lolita-s-bigtoe.com

A year ago, I began lolita-s-bigtoe.com. after thinking about it for at least that long. My blog is aimed at older women because I am one and it’s the largest growing demographic in the world. I selected the name, Lolita’s Big Toe, because we are continually testing the stream of change like swimmers before they dive into a pond. When we walk, our big toes move us forward and provide balance. I hope my words do the same.

I like doing new things after giving them the proper consideration and learning as much as I can. Last November, I attended a very helpful Midwest Writers Association workshop in Glenview, a Chicago suburb. I have instructions printed from the internet and a how-to book of blog directions laying on my desk for quick reference. Still, I can have problems using the computer. I’m fortunate to have my own personal “techie,” our son, Kurt.

I’ve had fun broaching whatever subject crossed my mind. I figure if I’m curious about something, it probably interests others.

Ever since I learned to talk, my favorite word has been why. As a journalist, I learned to do research. In the beginning, it meant a trip to the Rockford Public Library or at least a phone call. The internet makes it a lot easier and quicker to find the facts I need.

Posting on Wednesdays has worked well for me. Recently, I missed three weeks while I was recovering from an upset stomach. I have pieces written ahead and I think there’s a way to have them on the website with a date designated for publishing, but I haven’t tried it. My writing continues to be learn by doing.

What new things have you tried during the past year?

A short explanation. I have missed posting for 3 weeks. I’ve been slowly getting back to normal from a stomach upset March 15. It seems to take me longer to get OK than it used to.

Friday we’ll quietly celebrate our 61st anniversary. We were married April 17, 1959. How two teenagers had the sense to stick together after riding a Ferris wheel, I’m not sure, but I’m thankful we did. We raised three children and are the proud grandparents of two more.

When we became engaged in September of 1958, my 21st birthday, I heard over and over, “Congratulations. Kenny’s a good man.”

After Ken gave me the diamond, I asked Mom, “How come you let me go out with Ken when you wouldn’t let me go out with the other boys that asked me.”

Her succinct reply, “You finally got out of the bargain basement shopping for boyfriends.”

I have to admit, the “bad boys” held a certain fascination for me before Kenny stole my heart.

Not that there haven’t been times I would get pissed off at the man I live with and wanted to walk out, but where would I go? I had three kids, no job and a mother who told me when I married, “Remember, you can’t come home again.” I had to cool off and straighten things out.

I’m sure there have been times Ken has felt the same way, but he’s a repair man, born during the Great Depression and remembering World War II. His dad taught him, you fix things that aren’t working–not throw them away and get new.

Recently, I’ve had fun watching my granddaughter, Katelyn, prepare for her wedding. The similarities and differences sixty years make are fascinating. I’m happy to see there are still good men–she’s marrying one in the fall.

How did you find true love?

A collage is a unique artistic composition of odd things and pieces brought together. I believe that describes a human being. When babies are born, people start picking their features apart–Mommy’s red hair, Daddy’s blue eyes, Uncle Tom’s nose. The list goes on. As children grow, they adopt habits, mannerisms and philosophies of those they admire.

I still use a pencil and paper to jot down notes when I’m composing blog posts on my computer. In between thoughts, I stick the pencil behind my right ear so it’s easy to find. This habit goes back to my mother teaching me to write when I was five. I had a little-girl crush on Clint, who along with his older brother and father operated the local grocery store. He was a young, single guy who fussed over me and gave me a penny Tootsie Roll when we shopped. He always had a pencil stuck above his ear ready to record my parents’ purchases in his order book.

One of my favorite teachers was Miss Tunison. The tall, blonde with a penchant for red, was beginning her career in our seventh-grade classroom. I dropped the Zaner-Bloser alphabet I’d practiced since third grade and adopted her handwriting style with disjointed letters within words and I’s dotted with circles.

I learned from my older cousin, Doris, that a woman isn’t locked into one persona. During the week, she wore jeans and a cap to sweat alongside her dad and the rest of the neighborhood men threshing oats. After her Saturday night bath, she put on cologne, make-up, a dress and spike heels to dance with some of the same guys at the Grange Hall.

When I’m dressing for the day, I see Mom’s face in the mirror and slide socks over Dad’s toes. In between, I’ve added pieces gleaned from family members, friends, acquaintances and celebrities. I’m a unique, evolving person. To quote e.e. cummings, “The hardest job in the world is to be yourself, while the world tries to make you into somebody else.”

What pieces compose the collage you call self?

Entertainers make big bucks amusing us.

If you’ve ever seen Judge Judy on TV, you’ve heard her say, “They don’t keep me here ’cause I’m gorgeous, they keep me here ’cause I’m smart!” Judy Sheindlin must be extremely smart to make $47 million annually, which translates into a little more than $900,000 for each of her 52 workdays. Country singing legend Dolly Parton’s annual salary is said to be $37 million. Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers quarterback, reportedly receives an annual salary of $33,500,000. I don’t hear complaints about the extravagant salaries celebrities receive. Instead, we admire their mansions and lavish lifestyles.

We all fall under the spell of our idols. At a pro baseball game, fans of all ages wear their favorite player’s number. Children made “Tickle Me Elmo” from their beloved Sesame Street a “must have” toy for Christmas. Teenage boys of my era adopted Elvis Presley’s pompadour and sideburns. Seeing a picture of the English actor, Helen Mirren, and noticing her haircut was similar to mine, made me hold my head a little higher.

When a cop stops a taxpayer for speeding, the officer is often reminded, “I pay your salary.” We, the people, also provide a celebrity’s exorbitant compensation. We dig deep in our pockets to buy tickets to attend sporting events, live performances and movies. We also lay out our hard-earned cash for the products providing the venue for television programs. Sponsors wouldn’t pay $5.6 million for a thirty-second commercial during Super Bowl LIV if they didn’t expect to recoup their investment from the purchases made by the audience estimated to be 100 million people.

We often give celebrities more credence than they deserve. Just because they’re adept at throwing a football, singing a song or acting like someone else, we accept as gospel their comments on any aspect of life.

During this political campaign season, the inequality of pay between a company’s executives and its workers is being questioned. How about the compensation of famous stars compared to the nameless crews making their performances possible?

Our family was celebrating my seventieth birthday when my son, Kurt, asked, “How does it feel to be seventy?”

“It all depends on your health. The other day I came out of the store carrying a plastic bag of groceries in each hand on my way to walk the six blocks home. I passed your high school basketball coach struggling to get out of his car parked in a handicapped spot. We’re about the same age.”

Apparently in government, voters equate age with wisdom. Five of the candidates for president in the November election are at least seventy years old: Bernie Sanders, 78; Mike Bloomberg, 78: Joe Biden, 77; Donald Trump, 73; and Elizabeth Warren, 70. Those seeking office are trying to convince the American people they’re capable of running the country. The politicians aren’t cracking jokes like, “I think a lot about the hereafter. Every time I go into another room, I wonder, ‘What am I here after?'”

Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, neuroscientist, cognitive psychologist and author, said, “The difference in a short-term memory lapse in a 70-year-old and one in a 20-year-old isn’t what you think. The difference is how we self-describe these events. Twenty-somethings don’t think: ‘Oh dear, this must be early-onset Alzheimer’s.’ They think: ‘I’ve got a lot on my plate.’ The 70-year-old observes these same events and worries about brain health.”

Today’s females in their seventies don’t look like the pictures from their grandmothers’ era when ladies wore frumpy house dresses, wound their long hair in a knot at the back of their necks and eschewed face paint. Modern older women don fashionable pant suits, visit their hair stylist regularly and wear make-up sparingly. Cover Girl’s spokesmodel Maye Musk, 71, states, “They say at a certain age you stop caring. I wonder what age that is?”

How do you envision 70-year-olds?

As adults, some of the girls I grew up with moved away from this community where I’ve remained. In our middle years, a few of these women returned to the area and we reconnected. We’d weathered marriages, divorces, births, deaths and health problems. It’s interesting to note how we’ve changed and how we’ve maintained a unique, core identity through traits and characteristics.

Joyce and I reconnected by attending a 5-day writers’ seminar in northern Wisconsin. When we registered at our Rhinelander motel on a Sunday evening in July, we each qualified for our first AARP discount. Our fiftieth birthdays were only a few weeks away.

The last time we’d been together, we were teenage tomboys who loved riding horses, playing sports and dancing with boyfriends. Our farm families attended various social events together. After graduating from similar, small high schools, we went our separate ways and lost touch.

Joyce earned a college degree, married a career serviceman and lived in various places. After a divorce, she brought her daughter and son back to southern Wisconsin. She began a job with the Madison school system and became friends with coworker, Pat, who is my cousin. Learning I was still in Durand, she wrote to me to get reacquainted. We continued exchanging letters, which evolved into emails.

Kelly Quinn, PhD, clinical assistant professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has studied reconnecting with friends. She finds that shared interests, history and common values allow relationships to redevelop quickly. The two people may not share the same politics or religious views, but they don’t try to convert one another.

Friends increase health and play an important role in well-being. At midlife, we become more selective about our cronies seeking quality rather than quantity. Time with an old chum is like relaxing in a favorite easy chair at the end of a hard day, no artifice–just comfort.

Have you reconnected with an old pal?

Linda, our oldest child, would have been sixty years old yesterday. She died from breast cancer eleven years ago. I remember the day she was born. Mild labor pains disturbed my sleep during the previous night, but there was no urgency. On a sunny, wintery, Thursday morning, Ken drove me to St.Clare Hospital in Monroe, Wisconsin. Plows had cleared the twenty-five miles of county and state roads we travelled. Snow from last week’s storm was piled along the shoulders. That evening at 9:55, Linda Louise, weighing 7 lbs. 2 oz. and 19 in. long, entered the world. While I was in the delivery room, Ken cooled his heels in the waiting room. Three days later, he drove us back to Irish Acres. Our house went with his job as his brother-in-law’s hired man. We lived about half-way between his parents’ home in Durand and my folks’ farm. Mom came daily to guide me through caring for that perfect infant.

A week before Linda’ birth, we had a blizzard. I wasn’t concerned. My due date was two weeks away and all of my friends had gone later than they expected. Older, wiser folks knew foul weather often brought babies. About seven that evening, our phone rang. When I answered, a woman said, “This is Esther Panoske. Stan wanted me to call and tell you he can’t get you to Monroe, but he can take you to Durand if you need to go someplace.” Her husband was our Laona Township Highway Commissioner with a large snowplow parked in his driveway. The local clinic was staffed by young, Dr. Harvey, who lived in the village.

The call surprised me. The couple were neighbors, but not close friends. In rural communities, everybody knew everyone else’s business.

Later, I learned my father-in-law also was worrying about us that treacherous night. He had it figured out that Ken could drive the 2 1/2 miles to their house. Alice, a nurse who lived across the street, would serve as midwife to deliver the baby on their kitchen table.

When I was young and naive, it was a good feeling to have experienced elders looking out for me.

Do you consider having others know your business as concern or nosiness?

Friday, Valentine’s Day, we’ll celebrate love. Finding someone to love that loves you back has to be one of life’s major miracles.

I’ve been watching our glowing, granddaughter, Katelyn, try on wedding gowns. September nuptials will unite her with Sean, the fellow she met while they were students at Elmhurst College. It’s fun to note the similarities and differences between their courtship in the 2000s and ours in the 1950s.

Kenny and I were teenage schoolmates when he asked me to ride the Ferris wheel at a village summer festival. He became my “steady.” We’ve been sitting across the breakfast table from one another for more than sixty years.

Cupid’s arrow may strike anywhere at any time. During a trip to Kauai, Hawaii, to visit a mutual friend, my companion, Gloria, and I stayed at Michael and Sondra’s bed and breakfast. He was a Native Hawaiian and she was a blonde from Boston, Massachusetts. During a vacation from her job, she’d flown more than five thousand miles to visit The Islands. After returning home, she couldn’t forget the young man she’d met there.

Some of us find love more than once. My friend, Joyce, a widow, recently celebrated her eightieth birthday. Two days later, she married, Sid, a widower. They’d met across a card table playing euchre at a senior citizens’ center.

Not every couple who falls in love marries. When people have lived more than fifty years, complications from their pasts may intervene. My sister-in-law, Lola Mae, a widow who resided here in Durand and Butch, who was divorced and made his home in Farmington, sustained their engagement ’til death do us part. To spend weekends together, they took turns driving the 125 miles that separated them.

Do we experience love in different ways at various ages? Probably, but a smile from the person we adore gives each of us a warm, fuzzy feeling.

How did you fall in love?

Friday would be my parents’ 85th anniversary. On a Thursday afternoon in the middle of the Great Depression, Alex and Edith said their vows at the Trinity Lutheran Church parsonage in Durand. His sister, Marion, and her cousin, “Spud,” stood up with them in front of Rev.Swenson, a typical preacher with white hair and goatee. The following Saturday night, his shirttail relations, the Larison family, played for their wedding dance at the Avon Town Hall located just across the Wisconsin state line. Her sister, Frannie, made a wedding cake and his family provided the rest of the celebratory lunch. Relatives and friends from as far away as Rockford and Monroe came and brought gifts. I asked Mom why they were married in February when the weather is so unpredictable. She said they wanted to be ready to move to the farm they’d rented when landlords changed tenants March first.

For a long time, I thought the professional photograph of the three of us taken when I was six weeks old was their wedding picture. Her black dress with a white collar and his blue suit were the same clothes they’d worn two years earlier. I couldn’t imagine them without me.

Mom and Dad taught me about equality in marriage at work and at play. They farmed side by side beginning and ending each day milking cows. On shopping trips to Rockford, our last stop was always Hot Smacks on West State Street for ice cream. My parents each ordered a banana split, a boat-shaped dish with scoops of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry nestled between the two halves of a banana. Chocolate sauce, marshmallow cream and pineapple topping were dribbled on the balls of ice cream. Whipped cream, nuts and a cherry topped off the concoction. I ate a small, butterscotch sundae.

As a teenager, I heard that some girls demurely said, “I’ll just have a coke,” when a dating couple stopped at a drive-in. Ken never got by that cheap. He’d say, “I’m going to have a cheeseburger, fries and a coke. What do you want?”

My reply was always, “Sounds good. I’ll have the same.”

When we were first married. I thought I’d be Mom’s opposite, a rural June Cleaver. But I wasn’t satisfied being a housewife and mother while my husband was the breadwinner. As soon as our three children were enrolled in school, I looked for a part-time job. I ended up with two–Durand Township Clerk and freelance journalist.

Do you believe women and men are equal in a marriage?

The world today reminds me of the magic slate that was a fascinating Christmas gift from Santa years ago. The tablet had a black base covered by a gray plastic sheet with a second clear plastic sheet over top. I could write or draw a picture with a wooden stylus, lift the two layers and it disappeared.

Like that magic slate, an unseen hand is making my past disappear. While I was growing up, we lived in five different farm houses–only two remain standing. The Dobson and Putnam country grade schools that I attended have been hauled away making the farm fields where they stood on Moate Road and at the corner of Best and Laube Roads a little larger. I rode a yellow bus from our farm northwest of Durand into town to attend junior high and high school. That combined building has been knocked down. The area is now a paved, parking lot for the education complex on the other side of South Street.

Last fall, the big, old elm next door was sawed down. The tree was leaning and the owner didn’t want it to fall on her neighbor’s roof. Kim, who lives across the street, will keep warm burning the wood piece by piece in his stove.

I thought of Sherrill, the mother of the family who formerly lived in that threatened house. She and I spent many summer afternoons sitting in the shade while our six kids played around us. My three cops howled like sirens and pedaled their bicycle squad cars chasing her three who were robbers. When the group wanted to play Wiffle Ball, our neighbor, Cliffie, allowed them to use his vacant lot at the end of the block. Sherrill has passed away and so have her Junior and my Linda.

What do you miss that has disappeared like lifting a magic slate?