Mrs. Fitz's Story Emporium

I love to shop, except when I need something. Then, it is my sincere hope that the item will be where it is supposed to be inside the store.

This is no longer true in shops that sell clothing and cosmetics, two products I require sometimes. I recall when dresses once hung in one chunk of the store, blouses somewhere else. Bubble bath was in the bubble bath aisle. Nail polish remover was next to nail polish, since polish must be removed after you try radical red on your nails and it looks stupid.

Who decided to lump all manner of stuff under brand names and clump the lumps all over the retail space? I do not wish to peruse JUICY or RALPH LAUREN or COTE D’AZUR. I want a thing, an item, a product, not a brand.

I’ve meet some sparklers in my time; unassumers who are quiet until they’re lit, and then they ignite.

One of my favorite sparklers of all time was my Mom, Marie. It took a little coaxing to light her up because she tended toward demure by the time my two bothers and I were born. But she was coaxable. My two brothers and I brought it out in her.

When we did something wrong, which was most days, she would put one hand on her hip and get her other hand all set to shake a finger at us. This looked pretty funny since she was little. It was tough to take her threat seriously, especially when she issued statements like, “So, no one dried their dirty hands on my clean towels? Well, of course! I guess the man who did it died.”

I think we made mischief partly to hear what she would say. I think she allowed our mischief partly because there was very little time for her own.

In our Elmhurst Larson household during the 1960s, the time of summer was measured by light not clocks. I most enjoyed the dark.

My two brothers and I played outside after dinner. Mom let us loose, which was a concession. “Be home when the street lights go on.” So, naturally we grabbed any chance to disobey.

A blot on the family name occurred one night when my older brother was among some unlikely felons who pea-shooted a lit light on our corner. Technically, we weren’t due home because the street light was NOT on. I don’t think my bro had much to do with the misdeed. I do think the parental outrage and shame was excessive. I most recall looking up that night and seeing stars instead of street glare.

We played the game of ghost on nights we visited our cousins in Lombard where streetlights were fewer. It’s like tag but better because you could barely see a tree, let alone a cousin.

Another night, a man, the first, landed on the moon. WE landed on the moon with him, as much as possible from our spots on the floor in front of the TV. So immense was the emotion of the moment, so small was our living room to contain it, I walked out our back door, got on my bike and rode like a spirit wooshing among street light shadows. Whoosh. Whoosh.

Words get blamed more often than numbers for causing trouble and I think this ought to be reconsidered, for at least three reasons, although I may want to add more:

One:
Numbers are inflexible. They see no reason to change when they are perfect to begin with, as in “It’s THREE miles from here to there.”
Words are flexible, as in “I will get from here to there if the weather is good, traffic light, and I am in the mood to go.”

Two:
Numbers are sneaky. They drive behaviors but take no responsibility for it, as in “Account balance is zero. Stop shopping.”
Words are honest, as in “I can’t afford it, not exactly, but I can put it on hold.”

Three:
Numbers are dictatorial, as in “At 50 years of age, a woman is unlikely to give birth.
Words are hopeful, as in “You just never know what’s possible until you try.”

Four:
Numbers cause misunderstanding when used by anybody to prove a point that might not be true, as in “1 of every 10 people in this country is unemployed.”
Words foster understanding. For instance, no one in this country is NOT employed in doing SOMETHING, unless they have died, of course. But we shouldn’t count them.

My assumptions are so quietly embedded I easily lose track of how dumb they can be.

At a small theater last night, awaiting the performance of show tunes like South Pacific’s “Gonna wash that man right out of my hair” I assumed hearing music my folks enjoyed would be nostalgic, chummy and familiar.

I assumed the music would remind me of Mom, a pianist who often pounded the daylights out of her precious baby grand, which dominated the living room of our Elmhurst ranch house like a revered guest of honor, which it was.

Both assumptions were wrong.

The sole instrument WAS a piano. Six performers DID sing “Some enchanted evening,” “Oklahoma!” and others, all composed a good 30 years before they were born.

But they made the music new. Brand new. Not different. NEW.
At least it was new to me.

Camera or no camera, today’s Chicago Sunday is what Edwin Land made his camera for. His 1948 Polaroid Camera took a while to morph into the instantmatic my parents bought in the 1960s, but he made it possible to SEE an image immediately after taking the photo.

Today was instant-image-worthy. I saw:

1. A cherub child, allowed out of her stroller to waltz the sidewalk, sang “Happy Mother’s Day” to a tune only she, and possible her Mum, ever heard. It is not Mother’s Day.

2. A man of distinguished years asked directions at the paranoid intersection where Clark, Halsted and Barry streets collide. He was not a man accustomed to asking directions. He was a self-contained sort. But he gave in and seemed okay with it, proud even.

3. A lady of years sat with all her things on a bench along the walk-bike-exercise path that skirts Diversey Harbor. Neither sad, nor lonely, but poor. Every puppy stopped its master to talk to her. She handled celebrity with grace and gave quite a lot of good advice, based on the nods and smiles she was getting.

4. Balloons have assumed some new shapes since I last noticed. At the Diversey driving range, rented by careful parents so the youngers could hoot and cavort, balloons in ameoba shapes celebrated a windy, sunny day the way only balloons can do.

I like God alot, now that I’ve gotten to know Him. Catechism stood in the way for a while, but God found a way around that.

Catechism was Catholic School Text Messaging when I was in parochial school during the 1960s: Literal, revealing little, BUT packing king-size impact in scant wordage.

Here’s a sample from our Baltimore Catechism; which, in grammar school, I thought might pinpoint where God lived:

Question: Why did God make us?
Answer: God made us to know, love, and serve Him in this world and be happy with Him in the next.

What I derived from this was 3 things that really stuck:
1. Happy NOW wasn’t important. Happy LATER was the plan.
2. God demanded. We did the knowing, loving, serving part.
3. Whoever figured out why God made us was very smart, since I couldn’t figure it out by myself.

God orchestrated subsequent experiences for me that clearly implied these things weren’t quite right and I am very pleased about that.

I come from the land of talking females and dominating males. Therefore I believe there is power in speech paucity.

Dad was a master of the wordless effect; yet, his was a kindly heart. I don’t think he wanted power. I think he was shy, or cautious. It even is possible that he didn’t comprehend the existence of us – his family of 1 wife, 3 children and an alarming number of nearby aunts and uncles. He may have overlooked that we all liked his talk, what there was of it. Maybe he just didn’t know we awaited. It’s hard to tell, since he didn’t talk much.

Like other things rare, his words impact, some dozen years after his death. “Balance in all things,” for instance. Dad said “Balance in all things” when the talk was about mealtime, boyfriends, emotions of any kind. It really is a good phrase, applicable.

Six children, of which my Mom Marie was eldest, honored our dead-and-gone with peonies on Memorial Day. We cousins, children of the six, took this opportunity to act up as much as the ritual allowed.

The ritual was a caravan of cars smelling like perfumed leather visiting two cemeteries in Chicago’s western edge for the better part of a Saturday. When the cars parked near our tribe’s gravestones, we kids erupted from backseats like popcorn and blanketed the hushed place with pops and hoots.

My dad was the best among Uncle peony providers and I’m not afraid to say so. For several weeks prior he saved, washed and stored square milk cartons. These were the vases for the flowers. For several weeks prior to the weekend, he fussed over the peony bushes, coaxing orb buds to show their stuff, admonishing the full blown ones to settle down.

The best part among my cousins was these hours to be while our parents were distracted by memories and such that had little to do with us, since most of our dead were dead before we knew them. I think the best part for our Dad was the chance to do something helpful, very very well.

Some thoughts deserve more thinking, more rounding out, especially the Why? ones:

1. Why is what we think and feel right this minute not the same we know later?

2. When one way lasts for 50 years, why does it stop working?

3. If the present is all we can know and the only place we can be, why doesn’t this come naturally?

4. Why is getting something such a thrill when giving something is more satisfying?

5. Why can’t we measure fear incrementally, in logical and controllable ways?