Sixteen Candles

Fifty Five feels like sixteen right now. Moving forward...concentrating on creative things at last, oh how many years have I been hungering for this? Since at least the age of sixteen, was actually a lot sooner than that, but by the age of sixteen music, writing and art were almost the air I breathed.

I wanted to be a singer...but not just any kind of singer. Nooooooooo! Blues, but more than blues....I called it Impact Singing. It was all about throwing the head back and wailing. It was especially great in Rittenhouse Square, downtown Philadelphia. I'd throw my head back and sing things like "St. Louis Blues," while playing my guitar. The goal was to sing above the honking horns and loud bus engines. I pretended my voice was hitting the top floor of any number of buildings. People must have heard it, at least from the Square's entrance, because they came right over and listened. Some folks dropped money, one time somebody bought me flowers. Busking was fun and was a great way to get used to performing publicly.

I'd been going there for a few years on my own, incognito and stealth of course, and loved the bohemian culture. As the years went on, the bo-beats were replaced by hippies. Less bongos lots more incense. But by the time I was sixteen, a lot of the hippie mystique was replaced by a seedy, heavy drug oriented culture. I don't include cannabis in this...not that people didn't use it because they did. But once the heroin moved in, flower power dried up for the most part. I went there less and less, tired of running into the same old burn outs or brand new burn outs all waiting to pounce on anybody who had money...no matter how little.

But I did go there often enough with my friend Anna to meet up with a boyfriend and have a torrid romance, including running away from home and being brought back by my parents. This adventure may have happened shortly after I turned sixteen, and of course there was longing, many one-sided letters (I wrote daily for weeks), and the final realization that he would not come and rescue me no matter how Rapunzel-like I may have seemed.

So life went on.

The experience added a bit more edge to my singing, which was still kind of soprano at the time.
For years I tried to emulate Janis Joplin and finally was able to do so when she released the Pearl album. Her voice was in great shape at the time, and my still young vocal chords chirped happily along with Bobby Mc Gee, Get It While You Can and Cry Baby.

Everybody wanted to know what everybody was going to do after graduating high school.
In 1971 it all depended on your chances of being drafted. At the time only men were being taken into active duty, and there was a draft. My brothers were eligible. It was petrifying, sitting at the evening meal for years while the news blared from the t.v. in the adjoining living room. They showed pictures from the front.

They also held what was called the Lottery, only this one wasn't about winning money. It was about winning a seat on a ride to Vietnam. Some of my older friends were already "over there," in places like Long Bin and Pnom Bin-please forgive any missed spellings! Occasional letters from far, far away...announcements from the Sunday church pulpit about so-and-so's son's pending mass of Christian/Military burial...a few coming home eventually minus parts of bodies or parts of minds. These were daily things for our little corner of the world, a microcosm of the bigger picture.

When surviving vets did come home, there were no parades or honor guards. They came home to disrespect, unemployment, insufficient post-combat services and not even so much as a thank you...not from anyone.

By the way, thank you to all vets who've served our nation through the years.

Anyway....
I wasn't interested in going to college, although I was beginning a life long love affair with law.
It just wasn't in the cards, my math skills were non-existent. As luck would have it, tuition in the Catholic school system shot through the roof so my brothers and I were forced to transfer to the local public school. Public school was in a lot of ways my academic life saver.

Yay! I was finally allowed to take creative based courses like writing and art. It was kind of an issue because the folks wanted me to get some kind of job training, and in that sense they were right. So I took typing, but steered clear of anything focusing on college.

Music, writing and art were calling to me, and calling to me hard. I wanted to be in California. For some reason I felt it would be a place for me to fit in, or at least offer space enough to make all the big mistakes while still young enough to learn from them. I didn't think it was possible in Philadelphia to be all that I needed to be...I felt inhibited and like a fish out of water.

At sixteen I had dreams and nothing was going to stand in my way. Well, I still have those dreams today...more realistically framed, mind you. But I still live for being creative and am at long last living that dream!

So for today, Fifty Five is the New Sixteen because dreams held that long can come true.

3 MPH Zone

"The hurrier I go the behinder I get!" What a great saying! Those Amish folks do a lot of great things; in the modern, commercial parlance "They're not just about quilting anymore!"

Now what does that have to do with things Fifty-Five Is The New-ish? Ahh....you may well ask.
Well, as usual life is trying to drag me, kicking and screaming mind you, away from writing and other things. UGH! But at the same time, at least what is dragging me away this time is also creative; our music. So what's the fuss?

The truth is...I want it all. And who doesn't? So like a baby I am goo-gooing and stomping about because I can't be four to seventeen places at once doing a thousand things. The old body just don't work like that (or process that much coffee) anymore!

Anyway, I did want to make a blog entry and may yet write some more later but for now wanted to keep up with the discipline by writing something.

So for today, at least for right now Fifty Five is the New 3 MPH, because sometimes ya just gotta slow down.

Six and Goofy

Six is awfully young for an almost fifty five year old to be aspiring to, but then again, maybe not.

At six years old I was short...not that I've grown much through the years, but at six I think I qualified as a "little person." I know because someone had a Patty Play Pal doll that was a bit taller than me-at least for a little while.

Anyway, being that small had its good and bad points. Being that young meant that most of those perks were mine strictly by age, but as luck would have it my height allowed me to go into certain movies for a lower price for quite a few years. Luckily I'd grown a few inches before A Hard Days' Night came out!

Being six also meant I could still be a kid...do those goofy things kids do that at the time seem ultra-tragic but in retrospect were just examples of well honed goofiness. And I was a goofy kid.

For example: I pretended to be a rabbit. Fine. But I wasn't your ordinary every day kid playing Easter Bunny. Nooooooooo! I WAS a Rabbit! I told everyone who saw me that day that I was a rabbit....this included my mom, the mailman, neighbors, strangers and friends. Ever the method actor, I threw myself head first into the role, hopping about and munching on a patch of lawn.

You know that look people give you when they think someone should call somebody to come and take you far, far away? Mmmmmm. Yep. That one.

Needless to say I remember that taste every time I drink wheat grass juice, and am comforted in the fact that just maybe I was a little ahead of my time on that grassy knoll.

At six I started grade school, too. First grade Catholic School. I had horrible eczema on my arms and mom had to rub lotion on them every morning before putting on my long sleeved school uniform shirt. As the oldest, my poor sister had charge of all us youngsters until we were old enough to get to school on our own. She was an excellent shepherd.

I remember the first day of school, seeing the other kids, hearing the various signal bells....the nuns fascinated me. Especially my first year teacher, Sister Kevin Maureen. She was a "Mac," that is she was from the order of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. At first she seemed a million miles tall, with her long flowing navy blue habit, scapular, "bib", wimple and veil.

She was sweet and patient. She took ill during that first year and the class was, for some reason, divided and sent into other classes during Sister Kevin's illness. For some reason I couldn't remember where to go so I just sort of cruised the different classes for a few days-careful to avoid the ones where my brothers or sister might be!

These days that probably couldn't happen but back then there were about 60 or so kids in each class to begin with....counting was a luxury after a while, so I guess as long as each chair had a butt in it, somebody was in attendance.

Anyway, by the time anybody realized I was elsewhere, Sister Kevin came back and everyone (including me) was back where they were supposed to be. All was right with the world heading into that first summer of my academic life...math seemed simple and I already knew how to read from home.

My classmates were okay so far, although some had attitudes about me, which is understandable considering I'd told them I was from Neptune. Talk about a rough commute! As I said, I was a goofy kid.

But that was the beauty of it, being able to be goofy and not get slandered to the point of slaughter like what happens when we're older. Gawd! People rake each other over the coals for the simplest thing, then wonder why nobody wants to talk face to face with anybody any more. Political correctness is important, dignity and respect are essential to communication but for crying out loud already! Let's stop making it so dangerous that we dare not communicate openly. I think what we really need to remember is common sense and manners.

Not every observation is intended as liable, not every act of silliness is grounds for litigation. I'm just saying, hey! Think it over.

There ought to at least be a holiday where everybody gets to be childlike...make it be for a weekend, because we really need it BAD. Throw a few picnics, wear some beanie copter hats, fly a kite or two...maybe even pretend to be a rabbit and eat a patch of grass. Why not?

So anyway, that's why today for me Fifty Five is the New Six. Because it is okay to be a rabbit every once in a while.

Nineteen

Life has different seasons....not only in the "september song" kind of way, I mean through existence-from minute to minute let alone anything else.
When I was nineteen, I was a lot of things at once, beginning with a resurgence of my "crazy side," you know when all of a sudden it's a few days later according to the calendar...that kind of crazy. I know the impetus of much of it had to do with birthmotherhood...not the birth part, that was incredible and beautiful. Completely natural childbirth, mind you-no annestesia just a lot of panting and blowing.
By the way, when women describe the birth process as feeling like passing a watermellon through the eye of a needle, well, they are right. Oooooh!
Too bad the mirror they had in the room was so small, with my bad eyes I couldn't see the actual birth, but when they brought him to me I saw this most amazing face! These incredible fingers and toes! And his eyes...he looked right at me.

As I said,it wasn't the "birth" part that was the problem.
It was the "motherhood," or actually lack thereof that got to me. The birthfather was very supportive, poor thing I know it was ripping him to pieces, too.

It was weird going back into regular life, trying to act like nothing happened because that's what we were supposed to do.

Somehow I had to survive. I got a job during the day at Dunn and Bradstreet in downtown Philadelphia. I loved the subway ride, not just because it was a train-I'm such an addict!-but because I could see the hospital where my birthson was born through the non-tagged portions of the window. Somehow it helped me feel a connection.
Whenever it got too much through the years (and it did for quite a while on his birthday, or any other day that tugged at my memory), I would remember the last time we birthparents held our birthson before leaving him at the hospital. We looked into his eyes and said that we'd meet again.

As would prove out in later years, that connection was not just a figment of my imagination because my birthson has found not only me, but his birthfather and a whole new family he didn't know about. And he has enriched our lives with his family, too.

My nineteenth year was, as I said, a lot of things at once. It wasn't easy trying to act like nothing was wrong when inside everything felt wrong, seemed foreign...unnatural.

But for some reason, I had the dogged determination to survive-even when a lot of me wanted to give up. Maybe I wasn't so crazy after all, just living in survival mode. Hmmm.

So anyway, for today Fifty five will be the new nineteen...not because of all the difficulties, but because of the will to survive them, and the wonder that is possible if you just hang in there.

I Was a Thirty-One Year Old Teenybopper

In a sense Diane and I had an attack of second childhood in 1986 when the Monkees reunited for their 20th Anniversary.

By coincidence we were collaborating on a book about the group-she doing the illustrations me doing the writing when we heard the announcements of the upcoming tour and conventions. Being enthusiasts, and seeing the conventions as a way to visit the folks back east while doing more research, we jumped at the chance-especially when we got a good airline ticket deal! (ah yes! remember when everyone had money?)

We brought all our research up to that time and samples of Diane's illustrations with us and had a great time. We met a lot of fellow fans and with a few of them formed a club for fellow researchers and archivists called the Monkees Press Club. When we got back home, Diane and I along with a handful of the folks we met at the convention began what turned into a fanzine for the club, Press Club News.

Members joined quickly, from all over the country then from abroad as well. We weren't a regular fan club, per se. We took our research and archiving seriously, even asking for (and often receiving) corrections on mis-information about the group (the persistent rumor about them not playing their own instruments, unfortunately, never seems to stop). We had local reporters at concerts and events, we also volunteered to help at conventions and other Monkee-related gatherings.
We showed support for the band by being among the many fans and fangroups lobbying for their star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.
And the MPC took on Sony/Columbia Pictures Studios up close and personal when the company tried to make the band members pay a ridiculous amount of money per concert to the corporation in exchange for the right to use the Monkees name, logo and character likenesses. We marched up and down the sidewalk outside of Columbia, singing protest songs and staging protest actions all day long. And it worked. (well, I'm sure all the letters and phone calls from all over the world from generally loyal fans-members of many clubs not just ours-must have helped. But we did cause local news coverage on the subject.)

But there was more to the Press Club than running amok with banners, going to concerts, helping out with conventions and actually acting as security once in a while for our energetic heroes. Much more.

There was a wonderful, diverse group of people that never would have met if it weren't for the fact that those guys decided to reunite. A few of them are still in my life to this day...and I treasure them dearly.

During the Press Club's hey day, Diane and I lived in Venice, California so we were near enough to Hollywood to attend anything the group might be having when in town. We got a call one morning, the band was going to be shooting a video and how would we and a few club folk like to be "extras" in some of the crowd shots.

Yo! Don't ask twice, eh? So several frantic phone calls later Diane and I were trundling down to H-Wood on a Los Angeles city bus, dressed like a couple of punk/greasers (the characters we were supposed to be) to be in a Monkees video.
We tried to round up some other fans, and everyone agreed to meet at the shoot location. It was fun. We got to hang out with each other and with David, Micky and Peter. They were, as usual, friendly and grateful for the fan support.

The Press Club was an amazing experience for everyone, I'm sure. But like all things it had to come to an end. Diane and I decided to move back to San Francisco, we were both tired of the smog and heat. We almost turned right around and moved back, but love...as it's been known to do...had other plans.

At thirty one, I felt we were accomplishing a lot of important things beneath the guise of Monkee fandom. Diane and I met a bunch of wonderful people, honed our skills on desktop publishing (cut and paste at that point in time), and learned some valuable lessons. We made some lasting friends and some that I'd love to see again...and we had a ball!

So for today, fifty five is about having fun, treasured friends and staying young at heart. So, go ahead...call me a Daydream Believer. You're right, I am!

Eighteen's Epilogue

There were a lot of great action television shows back when I was growing up in the late '60s and '70s. Programs like "Dragnet" and "The Streets of San Francisco" were great forms of escape, yet they still offered some semblance of urban life....although the grit was tamed considerably for the toothpaste crowd.  And in truth, they never did manage to portray hippies correctly, opting for the lampoon rather than trying to depict what was really going on in the youth culture.

What these iconic shows proved was the most fundamental rule of story telling....always offer a beginning, a middle and an end.   These guys went even one step further and offered and Epilogue...an extra bow on the package, a wee shaving of chocolate for the top of the cake.

Although my blog entry "Eighteen" seemed to sum things up, at least from the stand point of teen pregnancy, birth and the like there is more to the story.

On January 9, 1974 I went to the county court house and formally rescinded parental rights to my son, David Christopher.  In the weeks leading up to this momentous occasion, I was back at the family home, dutiful daughter by day....insomniac by night....nights too long for so many thoughts.

On the day of the hearing I got out of bed early.  Sun was streaming through my window.  The world mocked me by continuing to exist when I distinctly recalled putting in a prayer for it's demise.  I prayed for an end to just my life too...either way would have been fine, I wasn't particular.  But neither thing happened. The morning couldn't have been prettier and I couldn't have been more alive.

My memories of the hearing are hazy....like ancient, fuzzy t.v. kinnescope...I know it happened.  I was there...sort of.   I remember answering all the questions....most were simple yes/no responses that brought out the Inner Robot in me.

With each reply I felt bits of myself falling away until the last question..."Do you freely and willingly surrender all parental rights to....."  I was quiet for a moment.  Maybe if I just said nothing it would all go away. Then.... The answer came from some place inside me, I know. I heard it....I felt the noise come up my throat and roll around in my mouth....when my lips parted, the word spilled out, landing on the air like a betrayal.  "Yes."

Ed was too young to have a say in the proceedings, so his mother stood up for him and went through the same questioning.  Our parental rights were rescinded with a final tap of the gavel.  Done. Over. Ended. Gone.   I remember walking toward the courtroom door, pulling it open...then...nothing.  Then I was running down the hallway crying "I can't...I can't... I can't"  'til I found a bathroom.

Oh, I wanted to get sick, wanted to die immediately and was sooooooo pissed at God for not accommodating me at least this once!  My mother and Ed's mother caught up with me, a rumpled heap on the municipal building's marble bathroom floor.


I don't remember the ride home.  A few weeks later, my Mom had to have an emergency hysterectomy so I became her nurse for about six weeks.  Ed and I saw one another regularly.  After Mom's recovery was assured, I got a temp job at Dunn & Bradstreet in downtown Philadelphia.

Each morning the elevated/subway train went by the hospital where my birthson had been born.  I'd stare at the edifice as if expecting someone to wave and call out "Come and get your baby!"  But it never happened.

I requested and received a photo of my birthson through the foster care agency. I gave the agency a gold cross on a chain for him and they put it on him for the picture. I held this photo close to my heart through all the changes in my life. (And I still have it-in spite of everything)

After a few months, Ed and I became officially engaged.  We got married and tried to make a go of it, but I was crazy.  I was suffering bad side-effects from birth control, then started having false pregnancies. Then  I started loosing time.  

Our marriage lasted only two years.  Back then, my focus was only on my pain....but Ed was suffering too.
We tried to make things work but it was impossible.  I began to drink, often... then spiraled into a mental state that I'm still trying to understand.

I met Diane at a party at a friend's house. We became fast friends and as my marriage ended we became room mates.  She knew me at my craziest.  I don't know how she was able to cope...moving to California with a friend who was off their rocker and apt to change personalities like some people change socks....now that's a friend!

California was the only place I could sort things out.  Back east I was too close to all the ghosts, too close to all the expectations heaped on kids by their well-meaning families....I needed time, distance and some real, live actual psychological help. None of that was going to happen in my hometown. People just didn't have psychological problems, fer cryin' out loud!  Least ways none that anybody would talk about in mixed company.

So in a very real sense, moving to California was an effort to save my life on every level.  I had to stop the spiraling insanity, had to restore a non-existent ego, had to face, sort and re-direct unexpressed emotions so they no longer did me harm.  It was a slow process, and I didn't do it alone.

Call it what you will....Cosmos, Physics, Logic, Self-Preservation or God....I had help so that by the time my birthson found me, I was integrated, sober and sound.

Contemplation Ridge....rcw

When Ed and I were reunited with our birthson, a giant/huge weight was lifted from our hearts.  We were able to have our deepest, most burning questions answered....the baby boy we left at the hospital those many years earlier actually thrived and lived, grew into a fine young man who had hopes and dreams and had been given a good life. 

Knowing that made all the pain worth while.


These days I am just me...all me...no hidden characters waiting in the wings to take over when life gets too difficult.  I don't drink like I used to....there's an occasional sip-bourbon only please- but those days of all night boozing are a thing of the past. 

Why did all that have to happen?  One may well ask.  I can only answer with the thought that has sustained me.  Everything is as it should be.  Mark was destined to be here on this planet for what ever reason...he was apparently supposed to be raised by his parents and have his life and become the person he is today.

Ed was supposed to have his own life too, and he does....filled with purpose and happiness.

As for me?  I was destined to become who I am now, working on causes, hopes and dreams...It's like I just had to go through an incredible baptism of fire to get to this point.  As for the future?   It's a process... all of life is a process.  I'll take my licks, learn my lessons and continue on my own path.  As they say, what doesn't kill you makes you strong.

Having Mark in my life is wonderful.  It's hard getting to see him often, but we keep in touch.  He sees my folks fairly regularly and I'm glad of that   I know it must have killed my folks to follow the course they took back then, after all he had been their first grandchild.  I'm positive that seeing him has helped ease some of their longing, too.

So for today, Fifty Five Is the new Eighteen's Epilogue because the story continues.

Fifty Five Minus One Month And Counting

Jack reminded me today that in one month, I'll be fifty-five. Hmmm... I didn't know what to think, and didn't really have an immediate feeling about it, but now I'm more curious than anything else if what I feel then will be that much different than now.

To be sure, I'll be half way to sixty. But anything else? Have I done anything in this lifetime to merit anything more than a birthday cake? Not shopping for sympathy here, so please don't take it the wrong way. It's just that I'd hoped for so much more by now...a bit of regular money coming in from my creative abilities, perhaps?

Well, dollars to doughnuts it's all on me. If I am dissatisfied with anything, the blame can only land squarely at my own two feet.

The beautiful thing about this life is that change is a constant quality of it. That means that as long as we are alive, we are fundamentally able to change things; for ourselves and for our planet.

So with Fifty-Five right around the corner, I am not going to allow myself to get caught up in all the "what ifs" and "wherefores." I am going to dig in my heels and keep going. If there's something I want changed, I can change it! I ain't dead yet!