Short People
Short People
There's a full moon tonight. I’m lying here in bed, awake, thinking about the past. The future seems so far away on this restless night.
I’m thinking my mother was too short. I think sometimes short people overstate their presence. I think my mother was way too short. And I don’t think I really knew her very well. I did know all the usual things about her, of course, but I never knew ‘her’. I don’t have a single memory of being kissed by my mother. Or even hugged. I’m sure I was, though, I just don't remember.
When I was a toddler, there was just the two of us. My father was off in Europe somewhere fighting the Germans during WWII... I can remember her arm pressed against my chest as her 30's Chrysler coupe came to a stop. The 'coupe' was a small two-door car with a single bench seat and was built to carry two adults. I usually stood on the seat so I could see out of the windshield when I rode with her. And I can remember my cousin Tony and me lying across the wide package tray behind the seat as she drove. Tony was my Mom’s sister Lucy’s son. Aunt Lucy would be sitting on the seat next to Mom as the four of us headed off to somewhere in Buffalo to shop or visit family.
A vivid memory with my mother from back in those days starts with the two of us riding in that old coupe in the dark. She is upset with me for some reason. She’s telling me she is taking me to Father Baker’s orphanage because she can’t deal with my bad behavior anymore. She is going to leave me there. She pulls up in front of a small two-story house in a nearby residential neighborhood and announces, “This is it, Father Baker’s!...start behaving or I will leave you here!” I say to her, “It’s not Father Baker’s, it’s a house!” She half smiles and drives a little further down the street and stops again! Then she declares that this is the real Father Baker’s. I say, “No, it is just another house!”
One of the few times I do remember misbehaving as a toddler was at a theater that was not far from where we lived at the time. Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” was playing. “Fantasia” premiered in New York City in 1940, but this was a small neighborhood theater in Buffalo, New York. We still had horses on the street then. This was during the war years, when it was showing. Surely, 1944. It was way too long a movie for a 2-year-old to sit through. I got very restless and began crying about halfway through the thing. My mom had to drag me out of there. I remember walking home with her in the darkness of that evening and looking into each lighted store window as we passed by. My mother was really upset with me. I remember wondering why I had been so upset in the theater. And as we walked, I began wishing I was back there watching the movie.
I was always with her or with her parents during those war years. When she shopped, I would stay very close to her. Back then, many of the department stores were arranged with a grid of large, waist-height display counters with goods heaped on top of them. Customers could see anywhere across the store when walking through the aisles. Sometimes, as we shopped, something in the store would distract me just as my mother would be turning down another aisle. She could still see where I was, but I would lose sight of her. I can still feel the panic of being lost. Then she would appear laughing and take my hand.
We would often visit my mother's aunts and uncles and all of her cousins. Nineteen or twenty cousins on her mother's side alone. Grandma Mary had two sisters and four brothers. All but Aunt Louise lived in Buffalo. During the holidays, we would visit every one of them to wish them well and share a cup of coffee and homemade cookies. Her father's relatives were mostly in New York City and Italy. Maybe ten or so cousins that I was aware of. Mario, her father’s nephew, and his family would often drive to Buffalo around the Holidays. Mario always brought the most delicious Italian pastries with him. And he brought his own homemade manicotti. Mario and his family owned a market and butcher shop in New York City back then. But he was really a great chef. I spent many years later in my life trying to duplicate the amazing flavor and texture of his manicotti.
Usually, when we visited my mom’s family, all of the women would sit around the kitchen table or dining room table drinking coffee, talking, and smoking cigarettes. I would often sit with them and listen to their constant chatter. Two or three of them talking at the same time. But sometimes just one of them would speak in a low, quiet voice about something I couldn’t fully understand. Or else I might be standing outside in the driveway waiting for her to come out when it was time for us to leave. Once I left the house, I would stand outside and wait for her, not sure if it was okay for me to go back in the house without an adult escorting me.
I used to dress really well when I was that young. My mother would always put short pants and an ironed shirt on me, along with a matching hat, jacket, and leather high-top shoes. She would often talk about how neat I always looked, even after I had been outside playing all afternoon. I never wore sneakers, not even in my adolescent years playing in the streets. I just wore my everyday leather shoes. My sneakers were only for gym class. That wasn’t a rule mom made; it was just the way it happened. New clothes at Christmas and Easter, new shoes and sneakers to start the school year. During my early church-going years, I would polish those shoes each Saturday night so they would look good Sunday morning for church.
I usually walked to church each Sunday alone or maybe with a few friends. My mother and father never went to church. Why would you go to church after having seen the horrors of a world war? After living through the horror of a world war? When I got older, though, my view of religion changed. From second or third grade to when I was a teenager, I went to church religiously. But by my later teens, the pretense and semblance became too obvious to me to support. I quit Religious Instruction classes (Bible School, only I don’t think the bible was used as text) when I got into high school.
My mother defeated me a lot, in a vague sort of way. I remember that. Her way of praising was to express her disappointment in me when I displeased her. Then lament about my accomplishments in the past tense. Mom never showed much praise when I embraced something new and mastered it. I learned early on to keep all of my personal successes and failures to myself. I never talked to either of my parents about any of my interests or plans. They seemed to be content with that.
These days, I don’t think of her very often. She died many years ago. She lived for 93 years. And in her later years, she would lament on how alone she felt having outlived many of her family and friends.
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