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Childhood Stories

Thank You, Mom

by Martha Carr

Mom Leontine (Tina) Elaine Carr: June 1, 1926 to April 18, 2013

On Wednesday night my mother, Leontine Carr, Tina, died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 86 and finally got to dance with my dad, Dabney Carr again. He had gone ahead of her in April of 2005 to get things ready. That was their usual system but she had missed him every day of those eight years. She was happy and having a good time right until the end, always entertaining someone with her stories and more and more Mom was remembering her younger days like what it was like to have a grandfather in rural Georgia who owned a candy store or to be a young mother with so many kids. There are five of us and my oldest sister, Diana did a great job of looking after Mom these past eight years, Linda and Cary kept in constant contact and sent presents along with my brother Dabney and we all visited and made sure she knew we loved her. She made a point her entire life of telling everyone else how much she loved us. In the end, that’s all there is. Dance with Dad in peace, Mom and we’ll do our best to honor your life in the way we live ours.

Tagged as: Childhood Stories, Children, death, Faith, Faith & God, God, gratitude, Living Our Dreams, Love, marriage, Mom, True Story

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Going Home After 35 Years

by Martha Carr

From left: Mary, Katherine, Mimi, me, Linda, Libba and Tammy. Great women who are part of the Class of '77. Go Green!

It took me 35 years to get back for a high school reunion at my alma mater, St. Agnes School, class of ’77. In the intervening years the school merged with our brother school, St. Stephen’s and has become known more by its initials, SSSAS. A rose by any other name is still a rose and I owe a lot to my high school, like my profession.

Miss Meyers, a history teacher, took me out into the hall and gently taught me how to take copious notes. When I got there in 9th grade I had no idea how to do that and that talent would serve me well, years later as a journalist. Mrs. Fuller was the first person to tell me I was a good writer and submitted an essay I wrote to the school magazine and then told me about it. She correctly gathered that left to my own devices I’d have stuck to the middle of the pack and not sent in a single word. Her faith in me would come in handy years later when I sent my first novel, Wired around and would get all of those letters of rejection. Miss Levins taught me about Fitzgerald and Hemingway and her favorite, Faulkner and set me on the road to being a published novelist.

All of the teachers at St. Agnes never gave out multiple choice questions and instead we had to work out math problems by hand and write essays, a lot of essays. The answers had to restate the question and then build a concise argument that led to a logical conclusion, every time. Not only did that make me a strong writer, I became good at looking at a problem or an opportunity from every angle looking for solutions.

My favorite moments this past weekend, though are the ones where I realized 35 years can go by but in the end it doesn’t matter. Time compresses and suddenly I realize these women are a part of my family and I really need to do a better job of staying in touch with many more of them. More adventures to follow.

Tagged as: Childhood Stories, Faith, Faith & God, Friendships, gratitude, Happiness, Living Our Dreams, Martha's Big Adventure, Writing

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Happier

by Martha Carr

Photo by F.C. Photography

It was a fairly quiet weekend, thank goodness. I got the bike back out again and went across the street to the church parking lot to practice starting and stopping and staying upright. This time I started to remember a few things from my childhood, like not pedaling in a tight curve and just letting myself lean into it. There are still a few muscle memories but honestly that one may be it.

It only took about 15 minutes before I was bored with that and the streets of my neighborhood beckoned. Once again, much like the swimming from earlier in the week, I was surprised to find out how much joy I got out of riding a bike around my neighborhood and stopping to say hello to friends. Walking doesn’t do it for me like that one bike ride.

Just like the swimming, I am connecting to some part of me that likes to run, bike and swim just for the fun of it. I didn’t even know that was supposed to be possible at 52. What’s even more interesting, at least to me, is the simpler my life gets lately, the happier I am. I may be applying that principle to a few other things as well.

Not a lot more got done this weekend. There was a sweet moment of being at a friend’s 65th birthday party in her backyard with all of her friends, enjoying their company on a hot summer night. It was a nice way to spend a Sunday evening. More later, I’m sure when the week starts to wind back up again.

Tagged as: biking, Childhood Stories, Friendships, Happiness, triathlon training

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Unbroken Home

by Martha Carr

Martha and Louie today

My grown son, Louie, has a radio show, Late Night with Louie (I’m the mother of the new Howard Stern) and one night I was listening when someone asked if he came from a broken home.

Somehow he managed to get to be 23 without ever hearing that phrase and said, no. The guest then said, oh your parents are still married and Louie answered, no, they got divorced when I was two.

When the guest told him that’s the definition of a broken home, he set her straight. Without any attachment to that broken phrase he explained how happy and full his childhood was and he refused to accept that anything was broken. I couldn’t have gotten my ear any closer to the speaker as I marveled at the moments we sometimes get as parents when we catch a glimpse of something wonderful.

Life as a single mother with Louie was wonderful and constantly surprising. Thank goodness I knew he was smarter than I was. That’s what made it possible to look out a window and see him on his small tricycle, legs out to the sides, whizzing down our very steep driveway, his curly hair straightened by the wind blowing past him, and not worry. Or watch him attempt to pet every living creature, sometimes getting nipped by the geese down by the lake in the process, and not worry. Eventually the geese gave in and let him pet them, and he gently stroked their heads and chatted with them. They would turn their heads slightly and look at him till he was done talking.

He did get nipped a little hard once by a garden snake and it made him mad, very mad. His three-year-old self whipped the snake into a half-knot, for which he felt instantly sorrowful and he came to get me to help untie the snake.

“What?” I asked, in the middle of vacuuming. “You did what?”

“I tied a snake in a knot and I need you to help me untie it,” he said, calmly. His entire little person fully expected me to handle the situation.

I turned off the vacuum, still looking at his calm expression, wondering if maybe this all meant something else and I would find something else tied in a knot. Tied a snake in a knot?

There on the front step was a long black garden snake slowly, very slowly, untying itself from a very tight half-knot.

“Help it,” Louie said. [click to continue…]

Tagged as: Childhood Stories, Parenting

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Winter in Philadelphia

by Martha Carr

The cooler temperatures will return. Until then, imagine yourself walking down this snowy sidewalk.

The heat of August that can make the air wavy always makes me think of ice blue snowflakes quietly falling and the ping, ping, hiss of a radiator because that’s what I long for when the temperature bounces around in the 90′s or if you’re in Texas right now, the triple digits. So, here’s at least a few memories from a great snowfall in Philadelphia back in the 60′s when the weather knew what it was doing.

Sometime around the beginning of November in  1960′s Philadelphia cold weather would swoop in quickly and stay until early May. The ground would freeze rock solid in mid-November and put an end to most of my animal funerals for awhile. Religion was a part of my life from the moment I was born on a Sunday and Dad, an Episcopal minister, was busy working, my three older sisters lined up in the first pew so he could keep an eye on them. My biggest fear as a child was to die on a Saturday with a whole week’s worth of sins built up. Fortunately, as an Episcopalian, we had direct dial, no middleman, could confess to God directly and were forgiven as soon as we felt we were. I felt I was as soon as the prayer was over. The other important part of religion for me was that everything should not only be buried, but have a proper funeral, no matter how little of it was left after the cars and the neighborhood cats and the birds were through with it. Even if I had to use a stick to scrape what was left into one of Mom’s shoe boxes.

All of the deceased, mostly rabbits killed by the Daft’s cat, or dead birds, same killer, were buried in shallow graves across the street from the Dafts in the perpetually empty lot. Even when the ground was soft we got tired of digging pretty fast and were always satisfied with holes deep enough to cover the box. I was able to get everyone to participate through at least one prayer before boredom would set in and kids would scatter back to their bikes. Sometimes I couldn’t get anyone to help, not even Jeffy, and would be forced to hold services alone, but I’d still do it, too worried about the jackrabbit’s soul to just leave it where I found it. But every November I was forced to give up undertaking till spring and would try not to notice any of the road kill in the street, whispering silent prayers for them anyway.

The winter of ’67 was a blizzard, an official blizzard. I didn’t walk through the snow as much as I waded. Fat, soft flakes gently fell, and fell and fell until the snow reached my waist. Everything stopped and became so quiet. Schools and businesses closed, which in the north is no easy trick. [click to continue…]

Tagged as: Childhood Stories, Philadelphia

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My Hometown

by Martha Carr

First Baptist Church in Little Washington, VA (Photo by David Hoffman)

I have always said I’m from two big cities, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., which is true, and now I’m from two more, New York and Chicago. However, that short rundown leaves out one small footnote. For a few years as a small child I lived a very small town life from a time that’s harder to find these days, in a special little place. The sense of community and safety I found there at three years old amazingly, I have kept for the rest of my life and serves as a reminder to me with my own son.

It was the early 1960’s and my family of three older sisters, one little brother and two parents lived in Washington, Virginia. Little Washington, bumper stickers proudly said, along with ‘ski’, in a very excited way. There was just the one slope, but it did have a towrope and was better winter entertainment than most tiny towns had.

My late father was the new rector at Trinity Episcopal Church, Bromfield Parish, in Little Washington, Virginia. His first church, fresh out of being ordained a full minister. It had taken the Diocese of Virginia, where he was from, where his family had always been from, a bit of doing to find a church large enough to be able to support all of us. He was making $4,000 per year, with a wife, four girls and a boy, finally, soon to appear.

Little Washington was a small place, even for rural 1960’s Virginia. To the south was Sperryville, six miles away, to the north, Front Royal, nineteen miles away. Warrenton was to the east and to the west stood the Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the Appalachian Trail, stretching from Georgia to Maine. If I stepped out into our yard at the rectory I got a full view of the range.

To get around the mountains we had to drive to Sperryville and keep going. On the other side was the town of Luray and the famous Luray Caverns, full of stalagmites and stalactites.

Grocery shopping was done in the nearby town of Culpeper, a half hour’s drive in the old green Chevrolet with the rounded hood, sharp ornament hanging off the end, pointing us in the right direction. Cars were still known by who made them. There were no Windstars or Mustangs. The Chevrolet was just another of the old cars Dad learned how to keep on the edge of being able to drive.

The rectory in Little Washington sat near the jail separated by our large, wide backyard. The jail was always occupied, mostly with a drunk sleeping it off. One man refused to ever leave, realizing he had it better with a roof over his head and home cooked meals made by the jailer’s wife, Janie Burke. He traded his living expenses by working in the garden. He was always around, afraid if he left for too long they might lock up his cell behind him. [click to continue…]

Tagged as: Childhood Stories

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