Tag Archives: memories

IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU (TOO)

Were I to write my epitaph, it would read, “She lived a charmed life.” Those who have only known of me might not agree — but those who’ve known me well, would.

Consider this as evidence of that.

August often stifles New York, as it did forty years ago, with temperatures so high and rain so scarce a brownout swept over all five boroughs, leaving the city sweltering in virtual darkness from dusk until dawn.

We were living in Bensonhurst by then, renting the upper two floors of a 1925 three story duplex; a stucco, fort-like house located on a tree-lined street between Avenues O and P, not far from a rumored underboss residence. It was a neighborhood where no one locked their doors at night and old-country madonnas garbed in basic-black sat in fold-out lawn chairs on cement sidewalks, waiting for the intense fragrances of Sicilian sausage, fennel seed biscotti, and basil-based sauces to waft through their kitchen windows, signaling meals had simmered to perfection and were ready for serving.

Our home’s private entrance had four steps up to the front door. Once inside there was another seven steps up to the hallway landing leading to a bedroom, living room, dining room, and bathroom, with a second flight of stairs to two more bedrooms. A doorway leading off the dining room opened to an eat-in kitchen. Another opened from the living room onto a second floor veranda stretching 25 feet long and 15 feet deep, with a 4-foot high wall leveling off just below the treetops.

We loved that place and porch, especially in August when sleeping outside beat the heat of the house by thirty degrees, and the starlit sky with its dreamsicle moon overhead was about as romantic as any heart could wish for, or mind could imagine.

It was after 10 one night when we were out there, lying on army surplus canvas and wood framed cots, listening to the neighbors battery operated radios synchronized to Casey Kasem naming, And I Love You So, by America’s favorite barber as “holding at 38” on the Top 40 charts when we heard a knock on the door and Liz called out, “Who’s there?”

“I’m looking for Marge,” came a baritone response.

“Who are you?”

“Mike Kelly.”

“Are you Irish?”

“I am.”

“Then the door’s open. Come on up.”

At the time, I was still recovering from a crash that left me chronically disabled the year before. As predicted, I’d regained my ability to walk, but still needed a wheelchair or walker, occasionally, and a cane, always. As I struggled up and into a lightweight, summer robe, Liz donned hers and, with a Coleman lantern in tow, greeted the fellow, leading him out onto the porch, and offering him a seat at the fold-out card table stationed there for Canasta and Hearts competitions whenever family or friends visited. Then she excused herself to get us all some iced lemonade while I tried to read his face by candlelight.

I liked what I saw. Mike Kelly had a crinkle-eyed smile plastered to his super-sized mug, with a pencil mustache complementing his noggin of silky grey hair.

“I’m sorry to bother you so late,” he began, “but you never contacted us. I had to take the Long Island Railroad from Port Washington after work and two subways — then got lost while walking here from the El.

“Why should I have contacted you, Mr. Kelly?”

“Mike, please.”

“Mike.”

“Didn’t you get our telegram about winning Publisher’s Clearing House?”

…and more
THE ABOVE EXCERPT IS FROM:

Seriously, Mom, you didn’t know?  by Marguerite Quantaine © Copyright 2019
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Did you ever with a sweepstakes, contest, or anything at all? How did it affect your life?
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I’m all eyes and heart.

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IN DREAMS I WALK WITH YOU

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Grandma Sutherland (1889-1961) I adored her.

Sometimes life is a sleepwalk in which we see everything clearly and deny it.

My walk began when I was 14, five weeks before the Fourth of July in 1961.

I had a recurring dream. It was dark and raining. I saw myself asleep on my grandma’s couch. Something stirred me. I got up and walked to the kitchen. There, lying curled up on the floor, was my grandma – my mom’s mom. I knelt down and reached for her hand. Only then would I realize my eyes were open and staring at the ceiling.

Every night, for five weeks, the same dream.

The morning after the first time, I told my sister, Sue. She said I was being dramatic. The second time I told my brother, Kit, who told my mother I was being weird. After that I went on dreaming — but never spoke of it again.

The weather forecasters warned of rain for the extended holiday weekend, but promised clear skies for fireworks.

I had a job selling 45s at the only record store in town. By closing time Saturday, I knew they’d been right about the rain. My brother forgot to pick me up, forcing me to walk the half-mile home in a dismal drizzle. I remember hoping my mom was working the vigil shift at a hospice home by then, unaware of my whereabouts. All I wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep through the holiday.

And I might have. But Mom and Kit were in the living room arguing over my grandmother when I sneaked in.

“I wouldn’t ask. But I must work,” she was saying. Frantic and sorrow straining her voice. “Go? Just for tonight?”

“Nothing doing,” said Kit. “I’ve got plans for early morning. Besides, David’s living with her. He’s the one who should be there, not me.”

“Your brother won’t be there tonight and she’s not well,” Mom pleaded. “She needs you.” He ignored her. “Please?”

“I’ll go,” I said, disarming them. Without time for questions or concern, Mom gazed her gratitude and Kit drove me to where I’d never go again.

It wasn’t magnanimous of me. I idolized my grandma. Had circumstances demanded I live with her for good, I’d have gone as willingly. It’s not that I didn’t adore my mom. I did. But Mom loved six of us, equally. Grams loved me, especially.

My grandma was the scent of boiled coffee, fried doughnuts, and brown soap wrapped in the warmth of a summer day. A stern, determined woman who lived alone on an empty road, in a plain house, without television or telephone. Though her isolation required Mom’s visiting every day, she clung to her privacy and possessions as if they were gold. They weren’t – not even gold-tone.

By 11 the rain turned fierce, with roaring thunder swallowing the sky. I had to pound hard on her raised-paneled door before Grandma would let me in. She immediately demanded to know the whereabouts of my brothers.

“They couldn’t come,” I lied. “I came instead.”

“I don’t want you,” she said. “I want Kit. Where’s David? I want David.”

She sounded slurred, as if the storm had scrambled her senses.

“Well you got me, Grams,” I said. “So let’s get you to bed. I’ll sleep in the parlor on the couch.”

It took some fussing before she shuffled back to the bedroom. I sat with her in the dark a while, making certain she was settled before gently kissing her good night. Then I returned to the parlor and lay down damp, intent on sleeping fast.

When a silent streak of lightning crept by the window, I realized my eyes were open. There was no thunder. No rain. No noise. Only that bright white transient light marking the moment and where I was.

…and more
THE ABOVE EXCERPT IS FROM:
Seriously, Mom, you didn’t know?
by Marguerite Quantaine © Copyright 2019

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Do you have a memorable dream? Have any of your dreams come true?
Please share your thoughts, here, by selecting REPLY.

I’m all eyes and heart.

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IMMORTAL KISS

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Eighty days after Bobby Kennedy kissed me he was killed. I don’t know why it happened — either the kiss, or the killing. Each time, he was caught up in the joy of the moment. Both times, he got whisked away.

As happenstance had it, Kennedy was frolicking with friends in the back seat of an inconspicuous car crawling down Fifth Avenue when he spotted me — a young, vibrant, redheaded Breck-replica in a Kelly green, worsted wool coat, weaving through revelers lining Fifth Avenue for the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

I was pugnacious. The flock in front of the 666 building was so sardined, it turned my two-minute sprint to the Primeburger into a twenty-minute tussle.

Hearing the crowds crescendo as a car of paraders slowed to a stop behind me, I poised myself to push through an advancing pocket of people.

Suddenly, someone grabbed my elbow and pivoted me into his arms, gently tilting my chin upwards before planting a quick kiss. His thicket of hair reflected like flax in the midday sun veiling two hazel, sleep stripped eyes conferring a dilatory blink – not unlike that of a tomcat purring thanks.

Then, just as instantaneously, he was hustled back to his locus in that long procession trekking towards his untoward future.

“You’re never going to guess what happened to me,” I nudged my friend, Marion, during the elevator ride up to our offices at Fuller & Smith & Ross the next morning. “Bobby Kennedy kissed me.”

“Ohmigod, you gotta be kidding!” Marion gasped. “What’d’ya do?”

“Do? What could I do? I was stunned. That’s all.”

“Did anyone see?”

“Well, yes. I guess. How could they not?”

“I mean, anyone here. Because it might not set well. Him being in the running now and all.”

That hadn’t occurred to me. “It was just a kiss,” I dismissed.

“Yeah,” Marion nodded. “But Bobby Kennedy for cripes sake. Who gets kissed by a Kennedy?”

“Who doesn’t?” I scoffed.

Fuller & Smith & Ross is an advertising agency footnoted in history. As Manager of Purchasing & In-House Printing I’d been privy to a confidential meeting detailing departmental procedures for handling the 21 million dollar account we’d secured two months earlier. My first assignment was to have business cards engraved for our new client. The inscription: Richard Nixon, 577 Chestnut Ridge Road, Wood Cliff Lake, New Jersey 07675.

Upon completion and delivery to his Park Avenue address, Nixon graciously sent me an autographed card. Seeing his inked signature on that ivory colored Bristol board proved pretty heady stuff to me — a small town transplant and political novitiate.

I was young, eager, and altruistic back then; a cookie cutter copy of that last generation of Americans who hadn’t a true clue as to what went on inside our nation’s governing bodies or outside our autonomous lives.

So, while I excelled at my job of vetting vendors, overseeing offset runs, getting offices decorated, equipment updated, carpets cleaned, prototypes printed, supplies stocked, and locks on doors changed whenever a colleague left — it wasn’t until I was entrusted with the billing of telephone lines linked to a network of chameleon operatives that I started to sink with the sinking-in.

“Cause and effect, people,” was the daily drill. “Never has so much money been amassed to elect a candidate. Our targeted buyouts of principal advertising airtime will efficaciously shut the Democrats out. Cause and effect.”

Try to remember, or imagine: In 1968, PBS was still in the proposal stage, there were just three major networks, prime time was essentially over by 10 p.m., a 30 second spot in the top rated markets cost about ten grand, and a million dollars was an unimaginable sum to most. But 21 million? That was whew!

By day, Nixon commandeered Town Hall meetings answering random questions in primary states while being filmed at three angles — front, back, and side. By night, our media technicians removed audio from side and back-shot tapes, replacing it with Nixon voiceovers of perfected responses. These were the videos offered to the media for viewing and airing. This was the foundation for creating many of the 15, 30, 45 and 60-second spots and news feeds.

Apparently, audience participants were so elated at seeing themselves on television that they failed to notice Nixon’s edited answers. At least, I heard no rumors of suspicion outside the office. I saw no evidence of complaint.

But within our ranks, long hours involving similar scenarios (and the disillusionment such capers caused) was taking its toll.

Perhaps that’s why Kennedy’s assassination registered as an amplified aghast to us. Because, by the time he announced his candidacy, we’d already been entrenched in a predetermined campaign victory for 10 weeks, believing everyone working on the inside of both political parties concurred from the get-go. Our jobs seemed only a matter of proper execution.

Sure, Bobby Kennedy added glamour and excitement to the illusion being painted for an impressionable public. Sensational headlines and endless editorials promised he could change things. And would.

But factuality was, by the time Kennedy won the California primary, every projection we’d been made privy to in January had confirmed itself by June. Ad copy, speeches, rebuttals, and press releases were written and delivered verbatim, leading a nation of primary voters to the polls and persuading them to push the Republican button. We knew if the Democrats had been wealthier in ’68, only the names would have changed to protect the process.

…and more
THE ABOVE EXCERPT IS FROM:
Seriously, Mom, you didn’t know?
by Marguerite Quantaine © Copyright 2019

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Did you have a brush with history that remains vivid in your memory? What are your feelings about the assassination of Robert Kennedy?

Please share your thoughts, here, by selecting REPLY. I’m all eyes and heart.

(This freshly edited, updated essay was first published in The Antiquarian Magazine © 1985, More © 1995, and in Venus Magazine © 2011 by Marguerite Quantaine © 1985, 1995, 2011 & 2013.)
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Marguerite Quantaine is an essayist and author.
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PAST, IMPERFECT, INTENSE

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My father taught me things. They weren’t always the right things, or the best things, but he taught me all things, well.

One winterkill night while driving home alone together, he taught me his truth about lying. I was 7, then.

My mom was working as a confidante and caregiver at a private cottage for forlorn cancer patients. Her curtailed quietus watch of 11 to 7 promised us six kids we wouldn’t awaken without her.

“I’ll always be here to tuck you in and be back before breakfast,” she assured. It was enough for them, but not for me.

“I’m riding along,” I reckoned.

“Maybe in the morning, if you’re up.”

“Then, too,” I determined, set as cement.

She gently pressed the nub of my nose, lighting me up in her eyes. “You’re my little lion,” she said. “You give me courage.”

My parents weren’t friends then, if ever. Lovers once, no doubt. He as dashing as she was beauteous. Each with ebony locks. His, glossed waves. Hers, coiled curls. His jaw, chiseled. Her cheeks, rubicund. His eyes, bruin black, set tangent to an arrowed nose. Hers, bairn blue, gracing a Gaelic bob. Both seeped sheen and sensuality. The two as one? An envied ornament hung among plebeians.

But that was all ephemeral, lost long before the happenstance of me.

Oh sure, photos find him masterful in monochrome. Meritorious. Certainly indubitable. And it can be quibbled he didn’t become deriding and distant until after he began colorizing her with kids.

Regardless, I never espied demonstrative signs of affection between them. Neither gentility, nor joy. She endured his disrespect as wifeliness, while zesting motherhood. He husbanded acrimoniously, fatherly only to his firstborn.

And so it was, of all the trips we made together with mom in tow or mind, I remember that worst one best.

“DammitallMaggie,” he one-worded her. “It’s nearly 11. Move it!”

“Don’t get your dander up,” she growled back while winking my way. The dishes, nearly done. The laundry, almost folded. The house in chaos but cleaned down the middle and after-a-fashion. My siblings accounted for, kissed and sleeping. “I’m ready when you are.”

It was the most they’d spoken to one another all day, remaining silent in their seats until he skidded to the stop where we left her – just in time.

I remember watching her maneuver the hard packed snow and patches of ice while edging her way up the embankment toward that halfway house of enduring desperation. And how my father peeled off, leaving her without help, headlights, or sentiment for her safety.

During the drive home I kept my face glued toward the passenger window, contented to imagine mom in the morning, and it being my nose pressed against the frosted pane, greeting her return to us.

My father spoke to the back of my head when he said, “People lie to you because they don’t respect you enough to tell the truth.”

I remained removed; brown eyes searching boundless skies.

“They’ll cloak their words in omission, feigning innocence, thinking you’re too stupid to recognize the lie.” He paused, letting it etch.

I counted stars.

“That’s what they’re saying though. That they think you’re stupid.”

I yearned for Jupiter and Mars.

“The more deliberate and petty the lie, the less value they make of you.”

I found Venus.

“You know you’re utterly worthless when someone lies to you for sport.” He reiterated and enunciated, “Utterly.”

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IMPERFECT CHILDHOOD? Lessons learned? Please select REPLY to share your thoughts.

I’m all eyes and heart.

Heartstrings 101

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Deatsville wasn’t any bigger than a whistle on a walk in 1954, and about as far due south of my Michigan birthplace as any eight year old could imagine. The roads running east and west past Popeye’s two pump, glass globe gasoline stop and shop had the soft, dust-rusty look of a boiled bare five-and-dime enamelware pan.

I’d traveled to Deatsville to spend the summer with my cohort, Molly, and her parents who owned that screen door gathering spot frequented mostly by natives of Elmore County and daytrippers from Lomax and Verbena who’d gotten sidetracked on their way to Montgomery.

Molly and I were counterfeit cousins, joined at the heart and mind’s-eye instead of the kinsman hip. Our mommas had been best friends before us. They’d met in New York City where each had fled during the 1930’s, intent on finding a more sophisticated lifestyle than that of a small town girl grown into a small town wife. Marriage and children returned them to convention, but our births had awarded each a vicarious second chance at adventure.

In time we’d give them their dreams, but for that last unadulterated summer of our youth we were as any other children growing up in the kind of rural community that red line roads on paper pocket maps connected.

“Do as you’re told and make me proud,” was always my mother’s marching order. I did and would.

I arrived by bus, the driver making a stop at Popeye’s even though it wasn’t on his scheduled route. Had he chosen to obey orders to pass Deatsville by, visitors and residents of the area would have had to find additional transportation back to there. Stopping was the common southern courtesy that northern dispatchers were forced to either ignore or accept.

Molly and her dog, Buford, greeted me by dancing barefoot in the dirt, a piece of her momma’s pecan pie held high in her right hand while she wigwagged the left.

“Hi you all, “ she enunciated with an exaggerated drawl.

I kissed her. Then I bent down and kissed Buford before attacking the pie.

“I ate mine already but you can share yours with me if you want,” she hinted.

We slept in a tall-walled room at the end of a tongue and groove hallway in a 19th century carpetbaggers house set five hundred feet back from the store. It was a proud, old, chipped-paint clapboard structure with faded green plantation shutters hiding nine foot, nine-over-nine pane windows, most of them swollen shut. Those that worked opened like doors onto wraparound porches connecting pencil post pillars to a sloping tin roof that provided both shade and shelter from the relentless heat and sudden white rains of an Alabama afternoon.

“I’ve got a secret to show you,” Molly whispered to me one afternoon while we were pretending to nap. Together we crawled under her grandma’s iron bed and removed the floorboards to an inwardly opening trap door exposing a ladder that took us ten feet down into a somber cellar of red clay and hollowed out slots where candles once burned as lighting.

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Seriously, Mom, you didn’t Know?
by Marguerite Quantaine © Copyright © 2019
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