pam o'riley "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Happy Birthday, America.

I was sixteen years old, and my boyfriend Marty and I were invited to a Fourth of July party at a friend's house that was taking place on the night of the third.  We got a ride out to the farmhouse from the host of the party, who had promised he would find us a ride home.  I had my license, but no vehicle, and Marty didn't have his license.

Needless to say, the party went on until the wee hours of the morning, and Marty and I eventually realized that a ride home was probably going to become a bit of a problem.  Soon, the only people left at the party were Marty, me, the host of the party, and his girlfriend.  It seems, on paper, simple.  Ask the host for a ride home, right?  That's exactly what we would have done, except that the host and his girlfriend were upstairs engaging in what we will call for the sake of decency, "relations".  We knew this because the bed they were using was apparently old, and in desperate need of some sort of oil.

We sat on the couch in the living room, hearing the "audio feed" of the festivities upstairs, while I pictured what my parents were going to mete out as punishment for me when I showed up at this ridiculous hour of the morning.  Finally, when the audio stopped, Marty went up and asked his friend if he could please give us a ride home.

So, it's 5:30 a.m., on July 4th, and I am in the back seat of a pretty unhappy friend's car.  Marty is in the back seat with me, no doubt worrying more about what my dad was going to do to him than what his parents might do.  Well, the worry in the car reached a fever pitch when the police lights appeared behind us.  Surely this wasn't really happening, right?  We weren't going to get pulled over.  On the list of things my parents probably wouldn't be lenient about, this was up there pretty high.

Officer Burt Pfluger walked to the driver's window.  My gut was in my throat.  "Goin' a little fast, weren't you?"

Okay.  Cool.  Speeding ticket.  No problem.  Back to worrying about getting home late.

"I'm going to need everyone's identification."

Not a problem.  I wasn't drunk.  I wasn't driving.  I smugly handed over my license.

"Well, we have two curfew violations, and a reckless driving."

Whaaaaaaat?!  Curfew??  THE SUN IS UP!  IT'S DAYTIME!!

Well, it turned out, that "persons under the age of 17" were not permitted to be out "without parental supervision between the hours of 2:00 and 6:00 a.m".   I was exactly 18 1/2 hours away from being 17 years old.  I pointed this out to the officer, who could not possibly have cared less.

"What if I was going fishing?" I asked him.

He stuck his head in the window and sneered at me.  "Then, I suggest you go fishing with your parents."

I don't really remember the ride to the police station.  I'll tell you what I do remember.  I remember sitting, slumped forward in a chair in the Sheriff's office, waiting for my dad to come and get me.  The first thing I saw were his large, untied, work boots.  Those boots being untied spoke to me in a way that said much, much more than any of my dad's words could have.  We spoke not a word on the way home.  Not a word.

When I walked into the house, my mom was chopping vegetables in the kitchen.  I'm sure there was no reason for my mom to be chopping vegetables at 6:00 a.m., except that she needed to do some harm to something, and I wasn't home yet.

"Are you mad at me?" I distinctly remember asking her.

"I am extremely disappointed in you," I distinctly remember her answering.

"There is laundry in the basement.  I want you to take it to the laundromat now and wash, dry and fold every last bit of it," she said.

We had a washing machine and dryer, and they worked perfectly well.  But I wasn't exactly in a position to argue or negotiate.

The laundry pile included everything that was washable in our house.  All of the clothes, all of the towels, and all of the linens.  I spent most of the day in that dark, hot, dirty laundromat, which wasn't, obviously, where I had planned to spend my Fourth of July.

Now, I know the crime and the punishment were completely unrelated, and I'm sure my mom knew that, too.  But, believe me; she didn't care about that at all.   From my perspective now, as a parent, it is crystal-clear to me:  Anytime you can get your laundry done, get your 16-year-old out of the house for the day, and dole out the punishment all in one stroke, you, as the parent, win the game, set, and match.

Well played, Mom.

Hey, Chuck! Watch this!

It was a time in my life when things were going about as well as they ever had.  I was eight years old, and a third grader at Manchester Grade School.  I had a great group of friends, could count on a sleepover almost every weekend, was pretty much crushing it in most subjects at school, and I had finally, after more recesses than I could ever count, mastered the monkey bars on the playground.

I don't need to tell you that my older sister, Peg, probably was able to go straight across the monkey bars the first time she tried it.  Not me.  But for some reason, it was very important to me to be able to go all the way across.  So many times of a-l-m-o-s-t making it, but losing my grip at the last  minute, going back around to the back of the line and waiting my turn, climbing the ladder, and then only making it to the second or third bar because my hands were worn out.  The monkey bars may have been the first thing in my life that I had to work at, but had finally conquered.  I wish I had that same determination today.

Well, when I was finally able to do it consistently, it was obvious what I needed to do next.  I chose my favorite outfit for the occasion.  My white hip-hugger, bell-bottomed pants and my lilac body suit.  The way I felt in this RIDICULOUSLY hip, OBVIOUSLY attractive outfit, I may as well have put on a superhero cape.

When recess finally came, I plotted my course perfectly.  See, I had a very big crush on Chuck Morris, who was in my class, and told the best, funniest stories I had ever heard.  Well, there was no way he would be able to resist sending me the iconic "Do you like me?" note once he saw me take on these monkey bars in my drop-dead outfit.  I mean, HE would have to be a superhero to resist!

My plan came together almost perfectly.  My turn at the bars came up, Chuck was standing close enough to definitely  see me, but he wasn't looking.  So, I did this really cool thing:

"Hey, Chuck!  Did you finish the math paper?"

See what I did there?  I asked him a question really casually, so I could really casually make my way across the monkey bars while I listened to his answer.  What could be cooler than that?  This girl is so accustomed to the monkey bars that she is just cruising across them and carrying on a conversation at the same time!  And look at that outfit! I think I'm in love!

Right?

Well, I reached out, grabbed the first bar, and WHAP! For a split second, my vision was obscured.  By what, you may ask?

By my body suit, which had come unsnapped in the general area of between my legs, and flown into my face, revealing pretty much every other general area on my body.

Don't ask me what happened in the next few minutes.  When I gathered my wits, I was in the bathroom, fixing the problem, and trying to figure out how I was going to avoid any social situation that involved Chuck Morris for the next nine years, until I went to college.

I never got the note, but to his credit, Chuck never mentioned the incident, either.  I haven't tried the monkey bars since.

Nor have I worn a body suit.

Don’t expect to meet your expectations

My daughter is getting married next month, and has told me that my grandchildren, if all goes well, will be following in a short amount of time.  Which has started me thinking a lot about my years of child-rearing.

I got married in October of 1983, and was pregnant in November of 1983.  We had decided that, once we were married, we weren't going to try to get pregnant, and we weren't going to try not to.  So we were thrilled to be expecting right away.  The advice came quickly and often.  Siblings, friends, parents; everyone had gems to share.  But one bit of knowledge didn't stick with me:

Parenting is hard.

I'm sure people told me, but it went right past me, because I knew I was going to be a good parent, and I knew it was going to come easy to me.  I have always loved kids, I have always been a great babysitter.  And I had strong, and unique ideas about how I was going to raise my kids.  I was very, very excited.

My first rule was going to be that there would be no commercialism in my kids' lives.  I was very proud of this idea.  No Barbies.  No Disney.  No way.  Well, when my oldest daughter was 2, and had to leave the crib so her little brother could use it, she moved into her "My Little Pony" bed with matching sheets, blanket and comforter with great joy.  No joy for Mom.  I had disappointed myself.  And there was no real good excuse for it, except that my little curly-haired girl adored My Little Ponies.   And I caved.

Also, television was going to be at the bare minimum.  Outside play, arts and crafts, and books.  There's only so many hours in a kid's day, right?  Well, let me just say that my oldest son's Christmas list on his fourth Christmas included a Craftmatic adjustable bed, and a bottle of Tarn-X.   Clearly, I had caved.

And no fast food.  Only fruits, vegetables, and home-cooked meals.  My youngest son, by the age of three, could give pretty solid driving directions to any of maybe six McDonald's and Burger Kings near our house.   Not exactly "hitting the high notes" on my parenting.

But what is important is this:  when I was parenting, we mothers didn't tell each other about our failures.  We didn't tell each other we were struggling.  We complained about our relationships, but we didn't confide in each other about letting ourselves down.  There was an  unspoken competitiveness that overrode our internal disappointment and need for reassurance. If you admitted that you felt bad about the amount of time your son was watching television, for example, you risked another mother judging you just to make herself feel better.  That happens to you a couple of times, and you stop confessing.

So, what I would like to say to all of the young mothers and prospective mothers that read this is that I don't know where most of those other mothers are right now.  I don't know how their lives turned out.  But I think we all would have had a lot smoother, calmer, easier go of it, if we would have just allowed each other to say once in a while, "Damn it.  This is really hard."   It doesn't mean you don't love it.  It doesn't mean you wouldn't do it over again, given the chance.  And it absolutely doesn't mean you aren't good at it.  It just means that it's a hell of a lot harder than it looks, and a lot of what makes it hard is our own expectations of ourselves. Be an ally, not a judge.  Give each other a break.  Give yourself a break.  Give your kids a break.  Because when it's all said and done, what you want are kids that are allies, not judges, that can give others and themselves a break.  And that, I say gratefully, is what I have.

The “Sonny Coots” kind of big

My dad was terminal, and we knew it.  Well, as much as anyone can absorb that information, I guess we knew it.  I lived in Washington state and went back to Illinois to see him for what, we all knew, would be the last time I would see him alive.  I took my husband and three small children with me.  Most of the visit was spent talking about his health situation and his funeral wishes.  "Don't turn it into a circus, please," he said often.

There came a time when I was alone with my dad for about an hour.   He was very frail, a state I was completely unfamiliar with where my dad was concerned.  He was in his recliner, and I was sitting in a chair next to him, but my chair was turned the other way, so I could face him.   We were holding hands.  I was trying hard not to cry.

"What's the hardest part?" I asked him.

He hesitated a minute, then said, "I forget sometimes that I'm wasting away.  Then, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, or a window, and I see this face that is supposedly mine, and I can't believe it.  It's a small, withered face, on a small body, and I just can't believe that it's me.  And then I have to remember it all, all over again."

So much of what people remember about my dad is his size.  He was "six feet, three-and-three-quarters inches" tall.  (He would never lie about that last quarter inch.)   I remember when I was small, holding his finger because his hand was too big. When people would find out who my dad was when I was a kid, one of the first things they would say was, "That is a big guy."

So, my dad struggled with losing that part of himself.  And that sort of surprised me.  Because the big he was mourning wasn't the big that people loved about him most.

The big that people admired in my dad was the big that took care of our family so well for so many years.  The big that taught us kids the ways of a responsible, decent adult.  He, along with our mom, taught us how to be a good spouse; how to respect other people, no matter what, and how to be good parents that respect our children unconditionally.   He was proud, but never boastful.  He was wise, but always wanted to learn.

Sometimes, he taught us gently.  He would give the baseball "foul ball sign" discreetly when we were kids if we were going down a road we shouldn't in front of others.  We all knew that this meant, "stop talking now, no matter what."  And we always did.   The worst punishment I remember him giving me was after my sister Peg and I had been fighting all day.  He made us sit in two dining room chairs next to each other and HOLD HANDS for what was probably an hour, but seemed like a week.  I thought I would never forgive him.  He always supported our endeavors (drove us to practices, went to horrible softball games and school concerts),  but he never let us think that we were more important than anyone else.

When I left my parents' house after that visit back to Illinois, it was the hardest goodbye I have ever had.  It was forever.  And no matter what I said to him, it wouldn't be enough.  It couldn't be enough.  He hugged me hard, and told me he loved me, and ended the goodbye with dignity and respect by patting me gently on the back, as if to say, "I know."

I really hope he knew.  I miss him every day.

Teee-sa

"I Heard It Through the Grapevine".  The smell of nail polish remover.  That pink tape that held your curls to your face until your hair dried.  Bell bottom hip huggers.   These were the things that my sister Teresa was made of in my mind when I was very young.  She is seven years older than me, so when she was dating, I was still coloring.  But I was paying enough attention to know that she must be THE coolest person on the planet.  Everything she did was cool.

When we moved to the farm, she got a horse.  She worked hard with the horse, that she named Strawberry, and took very good care of her.  She wore the right clothes to look cool while riding a horse. I remember hanging out with her in the barn, watching her groom Strawberry, while WLS blared on the transistor, and Teresa knew every word to every song that came on.  She hopped on Strawberry, and took off down the driveway, her long blonde hair shining in the sun.   I thought, "Yeah, I can be that cool.  It looks pretty easy."

So, I took possession of Chico, a pony that formerly belonged to my brother.   Chico was a pony with extraordinarily short legs and a horse-sized head.  There used to be pictures of this pony that showed how he looked like he was made out of spare parts, but I think I destroyed most of them out of pure bitterness.  The first day as owner of Chico, I went to the barn, turned on WLS, brushed and saddled Chico.  I got on him, and proceeded to kick the hell out of him, which was necessary to get him even 50 yards from the barn.  I turned him around, he headed for the barn at full speed, and the saddle seat headed to the underside of Chico.  I held on as long as I could, but it didn't really work out for me.  It worked out for Chico pretty well, because I rarely attempted to ride him after that.

So, I was going to be cool like Teresa, but not in the horse way.  I was going to be cool like Teresa in the music way.  I never got to be nearly as cool as her, but she is fully responsible for my passion for music, which I should thank her for  the next time I talk to her.  We have sung a lot of songs together.  I'm sure we will sing a lot more together, too.  She is the queen of fun.  I have had more belly laughs with her than anyone in this world.  She knows how to let her hair down, and offers no apologies.  She is who she is, and I love who she is.

As an adult, Teresa got involved in the Harley-Davidson world.  Which just meant that her cool got cooler.  She has her own; I ride on the back of my boyfriend's.  The Chico lesson stuck.

There have been a few times in my life when I really needed my big sister.  Every single time she has been there for me.  She lets nothing in the way when either one of her sisters needs her.  She is an expert comforter, and an expert listener.  I can distinctly remember crawling in her bed when I was small and scared.  She never complained.

Six years ago, Teresa was in Reno when she got the call that her 20 year old daughter had been killed in a car accident.  The whole family was spun off its axis.  We were scattered around the country when it happened.  I was in Washington, and all I knew was I needed to see Teresa.

I work for an airline, so I got home quickly, but it could never have been quickly enough.  It was the next day when I got there, and by then Teresa was back in our home town, at my mom's house.  When I came around the corner to my mom's backyard, Teresa was sitting at the picnic table, eyes red and swollen, and an emptiness was on her face that I had never seen before. I hugged her, and we both fell apart.

It's so hard when you can't help the person that has helped you so much.

Teresa has a little trouble letting her hair down these days.  And fun doesn't come to her as easily as it used to.  But she tries.  And I really respect that.  Because she could just check out.  And she doesn't.

She's way too cool for that.

As I remember it…

...it was white.  Pants and shirt, and had little apples all over it.  I was absolutely in love with it.

It was the summer before second grade, so we had lived on our small farm for less than a year.  My mom and I had just gotten home from shopping for school clothes, and I was doing the obligatory fashion show for her.  This was my favorite outfit.  Hands down.

My mom told me it was adorable, and told me to go show it to my dad.  So, I headed outside to wow my dad with my new second-grade outfit.  I just knew he was going to love it.  He was out in the driveway with my brother.  They were working with a new horse he had just bought.  He had just helped my brother onto the horse's back.

I don't know if he saw my awesome outfit.  I don't know if we even talked to each other.  I just remember him grabbing me by the waist and putting me on the horse behind my brother, who was five years older than me.  He let go of the halter, and the horse bolted.

I had an absolute death grip on my brother's waist.  I was not going to let go for anything, and I wasn't going to look, either.  "Bail off!  Bail off!" my dad was yelling at us.  I was seven.  I thought bailing off was some fancy horse-riding technique that my big brother surely knew how to perform, which would bring this horse to a lovely canter.  Or maybe even a walk.  Walking would be good.  Because what this horse was doing was running, and bucking.  And what I was not doing was enjoying it.

My brother later told me that he was waiting for me to jump off, and then he would.  Well, I was just squeezing him and waiting for him to perform the cool maneuver known as bailing off.

Finally, he just did it.  He sort of rolled off the horse's back, taking me with him.  To this day, I can remember hearing the wind get knocked out of both him and me at the same time.  I jumped up, and ran in the house.  When I came in the back door, my mom was doing dishes with her back to me.  I looked down, and my white outfit was completely grass-stained and definitely ruined.  I had been outside for roughly three minutes.

"Well,"  Mom asked, "did he like your outfit?"

I’m Pam. How can I help you?

When I was a freshman in high school, I got a job working on Saturday mornings at Don Thoms' State Farm Insurance office.  I worked from 8:00 a.m. until noon, taking peoples' insurance payments and writing receipts.  It was a fun, simple job for a little extra money, and since I was trusted with a key to the office, and money, it looked good on a job application.

One particular weekend, I spent Friday night at my friend Donna's house.  She lived within walking distance of the office.  We stayed up a little late on Friday night.  I got up and got ready to go to work.  I was a little early, so I laid back down on the bed for just a few minutes to rest my eyes a little.  This is the same poor judgment I am known to exercise on occasion to this day. The way I chose to lay turned out to be an important decision.  I laid down on my stomach, arms under my head, and my legs (this is the important part), bent at the knees.

I woke up more than a few minutes later, and only had, now, about five minutes to open the office.  It was important to get the office open on time because there were people there waiting sometimes, and my predecessor had warned me that some of the older clients had fancied themselves secret agents for Mr. Thoms.  So they would report to him immediately if his Saturday morning office girl was late, unkempt, or appeared to be spending too much time on the phone, for example.

I panicked.  I sprung out of bed, only to discover that both of my legs had fallen asleep from the knees down, rendering me almost incapable of walking.  It might have been better had I been completely incapable of walking, because then I wouldn't have tried.  But, try I did.  I made it to the head of the stairs, taking a step every five seconds or so, because each step required the most intense mental concentration I could muster.  Now, however, I was facing about 15 pretty steep steps, and I had no idea what I was going to do.  Donna's parents worked the overnight shift, so I knew they were asleep in their bedroom, right at the foot of the stairs.  I decided to give it my best shot.

I MAY have made it two steps down, but I think that might be a stretch.  I remember starting to go ass over elbows, and realizing there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.  I fell for what seemed like hours.

I think I may have been knocked out for a minute or so.  When I opened my eyes, the feet of Donna's father were right in front of my eyes.

"I take it you need a ride to work this morning?" was all he said.

Just take this in…

I don't have much to say today.  But this postcard that my son's roommate got from his dad ought to brighten your day.