Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul (10 page)

“It’s imperative, Mrs. Carlson, that you put aside some time exclusively for yourself.”

Reprinted with permission from William Canty.

Just Say Yes

L
ife is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

Helen Keller

I’m a standup comic. I was working at a radio station in New York, doing the weather as this character called June East (Mae West’s long-lost sister). One day, a woman from
The Daily Ne w s
called and said she wanted to do an article on me. When she had finished interviewing me for the article, she asked, “What are you planning to do next?”

Well, at the time, there was absolutely nothing I was planning on doing next, so I asked her what she meant, stalling for time. She said she really wanted to follow my career. Here was a woman from
The Daily Ne w s
telling me she was interested in me! So I thought I’d better tell her something. What came out was, “I’m thinking about breaking the Guinness Book of World Records for Fastest-Talking Female.”

The newspaper article came out the next day, and the writer had included my parting remarks about trying to break the world’s Fastest-Talking Female record. At about 5:00 P.M. that afternoon, I got a call from
Larry King Live
asking me to go on the show. They wanted me to try to break the record, and they told me they would pick me up at 8:00—because they wanted me to do it
that night!

Now, I had never heard of
Larry King Live,
and when I heard the woman say she was from the Manhattan Channel, I thought,
Hmmm, that’s a porn channel, right?
But she patiently assured me that it was a national television show and that this was a one-time offer and opportunity— it was either that night or not at all.

I stared at the phone. I had a gig that night in New Jersey, but it wasn’t hard to figure out which of the two engagements I’d prefer to do. I had to find a replacement for my 7:00 show, and I started calling every comic I knew. By the grace of God, I finally found one who would fill in for me, and five minutes before the deadline, I told
Larry King Live
I could make it.

Then I sat down to figure out what on earth I was going to do on the show. I called Guinness to find out how to break a fast-talking record. They told me I would have to recite something from either Shakespeare or the Bible.

Suddenly I started saying the ninety-first Psalm, a prayer of protection my mother had taught me. Shakespeare and I had never really gotten along, so I figured the Bible was my only hope. I began practicing and practicing, over and over again. I was both nervous and excited at the same time.

At 8:00, the limousine picked me up. I practiced the whole way there, and by the time I reached the New York studio, I was tongue-tied. I asked the woman in charge, “What if I don’t break the record?”

“Larry doesn’t care if you break it or not,” she said. “He just cares that you try it on his show first.” So I asked myself,
What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll look like a
fool on national television!A minor thing,
I told myself, thinking I could live through that. And what if I broke the record?

So I decided just to give it my best shot, and I did. I broke the record, becoming the World’s Fastest-Talking Female by speaking 585 words in one minute in front of a national television audience. (I broke it again two years later, with 603 words in a minute.) My career took off.

People often ask me how I did that. Or how I’ve managed to do many of the things I’ve done, like lecturing for the first time, or going on stage for the first time, or bungee jumping for the first time. I tell them I live my life by this simple philosophy: I always say yes first; then I ask,
Now, what do I have to do to accomplish that?

Then I ask myself,
What is the worst thing that can happen if I don’t succeed?
The answer is, I simply don’t succeed! And what’s the best thing that can happen? I succeed!

What more can life ask of you? Be yourself, and have a good time!

Fran Capo

The Gift of Gab

Although she told me not to talk to strangers, my mother always did. At the checkout line. Browsing through handbags at Marshall Field. During a slow elevator ride, when everyone else was seriously squinting at the buttons. At airports, football games and the beach.

Thankfully, I only took her advice when it came to menacing strangers. I believe I’m better for it.

My mother’s habit of striking up conversations with people next to her may bring a smile to my eyes now, but it proved rather embarrassing during my tender teenage years. “Lynn’s getting her first one, too,” she confided to a woman also shopping with her adolescent daughter in the bra section of our hometown department store. I contemplated running and hiding under a nearby terry cloth bathrobe, but instead I turned crimson and hissed “Mothhhhhherrrrr” between gritted teeth. I felt only slightly better when the girl’s mother said, “We’re trying to find one for Sarah, but they’re all too big.”

Not everyone responded when Mom made an observation and tried to spark a brief discussion. Some people gave her a tight-lipped half-grin, then turned away. A few completely ignored her. Whenever I was with her during those times, I could see that she was a little hurt, but she’d shrug it off and we’d continue on our way.

More often than not, however, I would wander off somewhere and come back to find her gabbing away. There were occasions when I was concerned that I’d lost her in the crowd, but then I’d hear her singsong laugh and a comment like, “Yes, yes, me too.”

Through these spontaneous chats, my mother taught me that our world is much too large—or too small, take your pick—not to have time to reach out to one another. She reminded me that as women, we enjoy a special kind of kinship, even if we’re really not all that alike. In the most mundane things, there are common threads that bind us. It may be the reason we like paper versus plastic, or why a navy sweater is never a bad buy, or why the national anthem still gives us goose bumps.

One of the last memories of my mother, when she was in the hospital and a few hours from dying from the breast cancer that had ravaged her down to 85 pounds, is of her smiling weakly and talking to her nurse about how to best plant tulip bulbs. I stood silently in the doorway, wanting to cry but feeling such a surge of love and warmth. She taught me to see spring in others. I’ll never forget it, especially now when I turn to someone and say, “Don’t you just love it when...”

Lynn Rogers Petrak

I Was a Sixth-Grade
Scarecrow

K
ind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

Mother Teresa

“
Shame
on you! A
sixth-grader
and
still
acting like a godless
heathen!
” Mrs. Brimm snarled, shoving me onto the slippery wooden bench of the principal’s office. (Privately, we kids had renamed her “Mrs. Grimm.” Just
my
luck she’d been on playground duty when I decided to teach my worst tormentor, Johnny Welson, a well-deserved lesson.) The fearsome third-grade teacher, her perfect, black Dutch bob swaying against geisha-white cheeks, arched penciled peaks of disapproval over flinty eyes.

How different she was from Mrs. Peterson, my stately sixth-grade teacher, who even when she was serious seemed to be on the verge of a smile. However, Mrs. Peterson was nowhere in sight.
Nobody even cares about my side!
I thought, pushing back my fear with a burst of hurt and anger.
John and those guys can give me noogies, trip me and call me names all year, and every time I start to pay someone back,
she
shows up and blames
me!

“
When
are you going to
grow up
and behave like a
young lady
. . .?” Mrs. Brimm hissed, releasing my arm at last with disgust. “You stay
here!
Miss Moss,” Mrs. Brimm commanded, as the startled face of the receptionist popped timidly around a tall filing cabinet, “don’t you let this juvenile delinquent out of your
sight!
” Retracting her wrinkled neck like a flustered hen, Miss Moss took one look at my mud-smeared face and Mrs. Brimm’s murderous look, flapped her hands wordlessly toward the open door of the inner office, and scuttled to her desk. Striding into Mr. Swensen’s room, Mrs. Brimm slammed the heavy door closed behind her, although verbal explosions like “
Absolutely
impossible!” and
“Disgraceful!”
shot through from time to time.

Miss Moss settled low behind her desk, scratching among her papers and opening and closing her drawers for no apparent reason, while I tried covertly to inspect what was left of my right upper arm. It was the same arm that John Rosse, the most popular boy in the class, and his best friend, John Welson, chose to punch when they called me “Beanpole,” “Scarecrow,” “Tin Mouth,” “Retard,” or, pointing to my heavy shoes, “The seven-league boots of Linda Legree” (a reference I actually found flattering, given Simon Legree’s fearsome reputation).

I was the first to admit that I was no beauty. I had sprouted to my present unenviable height of five-foot–eight, in spite of having had polio the year before, leaving me “as scrawny as a plucked crow,” as my grandma was fond of saying. Braces on both upper and lower teeth, corrective shoes and the hated glasses did nothing to improve the picture. Although I hunched my shoulders to look smaller, I was still the tallest kid in the whole school. And to top it all off, I had been held back that year— supposedly to catch up with the missed months of school from my illness, but actually to give me a chance to redeem my outstandingly dismal school career.

My mother had great faith in Mrs. Peterson, the tall, serene sixth-grade teacher who, Mother had confided to her College Women’s Club, “can do something with Linda if anyone can.” Well, it was mid-November and this was the third time since school began that I’d been sent to the principal’s office for fighting. Suddenly the inner door flew open and Mrs. Brimm hurtled by, trailing a final “. . . just
disgraceful!
” Tired-faced Mr. Swensen sagged in the doorway, looking far more defeated than I felt.
If Mrs. Peterson is going to do something with me,
I thought,
she’d better hurry!

A week later, following a five-day suspension with many extra chores at home, a major two-parent scolding and a grim trip with my parents to Johnny Welson’s house, where I was made to “apologize,” speaking in the most unintelligible voice I could muster, I returned to school. Now I stood outside the classroom, hearing the cheerful hubbub and feeling like throwing up at the thought of seeing all the smug faces of my classmates.

A hand touched my shoulder and Mrs. Peterson’s friendly voice said, “There you are! My goodness, I’ve missed you, Linda.” I looked up into her crinkling eyes and her whole face smiled. “I’ve got a favor I’d like to talk to you about today during seat work,” she continued, guiding me smoothly into the room. “I’ve been thinking that our room needs some beautification. Perhaps a mural of one of those rearing horses you sketch so often on your work? You’re tall enough to make it fill the bulletin board by the window, and you could work on it during group reading or whenever you’re finished with your tasks.” I smiled back, forget– ting momentarily the ordeal ahead. “Would you come over to my desk when the class settles down and I’ll explain what I have in mind in more detail?” I nodded, feeling warmed and honored as always by her attention. She gave my hand a friendly little squeeze and turned away.

Alice Lee grinned and poked me as I walked by her desk. I looked down at her round, cheery face and she said softly, “Hi.” Suddenly, from behind me I heard some giggles and loud whispers. “Hey, the scarecrow’s back.” That was Cherri.
I’ll get her after school,
I thought fiercely, while my stomach clenched tight like a fist. “Retard, retard,” singsonged Wardie Masterson under his breath, and John Rosse’s voice came through the snickers, “How’s the weather up there, Beanpole?” The laughter boiled up, scalding my whole body.

Then came another voice, resonant and musical, dousing the whispers and laughter instantly. “Beanpole?” it asked, filled with disbelief. All of us swung to stare at the source of the voice, as Mrs. Peterson, who had been leaning over Denise’s diorama, straightened to her full height and turned, eyes wide and bewildered. “Did someone call our Linda a beanpole?” she asked again, incredulously. She seemed to float there, radiating a stillness that captured us all.

Our Linda!
Mrs. Peterson made the words sound important, sacred, like
Our Father.
I almost stopped breathing with amazement. “Why,
I
always think of our Linda as our Powers model.” Twenty-nine uncomprehending faces looked at her blankly. “Do you know about the Powers Modeling Agency in New York?” Mrs. Peterson asked, sweeping us all with her hazel gaze. As if our heads were all connected to the same string, we shook “no” in unison. New York! The other end of the universe from Ogden, Utah.