Mrs. Fitz's Story Emporium

The Chicago Bears lost to the Green Bay Packers yesterday, depriving Bear fans the chance to chest beat and bray our dominance in football. The last minute gonged defeat and I joined other fans who swapped mad for sad, although sadness was the communal feeling.

It’s easier to express mad. It’s noisy. It’s short-lived. It’s acceptable, and has a manly mien. Primarily, it’s about other. “Gee, who was nutty enough to call that time out? Did our defense show up or did they forget they came to play?”

Sad is harder to express. It’s quiet. It has a tendency to linger. It’s wimpy, almost feminine. Primarily, it’s about us. Somebody else is better than we are. Now we can’t dress and act like kids on a sugar high and get away with it. We picked the wrong side to support. We need a hug.

Coach Lovey Smith and his team need one, too.

The newly published autobiography of Mark Twain, volume 1, weighs at least five pounds. The only logical way to read it is sitting upright at a table, so the book can rest its fat self. This demands commitment since it’s a very old fashioned way to read.

But, I’m interested in Mark Twain’s thoughts primarily because he is funny. At least his writing is funny.

The book is intimidating by more than bulk. It’s hulky with other folks. At least 10 introductory pages credit various foundations, grants, editors, persons of interest, past scholars, scholars yet to be born.

I don’t know if I can do it but I want to read it all. Any fellow who tried 30, 40, maybe 50 times to write something interesting, which Twain did, deserves it.

I know someone who gives the silent treatment. This is the loudest of all reactions.

It is clever. The clever of it is that the person being given the silent treatment can’t tell for sure if this silence is intended as a personal rebuke, if the silence just happens to be in place for no apparent reason, or if the silence is a warning that deeper and longer silence should be anticipated.

I know someone who is a screamer: Uncensored rage-slinging at dizzy decibels. It is clever. The clever of it is that the person being yelled at can’t get a thought in edgewise. It’s hard to tell when screams are likely to die down, if the scream level is in any way calibrated to the injury itself, or if any healing will ensue after the tide of fury subsides.

I know someone who sublimates. No action causes any visible reaction, ever. This is NOT clever. I think it may even be evil. At the least, it negates the existence of the rest of us.

I’m afraid to hope that head-wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, updated yesterday to serious from critical in Tucson, Arizona, will be okay.

Like most hopes, I’m afraid because I am counting on it, needing her to be okay. In the week since the shooting spree that wounded her and 18 others, six fatally, she has become someone I care about deeply. I read that her husband Mark calls her Gabby. I want to call her Gabby.

Like most emotion, this is selfish. With each unassisted breath, with each sign her brain is working, I unclench. If she summons deep deep will and improves, if she defies the odds against her, if she can make it; then, I believe, I can heal.

In our Elmhurst house, New Year’s Day was just okay. I generally woke up assured I had missed something fun, since Mom and Dad were not what you would call hoot and holler-ers. I think Dad used as an excuse the high cost and low fun return on New Year’s Eve parties to get what he wanted, which was to do nothing.

Mom’s approach also was subdued, which I now think was a sign of repressed rage. With no hangovers, no broken paper crowns, no remnants of a night gone wild, she comforted us with the passive-aggressive statement, “Be careful what you do on New Year’s Day. Whatever you do on New Year’s Day, you will do the remainder of the year.”

Had I been more imaginative as a teenager, I might have sought a day of danger, emotional outburst, a date with a cute boy. Instead I was stunned into inaction. The chance of messing up the entire year was too risky.

Of three job titles I’ve spent time fitting into – journalist, teacher, editor – journalist is the easiest to define. This is about three common varieties:

The Scoop reporter. The Scandal reporter. The Story reporter.

The Scoop reporter will steal keys andn/or lie to children if that’s what it takes to arrive first on the scene of a calamitous event, say, a plane crash. If it’s too soon to know anything for certain, the scoop reporter will set up cameras to report that it is too soon to report anything for certain.

The Scandal reporter thrives on salacious. At a plane crash, he’s the microphone shover, an intimidating move assuring a source the mike WILL proceed down his throat directly to get a statement.

The Story reporter is born with a sad gene, easily triggered at a plane crash. Sadly, he kicks glods of debris looking for a sad symbol…an abandoned headphone, a shoe. Whether there is a story behind the object is less important than imagining one. And it is always sad.

We girl parishioners were accessorized for Sunday mass at Immaculate Conception church in Elmhurst. Less festooning was required for the weekday masses, which were not required to get to heaven.

My white missal was the size of a card deck and featured a youthful Jesus in profile on its cover. Page edges were gold and it had a ribbon to mark where you left off praying.

Some friends had rosaries that glowed in the dark, somewhat showy to my parents’ taste. Mine was aqua-blue glass beads and looked like a necklace. Rosaries in general indicated saintly rank. The bigger the rosary, the holier the person. Once a chubby monk spoke at church on the premise we all would give him money for the missions. His rosary was black wooden beads the size of baby golf balls. Its foot-long crucifix lurked in his pocket until midway through his sermon, when he brandished it, blessing us all. Most everyone gave him money.

Scapulers would have been whimsical if not for the fact they duplicated in miniature torturous scratchy robes worn by those doing penance in olden days, when holiness was more popular. Picture two stamps held together by string. This get up was worn under clothes. Not stratchy, but sobering.

Best were lace babuskas, called mantillas. A mantilla is a veil and it stirs fantasies in women. We are saintly, wifely, womanly, queenly heroines in them.

It wasn’t too far into my church going when the lovely mantilla was replaced by something resembling a doily. It was a doily, a flat pie of lace. This spoiled the whole effect, if you ask me.

Here are 10 reasons you should be a journalist:

1. You get paid to be ignorant. It is your job to ask questions. You are not expected to know answers.

2. You are invited to places you don’t belong…somebody’s office, a horse stable, jail, fundraiser. You don’t belong, but you waltz right in.

3. Others expect you to be bossy…assertive and authoritative. But you don’t have to lead. Others do that heavy lifting.

4. It’s easy. What’s so hard about listening?

5. Rules of behavior are clear. Tell the truth. No matter what, tell the truth.

6. You are never alone. Every story is collective. You write words but the story goes nowhere without the work of a team.

7. You court fame without burden. Interviewing famous or infamous people doesn’t make you famous or infamous, but it tends to feel like it does.

8. You learn. Others tell you things, things you didn’t know until they taught you.

9. You can dismiss all humanity entirely with a sentence: “I am on deadline.”

10. You exist. A byline says so.

There are many reasons why folks don’t write. Lack of talent isn’t one of them.

The advice to “Write what you know” is. This advice only seems logical. After all, how can you write about what you DON’T know? But writing what you know feels like counting bricks on a wall. Trying to write what you know often stalls the basic function of writing, which is to discover what you do NOT yet know.

It is fine to start with something, anything familiar. Start with one memory, one moment, one image of something you see or hear or smell. But then let writing take over. If it does not, it isn’t much fun.

Here is one tip: Listen. Don’t interfere. Listen. If you don’t hear anything, go do something else. If you do hear something, begin.

Our Elmhurst living room was a homage to Mom’s baby grand piano. Scattered sit-upons dotted the remaining space like garden pavers. This may account in part for the fact Dad was an upsitter. He sat up on a couch, a chair. When he nodded off it was hard to tell since he looked about the same.

In contrast, my Uncle Frank was a blatant recliner. In fact he had a big brown one in his living room and made not one attempt to hide his enjoyment of it. Why would he? He was a big fellow with a big chair in a household that loved everything he did, including sleep.

Nobody else sat in his chair, though it could hold 3 or 4 midsized children. His chair was like having the man himself in the room, a man who gave off the warm scent of comfort. Creatures of all ages gathered near Uncle Frank like hands rubbing themselves above a firepot.

Dad didn’t draw others to himself. He didn’t withdraw either. He abided. He was a great abider, kind of like a horse happy in his stall. He was not a ground pawer. He gave off the plain smell of contentment. This made him the object of some suspicion to those who expected more of him.