The Snake on the Porch and the Wind-Up Monkey

My grandfather was a self-taught naturalist. The family home where he and my grandmother lived and where my father and his brother were born and raised was the staging ground for his forays into the mountains. The den, Grandpa’s domain, was filled floor to ceiling with his hunting trophies: stuffed birds, ducks, snakes, bobcats, and civet cats, ranging from infancy to full-grown. There were nests with desiccated eggs, horseshoes, and snake skins. Coiled rattlesnakes frozen, ready to strike. Peacock feathers, fossils, bird’s eggs. A magnificent horned owl reigned over the den.

On the floor in front of the fireplace was a small rug made from a snarling bobcat. A coat rack fashioned out of the stuffed and mounted head of a deer with the deer’s four legs and hooves pointing upward hung on the wall. (This was the only item stolen in a home burglary years later.) In front of the fireplace stood a chiseled stone mortar and pestle, an Indian relic retrieved on an outing to the mountains.

Grandpa had time to attend to detail. Life had been kind to him in the form of his marriage to my grandmother. There was family money and the family home on 20 acres of land in Southern California. Every morning, Grandpa dressed in gabardine trousers, a tweed jacket, starched white shirt and necktie stuck through with a pin sporting a Boy Scouts of America insignia. He used a talc after-shave whose scent still fills the room he died in in 1962. He eased his hand-tooled leather boots onto his feet, tucked his cigarette holder and a fresh package of Herbert Tareyton cigarettes in the inside pocket of his jacket, arranged his Stetson hat on his sparse but freshly groomed hair, and drove downtown to make his daily rounds. He visited the Citrus Exchange, the local Boy Scouts chapter, and the Mupu Grill. At each stop, he lingered to chat and smoke. When my father’s 3rd grade teacher asked the children in her class to write a paragraph about what their fathers did, my father wrote simply: “My father walks around town in his boots.”

The big house had several porches, some enclosed and some open to the outdoors. The North Porch veranda faced Ojai and Topa Topa Mountain in the distance. It swung around to the right of the original front door which fell out of use with the demise of the horse and carriage. During the lifetimes of my grandparents, guests arrived by the kitchen door and exited around a circular gravel drive approaching the entrance to Ojai Road in front of the North Porch and out the front gate.

For all of my childhood, a caged rattlesnake stood sentry on the old North Porch, watching over what had been the front entrance where guests were received and oil company executives ushered into what was then the Stewart-Hardison Oil Company, later to become Union Oil Company.

Long before I was born, company began to be diverted to the side entrance on the south side of the house. This shift signals the decline in family fortunes when my great-grandfather left his wife and family for an actress in Los Angeles. One could chart a steady decline in the life of the old house from that point forward. So really by the time my grandfather found the fledgling snake on the edge of the orange orchard in 1923, the house was well into its downward spiral.

Grandpa spotted the newly hatched rattlesnake by chance one morning when he left the house to begin his daily rounds. At first, he thought it was a piece of wood come to rest on a big rock. Upon closer examination, he saw it stir. He returned to the house for a tin bucket and came back outside. The snake had not moved. He snapped a dry branch from a nearby lemon tree and used it to ease the snake off of the rock into the bucket. He secured the bucket with heavy screen and rope, leaving it in the care of Albert Osuna, the ranch manager, while he drove to town to purchase a large glass case with a latched lid to house the snake. When he returned, he asked Albert to construct a divider with a hinged door to place inside the glass case to section off about a quarter of the space. Albert was also to build a platform for the glass case to elevate it some three feet from the floor. Thus, in 1923, the rattlesnake came to be housed in the glass case on the North Porch of my grandparents’ home. It lived in that glass case for 30 years.

Every few months, Albert caught a mouse in the barn and put it in the smaller space. I can hear my brother Jim speeding around the gravel driveway from the barn, heading for the North Porch, breathless with the news my brother John and I had been waiting for. “Albert caught a mouse. Albert caught a mouse!” Dancing a little jig up the three steps to the North Porch, Jim delivered the promise of a Sunday evening’s entertainment.

Lined up in stairstep order, we watched as the snake caught the scent of the mouse and wriggled into the smaller space to fetch his meal. We stood spellbound as the snake worked its deadly constrictions on the helpless mouse. This was our Sunday entertainment in the 1950s.

Curious as to the longevity of rattlesnakes, my grandfather wrote to National Geographic in 1950 to inquire. National Geographic informed him that they knew of one rattlesnake that had lived 17 years. Ours was the longest living rattlesnake in captivity!

Not a Sunday supper passed that we did not beg for permission to visit the rattlesnake. “If you clean your plates,” was the predictable response. On a good Sunday, we got to visit the rattlesnake and watch the wind-up monkey.

The wind-up monkey was a cherished Victorian-era toy from my grandmother’s childhood, both macabre and mesmerizing. It sat on top of an armoire in the breakfast porch where we had Sunday supper. The wind-up monkey was a mother monkey the size of a smallish real-life monkey. Its skin was fashioned of real monkey skin. It sat on a chair holding a baby monkey in its arms. One of the mother monkey’s arms was uplifted, poised to feed her baby a bottle of milk which she held aloft in her paw.

If we behaved during dinner, Grandpa brought the monkey down off the armoire onto the table and wound it up. What came next can only be described as bizarre. The mother monkey’s head nodded back and forth as her teeth chattered. The baby monkey in her arms remained passive. The chop-chop, chop-chop sound of the teeth chattering echoed throughout the window-lined breakfast room. We were enchanted. Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, the snake and the monkey. It never got old.

The 2008 Election

It has been 10 days since Barack Obama was declared the 44th President of the United States and I am still processing it! It seems so BIG to me. So miraculous! But -- conditioned by the debacle of the 2000 election and the disappointment in 2004 and deliriously happy about the 2008 outcome -- I still can't find the words to write about it. So for now, I offer this cartoon from the November 17, 1008 New Yorker magazine as a placeholder.

My Dad

I was 4 years old when my Dad came into my life. My “real” father died when I was 2. But what could be more real than a man who embraces as his own a 4-year old who had been indulged for the past two years by two sets of grandparents. With only good intentions, my grandparents tried their best to shield me from the loss of my father and to keep life normal. After my father’s death, my mother went back to secretarial school in Beverly Hills. I lived with her parents on their avocado ranch in Southern California. She visited on weekends. She was 22 years old when my father died, and her life had turned on a dime.

Dad and Mom first met at Stanford. Both were undergraduates. She was a blonde, athletic sorority girl. He was a History major who brought with him to Stanford his love of the outdoors and his passion for horses. His father, Stanford Class of early 19-something, commuted to Stanford from Southern California on horseback during his undergraduate years.

Mom was a city girl. Dad is a country fella. Oil and water. Dad grew up in the old family home built by his grandfather in the late 1800s in a ranching community in Southern California. After Stanford, Dad returned home to ponder work possibilities. About that time, my widowed Mom, a newly minted secretary, was offered a job and a cottage by a prominent rancher who lived in the same small town where my Dad had returned after college. One thing led to another, Mom and Dad re-met, and began to see each other. They were married at The Last Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas in 1949. Somewhere in a box in the old family home is a photo of the two of them, Mom in a white linen jacket, navy blue linen skirt, and blue and white spectator pumps. Dad is wearing a dark suit. They are framed under an arch that notes “The Last Frontier.”

And so began our life in small town Southern California. We lived in another old family home in Santa Paula, affectionately known to my brothers and me as “805.” Within the walls of that old green house with a solarium and a three-car garage, our family played out the 1950s family life. Dad worked. Mom stayed home. First one brother was born and then a second brother. That day at The Last Frontier may have been the first and last real happiness between my parents as it quickly became apparent that City and Country had little in common other than their 3 children.

Dad began to travel for work. Out on Monday, home on Friday. Mom was not happy. But all problems were held close; they were “private family matters.” No one else need know. My response to friction at home was to close my bedroom door and open a book. I didn’t really know Dad well in those days. In fact, it has taken me a lot of time to know my Dad.

Next week, Dad celebrates his 87th birthday. He is as trim and handsome today as he was in his Stanford undergraduate years. Most days, he still drinks a glass of whiskey. He still rides his horse. He adores his grandchildren, my two and my brother’s two. And he has learned to convey his affection to his three children. There were years when I kept a distance. We have never agreed on politics and that for me was personal for a lot of years. With time and age – mine and his – the things that separate us have receded and the things that bind us have come into sharp focus. This is the man who took me on my first camping trip to Pine Flat. This is the man who taught me to ride a horse and let me ride his Arabian mare, Lady Grey. This is the man who taught me when we were hiking to chew the wild anise to refresh my breath and to rub the wild sage between my palms to generate an amazing scent. This is the man who took a bet on a 4-year old girl and has stuck with her all these years. Happy birthday, Dad. You are loved!

Yes, We Can!

Trouble the Water

If you see one film this month, I encourage you to see Trouble the Water. My son, Alex Footman, had the good fortune to work as a Production Intern for the gifted filmmakers who produced this film. But that is not the only reason I recommend it. It is simply remarkable for its dual story lines of hope in the face of adversity and Government neglect.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Trouble the Water is directed and produced by Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine producers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. The film tells the story of an aspiring rap artist and her streetwise husband, trapped in New Orleans by deadly floodwaters, who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning. It’s a redemptive tale of self-described street hustlers who become heroes that takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen.

Trouble the Water opens the day before Katrina makes landfall, just blocks away from the French Quarter but far from the New Orleans that tourists know. Kimberly Rivers Roberts is turning her video camera on herself and her 9th Ward neighbors trapped in the city. “It’s going to be a day to remember,” Kim says excitedly into her new camera as the storm is brewing. It’s her first time shooting video and it’s rough, jumpy but dense with reality. Kim’s playful home-grown newscast tone grinds against the audience’s knowledge that hell is just hours away. There is no way for the audience to warn her. And for New Orleans’ poor, there is nowhere to run.

As the hurricane begins to rage and the floodwaters fill their world and the screen, Kim and her husband Scott continue to film, documenting their harrowing voyage to higher ground and dramatic rescues of friends and neighbors.

Intertwining Kim and Scott’s insider’s view of Katrina and powerful video with a mix of verite and in-your-face filmmaking, Deal and Lessin follow their story through the storm and its aftermath, and into a new life. Along the way, they discover Kim’s musical talent as rap artist Black Kold Madina when she finds the only existing copy of her recorded music survived the storm with a relative in Memphis. Kim’s performance in that moment reveals not only devastating skills as a musician, but compacts her life story into explosive poetry that paints a devastating picture of poverty.

Stumping for Barack Obama

The things we do for love! 1 road trip, 2 bus rides, 3 Obama House Parties; scores of phone calls, hundreds of doorbells rung, too many emails to count. Boots on the ground, finger on the dial. I have worked my heart out for Barack Obama.

Last Saturday, as I took my seat on a DC for Obama bus headed for Newport News, Virginia, I was overcome with pride. Every seat on the bus was occupied by someone whose passion for this candidate transcends the demands of every day life. There we were, lattés in hand, bundled up for stormy weather, headed to the battleground of battlegrounds – Southern Virginia – to knock on the doors of undecided voters. Ten days to go!

I recognized some of my seatmates from a February bus trip to Columbus, Ohio. That weekend, we left DC on an icy Friday afternoon and made our way up the Pennsylvania Turnpike through a snowstorm to the Columbus YMCA which hosted us for two nights. Driving through that snowstorm was like living in a snow globe for 8 hours. Most of us sat quietly, contemplating the work ahead. Occasionally, one young man flung himself out of his seat into the aisle to exhort us in a call and response: “Fired up….” “Ready to go!” “Fired up….” And so we made our way to the YMCA where we spread out our sleeping bags and slept on the gymnasium floor under overhead lights timed to stay on all night.

The next day we canvassed in neighborhoods slick with ice from a recent cold snap. Very few people were home, and most who answered their front doors declined to name their candidates. We knew we had an uphill battle in Columbus -- and not just because we were slipping on ice, but because polls favored Hillary Clinton -- but we labored on.

Last Saturday, riding the southbound bus through the early morning streets of Washington, DC, it struck me anew that I am part of something important. As our bus drove down Constitution Avenue, I was moved by the grandeur of my city. Past the OAS, the Mall, the Museum of Natural History, and then I caught a glimpse of the US Capitol. Is there any grander city in this country? Pulling out of DC on to the 14th Street Bridge, there on the hill to the right stood Mount Vernon, perched atop the Potomac River, framed in fall foliage. I am living my history.

Once on 95 South, my gaze turned inward. I heard a conversation behind me. Someone had been to Ohio. “You were in Ohio?” I asked the young man. Turns out he was but on a different weekend. This is why I am here. The shared experiences. The community. Faces of every color. People who look too young to vote, and people who are old enough to have had their hopes dashed and dashed again in past elections. We are united in purpose.

My canvassing partner and I knocked on more than 100 doors in Newport News. We spoke to 19 strong Obama supporters and a handful of McCain voters. I hope I changed the mind of one undecided which made up for the snarled, “We’re McCain people,” uttered as one front door slammed on us.

After a long and soggy day which had us out in Newport News neighborhoods from Noon to 6 PM, we boarded the bus home. If the ride down in the morning had been quiet, that was because no one was quite awake. Now, fatigue had settled in and we rode back in silence. My thoughts returned to two doors that opened to reveal first-time voters. One was Joseph who shyly told me he would probably vote for ‘the Democrat.’ I said, “You mean Barack Obama, right?” Yes, that is what he meant. I asked him if he knew his polling place. Yes, the school down the street. Did he know that the polls are open from 6 am to 7 pm? No, he did not, but he figured it didn’t matter, because he knew the polls were open for a week. When I explained that the polls are open only one day unless he voted absentee, he looked puzzled and said, “No lie?” I wrote down the date, time, and place for him on a piece of campaign literature and asked him to promise me that he would vote. “Yes, Miss,” he responded. And reached out his hand to shake mine and said, “If you didn’t tell me it was just that one day, I would never have known.” My heart leapt. That first vote is a precious birthright. Please don’t forget to vote, Joseph. It’s November 4.

Coming up on the 14th Street Bridge, homeward bound. Mount Vernon is a mere twinkle in the night sky, but the Washington Monument is lit up from below and radiating its two red eyes to keep wayward aircraft from straying into its path. Driving by the Tidal Basin, there is Thomas Jefferson, keeping watch on our liberties. He must have shed more than a few tears these past 8 years. On past the Kennedy Center and there is Abe Lincoln, maintaining his eternal vigil. What must old Abe think about the prospect of our first African-American President? Rest well, Abe. We will be in good hands.

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets, and it is to this poem -- The Summer Day -- that I so often turn these days for the question it poses: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

This is my challenge these days. I believe that the road ahead is filled with wild and precious encounters, and it is my task to recognize and live into those moments. Blessedly, I have many companions on this path, most of us with children grown and leaving the nest, some of us with careers winding down; others, like me, eager to embrace new work. My mother never spoke to even her closest friends about the matters that weighed heavily on her, and so empty nests, divorces, menopause, and illness were swept under the rug. She and her friends believed that personal issues were best held close in fear of losing face. I feel so lucky to have friends and family accompany me on this leg of the journey.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down,
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?T
ell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver ~(New and Selected Poems, Volume I)

No Problem

My mother was a stickler for manners. When company was expected, she led with, “Shake her hand and look her in the eye.” I resisted mightily, and yet I continued the tradition with my own children. My brothers and I stood when adults entered a room .We helped our grandparents on and off with their coats and held doors open for them. We were not allowed to call our parents’ friends by their first names. We were taken to task if we dropped our g’s (“I’m goin’ across the street.”) or substituted “Uh huh” or “Unh uh” for “Yes” and “No.” It was disrespectful.

My father focused on telephone manners. For some reason, it distressed him when a caller asked, “Is Ann there?” That warranted a swift, “No,” the reason being that he was the person on the other end of the phone, so technically, Ann was not “there.” Callers had better ask, “May I please speak to Ann?” or expect the dial tone.

We could not say “darn” (companion to “damn”) or “egad” (cover for “My God!”), and if any of the 3 of us issued a strong “Shoot,” we had better be certain to enunciate.

“Shut up” was a Class 1 infraction. If we said “Shut up,” we could expect a quick swipe of Ivory Soap across our tongues.

This was in the Fifties. The 1950s. Life was carefully delineated. Over here stood the adults. Over there, the children. When our parents hosted their Bridge Club at our house, we remained out of sight upstairs, away from the clink of ice cubes in the highballs and Old Fashioneds, out of the thicket of cigarette smoke, at a remove from adult conversation.

The attention to manners in my childhood home seemed obsessive. But fast forward to modern day, and where have manners gone? Who ditched the old response to “Thank you” – “You’re welcome” – in favor of “No problem?” And whence “Whatever?” What has become of handwritten thank you letters? I miss the comfort of old-fashioned manners. In a world of uncivil discourse, starting with politics and trickling down into mainstream culture, a simple “Thank you” and “You’re welcome” always bring a smile to my face!

I Am Just Fine

I am fine, thank you. No empty nest blues for me. Not this girl. Got it covered.

Years back when my friends started having babies, I listened disdainfully and dismissively as they recounted their struggles with colic. One baby stiffened and burst into tears at 6:00 PM and didn’t stop crying until 10:00 PM. Another baby screwed up her little face, turned beet red, and kicked and screamed from morning to night. To a mother, the descriptions of colic placed the childhood malady somewhere in the inner circles of Hell.

Ho hum! ‘What’s up with this,’ I thought. ‘Come on! It can’t be that bad.’ What was it with my young friends that a little fussing put them off? ‘Get a grip, Mamacita,’ I murmured under my breath. I cluck, cluck, clucked with each and every colic story. I listened to every detail with an understanding heart and a frozen smile. But underneath that civilized demeanor, I pitied these weak sisters. Clearly, they were out of control.

Fast forward a few years to the birth of my daughter, a smiling, cooing baby who ate and slept on schedule and made so few demands that I actually woke her up early from her every-three-hour naps because she was such a delight. Seven years later, my ball of fire son was born, entering the world after a short, intense labor with what seemed to me great hurry – a hurry that carried him through infancy into childhood. From Day One, he never napped. I fed him and put him in his bassinet. Minutes or hours later – it really didn’t matter – when I went in to check on him, he lay there wide-eyed. He slept for nothing.

Despite the absence of a dependable schedule, things hummed along. From time to time, my son had a good squall, but it passed quickly. My daughter continued on her course as a model citizen. Then October arrived and things turned on a dime. My energetic son became possessed of the Demon Colic. Yes, colic. In a flash, my arrogance, my smugness, my ‘get a grip’ ness went out the window and in that instant I KNEW. As my sweet son’s body stiffened, his face a hitherto unknown shade of maroon, a primal scream – infant-sized – emerging from his depths, I knew what my young friends had been through. They weren’t making it up.

Of course, we weathered colic. It took its course in three nightmarish months and we moved on to other delights and challenges. So one might imagine that I would have learned from colic that there are certain events, milestones, and thresholds that beg to be reported, and by reporting, the reporter gains a level of support from loving friends and family. There are certain times in a woman’s life when the kindness – and, dare I say, experience and expertise -- of others goes a long way. It was those very friends whose babies had tormented them with infant colic who coddled and cajoled me as I ministered to my colicky baby.

Why, then, my smugness in the face of another milestone much later down the road: my youngest child’s departure for college? My empty nest.

To be fair, I think the smugness was collective this time, rather than individual. Once that door closed on the last dorm room, we who were sending children off to their own lives believed that adventures were going to pop. We worshipped at the altar of transformation. We would redecorate rooms, travel to exotic places, forge new careers, join gyms, write books. At last, we had time for ourselves. Like magic, rich experiences would fill in the spaces taken by daily carpools, endless loads of laundry, sports practices, three squares a day (diminishing to two and often one as our children acquired busy schedules).Anything was possible: diets, dalliances, destinations. We had been keeping notes.

Oh, believe me, I was ready for this milestone. I was going to make a seamless transition into my empty nest. Sure, there was that moment when I took my leave after settling my daughter into her dorm for her first year of college. I burst into one of those snorting, snuffling, salivating sobs as I said goodbye to her. I cried from Boston to Philadelphia, and can’t remember what went on from Philly to DC. But that was 1998. I had grown and matured since then. I was ready when my youngest child headed off to college in 2005. I would go straight from all those years of single parenting into my new life. No muss, no fuss.

Never mind that I had been the only parent in their lives and that parenting them was the one thing I had wanted to do most in my life. (Career considerations took a back seat until I finally acknowledged that what I have is not a career but work. Meaningful work.)
My kids and I had been a tight unit for a decade. But, hey, that wouldn’t change. They would be home for visits.

I took pride in an orderly and dignified exit after helping my son unpack in his freshman dorm. No snorting. No snuffling. My daughter and I waved a jolly goodbye and headed home. Oh, yeah, I was going to be fine. No question. I was going to go right on home, unpack my overnight bag, and settle into my new life.

The truth is that as confident as I pretended to be, I had become simply a mother without kids at home. And that confused and sometimes stung. This wasn’t colic. This was forever. The house was too quiet and too tidy. I was eating tuna sandwiches for dinner. And what’s up with doing only one load of laundry a week?

And so began a conversation that I have plied with friends and family since that day. Who am I now? Am I still a parent? A parent with parameters? Should I still ship off the boxes of Emergen-C at the first sign of a cold snap? Do they know how to drive on icy roads? Are they eating properly? It’s still not clear to me who I am now, even as my oldest child has finished graduate school and launched her career and my youngest child will graduate from college next spring. This much I know: I will always be their mother.

Politics

Twenty years ago, I published a newsletter called Local Politics. The name was borrowed from Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill's shared wisdom that "All politics is local." I wrote about Thomas Jefferson, Ferdinand Marcos, and Phyllis Schlafly. I tackled human rights, women’s rights, and war powers.

I was fresh off a ten-year position as speechwriter and legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Tom Eagleton of Missouri. I was unabashedly passionate about politics. With one year of college behind me, I had improbably landed this job that put me smack in the company of such giants as Hubert Humphrey, Mike Mansfield, and Ed Muskie. My boss, Tom Eagleton was a giant among giants. He had just been reelected to the United States Senate by a groundswell in his native Missouri. Working for him was a crash course in history, constitutional law, and quick wit. It was pure fun. Tom Eagleton was the best boss and the best mentor I have ever had. I can’t believe my good fortune.

In 1980, my life settled into new rhythms and I set aside politics. Now, in 2008, politics has again seized me. But today, I view politics through the haze of time. And just as politics has changed in the decades since I served as Tom Eagleton’s speechwriter, so have I. Where once I viewed politics as the highest calling, recently it has become a blood sport. Lock and load. Slash and burn. Take no prisoners. It can be hard to distinguish the substance through the fog of electoral war. Today’s politics generates more heat than light. I say, “Let there be light.” Bring back the old days when politics called us to our higher selves.

I recall a heady day in the summer of 1961 when an aunt who worked at the State Department took me to work with her, with the promise of a surprise in the afternoon. At 3:00 PM, we rode the elevator to the basement. I thought we were going home early and headed for her car. “Wait here with me,” she said, motioning to a patch of sidewalk near the elevator.

Minutes later, two large men carrying walkie-talkies emerged from the elevator and asked us to “Step aside, ladies.” We did, and within minutes, standing smack in front of me was President John Kennedy and his Press Secretary, Pierre Salinger. No rope line, no buffer. They shook our hands and walked to the waiting Cadillac. The memory still kicks up the butterflies that took flight in my 16-year old stomach.

It’s been too long since I’ve felt that way. Too long since I’ve been stirred by ideas, summoned to common cause, compelled to action. This year is different. This year, ideas are back. After eight years of political drought, this year I believe we will elect the leaders we deserve: Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And when that happens, I intend to run out my front door, jump up and click my heels, and shout at the top of my lungs: “I love politics.”

Please Don't Call Me 'Young Lady!'

Please don’t call me “young lady.” That is code for “old.” Please don’t “ma’am” me. Just state your business without the honorific. And to the man on the street who offered me a note of cheer the other day -- “Buck up, Grandma” -- shame on you! You know better! Even if you think it, please don’t speak it. Let me ease into this!

I am only 63. I’ve got all my marbles, the energy of a 30-year (+/-) old, and, yes, some gray hair. I am not old. And even if I am, that is not your call! I will figure it out for myself and, when that time comes, perhaps I will look upon your ‘ma’ams,’ your ‘young ladies,’ and even possibly your ‘Grandmas’ as a compliment. Just not right now.

Forgive me, but it was only recently that I figured out that I am not even a Baby Boomer as I was born in 1945, on the cusp of that much probed and prodded generation. It is just this year that my almost-peers are catching up to me in age. That leaves me somewhere adrift on the vast tundra between the Greatest Generation (my parents) and the Baby Boomers (1946-1964) with whom I have identified since my freshman year at Berkeley. I am declaring right here, right now: I am a Boomer. You can’t take that away from me!

It’s a funny thing, growing old in this culture. You are suddenly at the mercy of hairdressers who assume you want to be dyed, teased, and sprayed beyond an inch of your scalp in a desperate effort to hide your age. The result is all too often a Crayola-ed, lacquered, helmeted head that betrays not only your age but your vanity. You do not look young; you merely look confused. And of course this transformation all takes place in a chair situated in front of a full-length mirror, next to a chair which boasts a young golden girl whose vanity and chin are intact.

I say no thank you to the “woman of a certain age” look. That went out with Mr. Ralph, my mother’s hairdresser, who specialized in “frosting” her hair to make it blonder, except that it ended up looking like a weasel pelt. My wise friend, Cele, has the brilliant idea of creating a national bad hairdresser registry for women of a certain age who wish to hold on to their dignity!
At 60, you become an object of concern for kindly grocery clerks who inquire sympathetically, “Help you out with those bags, ma’am?” (A double whammy!) I may be hyper sensitive, but I got myself into the store unaided. I loaded those groceries in my cart single-handedly. By golly, I will help myself out.

And it’s not just the hair and the dry goods situations. It’s realizing that your time is passing and things are changing. I grew up in an age where bra straps and boxer shorts were invisible undergarments, not fashion statements. A time when the response to “Thank you” was “You’re welcome,” not “No problem!” We stood when our teachers entered the classroom and shook their hands at the end of the class. We were inducted into young adulthood on the day our parents encouraged us to ask “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” if we might call them by their first names. We believed the directive “duck and cover” would spare us the horrors of nuclear fallout.

Now that I am 63, I sometimes feel that my views bore my younger acquaintances who should rather, in my opinion, embrace the wisdom of my years. Now that I am 63, I feel invisible on the street and conspicuous in settings where people are in a hurry. But it’s not all bad! The advantage is that I am becoming a better listener and observer. I, the unheard, the unnoticed, am turning my gaze outward, studying you! Sometimes, I will admit, with envy as I admire the brilliance and creativity of 20- and 30-somethings. Sometimes with longing as I cannot recall where the time has gone since my children -- now 28 and 21 -- were little and I began to whisk away toward my gentle night. It simply takes my breath away that time has vanished in such a flash.

Still, for the time being, old is someone else. I will decide when I am old. To borrow from The Man Who Calls Himself our President, ‘I am the decider.’ Not you on the street, not AARP, not the clerk at Safeway. And the next time I am ma’amed, young ladied, or Grandmaed, watch out: I just may go Senior on you, and it won’t be pretty. Just like Travis Bickel, I’ve been practicing. “You talkin’ to me? Huh? Are YOU talkin’ to ME?” I’ve got the menacing look, the turn-on-a-dime pivot, and the quick (unarmed) draw down pat. You are no match for me, friend.

Underneath this carefully tousled traces-of-blonde hair, beyond the encroachment of crow’s feet and the drawstring purse lips beats the heart of a 63-year old woman who is read to summon her remaining youth to the test. No, I am not old. That’s our little secret, and let’s keep it that way for now. I have not begun to wear my trousers rolled and I have yet to hear the mermaids sing. So how about the next time our paths cross, you just look my way and smile? Our little secret!

by Ann J. Procter