Susan Sherman's Blog
February 21, 2012
The Sofa
My grandmother had a sofa, which I’m pretty sure she thought was the most beautiful piece of furniture she had ever seen. The idea that she owned such a piece must have been a continual source of pride for her judging by how she kept it entombed in a thick plastic cover that was never removed, not once, not even on every third Thursday when the Hadassah ladies came for cards. It had a high rosewood back, carved legs and was upholstered in white brocade that remained unblemished over the years, pristine; virginal even, frozen like Snow White in its sepulcher of clear plastic. I remember every detail because some time after my grandmother’s death, the sofa became mine.
I dropped out of college in my sophomore year and went to live with a guy I hardly knew in a little town about half way between Los Angeles and Palm Springs. The town was called Beaumont and we went there to work in a poultry processing plant owned by my father and uncle. Yes, these were questionable choices…dropping out of school, living with a guy whose sole possession was a pair of rubber boots and working in a chicken slaughter house, but I was young, stupid and driven by forces I didn’t understand.
We rented a house on seven acres of cherry trees and went to work in the plant. Unfortunately there was no work for us to do. They had all the employees they needed, so we were given make-work projects. My boyfriend was sent up on the hill to measure daily water levels in a waste pond and I was given the job of counting tools. After a while, he graduated to the maintenance crew and learned how to fix the machines that kept the ling going, while my job kept devolving, until eventually all I did was show up on Fridays to collect a pay check.
One day my uncle called me into his office and, while chickens squawked their last just outside his window, he asked me if I wanted my grandmother’s furniture. It was still in her apartment, even though she had died some years before. She and my grandfather had owned the building, but now it was being managed by a Russian lady from Kiev. I told him that of course we wanted it. We didn’t have much, only what we had managed to find at the Salvation Army, so we could do with a table and a lamp and maybe even a chair or two.
That weekend my uncle rented the biggest truck that U Haul had to offer, a twenty-four footer, and handed me the keys. Later that morning my boyfriend and I pulled up in front of the apartment building on Olympic Blvd in West Hollywood. It looked like a miniature castle with fake turrets and a fake hand-hewn stone façade. There was a smiling ceramic deer out front with broken ears, grazing on a dead lawn.
The door was answered by a round turnip of a woman, who didn’t seem too happy to see us. She said, without apology, that most of the furniture was gone. She didn’t offered an explanation, just that we were too late. Then she took us on a short tour of what was left, which wasn’t enough to fill even a corner of the truck. Even though she acted as if she couldn’t care less whether the furniture stayed or went, I knew that wasn’t true. I saw the wistful look in her eyes as we loaded the sofa up onto the truck.
We drove back, unloaded the truck and took the plastic off the sofa the moment we got it into the house. We sat down to test it out. It was comfortable. The cushions were stiff and the back offered just the right kind of support. When we got up, I noticed two dusty butt prints marring the white brocade. I tried to brush them off, but they were made of U Haul dust, dirt mixed with oil and they only smeared. A week later we got a dog, who loved to run through the seven muddy acres of cherry trees, bound through the screen door before I had a chance to open it and jump on the sofa. It didn’t take long before the fabric was ruined. After that I covered it in a madras bed spread, then a tartan blanket, and finally I tried my hand at re-upholstery. In the end, the sofa was abandoned in the back of the Salvation Army store with a note explaining that it still had life left in it and would be good for somebody.
It wasn’t until years later, long after I said good bye to the guy in the rubber boots, after I met my husband and my two wonderful step-kids, that I realized what I had lost in the back of that Salvation Army store. By then I was already working on the novel that would soon become The Little Russian, a story of survival, based on my grandmother’s life in Ukraine. My research led me back to the snows of Russia, to the pogroms of the Russian Civil War, to the grinding poverty and marginal subsistence, to the bloodshed and terror that gripped the country at a time of cataclysmic change. But mostly it led me to my grandmother’s story; the story of a young wife trapped in Little Russia at the beginning of World War I; a young mother’s struggle to keep her children alive through the war, the cold, the hunger and the terrifying uncertainties of war. The more I learned about the period, the more I realized what kind of a person my grandmother had to become in order to survive and to keep her children alive. She had to be brave, steely and resourceful. She had to be a survivor. I never knew that part of her. To me she was always the little round woman cooking in the kitchen. She was grandma who roasted chicken and got her hair done every Wednesday. She had a box full of costume jewelry, a mink stole and a gold watch. She certainly wasn’t the stuff of heroism, until I did my research…and then she was.
One day I was pouring over a book of old photographs, Before The Revolution, by Kyril Fitzlyon and Tatiana Browning when I saw the sofa on Page 86. “The naïve Empire style of armchairs and sofa is characteristic of much nineteenth-century Russian furniture.” It was in the sitting room of the country estate of Countess Brassovo. Think of it, my sofa in her sitting room. Well, it wasn’t exactly my sofa, because mine was a cheap knock-off from Ethan Allen. But there was probably enough of a resemblance to remind my grandmother of a time when everything was certain and she was safe in her well-appointed sitting room. It would have been before the two revolutions and the civil war, a time of privilege when she could sit on her comfortable sofa and ring for tea and honey cake.
Fifty years later I imagined her late at night, taking off the plastic cover and sitting down on the white brocade, running her fingers over the satiny surface while she hummed a dance tune from long ago. I wish I had kept that sofa entombed in its plastic cover, like a rose frozen in liquid nitrogen preserved under a glass dome. Perhaps knowing what I know now I could have sat on it, closed my eyes and heard the same dance tune playing in my head.
I dropped out of college in my sophomore year and went to live with a guy I hardly knew in a little town about half way between Los Angeles and Palm Springs. The town was called Beaumont and we went there to work in a poultry processing plant owned by my father and uncle. Yes, these were questionable choices…dropping out of school, living with a guy whose sole possession was a pair of rubber boots and working in a chicken slaughter house, but I was young, stupid and driven by forces I didn’t understand.
We rented a house on seven acres of cherry trees and went to work in the plant. Unfortunately there was no work for us to do. They had all the employees they needed, so we were given make-work projects. My boyfriend was sent up on the hill to measure daily water levels in a waste pond and I was given the job of counting tools. After a while, he graduated to the maintenance crew and learned how to fix the machines that kept the ling going, while my job kept devolving, until eventually all I did was show up on Fridays to collect a pay check.
One day my uncle called me into his office and, while chickens squawked their last just outside his window, he asked me if I wanted my grandmother’s furniture. It was still in her apartment, even though she had died some years before. She and my grandfather had owned the building, but now it was being managed by a Russian lady from Kiev. I told him that of course we wanted it. We didn’t have much, only what we had managed to find at the Salvation Army, so we could do with a table and a lamp and maybe even a chair or two.
That weekend my uncle rented the biggest truck that U Haul had to offer, a twenty-four footer, and handed me the keys. Later that morning my boyfriend and I pulled up in front of the apartment building on Olympic Blvd in West Hollywood. It looked like a miniature castle with fake turrets and a fake hand-hewn stone façade. There was a smiling ceramic deer out front with broken ears, grazing on a dead lawn.
The door was answered by a round turnip of a woman, who didn’t seem too happy to see us. She said, without apology, that most of the furniture was gone. She didn’t offered an explanation, just that we were too late. Then she took us on a short tour of what was left, which wasn’t enough to fill even a corner of the truck. Even though she acted as if she couldn’t care less whether the furniture stayed or went, I knew that wasn’t true. I saw the wistful look in her eyes as we loaded the sofa up onto the truck.
We drove back, unloaded the truck and took the plastic off the sofa the moment we got it into the house. We sat down to test it out. It was comfortable. The cushions were stiff and the back offered just the right kind of support. When we got up, I noticed two dusty butt prints marring the white brocade. I tried to brush them off, but they were made of U Haul dust, dirt mixed with oil and they only smeared. A week later we got a dog, who loved to run through the seven muddy acres of cherry trees, bound through the screen door before I had a chance to open it and jump on the sofa. It didn’t take long before the fabric was ruined. After that I covered it in a madras bed spread, then a tartan blanket, and finally I tried my hand at re-upholstery. In the end, the sofa was abandoned in the back of the Salvation Army store with a note explaining that it still had life left in it and would be good for somebody.
It wasn’t until years later, long after I said good bye to the guy in the rubber boots, after I met my husband and my two wonderful step-kids, that I realized what I had lost in the back of that Salvation Army store. By then I was already working on the novel that would soon become The Little Russian, a story of survival, based on my grandmother’s life in Ukraine. My research led me back to the snows of Russia, to the pogroms of the Russian Civil War, to the grinding poverty and marginal subsistence, to the bloodshed and terror that gripped the country at a time of cataclysmic change. But mostly it led me to my grandmother’s story; the story of a young wife trapped in Little Russia at the beginning of World War I; a young mother’s struggle to keep her children alive through the war, the cold, the hunger and the terrifying uncertainties of war. The more I learned about the period, the more I realized what kind of a person my grandmother had to become in order to survive and to keep her children alive. She had to be brave, steely and resourceful. She had to be a survivor. I never knew that part of her. To me she was always the little round woman cooking in the kitchen. She was grandma who roasted chicken and got her hair done every Wednesday. She had a box full of costume jewelry, a mink stole and a gold watch. She certainly wasn’t the stuff of heroism, until I did my research…and then she was.
One day I was pouring over a book of old photographs, Before The Revolution, by Kyril Fitzlyon and Tatiana Browning when I saw the sofa on Page 86. “The naïve Empire style of armchairs and sofa is characteristic of much nineteenth-century Russian furniture.” It was in the sitting room of the country estate of Countess Brassovo. Think of it, my sofa in her sitting room. Well, it wasn’t exactly my sofa, because mine was a cheap knock-off from Ethan Allen. But there was probably enough of a resemblance to remind my grandmother of a time when everything was certain and she was safe in her well-appointed sitting room. It would have been before the two revolutions and the civil war, a time of privilege when she could sit on her comfortable sofa and ring for tea and honey cake.
Fifty years later I imagined her late at night, taking off the plastic cover and sitting down on the white brocade, running her fingers over the satiny surface while she hummed a dance tune from long ago. I wish I had kept that sofa entombed in its plastic cover, like a rose frozen in liquid nitrogen preserved under a glass dome. Perhaps knowing what I know now I could have sat on it, closed my eyes and heard the same dance tune playing in my head.
November 30, 2011
Don't Fly With Me
The other day, my editor asked me if I wanted to go on a road trip and do some book signings up north. He thought we could drive up the 101, stop in a few bookstores, and I could blog about it.
I thought it was a great idea until he said he wanted to take his Volvo. That gave me pause. The trouble is I have a bad back and I’m used to my car, to the seat settings and the way the leather hugs my L4 and L5 vertebrae. I was worried that his seats would only have three or four positions. Mine has 32 and I can adjust it at will until I’m within a millimeter of perfection. I explained all this to him and about the plywood board I would need to firm up the lousy motel beds. But I assured him it wouldn’t be a problem, because I had my own rope to tie it up on the car. He paused briefly, and then called the whole thing off.
At first I was hurt. I’m very close to him. He more than an editor, he’s a good friend. We have the same sense of humor and I’m forever running down the battery on my cordless whenever we talk. I would do anything for him. I’ve battled traffic to go to one of his author’s book signings. I’ve worked through the night doing a final proof on my manuscript on the off chance he might need it. I even ate over a thousand calories at lunch once, because he likes Italian food. So, at first I was put off when he declined to go with me. But then after thinking about it, I realized he was right.
The truth is I don’t travel well. I don’t like leaving my husband, my dogs and my comfortable bed. Last summer I went to France to do some research on a book. My first stop was Montreal to pick up an old friend whom I talked into going because I like her and because she’s a whiz with maps. I had some trepidation about the plane ride to Canada. Not for the usual reasons, a fiery crash or air sickness, but because I would be sitting next to a stranger and it would be embarrassing to floss. I always floss after every meal. Actually, I floss after eating anything. In fact I’m flossing right now as I’m writing this. My dental hygienist is so proud of my teeth and gums that once she called in the other hygienist just to admire them.
My friend Berry lives in a charming house on an inlet of Lake Champlain. She’s a famous artist, who makes large environmental pieces using fire, clay and water. Her pieces have been shown in galleries and museums and in magazines all over the world. She is smart and wildly creative, but a lousy housekeeper. I know this because I’m a good one. Her fridge hasn’t been cleaned in years, and her stove is just as bad. She doesn’t believe in killing anything, so her lovely cottage is overrun with mice and daddy long legs. Among the wonderful art and period curios left to her by her mother, among the rubber snakes in the bathtub and the Mexican colored lights in the kitchen are mouse droppings, spider webs and dust bunnies the size of eggplants.
You might think this is going to be about an anal writer and a sloppy artist fighting all the way through France, but actually, we got along quite well. She didn’t mind waiting for me every morning while I spent 45 minutes stretching on the yoga mat that I had stuffed into my suitcase. She’s laid back; that’s the way of slobs. She didn’t mind being seen with me on the fashionable Parisian streets dressed like a beekeeper in my sun protective hat, long sleeves and gloves, walking with the aid of my alpine hiking sticks because I had pulled my Achilles tendon trekking in the Sierras. She put up with the laughter and the taunts from the passersby that only she could understand because her French is better than mine. Every night she’d patiently explain to some annoyed waiter how I wanted my sauce on the side along with my salad dressing, and ice and a slice of lemon with my sparkling water. She didn’t even mind driving while I sat in the backseat because the seats of our rented Jetta had only three positions. And, of course she had to navigate, because if it were left up to me, we’d still be there.
I could go on, but I think it’s clear that Berry was a saint. I was grateful for her company and I assumed she felt the same way. She never complained. So it came as quite a surprise when I called her the other day to invite her on another trip to Paris and she declined without hesitation, without even a nanosecond of thought. I suppose I was hurt at first, but then thinking it over, I realized it was probably for the best. After we hung up, I finished the last of my toast and tea, leaned back against my ultra firm lumbar support cushion, and flossed.
I thought it was a great idea until he said he wanted to take his Volvo. That gave me pause. The trouble is I have a bad back and I’m used to my car, to the seat settings and the way the leather hugs my L4 and L5 vertebrae. I was worried that his seats would only have three or four positions. Mine has 32 and I can adjust it at will until I’m within a millimeter of perfection. I explained all this to him and about the plywood board I would need to firm up the lousy motel beds. But I assured him it wouldn’t be a problem, because I had my own rope to tie it up on the car. He paused briefly, and then called the whole thing off.
At first I was hurt. I’m very close to him. He more than an editor, he’s a good friend. We have the same sense of humor and I’m forever running down the battery on my cordless whenever we talk. I would do anything for him. I’ve battled traffic to go to one of his author’s book signings. I’ve worked through the night doing a final proof on my manuscript on the off chance he might need it. I even ate over a thousand calories at lunch once, because he likes Italian food. So, at first I was put off when he declined to go with me. But then after thinking about it, I realized he was right.
The truth is I don’t travel well. I don’t like leaving my husband, my dogs and my comfortable bed. Last summer I went to France to do some research on a book. My first stop was Montreal to pick up an old friend whom I talked into going because I like her and because she’s a whiz with maps. I had some trepidation about the plane ride to Canada. Not for the usual reasons, a fiery crash or air sickness, but because I would be sitting next to a stranger and it would be embarrassing to floss. I always floss after every meal. Actually, I floss after eating anything. In fact I’m flossing right now as I’m writing this. My dental hygienist is so proud of my teeth and gums that once she called in the other hygienist just to admire them.
My friend Berry lives in a charming house on an inlet of Lake Champlain. She’s a famous artist, who makes large environmental pieces using fire, clay and water. Her pieces have been shown in galleries and museums and in magazines all over the world. She is smart and wildly creative, but a lousy housekeeper. I know this because I’m a good one. Her fridge hasn’t been cleaned in years, and her stove is just as bad. She doesn’t believe in killing anything, so her lovely cottage is overrun with mice and daddy long legs. Among the wonderful art and period curios left to her by her mother, among the rubber snakes in the bathtub and the Mexican colored lights in the kitchen are mouse droppings, spider webs and dust bunnies the size of eggplants.
You might think this is going to be about an anal writer and a sloppy artist fighting all the way through France, but actually, we got along quite well. She didn’t mind waiting for me every morning while I spent 45 minutes stretching on the yoga mat that I had stuffed into my suitcase. She’s laid back; that’s the way of slobs. She didn’t mind being seen with me on the fashionable Parisian streets dressed like a beekeeper in my sun protective hat, long sleeves and gloves, walking with the aid of my alpine hiking sticks because I had pulled my Achilles tendon trekking in the Sierras. She put up with the laughter and the taunts from the passersby that only she could understand because her French is better than mine. Every night she’d patiently explain to some annoyed waiter how I wanted my sauce on the side along with my salad dressing, and ice and a slice of lemon with my sparkling water. She didn’t even mind driving while I sat in the backseat because the seats of our rented Jetta had only three positions. And, of course she had to navigate, because if it were left up to me, we’d still be there.
I could go on, but I think it’s clear that Berry was a saint. I was grateful for her company and I assumed she felt the same way. She never complained. So it came as quite a surprise when I called her the other day to invite her on another trip to Paris and she declined without hesitation, without even a nanosecond of thought. I suppose I was hurt at first, but then thinking it over, I realized it was probably for the best. After we hung up, I finished the last of my toast and tea, leaned back against my ultra firm lumbar support cushion, and flossed.
Playing With Water
Last summer I traveled down the Brittany coast to do some research for a book. My last stop was a little resort right on the water called Port-des-Barques, a low rent version of my real destination, St Trojan les Bains, which was located across an inlet to the south. I stayed in this featureless little town because I was traveling with a friend who couldn’t pass up a bargain; and because it had been a long drive and I was too tired to argue.
Port-des-Barques was built on an inlet that was subject to the tides. During low tide the bay became a great expanse of exposed seabed, bare except for a few drying clumps of seaweed. I’m not a religious person, but there was something biblical about the glistening mud flats that stretched all the way to the horizon. The parting of the Red Sea came to mind, until I stepped out onto it and sank in up to my ankle.
Down the street from the hotel was a high jetty topped by a dirt road that led out to an island about a mile and half off shore. Late one afternoon, I walked down to the empty kiosk that stood at the beginning of the road. On one side a sign warned travelers that the jetty could be submerged at high tide. On the other side was a copy of the tide schedule, in French, with the hours of the day in military time. I tried to read it, but I’m no good at French or military time. Instead, I simply decided that the warning had to be an exaggeration. No tide could ever cover a jetty that high.
I started out with the intention of enjoying the long afternoon and exploring the island. The road had people on it and I suppose I found this reassuring. Crowds of them were coming back from the island carrying tote bags and blankets, all heading in the same direction, back the way I had come. I noticed one family with a little white dog and too many children. The mother kept scolding them for lagging behind. I couldn’t understand her words, but there was an edge to her voice as she picked up her pace and led the charge back to the mainland.
More families strolled by, groups of teenagers jostling one another, couples holding hands, all heading back to the shore. Eventually, the crowds began to thin to one or two stragglers, and then I was alone. It was nice, quiet, with only the sharp cries of the seabirds to break the silence. I was just settling into the solitude when I spotted an older couple in the distance coming towards me, half-walking, half-jogging down the road. The woman was out of breath and struggling to keep up. At one point she dropped her book and stooped to pick it up, but her husband pulled her along before she could reach it. When they were within earshot he called out to me in rapid French. He was gesturing to the horizon and saying something about visitors or perhaps a visit. I recognized the word, rapides, quick. I shrugged helplessly trying to explain in my atrocious accent that I only spoke a little French, un peu plus. Of course, he was trying to warn me about the tide. These French vacationers seemed obsessed with it.
I was nearly to the island when I found the jelly fish on the road. It was a big surprise finding them there, stretched out on the gravel, baking in the late afternoon sun, ten or twelve in all sizes. There was only one way they could have gotten there. The ocean had carried them in and stranded them when the tide went out. I poked at one with my walking stick and found the body hard and impenetrable, not like jelly at all.
Of course, I had to turn right around. Here was proof that the sign at the kiosk had been right. The tide was high enough to submerge the jetty. I like to think that over the years I had learned a thing or two about admitting my mistakes, cutting my losses and moving on. A long miserable marriage teaches you a lot, but especially about giving up and walking away from a bad situation.
A car zoomed by and crushed a jelly fish. It was heading towards the mainland, going crazy fast. I stood there among the hardening jellies and gazed at the island. I could see the individual leaves on the trees; I was that close. It was only about three hundred yards down the road. Up ahead there was a sign, perhaps a commemorative plaque marking an historic spot. It stood where the road met the island. That spot, that very plaque, was my destination, my goal, the end of my journey. I had set out to reach the island and there it was. I turned and searched the mud flats for a glittery line of water in the distance. Nothing. In three hundred yards I could be at that sign. A five minute walk. In five minutes I could finish what I had set out to do and claim my victory. Now, that would be something.
Port-des-Barques was built on an inlet that was subject to the tides. During low tide the bay became a great expanse of exposed seabed, bare except for a few drying clumps of seaweed. I’m not a religious person, but there was something biblical about the glistening mud flats that stretched all the way to the horizon. The parting of the Red Sea came to mind, until I stepped out onto it and sank in up to my ankle.
Down the street from the hotel was a high jetty topped by a dirt road that led out to an island about a mile and half off shore. Late one afternoon, I walked down to the empty kiosk that stood at the beginning of the road. On one side a sign warned travelers that the jetty could be submerged at high tide. On the other side was a copy of the tide schedule, in French, with the hours of the day in military time. I tried to read it, but I’m no good at French or military time. Instead, I simply decided that the warning had to be an exaggeration. No tide could ever cover a jetty that high.
I started out with the intention of enjoying the long afternoon and exploring the island. The road had people on it and I suppose I found this reassuring. Crowds of them were coming back from the island carrying tote bags and blankets, all heading in the same direction, back the way I had come. I noticed one family with a little white dog and too many children. The mother kept scolding them for lagging behind. I couldn’t understand her words, but there was an edge to her voice as she picked up her pace and led the charge back to the mainland.
More families strolled by, groups of teenagers jostling one another, couples holding hands, all heading back to the shore. Eventually, the crowds began to thin to one or two stragglers, and then I was alone. It was nice, quiet, with only the sharp cries of the seabirds to break the silence. I was just settling into the solitude when I spotted an older couple in the distance coming towards me, half-walking, half-jogging down the road. The woman was out of breath and struggling to keep up. At one point she dropped her book and stooped to pick it up, but her husband pulled her along before she could reach it. When they were within earshot he called out to me in rapid French. He was gesturing to the horizon and saying something about visitors or perhaps a visit. I recognized the word, rapides, quick. I shrugged helplessly trying to explain in my atrocious accent that I only spoke a little French, un peu plus. Of course, he was trying to warn me about the tide. These French vacationers seemed obsessed with it.
I was nearly to the island when I found the jelly fish on the road. It was a big surprise finding them there, stretched out on the gravel, baking in the late afternoon sun, ten or twelve in all sizes. There was only one way they could have gotten there. The ocean had carried them in and stranded them when the tide went out. I poked at one with my walking stick and found the body hard and impenetrable, not like jelly at all.
Of course, I had to turn right around. Here was proof that the sign at the kiosk had been right. The tide was high enough to submerge the jetty. I like to think that over the years I had learned a thing or two about admitting my mistakes, cutting my losses and moving on. A long miserable marriage teaches you a lot, but especially about giving up and walking away from a bad situation.
A car zoomed by and crushed a jelly fish. It was heading towards the mainland, going crazy fast. I stood there among the hardening jellies and gazed at the island. I could see the individual leaves on the trees; I was that close. It was only about three hundred yards down the road. Up ahead there was a sign, perhaps a commemorative plaque marking an historic spot. It stood where the road met the island. That spot, that very plaque, was my destination, my goal, the end of my journey. I had set out to reach the island and there it was. I turned and searched the mud flats for a glittery line of water in the distance. Nothing. In three hundred yards I could be at that sign. A five minute walk. In five minutes I could finish what I had set out to do and claim my victory. Now, that would be something.
Making My Father Float
I taught my father to water jog during the last summer he was able to go into the pool. Arthritis had weakened his legs to such an extent that it was all he could do to shuffle around the deck behind his walker. It wasn’t easy getting him into the water. He didn’t like it. It was too cold and the steps were difficult. He thought of them as his enemy. He never knew if they would let him out again or keep him a prisoner in the icy depths. That was his term, the icy depths, even though they had just installed a new solar unit on top of the roof that was keeping the water around 87 degrees.
I reminded my father that if I couldn’t get him out of the pool, I could always call the paramedics. He hated to call them even when he was down and couldn’t get up. “I’d rather miss that performance, if you don’t mind,” he grumbled. By performance he meant the ballet of powerful arms and legs, calves and quads, biceps and triceps, not unlike his own of thirty years ago, that would show up at his door and haul him out of whatever trap the world had laid for him that day. His enemies where everywhere: slippery tile on the bathroom floor, the garden hose carelessly left lying across the path by the gardener, the uneven brickwork on the walkway; they were all out to get him. My father did not go into old age comfortably. He had been a banker who had financed a building boom; now he was shuffling behind a Medline Rollator Walker and he was pissed.
I strapped a flotation belt around my father’s waist and helped him into the pool. He complained that it was freezing, even though it was a hot day and the water was hovering just above ninety. He didn’t like the belt because it kept riding up over his waist, so I tightened it and told him to stop leaning back. I assured him that there was no chance he was going to tip over and drown. He was wearing a flotation device in four feet of water and I was right there beside him. He fought it for a while, but eventually relaxed into it and managed to keep his legs under his hips and sit upright in the water. Once he got the hang of it, we pedaled around for a while in the deep end with nothing much to say.
“Tell me the Grandma Bessie stories,” I said to fill the dead air.
I didn’t really need to hear them. I had been hearing them my whole life from my grandmother and from others in the family. They were stories of survival, of luck, good and bad, of opulence and poverty and narrow escapes. My father knew I’d heard them all, so instead he told me a story that took place in 1933, in a small northern Wisconsin town. It was about a boy who was at a loss because his fifth grade teacher had assigned the class a special show and tell. They were to bring in an heirloom that illustrated something about their family’s history. But his family didn’t have any heirlooms. Everything had been lost in the Russian Civil War.
His mother told him there was nothing to worry about. All he had to do was tell them one of her stories and that would be good enough. He was skeptical. He didn’t see how any story would be good enough, especially when he saw the cameos, lockets and photographs the other kids brought in that day. When his name was called, he forced himself to make the long journey up to the front of the class, convinced that he was about to be humiliated. He had heard this particular story so many times before that he didn’t think much of it.
He knew every twist and turn and couldn’t even remember when the ending had been a surprise. But to his relief the class quieted down only a few minutes into the story. Even before he got to Mosny, the boys had stopped fidgeting. By the time he got to the town square the girls were no longer whispering and giggling. All eyes were on him. He was making an impression.
A few days later his teacher asked him to tell another story. He told the one about his mother singing for the czar. Soon there were more stories. Other classes crowded in to hear them. Kids brought him cookies from home. He was invited to all the birthday parties. By winter he was a star at Rice Lake Grammar school.
When the stories ran out at the end of the semester, he seriously considered making up more. He knew his mother wouldn’t mind. Bessie Sherman née Berta Lorkis Alshonsky was a great storyteller. And like great storytellers everywhere, she never let the truth get in the way.
I reminded my father that if I couldn’t get him out of the pool, I could always call the paramedics. He hated to call them even when he was down and couldn’t get up. “I’d rather miss that performance, if you don’t mind,” he grumbled. By performance he meant the ballet of powerful arms and legs, calves and quads, biceps and triceps, not unlike his own of thirty years ago, that would show up at his door and haul him out of whatever trap the world had laid for him that day. His enemies where everywhere: slippery tile on the bathroom floor, the garden hose carelessly left lying across the path by the gardener, the uneven brickwork on the walkway; they were all out to get him. My father did not go into old age comfortably. He had been a banker who had financed a building boom; now he was shuffling behind a Medline Rollator Walker and he was pissed.
I strapped a flotation belt around my father’s waist and helped him into the pool. He complained that it was freezing, even though it was a hot day and the water was hovering just above ninety. He didn’t like the belt because it kept riding up over his waist, so I tightened it and told him to stop leaning back. I assured him that there was no chance he was going to tip over and drown. He was wearing a flotation device in four feet of water and I was right there beside him. He fought it for a while, but eventually relaxed into it and managed to keep his legs under his hips and sit upright in the water. Once he got the hang of it, we pedaled around for a while in the deep end with nothing much to say.
“Tell me the Grandma Bessie stories,” I said to fill the dead air.
I didn’t really need to hear them. I had been hearing them my whole life from my grandmother and from others in the family. They were stories of survival, of luck, good and bad, of opulence and poverty and narrow escapes. My father knew I’d heard them all, so instead he told me a story that took place in 1933, in a small northern Wisconsin town. It was about a boy who was at a loss because his fifth grade teacher had assigned the class a special show and tell. They were to bring in an heirloom that illustrated something about their family’s history. But his family didn’t have any heirlooms. Everything had been lost in the Russian Civil War.
His mother told him there was nothing to worry about. All he had to do was tell them one of her stories and that would be good enough. He was skeptical. He didn’t see how any story would be good enough, especially when he saw the cameos, lockets and photographs the other kids brought in that day. When his name was called, he forced himself to make the long journey up to the front of the class, convinced that he was about to be humiliated. He had heard this particular story so many times before that he didn’t think much of it.
He knew every twist and turn and couldn’t even remember when the ending had been a surprise. But to his relief the class quieted down only a few minutes into the story. Even before he got to Mosny, the boys had stopped fidgeting. By the time he got to the town square the girls were no longer whispering and giggling. All eyes were on him. He was making an impression.
A few days later his teacher asked him to tell another story. He told the one about his mother singing for the czar. Soon there were more stories. Other classes crowded in to hear them. Kids brought him cookies from home. He was invited to all the birthday parties. By winter he was a star at Rice Lake Grammar school.
When the stories ran out at the end of the semester, he seriously considered making up more. He knew his mother wouldn’t mind. Bessie Sherman née Berta Lorkis Alshonsky was a great storyteller. And like great storytellers everywhere, she never let the truth get in the way.
