-paneled station wagons filled to the gills with ragged bedspreads, threadbare towels and boxes and boxes of record albums. We went to law schools and medical schools and party schools. We came home for holidays on the Greyhound bus, or with a random stranger found on the ride board. And we always met at Schaeffer’s house on Thanksgiving Eve to boast about our new adventures. 

 

We grew up. We fell in and out of love. We tolerated unfathomable boyfriend and girlfriend choices -- but the ones who lasted, we embraced as our own. Some of us got married. Some of us had kids. Some of us found success. Some of us are still looking. Some of us stayed close. Some of us moved away. But we all find our way back. 

 

Last weekend more than a dozen of us got together under the guise of Kit coming in from Seattle. But the real reason was to lend some levity to a founding father with a disturbing diagnosis and a surgery looming. In the course of conversation that ran the gamut from long-dead dogs to long-living mothers, it struck me, not for the first time, that we are indeed a lucky bunch. 

 

I know that in the grand scheme of things we’re not so different from most people our age. Boomers near and far lament the same loss of innocence – not to mention hair, hearing and health. Our coming-of-age stories are interchangeable; the risks we took, the dreams we had, the unyielding belief that we had limitless years of life ahead. 

 

But what makes us remarkable is that no matter how old we’ve gotten, how far we’ve gone, how infirm, incompetent or incorrigible we’ve become, we still haven't outgrown the Neighborhood Gang. 

 

And at this stage of the game, it doesn’t look like we ever will.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

I have happy memories of what I've often called a Norman Rockwell childhood. A childhood filled with unconditional (and believe me, I had a lot of conditions) familial love fortified with uncomplicated and enduring friendships that set the stage for a lifetime of infinitely adventurous fun. 

Last weekend I met two of my sisters and my first friend, Margaret, at Enfield Elementary School in Oreland, Pennsylvania. The building, which I hadn't been inside for over 50 years, is scheduled to be razed and repurposed and was open for one last walk down Memory Lane.

“Did I even have Mrs. Hillsley for first grade?” I asked my sister, Susan, who remembers everything. 

She shrugged. 

 

“I did, for sure,” Emily said.

 

“I know you did,” I glared.

 

My mind sees Mrs. Hillsley as a woman of ample girth wearing a royal blue dress and a string of pearls; her dark brown hair falling with beauty-parlor waves to her shoulders, thick ankles bulged above two-inch pumps. She was mean. Very, very mean.

 

I picture my red-headed self sitting in the front row of an asbestos-tiled first-grade classroom on the right-hand side of the hall. It was across from the kindergarten room where Mrs. Dreifus, my favorite teacher ever, built my self-esteem by encouraging me to read books aloud to the rest of the class. 

 

In this first-grade classroom I recall my eyes bugging with horror as another Betsy chirped, "Present!" when attendance was taken, in what I perceived was a direct threat to my individuality. 

I'll never forget the juvenile snickers and pointed fingers when my classmate (whose name I will not divulge on the off chance that she has forgotten her childhood trauma) wet her pants, urine rapidly pooling beneath her chair. In my bulging box of memorabilia, I have a mimeographed copy of my first short story: Pokey the Turtle, by Betsy L. Hunsicker, Age 6, First Grade. 

 

But what is most vivid are Mrs. Hillsley’s words that still echo decades and decades and decades later.

 

“You should be ashamed of yourself! Your sister, Emily, would NEVER act like that!” Mrs. Hillsley bellowed in response to me running down the hall. But there are wafts of unspoken words whirling around my brain whispering something like, "But you don't even know me," that lead me to believe that she was not my teacher. Or perhaps it was just wishful thinking.

 

In the baby book that my mother kept updated with everything from my birth announcement to milestones such as when I switched from Similac to a formula of evaporated milk, sugar and water at five weeks old; first tooth at six months to the day; first steps at 10 months and the dates (spanning a dozen years) of my FIVE polio shots and one booster (take that, Covid!). There’s a record of all the gifts bestowed upon me at birth, including the Rosebud print overalls from my godmother, Aunt Elva, and who gave me the biggest check – Aunt Mary for the win at $18.75. And of course, there's a carefully preserved lock of my bright red hair. 

 

My height and weight is documented for 12 years after which time annual checkups were pawned off on the creepy school doctor. I remember lining up at the scale in our waist-high Carter’s underpants and sleeveless undershirts; the nurse offering fuel to the bullies as she screamed out our poundage, followed by the old-man doctor tapping his cold, steel stethoscope on our mostly flat chests. 

 

There is a page in my baby book with a heading of School Days, but my mother neglected to fill in the blanks beyond kindergarten. I apparently took over the task in my own adolescent scribble, and for some reason recorded Mrs. Dreifus's name next to first grade. 

 

Also missing is the name of my third grade teacher, but that was not a mistake because I didn’t have a third grade teacher. 

 

On the last day of second grade as the class stood in line by the coat closet that doubled as a fallout shelter, Johnny Schaeffer flashed me a pansophical look followed by a sing-songy, “Did you open your report card yet?” 

 

Something got me in the gut – perhaps it was fragments of an overheard conversation or just a looming sense of disrupted order. I clutched my report card tightly and refused to look at it until I got home. And when I did, I burst into tears seeing that Mrs. Baker had incorrectly promoted me to Grade Four, rather than Three. 

 

My mother assured me it was not a misprint, but that Johnny, Michael Lachs and I had all skipped third grade. Emily told me I could sit in the way-back of the wood-paneled station wagon with her friends that afternoon, an invitation that was rescinded as soon as Naomi Kaplan got in the car and flashed her a look. 

I was told by my mother who was told by the powers that be that I was weak in Math. To keep me from falling behind I was given the third-grade math book so that Steve Simpson could tutor me over the summer. This was a year after I had commanded our Dalmatian, Pongo, to “sic’em,” and he did, biting Steve Simpson in the seat of his pants. 

 

For the rest of my life I have been bad in math. 

 

Later, much later, my mother confessed that she had agreed to letting me skip a grade under one condition, and one condition only. Now that my best friend, Margaret, and I would be in the same grade, she did not want us in the same class. It was simply a recipe for disaster. 

 

In true 60s fashion, my mother kept her mouth shut when ecstatically, Margaret and I found ourselves together in Mrs. Petersen’s fourth-grade class. And again in Mrs. Lieber’s fifth-grade class. It was about this time in my educational development that report card comments began to decry that I had “come out of my shell.” And that I would be a much better student, and by implication - person - if I would only focus more on my academic endeavors and less on my social life. 

 

“Aren’t you glad you were finally separated?” Mrs. Lieber asked when she stopped Margaret and me in the hall as we walked to our respective sixth-grade classrooms. “You’re sure to become much better friends this way.”

 

On our tour of Enfield Elementary last week, we made our way down to the cafeteria where Susan pointed out the corner of the room where she, always a model student, was tasked with selling ice-cream sandwiches; a nickel for a half, a dime for a whole. We moseyed around the music room where I had learned to lip sync after being publicly shamed for singing off key. We recalled tooting Hot Cross Buns on our borrowed flutes and Margaret reminded us of her musical superiority which included much coveted violin lessons. 

 

“Remember the day Kennedy was shot?” Margaret exclaimed as we entered the All Purpose Room. “We were called down here for an assembly and then they sent us all home.”

 

“What I remember is doing those horrible gymnastics routines to Born Free,” Susan said. In unison we belted out, “Born free … As free as the wind blows … As free as the grass grows … Born free to follow your heart.”

 

“My year the song was Love is Blue,” I said cringing with the sixth-grade memory of Miss Vaché announcing to the entire class that my cardigan sweater was in fact not hiding my budding bosoms and that it was time to ask my mother for a bra. 

 

“How about Go, You Chicken Fat, Go!” Emily chimed in and we roared remembering the silly song to which we did calisthenics. “No wonder we’ve had lifelong body image issues.” 

 

“I don’t,” the still-slim Margaret quipped and the rest of us glared at her. 

 

We laughed about the duck-and-cover drills, the unflattering solid-blue, one-piece gym suits, the time when Mrs. Murray pulled Emily’s dress up and underpants down IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE SECOND GRADE CLASS to check for chickenpox and how years later we retaliated by egging her house on Mischief Night. We talked about running across the huge playground and climbing on the dome-shaped jungle gym, holding our dresses down so the boys wouldn’t see our underwear. We remembered the wooden swings that gave us splinters and how we would jump off the see-saw so the person on the other end would go slamming into the ground, and pointed out where we would line up by classroom to re-enter the building after recess. 

 

Some of us recalled the pride of being chosen for Safety Patrol to serve as a student crossing guard or bus monitor or hallway police. Others of us were never granted such an honor and consequently became the reported rather than the reportee. We chuckled over Mrs. Lieber dragging Clifford White (God rest his soul) by the ear to the front of the classroom where she pronounced him, much to our delight, a Jackass. We peeked out of Mrs. Rosenthal’s window and discovered that though Mark Sharpe had indeed jumped out, it really wasn’t all that far down to the ground. 

 

We remembered sledding at North Hills Country Club on snow days, the thrill of occasionally walking the long mile home, rather than taking the big yellow school bus. We would take the secret pathway behind the church so we could walk past the Maher’s house and then cut across E. Heather Road to avoid Sammy Abrams mother who might write a story about us in the Oreland Sun. We remembered selling cookies and doing overnights at Camp Laughing Waters with Girl Scout Troop 413. We remembered walking to Perkel’s Pharmacy to buy candy bars and calling phony numbers and how once, in her most sultry pre-pubescent voice, Margaret said to a woman on the phone, “Tell your husband that Crystal called. It’s about the baby.”

 

As we walked out the front door of Enfield Elementary School for the last time, it struck our grown-up selves as how strange a thing memory is. How is it that one person can vividly remember every detail of an event while the person who was right there by their side has zero recollection of it ever happening? How can a traumatic memory for one became a whatever moment for another? How can one person's stumble be another person's stepladder? 

But, oh how easy it is to jump on the bandwagon of someone else's memory and rewrite the world as we wish it to be. One of us may not remember who we had as a first-grade teacher, and one day may not remember what was said two minutes ago. But if we continue to walk down Memory Lane hand-in-hand with those who love us best, in the end, that's really the only memory that matters. 

Ringing out the Old

To celebrate the life of my friend Lou’s mother, Margo, I downed two shots of tequila (yes, I really did) with the Pinto family after her funeral on Thursday. Because her last years on earth did not mirror the feisty, successful and hard-working woman she truly was, we got to talking about how, often times, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Especially when considering one's long-lived life. 

Which is exactly how I came to feel about ringing out 2021, alone in the living room, glued to the 19-inch TV, playing Words with Friends with one eye, watching Anderson Cooper with the other. Because I never drink alone and my offspring and spouse had long since retired for the night, I was able to fully focus on the fact that these newscasters actually drink real alcohol and get tipsy while live on air. Being in full control of my own faculties and feeling a bit reflective, I pulled out my Moleskin weekly planner in which I had recorded the highs, lows and inconsequential nonsense of the rapidly waning year. 

 

I noted that I finished Designated Survivor on January 2^nd but admittedly had to google and read the synopsis before I had any recollection of the series that I had binged and apparently loved – hence the !!! after the entry. I changed the Brita filter on January 4^th, recalibrated my psoriatic arthritis medicine on the 12^th, socialized with my mother for the first time indoors (with masks) on the 20th, attended multiple zoom meetings throughout the month and had the dishwasher repaired on the 29^th.

 

I shoveled snow in February, got my COVID vaccines, and visited with my mother indoors and unmasked. The middle kid moved back home after living in Los Angeles for several years and I had a not-yet-authorized, but certainly not illegal, vaccine appointment waiting for him upon his return. 

 

Early March was spent on the computer from midnight through 2 am, refreshing my browser over and over again to secure vaccine appointments for friends and family so we could all go to the Woolley wedding in April. I bought a new laptop, went to an indoor bridal shower and put the dog food on an automatic delivery plan.

 

In April, I vacuumed my car and got an oil change, met my niece’s boyfriend for the first time at a restaurant indoors in Pennsylvania. Heather revealed she was having a baby girl and we cheered with glee in her parent’s backyard on Easter Sunday. I played mahjong with Susan and Janice and had lunch with Ann and Gail. We went to Jan and John’s wedding where we ate and danced and drank and rejoiced. Vaccinated and unmasked. We attended Holly and Jim’s annual Oscar Awards party via Zoom. 

 

In May we went to our first Mets game in two years. We sat socially distanced in fifth row seats, breaking the rules and lowering masks as we joined the other reduced capacity fans in applauding the return of Matt Harvey, who blessedly didn’t pitch all that well as an Oriole either. I got on an airplane for the first time in 14 months and flew to Charleston where my sister and her new dog Birdie lived in an alternate reality. No masks in stores, no worry in restaurants, no cringing when strangers got too close. 

 

By June, masks were no longer required in the gym, the youngest child left without fear for a summer of work on a food truck in Traverse City and I went to an indoor, but masked funeral for my dear friend Angela’s mother. The daughter continued to come and go from Brooklyn, but much less frequently now that her social world was opening back up. The ever-loving spouse and I went to more Mets games and got closer and closer to other fans. I went to the Bonefish Grill and ate inside with Susan and Janice and drove to Higgins Beach, Maine the following day for the annual college girls’ trip. We shopped for mattresses in Portland and had cocktails and dinner. Indoors. Unmasked. I went to Pennsylvania for a luncheon where I met cousins from California who I barely knew I had, but with whom have since become fast Facebook friends. 

 

In July we had dinner at Outback, after too many years away from our old stomping grounds where we once went to celebrate every everything with the Hargraves family. At long last I met Niel, Kris’s girlfriend who has since and slyly become his bride. The next day I went to visit my high school bestie, Madge, at her new house near Harrisburg. Our great friend, Nancy, came from DC for a mid-month visit and we went masked to the Van Gogh exhibit in NYC, then unmasked to Emilio’s Ballato where the likes of the Obamas have been known to dine. We ended the month by resuming our annual Woolley weekend with fun in the sun at their Lancaster “estate” along with our fun friend Carrie and my sister Emily.

 

On the 1^st of August we met the daughter in Manhattan for a farewell supper for the middle kid who was returning to Los Angeles after a six-month stint working remotely from his childhood bedroom in New Jersey.  Three days later the ever-loving and I boarded a plane for a six-day trip to Denver where we celebrated Lauren and Rob’s wedding with our UNC friends, aka family. We went to the Rockies’ game, climbed around Red Rocks, had many drinks and many meals and had a great visit with my college friend, Jill, and her husband, David. Upon our return, the daughter and I went to Samantha’s baby shower on a rainy Sunday afternoon and renewed our friendship vows with friends from the good old cheerleading days. 

 

Late August is when things took a turn. A group of us who had all grown up together were going to Seattle for Mark and Emily’s wedding – Mark being the son of our lifelong friend Kit. But while making our final plans, grumblings of something called a Delta variant had begun and COVID talk that had been all but tabled made a comeback. Would the wedding, already postponed a year, even happen?  Should we get tested before going? But even if we tested negative, we could get “it” on the plane.  Would we be safe or sorry if we shared a rental car with an unvaccinated friend? Would fear cancel our fun? Of course we went and of course there was abundance of fun, but masks were mandated. Both indoors and out. 

 

In early September I see that I got a COVID test, probably because I had the phantom symptoms I tend to feel when certain friends gasp in horror after I’ve rolled the risk versus reward dice. But I wanted to meet Ian’s baby girl, Hana, and had to be sure I wasn’t bringing her any unwelcome gifts.  We went to more Mets games and witnessed their all-to-familiar demise. Zoom meetings and church services and book clubs went hybrid with half in person, half masked at home. 

 

October was when Madge, Rachel and I met at Debbie’s house in Telford, PA. We were high school buddies and hadn’t all been together, other than on Zoom, in way too many years. Our friend Patty had died in 2020 and we spent the afternoon sharing stories while marveling at much we’ve changed and how much we’ve stayed the same. The ever-loving and I drove to Baltimore to an outdoor retirement party for his childhood friend, Charlie, and then ventured onward, down to DC, for a colleague’s party where I befriended my MSNBC idol, Kimberly Atkins. We had brunch the next day at an Afghan restaurant in Adams Morgan with our friend Nancy. 

 

The college girls gathered in Greenville, SC in the middle of the month and we were all quite impressed by the beautiful, walkable, mask-free city that our friend Ann now called home. The following week my spouse, youngest son and I met my sister-in-law and her significant other in Baltimore for the internment of my father-in-law’s ashes, finally laying him to rest next to his bride of over 50 years. In October I had lunch indoors with Ann and Gail.

 

In early November I met baby Savannah and coordinated the visit so I’d also get to see Heather’s mother who, as one of my very best friends, I had ridiculously not seen since the gender reveal on Easter Sunday. I met Samantha’s baby girl, Demi, and as a bonus, got to see Demi’s grandmother Dawn again, a fun-filled friend who had defected to Florida. We celebrated our 32^nd anniversary in tandem with Diwali, setting off fireworks with our friends and neighbors on Grove Street. We went to Boston for a weekend with the ever-loving’s college cronies where I made new pals and cemented friendships with others. Masks were back in vogue in public places, though at the time we assumed it was only because Massachusetts trends socially progressive. We resumed our night-before party at the Schaeffer's and had a big family Thanksgiving at my sister’s house in Pennsylvania.

 

We kicked off the Christmas season with John and Janice at an indoor restaurant without a contrary thought in our heads. The following week Kathy had Ann, Holly and me over for a lovely holiday luncheon where some, but not all, of our conversation skewed toward this thing called Omicron. Talk turned to the approaching invasion of friends and family and at-home tests and whether gatherings were too risky despite our multiple jabs. Yet the spouse and I went to a dinner party over the weekend and the next day to the Christmas pageant at church. That afternoon I went to Gretchen's cookie exchange party in Pennsylvania and stole several bags of her homemade toffee to eat on the way home.  

 

The daughter came home from Brooklyn. The middle one came home from California. Both were  subsequently and separately informed that they had been directly exposed to COVID. They stood in four-hours long lines to get their negative test results. Our church went virtual again starting on Christmas Eve. I strongly discouraged the middle one from attending the Knicks game on Christmas Day, and he listened to me. Our sewer line backed up on Christmas night and we spent a good deal of time bailing water out of the basement. We took home tests before celebrating at my sister’s on the 26^th following ad nauseam debates over whether it was safe for us all to gather with my 96 year-old mother. 

 

We went back and forth about New Year’s Eve and whether we should go to a restaurant with Jean and Tom or not. Not is what won for the second New Year's Eve in a row. Which brings me back to the living room, alone in front of the 19-inch TV watching Anderson Cooper giggle and Miley Cyrus twerk, Moleskin planner in tow to help me relive 2021. I recorded that I walked 636.27 miles this year (as intentional exercise – not every day stepping out). I only bicycled half of what I usually do at 581 miles. (Meanwhile, the spouse clocked over 3,000 miles this year). I went to the gym 103 times. I lost ten pounds and gained five back -- this week alone. I read 57 books but uncharacteristically lost count of my Netflix binges.

 

Like everyone else, as the new year approached I was more than ready to ring out the old. Yet when I looked at 2021 as a whole rather than just the sum of its parts, I can say without reservation that it was a year worth living. And certainly one worth remembering. 

So, here's to 2022. May health be your constant companion. Happiness your eternal default. And friends and family your abiding umbrella. Just keep hope in your heart and joy in your soul and we'll all get through these darkest and strangest of days. 

Or years, as the case may be. 

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

While an enigma to many, I am no stranger to myself. I know exactly why I view, spew and do the things I do. Yet, there is one mystery I have yet to solve. One feel that I feel that I can’t figure out. 

I don’t know when I turned or why I recoil, but my pure and utter disdain for the recurring holiday called Christmas has me completely baffled. I am not destitute or lonely, distraught or unhappy. Rather, my life is what the sad and sorry covet as they scroll through social media. I have it all. An ever-loving spouse, three kind and (somewhat) well-adjusted adult children, a house on a diverse and friendly street, a flagstone front porch, a work-from-home job dating back decades before it was mainstream, a peace sign dangling from the dogwood tree in the front yard and until recently, a battered but beloved mini-van parked in the driveway. For heaven’s sake, I even have a big, old goofy Labrador who barks nonsensically at squirrels, passersby and delivery trucks. 

 

I grew up just as idyllically in a neighborhood filled with kids and dogs roaming free and far. Memories of holidays were always happy with Christmas just slightly edging out Mischief Night as the childhood favorite. For my family, the season started the second weekend in December when we piled into the wood-paneled station wagon to buy our Christmas tree from the Lions' Club parking lot. We chose the one with the lowest price tag (never, ever more than $10 which, according to my father, was already highway robbery). It was decorated with new and ancient Christmas balls and silver tinsel that we saved from year to year. It was dressed and ready for my parents’ annual cocktail party, the highlight of which was witnessing their annual imbibing of alcohol. 

 

Every Christmas Eve after dinner we would walk with our father through neighboring streets that were lined with candle-lit paper bags. Upon our return, we’d be shooed off to our rooms where we struggled to sleep, but somehow did. Christmas morning dawned with the four sisters perched on the carpeted staircase, waiting for the parent-approved hour of half-past seven. We barreled into the living room and opened our stockings to the stench of the inexplicable delicacy of boiled kidneys permeating the air. Following the tease of our new toothbrushes and chewing gum – pepsin-flavored chiclets for me, peppermint for the others – and more than a few furtive glances at the piles of presents covered with bedsheets, we wolfed down our waffles, grousing and groaning at the laborious pace that my father savored his kidneys. 

Finally, we were set loose and tore through our presents in minutes flat. Except of course for my sister, Emily, who took her good sweet time so it would seem like she got more than the rest of us. Though our gifts were thoughtful and abundant, I don't remember much beyond the remote control race track that I got and the Frye boots that I didn’t. 

 

Ten minutes later we were out the door to check out the neighborhood loot. First stop was Margaret’s where she greeted me with a wistful wink the year we had dispelled the Santa Claus myth once and for all. Accidentally-on-purpose while rummaging through the attic, she and I discovered the very gifts that were now under the tree. We then collected Kit from her house at the top of the hill and went en masse to see Carol who lived next door. Carol was never allowed to have more than one friend at her house at a time and so we spent our formative years being pit one against the other for her vacillating attention. But on Christmas morning even her mother, who had a nervous hum, couldn’t keep us at bay. Perhaps it was the holiday spirit, or maybe she got secret pleasure out of our wide eyes and jealous gasps as Carol causally opened then flung dozens and dozens of gifts aside. 

 

One year Carol got a horse for Christmas. 

 

Later in the day my father helped my mother put the leaf into the green-cloth-covered dining room table to make room for the turkey and all-the-trimmings. The hutch that loomed large against the wall was decorated to the nines with Royal Copenhagen Christmas plates, old-fashioned Santa Claus mugs, live greens and holiday-themed china figurines. Nanny arrived mid-afternoon with armfuls of artfully-wrapped, real-ribboned gifts, all items from our lists that we thought had been dismissed. Uncle Tony came a bit later donned in a suit that smelled like mothballs, carrying a box of Russell Stover chocolates containing too many nut nougats and too few butter creams. 

 

And just like that, Christmas was over. 

 

I don’t recall the interim years, except for the Christmas that I didn’t get engaged when my ever-loving date took me on a romantic date to see the Nutcracker. (A story in and of itself.) But boy do I remember the three-kid Christmases. 

 

I kept a color-coded excel spread sheet in my computer. Presents were purchased and recorded by person, price, wrap status and hiding place. Somewhere, somehow I came up with the number ten and that’s how many gifts they each got. Granted, a Matchbox toy car (99 cents) or a leopard-print headband (79 cents)  counted as gifts, but still had to be wrapped and recorded. In wrapping paper uniquely color-coded to each individual. In other words, the daughter’s gifts were all in the gold angel paper. The middle child’s all in stripes. The last of the litter in red and green puppy print. After they finally went to bed on Christmas Eve, I’d tip-toe to the hiding place and drag the presents up the stairs, heart pounding in fear of being found out. I’d toss and turn all night, worried that I had wrapped a gift in a sibling's paper, purchased the wrong Tonka truck or that the Little House on the Prarie books that I loved as a youth would be barely acknowledged, let alone appreciated. 

 

Come Christmas morning, the kids would tear into the living room where we’d open our stockings, filled with toothbrushes and chewing gum (all items wrapped in the same color-coded paper). Then after a pancake breakfast we’d tackle the fifty presents that were under the tree. 

 

Usually the Maryland grandparents came to town, mercifully staying in a nearby hotel. Grandpa would babysit Christmas Eve while Grandma joined us at church. They’d come back to the house on Christmas morning once the Santa Claus commotion had been contained, in hopes that the gifts they brought wouldn’t be lost in the shuffle. 

 

Dinner was served in our eat-in kitchen, decorated with Christmas cards pinned to red and green plaid ribbons that hung from the windows. In short-order form, dinner was often a lasagne made the night before, buttered noodles for the one who wouldn't eat hamburger, grilled cheese for the one who didn't eat noodles, bagged salad and ice cream. 

 

The grandparents, exhausted retreated to the hotel. My spouse and I tossed out the wrapping paper (and a Barbie shoe or two) and packed up the car for the trip to Pennsylvania the next day to see my side of the family. 

 

And just like that, Christmas was over. 

Until of course two days later when we celebrated the middle kid’s birthday. And two days after that when we celebrated the ever-loving’s birthday. And two days after that when somehow we felt compelled to celebrate New Year’s Eve, usually at Anne Hare’s house with all the dang kids in tow. 

 

And though I no longer color-code the gifts, I still keep a spread sheet. I still yearn to see my adult children jump for joy when they open the box of overpriced Nikes and Sephora gift cards, requested via direct link, lest I deviate. I want them to well up with gratitude when they see the sentimental sentiment I had framed for their apartment. I want my spouse to pretend to love the Javy Baez Mets jersey even though he’s no longer a Met (no wonder it was so cheap). I still want the perfect, effortless Christmas of my childhood, filled with nothing but joy. 

 

Recently, I was shocked to learn that my memories may not be completely intact. My mother swears that she didn't wrap a single gift, hence why they were draped in bedsheets. She admits now that she didn’t take that Christmas Eve walk with us because if she didn’t have that one hour to herself, she would implode. And that more than once, the turkey was dry, the mashed potatoes lumpy and the cranberries soupy. 

 

Yet to me, it was all perfectly perfect.

As I suffer in silence (and more often than not aloud), all I can hope is that my kids know that beneath the holiday haze there is nothing but love. That they accept that there's no such thing as perfection. That we all make mistakes. And that most of them can be reversed, either through a heartfelt apology an Amazon return. I want them to know that there will always be another meal even if the Brussels sprouts are burned or the chicken divan disgusting. 

As for me, maybe if I let go of Christmas past and try to be Christmas present, I may surprise myself and once again feel the joy. But in the meantime, if all else fails, there's always that bottle of bourbon beckoning from beyond.  

Merry Christmas to all!

The Strange Thing About Strangers

 

"So, tell me," I said to my newfound friend, with just the slightest shard of judgment. "Do you eat like this for a reason?" 

She silently assessed my question.

“I mean, don’t you ever just down a pound of m&ms?” I asked wide-eyed.

 

“Never.” 

 

Despite being a life-long direct questioner, it still baffles me when I’m called out on being intrusive rather than simply curious, interested, intrigued, or in this case astounded. My newfound friend has a plethora of healthy eating rules and regulations that I can covet all I want, but know for certain I could never consider. Because really, who wants to set themselves up for that kind of failure? 

 

Her answer, delivered without flinching, was not the political, social, environmental, ethical or religious response I was expecting.

 

 “I’m going to live to be 113.” 

 

With those words I knew the weekend would not be a wash.

 

I too have a proclamation on my lifespan. I fully intend to celebrate my 100^th birthday, after which I will concede when the ghost comes a-calling. Newfound’s plan, while a bit more ambitious is also infinitely more probable considering our opposing body-fueling habits. 

 

But in the end it may not make a bit of difference. The next time she is taken hostage at gunpoint, she may not be so lucky. And the next time I board a cruise ship, I may be stricken with a coronavirus equivalent and sink at sea. 

 

Which is precisely why I do the things I do.

 

Though admittedly, sometimes I resist.

 

“Check out this link,” my ever-loving spouse said back in August as we were primping for a wedding in a semi-sufficient hotel near Seattle. “Does this meet your high standards?”

 

Apparently there was a reunion brewing in Boston with a bunch of guys who had all gone to Haverford College long, long ago. Significant others were encouraged to attend and the link was to an Airbnb where the out-of-towners could cohabitate for the weekend.

 

“Absolutely not,” I answered without a moment’s hesitation. “There is no way I am sharing a place with strangers.”

 

“They’re not strangers,” the ever-loving pleaded resignedly.

 

I gave him the glare. And also my blessings to go off to Boston without me.

 

Of course I went. And of course we stayed in an over-priced hotel in downtown Beantown. If there’s one thing my spouse has learned over the past 30-odd years is that he just can’t put a price tag on his life partner’s comfort and joy.

 

The strangers were an attorney slash competitive bicyclist, an artist, a nose-for-news guy, a bevy of psychologist types (an in-the-office, an in-a-crisis, an in-a-school and an in-training), a birdman, a bridge builder, a robot maker, an electrifying engineer, a writer gone rogue, and a nanny turned grandma complete with illustrious careers and adventures past, present and future. 

 

The strangers hailed from Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Arizona, New York (or Florida, depending on the season) with roots ranging from Los Angeles to Brookelynn (misspelling intentional and not inherently wrong). 

 

The strangers were hardy imbibers, hardly imbibers and non-imbibers. We were Psycho Killers (qu’est-ce que c’est ), Swifties searching for scarves, Netflix junkies, pescatarians, parents, step-parents, grandparents and potential parents. We were widows, divorcees, marrieds, courting and living togethers. We were political and polar opposites, introverts, extroverts, social media lovers and social media disdainers. We were open books and privacy-preferrers (hence the uncharacteristic and completely intentional nameless characters). We had, over the course of our lives, earned PhDs, JDs, multiple master’s and a couple of bachelor’s degrees in nothing more than bourbon and beer. We had experienced myriad miracles and misfortunes, loved and lost, ailed and healed and made it, every one of us, to the back nine -- ball on the tee, drivers in hand. 

 

Our resident hosts were generous and gracious, giving us the grand tour of a beautifully vibrant city, steeped in history and culture. We dined in the theater district, pedaled our way down the Charles River Bike Path, flung frisbees in a field in Cambridge, picnicked in the Public Garden, sipped cocktails at sunset on a harbor cruise, walked in the rain, walked in the sun, walked on cobblestones, enjoyed a delectable dinner in a gorgeous house on Beacon Hill and broke bread Sunday morning in a horseshoe-shaped booth in the Back Bay. 

 

Appropriately, after brunch we made our way to Boylston Street and stood arm-in-arm across the finish line of the Boston Marathon. As we said our goodbyes, I had one of those cold and fuzzy moments. The cold being the realization that no matter what I eat or drink, say or do, there’s a distinct possibility that I'll reach the finish line before I turn 100. Just as my newfound friend may not make it to 113. 

The fuzzy being the awareness that it's within me, and only me, to keep living until I don't. Which, in my definition means new adventures in new places with new people. After all, as our old buddy William Butler Yeats was so fond of saying, There are no strangers here; only friends you haven't yet met. 

 

But don't think for a minute that I'm ever going to give up my over-priced hotel room. 

 

Tiny Tim

The Bo-Betsy Stories

Chapter Seven

 

Way back when your mother was just about the age you are now, she and her best friend, Bo-Betsy, used to play outside all the time. All. The. Time. They’d walk up and down Woods Road, hour after hour, looking for fun. Sometimes they found it, and sometimes they had to create it themselves.

 

One Saturday morning, your mother and Bo-Betsy were moseying about at the top of the hill right near the McKenna’s house. Now, the McKenna’s were a mystery. They weren’t a scary kind of mystery like the Trouts, but more like, “Hmmm, I wonder what they look like?” kind of mystery. Every now and then an RV camper would appear in their driveway, and the Neighborhood Gang would make up stories about where they had been and where they were headed – imagining trips to the Grand Canyon, Sea World and the Fountain of Youth.  No one knew anything concrete about this couple, but no one really cared. After all, they didn’t have any children.

 

The McKennas don’t have anything to do with this story except for the fact that Tiny Tim emerged from the pachysandra in front their house. You’ve heard about Tiny Tim, haven’t you? The Charles Dickens’ Tiny Tim? The Christmas Story Tiny Tim?  You know, the story about the poor little lame boy? Well, if you don’t know it, I would suggest you read it, or at least see the movie, because it’s a very famous tale indeed.

 

But let’s move on to the story of this Tiny Tim. Bo-Betsy and your mother were bored, as they often thought they were in those days. No one from the Neighborhood Gang was out and about. They didn’t feel like torturing Barbie Barber or spying on the Castle sisters or walking to Perkel’s Pharmacy for a candy bar. They couldn’t think of absolutely anything to do. So, imagine how happy they were when a teeny, tiny kitten stepped gingerly out onto the McKenna’s driveway. He was a little brown and black striped tabby cat with a wee bit of white on his face. He was so tiny he fit right into the palm of your mother’s hand – who of course, was the first to hold him.

 

“We’ve got to nurse him back to health!” your mother declared with no proof positive that he was indeed a he. “We must take him to your house right away!”  

 

Well, Bo-Betsy agreed with almost everything your mother said, but she just KNEW that her mother would never, ever go for it. Mrs. Hunsicker (remember, that’s Bo-Betsy’s last name) HATED cats.

 

“Oh, don’t worry,” your mother said. “She’ll fall in love with him. Especially when we tell her he’ll die if we don’t keep him.”

 

“I’ve got the perfect name for him,” Bo-Betsy exclaimed suddenly. “Tiny Tim. Because he’s so little and sick.”

Of course there was no real indication that Tiny Tim was sick, or lame or about to die, but every story is better when it’s a matter of life and death.

 

So off they went, Bo-Betsy and your mother, taking turns cradling Tiny Tim in their arms all the way down the street. 

“Mom!” Bo-Betsy screeched as they flung open the back door at 300 Woods Road. “Look what we found!”

 

When Bo-Betsy’s mother saw a real, live cat in her house, her hands went to her heart and she gasped for breath. When she was a little more composed, she pointed to the door.

 

“OUT! Get that, that, that thing out of the house!”

By this time Pongo, the Hunsicker’s Dalmatian, was sniffing around, trying to jump up on Bo-Betsy. There was a lot of squealing (from the humans) and meowing (from Tiny Tim) and barking (from Pongo) and somehow Bo-Betsy’s mother was able to get them all outside. All except for Pongo, who stayed inside whining and scratching at the screen door. 

 

“Pleeeeeassse! He’s going to die if we don’t keep him! Moooooommmmm, please!”

The girls gave the performance of their lives and finally wore Bo-Betsy’s mother down.

 

“OK. Here are the rules,” she began. “You can keep it….”

 

“He’s not an it. His name’s Tiny Tim,” your mother said.

 

“Fine. Tiny Tim. You can keep Tiny Tim. But Tiny Tim has to stay outdoors. Tiny Tim may never, ever come inside. Fix up a little bed for him in the garage, but remember, you have to keep the side door shut so Pongo doesn’t get in.”

 

Well, your mother and Bo-Betsy were beside themselves. Having a pet of their very own was one victory they never expected to celebrate. Bo-Betsy’s mother really, really, really hated cats. But a kitten, a teeny tiny kitten is very hard for even a hater to hate. Bo-Betsy’s mother handed the girls some old baby blankets that she had long ago put away with a sigh, and even offered Tiny Tim a bowl of milk. They settled him down into a corner of the garage and went off to look for toys to keep him entertained.

 

Poor Tiny Tim. He didn’t last long. After a day-and-a-half, the initial fun of having a pet wore off and your mother and Bo-Betsy got a little careless, forgetting to double check the garage door after filling Tiny Tim’s bowl with tuna fish. 

I don’t think I even have to tell you what happened next. 

Your mother and Bo-Betsy were very, very mad at Pongo. 

Bo-Betsy’s mother was very, very mad at the girls. 

 

Bo-Betsy’s father was very, very mad that after a long day at work he had to spend his evening  digging a grave in the backyard. 

“It’s not Pongo’s fault,” Bo-Betsy’s father said, always quick to defend the dog. 

Nor was it Pongo’s fault when he tinkled on Kit’s bicycle seat – when you gotta go, you gotta go. It wasn’t Pongo’s fault when he brought home newspapers from six neighboring driveways – after all, Bo-Betsy's father said, we're the ones who taught him to fetch the paper, he just thought he was going that extra mile. And it wasn’t even Pongo’s fault when he bit Walter Wilson on the rear end. That was your mother’s fault for yelling, “Sic ‘em!” 

“You girls have to learn to be more responsible,” Bo-Betsy’s mother said with a quiver.

 

“It’s nature's way,” Bo-Betsy’s father said pragmatically. After all, he had grown up on a farm. "But, let this be a lesson to you. It's a tough world out there, and only the strong survive.”

 

Your mother and Bo-Betsy, whose heads had been hanging low, looked up at each other and shared a silent vow. 

 

No matter what, forever and ever, together or apart, they would be strong. They would survive. 

 

And sure enough, they did.