Talk of snow

It's rainy and cold, and some people have seen snow. We saw some hail, but it was brief and transitory. The talk of snow set everyone atwitter on the internet. They love it or they hate it. Whatever.

I remember when a snow was really a snow, or something like that. You were 2 and day after day, the snow kept falling. Richard and Dad and Andy were out shoveling every morning, and getting anywhere was a chore, especially since I was still working up in Ogden. Had to be there at 7, and many days I'd just putt along at 25 mph on the interstate. Not fun. I dreamed of FrontRunner. Now it's here and I can't use it.

The snow drifts were taller than you and I remember Dad plopping you in the white billows while he shoveled.

My mother used to hate the snow only because it got dirty so fast when car exhaust blackened the streets. I don't blame her on that one, but I also think it's OK to love and hate the snow. It can be quiet and comforting as well as fearsome and cold.

My brother and I got lost once up in Park City when we took a turn onto a "closed" trail. I led him right over a small cliff. That was exciting in a sickening way. We just kept on skiing downhill in all the solitude, and eventually found ourselves coming out on a paved street. My father was not at all happy, but he was, actually.

Stay warm this winter. We'll be sending snow to Missouri.

A Blustery Day

It’s a blustery day, as Pooh would say. My mother never liked Pooh. She said he “wasn’t real,” although she didn’t have the same high standards for, say, Perry Mason. Anyway, it was OK that I grew up without Pooh. I still don’t really understand his philosophies, even though I shared them with you, Ray, when you were growing up.

One of my best friends from college had a Pooh nickname. Linda and her friends got them from being Girl Scout leaders. I can’t remember her name, but her friend’s was Eeyore. “Thanks for noticing me.”

Linda just retired from teaching high school, but it’s hard to think of her as anything but a crazy Greek college student. And by Greek, I mean real Greek, even though we were in a sorority together, too.

On this blustery day, Dad and I had fettuccini with pine nuts. It reminded me of long ago and a friend named Karla. Karla’s mom worked at KALL radio, which then was upstairs on Main Street – not unlike City Weekly now. After school, we’d sometimes walk down to KALL, and always picked up a bag of warm pine nuts that were being roasted in a front window on the ground-floor .

I wonder what memories you will carry with you of friends and maybe even nuts.

From Ray to Ray

Just a few days ago I acknowledged another anniversary of my brother's death. Ray was killed in 1981 in a car crash with a drunken driver in Sacramento. I try not to think of this too often, this horrific turning place in my life and the lives of my parents. Of the fact that he died on my best friend's birthday and that every year now, I celebrate her life while I mourn his death at 29.

But I also thank God for the miracle of my own son, Ray - after the uncle he never knew. My Ray went off to college this year. Responsible, creative, motivated ... far from home. Boy, do we miss him.

I remember my mother telling me once that she felt responsible for my brother's death. He had wanted to come home from law school, and she and Dad encouraged him to stick it out. If only he had come home, she said.

But that was fruitless talk. Perhaps the crash would have found him wherever he was. No sense in going after if's. My Ray is nonetheless not my parents' Ray. And maybe neither of them really were ours anyway.

We and our loved ones belong to the world, and I am learning now to see Ray as my gift to that world. I can't harbor him in my arms forever, but there is that place in my heart.

Miss Tif's Day at School

Miss Tiffany's Day at School. Right now Miss Tif is wondering, "What if HE just wants to be my friend?" And her answer to herself is, "I don't need any more friends." But this, of course, has nothing to do with this post. Miss Tiffany is a first-grade teacher's aid, and had some interesting conversations with the yung'uns today. It started with Timmy's (name changed to protect the guilty) cousin who "dot awested cause she lied to a top." No, no, Timmy, Miss Tif says, Now remember, we don't ever lie to police officers. Then, Suzy came out with, "My dad's in and out of jail, but my stepdad isn't, so that's OK." To which Miss Tif said, way to go, way to see the BRIGHT SIDE. And then she hears about Freddie's dad getting pulled over for drinking and driving to which she says, sometimes dads forget it's not good to drink and drive and we need to remind them. But not to be upstaged, one little girl says, "Then, you might have heard it in the news, my my mom's best friend got arrested because she mistook her baby for a turkey and chopped it up and ate its brains." What can you say to that? We don't talk about that sort of thing in school.

Amen.

So this, Ray, may make you want to change your mind about careers. The teaching profession not only has a lot to offer, but some really interesting stories as well.