A Bad Moment

Sometimes I cannot keep the pretense up that I am strong and solid. Today is bad. I miss my mother soooo much.

I am crying as I write these words. I wish I had another cheerful story to write about her, but for now, I am too sad.

Try me again tomorrow. It will be a better day.

I hope.

Carol Neal Hannah

I received this wonderful email from an old friend of my mother's. It is so good that I cannot possibly do it justice by talking about it. So without further ado:

Linda came to the northwoods of Wisconsin a couple of years ago. We had some good chuckles about our chance meeting on a street in New York City so many years ago. She was working for Alan Lomax at the time. She said he told her he hired her because she had great legs.

When Linda visited, I had a hard time recognizing her at the Minneapolis airport because she was so thin. I wondered at the time if something could be wrong. (In her wonderful whimsical way, she told me to look for wildly colored shoes -- it worked. That's how I found her.)

We picked blueberries together, wandered forest paths, and talked about old school days. She told me amazing tales about how all the University School kids jockeyed for position based on their father's successes (a competition I was thankfully spared) and how everyone's (well, not quite everyone's) mothers were part of a network that helped form the social lives of the kids.

Linda lost her dad to cancer when she was 12. We formed a bond at that time as the only two in class without a father. While I felt bad for Linda, I welcomed her company. We spent a lot of time after that plotting our escape from Columbia.

Linda and I exchanged many emails about politics. She was notable in her staunch ethics. We disagreed often about methodology but rarely about position. E-mailing her was good for honing one's arguments!

Linda was sorry to have missed the first reunion and said she really wanted to attend the next one.

She talked a lot about her family. She loved having many children and loved the constant drama of large family life.

She didn't feel she had done so much good for the world through her work. But I think she judged her situation way too harshly. How can checking and consulting about water systems in the Middle East not be worthwhile? If for no other reason, Linda's work was meaningful because she reached through our country's dreadful myopia; she admired and learned about other cultures. She never hung around with the ex-pats but instead she established good friendships with people of the countries where she worked. I honor her for those accomplishments. The world needs more Lindas right now.

Rest in peace, Linda,
Carol Neal Hannah

Cheap Mexican Instant

My mother drank coffee like it was water. No, strike that: She drank coffee instead of water. She would order it as her drink with food. At home, her favorite type of coffee to make was cheap Classico Nescafe, the type that came in a glass jar. This was not out of frugality, but was just what she liked.

Read my sister Sarah's comment:

Not to mention that she would also travel with a jar in her purse; whenever anyone would offer her tea, she would politely decline and ask for a cup of hot water instead.

Kay Habenstein Lancaster

My aunt Carla, Linda's sister, forwarded me this email she received from my mother's best friend in high school:

My dear Carla and Linda's family:

I just read of Linda's passing and my heart if heavy for you. Linda and I were best friends at U-High in Columbia, Mo back in 1958-62. We first met in Mrs. Robert's English I class and then Linda encouraged me to join the Chess Club. We lived just a few blocks apart and we enjoyed sneaking out of our houses at 3:00 AM and meeting on South Williams Street and talking and laughing under the street lamp. We thought we were so clever and we just knew that our folks didn't know.

Three years ago at my father's 90th birthday party he brought up my friendship with Linda. "You girls thought you were so smart when you went out in the middle of the night. Your mother and I knew about your adventures but we trusted you and Linda and knew you were good friends." Linda and I were out talking about poetry, books, boys, and politics!

There are many stories I have about Linda and growing up in the Midwest and coming of age. My deepest sympathy to you and to Linda's family and friends.

Kay Habenstein Lancaster
Class of 1962 U-High

The Petrolem Blue Monkey

In the late eighties, my mother had a 1967 FIAT 1100. The FIAT 1100 is known in Egypt as "El Erda," meaning "the Monkey," due to it's ugliness.

Mom's Erda, a petroleum blue model, was very problematic. One day, as she was driving merrily along the streets of the upscale district of Zamalek, she hit what she believed was an open manhole. It is not clear whether she first realized that there were no manholes on this small side street that she knew very well, or whether she noticed her front driver's side wheel continue merrily on its way when the rest of the car had come to a grinding halt.

She loved that car, despite the fact that it was more often broken than not, and that there were no more new spare parts for it.

I used to take the car out, without her permission or knowledge. I learned to drive on that car, at a time when it had one working headlight, no brakes other than the emergency brake (which was so low that you could not reach it and see the street at the same time), no first gear, and no reverse. Yet, somehow, my friends and I contrived to park it is the exact same place we had taken it from. In Cairo this is no mean feat, even with a fully-functional automobile.

When my mother found out, and after she got over the initial anger [fury], she loved to tell the story about how I would "zoom around the narrow streets of Zamalek at breakneck speeds, narrowly avoiding falling into the Nile." She told my wife and daughter that story again and again.

If you knew my mother, you knew that every story she told was worth hearing again and again, for she put such style and emotion into telling her stories that the story itself, which was always very good, often paled in contrast with the sheer pathos she put into the telling of it.


A FIAT 1100 Erda, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Robert Luebbers and U-High Lives

My mother's high school, U-High, no longer exists. The students who formerly attended it, however, seem to have a strong sense of community. As I mentioned in my post of yesterday, 11/4/2007, the school has a web site at uhighlives.org. I visited the website after my aunt Janet gave me the web address, and I was immediately welcomed by the webmaster (called a "web shepherd," Robert Luebbers, who promptly signed me up and gave me access to the website.

When I logged in, I was allowed to comment on my mother's obituary notice, and to call the community's attention to this blog.

Today, I saw that the main page of the website contained a prominently-placed note about my mother, and about this website. "The story of Linda Oldham and her eldest son, Jake, is one of the reasons that this web site was created. We are here to tell our stories," proclaims the notice, signed by the Web Shepherd (Luebbers).

As if that were not overwhelming enough, I received an email later this evening from my aunt Janet; It seems that Mr. Luebbers had already sent out the word about my mother's death to a few U-High alumni, with a request to circulate it further. I choose to construe this as permission to publish an excerpt from the email:

The U-High Lives Web Board extends condolences to all of you. We have posted Linda's obit on the web site and featured a news article and a special forum. We have done this because of an incredible event. Linda's oldest son, Jake Lester (AKA Osama) never knew his mother's early years until I invited him to our site. He immediately registered and is pouring over every digital copy of the Tiger Claws to learn more about his mother. He has posted a very professional blog to celebrate the life of his mother and wants all of you to post your memories and comments to his blog. Please keep the families of Linda, Janet, and Carla in your thoughts and prayers.

Please, please ... all of you ... take time to log on to the U-High web site at www.uhighlives.org and read this incredible story in the "In memory of ..." Forum and the obit section under Comments to learn about Jake's journey to discover his mother's early years at Lab School and U-High.

Thank you, Robert Luebbers, and all members of this wonderful online community.

P.S.: I am sorry to say that the website is very exclusive. You cannot even tell that there is content unless you join, and membership is invitation only. Oh, well.

Linda's High School Senior Year Book

My aunt Janet directed me to a website created to memorialize my mother's High School, the now-defunct University High School (http://www.uhighlives.org). The website directed me to my mother's senior year yearbook, the Tiger Claw.

According to the yearbook, my mother was not only one of the two editors of the yearbook itself, but had been, at various times, a member of the library committee, the art club, the chess club, the pep squad, the honor society, and the senior variety show, among other things.

I will try to post some pages from the yearbook, but first I must get permission from the University of Missouri. For now, you can click here to go straight to the yearbook itself. Pay special attention to pages 30 and 57 (I love the horn-rimmed glasses!).