Sepia Shortcut

My grandmother remarried a little less than a year after my grandfather, her husband of 56 years, passed away. She was in the process of moving to her new husband’s home, when she suddenly died. It wasn’t her bank account, real estate titles, stocks or bonds, or her antique furnishings that the family swooped in to find. Like grackles that land and chatter in evening trees, this family descended first at her old house, then at Raymond’s, screeching “Where are grandma’s pictures,” “I know there here somewhere,” “She told me I was to have them,” intermingled with snippets of conversation over past common memories of life with grandma.
They were in a large Justin Boot box—we knew my mother and me, exactly what we were looking for— the yellowed box with big black block letters. This box had survived their home burning to the ground one fall in the late sixties, while she and grandpa were in Dallas. (She had taken it with her on the pretense of having copies made for the family.) My grandmother had been one of the youngest in a family of 9 children. Since she was a twin, it was never really clear who was the youngest until she died, when Uncle Lori with his acerbic humor declared, “she is now.” As a result, the contents of the box held old tin photos; her mother had passed down, photos of great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings that had passed before surviving the First World War, etc. A dower of family history—clippets written on the back –documenting births, marriages, the nomadic tribal moves of the family from one part of the country to another, even the dust bowl immigration to California from Oklahoma.
My mother had been named as the rightful heir to this cardboard treasure chest. But we had to find it, and find it first. We had spent days digging in closets, going through dressers, and cedar chests—all to no avail. Then one day while standing in Raymond’s cluttery kitchen, there it was sitting at the table. Like a person waiting to be served breakfast it sat on a chair pulled up to the table.
“Eureka,” I almost screamed.
Raymond simply stood in the silence of one dumbfounded. “That ol’ box? That ole thing is whatch’ya ‘ll been lookin’ fer?” My mother and I hugged the box, each of us took a turn stroking it, smiled and shook our heads, yes, and this is what we wanted. We hurried home back over to grandma’s to go through its cache.
It is only when going through its contents that I realize why they are such a treasure. Like desktop shortcuts to pieces of our past, our mind clicks when we look at them, our memories download, and we are young again—if only for the moment. Sometimes it is not our experience, rather the icon pulls up a program –the life of a family member, an experience they ran, we never knew about, but is stored in the familial memory rams, a story—ready to go, when we look at the image.
I hold in my hand a sepia print of a dark and sultry flapper.
“Who is this?” I ask my mother. Her brow folds up, like a Venetian blind on the window of her own memory—she is puzzled—we turn the print over and find that it is my Aunt Cora. My jaw drops open in astounded disbelief. My mother, less amazed, as she had been around when people had referred to Aunt Cora’ and her good looks.
But as long as I could remember Aunt Cora had been huge. As a child I had always believed she was so big because she lived a life that was so full. She was amazing and she delighted me. Everything I had witness her do was exciting in a glamorously bizarre sort of way.
Her best friend was Mabel Star. Mabel worked over at Jungle Land and was billed as the first and only woman lion tamer. A few times in my childhood, Aunt Cora had watched me for my mother. On these occasions I often got to go to lunch with her and Mabel. While they took their time over lunch, I had sat holding a baby tiger or lion cub. Their purrs louder, and far more poetic than mere house cats.
One time, Mom had given Aunt Cora a ride to the bank. I had heard it whispered by the adults that she had “money.” My brother and I sat in the back seat, as Aunt Cora unfolded herself to get out of the car. As she did so, her pocketbook strap caught on the lock of the door, broke, and silver poured out tinkling. Our eyes opened wide as we viewed what we believed to be millions, roll out onto the sidewalk, and all in dimes.
She ran a dump just outside of Thousand Oaks and charged a dime a load. She lived in one of the world’s first mobile homes. It was silver, and round, and sat on black tires with white walls. Her last husband had died before I was ever born. She lived in this silver bullet of a house, at the entrance of her dump. With her lived her two dogs, Judy and Susie, nervous Pomeranians that regularly went to the hairdresser to keep their blonde stylish coifs untangled and clean. The compact living room held a large recliner, and two child size wicker rockers with peach chintzed palm trees. A television sat across from the chairs. On the walls were shelves and dolls of every size and type lined the shelves. Aunt Cora had rescued many of them from the dump heap, cleaned them up and made clothes for them. They were dressed in an array of costume and fashion. Hats, gloves, and even little shoes had been designed and manufactured by Aunt Cora for them.
When Aunt Cora watched TV, Susie and Judy watched TV, my Aunt in the recliner, Susie and Judy in their wicker rockers. They would sit and rock, while my Aunt crocheted new outfits for the dolls. While they rocked they would whimper and fret, sometimes whine about the program being aired. They preferred my Aunt’s favorites: General Hospital and Merv Griffith on daytime TV, and the late night news followed by Steve Allen for the evening programming. Like old ladies worrying and fretting when the mailman came they would wring their tails like hands, and bark,
“Oh what has the mail brought today?”
Then change and behaving like helpful children they would yip,“We’ve got a customer,” at waiting trucks with trash.
“Judy,” my Aunt would say, “will you please sit down? The mail just brought bills and I’ve the money to pay’ em.” Susie would sigh; jump up in her chair and sit, too. My mother and dad never talked that way to our dog. But Susie and Judy weren’t Aunt Cora’s dogs; they were her companions.
When Aunt Corrie tired of getting rides to the bank, she went out and bought herself a car. She asked my mother for ride to the car dealership, pulled out a roll of $100 dollar bills, laid them on the counter and bought a car. She bought real estate the same way. She saved up her money, and laid the cash out. This fascinated me even as a child. My father, my grandfather, for all their hard work never walked in and just laid out the money. They always signed papers, and paid a little at a time. But my Aunt, who clearly did what she wanted, was owned by no man, and owed nobody. She lived a life of flamboyant freedom.
She wore big flowery dresses, in bright colors, with tiny patent belts. She never wore hose, rather color coordinated anklets, with crochet laced trim, and moccasins. Her jewelry was silver and turquoise and she resembled the Navajo from whom she purchased her jewelry, although she was Cherokee, and therefore much taller. Earrings often sparkled and swung from her ears. Her face was broad, olive and swarthy. Dark wide set eyes, above sharply angled cheekbones. Great crevices of dimples appeared when she laughed and her eyes twinkled a smile when her face was most stoic. Jet-black hair, straight long, but always braided and twisted in a bun at the back of her neck, and even when she died, only a few strands of gray at the top of her hairline whispered her 68 years.
My mother had to go hunt taverns one night, when my father had failed to come home. It was Aunt Cora that loaded us up, and gave my Mom a ride, telling her she should not do that alone. Susie and Judy were told to sit in their chairs, we’d be back for the news, and if not, they’d better watch it so somebody’d know what was goin on.
When I was in 8th grade my mother decided to go to college. She hadn’t finished high school, and everyone thought it was a ridiculous idea. Except, Aunt Cora, she told Mom to get up and go, “The hell with what all them think.”
When my grandfather had a heart attack and decided he needed to get out of the construction business, Aunt Cora sold all of her property in southern California. Pulled up her stakes, and rolled the silver bullet back to the homeland. Grandpa and she looked for farmland in Oklahoma. But being close to the reservation was sad, they decided, and went on to Missouri. She bought 360 acres, and parked the little trailer next to the farmhouse and lived out the rest of her life in southern Missouri. As I grew older, long hot summers were spent blackberry picking, canning pickles, green beans, corn, and quilting with Aunt Cora. She made friends with Naomi Quick a widow farmwoman. She had robbed banks in the twenties, that’s how Burt and her had bought their place, when they decided bank robbin’ was too risky, and they wanted to settle down. This was all shared while snapping green beans, and peas. My Aunt revealed no surprise, rather passed an understanding nod on the riskiness of bank robbing, and complimented Miss Quick on what a fine place she had.
She had crisscrossed the country on many vacations. Riding the train, taking buses, often driving herself, she saw all of the national parks and monuments. Returning from her trips, she would unpack boxes of a variety of souvenirs. In all of her travels, she always came back with hand made items from whatever reservation she had passed through. A reservation, to her, was any place there were poor people trapped in a geographic area. It had nothing to do with skin color and everything to do with culture. Anybody working to make a little money by weaving, sewing, crocheting, painting, quilting, etc., told a story and therefore was a worthy souvenir purchase.
When she passed away, she left her property to my Grandpa and Grandma, her dolls to Linda, a cousin of mine. To me she left an entire set of depression carnival glass, plates, glasses, butter dish, punch bowl and cups. As a child, I had never been impressed with all those dolls. I had shuddered over the responsibility of keeping all of them dressed and well groomed a room full of entirely too much work. I had admired her dishes. She had set different plates (all matching) for different meals. Every meal was really a mini-tea-party. Nothing was served from the container in which it came, or sat in the refrigerator. Rather, each part of the meal had its own little plate. Pink Carnival glass bowls, matching creamer, sugar bowl, with silver Tiffany teaspoons, for breakfast. Blue willow plates for tuna salad, were served at lunch, matching coffee pot, cups, saucers, etc. Dinner sat on pink flowered china, collected by sending in cereal tops in the forties, a set of six. To this day, I have a dish fetish. Most of her dishes had been rescued from the trash dump days, a large percentage of which matured into valued collectibles.
Aunt Cora died shortly after encouraging my mother to go back to school. I wish that she had lived longer, or maybe I wish that I had held this photo in my hand earlier. Remembering her flamboyant non-traditional life sooner, may have influenced me to choose a different path. Maybe, I would have been brave enough to live the life I wanted. While this picture stares back at me, I open the drop down menu of the endless possibilities my own life has because of her example. It’s never too late. Who care’s whatever the hell they think? Get up and go. She confirms for me a decision I have made, my mind clicks, for the first time in my life, my program is up and running.