I Want to See 96. Not a Drop Less

This is Random Granddaughter grokking Grandpa’s password and taking over his computer by using my now awesome mental powers developed at the School for Very Bright Children.

Many people here are much taken with something called twitter and tweeting each other. We very bright children have moved so far beyond tweeting, not to mention, blogging, you obsolete adults can not even imagine it.

My friends and I have created an entirely new telepathic Internet. Even as we are indulging you artifacted parents and grandparents by saying “Please” and “Thank you” at the dinner table, we are communicating entire new works of literature and art and music you can’t even imagine, and sharing them by telepathy with your dogs and cats.

We are going to bring your dogs and cats with us as we transport ourselves into an an awesome new dimension and leave you behind. Then you will really be sorry you didn’t increase our allowances and let us stay up later when you had the chance.

Too late. Start crying. I want to see 96 teardrops. I am going to count every one. Not just 95, either.

 

Too many teardrops for one heart to be cryin’
Too many teardrops for one heart to carry on
Youre way on top now since you left me
Youre always laughin way down at me
But watch out now, I’m gonna get there
W’ell be together for just a little while
And then I’m gonna put you way down here
And you’ll start cryin ninety-six tears
Cry, cry

And when the sun comes up, I’ll be on top
You’ll be right down there, lookin up
And I might wave, come up here
But I don’t see you wavin now
I’m way down here, wonderin how
I’m gonna get you but I know now
I’ll just cry, cry, Ill just cry

Too many teardrops for one heart to be cryin’
Too many teardrops for one heart to carry on
Youre gonna cry ninety-six tears
Youre gonna cry ninety-six tears
Youre gonna cry, cry cry cry now
Youre gonna cry, cry, cry, cry
Ninety-six tears

 

Introducing the Third Va-Va-Voom Sister

Random Granddaughter is back on her own again, by now probably running marathons, playing Rachmaninoff piano concertos, and organizing her kindergarten class to overthrow the government. While she occupies herself with these trivial pursuits, I will return to my tale of the Va-Va-Voom sisters.

Before I proceed on to talking about V2’s younger sister, V3, I have to add one footnote, related to my example of memoirs having to do with breast cancer..

Shortly before I retired, I learned from V3 that her sister had come down with breast cancer. The last report I received, from V2 herself, was that her mastectomy had gone well and that she was doing fine. I have not been in touch with either sister since I retired. I should check on her. Also, I am reading a memoir by an undercover cop in Arizona who pretended to be a contract killer so he could forestall people with murder on their minds. It’s a pretty good book, and it should be right down V2’s alley.

While I was working with V2 and helping her find memoirs, she mentioned that her younger sister loved libraries and dreamed of being a librarian.

One day, as I was working at the largest library in the system, V3 introduced herself to me. Unlike her rather wan, waif-like sister, V3 is an attractive, vigorous woman with a positive upbeat manner. Although by the time I met her, I had become rather disillusioned with the library system, V3 took to it like a duck to water.

One of the problems I had with the system was that internally it operates rather like the British class system, or like a military organization. At the bottom, you have pages/privates, who shelve materials and are not allowed to talk with customers [patrons]. Next, you have assistants/non-commissioned officers, who check material in and out and wait on the public. Then you move up to the librarians, who are like the minor aristocracy/officers. The librarians have Masters degrees in Library Science. At the top of the organization, you find the dukes/duchesses, counts, earls/generals/admirals. The Director of the Library is equivalent to a King/Queen/Commander in Chief.

As most people who work in libraries are very liberal and politically correct, and are for the most part female, my analogies offend them quite a bit, though a few rogues and rascals would admit to me off the record, “Of course; that’s exactly the way we function internally.”

However, V3 moved quickly up the ladder without losing her pleasant demeanor and lively sense of humor.

I gradually learned: she is married to a man who works in something to do with intellectual properlty rights to cartoons. I never met her husband, but my impression is that it is a very happy marriage. She told me that they have no intention of having children.

As she already had an undergraduate degree, she entered the librarianship program as a graduate student at the university. Occasionally in my life I am by chance able to do someone a good deed at just the right moment; perhaps there is a minor gene for fairy godmother in my genetic makeup. Happily, the wand worked once again in the case of V3, as I shall describe in the next episode.

RG Studies Mathematical Ethics

The private school for very bright children presented a program to parents about their mathematics education. Random Granddaughter was supposed to demonstrate kindergarten math skills involving fractions. The sound system was faulty and produced loud feedback. Sensitive RG could not deal with the amplifier noise and fled to another room and started crying.

At the mommies house a few days after this unhappy experience, we talked about mathematics. Soon RG’s skills will outstrip mine, but I thought I might still have a useful tidbit to offer her.

I said, “Let me tell you how to divide a cookie fairly. One person divides the cookie. The other person gets to choose the half they want.”

RG understood the principle immediately. As she is a writer as well as a mathematician, she composed a parable about Mia and Alee. [Mia is her best friend who lives across the street; Alee is her younger sister.]

“Mia gets a cookie. She breaks it in half. She says to Alee, ‘You get to decide which piece you want.’”

“Exactly!” I said enthusiastically. “You can be sure that Mia will break the cookie very carefully, so both halves are very equal in size.”

Next week, RG goes on tour, lecturing to kindergarten classes across the country on the new field of mathematical ethics.

If RG Will Be Your Grandchild’s Boss Someday, Tell Them to Start Training Now…

“If Random Granddaughter some day supervises other employees some day when she has a career, she will not be a very patient boss,” I said to my wife. RG had been supervising my wife and me when we were taking care of her, and she was not very patient with us.

“RG was not very patient from the day she was born,” replied my wife.

From the age of zero to the age of four, RG was not allowed to watch videos on the theory that videos are harmful to developing little minds. Once she reached the age of four, her mommies decided she can watch one or two carefully chosen videos in a week, usually for not more than about twenty minutes of viewing time in a session.

One of the issues here is Can some of the most brilliant parenting of the century turn a brilliant young drama princess child into a wholesome human being? David Rochester is watching with interest from a safe distance as he works on reintegrating his fragmented personality into a wholesome human being.

May you live in interesting times is not a Chinese curse, but we certainly live in such times, do we not?

Anyway, the mommies asked the grandparents to babysit, perhaps because we work for free, while they took advantage of tickets to a concert that they also got for free. Free can be a very good price.

“Here is a DVD with wholesome videos for children,” Mommy (RG’s birth mother) said. She asked RG what videos she wanted to watch.

Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type, was choice #1. This is a recent but already classic book for children, a book now animated movie about cows that type messages to the farmer on a typewriter. Unless he provides them with electric blankets, they will stop supplying him with milk. The plot thickens from there.

As a child of modern times, however, I doubt that RG knows what a typewriter is. When I was a high school student, I actually used a slide rule because calculators had not been invented yet. I used a buggy whip to make my slide rule go faster.

Courderoy was RG’s second choice. This is a book (now video) about a lonely little black girl who falls in love with a lonely teddy bear in a department store. RG lives in a world of multi-cultural influences. She has two mommies and two daddies. She has an adopted aunt from Singapore. And so on.

The mommies left for their concert. Grandma and Grandpa and Random Granddaughter settled on the couch in front of the combination television monitor/DVD player. Grandma held the remote. Grandma tried to start the DVD going. Mr. and Mrs. Random have a couple of television monitors, DVD players, and remotes at home. It’s not like we are video virgins.

Grandma could not get the video to start. RG expressed impatience. Grandma has a tendency to use bad words when she is frustrated, but she is very careful around RG. The mommies are prissy, goody-goody lesbians who do not much like to be described as “lesbians” and who certainly do not want a five-year-old daughter to hear bad words from Grandma and Grandpa. As RG is now attending kindergarten, however; it is only a matter of time before the first f-bomb comes home with her like a puppy following her home. [The mommies like cats better than dogs, also, and resist getting RG a dog.]

Eventually, after several tries, Grandma brought up a menu of the videos. She selected the typing cows video and pushed “Play” on the remote. The story began. The cows typed messages and went on strike. RG watched with interest. I haven’t heard about her going on strike yet, but it is surely only a matter of time. She didn’t ask about typewriters. I guess she figured a typewriter is something like a computer.

At the end of the story, Grandma tried to get back to the main menu. Instead of bringing up the menu, the entire rebooted and loaded slowly. RG expressed irritation. Eventually the list of videos appeared. Grandma tried to choose and start Courderoy. Each time she did so, the entire DVD rebooted. It took a long time for the list of videos to appear on the screen. About the third time this occurred. RG expressed her impatience and irritation quite strongly. “Perhaps Grandpa knows how to use the remote better than you do,” she told Grandma.

Grandma pretended she did not hear that remark. I kept my mouth shut.

Grandma said, “This remote does not work like the remote we have at home.”

RG said, “My mommies get it to work” in a very condescending and exasperated tone. I kept my mouth shut.

Grandma kept trying. On the fifth try, Courderoy began to play. Grandma said, “I did exactly the same thing I did on the other four tries, but this time it worked.”

RG did not say anything, but her face displayed an expression that eloquently communicated, Sure it did, Grandma.

She watched half the video. Suddenly, she said, “Let’s stop the video. I am ready to go to bed.” She has apparently internalize the time limit for watching videos.

RG went upstairs, flossed and brushed her teeth, picked out a book about church mice and a friendly cat and a party for me to read, and went to bed very peacefully and amiably without any drama queen theatrics.

The next day I tried to use my laptop. The mommies have changed their ISP/wireless Internet connection again. I could not get my laptop to connect to the Internet.

Mommy said, “Mama set this up. I don’t know how to connect your laptop. [Mama was at the university studying calculus.] Perhaps you can go to the library (which is only a few blocks away). Perhaps you can take RG with you to the library.”

RG and I walked to the library. I sat on a couch in the children’s section while RG browsed for books.

In the past, RG picked out books at random. Now she is learning to read, and her kindergarten teacher gave her some guidelines for picking out books. I don’t remember the exact directions, but the run something like this.

Look at a book. Try to read a little bit. If maybe two words are new, then choose the book. If five or more words are new, don’t choose that book.

RG chose several books. I looked them over. They seemed like excellent choices. One of the books struck me as an excellent choice for David Rochester as well, so I have ordered the book on the Internet and it is supposedly on the way to David and his Amazon. I hope they like it. If they do, RG gets all the credit. If they don’t, it is my fault.

We went to the self-checkout. I tried to check out all four of the books at once. The self-checkout only checked out one. I had to reboot the self-checkout. This was exactly like the experience Grandma had the night before with remote and the video player. As I kept slowly rebooting the self-checkout, RG twisted restlessly and said, “Grandpa, aren’t you done checking out the books? I am ready to go home.”

Eventually we went home, had something to eat, and went to RG’s cross-country race where she sobbed, ran 1/2 mile, and smiled when she received a blue ribbon. If your grandchild is thinking about working for RG some day or marrying RG some day, tell him or her to start training right now, because she will be a bossy boss and a severe spouse.

Part 1: The Va-Va-Voom Sisters

The Va-Va-Voom Sisters are three sisters who live in the Pacific Northwest, whose first names all start with the letter “V.” I have never met the oldest, V1, who lives in Idaho. Although I haven’t seen them for a while, I consider V2 and V3, whom I met in my last job, when I worked for a library system, as good friends and charmingly eccentric people.

V3, the youngest, told me that their father is an airline pilot. His dream as a dad was to teach all three of his daughters to fly. Unfortunately, they all hate flying and get airsick. I presume they all still love each other, but if you are a parent, don’t get your heart set too much on your children loving your dreams and passions. None of the Va-Va-Voom girls will go up in a plane with dad.

In several chapters, I will describe why I enjoyed knowing them so much.

Final Chapter of a Story of Late Dawning Realization

 

My sister, as with all my siblings, is very intelligent (if quite eccentric). After a slow start, she eventually went to college a couple of times, relatively late in her life. In her forties, she went to the University of Wisconsin and studied Greek Philosophy and Ancient Greek (the language) because she felt like it. Later she got a degree in Library Science (I am not sure where) and became the director of a small library in Vermont, so she could live near her daughter and her two grandchildren, where she lives now.

I suspect that if my niece and her husband lived near us, my barely extended family and my sister’s barely extended family would hit it off well. But it’s impossible to know these things for sure.

 

In any case, a few years ago, I thought again about that meeting at Beelzebub’s apartment with with his “niece” (if indeed she was a relative of his), Lucille. I had completely forgotten Lucille for many years, and had not even made a connection with what happened to my sister. (I had only met Lucille for a few minutes and at that time in my life, constantly moving from high school to high school in different states, my childish mind was in confusion and turmoil.)

Strange as it seems, it only dawned on me suddenly at the age of 60, that Beelzebub was a a serial sexual predator who preyed on young girls such as my sister. Whether Lucille really was his niece

I don’t know. Although I sensed something was wrong by Lucille’s tense, agitated manner, I was far too immature and naive to understand that she was trying to communicate, Help, I am being held prisoner by a rapist!

In retrospect, Beelzebub’s comment to 14-year-old Random about how people would not understand his “unconventional life style” now strikes me with horror.

 

Obviously, my parents had no grasp of this as well. Fairly or unfairly, I hold them responsible for what happened to my sister, However, life is very strange. In this case, a terrible event, the rape of my sister, turned into the birth and blossoming of a wonderful person, my niece J.

 

 

 

Recently, there have been several shocking news items about young woman being held prisoner for long periods of time by an older man who raped the victim over a long period of time, undetected by other people who encountered the victim but did not realize what was happening. The story I tell is slightly different, but not that much.

When I was in high school, my life was a bit in tumult, as we moved frequently and as I attended six different schools, and as I was in immature introvert. I only met Lucille for a few minutes, and forgot about her completely, until my brief encounter with her popped into my mind a few years ago.

Life is very strange. Sometimes something good emerges from something awful.

 

(There is a little more to this story, but I am not willing to put it in my blog. I will send it to a few friends by email, who usually get communication from me by tat method. If you are a reader and want to be on the list, email me at eman_modnar@yahoo.com. At the moment, I am planning to email David, woo, pandemonic, and Pete. That covers most of my regular readers, I think. If I left you out, don’t be insulted; just drop me a line.)

Part 3 of a Story of Late Dawning Realization

I remember J (my niece) visiting us when she was about 12. My wife and I compared her to our daughter, a year or two older, very unfavorably, and predicted that J would be a very messed up adult as she grew older. We lost all contact with my sister and my niece for a number of years.

When we were living in Oregon a number of years ago, J called us one day and told us that she was going to college in California and working in a conservation program for youth. She asked if she could visit us. At the time, my daughter was attending college at Oberlin in Ohio.

When J came to visit us, my wife and I, expecting a very messed up young adult, were surprised to meet a pleasant, mature, self-possessed young woman. We took her out to dinner and had a lovely time. She came to visit us a couple more times, eventually bringing along a boy friend, S, she had met at college. He also proved to be an intelligent, courteous, and delightful young man. Both niece J and boy friend S graduated together with degrees in environmental engineering of some sort. They moved to the east coast of the United States and got married. A few years ago, I attended a couple of family reunions on the East Coast, organized by my Aunt Naomi and financed by her millionaire daughter, my cousin Joanna. Now living in Vermont, both niece J and her now husband S attended. They not only attended, they served as brilliant organizers and facilitators, taking people on hikes through Vermont and later New Hampshire wilderness and invariably being kind, patient and endearing to everyone at the reunion, ranging from little babies to aunts in their seventies.

Being a rude person, I said to my sister, “I am surprised at how well your daughter turned out. When she was a teenager, I thought you were a terrible mother and your daughter would be ruined for life.”

My sister’s answer was, “I was indeed a terrible mother. I have no explanation of how well she has turned out except that she had a lot of strength of character and she attended a Waldorf School.”

[I am a little skeptical of that explanation. My youngest brother and youngest sister attended a Waldorf School and they are both seriously messed up individuals.]

Unfortunately, as my daughter and her partner live here on the West Coast, and J and her husband S live in Vermont, they have never had a chance to meet as adults, nor have their children had a chance to encounter each other. My daughter and her partner, of course, are parents to the inimitable Random Granddaughter, now attending kindergarten at the School for Very Bright Children.

J and S have two children. My sister, very close to my Aunt Rose, like her became a follower of the weird semi-cult of Anthropacifism, based on the teaching of the German nut philosopher Rudolf Steiner. The Anthropacifists are best known in the United States for the Waldorf Schools and for biodynamic farming. My niece’s two children go to a Waldorf school. Although I consider them to be nutty overall, the Waldorf schools have some good points going for them, and bio-dynamic farmers have some success with their method of agriculture, which includes some peculiarities such as planting by phases of the moon.

Part 2 of a Story of Late Dawning Realization

The significance of Lucille’s behavior only popped into my consciousness a couple of years ago, though it should have been apparent to me about 45 years ago, as I shall explain in part three of this post.

About six years after the Rockland County episode with Beelzebub, I was living in Los Angeles, after flunking out of college and going out with Mrs. Random to be. One day I learned that my parents were having great difficulties with my sister D. They decided that she needed to get away from home.

There was a precedent in that they had sent me to live with my aunt Rose (mother’s sister) for a year when I was four years old. I suspect the year with Aunt Rose saved my youthful sanity.

However, my parents told me that my sister was going to stay with Beelzebub for a while, which struck me as very strange. Also, my sister was about 16 years old at the time, instead of four years old as I had been when sent to live with my aunt.

A while later, after I had been married for a little while and our own daughter had been born, I learned that my sister was pregnant, and that Beelzebub was the father. My sister came home, had the baby, raised her daughter as a single mother and never married.

Beelzebub never suffered any consequences for this statutory rape (as it should be described as my sister was underage when she became pregnant) and never paid any child support. As far as I could tell, my parents never took any action to hold Beelzebub to account.

As a young, immature married person I thought of my parents, What were they thinking? but mostly I thought about my my own marriage and my own child. “

A Shocking Story in Four Parts

 

Sometimes one does not realize the significance of a situation until a long time afterward.

When I was about 14 years old, my father, a very intelligent (and very unpleasant) person who had never had a job worthy of his talents, finally was hired for a good job by a defense contractor to help usher in the computer age and to help protect the United States from nuclear attack by Soviet bombers. It took a while for his security clearance to be approved because two doctors had delivered him and each doctor thought the other doctor had signed his birth certificate.

When it came time for the FBI to approve his security clearance, the lack of a birth certificate and the fact that his ancestors came from countries behind the Iron Curtain caused the defenders of our national security some concern. Eventually, however, they decided he was not a Manchurian Candidate and he was assigned to a job in New York state. He moved to the East Coast by himself for a while for training, leaving us behind in California for a while.

 

Eventually, he summoned my mother to leave Orange County, California and join him, and bring the rest of us (my four younger siblings and I) along, though I suspect my father would not have wept if she had mislaid us before leaving.

Anyway, after a few weeks in Paterson, New Jersey (aka the armpit of America), we rented a house in Suffern, a town in Rockland County. Rockland County bears a relationship to New York City rather like Orange County, California bears to Los Angeles.

 

My father had a friend in Rockland, County. I don’t remember exactly the basis of the friendship (though most of my parents’ friends were very weird). Perhaps they played chess (as my father was a brilliant chess player), or bridge (which my father came to prefer to chess). As usual I don’t remember the gentleman’s name. I’ll call him Beelzebub for reasons that will eventually become apparent.

I’m not sure how old Beezy was. When I was 14, everyone over 21 seemed very old to me. I suspect now that he was in his 40s.

One day my father asked me to go to Beelzebub’s apartment for a bit. My dad explained that Beelzebub’s niece was visiting him and my dad thought she might like some company of a person her own age.

Beelzebub chatted with me for a few minutes before he introduced me to his niece. He explained that he worked independently doing title searches for real estate companies. “It is indeed fortunate that I have a way to make a living where I can work by myself. As I live a very unconventional lifestyle, it is a good thing I can make a living without having to work for anybody else, because most people would not understand,” he said to me.

His statement didn’t make much sense to me at the time, but just as my parents were obsessed with alternative health, organic food, and obscure mystical beliefs, most of their friends were rather strange as well, so I just attributed Beelzebub’s odd statement to the peculiar milieu in which my parents circulated.

In fact, my parents, apparently concerned that as a teenager I was a bookish introvert with no young lady friends, from time to time thrust me into the company of daughters and nieces of friends in the hope that I would come out of my shell and perhaps get a young lady into “trouble” (I guess).

This stratagem never succeeded. The young lady and I would stare awkwardly at each other, unable to think of anything to say. At the time, my conclusion was that she was thinking of me What a boring dork. Now, I suspect the young lady (perhaps as introverted as I) was thinking, He probably thinks I am a boring dorkette. It’s hard to know. It was a long time ago and the truth is lost in the mists of time.

In any case, my father dropped me off at Beelzebub’s apartment and Beezy introduced me to his niece. Even in comparison to my usual awkward encounters with young ladies of my own age, this meeting was especially awkward. I’ll call her Lucille. Lucille seemed tense and agitated. Naturally, I attributed her distressed manner to repulsion with me.

When my father eventually showed up to take me back home, I was glad to get out of there. On the drive home, my father asked me about how my conversation with Lucille went. I said something articulate such as, “Mumble, mumble.”

This all took place about fifty years ago.

 

Mary from Peru to Visit

Some time back, I wrote about hosting a party at the mommies’ house for my two favorite volunteers: Mary (not Maria) from Peru and S from Romania.

My wife was quite taken with Mary. I think because they are much alike. Each is very intelligent but does not think she is. Each does exactly as she pleases regardless of what other people think they “ought” to do. Of course, they are different as well. Mary has a Master’s Degree in Industrial Engineering. My wife took one college class.

In any case, I asked my wife, “Do you want to invite Mary to visit us?” My wife seldom wants people to visit us unless she had decided to invite them. However, in this case, she said, “Yes.”

Mary said she has bought a condo and that things are going well at her job for a utility company and that she will visit us next month.

My wife said, “Be sure to tell her we will pay for her ferry ticket.”

I let the mommies know about the visit, but their lives are so busy and complicated I don’t know if they will join us. Perhaps Random Granddaughter can invite her entire kindergarten class from the school for very bright children. On the way, they could stop and visit the used car dealer that sells used fire trucks and as a project they could take a fire engine apart and put it back together.