Sputterpub's Blog

When I was 5½, I had my first airplane ride. The carrier was TWA or Pan Am, and we crossed the continent.

We lived in Glen Cove, NY at the time. That’s on Long Island. My mother’s family was still in New York – Scarsdale or White Plains, mostly – but my dad’s sisters had moved, one family at a time, to the LA area

The flight was over eight hours long. We had the seats over the wings; they faced each other and were known for providing the smoothest ride.

At that time, the crew welcomed kids aboard. We were each given playing cards, coloring books and crayons, flight wing pins, and a trip to see the cockpit and meet the pilot. There were no movies on the long flight. The food was infamously bad and the stewardesses were famously young and lovely. They were not called flight attendants then.

I remember that flight as long but fascinating. And what I recall of LA was not all the aunts and cousins – it was Disneyland.

My second flight, certainly on TWA, was three years later and horrible. In October 1958 we moved to California. My father had gone ahead; Mom had to make that long haul with almost-9-year old me, 5½-year old Steve, and 3-month old Andy. Small wonder she couldn’t see to my needs.

We didn’t have wing seats. I was close to Mom but not adjacent (in my mind’s eye, she’s across the aisle and one row up; I’m in a middle seat). I was terrified of the toilet. When the urge rose I wanted her to accompany me. She told me in no uncertain terms that I was old enough to go alone. I’m sure she was correct – what was she to do? Take baby and me to the small bathroom and leave Steve? Ask a stewardess to help?

I couldn’t do it. I was just too scared of that chemical toilet to visit it alone. I held my urine as long as I could. The relief I felt when I finally let go was profound and hot. I stayed in my seat till it dried.

     When I was 8, I went to day camp. I know I was 8 because we were singing “Purple People Eater,” and I just looked that up and learned that it was released in 1958. I don’t remember much about day camp, especially compared to all I recall from the summer I was 5½, but here is what I find.

It was a topic of disagreement between my parents. Mom had gone to camp when she was a kid; she remembers attending when her sister Ruth was a counselor. She has good memories about getting away from summertime New York City. She intended to send me away too.

Dad disliked the idea to the point of determined refusal. He was into spending time with the whole family and he couldn’t be talked into accepting my absence. Although he told us some snippets about traveling to a farm in the summer when he was young, about eating corn uncooked and fresh off the stalk, camp wasn’t part of his culture.

The compromise was that YMCA summer day program.

So I recall singing One-eyed One-horned Flying Purple People Eater. I remember making trivets out of white glue and popsicle sticks. But my most persistent and vivid memory is this: there was a large grassy playing field that we all looked upon as we entered the camp grounds. It was low turf a bit below the road, and I was told that it was four acres in area. It had room for baseball and football and dodgeball and kickball. I remember looking at it, day after day, and informing the gauge in my head that what I saw was four acres.

And that’s it. I don’t think that program was a success for me. Maybe Mom was right; for camp to be an experience it should involve sleeping away from home.

My kids went to day camp in the late 80s and early 90s. Kee Tov in Berkeley. Perhaps they got more from it than I did; maybe they’ll tell us. There were some sleepovers. And I know they had more songs.

     When I was 5 or 6, my parents enrolled me in an acting class.

I think it was a summer community program. I know there were two skill levels and diversity within those. The older kids performed “Peter & The Wolf.” We littler students put on “The Gingerbread Man.” I must have been one of the youngest of the younger cast; a non-speaking role was created for me.

I was the daughter of the cow that the gingerbread boy interviews while on his runaway travels. My costume was a black leotard and tights, a pinned-on tail, and a huge paper-mache head. I was told to walk on my hands and feet (not my hands and knees, so I had to keep my legs awkwardly bent throughout my minutes on stage).

I had no lines. My part was simply to be there with my cow mother, and to follow her when she moved off-stage.

It was acoustically fascinating within my mask. I had at least as much room as one of those hose-connected deep sea divers, but instead of glass I had wire mesh between my face and the front of the calf-head. That paper-mache cavern provided an echo to my whisper. And I’d just discovered that I liked the sound of the word “precious.”

So the whole time I was on stage I was whispering “precious” inside that head. “Precious precious precious.” Delicious.

We must have performed our little skit before the older kids put on Peter & The Wolf, because my other memory involves watching the longer play with my parents. I may have sat between them; I remember having my father on my left.

During a scene where Peter is skipping around in front of his cottage, a length of the little picket fence that defined the yard collapsed. The kid playing Peter managed to right the prop while making one of his or her skipping circuits. My father admired that. He told me what “poise” is.

That’s what I learned from acting class. Precious and poise.

When I was 15 my mother began referring to me as Dear Abby.

It was the spring of my sophomore year in high school. Our house in Chula Vista was just half a block from Hilltop High, and maybe that’s what facilitated the parade of advice-seeking friends, but I had so many visitors that I seemed popular.

Most of the girls who came by were cuter than I, more Southern Californian, less good in school, and successful with boys. My male visitors tended to be a year ahead of us, smart, fit but not jocks, witty or comical, and into those girls. They all brought me their questions, mostly about the opposite sex (and sex) but sometimes about grades, parents, politics, the future.

It wasn’t a new thing. In fact I’d been mouthing off forever, and since talk (if it’s not stupid chatter) provokes talk, I’d been hearing secrets and making comments for years. So I’d had some practice. I was pretty good at listening and suggesting.

We moved to Marin County half a year later, but I continued to correspond with at least a dozen for at least the rest of high school, and then went on to Cal (new friends, many more issues) and provisional adulthood and parenthood and self-employment. In short, I haven’t stopped providing advice. I’m pretty good at it. And when I’m doing it, I’m a kinder gentler person than when I’m not.

A month ago Danny asked my advice about how to give advice. He’s 28 and he modestly noted that he’s just started on his life path, so how can he possibly know enough to guide others?

“Oh,” I blurted, “you don’t have to know the answers. You’re not a guru and that’s not what advice is.”

Here’s what I told him.

First you have to determine that the friend wants advice. It’s a waste of time and credibility to give it when it’s unsolicited. The friend has to ask for it and the request has to be sincere.

Then you have to carefully describe what you hear your friend say and compare it to how your friend is acting. There’s usually a significant discrepancy between what she says she wants and how she’s choosing. You have to be careful and honest here. If the contradiction is huge you may even have to back away from the conversation. Because it’s not okay to shake someone up to the point of partial-wreckage unless you’re aboard for the (time-consuming) reconstruction that needs follow.

And you have to remove your self from the questions. Only on rare occasions will it be appropriate for you to say “If I were you…” Most of the time you’ll be saying something like “I’ve noticed you do such-and-such, but doesn’t that contradict your stated intention to do so-and-so?”

You’re trying to help them back into sync. Either their words or their actions need adjustment, and you point that out, but you don’t get to decide which.