Freefall

Carolyn B Healy

I was the only kid in Chicago who had never been to Riverview. It wasn’t for lack of interest, as I’d been to Kiddieland over and over and was a real fan. It was a matter of logistics. In that era before expressways, when we’d set out for the occasional visit to the relatives in Oak Park, it took forever. And forever in a 1949 Ford, with no air conditioning of course, was no picnic. And Riverview was all the way on the North Side. For all I knew that would take more than forever.

Finally, early in high school came my big chance. My best friend Leslie and I got to go. I remember that. Whether it was it a school trip, or a YMCA outing, or somebody’s brave mom who drove us there and then disappeared for a few hours I can’t tell you.

We entered the gate and trailed from ride to ride, from The Bobs to Aladdin’s Castle, doing whatever we wanted. I felt liberated, grown up, finally part of the larger world. It was delicious.

My traumatic memory begins in the line for the parachute ride, Pair-o-Chutes. Sticky from cotton candy, head spinning from the rides and the lack of supervision, I looked up. Far far above me loomed the top of the giant tower with two billowing parachutes flapping in the wind. A metal cage dangled and swung from side to side. It was filled with children. They were probably wide-eyed but they were way too far away for me to see.

The machinery clanged, the cage fell and the parachute filled with air. I couldn’t see those children’s eyes, but suddenly I sure could hear their voices – their terrified screams pierced my ears and opened my brain to the fact that I was waiting in line to do the very same thing. What was I doing here?

You could not call me a brave child, but I had been trying to change that. Every day of elementary school I’d had to pass a yard ruled by a giant gray and black barking dog, one of those muscular mountain types, who would growl at me over the fence. Luckily, the fence was made of just as giant boulders and I believed that he probably couldn’t get to me. In eighth grade, I decided that things had to change. Instead of cowering in fear and scurrying by, I would stride by, head held high and show that beast that I wasn’t scared of him. Not at all. At the same time I felt that the owners should be ashamed of themselves, terrorizing young children just trying to get to school.

Also, even though I was beside myself with panic whenever I had to go to the dentist, I kept quiet and worked on developing a steely determination to get through it with dignity. Thank God it was only twice a year. If I had a cavity and had to come back sooner, I was wracked with guilt, shame and self-recrimination over this dental failure, not to mention beset by the familiar panic. But I made it through every time and forgot about dentistry until about a week before the next checkup.

So here I was – at Riverview, in line, marching toward certain death, feeling just terrible that my mother would have to face life without me. In my final moments, how would I handle this situation, given my commitment not to chicken out of things? I would have to be brave. I could do it.

On the other hand, how had I let this happen? Part of keeping yourself safe is preventing unnecessary danger, and I’d walked right into this one. My fear told me that this is the kind of thing other people can do but you can’t.

In fact, other people even want to do this. I eyed Leslie to look for signs of weakness. She looked up too at the screaming children. And laughed. She would be no help. And since I couldn’t bear to out myself as a coward in front of her, no one else could help me either.

The line inched forward and carried me slowly to my fate. I remember laboring to keep up lighthearted chatter while my heart was beating wildly out of my chest like in a cartoon.
Maybe I’d be struck with a sudden illness. Maybe I could excuse myself to go to the bathroom and dawdle my way back and, oh well, miss the whole thing. But Leslie was too good a friend. She would loyally step out of line and wait for me. Doggone her anyway.

Or maybe there’d be a power outage, a lightning strike, or…or…. I ran out of ideas. It was going to happen. We reached the front of the line. The apparatus stopped and the gate flew open. The last occupants, faces glowing with excitement from their fall, were unstrapped and ran toward the exit stairs chattering excitedly.

We climbed in the soon-to-be-dangling basket and were secured in our seats by the bored attendant, who gave the signal with a big wave. We started up.

My terror suddenly broke apart. It was still there, but so was the entrancing and unfamiliar view, the shrinking waves from the crowd below, the silence broken only by the grinding gears. There was a bird. And white clouds against the bluest sky. And the tower which seemed to still be standing.

I looked up to watch our progress. We were almost to the top. Leslie wasn’t saying much either. Maybe she was just a little scared? I couldn’t ask.

We hit the top and the terror kicked in full force. The bottom dropped out and we were in freefall, hurtling toward the sidewalk. What if we didn’t stop?

But we did. The parachute filled with air, the gears caught, and I was …disappointed? At the end, it was not so scary, like going down in an open-air elevator. We hit bottom and clanged into place. It was over. I had lived. Despite the anticlimactic end, I nearly melted into a puddle once my feet hit blessed earth.

The rewards were rich. My thrill came not from the adrenaline rush while falling, but from the post-landing reconfiguration of my identity. I was a person who could do a thing like that after all. I could be terrified, cope with it, and live. I was a survivor. I was brave even. My fear was present and I overcame it. Again. How about that?

But then came the real kicker. It soon hit me that, to be the person I wanted to be, I would need to do this again and again. In the years since I have reenacted my parachute ride repeatedly. Each time, from parasailing off the Florida coast, to the times I’ve stuck my neck out professionally, to the day my three-year-old had heart surgery, I have found that the measure of my initial fear and dread is about equivalent to the pride and relief after completion.

Good thing I got to Riverview that day. It closed soon after and I might have been left to cower and avoid my way through life. I might have learned this lesson in another way, who knows, but certainly not so quickly or so well. What you learn in freefall sticks with you like nothing else.

CBH 03/09

A Chill in Cuba

Carolyn B Healy

The scene -
Hotel lobby, Havana

• A polished wooden bar ringed with rattan stools, bathed in soft light

• Polished mosaic tables arranged at the base of a spectacular marble staircase; a wide balcony overlooks the entire lobby

• Potted tropical plants sit everywhere

• A guitar player roams from table to table

The main characters -
Five American travelers:

• My husband David and me who can best be described as touristy looking Midwesterners

• Our two new trip friends, Sue, a gentle 70 year-old former bank CFO who looks about 45 and her wisecracking friend Linda, who could also pass for 10 or 20 years younger than she is

• Matt, late 20’s, the baby of our humanitarian tour group, as all the other travelers are 30 to 50 years his senior. His gelled hair and dark blue eyes make him stand out from the other young people in the lobby, as does his formal Southern gentleman manner.

The supporting cast:

• An amiable bartender who shows off a bit in the production of his drinks and engages customers in pleasant banter, just like your local bartender at home

• A cranky expressionless waitress upon whom it seems lost that she has one of the best jobs in Cuba, in that she works in a ritzy spot where she can receive tips in CUC’s, the dollar-like currency usually reserved for foreigners

• A fluid assortment of other patrons, all Europeans and Canadians, sampling cigars and local drinks

Tipoff that you are in Havana:

• Solemn business-suited guards stand at various stations on the balcony, surveying the scene. Every half hour they rotate.

• At first we figure that they are watching us. We eventually learn that we are of little interest. They really watch their fellow Cubans, with good reason. With the black market about the only part of the economy that’s thriving, just about every commodity, from toilet paper to bathrobes to eggs, apparently tries to walk out the back door.

• That, and the housekeeping staff being dressed in French maid outfits. They don’t even have those in France anymore from what I’ve seen. Although this hotel started out as a joint venture with the Dutch, and they may know better than I. Actually, it was that until the Dutch bailed out, one year in, finding the flow of items out the back door untenable when it came to making a profit, kind of an unfamiliar concept in Cuba. So Cuba’s former colonial oppressor Spain came through to take over for the Dutch, suggesting that they either have greater risk tolerance or a tougher protocol to keep an eye on the goods.

Opening scene:

David and I enter the lobby, back from an evening stroll through Parque Central, a large tree-lined square across the street. Sue and Linda wave us over to their table where they enjoy Mulatas, Cuban specialty drinks personally prepared by our featured bartender. They launch into stories about the friend of a friend who they spent the afternoon with, an American woman married to a Cuban musician. We try to get the attention of the surly waitress who stares at a boisterous group of German tourists.

Lurching past the table comes young Matt, apparently overserved again as he had been at the opening night welcome party. He slows, raises a hand in greeting and lands in our empty chair. It is unclear whether that was his intention or the result of impaired balance.
“Would you like to join us?” Sue asks, a little late.

He looks from right to left, as fast as his depressed central nervous system can manage, and finds no way out. “Sure, I’ll have a drink with you. What’re ya having?” he asked, eyeing the Mulatas.

He snaps his fingers in the air and the snappish waitress appears at his elbow. “We’ll have a round of…these,” he said lifting Sue’s drink as an example, “Honey.” Eager to see how she would show her displeasure, we all turn in time to see her smile warmly at him.

Matt, incapable of multitasking at the moment, pauses in order to concentrate on her departing rump. We watch him watch her until she reaches the bar.

The story unfolds:

“So Matt,” Linda says, “How is it that you are here? Are those people we saw you with your parents?

In the next 20 minutes we learn that

• He was not related to the couple. “We are not traveling together. We are just on the same trip.” What?

• They did have a connection.”We are both pilots.” Pause for effect. “He is my friend.” The man in question was a handsome fast-moving fellow who didn’t say much, but seemed like a solid citizen. Matt acknowledged that he and his wife had taken him under their wing, leaving us to wonder why he needed that protection.

• Every night he trolled Cuban night spots until 4am. “It makes it a bitch to make the bus,” which left every morning at 8 to transport us to the day’s activities.

• He was reluctant to say how he made his living except that it involved his plane and the Caribbean. “Well, this and that. I couldn’t go to a job in a suit. I’d have to shoot myself.” He did look spiffy in a crisp Hawaiian shirt and pleated khakis straight out of wardrobe for Miami Vice.

• His parents had disappointed him in a major way. “Well, my mom. Let’s just say she’s out of my life. And my dad. They went to New York. I’m an orphan.” That sent my writer’s imagination flipping through death, divorce, suicide, abuse – wait, I think that’s my therapist’s imagination. He waved off further questions.

• He was enraptured with the Cuban people, the ones he was meeting in his nightly forays. “You meet such fabulous people out there. You have to get out of here to do it. They don’t let them in here you know.” We did know that Raul, having taken over from Fidel some months before, had quickly changed the policy that allowed no Cubans in hotels unless they worked there. Fidel’s reasoning: Why let people limping along on ration cards see how other people live, unless they work there and benefit from it; not to mention the prostitution thing. Raul’s: What the heck? Let them live a little. Besides, they can’t afford it. The Cuban pesos they get paid in don’t spend there.

His popularity with the Cubans he was meeting – was it his personality, looks, CUC’s? Was he being courted for what he would be willing to do? He invited David to accompany him that night. He declined, partly because it was past his bedtime, partly out of good radar for trouble.

Matt made every effort to turn on the charm, but the attempt fell flat except for his effect on the waitress. He employed the disorienting lack of eye contact that makes you look over your shoulder to see what he’s really looking at – and find that there’s nothing there. Again, this raised the question of whether this was intentional or a temporary alcohol-induced inability to focus.

The conversation stayed all about him, with our complicity, each of us throwing in leading questions to keep him going, hoping we’d hit a vein of authenticity if we dug hard enough.
I began to develop a chill, the same chill I’ve felt when I’ve met people over the years, clients and others, who consider harm to others or themselves an acceptable risk if it allows them to get what they want – thrills, revenge, financial gain, whatever. That chill comes from being in the presence of a person who might do anything because he is missing a part or two.

What was he up to? Gun-running, drugs, unauthorized immigration, whatever he was told? Or was it just posing, an attempt to inflate an underdeveloped self?

He rose, attempting gallantry, “It’s been a pleasure…”

We let him go and resumed our talk about what Sue and Linda had learned in their afternoon trip to real Havana.

A few minutes later, we noticed him back at the bar, a new drink and giant cigar in hand, leaning over two blonde tourists, a hand on each of their shoulders.

“Bond,” I said, “James Bond.” We called him James Junior after that, or Junior for short. We shared our speculations about his actual business and motives, and concluded that we were just glad he wasn’t our kid, drifting untethered in a sea of potential trouble.

As Matt stooped lower to talk more intimately into the girls’ faces, David said, “I’ll tell you this – he’s not going to be able to consummate whatever he starts tonight. Guaranteed.” Our pals whooped, a little scandalized, and we retreated back into discussion of the packages of clothespins their friend had requested and how she planned to barter them for other rarities like eggs and milk. With one of the front desk receptionists she had befriended among others.
We broke up after a nightcap and retreated to our luxurious rooms with marble and bathrobes and a view of the slums, and continued to try to make sense of Cuba, where people seemed so like us and the world they lived in so different. And wondered about Matt’s world, where with any luck, we would never have to visit again.

CBH 02/09

You Can't Always Get What You Want

Carolyn B Healy

My high school was one of the best in the Chicago Public School system – academically superior, racially stable, with a host of after-school activities. A substantial percentage of students went on to college and success. It had the customary social divisions for the time: the cool kids, the hoody kids and the nerds, even though that word was not in use yet. Everyone pretty much knew where they belonged, but our school had a particularly vivid way of drawing the distinctions, at least for the white kids.

The black kids must have had their own stratification, but in our self-involvement, we got only a glimpse. Within our honors classes, there was a bit of a range from the ultrastudious twins, to the hardworking activity jock who ran the yearbook, to the glamorous girl who belted out the theme from Goldfinger at the talent show. We were school-friends, but never met outside of school, and never wondered why.

My drama played out on the border between the cool kids and everyone else. There were three sororities that exercised considerable power over the social structure not to mention our own fragile self-definitions. The first was for the upper crust girls. Prosperous, attractive, socially adept, they occupied the top rung of the social ladder, and no surprise, included the cheerleaders, the true elite. We’ll call them Group A, though they had a fancy three-Greek-letter name.

Group B was at the other extreme, the girls who were tougher, more likely to come from blue collar families, less concerned with the social niceties, less active in school activities or currying favor with teachers. The hoody girls.

Group C was in the middle, the regular girls, nice, often smart, busy with activities. I aspired to Group C.

On one level I knew better. I objected in principle to the concept of excluding girls based on some secret and specious measurement of their adequacy. But I was so entranced by the prospect of converting my outsider status (no father, no siblings) to become one who belonged, I abandoned my principles and went through rush, along with nearly all my friends.
The separation began right there. The nice plain girl with the white blouse and circle pin didn’t even try. And the quiet and socially awkward girl who sat near me in class stayed home too. I barely noticed. It was almost my birthday and I knew what I wanted this year. My new life was about to begin.

I remember nothing about the rush parties, but I think they involved punch and cookies and favors. But I remember bid night perfectly. From my second floor apartment, sitting at my desk overlooking the intersection of 111th Street and Hoyne, I watched with excitement for the Group C car to pull up and bring me my invitation to join. The minutes ticked by.

When I saw the car approach, and then go whizzing on by, I realized that my big chance had vanished in their dust. I think I got on the phone with my best friend who was also awaiting her fate, but I couldn’t swear to it. I might have been mute with shame.

By the end of the night, it was clear that she was without a bid too. It seemed less tragic that way and we soon rose to the occasion, declaring ourselves GDIs – God Damned Independents. I think we even made up GDI sweatshirts. It was only spring of sophomore year after all, and we had to construct some sort of social identity that would see us through the coming three years.
All our friends pledged Group C and were soon wearing pledge ribbons, attending meetings and receiving orders to bake chocolate chip cookies and deliver them to the house of this or that “active.” With the cookies and other demands, it started to dawn on me that I might not have been very well suited to pledgehood anyway. I had better things to do than bake other people cookies, didn’t I?

The only friend who deviated joined Group B, the one her sister belonged to. She and I always walked to school together, so I saw her toting her cookie orders and watched her sister’s friend ordering her around. She didn’t seem to be having that much fun.

Two weeks later another friend, a successful Group C pledge, invited me over for Saturday night. She said that she invited some other girls too. Just what I needed, I thought, a respite from the social anguish of the past days. I got dropped off, walked into her living room, and was engulfed by 12 girls yelling Happy Birthday. They gave me a huge homemade card and a cake. And the most therapeutic surprise I’ve ever had.

We had such fun that we decided to meet again and again for what we came to call hen parties. We named ourselves The Crew and drank Diet Rite, ate shortbread cookies and had more fun than anyone.

The months went by, and rush season came around again. I put my hat in the ring again, generously providing Group C the opportunity to correct their mistake. Once again, they declined.

I did get visits that bid night from the other two. I sensed that Group A was quite certain that I would gratefully take them up on it. And that Group B was motivated by respect for my walking-to-school friend who must have urged them to include me. It must have been that, because we all knew that I was a goody-two-shoes who couldn’t begin to keep up with the hoody girls.

What did I do? The most contrary thing I could. I turned down Group A, explaining that I didn’t feel I would fit in, silently enjoying their disbelief. I accepted Group B in thanks to my friend and their willingness to accept an unusual candidate. I dropped out within a week, on the eve of my first cookie order. She understood.

By then, half of my Crew friends had grown weary of the indignities they’d suffered as pledges, and the painful process of rush. One dropped out of Group C, others barely attended their meetings, and one ended up president. We each found our own way.

In the gifts where you least expect them department, The Crew has lived on to be a sustaining force in my life ever since that 15th year birthday party. We’re meeting at Lake Tahoe this summer, and will continue until we conk out for good. I sure didn’t get what I wanted, but ended up with so much more than I imagined.

CBH 01/09

Not the Worst Way

Carolyn B Healy

The first time it hit me was a Sunday morning in April, the year my first-born son was a junior in high school. My husband and I were on our usual outing, grabbing bagels for the kids and time for coffee and conversation on our own. There was no hurry as both kids were still sprawled in their beds, sleeping the sleep of the adolescent - truly exhausted and deeply entitled.

We sat in the middle of Einstein’s Bagels and idly discussed our recent college visits– the schools we could picture him adapting to, or not– when the earth tilted and I understood for the first time that he would really leave – and break up the happy home I had poured my heart and soul into for all those years. The tears started, right in front of anyone who chose to look, mine streaming and his only welling up. After minutes of trying to stop, I left, and stumbled out into the next phase of life – the Letting Go era.
I have snapshots burned into my memory documenting the journey from that moment to the actual goodbye –the swirl of red robes at graduation, heartbreaking trips to Bed Bath and Beyond for the essentials of dorm life, my son happily sorting through shower totes and bedspreads, me searching the eyes of other moms to see if they were adjusting better than I was.

Finally, the three of us drove to Brown, leaving a disgruntled younger sister at home to start the school year under Grandma’s supervision. In a Cape Cod hotel lobby I witnessed a scene that said it all. A young mom was leaving for the airport, briefcase in hand, as her little boy followed with his dad. He called, “Mommy, here I am! Wait for me.” He couldn’t imagine that she was going without him. I could relate. My son put his arm around my shoulders and said, “Oh no. Oh Mom,” with a chuckle, and shot his dad a helpless glance.

At the freshman dorm, when all the excuses to stick around were exhausted, we left. In the courtyard we passed another couple standing in a wordless embrace, the mom with her eyes closed, the dad clasping his arms around her. That scene held all the hopes and agonies of getting your precious child this far and having to step aside.
More stories came our way. There was the sixty-ish dad who tearfully recalled his son’s departure fifteen years before, a mom who drove the long trip home because dad was too broken up, a new acquaintance who reminded me that there are worse ways to lose a child.

I know now that a river of inevitable grief runs just underneath family life, waiting for us to be tossed in. But 10 years later, having long ago climbed back out, I like this new era that I dreaded so much. My son is in Barcelona this week, my daughter the banker is coming out Thursday, and I am growing used to suiting myself rather than focusing on other people’s needs. We will no doubt be thrown into that river again, but we are practiced now and can look ahead with hope to the rewards we can’t see from here. Life is good, after all.

CBH 11/08

Interrogating My Stuff

Carolyn B Healy

Last year, my questions were all about why grief strengthens some people and weakens others. Before that, my questions were about how to multitask 24/7. This year, they are all about my stuff.

I used to move at least every five years. The usual young couple-upwardly mobile-growing family thing allowed me to upgrade from college apartment to rented bungalow to great duplex to actual own home. That took 10 years, and then began the parade of houses, all of it spanning three towns and another 10 years.

Stuff was never a problem back then. Each new place opened up new storage options, so any new item I acquired easily found a spot. Plus, with each move it was easy to jettison the things that had outlived their usefulness. It was a tidy self-cleansing process, kind of a regular stuff enema.

The trouble began 18 years ago just before Christmas, when we bought the current house, an across-town move from a much smaller one. We quickly stashed our stuff, hosted Christmas for the extended family and got on with family life. The next time I looked up, a couple of months ago, I was surrounded, hemmed in, trapped, drowning in extra stuff which occupied nearly every nook and crevice in this once roomy house.

To understand my issues, you have to understand my marriage, a good but not easy match. Without me, my husband would probably prefer life in a sterile box devoid of any decoration save a decanter for his bourbon, a copy of This Old Cub, his favorite DVD ever, and his big screen TV.

Without him I might have inched closer to hoarder heaven. His unwillingness to tolerate visual clutter has helped me contain most of mine to my home office where I covered nearly every square inch of wall space with meaningful photos, my collections of suns and moons, a wall cabinet filled with mementos from my parents’ era, and well, you get the idea.

What he may not know and the casual observer would miss is that I also have stuff cleverly hidden in strategic locations elsewhere in the house – in antique trunks and painted chests, under the bed, and under the other bed. Meanwhile, he somehow gained custody of the upstairs closets where he can spread out his wardrobe so that each shirt has breathing space. He didn’t pee on the boundaries of his closets, but he protects them like he did. My move was to seize the basement. And fill it. As the years went on, we reached this stuff stalemate until nothing new could enter the house without something old leaving.

We lived like that in relative harmony until we recently decided to redo my office and the room next door, our bedroom, and finally remove the aqua carpeting that had come with the house and the blue paint we had added in our first year here.

Right now, the painting is done, the walls a calm beachy tan color, the new carpet is on order and the rooms are completely dismantled. Which brings me to the point where my questions kicked in.

Carrying box after box, bag after bag and stack after stack out of that office, I had my moment of truth – my stuff was unmanageable. I had to do something different to recover my freedom, my space, my lightness of being. My stuff had taken on a life of its own, like a kudzu vine wrapping itself around everything in sight. I had to take control. I resolved that I would conduct this project like a move, questioning the right of each item to re-enter the room when I move back in.

I started with my books, which are relocating to guest rooms where they will provide a gracious background for visitors. They will have a happier life there on their own, and I can visit them whenever I want.

The rest of the process will be more difficult. The interrogation will go like this. Each item will have to answer three questions to get back in:

1. What do I need you for?
Are you about the past, the present or the future? Given that, why do you need to stay?
Is your appeal practical, emotional, or spiritual? And so what?
Will I use you never, occasionally, all the time?

2. What do you say about me?
Do you reflect my whimsical side, a sad or serious time, a quality I have, an opportunity I missed?
What need were you to fill; do I still have that need?
How do I feel when I see you?

3. Would I buy you today?
Do you belong with me at this point?
Is there something else that should have your spot instead?
Is there someone else in the world who would love to have you?

Feeble answers like “But you’ve always had me,” or “You’ll never make it without me” just won’t cut it.

I have two giant boxes, in the basement of course. One will be for donations, the other for my upcoming Museum of Things I Can’t Stand to Get Rid Of But Don’t Need to See Every Day, another place I can visit if I feel the need. With this plan, I feel better already, sure that next year’s questions won’t have to have anything to do with my stuff.

Ultimately, figuring out which questions to ask when just may be the key to the life we all want. In my case, it is now too late, but I could use a do-over on some of my earlier efforts. Instead of asking how to better multitask, what if I would have explored how to become more mindful 24/7? Maybe that’s what’s coming next.

CBH 10/08

Writing the Book on Picky Eaters

Carolyn B Healy

Some people remember certain classics from their childhood bookshelves – Black Beauty, Green Eggs and Ham, The Velveteen Rabbit. For me, it’s the little-known Cheese, Peas and Chocolate Pudding by Betty Van Witsen, last published in 1971. It tells the story of a little boy who would eat only those three foods and nothing else. Thanks to my mother I heard it hundreds of times. When I get hooked on something, I stay hooked. At least I was until I joined the Weekly Reader Book Club and got started on The Pink Motel, No Children No Pets, Leader Dog and the like. And then Nancy Drew came into my life and I put childhood things aside.

By the time I needed it again, Cheese, Peas and Chocolate Pudding was long gone, out of print and available only in my memory. One miraculous afternoon in a pediatrician’s office, I found a copy in a stack of tattered children’s books. I persuaded the receptionist to let me take it home overnight to copy.

Unlike Catcher in the Rye and Dick and Jane, which I have re-read with disappointment, C,P and CP held up over time. (SPOILER ALERT: there are currently no copies available on amazon.com, but just in case you experience a serendipitous discovery like mine and get to read the book on your own, you may not want to read the rest of this paragraph.) It had tension – earnest parents try to get him to eat. It had drama – he sits under the dining table refusing dinner. It had climax and resolution – a scrap of his older brother’s hamburger drops into his mouth and he finds it delicious. And it had realism – after that, he only eats cheese, peas, chocolate pudding and hamburger.

In a twist that suggests that the universe has a sense of humor, I gave birth to that little boy in real life, in the person of my daughter Katy. While gobbling her way through boxes of rice cereal and jar after jar of baby sweet potatoes, she spit out all meat products and anything green. As a toddler, she graduated to a monochromatic diet of grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese and applesauce. No candy, no cookies, no meat, no frills. I could have written a book. If the term picky eater didn’t already exist, I would have had to coin it.

It wasn’t that she didn’t experiment some. She liked fish sticks until she found out that they were made of fish; same with tuna salad. She was briefly willing to try hot dogs as long as they touched nothing else on her plate, until someone (I suspect her older brother) told her they contain things like rat lips and cat brains. And she was the only child in America who hated chocolate.

Just like the book, her story has a happy but realistic ending, as she finally ventured out into Grandma’s Cheesy Potatoes, cheese pizza and the other Grandma’s mashed potatoes and eventually, the occasional pasta and chicken breast. While the color palate remained the same, she could enjoy much more variety.

Once, well into adulthood, that same brother took both of us to an Ethiopian restaurant in his neighborhood. She tried to like it but her revulsion was real and at the end of the meal, she went straight across the street for the biggest slice of pizza I’ve ever seen.

I have a copy of Cheese, Peas and Chocolate Pudding set aside for her once she gets as far as parenting. I know she will bring special insight to its reading. In honor of her, here is one of her breakthroughs, Grandma's Cheesy Potatoes. CBH 09/08

What I Found in the Bargain Bin

Carolyn B Healy

When I was growing up, a great day out for my mother and me was a trip east down 111th Street from our apartment in Morgan Park, past the high school, two neighborhoods over to Roseland, home of Gately’s Peoples’ Store. Gately’s was kind of a combo department store and discount store before there was such a thing.

The southernmost neighborhood in Chicago, Morgan Park was a leafy hilly place, site of a private school with a handsome campus, and of a limestone library that we could see from our second floor apartment. Roseland was plainer, with its modest houses and tidy lawns set in a firm grid, the home of our rival high school. But it was one of our favorite haunts, thanks to Gately’s.

There was nothing fancy about the store. I remember squeaky wooden floors and glass-topped counters, and a giant center staircase. It had all the typical departments – ladies dresses, hosiery, fabrics and notions, childrens’ clothes. There was even a crowded lunch counter with tall skinny stools, I think in the basement, where you could grab a Coke if your shopping wore you out.

We’d look for whatever was the excuse for the trip – a dress for a special occasion, play clothes, a pattern and fabric that would make it to the living room closet but probably not into production. We always had more ambition than follow-through.

The best part was located in the center of the first floor – the bargain bins piled high with turtlenecks, mittens, sweaters, blouses, pajamas, socks. We’d leave with a dark green bag with Gately’s written in yellow script, as satisfied as hunters dragging home their prey.

On the way home, we’d stop for dinner at White Castle on 111th just west of the store. Nestled next to the multi-story YMCA, it had an Edward Hopper Nighthawks quality. We’d order sliders, those mini-burgers steamed and covered with onions, each tucked into its own cardboard box, and then for dessert, lemon meringue pie. As we ate, we’d rate our bargains, reliving their pleasures as golfers do the great putt on 14.

Money was not a big issue then in my life, just a means to ends like turtlenecks, food, fun, something to spend as little as possible of but not to worry about. I know now that my single mother was doing the worrying while successfully hiding it from me.

Since then, I’ve had my run-ins with money – the bounced checks for my $5 a week expenses once I went away to college without a clue about how to balance a checkbook, for instance. And much later the midnight anxiety about how on earth I was going to make payroll when I had my own business and my customers didn’t pay me on time, or at all.

But my modest start did me a favor – my financial setpoint is firmly and permanently fixed nice and low. I definitely love bargains more than I love spending. Nowadays, on the rare occasion that I overdo it on one big purchase or a flurry of smaller ones and take myself over my long-established threshold, I’ll be sorry. Even though I can afford the splurge now, I feel a little sick and a little guilty, as if I had eaten the whole lemon meringue pie myself.

I’ve transferred my allegiance now to consignment shops and outlet malls, but the thrill of those outings with Mom is long gone. I’d give a lot to wander back through Gately’s aisles for an afternoon with her and see how much of what I remember was actually there.

Do other people have Gately’s memories too? Apparently they do if my discovery of http://www.gatelysstoreinroseland.blogspot.com/ is any indication. The next time I get an impulse to shop, I think I’ll explore there instead. Think of the money I’ll save.

CBH 8/08