The Gero-Punk Project

 Part three in a series of essays by Guest Gero-Punk

Velda Metelmann

The Baby Brother

     I don’t remember seeing many babies close up as I was the youngest of the trio of first cousins on Mama’s side and had been the youngest on Daddy’s side until Donna came along and was the baby for a long time – to my mind, sickeningly babyish.  Then my little brother was born.  That day Daddy took me to Grandma’s – I didn’t want to go – to wait until the baby came and I could go home.  We waited and waited.  We went to sleep and woke up.  We waited some more.  I said, “I wish the baby would come.”  Grandma sounded as if she were about to cry, “I wish so, too,” she said.

     When the telephone finally rang I felt such relief to be going home.  Everybody was excited and happy.  “It’s a boy!  It’s a boy!”  The baby’s name was the same as Daddy’s – Harold – except for the middle – Saunders – where Mama’s maiden name made him not a junior.  Daddy’s middle name was Murchison, the same as his maternal grandfather who’d been named after a wealthy relative on his mother’s side but that had made no difference when the will was read.  Mama kept saying, “I HAD a boy!  I HAD a boy! So “Hads” became what we called the baby.  Mama was tired and had to go to sleep; the nurse brought a pan of bad-smelling stuff out of the bedroom.  Grandma Saunders was there.  Grandpa and Grandma Gray were laughing and talking with Daddy.

     Nobody noticed me at all.  Nobody showed me the baby.  At last I pushed a chair over to the bassinette and climbed up on its seat to see my brother for myself.  I remember clearly the thoughts that rushed through me, “So this is what all the fuss is about.  He simply isn’t worth it.”  That little bundle was not worth it in any way – no visible arms and legs – he just lay there, red in the face and certainly nobody to play with.  Later when I saw his tiny waving hands and useless, bent, feeble little legs and the soft spot in his skull that pulsed blue I knew my first judgment had been correct.  It took years for me to change my mind.  Mama was still in bed when the doctor came to circumcise the baby.  He cried and screamed.  I climbed up on Mama’s bed and put my head on her arm – Mama’s arm was the softest place in the world – she cuddled me close.  The baby’s crying made me feel desolate and I told her I didn’t like to hear him cry.  Mama said, “I don’t like it either.”  That is probably why I wouldn’t allow circumcision for my sons.

Babies Are Different

     I don’t remember when Jo Anne wasn’t there – she was in my life from the beginning of my memories.  The next baby in the family was born to Aunt Mabel, Mama’s oldest sister.  The baby’s name was Janette, and she was about two years younger than Jo Anne, Aunt Mabel and Uncle Chester Frazier’s elder daughter.  Mama took me with her to visit Aunt Mabel and the baby in the Adventist hospital in College Place.  The baby had black hair and was wrapped up so we couldn’t see anything but her face and some fingers under her chin; the nurse brought her in and took her back out and Aunt Mabel sat up in bed and laughed.  Another nurse came to take Aunt Mabel’s temperature and went away so she didn’t see Aunt Mabel talking with the thermometer in her mouth, something I had never been allowed to do.  When I pointed out Aunt Mabel’s conduct to Mama in the car going home, Mama said it didn’t matter with grown-ups – they could open their mouths even when the pointy thermometer was under their tongues.  Aunt Mabel and Uncle Chester came for dinner one Sunday and when Aunt Mabel changed the baby’s diaper I was shocked to the core – Janette wasn’t built like my little brother.  I thought she must be grossly deformed – her crack went all the way through.  I went away feeling sick and didn’t mention it until after they left, and then Mama said my body was made the same way as that little girl baby.  I did know that boys had penises and girls didn’t need them to pee but that secret slit was a surprise! 

Aunt Goldie Gets Excited

     Aunt Goldie, Daddy said, was a pesky older sister when they were kids, pinching and teasing him to the limit but he never let her win.  She didn’t pester him anymore but she was easily excitable.  Of course, all of us were excited when Squeaky, their little white and black spotted terrier got in a fight with a big dog and his eye popped out and dangled.  Aunt Goldie covered her eyes with her hands, “Oh, don’t let me see!  Don’t let me see!” she said but she peeked through her fingers.  Uncle Elmer and Lauriel somehow slipped that eye back in – we didn’t see how – we were watching Aunt Goldie and then magically the dog seemed perfectly normal and peppy as ever.

The First Wedding

      Daddy’s younger brother, Lionel, was called Uncle Bunt and he carried me on his shoulders, tossed me in the air, and teased me sometimes.  I remember him before his marriage; his wedding to Eva Derrick was the first I ever attended and was most memorable.  I was three and wore my silver satin dress with fur around the neck and sleeves that cousin Betty had outgrown.  When Arden, a second cousin, stood with me under the wedding bower erected in the Derrick’s living room, the minister came over and said some of the wedding ceremony over our heads.  He ended with a pronouncement that we were man and wife.  I rushed to Mama to ask in a whisper if I had been married but she said it was only make-believe.  I watched Arden carefully for several years to see whether any mystic change had taken place but that time, too, Mama was right – I wasn’t married.

Bonnie Saves My Life

     Grandpa had horses that Daddy borrowed when he had to plow or harrow the fields.  One, named Bonnie, was a big brownish-black work horse with a white stripe on her face. She had a disposition that made it possible for her to make a team go straight and steady even if the other horses were stubborn.  Sometimes, for heavy jobs, four horses were needed.  Bonnie was so gentle that Daddy let me ride on her back when he was harrowing the back field, next to the apple orchard bordering the Walla Walla River which ran through our sixteen acre farm.  Her back was so broad that my legs had to stick almost straight out on both sides.  I was wearing a beige dress that day – girls didn’t ever wear pants – when I tumbled off Bonnie’s wide back right in front of the teeth of the harrow.  I thought I was dead for sure but Bonnie stopped the team at once and held up her left back foot until Daddy rescued me.  I thought it was a miracle but Daddy said I’d never been in danger.  He trusted Bonnie completely. 

Grandma and Grandpa Gray Leave

     After Grandma was well, they planned a trip on the train to go back to Grandma’s girlhood home in North Carolina.  She had many relatives there whom she hadn’t seen since her family had moved west when Grandma was a young girl.  The whole family gathered to say goodbye at the train station in Milton.  All of us were there except Uncle Bunt and Aunt Eva.  My heart ached because they were going and I had to stay home without them.  I cried and cried.  A thought trickled through my brain that maybe if I cried hard enough, the grown-ups would relent and I could go, too, so I cried harder.  Mama pointed out that Marjy wasn’t crying but I answered, “She doesn’t love them as much as I do.”  I remember their departure but not their return.

Velda Metelmann is a student in the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies program at Marylhurst University. She’ll be commencing  her thesis work on “a good old age” this fall.

I make it a practice to pay attention. But I didn’t see this coming. When did this happen? It feels abrupt! Though I suspect it is the result of a process so gradual and emergent as to be almost imperceptible except in retrospect.

When did I begin waiting for my daughter Isobel to wake up – wishing she’d wake up, rather than wishing she’d sleep longer (or wake up later)?

How funny and fascinating the way something that seemed frustrating at one point in time becomes the occasion for nostalgia and longing at another point in time.

It is 7:00 a.m. on a Friday in early August – this past Friday, to be precise — and my daughter and I are camping along the Zig Zag River in the Mt. Hood National Forest. After a night of strange disrupted tent-sleeping I am awake early. After dozing off and on for a bit in the cool air trapped inside the tent, I carefully unzip the tent flap, remove my gear, and exit, doing my best not to disturb the still deeply sleeping young woman who is my daughter Isobel.

When did that happen? When did she become a young woman? When did we arrive at the summer that will most likely be her last summer living with me before she flies off into the world? Holy crap!

I layer on some clothes—it is a chilly, misty morning. I light the little camp stove so I can make a cup of coffee. I putter around the camp, setting up our camp chairs, gathering twigs for a campfire. I brush my teeth and find a good place in the woods to pee.

At 7:30 a.m. I take one of the camp chairs and situate it on a little bluff facing the river and overlooking the tent where Isobel is still sleeping. I intend to engage in my morning contemplation and meditation practice. But before I can even settle myself down and into it, I start to wonder when she will wake up. Should I just let her sleep or decide on a time by which to wake her? I realize I am staring at the tent. (Maybe if I sit facing away from the tent inside of which Isobel happily slumbers ensconced in a down sleeping bag she’ll wake up sooner. I remind myself that a watched pot never boils.) I decide that if she’s not up by 9:00 I’ll make her hot cocoa and invite her to arise and join me.

Having made my decision, I feel my mind relax and expand a bit. I decide to keep the camp chair facing the river. I decide to use the tent as an object for my meditation. I rejoice in the auspicious opportunity to spend part of the early morning in the woods in silence and stillness.

Then I watch my mind do what minds do.

I can hear simultaneously the distant sounds of vehicles on the highway and the closer, more dominant sound of the snow-melt river. We aren’t camping in the back-country as would be my preference but in a less rugged campground nearer to home. I wonder if I could convince Izzy to take one last back-country trip before she leaves for college next year. (At home, Isobel is in the habit of sleeping with a fan on—her version of white noise. I wonder if the river serves the same function for her? As she is still asleep, I imagine it does.) Oh, and I hear birds, especially one that has an impressively loud screech.

Screech!

Isobel’s father and I began camping with her when she was a toddler, mostly at high altitude in the Rocky Mountains. I have fond memories of Izzy in between us inside two zipped together sleeping bags, wriggling around, restless, and murmuring as she wound her way down toward sleep. And not so fond memories of being woken up in the middle of the night by her foot in my face because she’d turned her body horizontally and her foot end was on my side of the sleeping-bag bed. In those days, camping or not, I always wanted her to fall asleep sooner and wake up later than she wanted to because I was a tired mommy trying to keep so many responsibilities going.

I am still a tired mommy trying to keep so many responsibilities going but now I am in the second half of my fifth decade (I’ll be 47 in December) and my daughter will be 18 in February. When the hell did this happen?

When is Isobel going to wake up? The day has commenced, there are adventures to be had! (Perhaps if I stare long enough at the tent, by force of will I can beam energy to Isobel and she’ll spontaneously awaken!)

Camping was one of the activities that Isobel’s father and I enjoyed doing together. We camped regularly during the decade we were married (when I was in my 20s) and have continued to do so with Isobel on occasion throughout the past sixteen years of not being married. When we were married, I felt closest to him when our complicated life together was pared down and focused on a few days of living in the wilds. He’d spend most of his time fishing, I’d hike around on my own, but our reunion around the campfire for dinner, wine, reading until it got too dark to see the words on the page was my favorite part of camping with him. When we were on a camping trip together I’d believe we were going to be okay. I would feel almost certain that he was in love with me. The return to civilization was always a rude awakening.

It is almost 9:00 a.m. – time to start the water for Izzy’s hot cocoa. Time to build the campfire. Wouldn’t a morning campfire be nice to wake up to? I’ll wait to awaken Isobel until the camp is welcoming and warm.

Part-two in a series of essays by guest Gero-Punk

Velda Metelmann

A Short Nurse

Grandma was sickly for a long time and had to rest and then became so ill she had to stay in bed.  The oak and leather davenport in the parlor transformed into a bed and Grandma laid there in the days and at nights Grandpa carried her to the “tent” room built specially in the back yard for her but with enough beds in it for more people to sleep.  The fresh air was supposed to make her better while she slept.  Mama said she thought I would be a bother but Grandma said I would be her little nurse.  I could fetch things for her and bring her glasses of water and be cheerful company for her.  She made me a white apron to wear while I was staying with them to help out.  Years later when clearing my parents’ home, I found that apron and from its small size realized that even though I’d felt myself to be quite an accomplished nurse, I had been very young as the apron that covered me from neck to hem was about eighteen inches long.

Baby Chicks

That was after I killed the baby chicks.  When that event occurred, Grandma and I were both outside, she working in her garden and I jumping about under the English walnut tree.  A batch of downy chickens learning their first lessons of scratching in the dirt and catching bugs followed the mother hen with difficulty because of the thick, long grass and small irrigation ditches.  By accident my foot trod on one of those babies; it uttered a “peep” so charming to my ears that I then hunted them down to step on them.  Presently Grandma asked what I was doing. “Stomping on the peeps,” I answered.  She came at once and stopped me, gently letting me know how I had hurt those baby chicks so badly they couldn’t live.

Santa Claus

While we lived in Portland, Mama took me to see Santa Claus, the real one, not anybody dressed up and pretending.  I had already wondered about the veracity of the Santa Claus story.  Santa had a real beard – I pulled on it to find out – but the most convincing fact was that he knew my name.  That Christmas time we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa Saunders in Richland and at the church program, there was Santa Claus again.  I was sure he knew I was in the audience because he gave each child a sack of candy.  When we got back to Grandma’s, there were sleigh tracks in the snow outside; Santa must have been there already.  There must be something for me under Grandma’s tree, but there wasn’t.   So it was with a happy heart that I went to Uncle Fred and Aunt Nina’s to see cousin Betty’s Christmas tree; they said Santa had been there.  Mama and Grandma and Grandpa went with me.  Betty’s tree was decorated and taller than Uncle Fred’s head.  On its sturdy branches were many exciting-looking packages.  Uncle Fred reached into the branches and brought the packages out one by one.  He was surprised and happy every time he found a package for Betty.  I sat waiting on the couch, sitting nicely with my feet stretched out in front of me, quiet and still.  I kept smiling and hoping but a drop at a time disappointment crept into my heart until I was quite sad.  One package was for Aunt Nina, one for Uncle Fred but all the rest of the packages were for Betty, except one.  One was for me and that one was not from Santa but from Betty.  When all the packages were distributed and I saw that Santa had forgotten me, I sobbed.  How could Santa do this to me?  Mama told me that Santa didn’t know I was in Richland, that all of my presents would be waiting for me at home, but my heart was broken.  Santa had seen me at church; I could not be comforted.  Mama felt bad.  She took me back to Grandma’s and went into the attic room and found a set of china doll dishes that had been hers when she was a little girl.  The tiny cups, the saucers, and little plates were fitted into snug places in the red liner of a bright blue cardboard box with pictures of flowers on the lid.  Mama said I was too small to have those dishes and that she had wanted to give them to me when I was older but Santa wanted me to have them on that Christmas Eve.

Family Prayers

Before bedtime at Grandma and Grandpa Gray’s whoever was in the house gathered in the living room and got down on their knees for evening prayers.  Not everybody had to pray out loud but Grandpa led off.  He prayed for the President and for the country.  He prayed for the family members, often by name, and asked that someday we could all be together in heaven.  In the process of growing up I remember thinking that it might be more fun to be with my friends than stuck with all those aunts and uncles.

Cousin Clarence, a nephew of Grandpa’s, came to visit two times that I can remember.  He was a philanthropist at heart and wrote large checks for good causes when in his cups.  Unfortunately, he drank often and his bank account did not match his generosity, so he spent many of his years in prison.  That explained why the presents he brought were so dreary – once a blue-knotted string purse fell to my lot – he made them in whatever correctional institution kept him sober at the time.

We Lived in Umatilla County

Our address was RFD#1, Milton, Oregon, and the mailbox was at the County Road about a quarter of a mile from the house.  The mailman was Uncle Elmer Hopkins, the father of my first cousins Marjory and Donna whom I loved dearly.  Marjy was 2 years and five months older than I and Donna was one year, one week, and one day younger, but I felt much closer to Marjy in both size and maturity.  I always wanted to be older than I was and grew fast; reaching Marjy’s height about the time I was five, as old photographs show.  They had one older brother, Lauriel, with a golden air of glamour, who was old enough to carry a BB gun and shoot crows that were eating Grandpa’s ripening fruit.  Later on, I would have a little brother, Hads, and a baby sister, Barbara, and the Hopkins kids would have a brother, even younger than Barbara, named Ted – not short for Theodore — just Ted – with Gray for his middle name.

Uncle Elmer was married to Aunt Goldie, one of Daddy’s older sisters – four years older.  The child in between, Little Rankin, died from a ruptured appendix at the age of two years, two months, and twenty-nine days a few weeks before Daddy was born.  We all knew about Little Rankin and how Grandpa had asked the doctor, “What would you do if he were your son?” and the doctor said he wouldn’t operate – the child would die anyway and would suffer more.  Grandma showed us Rankin’s doll, and the coins he played with when he died and with tears in her eyes closed the drawer she kept those grave mementos in.  She said, “I don’t know what I would have done without Papa!”

The Big Mud Puddle

Locust and black walnut trees so tall that Mama said they’d break right off in the next storm and smash us in our beds surrounded our house.  On the way to the mailbox I jumped across the little irrigation ditch at the side of the shallow, soft mud puddle the cars made crossing without a bridge and stirred the mud for a while with my stick.  That was where Donna got us in trouble the day Marjy, Donna, and I spent all afternoon climbing in and out of water in washing tubs set out in the side yard.  Our mothers bathed us and sent us back outside in fresh, ironed cotton dresses with matching bloomers giving us stern instructions to keep clean until our Daddies came home for supper.   We’d have a company dinner: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cream gravy, green beans, sliced tomatoes, and fresh corn from the garden and our mothers were making pies for dessert.  I don’t remember for sure what kind but think they were cherry.

I guided my cousins to the perpetual puddle and showed them how we could defy the law by walking carefully, delicately, silently along the soft edges with the water lapping just above the soles of our shoes but not splashing our socks or going inside.  I’d done it many times; no one need ever know or tell.  I led the way with Marjy following but then not even halfway round Donna fell in, splashing half of her pink dress chocolate along with her face and hair.  She bawled like the baby she always was!  Marjy and I tried to hush her and brush her off but she insisted on crying until our mothers stormed out of the house to give us a dose of Walnut Tea.  The center stalk of the walnut’s compound leaf when stripped makes a flexible, stinging little switch.  Aunt Goldie believed in the efficacy of applying this to bare legs much more strongly than Mama did and Donna got it and poor Marjy had two switches worn limp on her while mama, using only one, went through the motions and shook her head at me though it was really my fault.  However, no one would have been in trouble had Donna stayed on her feet like the big girl she should have been.

Velda Metelmann is a student in the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies program at Marylhurst University. She’ll be commencing  her thesis work on “a good old age” this fall.