Curiosity--the greatest gift my father gave me

 

John Loughran "Jack" Gillen

4/22/2020--9/27/1984

Above all things, my father revered knowledge, education, learning, questioning--the life of the mind. He didn't get the complete postsecondary formal education he wanted so he did what most of his generation did: He made one.

He read voraciously, critically but non-judgmentally. He formed opinions only after he had as many facts as possible. (Well, except for the Steelers and original-formula Heinz ketchup; those were revered icons never to be questioned, scorned or disdained.) His happiest moments were at the kitchen table or the desk with a newspaper (from wherever) spread out in front of him or a new hardback book about the history of anything. When my parents took a Caribbean cruise for their 25th anniversary and Mother wanted to shop-shop-shop, Daddy went off "into town" to explore local grocery stores and newsstands in hopes of talking to "the real people who live there, not cruise-line employees with a script."

He actively sought out friends from different backgrounds, different origins, different religions, different political affiliations. He listened, he probed, he questioned, he grew. Waaayyy back in the days of lax port security in Long Beach, he talked us aboard a freighter from Taiwan, chatted up the crew, and came home with tea for my mother and a pocket full of Taiwanese coins for me.

As a parent, his greatest dream was that I'd become broad-minded, curious and intellectually fluent. His gifts to me were mostly books, microscopes, gem-hunting kits (to feed my brief romance with geology), chemistry sets and so on. When I tried to half-ass an assignment to "make your own dictionary" in second grade, he brought the hammer down HARD. He happily looked the other way when my high-school English teacher scored inexpensive tickets to Hamlet at the Mark Taper Forum and gave us credit for "attending class" if we brought her the Playbill (attendance office be damned). When my mother and I locked horns over my choice of college, he solved the conflict with a soft, confident "I'll handle your mother."

When I started to grow wings and move around on my own, he encouraged me to get out there, to see and hear and smell and taste everything I could. He was the driving force behind my first "study trip" to Europe at age 14. (Okay, we didn't do much formal studying, but I sure came home smarter and better.) Just before my first trip to New York, he suggested I not eat at routine, banal restaurants every day but to grab survival food from bodegas or vending machines and save my restaurant money for Tavern on the Green or "something you can't get at home." (Best travel advice I ever got!)When I came home from Presidential Classroom For Young Americans, he had to know EVERY DETAIL about every lecture, every visit to Capitol Hill, every discussion with every media representative (ABC's Ann Compton left the greatest mark on me). When I had the opportunity to hear General Daniel James speak at NORAD, Daddy expected me to brief him later.

I acknowledge that his life wasn't easy, he was far from perfect, and our relationship lacked certain essential elements. But I'm over it and this is not the time or place to rehash old wounds. In the final analysis, he was a good man and a wonderful father, and I will always cherish his greatest legacy--the notion that we live in a beautiful, complicated, rich, confusing, layered, colorful, textured world and the best-lived life is one that GRABS as much of that world as possible.

I remember him fondly on his birthday and I know he is at peace with God.

Daddy, I'll keep reading until we meet again. So much love from your little sunshine.

There are no answers; only questions

 Who are you--you in your ancient, rusted-out Toyota Corona barely chugging around the parking lot, the back seat filled with ragged clothes, a broken plastic hamper in the passenger seat?

Your tabby-striped cat trusts you enough to take a slow joyride on the hood of your car while you laugh the maniacal whisky-tenor laugh of a life spent too soon.

Once you were someone's gleaming new son, loved beyond explanation, fresh, precious.

Were you someone's childhood buddy? Did he run faster, jump higher? Did you outscore him in math? Did you one-up each other in motorcycles, smooth ennui, girls?

Were you the love of someone's young life? Did you promise each other a life of rainbows and unicorns? Did she make your heart sing and soar, only to crash--as young love does--when you really saw each other--shaky, hairy, flabby, broken?

Were you a soldier, sailor, airman, marine? Did you serve, only to come home and face another, more insidious, enemy?

Are you "only" down on your luck? Did you get swept out in a layoff and never bounce back? Does someone love you and long to offer you shelter and roast beef and a hot shower and a long chat? Are you someone's prodigal son?

Are you so broken that you can't live in the mainstream ways we crave, yearn for, expect? Does the madness prevent you from reaching and grasping? Does an old woman worry about you, try to find you, leaf sadly through your high-school yearbook? Does someone remember your wedding day, the things you promised her, the ring that was eventually pawned? Do your children hear about you being damned, resented, regretted? Are you a bad example, a cautionary tale?

What broke you? What brought you here, to the parking lot of my favorite Mexican restaurant, you and your cat and your scarcely operable car?

The only thing I see clearly is that this is wrong and sad. Everything else confounds me.

My mind, my knowledge, my universe--all are too small to comprehend the world of homelessness; I hear the chatter and I reel in horror and frustration.

"How can an affluent society allow this outrage?"

"They do it to themselves with drugs!"

"A lot of them don't even WANT housing."

"But they're hungry and cold; they don't even have socks and jackets!"

"Let 'em get a job!"

"There are no jobs for people like that!"

"Well, why aren't there rehabilitation and training programs?"

"There ARE rehabilitation and training programs--some of these people DON'T WANT another kind of life!"

We are told that God loves you, knows your name, will eventually take you home to live in glory--but that's so easy as to be facile. What about now--do you hurt? Are you hungry? Are you cold, lonely, scared? That car you live in won't last long. Will your life end in the encampment under the freeway?

All questions, no answers.

But no matter what your answers are, I need you to know you are known--not by name, not by story, not by anything other than image--you are not faceless.

Your image is burned into my eyes forever. I can't shake you off, you and your cat and your horrible rust bucket car.

Living in Little Saigon but craving old-school Cantonese

Just give me a torn red-vinyl booth, a plastic lazy susan with sticky bottles of soy sauce, and a dim room full of hanging lanterns.

One of the very few downsides of living in an area that's been blessed with zillions of fairly recent Asian immigrants is the slow death of the old-school, Cantonese-inspired, inauthentic, risky Chinese restaurant. Gone (largely) is the day trip to Chinatown for a family lunch of won ton soup (sizzling rice soup $1.00 more per person; hot-and-sour soup $2.50 more per person), sweet-and-sour pork, cashew chicken, and all the rest of those interpreted dishes that end up being about as Chinese as I am. Honestly, the food our more recent immigrants have brought is better, while improved transportation has allowed the marketplace to accommodate them with things that are a lot closer to what they had at home. I'm grateful, for both the food itself and the opportunity to learn.

But still. Once in a while a craving comes up for a gaudily decorated restaurant with lazy Susans on the tables, sticky bottles of soy sauce, and SOMETHING on the menu that says "chop suey." Every now and then, the heart yearns to journey back, back to Grant Street and Broadway, back to Daddy and Uncle Mel arguing over the check, back to Aunt Lady helping a little girl figure out what the fortune in her cookie really meant. On such occasions, the food needs to reflect the nostalgia, and that's getting harder to find around here.

Enter Fu Wing Low, unobtrusively tucked away in a strip mall in Fountain Valley. It has everything I needed -- enormous round tables with lazy Susans and bottles of soy sauce, lucky bamboo plants in every corner, red vinyl chairs, and an old couple arguing loudly over whether or not she should care if the kids come home for Thanksgiving. (Spoiler: Yes, ma'am, you should. Your daughter-in-law can't be THAT bad. )

Herewith, vegetable egg foo young, cashew chicken, and of course, the obligatory almond and fortune cookies.

Every cliche in the book. I am happy.

Musings on photographing your own children

 Offering a thought here, or perhaps it's a counterpoint, that I wish younger parents would consider.

I see and hear so many of you urging your children to sit up straight, look at the camera and smile. And I'm here to encourage you not to. Please save yourselves and your kids a lot of stress and leave those posed, coldly perfect shots to the professionals. Yes, there are still photo studios where you can get them all dolled up with meticulously arranged hair and spotless faces while trained pros, who do this for a living, deal with the heavy burden of getting the "perfect" portrait. (Sure, you want a few formal portraits -- we all do -- but your child is a multi-dimensional human being, not a prop for Instagram.)

When you're out and about with your kids, or home doing something with your kids, or wrangling the carpool with your kids, and you want a picture, grab your camera/phone and shoot the thing. Shoot it immediately, as soon as you decide you want it. Try not to get caught, and for God's sake, don't call the child's attention to it.

Catch their goofy expressions, don't sweat their messy hair (and at the same time, don't deliberately mess it up because that kind of artificiality shows in every frame), don't holler at them to force a smile. Catch your real kids living their real lives.

On the one hand, you'll have a collection of pleasant, forgettable photos. Who doesn't. Snoooooze town. You'll also waste a ton of time and spend precious emotional currency fighting with your kids and trying to force them into artificial poses, artificial smiles, and artificial settings. You are just NEVER going to get a two-year-old to face the camera and smile flawlessly on command (and, if you have a hardheaded one, it won't work on a 17-year-old either). Trust me.

On the other, you'll have a visual reminder of a million precious stories -- stories of who your kids really are -- the first time little Timmy tasted ice cream, the expression on Sophia's face when Grandma complimented her first home-cooked meal, the sadness of knowing Jared didn't make the team. When your kids are interacting with their friends, catch them *interacting with their friends.* Don't make them stand shoulder to shoulder, all facing front, and smile at you. Nothing on earth is more boring than a line-'em-up'and-shoot-'em photo of a bunch of teenagers heading to the homecoming dance. (And yes, the sad moments are often worth preserving too -- you don't have to display them and make the poor kid relive every tantrum and every humiliation until she's old enough to serve as President. But you'll have them and someday your kiddo will have them and many of those bleak moments ARE worth remembering because they help to form us.)

You know what else forms us? EVERYDAY LIFE, with its awkward attempts at fashion, its teenaged facial breakouts, its sibling quarrels, its baseball practice, its burnt toast, its mismatched socks, and all its precious disorderliness. Very few of our days are Christmas Eve, graduation, someone's engagement. Far, FAR more numerous are the days of wrestling with the math homework, walking off the field defeated, triumphing over that impossible ice-skating move, getting completely lost in Little Women.

How do I know? Because I have the honor of having an only (biological) child, the most over-photographed, painstakingly documented species in the known world, and I tried both approaches.

I have all the formal portraits and all the candids. The formal portraits are nice, sure, but the ones that really warm my heart are the un-posed, unscripted, hey-that's-a-pretty-cool-moment shots that capture the essence of my real kid. When we go through old photos now, the formal portraits get a shrug and a turned page. The candids get us laughing, reminiscing, maybe shedding a tear or two -- but they're real. They're real life. They're who he was and they carry the seeds of who he is now and who he will be one day.

I hope you'll consider it. (PS: I offer this in a spirit of warmth and affection, not high-handed snarkiness. For a change.)

xoxoxoxoxo -- love, jillie

Remembering my grandmother "Neenie" on her birthday

 IdaMae Skiles Hobbs "Neenie" 12/18/1901 -- 11/27/1997

My grandmother was born at home in what is now considered a "census-designated place" in the "hard coal" (anthracite) region of Cambria County, Pennsylvania. She was the second-youngest of 11 children, the daughter of a raging abusive mother and a benign, kindhearted railroadman father. Her childhood hero was her brother Harry, who served in the Army in WWI, came home a hero and bought the town's first automobile, and apparently introduced her to all the cutest boys. Neenie remained an accomplished flirt until the day she died.

She left school early and went to work in a nearby clothing factory. She married my grandfather, a coal miner, in 1926 and they quickly found themselves standing in as informal foster parents to my Uncle Rich, the son of Neenie's younger sister. My mother (little IdaMae) followed shortly after, in 1929. Uncle Rich's mother was eventually able to care for him and he left the household but always cherished "Aunt" as a second mother. When he served in New Guinea in WWII, he used scrap metal from a downed Japanese plane to make her a bracelet with floral designs and "Aunt" in a central medallion.

Moving from patch town to patch town was frequent, as the mines often "worked out" or my grandfather lost his temper over real and imagined slights and quit on the spot. Neenie had a homemaker's heart but was never really able to establish a true home because they were never in one place for more than a year.

In 1951, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, resulting in a radical mastectomy and a completely cancer-free life thereafter. I realize this makes no clinical sense but I chuckle to myself that Neenie's ferocity and grit scared the malignant cells away.

Once my mother was established, licensed as a nurse and seriously dating my father, Neenie put her size 5 foot down and said "Enough. We are moving out of this coal dust and constant moving and we are going to either Florida or California. You can pick which one. If you decide you're staying here, you'll stay alone because I AM GOING." Papa Hobbs quietly surrendered and agreed to move to California. Nobody knew at the time they'd become part of a statistical phenomenon we'd later study as the "postwar boom."

The drive in 1955 to Los Angeles was the longest trip any of them had ever taken (except my WWII veteran dad, who decided to come along, get a quickie Reno divorce from his first wife and marry my mother, his emerald-eyed dream girl). Route 66--another postwar cliche--was their route for most of the trip, but they indulged in a lot of side jaunts for sightseeing. Chicago ("Chicaga" when she said it), the Grand Canyon and finally the Santa Monica pier left the deepest impressions on Neenie.

The two couples arrived in the Golden State with their terrier Ted in a pickup truck and a Studebaker, having sold or given away most of their furniture and household accoutrements.

Within weeks, a small house in Hollywood was home and my grandmother, ever the homemaker and seamstress, set about making curtains and slipcovers. My parents were married in August and my grandfather worked one of the minor California Potteries, Winfield China (yes, I still have a house full of the stuff). Neenie was, at long last, away from obligatory visits to her cruel mother and the constant threat of mining disasters. Life was good and stayed that way for a few years.

My grandfather died unexpectedly in 1957, having suffered a heart attack on a fishing trip out of Santa Monica. Neenie went to pieces and howled like a professional mourner about what would become of her (there wasn't much money saved up, thanks to my grandfather's capricious relationship with long-term work). My father insisted she move in with them and they became a household of three for several years.

When I came along after a series of stillbirths and infant deaths, my grandmother became my caretaker, the stay-at-home "third parent" to baby jillie ("Baby Dumplin'") and the center of my world. She looked after me with love and indulgence, driving me to kindergarten, piano lessons and the very early elementary grades, then deciding I was old enough to walk once I hit third grade. Every year for my birthday she bought me a special dress (which my mother usually insisted I save for Easter); every Halloween she made my costume; and every Christmas she commandeered my mother's vast collection of decor to ensure the entire house was bedecked and embellished.

When my parents went out for dates, she and I stayed home and watched Lawrence Welk (to this day, I can't stand snotty jokes about Lawrence Welk), Bonanza and whatever else she fancied. The apex of a big Saturday night was getting to sleep in Neenie's bed, under a silky, puffy, fluffy pink comforter with a feather design. Her best friend Helen soon became a part of the family, my "other grandmother," my Tia Helen and the source of the persimmon cookie recipe that I cherish to this day. I don't remember a holiday dinner without Neenie and Helen yakking like schoolgirls from start to finish.

She wasn't perfect. When I sassed, she "told on me" to my parents, often with enough embellishments to make her side of the dispute look pure and unsullied. When her friends did something she disapproved of, she was quick to get on the phone and gossip. When my room was messy, she'd click her tongue and ask "What'll they say if they see this mess?" (She never specified who "they" were.) If my skirt was too short (and my skirt was NEVER too short because Jack and IdaMae would have handed me my head), she tut-tutted and wondered if "they" would think I was "one of THOSE girls." But somehow things worked out quickly. Neenie was always ready to give me a hug, sweep the dispute under the rug with no discussion and carry on as if nothing had ever happened.

But every December 18, Christmas was shelved for one special night. There was an order of service for Neenie's birthday: both Mother and Daddy called home from their workplaces to sing "Happy Birthday," the afternoon was spent primping in anticipation of going out for a celebratory dinner, at which Neenie always--ALLLWAAAYYSS--chose grilled halibut. Some years there was white cake at home (the baking of which I took over in junior high because little IdaMae in the kitchen was never a good idea) and other years she requested custard pie instead. Presents consisted of sparkly things, Shalimar, warm robes and soft nightgowns. We all sang and she blew out her candles.

Life went on, I went away to school and eventually returned home, my mother retired, my dad died, and Neenie developed heart trouble. At 93, she was, by her doctor's reckoning, the oldest patient to have an angioplasty at a large hospital in Los Angeles. (I think the procedure wasn't done routinely here in OC on people in their 90s?) My mother and I were scared, but Neenie took my hand and said "Don't worry, Baby Dumplin'. I'll dance at your wedding." And she did, just a few months later. Not only did she dance at my wedding, she caught the bouquet (probably the result of a gentle conspiracy among my girlfriends).

When my son came along and we camped out at my mother's house for a while, she insisted on giving him his last bottle before bedtime because she was the only one who could "do it right." Not his father, who had previously been married and had a child; not my mother, the trained nurse who'd worked in pediatrics for years; and certainly not me, his mother. Nope, only Neenie was qualified to give that last bedtime bottle, rocking him gently in her upholstered, overstuffed chair until he fell asleep.

This is probably deeply unsound from a theological perspective, but I like to think Neenie is enjoying ethereal iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing, heavenly halibut, sanctified mashed potatoes, celestial white cake and absolutely no vegetables whatsoever. I like to think she's sitting around with my parents and my grandfather, beaming and giggling like the belle that she was. I like to think I'll be a part of that birthday party someday. But until then, may she rest in peace and may light perpetual shine upon her. 

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21Cheryl Diamond, Marcy Shands-Brown and 19 others

The Christmas Pins

The pin. The brooch, the breast pin, the circle pin, the cluster, the bar. A hallmark of dressed-up midcentury women from sea to shining sea. Not unlike a precursor to the late Madeline Albright, my mother collected pins and more pins. No outfit was complete without a pin, and her Christmas pin collection was unrivaled.

In his customary sentimental fashion, my father ritualized the giving and owning of Christmas pins. Every year, on the day after Thanksgiving, he and I would get dressed up and go Christmas shopping. (This was long before “Black Friday” was institutionalized as a monument to greed and boorish behavior. Roads and stores were crowded, to be sure, but people seemed to agree on a code of behavior. Everyone waited politely in lines, greeted sales staff, chatted with those around them and extended good wishes for the season. I admit I’m biased, but I like to say we were more civilized then.)

Toward the end of the daylong shopping excursion, Daddy would wander to the costume jewelry area – which in those days took up three or four counters in a large department store – and begin the painstaking selection of three Christmas pins. One was for my mother, one for my grandmother and one for me. No pin on display went unexamined and I stood by patiently as he described my mother’s red hair, green eyes and peaches-and-cream complexion to saleswomen who showed a genuine interest in selling him just the right thing. (I have no idea if they genuinely cared or just wanted to make a sale, and I don’t care. They made him happy.) Finally at long last, he’d select a rhinestone-bedecked Christmas tree or a jaunty gold reindeer for the love of his life.

My grandmother’s pin was harder to find. For 11 months of the year, she frankly proclaimed her dislike of pins and never wore them. But come December, she became a good sport, happily putting a pin on every blouse and jacket, in an effort to spare my father’s feelings. Her favorite color was red and she loved what we would today call “bling,” preferring the “aurora borealis” rhinestones that were popular at the time. I could feel Daddy’s frustration at trying to find the right thing for her coupled with his terror of anything he considered garish or gaudy, but he always managed to find something beautiful.

I was easy and relatively content with whatever he chose, and Daddy knew I favored slightly simpler, more youthful designs. The first pin I remember getting was a simple gold Christmas tree with tiny red and green rhinestones as its “ornaments.” But during the shopping trip, I never saw exactly what he got me – that had to be a surprise when we got home.

When, at long last, we finally arrived home, the house looked like Santa’s village. The 12-foot vaulted ceiling in the living room hosted a tree that was probably 11 ½ feet, with not a needle unadorned. Most of the lights were the old C-9 bulbs with only a few “twinklers.” In the family room was a silver aluminum tree trimmed in red and gold ball ornaments and ONLY red and gold ball ornaments. That was a rule that no one dared violate, lest the incur the wrath of two exhausted, hardheaded women. There was a large Styrofoam church with a music box that played “O Come, All Ye Faithful” on a small table in the entry hall and four decorative felt stockings hung over the fireplace. I’m embarrassed to admit a lighted Santa face smiled down on people as they . . . uhhhh . . . used the bathroom. The kitchen was decorated, the bedrooms were decorated . . . not a surface was left blank in that whole house.

Daddy would hastily rush to a hall closet, designated as “his” for the season, so he could hide most of the presents he’d bought that day. But there was always a small bag in his hand, usually from Marion and Toni’s gift shop at Knott’s Berry Farm or Robinson’s before the May Company merger. With a great air of mystery, he’d ask us all to gather at the “breakfast nook” in the galley-shaped kitchen (yep, the bench was upholstered in turquoise Naugahyde). Mother and Neenie took this as a signal to eat leftover Thanksgiving pie. We all knew what was going on but we all feigned surprise as, one by one, he took the pins out of the bag, presenting them with great flourish “to my girls for an early Christmas.” Mother’s always came first, then Neenie’s, then mine.

They’re all gone now, my three dear ones. But the pins remain, a glistening reminder of the love and warmth of our family Christmases. I wear them proudly, occasionally cursing the failing pin mechanisms and missing rhinestones. Each time I put one on, I’m a young girl again for just a minute, loved and loving and full of anticipation. Call me a sentimental fool, call me a heretic, but I like to believe they see me wearing those pins and know how much comfort and joy they bring me.

Those are the crown jewels of MY realm.

An All Saints Day Tribute

 

As is my custom late every Halloween night, I turn my heart to All Saints' Day. In particular, I remember with fondness "my saints" -- my parents and grandmother (who was in the household as a sort of "bonus parent" all my life).

 

Never was a little girl more blessed, more loved. Never did a tiny family laugh harder, prank better, fight fiercer, or love more deeply. We were funny, loyal, chaotic, disorganized, clever, sarcastic, overly sentimental, and smart. We might claw each other's eyes out behind closed doors, but woe betide the interloper who dared speak a bad word about one of us to any of the others.

 

We celebrated absolutely everything and invited absolutely everyone -- Daddy never met a stranger, never let a traveling colleague make do with tired hotel chicken, never met a "holiday orphan" who didn't find their way to our table for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, you name it. We ate crap on beautifully appointed, perfectly set tables -- until I learned to cook (God bless you, Elizabeth Yeager, for eighth-grade home ec!) and then we ate decent food, still on beautifully appointed, perfectly set tables.

 

We looked for Santa in the night sky, and we found him. We waited for the Great Pumpkin to rise over the patch, and he did. We hoped the Easter bunny would leave more chocolate and fewer jelly beans, and he delivered. (Well, except for the one year SOMEBODY got up early, went out to the living room in search of her basket, found nothing, and burst into Jack and IdaMae's room sobbing her heart out. She remained inconsolable until her Daddy gently reminded her that today was Saturday and E.B. wasn't expected until tomorrow. Oooops. Never did live that one down.)

 

Two of us constructed elaborate lies to fool one of us. One poor, gullible victim was convinced that visitors to the Mexican border towns could walk from La Paz to Matamoros ON the actual international border. Two cruel, horrible adults persuaded a heartbroken, scratched-up, innocent child that her hideously aggressive stray kitten was living in a special place with lots of other wild, violent kittens; this place was, of course, closed to visitors. Only the oldest and least educated of us was sharp enough to see through everybody else's bullshit.

 

We drove across the country, up and down both coasts, all over the West. We tried to eat with locals, chat with locals, learn to understand local ways of being in this big, gorgeous world. We bought beaded replicas of kachinas in New Mexico, chocolate-covered blackberry jelly candy in Oregon, rosaries for the Catholic relatives in Mexicali. One of us, trying to set up a tent for overnight camping, got caught in the tent fabric and rolled ass-over-teacups down a hill in windy Panguitch, Utah, while the other three laughed, devoid of sympathy. We watched the Angels vs. the Oakland As on July 20, 1969; one of us choked back tears as play was stopped for an announcement that Apollo 11 had safely landed on the moon. Two of us had separate small roles in building bridges, highways and power plants. One of us supported surgeons in a growing young county, later turning her professional attention to tuberculosis testing and the treatment of diseases among the underserved. One of us whipped out intricate, highly tailored dresses and coats -- on a shoestring.

Three of us have now died, leaving the fourth behind to pray for the repose of their souls and to reflect on the innumerable blessings they brought to this world and directly to her. She misses them and she cries for them. But she knows they're never far away and she carries them in her heart. She is grateful.

 

Mother, Daddy, Neenie -- I love you and I miss you. Until we meet again -- xoxoxoxo -- love, jillie