Tomorrow I am three-quarters of a century old. Yeah, you heard that right. Seventy-five years old. Can it be? Seems like just yesterday I was messing around in the back yard at Fifteenth Avenue in Marshalltown, Iowa playing with my sister and brother. In honor of this momentous occasion here’s an excerpt from my forthcoming memoir.In a week or so I will post anther excerpt.
Beginning
I was born in Chicago, Illinois on Friday, October 13, 1950. Friday the 13th is supposed to be an unlucky day according to superstition. Later when I was older, I made up my mind that Friday the 13th was lucky for me and that everything that was unlucky for everybody else was lucky for me. I could walk under ladders. I could break mirrors. I could step on sidewalk cracks and not break my mother’s back. I could own all the black cats in the world, and nothing would come of it. Just about as silly as the superstition but, oh, well. It doesn’t matter really, does it? Neither one of those things are true, but you know how people like to make things up and I’m no different.
I was the first kid, and when I was born my mom and dad lived in the Bohemian artsy part of Chicago. Our first home was 1738 N. Park St. in the area known as Old Town Triangle. Mom called it “Bug House Square.” She said at night, with all the lights on in the kitchen, she would spray bug killer up and down and all over. Then she would turn out the lights, slam the door behind her and immediately stuff rags at the bottom of the door. In minutes she would hear scuffling and, in the morning, upon opening the door, would find a giant pile of dead cockroaches that had tried to flee the poison. Such was our existence and because I was a baby I knew nothing of this. Too bad I wasn’t older so I could remember it first-hand. It makes a great story.
In the early days my mom and dad still liked each other. You can see in the picture an easy familiarity. Mom liked being married. I don’t know about Artie, but he probably did, too. However, it didn’t take very long for discord to rear its ugly head. Then my extraordinary mom felt that she might have married in haste only to repent at leisure.
At first Mom had her art teaching job at the University of Illinois at Navy Pier and Artie went to school at the Chicago Art Institute. Mom was a little older than most girls who were already married. She had been going to school, gallivanting around New York City and Philadelphia having a career that wasn’t a schoolteacher, secretary or nurse, the only jobs that was acceptable for a woman to have in those days. But she was in her late twenties and was feeling pressure to get hitched. Here came Artie, suave, confident, handsome, funny. I’m pretty sure he swept her off her feet and since she was getting older, what the heck.
After they married Artie got a job somewhere, I don’t know where. In his free time, he would play golf because he would have loved to have been a professional golfer. He was pretty good at it, but he didn’t have that ambitious fire in his belly or maybe he felt that his duty lay elsewhere. He didn’t pursue it. Maybe it was my arrival that made him give up that particular dream, but he didn’t give up golf. Oh no, he played golf all his life, chipping practice balls in our back yard and going off to the golf course every chance he got.
The unfortunate part for Mom was that in Chicago he would play golf with women he met somewhere. Somewhere respectable, I hope, but I don’t know where for sure. Mom stayed at home with me because she wasn’t into golfing, but the fact that he would invite other women to play with him made her pretty darn mad and jealous. She kept her mouth shut and didn’t complain but boy was she building up resentment. Wouldn’t you be mad? I would! He kept on doing it and they never came to a suitable understanding about it. Years later when I was almost grown, she complained to me, so I know how she felt about it.
Because I was a baby I don’t remember anything about all this. Instead, I was told later, Mom took me to nearby Lincoln Park and North Avenue Beach to get away and have some peace. Everybody said I was a pretty baby, and Mom must have thought so too because she took me to audition to be a Gerber baby. She got nervous when they said let us take her into the next office to show the boss. You wait here. I didn’t get the part, but I came back to a very much relieved Mom. My uncle Bob watched me as I slept and called me a “real sack artist”.
In Junior High and High School everything changes for me. I‘ve entered the Twilight Zone of disconcerting physical changes and scholastic expectations that I’m not prepared for. In elementary school I was awkward and shy but in Junior High awkwardness takes a quantum leap into the stratosphere. Looks are important. Popularity is important. Grades are important.
To get to Anson Junior High we ride the bus. Sometimes I walk and I even walk when the weather is really cold but mostly we ride an old bus with a friendly driver. On the bus I wait to see if a certain boy will board the bus but then I am too shy to say hello if he does. I just sneak a peek and hope he doesn’t notice me peeking.
I think the bus looked something like this.
Once we get to school, a crowd gathers outside the front door until the bell rings. To pass the time we tease each other or some hapless individual. Maybe we decide that we don’t like their hair or clothes. My god, we do not have a conscience. (Welcome to Junior High. Now go home.) It’s sort of like the Mark Twain short story (“The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut”) about the man who conquers his conscience and then goes on a crime spree. Yeah, that is us. Eventually the victim complains, and we are hauled into the principal’s office where we get a proper finger wagging. After that we behave. Well, I know that I behave but I can’t speak for the other little Heathers. I’m not like that. Instead, I am a natural follower of Heathers.
In class I spend all my time seated in the back row drawing elaborate cartoon stories I’ve made up about the exploits of the Beatles. It looks like I’m taking notes, but I’m not. I’m drawing like a house on fire. This is 1963. The Beatles have just been on the Ed Sullivan Theater show. When I’m done I fold the note into a little bundle and sneak the note to a friend who then draws a response and sneaks it back to me. We are inspired by the Beatle movies we’ve seen, A Hard Days’s Night and Help! We have seen these movies many, many, many times at the Orpheum Theater on Main Street on a Saturday. I’ve gone to see A Hard Day’s Night 10 times. Looking at these cartoons years later I realize how creative they were.
We loved The Beatles so much!
The only class I like is Latin. This is because our teacher, Miss Rose Sadoff, is so nice and such a character! There she is at the head of the class declaring, “Latin is not a dead language!” and then she goes on to explain why. She inspires me to love language. As I get older, I’m still enamored. (Ha! Latin there!) I love studying the etymology of words and one of my favorite books is The Story of English. I still remember Latin verb conjugations set to the tune of One little, two little, three little Indians. How’s this for memory? The verb “to love” – (I can recite it with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back.)
“o”, I; es “you”; t “he”; mus “we”; tis “you”; ent “they”; amare!
She instructs us to greet each other, “Salve!” (sal-vay) to which we respond, “Salve et tu quoque!” (sal-vay et too qwo-kway). “Salutations!” “Salutations to you also!”
I enjoy Home Economics, but I’m terrible at it. My A line skirt sewing project is a disaster and the purple cow milk shake I make tastes, well, like purple. Somehow, I manage to acquire skills but I don’t think it’s because of Home Ec class. I think it’s because my dad threw me in the deep end of cooking at home. More about that in another chapter.
Ellen demonstrates how to make a salad in science class, and I use her technique to this day. David pulls the wings off a fly in homeroom to gross out the girls. We are properly grossed out and disgusted. We perfect our swimming technique in the underground swimming pool. One day we swim laps and for some reason I’m super tired. I probably have not eaten breakfast because I’m in the habit of throwing in the gutter the fried egg sandwich that my mother gives me to eat on the way to the bus. I hate fried egg sandwiches. I think they make me look stupid. Anyway, she won’t listen and keeps giving them to me and I keep throwing them away once I’m out of sight of the house. The neighborhood dogs are happy to see me in the morning. Anyway, in swim class I’m in the throes of low blood sugar because all of a sudden, I can’t make to the edge of the pool and I’m going under. The teacher doesn’t notice but Ellen does and she jumps in and pulls me to the edge. Saved by the mayor’s daughter! That is the first time in my life I might have drowned but it will not be the last. And I’m not a bad swimmer. Just a bad decision maker!
We girls have all seen “the movie” in grade school. Ya’ll might know the one called “Very Personally Yours”. It’s a movie all the girls are required to see and most of us just put the whole thing out of our minds afterwards because it’s so embarrassing! We’ve all seen “Carrie” and we know what happens to that girl! Eventually the grossness happens, and we aren’t prepared and it’s 100% embarrassing. We get passes to not participate in swim class and we hide in the locker room when we change our paraphernalia. Marjorie shows me how to use the tampons because the pads are unbelievably annoying and it’s a giant CF. It’s too much and nobody talks about it.
Anyway…
I join 4H but it’s “town” 4H so it’s not really that much fun. No farm animals or anything. I learn more cooking, but it’s still on a rudimentary level. I demonstrate how to make egg salad sandwich boats at the county fair. It’s at the old fairgrounds in town which is a throwback to earlier days when fairgrounds were really cool and there’s not a speck of modernity to it. It’s just like the state fair in the musical except on a smaller scale. I get up on a tiny stage in the demonstration building and show the judges what to do. Chop hard cooked eggs, mix with mayo, scoop into a hollowed out hot dog bun and top with a little sail made out of paper and toothpick! How quaint! It seems like the next thing they’ll ask me to demonstrate is Jello salad, or something with Miracle Whip in it. I have absolutely no recollection of what the judges think of my presentation. I’ve blocked it out. I’m just glad to get it over with. Anyway…
At thirteen this would have been a very cool dress for me.
Then there are the school dances, and I get all dressed up and stand at the edges of the gym terrified that some boy might ask to me dance. No one ever does and this is a great relief. Then one of my friends tells me that her older brother who is already in high school thinks I’m cute and this makes me feel good, but I have no idea what to do about it if anything. Boys are an exciting idea, but the reality is overwhelming. No one ever sat me down and told me what was expected of me. My mom is busy doing other things and dad, well, he would never, ever have such a personal talk with me. No. I am 100% on my own. I rely on my own devices all through junior high, high school and on into college. All I can do is watch what my friends do and try to stay out of trouble.
Then President Kennedy is assassinated, and we all sit there stunned not knowing what we should think or how to feel. I remember being in class and the principal comes in and tells us the news and then tells us we can go home. A few days later we watch the funeral on TV when we should be having Thanksgiving dinner. There’s the unforgettable image of the handler barely holding on to the riderless black horse jigging down Pennsylvania Avenue with the cavalry boots turned backwards in the stirrups. It’s so sad to see Jackie with her widow’s veil barely concealing her tear-stained face and the sight of little John-John, their son, fumbling his hand under the flag of his father’s casket and then saluting. I am aware of politics for the first time.
High School
In high school my dad refurbishes a Volkswagen convertible which he paints cherry red and gives it to me to use. Dad shows me how to drive it and I remember stripping the gears before getting good at 4 on the floor. When I am finally good then my friends and I go nuts Scooping the Loop every Friday and Saturday night American Graffiti style. It’s me with Chris, Kathy and Tani and we drive down Main Street and South Third Avenue from the Times Republican building to the A&W root beer stand, then turn around and do it all over again. We heckle our friends as they drive by and sometimes, we throw stuff at them like the canned figs that Chris stole from her candy striping job at the hospital. Not quite juvenile delinquents but close.
Pretty damn cute, isn’t it?
In senior year we experiment with booze and we go out to a lonesome dirt road west of town and someone brings a bottle of Cherry Heering to which we add SevenUp and drink that. Yuck. But isn’t this what country kids do in the summer? Sometimes we drive down to a sand bar on the Iowa River north of LeGrand threatening to convince someone that they need to go on a snipe hunt, but we never do. Sometimes we drive east of town out Main Street and then up on the bluffs above the river to a place we call Twinkle Hill because we get a good view of nighttime Marshalltown up there. It’s twinkly down below and if we have a boy in the back seat we’re twinkling on each other. Workin’ on the Night Moves.
After a night of wasting cheap gas, we make it over to Chris’s mom’s house and watch Gravesend Manor which shows scary movies like Masque of the Red Death and The Tingler.Gravesend Manor is corny as all get out but we love it anyway. I mean, we know of nothing better. We’re just the kids John Mellencamp sings about later on. Gravesend Manor is hosted by Malcom the Butler, and is joined by The Duke of Desmodus, Claude the Great, Clyde, and Esmarelda. Where are they now? Are they sitting in a rocker on a porch somewhere? Think about if your glory days were pulling pranks on WOI Channel 5 and that’s what you have to reminisce about. Could be worse.
The host of Gravesend Manor: Malcom the Butler with the Duke of Desmodus, and Claude the Great
Sometimes we have slumber parties at somebody’s house. To call them slumber parties is beyond absurd because the point is to get as little sleep as possible. One night Maribeth has a slumber party at her house. First, we drive all over town and doing the usual Scooping of the Loop. While scooping we play the radio in the car. We hear Chug-a-Lug by Roger Miller and then stop at the root beer stand for some food. When we turn the car back on Chug-a-Lug is still playing! Whoa! That’s weird! We decide to try an experiment. We turn off the radio and then wait a while and then turn it back on and see what happens. A half hour later… Chug-a-Lug! Now our 16-year-old minds are racing to thoughts of a diabolical plot by aliens from outer space. We drive over to Maribeth’s house, get out of the car, go upstairs to Maribeth’s bedroom and turn on the radio. Chug-a-Lug!
Imagine 5 teenage girls screaming at once.
One of our favorite idiocies is making each other pass out. How you do it is one person breathes hard, in and out, in and out, in and out, for a minute and then someone grabs them around the abdomen and holds hard. If all goes well the breather passes out. We think this is fun! Imagine what genius achievements we could have had had we not killed half our brain cells!
Of course, the “evening”, because by now it’s 1 or 2 in the morning, ends with all of us in our sleeping bags on the floor telling ghost stories. Here’s a favorite: (Delivered slowly and ominously). “I am the viper and I’m on the first step, (pause) I’m the viper and I’m on the second step, (pause) I’m the viper (all the way to the top). (pause) Anybody vant their vindows viped?”
Gli Capriciosi
I am actually a pretty timid person and to be outgoing is a skill I need to learn. I want to be popular and have people like me but there’s seems to be no clear path. So, I think, well, I’ll join clubs. So, I join the drama and art club and somehow it seems that I have innate leadership skills. Eventually I become president of both. But mostly I’m content to work behind the scenes painting backdrops or pull the curtain when I’m stage manager for our theater production of Plain and Fancy. I’m chosen to be a cast member in the improvisational theater group that our drama teacher Stan Doerr directs. He calls it Gli Capriccioso (The Capricious Ones) and it’s in the style of Italian Commedia Dell’arte theater. Pretty sophisticated for a podunk midwestern town.
Stan Doerr was a wonderful drama teacher.
What a character Stan is! He has the most expressive face on the planet, and I can still see him making a surprised look to demonstrate some concept he has. He makes it a blast to be part of the troupe. He yells and fumes and the actors and stage crew cower but eventually it all turns out and he lets us know that we did good. I play Isabella, a female innamorata, and we make masks out of a rubber substance to be authentic. We dress in period costumes that we’ve made ourselves or that the stage moms have made. In Commedia dell’Arte there’s no script. All we have is a loose scenario, so we have to ad lib our lines. The scenarios are from basic Italian stories, and it’s slapstick and a blast. There’s one scene where Ralph, playing the part of Pulcinello is to give me, as Isabella, a big comedic wet one right on the mouth. The comedic part is trying to negotiate the giant noses of our masks. But when Ralph finally makes it to me, he opens his mouth wide, wide open and I, having never been properly kissed have no clue how to kiss back. Allrightey then.
Dan Rovner and me at the Prom. Don’t we look sweet? My mom labored over that dress. It was supposed to be a copy of a dress I saw Mia Farrow wearing in a magazine, but we couldn’t find the exact fabric, so this was a compromise. Otherwise in design it was Mia’s dress.
Our hair style was long and straight. But before long straight hair was fashionable, we had ratted bouffant with the flip ends and a bow placed smack dab in the middle between the bangs and the bouffant for garnish. I’m so glad that fad passes. The long straight hair looks good on me but the bouffant does not. I try to make my hair into a bouffant, but I can never get my flip to come out even. One side always sags lower than the other. Such a disaster. To achieve the look, we wear curlers to bed. The curlers make sleep impossible because the plastic teeth poke into your head. Sometimes we wear the curlers to town covered with a scarf. I remember mom telling me that all this discomfort is necessary. She says, “You have to suffer to be beautiful.” OK, mom, sign me up.
After the bouffant deflates and is replaced by English style, straight hair rules. Marjorie and I decide we need our hair to be straighter than nature has given us. We put an iron on low, drape our hair over the board and irone so it is stick straight. I hear of some girls accidentally burning their hair this way, but we are careful, and it works!
Note: My full-length memoir comes out in the next 6 months – if I’m lucky – and will be available on Amazon. In it I go into much greater detail about my life growing up in Iowa.
R L Benoit - Writer/Artist 