The Accordion Player
September 26, 2010
Alice always goes to the dentist fearing he will pull her remaining teeth, and he always assures her, his oldest patient, that he’s doing his best to help her keep them. Recently, he cleaned them and as a reward for not removing any, she told him about the time an accordion player was scheduled to appear in her little Dakota town.
Alice and her five sisters and her little brother ran the dirt streets barefoot all summer long, and in the winter they wore hand-me-down shoes and clothes, along with itchy woolen underwear, which their father forbade them to remove from September until June, regardless of the temperature.
They were many and poor and subject to a few ridiculous old-country rules, but they were generally happy and free-roaming. Some music headed their way was a big deal to them.
The accordion player was the son of immigrant farmers from Russia (originally from Germany). He had no interest in farming himself. He spoke broken, bouncy, and limited English. By the time he’d turned twenty, he had begun to leave the farm occasionally, carrying his accordion to small town music halls to try to make some money. No band. Just him. Except in this case, a summer night in 1923, he enjoyed the accompaniment of Mrs. Stith, the local music teacher in Alice’s town. She played along on the piano.
Everything happened at The Hall–voting, dances, speeches, plays. When something musical was going on, people from all the nearby towns and farms came to listen and to dance.
Alice was eight years old. She knew nothing about the lanky farm boy who wandered the countryside playing an accordion, but she loved dancing. Her partner that night, as at any dancing event, was her ten-year-old sister Lillian. (“Lillian was shorter than me but she always led.”) They hopped this way and that to the music, trying to polka and waltz like the adults. Their older sister LaRue was there, too–beautiful LaRue, named for the surname of a distant cousin (French? Belgian?) of their father’s. She was almost fifteen.
Music swirled around Alice as she and Lillian jigged in and out among the dancing farmers, shopkeepers, livery men, housewives, boarding house residents, store clerks, etc., plus scads of other kids, including LaRue’s friends, Mae and Alma, bright and pretty young women instantly besotted with the accordion player.
As the night wore on the older people sat down to rest, and at one point the young man put aside his accordion and leaned over to whisper something to Mrs. Stith. She nodded and began playing Let Me Call You Sweetheart as he stepped down from the stage and headed straight for LaRue. He took her hand and invited her to dance with him.
This turned out to be a Lawrence Welk trademark event. Some time during the evening he always left the stage and picked someone to dance with, but that night it was new to everyone, maybe even to him. LaRue rested her hand on his shoulder and Alice sucked in her breath and had to remind herself to let it out again. She felt enormous pride. They might have been poor and their clothes not the best, but the accordion player chose her sister out of all the girls and women there. They glided around the room, young and supple, smooth as skaters on ice.
Alice still feels pride when she tells this story. She adds that she didn’t think about Lawrence Welk ever getting famous until she and her sisters heard him some years later on WNAX radio out of Yankton. He’d put together a band, which was followed by other bands and finally the popular television show. She still watches him on cable television.
“When we heard him on the radio from as far away as Yankton,” she told the dentist, “we knew he’d amounted to something.”
The dentist liked this story and responded with one in kind, though much briefer: He’d grown up in New York City. When he was fifteen he broke his leg and wore a cast. One day he was waiting for his father to come out of a store when a man came up and asked him what happened to his leg. They chatted for a while and then the man asked him if he knew who he was. “No,” said the future dentist, “I don’t.” The man announced that he was Guy Lombardo.
Once again, Alice sucked her breath in, astonished. Here she was getting her teeth cleaned by someone who had once had a conversation with Guy Lombardo.
I wanted to join in with my story of walking down a street on the East Side in New York one wintry night and coming upon John and Yoko, but this somehow seemed out of tune.
My Aunt LaRue went on to fall in love at another dance. She once told me that she spotted Henry for the first time over on the other side of the dance floor and she never ever looked at anyone else again. Even if Lawrence Welk had come waltzing back to town, she wouldn’t have noticed him.
Here she is at seventeen modeling Henry’s jeans, shirt, and cap.
LaRue at seventeen
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
- I am dreaming Dear of you, day by day
- Dreaming when the skies are blue, When they’re gray;
- When the silv’ry moonlight gleams, Still I wander on in dreams,
- In a land of love, it seems, Just with you.
- Let me call you Sweetheart, I’m in love with you.
- Let me hear you whisper that you love me too.
- Keep the love-light glowing in your eyes so true.
- Let me call you Sweetheart, I’m in love with you.
- Longing for you all the while, More and more;
- Longing for the sunny smile, I adore;
- Birds are singing far and near, Roses blooming ev’rywhere
- You, alone, my heart can cheer; You, just you.
- Let me call you Sweetheart, I’m in love with you.
- Let me hear you whisper that you love me too.
- Keep the love-light glowing in your eyes so true.
- Let me call you Sweetheart, I’m in love with you.
- Music by Leo Friedman; lyrics by Beth Slater Whitson
- Bing Crosby sings it here.
- A suave and successful older Lawrence plays it for an audience singalong here.
- And for your viewing pleasure, Ladies and Gentlemen, a youngish Lawrence shown below. (Click on any image in the blog to make it larger):
Young Lawrence
To the Trees
September 23, 2010
Let’s say you have had insomnia all week, you’re feeling groggy and low, and you’re angling for your mother’s sympathy. (Amazingly, you’re still not too old for this.)
Morning call with Alice. Hearing aids not in yet.
Me: Last night I slept for only three hours.
Alice: Last night you went to the treehouse? What treehouse?
You think of different ways to state your case.
I did not sleep.
What?
I couldn’t sleep last night.
What are you saying? Spell it, please.
Last night, no sleep. NO S-L-E-E-P.
Eventually, she understands you, but instead of telling you how sorry she is that you didn’t sleep, she finds it very amusing that she thought you said, “Last night I went to the treehouse.” And then she asks you, “Wouldn’t it be more fun to have a treehouse than a sleepless night?”
You get no sympathy at all, and you wonder if you should go out into the Oregon forest tonight and build a treehouse and take along your dog and cat and lie awake together and listen to Neil Young on your iPod and watch that big old harvest moon, instead of worrying any more about sleeping.
Surprise!
September 21, 2010
Most of the costume jewelry that Alice wore through her working years was sold at the garage sale back in Iowa. She brought only a few pieces with her to Oregon. She didn’t want to keep more, or so she thought at the time. But lately she’s been craving a little flash.
About fifteen years ago she gave me all she had of value–her wedding ring and a pearl necklace she’d received from my father as an anniversary gift. Yesterday I took the gleaming pearls from my jewelry box, rolled them up, and dropped the coil into a small black leather pouch.
I filled a shopping bag with a new stash of large-print books from the library, a puzzle book, fresh strawberries, an avocado, some flowers, and a print-out of Little White Toaster, the song Justin wrote in honor of her new contraband appliance. I tucked the pouch with the strand of pearls into a corner at the bottom of the bag, then called and told her that Brio and I were headed over with some surprises.
She was happy to see each item, including the mystery books from the library. (But let me just ask this: Why are so many large-print books mysteries? It’s hard to find anything else when browsing the shelves at the library. Do large-print publishers believe that sight-impaired people are only interested in murder?)
She was especially delighted to see Little White Toaster printed out.
At last she pulled out the black pouch, but she was not ready to peer inside. She wanted to guess what it contained. She looked over at me and smiled while pressing her fingers lightly against the secret contents. After a second or two she said, “I know what it is. My teeth!” She was referring to her former set of dentures, the ones the dentist instructed her to hang on to in case of emergency.
Would I be likely to bring her old teeth to her as a surprise?
She started laughing along with me. “No,” she said. “Not my teeth. Huh-uh. I just saw them the other day. They’re still in the dresser next to my bed.”
She opened the pouch and pulled out the necklace. “Oh, my pearls! Well, I was close.”
She said she was glad to see them, but she handed them back to me. “They’re safer with you.”
I hadn’t thought about it before, but I immediately knew what she meant: the comings and goings of staff; the hirings, firings, and walkouts of people she barely gets to know before they’re gone. And the fact that everybody who works there, other than kitchen staff, possesses a key to all the apartments. They are free to walk in at any time to pick up laundry and trash, or bring her medications, or clean. They can enter whether she’s there or not. One sharp knock and the door opens before she even has a chance to say “Come in.”
I told her that they did background checks on people working at The Place, but yes, we’d go on a jewelry hunt for something pretty but less valuable.
“Goodwill,” she suggested. She’s become a fan of Goodwill since moving to Portland (like almost everyone else who lives in this city, including me).
I agreed. Lots of flash in the big glass cases there.
“Something to look forward to,” she said. Which is all she really wants.
Little White Toaster
September 15, 2010
My wonderful friend Justin Ting wrote this in honor of Alice’s new toaster.
(To the tune of “Kindhearted Woman Blues.” To hear Robert Johnson sing the original version, recorded in 1936, click here.)
I got a little white toaster,
Warming up toast just for me,
I got a little white toaster,
Warming up toast just for me.
The caretakers fuss too muchly
and they will not let me be.
I love my toaster,
And my toaster must love me,
I love my toaster,
Ooo, and my toaster must love me
I really love that toaster
Can’t stand to leave it be
There is only one thing
That makes me stop and think
I have to let it cool off
Before it goes under the sink
Oh, babe, my life wouldn’t feel the same
If my little white toaster left and went away
–Justin Ting
Toast to Alice
September 9, 2010
I decided to extend the celebration of Alice’s 95th birthday by smuggling a contraband item into her apartment: a toaster.
Toasters are not allowed at The Place, and I’ve tried to imagine why. Maybe, long ago, a resident burned a piece of toast. An Emergency Anti-Toaster Meeting was called by the Director, who observed that the smoke alarm could have gone off. So then, put it in the rules and stamp it with a stamp: No more toasters!
One’s final years with no toast available except the cold, soggy version served at breakfast in the dining room–unbearable thought. What does one do with that yen, that ache of desire that comes late at night, the ache that toast and butter and strawberry jam will soothe? A delicious and sensual mixture–hot, slippery, and sweet–a satisfaction on the same continuum as something else that too often goes missing with old age.
One has lost one’s home, one’s animal companions, one’s garden, one’s trees, one’s husband or wife or partner, one’s comforts of the flesh. So much sacrifice. And now this little pleasure, too. Gone.
And maybe one’s adult children, if one has any, are far away or don’t give a damn or are munching away on their own toast, assured that one of advanced age needs neither sex nor toast when in fact one needs both, but toast anyhow will suffice. One pines for a slice of toast.
But no. One’s pinings had just better settle down. Go to bed. Count sheep.
For two years, Alice and I abided by the no-toaster rule, along with all the other rules of The Place. I listened to her say–very, very often–that she’d really love a piece of toast. She doesn’t even get the cold soggy version because she doesn’t eat breakfast in the dining room where it’s served. She’d like to have her hot toast in her own apartment which, by the way, is tiny and yet exceedingly expensive.
Apartment. Not a nursing home. Not a hospital. The apartment residents are men and women who may need help getting dressed or taking a shower on their own. Dropping a piece of bread into a toaster and taking it out again is not beyond them.
Maybe I’ve gained courage because I’ve never been spotted clipping a few of the many unappreciated roses along the chapel wall, at least not spotted by anyone except the neighborhood dogs. Alice loves the roses I bring her. And so for a follow-up birthday gift, on an impulse, I purchased a toaster at a nearby Fred Meyer store, along with bread, butter and jam. One-stop shopping.
Alice’s big blue eyes widened when she unwrapped the gleaming white toaster. I may as well have given her a brick of gold. “Can I?” she asked. “Really? Did something change?”
Nothing changed, I told her, and would she please keep it hidden when not in use? She immediately tried out several hiding places: hall closet, upper kitchen cupboard, lower kitchen cupboard, under the sink. Finally she found the right cubby hole.
Later that night she called. “The caretaker came by on her rounds to see if I’m all right, and she’s not coming back again tonight. So I’m going to have some toast and jam. No wait, wait! First I’m going to get ready for bed, then I’m going to have my toast and jam. Then I’m going to let the toaster cool down. Then I’m going to hide it again. And then I’m going to bed.”
Goodnight, TV set. Goodnight, La-Z-Boy. Goodnight, lamp. Goodnight, book. Goodnight, toaster.
The Dapper Man and the Mystery of the Fancy Chocolate
September 4, 2010
Alice has a new admirer. Unlike Mr. Fickle, he wears clothes that fit. “Sometimes he turns his collar up,” she told me. He is not tall, but his posture is admirable, shoulders back, arms like drumsticks at his sides. His “good head of hair,” precisely combed, is a pleasing shade of gray. His shoes are polished. He’s new at The Place and she doesn’t know his name. She calls him The Dapper Man.
The Dapper Man, one of the very few men in residence, took immediately to gazing at Alice from across the dining room. Last week he stopped by her table and greeted her and Irene. He said something to Alice that she couldn’t quite hear, but instead of saying her hearing failed her, she smiled and appeared to agree with him. She almost regretted this when he nodded and walked away slowly and more confidently than she felt the occasion deserved. Since then she’s been watching him to see if he continues to watch her and to observe what he’s up to.
The other night when she got to her table in the dining room, she found a brightly wrapped cube of chocolate atop her napkin. Read the rest of this entry »
Dining with Irene
September 2, 2010
When all is going well (no medical appointments, no trips to ER, no groceries to buy, errands to run, etc.), Alice and I speak on the phone twice every day, once in the morning and once at night. In the morning she tells me how she slept. In the evening she tells me what happened that day with Irene and her food.
(See Hello, Irene for how these two ended up eating lunch and dinner together.)
Whatever happens with Irene (age 109) and her food depends on the workers, who are called aides. So fast is the merry-go-round of poorly paid help at The Place that Alice barely has time to learn their names. (“Oh, you know who I mean, the one with the big gob of hair on top of her head; the one who shouts YOU GOT IT whenever anybody asks her for anything; the one whose pants are so tight they’ve got to hurt her; the one with the pretty teeth; the one with a bead stuck in her nose, with tattoos on her legs, with arms as big as three-year old kids, poor heavy girl, what can be wrong there?”)
These women, often single mothers desperate for income, will leave if they can get fifty cents more an hour somewhere else. Alice sympathizes with their lot, but her measuring stick for whether or not she likes them is how they treat Irene. Irene is almost completely blind and deaf, and perpetually at the mercy of a sweet tooth. Alice wants to outwit that tooth, but because she cannot feed Irene herself, the frail little body rarely gets much protein and very few vegetables. Depending on awareness, compassion, and time, the aides may or may not be able to pay attention to what the oldest person in the facility eats, or even if she eats at all. Because of budget constraints, they are rushed and overworked. They wash linens, respond to calls for help, assist residents in going to the bathroom, getting dressed, getting into and out of chairs, and so forth. And they serve as the wait staff in the dining room.
Alice regards Irene as a treasure. She believes that Irene should receive her meal first, always. Irene is, after all, one of the oldest people on earth. But The Place runs perversely on democracy. Sometimes Irene is first, but usually not, meaning she may have to wait up to an hour before she can eat.
Alice is normally shy of drawing attention to herself, but when she arrives at their table, she shouts out within earshot of the entire dining room, “Irene, it’s me Alice. I’m here now.”
And Irene invariably smiles when she answers, “I know who you are.” Which, to someone aged 109, is a sentence that carries more meaning than it would for you and me.
When she has to wait to be served, Irene occasionally calls to no one in particular, “When are we going to eat?” She might tire of waiting and return to her apartment hungry. But when she stays, she eventually insists on coffee and bangs her empty cup on the table until a hassled aide comes and fills it. Alice is unhappy about this banging, but she recognizes the frustration.
Last night Alice gave me a typical nightly report on Irene. Here it is in full: “The one with the gob of hair on top came and plunked down Irene’s plate way over at the edge of the table. At least she put the fork into Irene’s hand, but she didn’t pay any attention to me when I said Irene couldn’t see the plate and didn’t know where it was. Off she went. I stood up and tottered over toward Irene’s side of the table and moved the plate. She opened her mouth like a baby bird. She wanted me to feed her. But I can’t stand up long enough to feed her and there’s no room for my walker in that corner. I got back to my chair and called out that Irene needs help. ‘Someone help Irene! Please help Irene!’ They didn’t come and didn’t come and then finally the one with the pretty teeth came over and fed her two forkfuls of beans and she left and the tattoo girl came by and shoved a piece of pie in front of her. Irene pushed the dinner plate away and started eating the pie with her fingers because she’d lost her fork by that time. And then when I got up to leave after I finished eating, she reached out her sticky little hand to take mine and squeeze it, and you know, I have to grab hold of that hand, no matter how sticky it is. She eats with her fingers so much of the time because she keeps losing her fork, but I have to squeeze it, you know. Because it’s Irene. I’m sure she ate the whole piece of pie after I left, but I bet she only got those two forkfuls of beans. Oh Irene.” A long pause. “My goodness. How are they going to treat me when I’m old?”
She caught herself and managed to chuckle at the distant possibility that she might one day get old, but her blood pressure was up again, she said, and I promised to talk to the administrative staff because Irene has no relatives to speak on her behalf. I know what will happen because I’ve done this before. They’ll instruct the aides to put the plate where Irene can reach it and to make sure she eats real food. They will ask them to withhold sweets until she has finished her meal. But then these aides will scatter, one by one. They’ll be replaced by other overworked women on the edge of poverty, and these new women may or may not be able to afford the mindfulness necessary to see and to care about this ancient one, this redwood in a forest of venerable oaks.
© 2010 Andrea Carlisle
