Sunday, March 28, 2004
Dreams
Thursday, March 11, 2004
salut
Pushing the limits of geekdom, I'm blogging from high in the freedom alps. Just got back from a great off piste ski tour on a huge glacier face. Now we're back in the chalet whipping up some fondue and watching some bad governator movie on french tv. I can't tell which one since they're all bad. I think it's called witness protection. There is nudity in all of the commercials. All of their tv is graphic. The madrid bombing coverage is disturbing. Gotta go.
Monday, March 08, 2004
A la King
My sister is in town and we have been reminiscing about the old days. We and our 15 cousins grew up in a kind of a fairyland, the center of which was Mama Rae. It was a pretty wonderful world, but none of us knew it was not the real world until it was too late.
One mainstay of that world was her primary servant, Willie Washington. Willie was tall, black, handsome, gay, and wore a white uniform with a blue stripe down the side of the pants leg. Willie meshed perfectly with Mama Rae’s dreamy, artistic temperament. It was a great haven for Willie. He could arrange flowers, plan lovely menus, be poetic, and indulge his creativity in a way he could not do in the harsh world outside. It was that way for all of us now that I think about it.
I remember, as a six-year-old, a typical scene where several of us children were watching the television that sat under the elk horns in the big dark room that was ours. Willie glided into the room with a silver heure d'oeuvre tray and, bending to each child with the tray, offered, “Canape?” in the most affected manner imaginable. We gobbled up the beautifully constructed snacks, chewing-gum-sized slices of bread, each topped with a little mustard and a tiny slice of chicken or ham. As Willie flounced away I called, “Hey, Willie. What’s for supper?” Without breaking stride, he haughtily tossed over his shoulder, “A la king.”
Outside the house there was a lovely garden with pathways and roses and arbors. Beyond that was a bit of lawn and it was all surrounded by dense east-Texas vegetation with vines and bushes. The children regularly referred to this as ‘the jungle’ and all sorts of horrible things happened in there. The grown-ups were unaware of this terminology. One Sunday afternoon Willie was in the library, where Mama Rae held court, checking on everyone’s martinis, someone asked him where all the children were. Willie, with a perfectly straight face, replied, “I believe they are all out in the jungle, ma’am” then turned and left them mystified.
When the house burned, I remember Willie there sobbing. Mama Rae moved to the hotel, never to return. Not long after, he committed suicide. Life outside that world was too much to bear.
It hurt to watch Willie cry. The memory hurts even more now that I understand just a little more.
One mainstay of that world was her primary servant, Willie Washington. Willie was tall, black, handsome, gay, and wore a white uniform with a blue stripe down the side of the pants leg. Willie meshed perfectly with Mama Rae’s dreamy, artistic temperament. It was a great haven for Willie. He could arrange flowers, plan lovely menus, be poetic, and indulge his creativity in a way he could not do in the harsh world outside. It was that way for all of us now that I think about it.
I remember, as a six-year-old, a typical scene where several of us children were watching the television that sat under the elk horns in the big dark room that was ours. Willie glided into the room with a silver heure d'oeuvre tray and, bending to each child with the tray, offered, “Canape?” in the most affected manner imaginable. We gobbled up the beautifully constructed snacks, chewing-gum-sized slices of bread, each topped with a little mustard and a tiny slice of chicken or ham. As Willie flounced away I called, “Hey, Willie. What’s for supper?” Without breaking stride, he haughtily tossed over his shoulder, “A la king.”
Outside the house there was a lovely garden with pathways and roses and arbors. Beyond that was a bit of lawn and it was all surrounded by dense east-Texas vegetation with vines and bushes. The children regularly referred to this as ‘the jungle’ and all sorts of horrible things happened in there. The grown-ups were unaware of this terminology. One Sunday afternoon Willie was in the library, where Mama Rae held court, checking on everyone’s martinis, someone asked him where all the children were. Willie, with a perfectly straight face, replied, “I believe they are all out in the jungle, ma’am” then turned and left them mystified.
When the house burned, I remember Willie there sobbing. Mama Rae moved to the hotel, never to return. Not long after, he committed suicide. Life outside that world was too much to bear.
It hurt to watch Willie cry. The memory hurts even more now that I understand just a little more.
