Tag Archives: river of january

White Man’s Burden

Here, in my state a showdown is brewing between the LGBT community and legislators in the capitol.

Idaho passed a Human Rights Act a number of sessions ago believing their votes showed what good folks they were.  They won’t discriminate against women, Jews, Blacks, or Japanese Americans who were interned here during WWII.  There will be no genocide, no back of the bus, nor will camps hold citizens.

These largely white, male reactionaries didn’t realize they had opened a Pandora’s Box of outcomes.  Where they thought they had passed an ‘everybody wins,’ warm and fuzzy law, the residents of Idaho took the lawmakers at their word.

That brings our story to today.  The LGBT community has nearly begged lawmakers to ‘Add the Words’ to the previous Act.  Four words to be precise.  The gay community insists that Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity amend the law as it stands currently.  However, lawmakers will not permit any hearing or even tolerate such an incomprehensible notion.  That is this conflict in a nutshell.  The majority of rural-dwelling, agrarian conservatives cannot fathom that alternative sexuality is real.  Roosters like hens, steer like cows, billy’s like nanny’s.  It’s very simple.  For the religious right, they look to multiple translations and versions of the Bible, and Adam and Eve reads clearly.

The problem centers on real life and real people.  Whether most farm animals (most) behave according to expectations, humans are something more.  Sexuality isn’t a black and white issue like race relations.  And the gay community is real and is suffering.  Simply because those in power refuse to recognize reality–physical bashing, job and housing discrimination, bullying, it is happening.  Haters know what lawmakers refuse to see.  By taking no action the Idaho legislature has condoned persecution.

I am reminded of a story of Queen Victoria.  It was the late 1800’s in London and Jack the Ripper was waging terror in the impoverished White Chapel neighborhood.  However, the Queen refused to recognize the crimes because she did not believe prostitution was real.  How could there be prostitutes murdered when the profession did not exist.  End of problem.

The LGBT community is real.  Even if law makers refuse to recognize the demographic, everybody else in society does.  That’s why the discrimination and abuses are carried out.  Legislators may not believe in alternative lifestyles, and in return we are certainly losing our belief in our legislators.

There are gay characters in my book, River of January, and though it wasn’t my business to out them, I could see they suffered.  One in particular lost his career and died very young after an unhappy, unfulfilled life.

This is, in America, and in my state, the last acceptable prejudice.  Those who govern the people must govern for all the people, whether or not they personally approve of alternative lifestyles.  E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many Come One.

Define Truth

One question raised about River of January is,”Are my characters brushes with the famous true?”  The short answer is yes.  Helen dined with Maurice Chevalier, and they performed on the same stage.  Chum crossed paths with Amelia Earhart regularly at Roosevelt Field.   The celebrity passages are factual.  I have their pictures with the famous, references from documents, and proof in aviation logbooks.

Creative non-fiction appears to be a new genre in search of defining itself.  Where exactly is the line between creative and non-fiction?  Though I need to tell this story, I certainly wasn’t alive at the time.  Frankly who knows what the characters precisely uttered to one another at any given time.  I tried to rely on personal and business letters, quoting at length when I could, to add tone, cadence and a feel for the era.  I am adding a lot of pictures for readers to visually connect to the characters, and the sights they photographed on their travels.  Additional color had to come from my imagination, with clues found  in the archive of family memorabilia.

My personal preference in reading is non-fiction history.  I have lived on a strong steady diet of biographies and general histories.  Still I wonder how any scholar concludes their work without feeling uneasily incomplete.  The subtleties of human interaction, the nuances of personal connection are more than left out.  We simply can’t know all facets of historic lives.  Our only alternative is to flesh out the tale with what we understand about the human condition.  And of course every writer struggles with their own blinders, biases, and preconceived notions.

For example the age old question of General Washington’s taciturn exterior has intrigued historians for two centuries.  Was he grave and somber because his teeth hurt?  Possibly.  Did he wish to hide his false teeth due to the fact they were unsightly,  fashioned out of a number of materials–ivory to human–to wood.  Are both theories wrong?  Did Washington remain stoic in appearance to evoke nobility and dignity?  Maybe.  In fact, all of the above could pass scrutiny.  Different historians have differing opinions.

I am not too troubled about shaping feelings in ways I think makes sense.  I’ve fallen in love, held my own in arguments, and felt more regrets than I care to claim.  That is the truth I rely upon to craft the creative element in this historical narrative.

I think all biography and history  possess an element of the unknown.  Whether the history is filtered through professional scholars such as Robert Remini, Doris Kearns Goodwin, or Miss Nobody Gail in her Idaho cabin, we are analyzing viable evidence to apply shape and logic to past lives.

Did Helen meet Sophie Tucker.  Yes.  She told us in a letter.  What did she say to her?  How did she act around her?  I ask myself what would I have said as an American to another famous American performing in London?  That’s the creative portion of this non-fiction format.

All things considered, creative non-fiction is an exciting new canvas for writing.  I feel like a kid in a candy store each time I turn over another photo or letter.

Living Life Forward

It was the night of February 9, 1964, a Sunday, when my older brother and I had to make a crucial decision.  We were both over stimulated, frantic, not one of our four feet remaining long on the floor. The house vibrated with our excitement and the weight of our impossible dilemma. For starters our birthday was the following day–the 10th, (though we’re not twins–he’s a year older). Still, that pre-birthday fuse had already ignited and by the 9th the two of us were banking off the walls.

The quandary we faced that Sunday night was whether to watch “Davy Crockett at the Alamo,” starring Fess Parker on Disney (The Alamo!), or the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. This was that first historic Beatles broadcast, live on American television, and we agonized between the two choices.

In 1964 there were no video players, no DVD players, no home computers, or dvr’s, in fact televisions were the size of Volkswagen’s and transmitted in glorious, flickering black and white. This difficult decision counted because there was no rewind, there were no do-overs. One gain meant one loss.

We liked Davy Crockett an awful lot.  We had watched all the previous episodes, and Davy biting the dust in San Antonio was the much anticipated grand finale. But, oh, the Beatles! And the adoration was real, palpable, an injection of adrenaline without the needle. We worshiped at the warmth of our bedroom radios, perpetually tuned in to our local AM radio station. Reverent silence accompanied replays of “She Loves You,” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand.”

What could two grade schoolers, sick with anticipation do with such a weighty conundrum?  It was 1964 and we had to choose.

Before the proliferation of electronic media, this little girl of the 1960’s viewed momentous events as they beamed across the screen. MLK’s elocution at the Lincoln Memorial, President Kennedy’s inaugural address, his assassination, and the escalating war in Southeast Asia–all experienced as reported at that moment.

In an earlier era, when Chum flew in his air race, and Helen danced in Rio at the Copacabana, there were no camcorders or Iphones. His signature landing and Helen’s near disastrous opening night grew silent as the applause subsided, then faded in time. Much like my brother and myself in 1964, they lived life forward, one opportunity at a time.

Silent photos and written records are all that remain verifying Chum’s aerial dash through darkened skies, and Helen’s energetic dance routines. They lived life forward, embracing events as they unfolded–experienced once, then gone. I would love to see footage of Chum’s Waco airplane lifting off at dusk, or watch Helen spring across the stage. But those wishes are pipe dreams, never to happen. No vintage film or recording, (except one I found by accident) exist in the historic record. The best I can do for myself, and for readers, is try to recreate the magic of the first time around in the pages of my River of January.

Oh, by the way, I’ve never seen “Davy Crockett at the Alamo.”

ImageGail Chumbley is the author of the memoir, River of January. Also available on Kindle.

Mentally Constipated

Writing isn’t a skill that comes naturally to me.  And I know what good writing looks like when I read it.  I have had students who were naturals, fashioning well constructed sentences, laced with alluring imagery.  I have friends who make words sing, in fact some have earned their living producing written words for money.  Many teaching colleagues who literally drip poetry were my neighbors in nearby classrooms.  Not me.  Not this kid.  When this story, River of January, fell into my lap I didn’t know where to turn.  The idea of me writing a book was laughable, astonishing, the last thing an old girl like me would take on.

I tried to outsource the effort at first.  I beat the bushes to get help from a number of people. who would essentially write it for me.  You know those friends.  The one’s who would love to put their lives on hold to unravel my convoluted sentences.  And in fairness, some individuals actually did that for me, I am deeply grateful and indebted to them.

Still, sitting down at the keyboard, I know what it is I want to say.  I know there is passion, anguish, ethereal joy.  But my brain flushes, just like a toilet.  The harder I push, the more words elude me.  It’s as though English becomes somehow unintelligible, and foreign.  I thumb through Roget’s, scan Webster’s, and finally have to walk away leaving my mental firewall to soften up.

Much later, while making my bed, eating red licorice, or watching “The Fatal Attraction of Adolf Hitler” on the Military Channel the words form in my mind, elegantly phrased.  Then look out, I’ve got to jot them down before they evaporate, never to reappear.

I figure this writing business is a lot like golf, not that I play golf, mind you.  But my husband does.  He’ll come home from eighteen holes and it’s easy to see how his day passed.  I get a tapping Fred Astair through the front door when the links played well, or he stomps in cussing, fit to be tied with frustration.

Can any of us control the flow of magic when it visits?  Can any of us make magic appear at will?  I can’t.  That neuron synapse-ed mess I call my brain does not tolerate fools.  It shuts tight when I squeeze too hard.  And we have words, my brain and I, when the disconnect seals off from my head to my fingers.

To finish this bathroom-themed post, I must return to the natural.  Writing isn’t easy to fake.  I can push and bargain and swear, but the fluency of truth, of an honest phrase or an essential certainty is a gift of grace, not a product of stress.  When I am anchored to my spirit, not my head, the magic has half a chance.

A Malleable Girl

In my dating days I employed the habit of acting the way my dates expected.  There I said it.  I submerged my identity for a guy.  Now if you are reading this post thinking “what a bimbo,” take a moment to recall your own dating history.  We lose weight, we drink less, we put makeup on for an evening of television, we attempt to be funny and charming–we wear a mask.  You know, the Bridget Jones school of dating.

I’m not absolute about this, but I think Helen always remained Helen in her single years.  Back reading for River of January  I got the sense that she didn’t play any coquettish games to land an evening out.  My observation of this girl was that men saw what they wanted in her, attached their own sense of who she was.  And their frustration trying to put a ring on her finger stemmed from a deep misunderstanding of Helen Thompson.

Aside from the reality that her mother called the shots in Helen’s life, three men attempted to win her heart, and take her for their own.  And I suppose we could start by looking first at the last, Mont Chumbley.

The young pilot became infatuated with Helen nearly from the first time he laid eyes on her.  Those spotlights hitting the stage, in hues of blue, pink, yellow, and white can intensify an already dazzling girl.  Once he decided he loved her, he posted himself every night at the club until her contract ended.  If any drunk (or sober) patron made advances, Chum  intervened assuring her safety.  And that is how he saw himself, her protector until she could leave show business.  It never seemed to occur to him that she loved performing and had no intentions of giving up her art.  That caused big problems later.

Her middle admirer, the boy who courted her the longest, across continents, was Elie Galeki.  Now Elie was a person who lived life systematically and deliberately.  He worked hard to establish his own photography business, caring for his mother and sisters in Brussels.  His suits were pressed, his appointment book organized, his expectations orderly.  However, with Helen he had his hands full.  To is way of thinking, once he met “the one” she would naturally love him back, and they would marry.  Elie, too, expected Helen would give up the stage and settle down as his dutiful wife.  That wasn’t actually Helen’s style, and she knew he wasn’t the right guy.

Her earliest boyfriend, and vaudeville partner, Grant Garrett, was an entirely different sort of character.  He was a comedy writer, dancer, and singer, and Helen did respond to his charms.  Grant was ready with a zinger, usually targeted at Helen’s intransigent mother.  He was smooth in style and rough in attitude.  He liked to fight for money around bonfires in hobo camps, and he drank hard.  Of all three blokes, he may have been temperamentally the best suited to Helen.  He treated her as an equal, and understood her drive and ambition for the stage.  She was a professional, and so was Grant.  They shared their love of performing.

I don’t believe Helen submerged her personality for any of these three suitors.  But Grant was the one her understood her the best. Mostly they saw what they wanted in her beauty, grace, and bubbly sense of fun.  I suppose that if any of these gentlemen became frustrated with the girl, they only had their illusions to blame.

Memories of Telephones Past

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My parents kept a beige wall phone when I was growing up.  The ring could wake the dead.  Both sides of grandparents settled for basic black, one a desk phone the other fixed to their kitchen wall.  If my paternal grandparents were expecting a long distance call we all waited in the living room, reverently, as though it was God calling.  And God help you if you made any noise while my grandmother was on that phone, conversing with her relatives back in Minnesota.  Those calls were an almost holy occasion.

Their phone exchange was Fairfax, ours, on the other side of town, was Keystone.  My husband remembers their phone exchange began with Plaza, and his mother, Helen, growing up, used the famous prefix, Murray Hill in New York City.  I think that’s the same one actress, Barbara Stanwick requests in one of her old movies.

It is my understanding that many rural Americans had a phone installed before even electricity was available in vast tracts of the country.  My Minnesota relatives, for example, didn’t have an indoor toilet until the early 1960’s, yet had that telephone on a doily covered end table as early as the 1920’s.  Chum recalled that their phone on the farm had a different ring for each home connected along a party line.  He remembered that the different rings didn’t matter because everyone eavesdropped on everyone else.

Operators, or “hello girls,” as they were known, plugged connections on regional calls offering choices for long distance service.  There was “Station to Station,” which meant you talked to anyone at the number dialed.  Then came “Person to Person,” where you hailed a specific individual.  I remember dialing collect calls, which were long distance too, connected through a live operator, costing my parents a bundle if they accepted.  And they always accepted.

The telephone of yore was a mysterious device.  The phone company, AT&T held a monopoly and innovated very slowly.  I recall when the clockwise dial was replaced by gray push buttons.  Then there was the desk phone offered in green and red, as well as black and beige.  I vaguely remember “Ma-Bell,” as we irreverently referred to the company, marketing blue, white and pink “Princess Phones,”.  Geez, how sexist.

But what telephones held then, which is gone now, was a sense of mystery.  When that device rang it was a crap shoot who waited on the other end.  We could only call on land lines, and if no one answered there was no evidence of our call.  If that certain someone called me, and I missed it, well, I missed it.  We had no call waiting, no answering machines, and certainly no ‘missed call’ record.

And long distance calls were fashionable and expensive, folks largely opting to stay in touch through less expensive letters.  While Helen toured Europe from 1932-33, she had no cause to use a telephone.  If Elie wrote to her and scheduled a call, she would take it at the prescribed time at her hotel.  But calling her mother back in the states was never an option.

Public phones could be found on nearly every city block as I grew up.  Now they are as scarce as manual typewriters.  Formality, phone etiquette, the necessity of saying hello to mother’s or father’s who picked up, are all gone.  I would sit in the stairway of our house for some telephone privacy, because my family was everywhere, my brothers especially snoopy and irritating.  Even that modicum of supervision is gone for teenagers.  They can call, text, Facetime, use Facebook, stay connected all day everyday.

Perhaps the extra effort required for telephone calls gave them a higher value.  Our capacity for electronic interaction is nearly effortless today, but also somehow has cheapened a once-regarded gesture.

Wounds

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Rereading the original draft of my book, River of January, I reviewed the back story that propelled the book’s creation. An impossible crisis pushed me to write the work, but that narrative was cut out of the main manuscript due to length. But I still believe that the story behind the published story is important to share.

The Intensive Care Unit was the largest department on the third floor of the hospital. Reflecting back I never did figure out which direction the ward faced. Was it north toward Boise’s golden foothills or south over the blue turf of the football stadium? Someone needed to open the blinds.

The floor plan in the ward ovaled around like a carpeted arena, anchored by a nurses’ station in the infield. Three quarters of the broad ring had been segmented into tiny stalls–narrow spaces housing mechanical beds. My husband’s particular nook, squeezed into a curved corner, remained either open or sealed by simply sliding a glass door and a privacy curtain. Each morning I instinctively gauged his condition by the disposition of that entrance. Coding patients were afforded some semblance of privacy.

The sparse decor inside clearly signaled “no nonsense.” Two chairs flanked the entrance, with one small footstool. I once tried pulling out that stool to attempt a nap, but sleeping was reserved for the critical only; the nursing staff’s frenzied laps around his bed made sleep impossible.

Unconscious, bloated, with a swollen torso and bulging arms, my husband lingered on the crinkly mattress. Tubes protruded from nearly every square inch of his upper body, pumping in liquid meds and below, pumping out liquid waste material. Attached monitors loudly measured his heart and pulse rates, racketing in a relentless beeping.  I was afraid to ask the meaning of the numbers blinking on the monitor, the din adding to my fatigue. Eventually, I inquired what a normal cardio reading looked like, and the answer wasn’t reassuring. I froze in that nondescript chair, dazed, almost hypnotized, willing his numbers to improve. Still indifferent, that monitor shifted erratically, frequently setting off an alarm drawing in medical reinforcements. 

The cocktail of fluids pumped into his arms overnight had left him bloated to the point that his nose had flattened across his full, stretched cheeks. Fingers that had earlier held my hand from the stretcher now swelled to the size of cooked kielbasa—triggering thoughts of his wedding ring and his watch. My next random reflection recalled both pieces being handed to me the night before, and hopefully safe in my purse. It was a dreamy recollection. 

The worst feature of his bare torso was the ragged, opened split from his naval to his groin, sealed by a stiff grey foam substance, and a thin membrane of clear film covering the diagonal wound. I was told his body was so contaminated in septic debris that the stitches closing the incision would have healed before the toxic substances beneath had cleansed.  So this vacuum packed dressing over his wound kept the area draining and that tube, too had an attached little box, stowed under the bed that beeped and flashed. 

He looked too rubbery and inflated to be real, but with the aid of artificial ventilation forcing his breath, I could clearly hear his intake of air. 

Clinging to these subtle signs I began the litany of phone calls that had to be made to the rest of the family.  His son, my parents, his siblings . . . I hated to upset them all, but knew these relatives had to be kept in the loop. Listening quietly on the phone, my 78-year-old father finally spoke; he and my mom would pack up and come down to Boise from Spokane. I wasn’t prepared for that offer, and asked them to give me a little time. I still wasn’t convinced my husband was going to live. At that moment I had no energy for company, all my focus concentrated on watching his vital signs.

Desperation is a funny emotion. The intensity of it burns on the inside, and we fool ourselves in believing the conjured up power somehow changes reality. Maybe the instinct to inflict mental suffering on ourselves is a primal manifestation of empathy for our loved ones. He bore the physical wounds, while mine lashed and scorched my insides. Over the course of his lengthy critical care, and his slow road to recovery, I had to do something with all the bile stuffed into my psyche. Out of this pain came the healing therapy of River of January and my own recovery through writing.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the memoir River of January

 

Plastics

One-Word-Plastics

In Mike Nichols classic, The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman’s character is the guest of honor at his own graduation party.  Shaking hands, thanking well-wishers, one attendee herds him outside and says, “One word.  Plastics.”  There is no context or warning for the advice, and the exchange is well timed–very funny.

Turns out that the recommendation from the film was sage advice.

My husband was diagnosed with throat cancer back in the spring of 2010.  Following seven weeks of daily radiation, and powerful opiates, combined with a freighter load of other drugs, his colon ruptured by August.  Simultaneous to the colon perforation, chaos erupted as well.  The next twelve fateful hours involved a life-flight trip on a helicopter over the mountains, life and death surgery, followed by eight harrowing days in the hospital ICU.  In summary his recovery took better than three years, as he was literally coming back from the dead.

My husband’s body, initially ravaged by potent cancer drugs now pulsed lethal septic contamination . . . his mortality dangerously uncertain.

In a miniscule corner room, a broad aluminum apparatus, looking a bit like a spinning skeletal umbrella dropped from the ceiling. Numerous hooks dangled from this suspended fixture, but apparently not enough to treat his severe condition.  Hatstand-style steel poles were wheeled in, circling the raised, mechanical bed.  Every hook bore multicolored plastic bags, upside down, metering in good stuff while other plastic tubes, secreted beneath, drained out the bad stuff. The overall impression of the set up reminded me of an underwater documentary, featuring clouds of transparent jellyfish, crisscrossing uncountable tendrils. Easily fifty miles of plastic tubing splayed from above, inserted into all of his orifices-all of them.

When the medical staff ran out of natural holes, they manufactured more conduits using hypodermic needles. Blue and green plastic portals were punched into his wrists and upper arms. Threaded in were additional plastic tubes that pumped fluids, battling to purge his body of poison.

The liquids pushing through those tubes, out paced the liquids draining out, leaving his body strangely distorted.  Bloated, his eyes had swollen shut and his nose stretched broadly across his cheeks–fingers like frankfurters. As he hovered between life and death, his distended condition revealed the herculean battle against toxins within.

What my eyes could see in that little cubicle, my mind failed to process. This ordeal–his grim condition, the possibility of his death, the suddenness of the disaster became more that I could grasp.

I stopped eating, struggled to find sleep, and wandered through my days in a daze. The plastic lattice work draped over that distorted stranger removed any conscious balance of a normal life. When living in my own skin reached critical mass I realized my sanity had reached a breaking point. There was no solace to be found, no help, nothing but a mental abyss–and that couldn’t continue. I had a husband and family who needed me.

So I began writing my first memoir, River of January. I had idly contemplated starting this project for many years, telling myself that someday I’d commit the story of Helen and Chum to paper. Now, living in the middle of a nightmare, writing became a necessity, and the book began to take shape. And as dreadful as those early drafts were, I kept at it, white knuckling each word, sentence and paragraph. Somehow, in that silent struggle, I eventually began to recognize my face in the mirror again. I felt a little hungry and started to eat real food now and then.

Since that horrible episode in 2010, I can announce that he lived. I can also attest to the restorative powers of writing. (Therapeutic magic as far as I’m concerned).

But that creepy ‘suit’ portrayed in “The Graduate” offered up a great career tip. I think owning some hot plastic stocks might have covered the medical bills accrued from his difficult, extended stay. Hospitals go through plastic products like nothing I’ve ever witnessed. I can still see those icicle-like plastic bags and webs of tubes dangling in every direction from the ceiling, weaved across and under his bloated torso. A synthetic product that aided in saving a life.

Correction–saving two lives and creating a memoir.