MOLLY

     The last notes faded into the farthest corners of the auditorium and were slowly almost imperceptibly replaced with a soft murmur, it grew in volume and spread across the cavernous room, filling it with a sense of awe and an intangible feeling of longing. A single word, a name, for some almost a prayer... Molly, Molly, MOLLY! The crowd surged forward, hands reaching up to her, for her, a touch, a glance, some sign she knew they were there and adored her... MOLLYMOLLYMOLLY.... more insistent,  demanding...
Too late the people who had organized the performance realized the singer was in danger of being dragged down into a mob that wanted nothing so much as a piece of her. No one ever thought they'd need security for a skinny fourteen-year-old redhead. A kid for chrissake!
The young singer realized her position, perched precariously on the edge of the stage between two pot lights. Trapped. A single tear rolled down her cheek, a wan smile teased at the corners of her mouth and faded as she looked into the eyes of those closest to her. She extended a pale hand toward them...almost as if to hold them back. Their intensity was frightening...
     A hand clutched her arm tightly, fingernails sank in trying to hold on, she felt the sudden sharp sting as they cut through the skin, a thin trickle of red ran down her arm, staining the sleeve of her dress.
    She pulled back and leapt to her feet from the edge of the stage, her nimbus of auburn curls suddenly a halo of flame as she ran through the shaft of light from the overhead spots, into the darkness beyond and bolted from the stage, across the wings,  then, unnoticed, out the stage door and into the night. She didn't stop running until she reached the train and sobbed all the way home.

... the microphone landed with a dull metallic sound that reverberated all across and around the stadium, five thousand voices went silent....
What the hell?
"She just disappeared!"
"One minute she was sitting there, then wham, she was gone!"
***

"Molly? Honey, are you alright?" A long-loved voice, one she knew as well as she knew her own, cut through the fog of sleep and troubling dreams.
"Morning. Sure. I'm okay. Why?"
He reached out and brushed a tear from her cheek, held it up, watching as it rolled slowly down his finger and looked at her.
"You were crying in your sleep."
She sat up and yawned hugely, stretched, well, stretched as much as a life of nine decades would permit. She moved her legs aside so he could sit down. He'd brought coffee, two cups, they sipped quietly waiting for their no longer young or limber bodies to finish waking up. They joked about their Golden Years.
   It was early autumn; they planned to drive up to the Arboretum. Years earlier Molly'd bought a membership and every fall since they'd walked through the fallen leaves taking pictures of their world as it began to slowly spin into winter.
Tim once mentioned how he was beginning to see himself in the old oaks. She knew what he meant. They'd grown well past the need for explanations, a word or two carried what had once needed paragraphs. It was the shorthand of people who'd spent most of their lives together.
   They'd married young, too young many said, taking and making wagers at the wedding reception, that it wouldn't last till the first anniversary. Of course, they were all wrong.
   She smiled and slid out of bed, her legs rebelling a bit as she tested how well they were going to work that day. His arm right was there if it was needed.
***
 They walked through the leaf-strewn pathway, arm in arm, listening to the soft crackle of dry leaves underfoot. So many years they'd been together, so many hills climbed, valleys coasted through, deserts and oceans crossed. They'd taken to referring to the growing number of decades they'd shared as something akin to cross country travels. Days of joy and sunlight and nights of mind-numbing terror and the icy grip of a grief colder than any winter storm.
   The joy of seeing their children grow, the unspeakable agony of burying their youngest before the tiny girl could say a first word, the memory of the fragile infant sleeping in her arms, a faint baby smile on her face, then she was gone ...no, there was still too much pain there. They clung to each other through all of it.
"Are you happy?" Tim asked, his voice oddly quiet.
" I am."
"No regrets?"
"None. Why?"
"You've woken up crying every morning this week. Do you ever wonder what..."
She stopped him, a finger placed gently over his lips.
"That wasn't the life I wanted. This" she lifted their clasped hands, "...this is."
" How did I luck out, you could have had any guy in the world."
"Oh stop!" She gave him a little nudge. "My mom always said you chased me until I caught you."
"And the singing...."
" I thought you understood, it was the singing I loved, not the life that went with it, not the performing. That was Millie, that's what she wanted. I just wanted to sing."
A warming shaft of sunlight broke through the leafy canopy overhead, turning their hair into halos of silver.
"Let's sit a while. "
They sank onto one of the many benches scattered through the nature preserve, leaned against each other and closed their eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun on their faces.
"Did you know Millie's estate sent all my tapes here when she died?"
"I've often wondered why she didn't go public with them. You were the mystery of the decade. Everyone wanted to know what had happened to little Molly...."
She smiled, snuggled closer.
"Molly decided to live her own life."
They dozed, slowly it drifted into something deeper, something more permanent.
***
It wasn't until one of the park guards walked by, returning from the first lap of his route and noticed that the elderly couple hadn't moved....
***
BREAKING NEWS: In the news this hour; The entertainment reporter covered the story with all the breathless awe and giddy excitement of one covering the resurrection of  Jesus Christ.
 "She was called the vanishing waif, The decades-long mystery finally has been solved. The young singer with the voice of an angel has at long last been found. Molly, the only name anyone knew, vanished from the stage after completing her first concert. Speculation about her fate raged for years with theories that ran the gamut from underworld ties to alien abduction.  One story said she had vanished with a bright flash of orange-red fire and pure white smoke. 
"We now know the answer to this decades-long mystery. The simple truth was that the vanishing waif never vanished at all. She went home, finished school, married her high school sweetheart, settled down and raised a family. A day ago she and her husband of seventy years were found in a local nature preserve where they died, sitting arm-in-arm on a park bench"
   
The people who haunted the fringes of a life that Molly hadn't wanted suddenly became experts on the whys and wherefores of whatever happened to Molly. Old, amateur tape recordings of her first and only concert began appearing in the news. The record company that had signed her released copies from the master tapes and was paying royalties to the estate of a young woman who had only one live performance to her credit. The trust she had set up would make the lives of  her children,  grandchildren and great-grandchildren more than comfortable for a very long time. Her grown children were stunned to find out that the mysterious "vanishing waif" had been the woman they called Mom.
*** 

A PROMISE MADE

     I'll come back for you. I promise. She reached out and handed me the barrette that had fallen to the floor.

    I looked into her blue eyes, seeing the tears she tried to blink away. Blue eyes, I realized decades later, that were only one of the genetic gifts she gave me. 

    I watched her stand, then walk halfway across an enormous room. She hesitated, then turned quickly to her right, hurried down a long green hallway, down a short flight of stairs, and out a heavy wooden door that closed behind her with a dull muffled thud. 

    Some part of me held on to that promise. 

    I'll come back for you. 

   A man came along pushing a string mop, making wet grey swirls across the black and white marble floor. Then another man in a dark brown suit, the kind a man wears to church on Sunday, who kept looking over his shoulder as he clicked his camera. 

   A woman walked into the vestibule and looked at me, surprised. Maybe shocked would be a better word. Then another, then a group of them, clucking like a flock of hens. 

   They wanted to know who I was. 

   Where did I live? 

   How old was I?  Where was my mommy? 

   "What's your mommy's name?"

   "Mommy."What else did she expect me to say? A policeman walked into the vestibule looked at the women and shook his head. He squatted down in front of me.

   "Are you hungry?" He pointed to his mouth.

I nodded yes. No one had thought to ask that.

    "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" He pointed to the ladies' room sign.

Another nod. One of the women volunteered to take me. When I got back to "my" bench someone had produced some cookies and a small glass bottle of milk. No glass, no straw. 

    The women evaporated; one minute they were there, the next only the policeman and I remained.

    A huge hand took my own and we walked down the green hallway to that heavy wooden door. I had to reach way up to hold his hand, but I was determined not to let go.

    The door closed with the same muffled thud and I knew I'd never walk through it again. A moment of panic came up with the cookies and milk.
How would my mother find me if I wasn't there anymore?
***

POSTER CHILD

The first in a series of vignettes. 

    In the late 1940s, one of the Chicago newspapers held a weekly photo contest. Winning submissions would be published. Cash prizes would be awarded. Amateurs from the Midwest fanned out, cameras in hand, searching for the perfect picture -the money shot. One week the winning submission netted the photographer a page eight below the fold re-print, generous praise, full credit, and, of course, a tidy sum. The picture was a three-quarters profile black and white shot of a little girl sitting at the edge of a long bench. She wore a pair of corduroy overalls, a knit shirt, and high-topped "baby shoes." A mop of long hair tumbled down her back; all attempts to keep it out of her face had been limited to the unsuccessful barrette in her hand. Behind the bench, a green wall, its only ornament a framed document, the bottom edge of which just showed in the photo. It was the state's license for The Chicago Protestant Orphan Asylum.
   The photographer stumbled across his subject by accident; quickly set up his equipment, snapped away, and was out the door before anyone told him to leave. He entered the picture in the contest and sold the rights to a charity named The Red Feather Organization. The picture had been titled "Unwanted;" the brief caption stated only that the child had been abandoned in the lobby. The photo was repeated on posters and flyers that were sent out in the hopes that the image would touch people's hearts and open their wallets.
   Years later the orphanage used the picture in their website's history timeline. The child was never identified.
   Subsequent publicity material touted their success in placing the child with a kind and loving family. It was, they said, a happy ending to a sad story about a little girl no one wanted.
I remember the smell of the bench.

RETAIL THERAPY #1

My retail therapy yesterday went extremely well. A week or two back I absolutely fell in like with a beautiful quilt, but time was at a premium while getting ready for Niki and Michael's wedding. So, I decided to order it on-line when I had time. I spent two days more or less trying to find someone who still had it in stock. No one. So I decided to take my sweet self over to the mall where I first saw it and see if they still had any left. Went into Macy's where I was sure I'd seen it. They have the pillow covers on-line, but no quilts. ??? They didn't even have the bedding line in the store, but the snobby clerk was only too happy to talk about the Martha Stewart collection and "We also have some CHEAPER off-brand kinds if that's what you're interested in." I ignored the elitist attitude and said I didn't like the Stewart line. Then I did something I almost NEVER do. I "up-snobbed" him. "I really prefer the Porthault line, but you don't have that either. Thanks so much."
Off I trotted to Carson's, all the way on the other side of the mall. Trotting stopped before I reached the center court, brisk walking slowed to a meander then to a virtual shamble and then I crawled into Carson's.Linens? Second floor? Okay. Up escalator being serviced. Half a block to the elevator. Another half a block to linens. There it was, in all its wondrous floral and quilted glory. A pile of them! No shortage here! Grabbed one and nearly gave my sweet self a hernia. These are heavy! Well, my feelings about good old Carson's went up a few notches when a young clerk offered to carry the quilt to the register for me. Another couple of notches when she asked if I had any coupons, I didn't, she grabbed one from a pile, then said the words that made my afternoon. "Are you over fifty-five? We have a special seniors' discount for our customers who are." Huh? Could she possibly NOT know I was waaay over 55?
" I'm seventy."
"No, really?"
Fifty percent discount, plus a nice boost to this senior citizen who has been really feeling her age the last couple of months. Plus, the quilt was on sale, and I added a whole two and a half miles to my walking distance for the day. No, I didn't float back to the car, it was a really hard slog carrying several extra pounds of quilt, but I made it. Even though I went out the wrong door in Macy's and had to walk around to the other side of the building. On to the grocery store for a deli dinner then home to soak my aching tootsies. But I didn't stop smiling. I found what I wanted, it was on sale, I got a lot of extra exercise, a nice boost to my mood, and I didn't have to cook dinner. (Some days my cooking mojo just vanishes.)
I may go back for the pillow shams today, just for the exercise, ya know. And that cute navy blue pullover I saw on my way out. Have a great Thursday!

Kim Davis and The Making and Keeping of Oaths

 Kim Davis believes that her Christian beliefs trump her day-to-day responsibilities.“My constituents elected me. But the main authority that rules my life is the Lord,” she said.
Narina Koren
The Atlantic 9/22/2015|
Nice thought, but Davis has no problem setting aside her religious beliefs when it comes to honoring her oath of office,   the last four words of which are "So help me God."
Come again?
Here's the oath in its entirety. 
"30A.020 Oath of clerk and deputies. Every clerk and deputy, in addition to the oath prescribed by Section 228 of the Constitution, shall, before entering on the duties of his office, take the following oath in presence of the Circuit Court:
"I, ....., do swear that I will well and truly discharge the duties of the office of .............. County Circuit Court clerk, according to the best of my skill and judgment, making the due entries and records of all orders, judgments, decrees, opinions and proceedings of the court, and carefully filing and preserving in my office all books and papers which come to my possession by virtue of my office; and that I will not knowingly or willingly commit any malfeasance of office, and will faithfully execute the duties of my office without favor, affection or partiality, so help me God." 
The fact that the oath has been administered shall be entered on the record of the Circuit Court. Effective: January 2, 1978 History: Created 1976 (1st Extra. Sess.) Ky. Acts ch. 21, sec. 2, effective January 2, 1978."

Kim Davis is so determined to publicly deny marriage licenses to gays, and lap up all the delicious publicity that follows she seems to have forgotten what the Bible says about the taking and keeping of oaths. Oops!
Deuteronomy 23:21-23 
“If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. But if you refrain from vowing, you will not be guilty of sin. You shall be careful to do what has passed your lips, for you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth."
Matthew 5:33-37 
“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil."

Numbers 30:2 
"If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth."
Leviticus 19:12 
"You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord."
So, which is worse, giving a gay couple a license to marry? Breaking an oath you made to God? Or making a false oath to God that you have no intention of keeping? Davis can't have it both ways. The Bibe upon which she bases her religious beliefs is absolutely unequivocal about this.She swore to perform the duties of her office "...without favor, affection or partiality" She has not done so.

Would you let him poke around in your head?

Neurosurgeon Ben Carson said no Muslim should be allowed to be the President of the United States.Carson obviously is not familiar with the Constitution of the United States, so maybe someone should read Article VI paragraph 3 to this jackass.

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

I have to wonder why people who are so gung-ho about their Second Amendment rights are so ignorant about what else is in the Constitution. It is unconstitutional to deny anyone their right to run for and take any office in American government because of their religion. These people seem to have forgotten that this is exactly the same argument they used to support Mitt Romney's candidacy when people said a Mormon should never be allowed to be the president. The same stupid comment was made about President Kennedy's religion when his opponents said a Catholic should not be allowed to be the President. These jackasses can't have it both ways. If someone said no Protestant should be allowed to be President there'd be riots in the streets.

Social Justice

    The concept of social justice has been a major force in my life since childhood. I have three principles that guide my life. Is it fair? Is it kind? Is it true?

  We all know there's more to the Fourth of July than parades, barbecues, flags and fireworks. It's a day when we can reflect on and honor the courage of the people who took the first steps to right an unacceptable wrong. They fought and many of them died to leave as their legacy the independence that makes America so very different from any other country on Earth. These stirring words of our declaration tell everyone, without equivocation, that these are the foundation stones of our democracy.

  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

    I've done a lot of thinking about those concepts lately.  Even as I think about the early struggles for independence I can't escape the very real fact that the concepts of life, liberty and  the pursuit of happiness still aren't a part of the reality of many Americans.
     It seems to me that one effective way to combat the growing trend toward an acceptance of hatred and racism is to call them out when they show their ugly faces.
Do we, as a supposedly civilized society, have a responsibility to those among us who are, and have been, the object of racial and ethnic injustice?
Do we, as supposedly moral human beings, have a justification for laughing at racially insensitive comments or jokes?
Do we as people of honor have a right to look away when our brothers and sisters are made the objects of unrestrained discrimination?

We have to ask these questions of ourselves and those who would presume to lead our country.

MESSY BREAKUPS

    Sometimes we make a mistake in judgment that creates a situation we never thought we'd have to confront. Things can degenerate from a difference of opinion to something quite ugly. Usually, we tell ourselves to just forget the whole thing and move on. I don't think we ever completely forget, though. It's always back there, in the shadows. Waiting. The thing to do is to turn around and shine a bright light on it. When that bright light hits the situation we see things we hadn't noticed in the first flush of a new friendship. Arrogance, spitefulness, bigotry and an insatiable need to be right about everything.
    We have to decide if a messy break-up is better or worse than pretending everything is wonderful when it really isn't.
I've lost track of the number of friends who said versions of the following:
"He really was a creep..”
“I can't believe I thought I was in love with him/her."
"She/he always seemed so nice.”
“ I can't believe she'd do something like that."
"How could I not notice ....?" Fill in the blank with your own experience.
 This also applies to friendships.
 I recently ended a short-term friendship with a woman who insisted on referring to our relationship as a life-long friendship. We went to the same high school for one year. We weren't friends then; I don't think we even had a class together. We had one friend in common and didn't know any of the same people. This woman had created an entirely fictional life and passed it off as her own. As her "life-long friend" I was expected to maintain a fiction I didn't know anything about and that had nothing to do with me. The simple truth is that prior to accepting her request for a Facebook friendship, I hadn't seen the woman since my eldest child, now in her fifties, was about three or four months old. She showed up at my home with the one person we knew in common, I thought to see my new baby.  After about twenty minutes of chit chat, the real reason for the visit came out. She was very dramatic, she was pregnant, She told me who the father was and said he wouldn't even talk about "doing the right thing…" She was desperate, she’d do anything, she couldn’t have this baby and on and on, then she asked me to help her find an abortionist.
I was insulted. Religious and political considerations aside, in the early 1960s, abortion was illegal. Why on earth would this woman I barely knew think I could or would help her find someone who would terminate her pregnancy? She asked if I thought the doctor who delivered my baby would help her. I doubted it and said so. Why should he risk his profession to do something illegal for anyone? I don't think he would, and knowing him for the forty plus years I did, until he retired, I know he wouldn't.
She and the mutual friend left soon after. It was, I thought, just one of those odd nasty things that happen. I decided to put it out of mind and never speak of it.
I didn't, until about two months ago.
I posted a comment on my Facebook page that was critical of a remark made by a politician.  It was ugly and racist and sexist and I said so. This ersatz friend said she knew as a woman she should be offended, but she thought the comment was hysterical and that some people (meaning me, although she was "too much of a lady" to say so) should lighten up.
   My response was that I didn't think racist, sexist jokes were funny. Things that were considered hysterically funny when said by the character Archie Bunker really weren’t funny then, and still weren't funny today. I had hoped that as a civilized society we had evolved enough to see those ethnic, racial, religious and gender slurs for the hateful things they really always were. I listed a few examples of words that were commonplace in the 1970s as a simple demonstration of how insensitive our society was forty years ago, and said it was sad that so many people hadn't moved past that point.
   The woman went ballistic and posted one of the most vituperative responses I've read in a long time. Of course, she unfriended me, no surprise, but she also sent copies of her "response" to everyone I know. Does it need saying that she twisted my examples of words that were offensive into an indictment of me and everything I stand for? Probably not.
Stunned by the violence of her attack, I said something about this to my husband; he has an uncanny instinct for spotting the false faces who walk the planet. I do not.
He didn't know we'd ever been friends.
I explained the situation and was surprised by his response.
“You know her secrets.“
She had to make me the kind of person no one would believe because I was the one person on earth who could put the lie to her entire fabricated life.
On such gossamer threads are some friendships hung.

***

About Friends and Friendship

A lot of people who make the most noise about love, respect and acceptance of the whole person seem to be incapable of practicing what they preach. I don't always agree with everything my friends say, but I love and respect all of you enough to respect and defend your right to say it. I also know that you don't always agree with everything I say, but a majority of you respect my right to say it. It's that minority of people I thought were friends who recently seem to be going out of their way to change my opinions with insults and ridicule. So, why are these people still on my friends list?