swish

As time goes by, certain memories begin to blur and jumble together. It's only fragments remembered and one begins to wonder if the pieces have been put together wrong. Sometimes I used to tell people about some family history with a little riddle, when the conversation turned to such matters. "You know my Grandfather had two wives but he was married three times," I'd say and watch their face for a realization, or wait for them to ask how that is possible, or see that maybe they were not even paying attention. As I came to know the story, Grandad and Grandmother Harvey were divorced, but then got back together, got re-married to each other and tried again. When I asked Grandad about this, he said he really tried to make it work, but it didn't and he didn't really understand why. "I even took her to Europe!" he explained, showing how much effort he put into the thing, illustrating how at least the second divorce was surely not his fault. Grandad's third marriage was to his second wife Carolyn. As far back as I can remember, Grandand & Carolyn were a unit. We would always visit Grandad & Carolyn. When I was young, I never thought to wonder why Grandad & Carolyn lived in Wisconsin and Grandmother & Graggy (our great-grandmother) lived on the other side of the country. I have no memory of when it happened, but I remember Grandad talking about how he met Carolyn. He said he was at some event in Chicago, perhaps some kind of dinner, "and I saw the swish of her skirt and I knew I had to have her." That may not be exactly what he said, in fact, the language doesn't sound quite right for Grandad, but I think the tone conveyed was along those lines. At some point, Carolyn's mother, Mrs. Hayes, came to live with them. She lived in one of the upstairs bedrooms. During one visit when Ross and I were younger, I think she was there and the door was usually closed and we didn't see her too often. She seemed very Southern, formal, proper, distant and perhaps not too fond of children. Or perhaps just rambunctious boys like ourselves. Later when I came to visit by myself, I saw more of her. She would come with us out to eat or shop. I remember an instance of going shopping in downtown Racine and I came around to her side of the car when we stopped and helped her out of the car, and walked with her arm through mine to steady her gait over the rough brick sidewalk. Grandad & Carolyn made kind of a big deal about what a gentleman I was and Mrs. Hayes seemed to warm up to me a bit more after that. I would sometimes sit by the fire with her and talk. Sometimes I couldn't really get what she was saying, so it felt a little bit like a chore, but it was nice and felt like a gift I could give her without too much trouble. She was about a hundred years old then I think. It's possible that some or all of this could be inaccurate. That makes me feel a sense of loss, knowing I had these memories and they were sharp and organized at one point. It makes me remember the English professor who picked me up from Aberdeen airport when I went to Scotland for my junior year of University (he was a Scottish professor of English, not a professor from England). He said, "Keep a journal while you're here. If you do you'll be glad, if you don't you'll regret it." I don't remember his name, but he had red hair. If I had kept a journal I could probably include his name, but I didn't keep a journal while I was there. Nor while I was visiting Grandad & Carolyn and Mrs. Hayes. I found a photo which included Mrs. Hayes, but like my memories, a large portion of the image is occluded.

Mrs. Hayes, Carolyn & Grandad at Wind Point