VISIONS, TRAUMAS, MONSTERS, AND SNAKES

I fell madly in love one rainy day while I was walking home from school. That's when I happened to glance across the street and first noticed the girl with the blue and white polka dot raincoat.....and her matching umbrella. She was younger by one year, but as our relationship developed, the age difference mattered less and less. I was seven and she was six. As fate would have it, our school was small, and consequently the first and second graders were both taught by Sister Cecilia in the same classroom. Not only was the object of my affection and fascination destined to be my classmate...her family also moved on to my street that same month, and I was basking in the sunlit smiles of the gods.

I've actually maintained a relationship with Susan ever since those early days of my life.

We had lunch a few years ago, and before we even took a sip of our Chardonnay, she offered a toast...."to our magical childhood." I thought that was both a lovely sentiment and a real jump start on our lunchtime conversation. From then on it was "remember when we........". One of the things she mentioned was our constant rehearsals for a play that we never actually performed....perhaps because the title was " The Miracle of Our Lady Of Fatima", which was of course my choice for a premier in our garage. When I mused about why we never actually got the show off the ground, Susan said she thought it was because I always secretly wanted to play the part of the Blessed Mother. In the interest of full disclosure....I think Susan was right.

Now these were days when social norms were different...when we played hospital I was the doctor and Susan was the nurse...if I was the boss Susan was the secretary, when I was the Bing Crosby priest, Susan was the Ingrid Bergman nun..( funny that the woman is STILL never the priest ). My Dad took me to all the monster movies...which we both loved, and when I'd get home we'd play monster. Once when Susan was the fifty foot woman...when she enhanced her height with roller skates, she fell and broke her arm. Her mother was mad that Susan had been playing the monster...but Susan said she would have done anything for me.

When my Mom went to the hospital to have my brother, my Godmother came to watch me for about a week. I had seen a nun movie about an African hospital and off went my imagination's light bulb and in the blink of an eye Susan and I had transformed our gameroom into a M.A.S.H. like infirmary. We hung sheets as dividers, rounded up all the kids in the neighborhood, and quickly created a trauma-like atmosphere. Eventually the chaos from our basement caught my Godmother's attention and she gasped when she came down the steps from the kitchen. I think the stream running down the middle of the basement floor from the hoses on full blast probably put her over the edge. She shut us down pretty quickly....and shooed us out into the backyard. I don't think she ever did tell my mother.....I really loved my Godmother.

It wasn't all peaches and cream with Susan. Once while she was snoozing in their hammock on a gorgeous summer afternoon, my friend and I threw a dead snake on her.

That was almost the worst thing we ever did....next to mailing her a package with the same snake in it the next day. Bill and I thought we were probably going to be sent to reform school that summer....and definitely going to be sent to Hell eventually. Susan didn't stay mad for too long....maybe like seven years...eight at the most. The snake stuff seemed to dampen the luncheon conversation a bit, but soon we were on to more pleasant memories...like the idol worshipping Indian tribe that started some serious neighborhood discussions about "what the kids are up to in the woods all day.."