(2) "HE COULD HAVE BLOWN UP THE WHOLE HOUSE."

October 2, 1959
     For the first time in months and months I am alone in the house. Timmy will be home before long, but even an hour to myself is unique to the point of being precious. Kathryn is baby-sitting for Mrs. Tosi, and Mother and Vaughan are on their way to Vermont to visit Aunt Alma. There’s no one around to ask questions or tell me something’s wrong with the garbage disposal. Even the telephone is silent; all I can hear is the distant cacophony of gulls circling above the cove, the rustle of waves unfurling on the beach, and under my nose, the scratch of pen on paper. Soothing, undemanding sounds . . .
     A few days ago Kathryn complained that the cap for the bottom of the flour bin was missing. Taking a poll of the family, I tracked down the flour bin cap snatcher, Timothy. “It’s upstairs on my desk,” he said. “I’ll bring it right down.”
     “May I ask what you were doing with it?” Ed asked with a certain wary curiosity.
     “Oh, I was just doing an experiment with some flour and a candle. You take a coffee can and punch a hole in it and put a rubber tube through the hole. Then you put a dish of flour inside the can and a candle next to it. You light the candle, put the top on the can, and blow through the tube.”
     “And then they cart you off to the bughouse?” I said.
     “No, you get this beautiful explosion,” Timmy explained, quite pleased with himself.
     Ed looked at me and said numbly, “He could have blown up the whole house.” I thought he was exaggerating, but he said even a small amount of flour under compression is a dangerous concoction.
     I suppose someday when Tim is a famous nuclear physicist, we’ll look back on this incident and laugh, if we’re still in one piece.
October 14, 1960
     When I was shopping at Tedeschi’s yesterday, a voice came over the loudspeaker asking the owner of a black Ford convertible (I had Ed’s car, so I pricked up my ears), license number H666, to come to the courtesy desk.
     “Maybe it’s something pleasant,” I thought, “like `Because you’re our one millionth customer, we are giving you a new Thunderbird, this full-length mink coat, and a trip to Paris!’”
     Au contraire. The man at the courtesy desk told me I had parked my car in such a way that the car beside it was blocked. An agitated woman was waiting for me in the parking lot. Her car had just been painted, and she hoped I could back out successfully, although she doubted it because our fenders were practically touching, and how I had managed to park so close without scraping her fender she couldn’t imagine.
     I moved the Ford to the tune of gasps, squeals, and prayers emanating from this bundle of nerves and returned to the store. I was looking for the family-sized packages of English muffins when a man tapped me on the shoulder and said I had made off with his cart. Perhaps I’d prefer mine, which I had left yonder at the end of the aisle.
     To round out the day, Ed was mean to me. He was preparing to finish a repair job he’d begun on the bathroom light last weekend. “Of course you saved that little nut I left in the globe,” he said.
     I said, “You mean that tiny weeny roundish thing?”
     “You didn’t throw it away!”
     I allowed as how I might have. I remembered hearing something drop when I picked up the globe to wash it. It was possible I might have tossed out whatever it was.
     “Oh, this urge to clean,” Ed said. “How am I going to fix the damn thing now, tell me that! You women and your urge to clean!”
     He stomped out of the kitchen and I yelled after him, “What do you mean, urge to clean, I have no urge to clean and it’s a good thing I don’t or I couldn’t live in this house, why didn’t you fix that light six months ago when I first asked you to, boy, I wonder how many women could stand living in a house where things don’t get fixed for years!”
     After I’d simmered down a bit I remembered it was his birthday and he was going to take me out to dinner. I decided to forgive him as soon as I could without losing face.
     I was reading the paper when I heard him come down and stand behind me in a way I could tell was repentant. He didn’t say anything, so I didn’t say anything, not wanting to lose face. Then he started upstairs. Mustering a pleasant tone of voice, I called, “How’s it going?”
     “Oh, fine!” he said, sounding startled.
     When he came down again he said with a grin, “Guess what! I’m smarter than I thought I was. When I took that fixture apart last weekend, I remember I said to myself, `If I leave this nut where the nut I married can get her hands on it, she’ll throw it away.’ So I screwed it into the rim, and there it was when I looked for it.”
     Ed had insisted I shouldn’t get anything for his birthday because we couldn’t afford it, but I wanted him to have something to open, even if it was made of plastic and cost a dollar and a half.
     I gave him his present and told him we were going to play twenty questions.
     Ed put down his paper and took up the challenge.
     “One, is it something for the boat?”
     “Yes.”
     “Aha!” said he. “You never thought I’d get there that fast, did you!”
     After several more questions he established that it was something you would use in an emergency, not necessarily at night, and although it felt like a cranberry scoop, it was not a cranberry scoop. (I had told him not to feel it, but the closer he got to the twentieth question, the more he cheated.)
     I gave him a hint. “What is the biggest emergency we could possibly have on the boat?”
     “We’re sinking.”
     “Right.”
     “An inflatable life preserver!” he said.
     “Cranberry scoop was closer.”
     In the end he gave up and tore off the wrappings.
     Oh, for heaven’s sake!” he said. “I thought it was something expensive!”
     “You toild me not to get something expensive!”
       “I didn’t know you’d take me up on it. Well, it’s a very nice bailer.”

(3) ED SAID HE'D LIKE TO GO UPSTAIRS AND CUDDLE.

October 7, 1960

     Last night Ed and I had dinner with the Hills at the Lighthouse.  As I wanted to see Victor Borge’s show at 9:30, I hustled our friends through their coffee. We got back to the Hills’ house just in time to turn on the set and turn off the lights.  A few minutes later I was called to the phone.  It was Tim, who said he would be coming home this weekend, could I meet him at Station 128?

     “It was Timmy, wasn’t it,” Ed said when I returned.

     “Yes,” I said, rejoining him on the sofa.

     “You see, Edgar, what’d I tell—“ Ed broke off and swore roundly.  I was surprised to find that he was swearing at me.    
      “Well, for heaven’s sake, what did I do?”

     “You spilled crème de menthe all over my trousers, clumsy!”

     “What crème de menthe?  I peered through the flickering TV gloom. “You didn’t have any crème de menthe when I went to the telephone.”

     “I made him one,” Edgar said.

     “What did you plop down like that for?” Ed snapped.  

     “I did not plop down!  Anyway, it serves you right, you’ve obviously had enough to drink.  Goodbye, I’m going home.”

     “So am I!”

     “Oh, please don’t go,” Edgar interjected hospitably.

     But we flounced out, one behind the other like a couple of feuding 10-year-olds, leaving Marguerite and the baby-sitter, who had been chatting in the other room, staring after us with their mouths open.

     When we got home, Ed marched into the playroom to watch Victor, I marched upstairs to watch Victor.

     “Victor Borge’s on,” Vonnie informed me from my bed, pointing to the TV.

     “I know,” I said, plopping down beside her.  “We were watching him at the Hills.”

     The telephone rang.  It was Edgar.  “Do me a favor,” he said.  “Don’t give him a hard time.”

     “I’m not giving him a hard time, I’m just not speaking to him.  He’s downstairs watching TV and I’m upstairs watching TV.”

     Edgar laughed.

     “I wouldn’t dream of giving him a hard time until the program is over,” I said.

     Edgar said he didn’t blame me for being offended, but I must remember that my husband was under a great deal of pressure all the time.   “He’s impatient and hot-tempered, but he really doesn’t mean to be unkind.  Be a good girl and be nice to him; he’s my friend.”

     “All right,” I said, beginning to melt.

     “Go downstairs and watch your program and forgive him, all right?”

     “All right.”  So I did what he suggested and when I sat down beside Ed, he said with no sign of penitence, “I forgive you.”

December 12, 1960
     A northeast blizzard rattled the house during the night. Ed started for work and got stuck in Quincy along with hundreds of other stranded motorists. He spent the day sitting in a nearby drugstore and has just phoned to say he’s going to set out to the Marshes’ house—half an hour’s walk, he figures. It is bitterly cold out, so I’m worried about him.
     While I was having dinner with Mom and Kathryn, I reported that the man of the house was walking through the storm to the Marshes’. I added that I wouldn’t be worried if it weren’t so cold.
     “The biggest danger is stepping on live wires in the dark,” said Kathryn.
     I hadn’t thought of that, but now I could think of nothing else. At last Ed called. He had reached the Marshes’ house safely, having run all the way, he said, to keep his feet from freezing.
     I was taking a shower a little before nine when Vonnie tapped on the door and said her father was on the phone. I wrapped a towel around me and dripped downstairs to talk to him. (Mom was sitting beside our bedroom phone, watching TV—the downstairs sets weren’t working.) Ed said he missed me; more so than when he was out of town because we were so frustratingly close to each other. He’d talked to the local police and learned the roads in Quincy were fairly navigable. He repeated that he missed me. He told me not to do anything foolish like trying to get him . . . Marion had a spare bed.
     “Suppose I got stuck,” I said.
     “Yes, you might. You just stay put, don’t try to come after me.”
     “If the situation were reversed, you’d come after me,” I said.
     “I’m s big strong man, and you’re a silly, weak, helpless, lovable female.”
     Once again he urged me not to do anything foolish, and I hung up convinced that something foolish was what he wanted me to do.
     I bundled up, put on my boots, and hurried outdoors. A huge drift covered the front porch and there was a ten-inch layer of snow on the car. The window on the driver’s side was open an inch, so I found the seat occupied by an abominable snowman. Even the steering wheel and the dashboard were covered with snow.
     I finally got going but bogged down a few yards from the end of the driveway. When I tried the back-and-forward-dash technique, the car began to act strangely, stalling and dimming its lights when I pressed on the starter.
     I had to give up, but no one could say I didn’t try to do something foolish.
December 14, 1960
     Ed came home last night in a raunchy mood after being blizzarded in at the Marshes.’ He went to refresh his drink during a commercial and called out matter-of-factly from the bar that as soon as the movie we were watching, "Harvey," was over, he’d like to go upstairs and cuddle. I flinched, not because I don’t like cuddling, but because I knew Mom was watching TV in the playroom, within easier hearing distance of his proposition than I was.
     “Shh, not in front of Mother!” I whispered with a frown, as he returned to the living room.
     “Of course not!” he said, looking shocked. “Upstairs in bed was what I had in mind.”
     I wigwagged desperately in the direction of the playroom. Ed stopped stirring his drink and asked me with an air of mystification what I was doing—thumbing a ride or something?
     By this time I was sure Mother was finding Ed much more interesting to listen to than Harvey. To express my mortification, I had a mild seizure, which involved sinking down in my chair until I was almost horizontal, flinging my arms wide, and rolling my eyes at the ceiling.
     “That’s it!” Ed cried. “Now you’ve got the idea!”

(4) "I THINK OF WHAT MOTHER WENT THROUGH."

January 28, 1962

Waterville, Maine

TED AND ED AT COLBY COLLEGE

  We drove up to Colby to watch Ted play hockey in the afternoon.  After the game we took Ted and his roommate to dinner, then went on our way.  We planned to stop at a motel within an hour or so of home, leaving us an easy drive the next day.  When we got to New Hampshire, we decided on Lamie's Tavern for nostalgic reasons.  Hampton was the town where we married after I turned eighteen.

January 29, 1962
Hampton, Maine
    We were having breakfast when Ed said, “I wonder what happened to Mr. Penniman. He sure seemed uneasy about marrying us!”
    “Let’s look him up in the telephone book. If he’s still around, why don’t we drop in and reassure him?”
    The only Penniman in Hampton was listed under Penniman Insurance Agency. It might not be the same fellow, but having gone this far on our sentimental journey, we couldn’t give up now. After getting directions, we drew up in front of the same old white farmhouse where we had pledged our troth twenty-two years ago.
    A pleasant-looking lady with her hair in curlers came to the door.
    “Mr. Penniman hasn’t been here for a good many years,” she said. “Can I help you?”
    “Well, we were wondering”—I looked uncertainly at Ed—“you see, this Mr. Penniman was a justice of the peace, and we were hoping he’d still be here.”
    The lady looked at me and then at Ed. “I’m a justice of the peace,” she said with an encouraging smile.
    “The reason we particularly wanted to see Mr. Penniman,” I explained,” was because he married us when we were very young. We’d eloped, you see, and we wanted to tell him everything worked out all right.”
    “We have four children,” Ed said. “Two of them at college.”
    “Isn’t that nice!” beamed the lady.
    “Is Mr. Penniman—not living?” I asked.
    “Oh, he’s very much alive! He’s been up before the justice two or three times himself!”
    “You mean—he’s been married two or three times?”
    “Yes indeed! He’s living up in Maine with his third wife. I was the first Mrs. Penniman.”

    “Then you were one of our witnesses! Of course you wouldn’t remember, but you asked the couple next door to come over and be witnesses, too. Mr. Penniman told us to remember it was easier to tie the knot than to untie it.”
    “He didn’t practice what he preached, did he! But tell me your name and I’ll relay your message. Once in a great while I do hear from him.”
    Ed and I gamely took pictures of the house and each other, but we agreed that our romantic gesture had been a bit of a fizzle.
January 12, 1962
    Ed got up early and put another blanket on the bed.
    “Thank you,” I said. “I was too frozen to move. What time is it?”
    “Five-thirty. Remind me to tell you about the dream I had when we get up.”
    “I had wild dreams, too. It must have been something we ate.”
    When I next awoke it was 7:15. I was upset to discover Tim was finishing one of his interminable showers, and Vonnie was still asleep.
    “You two should be downstairs eating your breakfast this very minute! Why didn’t you get Vonnie up when your alarm went off? Now she’ll have to rush off to school without a thing to eat, that’s the second time this week!”
    “Relax, Maw,” Tim said. “How long does it take to eat a scrambled egg?”
    “Timmy, you know how long it takes her to get ready! By the time she finishes combing her hair the bus will be here—she should have been up half an hour ago!”
    “Don’t worry about it, Maw!”
    “Don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it,” I muttered. I returned to my bed and lay there brooding about the irresponsibility of teenagers. Ed reached over and caressed my head.
    “That dream I had was so vivid,” he said. “It was back when we were young. . . .”
    He paused for a moment and I said, “Well, go on—did I or didn’t I?”
    “We forget,” he said. “We take things for granted. In the dream you were Barbara Beyer again—and boy, did I want to marry you!”
    “It must have been the corned beef and cabbage.”
    “You didn’t want to, though. I tried everything I could think of to persuade you, but you weren’t— well, you weren’t gonna, that’s all. We were intimate, there was no doubt about that, but you’d reached the stage where you were talking about a platonic relationship, so I wasn’t very happy about that.”
    “Well, as long as I just talked about it—“
    “Lord, how it took me back! You were very sweet and nice, but you just didn’t want to marry me. I kept trying to figure out ways of getting you pregnant—“
    “There’s more than one way?”
    “—so you’d have to marry me. You seemed like the most desirable creature in the world, you were exactly as you were when I met you: tall, slim, willowy—“
    “Instead of short, fat, and dumpy the way I am now?”
    “—your eyes were bright and sparkling—“
    “These dull, lusterless things?”
    “You were charming and pert—“
    “Hey, Maw, whadja do with those trousers I asked you to sew?”
    “—and carefree,” I sighed. “Try looking in your closet,” I called.
    Tim’s sliding door clattered and screeched as he looked in the closet. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Hey, is Dad up? I want to get there early, you know.”
    “Be right with you, Tim.” Ed jumped out of bed and began hurrying into his clothes. I brushed my teeth, bathed my eyes with cold water until they sparkled, combed my hair. My poor, rejected hubby! If he asked me to marry him, I was going to say yes.
    I was waiting expectantly by the door when there came a rap. Tim came in to get his allowance and told his father to hurry up, it was getting late.
    “Won’t even have time to eat my grapefruit,” Ed grumbled.
    “Why do you cater to him? It’s his own fault for standing under the shower all morning. Take your time!”
    “He likes to go down to Braintree Center and have a cup of coffee with his buddies,” Ed said, giving me a peck on the cheek.
    “Is that all I get after that dream?” I said with a pout.
    “Stick around,” he said.
    But I know what will happen. Long before he comes hone he’ll have forgotten about the elusive siren of his dreams and I’ll be available old me again.
I wonder if he’d go for corned beef and cabbage two nights in a row?
***
[I've been looking for a place to record a 1964 shock to the family, without having to reschedule a large number of posts.  This will do.]

September 25, 1964

Cohasset

     Gene Porta called Ed from Martha's Vineyard with some friendly advice.  He'd heard Ted was dating a divorcee with three children.  He suggested we ask Ted to invite her to Cohasset so we could meet her.

     Last night Ted called his father from an airport in Pennsylvania.   A few minutes later I heard Ed say, "Well, it's an awful lot of responsibility you're taking on, kid, but I certainly wish you luck and happiness."

     Ted and this girl (I don't even know her name) were married two days ago.  Thank God I have Ed or I think I would fall apart.  I keep thinking of my mother and what she went through in her forties.  First she lost my father, then her beautiful home, next came the shock of my elopement, along with problems with my adolescent sister and worries about my brother.  These were the lean years of the Depression when she took in roomers in order to survive.  Finally she had to face an operation for cataracts, and the acceptance of heavy, thick-lensed glasses.

    Maybe being father to a ready‑made family will be good for Teddy's character.  "Don't sweat it, Mom," I can hear him saying. 

ED AND INSTANT GRANDCHILDREN

April 4, 1970

Westwood

    Ed's mother has been visiting for a few days, and as usual, keeping her entertained is no problem.  All I have to do is let her ramble on about the man who bumped into her fender, the saleswoman who was rude to her, Mickey's finicky eating habits (". . . he won't eat beef kidney, it has to be lamb kidneys, only twenty-one cents for three, down in Florida they cost eighteen cents apiece,” etc., etc.)

      Late this afternoon I went into the bedroom to change and get ready for dinner in town with Ed.  Mimi followed me and continued her monologue about everything under the sun and inside her digestive system.  Suddenly my attention was caught . . . what was she saying?

     "You never can tell about a lot of men, Barbara, even after you've lived with them for twenty-five years you just can't tell what they'll do next, but I'll say this for Edward, he really loves you a lot, he even wrote me a letter once telling me how much he loved you, he said if anything ever happened to you he wouldn't want to go on living."

      "When was this?"

      "Oh, a few years ago.  I found it when I was cleaning out my desk, he said you'd taken Kathie and gone down to Florida to visit your mother and Vaughan -‑ "

      "That was thirty years ago!"

      " ‑ and he missed you both so much, he said, `you know,  Mother, she's only a little baby herself, only seventeen years old' -‑"

      "Nineteen," I said, memories squeezing my heart and leaving me breathless.  Did she have the letter?  I didn't dare ask.

      "He was explaining why I hadn't heard from him at Christmas, he was looking for an apartment for you and the baby, he wanted to be sure it would be something you'd like, it was really a beautiful letter, Barbara, I guess that's why I saved it so  long."

      "Mimi -- did you -- do you still have it?  You can't imagine how much I would value it."

      "Oh no, dear, I tore it up [flinch from me], I thought of sending it to you  but then I thought maybe it was confidential between Edward and  me and if some stranger ever went through my things it wouldn't  mean anything to them.  It was eight pages long, four double sheets on both sides." 

      "Can you remember anything else, Mimi?  You have such a good memory, I'd appreciate whatever you can tell me."

      "Well, it was the nicest letter he'd ever sent me.  He  started out apologizing and saying he was sorry he hadn't written  before, and then he said `I'm going to weep on your shoulder, Mom, I'm going to tell you how much I miss Barbara, he said you'd gone to Florida with the baby and you were just a little girl yourself, `she's had no experience with married life,' he said, `it takes a lot of learning' and he said, `I'm looking for an apartment, I don't know exactly what she'd like but you know, Mother, you can't get much on $30 a week, I'm hoping Dad will give me a raise.' I found the letter in a cigar box when I was destroying all those old bills and things, it was a real pretty box I got in Havana for Ed's dad."      

       This was as much as I was able to salvage, but I was grateful for every little bit and piece she was able to remember.  Awash with romantic feelings, I greeted Ed with the news of his long-ago letter.  Instead of sweeping me into his arms like Rhett Butler, he said, "We were two different people then." 

       His romantic button clearly needs a new battery.

(5) "SUPPOSE MOTHER FALLS OFF THE BAR STOOL."

February 17, 1961
     I am discouraged about our poodle puppy. Her personal habits are getting wore instead of better—I’m beginning to wonder if Tokay isn’t as bright as she looks.
     I have another problem. Between Vaughan’s diet and Tokay’s diet, the refrigerator is as crammed with tidbits as it is in the summer, when everyone is home. While I was rinsing the dishes last night, Ed began withdrawing various mysterious (to him) odds and end from the shelves and making throwing-away motions.
     “Don’t throw that away!” I said. “That’s Tokay’s liver juice. I use it to flavor her vegetables.”
     Ed distastefully replaced the cover, then asked if it was necessary to have three different containers of butter. I said yes, it was, because one of them was Big Vaughan’s butter, which was unsalted; one of them was Vonnie’s butter, which I buy her occasionally as a treat; and the other was oleomargarine for us proletariats.
     “Oh,” said Ed. “Well how about this gooey stuff? Whatever it is, don’t feed it to me.”
     “Egg whites left over from Tokay’s egg yolks,” I said. “Kathryn will make a lemon meringue pie sometime.”
     “And this odd-looking concoction?”
     “Leftover vegetables for Tokay.”
     “Looks like garbage to me. What the devil’s in here?” Ed said, pinching a limp foil-wrapped package. “Feels like a couple of boneless fingers.”
     “That’s asparagus for my lunch. Stop squeezing it,” I said. I was beginning to be annoyed because only that morning I had defrosted the refrigerator and disposed of enough moldering remains to stock a penicillin factory.
     “And what’s this mess here?” he persisted, sticking his nose into another container.
     For a minute he had me stumped, but a gingerly taste convinced me it was last Saturday’s oatmeal. “I’ll have it for breakfast.”
     “If this oatmeal isn’t gone by tomorrow night,” Edward said, “out it goes!”
     “Is that so!” I said.
     “Yes, that’s so,” he said. “Let’s have a little efficiency around here.”
     I had two choices: I could throw something at him or I could think of something. I thought of something.
     “Listen,” I said, “seeing as you’re in such an industrious mood, how about going out to the playroom and cleaning that aquarium. It’s a sight, and you promised me when you had that aquarium built that you’d keep it clean, the only one who ever cleans it is my mother, suppose someday she falls off the stool and breaks a leg, she isn’t getting any younger, you know, what’s the point of having an aquarium if—“
     “Okay, okay, I’ll clean it over the weekend,” Ed said, backing out of the kitchen.
     ‘How can you, we’ll be up in Maine! I’m having two tables of bridge next week and I’m ashamed to have my friends see that aquarium, it’s a disgrace, the fish can’t see out and we can’t see in!”
     “I’ll do it tomorrow night,” Ed called.
     Wednesday night, when I reminded him of his chore, he said he didn’t think he had the proper cleaning tools; he’d bring some home the next night. I remembered that this is what he says whenever I try to pin him down on cleaning the aquarium.
     “What did you do with the gadget you brought home last time, throw it away?”
     “Gee, I guess it got lost or something,” Ed said, settling down with the paper.
     I rummaged around in the cupboards behind the bar and found the scraper tucked away in a back corner. This is the kind of efficiency Edward doesn’t admire.
     Since it took only five minutes to scrape the sides of the tank, I don’t know what all the fuss was about. The fish seemed glad to see us and wagged their tails as if to say, “By Neptune, what a long night that was!”

(6) "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE POTATOES?"

February 12, 1956
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

     We are enjoying our vacation with Ed’s dad and stepmother—although Tina and I occasionally have Trouble in the Kitchen. She doesn’t read instructions, she does things backwards, but her meals are out of this world. One night I insisted on getting dinner by myself—I wanted to try the Seven-Heat Economy Cooker that came with our stove—and burned the potatoes. Tina and Ed kept assuring me they were tastier that way, (“just like campfire potatoes,” said Tina), but Grandpa, unaware that I had taken over the cooking, wanted to know what the hell happened to the potatoes.   
     Tina persists in putting the table butter in the refrigerator. I keep moving it to the cupboard because I dislike mutilating my toast when I spread it. Yesterday I left the butter dish on the hot stove and it runneth over. I also cremated the toast, which wouldn’t have happened if Tina hadn’t confused me by changing the toaster’s dial. Fortunately, the folks weren’t up yet. It took me half an hour to eliminate all traces of disaster, but it was worth it. Never let it be said that Ed is dieting in self-defense.
     Ed and his dad don’t see eye to eye on things, either. In fact, if one discovers he’s agreeing with the other, he switches sides. The trouble is, they’re both bossy. Or to put it another way, they’re both leaders. (That’s the way Ed puts it.) Grandpa has a habit of treating Ed as if he were still his little boy instead of a grown man who has a license and hangovers—the stubborn kid just won’t mind.
     “When’re ya going to get a haircut, for crying out loud!” yells Grandpa.
     “Haircut? How can I wear a ponytail if I get a haircut!” yells Ed.
     The sale-priced washing machine arrived from Sears, Roebuck yesterday. The four of us spent an hour standing around in the kitchen arguing over how to run it. Tina had one like it once, so she thought she knew everything.
     “But Tina,” I said, “it says in the book not to put the clothes in until the tub is full of water.”
     “Oh, never mind the book!” she says. (She has the same attitude about everything else, including the pressure cooker. “Tina, the book says when it hisses like that, there’s something wrong.” “Oh, never mind the book,” she says.)
     The washing machine has a wonderful invention attached to it called a wringer. You push a button and the dirty water pumps out of the tub and into the sink. You feed the clothes through the wringer, keeping in mind its propensity to bite the hand that feeds it. Then you go out in the yard, where the sun is shining and a breeze is blowing, and you dreamily hang up the clothes, feeling like a pioneer woman.
     After you’ve hung them up, you take them down again because you remember you forgot to rinse them.  Never mind, it will be fun matching wits with the wringer again.

(1) "TAKE A PILL? IT'S NOT ME, IT'S THOSE KIDS!"

February 26, 1956
Cohasset
     This morning I could feel a bad mood coming on. As my dear ones will testify, when I get in a bad mood I should be put in a padded cell for the duration. Recently, a more practical solution turned up in the form of some little pills recommended by Ed’s company doctor. He claimed they were helpful in relieving tension.
     Ed brought home a handful last month, and when my nerves began to jangle, I started taking two a day. Maybe it was the power of suggestion, but they seemed to work. I became so gentle and patient with my children, they asked me what was the matter. My attitude toward Ed was one of such loving understanding, an outsider wouldn’t have believed we were married. I faced the usual daily traumas emergencies with unfazed good humor. To show his appreciation, Ed gave me a corsage of camellias on Valentine’s Day. Instead of wanting to know what he’d been up to now, I thanked him. There was no getting around it, I was much nicer than I really am.
     But now I lay in bed thinking black thoughts and refusing to resort to the Disposition Pills. Maybe they were habit-forming. It would be a terrible thing if I couldn’t be agreeable without taking a pill first.
     All I needed was a little sleep.
     I envied Ed the way he could sleep. The way that man could sleep when I couldn’t was intolerable.  I remembered my mother telling me that Dad sensed it when she had insomnia, no matter how careful she was not to disturb him. “What’s the matter, honey bun? I can hear you thinking,” he would say sympathetically.
     When I have insomnia I could use a little husbandly sympathy myself. To make it easy for him, I didn’t even try to be quiet.
     “Ho-hum,” I said last night when the town clock struck 2:00. I up-heaved my blankets and rolled over with a thump, hitting my head on the bookcase headboard. The door rattled along its track like the Toonerville trolley. Not a sound from Ed.
     “Ouch!” I said lonesomely.
     There was a soft snore from the bed next to mine, followed by a breezy sigh. He must be dreaming it’s his birthday and he’s blowing out the candles. Snore, puff, snore , puff, snore, puff.
     I turned on the light and shone it on Ed’s face to see if he was just pretending. Snore, puff. I read a few more chapters of Marjorie Morningstar. I reached the point where Marjorie was on the brink of an exciting career and losing her virginity. She was twenty-one. At twenty-one, where had I been? Out in the laundry, washing diapers for his children. What had my life been since then?  More children and more diapers, and anyone who calls that an exciting career is a man.
     I dropped Marjorie Morningstar on the floor and switched out the light. My exciting career was dreaming about girls. Sigh, wolf whistle, sigh, wolf whistle. I stabbed him in the back with my forefinger.
     “Humph, flumph, hunh? Wassa matter, cancha sleep?”
     “Aren’t you the perceptive one! I haven’t closed an eye for hours, if you’re really interested.”
     “Z Z Z Z.”

     I look forward to sleeping late Sunday morning while the children get ready for Sunday School. This morning I wearily focused one eye on the clock and tried to make out the time without waking up. I heard Kathryn call from the foot of the stairs that it was after 8:30 and breakfast was nearly ready. If Vonnie would remember to rouse Teddy from his ivory tower on the third floor, I could go back to sleep.
     The harrowing thing is, sometimes she remembers and sometimes she doesn’t. Remembering is only half the battle. Ted is like his father; he can sleep through anything, especially the hour before Sunday school. On Saturdays he’s up and dressed with no prodding; basketball practice starts at nine.
     I dragged myself from bed and called up to the third floor. “Teddy, are you up?”
     “Yeh,” came the sleepy answer.
     “Well, come down and get dressed right away or you’ll be late for Sunday school. Don’t forget to make your bed.”
     I closed the windows and crawled back into bed. I waited for the sound of bare feet pounding down the stairs. Ten minutes later I got up and called him again.
     “Yah, yah, I’m coming. You want me to make my bed, don’t you?”
     “Well, not from scratch, Teddy.”
     Back to bed. Bare feet pounded down the stairs and into Timmy’s room, where the boys share a closet.
     As time went by, I knew I’d better check on their progress. I rapped on the door and looked in. Timmy, in his underpants, was in the midst of a flying tackle.
     I blew my top. “Okay, you two, if you’re not ready to go downstairs in five minutes—teeth brushed, beds made, hair combed, faces washed—you’re both going to bed early tonight.”
     “Don’t we have to get dressed?” Timmy asked.
     “I mean it, now! I’m sick and tired of going through this same nonsense week after week, two big boys like you, what are you, babies? Well, if you’re babies, you can go to bed early like babies. From now on, either you kids are ready for breakfast at nine o’clock every Sunday or you go to bed early. Is that clear?”
     As I stomped out of the room Teddy mumbled something and Timmy said loyally, “She is not!”
     “I’m ready, Mummy,” Vonnie called virtuously from the bathroom, where she was polishing her shoes.
     “Oh, goody for you!” said Teddy.
     “Vonnie!” I scolded. “That’s not the right polish, look at the mess you’re making, what are you doing with Daddy’s polish?”
     “I like to open the can.”
     “Honestly, Vonnie, what a mess. You’ve got little bits of polish all over the floor. You’re stepping on it! No, don’t use the good towel! Put the can away and use the shoe polish in the bottle and don’t spill it. Besides, why are you wearing your school shoes instead of your patent leathers?”
     “Because my patent leathers don’t need polishing,” Vonnie said with patient eleven-year-old logic.
     “Vonnie, some rainy day you can polish all the shoes in the house. Now go put on your patent leathers, Kathryn is calling you for breakfast.”
     “Hey, Mummy, I can’t find any socks,” Timmy said.
     “There must be some in the laundry room. Take your shoes and go downstairs before your breakfast gets cold.”
     “I’m having cold cereal,” said Timmy, always ready for an argument.
     “Get going!”
     Ed was awake when I returned to our room. “Honestly, those kids of yours are going to drive me out of my mind!” I said, glaring at him.
     “Why don’t you take a tranquilizer?”
     “Take a pill? It’s not me! It’s those kids! They’re irresponsible, inconsiderate, lazy, careless—“
     “Children.”
     I snatched open a bureau drawer and the handle fell off. “You see?”
     “Take a pill,” said Ed.
     Vonnie came in, carrying a pad of paper.
     “What now, Vonnie,” I sighed.
     “I want to show you the picture I drew of you. I think it’s the best picture I ever drew.”
     “Not now, go down and have your breakfast.”
     “It’ll only take a minute,” she said, leafing through the pages. “Here it is—oh no, that’s not it, I’ll find it in a minute.”
     “For heaven’s sake, Vonnie!”
     “Oh, here it is. It’s a picture of you. Isn’t it good?”
     “Very good. Now run along.”
     She gave me a hug and ran downstairs. I looked at the picture again. Under it she had printed: “My mother is a beautiful picture to me.”
     I put down the picture and went to the bathroom medicine cabinet. I took two tranquilizers.
     Breakfast might have been pleasant if I’d taken the pills sooner. I got our breakfast ready while Ed drove the children to Sunday school and picked up the papers. When he walked in, he threw his coat down on one of the dining room chairs.
     He does this every night of the week. When I’m not in a bad mood, my thought process is as follows: “The poor, tired boy! He works so hard at making a living for his family, he’s too exhausted to hang up his coat. What a privilege it is for me to hang it in the closet for him!” I put the coat away with a tender smile of understanding. (I know I’m sincere about this because I don’t wait for him to come downstairs and see how understanding I’m being.)
     When I’m in a bad mood, there’s nothing that irritates me more than this habit of throwing his coat on a chair. “For Pette’s sake,” I say to myself, “how am I supposed to train the children to be neat if their own father doesn’t set them a good example. Suppose we all threw our coats on a chair, wouldn’t the house look lovely! I’ll bet it takes him longer to walk into the dining room and drop his coat than it would to open the closet door and hang it up."
     This morning, while ostentatiously transferring Ed’s coat to the closet, I expressed these thoughts aloud. Ed looked surprised and promised to set a good example hereafter.
     Then there was the way he ate his grapefruit. Usually I don’t notice the way he eats his grapefruit because I’m busy tackling mine. But today I watched and listened with an air of distaste. Couldn’t he take a spoonful without that silly gasp? He went after it as if someone were going to steal it from him. After slurping up the last section, he squeezed the grapefruit over the bowl, which he raised to his lips, gulping the juice with the gusto of a parched water buffalo.
     “If you could see yourself!” I exploded. “Would you eat grapefruit that way if you were having breakfast with Marilyn Munroe?”
     Ed looked thoughtful. “No,” he said. “I’d have her feed it to me.”

     This afternoon when I found smears of liquid show polish on the bathroom rug, I summoned Vonnie.
     “Look what you’ve done now!” I said. “Didn’t I warn you not to spill it? No more polishing shoes for you until you learn not to be so sloppy.”
     “I didn’t spill it.”
     I asked Timmy and Teddy if they had been using the polish.
     “Not me,” said Ted.
     “Me either,” said Timmy.
     “Well, Vonnie? This rug didn’t get smeared by itself.”
     “I didn’t spill any, but—well—maybe it came off the bottom of my shoes.”
     “The bottom of your shoes?”
     “Yes,” she said, twisting one leg around the other. “I polished the bottoms.”
     Who but Vonnie would be inspired to polish the soles of her shoes? Wasn’t it Vonnie who chewed gum until her jaw got stuck and she had to go to the doctor? Who sealed her lips with Scotch tape and then asked her father for a kiss? And at the tense moment in the movie when the villainess dove from the float to recover the knife from her victim’s back, wasn’t it Vonnie who exclaimed, “She’s a good diver!”
     “You’re a character, Vonnie,” I said. Then I remembered something. I told her I loved the picture she drew, and I was going to have it framed.