Good Manners Combined with Simple Math

Lynnette says I don't have many friends because my tolerance meter is broken, or something like that.  She really irritates me sometimes.  And since I'm on the subject of friends and irritation, I'm avoiding a potential friend because she irritates me. Is it me or is the definition of friendship a give and take relationship?  You talk, I talk, you talk, I talk. Or is it you talk, you talk, you talk, you talk, I try to talk, you interrupt?  I'm a bit confused on that, because sometimes I want to talk, but being a good friend means being a good listener.

I had this very same conversation with another "possible" friend last week.  I told her about the 25% rule.  It's good manners combined with simple math, I said.  When you're socializing with three other people, each person gets a 25% share of the conversation.  If one person doesn't take their 25%, that doesn't mean it's up for grabs.  They need to be encouraged to take their share by a member of the group.  Unfortunately, it took 100% of our time together for me to explain this "good manners/math" rule and now she won't return my calls.

Another likely candidate for friendship didn't make the cut when I was, once again, espousing my 25% rule and she interrupted me after 20 seconds.  "I'm not good a math," she said.  "I failed Algebra in eight grade.  My favorite subject in school was Home Economics.  I liked the cooking classes the best because we got to eat what we cooked."  I told her the 25% rule was not about math but more about good manners in conversation and she said, "Whatever happened to Miss Manners, anyway?  I used to read her advice in the newspaper, but now that I get my news from the Internet, I haven't seen her column.  I'll have to Google her."  When she stopped to take a breath, I inserted myself back into the conversation and continued where I left off, but she was focused on her IPhone and wasn't listening.  "Found it! Isn't it amazing how Google knows everything?" she said before spending the rest of our time together giving me the Wikipedia lowdown on Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners.

My sister thinks I'm taking this 25% rule too far.  I should relax, tolerate peoples' uniqueness and differences, and let conversations go where they go without doing the math.  Did I mention that she irritates me sometimes?

A Day with Maddie McCloud

It was a freezing cold February day in 1922 when Maddie gave birth to her seventh child in the back bedroom of a small shotgun house in Indianapolis.  My mother wasn't thriving, and it looked as if she would become the third child of Maddie and Tommie's eleven children to not survive childhood.  But a distant relative visiting the McClouds took the baby on as a project and saved little Harriett Louise. (Mother turned ninety-one this year.)

It was a different time. Nothing like today. So many of the luxuries we take for granted didn't exist back then or were just coming on the scene and reserved for the rich.  For the majority of people, life was hard work, and to suffer in one way or another was common.

Let's you and I go back to 1922 and spend a day with Maddie McCloud.

What?  We've only been here five minutes and you're a little chilly already?  You want Maddie to turn up the thermostat on the furnace? Well, okay, I'll ask but I know what she's going to say.  Grandmother said, "Go outside to where the firewood is stacked, carry it in, and start a fire in the fireplace, or put on a sweater."

Huh? Now you're hot!  You want her to turn on the air-conditioning?  All right, I'll ask her.  Whoa!  That wasn't very nice, Grandmother.  I can't tell her that.

Now?  We just got here.  Didn't you go before we left home?  I'll ask where the bathroom is, but I think I know the answer.  My grandmother said, "See that little bitty buildin' way, way back there?  That's the privy. And since you're headin' that way, how 'bout carrying these two chamber pots with you and dumpin'em while you're at it."  What do you mean, you think you're going to throw up?

But you've only worn them for one day; they're not dirty.  I know back in 2013 you wore your jeans only one time before putting them in the washing machine, but this is 1922.  Well, if you insist, I'll ask.  She said, "Out on the back porch you'll find a warshtub with a warshboard inside.  Around to the side of the house is a pump that you have to prime for about ten minutes before the water finally comes out.  It takes about fifteen buckets to fill the tub for one warsh.  And since you're headin' that way, how 'bout taking these dirty diapers and warshin'em while you're at it."  Excuse me?  Your jeans aren't that dirty, after all.

What do you mean, you're uncomfortable and you want to go back to 2013?  We've only been here thirty minutes. Let's stick around a little longer.

Starbucks?  Oh, I forgot you always start your day with Starbucks.  Will water do? I didn't think so, and I forgot about your headache without your morning coffee.  Okay, when she slows down for a moment, I'll ask her. "We barely have enough food. Coffee is for the rich. But around the side of the house is a water pump if you'd like somethin' to drink," she said.

Oh, no!  You have a headache, already?  Advil?  She's busy right now but I'll ask her. "Pain is our daily companion," she said. "Just get to workin', girl, and you'll forget all 'bout it."

You want to borrow the car so you can drive to CVS four blocks away? I'll ask but I have a feeling I know her answer.  "Get off your lazy fat butt and walk!" My goodness! That was harsh. Oh, don't cry. She's just overworked and overwhelmed.  Kleenex?  I'd better not ask. Just use your sleeve.

Your cell phone isn't working?  Well, of course not. It's 1922. Having a phone in the home is possible if you can afford it, but you have to share it with other homes as well (they call it party-lines), so don't talk long.  In this house and every other house in this neighborhood, there are no washers and dryers or microwaves or refrigerators or coffee makers or televisions or computers or vacuums.  Outside the house, sitting along the curb are cars but none of them belong to my grandparents.

My grandfather is temporarily out of work but "I'm lookin'," he says, as he stumbles past us and out the back door on the way to the privy.  "Seems he is always lookin'," my grandmother says right back at him as she starts her morning with two women from the future standing in her kitchen and in her way.

Two children start to cry at the same time: month-old Harriett Louise (my mother) and two-year-old Gracie.  Both need their diapers changed and then fed, so off to the back of the house my twenty-something grandmother runs. A four-year-old boy peaks around a corner, sees strangers and quickly disappears. Another child appears. It's difficult to tell if it's a boy or a girl because of a badly burned face, but I know who it is; it's my aunt, Luedna, who stumbled into the fireplace when she was two. She runs away, as well. My grandfather is back now and smiling big. He wants to know "What are two pretty women doing in my kitchen this early in the mornin'?" Grandmother is back as fast as she left, "Stop charmin' and start workin'!" she tells him but he ignores her and heads back to bed.

Pedicure and tanning salon?  Really?  You want me to ask my poor, exhausted grandmother where you can go to pamper yourself while she struggles to keep her family of nine fed, sheltered, and clothed? No! I'm not doing it!  You can't make me.  Okay, I'll ask but I know what she is going to do.

What?  It's too cold outside to leave just yet?  But my grandmother is holding the door open for our exit.  We have to go now. You've outworn our welcome. What do you mean, can she call us a taxi?  Oh, look!  She's holding a butcher knife in her hand.  Bye, Bye.

Deflection

I used to have a problem with accepting responsibility for my bad behavior.  I didn't like the way it made me feel.  It was an icky feeling, so I'd become quite good at deflecting the blame to someone else for the unsavory things I had done.

When I was a young girl, Hazel would blame me for everything bad that happened in the seven years that my mother, sister and I lived with her.  A hole in the wall?  Spilled milk?  Broken glass?  Front door left wide open? Cats got out? Cat's got fleas? Cat's got babies? Where's Carol Louise?  Not "where's Judy?" or "where's Harriett Louise?"  Oh, no.  I was always, always the guilty one.

CLANKITY, CLANKITY, CRASH!!

Who dunit?  Mother was taking an afternoon nap, so it wasn't her.  My sister Judy was sitting on the couch in a pretty Sunday-go-to-church dress with her hands folded in her lap.  Nope!  Not Judy.  Where's Carol Louise? On the garage roof having a picnic with some friends?  What's that on the ground?  Twenty feet of guttering?

Okay!  At first glance, it might appear that I was responsible for the CLANKITY, CLANKITY, CRASH!  I was eating Bolonga sandwiches and sipping cherry Kool Aid on the shingles at the time of the incident. But, no one told me it was against the rules to picnic on the roof, and if the guttering had been put up correctly, it wouldn't have come loose and fallen on the ground.  Hazel wasn't born yesterday, she said, so I suffered the switch and humiliation until her anger turned to exhaustion.  Beating me in front of my friends was more physical exercise than she'd had in a month.  She threw the switch back at the tree from which it came, and with heavy sighs, slowly walked back inside the house.

DEFLECTION

The change in direction of blame as it crosses a boundary

 between two media with different refractive indexes.  In other

words, for those of you who just said "Huh?" deflection is

when you've done something you shouldn't have, and you

refuse to accept responsibility for your actions.  Something

or someone else is blamed for your behavior.

                                           - Wikidikipedia

Now that I am an adult, I no longer fear the switch when I do something wrong.  Not because Hazel's one hundred and one and doesn't know where I live, or that I'm strong enough to fight off the switch, or fast enough to outrun it, or smart enough to deflect blame to someone else.  Nope!   The reason I don't fear punishment for wrongdoings, is because I never, ever do anything wrong.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Blame the Prefrontal Cortex

Recently, I've written several posts about stupid behavior committed by teenagers.  Neuroscientists who study the gray matter between our ears report that the prefrontal cortex in the brain (where logic resides) is not fully developed until the early to mid twenties.  So all of those stupid things you old folks did back then and you young whippersnappers are going to do in the future, you now have a valid excuse. Blame the prefrontal cortex.  The following story is about a man who reversed the "stupidity first, logic later" cycle.

One day, oh so long ago, Alex's dad changed his mind about being a husband and father and ran away from home. When Alex was eleven, his mother Rachel, who had worked so hard to singlehandedly care for her two young boys, developed a high fever and suddenly died.  Peter, a cousin, heard about Rachel's death and adopted the boys, but then he changed his mind about living and so he killed himself.  At eleven, Alex was on his own.

A local import/export business owner hired the young boy and by age fourteen, Alex was running the business by himself for months at a time while his boss traveled.

When a hurricane devastated the community he lived in, Alex wrote a detailed account of its destruction which was published in the local newspaper.  At fifteen, his writings were so impressive that a number of the town's people collected enough money to send him to school.

At age seventeen, Alex enrolled in college, and when he was eighteen, he joined the local military.

By twenty-one, he was given the title of Lieutenant Colonel by the highest-ranking military officer in the states.

At twenty-seven, he founded The Bank of New York.

By age thirty-two, Alex was Secretary of Treasury.

For the next fifteen years, his resume continued to impress.  But then.

In the early morning hours of July 11, 1804,  this incredible man with the exceptional, logical brain, did a really, really, stupid thing, and he died because of it.  He was forty-seven.

Do you know who this man is?

More clues:

1.  He was chief of staff to George Washington.

2.  While Secretary of Treasury, he established this country's first national bank.

3.  He established the U.S. mint.  Thank him for the coins knocking around in your pocket and/or purse.

4.  His face is on the $10 bill.

5.  With a wife and seven children to care for, the youngest just two, Alex agreed to a duel with Aaron Burr, the Vice President of the United States.  Oh, Alex! What were you thinking?  I thought you were smarter than that.

For more info about the man with the early mature brain, but who later did a really stupid thing, go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton

The Picnic

He's gone now. He died at thirty-seven. Cancer. I met him when I was twelve; he was sixteen and an Elvis impersonator.  In his mind, though, he was not pretending to be someone he wasn't. He was Elvis.

He was my mother's boyfriend's son, and he just appeared one day on our front porch on Rawles Avenue.  He was dressed in all black, and his hair was piled high on top his head and slicked back into what looked like a duck's tail.  Dangling out of his mouth was an unlit cigarette.  He'd come for the blended family picnic.

THE PICNIC

It was a hot summer day in 1957, and the picnic was our parents' idea--a good way to introduce their children, her two and his three.  But only one of his showed up, and he was hanging out on the porch, being Elvis.

The baskets of food were already in the trunk, so once The King arrived, the five of us climbed into a 1954 Ford Fairline, and off we went for a day of swimming and picnicking at a lake somewhere in southern Indiana.

"Why is Elvis driving?" I wondered as he took the keys from his dad and slid into the driver's seat. That was just plain wrong.  Where's Hazel?  Hazel would have put a stop to this nonsense.  I was only twelve, but I felt the decision to put five souls in the hands of a sixteen-year-old hip-swiveling, rock'n roller was crazy.  However, as a child, it was not my place to be the smartest person in the car. Besides,  I was too scared to say anything.  For the hour it took to get to our destination, I refused to look at the road.  Instead, I stared at the person sitting next to me in the backseat: my fifteen-year-old sister, Judy.  If she was calm, I was calm. But my staring annoyed her and she smacked me, so I turned my attention to my mother. If she remained calm, then I was calm. Suddenly the car exploded with screams. What? What?  I looked at the road. Oh, Lord!  We were passing a car on a hill.  Everyone was hysterical, except the cool king. Then we were back in our lane after narrowly missing an on-coming car, and Elvis laughed.

On a grassy patch overlooking the lake we laid out several blankets, and my future dad retrieved the picnic baskets from the trunk.  But, there was something missing. "Where's the pop?" he asked my mother.  "I dunno," she said. "I thought you brought the pop." "No, remember, I brought the baskets.  You were supposed to bring the pop." "No, you said you were bringing the pop, too." After five minutes of desperate attempts to get the guilty party to come clean and just admit they were an idiot for forgetting the pop, Elvis calmly strolled by his father, lifted the car keys from his back pocket and said, "It's cool.  Carol Louise and I will run to town to get some pop."

Huh?  Me?  I was shocked, but at the same time pleased that Elvis chose me, not my pretty sister, so off we went, kicking up a cloud of dust as The King and I sped out of the parking lot and on to the country road to town.  The near-death experience from the previous hour? Forgotten.

The road was narrow, canopied by trees, and constantly changing directions, which concerned me but not Elvis.  He loved to drive fast he said.  He turned on the radio and began dancing in his seat and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.  He pressed down on the accelerator and the back end of the Fairlane skidded off and then back on to the road. I grabbed for something, anything, to hold on to but there was nothing.  The King turned the radio up as loud as it would go, looked over at me and winked.

Neither one of us saw it coming. The other car was hidden by the trees and sharp turn in the road. The head-on impact produced one loud crash and then deafening silence.  Something wet ran down my face and dripped on to my brand new white pedal pushers.  Blood.  Dean looked over at me and asked if I was okay.  I felt no pain so I said I was.  Suddenly both cars were surrounded by strangers.  A teenage girl helped me out of the car and laid me down in the grass.  She said help was on the way and warned me not to go to sleep.  Dean was walking back and forth mumbling to himself.  Something about how mad his dad was going to be.

For the rest of The Picnic story, I'm afraid I don't remember.  I did go to sleep and slept for several days afterward.  There was no hospital visit or trip to the doctor.  It was just a cut on the head from breaking the windshield the adults said, so no need to seek medical help.  The severe pain in my chest?  Oh, that was just a bruise from hitting the dashboard the same adults said.  No need to check that out, either.

ONE YEAR LATER

The Fairlane was repaired (four years later it would become my first car), the last piece of glass finally worked its way out of my forehead, and my broken ribs had healed.  At seventeen, Dean was no longer playing The King and had turned into a mature and thoughtful young man.  His reckless behavior from just the year before was forgiven and never mentioned again, and our blended family (two adults, five teenagers) lived together in peace and harmony in our new home in the suburbs until peace and harmony left the building early--or should I say snuck out of the window--one morning at 2:00 a.m., but that's another blended-family story for a different time.

Mother's Day 2013

Mother's Day, May 12, 2013, and it has been one year since Mother took up residence in a nursing home in Greenfield, Indiana.  If it were a perfect world, she would be sitting in her recliner in her own living room while holding a balloon in one hand and petting the dog in her lap with the other.  But, it's not a perfect world, now is it?

Her best friend is in the chair next to her, Maggie is warming her legs and there's chocolate cupcakes.  Wait!  Where's the chocolate cupcakes?  Who ate all of the chocolate cupcakes?

My step-daughter Amy and granddaughter Siena stopped by for a visit.  "Say cheese everyone. Mother?  Say cheese.  What?  Well, I don't know who ate all of the cupcakes.  No, really, I don't." 

A Day to Remember

Tuesday, November 2, 1998

6:00 a.m.

It was a cold and rainy morning.  Raindrops were tap, tap, tapping against my bedroom window, and I didn't want to leave my warm, comfortable bed.  Every ten minutes the alarm clock yelled, "Get up! Get up! Get up!" and after thirty minutes of abuse, I threw back my blankets and stumbled toward the kitchen to start the coffee.

Jason was sprawled out on the sofa (he hadn't slept in his bed in three years) with his face down, mouth open, slobbering on the sofa pillow. "Get up! Get up! Get up!" I yelled, oh, about thirty-six times before he finally rolled off the couch on to the floor, where he slept for another ten minutes, slobbering on the carpet.

Jason was seventeen and a junior at Decatur High, a school he attended, much to his displeasure.  He was way too cool to ride the school bus, which was not a problem since he had three cars taking up way too much space in our driveway.  The Jimmy's transmission was broken, so his ride to school would be either the vintage Mustang with bald tires or the old Oldsmobile that wasn't nearly as sexy as the Mustang.

7:15 a.m.

I didn't see the car.  It was behind a bush that blocked my view of Mills Road.  I pulled out and there it was.  I braked as soon as I saw him, but it was too late.  After slamming into the front left side of my Honda Civic, his car careened off the road and hit a tree.  He wasn't hurt, he said, but blood was running down his face.  "Superficial cut," he said.  Was I okay?  he wanted to know.  I was, I said.  In 1998 I was way too cool to mention that I had peed my pants.

9:00 a.m. 

The 8:00 a.m. Color Finishing meeting that my coworker, David, and I had scheduled months before started an hour late, and midway through the presentation, the door opened and an urgent note was passed down the conference table until it reached me. "The driver of the other car involved in your accident is in the emergency room at Community Hospital. Call your insurance agent right away."

11:00 a.m

In addition to the call from my insurance agent, another urgent message was waiting for me when I returned to my desk.  It was from the principal of Decatur High.  "Is Jason getting enough sleep at night?" he wanted to know.  Jason had fallen asleep during a test and when told he had failed the class, his response was "Whatever."

2:00 p.m.

Good news!  The man injured in the accident went to the emergency room at the urging of the police, but he was fine.

6:30 p.m. 

It was a cold and rainy evening.  The Mustang's tires were slip, slip, sliding on the pavement as Jason sped toward his friend's house.  Why had I agreed to come along? What was I thinking? When we approached the stop sign at Mills and High School Road, Jason made the decision to not stop. "Why should I stop?" he said. "There are no cars coming." Instead, he took the 90-degree left turn with his foot on the accelerator.  The car spun around 360 degrees; then it stopped in the direction of Jason's friend's house.  He smiled, "I meant to do that," he said. As his mother and the boss of him, I did what most mothers would do in this situation.  I screamed.  Then I admonished him for his lack of good sense. He laughed, turned up the radio, and tuned me out.  I was just white noise blah, blah, blahing in the passenger seat.

10:30 p.m.

It was a cold and rainy night.  Raindrops were tap, tap, tapping against my bedroom window, and I had just turned off the light and slipped under the blankets.

BAMMMM!   (The sound of my bedroom door slamming against the wall as it opened.)

Jason was standing in the doorway. He was wet and shaking and as white as snow.  "There's been a terrible accident, Mom!" he said.

10:31 p.m.

We were in the not-so-cool Oldsmobile driving toward the terrible accident, six blocks from our house.  I didn't know where to start with the questions.  I thought he was in sofa.  Why did he leave? Where did he go? Who was he with? What happened?  Was anyone hurt? Jason and his friend had decided to go for a little spin in his Mustang, he said. He was going 60 in a 30 mph speed zone when he crested a hill, lost traction and went airborne. After hitting a mailbox, the Mustang left the road and traveled some distance before being stopped by a tree. The impact knocked the tree across the road, and now Mills Road was impassable. Next, he did what many teenagers whose brains are not fully developed would do.  He and his friend left the scene of the accident, and they both ran home.

10:33 p.m.

As we approached the accident scene, there were cars lined up in both directions. One lone policeman was holding a flashlight, peering inside the now-totaled Mustang. "Where's the driver of this car?" the man wanted to know. Jason jumped out of the car and ran behind the crowd of people who were standing in the road, gawking.  He worked his way through the people and said, "I'm the driver, Sir." What happened next is unbelievable.

10:50 p.m.

A police car with flashing blue lights sat idling at the end of our driveway. A short, rotund man with a demeanor similar to good-ole-boy Barney Fife was standing in my garage pulling the starter cord on my chainsaw, but it was slow to start. "They always play hard to get." He laughed like Barney. "But she doesn't know who's she's dealin' with; she'll start."

Just minutes earlier, I was standing in the rain next to a demolished Mustang in my dripping wet pajamas, wondering if they put seventeen-year-olds in jail or juvenile detention.  Shortly after Jason had approached Officer Fife, the only policeman at the accident, I did what many mothers would do in a situation like this.  I inserted myself between my son and the consequences of his not-fully-developed brain. "I'm Jason's mother, Officer." I said. "Is there anything I can do to help?" "What I need right now, ma'am," he said, "is a chainsaw to get this dang tree off the road."

Chainsaw?  Really?  I had one of those, I told him.  So off to my garage we raced, and he was right.  She did start.  With blue lights flashing and sirens screaming, we were back at the tree in minutes.  The line of cars was longer.  The crowd bigger.  Jason, along with his friend and his friend's mother, were standing next to the Mustang, right where he was told to wait.  What was going to happen when Officer Fife returned? he wondered.  Would he be arrested?  Would he go to jail?  What would the consequences of his reckless behavior be?

12:00 a.m.

It was a cold and rainy morning.  Those damn raindrops were still tap, tap, tapping against my bedroom window. Jason sat on the edge of my bed, contrite, remorseful, apologetic.  Neither of us were able to sleep. It had been a day to remember.

After Officer Fife had removed the tree from the road and the cars and people were gone, he drove me home.  He felt that Jason's punishment should only be the loss of his beloved Mustang. He would write an accident report and the consequences suffered would be nothing more than increased insurance rates.  Case closed.

So did seventeen-year-old Jason learn anything from this brief brush with the law?  Nah!