For the second half of my Lent Writing this year I am revisiting the trigger words I have used already, but writing from a different perspective. On 3-29-19 the word was TRIP. Today I'll use the same word in a different light.
I grew up attending church socials in a sturdy but sterile building we called the Peasant Hills chapel in Jefferson Hills, PA. One particular evening we had gathered as a ward for a pot-luck dinner. I believe it must have been during the chilly months, because Genevieve Deutsch was wearing a coat. I stood near the gold accordion curtain that divides the chapel from the basketball court, the same curtain that would later serve as a backdrop for my wedding line. Tables striped the wall to the left of the stage where, one by one, our brothers and sisters in Christ had added their pot-luck offerings; Beno Mann’s always anticipated strawberry-pretzel Jell-O salad, Connie Spresser’s pork bar-b-que, Ag Payne’s cherry squares. For some reason I cannot recall my own mother’s additions to the culinary fare. She was a spectacular cook, and I am surprised I don’t remember even one specialty she added to the mix. I do recall the aromas, the melding of ethnic flavors, cabbage rolls and chili and chocolate and such, all swirling and bouncing off the cement walls of the gym.
The hall echoed with chatter, and children squealing, and rubber shoes squeaking in the same company as clicking high heels and clunky work boots. I was standing over by the accordion curtain when I caught the action from the corner of my eye. Genevieve Deutsch had entered the hall carrying a cake, or a casserole (what she was carrying is as mysterious as her age to me, a foggy minded teenager at the time). She was dressed in a woolen skirt, like she always wore, and thick nylon stockings. She was plump, and pleasant, and reserved in her ways. As she crossed the gym floor in the direction of the serving tables, her hands holding the dish in front of her, she tripped. She must have tripped. I didn’t really see what happened, I just saw her go down. Her plate went flying with a flash, and at the same moment as the rest of the room fell illogically silent, dead silent, Genevieve’s hair went flying as well. Someone near her bent over and helped her up. I watched from my distant position. They helped her up and she raised her short German arms up above her head, her stubby hands embracing her head, the reality of her thin matted hair exposed and glowing there in the silence of that room. Her wig had slid across the golden varnished floor, landing under the dessert table. In movies that would be made during the subsequent years of my life, scenes like this would be fodder to laughter. But, then, and now, it brings a pinching sadness. I remember her eyes searching the room. It was surely only a millisecond, but it felt like an eternity, like the whole gym was a massive freight car going over the rail in slow motion. I blinked my eyes, in that slow framed film of memory, and turned my face away, cognizant of the dignity that had been stripped from dear Sister Deutsch, wishing instantly that it had not happened to her. The sound of her hitting the floor, the screams of people who saw it happen, the orchestration of heads turning toward her shame, the instant sorrow in the realization that her sense of self went flying with her wig, straight across that holy space and came to a stop too far for a graceful recovery. I never would have guessed Sister Deutsch wore a wig.
I grew up attending church socials in a sturdy but sterile building we called the Peasant Hills chapel in Jefferson Hills, PA. One particular evening we had gathered as a ward for a pot-luck dinner. I believe it must have been during the chilly months, because Genevieve Deutsch was wearing a coat. I stood near the gold accordion curtain that divides the chapel from the basketball court, the same curtain that would later serve as a backdrop for my wedding line. Tables striped the wall to the left of the stage where, one by one, our brothers and sisters in Christ had added their pot-luck offerings; Beno Mann’s always anticipated strawberry-pretzel Jell-O salad, Connie Spresser’s pork bar-b-que, Ag Payne’s cherry squares. For some reason I cannot recall my own mother’s additions to the culinary fare. She was a spectacular cook, and I am surprised I don’t remember even one specialty she added to the mix. I do recall the aromas, the melding of ethnic flavors, cabbage rolls and chili and chocolate and such, all swirling and bouncing off the cement walls of the gym.
The hall echoed with chatter, and children squealing, and rubber shoes squeaking in the same company as clicking high heels and clunky work boots. I was standing over by the accordion curtain when I caught the action from the corner of my eye. Genevieve Deutsch had entered the hall carrying a cake, or a casserole (what she was carrying is as mysterious as her age to me, a foggy minded teenager at the time). She was dressed in a woolen skirt, like she always wore, and thick nylon stockings. She was plump, and pleasant, and reserved in her ways. As she crossed the gym floor in the direction of the serving tables, her hands holding the dish in front of her, she tripped. She must have tripped. I didn’t really see what happened, I just saw her go down. Her plate went flying with a flash, and at the same moment as the rest of the room fell illogically silent, dead silent, Genevieve’s hair went flying as well. Someone near her bent over and helped her up. I watched from my distant position. They helped her up and she raised her short German arms up above her head, her stubby hands embracing her head, the reality of her thin matted hair exposed and glowing there in the silence of that room. Her wig had slid across the golden varnished floor, landing under the dessert table. In movies that would be made during the subsequent years of my life, scenes like this would be fodder to laughter. But, then, and now, it brings a pinching sadness. I remember her eyes searching the room. It was surely only a millisecond, but it felt like an eternity, like the whole gym was a massive freight car going over the rail in slow motion. I blinked my eyes, in that slow framed film of memory, and turned my face away, cognizant of the dignity that had been stripped from dear Sister Deutsch, wishing instantly that it had not happened to her. The sound of her hitting the floor, the screams of people who saw it happen, the orchestration of heads turning toward her shame, the instant sorrow in the realization that her sense of self went flying with her wig, straight across that holy space and came to a stop too far for a graceful recovery. I never would have guessed Sister Deutsch wore a wig.
I loved Gen Deutsch, though she likely would not have known that. She was not a part of my little active world. But she was the wife of the first Branch President of our little church there in Pleasant Hills. At least the first of my recollection. President Deutsch, who would likely have never asked for such a responsibility, but who accepted it when the calling came, was not a born leader. But he led, nonetheless. We were such a tiny little band of followers then. By the time I was a teenager we had become a small ward, with a real bishop and a gym we had built with our own hard-earned money and our own hands, and a real kitchen. And President Deutsch had grown old, and so had his wife who always stood faithfully beside him in her woolen skirt and thick nylon stockings.
There is not a whole lot I remember about the particulars of our ward dinners. There was always good food, and good feelings, and noise and acceptance. But there is always, also, that memory of the night Gen Deutsch lost her wig. She sealed herself to my heart in that instant. Maybe it was that ward dinner where I tasted my first heaping serving of compassion.
I have an unhealthy fear of falling; have had for years. I have a ridiculous worry that this is how I am going to go down, and by that I mean DOWN. But if it is the vehicle through which I enter the portals of Heaven, I suppose I will see Sister Genevieve Deutsch there and she will embrace me with a full and lustrous head of hair, as will my own mother, and I will join the heavenly pot luck knowing everything works together for our good.
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