Zory

Today is the last day of the 2016 April A to Z Blogging Challenge. Writing has always been my most effective way to process events, curiosities, life questions. Sometimes small and easily overlooked, sometimes too big and scary to look at directly.

Today is Z and today's piece is not a story or an essay or any other organized piece of literature. It's just an exploration without making a point or even identifying the point. Maybe some day one or more of these people will become a character I can get inside of and write a story. Or maybe I can do enough research to craft an essay with a point.

Until then let's just wander through my memories and ancillary thoughts, keeping in mind that they are my memories and thoughts and, as such, are flawed.

With the plight of the refugees trying to get out of the middle east, I think of the only refugees that I've known very well.

When I was in high school, Maria, one of my best friends, was a Cuban refugee. (I'll use a fictitious surname for the family.) I don't know exactly when Maria and her family left Cuba or how they ended up in Oklahoma. Maybe she said, but I don't remember.

What I do remember is the story about Zory. Maria, who had two younger sisters, was a year ahead of me in school. Luly was my age, and Zory was the youngest.

When the family left Cuba, they were allowed to bring only the clothes they wore.

While fairly rare in Oklahoma to have girls younger than our mothers' age with pierced ears, it was not uncommon for baby girls in Cuba to. And Zory did. Mrs. Sanchez put her ruby earrings in Zory's ears. They were her engagement gift from Mr. Sanchez and she hoped to be able to keep them.

Officers at the airport took their money. They took Mrs. Sanchez's jewelry including her diamond wedding rings, but did not question the ruby earrings in the baby's ears. They let Maria's mother keep her fur coat, too. I guess the coat wouldn't have been very valuable in Cuba's tropical climate or the new communist mode.

It's the ruby earrings smuggled out in Zory's ears that I most remember about their refugee story. How scary it must have been getting the baby through the officials onto the plane that would take them to the United States and freedom. Even now, just thinking about it conjures fear in my heart.

When I heard the story, my drama-teen mind imagined communist police ripping the earrings out of baby Zory's ears. Maybe that is exactly the thought that sits in my chest today making my breath shallow as I write this.

My today's mind knows that would likely not have happened. A more frightening thought now is that smuggling ruby earrings would have been sufficient cause to stop them getting onto the plane.

Maria's family owned a school in Cuba. I don't know where exactly, but her father ran the school and taught there.

Maria told us that her father originally supported Castro against the dictator Batista. Because her father supported the rebels, the Batista people had him on a list for execution. So they were happy when Castro won. But then Castro turned communist. (That's how we American's saw the events in the early sixties.)

The Sanchezes owned two houses, one in the mountains where they spent the summers because it was cool. Then Castro closed all the private schools. He took the school property and their home in the mountains and began rounding up the country's educated and upper class people. Mr. Sanchez began working against Castro.

Maria told stories about the anti-Castro young people roaming the city at night spray painting anti-communist slogans on walls. She told us about being chased by the police.

When the Sanchezes heard that Mr. Sanchez was on a list to be arrested by the Castro regime, they decided to leave Cuba.

In Oklahoma, the Sanchezes lived in a small frame, two-bedroom, one bath house. Mr. Sanchez, who spoke English, worked in a factory until he was able to get a job teaching at a Black university. Mrs. Sanchez, who did not speak English, did alterations for a department store.

By the time I knew them, which was maybe three years after they left Cuba, the girls spoke English, their only accent -- Oklahoman. I knew they lived differently from most of us. They ate avocados with olive oil. They put beans and rice on to cook for supper every evening after school, because their mother didn't get home from work until after six. (Most of our mothers didn't work.) They weren't allowed to date. Not even after they were sixteen. They only had one car.

Back then I never thought about how different it must have been for the three girls. The Sanchezes were white upper-class Cubans. In Cuba, they had two homes, servants. Their father was a recognized intellectual. They enjoyed status. They had extended family and family friends they'd known all their lives. They celebrated holidays and birthdays with Cuban music and Cuban food and Cuban games. And attended church where they had been christened. All in Spanish.

In Oklahoma, they spoke Spanish only in their home with their family and their little dog Dukey. The Cuban exile community in Oklahoma did come together for celebrations and partied in Cuban style. But then they would all go away again, to their adopted Anglo-Oklahoma lives.

I lost track of them when Luly and I graduated high school, but I know the Sanchezes sent Maria and Luly to college. Maria even joined a sorority, which must have been sort of like the social groups she would have enjoyed in Cuba -- but still no dating.

It's not until now as an adult that I think how lonely Mrs. Sanchez must have been. To work all day, when she'd never worked before. To hear nothing but an alien language from the time she left home in the morning until she came home at night. To know what a privileged life her children could have had, had things not gone so badly wrong in the land of her birth.

I remember her dressing to go to weddings of the children of her Cuban friends and friends of her Cuban American daughters. She always wore her fur coat and the ruby earrings.

If I were writing her story, that coat and the Zory earrings would be declarations of defiance and perseverance and, in the end, victory.

I See You -- flash fiction

Hoss, the Jack Russell, always met him at the door, and he always said the same thing. "I see you."

When she wrecked the car, she cried. She hadn't totaled the car. She was not hurt. She'd been thinking about where she was going instead of what she was doing. The officer ticketed the other driver, but if she'd been paying attention, she could have avoided the whole thing, been on time for her meeting, saved the other driver a ticket, saved herself the deductible. Tears were unnecessary. She was just so angry.

"I see you," he said as he tried to put his arm around her.

"Oh, leave me alone," she said and shrugged him off.

But he hadn't left her alone, and he didn't. Until he did.

A brain aneurysm. Asymptomatic. Can cause stroke ending in brain damage or death. "No shit Sherlock." She should be glad he died. He'd have hated brain damage. She'd have hated brain damage. She hated him being dead.

But she was learning. She had learned to go to bed alone. To get up alone. She didn't go out to eat alone or to the movies alone. Not yet.

There were good kinds of alone. Like when you're in a forest beyond the sound of humans. In the spring when everything is damp and just coming green again. Bird song, drops of rain landing on your hat, the quarreling of a squirrel when he realizes you've seen him.

Or in a warm, candle-lit bath. The house quiet, because he's already asleep. And you can almost hear him and the dog breathing.

One reason she'd married him was so she wouldn't have to deal with life alone. And because he was so practical. She'd been called a dreamer, a bleeding heart, a trouble maker. But he never faulted her for being angry or upset. He really could see her. He saw she tried to right the wrongs she railed against. That she tried to find the good in people, especially the people who were hard for her to like. That she wanted her way because she really did think it was the best way for everybody concerned. He saw that sometimes she failed. At big things. At little things. At being perfect.

Like right then. She did not know how to grieve. Not how to do it right. She read books, went to grief counselling.

 At least she could sleep.

She saw him. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe all those bad times were the dream. This seemed real. His hair was freshly cut and he smelled of bath soap and deodorant. He was coming through the trees toward her.

"I see you," he said.

"I see you," she said and reached for him.

Something landed in the middle of her, jolting her awake. Two bright black eyes in a little white face, looking down at her.

"Rotten dog." Her eyes filled with angry tears. But the little dog looked so happy to see her awake.

"I see you," she said letting go of the tears and the anger. "Wanna go to the movies? Or will breakfast do?"

A Boy with a Truck -- Flash Fiction

image from everydayfamily.com

"Gran, whatcha doin'?"  Michael asked as he climbed onto the bed.

"Folding laundry. What are you doing?"

"Nothing." The three-year-old held out a small, battered red truck.

"Where'd you get that?" she asked, checking the tag in a T-shirt.

"Grandpa." He tried to see the tag, too.

She turned the shirt so he could see. "XL, that's Grandpa's shirt."

"Michael starts with M," he said.

"Right. But XL is the size. Grandpa starts with G."

"G?"

"XL stands for extra large."

Michael took his truck and ran to the living room where his Grandpa watched the news. He stopped in front of the TV.

"Boy, you'd make a better door than window," his grandfather said.

"Extra, extra," someone sang as the announcer shouted "Welcome to Sports Extra." Video of people swimming flashed in the background and the sports-caster said "One hundred days until the 2016 Summer Olympics. Michael Phelps and our own Missy Franklin are in Colorado Springs training."

"Michael? Like me?" the child asked.

His Grandfather nodded. "But bigger."

"What are Olympics?" One knee down, travelling in a half-crawl, Michael pushed his truck across the floor.

"It's for athletes who excel at their sport. There'll be wrestling and basketball and running and jumping."

"Extra large?" Michael asked. Sure that his Grandpa watched him, he ran fast and jumped as high as he could.

"That's pretty good. You just might get to go to the Olympics in sixteen years or so. When you're a lot bigger. Go ask Gran if she wants some ice cream."

"Can I take Red?"

"Red?"

Michael held up the little truck.

Half an hour later the three of them and Red were outside the ice cream shop. They had to wait and let Michael watch a convoy of trucks. Big white trucks with the iconic red logo of a Colorado electric company on the doors.

"Xcel Energy trucks, headed for Kansas," the grandfather said. "They're expecting bad weather."

"Extra large," Michael said, entranced by the passing trucks.

Michael's grandmother looked up at the clear blue sky and watched a man in shorts enter the ice cream shop. "It must be Spring. Tornadoes on the prairie and we're expecting snow."

"Not until Saturday." Grandpa laughed and scooped Michael up.

Inside the shop a teenager behind the counter asked "What'll it be, little man?"

From the vantage point of his grandfather's arms Michael had the ice cream man say the names of each of the possibilities.

Finally he said, "Chocolate. XL, please."

Words Used Wrongly

It's Day W in the 2016 A to Z Blogging Challenge. (Or should I write that "W?" Or 'W?' W?) Anyway, I had trouble coming up with a topic to write about. I finally settled on writing about where I live. (Where I Live. Get it? Except I was going to title the piece "The Wonders of My World.") But I Woke up With a Whole new idea even before the cat Worried me aWake, Which he often does by playing With the picture hanging over my bedside table.

Who knew there Were so many W Words in my life?

Just before I woke I was dreaming. In the dream my friend Lou was writing the word "periodontal" and I was reading over her shoulder. I know. I know. It's rude to read over someone's shoulder.

I remember thinking her hand-writing was not what I expected. It was big and bold. Rounded like a high school girl who's practiced her letters over and over to develop her style. In the waking world, I've never seen her handwriting. Her written communications with me have all been via email.

For some reason, she was dissatisfied with the word and she looked it up in a dictionary. Yes, a hard-bound book. That didn't surprise me. She's a retired librarian and of course she would turn to a book rather than look it up on her phone. Thinking back on it, that was my husband's American Heritage Dictionary. I recognize the tattered dust jacket.

When I woke, I knew my W-Day had to be "Words Used Wrongly." I can use all those photos some other day.

Everyone has pet peeves -- drivers who change lanes without signalling, people who squeeze the toothpaste tube in the middle, husbands who hang clothes willy-nilly. Thinking people hang like shirts with like shirts, pants with pants, suits with suits. And dirty clothes should be dropped into the dirty-clothes basket not beside it. I leave lights on, get up early and don't start the coffee, and don't take the most efficient route to my destination. (You've probably noticed that last one about me.)

Anyway, using words wrongly is altogether too common. Television reporters are most likely to get me to shout the word they should have used. I'm a bit more restrained with friends, acquaintances, and strangers on the train. If I'm not tired or stressed. Or if they haven't just done it one too many times.

Canada Geese! Not Canadian. These geese were hatched right here in Colorado. They've probably never been to Canada.

No one has a "long road to hoe." Think about this. Why on earth would someone hoe a road? What does one do with a hoe? Haven't they ever seen a cotton field? Well, maybe not. But a garden, then? With rows of spinach and green beans and carrots. That's what people may have a long one of to hoe. A row of plants!

Unless I misunderstand and they're saying 'ho, talking about street walkers who actually walk a long street rather than standing on the corner.

And, No! An airplane crash does not make you feel badly unless you were in the crash and now your sense of touch is impaired. Would you feel sadly about a plane crash? No. You'd say you felt sad. Then say you feel bad about the plane crash. Adding -ly doesn't make you sound educated.

Folks, -ly makes a word an adverb. Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. So we can want something really badly. Here, badly modifies want and really modifies badly. Now, you're educated, at least about adverbs.

And the word fewer is NOT the same as less. If a quantity can be counted and one hasn't as many, then he has fewer. Minutes can be counted so fewer is proper. Time cannot be counted so less is proper.

And don't get me started on defensed instead of defended or impacted instead of affected.

I could go on for hours. And you could, too. But I'm hungry so I'm going to go make my breakfast. Or is that fix my breakfast? Prepare my breakfast!

Vision

                   Vision

For God so loved the world
That He gave to all men eyes.
And to some He gave sight.

Up, Up and Away!

If you've read three or more of my blog posts, you know that I think humanity's future lies in Space. And I tend more toward the "Shining city upon a hill" view of our future colonies, rather than post-apocalyptic outposts teetering on the brink of disaster.

And I hope, those shining new colonies will not be born of some global catastrophe on Earth like the current migration out of Africa and the Middle East. It is post-apocalyptic. Many of those people are not looking for a better life. They're just looking for any life at all.

I do not fancy an Earth left in smoking ruins. I don't think it will happen like that.

Humans have always moved on from their natal homes. They seek wealth, adventure, a new vista, a safer place to raise their children. A place where they can build the life they want. I don't think emigration from Earth will be any different. We'll have people who want one or more of these things just like we always have had.

Just as we do have.

I think colonies in Space will happen as they always have. Explorers will be inspired by the possibility of "going where no man has gone before." The new Columbuses will be funded by entrepreneurs who see the possibility of wealth by providing resources more abundantly and more cheaply.

Scientists will hitch a ride with the new Hudson Bay Companies to expand humanity's knowledge.
All manner of Engineers, will imagine and design better ways to get there, to live there. And the rest of us will go for the jobs, for the better neighborhoods. For the same reasons we up-stakes and move to a new town today. Eventually we'll even move to a colony because that's where the one we love is from and has family they want to be near.

That's just the way we humans work.

Yes is the answer. Space is our Future.

Up, up and away!

2Cellos

Thank You Denver! #photooftheday #usa #tour #music #2cellos

I'm there! On the far right in the top balcony. You can't see me? You'll just have to take my word for it.

It's been years since I went to a concert, but I love these guys and I wanted to see them perform in person. Last year they toured the U.S. but Denver was not included. Midland, Texas, was included but not Denver. Midland? And not Denver. Really? Now, some of my favorite relatives live in Texas, but not in Midland!

My son John and his wife Sonja live near Dallas so they were able to go to the Dallas concert a year ago February. They introduced me to 2Cellos music. John plays cello. And their seven-year-old has just started lessons this year. John and Sonja very kindly bought me a T-shirt and waited in line to get it autographed. I wore that T-shirt lots, until I realized the autographs were fading from washing.

Then last November 2Cellos announced their 2016 American tour, and Denver was on the list. So I quick, quick bought two tickets.

I like all kinds of music. Maybe I should say many kinds of music. I'm not a fan of Country/Western, opera or operetta. Not fond of elevator music either.

My two favorite types of music are hard rock and classical. Watch this video and you'll see why I like these guys.

Welcome to the Jungle

The concert was in the Buell Theater in downtown Denver. Now driving in downtown Denver on a Saturday night is not my favorite activity, but the light rail goes downtown and it's cheaper than parking. 

What I didn't know when I bought the tickets, was that the new light rail line out to the airport would be open for business the day before the 2Cellos concert. And it would be free from noon Friday until ten Saturday night. Denver International is no where near the Buell Theater. In fact, it's 26 miles from downtown Denver. But the entire light rail system would be free during that time.

Even better! I could see 2Cellos in concert and not have to drive downtown at night. Wouldn't use any gas and wouldn't have to pay lotsa money to park. I love the light rail.

Of course I gave my husband right of first refusal on the second ticket and he refused it. He's not a big 2Cellos fan and he's even less enamored of crowded performance halls. My daughter Grace quickly agreed to fill the void.

The only thing left for me to plan was what I'd wear. You watched the above video, right? So you know this was a rock concert even if it was being done in an upscale theater. My 2Cellos T-shirt of course.

Senior Citizen Fan Girl!

16th Street Mall in downtown Denver is a veritable smorgasbord of eateries. Everything from cloth-table-linens style seafood and steak places to fast food Mexican. We ate at The Market which is a little place stuffed to the gills with umpteen different kinds of coffees and teas, honeys, jams, and every kind of homemade dessert a heart attack could desire. I had a Reuben sandwich and coffee. Skipped the desserts. I was too excited about the concert.

Oh, and it's prom season here in Denver. A young man appropriately attired came in accompanied by three young women, all wearing full-length evening dresses. One of the girls was wearing a princessy dress in the same apricot color as the young man's tie and vest so she was probably his official date. They gathered up at the counter to order and he announced "Okay, ladies, order anything you want." A man after mine own heart.

My own Senior Prom date was very like this. One of my friends was a Cuban refugee and her parents were old-school so they wouldn't let her date, but she could go to Prom with me and my date. After dropping into a couple of standard Oklahoma-style after-parties, we went to her house where her parents were giving a party for us -- and all their Cuban friends and family. Wonderful food and music and dancing on the lawn. 

But I digress. Back to downtown Denver. From The Market, it was a short walk to Denver's Performing Arts Complex and the Buell Theater. The Buell is beautiful. And huge. There's a bar on each floor. (Grace had champagne with the concert. I had water. Alcohol puts me to sleep.) And elevators, thank goodness. I do pretty well climbing stairs, but coming down is a slow and arduous process and I hadn't brought my hiking sticks.

Like I pointed out in the pic at the start of this blog, our seats were in the top balcony. I guess my fear of heights showed. The young woman ushering us to our seats suggested I walk on the side of the aisle with the railing saying, "Some people experience vertigo." Which I sometimes do and I did use the railing.

I was the only one there, at least that I saw, wearing a 2Cellos T-shirt. I did see a young man wearing an Oklahoma City Thunder T-shirt. That's a professional basketball team. And I'm originally from Oklahoma, so I thought I should speak to him. He was sitting a little ways away from us, but I figured I could shout "Thunder Up!" and he'd look around at me. Grace shushed me. She's not really shy or anything, she just has higher standards of deportment than I.

Oh, the concert. The concert!

Luka Šulić, born in Slovenia and Stjepan Hauser, born in Croatia, were classically trained and can play standard classical fare. But what makes them outstanding are their covers of songs by U2, Michael Jackson, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, etc. Instrumentally. They don't sing.

I swear Luka, the one on the left,
would fit right in with the Hrdlicka side of my family.

Theater employees in matching vests, dress shirts, and ties spent the pre-concert time moving through the audience telling people they couldn't take pictures or videos during the performance. Unlike most of the rock concerts I've been to, where the employees mingling were wearing matching brightly colored T-shirts marked SECURITY.

(Bye-the-by, when Luka and Stjepan came on stage, they said we could take all the pictures and videos we wanted.)

I do have to say that the audience was well-behaved and even though this is Colorado, there was no tell-tale smoke wafting through the light show.

In fact, I was a little concerned that the audience was too well-behaved. It seemed to take them a little while to get into it. But then they did and it was nonstop clapping, whistling, screaming, moving to the music. 

In the old-days, I'd have danced in the aisles, but they were so steep and so high up. I limited myself to dancing in my seat. And singing along. It was so loud, nobody complained about my singing.

Speaking of loud, the couple behind us had brought their two young children, but they wisely had also brought hearing protection for the littles and both were sound asleep before the concert got well underway. 

About half-way through the performance, their drummer came on stage. Drusan  Kranjc is of the John Densmore (The Doors) school of drums -- hard and harder. With the intensity of the cellos (I bet you never thought of cellos as intense!) and the crashing drums the audience was pumping adrenaline.

My favorite pieces were "Welcome to the Jungle," "With or Without You," and a surprise for me The Rolling Stones "Satisfaction." OMG!

It was after 10 when we got back to the light rail and a Transit Authority cop was right there. I asked him if the freebie ended at ten like they said it would. He said, "It's supposed to, but we're not enforcing it. Go ahead. Get on." Yes!

2Cellos said they'd come back. Gonna start saving my money today. I want seats right down front!