July 4th in My Hometown

Today, after lunch, my brother-in-law decided he wanted to see the 4th of July parade. This event takes place every year in my hometown, where I am today with my sister and her husband and my parents. The truth is that for many years—though my parents live a block from downtown, where the parade takes place—I didn’t go to it. I’m not a big parade person. I never watch the famous parades on television. I’m not a crowds person, either.

But my parents were going, led by my brother-in-law, and my sister and I reluctantly agreed to tag along, as this is what we try to do to keep the Cawood mob together.

Fortunately, it was fairly easy to find room on the sidewalk to prepare to gawk. There were lots of families plopped on the curb, and others who had dragged chairs from their trunks and set them up on either side of Xenia Avenue, the town’s main thoroughfare. Still, there were plenty of gaps where we could stand and see the show.

It wasn’t until it started that I remembered what a good show it was.

The cop car led the parade. Only in a small town would people wave and clap as the squad car crawled by. Woo hoo! And only in this particular small town would the cop car then lead this particular ragtag line of parade participants that included a couple of anti-drug cyclists (one with a sign that read, “Buy coffee, not drugs”), rainbow-painted cars, a woman carrying a sign about the holy spirit, antique cars and an old beat-up truck, golf carts, peace-goers, theater kids, political activists, a big ol’ schoolbus publicizing the local library (“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader”), and a hearse advertising recycled bicycles.

People cheered and applauded every parade participant as if each one was the Brad Pitt of Yellow Springs. 

I got to see old friends and meet some new ones, as happens in a small town. But best of all, this mishmash of people reminded me why I love my hometown and why I love my diverse, crazy, colorful country, and why I am grateful to live in a part of the world where it is at least possible on some days to fly your freak flag and know the policeman is clearing the road ahead to make sure you will pass through safely.

On the Radio with Vick Mickunas

Recently, while visiting my hometown in Ohio, I skipped off to record a radio program at the local radio station, WYSO. The program is the Book Nook with Vick Mickunas, and if you have never listened to it, you’re missing out. (You can listen to it as a podcast). Vick interviews authors on the program, and he is a fantastic interviewer. No interview is like the next—the questions aren’t canned, so he tailors every single one of his questions to not just that particular author and the author’s book, but also to what the author says in the moment, during the course of the interview. And oh, that Vick voice: smooth and soothing. 

Vick was generous and gracious enough to invite me on his radio program since I have a memoir being published this month, and I arrived feeling, if not confident exactly, at least somewhat together. Although I had never been interviewed as an author, I’ve done my fair share of public speaking, and although I was given no questions ahead of time, I had my “elevator speech” memorized. For those of you who don’t know what an elevator speech is, it is a short enough summary of your book that you can say it in the time it would take to ride a few floorsup or down in an elevator, say 20-60 seconds. (All authors are supposed to have an elevator speech ready at all times. The point is to have it prepared in case you are ever asked by someone what your book is about, and it is especially handy if the person asking is a fabulous agent or editor or a famous movie director. Or Oprah. Frankly, I am waiting for Gayle King to ask me, but so far no luck.) Needless to say, since I had an elevator speech ready to go, I knew that if Vick asked a general question, I could fit in that one memorized, beautiful paragraph, and at least sound semi-intelligent for the twenty seconds it took me to say it. 

I’ll be fine, I had told myself, how badly can I screw it up?

When I arrived at the radio station, Vick was there and greeted me, leading me to the recording studio. I had a skip in my step. Peter, the sound engineer, asked whether I wanted to stand or sit, and I said stand (because I am fidgety, even when not nervous). I put on my headphones, and Peter got me to talk so he could check sound, and I did, and I was thinking, It’s fine, we’re all good, this isn’t going to be so hard, right?

Then we started recording, three-two-one. Vick was standing just a few feet away, in front of his own mic, and he asked me a question, and although it wasn’t a question I prepared (for the life of me, I can’t even remember what in the world he asked), I thought, Well, I can fit in my elevator speech here. Why not? I started in on it, getting one sentence into my lovely, perfect paragraph, and then my mind went completely the way of a strong toilet flush. 

Whoosh.

I could not remember one word from the rest of that elevator speech. Not even one word. My brain was an abyss. And I can promise you that when your brain is an abyss, you look and sound a little foolish.

I stood there empty-headed, and eventually Vick must have asked something else (thank God for Vick), or I sputtered on with some other answer. It’s a blur now. All I know is eventually we went on. I froze several other times, and none of them were pretty. Every time we took a break, Vick asked me if I was okay, which I found kind and endearing. The truth is that, despite brain freeze and nerves, I was more than okay. I was having a fabulous time. I giggled, I laughed, I skipped down memory lane, and I was reminded again how lucky I was. 

I’m grateful, too, for editing equipment, which they will surely need. It wasn’t perfect, but so what? The imperfections make way better stories in the end.

The Book Nook interview will air tomorrow, July 1, at 7 a.m. I will post a link to it here once it is up.

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A special note: Today, after months of waiting, my book is being released.

In the Acknowledgements section of the book, I wrote about people who helped along the way with the living and the writing of my book, but here I want to thank Vick Mickunas for the reaching people part. He not only had me on his show but also wrote a generous, thoughtful, and beautiful book review for The Going and Goodbye in The Yellow Springs News. I cannot thank him enough, but I will aim to try.

The Art of Retaliation

When I was in elementary school, I got picked on by a kid one grade below me. This happened on the playground, more than once, threatening to become a pattern. I was a shy child, and obedient and nice—all things that don’t mix well together when one has to stand up to being bullied. I am guessing my parents coached me on how to speak back to this kid, but I can’t remember what I tried to say or managed to do, only that it didn’t work. The picking continued.

If you could see a photo of my family at the time—the 1970s—my father would be wearing a long-sleeved navy blue shirt with embroidery stitched on the front. He’d have a thick mustache and hair that wasn’t technically long but long enough to be considered shaggy. If you could smell this photo, you might catch a whiff of the incense he started burning that decade, the same decade in which he began meditating, a practice that calmed everything about him. In the photo, he definitely has the air of peace and love to his attire and look. And that was him. He was and still is a man who believes in kindness toward all, equality for every man and woman, and justice. The justice part was probably why he made the decision he did, with regard to my being picked on. That, and the fact that he loved his two daughters more than he loved a lot of other things in life. And the fact that he’d probably plain and simple had enough.

He taught me to curl my hand into a fist. Then he taught me to strike back. He did this by letting me practice hitting him. I can’t imagine that I was strong enough—being a shy and soft six- or seven-year-old—to really hurt him, but he took the risk that I might just get good at it. Obviously, we practiced in his free time. My father worked a decent number of hours, and I’m sure he was tired and that teaching his daughter to punch wasn’t high on the list of his leisurely activities. But he did it anyway.

I suppose my father has spent a good portion of his parenting on teaching me how to defend myself—against disappointment, disrespect, heartbreak, and sadness. It’s a bit harder to teach someone how to change one’s thinking, how to calm the mind, how to trust the gut, but my father has helped me with all those things, though I am not a quick learner, and I am stubborn, just as he is. Sometimes I think how much easier it probably was for him to just teach me how to punch. One good jab and it can change everything. It did for me on that playground. I don’t remember actually hitting the kid the next time he picked on me, only that I did, and that he left me alone for the rest of that school year and the ones that followed. I stopped being scared of recess. 

For the record, I never did get good at it (that was my one and only jab), but I didn’t need to be good: I only needed to prove to that kid, and myself, that I was capable of striking back.

I can thank my dad for that.

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