Lou Allin is the author of the Northern
Ontario Belle Palmer series and the RCMP Corporal Holly Martin series set in
Canada's Caribbean. Learn more about Lou and her books at her website/blog. www.louallin.com
Toddlers
and Typewriters, not Tiaras
It’s never too early to put
a child on the road to a profession. With only one child, all my parents’
efforts focussed on me. Not until I began sifting through their pictures from
1950 did I notice the trend.
On this Christmas morning photo, my mother wrote on the back, “This probably turned you off ironing.” My expression says, “What’s with this padded dressing gown? I’m not in a Thirties film.” My dad was a movie booker, and I went to private screenings with him from the age of five. If I had to be Myrna Loy, couldn’t I be Nora Charles and help solve cases? Yet strewn around my feet in this photo are little evidences of career choices. A blackboard. A tea table.
Here’s my first cutaway
dollhouse. I invited my large dolls to examine the little people inside. Would
interior design interest me? Women weren’t majoring in architecture yet. Fashion?
Why did the Daddy doll have an ugly brown suit? There’s my horse Pegasus in the
back. Mom loved mythology.
Cooking is useful, career
or not, and my mother filled her house with homemade pies, cakes, and cookies.
I had my own apron, rolling pin, and even a meat grinder! Early Hannibal
Lecter? The doll folk are avoiding my glance. Mother writes, “This is why you
are such a great cook. Encouragement.” Too true. I rarely eat out.
Here the dolly family examines
the fruits of my labours. My smile looks forced. Note how I refuse to stick out
my pinky. I do have a politically incorrect brown doll, and is that Betty Boop
in the back row? My family is growing. Time for a little birth control. Not
long after I will cut their hair and draw anchor and US Navy tattoos on their
chests, even my mother’s 1912 cloth baby. Why does my only boy doll get to sit alone
at the table?
Every kid loves animals!
Women vets were beginning to appear. Here’s my budgie Winky. “Look into my
eyes, bird. Stop pooping on the curtains.” Windy was actually very mean and bit
everyone except my mother. It had a bad habit of walking on the floor. One day
my father, well…..the less said, the better. It was fast. Tekoe and Pekoe
replaced Winky but were not allowed to fly the coop. Since we lived in an
apartment (before litter boxes), dogs or cats were out of the question. I did
raise scores of white mice, two favourites were Errol and Bette.
Time for sports. Here I am
with my brand new Schwinn. A light that flashes, a horn that beeps. It’s
gigantic, but I will grow into it. No training wheels for me. I graduated to a
racing bike at eleven. But few women made sports a profession other than
Barbara Ann Scott or Babe Didrikson Zaharias.
Let’s get professional. My
aunt was a nurse, and in that headdress, so am I. Check that medicine cabinet
and the stethoscope. I have an assistant, so perhaps I was ward matron. I had
my own chemistry set, too, but I combined ingredients at will and heated them
over my Bunsen burner until they turned black and smelled up the house. I liked
lighting candles in closets, and my mother let me. Can you believe it? If we
hadn’t been Episcopalians, maybe that habit would have suited me as a nun.
Teaching was the last logical
path. Mom made it to vice principal in the Cleveland schools. In my misguided career
from 1966 to 2005, I had the same happiness and success as this expression. The
dolls seem to be listening, and they’d
better, thanks to the punishing pointer, but they were a captive audience. Although later I was happier teaching
English at a community college in Northern Ontario, I can never forget a year
in a high school in Portsmouth, a shoe- and pottery-factory town bypassed by
time since 1900 and the poorest county in Ohio.
The seniors were very
civil, and my mythology class was sweet. But the tenth-grade boys I could line
up against a wall and……..where’s my Uzi?
“Why you always sayin’ that
I act like a fool?” one lad asked.
“Jim, you don’t have to ACT
like a fool,” I said.
“Kiss my ass!” He got it
loud and clear.
Off to the principal’s
office. Many youthful tears later, parents brought in and more crying. No
wonder I preferred being called Coach for my volleyball duties than Doc in
honour of my useless PhD in Christopher Marlowe. But for $7500 a year? No
thanks.
This last picture should
have given me the hint. This can’t be my mother’s Misery-style Remington basher, but it’s no toy. Later on, she will
bribe me with money at twelve to teach myself to type. Here I look serene, surrounded
by the Internet of the day, an encyclopedia set. Should I have followed my
heart and leaped full-time into creative writing? The juvenilia in the next essay
will demonstrate my early efforts.
Twilight is Not Good for Maidens
A midnight attack on a girl at an island beach
galvanizes the quiet Fossil Bay community and calls into question the
effectiveness of law enforcement. RCMP Corporal Holly Martin must conduct her
own investigation to discover a killer stalking young women in Canada's tourist
paradise.
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9 comments:
Judy, thank you for letting us know. This is so sad. I knew Lou was ill but had no idea she'd passed away. She sent her blog post to me well ahead of her scheduled blog date.
Condolences to her famlly
What a lovely way to remember her. Thanks for posting this.
This is a very moving memorial for a writer.
So touching. Thank you for posting this. Strange, we shared many of the same toys.
Heartwarming and touching photos...Thanks for the post.
Thank you for this, Judy. I was stunned to learn Lou had passed on. She was a fine writer and a generous and kind human being. I had the privilege of reading her first manuscript before it was published by Rendezvous Press. She'll be missed by many, including
her furry friends.
What a lovely post, and so sad. Thank you, Lois!
I only knew Lou slightly through the Internet and blogs, but she seemed like someone I'd really enjoy knowing.
My condolences to her family and friends.
Marja McGraw
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