Mrs. Fitz's Story Emporium

Our 50s ranch house in Elmhurst was state of the art, in that it had a dinnette, a space allotted for meals, which was not a kitchen and not a dining room. This illustrates how modern we were.

The best table we had there was formica-topped to look like wood on a base of wrought iron. It was surrounded by swivel chairs with green vinyl seats, which looked like leather, if you squinted.

Here, Mom served food that must be recognized for its presentation:

When she made tuna-rice-peas casserole; my two brothers, Dad and I awaited our individual crockery tureen, in which she served each. Why this lent elegance to mush, I can’t say. It was delicious.

Creamed-chip-beef-on-toast might challenge other food artists, but our plates featured four toast points, crust on, surrounding a little volcano of reddish meat in sauce. Quite pretty.

Primo, however, was GERMAN PANCAKE, a Dad favorite and something that stressed Mom because so many things had to be just right for it to turn out well, things she couldn’t precisely control like oven temp, size of eggs, placement on the rack, time we’d actually be sitting down to eat it.

When the German Pancake behaved, it poufed out of its round pan inside the oven like the aftershock of a nuclear explosion. Eggwhite and air and flour converged in a way nature never intended.

Our harvest gold oven preened. The pancake preened. The dinnette crowd went wild. Even Dad’s visage took on a voracious look, which was unusual because he was Swedish.

Before Dad burned autumn leaves in the side yard of our ranch house in Elmhurst, Illinios, certain atmospheric conditions were required:

1. His World War II tent tarps had to be ground spread so my two brothers and I could sit upon them.
2. Enough leaves were raked to resemble a Cahokia Indian mound in order to justify investment in conflagration.
3. It had to be night, with a little wind, when the scent of such goings-on could go unremarked upon.
4. Dad had to be in the mood.

We didn’t invite outsiders. This was our ritual. I can’t say what my brothers imagined while orange embers smoked up the backyard where Mom usually hung sheets on Thursday afternoons. I can’t say what I imagined either.

It was something we did together. Dad ruled. We obeyed. Nobody interrupted. I don’t know for sure, but something true unfolded.

Here is a question I am trying to figure out:

How is it that nuns, who are women who do what they are told to do, are so smart, strong, confident, fun to be around?

Each nun I know answers to an authority, who tells them what to do, such as….study philosophy in order to teach it…learn Japanese to minister to same…run this college…leave your high-profile role to care for your aging sisters. What confuses me is not what each is told to do. What confuses me is each is told to do something that was not their OWN idea. What stumps me is that this diminishes them not one whit.

The aunties, friends and colleagues I grew up with struggled to have their own voices heard, to have a say in their destinies, to decide what they would do. I think them noble and brave. I think nuns are noble and brave.

Elmhurst’s downtown wasn’t added later, like Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Il, for instance. That shopping sprawl subs as a downtown for nearby ‘burbs that forgot to have one in the first place.

Our downtown was, and is, one street, York Road, with short cross streets cleverly named First, Second and so on. Primary additions since the 1960s are eating establishments, which means now you can order something other than malted milks and turkey sandwiches.

Some places are gone. The penny candy store is history, as is penny candy. The Bell Telephone office, where residents swapped their rotary-dial phones for the Princess Phone is gone.

That phone, however, sustains icon status. Not only was it NOT black. It was shaped a bit like a ballet slipper, a bit like a jewel box. If there were any doubt this was one serious girl phone, its colors pearly aqua, precious pink or prom-dress blue proved otherwise.

Prior to the Princess Phone, a phone call’s primary function was to convey bad news, or call the doctor. AFTER the Princess Phone, calls became as nature intended: a means for women to convene, commiserate, scheme, scream, seduce, and otherwise declare our supremacy of the planet.

I love the Princess Phone.

Our son was born in the 1983 March I turned 33 years old and I left my job as a features editor at the Chicago Tribune’s suburban newspaper. I loved my job and I loved our boy. No contest.

One October morning, this little blob of boy and I were at the park two blocks from our Downers Grove house. He decided walking was altogether possible if he got a swooping start off the end of a curvy yellow slide.

It was not. I further affirm it is NOT possible to hoist 28 pounds of boy 8 steps up to commence sliding AND make it down to catch him when he launches out its other end.

This pleased him. Each swoop provided a millisecond of standing as he broke his fall. Then, as one might suppose, he fell.

Let him nose dive? Squelch adventure boy? Randomly, I exchanged looks with a suit-and-tie man trekking to the commuter train near the park. I envied him. Well, not him, specifically. I envied his order and sureness and styrofoam coffee cup; or rather I grieved for my loss of same.

Clearly, however, young superboy was beginning to discover his.

It’s altogether possible that commuter envied me.

In our Larson household during the 1960s, better was better than best.

Others shopped Marshall Fields. We shopped Sears Roebuck & Co. My dad Henry worked there. It cost less. We got more. Better.

Mickey Mouse ruled Disneyland. We watched Mighty Mouse cartoons. This steriod-pumped rodent with biceps could fly. Way better.

Barbie had her Ken dolly-boy. My Mitzy clone, sold at SEARS by the way, had no boyfriend and mousy hair. This made her more like me. Better.

Nancy Drew was cool. I received the entire series of Trixie Belden mysteries. WHY I received them instead I don’t recall. Maybe it’s better I don’t.

The Beatles were unattainable but the Dave Clark Five were foot-stomping noisy and, therefore, sexy. Better.

Rosary College’s postcard-pretty campus had students who could spell “cotillion.” I went to Mundelein College where the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary mortgaged their motherhouse to keep us in classes, showing us what women can be. Better.

Real writers courted fame in the famous Writer’s Workshop at University of Iowa, where I grad-schooled in Journalism. I landed a job. That was better.

Glorious Hinsdale is such a pretty town, people drive there to look at it. My husband Rich and I settled next door for two decades with our son in Westmont, Illinois, known only for the fact that Muddy Waters once lived there. MUCH better.

Four standard issue ranch houses share the intersection of Sunnyside and Utley in Elmhurst but one of them secured its place in history when its owners bought the first color television set in our ‘hood in the 1950-somethings.

Also distinguished by a massive car the color of raw salmon in its driveway, this house and its girl child Patty, who was my age, represented my earliest brush with fame.

One summer afternoon, three kids and myself, who had declared ourselves Patty’s best friends after we learned a color television shared her company, were allowed in to sit on the living room floor to watch a cartoon show, “Clutch Cargo.”

Somehow, I can’t understand how it was done, the animated characters had human-being mouths. Forget seeing color for the first time. These were cartoon people with human mouths. Red, purply lips with teeth in between.

Patty’s mom seemed dissatisfied with our giggliness, which, really, was just nerves. Patty looked bored. I was terrified.

I still am.

Here is a conversation in the hospital between a mom who can’t talk so she writes on a pad instead, and her adult daughter:

Your hair is up.

Do you like it, Mom?

A “chignon.”

Yes. Ha! A “shig-nun.” I didn’t know it was called that.

It isn’t.

You just wrote it down “chignon.”

“She-non!”

She knows what?

“She-non!”

Mom, please don’t be upset. It’s just hair.

“Chignon.”

Here is a conversation between a mom in the hospital and her adult daughter:

I think it’s better not to like anything too much because everything goes away.

That is stupid.

It’s American, Mom.

Still. Stupid.

What do you suggest?

Get encumbered. Crush everything to you. Trample every inch of the terrain. Hold on and get every ounce. That’s my motto.

This works for you?

If you have to ask me that, you shall forever remain an inanimate object.

I mean I haven’t really seen you living like that.

That’s irrelevant. It’s my motto.

Sammy and Lillya, he from Kenya and she from Russia, won the Chicago marathon day before yesterday. Standing side by side in Sunday sun to receive their medallions-on-a-ribbon, they looked alike. Same height, same taut cheekbones, same stupified look part elation and part shock.

AND, each won for the SECOND time. How could they? I mean, seriously, HOW?

I know the only way to win, say in writing or golf, is to forgo what I want. if I want to write what people will read, I fail. If I want to hit a golf ball that lofts in a lookie-there! way, I don’t. I have lots of practice writing badly and not hitting golf balls, so I know this to be a fact.

So, how could Sammy and Lillya run just to run? How could they not WANT to win once they had done so once before?

How could they run just to run?