Rain and Razor Blades

So, my last story was about my Dad. It's only right that today I share a story about my Mom.

When I was four years old, we lived, for a year, in Ketchikan, Alaska. Ketchikan is one very rainy seaside town. It averages 151.6 inches/year of precipitation. And, if I have my dates right, we were there in 1953, when the annual rainfall totaled 188.96 inches! All that rain just wasn't my Mom's idea of Paradise, so the next year we moved back to Oregon.

While we lived in Ketchikan, though, we rented an apartment that was one in a long row of attached apartments. One day, not long after we'd moved in, Mom went into the bathroom, and there was one of Dad's razor blades in the sink. She was aggravated to think that he'd be that careless, since I was just a tot, and could have found it and cut myself. So when Dad came home, she asked him to be more careful. He said he thought he had put the used razor blade in the medicine cabinet slot. (For you who are too young to know, let me explain. There used to be these little razor blade-sized slots in the back of some medicine cabinets. You were supposed to deposit your used blades into the slot, and the blades would drop into the space between the walls, which was, I guess, thought to be a safer place than the trash to dispose of them.)

A few days later, there were two blades in the sink. Now this was just too much for Mom. Why was he being so careless? She poked the blades into the slot, and had another discussion with him that night. This time he claimed that he knew he hadn't left any blades lying around. Mom wasn't really buying his innocence, though, because who else would have left razor blades in the sink?

So when, a few days later, she went into the bathroom and found three blades in the sink, she was totally exasperated. She opened the medicine cabinet, and was about to poke the blades into the slot, when suddenly she saw light coming through the slot, and then a person's eye, peeking through. "Margaret, is that you?!" asked the neighbor lady, through the little opening. Apparently the two medicine cabinets were back-to-back, with the slots lining up exactly. Whenever a razor blade was disposed of in one apartment, it simply went into the adjoining apartment's medicine cabinet, or sink, if the door was ajar.

Mom and the neighbor lady both wasted no time in taping up the slots, which were never used again. And Dad was off the hook.

[PS - While looking out on the internet to see if anyone else remembered these razor blade slots, I came across this little rant. It even shows a picture of one of those slots. You might enjoy reading it.]

Good Morning, Dad!

My dad's work day started very early, around 3:00 a.m. By the time the shop opened at 7:00, he had to have a showcase full of fresh pastries and donuts, an oven full of browning breads, and a shop full of heavenly aromas. Benjamin Franklin, himself, would have been proud of my Dad's early-to-bed-early-to-rise habits.

Back in those days - the early 1960s - Juneau's little radio station, which was across the street from the bakery, signed off every night, playing "Alaska's Flag," the State song; and then at 5:00 a.m. came back on. Dad was in the habit of turning on his old flour-dusted radio at precisely 5:00, happy to know that the rest of the city was finally waking and joining him for another new day. Now and then the morning disc jockey would oversleep, and the radio just hissed and popped with static. Dad would pick up the phone, call the sleepy-headed DJ at his apartment and tell him to rise and shine and get the station on the air. Usually the DJ would respond, groggily, with something like, "I owe you one, Bob."

Juneau's DJs were usually young fellows with very little, if any, radio experience, looking for an Alaskan adventure. So, along came this new fellow, Tony, and every morning, without fail, he played this saccharine-sweet, corny "Good Morning" song. I don't know where he got this record, but by the end of the first week, it was getting under everyone's skin, and especially my Dad's. Despite numerous complaints, Tony just wouldn't stop playing it. Day after day, week after week, that irritating song rudely started everyone's morning.

One day one of the other young DJs was in our bakery, sitting at the counter and having coffee. My dad went out front and sat down beside him. "Chuck," he said, "What would it cost me to buy that sappy 'Good Morning' record that Tony plays every day?" Chuck grinned, thought a minute, and said, "It'd cost you a cup of coffee and a donut every morning, for a year!" "SOLD!" said my dad, without hesitation. Within minutes Chuck delivered the offending 45 into the hands of my Dad who, smiling, broke it in half and tossed it into the trash can, along with yesterday's leftover pastries.

So at long last, Juneauites, the truth has been revealed, the mystery explained! It was my Dad, an unsung hero, who spared the town's early-risers the daily vexation of Tony's "Good Morning" song. (I know you've all been wondering.)

Dad, decorating cakes in the afternoon. Looks pretty tired, doesn't he? Remember, he started at 3 a.m. that morning.And here's my Mom, working at the counter. Notice the sign - "electric baked donuts - 48 cents/dozen"!

Short Break

I just haven't had time to do any blogging the last couple days. Stay tuned for more when I can catch my breath. (I knew I couldn't keep this pace up forever!)

Tim did start his job yesterday, and said the day went well. He'll be traveling down to Las Cruces in the near future to visit their other office. Right now the Las Cruces IT person is up here, helping to train Tim.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter : A book report

[I just finished reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter, a novel by Kim Edwards, published in 2005, and I thought I'd share my thoughts on this book . I haven't done a book report since I was in college (but I still remember the basics, taught to me so well by my third grade and sixth grade teachers ). As a side note, since I don't normally read a book twice, I'd be happy to pass this book along to anyone who thinks they might like to read it. Just let me know, with a comment or an email.]

The book opens in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1964, when David, a physician (a bone specialist), and his wife, Norah, are eagerly awaiting the birth of their first child. When Norah's labor begins, it is in the middle of the night and in the middle of a freak Kentucky snow storm. Although David tries to get Norah to the hospital in time, the weather defeats him. Since Norah's labor is progressing rapidly, he stops at the clinic where he practices, which is closed for the night, and calls both his partner physician and the clinic nurse, asking them to come in and help deliver the baby. But when a car accident delays his partner, and the baby won't wait, David, who has not delivered a baby since med school, has no choice but to deliver the baby himself, with the assistance of his capable nurse.

What happens that night, in the middle of a snow storm, in the small clinic, is a dark secret shared only by David and his nurse - the secret around which the rest of the story revolves. Norah, who is anesthetized, is unaware that she delivers not only her son, whom she names Paul, but his twin, a baby girl. When David sees his baby daughter, he recognizes in her the unmistakable signs of Down's syndrome. Immediately, two specters rise to haunt him: first, his own precious sister, also a Down's syndrome child, who died at a young age because of a heart condition commonly associated with Down's; and secondly, his mother, whose life was destroyed by grief at the loss of her daughter. So, determined to spare his wife that kind of pain, he makes a hasty decision. He hands the baby girl to the nurse, Caroline, and tells her to take the baby to an institution he knows of, that will accept and care for such children. When Norah regains consciousness, David hands her their healthy baby boy, and tells her that she also delivered a baby girl who died at birth. Meanwhile, the nurse, Caroline, who cannot bring herself to leave the baby at the institution, slips out of town and begins a new life in Pittsburgh, as the mother of baby Phoebe.

The deception and the secrets conceived that night create, over the next three decades, a tangled web of emotional rifts between David and Norah, and their son, Paul. The author also develops the story of Caroline, Phoebe and the man, Al, who marries Caroline and raises Phoebe as his own daughter. Each character deals in his or her own way with confusion, regrets, reactions and emotional wounds that are, in one way or another, spawned by the secret decisions made by David and Caroline the night the two babies were born.

Why do we do what we do? How can good intentions lead to bad choices? How have attitudes changed since 1964, when this story began? How can secret knowledge affect your life and, in the end, those dearest to you? Who is the true beneficiary of forgiveness? Is redemption always attainable? These are some of the questions that you will grapple with in reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter.

My rating: 4 stars out of 5. Readable - a page turner. Thought-provoking.