Wednesday, May 27, 2009


Steve Del Masso

Back then, we called it Jr. High - the school years of 7th through 9th grade. Jr. High was not at all like elementary school. For the first time, we had a different teacher for each subject, in a different classroom. We had lockers with combinations we had to memorize, and gym class, in which we had to undress, shower, then dress again, with no privacy. We also had one hour each morning called "homeroom."

Homeroom was the class period in which we were informed of the day's announcements. I don't remember much about homeroom except that we were assigned to this class alphabetically, by last name.

My best friend, Jan Davies, who had also attended elementary school with me, landed in the same homeroom class with me. So did a lanky, sandy-haired boy with piercing blue eyes named Steve Del Masso. I'm not sure if we shared a homeroom class all three years. But I'm certain I fell in love with him the first time I looked into those blue eyes.

My memories of Steve are, admittedly, vague. It was a long time ago, after all. Pictures help to bring back the images of our young love. He used one I posted on my Facebook page many years later as his profile picture. It's of the two of us standing on the school ground the last day of 9th grade. In it I am wearing my middy, an atrocious white sailor style blouse with a black tie around the collar. According to tradition, 9th grade girls wore them to school on Fridays. I don't know how this tradition got started, but I do remember feeling proud to be among the privileged few permitted to wear this hideous garment. Steve is wearing a navy double-breasted jacket and matching tie. I'm pretty sure he wore that on every dress-up date we had. We have an arm around each other's waist. His expression resembles that unmistakable deer-in-the-headlights look. Judging by my ear-to-ear grin, I was over the moon.

I don't remember much about the day's activities, except that the teachers had organized all sorts of silly games for the 9th graders to play on the lawn. We all competed against each other in a sack race, hopping along to the finish line inside burlap sacks we held up to our waists.

My most vivid memory of that day is when we were paired off to run the three-legged race. For this race, two students each put one leg in the sack, held each other around the waist for balance, then raced together against other pairs. Steve and I were partnered. I could hardly contain my excitement at being permitted to be that close to Steve.

We also attended a couple of Job's Daughters dances. I have a picture of us pressed up against each other dancing to a slow song. I'm sure he wore the same jacket and tie. I don't remember noticing that then, and if I did, I didn't care. I was with Steve Del Masso. That was all that mattered.

We dated a few more times in high school, and the following summer, when he got his driver's license and pickup truck. I remember one double-date to the drive-in. It was the summer of 1970, and the movie was "Mash." The four of us climbed into the bed of his truck, and bundled up under sleeping bags to stay warm in the cool, Bay Area night air. He pulled out a can of Coke, poured something into it, then handed it to me. Rum & Coke, he told me. I remember liking the taste of the sweet drink. I also remember feeling a little dangerous and daring drinking liquor for the first time.

We lost touch after high school. I remember seeing him at our 10-year reunion with his wife. I don't even think we spoke. Divorced by then, I probably saw no point in wasting my time with a married guy, when there were plenty of single ones to chat up.
39 years after our high school graduation, and my first rum & coke in the bed of his pickup, Steve's name appeared on my Facebook page. All my Jr. High emotions came flooding back. I couldn't get the pictures of us together posted quickly enough! I sent him a message confessing my school girl crush. We exchanged a few more communications, then agreed to meet for old time sake.

He remembered two double dates in his pickup. I teased him that, thanks to him, I never did see "Mash" all the way through. As we caught each other up on our lives, I was surprised at how little I knew about him back in our school days.
Remarkably, he was a straight A student through high school, was president of Phi House, played tuba in the band, and won a music scholarship.

Years later, he took over his dad's produce distribution business, and built it into a highly successful enterprise. He introduced me to his dad when I visited the shop one day.

"Dad, remember when you took me to the store to buy that blue jacket in 7th grade?"

Mr. Del Masso nodded.

"It was for me to wear on a date with Camille," Steve said with a smile.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Early draft of an introduction for my memoir

Our assignment for this week's memoir class was to find a theme running through our stories, then write an intro to our memoir expressing the theme. Patty, our instructor, had explained that if we worked with them long enough a theme would reveal itself. I struggled with this for a few days, reading, sorting, then rereading and resorting. I was in the middle of writing an email to Patty, questioning whether a memoir was actually what I intended for my end product, since it seemed my stories had no common thread. As I tried to explain to her how my stories seemed unrelated to one another, I realized I could no longer figure out how I had separated them earlier. They all seemed to speak to one theme - Relationships. Below is an early draft of my memoir's introduction.
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Relationships are not stagnant. They change with the seasons of our lives.

My two brothers are much older than me. When we were young, they played cruel tricks on me, often bringing me to tears, then laughed as my mother scolded them. Many years later, one of my brothers, Gary, introduced me to a good friend of his, Jerry, who would become my husband. The other brother, Bill, the oldest, and the instigator of most of my childhood teasing, suffers from Parkinson's Disease. Now bedridden, he resides in an assisted-care facility. Gary and I visit him regularly, though not often enough. At family gatherings, Bill used to chase our squealing kids around the house, threatening to kiss them. If he caught one, he would grab her up in a bear hug and plant squeaky kisses on her neck and face until she wriggled free. Someone always seemed to be hollering at Bill to leave the kids alone.

Relationships mold our lives. Never a demonstrably affectionate family, my brothers and I seldom hugged each other over the years. And I can't remember a time when either of my brothers kissed me, or I, them. Now I plant a quiet kiss on Bill's forehead before I leave him at the end of each visit. Gary and I exchange a hug whenever we get together.

Time warms some relationships, and cools others. Gary and I have a closer relationship now than I'm sure we would have had if I hadn't married his good friend. My mother and her sister, Ruby, were close as children. As Ruby's alcoholism escalated, my mother's disdain for her grew. I'm sure they both suffered from the resulting estrangement.

No one is immune from the effects of relationships.

This is a story about relationships.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

GOOD DAUGHTER

I open the door to the bright, expansive common room. Warm autumn sun beams in from windows on the opposite wall high above the door that leads out to the tidy garden patio. I steel my churning stomach against the smell of disinfectant poorly masking the urine odor. Bent bodies barely supporting lonely, vacant faces are scattered about at the round tables that fill the large room. Reminding myself to smile, I greet those whose expressions flicker with comprehension. Weaving through the wheelchairs and shuffling slippers, my steps are quick and light. I am ashamed of my forty-something agility.


I ascend the staircase and find my mother’s room. The bathroom door is propped open, nearly blocking the entry doorway. This is undoubtedly to ensure some privacy from the nosy residents who stroll up and down the hall and peer in at her.

I nudge the door and squeeze through the narrow space silently so as not to startle her. She is dozing in the recliner my brother, Gary, and I bought her two weeks after we moved her here.

Mom awakens to my soft touch on her shoulder and gets up to offer me her seat. It’s the only chair in her half of the shared room, so she sits on the end of her twin bed. The flowered coverlet does little to cheer up the dormitory setting.

I offer her a piece of the raspberry scone I bought on the way over. She spreads open a Kleenex and lays it across her trembling outstretched hand. I set her portion of the treat in it. Mom nibbles the scone and comments that she doesn’t get sweets much here. I notice that her tremor is not bad this morning. It may be the hour, I tell myself. Her Parkinson’s medication causes noticeable peaks and valleys of effectiveness over the course of the day.

“Did you pay my bills?” she asks.
“Yes, Mom. I paid them.”
“Well, do you have the receipt for the rent?”
“They don’t give me a receipt.” I know this answer will not satisfy her.
“Then how do you know if they got it?”
I stifle a sigh of exasperation. “I bring the check when I come to visit you the week it’s due. I hand it to them in person.”

She asks nothing more; her eyes register uncertainty. I wonder if I’ll trust my daughter to pay my bills when I’m too ill to pay them myself.

We engage in small talk for a time. She asks about Kristen, my twenty-two year-old daughter. I tell her she’s fine, still dating the same guy.

After awhile she comments that it’s really not so bad here. That she doesn’t really mind staying here.

“That’s good,” I reply, unable to think of anything else to say. I am relieved she’s not unhappy. I think maybe she has accepted the change as permanent.

It was a difficult decision to move her, one that my brothers and I put off too long. When we finally accepted the fact that she needed more care than we could provide her on a drop-in basis, we convinced each other it was time to relocate her to a facility that provided twenty-four-hour care.

We never convinced Mom. She didn’t go willingly. Wouldn’t let go of the notion that one of us could care for her in our home.

I don’t tell her that I’ve begged Kristen never to put me in a place like this, just as Mom begged my brothers and me. I temper my pleas with reassurances that I will trust Kristen’s judgment, and go quietly if there is no other option. I won’t be difficult.

Still, I can’t imagine being bathed and fed by strangers, however friendly and pleasant they seem. I can’t imagine sharing a bedroom and a bathroom with a woman who wets and soils herself, whose expressionless face is the last thing I see when the lights go out.

I glance down at Mom’s bare feet and notice that her nails need clipping. I wonder if other daughters take care of these personal needs for their mothers. Mine doesn’t ask, and I don’t offer.

A young woman with a caring smile, dressed in a white uniform, looks in on us and reminds Mom that it’s time to go downstairs for lunch. I thank the woman and gather my things together, grateful that the awkward visit is over.

I descend the stairs slowly, so as not to get too far ahead of Mom. At the bottom, I kiss her soft cheek, tell her I love her and that I’ll see her next week.

“Love you,” she replies, then turns to make her way haltingly to her assigned seat.

Again I remind myself to smile and nod at the other residents as I glide toward the door to freedom.

Riding home in the car, I cannot erase the image of my mother and her lonely existence. I resolve to take nail clippers with me when I visit next week.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The Lavalier

I don't know how the lavalier came to be owned by Aunt Ruby. I do know that it was a gift from my grandfather to my grandmother on the occasion of their wedding.
A tiny diamond twinkles at the center of the delicate gold Victorian-style pendant. A crescent shaped natural pearl dangles at the bottom. Hanging in our family room is a cherished photo of my grandmother wearing the lavalier.

There was always some disagreement among my mother's siblings about who should have inherited which family mementos. There weren't many. Our family was not well-off. My grandfather, a grocer, died in his late 40's of pneumonia following gall bladder surgery. My grandmother managed to raise her four young children by gradually selling off property my grandfather had aquired during their marriage.

If there was a will, it didn't specify who would get the few trinkets left behind when my grandmother passed away. Her wedding band went to my Uncle Curtis' eldest daughter, Claudia. My mother got granny's engagement ring, which I now have. Ruby ended up with the lavalier. Sounds fair enough now, but my mother and my aunt always bickered with their brother about the wedding band.

When I married the first time, at nineteen years old, Aunt Ruby came out for the wedding. She let me wear the lavalier during the ceremony as my "something old." It fit perfectly against my antique white high-necked gown, and accompanied the headpiece I wore, my grandmother's, that my mother had updated for me. Aunt Ruby made it quite clear that the pendant was just a loan, that she wanted it back at the end of the day.

Twenty-three years later, I invited Aunt Ruby to my second wedding. I asked if I could borrow the lavalier again. This time the pendant rested against my skin, framed by the cream-colored jacket that topped a matching soft, flowing skirt.

After the photographer finished posing my new husband and me with all the combinations of attendants, relatives, cake and bouquet, I found my aunt chatting with my mother at a table near the buffet.

I reached around my neck to unhook the precious memento, when my Aunt stopped me.
"Honey, why don't you keep it? I don't dress up much anymore. You'll get more use out of it now than I will," she said. Then she leaned in a little closer and winked. "Besides, I don't want Curtis' girls to get it when I die."