Notes In The Margins, Part 8
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The once and future members of the "Skylighters" women's softball team began to practice. Could there ever have been anything more just pure fun? If there was, I never knew what it was. This was another one of those "fake" deals of mine. The Mormon Church had their own sports league programs, and being the majority of people, at that time, in most Utah cities, it was a vital and heavily participated in program.
In something that seemed a bit progressive, they also had a girl's sports program. In that program I played softball with a collection of local church girls. They were awful. We were awful. Most of them ran, hit and threw the ball like girls. But is was fun playtime.
I don't know how to explain this, and I am sure there is some logical explanation for it, but I just always knew how to play softball. I had learned how to throw a football with the neighborhood kids when I was about 7, so I understood the mechanics of throwing. I had been my younger brother Ron's personal coach and manager all through his years in little league so I understood baseball and he and I had unnumbered hours of practice at throwing, batting, and catching. Yeah, I know you are totally uniformed about my little brother, Ron. I promise the Ron stories will come and you'll like them. So I joined this softball team under the guise of actually being a player. I had played a little in PE classes during jr high and high school, but as far as being taught any skills or strategies of the sport, it just hadn't happened.
My team members, on the other hand, had been in little girl leagues (who knew they even existed?), and had played serious softball all through jr high and high school. They were good. I mean, they were seriously good. And no, none of us ever had played that stupid thing they called "slow pitch" softball. What's that about anyway? Nothing but the real thing for us. We had eighty mph fast ball pitchers with rise balls, drop balls, dropping curve balls and change ups, we had sprinting base runners that could steal bases like nobody's business, we had home run sluggers, we had perfect bunters, we had placement hitters, we had catchers that could fire from the squat down to 1st, 2nd and 3rd base and pick off runners, we had it all! And I was most certainly the least of these. When asked what position I played, I had to answer, I don't care. . . outfield, I guess. Quizzical looks all around. They answered they already had a centerfielder and a left fielder, so would I play right field? Absolutely! We practiced a lot. And we loved to practice. Couldn't wait to get there two nights during the week after work and Saturday mornings. After practice we would pile in a couple of cars and hit a burger joint, be rowdy and raucous with laughter, have shake fights, (a variation on food fights, we tried to throw part of our milk shakes on each other). If we went to a sit down place to eat, we were more than once asked to leave. When it was too dark out to practice anymore, we went to someone's house and played penny poker. Gracious me, we had fun. I loved every moment of it, we all did.
Interesting how my joining this county recreation league team stirred things up in my life. My parents did not like it. Time for me to be a grown up, not playing games. And just who were these girls, anyway? My boss at work never mentioned the softball so much, but he sure had opinions about me hanging out with Karen and Carolyn from our office. The church group of "young adult women" whose leader was a dynamic and fun 33 yr old that enticed me to come to some of their get togethers wasn't so sure it was a good thing, and some of the others in this group of 18-25 year old women were pretty vocal about what they thought of it. All of a sudden I have all of these people telling me I shouldn't be any part of this softball team. If Helen Reddy had written it in 1960, I would have been singing it. . ."I am woman hear me roar. . ." And naive me? I was incensed. I told them all to take a flying leap and go to hell.
This association with the softball team was my social life. Almost my only social life. They were fun, smart, great athletes and just all around great people. My boss at Electrolux called me to his office for a private talk one day. He told me I shouldn't hang out with the people I was hanging out with. WTF? Just who the hell did he think I was hanging out with and for crying out loud why would it ever be any of his business? This was his version of a fatherly talk. He used every word available to avoid saying it. Lesbians. He was sure Karen and Carolyn were lesbians. At that point in my almost 20 year old life, what I knew about lesbians you could have put in a thimble and had room left over.
Because I read so much, I certainly had come across mention of lesbians, so I had some knowledge. In the late 50's and early 60's, at least in Salt Lake City, it was a word spoken with ominous overtones. It was a name associated with child molesters, evil sexual perverts, mentally sick people to be sure, sinful sinners. It was not anything I had ever talked to anyone about or that anyone had talked to me about. Even though it was obvious I had run across lesbians and gay men in my life, no one had ever actually said they were one, and those whom I felt might have been were all just as normal as anyone else I knew so I couldn't quite equate lesbian or gay (which was not a term I knew at that time) with the prevailing societal construct. The first thing I did with my boss was angrily tell him how much who my friends and associates were was none of his business. The next thing I did was defend Karen and Carolyn. They had never told me they were lesbians, so as far as I was concerned it was nothing to be speculated about. How or why would that ever be my business, his business or anyone else's for that matter? And, so fucking what if they were? Nobody's business as I saw it. It was one of my best rants ever. And when you are a person as normally shy as I was, people pleasing as I was, to see me going off on such an angry and loud rant standing defiantly in my boss's face. . .well, it was always powerful and people were always shocked! Shocked, I tell you, absolutely shocked. There were lines in my life that were not to be crossed, and my boss had crossed this one big time.
[*a note here to those who are not as familiar with stuffing emotions. When you attempt to keep your angers and outrages stuffed beneath a demeanor of pleasing people, sooner or later it has to come out or I suppose you would implode. When it does come out it is a huge explosion of cumulative angers and outrages too long unexpressed. It does tend to shock people. And it does take an awful lot to actually cause such an explosion to come forth.]
He recovered, but suggested I think about what he had told me. I thought about it all right. I thought about nothing else for the rest of the day. My boss, John McCarthy, was a retired Chief Petty Officer from the Navy. He was a tough guy, and he never tried to be anything else. He looked the part as well with his military style buzz cut and short, stocky build. He was not a smiling, joking kind of a guy ever. He didn't complement people, he didn't praise people, and he sure as hell had no problem letting everyone know he was in charge. That stubborn streak of mine was every bit of a mile wide, and no matter how much I wanted to be accepted and to have others like me, I had principles. There would be no backing down on my position either. At the end of the day I went to McCarthy's office and told him I quit. I wouldn't work for the likes of him, not if I were starving to death and this was the only job available in the world. I quit.
Somewhere in this same timeline, when I was at one of those young women's church group get togethers, someone asked me what I was doing and of course I went off excitedly telling them about this great softball team I belonged to and how much fun it was. Some poor soul, a college student who knew because she was taking a sociology class, made the mistake of saying that those county recreation leagues were just all a bunch of lesbians. How would you know? and why would you say that? was what I responded with. Her reply was smugly filled with professor so-and-so's vast knowledge from her sociology class. Controlled anger is just as effective as loud, in your face ranting, sometimes. There was no doubt that I was angry and I came forth with a very passionate statement of how much she didn't know what she was talking about. Why would it possibly matter. And her extremely judgmental views were hardly Christ like in their expression. The awkward silence dissipated and we went on with our little meeting. I never went back.
Hypocrisy was a big thing with me then and nothing has changed much over all these years on that point. So you know how much I am not enjoying the current political climate in DC. In the end, it was the hypocrisy that I saw everywhere in my church that I was unwilling to tolerate and thus ended my relationship with the church. Yes, it was very judgmental of me, but I just could not bear the endless preaching of moral, ethical and doctrinal views that church members participated in, all the while condemning others perceived short comings, when I was perfectly well aware that none of them were living lives of such purity that would allow them to be the one to cast the first stone. I didn't view myself as being one so without error that I could cast a stone either, although now, I cannot imagine what I thought was anything sinful in my own life at that time. I certainly wasn't perfect and maybe that was what I viewed as being less than the Christ example I aspired to. You can be sure I thought I needed to be perfect. Just like the 5 year old who tried to be the perfect child in order to be loved. That 5 year old persona of mine and my becoming-self certainly had an uneasy alliance for many years.
One of the last straws for me was one Sunday morning a young man who had stopped coming to church ventured back to fellowship. He had not been in church for a year or two, and had taken up smoking and who knows what else (and who cared, in my view). I guess all that prodigal son talk was just that, talk. You will remember that Mormons do not smoke nor have tolerance for those who do. To be sure, if a smoker comes into a place that is filled with non-smokers, there is no hiding it. The smoke on your clothes is very strong in such a setting. The three ladies that were sitting behind me in church spent the whole hour whispering about young James, and how dare he come into the church smelling of smoke and oh what a terrible thing for his parents, how shameful it all was. By the end of the meeting I was steaming. I turned around to those middle aged women and said, " The only difference between him and you is your faults don't smell like smoke!" I did not go back to church. As I said, this was a last straw event. I had plenty of other reasons that I no longer felt I belonged in the church so it wasn't just this incident or the many other examples of hypocrisy that pushed me away. I pushed the church away from me. Intolerance, hypocrisy, and insufficient answers to my questions, I had had enough. Going to church should not make me angry or push my own judgmental buttons.
Once again, lying around writing on legal pads all day and night was not something to be encouraged in my family. I was hired in the records department of the Salt Lake City Police Department. We took direct dictation from the officers coming in filing their reports on any investigations or arrests they had made during their shift. From their mouths directly to my fingers on the keyboard of IBM electric typewriters (Better than manual, but still not computers). I was also the fingerprint girl on the 3rd shift from midnight to 8 in the morning. I could print a mean set of fingerprints. Even though everyone was trained to do this, most of them didn't like doing it and I was pretty close to the best of those who did. Maybe they didn't like holding hands with the apparent criminal element. We had a crazy crew and things could get pretty silly on a quiet middle of the night. I learned a lot about the darker sides of the human condition, things I never really wanted to know in that amount of detail. It was the first time I ever consciously thought about guns. Report after report would come in about little 7 year old Billy accidentally shooting and killing his 3 year old sister, father shooting and killing his 16 year old son who was not the intruder but just trying to crawl back in his bed room window in the middle of the night, hunting accidents, and everyone of these accidental, almost all of them from a gun that "wasn't loaded." I hated guns and their senseless killing and maiming. I have never since been able to see any reason for anyone to have a gun.
I kept up my friendship with Cheryl from my previous job, and of course I saw Karen and Carolyn at softball practices and games. We were not so much friends as teammates. Frankly, I didn't care overly much for either one of them. Team members Mattie, Sandy and Geri were girls I really liked. Marilyn and John continued to invite me over to visit so that was a lasting friendship too. There hasn't been much mention of my dating or romantic escapades. There weren't a lot of dates, and being the over romanticized daydreamer that I was (am), I really tried to make those stories happen. Yet, when I did find guys I liked, and they were few and far between, I just felt like a total phony trying to be the conventional "Oh, I am so interested in big strong you" submissive girl of the 50's and early 60's. I really didn't know who I was yet, but I couldn't understand why I shouldn't just be whoever it was that I was. There were endless books written during that time as well as weekly newspaper columns (I kid you not) about how girls should behave on a date and all the do's and don'ts of getting and keeping a guy interested in you. There were even lecture series and workshops about it. Complete phoniness all.
Conventional wisdom said a woman was nothing if she couldn't hook a guy and get married. You can well imagine what I thought of all that. However, I was still one on the outside looking in and maybe I had to try to be accepted so that I would at last fit somewhere besides in a softball team. Confused to be sure. The truth was, I would rather be with most of the girls on the softball team than with any guy I ever knew. And it was for sure that I would move heaven and earth to spend time with my closest friends anytime I could. I loved my friends with a depth that was beyond my understanding, after all, they weren't like parents, they didn't have to love me, but they did. What about those now ancient walls of protection I had built around my heart? Still there, still holding strong. There were parts of me that I allowed to care very much, but the depths of me and who I really was were well protected even so.
Living at home with my family was becoming unbearable for me. Even though I paid room and board to my parents, there were so many rules and expectations and attempted parental controls I just wasn't willing to tolerate them any more. It seemed to me I could pay the same amount of money and live in a studio apartment without all the rules and restrictions. It was certainly foremost in my mind. About this time I was invited to visit my teammate, Geri's swimming pool. Geri had been a competitive swimmer in her youth. . .at 18 she was overtaken by 15 and 16 year old record breakers. She had a swimming pool and her own swim school based on a method of teaching kids to swim in 2 weeks. Pretty innovative and quite successful. Actually, it was her parents' home and the pool was her mom's idea. Her 47 year old mom. . .a dynamic over achiever. . .grabbed me into her family circle like one of her own. We had long talks where I no doubt unloaded years of my perceived "poor little Shirley" tales of how difficult things were in my family, all one-sided, of course. She actually listened to me. And she could beat me in a fifty yard dash, which really seemed unfair, and was a challenge I never gave up on. Geri was the only one of the kids to ever accomplish a win.
I was invited over to their home more and more often and at some point Geri's mom, Lou, said I should just come live with them. Didn't have to ask me twice. I just moved in. This family was a pretty interesting mix. Six children, of which Geri was the eldest. Husband Bob, a horse man, trained, stabled and showed show horses for those wealthy enough to own them. Lou cooked at a local bar and restaurant part time and worked a full time job at Sperry Industries, soldering circuit boards. She worked midnight shifts there and she must have operated on about 4 hours of sleep a day for all of the years that I knew her. She was certainly a driving force. I am not really sure how the rest of the family felt about me moving in with them, everyone just treated me like one of the family. But Geri taught me how to swim with proper form, trained me how to teach her method, got me qualified as a Red Cross Certified Life Guard and put me to work in the family business. I taught the 4 and 5 year olds and there was nothing much more fun than that. Those kids were terrific fun and so darn cute. We had to make a rule about keeping the parents back and away from the pool. Some of those parents were so fearful about their kids being in the water they were a danger to themselves and their kids. (Yes, you do pass your fears on to your kids. . .it's almost an osmosis thing).
[In my early thirties, I was an office manager of a planned community Real Estate developer. We ran 2 shifts of phone people to follow up on inquiries. I hired and trained those telephone people among other duties. One day, one of the new hires came up to me and started asking me questions. "Did you ever live in Granger (a SLC suburb)? Have you ever heard of Geri's Swim School out there?" Yes, yes and of course. "Well, you taught me to swim when I was 5 years old." A real shocker and the first time I ever thought about being old. She was a cutie though and we enjoyed our trip down memory lane.]
Geri was a magnificent athlete. One of those rare people who has instinctive kinetic awareness. The ability to know exactly where her body was and what it was doing during any movement whether on the ground or in the air. I think we call these people "natural" athletes. The rhythm and timing of athletics were innate in her. There was no sport she ever tried at which she could not excel. For any of you that want to know what will give you a beautiful naturally trim and toned body, the answer is swimming. Swimming exercises every muscle in your body, including your mind. And I should take my own advice.
That fabulous summer was just that, a fabulous summer. I taught my little gaggles of kids to swim every two weeks a new group, I took my turn at life guarding the pool during open swim sessions. I did my turns at skimming and cleaning the pool as well as cleaning the pool filter. Also, I did time at the stables, cleaning stables and exercising jittery show horses. There were also the horse shows and becoming knowledgeable about how these amazing animals and riders were judged and rubbing elbows with some of the more elite moneyed people who owned show horses. AND there was softball. We played games once or twice a week, practiced at least two times a week. Yes, it was indeed a fabulous summer.
Wait a minute, what happened to my job at the SLCPD? Ah, gee, I was hoping not to have to tell this story. . .