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by D. Cashon Klein
Aunt Esther was my Mother's Mother's
sister. They were Calvins before they were married. They were
Calvins of the John-Calvin-Protestant-Reformer variety. You
couldn't tell it by Auntie, who I always remember in high heels,
slacks, harlequin glasses and either blue or purple hair. John
Waters would have loved her, except she wasn't fat.
My grandma Helen, her sister, was an
exemplary Calvinist. She went to church every Sunday. She worked
the farm in a dress, girdle and hose… usually held together
with safety pins. She never touched a drop of alcohol or placed a
cigarette to her lips. Helen and Esther were polar opposites, kind
of like those little black and white Scottie dog magnets commonly
found in highway restaurant vending machines.
Aunt Esther and her husband Phil, who was
a baker, lived in our little town. Her kids had moved to
California. She had a beauty parlor in the front room of their
house and the robot-like dryers and medusa perm rods were
fascinating to me. I'm not entirely sure she was fond of children,
so I never pushed my luck when visiting. There were plenty of other
people's houses where I could be a kid, like the one in which I
fell three stories down a laundry chute. But we needed to be well
behaved at Auntie's. She styled my hair once. I was about 5 or 6.
I looked like a tiny Anita Bryant with my helmet-head bouffant.
Mercifully, I was too young to be mortified.
We sometimes had family dinners there. If
it was casual, we ate off the copious fiesta-ware. The food was
pretty good at Auntie's, especially Phil's pastries. There we'd
be, seated around the long table, the slight aroma of perm solution
and cigarettes mixed with the smell of turkey and dressing. Grandma
would grimace and wish she and grandpa were back at the farm. The
food was picture perfect. Esther would set up the camera equipment
and the tripod and the lights. We could not eat until everything
was documented on film. After several "cuts" and "roll films," we
were allowed to pass the cold food around to eat.
I usually sat next to Grandma. Her throat
made funny gurgling noises sometimes. Auntie's throat made those
noises too. It was the only thing, aside from parentage, that they
had in common. Unfortunately, my throat makes those strange,
gurgling noises also. Actually, come to think of it, the three of
us could probably have become Tuvan throat singers. Whenever my
throat makes the strange, involuntary sound, I am reminded of my
lineage. (Why couldn't I have gotten Grandma's legs? Or Esther's
ability to walk in heels?)
We have choppy documentaries of dinners
and cousin Audrey modeling mink coats in front of the fireplace.
There was an exceptionally long film of Esther and Phil's
Indian-guided fishing trip to Canada. It consists mainly of about a
ten-minute shot of a fish, maybe walleye, maybe trout, frying in a
pan over the campfire and LOTS of shots of the Indian guide. (It
was rumored that Auntie really liked him.) There she is in the film
modeling a stylish camping ensemble, obviously instructing Phil how
to hold the camera. I wondered how she'd get away from bears in
her heels.
Esther and Phil moved to California to be
close to Audrey and her husband Harold, a gifted architect who
designed their home on the side of a canyon in Corona Del Mar.
Audrey always reminded me of Doris Day and Harold of Frank Lloyd
Wright, although I had no idea what Frank Lloyd Wright looked like.
But I knew he was a famous architect, so Harold must look like him.
After all, both of them had built homes around trees. Every year we
would receive pictures of Audrey and Esther modeling new outfits in
this home fit for movie stars. I think grandma was relieved to have
the rest of her family all to herself and only have to see her
sister every few years. It's kind of like when couples only see
each other once in awhile because one drives an 18-wheeler. They
get together about once a week, so they get along fine. I think I
need a truck driver…
When grandma died we called Esther to
break the news that her sister had passed away. It is my
recollection that she said , "Well, so you think YOU had a bad
day… let me tell you what happened to ME today…" That
was Auntie; she was the original it's-all-about-me person.
Auntie turned 104 on July 25th this year.
She died a few days later. The birthday card I sent to her, in
time, came back yesterday with an error in the address. She
outlived her husband, son and daughter. She had been living for
many years in a congregate, adult facility in Huntington Beach. One
of her friends was Steve Martin's mom, who came to her 90th
birthday party. The nurses told my sister that she talked non-stop
and insisted on wearing her high heels even after she broke her hip
and became bed-ridden.
She died with her heels on.
Debbie Cashon Klein is a Safety Harbor
resident.
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