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From the first all-MAMAZINA issue ~ launched online 4/11/10

*Women's Voices Unite*

Just Another Manic Momday
Recapturing the flag
by Moi

Brightly colored ribbons tie up my childhood memories; heavy black damask suffocated my morning. It began so innocently. Did I really want to eat oatmeal for the umpteenth day in a row? No, I did not, but I dutifully boiled the gruel in hopes of raising my HDL. Just needed the finishing touches of Splenda® and yummy fat-free milk. (She said dripping with sarcasm.) Not one drop of milk in the house. The thieves drank every bit. It’s bad enough my dear darlings suck down every ounce of liquid within hours of restocking, but milk for my oatmeal is sacrosanct. Or so I thought.

What I want to do is hurl the pan out the window. Instead I storm upstairs to write. Settling in front of my laptop I connect to the Internet. I connect to the Internet. I connect…$@&%!!!!! Oh, this is too much. Is the problem with the desktop? Plod. Plod. Plod. Down the steps. Unplug the modem. Count to the end of my patience. Plug it back in. Nothing. I glance at the clock realizing a group of friends will be gathering for breakfast at a familiar spot. I dash out the door; I throw off the damask.

Visiting my friends brightens my mood, albeit a temporary measure at best, scratching the surface of a deep set desire to be anywhere but here. Here at home? Here at this stage of my life? Yes and yes. But where to go?

“In ’69 I was 21 and I called the road my own. I don’t know when that road turned onto the road I’m on.”

But I want to know. I’m tired of running on empty. So Jackson Browne and I drive – reminded of a time eons ago, pre-GPS, when I chose a road, any road, and cruised my ’63 Chevy Super Sport convertible for hours until I felt like turning around. Doesn’t take a mental giant to realize that if you stay on the same road you never get lost.

Or do you?

I may not be sure where I’m going, but I do know where I’ve been. And that’s where my car steered me – on a trip down memory lane. 45 minutes later I’m driving past abandoned rubber factories. Goodyear, Goodrich, Firestone, Seiberling, General Tire. No production for years. No more flashing “Go Go Goodyear” sign visible from high atop the bridge. Skies clear of the black, billowing smoke. City clear of jobs and people.

This is my exit. This is my street. OK, I’m getting close. Slow down. Almost there. Girard? Girard! My Lord, I missed my own house! I double back down the alley. The alley I’d crossed a million times running to Mrs. Sutherland’s house to water her endless display of dazzling flowers standing proud in their built-up brick flowerbeds. All the lovely flowerbeds are ripped out. Every one. A big brown fence separates her yard from the neighbor’s.

On my left is the ride-your-bike-all-day-long-in-the-churchyard church. Me and my 10-speed cruised every inch of the gargantuan lot. Surely I wasn’t three inches tall as a child, was I? What other explanation could there be to explain this miniscule blacktopped strip? This is not the churchyard of my dreams. But here’s where Mrs. Starcher’s garden bordered the lot. A child took her life in her hands attempting to retrieve a lost bouncy ball clumping through the prized veggies.

I drive all five car lengths into the churchyard. Yep, it’s still standing – the five foot high “thing” I used to be able to jump up on if I tried really hard. And the forbidden steps leading up to the forbidden church. Some grown up must have gotten smart over the years and blocked the clandestine rendezvous spot of curious 10-year-olds. But the big wide steps in front of the church are exactly the same as I recall. Identical. They look just as they looked for all those slides down the banisters. They must be the exact same banisters.

Five houses made up my little block. And not a fence in sight as I was growing up. Sadly, I barely glimpse my backyard for all the fences this day. I drive around to the front. What happened to the beautiful white porch with the porch swing? And the bushes? And how on earth did the front lawn shrink so much? I played statue tag for hours on the sprawling grass in my bare feet. Do my eyes further deceive me? This cannot be Mrs. Reed’s driveway. Or Mrs. Reed’s house or lawn or porch about which I have written so many stories of my youth. One word comes to mind: Travesty!

Undaunted, I drive to my grade school, past the park where the Cinderella coach used to be. A boy carved his and my initials in the paint. How terribly romantic. Long gone. Junk yard scrap. Boo hoo. Here’s the parking lot where I played kickball. I loved kickball. Happily, this looks the same with only the addition of handicapped parking signs. Come to think of it, I had volleyball practice on this very lot in 7th and 8th grades. Go Tigers!

The windows of the school are boarded up. The little alcove on the playground where Monica, Lorraine and I sought solace from the fast runners, Tom and Jerome, is no more. Enormously tall slide also vanished. I was a chicken, but when I finally got up the nerve it was such fun bulleting down. A two-way street is now one-way, but I persevere to drive the exact route I’d walked home from school every single day for eight years. Like riding a bike, I don’t forget a single turn. Those big condos can’t fool me either. This is really the big vacant lot I cut through to save time. My footprints are imbedded under the foundations. I’m halfway home.

Hoover’s Pharmacy. Did you know that “pharmacy” is a fancy name for candy store? I don’t believe I ever walked past Hoover’s once; I always walked in. Walked in to peruse the cornucopia of penny candy back when a penny bought something. The old man behind the candy counter (He was probably 16 years old!) was incredibly patient with the afterschool crowd of persnickety penny-toting, penny-loafered babies. Sixlets were my favorite.

Past the cleaners was Patterson’s Hardware store. Still selling hardware, but not owned by my dad’s friend, Harvey, any longer. I bought my first bicycle license from Harvey, or more precisely, Mister Patterson. You know, back when being an adult garnered respect from children? Of course, not one establishment remains the same today. Vacant or different enterprises. Asian markets seem to be a big hit. And fences. So many fences.

On I walk…I mean drive…home from school. The special twistyturny bushes are still there. Each day I’d wander off the beaten path, onto the twisty path and back out again. Such fun.

Where is my sister’s handprint illegally squished into the cement sidewalk? I’m close. I know I’m close, but how can I see it from the car? I park and get out searching the small stretch of sidewalk…to no avail. But most of the break-your-mother’s-backs are snow-covered. Another trip for a spring day? I think so. It would mean so much to me to see my sister’s handprint.

Almost home, I pass the Watts’ house. I cannot begin to relate the endless fun enjoyed within those four walls with my best friend, Judy. Here’s the big brick porch we jumped off in the fall – straight down into the soft pile of fallen leaves.

And I am home.

It took forever to walk this mile as a child. As an adult, in a car, I can practically see my house from school. Again I say, I must have been a three inch child.

Two more stops in my looking glass: library and pizza place. The library where I selected my very first library book – Finders Keepers. How I hope the library will be open. I will go in and find the book smudged with my fingerprints. Unfortunately, the library is a daycare center with very high fence all around. Ever the sleuth, I make out the rusty residue from the removed metal letters: James H. Chamberlain Branch. Yep, this is really it; my young mind remembered correctly. How often had I walked through those doors?

Final stop: A Gild Pizza – the best sausage pizza in the entire world – bar none. They haven’t altered their recipe in all these years. My whole life I have been ruined for any other sausage pizza. I make do with pepperoni when I must. You really can’t screw that up. But my first and only pizza love will ever be A Gild Pizza. Today I ordered a medium double sausage pizza, and ate half of it in the car while driving home to my grown up home as overflowing happiness flooded my heart.

I captured the flag! Retrieved my ribbons once more. So what if there are fences everywhere. I’ve been in all those places. Those places belong to me, and I to them. Fences may keep others out, but not me. I’m in every room, all over the churchyard, in the school cafeteria, up in Judy’s attic, and dancing through the puddles in Mrs. Reed’s drive – memories locked in my heart forever and always.

Hey, want to know a secret? Want to know what’s better than a piping hot piece of A Gild sausage pizza? Four pieces of cold sausage pizza for breakfast. LDL be damned!

***Check out the rest of the mag! Many more columns, essays, profiles, poetry, reviews and a special feature on Antigone Rising. www.mamazina.com - formerly Mom Writer's Literary Magazine.

Happy Reading!