Mrs. Fitz's Story Emporium

Our 1950s-built ranch house in Elmhurst, Il occupied its lot in a polite way. It stayed put in the middle of its skirt of grass, like a damsel. Unlike the three children our Mom and Dad housed there, it didn’t pine for untamed space.

Our misguided notion that life held mystery any place outside home, lured us to a field three blocks away. It had nothing to offer in the way of foliage or terrain or history. It was a field.

But we found excuses to go there, as if something unplanned could happen.

Not much did, with the exception that one boy lost the tiniest tip of his nose when he was about 11 years old. Precisely what happened is clear to all who invented their own version. Somehow a small pocket knife and jumping and running were involved.

As a grown man, he looked little the worse for wear. His nose just stopped a little earlier than you’d expect.

It made him much admired.

Neighborhood street fairs in Chicago squish into a sliver season following snow and preceding  snow, the time when our city is stunned to see street.

We fist-rub our winter-nap eyes to get a gander at each other.

Each other is the purpose of a street fair. Art? Produce? Crafts? Optional.

This is us. A street fair is a fashion statement that clearly states we don’t have any. It’s a family outing that shows how baby strollers have evolved into habitats. These likely were designed in Sweden where children hold political offices.

It’s a music hurricane that displays what happens when guitars are sold to anyone, willy nilly. Bands land like parachuting Elvis’s on intersections that yearn for the usual peace and quiet of commuter traffic.

Dogs navigate fine. I’ve never seen one show attitude. But then, dogs like the smell of feet.

Those who are paid to DO something, such as sell health club memberships, pout in their rented tents, rethinking their career choice.

Once, a marketing team handed out cowboy hats. Free. This brought out the John Wayne in several octogenarians. A crowd grouped to watch them point finger guns at each other. Very cool.

We who attended college during the whimsically labeled “turbulent” 1960s were fond of asking questions. This both freed us from finding answers and left time for more important endeavors, such as protesting.

The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-First Century is a collection of essays by twenty-five scientists, edited by John Brockman. They like asking questions, too.

I particularly like this one:

Should we genetically engineer people with traits and abilities we deem desirable, such as contentment, optimal body shape, empathy…or do we benefit from biodiversity?

2050 is only 35 years away. Will we be expected to have an answer?

Good question.

During summers in the 1960s, Dad wore his brown suit and polka-dot tie to work at Sears Roebuck & Co. during the week. He looked tidy, but I think this get-up rubbed him the wrong way when the great out-of-doors released his inner guy.

Thus, on Saturdays he super-manned into beige army shorts and as decrepit a shirt as suburban sensibility allowed. Thus attired, he took himself off to Soukups Hardware store on York Road in Elmhurst, IL. He often took me along, a ruse that he was parenting when, in fact, he was not. He was PLAYING.

I believe Soukups Hardware store occupied its land before the town dug in its heels around it. It was sooooo old, it was haunted. I am certain of this since I spent precious, preteen sunlight hours inside it feeling spooked.

Watching Dad enjoy himself held my attention briefly, very briefly. It seemed to me he invented home repairs so he had an excuse to chat with the owner. Watching the owner enjoy himself held my attention not at all.

I’ve matured.

Our Chicago hardware store is literally stuffed with smart people. Yesterday I learned the following fun things:

1. You can’t buy spray paint in Chicago: An anti-graffiti initiative. I needed spray paint.

2. You can’t buy 100-watt fluorescent bulbs: An energy-conscious initiative. I needed 100 watt bulbs.

3. You can’t argue with a salesperson intent on explaining communism. I needed directions to the potting soil.

4. You can’t argue with the cashier about an item clearly marked down. The cashier always wins.

I didn’t depart with anything I wanted. I suspect that was its appeal for my Dad.

My baby boomhood coincided with the ranch-house boom. Ours, on Sunnyside avenue in Elmhurst, Il, was built on a vacant lot among older tall homes. These jutted and strutted in tudor and colonial style. The upstart ranches that snuck in during the 1950s were intruders, keeping their roof lines low so few would notice they had got in.

My horizontally inclined house sat between two dimples of grass, like a smile. It had a front porch and front door and front yard, these used primarily to stage Easter morning photos of family in new hats and pressed suits.

Going behind my house held a hint of adventure, what with the neighbors property being less than 8 feet behind ours. I wished our neighbors, the Lawrences, had been more dramatic because I could have heard them easily from my bedroom window, say if anger erupted at dinnertime. It didn’t. In retrospect, if we could hear Lawrence goings-on, then the Lawrences were equally capable of hearing our goings-on. This is not a pleasant thought.

On the up side, Mr. Lawrence knew how to make his pack of Camel cigarettes smoke. Specifically, he could make the camel on the front of the package emit smoke. My two brothers and I figured him famous for this, though he really was humble about it.

Hiding is one of my favorite pastimes, a legacy from youth in the western suburbs of Chicago during the 1960s, where it was encouraged.

I hid from my two brothers, one older and one younger until such time they stopped trying to find me.

I hid from our parents, assured they would try to find me. They did, in empty appliance boxes where I set up housekeeping; in the way-back of our way-back closet, where Mom’s sometimes dresses, the fancy ones, reminded me I would go to a dance, sometime. If invited.

I hid from school friends in my bedroom. I had no phone in there so it was easy to have conversations with them. I was smart and funny. Much better than the real thing.

I hid from the future in our basement. We had a record player and a ping-pong table and a blackboard. I tried dance and sport and lecturing. As you might imagine, I excelled.

When our son entered the world, he kicked hiding up a notch. In blankets, closets, dog cages. Under rugs, behind and within furniture, covered by leaves, in trees, atop a bookshelf, in the hamper, amid clothing racks, next to tall people, under water. If something had an under, a behind or atop, he hid. I think it did him good.

Hiding is a great pastime when you need to figure things out and the world isn’t helping much. It reminds you somebody cares enough to look for you. AND, it gives you a place to leave, when you’re ready.

Chicago is ready for Spring before Spring is ready for Chicago. This has an upside. It inspires thinking about new growth. This may coax nice weather to feel free to show up sometime.

Here are three idea sprouts, unencumbered by frozen thinking:

1. Let’s just get goofy and ratify the EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT. Four decades after it was drafted to ensure equal treatment under the law regardless of gender, it sits alone like a geeky kid in the cafeteria, waiting for THREE more states to ratify it.

2. If we can implant a little chip in our pets so global positioning systems (GPS) can fetch them home if they are lost, why not implant a little chip in firearms? We can’t monitor each other or predict behavior but we can pinpoint where weapons are.

3. If schools must be closed for economic reasons, as more than 50 will be in Chicago, why not execute big plans for the empty buildings to compensate in some measure for the grief and fear felt by their neighborhoods?

There are many reasons folks don’t write. Lack of talent isn’t one of them. Being smart is. Following are three smart-writer mistakes:

1. Explaining what you know.

Being told isn’t fun. Discovery is fun. You will know you are explaining when you are getting bored with your own writing. Here’s a tip: Choose some great verb hiding inside your idea, something with oomph like “embrace” or “obliterate” and fill in around it. If it doesn’t flow, choose another verb with oom-pah-pah. Discover.

2. Knowing too much.

Everything you know IS important but not all at once. You will know you are making everything important if you start skimming and skipping as you write. (They married, had a child, built a house, moved twice, got mad at each other, reconciled) Here’s a tip: Choose  a tiny detail, something lame like “the driveway is asphalt-covered” and make that important, very important. Learn.

3. Pretending to know.

Not knowing never stops folks from talking, at least it never stops me. But, you will know you don’t know enough if you start backing off or summarizing what you’re writing. Here’s a tip: This is going to happen when you don’t expect it, when you think you understand orphanages or stock trades or hair dye. Learn more. Likely there’s a writer whose work will teach you. Study.

In Elie Wiesel’s book “The Gates of the Forest,” a rabbi says, “God made man because He loves stories.”

I’ll bet one of his favorites is the story of Chinua Achebe, a man born in Nigeria in 1930. He died yesterday. If you never met him in books, Things Fall Apart and There Was a Country are two of the stories Chinua Achebe wrote.

Two journalists, Laura Smith-Spark and Faith Karimi, CNN wrote the following:

In an interview for the Paris Review of Books in 1994, Achebe spoke of how his early love of stories led him to realize that they reflected only the point of view of the white man. That spurred him to write himself.

“There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. … Once I realized that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian,” he said.

“It’s not one man’s job. It’s not one person’s job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail — the bravery, even, of the lions.”

Farewell, Chinua Achebe. You are a lion. Thank-you.

A woman I admire was interviewed for an essay about her life, which is far from over; but more of if is her past, since she has seen more than 90 summers.

She said three events influenced who she is. Her events were one speech she heard, one major news event and one unexpected change at work.

Previously I thought that relationships, birth order, culture, personality, economic status, education, appearance, and randomness impacted the person each one becomes.

Now I suspect those are less important than experiences we have.

I suspect many many people already understand this; but it is new learning to me.

I wonder WHEN someone understands that an event has influenced who they are. I don’t know the answer but I plan to pay more attention.

What events have influenced you?