On the Making of Lists
— Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 by Judy Rhinehart
In high school our English teacher required the writing of three to five hundred word essays, the titles usually began with the word "on," probably borrowed from classic essayists of a past century.
Two I remember I wrote were "On Hanging Curtains" and "On Eating Milk Chocolate" - from frustration to bliss. Apparently it wasn't too hard to produce three hundred words on such emotional topics.
In those days we rode the Blue Bus down Buffalo Road so named because it ran from Buffalo to Rochester (New York) and back again, a comfortable cliché. As we exited the bus station in Rochester, we had to pass the Fanny Farmer Chocolates store. Oh my, I think I can trace my present classification as a chocoholic on this fact.
In the large window of this small store were great slabs of mild chocolate. Nestled as cozily as chicks under a mother hen, were fist-sized chunks of said chocolate. What's more (according to size) most of them cost only a nickel. Who could resist such temptation? Not me.
In the essay I described the dream-like delight of chocolate melting in my mouth and sliding deliciously down my throat.
The curtain hanging, relegated to me every fall and spring by my mother, was another matter. The heavier cotton drapes she had made passed smoothly over the round rods, but the lace curtains constantly snagged on the rough, squared ends of those other fiendish flat rods.
As a freshman in college then, our first assignment from our English teacher was to write a fifteen hundred word autobiography. We gasped.
“How in the world can I write fifteen hundred words on one subject? I worried. But I did. Then I was embarrassed when the teacher held up my paper and read two paragraphs.
“This is descriptive writing,” he said, “and this is how you should be thinking.” Gulp! Needless to say, these two teachers encouraged and inspired me to become a writer.
Anyone with an ounce of efficiency makes lists. There is the grocery list, the “to do” list a.k.a. the “honey-do” list (“honey-do-this and honey-do-that”), the list of bills, etc. I am compelled to make lists.
From the age of eleven to the age of sixteen, I had to share a bedroom with my two younger sisters. Naturally, I drew a line down the middle of the room and on my side there was a tiny attic under the slanted ceiling. That is where I hid my diary and other personal possessions including my first ill-fated list.
My mother approached me reproachfully one day, a paper in her hand. With sinking heart, I recognized my list of “Boys Who Have Kissed Me.”
“What does this mean?” She asked in a strangled voice. What could I tell her? I shrugged my teenage shoulders and suggested, “Nothing?”
When I was seven and newly arrived in the States from India, greed prompted my first kiss.
“I’ll give you a penny if you let me kiss you,” a runny-nosed little boy offered. I was repelled by the sight but then thought of the wonderful array of penny candy I could choose from. And so it happened, mercifully a quick peck on the cheek.
Then I was madly in puppy love with the blond-haired, blue-eyed Jimmy who peddled the newspaper Grit. He was very shy. One day my brother, Jimmy and I were playing marbles in the attic (a different house). As I leaned over to destroy his marbles with my aggie, I impulsively kissed him on the cheek. (Technically, that doesn’t count, does it?) Predictively, my brother immediately scowled, “I’m going to tell Mom!”
I didn’t bother to tell Mom that “Pete” was the pudgy, bald little old elevator operator in the department store I worked in during Christmas vacations. Pete wrote me a sweet poem about how sweet I was and would kiss me “good morning” on the cheek, because I was never truly awake that early.
Neither did I mention the Kissers when we played “spin the bottle” at my girlfriend-on-the-hills house. Or I couldn’t let her know about my best friend’s older brother who wanted to marry me when I was sixteen.
Well, my lists were more prosaic than that first one. When I started writing, I made lists of publishers, of my pen names, of published material. When we took foster children, I was required to keep lists of dates and payments and expenditures. As our family grew, I had to keep lists of Christmas presents-who got what when.
I made a list of lost things just in case they were ever found and could be crossed off. To avoid nagging I made lists of “honey-dos” for my husband.
There are endless lists to be made, and one day I made one that should have been the crux of the matter, but it is not.
I made a list of my lists~.
Judy Rhinehart, member of Warm Beach Senior Community Writer’s Group