Renewal

Folks are often quite surprised that I take the Oscars so seriously.  But, I have no heart in this year’s ceremony really.  Sometimes there’s a film, performance or screenplay that I’m besotted with but I’m indifferent about 2018.  I’ve seen very few of the films and a lot of the nominated titles do not interest me a whit.  But the Oscars demonstrate the zeitgeist of the business and are rife with political intrigue.  For most of my adult life, the period between the nominee announcements and the ceremony was deemed the High Holy Days.

I used to see every film and our gathering was not a party, but a serious viewing with patter and sustenance reserved only for commercial breaks.  My Oscar mentor, Richard has been gone now for over three years.  His copious notes on Oscar statistics were donated to the Academy.  I watched the Oscars with him when I was in my twenties.  I made chicken salad, per his instruction. There was about six of us.  A member of this group one year brought a dog and was permanently blackballed. I was eighty-sixed when I bred.  In later years Richard took the ceremony too seriously to view it in any company.   Customarily he had an Oscar post-mortem with his old friend Paul in Minneapolis.  When Paul died, I got the call. Richard would be mortified, if he weren’t already, at the thought of me attending an Oscar party.  For over twenty years we have viewed the ceremony with our friend Broderick, always avoiding a party atmosphere and giving the ceremony undivided attention, except for commercials and musical numbers.  This year Brod has a lady friend with alternative plans so our viewing audience is smaller but in honor of Richard I will watch everything but the commercials and songs and otherwise behave respectfully, not betraying his high standards.

Casamurphy was always the site of a big Passover Seder, sometimes even two.  Last year I taught and ate sandwiches during Pesach.  I made a single batch of latkes and donuts for Hanukah and I believe that the menorah was lit only once.  Social events, both here and away have dwindled.  I glance at my old datebooks.  Nearly each date is filed with my cramped hand with multiple events.  Now I am loathe to schedule activities on two coinciding days.  I didn’t even bother to buy a datebook this year.  I keep track of my scant engagements on my phone.

The energy I used to put into social events, kids’ parties and treat bags is now put into my ESL class.  Each new student gets a bag and a folder.  There is a pencil that says “Welcome to Layne’s ESL Class”, a brochure that explains classroom procedures, a name tag and a small candy bar.  I give students a colored clip for their nametags each night they stay until the end of class.  I stand in the doorway to prevent them from leaving until they speak to me.  “Tell me about your mother.”  “What do you eat for lunch?”  “Who’s your best friend.”  And then they get a clip to affix to their name tag.

For the end of trimester clip exchange, wordsearch puzzle books are very popular.  There are also cheap superhero wallets and keychains with compasses from the clearance section of the Oriental Trading Company.  For the lesser attendees there are oranges, apples and notepads offered at five clips a pop.

I graduated from Johnston College in 1977.  Number One son received his B.A. in 2015.  The school is so tiny that there are no class reunions.  Only the anniversary of the school is celebrated.  This year is the 50^th and Himself and I check into the Redlands Dynasty Suites (lousy breakfast) for the big event.  I’d attended the 40^th and 45^th anniversary events but the 50^th is particularly poignant.  The founders and alumni have raised enough money to insure that the survival of the college, which has often been threatened, is secure. 

A reunion speaker is a community college instructor who’s realized some writing success but militantly rebelled against the advice of literary agents at the expense of greater commercial success.  He noted the satisfaction he’s taken in a lot of the writing not seen as fit for publication. I write here exactly what I want to write and for an intimate group. Sometimes it feels like wheel spinning and for as hard as I’ve worked on honing my (for want of a less pretentious word) craft, I sometimes rue having nothing to show.  At one of the dinners I sit next to Nina, an alum who asks to be introduced to me.  She reads here, having been directed by another alum.  She asks if Himself is really Himself, having followed our travails here for the fifteen or so years I’ve scratched here. 

I’m still processing the emotional wallop of the reunion.  The first director of the school is present and a surprising number of professors and alums, who fifty years ago took a gamble on a weird alternative school pose for a group photo.   It must be incredibly gratifying to see, that in a world where most of the experimental colleges have folded that Johnston still thrives.

Reluctantly I attend the memorial service.  The list of those being remembered is longer than it was five years ago.  There are students who died in their twenties, one friend whose wide- open face and tiny bars of homemade soap are still vivid.  I don’t remember what animal she was trying to save when she was struck by a car.

Many on the list of the lost are just familiar names but there are people that I knew and care about.  I can’t imagine that many of my peers, and certainly most of the emeriti professors don’t wonder if their own names will be added for the next reunion five years hence.

Illustrious alumni make speeches and appear on panels.  My own accomplishments aren’t acknowledged by the community but for my fan Nina.  I catch up with people I haven’t seen in over forty years.  Some of their lives seem charmed and others have endured unspeakable tragedy. 

The objective of the school is to plant the seeds of lifelong learning and I am reminded at the event that the quality of my life is not at all diminished by my obscure toil.   

We dine with a jolly group in a gracious home.  The octet that assembles far too infrequently are three couples we’ve known since the Silverlake JCC.  Each couple has two children who range now from early 20s to early 30s now. A mom describes her adult son’s complete disregard for cleanliness and order and his admission of having worn the same pair of pants daily for a year.  We are repulsed but also sort of jealous.  My working mom was too tired to keep my room straight.  We’d have screaming fights about it.  My wealthy cousin had a live-in housekeeper although there was a near military strictness about hanging up your clothes.  And making the bed in the morning the second you jumped out of it. My cousin was always exasperated that I couldn’t get the bolster to fit as tautly as I should. My room on Fulton Avenue was traversed by stepping over piles of clothes and detritus.  Posters were glued akimbo to the wall and the aroma of rotting things wafted up from beneath the strewn garments. My bedroom was a wonderful curiosity to my submissively tidy cousin.  She’d beg to see it despite my mother’s admonition to keep the door shut at all times. 

Now I go on cleaning sprees.  I hang up my garments.  The dishwasher is unloaded within 30 minutes of the little tune it plays when a load is clean.  Or if it runs overnight, I tackle it first thing when I wake up in the morning.  Unless something is super baked-on, I never sit down to dinner with a dish in the sink or an ingredient un-replaced.  The mythical messy room of my childhood suggested a freedom to my cousin.  Her orderly, taut bolstered room, to me, represented stability. 

The reunion reminds me how essentially satisfying my vocational endeavors are.  I am uptight about keeping order, obviously compensating for the lack of stability that dogged my childhood.  And while my house is relatively orderly, I’ve been blessed too by the intellectual freedom of the messy room. My name will one day appear on a memorial list.  I would hope later than sooner.  I’m not sure whether they’ll list me as Drebin or Murphy but I know that the person remembered there will have been blessed with stability and satisfaction.  The official name of the college event is “The Renewal.”  I pretty much eschew this as hippie flakey.  Having experienced the extravaganza, I have to admit though that the name is apt.