memoir

Wicked Mean Blues Air Guitar

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

I play a wicked mean blues air guitar.  Usually after one drink too many.  I almost always say upon such occasions, “I could do it if I just knew how.”  And I could.  I really could.  I’m convinced of it.  So convinced of it, Santa asked me what I wanted one year and I said, “A guitar.”

Santa brought me a whole kit.  Case, stand, picks, tuners, Guitar for Dummies, and other assorted accessories. 

I couldn’t tune the damn thing.  Tried and tried.  I have a good ear, but I can’t figure out how to get the strings to the tension required.  I turn the little screws things this way and that to no avail.  I use the electronic tuner.  I don’t think I’m doing it right. 

In desperation, I cleaned my house and invited a musician friend and his wife to dinner.  Told him he not only had to sing for his supper, he had to tune my guitar. 

He did.  He declared it not bad for a cheapie. 

After they left, I tried some chords.  Damn it’s hard.  My old hands may be too arthritic to learn new muscle movements. 

Continue reading →

My Aunt Connie’s Thanksgiving Gift

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  There is no gift giving, No real decorating to speak of unless you are Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart and I share a birthday.  That’s about all we share.

I love Thanksgiving.

Photo by Virginia Simionato on Unsplash

I cooked my first turkey when I was 15 or so.  I wanted to learn.  Easy peasy.  Even bad turkey is good.  I learned how to make gravy from the giblets.  I already knew how to make bread and Grandma Emma’s chocolate bottom pie.  I always have fresh cranberries for my mother.  Roasted asparagus for my brother.  Squash with sausage for my dad when he was still alive as well as cornbread dressing and regular dressing.  In fact, dressing may be my favorite.

Of course, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.  And Brussel sprouts.  I vow each year to add corn pudding but haven’t yet.  It’s already two full days of cooking and I’m getting old.  There will be wine and everyone’s favorite soft beverage. 

Continue reading →

Hawaii (or you can go back)

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

I was gifted with the experience of living in Hawaii for three years.  I was 7 when we moved there and 10 when we left.  I did not then realize what I had been given.  I guess I thought everyone lived in paradise, but simultaneously I also knew I had lived somewhere special. 

We left on January 10, 1970.  It’s funny that I remember that date.  Our last act in Hawaii was to go to the bank and withdraw all our money.  While at the bank, my brother and I got on one another’s nerves.  I poked him.  He kicked me.  And tore a hole in the lace of my very “gourmet” dress.  I was incensed.  I was quite the fan of the Galloping Gourmet, a television cooking show hosted by Graham Kerr who was more often than not drunk.  Gourmet was the highest praise I could give anything. 

Hawaii was gourmet.

We arrived in San Francisco a week later via ocean liner.  The crossing had been rocky and my mother was inflicted with horrific sea sickness.  My brother and I had been left to our own devices for the most part and had the run of the ship.  I remember bits and pieces of that sailing, but the memories are not vivid like some of my memories of Hawaii. My mother describes disembarking in San Francisco as being like the Wizard of Oz in reverse.  We went from technicolor to black and white. 

I always vowed to go back, but not until I could do so with grace and style.  Hawaii is horrifically expensive if one isn’t lucky enough to live in military housing with access to the commissary – the military’s grocery store.

Continue reading →

Rose Quartz, Smooth Lava

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

My childhood—multifaceted – multiplaned – geometric planes.  Rose Quartz and Smooth Lava – pink and black – California and Hawaii – my formative years.  My innocent years. The years I thrived.

Photo by guille pozzi on Unsplash

Rose Quartz

I am playing in our backyard.  Vista, California.  There is an orange grove beyond the fence.  I can smell the blossoms breathing sunshine on the breeze. The ground is scattered with pink quartz.  I am not sure why.  Perhaps my mother was turning soil for a new garden. But it shimmers in the bright scented sun.  The calla lilies of the old garden had not yet bloomed.  Later.

The rose quartz an ethereal glow next to the one large snail with spiral coils on its shell.  Also glistening.  Its slow movement across the fertile soil.  Pink studded.  Glowing and shimmering.  Pink quartz scents my childhood.

Smooth Lava

Kaneohe, Hawaii.  Black lava and green mountains and the red fires of Pele forging the rock. It too shimmers but only when wet. Often the surf pounds that lava—in some places for so long that it is smooth with no jagged edges and feels good on the skin. Bare feet and legs and arms, face turned to the ocean. In others, still jagged, much younger, you can almost feel Pele’s wrath.  Don’t take her from the island.  Just don’t.  The locals tell you.  There are signs.  And portents.  My childhood – a shimmering plane of my life. I miss the joy of smooth lava. The shimmering lava touching my skin, my heart.  Smooth lava – its touch in the bright sun warms my childhood.

Continue reading →