LOIS GREENE STONE - NON - FICTION

​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.

​Exit 19

Might I say two thousand and twenty, instead of twenty-twenty for this new decade? The combination has me pause with the bookend-like appearance of both together.  Numbers aren't important I’ve been told, but emotionally I am affected by this transition. Lives ARE recorded by mathematical symbols: telephone, house address, social security, license plate, birth, death, credit cards.  Divisions of our existence are defined numerically with meaningful days celebrated by specific dates. Eligibility to vote, marry without parental permission, obtain a driver's license, donate blood, join the armed served, retire by requirement, become president, for examples, depend upon arithmetic.
    I turned twenty the April of my junior year at undergrad school;  my forty-five year old father died in May. Why couldn't I have known, decades ago, that forty-five was not old?  It sounded old when I hadn't lived enough years to, then, register to vote. As age nineteen exited, so did an ‘innocence’; life now also meant death.
    Recognition regarding the thirty-two years my mother had been a widow required a different perspective once I married and had offspring.  Without companionship, she alone educated her daughters, learned to manage financially, made weddings, sold a house, moved across the country, endured operations plus heart attacks and open-heart surgery, closed an apartment door daily to prepare meals for one, died from contaminated blood received during surgery yet never said 'why me'?  My mother watched annual numbers increase without a husband's gentleness, support, reassurance, yet projected only enduring unselfishness and consideration for her children. Numbers: her birth and death dates, years of widowhood, street address, zip code, total grandchildren.... Had this been me, would I have had that strength? Did she realize she possessed such?
    The 2019 calendars are crumpled into waste paper.  Time, I understand, really is precious. I will internalize how affected I am seeing two ‘twentys’ being written out, or staring at me from my wall calendar reminding me of my own number when I learned that loved one’s lives aren’t to be taken for granted. 
    But ‘exit 19' is also an age, and not just the now-obsolete calendar decade.  One's own life matters to an individual losing the title ‘teenager’: career and professional opportunities are ahead.  Twenty 'tells' each that responsibility is within view. Parental obligations to help offspring become independent, self-sufficient, and sensitive adults are abstract, general.  The shedding nineteen year olds seek identity, self-esteem, respect, an opportunity to be of value to humanity, earn a living, reproduce, share private thoughts with a person who'll trust each with his/hers.
    Numbers.  Class of '2024, sports scores, repair ticket, clothing size, body weight, digital pieces, price tags, speed limits, carpet footage, tire size, light bulb wattage, place in a waiting line.......

​

horses and pink barrettes
​

    Daddy took the transparent acrylic pin from its wrappings and placed it in my palm.  He watched my expression. "A horse. Oh it's a horse I can see through. Did you know?  Can you see it's see-through?"
    He brushed his fingers gently over a limp strand of flaxen hair that had escaped from my pink barrette.
    "Can I wear it now?  Oh. I've had those pins that glow in the dark.  You know the ones you got me when the war started.  I loved sticking them under the light, then going into the closet and seeing the purple color they showed, but this is the best!  I'll love it always. A real see-through horse for my blouse.”
    From the movement of his lips, and his cheek dimple winking, I knew that he was only pretending when he said, sighing, "I guess it's okay to wear it right now."  His strong but gentle fingers slipped the sharp pin into my angora sweater, then fastened the clasp. No matter that the size was too huge for my small frame, or that its weight strained the wool sweater hairs, I was excited.
    I pulled my sweater outward, forced my neck down, and noticed the red mane was also transparent.  Daddy had gotten me Mother-of-Pearl horse buttons made by the button firm which 
gave him pay checks, and my mom sewed me a dress specially to use those buttons, but Mother-of-Pearl is pretty, shiny, pinkish, and not clear.  I could see my sweater's color right through this horse pin. 
    "Daddy.  If I wear a red blouse, will the red mane disappear?"  He didn't laugh at my question. I looked at his pale blue eyes and, as he often did, he looked right into mine then used an opportunity to quietly educate. 
    "Plastic.  It's a new, flexible material that will probably replace the bone buttons we use.  It's hard and durable, yet looks light..." His voice was pleasing, and he really was trying to tell me about an amazing inventive process but my mind only concentrated on my instantly loved horse-shaped pin.  
    I loved horses:  I painted them in oils, sketched them with crayons, rode them at the stables, shoveled manure to get an extra free hour ride, kept a real bit and stirrup on my sturdy red maple dresser, and fantasized owning one.  How did daddy always know what I wanted, since he bought me the paints and crayons, too. I leaned forward and hugged him, as only a nine year old can hug; he had the scent of Yardley after shave lotion.
    "Climb on," he whispered.  I put my tiny feet atop his shiny black leather oxfords, and we did the two-step into the kitchen so I could show my mom.  'Course, I thought, she'd be cooking, and doing all the busy things and might not take the time to notice, well, really notice, but this time she tossed a damp linen dishcloth over her shoulder and paused.
    "The future, dear?"  She shook her head at my daddy;  her snood seemed to bounce up and down.  "Think plastic will have any effect? We're not sure zippers will replace buttons on anything."
    "Mom," I whined.  "Look at my horse.  Who cares about plastic.  Daddy got me a see-through."
    So both looked into eachother's eyes, and smiled.  She did stop stirring soup or whatever she had been doing just to notice the wonderful pin.  And at least she didn't scold me for being too skinny to wear such a big thing, but I knew she'd use those starving-people-in-Europe to try to get me to eat more once dinner started.
    The pin wasn't cold, like metal.  It wasn't rough even where lines had been scratched into the material.  I couldn't bend it and it felt so pleasant and smooth to stroke. I knew I'd never use it for Potsy, even if I needed my luck changed, as my horse was too special to ever be dropped on cement during a hopscotch game.
    "Don't take it out for Potsy, as you did your mother's garnet brooch."   Daddy was a mind-reader, too! I'd just thought about that game. At least he never scolded me for opening up my mother's jewelry drawer, pulling out a sparkle pin that had a good, flat back, and tossing it on the sidewalk's Potsy game.  I didn't know the stones would fall out of the setting, or that the pin was 'real', whatever that meant since all things are real anyway, and I'd lost my sliver of slate.
    I tossed my head;  the barrette slipped out and my silky strands fell towards my face.  "Oh, Daddy. I'd never hurt my horse. Never."
    This was my horse to take care of, wear, enjoy, talk to, pretend with;  my daddy knew my dreams.
    My dad was forty-five years old when he passed away.  He didn’t see plastic molded into radios, sugar bowls, buttons, the 'future'; decades later, the National Museum of American History accessioned it.  I stood before the Pioneer Plastics Showcase in the Smithsonian Institution; my limp blonde strands were secured with pink barrettes and I could see bits of my reflection.  I touched the glass, leaving tiny imprints from my finger's swirls. I felt my feet on Daddy's shiny black shoes, moving in two-step tempo, and my hand moved to my chest as if to touch a large plastic horse-shaped pin.  I held back a giggle and confided to the shelf 'I never did get big enough for a pin that size.' I looked at its red mane, and the way the showcase-light made it even more see-through, and whispered “ Daddy some of my dreams came true.”

​

gobble, gobble ​

    "Another holiday."  I spoke to my dressing table mirror as if it could comment back at me.  "More family gatherings, yuk."
    "Come help me set the table,"  My mother called upstairs.
    "Okay,"  I sighed with the dramatic sound only a teenager can effectively make. As I was descending the stairs, I noticed my mother using her foot to smooth a spot where the rug was showing wear, as if she could erase the flaw.  Then she brushed some hair from her forehead. Her brow was moist from steam of boiling water churning in cast-iron pots. She adjusted the webbed hairnet she called a snood. As she walked back into the kitchen, the backless slippers slapped against her bare heels.
    "Here.  Twelve."  My mother pointed to porcelain plates ready to be placed on a white, starched, linen cloth covering the dining room table.  Sunlight was streaming in the room's east window.
    "Twelve."  I muttered.  "Take three hours to clean up!"
    "What?"
    "Nothing."
    "What're you going to be when you grow up?"  I began to imitate relatives. "Are you boy-crazy now that you're a teen?  Aren't you sweet to help your mama like this." I passed remarks to each plate I placed.  "Oh, I'm so glad you've all come to celebrate everything with us," I addressed the table. "Of course I'm telling the truth!"  I crossed my fingers then started to laugh.
    "What's so funny?"  My mother appeared. Tears were streaming down her rouged cheeks from onions her hands had been chopping.
    "Nothing, Mom.  It's turkey isn't it?"
    "Of course!"
    With a pair of tweezers, she pulled extra hairs from the turkey's skin.  It was tedious. Onions were frying in preparation for stuffing to be made with bread already soaking in bowls.  Idaho potatoes, carrots, green peppers were on a kitchen counter. It was a day's work preparing this meal.
    "Why's it always here?  For everything." I stated rather than questioned as I collected silverware from a drawer.
    "I never grew up in a house, Lois."
    "So what difference does that make?"
    "I love having family in my home."
    "Even if you did mind, you probably wouldn't admit it.  They're not even grateful! Never bring you candy or flowers or anything to say thank you.  Never get up and help serve, clean up, do dishes, vacuum the rug."
    "Enough!"  My mother sounded disturbed.  "What's to help? I have my daughter to help me!"  She began to chop green peppers with a frantic motion.
    Then she shared her girlhood holidays' daydream where her own decorated dining table had family sitting around making conversation, feeling pleased to share with one another, appreciating a beautifully cooked and presented meal.  The reality of house, for her, was glorious, but the gatherings, to my mind, weren't. I couldn’t imagine a tenement where she had to walk up four flights of stairs, share a bed with her sister, have no bathroom in the apartment but use a common one at the end of the floor’s hallway, sleep on a fire escape in the summer just to escape the indoor high temperature.  I hoped I wouldn’t have to hear that tale anymore. Didn’t sound like it could have been true even if she really never lied to me. 
    "Why can't relatives really care about one another without passing judgment or airing petty jealousies?"
    "Use the stemware goblets, Lois.  And stop complaining."
    "Complaining?"  I got defensive.  "I just don't see why someone else can't invite US and we can be guests without all the work.  What'd I say that was wrong?"
    A heavy sigh emitted from my mother's chest.  I knew her sigh meant 'end of discussion' and decided not to push her to a hostile state.  I stuck goblet stems between some fingers so more could be carried with one trip, then continued to set the table.
    "Gobble, gobble," my daughter pretended to sound like a turkey as she adjusted the tablecloth.  "How come we always have something here, so I get stuck with setting up and helping you put stuff in the dishwasher, and everything?"
    I grinned as I handed her those goblets that once belonged to my parents, and one day will belong to her.  Then I remembered those long-ago gatherings that seemed shallow and useless; they were a sharing of family.  Around my mother's table, people bonded, exchanged familiarities, were enthusiastic about upcoming celebrations, were comfortable enough to even speak of petty jealousies, quietly felt grateful for reaching another season.  To tell this to my daughter would sound like a lecture. I knew she'd understand one day. "There," I pointed to large linen napkins, somewhat stained from a generation of use, "use those; they were also my mother's."

©1996 The Jewish Press
reprinted 2007 Clear Mt.
​