Happy Birthday Paul Girl

Peggy Carriker Rosenbluth ~ Paul Girl Era
In honor of my sister's birthday, I took a moment to re-read one of our favorite essays: Paul Girl, by Anna Quindlen. You should too, it will bring a smile to your face, especially if you're old enough to remember at least one appearance of The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show.

Just the other day, Peg and I were asking ourselves, "Are we OLD or WHAT?!" Over the decades, we have gaged our place in history with the query, "Do you remember seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan?" (Gleefully, yes.) Or, even earlier, "Do you remember when JFK was shot?" (Sadly, yes).

In 1985, an unexpected indicator came up at a grad school party when a stranger inquired if I was young? or old? What did he mean? "Well, lets put it this way," he replied, "did you have to learn to use a slide rule in high school?" Despite my eternally youthful appearance (remember, I was a mere 28 years old at the time), when I said "yes," he declared "OLD!" I had to laugh! Not long after that, I saw some high school kids at a fundraising flea market selling old books and lab equipment, including "antique" slide rules; so, I guess the party guy's assessment was not far off the mark.

But getting back to the Beatles and the 60s. Quindlen recalls that you had four choices in 1964 -- you could be "a Paul girl, a John girl, a George girl or a Ringo girl . . .

The girls who picked George as their favorite Beatle were self-contained, serious, with a touch of the wallflower and a bit of the mystic. The ones who chose John were aggressive, irreverent, the smart mouths, the wisecrackers. Ringo got anyone who was really determined to distinguish herself, the kind of girl who would wear wax fangs or weird clothes, who would choose the boy at the back of the band, with the big nose and the strange looks.

Paul got the little ladies - like me. He was cute in a mainstream way, funny in a mainstream way, a public persona not much different from the most popular boys in the class. He was for girls who were traditional, predictable, who played by the rules."

I loved my sister's response when I first shared Quindlen's essay with her twenty years ago: "I was (still am) a 'Beatles Girl.' I like to believe I'm a combination of all of the best parts. A down - to - earth, mystical, irreverent, and wax fangs type of person. But mostly I'm a (Sir) Paul Girl."

And me? Yes, a Paul Girl -- but in a George ("Give Me Love Give Me Peace on Earth"), Ringo ("Thomas the Tank"), John ("Imagine") and Yoko ("Woman is the Nigger of the World") kind of way.

Like the Model Peg Made!

~~~~~~~~~~

P.S.
Previous
Anna Quindlen Posts

Mind the Gap

Take This Quiz!

Do You Think It Is?

Camera, Memory Keeper, Time Machine

Fairy Tale

Your House, Of Course

Homebody Anybody

Homebody Somebody

Play With This

Your House, Of Course

Hanging House ~ Stanford University Outdoor Art

Where am I going on this glorious journey?

To your house,

of course.

Rumi (1207 - 1273)
Persian Spiritual Sage

When recalling her first visit to New York City,
American essayist Anna Quindlen writes,
Something deep inside me just said "Yes."

from "City Kid" in Living Out Loud, 227

Some houses can make you feel the same!

Fairy Tale

"Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all the front parlors;
there was sherry and walnuts . . . and crackers by the dessertspoons . . .
the brandy, the . . . mince . . . and blazing pudding . . .
And then, at tea the recovered Uncles would be jolly;
and the ice cake loomed in the center of the table like a marble grave.
Auntie Hannah laced her tea with rum, because it was only once a year."
from A Child's Christmas in Wales
by Dylan Thomas

Thanks to my facebook friend Ann for her comment:
"Foods and dishes look like they
came right out of a fairytale!
Lovely!"
Speaking of fairyland . . .

At Christmas dinner, my son Sam, asked for a preview of our New Year's Resolutions. Aside from my usual -- read more, worry less -- I was stumped . . . until this morning when I checked out my StoryPeople of the Day, only to discover that Brian Andreas had once again pinned the horn on the unicorn:

unicorn life
Today, after some reflection, I decided I’m never going to pretend I know anything about Life ever again, other than there’s a word for it. Like there’s a word for unicorn, though no one has ever seen one, except from far away & maybe it was just a trick of the light....

Up 'til now, I have always gone along with Anna Quindlen's motto that

"The meaning of life is life."

And I still concur.

However, I think my number one New Year's Resolution for 2015 will be to fall in line with Andreas and try the "life - is - like - a unicorn" approach for awhile:

"I'm never going to pretend I know
anything about Life ever again."

Reminds me of that old favorite from Judy Collins:

"I really don't know life at all."

************

Before the Cake Was Cut

~ Christmas Cake, Major ~
Gerry's Handiwork!
Thanks to my sister Peggy for the
new set of village houses, perfect for cake toppers!

Christmas Cakes, Minor ~
Some miniatures for sharing!
Thanks to our friend Katy Bunder for the
Gingerbread Tea Lights, perfect for mini - cake toppers!

~ The Full Fleet ~
Thanks to our friend Katie Field
for helping out with the baking this year!

Camera, Memory Keeper, Time Machine

Back in 1994, sizing up the success of yet another visit to the photo studio, I said, "Well, it looks like Ben could have used a hair cut and Sam seems a little worried." Without skipping a beat, Little Ben spoke up (in reference to the camera):

"Sam thinks it's a big gun!"

Maybe he meant to say, "a time machine."
Last month on my book blog, I was looking at The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. The title derives from a scene early in the novel when David, the memory keeper, says to his wife Norah:

"But you're so sad . . . don't be sad. I didn't forget, Norah. Not our anniversary, not our daughter. Not anything."

"Oh, David," she said. "I left your present in the car," She thought of the camera, its precise dials and levers. The Memory Keeper, it said on the box, in white italic letters; this, she realized was why she'd bought it -- so he'd capture every moment, so he'd never forget. (88)

When I read those words, I was reminded of a Newsweek essay by Anna Quindlen -- entitled "The Time Machine" -- that she wrote around Christmastime 2006. She is reminiscing about various childhood presents -- in particular an enormous, longed - for dollhouse -- and how the memory of what those toys signified at the time can linger for years after the objects themselves have been broken or lost or given away.

Then she shoots ahead to the more recent past of her own children opening their surprises; and, even more recently, to the memory of herself re-watching their holiday videos and witnessing a moment that she did not even realize she had captured on film at the time. She says, "It was only recently, many years after the event, that I discovered that little boy giving me the time- machine tip, a ghost of Christmas past."

On the tape, her son "looks into the lens and says as though he is imparting a great secret, 'Do you know what a camera is? It's a time machine.'" She wonders what stray distraction prevented her from catching that remark the first time around, but never mind! "Thank God the VCR offered me a second chance."

In this essay, Quindlen also takes issue with that annoying bit of advice: "Don't sweat the small stuff, and its all small stuff." I couldn't agree more when she argues, "That's absurd. Lots of small stuff is really big. . . . The essence of the season lies in figuring out what small stuff is passing minutiae and what is enduring memory. Come to think of it, that may well be the essence of everything" -- a conclusion that is perfectly in keeping with a blog about the Quotidian!

P.S.
~ August 2020 ~

"All those photographs broke Jackson's heart. Holiday snaps, birthdays and Christmases, all the highlights of family life. Jackson found photographs unsettling enough at the best of times. There was a lie at the heart of the camera, it implied the past was tangible when the very opposite was the true."

from Started Early, Took My Dog
by Kate Atkinson

Do You Think It Is?

Speaking of Ersatz (scroll down to previous post), back in 1995 or so, my kids became fans of the movie Home Alone. It was one of those videos that I could put in for them to watch while I caught up on various errands around the house. I had seen the show myself back in 1990 when it first came out, but had never given it a second thought after that ~ aside from the great delight that I took in Anna Quindlen' parody, "Mom Alone" (click to read).

As Ben and Sam enjoyed the antics of bold little Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), I could throw in some laundry, get some grading done, and maybe start dinner. I took little interest in the plot, but every so often I just had to peek into the family room and linger in the doorway, drawn by the most beautiful song on the soundtrack: "Star of Bethlehem" (another lovely one is "Somewhere in my Memory"; music for both by composer John Williams; lyrics by Leslie Bricusse).

Before long, I had viewed the entire movie in bits and pieces, and finally just had to sit down with the boys and watch the whole thing from start to finish. It was better than I had remembered! For one thing, I couldn't take my eyes off of that gorgeous suburban home (likewise the impressive New York townhouse that's being renovated in Home Alone 2); and it was just too cute, the way that Ben and Sam referred to the main character not as "Kevin," but as "Home Alone" (as in, "then Home Alone ordered the cheese pizza" or "look at Home Alone's awesome plan for scaring the bad guys").

Nowadays, the Home Alone movies are included among those that the whole family simply must watch at least once every holiday season, and at various other times throughout the year, as deemed appropriate. My favorite line of all has to be in the first movie, when Home Alone's mother, Kate (played by Catherine O'Hara), attempts to negotiate a ticket swap at the Paris-Orly Airport (actually filmed at O'Hare). To go along with her seat in first class, she also offers up her gold watch and earrings. When an interested passenger asks if the Rolex is real, Kate responds quizzically, "Do you think it is?"

This existential question has become a stock phrase in our family over the past fifteen years, and I doubt that we'll ever stop saying / asking it. I guess our conclusion is that if you have to ask, maybe it doesn't matter.

I love my ersatz diamond ring because it was a Christmas present from Sam in his earliest years of shopping, when he was 7 or 8. That year, in addition to the items he was hoping to receive from Mom, Dad, & / or Santa, he also added to his Christmas List the things he planned to buy for his brother and his dad and, last but not least, "a jewel for Mom." See why I will always treasure this ring?! And even more precious to me than the ring itself is the priceless sentiment that went into writing those words . . .

"a jewel for Mom."
Truly, a couple of other moms at Sam's school
really did ask me if the stones in the ring were real!

"Do you think they are?"

****************



See also:
Ocean City Artwork

Mind the Gap!

Taking the Tube at Covent Garden, Spring Break 2000
No matter what country he is writing about, Bill Bryson has a knack for tracking down all the best place names -- the most absurd, quaint, funny, lewd, charming -- you name it! I think you will enjoy his pastoral description of riding the London Underground:

"The best part of Underground travel is that you never actually see the places above you. You have to imagine them. In other cities, station names are drearily mundane: Lexington Avenue, Potsdamer Platz, Third Street South. In London, by contrast, the names nearly always sound sylvan and beckoning: Stamford Brook, Turnham Green, Bromley-by-Bow, Maida Vale, Drayton Park. That isn't a city up there, it's a Jane Austen novel . . . a semimythic city from some golden pre-industrial age."
(from Notes From A Small Island, 41 - 42)

And you might want to try Anna Quindlen's humorously helpful map - storage system:

" . . . the maps in the glove compartment are all folded the wrong way . . . If you live in New York, the maps will generally be of New Mexico, Alabama, and downtown Houston. If you live in Seattle, the maps will be of Maine and the Florida Panhandle. In your datebook, however, will be the map you are never without, that all-important map of the London Underground."
(from "Putting Up a Good Front" Living Out Loud, 48 - 49)

All - Important Map!