“Hungry for Spring”

                               Feb. 9, 2010

Today I stood at a window and watched as another storm rolled in from the west bringing snow to the mountains, rain to the desert and a little ray of hope to my heart.

   I was smartly dressed in my favorite Eskimo matron attire: Sheepskin boots, inch-thick sweatpants and a Polar Fleece pullover I gave my husband for Christmas, which is not only big enough to double as a cover for RV, but warm enough to withstand sub-zero conditions, lest I’m ever asked to lead an expedition to the South Pole.

   Somehow, I still felt cold. I’m sorry, but cold is cold.

   Three years ago, when we moved to Las Vegas, people joked that summers in Sin City would be hotter than Satan’s toenails. Nobody mentioned winters would be colder than the ice in his beer chest.

    I remember our first year here, the first time it snowed. It was barely an inch, but it covered the desert like icing on an apple cake, smoothed all the rocks, dusted the palm trees and even clung to the spines on the cactus. I’ve seen bigger snowfalls, but never one so incongruous and surprising.

   The second winter it snowed twice, a couple of inches each time, turning my husband’s usual 15-minute drive home from work into an hour-long demolition derby.

   No snow so far this winter. I suspect it’s as my mother used to say, too dang cold to snow.

   I know I shouldn’t complain, especially when other parts of the country are hip-deep in ice.

   Thinking about other parts of the country reminded me to call my brother in South Carolina to see how he was holding up. As usual, he took his time about answering the phone.

   “Hey, sister, it’s good to hear your voice!”

   “Good to hear yours, too,” I said. “How’s your weather?”

   Because Joe is blind, he can’t see what the weather looks like, so he likes to go out and check it first hand. Last night, when he started down the steps, tapping his cane side to side, his hand froze to the banister, he said, so he swung around and tapped right back inside.

   “It’s been bad here, sister,” he said, in a tone he reserves for big trouble, “bad, bad, bad!”

   How bad? They had to cancel church, of all things, a rarity in the Bible Belt, the kind of thing that only happens when hell freezes over, which, he added laughing, it probably had.

   “How’s the weather in Las Vegas of all places?” he asked.

   “Not as bad as yours,” I said, “but I am hungry for spring.”

   “I am, too,” he said. “I miss sitting out on the swing.”

   I pictured him in the lawn swing outside his apartment, where last summer I sat beside him pushing the swing with my toe while he smoked his pipe.

   “Spring will come soon,” I said, “I promise.”

   His voice brightened. “Oh, I know. It always does.” Then he added, “They’re calling for more snow this week.”

   “Stay warm,” I said, “and be careful on those icy steps.”

   We said our goodbyes and I went back to watching clouds.

   I wish you could have seen them. They rumbled over the mountains, pawing the air like a herd of wild horses, casting shadows, dappling the ridges with long fingers of light.

   Then the fingers closed and all went dark, except for one dazzling beacon shining on a valley like a spotlight, like a visible promise of spring.

   For a moment, I thought I saw a town in the valley, all lit up and glittering in the sun, in the midst of the gathering storm.

   Did the people in that town know how lucky they were? Did they remember to bask in the moment and give thanks?

   Or were they looking back across the desert at my house, asking the same about me?

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay@earthlink.net.)

                “A Good Place to Be”

                       Feb. 2, 2010

   It was a good question. Too bad I didn’t have an answer.

   I was speaking about the importance of reading, what it has meant in my life. I told the story of how, after my first husband died, I spent a month alone on a lake and did a lot of reading. Reading, I said, had somehow helped me to heal.

   After the talk, a woman in the audience raised her hand.

   “What did you read after your husband died?” she asked.

   There is much I remember about that time in my life 12 years ago, and the things that helped get me through it _ family and friends and even strangers who bathed me in a thousand kindnesses.

   I remember the rhythmic drumming of rain. The weight of a cat that slept on my chest. The daily sea of condolence notes. The unspoken question in the voices of my children, “Mom, are you OK?”

   But for some reason, I don’t remember the books I read that month at the lake. They’re like so many people I’ve met over the years. I remember their stories, how they touched me, but I can’t recall their names.

    There is one exception. Near the end of that month, when I ran out of books, I drove into town to buy just one more.

   “Recommendations?” I said. The clerk smiled and handed me a novel about a grieving woman who was starting her life over _ as a detective.

    Alexander McCall Smith’s “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” was the first in a series. I didn’t just like it. I fell in love with its characters and the life they shared. To be with them was to be in a good place.

   I’m now reading “Teatime for the Traditionally Built,” the tenth book in that series. The next is due out this spring.

   Pursuant to my library talk, having failed to answer one question, I want to ask another: What have you read lately that helped you in some way or just put you in a good place?

   Here are my recent best reads:

1_ “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows; a friend gave me this for Christmas, and what a gift. In 1946, a London writer begins corresponding with members of a book club that was formed as a guise to shield them from arrest after their island was invaded by the Germans. Both a history lesson and a love story, I did not want it to end.

2_ “The Sweet By and By” by Todd Johnson; this was also a gift from a friend. It’s the hilarious and heartrending story of five Southern women whose lives intertwine in a nursing home. If I live long enough, I want Lorraine to be my nurse, April to handle my affairs, Margaret and Bernice as my bunkmates, and I surely hope Rhonda can do my hair. Also, if my life were a book, I’d want Todd Johnson to write it.

3_  “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett; recommended by yet another friend, it’s a fictional tale set in 1962 about a white Junior Leaguer in Jackson, Miss., who secretly interviews her friends’ black maids to write a book about their lives and their treatment by their employers. A story that could easily have been predictable shines instead with the clarity and grace of its characters. You won’t soon forget them.

4_ Finally, a book of poetry, “Telling Tales of Dusk,” by North Carolina native Terri Kirby Erickson. I carry this in my purse to pull out in airports or offices or any place a poem comes in handy. It never fails to deliver with lines like these: “Leaning on the counter by an open window with tomato juice dripping down your chin …you can’t help but think that eating a garden tomato sandwich in your own kitchen is finer than a café lunch in Paris.”

   Those are my answers. I’ll look forward to yours.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

                         “A Messy Perfection”

                          Jan. 26, 2010

   Patience? Yes. Wisdom? Sure. The ability to stir a pot, nurse a baby, keep one eye on a toddler, the other on a 5-year-old and talk on the phone all at once? Absolutely.

   But penmanship? Of all the skills I thought I’d ever need to be a mother, handwriting never crossed my mind.

   There was a time when my handwriting was legible. I don’t recall when that time was. It was long ago, before I spent years scribbling notes as a college student and a reporter. Most of what I now write by hand requires interpretation.

   Once, at a book signing in Texas, I told a woman that the inscription I had scrawled for her said “grace and peace.”

  She squinted at the page.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It looks like ‘grits and peas.’ ”

   She laughed. “Honey,” she said, “that ought to be the name of your next book!”

   Fortunately, I type better than I print. But my daughter says, no, typing will not do for addressing wedding invitations.

   “Here,” she says, handing me pen and paper, and speaking in the “teaching voice” she uses with her fourth graders, “let’s practice before we start.”

   I practice. I get worse.

   She sighs. “Well, just do the best you can. I need your help.”

   It isn’t often she asks for my help, so I try hard. But I write “Wring” intead of “Waring St.”

   “It’s OK,” she sighs, “we have extra envelopes.”

   “How many?”

   She counts. “A few.”

   I notice a small pile of rejects.

   “What’s wrong with those?”

   “I messed them up.”

   When she was little, learning to print, she’d rub holes in all her papers with erasures.

   “It’s OK,” I’d say, “it doesn’t have to be perfect. I like the way you write.”

   And she’d give me that look _ the one that says, “You’re my mother and I love you, but on which planet were you born?” _ and go right on erasing.

   That’s the look she’s giving me now. I know it well. I’ve learned not to argue with it.

   Never, in the months since she became engaged, have I felt as thankful as I do tonight that the wedding will be small.

   With our handwriting, there wouldn’t be enough envelopes in the world for a big wedding.

   Finally, we finish addressing and stamping. She’s not thrilled with how they look, but we’re out of spares and she wants to get them in the mail. So we put them in a plastic bag and drive to the post office in the kind of storm that, if you had a goat, you’d be smart to tie it down.

   The post office is closed. We sit in the car staring at the rain while the windshield wipers slap out an old tune, “I got the wedding bell blues….”

   “You could put them in the drop box, honey,” I say.

   “They’ll get wet!” she says. “Maybe the door isn’t locked.”

   Stuffing the bag of invitations under her sweatshirt, she jumps out of the car, runs up the steps and tries the door. It’s locked.

   When she whirls around, the wind catches the hood of her sweatshirt and rips it back, exposing her hair. I can see her face, streaked with rain, shining in the headlights.

   She is soaked.

   And she is laughing.

   I laugh, too.

   Then she sprints to the drop box, leans over the opening and stuffs the invitations inside.

   They are not perfect. Far from it. Neither are we. Neither is life. They’re a bit messy, hard to read, but interesting, not to mention, good for a laugh.

   In other words, they’re like us, our family, the people who love her and the man she’s soon to marry. They’re like most families, even yours, I suspect.

   I want to tell her this, my epiphany on the perfection of her invitations. But I decide it best to wait until she’s dry.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at sharonrandall.com.)

                       “Reading and Writing and Life”

                               Jan. 19, 2010
 
Smiling faces always seem familiar somehow. But these were familiar for a reason.
Between the mountains where I was born, and the desert I now call home, I spent most of my life in Pacific Grove, a small town on the coast of California.
My three children walked to school, to the beach, to the ball park and the library. At night they fell asleep to a lullaby of surf and sea lions and foghorn.
Two of the three grew up to be teachers in the area. We scattered their father’s ashes in Monterey Bay. As much as any place, Pacific Grove is home.
So I was not surprised last weekend, speaking at a benefit for the library, to look out at a roomful of smiling faces and realize I knew most of the audience by name. I even knew the names of their dogs.
The reason for the talk was simple: As in other places around the country, a lack of funding has forced the library to cut services and limit hours.
I was among friends, passing the hat, preaching to the choir. So I told a story about reading, the difference it has made in my life and the lives of those I love.
Here’s the short version.
My grandmother taught me to love reading by reading to me and making me read to myself. By the age of 9, I was hooked.
The problem was, outside my grandmother’s farm, I had little access to books. It’s hard to read without books.
Imagine my delight to discover the public library and the librarian, Mrs. Mary Jane Christopher, who said that anyone, rich or poor, could borrow books for free. For the first time in my life, I felt rich.
My mother was not a big reader. She dropped out of school at 15 to get married and have babies. But she knew the importance of reading. She insisted my blind brother learn to read Braille, though it meant he had to leave home and live at the school for the blind.
My stepfather never learned to read. I found a paper once where his name was written repeatedly. When I showed it to my mother, she said she’d been teaching him to write it.
“Don’t let on that you know,” she said. “He’s ashamed.”
Years passed. I went to college, moved to California, got married and had babies.
Every week, I’d take them to the Pacific Grove Library for a new stack of books. Then I’d read to them and make them read, just as my grandmother had done for me. I did it for them, so they’d learn to love reading, but mostly I did it for me. Reading was my salvation.
My late husband loved hiking in Yosemite. At the end of his battle with cancer, barely able to walk, he’d lie on the couch reading John Muir’s adventures in Yosemite. It wasn’t quite the same as being there, he said, but it was close, and he didn’t have to worry about bears.
Two years later, I wrote a book and was asked to speak at the library in my hometown. In the audience, along with my old Sunday school teacher, my high school English teacher and a few sheepish-looking members of my family, was 93-year-old Mary Jane Christopher, who didn’t go out much any more but insisted on hearing me read.
The next day, when I gave a copy of the book to my stepfather and showed him where I had signed it for him, his eyes welled up like lakes.
“I can’t read a word of it,” he said. “You know that, don’t you? But I’ll surely treasure it.”
After I told that story for my friends and former neighbors, they stopped smiling and began nodding, as if to say amen.
I hope you are nodding, too.
I hope you will dream, along with me and everyone who loves reading, of a world in which every child will learn to read, every adult will read for pleasure and libraries won’t need fundraisers to remain free.
<
(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at www.sharonrandall.com.)

                              “Take Time to Smell the Mud”

                               Jan.12, 2010   

   In a rush to do a long list of errands, I tried to plan my stops in an orderly fashion to make the most of mileage and time.

   It would help, of course, if there were anything remotely orderly about my nature, which, I have to confess, there is not.

   Pulling out of the driveway, I waved to the gardeners next door and started making a mental list of stops:

   The bank for money. The post office for stamps. The cheese shop to get a surprise gift for never mind who. The market to get something to go with the gift, never mind what. And the dry cleaners to drop off ….

   Wait. My husband’s shirts. I forgot them. Making a U-turn, I doubled back, waved again at the gardeners and ran in the house to get the shirts.

   While inside, I decided to check my e-mail, make one last pit stop and grab the cell phone I’d forgotten, along with … oh, wait, the shirts. I almost forgot them again.

   Finally, I got back in my car, glad to see the gardeners were gone so I didn’t have to wave.

   I wanted to drop the shirts off first (my husband was near the point of going to work naked) but I got distracted by a passing car that appeared, I swear, to be driven by a poodle, and I drove right past the cleaners. So I had to play traffic light roulette and make yet another U-turn.

   After the cleaners, I went to the bank. The drive-thru line looked longer than the Indy 500, but there was only one woman at the walk-up, so I parked and ran to get in line behind her. She then proceeded with 50 transactions, including, I believe, a re-fi on her home.

   Next, at the post office, the 15 folks in line looked like a scene in “Night of the Living Dead.” So I tried to buy stamps from a vending machine. Big mistake.

    Apparently, the machine did not like me or my credit card. I tried not to take this personally. It did, however, seem to like the young woman behind me, who rolled her eyes and showed me, duh, the proper way to use it.

   Suddenly, I was tired. And hollow-eyed hungry. So I took a break for lunch, tomato soup, and while I ate, I opened mail.

   A reader in Alabama mourned the death of her brother. A grandfather in Arkansas reminisced about his youth. A woman in Ohio, in a faltering relationship, said she longs to have a baby and fears she’s running out of time. A single mother in Texas lost her job and worries that she and her children will be homeless.

   Remarkably, in every letter, each one of them found reasons to be thankful.

   An hour later, on my way to the cheese shop, I kept thinking about the people who’d written and how our lives _ theirs and mine and yours _ seldom seem to go according to plan.

   We try hard to put them in order, to line up the milestones like planes on a runway, like errands on a list: First, we’ll grow up. Next, we’ll get married. Then we’ll have children and live happily ever.

   But life defies order, laughs at our plans. It’s full of forgotten laundry, long lines, U-turns, missed opportunities and all sorts of machines that don’t seem to like us much at all.

   Years ago, when my children were small, I had a revelation. We were camping. It was raining. I was miserable.

   Then I looked down at my 2-year-old, who was sopping wet, caked with mud. And he was beaming up at me as if it were a miracle, the best day of his life, and I alone had made it happen.

   Life is not the dream vacation we plan. It’s what happens in a leaky tent in the pouring rain.

   I try to remember that, but at times, I forget. Lucky for me, I have readers who remind me.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay@earthlink.net.)

   There are times in the lives of those we love when we must respect their right to privacy and accept the fact that we may, on occasion, be left in the dark.

  Out of the loop.

  Uninformed.

  Clueless as a box of rocks.

  Fine. I do not need to know everything. For example, I do not need to hear a play-by-play description of the football game my husband just saw on TV.

  I don’t need to suffer through every painful complication of a gall bladder surgery recently performed on the cousin of the check-out clerk who rang up my groceries and overcharged me for Diet Coke. 

   And spare me, please, details of things my children did in high school that they deemed best not to tell me at the time.

   I don’t need or care to know any of those things. But that does not apply to my sister.

   We tell each other everything, she and I, and by that I mean everything. Or so I thought, until recently.

   It started one morning when I called her long distance to talk for an hour, as we tend to do.

   Usually, when I call, she’s busy pinching her grandbabies’ cheeks, or wandering the aisles of Wal-Mart or doing Lord knows what to her patients. (Besides being my sister, she is a devoted grandmother, an avid shopper and a dedicated nurse, but she was my big sister first.)

   This time she was home watching reruns of “Seinfeld.” So she had plenty of time to tell me. It’s not like she forgot.

   After we said goodbye, I called our brother, Joe, to ask him about the Clemson game.

   Blind all his life, Joe follows the games on the radio. I don’t care much about football, but I care about Joe and it gives us something to talk about. We were just wrapping up when Joe recalled that our sister was coming by the next day.

   “She’s going to see the heart doctor, then she’s going to pick me up and take me to Wade’s for some fried chicken.”

   Heart doctor? My sister had a stroke a few years ago. When she says “heart,” I listen.

   “OK,” I said, “when she gets there, tell her she’s in big trouble for not mentioning the heart doctor to me.”

   “Wait,” Joe said. “What if I get in trouble for telling you?”

   “You can handle it,” I said.

   I redialed my sister’s number. No answer. So I called her daughter, Deep Throat.

   “Talk,” I said, and she did. My sister had been “feeling funny” and was going in for a check up. “Mama didn’t want to worry you,” said Deep Throat. “Don’t tell her I told you. She’ll kill me.”

   “What do you think I’m going to do to her for not telling me?”

   Three days later, my sister finally returned my calls.

   “Who told you?” she said.

   “Never mind,” I said, “why didn’t you tell me yourself?”

   “Was it Deep Throat?”

   “No, it was our brother, and he was very proud of himself.”

   “The little toad.”

   “What did the doctor say?”

   Everything was fine, she said, her tests looked good, she just needs to adjust her medication.

    “Is that the truth?” I said.

    “Yes.”

    “Promise?”

    “I promise.”

   “Swear on a stack of Bibles?”

   She laughed. Then I gave her the talk, the same one she has given me. That we have to be able to trust each other for the things we need to know.

   That it’s better to face the truth than to fear that there’s something we’re not being told.

   That I need her and she needs me and we need each other.

   And that if she doesn’t tell me, she’s going to be in trouble.

   “Don’t worry, Sissy,” she said. “I will tell you.”

   “You’d better,” I said. “You might as well. If Deep Throat won’t talk, the Toad will.”

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.


"Picturing a Postcard-Perfect New Year"
Dec. 29, 2009

   Growing up, I could never understand why my mother went to bed before midnight on New Year’s Eve.

   In my opinion, grown-ups were supposed to get all done up and go out dancing at fancy parties and drink fizzy water from tall skinny glasses and kiss each other on the lips at midnight to usher in the New Year. At least, that’s how they did it in the movies.

   My mother was never big on movies. All she ever learned from movies, she said, was how to smoke and she was waiting for the sequel on how to quit.

   I knew she worked long hours at the mill. I knew that she was tired. And old. I often told her, in my opinion, if she didn’t want to stay up to celebrate, she could at least let me stay up to celebrate for her.

   She’d always reply that I was too young to have an opinion and send me sulking off to bed.

   So on New Year’s Eve, I’d sneak a flashlight out of the closet, check the batteries, and hide it under my pillow.

   And late that night_ while my mother slept and my stepfather snored and my brothers lay tangled up like a litter of pups _ I’d switch on the flashlight, pull the covers over my head and hold my breath, waiting to welcome in the New Year.

   I didn’t have a clock. Didn’t need one. In the town where I grew up, people weren’t much for parties on our side of the tracks, but you could be sure at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, some fool would fire off a shotgun, or maybe a few firecrackers, if I was lucky.

   I always felt lucky on New Year’s Eve, even stuck in bed with my head under a blanket, waving a flashlight like a band leader with a fat baton. I felt lucky just to be alive.

   I would whisper-sing a verse of “Auld Lang Syne,” then do a quick review of the year, listing all major events of the past 12 months of my life. That never took long. Then I’d move on to give thanks by name, one by one, for all the people I loved.

   As the flashlight grew dim and my eyes tried to close, I’d drift off to sleep picturing what wonders the New Year might bring, all the places I’d go, all the things I’d see, all the opinions I wouldn’t get to have.

   I’d lay it all out, season by season, month by month, in my mind and heart and soul exactly as I wanted and needed it to be.

   Then I’d send it flying off to God, a picture-perfect prayer for the New Year.

   Some of the things I pictured never came to pass. My mother, for example, never remarried my father. My blind brother never regained his sight. And Chuckie Ford never kissed me on the lips. Never even tried.

   That is not to say my prayers went unanswered; but the answers were not always what I had pictured. Still, it felt good and right to dream. And what better time for dreaming than at the start of a New Year?

   I have seen a lot of years come and go since then, celebrated in all sorts of ways. In my lifetime, I have never known a year quite like the last one. And as for the coming year? If I survive, I suspect I’ll say the same of it.

   The New Year is a time for dreaming, so why not dream big?

   Someday, I could be sitting in a rest home with my head under a blanket and a flashlight in my hand trying to remember 2010, the things I did, all the people who gave it meaning.  

   But for now, it is a clean slate, a blank check, an empty computer screen, a promise that says, yes, anything is possible.

   So I will picture it as best I can, perfect as can be, and send it flying off to God, a prayer.

   I think you should, too.

   That is my opinion. And I am old enough now to have one.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

"Looking Back on 2009"

                    Dec. 22, 2009

   At the end of a year, before launching into the next, I like to look back at where I’ve been.
There was a time when I could do that from memory. I don’t recall when that time was. It helps to keep a calendar, or in my case, a list of columns.
January _ I began 2009 with a mistake. In my first column of the year, I described repapering a bathroom and accidentally pulling down all the plaster.
After hearing from a reader, I wrote the following correction: “I’ve just been informed of an error in my column. Apparently I do not know a 'joist' from a ‘stud.’ According to my informant, a ‘joist’ is a horizontal structure in a floor or ceiling; a vertical structure in a wall is called a 'stud.' Thus, the sentence reading 'As I stood there staring at the naked joists…' could rightly be corrected to 'As I stood there staring at the naked studs….’ However, to avoid further confusion, I think it best to say, 'As I stood there staring at the gaping hole in the wall.' I apologize for the error."
February _ For my birthday, I told you that you didn’t need to send me a card … unless you really wanted to. (Thanks to all those of you who really wanted to, and most especially to those of you who sent cakes.)
March _ I described doing a “zip line,” swinging through the tops of redwood trees with friends I had known for years; what I didn’t know was that one of those friends _ Sally, who led the way on the zip line, as she did in most things _ would be gone by the end of the year.
April _ A reader in Indiana sent me a “prayer shawl” that she said she knitted just for me. (Linda, if you’re reading this, it’s still keeping me warm.)
May _ I spoke at the library in Fort Smith, Ark., while holding 10-month-old Heidi Mae West. (Heidi Mae, if you’re reading this, I’ll count on your help once again when I come back to Fort Smith next May.)
June _ Two fuzzy quail chicks ran into my house and I spent hours trying to get them back to their mama. I like to think they’re those big fat birds I see every day at the feeder.
July _ I bragged at length about beating my stepsons … at cards. They keep whining about a rematch. Fat chance.
August _ I mourned the loss of my childhood friend, Jane.
September _ In Salado, Texas, I met a whole lot of lovely people and had more fun than you would ever imagine possible in a flood.
October _ I asked you what I should wear to a Halloween party and, boy, did you tell me. Thanks for all your suggestions, and especially for all the nifty costumes you sent. (For those of you who’ve asked, I drew musical notes on a bed sheet and went as “sheet music.”)
November _ I was struck by the death of my friend Sally.
December _ I wrote about the once-in-a-lifetime experience of shopping with my daughter for her wedding gown.
Those are only a few of the experiences that filled my life this year, that made it worth waking up each day just to see what would happen next.
I don’t know what the new year will hold. But if the past is any indication, I will probably make some mistakes. Swing through some trees. Weather a few floods. Right a few wrongs.
If I’m lucky, I’ll hold babies and watch birds and meet a lot of good people who will tell me stories that I can tell to you.
And at the end of the year, as I look back, I’ll say once again: Thanks for your readership and especially for your friendship.
You don’t need to send me a card for my birthday. Unless you really want to.
<
(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

   This will be a different kind of Christmas for me and mine, and for a lot us, really, maybe even for you and yours.

   Each year I tell my children not to overspend on gifts. Telling them is my tradition. Not listening to me is theirs.

   A month ago, when we got together for Thanksgiving, I tried telling them again. And this time I really meant it.

   Like so many families, we’ve seen our share of financial “challenges” this year. Jobs were lost. Hours were cut. Budgets were stretched. Belts were tightened. It made me proud to watch my children and their others learn to make do, and to make more of less.

   This time, when I said they shouldn’t overspend, they all agreed in theory. But they couldn’t quite agree in fact.

   For them, the best part of Christmas is not the getting, but the giving. They truly love to give each other gifts.

   When I suggested drawing names, you’d have thought I said, “Let’s hog-tie Santa and stab him in the gut!”

   (I would never say that. I might joke about it, but I wouldn’t really mean it.)

   Finally, I, and the economy, began to win them over and we agreed, at last, to draw names.

   The plan was simple: We would each buy one gift with a $25 limit. We might have to shop for days to find something at that price but, hallelujah, we would not go deeper in debt.

   I, of course, planned to cheat. I’m good at it. Drawing names was my idea, but if I wanted to get something for everybody, what were they going to do about it, stab me in the gut?

   Then a funny thing happened on the way to Christmas. My husband lost his job. He was laid off two weeks ago with dozens of his coworkers.

   We were planning to have a Christmas party. Instead, we had a “pink slip” party for everyone who’d been fired.

    As I stood in my kitchen watching a houseful of newly unemployed people say their goodbyes and wish each other well, it occurred to me that this would be a different kind of Christmas (or Hanukkah or holiday) for all of us. We were all in that same leaky boat.

   A few days later my husband, God bless him, found another job. I wish I could say the same for everyone at that party. I can’t, of course. Not yet. And probably not any time soon.

   Statistics are only numbers until they have faces and names. It is one thing to know that unemployment in your state stands at 13 percent; it’s another thing entirely to know 35 people who just lost their jobs and could lose their health insurance and their homes.

    Today I spoke with my daughter-in-law, who would love to give Christmas presents to every soul on Earth, but can’t quite swing it this year.

    I wish you could have heard the excitement in her voice. Instead of buying gifts that she can’t afford, she has poured her heart into organizing drives for the needy, collecting blankets for the homeless and toys for children who might otherwise get nothing at all.

   I recall a Christmas in my childhood when my family hit hard times. Some people from our church brought us a ham and a box of groceries. I was so mortified I wanted to go hide under the porch with the dogs.

   After they left, my mother sliced the ham and said, “Life is a bank. Sometimes you put in, other times you take out; either way, it’s all the same bank.”

   Giving, she told me, is easy; taking is hard. “Remember how it feels,” she said, “because one day you will do the giving.”

   Whether blessed to give or blessed to take, all that matters, really, is that we do so with a sense of our abundance, and an open and grateful heart.

   And it will be a different kind of Christmas for us all.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

   Who goes shopping for a white dress on Black Friday?

   For all her life and half of mine, I’ve imagined watching my daughter try on a wedding gown. Never once did I picture it taking place in a grid-locked mall on the worst possible shopping day of the year.

   But being a mother has taught me you do what you have to do, and you do it when you can.

   My daughter _ who teaches a combination class of 32 third and fourth graders, and barely has time to floss her teeth _ is far more organized than I am.

   Three months ago, when her fiancé knelt on one knee and asked her to be his bride, she whipped a notebook out of her purse and started jotting plans.

   Well, first she said “yes.” Then she called me and her brothers and her bridesmaids. Then she whipped out the notebook, the first of many to come. She planned her wedding with no help from me, except for a few thousand e-mails and phone calls that we exchanged between her home in California and mine in Las Vegas.

   Picking out her wedding dress was one thing we wanted to do together. With four months until the wedding, the clock was ticking. We decided to do it the day before Thanksgiving, while my husband and I were in California for the holiday.

   When I was asked to speak that day at a memorial service for a dear friend, my daughter agreed: There are some things more important than a dress _ even a wedding dress.

   Thanksgiving Day we would be too busy eating to shop. And I was going back to Vegas on Saturday. If we were going to find a dress, it would have to be on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping frenzy, a day I usually spend in my pajamas eating leftover turkey and the last piece of pumpkin pie that I hid behind the lettuce in the fridge.

   We do what we have to do, I told myself, when we can, even if it has to be on Black Friday.

   Friday morning, we left Monterey in a drizzle that became steady rain as we drove 60 miles north to San Jose. Traffic was heavy, but moving.

   My daughter had a long list of bridal shops. I prayed we would not need to visit them all.

   She made quick work of the first place, grabbed a few dresses, ducked in the dressing room and emerged minutes later, shaking her head.

   The second place was busier, but the attendant was helpful and didn’t hover. My daughter tried on five or six dresses, but I remember only one.

   I was sitting on a sofa by a giant mirror where the brides to be would step up on a pedestal to get a three-way look at the dresses they were trying.

   Mostly I was watching other mothers, how their faces lit up watching their daughters.

   Someone whispered “Oh!” very softly, as if in awe, and I turned to see what she saw.

   Nan was standing on the pedestal in a dress that looked as if it were made for Jackie Kennedy or Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly _ or just for her.

   “What do you think, Mom?” she said.I smiled, trying hard to hold back tears. She hates it when I cry.

   I remembered a day nearly 20 years ago watching her stand before a mirror trying on her first prom dress.

   I didn’t know then what I know now: That we would lose her dad to cancer; that we’d become the best of friends. That she’d grow up to be a teacher and marry a good, fine man.

   We’ve weathered all sorts of “black days” together. Grace of God, we’ll weather a few more. This one I’ll not soon forget.

   Driving home, I picked up a pumpkin pie, had one slice after dinner, and two for breakfast. I might not eat it again until next Thanksgiving. We do what we have to do when we can.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

                           Nov. 17, 2009 

  This was going to be about Thanksgiving, the joys of overeating, the tradition of counting our blessings and the importance of giving thanks for the gift of family and friends.

   That’s what I planned to write about a few hours ago. Then I got a call that changed not only the plan, but the world as I knew it. It’s hard to be thankful when you’ve lost someone you love. And it’s especially hard to imagine a world without Sally.

   We were friends for 35 years through the best and worst of times. She was older by more than a decade, but you’d never have guessed it to look at her or talk with her or try to keep up with her on a hike.

   No one lives forever, not on this Earth. But I thought Sally might come close. I was certain she would outlive me.

   When she called a few weeks ago while on a trip to Brazil, and said she was in a hospital, I was stunned. In the four years since she lost her husband to cancer, she probably earned enough frequent flyer miles for a round trip to the moon, but never got sick. Until now.

   “Get better,” I said, and she did. At least, she got well enough to be flown home to a hospital in California.

   When I phoned her last week, she was hoping to be released soon, and I promised to come see her over Thanksgiving.

   Then on Friday came the awful news that she’d suffered a stroke and was in a coma.

   My husband and I were planning to leave early the next morning for an overnight trip to Zion National Park.

   “Want to catch a flight to California instead?” he asked.

   Sally was in ICU. I wouldn’t be able to see her. She was surrounded by family, an army of friends praying nearby.

   I asked myself what would she want me to do? And then I laughed, “hearing” her answer, “Don’t be silly, go to Zion!”

   So we packed up and drove for three hours from Las Vegas to Arizona and into Southern Utah, to a place that is as close to heaven as I ever expect to get in this life _ God’s masterpiece sandstone carving of soaring cliffs, blood red canyons and enormous monoliths, complete with a river running through it.

   The real treat for me in my thirst for a taste of fall were the cottonwood trees that dripped bright yellow leaves like shiny gold coins, covering the ground and sending them flying on the wind. I closed my eyes, snapped a mental photo and sent it on a prayer to Sally.

   We were waiting under blue skies to catch the shuttle for a tour of the park when we heard the first clap of thunder.

   A moment later, we climbed on the bus as rain began to fall and temperatures plummeted. Then the rain turned to hail. And the hail turned to snow. And fall turned into winter.

   It lasted only minutes, but what fine minutes they were.

   That was the image that filled my mind today when I heard that Sally was gone. I pictured her like the Snow Queen enthroned on all that beauty, and somehow it made it easier, just a little, to let her go.

   The seasons of our lives, like the seasons of the year, pass that swiftly, that beautifully, from one to the next.

   The secret, if there is one, is to love them all _ sun and rain and hail and snow _ to love the beauty and mystery of each moment before it is gone.

   This Thanksgiving, as in the past, I will set two tables for all the people I hold dear: One in the dining room for those who will be with me; and one in my heart for those who will not.

   I’ll eat too much, count my blessings and give thanks for the gift of family and friends _ especially my friend Sally.

   To you and yours from me and mine, here’s wishing you a blessed Thanksgiving.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

   (Here’s a tip: If somebody asks you what you want to do, you’d best think of something or you can end up watching 12 hours of football on TV.)

   “Well,” I said, rubbing my hands together, “let’s see. OK, tonight after you get off work, I want to get in the car and drive four hours to Williams, Ariz.”

   He raised an eyebrow.

   “We’ll stay there overnight,” I said, sounding like Christie Brinkley hawking a Bowflex, “then we’ll wake up and take the train to the Grand Canyon!”

   The eyebrow flat-lined and I dropped the sales pitch.

   “I’m hungry to see fall, OK?” I said. “I figure that’s as close as I can get to it this year.”

   When you grow up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, you never lose your taste for fall, even if _ by some quirk of fate that proves God has a sense of humor _ you end up living in a neon desert called Sin City.

   My husband knows how I feel about fall. He knew it could be a problem when he married me. He tries to be sympathetic, usually. Not this time.

   Sorry, he said, he needed to work Sunday, maybe we’d go next weekend. Then, as if to offer a consolation prize, he said, “Wanna get a flu shot?”

   I am not making that up. That is what he said. And that is how we ended up, not feasting on the gold of the aspens at the Grand Canyon, but waiting in line for two days for a flu shot.

   Did I say two days? I meant two hours; two of the precious few that we had left to live.

   I knew something was up when I saw 15 people in line by the pharmacy, looking as glum as a herd of cows standing around waiting to get milked.

   An attractive elderly woman was seated in one of the few available chairs. I smiled all friendly like. “Been here long?”

   She shot me a look. “Two hours,” she said, “and it looks like another hour to go.”

   I wanted to ask if I could have her chair after she finished with it, but she nodded off again.

   We added our names to the end of the list and filled out forms electronically. This was supposed to speed things up.

   Then my husband wandered off to buy a magazine. (I had a cat that wandered off once; when he came back, I didn’t let him in.) Meanwhile, I roamed the aisles looking for things I ought to get while I was there.

   You’d be amazed at all the stuff you can buy while waiting in line for a flu shot.

   My husband came back with a “National Geographic” and took a seat in the electric massage chair. I sat next to him in the blood pressure booth, checked my pressure 500 times.

   “Should I get a pneumonia shot, too?” he asked.

   “Sure,” I said. “They use really big needles for that.”

    Finally, we got our shots and left, not for home, but to the gym, because one of us wanted to work out and the other didn’t want to admit she’d just as soon stand in line a few more hours.

   Today my husband got shot again, this time with the H1N1 vaccine. (He wanted me to get it, too, but I, oh darn, didn’t fit the criteria.) And tonight he came home from work with a headache and a very sore arm.

   Far be it from me to say I told him so. I took his temp (my hand is more accurate than any thermometer), wrapped him in a quilt and brought his dinner on a tray. If I get sick, he will probably do the same for me.

   It’s called being married.

   Sometimes you get to go to the Grand Canyon; other times you just get shot. Either way, you’ve got each other’s backs.

   I hope he’s better by Friday. I’m still hungry to see fall.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

                   

"Goodness and Grace"
Nov. 3, 2009

   Here’s to the Bad Girls, bless their hearts, who make all the Good Girls look good.

   There’s one in every family. You know who she is. She’s the topic of conversation at every family table where she shows up late, or not at all, peddling some excuse nobody will buy.

   Everybody loves her, but hates how she acts. Her mother worries. Her grandmother prays. Her aunts and sisters all want to strangle her. And her nieces want to be just like her.

   The men in her family care about her, too, but they see it’s a fight that can’t be won so they try to stay out of the crossfire.

   She makes tongues wag, heads shake, eyes roll, tempers  flare and she can turn hair gray overnight. Why? Because she does flat-out as she pleases; and that doesn’t please her family.

    Among my grandmother’s nine daughters, competition was fierce for the title of “baddest of the bad.” My mother was a contender, but lost in the end because, more than anything, she wanted her mother’s approval. She never got it, but she kept trying.

   One of her sisters drank too much. A few never went to church. And even Aunt Hazel, who was good as gold, had a devilish bent for mischief. But when it came to being the Family Bad Girl, nobody could out-bad my aunt “Bad Ruby.”

   In the interest of disclosure, I want to say two things: First, I don’t fit into either camp; I’m not nearly good enough to be truly good and I’m way too chicken to be brazenly bad.

   Second, I don’t have an aunt named “Ruby.” I changed the name out of respect for her children in the hope they won’t come after me with a hammer.

   My earliest memory of my aunt Ruby is from a morning when I was 7. I awoke to the sound of shouting. This was not unusual. My grandmother was giving somebody a piece of her mind. On my way to the kitchen, I stopped in the living room to hear my aunt Clara whisper to my mother, “She stayed out all night again!”

   My grandmother stood at the kitchen sink, her back stiff as a fence post, channeling her fury into scrubbing a skillet.

   Aunt Ruby sat hunched over a cup of coffee, hair tangled, eyes red, lipstick smeared on her chin. As the tirade continued, she looked up and met my eyes. Then a big, loopy grin dawned across her face and she winked.

   I was in awe. How did she do that? I never smiled when I got in trouble. I surely didn’t wink.

   That was the difference in Ruby and her sisters. They all saw trouble. But she was the only one who winked at it.

   I remember years later when Aunt Ruby was dying.  My mother was pretty old and not well herself. But she drove for 12 hours in a blizzard just to tell Ruby she loved her.

   I was glad they were close in those final hours. I only wished they had been so for a lifetime.

   I am nearly as old now as they were then, a thought I find completely astounding. I spent a lot of years trying to be good only to realize at some point that I wasn’t good at it.

   If there was a way to make a mistake, to say the wrong thing, to hurt someone’s feelings, to disappoint someone I loved, to fall on my face, I would find it.

   Then one day I discovered grace. I learned it from my children. When I was bad (I was bad a lot) if I said I was sorry, they’d forgive me. And like magic, the distance I’d put between us would be gone.

   In the days I have left, I want to spend less time trying to be good and instead learn to be more forgiving. Because there are only two differences, really, between Good Girls and Bad:

    Good Girls worry too much about what people think.

   And Bad Girls have more fun.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at http://www.randallbay(at)earathlink.net.)

                      


"Recipe for Disaster"
Oct. 27, 2009

   Warning: The following contains a recipe you should not try, unless you are hoping to be banned from cooking, in which case, be my guest.

   For the record, it was not the recipe’s fault. When I cook, it is never the recipe’s fault. I have no one to blame but myself.

   After my oldest and his wife drove five hours from Los Angeles to spend the weekend with my husband and me at our home in Las Vegas, I figured the least I could do was feed them a decent meal.

   Not that they expected it. My children learned long ago not to expect much of my cooking and I see no reason to disappoint them. But still, we had to eat.

   It helped, of course, that we had tickets for the U2 concert Friday night. People don’t care much about what you feed them if you show them a pretty good time. Some call it sweetening the deal. I just call it dessert.

   Friday night was easy. There wasn’t time to do dinner before the concert, so we grabbed burgers on the way. Then we filed into Sam Boyd Stadium with 40,000 other fans, used pitons to climb to the top of the bleachers and settled in for the ride. When Bono sang “It’s a beautiful day…,” I looked at the faces around me and wished that he could see what I saw.

   Everybody, rock stars and mothers alike, should get a chance on occasion to see how they make people happy.

   The next night’s dinner was easy, too: Grilled chicken, roasted veggies and a salad. Even I don’t need a recipe for that. We ate outside on what was perhaps the last warm night of the year, listening to coyotes howl at the moon.

   Sunday, we drove across town to see “More than a Game,” a documentary on LeBron James’ high school basketball team. It proved to be, as I suspected, about a whole lot more than basketball.

   After the movie, my husband, bless him, suggested we go out to eat or maybe pick up pizza?

   No, no, I said, I’ll cook. He raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. By the time we got home it was late. We were hungry.

   Not to worry, I said, dinner would be ready as soon as I figured out what to fix.

   For reasons that now escape me, I decided to make risotto.

   Risotto is not difficult, but it is not quick. God forbid that you try to rush it, or cook too big a batch in too small a pot.

   I started by chopping an onion, always a good place to start. Except the onion was so potent I thought for sure I was going to be blinded for life.

   Then I decided to double the recipe because the boy is a big eater; legendary, actually. You should see him eat pancakes.

   Except, I didn’t use a bigger pot. By the time I added enough broth to cook the rice, I needed a cement mixer to stir it.

   Instead of fresh mushrooms, I used freeze-dried, which would have been fine had I soaked them longer, but I was trying to hurry, and they ended up tasting like little chopped up erasers.

   Also, I didn’t have decent lettuce to make a salad, so I just faked one with a few wilted leaves and a mushy tomato.

   You may find this hard to believe, but it was not the worst meal I’ve ever served. It took some chewing, but we ate it.

   My husband ventured an ill-advised comment on the erasers, but otherwise, they all seemed to like it. 

   Afterwards, while loading the dishwasher, my oldest wrapped his big arm around my neck and rested his chin on my head.

   “That was a great meal, Mom. Thanks for making it for us.”

   Making risotto is a lot like mothering a child. It takes patience. You can’t rush it. It needs time and room to grow.

   In the end, it’s not about the mistakes you make; all that matters is the company you get to share it with.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at http://www.randallbay@earthlink.net.)

              
<
"Taming the Wild Things"
                     October 20, 2009

   When my children were small and wild at heart, they loved Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.”

   At least, I think they loved it. They never said they didn’t. It was definitely one of my favorites. That would explain why I read it to them time and again, night after night. I liked it. That was my rule. To read a book more than once, I had to like it a lot. If I didn’t like it, they could read it themselves. If they hadn’t learned to read yet, they could just gum its pages.

   I think that’s how it works in most families. The books that get read are books the reader likes. That is as it should be. The reader should get to pick. Same goes for storytelling. No one should ever tell a story she doesn’t like, or something will surely be lost in the telling.

   No matter how busy or tired or hopping mad I might be, I could usually manage to read “Where the Wild Things Are.”

   I loved Max’s magic trick, how he tamed the Wild Things by staring into their terrible eyes. I used that same trick on my kids. But my favorite part was where Max would grow weary of romping with Wild Things and long to be where someone loved him best of all.

   I would read that part slowly in my very best voice. Then I’d stop and look in my children’s sleepy eyes to let that thought pass between us_ to let it linger for a moment and settle into our bones _ that one-of-a-kind comfort of being with someone who loves you best of all.

   Then we’d give a knowing nod to how lucky we were, and I’d go on reading the story.

   I wonder if they remember that? Children have a tendency to forget what you want them to remember and remember what you hope they’ll forget.

   I thought of that recently, late one night, talking with my daughter-in-law, Jesse, who was visiting for the weekend.

   Earlier that evening we had gone with my husband to see Spike Jonze’s film version of Sendak’s classic on the IMAX screen, where even the littlest monsters were big enough to scare the bejeezes out of us.

    For all its jaw-dropping imagery, the movie delivers a wonderfully seamless blend of reality and imagination, suggesting that one is never far from the other _ a fact that children always seem to understand and the rest of us would do well to remember.

   After the movie, Jesse and I sat in the hot tub under a big desert sky watching planes fly in and out of Las Vegas.

   She couldn’t wait to see the movie again, she said, with her husband, my youngest, a rookie teacher who’d stayed home to catch up on school work.

   “He’ll love that movie,” I said. I told her that I used to read “Wild Things” to him, and that my favorite part was the line about wanting to be where somebody loves you best of all.

    I was about to say I hope that he will always remember that line and the sound of my voice and the look he saw in my eyes as I read it. And that he will always be wild at heart ….

   Suddenly, she gasped. “I saw something move,” she said, “over there in the shadows.”

   I smiled. “Probably a jack rabbit. We get busloads.”

   “It was pretty big,” she said. “Oh! It just moved again!”

   “Trust me,” I said, “it’s only a rabbit. But it is getting chilly.”

   We grabbed towels and went inside. The next day she flew to home to California, promising to bring her husband back soon.

   That evening, our neighbor _ never one to jest about matters of life and limb _ reported seeing in our yard just before sunset a rather large bobcat.

   I’m sticking with the rabbit story. But just in case, I’m working on Max’s magic trick.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

                    "Trick or What?"
October 13, 2009

   OK, I asked for it. I needed a costume to wear to a big wing-ding Halloween party where my husband is going to be the bass player in the band. So I asked you to send me your ideas.

   And boy, did you ever, bless your helpful little hearts. In fact, you are still sending them. Even as I write this, e-mails keep arriving like the steady drip of a faucet at 4 a.m.

   Who knew there could be so many possibilities?

   First, someone sent a photo of a rather large-boned woman who had painted her backside (or paid some fool to do it for her) to look like jack o’ lantern with a very broad grin.

   I put it in a category I called “Not a chance.” Other entries in that category include: “Eve in the Garden of Eden” (three well-placed fig leaves)”; “Pregnant Angel” (papier mache wings, stuffed belly and a sign proclaiming   “the devil made me do it”: “Statue of Liberty” (couldn’t quite see myself holding up a torch all night); “Mermaid” (flesh colored leotard, I don’t think so); and “Red Hot Riding Hood” (don’t even ask.)

   Next, is a category I labeled “Groaners” for reasons I hope will be apparent: “Buccaneer” (tape a dollar bill to each earring); “Self-absorbed” (glue sponges on a sweat suit); “Dog catcher” (carry a stuffed dog to toss up and catch); “Tic Tac Toe” (glue Tic Tacs to the toes of your shoes); “Laundry basket” (cut out the bottom, step inside, stuff with laundry); “Old news” (cover yourself with yesterday’s newspaper, but save my column for the bird cage); “Cereal killer” (carry boxes of breakfast cereal studded with plastic knives and covered in fake blood); “Mixed greens with dressing on the side” (dress in multiple shades of green and carry a bottle of salad dressing); “Freudian slip” (wear a slip to which you’ve pinned a photo of Freud); “Autumn leaves” (cut holes in a garbage bag for your arms and legs, climb inside, fill with newspaper, tie around your neck and stuff colored leaves in all the openings): “Hip chick” (dangle a rubber chicken or duck from a side pocket); “Vampire victim” (white powder on the face, two small ink dots on the neck): “Cup holder” (carry a cup.)

   These ideas require a “Gown and a Tiara”: “Tooth Fairy” (attach photos of teeth to the gown); “Queen Bee” (substitute fake bees for the teeth): and “Miss Ugly America” (add a banner as a sash and wear a fake nose and mustache.)

   And these are “My very own personal favorites”: “Black Eyed Pea” (wear the letter “P” and blacken one eye with make-up); “Ghost of Technology Past” (carry a typewriter or an old adding machine); “Swine Flew” (wear a rubber pig nose and a pair of wings); “Ceiling Fan” (carry pompoms and a sign that reads, “Go, Ceilings!”); “Dust bunny” (rabbit ears and gray sweat suit covered with tufts of polyester fill); “In Cognito” (wear a sign that reads “world’s sexiest woman disguised as me.”)

   By far the most suggested idea was that I should go as a “groupie” with the band. One reader said I could wear a sheet covered in music notes and go as “sheet music.” Another said I should go as a fiddle so I could “fiddle” with the bass player.

   Or we could share a set of army fatigues; one would wear the shirt, the other the pants and go as “Upper and lower G.I.”

   Finally, the perfect costume for the woman (or man or child) who hates costumes: A T-shirt printed “This is my costume.”

   Thank you so much for your suggestions. All I need to do now is decide which idea … oh, wait. There’s another e-mail.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394 Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

               "I'm not a ghost, I'm a mattress"
October 6, 2009

   Just when I thought my costume days were over, my husband (an editor by day, and a bass player any chance he gets) came home recently with a big announcement.

   Some months ago, in what might be the world’s longest rehearsal, he started meeting once a week to “jam” with a group of guys who, much like him, temper their passion for music with the nagging sense that they are probably not ready to quit their day jobs.

    Which somehow brings to mind what my grandmother used to say about my granddad, a part-time Baptist preacher: “He works for the Lord when he can’t find a paying job.”)

   Preaching and playing music are not all that different.

   But back to the big announcement.

   One of the guys in the band (they’re a bit modest about calling themselves a “band,” but I say get over it, it’s easier than calling them “a bunch of guys who play music for free”) is planning a Halloween party.

   And guess what? The “Not Really a Band” is going to play.

   “You’re invited, too,” he said.

   “Fine,” I said. “We never get any trick-or-treaters anyhow. No reason to stay home. I can eat the candy later.”

   He grinned the way he does when he knows he’s on thin ice and thinks being cute will help him skate. “Uh, there’s just one thing….”

   I gave him a look. “What?”

   “You have to go in costume.”

   “Excuse me?”

   “They said it’s not costume optional. You have to wear one or they won’t let you in.”

   I snorted Diet Coke out both sides of my nose. “And you believed them? Don’t you know that old trick? If somebody tells you’ve got to wear a costume, you can bet your last piece of Halloween candy that you’ll be the only fool in costume.”

   “Not if you go, too.”

   He is nothing if not persistent.

   I started to tell him that my grandmother rarely went to church with my granddad, and she never would’ve gone at all if she’d had to wear a costume.

   But he was playing his bass and couldn’t hear me. Again.

   He knows how I feel about Halloween costumes. It’s not that I don’t like them. I just don’t have any luck with them.

   Growing up, I always had to take my blind brother along trick-or-treating. For a costume, I would throw a sheet over his head. People would say, “What a cute little ghost!” And he’d get mad and yell, “I ain’t a ghost, I’m a mattress!”

   When my oldest child was 10, he went to a church party for which children were told to come as Bible characters and avoid anything “scary or gory.” I dressed him up as John the Baptist and let him carry his “head.” He was the hit of the party, but I nearly got excommunicated.

   And once, when I was old enough to have had better sense, I twisted my hair up in two tight buns by my ears, sprayed them with an entire can of mega-hold hairspray and went to a party as Princess Leia from “Star Wars.” That was 1978. My hair never recovered.

   I have no clue what to do for a costume for this party. If you have any suggestions _ provided, of course, that they can be easily assembled from materials found lying around the home by a woman with little patience and no sewing skills whatsoever _ I would love to hear them.

   Meanwhile, I asked my husband if he has decided what his costume will be.

   “Yes,” he said. “I’m going to the party as a bass player.”

   Maybe I’ll wear a sign that says, “I’m with the band.”

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted a P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

                      "Love Can Find You"
September 29, 2009

< 

   What a difference a day can make. For two weeks, while I visited family in the Carolinas, it rained more or less every day.

   A lot more, really, than less.

   I love rain. Like many Southern children, I learned to swim walking home from school in a cloudburst.

   I don’t get to see much rain these days living in the desert outside Las Vegas. I miss it _ the sound of it drumming on a tin roof, the smell of it sweetening the air, the feel of it warm on my skin. I was hoping to get a taste of it again; a taste, yes, not a steady diet.

   But as my grandmother used to say about the weather or life in general, “It’ll be what it is.” And so it was.

   It certainly didn’t stop me from talking and eating. I can talk and eat in any weather.

   It also didn’t stop me from spending hours sitting on my sister’s porch watching the leaves on the trees begin to show their fall colors.

   It’s a little like watching paint dry, only slower. I took breaks, of course, to talk and eat, but I never grew weary, never quite got my fill of watching Nature do her autumn dance. I doubt I ever will ever tire of that.

   At first, the rain felt like a summer storm, steamy, like lifting a lid and holding your face over a pot of boiling water.

   But as the rain kept falling, the parched red earth turned to thick red soup, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees.

   The day I picked my brother up to go out to lunch, the clouds parted briefly and the sun peeked out like a child playing hide and seek. Joe was waiting for me in the swing outside his apartment.

   Blind all his life, he knows the sound of my footsteps as well as I know the shape of his stubborn chin. I can never manage to sneak up on him.

   “Hey, sister,” he said, lighting up, “good to see you!”

   I sat beside him, pushing the swing with my toe, fast, the way I did when we were kids. He laughed recalling the time I pushed so hard we got flung into the yard.

   "Want to try that again?"

   "No," he said, chuckling, "once was enough." 

   We lingered a while like old times, talking and swinging, until the clouds started spitting again. Then we drove to “Wade’s” and ordered pretty much everything on the menu. Between bites, he talked about the pieces of his life, going to church on Sundays and Wednesdays, listening to Clemson games on the radio.

   After his first wife died of cancer and a second marriage didn’t work out, he doesn’t hold a lot of hopes, he said, for ever finding a companion.

   “You never know,” I said. “When you’re not looking, love can sneak up and find you.”

   He knows my story, how love found me. He nodded, smiling, then asked for more bread.

   On my last morning in town, it was so cold on my sister’s porch I needed a blanket and an extra cup of coffee. The leaves weren’t showing much color yet, but it felt for sure like fall.

   I packed, said my goodbyes and drove for two hours to the airport dodging accidents in the worst rain I’d ever seen.

   Five hours later, I landed in Vegas, extraordinarily happy to see the moon and the stars and the lights along the Strip and, God bless him, my husband.

   The next morning, despite what the calendar said, it was summer; sunshine, blue skies, float-in-the-pool kind of day.

   The forecast says it won’t last; cooler temps are on the way. I say it’ll be what it is.

   Sometimes when you think you’re in the autumn of your life, summer will come sneaking up to find you.

   I need to call my brother and tell him that. Life will be what it is. But you never know what a difference a day will make.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

<
"Late Again"
September 22, 2009 

    When you grow up in a small town, you get to know and be known by most everybody who lives there, distant kin and incarcerated cousins alike.

   But if you leave that town to live your life any place outside of “God’s Country,” coming back to visit can be daunting.

   How many necks can you hug? How many dogs can you scratch? How many pick-ups can park in one driveway? And how much fried chicken can one woman eat without having to run to Wal-Mart to buy bigger stretch pants?

   That’s how it used to be whenever I came “home,” as we say, for a visit; such a big family, so many friends, all those porches to sit on, all that iced-tea to drink, all those stories to tell and retell.

   Time would fly, as it always does, and pretty soon, “Good to see you!”  would turn into “Hurry back!”

   Time still flies when I visit my hometown. But lately I’ve noticed there are fewer necks to hug with each passing year.

   One of the best ways I found to visit a lot of people in one swoop was by showing up at church on Sunday morning.

   I could see all sorts of friends that way. Well, church-going friends, that is, especially my friend Jane. When we were little girls, I’d slide into the pew next to Jane and she’d grin real big and pinch me for being late.

   She kept it up after we were grown. Most every time I came back to visit, I’d go to church and get pinched by Jane.

   That’s just one of a lifetime’s worth of stories I could’ve told, had I been present a few weeks ago when Jane was laid to rest in the cemetery outside of town.

   I told myself she would have understood why I couldn’t get there in time for her service. But she still would’ve pinched me for it, if she could.

   Sunday morning _ red-eyed from jetlag and frizzy-haired from rain _ I fished church clothes out of my suitcase and drove in a downpour from my sister’s house into town.

   This time, I told myself, I would not be late. Minutes before 11, I pulled up in front of the church. The parking lot was full. Not a soul in sight. Then I noticed the sign: “Join us Sunday morning at 10:30!”

   My windshield wipers were slapping out an old Gospel tune, “When the roll is called up yonder I’ll be there….”

   I might have gone in for the benediction, if there’d been any place to park. Instead, I decided to take a long drive to see some old familiar places: The houses where we lived; the river where we swam; the town that my grandparents called home; the cemetery where my mother and most of her family are buried.

   I took an old country road winding through horse farms and green pastures and rolling blue mountains where sugar maples and dogwoods glistened with the first promise of fall.

   I wish you could’ve seen it. I had wanted to go to church that day. Instead, it came to me.

   Finally, I drove to another cemetery. Growing up, I never noticed all the “final resting places” about town. Now I’d swear they were everywhere.

   I knew the spot where Jane was buried. My sister had taken me to visit it soon after I arrived. We had walked around reading all the names on the headstones _ Jane’s parents and uncles and aunts.

   This time I parked as close as I could get, and stayed in the car. It was pouring. When the window fogged up, I rolled one down. I didn’t care how wet I got. I just kept wishing I could have gotten there in time for Jane’s service.

   Suddenly, I felt a pinch and looked down to see a mosquito fly off with a chunk of my arm.

   I laughed. She drew blood.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394 Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

                “Home Is Where You Find It”

                     September 15, 2009

   Just before I flew to Texas to speak at the Institute for the Humanities at Salado, a storm camped out over the town and flat-out refused to budge.

   Within hours, it dumped about a foot of rain, flooding a creek that runs through the center of Salado, damaging homes and washing out the Main Street Bridge.

   News of the flooding, not to mention a prediction for more rain, gave me a bit of a pause.

   But the Institute’s director/ chauffeur, Sara Mackie, seemed confident all would be well.

   “Bring an umbrella,” she said.

   Umbrella? I used to have one before we moved to Las Vegas.

   Saturday, when I landed in Austin in a downpour, Sara was waiting with an umbrella.

   The drive to Salado was like spending an hour in a carwash, but the road, at least, or what we could see of it, was open.

   When we passed a billboard that read, “Think rain,” I looked at Sara. She rolled her eyes. “We’d been in a drought,” she said, “until now.”

   Salado was just as I’d imagined it to be, a pretty town with graceful oaks, art galleries, antique shops and restaurants, and an old stone house that was once the stage coach stop.

   None of that had changed, except the creek that ran through town looked like the Mississippi, and everything was sopping wet. I watched a dog shaking out its fur and was reminded of the look I once saw on my husband’s face the day he fell in the pool.

   But the people of Salado, those I met, were still smiling, still friendly, glad, it seemed, to welcome a stranger to town.

   I stayed at the Levi Tenney House, a bed and breakfast just above the creek. A plaque in the foyer said it was built in 1859, with gun ports in the cellar to defend against Indian attacks. I wondered if gun ports could be used for oars?

   Imagine my surprise the next evening to see that the meeting room at the Salado Civic Center was filled with folks who had either come to hear me talk or perhaps thought we were giving away free inflatable rafts.

   Either way, they stayed, if only for the refreshments. I’m considering that as an epitaph: “Refreshments will be served.”

   In keeping with their theme for this fall, the Institute had asked that I talk about “home.”

   Luckily for me, this was not a problem, rather like tossing Brer Rabbit in the briar patch.

   Home, I said, is a place of your own, where no matter who you are, you get to feel like “somebody.” It’s the birthplace of your dreams; a warehouse for your memories; the sound of a voice you love.

   I said my sister, for example, sounds like home to me, even though she once nearly shot me.

   We’d had a fight, I said, when I told her I didn’t want to drive her car because her gun was in the glove box. And then she nearly shot me after I poured a Diet Pepsi down her pants.

   Usually when I tell that story, listeners laugh, or even gasp, about a gun in the glove box.

   This time, nobody blinked. I thought the microphone was dead until somebody reminded me that in Texas, a gun in the glove box is considered standard equipment.

   So I wrapped it up by saying that, in the end, home is a place in the heart where you stand alone before God. No one can give it to you. You have to find it for yourself; but once you find it, nothing, not even a flood, can take it away.

   After the talk, as I shook hands and hugged necks and listened to stories, I thought of one last thing I wish I’d said:

   Home is a place where, come hell or high water, even a stranger can feel at home.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

< 

                  “Smoke and Memories”

                    September 9, 2009

   It’s not often she asks for my opinion. So when my daughter said she wanted to show me something to see what I thought of it, I would’ve pretty much gone to hell and back to see it.

   Which, come to think of it, is pretty much what I did, covering 2,000 miles in four, quick days through airports, freeways, traffic jams and a whole lot of smoke from not so distant fires. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I’m a mom. It’s what we do.

   The flight from Las Vegas, where I live, to Monterey, where my daughter grew up, took about an hour _ less time than I spent getting to the airport and clearing security. She picked me up at the curb, looking as happy, as shining, as I have ever seen her.

    After dinner (where did she learn to cook?) I bedded down on her sofa and slept like a corpse, awakened periodically by Archie, her Yorkie, who either felt it his duty to keep checking on his “Nana” or thought that “Nana” was dead.

   Friday morning, we drove from Monterey to Santa Barbara in about four hours, skirting a massive cloud of thick orange smoke that billowed up from the wildfire that threatened hundreds of homes south of King City.

   We made one stop for burgers and got back on the freeway, hoping to avoid getting stuck in rush hour traffic. I drove. We talked. She read magazines. I had a lot of time to think.

   I thought, for example, about the time when she was 2, how she got into my makeup and smeared lipstick around her eyes and eye shadow around her lips, and then came to me all proud of herself.

   “Look, mommy,” she said, grinning, “I pretty?”

   “Yes,” I said, “you are beautiful.”

    I thought about when she was 16, shopping for her first prom dress, how she tried it on and stood before the mirror and took my breath away.

   “Mom?” she said. “Do you like it?”

   “Yes,” I said, when I could speak, “it’s lovely.”

    I thought about the day we said goodbye outside her dorm room at college, and I tried my best not to embarrass her.

   “Are you OK?” she said.

   “I will be,” I promised, “and so will you.”

    I thought about the morning, years ago, when I had to tell her that her dad had finally lost his fight with cancer. I brushed her hair back from her forehead, looked in her eyes and saw a strength I’d not seen before. And we had no need for words.

    Just north of Santa Barbara, she pointed to an exit. “I think this is it,” she said.

    We drove into a canyon, stopped at a gate and told an attendant we had an appointment. Minutes later, we were herded into a van and given a tour of the facilities.

    At the end of a long, winding road, we got out of the van to walk to the top of a ridge and stand in meadow surrounded by hills, looking out to the ocean.

    “What do you think?” she said, and I smiled.

   Then we got back in the car and drove three more hours in six lanes of demolition derby traffic 100 miles south to see her brother in L.A.

   That night, after sitting up talking until 3 a.m., I slept like a corpse on his sofa. And the next morning after breakfast, we headed back to Monterey.

   But on the way, we stopped once more to drive into the canyon, climb the hill and take one last look at the meadow, the ocean, the view.

   When she asked what I thought I started to say, “I think I’m too old to sleep on a sofa.”

   Instead, I said, “It’s perfect. It’s the perfect place for your wedding.”

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 77394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay(at)earthlink.net.)

  
               September 1, 2009

Life finds interesting ways to bring people together.

   My oldest, for example, met his wife in a bowling alley shortly before he landed a part on “Ed,” a TV series that was set, I swear, in a bowling alley.

   My youngest met his wife over a fence. She was visiting her grandmother, who lived next door, and he was playing basketball in our back yard.

   I met my daughter’s fiancé before they started dating, when they lived across the street from each other. We were going to lunch, she and I, and her car wouldn’t start. He came over to offer to give it a push and I saw sparks fly between them.

   My husband and I met on his first day at the newspaper where I worked, when he was assigned to edit my column.

   I clearly recall the column. It was a story about how my youngest, on his first day of kindergarten, hid his “blankie” in his backpack to try to smuggle it into school.

   I loved that story. I was sure my new editor would love it, too. I held my breath waiting for his reaction. His only comment? “It’s fine,” he said.

   Fine?! I was crushed, not to mention, downright offended. It took me 12 years to get over it enough to finally marry him.

   I remembered that column last week when I went to visit the “blankie smuggler,” who now teaches third grade at the school where he once tried to smuggle in the “blankie.”

    On my way to his classroom, I spotted a kindergartener on the playground who looked a lot like he looked when he was 5, with wooly curls and apple cheeks and the kind of energy that drives teachers into early retirement. I needed to take a minute to recompose myself before knocking on his door.

   “Class,” he said, “this is my mom.” His students seemed glad to meet me, and I assure you the feeling was mutual.

   They took turns reading aloud stories they had written about all sorts of interesting things they had done. I was dying to tell them stories in return about how their teacher, when he was their age, did those things, too _ rode roller coasters and broke his collar bone and aged his mother beyond her years.

   But they’d have had to miss recess to hear me out, and no story is ever worth recess.

   When the bell rang, I said goodbye, hugged their teacher and promised to visit again the next time I’m in town.

   The following day I had an e-mail from a woman whose family recently rented the house my family called “home” for more than 30 years, the place where my children grew up.

   Her 9-year-old had crashed on his bike that day while riding home from school, she said. Fortunately, he wasn’t badly injured, just a bit shaken up. When he got home, he told her that a teacher who saw the accident came out of the office to make sure he was OK. He helped him get the bike off the street and put the chain back on so he’d be able to ride it home.

   When the teacher asked where he lived, the boy told him his new address.

   OK, this is the part of the story I wish I could have been there to see _ the look on the teacher’s face when he recognized the address and made the connection, the way he laughed and said, “I know exactly where that is. I grew up in that house.”

   Had I been there, I could have told the boy a few stories about the times that teacher crashed when he was growing up and needed someone to offer him a reassuring hand. But I suspect their paths will cross again.

   Life finds interesting ways to bring people together.

< 

<
"My friend Jane"
Aug. 25, 2009

             "Tomatoes I have loved"
August 3, 2009

First loves are hard to forget.   I was 7 the summer my grandmother took my hand to lead me out to her garden.

   I counted the steps from the porch to the yard. My legs were short. She had to stop on each step and wait for me, but she didn’t seem to mind.

   I remember the rustle of her starched skirt, the warmth of her hand and the sound of her humming a happy little tune.

   It wasn’t really a song, she said, just the music that played in her heart. She always hummed going to the garden.

   We took a shortcut through the basement, a place I feared. It was dark and damp, smelled of kerosene and mold, and it was filled with shadows where monsters lay in wait, hoping for a chance to eat me.

   I never mentioned monsters to my grandmother. She wasn’t scared of anything, not even snakes, and I wanted to be just like her. So I held my breath, prayed for God’s deliverance and walked a little faster. And the next thing I knew, we were stepping into sunshine.

   It was a lesson well learned. I’ve walked through a lot of scary basements. Sooner or later they always lead to light.

   The garden was planted in a patch of black earth and fenced with chicken wire to ward off rabbits and deer, creatures not easily warded off.

   I can close my eyes and see it still, my grandmother’s garden, a beautiful mess of leaves and stems, stalks and tendrils, caterpillars and earthworms, corn and beans, squash and okra, marigolds and morning glories all reaching for heaven like the Garden of Eden.

   On that perfect summer day, I picked my first ripe tomato.

   “There,” my grandmother said, pointing. “Take that one.”

   I took it. Plucked it off the vine and held in my hand.

   “Take a bite,” she said.

   I did. I bit into the skin, dirt and all, filled my mouth with its sweet, buttery flesh and let the juice trickle down my chin.

   I looked at my grandmother. We laughed and that was it. I’d never be the same. Once you’ve tasted tomatoes fresh off the vine there is no turning back.

   Then I grew up, left the South and lived a life with little time or space for gardening.

   I make no excuse. The truth is, some of us are gardeners; the rest of us just like to eat. I am of the latter.

   Every time I go into a grocery store, I miss my grandmother’s tomatoes. I also miss the ones my mother and stepfather grew in their garden, and the ones my sister grows in barrels on her back porch in South Carolina.

   My family and friends know how I feel about tomatoes. They use it to lure me to visit.

   My sister called last week to tempt me. “My tomatoes are coming in,” she said. “Too bad you aren’t here to eat them.”

   Then Martha, her neighbor and my friend since second grade, e-mailed to say that her garden is “booming” too. She's even making salsa with her crazy brother John.

   I know John, love him dearly. I wouldn’t go near his salsa. Martha added, “You need to come home for good tomatoes.”

   Now my daughter is growing tomatoes on the foggy coast of California. “You should see them, Mom, they’re beautiful.”

   Yes, I should. And would, if I could. I’d visit my daughter, my sister, my friend Martha _ and you, if you had a garden. We’d talk, laugh, eat tomatoes off the vine, let the juice trickle down our chins and have a really good time. But we would not touch John’s salsa.

   I’m hoping to go to the South this fall, maybe. Tomato season runs late some years. And corn might be ripe for picking….

   Real monsters in life don’t eat people; they just gobble time.

< 

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077 or at randallbay@earthlink.net.)