Never Leave

Well that was dumb: I knew I’d made a mistake when I found out two of my dearest friends were practically drawing straws to see which one would call to find out if David really left me. Then I got a note from a guy I haven’t seen in 15 years who said he was sorry to read that my husband and I were having problems.That’s what you get for making jokes about marriage!David and I have been together since he was the only guy in a crewcut and every other young male in the western hemisphere had hair like Jesus of Nazareth. He was purposely out of it fashion-wise and I think that’s why I fell for him.Today I can’t TELL you all the ways he helps me, picks up after me, holds his tongue when I spill things, lose things, break things but instead let me copy here what I said about him in one of my books. I'll just say for background that he had no money at all in college, not a nickel. I didn't either. He was fatherless. So was I. He came from a houseful of many brothers and I came from a houseful of old folks and this meant that both of us were used to having lots of people around. When, at age 29, I was whining about whether or not I could manage to have any MORE babies after that first baby with all the WORK babies entailed and on and on he quietly said he had just kind of hoped to fill up all those spaces around the Christmas tree.We filled 'em all right.There are eight young people out there whom we have loved, fed, taught to drive, helped with the security deposit for that first apartment and lain awake nights worrying over.Now on to what I said in that second book of mine, back when David and I were just 'kids' in our 40s and our sweet youngest boy Michael was a 12-year-old away at summer camp. This chapter has another name in the book but in my mind it's always been "Hop on Pop" And it goes like this:+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++I don’t write much about the father of my children.I used to - jokey pieces, mostly - in which I revealed my own petty nature, enviously describing the way he was permitted to sleep late Saturdays by the same small children who wouldn’t leave me alone for three minutes together. Him they treated like a combination lounge chair and entertainment center, watching cartoons in our bed while balancing bits of toast on the shelf of his sleeping flank, leaning against his broad and gently-breathing back.It was after describing such a scene that a man came up to my husband. “You’re David Marotta!” he said with mystified look. “I don’t know how you stand it!” He meant being the subject of intimate revelation. He meant being described in the paper.Well, I had no wish to embarrass my husband, so after that I pretty much stopped writing about him. But he has always been there in the background.He was there the time a strange woman approached and began attacking me for a light piece I once wrote about Christmas cards filled with endless bragging. That lady went after me like a pit-bull. I tried everything I could think of to win back her good opinion.David saw how rattled I was. “You should just say, ‘Look, it’s my job. It’s what I write; it’s not who I am.’” Ah, but what I write IS who I am, which is why it means so much to me that the papers I write for print my address. I have learned so much over the years from my readers’ reactions.One thing I have learned is how much folks prize certain qualities in their fellow citizens.This husband of mine owned one suit when we got married, bought for his Middle School graduation. He was a scholarship kid, and has always identified with those who by virtue of birth or circumstance found themselves excluded from the great American bazaar of getting and spending.He never boasts. You can hardly get him to tell where he went to school or what his work is. Before his last college reunion, I had a terrible time getting him to fill out the class questionnaire. I finally said “I’ll read the questions and write down your responses.”It asked for your special achievements.“Leave it blank,” he said. “Or else put ‘My family’”It asked if you’d served on the Board of Directors of any companies.He does. “You do!” I said.“Leave it blank.”He doesn’t care if the world thinks him successful. It just doesn’t matter to him.What does matter to him, what he has saved the best of himself for, are those same untidy children who lean on him still. He plays golf, but mostly with clients. He never plays on the weekend. I asked him yesterday how many suits he has now. “One,” he said. “One that I can wear.” I like that. I can’t say how much I like that.This year, for the first time, one of our kids is spending all eight weeks at a summer camp. On Visiting Day, we noticed that most of the other campers are New Yorkers, with parents in fancy cars. At one point, we found ourselves at the basketball court where a lone father in Louis Vuitton loafers and a Versace shirt was shooting baskets.David had on shorts and his Dr. Seuss T-shirt with “Hop on Pop” stenciled on the front. I knew he wanted to shoot with our son, but was holding back, not wishing to interrupt this well-dressed dad.“Go on out there!” I whispered. “He’s just some cardiologist!”He laughed. He knew what I meant.I meant. Some rich guy in fancy clothes? Some rich guy is no match at all for a man with just one suit.Now these little stories will embarrass him, I know. But he said it himself: It’s my job.

Fax Me, Chill Out, Oh Baby of Mine

They’re something so touchingly dated about Necco’s gritty little “Sweetheart” Conversation Hearts. I mean who exclaims ”My Baby!” these days, never mind “Love Bird!” Of course “Fax Me” is in its own category of out-of-it-ness because when in the last 25 years has anyone with romantic intent excerpt for during a moment back in the 80s when we were all still blown away by the new technology? I faxed a birthday greeting to my brother-in-law in California and could hardly wrap my head around the fact that he’d be getting it at 9am when I had ACTUALLY SENT IT AT NOON! He was getting it BEFORE I even sent it! This is the kind of ecstatic mind-altered thinking that led to people sitting on their office equipment to photocopy their fannies (which, ha ha funny stuff, they would sometimes then FAX it to their friends.)

Bottom line: if a would-be suitor says “Fax Me” you’re dealing with some kind of culturally handicapped person Andy Kaufman's Latke Gravas character from the old show "Taxi."

But to get back to hearts which come to think of it are shaped like the human bottom when it is compressed on a flat surface, Necco’s website offers some history too. Seems these candy hearts go way back to the 1880s when they were much bigger and used the kind of high courting language we just don’t see today. Messages like “Dear One” and “Be Mine” are all I could find remaining of that era in the little box I have here but once they said things like, “Please Send a Lock of Your Hair by Return Mail,” and “How Long Shall I Have to Wait? Pray be Considerate!”

Now the only thing you’ll find on a heart is what fits in two short words or maybe even one. It’s kind of a falling-off if you ask me. Plus where are the QA guys? Half my candy hearts are smudged or stamped on crooked, the way American automakers are said to be putting your new car’s door on if it’s a Friday and they’re just kind of phonin’ it in there at the factory.

Let me tell you about the ones I have in my lap here. OK the one I just ate a minute ago said “Love (smudge)” and the one I’m tossing back now says “Sunshin,” the ’e’ having slid away and out of sight. Some are blank entirely and some are so crooked it looks like the sugary “ink” got stamped in the dark by helper monkeys.

Plus another lame thing this year: they’re going for a meteorological theme. That’s where “Sunshine” comes in and also “In a Fog” (which is supposed to recommend someone to you?) Also “Chill Out,” which sounds to me more like the prelude to a fight than a kiss but what do I know?

I say if they’re going to pursue themes they should really branch out, to the wide world of medical care, say and give us hearts printed with “Hold Still” or “Open Wide” or that phrase we all tingle to hear, “You'll Feel a Little Pressure."

Hey but wait! I just took a quick look around the Internet and look at this! two people from Minneapolis have offered a tallying-up the inky message inside their own bag of these little confections. The ones with a zero next to them are the ones they’re just making up but they offer them in such a great deadpan way. They say they found all of these and more: two Smiley Faces, five Unreadables, six Angels and five Call Me’s; but none that said “WWJD,” “Recently Tested,” “My Ho,” “Bad Rash,” or “Mammogram.”

“Mammogram,” see? There are others out there whose minds work like mine!

To see more and marvel along go to "How Much is Inside Converation Hearts?"

Then hurry out quick to the store to get something for your own honey; something living in this season of the brown grass even if it’s a box of yeast. I saw a guy trying to pass off a bouquet of purple kale as flowers for his lady last year. “Hey, it used to be alive!” he told me at the check-out. “Plus she can cook it up after. “

I wished him luck as we all should wish one another luck in this perilous season of the valentine. And now I have to run out and get something for my own main squeeze who’s going out to play cards and drink with his buddies tomorrow night instead of spending the evening with yours truly. He’ll be home around 1 and maybe a little muzzy with his evening’s fun. I bet he won’t even notice I’m keeping watch camped out in the guest room across the hall. I might be gittin’ up there agewise but by God I still know how to short-sheet a bed.