Just Me and My Flying Machine

To receive a Private Pilot license, the FAA requires student pilots have a minimum of 40 hours of flight time, of which 20 must be dual (flying with an instructor). However, these are MINIMUMS. No one in the history of the world has ever completed their training in 40 hours. The average is 66 hours.

                                                                             --Mikidikipedia

It took me seventy-four hours and over two years to get my private pilot license. I was in no hurry because my reason for learning how to fly wasn't for love of aviation or airplanes; it was just a goal I wanted to accomplish. Kinda like always wanting to have a horse. Once I got my horse (she was a rental actually), and I rode her round and round an acre field about fifteen times, I was ready to move on to something else.

My airplane of choice was a Piper Cherokee 140; the airport where I took my training was Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport, and my instructor was Rob, a young twenty-something college grad hoping to fly first seat on a big jet someday. 

The hook the airport used to get student pilots was a special they were running the day my friend Connie and I followed our curiosity through their front door. For only $350.00, a student could get their solo license as long as it didn't take over twelve hours. Just as they had hoped, we were hooked.

Connie and I both few high-wing Cessna's in the beginning before I switched to a low-wing Piper Cherokee.  I don't know how many hours of instruction it took, but sometime before twelve hours Connie received her solo license, and that was enough for her. Her curiosity had been satisfied. She wanted to take off and land a plane by herself; mission accomplished. 

In my eleventh hour of training, Rob was more critical than normal. Usually he would praise me, telling me I had perfect finesse and was one his best students. But here I was one hour shy of twelve hours, the cutoff time for flying solo, and he was acting strange. I'd never seen him like this before; one criticism followed another. Maybe I wasn't cut out to be a pilot after all.

When I landed the plane and taxied back to the instructor's building, he told me to shut down the engine and come inside. Then he climbed out of the plane without saying another word and walked by himself back to his office. Dang. I must have been really bad. Dejected, I trailed behind him, walked into his office, and sat down in the chair along side his desk. This was procedure because he had to sign my log book. He reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a pair of scissors, leaned over toward me and cut a swatch out of my shirt. "Go take'er for a spin," he said. Oh, my gush! Oh, my gush! Oh, my gush! I couldn't believe it. He was just playing with me. (Later, when I returned, he'd hand me my cut-up shirt with my name, the date and the word "SOLO" written on it.)

I raced out of the office, still saying, "Oh, my gush!" climbed into the pilot's seat, did my run up--CLEAR--and taxied to Runway 33. Once in position, I pushed the throttle forward and this sweet little Piper raced down the runway. Faster. Faster. Lift off. I screamed bloody murder as the two of us--no instructor--just me and the flying machine left the ground behind. I looked down and saw Rob, miniature small, watching his student get her solo wings.

I couldn't stop now. Oh, no. I was having way too much fun taking off and landing and flying around by myself to not go for the gold. After the solo license, the training became more challenging, intense, and expensive. Since I was making $3.50 an hour and lessons were  $35.00 an hour--25% of my income--I wasn't able to fly as often as I wanted. My lessons would stretch over two years and seventy-four hours. But I was chipping away at it slowly; I wasn't giving up.

Some of the instructions were heart stopping like the times I had to pull the nose up until the plane stalled, at which time the nose would fall forward and cause the plane to spiral downward. I didn't like that part of the training. Obviously, I was able to pull out of the stall since I'm here writing about it. My heart is racing just remembering it.

There was this one time, though, when I got into trouble on a long cross country trip. I was close to getting my license, only a few hours away, and there was one last thing I had to do: file a flight plan, fly from Indy to Terre Haute to Louisville and back. I had passed the written exam, so one little itty bitty cross country and I'd be done. 

It was a beautiful sunny day with little wind. Perfect flying conditions. I left Indianapolis Metro Airport heading west. My instruments guided me to the airport without incident. I landed, had a coke and took off again toward Louisville. Easy peasy. Why was I worried about this? No problem. Somewhere north west of Louisville I lost the navigational instrument VOR. Oh, crap! Oh, crap! I was going to have to find Louisville airport by dead reckoning. There was just one itty bitty problem. My brain had stopped working. Not good. I took some deep breaths and radioed the airport. I explained that my instruments were not working--I didn't mention my brain had eased working as well--and I needed help finding the airport. The controllers said they saw me and I was on the flight path to land. So land, they said. But I didn't see the airport that was right there in front of me until it was too late. I passed over it, then banked left, turned left on downwind, turned on base, left again on final approach and landed; my body was trembling. "Gebongrats. Gebongrats." I heard the man from the tower say, but it didn't make any sense to me so I taxied on down the runway, just happy to be on the ground safe and sound. But the man was yelling at me now. "GEBONGRATS!" What does that mean, I wondered, my brain still not fully functioning. "GET ON THE GRASS!" the angry man ordered."NOW!"  I pulled the plane off on the grass and a few seconds later a commercial jet passed behind me on the runway. Oh, okay. Now I get it. 

I followed Interstate 65 back to Indianapolis and once there I knew my way to the airport. Rob asked me how my last cross country went. "Fine," I said choosing not to elaborate. A few weeks later, I received my Private Pilot's license. Goal accomplished. I flew several times after getting my license. Once I took my husband--the aforementioned cowboy--up for a spin around the Indiana National Bank building during fourth of July fireworks. Twice I flew to a business meeting at an RCA factory in Bloomington, and one time I buzzed our farm in Greenwood. But by then my goals had completely changed; I was pregnant with Jason and I was ready to move on to something else.

I'm Sorry. Did You Say Something?

How Low Self Esteem Can Go

Before I leave the river to move to a farmhouse in Greenwood in 1980, I want to share one last story about how low self esteem can go.  If I thought I had hit rock bottom with the Horse Man, I was wrong. Enter Frank.

By 1980 I was back working as a secretary at RCA in the Purchasing Department. One day a man stopped at my desk to ask for directions to the men's room. What I remember most about that first encounter were his eyes. Hazel with a hint of blue and beautiful. Other than that, he wasn't remarkable. He wasn't unattractive but he wasn't attractive either. His nose was very large but maybe it just seemed enormous due to the fact he had no lips. Well, he had lips, of course, but you couldn't see them--just a horizontal dash line below his nose that opened up when he spoke. He had a thick mane of dark brown hair that sat a little crooked on his head.

His name was Frank and he was a business man attending one of RCA's notorious high pressure negotiation meetings that we sponsored once a year in the fall for our suppliers. These meetings were brutal for our vendors because they started early in the morning and lasted late into the night, with few breaks. The meetings were designed to wear the vendors down, down, down until they agreed to sell us ten million widgets for a half a penny less than they had the year before. Sometimes the meetings would last for several days, which was the case with Frank's widget negotiations.

Every time Frank passed my desk to go to the men's room, he'd find a reason to stop to open his dash line. We talked mostly about Frank and his company and his dogs and his sports car and his mansion and his big boat and his beautiful lawn and his outdoor cats who liked to leave dead mice on his front porch--a porch that was the size of my parents' house. During our one-sided conversations, he never once showed any interest in me. Bingo? Well, maybe bingo, but maybe not. All he had going for him were those hazel with a hint of blue beautiful eyes and that aloof attitude that told me he might not be that into me.

Frank was a leader of men. I could tell by the way his business partners and our executives interacted with him. He was razor-sharp smart with a touch of arrogance and a boatload of confidence. On the last day of negotiations, Frank brought his boatload of confidence over to my desk and asked me for a date. "That would be nice," I said, with a hint of blush.

If Frank was going to be my prince, I'd have to get past some things. First, I'd have to get past his nose to find his dash line so I could kiss him. And every time we did kiss, he'd hold my hands just in case they wanted to do what? Roam around all over his body in search of what? His toupee? Oh, yeah. I knew he had a toupee because every day it sat just a little crooked on his head. One day a little to the left, the next a little to the right. I didn't care that he wore a hair piece. What I did care about were his core values and priorities and his over the top self interest and arrogant confidence and his way of letting me know he wasn't sure about me. Those things mattered to me.

Run, Carol Louise, Run

I didn't run. You knew that already, didn't you? You're so smart. One day, a month into our casual dating, Frank said he needed to see me. Maybe, I thought, this would be the day he realized that he was into me after all.  He'd seen what a good person I was; he'd realized I was a keeper. Now we could start in earnest to have a real relationship. Maybe, I thought, after I got to know the real Frank, he'd turn out to be a good guy.

We sat in his car staring at the granite headstones that dotted the ground before us. He'd picked the graveyard parking lot at Allisonville and Eller Road to tell me something important. For the longest time we sat in silence. To pass the time, I began counting the headstones. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight... "I can't see you anymore," Frank said. There! He said it! He was rejecting me. This man with all the things I had to get past in order to kiss his dash line was rejecting me. "May I ask why?" I said, trying to hide my shock. "I can't tell you," he said. "There's something about you, and I can't tell you what it is, but I can't go out with you anymore." Having said what he needed to say-- "It's not me; it's you" --he started the car, pulled out of the graveyard, and drove me home. I got out of the car, walked in a daze to the front door, let myself in, walked upstairs to my bedroom, climbed into bed fully clothed and stayed there until the next morning.

If I thought I had hit rock bottom with the Horse Man, I was wrong. Frank's rejection crushed the rock at the bottom, and I sunk further down into the muck.

"It's you, not me," the dash line said. The problem was me. Me. I ran down the long list of my deficiencies: small but perky breasts, nasal voice, skinny legs, not pretty enough, stupid laugh. What else? What else? Not smart enough? Don't have a college degree, yet? Just a lowly secretary? What else? What else? Dull and uninteresting? Not a good conversationalist? During lulls in conversation, starts counting things? What else? What else?

The rejection without an explanation was driving me nuts, so what do nutty people do in a case like this? I have no clue what other nutty people do, but this nutty person went to a therapist. It helped. One by one, she pulled all the layers of my convoluted story back to show me how ridiculous it was.  She put my story of rejection into perspective, and it all made sense. Frank didn't put me in the pit. I put myself in the pit. My suffering was self-inflicted. I knew this man wasn't right for me, but he had pushed the button that turned on the switch that started the gears of self-sabotage into motion. My behavior was predictable because I was pre-programed to react to the button, switch, and gears in a specific way. (Think Pavlov's dog.) My subconscious mind was working covertly to satisfy latent emotional needs and it was getting me into trouble. I wanted to place the blame for my bad choices on my father who abandoned his family the day I was born, and my evil step parent, Hazel, who disliked children, and the means kids at school, but I couldn't. I am the only person responsible for my actions and subsequent consequences. The blame stops with me.

One visit to a therapist didn't turn me around. I didn't leave her office cured of low self esteem and self-sabotaging behavior. The hard drive inside me that had been dictating my behavior for thirty-four years was operating at full capacity a few months later when a cowboy from the south side of Indy started pushing buttons that turned on the switch that put the gears of...oh, you know. You've been there with me so many times before.

The Man for Me

Before, during and after my brief encounter with the Horse Man, my self-esteem was at an all-time low. Charlie, the only man I could ever love, didn't want me, so why would anyone else? Charlie's rejection was a confirmation of what I already knew. I was not worthy of a man's love. I was doomed to be an old maid. Alone. Childless. Lonely. Miserable. But before all the doom and gloom befell me, I had something to do: move to the country.

I was done living in an apartment in the fast-paced crowded city. I wanted country, so one Sunday afternoon I headed north to Noblesville looking for what... I wasn't exactly sure. Once in the country, I stopped at several farmhouses and asked if anyone knew of any farmhouses for rent in the area. I stopped at three houses. At the last one a young couple said they didn't know of any farmhouses, but their friends were in the process of moving from a house on White River just two miles east of their home.

I turned left on to Trail's End, a winding, tree-lined, picturesque gravel lane. Before reaching the house I knew this was it. To the left was a two hundred-acre cornfield. To the right were small yet adorable river houses. "Please, let this one be it," I'd say as I passed one quaint bungalow after another. I pulled into the drive at the address I was given: 11490. Oh, my. Not so adorable. There were twelve houses on Trail's End and this one was the ugliest of them all. But that's how that works, isn't it? I wasn't dissuaded by its appearance, though, because from the moment I turned left on to the trail, I knew I wanted to live there.

What was the builder thinking when he designed this house? I'd never seen anything like it. Tiny 1,000 sq. ft. house, yet two-stories. It was built with concrete blocks and then painted white. It was a square box with undersized windows and no flair. There was no lawn; just dirt with patches of weeds. The house was old and tired and the white paint was flaking off showing the gray block underneath. It was obvious from its appearance it had been neglected for decades. Yet, I was intrigued by it. To me it looked like a centuries old cottage on an English estate.

Once I stepped out of my car, I had company. Pen, the neighbor to the right and Ted, neighbor to the left. "They're not here," Pen said. "They've moved out." Ted walked up and said, "I know where they've hidden their key." And in the house we go. But they hadn't moved out. Their furniture and clothes were still there which made me want to scurry on out the door. But Pen and Ted were not bothered that we might get caught wandering around inside someone's home. Still nervous, I raced through the house and back out the door. Whew! Pen and Ted stayed inside the house for several more minutes before joining me in the driveway. "Terrible housekeepers," Pen said. "Good riddance." Ted added "They weren't friendly either." What both of them seemed to ignore was that these people were not gone, and we had just committed a crime.

They did eventually move out, and I rented the house. When Lynnette turned eighteen, she moved in with me. Pen and Ted became my almost-lifelong friends, but that's another story for another blog. Lynnette and Pen have been best friends for thirty-eight years.

On my thirty-third birthday, I was still manless. I knew I would never find love, and I was getting too old to have children. Friends asked me to join them after work to celebrate, but I declined and went home to wallow alone in my sad state of affairs. There was a tree swing in the backyard beckoning me sit and cry. So I did. My whimpers soon turned to sobs. "What's wrong?" Ted said as he walked across the dirt and weeds toward me. At first I said, "Nothing." I have always been caution about who I share personal with. "Oh, it's something," he said. "Sobs don't come from nothing." I stopped crying and looked up at this caring, kind man who had been hinting for sometime that he'd like to change the status of our friendship to something more. Why couldn't Ted be the one? He was handsome, successful and smart. He was available and showing interest in me. Why not Ted? For all the reasons why it should have been Ted, I had never once considered him anything but a friend.

Ted put his arm around me and said, "Whatever it is, it's going to be okay?" With that I burst out crying, "No, it isn't. I'm thirty-three and not married. I'm never going to find love and I'm going to grow old alone and childless." I didn't expect Ted to laugh, but that's what he did. He laughed. "That's ridiculous," he said. "You'll find love. Trust me on that." Then, just like in the movies,  he leaned down and kissed me tenderly on the lips. You know what was supposed to happen next, don't you? Just like in the movies, that kiss was supposed to turn me. That kiss was supposed to open my eyes. That kiss was suppose to make me realize that what I had been looking for was right there all along: my next-door neighbor, Ted, was my happily-ever-after. But that didn't happen. I just wasn't into Ted.

As it turned out, Ted was right. Four months later, I met a cowboy from Greenwood who just wasn't that into me. Bingo! I had found the man for me.

The Horse Man

I have another story for you, but first I need to explain something about me you may not know. Not me now, but me back then. Once you know this, it might explain why I did some of the things I did back then. Once you understand that, then maybe you'll refrain from saying, "What were you thinking?"

My brain was hardwired to believe that 1) I must be a good girl, and 2) I must have a man to be complete. That seems simple enough but it was much, much more complicated than that. What does good mean? Good defined by the preacher at the church I used to go to but refused to go back to once I found out he was doing the nasty-nasty with the choir director? Good as in all the fairy tale books I had read where the sweet, innocent, non-confrontational, hardworking girl gets trapped in a castle, curse, or worse. The only thing that could save her was, you guessed it, the strong, masculine, handsome prince. So what did good mean as it related to me finding my prince? It meant my behavior needed to follow all the rules of good I'd been taught since a small child: Sugar and spice and everything nice, sweet, innocent, accommodating, non-confrontational, hardworking and seeking a man to rescue me because without a man, I was doomed to the castle, curse, or worse. Without a man I was nothing. There you go. Now you know. So, when I tell you this next story, please don't ask me, "What were you thinking?" You already know.

I'd left my flying lesson one day when a mile down the road, I saw a sign that read, "OWN YOUR OWN HORSE."  I always liked horses. There's something strong, masculine, and handsome about stallions. I stopped to get some information. There was no one in the stables so I walked out to the coral where I saw a man about my age holding a rope with a big stallion on the other end. The horse was huge and beautiful, and it didn't like being controlled; it didn't like the rope; it didn't like the man. But the man wasn't taking any crap from this creature eight times his size, and evidently the horse settled down long enough for the man to throw reigns and a saddle on him, jump on his back and take off across the field.

I watched for the longest time this man and his horse. Eventually, they came back to the stables. The man won the battle over who was in control. The man was. I waited until the man was done with the horse and ambled over to where I stood. He was about six feet tall, slender yet muscular. He wore tight blue jeans, muddy cowboy boots, cowboy shirt, and a belt with a big horseshoe buckle. His face was filthy and his hair was oily and straggly and he had a couple of missing teeth, but yet I found him to be handsome in a rugged sort of way. (Think Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club.)

"What can I do for ya?" he asked, not looking at me. He was busy with the reigns and saddle he'd just taken off that big stallion he'd just mastered. The sugar and spice and everything nice part of me put my best foot forward. "I saw your sign out front about owning a horse; always wanted to do that," I said raising my voice several octaves to sound like a precious eight-year-old girl. "Yeah, got one left. It's your lucky day," he said. Oh, happy, happy day, I thought to myself. I get to see this man again.

You know the rest of this story, don't you? What you don't know is that no one ever owned one of his horses. He rented them. I owned, I mean rented, an old female horse because the man said she was better suited for someone without horse experience. I'd ride her around the field for a half an hour before she'd head back to the stables on her own. I paid a monthly fee and anytime I wanted to ride "my" horse, I'd go to the stables, ask the man to saddle her up, and hope he'd show some interest in me. For the longest time, he never did, so I'd keep coming back to ride my old horse, until one day...Bingo! The day he showed interest, he looked exceptionally bad. Maybe he wasn't that handsome after all. But yet, I was still attracted to him. He said he'd slept with the horses the last two nights. No shower. He called himself The Horse Man. He preferred horses over people.

Run, Carol Louise, Run

I refer you to the second paragraph of this story. I didn't run. You knew I wouldn't, didn't you. I knew the Horse Man wasn't right for me--in fact he was bad, very bad-- but I went there anyway.  Good girls don't kiss and tell, so don't ask 'cause I ain't telling.

One day, he took me out back behind the horse stables to show me his acre of marijuana plants. Good girls don't do drugs or hang out with people who sell them. I never saw my horse or the Horse Man again.

Get a Horse

Since the accident, I've read a lot of books, mostly autobiographical: Bryan Cranston, Life in Parts; Phil Knight, Shoe Dog; Trevor Noah, Born a Crime; Tina Fey, Bossypants; Jenna Miscavige Hill, Beyond Belief; Amy Wambach, Forward; Ray Kroc; Grinding it Out; Nora Ephron, I Remember Nothing. I'm hooked on autobiographies now, and when reading about other people's lives, what I enjoy the most are the stories. Some thing happened and we, the reader, get to be a fly on the wall watching the event unfold. I love that. In my blog, I don't think I tell enough stories. So, going forward, I'll work on rambling less and storytelling more...if I remember. My memory's not so good these days.

Here's a story...

I met Connie in 1976 when I got a job working for the President of Caldwell Advertising Agency, located in a mansion on North Washington Blvd.  My title was "Executive Assistant to the President." Sounds impressive but don't be fooled by the words. They're only words. Words to make the girl who gets the low-paid job catering to the big man with the big office in the big mansion feel more important than she actually is. But what did I expect? I could type and take shorthand, and I was not a man. It didn't matter that I was also smart. Without college or a trade, my options were few and always led me back to the secretarial pool.

There were four of us in the second-floor bedrooms in the big mansion. Two other companies shared our mansion, too. There was Herschell Caldwell, the President, CEO, and COO; Connie, a graphic artist, and another employee whose name I can't recall. And then me, the Executive Assistant to the President. Impressed? Don't be. I was a gofor as in "Carol Louise, go for coffee," and "Go for the mail at the post office," and "Go for the money our clients owe us or I won't be able to pay you this week," In addition to all of my other gofor jobs, I was also the debt collector.

Connie and I became fast friends. She was smart and easy to laugh and always up for an adventure and she was kind and gentle and good to her core. She wasn't dating anyone, and I was certain my ex-fiance would wake up one morning and realize he really did love me. He'd come back crying about how sorry he was, about how much he loved me; about...Oh, who am I fooling. He wasn't coming back, but I waited anyway.

Weekend adventures to another city or town became our fun thing to do. For a time I owned an MG Midget, and when it was working, which wasn't often, Connie and I would pack a picnic and go wherever the wind would blow us. One day, we drove by an airport on Allisonville Road, and Connie said, "I've always wanted to learn how to fly." We pulled into the parking lot, went inside, and less than an hour later we were both signed up for flying lessons.

We started out flying high-wing Cessna's, but after a few months,  I went across the airport to another flight school that used low-wing Cherokees. I always cringe now when a man calls a piece of metal--a car or motorcycle, for example--sexy, but I'm going say it even though it's cringe-worthy. I changed flight school's because I thought the low-wing plane was sexier.

Caldwell Advertising Agency folded, of course. Connie was wooed away months before we closed by a famous Indy magazine, whose name I can't recall. I know something was up because one day she declined to go to lunch with me; she never, ever said no. So I knew. I was eating lunch at my desk, when she quietly walked out the door, down the stairs, across the lawn to the curb where a man in a suit opened the back door of a black Lincoln Continental. She stepped in. The man closed the door, went to the driver's door, got in and off she went. She got an executive position (for real; not just words): Manager of the Graphics Art Department.

I opened the Classifieds again. Oh, how I hated looking for work. I was sick and tired of being a low-paid secretary. Surely there was something else out there for me to do. And then I saw it: Escort. Escort? I called the number because I was curious what an Escort was. The man on the phone was exceedingly friendly. He said that sometimes business men come to town alone. After a long day doing business things, they want to go to dinner at a nice restaurant, but they don't want to go by themselves. It was on the up and up, he said. Nice dinner and conversation. He said he had an immediate opening and wanted to know if I'd like to apply for the job. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "What were you thinking?" Obviously, I was thinking the world was unicorns and Aunt Bee's Apple Pie and Mr. Roger's neighborhood and Dr. Suess' poems and pretty butterflies. I did apply for the job and was surprised when my interviewer said, "You've got the job." I'd never been accepted for a job that fast before. He said they would be calling me for my first assignment. When I got back to my apartment, the phone was ringing. My roommate, Lisa, answered it and said, "It's a man." Always thinking any call from a man might be Charlie, I answered with a sweet, isn't-she-just-adorable voice, "Hello?" 

"Hey, honey. How'd ya like ta git it on with me ta nite?" What? I hung up. What was that? I was confused. Lisa was the one who explained the "what." I told her I got a job as Escort and she started laughing hysterically. "Do you know what an Escort does?" she asked. I couldn't believe what she was telling me. The man had lied to me.

Connie met someone and our weekend adventures came to an end. I was desperate to find someone, too, but while I waited for that to happen, there was something I had always wanted to do: Get a horse.

Eyes Wide Shut

Say a family member or a close friend put their hand on a red hot burner on the stove and one day your phone rang and on the other end was this person whom you love a lot sobbing uncontrollably. "Ouch! Hot! Hand burned! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! With that first emergency call you would be overly sympathetic and supportive. "Oh, that's terrible. I'm so sorry. Put ice on it." But after several "Ouch! Hot! hand-burned calls over the  years, you might want to say something like, "STOP PUTTING YOUR HAND ON THAT DAMN RED HOT BURNER!" I said you might be tempted to say that, but let me give you a piece of advice. Don't. It won't go over very well. Best to just be sympathetic and supportive. Trust me on that.

Analogy

A comparison between two completely different things

used by people who want to make a point but rather than say

it like it is, they beat around the bush and make up stupid stuff.

                                                        ---Mikidikipedia

I'll admit it. I like to use analogies. When my friends come to me for sympathy and support, I make up stupid stuff--analogies as I see them--and then they leave, trying to understand what I just said, but the good news is they're momentarily distracted from whatever misery they're suffering. Most of the time, the misery is heartache. Self-inflicted heartache.

I used the red hot burner analogy with one heart broken friend once. How many times did she have to fall into lust and infatuation with a loser before figuring out what she was doing wrong?  How long does it take before they learn their lesson? "STOP PUTTING YOUR HAND ON THAT DAMN RED HOT BURNER!" I said. You get the analogy don't you? You're smart; I'm pretty sure you do. Well, it was a good analogy. It made perfect since. Stop that thing you're doing that gives you pain.  My friend got the analogy, too, but it didn't go over very well. Best to say "Oh, that's terrible. I'm so sorry. Try ice," followed by, "He's a loser; he'll never find anyone as good as you." Friends want to touch the red hot burner knowing they're going to get burned, and it's your job as a good friend to put their hand in a bucket of ice water and say, "Oh, that's terrible. I'm so sorry. Here's some ice." 

Speaking of analogies and touching red hot burners, I think I might be the toilet lid calling the toilet a pot. Or to use a better analogy, I could be the choir preaching to that picture of God on the wall above the statue of Jesus next to the pulpit. Nobody listening. Well, of course not. We're all on the same paragraph, just a different page.

Okay, I'll admit it. I spent over forty years touching that dang red hot burner over and over again. Same guy, but different name. Heartbreak. Sobbing. Well, of course, what did I expect? Do the same thing and expect a different outcome? Did I assume the result would be different? You know what assume means don't you? Sure you do. There's an ass hurting me and then I call u sobbing.

Whenever I got burned, I never told anyone. Well, that's a lie. I told Lynnette. She was always sympathetic and supportive. I couldn't help myself.  I went back to the stove again and again, turned on the burner, and just like all those times before, I placed my hand palm down on the red hot surface. "Ouch! Ouch! Hand burned. Hot burner. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" But no matter how many times I did the same stupid thing, my sister always said and did the same comforting but disingenuous thing. "He's a loser; he'll never find anyone as good as you. Got ice?" Then she tracked down that dang red hot burner, the source of my pain, and gave it a piece of her mind. Kinda like reprimanding a dog after it pooped on your sister's sofa. After five minutes have passed, he doesn't get it. What poop? What sofa?

In my late forties I took a baseball bat to the red hot burner.  I beat it to pieces. Kinda like that but not really. What matters here is the hot burner was gone. Adios to heartbreak and pain. So long sucker. Bye, bye now. Kinda like seeing the red HOT BURNER light that was there all along flashing CAUTION! DANGER! but I didn't see it because my eyes were wide shut; then I opened my eyes. Yeah, exactly like that.

Merry "Bleepin" Christmas

Just a little Christmas cheer

from your dad and mommy dear.

A car crossed the median going way too fast.

We didn't see it because of tall grass.

Then it hit us head on and we hear a blast.

Then we roll and roll before we stop at last.

Maggie oh Maggie, are you alright?

Oh, no! Where's Maggie? What a fright.

She's in the bed; not dead; just hit on the head.

But not to worry. Dad and Mom are fine.

broken ribs, punctured lung, injured spines

But in time those things will fade away.

Our sucky memories will erase that day.

So take this time to appreciate what you have.

Because tomorrow may come today

and take it all away.

Leaving

His intuition told him, "Somethin's up." It was just a gut feeling, a hunch but he needed to leave work, go home to see if his intuition was right. Once there, if there wasn't a car in the drive, if she was home alone with their two babies, JJ one, and Judy, two, he'd just do a drive by and head back to work. But there was a car in the drive. He pulled in next to the car. He knew that car; he knew who owned that car. Things were about to get really ugly.  

When she told me the story about how her brother, Chub, found his wife in bed with another man while their two babies were asleep in the next bedroom, she bragged about her part in getting rid of the whore. 'Well, that's what she was," JJ's aunt said. "A whore! Chub called me and I came right over to the house. It was fireworks in that house. We sent her packing right then and there. She was out the door and walking down highway 135 crying and carrying a suitcase last we saw her. Damn whore. Aunt Sis continued. "We took them babies to Dad and Mom's farm in Bargersville and she raised them babies up, with my help."

I liked Aunt Sis the moment I met her, even though she was loud, intimidating, and opinionated. "That's the German in me," she said. "I say what I think; I don't care who likes it." She was a straight shooter and as long as she didn't shoot me, we'd get along fine. She and her husband, Charlie, lived in a modest two-bedroom home a mile and a half south of JJ's farm right on Morgantown Road in Greenwood.

At sixty-five, Sis was a white-haired, big, full figured woman and strong as an ox. She liked her fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and pork fat and cow tongues and hog brains fried in lard which, over the years, laid a roll of fat around her middle, but it never, ever slowed her down. She could work circles around me and never tire.

When it became evident that I was the gal JJ was going to pick, Aunt Sis and Uncle Charlie started coming to the farm more often. She wanted to country-fy me. One day, she said she was going to teach me how to fry chicken. "Not like city-folk do," she said. "There's nothing to it. You're gonna learn how to fry chicken the country way. Let's go." Out the door she went with me right behind her.  Behind me were JJ's two little girls, Amy and Stacia. Sis walked down to the chicken coup and grabbed a chicken that was just minding its own business walking around eating bugs and things found in the grass. Chub and JJ were working on a tractor nearby, but when they saw Sis with a chicken in her hand, they both stopped what their were doing and walked over to watch the spectacle that was about to happen. I had no idea what was coming. Stacia began to cry, "No! No! Sis, don't do it!" Amy was running around just happy to be running around. JJ and Chub stood perfectly still, waiting. While Stacia pleaded with Sis to stop, Sis took the chicken by the neck and began fast twirling the chicken in the air. One way, then the next. Back and forth. Chicken dead. Stacia was crushed. JJ and Chub were bent over from laughter. Amy was just running around just happy to be running around. After Sis chopped the head off the chicken, hung it upside down to drain the blood, she said, "Okay, let's go fix us some country-fried chicken."

In time, Sis and I became very close. We did everything together and with the kids. She loved to be a kid again and play and laugh and go on adventures. With me and the children, she was young again. Sis adored those kids; they were her life. Before she was lost in the depths of dementia, she never got mad at me one time, but I do remember a few times when she was furious with her nephew.

One cold snowy winter day, the farmhouse erupted in ugly. Amy remembers the details of that day. I don't. I do remember looking out the window and seeing Sis' little green Volkswagen beetle bug race up the long gravel drive that led to the farmhouse. She knew something was wrong. I don't know how she knew. Maybe it was that German intuition. She opened the door without knocking, stormed into the parlor where we all were, puffed herself up to appear bigger than she actually was, stared JJ in the face and said, "KIDS, GET IN THE CAR! WE'RE LEAVING!" We all obeyed Sis and got in the car.

So much of that day is lost to me.  I know we came home later that day. Kids are so resilient and forgiving and all was well with Daddy later that night after popcorn and a movie. We were the happy Walton family again. Goodnight John boy.

Ahhh, Oh Yeah. Delicious. Let's You and Me

In the seventies, sexual harassment came with the job at RCA. Although you couldn't find the harassment clause in the job description, it was just understood by everyone that it existed and no one talked about it.

In December, 1969, I was hired as an entry-level secretary, one of the lowest paid salaried jobs in the company.  I was the secretary to three men, but the entire industrial design staff could use me and the other secretaries for such duties as clerk, typist, stenographer, filer of papers and things, gofer, coffee deliverer, and the object of a nasty-nasty joke or, on occasion whenever they felt like it, a booby or butt feel.

I loved my job and, except for Ray Coates (my mean boss), I liked all of the managers and industrial designers (all men except for one cranky, chain-smoking old lady graphic artist) in the Design Department. Most of the men were gentlemen and said or did nothing inappropriate, but of those approximately two dozen men who shared my space, a handful (what is a handful?) thought I and my female co-secretaries were fair game. But here's the non show-stopper. We all allowed it. We even laughed at the dirty jokes. Why? Because we loved our jobs and if we complained, the good ole boys' club would have found a reason for security to escort us to the door.  I don't know how the other girls dealt with the harassment, but I rationized my way through the obstacle course, all the while reminding myself I still had a job. What's an occasional pinch on the boob? It didn't hurt, so let it go. A slap on the butt that may linger a little too long. Oh, well. No big deal. An off-color joke? Disgusting but, in the big picture, laugh anyway.

Sometimes the lines would get blurred when the secretaries would join in. For example, when a male co-worker would say to me, "Hey, let's you and me go somewhere and do the nasty-nasty," and I would say, "You go first and if I'm not there in five minutes, go ahead without me." That always brought the laughs. I was complicit; I was part of the harassment I claimed to not like.

My career at RCA spanned thirty years with one two-year break from 1975-1977. The Design Department moved twice in that time, changed its name to The Design Center. In the early 1990's we were purchased by the French Government; they dropped RCA's name in favor of Thomson Multimedia. By the time I graduated college, after going to night school for twenty years,  I had had eight different jobs throughout the company before coming back to the Design Center in 1987, ending my career as a Program Manager in 2001.

In 1991 President Bush, the first one, nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. It looked as if he were a shoo-in when Anita Hill, a former employee of Mr. Thomas, raised her hand and said, "Excuse me." The story she had to tell didn't put Mr. Thomas in the best possible light. His appointment to the court was in jeopardy. Ms Hill told of sexual harassment in the workplace. He denied it; she was vilified; he got the job.

One day, shortly after the Anita Hill/Clarence Hill story broke, upper management called a meeting for every man to attend. No women allowed. The Design Center emptied out, leaving just us girls to wonder what was going on. When the men returned, they told us that as of this very day, all sexual harassment would cease. Sexual harassment gone, adios, so long, bye bye, don't let the door hit you in the butt on your way out.

From 1969 to 1991, when the big bosses finally said "Stop it" I had been grabbed, poked, and brushed up against so many times I'd lost count. One married-with-kids co-worker, Bob, showed up at my house one Saturday morning. The expression on his face was one of urgency, and I thought he was there to deliver bad news; maybe a co-worker had died or The Design Center had disappeared into a cavernous sink hole. What was the urgent reason for this man to come to my house? "You have always been really nice to me, I thought maybe you were thinking what I was thinking?" he said. Wow! I convinced him that I was nice to everyone and "No" I wasn't thinking what he was thinking. Another co-worker, Glenn,  (married with five kids) was following me home from work one day when he honked his horn and motioned for me to pull over. I did because I thought I had a flat tire or the back half of my car had fallen off. He got out of his car and walked up to my window and said, "I've been thinking about having an affair, and there isn't anyone I'd rather have it with than you." What? After I convinced him that that wouldn't work for me, we went on our separate ways and he never mentioned it again. One creepy co-worker, Ray, when passing a woman he thought attractive, would make the same sound I make when taking that first bite out of a double-decker decadent chocolate dessert. "Ahhh, Oh, yeah. Delicious; let's you and me get together." Another co-worker, Joe, married of course, told me that I had a heart-shaped butt, and he had been told there was nothing better than having sex with a woman with a heart-shape butt. On this one, I was speechless. I thought this guy was my friend. Where did that come from? Are all men pigs?

"Too friendly," he said. "You don't understand how a heterosexual man's mind works. If a woman is too friendly, they think 'maybe she wants him'."  His name was Mike and he had become a friend through business. We were buying paint from his company and he called on me and our factory weekly. On a business trip to Juarez, Mexico, he confided in me and told me how the male brain works. Up until that time, I was clueless.  Women don't think about sex all the time. Most women, that is. Men, on the other hand, well, you know. You're smart. By now you've figured it out.

Post Anita Hill, at Thomson Multimedia, a man could get written up for any touch at all, even innocent ones.  Hands off. Keep your mouth shut. Men were no longer allowed to say, "You look nice today." Nope! No way! Ain't gonna happen because these men loved their jobs, and they didn't want security to escort them to the door.

The Whole Rotten Echilada

It was my son's first birthday, April 27, 1982. Looking out the window in the upstairs bathroom of the old farmhouse we rented,  I saw my husband riding his red John Deer tractor in he back forty acres of the farm. I couldn't help but smile. Life was good. When I turned to look in the mirror, I saw Happy. Finally, at thirty-six, I'd found Happy. (Me + man + baby + two step daughters = Happy.)

As I stood looking at my reflection, I said out loud, "On this day I am where I have always wanted to be. In love with my husband, my two step daughters, and I'm the mother of a beautiful baby boy." I looked back out the window and watched as the farmer (my farmer) readied the spring soil for next fall's harvest.  "How long will this happiness last?" I asked the mirror, hoping the answer was "forever." 

There's his story; there's mine and somewhere in the middle is the true story. That middle story would probably go something like this: They were ill suited for each other. There is no bad guy; there is no good girl. Both are responsible for the failure of their marriage.

I'm not sure what he thought because he didn't talk much. He knew what I thought because I talked too much. Talking through our problems was the only way I knew how to fix them. I wanted to talk all the time: What are the core issues? How can we fix this? Why are things getting worse instead of better? 

The marriage counselor we found at church said I had an unfair advantage over my husband because women are master orators, whereas men have a hard time finding words to express themselves. He also said the trouble with our relationship was me. Me. My husband was going through some difficult times and he was sad. It was my responsibility as his wife to encourage him, support him, coddle him. "Stand by your man." he said. "It's the Christian way."  Before I stood up abruptly and walked out of the room, ending the marriage counseling and the marriage, the counselor said that I had emasculated my husband, as in castration.

What? Wait! But...But... . 

I was willing to accept partial blame--no bad guy; no good girl, remember?--but no way was I going down for the whole rotten enchilada. No way. Nope. Ain't gonna happen. "You can see that your husband is sad, you know he's hurting. Yet you have expectations of him. Right now, he's incapable of anything but dealing with his sadness." 

I thought about the counselor's words: I castrated my husband. My imagination got ahold of that statement and went a little haywire with it. I'm frantically digging through my sewing kit. "WHERE ARE MY PINKING SHEARS," I yell. After dumping my sewing kit upside down, the shears fall out on the floor. They are rusty from when I had used them before to cut testicles off of the male hogs in the rain and mud. "Good," I say with an evil snicker. "They're dull. All the better to cut off my husband's testicles. It will take longer. There will be prolonged pain an suffering."

I hate to admit it, but for the longest time, I did believe the marriage counselor's truth: The failure of our marriage was all my fault, but over time and much introspection and with Hindsight by my side, I realize I should have used the turkey carver instead. Buzz...Buzz. Done. Quick and easy. Hungry anyone?

If He Would Just Pick Me

He hadn't had a thimble's worth of happiness in his entire life, he said. He was lying on his back on his waterbed in the downstairs parlor of his one-hundred year old depilated farmhouse he rented on the south side of Indianapolis. It was Saturday night and we'd just returned to his place after a night out with his friends. He'd had a few too many beers, and instead of being happy and high, he was sad and emotional. He wasn't crying but his eyes were bloodshot and moist. I sat down on the edge of the bed and listened to all the reasons for his unhappiness. Due to his propensity for silence (he didn't talk a  lot), I felt a closeness I'd never had with him in the four months since we had started dating. He was talking. Something he rarely did. He was sharing his most personal secrets with me. Me. Did this mean he trusted me? If only he could know that I was trustable; I would keep his secrets. Did this mean I had moved up in status from a girl he dated to the only girl he dated? If only he could know that I was a good person and with me as a mate I could help him with his sadness. If he picked me, I would work really hard to show him life could be happy. I could make him happy. If he would just pick me.

He had what I wanted. Since I was a little girl, I had always wanted to live in a farmhouse surrounded by acres of farmland.  His farmhouse sat on top a hill in the middle of 160 acres of land. He was a cowboy farmer, ruggedly handsome, over six feet tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, and quiet, which I translated to be shy. He was  the strong, silent, hard-to-reach type. (Think Robert Redford in Electric Horseman.) This man was my choice. Please pick me. Pick me. By the spring of 1980, he had picked me, too. But there was just one itty bitty problem: the ex-wife and two daughters.

As soon as I met his ex and two little girls, I was enamored with them as well. All three. There was nothing about them to dislike. His wife was sweet and kind and the girls (Amy, 4, and Stacia, 7) took to me right away. He said he could never, ever go back to her; it was over, done, finished. But then his ex-wife started to date, and that made him very sad. He couldn't imagine another man trying to be a father to his daughters. So he went back to his family. But happiness was not to be found, so he left his family and came back to me. Me. He had what I wanted so I took him back. Well, he was heartsick; his confusion was understandable. But then his ex-wife appeared to be happy without him and was moving on with her life without him, and that made him very sad. So he went back to his family. But where oh where was happiness? He left his family and came back to me. He had what I wanted so I took him back. Well, he was confused; his indecision was understandable. But then his ex-wife told him to stay with me; it was over, done, finished between them, and that made him very sad.  So he went back to his family, but the locks had been changed and all of his clothes she had washed and ironed for him were floating in the pond next to her house. You know what I'm going to say, don't you? You're so smart. He came back to me. He had what I wanted so I took back this sad man who hadn't had a thimble's worth of happiness in his entire life. I could fix that, ya know.

The cowboy picked me. Me. With me as his wife and mother of his future son, he could stop with the sad stories now. No more sadness. Sadness be gone. Sadness is over, done, finished. Okay, enough with the sadness already. Bye, bye sadness. Whatever it took--sacrifice or suffering or working harder or doing things I didn't want to do--so be it. I would do anything to make this sad man happy.

But I failed.

"Being good and doing good is good, except when it isn't."

                                                      --Larry, the first one

Except When It Isn't

"Being good and doing good is good, except when it isn't."

Larry--the first one--said that fifty-one years ago when we dated briefly. Good to Larry meant 100% self actualization in one's own life. Make yourself happy first, be true to who you are not who others want you to be, and if there's anything left over for others, it's okay to give that away, or not. Doing good for others, being good for others, sacrificing for others was a religious conspiracy to earn your way into Heaven. Preachers were knowingly feeding their congregation lies about the promise of a wonderful place after death where streets are paved in gold and there's enough chocolate for everyone.  Abide by the rules of the church and Heaven will be waiting for you. All lies, Larry said. The promises were merely a tool to control and manipulate those who believed. It was a trap that people fell into willingly. And what's worse, they lived an unhappy, unfulfilled life and never figured out they were doped. 

I believed. So did my mother, step-father, aunt, uncle, sister and everyone else I knew. We all believed. Even when some of the rules didn't make sense, we obeyed them anyway. We were sheep to the shepherd, our preacher, the man who had a personal conversation with the big guy everyday. Since he was communicating directly with God, that took pressure off of us. We could check our thinking hats at the altar and let our shepherd lead us to safety.

Larry's philosophy on living a self-serving life, focusing on your needs ahead of others, was foreign to me. It ran against who I believed I was: Sugar and spice and everything nice, a doer of good things, an accommodator, a giver, a non-confrontational woman. If being all of those things meant I had to sacrifice or suffer or work harder or do things I didn't want to do, so be it. It was the price I would have to pay in order to fulfill my fairy tale dream of finding my prince and living happily-ever-after in a cute little cottage with a white picket fence.

"Being good and doing good is good, except when it isn't." Larry again with his self-serving nonsense. "When is it ever not good to be good?" I asked him. "You'll find out," he said, "someday when you start thinking for yourself."

***

My first love is history; so is my second.  And so on down the road I must travel "being and doing good" and looking here, there, and over yonder for my next one and only true love. He is out there, somewhere. He will see me and notice how good I am, and then he'll throw the saddle on his horse and say, "Gitty up, King. We have us a maiden to rescue." 

Yep, that's how this story begins when the cowboy noticed a maiden standing in cow poop outside his barn one winter day in 1980.