Category: pamela hester king

Violation: School in August

Summer. Lazy days when no alarm clock heralded wake-up time (with Emperor Gene Nelson on KYA, before FM was a thing).

We bicycled to the shopping center; few houses had been built along Alameda in Atherton. Mostly small ranches, a few horses grazing, our bike book baskets filled with carrots for them, and our lunches packed for impromptu picnics in someone’s pasture.

Tackle basketball was def a thing in our driveway court waiting for dusk to settle, then Tag til after sundown. Older kids TPed houses when younger ones were called inside. “Mrs. Inseth needs to borrow a couple of rolls, Mom.” Did Mom ever wonder why Isabel never repaid them?Did Isabel wonder why my mom didn’t either? Gary and I laughed, mischievous collaborators . Between the two moms we’d score a four pack. Often enough that I’m surprised neither provided the other with a gastroenterology referral.

We carefully chose bathing suits for summer trips to Berryessa, my HS bestie and me. We washed our hair with Clairol Herbal Essence in the glassy lake, then disturbed the calm with a blast across the water in a speedboat for a speed dry. First job was at the local drugstore, where the ice cream scoops were 15 cents and lunch was a tuna melt at the fountain.

Late August brought the heat and the boredom, essential ingredients in a proper summer. It was time to think about school again. Catholic school wool plaid skirts of green and gray in hot sticky JCPenney fitting rooms. Corona cigar boxes filled with new pencils and a faux tortoise shell fountain pen. Schaefer ink cartridges ready to do battle with my left-handed smear. There were new, stiff, blister-causing saddle shoes, always bright white with orange crepe soles. Couldn’t wait to ditch those, just in time for their fashion comeback in public high school. (There was a slight switch up though, tan and navy, with — orange crepe soles.)

High school brought new clothes and free dress. Bay Area summer starts in September, right about now. You gotta wait, it’s too hot to wear that dreamy new, pink cashmere sweater. I once took a chance. Turned out to be a 101° day.

Oops.

These were summers of my childhood.

A complete summer required completing all rituals. There can be no return to school without discharging the entire checklist. The first strains of “I’m bored. There’s nothing to do,” must be heard from a child before a PB&J can make its way onto sliced wheat, and into a brown bag. Aren’t we bound to a grocery store trek? Which chip assortment will get the place of honor in a September back-to-school lunch bag? Then there’s the first (and maybe only) prized treat of the school year, a Hostess hand pie, apple or berry, with a crackly glaze on its half-moon crust.

No summer is truly over until all siblings begin purposely aggravating the others because there’s nothing better to do. “I’m telling Mom,” “Mom, he’s looking at me!” An exasperated mother must blow a fuse and holler to her neighbor over a redwood fence, “I’ll be so glad when school starts! I can’t take the arguing anymore.”

Not on a bright, mid August day with summer in full swing should a kid be plucked from fun for confinement in a classroom. No books need be cracked while one more road trip and hotel pool beckons, no heavy backpacks slung across slumped seven-year-old shoulders before September shows on an old-fashioned paper calendar. With the sun still deciding if it’s set, daylight not fully dimmed, no bed should call a kid on break.

In the midst of squashed late summer rituals eschewed by adults with bad ideas, and the premature reinstatement of school, I hear distant squeals of summer joy, stifled. Summer demands a proper last hurrah. It is the rightful heir to the final few weeks of school-free days and late bedtimes.

Summer has been snatched away before Labor Day. A complete August violation.

I Haven’t Written for A Long Time

I haven’t written for a long time. 

A few years back there was a cyber stalker. It’s not hard with the internet to find someone wherever they may be. Their address. Mail them a letter. Take liberties behind a keyboard. Perhaps have one wonder if they could show up. 

It frightened me. When you write, or when I write, for a blog and send it off around the world, it’s impossible not to know that’s a possibility. But I never considered it a probability. Until it was real. 

I stopped writing. But I write because I can’t not write. Because there are ideas bursting out of thought and charging to my fingertips, then to paper or screen. 

It’s hard to put my writing down.  It’s where I sift my own thinking, and maybe assemble something worth sharing. Writing is how I pick through a mound of ideas and memories, sort, toss, keep, and donate. It’s where I hear my heartbeat. 

If it’s an extraordinary day, perhaps I’ll reach or teach or contribute to someone else. 

Each non-writing morning my mind scribbled as I showered. Sentences and paragraphs so good they would’ve delighted Wendell Berry or Nora Ephron. In my mind, where no one consumes my writing but me, I’m really good. As opposed to writing what others may read. That’s scary stuff. Self-doubt inducing. The addition of a far-off stranger who read, then wrote the particulars of my life back to me, as though I’d confided in only them, was haunting, flirting with terrifying. 

Now I’ve found a grain of courage, and desire. I will write again. Share again on my blog or even blogs. Sometimes I’ll be good and sometimes I won’t. Yet I’ll write and won’t be chased away. By me, or a stalker. 

I hope you’ve all been well. I have. And I’ll see you soon. 

“Hi, Guy!”

My grandparents lived in a two-bedroom, one bath, California bungalow, built in the 20s. The 1920s. Pastel green stucco with three large arched windows across the front, and creamy white trim. 

Their spotless bathroom sparkled with white fixtures and small white octagonal floor tiles. The old tank on the toilet was huge when compared to today’s, six or seven gallons of water that made a mighty woosh when flushed. We grandkids were still adept at clogging the plumbing causing an Italian uproar when Grandpa was called to fix it.

There was an obscured glass double hung window with a deep sill next to the commode. Through it I could see the swaying shadow of large hydrangea blossoms outside, and the outline beyond of the house next door. Fresh air flooded the room from the window’s lowered upper pane. In the center of the room was a flat, white cotton rug. Utilitarian and pristine, reflecting the values of its owners.

Out in the hall next to the bathroom door was an identical door. It opened to reveal a large linen closet. The closet could be accessed from inside the bathroom to grab a towel, or from the hall. When the bathroom door was open, the inner closet door was hidden. Only when inside the bathroom with the door closed could one see the other door. We called the closet the “Hi, Guy!” as we could open both doors at once and amuse each other, which didn’t take a lot as children.

“Hi, Guy!” came from a Gillette Right Guard deodorant TV ad where someone opened a medicine chest to see the neighbor next-door also opening his, an apparent shared cabinet. The greeting was, well – you know. My brother and I thought it hysterical to each open a side of Grandma’s closet with an enthusiastic, “Hi, Guy!” salute.

When we grew taller we discovered one could open the hall side, climb the lowest shelf, reach across the tablecloths and napkins, over the sheets to the towels and twist the interior doorknob to push open the bathroom side without the help of a partner in the bathroom. Unlimited possibilities.

I don’t know what brought this memory back so vividly and I’m not an able enough writer to accurately describe the hilarity of my brother or me quietly creeping into the closet to scare the crap (no pun intended) out of the person (usually Grandpa) sitting on the toilet. Grandpa, with his little bald head and messy morning comb-over, who seemed about 150 years old to us, enjoyed a quiet sit in that gleaming old bathroom. He’d have his tazza di caffe on the window sill, a neatly folded copy of the San Francisco Call Bulletin in one hand, and an unfiltered Camel in the other. As smoke lazily rose from his cigarette, he was undoubtedly perched peacefully and unsuspecting until the bathroom closet erupted. My brother and I stayed only long enough to hear the string of Italian cuss words and spy his near fall from the commode as he scrambled to cover himself while manacled by the long johns gathered at his ankles.

Whatever else happened I can’t say because the two of us beat feet out of there. There were a limited number of children in the house on which to blame the deed but if the escape was clean there was no way to know which devilish one was the culprit. We’d crumple to the floor with laughter in a far-off locale.

This story is long ago in the rearview mirror yet every time I attempted to capture it in writing, or retell it to loved ones, I had to stop for a round of giggles so brisk I nearly wet my pants.

The day I recalled the Hi, Guy! escapades I texted my brother at home in TX. “Do you remember when we’d push the Hi, Guy! open and scare Grandpa off the throne?”

Standing alone while typing my message put no damper on my laughter. I awaited a rousing response from my long time accomplice as I attempted to regain composure. Disappointed I received only an “I’m driving” auto-reply. I was revived shortly after when he parked and transmitted his simple answer. “YES!”

I’m pretty sure it really doesn’t matter how far away a location is in our rearview mirrors. If it contains kids pranking adults (especially Italian nonnos) and a sprinkling of toilet humor, it never loses its magic.