Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian. The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade. Starlight, Star-bright - Personal essay“Is that star falling ‘cause it was bad and being kicked out?” Joy looked up, then at me.
“Maybe the big thing that looks like Mom’s soup ladle’ll catch it.” I giggled. “Or,” trying to scare Joy, “maybe it’ll fall right on your head.” Joy quickly covered her head with the tiny hands. She hesitated, then looked up again. “There’s a little soup-ladle thing also. Why? And can a star fall into that instead of down and down and crash?” I shrugged my shoulders. I had no answer, even a made-up one, and knew I could stall and Joy would forget the question. “Make a wish. You know. ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’, but now you do the ‘wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.’” “What do I wish for?” “How do I know what you wish for. It’s your wish.” “Mm,” Joy paused. “I wish one day I’ll have pink satin toe shoes and twirl and twirl and twirl.” “Okay. Anything for right now?” I knew toe shoes were years away. “Like wishing Mom would get rid of the linty chenille bedspread so we could sit on our beds and our skirts wouldn’t look like snow covered things? Or wishing we could be at the beach all day and not have bad sunburns.” The sky was peaceful. I didn’t know why the ladle-looking things were called dippers, but I liked the shape. And I didn’t know why some stars twinkled and one really bright one didn’t, but the darkness and sparkles pleased me. “We have to go in the house now. It’s your bedtime.” “Okay.” Joy paused, and then said “I wish my bedtime could be later.” She smiled. Words and concepts were special, even then. Wishes were not hopes, and hopes were not prayers, and I was selective as I phrased each. So even gestures, to me, had to be considered before accepting them or personally using any for nourishing my wants. Wishes on stars were like sing-song rhymes, intended to just be sentences to cause smiles. A dark sky was just that until sprinkled with tiny lights that magically appeared for no purpose except appreciation of Nature. Sure I’d read about the North Star and navigation, but I wasn’t sailing the open seas, or climbing, or even fleeing in a northward direction under cover of darkness, so navigation and astronomy were merely ‘courses’ in school, and little more. Hopes seemed to be personal, more like a poem’s free verse where a snapshot is frozen with words. Hopes were my achievement goals whether long-term or momentary. I didn’t hope-for an A in a school subject unless I knew I’d worked hard enough on the course to have earned it, so it wasn’t abstract. Prayers. I slid under the covers each night as if I were going to rise, without any doubt. My parents said wishes could be trivial, hopes might be inner desires, but prayer was unique and not to be abused. I think ‘be safe’ before a family member flies . This really is more than a ‘hope’ yet not wasting a prayer in case there is an allotment for each person. There’s a gratitude in my understanding of a power I can’t see or touch, and that my existence has either a purpose or some meaning. I’m aware of my gift of life and intelligence. My respect for that is living with the values my parents gave me, appreciating the environment, nurturing sensitivity and kindness, and awe when praying. “Grandma. Why do stars twinkle? Oh, did you see that falling one? Was it bad and being kicked out of the sky?” I also heard my younger sister’s words from decades and decades ago as I listened to this grandchild, and watched the wonder in his eyes. “Make a wish. You know. ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’.” In time, he’ll understand his own life will be a snapshot, and sanctity of prayer is different from wishes. Published summer 2012 “Shemom” reprinted 9-2012 Messenger Post newspapers reprinted summer 2013 “The Lutheran Digest”
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Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian. The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade. Where have all the canaries, barrettes, and pomades gone?Why did it bother me when I read about the closing or possible re-designing of 970 nationwide Woolworths? How often had I actually been inside my local one for items or even food at its luncheonette? Woolworths, the place, had been part of my life; its vanishing took pieces of the past with it. Long ago, the leather soles of my shoes sounded harsh hitting the hardwood floors of my neighborhood Woolworths. My first canary, in its wooden cage, was selected by bird sounds from the back of the store. Sure my goldfish had come from there, too, but a canary really needed care not just flakes of food as fish received. White flat pumps, with thin ankle straps, echoed on that floor. They were bought for my elementary school graduation; the white pique dress with its eyelet pique cap sleeves had to be handsewn by all girl graduates during required sewing class. My sewing thread came from Woolworths. For graduation, I wanted the special perfume only that store carried in small purple bottles. I stopped at the soda fountain, no longer a child swinging in circles on the round counter stool, and got a milkshake. The straw clogged, yet if I sipped from the glass a fluffy mustache of ice cream formed on my upper lip. I knew I'd be 'old' when the movie theatre on the same street allowed me to sit in the adult section, though I wasn't eligible for three more years. But, after I marched down an aisle to "Pomp and Circumstance" carrying an old-fashioned bouquet, fragrant from that purple bottle scent bought with my allowance, I could stop buying red lip pomade and actually wear real lipstick. Of course it'd come from Woolworths! The big Woolworths in New York City, near Penn Station, had a drink-you-eat-with-a-spoon. No treat was as exciting for that was the very only Woolworths I knew about that served this thick ice-cream-like-liquid that was too heavy to drink yet light enough to use a long handled spoon. I bought a sterling silver barrette in the city, and an engraver put my first name on it as I waited. Securing it in my limp flaxen hair, I felt it was an award. Sure, the gadget floor of nearby Macy's had wonder, but only for my mother. I preferred merely to place my feet on the wooden escalator strips and just ride. But Woolworths had underwear, perfume, school supplies, pets, embroidery material, curtains, knitting needles, buttons, toys, costumes, party goods.... Commuting to graduate school, I'd finally outgrown a Woolworth lunch counter, pet section, perfume, and even got my school supplies at the college bookstore. But, when my first child was born, my daily carriage walk was to Woolworths. As if I wanted to expose him to the mystery of the store, I made an excuse for that walk, lifting him in my arms and carrying him while the English Pram parked outside. Sometimes I gambled with the balloons suspended from umbrellas at the lunch counter: I selected a specific one, a waitress popped it, and the price printed on a folded slip would be the one paid for a banana split sundae. I never quite got too old for this. I moved to western New York State; all stores in the Rochester region were closed by the end of January 1994. I remember bringing my three children to rotate on plastic counter stools waiting for lunch. The floors were vinyl, and no purple flacon of fragrance was available. I'd never seen the drink-you-eat-with-a-spoon except in Manhattan, but I showed my children the canaries, and seasonal costumes, and picture frames, and toys, and.... When the Sears catalog ceased, it wasn't really an end to mail-order books. And FAX machines made telegrams obsolete. Escalators are metal, and some landmarks or large department stores in every town have changed or been torn down. But the 5 & 10 has be remembered by those past middle-aged and older, and missed. published Feb. 19, 1994 The Sacramento Bee Op-Ed Page ©1994McClatchy News
reprinted Spring 2002 Heroes from Hackland reprinted September 2015 Clear Mt. reprinted October 2015 go60.us Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian. The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade. Special time - Personal EssaySix minutes of driving separate our houses. And, at age three, Kevin asked me for special time.
Settled in a padded rocking chair, I read aloud. His favorite books were “Milk and Cookies” plus “Grandma and Me”. He memorized the stories so as soon as I recited ‘milk’, he’d say ‘cookies’ with a musical rise. Giggles followed. Often just these two books would be repeated for a full hour, then I’d begin “Pinocchio” about the puppet’s growing nose after telling lies. I’d ask Kevin to make up different endings. I cut a potato in half so he could make dents in the flesh of it before he dunked in stamp-pad ink and pressed the inky side against a tee shirt I’d have flat on a table. The potato-painted shirt had his design permanently etched. By age six, I padded his knees, elbows, shins, put a helmet on his head, then roller skates on his feet. In my enormous basement, in the unfinished section, he’d try and glide, catching each supporting beam for his personal aid. It often took longer to get him ready then his actual time on metal wheels. We walked park trails that were comfort zones for birds. Holding food bits in outstretched palms, birds would gently alight and lift the seed food before flying upwards again. He was noticing shapes of tree leaves, textures of bark, sensation of soft trails or hard pebbles underfoot. A local college had a children’s theatre production, and Kevin was enthusiastic about a different experience, until he sat waiting for the curtain to rise. He whispered that he wanted to go home, and I said ‘absolutely’ and we’d leave as soon as he felt less frightened, so he climbed into my arms. The show began. I stroked his hair, asked if he were ready to leave, and he said ‘in a few minutes’. In the security of my lap, he watched the entire performance, got excited when the lights went on, and wanted to tell his parents about the good show. In my mind, I pictured my younger son and his wife smiling with their son’s pleasure. Miniature golf and then eating ice cream from the same dish, learning to play checkers in the Sesame Street exhibit of The Strong Museum in downtown Rochester, NY, rolling snowballs were just parts of growing hours with me. Gradually, regular golf, Scrabble boards, ping pong, became activities, and he began explaining his school learning telling me why a piece of wood floats in water while a rock sinks. He liked the planetarium, and appreciated live theatre. Calendars continued to change numbers, as did our ages, and I waited for special time to cease. When it didn’t, I thought of a more permanent way for the teen to remember our relationship once I’m no longer alive. “Grandma and Me” was going to become a personal story he didn’t know I was keeping. In 2005, using e-mail instead of the telephone, I asked if he’d really want what wished for as we discussed "The Monkey's Paw" and "Flowers for Algernon" readings for an English assignment. The next year in Biology, with stem cell being taught, Kevin and I spoke of “Flowers for Algernon” again as a parallel to using humans for research experiments that have consequences, the right/wrong based on one’s religious beliefs, and how a story read for one class spills over into another subject. “Romeo and Juliet” had us e-mailing the power of names. I, the English teacher, took Shakespeare’s difficult poetry and simplified the meaning when possible. After all, the famous line "O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?" --From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 33) is crying out ‘why’ are you Romeo Montague. Had he been Romeo Stone, rather than the last name of the family Juliet’s parents despised, an immediate barrier wouldn’t have been set up. Then the childhood book, “Bambi”, came into our conversation as Bambi sounds feminine yet the animal was male. We moved back and forth. I was watching the mind expand, and he was permitting me to share the development. I moved each e-mail into a Word Perfect file of letters knowing that I’d give him these tangible papers and he’d have a type of diary of his teen life. E-mails from college, fall 2010, came with details of his freshmen-week activities, credit-hour studies for first semester, sports events. He continued to examine his courses and commented on my responses. A professor’s Philosophy lecture posed: what makes us human, how do we know that we aren't just brains in a vat, also do we have complete control over everything we do and think? My response covered half a typed page. The printed word is seldom done with pen and ink, but e-mails do not have to be eradicated with the pressure on the delete key. I’ve complied years of our back and forth discussion of feelings, studies, even our grandma-grandson sense-of-humor about how his school’s team loses when I watch the televised games. I have a gift for him to re-read when he, himself, is old. Before the precious exchanges were deleted from the Inbox, they were transferred to the ‘special time’ file I created, for time with any loved one is special, and the recording of specific events or thoughts are markers in life. published Oct. 29, 2011 ©2011 The Jewish Press reprinted: Shemom winter 2012-2013 issue reprinted: Clear Mt. Dec. 2011 reprinted: go60.us (online) January 2013 Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian. The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade. Sized-upSince newspapers have little information to print, and yet haven’t gone totally online, a recurring using-space broad theme is ‘senior’ and generally the specific is ‘downsize’. Maintenance-free smaller house is a catch-phrase that sometimes means an association has to be paid a fixed-fee and that group hires lawn service, driveway plowing, garbage pick up, if it’s a patio home or such. Leave your mortgage-paid-up dwelling for senior living; if there are stairs in your present home, that does become a real consideration.
The word-of-the-day, for the elderly, in the rolled up printed paper this morning, was ‘loneliness’. Artificial Intelligence robots are said to be somewhat better than a dog as the AI can talk to one who has no companion and the pet cannot. Then the repeated verb ‘downsize’ was inked. I opened a closet containing items seldom used, or totally obsolete. Ought to be easy to dispose of those. A 35mm slide projector was inside. Seems to have gotten heavier as my muscles aged. Two-thousand slides sat in Kodak carousels, and each box, holding 100 slots, was marked with the years and subjects. It was the 20th century when I began box 1. A square picture, got inserted upside down into a slot. To view, the carousel attached to a circle on the projector and rotated so each slide became magnified on my living room’s white wall. Yes, I do remember I once had a screen that had been used with my 16mm movie film. I’d pull up the screen from the bottom of its weighty storage rectangle, and stop at the height available where it affixed to a metal pole that was part of the back. With aging, the wall became easier. Mousepads, and with pictures rather than one color, were stacked in a short pile. Some signified a souvenir from a vacation so the item would be a remembrance yet useful. VHS tapes neatly formed what looked like a bookshelf. The 8mm camcorder in its travel case was on the floor. Tiny cassette tapes were magically made into VHS tapes at a developer; I, then, could easily insert into a special box so the tv screen could highlight the memory captured, and with sound. Reels of 16mm movie film had no sound. Projected 35mm stills had no sound. Oh it seemed so splendid to have movement, sound, and also color. Opening a scrapbook-type thing of black and white snapshots, I also noticed the negatives from each roll held in envelopes for when I’d want a duplicate of a print able to be done by a photo shop. I felt in my pocket for my smartphone which is also a camera, and recalled having to take an entire roll, often of 36 ‘shots’, before I could bring that into a store to have positives made. And it was tricky to get the unused film into the sprocket holes so each could ‘advance’ as a camera snap was activated. Why did I save a landline telephone! What did I do before lightweight speaker phones as I cooked a meal, or oversaw a homework lesson for one of my offspring? None of my grandchildren have anything but individual cell phones; would they even know what a phonebook was? Did I have one of those in this closet! Rabbit ears. Now why would I have put these away? That antenna hadn’t been used on any television sets for decades. No wonder this closet’s been closed for almost that long. Guess if the space had been walk-in, I probably would have the metal stand used for my black and white sets. Might I find a clock-radio with tubes on a back shelf? A transistor radio was in folded cardboard behind the rabbit ears. And there was a shoe-box of audio cassette tapes, but nothing to play them on and I doubt there are any devices made for hearing these. Downsize often means furniture, China cabinets, cartons of vinyl records without a turntable, some seasonal things no longer really needed. Might be more simple to sort those as few memories are made from a too-large armchair, but there are emotional recalls from dancing to a Frank Sinatra record, or seeing the unused CD’s that revolutionized music and put even what I’d listened to on 78 rpm into a tiny disc. |
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