Opinions

Last Friday was May Day and I didn’t see a single May basket. That was a big deal when I was a child. “Tomorrow is May Basket Day,” Mother would say, and we would scramble to the hall closet where, somewhere in it’s back recesses, there would be the old wallpaper sample book that we last used to redecorate the dollhouse or cover an empty soup can to serve as a pencil holder. Mother always managed to bring home at least one outdated sample book from the paint store every year and we chose our favorite colors and designs for various craft projects.

Not many years ago, people were complaining that all the characters in movies and television were too slim and lovely to be taken seriously. The average American didn’t look like a movie star, wasn’t fashion-model slender and couldn’t relate to the ideal image projected by movies, television and Madison Avenue.

I recently bought a new bottle of dish detergent. This is a rare purchase for me, because I wash hardly any dishes by hand. The main reason for this is that I have a dishwasher and usually wash everything in it except my good silver and crystal.
If it isn’t dishwasher safe, too bad. If it’s ruined, then I can throw it away, but I’m not going to wash it by hand.

For the largest part of my life, I’ve been just plain lucky. When I was a child, I believed my good fortune was a combination of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and my parents– pretty much in that order. I guess I outgrew the Tooth Fairy first. After all, we have only so many baby teeth to lose and then the shiny dimes no longer appear under the pillow.

My mother used the same April fool prank every year– and I always fell for it. She’d come bustling into my room, full of her usual, early-morning energy and sing out, “Time to get up. And dress warm. It snowed in the night!”
I’d struggle up out of the depths of my deep sleep, totally unaware of what day it was, and squint toward the window, seeing nothing but sky and a few bare tree branches. With the fog beginning to clear in my brain, I tried to remember if it was a school day. Did I have to get up so early, or could I just acknowledge the news and go back to sleep?