As I was opening a package of hotdogs to fix for Sean for dinner last night, I reflexively started singing the Oscar Mayer song. You know the one:  “Oh I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener. That is what I truly want to be-EE-ee…”

Singing that song always makes me think of the Oscar Mayer wiener whistle and I can’t ever think of the wiener whistle without thinking about Debbie.

When I was about six or seven, my neighbor Debbie had one of those little red wiener whistles that came in a package of Oscar Mayer hotdogs.  Maybe they didn’t come in the package of hotdogs but you had to mail off for it, I don’t know. All I know is that Debbie had one and I did not.  They were about an inch and half long and they were a perfect little red hotdog in miniature and everybody wanted one.

As I stood over the stove slicing a hot dog into a pan of pork and beans, humming the Oscar Mayer wiener song, I recalled with sparkling clarity standing in Debbie’s backyard one summer day under the dappled shade of an old elm tree, watching her blow that little red whistle like Miles Davis.

When she was done playing the hotdog song on her hotdog whistle, she shoved it deep down into her pocket, out of reach of covetous hands.  She smiled smugly and shook her head ever so slightly,  refusing me a turn without a single word.  On many occasions I tried to negotiate a trade, something of mine, anything, for that wiener whistle, but to no avail. And who could blame her.  I had nothing equal to a wiener whistle.   How I wished that little red whistle were mine, but it was not to be.

And when I think of Debbie and her whistle, I also think of her big green Sinclair dinosaur.  Back in the 60s, if you bought gas at the Sinclair station, you could somehow get an inflatable dinosaur. Now I do not know exactly how you got the dinosaur because we did not get one.  All we ever got for free were flimsy towels that came in boxes of laundry detergent — never anything good and useful, like a dinosaur or a wiener whistle.

The Sinclair dinosaur was about three feet tall and when it was fully inflated, you could sit on its back and bounce and for some reason, at that time, that was a thrill.  Although Debbie did occasionally let me ride the dinosaur, I dreamed of having one of my very own and not letting anyone ride on it, most especially my brothers.

As I dished up the beans and hotdog I was about to serve my child, I thought of Debbie’s closet full of dresses, some of which would eventually get handed down to me, and I thought of Debbie’s plastic wigs, Debbie’s toy kitchen, Debbie’s nurse outfit with the cape and hat and medical bag.  I thought of her semi-creepy yet wildly alluring big doll head with hair you could really style.

Debbie had everything.

Except for a mom and dad.  Debbie lived with with her grandmother, obese and gray.  I don’t mean that her hair was gray, although it was, but everything about her was gray.  Her personality was joyless and gray.  She always wore an ugly housedress and made Debbie fetch stuff for her.  The grandmother seldom came out of the house and when she did, all the kids would flee for their lives.

Come to think of it, the only friends Debbie had were the neighborhood kids who occasionally wanted to play with some of her toys.  Truth be told, we weren’t really her friends.  If we weren’t being outright mean to Debbie, we were being dismissive.

For reasons I will never know or understand, we just couldn’t let her be one of us. And as I stood there stirring beans, I was filled with regret that I contributed one drop of sorrow to her life.  And I would give a million whistles to undo it.

I learned from my mom a few years back that Debbie’s life was short and cruelly tragic.

Debbie didn’t have everything after all.

Sean begins kindergarten shortly after Labor Day. And like every other mother in America who is sending a child off to kindergarten, I can’t believe this day has arrived so quickly. It seems like just yesterday that we found out we were expecting.

I guess I should be reflecting on the past five years and how they have slipped away so quickly, but what I find myself thinking about is how the past 45 years have slipped away so quickly.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was in kindergarten.  When I look at my kindergarten class picture, I can name nearly every student, the teacher and even the school principal.  I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten one single detail of my life, which in many ways is unfortunate, because there are many events which would best be forgotten.

Here is everything I remember about kindergarten:

I was in the afternoon class.  There were 30 kids in my class and one teacher — no aide like they have now.  The teacher’s name, God bless her real good, was Mrs. Kelly. According to the class picture, she had a first name and it started with “B” but no one ever knew what it was.

Mrs. Kelly was probably about 25 or 30, but in her picture she looks much older.  In 1965 everyone looked about 20 yeas older than they actually were. That was the style. I remember one time I called her “mom” by mistake and I thought I would die.

In the spring, Mrs. Kelly took the entire class on a walking field trip to the IGA which was half a block from school. We had to cross a set of defunct railroad tracks and a busy two-lane road to get to the store.  And just now I’m trying to imagine doing that with 30 5-year-olds and it gives me the shivers.

For reasons unknown, just before we got to the railroad tracks, Jean Ann D. freaked out and tried to run away.  Mrs. Kelly sprinted after her and chased her down.  I could not believe my eyes.  I was a compliant child and it would never have occurred to me to do something like that.  I distinctly remember wondering why on earth would anyone do such a crazy thing? Who doesn’t want to go to the grocery store?  When we got to the grocery store, the store manager opened a box of Capt’n Crunch and let everyone have a handful of cereal.    That pivotal moment cemented my deep and abiding love for Capt’n Crunch.

Mrs. Kelly broke her leg during the school year (maybe chasing after Jean Ann) and so she sometimes sat in the front of the class with her foot in a cast resting on a chair. She read “Make Way for Ducklings” and  “Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel” – still two of my favorite children stories.  I liked the way she held the books out to the side while she read so we could see the pictures.

One time Mrs. Kelly called me to the front of the room and pulled me up on her lap and felt my forehead.  She said I looked  like I didn’t feel well.   I had a fever and she called my dad to come and get me.  It made me feel special to sit in her lap.  I took note of it because I don’t think other than that one time, she knew I was in the class — not too surprising given the class size and the fact that I didn’t do anything crazy like run away.

One time Mrs. Kelly brought out a box of percussion musical instruments. Everyone picked one and we all marched around the room banging on whatever lame instrument we managed to grab.  I wanted the triangle, but never got it and I certainly never got the tambourine, even after Mrs. Kelly made everyone trade instruments with someone else.  I remember feeling mighty ridiculous marching around the room banging two sticks together.  Consequently, I never took band.

There was a little pretend grocery store set up in the classroom and sometimes we would get to play grocery store, my most absolute favorite activity.  I loved the tiny toy cash register. Everyone wanted to be the cashier. For many years thereafter, it was my dream to be a cashier.

One time just as the bell rang and the class was being dismissed, my boyfriend Jerry got a nose bleed.  The teacher had him lie down on the floor with his head tilted back.  All the students ran out of the room to go home, even the teacher was out in the hall.  Jerry started crying so I turned back and stayed with him in the empty classroom, kneeling down beside him as globs of blood dripped out of his nose and down the side of his face.  I was a compassionate angel of mercy even in those days.

One day, my dad was late picking me up from school.  All the other kids had gone home and I was the last one left. The school was eerily quiet and I was beginning to get concerned.  In those days, I thought a lot about becoming an orphan and made plans about what I would do if I became an orphan.  Once I heard the word orphan and learned what it meant, I could not think of anything else. As I waited for my dad, who might not be coming for me, I imagined my exotic life in an orphanage.  As I waited,  I didn’t cry, because it would have taken more than being orphaned to make me cry. Nonetheless, I was relieved to see him when he finally showed up.

My dad took me to school every day in his car, known as Clunker #2, which he had hand painted primer gray.  And every day before school, and I do mean every single day, he fixed me a boiled hotdog which he impaled with a fork and served up with a splotch of ketchup on a plate.  After a nutritious gourmet lunch, I would crawl up onto the bench seat of Clunker #2 beside my dad while he drove me to school. Because I was fiercely independent, I always jumped out and ran into the school by myself, never looking back.

The year I was three, I got a maid’s outfit for Christmas which included an apron, a hat and all the tools of the trade. One day I decided that I should like to wear the maid’s outfit to school.  Dad put his foot down on that one.  I threw a fit, but he stood firm and sent me back to my room to change. That was one of the few times in my life that my dad has said no to me.

Everyday before getting in the car to go to school, dad would make some clumsy attempt to make my course thick dry frizzy bad hair presentable.  He never succeeded, but he will certainly get a star in his crown for trying.

Jeannie S. wore a leg brace. Her parents owned a gas station.  Billy R. had braces on both legs and some sort of medical problem and my mom would have long telephone chats with his mom.  Brian M. had a spot on the middle of his nose and it was terribly cute.  Laura G. wasn’t quite right and was known to bite.  Rhonda D. used to roll up on her back during nap time and pull her panties down to her knees and then pull them back up as she rolled back  — another thing that would have never occurred to me to do.  There was so many new things to learn at school.   Cassie B. was the cutest girl in the whole class. She was also the cutest girl in high school.

One day, towards the end of the school year, my mom let me walk the 3/4  mile home with Jerry.  I don’t know if one of the moms followed us at a discreet distance, but not in ten million years would I let my 5-year-old walk a mile home down a busy road. Not in twenty million years.  It was a different time.

After graduating kindergarten, 13 of us went on to Catholic grade school together through 8^th grade and then we joined up again with most of the rest of the class in high school.

I still get together with Jerry and some of the other “kids” every couple of years and have dinner and wax nostalgic.  There’s something kind of cool about getting together with  people who share a history, people who are rooted in the same soil.

Sean is a lot like me. He compliant, forgets nothing and loves to play grocery store. In a week, he’ll begin making his own kindergarten memories and he’ll meet people with whom he’ll share a certain history.

And maybe if he’s really lucky, when he’s my age, he’ll still be connected to a few folks who occupied the same sweet kindergarten time and space.

And now, time for a pointless story. Oh wait. They are all pretty much pointless.  Very well then.

So then, the other day Sean dropped a gummy bear on the floor. He picked it up and started to put it in his mouth.  In keeping with Section 2, Article 4, Paragraph 3.5 of the Mothering Handbook, I instructed him not to eat it and to put it in the trash instead.  I’m not one to freak out about that kind of thing too much. I’ve been known to eat a potato chip or two off the floor, but it’s right there in the handbook and I’m working towards my mothering merit badge.

He looked at me for a split second and then popped it in his mouth and quickly swallowed it. And then continued to look at me without so much as blinking.

Now, according to the same handbook, this was a clear health and safety violation, meaning when one goes against mama, they are risking their health and safety.

But I let him off the hook.  I gave him a light scolding for disobedience and a small lecture about how one probably shouldn’t eat stuff off the floor, citing the episode on Myth Busters where Jamie and Adam debunk the five-second rule. And I let it go at that.

Normally, when Sean is blatantly disobedient, correction is swift and certain. But on that day I saw something of myself in that little gummy gobbling boy. I was reminded that sometimes at that age, the things we do are less a result of disobedience so much as that we are victims of the laws of forward motion. Sometimes, we want to be obedient, we want to be good, we do.  It’s just that we are unable to stop an impulse that has already fired — a lot like trying to put a speeding bullet back in the gun.

When I was in about the third grade, I was walking between two rows of desks from the front of the class room towards the back. Just before I got to David Kruger’s desk, a paper he was working on slid off his desk and floated this way and then that before it settled on the floor.

Now David was a very meticulous sort of guy, from his crew cut to the way he always colored in the lines.  Well, there was David’s paper on the floor and I could have probably stepped over it, but for some reason, a reason I still don’t understand, I stepped right on his paper leaving a big dusty footprint.

And it’s not that I was bad or mean, unless you were to ask one of my brothers, it was just that I was caught up in forward motion and I couldn’t stop myself. And I have to tell you, to this day, I can still see that paper lying on the floor with my footprint on it and I still feel badly about it.  Sometimes being able to remember everything that ever happened to you is a curse.

Naturally David wailed at the injustice. “Aaak! She stepped on my paper!” he bawled with all due indignation.

The teacher looked up from her desk. I did my best impression of innocence. And because she was probably down to her last nerve and more interested in peace than justice, she suggested to David that I probably didn’t do it on purpose.

Oh sweet undeserving grace and mercy how I adore thee.

“Yes she did!” he gasped, “She looked right at me and stepped on my paper!” It was true. I did. And I did it without so much as blinking.  He was aghast. He look at me and then back at the teacher in disbelief.  His face was red.  I shrugged my shoulders and walked back to my seat, probably not even offering an apology.

So David, I want to apologize. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to step on your paper. I just couldn’t exactly stop myself.

And neither could Sean which is why he got sweet undeserving grace and mercy as opposed to time out.

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Speaking of obedience, I’m over here too if you are following the on-line Bible study.

The strawberries I saw in the grocery store yesterday were resplendent!  Plump and scarlet, like a box of rubies.  The clear plastic containers could not contain the sweet aroma of ripeness and readiness.  I was powerless to resist their allure so I put them in my cart and took them home.

As I sat in my kitchen dipping each fat nubby strawberry in a tiny bowl of sugar, I thought of Jeanette.  Jeanette lives across the street from my parents and has for about the past 50 years.   She used to plant a big patch of strawberries every summer and to me that was like growing your own candy.

One summer day when I was about five, I was playing at Jeanette’s house in the backyard with her children when she came in from the garden carrying a basket of strawberries.  I watched as strawberries tumbled from her basket into a silver colander that glinted in the morning sun.  She rinsed them with the garden hose and water streamed through the holes in the colander in precise lines onto the warm concrete.

Then she gave each of us our own little bowl of sugar to dip them in.  Four or five neighborhood kids sat on her back steps in the late morning sunshine eating sugared strawberries that still smelled of the earth.  On that day, at that moment, the world was as perfect as Eden ever was.

I don’t know if the strawberries were really that good that day or if it was just one of those ordinary moments in life when something beyond you whispers your name and calls you into another level of awareness.

And if you answer that call, you can return to visit that perfect place and eat sugared strawberries in the morning sun for the rest of your life.

I’ve never owned a Christmas sweater. I’ve always felt like maybe I should have one. On several occasions I’ve even carried one around the store.  But I just can’t seem to take the plunge.  Just seems like too big of a commitment.

As well, I’ve never owned a pair of Christmas earrings, little dangling bulbs or ornaments or whatever.  I guess I’m not all about festive after all.

The red turtleneck is my standard holiday party outfit.

I’ve always wanted some nice Christmas china but never wanted to spend the big bucks on it or spend a lifetime collecting it.  Since it’s unlikely that I would inherit or win a set in a raffle, about 10 years ago I bought four boxes of $20/box  Christmas “china” and I love it.  We use it all through December. It makes every meal of the season a little brighter and the best part? I worry not one bit about breaking it.

See how festive a reindeer pancake can look on cheap Christmas china – does that not just scream Joyeux Noel y’all? It does, you know it does.

The best thing I ever did was buy a 6ft pre-lit tree for $30 at Target for Sean when he was three. It’s his tree. He’s got a box of soft and unbreakable ornaments and he can decorate and undecorated it to his heart’s content all season long.  He can put all the ornaments on one branch and I will not twitch nor will I flinch.  He can even pull it over on himself and no harm done. This $30 tree has ratcheted down the freak out level around here substantially.

I hate wrapping gifts. I have not bought wrapping paper in 15 years.  I love the gift bag – the bag that keeps on giving gifts.  Economic, easy, re-useable and no tape.

However, I love ribbon and can’t seem to stop myself from buying it.

I took four years of piano lessons in my early 30s just so that I could play Christmas songs. I’m not very good, but I enjoy it immensely, even if no one else does.

I don’t like to sing, but I love to sing Christmas songs.  I enjoy it immensely, even if no one else does.

I do not like Christmas shopping.  Truthfully, I don’t like the gifts part of Christmas.  The only time gift giving is not awkward to me is when it is spontaneous and not reciprocal.

My favorite memory of Christmas from when I was a child was going to Midnight Mass with my Godparents and coming home to drink hot chocolate and eat pizelles.

Three things always on my Christmas list:  inexpensive earrings, a tree ornament, books (art/photography books, poetry, cookbooks are my favorites).

The first year we were married, I warned AD to never buy me anything for Christmas that plugs in. Over the years, my stance on appliances has changed. I wouldn’t mind having a power washer.

When I was about five, I got a red velvet dress and a white rabbit fur muff for Christmas.  I only remember one or two other Christmas gifts which confirms my theory that sweating over finding the perfect gift is a waste of energy. Chances are you don’t even remember what you got for Christmas by the next day, let alone the year before.

On December 26^th, I will be itching to box it all up and get back to routine. On January 2^nd AD and I will have our annual fight about when the boxing up should occur.  He will lobby for a day in March.  On January 3^rd, he will concede.

Sean was due on Christmas day. He is by far the best gift of my entire life, because indeed, every good and perfect gift is from above.

* * * *

If you’ve made it this far, tell me some random holiday factoid about yourself.