Sylvia Some More

Sylvia, who has to be mom's most faithful friend, continues to write about mom and help me out on this blog with her stories and encouragement. Here's her latest:

Jake, the photographs you've been posting are wonderful.

I go to the blog daily, and am extremely moved by all of it.

I never drove with Linge on the highway. But when I visited her and drove myself, I found the North Carolina interstate completely terrifying. I cannot imagine how many near misses she must have had driving 35 mph when it felt to me as if everyone was driving at least 80.

When we lived in New York, she visited a friend at Wayne State in Ohio. She found a ride by responding to a ride share posting in the student union at Columbia. The driver turned out to be a crazy person. She said that as they drove, he kept slinking lower in his seat and mumbling things that she found frightening. They pulled off at a rest stop in Pennsylvania, and she went into the cafe which was nearly deserted. She started to cry. She approached a seemingly nice truck driver, tearfully explained her predicament, and asked if she could ride with him. He thought about it, and replied that she would probably be safer with the crazy guy. So she went back to the car, and told the driver in no uncertain terms that she was going to drive. The car was a stick shift, and she didn't know how to drive a stick shift. But she drove the rest of the way to Ohio, apparently in first gear, and when the driver complained she just told him to be quiet.

Keep up the great work.

Linda, Sarah and Farah

My wedding evening at my in-laws' home in Cairo, September, 2000. Farah, in case you didn't know, is my daughter (technically, she's my stepdaughter).



Incidentally, this is my 123rd post. I have been doing this for one third of a year so far!

Linda and Sarah

It is hard to believe that this picture was taken more than twenty years ago.

Incidentally, Sarah says she'd be happy to be drenched in mom's coffee (read the last post if you are at a loss as to what I am talking about) if only she were still with us. I agree. I would also be very happy if mom were here to drench Sarah in scalding hot coffee.

Getting There is Half the Torture

Mom was great to go places with; she always had some interesting destination in mind, and she always entertained you on the way there. However, it was an absolute requirement that you drove. This is not to say that she was not a fine driver--to the contrary, she was an excellent driver. She was cautious, alert, and knew where she was going. There were only a few things that were dangerous about being with her in a car when she was driving.

One was road rage. Not hers, of course, but other drivers who objected to the fact that mom NEVER went above 35. Ever. Not on the 70mph highway. Never. Period. When she had her 14 car pile-up, she had been doing 13 miles per hour. I have my theories about why the pile-up occurred, even if the police said it was an act of God.

Another was boredom. You could not actually die of it from the speeds she drove at because a) she always had the most wonderful stories to tell you as you went along and, b) since she had to use both hands at all times on her steering wheel, and because she always had scalding hot coffee with her which she placed on the dashboard in an open mug. Not one of her cars had cupholders. On the plus side, you acquired some novel second degree burns that made you stop worrying about whether the stains would ever come out.

Most of us learned to cope by offering to drive, and she was always willing to let you do that in her car or yours, unless you didn't happen to have a driving license, in which case, God help you.

Lean Times, Good Times!

This is a photograph from July, 1979. At this time:

• Aziza was three months old.
• We lived on Ahmed Sukarno Street in a Cairo slum where the raw sewage never dried up on the street (this has since changed). The photo was taken at home.
  
• Mom was still fighting to keep her business venture, Allied Resource and Consulting Services (ARCS) afloat, so we could hardly afford to live in a decent neighborhood.
• Janet came to visit us for several months with her friend Beth, after they ran a marathon in Athens. Their toenails had fallen off.
  
• I was eight (I turned 9 in October).
• We had one dog and nine cats (mom's friend's cat who was "temporarily" staying with us turned out not to be spayed). Mom was severely allergic to cats.
• My favorite article of clothing was a tee-shirt mom had a friend of hers bring for me from Mothercare, UK at great personal expense to her at her poorest. The tee-shirt had a photograph of a leopard sleeping on a tree branch.

Good times!

Wasn't She Beautiful?

Mom and me, circa 1977.

Sutton's Drug Store

When I was a young child in Chapel Hill, NC, mom was an anthropology graduate student at the University of Chapel Hill (UNC). Across Franklin Street from UNC was Sutton's drug store, where we often ate breakfast. We were quite popular there and, as soon as we walked in, the waitress would begin pouring mom's coffee and my orangeade. The waitress would also make sure that I had more than enough straws (about ten seemed to do it--see the photograph).

I happen to know the name of the waitress. Her name was Margaret Evans Durham. I know this because she wrote a book about Sutton's and the people who ate there. The copy I have is autographed by the author and is annotated by my grandmother, Helen Oldham.

In her book, "Ye Olde Drugstore," Mrs. Durham describes the store thusly:

"In the heart of the old and loveable Hill, is a place where people come day after day. Why? Because it is a drugstore, called Sutton's. I came here a few years back to work as a waitress behind the fountain. People love to come here to relax and talk over their coffee. You can hear almost anything here, it is so close knit. We have three sections to the fountain, so named by our customers. They are Peyton Place, Menopause Manor, and Brady Bunch. We have our regulars each day.

"This place is filled with laughter, gossip, hunger, tears, and let's not forget love. This is my insight and foresight of everyday happenings. People of all walks of life gather here at Sutton's counterfrom early morning until four when we close. It is a good place to let your steam off, laughing all the way. I like people. They are sometimes sad, some are strong, some weak, some lucky, some not. Some of them are searching for something that they will never find."

Mrs. Durham then proceeds to describe quite a few of her customers. On page five she says:

"Another patron is Linda. She is the mother of Little Jake. She is a beautiful person in every way. You can really tell Linda has done a good job with little Jake. She whispers to him and it seems to soothe him so quickly, he gets so calm afterwards."

On page 14, Mrs. Durham published this photograph, which must have been taken at some time during 1975.



Sutton's still exists, and you may visit it at 159 E. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC.