About that Rosemary Bush . . .

Years ago, in my other life in the inner city of Houston, I used to admire the rosemary bush in the yard of my friends Marguerite & Richard Pulley.

It was extraordinary – enormous & lush.

Not unlike a very large, very radiant, very fecund woman.  Only verdant.

When I exiled myself back to the suburbs of my youth, I built a garden & planted a bit of rosemary.

Which grew even larger than the rosemary bush in the Pulley’s back yard.

For years that bush was used to flavor chicken & marinara sauce & stuffed into our turkeys.

A ruthless, hard freeze annihilated all but a bit of the rosemary bush.

I planted the bit & a new, lusher, more prolific, more gorgeous rosemary bush emerged.

A bush I have been nurturing for twenty years.

 Several years ago, I cleared out the garden of intruding aloe vera plants (who knew they were so damned tenacious).  And I reduced the rosemary bush to a third of her size.

I hung dried rosemary everywhere (thinking it might ward off zombies if not vampires).  It was only later that I learned one can make pesto from rosemary . . .

The Mother of all rosemary bushes thrived & from her, I have raised three extraordinary young bushes.  I gave one to my friend Carolyne Massey.  Another I left in the garden.  And the last I placed in a planter in the front yard.

Yesterday, someone (who will remain nameless – I leave it to the reader to ascertain the identity of the culprit) decided that we needed more real estate in the garden & dug up Mother Rosemary.

When I confronted the culprit, he said:

But we have other rosemary bushes.

  

I held my temper, I held my tongue.  Taking a deep breath, I demanded that he go out into the yard, dig a whole, & replant Mother Rosemary.

In his defense, which is weak at best – who digs up another person’s plants – he just did not get what Mother Rosemary means to me.

If she does not survive in her new location, there will be another post.

Some things are sacred.  Mother Rosemary is one.

Baby Rosemary.

In Another Life with Kris Kristofferson

 

In another life, I taught Sunday School to fifteen-year-old girls.  I was 24 & totally not qualified to be leading a group of teenagers.

How I became a Sunday School teacher is another story for another day.

During that time, Kris Kristofferson starred in a remake of “A Star is Born” with Barbra Streisand.  The girls were madly in love & lust with him.  Or at least with his character in the film.  

And it happened that Kristofferson was touring the country & scheduled for a Houston  gig.  So I arranged a girls’ night out with my class & any others in the department to see the object of their lust in person.

(A sure sign that I was inept as a Sunday School teacher – what were their parents thinking?)

Other greats showed up for the final set – Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson . . .others I don’t remember.

Later, after the concert, I took the girls to IHOP & they looked at me in dismay.

Jaki, he is a country & western singer.

In my youth, I did not know how to explain Kris Kristofferson to a group of lusty fifteen year olds.

That he was not the character in “A Star is Born.”

That he was a Rhodes Scholar, a graduate of the US Army’s Ranger School, a man who quoted William Blake.

That he, not Janis Joplin, wrote “Me & Bobby McGee”. 

 And “For the Good Times” & “Help me Make it Through the Night” & my personal favorite, “Sunday Mornin´Comin’ Down”.

Or that he would eventually team up with Willie Nelson & Waylon Jennings & Johnny Cash to tour as “The Highwaymen”.

I sometimes wonder if those girls remember that night & how I tried to explain the enigma that is Kris Kristofferson to them.

Personally, I admire him much more as a songwriter than as an actor.

But for me, it is always about words.  Always.

Elections are a narrative, Jack

Elections are about narrative; as such, money and partisan reporting are vital to shape a story line that moves a majority of voters.

June 14, 2012, 9:00 pm  The Clown and the Cop  By TIMOTHY EGAN  New York Times

Father’s Day, 2012. 

 

Twenty-nine years without my father Jack.   

And as I follow my Sunday morning routine, listening to the mainstream Sunday morning programs & reading the New York Times, I wonder.

What would Jack think?

About the electoral rhetoric, about a man of color in the White House, about Republicans ruling Texas, about the onslaught on a woman’s right to control her body & her reproductive options.  About how tall my sons are.  About how beautiful are my nieces.  About how my nephew wants to be a Navy Seal.  About how trapped my mother is in her wheel chair.

What would Jack think?

I wonder what Jack would say if I began a conversation with:  

Elections are about who tells the better, more welcome, story.  Elections are about narrative.

Would he throw a plate across the room as he did when I told him I was going to vote for George McGovern in 1972?

Or would he listen.  I know he is listening now.

Because Timothy Egan’s blog in the New York Times this morning is correct:  elections are about narrative.

Elections are all about who is the better writer.  Or hires the better writer.

Elections are all about how well each writer identifies, perceives and understands the target audience.  

Elections are about language.  And images & manipulation.

My life-long love affair with words & text & textuality  aside,  I am not certain that elections should be decided on the basis of the best story teller.

Unless, of course, the story tellers are brave & honest & fearless.

I  wonder what Jack would say . . .

Remembering Jack . . .

As Father’s Day approaches, I think of my father Jack.

And recently, someone who never knew him, asked me:  What was he like?  Was he smart?  What color were his eyes?  Did he like strawberries?

Yes, he was smart.  Really, really smart.  Phi Beta Kappa at A&M.   His eyes were hazel.  

He liked strawberries with whipped cream.  Real whipped cream.  He put too much sugar in his tea – no matter how I tried to tell him that it was impossible for that amount of sugar to dissolve in that volume of tea.  He liked hot chocolate from scratch.  He also liked buttermilk & cornbread, which I still find gross.

Several years ago, I ran into an Aggie & told my favorite story about A&M & my sister the Aggie & mentioned that my father was an Aggie. 

 And then the Aggie asked me my father’s name & when I said Jack Ettinger, he smiled.

And he told me about the engineering professors he studied with who talked about my father.

Yes, sweetheart, he was very, very smart.

As were both his parents.  Your great-grandfather John used to keep peppermint Life Savers in his front pocket for us.  He could fix anything.  He took me to the old Love Field Airport in Dallas to watch the planes.  It was there I learned that flying & reaching beyond were indeed possible.  He died too young, of ALS.

Your great-grandmother Helen became a teacher in spite of being hearing impaired.  She gave me my first copy of Jane Eyre when I was seven.  She also gave me “Sixth Reader of The Boys’ & Girls’ Readers.”  Published 1919.  The introduction to the teacher reads:  The object in these Readers is to direct silent reading, to motivate oral reading, to develop the reading habit, and to broaden the child’s outlook on life.  And broaden my outlook she did.

Over the years, I have blogged about your grandfather Jack.  About how he shared his politics & his passions with me.  And got irritated when the monster he helped create voiced a different opinion.

This evening, this blog.  I want to answer a question.

What was he like?

Jack was tall & thin, always.  Not as tall as your cousins Nick & Sam – they get that from your Grandmother Jean’s side.  The Sims brothers were very tall, like their father.

Jack, son of Helen & John, was amazing.

He was the man who married a beautiful & brilliant & loving woman who would make sure we all had books & music & church & learned to swim. 

He was the man who taught me too many shortcuts in Math, which caused me a great deal of grief in high school Algebra.  I still have a problem showing my work. ;-)

He was the man who guaranteed me a safe place to fall.  

He was the man who set the standard for every conversation I would ever had.

What was he like?

He was my daddy.

Remembering Vietnam

Yesterday, in addition to being Memorial Day, marked the anniversary of the beginning of the Vietnam War. 

A war that cost the United States over 58,000 lives.

A war that defined me, & many of my generation.

A war that sent home its vets without the welcome & thanks & support they deserved.

When I lived in Washington, D.C., I went to the Vietnam Memorial many, many times.  With my son, with family & friends & visitors & sometimes alone.  

I have never completed walking its length.

Because at some point each time I walked along the memorial, I could no longer bear reading the loss represented by those names, those lives, those families.

Or the loss represented by those who survived & came home wounded, both physically & spiritually.

Yesterday, President Obama chose to speak to the issue of Vietnam & its veterans.  I don’t really care if this was a political rather than a personal move.

It was the right thing to do.

Because he welcomed the vets home & said thank you.  Damned time.

For me, I doubt I will ever be able to walk the length of that wall.  Because I will always wish & wonder that it is not so much shorter.

As I wish for Afghanistan & Iraq.

About Men & Words & Chess

So, I am playing “Words With Friends” on Facebook with my friend Carolyne, my cousin Dennis in Australia, too many others & my friend Glen from my high school years.

I suck at it.

And this really, really gets to me.  I live for words & I have only won seven games of too many games.

Carolyne & Glen annihilate me.  Carolyne says it is luck & practice.  She is very kind.

Glen says I need to learn defense.

After all these years, he still reads me. ;-)

I have been watching how he plays – I think that I am learning, but he has yet to tell me that I am learning defense.  After each of my moves, I plan the next move & he blocks it.

It is a good thing we are not playing chess.  He would decimate me & I would become obsessed with turning the tables.

But, if I should by some intervention of the powers that be, actually win a Scrabble game against him . . .

. . . Chess is definitely on the table . . .

Wizard chess, of course.  And I will bring my own Ron Weasley. ;-)

Flying Forks . . .

 

Years ago, before there was a Nick or a Sam, there was just Jaki Jean living outside the loop in an apartment complex designed for singles.  My time in that complex is another story.

But eventually, I met Marguerite & Richard Pulley & Marguerite introduced me to their friend John Chambless, who had a vacant apartment in one of his holdings.  Inside the loop.

For non-Houstonians, you cannot understand the difference between outside the loop & inside the loop.  Suffice it to say, I belonged inside the loop.  

So I moved into an apartment over John Chambless’ office in a quadraplex on Stanford Street.

Just a few blocks from Marguerite & Richard.  Who adopted me & brought me into their circle of friends.

Richard traveled in the oil biz in those days – which left Marguerite & I to our own devices.  The raccoons that scavenged her trash were frustrated with us – all they found were empty Frexinet bottles & an occasional Lean Cuisine box.

When Richard was in town, he & Marguerite allowed me to cook.  I still smile at the confusion in the lunch room at work when he called & I dictated a grocery list.  The ladies in the lunch room were very suspicious.

One evening, after I cooked, we cleared the table & rinsed the dishes.   

The house on Stanford Street did not have a dishwasher & Marguerite was a great believer in rinsing the dishes & leaving them for the next morning.

But that night I lost my mind & started washing dishes & Richard joined me in the kitchen & started drying.

And in the midst of all our laughter & banter, a fork came flying across the room. 

And missed embedding itself in either of our faces.

I don’t remember what Marguerite said after throwing the fork.

I just remember making a note to myself:  Jaki Jean, do not wash dishes with another woman’s husband.