Ghosts and Guardians

I drive down Laguna Canyon Road in my Mother's Buick to see Gershwinn Alone at the Laguna Playhouse. Memories stir. A familiar drive. A drive that took me as a child in the early 70's with my parents in a Cadillac to Vacation Village for summer beach -front vacations, dinners with the Kavanaghs at Cordon Bleu with its aviary, and Easter brunches with Bob at the latest and greatest new find. A drive that took me for company Christmas parties at Ben Browns on Aliso Creek and hangovers at breakfast at The Beach House. A drive that took me in the late 70's in my Camero past the Greeter at The Pottery Shack to Bob and Lenny's leather shop, Un Bel Di. A drive that took me in the 80's as a young mother in my Ford Mini-Van to the Laguna Art Museum with Gillian, for walks with a stroller along Ciff Drive, lunches of "Havachips" and salsa at Laguna village, and the occassional margarita at Las Brisas with out of town guests. A drive that took me with Steve in our Volvo to The Sorrento Grill for birthdays and The Surf and Sand for anniversaries. A drive that took me to Bob and Lenny's condominium at Blue Lagoon for New Year's Eve parties. A drive that took me in the early 90's to doctor appointments with Bob as we searched for answers to his weight loss and headaches. A drive that took me to the Jolly Roger for lunch where Bob felt queasy and afterward I watched him shuffle to the B of A Versateller machine where I made my own diagnosis. A drive that took me to South County Medical Center with Bob for the HIV Test. A drive that took mother and me to Bob's condo on the night of his diagnosis. A drive that took me to his condo the morning he sounded so breathless and weak. A drive that took us both back to Mom's the day we went to see the AIDS doctor. A drive that would be Bob's last on the Canyon Road. April 1994. A drive that took me back to Bob's condo to empty it out. June 1994. A drive I stopped taking for a long time. I drive down Laguna Canyon Road in my mother's Buick to see Gershwinn Alone at the Laguna Playhouse. 2010. Ghosts and Guardians. Laguna still haunts me.

The Bathroom Caper Betty McCallister 1/12/09 Seven people, one bathroom, no privacy what so ever. That is the tale of my upbringing in my Sierra Way San Bernardino home. It was an ordinary looking white shingled three bedroom house with an addition of a bedroom/den with an outside entrance and where my two brothers David and Tony slept and where the TV claimed it’s place. I seldom watched TV in my teens, the room, known as the den was cold and had a smelly boyish odor about it. The adjoining and only bathroom had two doors connecting the main house to the den, in other words the bathroom being a through fare. The doors at each end of the blessed room did not lock, so if you were lucky you could grab a quick minute in there before the traffic came through. Even closing both door did not prevent people from popping them open saying, ‘oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in there.’ Or the pleading outside, ‘come on, hurry up, I have to go real, real bad’. They would line up at both ends and bang on each door. In the mornings it was total chaos with five kids getting ready for school. Luckily my dad left for work real early or he may have killed us all during these screaming matches. My mom, well she just shouted above the noise, ‘for God’s sake stop it, will ya.’ It was unheard of to fix your hair or face in this the busiest room of the house. No vanity of any kind, just a small mirror above the sink, so all the primping was done in the bedroom mirror. You would have to take a chance to grab a quick shower where at least there was a curtain to hide behind as someone was shouting, ‘mom, she’s been in there fifteen minutes. It’s my turn’. I was the oldest of the five, the bold mixed up teenager who believed it was all about me in those days. I left the home many morning teary eyed from the intensity of the ordeal that one bathroom and five kids created. Oh how I wished I lived somewhere else, in a normal family. One day my younger sister Carol sat on the side of the bathroom sink looking at her beautiful self in the mirror and the sink disconnect from the wall and made an awful crash to the floor, where it sat for oh so long. Dad said he would fix it, but he was as handy as Barney Google, so there it sat until my mother in her wheeling dealing manner bargained with someone to repair it. We were warned with in an inch of our lives to never sit on the sink again. This scenario went on daily for years and about the time I was leaving home when praise the Lord the folks inherited a small sum of money from the death of a relative and low and behold the first thing they did was add a tiny bathroom in the den, bringing about a bit of peace in that mad Sierra Way household. So now when I see the bathrooms I have, and those of friends I can’t help but think how luxurious. A counter top, shelves, drawers and cabinets. We have come a long way. And I say to myself, Betty, if you survived those long ago frightful bathroom years you can survive anything. It’s stuff like that that makes a person tough, strong and builds character, don’t you think? And I guess it was a step above the outhouse days which I thankfully missed out on.

In Defense of the Memoir

In the January 25th edition of the New Yorker Magazine, Daniel Mendelsohn tackles the subject of memoir and its rise in importance within the popular culture in his essay, entitled But Enough About Me. From the internet blogosphere, (of which I am guilty of partaking), to the public's fascination with reality t.v. (of which I am not), Mendelsohn examines the fine line between fiction and memoir and the power that the promise of a "true" story has on a reader. His deft criticism has caused me once again to examine my own fascination and attraction to the genre. As a late baby boomer, I have had the privilege of being mid-wife to the birthing of memoirs, to witnessing the transformation that comes from the labor of facing the sometimes painful and often times revelatory stories of a generation who did not grow up with a constant diet of therapy and Oprah. While my bias for self-expression through the personal narrative is obvious, just last week in my memoir workshop with participants between the ages of sixty- something and eighty- something, I was struck by how the need for the high touch experience of sitting in a literal circle reading to one another one's life stories is a phenomenon that will likely die out with that generation of story-tellers. While I understand the criticism that is heaped upon the genre of personal memoir, I hold to my firm belief that the process of story-telling can be healing. I also understand that the "true" story lends an inherent drama that can be inspiring. Listening to how a family survived the Great Depression, sacrificed during World War II, carried on after the death of their child or built their lives and fortunes from scratch, not only provides perspective for future generations, but allows the story-teller to understand his or her own journey and to derive meaning from their experiences. Some call this self-reflection therapeutic. Some may call it narcissistic. The fact that the public seems to have an insatiable curiosity and need for such stories I think says something about the post-baby boom culture. The generation of storytellers with whom I work experienced true hardship but they experienced it within the structure of family, church, community, and neighborhood. I realize that much has been written about shifting values, lack of community, and sense of entitlement that permeates the culture today. But, the more I work with these sage writers, the more I believe that the erosion of the community has contributed to a vast feeling of isolation in our society. This, coupled with the illusion of connectivity through technology, cable television, and reality shows, has distorted and confused the collective psyche. The cheap confessional is a way to make the reader, audience, viewer feel "not so alone." It is a distant replacement for the authentic connection experienced by the pre-boomer generation. At the same time, the stories that emerge from my circle of writers are every bit as stunning as the stuff of cable television - heroic tales of heartache, intrigue, abuse, deceit, and romance. The fact that these stories are being shared for the first time is liberating and transforming for the writer. While today's generation reveals all - all the time - the writers in my workshop are experiencing the thrill of something fresh and new. The last of a breed, the generation of storytellers in my workshops may be the last for whom the process of writing one's personal narrative is true "discovery." I also believe their stories are a history and legacy of heartier souls. I have born witness not only to a unique period in self-revelation resulting from the boom of autobiography, but because of it, I have also born witness to the stories and the collective wisdom that has shaped their generation. Because of this, I do not despair for the future. I draw courage because I know through their stories, that even the hardest things are survivable. Especially if you stick together. I don't need to get lost on some fictional t.v. island to discover that truth. And I don't apologize for believing that memoir, as a genre, is important and valuable for both the reader and the writer.

I read this in class Tuesday but it wasn't quite finished, so here's the completed story:


A Thanksgiving Memory

by Connie Wolf

Connie woke to the sound of rain, it had rained all night and she slept better than she had in months. She had a theory. Burglars, rapists, and assorted deviants never worked on rainy nights, why would they? They didn’t punch a time clock, they made their own hours. She felt safe on rainy nights and slept through the night curled into one little corner of her king-sized bed. As she squinted at the clock, feeling for her glasses, she remembered why no alarm clock rang, today was Thanksgiving. A no work, no school day lay before them, a day unplanned, unstructured, the most non-traditional of Thanksgivings. It was their first Thanksgiving since the divorce, no family lived in California it would be just the two of them. She felt the depression materializing around her, like the grey smog that so often hide the California foothills, poisonous, insidious and potentially deadly, there was only one way to defeat it, hit the floor running. Catching a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror, she grimaced, her dark hair stuck straight up at the crown and lay in ragged edges on her neck , this payday for sure, she had to get a haircut; she skipped it the last two paydays, trying to save every penny for today. They were not going to eat Swanson’s TV dinners in front of the television set, not today. They were going to Denny’s. This was the 1970s and Denny’s slogan was, “We’re always open”. Every place else was closed, this was a stay-at-home family holiday and it felt like everyone else had a family straight off the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. “OK, enough” she told herself as she stepped into the shower. As she soaped her body, she determined to count her blessings. Blessing number one, she had never been thinner. A failed marriage, stark terror and an erratic work schedule had done wonders for her figure; it had chiseled every ounce of extra flesh away. She wondered how she would look in a pair of tight jeans, new clothes were not in her budget but it sure would be fun to try some on, trying on clothes was fun and free, she reasoned, maybe this week-end, they could go to the mall and try on clothes, no better not, too hard on Erin if she couldn’t afford to buy anything, too hard on her too. OK, she told herself, let’s get back to the business of counting our blessings. Blessing number one, she was fashionably thin. Blessing number two, she had no credit rating in her own name; she didn’t qualify for credit cards so no temptation could lead her into debt. Blessing number three, there was a pot of coffee waiting in the kitchen, she headed that way while wrapping herself in an oversized bathrobe. After filling her favorite cup she turned and there was Erin standing in the doorway, “Good morning Mommy” she said around a yawn. “’Morning Baby Bunny” answered Connie reaching out her free arm to hug her, thinking, Here’s blessing number 4, 5, 6 and beyond right here. Here was her reason for living. She felt herself choking up and gave the tousled haired seven year old a little shove “you go put some slippers on or least some socks and I’ll get you a cup of hot chocolate. We’ll have a cuddle and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.” “OK Mom, Happy Thanksgiving. “Happy Thanksgiving to you too baby”. Two hours and one parade later it was still raining. “Now what are we going to do?” Erin asked, “Now we are going to get dressed, get in the car and go see if we can find some adventure”. “What kind of adventure?” “Well, if I knew it wouldn’t be much of an adventure now would it?” “Dorothy didn’t know what was going to happen on the yellow brick road, did she?” “No, she didn’t” said Erin, that was good enough for her; they had read all the OZ books together, a chapter a night, they were among Erin’s favorites. Ten minutes later she emerged from her room wearing her favorite Ditto Saddleback jeans (now a couple of inches too short), her tattered sneakers and a sweatshirt that said “Yellowstone National Park” across the front “How’s this?” she asked, “Perfect” her mother answered, “comb your hair, brush your teeth, wear your warmest jacket and we’ll follow our yellow brick road”. As she slipped into her own, now baggy jeans and an old sweatshirt, Connie wondered how she was going to turn a cheeseburger at Denny’s into a grand adventure. She knew there was a Denny’s down the street from Knott’s Berry Farm so she headed the blue Pinto towards Beach Blvd. Maybe, just maybe the shops and chicken restaurant might be open today. She had called every movie theatre, shopping mall, and miniature golf course that she could think of, all were closed. She knew that the ponies were running at Hollywood Park but somehow that just didn’t seem appropriate, not really family friendly. As they drove by Knott’s she could see that they were out of luck, closed up tight as a drum. She made a U-turn in the entrance driveway saying, “Nope, our Yellow Brick Road doesn’t lead here”. But there’s a Denny’s down the street, let’s get something to eat and see what happens next. Her voice, with its false cheerfulness, set her teeth on edge. She glanced sideways at her daughter and tried read her expression but her little face gave nothing away. She remembered the first time Erin came home from spending the week-end with her father and his new girlfriend, she said, “I kept my face plain so no-one could tell what I was thinking”, was that what she was doing now? Making her face plain? About half way down the block, something caught her eye, there was a couple of cars in the parking lot and a person in the ticket booth at the Movieland Wax Museum, she made a quick U-turn in the middle of the block, Erin looked at her startled, “Keep your fingers crossed Baby, I think I know where the Yellow Brick Road is taking us. They parked the car and made a dash for the door getting soaked in the process. The bored looking girl in the ticket booth said they were the first customers of the day, maybe their only customers of the day. “Really?” responded Connie “You mean we have the whole place to ourselves?” “Yup” was the reply. Somehow this cheered her up enormously; there would be no one to stare at them, to wonder what their story was, to wonder why they were alone on Thanksgiving. At first they just walked around looking at the figures, it was spooky quiet and their voices echoed when they spoke. They looked at a few political figures, a replica of Michelangelo’s David and General George Patton. Most of the displays, however, were dedicated to Hollywood. The silliness started with Mae West reclining on her couch, they each took a turn at posing by the display and saying “Why don’t ya Come up and see me some time” out of the corner of their mouths. The bored guard reminded them not to touch or go pass the ropes and they promised that they wouldn’t, after that he left them pretty much alone. The movie scenes with their original costumes were the best. Mother and daughter danced and sang in front of Debra Kerr and Yul Brenner; they joined hands and twirled around the floor to “Shall We Dance” from the King and I. They joined Gene Kelly and Debby Reynolds in “Singing in the Rain” it seemed so appropriate for the weather, so they did that one twice. They did their best rendition of a tap dancing Shirley Temple “On the Good Ship Lollypop”. But the display they returned to again and again was Dorothy, the Tin man and the Cowardly Lion skipping down the yellow brick road. They locked arms and skipped through the museum, “We’re off to see the wizard the wonderful wizard of oz. Because, because, because, becaaause of all wonderful things he does”. They danced and sang and giggled until the guard came in to say that it was closing time. It was dark as they returned to there car, but the rain had stopped and Denny’s was just a block away. “I’m starving” they both said at once and laughed again. Years later they couldn’t remember who said it first but they forever more titled their day, “The Weird Family Goes to the Wax Museum”. It was the first of many weird family adventures. They were only two, they were weird, square pegs in round holes but still, they were family and no family had ever been closer than they were on that Thanksgiving Day.

What is Real?

Tuesday January 19th Timed writing Prompt: Make a list of things that are real to you. Be blatantly honest. By Connie Wolf

The heart is real. The one I abuse with real butter, real cream, and real ice cream, and cheese, lots of cheese. I like to keep it real. I’m planning on having a real purely organic coronary occlusion.
The figurative heart is real too, the one that loves the one that aches, the one that sacrifices and then breaks in two.
Life is real, from first breath to last. If you cut us do we not bleed?
Blood is real.
Death is real; it is the only real release from unmitigated pain. It is real for those who watch and wait. It is also real to those who are surprised to hear, they though you were breathing, living, carrying on but they were wrong, that was unreal. Death is the definitive real. Your breaths are numbered as are the hairs on your head. It is a finite number known only by God.
God is real.
Some people are real but not all. Real people tell the hard truth and avoid all pretenses.
Pain is real, physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual pain. When in pain there is no room for pretense.
Children are real. They cry when they are sad, laugh at what is truly funny and reach out when they need a cuddle. Oh to be as real as a two year old; to be that transparent, that vulnerable, that honest. If I could be as a two year old, I would be in point of fact actually, truly, real.

Baja's Calling Me

  I wrote the beginning of this story in my Journaling class on Tuesday Jan. 5th for our 20 minute prompt session.  I decided to try and finish the story and see where it went to.  The part in blue was written in class.

 My body was a mess. Every inch of it ached and hurt. My hands and knees were scraped and bloody. I dragged my body across the hot yellow dust of the Sinalejo town square. My eyes burned and were caked with dirt from the desert floor. The people of the town were angry and outraged because I was trying to get to the water. They could not believe I had even got there. I was supposed to die in the desert. Every now and then a child would throw a stick or a rock at me. The adults just watched and said nothing. My throat was swollen from the lack of water. At each movement I would lift my head and beg for water. There was no response and no help. As I neared the well one man came to stop me but the town priest stepped forward and said “let him be, God will choose, not us.” I reached the well but was too weak to pull myself up to the bucket. I looked into the eyes of the priest and

they were empty. They were cold and distant. They held no pity for me. I silently begged him for mercy but his eyes were blank and showed me no compassion. I knew that he would not help. The crime had been to heinous to evoke compassion, even from a priest and this priest believed I was guilty.

Raping and killing a Nun was not a way to win friends in a small Mexican village. In their eyes I was the White Devil and any death was a good one but a slow torturous, sun baked death was perfect for the crime that had been committed.

Some of the men from the town had caught me with the naked, mutilated, dead body of the Nun. I was a gringo. She was a Mexican and a Nun. To them I was guilty. There was no trial, no jury and no judge. There was only the sentence. I was sentenced to death by desert. They stripped me naked, beat me senseless and left me in the desert to die.

I was on an extended camping in Baja, Mexico. I had retired a year earlier and decided to follow a lifelong desire to explore the Baja Peninsula in a camper. My wife had died a few years before I retired so I was alone. My kids had moved to different parts of the country so I planned on spending the winters in Mexico and the summers visiting different children. I headed down into Mexico all alone and excited about my new adventure. A few friends had questioned whether it was safe to travel into Mexico alone but I had ignored them. There is some danger in anything you do and living in a closet to be safe was not my idea of living. I had hired Mexicans my whole life and found them to honorable and courageous. No one works harder and is as honest as the standard Mexican citizen. Although I wasn’t fluent in Spanish I could speak enough to get along and by going to Mexico all alone I would have to learn to speak the language a lot better than I did before I left. I felt that if there was any danger it would be from bandits not the God fearing Mexican citizens. I felt the little danger there might be would be more than offset by the personal rewards I would receive.
 Actually I felt I would be safer alone than with someone and since my wife died I preferred being alone. I love the solitude. Being alone is not a problem unless you do not like yourself. I like myself.  I am better company than a lot of friends I have. I was in my mid fifties and in perfect shape. I walked 50 miles every week and was within 5 pounds of the preferred weight for my height. I was 5 foot 11 inches and weighed 182. I was proud of my body because at the age of fifty I weighed 265 lbs. I had worked hard to get the weight off. Another reason I wanted to be alone was I planned on writing a book about my weight loss and how I maintained that loss. Also, I planned on blogging about my trip. I could write a little, learn to paint and practice my guitar by singing to the Gila Monsters.

I had left the small town El Gorijon early the morning headed south generally towards the village of Sinalejo. I drove slow and stopped when I wanted to take pictures or just to watch the desert. I was always looking for nice place to camp. I did not have anywhere I had to be. I only needed to be where I was. When I got about a mile from Sinalejo I spotted a small gully that looked like it could be a good place to camp. There wasn’t any water but there was plenty of wood for a fire and I had filled my water tanks at El Gorijon. There was plenty of shade so I felt I could stay a day or a week. Sinalejo was close if I wanted some company or needed anything. As I drove into the trees I saw her lying on the ground. She was naked and her face was bleeding and bruised. When I got to her she was barely alive.

I held her and gave her some water. Who did this I asked?  Her face was swollen and bruised.  Both of her lip were bloody and swollen.  One of her nipples had been bitten off and it was painfully obvious that she had been raped.  There was a pool of blood crawling into desert.  The blood was coming from her genital area. One eye was swollen shut and the other barely able to open. She tried to say something but died before she could say a word. I gently laid her down and went to retrieve her habit. It  had been ripped off of her and tossed aside.  She was a Nun. I was covering her body when four men came out of the trees. They looked at her and then at me and I knew they thought I was guilty of raping and beating the Nun to death. I started to protest my innocence but one of them hit me from behind with one of those pieces of fire wood that I had been so happy to find.

I woke up sometime in the middle of the night. They had beaten me like the Nun had been beaten. My face hurt and my lips were split. My eyes were swollen shut but somehow I could see just a little from my left eye. Also they had taken my clothes. I wasn’t sure where I was but I knew my camper was no where around. Except for the rape I knew exactly what the Nun had gone through but mercifully for me I had not been awake when they beat me so badly. They left me with one other souvenir, a rattle snake bite. My good luck was that it had bitten me on the hand and the poison had not got into my blood stream the same as if I had been bitten on a fleshy part of my body. My hand was swollen and throbbed but I could do nothing about it. I pulled myself to a sitting position and tried to figure out where I was and what I was going to do. I rested for about a half an hour then did the only thing I could do. I walked. They took me a little further from town but luckily not too much further. I could see a glow in the night that I figured had to be a town. Which town I had no idea but it did not matter. It was the only chance I had. If I was correct about how far the town was I could walk there in 4 or 5 hours. I figured I was about 10 miles from town. I could walk that distance easily in 4 or 5 hours if I wasn’t injured and I had my shoes. But I was injured and I did not have my shoes. I hobbled and staggered towards the glow. I could not walk fast. I had to feel my way with my feet. There was no moon and the stars did not give enough light and my eyes swollen shut made it more like a blind man shuffling his way across the desert floor. My second piece of luck was that a rare cloud formation covered the peninsula all the next day. I will never know how but  I stumbled and crawled my way to the first building of the town by 4 in the afternoon. From there on all I could do was belly crawl. It was the small town of Sinalejo. It was the town where the Nun came from. They had seen me coming when I was about a mile from town. They came to me and started to beat me again but for some reason the priest stopped them. He said, “He has made it this far, for some reason God is smiling down on him. It is God’s will”

I looked into his eyes and he seemed strange, like he knew something but was hesitant or afraid to say what it was.

At the well I saw the same look. As I looked into his eyes I was able to say “I am innocent. I did not do that to the Nun”. The hardness in his eyes left. I am sorry my son he replied. Let me get you the water. I drank, only sips, slow sips but God it tasted so good. The people were angry but he calmed them down. “My people, he said, we have sinned. We cannot kill this man. He has had no trial. If we kill him we are no better than the snakes of the desert. We must heal him and see that he gets a fair trial”. His guilt wasn’t that he knew anything about the crime. His guilt was that he had not been following the words of God that he preached.

They took me to the town doctor and then to a small hospital that was more like a clinic. They called in the local Mexican authorities to investigate the brutal crime. They were able to determine it was two drifters living in the desert and cleared me. When I got out of the hospital my camper was waiting for me and the town had a fiesta dinner to ask my forgiveness. I drove out of Sinalejo heading north. I decided to finish my Baja camping some other time.