Dear Wisconsin....

Today, I met a person from Wisconsin. When I asked where in Wisconsin they were from, they used their hand as a map to point out a location.

Me: (Confused) I thought you were from Wisconsin?

Them:  I am, from here. (Points to spot on hand).

Me: That's Michigan.

Them:  It's Wisconsin too.

Me:  [Stunned silence]

Baffled, I told the story to my dad, who said that lately Wisconsonians (Wisconsinites?) have starting using the "hand map" trick to describe their state too.

Wisconsin looks like this:

Now, you Wisconsinolas (Wisconsineers?)--- I can see where, if you squint really hard and blur your vision, or get up after a night of hard drinking, that you can maybe see a mitten in there.

Maybe.

Or maybe it's Quasimodos mitten.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that one could get away with calling it a mitten, IF Wisconsin wasn't immediately adjacent to a state that LOOKS JUST LIKE A MITTEN without the need of squinting or alcohol to blur your vision in order to convince yourself.

However, Michigan looks like this:



Now, the Upper Peninsula is all weird shaped, but that's okay because all the people up there are kinda weird too so it fits, but the Lower Peninsula is pretty obviously shaped like a mitten, without the need of alcohol, or squinting.

So I think that you should probably leave the hand map thing to Michiganders (Michigonians?) otherwise you risk looking like Michigan wannabes.

Still, I don't want to take everything away from you so I made the image of Wisconsin yellow, because you're known for cheese.

You're welcome.

Sincerely,
The Trolls Under the Bridge Who Live in the Mitten.

An Open Letter to My Dentist

I don’t have my dentist’s email address and right now that’s a good thing.  If I did, he would be getting the following from me. 

Dear Dr. A,

I am writing to you today, less than a week after my root canal was started, because I want to ask you about something that is going on with my tooth.  However, before I launch into the problem, I feel that I should give you a bit of background on the situation.

 

First of all, in what I am about to write there will be several instances where I will describe something I have done, and your mind will want to ask why on earth such actions were taken by me.  I only ask you to keep an open mind and remember that you have known me a long time so none of this should really be surprising.   

Anyway, until yesterday the tooth in question felt great.  I had even forgotten that it had been worked on. No pain, it was perfection.  In retrospect, I should have left well enough alone, or at least had the sense to let sleeping dogs lie.  I think there are probably a lot of metaphors describing what I should have done, but none of those came to mind until after the situation had developed.

I’m in Maryland on vacation right now, so I have a lot of time on my hands.  I decided to look on the internet and read about root canals and such since I don’t know much about them and I’m having one.....and actually I just wanted to have a whole bunch of really specific questions lined up for my next appointment because learning the breadth and depth of another person's (i. e. your) knowledge on a subject is kind of a pastime for me.  But I digress.

So while looking root canals and other things up on the internet, and drinking a lot of red wine, I discovered that allegedly you can tell if a tooth is infected simply by tapping lightly on the side of it with your fingernail.  This seemed a bit suspicious to me, but luckily I happened to have several perfectly good teeth in my head and one that I KNEW was not doing so well. 

I think you see where this is going. 

Later, as I laid in bed last night, feeling tipsy from the wine, I remembered my internet search and I started tapping on my teeth. Sure enough, when I got to the one that you've been working with, I thought it responded a bit different.  So I tapped a bit harder on all my teeth, and when I reached tooth X, I could definitely feel the difference. It HURT when  tapped on it.  Hmm, this internet theory is sound! The hurt tooth is painful when you strike it.  I drifted off to sleep certain of my new, all be it somewhat useless discovery.

I woke up this morning in serious pain. My little injured tooth apparently didn’t take well to the inquisitive and repeated strikes it received last night.  I rushed to the internet, and after some research, I am now hoping that it’s the periodontal ligament that’s inflamed and not the tooth, but I really can’t tell because I’m not actually a dentist, and the real dentist website doesn't say anything about what to do after drunkenly beating up sick teeth in the middle of the night.   

I now realize that I probably shouldn’t have gone around rapping on all my teeth without your go ahead, so all I can say is, “my bad,” and can you please advise what I might be able to do to make the throbbing pain go away? 

Thanks most sincerely from your too smart for her own good patient, 

           Me

The Four Stages of Grief and a Dentist

 I’m obsessed with my teeth.

I was one of those lucky kids who never had braces because I never needed them, and so while my classmates struggled with metal clad grins in high school I got all the compliments about my pretty teeth.  I became very vain about that feature, thoughI was as neurotic as every other teenager about everything else.

I didn’t get my first cavity until I was in my late twenties, and when my dentist, whom I'll call Dr  A. gave me the news I asked for a second opinion like a dentist might be wrong about a cavity or that a cavity needed the same medical considerations and treatment as cancer.   

It took my mother the better part of a six hour drive to convince me that Dr. A was not, in fact,  some kind of dental hack who enjoyed giving unsuspecting twenty-somethings devastating news about their teeth, and that really, honey, the news of a cavity was not in fact devastating.  Cause for concern, but not devastating.  

So a couple months ago, a different dentist told me that I had a filling that had come loose and the cavity beneath it was so bad and my teeth so small, that I’d probably need a root canal and a crown.  That’s was a lot to take in, and it was not  Dr. A, whom my mother and my Google stalking had convinced me wasn't actually a hack, telling me this but this other supposed  dentist. 

Who was this guy?

When I questioned that dentist about what came next, he did what any good stand-in dentist would do. He told me, “ Dr A will have that conversation with you.”

On the car ride home from that appointment, my poor mother got the first few runs on how I envisioned THAT conversation with Dr  A. was going to happen.  

Looking back, I was clearly in denial. 

I realize now that in the following months I went through all the stages of grief over the news of the impending mercy killing of my little pre molar.

Next, I got angry.

Angry at the tooth for being so horribly weak that it got sick.

At myself for not only eating pure organic non sugary foods from very moment of birth.

At my entire ancestry for giving me the good genes for pretty teeth but lousy genes when it came to strong teeth.    

Later I moved into depression.

I would attempt to look at the tooth and its sorry little silhouette as I brushed my teeth, trying to memorize how it looked, knowing that someday soon it would be gone and I would only have these precious memories to remind me of the thirty something years we’d spent together. I can be annoyingly sentimental, especially if I allow it to happen, and in this situation I just wrapped myself in it like a big depressing blanket. 

It was with heavy heart that I began the journey to the dentist that I knew very well might be the last for the little guy I’d known for so long.

It turns out Dr. A  is a pretty persuasive guy, who basically never gave me much of a chance to argue or convince him that all of his dental training was simply no match for my sheer force of will.  

He bluntly and simply told me that the other dentists hypothesis regarding my tooth was correct, and that there was a 70% chance that my little molar was doomed.  

(insert sinking feeling here) 

Still, I held on to that remaining 30 percent chance for my tooth's survival in the same way that Jim Carrey’s character believed that “one in a million” was actually  “a chance” in Dumb and Dumber. 

I sat in that chair and prayed to the Baby Dentist Jesus--because I couldn't for the life of me remember which Saint was the Patron Saint of Dentists--- that  I would just need a regular old filling.

Alas, it was not to be and  I had very little time to move into the acceptance phase of grief, because in a matter of seconds, I was informed that not only did the “toothenasia” as I had termed it, need to happen, but that it was actually starting immediately.

And you know what, you really can’t cry with all those dental accessories in your mouth, or  wipe your tear-filled eyes with the safety glasses, the light, the assistant, the dentist and all their arms and hands and movement between your own hands and your eyes.   

Also, I knew my face would be numb and distorted already, and if I were to cry, I'd have tear smeared eye makeup. The image of my own  post dentist appointment face all saggy and streaked was too pathetic for my taste. 

I made the snap decision not to, but I really, really wanted to cry.   

Plus, Dr A. was physically moving forward with the work on my tooth, and had also already moved on to more positive things in our largely one way conversation, so my mind ultimately went elsewhere.  He's pretty much the best one way conversationalist I've ever met.  As he worked and talked, I wondered if they taught that in Dentist school or it's something he had to pick up over the years when sitting in another room with a person who can't talk because his hands are their mouth.  

Then I started  thinking about how his job in many ways is as weird as mine. I have to stand in small rooms and dress naked people I don't know, some with questionable hygiene practices.  Dr A has to sit in small rooms and put his hands in the mouths of people he doesn't know, some who probably also don't have the best hygiene practices.  Taken out of context, both professions have a serious potential ick factor, but I think he would usually win ---unless I get one who isn't wearing underwear. 

Anyway, Dr A. finished and put a temporary filling in so he could continue at another appointment, and my little tooth lives to fight a bit longer.  In many ways it’s not it’s old self, but least we get to spend a bit more time together. 

Baby Barred Owls are Terrifying

No Really.  They are.

If you look them up on Google, they look like this:

Oh My, you say, he's soooo cute!

You look at this little guy and you want to cuddle him. He's adorable.

I mean, look at him! He's basically a cartoon owl.

He could sing or sew a dress with a Disney princess.

So, it's hard to believe that this little guy can unleash a sound that mimics a pig being slaughtered, but they absolutely do.

The sound pierces the night like a dagger, and if you happen to be slumbering peacefully near an open window in Michigan in the spring like I was one night, it will wake you with the kind of jolt that sends your soul out of your body and whitens your hair.


Really.


You can hear it here, use your back button to return to this page:
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/sounds/Owl_Barred_Baby.mp3


There I was suddenly lying wide awake, saucer-eyed, as my half asleep human brain struggled to comprehend the source of that horrific sound.  I didn't want to move or look out the window lest I discover a monster of cinematic proportion staring back at me through the flimsy screen of the opening that had previously been a source of a calm evening breeze. You're not sure you heard it, but then you hear it again, and again.

I quietly prayed it would stop and pulled my covers up to my eyes. When it finally ceased, I drifted into a troubled rest and was grateful when the dawn came.

I grew up in the forest where my parents still live and  I'm not afraid of it. I know the ground so well, that I can walk around the property in the dark.  However, after being awakened by that sound and hearing it repeatedly for twenty minutes, it took me weeks to go outside alone after dark.

My soul was certain the screaming banshees would take it the minute I opened the door.



It was almost as bad as the time I watched The Blair Witch Project and sat in the car for over an hour when I returned home, but that's a story for another day.

An Open Letter to THAT GUY

Dear "That Guy",

I appreciate that you approached me for conversation in Hemingway's in LA this past weekend.
At first you seemed nice enough, so I decided to engage in conversation with you, since I had nothing else to do while I waited for my friend in the restroom.

Also, thanks for the compliment that I'm "almost there in the looks category," and for the following advice to help me officially get there:
1. Get a tan
2. Get my teeth "fixed"
3. Hit the gym
4. Pick out clothes that are more colorful
5. Wear more make-up
6. "Maybe" get my nose "fixed"
7. Develop more self confidence, which I'll get if I do all the above.

That's a lot of stuff to do, but I'll sure work on it.  In return, I suggest the following for you:

1. Go to college.
2. Stop telling people that you're a lawyer when further conversation reveals that you only hope to  "go to Law School someday"
3.  Don't wear a polyester suit and tell me it costs $3000... Like I can't tell the difference.
4. In fact, don't ever discuss the cost of your clothes even if it DID cost that much.
5. Use less hair gel, pomade, or whatever made your hair look like you stole it from a seal.
6. When a woman abruptly walks away from you, don't find her twenty minutes later to continue the conversation.
7. When she abruptly walks away from you again, get the hint, and don't try find her AGAIN, resulting in her ducking and running through a club with her friend in tow. It makes for a long night.

So it was great meeting you, and let's never do this again.
Thanks,
Me

You Wouldn't Jump off a Bridge

I want to preface this with the statement that I love my friends, and I choose carefully whom I bring into my circle, even my social media circle.

I value intelligence, creativity and education certainly, but I also put a great deal of stock in the ability to question that which is put before you as a fact. I grew up in a household that embraced and encouraged independent thought.  When I would come home from school and summarily beg to do or buy whatever thing some girl at school had, the conversation went something like this.

“Well if Suzy jumped off the Mackinac Bridge, would you do it?”

The obvious answer was no, I would not jump off the bridge.

 

“Well then let’s not worry about what Suzy is doing then.”

It was a frustrating argument (yet I like to believe I made some pretty compelling arguments in favor of bridge jumping) because it was putting independent thought and action ahead of that ‘going with the crowd’ mentality that permeates school from oh, kindergarten to grade 12. 

When I graduated from High School, I had developed enough freedom of personality to realize that some people are followers, and some are leaders. I endeavored to be a leader, and erroneously believed that the vast majority of the people I would encounter after high school would feel the same way. The age of ‘following the leader,’ I thought had ended.  I couldn’t have possibly realized at eighteen years old how incredibly wrong I could be.

When a person dies, they lose all rights to privacy because, well, they’re dead.  Medical records, documents, that embarrassing middle name, that first questionable marriage, and just about everything that was once considered personal information becomes public domain. 

The unfortunate part of this is that, apparently, the dead’s thoughts and ideas also become public property, and can be altered to fit whatever agenda might need a spokesperson.  That combined with that modern blight on society-- the Facebook Meme--total falsehoods can now be spread like a cancer in less time than it takes to point, click, and share. 

What is it about our society that no matter how ludicrous the statement, if it’s attached to an important name many will believe it without question? Furthermore, what about our modern social media mentality allows some to believe that if an outlandish statement is attributed to a revered Founding Father or other historical figure, those of us with opposing viewpoints are suddenly going to change course without question.

“Well I thought that the concept of not paying any taxes was oversimplified and illogical, but hey Lincoln said that the Tea Party is the smartest thing to come along since Warren G. Harding, so I guess I’ll just change my entire socio/political viewpoint, like now.”

I’m also somewhat puzzled that in this age of instant information, anyone wouldn’t take five seconds and attempt to establish validity.

“Hmmm, this quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson seems to speak directly to this exact cause--A cause that would not have been an issue during his lifetime. Maybe I should make sure this Jefferson quote about Goodyear Tires is accurate before I smear it all over my social media and my friends pick it up and smear it around too.”

I realize the desire to give a beloved social or political cause real validity is a strong one.  As anyone who knows me will tell you, I have strong opinions about, well everything, and champion some pretty outlandish ideas, like that as a woman I should have equal pay and freedom to made decisions about my own body. 

I do find it reassuring when Thomas Jefferson said something that reinforces a belief  I hold dear, and I’m disappointed when I find a famous individual that I admire said something that disagrees with me.  (I have not, as yet, found a quote in which Thomas Jefferson discussed the reproductive freedoms of women, but I secretly think he would have been on my side.)

However, I would never attempt to spread an untrue “Jefferson/ women’s rights quote” as the truth in order to lend credence to my cause because it cheapens the cause in the same breath that it cheapens the memory old Tom.  And also, some of my friends are WAY smarter than I am, and would know that Jefferson never said anything on the subject.  When they realize that, it invalidates everything else I’ve ever said on the subject because clearly I just make things up.  Suddenly my beloved cause is suffering because I jumped the shark in terms of “quotable support” for Women’s Reproductive Rights.

So in short, my advice to everyone: 
Fact check, and don’t jump off the bridge just because Lincoln said it was a good idea.

Thatched Roofs and Imminent Death

My mother had never been to Europe, and so for her birthday/Christmas/Mother's Day, I decided we should go.

We planned two weeks, one in England and one in France.

We decided to drive instead of depending on public transportation, so we could see more. We knew that in the UK they drive on the other side of the car and the road, but in true Barber Women fashion, we thought, "How bad can it be?"

We arrived in the morning and picked up our rental car at Heathrow on a Sunday morning.  The plan was to drive to Salisbury for our first night at a bed and breakfast/tavern, and take in Stonehenge if we weren't too tired.

We loaded our luggage and climbed into the car. Mom decided to drive, which wasn't surprising since she drives everywhere all the time anyway and is also better versed in manual transmissions. And by better versed I mean that she's actually driven them. Within in seconds of pulling out of the lot, she hit a curb. It went downhill from there.

When we were on the highway, it was fine, but the UK LOVES traffic circles.

Traffic Circles in the UK rotate counter clockwise and despite having multiple travel lanes, they actually have no lines marking where said lanes are located.

The overall result of our drive out of London consisted of moments on the highways where we felt reasonably safe,  two lanes roads where we felt like fish out of water but reasonably okay, and then traffic circles, which we dreaded as they approached, and where we simply prayed to survive until we were on the two lane road again.

Then we discovered another kind of road in the UK. The one lane road with no shoulder.  These were the ones I, as the passenger, feared the most.  You know, those lovely English hedges are a lot less romantically lovely when you're barreling toward them at  30 MPH sitting on the side of the car THAT YOU ARE SURE SHOULD HAVE A STEERING WHEEL.

The strained, fear filled silence of the sedan's interior was occasionally pierced by one of two sounds. Either the beat my foot hitting the part of the floor that should have had a brake pedal, or my mothers right hand knuckles striking the window of the car as she reached for the gear shift with the wrong hand. In retrospect, one of us should have turned on the radio, but neither of us felt we had a free hand available for such a frivolous exercise.

Oh and did I mention it was raining?

Needless to say, when we spotted Stonehenge in the distance, we both agreed that would be a great place to stop, and upon pulling into the parking lot, we marveled at our own ability to survive such adverse conditions.  We dragged our feet getting back into the car.

We found our tiny tavern B&B in an even tinier town full of structures bearing construction dates from the mid 1600s. Even I had to duck into a few of the ancient doorways of the tavern, as the tall, blustery English tavern keeper led us to our second floor room.

The warmth of the room combined with the fading light and pouring rain put us to sleep.

We woke up to sunshine and an English breakfast served in the tavern downstairs.  Closer inspection of the town's buildings revealed that they were all thatched roofs. Our host was energetic and talkative, explaining the benefits and issues of associated with thatched roofs and the history of the town. We were also treated to a first hand account of exactly what the average UK citizen thought of everything from the Royal Family to national healthcare to illegal immigration.  In the end he invited us back anytime and even waved as we drove away.

We hoped that he wouldn't watch us drive off, lest mom take out a parked car.

Rinse and Repeat

My grandfather died last summer, and my grandmother followed him about a week ago. As I write this I’m sitting in the Detroit airport waiting for my mother to arrive so that we can take the last plane ride together to Kalamazoo, where my grandmother will be laid to rest next to the still dirt covered grave of my grandfather.   I live in California and she was visiting my brother when my grandmother died. 

 This time, like a few months ago, I packed only a conservative black dress and shoes into a small bag I can take on the airplane.  It’s the same black dress I bought for my Grandfather’s funeral, and the dress I already know will be used for only this purpose for the foreseeable future.  I have the brief thought that I’m getting used to the whole funeral travel thing, so it will be easier next time. Then  I quietly hope there will never be a next time. 

  

Airports are strange places when you’re traveling for death. Usually I welcome the anonymity that comes with air travel, and I enjoy the people watching. Usually there is excitement in the packing for the trip, and happiness greeting me at its conclusion.  The airport layover, usually a time when I’m anticipating the next flight of the trip and wondering if I should get another coffee while I wait, today feels like a holding room to the inevitable sadness that awaits the end of the next flight, and I feel immeasurably lonely.

 It’s at these times I question the choices I’ve made that led me here, and why at 36 years old, I have no husband to hold my hand and drive the car so I don’t have to do it while I’m crying, or children to give unconditional love hugs whenever they see even a trace of sadness in me.  Then inevitably, I make myself laugh out loud as I systematically go through every boyfriend I’ve ever had and imagine how they would handle this situation if they were here, and suddenly being alone is preferable because each of those guys was definitely not the right one for this situation. 

In fact, I’m fairly certain at least two of them would have somehow turned this event into something that was all about them and I would be the one doing the consoling.  

Three others wouldn’t have bothered to come along at all.

Ultimately, I realize that my life is exactly what it should be, and I’m exactly where I should be at this moment. 

Which right now is at an airport waiting.

Waiting to say goodbye one last time, and waiting for whatever is next.

The Not Good Place to Get a Date

This being California, there are A LOT of adorable cute girls in the gym, in color coordinated outfits and flat ironed hair. Heck I even saw one girl wearing fake eyelashes. They stroll casually on the treadmills, careful not to break a sweat that might smear their carefully applied makeup, or cause their silicone boobs to bounce in a way that gives them away as fake. They are impeccable.  They are clearly at the gym to meet guys, which is fine. With only a very few exceptions, the vast majority of men who spend an inordinate amount of time working out are not my type anyway.  The gym princesses only annoy me when they're faking a workout on the equipment I want to use.

By contrast, when I'm at the gym, I'm GROSS. I mean, seriously not pretty. My clothes are focused on comfort, and if they match that's a bonus.  I wear my hair in any fashion that will keep it from coming into contact with my skin AT ALL, and like most fair skinned people, my face is usually a brilliant shade of red.  I'd post a photo here but it would scare babies and old people.  In fact, when I happen to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I'm horrified at how terrible I look. 

So imagine my surprise when one of the guys I know to be a bodybuilding junkie at my gym approaches me with the following: 

Him: Hey, how are you?

Me: (looking around to make sure he's talking to me) Um, good thanks.

Him: What do you do?

Me: I work at the theater.

Him: oh..... you like bodybuilders? 

Me: (confused) uh, sure.

Him: 'cause I'm a bodybuilder..... you ever dated a bodybuilder?

Me: (really confused) I don't think so?

Him: Like a real bodybuilder? extra buff with an eight pack, like this. (shows me his)

Me: (completely perplexed) No, definitely not.

Him: How old are you?

Me: Excuse me?

Him: You look 26.

Me: Thanks.

Him: So have you?

Me: What?

Him: You know, dated a serious bodybuilder?

Me:  Nope.

Him: My exs all dumped me because I got into bodybuilding, you wouldn't have a problem with that would you? I used to be all scrawny but now I'm not and I need a girl to be okay with that.

Me: (laughing) good for you.

Him: You got any piercings or tats?

Me:  Uh, No.

Him: Girls with belly button rings are hot, you got one of those?

Me:  (shakes head) 

Him: Oh. My exs all had those. What about tats?

Me: I said no.

Him: Sorry, didn't mean to offend. Did you ever have any?

Me: Does that matter? I haven't got anything now.

Him: Oh. I think it's cool you're in theater. I like good acting, are you good?

Me: I'm not actually an actor.

Him: You ever do any TV? Cause you look really familiar.

Me: I'm not an actress. Maybe you know me from the gym here?  

Him: Maybe! I actually work out at three gyms around here though.

Me: that's nice.

Him: Not all gyms are the same you know.

Me: you don't say.

Him: So what's your number? I gotta get to the next gym. I do arms there and then core at Western.

Me: Why don't you give me yours, I'll text mine to you.

Him: sweet!

(He gives his number to me verbally, which I don't write down, acknowledge, or attempt in any way to remember)

Him: I'll text you later, girl, and we can continue this chat. Peace!

He jogs off then, obviously pleased with what he sees as success, and leaves me there looking for the camera showing this was all a big joke.

The Last Word for a Great Man

I was honored to be given the opportunity to give the Eulogy at my grandfather's funeral service.  This is the transcript, which I thought would post here so that it always exists somewhere. 

I've often heard Warren Barber, my Papa, referred to as a great man, the patriarch of our family.  As I was traveling home, sitting on the planes and in the airports, I started wondering exactly what that might mean, both to the people who were saying it to me, but also to those of us in the family that he loved so much.  

According to Webster’s Dictionary, the first definition of Patriarch is “a man who leads a family, clan, or tribe; a king.”  

Papa was certainly all of those things.  He started his own business, put all his kids through college, gave my grandmother Elizabeth whom he loved beyond reason, everything she ever wanted.  

 But Warren Barber was more than a good father or good king to our family.  He was more than just a patriarch. When my brother died, it was Papa who came to pick me up from the neighbors house after the accident, and it was Papa who first comforted me when we got the dreadful news that Hollis was gone from us.  

He supported each of us in anything we might want to try, in every crazy endeavor.  Don’t get me wrong, he had no problem telling you exactly how crazy he thought your idea or your plan was, and how insane you might be to attempt it.  But then,  after he’d said his peace, he would pause and say say, “Well, if I can help out, let me know.”   And then he’d have your back after that.

Family was central to my Papa. When my mother was a little girl and her allergies got bad during the summer, he’d drive her around in the car because it was air conditioned.  He visited his mother every night after dinner until the day she died, filling my childhood with post dinner car rides from Main Street to Park Street, where I could play with the same toys my Papa had played with as a child, in the same living room that had once known the small  footfalls of  his little brother, Bobbie, who had died during a measles epidemic in 1924.  Sometimes Great-Grandma and Papa would barely talk to each other during those visits.  They’d sit and watch baseball, or the news. Once on the drive home I asked him why they didn’t talk that night.  He replied, “Sometimes you know someone so well you don’t need to talk, it’s just about being there.”   In the last few years when I would go visit Papa, sometimes we wouldn’t talk. I knew that was okay, because for him it was just about being together.   

I grew up always knowing my Papa was there for me.   His loss leaves our family with a hole in the middle, because Warren Barber was the heart and the soul of our family.  The center-point on which we all rotated.   Without him, we who have been left behind have been cast adrift and must re-calibrate to a world without him.

  

Still, on the other side of that loss, I know that he is again with the friends and family who have already left us.  His mother and his father, his baby brother,  his golfing buddies, and most of all Hollis and Jennifer, who have waited for him all these years and whom I have no doubt were the first to welcome him home.  

In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote, "He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall never look up his like again." Although it was not written for him, a better sentiment for Warren Barber cannot be expressed.   I too, will never look upon his like again.

My Grandpa is Dead

It's amazing to me how with one simple act, a person moves from a reality to a memory.

My Papa was born in 1917, and from that day until his last, he had the kind of memory that makes genealogists and historians go weak in the knees. I think he must have remembered every day of his life.

He saw Babe Ruth play in Tiger's Stadium with his dad in the 1920s.  We didn't know about that until shortly before he died.  In the middle of an uninteresting conversation about baseball, he said it like it was something everyone had done, like he wasn't sitting in room full of people who knew of The Babe only from faded photographs and scratchy video.  He said simply, "I saw him play in Detroit, with my dad."  Like it happened everyday.

A similar experience had happened a few years earlier, when my mom and I stopped in to visit on our way home from the movies.  He asked what we'd seen and my mom said, "We saw Seabiscuit, about this horse in the 1930s."  My Papa muttered, "Seabiscuit, that little horse from California?"  My mother responded, "Yes,"  And Papa, as if he was telling you that he'd had a banana for breakfast that day, said "I saw that little horse run 39."

Just like that, he mentions this legendary horse and his brush with history, and that he'd just driven across the country.  My mother looked at him incredulously.

"Dad, you were in California in the 1930s? Why?"
"I drove your Aunt Crystal out there and stopped at the race track on the way back."
"You drove to California in the 1930s?"
"Yes, what's the hullaballo? She had to go and I drove her."

Never mind that the trip, before highways, probably took more than a week.  Never mind that it would have been an unbelievably historic trip to have made during the Great Depression. He drove to California. He saw Seabiscuit run... what's the big deal?

He was like that about every event in his life. No matter how big or how small, it happened, he lived it, and that was it. He served as a Supply Sargent in World War II in what he always called "The Forgotten Theater" of China, Burma, and India. He didn't see a lot of action, but he did trades with the British.  As he said it, the British liked our military issue sunglasses, and the Americans were jealous of the British issued shorts, which they wore instead of long pants.  So my Papa would trade the American sunglasses for the British shorts.  He was always a businessman.

He came back from the war, worked in a Papermill for awhile and then started his own small boats and motors business.  He also had six kids.  Like most grandparents, mine also functioned as babysitters when the grandkids started to arrive.  Papa would be at the store next door to his house, and we'd wander over there after lunch to visit when my grandma started watching her "shows"-- the dull soap operas that filled afternoon TV.

 He would tell us to "pick out a boat" in the showroom, and when we did, he'd lift us into it so we could play inside. It was a way to keep us out of trouble, but for me, it was the best playroom imaginable. My brothers and I would catch fish, storm castles, and kill dinosaurs all from the confines of a 12' bass fishing boat parked on a trailer in a showroom.  When we got to play in the pontoon boats, that was a real treat indeed, those weren't usually in the showroom.  Often, my cousin Rachel would be there too, and to this day she's more of a sister.  We grew up together, in my Papa's store.

When he died last week, a little piece of my childhood disappeared forever. I could not imagine a world in which Papa didn't exist, and yet he was gone.

Gone with all the answers to all the questions I never thought to ask.

So I bought a black dress I'll never wear again, and flew home to say goodbye one last time. To him, to the laugh and the mischievous smile, to the twisted sense of humor I loved so much (and many say I inherited), to the smell of his house, the papery feel of his skin when I kissed his cheek.

And if I sit quietly, I can hear him say one last time the thing he always said when I was leaving, "You're a good kid Tracy, I love you."

I love you too, Papa.

Genealogists can Set the Record Straight

In 1906, an earthquake shook San Francisco. It came to be known as the Great Quake and nearly leveled the city. Afterward, a fire raged, turning whatever was left to ash.
When the shaking and burning stopped, there were, officially, 478 dead-- a number that seems ridiculously low when viewing the images of the disaster.


Subsequent counts estimated the number of dead closer to 700, but in the last decade there has been extensive research, created in part by genealogists searching for data to fill their family trees.


Gladys Hanson, San Francisco's City Historian, started counting the dead when genealogists in the 1970s began contacting her about death records. By cross referencing cemetery records, death records, and other genealogical data, she now estimates the death toll closer to 5,000--- and she isn't done.

Many people said that the official death count could never be accurate because so many people fled San Francisco after the quake and just never returned. While this is true, there are just as many family histories claiming relatives died in San Francisco-- after the quake relatives outside the city never heard from their loved ones ever again. It stands to reason that if you lived in the city and survived this horrendous disaster, you'd communicate to your family back east that you were okay, right?

Genealogy does go hand in hand with history. I can't even begin to recall the number of times I've lost ancestors inexplicably and needed to see what was happening in the area historically to find them again. I can't imagine how difficult a large scale disaster like the 1906 Quake would make it to find ancestors. Especially if they were just never heard from again. I think I like Gladys Hanson, a lot.