A Sunday Afternoon in Winter

There were two, matching chairs in our living room. They sat to either side of a low corner table, perpendicular to each other. The chairs were low, like the table, and covered in a brown fabric with green highlights. My mother’s chair faced the television; this, in the minds of my sister and me, made it the best chair. Whenever Mama wasn’t home, we fought over who got to sit in her chair. We developed elaborate mechanisms by which one could establish whether it was his or her turn to sit in the chair; and if already ensconced in it, one would have to call out “place saved” before going to the bathroom or to fetch snacks. If one failed to do this, and one’s sibling was paying attention, one could find oneself back sitting on the floor.

The view from Daddy’s chair, the direct view, was down the hall, over the floor furnace, and into our one bathroom (sink, no cabinet; bath, no shower). This view held no value for us kids, and so, neither did Daddy’s chair. That is, until I was twelve and discovered the joys of sitting sideways in Daddy’s chair with my legs dangling over the arm, talking on the phone and trying to think of witty things to say to girls; but that is a story for another day.

On this day, Mama and Daddy occupied their respective thrones, watching some Christmas show on our black & white television—Daddy, of course, looking to his right. The afternoon sun came slicing through our picture window, painting a good sized rectangle of warmth on the living room carpet. And even if Mama’s chair had been empty, I would not have wanted to sit in it; not with that spot on the carpet calling to me. To my mind, nothing compared to stretching out on the carpet where I could be lulled into an afternoon nap by the warmth of the sun.

Paducah, Kentucky rests at the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers; a fairly pleasant location three-fourths of the year, but the corner of “Cold Street” and “Wet Avenue” in the winters. No one had yet heard the phrase, “Wind-chill Factor.” We said things like, “That wind cuts to the bone!”; or “This breeze is bone-chilling.” And, while it was not as bad as at the intersection of Fourth & Broadway (just four blocks from the riverfront), the wind was cold enough out on 21st Street. That sunny block on our carpet was, to my thinking, prime real estate at that time of year.

Ours was, usually, a fairly quiet home. Oh, we had the normal noises of life. For example, I awoke each morning to the sounds of Big Band music (and the smells of frying bacon and brewing coffee) wafting up to my room in the attic. My Father never failed to start his morning listening to the Jim Youngblood Show. I could never enumerate the times I woke to hear “In the Mood” or some other equally well known Big Band standard, followed by the Announcer saying something like, “Today’s program comes to you compliments of the good folks down at Wallerstein’s, where gentlemen know to shop. Won't you stop in there soon? Tell them J.Y. sent you by!” Now, those morning rituals are a very fond memory. But at the time, I must confess, nothing about this music appealed to me; if it wasn’t a product of the British Invasion, or found in a Hymnal, I had no interest. That lasted until my senior year when my high school launched a Stage Band; once my friends were playing Big Band music, I suddenly discovered just how wonderful it was.

In an average day, you would hear our radio, our television, my sister’s new hairdryer (with the new, roomy, elasticized cap to keep all that hot air on the hair), the sounds of food frying (our usual method of cooking almost anything), and, among others, the sound of pages turning in books. What you rarely heard was the sound of my parents voices raised in anger toward one another; but, oh, those silences could be cold.

For the record, my parents were human beings with strengths & weaknesses, positives & negatives, foibles, just like any other. They had their shortcomings, among them the fact that they had come to a point where they were not really happy together. For my father’s part, I ascribe most of it to the war. Today, we would say my father suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (“PTSD”). He had these bouts of melancholy, low self-concept, and, sometimes, outright depression. It made it difficult for him to sustain a career during a time when that was the expectation of all men; a time when only a raise & a promotion excused leaving one job for another before the expiration of about 20 years or so. Daddy had many mini-careers; first a Chiropractor, then a brick & tile man, then a riverboat pilot, then a dairyman, then a printer, then a carpenter. I may have left out a few; those are all I can remember from my time under his roof. And make no mistake, there always WAS a roof, and walls, and warmth in the winter, and I can’t ever recall missing a meal. But, still, a troubling situation for the times.

Mama suffered, in large part, from Cinderella Syndrome. She was still married to her Prince, but the fairytale had “moved on” (to borrow a wonderfully descriptive term from Stephen King). Daddy was no longer the expected doctor. There was no castle, no country club, no staying at home to raise kids. Mama was never one to be introspective, or even very reflective, so she would never have considered that she had been gainfully employed since she was eleven years old, had chosen work over taking the one remaining course required to graduate from high school, and competed ferociously for promotions in a work world not prone to promote women. I don’t think my mother ever forgave my father for not being all that he could have been. In her heart, I think she believed it was my father’s fault that she “had” to work while, at least in the fairytale, other women stayed home. In reality, most of my friends had mothers who had jobs. After all, this was Paducah, Kentucky; it was only the society women who could afford to stay home full time. And, lets face it, they didn’t really STAY at home; they were out every day at the Junior League, or the country club, or planning this year’s Dogwood Trail. But, my mother could not see all that, at least not that way. Best I can tell, Mama had, at some early point in the marriage, thought that world would be hers; that Daddy was her knight come to rescue her from having grown up without any of the shiny things in life.

I mean no disrespect to either of my parents by any of the negative things I write about them here. My parents were, to their peers, amazing people; engendering strong, enduring loyalties among those who counted them as their friends. My mother achieved considerable success in her career with the telephone company, despite the massively unequal treatment endured by working women during those decades. For example, what passed for “maternity leave” in her day required that she quit her job when “it was time” (some well known, but ill defined point in the pregnancy shortly before the baby was due). Between miscarriages and deliveries, my mother started her career over at least five times. That’s right, started over, as in no “cumulative service clause” in the union agreement. None of Mama’s previous work counted for anything when she returned to the telephone company after a pregnancy. Despite this, and many other inequities, Mama worked her way up into management of what was, then, a real Good Old Boys Club of a company. And, she was adored & admired by her sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, cousins, etc., for all that she was and achieved.

My father was almost worshiped by the older people in our extended family (both his side and Mama’s side) for all the wonderful things he did for them. It was common for Daddy to get up on a Saturday morning and drive over to the home of one elderly relative or another where he would, without request or prompt, repair their roof, screen door, porch, car, etc. My father was so well liked in our community, that I even recall someone saying to him, in dead earnest, “Doc, if you ran for office, I’d vote for you.” I believe Daddy was both embarrassed and pleased by the, well there is no other word for it, adoration he received from so many.

Even MY friends liked my parents; it was not uncommon for one of them to tell me how great they thought my parents were, how lucky I was to have them, and how (someone really said this to me) they wished my parents were their parents. Of course, my problem was that I was too close. Not only could I see the paint strokes; I could see the weave of the canvas. Some years of perspective have helped me to see them for the complex people they were.

So, when I write that it was a bit cold in our living room on some Sunday afternoons, you can now know I mean something a little different from the ambient temperature. Which is why that particular Sunday afternoon, and that particular acre of sunlit carpet, remain in my memory to this day. On that afternoon, all of the cold was outside; the quiet in the house was an amiable one; for that day, and that afternoon, everything seemed right; the sounds included some quiet laughter. My memory of lying there on that warm, bright patch of our living room carpet has come to symbolize for me a certain kind of peace; a few hours of the fairytale come to life. It is my memory of Home.