Monthly Archives: September 2021

About the Bookshelf in the Basement

Posted on by

Recently I’ve been thinking about the first library I frequented when I was a kid: namely the bookshelf in the basement of my childhood home. There were books elsewhere in the house but the basement bookshelf held an especially eclectic mix of picture books, assorted novels, discarded textbooks, first free books of several encyclopedia sets and Readers’ Digest Condensed Books. Oh, and some MAD Magazines and maybe some old Chatelaines.

For some strange obsessive reason I’ve tried to recreate the contents of that bookshelf in my head. I certainly read enough of its books over and over again, because “back then” when school closed for the summer, so did the library. If you were lucky (and apparently, healthy), you might be gifted a brand-new book at the end of the school year for perfect attendance, or, maybe for some more scholarly achievement. That’s how Little Women came into my possession. But that book went to live in my room with the others that I could legitimately call MINE.

The first denizen of the shelf I remember was a worn-out copy of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. With an innate desire to be a completionist, it bothered me to no end that there was a Part One to that story “out there” that I would ultimately read out of order. I remember that the cover was ripped off that one and only Suess that we owned, so there was no flyleaf listing the other myriad books that the good Dr. had penned under Suess or Geisel or LeSeig. Those listings in the front of books or the mail-order forms at the end of paperbacks were the only Google I had to inform me back then of what I was missing.

When it came to the Nancy Drews or the Trixie Beldens, (I eschewed The Hardy Boys because: Hello? They were for boys!) the covers were intact along with numbered lists of all the books we didn’t own. Of the Nancies, I remember we had 1, 2, 8, 21, 22, 23, 32 and 43 and of the Trixies, only 1, 5, 9 & 13. Clearly, there were gaps in my chronology of both of these heroines that I fantasized about emulating. Unfortunately, for ten-to-twelve-year-old me, there were no murders or robberies or plots to kill me (that I knew of, even though, I was kind of nosey like Nancy-Trixie) that were readily available for me to solve. Instead I contented myself with reading about their smarts and their tenacity to get in and out of trouble AND save the cat/the day/the whole dang town. There were other incomplete collections on the shelves: those shunned Hardies, The Bobbsey Twins – who were actually two sets of sibling twins – Donna Parker and – for some anthropomorphic fun – a few Thornton W. Burgess books. For some reason, those last ones are the only ones I managed to keep. They live on a shelf in my basement.

I did try to revisit Nancy a year or two ago when the audiobook for The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew #1) read by Laura Linney appeared in the “now available” feed of my library app. Although Linney made it bearable, it was clear that the bloom was off the rose for me. The formulaic fiction reads like a soap-opera for kids, with the beginning of every chapter recapping what just happened one page ago. I was content to return to my adult crime solvers like Cormoran Strike, Robin Ellacott and, my new favorite, Armand Gamache.

I never did read all the books of any of those series. Once I discovered that the library had complete sets, I quickly tired of the repetitive antics of teenaged detectives. There were other great books on our shelf to read and re-read: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Also a series! Did you know?), Clarence the TV Dog (We did own the sequel to that!) and The House at Pooh Corner (also a number two book – I didn’t read Winnie-the-Pooh until I had kids of my own).

It’s nice to know that for some of these books, I CAN go back and read them and they hold up. And for others, like Miss Drew, I can be happy to just revisit her – and our old bookshelf – in my mind.

About Some Picture Books & Their Authors

Posted on by
P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever by [Raj Haldar, Chris Carpenter, Maria Beddia]

I’m a huge fan of picture books, but I especially love picture books that aren’t necessarily aimed at their usual audience. Or, at the very least, clever books that have plenty of Easter eggs for the older person reading to their teeny tiny audience.

P is for Pterodactyl is the kind of book that a burgeoning reader might throw across the room. But it also might be just the thing for an ESL teacher to read to a graduating class – just to show them that the English language is weird and mean, even to us native speakers. It’s full of all the nonsensical words whose first letter doesn’t make a sound. (Whose idea was that, anyway? And how did it get such traction?)

One of the co-authors of P is for Pterodactyl is Raj Haldar, whose other occupation is: Rapper. a.k.a. Lushlife. Which makes sense, since songwriters are such purveyors of words.

A lot of picture books get written by famous people who aren’t known to be authors, per se. Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada (Jimmy Fallon), Outlaw Pete (Bruce Springsteen) and my favorite, which is sort of an anti-picture book, The Book With No Pictures (B. J. Novak) are all celebrity offerings. But it’s not like these people don’t regularly traffic in the currency of words in their primary professions: songwriters and actors and talk show hosts write stuff all the time.

The latest celebrity/picture book writer to hit my radar? The Edmonton Oiler’s new forward, Zach Hyman, who has penned three picture books now. (And only one of them about hockey.)

Zach Hyman’s latest book.

My favorite part? When I Google him, he shows up as a Canadian author, not a Canadian hockey player. I guess it depends on who’s writing the Wikipedia tags – there is after all, a lot of power in the written (another silent letter!) word.

About Practice

Posted on by

Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash

Here’s a confession: I don’t know how to swim.

(Audible gasp from the crowd)

It’s true. In land-locked Derwent, Alberta, where I grew up, there was no community swimming pool – and the closest one in the ’70s was probably in Vermilion – where I currently live and where my own children were thrown to the Sharks. (Relax! it was a level in the Red Cross swimming program.) There was no one driving me to swimming lessons a half an hour away when I was a kid. Sure, I guess I could have been thrown into the slough but I think my family was all a bunch of landlubbers and couldn’t have taught me, either. We didn’t hang out at the lake – unless it was frozen and we could skate on it.

Among the many athletic pursuits that I attempted (and quit) during my stint at the U of A was The Time That I Signed Up For Swimming Lessons. I was in a learning environment, I had a full-course load, ergo I thought to myself, “Self, let’s learn how to swim for no apparent reason.” Well, maybe the reason was because I really wanted to go on the cannonball waterslide at West Edmonton Mall without feeling like I was drowning when I got pitched into the 12-foot-deep pool at the end of the rapid-ejection-tube. Also, there was that time I went canoeing with friends at Sunset Lake and, for shits and giggles, my bestie (you know who you are!) decided it would be fun to tip the canoe and dunk us all. OF COURSE, WE WERE WEARING LIFEJACKETS. Henceforth, I developed a deep and abiding love for floatation devices – they are magic to me.

Fast forward to 1986 when I signed up for BEGINNER swimming lessons at the giant pool at the U of A. (In my memory, it was about an acre squared (farm-girl measurements) and easily that deep as well. The first question that the instructor asked our group of (supposed) non-swimmers was: “Who here has some swimming experience?” Nine people raised their hands. One (that would be me) didn’t. This meant that I was left at the shallow end of the pool to learn how to float with the instructor’s angry assistant (I’m pretty sure he was the same angry T.A. from my Organic Chemistry lab) while the rest of the happy crowd went to the deep end and started doing back flips off the high diving board.

I tried. I floated. I came back the next week and floated again. And then I stopped going to the lessons – I just flushed that money down the drain of the U of A swimming pool. Because I wasn’t learning anything.

I suppose I could boo-hoo about this situation, and to be frank, I did for a long time. And then, years later, a lifeguard friend told me about teaching “an old guy” (he was in this 40s – which is ancient in learning-to-swim terms) to swim. This Old Guy was going on a cruise, the trip-of-a-lifetime and he knew that he wanted to swim in the pool on the ship. That’s it – not for the ocean – just for the lido deck on The Love Boat. But then my lifeguard friend said something revolutionary, that the lessons weren’t the most important part, it was the practicing time. And this guy wanted to swim so badly, that he went to the pool everyday – and practiced.

As Despicable Me‘s Gru would say: Lightbulb!

This lesson has stuck with me ever since: if I see a flashy new class for something I think I want to learn, I need to figure out if I also have the time to practice the new skill. This is the reason most people head to post-secondary education immediately after high school: they have the time to devote to it – well, hypothetically anyways – without any pesky spouses or kids or mortgages or full-time jobs to get in the way. That time spent studying? It’s practice time. And practice time, for something you really want to learn, is time well spent. Or even, well-wasted, as the saying has morphed.

I suppose that the reason I didn’t write a lot before the last couple of years was because I didn’t have enough time to devote to practice time. Granted, a person can always find time for something they REALLY want to do. Julia Cameron of The Artist’s Way says that if it’s a love affair we’re talking about, you always find the time to sneak away for a tryst. Why not translate that into other long-lost or new-found “loves”: writing, disk-golfing, learning Italian (the language or the cuisine), mining bitcoin, whatever. But decide not just to learn, also to practice. Because signing up isn’t the same as signing on.

I probably won’t be learning to swim anytime soon. But dang it, I’m sure going to practice my writing. Because that’s where I want to waste my time.

About My Boys

Posted on by

[It’s birthday season around here and birthday season makes me nostalgic for my little boys and maybe a little relieved that I’m not making elaborate superhero cakes anymore. Here’s a throwback to those days.]

My three boys and the offending TV from the story.

            A little conversation earlier this week with my youngest son Simon tweaked a memory for me. As I helped him get dressed for the day, he relayed to me his latest make-believe-action-adventure that I had interrupted (although he did tell his brothers he’d “be right back after these messages”). He described to me how first he “haf-ted” to do this, then he “haf-ted” to do that. It clicked with me that I had seen a similar verb form on the pages of a Dennis the Menace comic book.

            Some quick research from my home library (“Dennis the Menace: Make-Believe Angel”, © 1961) confirmed my suspicions. In fact, several of Dennis’ grammarisms and mannerisms were awfully familiar to this mother of three young boys. For instance, Dennis dropping the typewriter (“Anyone could drop a typewriter!”) was not unlike a situation in my house this week. Midway through shampooing my hair, my eldest called through the bathroom door in a half-pained, half-panicked voice: “Mom! The TV fell down!” While he was maneuvering it to a better angle, the TV fell from its perch but heroically, Gil managed to saved it from almost-certain death, partially cushioning the blow with his leg. (The resulting purple bruise is very impressive.) I arrived in the living room dripping wet and found three boys sitting on the floor watching the television that kept on ticking, except with its own the purplish bruise on the corner of the screen where it had landed. Needless to say, I didn’t use conditioner on my hair that day.

            If Hank Ketchum – creator of Dennis the Menace – was willing to pay for the copyright, I’m sure that Dennis, too, would have been playing with Batman, Spiderman and Superman, in make-believe-action-adventures just like the ones my boys love to play. Recently, at a major department store in the superhero aisle, my boys salivated over and comparison-shopped for the Most Excellent Toys to put on their Christmas list. A bewildered grandma-type-person stood nearby, considering a plush Spiderman and listening to the boys like they were market analysts. When she asked for help, the four of us convinced her to choose Magnetic Spiderman (he sticks to the fridge!) over the sissy Spiderman pillow. She thanked us, and then gratefully escaped to Barbie Doll Land. We would be no help there. Plus, Barbie has a restraining order against my boys.

            Dennis epitomizes the saying, “He’s all boy.” Actually, he’s all boy and then some. I’m thankful that my boys aren’t nearly as early risers as Dennis or as distrustful of soap and water or as prone to repeat everything they shouldn’t have heard their parents say. While Dennis prefers a slingshot as his weapon of choice, my boys are fond of Dollar Store swords and spears, or cardboard tubes in a pinch. Just like Dennis, however, they have no reservations about getting into a fight and if they get a shiner, that’s makes it all worth it. Even his favorite foods Dennis will rename to make them more appealing to his boyish sensitivities, calling spaghetti and meatballs “Worms and Golf Balls.” When the boys helped me make a chocolate pudding cake this week, they dubbed it “Poopy Pudding”. I have to admit, it did sort of look like that before we put it in the oven.

            And so it is with wry amusement that I realized my husband and I have inadvertently perpetuated the Dennis the Menace trope not once, but three times. Their antics may not be quite as mischievous, but they could certainly fill a (comic) book nonetheless.

About Time Travel

Posted on by
Photo by Mike Meyers on Unsplash

One of the reasons I love to write is because it allows me to get into my own virtual BTTF DeLorean and travel Back in Time (cue: the Huey Lewis song). I’ve been working on a document for a few years now, a journal of sorts that I call My Narrative Timeline. I use questions to prompt me to think about people, places and situations in my past so that I can explore them for all they’re worth. One thing that never fails to surprise me is that I always wind up writing more than I can think about the topic in my head. Writing helps me go so much further and remember so much more. It’s like a secret ingredient to a recipe: just add ink.

An easy place to start with time travel is with artifacts. The memoirist Ian Frazier said, “Objects suggest narrative.” Sometimes we can see a thing and realize that there’s a story or even just a whole slew of associations or memories that you have made in your brain with that particular thing.

A couple of Christmases ago, I bought Rick the first three seasons of Seinfeld on DVD. I finally decided that I EVEN love my husband enough to watch through the whole sordid series with him starting with its less-than-polished beginnings. (BTW – all 180 episodes or Seinfeld are set to hit Netflix on October 1 this year – you’re welcome!) Seinfeld has been described as “a show about nothing – often focusing on the minutiae of daily life.” (I haven’t decided yet if I dislike Elaine or George more – usually I vacillate from episode to episode.)

That being said, the creators of the show, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, were pretty genius in creating a show about nothing because nothing translates into Endless Possibilities for subject matter. What I find fascinating, in creating essentially a character-driven show, they’ve simultaneously put together a unique time capsule that highlights objects and artifacts, like giant shoulder pads, diner booths and yes, telephones.

It seems in every episode, Jerry makes or answers a phone call. The show launched in 1989, which was essentially before cell phones and even before cordless phones were a regular household thing. I get a real kick out of watching Jerry dial his rotary phone, willing him not to make a mistake, because – you know – you’d have to hang up and try all over again. (Jerry is one of the characters I actually like, at least more than George and Elaine, but sometimes not as much as Kramer.) When he is talking on the phone, he often hooks his index and middle fingers into the little shelf under the receiver cradle and walks around his apartment dragging 50 feet of telephone wire with him which keeps him securely plugged into the telephone jack in the wall – because there was no magic back then. When I was a kid, I used to think it was a LUXURY to be able to walk around with a phone like that, especially since our phone on the farm was stuck securely to the wall. My brother, however, was a telephone installer and had access to miles of this phone line stuff and so I recall that the phone in my parents’ next house could be walked around the kitchen and living room à la Jerry Seinfeld. I could even MOVE THE PHONE to plug into a jack in a bedroom or in the basement if I really craved privacy. Which didn’t last long because inevitably someone yelled, “Get off the phone!” – and not because you were using too much data.

In a recent episode we watched (Season Three: The Alternate Side), Jerry is using a new phone: a cordless one, albeit the size of a compact car with an antenna to match. It reminded me of this picture of me and Rick, circa 1990:

Yep, there it is, behind us on the fridge, a giant cordless phone! And talk about Time Travel! A classic alarm clock with flippy-numbers! Rick with a long hair and a perm! Me drinking a beer!

Of course, I’ve barely started on the whole phone thing. Remember “party lines” – when you had to SHARE A PHONE LINE WITH ONE OR TWO OF YOUR RURAL NEIGHBORS? Crazy and hard to explain to the young folks, but it was kind of like putting the whole neighborhood on speakerphone. And last week, when I was at my friend’s dad’s house – she found some really old telephone lists in his cupboards with phone numbers with only two digits! I don’t quite remember that, but I do remember only having to dial only 7 numbers instead of 10. And now we don’t even have to memorize phone numbers – it’s all there at the press of a “button” on our pants computer.

Before you know it, I’ll be waxing poetic about flip-phones and Blackberries. Because eventually everything new becomes old and is therefore fodder for the pen. I don’t want to forget and it’s actually fun to remember, so I will keep writing about such silly old things as telephones and time travel.