“The Welcome/Unwelcome Guest”
Bobbi Wolcott
Response

Wisdom Bearers
By DiAna Hart Smith
Inspiration piece

Here I am in the little living room of our row house resplendent in my full-skirted tea length dress of baby blue organdy. Two-inch heels have been dyed the exact shade of blue as my dress. Hairspray and hairpins hold my upsweep motionless. This is my first date. The door bell chimes—Bruce is here to take me to the Junior High School dance. He and I are all of fourteen. Mom gently opens the front door.

A woman blows in over our threshold. She takes three giant steps and looms large—like a ringmaster–in the middle of our living room that’s suddenly become smaller. She’s pumping Dad’s hand saying, “I’m Bruce’s mother. I’m Ruth Kramer.” Then, she latches onto my hand, “You must be Brucie’s date, DiAna.” Then Ruth turns her energy onto Mom—still frozen in place not even blinking. Mom’s hand stays tightly wrapped around the door knob. Mom looks stunned. She’s silent. Ruth says, “Hi, I’m Ruth.” in Mom’s general direction.

It’s 1958. Ruth’s hair is cropped and gently colored, suspiciously close to the shade featured on the new TV commercial for the Clairol home coloring kit. Ruth’s suit is black. The sharp edges of its fine tailoring contrasts with the soft gathers of Mom’s pastel shirtwaist dress. Mom has suits but they have peplums, crystal rosette buttons–feminine touches. A sensational eye-grabbing jeweled broach gleams on Ruth’s lapel. Suddenly, Mom’s strand of pearls looks so classically innocent. Mom always looks lovely. Ruth is some new kind of exotic for me. She’s not refined Mom and she’s not glamorous Loretta Young–who hosts her own television show.

Ruth tells my parents and me that she and Bruce live in an apartment on Angora Terrace and that she has a career. Few mothers I know work outside the home. Those who do, have part-time jobs, nothing they classify as a career. Ruth begins enumerating on her fingers that: First, she’ll drive Bruce and me to the dance. Second, she’ll pick us up at the front door of the school gym at eleven o’clock sharp. Third, she’ll deliver me back to my front door by eleven twenty-eight at the latest. I almost expect her to say to Dad, “Have you got that?”

Sometime during my slow recovery from the jolt of Ruth, I glimpse Bruce in his mother’s wake just a few inches into our living room. A white oblong corsage box with the telltale cellophane window is tucked under his right arm. Suddenly, it hits me that I have forgotten all about him. My eyes have been riveted on his mother and her broach.

I am witnessing Ruth taking complete control of our situation—so expertly and with such concentrated energy—while dressed in such a serious shade of fashion. Bruce must have slipped the orchid corsage on my wrist at some point but I wasn’t able to divert my attention from Ruth, who has become my date of choice.

Bruce sits next to me in silence in the backseat. I don’t know what to say to him. He doesn’t know what to say to me. I watch Ruth competently maneuver her car through Philadelphia’s complicated traffic patterns. Traditionally, only dads own cars and do all of the driving and delivering of everyone—family, friends, neighbors.

I sit forward and ask Ruth questions from the back seat. Ruth’s eyes meet mine in her rear-view mirror as we talk of the Eisenhower administration, my course load, and the permanent collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Thank goodness for all of those current events assignments and all of those school field trips to the Philadelphia Museum of Art that I adore. The questions Ruth poses makes me feel as though she’s genuinely interested in my opinion. And, she respectfully responds to my questions. I never get to know Ruth’s full story. It isn’t for my lack of trying. She intrigues me.

I’m home at eleven twenty-six—two minutes early. Mom is waiting up for me. She loves how nice my dress looks. She compliments me on not shining on Bruce, “I’m so relieved, DiAna, that you’re not boy crazy. Kathy Russo’s mother tells me that Kathy is boy crazy and she worries so about her.” Curiously, Mom doesn’t mention Ruth. I don’t either. I suspect that Mom doesn’t know what to think—whether to feel sorry for Ruth, admire her, or find her ways pushy and offensive.

I sense from pieces I put together from Ruth’s and my conversation that Bruce’s father isn’t a part of her and Bruce’s family unit, that she alone will fill all gaps. Bruce won’t feel the lack of a father or suffer from their adjusted lifestyle, if Ruth can possibly prevent it. Soon, I don’t remember much about Bruce–other than he was tall and had curly dark hair–or the dance. Bruce’s mother eclipsed him. He faded from my life as fast as the orchid wrist corsage, but Ruth still rattles around in my brain.

I gnaw on Ruth for months. People can really choose different life styles—that’s huge for me. Ruth is single and so brave. She earns the money that pays all of her and Bruce’s expenses. She must have selected her car and paid for it herself. Mom relies on Dad to make big decisions, pay bills, and write checks. Ruth does all the things that dads are expected to do. She didn’t call Dad, act pitiful, and ask him to drive us to the dance. Mom doesn’t drive. Bruce is lucky his mom is devoted to him and will take care of him. Whew! It’s a lot to think about.

Little do I know that fifty-five years later, I’ll still be benefiting from Ruth occupying a crag in my brain. I think of Ruth standing tall, free and brave—doing what had to be done. Ruth planted a feministic seed or two in me. She influenced my choice to have a son, a career, and a life that I crafted.

All those decades ago Ruth put me on alert that wisdom bearers come unannounced in unexpected shapes and in unconventional forms. I still keep my ears and eyes wide open.

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Bobbi Wolcott  — Sanctuary

Inspiration

Bricks Outlined in Snow — DiAna Hart Smith

Response

Snow caught in the mortar joints outlining the brick façade. Each brick looked as if Mom had gift-wrapped it for me in her prized white tissue paper. Snow dusted all four of us as we started up the eight concrete steps of this small Philadelphia row house that would be our home. Eleven year old Joey was talking to Dad. My five-year old hand—warm in a wool mitten–was wound around Mom’s hand as far as it would go.

What a gift this move was. Mom had prevailed. She had leaned on Dad night and day until he moved us out of the stucco and stone farmhouse, out of isolation, out from under Mr. and Mrs. Hansome’s watchful eyes.

We would live catty corner from the house we had left over a year ago–out of financial necessity–to move in with Mr. and Mrs. Hansome in rural Lima, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Hansome’s voice, “Don’t touch my things. Don’t tease my dogs. Don’t make noise.” would now be silent. My clenched body was beginning to relax.

Neither this house nor the Philadelphia neighborhood was ideal, but we were back in our old neighborhood and knew how to navigate it. Now I could roam the warren of narrow side streets filled with houses just like ours. Behind each portal were kids my age, ready for spontaneous games of hide and seek, hop scotch, red rover, stick ball, and tag, played as we dodged cars passing us in the street. Adults sat in rocking chairs on small front porches and corrected all the children—not just their own. Everyone paused to pass the time as they ran errands.

Tight living made secret-keeping impossible and added juice to everyone’s life story. Under my observant eye the neighbors were all like characters in my live soap operas mimicking Mom’s televised ones.

It’s only now that I’ve circled the sun for so many decades I realize my life choices began here on South Ruby Street. These were the people who informed my world and framed my future.

Helen Hyashi’s father was Japanese and her mother American. Mr. Hyashi drove a city bus. Mrs. Hyashi was a skilled homemaker and decorated their small home with fine textiles and Japanese art. Helen was an exotic beauty with straight hair that moved like a black satin curtain across her back or was wound up into an intricate shiny chignon.

Helen was a decade older than I. Her parents adored their bright only child, who eventually snagged a well-paying job. She wore expensively tailored suits to work. Her purse always matched her shoes. She passed our house on the way to the bus stop. A Yellow Cab picked her up whenever she went to an evening event, dressed in slim silk cocktail dresses, fiery rhinestone jewelry, and strappy spike heels. Helen moved on to a life of luxury. Helen deserved it. She was gorgeous. She worked hard toward her goal. Helen found her perfect life. Would I find mine?

During my early years my neighbors got a one-hour-a-week reprieve from my scrutiny, courtesy of Dale Evans. I adored Dale Evens who partnered up with Roy Rogers for an era of fame and financial success. No one ever referred to her as Mrs. Rogers. She had her own name, her own horse, and her own role in their television show. As “Queen of the West” Dale didn’t shadow “King of the Cowboys” Roy. Why they even sang together. Dale wrote their theme song, “Happy Trails to You.” Equal partners–imagine that in the fifties! I wanted what I saw although I couldn’t label it “equality.” The seed was planted. A future feminist was germinating.

Neighborhood girls got pregnant and had to leave school. Whoa, what were they thinking? Dale, Helen, and Mom kept me on the straight and narrow. I wanted to traverse only Dale’s happy trails.

Several of the living soap operas playing in our neighborhood exhibited what I did not want.

Mrs. Mean-Mess, as we secretly called her, sat on her ample bum on her top porch step and interfered in everyone’s lives. Her four young children were overloaded with chores that they performed poorly. They lived in squalor.

Mrs. Mean-Mess turned the air blue yelling profanities at her children. I liked playing with her oldest daughter Patsy, but was startled and scared when Mrs. Mean-Mess would call, “Patsy come here. I’m going to beat you. You didn’t do what I told you to do.” Then she would haul off and hit Patsy–even slap her in the face. It was hard to take. Mrs. Mean-Mess showed me that I didn’t want to end up trapped. She was like the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.

Religious messages confused the daylights out of me. Occasionally, Mrs. Mean-Mess sent her children across our narrow street to slip Catholic literature under our front door. To me she didn’t seem to walk with the faithful.

Even young boys taught me who fit where in our cultural matrix. When we turned seven my first heart throb, Bobby Yeager, took on the hard job of explaining that the nuns insisted that Catholics could never marry publics—those who attended public schools. He and I could only be friends. Then it happened again. When we both turned ten, my second heart throb, Ruben Cohen, gave me a similar explanation after my Sunday school class visited his synagogue for a lecture and tour. Although Ruben’s Rabbi explained the Jewish faith in terms we in the Sunday school class could understand, it didn’t stop Ruben from making it clear that I was still a gentile. He and I could only be friends.

Mom warned me, “Don’t be alone with Mr. Nolds. He’s too friendly toward little girls. Something isn’t right.” Instinctively I knew what she meant. He made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t know exactly why. I couldn’t put it into words—neither could Mom.

Mr. Nolds wasn’t nice to his family and that was another clue to avoid him. I still remember being astounded when I was waiting for his daughter, Lily, while they ate dinner. Mrs. Nolds warned, ‘Don’t eat the lima beans. I bumped the dish against the refrigerator bulb and it broke. There could be slivers of glass in the limas.” Why didn’t she dump them rather than serve them? Mr. Nolds responded, “Everyone eat your limas. Spear them one-by-one with your fork. Look them over. You’ll see any glass. We’re not wasting food in this house.” Even at eight years-old I knew such fine glass fragments couldn’t be detected. Was I ever convinced to steer clear of controlling people and those who set off my alarm buzzers! An early lesson that’s lasted a lifetime.

Ours was a wildly diverse neighborhood in transition. As people advanced they moved to the suburbs to better neighborhoods and schools. The civil rights movement was gearing up. White flight struck. House values plummeted. Those families who kept the rhythm of civility–caring for your neighbor and property–were gone. Uneducated and prejudiced people moved in. Threats and violence erupted. Mom again leaned on Dad and convinced him to move–the second gift of her devising.

I translated what I learned in my live soap operas into what was then termed having it all: marrying in my late twenties, having a child, and a career. But, when I was working full time, raising my son, cooking, gardening and doing housework, I wondered if do-it-all Dale Evans was ever as sleep deprived as I was. Was this what equality looked like? Was Helen Hyashi mired in routine tasks ruining her manicure?

You’d think with all of this data collecting that I could have assembled the perfect life—not so. Life is good—not perfect. I did the choosing. There’s satisfaction in that. I have lots of friends—we still play well together. Who would I be if we had stayed at the farmhouse in Lima?

My life has been solid as that brick facade on South Ruby Street that kept the outside chaos at bay. My observant eye keeps me safe and entertained.

I defer to my little granddaughters who advise, “You get what you get and you don’t get upset.” That’s exactly right. . .philosophy as solid as a brick outlined in snow.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.