The Cars in My Life and the Lives of my Cars

In 2005 I bought a Toyota Prius Hybrid. The Pruis was the fifth car I owned. But the first car in my life was a Citroen which was my father's mid-life crises car. 

1960 Citroen My father had his Citroen imported from France through a friend and enjoyed it for a few years.  He taught me to drive with this car, which had a stick shift but no clutch. At age 16 I took my driver’s license test in the Citroen. I think the woman who took me out for the test drive was so taken with the strangeness of the car that she wasn’t paying attention to how I was drivving.  I got my license on the first try.

About all the other cars in my life  My marriages figure into their stories, so it might help you to know that I was married and divorced four times between the years of 1969 and 2003. I'm a slow learner in regards to marriage and it took me 34 years to realize marraige was not for me. 

1969 Dodge Dart Swinger When Dave and I got married in 1969 we bought a used Dodge Dart Swinger for $2000, money that I received as an inheritance on the death of my grandmother, Anna LeBrint. 

No automatic steering system. No air conditioning but the car had two small 8 x 8” doors, under the dashboard near the floor, one on the driver’s side and the other on the passenger’s side. You could open the doors and while driving fresh air would come in. When we divorced, Dave kept our two cats but we shared custody of the car.  We had it alternate weeks. I liked this arrangement because there was good public transportation in Lakeview where I lived. But parking spots were hard to find so I appreciated my car-free weeks.         

1975 Second Dodge Dart Swinger When I moved in with Bob in 1975, I gave Dave sole custody of our Dodge Dart Swinger.  Bob had a newer version of the “Swinger,” but he preferred taking public transportation. So the car was mine to use most of the time and responsibility for maintenance on the car was also mine. We married in 1979. When our marriage ended in 1983, I took the car with me. Bob hardly used it and reluctantly he signed ownership over to me.

 

Pontiac Grand Prix (NOT MY CAR) After my marriage to Bob ended, the old Swinger and I moved in with my friend Katie. Eventually we became romantically involved and would have married but gay marriage was not legal at the time. Katie had a baby blue Pontiac Grand Prix. A heavy car with rear wheel drive, like most American cars at the time. It was exceptionally hard to manage in Chicago’s snow but still. . . it was a sweet car with a smooth ride. On the highway all you had to do was put your foot lightly on the gas pedal and whoosh you were going fast. I got my first speeding ticket during one of the road trips we took in the Grand Prix, going 80 when the speed limit was 55. This was during the twenty-one years (1984-1995) when 55 mpg was set as the national speed limit in order to reduce gas consumption. Do you remember that time and the “high” price of gas: $1.31 in 1984 up from 50 cents in 1974? In 1995 Congress returned to the states the right to set their own speed limits.

 

But back to MY CARS, the cars I owned.

 

1985 White Toyota Tercel Wagon, with black trim  Love does strange things. In 1985, my lady love Katie agreed to sell the Grand Prix for a good price and buy a small inexpensive Honda CRX Hatchback. She gave me money so I could buy what turned out to be my favorite car, a very sharp looking 1985 Toyota Terel Wagon. I loved that car. Lots of room, 4-wheel drive, and a unique look. A friend said it looked like a sedan that had a square box with large windows placed where the car’s trunk should have been. Katie and I had unreconcilable differences and the Toyota and I moved out of Katie’s garage and her home. I kept the Tercel Wagon for eight years. 

Even though Toyotas had the reputation of being a reliable and problem free car that you could keep for many years and many miles, this was not so with mine. At seven years, the car started to rust. I sanded off the worst rust and covered the sanded areas with orange rust-resistance paint. My beautiful car looked like a zebra.  I was ok with that but at eight years and 100,000 miles it developed some electrical problems. The car would die any time I drove up one of the very tiny city of Chicago hills and the headlights, turn-signal, and windshield wipers were all on. My mechanics couldn’t find the problem so the car had to go. I gifted it to a young friend who took on the challenge of trying to fix it. I think he never succeeded.

 

1993 Red Ford Escort Wagon  After getting rid of the Toyota, I bought an Escort Wagon and eventually married again, hoping it would work out. (It didn’t.) My husband Evan and I lived in Albany Park near the Brown line and I worked at Illinois Masonic Hospital, also on the Brown line. In the late 1990s we had some major snow storms and I could let the car stay buried until I felt like shoveling it out. There isn’t much else to write about the Escort. It was a reliable car for eight years and then it wasn’t.  However, in 2005, I memorialized the story about a friend who bought my old beater-Escort after I decided to replace it. Here is the story

 

In The Balance.

It was 2005 and I had a twelve year old Ford Escort Wagon with 80,000 miles on it. I had a good payng professional job and was divorced with no kids.  My job required driving 300 miles or more a week and the Escort was having intermittent problems – to be expected due to its age and the 80K miles on it. 

 I decided to buy a new Toyota Prius and my friend Tanika was interested in buying the Escort “as is” for its $500 trade-in value.  Tanika had four children of her own and had recently taken in a nephew and a niece, so she and her husband were supporting six kids.

 I told Tanika that I was able to afford a new car because I had “no kids.”  She held out her arms as if they were a balance scale and moved them alternately up and down.  She said “Let me think” and as she moved one arm up and the other down, she said, “car, kids?    kids, car?”   She concluded “Yep, I’m happy buying your old car and keeping my kids.”

 Because I have no children, I have had the freedom to live life in a way that others who have the financial and parenting responsibilities of raising children don’t. In the balance, it has been a good life.

 

2005 Toyota Prius  The Prius got great gas mileage and was the car I needed on the job I had, working in the Outreach Laboratory department of NorthShore University Healthsystem. On my job I traveled regularly to the four hospitals in the system (Evanston, Highland Park, Skokie and Glenbrook) and to the many NorthShore phlebotomy labs in Chicago’s northern suburbs, and also to independent medical practices where I installed computers and trained staff on how to order their labs from NorthShore. I kept the car when I retired in 2011, but after 14 years and 140,000 miles, my trusty Prius was having difficulties. In and out of the shop too often. So it was time to replace it.

 Truth be told I never liked the lack of visibility through the Prius’ slanted/split back window, especially when driving at night since the 2-4” metal bar that split the top and bottom of the back window often prevented me from seeing headlights of cars driving behind me.

 

MY FINAL CAR 2020 Kia Soul (bought in 2022)  Surprisingly the Kia Soul looks , a bit like my favorite car, the Toyota Tercel Wagon! It has the same boxy style but the Kia has more height and is one foot shorter than the Pruis (14 feet vs 15). Compared to the Dodge Dart Swinger and the Pontiac Grand Prix (both 17 feet long), it is a shrimp of a car.

 Because it is one foot shorter than the most compact cars sold these daysm it is easier to find a parking spot in Chicago, and unlike the Prius, the Kia has a very large back window which makes night driving easier too. When I bought the Kia it had 39,000 miles on it. Four years later toay in 2026, it has only 50,000 miles on it. I mainly drive it around on short jaunts in the city and in nearby suburbs. I expect it to be my final car and that it will outlast me.

A last minute addition to the Citroen story  My sister Judy Jacobson found this family photo while we were reminiscing about the time when our father owned the Citroen. It is from 1966. I was 16 years old and I'm sitting with our dog Sandy on the sidewalk posing for the photo, while behind me at the curb is our father and the Citroen. 

So ends my brief story about The Cars in My Life and The Lives of my Cars. There are more stories to tell about my life and my cars and perhaps one day I will write more about us. But not today.

At the Time of the Winter Solstice

 

Holy one of blessing, God of many names

at this time of the winter solstice
at this time of the crescent moon
  At this darkest time of the year

we light lights and give thanks, in our overlapping traditions.

Strangely and sweetly

we greet each other in fellowship and friendship

with wishes for health, merriment, good food, good company and Peace on Earth.

Strangely and sweetly

we come together and pray to you 

with thanks for miracles noticed and remembered
  At this darkest time of the year:

for the miracle of the return of the sun

for the miracle of victories over tyrants

for the miracle of a small crucible of oil that burned for eight days
and for the miracle of the birth of a baby who brought illumination into the world.

Holy one of blessing, God of many names

as we light lights
  At this darkest time of the year
generation after generation, year after year

we ask again for Your help Your love Your comfort Your support

that we may be partners with You and with each other

to bring our greatest hope our most desired wish our highest need: Peace on Earth.

Holy one of blessing, God of many names
May it be so. May it be so.

           

Photograph taken by Nicole Y-C (from Unsplash.com)

Prayer inspired by “Hanukkah Lights” in the Unitarian Universalist Hymn Book, Singing the Living Tradition. 

You are welcome to print this prayer and/or copy it into a file and share it. 

This is my holiday gift to all. 

Betsy Fuchs

betsywfuchs@gmail.com 

And a friendly reminder, my book (an imagined memoir) Twista and Turns There Once Was a Dream is now availabe through your local bookstore or at Bookshop.org

Clara's Stories: Remembering

It is 1994. I’m 80 years old. I’ve slowed down and have time to look through my old scrapbooks and photo albums and the piles of stories I wrote. Some stories were published. Some were not.

I asked my husband Rolland Metzger to move the files and boxes filled with my writing into the dining room and to pull down the scrapbooks and photo albums from the closet shelf. They’re on the floor and on the dining room table -- no room for dinner but who cares? I was never much of a cook; the best I can do most nights for Rolland and me is to heat up a can of spaghetti and meat sauce or a can of soup or throw together some sandwiches. And thankfully he is OK eating my meager offerings at our small kitchen table.

The first thing I find is my Theodore Roosevelt High School graduation yearbook from 1932. When I  look at my graduation photo, I remember . . .

My first name was Clara in the yearbook, and also my few high school activities (Civics Club, Spanish Club, and G.A.A.) were listed, as well as the college I planned to attend, the University of Illinois. And in the yearbook by my photo was an inscription I wrote, which reads: "Luck success & what not to All --  Clara Le Brint Topsy,"  My nickname in high school was “Topsy,” given to me by friends because my hair usually curled every which way. 

I never went to the University of Illinois (in Champaign/Urbana); it was a pipe dream. Instead after high school, I went to Crane Junior College, sadly only for one year. Around the same time, I changed my name from Clara to Claire which seemed to me more American, more grown up. However, today thinking about my birth name Clara, I remember two romantic encounters I had with very different guys when I was in my late teens and twenties. They both called me Clara; they considered it (and they  considered me) romantic, fanciful and fascinating. And at the time I most certainly was!

Rolland and I live in Dixon, Illinois. But Rol has a home in Chicago and we used to visit there regularly. Not so much these days. I used to be busy working, writing and getting some stories published, volunteering, helping friends, meeting new people, and traveling to Chicago and other far-off places. But I’m not doing that anymore. I’m old and more tired these days then I used to be. These days, I don’t have much to do except visit with friends at the Dixon Senior Center or with Rolland when he’s at home. Rol is eight years my junior and still out and about with activities, hobbies, and paid work as a part-time accountant and tax-preparer.

So I sit at my dining room table picking up one thing and putting it down and picking up the next thing. Nothing is in order but I find many treasures, including a three-page handwritten biography written in 1991 by a Dixon friend, titled The Life of Claire Metzger. She asked me lots of questions about my life and wrote this story, as a way of honoring our friendship. Right away, two little white lies jump out at me – the year of my birth and my age when I met Rolland. Here’s what she wrote. 

The world was blessed on April 5, 1933. Claire Metzger, formerly Claire LeBrint, was born in Chicago, Illinois.

 …When Claire was 34, she met her husband-to-be Rolland Metzger at a Jewish Temple. They didn’t mean to meet; actually, Claire was there to meet another boy to watch a play, but she was stood up and Rolland came up to her and asked if she wanted any coffee, and they both stayed for the play. After the play, Rolland asked Claire if he could walk her home because they had found out that they actually lived on the same street and she accepted. So every time Rolland came into town they would see each other.

My dear friend and biographer insisted that my life story start with my birth date including the year, which I told her was 1933, even though I was born in 1914. She also insisted that we include my age when I met Rolland. I fudged that one too. We met when I was 46, not 34! I never told anyone in Dixon my true age; I told them I felt “ageless.” My Dixon friends and admirers thought I was younger than my real age, so there was no harm done.

Whew, I’m glad the truth is finally out. I’m an old lady now so what do I care if you know my exact age. To keep it straight in my mind and help you, dear reader, know the significant dates in my life, here they are:

 April 5, 1914: I was born on the West side of Chicago.

 June 14 1922: Rolland Metzger was born.

 Winter 1959: Rolland and I met at a Jewish Singles event in Chicago.

 March 25, 1967 Rolland and I married. I was 53 and my young bridegroom was almost 45 years old.

Starting a few years after we met, Rol repeatedly asked me to marry him and I put him off. I had been single for a long time and had pretty much given up on marriage. Of the Jewish men I met, either I rejected them or they rejected me. When Rolland came along, being indecisive by nature and having made a nice life for myself as a confirmed spinster, I couldn’t make up my mind about marrying him.   Finally, in 1967, I decided “yes.” He was too nice a guy to let go. But I was plenty nervous, and ten days before we married, I shared some of my worries with him in a note that I discovered in my piles and files.

 

In case you can't read my handwriting, the note says: "Please never ask me to make a decision late in the eve -- or night -- It wearies me, and invariably I feel pressed and pressured. Probably you do too? So I beg you -- in all things don't set deadlines or rushes lest good judgement gives way to exasperation and error."

After we married, I never had to “make a decision late in the eve,” but sometimes, especially when we were planning trips (for tax conferences or to visit family out of town), he did “set up deadlines” but his good judgement ensured there were few insurmountable errors. Also after we married, with my dear husband's love and encouragement, I became a professional writer.

Claire LeBrint Metzger, of blessed memory, is Betsy Fuchs' aunt. For more Clara stories, you can purchase the book: Twists and Turns There Once Was a Dream, an imagined memoir based on the life of Betsy's Aunt Claire.

Paperback and Kindle versions are available from Amazon.com, or you can purchase the book directly from Betsy by emailing her at  betsywfuchs@gmail.com    

COST: Paperback  $10.00       KINDLE $3.99

Twists and Turns Chapter 1: WEBBED FINGERS

 

Claire LeBrint Metzger at age 80,
the age of fictional Claire, narrator of the book
Twists and Turns  There Once Was a Dream

I was born with webbed fingers.

 I write this frightful six-word sentence and identify my condition the way they did in 1914 when I was born. Today in 1994, close to the end of the twentieth century, now that I have reached the august age of 80 years old, I announce publicly this deformity as my own. The medical term for this birth condition is syndactyly, a term I learned somewhere along the way. It is used to identify when a child is born with two or more fingers and/or toes connected by skin, fused one to the next.

 I was the fourth child born to my young immigrant mother in six years. Her eldest two daughters, Mary, four years old and Rose, three, were finally able to watch out for each other. But her only son George was not yet two.

 I was born at home, in our cold-water flat in Chicago’s Jewish West side. The midwife must have announced, “It’s a girl!” My mother was probably disappointed that I wasn’t a second son and might have been thinking, What do I need another girl for, I already have two, and this girl now, so soon after George?

 But at least I was healthy, wasn’t I?

 The midwife must have done the customary counting of fingers and toes. My tiny hands might have been closed into fists and if so, the midwife would have gently opened them and seen webbed fingers on both hands. Even if the midwife was familiar with this condition, she most likely would not have said it out loud to my exhausted mother. I imagine that the midwife quickly washed me, wrapped me up in a blanket and handed me to my mother and figured that the awful truth would come out soon enough.

 Of course, it must have come out when my mother held me for the first time, looked me over and saw for herself. On my left hand in place of a pinky finger was a tiny round nub of skin and then three tiny fused fingers. On my right hand, all four fingers were fused. Did she wrap her hands around my little deformed hands to hide them from her sight, only to start shuddering at the feel of all those bones connected by skin where my fingers should have been? As I write these words, I shudder imagining what it might feel like if I were the one instead of her holding my poor little hands.

 My earliest memories are from age four and by then my fingers were separated and the only thing that seemed strange to me was the little round nub on my left hand. I didn’t think anything much about it. Neither did my siblings and the neighborhood kids. We were too busy playing and fighting and running and taking care of our many brothers and sisters, and staying out of the way of our overworked parents. Important stuff like that.

 I was a bright little girl with older siblings and at age four I already knew how to count to five, which was an important number on the day that Ma took me aside. That day I felt special – I was one of five children by then and never got time alone with Ma. She pointed to her fingers and then to mine. I looked closely and saw that on each hand Ma had a thumb and four fingers, five all together. On one of my hands (the left one) I counted out loud three fingers. I didn’t count the pinky nub. Ma then pointed to my other hand and I counted five, a thumb and four fingers, just like she had.

 The fingers on my right hand are funny looking: four crooked fingers, all of them shorter than normal and two do not have finger nails. But at my young age, I didn’t know what Ma was showing me. I could tell she was upset, angry and sad when she pointed once more at my fingers and told me that the evil eye gave her a child like me to punish her, because as she said, “I left my dearest most loved mother, your grandmother, in the old country to come to America. I didn’t want to leave her all alone. She cried and I cried buckets of tears but she insisted I must go to get away from the pogroms.”

 I looked at my fingers more closely. They looked normal except for the pinky nub. I didn’t understand “evil eye.” The whole concept of evil was beyond me and I didn’t know the word “pogroms,” but I remember to this day the bad feeling I got that somehow I was to blame.

 Eventually as I grew older and learned more, I understood that the “evil eye” was a superstition Ma brought with her from the old country, and came to appreciate why my grandmother insisted Ma go to America to get away from the danger and death caused by the pogroms perpetrated by the Russian Cossacks and the Russian peasants who joined in.

 My parents never talked about when my fingers were separated, and I never asked. Why would I? During my childhood my fingers worked fine, so there was nothing to ask. At some point (I don’t remember when), I understood that the reason my fingers looked the way they did was that they had been fused when I was born. But even as an adult I never asked Ma or Pa about this because I knew it would open up old wounds and sad memories

 Surprisingly as early as 1902, doctors performed surgery to separate conjoined fingers and toes and they determined it was best to do the surgery on children between six months and two years old. Most likely my surgery was done before age two. However, before then I imagine Ma being reminded of her punishment every day when she bathed me and had to open my little deformed hands to wash them and when I perhaps learned to hold a bottle awkwardly or not at all. I imagine her horror, shame, sadness, and anger. And though she may have had women friends to go with her when I had the surgery, I’m sure during that time she missed her mother horribly, dreadfully. Ma’s closest female cousins lived in Philadelphia, too far away to be with her and I’m sure Pa was working extra hours to pay for the surgery. No health insurance in 1914-1915.

 Surgery was done, my fingers worked okay and Ma never mentioned them again after that one time. Maybe I’m making this up, but it seems to me that during my entire life, Ma treated me differently partly because of my fingers. Or maybe it was me. I tried always to be somewhat removed from her, not interacting if I could get away with it, even during the many years as an adult when I lived with her and Pa and my younger sister Perle. I can say this now after years of pondering my place in our family that I was trying to keep away the feeling that I was at fault for Ma’s sadness and anger. 

END OF CHAPTER 1

For more Clara stories, you can purchase the book: Twists and Turns There Once Was a Dream, an imagined memoir based on the life of Betsy's aunt Claire LeBrint Metzger. 

Paperback and Kindle versions are available from Amazon.com, or you can purchase the book directly from Betsy by emailing her at  betsywfuchs@gmail.com    

COST: Paperback  $10.00       KINDLE $3.99

Twists and Turns (excerpt): HIs Name was Arvid Lundberg

Arvid Lundberg was a political cartoonist with the Chicago Herald, whom I met briefly in 1937 and then again in 1940 when I was 26 years old and he was 38. Soon after we started seeing each other exclusively. Arvid was my first romantic love. We dated for three years and our relationship ended badly. After that, I never talked about him, not ever.

When friends and acquaintance asked me if I had any serious boyfriends in my younger years, my stock answer was, “I dated around but there was no one special. There were a few possible guys but I always found something wrong with them or they found something wrong with me.” This answer seemed to satisfy and they didn’t ask any follow-up questions.

But curiously over the years my older sister Rose, the family gossip, had dropped hints to her daughters about me dating a cartoonist when I was young. While I was working on this memoir, one of Rose’s daughters asked me innocently enough, “Aunt Claire, what stories are you writing these days? Have any of them been published lately?” 

I was always writing stories. Some got published so such questions were a usual part of our conversations. This time my answer was unusual. “These days I’m working on a memoir about my life as a single working girl and the adventures I had. Right now, I’m writing about a guy I dated when I was in my twenties named Arvid Lundberg.”

I expected a few follow-up questions, like “Who was this guy? How long did you two date?” or perhaps just a stunned “Wow, tell me more.” But I was flabbergasted at her response, “Was he the cartoonist who created the Little Lulu comic strip? Mom mentioned this but it was all hush-hush. She said you never talked about it because the guy was older and divorced and worst of all, he wasn’t Jewish and Grandma LeBrint broke the romance up and banished you to California.”

“Oh, your mom, she never was one to keep a secret, but I plan to spill the beans about the cartoonist in my memoir. Who knows if I’ll ever finish it, so for now I’ll give you the cliff notes version. I dated Arvid Lundberg from 1940 to 1943 when I was in my late twenties. He was a political cartoonist with the Chicago Herald newspaper. Years after we broke up, he became known nationally for his syndicated comic strip, not Little Lulu, but your mom was close. His comic strip was about a young girl named Pattie. Comic strips about adventuresome young girls were the rage in the 1940s and 1950s. Besides Pattie and Little Lulu, there were also the Little Debbie, and ‘nancy’ comic strips. Arvid was unmarried, not divorced, older than me and not Jewish. It would have been a shanda if I married him. So, my mother sent me to Los Angeles to get me away from him and that ended that.”

I added, “For the rest of the story, you will have to wait and hope that I complete my memoir, or at least the story of me and Arvid and the banishment” and I changed the subject.**

 

MY PURSUIT OF ARVID

1937 – 1940

I met Arvid Lundberg in 1937 when he gave at talk at my Northwestern University journalism class. He talked about Chicago and national politics and the impending threat coming from Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, illustrating his talk with a few political cartoons that he projected onto a screen at the front of our classroom. Looking at his provocative cartoons and listening to him, I thought, Here’s a man with great knowledge of politics and a wry sense of humor. He’s good looking in a dignified way and I’d love to get to know him. After his talk, I introduced myself and he said, “Let’s stay in touch,” or some standard brushoff. I took him at his word and over the next few years, I was casually persistent, sending him letters commenting on the cartoons I particularly liked. 

Today I’m looking at the Lundberg cartoons I saved, including one titled “Mayor Smelly’s Machine: And His Indispensable Team.” It features a cartoon representation of Chicago’s Mayor Edward Kelly and Cook County Park Chairman Patrick Nash. In the cartoon they are chewing on raw onions while looking at a statue of themselves standing on top of a large block engraved with the words “SOMETHING SMELLS ROTTEN IN CHICAGO.” A few little guys with different skin tones, half as tall as Kelly and Nash, are watching, looking dejected. They represent the Mayor’s constituents, the Blacks, Poles, Mexicans, and other Chicago ethnic minorities who propelled Kelly (and Nash) into power.

During the 1930’s and into the 1940’s, the Kelly-Nash Machine ran Chicago and built the powerful Chicago Democratic party which opened the door for the two Daley mayors (Richard J. and Richard M.) who ruled Chicago with a few interruptions from 1955 until today. Richard M. has a few sons so I expect the Daley dynasty will continue to rule for years into the future. Thinking about the Daley’s’ long reign, in the old-country Jewish manner, I am compelled to say out loud phooey phooey and pretend to spit, to express my extreme displeasure.

Paper clipped to the cartoon is a carbon copy of a typed letter from me to Lundberg, which reads in part, “Smelly is the perfect name for Mayor Kelly. Thanks for shedding a light on the arrogance of Kelly and of Nash who is the power behind the throne. They are gobbling up Chicago’s resources and forgetting about the little guys who put them in power. They smell to high heaven, and I hope they choke on the onions (I mean power) they are gobbling up.”

I figured he wouldn’t remember me from letter to letter, so I reminded him that we met briefly when he gave a talk at my Northwestern journalism class in 1937. As I did in all my letters, I asked if I could talk with him about how to get into journalism. Looking at the letter, I realize how naive I was about Chicago politics. You can throw one set of bums out and another set gets elected. Kelly and Nash out, then the Daley boys in. But in the 1930s how was I to know?

One day in spring 1940, to my surprise and delight, I got a reply from Lundberg. Ma saw the envelope first, and when I got home from work, she handed it to me and asked, “Nu Clara why are you getting a letter from the Chicago Herald?”  It was from Lundberg! His last name was handwritten on the envelope above the Herald logo. I may have blushed or had a small secret smile on my face but I kept my composure and answered, “I’m not sure Ma. Now and then I write letters to the paper responding to some article of interest to me.” She seemed satisfied with this answer.

These many years later I can’t find the letter, but I read and reread it many times. I remember it was handwritten and went something like this.

Dear Claire,

Thanks for sending letters now and then. It’s nice to hear from someone who understands what I’m trying to get across in my cartoons. You asked if we might get together so I could give you pointers on how to get into the news business. Sure thing. Give me a call at (phone number, long forgotten) and we’ll find a time to meet.

Sincerely, Arvid Lundberg

 He gave me his phone number! He wanted to meet me! The next day I called the Chicago Herald and felt very important asking the switchboard operator to put me through to Mr. Arvid Lundberg. She asked about the nature of my call. I replied proudly, “This is Claire LeBrint and Mr. Lundberg requested I call so we could discuss jobs in journalism.”

Arvid seemed pleased to get my call and asked a few questions: Where I worked. My answer: At my dad’s print shop on LaSalle Street, across from the Chicago Board of Trade. What was my job. My answer: Office work, girl Friday stuff. How did I like the journalism classes, to which I gave a very short answer, “I liked them.” He suggested that we meet after work, downtown. I answered formally, “Yes thank you. I would greatly appreciate meeting you.” Arvid suggested we meet at Eitel’s coffee shop in the Northwestern Train Station just west of the Chicago River on Madison Avenue. The station was across from the Chicago Herald building and not far from Pa’s print shop. 

For about Arvid and Clara and more Clara stories, purchase the book: Twists and Turns There Once Was a Dream, an imagined memoir based on the life of Betsy's aunt Claire LeBrint Metzger. 

Paperback and Kindle versions are available from Amazon.com, or you can purchase the book directly from Betsy by emailing her at  betsywfuchs@gmail.com    

COST: Paperback  $10.00       KINDLE $3.99

A Goofy Mistake Vermont 2023

 

It was Spring 2023 and I badly needed to go on a vacation adventure, after the Covid enforced home-time and several visits (as usual) to my sisters, Judy who lives in Baltimore and Sue who lives in Los Angeles.

On the Road Scholar website I found the trip, “Wildlife, Walking & Hiking in the Green Mountain State," scheduled for October. Looking at the photo next to the trip description, I thought October in Vermont, trees changing colors, what a perfect 2023 adventure. Home base, where we adventurers would stay, was the Gray Ghost Inn in West Dover. Vermont. The best way to get there from Chicago (other than driving) was to fly into the Albany New York Airport (ALB), which was 90 miles from Gray Ghost. Road Scholar recommended the Dover Valley Cab company for transportation to and from ALB.  When I called Valley Cab, Chris the driver/owner confirmed that he could pick me at ALB, drive me to West Dover, and take me back at the end of the trip on October 19.

On October 14, the first day of my Green Mountain adventure, I texted Chris to confirm my arrival time. He responded that he would be driving a black “gangster car,” and asked that I text him after I got to ALB. That I did and Chris showed up about ten minutes later, in a large black SUV with tinted windows and his company name tastefully displayed on the passenger side. Off we went to the Gray Ghost Inn. We chatted some and the two-hour travel time went by pleasantly. When we crossed the boundary from New York State into Vermont, most trees had lost their leaves! And the colors on the remaining trees were muted. I was mildly disappointed, but Chris explained that the leaves had turned a few weeks before, due to a very rainy summer and fall.

The Gray Ghost Inn did not disappoint. The sprawling inn with a wide front porch was painted a bright yellow. Inside was a welcoming entrance area, with comfy chairs and a smiling innkeeper, who introduced herself as Cary and greeted me warmly. I looked forward to our 6:30pm Road Scholar get-to-know-you social hour followed by dinner. But when I gave Cary  my name and asked to register for the Road Scholar trip, she said that it wasn’t scheduled to start until October 15, and she didn't have a spare room for me that evening . . . and I wasn’t on the list of Road Scholar attendees for the program starting the next day.

Uh-Oh what was I to do?

Cary found me a room at the Big Bears Lodge, a half mile down the road and called Chris, who came back quickly and drove me the short distance to the Lodge. After I got settled, I looked at the Road Scholar itinerary that I had printed from the computer. It listed activities for Day 1, Day 2, through Day 6, but I couldn’t find the start and end dates listed anywhere. I signed into my Road Scholar online account and under upcoming trips, there it was “Your departure to Vermont is in a year” and as clear as could be the dates for my trip Oct 14 to Oct 19, 2024.

Oy. Not only did I arrive on the wrong day, I arrived in the wrong year!

After some panicky thoughts, I called Cary and told her about my problem. She said she would contact the Road Scholar Coordinator and see if they could get me into the 2023 group starting the next day, Sunday October 15. I called my sisters, each in turn, and wailed away. They listened and that helped a little bit. But what helped even more was Cary's call back when she told me that I could be added to the 2023 group and she would have a room at Gray Ghost for me on the next day, Sunday.

What a relief! and I wrote in my journal:

“A big mix-up on my part – I signed up for 2024 and here I am in Vermont but mostly it’s fixed and I won’t miss any hikes or walks. Just a half day walking around West Dover on Thursday afternoon and a farewell dinner that night (the 19^th) and breakfast (the 20^th).

Sunday around noon, I got a ride to Gray Ghost from the Road Scholar Coordinator Carina. I registered with Cary, and got settled in my room. I was tired from my previous day’s excitement, took a nap and then went down to the common living room. The rest of the group started trickling in and as we got to know each other, it seemed that I was the only one there for the walking/hiking trip; the other folks I met had come for a week of Bridge. I figured there were two groups and asked Carina how many were signed up for Walking/Hiking.

“Oh no,” she said, “This week is for Bridge-players only. You can stay and join them and we’ll work out a way to have the money you paid for your 2024 trip cover the cost. I’m sorry to tell you that you missed the Walking/Hiking group by a few weeks. They were here earlier in October.”

No no no!. How could this be? I’m not a bridge player and even if I was, I didn’t come to beautiful Vermont to sit inside for six days.

“It’s not an option for me,” I replied. In a kind gentle manner, Carina advised me to make arrangements to fly home the next day. I got on it quickly and fortunately, when I called United Airlines and pressed the number that the automated voice told me to press for transfers and cancellations, I got a real person who assured me that he would stay on the phone with me until my transaction was completed. Twenty minutes later, for the cost of $377, I received an email confirmation for my flight home on October 16 at 5pm. I called Chris and he was available to take me back to ALB in the morning.

What a relief, but not really, as I wrote in my journal:

“I want to be home. I don’t like all these complications but at least I get a little bit of the Road Scholar experience. But what about dinner today and breakfast tomorrow? And what will the Bridge people think of me?”

Cary, bless her heart, invited me to join the Bridge players for dinner that evening and for breakfast the next day. At dinner I sat with a very nice group, and explained my situation. A few suggested I consider staying for the week. I politely declined. After dinner, they went off for their first evening of Bridge and I went off to bed. At breakfast the next morning, when I once again explained why I was there and why I was leaving, Bruce, a Bridge-playing breakfast companion, said, “Betsy you just made a goofy mistake.”

A goofy mistake. Such a nice way of looking at this experience.  And on the plus side (and I always look for the positive in situations), I fell in love with Vermont and the Gray Ghost Inn, and I still have my 2024 Wildlife, Walking /Hiking trip to look forward to. Another positive: though it was too late to see the trees changing colors during my short stay in Vermont, the trees in Chicago started changing colors just as I got back. This year, they were glorious, as was the weather in the days after I got back, and I was able to get in some walking and hiking in Autumn 2023 here at home.

However, positive spin or not, I’m sad and disappointed about my mistake, and there now is one more thing my 79-year-old brain has to watch out for and double and triple check -- dates of upcoming trips. That is of course, in addition to trying to remember where I put my glasses and keys in my small one-bedroom condo, and confirming several times over dates and times of zoom gatherings I sign up for and these days, the many IRL (in real life) activities I am delighted to be able to I enjoy.

The Best Advice: CALM DOWN PATSY

FROM MY MOTHER: Mom had a small 4” x 6” picture frame that contained a colored poster with the words “By the street of by-and-by one arrives at the house of never.” After mom's death, I got the framed poster and for years it had a prominent place among family pictures on a shelf in my house.

 These were words Mom and I took to heart and most times whatever we were thinking of doing, we would “Do it now” and not procrastinate. Good advice for me for many years.

But... now that I'm old and tired more often, I'm OK with putting things off. And sometimes I get to them and other times not. This is true even though I know my days are numbered and I know that if I don't do :whatever" now, it may never get done. I'm OK with that too.

FROM MY FATHER: Dad carried a small silver triangle with the words “This too shall pass” in his pocket for as long as I could remember. I don’t know what happened to the pocket piece but during his life, Dad showed it to me frequently.

These were not words for me to live by. Not at all. Never. I was born in 1944 and all my thinking life I knew about the Holocaust and about the Jews and others who were rounded up by Nazis and Jew-haters and for them the horrors would not pass. Their inevitable end was death.

 So much for Dad’s advice.

 However, I recently heard a Rabbi tell this story that involved Dad’s favorite saying. 

A powerful king asks his assembled wise men to find something that will make a happy person sad and a sad person happy. The wise men traveled the country far and wide. Finally, one came upon a peasant who told him to return to the king with these few words: “This too shall pass,” meaning when you are feeling happy or experiencing happy times, know it won’t last, and conversely when you are feeling sad or experiencing sad times know that also won’t last.

 “This too shall pass” is true under normal circumstances. But under major terrible irreversible circumstances, these words were and still are useless as words to live by.

Curiously Mom and Dad's favorite words to live by are opposite. From Dad, "Just wait it out, whatever bad circumstances happen. Things will change." From Mom, "Get going. Time is passing. Don't wait. If you don't do it now, you may never do it and you'll be sorry." But most curious of all, the best advice for me today came from an unusual source many years ago.

 

THE BEST ADVICE  

FROM 4-YEAR-OLD MARGRETTA

About forty years ago, my partner Cheryl and I were at dinner at the home of friends who had a four-year-old daughter named Margretta. 

The conversation was lively. All four of us were talking about this and that and suddenly Margretta interrupted us saying loudly and as forcefully as an insistent four-year-old can “CALM DOWN PATSY!” We looked at her and looked at each other and didn’t understand what she meant, so we continued talking. Again, Margretta said even more loudly “CALM DOWN PATSY!!” This time we stopped talking and all of a sudden it came to me that she was addressing me, meaning to say to me: “CALM DOWN BETSY!”

 I have been known to talk loudly and insistently and must have been annoying Margretta big time. I shared my insight with Cheryl and Margretta’s parents and we had a good laugh. Over the years I’ve told this story many times.

 But why, you might ask, today would I identify Margretta’s directive from so many years ago as the best advice? Today at age 78, if I do things that take too much energy, if I walk too fast for example, or try to do too many things at once, or maybe get too excited about this or that, I get out of breath and my heart feels like it is beating too hard. When this happens, I say to myself “Calm down Patsy” which amuses me greatly and reminds me that I must slow down and remember to breath. 

If I can, I will stop what I'm doing and sit down for a while and breathe, just breathe until I -- “PATSY” -- am able to calm down and resume what I was doing at a more reasonable pace. And I send thankful thoughts to forty-plus year old Margretta wherever she may be.