Flying Skates, Waltzing Lights

Beneath a layer of gray dust from years spent in our attic, the metal suitcase is actually white, with royal-blue trim.  Putting down the dust rag, I slide the button of the case’s tarnished steel lock to the right; the clasp sticks for a second, then flies open.  Once this case contained treasure, but now I see only a pair of badly scuffed white skates.  “Inside skates,” with wooden wheels. 

If I think a minute, I might remember what Christmas I received the case--was it 1963, 1964?  I need no time, though, to remember how I felt when I tried on the skates: 

“They look a little big,” said Mom.

“They’ll be fine,” I said.  “I can wear socks over my tights.”

“Make sure you try on this, too,” Mom added, handing me a shirt box.  “Your Aunt Kas worked hard on it.”

“A skating skirt!” I said, as I lifted the tissue paper.  “I love the color of the lining.”

“Magenta,” said my mother, who knew such things.

The outside of the skirt was soft gray wool, but the lining was a shiny deep-pink material (silk?  polyester?)  Standing there, I pictured how the skirt would flare out as I sped up, crossed one leg in front of the over, and glided around the bend at the roller skating rink.  Wearing the skirt would bring me as close to “Ice Capades” glamour as a bony-kneed 11-year-old on roller skates could get.

Many a new outfit since has disappointed me, but those skates and skirt never did.  Maybe the inches added by the wheels gave me, the perennial shortest in line, a novel sense of power?  Was it that I felt beautiful in that beautiful skirt, as I whirled around the rink in time to the organ music played at the Concord Rolling Rink?  Or that skating was the one semi-athletic thing I could do well?  (Never did master backward skating, though.)  Or was it the magic created by the dancing lights from the revolving ball in the center of Concord’s ceiling?  (Those were disco lights long before anyone ever said “disco.”)

 All of the above?

I must have fallen once or twice in those skates and skirt, but who remembers that?  I remember how it felt to fly, even if at least one skate always remained on the rink’s floor.  The last time I skated was about eight years ago, when my daughters attended their grade-school’s skating party at another rink.  Wearing helmets and knee pads, and sporting plastic inline skates, they seemed to enjoy themselves.  But could they fly, with all that padding holding them down?  Or was it just I who felt weighed down, afraid I would fall, or worse, inadvertently knock over some tiny skater?  I stopped after a few turns around the floor.

Back to the task at hand:  I put the suitcase and skates in the give-away bag I’ve started to fill as I try to clear out this cluttered attic. Far from bony-kneed, I’m not about to use the skates again; besides, plastic, not wooden, wheels rule now.  Of course, the gray and magenta skirt is as long-gone as the 20-inch waist it once encircled.

Sighing, I think, So many boxes to go through!  Still I’m grateful for the mini-break the skating case gave me—the chance to remember when opening boxes was fun, and little girls could fly amid dancing lights.    

Unwrapping a Dream

Unwrapping a Dream

The year was 1963, and Midge, “Barbie’s Best Friend,” cost $3.98.  Oh, how I wanted her!  Barbie, 11 inches of cold, somewhat haughty perfection, was not the doll for me.  Midge, with her sprinkling of freckles and sandy-colored “flip” hairdo, had a friendly, open look that a rather gawky 10-year-old like me could relate to. Besides, most of my friends had a Barbie, maybe even a Ken, but few had a Midge.  There she was, wrapped in plastic, with the $3.98 right on the box.  I had roughly half that amount clutched in my hand.

My parents had given me, my younger brother, and older sister, $2 each to spend during our week’s vacation in Wildwood, N.J.  This was Friday night, almost our last chance to shop, because we were scheduled to leave that Sunday morning, when no stores would be open. While our teenage sister and brother were walking on the boardwalk, the three of us, known collectively as “the younger ones,” had gone to check out the souvenirs at the drugstore down the corner from the apartment our family was renting. 

Looking back, I realize now that I was putting my mother on the spot, asking her for extra money, as our vacation—and most likely our family funds--ran down. We weren’t staying at one of the ‘60s-chic hotels, whose pools reflected neon signs trumpeting names like  “Thunderbird Inn,” or “Rio Grande Motel,” or (off and on) “No Vacancy.”  The seven of us were staying in a clean, but plainly furnished railroad-car apartment in a duplex named Arkay, after the owner’s wife, Kay, and their accordion-playing 10-year-old daughter, Arlene.

Despite my pleas, Mom was steadfast in her refusals, pointing out the unfairness of giving one child more money than the others.  “They won’t mind,” I assured her, though I knew better. Finally, I played my ace card:  “You can give me the money as an early birthday present. I won’t ask for anything else.”  My September birthday was two weeks away. Mom considered for a moment, then said those words that sometimes created hope, sometimes despair, “I’ll talk it over with your father.”

This time they presaged joy.  Dad said yes.  The next morning, I dashed to the store immediately after breakfast, my older sister with me.  On the way back, we bumped into Arlene, and for once I felt her equal, despite the fact that she had a place down the shore, an accordion, and bike that had never belonged to an older brother or sister.  I had a brand-new Midge!

Forty-eight years later, the dust glinting in the sun rays coming through the small window of our dusty attic, as I open the black plastic case my parents gave me that Christmas to hold Midge and her ever-growing collection of dresses and mismatched shoes, I feel some of the anticipation I felt opening the clear wrapping that day in August.

 Ol’ Midge is in pretty good shape; her flip a little worse for my attempts to make her more glamorous with up-dos.  I notice the clothes my talented Aunt Kass and cousin Miriam stitched together for her—especially a white dress, complete with pink pom-pom trim, made with the remnant from the curtains that hung in Miriam’s room.  There’s the gown I hand-sewed for her the year I mastered French embroidery knots. But oh, the “real” Mattel brand clothes were once my favorites, especially the sophisticated v-necked dress my mother called a cocktail dress. The blue-green velour is worn-away in several places.

Friends tell me I might get a good price for Midge on E-Bay, especially because I have the case and a few original Mattel outfits.  Some people out there do love dolls. As little girls, my two daughters preferred stuffed animals or plastic “Pound Puppies.”  When they were older, and I thought they might appreciate seeing Midge and my baby dolls (yes, I am a “keeper”), they showed little interest.  Perhaps I had waited too long.

But I can’t sell Midge (or the others).  Some part of me needs to hold on to her, to remember the little girl who had a dream come true. 

And, who knows, one day I might have a grand-daughter who would like to meet Midge.  Guess once a dreamer, always a dreamer….

Unexpected Treasure in the Junk Drawer

Inspired by numerous articles on de-cluttering (see the stacks of magazines in our powder room), I had convinced my husband that we should simplify our lives, one drawer at a time.  First up, the kitchen junk drawer.

"How about this crazy spoon?" asked my husband, separating a small plastic

spoon from a tangle of odds and ends. "Should I pitch it?"  Lifting his arm,

he took aim at our trash can.

"No," I said, as I grabbed the spoon out of his hand. "I want to keep it."

He gave me that familiar "I just don't get it” look, shrugged, and said,

"Be right back--I want to check the score." He headed for the family room and TV.

I was being irrational. The purple spoon, its handle curled like a pig's tail, was no collectible. It was a cereal box giveaway, in fact. But looking at it brought me instantly back to a specific time and place in my life. My daughters, now 19 and 21 years old, were then two and four. We were standing, about to say goodbye, in my late parents’ sunny kitchen. I had cleared away the fast food wrappers from our weekly “fries and company” lunch, and the kitchen looked more its spic-and-span self.

"Before you go," said Mom, "I've a surprise for the girls.  I had to wait 'till

we got two, of course --good thing your father and I like that cereal."  As

she held out the spoons to the girls, her left hand began to shake. She took a deep breath and seemed to will the hand to steady itself. A year later, her worsening Parkinson's disease would force her to leave her kitchen and home behind for a nursing facility. 

"Thanks, Mom-Mom,” said my older daughter, “I get the purple one!”  With

a furtive look at her sister, she added, "She likes pink anyway."  That was

true: As she clutched her new treasure by its curly handle, my younger daughter was beaming. 

I think we all were.

Just a moment, really, in a lifetime of examples of how my mother enjoyed giving to others, with a sense of fun that had her cut countless pieces of buttered toast into sailing ships and half moons when her own five kids were small. Surely, I didn't need a bit of purple plastic to remember that.  I should be sensible and toss it. 

But I couldn't. The things we keep--and the memories they trigger--exert a grip beyond logic on us. I started digging through the drawer again:  The girls are due back from college soon for summer break. If I find the spoon's pink companion, maybe one morning I can sweeten my daughters’ cold cereal with some warm memories.