Howdy From Rumbling, Tumbling Me

That’s me on the right, during my majorette-in-training period, hence the pose. That’s my sister Leslie on the left, happy as always to be basking in the light of me. (This is my test to see if she’s reading this.)

Hello from absent me.

Two days after I filed my last essay, on April 10, I fell and injured my writing arm. One minute I was walking quickly in the rain wearing a faculty commencement gown and an old pair of platform sandals. The next minute, I was facedown on the wet pavement, the sleeves of my gown spread like the wings of a fallen goose.

I fell in the middle of a crowd entering a chapel for an important awards ceremony. If you’re going to make a fool of yourself, make sure you have an audience, I always say, never.  

Our friend John Glenn, of astronaut and American hero fame, used to tell me the best way to fall is to “tuck and roll.” This works only if you have time to think about tucking and rolling, I’ve learned. Probably helps to be several decades younger, too, but let’s not dwell.

Until I fell, I didn’t realize how much I depended on my right hand at the keyboard. I’d always thought of my right and left hands as twin trumpets in the same band, but as it turns out they are different instruments that depend on each other no matter how bad the song.

Now I’m having flashbacks to my short-lived time of cornet lessons, which I took in fourth grade because Mom wanted me to be a majorette in high school. A girl had to learn how to play an instrument before she could give it up for a sequined swimsuit and baton. I’m not taking a swipe at those of you who were majorettes. I’m just working through my envy of you, 49 years later.

Our school’s music teacher quickly concluded I was not marching band material. I don’t remember exactly how he broke the news to my mother, but I think he said something along the lines of, “If she were any more miserable, she would be dead.”

Days later, Mom returned the cornet to my second cousin, Richard, and released me from mandatory baton lessons, too.

“I see you as a cheerleader,” she said, pushing the bangs from my forehead. Thus began my second elementary school career.

I still have that little baton, and the red corduroy majorette uniform with fringed epaulets. I recall wearing it in parades through downtown Ashtabula, Ohio. I also remember these parades always ending with lost little me screaming for my father in a city park the size of a two-car garage. (I was a fearful child.)

My majorette uniform from fourth grade. It made me feel glorious, briefly.

Oh my, that majorette uniform: It had a white felt bib, held in place by twelve brass buttons and embroidered with the word Kayettes, named for our baton teacher, Kay.

I loved Kay. She was tall and tanned, and the happiest woman I knew. For each group lesson, she made us line up on the sidewalk in front of her house, one girl per square. For 30 minutes a week, we tried to replicate her magic, which included fancy poses with our feet.

Kay had a habit of shouting, “Good job, Connie!” This was a sack of lies, I learned on that fateful evening in July.

We had just finished supper. I don’t remember what we ate but it’s always a safe bet to say goulash because that was Mom’s signature dish. Mom pushed away from the table, ordered my sister Leslie to clear the table and then intercepted Dad on his way to the recliner. “Let’s go outside and watch Connie show us what she’s learned in baton class.”

“Right now?” Dad and I said in unison.

“Right now,” Mom said. “Go get your baton.”

My parents sat on the porch steps. I stood on the pavement in front of them and hummed Anchors Aweigh as I marched and twirled. Things were going well until I got a little carried away with the tosses and Mom had to duck. Fortunately, this was during Dad’s softball years, so he was ready for the rogue baton.

“I think we’ve seen enough,” he said, handing the baton to me as my mother collapsed on the porch swing and fanned herself. He meant it, too. My father, the family photographer who took thousands of pictures, appears to have snapped only one of me twirling my baton, during a community program on the shore of Lake Erie. At least I think that little speck of human in the picture is me. My parents were standing far away.

Anyway, all of this is to say that, for 17 days, my arm was on fire, and apparently I’m a writer who can be distracted by physical pain. As a  daughter of the man who played through a broken collarbone to finish a tournament game--and scored the winning run--I’m a bit disappointed in myself. But—good news!—my arm now only feels like a smoldering ember, so here I am. So glad to be back.

I’m working on several essays, including one about a dog I’ve missed for 13 years. I promise it’s not a sad piece. Also, it will not contain the slightest mention of the governor of South Dakota, a Republican vice-presidential hopeful who thought it was a good career move to brag about her monstrous act of shooting the family’s 14-month-old puppy that she had decided was untrainable.

I am not a dog trainer, but I’ve had some experience with a rogue puppy. His name is Walter.

This is Walter, about a month after we adopted him. That’s Franklin in the distance, by choice. It took him a while.

He’s a small, sweet, and neurotic little guy we named for Walter Reuther, the labor and civil rights activist. We adopted him in the summer of 2019 after our friend Karen Sandstrom—writer, artist, and dog whisperer--rescued him from the streets of Cleveland.

Walter was about a year old when we met him. He was two pounds underweight, and in need of neutering, grooming, and dental work. He had to learn to trust humans, particularly men, which made for an interesting first year for him and Sherrod. Lots of bites and Peppa Pig bandages, but it never occurred to us that we should shoot him.

Instead, we loved and trained him. Now he only growls at Sherrod whenever he tries to kiss me.  One of us finds this hilarious.