Barbara Stoner's Blog, page 2

Furthur

It was the summer of 1992 and the Grateful Dead had scheduled the "Veneta Third Decadal Field Trip" to celebrate their own three decades in music. What was more, Veneta, Oregon was/still is the venue for the Oregon Country Faire, the biggest and best hippie fair on the West Coast, if not in the country, maybe the whole wide world.

It was not just the "Third Decadal" either. In 1972, the Dead had played their first show in Veneta in a big field at Faire for the express purpose of raising money to save the Springfield Creamery, a dairy owned by Ken Kesey's brother Chuck and his wife Sue. Ten years later, they played the "Second Decadal" show in Veneta. 1992 woulld be the Third. We were psyched!

I was so psyched that not only had I already bought the T-shirt from a traveling vendor stopping by the Blue Moon Tavern, as was customary, to hit up as many customers as possible before getting to the show itself. I had also ordered tickets for four: Richard and I, plus my kids, Christopher and Caroline. I had also bought round trip tickets for Christopher from Chicago to Seattle and from Eugene, Oregon back to Seattle.

That, along with Garcia cancelling the shows due to "health concerns," tossed a spanner into the works.

We would have been just as unhappy (cancelled show) staying in Seattle and bemoaning Garcia's untimely "health concerns" except for that little extra mile I had stuck on Chris's airplane ticket to fly home from Eugene, changing planes in Seattle, so he could get home on time. We called the airlines. Christopher, we told them, could not board the plane in Eugene. He would have to just pick up his flight in Seattle. No deal, the airlines told us. He had to fly out of Eugene or we would have to spring for another one-way ticket. I had already pretty much emptied the larder of cash for the summer. Luckily, we heard that a local Oregon farmer was renting out land north of Eugene to somebody who would stage an "emergency concert." We packed our bags and went.

I wish I could tell you that a grand time was had by all, but I can't. The camping was in a field full of hummocks of spiky grass and the bands were nothing to write home about, never mind driving five hours to hear. Lots of vendors were there trying to sell all they had made for the Decadal show, but I think the only thing I bought was a dragon pipe for Caroline. Yes, my daughter smoked pot and I knew about it and she turned out just fine, thank you very much. It was the Keseys who made the entire trip worth while.

I remember hearing cheers and feeling a little wave of anticipation ripple through the crowd, and when I looked up there was a bus. Not *the* bus. THE bus was still mouldering away in an orchard somewhere on the Kesey farm. But this might as well have been *the* bus for all the excitement it generated. Folks gathered around, and I think some were allowed in. I didn't try that. But I did gather my children together to join me in front of the bus. Richard probably took the picture. It's my favorite Family Foto!

When I Was Brave

A woman I follow on Twitter asked her followers to tell her a story about being brave. This is my story, but for reasons unknown to either of us, it refused to post. But it's a good little story, so I'm posting it here.

A long time ago in a universe a little north of here, I was working the night shift at the cherry factory to earn some much-needed extra money when we were told that there would be no more "cigarette" breaks. You see, men and women were now supposed to be treated equally, and since the men didn't get one, now the women couldn't have one either. I was incensed (a smoker at the time) and talked my co-workers into pushing back. They decided to stop work at our usual break time, and I thought they were very brave, but then they designated ME to talk to management. I had not foreseen that. I was not brave. But after getting them to promise they would all stand up when I went forward, I swallowed hard and left the line. To my surprise, when I looked back, they were all standing. They made me brave and we all got our breaks. Even the men. That was my bravest moment ever.

Miss Lisa

I remember this day so well. I remember there were tiny white flowers at our feet as we climbed to the peak at Deer Park. I mused aloud wondering what they were, and you answered by singing a chorus of Edelweiss from The Sound of Music. It was the perfect demonstration of your firmly held opinion that the lyrics of musicals hold the answers to everything. I suppose that is Mount Baker away off there in the distance. We are far enough north for it to be on our horizon. Port Angeles at our feet?

This was the Le Femme la Camp at which you had us decorate bowler hats you had found in the Market. I was not amused. Crafts were and are not my strong point. But I did it. Lisa Griffith, I later complained. The only woman who could make me decorate a hat in the woods.

I miss you. I have told the story elsewhere of how I sailed what I had left of you down the river to New Orleans. No, wait. I take that back. Still wearing the multi-colored fleece sweater. I remember when you took it out of your closet – you had reached the stage in your disease when you were getting rid of things – and asked me if I would wear it. Well, I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t say no, could I? Turns out it is what I turn to first on chilly nights. Dang thing just won’t wear out, either.

Then I spotted that print of the dancing bears and said, without thinking, that I had always loved it. It’s yours, you said. I was torn between embarrassment and gratitude. It hung in my living room in Seattle for years, but now there is no room to hang it, so it languishes in the basement.

It seemed there was always too much that we didn’t have in common – too much, that is, to prevent us being besties. You were stylish, I was not. You liked Survivor, I did not. You threw Oscar parties at which we were supposed to care about people’s outfits – and I did not. We both loved smoking, but I quit and you did not. Alas. Most importantly, we were both Deadheads. Somehow, through all the differences and dissonance, we had both heard the music. We had gotten It.

So now, on the 28th anniversary of Jerry’s death (how is he, by the way?), I write to tell you how much I love the memory of you. How much I miss lifting up the telephone to hear you ask, with a slight drawl, “Miss Barbara?” You always made me feel like a belle. I can see you now, lifting a cocktail and toasting, “Here’s to us and those like us. Damn few left!”

And Just Like That

I was in my favorite seat in my favorite row in the Oakland Coliseum that night. All was as perfect as perfect can be. Except for HER. My usual touring buddy had fallen head over heels for a redheaded minx who was totally fucking up my trip.

Not that I could blame him. Even I, long condemned to eternal heterosexuality, knew she was a dish. But not only had she taken over my shotgun seat in the Beast (he had bought her tickets and brought her along for the ride), she had the temerity to sleep with our genial host at our usual stop – now, it must be said here that the genial host was always an easy lay – I mean, he had propositioned me before she traipsed into his room, but I had excused myself. I accidentally found them in bed together the next morning (touring buddy slept in the Beast) and had to make them promise never to let him know. I didn’t want to have to deal with a betrayed heart for the rest of the trip.

The icing on the cake – well, I could put it another way but I never did like scatological references – was when we picked up our other traveling companion in The City and scooted on out to the show. Needless to say, he became another charmed companion. Nobody even noticed when I said I was going on into the show.

Now our usual practice was that I would go into the show as early as possible so that I could grab our favorite seats, up in the balcony, on the aisle, just behind the taper’s section. The aisle gave us plenty of room to dance and the people in the rows below us never obstructed our view. If I was quick – most early folks headed for real estate on the floor – I could grab four or five seats and throw stuff on ‘em to save ‘em for when the others came up. Jerry was always last because he stayed out as long as possible to sell shirts. But the others – generally 2 or 3 more friends who found us – straggled in and took their places before the show started. Not today. A couple friends from LA who always sat there too helped me hold onto our seats while the show not only started but was three or four songs in before they finally showed up led by the little redhead. “Sorry,” she said to me, as she minced by. “I just had to go shopping and they insisted on coming with me.”

Then just as I finished gnashing my teeth and finally felt safe enough to relax into one of my favorite dancing songs, I felt a tug at my elbow. “I hate to bother you, but would you mind watching my stuff? I just have to get a hot dog.” And without waiting for an answer, she darted down the row and out of my sight. If she had been a Deadhead, she would have known. That song was a classic ending for a first set. All she had had to do was wait …

I must have been seething out loud, because my friends from LA immediately came over at the set break.

“Are you okay?” they asked. “We noticed you weren’t into it like you usually are.”

I might have actually growled.

“Tell us,” they insisted.”

I did.

They listened patiently, and when I finished my sorry tale of woe one of them – Jim? – looked at me and said, “Well, you know what you have to do.”

I was filled with hope. At last, a solution. These guys were from LA. In show business, at least one of them was. An agent of some sort. They must have to deal with this stuff all the time. Pests. Unruly groupies and the like. I wasn’t asking for much, after all. I just wanted this particular pest to disappear. But what …? What if …? I mean, surely not …

“You have to forgive her.”

He said it so softly I nearly missed it over the clamor of possibilities in my head, and when I did, I sank back in my seat in confusion. Forgive her? FORGIVE HER? How? Why? I stared at him, waiting for the Christian, come to Jesus speech that would surely follow. It didn’t. He just smiled at me.

“Forgive her, wish her a good show. That’s all. Okay?”

I nodded, not believing a word he said. I didn’t want to forgive her. I hadn’t been this pissed off any anybody for good reasons for a long time, and I wanted to keep it up. Anger like that can be downright enjoyable. But he was right. I wasn’t having a good time. And here I was, wasting a perfectly good Dead show that simply didn’t come along every day. It was like being offered a cup of magic and saying, “No thanks. Don’t wanna spoil my bad mood.”

Break was over and the boys filed back onto the stage. Some little time later she came back trailing her new conquests with their hands full of goodies she proceeded to – well actually I don’t know what she did with them. I was too busy dancing. I had already forgiven her, and managed to say, “Have a good show.”

And just like that. I don’t remember what they played that second set, but one thing I know for certain. I danced the whole damn thing.

Doing Dishes

I love doing dishes. Well, that might be overstating it.

Most of the time I don’t mind doing dishes, much of the time I like it, and on rare occasions I do love it.

And when I say, “doing dishes,” I mean getting my hands in hot soapy water, picking up a scrubby, and swiping away at them. Even when I have had dishwashers, I was one of those old-fashioned idiots who refused to trust them, so basically I washed the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. I don’t really think of them as dishwashers. They are more dish sterilizers, once I get them clean. There actually is a dishwasher in this house, but it broke down within a few months of my being here and I hold out no hopes for it being replaced. So my dishes these days get washed but not sterilized. We ain’t dead yet.

I don’t mind doing dishes because I never do them without having first soaked them. I fill the sink with hot soapy water and dishes to be washed. A little later, I go to turn the ones that are still sticking out. That way, by the time I come to actually washing them off, no actual scrubbing is required. Just pass the scrubby over the surface, rinse in hot water, and let them rest in the rack. The entire process leaves plenty of unused brain cells to remember a favorite song or think a thought or decide something unimportant.

I like doing dishes because it is a useful thing to do. I mean, one can just keep going, using all the possible variations of “dishes” that both cupboard and cutlery can supply, but eventually needs must. If you, like me, pride yourself on being a useful human being, doing dishes is easier than cleaning the bathtub or mowing the lawn. You’ve done a thing. Life can proceed easier than if you had not done it. Pat yourself on the back and go take a nap.

I love doing dishes on cold wintry days or chilly rainy days or any day that feels like that, no matter the weather. Putting my hands into warm soapy water always feels like a bit of comfort. Washing up the dishes after a good meal right before I go to bed is also a little bit of love I can give to those with whom I share shelter – lately, my son. And as long as I take a little bit of time to prepare for the task, it is never a burden. Sometimes even a joy.

As for drying them and putting them away – well. The dear little things dry themselves, don’t they? And only those of us who suffer from completionism bother to put them back where they belong. We don’t all need to do that. As a matter of fact, from the moment you have sluiced that last bit of rinse water from the last item into the disposal (you’ve got one of those, right?) and placed the thing into the drying rack, you are finished. Turn on the TV. Check out Facebook. Go to bed. You have done the damn dishes.

A Date in the Life

My first job in Chicago was for an outfit run by the mob. My first date in Chicago was with a wannabe mobster. And the first time I was fired was for being on drugs. Maybe it should all have been a sign of some kind. But it wasn’t. I had no idea of what I was doing.

The job itself was very respectable. It was for an outfit that washed, dried and ironed professional uniforms used by the City of Chicago and several other industries. I found out later that most of those facilities were owned and operated by the mob. Which one, I didn’t know. I didn’t wash, dry or iron anything, however. I was the switchboard operator.

I did get to be very good at my switchboard - it was a small company with very few lines to connect. Outside lines to management, inside lines to management, inside lines to each other. Not too hard. I rather liked it, as I recall. I sat at a console that shared a room with the card punch women – there were something like 8 or 10 of them – I really don’t remember. I seem to remember us all commiserating with each other when JFK was killed.

This room gave access to an open hallway that ran the length of the building, on the other side of which was the business side of the business. And along which came the occasional visitor. One such who showed up at least once a week was a guy with the kind of face I liked, kinda foxy, kinda wise guy, kinda cute. I think he was a salesman of some kind – maybe selling detergent for the washing machines? But maybe he was a bagman? I really have no idea. I just have my imagination. But he always stuck his head into the punch card room to tease the women and to flirt with me. In those days, I enjoyed a good flirt.

Unfortunately, I may have also led him on a bit and bragged too much about my ability to hold my liquor. The consequence of which was that he asked me out on a date. He came across as a big city guy and I was a little girl in a big city. I said yes. We made a date to have dinner together. He picked me up in a little red sports car. Can’t tell you what kind it was. That remained a sore point for a couple of other guys I dated with little red sports cars in the 60’s. They totally expected me to say, “Oh! You drive a (fill in the blank). Fancy sports cars were wasted on me.

Anyway, back to the fateful night.

He drove me into downtown Chicago, on the way pointing out an unremarkable building in an unfamiliar neighborhood and identifying it as the depository for goods confiscated in police raids.

“I got a cousin in there,” he said. “He can get me all kinds of deals on stuff like furs, jewelry.” He glanced over at me to see if it registered. It registered, all right. I had no interest in furs or jewelry. Hell, I didn’t even know what kind of car I was riding in. I don’t remember what I said. Probably something on the order of, “Hmmm.” But somewhere an alarm bell was trying to ring.

It was a busy downtown Chicago night, warm and humid, the sort of nighttime summer weather that leaves a soft sheen of dew on one’s skin. Lots of traffic. Lots of people. Nearly all white, I think. It was 1963. Somehow, somewhere we parked, and he (wish I remembered his name) led me into a building where we took an elevator up to a Chinese restaurant. I had never known there were restaurants that were not on ground floors inviting passers by in to have a drink, a meal, a good time. But here we were, sharing a table for two near a railing. Or not. It’s all rather vague.

He ordered for us. My first martini. He may have asked me what I liked, but I would not have been able to say. My parents were tee totalers. Back in Decatur, I had never even been in a country club. Did not know the litany of civilized alcoholic drinks. My entire experience with hard liquor had been straight out of the bottle in the back seats of cars. Where I would use the excuse of wanting another drink to extricate myself from further groping. A drink which consisted of a small sip, immediately followed by lighting another cigarette. A girl had her defenses.

The plan had been to have dinner, but I do remember that, as the night went on, we were thoroughly enjoying our drinks and the barbecued ribs that he had ordered as hors d'Oeuvres and we never got around to dinner. Chinese barbecued ribs. Another first for me. My family had never gone out for Chinese, either. They were delicious. Martinis and Chinese barbecued ribs. And not in moderation.

I don’t remember a word of the conversation. My guess is that either he talked a blue streak and I was duly fascinated with whatever he said or that he let me ramble on and on about my philosophy of life which very likely told him I was ripe for the picking.

Luckily fate, if you want to call it fate, intervened.

The first signs that you’ve had too much alcohol come on quickly. No time to take a deep breath and ease off. Nope. By the time you realize that you can no longer form a witty sentence – or any sentence at all – the room is wavering at the edges and you suddenly wish you were home in bed. Alone.

I don’t know when my date realized he wasn’t on a date with a pretty girl any longer. He was going to have to get this drunken pretender to the high life home, but to give him credit he did get it together to leave in a hurry. I have no memory of getting down in the elevator, of waiting for the car, even of getting in and being driven down State Street.

But I do remember stopping at a red light. I looked up and saw a street sign reading Lake Street. There was a bus stopped next to us, with people in the windows admiring the red sports car (whatever it was). Then I stuck my head over the edge of the window and vomited down the side of the door.

The only words I can remember him saying were, “I thought you said you could drink.”

I thought I could. I didn’t say that, but that was clearly what I had meant by my boasting about taking quick sips of liquor from the bottle in the back seats of cars. I probably thought I had emptied one in the process.

One thing was certain though. I would never have to worry about gifts of fur coats or jewelry that I didn’t know how to turn down. That future had been crossed out.

Oh, right. Fired for being on drugs. So, you see, I used to get very painful periods, and I had discovered a wonder drug called Midol. So it happened that one day I went home for lunch – I lived only a few short blocks from work – with excruciating pains, and my usual two tablets did not take it away. I didn’t know how I was going to go back to work in that much pain, so of course I took a couple more.

They did the job. Boy did they do the job. Even before I went back to work, I was buzzing like a hive of bees and wondering what the hell was in them that made me so jazzed. I read the ingredients, and I could swear I saw something like “benezedrine” there, although a recent search does not confirm that. It does confirm an ingredient called cinnamedrine, which I may have conflated with Benzedrine. I had heard of “bennies,” so that made some weird sense to me.

At any rate, when I got back to work I was still buzzing and working like a house on fire. I was assigned a job filing punchcards, and I whipped through them like a blackjack dealer. Talking all the time. Goddess knows what about, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Everybody noticed it. Somebody must have alerted the boss, for I was sent for and asked if I was ill. So, you have to understand that a 20-year-old in 1963 did not admit to males of any station that she was on the rag, so to speak, so instead of admitting the truth, I blurted out that I was fine. I had just taken a couple of bennies.

So that’s how I was fired for being on drugs. You could say I wasn’t quite ready for the big city. But Industrial Garment and Uniform, or whatever you were called, I owe you for my first valuable lessons in surviving the big city. And in spite of it all, I didn’t move out. I moved further in.

Confirmation

I may have mentioned a time or two that I was raised a Christian, Lutheran to be precise. My mother was a pillar of our local church. I may have even boasted of having served as the only atheist secretary of Illinois State Luther League. Not that I did anything noteworthy in that position – can’t remember doing anything at all, actually. But I was elected somehow. And being my mother’s daughter, how could I say no?

Throughout my childhood through my teenage years, going to church was a constant. Not only for me. For most of my contemporaries. It was the 50’s. We all went to church. Or synagogue – I knew two Jewish girls, but we never talked about any differences. As far as I knew, we all pretty much believed the same thing. There might have been a Catholic, but again I was never really aware of it. The rest of us who weren’t Lutheran were Presbyterian or Methodist. The folks we now call evangelicals we called Holy Rollers, but I didn’t know any of them, either.

In the middle of this time, there was a rite of the church through which all of us who attended the First Lutheran Church in Decatur, Illinois, had to pass. That rite was called Confirmation, wherein we were confirmed as true believers and were worthy of partaking in the Communion of Saints. We went to confirmation classes where we were instructed in the beliefs of our religion, most of which are laid out in the Apostles Creed:

I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, His only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

On a more useful note, one other thing was drummed into our dear little heads: the Books of the Bible. A list from which even to this day I can usually summon the correct answer to a crossword puzzle clue.

On the great day of Confirmation, we (see above) all sat together in the front pews and at the appointed time lined up at the rail to receive our first communion. But first, before we are given the holy wafer and a sip of wine, we must recite a Bible verse. I don’t remember what mine was, but then I knew at the time that I would not remember it, so I wrote it on a cheat sheet that I held cupped within my hands, folded as if in prayer.

Yes, my friends. I cheated my way into the Communion of Saints. Well, one does what one feels one must do.

I was nervous about being caught, and my mother said she saw me trembling a little. And then, before I could think of a good reason to be nervous that didn’t include fessing up about the cheat sheet, she said, “I thought perhaps you were having a religious experience.”

My poor, dear Mother. I never could bring myself to be entirely honest with her. But sometimes I have to wonder if she didn’t know everything all along. She did tell me one time that the only fear she had of dying was that she knew she would not see me in heaven. I had no answer for that, either. But to this day, non-believer that I am, when I picture my mother, I see her in a lovely Lutheran heaven. No one deserves it more.

Lazy Bones

It’s one of those gray chilly days in October when not even the piles of golden leaves light up the outside while inside the furnace, set at its usual temperature for winter, does little to chase away the chill which has crept into my bones. All I want to do is crawl back under the covers. It’s the perfect time for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Trouble is, I have a horror of being thought lazy.

Lazy was how my Dad characterized laying around reading, as if reading were nothing more than an excuse to get out of chores. Reading was much more than that, but we all know it was also a great excuse to get out of chores. Although excuse isn’t the right word for it, since it was never really an excuse – meaning that when my parents found me hiding with a book they never said, “Oh, look. Of course she hasn’t done dishes. She’s reading. We should leave her alone.” I was never excused for it.

So I didn’t read in order to get out of cleaning my brothers’ room or raking leaves. I read because there were things to be read, and doing chores cut into the time I had to just lay around and read. Plus doing chores put me down squarely in the here and now, where I can’t remember ever wanting to be. Reading took me somewhere else altogether, and once I was back in the reading world, I never wanted to return.

In my imagination, of course, I was far from lazy. It was modern life that I found dreary. I didn’t want to wash dishes in a sink with running water or vacuum the living room with a machine designed in the depths of hell. I would gladly, I thought, have learned to churn butter or fetch water from a well. Even scrub a hearth like an imprisoned princess. I would have been happy to be a useful citizen in a by-gone world, but I was pretty useless in this one.

And yet the term “lazy” followed me like a ghost. My parents could think what they liked, but on leaving home I discovered that I did not want others to think of me as lazy. Lazy was something that useless people were. My parents might misunderstand me, but if others saw the same thing, it might prove that they were right. And so I did my best to become as useful as possible in the eyes of the outside world. I could not let my dirty dishes pile up or dust bunnies prowl the floor. And so eventually I managed to become a citizen of the real world, with real world concerns. I bought dish washing liquid and cans of Pledge. I even hoped that new friends would eventually remark to my parents what a good worker I was. I still lay around and read when I had time, but that time became more and more precious. There was, however, one skill that I have never mastered and that has embarrassed me in front of family and friends for years. One skill that keeps me locked forever in the lazy camp.

I have never learned how to pitch in.

Whenever the family gathers, even today, my sister and sisters-in-law can always be found pitching in somehow, as if they know just what to do. I am always hovering on the outside, assuring them that if someone will just give me a task I will be happy to perform it, but I always sound lame. Even to myself. Because in order to do that task, someone will have to stop what they are doing, think of some way that I can help, and then probably explain to me what the task is and where the implements for performing it can be found. And if there is any sin worse than laziness in my family, it is putting someone out. Making someone go out of their way. For me. Because I don’t have a clue. Volumes of Nancy Drew never explained pitching in to me.

The same can be said for the kitchens of friends. There is an annual get-together that has been going on for many years, and that may resume after the Covid break, to which I have been privileged to be invited. And yet, every year, as the women gather in the kitchen, I find myself in the same quandary. How can I pitch in? What can I do, in the face of all the busy-ness, the camaraderie, the dance of kitchen witchery, in which everyone seems to take part, but the steps of which I have never learned. Still, these folks are kinder than my family in that some of them have begun to realize that there is a cripple in the room and will ask me, kindly, if I would mind rolling out the pie crust. Maybe even shepherding a stir fry for a few minutes. They will never know, unless they read this, how very grateful they have made me, making me a part of their rituals the rudiments of which still remain a mystery. For not assuming that the reason I am doing nothing is not because I don’t want to do anything.

How do folks bustle into someone’s kitchen with a plan to make something and set right about making it, knowing somehow where and how to go about it? How do newly arrived folks take off their jackets and just pitch in, stirring this, slicing that, as if instructions were printed on some invisible screen? While the best I can do is try to stay out of the way?

I don’t know. I never will.

Which brings me back to this lazy Sunday afternoon. In which, at the ripe old age of 79, I am still questioning my own judgment as to whether or not it’s okay to just be lazy. There’s nobody here to question me on my choices. My son is engrossed in his own Sunday afternoon. And if he wants to take a nap, he will do so. And so will I.

The dishes aren’t done. I don’t want to go down the basement to iron that shirt. I can finish writing this piece tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m going back to bed and pulling the covers over my head. Mom and Dad can tsk at me from the afterlife all they want. I’m a grownup now.

I’m gonna have myself a lazy day!

The Scouting Life

I made my best friends in Girl Scouts. Lydia, Marlene, Mary, Judy, Marty.

Marty was our bad girl, and very often I was her accomplice. She wore makeup before any of us, and was boy-crazy. Well, so was I but I was a little shyer about it. Besides, I had fallen in love early with a tall boy with black hair who never noticed me until it was too late. But I ran around with Marty when the chance presented itself and more or less picked up her reputation, of which I was a little too proud. Sometimes we smoked cigarettes and swore.

Judy was the tallest and most accomplished of any of us. She could put the 4-person tent together almost single handed, set up the army cots and get a fire going while Marty and I were scouting out the horse stables. Because that was the other thing Marty and I did. We hung out at the stables of any camping venue our leaders had chosen for our camping trip each summer. Mary went with us, but she went for the horses. Marty and I always fell in love with the horse boys. Mary also helped me cheat on my knots badge. I still can't remember how to tie anything more complicated than a shoelace.

Marlene. I don't remember what precise role Marlene played, except that she wanted more than anything to be a nurse. I bet she got all those badges, too, but I can't claim to have kept track. I remember she laughed a lot.

Lydia and I - I can't even remember when we met. Maybe it was in Girl Scouts. My family had just moved from the east side of town to the west - I probably met her at Roosevelt Junior High. Maybe she invited me to join the local Troop. Maybe not. All I know is that from early on Lydia and I did almost everything together. We watched the very first episodes of Disneyland. I can still remember lying on her living room floor, ooing and ahhing at the fireworks rising over Sleeping Beauty's Castle. We fell in love with whatsisname, the cute Musketeer, and we wanted to be Annette. We were in the first freshman class at the new Douglas MacArthur (Go, Generals!) High School, and rode the same bus. Sometimes we skipped the bus and cut through Fairview Park, talking about how we'd tell our kids we had to walk miles through the snowdrifts to get to school. And of course we were Girl Scouts.

I like to think that the high point of my career in Girl Scouts was when a certain number of my friends' mothers asked my Scout Leader that I be kicked out of the Troop. Something to do with sex or atheism, I seem to recall. Or at least I suppose that's what it was I was deemed a bad influence. Whatever. It was a short lived kerfuffle. I think it likely had more to do with the atheism than anything else. I can see a few of my troopmates telling their parents that Barbara Bates says she is an atheist. I can't see them telling them that I also knew all about sex.

I knew all about sex because I had discovered The Kinsey Reports in the Public Library and had been secretly perusing them in the stacks. So many new words, so little understanding of any of them. And yet, I passed on all that I could learn about this great thing that we would all have to confront at some point if we ever wanted to have children. Of which, being the oldest of six, I could not imagine ever wanting not to mention ... well, unmentionables.

At any rate, my parents went to bat for me and my great scout leader, Mrs. Cavalito, stood up for me and I remained a Girl Scout. One with very few earned badges, true. Not to mention the lowest number of boxes of Girl Scout Cookies ever sold. Remember - in my non-scouting life I was living in trees with books.

But the Troop lives on in fond memory, as does so many of those of who were there with me: Nancy, Irene, Sandy, Jan ... Dammit! Why can't I remember them all? They all deserve to be remembered. Because the Troop lives on for realz, too. I saw many of them - not my closest buddies, I'm sorry to say. Lydia couldn't come, we can't find Marlene anymore, I've been looking for Mary for years, and Judy refuses (my guess) to leave Alaska - but many others gathered for breakfast one morning at a class reunion about ten years ago. Sandy had moved back to Canada (I remember her for saying oot), and had become a judge. She had the nerve to show up in her uniform with her sash simply sagging with well-earned badges. I might have tried to explain what a Deadhead was, but I don't remember any real interest. Irene organizes the reunions and Nancy keeps us all informed. Jan had married a guy named Clarence and to my jaundiced eye might have appeared to have led a dull life, except that I couldn't help but feel something warm and loving when I was with the two of them. They had found something I never had. Whatever it was, it wasn't in the treetops or in books. I didn't envy them, but I was glad that I had grown up enough to recognize it.

The Girl Scout Law reads:
I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong,
and responsible for what I say and do,
and to respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place,
and be a sister to every Girl Scout.

The women who gathered for breakfast that day are all women who have lived out the Girl Scout law in their own special ways. I might even include myself in that. And they have all become a part of me in ways I might never really recognize. I can only be grateful.

Thomas

I knew Thomas Ahlstrom as part of our merry little band of would-be pranksters living in Chicago in the late 60's. There were me and my new husband, Barry Stoner, and Michael Hall, the latter two students at the Lutheran School of Theology on the South Side; Michael's wife Sherry; Carl Franzen, a friend of theirs from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota; and Thomas Ahlstrom. We called ourselves The Magic Strider, since most of us had read Tolkien. To me, Carl was always the Magic Strider himself. Thomas, however, was Gandalf.

Thomas was our saint, our guru, our long-haired throwback to some other age when men inhabited coffee houses and spoke of current events and philosophy. Not a beatnik. Not a hippie. Thomas was an icon unto himself. A man who took sly pleasure in relating that he had told a garage of auto mechanics that "the barn needed new shoes." A man willing if not always able to go along with any little scheme that the group, i.e. Carl, imagined. A soup and sandwich shop? We planned it out but it never happened. Figure out a way to claim an old run-down mansion that had been owned by the family of either Leopold or Loeb, a house and grounds straight out of a Vincent Price movie, ancient pipe organ and all. We did run that one down as far as it could be run, but gave it up when it began to involve multiple claims and lawyers. We had no computers in those days. Who did the research? Thomas? I don't remember. It would have been right up his alley.

Mostly I remember him from the St. Peter days, the days when many of us decamped back to Gustavus when my husband received an internship there for a year. I took a few classes for free (a lovely bit of nepotism that likely is unavailable these days) and formed a habit of meeting Thos - have I mentioned that we called him Thos? - at the student union where he would command a booth and consume newspapers, coffee and cigarettes for hours and hours on end. I would slide into the booth with a coke (I didn't drink coffee), light a cigarette, and ask him what was new. Understand that until this point he would not have looked up from whatever he was reading. And then, finally, he would tell me. Show me an article. Maybe even a book he was reading. And talk about it. And I would just sit there and smoke and listen to him talk as if he were the oracle at Delphi or something. Rarely having a clue as to what he was talking about. I seem to remember us having long conversations, but frankly I don't think we did. I think he talked and I listened until I was ready to leave, and then Thos would go back to whatever he had been reading or thinking about, likely not missing a comma either in the written word or in whatever paragraph he had been writing in his head, before my arrival.

It was much the same the last time I saw him. I was in Minneapolis for a layover - was going to see Carl and and his wife,Gail, of course. But I wanted to see Thomas, too. It had been years.

You can find him, they told me, in the coffee shop in the Mall of America. We may even have made a date to meet there. But Mall of America? Thomas? A Magic Strider of the first water? Nevertheless.

I did find him there, and it seemed utterly natural. I think it was the people. I think Thomas was always trying to figure America out and where better to do research than from a coffee shop in the Mall of America? As usual, I don't remember what he said. He seemed glad to see me - likely wondered why I wanted to see him after so many years. I wish I had told him it was because he was one of those people who remain in your life, who is always somewhere smoking a cigarette, drinking a cup of coffee, and pouring over the newspapers looking for clues to existence. And here I find that indeed he still was, although cigarettes may have gone the way of the dinosaurs by then. There was comfort of a sort in that.

I loved him, the way you love people like that. I count myself fortunate to have known him, for however little time there was. And I have never forgotten him. I doubt that I ever will.