Remembering When

Hair in the Age of Aquarius

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Kathleen Fox

The Age of Aquarius? Maybe. But an even better name for the late 1960’s and early 70’s might be the Age of Hairiness. After all, even the song proclaiming “the dawning of the Age of Aquarius” came from the musical “Hair.”

I remember, as a college freshman, walking across the campus one day behind one of the senior girls. One of the campus leaders, she was brisk and pretty, articulate and poised in ways that intimidated shyer girls like me into speechlessness. She was striding along with her usual straight-backed confidence, a cascade of soft brown curls rippling down her back, shining in the sunlight and bouncing with every step.

Those gleaming curls that gave her such an air of confident beauty probably came at a cost. Most likely, she had spent a restless night with her hair wound on huge rollers or juice cans.

Girls lacking the fortitude to torture their skulls with insomnia-inducing rollers sometimes went to the opposite extreme. They spread their long locks across the bed and had them ironed. The goal was a perfectly straight, shining curtain, the longer the better. One girl in my dorm had a glorious fall of red-gold hair that reached past her waist. Vigilant against the deadly threat of split ends, she trimmed a careful fourth of an inch every two weeks with her nail scissors.

All the attention girls paid to their hair was greatly appreciated by makers of shampoo and conditioner, if less so by the declining permanent-wave industry. But the real hair-raising excitement of the 60’s focused on boys. They started—gasp!—letting their hair grow so long it touched their collars.

This was largely blamed on the Beatles, whose outrageous mops struck some shocked observers as the most depraved male attribute to hit American television since Elvis Presley’s swiveling hips. Disgusted fathers issued ultimatums and marched boys into barbershops at the point of a rat-tailed comb. Schools added hair length (short was good) as well as skirt length (short was bad) to their dress codes. Editorials were published. Sermons were preached. A high old dudgeon of a time was had by all.

Looking back, it all seems a bit ridiculous. At the time, I suppose, the larger social upheavals and power struggles that no one knew what to do with were reflected in the smaller battles over boys’ hair.

Now, with those social changes overtaken by even greater ones, at least the matter of hair has largely gone back to being a private rather than a public concern. Nobody seems to care much what boys do to theirs. Girls, of course, still generously support the shampoo/conditioner/hair color sector of the economy, though curling irons have saved them from having to choose between vanity and sleep.

There’s one area, though, where hair still seems to be a concern. The more fundamentalist branches of several religions place an absurd amount of importance on women’s hair. Mostly, it seems to matter very much to God that they keep it covered.

Really? God cares that much about women’s hair? One might think God has more important things to do.

Personally, I doubt that God pays much attention. In support of that belief, here’s just one piece of evidence: I still occasionally see the woman whose hair impressed me so vividly back in college. She is still pretty, still confident and poised and slightly intimidating. But her now-white and now-thin hair is cut into stark stubble about an inch long. Like many of the rest of us, she has reached the age of “This is the first bad hair day of the rest of your life.”

If God really cared about women’s hair, this wouldn’t happen. As a being of great age and wisdom Herself, She surely wouldn’t allow it.

Categories: Odds and Ends, Remembering When | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

Family Heirlooms

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Kathleen Fox

What makes something a family heirloom? Age? Value? Ownership? The fact that two or more family members stop speaking to each other because they have a big fight over it?

I hate to say it, but that last reason might be the most valid.

Merriam-Webster defines “heirloom” as “something of special value handed on from one generation to another.” It doesn’t, however, try to define “special value.”

That’s wise of Merriam-Webster, because the value of an heirloom doesn’t necessarily have much to do with how much cash you could get if you sold it on EBay or Craig’s List or at a local antiques shop. The real “special value” that transforms something into an heirloom is the stories around it.

I remember years ago visiting the Pioneer Memorial Museum in Salt Lake City. In one room was a collection of beautiful old pianos. One of them had traveled from England, first by sea and then from St. Louis by wagon. Its owner was a widow with six or seven children, the youngest of whom, if I remember correctly, didn’t survive the voyage.

Another instrument, a square grand piano that would need a sizeable parlor to house it, had an even more interesting history. The wagon train it traveled with apparently started somewhat late in the year and needed to speed up the last part of their journey in order to get across the mountains before snow came. They dug a pit, wrapped the piano in hides (beaver, I think), buried it for the winter, and went back to retrieve it the following year. Since it was in immaculate condition more than a century later, it apparently survived its temporary entombment perfectly well.

I enjoyed seeing the pianos and reading their stories, but it was also a little sad to see them sitting in a museum, unplayed and labeled with “do not touch” sign. These were family heirlooms that were no longer in their families.

One of the heirlooms in my family is a parlor organ. Its history isn’t quite so dramatic as that of the continent-crossing pianos, but it did make its own journey across the prairies by wagon. The trip, from the southeastern corner of South Dakota to the family homestead in the south-central part of the state, took three rainy weeks in the spring of 1905 and included crossing the Missouri River by ferry.

I remember my grandmother playing that organ, which she did by ear because she didn’t read music. My sisters and I—with the benefit of enough piano lessons to make us dangerous—used to play on it, too. We would pull out the various stops to see what differences they made in the sound and pump the pedals until our legs got tired. The collection of old music books and sheet music in the library table was where I discovered a whole new set of verses to “My Darling Clementine.” My favorite, and the only one I still remember, was: “How I missed her, how I missed her, how I missed my Clementine; Till I kissed her little sister, then forgot my Clementine.”

One of my sisters still has the organ. The next time we visit, I might have to introduce my youngest grandchild to it. At age 15 months, he likes music, and I imagine he would have great fun pulling out all the stops. And if we paired him with his slightly older cousin, they could take turns on the pedals.

It would add one more generation of stories to this particular family heirloom. They might even get into a big fight over it. And maybe they would eventually learn to play “My Darling Clementine.”

Categories: Family, Remembering When | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

A Little Too Close and Personal

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Kathleen Fox

When I was a kid, going to the circus was a big deal. In Winner, South Dakota, in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the circus wasn’t held in a “big top.” It was in the open air at the baseball field. Since the field was lighted, it was a perfect venue for an outdoor circus, especially at night.

I remember being awed by the elephants striding across the ground with ponderous dignity, carrying beautiful women in splendid clothes. I remember watching the aerialists out over the field, high above our heads. Their costumes glittered in the lights as they swung from trapezes, twisting and twirling and flinging themselves through the air. It was breathtaking. It was beautiful. It was magical.

Then one year, when I was probably ten or eleven, for some reason the circus was held indoors. I remember walking into the Winner city auditorium with my sisters, scurrying through the crowd, almost overwhelmed by the people and the noise, and finally finding room to squeeze into one of the upper rows of the packed bleachers.

In this makeshift space, even our upper bleacher seats were like being in the front row. The elephants were only a few feet away. The aerial acts were almost at eye level. Instead of seeing the performers as remote creatures, way up in the air in the spotlights, we were up close and personal.

And I was shocked.

The elephants were still dignified. But their skin looked worn and rough, their headdresses were a little dingy, and, to put it bluntly, they smelled really awful.

The aerialists were no longer the beautiful, fairy-like flying creatures I expected. They were dreadfully ordinary, even plain. The flowing golden hair on some of the women was clearly dyed. Some of them even looked old—maybe as ancient as 40 or so. Their glamorous costumes, seen that close, didn’t look much different from swim suits. Some of them had obviously been mended. The sequins lost much of their sparkle in the everyday indoor lighting.

Even worse, I started to recognize performers from one act to the next. It was disconcerting to realize that “Madame Yvette” with her dancing poodles was the very same woman I had just seen swinging from a trapeze as part of the “Flying Santorinis.”

Without the lights and the distance, the illusion that helped make the acts so marvelous was destroyed. The reality was such a disappointment that I lost much of my childhood enthusiasm for the circus. I had seen too much of it, too close. The magic was gone.

I’ve been to a few circuses since then. I’ve enjoyed them. But I’ve never recaptured my early awe and wonder. I know too much about the reality behind the illusion.

I clearly remember the last time I went to a circus. Unbelievably, it was 25 years ago. It was the first time I met my soon-to-be stepchildren. Believe me, there were plenty of illusions involved on that occasion.

Thank goodness that, over the years, we’ve grown to know each other well enough to get past most of those illusions. It hasn’t always been an easy process. But the closer we have become, the more we have learned to value reality.

Just think about the distance it takes to maintain our illusions about other people. A couple you know slightly might seem to have a perfect marriage. Unless you get close, you have know way to know what really goes on between them. I used to see other stepfamilies who seemed to be doing everything right. As I got to know them better, I realized most of them had the same struggles and challenges that we did.

This week we enjoyed a performance of “Hairspray” by a local theatre group. The singers and dancers were graceful, energetic, and polished. Whether they were veterans or this was their first time on stage, they all looked confident and comfortable. It wasn’t until after the show, when dozens of cast members surged into the theatre lobby on a wave of adrenaline, that we could feel the nervous energy they must have been feeling. From the audience, we weren’t aware of the sweaty palms and the shaking knees.

There’s a time and place for illusion, and I greatly appreciate the many performers who put so much discipline and practice into creating illusions that we can enjoy. But I have come to appreciate even more the reality behind those illusions. Whether it’s a show, a job, or a family, the most incredible performances are the ones given by people who show up, day after day, and do what they do.

Who have the courage, the grace, and the heart to do what needs to be done—and even to make it look easy. To get up close and personal. To live with reality—even when some of its sequins are missing.

Because reality, I now know, is where the real magic happens.

Categories: Family, Living Consciously, Remembering When | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

Little People at the Holiday Table

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Kathleen Fox

Sitting around the breakfast table on Christmas morning over our traditional homemade cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs, and bacon, I had an epiphany. (Is it permissible to have an epiphany on Christmas Day, or does it have to wait until January 6? Maybe it’s okay as long as it’s an epiphany with a small “e.”)

Anyway, it happened about the time I was eating my fourth (or fifth or thirteenth—but who’s counting?) piece of bacon and watching the three newest participants in this particular tradition. The two-and-a-half-year-old, having rejected the unabridged dictionary as a booster seat, was on his knees in a chair of his own. The two littler ones, just past one and not quite one, were on their mother’s laps. They intercepted bites of egg with surprising tidiness and did their best to get a full share of the bacon. They seemed enthusiastic about the cinnamon rolls, too—though I did have some suspicions about my daughter’s request for a third one “because the baby ate all of the last one.”

And that’s when I had the small-e epiphany. “Oh my gosh. We’re going to need a kids’ table.”

One of the biggest blessings in my life right now is having two of my kids and their growing families living right here in Rapid City. And that means, one of these years, at family gatherings we will need an extra table for short people. A place where they can skip their green beans without anyone noticing, decorate their fingertips with black olives, and giggle a lot over conversations not meant for adult ears.

Just to be clear, in my experience the point of having a kids’ table isn’t to segregate squirmy small people with rudimentary table manners away from the good china and crystal. It’s more about squeezing people into the available space. At family gatherings when I was growing up, the kids were put at the kitchen table and card table because the dining room table, even expanded with all its leaves, would only hold 12 or 14.

It was usually fun at the kids’ table, of course. And sometimes educational. I remember one discussion about whether some red stuff in a little bowl was jelly or Jell-O. No one wanted to be the first to taste it. When someone finally got brave and tried half a spoonful, we still weren’t sure. (All these years later, I assume it must have been cranberry sauce.)

Still, I always felt I was missing out by not being at the adult table, because so many family members were and are such great storytellers. I loved hearing their stories, and every time I heard a burst of laughter from the dining room I assumed I had just missed one.

So at our house, when we do need a kids’ table, I hope we have room to put it at just the right distance from the adults’ table. It’s a delicate balance. They need to be far enough away so we can pretend we don’t hear or see what they’re doing. Yet I’d like them close enough so, if they want to, they can easily eavesdrop on our conversations. It’s just one more way of passing along the family stories. Especially, perhaps, the ones we don’t necessarily intend them to hear.

Categories: Family, Food and Drink, Living Consciously, Remembering When | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

Black and White and Plaid All Over

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Kathleen Fox

ReunionMatchDresses-smThe photograph is black and white, but the dresses were green and white plaid. My mother had sewed them for us, all alike, their short sleeves and full skirts decorated with rickrack. All five of us wore them to the annual family reunion picnic.

The little girls in the photo aren’t quite as identical as the dresses. My sister and my two cousins, all aged four going on five, are smiling prettily, sitting in graceful poses with their skirts spread around them in neat circles. My younger cousin, not yet a year old, is willing to sit still and have her picture taken but looks a little confused.

Then there’s me, aged just two. I’m sitting in the back row with my skirt spread out over my chubby legs that stick straight out in front of me. I’m smiling, sort of, because I’m sure someone told me to smile, but I’m not looking at the camera.

I’m looking at one of the two older girls in the picture, who are second cousins to the rest of us, and I’m not happy.

Not because I didn’t like them; at that stage in my young life, I didn’t even know them. But I knew one thing for sure—they did not belong in this picture. They didn’t have green and white plaid dresses. They were wearing shorts and blouses. They didn’t match.

The whole point of the photograph, as I understood it then (and still do, now that I think about it), was to preserve an image of the five of us in our matching dresses. Our mothers had sat us down on the grass and arranged our skirts just so in order to show them to best advantage. Then, after all the fussing and preparation, before the picture was actually taken, somebody invited the other two girls to join us.

I clearly remember my feeling of indignation. Including them when they didn’t match simply was not right. It missed the whole point of taking the picture. I didn’t object or cry or make a fuss about it. Even if I had, I don’t suppose anyone would have realized just what I was objecting to. I just sat there, smiling dutifully through my scowl, knowing full well that the grownups weren’t doing this the way it should have been done.

It would seem that an option would have been to take one picture of the five of us and another of the seven of us. But this was in 1953, when developing a roll of pictures was expensive for struggling young families. So we all sat in our identical dresses; the interlopers sat in their nonconformity; the mother with the camera pointed and shot; and that was that.

But this isn’t the whole story when it comes to those matching dresses. At some time during this same reunion, apparently I eluded my parents, wandered off, and ended up in the middle of somebody else’s family picnic. Maybe I was still mad about the picture. But it’s far more likely that I just followed some older kids or was merely meandering. In any case, someone from the other group brought me back safe and sound, knowing exactly where I belonged because of the dress I was wearing.

You would think, to a two-year-old, an experience like this would have been memorable, even frightening. It certainly was for my parents. But I don’t remember it at all. Maybe getting lost wasn’t all that scary. Or else one group of grownup legs around some picnic tables looks a lot like another, and I had no idea I was lost. Whatever the reason, the only big deal for me that day was having our picture taken with the matching dresses.

All these years later, it’s useful to remember this story as I hang out with some of my youngest grandkids. Most of the time I have no idea what they might remember or what they are thinking. It is clear, though, that they have some very decided opinions. It’s probably wise to have a little respect for those opinions.

After all, someday they just might put stories about their early memories all over the Internet. I just hope they aren’t the type to hold grudges.

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Look, look, look. See Dick and Jane sweat.

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Kathleen Fox

Okay, class. Here’s a question for you. If you think it’s a good idea to send kids back to school in the middle of August, raise your hands.

I don’t see a single hand in the air. What? You don’t think sweaty little kids, especially those lucky enough to go to school in old buildings with no air conditioning, are going to learn well when it’s 90-plus degrees? When they’d rather be at the pool or somewhere enjoying the last few weeks of what used to be considered summer vacation?

At least kids here in Rapid City don’t start school till next week. (When, by the way, we’re supposed to have the hottest weather we’ve had all summer.) But other less fortunate little learners have already been in their classrooms for a week or even two. One of my grandkids even missed the first week of kindergarten because of a family wedding scheduled for what the parties involved naively still considered to be “summer.”

Given that he’s a bright kid and enthusiastic about school, I doubt that missing a few days at the beginning of his academic journey will cause any lasting harm. Maybe he still learned to read in the second week.

I know, I know, learning to read isn’t supposed to happen that fast. Kids learn letters, and then they learn sounds, and then words, and then simple sentences. But sometimes, along the way, there’s a magical moment when everything suddenly makes sense. That’s what happened to me.

Kindergarten for me meant going to a one-room country school for the last six weeks of the spring term. I don’t remember the first day of school; I don’t remember the teacher’s name or what she looked like. But I do remember vividly the day—the moment even—that I learned to read.

The book was a thin paperback, battered and dog-eared and long out of date even then. It was one of those old schoolroom classics about Dick and Jane. The first story had pictures of Spot chasing Puff across the yard, while Dick and Jane watched. They were jumping up and down with excitement—it didn’t take much to get Dick and Jane excited—and Dick was pointing and shouting something. There were words under the pictures, and the teacher helped me sound them out. “See Spot. See Spot run.”

The language of those books has long since become a joke. Three or four generations of us could chant in parody: “Oh, oh, oh. Look, look, look. See Spot run.”

When I was five, though, it wasn’t a cliché; it was magic. Suddenly something clicked, and I was reading. The pictures told me what was happening, and the words told me what Dick was saying to Jane. Together they made up a story, and I had just read it for myself.

I hope, in between wiping their sweaty little hands on their new school clothes and making trips to the water fountain to try to cool off, little kids in classrooms all over the country get a chance to experience that same magic.

Categories: Remembering When | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

From Smoking to Drinking

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Kathleen Fox

Watching a recent documentary about the civil rights movement, I was struck by one dramatic difference between the United States of the 1950’s and 1960’s and the United States of today.

Not the status of blacks. Nor the status of women. The status of smokers.

They were everywhere. The documentary included old news footage of a civil rights leader testifying before Congress. He was sitting behind a microphone, answering questions, and after every response he would take another draw on his cigarette. No doubt many of the Congressmen asking the questions were doing much the same thing.

Now, if anyone would dare to light a cigarette in the hallowed halls of our nation’s capitol, somebody would call security faster than you could say “Marlboro Man”.

During the 50’s and 60’s, getting ready for a governmental session or a business meeting probably meant having a secretary set out pens and notepads for every participant and make sure there were plenty of clean ashtrays. Clean, probably, because she had emptied them at the end of the previous meeting.

Now, getting ready for a governmental session or a business meeting probably means having an intern make sure the Wifi and the Power Point projector are working. Any participants archaic enough to need pens and paper are expected to bring their own. There probably isn’t an ashtray in the whole building. The few remaining smokers in the group will arrive at the last possible minute, because they’ve been somewhere outside in the smoking area grabbing a quick cigarette before the meeting.

There is, however, still something the intern needs to put at every place: a plastic bottle of water.

In today’s world, bottles of water are as common as cigarettes were several decades ago. We carry them on walks. We keep them at our desks and in our cars. We take them to athletic events, concerts, and meetings. And I’m sure no one testifying before Congress—or in any other hot seat—would be without one.

In many ways, too, bottles of water have become useful props in the same way cigarettes used to be. You need some time to frame an answer to a difficult question? Then: take a puff of tobacco. Now: take a sip of water. You aren’t being quite precisely truthful? Then: hide your face behind a cloud of smoke. Now: hide your face behind your water bottle. And now, of course, if you get really desperate, you can always ask for a break so you can go to the restroom. Nobody will question it; after all, you have been drinking all that water.

In future documentaries about our particular time in history, viewers are going to point this out to each other: “Just look—there’s a plastic water bottle at every seat! Couldn’t any of these people go ten minutes without a drink?”

The change from ubiquitous cigarettes to ubiquitous water bottles certainly is an improvement. Water guzzlers have to be healthier than smokers, especially when you factor in the fitness benefits of all those extra trips to the bathroom.

Water is a lot cheaper than tobacco, too. Well, except maybe for those deluded souls who pay extra for the special ultra-pure kinds that supposedly come from secret, super-beneficial springs in the rain forest or the mountains. But even if you buy the store brands by the case, you’re paying a lot for liquid you can get almost anywhere for free. And that doesn’t even count the larger cost of making all those plastic bottles and dealing with the billions of empties.

Imbibers who care about the planet and are really frugal carry reusable bottles, filled with pure, filtered water from that secret, special location—the nearest faucet. Just think of it as the 21st Century version of rolling your own.

There is one final advantage of drinking over smoking. If a clueless nicotine addict is foolish enough to light up in your presence, all you have to do is douse the cigarette with your bottle of water.

Categories: Food and Drink, Remembering When | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

The Biggest Jackass in the Family Tree

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Kathleen Fox

Genealogy has its hazards. When you start digging around among your ancestors, you never know just what you might find. Sometimes you come across information that isn’t appropriate to include in the official record.

This happened to me last week. It all started when my mother asked me to help her assemble a book of family history. I learned something that didn’t seem right to include in the book. Still, I just had to tell somebody, so here it is. It can be a just our little secret.

Back in 1925, after losing the lease on their rented farm, my grandparents had an auction to sell their machinery and livestock. My mother’s genealogy material included one of the original sale bills. She also had a couple of photographs of what was clearly a mule, described as “Jack” in someone’s faded handwriting, with a note that “Grandpa was proud of this mule.”

Among the horses listed on the sale bill was a “Mammoth Jack, 12 yrs. old, wt. 1100.” Also listed were six mares described as “bred to Jack.”

At this point, the elf in my brain who keeps track of odd bits of information piped up and said, “Wait a minute. A jack is what a male donkey is called, but at 1100 pounds that critter was no donkey. But mules are hybrids. They’re almost always sterile. How could those mares have been bred to a mule?”

Like any dedicated researcher faced with facts that seem to contradict each other, I knew just what to do. I asked my mother.

She knew that her father had owned a mule, but didn’t remember much else. Not surprising, since she wasn’t even born till several months after the farm sale.

Then I asked Google. Where I discovered that “Mammoth Jack” was a separate breed of “mammoth donkey” developed as draft animals in the 1700’s and 1800’s, mostly in Europe. Several Americans were involved in getting the breed established here; George Washington was one of them. Mammoth Jacks are still around as a designated breed with their own registry. They don’t need to be included in anybody else’s family tree, thank you very much; they have their own.

At half a ton each, these animals clearly aren’t donkeys. But it’s probably not wise to call one a “jackass,” either. Not unless you use a very respectful tone.

Categories: Family, Remembering When | Tags: , , | 3 Comments

“Open Wider, Please.”

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Kathleen Fox

Okay, I admit it. I bit him. But he started it—he hurt me first.

True, that’s not much of an excuse. But surely I wasn’t the only child to have committed this particular offense. I can’t be the only one who ever bit the dentist. I may, however, have been the oldest one. I was nine or ten at the time, certainly old enough to have known better.

I remember it clearly, because it was such a deliberate choice. I’m not sure what the dentist was doing, but it hurt, and in cold-blooded retaliation I bit down on his fingers. His only response was to say quietly, “Open up a little wider, please.”

Which perhaps was the appropriate response, because I immediately felt so ashamed of myself that I not only opened wider, but I’ve never been tempted to bit a dentist since. (Well, maybe once. But I had great provocation. Besides, as a mature adult, I didn’t bite him. I got my revenge the 21st-century way instead, by posting something snarky about him on the Internet.)

All of this came back to me this week while I was getting my teeth cleaned. Lying back in my dentist’s well-padded chair, wearing my cool pair of plastic shades to keep the light from shining in my eyes, listening to pleasant background music, it occurred to me that going to the dentist isn’t what it used to be.

I have no desire to go back to in time when it comes to dentistry. I remember—and have no wish to repeat—that old-fashioned experience of being trapped in the chair for what seemed like hours, smelling the pungent aroma of singed tooth enamel as the drill ground deeper with excruciating slowness. I’m not sure why they even bothered to touch your teeth with the drill. The shrill, piercing noise it made was enough in itself to vibrate any cavities right off your teeth and clean out your ear wax into the bargain.

Today’s high-speech, high-tech drills are certainly a great improvement. So are the other amenities of modern dentistry.

Like the supersonic—oh, wait, maybe that was ultrasonic—cleaning tool that scrubs your teeth like a miniature vibrating fire hose and gets the job done in half the time with half the discomfort. Yes, the hygienist still does some finishing work with her little picks and scrapers, but at least it doesn’t feel so much like she’s trying to pry your back fillings loose.

Or the baby vacuum cleaner/sump pump that sucks the saliva and miscellaneous debris out of your mouth so you don’t feel as if you’re going to choke on your own spit.

Then there’s the foamy fluoride treatment stuff that tastes just slightly of citrus or mint. It fizzes as it is brushed gently across the teeth, and makes you feel a bit like a serving of strawberry shortcake being finished off with whipped cream.

I do have mixed feelings about the computer monitor that allows me such a clear look at my dental X-rays. Seeing the intimate details of my teeth, roots and all, enlarged to vampire-movie proportions, might be just a bit too much information.

But all in all, going to the dentist is much pleasanter than it used to be. Maybe that’s why none of those nostalgic tributes that circulate around the Internet look back wistfully at the “good old days” of dentistry.

Categories: Remembering When | 3 Comments

Ernest, Black Beauty, and Louisa May

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Kathleen Fox

The other evening I was browsing through books at the library. In my robe and slippers.

No, I haven’t grown so sloppy in my work-at-home environment that I go trotting off to the public library in my jammies. I do realize that in some circles pajama pants are the latest in casual wear. Still, even college kids who think nothing of heading to class in flannel pants with little green aliens on them might raise their eyebrows at my cozy fleece bathrobe and ugly knitted slipper boots.

The library I was meandering through, of course, was online. I was sitting at my own computer in the privacy of my own home, looking for books to download to my e-reader.

Things have changed just a bit from the first library I remember browsing through. It wasn’t really a “library” at all, just a single bookshelf in a one-room school house. The school was the same one my mother and my aunts and uncles had attended, and most of the books had been there since before their time. Our teacher regularly got books from the “real” library, but in the dry spells when I had read all of those and was waiting for the next batch, I read and re-read the ones from the school bookshelf.

Some of the books had probably been castoffs donated to the school years earlier, and they had been wasting shelf space in well-deserved obscurity ever since. I remember wading through an Elsie Dinsmore book, one of a preachy Christian series from the late 1800s featuring a heroine so perfect that just reading about her made you want to go do something really naughty. It was so bad I only managed to read it a couple of times in eight years.

Fortunately, there were some classics, as well. I discovered Black Beauty there, reading it in first grade for the first time and at least once every year after that till I finished eighth grade. I read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Men long before I knew she had written an earlier book about those same characters, called Little Women. Books by naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton taught me about migrating bats, the terrible power of the wolverine, and the story of Lobo, the famous New Mexico wolf who outsmarted so many human trappers before he was finally captured.

I also remember a book full of true stories about the circus. One of them described an elephant, the well-behaved and intelligent star of a German circus, who had a terrible time after she was sold to an American circus. It took much too long, in my opinion, for the new owners to figure out that the elephant didn’t understand English. Once she learned it, she became a star in her new home. And, despite the belief that elephants never forget, she eventually lost all her German.

Years later, when I read another circus book called Water For Elephants, I knew why the Polish-speaking elephant was refusing to obey orders well before any of the books’ characters caught on.

Remembering odd stuff that you read years ago is part of the magic of a library. It doesn’t matter whether it’s one bookshelf at an old country school or the latest in electronic browsing. I still love browsing through actual library shelves. I also love the fact that now, if I want to look up Black Beauty or Ernest Thompson Seton, I can easily find them online. Elsie Dinsmore is probably there, too, but I don’t want to know. Not even the latest technology could make her anything but awful.

Categories: Remembering When | 2 Comments

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