Do Your Homework, Mom!

copyright 1997  Leader Publications

Note:  I reworded this a bit since my mom is no longer with us, to make it apply more to the past than it was originally written.

Caring for our aging parents is a lot like caring for our kids.  We worry if they eat right.  We worry about their health.  We take them to the doctor.  We take them shopping.  And we help them with their homework.

Yes, homework.  There’s a program that allows seniors to attend college for free, or half-price, and many of them are taking it up.  It’s not uncommon anymore to see an octogenarian or two on area campuses.

My mom, who was in her 60s, signed up for classes in film studies and stage design at an area college.

The film studies class came first.  Mom told me that it mostly consisted of watching old movies from the 1940s and 1950s.  Unlike all the other students in her class, Mom had already seen every one of the films at least once, years ago.

Though that familiarity may have helped, my mom still had to do some research and write a couple of essays for the class.  That’s where my help came in.

With her first essay, mom had done the reading and wrote down notes she wanted to include in her essay.  But when it came to actually pulling it all together, she just couldn’t do it.  She brought her notes to me and asked my help.

I know it goes against college ethics to do someone else’s homework, and with an old scandal relating to that very thing, concerning a student named Paige Laurie, I was almost afraid to do it, since I was a college student at the time, too.  However, I attended a different school than my mom.  And I reasoned that in my mom’s case it wouldn’t hurt.  After all, she wasn’t actually going to do anything with the credits she earned.  So I pulled her notes together into a reasonable sounding essay.

Mom sat on my couch while I sat at the computer composing her paper.  To ease my conscience, I would often read a sentence aloud for her approval, feeling that somehow, if she approved the sentence, it was more like she wrote it herself.

The project took up quite a bit of time, a couple of hours, so I was glad when we finished. 

Some weeks later Mom came over with not just an essay, but a research paper to be written.  This time she was really overwhelmed and instead of writing her own research notes, she merely read some sentences into a tape recorder from a book that she wanted to include in her paper and brought the recorder to me.

Mom sat on the couch, sometimes falling asleep, while I slaved away on her research paper.  It was not wonder that she fell asleep because I spent seven plus hours on the thing.

Being in college myself, I had my own homework to do, so I decided than that this would be the last time I helped Mom with her homework.  A few weeks later, Mom called me and told me “we” made a “B” in the class.  She then said she was thinking about taking English composition the next semester.

“Oh, Mom, you don’t want to do that,” I said in a near panic.  “Besides several essays, you’ll have to write a 10-page research paper at the end of the semester.  It would be really hard.”

“Oh, really,” Mom said in surprise.  “Well, that last paper wasn’t so bad.”

“Maybe not for you!” I thought to myself.

Thankfully, Mom never did take the English comp class.  She signed up for the stage design.  I was useless to Mom in that class, as it required a project of making up a small model of a stage design, and I’m just not good at that kind of art, so when Mom realized it was too much for her, she just dropped the class.

To her credit, Mom did complete a creative writing course with a grade of “B,” all on her own.

Addendum:  I have a few poems my mom wrote that are really good and I will be posting on my blog in the future.

Funny Things Happen

My family thinks I should write a book. This is because funny things seem to happen to us.  Some of them are actually our fault, others not.

One example occurred a long time ago, the first time I pumped my own gas.

It was the late 1970’s, not long after they came out with self-serve pumps and also just after I got my driver’s license at the age of 19. When I went up to the cashier’s window to pay I said, “I got five dollars on pump number 89.”

“What?” the young man asked.

“Well, that was the number on the pump,” I informed him.

“That’s the octane level,” he replied.

“Oh,” I said as I handed him my bill, then briskly left.

Another time when I was about the same age, my husband and I were driving out Hwy. 21.  There was a sign along the side of the road advertising a turkey shoot.  I had never heard of this before and, animal lover that I was, blurted out to my husband, "You mean they line those turkeys up and shoot them!"

Then there was the time I walked past one of my telecourse professors at Jefferson College.  I had taken the telecourse over the summer and was back on campus the following fall. I had never actually met the professor, since my telecourse was completed through the mail, though I knew him by sight.

As we passed each other I noticed him smiling at me.  The course had required quite a few writing assignments and I just assumed he was smiling because he recognized me.

“There’s that Cathy Murphy. What a writer she is. Hers were just about the best essays I’ve ever read,” I imagined him thinking.

I went along to my classroom and sat down, my pride increasing by the minute. As I set about organizing my things, however, I noticed the front of my shirt was just about covered in graham cracker crumbs from the snack I quickly ate on my way to school.

And that, I realized, was the reason he was smiling.

Another situation occurred simply because I had too much to do. We had five kids, the youngest, twin girls, who were about three. Once when my family and I attended a religious convention, my dress kept choking me around the neck.  During the drive there and throughout the morning, I kept pulling at the collar of my dress because it kept choking me.  Finally, about half way through the day’s program as I was again pulling at the front of my collar, I felt the tags that would normally have been in the back of the dress and realized with a sudden horror that I had my dress on backwards!

As usual, we had arrived late to the program, so I imagined all 700-plus people who saw me walk down the aisle must have been thinking to themselves, "That lady has her dress on backwards!"  I waited for lunch break, when people would be up and about, figuring I wouldn't be as noticeable and went in to the bathroom to correct the problem. 

To rub salt into that wound, I was once with some friends and told them my funny story about spending a morning with my dress on backwards. When I returned home and went into the bathroom to freshen up, I saw I was wearing two different earrings. I always wondered if they noticed.

One situation I found myself in was fully the fault of kids.  I went out into the yard one morning and noticed the swings on the swing set were misaligned, again. Someone, maybe the neighbor boys as a joke, would always misalign the chains of the swings so they would hang unevenly.  I approached the set to repair the damage when my hair - I used to wear it in a long braid down to my waist - got caught in the chain links of one of the swings.

The harder I tried to free myself, the worse it got. I was stuck fast to that swing.

At first I hoped no one noticed, but after several minutes and coming close to resorting to yelling out, “Help!” I found myself wishing someone would come to my rescue.

Finally, after taking some deep breaths, I slowly felt my way through the knotted mess and got myself free.  That evening when I told my husband about my ordeal, he said, “Well, you could have just unhooked the chains at the top and brought it into the house.  “Oh, that would look cute,” I said. “walking into the house while holding a swing up to my head.”

My sister seems to have a similar problem, only she doesn’t have kids.

Once she moved into a tiny apartment that came with a tiny dishwasher. Because she and I always had to wash dishes when we were kids, she refuses to do it anymore and insisted on using that dishwasher.

She told me that after a while she noticed the dishes weren’t getting clean and the dishwasher smelled, so she called in the maintenance man.  She said he pulled the dishwasher out into the middle of the kitchen, hooked it up to the faucet and turned it on, only to have bubbles come out all over.  The maintenance man told her she was using too much soap.

“A lot of people do that with these things,” he said.

So my sister cut way back on the soap and continued to use the dishwasher. After a few weeks, however, the same problem was occurring, so she called the maintenance man back a second time.

Again he pulled the machine into the middle of the kitchen and hooked it up to the faucet. This time she asked him something she had wondered about during his first visit.

“Why do you hook it up to the faucet like that?” she asked.

“Well, you gotta have water to use it,” was his surprised response.

My daughter has apparently inherited my sense of direction.  Soon after they moved to their home in St. Charles, she went to the store, but got lost on the way home.  She was only ten minutes away but it took her two hours to get back home.  At the end of her harrowing adventure, she was speaking with her husband again on the cell phone as he tried to direct her.  As he stood in the front yard with the phone to his ear, he watched as my daughter drove down the street right past their house!

She thought she had entered their street at the other end, so thought their home would be further down.  She learned then her street ended in a cul-de-sac.

On another occassion, my sister, mom and I were on our way to a wedding.  On our way, I pulled into a gas station to fill up. My sister jumped out of the passenger side and said, “I’ll pump.”

I got out and said, “OK. I’ll go in and pay.” As I headed for the store I stopped, turned around and said, “Let’s see, what pump number is this?” at which point our mother, who heard me through the open car window, looked up at the pump and said, “Let’s see. It looks like number 89 to me.”

It’s got to be heredity.

The Imposter Roz

Copyright Catherine Coyle Murphy 2012

Submitted to Leader Publications July 2012

By Catherine Coyle Murphy

For the Leader

You know you have too many pets when you discover that a strange animal has been living in your house for who knows how long, and no one even notices.  Of course it helps, the animal that is, if it happens to look a lot like one of your own pets. This odd situation occurred at our home some years ago.

One morning, our daughter went to open the kitchen door to let out our cat, Roz.

To quote our daughter, “As Roz was going out the door, Roz was also coming in the door.”

When she inspected the cat she had just let in, she realized the cat that had been in the house wanting out was not our cat, it just looked a lot like her.

That night, the interloper reappeared and my husband brought him in for all to see.

To make the whole situation even stranger, our cat Roz was a bit unusual looking. She was a Maine-coon/Persian/alley cat mix. She had ash-gray fur, which upon close inspection the gray could be seen mottled with a cream color. She had the hugely fluffy tail of a Persian and she grew a ruff around her neck each winter like a Maine-coon. Roz had gold eyes.

The other cat, which we have since referred to as the imposter Roz, had the same shade of gray and was just as fluffy as our Roz, but he did not have the cream color mixed in. He had emerald green eyes.  He was also was lot larger than Roz.  But who notices such details when you’re just opening a door to let a cat in or out, or when a cat is at its food bowl?

Actually, the discovery explained a few things. I remember before the imposter was discovered, my girls once expressed concern because Roz was gaining too much weight. “We need to put her on a diet,” they told me.

Some time later, they the girls were concerned Roz was quite sick because she seemingly lost a lot of weight rather quickly.  “We need to get her to the vet,” they pestered. 

We now know the assumed difference in weight was caused by the fact that sometimes the imposter Roz slept with the girls, other times the real Roz did.

Our youngest son said he always wondered why sometimes Roz felt light and soft when she slept with him, while other times she seemed strong and heavy.  The girls also noticed that sometimes Roz purred softly, and other times she had a really loud purr.

The discovery also helped us realize that our female cats were not the ones wetting on the dirty laundry pile in the basement after all. The imposter Roz, an un-neutered male, had been spraying the clothes.

The only member in our household who did notice the strange cat, we came to realize, was our dog.  We always wondered why Duke would only chase after Roz when she entered the house and never the other cats.   He probably was only chasing the imposter Roz, but we really didn’t pay attention if he seemed to chase after her only some of the time.

The imposter Roz had made himself pretty much at home. He knew to sit on the shelf outside the kitchen window and meow to be let in.  Aside from being chased when he first entered the house, he otherwise ignored the dog just like our other cats did.  He knew where the food bowls were, as well as the bedrooms and basement.

I think my husband must have been pretty relieved at the discovery of the imposter.

Just a few weeks before the finding, he was at the stove about to prepare breakfast when Roz meowed to go out.  He went to let her out and returned to the stove.  Within seconds, Roz was again meowing to go out.

My husband was just beside himself trying to figure out how the cat got in again so quickly.  The poor guy must have thought he was going nuts.

After a few weeks of diligent checking when Roz was let in or out, we all fell out of the habit.

The imposter continued to sneak in undetected.  We knew so because he continued to leave his tell-tail sign – I mean –  markings, on the laundry pile in the basement.

Wilbur's Day in Court

Copyright 2012 Catherine Coyle Murphy

By Cathy Murphy

For the Leader

My sister-in-law has a niece, Elizabeth, her brother’s daughter.

My sister-in-law’s parents helped her brother raise Elizabeth in their home.

As most people know, when grandparents raise a grandchild, the child often gets most things he or she wants, as was the case with Elizabeth. And Elizabeth wanted a pig.

So, Wilbur, the supposedly Vietnamese potbellied-turned 300-pound porker entered the family as a tiny squealing little thing.

In time, Wilbur wasn’t so tiny anymore and had to be banished from the house to live in the backyard with Snoopy the dog.

The family lived in Maryland Heights where agricultural animals aren’t really allowed, but they hoped nobody would notice.

Unfortunately, the family was hoping for too much.

As Wilbur grew, a neighbor began to complain that Wilbur caused a stink and, after the family refused to give Wilbur up, for Elizabeth’s sake, the neighbor took them to court. I like to refer to the episode as Wilbur’s Day in Court.

My sister-in-law, Karen, a bright woman, in her thirties at the time who works as an X-ray technician, went to court with her mother in the fight to keep Wilbur. Karen said her mom asked her to serve as Wilbur’s “character witness.”

Karen’s mother couldn’t afford a lawyer, so she represented herself.

At the start of the trial, Karen’s mother, Elizabeth’s grandmother, help up a large poster-sized photograph of Wilbur and, pointing to it with a yardstick, began expounding to the judge, “This is Wilbur. Wilbur is a good pig.”

At that point, the judge cracked up laughing, stopping Karen’s mother in mid-testimony and threw the case out of court.

The neighbor who caused all the trouble has since passed on.

There was a time, however, after Elizabeth grew up where the family decided to try to find a new home for Wilbur. The only stipulation was he not go to anyone who would want to eat him. But a new home was not to be found. So, Wilbur eventually died old and happy after a long life sharing the backyard with Snoopy the dog.

Elizabeth is grown now, married and the mother of two little children.

Once her kids get a little older and ask for a pet, and if they ask for something unusual, I wonder if Elizabeth will be as generous as her own grandma was.

Nah, I doubt it. That kind of spoiling only comes from grandparents.

Brady, the UPS dog

Brady is our grand-dog. He’s four years old, the same age as our youngest grandson.

Brady and his family used to live on a farm. Like all dogs, Brady loves to go for a ride.

Whenever pickup trucks used to drive down the dirt road leading to the farm, Brady would jump in to the bed of the truck. The owners would have to stop their trucks and get him out.

I used to refer to Brady as the UPS dog. That’s because the family had two regular UPS delivery men. Whenever the trucks started up the long driveway to the farm house, Brady would jump in the open driver’s side door and ride on up next to the driver.

One of the drivers was afraid of dogs. Whenever he had to deliver a package to the farm, he would rev the engine and speed up the driveway in hopes Brady wouldn’t be able to jump in. Sometimes it worked.

Brady and his family now live in a suburban neighborhood. He likes to be walked to the bus stop with the kids. But one time he got loose and bounded onto the bus.

My daughter ran after him but couldn’t reach him until he made it all the way to the back. As she escorted him out, he managed to give big, sloppy kisses to many of the kids in the aisle seats.

Meanwhile, my grandson, with a huge smile on his face, proudly exclaimed “That’s my dog!”

What does Hurricane Georges have to do with Franklin and Jefferson counties?

copyright Suburbn Journals  2000

Note:  This was written before Hurrican Katrina.  Also, Sandy is now working at Des Peres Hospital.  She and her fiance, Dave, live in Wentzville.

What does Hurrican Georges have to do with Franklin and Jefferson counties?

"A lot.  It's why we're here," said Mike Crihfield, 46, former Mississippi resident, and recent transplant to Catawissa, along the Jefferson/Franklin County border.

Crihfield, a disabled military veteran and his wife Sandy, 39, came through Jefferson County in 1998 in their attempt to escape the effects of Hurrican Georges.

The trip was a first through the area for Mike, a former professional bass fisherman and avid outdoorsman.

"I just fell in love with the rolling hills and country feel of the area, Mike said.

The couple had enough of hurricanes and was ready to make a change. 

"I never thought there would be a place as beautiful as Mississippi," Mike said.  "Until I came through here."

Crihfield said he has vivid memories of Hurricane Camille, a 1969 killer that took more than 250 lives and caused over $1.42 billion in damages.

"Even though I was only a teenager, I volunteered for the cleanup.  There were bodies everywhere," he said.  "I never want to see a sight like that again."
Preparing for and anticipating hurricanes can take tis toll on people as well, Sandy said.

"We got tired of sitting the storms out in our shelter.  We would be stuck in there with our two large dogs and two cats, with no electricity or air conditioning.  We just didn't want to go through that again," she said.

Sandy wanted to move back to this area for years.  Most of her family lives in St. Louis and surrounding counties.

"But it took a hurricane to get Mike to go," she said.

Mississippi and Louisiana newspapers regularly print hurricane preparations.  The instructions could cause outsiders to wonder why anyone would want to continue living under such a threat.

Residents are told to keep an axe in their attics in case they have to climb into them to escape rising water.  The axe will come in handy if they need to break through the roof.

New Orleans residents who live under continuous threat of having their entire city covered over with waters from Lake Pontchartrain are given even more explicit directions.

Those lucky enough to survive such a flood will probably find themselves clinging to roof or tree tops until rescue attempts can be made.  Until then, they will have to fend off any passing allligators or poisonous snakes, none of which will be in a very good mood, considering they too, will have been recently displaced from their homes.

There will also be a threat from fire ants, which cling together to make themselves into a floating ball.  When the ant balls bump into anything solid, it breaks into a swarm in a desperate attempt at survival.

Sandy, a reigstered nurse at St. Luke's Hospital in Chesterfield, worked at a hospital in New Orleans.

After their 1998 visit to Jefferson County, the Crihfields decided to put their lakefront Mississippi home on the market.

In April they moved into their dream home in Catawissa.  The home sits on about nine acres of woodland and has a built-in, indoor swimming pool, as well as a recording studio.

"Mike has arthritis real bad and the only thing that brings him relief is hot water, so the heated pool really appealed to him," Sandy said.

The former helicopter pilot is also a musician/songwriter and has dreamed of having his own recording studio.

"Now I just have to learn how to use the equipment, Mike said.

Mike has invited the former homeowners, Jerry and Angie Austin, to come back and use the studio, and in turn, show him how to operate it.

Jerry Austin is a member of the local band Joybone.

Mike and Sandy have been settling in and enjoying the country atmosphere of their new home, which includes almost daily visits from deer and other wildlife.  But even though they are glad to leave the threat of hurricanes and the testy creatures that pose a threat to hurrican flood survivors, the Crihfields have quickly discovered that Missouri counties have their own share of pests to be contended with.

"The chiggers here, they're incredible," Mike said as he scratched around his ankles.

This one's for you, David

Copyright 2005 Leader Publications

By Catherine Coyle-Murphy

            Having a student walk past you in the hallway of your high school, make eye contact, nod and say, “Hey, man.”

            Waiting in line in the cafeteria, then going through the line to select what you’ll have for lunch.

            Eating that lunch in the school cafeteria along with all the other students.

            Things to which most of us wouldn’t give a second thought, the severely handicapped student longs to do.

            A few years ago I had the privilege of working as a teacher’s assistant with the Special School District of St. Louis County. I was assigned to a student, David, who has quadriplegic cerebral palsy. At the time I worked with him, David was 16 and a freshman at a high school in the Rockwood School District.

            In technical terms, David is non-verbal. He can’t speak. But that doesn’t mean he can’t communicate. David could raise his head, or sometimes just his eyes, up for yes, and down for no. And you would be amazed at how much communication can take place with such seeming limited abilities.

            David was assigned to a special education classroom, but he attended an English class, gym, art and a music class outside the special ed. room.

            David loved being a part of the regular school and he relished being treated as just a regular kid.

            When I worked with him, I always took him through the lunch line, wheelchair and all, to select his meal. He wouldn’t opt for waiting at the table while I selected his lunch for him, even though it would have been faster. David wanted to do whatever the other kids did. And he wanted the independence of picking out his own lunch.

            We would go through the lunch line and I would tell David what was available and he would raise his head up if he wanted it, and down if he didn’t.

            When David really wanted something, he would raise his head up, or back, as far as he could and hold it there.

            When he seriously didn’t want to do something, he would drop his head down, chin resting on his chest, and keep it there. A time or two when he did that and the other teachers and I were distracted, he would get tired of holding his head down and begin to raise his head, only to let it drop quickly again once we turned our attention back to him. He would then continue to hold his head down and look up and around with his eyes to see if we were paying attention.

            When walking with David through the hallways of the school and he wanted to meet someone, and that someone was always a girl, he let me know by darting his eyes quickly between the girl and me. I would then approach the girl and tell her David would like to meet her. The girls would always smile and blush at the flattery and come up and talk to David.

            As a native Guatemalan Indian, David is handsome with black hair and eyes and a dark complexion. I would often overhear the girls saying, “He’s so cute,” as we passed them in the hallways or in the gym class.

            It was sometimes difficult to assess David’s intellectual abilities. At times when I was instructed to test him, I would ask him questions, often using flash cards and asking him to answer yes to the correct answer or to gaze at the correct card. At first, David would get all the answers correct, but after a short time, he would get bored and begin to purposely give wrong answers.

            Sometimes, when he was really bored with an assignment, he would turn his head aside and refuse to look at the material at all.

            For art class, I would place my hand over David’s, or place his on top of mine, and draw whatever he wanted. I was given some information about him at the start of the school year, such as that he liked sports, girls and animals, so I had an idea of what to ask him he wanted to make.

            For collages, I would hold up magazines for him and he would let me know when he liked a picture he wanted to include in the collage.

            When working with clay, I would have David feel the clay as much as possible while we sculpted his chosen project. We made an owl and a mummy.

            David attended the homecoming dance, with myself and another aide as his assistant. He danced with at least seven girls. Some asked him to dance, others he asked, through me. The girls would hold his hand and move his chair to the music as they swayed along. I remember when David’s dad arrived to pick him up after the dance. His poor dad just couldn’t understand why David didn’t want him to attend with him.

            In gym class, we would play kick ball. We would release David’s feet from the footrests and push his wheelchair fast toward the ball after it was rolled toward him so his foot would hit the ball. Then, we would run as we pushed his chair, running bases around the gym lobby floor. David loved it and laughed hard the whole time.

            The gym teacher would also take David near the end of the class and work with him in the same way, having David participate in one of games going on, whether it was soccer, basketball or other indoor gym games.

            Outside, we would push David’s chair around the track as the other students walked or ran.

            Some might question having such a severely handicapped student attend a regular school, but those who do should try to put themselves in David’s shoes. David wanted to be a part of the high school scene. He wanted to do the most ordinary things we all take for granted. Things like receiving that nod and that “Hey, man,” from another kid passing by in the hallway. Things like waiting in the cafeteria line and picking out your own lunch. Things like attending a regular class, or dancing with a girl.

            And why shouldn’t he?

           

Little bald kids don't make me cry

Copyright Leader Publications 2006

Due to the recent Colorado shooting tragedy, and my son’s recent seizure, I think it’s time for a “Count our blessings” column.  My heart goes out to the victims and their families of the tragedy, including the shooter, who must have had a mental problem to do such a thing.

(My son mentioned here is now 28)

I don’t know why I cried when I saw him. I usually didn’t cry at the little bald kids attached to IV poles.

            These kids are always present in the waiting room of our son’s hematologist.

            Our son has a mild blood disease requiring infrequent visits to a hematologist. The doctor is also an oncologist, or cancer specialist, which explains the little bald kids attached to IV poles who are always there.

            Our son, now 22, was born with other health problems. He is deaf and as a baby was diagnosed as hypotonic; his muscles were weak. Add to the list chronic asthma he developed by the age of four, and you can probably imagine my son and I spend our share of time in the waiting rooms of many specialists.

            A neighbor of mine used to tell me that whenever she found herself feeling down, she would just think of me. Considering the health concerns of our one son alone, on top of the fact that we had four other children, I could kind of understand her feelings.

            Once, however, when she said it, I began to feel rather down myself.  If I really had it so bad, I wondered, why didn’t I see it?

            And then I realized.

            My neighbor had two children, both of them healthy. Therefore, she never saw what I saw in the waiting rooms of some of our son’s doctors and hospitals.

            My neighbor never saw the parents of the 6-week old baby as they were being told their son would suffer brain damage, if not from the meningitis that was swelling his brain, then from the medications he was being given to fight it. That was, if he survived at all.

            My neighbor also never saw the mother of the 17 month-old baby-sitting next to me in the pulmonology clinic. She held her chubby baby on her lap, his oxygen tube attached to a tank behind his stroller. The mother’s face was beaming.

            She told me that she took her baby home form the hospital just the day before for the first time in his life. She explained he was born prematurely and his lungs were so severely damaged that doctors were afraid to let her take him home even then, and only allowed it on the condition she bring him back to the doctor’s office every day for at least the first two weeks.

            And she was just beaming.

            My neighbor also never saw the 14-year-old girl, head shaved with a big, black X marking the spot for the radiation that was supposed to attack her inoperable brain tumor.

            I still remember her parents, who were divorced, standing apart from each other, trying to comfort their daughter while steadfastly ignoring one another. The tension was palpable. I remember thinking how funny it seemed that the father’s girlfriend, who was with him, looked remarkably like his ex-wife.

            In most of these cases, I felt sorry for the parents. With this one, I felt sorry for the girl.

            As far as the bald kids hooked to IV poles, they usually didn’t move me to tears because they gave me no reason to cry. Those kids knew how to live life for the moment. They were in a doctor’s waiting room and there were new toys to be played with, and, by golly, they were going to play.

            As far as the boy mentioned earlier who did make me cry, well, it wasn’t the boy, really, who caused my tears, it was his little sister. The boy was about 8, his sister, maybe 5. The little girl was thoroughly berating her brother for something he had done wrong during their play.

            The scene caused me to think of the times when well-meaning people told me that by having a disabled child, our other children would learn compassion.

            “Compassion!” I would think to myself. “How I wished they would show their brother some compassion.”

            No, siblings of the disabled, or even, as in the boy’s case, of the seriously or terminally ill, don’t necessarily learn compassion. What they do learn, however, is that the disabled and the ill are really no different from anybody else, and that brings a sense of normalcy into their lives.

            And watching such a normal scene occurring in a day in the life of a little bald kid attached to an IV pole is, I think, what made me cry.

Kids say the darndest things!

copyright 2012 Catherine Coyle Murphy

“Pee Paw lets us do a-a-anything we want,” my nieces, Amy and Katie used to say of their beloved grandfather. “He even lets us walk on the kitchen counters.”

My husband and I are now grandparents of four. We have a step-grandson, “Mason,” who is 16; a grandson, “Dante,” 8; a granddaughter, “Kelli,” 6; and the youngest grandson is “Zane,” 4.

Dante and Kelli are the result of our daughter’s first marriage. Zane makes up the “ours” in the “his, hers, and ours” of our daughter’s second marriage.

Grandkids certainly add a good dose of humor to our lives with their own special way of expressing themselves. As the saying goes, kids say the darndest things.

Once when the kids were visiting us, we headed outdoors for a walk.

“Don’t you want to wear your shoes?” I asked Dante.

“No,” he replied matter-of-factly. “I just want to wear my feet.”

For a time before her second marriage, our daughter and her two children lived with us. In the evenings, Dante and I would sit out on the yard swing and look at the moon and stars. As a result, he began to call me “Moony.”

The name stuck, and we are now affectionately known as Moony and Papa to all of our grandchildren, including Mason.

As a friend of mine likes to say, kids have no filters. They tell it as they see it.

One time I was babysitting the kids when Dante was about three, and he was watching one of his children’s programs on television when a grandmother character appeared on the screen.

It was the stereotypical grandma, gray hair pulled back in a bun, Ben Franklin glasses, a dress tied at the waist with plumpness issuing above and below the belt.

Thinking he was giving me the utmost of compliments, Dante called out, “Look! A grandma! It looks just like you, Moony!”

Another sweet aspect of having grandchildren is the affection they so freely give.

A few years ago, Dante’s parents decided he could no longer watch Papa play his “Guild Wars” game on the computer because of the violent component.

While babysitting the kids some time after that, my grandson climbed on my lap as I sat on the couch, smothering me with kisses.

“I love you, Moonie,” he crooned. “You’re the best grandma.”

More kisses.

“How sweet,” I thought. Until I noticed between his expressions of endearment, his neck would repeatedly stretch up over my shoulder.

Papa was playing Guild Wars. And the computer desk sat directly behind the couch.

I used to wonder at times if I might want our grandkids to be able to say, “Moonie let’s us do a-a-anything we want,” just like my nieces used to say about their Pee Paw. But a little episode with our granddaughter some time ago gave me second thoughts.

The family visited us once during Kelli’s potty training stage. Wearing a little sundress, she stepped out of a wet diaper and continued on to play.

“Kelli,” her mom called out. “Come here so I can put a dry diaper on you.”

“No,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I just want to wear my butt.”

Memories of a Father and Daughter

                     

           

Walking to church,

Hand in hand;

Father and daughter,

Now, isn’t that grand!

Drive-in movies, Grant’s Farm,

The Zoo;

And don’t forget walking

On Daddy’s shoes!

                                   

       Magic tricks, Library trips,

Frankenstein films at night;

Christmases and Easters

Were made to delight.

                                               

           

Arrows on the walls,

Leading down the stairs.

A racetrack for the boys!

Now, who put that there?

           

Meremac Hills,

Mom and Pop, and Rex;

And airplanes to fly,

Airplanes that wrecked!

Standing in line,

Report cards in hand.

Dad exclaims to each one,

“Now, Isn’t that grand!”

Rebellious teens;

Did he know what to do?

Of course not!  Who does!

But he pretended too.

Grandchildren came;

They grow up so fast.

Now great-grands are here,

To make the magic last.

Walking together,

Hand in hand;

A father and daughter;

Now, Isn’t that grand?

                                   

                                               

As Uncle Dan Would Say, the Family Reunion from H-E-double toothpicks!

Copyright Leader Publications 2005

            A couple of years ago my sister and I joined our dad and three of his four sisters on a trip to California for a family reunion with another of his sisters, a brother and their families.

            My dad and his seven siblings take a trip together every year, but on this one, all of the cousins who could make it were invited along.

            Most of us took the same flight out and met at the airport – aunts, uncles and cousins.

            As we waited at our gate, my Uncle Gene said good-bye to my Aunt Adeline and set out for another gate.

            “Isn’t he going with us?” I asked my aunt.

            “Oh, he’s not allowed on family vacations,” Aunt Adeline said. “He’s going to Mississippi for two weeks to fish. He’d rather do that anyway.”

            Turns out Uncle Gene can be such a troublemaker he got barred from any more family trips. I learned that on a previous flight, he and Uncle Robert ended up seated together and fought during the entire flight over whether the light over the seat should be kept on or off. I guess Uncle Gene started it because Uncle Robert is still allowed on the trips.

            We arrived in California, picked up some rental cars and piled in. Uncle Robert was driving our car, following Aunt Adeline. He was about to lose her as an 18-wheeler edged closer and closer into our lane. Fearing he’d lose Adeline, and not knowing the way to our destination, he refused to slow down to allow the big rig in. Fortunately, we only lost a side view mirror.

            We hadn’t been California for more than a half an hour and already had an accident. I figured what they said about California drivers must be true, except in this case, it was kind of Uncle Robert’s fault, too.

            We arrived at the “mansion,” a three-story home that was being rented out while waiting to be sold. The men who were single or without their mates got the top floor, my sister, female cousins, some of the cousins’ kids and I got a large second floor room to share. Other bedrooms were taken up by the married couples.

Cousin Eva wanted Aunt Adeline to get the master suite, complete with a Whirlpool tub, since she was the one who thought up and did most of the arranging of the trip. Aunt Adeline finally agreed and took the nice room.

          Then my aunts began deciding where Aunt Rita and Uncle Dan would sleep once they arrived. The aunts were a bit stressed because, as I overheard it, if Uncle Dan didn’t like the room he was assigned, he would #%!&* the whole time.

            Funny as it may sound, I was shocked. I had never heard any of my aunts use a curse word before.

            A few hours later, Uncle Dan and Aunt Rita arrived and were shown their room.

            Not long after, as we girls were getting settled in our own room, cousin Johnny was racing up the stairs to the third floor. He stopped on the way, peeked his head into our door, and said, cracking up in laughter, “Uncle Dan just kicked Aunt Adeline out of her room!”

            Eva fumed. We learned later that Uncle Dan saw the Whirlpool tub in Aunt Adeline’s master suite and suddenly began relating to her about his injured shoulder and how that Whirlpool sure would help. To keep the peace, Aunt Adeline relinquished her room and took a small room toward to back that no one else was interested in.

            My cousin Laura, Uncle Dan’s daughter, told us it was the first she heard about any injured shoulder.

            We spent a week in California as aunts, uncles and various cousins and their kids ambled in and out. It was the first I’d seen of some of my cousins in more than 40 years. I had never seen their kids before.

            My sister and I were amazed at our California-raised cousins and their teen-agers. We studied the tongue piercings and tattoos with interest. And that was on the girls.

            We admired one of our cousin’s beautiful, waist-length blond hair. That was a guy.

            Mostly we sat around, talked and ate. The women from Missouri took turns with the cooking. One night my cousin Eva, my sister and I cooked a spaghetti dinner with salad and French bread for 37 people. It was surprisingly easy.

            One memorable evening, many of us sat around talking about the family tree. Seems my great-grandfather came to the United States from Spain for the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Grandma was born the following winter of 1905. Her father returned to Spain and died shortly after. We have some information about her heritage but there are a lot of holes in the story. My dad and Aunt Mary had an argument over whether or not Grandma’s was an illegitimate birth.

            My cousin George had an idea. He decided that since he was just about the only one who was single and without kids, he could travel to Spain the following year, stay there with a friend for the summer, and try to research the family tree from there. He added that we could all pitch in to cover the costs.

            “OK, Georgie,” my dad said. “As long as you promise that, a hundred years from now, there won’t be a group of Spaniards sitting around at a family reunion saying, ‘Our ancestor George came from America to Spain to research his family tree. A year later an illegitimate baby was born.’”

            As things turned out, Uncle Dan never got to use his Whirlpool tub because my California cousin’s teenage girls were always in it.

            And the little kids were always going in his master suite because they liked the way the windows opened sideways and they liked to watch the ocean view. Once the kids locked themselves in and Uncle Dan was locked out of his own room.

            As my aunts predicted, Uncle Dan did a lot of #%@&* -ing about his sleeping arrangements. But nobody ever bothered Aunt Adeline’s, room.

            And so far, cousin George has not made it to Spain.

           

            Note to cousin Laura:  I decided maybe I should leave out the part where Sandy had a bit too much to drink and we almost lost her in San Francisco! lol

           

             

This "Elvis" Won't Be Going into a Nursing Home Anytime Soon!

copyright Leader Publications 2008

“I figure my nieces and nephews can put me in a nursing home when I get old just as easily as my own kids could,” my brother Chris once said in explaining why he didn’t feel it necessary to have kids of his own.

And, “When I put something down, I want it to be there later when I go back to get it,” I heard him telling our cousin, the father of four girls including triplets, in explaining the same thing.

Chris was the oldest of four and never wanted kids. In his teen years, he always said he was going to be a rich playboy until he reached 25.

Twenty-five turned into thirty and he almost made 35 before he finally did get married.

I was pretty surprised he even got engaged, but really didn’t think the engagement would ever lead to an actual wedding.

Chris’ wife Karen also felt no real need to have children – that is – until she began to listen to her biological clock.

That was how Chris explained their decision to have kids to my mom. He also admitted, though, that my own kids were what changed his mind.

We had two boys and three girls. The girls in particular were just crazy about their Uncle Chris. Once, after he and I got off the phone, I had to call him right back because the girls were crying since they didn’t get to speak to him. I told him later how, after they spoke with him, they each bragged to the other, “He called me honey” and, “He called me sweetie.” You would have thought he was some kind of celebrity.

I remember one time when Chris, my kids and I were leaving our mom’s apartment. As I walked down the concrete porch, I saw Chris walking ahead surrounded by the kids, bent over like an old man. He had to do that in order for each of them be able to reach at least a finger to hold on to. He had two kids holding on to one hand and three on the other.

Chris’ popularity was really brought out, though, at our dad’s second wedding.

We arrived for the wedding and saw my step-mom-to-be, Dee, standing radiantly in a side doorway of the little church. As we approached her, Chris happened to come around a corner of the church.

“Uncle Chris! Uncle Chris!” the girls squealed as they broke away from me and ran to Chris, passing by and completely ignoring Dee as they went.

The kids’ adoration for him eventually melted his heart, so Chris and Karen finally decided that, after Karen worked for another year so they could save her income, they would try to get pregnant.

But something happened and Karen found herself pregnant right away. Just before they were preparing to go out, Karen used a home pregnancy test kit and discovered she was, indeed, pregnant. She told Chris just as they were heading out the door.

They were already late and had no time to stay home and discuss the surprise, so they left, stopping on the way to fill up the car.

Chris was so distracted with the news (How in the world was he going to put the child through college, he worried. No matter that he was an accountant and was pretty good with his money as it was.), that he drove off after filling up the car without remembering to remove the fuel hose. 

The hose ripped off the gas pump at the top where it attached, causing gasoline to spew out all over the place.

The cashier inside didn’t know how to shut off the pump and had to call in the fire department. Two fire trucks responded along with the police and the station had to be closed for a couple hours until the mess was cleaned up. At least Chris was insured.

About nine months later, Chris returned to the station and showed the cashier a picture of the cause of all the commotion that day, little Amy Christine.

Chris and Karen lived in Ohio when Amy was born, but moved back to the St. Louis area soon after to be closer to family. I remember one time when he, Karen and the baby were over and Karen was changing the baby’s diaper on the couch. Chris was standing over Karen’s shoulder, holding out a wet wipe for her with one hand as he held the container in the other.

Karen told me that while in the hospital for Amy’s birth, when a nurse was explaining how to care for the umbilical cord, Chris took notes.

Chris was 37 when Amy was born. He was 39 when little Katie came along, with Karen just a few years younger.

When Katie was about six weeks old, the family stopped in at a grocery store. Karen realized she left her checkbook in the car. She handed the baby to Chris, who was already holding two-year old Amy by the hand. As soon as Karen left, Amy broke free from Chris and took off running through the store. Being a male and not knowing how to multi-task, a woman would have simply clutched the baby tightly to her chest, Chris quickly turned to the clerk at the nearby video counter, handed baby Katie over to her, then turned to chase after Amy.

Chris was blessed with two little girls that were as crazy about him as my own girls were. So much so that Chris and Karen developed a little family joke and decided Chris should be called Elvis, because the girls would scream in excitement whenever he arrived at home.

They have a magnetic Elvis doll on their refrigerator, though these days, Karen says they now call Chris “the King.” She does so in a sarcastic voice, for some reason, as if to insinuate that even though Chris may think he’s the king of the house, the reality is a bit otherwise.

Chris now lives in a home where things are not always found where he left them. There is dog hair on the furniture from the dog that is not allowed on the furniture but who quietly sneaks off the sofa in the mornings when she hears footsteps coming. Karen says the dog gives herself away because she always forgets to put the couch pillows back.

There are hermit crabs in the upstairs bathroom and the finished basement with wet bar and built-in bookshelves is full of nothing but toys, the bookshelves making for a nice townhouse for Barbie.

Even so, Chris seems happier than he’s ever been. And something tells me that his own kids won’t be quite so quick to put “Elvis, the King” into a nursing home when he gets old.

Dumpster Diving Dad Brings Home the Goodies!

Copyright 2012  Leader Publications

By Cathy Murphy

For the Leader

My dad just turned 79. He has lived one of the healthiest lifestyles of anyone I know. He’s in much better shape than me.

Dad quit smoking in the early 1960’s, when it came out that cigarettes lead to cancer and other ill health effects.

He always exercised, every morning before work. As kids we used to watch the dining room chandelier shake as he did  sit-ups in his bedroom above.

Dad also is one of the healthiest eaters I know. I remember watching him in amazement as he left the house with his lunch, consisting of maybe two apples, an orange and a banana.

I just never was such a fruit and vegetable eater. Wish I was.

Not so long ago, we lived in a third story apartment (no elevator).

The first time Dad came to visit, I asked if the stairs bothered him.

"The what?" my dad asked.

"The stairs."

"Oh, no. Stairs don't bother me," he replied, with no loss of breath discernible.

Even so, my Dad suffered a massive heart attack a few months ago. But you’d be hard pressed to tell. He’s back to riding his bike, though maybe not the four miles a day he used to do. And he and my step-mom have taken up swimming at a local pool.

Part of Dad’s bike riding has led to him becoming what we affectionately call his “dumpster diving.” 

“He doesn’t really go in to dumpsters,” my step-mom makes sure to correct.  “Well, maybe once he did, but that was all,” she'll add.

Dad rides his bike through the alleys of “the good neighborhoods” of South St. Louis.  When he sees something he thinks someone in the family could use that had been placed by the dumpsters, he returns in his car to pick it up.

These aren’t always things in good shape. He picks up things he may be able to take parts from for other projects. Therefore, his basement is littered with several lawn mowers, bicycles, that kind of thing.

Dad has come up with terrific Christmas gifts for the grandkids with his dumpster diving. They’ve received a cool school desk, painted and decaled with pretty princesses, complete with a seat that lifts up for storage.

My youngest grandson got a cool rocking horse, all furry, one that made galloping noises when you pressed its ear. That was over a year ago, and he still rides his horse.

They’ve also received bicycles and chests of drawers, all cleaned up and repairs made where needed.

These projects keep dad busy.

I’ve been the recipient of two nice hoses for my front and back yard, a lawnmower, and probably most importantly, a toilet.

I’m not talking about just any toilet. This is a Kohler toilet. One of the best there is.

I happened to mention to my dad that our toilet had a crack somewhere so we had to shut off the water to it. We did have a second bathroom in the house, so it wasn’t quite the emergency.

My dad said, “Oh, I have a nice Kohler toilet in my basement you can have.”

He said he got it on one of his dumpster diving runs for his own upstairs bathroom, but my step-mom liked the one they had and didn’t want it.

“It’s all cleaned up, and I made sure it works fine,” Dad said.

So our little bathroom is now graced with one of the most expensive toilets on the market.

Recently I bought an umbrella for our deck. It’s kind of a strange umbrella; it opens 10 feet wide, and is moveable. It hangs kind of on an angle.

My daughter and I spent a couple of hours assembling the thing.

When my husband came home, he saw it and said, “That’s not an umbrella, that’s a sail!”

He was right. That umbrella has given me grief from the day we installed it.

When I was telling my step-mom about it, she said, “Oh, you should have asked your dad. He has several umbrellas in the basement!”

Now why didn’t I think of that!

Postscript:  I returned the outdoor umbralla that wasn't working out and got one from my dad.  I also just recently got a nice sectional sofa for my front room from his dumpster diving!

Rainey Rain

This is in memory of my sister-in-law, Mary Colleen Murphy, who passed away in 1987 at the age of 27.

Rainey Rain

He called you Rainey,

He could not say your name.

So, Rainey you became,

Or, sometimes, Rain.

An appropriate name it was,

You girl-child with a heart of blues,

Who played her song into the night,

Who played her song with the moon.

A sad and sweet and lonely song

Your trumpet would unfrul.

Then one day your music stopped,

Your trumpet played no more.

Oh, to climb the highest mountain

And call out into the air,

"I loved you, Rain, I loved you,"

And hope that you could hear.

I always wondered if you knew,

After all, I named my child for you.

So, I think you knew; Yes, you knew,

It was my way of saying,

"I Love You."



Copyright Catherine Coyle Murphy 1995

The Man in the Moon is Smiling Tonight

I've only written three poems up until now.  I think they are a bit elementary, but decided to post them.  Here's the second of the three:

The Man in the Moon is Smiling Tonight

The man in the moon is smiling tonight

As he looks down from his great height,

While I walk with my dog on this beauteous night,

I see the man in the moon is smiling tonight.

His lips are parted, cheeks dimpled with grin

Small, pointed nose, a preposterous chin.

The stars that abound twinkle with delight

Because the man in the moon is smiling tonight.

Does he know something that I don't?

Are good things coming to our planet, home?

I only know what I have seen.

Something about him seemed to gleam,

As he hung there dangling, like on a string.

The man in the moon is smiling tonight.

Copyright 1994 Catherine Coyle Murphy

Grandpa's Corncob Pipe

 

Grandpa’s Corncob Pipe

I have my grandpa’s corncob pipe

It sits upon my desk

I put it in its carousal

So that its bowl may rest

I hold the pipe up to my nose

Take in its glorious scent

It takes me back to yesteryear

To a time of lives well spent

The scent runs through my body

Quite nearly touches my soul

It tells me many secrets

Buried deep within its bowl

It tells of history, life and love

Of how they came to be

It all started with the fair

Of St. Louis’ history

He came over on a ship

He was a royal heir

He brought Spain’s exhibition

To the great World’s Fair

She was an educator

She lectured on the arts

She viewed Spain’s exhibition

And there he stole her heart

They had a baby daughter

Born early the next year

She brought to them great happiness

A life filled with good cheer

But he had a calling to go back

To his life across the sea

He had a son there waiting

To be in his company

She would not go, she was afraid

Their lives might be under threat

A civil war was brewing

She feared it might beget

He went ahead all by himself

He said he would come back

But there his life was ended

An assassin did attack

There is so much yet left to tell

But patient we must be

For in due time the corncob pipe

Will reveal its history

There are yet many secrets

Just waiting to be told

Inside my grandpa’s pipe of corn

Buried deep within its bowl

Copyright Catherine Coyle Murphy 1995