Mrs. Fitz's Story Emporium

During Chicago’s April, citizens sniff a whiff of spring and exaggerate all gestures. We don’t unbutton coats. We abandon them. We don’t venture out. We explode onto sidewalks. We don’t respectfully court springy season. We grab her.

Opening day at Wrigley Field didn’t even pretend to be warmish but fans conjured sun, imagined it. Park grass nearest the lake is grey and smooshed but hibachis the size of small chickens roosted about, signalling pic-a-nics. A few shopkeepers, who elsewhere might be known as retailers, set out bowls of water outside their entries for passing, panting canines; of which there were none.

After two years living in Chicago, my city doesn’t feel like home; but it’s homey. I like how people strut here.

My Dad’s father Linus and stepmother Lorraine shared a house with Dad’s Aunt Fanchon and Uncle Sam in Oak Park, Illinois, less than a hour drive from our Elmhurst house but more alien than Mars, or California.

They lived in a two-story Victorian, while we Larson’s were strictly ranch-landers.
They shared a house with another couple, while Dad seemed startled by the presence of his own children inside his.
They ate Sunday dinner in the AFTERNOON, universally sacrosanct, play-outside time.

Further, no one I knew, NO ONE had a stepmother. Stretching the limits of credibility, Dad’s stepmother Lorraine had been a debutante, presented to society in her youth, like a birthday present.

And Fanchon was nicknamed “Fanny.” Who ensures lifelong ridicule by naming their child “Fanny?” This, I thought, odd and funny. Oddly funny.

Oddly funny reached epic proportion when Aunt Dolly made an appearance in the Oak Park parlor. Like the photo negative of brunette Loretta Young, she was a flaxen blonde gadabout, as giggly as the little girl she once must have been; and she sewed pockets into her frilly-ful skirts to house her chihuahua “Chico.”

During the 1960s, Mom wore the Jackie Kennedy (Onassis) look with varying degrees of success. She just wasn’t a capri-pants kind of Mom, but she wore the pill box hat, and the cutie-patootie suit like nobody’s business.

She was fashion-forward to the degree that was possible in suburban Elmhurst. I, however, proved a fashion challenge. Preschool, wearing brother’s hand-me-downs, I sported a chic ragamuffin look. But life took a turn when I was among six first-graders chosen to be flower girls for an upcoming First Holy Communion ceremony.

Mom went into overdrive. She stitched me a yellow dotted swiss dress with a cummerbund bow the size of a turkey platter. In it, I did a paradigm shift to princess mode and she and I began our fashion friendship. During ensuing years, I came up with special occasions and she came up with custom dresses. This forged what I would term a uniquely feminist point of view.

I have trouble remembering the name of anybody. For a long time I ignored this handicap yet know it’s sloppy and disrespectful to humanity, who lives here just like I do. Lately, I am inspired to remember the name of everyone, from Medvedev in Russia, to Ari at the dry cleaners. However, I can’t recall Medvedev’s first name, nor Ari’s last name.

Success should be basic. Listen intently. Write down the name. If I am reading a name, say, Muammar Quaddafi, which I’d prefer NOT to read, say the name aloud. Repeat these steps more than once.

Results are mixed. Ultimately names remembered have one of three things in common. Either the name reminds me of something else: Mr.Riley is REALLY nice, for instance. Or the name is used so often it’s familiar: This would be true of our son’s name and a large percent of my blood relatives. Or, the name amuses in some inexplicable way: Gina Lollobrigida. Bullwinkle the Moose.

I had to look up “Quaddafi” and “Lollobrigida” and “Bullwinkle” to spell them correctly.

Wearing uniforms does not level the playing field, as some smart people think. I wore the uniforms of parochial school, waitress, girl scout, cheerleader, lifeguard and the blue-jeaned; thus claim entitlement to state: Uniforms foment the churning need to stand out, to differentiate.

This may explain the emergence of weird behaviors among the uniformed.

In Immaculate Conception kindergarten, in a hunter green jumper, I once sobbed throughout an entire half-day. I don’t know why I was sobbing but enjoyed the teacher patting my shoulder until I fell asleep at my desk. I liked being singled out.

Waitresses, myself included, exaggerate body movements. In a checkered-sack with hanky-size apron, I didn’t walk about a restaurant. I strode, even swiveled. I didn’t serve a cup of coffee. I flounced it upon the table with a flourish. A tip told me I must surely be one-of-a-kind.

A cheerleading uniform is formidable garb, what with the expectation you will uplift all humanity during the game. But, each cheerleader attempts the higher jump, the wider split, the louder bleat. In box pleats and white sneakers, I sure did. Competing with each other outranked winning some game unfolding on the field.

Lifeguard and Girl Scout uniforms have this in common: they declare the wearer is engaged in service to others; thus, better than everyone else.

Jeans. Jeans are the most individual of all uniforms. Nobody, and I mean no body, looks alike in jeans.

Built with the post-war levity for anything new, our ranch house in Elmhurst forgot all about a family room or a den or a jacuzzi. We did have a half-bath which we called the powder room and it was tinier than any jacuzzi I ever saw.

Instead, we had living-dining space that provided all the community activity a family of five could want, or could endure. Since Mom was musical and Dad liked that about her, it housed a Steinway baby grand piano. Opposite the piano corner was a corner more mobile, more experimental. Musically inclined objects swapped in and out like renters.

An organ was first occupant. It didn’t last. Sound meant to rock cathedral pews was out of place, pretentious, like a tiara lost in beanie-land. Its replacement, a stereo cabinet, was more successful, though less accessible. My two brothers and I were disallowed, forbidden, warned not to touch it, not to seek to touch it.

Thus it drew us like pins to a cushion. Since I couldn’t play it, I fiddled about with the record albums stored inside. I was introduced to male-female relations by “The King and I” cover: Deborah Kerr’s fine neck, swelling bodice and monumental skirt. Yul Brenner’s large hands and bare feet. They dance. They shimmer. Love.

Dad liked jazz and bought an album with a disappointing cover: lame trumpets and drummy stuff. But the title more than made up for it: “Solid and Raunchy.” I never heard it played since Mom was somehow affronted; but, Man, I understood jazz.

In a move only an eldest child dare take, my brother boldly slid his Kingston Trio; Peter, Paul & Mary; and The Lettermen albums into the cabinet. I never knew musicians were so scrubbed, so clean, so perky looking. This may explain my lifelong fascination with folk music.

The senior women of my Midwestern tribe tend toward lightness in language. This has the effect of living happy, which isn’t altogether true but in some ways, it is.

Among their words I have some favorites:

Sippeecup.
Jumpin’ Jiminiy or its Scandinavian variation, Yumpin’ Yiminy.
Peachy.
Holy Mackerel.
Hunkey Dorey.
Perfecto-mundo.
Well, I’ll be darned.
Well, I never.
She’s a looker, or its gender variation, He’s a looker.
In a pickle.
Cute as a button.
Well, that’s a new one on me.
Gad-about

Some of their words are out of style, but they ignore that so I do, too:

Pocketbook.
Seemly.
Maiden.
Secretary.
Clothesline.
Grumble.
Grouch or Grouchy.
The cat’s meow.

During our 1960’s ranch-house years, Dad and I went places by ourselves, while Mom and my two brothers did something else, I don’t know what. We watched a movie at York Theater, where I planned to be urbane. We ice fished at Chain-o-Lakes where I planned to be a great sporting gal. We attended an opera in Chicago, where I planned to be admired.

The York Theater exuded elegance in the post-War way, with Frenchy wallpaper and a swathe of velvet flung over the movie screen.

Amidst this splendor, Dad’s behavior can only be described as unfortunate. He brown-bagged it. That is, he brought his OWN food. Worse, it was in a noisy brown bag. Worse, it included a banana. Worse, he peeled the banana during the movie. Worse, the smell of banana surrounded the two of us like lava, spreading fumes capriciously. Worst of all, everyone looked oddly as us, the banana eaters. I sulked while Dad enjoyed his banana.

Ice fishing was more private since earth is not rife with those who actually like to fish and freeze when it isn’t mandatory to survival.

Dad had the knack for it, I must say. He pitched what looked like Godzilla’s umbrella on the frozen lake. He whirled Godzila’s bottle opener to drill a little polkadot hole. He baited hooks on Lilliputian rods with minute minnows. I thought all this overkill to roust a few 3-inch perch from their watery deep so I glared and looked miserable until he folded up the tent.

Opera commands attention so Dad handed me the playbill to read. I studied the fashion of my fellows. Very sparkly. Everything rustles in an opera house. Hushes and shushes and nods and a sense of drama few emulate anywhere else.

I adored the dimming lights, the aura, the caught breaths, silence as the curtain rose. Dad nudged me with a Three Musketeers bar, one among several he smuggled in. Trapped between my fantasy and his good intent, I opened my candy bar wrapper with as little noise and with as much courage as I was capable at the time.

It’s disgraceful I can’t recall the name of the beagle who came to live with our family of five in our ranch house in Elmhurst on or about 1962. He left the morning after we welcomed him into our enclave.

This one-night stand indicates:
1. My family showed no propensity for changing one whit to accommodate any other creature, ever.
2. Beagles don’t show a great propensity for overcoming such odds.

Right off the bat, he looked suspicious of us, my two brothers and I yelping around him and making the sounds one might in the presence of a new bike.

So, he barked all night, pausing only long enough to gulp air in-between.

The next morning, in what might be called a rash and reactionary move, he was sent back to the neighbor’s home, where he had been born. One thing you have to say about beagles. Their bark has volume and what I would call a churlish quality, considering their squat size.

Occupying the passenger seat of any car driving Illinois highways offers the joy of billboard watching. Kareoke radio solos aside, it’s the only joy to be had traveling our flatbread terrain.

El Cortez Mexican Restaurant! Simply the Best!

We are HIP HOP! University of St. Francis!!

4 MEALS! UNDER 4 dollars!!!

Free EYE exam!!!

A MODERN hospital, close to home!

NOW OPEN: Affordable, assisted-style living!!

Chicken Basket! Race Karts! Best Western Ahead! FIRESTONE!!

I like that nobody strategized this. Nobody crafted my experience based on focus groups or brand recognition. Billboards are random stabs at my base consumer instincts and thus retain a small element of surprise. They also are brief.