Living to 102

It's 7:30 in the a.m. and the phone rings. It's my back east friend, Pat. We call each other every week on Tuesdays at 7:30 a.m. PST, 10:30 EST to discuss our past week. We got on to the subject of Dolores Hope's death and the fact she was one hundred and two when she died. Our usual weekly conversations are like the Jerry Seinfeld show—about nothing: what we’d be cooking that night, our aches, pains, her Italian classes, our card group, company, our kids and so on. Nothing of much importance--but sharing all this weekly gives our friendship continuity.Now we were on mortality, serious stuff--death.

“Lordy,” I gasped, “I don’t want to last for one hundred and two years, do you?”
She hesitated, “Maybe.”
"Really?" I said, "So you want your daughter wiping your chin and other unmentionable areas? Telling you when to get up, what to eat, and just generally bossing you around? Think about it!"
"I'm thinking," she said.

Pat and I, Mary, Barbara and Peg all met in our late 20's at a  neighborhood Tupperware party sometime in the early 60's, and have been friends for fifty years. As young, stay at home moms, we did everything together from coffee klatches to baby sitting, to holiday parties to shopping. Over the years we have put We hung out together, our club house the kitchen where we slurped coffee together with small kids hanging onto our legs, then through those first days of school, finally the angst of teen years, graduations, marriages, and now grandchildren. Like sisters, the bond was forged.  Now we are elderly and, even though distance separates us, we’ve never lost touch.


We  have occasional sisterly-like falling outs, but we've never fallen far enough to lose touch. Even with the moves--Mary and Pat moved further east on Long Island, and Peg and I moved to California, leaving Barbara, the "baby", all alone in the old neighborhood. The sisterhood bond we've formed is unconditional. A connection no amount of friction, years or miles can sever. 

About two years ago I received a frantic telephone call from Mary, on Long Island, to tell me that she'd heard that Barbara died. She'd panicked and called Pat. "Call her house," Pat, the sensible older "sister" advised. She did. When Barbara answered the phone Mary was taken aback. "Barbara, why are you answering the phone? You're dead!"

We all had a good laugh over that but the thought of one of us dying shook us all up. Our mortality became a reality.

Now Dolores Hope has died and Pat thinks she wants to live to be 102. We've done a lot together but I'm thinking--not this. "You'll be on your own," I told her. "No more Mary, Peg or Barbara. No more Tuesday telephone calls."

Next Tuesday when we talk, I must remember to ask her if she still wants to go it alone

Noodling

We call it noodling. No, it’s nothing risqué, nothing you must shoo the kids away from, or anything that can’t be talked about in mixed company. It’s simply a form of what we think of as exercise—moving around the pool with a noodle. (Now my spell check has no problem with the word noodle but draws a red line under noodling.)

A noodle is what little kids use in the pool. It’s a long thin Styrofoam tube that floats, thus keep you afloat. There are three, sometimes four of us noodling. The four of our combined ages totals almost 300 years. Youth is a distant memory along with bikinis and two-piece suits.

We meet at our small community pool, which is tucked away by itself, about a mile away from the clubhouse and the large pool. In this smaller pool  we are often the only swimmers and  sometimes, the only people there. There may be one or two people sitting around the pool reading, but no attention is paid to us noodlers.

Lately though, we have had to deal with interloping ducks—a mother and two  ducklings—who swim happily around like they, rather than us, are paying the monthly association fees.  Mama duck gives us a hard time. As we shoo her to get out, she scolds with hissing quacks. The baby’s swim frantically after her and when she finally jumps out, they panic realizing they can’t manage the leap from water to pool edge. The other day, one of the babies did a big hop out but flopped on its back, his two little feet jiggled frantically in the air until he/she managed to right him/herself. We placed a lounge chair in the pool for them to climb up and out on.  Sometimes it works, sometimes they play dumb and swim around it. Last week they left us a small package on the bottom of the pool that kept us noodling far from it.

So, here we are noodling around, moving arms, legs, feet, hands and jaw muscles. Yes, we talk continuously about nothing. Take Friday’s noodle session. We did a lot of food talking beginning with dessert and ending with drinks. Jean gave us a wonderful recipe for a chocolate cake, but since we weren’t equipped with underwater pens and paper and our memories aren’t that reliable, a phone call will have to do. Then we thought wouldn’t it be fun to bring along piña coladas and pretend we're in the Caribbean under a palm tree with a tropic breeze blowing. Are they made with vodka?” Yolie asked. “No, I think rum,” I said. “But what else do you need to put in them?” It all got complicated and Jean suggested we go to the store and buy the mix.

We were startled out of mid noodle the other day when a long, skinny tailed rat ran across the wall not twenty feet away from us as we talk about food, cakes, books and piña coladas. Now we're on constant rat alert. 

Finally we got down to the weather and the heat spell roasting the rest of the country. We tried not to feel guilty as cool breezes blew off the ocean giving us goosebumps and making our plunge into the hot Jacuzzi so inviting.

With my noodle exercising, not only am I getting a good tan and feeling healthier, but the hour sessions are like therapy. For one hour I am assured of someone’s undivided attention. Can anything be healthier? 

And, no, we haven’t brought the piña coladas yet - but the summer’s not over.

Anniversary musings

Dodie, to answer your question about how I stayed with the same man for 57 years and more importantly how he's stayed with me...Endurance! An 8 letter word. Also we never knew we had any other options. Now we find out we do, but it's too late. I need him and he needs me! Our lives have intertwined. Is this the beginning of an anniversary blog? 

 Oh! stop me Lord.

We were married on September 11, 1954, fifty seven years ago today. Actually, we met in high school in study hall more like sixty one years ago. I was 16--soon to be 17, and he was just 17. It was 1950.

Our dating was simple, sort of like one of those Norman Rockwell paintings. Mostly going to the movies. He had no car and would take a bus from Baldwin where he lived, to where I lived in Rockville Centre. After the movies we'd have a soda at the soda shop across the street from the movies. He had limited funds, so the 95 cent (each) movie ticket and 25 cent soda (which we no doubt shared...and are still doing so today...old habits DO die hard!) meant he had no money for the bus fare home. This resulted in a 3 mile walk back to Baldwin (no problem, he was an athlete). We eventually went steady. He gave me his class ring...which I somehow lost...we graduated...he went to a local college...I went to work. 

Finally in 1954, I told him put up or shut up. I was tired of dating--in those days we didn't live together--it was all strictly by the book. He was in his last year of college when we married. He never proposed.

Our wedding took place during a hurricane. It's blustery appearance had me walking up the steps of the church under an umbrella and a bit wrinkled;  the wedding guests looked more like refugees right off the boat in their raincoats and bandannas. About twenty five people, all relatives, had been invited to our reception. It was held at a small restaurant called the Oakland Rest (something like that, the details are a little fuzzy), where all my mother could afford for dinner was chicken coquettes. My friend's father bought us the wedding cake. 

Later, we discovered that after our little reception, my uncle Henry invited everyone back to his house in Bellmore for another reception. He moved the piano outside, and according to accounts, everyone had a swinging good time, except maybe my Aunt, who worried about getting the piano back inside!


As we took off for our honeymoon to the Farm on the Hill in the Poconos, the sky cleared, and the sun shone. Providence. Neither one of us had ever driven that far off the Island (Long Island) and here we were, on our way to Pennsylvania. Bob driving in my late father's car--a maroon, 4 door, 1949 Pontiac--through the Bronx and over the George Washington bridge. 

I think about that trip. How did we do that? I wonder if it is a metaphor for our long life together. A long journey into unknown territory for me, young and naive, and for him, young and responsible. A winning combination--I guess. And, we're still traveling...me, old and not quite as naive...him, old and very responsible. Will we make it? 

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Welcome to my BLOG!

Hello, and welcome to my Blog - Just Below the Surface.  With this blog I would like to share my writings; pieces of my memories and experiences laced with perception and emotion.

I have many favorite poems. I thought I would share a few with you.

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This one I like because it reminds me of the peace while up in Inverness, CA

North Dream Street

Gray morning clouds

fill the sky and hang

as still as the moss

draped on the gnarled oak

outside my window.

An array of Queen Anne’s lace,

stand immobile in dignified rows,

speechless.

Not a leaf flutters

or waves good morning to me.

The only movement is

on the radio:

Beethoven's Fifth in C minor

at 102 North Dream Street,

Inverness, California.

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 I like this one too because it is, too me, very descriptive.

A Monument to Man’s Discards

Garbage Mountain grows

with each new day

creeping

closer to the road

taller

with veined roadways

snaking

to the top: a bulldozer rapes its surface.

Gulls, raised by the foot of daybreak

fly about like dust motes

screaming

over man's forgotten hopes

eating

his buried dreams

and littering

the graves that rest at the foot

of Garbage Mountain.

Man made - man like.

at dusk the Mountain lies still,

a humped shadow,

waiting for the next day’s discard.

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And this one because it makes me smile.

The Reception

Dirty punch cups,

like drunken sailors,

cling to each other in the sink.

Debris litters the floor.

Packages and wrappings—

Macy’s, Nordstrom’s—

flutter in the breeze

as the bride & groom

run, giggling up the stairs.

The mother sits amidst the clutter.

A smile, as stiff as frosting

on the wedding cake,

clings firmly to her lips.

Exhaustion stars her eyes.

The house becomes sullenly silent,

only noisy memories remain,

and the sticky punch cups,

clumped together in the sink,

like drunken sailors.

ENJOY!

Let me just say this about that

Hello!

I'm Cheryl, BJ's daughter, and bringer of all things Blog.  My Mom, (your BJ) has been writing for as long as I can remember (not as far back as I used to - sad, but true), and I thought it was time to thrust her into the arena of writing....blogging....I thought how nice it would be to grow with her as she learns one more exercise in technology....writing of the prose will come easily, but posting to this blog may tend to irritate...so patience, grasshopper....sit back and enjoy the musings of BJ Weigand.