'Til Later

By Carolyn Leitch

arolyn takes the naked facts, and weaves them into stories that guarantee to expose the elephant in the room, and bring a smile to your face. In this collection of never before published essays, Carolyn will make you laugh with her essays describing life in suburbia and will touch your heart with her poignant descriptions of her favorite people. Carolyn Leitch is an occupational therapist by education and experience, and hobbies as a free-lance writer. She earned her undergraduatee degree from Indiana University and her Masters in OT from Boston University. She lives in Lakewood, Ohio with her husband, Dick Castele, where he is an accountant and she is a retired pediatric occupational therapist. Her son, Nick, is a journalist and daughter, Haley, is a statistical analyst and both live in the Cleveland, Ohio area.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jul 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483453064

Book preview

’Til Later

MUSINGS AND MOMENTS

Carolyn Leitch

Copyright © 2016 Carolyn Leitch.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5307-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5306-4 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 06/29/2016

Table of Contents

Foreword

Advice to a Balloon

The Genius

My Grandmother’s Bracelets

Saint Charles Borromeo

Cooking Up Religion

Swiss Flannel

Keyed Up

Lunch Envy

Catholic Costumes

Emotional Weather Report

Clear the Room!

Thank You, Captain Tom

Blue Light Special

Customer World

Wigged Out

Skirting Fashionable Beachwear

All About Jane

When the Day Falls Apart at the Seams

Sidestepping to Nowhere

Lice-ense to Kill

The Bookkeeper’s Secret

Yellow Roses

Mira, The Italian Truth-Teller

The Watchman

Tourists

This Room

Lightning Strikes

Baby Book Letters

The Final Act

Dedicate

d to

Dick, Nick and Haley

Who never cease to amaze me.

I love you.

Foreword

B efore I embarked upon this journey and project, I discussed it with my cousin Mary and my friend Jenny. Mary had typed her mother’s manuscript and knew how much work it entailed; she helped me with the paperwork and assured me if she could do it, so could I. Jenny is my best friend, in addition to being very honest and quite skilled with the written word. She became knowledgeable with everything I had written and was honest in her assessment of what I needed to do. We spent all day at the cottage on Fridays reading and editing. She became my voice; it really helped to hear the stories read out loud and clear; it was easier to know what to change. When Jenny got divorced from her husband, she came home to Cleveland to find a job, get back on her feet, and help her eighty-nine year old mother. Now I know it was also an act of God that she was here when I was diagnosed and subsequently sentenced to a short life of stumbling and slurring. She has been my social life, my social support and my backboard during this emotional upheaval. I just couldn’t ask for anything better except to have no disease at all. So thank you for all your work, Jenny and Mary.

Advice to a Balloon

Some words of caution my air-filled friend

Although a symbol of celebration and happiness

Beware of your darker side:

An untimely pop can

spoil a party

Incite fear,

even start a riot.

In the wrong crowd

you

Can be dangerous

Snapping the hand that ties

Choking the inexperienced

Disappointing the child

who fights the wind for you.

Understand

A life

lacking self direction

Floating without rudder or wheel

Existing as a mere guest of the wind

Can be risky.

Grab my hand

Take me to the treetops

Let me dance upon a cloud

Warm my face in the sun

I’ll steer

If you’ll let me fly.

The Genius

H e’s a genius, exclaimed Mrs. Nemeth about my brother, Rob, following his seventh grade IQ Test. All this time he’s been fooling around getting C’s when he easily could have gotten A’s, she told my parents. Why, all this time, he must have been plain old lazy.

My parents were equally amazed with Rob’s testing performance; they looked at Rob with fresh eyes; eyes that were stunned and shocked and smugly satisfied as if they had just found a treasure chest buried beneath the floorboards. And while they never disclosed his actual score, they wove the information into a rich teaching lesson; if you have the ability, you are expected to use it. Now that Rob’s true, innate abilities had been revealed, he was expected to perform accordingly and achieve greatness in the academic world. He was expected to be something other than the class clown.

From that point on, the thick red line crossing his gridded report card announced to the world that the academic limbo stick had been set for him at the A+ level. Any letter grade that fell below the red line indicated inadequate effort and achievement. It was amazing how low an A- could seem, how much of a loser grade it looked like, floating just centimeters below the A+ expectation. A teacher (or parent) need look no further than the placement of the letter grade to arrive at the conclusion that Rob must be a lazy underachiever.

His Mensa status did not carry much weight among his brothers and I, although we were just happy to learn he was so much smarter than our eldest brother, Jeff, a self-described perfect child with an eight year record of straight A baseball award tickets and all letter grades above the red line. We did not want to follow Jeff’s lead at the Catholic grade school. We were glad the class clown turned out to be a genius who would set the pace for us…because we knew we could keep up with his antics. And we also knew we could keep pace with the grades he achieved above the red line.

Rob set the example we could all follow. He dropped out of a preppie college that attracted so many high school students from the suburbs. He was the first to be honest about smoking pot, he changed majors at least three times and drove a Chevy Vega.

As an adult, Rob is still a genius, and so likeable that you can’t hate him for being so smart. After years of experience in the food business, he became a kitchen planner with a reputation for the development of the best prison kitchens in the nation. We expected no less from our genius brother with a soft spot for the average criminal.

My Grandmother’s Bracelets

M y grandmother’s bracelets announced her presence from two rooms away. They jangled with her every step and gesture, a heavy clinking of precious metals. Each link of the double gold chains was dressed with an intricately designed and carefully selected charm, each telling the story of an exciting trip or important event in her life. As a young child, I looked forward to visiting her; I would often sit on the tufted velvet chair in front of her antique vanity and watch myself in the mirror as I lifted the bracelets out of the white satin jewelry box, slipped them over my wrist, and pretended to be talking at a party, shaking my wrist as I laughed. My grandmother told me stories about her travels