No One Ever Told Me We Were Poor

Last Christmas, while I was visiting my brother, Rob, he recounted an interview he had with a recruiter from Cornell University.

I only vaguely remember someone coming to our house. I wasn’t allowed in the room, since it didn’t concern me, and it was something important to my brother’s future. At the time, he was going to be a doctor.

Rob was a gymnast in high school, and was hoping for an athletic scholarship so that he could afford the Ivy League university.

He told me how the man looked at him, at my parents, and at the furniture in our home, as if he were afraid he might catch something.

“It was humiliating,” he told me.

The recruiter told him there weren’t any gymnastic scholarships available, and that he’d never be able to afford the university. It was as if this stranger thought Rob was crazy for even applying – despite the fact that he was accepted academically.

Until that interview, Rob never knew we were poor.

Until that conversation last Christmas, I never knew we were poor growing up.

Weren’t we middle class? My dad wore a suit and tie to work, and carried a briefcase, just like the middle class dads on TV at the time.

We attended Catholic school, where our parents had to pay book fees each year for the workbooks that we wrote in, and in those days, monthly fees to ride the school bus to and from school. In high school, my parents paid tuition for my Catholic education.

I had a firm idea of poor. I had cousins who were poor.

We took very good care of our toys and bikes, as those cousins depended on many of our hand-me-down toys from Santa. I even knew of people who had to do without.

We lived in the suburbs – almost out in the country in those days – in our own home, with a front lawn, and a backyard complete with sandbox, swings, and a sliding board.

The poor relations lived in suburbs that were more like the city, and their yard had few of the things ours did.

Yes, I had hand-me-down clothes from those same cousins, just as the younger members of that family had from us. It was a huge family, mostly girls, and half of them were older than I was.

But as I saw it, and was encouraged to believe, the hand-me-downs were a supplement to my “regular” clothes. I had a dress coat and a play coat, and a cousin’s dress coats became my school coat. Such luxury! How many children could boast three winter coats at a time?

And while my actual middle-class friends sometimes couldn’t come outside to play in the snow because all of their trousers were in the wash, I had plenty, thanks to the bag of clothes from the cousins.

The extra clothes allowed me to develop my personal sense of style. Getting a bag was a time of great excitement to see what new things were waiting for me. If I didn’t like something, I could simply say it didn’t fit, and it went back to the cousins the next time we visited.

When I went shopping with my mother, she would pick out several items in her price range, and I was allowed to choose from these selections. There were plenty to choose from, so I never felt any lack. She even splurged and let me have a pair go-go boots when I was 10, my first pair of boots not meant for the snow, and something my wealthier friends didn’t have.

What I didn’t realize until I was a teen was that my parents didn’t get new coats or much in the way of new clothes other than as Christmas or birthday gifts while we were growing up.

The neighbors who showed off new coats and elegant clothes were the same ones who went on vacations, drove brand new cars and had air conditioning units in their bedroom windows. They were also the ones whose kids might run out of trousers, and couldn’t go out in the snow as a consequence. I actually felt sorry for their kids.

My “poor relations” weren’t the subject of pity, though. While it’s true my mother used the pity argument that they didn’t have as much as we did when trying to convince me to give up a beloved toy I no longer used, the fact that they had to do without was simply a given, since their family was so large. They were very cool people as far as I was concerned, and I loved visiting them.

I didn’t think of them as poor. They were simply the cousins I knew best.

I loved staying at their house. It didn’t bother me that I had to share a bed with a cousin. They had fun Friday nights where we had ice cream or potato chips – in the living room, while watching TV – something my parents didn’t do at our house.

And while I had a doll house that was the envy of friends and cousins alike, I knew I had it because my dad was handy at woodworking. He’d built it for me as a Christmas gift one year, and I have it still.

But my cousins had a wooden shoe holder that consisted of eight square cubbies. They would take all the shoes out, put in doll house furniture and people, and we’d use it as an apartment complex. I thought it was so cool.

The fact that I had things they didn’t or newer things wasn’t important. Lots of people had things I didn’t. That was life. Having something simply meant you had something cool you could share with others: Like my doll house or their shoe box apartment complex.

My cousins taught me how to play games I didn’t know. And what I think is the most important about them is that they are kind.

But I didn’t think of them as people to be pitied. And I certainly didn’t think of my own family as poor.

I had other cousins who lived in posher homes with fancy, albeit more sterile, accouterments. Those cousins couldn’t plop down just anywhere. And they certainly never had ice cream or potato chips in the living room! They had their designated area of existence and their parents had their evening cocktails.

When I went away to college, some people I met were horrified that my brothers shared a bedroom. What’s wrong with that?

Most people I knew shared a room. The only reason I had my own room was that I was the only girl. My brothers had their own beds, desks and closets. And we only used our rooms to sleep in or to do homework.

Personally, I hated having to put up with a roommate in the dorms because we spent so much more time in our dorm rooms. And some of the roommates I had were absolute jerks.

As an adult, I make more money than my parents did, even adjusting for inflation and changing times. But I went to college and they did not. I work in health care, which is a higher paying job than what my father did.

Does that make me look down on my parents?

It does not!

I have these things because my parents were determined to give their children opportunities that, as second generation Americans growing up in the Depression and living through World War II, they did not.

And some of the things I have that they didn’t are simply what has become the norm now. True, I generally don’t have to make do, as they did. And I am grateful.

It’s also true that I have some stuff I don’t really need. But I’ve inherited from my parents the ethic of not getting things just to accumulate them. While I may not need all of the things I have, I do use them.

There’s really no point in having stuff unless you can share it with others.

So, if I was poor growing up, I never felt it. Our parents gave us every reason to be thankful for what we did have, and taught us to recognize what was really important in life.

And unlike the la-de-bleedin’-da posh bastard from the Ivy League university, who looked down his nose at our old but clean and well-repaired furniture, as well as at my father’s salary, I’m not impressed with money and a horde of bling. I don’t care how much you make or where you live. If you’re not a decent human being, all the money in the world won’t make you worth knowing.

I’d Like to Thank … My Muse

My brother-in-law gave me a mug that reads, “Please do not annoy the writer. She may put you in a book and kill you.”

I found that hilarious – and a perfect gift for a tea-drinking writer when I received it.

People who don’t write assume – from my experience – that writers use people they know as their characters, as if they couldn’t create characters on their own.

I’ve had people tell me – usually during an argument – “I don’t want to be a character in one of your novels!” To which I reply, “You wish!”

This is not some conceited retort. I think, at least to some degree, the people who say things like that do fancy themselves as the perfect “character” for someone’s novel. And there are writers who fancy themselves characters for their own stories.

Those of us of a certain age are familiar with Alfred Hitchcock making a cameo in every one of his films. And if he weren’t a screenwriter, Woody Allen wouldn’t have an acting career. Don’t believe me? Name one movie he was in that he didn’t write.

But seriously, I don’t use real people to play the part of my characters, and never have – even when I was 10 and made my first aborted stab at The Great American Novel.

My inspiration consists more of taking a line from a conversation. For example, a recent blog was inspired by something a friend wrote me in an email.

Another example comes from one of my novels, where one of the main characters’ father dies. The whole aftermath at the hospital is a recreation of what happened when my own father died – and that was only a year earlier, so it was still fresh.

Everything the wife did and said was what I remember my mother doing and saying. Yet the wife, a very minor character in the series, is otherwise nothing like my own mother. I only used that particular scene.

I also find it amusing that people who have read my novels will say, “Oh, so-and-so is you.” And they’re usually wrong. Yes, I am a character in nearly every one of my novels.

 But before you start thinking I’m a complete narcissist, let me clarify. My books are not autobiographical. I never set out to write a book about me, and so far I’ve succeeded.

One character in each book is who I wish I were instead of me.

And it’s never the character people think. (Okay, maybe in the first Unicorn story it is.) It’s always the first left-handed character you meet.

I am essentially a watcher. I observe the human condition, and apply it to my stories.

This is not unique. This is what writers do. Yet you never hear a writer receiving an award say, “I’d like to thank my muse, so-and-so, for giving me the line that inspired this film.” No, they thank the academy, their parents for sending them to a good university, their wives, partners and kids for giving them the space to create.

Yet it doesn’t all come from them. Someone sparked the idea. Anyone could be that muse. Writers just don’t usually talk about it.

Now a word of warning to all of you non-writers out there: Lest you think of making some grandiose speech you think I’ll include in my next novel, forget about it. The thing I find particularly inspiring is usually something insignificant that you say when you’re not particularly paying attention.

Besides, the wrong thing could annoy me, and I might put you in the next story and kill you.

Blogs Happen – And for Me, This Is How

Recently – okay, this morning, which is probably about three months before you will actually get to read this – I was lying about in bed. Because of the pandemic lockdown, as well as a dreary-looking day, I didn’t have much reason to get up.

The result was that I had plenty of thinking time, and as a consequence, two things came to mind: the idea of pretty, swiftly followed by the idea of feminism.

It started when I began thinking back to a blog I had written about dresses and why I hate to wear them. And I wondered when the last time I did wear one was.

My sister-in-law’s wedding, probably 20 years ago? My first trip to Wales at a posh castle-hotel 18 years ago? My brother’s wedding 12 years ago?…

No, to my horror, probably only about 5 years ago, on one of the river cruises Blue Scream and I took. It wasn’t for more than an hour, and I can’t imagine why I bothered. Probably because I packed the thing, and I like to wear everything in my suitcase at least once.

Then I remembered a friend’s comment on that blog, and how she disagreed with my assessment. She liked wearing dresses. They make her feel pretty.

Fair enough.

I presented my thoughts and feelings. I didn’t expect anyone else to conform to them. In fact, I’d be worried if they did.

But pretty – there it was again.

I’ve never felt one way or another about myself because of clothes.

Okay, I’ve felt uncomfortable in some clothes, either because they didn’t fit properly or because they didn’t fit the occasion for which I was wearing them.

But pretty? Ugly? Like a princess? Like a virgin – Oh wait, that’s a song!

No, never once.

I’ve looked at clothes and thought, That’s beautiful! Or, You could not pay me enough to touch that, much less consider wearing it.

But clothes have never transferred their beauty to me or how I feel. I guess that’s why I’ve never been a slave to fashion.

But as far as pretty goes, I consider it a false bill of goods women have been sold for centuries. Even though we’re no longer seen in society as purely ornamental, we’re still expected to feel ornamental.

“Oh, but doesn’t wearing sexy underwear make you feel sexy?”

Um, no.

Those lacy bits of butt floss that pass for underwear and padded, wired brassieres on someone who neither needs nor wants wiring or padding are simply uncomfortable. Even if I knew what “sexy” felt like, I couldn’t begin to have any notion of it while wearing such uncomfortable clothing.

Sell sexy if you like. I’m not buying it.

Which brings me to feminism.

Growing up, I always insisted I wasn’t a feminist. My rationale was that I didn’t believe in “girls are better than anyone.” I believed in equality. And I didn’t think feminism was about equality, but rather, about pushing girls to the fore, above everyone else.

I didn’t like being disqualified from doing things because I was, “just a girl.” I didn’t ask for it, so why should it be held against me?

My mother used to frequently say, “There may be people who aren’t as good as you, but no one’s better.”

She never said there were people better than me. I was as good as anyone else. (Irish mothers aren’t known for praising their children.)

Still, I did not see myself as the next Betty Freidan.

It wasn’t until the new wave of feminists, people like Emma Watson and Benedict Cumberbatch in the “I am a feminist” ads that I realized, That word doesn’t mean what you think it means.

I am a feminist.

It isn’t about girls being better. It’s about equality.

When I was first introduced to the word, I was still enmeshed in being disqualified. My brother, Rob, told me I would never be accepted to Penn State because I wasn’t smart enough – don’t even get me started on the fact that nearly all of my high school classes were what would now be considered AP classes. Then, when I was, in fact, accepted, he told me it was because I was a girl, and the university was trying to get more female students.

I proved I was as good as. But, to my mind, that didn’t make me a feminist.

“Women’s libbers” as they were called at the time were generally the ugly, long, unkempt hair, braless, paisley-clothes-wearing women who carried signs and didn’t know how to use their indoor voices.

I didn’t want to be one of those. Short hair, three-piece-suit with a shirt and tie and Oxford shoes was more my style.

At about that time, Janis Ian’s At Seventeen album came out. The eponymous single was the anthem of every girl from puberty to 30. Everyone of a certain age born without a Y chromosome could identify with the “ugly duckling girl like me” in the song, even the tall-thin-gorgeous women who hadn’t known an ugly day from their Gerber Baby beginnings to prom queen.

Yet, even though I strongly identified with the song, that was the only one on the entire album I never figured out the guitar chords to. I could sing and play all of the other songs a la Janis, which, in their own way, were feminist, but for some reason, I shied away from that one.

I suppose it was too close to the bone.

“To those of us who knew the pain /of valentines that never came/ and those whose names were never called/ when choosing sides for basketball…”

Maybe I wasn’t quite a feminist then.

Perhaps I was still seeking permission to be one.

Perhaps I should spend time lazing in bed considering things more often.