Mumble Jumble from my Cluttered Brain

Gene Autry

I think too much. But who doesn’t? Okay, I imagine a few hands just went up in the air. Ya, I know, over-thinking things can be a curse. And I admire those among us who can “ommmm” their way into emptying out their heads. For me, mediation is akin to sticking your head in a washing machine and spinning the unwanted thoughts out like water in wet clothing; the process is hard and out-weighs the results.

My first introduction to mediation was back in the ‘60s when I bought a book by Marharishi Mahesh Yogi titled, Transcendental Meditation, Serenity Without Drugs. He was an Indian guru who is credited with bringing Transcendental Meditation to the West. At least that’s what his Wikipedia page says but we all know that sometimes the information on those pages needs to taken with a grain of salt. I’m not saying he didn’t do that, I just don’t know and I’m too lazy to dig deeper. I like to think our Native Americans practiced mediation first on this continent in the form of puffing and passing a pipe loaded with barks, berries, herbs and other plant materials. I like to think they were able to empty their minds of I everything but the fellowship of those who were smoking the pipe with them. But what “I like to think” doesn't make it so and it doesn't line up with what I saw in the old western double features I saw on the Saturdays afternoons of my youth. With the exception of Tonto the faithful partner to the Lone Ranger, Native American Indians were portrayed in, shall we say, less than peace seeking ways.  

I’m in a nostalgic mood regarding those old westerns. I recently sold the Gene Autry, side loading cap shooter that I slept with under my pillow when I was a kid. I don’t remember if I thought my brother would take it in the dead of night or if I thought bad guys were coming after me and I wanted to be ready. I just know Gene was my very first crush and after all the radio and TV mail-after premiums that I’ve recently sold out of my showcase the gun and the holster were surprisingly easy to let go of. Gene may have been my first 'cowboy' crush but he wasn’t the last and I still have one of my husband’s Stetson cowboy hats sitting on top of my bookcase to prove it. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll sell it on e-Bay. Probably not. I only got fifty bucks for his other hat and that one had its original box. It was an official NRA edition Stetson so I was glad to see that leave the house. My husband was a life member but he had a falling out with the organization back when the NRA fought so hard against The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act back in the early 1990s and he never wore the hat after that.

And I still have Marharishi’s book sitting on my bookshelf. It made the cut when the Great Purge emptied hundreds of books out of my library. Someday I might actually finish reading it. It sits in a two foot section in what I’ve dubbed my Spirit Section with titles like: Women in World Religions, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Conversations with God, Aristotle Would have Liked Oprah, Working on God, An Idiot's Guide to Philosophy and The Gook Book, the Humanist Bible---books that I have actually read cover to cover. After I move I doubt any of my new neighbors will be asking to borrow books from my shelves---I’ve saved very little fiction and lots of art, how-to write and reference books---but just in case I need to have an answer other than ”Hell No!” ready to say that means the same thing. Call me selfish but borrowed books rarely get returned and all the titles I’m moving with me cut to the chase of who I want to be. Or more precisely who I want people to think I am. If you're thinking that's weird, is it any different than having a carefully selected wardrobe that projects a certain image? Answer: No, it isn’t. Case closed.

Starting in February the construction company building the Continuing Care Campus where I have a unit being held with a hefty deposit is putting out a monthly newsletter to keep us all informed on the progress. I got the first issue and it contained lots of photos. Not that you can actually see anything taking shape yet because they’re putting underground storm and water infrastructure in now after having hauled away thousands of tons of top soil. By the end of the month we should be able to see where the road and the foundations of the buildings will be. It looks like they cut down 2/3 of the trees that actually attracted me to the place in the first place but we’ve been assured they will be planting lots of new ones later on and the indigenous plants on the property that were moved by horticultural students will be brought back for the bees and butterfly garden that will be my main view. I don’t know if this is common practice on large building projects to put out a monthly update but it’s a cool idea and was a professional looking newsletter. I need all the reminders I can get of why I need to keep myself on track to be ready for the move. I’m looking forward to the day when I’ll find myself sitting on a bench surrounded by wildflowers “ommmming” my mind to a less cluttered place. Na, I’ll be sitting there with my brand new iPad blogging my brains out until you’re all sick of reading about butterflies and unicorns and the Blue Heron fishing on the shore of the near-by lake. ©

I Miss Dancing!

Between now and the end of November while I'm working on my book for National Novel Writers Month, I'm going to post a 'Wednesday Flashback' in this blog of things I've written long ago---before my husband died. These will be essays that still have relevance to my life today. So Here's my first Wednesday Flashback:

When I was seven or eight years old, I got the Gene Autry gun and holster set for Christmas and I worn them to bed more than a few times. I was in love. I even crawled up on my daddy’s lap once, sighed deeply, and told him that when I grew up I was going marry Gene Autry and his horse. My dad had the good graces not to laugh. It could be he was trying to figure out which one I was lusting after the most---the horse or the man. I still have that gun and holster and all of my Gene Autry fan club memorabilia. I never did anything half way, even my first crush.

I don’t know where I’m going with this trip down memory lane. Perhaps I’m looking at my life as if its film that I can edit and splice together into a movie titled: How to Grow up in Ten Easy Lessons, Plus One Really Hard One. Until I became a caregiver for my dad---in the five years before my husband’s stroke---I really hadn’t grown up and I was in my fifties at the time. My life was carefree and fun in my pre-caregiver days. Oh, I’d had my share of disappointments and pain. Who could get to be a half a century old without having a few monsters in their closet? But I try to learn my lessons and move on. Always wear the white hat. Mr. Autry would be proud.

Do you know what I miss? Dancing. I was never good on the dance floor. I have no grace, no natural rhythm, even though the Arthur Murray Dance Studios did their best to chance that when I was a kid. Never the less, I miss it all. Especially the tap dancing lessons I took when I so young that I still worn underpants with the days of the week embroidered on the fronts. Light bulb moment! If I were on the board of directors at Hanes, I’d expand that embroidered panties idea into a days-of-the-months set of cotton briefs for seniors. That way, when folks like me are at the store writing a check, and we can’t remember what day it is, we’d always know where to look to find out.

I also miss the square dances of my pre-teen days; my petty coats swinging and swaying with our do-si-dos and falling on the floor in a fit of the giggles. I miss the rock-and-roll record hops that came a few years later. (Those late night Time-Life R&R commercials are aimed at my generation.) I miss the rhythm and blues clubs and slinky dress dancing of my twenties. And disco. Don and I did some serious courting during disco. How could I not fall in love a guy who once told me, as I roller skated by, “You look like a refrigerator on a dolly.” Did I mention he could dance on roller skates far better than without them?

Most of all I miss the dancing that Don and I used to do in the 80s, the western stuff that came straight out of the movie, Urban Cowboy. Oh, we were never like John Travolta and Debra Winger struttin’ their stuff at Mickey Gilley’s. We just watched that fancy stuff from the side of the dance floor. But we had our county-western moments when I felt like there was nothing more fun than belly rubbing around a dance floor, thighs brushing from time to time, words passing back and forth---Gosh, I have to stop typing and go get a few ice cubes!

Don was far from a Gene Kelly or Patricia Swayze, and I was certainly never a Ginger Rogers, but I miss the magic and energy that dancing inspires. I miss the honky-tonk bars out west on vacations. Had I known the last time we danced that it would be the last time we dance, I would have taken a mental snapshot. But the sad fact is I don’t actually remember percisely when that was.

I do have a mental snapshot of the last time my dad danced before he passed away. It happened in the parking lot of a KFC. I had been chauffeuring him and his girlfriend around on a date and the tape deck was playing a song from the 40s when my dad asked Martha to dance. He had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. We all knew he was dying. We all knew it was the last time they’d probably dance together. It was such a bitter-sweet moment, so private and personal---the way they looked at each other---that I had to look away. I’d like to think that if I had a snapshot of Don’s and my last dance, it would be like that---too intense and personal to share with others.

My dad was a special guy. Even in the last years of his life, when our relationship was often more like mother and son, than father and daughter, he could still make me laugh. One time, when he was being tested for cognitive abilities---something that was done frequently because he was in the first wave of people getting a new Alzheimer’s drug---the psychiatrist had asked him what year it was. Dad gave the wrong answer and when the doctor corrected him, Dad said, “My daughter tried to tell me that in the parking lot, but I didn’t believe her.” Caregiver humor, you’ve got to love it. Another time, in a restaurant, my brother asked my dad if he was taking the noodle on his shirt home for a midnight snack. My dad, picked the noodle off his shirt, threw it over his shoulder, and said, “Hell, no!” and kept right on eating.

What is it I read in an old clipping from Ann Landers? “Old folks talk about the past, because they have no futures. Young folks speak of the future, because they have no past.” When did I get old enough to understand the full depth of that statement? Okay, so I’m having a cry-baby moment. But I know how to fix that. Tonight, I’m sleeping with my Gene Autry gun under the pillow!©

 painting by Zille Heinrich

Dance Montage: Let's Dance

circa 1950, I'm 2nd in line

We all get chain emails---some annoying, some enjoyable. The enjoyable ones often include video clips featuring cute animals, beautiful scenery or photos with humorous captions. But rarely do I get one that brings joy to my heart as much as the one I’m going to write about today and is linked below. It’s a dance montage called Let’s Dance and its set to the music of All These Things That I’ve Done by the Killers. The montage was put together by Barbara Collins and includes clips ranging from Charlie Chaplin to the present day Dancing with the Star’s Maxim and Mel. Of the twenty-six clips there was only one that didn’t evoke a strong memory for me. I guess you’d call that an advantage of growing old. We old people know stuff. We’ve been there, done that and came home with tons of t-shirts that we think about making into quilts.

A lot of women in my advanced age bracket got put into dance classes at a very early age. Shirley Temple movies, no double, being the prime motivator of many parents including mine. Plus the Arthur Murray Dance Studio franchises made it so easy; if you didn’t have a studio in your town they sold dancing lessons by mail. Send in your money and you’d get a set of “footprints” on paper that would teach you the steps. In my town, the local Arthur Murray Studio was also selling poise and self-confidence for any child who’d take their golden trio of tap, ballet and acrobat. I don’t remember how many years I took lessons but judging by the recital photos in my album I’m guessing around five. I washed out of ballet and acrobat early on but I passionately adored tap dancing and I worshiped the greats of my era---Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. The little no talent kid that I was wanted to grow up and marry Gene Kelly. Jean and Gene Kelly has a nice ring don’t you think. (A few years later I had a five alarm crush on Gene Autry, but I digress.) Fast forward many decades later and I have trouble just walking to the bathroom without tripping over my own feet. I guess that Arthur Murray acquired poise and self-confidence didn’t stick.

I’m writing this blog entry for my nieces in hopes that some day if I'm too old to remember how to use the computer that they’ll show me this YouTube montage from time to time. And if it puts a twinkle in my eyes or brings a smile to lips while I’m watching it they’ll know I’m thinking about how these great performances wove in and out of my life. For example, when the Elvis Jailhouse Rock clip appears I remember the little movie theater in a town near-by our summer cottage where I first saw that film back in 1957. When I see the ballerinas performing Swan Lake I remember the college semester I took music appreciation and studied Tchaikovsky (1963). When I see the Michael Jackson clip it reminds me of the day I made Don go see This Is It and he slept through the whole thing. That was 2009. If I had to name a favorite memory this dance montage brings me it would Gene Kelly’s Singing in the Rain (1952). For some hazy reason beyond my grasp that song, that dance, always reminds me of my dad. Patrick Swayze, The Three Stooges, the cast of the Wizard of Oz---I can’t image anyone not finding a few memories while watching this montage. 

After you view Let’s Dance you’re going to want to see the lineup of performers in the video, so I’ve posted it below. You might even want to know which dance number I had never seen before. That would be Jimmy Cagney dancing down the staircase in the 1942 film, Yankee Doodle Dandy.  I think seeing that movie should go on my Bucket List, don’t you? ©

1) Svetlana Zakharova - Swan Lake  

2) Riverdance - Reel of the Sun
3) Michael Flatley - Lord of the Dance
4) Michael Jackson - Beat It
5) Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse - Singing in the Rain 

6) Elvis - Jailhouse Rock
7) Charlie Chaplin - Modern Times
8) John Travolta/Olivia Newton John - Grease
9) Jimmy Cagney - Yankee Doodle Dandy
10) Debbie Reynolds - Singing in the Rain
11) A Chorus Line
12) Patrick Swayze - Dirty Dancing
13) Natalie Wood/Richard Beymar - West Side Story
14) Al Nims & Leon James doing the Charleston
15) Maxim & Mel B - Dancing with the Stars
16) Elvis and Ann Margret - Viva Las Vegas
17) Michael Jackson from TV Special
18) Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers - Swing Time
19) Gene Kelly - Singing in the Rain
20) All That Jazz
21) Three Stooges get a dance lesson
22) Flashdance
23) Shirley Temple & Bill "Bojangles" Robinson - Just Around the Corner
24) Anne Reinking - All That Jazz
25) Nicholas Brothers - Stormy Weather
26) Wizard of Oz

The Colorado Barstool Rancher

Growing up, Don and I both cut our teeth on spaghetti westerns which I suspect sowed the seeds that would later grow into a favorite fashion statement for Don and a frequent travel destination for both of us. There was nothing that made Don look and feel more “macho” than to be all decked out in a western cut Pendleton shirt, boot-cut Levi’s, a gray Stetson hat, and his too-fancy-for-Michigan Frye cowboy boots. Me? When I was a kid I used to tell my folks I was going to marry Gene Autry when I grew up and since I couldn’t do that, Don in his should-have-been-a-cowboy outfit was the next best thing. Every year for over twenty-five years he went out west to roam the Rocky Mountains and hunt and every couple of years I’d tag along. On the years when I went along we’d also explore the back roads, cowpoke towns and tourist traps in a six state triangle with Colorado at the center.

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It was on such a trip that one night, just before hunting season opened, we found ourselves sitting on barstools in a cowboy bar, all fancy-upped in our idea of what the locals would wear for a night on the town. Don didn’t drink but he loved cowboy bars and especially if he could strike up a conversation with a stranger. That night a stranger was eager to talk to Don. He planted himself on the next barstool and introduced himself as being from Minnesota. The guy had assumed Don was a local rancher and Don, flattered by assumption, said nothing to change that perception. He even tweaked it a bit with a few well chosen fibs.

After talking scopes and antelopes and the mythical ranch we had just outside of town the Minnesotan laid $300 down on the bar and shoved it towards Don. “Listen,” he said, “my two buddies over there and me are looking for a place to hunt this week but we can’t find anything. Do you think you could help us out and let us hunt on your ranch?”

I could tell by the look on Don’s face that he knew his trip down Fantasy Lane had hit some major pot holes. He looked like a cat who’d just swallowed a canary and was about to barf it back up. You could almost see the wheels in his head turning, trying to figure out what to do. He could have said something like, “Sorry, I’m already maxed out on how many hunters my ranch can support” and that would have been the end of it but Don never cheated the piper when it was time to pay for his mistakes. Instead of brushing off the request he said, “Look, I’ve got something to tell you but I want you to promise you won’t hit me after I do. Now, you have to promise….”

The Minnesotan looked confused but he made the promise and Don promptly told him he didn’t have a ranch and that we were from Michigan. “But I can draw you a map to get to state land,” he quickly added, “where you can hunt for free. That’s a good area to hunt.”  

Who can predict how a stranger is going to react after learning that the guy he’d just talked with for the past twenty minutes could have walked away with his $300 and left behind a bogus map to a ranch that didn’t exist? All the guy could say at first was, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

Don called the bartender over, ordered the stranger another drink and did what Don did best---talk himself out of the corner he’d painted him self in. Five minutes later we were all laughing and the Minnesotan said, “Now will you promise me something?”

“Sure, anything!” Don replied.

“If we see you around town this week, or on state land, will you promise you won’t tell my buddies how easily I could have been scammed out of our money?” he asked. “We had pegged you and your wife for locals---God damn it, you look like ranchers! ---and I was elected to try and broker a deal to hunt on your land. My buddies will never let me hear the end of it if they find out how easily I could have gotten scammed out of our money."

We never saw the trio of would-be hunters again but the story about the night Don was a barstool rancher was a story he repeated to very few people. He was a great story teller and this was fertile material to work with but it was out of character for him to pretend to be someone he wasn’t so he was a tad bit ashamed of himself. And when ever the ‘Barstool Rancher’ came up over the years he’d get that silly, cat-ate-and-barked-up-a-bird look on his face again. Who would have ever guessed Don’s cowboy fashion statement could have led him down the path he rode that night? He was one of a kind, that’s for sure. ©

Another blog entry that is a perfect example of why I and others loved Don can be found here:  Who Shot the Cheyenne?

Don