Catching Up On Jeopardy

Writing a book doesn't leave much time for television. I counted 34 taped episodes of Jeopardy on our DVR, and decided that, since it was Sunday afternoon, I would try to catch up on a few of them.

I gave up after the episode with the "Chemistry" category. I took chemistry in high school. I got an A, in fact. How did I do on the category? I got one right. The answer was sulphuric acid. The question of course, was "What is H2S04?"

I missed everything else.

So why did I remember sulphuric acid?

Little Willie was a chemist.

Little Willie is no more.

What he thought was H20

Was H2S04.

Sorry Mr. Whoever you were. That's all I can remember from your class.

Forget Jeopardy. I think I'd rather go edit my book...

Afterlife

I've had so many proofs of an afterlife. Some of them are simple. Some are not.

My first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains came at daybreak, peering over the back seat of the station wagon. My dad liked to drive at night. The suitcases would be piled on the rack on top of the car, and the back seat would be folded down so the four of us kids could be sandwiched onto sleeping bags together. When going from one military post to another, it made for faster travel time with less traffic. I remember waking up and sticking my head up above the seat just as the sun, coming up behind us, lit the Rockies in the distance ahead of us. They were blue and purple, crowned with snow, and glowing in the first light of morning. The car was quiet. Into the stillness I said to Mom and Dad, "Now I know for sure there's a God." Nobody felt they had to respond. It was an awesome sight.

Rainbows and hidden meadows, the giant Redwoods and shaky fawns, new babies in their surprised innocence, all have given me a glimpse of the many faces of God. Once instance from my chaotic high school years drove home to me the specific point of afterlife.

After Daddy died, my English and Journalism teacher, Mr. Holmes, kept me busier than ever. His new idea was to enter some of his students in the State Writing Championship that the Journalism Educator's Association (JEA) sponsored each year. Four of his students were accepted. We all spent considerable amounts of time at his home preparing for the competition. His wife was a wonderful woman, and his little son and daughter were sweethearts. We all became really close, and it eased the ache and emptiness in my life considerably. Keeping me busy was a tremendous gift.

His son Donny was about five or six years old, a solemn boy who adored his father. He would sit quietly in the room with us. With his big dark eyes and shaggy hair, he was something of a mascot to us all. These sessions went on for several months, culminating in a long drive together to the championship. Our sports editor came home with a trophy, and I came home with two, so we were really happy with all the help the Holmes' had given us.

The next week at school, Mr. Holmes came in to say goodbye. He informed us that he had cancer and would not be returning. Two weeks later, he was gone. He and his wife had known all during our sessions, but had kept it from us. He wanted to teach as long as possible, and the diagnosis had given him no hope.

Here's the part that makes me so sure of an afterlife. I don't remember how long it was after he died, but Mrs. Holmes called me at home. She didn't want me to hear it from someone else.

Donny had been playing outside with friends while she got lunch ready. He came running in the house, really excited, and told her that he couldn't have lunch with her, and wanted to say goodbye. The conversation, as she related it to me, went something like this...

"Where are you going, Donny?"
"I'm going to have lunch with Daddy."
"Honey, Daddy's gone. You know that."
"I know, Mommy. But he told me to say go goodbye to you, 'cause I'm having lunch with him today!"

Then Donny gave her a big hug and ran back out into the yard to continue playing with his friends. Donny was such a solemn little boy, not prone to flights of imagination. She said she was still standing at the window, crying, when it happened. Two yards away a man was mowing his lawn with a power lawnmower. The blade hit a big rock and broke off, sailing across the empty yard between, over a hedge, and hit Donny in the chest. He was killed instantly, just before noon.

So yes, I believe in an afterlife. What's more, I believe in those rare and wonderful teachers whose gifts continue to give through a lifetime.

I'll Take Now

High School should be a time of joy, but I've rarely heard that it truly is. Rather, it's a time of uncomfortable growth, adjustment and change. All of those tend to be uncomfortable. For me, it seemed, it was worse than all that. It was a time of tragedy, guilt, and unbearable sadness.

We left our friends behind and traveled across the country, again to be the new kids in class. This time, though, the community wasn't filled with military, where there were many new families. We were the oddities. We also left behind our oldest brother Patrick, in his second year at West Point, who would find it much more difficult to visit on his rare weekends, and it would be years before the great kinship would blossom between us again. I thank God for that now.

The first year was a struggle, but a good year all in all. I had my great teacher, Mr. Holmes, and my life was filled with learning to write and heading toward the top of my class. I joined clubs and cautiously made friends, trying to trust in the knowledge that we would be really staying in one place. Everything looked pretty good that November night, just a year after moving into our home in Simi Valley. I was to have been doing the dishes, but had gotten a phone call. My Junior year had just started, and I was fifteen years old. It was my first phone call from a boy asking for a date. I was beyond excited. He had called to ask me to go to the basketball game with him. Our team was in the State Finals, and this was to be the first game.

Daddy walked into the room, saw that the dishes weren't done, and I was on the phone. He walked over and took the phone from me. He addressed my caller and said, "Kathleen Louise hasn't finished her chores, and she's not allowed on the phone. She's not going anywhere." Then he hung up the phone. I, of course, burst into tears and promptly told him that he didn't understand, didn't love me, and didn't know how to be a proper father. He just looked at me, went into the kitchen and mixed himself a cup of soda water, drank it down and went into the bedroom to lie down.

I finished the dishes and went into my own bedroom, where I cried myself to sleep. A few hours later my sister came in to wake me up, tearfully telling me that Daddy had died. He'd had a massive heart attack and died shortly after our fight, while I cried myself to sleep. It was many years before I believed that my cruel words hadn't killed him.

I've rarely admitted to anyone what I said to him that night. I remember standing against the kitchen wall as neighbors came and talked to us, and medical people came and went. Each time someone gave me sympathy, I wondered if they could tell that I had killed him. I went a little nuts after that. In some ways, we all did. Some of us could only remember the good memories of Daddy. There were so many. Some of us could only remember the bad. Being human, there was enough of that as well. Having been my own judge and jury, I had to work through all of that to the point where I remember both, accept both, see both in myself as well.

Would I go back to youth? No. I'll take the lines and wrinkles, the extra pounds, and the inconveniences of aging. I'll take the ability to sit on the pity pot and remember to flush when I'm done. I'll take now.

The First Mister

We ended up living in Simi Valley, just one canyon away from the big San Fernando Valley of Valley Girl fame. My dad barely lived a year after his retirement. A couple of months before his sudden death, he came home with a small bundle of fur. It was our first dog, a small Wire Haired Fox Terrier he named Mister Patches. Mister, he said, was the runt of the litter from his friend's breeding pair. We all loved that dog. When Daddy died, we all thought that Mister would follow his Master, but he ended up living a long full life.

One afternoon my mom had new living room furniture delivered. This was the first brand new furniture I can ever remember her getting. She was really excited, but wasn't quite sure exactly how she wanted it arranged. She had the delivery men put the pieces down, then almost immediately had them move them around. She looked at it and once again had them shuffle the pieces.

Finally the two men headed for their truck, making tracks fairly quickly. I think they were afraid they were going to be trapped in an all-day redecorating cycle. As they left, Mom glanced out the front window and saw Mister merrily trotting along behind the men toward their truck. She raced out of the front door and yelled, "Mister, you get your butt back in this house!"

Both men turned around and started walking slowly back toward her, looking resigned and dejected, but obedient. The dog kept pace. She then had to explain in embarrassment that the dog's name was Mister, and that they could go on to their truck. As she grabbed the dog, they wasted no time making their exit. Mom never lived that one down.

She figured Daddy had named the dog Mister knowing that eventually the name would get her in trouble. At least she wasn't in as bad a fix as Grandma. Daddy's mother finally refused to call their dog in at all. Grandpa named their dog 'Dammit' and the blessed dog would never answer to any other name as long as it lived.

Seeing Sunset Strip

In October of my Sophomore year of high school, my dad retired from the military. On Halloween night we left Virginia, piling into the station wagon for a cross country trip to California. Dad had accepted a job with Atomics International, and after about a week on the road we pulled into Hollywood. Dad wanted us to travel up Sunset Strip, which we had seen on television.

Rumor has it that it never rains in California, but when it rains, it pours. As we wound our way up Sunset Strip, we were all rubber necking to see the famous buildings and hoping to see stars. Most of what we saw was the rain. We did see the Brown Derby restaurant, though, shaped like a brown derby, and 77 Sunset Strip, home of the TV show we'd all watched. Traffic moved slowly as most people were either looking for parking spots or playing tourist like we were. And the rain was slowing everything down.

Then I happened to see something that really left an impression. There in the pouring rain, walking down the sidewalk, was a man in a fancy suit. He had no umbrella, which would have been expected on the East Coast. Rather, in one hand he carried a briefcase, while in his other hand he carried his shoes and socks. If ever there was a time in my life when I felt like saying, "Hey, Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore," that was it.

So California was a different world for us. I escaped, often for years at a time, but most of the family stayed, so I kept going back. Now we're gone for good, retired in the Rockies, and mighty glad of it, even though I have a heart full of precious memories. Perhaps I'll spend a few blog days back in high school. I haven't been there in about... let's say forty years and leave it at that.