The Epic Tale of the Life of a Pencil: Part 4 of 9

Then one day a young man sat down beside the bench.  The pencil thought this was most unusual because most people sat on the bench and not beside it.  But the young man carried great pads of papers and set those on the bench instead as he stared up at the frolicking birds.  

It was late in spring and most of the pencil's bird friends were furiously competing to impress their potential mates.  The young man was enthralled by the sight of all the wild birds swooping and diving in ever more nimble aerial dances.  So much so that he did not notice the approach of one of the pencil's older friends.  A haggard old bird that was well past the age of lively acrobatic displays, but he still loved to sing for his old pencil friend just has he had every day of his life.  Timidly, he approached the pencil nestled in the grass so near to the strange man.  And steeling himself for this giant creature's reaction, the old bird sang the pencil's favorite lullaby.  The same lullaby his father had taught him to sing to the pencil when he was a just a chick, just as his father had taught before that.

Startled from his reverie by the lovely tune, the young man looked down into the grass just in time to see the frightened old bird flutter away disappointedly.  But there beneath the grass, the young artist spied the pencil just poking up out of the soil.  He reached down and released the pencil from its grimy hiding spot.  Taking a moment to wipe the years of dirt and sand from the pencil, the artist was astounded by the uniqueness of this pencil which the old bird had drawn to his attention.

It was long and elegant as many other pencils, except that it possessed the slightest curve at one end, barely perceptible to even his trained eye.  As the artist placed his sinewy find in his hand, he was amazed at how natural the pencil felt cradled between his fingers.  Other pencils had always caused his hand to cramp after a short while, with their rigidly straight lines.  But this pencil settled into place easily, caressing his hand like an old lover.

Immediately the young artist began to draw on the stack of pages piled on the bench before him.  Inspired, he drew great sweeping strokes, tracing the flights of the birds that had so enraptured him just moments before.  He drew the sharp angled planes of the bench that once hid and protected his new treasure.  He shaded and stippled and cross-hatched for hours on that park bench without tiring in the least.  When every last page before him lay covered with new sketches and the sun eked out its last rays over the park, the artist finally stood, stretching his stiff legs.

The artist was ready to head home after feeling the lateness of the day in his sore legs and back.  But he was surprised at the lack of pain in his drawing hand and wrist.  Quite the contrary, his entire arm felt refreshed and invigorated by the hours he had spent over his designs.  Thrilled with his new tool, the artist gathered up his papers and safely tucked the pencil into his breast pocket, the better to keep his new love close to his heart.

Meanwhile, the pencil felt both exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.  It had never known that it could make such wild careening curves across a page.  Nor that it could stretch out lines across the sheets, back and forth and back and forth again, without ever being lifted from the paper.  Excited by the seemingly endless possibilities, the pencil snuggled into the artist's pocket, eager to explore these new vistas. If only after a short rest first.

But that rest proved to be short lived.  For upon returning to the artist's home, the pencil was bombarded with an array of sights, sounds, and smells it had never beheld before.  There seemed to be a great party afoot.  There were beautiful women in brightly colored clothes with great plumes of feathers and sparkling jewelry adorning every limb.  The pencil heard a constant, if irregular, tinkling of glasses clinked together in toast after toast, each interspersed with coy giggles and great bellowing laughter.  A heady aroma of spiced meats, mulled wines, and sweet breads wafted through every room mixing with the ladies' heavy perfume which barely masked the carnal musk exuded by the people there.

Delighted by the sight of his jubilant friends, the artist dove into the revelry with the wide-eyed pencil still tucked neatly into his breast pocked.  The evening stretched on and the party slowly quieted as two by two, couples paired off to disappear into one of the many private rooms down the hall.  Until finally the artist was left alone with his own lady friend.  It was then that the artist finally pulled the pencil from the safety of his coat pocket.  

There stood on an easel before the artist the greatest sheet of canvas the pencil had ever seen.  It was as tall as the artist himself and twice again as wide.  The sheer blankness of the canvas stood before the artist as intimidating as its size.  But armed with his new pencil, the artist rallied his spirits and calmed his fears. And there, just behind the easel, sat the beautiful lady from the party, reposed in her most natural of states.

The artist began sketching his model to the clean white sheet, unwearied despite the lateness of the hour. With trembling fingers, the artist traced the elegant curves of the woman's body onto his canvas.  Over and over he sketched her form, stopping periodically to check the proportions, determined to capture only the perfections from her beauty.  

As dawn broke, the artist paid the fine lady for her labors and finally collapsed from exhaustion into a heap on the floor, the pencil still clutched gently in his hand.  There on the canvas stood the results of the artist's night's labor: a single perfectly sketched foot.  The artist slept soundly, quite proud of the evenings accomplishments.

The next evening brought a new party, with new ladies, each more exquisite than the next.  And again the artist employed the greatest of them all to serve as model for some small part of his Venus.  Night after night the cycle continued without end as he worked himself to the brink of fatigue with the wonderful pencil that swept away his weariness.

Until finally the sketch was complete with each and every detail painstakingly laid out on the canvas.  Finally satisfied with the drawing, the artist set aside his trusty pencil and pulled out his paints to give his creation the color and depth it deserved.  Poking out from a tiny corner of the studio, the pencil watched in awe as the composition whose creation it had aided began to burst forth from the painting.  The swirling curves became rosy cheeks, the shaded crevasses became shadowy depths, the angular strokes became sharpened corners.

The sun dawned early one midsummer morning as the artist put brush to canvas one final time.  The artist's shoulders slumped from his Herculean efforts to complete the portrait.  He knew without a doubt that he had finally completed the greatest work of his life.  As he stepped back to admire his painting as a while and completed piece, the artist accidentally bumped into the table where the currently unused tools of his trade were stored.  The pencil was jarred from the safety of its perch in the corner where it fell onto an unused palette knife waiting below.  The trajectory of its fall was such that the pencil let out the humblest of screams as the knife etched an indelible gash along the entirety of its side.

Startled at his own clumsiness, the artist quickly spun around to survey the damage to his wares. He carefully inspected each brush handle, pen tip, and knife point as he returned them to their storage place while cleaning up his mess.  Lastly he came upon his magic pencil which had enabled him to work through so many nights without fatigue thanks to her special shape.

Horrified by the violence wrought upon its gently sloping side, the artist tried not to look at the ugly scar which stretch along its length.  But no matter how hard he squeezed his eyes shut, his hand could not escape the feel of the notched curve slicing into his fingers.  His once flawless beauty was now marred beyond repair.

With tears pouring down his eyes, the artist carried his deformed pencil down the long hallway and into one of the many private rooms.  He left it there on a table beside the bed in hopes that his lost pencil could at least enjoy the beauties offered by the building's nightly rituals.

There the pencil sat, appreciating the nightly parade of ladies, each lovelier than the last, reminding him of the wonderful nights it spent with the artist crafting a vision from the the most beautiful of the ladies.  It knew that it was a very lucky pencil to have been chosen to create such vivid illustrations.  And if it never got a chance to sketch another stroke, then it would consider itself to have lived a long and fruitful life.

The Epic Tale of the Life of a Pencil: Parts 1, 2, & 3 of 9

A long long time ago there lived a great tree deep in the heart of the Black Forest of old Germany.  This was the most magnificent tree in all the forest as it stood head and shoulders above all the other trees. Its branches spread out far and wide engulfing all the smaller trees nearby.  Its broad green leaves beamed up at the sun soaking in her daily rays.  Its roots delved deep into the earth drinking in the buried waters from ancient rains.
One day a man came into the forest with an axe in his calloused hands.  He stood gawking before the great tree in silence, awed by her majesty.  He then humbly knelt before the tree and prayed for its blessing, "Dear Glorious Tree, I am but a poor woodsman and carver.  But if you will grant me the gift of your wood, I swear, by all that I am, that I shall create the finest crafts the world has ever seen to befit your grandeur."
Touched by the penitence of the man's words, the tree decided it was better to share its wondrous gifts with the world rather than spend all its days reigning over the lonely forest.  Without a second thought the tree promptly drew up its roots and came crashing down onto the floor of the forest below.
Shocked by the sudden uproar, the wood carver leaped up from his prone position and stared with jaws gaping at the sight of the once magnificent tree now sadly keeled over on its side. He stood perplexed for a moment, careful not to tumble into the massive crater left by the tree's once intricate root system. Finally realizing that the tree had heard and answered his prayer, the wood carver bowed before the great fallen trunk to thank the tree for its tremendous sacrifice.  Then, true to his word, the man set about chopping up the tree to return the pieces home and begin the monumental task of carving the innumerable crafts suitable to honor the tree's memory.
Upon returning home with his bounty the wood carver wasted no time in crafting many fine wares.  He made walking canes for old men, and rocking horses for young boys; broad flat planks for bookshelves and intricate detailed clocks for cuckoo birds; large stately desks and tiny fanciful chess pieces.  He chipped and chiseled and cleaved until his calloused hands cracked and bled, and then he carved some more.
Each time the wood carver emerged from his workshop to deliver his wares to market, the villagers there would hail his latest creation as the best one yet.  Until he returned the next day with an even better craft, sculpted, shaped, and sliced to utter perfection.
The poor wood carver grew very famous from his work.  Townsfolk would gather in his tiny village from hundreds of miles away to buy a piece, any piece created by such an artisan.  Whenever one of his many satisfied customers would complement his on his outstanding work, the wood carver would merely bow his head and say, "Don't thank me, for the power and the beauty is in the wood."
The wood carver spent his whole life sculpting goods from the wood of the great tree.  He made enough profits from selling his crafts to easily provide for his wife and many children.  As he grew into an old man, he decided it was time to retire.  After all, he had used up nearly all of the wood from that enormous tree and was left with a single slender twig plucked from the very top of the tree where the oldest wood had grown.
As the man sat staring at this twig pondering what he could possibly carve out of it or even if his hands still had the strength to complete it, he began to reminisce about his life and the many blessings he had received thanks to the sacrifice of that grand old tree.  Remembering his oath to the tree on that bright spring day so many years ago renewed his resolve. He set to work one final time, determined to create a final masterpiece that would outshine all of his previous works combined.
The old carver rushed to his workshop flushed with inspiration.  He worked tirelessly and for three days and three nights he neither ate, nor drank, nor slept for he was so inflamed with the passion of his life's work.  Finally, exhausted from his efforts the old carver came staggering from his workshop.  Breathless from his exertions he collapsed into his aged wife's arms.  "I've done it. I've finally finished it," he whispered as his heaving chest rattled on his last breath.  The carver's wife wept over her dead husband's body and she looked down to find what had driven him to the brink of his own life.  There, clutched with both hands to his breast, was his final creation: a long, slender pencil.

Now this was no ordinary pencil.  Its delicate tip was finely shaved to a perfect point.  Its shaft stood true and straight as an arrow.  Longer than most pencils of its day, this pencil was sure to have a long and fruitful life.
Still despondent over the loss of her husband, the carver's wife could hardly stand the sight of the pencil.  While it's true that this was certainly the most beautiful pencil ever created, it merely served as a dreadful reminder of her husband's death.
One day she saw a young monk traveling along the road to study at the local monastery.  She ran up to him and pressed the lithe pencil gently into his hands saying, "You are a young and pious man.  Take this gift from my late husband.  May it bring you blessings, for I can only see it as a curse now."
The monk looked at the gift the old woman had bestowed on him and was amazed at the beauty that was infused in this fine pencil.  Taking it as a sign, the monk was instilled with new sense of purpose.
Upon arriving at the monastery the monk was given the task of illuminating manuscripts for the Holy Bible.  Diving into his charge with great zeal, the monk would often stay up late into the night illustrating the great miracles of saints or terrible tribulations of martyrs with the elegant tip of his pencil.  He drew and drew, painstakingly copying the illuminated works.  All the other monks worked tirelessly by his side, but none of them could imbue their manuscripts with the same level of beauty and piety as the young monk with the very special pencil.
Until one morning when the monk arrived at his desk, he looked down at his beloved pencil and realized that he had been using it for so long and drawn so many wonderful illustrations with it, that the tip had worn down to a tiny little nub.  Dispirited at the sad sight of his inspiration, the monk cried tears of regret.  While the monk cherished his pencil and the luminescent drawings it produced, he abhorred the thought of placing blade to wood for fear of permanently damaging the sweet little pencil and forever destroying the exquisiteness it exuded.  In a fit of teary-eyed frustration he cast the pencil aside where it rolled across the room into a crack in the floorboards beneath the organist's seat.
And there the little pencil sat pondering the stories it had helped to write.  While it was still a very young pencil, it knew that it was very lucky to have been chosen to copy the words of such an important text.  And if it never got the chance to write another word, then it would consider itself to have lived a long and fruitful life.

Years passed and still the little pencil sat happily wedged between the floorboards of the old church. Until one day a young musician was sitting in front of a piano where the church's old pipe organ used to rest.  He was desperately trying to complete one of his compositions, but couldn't get the ending quite right and needed to make additional notes.  He searched through all of his pockets, books, papers, and other belongings but had completely forgotten to pack a pencil.  While scrounging around he happened to spy the little pencil wedged between the floorboards just under his seat.
Delighted at his luck, the musician snatched the pencil from its age old hiding spot and quickly resharpened it.  As he listened to the creaking of the razor against the grain of the pencil's wood, the composer was struck by the natural melody emanating from the slender beauty.  Enraptured by his discovery, the composer continued to sharpen his newfound prize until the once dull nub of a tip was restored once again to a razor sharp point.
The composer quickly began making notes on his sheet music.  Line after line was worked and reworked as the composer furiously rewrote his entire concerto, inspired by the simple pleasure of sharpening his new pencil.  The pencil, meanwhile, was overjoyed at finding a new friend.  Moreover, the pencil was enchanted by this new type of writing it was asked to complete: a fantastic array of dots and dashes that scaled up and down a regimented set of parallel lines.  Finally the composer sat down to play the piece that he and his new friend had worked to complete.  Both the composer and the pencil were enchanted by the melodious tune that the sharpened pencil inspired.
The composer was ecstatic with the results and quickly snatched up his books and notes as well as his new pencil which he jubilantly kissed before tucking into his satchel.  The musician then rushed from the old church, inspiring pencil in tow, to share his brilliant composition with the world.
Together they traveled from town to town, then city to city, playing the opus which the pencil had stirred. Having spent most of its life stuck in the stuffy old church, the pencil was enthralled by the wonders of the world it witnessed.  There were fine concert halls stuffed with people and ornate candelabras hanging from the ceiling; small intimate homes with ages of family portraits hanging from the walls; once there was even a small orphanage with grubby faced children skittering about.
Feeling lucky have explored so many exotic new places, the pencil didn't mind when the musician kept it up all night scribbling new notes to scores of new symphonies.  It didn't mind that the musician's fervor got him so aroused that his hands seemed to burn the pencil's wood with the heat of his passion.  It didn't mind that the musician's grip was so tight that the grains in the pencil's wood begin to warp and skew under the pressure.
Then one early spring evening the composer pulled out his trusty pencil to sharpen it again and draw inspiration anew from its charming call.  But after so many years of being held in the fiery vise of the musician's hand, the lovely pencil was no longer straight and tall as in its youth.  So this time when the composer set razor to tip, the pencil released an off key crunch instead of its usual melodic croon.  The musician was shocked and dismayed by the discordant peal emanating from his once beloved pencil.  Saddened by the loss of his old compatriot, the musician walked to his favorite park where the chirping birds reminded him of the melodies his pencil once drew.  There he reverently left the pencil beneath a park bench, hoping for his pencil's sake that one of the birds might pity it enough to weave it into their nest so it could always listen to the chirping tunes of the birds.
The pencil sat for many years beneath the park bench listening to the chirping of the birds and marveling at their calls.  Each spring they would gather to serenade the little pencil before fluttering off to find a mate for the season.  Then summer would rush in with a wave of heat as the birds scurried and fluttered about to feed their young chicks.  Until fall arrived and one by one the nests emptied as each flock headed south for the winter.  Winters were the loneliest times for the pencil, covered by a muffling blanket of snow and abandoned by his bird friends.  The pencil sat and waited for spring to return along with his bird friends, pondering the meanings behind the beautiful music it once helped to create.  It knew that it was a very lucky pencil to have been chosen to create such moving arias.  And if it never got a chance to write another note, then it would consider itself to have lived a long and fruitful life.  Year after year passed and still the little pencil sat happily hidden beneath the park bench.

Kimberly and the Carlsbad Caverns

When my parents were young, my Dad enlisted in the Air Force to avoid being drafted into Vietnam.  One of the places he was stationed was Holloman Air Force base, where Kimberly, my older sister, was born.  Being new parents while stationed half-way across the country from their own families was tough.  So to stave off the feelings of loneliness and isolation, they made a habit of taking frequent trips to various landmarks around the area.  They figured they may as well make the best of what they had.
The trouble is, it was New Mexico.  There's just not a whole lot to see out there besides windswept deserts and the occasional top secret spy plane flying over Roswell.  But there are a lot of National Parks with forests, mountains, and even some intricate cave systems.  Luckily, Carlsbad Caverns, one of the largest and most prolific cave systems in North America, was only a 3 hour drive away from the base.  So once their newborn baby daughter was old enough to make the trip, they packed up the car and headed out on a fine spring day.
Upon arrival they signed up for a ranger guided tour through the caves.  Now, since you can't roll a stroller through the rocky terrain of a cave, Dad had brought along a baby backpack to carry my sister down.  So before they set off into the caverns, Dad loaded up Kimberly onto his back while Mom wrapped her up in a little baby jacket and bonnet to keep her warm in the chilly cave system.  Fully prepared for the hike down to the cavern's Underground Lunchroom and visitor center, the tour group set off following the park ranger single file down the trail.  Dad descended into the caves first with Kimberly strapped safely to his back while Mom followed right behind him to keep an eye on her baby daughter.
The tour group was about halfway through their 750 foot descent into the cavern when Mom looked up from her exertions to see Kimberly happily cooing and giggling as she played with her bonnet.  It was a simple summer cap with a frilly laced brim and a single elastic cord that wrapped around Kimberly's chin to hold it in place.  She had managed somehow to slip her chubby little hand underneath that elastic band and was merrily tugging on it, giggling with delight to feel it tugging back against her.  Kimberly was evidently feeling quite macho that day because she then decided to stretch that poor elastic band as far as it could possibly go when suddenly...
SNAP!  ...mmmbbbwwwaaaAAAHHH!!!!
The band had slipped through her tiny fingers right when it was stretched to the brink and come flying back at the infant, popping her square in the mouth.  Never before has such a happy cooing baby switched so quickly to such ear-piercing irate screams.
As her squalling echoed off the cavern walls, the tour group began to notice that the high-pitched wails were not dying out as you might expect, but instead were growing louder, more urgent, and higher pitched.  Such screeching could not possibly be emanating from the voice of this young child.
Carlsbad caverns is home to over 17 different species of bats.  A recent survey counted over 700,000 individual bats resident in the caverns at once.  In her cries of fear and pain, Kimberly had somehow hit an octave that the bats recognized as a child in distress and all 700,000 of them came flying down from their roosts to rescue the young one.
As the bats began swooping down to attack the tour group, the ranger gave orders for everyone to immediately duck and cover to protect their eyes and faces from the claws of the assailing bats.  Dad, being the well trained military man that he was, quickly followed orders and hunched over to avoid the assault.  Unfortunately, he did so with Kimberly still strapped firmly to his back.  So as he bent down to escape the onslaught, Kimberly was hoisted up to face a rushing tide of screeching, fur-covered, claw-tipped leathery wings.  This did not improve her mood in the slightest and her now panicked cries only served to incite the bats further.
Seeing her child in distress and now exceptionally vulnerable to the attacking bats, Mom leapt into action.  She jumped from her own prone position onto Dad's back while wildly batting at the bats with both arms.  Dad, already unbalance by his own crouched position, was further upended by the flailing weight of Mom upon his thoroughly unprepared back.  In short order the trio went tumbling down the trail until their decline was finally halted by a pair of looming stalagmites.
Luckily, in the tumult Kimberly's cries were finally muffled by the weight of her parents' bodies; reassuring the bats that the alarm had been resolved so they could finally retreat back to their roosts.  Needless to say, after checking that everyone in the tour group had survived relatively unscathed, the park ranger immediately escorted my sheepish parents out of the caverns.
That is why, to this day, children under the age of 3 are not allowed into Carlsbad Caverns.

Uncle Alan and the Coat of Many Arms

My Uncle Alan was the shy introvert you would expect from the typical budding young artist.  Blessed with a soft spoken and easy going nature, Uncle Alan was hardly ever in trouble at school and usually managed to blend in well with his peers.  So it was with much shock and surprise when his mother received an irate phone call from his art teacher.
Not only was she surprised by the uncharacteristic nature of the call, but also because art was his favorite subject in school.  Uncle Alan struggled with the traditional academic classes due to a mild, yet undiagnosed case of dyslexia.  But art class was a place where he could harness his incredible creative talents and really shine like nowhere else in his life.  Every day when Uncle Alan came home from school and his mother would ask about what he had learned that day, he would literally gush about some new project they were working on or new technique they were studying in his art class.  His love for the class wasn't merely limited to the subject matter either.  For every amiable word he had for the class, Uncle Alan found two for the extraordinary mentor he found in his teacher.
"Mrs. Newsome, I need you to come to the school immediately!" the teacher fumed over the phone line, "You need to see what your son, Alan, has done and explain to him that I will not tolerate that level of insubordination in my class."
"Alan?" his mother replied, "I've never known him to harm a fly or speak out of turn to anyone.  Are you sure it's not Kevin?"  Uncle Kevin was his eldest brother and already had a notoriously infamous reputation for his stubborn defiance of any sort of authority.  That combined with his overdeveloped sense of responsibility to stand up to bullies who might pick on his timid baby brothers had led to more than a few fights at school and twice as many phone calls from the principal's office.  After reassuring her that it was indeed her son, Alan, who had committed this horrible offense, his mother relented and agreed to meet the art teacher in her office immediately.
All during the drive to the school, his mother tried to think of what horrible thing her demure littlest son could have done to illicit such a visceral reaction from his favorite teacher.  Did he throw some sort of tantrum?  But the boy never cried.  Did he call the teacher a bad name?  But he hardly spoke up in class at all much less talked back.  Did he vandalize someone else's work?  But he loved all forms of artwork and was well known as someone who regularly encouraged his peers.  Giving up on every scenario she could imagine, she finally arrived at the school and headed quickly to art teacher's office to finally gain an answer to this looming mystery.
"Thank you for coming on such short notice, Mrs. Newsome.  I couldn't show you this over the phone," the teacher explained, "You really have to see what your son has done."
His mother sat attentively awaiting the horrifying sight that had loomed in her imagination throughout the drive to school.  His art teacher reached into her files and produced a drawing created by Uncle Alan over the previous week.  It was a simple pencil drawing of a brown smoking jacket.  It was extraordinary because at the shoulders instead of two arms hanging down, there were instead many arms, each engaged in some different activity.  One held a tobacco pipe with tendrils of smoke wafting up. One was tucked neatly inside the coat's front pocket.  Another manly arm gently lifted the coat sleeve to expose a slender watch attached to its feminine wrist.  An old one waved goodbye to a longtime friend.  While a younger one reached out to shake the hand of a newly made acquaintance.  And yet another one helpfully pointed out directions to a total stranger.  Indeed, there were enough arms coming out of this coat to make a Hindu god feel inadequate.
Impressed with the quality of his work, Uncle Alan's mother sat admiring her son's fine drawing down to the intricate details of wrinkles and hair on the knuckles.  Awakening from her reverie, Mrs. Newsome looked quizzically at the art teacher.  "I'm sorry, I don't understand what's wrong with his drawing."
Frustrated and impatient the teacher huffed, "The assignment, Mrs. Newsome was to draw a coat of arms.  I know your son thinks he is being cute! But I want you to know that I do not tolerate this sort of insolence from my students when I give an assignment."
Mrs. Newsome blinked for a moment, then suddenly burst out into a fit of laughter so hard that tears began streaming down her face.  The consternation of the art teacher grew as she began to believe such insolence ran in the the Newsome family.  Heaving to catch her breath, Mrs. Newsome finally composed herself enough to address the teacher properly, "Did you show him what a coat of arms looks like before he began the assignment?"
"Well, no.  I assumed all the kids had seen one from their family," the art teacher replied uncertainly.
"Well our family doesn't have one.  And Alan, having the creative mind that he does, merely gave his best effort at providing what you asked for: A coat... of ARMS!  I promise you he wasn't being a smart alec.  He just took what you told him and interpreted it literally."
Mortified, the art teacher blanched with embarrassment.  Ever the stately lady, Uncle Alan's mother simply patted the teacher on the shoulder and reassured her, "If you ever have trouble explaining an assignment to him again, just call me and I'll make sure he gives you what you want."
And that was how I first learned that the people in my family just don't think, or see, or hear quite the same way everyone else in the world does.

Uncle Kevin and the Finicky Foods

My mother is the first of five children born at the tail end of the baby boomer generation.  I'm not sure if this gave my grandmother the patience of a saint or the manipulative skills of the devil himself.  Perhaps she found a happy medium somewhere in between.  Anyone who has raised small children knows that one of the great daily challenges is dinner time and getting the kids to settle down to eat.  Mamaw, as she likes to be called (because whenever you call her name you automatically have to say Ma'am), discovered that the best way to get all five kids to drop whatever they were doing and rush to the dinner table was to serve peas.
Peas are not commonly known as a favorite food among most children.  Indeed most of her children disliked the taste of peas and will avoid eating them to this very day.  Except for Uncle Kevin.  You see, Uncle Kevin was a notoriously finicky eater who would be perfectly happy eating peanut butter sandwiches every day of his life.  But peas happened to be one of the few foods that he would merrily scarf down, much to his sibling's delight.
Uncle Kevin's brothers and sisters would often sit around the dinner table telling jokes and sharing funny stories.  And when peas were on the menu they would watch his plate carefully in order to time their punchlines to the exact moment when a spoonful of peas entered Uncle Kevin's mouth.  He would be so overcome with delight as to let out a deep belly-filled guffaw of laughter.  As a result, the mouthful of peas came flying out of his overstuffed mouth like giant mushy BBs right at Mamaw, who had the unfortunate honor of being seated directly across from him.

Peas weren't the only food that caused poor Uncle Kevin trouble with his mother.  Indeed his finicky eating habits emerged much earlier when he was a toddler.  Detecting this trend, his mother tried to head off this bad habit before it became unmanageable.  So suddenly one day after finishing his meal from his highchair, Uncle Kevin decided that he didn't like the taste of milk anymore.  Determined to prevent him from adding yet another food to his quickly blooming list of inedibles, Mamaw decided to go on the offensive, "Kevin, drink your milk."
"No!"
"Kevin, you drink your milk this instant young man."
"No!  I don't like it", he replied with the indignant pout of a typical three-year-old.
"That's it Kevin, you are not getting out of that highchair until you drink your milk."
Now, Mamaw was not the type of woman to make idle threats.  And true to her word she left him in that highchair so he would drink his milk.  Even as everyone else in the family finished their meal and were excused from the table.  One by one Uncle Kevin's brothers and sisters abandoned him at the dinner table to fight his own battle of wills with their mother.
Finally, they were the only two left in the dining room, a mother determined to nourish her son, and a son adamantly defiant in the face of such tyranny.  The tension of the room was thick enough to cut with  a knife.  And the remaining children cowered from the shadows wondering how this standoff might end.
Finally relenting, Mamaw looked her son square in the eye and said, "I mean it young man.  I don't care how long you have to sit in that chair, but you are not getting up until you drink every last drop of milk from your cup."  And so she stood up and left him to stew in his chair with a sippy cup full of milk as his only companion.
But Mamaw had underestimated the stubbornness of her eldest son.  For there he sat, arms crossed on his tiny chest, staring at his milk, completely unmoved by the enticements of the cup.  As Mamaw went about her usual evening routine: clearing the table, washing the dishes, folding the laundry, and tucking her remaining children into bed.  All the while surreptitiously checking every once in a while to see if he tried to drink any milk.  But still he sat, as hour after hour passed with not a drop of milk passing through his tiny lips.
Finally, as the midnight hour passed, Mamaw realized she could not force him to drink.  But unwilling to admit defeat to her three-year-old son she instead hatched a new plan, "Kevin, it's past midnight and I'm tired and I want to go to bed.  So you either drink all your milk right now or so help me God you will wear it!"
Sensing his opponent's flagging determination, Uncle Kevin's confidence in his imminent victory was renewed.  "No!" came his retort, firm as ever and this time accompanied an assured grin.
Always true to her word, Mamaw snatched him out of that highchair and dropped him quite unceremoniously into the family bathtub.  Whereupon she produced the offending milk cup and proceeded to dump the entire contents over his head, much to his chagrin (and squalling cries).
They both learned a valuable lesson that day: Kevin, that stubbornness is indeed an inherited trait; and Mamaw, that open ended threats are entirely too time-consuming to be effective when disciplining her own stubborn children.

Great Aunt Bernadine and the Many Suitors

This one is less of a narrative story and more of a character study on one of the many crazy women in my family.

Great Aunt Bernadine was a firecracker of a woman.  Born of an Irish immigrant, she had both the fire-engine red hair and the surly temper to prove it.  Being raised at a time when Irish Catholics were regularly discriminated against in America caused her to be especially proud of her heritage rather than cowed by popular opinion.  Bernadine demonstrated this pride every single day with her exquisite wardrobe.  I never saw her without some hint or accent of green on her clothes on the rare occasion that it wasn't the dominant color of the entire ensemble.  Whether it was her emerald green silk pant suit or verdant patterned Muumuu, she always managed to coordinate the outfit with a green color that highlighted her beautiful fiery red hair.
As children we would often ask her, "Great Aunt Bernadine, why are all of your clothes green?  Is that your favorite color?"  She would smile wryly and reply, "Why no children, I love every color... as long as it's green." with that characteristic twinkle in her eye.
Me, my sister, and our cousins would often visit her on the weekends because she lived literally around the corner from our grandparent's house.  Having no children of her own, Bernadine didn't mind babysitting for our parents on frequent occasion.  She would hold court on her back porch, perched atop her wicker Queen Victoria chair while lamenting the indignancies of old age.  I remember sitting at her knee at the ripe old age of 5 as she described what a fine looking woman she was in her youth, "I used to have such a lovely pair of ripe cantaloupes here on my chest, and now there's nothing left but a pair of scrambled eggs."
Bernadine's boasts of youthful beauty were not exaggerated.  While it's true that she never married in her life, she had managed to become successfully engaged five different times to five different men.  Upon hearing this as children we would often look at her with incredulity. disbelieving that someone could become engaged so many times without actually getting married.  "It's absolutely true," she quipped, "and I have the engagement rings to prove it."
"But Great Aunt Bernadine," we'd reply, "didn't you give the rings back when you called off the marriage?"
"Hell no!" she responded quickly, "I EARNED those rings, so I kept every last one of them."
Her womanly charms were evidently not limited to her many would-be suitors.  There is an infamous four-poster bed which remains in our family to this day.  It is a sturdy antique mahogany frame built by our great-grandfather.  According to family legend, President Woodrow Wilson was passing through our town giving stump speeches to garner support for his League of Nations proposal.  A very young and charming Great Aunt Bernadine was in attendance at the rally and was so enthralled by his oration that she somehow managed to obtain a private audience with him.  They spoke at great length, well into the night until it was too late for him to check into a hotel.  Being the ever gracious hostess, she offered him her own bed so he could rest for the evening before continuing on his campaign.  To this day that bed is known as "The Bed that Woodrow Wilson Slept in."  I asked her once if she was in it when Woodrow Wilson slept in her bed. She merely winked and replied, "A woman shouldn't reveal all her charms."
I quickly learned after that to stop asking so many questions...

In the beginning

Every story has a beginning.  And in honor of my recent birthday I thought I would share the tale of my own beginning.  It seems only fair, since every year on my birthday I receive the requisite phone call from my mother where she proceeds to retell this same story to me, just in case I forgot it sometime in the preceding 364 days.  It usually starts something like this: "On this day, 34 years ago, I suffered many long hours to bring you into this world..."
My birth story actually begins a month before my actual birthday.  You see, my mom comes from a long line of petite, narrow waisted women.  Before she ever got pregnant mom was 5'4" and weighed maybe 100 pounds.  While my father is one of many sons from hearty Irish stock.  Mom had already experienced this first-hand while giving birth to my nine pound older sister, vaginally, using the Lamaze method, nine pounds, through the birth canal, no drugs.  Needless to say it took about 4 years for her to overcome that pain and attempt a second pregnancy: me.
But forewarned is forearmed so when she did become pregnant she immediately discussed this issue with her doctor.  He warned her that birth weights generally increased with subsequent pregnancies within a family.  Not wanting to repeat the traumatic experience of her first labor, she and the doctor sat down and made a plan.  After much calculating and figuring they determined that my official due date was February 25th.  However, knowing that I was going to be a big baby, they decided to set an appointment to induce labor one week earlier on February 18th.  This relieved my mother greatly knowing that she would not only avoid the pain of an over-sized birth, but also have a firm date around which she could plan time off from work, baby showers, baby room preparations, etc. etc. etc.
So the big day arrives.  Mom and Dad, with bags all packed and prepared, hop in the car and drive off to see the doctor, get checked into the hospital, and have their second child.  But there is a problem.  When the doctor examines my mother just before checking her in, he discovers that sometime in the past month I have turned away from the birth canal and am now breeched.  Instead of pointing my head straight down at the birth canal in preparation for my arrival, I have instead spun around tucking my head up underneath her right breast to kick back and (as my mother puts it) just "lazing about".
"I'm sorry," the doctor says, "but it's just too dangerous to induce labor on a breech baby.  We'll have to wait for the child to turn back around and present head first."
"But surely there's something we can do!" exclaimed my mother.  "I've already taken off work, my bags are packed, I'm ready to have this baby, and I don't want to push another 9 pound child out of my uterus!"
"Well, do you own a good stereo system?" the doctor replied to my parents incredulous but desperate ears. They nodded.  "Tune your stereo to the loudest, ugliest, most offensive, black radio channel," instructed their white, southern, middle aged (read as: racist) doctor.  "Hold the speaker up to the baby's head and it will be so annoyed by the noise that it will scurry away from it and move into the correct position.  Do this every day for a week and come back on your actual due date and then we should be able to go ahead and induce you."
So my dutiful parents returned home to follow the doctors prescription.  Every afternoon when Dad got home from work, he would tune his stereo to the radio station that was playing the newly budding hip-hop and funk music that emerged in the late 70s.  Then he would turn the music up as loud as they both could stand it and faithfully hold the speaker up to my mother's belly in order to scare me into the correct position.  And initially it seemed to be working.  When that speaker hit her stomach, Mom could feel me jump and wriggle, obviously startled by this auditory invasion.
A week passed and my parents returned to the doctor to see if they could induce labor.  After a quick examination the good doctor determined that I had not budged an inch.  So again he recommended playing the loud music to get me to move and try coming back next week.  While my mother was still worried about having a large baby again, she had only just reached her due date so surely it couldn't be much worse than the first child.
During the next week of music, my parents started to notice a change in the reactions of their young fetus.  Now as soon as the music turned on, Mom noticed this sizable bump would lift up in anticipation of this beat-laden deluge.  A bump, which was located approximately where my breeched head was nestled.  And as soon as the speakers hit her belly, the bump began to raise and lower itself in time with the beat of the music.   To this day my parents swear this is the source of my "horrible taste in music."
A second week passed and my parents returned to the doctor to see if my mom could, "have this damn baby already!"  But again the doctor examined Mom only to discover that I was indeed still breech and inducing labor would just be too risky.  So he sent them packing home again with orders to simply wait and let Mother Nature take her course, "but come back next week and we'll try again."
By this time my mother's belly had continued to grow beyond all conceivable proportion.  People would stop her on the street to ask if she was having twins or triplets.  Her belly had grown so huge that she could no longer wrap her own arms around it. She was forced to wear bathrobes and muumuus because even the largest sizes of maternity clothes no longer fit.  Her poor belly button had popped so far out that it clung precariously to the sheer cliff wall of her stomach.  To this day she still blames me for her horrific stretch marks.
Then early one Saturday morning, as they were lying in bed, listening to my four-year-old sister turn on her morning cartoons in the living room, it finally happened.  PSSSSSHHHHHH.
"Billy, wake up!  Either you wet the bed, or my water just broke." whispered Mom.
And, being a man of action, Dad sprang from the bed, "Oh my God! Oh my God!  What do you need?  Where's your bag?  Who's going to watch Kimberly? Is everything packed?  Where are my clothes? Where are your clothes?  Oh my God! Are you okay?  Are you in pain?"
"Billy, calm down, we have plenty of time.  I'm going to take a quick shower while you get Kimberly dressed.  We'll drop her off at your mother's on the way to the hospital." my mother soothed.
So Mom got out of bed and grabbed a towel to hold between her legs to keep from dripping everywhere.  Now my parents were a fairly progressive couple who took great pride in educating their children on the facts of life.  And with a new baby on the way, my sister had gotten a full lesson on where baby's come from and how they get out of her mother's tummy.  It was at that glorious moment when my mother stood straddling a towel with one arm before her and one arm behind her, that my sister wandered into the bedroom to find out what commotion was drowning out her Saturday morning cartoons.
She took one look at my mom holding that towel between her legs and said, "Mom!  That baby is NEVER gonna come out if you keep holding it in with that towel, ugh" in that frank matter-of-fact logic that only four-year-olds can perfect.

A short time later my parents arrived safely at the hospital and reported to their doctor that Mom's water had broken.  She got a bed in the maternity ward and proceeded to wait for the contractions to begin.  Now, as I mentioned before, Mom's stomach had grown to epic proportions while waiting for her unborn child to "de-breech" itself.  And this growth had stretched not only her skin out of shape, but also the muscles beneath the skin that wrapped around her uterus.  As a result, every time she had a "contraction" these poor, taut, beleaguered muscles would strain as much as they could against this mammoth watermelon-sized baby stuffed inside her resulting in a mild cramp that "felt like just a bit of gas."  Every time Mom would get up to walk around (out of sheer boredom), the muscles would give up completely and the contractions would cease all together.
After about four hours of this, both Mom and the doctor agreed that this baby was simply not coming out on its own and they began to prep her for a Cesarean section.  The anesthetist performed the epidural and Mom was whisked into the operating room to deliver her child.
When they laid her on the operating table, a sheet was placed just above her stomach to prevent her from seeing too much of the gory details as they sliced her open.  A considerate gesture Mom would have appreciated more had this not been a labor and delivery operating room with a giant mirror placed strategically over the doctor's head providing a detailed and magnified view of the entire bloody operation.  Mom kept trying to close her eyes or turn her head away to avoid the inevitable nausea that rose while watching the gruesome affair unfolding beneath her waist.
Unfortunately because of the high-risk nature of her pregnancy there was an anesthetist stationed right beside her head monitoring her vitals and making sure that the epidural remained effective.  It was also his responsibility to administer oxygen in case she began to pass out from the loss of blood.  He was a hyper little man who had evidently recently emigrated from some Asian country as he had quite a thick accent.  Every time she tried to turn her head away from the ghastly mirror he would forcibly turn her head back yelling, "No! No! Ossagen, Ossagen!" making sure her face was close enough to the oxygen mask he was dutifully holding. If she closed her eyes, he would panic and begin yelling at her in his broken English to make sure she hadn't passed out.  So Mom finally relented and stared headlong into the mirror as the doctor rummaged around in her guts extracting her baby.
Finally I emerged relatively unscathed from the tumultuous affair; a healthy and happy 11 pound, 3 ounce bouncing baby girl.  A figure that made my mother doubly thankful for the C-section when she heard it.
My father however, had spent this entire time pacing impatiently in the waiting room because "civilians" weren't allowed in to the operating room for a C-section.  Now, for whatever reason, my parents had decided to wait to find out the sex of their second child.  They already had a daughter so Dad was hopeful that his second child would provide him a son.  When they wheeled me in to the waiting room to meet my father I was laying on the baby gurney with my 11 pound, 3 ounce rump sticking high in the air.  His first thought upon seeing me was, "it's a giant country ham!"  But being the devoted father he merely exclaimed, "It's a boy! It's a boy!"  The nurse patted his arm and said, "No, no, Mr. Foster let me turn her over for you."  Whereupon they laid me on my back so he could see better and after a cursory examination he cried, "It's a boy! It's a boy!"  Again the nurse patted his arm and replied, "here, let me move these fat rolls and open her legs for you."  Finally seeing his daughter was whole and healthy he cheered with an enthusiasm equal to the first two outbursts, "It's a girl! It's a girl!"

The next day, my mother and I were both given a clean bill of health and sent home to recuperate from the whole ordeal.  When we arrived home I was sleeping, so my parents laid me in the rocking bassinet in the living room, while they retired to the den for some much deserved rest.  My sister, who had been warned of my arrival, was anxiously waiting to meet her new sister and very disappointed that she couldn't immediately see me because I was sleeping.  So as my parents drifted off to their own nap, she snuck back into the living room steal a glimpse of me.
Then suddenly, WHUMP!  wuuuaaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!
Both of my parents leapt up from a dead sleep and rushed into the living room to see what had happened.  Evidently the bassinet was just a little bit too high for Kimberly to see over the edge.  So she had gently grabbed the rocking basket and slowly tilted it down enough to see inside when suddenly the whole contraption lost balance and her new baby sister came rolling out of the basket.  When our parents arrived on the scene Kimberly was still there with the bassinet dumped over on its side while she desperately tried to roll me back into the basket and set it all back up the way she found it.

And that is the exciting story of my birth.  I hope you enjoyed it!  Feedback, comments, corrections, and embellishments are all welcome.

Preface

I was talking to a new friend recently and she mentioned participating in the NaNoWriMo event that takes place every November.  I had seen this when the event started last year and was intrigued, but intimidated because 50,000 words seems like a lot.  Also, I had no idea what to write about.
But I still really like the idea of writing as much as you can as fast as you can because it is always good practice. Plus it doesn't matter about the quality because the whole idea is to just put pen to paper (or keys to screen) and get something out there. You can always go back and edit later, that's the easy part.
During an exceptionally traffic laden commute home last week I struck upon a crazy idea: next week is Spring Break and I have nowhere to go and nothing much to do. Why don't I pare down the idea to something I feel like I can tackle?  Which is where I came up with the idea of WoW: Week of Writing (no, not the MMORPG).  Instead of writing every day for a month, I'll just write every day for a week.  Instead of writing 50,000 words for a novel, I'll just write 10,000 words in a couple of short stories.  We'll call it NaShStWriWe (National Short Story Writing Week, or phonetically: Nasht-rye-wee) :D
Now that I have the idea defined I still have to come up with some topics to write about.  I recently whipped out a short story based on a tale I remember my grandmother telling me when I was a little girl.  It had recently floated to the surface of my brain for some unknown reason and I had been telling it to friends who needed a pick-me-up.  Then suddenly one night I was retelling it in my head because I couldn't sleep and I leapt out of bed to just write it down already.  It came gushing out of me so easily that I was amazed and inspired.  I realized that it came so easily because it was a story that I had been told and had been retelling myself.  In fact we have a strong oral tradition in my family where many stories were told and re-told at family gatherings and reunions.  But as far as I know none of these stories had been written down by anyone.  They were just tall tales we would use to entertain each other when there was no TV around.
So yesterday I sat down and made a list of stories I remember from my childhood.  They are mostly about family members.  Although I will provide a heavy disclaimer that I cannot attest to the accuracy of any of them.  Oral traditions have a tendency towards hyperbole (after all that's what makes them so entertaining).  So if you find yourself the subject of one of these tales and wish to make a correction (or add an embellishment!) please let me know and I will do my best to incorporate any and all feedback.
Wish me luck!