I did have
years of nun driven, boyish, not an ounce of lace outfits growing up in my
first years of school. Couple this with
the black and white saddle shoe, and you have don’t even bother trying. You are now stuck in the PRACTICAL
category. After my first Catholic school
closed, I was sent to my second one, much closer to home, still on the bus. In my third year after surviving my second
year with Mrs. Parks, God gave me the most wonderful…and in my eyes…handsome
teacher I’ll call Mr. R. Yes this was my
turnaround year. I’ll blog about him later as he deserves his own blog. Both
in terms of nice teacher and “groovy” outfits I chose myself, third grade was
good to me.
Here I would sit in my cardigan acrylic sweater, with matching plastic buttons, ankle socks, flat oxfords and I would thumb through the Sears catalog and dream of self-chosen outfits, in the colors and styles
that I wanted. Then, one day, I saw it and it was
love at first sight. In a large discount store, there it was, a
navy blue, shiny, pleather jumper with a dropped waist and a zipper in the back, almost my size. Where have you been all my life? My mom had been shopping in all the wrong
stores. I paid for it with my own allowance and I
loved it. I walked with it like I was on
the runway myself as my mom would never buy such a“thing” probably because it wasn’t ugly and nun like. My mom at least liked
that fact that it was made of the same type of material as an outdoor
tablecloth so all she had to do was wipe it down. I called this jumper “the WET look.” It was my favorite self-chosen outfit. I wore it with a pick blouse underneath and
“HOT PINK” knee socks and these suede
almost loafers shoes. Classmates from my
former school wouldn’t recognize me. I
was like the girl Marcia Brady did a makeover on…the one who kept bumping into
things before Marcia made her pretty.
This outfit could easily be worn on any Brady Bunch episode, my very most
favorite show…Fridays 8 PM. Yes, no longer the ugly, nun inspired, androgynous
outfits from hand me down land. This
time I was almost “That Girl” pretty. I
would wear it to my first school studio picture I was allowed to take. Two happy things in my life that I was never allowed to have? I better be careful and not let anyone see how happy I was.
My mother had some weird fear and in
kindergarten through 2nd grade about me being able to take a school photo so I was not in school the day we were
to take pictures. I hated it, when
everyone received the large envelopes while I sat there like Moses on
Valentine’s Day, rejected by not having what everybody else had. Finally,in third grade, I too would get to use the small comb
they gave you the day before and get my picture taken. Picture day in Catholic school is a joy
because no uniforms and my hair was at least cut even with curls from sponge
rollers. I looked good and I knew it.
This outfit
was not only great for school pictures it was my one and only “good” outfit for church
and any other situation that needed me to dress up. During this year, 3 elderly relatives, who
lived many states over, had passed away within months. We were to trek the 10 hour drive to go to
the drawn out three day wake and funeral.
I hardly knew them so naturally without holding too much of a
relationship I wasn’t that sad. With each succeeding death I was less sad. You see, funerals were only sad for grownups. The wakes would last for 3 long days while
the adults would commiserate and talk and catch up they would be less aware of
what we were doing. While this pleather
jumper outfit worked for school photography day, it was out of place for a funeral,
but I did have only ONE good outfit…BOO HOO??
I think not. I would wear that
outfit everyday if I was allowed. It fit
my personality if not my small frame, the stiff jumper was like ding, dong
bell, with two little hot pink knee socks, in contant motion, and I loved it almost as much as my
first pair of loafers.
After the
unbearable long car trip, we arrived, dressed in our Sunday best into the
somber funeral home. First of all I made
my entrance. TAH DAH! I would proudly
walk into the funeral room where the family relative was laid out. Two of my older cousins, stopped me and asked
me why I was wearing such a thing to a funeral.
I told them they should get “with it”…don’t you know the “wet look” when
you see it? Next say a prayer, blah,
blah, blah, not interested, not sad, soon adults will be preoccupied with talk
from old days. Then we would have our
own fun. My cousin, a few years older. She
was old enough to be in my world, old enough to boss me around, and for a short
Cinderella time would know how to have so much fun, especially in a funeral
home, without bothering our parents. Once
the adults told us it was OK to walk around and not cause trouble we were off
like colts at the Kentucky Derby. First
stop, another family’s deceased relatives wake (in those days, simultaneous
wakes would be happening on different floors. ) Yes, weaving in and out like hot
knife through butter. We were too quick
and now on a “ Born to be Wild” ride through the next somber 5 hours done our way. Really.. here's how you work a funeral home at our age and sorry to say it was NOT sitting down crying with a rosary. In those days, funeral wakes would be for two consecutive nights at least 5 hours each, then a long drawn out funeral procession with an hour long mass, followed by a depressing stint at the cemetery.
We would
"crash" another wake in progress. We would innocently walk up to the kneeling apparatus in front of the coffin of this
unrelated deceased person, pretending to pray.
If asked who and what for we told them we wanted to pray for everyone
and could we say a few prayers. While we
knelt there, we made fun of how the body looked, all old, waxy hands interwoven
with a rosary. Then at the right moment,
my cousin would say..”I saw her breathing.”
I would say “No” but then with all this Catholic talk of rising from the
dead, and pictures showing all the saints flying around in heaven, young
concrete learners such as myself might of thought; “Gee maybe they are
breathing…maybe they will become a saint and float right out of here, that would
be so cool.” At this time, we were
beginning to attract attention, my outfit didn’t help. We were also "praying" a long time, but because
we were kneeling to pray, nobody had the nerve to ask us to leave that is until
my cousin told me to touch one of those waxy, dead hands. You know, you look at them and they look so
real, you touch them and you are shocked by how ice cold they are and you naturally…well..
jump up and then loudly object; "Stop telling me to touch those dead hands!" This time a designated arbitrary
relative would get the bigger than life Funeral Director
to see where our dead relative was laid out and try to return us….for a while.
Guess what BIG guy. We were there
to stay ALL night at YOUR funeral home, until the priest would come to relieve you of your
babysitting duties and we would all have to sit and pray, a whole rosary.
Did our parents really think we were going to sit quietly and talk to
boring, non-fun, sad, know-it-all, adults the whole time? We
would sit until they were once again sidetracked by a new relative coming
in. This time, we promised not to go
into other rooms and touch the dead bodies.
That was a
promise we kept. No really… we didn’t
want non-approved adults disciplining us.
Instead we were to have even more fun.
Hide and Go Seek…yes..in a large
funeral home. Hide and Go Seek was my
favorite game as a child growing up because I was small, crafty, and good at
it. Being the youngest, I would have to
be the first to close my eyes and count. Meanwhile, my other cousins hid. You know, if you play hide and seek a lot you
get really good at it finding hiding places anywhere. Bathrooms, closets, and even large funeral flower arrangements around the caskets, are
all now little magical caves of hiding places.
OK so what, they could see you standing behind the flower arrangements,
maybe not if you stood still. Oh, is
this still being too close to a dead body not in our family? We would skip to the next room, run and dodge from the Funeral Director, one step behind our energy. I loved these Funeral Homes and wakes(why are they named that?), the distraction of overbearing adults, pleather jumper
and hot pink, up and down, no crying here about who died. They were old anyways.
The best hiding
place would always be the closet because it was deep with overcoats. We would squeeze inside the deepest corner
and wait. If the door opened we would jump
out and scream like those springy snakes that leap out of the can. We got in trouble again if it wasn’t always
my cousin but some old lady now newly upset.
Here comes the fat Funeral Director, mad as a hornet…but.. first you
gotta catch us. Overweight Funeral
Directors don’t run they walk in a somber stride. They are waxy themselves from working too much around death and having to deal with miserable sadness as an occupation, no healthy sense of humor either. We had him by a mile. Long enough to catch our breath and laugh at him
too.
I grew up looking
forward to family funerals. We never stopped
once, we had more fun than a singer leaping out into the audience to people surf. Gulps of laughter, never once did we stop to
think if we were inappropriate. It was
even funnier when you knew just how far to push the envelope without getting
into trouble, ever funnier that it wasn’t proper. The heck with proper, the heck with ugly
saddle shoes, the heck with all those ugly outfits, I was on my own American
Idol show and I would feel like the elite winner, until the funeral was over
and I would turn into a pumpkin. It was good to feel happy and let out from the constant Catholic regime and ,as young children, we wanted to be happy not sad. We were alive, and in loving life we did NOT want to be sad and talk about death. BTW, if you’re wondering where the best hiding
places are in a Funeral Home, the first would be standing on top of the toilet seat,
so they can’t see your feet, locking the stall door (the waiting women can go
into another stall, there’s other ones…now stop giving me away) The
other one was the coat closet because of the Jack in the Box effect.
The first funeral was my grandfather, sorry
hardly knew him and I knew he didn’t care for my jumpy nature. He tolerated me at visits. Kids can tell. The second was my other grandfather, liked
him slightly better but all I remember is what a perfectionist he was. You would show him your hand you traced and
cut out from a piece of paper and he would only show you the areas of
mistakes. That’s all I remember about
him. The final funeral, this was all
within months, was my Great Auntie Em.
The poor Funeral Director thought his patrol days were finished after
the first relative passed and now here I was, unmistakable in my outfit,
for a third time. He was going to the
local liquor store telling the cashier the unbelievable trilogy. Not sad about this Great Aunt either as I met her a
few times and me being blessed with the giggling, happy, gene and her being over
strict, we meshed, barely. Personality differences I guess.
All I
remember about Great Auntie Em was how strict she was, when we got together during the holidays. We slept over my fun Auntie’s House, she would let
us cousins sleep in sleeping bags on the living room floor. Really??
This house is past super fun. The
sleeping bags had a mustard colored, flannel, lining with pictures of hunting
and wild ducks, they smelled of last summer's campfire
and the zippers always stuck. The adults
really thought they would put us all in there and we would go to sleep. Not happening. With the adults talking and playing cards in the
kitchen, we were to have our own party and still vibrant with dance and
joy. Great Auntie Em would walk into the snake
pit of young fun. She would grab me by
the arm and yell “You’re being naughty. You kids aren’t minding me! You don't mind me!” I retorted to get her out of our place “No
Auntie Em…I don’t mind you.” I really
wasn’t trying to be clever, the card playing adults,in the other room, laughed at this miscommunication. This Abbott and Costello routine went on for a
while.
Every time she was able to catch
one of us she would get in your grill, inches from your face, and give you the
Binaca blast that smelled of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum she contantly chewed. Great Auntie Em always kept a large pack of gum in her
housecoat. This stash was mixed with plenty of Halls menthol lyptus. When she asked you if you wanted a “piece of
candy” the right answer was “NO.” Cough
drops are NOT candy, all sticky from
her pocket. That’s all I remember from
her. The only ones with the kyrptonite to
stop us that night would be our mothers enjoying a welcome break from patrol
duty, so I guess that is why they sent in Great Auntie Em to “calm us down.” Opposite effect, we laughed all the
harder. “Why does her breath smell like
that? “ Poor Great Auntie Em. Never married, and now we were to have one
more hurrah in the funeral home at her timely expense, she would not have
approved, but then there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
After her funeral,
I was glad we didn’t have to visit the miserable, not liking me,
relatives. Only the fun lovable one was
left…thank God. She was the only one
that liked me because I felt and knew that she loved me. The rest were going through the motions. Crude writing, yes, but truthful. No hard feelings, they made up for their misery
by being the guest of honor at the Funeral Home whirlwind wakes.
In looking back, I would say, have your fun
now and don’t get too caught up in accumulating physical things. Appreciate the relationships, love the
memories, make a few good friends. If you are grabbing your sore sides from unbridled laughter,
do it. It’s the soul at play. If you observe young children at play in the store, weaving in and out of the clothing racks, laughing at their own game, let them have their fun as long as they don't knock anyone over. That time belongs to them and soon someone, somewhere down the line with permanently yank that true JOY out of them as they grow up and become adults. So true, really... when's the last time you saw grown adults running unbridled , through a store or sidewalk, in shared, loud, laughter? No, someone surgically removed those soulful sessions and put in more "appropriate" maneuvers. I miss that adrenaline slide of shared joy and laughter, gulping for air because we weren't able to laugh any harder. We need to try and find our way back to that and place it somewhere in our lives, back to its rightful place.
I read a creative epitaph once that
said “Everyday above the ground is a good one.”
I agree. Even if you’re very last
ones are filled good conversation and fun for the people still here. Don’t forget the fun of a good deep closet.
It was shiny like this in Navy Blue.
