Big Foot and Potties

When I was little – before 4th grade I know for sure because we lived in Greenfield, Missouri, Jodi and I went to see a movie. I don’t remember if Jason was there or not. I don’t really remember if Mom and Robin were there either, but it seems as if they should be. But then again, it was the early 70’s, in small town Missouri – it’s entirely possible that she dropped us off at the theater and we went in alone. I’m pretty sure the name of the movie was the Legend of Boggy Creek. But, again, I’m not sure.
Let me tell you what I do remember. There was this big, scary, hairy monster, named big foot. And though I got the impression that really, he just wanted everyone to leave him alone, well, he had a bit of a mean streak. How do I know this? I know this because there were several scenes that I recall of Bigfoot mangling some poor schmuck who didn’t get out of the way quick enough. And this wasn’t a Jason or Freddy horror movie. Oh no! This was a documentary. It was real. Bigfoot was a true story. The part that I remember most vividly is that there was a some guy on the toilet. It must have been a trailer, but maybe not. But there was a small window right next to the toilet. And while man was sitting down and taking care of business, this big shaggy arm burst through the window and attacked him. I remember spending a lot of the rest of the movie under my coat refusing to watch any more. It’s a practice I continue to this day, refusing to watch scary movies. I mean really, who needs it, and who wants to pay for it.
The other thing I remember is that from that moment on, I have been acutely aware that almost every single bathroom in the world seems to have a window next to the toilet. It is perhaps one of my motivations to not lingering in the restroom like real girls. Never linger in the restroom with the window, because you just don’t know when or where Bigfoot will strike. And of course, when does Bigfoot attack – when it’s dark (see previous post). He probably uses those damn cats in the trash can as his look out.
At about the same time, there was a movie that came out on television about these trolls that lived under the house or in the ventilation system. And they would come out and grab people and pull them under the stairs. And what did I notice while I was trying to pee as quickly as possible. What was beneath that darkened window, that portal for Bigfoot – an air vent. Oh yes. Not only did I have to hunch over low so that Bigfoot would not be aware that there was anyone on the toilet – but now I had to keep my legs up off the floor so the little troll people wouldn’t come and get me.
And how does my family deal with my childish terrors. In a bizarrely rational fashion. Let me demonstrate.
In the late 1970’s the movie King Kong was released. The one that everyone hates with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lang – but I love it, thought it was a great movie. I cried at the end. Sobbed. Was heart broken. How could they kill King Kong, he didn’t do anything wrong. And my mother, she tells me that King Kong isn’t really dead. No, he was just acting. That wasn’t blood, she reassured me, but actually strawberry syrup. And after he was done pretending to be dead, they used that syrup for pancakes.
Not long after the Bigfoot thing, I had a nightmare one weekend while staying with my dad and his dreadful 2nd wife Gaye. The dream was, of course, about Bigfoot. And my father, he calms me. He tells me that if Bigfoot was to come to the house, well just open the door and ask him to come inside, have something to drink and we’d get him a toasted cheese sandwich. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, he was probably so grumpy because he was just hungry.
No, think about this. Reread the passages if you must, and see if you can see the flaw here. Do you see it? Can you find it? Neither of my parents felt compelled to deny the existence of either creature. There was no – there are no monsters. There are no ghosts in the closet. Bigfoot doesn’t exist, it was all fake. King Kong, he’s just a big machine, not really a monkey at all. Oh no. Not my parents. They supported the illusion of reality. Of course King Kong is real – he’s just acting. He gets paid in bananas. And Bigfoot, that bathroom attacking monster, well he’s really just looking for Denny’s and was trying to get that poor man’s attention.
In retrospect, I don’t know which is better. Creating a definite line between reality or merely smudging it a bit. Perhaps they tried to tell me that said creatures didn’t exist and I didn’t believe them because I was still at the age when I believed that the television was powered by tiny people inside. I do know that as an adult, there’s a part me that sees a great deal of humor (smugness if you will) in the terrors of children. Elijah is scared of the dark, and the mean child in me sometimes wants to turn off the light and say boo! Just because I can. How cruel is that? I suppose ultimately, we create fictions for our children that they will most likely believe and hope for the best. And I think I prefer the fiction to the fact, as it makes for a much more interesting perspective on reality.

There’s Nothing Out There But Cats in the Garbage Can

It seems that every family has it’s stories, myths, etc. that teach moral lessons. In John Irving’s The Hotel New Hampshire (a great book that should be read if it hasn’t already been), you have the story of Sorrow, the family pet that dies, gets stuffed, scares the grandfather into a heart attack, and is the only thing that survives a plane crash that kills the mother and youngest child. That family always remembers that Sorrow Floats. They also have the phrase, keep passing the open windows, in reference to a clown that commits suicide by jumping out of a window. Though they have an overtone of sadness and the macabre – they both still have life lessons imbedded. The first warning me that sadness will always occur within our life, but we will survive it; and the second encouraging me to never give up hope.
Now John Irving is a master story teller. So his little stories, family traditions are poignant, a bit wrenching, and classy. My family, well we have there’s nothing out there but cats in the garbage can.
When I was in the 4th grade, we lived in an old farm house that belonged to my Aunt Martha. It was a two-storied, ram-shackled building. I remember that we weren’t allowed to go upstairs. I distinctly recall that we were told that it was too dangerous – though in retrospect, I think that my mom just didn’t want more home area to clean. The floors were all hardwood and simply refused to clean. The underbelly of the house, as well as the porch, were the stomping ground for several feral cats.
It was during our stay here that I begin have the recurring nightmare about a giant electrical man chasing me and a few others. The people in the dream would also change. And of course the new faces would invariably be the ones who got caught and killed – my own private Star Trek episode if you will. And the electric monster was the same one that appeared at the beginning of the Spiderman and friends cartoon – the show with iceman and fire starter (who were X-men – though I didn’t realize that until recently). And as this house was a bit isolated, and in a small town, it got very dark.
Throughout my remembered life, I’ve had some difficulty dealing with the dark. Specifically being asked to move around in the dark – whether it be out in the hallway, outside, downstairs, upstairs – wherever. I’m going to want light- the more the better. I strongly suspect that the fear originated with the Big Foot movie that I saw when I was younger. Anyway, any time that I needed to walk anywhere after the sun set, I was thanking old general electric. If that meant turning on every light to go to the bathroom, or refusing to enter a room until I’d snaked my hand around to turn on the light, then so be it. The dark had too many shadows which became every nightmare that I’ve ever had.
One evening after dark in the ram shackled old country house, in the middle of no where, where blackness settled over dew covered grass blades like velvet (see – my brief attempt at being a true southern author), my mother requested that I take out the garbage. My return request was to wait until morning so that the sun was out and would chase all the vampires away. And it was denied. The threat of swarming insects, both flying and crawling, overruled my protest. Finally, I said that I didn’t want to go outside because it was dark. My mother turned on the porch like, like that solved something. Could she not see that the 12 watt bulb on the front porch barely cast a dim light on the top step. It didn’t light the path to the metal barrel where we burned our trash. It would barely provide me a beacon to return to the house safely from the 100 foot distance. What was I a special forces operator with night vision goggles. No! I was just a child and she was sending me out into dangerous territory, a night. Didn’t she realize that more people die at night than during the day – it’s true – they die at night because they can’t see the creepy crawlies that come out of the ground to grab their feet and drag them down into a dark tomb. But, being a rational, mature child, I merely pointed out that the light didn’t seem to reach the garbage cans. In fact, there were a good ten yards of space that was still pitch black between the rim of light and the trash can. And I felt, rightly so, that that was ten yards too many.
“There’s nothing to be scared of” were my mother’s comforting words. And because I was still young enough to believe that my mother couldn’t lie, I agreed to take the trash out. But she had to promise to stay on the front porch and watch me.
So, I began the long journey to the trash can. When I reached the end of the porch light, I took a deep breath and walked as fast as I could to the trash cans. Pride kept me from running. After all, I was in the fourth grade, too old to be visibly afraid of the dark. Finally, I reached the trash cans. The trees loomed over me, the crickets screamed at me to hurry. I flung back the lid and hurled in the trash bag. Instantly, a yowling, spitting, spewing monster hurled past me. I felt nothing but the cold icy wind as it rushed past me, I knew that I was going to die, this was the end, there was nothing left to do but…. RUN!!! And I did. Pride was no longer an issue. Did I cry? I don’t remember. Did I scream, I can’t imagine that I didn’t. I was terrified. All of my fears had been realized. I knew that Big Foot had somehow left his illegitimate baby in that trash can and he was coming out to kill me. Or maybe, it was those fuzzy trolls that lived under the stairs in that long forgotten movie. The were coming to drag me under the stairs. I didn’t know what it was, I couldn’t see it – IT WAS DARK!!!
When I finally reached the safety of the porch and it’s dim, pathetic little light, I turned to look behind me. The eyes of the creature glowed menacingly beyond the circle of safety. Then I heard it. The quiet, plaintive “mewl” and one of the stray cats emerged from the darkness. It hadn’t been anything but one of the cats in the garbage can.
My mother has since used this incident and the phrase “There’s nothing to be scared of but cats in the garbage can” in an attempt to allay my fears of the unknown. But I know better. There were monsters out there. They just disguised themselves as cats. And now, well, I carry a flash light.

Mothers in public

We spent about 4 ho urs at the Children's museum in Indianapolis, and I've decided in many ways you are able to classify parents by the types of conversations they have with their kids. It seems that I was in scientific classification mode during my trip. Being eclectic myself, I find that I represent many of these groups on different occassions -- in teaching we call that effective practices.

1. The Gifted Parent: These are the parents who are quizzing the child they bring to the museum before, during and after the museum visit. I wouldn't be suprised if they didn't have flash cars in the car. These children are this museum to learn, damnit, not have fun. They often glance casually around to see if anyone has witnessed the utter genious of their child. This parent often tries to emerge from my. Perhaps because I can justify the expense of the fun trip if it's educational. Maybe because i'm a big fan of incidental learning. I think in part it's also the teacher pleaser part of my personality - that i will most likely instill in my kids - as it will help them be a bit more successful in life - doing what is asked, politely. But, as I find that these types of parents are a bit of a buzz kill, I try not to let the learning overcome the fun. And for that reason, I also often let the next parental type emerge.

Gawking Redneck. This is the parent who wants to push all the buttons on the elevator, and any exhibit. Who wishes they were small enough to crawl up in the beehive slide. This parent isn't bothered with reading all the signs at each exhibit, or playing cheesy educational museum games -- look for clues in the passages indeed -- you want me to look for something it better have a sticker or a stamp attached to it. This parent often feels sorry for the nerdy chid who can't just have fun, and passes sympathetic looks to the staff when they have been cornered by the gifted parent seeking to demonstrate the knowledge of their child to a trained professional. The gawking redneck calls escalators and elevator's rides and will let their child climb on anything that looks like it won't get broken and have to be paid for. To be successful in this role, you have to be able to ignore the pointed looks of the other mommy's.

The anyplace but here - or as I like to call it, the Jose. This parent walks into the room, looks around quickly and decides there is nothing of interest there. They are often seen snapping their fingers at their child and informing them to stop that because the next little kid wants a chance. It is for these parents that seating is available. If they must sit around and watch their child waste their (the parent's) precious time, well they might as well be comfortable. This type of parent has a lot in common with angst ridden teens who would rather die than be caught dead going anywhere with their, gasp, parents.

Ms. Manners is the kindergarten teacher wanna be. This is the parent who reminds their child to say please, thank you, and excuse me to every person they come into contact with. They live in abject terror that any object retreived from the ground will cause their child to fall ill with the plague, AIDS, or some other STD. They always carry baby wipes, germ killer cream, lotion, q-tips, snacks and juice in their purse. They are often considered to be the UBER-mom -- and i'd almost be envious except that the ms. manners mom almost always turns into the if we weren't in public mom -- and who needs that aggravation.

The If WE WEREN'T IN PUBLIC parent. This is the parent often seen chasing the runnign toddler or dragging the crying child. They use very firm voices, many times so firm that they are just shy of shouting. These parents are really an evolution. I think they most often begin as the gifted parent or the Ms. manners parent, and lose the battle with the child's tendency to be in motion. Early in the day, they are using their nice kindergarten teacher voices to encourage their child to behave. By lunch, this voice is heavily interspersed with heavy sighs, a few pleases, and some abrupt requests. By day's end, we are in full mommy voice mode, veiled threats are being made -- and often the whisper appears. The whisper is when the mother pulls the misbehaving child close to her in what appears to be a loving embrace. However, what is actually occuring is that same mother, who was all sugar cookies at 8:00 a.m., has now told her child that if he doesn't begin to behave, it is very likely that there will be monsters placed under his bed and in his closet when they return home and when they come out at night to eat said child, mommy will not be there to scare them away. And mommy will not let daddy come either - because bad boys and girls deserve to get eaten. And usually, this parent is seen carrying their crying, terrified child out of the museum.

As for me, well -- who knows -- I don't fit exactly into any one category. I know that i'm very rarely the if i werent' in public mom -- except with Jose who doesn't enjoy our FFO's over much and by the end of an hour is getting extremely grumpy. There's an awful lot of the gawking redneck within me - but i like to think of that as the grown-up child instead -- though it's just a label change the qualities are actually very similar. And of course, I'm sometimes the anywhere but here mom - and that's why i'm able to make all these observations. I get to sit and watch the other moms and dads deal with the trauma. And sometimes i get so tickled -- at what parents say -- and even more so how other parents --seeing the meltdown about to occur will slow their walk, and stare out the corner of their eye -- and then invariably get a smug little smile and walk on thinking how much better their kids are than those kids...

Posers

After sitting poolside for while, watching families digitally capture memories, I’ve learned that there are distinct camera poses. I don’t mean the go from big to little, or stagger, or let’s get the family pose – tilt your head sort of stuff. I mean the gestures that we each unconsciously make when we are about to get our picture taken.

The peace sign – this is one of the more popular poses for photos. In some essence the subject is saying – see, I’m o.k. with having my picture taken – there’s no hardship there – it’s all good. The peace sign encompasses all age groups and all genders – though to be perfectly honest, I’m quite sure I’ve never seen any senior citizen spontaneously give a peace sign just prior to the shutter click – that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t happened - In general, the peace sign posers seem to be more carefree.

The “yo-poser” – This is a popular pose among the young – from the tweenies, to the teens, to twenty-something – and unfortunately with some 30 somethings as well. Chances are if you have a my space page – you have a picture somewhere with this pose. Typically this pose consists of the subject moving their hands in what can only be described as arthritic hand seizures. Ideally, they will have pulled their pants down below their hips so that it looks as if we’ve just walked in on them sitting on the pot and they are trying to get themselves decent – thank god their wife beater undershirt is long enough to cover most of their underwear – unless of course you’re a teenage boy and then you’ll be flashing your belly – My favorite yo-poser subjects are the 8 year old boys who can’t figure out what to do and end up looking more than a little goofy – as well as the yo-poser wearing the Stetson and the cowboy boots.

The last is obviously just trying for a more contemporary version of the “heavy metal.” This pose was the predecessor of the yo-poser and most often by late 20-something to some 50-somethings. This pose is most often spotted at parties, where alcohol, and lots of it – have been served. The pose consists of one hand being raised close to the head – any combination of the thumb and 2 fingers will be raised and more often than not the tongue will be extended from an open mouth grimace. Invariably there will be an appearance in said photo of the alcoholic beverage being served.

The supermodel surprise is the favorite pose of those select few who love to have their picture taken. Their eagle eye is trained to spot a camera in the room. And they will invariable give each picture take the head tilt, open mouth, tooth showing smile as if to say – “me? You want to take my picture.” Most likely these are the people who will grow up to work in sales, politics or some branch of the service industry. Those who choose this pose, tend to sit with their gal pals (and usually they are gals unless they are gay), take photos in groups of two or three – hands or arms are always interlocked and permanent markers or photo markers will be used on the final print to document the the time they spent with their B.F.F.

The Tongue – this is my personal photo pose of choice. And I have seen others resort to this pose as well. It is the more polite variation of the hand in front of the face pose that captures muttered profanity on paper so well. The tongue is the subjects way of saying I don’t want my picture taken, but I know there is no way that you will leave me alone until you take the picture – so I will stick my tongue out – and when this picture is so bad – as I knew it would be even if I tried one of the other poses – I can blame the suckiness of the picture on the fact that my tongue was out – Because, I’m sure we’ve all heard at least once in our lives – “oh that picture would have been so good, if only she didn’t stick out her tongue.”

I’m of little doubt that there are more standard poses out there – but these were the standard few that ran across my mind as I tried to crouch in the second row of chairs at the water park so that no one would see me and I could sit quietly alone for a few more minutes – but alas, it’s not to be – as I see my husband and Isaiah – who is still struggling with a fever (you’d think the chlorine content alone would have killed whatever bug he had) – coming at me and I must stop here.