Ah-Ah-Ah-CHOO I have
a cold. I have all the usual symptoms: My nose is running, my
eyes are tearing, I'm sneezing, I'm coughing, and I'm cranky.
The trouble with having a cold as an adult is that life goes on.
All the things that had to be done before still have to be done.
When I was a kid, things
stopped when I had a cold -- which was why I didn't mind having
a cold at all. In fact, I enjoyed it.
I got to stay home
from school at the first symptom. If that sounds like over-protection,
it was, but there was a reason for it. For one thing, my mother
had lost two children before me (one born dead, the other through
miscarriage). And she very nearly lost me. When I was 16 months
old, I got pneumonia, and the only thing that saved me was that
I was so sick, there was nothing to lose, so I was used as a guinea
pig for the sulfa drugs that were just coming in. I had pneumonia
twice more before I started school, so over-protection wasn't
completely unreasonable.
I loved staying home
from school because I hated school. I hated it for a variety of
reasons. For one thing, I started school too young. My birthday
is in January, and I started first grade the September before
I turned six. I had a tough time in school. My maiden name is
Weber and we were usually seated alphabetically, which meant I
was usually in the back of the room. I struggled with schoolwork,
particularly arithmetic. My first-grade teacher suspected what
was wrong and suggested an eye exam.
My mother made an appointment
with a reputable ophthamologist. He asked what the problem was,
and I replied, "Well [whenever I started a sentence with ‘well,'
my mother knew trouble was coming], my teacher says it's my eyes,
but my mother says it's my head."
He did a thorough exam
and concluded my mother was right -- but he was wrong. I was in
the seventh grade before I got glasses and realized for the first
time that you were supposed to be able to see the blackboard.
I never had.
So school was no joy
for me, and a cold was a wonderful way out of it. I got to stay
in bed, which has always been one of my favorite places. I usually
slept past breakfast, but lunch (cream of tomato soup and a tuna
sandwich or chicken soup and a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich)
and dinner whatever the family was eating) were brought to me
on a tray. My appetite never suffered when I had a cold. And,
during the day, gallons of orange juice appeared as if by magic.
But the best thing
about staying home was the radio. There were soap operas on all
day, and it took me very little time to get hooked on Ma Perkins
(who had a daughter named Fay, who was a real piece of work);
Prudence Dane (I don't remember the story line, but the
theme song was terrific); Our Gal Sunday (who was trying
to find happiness as the wife of England's richest, most handsome
lord, Lord Henry Brinthrope, who, for reasons I never understood,
was living in Virginia); Mary Noble, Backstage Wife (whose
husband was a matinee idol -- and whatever happened to matinee
idols? -- and who periodically gave her a pin; for a quarter and
a box-top from something, you could get one just like it. When
it came months later, it was a tiny piece of junk); Lorenzo
Jones and his wife Belle (one of the few soaps that was funny);
Portia Faces Life (the trials and tribulations of a lady
lawyer); Helen Trent (who proved for heaven knows how many
years that romance wasn't over when you hit thirty-five), Young
Widow Brown (who ran a tearoom and kept her fiancé, Dr Anthony
Loring, waiting for years), and who knows what other ones I'm
forgetting.
The trouble with listening
to them was that I did get hooked, which meant I had another reason
for not wanting to go back to school. My mother always promised
to listen and tell me what happened, but she wasn't the soap opera
type.
Does anyone know what
happened on Our Gal Sunday the third week in October in
1945?
