dona's 365

I met Beverly after emailing her about redesigning her film club website. She was delighted to hear from me and asked me to join the board of directors. She loves foreign and independent films and is a psychoanalyst. Her mother is 102 years old and particular about her nail polish.

Older than I, recently divorced, and an artist, Barbara was one of a long line of teaching assistants assigned to me when I taught emotionally disturbed students in Pittsburgh. She and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye concerning our students and I’m pretty sure she loved them more than I did.

In my grade-school imagination, dark, bold Angelina was an exotic gypsy child. I visualized a horse-drawn carriage in her run-down garage. In reality they were probably just very poor. It was rumored her mother stabbed someone with a butcher knife; but remember, we were kids. We believed everything we heard.

“The world’s most agreeable baby”, Andrew developed a temper at eighteen months. Every day was his “the worst day ever”. We laugh about it now and Andrew, calmer but still occasionally volatile, cringes at tales of his tantrums. I wouldn’t change him for the world. Andrew, my second-born, my son.

When Mrs. Wewell, our next-door neighbor, said I should pray for her instead of the soldiers in Vietnam, I complied. The next day she caught her arm in the wringer of her old wringer-washer. When I tried it again, a car ran over her dog. I quit praying after that.

Prolific writer of sometimes funny, sometimes gut-wrenchingly sad, but always on-target songs, Dan Bern has been a part of my life since 1997. I never know what I’m going to get at a Dan Bern concert, but I know it will be memorable. I’ve learned to arrive with no expectations.

A kindergarten classmate who disappeared from my radar screen by second grade; short and intense Alan reappeared my promiscuous year. He resented tall men who dated short women and said short women should save themselves for short men. Our friendship didn’t last long. I wasn’t very nice to him. Sorry.

Andre claimed he was in a rock band in the eighties. He said he was very well known back then in his country of Belarus. He still played music when he wasn’t studying business. He hoped to make a comeback in the States as a singer-songwriter. I hope he does.

Quiet, kind and handsome, Alex was a short-order cook at the all-night pancake restaurant his Greece-born uncles owned. It was said they were grooming him to take over the tiny franchise. His eyes disclosed a different plan as he served a side of philosophy with the orders of eggs over-easy.

Butch owned the B & B Bar in Chetek, Wisconsin and was my first real crush. I was ten and bored with the bar and its jukebox, pop and donut-shaped ice cubes. Butch talked to me to keep me from annoying my parents too much. Their drinking paid his rent.

I don’t even know her name but she convinced my cat-hating dad to bring home a black kitten for me when I was 13. When Dad fixed some appliance or another for her parents she told him the kitten would be put to sleep if he didn’t take it home.

Devin lived on the corner in the red house with the ancient apple tree in the yard. She was sneaky-mean and made us play her way. Once she dared me to touch an electric line when we climbed a tree across the street. I’m lucky it was a telephone line instead.

Cathy lived in the haunted house on the corner. We were best friends the summer I turned twelve. Her older brother was in Vietnam and her younger brother rode a tricycle.Her mom looked like Bette Davis and smoked cigarettes until there was nothing left. Then Cathy moved away forever.