Showing posts with label Yellow Springs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yellow Springs. Show all posts

Thursday, October 29, 2015

CEMETERY STREET


 


The first house I remember well was on Cemetery Street. The high windows of our little 1850’s brick house had a view of the historic local cemetery, complete with the sunken stones of the early settlers and poor folks, as well as Victorian obelisks and rich-family crypts. It was all sheltered by a fine stand of tall hardwoods—maples, beech, sycamore, Kentucky bean trees, and oaks. I often stood up on the couch and peered out the window across the street to see a funeral in progress, the black cars, the black dresses, hats and sad, slumped demeanor of the mourners.  At certain times of year, people arrived and filled the place with flowers—Memorial Day, particularly. We often walked there, Mother and I, with whatever dog we had, sharing the peace with our silent underground neighbors.



Always having an active imagination, I drew many pictures of the cemetery, my notions about  the underground life of the dead, so thickly tucked away just across the street. My parents, of course, found that a little odd, but it seemed perfectly straightforward to me. All those husbands and wives that I’d seen, their gravestones sitting side by side, I figured, were still there, only now confined to a spot beneath the ground. I always drew little rooms, with tables with decorative flowers on top, and sofas and chairs, a picture on the wall and, sometimes, even a pet. I thought it must be a little lonely and boring for them to never be able to go outside anymore, to be staying forever in that underground haven, which was all I could make out of the much talked about “heaven.”  It made perfect sense, when I first heard about ghosts, that the dead might wish to come out and walk around in the cemetery. I spent a lot of night times looking out the front window around twilight, hoping to see one. After all, I took walks there, under those aged trees, listening to the birds and breezes, and it was always pleasant.


(Here's an Egyptian queen enjoying her own little room inside the pyramid, playing Backgammon for eternity.)
 

For the early part of my childhood, I lived in that rural Ohio town, with a close-knit family around, which made all holidays great fun, but Halloween was special in its own way. My younger cousin, Mike, and I were often dressed to compliment each other—one year we were cowboy and cowgirl, on another we were Raggedy Ann & Raggedy Andy. Once we were Spanish dancers, complete with hats with bobbles dangling beneath the brims. My cousin, now a big time politician, had in childhood a pronounced lisp. I remember him carefully explaining to someone who’d asked that we were “’Panish-tan-sers.”  Our costumes were hand-made by grandmas and loving aunts and we showed them off at what seemed to us an exciting costume parade for children which was held annually at the high school.


 

I also remember one night of trick-or-treating with some older children who lived up the road, away from the cemetery. They were the kind who weren’t entirely to be trusted with a smaller kid who wasn’t a family member.  That night's costume had been spur of the moment, so my mother had turned me into a ghost in an old sheet with a pillow case head. The head, as we ran door-to-door in the darkness, kept slipping, so I couldn’t see.  I was gamely trying to keep up with their longer legs in the darkness, but they only laughed and ran ahead. I remember falling and rolling head-over-heels down the steep grade next to the last house on the block, splintering the warm popcorn ball I’d just been given. Then I had to untangle myself from the sheet. After I escaped from that, though, I was surrounded by night. The  only porch light seemed about a mile away.  It was so scary to be left alone in the darkness that I abandoned my goodies and ran home as fast as I could. 

 

~~Juliet Waldron


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Saturday, December 14, 2013

MY CHRISTMAS PAST--1949




I was born at the end of the baby bust, so when I was little, for a time, before all those glad-to-be-alive Dad’s arrived home from the war, just to be a kid was special. My cousin and I lived in a pleasant rural Ohio town, which had been home to both our families since before the Depression. Mike’s parents lived just four blocks from me. His parents had a Cadillac, a hand-me-down from his grandparents, who were sufficiently well-to-do to buy a new car every two years. These better fixed in-laws liked to “do things up right.”  At Christmas, this meant hiring a Santa Claus.

Now, I’ve heard more about this Santa since I’ve grown up, but when I was a kid, I actually suspected he just might be the real deal. For one thing, I was quite small the first time I saw him, no more than four.

The night before Christmas I was getting the whole “you better watch out, you better not cry,” bit from my parents. There were canned peas for dinner, and I remember forcing those rubbery pills down, and hoping not to gag.

In those days, children went to bed before their parents—long before. Right after dinner, there was a story, a wash-up, and then straight to bed. Tonight, however, right in the middle of the story, I heard sleigh bells.

My parents wondered aloud "Who can that be?" I wanted to go look out the window, but was told to sit still. Daddy would open the door.

When he did, in came the most perfect Miracle on 34th Street kind of Santa.  He was chubby and had a long white beard—a real one--a round face, a bright red suit, black patent leather belt and tall boots. He was even carrying a sack. My father was grinning in a way which clearly meant I was being snookered, so after I croaked out a “Hello, Santa,” I gamely asked about his reindeer.

“Well, Darlin', they’re up on the roof—and you don’t have a proper chimney, Judy Lee, so just I knocked on the door.” Well, this seemed reasonable, because I knew our chimney ended up inside the scary big coal furnace in the cellar--obviously not a good place for anyone to land. From somewhere outside, I could hear sleigh bells, just every once in a while, as if the reindeer were tossing their heads.

 Suspicion somewhat allayed, I watched him take the seat my mother offered.  Dad picked me up and put me down on Santa’s knee. Santa was authentically cold all over, his clothes, his face, his beard, and he had a good vibe, smelling pleasantly, as men often did in those days, of whiskey. He was a polite, low-key Santa. His “ho-ho-ho” sounded as if he was actually chuckling about some private joke.

He asked me what I wanted most for Christmas, so I told him about the “drink-wet” baby doll I wanted. Outside the door, sleigh bells softly jingled. It was pretty amazing, to be sitting on Santa's knee there beside our lighted Christmas tree, with shiny packages piled beneath.

 Then he said “Merry Christmas, Judy Lee,” and said he’d be back later with my presents. As he left, there was a blast of cold and the sound of bells again. I still wanted to peep out the window, but my Dad caught my hand and said, “Hey, JL! What did you think of that?”

 “Was that really Santa?”

He and my mother looked at each other and tried not to smile.  So, even though “Seeing is believing,” I was left with a strong feeling that they had been trying to fool me. In a good way, of course, the way grown-ups did, pretending because they thought we children expected it.
 Although my Santa had been nice, jolly and convincingly bearded, I hadn’t seen him fly away.  I'd very much wanted to see the reindeer perform this feat, but it was pretty clear that I wasn’t supposed to watch him go. My cousin was even younger than I, so about all I learned from him the next day was that he too had had a visit from “Santa.” I decided this visitor might have been The Real Santa--but probably not. In retrospect, I believe the whole performance pleased my elders as much as it pleased me.  


"God Bless us, Every One..." 



~~Juliet Waldron

Mozart's Wife
Roan Rose
Nightingale
Genesee
Angel's Flight
Hand-me-Down Bride
Red Magic

 

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