Return of the Grumpy Radio Host & Thoughts on the Southwest

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

[6:30am] That wonderfully cloudy morning, the classical radio announcer was gloomy and proper as usual:

“And we have weather for today… It is updating as we speak. One moment. I have never had this happen to me in all the time that I have worked here… how exciting. Ah, we have rain for today, highs in the… Wednesday a chance for showers… and a big change for Thursday – thunderstorms… But we desperately need the rain. We are under by two inches, I think, for the year. So we do desperately need it… Let’s see it for what it is – beneficial. Even if you can’t see it that way, do what I do. Pretend.”

Meanwhile, Joe had IM’d Collette the night before to explain to her that he had submitted his resignation at work. With his swamped schedule, continuing at the time, was not a great idea. And so he would work until a new shoe-shine was found. Apparently the staff had gasped upon hearing of his leaving.

During history, Joe continued his elaborate illustration on a Granny Smith from the fruit bowl on the kitchen table, entitled – “I’m a Bad Apple.” And Rose went around the house telling everyone that it was Snuggles’ birthday, a date which she had completely made up, as he was a stray. Meanwhile, Frances amused himself by snooping around in the refrigerator. Upon coming across a jug of Gatorade marked with Nazi symbols and “DO NOT TOUCH OR ELSE” from Carrie, he giggled hysterically and decided to lick the lid, giving the jug cooties. And as Rose read in the history book of the great American elephants of times long past before they died off, Carrie added, with her mouth full of bagel:

“I killed them.”

“Yes, when you were an Indian running around in Canada,” Collette chuckled.

“In my great hunting campaign of ’05…”

It crossed Collette’s mind at that time that St. Lucia was related, quite distantly, to Pocahontas, through Aunt Petunia. Or was it Sacajawea? It was one or the other. Lucia – who was the epitome of the Aryan race – blonde hair, blue eyes. And so Collette shared none of the red-man blood, seeing as she was not related by blood to Aunt Petunia, which was rather disappointing. But it was fascinating, none the less.

Earlier, Carrie had shared with the rest of the family the photo of her professor, which she had circulated to the rest of the class – a photo-shopped beauty complete with devil horns, spiked tail, and crooked trident.

“Carrie,” Mom laughed, “you are the only one who could get into trouble on an online class.”

And even Dad had smile lines.

Memories from vacations – Arizona… Collette had been nine, almost ten. Mom was expecting Frances at the time, and was likely already five to six months along. This time, Great Grandma Combs had accompanied them on the ride, which took two days. And the Bailey Mobile had somehow survived the trip. Through Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle and through to New Mexico. It was their first stop, for Great Grandma would not come all the way to Arizona, but would stay in the hills of New Mexico with her son, Great Uncle Harry and his wife, Great Aunt Patsy, for the week. But Collette had no memory of dropping Grandma off, only upon return to pick her up.

And so it was to Arizona, where Mom and Dad had spent a year after living in Iowa while Dad was in officer’s training school. On the way, they visited the great crater and gazed in awe from above. To Collette, especially being so young, it seemed more enormous than she could comprehend. But she was young, and such things seemed bigger than they actually were.

They also passed the Petrified Forest. They all thought it would be wonderful to visit, but Dad believed it would be better to move on. Collette was at first, disappointed. After all, she pictured in her mind a great forest of mammoth trees, black as ebony reaching high to the sky. And lying on the ground would be slices of branches, colored flat discs, like agates. Why they would be sliced and lying on the ground in piles in various colors, she did not consider. But it was what she imagined, anyway. However, they were never more thankful that they did leave when they did. As they pulled into Flagstaff, the wind had begun to blow and the snow had started to whistle. They stopped by the grocery store as the roads began to ice on a Saturday evening and the driving conditions became nearly full white. Yes, a full-blown blizzard had hit Flagstaff, Arizona, and they had arrived only in the nick of time. Oddly, Collette thought she heard later that they were experiencing an Indian summer that year, but it was more likely she was remembering Colorado. And as they settled in snugly for the evening, the kids enjoyed the snow. What could be more exciting than being snowed in, especially knowing full-well they had avoided spending the night in the Petrified Forest, as all roads had been closed behind them. The whole idea was quite an adventure at the time.

And for the entire week, they spent a wonderful time in the split-level timeshare with the chandelier of antlers over the dining room table, the novelty of a gas fireplace, pancakes for dinner once, the glass doors overlooking the mountains, with several flags waving from the top of one peak, the snowy walks…

One day they all trooped over to Great Uncle Dan Jansen and Great Aunt Mildred’s. All the stories they had heard of the place – and now they could finally see. There was no snow where they lived, in a hot valley, from Collette’s recollection. So many cacti and hot sunshine. Uncle Dan and Aunt Mildred were charming, Uncle Dan always intentionally getting on Aunt Mildred’s nerves, and she would scold him, but he seemed to like it. There was dinner and chatting, and grapefruit trees in the backyard through the screened-in porch. And Rose, of course, tried to pick up a potted cactus with her bare hands, after being told not to touch any cacti. And Dad spent about twenty minutes picking all of the little fuzzy spikes out of her fingers with a tweezers while she blubbered, tears trembling on her little fat cheeks. She was only five years old. After having their picture taken next to a giant cactus, they headed back. It was the last time they would see Uncle Dan. He passed away not very long after their visit.

On the way back to the timeshare, there was a stop by a ghost town up in the mountains overlooking a grand hazy valley. Collette could not understand at the time why it was called a ghost town, as there were several shops open. But they had a good time climbing around an old wagon while waiting for Mom to come out of one of the shops.

Soon they found themselves back New Mexico. Upon arriving in the city on the outskirts of the peaks, Collette decided it was her favorite place, of all places she had ever seen. Perhaps it was because of the great storm building in the mountains, making the peaks remind her of multiple Mt. Sinai’s. Or perhaps it was the hills. Uncle Harry and Aunt Patsy’s backyard backed right up into a great hill. Collette climbed it. She followed the path with the others through scrubby bushes, pine, and the wind. She heard tales of finding Indian artifacts hidden there in the hollows and it sent shivers through her to be climbing such a spectacular hill. She didn’t want to leave it.

But down she soon went for dinner to spend time with her second cousins who were visiting from Texas and Colorado. There were jolly times around the table and afterward the adults watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was quite scary. And that was their trip to the Southwest.

Meanwhile, later that Tuesday afternoon, Collette heard Carrie randomly tell Elizabeth over the phone:

“I want to go bungee-jumping or something.”

Collette wished she could pack her off to go climb Mt. Everest. The girl needed some smashing excitement for a spell, or so Carrie thought.

“We ate the mice,

We ate the rats,

And through the hold we ran like cats.”

– rhyme of starving “scurvenous” sailors in the 1600’s