My Legitimate Rape

At age  18, I take a ride with a guy I kind of know through some friends. We are going to meet up with them at a bonfire by the river. When he pulls into a dark path along the railroad tracks, I know something is wrong. When he turns to me and says, “Get undressed,” time stops and my mind starts racing. Can I outrun him? Where will I go? How will I get home? Then a car going the other way on this narrow lane stops to ask if my driver needs help… with me.  So I am grateful when the other car leaves, and I quickly undress and hope it keeps me safe from something worse. And it does. And I go home.

I sit in my room and decide to just go on as if it didn’t happen, so I don’t hear someone say it was my fault and go insane or kill myself.

At 19, it doesn’t matter who I have sex with. At 32, I get married and I am glad I will be with only one man for the rest of my life. At 34, I sometimes feel uncomfortable having sex with my husband in spite of the fact that I love him very much and trust him consciously.  At 38, I begin to have depression and anxiety attacks and don’t know why. At some point I remember my experience  and start to learn about what that did to me emotionally. I talk to my friends and learn that many of them have been raped. Fathers, uncles, brothers-in-law, step-fathers, boyfriends, even husbands turn out to be rapists. I wonder if I know anyone who hasn’t been raped. I begin to think there might be a potential rapist in every man alive. I study  men and realize it probably isn’t true of them all. Just too damn many. Just one is too damn many.

At 53, I hear a man talk about definitions of rape. I am not surprised by this because some men are what they are – potential rapists. (A man who has neither knowledge nor concern for the health and emotional well-being of women in general is a potential rapist in my estimation.)  I think about what this conversation means to me. My rape was not ‘forcible.’ I wasn’t restrained or beaten. I didn’t get pregnant, but at the time I knew I could have. I felt that God spared me that because I never could have gone for ten months with my rapist still inside me. The fact that people might have said my rape was not legitimate kept me from admitting it to myself. I don’t know how much that had to do with the distortions in my views about sex. I do know that many of my problems are closely related to post-traumatic stress disorder.  And I know now that my rape was ‘legitimate.’

At first I want to grab this man who is having this conversation in the news and rub his face in shit, like a dog that needs to learn a lesson.  Then I want to scream until I can’t scream anymore. But, once again, I stop myself because I don’t want to go insane and kill someone else. And I realize it is all in vain. There will always be men and women who have no concern for others and believe that anything they say is true. Having never experienced rape, they will minimize it and blame it on the victim. And these egomaniacs will say these things and young women will hear them and think that they are right.

I just want a world in which people who care for others and take responsibility for what they say are given equal time to share on a global stage. And I want a world in which every woman knows that rape is whatever she says it is. The rest of the world may not define it the same way, and may not prosecute her rapist – after all, there is no justice for this crime. But rape is anything that defiles her sense of self. And it matters.  And I want every woman who has been raped to tell another woman, and make sure she understands. So we can heal.

August Birthday Crones

Visit the August Birthday Crones page here.

Lactation in the '60's

I wanted to breastfeed for many reasons, even though it was a minority choice in 1965 America. First, I’d heard horror stories from one of my aunts whose babies were allergic  to all but the most exotic formulas. Second, it was an “old-fashioned” choice, and my love of all things  “historical” was in this case a powerful motivator. Moreover, my husband and I—both of us 19-- were receiving grudging charity from relatives. Money was in short supply, and so breastfeeding also seemed a practical notion, a cost-saver and proof of commitment.

Fortunately, a lovely lady Chris had baby-sat for let me borrow her copy of the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, from the La Leche League, or my knowledge, when my son was born, would have been just what I could glean from reading the few pages devoted to it in Dr. Spock’s Baby & Child Care. There was a battlefield aspect to a decision to breast feed back then, which started on the delivery table where, as soon as my baby delivered, a nurse came at me with a needle.

“What’s that for?”

 “To dry up your milk, honey.”

“No thank-you. I’m going to breast feed.”

 Long pause, hostile glare. “You wait! You’ll be sorry.”

You probably won’t get this out-front negativity from a delivery room nurse today, but there remain plenty of obstacles to nursing. First and foremost, I think, is the easy availability of formula. Formula is much improved over fifty years back, when they were just beginning to pre-package it. The hospital sent me home with twenty-four 4 ounce bottles—just in case.  As I’d never even held a baby before I took this one home, I was understandably unsure about my ability to handle the job.

I’d had my baby in a Boston Woman’s clinic and roomed with seven other women who’d also just given birth. We had curtains which could be pulled for privacy. Nurses brought me my baby at the appointed time—every four hours--and I’d  stare at him, wondering when the milk would come. Poor guy—he lived on sugar water for a couple of days. Finally, as both baby and I wept, an elderly nurse came in to ask me what was wrong. I was afraid my milk would never come, I said—this with boobs like rocks and a steady leaking of something creamy. The nurse said, “That’s it, honey. The colostrum! Here, do this...” and she helped me get my boy latched on.

When we left the rigid routine of the hospital—five days, back then--things got easier. I could pick my son up whenever he cried, and as feeding was about all I knew to comfort him, he was fed. My husband still had a scale on which he’d weighed his model airplanes, and this was now pressed into service for the baby. We still had a bottle bred fear that he wasn’t getting enough, simply because we couldn’t see milk going in. The scale, my husband reasoned, would solve this. We would weigh him before, and again after, he nursed. It didn’t take long to lose our fear that we might starve him. Sometimes he would gain as little as three ounces, but more usually, he’d gain five or six.

Early on I had a cracked nipple, but I used a salve made of sheep’s lanolin, and, as La Leche League instructed, carried on through the pain. A public health nurse who came for the first couple of weeks was encouraging and helped me through that.  Our apartment—this was during the hottest summer in Boston in 90 years—was crisscrossed with laundry line, on which I dried one or the other of my two nursing bras and a host of pocket handkerchiefs which were doing duty as nursing pads. (You could find pads back in 1965, but again, they were expensive.) We were saving Chris’ small salary—he was in charge of a mini-computer at a bank--to help him get back to college, and also paying our apartment and food expenses.

How proud I felt the day I gave my bottles of formula to the gal across the street for her baby! It may seem like a small thing now, but, despite the cloud of cultural doubt which surrounded women who nursed in those days, successful breastfeeding represented a big step toward self-reliance in my new role as a mother.

You Have to be Tough to Get Old

A Guest Post from BWL Author,

Lorrie Unites-Struiff

Many of us Crones have (or are working through) this one. The kids grow up and leave but your caregiving responsibilities are far from over. Suddenly, unexpectedly, you find yourself in charge of one or both of your parents, or, maybe even your spouse.

For some people, “The Golden Years” are not the relaxing, traveling and fun years televisions and magazines say will be ours when we become seniors. Many have said this to me. Now I find myself in full agreement.

My mother had Parkinson’s and I took care of her in my home for three years. Eventually came the time I could no longer help her and placed her in a care home. She died six months later on Christmas Day.

Two months ago, I had to place my husband in a care home. I could no longer take care of him properly, even with the help of in-home hospice care. You see, he has Alzheimer’s, COPD, ruptured disks in his back and horrible stenosis of the spine. Together, these diseases cause him much pain, and sometimes he falls when he walks. I couldn’t pick him up, nor knew what would happen next in the middle of the night with his Alzheimer at home.

I’m sure many of you have gone through this and know what I’m writing about. As he got worse, I became scared, exhausted, tired of the arguments, and so much more. I couldn’t function as a human being anymore.

Now, I go visit him almost every day. The care home I chose happens to be a very nice one. I see how the staff treats the other patients with kindness and smiles. At times, they must use the sternness of authority. But never in an unkind manner.

When I enter the home, I see John lying in his horizontal wheelchair who can’t move a muscle except for his mouth, and I watch the uncontrollable movement of his arms and hands.  He’s such a sweet guy who loves when I sit near him and we talk. He smiles and we have a small conversation until his wife comes in to sit by his side. He has a great attitude. Jane appreciates me taking the time and is such a sad woman. We chat occasionally. We are both visiting a loved one here every day; it makes us sisters in sorrow.

There is Mary, curled up on a couch in the big living room, sound asleep. The other couches and chairs are occupied by men and women in various degrees of  withdrawal and illness. Some stay in their rooms. A man goes by with a walker that has a bunny rabbit attached to the grip. He looks so mean, but is really nice and says hello to everyone.

And oh, there is Sally who is seventy-five years old. She came into my hubby’s room one day and asked if I had a phone. She said she had to call her husband to make sure he picked up their young son after school. I told her I didn’t have a phone. Five minutes later, she returned with the same question. I gave the same answer. The next time she came into the room, I immediately told her I didn’t have a phone. Sally put her hands on her hips, gave a snort, and said, “How did you know what I was going to ask?”

Minnie the Moocher, as she is called, is always asking visitors for cigarettes. If you bring in a big bottle of soda pop, she’ll come in with a glass of ice and ask for some. How can you say no?

They all wear ankle bracelets that set off alarms if they open an outside door. Then you see the aides come running.

When my grandchildren go to visit Pap, our eighteen-year-old grandson likes to walk the unsteady patients down the halls and back. Did I tell you I’m proud of him? My seven-year-old granddaughter feels it’s her duty to go around and give everyone a loving hug. Seeing the patients’ eyes light up when she does it is a joy. Then we have our seven-month-old bruiser of a baby boy whom everyone wants to hold.

My daughter will allow it, but she keeps a steady two hands on him while they do, for safties sake. He’s a lively baby but endures the handling by strangers and gives them big smiles.

These, my friends, are not the “Golden Years.” They are the sorrowful years to watch your loved ones fade away slowly. My aunt has a saying with which I will end my story:

“You have to be a tough bird to get old.”

Lorrie Unites-Struiff—author

http://struiff.wordpress.com/

Gypsy Blood available at Amazon.

Available  on Amazon.  http://www.amazon.com/Gypsy-Blood-Born-Romany-ebook/dp/B008190LLK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1341446441&sr=1-1&keywords=gypsy+blood

Civil War Doctor

Mary Walker

 

Even during a sesquicentennial year, most people think of battles and generals when the Civil War is mentioned. Like all wars, it seems that women are all but forgotten. Originally, I had planned on blogging about the roles of women during the war, but I discovered the topic was too broad. Many of the heroic women deserve their own story. Last time, I wrote about a female soldier, and I'll continue with Dr. Mary Walker. She was the only woman who served as a surgeon and was the highest ranking female during the war. She is also the only woman in history to have been awarded the Medal of Honor.

Born in New York, she wasn't the first woman to graduate from medical school, but she was the only woman to graduate in her class of 1855. She married another medical student and kept her maiden name, which was very much against tradition during the era. She and her husband set up a practice together. Like many feminists of her time, she began wearing bloomers and tossed out her corset.

After four years of marriage, Dr. Walker and her husband separated. Divorce was almost unheard of, so years passed before it became finalized. In the meantime, she moved to Iowa. When the war broke out, she volunteered for the Union Army. In the 1860s, no female doctors existed in the army, and she was allowed to practice as a nurse.

The war dragged on, and Dr. Walker went to the battlefields of Tennessee, where General Thomas accepted her as a surgeon. Men of all ranks protested. In spite of the complaints, she was commissioned as a first lieutenant and assistant surgeon. She frequently crossed enemy lines to give aid to civilians. In April 1864, she was captured by the Confederates.

As a prisoner of war, Dr. Walker was sent to Richmond, Virginia. Later in the year, she was included in prisoner-of-war exchanges and released. Afterward, she worked in a female prison in Kentucky and a war-related orphanage in Tennessee. At the war's end, she was awarded the Medal of Honor for her service.

After the war, Dr. Walker went on the lecture circuit tirelessly working for women's suffrage and other women's rights. She had taken to wearing men's clothing and was arrested for it on several occasions. Ahead of her time, she was often considered too extreme by many of the well known suffragists.

In 1917, the U.S. Congress created a pension for Medal of Honor receivers, and in doing so, they withdrew the awards from many of the recipients. Dr. Walker's award was one of those withdrawn, but she continued to wear her medal for the rest of her life. She died two years later. Despite the controversy surrounding her choices, she remained proud of her achievements as a physician and women's rights advocate.

In 1977, Dr. Walker was posthumously rewarded with the reinstatement of her Medal of Honor.

Kim Murphy
www.KimMurphy.net

Crone-within Whispers

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Living with trees Crone-like enjoying days/nights of freedom

Betwixt and between  Past/future. There/then

Listening to silence, to birds, to squirrel chatter

Noticing leaf green, tender green, cedar green, spruce green

Shade green, muted green, shifting towards grey

Early morning cool green shadows under leaf shaded skies

Robin song, haze blue, breeze blue

Crow calling, hawk circling

Sudden

Harsh

Wild

Cry

Once, twice.

Pup moves to my side.

Last defiant call, close, close.

Pup quivers.

Later a trail of large bronze feathers

 tell the rest of the story

Somewhere young foxes have

 full bellies, bright eyes, a splash of red.

Crone-within whispers

life/death/rebirth

cycles circle round

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The Great Giveaway

I give you my breast

the earth

and suckle you with

corn and grain

plants and animals and fish

all to sustain you

all to feed you

all to nourish you

the great giveaway

my love for you

the food

so you will live

prosper and grow

From my breast

the earth

because I love you.

- Amy Sophia Marashinsky

                Once there was a woman who had two sons. She loved the boys with all her heart, but they were very different. One boy was a dreamer and he made their house cheerful and beautiful.  Perhaps he was very busy in his mind and had no ambition for material things. Or maybe he thought he had no strength or physical abilities. The other son was a doer - always moving, hunting, running in races. Perhaps he loved to win things and bring food to his family so he could help them. Or maybe he thought he was strong but not very smart.

                None of this mattered to the mother. She was proud of both her sons and viewed their skills as honorable! She often told people, “My sons are as different as night and day!” But she forgot to say that night and day are both very good things. So the boys began to believe that one of them must have a better way to be than the other.

                The mother just couldn’t understand it. She would give things to her Dreamer, and he would take them and say, “Thank you, mother. I love your gifts and cherish them with all my heart.” Then she would give the same things to her Doer, and he would shove them back at her and say, “Here, take what I give you instead. I want you to love the things I do.”  So she listened to her sons and took from the Doer with pride and gave to the Dreamer with tenderness.  She thought this was a good thing, the very best thing she could do for her sons.

                What did they learn from their mother? Perhaps the Dreamer learned to never fail or he would lose the love and care he needed to survive in the world. Perhaps the Doer learned that he had to be strong to survive and that tenderness would never come to him. So the mother was astounded by the ways her sons came to be in the world. She was dismayed by their inability to value each other’s differences or to love each other like brothers. And sometimes she cried because she thought it was her fault.

                That is what happened.  Maybe you know these brothers and what they give to the world. You can tell their mother she is a good woman and the best mother she tried so hard to be.

                                                                                                       by Lari Jo Walker

Marashinsky, Amy Sophia. “Corn Woman: Nourishment.”  16 April 2008. Mydailygoddess.blogspot.com8 July 2012.

You were right. It's been personal, Nora.

Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women.- Nora Ephron's Commencement speech at Wellesley, 1996

When screenwriter Nora Ephron died and I read the quote (above) that was posted on my facebook page, I immediately remembered how good her romantic comedy movies were. I often pop one in the DVD player when I want something I enjoy listening to in the background to keep me company when I'm working.

While I thought about my favorite lines and moments from her work and felt sad that she's gone, I recalled how simply and succinctly she voiced a fundamental difference between men and women when it comes to work. And I was reminded yet again that it doesn't make a hill of beans of difference that I'm fifty years old now. I still feel like a kid when it comes to trying to be a professional and run a business. I take it personally when a client goes to someone else for their webdesign.

And that is the problem. I'm a "business" of one. One person. Why shouldn't I take it personally? But I know darn well I shouldn't. I was told this time and again by my ex-best friend as she valiantly struggled to hide how badly she was hurt after twentysome years with the same company who callously screwed her over all in the name of saving their profits. To hell with their employees. You should never let them see you cry. Never be unprofessional and show you are actually human (ohmigod, she's acting like a GIRL!) and you have feelings.

from You've Got Mail (1998)AT

(an online conversation)

KATHLEEN: My business is in trouble. My mother would have something wise to say.
JOE: I'm a brilliant businessman. It's what I do best. What's your business?
KATHLEEN: No specifics, remember?
JOE: Minus specifics, it's hard to help. Except to say, go to the mattresses.
KATHLEEN: What?
JOE: It's from The Godfather. It means you have to go to war.
KATHLEEN: The Godfather? What is it with men and The Godfather?
JOE: The Godfather is the I Ching. The Godfather is the sum of all wisdom. The Godfather is the answer to any question. What should I pack for my summer vacation? "Leave the gun, take the cannoli." What day of the week is it? "Maunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday." And the answer to your question is "Go to the mattresses."
You're at war. "It's not personal, it's business. It's not personal it's business." Recite that to yourself every time you feel you're losing your nerve. I know you worry about being brave, this is your chance. Fight. Fight to the death. 

(later in the story, a face to face conversation --)

JOE: I put you out of business. You're entitled to hate me.

KATHLEEN:   I don't hate you --

JOE: But you'll never forgive me.  Like Elizabeth.
KATHLEEN:  Who?
JOE:  Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.   She was too proud --

KATHLEEN:   I thought you hated Pride and Prejudice.

JOE:  -- or was she too prejudiced and Mr. Darcy too proud?  I can never  remember.  (beat) It wasn't personal --

KATHLEEN:  --It was business. What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All it

means is it's not personal to you, but it's personal to me, it's personal to a lot of people. 

 (she shrugs helplessly) What's wrong with personal anyway?

JOE: Nothing.
KATHLEEN: I mean, whatever else anything is,  it ought to begin by being personal.

~~~

I'm flashing back to my last experience in the "corporate world."  Since I was raised in a household of three women and one man (and my father was a very reticent person who rarely had much to say to his daughters. At least while we were growing up),  I rarely if ever saw men interacting with each other.  I worked for three guys who worked together in one room running a small business. They stuck me at a computer in the outer office (and rarely closed the door)  and I had no choice but to eavesdrop on them all day.


Fortunately for sweet little me, I rarely heard them swearing. But I also learned that on a regular basis, men will yell and tell each other in no uncertain terms that the other guy is  a stupid idiot (or worse).  And the subject could just as easily be sports or politics, not just business.  But right about the time I'd start to wonder if my boss was going to have a heart attack (he would get red in the face), and/or if an actual physical fight was going to break out,  things would get quiet and I'd realize they were back to business as usual. The problem was solved, the argument forgotten (really!), and they were all friends, again.


I remember Steve, one of the guys I worked for who I found it the easiest to talk to, telling me that that's the one thing that drove him crazy about working with women. They take everything personally!, he complained. If you have a disagreement and you fight about it, they are hurt and they stay that way for awhile. They hold a grudge. They don't forget. They take it personally.


Just how can they turn all that testosterone on and off at will? At work, anyway. And then I have to tell you about my first boyfriend post divorce. Because I have to remind myself that there has been a time when I really was getting pretty good at this "don't  take it personally" stuff, anyway.


You see, one of the annoying things that helped me realize that I had really did not want to be in a relationship with this guy was the way he held grudges.  He didn't forget.  He could recite chapter and verse all the times in his life when people had treated him unfairly and done him wrong. They hurt his feelings.  And he had to relate in great detail, what had happened and why.  All the way back to kindergarten.  Yikes! It was annoying. And sad. And wimpy.


I tried to impress on him one of the hard lessons I'd finally gotten in my years of counseling.  People don't deliberately try to hurt you. They are just blundering along, living their life and making choices based on what's best for them at any given moment. And chances are, if you get stepped on (and hurt) in the process, it's only because you just happened to be in the way.  And no, they probably won't even notice you were in the way.  And it won't occur to them that their action directly affected you.  People look out for themselves.  They have to.  Because sadly, if you don't look out for yourself,  chances are,  no one else will. 


And in all honesty, in the process of breaking up with him, I deliberately hurt him.  I wasn't nice, and I purposely did things that I knew would push him to the point that he would not want to salvage the relationship.  I wanted out in the worst way and I knew that if I could convince him that I was a horrible person he'd give up and let me alone.  I knew this about him -- he'd take it personally. He'd carry the grudge and not forgive me. 


But I'm on Kathleen's side in You've Got Mail. I have a small business (of one) and I take it personally when I lose a client.  I have tried so hard to look at it from their point of view and realize yes, it was a good business move (for them - not me, obviously!)  Chances are it's never occurred to them how badly losing them has hurt me. And not just emotionally, but financially. Therein lies the rub.   


And that's why it's so hard not to take it personally - when you may or may not be able to recover financially from someone else's business decision. At least I can honestly say that I have behaved professionally when this has happened. As badly as I would have loved to have screamed "how can you be such a jerk?! You just cut my income in half!,"  I didn't.  I sucked it up and took it like a man.  Or not.  I'm thinking about the guys back at the office.  They would have told you about it.  You would have known exactly where you stood with them. But after clearing the air, they would have made up and gone back to doing their jobs.  Then, again, they could do that.  They were professionals at not taking anything personally.

Sally, Speck and the Summer of ‘66

We have things in common, Sally Draper and I. We’re both about the same age. We’ve both lost beloved grandparents. We both watched President Kennedy laid to rest in black-and-white on TV for three solid days. We both love the Beatles. We both want a pair of white go-go boots.

But that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

Sally is the daughter of Don and Betty Draper. Don is a well-to-do ad man in New York City; he’s now divorced from her mom and Sally lives with her two kid brothers and her mother (who’s getting fat) and her politician stepfather (whose horrible mother babysits her) in a haunted mansion in upstate New York.

In the year 1966, right next to the “Mad Men” parallel universe, there’s me, living in blue-collar Berwyn, Illinois, with my working-class parents and friends whose parents couldn’t afford a divorce – their fathers just took a powder.

Sally Draper seems like a pretty lucky girl. She gets to spend weekends in a penthouse in New York City with her dad and his glamorous new wife, who takes her on shopping sprees to Bergdorf’s and Bonwit Teller.

But I was lucky, too. I had a Mafia-wife godmother who bought me cool dresses from Bramson’s in Oak Park, a gold Baume et Mercier watch, and bequeathed me her expensive tastes that my parents could only indulge with orders from the Sears catalogue.

I also never saw my step-grandmother-in-law giving head to Roger Sterling. I learned about sex around the same age, but it was from a whispered conversation with Maureen Hannigan at a Girl Scout Christmas caroling event at the local old people’s home. And anyhow, Maureen Hannigan was lying. There was no way our fathers and mothers were doing that disgusting stuff.

I wonder if Sally has any friends. There are no allusions to any on the show, and that’s a damn shame. The only friend she really confides in is the creepy former neighbor boy, and he’s off at a boarding school and probably has ulterior motives of getting it on with Sally’s mother.

If I knew Sally, I would have invited her over to my house for the weekend. We’d kick off the festivities by watching “Dark Shadows” on Friday afternoon, then go to the movies at the Olympic Theater with my friends. Then we’d have a big pajama party, with everybody wrapped in blankets in our front room floor, playing Beatles and Herman’s Hermits records all night long.

My mother would make a pizza from scratch and we’d put our hair up in big plastic curlers and read about our fave raves in 16 Magazine, tell Polish jokes and get goofy until my father would yell from upstairs to goddamn it keep it down, he had to get up early for work tomorrow.

It probably wouldn’t be sophisticated enough for Sally – who had grown up with a maid, who knew all about sex, who with her brothers and dad frequently assumes the role of mother, sliding into that frigid, stone-faced efficiency so perfected by Betty. No, if Sally hung out with us, she’d get a chance to actually be a kid – although there would be nobody embargoing the news for her. It would be blasting out of our TV set, out of the radio while we listened to WLS Top 10 and Barney Pip or Ron Britain on WCFL.

 She might be scared, considering Chicago is where that guy killed those eight student nurses, the guy who had scared her so much that her grandmother-in-law had to give her a Seconal and she ended up falling asleep under the sofa with a butcher knife clutched in her hand.

 I remember July 14, 1966, when we first got word about the slaying of eight student nurses on Chicago’s South Side. I’d been riding in our 1964 Ford Falcon, going somewhere with my parents, bopping in the back seat to the Top 10 Countdown on WLS. It was summer, the car windows were open, and I was nagging my father to switch stations when the news or the commercials came on because all I wanted to hear was the music: The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer,” Tommy James and the Shondell’s “Hanky Panky,” The Trogg’s “Wild Thing,” The Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Summer in the City.”

 When the news came on, I wanted to switch, but my mother shushed me. It was a bulletin, saying the girls had been killed. It was shocking and scary. Back in 1966, things like this didn’t happen.   

 The murders happened on a Thursday, so maybe it was Saturday that I was riding around with my parents. My mother worked nights during the week, so the only time we would have all been together would have a Saturday or Sunday night. Speck was caught four days later -- on a Monday. My mother would have been at work then. I seem to remember something about her actually taking the day off – something very unusual for her. But she may have been too freaked out to work.

 But even though Speck had been on the loose here in Chicago, Sally could feel safe with us. My parents didn’t drink martinis or go out much – my father worked in a factory and my mother worked in a factory and their idea of a good time was an occasional trip to a local Italian restaurant, where they might have one drink apiece.

 And my friends may have had their share of neuroses, but worrying that Richard Speck was going to come and get them was the least of it. We were glad when the news told us he’d been caught four days later, but I’d never felt that any of us were at risk of being hurt by him or anyone like him. We were just kids, safe and secure in prosperous, post-war America. Who’d want to hurt us?

 Speck died in prison in 1991, sporting a pair of hormone-induced fake breasts. He never even made 50.

 Today, the Summer of ’66 is barely a blip in the modern American collective memory. But in the intervening years, the legacy of Richard Speck has permeated the national zeitgeist, cropping up in new generations of serial killers, “Saw” movies and the fictional world of Sally Draper. Whose fear of life that summer, it turns out, was right all along.

Talk Nerdy to Me

A grandchild of mine was accused, some years ago, of being a “Nerd” because she played War Craft, read and reread Lord of the Rings, and got hooked on TV shows like Fringe and the X-Files.  I wondered about this label at first, because she’s bright, outgoing and swims in a sizeable pod of friends. Then I realized that although the term “Nerd,” is fairly new, the profile remains the same. It’s an inherited condition.

My husband was always neat, even, his mother told me, as a child, a born organizer. The system might not always be apparent, but he will explain it to you, and he will back his preferences with inescapable logic. He built and flew model airplanes through adolescence, and in labeled boxes in the basement, beside his mourned for, obsolete darkroom, are the engines. I have not the least doubt they could be resuscitated.

After we married, he worked as a programmer. For fun, he spent a decade studying Ansel Adams’ Zone System. He could bring a loud party with the latest Stones album and 3 jugs of Mateus to a stand-still in five minutes if given an opening. His photography, as he practiced it in darkroom and with endless test sheets and kitchen table grokkings, was inspired. As a result, we’ve got rafts of wonderful pictures of our growing boys. 

 I was an only lonely child living in the country. Nearsighted, (“Lizzie Lens” was the standard ‘50’s joke) it was easier for me to read than to relate to a world of other children I couldn’t quite see. I hung out in my imagination, creating an entire world ruled by dogs; I drew charts of their dynasties. Oddly, the dogs rode horses, and I had a box of plastic and china stand-ins. Later, I cut to the chase and simply sat on the floor and talked to myself. When I was little, this was called “good” behavior. As I grew older and the habit of talking to myself continued, Mother had second thoughts. All of a sudden—or so it seemed to me—telling myself stories all the time was “weird.”

 I admit it; I’m obsessive. A Bambi fixation drove me to write a play--I guess you’d call it “fan fic” today--which was performed by my Fourth Grade class. I’ve always been vulnerable to historical characters.   I began with Davy Crocket, but by the time I was eleven, my affections had fastened upon Alexander Hamilton, who was a fairly odd choice for a crush in the age of Elvis Presley. Soon after I added Richard III to my obsessive roster, which led to Shakespeare, Laurence Olivier and occasionally parading around in the hokey outfit above.

 So, lately, when my granddaughter puts on her “Talk Nerdy to Me” tee shirt and heads out to play Trivial Pursuit or spends hours online with her friends, I feel a warm glow. She’s definitely a member of Our Clan.

http://www.julietwaldron.com

 

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An excerpt from my oldest--and newest--book: My Mozart. The young heroine began to speak to me during 1986 and did not stop sharing her secrets until a little more than a year later. She first came to me around the time (I would later learn) of her birthday, in late April. Every year, my Blumechen would return to fill in a little more. I've finally let her story go, out into the wide and noisy 'net.  Here are the first few pages...

* * *

"Most painfully affected of all by Mozart's fatal illness was Fraulein Nanina Gottlieb..."

From Joseph Deiner's Memoirs, related at Vienna, 1856

http://www.amazon.com/My-Mozart-ebook/dp/B0089F5X3C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1340501338&sr=1-1&keywords=My+Mozart

Chapter One

"Mozart, Ich liebe dich. I love you. Love you."

"Come here, Nanina Nightingale. Come and give your poor old Maestro some of your ‘specially sugary sugar."

My mouth on his‑‑the friction produced warmth and sweetness, with a decided undertone of the expensive brandy he liked, flowing from his tongue to mine. I slid my arms across the brocade of his jacket, none too clean these days, and swayed a slender dancer's body against him.

Let me assure you that my sophistication was assumed. It really doesn't matter - then, or now. I was young, foolish, and drowning in love. I was seventeen. He was thirty five.

He had once been boyishly agile, doing handsprings over chairs, turning cartwheels of joy at a prima donna’s kiss or a perfect performance of his own celestial music. He was never tall, and was, like most men of his age, working on a bit of a belly. Still, he kept more or less in shape by a daily regimen which included running from bailiffs, dashing out the back doors of taverns to avoid payment, and climbing in and out of the bedroom windows of adventurous (and talented) musical gentlewomen.

I believed he knew everything--that he could see right through me with those bright blue eyes. He probably could. He'd been my music master--and, more--my deity, ever since I'd met him, in my ninth year.

His jacket, now spotted and stained, must have been fine enough to wear in the presence of the Emperor. Bright blue, it perfectly matched his eyes. I can still feel the fabric sliding under my fingers as my arms passed over his shoulders and around his neck.

I can still see him‑‑a woolly frizz of blonde hair, long, aquiline nose--a ram that had once been an angel. Sometimes, when he was loving me in some exquisitely naughty way and joyfully smiling as he did it, I could almost see horns.

So you will understand exactly how I loved him, so that you will know that it was a real passion, I'll tell you that I adored the feel of him, the smell of him, the taste of him. They've tried to turn him into a tinkling porcelain angel, but I'm here to tell you, here and now--he was not.

Mozart's eyes were big, slightly protuberant, and as I’ve said, so blue. Alarming, those eyes! Once they'd shone with the pure light of genius, radiant and blissful as a summer noonday. Lately, they were simply wasted. My adored Maestro was mostly either drunk or hung over.

He'd fallen from grace. Everyone knew it. Creditors hounded him. There were too many wild parties, not enough money.  His wife had given up coping, had gone back to the Baden spa where she had an on-going romance with a big, handsome Major.

And who could blame her? Pretty Constance, in the last ungainly stages of yet another pregnancy, fleeing Vienna after a winter of freezing and begging for handouts...

Even a seventeen year old idolater could recognize her defection for simple self‑preservation. I didn't judge her. I didn't judge myself. I was simply glad to have her out of the way. When she was gone, he was restless, at loose ends, spending most of his time hanging around our theater. Of course, nothing could have suited me better.

Oh, I can still hear my painted Mama lecturing, telling me all about Wolfgang's debts, his drinking, and his wife. If I must go whoring, why couldn't I be sensible, make it pay?

Naturally, I knew that the lady who filled his mind was one of his damned piano pupils. She was struggling with a very real fear of her husband and with her own natural chastity. Dear Mozart always imagined that if a lady played his music with "taste and feeling", she belonged to him in a deeper and more complete sense than she could ever belong to a mere husband. The notion proved in every case disappointing, and, in the final exercise, fatal.

He often held forth upon "acting like a Kapellmeister/ dressing like a Kapellmeister", long after he'd been ejected both from the court and the wider world of gentlemanly convention. When sufficiently drunk, he used to amuse everyone at The Serpent, clowning with a violin like some impoverished, itinerant musiker.

One night, a pair of Englishmen who'd been dining there dropped a handful of kreutzers and asked in broken German if he knew the way to "the house of Kapellmeister Mozart." As the regulars roared, Mozart answered with the filthiest English curse he knew and haughtily stalked away, leaving the money on the floor. The waiter, Joseph Deiner, God bless him, scooped it up and applied it to Mozart's perennial bill.

* * *

It's hard to tell how you will like a true story, but to my mind, all the best tales grow. Have patience. This, I assure you, is a love story.

* * *

I was born a musiker, a poor, pretty, talented girl who could have become an actress or a singer, a dancer or a prostitute. When I was seventeen, with no parents and working for Emmanual Schikaneder, I'm afraid the latter was the fate most likely.

Today my beauty and voice are gone. Memories are all that remain. Except for my old friend Joseph, it was lonely for a very long time, but lately troops of well meaning Volk have been knocking on my door, bringing little presents and asking questions about the old days.

"Fraulein Gottlieb," they say, "you were the Magic Flute's first Pamina. Tell us about the way it was. Tell us about the great genius, Mozart."

I hardly dare speak. Once well begun, this old woman might ramble straight through from beginning to end. My adored, long dead Maestro has become famous, a kind of Martyr to Art. I have no wish to stain the marble purity of the image that his wife, with so much skill and determination, has spent the last thirty years creating. I understand the theater of life, this proscenium beneath the arching sky. Sometimes--paradoxically--honor requires a lie.

So, to such visitors, I say the obvious, about how poorly his talent served him while he lived. Then they reply, as if this makes up for the pain: "His music survives."

For a performer like me, it's the opposite. In that most present of present moments, we are the lark of song, the erotic geometry of dance, the drum beat of declamation. For a performer there's nothing beyond the flashing now, and when we grow old all that is left for us is the rusty rumination of some aged member of a long ago audience.

This being so, I'll tell you who I am, or rather who I was: Fraulein Anna Gottlieb, Nanina to my long dead friends. I was a performer once admired, first as a dancer, then as a singer, and last, when I grew older, as a comedienne who had learned all about getting belly laughs from those two great clowns of the Volksoper stage, Barbara Gerl and Emmanuel-The-Devil-In-Human-Form Schikaneder. I was the darling of the fickle Viennese for years...

* * *

~Juliet Waldron

http://www.julietwaldron.com

http://www.amazon.com/My-Mozart-ebook/dp/B0089F5X3C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1340501338&sr=1-1&keywords=My+Mozart