I hope my daughter never loses the nerve and desire to stand up on a bench in the playground and sing and dance her little guts out. At what point did we lose that?
Posts Tagged ‘childhood’
Hope
Monday, November 17th, 2008My Buddy
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008The other day, i was listening to the radio on my television. One of those music channels options. I do that sometimes when i am washing dishes or cleaning the main floor of the house, because i get tired of the CDs in my kitchen. (You can only listen to my usuals: Blonde on Blonde, Pleased to Meet Me, and Picaresque so many times. It is funny how my recently played songs on Last.fm never actually take into account my time listening to cds in the kitchen the old-fashioned way.)
A song came on, and as so often happens in my distracted life, it was halfway over before I realized that I had known and sang along with every word, despite the fact that I don’t think I had ever heard the song before. I stood at the sink, up to my elbows in dirty dishes (we are currently grieving for our deceased dishwasher), looking blankly out the window on my fall garden, and trying to pull a memory out of the ether. It came to me in a flash, a quick glimpse of my grandma’s smiling face, with thick coke-bottle glasses, laughing at the piano in our old house.
My Buddy. It was My Buddy.
I used to love to watch my grandmother play the piano. She could still play, even into her 80s, and i think now that it is a lost art. Now, only the virtuosos play piano. But in her day, all young girls learned to play the piano, and standing around the piano playing songs and singing together was one of their favorite past-times. My grandmother would play songs out of the Cokesbury Hymnal. Her favorite was In the Garden. To this day, i get weepy every time I hear that beautiful hymn. I think that when I was little, I had no idea it was religious in nature, and the walking with, and talking with, and telling me that I am his own just made me feel so very loved. I never hear that song without thinking of Grandma Smith. But it was Grandma playing the songs My Buddy, and I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles that I really loved. She would sing as she played, and Lisa and I would sing along with her, following along in the songbook the words that she sang by heart, the songs she had listened to as a girl in Slidell, Louisiana and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
“Nights are long since you went away I think about you all thru the day My buddy, My buddy, No buddy quite so true
Miss your voice, The touch of your hand Just long to know that you understand My buddy, My buddy, Ooh your buddy misses you
Miss your voice, The touch of your hand Just long to know that you understand My buddy, My buddy, Your buddy misses you
Yes I do”
Grandma, you’ve been gone for 16 years now, and your buddy still misses you every day.
Voice of My Childhood
Monday, September 22nd, 2008Summer evenings growing up, the Braves were always on TBS in the background. And in the Fall, Larry was on the radio. My first solid memory of him is listening to him call a Kevin Butler field goal kick, sitting in my Mom’s red Caprice Classic station wagon, parked in the lots at the soccer fields across from the water tower, waiting for my soccer game in pouring, freezing rain.
UGA passed on. Larry’s retiring. I’m thinking it just ain’t right if we don’t win a title after all of this. And I’m thinking I’m not the only lifelong Bulldog shedding a tear right now.
We Always Thought . . .
Thursday, July 17th, 2008That Ev. would end up with Judd. . . but we are very happy that it will be Kim.
For information on this photo, and how it came about, please see the comments. Jason B. will have to explain the details of a wager that went horribly wrong for E. and J. All complaints about the posting of this photo should be filed with Jason, as he is the proper owner of said photo and released it to me for online publication.
This is just my very mischievous way of saying I will be off to the beach to see Evan get married this weekend. I am very glad to say that, because he is a gem of a guy, and I’m glad he finally found someone who appreciates his special brand of fun and games. Also, he was the last unmarried Creeker, and frankly, we were all getting a little jealous of his singledom.
If you are reading this and going to the wedding, wait till Jason and I have a few drinks and then come sit by us at the reception for some really good Evan stories. We have them in spades.
Evan, if you are reading this, this is kind of like when you left for college, and J. and I sat up all night, smoking and drinking, and writing the longest list ever of things that cracked us up about growing up with you. What I’m trying to say is that we love you, and are very happy for you and Kim.
It’s Kind of Like the Secret of Oil of Olay
Sunday, June 22nd, 2008Basically, you hit 36 and sometimes you start feeling old, and other times, you can’t believe you are 36, because, like yesterday? You were 16.
And then you get prank calls from your childhood friends, who have been prank-calling you since about. . . 1984 or so? (Yeah, that sounds about right Cue Van Halen.) And then you feel pretty young again. I mean, damn! I still got boys* calling me up at 11 o’clock at night, and no Cecil here to answer the phone and chew their asses out.
Life is good.
*30-something balding men.
Heartwarming Milestone: Rollie’s First Bottle of Robo!
Friday, May 2nd, 2008Like those other milestones, “First trip to the Emergency Room,” or “First Projectile Vomiting Episode,” they are so precious. This morning, it was “First Call to Poison Control.”
Rollie has a cold and cough. He often wakes up earlier than Todd and me, goes to the bathroom, and then plays in his room until the sun comes up. This morning, I could tell he wasn’t feeling good, and he was coughing like crazy, so I made the call to keep him home from school. He was laying on the couch, watching The Flintstones, and just feeling puny. Yes, Mom, his eyes were peaked, too.
It was my turn to get up with the kids, so Todd woke up later and i heard him jump in the shower. Then he came down with the news that someone had gotten into the cough medicine. Now, any parent knows that kids freakin’ love taking medicine. It always tastes like Cherry, Grape, or Bubblegum! It’s the best! Yes, i realize that kids are not supposed to take the cold and cough medicines anymore, but we never cleaned the old ones out of the medicine cabinet. I mean, who knows? Next month, they might come out with a study that shows children’s cough medicine prevents cancer.
We interrogated him for a few minutes, trying to find out how much he took. We had no idea how much was in the bottle in the first place (or how he managed to open a “childproof” bottle.) He kept repeating that he took “four.” Four sips? Four chugs? Four teaspoons? Four cupfuls? Sure, his liver might be experiencing irreparable damage, or his heart might be about to explode out of his chest, or he might be about to slip into a coma at any moment, but I still want to throttle him for not being able to express to me exactly how much he took. Mother of the Year!
I got on the phone with the pediatrician’s office. When you tell the doctor that your kid ingested poison or got into cough medicine, all you can think is that the nurse on the other end is thinking “why the hell do you still have that medicine in the house, and why weren’t you watching your kid? Just another dumbass, crappy parent.” They forwarded me to Poison Control. While I waited for them to answer, I looked at the bottle. There was no Tylenol in it. Phew. For Rollie’s size, he should have a teaspoon. A cup of it is four teaspoons. 98 pound kids are supposed to get four teaspoons. Rollie only weighs 40 pounds.
Fuck. What the hell is Dextromothorphan.
This is obviously some kind of karmic ass-biting the world is bringing upon me for all the times we shoplifted Robotussin in high school and then drank the whole bottle. I was a terrible kid and now I am the worst mother in the world. What the hell made me think i could be a parent? Just to get it out of the way, I should admit that there was also shoplifting and sniffing of Scotchguard and whipped cream. Maybe a confession here will be considered proactive good karma and the universe won’t require Tiller and Rollie to fulfill the “I hope you have one just like you” curse to its full potential.
Poison control guy gets on and asks me questions and then tells me to hold on while they crunch numbers. Seems like forever, and it is not encouraging that Georgia Poison Control is somehow affiliated with Grady Health Systems. I start Googling directions to Children’s from the new house.
Guy gets back on the line, and tells me Rollie will be fine. He should not have any other meds today. Drink plenty of fluids. He might be extremely excitable, or really drowsy. (Come on, drowsy!) He is definitely acting a little odd (he called me Tiller and keeps babbling nonsense) and his pupils look like saucers, but he seems okay.
I am so relieved. You forget how much you love the little shits, because you get so tired of the endless questions, and constant chatter, and neverending requests, and the fights, and crying, and messes they make. But when you have ten minutes wondering if you’ll be sitting in a hospital that day and if your little man is going to be okay, it puts it all into perspective. You think that sitting on the couch watching cartoons and cuddling with a sick, doped-up kid is pure heaven.
We are sitting here on the couch now, and he is definitely acting squirrely; he keeps repeating “I’m sorry, mama.” And I keep telling him that it is okay, that mama and Daddy got mad at him because it scared them, and he just can’t ever take medicine without us ever again. Then he says, “I’m sorry I took the medicine, mama.” We have been repeating this about every ten minutes for the last hour. I am reminded of the time Mike M. fell off the skateboard and got a concussion. He had no memory of the accident.
He kept asking: “What happened?”
Us: “You have a concussion.”
Mike: “How did I get it?”
Us: “You fell off a skateboard.”
Mike: “Who the hell let me on a skateboard!!??”
(For those that don’t know Mike, he is about 6’8″ and should never have been on a skateboard in the first place.) He would seem happy with our answers, and then five minutes later, forgot them and we went through the whole thing again. This happened so many times that da Crease finally wrote “Concussion” and “Skateboard” on his arm and just told Mike to look at his arm when he asked what happened. Still cracks me up to think about it.
The upside to this Robo episode? Rollie is so out of it that I am able to make him watch cartoons I like, rather than the Dora and Diego crap that we usually would have to watch. Right now we are watching The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. He keeps telling me he loves this show. It is his favorite.
Oh, and his cough is gone.
It is Nice
Monday, April 21st, 2008When those you love very much, whom you would do just about anything for, and whom you know would do the same for you, affirm their love for you.
There is something so powerful about old friendships, the ones where you have ridiculously funny memories of growing up together, of fucking up together, of grieving together and for each other, and of rejoicing in each other’s meaningful life moments.
I love you too, Mealby. But then, I was forced to: Take a look at my choices.
P.s. I love you too, Jason B., even though you will probably call me tomorrow with the cackle laugh and make fun of me for my sappiness.
Things I Forgot About Snow
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
“Mama, when i was outside in the snow, I made a ball and I threw it on you and it was fun.”
Yes, Rollie, it was. It was the most fun I’ve had in ages. I threw an icy, wet snowball today. But it was a snowball. And I showed you how to make a really sad snow angel. And I showed you how the best place to get a snowball from is a clean surface like the car and then we tried to throw snowballs at Daddy in the bedroom window above while he was on a conference call, while Quint did the low-butt run around the cul-de-sac, like he was a pup.
I had forgotten that snow had a sound and a smell, and that it made dogs frisky, and toes tingle and eyelashes frosted, and that it made little kids and big kids giggle like they were being tickled.
p.s. Mom, I’m real sorry about that mess me and Lisa and Matt and Karen and Sean made in the house, like, every day, throughout the winter in Rochester for two years in a row. We musta been about the biggest pains in the ass ever.
Off to Charleston
Thursday, November 15th, 2007Tomorrow morning, I leave for Charleston. My childhood friend Marc is getting married. I cannot wait to meet the victim, er. . . bride. Marc and his brother, Pierce, and my sister and I go way back; Our moms were best friends growing up in Chattanooga. We vacationed in Destin with them for years, visited them at their home and on their Grandfather’s ranch near Dallas, and when Pierce went to school in Chattanooga, I used to see him and his roommate when I was in town visiting my Grandma. We all exchanged emails recently, and Pierce’s roommate was saying how nice it would be to see me again. The last time he remembers seeing me, I “drove a convertible and had bought the Drivin’ and Cryin’ album that day.” We figured out that was about 1988. Yeah, nineteen years. Wow.
Marc is the last of us to get married. Pierce and I both have kids now, and Lisa is expecting. None of this adulthood crap matters much, because these are people who have known me long enough to remember me before I became the woman of grace and loveliness that I am today; They saw the gangly, pimpled girl with the sausage-rolled hair. They knew me when I had no boobs. They knew me when I liked Whitesnake.
It is going to be fun to have all four of us back together again this weekend, even though I won’t have them to myself. There will be merciless ribbing, and much, much laughter. And a whole lotta drinking. Look out, Charleston.
"The Stadium is Worse Than Bonkers!"
Saturday, September 22nd, 2007This is kind of a sad day for me as a Bulldog fan. Tonight is the first game in my lifetime that won’t be called by Larry Munson.
This article is a good overview of his career, and includes some of his greatest calls. My first recollection of Larry calling a game was about 1984. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was twelve years old and it was a cold and rainy day in Georgia. I played soccer on Saturdays at the Roswell soccer fields. By high school, we would call these fields and their parking, just off the high school campus, “The Water Tower.” As in, “meet me at the Water Tower,” or the more exciting, “Fight at the Water Tower after school today.” Good times. I think we were waiting for my game to begin, sitting in the warmth and dryness of mom’s red station wagon. I’m not sure if Lisa was there, and I have no idea where Dad was, but Mom and I listened intently to Larry’s voice on the radio as the cold rain poured down.
“So we’ll try to kick one a hundred thousand miles. We’re holding it on our own 49-and-a-half … gonna try to kick it sixty yards plus a foot-and-a-half … and Butler kicked a long one … a long one … Oh my God! Oh my God! … The stadium is worse than bonkers!” – calling Kevin Butler’s field goal in the final seconds to win over Clemson in 1984″
You would have to know my mom to have any idea of the response this elicited from her; Words cannot do it justice.
I know a man needs to settle down, but Larry will be missed.