Just Call Me Margaret

Growing up, I was taught these rules. Anybody older than you should always be addressed with a title - Mr. So and So or Mrs. So and So.  Relatives were always Aunt or Uncle So and So or Cuden So and So.  Close friends were sometimes also called Aunt or Uncle too.  And then neighbors or kinda close friends were Mr. or Miss and their first name.  Our neighbors the Drakes were Miss Eugenia and Mr. Jim instead of Mr Drake and Mrs. Drake.  I can think of only one exception - Frances and Barney, adult friends let us, in fact told us to call them by their first names. Oh, was I impressed.  Otherwise, the rules held.

When I was 31 years of age, I had finally finished college and gotten a job teaching 1st grade.  The first day of school began with just the teachers there so they could prepare for the students who would be coming the next day.  I was excited and more than a little anxious about getting my room ready and being prepared for a roomful of 6 year olds.  Across the hall from me was Miss Margaret Spingler.  She was a second grade teacher and had been at this school many years.  In fact, she was just a year away from retirement. 

During the course of the day I went across the hall to ask a question and began with, "Miss Spingler".  She interrupted and said, "Just call me Margaret".  I stuttered and stammered and said, "Oh no, I couldn't do that".  And Miss Spingler said in her most no-nonsense teacher voice that that was her name and that's what she wished to be called.  Well, I said, "Yes" and after a few false tries it was Margaret.

Margaret is a spinster lady and at that time she hurried home each day after school to take care of her 92 year old mother who lived with her.  Having Margaret across the hall certainly was my good fortune.  She proved to be a guide, and role model.  Margaret retired but continued to stay in touch with all her school friends.  

Margaret's heritage is Irish and she wished all the world to know it and enjoy it with her.  Each St. Patrick's Day she had an Open House and everybody was invited - school friends, family, church friends, and other friends she had collected over the years.  So our friend and fellow teacher, Pam  and I would go over the day before and help make everything green - hang green curtains, add food coloring to the punch, make green sandwiches, get out all the Irish memorabilia from upstairs and make sure the way was cleared for everybody and food that would be coming the next day.

Once, I told my first grade class about the St. Patrick's Day party that I had attended.  I told them that everything that we ate and drank was green.  When we began to put on our coats and get ready for dismissal.  Joey quietly came up to me tugged on my sweater. 

Oh, do you know how to tell a 1st grade teacher?  They have callouses on their hips where little hands pat all day saying Miss Summerlin, Miss Summerlin. 

So Joey then asked, "You know that party - Yes, Joey - Well, when you went to the bathroom was it green"?  Luckily for me the dismissal announcement was made. 

As time went by, the Open House was just too big an undertaking.  But Margaret could not let March 17th pass by without her doing something to acknowledge it.  So every St. Patrick's day I get an Irish verse or prayer in the mail and it is addressed to Mary O'Summerlin from Margaret O'Spingler.  And I feel touched by a bit of the Irish and I cherish it dearly.

This chain of events has made Margaret a part of my life and it will always be so since she taught me a skill I still enjoy.  Many years ago Margaret taught Pam and me how to crochet afghans.  Neither Pam or myself had any knowledge of how to crochet.  Margaret did not know what she was getting into!  With infinite patience, she taught us the pattern she had used for many years.  Pam and I listened, watched and practiced and were sure we knew what we were doing.  Then we would go home and try to work and we would create a big mess.  So, we'd call Margaret, go over and she would straighten us out.  This happened many times. 

Finally, I mastered the pattern and since that time I have made at least 20 afghans.  I always have one in progress by my easy chair and anytime I sit down I work for awhile.  I tell people that for a year the afghan is my therapy and then it is a present for a loved one.  You can't beat that arrangement.

Thank you, Margaret, my friend and I can't think of ever calling you anything else!

A Curiosity

Isn’t it a curiosity that I am I and you are you?

As I sit here tonight at a Folk Music Concert at Fiddler’s in Hyde Park listening to the incredible Sally Rogers, I wonder.  Sitting on my right is my friend Lyn a well known and loved folk singer who joins in the singing anytime Sally Rogers invites participation. And on my left is my friend Eileen who loves music and performs often and she also joins in singing along.  I’m hearing incredible music from all sides. There is not a better seat in the house.

Isn’t it strange since I’m not a musician at all.

I’ve always been involved with musical people.  In High School my best friend was Debbie.  She had a most beautiful singing voice and sang in all the special events in our medium sized town. She was our singing sensation.  I always marveled at Debbie’s talent  and was jealous of her.  There was no doubt what she was going to do in life.  It would be something with music.  What would I do in life?   I didn’t know except there were about a hundred things that really interested me but not one that demanded I do it.

I married a jazz musician. He was not someone who did music on the side. It was his life and his life’s work.  I had never seen or felt anybody with such a passion for an activity.  He really had no concept how utterly ignorant I was about music. Early in our relationship, we were riding in the car listening to a jazz band on the radio.  He casually asked me who was playing.  What a strange question??  I thought, “a bunch of people”.  No, he meant who was playing trumpet.  “Was he crazy! People could tell who was playing just by listening.”  I was dumbfounded.  He told me it was Miles Davis, a famous and talented jazz musician and that one day I would be able to tell when he was playing.  Ha! That shows how little he understood my music disability. It was inconceivable to me that you could tell who was playing an instrument.  Didn’t they all sound alike?  I did get so that I could tell (most of the time) which instrument was playing and I thought that was wonderful. 

The musical gene was passed on down to our son.  He hears the sounds of each instrument and has perfect pitch.  He learned to play the saxophone and drums in elementary school and even formed his own band.  The competition with his father and his father’s critical comments proved too much and he dropped being an active part of the music world.  Since that time he became a listener who has a keen appreciation for music.   Our granddaughters both sang in the school choirs, played in the bands, acted and sang in the high school plays, and have taken dance lessons and performed since 4 or 5 years old.  They are now in college and are part of the Dance Company at their respective schools. Any time they perform, I ask them if they told the teacher or director that they got their talent from Nana.  Of course that always brings BIG DENIALS and comments like, “Nana, you know better”. I’m the odd ball out but over the years. I have learned to enjoy and appreciate music.

But I do seem to have an attraction for the musical type person.

In my family, playing the piano was considered a social grace that any young lady should know.  It was the proper thing to do, so my sister and I were given piano lessons when we were in elementary school. That lasted about two years.  We went to lessons once a week and were supposed to practice an hour a day.  Well, that hardly ever happened for me. I was much too busy riding my bicycle, climbing trees, playing with my dog and horse and running anywhere.  One day my father was supposed to take my sister and me to our piano lesson and he happened to ask how much we had practiced since the last lesson.  Since we confessed that we had not touched the piano, Daddy said that it was time to end the lessons.  It was, he did and I never missed them.  I really had no talent or interest in that direction.

Evidently my singing voice also leaves something to be desired.  Until I was in the fifth grade I thought I sang just like everybody else.  But my teacher Mrs. Martin taught me differently.  I went to a three room school in the country and Mrs. Martin was the principal and taught fifth, sixth and seventh grades. These grades were planning a Christmas program.  We were all on stage singing and Mrs Martin said, “Something doesn’t sound quite right, it’s coming from this side.  Mary Elizabeth would you come sit down and the rest of you – let’s try it again.” They sang and then she said, “Ahh, that’s much better.”  That’s all I remember about the program. 

Many years later, my then husband and I used to travel with a band all over the United States doing one nighters.  We would play at a hotel and then travel about 500 miles to play at a different hotel the next night. Sometimes that traveling was hard.  We traveled in our car and Eddie developed a system for staying awake when he was tired.  He’d ask me to sing for him.  My singing was so bad that there was no way he could go to sleep listening to me.  By this time he did have some comprehension of my music disability and had informed me that I was tone deaf.  But see, it did serve a purpose.

In high school, I decided I wanted to be the life of the party at summer camp and I decided the way to do it was to play the ukulele.  I bought a cheap one and then had to tune it.  I couldn’t – I could not hear the different tones.  So I called my friend Debbie, I stood on tiptoe to talk into the phone that was hung on the wall in the back of the hall.  I plucked one string and she would say higher or lower and we kept doing that til it was tuned.  Obviously this was too cumbersome to continually do and besides I couldn’t tell when it was out of tune and I needed to call Debbie.  That was the end of my only real try in the music world. 

Isn’t it a curiosity that I am I and you are you?

Aren’t we collectively and individually a curiosity?