Monthly Archives: January 2012

Day 25: The Olden Days

Somewhere around the time I was Carson’s age, I realized that my parents weren’t just parents but that they were people.  As people, that meant they had a past, that they had experienced youth.  The realization was slow in the making– I knew they had siblings, I knew when they were born, I knew that they went to schools.  Maybe it was seeing pictures of them as children when it really hit me– they had been young– kids who got dirty, who laughed, who avoided choirs.  Most importantly, they were children who had fun, too.

Once I had this epiphany, I loved asking my parents to tell me about their youth.  My dad’s stories were the best.  He would tell me about making model cars, playing stick ball, and walking to the drug store to get a soda from the fountain.  His mother loved baseball.  She would pack up all four kids, take the cable car to the old Municipal Stadium, and they would sit in the bleachers for a double-header.

At times, he would share unprovoked. On these days,  I felt like he was offering me a piece of himself.

We would be sitting at the kitchen table talking about what we could do for fun, and he would sigh.  After a long drag off of his cigarette, he would share with me.  “You know when I was your age, I would walk to the neighborhood theater with my friends.  On a Saturday afternoon, we could see a feature, a couple of cartoons, get a popcorn and a pop, all for $.75.”

I always felt his eyes twinkled when he told me these stories.  Maybe it was because I enjoyed hearing them so much, or maybe because they brought back fond memories.  Either way, I loved that I realized that he had been youthful and spry.  Ironically, when he told me these stories, he was younger than I am now.

Although I am unsure if my children have really grasped the thought that I was a child who experienced life, I was feeling nostalgic today. My friend Katie and I had a conversation about the landline.  Neither one of us is willing to give it up.  Is it stubborn to pay this extra expense each month?  Maybe. However, I equate the landline with my youth: lying on the floor in my parents’ bedroom, talking on a sea-green Touch-Tone Trimline set.  We had three phones in the house.   We were so modern!

Ah!  The irony of modern society.  It can only be modern for a little while.  Like my father’s stories that seemed antiquated to me, my own stories are of items and places that are obsolescent.  Lucky for me, my youth has traversed the years of out-dated and has entered into the realm of “classic.”

So many of my memories do seem ancient: walking to the local drugstore with the kids from the neighborhood to buy candy (my favorite were candy cigarettes and candy wax bottles), grocery shopping on a Saturday morning with my mom at the Fisher-Fazio’s, eating lunch in the Woolworth Diner, hiding in the racks at Uncle Bill’s.  These stores and these memories represent my Days of Yore, times that are seemingly forgotten, except in the memories of people who grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland in the 1970s.

I yearn for the day when my children ask me about my childhood, when they are fascinated by the thought that I myself lived a life before I was a parent.  I can’t wait to sit and paint a picture of my youth out of my memories. When they finally do ask, I hope the stories I share stay with them the way my father’s have stayed with me.

Day 24: My Little Secret

I have a deep hidden secret.  We try to ignore these parts of my life, the reality of what is true.  Try to pretend it’s not real.  When this topic comes up, I shy away from conversation, and Tom over-compensates to shield me from humiliation.

Tom has always known the truth, but to be honest, I think he has chosen to ignore it.  I know men who would have discarded their wives long ago, but not Tom.  He has stuck with me.  I think he has always had faith I would come to my senses.  Yet,  I knew at times that he was embarrassed, maybe even a little disgusted, but he never told me.  He waited patiently.  Yesterday, I admitted my problem, and we unmistakably rectified the wrong.

I, Cheryl Huffer, had lived 42 years and 22 days without ever viewing The Godfather. 

I have been liberated, and Tom has finally been released from the discomfiture of our secret. Oh, and how I will admit the error of my ways.  What a film!  From Connie’s wedding to the kissing of Michael’s ring, I found myself drawn to these characters as if I myself was a Corleone.  Frankly, I do not know how I went all of this time without ever seeing this consummate gangster movie.  I do know I no longer have to skulk in dark corners when the subject of The Godfather comes up.  I understand.  I understand.  I feel like Luca Brasi: “Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your home on the wedding day of your daughter.  And may their first child be a masculine child. I pledge my ever-ending loyalty.”

It may be a tarnished world in which the Corleones live, but it is a world of loyalty and honor.  You stand by The Family, and if you don’t, well, you get what you have coming to you:  “Leave the gun, take the Cannoli.”

Yes, it is this movie that teaches men to fight for what they believe in.  Sonny knew what had to be done.  He was willing to do it.  It wasn’t personal; it was business.    “No more! Not this time, Consiglieri. No more meetings, no more discussions, no more Sollozzo tricks. You give ‘em one message: I want Sollozzo. If not, it’s all-out war: we go to the mattresses.”  It got him killed, but he stood up for the people he loved and the belief system he entrusted.”

I understand the error of my ways, and I have come to my senses.  I look forward to Godfather II.

“Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday”– I will watch the next Godfather soon!

Day 23: Friends

When I was fourteen years old, I was diagnosed with severe TMJ or Temporomandibular Joint Disorder.   My jaw painfully popped when I ate and talked, and at times, it would literally lock open.  To those who know me, this was a reprieve from my incessant talking.  However, for me, it would be accompanied with ear aches, neck pain, and headaches.  It got so severe that my orthodontist sent me to an oral surgeon.  After a multitude of tests, they decided it was in my best interest to break my jaws and realign my mouth.

On Wednesday, October 31, 1984, I had the surgery.  It was a difficult surgery and a long recovery.  Because of the swelling, I was in Intensive Care for two days.  I remember waking up swollen and bruised, and my father trying to make light of the situation: “Boy, Honey, you went a little overboard on the Halloween Costume this year.”  My dad’s timing was not always great.  I cried because I looked like a monster.  He wanted to take a picture, and I refused to let him.  In retrospect, I wish I had that picture.  I could scare my children with it!

On Friday, the swelling had subsided enough for them to remove the intubation tube.  Because I could breath on my own, they moved me to a normal floor.  At this point, the only visitors who came to see me were my parents.  Ricky, my older brother, was a Sophomore at Miami University.  My mom told me that he had been calling a couple of times a day to check on my progress, make sure that I was okay.  I knew he would not be able to visit because he was nearly five hours away, but knowing that he was concerned made me feel calm and secure.  You see, we were ridiculously close for a brother and sister five years a part.  He was my friend as well as my brother, and if he would have been home during those days, he would have been by my side every day.

On Saturday, the doctors told me that I would only have to be in the hospital for another day.  The swelling was decreasing each day, and I was responding to the liquid diet.  My mom had brought me some school work to do to pass the hours.  I was lying in the hospital bed reading a book when in my periphery, I saw someone entering the room.  Expecting a nurse, a doctor, or my mom and dad, I was shocked when I realized it was Ricky!  He had left campus at seven in the morning to drive up and spend a couple of hours with me.  He could not stay because he had a social function he could not miss at his fraternity house that evening.

I was so excited and so moved by his appearance.  I still couldn’t speak because of the swelling and the bruising, but we had a delightful conversation. I communicated by writing on a chalkboard.  He made me laugh, as he always does.  It was excruciatingly painful to laugh, but it didn’t seem to matter.  My brother, my friend, was sitting by my side.  He left about 2 o’clock.  He was not going home.  He would not see my parents.   He had to get back to campus.  Nonetheless, he gladly traveled ten hours that day to spend two with me.

This memory is one my favorite recollections. Ricky loved me so much that it was not enough for someone to tell him I was feeling better, he had to see it for himself.

Through the years, we have had some rocky patches.  For some siblings, arguing and not seeing each other’s point-of-view destroys relationships.  But not us.  During those times, I always knew we would repair our relationship because of this memory.   Ricky is not just my brother, he is my friend.

So on this 29th day of January, I wish my brother, my friend, the Happiest of Birthdays.