Not A Dollarshort

That explains everything.

Note: I originally wrote this for the Blogathon, but I figured that I can't possibly tell too many Halloween stories.

--

Rarely does one have a photograph of an incident that is responsible for who you become later in life.

I have this one.

I've mentioned before that I scare easily. I blamed it on the house where I grew up. Perhaps I should reexamine this Kodak moment and face reality -- I've got one seriously sadistic mother.

It was near Halloween at the Topanga Plaza in Los Angeles. Basically it's a "holiday portrait" mall shot with a twist. Like a Santa's Village or The Easter Bunny's Rabbit Hole, this photo-taking extravaganza was set up for the sole purpose of torturing little children.

I'm two years-old in this photograph. I'm just forming fears and issues. I'm about to be emotionally scarred into really hating witches and vampires.

The moment I saw the set-up, I knew my worst nightmares were about to begin.
The tears started flowing and I started screaming. For some reason (see above sadism), this didn't affect my mother.

I distinctly remember the man-vampire responsible for ushering the crowds. Even at two, I could tell he was flirting with my mom. At this moment, I instantly associated vampires with evil men trying to steal my mother away. Vampires are sexualized -- maybe that's their gimmick. Tell that to a little child.

So, I'm crying and still standing in line when it's time for me to take my picture with a witch. Although I tried to hold on to my mother's leg, the vampire forcibly picked me up and brought me to my date with the devil.

If you look closely in the photo, you can see the tears.

Yeah! Halloween.

For years after this photograph was taken, I would wear a scarf to bed in order to avoid Dracula's bite.

The sad beatnik.

I trick-or-treated up until the ripe old age of sixteen.

The last year I went -- junior year of high school -- I was a beatnik. I ironed my hair, put on a turtleneck and a beret and spent the day at school talking the hip talk and looking really relaxed.

That night, I went trick-or-treating with my best friend, her boyfriend and his best friend, Frank. Frank was exactly the sort of person that the phrased "the lights are on but no one's home" was penned for.

That, oddly, didn't dissuade me from being "in love" with him throughout my entire junior year.

Of course because this is a Mena story, the feelings were never reciprocated and the big joke within my circle of female friends was that he had propositioned every one of us but me.

Ha. Ha. The ironies of life and teenage love.

But I digress.

As the night progressed, and we continued the glorified begging for food ritual, I began to feel pangs of sadness. The source, unknown, I quickly began to try to cheer myself up.

Despite my brave attempts -- eating butterfingers straight from my pillow-case -- I was soon a walking mess.

Choking back tears between bites of fun-sized chocolate bars is hardly the way to spend a night out with friends and I was determined to snap out of one of my "moods."

It didn't take long for me to realize the source on my blues.

Did I mention that people suck?

On Saturday, we had plans to meet up with a few people at an establishment in a "non-gentrified" section of town. While "non-gentrified" certainly has all sorts of questionable sociological implications, to us, it simply meant "It's Tempo time."

We're at a weird stage of new car ownership. We love driving our new Civic around and we're nowhere near as paranoid about scratches and dents as when we first purchased the car. However, we're still a bit hesitant to park in unfamiliar neighborhoods.

As we were getting into the Tempo, we questioned the logic of not driving the "safe car" to the city late at night. What's the point of having airbags if you're not going to drive the car with the airbags?

And why must we always be so paranoid of car theft or vandalism? Why shouldn't we give people the benefit of the doubt.

Besides, we had made plans to park in a familiar area and then walk to the destination. That way, we wouldn't have to worry about finding a parking spot. A couple weeks ago, while trying to park in North Beach on a Friday night, we were reminded just how much San Francisco is not a driver's town.

On Saturday night, neither one of us wanted to be reminded again.

Although all arguments seemed to favor us driving the Civic to The City, we remained stubbornly set on driving the Tempo.

Fast forward to six hours later.

Identity crisis.

Shame on you if you ever confuse Harriet Carter with Lillian Vernon, another catalog fixture in any mother's home.

Where Harriet Carter caters to those dirty-minded geriatrics, Lillian Vernon takes a more suburb-friendly approach. The catalog drips with familial contentment and running a spectacularly functional household.

It's like the Martha-By-Mail for humans.

Lillian Vernon is Harriet Carter's respectable older sister, and she's all about personalization.

They'll personalize bath robes, pencils (which I just ordered), ballet bags and even coolers.

They'd personalize this baby if they had the means.

Personalization reminds me of my first and second grade knapsacks.

My mom bought me a un-personalized bag for the first grade. It was darling, with a little cartoon apple and worm on a pile of books. I believe my mom simply wrote "Mena G." on the canvas in her neat little script.

By the time I got to the second grade, I was ready for the big time. Specially ordered from Lillian Vernon was a blue canvas, old-fashioned knapsack, complete with the name "MENA" embossed in gold letters.

It was impressive -- there is something quite powerful about seeing your name in print.

Which probably explains why I just ordered personalized pencils.

I loved that bag. But, strangely, after I started bringing it to school, my mom suddenly realized that having my name prominently displayed on something I wore on my back was not such a good idea.

"A bad person," she told me, "who wanted to kidnap you would now know your name. And, all he would have to say was 'Mena, there's been an accident. Your mommy's in the hospital and she told me to get you.' He'd be lying and you would never come home again."

Instantly, I feared the bag -- the likely source of any possible abduction. I would walk with the bag clutched to my chest, covering my name -- the accomplice to a horrid kidnapping scheme.

The bag was evil. The bag had betrayed me.

Eventually, my mom rubbed the little letters into an unrecognizable blur of embossed gold. "MENA," the brand-name was no more but at least I had my peace of mind restored.

The fear of personalization haunts me to this day.

Like just the other day I saw a middle-aged man driving his mid-life crisis on 101 near Mill Valley. I can't recall the vanity plate's exact wording, but I remember it was something like an annoyingly-cutesy "ROYSTOY."

And the first thing that popped into my mind?

Enjoy that car while you can, Roy. It's only a matter of time before I see your face on a milk carton.

Tank O' Sorrow.

I'm not too keen on aquariums.

The nightmare I had last night reminded of this peculiar fact. In the dream, my family's pet Westie was trapped in an aquarium and, despite my best efforts to revive her, I could not get enough air into her little dog lungs.

And the aquarium that she was trapped in?

Here it is.

This aquarium was the source of way too much childhood anxiety. During the twelve years that I lived at my grandparents' house, a countless number of fish swam into my life. Most notable was Bobo, some sort of freshwater fish that my grandfather actually caught and kept in our tank.

Mostly the tank was occupied by goldfish and their hundreds of babies. I took such delight when I saw my first goldfish baby. I studied these fish intensely, and even learned how they mated. They do it quite swimmingly, by the way. This is the saga of life. And, conversely, there is death. A little too much for my own good, though. At an almost daily rate, some sort of fish would die and would be floating top-side while the other fished swam suspiciously around its corpse. Cannibalism and Scooby-Do.

Welcome to my world.

And then, there were the suicidal fish.

I'd be minding my own business -- watching television or playing with the toys that were kept in the cupboard below the tank -- when a fish would suddenly jump out of the tank. Keep in mind that this was a covered tank and there were only about two inches of open area from which a fish could escape. These fish were motivated. Horribly frightened that these poor fish would die a gruesome death, but grossed out enough to not want to pick them up, I would scream for grandfather's assistance.

But my worst memory revolves around a leak in the tank. One day I came home to see a completely empty aquarium. I panicked, knowing that there were hundreds of new babies in the tank in the morning, when I left for school. It turned out that the leak in the tank forced my grandfather to drain the aquarium and, "despite his best efforts," he could only save the big fish. From that moment on, I hated the aquarium and forced myself to ignore its underwater activities.

And, now, I still have nightmares about that blessed tank.

Tank O' Sorrow.

I'm not too keen on aquariums.

The nightmare I had last night reminded of this peculiar fact. In the dream, my family's pet Westie was trapped in an aquarium and, despite my best efforts to revive her, I could not get enough air into her little dog lungs.

And the aquarium that she was trapped in?

Here it is.

This aquarium was the source of way too much childhood anxiety. During the twelve years that I lived at my grandparents' house, a countless number of fish swam into my life. Most notable was Bobo, some sort of freshwater fish that my grandfather actually caught and kept in our tank.

Mostly the tank was occupied by goldfish and their hundreds of babies. I took such delight when I saw my first goldfish baby. I studied these fish intensely, and even learned how they mated. They do it quite swimmingly, by the way. This is the saga of life. And, conversely, there is death. A little too much for my own good, though. At an almost daily rate, some sort of fish would die and would be floating top-side while the other fished swam suspiciously around its corpse. Cannibalism and Scooby-Do.

Welcome to my world.

And then, there were the suicidal fish.

I'd be minding my own business -- watching television or playing with the toys that were kept in the cupboard below the tank -- when a fish would suddenly jump out of the tank. Keep in mind that this was a covered tank and there were only about two inches of open area from which a fish could escape. These fish were motivated. Horribly frightened that these poor fish would die a gruesome death, but grossed out enough to not want to pick them up, I would scream for grandfather's assistance.

But my worst memory revolves around a leak in the tank. One day I came home to see a completely empty aquarium. I panicked, knowing that there were hundreds of new babies in the tank in the morning, when I left for school. It turned out that the leak in the tank forced my grandfather to drain the aquarium and, "despite his best efforts," he could only save the big fish. From that moment on, I hated the aquarium and forced myself to ignore its underwater activities.

And, now, I still have nightmares about that blessed tank.

It's just like a Robert Altman film.

This photo brought back a long-forgotten memory.

I met Chunk.

As in The Goonies' Chunk, a.k.a Jeff Cohen.

He was a counselor at a day-camp I attended when I was in the sixth grade.

No, not this camp. This one was called Meadow Oaks and it was in Calabasas, California. And although it is quite difficult to imagine, I was actually tormented more at Meadow Oaks. Maybe it was because it was my first exposure to public school kids. Or maybe it was because I wore plaid shorts and rhinestone-studded moccasins.

I'll always remember this one girl named Liz -- she had looks like a model and a stone-cold heart. Her likely day-camp itinerary:

1) Ride horses
2) Check makeup
3) Flip hair
4) Make Mena lose the will to live
5) Work on lanyard

This girl was probably the meanest person I've ever met.

I think I feel another "Sad Mena" cartoon brewing.

Well anyway, back to Chunk.

He was my big brush with fame.

All I can say is that I'm glad our own worth is not measured by the caliber of fame of the celebrities we can say we were lucky enough to meet.

Despite growing up in the world's entertainment capital, my movie star sightings were always Valley-ized. Oddly, my church was the hub of my own private Hollywood.

It's a Living's Ann Jillian was a regular parish member. And 70s personality and Carol Burnett Show regular, Lyle Waggoner would serve as the emcee at St. Mel's silent auctions.

Oh, and I think Colin Hanks went to my grade school for a year but I'm not sure.

Don't you think it's time for me to write my tell-all memoir?

* Who have you met?

I Scream, you scream.

Today's a good day for sugar lovers as we celebrate Charles E. Minches's invention of the ice cream cone ninety-seven years ago.

Cones are good.

My grandfather was the one who would pick me up from elementary school and as a treat, he would stop at Baskin Robbins so I could run in and buy myself a cone. Accustomed to paying with coins, I was faced with a major life choice the day he handed me a $10 bill.

Should I stick with the under $1.50 cone? Or, should I move onto something a bit more impressive?

Keep in mind that my grandfather, like many grandfathers who lived through the Great Depression, always counts his change and wants to see a receipt.

Counting change wasn't necessary when I came out of Baskin Robbins with a $7 banana split. The minute he saw me come out with a bag, he knew I spent more than the allotted buck and a half.

Note: Seven dollars has always been the amount I remember paying the for the banana split. Now, I think that is a bit pricey. That's more than I think they even charge now. I'm not sure if I created a higher price in my mind based on what my grandfather told my grandmother or if the staff at Baskin Robbins saw me coming and tricked me into adding all sort of extra toppings.

Regardless, I don't think I even wanted to eat my banana split after being reprimanded by my grandparents. My split -- the glorious three-scooped creation -- became tainted with guilt when my grandfather called me a little con artist and my grandmother just looked at me with grandmotherly disappointment.

Today, I can't eat a banana split without feeling a bit sick to my stomach. The banana/ice cream combination gives me the same queasy feeling that I felt on that trip home from Baskin Robbins so many years ago.

More ice cream:
Farm boys eating ice-cream cones. Washington, Indiana. From the Library of Congress.

Do you remember Farrell's? Or their Selective Service shannanigans?

I remember Papa.

Imagine our horror when we stumbled onto this movie yesterday.

Al Pacino? Scottish fur trader? Colonial New York?

Luckily, The Godfather was playing on AMC and all was forgiven.

This past week we've had mobsters coming out the culo.

Watching the first season of The Sopranos over three days led me down that familiar path of wishing that I was part of the romanticized Italian underworld. Well, perhaps not the underworld -- just part of an extreme Italian-American family.

I am one quarter Italian -- from my grandmother. Her parents came from Calabria and Naples and settled in Cleveland in the early 1900s. They were the usual hard-working no-nonsense sort of immigrants, the kind of people who put responsibility over recreation.

My great-grandfather ran a bar where my grandmother worked and where she met my grandfather. She married my grandfather because she was tired of all those "loud-mouth Italians." Unfortunately for her, some Poles are just a loud.

Perhaps if my grandmother married another Italian, I would have had an even stronger Italian upbringing. Of course, I also wouldn't exist if my grandmother married someone other than my grandfather. But even with the mixed marriage and the fact that I was born seventy years after my great-grandparents came to this country, I still felt the influence of the Old Country.

Living with my parents, grandparents and great-grandfather afforded me a chance to live in a four-generation household, a household familiar with customs and odd superstitions.

I grew up quite aware of and fearing the malocchio and even my grandmother's attempts to ward off the "evil eye."

And the fear of the old and foreign also caused me to be frightened of my great-grandfather, Papa. He was quite the fire-cracker, dating until he was in his mid 90s. My grandfather and him often clashed and it was many an occasion that I saw Papa raise his cane to hit my grandfather (in a loving, old Italian sort of way).

Papa didn't like living with us and often tried to escape from our house. Unlike Livia on the Sopranos, Papa loved living in a retirement home. When he came to stay with us because of the trouble he was causing at the home, he was a bit resentful. He even went so far as hitchhiking down Topanga Canyon back to his old retirement home.

He was a headache for my grandmother who was constantly trying to please him and keep him happy. But Papa was rarely happy and often complained of the "woo woo woo" noise I made.

What's a "woo woo woo" noise? I honestly can't say. I believe that is was simply an
onomatopoeic amalgam of the noises I made as a child at play.

My relationship with Papa was the closest thing to sibling rivalry. We both competed for my grandmother's (who he called Manie) attention and affection and were both tattletales.

Me: Papa is mushing his food together again.

Papa: Manieeee. Manieeee. She's a makin' the noise again. Woooo woooo.

Me: Papa didn't flush!!

Papa: She's a stolen the remote.

I'll never forget the day he left, though.

We were both upstairs in our different bedrooms and my grandparents were downstairs entertaining my great-aunt and great-uncle. I was watching television when I heard Papa making his usual screaming sounds (He'd scream to get my grandmother's attention). I got up and closed my door because I didn't want to hear his noises for once.

About an hour later my grandmother came upstairs and found Papa lying on the ground. It turned out that he had fallen out of his chair. They had to take him to the hospital and, eventually, a convalescent home.

I felt so guilty for ignoring Papa but he was like the boy who cried wolf -- we were all accustomed to his antics and had difficulty taking him seriously. He held on for a few years after that but died in 1990 at the age of ninety-nine.

I'm sure that if I had been older and more mature, I would have better stories about Papa.

But in truth, he was a hard-ass.

That's okay, though. Every Italian family needs a real figlio de cagna.

And we had our Papa.

Silly Dreams.

In 1983, I had two aspirations:

1. Live across the street from Disneyland.
2. Work at Disneyland.¹

I'm able to pin down the exact year -- 1983 -- because it was during this same time that Samantha Smith was writing letters to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov. She was rightly afraid of Nuclear war and wanted to know what was being done to prevent mass destruction.

She wanted peace.

I wanted a annual passport and a Anaheim address.

Because of our different agendas, I was ashamed of my selfishness and superficiality. Why couldn't I be like Samantha Smith and care enough to write to Mr. Andropov? Why was I so consumed with my need for 24/7 amusement.

It's not like I wasn't afraid of Nuclear war. I saw The Day After. And, despite common sense, we were still doing drop and cover drills in school (Although that may have had more to do with the constant threat of The Big One, another source of childhood anxiety).

Despite the guilt I felt over my lack of involvement in affairs of state, I never let go of my Disneyland fantasies. In this screwed-up world, Disneyland was my safe house.

I've gone to Disneyland about once every year since I was three years-old. And now, with the new California Adventure park, we're faced with a dilemma. On our upcoming trip to Southern California, should we go to the new park and create a new experience? Or, should I rely on the pleasure I feel through childhood associations and stick with old-school Disneyland?

Is it wrong that I consider this to be a dilemma? Am I still living in the shadow of Samantha Smith?

^1. Where would I work at Disneyland? It's really a tricky question. My favorite "ride" is The Enchanted Tiki Room. But really, how much Tiki Room is too much Tiki Room? I'd give myself five hours before I'd want to make Polynesian stew.

As an adult, I can't really picture being happy as a Cast Member. Perhaps a waitress job at the Blue Bayou, the restaurant inside the Pirates of the Caribbean, is ideal since it involves indirect involvement in a ride, tips, and a controlled climate.

That choice really disappoints my inner child.

Where would you work?