A Charmed Life, Amid Order and Disorder

By Bennett Lear Fairorth

The author, 83 and a widower, drives from a northern suburb of Philadelphia, Pa. to take his oldest daughter Jane to a lunch for Mothers Day 2010. Her two grown children live in other states. Jane, 61, is a recent grandmother. The author is a recent great-grandfather.

A former teacher of high school English, the author retired in 1991 and for about 10 years traveled extensively throughout Europe but now tutors 8 adults, 6 Korean women and 2 African-Americans, for the Abington Library adult literacy program.

Each of his 8 students gets an individual one-hour session one day a week. The tutors are not compensated for their gas or their time spent helping students.

During the Mothers Day lunch, father and daughter talk about the upcoming primary election for U.S. Senator and the movies of Clint Eastwood. The next week the author gets a call from his twin sister, who lives in Portland, Oregon, postponing a planned visit to the east because of a fall.

During a tutoring session at the Library, the author finds an unclaimed paperback edition of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. He decides to keep it to read. When not tutoring, the author enjoys listening to music, watching movies.

His 3 daughters, Jane, Kate, and Tess, are divorced, live in the Philadelphia area. Each has 2 grown children. The authors son, his youngest, lives in Austin, Texas with a wife and 3 daughters, 12, 10, and 7.

The authors 4 children are interested in all Philadelphia sports teams and call him occasionally about wins and losses. These calls are a source of much pleasure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469700502

Book preview

1.

Over a considerable lifetime of 83 years, I dreamed of many events and persons while asleep, not every night, probably one or two nights a week.

On many late nights or early mornings, if I reflected on the places and faces in a dream as soon as I opened my eyes, the images were vivid, facial features, house structures, a picnic grove, a beach at the Jersey shore, the sixth and final classroom of my almost 40 years of teaching high school English, and countless other scenes.

I could identify dream locations as familiar or not familiar, I could recognize individuals I knew or realize that I had never seen those people before. Uppermost in my usual awake-recollections were images of people no longer living whom I had known and loved over many years, Ruby or my parents, a friend, former teaching colleagues, but occasionally total strangers inhabited my dreams.

If I went right downstairs to the kitchen and jotted down particulars about the dream on a notepad on the table, I could retain what happened in my mind during the past few hours of sleep, as long as I saved the note.

In addition to specifics, I sometimes added a personal comment or two that I considered humorous to counterbalance the dry and ordinary details of the dream when transferred to several brief written words.

In 1954, Ruby and I moved into the home where I still lived, but now alone, in Abington, 15 miles north of Philadelphia, in southeastern Pennsylvania. In 1954 we had two daughters, one a few months old.

A third daughter, and finally a son, would be born, in Abington Memorial Hospital, in 1956 and 1959. Two daughters still lived in downtown Philadelphia, the third lived in Newtown, Bucks County, where I taught high school English for many years till I retired in 1991.

Kate, my middle daughter, didn’t move to Newtown till after I retired. Her two kids would never have been my students, even if I had been able to stick around. The age of mandatory retirement was 70; I retired at 65. Regardless, a teacher was never allowed to teach a relative.

As it turned out, Kate divorced her husband in 2001. She and her two kids stayed in their home, and her kids graduated from Council Rock High School, where I taught from ’57 to ’91. Before that, from ’53 to ’57, I taught at Abington High School.

My one son Mark, the youngest, now lived in Austin, Texas with his wife and three daughters. Mark had hoped for one son, but he had to have his cancerous prostate removed last year and could not father any more children.

After my first dream in our new home 56 years ago, I went down to the kitchen and wrote down what I had seen, just for the fun of it. People in dreams may speak, but I couldn’t remember any colloquies. No doubt some dreams included exchanges of words, but I couldn’t remember what was said, only what I saw.

I placed that first note of dream particulars in an 8 ½ by 11 manila envelope in a desk drawer in the den. Over 56 years later about 200 notes were collected in that envelope.

I never showed my dream notes to Ruby or to the four kids as they grew up. I labeled the envelope SCHOOL FIELD TRIP PAYMENTS. The kids never checked out that envelope.

I told my family the envelope contained money collected from my high school English classes for field trips. No one in my family ever checked out the envelope. No one wanted to get near money that didn’t belong to them.

If at first Ruby asked why I was going downstairs at 3 in the morning, or whenever I awoke from a dream, I told her I was going to make myself a cup of hot tea.

She knew that hot tea always relaxed me, made me feel good, eased many aches and annoyances over the years. A cup of hot tea, two or three times on many days, probably prolonged my life. I firmly believed that.

Would Ruby like a cup of tea too, I asked her. I knew that the answer would be no. Ruby drank hot coffee, didn’t like hot tea, but I asked anyway. Her first cup of coffee every morning was with her breakfast. She drank three or four more cups before the day was over.

It never troubled me that I had told a half-truth about my tea break when it was dark outside. No one was hurt or diminished in any way, and no one ever looked into the envelope of dream notes to kid me, to laugh at a few silly comments, to ask me even one question.

If I didn’t bother about keeping a record of the night’s musings, the dream would disappear. I would not remember it a day or two later. If for some reason, I later tried to recall a dream that I hadn’t recorded, I wasn’t able to.

Over most of this present decade I hadn’t wished to write down most of my dream-world happenings. Once in a while, if I saw an old friend or a novel element played out as I slept, I left my warm bed to go downstairs to the kitchen and boiled water for tea and jotted down these vivid dream recollections.

In 1977 Mark, left home to attend college. He never slept in his first home again. His three older sisters, in 1967 and 1971 and 1974, had followed the same scenario, leaving home for college, but the girls moved back to the area. After college Mark settled first in Virginia and finally in Austin, Texas.

Fortunately, over many years, I couldn’t recall a single nightmare where I killed or harmed someone, or someone tortured or eliminated me or anyone I knew. So often in the movies or on TV, a frightening sequence of dream events is shown, and then a character sits upright in bed, sweating and scowling at what just troubled his or her sleep.

That never happened to me. My 83 years had been blessed. I hadn’t gone through any horrible or fatal misfortunes in my waking life, except for Ruby’s fatal bout with breast cancer in 1988.

No other great loss or personal tragedy had befallen our children or grandchildren, or my three younger brothers and twin sister.

What would the rest of 2010 bring me? Would I be able to maintain my current status without any misfortunes, deep troubles, irreversible woes, and distressing outcomes?

My sleep never dramatized any bodily mutilations or dismemberments or anything gross and lurid to make me recoil or groan. If any instances of physical horrors had troubled my sleep, I didn’t remember them.

I wanted to save last night’s dream because this particular narrative had never happened before, or at least I could not remember a similar dream. Outside the kitchen window the dark sky became lighter. Today was Mother’s Day, May 9, 2010.

Jane’s two children, and her new granddaughter, lived hundreds of miles away. My granddaughter June lived in Ohio, too far away to fly to Philadelphia to see her mother today.

I offered to take Jane to breakfast or brunch in downtown Philly, near her home, to celebrate Mother’s Day now that she was a grandmother, and I was a great-grandfather.

In my dream that ended a few minutes before, I was driving a rental car from some airport to a hotel to start a tour of some European city. I wasn’t sure which city.

A pall of smoke or some other pollutant hung over the road-way, and I had trouble seeing where I was going. To make traffic matters worse, some cars were engaged in a chase, but I couldn’t tell which vehicles were chasing and which were being chased.

I was trying to follow instructions and a map that the dream rental-car company had given me, but after a few minutes, I was lost. I drove through a dark tunnel and ended up inside a factory. When I awoke, I couldn’t figure out how I was able to drive into a building.

I remembered the machinery and assembly stations, but I didn’t know what the workers were making. A few men and women looked familiar, but I couldn’t attach any names to the faces. I showed them the map, but they shrugged and stared at me with some sympathy in their faces, and I awoke.

Perhaps a flight from home to some foreign city at the unrecalled beginning of this dream had played out to the point where I was starting a two-week escorted tour of a European country, but I couldn’t recall any earlier events in my dream of an hour or so ago.

2.

After retirement in 1991 and over the next 10 years, I had gone on about 15 different escorted tours from western Spain and all of France to the four countries of Scandinavia, the Balkans, all over Europe, and Turkey.

I had made half a dozen trips to London only, and on my own, to visit friends, and two escorted tours of the U.K. that included Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

Perhaps my arrival at the car-rental location in last night’s dream had involved some argument or misunderstanding, but nothing that happened before the young man offered me choices of cars, and gave me a map of the region, stayed in my memory after I awoke.

I thought the city I drove through before getting lost was Rome, but I wasn’t sure. I had toured Italy several times since my retirement, and the boulevard I was driving on and the apartment houses I passed looked like the sites of that glorious metropolis.

Each great European city, and the less-crowded towns as well, had its own character and overall look, and on occasion I had confused one metropolis with another. Not often, but I wouldn’t want to say with absolute certainty that I had been in Rome in my dream last night if I hadn’t been there.

As the water boiled for the tea, I realized that the main news of the past few days concerned the eruption of a volcano in Iceland, and the resultant cancellation of hundreds of flights to and from European capitals, and traffic slow-ups on roads throughout England, France, Germany, Spain.

Perhaps these news items of the past few days had influenced my dream. I was sure that other dreams had included recent news items, but I couldn’t think of a specific example at this time.

On cable TV a few nights ago, HBO showed the movie Taken. Liam Neeson’s character, well-versed in military and pugilistic techniques, goes to Paris from LA to rescue his teen daughter, kidnapped, taken, by prostitution-ring thieves who trafficked in young women.

His teen-age daughter travels with a friend, first to Paris to attend a U-2 concert there, with plans to move on to other venues on the continent, but she is stolen by ruthless schemers and sold to an Arab sheik for his sexual pleasure.

During the hour and a half movie, several car chases ensue as good-guy Neeson pursues the scoundrels relentlessly to find his daughter and rescue her and return her to LA.

Neeson’s struggles with non-stop adversaries are mostly convincing even though he escapes bullets and high-flying jumps and other life-threatening episodes with only a slight limp. He rolls over every obstacle; his heroic character wins every time.

The movie was entertaining, and would be shown about 100 more times over the next few months on various cable networks without a single commercial or break of any kind in the continuous flow of the narrative. I would probably watch it again.

Why else would so many people pay to subscribe to Showtime, Cinemax, The Movie Channel, and a few others? To watch a movie the way it was meant to be seen, and without any deletion of so-called taboo words or actions that might offend certain viewers.

Perhaps Neeson’s car chases in Taken influenced my dream. There was no point at this time in my life to try to figure out what components made up a dream, and why.

As I drank the hot tea and wrote down what I remembered, I was aware that although this latest dream was new, the theme of being lost characterized my dreams for as far back as I could remember.

Most dreams over many years, especially after I retired, dealt with my not being able to find my final classroom of 20 years, wandering around school, unsure how to get to the second floor and room 234.

In past dreams I often came to a closet I had used, a guidance counselor’s office I had sat in for a conference, but some of the doors and wall displays belonged to a different building, I was sure.

In actuality, I had never gotten lost in school. My classroom was at the back of the building, a walk up a flight of stairs after I parked my car outside the entrance/exit doors. Why did I lose my way in my dreams but never in my actual academic comings and goings of the past? What did it mean?

Many years ago, but not recently, I had dreamed that I forgot what the class was discussing, that I was uncertain about what novel or play we were analyzing. That never happened either. Why would I dream about perverse outcomes that never happened?

Now and then I had tried to figure it out, but I could never reach a suitable explanation. I read a few books/articles on the meaning of dreams, but they didn’t deal with my kind of lost-ness, not that I could remember.

I once read that dreams brought wish fulfillments, and I would not dispute that claim, but how could being unable to find my classroom be a wish fulfilled? I couldn’t now think of a wish unfulfilled in life but fulfilled in my dreams, although that may have happened in some past sleeps.

It was possible that years ago some sexual desires came true in one or more of my dreams, but no examples came to mind now.

Over the December 2009 holidays a few months ago, I read about several drivers stranded in bad weather who used their cell phones to contact a garage and get help. Once I dreamed a similar emergency happened to me, but I didn’t have a cell phone. I had never owned one.

A stranger in my dream stopped to help me start my car, but I woke up and had no idea what happened next, how I got home.

Using the land phone in my kitchen, I had related this plight to Jane and Mark a day or two after the dream. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything, and again they chided me for not owning a cell phone, or a computer.

Yet again they reminded me that I must be the only human being over six years old who didn’t use a cell phone and a computer on a daily basis. My four children and eight of my nine grandchildren had their own cell phones and computers. Only I didn’t.

I acknowledged their value and worth, but reminded them that I made all the calls I wanted to make on my phones in the kitchen and in the den.

It was too late for me to start with a computer. Perhaps if I was 20 years younger. Certain people I knew spent hours each and every day at their computer, using all kinds of personal communication and information gathering. That was all well and good for anyone who wanted those services.

In some past dreams I was walking on the beach at some Jersey shore town and wasn’t able to find Ruby and the kids when I tried to return to where I started my walk, where I left my family. That never happened during any of my waking hours.

If in past years I did go for a walk on the beach by myself, and that was rare, I kept in mind a landmark, a sign, a building, and I never got lost at the shore.

A few years ago when a friend died, I dreamed a few days after the funeral that I couldn’t find the cemetery, but I had actually found it, had joined in the religious service, had partaken of the lunch that followed at a son’s home. Why was my dream so different from what had happened?

During the first few months of 2010, about four months ago, two men I knew over many years died, Wally, whom I met in graduate school in 1948, and Jules, a former colleague who taught biology and retired in 1994, three years after I did. We kept in touch, infrequently. Our ties weren’t fully broken.

These latest deaths didn’t figure prominently in any recent dreams, and I tried not to let them overwhelm my everyday thoughts. The here and now mattered the most. I didn’t head for the obituary section as soon as I brought in the daily Philly paper from the driveway, but I did peruse it now and then.

If I did come across those death items as I turned the pages after finishing the crossword puzzle that usually took 20 minutes to an hour to complete, I didn’t linger over any obituary. I might read the full biography of a famous artistic personality or political figure or someone I had known.

Many ages in the obit headlines or in the death stories ranged from 53 to 67 to 75 to 81, all younger than me and my twin sister Lorna. I didn’t dwell on the fact that she and I had lived longer than all these deceased. I didn’t wonder how much more time I had, but neither could I banish such thoughts completely.

Lorna lived in Portland, Oregon with her husband Greg. We corresponded or spoke on the phone once in a while. She moved to the west coast, California, in 1950. I had visited her a dozen times over the past 60 years, with Ruby and as a widower.

My three younger brothers were all in their 70s, all living in the Philadelphia area. The youngest, Marty, had been married 47 years but had no children.

The other two brothers, Larry and Teddy, were both divorced, had children. Larry had three sons, one divorced, two married. Larry’s oldest son had 10 children, 6 sons and 4 daughters. That son was married to a devout Catholic woman. Teddy had two sons; both were divorced.

My sister Lorna and her husband Greg were scheduled to visit Washington, D.C., New York City, and Philly in three weeks, three days in D.C., three days in New York, five days with us. Lorna said that a visit in the next few months might be the last chance for us five siblings to be together.

I had already made reservations at a restaurant for about 25 people. I had invited family and a few friends who knew Lorna and me as kids and were still living in the Philly area.

In the early 1930s, when we were 6 or 7, Lorna became sick and needed blood and skin from me to heal and recover. No cancer or fatal malady was involved, but afterwards Mother never talked about these health-threatening incidents.

When I asked Mother questions over the next few years, she wouldn’t talk about Lorna’s illness and my contribution to her recovery.

Two nights ago HBO showed the movie, My Sister’s Keeper. Wife Cameron Diaz and husband Jason Patric have a third child, made in a petrie dish, hoping the new sibling would help cure older daughter Kate’s leukemia.

They also have an older son Jesse who is healthy in body but has had a learning problem. He is not a possible donor for Kate.

At 11 years old, Abigail Breslin as Anna doesn’t want to undergo any more hospital procedures for, or donate a kidney to, her seriously ailing older sister Kate. She has already endured many intrusive operations to help Kate through several emergencies.

Anna hires lawyer Alec Baldwin to stop the kidney surgery and her mother’s insistence on Anna’s participation. At the trial Jesse and his father say that Kate has expressed a wish to die.

In several scenes Jesse, who dabbles in art, wanders around downtown LA, looking around – with an artist’s eye? I wasn’t sure. He didn’t pick up girls, or boys, so I wasn’t sure what these scenes were trying to depict. The courtroom scenes, and hospital scenes, held my interest.

Death itself and a fair amount of talk of death in this movie, perhaps in a melodramatic way, didn’t impress the critics, but the cast was good, and the presentation struck me as sincere. I liked the movie.

I felt bad as I watched Kate’s suffering. The constant reminder of her fatal illness came across with her shaved head and several different wigs, and the family’s tension. I shed a few tears at the inevitable sad ending.

Perhaps I thought about my death once or twice during the 95 minutes, but the movie didn’t influence last night’s dream.

I could not recall any dreams involving the act of dying, although if I checked my notes, which I didn’t plan to do, someone’s death might turn up in a dream from long ago.

As I drank the hot tea, I realized that no seer and no power on May 9, 2010 could tell me when my last day on earth would be. I had only one course of action, to enjoy each day, starting this holiday with my oldest daughter Jane.

Rather than go back to sleep at 7 a.m., I put on trousers and a tee shirt to shop for the week’s food needs. It would take 20 minutes to drive to my two favorite markets, several miles apart, and to leisurely make the purchases that I had circled on the two brochures, or had written down.

Both markets were empty any Sunday morning. Walking the cart up and down the aisles was easy and free of other people, no slow old people and no dashing kids in the store. It was a stress-free task.

When I got home, I refrigerated the items that had to be kept cold and put away every can and container before lying down for another hour to rest and listen to CDs of two symphonies by Felix Mendelssohn, number 3 in a minor, Scotch and number 4 in a major, Italian.

3.

I drank a cup of hot tea, but ate no food, as I perused the Sunday Inquirer for a few minutes. The main news story, as it had been the past few weeks, since April 20, was the British Petroleum spill in the Gulf of Mexico near the Mississippi River Delta.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, as it was also called, was caused by a wellhead blowout, the paper said, killing 13 and injuring 17, and spilling up to 100,000 barrels of oil per day, extensively damaging marine life and wildlife inhabiting the affected waters, crippling fishing and tourism.

The disaster was the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. The sea floor gusher resulted from the explosion of a drilling rig. The paper said the total effect could not be calculated at this time, but that it would be staggering.

The letters to the editor included one blaming Obama for the death and destruction of this disaster, for not having enacted stricter regulations on oil drilling.

He took office over a year ago, and the letter writer probably thought Obama could wave a magic wand and laws would appear and disappear. What an idiot. Then again, who knows what the public wants? The polls can fluctuate dizzily.

If there aren’t enough regulations, some bitch and moan. If there are too many regulations, many bitch and moan about the socialist Federal government interfering with business and the creation of jobs.

It was always going to be tough for Obama to be perceived as governing well, by an army of detractors. Of course, he sought the job and had to take the heat or leave the kitchen, as Truman said. It was ironic that Bill Clinton, once maligned and impeached by the Republicans, was now the most popular Democrat.

This Sunday morning of Mother’s Day was sunny, the sky a clear blue, a good day for driving into town, a 40-minute trip. It was a good day to celebrate a happy occasion, to spend several hours with my oldest daughter. I didn’t see the three girls often.

Last week, with the uncertain weather of April over and the milder temperatures of May here, I shut off the gas heater in the utility room. I was sure it would last till sometime next November, possibly till Thanksgiving. December was always colder; the heat had to be on.

I didn’t use the heater for air conditioning in the summer. With only myself to please, I was comfortable in my home in any heat outdoors with open windows and open doors to keep me from sweating or complaining.

Last month I shut the heat off for a day or two, twice, when 60 degrees prevailed, before 30 or 40 degrees returned. I knew that the heat-off in April was temporary. I was sure that for the next six months, the heat would stay off, and my gas bills would fall by several hundred dollars.

The drive to center city Philly any Sunday morning was smooth and more relaxing than on any other day of the week. No doubt today’s holiday thinned out the traffic even more. Many people attended church Sunday morning; not many cars were on the roads at 10 a.m.

The biggest eating-out day of the year was Mother’s Day, some breakfasts and brunches but mostly dinners. The traffic for the evening meal wouldn’t be heavy till 5 p.m., if at all.

Middle daughter Kate was driving to Penn State in Centre County to spend Mother’s Day with her daughter Rose, a college grad student. Her son Robbie lived and worked in LA. Both grandchildren lived with companions of the opposite sex but were not married.

Youngest daughter Tess was driving to New York to spend the holiday with her son Will who lived and worked there. Her daughter Babs lived and worked in Norman, Oklahoma for a computer firm. These two grandchildren also lived with companions of the opposite sex but were not married.

I gave Jane a choice. She selected brunch for 11 a.m. at a restaurant a few blocks from her home. A few weeks ago she visited her brother Mark, and although she brought back pictures, I also wanted to hear what happened during her weekend in Austin.

Mostly, I wanted to cheer up Jane, downhearted because her daughter June, her son-in-law Syl, and their six-month old daughter Chloe were staying home in Lyons, Ohio. This year was probably Jane’s first without either her daughter or son to celebrate this holiday.

Six months ago Jane was jubilant when she became a grandmother and I became a great-grandfather. June and Sylvester, Syl, sent us pictures of Chloe as a new-born, at two months, and four, and six.

Jane’s 26-year-old son Alan was visiting his girlfriend’s mother and father in Ames, Iowa. Jane’s children had taken their mother to dinner on this day in years past, but not this year.

As I reached Cheltenham Avenue, the dividing line between Montgomery County and Philadelphia, a CD in my dashboard was playing Edward Elgar’s great cello concerto and later would play Elgar’s five Sea Pictures sung by Janet Baker.

The music relaxed me, although the light traffic on Broad Street, at Olney Avenue and then at Erie Avenue, was relaxing enough. I never drove anywhere on any day without several CDs to play.

The sunshine was bright and the sky was blue as I moved to the right. The entrance to the Schuylkill Expressway was two blocks ahead. The usual clogged traffic on North Broad Street for several hours from Monday through Saturday, several early morning hours and several late afternoon hours, was not in evidence this day.

Jacqueline Du Pre, who died at a young age, was playing the cello in the Elgar concerto on this CD, an outstanding performance from around 1977. Her husband at the time, Daniel Barenboim, was conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra.

For the past 20 years Barenboim had notched a brilliant record as pianist and conductor. I had never attended a concert he conducted, but I attended several recitals where he played all Chopin music one time, all Beethoven piano sonatas another time.

The six lanes of the Expressway going south were rarely this free of vehicles. As I reached center city, I inched to the right to exit at 23rd Street. As I continued south, only a few cars were driving on Arch Street, or Market, or Locust, or Lombard.

Jane lived on a block of upper-scale row homes, where center-city ended and South Philly began. No parking was allowed on her street. I would stay outside her home till she came out and got into the car.

A walk from her home to the restaurant would have taken about 25 minutes. On my home phone Jane said she was hungry and wanted to eat as soon as possible.

I rang the doorbell and stood in the sun to feel the warmth on my face. I heard a call, Be out in a minute, Dad.

About 10 minutes later Jane slammed the front door of her home and sat next to me, in the passenger seat. She bent toward me to kiss my face. At 61 Jane didn’t look her age. I would say she looked 45. She wasn’t thin, she wasn’t fat, but she had some difficulty keeping her weight down.

Jane sat at a desk or on a chair most of her work day. She was a psychiatrist and had been for many years. She divorced in the early ‘80s and never remarried.

Her hair was a reddish hue, colored. I had not seen her real hair color for many years, probably gray under the coloring but I didn’t know.

We both buckled our seat belts. Jane instructed me where to go. For the next few minutes she told me to slow down, if I kept driving too fast I might miss a parking space on the street.

I would listen to her instructions without any comment. Did you have a good time with Mark and his family?

His girls keep getting taller and more beautiful. Be careful, Dad, there’s a car sticking out there.

I guess it’s the same between Mark and Lou. They stay together to avoid the dislocations of divorce.

I would say that’s right. Dad, you’re too close to the car in front of you. Go slower if you want to catch a car leaving. There’s one right over there. Slow down, Dad.

I was tempted to respond that I had taught her to drive in 1965, but I listened and said not a word. I stopped to let a car pull away from its space at a parking meter. No cars were behind me. No money was needed for the meters on Sunday or on a holiday.

The parking space was not big, perhaps not big enough for my car, but I pulled next to the car in front and slowly turned my car to the left as I looked out the driver’s side. I made it into the space, then moved forward an inch or so. I had maneuvered into the just-adequate space. I was exhilarated.

I sighed. I didn’t think I was going to make it.

Good for you. Jane unbuckled.

4.

The restaurant was located on the corner of two streets. It seated about 60 people and was half full. A young man showed us to a table for two and handed us menus. Anything to drink?

Jane smiled, glad to be seated. Coffee, please.

Hot tea, please. I looked at the attractive print of the menu.

Jane studied the menu, then looked up at me. You look great, Dad. That must mean you’re feeling OK.

I knew what I would order. Seeing you makes me feel good, dear. The truth is that as of today, my legs are not hurting me, my stomach and my back and everywhere else are free from pain.

That’s terrific. I’m so glad to hear it. Jane stroked her chin. The lox platter sounds good. What are you going to order, Dad? How about if we share?

I looked at Jane as she looked up at me. Sure, sharing sounds good. I’m having a cheese omelet. I smiled at her. You’re looking lovely, my dear, so I assume all is well with you.

The waiter set down two cups, as well as a small pitcher of cream and two plates of lemon slices and a dozen packages of different teas.

I raised my cup. Happy Mother’s Day.

Jane raised her cup. Thanks, Dad, and for the compliment. The truth is, I was playing with Mark’s girls in their backyard, and I turned in such a way that I hurt something in my back. I still have a pain there, but I’ve been taking Tylenol, and it’s helping, but… Jane poured cream in her cup.

That’s good. I selected a package of tea. I drank it plain, no lemon or cream.

Dad, wait till I finish what I have to say.

Sorry. This tactic of Jane’s was a bit tiresome, but I would keep it to myself.

Jane sipped her coffee. I’ve had a pain in the lower back for several months, you know, and the way I twisted when I was throwing a ball to Ashley or Courtney made my pain worse. I forgot about my back when I was playing till I turned the wrong way or something like that.

You’ve always recovered well from injuries and such, dear. You’ll be all better in a few days. How are your kids? The waiter stopped at our table and wrote down our selections.

A look of contentment was on Jane’s face. When we get home, I’ll show you pictures of Texas on my computer, and we’ll talk to June and Syl on Skype, and you’ll see Chloe. She’ll be up from her nap at 12:30. And we’ll…

I can’t wait.

Please wait till I finish my sentence, Dad.

Sorry. No point in saying anything else. Jane did this all the time. Many years ago I reacted somewhat aggressively, but had not for a long time since then. It wasn’t worth the argument that had ensued. After 61 years I still had to work at being careful what I said or did with Jane, and often my other three children as well.

All the tables were now occupied. At a table with six people, and at one with 10 people, glasses were being raised. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day, Grandmom.

The several toasts in the restaurant pleased Jane. Dad, I know you’ve voted in every election since 1954 when we moved to Abington, you know, but I think that was in general elections. Right?

Yes. The waiter set down two plates and a basket with rolls and wrapped pats of butter. The food was attractive. I used a knife and fork to cut my omelet in half and put half on Jane’s plate. She placed half of her lox selection on my plate.

Let me finish my sentence, Dad.

Thanks for the lox, dear. I almost made some comment about her habit of telling me I was interrupting her, but I changed my mind. A quarrel would spoil the mood of the day. Not a good idea. I looked in her face. She resembled Ruby, as did Tess. Kate resembled me, and so did Mark.

Are you going to vote, Dad, in the primary a week from Tuesday?

I waited a few seconds. I almost said, Are you finished speaking, but I didn’t. I waited another second. I have voted in very few primaries, because each party’s bigwigs control the party apparatus and they make the final choices of candidates, but I want to register my choice this time.

I’m voting for Arlen Specter, Dad. You too? The lox pleased her.

My omelet had cheese and chives inside. Delicious. No way, my dear. I’m voting for Joe Sestak.

Jane savored each swallowing of food. Both of these choices taste very good, Dad, right?

Excellent. We both chose well. The hot tea was comforting, as always.

Dad. Her voice was scolding, indignant. Why are you voting for Sestak? Specter’s been a good Senator, hasn’t he?

I can’t vote for him, dear. Specter was a Republican for five terms or so, and you expect me to vote for him for the Democratic nominee? No way.

Her disappointment with me eased. He knows his way around the Senate, Dad. He’s been there so long. He knows how to get things done.

The other faces in the room were smiling at the company and the food. That’s not a good enough reason for me, Jane. He said so himself, and everybody knows, he changed from Republican to Democrat because he knew he would get trounced in this year’s Republican primary.

Jane’s complexion was reddish, probably from her recent exposure to the Texas sun. Without his vote, Dad, the stimulus package would have failed, you know.

I buttered a warm roll. I do know, but he does what is expedient for him. I don’t know if Specter supported term limits, but I support it now. He’s been in the Senate long enough. Let’s give someone else a chance. I prefer a Democrat. You know that.

Jane buttered a roll. Dad, Specter bucked his party many times to do what was right.

In the end a meal with any of my children was a treat. That’s true, dear, but he was still a Republican for 40 years or more. I would absolutely not vote for him.

I wasn’t looking at it that way. Her voice sounded disappointed with her choice.

I was resolved. Those ads Specter has run against Sestak are another reason to vote against him. They are so negative, about Sestak’s voting record and attendance record, that even if they’re true, Specter should tell about his positives rather than Sestak’s negatives.

Jane nodded. You’re right there.

I had the momentum. Sestak served in the Navy and got to be an admiral of some rank before retiring. You don’t get to be an admiral unless you’re capable and qualified.

That’s a good point I should have thought about. Jane was going to vote for Sestak, I was sure.

I had to finish strong. "Sestak is running an ad that plays up Specter’s Republican past, with Bush praising him to the heavens. I think that ad will turn the tide toward a candidate who’s