3.12 Chutes and Ladders

Randy, age 3, Dec 1959

1959/60 • La Habra ~ Carleen always called Randy a schnook, but he wasn’t, he was just innocent. On the opening day of the Pomona Fair, we were in line at the cotton candy stand when three brass-buttoned uniformed women in garrison caps smartly walked by.

“Mom, what are they?” Randy asked.
Carleen answered, “They’re WACS.”
He squinched up his baby blues, peered a bit closer, and said in awe, “They’re wax? Gee, they sure look real to me.”
A couple weeks later he spotted three nuns dressed in white wimples and black habits in the hosiery department in Hinshaw’s.
He tugged on Carleen’s hand and asked quite loudly, “Mom, Mom. What are they?”
Carleen shushed him. “Quit staring. They’re just nuns,” she said under her breath.
Randy stared intently and whispered back, “Gosh. They look like they’re something to me.”

Cathy, Randy, Dad, Lisa, Debbie, July 1960

When Dad came to visit, he’d ask Randy with straight-faced sincerity if he had his socks on the right feet. Randy always took off his Vans to make sure, then switched them, thinking they might not be. He wasn’t old enough to read yet, but he thought the small printing on the side of his socks must’ve had something to do with the rightness of it all. My Dad loved his grandkids as he did all small children. He saw them as funny, charming, and heartwarming, just as he was with them.

My mother, on the other hand, was not much of a grandmother. She saw small children as noisy, snotty, and bothersome, useful only for pouring Cokes, getting aspirin, or fetching cigarettes while she sat on the couch with her feet on the tiled coffee table being waited on hand and foot. When Carleen informed her that the children weren’t her servants, Mom just raised her nose and sniffed.

Sweet Randy ~ One morning we loaded the car and took off for another one of Chuck’s Sunday family drives. I pinched Deb hard not to say anything and we were at Central Avenue before Carleen noticed it was too quiet in the back seat.

We’d forgotten Randy.

Randy, July 1960

Chuck U-turned the Merc and headed the four blocks back. I saw my three-year-old nephew sitting on the curb, dressed in his striped tee shirt and brown corduroys held up by suspenders, his arms covering his sweet little head buried in his knees, sobbing. I hadn’t thought about his feelings, or that he might be scared, or that he was so young. I felt terrible, like it was the worst thing I’d ever done. I promised I’d never be mean to him again, never make him re-dry all the silverware or refold all the washcloths, never complain about ironing his stupid button-down shirts or giving him baths, and let him win when we played Chutes and Ladders or Go Fish.

Debbie, Cathy, Randy, June 1960

I was still mean to Debbie sometimes. She and I shared a bedroom off and on, depending on who was living with us. I didn’t want her touching any of my stuff. She was so messy with hers I couldn’t stand it, so I hung a white sheet right down the middle of the room on a string nailed to the walls, banning her from my side, except that we shared the bed and the sheet ran down the middle. At night she tickled my back, her fingers lightly drawing circles and pictures and patterns. Promising to tickle hers in return, I usually reneged, pretending to fall asleep to avoid it.

I finally got the mother I wanted, but I resented having to share her, even with her own children. I couldn’t help it; at times it simply got ahold of me.

to be continued…

© 2018. Catherine Sevenau.
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