Then and Now

This has been a week of remembrances in the media: Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett, Michael Jackson. Our society is nutty over celebrities....especially when they mess up somehow or have the audacity to die. The Chicago Tribune had seven - count them - seven full pages about Michael Jackon, more than they had when our "home town boy" was elected president last November! In spite of our nation's fascination with remembrances of anyone famous, I believe it's the little remembrances that frame our lives. This weekend is a good example.

Saturday 9:00 a.m.: We have the park district pool to ourselves for water aerobics. It's warm and sunny. Heaven! 9:45: In come all the moms, dads, babies, and toddlers for their 10:00 swim classes. It didn't change from heaven to hell at 9:45. Rather it transported me back 26 or so years when pregnant me took 20 month old David to mom and tot swimming. Let's just say that I believe David is a decent swimmer today, but it's NOT from a wonderful mom-tot water experience!

Saturday, 12:00, I'm in the grocery store dodging all the monster fire trucks, cars, and school buses holding toddlers and groceries. What a coup for today's parents! There was something rather quaint, however, about having infant Kevin sitting restraintless in the filthy seat in the grocery cart while David sat cross legged in the cart itself while I piled groceries all around and on top of him. He became a problem solver in those carts---if some grocery item is annoying you, throw it out of the cart. It was a little hard, however, to explain the smashed wine bottle to the management!

Saturday, 8:00 p.m. We are at the Glenview Theatre Guild's production of South Pacific. For an amateur group, they did a bang up job of taking me back fifty years to the big theater in downtown Chicago where I saw the movie. After seeing the movie, my family brought the RECORD and I played it a million times on my RECORD PLAYER until I had memorized every lyric. So I sang along with the entire musical last night. More astounding was the extremely controversial plot line --- Caucasian woman falls in love with a caucasian man who previously was married to a, gasp!, Polynesian woman. It was an incredibly daring concept back in the 50's. We have made progress in 50 years...but it didn't come easily. (Incidentally I write this as Chicago's Gay Pride parade is moving down Halsted St. with people of every race, ethnicity, and orientation hanging out legally and joyfully together.)

Sunday, 9:30 a.m. In the middle of the readings this morning, "Builder Bob", a retired physician who has become our Habitat for Humanity leader, sat down and was obviously feeling ill. Church went on with much fluttering by the people sitting near Bob. Eventually the paramedics came and, in spite of protests by the doctor who didn't want to be treated, took Bob to the hospital. We don't think this is anything very serious, but it was a surprise. This wasn't supposed to happen to a friend or contemporary. This sort of thing only happens to old people! Yuck - then and now!

Sunday, 1:30 p.m. Ken and I are pushing my mother in her wheelchair around the Botanic Gardens. 27 years ago we were also pushing someone around the Botanic Gardens - infant David in his stroller. Twenty-seven years ago the Botanic Gardens were pretty, but small. They, like David, have grown up magnificently, but 27 years ago could I have imagined I'd be pushing my mother around them?

Sunday, 3:30. We stop for ice cream. At the next table is a young family. Until I see the face, I'm sure I'm seeing eight month old Kevin. This baby had the exact white blond hair, exact little curl on the ends of the exactly same length hair that Kevin had his first summer. Sweet!

Then and now. Do I want to turn back the clock? No. A lot of learning and growing has taken place since "then", but it's certainly nice when "then" occasionally creeps into "now".