Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul (24 page)

Over many months, in every spare moment and with every spare dollar I could find, I completed walls and put in 27 windows, continually learning better ways to do things. Wherever I was, whatever I was doing, I obsessively plotted and planned my next moves. But what a lovely obsession.

Then I faced the big challenges of running water and electricity. Since I still couldn’t afford to hire professionals, I bought books, studying them for months before I dared tackle a new project.

My initial work passed the county inspector’s critical eye, but I knew that even he couldn’t tell if the pipes would withstand the water pressure. The moment finally came to turn the water on. If I had made any big mistakes, I would have a flood inside the house.

After turning on the outside valve, I ran indoors to listen for the dreaded tap-tap of water dripping on wood. I inched my way along every wall. All was quiet. Ecstatic, I turned on the water in every sink and laughed out loud. It was a miracle to have running water for the first time in over a year of building! And I knew every L-and T-connector in the place because I had put in all of them myself.

With writing assignments increasing, I found the cash to have the septic system and drywall installed by professionals. Three days before Easter—one year and eight months from the time I dug the first postholes—I completed installing the last of the kitchen tile. My father and stepmother came for Easter dinner, the first meal cooked in my tiny new oven, and we celebrated the all-important Certificate of Occupancy from the county inspector. As we gazed out onto the sparkling blue lake, with white dogwood petals gracing the view, my heart was so full I couldn’t speak.

My dream and I have grown together. And just as I am a work-in-progress, so too is this house. My dream of a simple shelter has become a house with a gazebo and decks, where I can write and create. I have my nest, my place of refuge and solace.

I’ve learned how to put anything together by seeing the dream in the pieces. How to appreciate the smallest advances and conveniences. How to persevere when no solution is in sight. How to build rather than to blame. This adventure will color the rest of my life, as I dream new dreams and begin the building.

Liah Kraft-Kristaine

Meeting Betty Furness

O
pportunities are usually disguised by hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.

Ann Landers

It was 1964, the year the tourists shared the famed Atlantic City Boardwalk with the Democratic National Convention.

At the time, I was working as a waitress in a popular steak house, in addition to raising five children and helping my husband with our brand new enterprise—a weekly newspaper. So despite the hoopla and my overflowing tip purse, I was just plain tired and longed for it all to be over.

One evening I approached my next customer without much enthusiasm. She was thinner and daintier than I remembered from her years of opening and closing refrigerator doors on the Westinghouse television commercials in the 1950s, but the cheerful no-nonsense voice was unmistakable. The woman about to dine alone was Betty Furness.

Her warmth and friendliness overcame my awe of waiting on a celebrity. I learned that she had come to Atlantic City to cover the Democratic National Convention from a woman’s point of view for her daily radio program. By the time I brought her check, I’d mustered up the courage to ask her for an interview for our little suburban paper. She responded by inviting me to lunch.

As I neared her motel two days later, I was alternately exuberant at my good fortune and nervous at the prospect of interviewing a woman who had once received 1,300 fan letters a week.

I already knew a lot about my subject. A Powers model at 14 and a movie actress at 16, she went on to become a success on the stage. But she was best known for her brilliant career as America’s number one saleswoman. The name of Betty Furness was as much a byword of the American household as Westinghouse and its Studio One television program.

That’s why, during the interview, her attitude about it all seemed hard to believe—but it was the perfect lead for my story:
“I’ll never do another television commercial again as long as I live!”

She explained to me that when she closed the final refrigerator door on her commercials in 1960, she was determined to carve yet another new career for herself— this time in the news medium. “I know the world is full of information and people wanting that information,” she told me. “I want to be part of that.”

And yet, even though she worked for CBS News, she’d been told repeatedly that technically she wasn’t a news correspondent. “It’s what I desperately want to be, but the news media and the public refuse to take my desire to do news broadcasting seriously.”

Something about her story connected in my gut. Everyone saw me as “just a waitress,” not a writer at all. “A writer is a person who writes,” they said. But when would I ever have the money, time, strength and enough perseverance to make myself who I wanted to be—someone like this woman with four careers behind her that most women would kill for, now seeking yet another for her true fulfillment.

But the real measure of her character, the “dimensions” of this woman’s world, emerged in Betty’s parting statement. “All my life I’ve been governed by one philosophy: Do any job you’re doing well, and you’ll stumble over the right opportunities to do what you truly desire.”

In the years that followed that wonderful meeting with Betty, I watched her put her wisdom in action. In only a short time after the convention, her sheer strength of will and positive outlook catapulted her into a new and challenging career as Lyndon Johnson’s special assistant for consumer affairs. She went on to become the head of New York State’s Consumer Protection Board and the city’s Commissioner of Consumer Affairs. When I heard the news, I remembered her philosophy and wished her well.

In later years, I watched her as the first-ever network consumer affairs reporter every night on New York’s Channel 5. I laughed in recognition when she discussed manufacturers whose contour sheets didn’t fit mattresses. I was glad when she told me what some over-the-counter health remedies really contained. And typical of the reports was one of her last: how to protect yourself from hospitals—all this while she herself was in and out of hospitals for cancer treatments.

Through the years I continued to study her words, which I’d taped across her autographed picture. Amazing things happened in my life as I endeavored to apply those words—ones later reinforced by mythologist Joseph Campbell, who wrote: “Follow your bliss, and doors will open where there were no doors before.”

Jobs I’d never anticipated or wanted turned into jobs I loved; unexpected paths took me places I’d never dreamed of. Eventually, stumble by stumble, I believed, began, and went from waitress to dining room manager to hospital public relations director; from newspaper reporter to associate editor of several magazines; from writing consultant to international trainer—and finally, to my dream of professional writer.

The day I saw Betty’s obituary, I read that at 76 she’d earned the title of “oldest reporter working on television.” As I sat reading about her life and accomplishments, I

8
ON AGING

G
row old along with me!
The best is yet to be...

Robert Browning

Keeping Up with Granny . . .
and the “Old Guys”

I have always dreaded old age.

I cannot imagine anything worse than being old, maybe infirm, perhaps alone. How awful it must be to have nothing to do all day long but stare at the walls or watch TV.

So last week, when the mayor suggested we all celebrate Senior Citizen Week by cheering up a senior citizen, I was determined to do just that. I would call on my new neighbor, an elderly retired gentleman, recently widowed, who, I presumed, had moved in with his married daughter because he was too old to take care of himself.

I baked a batch of brownies and, without bothering to call (some old people cannot hear the phone), I went off to brighten this old guy’s day.

When I rang the doorbell, the “old guy” came to the door dressed in tennis shorts and a polo shirt, looking about as ancient and decrepit as Donny Osmond.

“I’m sorry I can’t invite you in,” he said when I introduced myself, “but I’m due at the Racquet Club at two. I’m playing in the semifinals today.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” I said. “I baked you some brownies...”

“Great!” he interrupted, snatching the box. “Just what I need for bridge club tomorrow! Thanks so much!”

“...and just thought we’d visit awhile. But that’s okay! I’ll just trot across the street and call on Granny Grady.” (Now, Granny Grady is not really my grandmother; she is just an old lady who has lived in our neighborhood forever, and everybody calls her “Granny.”)

“Don’t bother,” he said. “Gran’s not home: I know, I just called to remind her of our date to go dancing tonight. She may be at the beauty shop. She mentioned at breakfast that she had an appointment for a tint job.”

I wished him luck with his tennis game (though I was much more interested in his game with Granny) and bade him good-day.

But I am not easily discouraged. I had set aside that afternoon to call on somebody old, and by golly, I was going to find somebody old to call on!

I called my mother’s cousin (age 83); she was in the hospital... working in the gift shop.

I called my aunt (age 74); she was on vacation in China. I called my husband’s uncle (age 79). I forgot he was on his honeymoon.

And then I remembered old Sister Margaret, a nun who had been my teacher in grade school. She lived in a retirement home for nuns, and it had been several years since I had seen her. I wondered if the old dear was too senile to remember me.

The old dear wasn’t there.

“Whom
did you want?” the receptionist had asked when I had inquired if it would be convenient for me to visit.

“Sister Margaret,” I had repeated.

“Sister Margaret...” mused the receptionist. “Oh! You mean Mercedes! She’s away on tour this week.”

“Mercedes?” I asked. “On tour?”

“Mercedes is Sister Margaret’s stage name,” said the receptionist. “When she became an actress, she took the name Mercedes because she had always admired Mercedes McCambridge and because she thought Mercedes sounded more seductive than Margaret.”

“She...uh... became an actress?” I asked, too stunned to wonder when Sister had learned the meaning of the word “seductive.”

“Actually, she’s more of a producer-director,” the receptionist explained. “A couple of years ago she organized a senior citizens’ drama club, and eventually it evolved into a caravan theater. They go all over the state putting on plays. She’ll be back Thursday, but she leaves again that evening for Washington, D.C. She’s on the White House Commission on Aging, you know.”

No, I didn’t know, and I can’t imagine how she got on such a commission, since she obviously knows nothing about aging!

And I don’t want to know about it, either!

I still dread old age, now more than ever. I just don’t think I’m up to it.

Teresa Bloomingdale

The older generation fights back.

CLOSE TO HOME. ©John McPherson. Reprinted with permission of Universal Press Syndicate.

The Dancin’ Grannies

A
s soon as you feel too old to do a thing, do it!

Margaret Deland

Twelve years ago, when I was 50, I thought,
What will 60 be like? Or 70?
I looked around and saw only one style of being.
It’s not fair,
I thought. Young people have so many styles to choose from—they can be yuppies or hippies or what I call regular folks—but older people have just one option, and it doesn’t look like much fun. No one seemed to be enjoying themselves. Many people (including me) generally disliked their aging selves. I certainly wasn’t happy with the way I looked, and I didn’t feel sharp enough to handle everything coming my way. I felt like an insecure teenager all over again!

I decided to do something about it, something practical. I worked on my fitness by joining exercise classes in town. A few years later, my husband and I moved to a retirement community, and I wanted to teach aerobic classes. The community center wouldn’t give me a room to teach in, so I had to sneak around and find any available empty room.