Dilemma of the Week: The Alcoholic Gardener

A spate of lovely, warm fall days this year made it very easy for me to put off raking the leaves and cleaning out the flowerbeds. Add my three kids and two jobs to my yard work schedule and you can see how I might just let it all remain and hope for an early snowfall to cover my unkempt landscape. On a recent family stroll to the Walgreen's, inspired by the unseasonable temperature and sunshine, I ran into a local man, Arlen (*not his real name), who is known to do garden work. I asked what his fee would be for a few hours of help, it was reasonable, and he gave me his phone number.

This would be an unbelievable splurge for me, to hire help, any help, when I could try to park my baby in a swing, cook dinner, grocery shop, run loads of laundry, finish the third grader's presentation project with her, and do the yard simultaneously. The hospitals, doctors and dentists on the list of places and people that I owe money to would not be happy to hear that I took $60 earmarked for their payments and spent it on something as luxurious as a person with a rake!

I called Arlen and he promised to come by and have a look, which he did, when I wasn't home. My husband was home, and my next-door neighbor, and they both told me that Arlen "looked a little strange". He was filthy, but that was probably from working all day. I called him to confirm our plans and was surprised to hear his slurred speech. "Oh no," I thought, "What have I done? This could be very bad....."

Seven years ago, when I had only one infant daughter and one job, I was busy working on my graduate degree. It was a long road from no music degree to advanced degree in music and I spent one entire year taking courses on art songs. The same night and time, three semesters in a row, I studied Italian, English, French, German, Russian, American and everyone else in song classes where I had to both perform and give lectures. My baby was often in class, and sometimes left with a friend, every Tuesday for a year. Tuesday was a night that my husband was out teaching classes, and that meant that no one was at home cooking the evening meal.

Arlen was a waiter at the local Greek-American-owned coffee shop. It became my weekly habit to stop there for one of the Tuesday night specials, German pot roast, broiled salmon, lasagna or Salisbury steak. Arlen was always there, and he was the best waiter, always smiling beneath his trim, sandy blonde mustache. With a flair for presentation, he turned every meal into a special event. He often told you what NOT to order that day, and he would let you know which other local diners had superior hollandaise sauce. “The sauce here is not worth the calories, dear”, he said. Since I arrived so late in the evening, the restaurant would frequently run out of portions of the specials. Arlen would take my phone calls made en route to home and have the cooks hold a serving for me, brought to my table with iced-tea as soon as I arrived.

He would chat with me, sitting in the booth, telling me about how he also worked as a gardener. He maintained the eatery’s colorful display of annuals, petunias, marigolds, verbena, geraniums, mums plus a few roses and he had branched out into doing yard work for some of the seniors who frequented the establishment. As his shift ended, he packed my leftovers into doggie-bags that included extra soup, rolls, muffins and cups of ice cream so that I could have dessert with my husband and another entire meal the next day. When I protested that he was giving me too much, over what I had paid for, he would say “Take it, take it, the boss knows it’s for you and it’s the end of the day.”

It is hard to believe now, in this current economic climate that has caused many a budget to take a beating, that I ever had the money to dine out weekly. During the year of the art song, with a baby in my arms, on my lap, in and out of the car at the university or at the friend’s house, dinner at the diner was a necessity. When the courses were completed and I moved on to the next step in the program, I was no longer a Tuesday night regular, but my husband and I would still see Arlen when we stopped in for the occasional omelet.

At some point, Arlen was no longer a waiter. I saw him around town, planting or tending to flower gardens. Our paths were crossing again now and he arrived the next morning with a beaming smile. I showed him the tools, lawnmower and yard waste bags. He went right to work attacking some very overgrown hedges with a trimmer. Things were starting to look a lot better. “I do good work!” was his mantra. He knew what he was doing, telling me all about the different plants and how to best winterize them. He lectured me on the benefits of adding sulfur to change the Ph of the soil around the evergreens. “They will be a lot more green, you need some sulfur, it’s cheap, I’ll bring ya some.” He showed me how we should bury some of the flowers with a little dirt and just cut the dead parts off of the others to get more blooms next year, “Do not let the old peony leaves stay, they get mildew and they won’t bloom.” This wasn’t so bad.

Except for the very large can of spiked "energy" beverage that Arlen was drinking from, placed discreetly behind a flowerpot. A few hours later, he was starting to list from side to side, but still working away as older pop songs played from his portable radio. I had to go to my office, leaving my husband with some cash and orders not to pay Arlen in advance. He was gone for the day, pedaled away on his bicycle, before the kids came home from school.

The next day, Saturday, he arrived, closer to being sober than when he departed, but clearly on his way towards becoming sloshed, asking me if I could pay him cash before I had to leave for an event. “See, how great this is, I do good work!” “Yes,” I told him, “you are doing a fine job, and being so helpful. I don’t have cash right now, I have to go to the bank and get some.” That was OK with him, and he went on to tell me how grateful he was to be working for a few hours, that he loves being a gardener, “NOT a LANDSCAPER, no way, my sister is a landscape designer, she won lots of awards, before her son died three years ago. Now, she does nothin’. But I love to garden!” And off he went; rake in hand, to clear the debris from beneath an evergreen tree “You need SULFUR under here!”

Arlen got rained out that day, but he called to say that he would come over the next morning and finish the job. Sunday morning came and so did Arlen, cigarette dangling from his lips, pruners in hand. Grateful that my neighbors and their kids were gone for the weekend, keeping my alcoholic gardener out of their view, I was dashing to church. Once again, Arlen made the offer of taking his payment now rather than later, but I told him I would return with the money. “Oh, I know, you know how I am and I shouldn’t bother you, I do good work, thanks so much for the job.” “I’m worried about you, Arlen,” I said, “but I have to leave right now.” “I know, I’m sick, it’s bad, but I do good work, just look!”

When I returned after church to check on Arlen, with my hungry kids in the car, I brought him his payment. He had done a fantastic job of clearing several-years worth of day lily foliage, mulched up all the leaves in the backyard, and completely cleared piles of leaves and weeds that grew in the cracks of the cement by the garage. Things had not looked this good since I had personally dug up the old flower beds, and removed overgrown shrubbery, weeds and grass, on my hands and knees with a sod cutter and a shovel three years ago. Shasta daisies, bee balm, asters, purple cone flowers, lavender, yarrow, coreopsis, sweet William, peonies, hydrangeas and black-eyed Susan’s, my “new” flowers had been properly put away for the winter for the first time ever. This was not so bad.

Except that there was an empty bottle of vodka at my feet. Arlen was much worse off at noon than he had been at 9:00am.

Seeing me, he came over to the fence, “Look, look, it’sshh beautiful, s’ beautiful, you have a beautiful family and a beautiful house. Oh, pleaseshh, let me be your gardener, ha ha ha.” “Thanks, Arlen, I think you’re done and besides, I’m broke.” I pause, thinking of what to say next, “You can’t keep living like this, you know?” Tears now, in Arlen’s eyes, as he looks up and says “You go to church, right? Why did God do this to me? I do good work. Why did God do this to me?” “Well,” I’m thinking, what what WHAT should I do or say to this man who is clearly suffering so much right here in my backyard, “maybe God made you a great gardener, just look at all the work you did here and think about all the stuff you know about plants.” “Oh, I know, it’ssh me, my fault, things have been so hard since 2006, so hard.”

He cries, the strange sobs of a habitually drunk man, he doesn’t want to be this way. He says he’s going to rehab at Alexian Brothers on Wednesday, that “They have the best program”. Which means he’s tried it before. He says the “shakes for the first couple of days are the worst part, after that, it’s not so bad.” He puts his arm around my shoulder and cries. I say, “You have to go to rehab, Arlen, you have to.”

Arlen put the cash in his pocket and went back to filling bags with mulched leaves while I took the kids out to the Omelet house that he recommended. It was great, and less expensive than the diner where he used to work. He was gone when I returned, he had finished everything that he had been hired to do. The yard was immaculate, save for the plastic Skol bottle that I tossed into the recycle bin. Unable to help him, I prayed that Arlen gets where he needs to go. Wednesday seemed like a long way away.

(*Note, Arlen is the surname of Harold Arlen, the composer of the song "If I Only Had a Brain" which is sung by the Scarecrow in "THe Wizard of Oz". The Arlen in my story reminded me of the way that the Scarecrow walked.)

I Sing for Dead People - a Tale of Three Funerals -Chapter Two

Funeral Two – The Mother

The same Tuesday afternoon, I am in the school supplies aisle with my daughters comparing the merits of “Hello Kitty” backpacks to polka-dotted ones when my phone receives a call from Jimmy, the Irish guitarist. I sign on to sing at a service being held in a funeral home chapel for an elderly woman who was born in Ireland. The event on Friday will be like a Catholic Mass, but without the liturgy of the Eucharist. Jimmy gives me a list of songs, all are standard hymns or Celtic folk tunes re-written with religious lyrics. This should be straightforward, uncomplicated, a piece of cake.

As I dash out the back door on Friday, wearing the same black dress and necklace of pink and blue glass beads as I did on Tuesday, I hope that my husband will be able to manage all three of our children all day long. It would be great if I could go from the funeral home to my office at the not-for-profit performing arts company without having to turn around and go back home to pick up the 7-month-old baby boy who is my near-constant companion. An Irish proverb says, “Is é do mhac do mhac go bpósann sé ach is í d'iníon go bhfaighidh tú bás” (Your son is your son until he marries, but your daughter is your daughter until you die). I’ll have to wait a few decades and see about that.

I get the last space in the parking lot, making me nervous, because I might get blocked in and have to wait for the procession driving to the cemetery to exit before I can. It’s fifteen minutes before the service, no time to move the car. I grab a hymnal and some sheet music from my binder. The purple, zippered notebook contains my Greatest Hits of Funerals and a bizarre collection of programs from past ceremonies. I do not know why I keep the visages of these strangers who have passed on, constituting a Funeral Service Hall of Fame that is only visited by me. While I cannot remember the details of most of these solemnities, some of the more tragic deaths are easily recalled. The young man on spring break who had a scuba accident, the high school girl who argued with her dad, entered the garage and ended her life, the asthmatic teenager who suffered an attack in a horse barn, the burglary victim who was tied to a chair and beaten to death, the man who had a heart attack and died at his own brother’s funeral. I am relieved to know that this event is being held for an eighty-eight year old Irish Mother, her name was Ann.

I walk through a softly lit, wood-paneled hallway to the chapel at the rear of the business. The deep, rectangular room features several china cabinets housing Belleek porcelain and Waterford crystal, from when Waterford was still manufactured in Ireland. Tiny spotlights built into the cabinets highlight the details of this fine collection of objets d’art, and I can ignore the open casket at the other end of the room for a few moments as I contemplate ceramic Celtic harps and a large container that features the crests of Ireland’s counties. “Oh my”, I say to myself, “it IS a long way to Tipperary.”

Sigh, time for my entrance. The instrumentalists include the guitarist, Jimmy, Kathleen, a gorgeous woman and wonderful violinist, and John, a world-class musician on concertina and Irish wooden flute. They are seated on padded folding chairs just to the left of the bier supporting the Mother’s pall. Far more than a simple box, the wood in which the Mother’s remains will spend eternity looks like cherry, it glows with a deep, buffed luster, features carvings of Celtic designs, and has an interior encased in a stuffed, linen-colored cloth. The esteemed Mother lies in repose, holding a rosary. The interior lid of her final resting place has been embroidered, in Kelly Green on taupe, with the words of the Old Irish Blessing “And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.” Beneath the wording, a portrait of the Mother, her husband and her daughter together, is perched. The photo looks rather recent, the parents are aged but have wonderful smiles, and the daughter is in her 60’s. The father is not present on this day; perhaps he has preceded his wife in death.

Jimmy and his guitar amp are directly in front of the floral pedestal, overflowing with lilies, mums, and roses, which abuts the casket. Somebody locates a chair for me and, as I am being introduced to the daughter of the deceased, places it in front of the corner of the coffin. I am allotted the awkward position of sitting practically in front of the Mother. My left arm can rest on the rail of the kneeler positioned so that the mourners can whisper a final prayer to their beloved. The Mother’s freshly coiffed head is lying just beyond my left shoulder.

Dead bodies do not freak me out. Although, I must point out that I have never seen one outside, in the wild, and have only viewed the ex-living in an embalmed state. When Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington, passed away in 1987, my college beau confessed that he had never seen a dead person before. I could not believe it, “No great-great aunts? No great-grandparents?” “Nope, none,” said the beau. I replied, “he’s lying in state at City Hall all night long, we should pay our respects, let’s get on the ‘L’ and go downtown.” Off we went into the frigid November night to join a snaking line of Chicagoans who felt compelled to see the Mayor one more time. Throughout the long night, we shared hot chocolate offered to us by strangers who had thought to bring a thermos, and listened to Chicago stories. I saw Mayor Washington several times in life, I have a photo of me standing next to him while I am wearing a clown outfit (don’t ask), and this was a worthy task. Once inside City Hall, two lines, one on either side of the Mayor, shuffled slowly past him. I remember thinking, “He looks green”, and the beau got his first glimpse of a cadaver.

The Mother is not emerald in color, she is the odd shade of “deceased white people makeup”, complete with rouge, to make her look more life-like. Mourners are filing in, coming up front to see the daughter and kneel in momentary thought. The musicians begin playing prelude tunes and one of my favorite melodies, “In Carrickfergus” floats through the air. I hear the lyrics in my mind, “I wish I was in Carrickfergus, only for nights in Ballygrand. I would swim over the deepest ocean, the deepest ocean for my love to find.” By the second verse, I am making up my own words, as I continue to sit inches away from one teary-eyed friend of the family after another, “I wish I wasn’t sitting by this coffin, I’ll need more tissues, when can I go home?”

The priest is late, he is at another funeral at his church. The daughter comes over to ask our forgiveness and Jimmy reassures her that the musicians will continue to play. Another lovely air is called for, “Shebeg and Shemore”, and the carefully held together daughter lets go with a cascade of weeping. She rests her hands on the edge of the box and leans down over the Mother’s face, and says, “These tears are for you Mom, all these tears are for you, Mom, just for you.” Over and over again she repeats these lines, sobbing and gulping for air. The wave of her grief cannot be held back, there is nothing separating us, her anguish crashes into me, I feel her pain permeate my skin.

And now, I am crying, not for the Mother, but for the daughter who appears to be lost and alone in the world. Jimmy is playing the guitar and looking my way, concerned perhaps, that I won’t be able to sing when the time comes. I wipe my eyes and whisper haltingly, “I have to go get a drink of water.” “Sounds like a good idea,” he says, and I am off, in search of air that is not saturated with sorrow.

In the ladies lounge, I splash water on my cheeks. The priest has arrived and I must go back into the chapel. This young clergyman has been the pastor of the Mother’s home parish for six weeks. He is, as we say in Chicago, fresh off the LOT Polish Airlines plane. I sing the opening hymn, “On Eagle’s Wings”. It is a song that many Catholics love. Many singers I know would profess a different emotion about the tune. It’s not for me, anyway, it’s for the family that wants to hear it.

The young Polish Father speaks English very well, but he doesn’t quite get the rhythm of Midwestern English yet. Polish is a language without articles, causing the reverend to put too much emphasis on the word “the”, plus, he cannot make his tongue say the “th” in “the” and it comes out sounding like “duh”, “She had DUH faith. She had DUH baptism.” He also has a hard time with the nasal vowel “A”, as in “Ann”, the name of the honored Mother. He uses the short vowel, the way it is pronounced in Polish, “AHHnn believed AHHs we do, in GEE-sahs.” He is trying very hard to do right by the Mother, and the room is filled with the faithful flock of his new parish that has turned out to witness the homily. He points out that the Mother wore white to her baptism and is now covered in white. Looking over at the casket’s beige lining, he realizes that this is not true, and he is flustered for an instant. He rallies and goes on to assure the assembly that the Mother is now at home and enjoying a glorious life in Heaven.

The biggest musical moment of the morning comes as part of the final commendation, when we ask that choirs of angels lead the Mother into paradise. Of course, we will make this plea to the tune of “Danny Boy” (also known as “Londonderry Air”). The Irish trio lays down an introduction that is so haunting; the bereaved have tears in their eyes from the very first note. As I start to sing, the daughter opens her mouth and the sound of her lamentations is now accompanying the song. I can see her sitting right in front of me, I can’t look at her, and I gaze over the heads of the throng and settle upon a painting of a Grecian Urn. Which reminds me of “The Music Man”.

The good Catholics in the room are familiar with the church words for “Danny Boy” and some of them chime in, “May choirs of angels lead you into paradise, and may the martyrs come to welcome you.” As I head for the high note, the climax of the melody, the daughter wails even louder. I pray that the others singing will give up, and I attempt to give her the best F-sharp that I have ever sung.

The high note was good; a fresh box of tissues is passed around and after a quick closing song. It’s over and time for the mourners to take the Mother to her final resting place. Before they depart, the file past the body, leaving the musicians trapped at the end of an odd receiving line. Several friends of the Mother shake my hand and express gratitude for the music. The single African-American woman in the room takes my hands in hers and says “Phenomenal singing, you are so talented, thank you so much.” Her critique is the most meaningful to me. In my few experiences singing for African-American audiences, I have learned that, if they like your singing, they’ll let you know and, if they don’t like your singing, they’ll let you know. It’s difficult to voice a reply in these situations, “It was my pleasure” doesn’t cut it. I mumble something like, “Thank you, I tried.”

As the vocalist, it is easy to leave because I do not have to pack up an instrument or carry an amplifier. I head for the lobby, longing to move past this activity and go forward with my day. I am stopped by a petite, eighty-something woman with short gray hair and thick eyeglasses. She puts her arm in mine and tells me that the Mother was her good friend. She thought the music was fitting and well performed. As I am thanking her, she peers up at me through her lenses with her watery blue eyes and says, “My son died three years ago. He was fifty-seven. I know I’m supposed to but, I’ll never get over it.” “I’m sorry.” I say, “He must have been a wonderful man.” I walk towards the door with her and do the quick mental math calculation that informs me that I must live to be one hundred years old in order to see my own son turn fifty-seven.

Jimmy catches up to me on the front sidewalk. Summer heat and humidity returned with blazing sunlight. I tell him, “This one wins the Proximity Award for uncomfortable closeness.” He tells me a joke about musicians, because he always tells me jokes, and I laugh, because his jokes are always funny. “Hey, Susan, what’s the difference between a banjo and an onion?” (Pause) “No one cries when you cut up a banjo.”

I’m done with crying for today. Back in the car, I let the blast of AC from the dashboard dry my cheeks, wet from sadness, weather, and giggling. Calling home, I can hear that my son is not about to spend a day apart from me. In my living room, my husband hands the eager, squirming infant to me. I hold him close so that I can soak up his rays of joy, pat the fuzz he has for hair, and drink in the scent of his clean baby-ness. “Mmm, honey”, from the Burt’s Bees Buttermilk lotion that I put on his skin this morning.

I will probably not live to be one hundred years old. On this summer morning, I am grateful that my cherub and I are neither the adult child who has lost her mother nor the mother who has lost her adult child. Today is simple and special, for he is the baby and I am the Mother.

I Sing for Dead People - a Tale of Three Funerals -Chapter One

Funeral One – The Big Guy Politician

I sing for dead people. I’ve been singing in churches since I was a teenager, which means I lost track of the body count years ago. Funerals, most for elderly strangers, are not as bad a gig as you might think. Wedding ceremonies involve a lot more pressure from exhausted brides, mothers of brides and wedding planners than funerals do, as the guest of honor never complains. Dealing with people who are recovering from the immediate shock of a loved one’s passing and who now must deal with the pressing problem of memorializing and laying someone to rest is strangely easier. Grieving kin seem to need the music and the sound of a human voice whereas happy couples appear to use the music more as an accessory, like flowers and cake decorations.

St. Stanislaus Kostka church in Chicago, founded in 1867 and built from 1871-1881 is the mother of all Polish Chicago churches. Built in Polish Cathedral style, and at one time, the largest parish in the United States, this one house of worship spawned a host of churches, equal in scale, within blocks of each other. Holy Trinity, St. John Cantius, and St. Mary of the Angels are magnificent sanctuaries of marble and stained glass erected by poor immigrants who fled the starvation and occupation of their homeland. All of them are visible from the Kennedy Expressway that runs across the city. The development of the highway was begun in the 1950’s. It was supposed to go right through St. Stanislaus Kostka. Former Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, the politician who both supported the construction of the road and caused it to curve around the building of his baptism is being buried today, a Tuesday in August.

I brush past the Mayor and his brother milling about in the crowd on the steps outside of the church doors and climb two flights up the aged, wooden staircase to the upper loft that contains the organ. Although it has been a brutally hot summer this year, it is a cool day in the mid 70’s. Which is great, because there’s no such thing as air-conditioning in this Old Lord’s House. A chorus of twelve voices borrowed from a nearby parish greets me. Catherine, a beautiful Irish singer, famous around town, tosses a cheery wave my way when she arrives a few minutes later. She was placed in charge of organizing musicians and vocalists for the Mass. I am here to sing one song in Polish, “Serdeczna Matko” (Beloved Mother) or, as my own mom likes to call it, “The Dead Mother song”. It works at funerals for either gender.

As a string quartet launches into the graceful melody of “Sheep Shall Safely Graze”, the choir is chatting and peering over the balcony rail to view the assembly below. It’s pretty crowded, way down there in the nave, perhaps a thousand people. I know that one of the senators from Illinois is in attendance plus, current and former politicians from other states. Our ex-Congressman was a Big Guy, both in stature and power. Tainted by minor charges and a brief prison sentence, columnist Mike Royko wrote “Nobody should be taking pleasure from Rostenkowski’s misfortune. Not unless you have never, ever broken even a minor law and gotten away with it, fudged a bit on your taxes or violated any of the Ten Commandments.” President Clinton pardoned him and the tributes to him are heartfelt and stirring. He was a son, a brother, a daddy. If you have ever taken a CTA train to O’Hare Airport or driven on post-S-curve Lake Shore Drive, you have benefitted from the Big Guy’s works.

The choristers sing well, far-removed as they are from the proceedings of the Mass. It’s dark up here by the ceiling, above the daylight coming through the stained glass windows. We must be at least a half a football field away from the casket draped in white in front of the sixteen (count ‘em) priests who are officiating at the altar. There are microphones in front of the choral singers, but I have to move up to the edge of the balcony for my song so that the organist and I can see each other. As soon as I let the first un-amplified note leave my lips, I think, “Uh-Oh, This is a mistake”. I’m not loud enough, two stories up, over this full congregation. Luckily, the organist is also surprised by the choices he made and he changes the stops that he is using. Suddenly, my voice is there, pouring over the rail, as I take everything I have ever learned about vocal technique and attempt to sound effortless, po Polsku, “Dear Mother, protect us, open your heart and plead our case to your Son, the Truly Big Guy”.

When it’s finished, I rejoin the choir to sing the closing song, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. The group is blasting away, so loudly I can’t hear myself and the organist is letting the folks below know what a pipe organ is all about. Pleasant “goodbyes” and “beautiful singing” compliments follow me back out onto the sidewalk. I have not taken an emotional hit this morning. Mostly, I feel a lingering sadness that a way of life for the Big Guy and his friends, his city, his neighborhood, is over. While I’m not a fan of corruption, I think it must have been exciting to say “Let’s move Lake Shore Drive!”, or “We need a train to the airport!” and then to truly make those useful things happen.

My car is parked one block away in the Holy Trinity lot (I’m not kidding, these churches are so close to one another). This morning’s earnings are going towards new backpacks and school gym shoes. Two little girls at home are about to jump all over me, asking for kisses, lunch, and their trip to the store.

(Coming Soon: Chapter Two - The Irish Mother)

All I Keep Saying, to Myself, is, “Give Cheerleading a Chance"

My husband and I have a new woman in our lives. We call her “The Cheerleading Lady”. The V.P. of Cheer at the local football and cheerleading league for grade school and middle school-aged children. She is part of the fabric of our existence now because our eight-year-old daughter suddenly decided that she wanted to be a cheerleader. This may be due to the influence of the babysitters that we have employed who were all members of the pom-pom squad at the local high school as well as that of the other friends her age who have cheered in past seasons. Whatever the reason, we have often told her that we would support her efforts to be a part of a team or a musical ensemble, as long as she really wants to do it and does her best. We honestly thought she would try soccer, ice-skating, softball or choir. Cheerleading it is.

If you know me, you probably know that I would personally rather sing the National Anthem at a sporting event and then head for home before I would want to stand on the sidelines and shout “Wash ‘em in the river, hang ‘em on a line, our team can beat your team any old time”. But when my little girl came up to me one day in June and said “Please, can I be a cheerleader, Mommy, puh-LEASE”, I snapped into research mode and told her I would check it out.

It is worth noting that, of all the parents I have met during my sojourn into suburbia, none of them has ever offered up a glowing recommendation of youth team activities. Frequently, I hear “Don’t do soccer, it has TWO seasons!”, “Hockey has way TOO much equipment.”, or “Do NOT let your kid try out for a traveling team!”. The cheerleading families warned me about “LOTS of practice and conditioning because cheerleading is a SPORT.” It appears that even young cheerleaders have a chip on their shoulders about the way that they are portrayed as mean girls in books and movies. Ergo, they jog up and down the sledding hill in the park even though it is 85 degrees Fahrenheit outside. My sweetie-pie is eager to join them and to obtain their color-coordinated hair bows.

Research mode suffered an immediate setback due to a thunderstorm that knocked out the power on my side of the street. For hours, long enough to send me across the avenue with pajama-ed kids and sleeping bags, I could not get online to view the cheerleading information. The next day, back in my own air-conditioned domicile, I visit the cheer website only to find that the day before was the last day one could register on line and without paying a late fee. I find a phone number, I plead my case, “Please let my daughter be on the squad without the late fee.” All the while, my munchkin is bouncing around and asking “Am I in? Did you do it? Can I be a cheerleader??? Puh-LEASE, Mommy!” I am transferred via email to the treasurer, I arrange a payment plan, I fill out forms, codes of conduct, I make an appointment for a sports physical, and I am ready to bring my daughter to the last uniform fitting before the season begins.

Tragically, the uniform fitting is cancelled due to a death of the sister of someone high up in the cheer chain of command. I assure my girl that she will get a uniform and she should stop worrying. As I am not about to badger people who are grieving, I wait to hear about a new fitting date. It is announced a few weeks later but falls during the week of our family vacation. I send a message to my daughter’s coach, asking for permission to come some other time. The coach passes on my request and thus, I am about to have my first run-in with The Cheerleading Lady.

It is a beautiful, hot sunny day, and I am with my family in a cabin in the woods, by a stunning sand dune beach on Lake Michigan. A pause to check my cell phone reveals a voice mail message. A nasal, pointed voice is saying, “HELLO, Mrs. Baumann, this is The CHEERLEADING Lady, and, I am DENYING your request to have YOUR daughter fitted at a different time and if YOU don’t FIGURE out a WAY to get her THERE, you child will NOT be allowed to PARTICIPATE in the PROGRAM. Sorry, it is just our POLICY”. The force with which she leaves this message is amazing, as if our inability to attend personally offends her. I do not even know how to return such a call.

At the same time, my husband tells me that “some woman” has left a message about the cheerleading uniform on our home answering machine. He, too, is surprised by the vitriolic tone. For a split second, I am afraid of The Cheerleading Lady, and I see myself jumping into the car with my daughter and driving the three hours home for the fitting, turning around and driving back to my vacation. That is crazy, isn’t it? It really cannot be done.

Fortunately for The Cheerleading Lady, my phone battery is running low and I have to go out to my car to charge it up. I also get more bars of signal if I drive down the road a bit. Off I go, wondering what words to offer up to the head of Cheer that will allow my daughter to PARTICIPATE in the PROGRAM. Since The Cheerleading Lady may be the one who recently lost a sister, I decide to cut her some slack. I call upon all the “I sing for a not-for-profit-performing-arts-company – and- hey- I work-for-a-CHURCH-charm” that I can muster and I grovel, “I’m so sorry, we are out of town, is there any way, I know you are a volunteer, how can I make this happen, I understand you have a lot of girls to deal with, please keep her in the program….”

The Cheerleading Lady changes her mind about kicking my child out and decides that she can have a fitting when we return home. Problem solved.

Until the next day, as we are strolling through the tourist town looking for espresso and at over-priced summer clothes, we check our phones and my husband groans, “There’s another message from The Cheerleading Lady.” “HELLO, Mrs. Baumann, this is The CHEERLEADING Lady, and, I have been told that you have NOT paid the entire fee yet and if YOU don’t FIGURE out a WAY to PAY the balance due, you child will NOT be allowed to PARTICIPATE in the PROGRAM. Sorry, it is just our POLICY”.

Aghast, and wondering why every message from her has to end with her expellling my kid from cheerleading, I take a deep breath, pray for patience, and return the call, explaining that I have contacted the Treasurer of the organization and he agreed to my proposed payment plan.

The Cheerleading Lady changes her mind about kicking my child out and decides that I can make my payments as planned. Problem solved.

Until the next day, about to walk through the woods to the arts and crafts porch to make shrinky dinks, I make the mistake of checking my messages. “HELLO, Mrs. Baumann, this is The CHEERLEADING Lady, and, I have TALKED to the TREASURER and HE says YOU have NOT made the payments yet and if YOU don’t FIGURE out a WAY to PAY the balance due, by AUGUST 1, you child will NOT be allowed to PARTICIPATE in the PROGRAM. Sorry, it is just our POLICY, really, it’s THE POLICY.”

For a moment, I contemplate the consequences of telling The Cheerleading Lady where I think she should stick the POLICY. As my children create shrinky dink designs with their daddy (who turns out to be very good at making trinkets by cooking plastic), my future pep rally leader looks up and says “Cheerleading is going to be GREAT, isn’t it mom?”

My husband wonders aloud about the exclusive attitude of The Cheerleading Lady, she’s giving cheerleaders a bad name. Time for another ride in the car so I can call and explain to her that the point of the payment plan, is that I make payments. I also email the treasurer. Once again, The Cheerleading Lady changes her mind about kicking my child out and decides that I can continue to make payments, at great inconvenience to the organization. Problem solved.

Back home and in the midst of washing the sand and bug spray out of our belongings, cheerleading practice finally begins. The Cheerleading Lady is actually rather nice to me in person. She is blonde, petite, and athletic. I am certain that if there were a middle-aged men’s football league, she would be on their cheer squad. In a park field filled with dozens of girls gathering with their squads and coaches, her voice cuts through it all. We shake hands and say our “Nice to meet yous” and she thanks me for my “patience and understanding” of the situation. The happiest eight-year-old in town goes skipping across the grass towards a group of her cart-wheeling pals.

After practice and trying on a uniform, my exhausted but beaming babe tells me about how much running she did. “I LOVED it! Thanks Mom. It would really mean a lot to me if you come to Sunday games and watch me. You know, cheerleading is a SPORT.” Thank goodness for The Cheerleading Lady.

Jesus at the Java Hut

It seemed like a good idea to take the children swimming at the Marshalltown, Iowa, YMCA, with their cousins before starting a 285-mile drive home to Elmhurst, Illinois. It was hot, steamy and drizzling outdoors but much fun was had indoor at the Y’s play pool, and even the adults used the water slide many times. The kids would surely be exhausted from the activity and spend much of the ride snoozing in the car.

The idea worked so well that, 15 miles into the trip, my head started nodding as my eyes tried to rest themselves. The gray drizzle, the corn-scape and the book on CD that we were listening to were not helping me stay awake. (Cornfield, cornfield, cornfield, soybeans!) I reached for the pack of tic-tacs in my purse and bit my teeth into minty freshness, waking my taste buds momentarily. (Cornfield, cornfield, cornfield, cornfield, cows in a pasture!) I wanted to turn the book off and turn up some driving music but, one child was still awake and following the plot. (Cornfield, small town, cornfield, cornfield, Indian Casino!) My 5 year-old daughter and infant son were napping peacefully. It occurred to me that the napping would cease if Cheap Trick, the Pretenders or Ella Fitzgerald began pumping through the speakers near their tiny heads.

Unfortunately for me, I had chosen the quaint route home, on a US highway instead of a four-lane interstate. This was due to the fact that the bridge over the Mississippi River on I-80 was under construction. I sat through that traffic back up on the way into Iowa, thank you very much, and I wanted to avoid that on the way out. This, too, seemed like a good idea at the time. It seemed less so as the traffic on the sometimes two-lane road caused the miles to become elongated. The close-up view of acre after acre of the pride of the corn industry and its petro-chemical fertilized fields had a dulling effect on my vision and repulsed my sense of smell. My eldest asked, “Mommy, what is that STINK?” and after I answered she asked “Can you turn off the car’s nose?”

Sixty-two miles from Marshalltown on quaint highway later, three kids were sleeping and I needed coffee, pronto. It took that many miles to reach this state of desperation because I am a coffee snob and I did not want to drink “gas station coffee” from any of the Casey’s that I had passed in several small towns. At a minimum, I was looking for coffee from McD’s. I would have been overjoyed to spot a Dunkin’ Donuts, but there were none on this road so far.

Mt. Vernon, Iowa, welcomed me. I knew there must be coffee in this town because there is a college here, Cornell College, that was attended by three of my siblings. A break in the drizzle and the sun shone down upon the Java Hut, which I had just passed. Eureka, I struck coffee gold and turned around!

The Java Hut is just what it sounds like. A booth with driveways on both sides. One side was occupied with a parked car, adults and kids were hanging out and chatting with the occupant of the hut. I maneuvered my car to the vacant side of the hut and looked through bleary eyes at the pleasant-looking middle-aged man seated in the booth.

Holding my debit card in my hand, I asked for a cup of regular coffee with cream. He listed the possible sizes and after I selected the medium, he told me that his card reader was down but, if I didn’t have the money, “Don’t worry about it.” “Hold on, “ I said, “there might be some change at the bottom of my purse.” After scrounging around my handbag, I remembered that I had already pulled the “bottom of the purse” change routine to pay some library fines.

Meanwhile, the Java Hut gentleman asked me, if I really needed the coffee to stay awake, would I like to “cheat and have a shot of espresso thrown in”. As I wasn’t even sure if I could pay for the coffee, I didn’t think it was right to order a shot of espresso so, I laughed and said “no, thanks.” Spying the sleeping 5 year-old, he held up a dum-dum lollipop and asked if it was OK to give her one for later. “Sure,” I said, “but I’ll need two because there’s another sleeping kid who will want one.” “I see three kids back there, take three of them.”, he said. I pointed out that the baby was too young and took the two suckers.

I had found all of four pennies in the purse. He urged me to try the coffee and let me know if it was hot enough. If not, he would brew a fresh pot. All the while, the friends or family that were visiting him on the other side of the hut were popping their heads in to chat. At this point, I noticed the hours posted on the side of the establishment and said, “You’re CLOSED. I’m so sorry for bothering you!” “Don’t worry about it, really.” He looked for a loophole, in order to give me the coffee, and asked me “Are you or your husband military or ex-military?” “Nope.” “Are you a student?” “Not presently” He chuckled and threw his hands up in the air "Really, don’t worry about the money.”

I scoured the glove box and came up with a small change holder. “Wait! How much am I looking for, anyway?”, I asked. “$1.34”. After handing over thirteen dimes and a nickel, I received “a penny for your thoughts” as change. Before I left, he leaned down from his lofty seat in the hut, looked directly into my eyes and said “You stop if you get sleepy, you hear?” “Yes sir,” I replied, “I have precious cargo in the back.” “Well, you are a little young to have all those kids, 26, right? “ (He winked). I laughed “26? Me?” “Just go with it, dear,” he said. I grinned, put the window up, waved, and turned left onto the highway.

The coffee cup warmed my hand and the aroma awoke the nose that I had turned off. The caffeine jolt was sufficient to keep me rolling towards Illinois. We crossed the River and then joined an Interstate for the duration of the trip, which included more cornfields before yielding to exurbia, outlet malls, and at long last, suburbs. I did not yawn again until I exited the highway 4 hours later in my town, long past the children’s bedtime.

I looked down at the empty cup and read a tiny label that had been stuck to the lid, “Friends are God’s way of taking care of us.” While that may be true, sometimes a stranger with a few kind words and a potentially free cup of coffee can provide the care you need to reach the end of your journey.