Lynn Ruth Miller Blog

BEING AMERICAN IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY

SHOPPING…. THE AMERICAN WAY

Nowadays, people know the price of everything
And the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde

          My mother’s family was so poor, they ate food the grocer threw away and wore clothes salvaged from the Good Will trash bin.  My mother married my father because he was a professional man and she thought he would make a lot of money, but he  made something better:  contacts.  If my mother wanted to buy something like a mink coat, a house or a cucumber, she couldn’t run to the store.  She had to wait for my father to make a phone call first.  He would always find what she wanted but when he brought it home, the mink would have a couple bare spots concealed by the collar or a very large button, the house would leak but only in the front hall and the cucumber would have a worm…but only one. 

          When I was born, my mother was determined that I become a functioning member of society, the kind who didn’t have live from paycheck to paycheck.  She wanted me to learn how to find things to buy because that is The American Way.   The minute I was old enough to clutch a coin in my hand, she sent me shopping.

          She taught me that there is nothing in the world as important for my future comfort as the games you play with that coin.   You can show it to a vendor, boast that you have more hidden in a mattress, swear you would never use that large a coin for such a tiny purchase and then threaten to walk out of the store.  IF you manage to buy the object for less than half the original price, you understand the process.  BUT if you can make the vendor pay YOU to get your treasure off his hands, you have mastered the American method of commerce: be clever enough to buy for less than cost. You are ready for the next step up:  The Garage Sale where you sell used objects you don’t need in a more for more than you paid to get them. 

          To be American is to purchase lots and lots of unnecessary stuff. When I was a child, we bought a tiny Minnox camera, a huge Nash Rambler, and a brown fluffy hamster named Lizzie who gnawed through the library floor.  We already had a Brownie camera, a Buick sedan and a dog who like to walk on a leash and never gnawed anything but biscuits, but we bought because we could.  We stuffed our house with canvas tents when we never went camping, a croquet set with chrome wickets and a whimsical miniature Palm tree that grew in the middle of the living room because we didn’t have a yard. 

           My father always knew someone who knew someone who sold anything we thought we needed for less, either because that person had too many, it didn’t work right or it was acid green with a purple trim.  When my mother bought my baby buggy she got it from my Uncle Benny who had a junk yard.  “You would be amazed what people throw out these days, Ida!” said my uncle and the next thing she knew she was pushing me down Islington Street in a buggy with three wheels a tattered violet hood that smelled like an aquarium.  I have always believed that my right hip is lower than my left because I had to accommodate my spine to that buggy and I know it was the reason my mother’s left shoulder was hunched. 

          My mother did not have to buy me a new dress until I was thirteen because my Aunt Sally (who married money), outfitted her beautiful blonde, graceful daughter, Sandy in fashion clothes featured in “Today’s Well –Dressed Child,”  a limited edition magazine mailed to the very rich.  Sandy never wore any outfit more than one season and rather than donate her gorgeous hand-hemmed garments to the Salvation Army (where the goyim shopped), my aunt gave them to me. 

          My cousin was built like a dancer, long legs, graceful arms, narrow shoulders.  I was built like a misshapen blimp with big feet: short, bowed legs with scabs from falling off that scooter with the missing wheel Daddy got from Uncle George for cost.  I had a bulging tummy, no hips and dark circles under my eyes from too much reading.   

          Aunt Sally sent over bulging boxes filled with white ruffled blouses, smart navy blue playsuits, embroidered anklets and shiny Mary Jane shoes, two sizes too small.  There was always a peach angora sweater that inflamed my sinuses and a black velvet muff with tattered Santa Clauses on it.

          I spent the first decade of my life pulling up leggings that sagged at the crotch and protecting my ears from the Ohio cold in a bonnet made to fit a toy poodle.  My mother would stuff me into coats that popped their buttons, and skirts that couldn’t zip and say, “I cannot understand your shape.” 

          And then she gave up.  “Sandra’s clothes won’t go around that distended middle of yours anymore,” she said. 

          “They never did,” I said.

           “We have to spend your father’s hard earned money on a dress for your piano recital because you are doing that duet with Eleanor Brauer.  Sylvia always dresses her kid like a fashion plate and I can’t have you sit on the same piano bench with her wearing a blouse split at the shoulder that won’t button around your neck. Aunt Lena works at the Lion Store and she kept back some seconds reduced for quick sale for us.  If you had developed as nicely as Sandy, we wouldn’t have to squander all this money on outfits you’ll outgrow my next year.  I just don’t understand it.  Where are your breasts?”

          “You never got me any,” I said. 

          On the day of the recital, Eleanor and I took our places on the piano bench.  Eleanor was a glamour kid whose parents owned the only delicatessen in town.  They decked her out in a cashmere pinafore and shoes that fit.  I huddled next to her in my brand new, size 18 (“You’ll grow into it,” said my mother) pink, sleeveless number with shoulder pads as big as my tummy and tattered  bric-a brac another customer had torn.         “And now, The March of the Toy Soldiers,” said my piano teacher

          Eleanor hit the chord and I raised my hands to play the melody.  I hit high C and leaned into the rhythm of the piece but my dress didn’t move with me.  The seam split to the hem and when I stood to take a bow, it dropped to my ankles.

          The applause was deafening and Eleanor was livid.  “You stole the show,” she hissed.

          I stepped out of my dress and stuffed it in her arms.  “Take this instead,” I said.

          I took another bow in my undershirt and my lollipop panties.  “I dedicate my performance to my mother,” I said. “It was she that inspired me to give my song something extra.”   The crowd me a standing ovation and my mother spotted my piano lessons. 

Truth is such a rare thing,
It is delightful to tell it.

Emily Dickenson

Unto the pure, all things are pure.
Titus 1:15

A friend of mine asked me what my mother said about “down there,” and I said, “Nothing.”

Indeed, when someone spoke of “down there” to me I thought they were talking about Australia. If I had a date who wanted to go there, I sent him to a travel agent. I didn’t know I had anything of importance between my shoulders and my hips, unless it leaked….which it did all too often…. And it still does, but in a different way, thank goodness.

Women in the forties did not discuss their body parts by name even among themselves. I studied biology in high school and college, and understood the entire theory of reproduction, but I didn’t believe a single word of it. I was absolutely certain that babies emerged from the belly button. That was obviously the only logical exit. It was impossible for me to believe that God would put a reproductive facility in a plumbing area. It didn’t make sense and God ALWAYS made sense. Didn’t he?

I knew what a breast was of course. It was the best part of the turkey, but a vagina was a word I could not fathom. I thought it might be a twisted blood vein of some kind and I was pretty sure it wasn’t a good thing to have. My instincts told me that if I had vagina problems I would get into a great deal of trouble. I had no idea what a penis was but I assumed it was a kind of flag pole or railway cautionary signal. I realized my mistake when I married and received one in a very unexpected place.

We never called our body functions by their clinical names either. We referred to our products of elimination by numbers. Relieving ourselves was such a private act that my mother assigned different numbers for us so no one would know what we were talking about. Instead of 1 and 2, we did 4 and 76. This caused much embarrassment at school when I needed to leave the room. When I told my fourth grade teacher I had to do 76, she was delighted. “That’s the spirit, Lynn Ruth!” she said.

She handed me a flag and insisted we all sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” in honor of the brave Minutemen who gave their lives for our country.

The performance was stirring and the entire class joined in with loyal and true countrymen that they were. The delay created a good deal of unexpected laundry for my mother when I finally got home, too late to perform the deed in the accepted manner.

Nice Jewish girls who obeyed their mothers (and I was one) would not have dreamed of disrobing in front of anyone including their girl friends and certainly not a man. When we experimented with romance, we did a great deal of groping and it was always in the dark. I had absolutely no idea what a naked man looked like but I knew pretty well what happened to his crotch when we were exploring one another in the back seat of a car. The first time I actually saw a naked man was on that outdated, provincial, no longer relevant evening: my wedding night. My husband came out of the bathroom and I said, “What do you do with that thing? Pole vault?”

He didn’t think I was funny.

Women these days have no problem discussing their body parts and cosmetically improve them at every opportunity. A friend of mine from Minnesota did an entire monologue on the danger of pole dancing in the winter in her home town. When I was her age, I had no idea what pole dancing was and when I heard her not more than one month ago, I thought she was talking about a ritual dance they did in Warsaw. My crotch was not a topic of conversation ever…not when I could have used it for a variety or recreational pursuits or now when it doesn’t always obey me as it should.

This same feminine orator treated us to a long, painful monologue on her coochie and I thought she was discussing insect infestation in her furniture. Why on earth didn’t she just spray the thing with RAID? Or call an exterminator. He would know the right procedure to eradicate her vermin, wouldn’t he?

I consider myself a liberal, free thinking woman and I have no problem being open and honest about any topic. I always enjoy a passionate discussion about something stimulating, but I do not consider my clitoris a very hot topic. I prefer an intelligent debate on my right to get paid the same wage men receive for a job I know I do better or how to find a shoe that doesn’t hurt five minutes after you walk in it. I have never really hungered for a discussion on how to give myself an orgasm, which is probably a great loss. I live well below the poverty line and cannot afford to go to the movies. An orgasm might have been a nice cheap entertainment substitute but to my mind it could not possibly measure up to the cinema unless I could sustain it for an hour and a half with a few colorful previews to launch the event.

I was discussing eternal youth during a theater intermission with a group of people sitting near me not too long ago when a gentleman well into his eighties said, “I run.”

“You what?” I said.

“I run and I can keep up an erection for twenty minutes…no problem.”

Had he regressed into his childhood and taken up hobby engineering? I knew little boys loved fiddling with nuts, bolts and electric motors but I assumed they outgrew that kind of thing once they had a bank account. “How lovely for you!” I exclaimed. “And what are you building? A moving robot? A ferris wheel?”

He muttered something but I couldn’t make sense of his words because I had never heard them before. I caught something about tumescence and I smiled and said, “I love sweet potatoes, too!”

I went into the lobby to get a coffee and when I repeated the strange terms the little guy had used, the woman behind the counter said, “He was talking about his sexual prowess. Men that age usually can’t perform properly, but my guy is great. I had to get a special cream so I would be ready for him.”

“Ready for him for what?” I asked. “Does he run too?

She blushed. “No. To keep moist,” she said.

I patted her hand. “I use Nivea,” I said. “It worked for my mother and it works for me.”

She paused for a moment and then she said, “You better finish your coffee,. You can’t take liquid into the theater.”

I gulped down the steaming liquid and then I smiled. “You know I never would have guessed that guy was an actor. I wonder where he performs.”

There is no sin except stupidity.
~ Oscar Wilde

I have just spend a month performing in Scotland with amazing success.  I taught a hands on art class in the mornings and at night I performed in a comedy show I produced and then went to another cabaret show  produced by Kerry Norman from Oxford and did outrageous singing and stripping to an enthusiastic loving audience.  My art show sold out every day and although the comedy show was not a smash hit,  it did consistently well.  We always got laughs and it ended with cheers and accolades because I sang The Strip Polka in a ridiculous costume no one my age should ever risk.  I loved every minute.

However the immense negativity of those first two weeks  taught me about dealing with egos that I did not understand.  The two women with me then made no secret that they thought of me as an inexperienced and  stupid  yet sweet old lady and they were determined to manipulate me so that the show became theirs instead of ours.  I fielded was a lot of barbed remarks and veiled hints that I should get off the stage and let them perform so I could  learn from their superior talents.  I felt intimidated by their greater experience in the comedy field and was repeatedly puzzled when they insisted our show was not well received because I heard laughter and I got applause.  Among their solutions to a dilemma I did not see was to tell me I needed to shorten my time on stage and that I was not getting the show off to a good start when I MC’d.    I acquiesced by letting the comedian who got the least amount of laughs do our MC’ing and I believe that was a good decision.  Her comedy though it is excellent and she is well paid for it here in the Bay Area was too disturbing for the conservative Scotsmen in our audience.  They could handle an old lady acting foolish but not a black lesbian with dred-locks and that was their loss.    I did not give up my stage time although they asked me to do so but they believed I was unaware that our new MC was cutting me short in every show.    My thinking was that in the end it really didn’t matter that much if one of us did 10 minutes or 12 and so I let all this ride.  Besides they had me convinced that I was a lousy producer who couldn’t work with people and didn’t know a good joke from a dead one.

And then a miracle happened.  The two women left and we had three new comedians perform on our stage.  These three angels (to me) were only interested in having fun and doing their best.  The critical, angry and judgmental atmosphere was gone and we had one lovely performance after another.  We all loved one another.  We all enjoyed performing.  and we all had a great time.

In that first week one of the comedians said to me, “You are having a lot of success but we only have this one show.” and that was when I got the hint that their anger at me was not about my performance but about the accolades I was receiving.  I assure anyone reading this that I was getting cheers for being an old lady with spunk, not for my comedic talents.

How very sad for them.  They lost that magnificent delight the rest of us enjoyed during our run.  The reviews were spotty, some good, some medium and some bad but who cares?  Karen, Phil, Carla, George and I had the best time of our lives and when you come down to it, the two who were so intent on creating a money making “good” show were the losers.  I find that terribly sad.