Parasols
We who went to Cove School in the 1940s, especially who had Virginia Parker as teacher one of those years, are among the blessed, the most blest, what a gift she was. Miss Parker loved us and catered to us, taught us, laughed with us, laughed at us when we clowned to be funny or to make her smile. I remember the afternoon Warren and I put her in hysterics as she was dismissing the class one by one at the end of the day: we were class clowns of the moment and, according to our plan, she pointed to us next. She made 8th grade memorable beyond any other teacher and school year. She read to us after lunch every day, always a book we chose together, various books through the year. Robert, Georgia Ann and others would remember the books better than I do, but I think she read “Gone With The Wind” to us. It may have been Mrs. Bowen who read that but I think it was Miss Parker.
Apparently there were risque bits here and there, because although we may have been too innocent to realize what was happening in the story, there were times when she would suddenly stop reading, read ahead a paragraph or a page or two, then evidently skip a paragraph, or a page, or a chapter, and "resume down story” so to speak. At the end of the book, Rhett Butler, whom we all had seen played in the movie by Robert’s fishing buddy Clark Gable -- Rhett said the scandalous, infamous, all remembered parting line to Scarlet, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Miss Parker shocked us with a soundbite of silence instead of the “damn,” but we may have coaxed it out of her. Such giggly naughty language. And in class we read Nancy Drew mysteries, and The Hardy Boys.
I don’t remember what the Hardy Boys drove, but I well remember that Nancy Drew’s father, a lawyer (or maybe he was a judge, I’m not sure), drove a big Chrysler sedan and Nancy drove a Plymouth roadster. This digression of mind will send me to the internet looking for pictures for sure.
Of for sure, one book I do remember for sure was Parasols Is For Ladies. Nice kids, we grew up unknowing, unaware, unquestioning, in a culture and age of America that was innocent in the most appalling sense of ignorant, blithely certain and obtusely oblivious. But this book is a sweet story of three sisters who want parasols but can't afford to buy them.
A dear, beautiful, loving little family with their mother and father, they have a cow named Grace whom they call “Gracie for Short.” Their dog is “Moreover,” after the verse at Luke 16:21, in Jesus parable of Lazarus the poor man, “... desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.” I loved having Happy lick my cut hand or foot, which took me right into the Bible story with the girls in Ritter's tale, and I thought ever since to name my dog “Moreover.” All I need is a dog. It’s a controversial book anymore, as indeed it should be, out of print, but you can get a collector’s copy if you save up three C-Notes. This was a book with many lines that were innocent for that day, age and era of America that was there whether you like remembering it or not, lines that put us children in stitches of laughter, and I am sure the book must have been read to us three or four times our growing up years at Cove School.
For all her goodness and lovingkindness to us, Virginia Parker, who came from Alabama down into this little part of Florida that, different from South Florida, was as much part of the Old South as our southern neighbors, was as dyed in her racism as we were. Someone who was there, knew, and remembered, informed me that she retired when she found out that her class for the upcoming school year would be racially mixed. That saddens me, but it's how we were. All of us grew up in our certainties, those who are growing up these years are growing up in their own certainties and aren't anymore aware of it than we were. Call it ignorant or naive if you wish, but it was an innocent type of “knowing” well found in the proverb, “He who knows not and knows not he knows not: he is a fool - shun him. He who knows not and knows he knows not: he is simple - teach him. He who knows and knows not he knows: he is asleep - wake him. He who knows and knows he knows: he is wise - follow him.” We didn’t know that we didn’t know; but we were certain that we did know. Proving the problem with the proverb: it’s a circle that closes like the saying “what goes round comes round” -- because he who knows and knows he knows is often blindly he who knows not and knows not he knows not. I think and write not so much from observation of others as from self examination and confession that is personal witness of growing up in the Old South, unquestioningly sure of Our Ways.
Our Ways are gone, thank God, or going, though wherever two or more humans look at each other and see different from themselves there will be evil and injustice, hatred and killing.
On this early Saturday morning, my mind has strolled down this road and come to a stop sign, and I look round and ask myself, where the hell am I, and how did I get here, and how do I get wherever I was going? I must be lost. No, lost is a mental state, not a physical state, your surroundings are never lost, so it’s me, not where I find myself at the moment leaving 8th grade classroom at day’s end. What?! The last time I was lost like this was a Saturday afternoon in 1963, driving home from Tokyo to Yokohama and suddenly realizing that every Japanese block and every Japanese corner and every Japanese sign is the same and I had no idea where I was or how to get home. Lord, help me, and suddenly in the car waiting at the red light in front of me is a Volkswagen with the sunroof open, driven by LT Joe Zabricki, the Planning Officer at my new duty station. Joe! Where the hell am I?
Oh, I know: parasols. The rain stopped but I still need cover for my writing. If I can’t take an umbrella without being too noticeable, surely I can carry a parasol against the bright, hot sun. But, no, parasols is for ladies. Was I thinking of Ritter or of Frye? Or was it Emily Webb? Needing to confront myself, I spent an hour or so at Greenwood this week, sitting, standing, wandering around, visiting, chatting, lost in memories, who but himself would suspect a doddering septuagenarian looking at the 8-ball, of being the same romantic fool as a starry eyed teenage boy. One of the folks I visited with was Bessie Cruce, hadn’t seen her in sixty-five years or so. If Virginia Parker was our favorite teacher, Mrs. Cruce was the substitute teacher who, when she came into our classroom, everybody cheered and cheered and cheered and clapped and clapped because we knew we were going to have a happy, happy day. She was so dear, funny, cheerful, kind and happy, and the day in 1949 when she died in surgery was the day that broke our hearts.
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
One of my highest honors as a priest many long years later, was to officiate Virginia Parker’s funeral and, early one morning some months after that, to wade out into the surf and scatter her ashes on the Gulf of Mexico. Doors ajar, closing forever. Death and the grave do that to us, always while we are still in our dreams.
Our Town, musing from the Stage Manager:
“There is something of you, your soul that will last forever, and it's not any sort of physical, or material object. The essence of you, maybe ... my memories of you.
Thornton Wilder's Stage Manager said Earth may be the only place in the universe where life exists. But I’m thinking that God may be more imaginative and talkative than that. He may say "Let there be ... " for me again. He may have already said it and have it there waiting for me. Thinking, hoping, dreaming, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief.
C