Yep. Hes 11. Hard to fathom, really. Seems like yesterday we had the conversation; “so….think it’s time to start a family?” We were a couple years in, marriage-wise and it seemed like the time was right. As I’ve said before, we got off to a bit of a rocky start…but eventually, I had a rolicking baby boy in my tummy. His name was chosen long before he made his debut…Henry, after my grandfather, and Matthew, for his own father (the Gage tradition is for the boys to have their father’s first name, as their middle name). I was rooting for Callaway, or Ritch as my grandfather’s full name was Henry Ritch Callaway and both my mom and I share the middle name Ritch, but alas…I had to concede somewhere!

I know people’s eyes tend to gloss over when people start re-telling their birth stories, but this is my blog, so I’m gonna say it yet again, and if you start to nod off, (or leave) I completely understand! Henry was a whopper, and because it was June, it was HOT. When I say whopper, the doctor said he’d probably roll in at about 8 pounds and be right on time. But when I went to the doctors office a couple of days before my due date, he’d changed his tune. He said he could be up to 2 weeks late. Up to this point, I hadn’t missed one single day of work…but that day? DEVASTATION. I waddled out to my car and BAWLED. Then I proceeded to call in sick, and drive home….BAWLING. I called Matt and asked him…no, TOLD him to meet me at home STAT. He complied, as all good (scared) husbands would have and prepared to answer to my demands. The first of which was shorts. I had, until then, avoided buying any maternity shorts…but if I had to endure two more weeks…by damn, I needed some. Off we went to town to buy shorts. Then, I needed some good reading material. Check. And then I decided, I wanted to go…fishing. I know. Stark raving mad I tell ya. We were living at the time, between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa so Matt could work in the latter, and me the former…in a little rental house in the sticks. There was a little pond by the house and that seemed like a perfectly logical day to take up fishing. So Matt went to gather the gear, and I began my waddle to the pond. On the way, I decided to take a rest and settled onto a big pipe in the middle of a drainage ditch. That’s  when Melba (yep. that was her name) drove past and nearly had a coronary…was I having that baby in a ditch?!

Fishing didn’t quite work out so I went home to cry some more. And consume some more peanut butter and ice cream–pretty much all I craved, and all I ate.

The next day (my original due date) I hoisted myself off to work. The girls took me for a Thai lunch and I ordered the entree with FIVE peppers next to it. I could barely breathe it was so hot but I choked it down. I was determined. That baby was coming. out. today. Poor Henry went plum crazy that afternoon. The plan was this: hot, spicy food, a really long walk after work, and…yeesh…sex. (Trust me, if I hadn’t been told it would help get that baby OUT, it would NOT have been a consideration). Thank God for miracles…

We set off on our walk…dog in tow. As we were walking, I told Matt that I could have sworn, that earlier that day when Henry was trying to escape the inferno I had felt a little trickle…as in, could it be my water breaking? His eyes read “yes, dear, I’m sure that’s what it was…with a hint, of poor-deranged-woman”. We trudged onward…and then…like a bolt of lightening…IT HAPPENED. Of course now, we are a couple of miles from home…on foot. With a dog. So there, the fat, pregnant lady stood, with wet pants and a dog. All alone, as her husband took off running in his big work boots…high-step running, marching-band style.

A little while later, SCCCRRRRREEEEEEEETTTCCCHHH, he peeled up, bags packed. “So…um… Matt–we taking the dog to the hospital?” I think not. And mama needed a shower, and…fresh pants. The doctor gave his blessing for a quick shower (“don’t make a career of it”, he said). Soon enough we were in our room, Matt clicking channels…and waiting. But not for long. Turns out, I was the poster child for giving birth. Epidural went off without a hitch, nature did it’s thing and one hour into the next day he arrived. Easy as pie (no, really. I actually thought it was the most fun I’d ever had). I remember the awe I felt in seeing his little face, those chubby cheeks…and Matt and I laughing hysterically when they told us he weighed 9 pounds, 8 ounces.

And so it was. Henry Matthew Gage had joined earth’s population. And he was mine, all mine.

I love you, my son. Happy, Happy Birthday.

My introduction to music was 107.7 the “Q” on the fm dial in Columbus, Georgia. Of course mom had her 8-track player, with tracks by Neil Diamond and the like, but I listened to the radio RELIGIOUSLY. I knew every word to every song (or at least I THOUGHT I did) for example, I thought the song Dream Weaver, actually said “Jamie Weaver…I believe you can get me through the night”. I thought that Jamie must be some special girl. We used to burn up the phone lines making requests…Jungle Boogie was high on the list. My best friend during elementary school was Ginger and she and I taped Kasey Kasem on our tape recorders every Sunday. We memorized every word of the Grease soundtrack and then Sgt.Pepper with the Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever.

When my brother got into music, it was the Eagles, Steve Miller Band, ELO,  and Waylon and Willie…so that stuff is definitely well-woven into my musical fabric…but in the early years, I was more attracted to top 40 pop. Favorite songs that stand out are “Undercover Angel”, and “I like Dreamin’”, later my all-time favorite was “Another One Bites the Dust”. When my dad came to town, he introduced other kinds of music. His favorite song was S-A-T-U-R-DAY Night! (I think it was the Bay City Rollers) so that became a favorite for a long time. My first concert in the 6th grade was Andy Gibb, whom I worshiped. I was in his fan club and everything. Tiger Beat magazine was my life line and any mention or photo of Andy went into my fan scrapbook. My second concert was KC and the Sunshine Band. In Junior High I was introduced to the Sugar Hill Gang and Rapper’s Delight. I memorized every word and can still recite the entire song (much to the horror of my children and friends who are lucky enough to hear a late night rendition).

That must be what led me to my affinity for…um…the politically correct term would be funk, or soul I guess,  in High school. But we simply called it “black” music and we LOVED it. I saw Lionel Ritchie, The Gap Band, Kool and the Gang, Rick James…if I could find the ticket stubs, I’m pretty sure I’d have one to every band like that, that had a song on the radio in the early 80′s. When Michael Jackson’s Thriller came out, we holed up in my room for days making up dance routines. He was destined to be a legend and we knew it. Ha, I also remember an obsession around this time with Hall and Oates! How they made the cut, I do not know.

Towards the end of high school it was more Madonna, and whatever else MTV was making popular, and all the Duran Duran, Billy Idol stuff took over. At this point, my dad’s favorite was The Cars and he introduced me to it. I was ahead of the times on that one in Columbus, Georgia. Our senior year Spring Break anthem was Der Kommissar by Falco. When someone burned a giant hole in the beach rental carpet, we changed the words to “Don’t burn the ground, uh oh oh!”

In college, there was more of the whole Flock of Seagulls vibe early on and then I guess we started into the more alternative stuff. R.E.M was huge, but also the Rolling Stones were at a peak. I was introduced to Reggae and was totally into Bob Marley and UB 40. We also started listening to older music–my favorite of all time was Van Morrison. We started to think of ourselves as hippies which is such a joke. We wore our tie-dyes and birkinstocks with cut-off shorts but we were in sorority’s and fraternities too.
Somewhere in there, the Grateful Dead took over, but simultaneously so did bands like The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Depeche Mode and then Tracy Chapman and 10,000 Maniacs…. I loved it all.

After college I went to quite a few Dead shows, and I fell in love with Little Feat but I was never a “deadhead” in the true sense. I enjoyed the experience way more than the music. Wide Spread Panic really took off when Jerry Garcia died but before they were so big, we used to see them at the Cotton Club in Atlanta whenever they were there. Now I have tons of friends who still, even at our age, travel to see them. I did just that recently and had a ball–there is just something about that atmosphere that is magic. I still, through these years, always went back to the old stuff…Crosby, Stills and Nash, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Eric Clapton, Carly Simon…and my friend Caroline made the most incredible mixed tapes ever of this kind of music. Then she married into the Capricorn Record family and we got to meet the Allman Brothers, hang out with Cake and 311, The Freddy Jones Band, and a bunch of others I can’t recall…but it was fun.

Somewhere along the way I fell in love with female vocalists…after Tracy Chapman, came Edie Brickell, and then I went back to some oldies but goodies like Carol King, Carly Simon or Phoebe Snow. Then there’s  Sheryl Crow, Everything But The Girl, Alana Davis, Natalie Merchant, Norah Jones, Amy Winehouse, Duffy, Nellie Furtado, Eva Cassidy (if you haven’t heard her, you need to listen up)…I even like Shakira…and I’m blanking now on the rest…but I still love female musicians. My favorite to date has been Joss Stone and I really love Adelle now too. Then came guys that had the same vibe as these women..like Jack Johnson and Amos Lee. In fact, Jack Johnson is my dream man

Bottom line, I love to dance, so if music has a beat that you can move to, then chances are I will like it. I like to sing too, but only in the closet. Something I will never like is Country Music. And Jazz bores me to tears. Blue Grass, I can do in VERY small doses but only at some sort of outdoor festival. I love old Southern Rock like the Allman Brothers, or good jam band music you can do the deadhead shuffle to, and yes, I like dance music (the cheesy stuff on the radio that uses all sorts of fowl language, but baby, it has a bangin’ beat). I love my girl music when I’m driving, and I do sing it at the top of my lungs.

I love music. Admittedly, now that I have children, I am into it less and less. And I hate this. I mean, I’m aware of the new hit makers, and have even purchased some of their cds in recent years. I download songs from itunes on occasion, when I hear something I can’t get out of my head and stick it on my ipod under “running music”. But more and more, as I get older, I go back to the stuff I’ve loved through the years and am less interested in the new stuff.

Simply put, when I’m listening to music that I love, I feel happy…..so turn it up!

But she was. It was slowly coming back to me. The A.C. was out. The house was sweltering. But my brother and I had window units in our attic floor bedrooms, and they were cranking. My grandmother was in my room, to keep cool. Which meant…oh no. My mother must be down the hall in MY BROTHERS ROOM. I had to be reallllly smart here. REALLY careful. But, oh my. The room was spinning, and spinning and spinning….I bolted out of bed and made my way to the bathroom. Just in time.

The floor was nice and cool. It felt good against my cheek. And the toilet was so handy-dandy, right there next to me. And, well…my other accommodations weren’t quite working out. Yes, this would do just fine….

As my eyes started to focus, I felt it. And I heard the VOICE again. Ouch! Stop! STOP nudging me with your FOOT. There she was in all her 80-something year old glory, standing over me. “Kathryn Ritch Vingi! Get up off that flow-ah (no body on earth had a genteel, southern accent like my grandmutha, a Georgia Peach through and through). She was dignified and proud…until now. She couldn’t have had an ounce of pride in that moment and she was mad too! “I SAID, get up off that flow-ah, right this very minute young lady.”

“Oh grandmother, I sniffed. I’ve eaten something horrible. It seems to have upset my stomach terribly. I think I must surely have food poisoning. Maybe I should stay here.” But she was having NONE of it. “Get back in that bed, NOW.” So that’s what I did. And I clung to verrrry edge of that bed, for dear life, and prayed that Jack and Coke would stay put.

Late the next morning I awoke. Could it be, I’d convinced my grandmother of my unfortunate stomach bug? This was GREAT. My mother knew NOTHING. Except, I wasn’t great. I felt awful. As in death- warmed-over awful. I carefully made my way downstairs. Ouch. My head hurt. Be veeewwwwwyyyy quiet. My mother greeted me with a sympathetic smile. “Mornin’ honey! I’m so sorry you’re not well. You poor thing. Would you like some soup?” I eyed my grandmother. She eyed me back. Stone cold eyes, dark as night.

All day it went like this. Mom pampered me, nursed me back to health. Grandmother said nothing. I could scarcely believe my good fortune. I’d broken all kinds of rules, and yet mom was none the wiser. It was looking like I’d be able to do it all over again the next weekend!

“So mom, think I could have some more Coke? I think it would help to settle my stomach….”

But she could take it no more.

Grandmother.

Had.

Had.

Enough.

She turned to my mom, fury in her eyes, voice trembling…”Kathryn does not have any stomach bug! And she does not have any food poisoning either! I found her on the bathroom floor last night in a DRUNKEN STUPAH!”

And that’s how it went down.

In history.

I probably lost a good month of fun. And I’ve had to endure the telling, and re-telling of that story, AT LEAST 200 times. At least now that it’s recorded for posterity, when someone starts to tell it again…I can say. “Ahem, excuse me. You can read all about it if you like, and we never have to mention it again”.

note: You’ll be glad to know that since that night in 1980-something, I have never. ever. not once. had another Jack and Coke.

This is an old photo key chain that I unearthed. Kathy and I are in the top left corner. The guy below in the hat is my older brother, Robert.
The girl in the bottom right corner is one of the twins (Laura), and the girl on the left (two tiny faces) right above her, is her twin sister (Leslie).

This story has been told so many times over so many meals, so many drinks…so many occasions I needn’t worry any longer about my mom finding me out…or shaming her with the knowledge that her daughter was a fool in high school. The damage was done long ago, and I think I turned out okay (it’s all relative, right?) What happened 20-something years ago could be viewed as being partially responsible for the fabulous human I am today, right? Ha.

I’ve already introduced you to Kathy, my BFF and partner in crime in those days…remember, we climbed that barbed wire fence together at the cemetery? And fried ourselves on her trampoline all summer long? Well, there is a vault of Kathryn/Kathy stories waiting to be opened, so we are just getting started. (Yes, Kathy gave me her blessing…however, she may not have bargained for how good my memory is

Maybe it was because Kathy’s older sisters were hot tamales…gorgeous girls, adored by the boys, envied by the girls, fun….and yes, a little wild. The oldest, Kathy’s brother Johnny was a big, smiling hulk of a guy, affectionately nicknamed “Truck” (Kathy’s last name was Driver) and loved by all. We looked up to all three. Maybe it was because my mom was VERY strict, and I was born somehow, with a VERY rebellious streak. Or that Kathy’s mom Mary Frances, the good Catholic girl (as the name implies) had about given up by the time Kathy came along. The other three had worn her down to a nub. Kathy’s dad did lot’s of barking…but he too, was forced for the most part, to admit defeat, and his bark was far worse than his bite. At any rate, Kathy and I were bound and determined to have ourselves our own good time…regardless of age (meaning UNDER age), or the good values instilled in us up to that point in our young lives.

My mother hung this by my bathroom mirror. Next to the Tan Commandments (see Tanorexic post

Kathy’s family, and then Kathy and I our freshman year. We were still well-behaved at this point. As you can see, we are “Mutt & Jeff”

We didn’t have time for boys our own age. Older boys were way cooler (not), and in those days most of them were big, buff jock types. We thought they were our ticket to cooldom I suppose, (although in time we did come to realize that the boys our own age were actually the good ones–and they sure as heck turned out a lot better).

These are older boys…but they are also really good ones. Because my sweet brother (right photo) played golf, and wasn’t a cheesy jock–therefore he turned out fabulously
The one on the left was one of his cronies, also a great guy. You can see I was quite taken with them (on their way to the prom?)

Having said that, the older boys we favored weren’t content to “ride around” for entertainment, or go to the local pizza joint. They had moved on to NIGHT CLUBS. I guess you had to be 21 at that time to get in one (it could have have been a bit younger, I don’t recall) but we couldn’t have been more than 17. And if that’s where they were, well, then that’s where we were going to be. Our fake i.d.’s were pathetic. I was some girl from Middlebury College in Vermont at one point. No clue how I got my hands on this i.d. but I looked NOTHING like her. I’m not sure what Kathy used, but I do recall doctoring i.d.’s with finger nail polish or creating them from scratch with my moms old Corona manual typewriter.

This. Is. Embarrassing.

The Club was called the Chickasaw. The radio advertisement called to us in a high-pitched sing s0ng…”come on down to the Chick Chick Chickasawwwwwwww!” Kathy and I knew it well. We had actually gotten away with saying that we were going to the LIBRARY on a Thursday night (AS IF), and instead went there. I know. It’s shameful. But again, TWENTY SOMETHING YEARS AGO. Everyone has some sort of past, right? We also went to “Laura and Leslie’s” house quite often, the twins we grew up with. I think the night in question though, was actually a weekend night. A hot summer weekend night. We started the evening rather innocently…at the Speakeasy. It used to be Shakey’s Pizza Parlour, but by then it was the newer, hipper Speakeasy where lot’s of us hung out. Because it was a restaurant we never had any trouble getting in…and always managed pitchers too–by sitting with those older boys I suppose. That night, I ran into my big brother Robert, and recall him telling me that the air conditioning had gone out at home and that the house was sweltering. Certainly not high on my list of concerns. I was trying to plot my way to the Chickasaw. Next I remember being INSIDE the Chickasaw, and seeing my brother OUTSIDE the Chickasaw. He mouthed through the window that he’d been denied access. He was two years older than me, mind you, so he was none too pleased. I couldn’t be bothered. I had ordered up some horrible Jack and Coke drink, and was well on my way (mind you, the most I’d had to drink at this point was a Miller Pony, or maybe some Boone’s Farm.  I didn’t yet know that liquor WAS NOT MY FRIEND). Now here’s where things get fuzzy. I maybe mixing up two separate evenings and merging them into one, but for the sake of this story, we’ll assume that this is how is all went down. Kathy and I are boogying on the dance floor, Madonna-style, to tunes like her “Like a Virgin, or perhaps Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, Shannon’s “Let the Music Play”,  or David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”. Who can forget hits like Irene Cara’s Flashdance anthem, “What a Feeling”, or the Human League’s “Keep Feeling Fascination” or Men Without Hat’s “Safety Dance”? All I know is that we loved them all, and were there to dance the night away.

I think I even remember what I was wearing. Pinstriped, high-waisted jeans (with pleats and peg legs of course), a favorite blue sweater tank, and a matching blue-on-blue candy-striped blazer. My hair was “punk” or so I thought…cut way too short on top, feathered and sprayed, and long and permed everywhere else. Yep, just as you you picture it…a glorified mullet. Long dangly earrings, and best of all…jellies. Those were shoes made of rubber, but these were way cooler than the typical. The “jelly” was only on the bottom…the rest was a super long shoe lace, that turned the bottom into a gladiator-style thong. Of course, being me, I traded out the shoe laces for some matching trim that I found in my grandmother’s sewing box. Of course, hem facing  wasn’t meant to be used as footwear so it broke somewhere early in the night and I ended up barefoot on the dance floor.

Me in my “faux punk” phase…or whatever you’d call it. More older boys…and I have no idea how either turned out–
but certainly neither falls into the stereotype I mentioned earlier!
I will say that I had a massive crush on the top right one (sadly, I don’t think it was ever all that mutual)!

Just as the night was getting good, a frantic warning began to make it’s way through the Chickasaw. Mary Frances Driver was AT the Chickasaw, and she wasn’t leaving without Kathy. So naturally, we ran to the bathroom, hid in a stall, on TOP of a toilet. Someone either ratted us out, or Kathy realized defeat was imminent, and she surrendered. Mary Frances had come for me as well, per the agreement between she and my mother, but because MY mother wasn’t IN the Chickasaw, I felt no need to comply. I remained on my perch until the coast was clear and continued the revelry into the wee hours.

This was the major flaw in my judgment in those days. I think my curfew was around 11pm, but I tended to weigh the activities planned for one weekend vs. the next and go ahead and blow curfew on the chosen weekend. It meant the following weekend (and maybe the one after it too) I would be on “restriction” as my mom called it, and unable to leave the house…but I thought it was worth it. Clearly this night was one of the “chosen” ones, and I overstayed and over-imbibed. I don’t remember who brought me home, but I do remember asking them the turn off the engine, and the lights, in order to coast into my driveway without alerting my MOTHER. Mind you, I NEVER made it upstairs without my mother calling out from her room for me to come in a see her, ie. smell my breath, but only on nights when she was wasn’t sitting on the couch waiting to impose her sentence.

This was an exceptionally bad night because not only was I very, very late but I had enjoyed those yummy Coke drinks just a little bit too much. So much that by the time I got out of that car, the universe was spinning. I ended up in the bushes feeling less than stellar but at least cleansing my system of toxins (okay, tossing cookies…or in this case, Jack and Coke). I know, yuck. Good thing was, I was already barefoot so I didn’t make much noise coming in the house…and shockingly, mom wasn’t there to greet me when I came in. I even made it to the stairwell without a peep from her. Could it be? I had made it home scott-free? I crept up the stairs and….

to be continued

As a high school freshman, I discovered sponge rollers (I’d finally grown out the dreadful bob) and makeup. WAY too much makeup, and I rolled those suckers TIGHT. It was also the height of the preppy era. We followed the Preppy Handbook religiously (I kid you not), and I had every color wide whale cords–many dotted with whales, anchors or some other symbol of ultimate preppydom, every ribbon belt (to go with my gold frog belt buckle), every ribbon trimmed cardigan, plaid kilts with knee socks and penny loafers…oh, how it pains me that I wasted my youthful appearance in this way…SQUANDERED IT. But I digress again.

Somewhere during this time frame, the cowgirl craze hit. Everybody HAD to to have a pair of Justin’s…with a high heel. I was no exception. I know I told you I was skinny, but I was also TALL. Taller than most boys still (some things never change). Mom begged and pleaded with me on the boot subject. “Kathryn, honey, you are lovely in MY eyes, but this may not be your best look”.

Did I learn ANYTHING from evil hair guy? Need I answer that question?

So now I’m wearing high heeled cowboy boots with wide whaled cords and a cardie. Wow. Then along comes the church ski trip (I promise in the end, the story will come full circle and you’ll understand why I am having story-telling A.D.D right now). We had a fun youth group…lots of kids from my school that I’d known all my life, kids from one or two other schools that I knew well through church, and we attended Sunday Night Youth Group without fail, went on the summer beach trips…and now the winter ski trip. I was beyond excited, even though I couldn’t ski (minor detail, right?)  We went to North Carolina– Boone, I think (Sugar Mountain? Does that sound right?), I took my lessons and ventured onto the bigger slope (not much more than a bunny hill, I am sure, but it seemed HUGE to me. You did have to ride the lift, so that’s sayin’ something, right?)  I was with my friend Robin, who was a year younger than me, so I felt all high and in charge, and somehow, shockingly, I could ski just slightly better than her.  It was all going swimmingly at first…I was skiing well enough to yell to anyone in earshot “this is my first time skiing so look out, I don’t know how to stop!” but only because the response was generally “wow! you are skiing really well for a first-timer!” Also, because I was such an accomplished skier, and of course  SO much more sophisticated and mature than Robin, a MERE 8th grader, I felt it was my duty to ensure her safety and well-being. So when she lagged behind, I kindly stopped (see, I could stop after all–does that make me a liar? And on a church trip, no less. Oh my) to wait on her. Maybe not the best decision.

The guy who was speeding along just behind me must not have realized that he was trailing Robin’s kind, and selfless caretaker, which is I guess why he mowed right over me when I stopped so abruptly. It was a funny thing, sitting there in a snowdrift feeling like my arm was no longer connected to my body. A bit shocking actually. Almost as shocking as the fact that the guy who’d just flattened me, dusted himself off and kept right on going. Someone asked if I was okay… I was not. Someone else asked if I needed help. I did. Did I need to ride down the mountain in one of those basket thingy’s being pulled by a super hot ski instructor? HELLO. I am cool, and in charge…so really? You think I want to humiliate myself in such a way? Long story short, I got down the mountain somehow, with the help of some kindly person, and my all-time, most favorite, most-perfect-shade-of -blue, dotted-with-pink, fair isle sweater, was CUT from my body. So was the sleeve of my BROTHER’S favorite long john shirt (or so it was deemed, AFTER I destroyed it). Then was the tortuous ride in a herky-jerky church bus, up–or down, who knows– a horribly winding, ice covered road to the pitiful little mountain hospital, with the SUPER dorky chaperone, the x-ray that revealed the badly broken arm (all the way in two, up near the shoulder, which explains the disembodied feeling I was experiencing, and why I was holding onto my arm with a death grip– so it wouldn’t fall off–much to the frustration of the doctor who was slapping plaster all over me) etc. etc.

Who the heck is Gene??? I’m getttttiiiinnnnnggggg to that.

Back home in Columbus, mom took me to the renowned Houston Orthopedic Clinic, (as I recall, it was Christmas Eve). There the doctor discovered what I guess my mom suspected. The arm was set allll wrong. When I left there, I had some crazy contraption around my NECK with some sort of post connected to the big, ugly plaster cast, at the wrist. Not a good look. Not a cool look. Not a look that went well with wide whale cords, high heeled cowboy boots and my brothers over-sized button down oxford  (the only thing that would fit over the monster atrocity attached to me). Makeup application and hair rolling was also an issue. As was the fact that I had to sleep sitting up in a chair, and said chair was in my GRANDMOTHER’S room, who not only snored, but talked in her sleep, and had nightmares that elicited screaming–and gave ME nightmares just recalling them, to this DAY). I was NOT getting my beauty rest and had all these other strikes against me to boot. Which wasn’t helping matters with my CRUSH.

Ah yes. My crush.

Gene. GENE.

A SENIOR. A tall, dark-haired, HUNKY senior, with soulful brown eyes. He was the older brother of one of my older brothers best friends. I knew nothing about him, I’d never talked with him, but that was irrelevant. I was IN LOVE. I was going to marry that boy, no question. If only he knew who I was. I passed Gene outside every single day, on the way to one of my classes. I grinned broadly at him, with my metal-covered mouth. He never noticed.

And now I had this GROWTH attached to me. This POST! This NECK thing…this big, ugly shirt! I was a FREAK. And the only way to get to my class was the same way as always. Teetering along in my high-heeled boots with my big, fat arm sticking out in front of me. And here comes Gene. Sauntering towards me in all his glory. Loping along in his Wallabies and faded denim. And finally, FINALLY, he notices me. His eyes widen. What the ?!

“hey gene” I squeak. I smile wanly.

He averts his eyes. The way you do when you see someone in a pathetic state. Someone drooling.

Later, I had a friend who shared P.E. with Gene, ask him if he knew who I was. His answer? “Is that the tall, skinny girl with that big thing around her neck and a broken arm?”

Gene and I never did get married. I know we would have if I hadn’t been being a good Samaritan that day on the ski slope in North Carolina. I’m sure there’s a valuable lesson there.

But I have yet to figure it out.

Yesterday we dyed eggs…another miracle. Thanks to Nana who remembered to bring the kit and Matt who remembered to buy eggs. I just organized the event itself! And boiled the eggs within an inch of their lives (yes, we had a few cracks).

Pictures almost didn’t happen because I left the cf card at the office but I raced out and got it in the nick of time.

These are not Martha Stewart eggs, that’s for sure…but we had fun.

We like to torture our children by making them wait until AFTER church to see their baskets.

This is so they will be still in the pew and not wiggle the whole time. Or because we don’t get up early enough to get dressed AND have fun.

Clara’s Aunt Elizabeth gives her a pearl for each birthday and
Christmas to add to this necklace. Hopefully Clara will wear it on a wedding day.

Mr. Donkey joined our family yesterday. (Nana is a sucker for her Clara-girl)

That’s my gold bracelet from when I was little…(you know I’m all about the old stuff). Speaking of old, these iris’s were transplanted from my great grandmothers house in Columbus, Georgia, to my moms house there, then to her house in Charleston, and now mine in Knoxville, TN.

My freckle-faced boy

My mother and me. We think Henry looks most like her.

The whole fan-damily. And THREE out of four are looking at the camera and smiling.
A record for the Gage household.

My stinky chilluns…

and our stinky old dawg…wheeler. aka whee-whees.

Happy Easter to all!

Isaiah 60:1 (Whole Chapter)
Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.

I grew up going there–to the old confederate cemetery in Columbus, Georgia where I grew up. It was the very first cemetery there, and it came to be just one year after the city was founded. My grandfather, Henry Ritch Callaway was buried there (among other ancestors). I never knew him, but on Sunday’s after church (not all of course) during my childhood, we went there to pay our respects (my beloved grandmother, his wife, was still living, and a huge part of my life). Often it seemed the visit was more to pull weeds or replace gravel…but it also became a time when my brother and I explored. We wandered the old cemetery and read the grave stones. Amazed by the dates on the stones, by the discovery of little ones who’d been laid to rest, the surnames of families we knew, the beautiful headstones and monuments, the mausoleums that provided endless fascination, the canons and rows upon rows of confederate dead…and the quiet serenity of this place, I came to love it here. Sometimes, admittedly, I dreaded the stifling heat in summertime, wearing my sticky patten leather shoes and itchy slip…sometimes I didn’t want to go at all. But this place always had a piece of my heart.

When I was a senior in high school, the unthinkable happened. One of my close friends from childhood was killed in an auto accident. Her families plot wasn’t in the newer cemetery in town, but in the one I knew so well. So there I stood, with my grandmother, in the rain, under an umbrella and watched as my sweet friend Ashley was lowered into the ground.

That summer, my friend Kathy and I hatched a plan to drive over to Auburn so I could show her the school I’d be attending in Fall, Auburn University. Trouble is, I doubted my mother would okay the plan, especially since I needed her car to get there, so I told a little fib. Okay. More of a whopper really. We said we were spending the day at the mall, and off we went. It wasn’t a crazy trip…it was literally a quick drive over, an even quicker tour, and the return trip home. But as we passed the old cemetery, we decided we needed to go in and visit our old friend. Trouble was, we couldn’t find the plot and as the sun began to set we were still searching. Finally we found her, and there we sat and reminisced. We talked to her, we laughed, we cried. And then we went to leave.

Just one problem. There was a sign we failed to read on the way in. And apparently the caretaker didn’t realize we’d come in at all. It read “Cemetery will close at sundown”. And close it had. Huge iron gates had been closed and locked, and the fences surrounding the place were topped with coils of barbed wire. And there we were…..in my mothers car. Her brand spankin’ new burgundy Buick Skylark.

There was only one thing to do….scale the fence like the criminals we were. Of course I was wearing my favorite red Pappagallo flats, which admittedly, I may, at that moment, have been more worried about than my mothers wrath…but I risked their supple leather surface and went for it. (It must have been quite a sight…two prissy little girls scrambling over the  barbed wire fence of a cemetery after dark). Somehow we did it, but now what? We were in a sketchy old part of town and it was dark. Cell phones hadn’t been invented (’cause remember, I’m old?!). There was a paint store across the street…I can still see the sign in my memory–a big rainbow. Ahhh. It was called Rainbow Paints! And there happened to be a single car parked in back of the lot. We walked over and knocked on a door.

After waiting a few minutes with no answer we turned to leave…and suddenly the door opened. And when I tell you that nothing could have prepared us for what was next, just trust me. The man that opened the door, was standing there before us…in nothing but a towel. Now I’m pretty sure that Kathy and I were plum crazy because instead of running, like we surely should have…we asked if we could come in and use his phone. Well thank God for miracles…the naked man was very kind and kept his distance while we called Kathy’s dad.

Yes, Kathy and I had quite the history of getting into trouble together and we had mastered the art of calling the most appropriate parent to the rescue when we got into scrapes that we couldn’t finagle our way out of. Kathy’s parents had already weathered three older children who rivaled Kathy in their, well, sometimes, less than angelic ways…so they were perhaps a little more worn down than my mom, and had become the usual go-to rescue crew. Of course in this case, my mom was also called…because hello. Her car was locked in Linwood Cemetary.

The rest is a bit of a blur. I recall quaking in the back of Mr. Driver’s Chevy Blazer as the police were summoned. The caretaker, it seemed, lived an hour outside of town and he couldn’t be reached. The police said they would surveil the property overnight but my mother was having none of it. None. Of. It. And she was TICKED. I’m not sure if she rode there with the Driver’s, or how she got there but I sure do remember her voice that night.

The end of the story is that somehow the car made it of of there with all of it’s wheels intact. I’m sure I was on restriction for some time after that (at this point, it was a way of life), and Kathy and I were forced to say “good one Ashley. You got us!” She DID see us scrambling over that fence and she’s probably still chuckling about it.

For years after that, when I traveled home from school, and later, other cities I’d landed in, I always made a visit. I wrote letters to Ashley and left them at her grave (anonymously, but at least her mother and father would know she was still loved and remembered). I pulled the occasional weed, and shuffled gravel at my Grandfathers grave.

And yes, my dear grandmother now rests there beside H.R. –her graveside service was a beautiful celebration of her life. Ashley’s mother was there too, and she saw in me, what her daughter might have been.

I basked in the quiet of the place. And I always made sure to leave well before sundown.

Note: Because everything I write is from my memory alone, it is a little dangerous for me to venture into anything remotely historical (let’s face it people, I wasn’t always paying attention in class) so to ensure the accuracy of my portrayal of Linwood, feel free to check out their link. You will surely see what I mean about the beauty here.

http://www.linwoodcemetery.org

I could play in either circle, and his circle was the preppy one. He was a good deal older than me…29, and ran with a crowd of couples…either attached, married or engaged. He was the life of the party. I seriously don’t think I ever felt so special as I did during that time (except of course when I met Matt Ha.) . Chivalry was so not dead. He fawned over me…in front of his friends…I was the sweet young thang…he still “had” it.  His friends seemed to think I was the coolest, the prettiest…and this was intoxicating. I was straight out of college so I surely didn’t know how to grill squash with parmesan cheese. Hell, I didn’t even know about bagels and cream cheese. He enlightened me. He had an interior decorator. His house was decked to the hilt. It reminded me of my parents house….so again, this man was leagues beyond the college boys I’d just left behind on Auburn’s campus. We went on amazing canoeing trips with 30 or so of his closest friends…we traveled to his parents home and to mine. And he was super sophisticated, he was a real “grown-up”. I thought I should conform. Don’t get me wrong. He wasn’t stuffy. He was seriously FUN. When I say, life of the party–it ain’t no joke. Trouble was, he was so much the life of the party, that I’d pretty much see him when he picked me up–and see him once more when he took me home. And that’s where the trouble began.

I started to notice that he was quite intoxicated when he took me home (not unusual, as I just stated I was right out of college). What was strange was the kiss goodnight. He’d squint his eyes so tightly shut  I thought he’d squish his eyeballs straight out of his head. I think he held his breath too. He clearly wasn’t into kissing me. And HELLLLLO? This is ME we’re talking about. Ha. TOTALLY Kidding. But I surely sensed a problem. He was also very unaffectionate in other ways. As in, no hand holding, in perfectly good hand-holding situations. This made me feel insecure to say the least, so I finally broached the subject. Never have I met with such defensiveness. I felt terrible. Poor thing. I’d hurt his feelings. (Nevermind mine.)

Around this time he turned 30. You’d have thought he’d been given the prognosis of certain death within days. He had a huge party in which he got completely obliterated. And then he fell off the face of the earth. Literally. Shades drawn. Dark depression. Shut. Me. Out.

So you can guess what happened next. I was well aware of the major distance between us, but hoped I could ride out whatever it was that was causing it. I offered to help him with his dog. (He’d gotten a rambunctious golden retriever who was destroying his perfect house because it was cooped up all day while HE was at work. I was wanting to increase my fitness regime (and be his knight-tress in shining armor) so I offered to come and get the dog each afternoon and take it for a walk. After about a week of this, HE came outside to “talk”. “This just isn’t going to work Kathryn”, he said. “It really isn’t you,” he said. “It’s totally me.” “I’m just going through some stuff.” I puffed up in all my bravery, hugged him good-bye, as if to say…I am totally here for you even though you have just now crushed my heart into zillions of tiny pieces. “Chin up I said. You’re a trooper!” and I went home to die.

Yep. I thought I would.  I was a smitten kitten like no other, and I was destroyed. I understood for the very first time what it meant to have a broken heart. It physically ached. And I literally never laid eyes on him again…

Years passed. I moved away, moved on. But always I wondered…why. What went wrong? I’d ask people about “HIM”. I still had connections in the Carolina’s–but no one ever knew a thing. Had he married? Was he okay? Did he get past his 30th birthday? Never an answer.

Well then…what? 20-something years later? This funny thing called Facebook came to be. And I had an “Ah-HA!”  moment. I have never typed a name so quickly in all my life. And there he was. I sucked  in my breath. There HE was. His beautiful smile. Part of a happy couple. An owner of a beautiful bed and breakfast in an idyllic place. And I let out a huge sigh of relief. It wasn’t me at all. It was he all along. And oh, I was so very happy for him. And his partner. So clearly in love. Such a sweet person, so deserving, of the happiness he’d found. With someone other than me. Someone I could never be. And I was totally okay with that.

Because of course, he was gay. And while it stinks a little that I was the last girl he probably ever dated…and maybe it was me that made him say “enough is enough..I need to be who I really am now”, I know that in life there is a perfect plan. I was part of his, and he of mine. We are part of each others fabrics…

and for this I am grateful. Here’s to you my friend, should you read this, you know who you are. . And I wish you the very best life has to offer

It’s that time again. The time when we bare our crepe-y winter skin again, and in my case, pray we don’t blind anyone in the process. As I’ve said before, I was a teen in the 80′s and in the 80′s, the tan RULED. The darker the better. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of  those olive-skinned girls who soaked up the sun and turned brown as a berry. I was fair, with auburn colored hair, blue-green eyes and freckles. But I was also quite determined and I gave it everything I had, on my mission to be the bronzed beauty I dreamed of being.

For me it started in junior high school…when I actually hung an arm out the window during class in hopes of tanning it. Where I was jealous of the girl who came back from Spring Break with horrible blisters on her face from the sun wishing it could be me instead. Any kind of sun was good sun. I even resorted to QT, the first of the self-tanners. A miracle in a bottle. You wiped it on and waited a few hours…to turn the most glorious shade of…orange. But color was color. Trouble was, I didn’t quite get the art of application and the girls at cheer leading tryouts were a little skeptical of my sudden tan. They didn’t hold back in saying so. And pointing out the streaks down the backs of my legs.

I had a willing tanning partner, in my BFF Kathy, along with her sisters Nancy and Susan. They had a trampoline in the back yard and we set up the sprinkler underneath it so we could stay cool while cooking our flesh on it’s asphalt colored top. We mixed concoctions of iodine and baby oil, because some urban myth said that this mixture would turn us from freckle-faced girls into savage natives. We even lay on a bed of aluminum foil to enhance the baking process. Each weekend was spent in the pursuit of a tan, but in more cases than not, produced a shade more lobster-like than golden brown. On Mondays I proudly revealed a swollen red face at school…in my mind, I looked fantastic. People who looked on in horror were just jealous.

It got so bad that I took to running home at lunchtime to sun, and then again the minute school was out. My mom begged and pleaded for me to stop, preaching the dangers of sun exposure…even framing a newspaper article on the subject and hanging it next to my bathroom mirror. It also became her punishment of choice. If I missed my curfew I’d be banished from the sun. This was a fate far worse than death. Once I opened the second story window and crawled out onto the roof (which had a steep pitch). Just then the phone started ringing and I knew that if it was for me, she’d be heading upstairs. In my scramble to get back inside I almost fell off the roof so I was scared straight. For that one sunny day anyway.
Banana Boat made an oil that we could only find in Florida so if someone was headed there we gave them our money so they could buy us the little bottle of liquid gold. It was like wiping on a sunburn…but I had to have it. It was my drug of choice and I had my dealer bring it to me.

It continued in college. A whole slew of us would lie on the roof of our dorm between classes. And then we discovered tanning beds. They weren’t the air conditioned, ventilated machines of today. Rather they were torture chambers…where your body poured out every ounce of hydration as you struggled to survive the brutal heat.

In the years after college it continued to a degree…but I also started to notice the crinkles around my eyes. Still I was addicted. If the sun was shining I felt the call. The perfect day off was spent at the pool…and the beach was serious business. While my friends were moving past the obsessive need for sun and actually played in the water or walked…I was still working towards that elusive brown that I never quite achieved. Sunscreen was still a very. bad. word.

Finally, after hearing enough news reports, and noticing that women who spent a lot of time in the sun weren’t looking all that great in their later years I started to re-think my tanning habits. It sunk in that tanning beds were an absolute no-no (I hadn’t used them since college except for a few visits in the Springtime to get a little color before I bared all in public) and I broke down and visited a dermatologist to face the ugly truth. And ugly it was.  Under the glare of the purple lights, meant to reveal all of the damage I had inflicted upon myself, I saw what my mother had warned me about. Horrible damage. Damage that would only get worse over time, and reveal itself to the world. Damage so severe that it threatened cancer. Yes, I have had multiple pre-cancers removed and have to wear sunscreen on my face all the time. I have had brutal peels and treatments to heal some of the damage and in the sun, I wear a hat, and gobs of sunscreen.

Admittedly, my extreme caution has been mostly limited to my face and chest…the sunscreen I use on the rest of me isn’t the spackle I use on my face. I do allow the sun to come through to get at least some color. I’ve also visited a tanning bed early in the season in recent years, under the pretense that I’m “protecting myself from a bad burn at the beach”. Of course I cover my face and chest so that makes it a little safer, right? But I’m noticing now that the sun doesn’t discriminate. Legs and arms, backs and shoulders, show the damaging effects of the sun too and in fact, most skin cancers are found on LEGS. So I’m trying, really trying to embrace the idea of the spray tan…or maybe the look of the skin that God gave me. I envy the pale girls who proudly bare their unblemished skin…wrinkle-free and soft as a babies bottom. I envy their confidence, their good judgment, their comfort in their own skin.

I will always love the feel of the sun on my face…the warmth of it on my body. Learning to be responsible about the sun has not been easy for me and it has taken me longer than most…but I think it has finally sunken in. Like the liquid gold used to. Now I rub expensive creams into my skin, in hopes of turning back the hands of time, of erasing the damage I worked so hard for. I am forced to face the harsh truth, that mom really does know best. And there is hope for us all. I have attended a rehab of sorts and am mostly cured.
I am tanorexic no more. And it’s going to be okay.

That’s what Henry called it for years. We hated to tell him the right way to say it because it was so dang cute.
We’re talking about that device that rules every household.
C’mon, don’t lie. You or someone in your family has fought over it, spent countless hours of frustration trying to locate it.
You’ve shaken it, rattled it, talked to it…the remote control that is. It’s a love/hate relationship for sure.

Our remote control sits on a coffee table about 4 feet from the tv. Yep, as in, four STEPS to actually walk to the tv to change the channel.
But I’ve seen more energy expended than you can imagine, of pillow shuffling, couch moving, arguing etc. just trying to get the thing to do what four easy steps could do.

So ours was in rough shape, and not working correctly. But rather than buy a new one (or heaven forbid, GET OFF THE COUCH)
my husband would literally take it apart, remove the batteries, perform surgery on the thing to get it to work once, maybe twice.  If you held it “just so”… and then do it all over again.
This operation could literally take up to 5 minutes; minutes during which the channel wasn’t getting changed, and what 6 seconds or so could accomplish if
someone would consider MOVING.

We finally got a new one this weekend…the war had been waging for more than a year I know, so it was time. It’s shiny and new. Easy to operate. And quite cooperative. For now.

Hallelujah people! We’re back in control now! (Or are we?)