Blondie strikes again

In some ways Blondie was to me what Hobbs was for Calvin. Only my tiger was alive. Those who hate cats don't know how cool cats really are. Just like dogs, cats are quite different from one another. I was a latchkey kid before the term was invented, and Blondie was my companion. She sought me out and liked to be stroked by her friend. Or she might feel the necessity of grooming me with her rough and tireless tongue.

This episode begins with my bachelor uncle Walter. His sisters (my mother and aunties) were convinced that he would remain a bachelor all his life, but he surprised everyone and proposed to Mary Smiley. Yes, that was her name, and it seemed to be descriptively appropriate for her. She was a little older than he, and for several reasons, theirs was the wedding of the year for this family. Everyone made a big fuss over it. Everyone wanted to have a part in it. Since grandpa Saumert was a professional baker, he was asked to make the cake. Those were post-depression days, and our stove was the only one in the family that would accommodate the large pans needed for the lower levels of the cake. Consequently grandpa did the baking at our house. A couple days before the wedding our home was filled with the lovely odors of cake baking. Grandpa carefully laid out the layers on our dining room table to cool overnight. Newsprint contained sanitary ink and so were spread over the cake layers. Well, it turns out that although newsprint may discourage germs and vermin, it was not enough to discourage Blondie. She was a house cat, and she did not sleep in my bed every night. This night the attractive smell of wedding cake cooling in the night was too much for her to ignore. In the morning it was discovered that she had tasted each of the layers, and for good measure was found comfortably curled up on one of them. My parents went berserk. The cat was banished, but the damage had been done. And tonight was the wedding! Dad took the assignment of picking up grandpa and explaining the tragedy to him so he could plan a repair--and calm down a bit before he arrived. Grandpa was an emotional artist, and there was some fear of his reaction. But first of all, he was a professional. He rose to the occasion and immediately mixed a large batch of marzipan. He deftly filled the bitten holes in each layer, fitted the cake together, and viola! We saw nothing but a beautiful wedding cake. Mom and I made a few knowing remarks about the delicious cake at the reception, but it was a closely guarded family secret for many years. I don't know if my aunt Mary and uncle Walt ever knew about this. If any guests were allergic to cats, it was not evident by the voracious consumption of this pastry.

My felonious feline

I guess you could say she was my girlfriend. We were very close friends. We cuddled a lot, and she even slept with me many times. But she had the strangest habit of licking my hair. Yes, Blondie was feline, but she was special. She seemed to think she was more than just a cat. And when I was nine years old I agreed with her opinion. She groomed her kittens by copious licking, and she apparently thought of me as one of her little ones.

My father was a clerk in the Hollywood Post Office (which may be the source of a story or two) and when he came home from work, he enjoyed removing his shoes and stretching on the couch. He was over 6 ft. and the couch was short, so his feet usually rested on the opposite armrest. Well, when Blondie was very young she loved to attack feet, and more than once she provoked a loud beller from dad as she sprang through the air, grabbed his feet with her front paws and began biting with her teeth and kicking with her hind feet. He batted the beast from her death grip, but she seemed to consider the pain well worth the fun of the attack.

When Blondie was old enough to bear kittens, she did exactly that. After giving away two batches of kittens, dad decided to get her "fixed" so she spent the rest of her days grooming me.

Perhaps the strangest trait of Blondie was what we discovered in the kitchen one night just before supper. Mom was fixing salad and accidently dropped a piece of iceburg lettuce on the floor. Before she could bend down and retrieve it, Blondie had found it and was munching voraciously on the leaf. She loved lettuce! From that day on, whenever we were making a salad or using lettuce for a sandwich, we would "treat" Blondie with a piece of the lettuce. I've never known a cat before or since who liked--or would even try--lettuce. That included Blondie's babies. When a cat trains her kittens, she has a special meow (sort of a cross between a purr and a meow) that is intended to assemble the crew for a treat. Well, the first piece of lettuce given her after the kittens were born, was intended to be shared by Blondie. She dragged it to the middle of the kitchen floor. She called with her special "Purrrow" and the feline children came running from all directions. Then she stooped and nibbled a piece of the leaf for them to watch. Then the kittens drew near to this wet leaf, sniffed a little and walked away. She looked at them incredulously. "What's the matter with you! Don't you know a treat when you see one?" her body language seemed to convey.

Unintentional Trip

I am writing from Chattanooga, Tennessee, where we are visiting with Calvin and his family. We came to see our Luke and Ariel in their senior recital. This trip was very intentional, and it is always a delight to see our family.

But yesterday I took a trip that was totally unintentional. We were shopping at a mall near here. We felt smug because we found a handicap parking space just a few steps away from the door. There are a few perks to getting old and decrepit--not many--but a few. Striding doward Dillard's archway we had to step up a curb from the parking lot drive, but my foot didn't quite make the clearance. My sandal kicked the curb, but my body was already committed to the motion and was depending on the new position of my foot in order to remain erect. It was one of those moments that happened in an instant, but lingers in slow motion in the memory. Thanks to this enormous pillow just below my rib cage, my fall was broken with a cushioned bounce. Suddenly I was examining the space between shoes and pavement. My face hit the sidewalk, but very gently. Even my hands which I put out to break my fall were barely skinned. I wasn't sure just what I wanted to do about this, so I laid there for a few moments. "What happened?" my Barbara asked. Now in this spread eagle position of abject embarrassment she could have said anything, and it would have angered me. What she did say was as benign as any other choice of comments, but it provoked mental filtering of my sarcasm file. "I dropped an epithelial and tried to catch it before it hit the ground." "Didn't you know I have a practice of tasting the dust of every town we visit?" But instead I simply said, "What kind of question is that?" Before I could muster a more potent barrage of verbal sardonics to cover my embarrassment, I saw a rescue team out of the corner of my eye. Two ladies--sweet, southern thirty-somethings--left their car and came running to assist me. It's not that easy to lift me from the pavement, unless they have been pumping iron routinely. So the process was slow and awkward. I thanked them and they were on their way, solicitously asking assurance that I was alright.

When we sinners are plagued with the temptation of pride, the Lord finds it necessary to humble with a fall or two. Sometimes with a literal fall.

Courtship memories

Ours was a sweet and exciting courtship--at least in my memory. Barbara will remember different things, of course, and may have a slightly different opinion. She would, no doubt, bring up the time I was an hour and a half late in picking her up for a date. I guess I should have called and told her that there was no hurry, but we didn't have cell phones in those days. Anyway, there must be some occasions of testing the devotion of your honey bunch.

Then there was the time we came home at a reasonable hour only to find a family of skunks occupying the front yard of Barbara's grandmother's house. When we were courting, Barbara lived with her grandparents in Highland Park, taking care of them in their old age. Well I lived in Eagle Rock, just over the hill from Highland Park. Rather convenient. So here we were faced with a momma skunk and her babies rooting around in the front yard for bugs and worms. We learned that this rodent family lived under her grandmother's house, and being nocturnal in nature, were acting quite naturally. The big question was how should we act? Might we calmly stroll by them down the driveway to the rear entrance of the house? Should we make some noise in hope of frightening them into leaving the yard? Should we just nap in the car until morning? None of the alternatives seemed that attractive to either of us. We spent an extended period of time observing the behavior of these curious beasts, but somehow the romance had dicipated from this particular date.

As I recall it was the first alternative that was chosen, and I am happy to report that it was successful.

Love Begins on a Roller Coaster

Although our relationship did not begin on an exciting note, Barbara Lu and I did begin to relate. (Read “How I Met My Wife” for the introduction to this blog.) We were young people, and the natural venue was the Young People’s Group, or the “Machen League”, as it was then known. When social events were planned, I would ask Nance (she was French, but it was pronounced “Nancy”) to come along. In fact that may have happened only this one occasion.

Anyway, the group was going to Long Beach New Pike. This was an amusement pier, complete with Ferris wheel and roller coaster, and therein lays the tale. (Magic Mountain was but an entrepreneur’s dream at this time.) Now it happened that we all stood at the entrance to the coaster, daring one another to ride. I always looked forward to riding the roller coaster, wherever the amusement park, and this was no exception. Nance, on the other hand, was refined and reticent. There was no way she would get into the seat of such a death trap. Well, this was a group date, you see, so Barbara Lu spoke up and said, “I’ll go.”

Little did I know at that time that she had had her own history with roller coasters. She tells the story of begging to go on the coaster when she was but 5 years old. Her mother, a cautious Brit in nature, resisted. Her father was more adventurous, so mother agreed to allow Barbara to go, certain that the experience would scare her out of ever asking again. You guessed it. She not only loved the thrill, but she begged to go again.

Now it was 14 years later and we were standing at the entrance of that very same coaster. Barbara Lu’s love for coasters had not diminished. So we got into the double seat together, and left Nance at the gate. We yelled and laughed in delight together. And I suppose I should take advantage of the obvious metaphor and say we have been yelling and laughing together for these 52 years since then. She has been by my side through all the ups and downs, bumps and jerks of life.

Now when it comes to literal roller coasters, I let her do the riding. I figure I’ve been there, done that. A couple years ago we had the opportunity to visit Las Vegas, listen to a 90 minute sales pitch for time share, say “no” and then enjoy the incentives of two motel nights and a trip up the Stratosphere. You know, it’s that tallest structure in Vegas that you always see at the beginning of CSI. The observation deck is 104 stories high, and that is enough to raise my pulse rate to the border of panic. Did you know that they actually have a roller coaster on the roof of that observation deck? And what’s worse, my Barbara Lu wanted to go. I told her that not only was I not going, but I would have a heart attack if she went. She briefly pondered those options and decided to forego the thrill.

How I met my wife

I met my wife in church. I suppose that is not a surprise to anyone. But the manner in which it happened needs to be noted. Wouldn’t it be romantic to say that across an auditorium of a thousand faces our eyes met, and we knew we were soul mates? Romantic, yes, but pure fiction. It would be so spiritual if I could say we bumped each other in the foyer following the worship service and began talking about the insights into the meaning of the text of Scripture we each gained from the pastor’s message. Spiritual, perhaps, but a complete prevarication.

In the first place it was not a thousand-seat sanctuary (more properly “auditorium”) where we were worshipping. It was an Orthodox Presbyterian Church, after all. If there were 50 people there it was a better day than most. The Rev. James Erskine Moore was the preacher, and he was effective at leading the worshipper into the text of scripture. Later in our relationship we would agree that once we got over staring at his teeth, we thought Mr. Moore was a better preacher than any others we knew about. He had a unique way of setting his jaw and pronouncing some of his words literally through his teeth, such as the word “chuch” (which we all knew meant “church”). But the day we met at Westminster Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Eagle Rock, it was not to discuss the sermon or Mr. Moore’s teeth.

Rumors had preceded our meeting, and I had heard that the teen-age daughter of the first pastor was going to be visiting that Sunday, and I was always up for meeting a new girl! Apparently Barbara had heard that there was a young man in the congregation who was beginning his studies that were intended to lead to the gospel ministry, and that he was engaged. The rumor was not exactly accurate (which is the fatal flaw in most gossip). Although it was true that I was almost engaged, what could not possibly have been known by those wagging tongues is that Nance and I were beginning to stall out on our relationship. We had recently moved across town from where Nance (sic) lived, and since I sensed a call to the ministry I was feeling a great reluctance to pursue that relationship with any stronger vigor.

So let’s go back to the church. Following the worship service the pastor’s wife found opportunity to introduce the two of us. It happened like this in my memory. Barbara was busily chatting with someone in the aisle of the church, and I was standing behind her. Maglona Moore came along beside the two of us and made the introduction. Barbara turned swiftly to pay her respects with a, “O, hello” and just as swiftly turn her back to me again. It was as close to rude as she could get without actually being rude. As I say, this was how it now registers in my memory bank. She left me standing there without an opening to flirt or be clever in any way. Consequently I am sure that she was left with a negative--or at least a bland and neutral impression of this new guy in church. Not a very auspicious beginning for our relationship, but there it is.

Easy Sainthood

I think it is easier to be canonized in the OPC than in the church of Rome. In Rome it is necessary for a miracle to be associated with your name. In the OPC all I need to do is move away and wait 10 or 20 years. All the foolish and sinful things I have said and done seem to be entirely forgotten. And the nicest things are remembered.

Take as a case in point the 100th anniversary of Emmanuel OPC in Wilmington, Delaware. All of the living former pastors and their wives were brought back for the celebration weekend. You'd think we were royalty, the way we were welcomed and doted upon. One of the long-time members cornered me and recited the title and salient points of a sermon I had preached there about 25 years earlier. I was impressed.

There was a negative side of the ledger, but memory banks had been erased. No one seemed to remember that a foolish miscommunication on my part gave permission for a charitable organization to hawk their memorials in the parking lot of our church—on Sunday! I was even more chagrinned to discover that some of our members bought their wares before I chased them from the premises. What was I thinking?

Then I was shocked—and secretly delighted—that one of the guys remembered “the catch”. Our church had a softball team in the local church league. One of those games became a laugher (lopsided score), and I was roaming center field. I remember determining that not one more hit would sail over my head. By magic or mayhem I was going to get that ball. Well, wouldn’t you know it, the next batter lofted another long one headed straight for the tall grass well behind me. I want you to know that Willy Mays had nothing on me as a fleet footed fielder. True to my resolve, I calculated the trajectory of that sphere, turned my back to home plate and sprinted as rapidly as my youthful legs could carry me into the tall grass of deep center field. I looked up just in time to see the ball descending to a spot directly ahead of me by several yards. I had to leave my feet and dive to catch the ball in my extended glove hand as I skidded to a stop. When I stood up to throw the ball back to the infield, several uniformed players on the other side of the field stopped to watch and then to applaud my efforts. For my entire baseball career, this was my moment—it was “the catch”. And now, some 25 plus years later someone who was there had remembered that moment with me.

Oh yes, 20 or 30 years can adjust the memories of a congregation well enough to make one a saint. There was my portrait on the wall of the hallway just off the main auditorium, along with the other former pastors. What a privilege, what an honor, to serve the Lord, Jesus Christ, by ministering to His church, even if it was a rather checkered career. They didn’t remember it that way.

Upon returning home to Carson, CA, we were still enjoying the memory of our visit. My custom was to eat my sack lunch with the students of Peninsula Christian School (the K through 8 school using our church property). I was explaining to a young lad where we had been over the weekend and about the 100th anniversary of the church. He asked me in all sincerity, “Were you the first pastor?” Kids are wonderful for their capacity to humble, especially unintentionally.