How they met: My grandparents were professional ice skaters in the 1940s, hired by Sonja Henie

The job that started my family: On Sept 12, 1943, my grandmother signed a contract with a producer named Arthur M. Wirtz, who hired her to perform as an an ice skater in the Hollywood Ice Revue starring Sonja Henie, a very accomplished figure skater who became a film star.

That was cool.

Because another skater working for that show just happened to be my grandfather, so her signing that contract not only changed her life dramatically, it soon started the life of my mother, then eventually the lives of my sister and me. 

But that's not the only reason why I love the contract, which my grandmother kept for 70 years. I particularly enjoy reading all the details explaining exactly what the producers of the show would, and wouldn't, pay for, with a special page dedicated to the train tickets that would take her from California to Chicago.

The contract states that she will be paid $65 a week, only $30 of which was actual salary. The other $35 was for “living expenses, including board and lodging, but excluding railroad or other transportation costs.”

The railroad costs were excluded because a separate page of the agreement is dedicated to the details of the train tickets:

“In connection with the Employment agreement… I agree to furnish your railroad transportation ticket and berth to the point of origin of the Hollywood Ice Revue, that is to say, Chicago, Illinois, from your place of residence, which you represent to be Los Angeles, and back to said residence… at the termination of said show. It is expressly understood that the railroad tickets and berth furnished herunder are purchased under a special rate arrangement with the railroad and are not transferable and are not subject to cash refund or credit in the event they are unused in whole or part, or unused within the time limit designated on said tickets.”

Grandma covering her pregnant belly.

Just a couple of months after signing the contract, my grandmother became pregnant. The show was scheduled to run until June of 1944, but I have to imagine that my grandmother stopped skating long before that. I am very curious about what happened next, but she kept nothing that provides any answer to my questions, such as: “Did she quit voluntarily, or did they fire her for ‘gaining weight?’” 

(Though I will likely never know for sure, I have to imagine that my grandmother found a way to quit ice skating long before her pregnancy began to show, given how our society would have viewed an unwed mother in the 1940s.)

I’m also very disappointed that I could not find any photos of either one of my grandparents skating, and found only one photo of them together. Since my grandparents never married and to my knowledge were only civil after their work “fling” when necessary for my mother’s sake, the only photo I have of them standing next to each other (posted above) is one taken by my mother in the early 1960s. My grandfather has cameras around his neck because he was taking photos of my mother, I believe in honor of her high school graduation.

Read more on my grandfather, who stayed true to his Michigan roots even as he traveled the world, here: https://thatwascooladdress.blogspot.com/2021/12/my-grandfather-world-traveler-who.html

Birding for Mom: Why I kept the binoculars I used to resent, but now love using

Birding for mom at Elkhorn Slough.

I kept my mother's binoculars after the crash, even though I kind of hated birding. First for being the passion that took her out of the house so much, then for being the passion that kind of killed her.

But when my grandfather, the person who first gave my mother the birding bug, had her binoculars repaired after we retrieved them from the crumpled car, I was so touched by his thoughtful gesture that I kept them, despite my resentment.

And I was very glad to have her binoculars 30 years later when I finally met up with one of her birding pals again for a walk, because not only did he still recognize them, they made him cry.

That was cool

Cool not because I like to make people sad, but because of how it felt to be with someone else who missed my mother. One of the few things that can truly ease the grief of losing someone is being with another person who feels their absence, because they understand that no matter how long it has been, no matter how fine you look, you are still just the walking wounded.

Losing my mother at 15 felt like someone ripped out one of my lungs and told me to just keep breathing. My body learned to adjust, but it's never the same. You never forget how it felt to breathe with two lungs, and there's never another day where you don't feel at least a twinge of pain.

But the only thing worse than feeling pain is having to explain it, so eventually we all box up our sadness and shove it in the closet with all the other nasty truths no one likes to talk about. Until, of course, you find someone with the same scar, and you not only both welcome the chance to talk about your pain, doing so can finally help you heal.

Like that day I walked with her pal Bruce, and he told me how he still agonized over how my mother had ended up riding with the newest and youngest member of their bird club because Bruce's car was full when they all went out looking for one of the last birds on her Life List: a Spotted Redshank.

I didn't like knowing that Bruce still carried pain from that day, but I did like how carrying the pain together made it feel lighter while we walked. So to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday, I plan to take another walk with someone else who remembers my mother – one of her closest friends, Cecilia, who not only became a surrogate mother to me, but is now one of my closest friends, as well.

And we don't plan to just carry our pain together, but to do something my mother would do if she could, which is to spend the day outdoors and just enjoy being alive. And maybe if there are two of us thinking about her, she will be able to feel us together, and it will make her smile.

Especially because I will be taking her binoculars with us. I don’t keep them tucked under my driver’s seat like my mother did, so she could whip them out whenever she saw anything other than a turkey vulture flying overhead, but I do take them birding whenever I can – always hoping that someday, I will see that Spotted Redshank for her.

And that would be very cool.

 

Lost on the Mendocino Coast: Where the heck is Blues Beach?

Looking for Blues Beach. Photo by Nathan DeHart.

When’s the last time you asked someone for directions? And by someone I mean a live person, another human being you talked to face-to-face —something I call “Old School GPS.”

 

While you’re trying to remember, I’ll tell you why I had to dust off my ancient searching skills very recently while trying to find something on the Mendocino Coast called Blues Beach.

That was cool.

Why? Because it was fun to actually look for something again, to physically search for a place that couldn’t be virtually located for me. More importantly, it was comforting to know that there are still places in this world that my phone can’t find, locations that an electronic voice can’t give me driving directions to mere seconds after I type a name.

 

Like Blues Beach, which I read about every week in an email I get from Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation, which alerts media outlets to upcoming road projects in your area that will affect traffic. 

 

And for months now that email has included something called the Blues Beach Trailhead, words that made me picture a trail along the gorgeous Mendocino Coast that I hadn’t been on yet. And as someone who loves both trails and the Mendocino Coast, I decided I had to find the Blues Beach Trailhead.

 

So I set out with my friend Nathan to do just that. Like most drives I take, it started off with a mistake, because I turned onto the wrong highway to head to the coast. But Nathan shrugged it off by declaring: “We're on an adventure, right? We’ve got plenty of time, just start over!”

 

And so I did, turning around and heading back to drive to the coast on Highway 20 instead of Highway 128. Once we reached Highway 1, I didn’t ask my phone where Blues Beach was because I knew it was near Westport, and I figured there had to be a sign. After all, the beach used to be owned by Caltrans, and who makes more signs than Caltrans?!

 

But also, we were on an adventure dang it! I didn’t know it yet, but I secretly wanted a mystery to unravel, a puzzle that my human brain had to solve, using only clues provided by other human brains.

 

Like this rock a birder friend told me about. Back in the pre-digital days like the 1980s, he said, there was a rock near Mono Lake where birders kept a list of the birds they had seen in the area. So instead of just getting an email telling you of recent sightings, you had to find the rock, lift it up and pull out the piece of paper people had written on.

 

I loved learning about that rock; loved picturing that list tucked under it, waiting for the few fingers that knew they could pull it out and read it. 

 

And yes, I want there to still be things like that: knowledge transferred from one human to another the old-fashioned way: by touch, taste, sight, smell or sound.

 

Like how my mother spent her weekends listening to records of bird calls so she could identify the sounds she heard coming from the trees. But now? Now you can just ask your phone to tell you which bird is talking.

And maybe my mother would have liked not having to memorize the calls herself because a phone app could just tell her, but I doubt it. And I don’t want to ask a phone either.

 

Like when I was at the grocery store shopping for turnips, and found only purple ones instead of white.

“What’s the difference between purple turnips and the white?” I asked the man stocking vegetables next to me.

“I don't know,” he said. “But I can Google it for you.”

 

“No, thank you,” I said, because I didn’t want to ask a phone. I wanted to ask a person who had obtained facts through experience, then could offer them firsthand to someone else.

So I think I wanted it to be harder than it needed to be to find Blues Beach. I realize now that I could have just taken the mile marker off the email and found the turnout that way. But I wanted a mystery to solve, an analog path we had to find ourselves by picking another human brain.

Which is what we did to find Blues Beach, finally asking the camp host at Westport-Union Landing State Beach for directions, which she happily provided while explaining why we couldn’t find them online: “Because only locals call it Blues Beach, so you have to ask a local!”

So while Blues Beach was definitely not the prettiest beach I've been to on the Mendocino Coast, especially because of the fresh tire tracks on the sand, it was definitely the most satisfying to find. 

And has one of the best signs I’ve ever found at a beach, a placard nailed to a telephone pole that declares “Go Jump in the Ocean,” which I think we should all do every chance we get. Why? Because you can’t take your phone with you! 

And that is really cool.

My Grandmother's Journals: September, 1999. "To KFC, got pot pie."

Grandma and in granddaughters in the 1970s.

Welcome to my anti-anxiety medication: my grandmother’s journals. Because reading all the details of her days, the minutiae of what she ate and what she watched on TV, is to me both fascinating and soothing, the perfect antidote to stress, worry and frustration — which we all seem to have far too much of these days!

In September of 1999, she turned 84 as woman living alone in a trailer park, but don't feel sorry for her because she wasn’t sad, and neither was her home — she was the most fiercely independent person I have ever known, living near one of the coolest places I’ve ever seen: Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz, Calif. 

 

And nearly every day she walked the cliffs along the ocean, looking out for the surfers who loved that spot, too. 

 

 

That was cool 

 

And man, that life of walking near the ocean, going to the donut shop for some coffee and a treat before heading to the movies sounds just about perfect right about now.

(I wrote more about her life in this post)

 

Also in September of 1999, grandma was watching tennis, driving down to stay with a friend in Santa Maria, and dutifully checking for email messages from me and my sister on the computers at the library.

 

August entries.

 

Wednesday, Sept. 1, 1999

Up 7:30, usual breakfast. Chores.

Got gas at Kmart, breakfast again!

Bought food at Kmart, Albertsons. No soy!

Home 11:30. News, Murder 

To BofA, Wells Fargo, Credit Union.

To McDonald's for sundae.

TV: Due South, L&O (old).

Bed, some crossword. 

L&O, fell asleep, twist ending!

Consumed much water, up three times.

Thursday, Sept. 2, 1999

Up 8:30, usual breakfast. Ready by 10.

Walked on cliff.

To Drug Emporium for TV Guide.

To show, "The Muse." Liked.

To library, email from Justine. Sent her message with Treasury note and that I saw "Muse" and liked it. Sent same message to H but omitted movie Muse.

TV: Due South, X-Files.

Bed 11:30. Not good sleep, ear noise.

Friday, Sept. 3, 1999

Up 7:30, usual breakfast.

Chores. To Nob Hill for milk, soy.

Walked on cliff. Cold, high surf. Many surfers. Fog, chilly.

To KFC, got pot pie.

To Blockbuster, got three: The Breakfast Club, Blow Up, Shakespeare in Love.

Home, rested til 3.

Mail: Myra, Sears, Lucent.

Ellie needed to go to bank, took her. Saw Larry.

TV: Tennis, watched Shakespeare in Love after Due South. Very good.

 

Saturday, Sept. 4, 1999

Up 7:30 again. Ear bad. Slept 2 hours maybe.

Usual breakfast. Chores.

To Longs, got soup, etc.

Tennis: Agassi won, Serena won, Seles won.

Mail: Check from Visa, letter from Mina.

Returned Shakespeare in Love.

To Burger King, fish and fries!

Carole called 8 p.m., talked til 10 p.m.

Bed 12. Another bad night, took pain pill. Slept til 9:30.

 

Sunday, Sept. 5, 1999

Rain at U.S. Open, Rerun of 1997.

Mary Joe Fernandez slipped on wet court.

Not a lot of matches on TV.

Ran Breakfast Club while checking tennis.

TV: Ebert (dropped Siskel); X-Files, some news.

Bed, not able to sleep. Called Justine, left message on machine.

 

Monday, Sept. 6, 1999

Better sleep, massaged ear.

Usual breakfast, tennis. 

Returned Breakfast Club. To Trader Joe's.

Called Mina regarding Prudy.

TV: News, Law & Order.

Bed 9, no sleep. Ear bad.

 

Tuesday, Sept. 7, 1999

Slept til 9:30. Took melatonin, had tea about 2 a.m.

Shower/hair.

To Kmart around 11:30, ate.

Returned Blow Up.

To library, Internet shut. Finally open, logged on, unable to get any messages. Overloaded. Holiday?

Home 5 p.m. News, Due South, good.

TV: Law & Order, Diagnosis Murder.

Slept good! Finally, used dry heat.

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 1999

Up 8, usual breakfast.

Walked Capitola, fruit stand. 

Drug Emporium, got TV Guide, soup.

To library, lost visor. Found it.

Was to see Twin Falls. No early show today.

Got info on Word Cruncher, Visa to write complaint.

Mail: Card from Jennifer.

Tennis, news, Due South, L&O.

Ellie husband still in hospital.

Sleep 11:30, not great. 

Thunder, lightning, some rain. Storm set fire in Big Sur. Called Justine.

 

Thursday, Sept. 9, 1999

Up 8:30, breakfast usual. 

To Drug Emporium for paper.

Changed sheets, chores. Washed some sox here.

To Scotts Valley, ate KFC.

To Kmart, got 2 pair pants, food.

To show, "Iron Man."

Got gas, home.

Mail: Letter from Mina, consumer survey.

Foned Justine, told her about trip to Santa Maria.

Some TV, bed.

Friday, Sept. 10, 1999

To Mayra's, take tamales!

Up 7, out 10.

To Soledad, saw John Mark about 1:30. He not good.

We discussed Sixth Sense, his friends did not figure it out.

Arrived Myra's 5:30 p.m. Had chicken stew, talked.

Bed 11, no sleep at all. Ear bad.

Saturday, Sept. 11, 1999 - At Myra's

Up 7, breakfast.

We to Food 4 Less, then Asian market. Not Chinese.

To McFrugal's, JoAnn's Fabrics. Oilcloth $3.99, 25% off.

Ate at Sizzler in Arroyo Grande.

Back to Penney's, Myra got pants, I got black sweater.

Home, had tamales. Got news.

Tennis: Serena to play Hingis today: 6/3, 7/6, 7/4.

Bed, took pill.

Sunday, Sept 12, 1999 - Her 84th birthday

Up 7, stayed in all day.

Myra worked: Made soup, washed clothes, changed bed, etc.

Ate rest of tamales.

Tennis: Agassi over Todd Martin: 6/3, 6/7, 6/7, 6/4, 7/6.

Walked to Von's, strip mall.

Read paper.

Bed 11, took pill.

Monday, Sept. 13, 1999

Packed, etc.

Up 7, breakfast. 9:30 off.

First stop Paso Robles, got fudge cake.

Third stop Soledad, arrived Santa Cruz 2:38 p.m. 

193 miles, five hours, three stops.

To mall for paper. Read, did crossword til 6:15.

Used toilet at Sears, ate banana and cookies.

Home 6:30. Ellie's husband died Friday. He was very sick.

Two phone messages, Justine and Debbie.

Some TV.

Tuesday, Sept. 14, 1999

Up 7. Got bank balance, 31 cents off.

To Dr. Ramirez, got partial.

To McDonald's, got coffee and muffin.

Home, unpacked, Washed some clothes.

Called Justine two times, ate.

Justine called back. Discussed 2 years, 2 months.

TV: News, Due South. Read papers.

Readied for bed, one hour for everything.

10 p.m. news, storm on East Coast, Hurricane Floyd.

 

Wednesday, Sept. 15, 1999

Up 6 a.m. Breakfast tea and melon.

To laundromat.

Home, wrote U.P. man regarding railroad crossing. Also wrote to Carla.

Took to post office 10:20, first pick-up at 10:15.

To Kmart for groceries, BP.

Home, ironing, read papers.

To library, email up! One message from H, two from Justine.

Thursday, Sept. 16, 1999

Awake 6 to 7. Usual breakfast.

Chores. Typewriter troubles!

To mall, paid Sears.

Got hanger clips, checked for shoes, flat. No go at Payless, Kmart.

To Ocean, coffee/donut. To thrift shop, donations.

Mail: Card from Carla from Hawaii.

TV: Murder She Says, Lehrer.

Packed vitamins.

Called Justine 4:30, not good. Said I would call regarding Sunday, maybe I won't.

TV: News, Due South. Most reruns.

Not good sleep. Vicks, heat lamp.

 

Friday, Sept. 17, 1999

Awake 5:30 to 7:30. Used heat lamp.

Chores, ironed. Foned Visa. 

Libraries closed.

To Drug Emporium, got card for Prudy. BP OK.

To McWhorter's for Xerox.

Home, lunch. (Corn).

To show, "Stir of Echoes." Kevin Bacon, boy sees dead again,

Mail: Mastercard.

TV: News, same, Due South, then ready for bed.

Slept very good!!

Saturday, Sept. 18, 1999

Awake 6, up 7. Breakfast, shower/hair.

To bank, Orchard Supply.

To Kmart: Got crackers, gas, lunch.

To library. Message from Carla: Cool, no reply to Yamaha. I answered.

Home, packed. Wrote to Sy, letter to BofA.

Mailed letters, got cookies and candy at Rite Aid.

Home, some TV. Called Carla at 6:15, said I'd call tomorrow.

Bed early.