Anita Garner's journey from rock and roll disc jockey to grandmother.. what's next?
Rain’s starting. I love the sound of it, but not the metal downspouts outside the bedroom window, which sound nothing like the rain on the tin roof at my Arkansas Grandma’s house.
This sound is not whoosh or splash or drip drip drip. It’s more jackhammer than gentle. A helper says put sponges at the metal elbow. I keep replacing sponges. Drains keep spitting them out.
As I’m climbing into bed on a nice rainy night, here’s what the garden gnomes are saying.
The Cascades
As I walked away, a clerk called out, “Sweetie, you forgot something.” Though I’m older than his mother, I never let a term of endearment go by unacknowledged, so I decided he was talking to me, turned around and gave him my best smile.
No matter what the speaker’s intent, it’s the recipient’s attitude that matters. Even if the person doing the talking might be trying for a bit of sarcasm with the “Well, sweetheart” or “Oh sure, darlin,” I choose to ignore the barb and accept it all quite literally. If you call out any one of these terms, I’ll answer to it.
You know how sometimes a restaurant server addresses you with “Just a minute, Hon” or “Be right with you, darlin’,” and sure it could mean “Wait your turn. I’ll get to you as soon as I can,” but it might also mean “I call everybody Hon,” leading to the best possible interpretation, which is “Have I seen you here before? Well I’m gonna treat you like a regular anyhow.”
Here’s the conversation from last week, in a coffee shop. (I spend a lot of time in coffee shops.)
My server to me: “You want coffee, Hon?” She poured, then carried on three conversations at once.
To a nearby table: “No, that was Doris’ brother in law who moved away.”
One booth over: “Joe was already here and gone this morning. He catches the early bus to the casino now.”
And to another table: “Yeah, she’s learning English, studying hard, but somebody gave her an app so she can talk into her phone and I get her order right away.”
Some might object to this level of familiarity, saying these forms of address are sexist or inappropriate among people who haven’t been introduced. I find this language from strangers oddly comforting. It’s way better than being ignored, so you can call me Hon anytime.
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What’s cool like the fifties? Watching TV with my granddaughter and up pops my mother – aka Sister Fern Jones – singing in the middle of the show. it was nice to say, “That’s your great-grandmother.”
She was a rockabilly pioneer and she still rocks today, 60 years after this song was recorded. (The picture’s a screenshot. Click the link below to listen.)
I’ve never been a birdwatcher, but there’s drama outside the window this week. The pictures are fuzzy because I took them from inside the house. These birds have already been through enough.
Our backyard has recently been Crow City. My daughter hung this bird feeder a few days ago and the crows took it over. It’s meant for smaller birds, like the ones above, but the crows tilt it so the birdseed falls to the ground, then they call each other in loud voices to come gobble it up. A little consideration would be nice. Do these crows not remember when a couple of their babies fell into the yard and were rescued right here at Crow Hospital?
Small birds avoided us until this week. It’s the first time we’ve seen anything besides crows fly into the yard. Wonder if this bluebird is a good sign.
After Christmas a friend said, only half-kidding, that he should hire himself out as a break-er down-er of Amazon boxes. A news report later covered how many pounds of flattened Amazon boxes were taken to recycling centers. A staggering number. (Photo/Getty Images)
Our Amazon boxes lived outside under the eaves for weeks. We flattened them bit by bit to squish them into the recycle bin for pickup. We just finished the stack from Christmas.
Only after the holidays did I learn about Give Back Box. I haven’t checked it out yet, but it looks interesting – a way to do some good while re-using all those empty boxes.
Northern California desperately needs this Spring rain. Camellias to the left. Lemons to the right. Spring rain smack dab in the middle. We’ve got us a celebration!
New week. New season arriving soon. New definition. Remember when we were very young and thought “happy” was our birthright? As years went by, we did a lot of things just to get some of that. Today I think “content” or “peaceful most of the time” will suffice. I don’t think of these as compromises, but as more likely-sustainable states of mind.
By Anita Garner
Those were the days, weren’t they? In memory, they’re golden. We also want to know about a colleague’s passing, comfort each other about health issues, but that can also occupy every conversation.
A friend and colleague, Don Barrett, is Los Angeles radio’s teller of tales, and often our prophet, at www.laradio.com. He’s had several careers with contacts ranging far and wide, and he’s in touch with multitudes of people he knows in movies and broadcasting. Don’s our resource when we need to find someone.
But Don has a fifteen minute nostalgia rule and then he wants to know about today. Are you still on the beach? (In radio talk, being out of work is being “on the beach.” I don’t know why.) Do you have plans? He’d rather hear about right now. What are you doing? Where? How do you feel about it?
Radio and television and newspaper and all manner of media ruled our careers for decades, creating exciting relationships, and then when that part of life moves on, there’s a desire to remember when, with groups we once worked with. I like Facebook for that. And emails. But I also respect Don’s approach to staying in touch with what’s happening now.
Music this week is “Moon River.” Chris Whiteman on guitar.
Chris plays “Moon River” on his 1959 Gibson ES-125T
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjBXNTW5hb4
And more mighty fine listening from Chris here.
Subscribe to Chris’ You Tube channel here.
I’m borrowing these from Reader’s Digest this week. Wish I’d thought of these lies we tell our kids.
— “If the ice cream truck is playing music, it means it’s run out of ice cream.”
— “Her Dad said if she looked after a special growing rock and watered it until it stopped growing, she could get a dog. She watered it and while she was at school, her Dad replaced it with a bigger rock.”
— “Toys grow under the weeds in the yard and if you pull the weeds, eventually a toy will pop out.”
— “They don’t sell replacement batteries for that toy.
— And a personal one: Because my Daddy was a Southern preacher who was often in touch with Jesus, I’m cautious about this one. My brother and I prayed every night for a blue Schwinn bicycle.
Daddy said Baby Jesus provides for all our needs but maybe not our wants and besides it was rude to ask Him for something so specific. My brother said if he had a bike, he could get a paper route.
A bicycle soon appeared on the front porch of the parsonage. It wasn’t new. It wasn’t blue, but it worked. Daddy never admitted to buying it.
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Thank you for the music –
Colin Tribe and grandson, Edward
Colin’s You Tube Channel
I’m the guardian of my parents’ memories. Boxes of them. Stacks of them. So many photo albums my camera couldn’t fit them into one picture to show you.
How to know which I’ll regret parting with? What’ll be valuable to someone in the future? Do I keep all of this and leave it for my daughter to decide? Do I call on the gods of technology and ask if there’s an affordable answer?
Sticky notes mark my feeble attempt to identify by decade
I’ve moved them around for years and don’t know if anyone else will want them someday. There’s the option to preserve them digitally, but there are so many of them. My scanner isn’t great and each time I start to scan one, I stop and remember stories. Obviously I’m not suited for this job, and I know I’m not alone. I’ve met other people whose garages belong half to them and half to the past.
