Memoir

X-ray expert

/ Fran Haley / 20 Comments

Here’s a story about my oldest granddaughter, then age five, told to me by her parents (also known as my son and daughter-in-law).

One night while watching the game show Jeopardy! an answer came up about a substance to be swallowed before a certain kind of X-ray.

Our then-kindergartener instantaneously responded: “What is barium?”

Which is correct.

“How do you know that?” asked the astonished parents.

“It’s in Franna’s Curious George book,” said my granddaughter.

And so it is. I’ve read it to her countless times.

George being prepped for an X-ray after swallowing a puzzle piece in Curious George Goes to the Hospital,
Margret and H.A. Rey, 1966.

She never tires of this book and asks me to read it to her even now when, at age seven, she can read anything she wants on her own. My son once found one of his theology books in her bed.

I recall that that one of the greatest Jeopardy! champs of all time, James Holzhauer, said that he prepared for the show by reading children’s books in the library: “I don’t know why more people don’t do it.”

My little X-ray expert’s future looks so promising.

Lord, let me be here to see it.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

Vagabond

/ Fran Haley / 26 Comments

a memoir poem

Driving along 
a deserted road
in a deluge
in the dark
my hands gripping 
the steering wheel
for dear life

I see him
in the headlights
there, ahead
on the right

standing, bent,
in the sheeting rain
thumb held out

—how can I
not stop?

Rain beats
the car roof
like a drum
as he flings open
the door and
slides into the
passenger seat.

“Thanks,” he says.

He’s wearing 
layers of clothes

a sodden cap
over straw-like hair

sporting
a scraggly beard.

“Sure,” I say.
“Where are you going?”

He looks at me
for a peculiar moment:
“The better question is
where are YOU going?”

His eyes
(maybe it’s just my 
overactive imagination)
are silvery
in the darkness.

“H-h-home,” I stammer.

“Then I’ll ride as far
as you’re able to
take me,”
says the stranger.
“How old are you,
anyway?”

What does it matter?
“Eighteen,” I say.

“You mean
that you have lived
to be eighteen
and no one
has told you
not to pick up
strangers?”

I blink.

“It’s raining…it’s
such a bad night…”
I start

but as I speak
I can hear
Grandma’s voice
reading a favorite 
book to me
when I was small
(Never Talk to Strangers!)
and what 
she always says
at our parting:
Take care of your
precious self…

he finishes:
“It could be
an even worse night.
You don’t know
what some people
might do.
There are a lot
mean people
in the world.
It isn’t safe
for you to
stop alone
like this.
If you let me off at
the next intersection,
it will be enough.”

I blink.

I drive on
to the next 
intersection,
a well-lit place
where he opens
the door:

“Thanks for
the ride.
But don’t 
pick up 
any more
strangers,”
he admonishes.

The lights change
a horn blares
I’m only dimly aware
for watching
open-mouthed
as the vagabond
absconds
into the
rain-cloaked
night.

I blink.

Now I see him
now I don’t

as I take
the last turn
for home.

Lonely Highway. Colby Stopa.  CC BY 2.0.

*******

with thanks to Katrina Morrison for the invitation to write a “Seeing the stranger” poem on Day Four of the Ethical ELA OpenWrite

and to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

and to the vagabond hitchhiker
whose advice I have heeded
ever since

Unfare

/ Fran Haley / 26 Comments

a slice of memoir

I am standing with Aggie Ray at the bus stop. I don’t know why we are here or where we are going. Aggie Ray, big as a mountain with black hair parted in the middle and a face like a storm cloud, has brought me here. We had to walk a ways and I’m tired but one thing I know: don’t whine to Aggie Ray. She’s my babysitter and, somehow, my relative, but I am not sure how. She is keeping me while my parents paint the house they just bought, near the school where I will go to kindergarten in September.

I do not know when is September. I know it is summer now. The sidewalk is hot and Aggie Ray’s face is red like a rose, and sweaty. Still. Storm cloud. Warning.

I am not the only kid she keeps. There are others but they’re all bigger and they run around and sometimes knock me over. I try not to cry any more because Aggie Ray just calls me a crybaby. She shames me in front of the others for not being able to tie my shoes. And for other things…

Daddy says she sometimes eats a stick of Blue Bonnet margarine for snack and I have tried to watch to see if that’s true but I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t want to get in more trouble.

But today it’s just Aggie Ray and me when the bus pulls up with its loud WHOOSH and nasty exhaust. I gag and cover my nose; I am funny about smells but I remember Aggie Ray and pull my hand down.

It’s a good thing, too, because just then she grabs hold of my hand, bends low, and looks at me with them dark eyes that feel like knives although they aren’t even touching me. She growls: “When we get on this bus, you tell them you’re four years old.”

She’s made a mistake. I had a birthday not too long ago.

“I’m not four. I’m five now,” I tell her, but she squeezes my hand, hard.

“I don’t care. You tell them you’re four, hear me?” she hisses, as the bus door folds open.

I can’t help it.

I start to cry.

She hauls me up the steps and drops her fare in the box, as the bus driver says:”Well, now, what’s the matter with you, little girl?”

Oh, I can feel the steam coming from Aggie Ray’s big body and the power of her big, hard hand.

I am just so proud to be five. I don’t want to say I’m four.

It’s a lie.

And so I blurt it out to the friendly-faced driver…

“I AM FIVE.”

Gimpo bus fare box. Wikipedia Commons. CC BY SA 3.0

Suffice it to say I survived.

I realize now that Aggie Ray didn’t want to pay my fare; riding was free for four and under. And I wasn’t much past four.

I still don’t recall where we were going, or why, only that I was being told to lie. Usually kids have to be taught to tell the truth. I really was so proud to be five. To have to say I was four seemed more shameful than not being able to tie my shoes, or the other things…

I have no remembrance of a consequence. It is best. Aggie Ray is long gone now. She did have redeeming qualities, as well as a difficult life. Last time I saw her, she was ill and frail, but she came to hug me with a big smile.

Perhaps it’s unfair that this is my clearest childhood memory of her.

But it was unfair to me, and I knew it even then.

Perhaps I should say “unfare.”

Be that as it may… fare-thee-well, Aggie Ray, in your final destination.

I didn’t use your real name.

I didn’t think it was fair.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

Quotable Patrick

/ Fran Haley / 8 Comments

And so this festive feast day rolls ’round again, leaving me pondering my (supposed) green roots.

I grew up wearing green on this day just so I wouldn’t get pinched at school.

We weren’t Catholic, so for a long time I didn’t understand the history of saints and feasts.

I did understand leprechauns, however, because I loved books of legends, lore, and mysterious creatures.

The generations before me were Protestants hailing from rural eastern North Carolina, and despite my ancestry of Rileys on one side and Mayos on the other, our Irishness wasn’t discussed.

Except.

I write about this every year: My Granddaddy’s middle name was St. Patrick.

For real.

He didn’t love it at all (being a Methodist, or… because that’s really odd?) He had it legally changed to the initial S. in my lifetime.

But my aunt Pat was already named for him.

When I was a young adult, my dad tried to trace the Irish family line, maybe in search of a reason for this peculiar name choice borne by his father (whose brothers mostly had Biblical names like James, Hosea, Job Enoch, Asa…). And Granddaddy’s rustic accent bore traces of Elizabethan English: His brothers Hosea and Asa were Hosey and Acey; a neighbor, Etta, was Etter. Listen to Brits pronouncing Diana today and you may catch it: Dianer.

In short: All I can recall from my dad’s research is a convoluted story without a clear end.

But.

I did hear Granddaddy mention his grandfather speaking of Dublin. Just once, long, long ago.

Nowadays, with all of them gone, I am left to wonder, except that my DNA report says my ancestry is 92% British and Irish. As for strongest Irish evidence, County Dublin is listed second; County Mayo, fourth.

I do know that Saint Patrick’s Day wasn’t an official public holiday in Ireland until 1903…Granddaddy was born in 1906, so…hmmm…

All in all, despite the mysteries, I feel an affinity for the ancient Apostle of Ireland and his Christian ministry. My grandparents were devout salt-of-the-earth people. I am who I am largely because of their faith, their prayers. My husband and oldest son—with a surname tied to an ancient Irish family seat—are ministers.

That’s enough green threads for me to honor the day with a few favorite quotes attributed to the saint. There are prayers that I find profoundly beautiful and worth meditating upon, every day.

But I’ll leave you with these little pearls that make me smile:

Never trust a dog to watch your food.

May the light always find you on a dreary day.

We cannot share this sorrow if we haven’t grieved a while. Nor can we feel another’s joy until we’ve learned to smile (#WhyIWrite).

And from one of my life’s verses, Psalm 46:10:

Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am. Be still and know. Be still. Be.

I shall, Saint Patrick.

I shall.

Honestly, Granddaddy did resemble this a bit, sans beard.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

Pursuing knowledge

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

During the sermon she bends over her notepad, writing down unfamiliar words so she can look up their meanings later:

These are my oldest granddaughter’s notes while listening to my son preaching.

She is seven years old.

In a word: awe.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

and to my daughter-in-law
for sharing the photo and the story behind it

Ode to menthol

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

In the season
of sickness,
of a rattling
in the chest
that lingers
and lingers
and lingers
I seek
your healing power
O my elixir

none other will do
as well as you

your name
is not always recorded
on cryptic inscriptions

but I know
it’s you

nothing else
has that
distinctive
burn

Alas, you have become
such an elusive elixir

I search high and low
(on the shelves)
just to find
you’ve vanished

leaving no trace

it befits you,
vaporous thing
that you are

I cannot entertain
the notion
of orange
or honey
—fie!

These cannot
open passages
like you.

I wonder
what on Earth
I shall do

but wait…

memory stirs
like ghosts
like tendrils
like vapors, yes…

my own father
pouring your
precious substance
into a little silver tray
and plugging in
the vaporizer

there I was
suffering child
surrounded
by a steamy cloud
tinged with your
cool fragrance

sputtering
sizzling
on through the
long, long night

(you’re no cure-all
for childhood asthma, btw
but I’m not dealing
with that
anymore)

and speaking
of clouds…

back there
in the shroud
of Time
where sits
my father
and
my mother
puffing
puffing
puffing
on Salem cigarettes
there, the
telltale green carton
indicates your presence

I can still smell you
on the foil
of those packs
and in the
smoke ribbons
curling in the air
(aside: salem means
peaceful
complete
safe
perfect)

—what a cool operator
you are,
alternately healing
and stealing
breath

but then…

far back
so far back
I find you
at your purest,
perhaps

sick child
that I was
struggling
to breathe
(yeah, it’s a theme)

my grandfather
going to
his medicine cabinet
for a little
cobalt-blue tub
my grandmother
unscrewing the
aqua lid
and with one finger
slathering a good dollop
under my nose

(which now
no one is
ever
ever
ever
supposed to do
although clearly
I am alive)

and it is this memory
these moments
that are salve to my soul.
balm to my spirit

and so I come
to find you
like a miracle
in my own
medicine cabinet

whereupon I slather
my own self
up good

relishing your
mint-oil fire

your vapors
like a blanket
of love
enveloping me

breathing
breathing
Yea, with
a little
more ease

until this
lingering
lingering
rattle

evaporates
at last…

O, my elixir.



Fun facts: Vick’s VapoRub was invented in 1894 in the North Carolina county next to where I live now. It was originally called Vick’s Magic Croup Salve. From the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: “The salve in the blue jar is made of menthol, camphor, oil of eucalyptus and several other oils, blended in a base of petroleum jelly.” The creator invented it to cure his son of severe croup…which it did. Spanish flu killed the inventor in 1919 but, paradoxically, that pandemic drastically increased demand for his product. Oh…and guess who worked at the inventor’s drugstore as a teenager? O. Henry.

My ode, however is to menthol, not just Vick’s, seeing as I had to include my parents’ Salem menthols in the mix. I was an asthmatic child, my first attack occurring at age three months. As I grew, I often begged to stay with my grandparents when I was sick; they slathered me with this old remedy, hence my great affinity for VapoRub. Accordingly, my grandparents are ever-present in the healing power of that clean menthol burn…nowadays I am not troubled with asthma but when I feel a cold coming on, or, as in the present moment, trying to shake the rattling cough after a cold, Vick’s DayQuil with VapoCool is my go-to. It works, to which widely empty shelves attest. I finally had some delivered by Instacart (had to show ID, of course) so I can continue burning the rattle out of my chest…it’s the best thing I know of, outside of a certain homemade “recipe” made by one of my old-time church members from the country…not exactly sure what was in THAT jar, but it would’ve surely burned this stuff out long before now… that, however, is another story for another day.

Here’s to the healing power of menthol.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge
and to Kim Johnson,
whose series on Epsom salts convinced me that I really, really should write about menthol
(which, yes, can occasionally be dangerous, so use with care)

March snow

/ Fran Haley / 18 Comments

haiku story

gray Sunday morning
in spite of springing forward
it begins to snow

first time all winter
big white flakes now descending
on riotous blooms

purple-pink redbuds
bright yellow forsythia
pollen-laden pines

suspend certainty
while birds rush in, unafraid
of crystallized grass

momentarily
melting away in soft earth
—seems a sheer delight

to countless robins
hopping with newfound vigor
and the cardinal

on a blood-red blaze
toward the bare crape myrtle
where his mate awaits

and dark-eyed juncos
living up to their nickname
ground-flitting snowbirds

while papa house finch
forages in the clover
on the old dog’s grave

for seeds he’ll carry
to mama finch on the nest
incubating eggs

bluebird on the gate
ruffles his blue-flame feathers
in exultation

two crows come and go
strangely silent, for they know
the benediction

Carolina wren
hidden somewhere in the pines
sings Holy Holy

the earth’s aflutter
with myriad wings and things
returning blessing

in spite of the snow
life springs forward, brightening
gray Sunday morning

2020-0417_CentreCoPA_WestMain_Eastern Bluebird in the snow -01. amOBX. CC BY-NC 2.0.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge






Koala life lessons

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

One of my earliest memories is sitting on my grandmother’s lap while she read to me. I recall several of those old books, a favorite being the story of a koala.

I don’t know what happened to the original book, but a few years ago I found a vintage copy online and ordered it.

First of all, check out the 1968 price: 49¢. And secondly…yeah, koalas aren’t bears. Many a year passed before I realized this.

I loved Kobo the koala who sings to himself in rhyme and the story of what happens when he grows tired of living in trees, eating only “leaves for breakfast and leaves for dinner. It’s a wonder to me I’m not getting thinner.”

Kobo decides he will find a new home. Off he saunters (the vocabulary is so rich) for quite an adventure.

He encounters a platypus, another animal I loved at first sight. Kobo meets a number of other creatures: a kangaroo, a kookaburra, and Dingo, the wild dog who chases him back to his tree. Kobo learns in the end that his tree is exactly what he needs; he would not be happy living like the other creatures or having to eat what they do.

This is where Kobo belongs.

So all my life I’ve known where koalas live and what they need to eat…here is what I’ve learned about them in recent years:

They have fingerprints like humans.

They are the only living (extant) member the family Phascolarctidae.

Koala comes from indigenous language meaning “no-drink” or “no-water,” for these animals don’t drink much due to their exclusive eucalyptus-leaf diet. To see one drinking water isn’t a good sign.

In the times of drought and fires destroying their habitat, koalas have approached humans, begging for water.

Koala numbers are in decline due to deforestation, brushfires, vehicles, and yes…dogs.

In some parts of their eastern Australia home koalas are considered endangered.

I can’t help thinking how Kobo’s story would be so different, written today…he couldn’t return home if home is gone.

Of course koalas aren’t alone in this. I see it here on the other side of the world, with more and more land being cleared for neighborhoods. Not so long ago a white-spotted fawn came running through the yard to crash into my house, hard enough to dent the siding and leave a little patch of blood, before pivoting on its gangly legs and streaking back across the lawn to the woods. I never knew what became of it or its mother.

Then there are trees themselves, living things that actually communicate and work together to survive, until they are gone.

And then there are people. Refugees. Borders. Wars. One cannot go home when home is gone…

And children, so needing that sense of belonging…for our childhoods follow us all of our lives.

I suppose that was what was in my mind when I saw the stuffed koala at the store the other day and bought it to keep at my house for my granddaughters to play with when they come. Memories of my own grandmother. The books. The love. The sense of being wanted, valued, sheltered.

Micah, sixteen months old, immediately noticed it sitting atop the toybox in the living room on her next visit. Her face lit up. She toddled over to the koala, picked it up, and hugged it close. “Baby,” she said. “Baby.”

She is a baby herself.

But she already knows something about caring.

Kobo himself might say it’s the beginning of finding the way home, before too much is lost.

Mother and Child. jimbowen0306. CC BY 2.0.

********

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

and to Kobo the Koala Bear, written by Marjory Schwaljé, illustrated by Katherine Sampson

and to Grandma, for all the reading
and belonging

Juncos

/ Fran Haley / 9 Comments

Winter mornings
in the half-light
I leave home for work

out on the lawn
a stirring of birds
so small
I can’t quite see
if they’re actually birds

maybe they’re
gray-cloaked fairies
performing secret rites

or the grass itself
sprouting feet for a night
and ethereal wings
for breaking away
at dawn of day

tiny tufts
of earth, unbound
with promise of
heavenward flight

For a couple of months I’ve tried to figure out what little birds are flitting in the tufts of grass each morning. Gray and ghostlike, they’re elusive as fairies. I finally got a good look at a few of them through the kitchen window. I am pretty sure they’re dark-eyed juncos, which my Merlin Bird ID app has picked up and identified by song. They are sparrows, “birds of the ground,” hopping around on lawns looking for seeds. They even nest in the ground.

To me, they give the illusion of the grass transforming into birds.

I researched them and learned that the junco is a symbol of impending winter weather, nicknamed “Snowbird”.

Merriam-Webster says the first known use of “dark-eyed junco” was in 1974—when I was a child. “Junco” itself seems to have originated from a word meaning “rush”… as in rushes, synonymous with grass.

It just so happens that grass is a personal symbol for my father. I’ve often written of sensing his presence in the scent of fresh cut grass; this is steeped in childhood memories of him mowing the lawn. He was meticulous about it. Daddy enjoyed CB radio when it became a fad born of fuel shortages in the 1970s. I can’t recall his handle, but I recall the one I made up for myself, having never heard it before:

Snowbird.

It seems to have come to me around the same time the name “dark-eyed junco” was first used...

out on the lawn
a stirring of birds
so small
I can’t quite see
if they’re actually birds

maybe they’re
gray-cloaked fairies
performing secret rites

—Maybe they are memory itself.

Dark-eyed Junco. Kurayba. CC BY-SA 2.0.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

I remember these

/ Fran Haley / 17 Comments

I just so happened to see it there in the store window next to the Chinese fast-food restaurant where my colleague and I were picking up lunch:

A big, round, tan-and-brown can of Charles Chips.

“Look at that! I haven’t seen those in years!” I shouted, to my colleague’s amusement.

These tins were delivered by truck to our house when I was a kid, if I recall correctly. Like Dy-Dee Diaper service…only not taking something horrifically pungent away (I remember that, too, up until I was about four; I had a sister two years younger).

Instantly I was thrown back to the 1970s, beginning with this scene:

The sewing room that is supposed to be a dining room. Mama’s Singer sewing machine, threads, pins, patterns galore. The ironing board. Daddy’s shoeshine box and bench in the corner. The distinct scent of Kiwi shoe polish in hanging in this space…the Charles Chip can, long missing its lid, heaped to the brim with socks that had lost their mates. Mama calls it the sock box. How are there so many? The washer (that lasted over twenty-five years) ate them, maybe? Mama tries to keep socks matched by sewing a knot of thread in the toe tips, a different color for each pair… me, age seven, on the day of my baptism, walking down the baptistry steps into the surprisingly warm water, looking down at my white-socked feet, seeing the coordinating navy-blue knots…

All this, triggered by mere sight of a Charles Chip can after so many years.

I was there.

The Statler Brothers had a nostalgic song about things they remembered from their youth, entitled “Do You Remember These?”

Here’s what the Charles Chips started dredging up for me…see if any of you remember these, from the late 1960s to early ’70s:

The Archies cartoon (and the song “Sugar Sugar”)
Penelope Pitstop cartoon
Josie and the Pussycats cartoon
Rocky and Bullwinkle
The Flintstones
The Jetsons
H. R. Pufnstuf show
The Banana Splits show
The Munsters
The Addams Family (our family friends had a black lab named Thing)
The Wonderful World of Disney, Sunday nights
Wild Kingdom
Family Affair and Mrs. Beasley dolls
Easy-Bake ovens
The Wizard of Oz on TV once a year
Paper dolls, such as “Mod Maude”
Squirmles, the Magical Pet (a furry worm that “moved”)
Silly Putty for placing & peeling on the Sunday comics – so fun
The Pink Panther Show
The Partridge Family (how is it I can still sing every song?)
Donny and Marie
The Monkees
sea monkeys
bellbottoms
pet rocks
mood rings
tetherball
jacks
macrame
decoupage
Tupperware parties
Beeline parties
Avon ladies calling
Choco’Lite candy bars
Count Chocula cereal (back in stores now at Halloween!)
upper elementary girls wearing wigs to school
shag haircuts
The Brady Bunch
Gilligan’s Island
Viewmasters and reels
Spirograph art
Romper Stompers
Hippity Hop (ball with handle, for sitting on and bouncing wherever you wanted to go)
Super Elastic Bubble Plastic
rabbits’ feet (I am so, so sorry now, dear Rabbits)
Popeye
Looney Tunes
Star Trek
Lassie

and last but not least
Sonny and Cher

…these are just the first ripples in my memory. There’s a story surrounding each. There are more memories just below the surface, waiting to be stirred… so many, many more.

Funny, crazy, wondrous, strange, sweet slices of life. So long ago.

Seems fitting to end with this song (imagine me singing it with gusto around age five).

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Writing challenge