O shame, where is thy blush? …To flaming youth let virtue be as wax ~ Hamlet Act 3, sc. 4

I guess now would be as good a time as any to write about having “the talk” with my kids….

As I was raising my son and daughter, I tried very hard to be open and honest with them. It wasn’t always easy to do—your first instinct is to go to the “Because I’m the parent and I said so” option. The hardest things for me were to admit when I had handled something with them in the wrong way and to apologize when I’d lose my temper.

But answering their questions about sex and the like wasn’t that difficult. I was, after all, a child of the 60s—we were the free love generation, right? And, in spite of my Catholic school background (where sex-ed consisted of Sister saying “If God is willing, a man and a woman will conceive a child.”), I was relatively comfortable discussing things with them. Their dad was very hurt when he realized they were always coming to me with their questions—until I told him some of the things they were asking…. “Oh, … um, …. Yeah—you can handle that.”

First thing I did was tell them the proper names of their body parts when they were about 3 and 4—cause, ya know, all the child rearing books say that’s what you should do.

Clearly, the authors of these books don’t have any on-the-job experience. I am in the store one day, browsing, when I realize that my adorable offspring are not standing obediently at my feet. I immediately whip around scanning the store for them. Quickly I spot my son (the 3-yr-old) peeking up the skirt of a mannequin. Before I can make a move, he proclaims at the top of his lungs “M, I can see the lady’s ‘gina.”

Yeah.

Now, this was in 1979. Things were still pretty uptight. I am all of 26 years old and all of these little old ladies are looking at him appalled. I have to admit that I was tempted to just take his hand and say “Let’s go find your mother little boy.”

Alright, now we jump ahead about 2 or 3 years and the questions start…..

My tactic whenever they asked “What is such-and-such?” was to respond with “Well, what do you think it is?” That way I could suss out exactly where their little brains were on a given topic. It worked very well. I can still remember my 6-yr-old daughter’s response to “What do you think gay means?”
“Guys who like other guys.”
Yeah, that about sums it up, I replied.    (I didn’t know about any of this stuff til I was 16 or so!)

When my son was about 12, he was on a car ride with his dad and he was telling him about a girl he liked in school.     My husband later relayed the conversation to me:

 Dad:   Is she cute, bud?
          Son:   Yeah! Only problem is G likes her too—and he’s my best friend.
 Dad:   Yeah—that’s a tough one….. But girls come and go; your friends are important.                          Don’t mess up a great friendship over a girl….
        Son:   Yeah…. But I think she likes me more—I’ve gotten more off of her than G.

(Dad almost crashes car, cause he knows what he meant when he said that about a girl….)

 Dad: (gulping, but trying to sound calm) What do you mean, bud?
       Son:   She gave G a granola bar, but she gave me a granola bar AND a pack of gum.

(Dad’s heart starts beating again.)

What's in a name? That which we call a rose..."

Okay, let's start off by saying I wasn't always enamored of my name.

I felt odd cause no one else shared it with me. My brothers all had regular old All-American "guy" names: Bill, Bobby and Rick. How come I had something out of the ordinary? [When you're a kid you totally want to fit in, don't you? If you're lucky, as you mature, you realize standing out rocks.]

When I eventually found out how I got my name, it was kinda cool. I was 4 days old before it was bestowed upon me--by my oldest brother. My parents, excited over their first [and, it turned out, only] girl, could not agree on what name suited me. My father suggested Joan, after one of his nieces. My mother politely demurred: "There's already a Joan in the family. It'll be like 'Robert'." [Say "Bob" at one of my dad's family reunions and 15 guys would turn around.] Then dad offered Jane...."Oh no," said my mother, "Then she'll get 'Plain Jane.' I'm not doing that to our daughter." [Third kid in six years, I guess mom was a little cranky--she usually never argued with my dad.]

Well this continued on.....with the letter "J" seeming to having a real hold on the negotiations for some reason . Into the picture comes my 6 year old eldest brother; he was a happy little first grader. I guess my dad was talking about his nameless little sister to him as he was putting him to bed or something.... In his school reader, the main characters were John, Jean and Judy [apparently a contender, albeit briefly]. BUT--they had two friends who lived down the block: Bobby and Ellen. Six year old reasoning being what it is, he made the connection: "We have a Bobby, why not an Ellen?" Bingo, I had a name.

Now, when it came time for my late husband and I to name our two little ones, I agonized over it for months. And I mean agonized--I remembered my feelings when I was little and didn't want to put my kids through the same thing. Our daughter was born on Valentine's Day of 1975 and my hubby allowed me to pick her name. After much thought, I chose Megan as a tribute of sorts to my Irish grandfather. I opted to not use the more Gaelic spelling, Meghan, because I thought it might confuse people. As it was, my husband's grandmother could never remember it--she called her "Nutmeg" til the day she died. I had real doubts about my choice after the umpteenth time I explained the name--but then The Thornbirds came out and by the time she started kindergarten there were two other Megans.

Our son joined the family on March 14th, 1976. His dad got the honors of naming him and chose Jason--partly after Jason and the Argonauts. It's a good strong name and our son has grown into a good strong man. I think both of my children are very happy with their names--thank God. I would feel awful if I found out I'd stuck them with something they hated.

A name can influence your behavior, I think. It can make you feel like you have "street cred." I mean it's hard to go all gangsta with the name Cuthbert or Chauncey. And who could feel very sexy/glamourous named something like, say, Agnes? By the same token, names such as Chastity or Faith can put alot of pressure on a person. A name can be a powerful entity that casts a shadow over who you are in life.

I often wonder what was going through their parents minds when I hear some people's names. Now some are very cool and have real character to them, but others......
Some poor souls are stuck with the most outrageous monikers! I know if it was me and I had a name that just screamed to be mocked, I'd be down at the courthouse changing it the minute I turned 21.

But maybe I'm just a wimp.

Summer's lease hath all too short a date.

...the sound of a screen door banging, catching fire flies in a jar, ice cream dripping down my chin, splashing in a pool.

These are things I remember from my childhood summers. Glorious, carefree days spent with the other neighborhood baby boomers, just being kids. We told ghost stories by flashlight in the backyard at night. We chased the ice cream man for blocks. We created a bicycle-built-for-two out the remnants of neighborhood castoffs.... I miss my childhood summers--nowadays, the season is gone before I've even had a chance to enjoy it. Anybody else feel that way?

I had wonderful summers as a kid. Not only did we have a blast playing outside, but every year my folks would rent a trailer and we would spend 2 weeks on the road. Gypsies in an Airstream. I saw the entire Eastern seaboard of the US and Canada by the time I was 15. The first time I ever had pecan pie was at a roadside diner in Georgia. And my first taste of New England clam chowder was at a cafe on the wharf in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Not too shabby.

I think it was these travels that started my life-long fascination with--and facility for performing--accents. I heard the clipped, taciturn responses of the New Englanders one summer, and the slow easy drawls of the Blue Ridge Mountains the next. Add the French of Quebec to that and it was quite an education. Geography class was so much more real to me as a result.

I saw Niagara Falls, the Bay of Fundy, Cape Kennedy, Prince Edward Island, the Outer Banks, Cape Cod... the list is endless. I just wish I could have given my kids these experiences. I know they would have appreciated it as much as my brothers and I did.

Instead, my daughter and son--and then my grandson--got summers in Cape May. They learned about tides and fishing. They built sand castles, went crabbing and learned to surf. To this day, they come alive in the sun. Sadly, we no longer have the family's getaway and they miss it dearly. But they've found other options to just kick back and enjoy what the season has to offer. Me--I'm still wishing I was 10 again.

a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse....

I'd probably have better luck than I've had with cars.

To say the least, my relationship to vehicles has been quite one-sided: they take and take and take. It can get a little frustrating. When I got married in 1973, we had a 1968 Beetle--I learned to drive in that car. I didn't want to learn stick, but it was all we had. And I got pretty good at pop-starting it and double-clutching. When our daughter was born, we felt we needed a safer, bigger, family car... we bought a '73 Ford Pinto...yep, a Pinto.

Then we had his and hers VW sedans--purely by accident too. Eventually my ex went to trucks and I was a Honda girl. But I have never owned a new car, so with all of these vehicles came assorted "issues." there was the car with a different colored hood that embarrased the crap out of my 80s era, fashion is everything offspring....One time, I had invoices for a new windshield, a new muffler and a tire on my dashboard to explain why my inspection sticker was slightly expired.

Let's not even talk about the cars we helped our kids buy...one of which my daughter crashed into a tree. "Sweetheart, trees always win." The car was totalled, but thank god she was okay.

The first car I ever totally purchased on my own was a Toyota Paseo. I loved that car; it was sporty looking and had great pickup. I felt young again when I drove it. One day, I was driving home from work, all of the lights on the dash lit up and the car just died. It was beyond hope and I was devasted. I replaced it with a 1999 Saturn. It was in good shape and had low mileage. Well, the front bumper got caught on a spike sticking up in my apartment's lot and I had to drive around with the bumper bungee-corded onto the car for about 3 months til I could afford to fix it. And somehow, I have no idea how, I wound up with only one hubcap--my son said "Mom, what are you hanging on to?" Then the front panel on the passenger side got broken [cars are made of paper these days] when I gently slid on the ice one day. So, suddenly, I'm driving a hoop-dee--no way can you put a claim in to your insurance! Cause they'll either raise your rates or drop you completely.

So I just drive it, ignore my kids comments and pretend it's a Porsche.

SPEAK THE SPEECH, I PRAY YOU...

I am a grammar freak--I can't help it. Twelve years of Catholic school in the 60s does that to you. You came out completely screwed up emotionally, but damn it you knew sentence structure, punctuation and spelling.... I worked for 4 years editing and proofing the marketing materials for a theatre company; I used to tell my boss my criteria was "What would have caused Sister to hit me with the ruler?" You'd be amazed at how helpful that was.

My son recently told me that he finds himself correcting his friends because of my insistance on good grammar as they were growing up. My daughter immediately said she does it too. And my grandson just rolled his 17 year old eyes at the 3 of us. I could see the thought bubble: "You are all so lame, what difference does it make." [Just like his mom and uncle used to do.]

I remembered the time my son started telling a story when he was about 6: HIM- "Me and so and so are gonna..." ME{reflex action]- "So and so and I..." Him- [beat, beat] "You're not going." We all laughed about it, but they did thank me for giving them fantastic vocabularies, a real love of the English language and the ability to speak properly. Hey, it's what my mom did for me. She always said you make a better first impression if you are able to carry on a decent conversation--a fact I repeated to my own two ad nauseum. [Well, that and "If you don't have anything nice to say... come sit by me." No wait--that's not it...]

When they were in elementary school, grammar was not "in," they were encouraging students to express their ideas...since when can't one express themselves and spell things correctly at the same time? If you know proper grammar it frees you up to let the ideas flow out onto the page. At least that's the case for me....

Now, I am all for slang terms and catch phrases--love 'em and use 'em all the time; but when it comes to formal writing or reporting let's get it right people. They're even playing with the past tenses of words. I have seen the following in very reputable publications: "Mr. X has pleaded guilty to..." I was taught the past tense of the word "plead" is "pled." Does anyone know when this other version came into vogue? And why?

Hope I haven't been too preachy, but this kind of stuff drives me crazy--and makes me want to get out that ruler.