Going out to dinner. Are there any more magical words in the English language…especially for women? There’s little that compares with the pleasure of scanning a crisp menu, choosing exactly what appeals to you, having someone else cook and serve it to you–and then clean up afterward. We used to do it less than we do now, when restaurants of all kinds are packed with families nearly every night of the week. With so many mothers working these days, eating out has become more common, a necessity, in some cases, so Mom can juggle multiple roles and still keep her sanity.

But eating out was a rare occurrence during my childhood. My parents were always pinching their pennies. Dining out was a luxury, no matter how ordinary the restaurant, and those glorious rare occasions still shimmer in my memory. It was always on a Friday, Dad’s pay day, when my parents felt a little flush. I remember the excitement of getting cleaned up after school and eagerly waiting Dad’s arrival, when we’d pile into our one car, usually a Ford or  Chevy, and head to Don’s Chili, The Memory House, or Cinco de Mayo’s, three of our favorites. What a treat. I tasted my first crunchy taco at Cinco de Mayo’s in Inglewood and still remember listening to “It’s Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” playing on the jukebox at Don’s Chili in Fullerton. What simple memories stay with us through the years.

Of course, all this serves as a lead in for the delicious story that follows, written by Judy Clifford, a new student this term. Judy recounts with exquisite detail the special occasions her parents treated her and her sister to unforgettable evenings at Chez Cary, then one of Orange County’s landmark posh eating establishments. Reading about the culinary experience Judy so beautifully describes makes me want to use words like eating establishment, and culinary, and posh. You’ll see. Read on with pleasure, and “Bon Apetit!”

Canard aux Petits Pois
by Judy Clifford 

Whenever my sister Lisa or I won an award in school, achieved a challenging goal, or celebrated a milestone birthday, my mother gussied us up and my father treated us to dinner at the Chez Carey restaurant on Main Street in Santa Ana.

Somehow the contrast between the bright Southern California sky and the dusky, romantic interior never failed to enchant me. As soon as I settled into the soft, red velvet booth, and placed my clumsy feet on the footstool, I became a princess, a role that clearly belonged to my older sister at home. Now, in this dreamy place, the Chez Careeeee, which was the French way of pronouncing it, the playing field was at last leveled.

Lisa had long blonde hair, even thicker and glossier than Marcia Brady’s. And that made her a royal figure, at least in my estimation. I sported a different hairstyle then.  It was called a pixie cut. I wasn’t quite sure what pixies had done or what they even were, but it was obvious that they had been very, very bad and had to be punished in order to regain whatever status they had once held.

Pixie cuts had become an instant hit when Twiggy, a young model from England, was photographed wearing the hairdo. She had long beautiful legs and short, stubby hair.

My parents decided the short, stubby hair would look super on me. It didn’t. I had none of Twiggy’s style, let alone her—well—maturity. She had bumps in places that actually seemed to cave in on me. I was only nine, after all. My short brown hair accentuated my cowlicks, and had led to one horrific incident in which a shop owner had called me “son.”   My parents called me “adorable,” and that meant that I was going to have the dreaded hairstyle for a very long time.

But the Chez Carey made all of my worries vanish. Even the air was glorious. It was filled with scents so varied I could hardly distinguish them. But I learned that garlic, brandy, and peppermint do mix, when they hang together, heavy and lush in the atmosphere of the most magnificent restaurant on earth.

“We can count on consistent service at the Chez Carey,” my father would say.  My mother would nod her perfectly coiffed blonde head, and beam up at him.

“I totally agree. And, the food is exquisite.” These were grown-up conversations, and I treasured being let into their secret world, because frankly, they left us out of it and stuck us with a baby sitter on Saturday nights.

One night, we went to celebrate my second-place finish in a piano contest. As I perched on my chair, my feet dangling and barely grazing the footstool beneath me, I waited in hushed wonder for the waiter to take our drink order. I knew the routine by heart.

“Would you care for anything to drink?” he asked, with his pad of paper and pen brandished and ready for action.

My mother said,  “Yes, I think we will. I’ll have a martini, dry with an olive.”

“Certainly,” the waiter responded as he scratched something quickly on his pad.  Then, he turned to us kids and asked, “And, Mademoiselles, for you?”

Together, Lisa and I chanted, “May I have a Shirley Temple, please?” There was no straying from the script. This was the correct way to order. No other wording was allowed.

Finally, the waiter turned his attention to my father, who ordered an “Old Fashioned,” or something that sounded like that, because I never had the guts to ask him the real name. If there was one thing I’d been taught, it was not to question authority.

The next part of the meal was my favorite. The waiter glided to our table and presented our menus to each of us with great flourish. I took a deep breath. I could almost taste the earthy scent of the leather embossed menu cover. As I opened the menu, I took my time to peruse it. My parents didn’t mind. They encouraged this. The food items were listed first in French, and then translated in English. The fun was in the learning. What could a “canard” possibly be? A duck. And yes, now I knew that “petits pois” meant plain old green peas.

As I inspected the menu, my parents engaged us in a game of  “Name that Tune.” The background music was just that: in the background. I don’t remember if it was live or not. And all of the songs were standards by Sinatra or Dean Martin. This was the most enjoyable time of the evening. My father smiled at my sister and me as though he were proud of everything we had done up to that moment. I sucked down my Shirley Temple as fast as I could, just so I get another round of the sticky-sweet maraschino cherries. My mother was her stunning self, laughing out loud, and charming each and every person with whom she had contact. She even had a smile for the people we saw on our way to visit “the little girl’s room,” as my father called it. And there seemed to be an easiness in the chatter among the four of us that didn’t always happen at home. Such was the magic of the Chez Carey restaurant.  Such is the magic of childhood memories.

My spring teaching term began last week, and what a joy it is to be back in the classroom with a lively group of senior-age students dedicated to writing stories about all the interesting things they’ve seen and done during their long and fruitful lives. Pat Milligan hit the ground running in the first class with this marvelous story full of lush description of her hard-working grandmother and a mysterious, glamorous visitor who spends a summer with the family and captivates a young girl’s imagination, until….

Ramona
by Pat Milligan

The prospect of a guest brought forth a frenzy of house cleaning. Nanny spent that warm June morning in 1945 cleaning Uncle Louis’ bedroom. She washed the insides of the tall windows that looked out on the narrow alley and the yellow brick duplex next door. She wiped the window ledges and the molding, the door, and the small mirror. She polished the dresser and replaced the paper in the bottom of the drawers. The scent of ammonia and lemon oil masked the antiseptic odor of the room. Then she grunted as she turned the heavy mattress over the box spring of the old bed.

Nanny

She did not ask for help from her grandchildren as she took the bed-clothes down the narrow stairs to the kitchen. There she pulled the clothes washer with its attached wringer to the sink, connected the hose to the faucet, and filled the gray enamel tub with water and Fels-Naptha soap flakes. The wringer was the dangerous part, as the unwary or inattentive laundress could catch her fingers on the ever-rolling pins. We knew the procedure from watching, not from helping.

“Go play,” she told us if we offered help. “You’re only young once, so go play.” Meaning we should stay out of her way, the directions left us happy enough.

Later, back in the kitchen, I asked the same question one or the other of us had asked throughout the morning, “When is she coming, Nanny?”

“Probably sometime this afternoon, I imagine. Your Uncle Louis said it would take time for her to leave the hospital and get her few possessions together. Can’t you girls find something to do?”

In the living room I searched the desk for some penny postcards and a pen. Gwen took a big brown envelope from the bottom drawer and spread my pictures of movie stars about her on the floor. Most were black and white photographs with autographs.

“I like this one of Elizabeth Taylor,” she said. “And here’s one of Margaret O’Brian. Do you think I look like her?”

“A little. She’s about the same age as you.” I didn’t have to turn around to look, for I had memorized them both. Gwen’s hair was brown and short with bangs that fell into her eyes. She had a cute little nose, but it got into everything, and she could never stop talking.

“Who are you writing to now?” she asked.

“Jon Hall, Maria Montez, and Turhan Bey”

“Ugh! Turhan Bey. He’s so ugly.”

“I think he’s – uh – exotic, and you don’t get an opinion.” I said, addressing the card to Culver City, California. “And don’t get my pictures messed up.”

We both jumped when we heard a car door slam and ran to the windows.

“Here she comes,” yelled Gwen toward the stairs where Nanny was remaking the bed and finishing her cleaning. We ran to the front door as a yellow cab was pulling away. Standing on the curb, a tall, thin, blonde lady collected a few leather bags and a large handbag. When she saw us, she seemed startled, and suppressed a small cough with a white handkerchief.

Gwen and Patsy, a bit younger than they were in this story.

“I’m Ramona,” she whispered. “You must be the nieces.”

“I’m Patsy. This is Gwen.”

“We live here,” Gwen reported, moving to the porch.

Nanny’s wide girth blocked the doorway. “I see you’ve met my grandchildren. Welcome Ramona. We’re glad you’re staying with us for a while. Come in.” She moved aside and Ramona dropped her bags inside the door as if she were not sure she would remain and might need to claim them soon.

“Are you sure you have a room for me?” she asked. “Louis said it would be all right.”

“His room is available until he comes home from the hospital. Then we can make other arrangements for you.” Nanny reassured her. “Now come into the kitchen where we can have coffee.” Nanny turned to us. “Girls, take Ramona’s things upstairs.”

We raced up the steps and raced back again. We didn’t want to miss a thing. We were called the Misses Big Ears for a reason.

Seated at the yellow kitchen table, we watched Nanny pour three inches of cream from the neck of a milk bottle into a small pitcher next to the sugar bowl. She got two glasses from the cupboard and poured two cups of coffee. I spooned Ovaltine into the glasses of skim milk. Ramona took half of the cream and two teaspoons of sugar, stirring them into the fragrant coffee. We sipped our Ovaltine and listened, our attention feasting on Ramona.

Ramona reminded Pat of Veronica Lake, pictured in this photo.

Ramona was beautiful, like Veronica Lake. Her long blonde hair with just a hint of curl cascaded down her back. Her face was long and angular, and her nose was aristocratically straight, not bent like mine or pug like Gwen’s. Her cheek bones were prominent, and her eyes were pale gray like the Atlantic Ocean. Even her clothes were different. It was summer and she was wearing loose pants and a flowing silk long-sleeved blouse.

Most exciting to me, she came from California. Not Culver City she told us, but San Diego, and movie stars did not live in Culver City, but in Beverly Hills. We assumed her father was rich and possibly a doctor, for he had sent her to New Jersey’s Donnelly Hospital where a new operation could be performed on tubercular lungs. Ramona had met our Uncle Louis there after she survived the operation he was scheduled to get, and he had suggested she board with his mother while she waited for the doctors to release her from their care, probably several months.

Nanny could never deny her only son anything. He had been to death’s door and survived, but his survival was tenuous. If the operation were successful, he would come home to live with us: his mother, his sister and his two nieces. Gwen and I harbored the fantasy that he and Ramona were in love and would get married when they were both well. We loved having her around, even if she did leave stockings and underwear soaking in our only bathroom-sink. Nanny grumbled whenever she smoked cigarettes from a long black cigarette holder and left ashtrays full of smelly cigarette butts.

Ramona entertained us with stories told in her low breathy voice. Some she made up, and some were from the scandals featured in the Trentonian, a daily tabloid, or some detective magazines. She loved drama and made daily living seem exciting, for she listened intently to our ordinary activities and plied us with questions. She

Turhan Bey

laughed when pictures of Maria Montez and Turhan Bey arrived and agreed Turhan Bey was handsome. Happy summer afternoons were spent in our small back-yard as she dried her long tresses conditioned with peroxide in the warm summer sun. She let us comb her blonde hair and tie it back with a black velvet ribbon. Sometimes she coughed into a small white handkerchief.

That summer I read Alexander Dumas’s story about the lady of the camellias, a beautiful woman who died tragically from a lung disease. I tried not to see Ramona losing weight and her hair becoming thinner. I did not want to think she could die. She was supposed to get better. Although I had never seen a camellia, I knew they must be beautiful, like the roses in our garden and Ramona.

In September Gwen and I went back to school and were busy with church activities. We did not see much of Ramona. She  went to her room after dinner while we did homework at the dining-room table. We could hear her radio or phonograph music drifting down the stairs, lush symphonies or opera, including La Traviata, the sad story of the lady of the camellias.

One day we came home from school, and Nanny told us that Ramona had gone home to California.

“Why didn’t she say goodbye to us?” Gwen wailed.

“Did she leave an address so we could write to her?” I asked.

“She left rather suddenly,” Nanny said. “She had to go home. Perhaps her father is sick.”

Perhaps Nanny was lying. I suspected Ramona had returned to Donnelly Hospital.

Months later, early in December, Nanny descended the dark steps to the cellar. Gwen heard her say, “Oh! My G—. Marie, come down here. Look at this.”

Gwen followed Mother down the narrow cellar steps. Behind the Christmas boxes, Nanny stood by a large basket–overflowing with empty peroxide bottles and Jim Beam whiskey bottles.

Mother laughed. “Well, she had a good summer.”

Over the span of the winter, Nanny took the bottles out to the garbage can at the curb gradually, one-by-one. She claimed she didn’t want the trash-man to think she bleached her hair or was an alcoholic.

I bought my husband a Valentine a few days ago, just like I’ve been doing for the last four decades. Yep, we’ve been together that long, and even though it has been that long, I still want him to know I love him in that way. He shows me in multiple ways that he still feels that way about me. We are lucky, I know, and I don’t take our relationship for granted.

My husband has a romantic side. He likes the Los Angeles Lakers AND Jane Austen and isn’t embarrassed to be one in only a handful of men in the theatre to see a Jane Austen-ish kind of movie. He’s also a generous and clever gift-giver–both clever in the kind of gifts he chooses for me, and clever in the way he presents them to me. I’m sure that store clerks who help him with his purchases wish they were so lucky.

I have lots of stories I could write that illustrate his romantic side. Why would I want to write them? Because I want our children and future descendants to know that we loved each other in that way.

Often our children only see us as fuddy-duddy parents and can’t visualize us having a life before they came into the world. I suspect you know what I mean. I’ve taught personal history writing for the last 15 years, and the majority of my students tell me they’re writing their stories because they want their children to know what their lives were like before they became parents. Writing stories about the romantic aspects of our lives is one way of expanding our children’s vision of who we are.

So write that romantic story. Here are a few story ideas you might consider:

• Follow my lead and write a story that illustrates your spouse’s romantic side. When I gave this assignment to my class last year, I was greeted by a blank stare…followed by some mumbling…followed by some derisive laughter. “Now listen, folks,” I retaliated, “not everyone’s a hearts and flowers kind of person.” We then discussed various ways spouses show affection, like cleaning the house when you’re sick, or praising you to their children, or always looking nice for you, or watching a Jane Austen movie with you when they’d rather watch the Lakers…that kind of thing.
• Write about an adolescent “crush.” Reveal your awkwardness and all the embarrassing details. Be real, and your family will see you in a new light.
• Write about your first kiss. Who cares if it was a bomb. (Mine was!) Write about it anyway. Be sure to put your story in its setting. Let readers SEE where the deed was done. Was there music playing in the background? Johnny Mathis set the stage for my big dud…”The Twelfth of Never.”
• Write about your first date–or any interesting/crazy/embarrassing/romantic date you had. Teens don’t date anymore. Show your children’s generation what it was like in “your day.”
• Write about a marriage proposal. Be as specific as you can. Who said what? How did you feel?
• Write about your wedding day. Think of some interesting, fun, or surprising incidents that made the day stand out so your story is uniquely yours. Keep it personal…and romantic.
• Write about your honeymoon. One of my students, an 87-year-old widow, wrote about her wedding night in surprising detail. Yes! It was a lovely story, written sensitively, and with great love. Her children will read the story and be happy their parents loved each other so much.

Now, whatever topic you choose, I recommend you do the following:

• Write honestly and personally. Reveal your feelings, your disappointments, feelings of awkwardness, embarrassment, silliness. Show the real you.
• Use lots of detail–about people and settings. Where did incidents take place? Let us SEE it. What were you wearing? What did other people look like? Add “sense details,” if appropriate–sound, smell, sight,  taste, and feel.
• Create scenes, if possible. Don’t just write a summary. Try to remember what was said, and re-create conversations as you remember them, capturing the emotional truth of the experience.
• Snag readers’ attention from the get-go. Some experts advise beginning in the middle of things. Too often we feel like we need all kinds of back-story before we get to the interesting part. Don’t do it.
• Don’t be in a rush to get it finished. Write a rough draft and let it sit for a while. You’ll soon think of things you’ll want to add.

That’s it. I think you’ll enjoy this writing assignment. Get into the spirit. Play some Johnny Mathis, or whoever rocks your boat. Browse through some old photos albums. Then sit at your desk and put it all down on paper.

Shakespeare wrote one…a story he turned into a play he called A Winter’s Tale. I bet you have a few winter stories you could tell. Growing up in Southern California, I experienced few WINTER winters. However, I did spend some winters in Utah during my college years and learned what it was like to trudge through the snow to classes on frigid mornings. Later, after I married, I shivered through three Boston winters when my husband was in law school and believed I was getting frostbite every time I gripped my car’s steering wheel. Nevertheless, most of my childhood winters were primarily bathed in California sunshine.

I thought about this recently because I had lunch last week with a new friend who moved here from Utah. This is her first California winter, and when I joined her at the restaurant, she was wearing a wool sweater and slacks, even though the temperature outside was in the mid-80s, hot even for California standards. “I know I look ridiculous,” she said, when she greeted me, “but it’s January. I must wear my winter clothes.” From there we gabbed about the different ways each of us experienced winter during our childhoods.

I can’t think of too many stories from my past I would label specifically winter stories, because I always seem to think a winter story should involve snow. I have a vivid memories of what my brothers and I called “going to the snow,” the two or three occasions when my parents took us to the Angeles National Forest about an hour north of Los Angeles. These excursions always began with us rising before the sun did and pulling on our outer clothes over our pajamas–because we had no real snow clothes–and driving to Frazier Park. If it rained in the winter in Southern California, it likely snowed at Frazier Park, where the elevation was around 4700 feet. We kids loved those snow trips, sledding down the gentle slopes on cardboard squares, drinking hot chocolate from thermoses. We sometimes brought Kool Aid or Tang with us and sprinkled it on the snow. We thought we were pretty clever when we scooped it into cups and fashioned our very own snow cones. By midday, we drove home to the mild climate of Manhattan Beach, where we lived a few miles from the Pacific Ocean.

I have a number of winter stories related to my years in Utah and Boston that are specifically related to snowy weather–driving in scary, treacherous conditions, being snowed in, etc. One favorite sweet memory involves rushing to the hospital one snowy night in Boston four days before Christmas to give birth to our first child. We brought our baby son home in a Christmas stocking on Christmas Eve. A frightened new mother of 21, I walked into my apartment to discover my husband had bought and decorated a Christmas tree in my absence. That’s a story I definitely need to write.

Now, what about you? What winter tales do you have to tell? I’ve made a list of a few ideas to jog your memory a bit. When you get a moment this week, light the fireplace, don some comfy slippers, and make yourself a mug of hot chocolate—even if you do live in California—and let your mind drift back to a memory about…

1. A time you were snowed in
2. An accident you had in the snow
3. Chores associated with winter
4. Snow fun—skiing, sledding, ice skating, making a snowman or a snow fort
5. Winter in a warm climate. What you like about it. What you dislike about it
6. The winter blahs
7. The clothing of winter. What you liked, what you didn’t. Snow suits, the sweater you had to have
8. Winter cooking
9. Mishaps due to the weather
10. An important event that occurred during the winter
11. Going to school in the snow
12. Preparing the house or yard for winter

Good luck,
Memoir Mentor

PS: Those are my cute grandkids in the photos, in Park City, Utah, and that’s my dog Emma sniffing the shovel.

It starts after I heft the last of the Christmas decorations into the garage attic. I look at the blank spaces in my house where the manger scene, Christmas village, and other decorations sat and realize I need to fill them with the pictures, flower arrangements, and other doo-dads that sit in those places the other months of the year.

Pulling those accessories out of their storage places makes me look at them in a new light. Maybe I ought to arrange them differently this year, I think. Why should the house look the same year after year? And so I create a new arrangement on the coffee table with photos, picture books, and a candle. It looks pretty nice, but it could use a little greenery to soften the effect, so I borrow a small arrangement from another room to see if it works. It does. Then I work on another area, soon moving things from room to room, rummaging through drawers for this and that, setting a few things aside for Good Will, and…I’m on a roll.

I can feel the buzz of an organizing binge taking on a life of its own. It can last for days as I move from tabletops to bookcases to drawers to closets. Sometimes I become so engaged in the process, I forget to eat, which is a good thing. You know, because of my Pioneer Woman escapade?

All that happened last week. And it’s mostly done. And it feels good, freeing my brain for tackling a new year of memoir-related work. You knew I was going to get around to the M-word, didn’t you? Still feeling the vestiges of my buzz, I’ve been thinking how some of this organizing energy could be applied to personal history projects. A little bit of memoir housekeeping can free your mind for greater creativity—maybe even spark some story ideas. Here are a few organizational projects you might consider…

• How about last year’s calendar? Do you still have it? Did you write down events and appointments on it? If so, you have a good resource for reconstructing your year and maybe have some material for a story or  two. Go through last year’s calendar and make a list of all the things you did. Assign a date to each event and jot down a few notes. Is there any story material there? If you have calendars for previous years, do the same thing. What an interesting project this could be. Sometimes one year blends into the next–particularly as we age–and we don’t take note of interesting things that happen. My students tell me they don’t like to write about their adult years because they’re boring. Maybe not…check out last year’s calendar.

• In a similar vein, consider making lists of all the books you read last year or movies you saw, projects you completed, or places you visited, etc. I’d love to have lists like this from my grandparents. If you can’t remember much about last year, start keeping lists this year. For some years, I’ve tried to keep a list of the books I’ve read and post them on this blog and, because I’m a movie fan, I keep a list of all the movies I’ve seen each year and assign them a grade. My entire family does this and we have fun exchanging our lists every year.

• If you haven’t already done so, begin creating a life chronology (timeline), a surefire way to begin thinking about your life in story terms.  My blog post here explains how to do it and why it’s important.

• Have you digitized all the important records that pertain to your life? I haven’t, but it’s on this year’s project list. I plan to scan and save on my computer all my school report cards, along with personal documents and certificates of various kinds so they’re all in one place. I may want to use some as illustrations in my personal history. Frankly, I haven’t foreseen all the ways I can use them, but I know this project will assure that I have a copy of everything in one place—a computer file or DVD—instead of spread around the house in scrapbooks and manila folders.

• Do you know what stories you intend to write this year? Do you know when you intend to write them? If you don’t have a plan, you won’t be as productive. The months will go by and another year will have passed and you won’t have finished your personal history. Make a list of stories you’re going to write and assign a completion date for each one. Be realistic, but be ambitious, too.

These are just a few ideas for getting organized in the memoir way. Some won’t fit your organizational needs or style, but they may spark other projects. If you have ideas that have worked for you, please share them with all of us.

All the best for a fruitful writing life in 2012,
Your Memoir Mentor