Train Tracks of Time

I love the distant clickety clack of the ole freight train as it slices through the early morning mist like a butter knife.  Like clockwork, the train carrying coal, lumber and grains from Memphis to Jackson and all points in between, chugs near my house in the early morning hours, often lulling me to sleep after a restless night.  The train’s whistle as it passes assures me that it is 4 am in our sleepy little town of Hernando, MS.  To me, these early pre-dawn hours are the loneliest hours of all – not quite night time but not day time either.

On this morning, I go ahead and get up, an hour and a half before my old Westclock alarm clock tells me it is time to rise.  In just a couple of hours, I will wish my son good luck on his first day of college, thus beginning a new season in our lives.  Seems like just yesterday I was wishing he would sleep through the night.

Drew seems to be riding the train of change very well, going from a small Christian school where he spent the last 12 years to the wide open road of the college bound.  But, I seem to be stuck on the little red caboose of his childhood.

For the past few weeks, I lay awake at night, my mind like a View Master, clicking through the stages of Drew’s growing up years.  Vivid, colorful images of Barney, Mr. Potato Head, Veggie Tales, and Garfield click through my dreams as snippets of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “You Are My Sunshine” flitter through my head.  Time has sped by so quickly, I can almost hear it as it whistles past by ears - the present becoming the past right before my eyes.  From diapers to jeans and Muppet CD’s to iTunes, the years of Drew’s childhood have raced by just like the clickey clack of that old freight train.  Most of the memories are so sweet, they bring tears to my eyes with their richness.  Others are so funny, the thoughts make me laugh out loud.

In 1995 when Drew was two years old, one of our big projects was learning to go potty.  His babysitter, Mimi, who was our expert on everything dealing with rearing well-adjusted children, had the wonderful idea of putting Cheerios into the potty and letting him “shoot” the cereal with his “water gun.”    Worked like a charm – on the No. 1 part of pottying.  Going No. 2 was a different story.  My busy little bee refused to do anything except tinkle in potty.  He would sit on the potty, playing with this cars, singing songs, playing with his toes - while I sat beside him on the bathtub reading “Raising the Strong Willed Child” by Dr. James Dobson.  Mimi assured us that he would come around and told us not to worry about it.  Emma Stewart – better known to the kids she kept as “Mimi” – was my Dr. Spock, Heidi Murkoff and Dr. Sears all rolled into one.  I often say that all the good things about Drew came from her.

The other big project in our lives during that time was our plans to build a larger home.  We were living in about 1200 sq. ft. of toy box.  Drew’s stuff was everywhere and we had outgrown our little house.  The Home Depot had just come to our area, and we spent most Saturdays walking up and down the aisles of the bog box store looking for new home ideas.  The new store was awesome in its displays of kitchen cabinets, faucets, lighting and countertops.  They set up room vignettes – complete kitchens and bathrooms to show the customer exactly what their room could look like with the materials displayed.  Excellent marketing idea.  We spent a lot of time going from “room” to “room” in the store.

One Saturday night, we were looking at the beautiful kitchen displays – rich maple cabinets, cool granite countertops, warm hardwood floors.  We were imaging ourselves eating breakfast at the breakfast bar and cooking gourmet meals on the state-of-the-art Viking stove.  Enamored with all the modern conveniences, I absentmindedly looked down and realized that Drew was no longer standing beside me.  I saw that my budget-minded husband was talking to the salesman and he did not have Drew. All thoughts of the fancy appliances vanished as I started calling for Drew and running from “kitchen” to “kitchen” looking for my child.

In tears, I walked from aisle to aisle calling his name.  Finally, I spotted a little pair blue jean overalls lying on these steps leading up to a display.  The luxurious bathroom display was so rich in detail; it had been built on a raised platform and included a Jacuzzi brand tub.  The tub was beautifully filled with scented water; red rose petals whirling around the jets. There was a tiled double shower, double vanity with makeup lighting and marble countertops.  Right in the center of the spa bath display was a magnificent Kohler-brand toilet.

And, perched right on top of the glorious pot was my two year old son, his Pull-ups dangling down around his ankles and his red Keds hanging off his little feet.

“Mommy, I go potty,” he beamed. 

I rushed up the steps to get him off the commode.  My beautiful and smart child had, in fact, gone potty.  No. 2.  He certainly brought the concept of try-before-you-buy to a whole new level.

There was lovely, scented water in the whirlpool tub, but there was not a drop in the toilet. 

I very calmly got him off the commode and took him into the bathroom to clean him up while my husband tried to figure out how to clean up the other mess. 

I was embarrassed, mortified and a just little angry that my child had decided to learn the hardest part of potty training in the middle of a busy store.  But, Drew was excited and proud that he had finally done what we had been trying to get him to do for weeks.  How could I let him know that what he had done was very good but where he had done it was not so good?

Then I remembered a favorite Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 3:1 - “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heavens.”

I praised my son for the progress he had made in his potty training and I made sure he understood that there is a time and place for everything we do in our lives.

I have thought of that verse so very often in my life.  Drew’s childhood – those were the Summer moments of my life.  Moments of excitement and fun in our ever changing, busy lives.  We faced the awesome challenge of providing a solid, loving, Christian foundation for our child and we watched him grow into the outstanding young man that he is.  That was a golden season in my life.

As I lay awake this morning, thinking of sending my child to college, I know that God sent me this verse once again this morning.  Only this time, I think of King Solomon’s words as it applies to Drew’s season – the Spring Season.  His is a season of new beginnings, of finding his own way and becoming his own person. 

And, I think of my own season – the Season of Autumn, with still so very much to do and so much purpose before winter.  And, I am so very grateful that Drew is my bountiful harvest.  

A Tattoo of the Heart

When I was in the fourth grade, I got a tattoo – compliments of my little sister, Gail.

This is not Mickey Mouse on my ankle peeping out of the top of my sock or Cinderella dancing gracefully across my plump little thigh.  It is not a romantic little heart or a pretty pink rose.  My tattoo is the lead point of a No. 2 pencil jammed right into my forearm.   Over the years, the mark has gradually faded from a perfectly round black circle underneath my skin to a nice, gray, weathered look.  Matches my nice, weathered skin very well.

My sister branded me a bully very early on, after experiencing many frustrating episodes at the hands of her big sister.  Most days, I got away with my antics pretty easily.  This particular day, she just plain got lucky.

As a first grader, my sister was very small for her age.  As a fourth grader, I was huge.  She was fair, blond, and quiet with eyes the color of a creamy caramel candy.  I was dark, brunette, and loud with eyes the color of a stick of licorice. We were from the same batch, but we were very different cookies.

“Gail has a boyfriend,” I whispered to my mother one fall morning in 1966 as she pulled our 1964 Dodge Dart over to the curb to let us out at Senatobia Elementary School in our small hometown in Mississippi. 

“I do not!”  Gail cried.  “I hate boys!”

Ah, I got her!  I started singing the song I had written in my evil little mind the night before as Gail lay snoring lightly in the bed next to me in the room that we shared. When kids don’t have Wii’s or PlayStations or Nick at Night, they have very creative minds.  I was forever coming up creative and extravagant schemes to aggravate my siblings.

 “Johnny and Gail were lovers!  Johnny told Gail not to cry, his love for her would never die!” I sang at the top of my voice.

My plan was to sing that little ditty as loudly as possible and then made a run for it.  I would jump out of the car and off I’d go, laughing, leaving my sister behind to huff and puff her way into the elementary school.  I had practiced it in my head the night before.

Little did I know that she had asked my mother to sharpen her pencil that morning, right before we left the house.   We always packed our book satchels the night before and left them by the back door. With three children and one on the way, my mother was as organized as the Dewey Decimal System in making sure homework was done; school clothes were laid out the night before; school supplies packed and ready to go at 7:30 the next morning.  My mom sharpened our pencils with a kitchen knife, much like her father had whittled small pieces of wood with his pocket knife.  Gail had not had time to put her pencil in her pencil case.  So, she was armed and ready when the enemy – that would be me – attacked.

As the first born, riding shotgun was my birthright, so I had my arm on the back of the front seat as I leaned back to allow my little sister a full view of my tonsils as I belted out the malicious tune.

I heard the back door open before I ever felt the burning sting of the sword.  I saw my sister’s white cotton sweater with the Peter Pan collar dash past my window before I saw the pink eraser of her yellow pencil pointing up from my arm. 

My delightful little tune turned into indignant outrage as I realized that she had stabbed me with her freshly sharpened pencil and left it stuck in my arm. 

Our little brother, Andy, who had been sitting peacefully in the backseat waiting for his two big sisters to get out of the car, started crying.  I was screaming, my mama was trying to figure out how to take the pencil out of my arm and my sister, who usually tagged along behind me into school, was running as fast as her little legs could take her into the safety of Miss Crenshaw’s classroom.

Mama, always the comic, looked at me with her big brown eyes and said, “Gail forgot her pencil again.”

Years later when Gail and I, along with our own families, were on vacation in the Smokey Mountains, we sat around the kitchen table of the little cabin for hours and laughed about all the mean things we did to each other as kids.  When we were in our 20’s and early 30’s, both of us were so busy with our lives – she raising a family and I with my career – that we lost some of that “sister connection” that is so special between sisters.  Like two different flowers from the same bouquet, sisters share life-long memories that glue them together no matter how many miles or how much time separates them. Memories, like the strong threads holding together a patchwork quilt, weaved our lives together forever.  Memories of growing up conspirators against our parents, of dealing with little brothers, sharing everything and taking care of each other.  Of counting on, leaning on and telling on each other.  As siblings, we fought relentlessly, but we also took care of each other.  We were bitter enemies and the closest of allies.  I always found the first Easter egg, but I never found my second one until she found her first.   I don’t have a single childhood memory that does not include her. Sisters keep you honest because they, above all others, know your real story.

In a small cabin on the side of a mountain in Gatlinburg, TN in the summer of 1998, with children running everywhere and husbands napping on the sofas, we remembered how much we loved each other.   We left that vacation with promises that we would speak at least weekly and we did.  That was the first time we our families had ever vacationed together and we decided that we would do it again the next summer.  We never again got the chance.

My sister died unexpectedly in the fall of that year. I now know that God gave me a blessed opportunity that summer when I was able to spend that week with my sister. I have missed her every single day since then.  And, though I do not get to talk to her any more, I see her in her two children, who are now amazing young adults.  In her granddaughter, who, uncannily, was born eight years later on November 11, the anniversary of her death.  I see her in my mother’s eyes when she reflects back over the best days of her life, when all four of her children were at home, safe and sound.  I see her in my dreams, where she is always laughing.  And, yes, I see her when I look down at my arm and see the small dark tattoo of revenge that she left me.

It makes me smile every time.

Doing the School Supply Shuffle

There was a big commotion at Walmart last Saturday.

I dashed into the store to pick up a few things and thought I had time traveled to December 24.  The place was as packed as Christmas Eve with tired kids tagging along behind frustrated moms, trudging from aisle to aisle with a long list trailing behind them.  I immediately recognized the look….It was the annual Search for School  Supplies Trek, a time when mamas all over the country leave their homes to fulfill their duty of making sure their child has everything on their school supply list. 

 

For the first time in 15 years, I don’t have a school supply list.  No frantically running from store to store trying to find non-odorous, chisel- tipped dry erase markers, Fiskar left handed scissors, or vinyl, two-pocket folders with brads in red, yellow and purple only.  After running that race for my child, Drew, from 3K through 12^th grade, I am done with the school supply scavenger hunt.  Hallelujah, amen.

As a matter of fact, I could probably open a little school supply business on the side.  One of the best pieces of advice came to me several years ago from one of Drew’s elementary school teachers.  She suggested that we set aside one cabinet in our house and stock it with school supplies.  Pick up notebook paper, pencils, pens, construction paper – all that - when it is on sale and stick it in the cabinet.  That way you always have school supplies on hand.  I have done that for the past 7 or 8 years.   You need a purple, two pocket folder with brads?  I got it.  Need wide ruled or college ruled notebook paper?  No problem.  Poster board – what color?  Three hole punch or hand-held one-hole punch?  Composition books for one, three or five subjects.  Binders from half an inch to three and a half inches with inside pockets.  Notebook hole re-enforcers, ballpoint pens in black, blue and red, book covers, rulers, calculators – all available at Fondren School Supplies for Well Equipped Children. 

I remember when my mother took me to the Ben Franklin’s Five and Dime for school supplies when I started first grade at Senatobia Elementary School.  In 1964, we didn’t have to have a list.  We could pretty much remember what we had to have.    We left the “Meet the Teacher” meeting, walked downtown to the store and got my new book satchel, fat pencils, first grade tablet and box of fat, first grade Crayola colors.   I took an old bath towel for nap time.  We surely never had kindermats or designer backpacks or markers that smell like strawberries (I’m sure if I had a smell-good marker, I would have eaten it!).

The really big deal at back-to-school time was shopping for new school clothes.  We wiggled our dirty little toes into a pair of brand new school shoes – toes that had not been covered except on Sundays since we took off last year’s school shoes in May.  My sister and I each got new underwear, socks, and three new dresses.  In the mid-1960’s, we were not allowed to wear pants to school unless it was extremely cold – then we could wear pants under our dresses.    We wore pretty much the same thing to school every day – not because we had to wear uniforms, but because that was all we had to wear.  We had school clothes, play clothes and Sunday clothes – and never did the three intermingle.

I remember the year I desperately wanted a pair of white go-go boots.  My mother warned me that if I got the go-go boots, that would have to be my one pair of school shoes.  A fashionista even at age 8, I went with the go-go boots.  They were shiny white, patent leather, pointed-toe boots with a back zipper that just covered my ankles.   I wore those boots every single day until Christmas, when finally my grandmother gave me a pair of regular shoes.  I am still a sucker for senseless, but fashionable, shoes.  

While I am ecstatic about not being involved in this year’s hunting and gathering of school supplies, I admit that I will miss excitement of the first days of school.  I will miss checking off the list with Drew, making sure we have all that he needs for a promising school year.  I will miss tearing open the packages and organizing the supplies with him.  I’ll miss the excitement (and disappointment!) of finding out which teacher he gets and which of his friends are in his classes.  I have asked my child every single day for the past 30 school semesters, “What did you eat for lunch today?”  I will miss that.  I will even miss the nights when he suddenly remembered that he volunteered to bring sausage balls the next day to a class party.    I will miss that very special connection that mamas and their children have during their school years.  

I was in the restroom of McAlister’s restaurant the other day where a young mother was wrestling with her two young sons – a preschooler and an infant.  The three-year-old, blond curls spilling all over his chubby little face, was singing at the top of his voice while his frazzled mom changed his screaming baby brother’s dirty diaper.  Fussy children never bother me, but I could see that this teary-eyed mom was really at the end of her rope and was a little embarrassed that her children were being so rowdy.  “My children are not always so disruptive,” she told me, as she struggled to sooth the tired infant.  “We have been in the car all day and we are all tired.”  I assured her that her children were no bother and that they were both as cute as pie.  “I remember days like this,” I told her.  “Enjoy them while they are young.  Before you know it, they will be graduating high school and gone.”   The young mother smiled.

I dried my hands, patted the blond curls and left the bathroom, feeling a little bit nostalgic.   My 18-year-old college freshman son was anxiously waiting for me outside.    “Come on, Mom, we still have lots to do,” he said.

Indeed, we do.

Chasing Away the Boogey Bears

It is the deepest corner of the night. The only sound is the gentle click of the air conditioner as it struggles to compete with the late July coastal heat.  My eyes pop open as remnants of a pleasant dream evaporate before I can recall the subject.  I know what time it is as I try to focus my contact-free eyes on the bedside clock, thankful that the dial is illuminated and huge. 

It is 3:15 am and I am, once again, hunting Boogey Bears.

Like Goldilocks, I have Big Bears, Medium Bears and Baby Bears.  Hers are fairy-tale cute; mine are big, black and scary. 

I click off a quick inventory of those I hold dear – husband, Dennis, snoring lightly beside me; son, Drew, in the next room sleeping the teenager sleep that will last at least another nine hours; mother at home with my brother and his family visiting from south Mississippi; and my other two children – niece, April, at home with her family and nephew, Brandon, working a summer job and house-sitting at our house.

Two or three nights a week for the past several years at precisely 3:15 am when the world is at its most peaceful, I am suddenly jerked from a deep slumber as my mind comes alive with worries, fears and personal Boogey Bears.  Even a wonderful beach vacation – such as the one we are enjoying this week – does not keep the Boogey Bears at bay.  Worry, doubt, fear – those things do not take a vacation.

I slip quietly out of bed so as not to disturb my astonishingly worry-free husband.  Without turning on a light, I find my way through the unfamiliar vacation condo to my favorite place.  Sliding the cool glass balcony door open, I immediately hear the gentle waves of the ocean splashing against the shoreline like a love song.   Finally tamed after three days of stormy weather, the sea seems to share my emotions.  Calm, but reflective.  Peaceful, but waiting for the next storm to come.

I am a worry wart by nature.  My daddy used to say that if I couldn’t find something to worry about, I would worry about not having something to worry about. 

I think about the Big Bears – Will my child make the right decisions in his life?  Will he find something he loves to do?  Will he find a Christian girl and have a happy family life?  Is my mother okay after losing the love of her life, my dad, six months ago?  Is my husband’s health good?   Are we financially prepared for Drew’s education?  Is he emotionally prepared for college?   How can I help April as she struggles through nursing school?  Should Brandon go ahead and get his masters now or work a while and go back? 

The Medium Bears:  Am I doing the best I can do at a job I love?  Should we continue with the antique store that my dad loved?  How am I going to reach my sales goal next month with the congress acting so crazy? 

The Baby Bears:  Weight Watchers or Diet Center?  Is that new skin care regiment working for me?  Where did that wrinkle come from?  Can I find my treadmill under all those clothes?  We all need to eat better….did I remember to get ice cream at the grocery yesterday?

My mind whirls with thoughts and plans and decisions.  I pride myself on being a “take control” kind of gal.  My dad told me many years ago that I could do anything I put my mine to – and I believed him.  But, in the wee hours of the morning when even the sun is sleeping peacefully, I’m chasing Boogey Bears disguised as fear, doubt, dread, regret.  I am faced again with the fact that my greatest strength – my strong, self sufficient personality – is also my greatest weakness.  So often I am so determined to need no one that I forget that THE ONE is the only way to chase the Boogey Bears away.  I can handle this one, Lord, I often think.  I’ll just wait to call on You when I make a real mess of things and get really desperate, I tell Him.

I remind myself of my favorite Bible verse:  “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

As someone in the home building business, I can also relate to this one:  “…He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.”  (Luke 6:48)

Jesus did not say, hey, build a good house on a firm foundation and it will never flood or burn or have plumbing problems.  We all have worries and problems and tragedy in our lives.   He did not say that we should take care of ourselves and just bother him when the big bears come out.  But, he did say that if we have our foundation built on Him, we don’t have to fear the Boogey Bears.  It is truly not the bad stuff that happens in our lives that matters – because bad stuff does happen.  It is how we deal with the big bad bears that matters.  Do we attempt to handle the bears all on our own or do we trust God’s plan for our lives and have faith in him?

I think of the equation that my GA teacher at the First Baptist Church in Senatobia used to tell us:  Fear + Trust = Faith.  

 I remind myself (Again!!) of His promises.  Alas, I am simply and utterly human. 

Gulping a big lungful of the cool, salty morning air, I take one final look into the ocean’s depths and slip back into my warm and peaceful bed assured that, for tonight, the Boogey Bears have been pushed back into their cages and I am safe.

Early Mornings with the Ocean

The ocean seems a little angry today.  This part of the gulf coast at Gulf Shores, Alabama, known as the “Emerald Coast,” is anything but jeweled this morning.  Heavy, gray clouds crouch just beyond reach at water’s edge, like vast, misty doors opening into another world.  I can understand why early explorers were afraid to venture toward the clouds for fear of dropping off the face of the earth.  The water goes on forever.

Foamy, white waves are slapping the sand, reaching deep onto the beach, then rolling slowly back into itself, taking tiny bits of the earth with it, only to return with treasures both God-made and man-made. 

On Day Four of our beach vacation, the ocean is yelling its secrets to me rather than the soft whisper of the waves that I dream of during the cold, winter months at home.  As I perch on the balcony of our sixth floor vacation home, coffee cup in hand, I am still a bit sleepy after a restless, stormy night seaside, but anxious to savor the quiet morning time with one of God’s most beautiful creations.  The ocean has many faces – tranquil, powerful, fearsome, healing, calm, beautiful, and mighty.    I want to see them all.

We city folks spend thousands of dollars to leave our asphalt and concrete lives for a brief love affair with the ocean.  Some of us timidly stick a toe into the very edge of it while others boldly dive into the cool depths of it.  We hear the sirens of the sea; taste the saltiness of it as it splashes our faces like the fat tears of the broken-hearted.

From my concrete perch above the palm trees, I can see a family - mother, father, sister and baby brother – all dressed in white, posing for the camera, a permanent reminder of a family beach vacation.  Their whiteness - bleached t-shirts and white shorts for the boys; flowing linen dresses for the girls – turns the naturally white sandy beach into a smooth, beige backdrop, much like a perfect white pearl hidden in an ancient oyster shell.

From the un-naturally green patch of sod below my balcony, I hear the mantra of the spirituality seekers performing seemingly impossible Yoga stances, quietly, frantically searching for peace and tranquility while I sit gazing out into God’s masterpiece and finding it there.

Early morning, while my family is still sleeping the sleep of vacation, is my favorite time of the day; the reason I love time away from my busy life.  This is not just a time of relaxation, but also a time of reconnection and renewal, reminding me once again what is honest, true and real.

I could sit here forever – seeing, tasting, smelling, hearing…….believing.  I hear one bedroom door opening, then another.  Water running, refrigerator opening, the eternal sound of the television comes on – another busy day begins.  But, I have three more mornings to share secrets with the sea, and I’ll be here bright and early because I don’t want to miss a thing.

My Brief Stint As a Ginger Instead of a Mary Ann

It was the Summer of 1969 and I was 12 years old going on 25.   Space exploration enthusiasts were excited with the notion that Neil Armstrong just might be the first human to set foot on the moon while naysayers and doubters declared that if the USA went through with the trip to the moon planned for later that summer, it  would surely be the end of the world as we knew it.   A little over 400,000 music lovers gathered on a little farm in New York to hear the likes of Jimi Hendrix, the Who, and Janis Joplin in a music fest that would later be known as “Woodstock.”  All of my girlfriends were singing “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies; watching “The Monkey’s” on TV and going to the Tobie Theatre to see “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”  That was the summer I fell in love with Robert Redford and I love him still.

The end of the fifth grade meant to me that I was entering a new phase of my life – SIXTH GRADE, a no-man’s land located somewhere between elementary school and junior high.  Too old to be treated like a child and too young to be treated like anything else.  A “pre-teen almost teenager.”   This was way before the media dubbed the period between 10 and 13 as “tweens”.   Don’t get me wrong, I still had my Barbie collection with Ken and Midge (Barbie’s best friend, a brunette with freckles who was not nearly as cute as Barbie, but I could better relate to her) and my Barbie Dream House made from two Coke bottle crates stacked on top of each other with furniture made from match boxes and bottle tops.  I never got the real Dream Home because we were allowed only three choices from the Sears Christmas catalog and the Dream House counted as three.

In the summer of my 12^th year, the center of my world was Camille Street in my small town of Senatobia, Mississippi.  And, the center of Camille Street in the summer time was the community swimming pool.   Starting in early May, all of us Camille Street kids pushed our noses through the chain link fence that surrounded the pool and watched as the cover came off and the scrubbing began to make the old swimming pool glisten under the blazing southern sun.  Mothers’ pool chairs were dragged out of storage and given a good cleaning.  The slide was put back on the side of the pool and the diving boards – both high and low - were installed at the deep end.  After a couple of weeks of renewal, the pool was ready to be filled with the chlorine purified water that would cool every sweaty kid on Camille Street for the next 12 weeks.

Opening day was always the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend.  At 1:45 everyone lined up on the sidewalk outside the swimming pool gates, donning new swim suits from Baddour’s Bargain Center, a towel from the bathroom cabinet, and 50 cents.  At exactly 2:00, the concession stand window swung open, heralding the official beginning of summer.  A rainbow of colorful flip flops, floats, goggles, and water toys circled the pool as kids dropped everything, racing to be the first one to shatter the glassy stillness of the blue water.

The only thing that threatened the sheer joy of opening day at the pool was THE SHARK –an older girl who sometimes came to the pool and tried to drown me.  An older member of the Camille Street gang, this big old gal would swim under water and grab my legs and pull me under, sitting on me to hold me under water until I almost passed out.  Then she would swim away as if nothing happened and I would pop up from the deep, choking and spitting and crying.  I called her THE SHARK (not out loud, but in my head) and I always kept an eye out for her.  I guess she was my own personal bully and even today, 40-something years later, I occasionally have nightmares about her.

That summer I desperately wanted a new grown-up swim suit instead of the yellow and pink flowered one piece that I had worn the last summer – before I became an “almost teenager.” Growing up in the Hudspeth family of four kids, we wore all of our clothes as long as they fit and then passed them to the next child in line.  Though faded to a sickly looking beige, the suit still fit and my mother was determined that I get one more summer’s wear out of it.  Resigned to the fact that I would just have to wear my Davy Jones t-shirt over my swimsuit all summer, I complained miserably to my Aunt Brenda about the unfairness in my life.

 Aunt Brenda was the first person in my life that I wanted to emulate.  In 1969, she was in her 20’s, a tall, willowy brunette with a teased beehive hairdo that flipped just so on the ends and bounced when she walked.  She drove a light brown Pontiac Grand Prix, had tons of friends and a boyfriend who was a sailor.  She had a job and her own money.  She was everything I wanted to be.

“Maybe you can wear one of my suits,” she told me when I complained about my childish looking swim suit.  I was excited at that prospect, but seriously doubted that my chunky little 12-year-old body would ever fit into anything she owned.  “You can borrow one of my one-piece swim suits,” she generously offered as she dropped me off at my grandmother’s house.

I ran straight to Brenda’s room and began nosing around her stuff as I always did, looking at all the shoes, the dresses and cool jewelry she had.  Then I spotted it - the most glorious swim suit I had ever seen.  It was a shiny, black and red number with peep-a-boo holes cut out of the sides from right under the arm pit to right below the hip bone.  The center piece was just a thin strip of material held in the middle by a big gold buckle.  It was the most stunning thing I had ever seen and I scampered out of my shorts to stretch those small pieces of Lycra over my squatty square body.  As I looked at myself in full length mirror that was attached to the back of her closet, I saw a movie star.  I was no longer Mary Ann, I was Ginger. I was glamorous beyond measure.   There was only one small problem – the top part of the suit had pads about 4 inches thick turning my flat pubescent chest into a scandalous double D.  Nevermind that there was nothing under the thick foam rubber padding.  I figured nobody would notice that.   I quickly put back on my shorts and t-shirt, stuffing the swim suit into my pants so that my grandmother would not see what I was taking back home.

When the big day finally came, I was little nervous as I stood in line with my $2 to pay for my sister, two brothers and myself to swim.  This year, I thought, everyone is going to see a new, grown up Martha.

I spread my towel out on the side of the pool, a t-shirt covering my new swim suit, not quite ready for the big reveal.  Finally, the heat trumped any modesty I felt, so moved over to the side of the pool and eased myself into the water.  Just as I was pulling the t-shirt over my head, I spotted THE SHARK coming in my direction.  It was too late to pull the t-shirt back over my body because half of my head was already out of the shirt, so I pulled the shirt off and tossed it onto my towel.  I was standing in about three feet of water, the foam padding in the top of my suit literally lifting me up out of the pool, watching the devil girl swim underwater toward me.  I started scampering, trying to lift myself out of the water and onto the side of the pool, not quite able to raise my top half out of the water as the padding absorbed the water and became heavier and heavier.  Just as she reached for my foot, I felt myself being lifted out of the water and straight onto the tile beside the pool.  I looked up and straight into the face of Coach Waldrop, the Senatobia High School basketball coach who got the summer gig of managing the pool.  He pulled me straight up, grabbed my towel and wrapped it around me and marched me to the office saying, “Believe me, she could not have pulled you under, not with those buoys.”

“Does your mama know you got that on?” he asked me as I was pulling on my shirt.  “What are you thinking?  That’s not even……believable.”

“No sir, she doesn’t know,” I mumbled, so embarrassed that I knew that I would never again be able to face Coach Waldrop again.  If my mother had seen me, she would have brought the fly swatter to the pool and swatted the back of my legs all the way home.  I don’t like to even think about what my daddy would have done.

“You have plenty of time to grow up,” the coach told me.  “Don’t rush it.”

Coach Waldrop tossed me a package of Now or Laters and sent me home to change into my own swim suit.

I did go back to the pool, not that day, but the next day, perfectly happy in my own little swim suit. Thanks to Coach Waldrop, no one got a good look at my mistake; nobody made fun of me or laughed at me and he saved me from being held underwater by THE SHARK.  He lifted me right out of that bad situation and placed me on dry land.   All of us who grew up in small southern towns on streets named Camille or Magnolia or Maple, or any variation of a southern street name, were always cared for by whichever adult happened to be around.  It was typical for Ricky’s mom to fuss at me for walking barefoot to the ball field or Charlotte’s mom to tell me it was time to go inside for the night.  Many times, my daddy yelled for Lisa to get her bike out of the street.  Jackie and Kathy’s mom fed my sister lunch more often than she ate at home.  Angela showed up at our backdoor every morning for breakfast one summer, had bacon and toast, and slipped back to her house before her mom ever noticed she was missing from the front of the TV.     My brother, Andy, was so often at the home of the twins, Bob and Dave; some people thought they were triplets.   I’m sure Beverly’s mom hauled around Betty Kay as much as she did Beverly.   If one of us yelled, “MOMMA!”  - mothers all up and down the street opened the back door to see what the matter was.  When I was hurt or hungry or hot, I could have knocked on any of the doors on my street and received help or a snack or a hug.  Any of us could have – and did.

Does it really take a village to raise a child?  No, but it sure does help – especially when the village is filled with caring, loving and unforgettable adults like we grew up with on Camille Street.

The Camille Street Gang

In the mid-1960’s, Camille Street was the social hub of my small hometown of Senatobia, Mississippi.  At least it was for the pre-teen jet-setters that formed my circle of friends.

Camille Street was slap dab in the middle of “Dogwood Hills,” the only neighborhood of new, modern homes.  All the homes looked different on the outside, but inside they were all the same.  Three bedrooms – all on one hallway; 1.5 baths – the master bedroom got the half bath; eat-in kitchen; living room; and double carport.  Most had shag carpet, tiny pink and white tiles in the bathrooms, harvest gold or avocado green appliances and sliding closet doors that were forever “jumping the tract” so that most everyone’s closet doors stayed half open all the time.  All of this glory was situated on a 70X120 square foot patch of grass.  It was new; it was modern; it was hip – homeownership for all the upwardly mobile young couples with 3 kids and a dog.  Most had grown up on farms in rural Mississippi and they wanted something better for their children, so they moved to town.

I heard once that Camille Street was named after the mayor’s wife.  I never met the mayor or his wife and I never saw a single dogwood tree in my neighborhood.

It was difficult to drive down Camille Street on most summer days.  The street was always filled with kids and their bikes, roller skates or skate boards, kids chasing dogs, mamas shooing toddles away from the street, or dogs chasing kids.  We had our own form of traffic control – it was called “Mama.”  Come racing down our street and you were liable to get a stern look from a dozen different mamas.  “Where do they think they are, Memphis?”  I often heard my mama say.

I guess Ricky was the first of us to move to Camille Street.  He must have been 4 or 5 when my family first came to see the new house my daddy bought for us.  Ricky laid in his front yard across the street and shot at me with his toy gun.  It was love at first sight – and we have been best friends ever since.  In 1963, my sister, Gail, my brother, Andy, and I were the second group of kids to move to our end of Camille Street.  My younger brother, Jeff, was born a few years later.  Charlotte, John, Jr. and Mike were the next to move there – our dads drove Wonder Bread trucks together.  Next came Kathy & Jackie and then Lisa Mac and Little Linda.  Mikie, Pam and Debbie lived just up the street as did Bob Brownlee.  I don’t know why we always called everyone by just their first name, except for Bob.  He was always Bob Brownlee.    At the other end of the street were Wade & Kelvin, Beverly and Betty Kay. 

Oh, and Ricky, Lila and Jeffrey Rikard.    Bless their hearts!  They were Yankees – the only people from the North we ever knew and we made such fun of the way they talked.  Their dad did not have a real job – he was a writer.  Their mom wore “dressing gowns” – which to us just meant she walked around in her housecoat.  Worst of all, they had cats!  CATS!  On our all-dog street.  We treated those poor kids like they were Martians or Nazis – the two things we feared the most.  They finally went back north and to this day, that house seems to be jinxed.  Nobody ever lives there very long.

The best part of growing up on Camille Street – and I’m sure what made us the envy of the rest of the kids in the town – was the fact that there was a community swimming pool and baseball field right in the center of our neighborhood.  As early as March, the bright lights of the baseball field would pop on at 5 pm for spring practice, a sure sign that summer was just around the corner.  About a week after the last day of school, the air around the neighborhood would be fragrant with the smell of chlorine – the pool was finally open!  We swam every day and played baseball every night.  After the baseball game, we sat in someone’s yard, sucking on concession stand grape or cherry sour pops, and told ghost stories.  The tales got taller and taller until someone got scared and went home.  Other nights, we played “Bears are out tonight” – a game where we would scatter throughout the neighborhood and hide from the designated “bears” whose job it was to find out and scare the devil out of us.  Screams and laughter filled the night as we ran through the backyards and streets, barefooted as Cooter Brown, seeking refuge from the bears.  This went on for hours until we were exhausted and hot – then we would sit on the curb and laugh about who got so tickled they wet their pants.  Around 10 pm, porch lights started flickering up and down the street – our signal that it was time to come in for the night.

Bright and early the next morning, sleepy-eyed and full of chocolate milk and Sugar Frosted Flakes, we started all over again.

We were all around the same age – went to the same school, had the same classes with the same teachers.  But, we had only one set of encyclopedias among us.  If one of us had to do a report on the solar system, we had to call around the neighborhood to see who had the “S” Book of Knowledge.  “Ricky, you got the S encyclopedia?”  “No, I got the W and the B.  I think Charlotte has the S.”  This went on every time one of us had to write a report.

All of our mamas were at home during the day time and most of us were called in around 11:30 to eat our bologna sandwich and drink our Kool-Aid so that we would be out of our moms' hair before their afternoon stories came on.  My mama saved her ironing for the time that “Days of Our Lives” and “As the World Turns” came on.  She would throw my daddy’s white cotton shirts in the freezer for a couple of hours and then steam iron them with a few sprinkles from a used  Coke bottle filled with water, the top of which she had punched holes in with an ice pick and put back on the bottle.  I can close my eyes and see my mother in her hot pink stretchy pants, her hair in a highly teased bouffant, swaying back and forth over the ironing board, eyes on the console TV, shaking her head and clucking her tongue at the goings on of the Horton family in Salem or the Hughes family in Oakdale.  At precisely 3 pm, my mama – and all the other mamas on Camille Street, started their supper so that it would be ready when our daddies came home around 5:30.

We all started first grade together and eventually graduated high school together.  Our moms took us to stand in line one hot July morning in 1965 to get our polio sugar cube.  Afterwards, we walked down to the Rexall and got a Coke on ice.  A rare treat. 

Ricky and I were in my mother’s new convertible going to my grandmother’s house when the radio announced that President John F. Kennedy had been shot.  Both of us cried – not because of the president – but because we were driving through a bad storm and a tree branch came crashing through the cloth convertible top and onto the back seat on us just as the somber radio announcer told of the national tragedy.  My mother cried because her new car was ruined.   That was a really bad day.

All of us on Camille Street had our first dates together, got our driver’s license together (Kathy was first!), and had our hearts broken together.  In high school, we could not wait to get out of school and leave Camille Street.  Some went to Ole Miss, others to MSU or Northwest.  All of us eventually left.  On the many trips I made back to see my parents, Camille Street started to look smaller, somehow.  Those cutting-edge, modern homes of the ‘60 have seemed tiny, the big yards empty.  The community swimming pool was filled in and made into a parking lot.  There were no bikes in the streets, no basketball goals, no hop-scotch grids drawn on the street with chalk.   There were no children – just grandparents.  For years all was quiet and still.

I have not lived on Camille Street since I left for college in 1975. But, my dreams are filled with adventures played out on the streets of our small neighborhood.  My best memories are of Ricky, Charlotte, Kathy, Mikie.  Of smelling chicken frying and knowing it was Monday because that was fried chicken day at our house.  Of making a mud pie topped with shaving cream frosting for Ricky when he had measles.  Of lying under the stars on a homemade quilt giggling about boys with Charlotte.  Of the “talent shows” we had on our front porch.  Of my mama pulling her car into the grass so we could roller skate on the driveway.  Of so many Christmas mornings when Ricky would be the first one up – around 4 am – and scamper across the street to see what was under our tree.

I still dream of the fun we had, the lessons we learned, the plans we made and the safety and love we all felt.

Last week I was going to my mother’s house – a house she has called home for more than 45 years – and I noticed as I turned onto Camille Street, a group of little boys throwing a baseball to each other in the street.  A little further down the street, there was a squad of cheerleader-want-to-be’s practicing their chats in someone’s front yard.  I dodged a couple of bikes left on the curb and a basketball goal dragged to the street for practice.  Camille Street was alive with the beginning of summer.

It’s a new day in our neighborhood. Old houses are being repainted and refurbished. New mamas are pushing new strollers down old streets.  New games are being played under the old trees.  A new generation is growing, learning, and living on Camille Street.  If I could, I would tell this new generation to stay on Camille – and in childhood – as long as possible.  Don’t be so eager to get out into the world.  There is nothing safer, more comforting, and more special than growing up in a small Southern town with friends you will keep for life.

When this new generation leaves Camille Street – and they will leave without a backward glance, just like we did – they, too, will dream of lazy summer days and humid, fun-filled nights.  They will dream of home.   Just like we do.