In the year of my early youth when my father was charged with bringing me to the Emporium rooftop for an afternoon of Santa photos and Christmas rides, he bundled me into a series of sweaters and scarves so tight that I began to sweat while riding the 5 Fulton.
While I was a prolific letter writer during my teenage years, my choices of pen pals were not always wise. Of course, it took a while to dispense of my one prison pen pal, but I finally managed to confine my correspondence to one nice German girl who sent me wonderful photos of her home in Bavaria and from vacations to Spain.
At some point after I began Kindergarten, there was a noticeable change in the behavior of my parents. Along with homework and my own awkwardness in social settings, I lost contact with both my mother or father.
Opening Day at Candlestick Park was always the best day of the year, a time of new hope, fresh grass, hot dogs, long rides on buses, towering fly balls, hot sun and cold, cold wind.
Among my mother’s group of Japanese friends, she was the only one that learned how to drive. I would sit the back seat of the driver’s training vehicle as she maneuvered around San Francisco to the exasperation of her instructor.
Somewhere between Dublin and Tokyo, Morning Star School in San Francisco began beating its own cultural drum.
We used to celebrate the Japanese observation of Girl’s Day (Hina Matsuri) at home by putting up an old wooden doll display and eating special omanju (rice cakes). My mother treated this day with such delicacy, and we were never to jump around the doll display or behave in our usual rambunctious manner that might cause the dolls to topple. My sister and I were seasoned at house destruction, setting crayons to wall covering with ease or sliding down three long flights of stairs in our brownstone flat while riding a child’s bathtub, ending our trip by crashing into the front door.
Bertha, the craziest friend from my childhood, once introduced me to Tanya, the only child of a very wealthy lawyer couple that had an apartment in a Pacific Heights skyrise and a home in Atherton. Tanya walked around clutching Bay City Roller albums and had sewn plaid onto the bottom hems of her flooded semi-bell bottom pants. She was the first autograph chaser of my acquaintance, and her quiet demeanor hid a rather crafty streak that plotted out times, dates and ways to meet her favorite teeny-bopper idol. Tanya was also skilled at meeting other teenaged autograph hunters, and they would plot their strategy to recognize and corner a famous person. Her plans, of course, always worked.
Childless and in the suburbs, or don’t spare the speculum!
Published by Anna Pirhana on March 14, 2014If there is one thing I have learned while living in the suburbs, it is that people will find 101 uses for an empty uterus.