What Can I Say? It's An Art!

Dave and I stepped through the garage door of the house-made-office of the church after one of my days as secretary there. The long, sloping back yard was covered in freshly fallen snow. Just as Dave uttered the words, “It’s kinda slick!” my feet flew out from underneath me. I took a few running steps, I flew, I flapped my arms, I bobbed and weaved to no avail. In a hurdler’s leap I landed. I landed on my leather purse (which was the size of a shopping bag). While the purse softened my landing it acted like a child’s sliding saucer in the slippery snow. At breakneck speed I careened down the back yard and came to an abrupt stop piled against our van. I was head down and feet up wondering what had happened when I heard an unusual sound.

The sound was Dave laughing. He made it to me to ask if I was all right, but he could barely choke out the words through a strange gargling sound. I assured him I was fine and together we got me back on my feet. I heard a gasp and a soft moan and then Dave collapsed against the van laughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. It was worth falling just to see him laughing so hard. He finally regained composure enough to again ask if I was hurt. I assured him I was not. Then he started all over again and it was another five minutes before he could straighten up and open the car door for me. Getting in on the other side, Dave wiped tears from his eyes and apologized. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but you looked like a penguin!” That was all it took and it was awhile before we could start the car and leave the parking lot. He said he had never seen anyone go through so much to gain so little.

That was not the only time my inability to stay upright made someone’s day. In the 1960’s, I worked at Northwestern National Bank of Minneapolis, in the original, before the fire, building. It was a lovely building with marble floors and pillars. The banking area was on second floor and that was where I worked in Trust Estate Planning. At the time, the bank had a skyway leading from the bank toward Donaldson’s Department Store that was maintained and decorated on a shared basis by the bank and the store.

There was a winter when the two combined with the Minneapolis Art Institute to display paintings and photographs for the public. As I came up the escalator to cross the skyway to visit a coffee shop on the other side, I beheld the busy spectacle of a TV crew filming the skyway exhibit for the evening news on Channel 4. Smirking to myself that I would be one of the people crossing the skyway on camera, I was incredibly pleased with the fact I was a fashion plate exceptionale that morning. I was wearing: a black faux fur pillbox hat, a cherry red side buttoned coat trimmed in real fox fur, black high-heeled boots trimmed at the ankle in black faux fur, and carrying my brand new briefcase. Audrey Hepburn from head to toe, smile firmly in place, charm and style oozed from every poor as I stepped from the escalator to the marble floor. My wet boot went across that marble floor like a greased pig fleeing eager farmers! I landed flat on my back with both arms outstretched still clutching my briefcase in one hand.

A startled cameraman looked down at me and asked, “Did you fall?” With great disdain and forced patience I replied, “No. I was tired and this seemed a good spot to rest!” He held out a hand to help me to my feet and I pulled myself to my full five-foot, four-inch height and strode majestically through the skyway. Once through the doors on the other side, I leaned against the wall and laughed. I was virtually yowling with embarrassment and a good sense of the ridiculous. The doors opened and the camera man and I came face to face with startled expressions. I pulled myself together and walked down the hall and through another set of doors. I’m sure he wondered if he should call someone to lock me away.

That evening after sharing the story with my roommate Karen, we turned to the ten o’clock news on Channel 4. There in glowing color were the paintings hanging in the skyway and an evenly modulated voice off camera telling about the exhibit. Quicker than a flash, able to be missed in the blink of an eye, at the bottom of the screen there appeared a black fur-trimmed boot! We were late getting to bed because we laughed so long.

While traversing the same banking floor one day, I walked straight into one of the marble pillars. These were not small easy to miss pillars, these were at least five feet in diameter pillars. I backed off, said “Excuse me,” and then ran into it again. Aside from being embarrassed, I was smarting from the pain of ramming my shoulder into the thing two times. It is interesting to note the expressions of people pretending they didn’t see what you just did. They vary from “even though I’m inside I’m looking for birds” to “hope she doesn’t see my lips trembling” and then there’s the “wish she’d move on so I can laugh” and "where's my camera when I need it?". They were all there.

I have fallen up stairs and down stairs. When I was pregnant with Marc, Dave was working on the steps by our back door. He had moved the steps to make it easier to work. I knew they were gone. I only wanted to tell Dave something. I opened the door, leaned out and the weight of being pregnant carried me right out the door to the ground. A neighbor who happened to be chatting with Dave while he worked commented, “She probably shouldn’t be jumping from that height while she’s pregnant!” Yeah, like I was practicing for the upcoming pregnant ladies’ high jump, pregnant parachutists league, or something! What was he thinking?

The family I was reared in all had a penchant for doing enormously funny, clumsy things and then laughing over it, relating it to the rest of the family and friends to relish their enjoyment. My brother lit a cigarette with his new lighter. He then shook the lighter out and threw it over his shoulder like the matches he was used to using. Pat, at a movie theater, managed to stuff one foot into a discarded popcorn box and step on the box with her other foot. Bent double trying to figure out her predicament, she scooped up the person (who stood to let her through) with her butt. My sister, Betty, and others in the same row, watched in horror as this little pantomime played out. What could be described as the Dance Macabre in silence lasted for some minutes with Pat and the gentleman on her back pretending nothing was unusual. Betty, who looked like Grace Kelley or Princess Grace of Manaco, could never make it through a revolving door in one try. Bemused friends and family would watch as she made several trips around looking more perplexed with each circle. She would emerge, often on the wrong side, and have to try again.

Dot was the champion. She fell so often, she eventually did damage herself; and arthritis was a constant companion in the later years of her life. She sold Avon products for a time. Attempting to deliver an order, she fell in a woman’s drive and was quick to say “Avon crawling” as the woman rushed to her rescue. Dot fell down 39^th Avenue hill in Columbia Heights after leaving for work one morning. My mother was looking out the kitchen window and mentioned to Ev that there was an old woman she had never seen before coming down the street. He looked out the window and said she looked really old or crippled. It was Dot. She had bruised everything so badly, she could hardly walk. When they realized it was her, they went to help her. They called work to say she wouldn’t be in, cleaned her up, helped her get into pajamas, and tucked her in bed with hot water bottles to ease the pain. When she woke from a deep sleep, she discovered Ev and Mom had put chairs all around the bed (the way we do to keep a child from falling out and getting hurt). When Dot was in her 80’s she was given a walker. Chatting on the phone, I mentioned to her I was glad she had a walker because she would no longer be falling. The very next day, she called me to tell me she was moving from her bedroom to the kitchen to do something and, though using her walker, managed to fall through it bumping her chin on the way down and needing stitches. It could have been serious, but the two of us laughed long and heartily over the timing of the conversation and the fall.

I have skidded, slipped, hopped and jumped across a stage to receive an award. Once, I was entering a restaurant in down-town Minneapolis with my supervisor and her boss for a luncheon meeting and performed terpsichorean feats to amaze and delight ending with me as a crumpled heap at the foot of the podium of the maître d.

Dave has rarely found the ludicrous funny – especially if he was the one who became a performer in the ludicrous. When we were oh-so-young and oh-so-in love, we would walk together. Of course thin high heels were very much in Vogue at the time and I was an expert at getting mine caught in sidewalk gratings. I would get them jammed so firmly, I would have to remove my foot and balance against Dave who was bent double trying to pull the shoe free of the grate without pulling the heel from the shoe. One evening, he put both my shoes in his pockets and made me walk stocking foot to the theater we were going to. There was only so much a young knight in shining armor could bear! I have no sense of direction. Often, when we walk, Dave would turn one way and I would turn the other at a corner and either go our separate ways or run into each other. Since he was in the army at the time, he solved that problem by calling out just prior to the corner, “Column Left (or right as the case might be)”! I also frequently lag behind his purposeful walk because I am looking at anything but where I’m going. If Dave stops quickly, I walk right into his back which earned our nickname of “Punch and Judy” given by friends.

While Dave can be patient if the ridiculously clumsy is affecting me more than him, he had little or no patience with the day he was hanging onto the door frame of our first apartment while trying to change the bulb in our entry light. I was on my way to the car so exited the apartment and closed the door. When the door didn’t latch and in spite of the ear splitting roar from Dave, I opened it and closed it with more vigor. Apologizing and informing him that was a poor place to have his hand probably was not in my own best interests.

When relating the things I’ve done, you’ve probably gotten the sense I exaggerate to increase the fun. I do. But remember, you are laughing with me and not at me so all is well. Our children will tell you that the security they felt when small was not Mom. Oh, I was the one they came to with hurt feelings or troubles at school or for cuddles when they were sick. But I was not the one they relied on for sureness and deftness in any physical sense. They will also tell you their own tumbles or trips were met with my laughter more often than deep sympathy.

Helen (with hardly any provocation or prompting) will relate I always promised to catch her at the bottom of the slide but rarely did. Somehow, no matter how ready I was, she would come down and sail right through outstretched arms ready to receive her. I was always very good at lifting her out of the dirt and brushing her off. Dave would be so exasperated. He would tell me to get my legs right up against the end of the slide and be ready. I would. Even though Helen would argue at the top of the slide, he would send her down and I would miss. Once on a trip to southern Minnesota, where Dot and Ev had their childhood times, Dot took us to the park and the long slide they had loved. Dave, not wanting to spoil a special outing, suggested I take Helen up the steps to the slide and he would catch her. Somehow, just before Helen was to start down, she fell off the top of the slide. Recently, while battling cancer and suffering through chemo treatments, I heard a nurse tell Helen not to get up and walk unless her mother accompanied her in case she felt dizzy. Helen’s response was, “Someone else, please. Mom always said she’d catch me at the bottom of the slide, but she never did!” The nurse couldn’t figure out why we thought that was funny. It only has humor because Helen was never injured.

Marc remembers not wanting me to be the one to help him learn how to ride a bike. I can’t blame him. As I would run along beside him steadying the bike, I was more likely to trip and fall over him and the bike than be of any real help. He relates wanting to learn to jump rope. I tied one end of a stout rope to our steps railing and at the other end I began to swing the rope. He remembers I smacked him solidly in the head several times before I explained he was supposed to watch the rope and be ready to move forward and jump rather than stand there and let me beat him. He maintains I left out a few instructions on purpose, I maintain only a child related to me would stand there!

As a result of childhood memories, Helen and Marc have not allowed me to be at the bottom or the top of a slide while teaching Bett and Belle to slide. I also was allowed little to do with their learning to ride bikes.

I have not contained all my clumsiness to walking. I cannot eat neatly. The harder I concentrate on not spilling, the more I am sure to spill. After spending several months working for a company as a temporary replacement, I was applying for permanent placement. Sitting at lunch, I didn’t realize my napkin was slightly under my plate. Dripping a small drop of soup on my belt, I grabbed the napkin to mop at it, and pulled the whole bowl of soup into my lap. I hurried to the woman who would be my supervisor and explained what happened as my interview for employment was in a few minutes with her and the man I would be reporting to. She assured me I should not let it bother me. When we entered his office, I saw her reasoning. He also had gone to lunch; a woman in the cafeteria had been jostled causing her to pour her salad, drenched in Russian dressing, over his shoulder. Our supervisor said it was a match made in heaven and we should not argue with heaven. I got the job! For an entire year we crashed through the business day together. I slammed his hand in a drawer. While I was looking for a file, he pulled out a bottom drawer behind me without telling me. I backed up and fell over it. We bumped heads and ran into walls together. When he left for another position I missed him greatly – so did the rest of the office. I was only half the spectator fun!

Applying for another position, I was taking a typing test. I had made my living typing for so long I could proudly put down on my application that my typing speed was 120 words per minute and my accuracy was 98 percent. On certain typewriters I was even faster. Upon completing my test, I was asked to wait while the woman interviewing me evaluated my test. She soon appeared and said there had been a slight problem and she hoped I would not be upset at having to repeat the test. I did not mind taking the test again (had it been the math portion of my testing I’d have screamed like a banshee!) When I finished the second test, I was evaluated at 125 words per minute with 99 percent accuracy. It was only then she informed me I had taken the first test entirely from start to finish with my hands on the wrong keys! It was the first test I had ever taken on a computer keyboard, and I had not once looked at the screen. I have always been grateful to her for letting me take the second test without telling me what was wrong with the first.

Would you not assume someone who types for a living and creates knitted items for gifts would have nimble fingers? Not so, sadly. I was introduced to Pat’s very good friend one early morning. Pat thought we would instantly like each other. We really never got a chance to find out. Pat went right on to work, but her friend and I stopped to have coffee and get to know each other. The coffee arrived and I chose to add cream to mine. In the process of prying the super-glued lid off the little plastic creamer, it slipped. We both stared in fascination as it rose in the air, twirling rapidly and landed with a little “plop” in my coffee. Still looking at the container bobbing in my coffee cup I said, “I think that is the first time I have ever done something that clumsy without wearing my mistake!” A soft “Oh!” from her made me raise my eyes. I don’t believe her navy blue suit nor her glasses had little tiny white polka dots prior to my blooper. She left her coffee on the table and went to clean herself up. She never returned. I wrote an apology never aknowledged. I think she and Pat remained friends but the absence of invitations to join them were singularly absent.

I have set my newspaper on fire because I chose to read it by candlelight. Twice during church candlelight services, as part of the choir, I have set my own or someone else’s music on fire. While making dinner one night, I complained to Helen that the light was flickering and annoying me. She came to see what I was talking about. It was then she yelled, “Fire!” and put a lid over the mixer bowls standing next to me. I had one of those water heaters with the coil at one end and a plug at the other for making a cup of water boil in seconds. I had put the heater in the mixer bowls to keep it out of the way. I had also sometime thrown a dishtowel on the bowls while cooking. When I plugged in what I thought was the mixer, I accidentally plugged in the cord for the heater. Of course there was no water so it set the towel on fire. I try to convince my family these things could happen to anyone; they assure me they are a specialty with me.

I also have the strangest ability to open mouth and insert foot. At our house, we call it “Foot-In-Mouth” disease as a play on Hoof and Mouth Disease. Former Governor Rolvaag dropped in to see my boss one morning. My boss had a breakfast meeting and was not present. I so informed the governor without recognizing him. He asked me to say he had stopped. I asked his name. With only a hint of the shock he must have felt, he stated, “Rolvaag”. Not having driven the spike into his heart far enough I asked, “Would you spell that, please?”

After answering the phone with the canned answer we were trained to give, “Good morning, Northwestern National Bank of Minneapolis, may I help you?” a voice asked for one of the people in my department. I replied she was in a meeting at the time and would gladly have her return the call. The man I was talking to though unknown to me was the president and CEO of the bank. “Moorhead!” was all he said. “Mr. Moorhead is not in this office, but if you will hold I will transfer you to his secretary.” There was a long, a very long, pause and then he sighed, “I . . . am . . . Mr. Moorhead”. Well, why didn’t he say so!?! I apologized but I don’t think he really thought I was sincere. While this may not be completely just, I felt they both were sure the public was just waiting for a chance to recognize their imminence. I have always hoped their desire to rise to political and business heights thickened their skin enough to prevent me causing lasting damage.

On my way to work one morning, I was given a pamphlet touting the skills and qualifications of someone named Elmer N. Anderson for next governor of Minnesota. Being young and foolish and brash, I said to my friend walking with me, “So who is Elmer N. Anderson, anyway?” The man waling just ahead of us turned and held out his hand. “Good morning,” he said with a gracious smile. “I am Elmer Anderson and I’d like your vote in the next election!” I was not yet old enough to vote, but had I been I would probably have voted for him just because he was gracious enough not to give me the set down I deserved.

While working in International Banking, part of my day was answering long-distance calls from around the world. I had stock phrases to see if they spoke English: “Sprechen ze American? Habla Englé?  Parle vous Anglais?” etc. One morning I answered the phone to a burst of rapid French. I quickly inquired “Parle vous Francais?” (Do you speak French?). After a startled pause, the man replied, “But, of course! Do you speak English?” I snorted, he choked, and we both started laughing. It was so funny we couldn’t stop. I couldn’t ask what he needed and he couldn’t tell me. My co-worker kept making a slashing motion across her throat to indicate the madness should cease. We couldn’t. I don’t remember if we ever transacted any business, but we both had a good laugh for our day.

As a child, I longed to be a ballerina. I had books about ballet, sketched ballerinas, and tried to strike the poses I saw in pictures. I’ve stated in other blogs my family had little money to spare. Dad and Mom thought I would not be determined enough to make the cost of lessons worthwhile. They bought a baton and I took free lessons at school for a time. It wasn’t the same and they just did not understand. In my senior year of high school, our choir was going to perform the music from South Pacific for our final grand concert. Six of my friends and I decided to put together a ballroom scene to the music of Some Enchanted Evening. It’s not time to laugh yet; so stop it! I was not going to dance; I was going to choreograph. With no natural grace of my own, I put together steps and whirls for them to perform. My closest friend knew one of the Minneapolis Ballet chorus members and asked him to come help us smooth the rough spots. He complimented me and said I had put together a good performance. He encouraged us to add a bit of adagio (graceful lifts and poses). He began to help.

One of the girls father decided he did not want his daughter dancing. We tried everything, but he was firm. His daughter would not be dancing. She was so pretty and graceful and as willowy as Aurora in Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. Our good dance master, announced to the amazement and consternation of all I would be taking her place. I begged him to find anyone else but me. I think my friends silently hoped he would agree. He was adamant. I had talent. I had created choreography for a sound performance. I would take her place. He began working me into the line while using me to design and perform the adagio. Oh, poor man! Poor, poor man!

In teaching us a fast twirl requiring concentration and athletic ability, my partner and I were the third couple to try. We held each other just so; our feet were alternated and he had a firm grip around my waist with one arm. Success depended on our feet remaining in the alternated placement and his strong embrace. The music started and we began. The long, stiletto heal of my right shoe wedged itself inside my left shoe and into the arch of my left foot. I had, literally, pinned my feet together! My partner gripped me harder and tried to break the momentum of our spin. He managed to carry my full weight, keep us upright, and bring us to a stop. When I got home, Mom cleaned and bandaged my foot and I sobbed uncontrollably; I would tell Mr. Strom, our choir director, we would scratch the number. Dad looked stern. He put his newspaper down and told me I would appear for rehearsal the next week and would see it through. He said the amount of work, the dedication of the others, and my own praise for its design meant I would have to finish what I started.

With a still tender foot, I arrived at rehearsal the following week and was told by our dance master that he and I would now demonstrate the first lift. I sensed this man had a death wish; my father had just pronounced execution! I followed his instructions to the letter. I glided to him, pirouetted, and with his hands at my waist, felt him lift me high to his shoulder where I exultantly raised my arms, posed my legs and we glided quickly away. This was sublime! What rapture! He said we would do it one more time only please not to be so hesitant. His own death knell from his very lips! I glided, pirouetted, sprang into his lift and landed not on his shoulder, but on the side of his neck and face. There was a loud snap! Since we didn’t fall I was assured the snap was not his neck. It proved to be his glasses!

Most of our practice had been in one of our backyard spaces on grass where the terrain was less than smooth. Our DM now decided it was imperative we begin to be accustomed to the stage. We were scheduled into practice times by Mr. Strom. In spite of having scars, some of which would be permanent, on both legs from my stilettos, my partner was still my partner. One more of our adagio moves was to be three young women twirling across to stage front to the waiting arms of our partners. A polka side-step maneuver followed by a small jump on our parts with a hearty lift on theirs and they would catch us at our knees. With arms uplifted and joyous looks on our faces, we would be slowly turned and gracefully set down. Yeah. In who's alcohol induced dream? My best friend (who was an acrobat and gymnast) ran to her partner, jumped too hard and he being the strongest of the three young men, tossed too hard. He caught her not at her knees, but at her ankles. She balanced while he ran trying to keep her upright. It was all resolved without serious injury. For once, it hadn’t been me feeling awkward. When I ran to my partner, all went well, until I realized added to his six-foot height was an eight-foot drop to the orchestra pit. Only that first time, did I yelp and then bend to grip his hair firmly in ten terrorized fingers. Do you know? The thought just occurred to me, that not once did our DM make me feel uncordinated or stupid. I believe he honestly knew the artist in me crying to be released from a body that didn't cooperate. The night of performance, that number went off without a single hitch. Our DM was in the audience (still wearing tape on his glasses) and I think he applauded harder than anyone. In spite of the all, the memory is not traumatic but wonderful. We did it.

Approximately four years later after working and saving money, I walked into a school of ballet and paid for my lessons. I was the only 21-year-old in a class of four-to-eight-year-olds. For one solid year I made every single lesson. I learned not to wince at the joints that creaked and snapped for the barré exercises, and I worked through the pain of breaking three toes. I bet you are feeling some pride in my effort, right? Well the broken toes did not come from dedicated ballet. Each was broken away from class or practice. The first was my right little toe when I accidentally caught it on my purse strap on the floor and tripped myself. The second was when I stepped off a curb and twisted my ankle. The third was a second break of the first when I once again left my purse on the floor. At the end of a year, I knew I had proven I could see the lessons through, I could not start at the age of 21 and become a ballerina, and I had lived at the heights of trying. I still have excellent turn out and can do all five first positions. Not bad for someone older than dirt!

Why would I set down all these foibles and flops for all to read? Because, if you have known me for longer than five minutes you have most likely seen me in action. If you are meeting me through these pages and may someday have a meeting with me, you have received warning to be very wary! If there is no other reason, it is to share God made me to be impulsive and clumsy simultaneously. I am thankful He also gave me the ability to laugh. He gave me a mother who had the foresight to teach me to use that laughter to lighten the load of living. I am also thankful that God gave me the spouse and children who could love me in spite of keeping a healthy respect for distance when I am in motion. He is beginning to teach me I can make you laugh and lighten your day. My driving and nursing skills appear in other blog chapters.