A bear scare

Most summers, my family of six took off for an extended camping trip, a brave thing to do on my parents' part. When we were little, we had a cumbersome canvas tent that my father, with our "help", wrestled into our shelter for the night. It was an ordeal often performed in the dark and the primary source of the McDonough kids' cussing prowess.

The Cades Cove trip was one marked by bear encounters. They were extremely brazen that year, lumbering down the drive in front of our tent, rooting in the trash cans, and posing for pictures. The park rangers held nightly campfires to explain how dangerous they were and why giving them food was a really bad idea. They told gruesome stories of people who had disregarded their advice and taught us how to hang our food from a tree.

We knew better. The youngest of us knew better, even without the park rangers' presentations. My father was an Eagle Scout and a Marine, and we had camped for years. It had, however, been a long day trip into Gatlinburg. In our big blue station wagon, two of us had to sit backwards and we were all prone to car sickness. On the curvy mountain roads, Randy turned greener and greener. We kept asking him if he felt sick and he kept denying it. As we entered Gatlinburg, he leaned over the front seat to make his final denial, one that became immediately untrue. We added more words to our vocabulary as my parents searched for a public bathroom to clean up in. Despite the bad beginning, we had a great time, gorging on candy and visiting shops. We returned after dark, exhausted and dirty and all somewhat queasy. Scott and I crawled into the pup tent we shared near the big tent, and Mom and Dad fell asleep with the little ones at the same time.

A loud slurping woke my father much later. He peeked out of the door of the tent to see a large black bear seated on our picnic table. Dad's first and second born children were close but out of his reach, and he was too shocked to even start cussing. He watched in horror as the bear drank the orange juice left over from breakfast, sampled the coffee grounds and then started in on the all-day sucker one of us had bought in Gatlinburg. The bear liked the sucker. He began eating it with more and more enthusiasm until finally his teeth got stuck in the chewy candy. Then he became unhappy and my father became more worried, perhaps envisioning the next day's headlines and imagining the next park rangers' presentation. Finally the bear got himself unstuck and went off to search for more delicacies in some equally stupid campers' sites.

Scott and I were furious that we had slept through the adventure. We might have accused my father of making up the story were it not for the evidence on the table: spilled juice and coffee grounds, a half-eaten sucker, and an unmistakable paw print on a postcard we had bought in Gatlinburg. Scott had his revenge though. Later that day, he made a trip to the "comfort station". Opening the door to leave, he came face to belly with a bear. Some adult jerked him back in and they held the door closed until the bear lost interest and left. The other three of us were very jealous as he had bragging rights that trumped anything we had to offer.

As grown-ups, my siblings and I have on a few occasions gotten together to take our children camping. The facilities at national campgrounds must use Scott tissue because they have toilet paper dispensers that say "Scott" on them. But we like our explanation better. We solemnly tell the next generation the story of Uncle Scott and the bathhouse bear and explain that the toilet paper dispensers are in honor of his adventure. In our family, a good story always trumps mere facts.

A visit from the Magi

The Christmas that Claire was one, she came down with some sort of virus. So did lots of other children, so many in fact, that you had to have the advice nurse's permission to even go in and be seen by the pediatrician. As her temperature rose higher and her cough grew worse, I made nine visits in fourteen days, many on weekends or after hours. At $70 a visit, my funds were quickly depleted. Christmas loomed, bills threatened, and I was so scared I could hardly catch my breath. No one said a word, but I felt defensive about being a single parent, about thinking I could do this alone. Obviously I couldn't and it felt like I was getting ready to crash and burn. To make matters worse, I had gone through an experience earlier that year that had ripped my faith from me, leaving me raw and untethered. I WAS alone and it felt like me against the world.

I walked into my church office one Advent Sunday morning, and there was an envelope on my chair with a Christmas card addressed to me. In the card was a stack of twenty dollar bills. My first emotion was fury. Who said that I needed any help? I didn't want any one's charity! I could take care of myself AND my child.

Couldn't I?

I sat with the money in my hand, thinking of the water and the power that were to be cut off the next week, the insurance payment that was due, the tires the car needed. And like the twist of a kaleidoscope, the image changed. Where minutes before I had seen unwanted charity, a new image fell into place, one of love and community and a God who set a star to guide the Magi. As much money as it was, it didn't cover half my bills that year. But it was enough to remind me that while I might not have all that I want, my needs would be met. I was not alone. I was loved. I was cared for. I had enough.

Each year since, sometime before Christmas, a card with a stack of twenties and a loving note written in obviously disguised handwriting shows up. At first I tried to guess who it was. My first guess moved away, but the cards continued. My second guess, an elderly man, died, and still the cards came. I have no idea who it is; I suspect it's someone who stood as my children were being baptized, who said yes, we do take them on to raise. As the years have passed, I have felt less curiosity about the deliverer of the card. Most years I forget, and then, there it is, and I stop and offer thanks for all that I have.

This year has been a tough one. My work has been unsteady and uncertain. I have a child who needs more of my time and attention than most children do. The death of a friend, mounting bills, and an unpleasant school incident combined to feed the panic. I hid in the bathroom two nights ago while I called my sister. "Why did I think I could do this?" I cried.

Last night, Christmas Eve, I ran home after church to get something I needed for the party that followed. And there in the door was the white envelope. It's always a shock when I see it and it was again last night. My hands shook as I carried it inside. Once again it came back to me. I am loved. I am cared for. I have enough.

Can it be that one person's actions can so define another's view of the world? Is it really that easy? The first Magi gave of their time and riches, enduring hardship and danger to bring their gifts identifying Jesus as King. I don't know how much of a sacrifice this is for my Magi. But I know what a gift it is to me, practical help that comes with a life-changing story. I am loved. I am cared for. I have enough.

It also comes with a challenge, perhaps not from the giver but as part of the gift. The world is in need of more Magi, all bearing different gifts. Perhaps it's my turn to give a new story to someone in need of one.

photo by Claire

Santa

As a child, I fell into the agnostic camp on the subject of gravity, but I was a full and fervent believer in Santa Claus. Perhaps the two were related; to believe the reindeer stuff, one has to have a healthy disregard for several scientific principles. Whatever the reason, I arrived at the age of twelve still believing in Santa. Finally, as my father and I cleaned the kitchen that Christmas day, he broke it to me that there was no Santa. He was very gentle and philosophical, talking about the spirit of Christmas that lives in our hearts, while I was wondering what the hell he was talking about—no Santa? My world was shaken.

I shouldn't have been surprised. Always an insomniac, I found it doubly hard to sleep on Christmas Eve. After we were hustled to bed, the pattern was always the same. My father, who in his younger years had a short fuse and a colorful vocabulary, cussed his way through the assembly of four children's toys, while my mother filled the stockings, works of art and love. When that was finished, they played with our toys for awhile, usually breaking one or two. I thought of Santa as a very clumsy or careless guy, but he was so generous, I was willing to let that pass. Even though I heard the cussing, the banging, and the giggling, I was so steadfast in my belief that I just wished they would shut up and go to bed so Santa could come.

When Claire came along, I didn't want to lie to her, but I wasn't willing to deprive her of the magic that I had experienced as a child. So I decided to take my cues from her: "What do YOU think?" I'd ask. But she was horrified by the idea of a stranger breaking into our house, toys or no toys. One Christmas Eve she wailed for hours, asking me to keep Santa out. If toys needed to be brought, Granddaddy could do it. At the age of four, she finally rejected the story all together, although she patiently let me believe whatever I wanted.

I took the same tack with Elizabeth, the child who is terrified that robbers lurk on our deck nightly, but who has no problem with a jolly intruder wandering around our house while we're sleeping. She carefully covers the hospitality base with cookies, Coke, and carrots for the reindeer. But she doesn't buy the chimney part of the story for a very good reason. Each year she tried to stay awake to see Santa and failed. But then came the year that she did stay awake, lying on the bedroom floor and looking under the door. She is adamant that she saw him come in through the front door and eat the cookies. And she has stuck to that story for several years, not a detail different. She saw and she knows. I worry that someday her children will get no toys on Christmas because she is so sure that Santa will deliver.

At the age of ten, Elizabeth lost a tooth and put it under her pillow. "You know," she mused, "I just don't think the tooth fairy is real." It's a bittersweet moment, this leaving behind of childish things. "So who puts the money under your pillow?" I asked cautiously. "I think it's Santa Claus," she replied firmly. And who am I to argue with that? After all, she's the one who saw him.

Just call me Fifi

To my knowledge, my maternal grandmother never had a dog, which is a shame because she obviously wanted a poodle. I know this because each year when I visited her, she did her best to turn me into one. She'd take one look at me and send me straight across the street from her Western Auto Store to her beauty shop. Miss Maxine was obviously in on the plot because she'd send me back looking as if my name should be Fifi. All that was missing was a rhinestone collar and the little pink bow that embarrasses even real poodles.

My hair did its half-hearted best to remain true to itself, to little avail. It was an unfriendly host to permanents without the courage to reject them completely, and within hours, the top part of my hair was once again stick straight while the ends remained frizzy, curl-like bends. I did not find them attractive. I don't remember anyone particularly caring what I thought about the matter, and even my mother's objections were overruled. There was also the fact that the permanents were smelly and painful. Once when I complained, my aunt, who liked the poodle look as well, told me that it hurt to be beautiful. I might could have accepted that, but I saw no point in undergoing pain if the end result was looking like a poorly groomed poodle. It was not lost on me that, however much they liked the style on me, not one of them adopted it for herself. Adding to my sense of injustice was the fact that somehow my sister and my cousins escaped this annual torture.

Years later, a boyfriend left me for a girl with beautiful naturally curly hair. I'm not sure what I was thinking—most likely I wasn't—but somewhere in my mind I figured that it was the curly hair that he'd left me for. If I had curly hair, maybe he'd come back. This time I did it to myself, with exactly the same result, but I looked even sillier because I was 2o years older. And this time friends actually did pat me on the head and call me Fifi.

Being dumped and humiliated was bad enough, but throw in really bad hair and it's pretty close to unbearable. I haven't been tempted since.

The cat did it

Every family has their falling Christmas tree story. The year of the skinny cedar cut from a friend's property is a story that is unique only in how MANY times it fell. It was at least five times that I picked the damn thing up and tried a different method of securing it. That year I realized I was truly an optimist. Perhaps an optimist is just another name for an inept idiot, but I was determined it was going to stay. Luckily, Claire was young enough that the idea of a tree in the house was so bizarre that it really didn't matter if it was horizontal or vertical. She may have even thought the up and down tree was all part of the holiday entertainment. If I had had any sense, I would have just left it on the floor and let her think that was how it was supposed to be.

The Creek Lane Drive house was the scene of my childhood falling Christmas tree tale. My mother, a nurse, had to leave for work at 6:30 am and my father left shortly afterwards. It was my job to watch the three younger ones until it was time to go to school. As I set the breakfast dishes in the sink, I heard a crash and the shattering of fragile ornaments. The cat raced from the room and hid under a bed. Randy and Leslie, who were seven and five, stood in wide-eyed horror as I surveyed the damage. "What happened?" I asked. "The cat knocked down the Christmas tree," Randy finally got out.

I called my parents at work and they told us to go on to school and they'd deal with it later. For years, it was just another story of how the cat knocked down the Christmas tree. One year someone found a Garfield-climbing-a-Christmas-tree ornament to commemorate the event. Every year at Christmas as the ornament was hung, the story would get told once again, always in the same way.

Always, that is, until just a few years ago, when Randy interrupted the telling with a confession. "You know," he began, "it wasn't the cat who knocked it down. It was Leslie and me." As we sat with open mouths, Leslie glared at him and suggested in rather strong language that he might have waited another thirty years before telling THAT story.

It seems that the two of them were curious about their presents and were under the tree shaking packages. Unfortunately the tree was a bit unsteady and one particularly heavy gift standing on the leg of the stand was all that kept it erect. When the package was lifted, gravity took over and the tree began its slow but inevitable descent to the floor.

Most good stories have a moral and perhaps the moral of this one should be how your sins will always find you out or something along that line. But it's not. The lesson that we kids learned from this event is that one should always, ALWAYS have a cat to blame things on.

Two Advents

I did not grow up in a liturgical church, so it wasn't until my adult life that I even knew what Advent was. This period of waiting and anticipation before Christmas is my favorite season. The gentle songs of Advent stand in counterpoint to "Jingle Bells" and even "Joy to the World". The slow work up to Christmas makes the happy time even happier when it finally arrives—first the Advent wreath and Mary and Joseph making their way around the room to the stable, St. Nicholas Day, then a few decorations, and finally the tree. I love Advent. And two Advents particularly stand out in my mind.

The first happened over a decade ago. I had just been licensed as a foster parent and anxiously awaited news of my first placement. Time went by and finally at the beginning of December, I got the phone call. A father had fatally injured his two year old and was in jail. Social Services was worried about the safety of his baby if he made bail and wanted to place her in a different county, with me. As December progressed, I waited. I cleaned for the baby I was waiting for. I rearranged furniture to make room for the baby. I anchored bookshelves to the wall for the baby. It seemed like a particularly holy time with every action done in preparation for the child. Every counter I wiped seemed meaningful. Finally, the week before Christmas, it became apparent that the father would not make bail and the baby remained in her home county. Though I was disappointed, it had still been a holy time, a time of sacramental work and preparation. And so I was ready when the phone call finally came on January 6th, with my baby, the one I had wanted all the time, Elizabeth.

The second is this Advent, for a very different reason. My friend Ed is dying. Ed is a rock in our church community, the one we call when the basement floods, the dishwasher stops, and the New Fire of Easter needs to be lit. He built the wooden font his daughter and mine were baptized in. He built the bier, that, if his family chooses burial, his casket will rest upon. He has also saved my family on many occasions. When the dryer died, I asked him to recommend a brand. "Hmm," he mused. "I think I might have one in the basement." He did, and a

washer later followed, also from the magic basement. When I wrecked my car, he provided a loaner, though I don't think that came from the basement. Everyone I know has home repairs done by Ed. He has fought cancer for three years and remained strong and hearty through most of it. But in the last week he has gone downhill quickly. We've finally found the one thing Ed can't fix.

I went out today to say goodbye to my old friend. People came and went; his mother-in-law put cut oranges on the table, while Ed sat there, fragile and almost translucent. His wife gently stroked his head and his eyes seemed to look past us to something we couldn't see, only occasionally coming back to rest on someone. Friends called and were put on speaker phone as they told Ed that they loved him and what they'd miss about him. I saw a friend I see too seldom there; I saw another that I've lost and missed. Time hardly seemed to pass, and mundane details seemed jolting and out of place.

Ed doesn't want to die. No one wants Ed to die and we will miss him horribly. But I felt some measure of peace today at the rightness of the time and place. No more frantic emergency room visits. No more fighting with insurance companies over basic treatment. He was in the beautiful home that he built, surrounded by people who loved him, and dogs wandering in and out of the room. The peace and love were so palpable that one could almost reach out and scoop them up. And the waiting: I felt perfectly content to be in that moment with no need or hope for the future. Today I realized that the waiting isn't what we go through to get there; it's where we are and can be a holy place if we let it.

And so we wait. This Advent we wait for the Christ to be born and we wait for our friend Ed to die. The grief will come later; right now we wait in love, our thoughts and prayers and memories wrapped around Ed and his family. Right now we still have Ed and I am content to wait.

A misremembered memory

Like many my age, the assassination of President Kennedy is one of those I Remember Where I Was moments. The news that he was shot first came to us as school was letting out on the Friday before Thanksgiving. I remember a fellow fourth grader, obviously not a fan, wishing he would die. I was as shocked by her statement as I was by the actual event.

The next day we travelled to Monticello, in northern Florida, for an extended family Thanksgiving. We arrived on Saturday and watched the news coverage for the entire weekend, still in a state of disbelief. A slew of images are burned in my mind from that time: Jackie in her stained pink dress and just-this-side-of-falling-apart face, standing next to LBJ as he is sworn in as President on Air Force One; John-John saluting as his father's casket goes by; the riderless horse in the funeral procession. But those were still photos. The one that I really remember happened in front of me.

My mother and grandmother were in the kitchen fixing Sunday dinner, while my father, step-grandfather, my three younger siblings and I watched TV. The news cut to Lee Harvey Oswald being transferred from Dallas Police Headquarters to a nearby county jail. Handcuffed to a police detective, Oswald moved through the crowd of reporters and police. Suddenly a man stepped forward and shot Oswald in the abdomen at close quarters. Stunned, we watched it as it played over and over again. And that is the picture I'll never forget. The look of surprised pain on Oswald's face, the detective leaning back in shock and defense, the gun in Jack Ruby's hand and his aggressive stance; all the picture is missing is the noise and chaos afterwards.

For years I associated that event with Thanksgiving at my grandmother's and believed it happened during the Macy's Day Parade. My family believed that right along with me. But

in researching the dates, I found that Thanksgiving wasn't until November 28 that year. President Kennedy was shot on Friday, November 22; Oswald was shot on Sunday, November 24. I don't know why we had the whole week off from school. I don't know why I can so clearly see that Macy's Day Parade. Memories are strange and unreliable things. But I do know that I've never liked parades since.

Boot marks on the ceiling

I am a hopelessly addicted thrift store shopper. Claire will tolerate it if she's looking for something specific, but Elizabeth is right there with me, browsing through piles of junk, searching for the occasional treasure that makes the trip worthwhile. As she's gotten older, she's refined her technique and won't ask for things unless they really fit, are useful, and she truly wants them. One day we came across The Rain Boots. She loved them immediately. They were a little big, but that's better than too small. The price was right and I agreed to part with the four dollars.

She wears them any time there is a hint of rain. They were great at camp where the kids tromp in the mud regularly. She continues to love them, even after a year. But even good things can be used for bad. And that explains the footprints on her bedroom ceiling.

Fall is always tough for her. I blame the shorter days and the high incidence of food dye holidays on top of her already debilitating anxiety. And so in a fit of temper and distress, she lay on her sister's top bunk wearing her rain boots and repeatedly kicked the ceiling. Visitors were surprised and bemused by the footprints on the ceiling. They've probably never seen footprints on the ceiling. And I know there are those who think that if I would just (fill in the blank), I wouldn't have footprints on my ceiling. But they would be wrong because they just can't comprehend the level of pain that can only be relieved by kicking the ceiling.

Finally her godbrother came over, climbed up on the top bunk with her, and taught her how to use a Magic Eraser. She did so happily. She really doesn't want footprints on the ceiling. But the boots are in timeout for a while. I know—boots don't make ceiling marks, children wearing boots make ceiling marks. But the marks from sock feet are far less noticeable. It's already something Claire and I snicker about. I have a host of resources to help me teach Elizabeth better ways to deal with that inner turmoil than kicking the ceiling. And I hope in time, she'll be able to shake her head in wonder and say, "Do you remember the time I kicked the ceiling? What was I thinking?"

photo by Claire

Powderpuff's close call

When we lived on Pineapple Street, I had a white rabbit unoriginally named Powderpuff. Like most rabbits he had absolutely no personality, but he was mine and I loved him. Our next door neighbor was an elderly man who saw rabbits as good for only one thing, which was stew. I didn't know that detail when he offered to buy my rabbit for fifty cents. That was a huge amount of money to me, and I was sorely tempted. He persisted in his offers, finally reaching the unheard of price of one dollar, and I succumbed. I could always visit him, I rationalized. I took the dollar and handed Powderpuff over to him.

Immediately I had seller's remorse. I knew I had messed up and was afraid to tell my parents, especially in front of the company who had come for dinner. But at last the tears came and I wailed, "I sold Powderpuff and I didn't want to!" My father knew immediately that the neighbor didn't want a cute, fluffy pet, and so he walked over and after negotiations, returned with my bunny.

This was my first understanding of the teaching that the love of money is the root of all evil. It was definitely the root of the near demise of Powderpuff.

Critters

In 1957, when I was three, my family (now consisting of my parents, my newborn brother Scott and me) moved to Englewood, Florida, where my dad had a new teaching job and my mother had a nursing job in a nearby town. We lived in a small house on Pineapple Street. It had a huge jungle-like backyard with an abundance of fruit trees, which meant we also had an abundance of banana spiders. These aren't to be confused with the highly poisonous South American version, but you may still count yourself lucky if you have never seen one. My uncle, who was visiting one year, was in the bathroom when he came eyeball-to-eyeball with one on the wall above the toilet. He wouldn't go back in and chose to use the backyard for the rest of his visit. I didn't understand this because as scary as the spiders were, they were nothing compared to the snakes that were out there.

There are 45 species of snakes found in Florida, six of which are venomous and dangerous, and all of which seemed to live in our yard. I know black snakes are generally harmless, but they are still snakes. They slither and hiss and pop their slitty-eyed heads up when you least expect them. My urban-living grandmother once asked me to put the hose up. I kept trying to tell her it wasn't the hose. Finally, in exasperation, she went to do it herself. It wasn't the hose. Frankly, I am surprised that any relatives at all visited us. One of my friend's families had a pet black snake that wandered their house freely and would curl up with warm humans in the night to sleep. I don't think I ever actually slept at a sleepover there. They didn't have any trouble with rodents or unwanted guests though.

Even worse than the black snakes were the rattlesnakes. In the Creek Lane Drive house, we lived near a large stretch of forest. There were a couple of times when the woods caught on fire and all the animals poured out of the burning forest. Most animals just kept on going, but our yard was filled with rattlers that didn't have the social skills to know how unwanted they were. Or maybe they did and just didn't care. If you are a snake you don't have to. We played inside for days.

But the image that shows up in my nightmares decades later is The Big One. We had a Fiat that my parents would fill to overflowing with the family, now numbering five, and take us to the beach just a few minutes away. As we were tooling down the narrow road, a rattler started to cross in front of us, forcing us to stop. Perhaps it thought our tiny car was some delectable bit of prey, because it twisted its head around and looked in the open driver's window. I can't remember what happened immediately after that; all I retain of the incident is a frozen snapshot of that giant snake at eye level that reappears whenever I hear the word snake. The record length for an Eastern Diamondback Rattler is supposedly eight feet. This one was at least that. On our way back from the beach, some men had shot it and it stretched all the way across the road. They had to move it to let us pass. I don't like snakes. And it has nothing to do with Freud.

The wart hogs weren't quite as pervasive, but on Girl Scout camp outs at Myakka State Park, they would snuffle and snort around our tents at night. I always questioned my parents' sanity in allowing me to camp with such obviously dangerous creatures and I pictured in vivid detail their grief when my gored and mangled body was eventually discovered. That this never happened was a bit of a disappointment at the time.

The alligators were unquestionably dangerous. We lived near a creek that connected to a swamp. It not only was thick with water snakes, but alligators, though seldom seen,

were there as well. Occasionally a small dog would disappear and we'd get a fresh lecture from our parents To Stay Away From The Creek. I took the lecture to heart, but my brothers, both dyslexic, got it backwards and were there every chance they could slip away. That was often because during the summer I was left to babysit them. I would start a book and read the entire day, never knowing where they were or what they were doing. One summer afternoon they were playing on the creek bed and Scott (or maybe it was Randy) slipped in and began floundering. Randy (or maybe it was Scott) had the presence of mind to race to a neighbor's house, where luckily the teenage son was home. Somehow Milton Hicks got whichever brother it was safely out and kept the secret until all the boys were adults and the parental statute of limitations had passed.

People often didn't take these stealthy beasts as seriously as they should have. The gators got so used to having marshmallows tossed at them that at golf courses they would race out of the water hazard and gobble up the golf balls. It's always hard to know how to play a ball inside an alligator, so course rules finally made it a three stroke penalty and golfers resumed play with a fresh ball.

Alligators look slow and lumbering out of the water and it's not generally known that for short distances they can outrun a horse. During my childhood they were considered an endangered species, and this protection allowed them to both grow in numbers and lose any fear of humans. Tragically and inevitably a child was snatched from her father's arms in a state park swimming area. That year they were taken off the endangered list and hunting season for alligators resumed.

Is it any wonder I live in North Carolina now?

The Normal One

My mother is the normal one of the family, but even she has a quirk. She often almost died and then changed

her mind at the last minute. As a baby, she had measles, chicken pox and whooping cough simultaneously, but somehow pulled out of that one. Her next spell was during the birth of her third child, when she hemorrhaged and was not expected to live, which would have made my father the single father of three small children. But she did, and then, bravely, foolishly, or inadvertently, went on to have a fourth. During my sophomore year in college, she began falling down when she walked and started losing her hearing. She saw a doctor who diagnosed too much alcohol, as did a second one. But she was a nurse who trusted her gut and kept trying until a new ENT moved to town and referred her to a neurosurgeon in Miami. After her appointment with him, she was immediately sent to Jackson Memorial Medical Center. The surgeon spoke to my father in very solemn terms and left us not expecting the best. But the orange-sized brain tumor was not malignant and although she has a hole in her head, she is otherwise very normal still.

Her normality meant that not only could she tell her right hand from her left (the only member of our family who can), she was valedictorian of her class in Blakely, Georgia, while most of the rest of us were mediocre students. She chose nursing as her career, and headed off to Emory University, an all male school that let women in only if they agreed to be nurses. Her very pronounced southern drawl and champion pool playing skills kept the guys intrigued, especially my father. But then he flunked out and had to wait a semester to return (a fact that must have been highly embarrassing to his faculty father), and so their relationship was put on hold. When he did return, most of their dates were study dates, and his grades improved significantly. He had already bombed in the pre-med and pre-law programs, and figured any idiot could be a teacher. He was successful in that program, although he did take the same math class every semester until the end, finally making a C his last semester there. He felt he was at his best teaching elementary school math since he knew every possible way to mess up.

Love did not always run smoothly, however. His senior year they broke up and afterwards at a party at my father’s fraternity house, his frat brothers decided they liked her better than him. In their state of drunken indignation, they chased him through the building with a pair of pruning shears, planning to render him incapable of reproduction. He jumped off a balcony, breaking a foot, and walked home to his parents’ house, where he proceeded to fall down a flight of stairs. When the alcohol wore off, the pain began, and his younger brother took him to the University hospital the next morning. His assigned nurse was my mother.

Perhaps she felt he’d be less trouble married to her, perhaps she craved excitement, perhaps she really loved him, but she married him. They carefully scraped up the rice her bridesmaids had filled her suitcase with and cooked it, and when they got too hungry would call her aunt and chat until she invited them to supper. The two of them were barely making it on his teacher’s salary as she finished nursing school. He’d had the mumps as an adult and was told he’d never father children. I was born ten months after the wedding.

Normal doesn't mean boring though. Sometimes it means meals on the table, Halloween costumes made, and stability when her husband and her kids were a bit like pinballs, careening from one thing to the next, making left turns when they meant to make rights.

It's not funny now . . .

By many definitions, my family of origin could be considered dysfunctional. We moved a lot because of changing financial circumstances, with many valleys and peaks. At one low point, my three siblings, my parents and I lived in a run-down, two bedroom rental with a suicidal pregnant junkie, two guys named Mike, one Mike's dog, our two cats, and thousands of cockroaches. My parents had one bedroom; my sister, the junkie and I shared the other, and the boys slept wherever they could. Later, my father told how he felt a failure as a father when he got up one morning and wondered why our white kitchen counters looked brown in the early morning light. When he got closer, he realized the counter was covered with roaches.

Many years later, I have my own family. I'm a single mother by choice, with two daughters, one biological, the other adopted from foster care. My younger child has mental health issues which occasionally cause explosive tantrums. One night my teenager and I were barricading the door with our shoulders as she tried to get in and hit us with a tree branch. Claire looked at me and started laughing. "It's kind of ridiculous when you think about it," she said. Later that night I confessed to her that I felt like a failure, that I wished we could be the kind of family that had cheerful meals together and played board games afterwards. She replied that she'd rather come from a fairly dysfunctional family with interesting people in it than a normal one. At that point I realized that I was no more a failure than my parents were. They reared four resilient, interesting kids who all have great memories of our childhood. Maybe my children would feel the same. Cockroaches are a fact of life in Florida. Mental health issues are a fact of life for far more people than we know. And perhaps my parents had more heart than common sense, a trait I've inherited as well.

Sitting with friends at dinner one evening, my sister and I started telling childhood stories. Until that night, I hadn't realized our childhood was unique at all. Didn't everyone live next door to the circus? Didn't other parents leave the door unlocked so that whatever kid was kicked out of their house would have a place to sleep? Two of those friends encouraged me to write a book, something I knew would never happen. Like almost everyone in my family, I'm very ADD; I've never finished anything I've started, except perhaps childbirth, but then that certainly wasn't due to MY persistence. But a blog . . . now a blog I could do. It's a format MADE for ADD people (Oh look, a chicken! I can blog about that!). A little now, some more later; certainly not with a plot because I'm not a linear-thinking person. And perhaps it might even earn me a little money from time to time.

So Tom and Lisa, here's your book. Sort of, anyhow. It usually wasn't funny then, often it's not fun now. But both then and now, sometimes what's gotten me through was the fact that it would make a good story later.