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A Funeral Trip and Pecans

Thu, 3 Jun 2010 20:20:57 -0400

When my mother’s fourth husband, Charlie, died, my brother Nelson and I went home to Americus for the funeral. Charlie’s niece and her husband came from Alabama and drove us all the way across Georgia to Waycross, Charlie’s hometown, for the service.
It was a long trip and the conversation was slow. Mama’s fourth marriage had not been her favorite, but we were still subdued at the loss. We also didn’t have a lot in common with the Alabama couple, but we knew they loved Mama and she loved them.
On the way back to Americus, Nelson asked them about the small-town store they owned.
They bought and sold pecans--by the bushel and truckload. As you can imagine from the cost of pecans in the supermarket, they made a ton of money.
Charlie’s relatives told us their store was in the middle of downtown. “The rest of the block is clothing stores. Jews own them,” the husband casually said.
Nelson and I were significantly taken aback. Had anti-Semitism suddenly raised its ugly head? The pecan store owner must have perceived some consternation in the back seat, so he continued.
“It’s OK,” he said. “We get along with them fine. Jews love pecans, you know.”
For all the decades since, “Jews love pecans, you know,” has been Nelson’s and my favorite statement when confronted by absurdity. It’s also a favorite comment of his Jewish wife.

White Socks and French Poodles

Thu, 27 May 2010 12:13:10 -0400

Many of the children I grew up with in the 1940s and 50s lived in quiet families. Their parents, especially their mothers, considered many things inappropriate for children to hear.
Such ideas did not fetter my mother, Bee Bahnsen. She said what she thought when she thought it.
As a teenager, I wore white socks every day. All girls did. Bee hated white socks. She thought, for instance, that if I wore a blue plaid shirt I should have blue socks.
I was horrified at the prospect and told her I would continue to wear white socks.
“Well, do what you want to,” she replied, “but you might as well wrap Kotex around your feet.”
Many of my other relatives were similarly plain-spoken and downright funny.
My wonderful aunt Evelyn lived in Rochelle, a town so forlorn that leaving it to come to Americus for dinner at the country club seemed a treat.
She came over one Saturday for just such an exciting night. Mama showed Evelyn to her room and told her to be sure to leave her suitcase closed. Mama explained that her new dog, Chi Chi, liked to eat crotches out of women’s underwear.
I might add that Chi Chi was a French poodle. Not just a poodle, a French poodle. I haven’t heard anyone use that term in decades. But we lived on a farm and Chi Chi soon became a regular south Georgia dog, covered in sandspurs and chasing cows.
But back to Evelyn, who was a bit ditzy. She did not listen to Mama’s instructions about her suitcase.
Before long she and Mama were having pre-dinner cocktails at Mama’s breakfast room table with several guests, including men. Evelyn excused herself to go get dressed for dinner.
She returned to the room holding up a pair of crotchless lace panties for all to see. “Bee,” she said, “you must get this dog a companion.”

Gifts for my Mama

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:30:06 -0400

Imagine a perfect southern lady who became a mother in 1940, the year I was born. Sweet, gentle, maternal, loving, quiet, unassuming.
Now erase those thoughts and consider my own mother’s traits: outspoken, profane, funny, witty, charming and scandalous.
My mother did, however, have impeccable taste, which did not seem to be passed on to my childhood self.
I had absolutely no interest in the difference between an olive fork and a pickle fork. I scorned the beautiful hand-smocked dresses handed down to me by a good friend. I did not like dolls.
But I did try to find gifts my beautiful mother would l like on her birthday, Mother’s Day and Christmas.
Whichever stepfather was in residence would take me to the dime store with as much as a dollar to spend, which was a fortune in those days. Any guidance he might offer was spurned because I just KNEW Mama would love Evening in Paris perfume.
She allowed only Chanel No. 5 on her dressing table, but I was truly clueless. I guess I thought that when my bottles of perfume (yes, I bought it more than once) disappeared that she had used it all.
Then I went through a salt and pepper shaker phase. The uglier the better, although I thought they were beautiful at the time. Wherever I went I bought souvenir shakers, including models of log cabins and various animals.
These gifts would also soon disappear but Miss Clueless didn’t notice.
I finally pushed her too far, though. Apparently with more than a dollar in my hand (maybe two dollars), I went to the dime store and bought a large pillow as a gift for her.
I remember the pillow vividly and I’m embarrassed that even my childhood self thought it was beautiful.
It was garish. Lime-yellow in color with tassels on the corners and a machine-stitched poem on it, a song you might remember if you heard sappy things growing up.
M is for the million things she gave me,
O means only that she’s growing old,
T is for the tears she shed to save me,
H is for her heart of purest gold,
E is for her eyes with love-light shining,
R is right, and right she’ll always be,
Put them all together, they spell Mother, a word that means the world to me.

It was more than she could stand. Her feeble attempts to tell me she liked it failed. Her friends would come to visit and see it on the living room sofa, where of course she had to put it for a few days. “Oh, Bebe, how pretty it is,” they would say while trying not to laugh.

The pillow offended Mama’s design sense, and the verse seemed ludicrous to anyone who knew her. I’ll bet she, who was then in her 30s, most hated the “O means only that she’s growing old” line.

I very quickly understood that the pillow would not remain on the sofa, and I probably learned an important lesson or two about taste.

But I still don’t know the difference between a pickle fork and an olive fork.

My Names

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 17:04:17 -0400

My last name is my mother’s maiden name, and I was born long, long before women kept their own names when getting married.
My birth name was Beatrice Parrott Taylor, and yes, I got teased with “Polly want a cracker?” jokes as a kid. Parrott was my maternal grandmother’s maiden name.
Reminds me of a story. A childhood friend named Gatewood Dudley visited Washington when I lived there. Another friend who was not from the South, asked where he got his first name.
My friend Jane Watkins, who was from Mississippi and had never met Gatewood before, said, “Honey, it’s his Mama’s maiden name.”
Ah, the South.
Following tradition, I changed my name to my husband’s name when I got married. Then I got divorced and remarried and took his name.
After my second divorce it occurred to me that it was probably time to choose a name I could live and die with. Because I never knew my father I decided to use Taylor as my middle name and choose Bahnsen, the name of the grandfather with whom we lived when I grew up, as a last name.
This caused some jollity, not to mention confusion, for people who had already known me through several names. For people who grew up with me and knew all my mother’s four husbands it was even worse.
Had I taken all their names and my husband’s names, my name would be Beatrice Parrott Taylor Nelson Rushin Williams Jenkins Smith Bahnsen.
Bebe Taylor Bahnsen sounds pretty rational compared to that.
But if I were buried in Americus, which I don’t plan to be, I could help confuse genealogical researchers for centuries. There are already two Beatrice Bahnsens in the family plot—my mother and grandmother.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Mama took her maiden name back after her fourth husband died (she was twice divorced and twice widowed). From the headstones it appears that only my grandmother was married. Were Mama and I there side by side, we would look like single women when in fact we had six marriages and five children between us.
It’s almost worth spending eternity in Americus to be a part of that scenario, but maybe I could just put a little plaque in the plot to explain it all.
No, let the researchers do their work. Families like mine make it fun.

I Hate Brain MRIs...

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:44:14 -0400

And neuropsychology tests stink, too.
First, the disclaimers. My most recent MRI showed that the current brain tumor grew less than it had between the two previous MRIs. This is fabulous news.
I understand, more than you could ever know, how lucky I am to live when brain MRIs, not to mention neuropsych tests, are available for those of us who need them. I understand how fortunate I am to have lived through the first brain tumor.
Now I’ll begin grumbling. If you’ve had an MRI you know they don’t hurt. They aren’t, to use the medical term, invasive. Well, there is the injection of dye, but in terms of my MRI experiences that is nothing.
If you have an MRI of something other than your skull you probably won’t have to put your head in an awful-looking machine. (There I go with another disclaimer.) But if it’s your brain they’re looking at, in you go.
Oh, and did I mention that I have mild claustrophobia?
Once you’re held captive by the machine and the sort-of mask they put over your head to limit your movements, the worst part of the whole thing commences. Like the Grinch who Stole Christmas, the thing I hate most is the Noise! Noise! Noise! Noise.
I tried to come up with adjectives, but Noise! Noise! Noise! Noise! tells the story without embellishment
I once tried mild sedation to avoid getting too stressed. It helped, but this last time I decided I was tough enough to endure a painless magnetic scan.
I was wrong. I had to ask to be removed from the machine for a few minutes so I could breathe.
I asked if people ever just “lost it” while in the machine. “All the time,” the MRI tech answered.
So that does it for toughness. Sedation in the future.
Now for the neuropsych test. The first brain tumor was on my left frontal lobe, as is the current one. When I awoke after the first tumor was removed, doctors were astounded. I had been unable to speak a coherent sentence when they operated, and I came out of surgery talking like I always do, which is a lot.
Seems that left frontal tumors often interfere with speech. Well, the neuropsych test showed that it is my right brain function that is somewhat limited.
I knew that diagnosis was coming. The psychologist would ask me to do simple spatial tests and I would mostly just freeze.
But my wonderful neurologist was not alarmed. He told me to begin doing brain exercises to strengthen the right side of what’s left of my brain. I’ve been doing that and it’s really, really frustrating.
But darned if I can’t see some improvement. I won’t go to engineering school any time soon, but I’m feeling more comfortable with the problems.
If you’re interested in brain exercises for any reason, my doc recommended two websites: www.cognifit.com and www.happy-neuron.com. You get a free trial and then have to pay a small monthly fee. But my happier neurons and I recommend brain exercises. Now if I could just get enthused about regular exercise.