Dust on the Rez

Swirls of dust poofed up, swallowing my truck as I sped toward the flaming field. We worried about the six boys who had stayed home to tend the sheep and goats, animals that grazed on that same field that was now burning.

The truck’s windows were open–no AC–and the acrid stench of fire mixed with the softer smell of the powerdust road. It had been a hot Fourth of July on the Navajo Reservation. I enjoyed the irony of spending America’s Independence Day with my Indian friends whose ancestors had lived on this land for centuries before 1776.

We were returning from a Squaw Dance–a traditional healing ceremony–that had been held on a remote farm off yonder behind a red mesa I could never find alone. My Navajo friends Norma and Pearl Duboise and their young daughters rode with me, all of us crammed together in my pick-up. The truck was a patchwork now of blue paint mottled with the constant road dust that swirled around us.

We had all dressed up in full traditional garb for the occasion. A Squaw Dance was an elaborate and important gathering that blended spiritual healing with food, fun, and dance. Think Bar Mitzvah or Quinceanera. I wore a long, multi-colored broomstick skirt, leather mocassins, and a bright pink velvet shirt, stifling in the hot July sun. And turquoise jewelry. Lots of it. Heavy with the pure silver they used years ago. Bracelets halfway up to my elbow, rings on every finger, dangle earrings, and a heavy squash blossom necklace Pearl had worn to her wedding several children ago.

But I truly felt authentic in my Indian get-up when Norma styled my long dark hair in a Navajo bun, complete with a clump of beige yarn left over from her rug weaving.

After the sun had set, in the erratic light of the huge bonfire at the Squaw Dance, I molded and patted the dough for frybread and poured Sunny D orange drink into paper cups for the little ones. I was the only belagaana (white person) within miles of the place. But I felt at ease and except for the women I was working with was scarcely noticed at all.

Until the dance.

A small leather bag hung from my waist, to hold the money I would get for each dance. It was Sadie Hawkins, Indian style. The girls asked the guys (or the squaws asked the braves). I did well. I made $3.25. Not bad for a belagaana. Most of the men never noticed I was white.

But once, a guy started chatting, amiably, I think, as we danced, side by side, the shuffle step I had learned the day before.

“Talk English,” I said in a low voice, staring straight ahead.

“What?” he asked.

“English.”

“Why?” Then he looked at me and his dancing faltered just a tad. “You’re Anglo!”

Not hardly, I thought. But I wasn’t about to get into my Sicilian ethnic heritage just then.

“Keep dancing,” I ordered, and pulled him along.

“How did you get here?” He was obviously incredulous at my presence, my attire, and my dancing.

“With the John Duboise family,” I said, mentioning my host family.

“Oh. Okay.”

And all was well, as the Duboise family was well known and respected on the Rez.

A Squaw Dance lasts until dawn. Around midnight, we packed up some frybread and mutton stew to bring back to the six boys, ages seven to mid-teens, who were home with the family livestock.

That’s when we saw the fire. A line of flames crossing the field, heading directly for the pens, and beyond that, the house. The boys were trying to beat out the flames with sheets of burlap and leather. There was no water for miles. And no phones.

Just then a New Mexico state patrol car and Gallup fire truck drove down the access road and turned in toward the fire. Someone passing by on the highway had spotted the flames and called it in. I pulled over near the police car as a tall blond officer stepped out.

“Are the boys OK?” I asked him.

“Get out of the way,” he yelled.

We were out of the way. We were on the side of the road and the fire truck was up ahead, parked, with the men unloading their gear.

I’m worried about the boys,” I insisted.”Is there anything we can do to help?”

“Yeah. You can get the hell out of here, the whole bunch of you!” He glared at Norma, Pearl, and their little girls.

“Hey!”I snapped. “I want to know about the boys.”

“They’re okay. Now get out of here. I don’t need to put up with you.”

He stomped off.

“What the heck is his problem?” I ground it into reverse. “He didn’t have to be so rude. I just asked a question.”

On I babbled, agitated. Meanwhile, the others were silent. Finally, little Debra, eight years old, spoke softly in Navajo. I caught only one word of it.

“What did she say?” I stopped the truck. No one looked at me directly. It was very still. Even the dust had settled.

Then Norma spoke. I remember her tone, apologetic, as well as I recall those words.

“He thought you were Navajo.”

So. There it was.

“You’re dressed Navajo, and here with us, and driving an old truck,” she added. “He didn’t know you were white. That’s why he spoke so mean.”

“Yeah. He didn’t know you were a belagaana.” It was little Debra again, with an explanation and apology, as if it were her fault, not his.

A few days later it was time for me to leave my friends and head back east to work. I drove the dusty road past the half-burned field, drove past the sheep and goats grazing on the grass that hadn’t burned. As I reached the paved highway the dust settled behind me.

At an intersection a few miles on, a patrol car was parked on the edge of the road and an officer was directing traffic around a stalled truck. It wasn’t the same officer from the fire, but he was tall, light, obviously Anglo.

I was back to being a belagaana dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, no more turquoise, my Navajo hairdo gone. As I slowed to pass the truck, the officer waved and smiled. I hesitated an instant, then raised my hand, smiled back, and drove on.

Becoming Nani

I’m becoming my grandmother.
Again.
Not the pleasant, smiling, easy-going grandmother. The one Norman Rockwell would have painted if he had included Sicilians in his artwork, which he did not.
No, it’s the other grandmother. The feisty little one that can politely be recalled as “eccentric.”
The non-Norman Rockwell Nani.

Every so often something she did that embarassed me terribly as a kid comes back to haunt me. Something that I thought I would never, ever do myself in a million years.

Like…(pensive pause) screaming at the TV soap operas–in Sicilian.
Like…(another pensive pause) talking about the TV soap opera characters as if they were real.

I hate soap operas. Could never stand to watch them. Total waste of time.
In English.
But, in Spanish, I can consider them language lessons!

And so, I got hooked on a Mexican telenovela–Soy Tu Duena. It held the number five spot in the ratings for any program in the US from 9 to 10 PM, and was the most popular show ever on Univision.

But a telenovela is still a soap opera, with all the requisite absurdity and melodrama. Ridiculous coincidences. Tears by the buckets full. Glamorous women. And the main attraction–unbelievably handsome Latin men!

And I did improve my Spanish. Maybe un poquito too much. I started yelling and swearing at the TV. En espanol. Channeling my dear departed grandmother, but with a linguistic morph.

She used choice Sicilian words that aren’t listed in dictionaries and don’t translate into English.
I used choice Mexican words that aren’t listed in dictionaries and do translate into English, though not in polite company.

I had become my grandmother.
Again.
Without knowing it, until my brother stopped by one night and said, “Geeze. You’re yelling at the TV like Nani used to do. What the heck are you watching? It’s not even in English!”

It was too late. I had been sucked into the Soy Tu Duena vortex, along with a bazillion other people, 99% of them women.

At work, the Mexican ladies (though not the men) were also devotees of “Duena” as we know it. One day, two of them stopped by my office and we got to discussing the latest twists and turns of the convoluted plot. I use the word “plot” loosely. It was more like a literary labyrinth.

We became more and more animated and agitated until my brother, who has no Spanish, asked if something was wrong or there was a word-related problem.

“No problema,” I said. “We’re just discussing Soy Tu Duena. Our telenovela. you know,Soap Opera.”

He seemed greatly relieved that an employee uprising was not fomenting. But a bit perplexed by our enthusiasm, animosity, admiration, adulation, and agitation fo rpeople who, at least in his mind, weren’t real.

I have become my grandmother.
Again.
And I think she’s probably laughing at me right now.

Fisherman of the Week

That summer, Nick was eight years old, his brother Danny was eleven, and the fishing was good.

While Danny enjoyed fishing, Nick absolutely loved it. Morning, noon, and night, in any and all weather, Nick was dedicated to his sport. He sometimes fished in shallow water off the dock, but prefered exploring the lake with his dad in their boat.

Crotch Lake, in Ontario, Canada, is a wilderness lake, with limited access and an undeveloped, natural shoreline. Moose and bear wander through the woods, otters slide and play, and loons send their eerie call out across the water before diving deep into it.

And in the lake, smallmouth bass hunt for the perfect worm or leech and take a bite.

The lodge where Nick and Danny were staying with friends and family held a contest for “Fisherman of the Week.” The winner was the angler who caught the biggest fish, with a separate category for kids under fourteen. The prize was an elegant turquoise T-shirt depicting the glory of Crotch Lake–a purple and orange sunset, dark majestic pines silhouetted against the vast sky, and the world’s most perfect fish arching up out of the water. Most important, there was the prestige of winning and the adulation of the other fishermen.

Every day, Nick gazed up at the T-shirt displayed on the bait shop wall. He was determined to win it.

He headed for Bassmania, a secret spot he and his dad had discovered. It lay hidden in a cove, watched over by eagles nesting in a pine tree. With Nick’s own inventive method of perpetual motion angling, he defied the experts by reeling in fish after fish while talking, singing, and rocking the boat. By Thursday, he lead the other young entries with a 3.25 pound smallmouth bass.

The contest would end on Friday at 5:00 PM.

Friday morning, Danny set out with friends in their boat to fish. At noon, he returned and headed for the cleaning shed where his dad was busy filleting fish for the family’s annual catch of the week dinner.

“Hi, Dad.”
“Hey, Danny. How was the fishing?”
“Good.” Danny, like his dad, was a man of few words. “I caught this.” He held up a glistening smallmouth bass.
“Nice fish. Did you weigh it?”
“Yeah. It’s 3.9 pounds.”
“Well, that’s the record for the week. Did you enter it?”
“No.”

Danny watched as his dad skillfully scaled and cut the perch and bass that would be battered and grilled that evening.

“If I enter it, then Nicky won’t be the Fisherman of the Week.”
Silence.
“What should I do, Dad?”
“Whatever you want, Danny. It’s up to you.”
He scraped the slimy board clear with the knife and grabbed a small perch from the pile. Danny stood by him for a few moments, then casually dropped his fish on the table.

“Here, Dad. It’ll cook up nice on the grill.”
The knife stopped moving.
“You sure, Danny?”
“Yeah.” And he walked off toward the beach.

At 5:00 PM the ceremony took place in front of the bait shop. Nick’s face beamed like a second sun as he stood stiff and straight in his Fisherman of the Week T-shirt. Cameras clicked amidst congratulations from kids and grown-ups too.

“Nice shirt, Nick,” said Danny. “You look awesome.”
“Yeah.” Nick grinned. “This is the best T-shirt I ever had. I knew that fish was a winner.”
“Of course.” Danny smiled at his little brother. “Everybody knows you’re the best fisherman around.”

Nick wore the shirt that night at dinner. And everyone agreed that the fish were the tastiest they had ever eaten.

Vulgar Greeting Cards

When did greeting cards get so vulgar?

In June I was reading the Father’s Day cards, trying to find a funny one for my dad. It was harder than I expected because his two major activities are golfing and fixing stuff.

Judging from the card selection, most paterfamiliases (or is the plural “paters familia?”) belch, fart, fall asleep on the couch while watching moronic reality shows or non-moronic sporting events, and consume massive quantities of beer until they keel over.

Who knew? I know lots of dads besides my own, ranging in age from 21 to 91. None of them are famous for engaging in the aforementioned pastimes.

Birthday cards are just as bad. I learned how many of them base their humor (as in “base humor”) on excessive drinking when a friend of mine had a birthday coming up. He had finally joined Alcoholics Anonymous and was clean of alcohol and drugs for the first time in years. But I was hard-pressed to find a card that didn’t encourage him to “drink ’til you drop!”

Then there’s bathroom humor. I never realized that private bodily functions could be so amusing. Are these cards written by–or for–proctologists, urologists, and gynecologists? We now have sound effect cards. The next logical step will be olfactory effect cards, to add to the realism and increase the Yuck Factor. Sort of like a smell-o-gram. I can hardly wait.

Some cards are targeted to women only, who, according to the greeting card industry are (choose from the following):
Sex-obsessed, lusting after buff young men.
Suffering hot flashes, in turn adding to global warming.
Gorging on chocolate, and/or dieting obsessively.
Shopping ’til they’re dropping, mostly for shoes because no matter how much weight gain or loss, shoes still fit.

But most of all, women in greeting cards are indulging in that great all-American sport, one of the last politically incorrect bastions still allowed in public. Men Bashing.
It’s interesting that there are no women-bashing cards available. Is that because women run the Hallmarks of the world? Or because men don’t buy cards anyway?

A few years ago, the Irish-Americans protested strongly against the St. Patrick’s Day cards that depicted all Irish people as falling down, alcohol-obsessed drunkards. Their complaints were heard, and now the cards are humorous without being offensive.

I love the one that shows St. Patrick on the seashore “driving the snakes out of Ireland”–with a nine-iron! Or the riddle “what’s green and hangs out in the back yard?” Answer; “Paddy O’Furniture.”
Ya gotta laugh.
Or not.

The point is, we don’t need to sink to the lowest level with every aspect of our society. I admit there is a market for the racier, risque, off-color cards. But they should be the minority, not the majority, and need not monopolize every card rack in every store.

So, just when did greeting cards get so vulgar? And how did we get so complacent?

Arbor Day?

Where did it go?

It was once one of our most important holidays. School children in rural areas spent the day outdoors. They trekked into the woods, picked bunches of wildflowers, and enjoyed a picnic lunch. Even in the towns and cities, the day was observed with nature walks to identify the neighborhood trees.

And everywhere, the students played an active role in planting trees. Sometimes a tree was dedicated to a special person–a favorite teacher, a war hero, or a civic leader.
The children learned about the benefits of trees. They provide shade, habitat for wildlife, and wood for houses and furniture. And they prevent soil erosion and serve as windbreaks. Arbor Day was an opportunity to combine fun, nature, and learning. A vacation day at school.

Julius Sterling Morton (1832-1902), a Nebraska publisher, was the “Father of Arbor Day.” He served as secretary of agriculture in Grover Cleveland’s cabinet, secretary of Nebraska Territory, and acting governor of the territory for a short period.
But he felt the success of Arbor Day was the greatest achievement of his life.

Nebraska in the 1800s was a dry, treeless plain. Settlers had denuded the area of the few trees they found there. Soil erosion and wind damage were serious problems and wood for building and pulp for paper were scarce. Morton wrote in his newspaper about the importance of reforestation and used his position in government to encourage it. On April 10, 1872, the first Arbor Day was celebrated in Nebraska. (After Morton’s death, the state legislature changed the date to April 22, his birthday.)

Soon Nebraska became known as the Tree Planters’ State, having added over one million trees, turning barren wasteland into verdant forests.
Other states followed, and by 1922 Arbor Day was observed nationwide. Arbor Lodge, Morton’s 52 room home in Nebraska City, is now open to the public as a park and memorial. Over 250 species of trees and shrubs surround the mansion. They were personally planted by the Father of Arbor Day.

So, where is Arbor Day now?
Nowhere to be seen. It appears to have been overshadowed by Earth Day. Several school age kids were asked “What do you know about Arbor Day?” Their replies;
“Huh?”
“What’s that?”
“I never heard of it.”
“I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know what it is.”
“I think it has something to do with trees.”

But when Earth Day is mentioned, they can preach for hours about the disappearing rain forest in South America, the endangered Spotted Owl, and the whales in the North Atlantic. They might be hard pressed to identify the tree that shades their backyard where play every day. Yet they can speak at length about an obscure snail darter or three-toed sloth they’ll probably never see.

Sure, a few teachers in a few schools may yet observe Arbor Day in a limited fashion. But it isn’t “cool” or “in” or “rad” like Earth Day. Why help along one little tree when you can agonize about the entire planet?

Many of the mighty oaks and majestic maples we enjoy today were saplings transplanted by schoolchildren and civic groups on past Arbor Days. Groves, forests, and parks exist because of the efforts of previous generation. They didn’t worry about “saving the earth,” but did remember to “plant a tree.”

Maybe someday we’ll see a revival of Arbor Day. Perhaps it will come during one of our period waves of nostalgia for our innocent past. Or maybe teachers and parents will see the need for our children to be connected to their natural surroundings, to the plants and animals they encounter daily.

Just as all politics are local, so is ecology.

Cheese and Saint Anthony

My family has hauled a lot of weird stuff from place to place. Saint Anthony. Fifty pounds of cheese. My dead aunt’s cedar chest with the Last Supper and a cuckoo clock in it.

It all started when our boat people came to LaMerica from Sicily, carrying little or nothing, other than kids, off the boat at Ellis Island. My Nani Sorbello was herself carried off, seasick and pregnant with her second child. She did bring her wedding shawl, a mauvish pink silk that she cut in half to use as kerchiefs, which seemed practical, though hardly sentimental. It was rescued and sewn back together years later by one of her seven daughters, and is now mine.

My grandfather Pennise, single when he arrived, brought along his discharge papers from the Italian Army and a scarf with the map of Italy showing all the crests of the provinces in the Old Country. My mother had it framed to hang in her dining room. He also had a photo of himself in uniform, his thinning hair styled in an obvious comb-over. And a pair of military gauntlets that my Uncle John used on the farm until they wore out.

My Nani Pennise, who came alone as a teenager, brought nothing.

I marvel at the fancy stuff other immigrants arrived with–linen, silver, jewels, even furniture. Our nicest item that came off the boat at Ellis Island hangs on my wall now. It’s a photo in a wooden oval frame with curved glass. Francesco, in his army uniform, looks very elegant with white gloves and a stogie the size of cordwood. He was killed in World War I by friendly fire in the Alps, but his picture came here in 1923. It was wrapped carefully and packed in a wooden suitcase by my great-aunt Rose, his only sibling. That photo stayed with her her whole life.

But mostly, they came with nothing.

So. Now we’re here. With lots of stuff to carry, ways to carry it, and places to carry it to. Which brings us back to the 50 pound roll of smelly cheese my uncle hauled from western New York to eastern Texas in the trunk of his very large, very red Cadillac.

This is the same Cadillac he used to deliver bedding plants. We were horrified at the mud and mess in the car, but he just shrugged and said that he wouldn’t have such a ritzy car if it weren’t for the dirty plants.

Which leads with perfect logic to the pigs my brother transported in the cab of his pick-up–Christmas gifts for another brother. And, though less logically yet still tangentially in the animal kingdom, my Uncle John brought a cardboard box/casket with a dead cat named Poochie in it to my parents’ to store in the basement freezer/mauseleum until the spring thaw when he gave it a proper burial beside a pink rose bush.

In recent years, Texas plays heavily in our expeditions, due to my cousins living in Beaumont. Besides the cheese, which my cousin claims she couldn’t find down south, there is Saint Anthony. As our family’s patron saint, he has travelled north and south wrapped in a blanket and stuffed in a car trunk, much like a character from a Godfather movie.

A plaster statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, bought cheap because she was cracked, came all the way from Ojinaga, Mexico wrapped in corregated cardboard ripped out of a Corona beer carton and held together with masking tape. She’s in my yard, guarding a pink and white wax begonia plant.

My late aunt’s cedar chest, once filled, weighed more than my SUV and took three men and a boy to move. That’s probably because, in addition to an imported bas-relief rendition of the Last Supper and a solid oak cuckoo clock, it held various doodads, knick-knacks, photos (in frames of course), silver and china that my aunt left to her daughter.

It fell to me, as the only family member sufficiently eccentric, in a family that defines that term, to drive to Beaumont in July. There I was, in the swampiest, buggiest, Spanish hanging mossiest city in Texas, just spitting distance from Lousiana, which is what it feels like someone has been doing.

Later that year I drove down again and delivered a fake Christmas tree, complete with ornaments, and some homemade strawberry freezer jam. Why not?

Years ago, my 104 year old great uncle Turiddu in San Jose, California, insisted I take home a package for his sister, my Nani Sorbello, in Rochester. He sent lemons, oranges, and almonds from his back yard. And they were delicious. Almost as good as in the Old Country.

Unlettered

I was going to name this story “Illiterate” but changed my mind because that sounds rude. Today, in America, you seldom meet someone who is illiterate, and the term seems almost insulting.

But I had two grandparents and a great-aunt who couldn’t read or write. Formal education wasn’t part of their Sicilian childhood. Survival was.

It didn’t seem strange to me. It went right along with no English, or broken English, and stories of a far-away place called The Old Country.

I watched my mother sign her name as witness when they “made their mark” as the saying goes. My great-aunt didn’t know the alphabet, so instead of an “X” my mother told her in Sicilian to “make a cross” like on a rosary. Zia Rose slowly scribed a squiggly “t”, a mark distinctly her own.

My grandmother Sorbello needed new eyeglasses, but how do you give an eye test to someone who is illiterate? No alphabet, so now what?
The chart consisted of the capital letter E in block form, facing up, down, right, left. Nani would point her finger in the direction of the E as the doctor projected smaller and smaller rows on the screen. Problem solved.

This same grandmother practiced long and hard to write her name–Carmella Sorbello–in 1944 because she wanted to sign her citizenship papers herself, not just “make a mark.” She also took pen in hand with great care to sign the letters written by my aunts to my dad serving in the South Pacific during World War II. Nani couldn’t read the letters, sent or received, and she couldn’t write them, of course. But her signature, in hesitant cursive, said it all.

Those were the only documents she ever signed herself, to renounce all allegiance to Italy and become a US citizen, and to send a bit of herself to her soldier son. I have kept them, treasured family heirlooms.

My paternal grandfather never seemed bothered by the fact that he couldn’t read. He just found ways to deal with it.
Pa rode the bus to work every day for 25 years in Rochester, NY. How did he know which bus was his out of all the dozens that stopped downtown? He knew numbers, so that was a start. But the #7 line could go down Park Avenue or Portland Avenue. Since he needed either Park or East to get home, he just looked for the bus with the shorter name. Four letters in Park and East. He never got lost.

Whenever I traveled, I sent postcards home to my grandparents. Pa always spotted them in the pile of mail. He’d study the picture, usually of mountains, trees, or flowers–my family’s passion–then ask someone to read and translate what Melia (his name for me) had written.

I wonder now if he recognized my handwriting. I wonder if people who can’t read can’t read can distinguish individual writing. Would he have known if I had sent a letter in a plain envelope? Would he have smiled at those mysterious lines and loops and said “oh, it’s from Melia”? I wish now I had thought to ask him.

So. What happens to the progeny of these illiterates? Are their families disadvantaged, somehow set back by these circumstances?

Here’s a story:

My grandfather had some dental surgery done when he was in his 90′s and his dentist prescribed an antibiotic. I took the prescription across the street from my grandparent’s house to the drug store.

“I’m Mr. Pennise’s granddaughter,” I said to the pharmacist. “And I have a prescription here from his dentist.”

“Oh, yes. I know Mr. Pennise,” he said. “Nice old gentleman. Rather quiet.” (He was quiet. But he also didn’t speak English.)

The pharmacist read the script, then said,
“Oh, just a minute. There’s a problem with this.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Well, for the patient’s name, it’s fine. It’s got your grandfather’s name, Mr. Sam Pennise. But down here, for the doctor’s name, they also wrote Sam Pennise.”
“That is the doctor’s name,” I said.

It took just an instant for him to look up and smile.
“His grandson?”
“Yup,” I said. “His dentist is his grandson. And also his namesake.”
“That’s wonderful.” He seemed genuinely pleased.

It is wonderful.
And that, in short, is what makes America great.

Encounter With Death (or, “Rumors of my death, etc…”)

I was but a mere 27 years old. Far too young to die, I thought. Of course, since I am here to tell the tale, I obviously didn’t die. Not physically, or spiritually. But legally, “aye, there’s the rub,” whatever that means. Legally dead is another issue.

I had packed my pick-up truck and hauled off to Pennsylvania to visit my cousins for a week. They lived in a town that was barely a wide spot in the road, cradled among the Appalachian Hills. The main activities appeared to be cutting firewood, stacking firewood, and decorating your yard with carburetors, radiators, axles, hubcaps, snowmobile carcasses and motorcycle skeletons. Very scenic. So I wasn’t even home when I died.

My mom, meanwhile, was at work in the office of our family business when a local mechanic stopped by.

“Hi,” he said. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Mom smiled. “You?”

“Well, I’m okay,” he seemed hesitant. “Is Camy all right?”  (Wow, there’s a loaded question.)

“Yes, last I talked to her. She’s in Pennsylvania at her cousin’s for a few days. Why?”

“Ah, well, uh, she paid me for some work I did on her truck, and well, uh…” He seemed lost for words. “The check bounced.”

“Oh, that’s strange. She’s usually pretty careful about that, but I can cover it for you.”

“Well, that’s not the problem. It’s just that, well, here, take a look.”

He handed her my check, stamped “Return to sender. Party deceased.”

“Isn’t that curious?” My mother laughed. “I think if she had died my nephew would have mentioned it, or his wife would have called, if he was too busy.”

Mine was a sudden death. Quick. Complete. Painless. The Bank had killed me off. Closed my account. Bounced all my checks. When one of the largest, most influential and powerful financial entities in the world bumps you off, you’re dead.

By the time I returned from Pennsylvania, things were a mess. I had no clue as to why this had happened. But my mother, whose experience dealing with banks and their idiot-syncracies was far more extensive than mine, had a theory.
My grandmother had died a few weeks previous. She was 65 years older than me, lived in a different city, spoke a different language, had a different social security number, and had never had any account with any bank–ever. Yet, to The Bank we were one and the same person, now deceased, dearly departed, and definitely dead. Go figure.

Nothing to do but head for the local branch and see if I could join the “undead” and return to the land of the living. I approached The Bank manager–a prissy little man I disliked.

“Can I help you?” he snapped.

“Yes. I think The Bank made a mistake.”

He tsked. I hate when men tsk.

“You know,” he said. “People always think The Bank made a mistake. But then, it turns out it’s their own error after all.”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “Not this time.”

Then he sighed. I hate that too.

“Okay. Let’s see what you have here.”

Without a word I handed him a stack of my bounced checks.

“So?” He glared up at me. “What’s the problem?”

“You see the name there on the checks?” I asked.

“Yes. So?”

“That’s me. Do I look dead?”

At that time, younger, thinner, prettier, tan and fit, I knew the answer was, No.

“Oh, my!” He nearly jumped out of his chair.

And now comes the classic line. The one you all have probably never heard, and I will never forget.

“The Bank must have made a mistake.”

“Yes, that’s what I said.” I smiled, sweet and lovely, as he turned red and sputtered. I love when men sputter.

My good name and credit was quickly restored and all was well again.
But sometimes, I wonder if I didn’t miss a golden opportunity. I had already made it to Pennsylvania when I died. From there I could have migrated west, or north, or even south, on to a new life. I could have chosen a new name, like Abigail McLintock, or Elizabeth Kinkaid. Something American sounding, like I’d always wanted.

But it was too late. The moment had passed. My brief encounter with death was over. There was nothing left to do, but live.

How I Almost Didn’t Get Here And Why

My dad told us a story recently, one we’d never heard before, about how he and my grandfather thawed out the frozen gas line under their house.

They lit a wad of newspapers on fire, then lay in the crawlspace under the house and held the flame to the gas pipe. My grandmother stood at the stove in the kitchen just above them, turning the burner knob on and off to see if it worked.

Eventually, it did. Without blowing up the house, my grandfather, my grandmother, and of course, my father, who had not yet pro-created. My brothers and I were amazed at the stupidity of this practice and at our infinite good fortune that, foolish or not, Dad survived to marry Mom. He might have been blown sky-high and landed dead. Or been badly incapacitated. Or orphaned and sent off to live with relatives in Chicago, or Sicily.

But that’s all conjecture. It’s moot. What matters is, they held a flame to a frozen gas line, didn’t blow themselves to Kingdom Come, and I’m here to tell the tale.

That got me to thinking about all the other what ifs and close calls in my personal history. How my very existence relied on the twists and turns, big and small, of Fate.

My grandmother left Naples, Italy in April, 1914, bound for America, on the last ship crossing the Atlantic. The very last ship. Due to the first World War it would be three more years before one sailed again. How close did she come to literally “missing the boat?” If the donkey had plodded along just a bit slower. Or the wagon had thrown a wheel. Or the train had derailed. Or she had cried a few more good-bye tears in her father’s arms. She wouldn’t have made it to Syracuse, N.Y. to meet the man who would be my grandfather.

And my grandfather might have married the girl he had an affair with on his ship back in 1909. Earlier, in the Army in Sicily, he could have had his foot amputated like the doctor advised and been a cripple, and never come to the US at all.

Back to my dad, who survived his gas line thawing days to grow up and enlist in the Army in World War II. Stationed on a South Pacific Island, he sat down one day on a  box to write a letter home. A Japanese plane flew over and strafed the area, so fast he hardly knew what happened. Luckily, the shots missed him, and the box he sat one, which was full of dynamite.

The more I thought about the cases of pneumonia before antibiotics, childbirths at home with no doctor attending, lightning strikes that just missed the house, cows and horses with vicious kicks, tractors that tipped over, rusty nails loaded with tetanus…

I was laughing, crying, and getting a terrific headache.

If my brothers and I had never been born, what about my nieces and nephews? Two would have never been born at all. And the other two, adopted separately from Guatemala, would be alive, but not here with us. Or with each other as brother and sister. What would their names be? Where would they live? How would they live? It was all too much to contemplate.

Stop a moment yourself and think. What in your own past might have kept you from being here? It could be a grand scale event–a war, earthquake, or Holocaust. Or a seemingly trivial and insignificant something. A plane grounded, a letter misaddressed, a phone call unanswered.

Why and how do these moments in time happen? Or not? Our histories overlap and intertwine in twisted patterns as complex and inexplicable as our DNA. You can credit, or curse God, the Universe, or Fate. Choose your creed.

Regardless, here you are.

And here I am. Because my dad did not blow himself up thawing a frozen gas line.

We Need the Pony Express

Let’s reinstate the Pony Express. Right now. The time has come.

Foolhardy teen-age boys riding galloping beasts of burden are surely more reliable than email when it comes to getting the mail through. For eighteen months in the mid-1860′s, folks knew they could count on the Pony Express to cover the 2,000 mile route from Missouri to California, through rough and wild territory.

The horses averaged ten miles per hour and it took, on average, ten to sixteen days to get there,though one delivery made it in record time of just over seven days. And it wasn’t cheap. Five dollars forone half ounce of mail, lowered finally to one dollar per half ounce. Expensive even by today’s standards.

But only one mochila, or saddlebag, was ever lost. The letters it carried, with sad news or glad news, never reached their intended readers. Who knows what communique was left unanswered? A love letter? Proposal of marriage? Birth or death notice? A last will and testament bequeathing a fortune to a struggling rancher?

Still, it was just one mochila that could carry only a few pieces of mail. Compare that small saddlebag to the infinite Cyberspace. Cyberspace. Bazillions of Pony Express mochilas wouldn’t put a dent in it. And bazillions of email messages, many with attached documents, are lost for all eternity in its wilderness, a wilderness far more vast and impenetrable than the American prairie.

Email is remarkable in its bizarre unpredictability. Designed to be ephemeral, sometimes it’s just plain gone. I once lost all contact with my email account. The server, located I believe in a cave in the mountains of Pakistan, appeared defunct. I could no longer connect with my dozens of personal and business contacts. A few of them were Luddites enough to actually post me a letter, but most of them just assumed Iwas dead.

So, what did I miss in  those emails lost in space?

A Random House editor clamoring to publish my novel, positive it would be a best seller?

The New York Times sending my itinerary for an around-the-world travel series that only I could write, and they could finance?

That good-looking cowboy I met at a campfire, asking me to marry him and help run his half million acre ranch?

Or a lawyer from Rome informing me, in Italian, that I’d inherited a quaint villa in Sicily from a third cousin twice removed?

The mind reels. Actually, my disappeared emails were most likely the same old junk.

Political ads from all mayor, and minor, parties.

Announcements of overpriced cultural events.

Stupid moving cartoons with blinding graphics.

And of course, the latest in a never-ending line of men-bashing jokes.

So, it really doesn’t matter if my email is here or gone. The earth will turn. The sun will shine. The yearly cycle of planting, growing, and harvesting will go on. It doesn’t care about email.

And neither do I. I’m far too busy anyway, as a one-woman crusade to bring back the Pony Express. Care to sign my petition?