Family Wellness Training Weekend

I am beat from an intense weekend of training, but before I head off to bed, here's a brief rundown on the experience. Michael and I went to this training program because our friends at Lutheran Social Services of the South (LSSS) were sponsoring it and we have a great deal of respect for them. They have been instrumental in providing couples enrichment programs for adoptive parents of special needs children and we have learned so much attending their programs for the last few years.

In April, we were fortunate to be invited to attend a leadership training program for adoptive parents in the Hill Country, also sponsored by LSSS. Funding for marriage and family support programs is drying up in our bad economy, and LSSS is trying to recruit and develop people from the served communities to step in and help.

One of these programs is Twogether in Texas which is a premarital course that the state of Texas sponsors for engaged couples. The state fee for a marriage license is $60 and, by completing this 8-hour course, a couple can get that fee waived. Since Twogether in Texas is free to the participants, this is a good deal. The state also waives the usual waiting period after getting your marriage license. These incentives are designed to lure people into taking a class that can help them have a better marriage with better communications.

The program that Twogether in Texas uses is based on the "Family Wellness" training program. A couple of psychologists developed the program twenty years or so ago and it is widely used for couples education, family education, premarital education, etc. In fact, there are seven different Family Wellness curricula, all based on the same theoretical framework. Once you have graduated from the framework training, you can teach any of the seven classes.

We did not know this information when we showed up at the hotel Thursday morning. We expected our fellow attendees to be other adoptive parents. They weren't. Instead, the classes were filled with professionals from the community. They included clinical psychologists, MSW therapists, ministers, consultants, and a variety of private practitioners from all over the Southeast Texas area. We felt overwhelmed at first, as it appeared that we were the only "civilians" in the crowd.

We took it in stride, though, and joined into the training wholeheartedly. Family Wellness master trainers, Michelle and Joe Hernandez from California, did an excellent job of guiding us through the material for three days with the help of some other folks who were doing master trainer internships. We knew several of these people from their involvement in our post-adoptive services programs.

We learned the material and we learned how to instruct and coach others in the material. I can't say enough about how exciting the program is. Family Wellness concepts are deceptively simple and easily accessible, but it became clear to us in the first few hours of training that they were also enormously powerful. Since we have participated in quite a bit of couples/marriage enrichment programing through our post-adopt affiliations, we think we are good judges on these points.

I won't go into the training much more because I truly am tired. Three long days in the classroom, plus preparation time each night for our mock training sessions really took it out of me. (Each training team had to prepare and present a six to eight minute class from the material on Friday and on Saturday mornings.) My body doesn't tolerate that kind of abuse and my lupus is kicking into high gear tonight. I have a lot of joint pain, from my knuckles to my hips to my toes, plus tremendous fatigue. I will need to do a lot of extra sleeping for the next few days to get the beast back into its cage.

At the end of the day today, Michael and I graduated. We are now certified Family Wellness instructors. Because LSSS paid for our training and books, we have promised to present two free Family Wellness courses, one within 8 weeks and another within a year. The courses can be from any of the seven curricula. We will be looking for opportunities to fulfill this commitment, so if you have any suggestions for organizations or groups who could benefit from or would like to sponsor such training, please let us know.

More when I am rested.

Ciao!

"You are now free to move about the cabin."

This morning at 10:00 A.M., a life-altering event took place. My youngest child, Victoria, graduated from high school. Dressed in a ruby red cap and gown, she and 16 other young people took the traditional walk across (in this case) the altar and received their diplomas from the University of Texas - University Charter School in Waco, Texas. As much as the day can be called a red-gown day for Victoria, it is a red-letter day for me.

I began parenting in 1974. (That's 35 years ago for those of you who don't do math in your head. I didn't have to do the math because my oldest child turned 35 last week.) 23 years-old at the time of Alexandra's birth, I attended graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis. I had been supporting myself since I turned 18 and left home for college, and I certainly felt grown-up and ready for parenting. While I didn't count on my first marriage ending so precipitously, making me a single parent, I managed well-enough for the two and a half years before I married Michael and got some help.

I felt grown-up and ready for parenting; after all, I had been taking care of myself for years. Attending college and graduate school at private universities required an enormous effort on my part because I paid my own way -for tuition, for books and fees, for housing, food, and anything else I needed. My parents did not approve of my choice to leave home for college and made supporting me conditional on attending the local university. I could not conceive of staying in my small town when a whole unexplored world beckoned.

This parting of the ways made me an emancipated youth at a time when normal emancipation happened at 21, not 18. Voting happened at 21, not 18, for that matter. Many colleges required parental permission for student s to stay out past midnight, among other arcane rules of the dark ages. And even today, it is damned hard to be classified as emancipated in the eyes of the federal government's financial aid machine.

Why does any of this matter? And what does it have to do with Victoria's graduation?

Being busy educating myself from the ages of 18 to 24 and busier raising children from the ages 23 to 58, I missed out on opportunities to explore the very world I left home for so eagerly. When I talk with my peers and compare notes on the 60s and 70s, I hear some common themes. Hitchhiking around Europe or taking the Grand Tour with nothing but a knapsack and a Eur-rail pass is one. Attending the moratorium march on Washington to end the Vietnam war is another. Hanging out in Haight-Ashbury (that's San Francisco and hippiedom for you youngsters) is another.

I also did not join the Peace Corps and go to Africa or South America. I did not join VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) and go to Appalachia or urban ghettoes to change the world, although I did do volunteer work and hang out with official VISTA volunteers. I did not go on any civil rights marches or voter registration drives in the South, although I actually wasn't old enough for much of that action. I don't feel bad about admitting that I did not drop out or drop acid. I managed to cross the borders of Canada and Mexico a few times, but usually under the most mundane of circumstances.

Again you may be asking: Why does any of this matter? And what does it have to do with Victoria's graduation? Just this - I am now free of responsibility for anyone. Victoria will surely need guidance at times, but won't want it or accept it for several more years if my experience with Alexandra and Nicholas holds true. Michael is responsible for himself and as happy to be a free spirit as I am. Okay, there are the cats, but providing for them is reasonably uncomplicated.

I am now free to move about the cabin on the jumbo jet of life. I have dreams that have been delayed for 35 years. I have plans that were put on the backburner when people cooked on cast iron stoves. I have a closet full of some days that can actually become todays. I have firsts waiting for me that I never thought I would accomplish - First visit to Costa Rica. First trip to the U.K. First Grand Tour of Europe. First stay in an Italian villa. First idyll on a Caribbean beach. First .... the list goes on and on.

Watch out world, here I come.

Ciao

May Baskets, Markie, and Me OR It's Never a Good Idea to Jump Out of the Second Story Window

We had lovely celebrations on May Day during my childhood. On May 1 each year, we would make May Baskets for our friends. May Baskets usually were decorated cupcake papers, or perhaps something stronger, with a handle made out of twisted pipe cleaners. Into these little baskets went a variety of small candies, maybe a posy of flowers, and a name tag.

The really special thing about May Baskets stemmed from the stealth and secrecy of planting them on someone's front doorstep, ringing the bell, then slipping away without being caught. I remember making the baskets of treats up with my mother's assistance. (Okay, she did most of the work and I probably just got in her way, but I was little and doing my best.)

We would fill up a 13x9 cake pan with the May Baskets and take off around the neighborhood to drop them off. Maybe the mothers coordinated their timing, but I don't ever remember running into anyone else while delivering my May Baskets. Nevertheless, I always got May Baskets in return.

One year, when I was five or six, my neighborhood Markie Hall (a year younger than me) gave me a wonderful May Basket that I still have all these years later. It is about four inches tall, with a handle that rises another three or four inches above the basket. The basket had a paper doily as a liner and I'm sure it was filled with candy, but the little woven basket in and of itself made me so happy that I don't remember much more about it.

Markie's parents owned a flower shop and perhaps the wicker basket was just a run-of-the-mill item to them. Or maybe not. I have no idea if anyone else got such a lovely little basket and it would probably have been a topic of conversation among the preschool set, so he might have had "special feelings" for me.

I know we played together a lot. He had no siblings and no prospects of any, being the only child of a middle-aged couple who had not been able to have other children.

Aside: I knew this by eavesdropping on my mother's bridge club and at various other womanly get-togethers. A favorite trick of mine was to sit under the card table - which had a very proper, long tablecloth on it - and dig around in the ladies' purses while enjoying their conversations above me. This lasted until the day I applied a lipstick I found under the table in someone's purse to my own face, without a mirror, and then reappeared among the ladies looking like a clown. Please remember, we're talking preschool here!!

I, on the other hand, had way too many siblings for my own good, namely three big brothers who picked on me and made my life miserable most of the time. Someday I'll tell you about the candy rocks that weren't candy or brushing my teeth with Brylcream before I learned to read. (Which may be why I became an early reader.) Be that as it may, Markie and I found each other and played happily together even though he was a boy.

One summer afternoon when I was six, Markie and I ended up in the boys' room upstairs. The boys' room consisted of a raised attic with a dormitory-like sleeping area, a large study area, and a small bathroom. My dad had built it when he and my mother moved in to their new, two-bedroom bungalow with three children and one on the way. I can't remember why Markie and I had headed upstairs. It got hot up there in the summer and my brothers would probably not have been very happy to find out we had been playing in their territory. Maybe that was the appeal.

But there we were - Markie, me, and a window overlooking our side yard. Naturally, we got the bright idea to play "parachute." I don't recall ever playing parachute before then, or hearing of anyone playing parachute. I don't recall if it was my idea or Markie's or just the devil taking the opportunity to screw with a couple of kids. But we did get the idea that it would be fun to make a parachute and jump out of the second floor window of my house.

How do you make a parachute when you are five- and six-years-old respectively? Why, you use the boy's tee-shirt, of course! Markie took off his shirt, climbed up onto the window ledge, held the tee-shirt over his head, and jumped. The moment his feet left the window sill, I knew with utter and absolute clarity that it had not been such a good idea. I knew it so clearly that I didn't even watch the results, I simply turned away and found a hiding place behind my brothers' dresser.

It felt like I stayed hidden for a very long time. I figured Markie had died, I would follow shortly, and there was no reason to rush things by giving myself up; however, when my mother came to the foot of the stairs and called me, I went to her as meekly as a lamb to the slaughter.

Surprisingly, I didn't get into trouble. When I asked my mother years later how I escaped punishment that day, she told me that I looked so terrified when I came downstairs, she didn't think spanking me was necessary.


Markie did not die. He didn't even break anything. He may not even have gotten grass stains on his clothes. He did have the wind knocked out of him, which actually feels awful, as I discovered myself about thirty years later. And he earned absolutely stellar bragging rights. No one, I mean not even the biggest lunkhead boy on the block, had ever jumped out of a second story window on purpose!

I can't remember if we played together after that. I'm thinking that if his mother had anything to say about it, Markie shifted his attentions to safer playmates, like my older brothers. And, thinking that, I'm also now pretty sure I got the wicker basket from him when I was five ...

Happy May Day one and all!!

Ciao

A Moment of Grace

April 12, 2009 marked the 30th anniversary of a calamitous loss
for Michael and me. This is my recollection of that event.

The most astonishing thing about tragedy is the amount of time a split second can take. Awake, but not up, I heard a sound like a rifle report at 6:10 a.m. and looked up to see a crack of blue sky at the top of my bedroom wall, where it met the ceiling. Without another thought, I shook my sleeping husband.

"Get up! The house is falling in," I yelled.

He got up immediately, without questioning me, and we ran for the third floor, where our 4-year-old daughter and 3-month-old son were asleep. Both of us wore almost nothing, and I grabbed my robe, belt missing, as we ran.

Holding my robe closed with the baby, I started back down the two flights of stairs to the front door. At the first landing, I realized my husband had not followed.

"Come on," I yelled in panic, "we have to get out of here."

For the first time, I could see the doubt in his eyes about my conviction of imminent demise.

"I'm not going anywhere without my pants on," he said categorically.

I replied by taking my daughter's hand from his, and, in my heart, abandoning him to his foolish pride and his fate.

At the front stoop, I stopped to bang on our neighbor's apartment door. I knew that Jack, the husband, would be gone to work, and that Kitty would already be busy with housework. As she opened the door, I warned her that we had to get away because the house was falling in. Kitty gave me an incredulous look and then staunchly refused to leave without her purse. As she walked back into the apartment, I followed, grabbing her telephone to call 911. My pounding heart made my fingers awkward and my voice breathy, but I managed to dial and to ask for the fire department. In the seconds it took for the St. Louis Fire Department emergency dispatcher to answer, I forced myself to calm down so I could speak clearly.

"I live at 2348 South 12th Street and my house is falling in."

I hung up the phone and walked back to the front door. Kitty stood behind me with her purse, urging me to put on her slippers against the cold April air. I had not even realized that my feet were bare. Slipping them on in Kitty’s doorway, I looked at the beautiful blue sky and the antique blue and white tile inlaid on the porch of our reclaimed tenement house. I thought about how the tenants living in the apartment beneath us had just moved out in a pique because we did not want them to keep their mange-ridden dog after we had our new baby. I thought about my husband, whom I had not seen since my flight down the front stairs. And I thought about what I would say when a fire truck showed up in front of my perfectly fine, about-to-be-renovated, 150-year-old home.

I thought about all these things in a flash, and then, in another flash, the wall across the porch from us melted into a black cloud of dirt and grit. I turned away, sheltering my children from the choking cloud and myself from the anguish raining down with the dirt. As soon as the collapse seemed over, I grabbed my daughter’s hand once more, clutched my infant son closer to my bosom, and ran past a 20-foot cascade of bricks that had been my absent neighbor's bedroom and my front yard. I ran down the sidewalk and through our gate into the safety of the empty, dawn street.

Standing on the cold cobblestones, I screamed for Kitty, who had turned back, and screamed again when she still didn’t come, fearing that the rest of the house would collapse any minute. I listened to the wailing of an approaching fire truck. The next-door neighbors ran out to investigate what had thrown them from their beds. It was the collision of three courses of old brick, three stories high, two rooms deep, against their house as our sidewall collapsed across the four-foot gangway we shared with them. The collapse that began with the sound of a gunshot at 6:10 a.m. and finished in a cloud of grit and dirt at 6:14 a.m.

Those four minutes seemed like an eternity to me. They gave me enough time to save what I loved the most, my children. They gave me enough time to warn my dear neighbor, Kitty, who finally came away from the danger after checking her stove. They gave me enough time to call for help and to doubt myself. They even gave my skeptical husband enough time to put on his pants, take the dogs out the back way, and run for his life when the wall crashed into the gangway just as he stepped into it to investigate. Those four minutes gave me enough time to capture a moment of grace that served me well when reality took over.

We had planned to renovate our old, four-family flat into a gracious home with two apartments for income. The architects and professional engineer that we had hired to design the renovation were young, enthusiastic, inexpensive, and, we discovered too late, inexperienced. Our professionals dismissed a small, ground-level separation between the floor and exterior wall, discovered on a recent walk-through of the project, with a simple and easy answer.

"We'll just need to reinforce the foundation with concrete," one of them said.

Unfortunately, everyone underestimated the urgency of the problem, and before the engineer and architects had even planned the remedial measures, that wall collapsed, taking a second wall with it.

30 years should be enough time to recover from grief, but I still choke up when memories of that day surface. My recollections usually stem from news reports of similar tragedies. Once, hearing a woman describe the engulfing, smoke-like wave of dirt and soot she experienced in a wall collapse in Houston, I broke into tears, engulfed myself in the billowing, choking dirt that remains one of my most vivid memories of our loss.

When I look at the tall townhouses springing up around our city, I see my four-year-old daughter’s green bed ruffle fluttering at the edge of a three-story precipice that had been the wall she was sleeping next to only four minutes before it appeared. Entering unfamiliar spaces, I glance up, automatically assessing where danger might lie, and seat myself carefully away from anything suspended from the ceiling, unable to forget that what seems solid can become, in as little as four minutes, a pile of debris. And when I look at my children, now 34- and 30-years-old, I am swept back into that moment, standing on cold cobblestones in a belt-less bathrobe, clutching one child’s hand, and pressing the other child’s swaddled body into my own. I am swept back into that moment when I encountered grace.

Thoughts on Saying "Uncle"

Since the kitten Smudge entered our home on December 27, 2008, I have observed quite intriguing feline behavior. Jack and Trixie, our 15 year old cats, do not like Smudge, who wants nothing more than a playmate. Apparently bad attention is better than no attention, so Smudge behaves like an obnoxious brat to the older cats. He will pounce on the cats' tails as they whip back and forth in annoyance; he will spring out from under the dust ruffle of our bed at an unsuspecting cat; he will leap up where another cat is settled peacefully and practically land them.

Jack has achieved an equanimity about it. He and Smudge play fight, rising up on their haunches and bopping each other soundly with their front paws, no claws extended. Jack towers over Smudge and outweighs him by ten pounds, but he's the one who usually walks away from their encounters.

Trixie is another matter all together. She is a very timid cat. Many of my friends have never seen Trixie because she stays on my bed or hides when we have company. After 14 and a half years of carefully cultivated association, she has sat on my lap three or four times maximum. She loves to be petted by me or one of our immediate family members, but if you pick her up, she leans away from your body as far as she can until you put her down. This said, Trixie is very attached to me and apparently very jealous of Smudge in addition to annoyed by him.

Trixie has gone overboard expressing her feelings. She hisses, snarls, lunges and otherwise threatens Smudge ... and Jack ... and us if Smudge is close to us. For years I have been protecting Trixie from Jack's aggressiveness - he outweighs her by nearly as much as he outweighs Smudge - and suddenly she has Jack on the run from her slashing claws and gnashing fangs.

Now comes the really fascinating part. Whenever the atmosphere gets too intense - Jack throws an extra hard punch or Trixie corners him - Smudge flops onto his side and presents himself helplessly, belly exposed, to their teeth and claws. And immediately, the aggression stops. I have heard of submissive behavior in animals before, but observing it is different. A snarling, hissing cat just stops, looks, and walks away? Yes, indeed.

This made me think about human relationships. As a naive 18-year-old from a small city, I vividly remember the first time I witnessed random violence. I was riding a city bus in St. Louis that had a short layover at a big stop in a seedy, industrial area. Two men were at the bus stop (among other people) and I saw one of the men attack the other. In short order, the second man had been beaten viciously enough to be on the ground and no longer even protecting himself. The winner - if that can be called winning - then proceeded to kick the other fellow in the stomach several times before deciding to quit.

Back on the bus, I practically vomited in disgust and terror, but no one else seemed to take much notice other than to walk in the opposite direction of the attack. I kept waiting for someone to intervene and help the injured man, but no one did. When my bus pulled away from the stop, the victim was stirring, but had not yet gotten up and still, no one helped him.

So, it would seem that cats (and other "dumb" animals) know how to say "Uncle and what that means, but human beings don't. How could we have missed out on such an important biological imperative?

Do you remember, as a child, that you could get a bully to stop beating on you by saying "uncle?" In fact, making someone say "uncle" often motivated the attack in the first place. But once you said it, the pain stopped; you might slink off in humiliation with taunts at your back, but no one kicked you when you were down. If they had, the crowd would have turned on them with derision for such craven behavior.

So kids do it and cats do it, but adults don't do it. Hmmm, could it be that we actually teach kids not to be merciful or relent in their assault on someone else?

This morning, when Smudge flopped over yet again into kitty submission, I tried to imagine Trixie then attacking his exposed underbelly and ripping it out with her fangs - the cat equivalent to kicking the s**t out of someone who is down - and the picture just wouldn't come together. It's not going to happen.

Wouldn't it be lovely if humans could be as evolved as cats?

Ciao.

Miscel-Lanie: Feral Cats, Art Exhibits, Ballet, Theatre, Etc.

Some weeks are crazy. Go, go, go. Busy, busy, busy. But even most crazy weeks are not like the one I've just had. It started last Saturday. I finally managed all the arrangements to capture Mom - our feral cat friend - and have her spayed. Except for one little problem. No way was Mom going into our trap, thank you very much. What we found in the trap early Saturday morning was Dad, the male cat who Smudge looks just like. Well, a neutered feral cat of any gender is a blessing, so we took Dad to SNAP (Spay and Neuter Assistance Program) to be fixed.

Michael and I then zoomed home and did some housework before changing into good clothes and heading back into town. First, we attended an Artist Talk at the gallery show of our friend Lillian Warren. Lillian's new work at the Rudolph Projects | Artscan Gallery impressed me a lot. Titled "Here is Nowhere," the art explores the landscape of contemporary America with all it's sameness and anonymity.

Originally photographed or videotaped, often from within a car, the scenes have an "anywhere" feel to them. Those could be electrical lines anywhere; highway overpass buttresses anywhere; highway signs anywhere; street scenes anywhere. For me, this gives the paintings the feeling of being everywhere. Each scene looked like someplace I have been although I can't quite put my finger on where it is. The colors in the paintings are subtle, mostly early evening or early morning colors, dusky or smoky, full of purples and roses and soft blues. Everything identifiable is slightly fuzzed out, adding to the sense of everywhere-ness.

After a lively discussion with Lillian and her gathered admirers, Michael and I moved on to Gallery 3 at the Winter Street Studios where our friend Piyali Sen Das Gupta has a show mounted. Piyali, hosting an open gallery, greeted us when we arrived. Her current show features her dog, Scooby, a basset hound I have had the pleasure of meeting in person. "The Dog Stories," as she titles her exhibit, features much more than a dog; it is the story of the conjunction of a woman's life and a dog's life and how the dog fits into and enlivens the woman's milieu. The paintings are whimsical, brightly colored, and enchanting. Scooby is always somewhere in the art, always looking up from his short, basset hound position with soulful, adoring eyes at the woman or the viewer.

Although she also has drawings and prints in the show, Piyali primarily hung paintings done in egg tempera. I have learned a bit about egg tempera from Piyali over the years and admire her work even more because of the demanding nature of that medium. Egg tempera paintings take a great deal of time and layer after layer of paint that has been hand mixed using perishable egg yolks. If you haven't seen the exhibit, hurry and get over there before it comes down at the end of March. It is well worth the effort.

We visited several studios on our way out of Winter Street, discovering something to enjoy in each one. Then we grabbed a bite to eat, picked up Dad from the clinic, returned our rented live trap, and then made a beeline for home. Once there, we set Dad up with food, water, a bed, and the surgery-required litter of non-irritating shredded newspaper in our shed for safe keeping, not that he appreciated the effort much. Back into the car as fast as possible, we sped down the highway to the Wortham Theatre for a performance of the Houston Ballet.

Luckily, we managed to get there for most of the dance talk, an informative presentation on some aspect of ballet that the company offers to patrons before each performance. The show, "Masters of Movement," featured three short ballets: The Leaves are Fading, The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude and Soldiers' Mass. I found The Leaves are Fading" to be the least interesting. Very pretty and romantic to the point of sentimentality, it went on too long for me. Without drama, I became bored, although I loved the flowing, gauzy costuming.

"Vertiginous" lived up to its title in every way. A new word for me, vertiginous required a trip to the dictionary when we returned home. It means "having or causing a whirling sensation; liable to falling," and that is exactly what the performers delivered, an on-the-edge thriller with five dancers who remained in motion every minute of their time on stage. Lasting only twelve minutes, it seemed to go on forever (in a good way) and left me breathless and wondering where the dancers' stamina came from. The final piece, "Soldiers' Mass" moved me to tears. Featuring an all-male cast, it recreated the experience of a unit of soldiers who all died in their first battle on the first day of World War I.

It took me until the Kyrie Eleison was sung to realize that the music actually was a mass. It had been written to commemorate these very deaths and then later choreographed by Jirí Kylián. The dancing was superb and the fear, suffering, and bravery of the doomed soldiers came across beautifully. As you might guess, "Soldiers' Mass" gets my vote as the best of the three, although the Houston Ballet did each one beautifully.

After the ballet, we headed home and turned in because we had more excitement ahead on Sunday - a play at the Alley. This performance - "The Man Who Came to Dinner" - had us belly laughing. The actors' performances were collectively excellent and some individuals were absolutely superb. Which ones, you ask? Well, go see the show and find out for yourself! (Hint: the Alley's rep company regulars outdo themselves in this production.)

I intended to catch up on my week, but find myself pooped after Saturday and Sunday. I guess my readers will have to wait for me to catch my breath before they hear anymore.

Ciao.

Going Green or How I Became Irish

The immigrants who settled North Dakota, my birthplace and home, came primarily from Scandinavia and Europe, with a smattering of French fur traders tossed into the mix. Thus, my Swedish paternal grandfather – Johann Sven Gustafson - and my Alsatian grandmother – Frances Froelich. I grew up in a Catholic family and attended Catholic schools bursting at the seams with the burgeoning baby-boomer generation, but even in a Catholic setting, the Irish had little presence in my life. My classmates had names like Budzeak, Chaput (pronounced Shep-ee), Eisner, Garceau, Kroeber, Prochaska, and Lizakowski.

Exposure to names like these from an early age, besides bestowing on me a facility with hard to pronounce or spell surnames, also forever marked me as an outsider in places like Houston. You see, I grew up pronouncing the oe combination with the German “A” sound, as in Fray-lick (Froelich) and Kray-ber (Kroeber,) whereas Houstonians pronounce it with the “O” sound. People are always correcting me, but I stubbornly cling to my linguistic heritage.

Back to my classroom. I will allow that one or two Anglo-Saxon names cropped up – Houlihan and Higgins come to mind – but overall, the Irish just hadn’t made much of a mark on day-to-day life in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Even today, the population with Irish ancestry in my home state hovers around seven percent.

St. Patrick’s Day had nothing to do with green beer, Irish stew, leprechauns, or parades. Instead, we celebrated it from the vantage point of our teachers, the nuns, who proudly told us that Ireland had no snakes because of St. Patrick and his miracles.

If you have seen the play “Doubt,” the movie “Doubt,” or even the trailer for the movie “Doubt,” you have an inkling of my life as a Catholic schoolgirl. Meryl Streep’s performance terrifies, but at least we know she’s acting.

My first teacher at St. Mary’s Elementary School – which I didn’t get into until second grade because of baby boom overcrowding – had the rolls-off-your-tongue moniker of Sister Theodosia. Sister Theodosia earned my unending opprobrium when she decided to give me a new name. My actual given name is Mary Lane, but my family only called me Lanie. My mother can’t explain why she saddled me with Mary at all, but, by age seven, I really didn’t think the name had anything to with me.

Sr. Theodosia, on the other hand, being certain that Lane was not a saint’s name, refused to use it and insisted on calling me Mary. Naturally, I ignored her, thinking she meant one of the many other Marys in my class of 40. Let’s see: we had Mary Margaret, Mary Ann, Mary Catherine, Mary Ellen, and three just plain Marys. I thought she should have been relieved to have at least one student whose name was unique, but she would have none of it.

It is terrible to be in trouble on your very first day at your new school when you are really a good little girl. It may even account for some of my life-long foibles. My mother tried to reason with Sister Theodosia, but the best she could negotiate for me was Mary Lane, which rolls off the tongue as Marralane. I hated it, and I hated Sister Theodosia, but I suffered it until I turned sixteen and my rebellious side blossomed. Then I reclaimed Lane and later managed, by a clever arrangement with my maiden name, to ditch Mary forever.

Now, I know you are wondering what this has to do with “Going Green or How I Became Irish.” Just this: As a nice Swedish girl from the North Dakota, I had little or no point of reference for Irish-ness. Then I landed in St. Louis for college, and, as it turned out, stayed for a lot more fun.

St. Louis is kind of the anti-North Dakota as far as the Irish go. For one thing, they started going there early, in the 18^th century, welcomed by the French, with whom they had waged a futile war against England and with whom this particular bunch of Irish folk were co-religionists. And they kept coming because the people in St. Louis treated them a lot better than the people on America’s Eastern Seaboard did.

Coming from an area populated largely by blue-eyed, blond-haired people, the incidence of red hair, green eyes, and freckles in St. Louis astonished me. Not to mention the number of Catholic churches - one on every corner it seemed. Suddenly, St. Patrick’s Day had MEANING in capital letters. There were parades, there were hats, there were tee shirts, there was green beer and Irish stew, and there were buttons that said “Kiss me; I’m Irish.”

The name Gustafson closed the door on pretending to be Irish, but I enjoyed the beer, the parades, and the antics of the Irish all around me. To me it seemed as gaudy and over the top as Mardi Gras does today. It’s fun to watch, but I’m not taking my shirt off for plastic beads, thank you very much.

By skipping over nearly a decade of my life in St. Louis, we come to the significant part. In January of 1976, I met an appealing, redheaded, green-eyed fellow whose name and family, it turned out, were decidedly Irish. That December I married him and found myself suddenly Irish. As if to prove the point, our friends Steffie and Lenny Marks even gave us a set of Irish coffee goblets as a wedding present which we use to this day.

The very next St. Patrick’s Day I found myself at the Buel Street Pub with a mug of green beer, wearing a green tee shirt that said, “Kiss Me, I’m Irish,” and shouting “Erin go Braugh” although I had no idea what it meant. It turns out going green is easy once you get over being Swedish.