"Cat Scratch Fever"

 

Six year old me (scars and all!)

            “Lizzy, let Penn in,” my mother directed as she shifted an overloaded bag of groceries onto her right hip and struggled to fit the house key into the back door.

            Penn, our Welsh Terrier, sat obediently at the gate, his little stub tail wagging eagerly in anticipation of entering the house. Penn, a typical Welshie, perked his head to the side in curiosity as his gaze shifted from me to Mom as she opened the back door. Carrying groceries, I elbowed the gate latch up, shifted to butt the gate out of the way, and followed Mom into the house, taking it for granted that our spunky terrier would follow on my heels. After all, we carried food!

            Feeling a whoosh of air around my legs, I spun around to witness a black and tan streak blur out of our yard and head for open spaces.

            “Peeeeeeennnnn! You come back here!” I yelled, dropping the groceries as I leapt down the back steps in pursuit of our dog.

            Now, Penn had a reputation in our neighborhood. A high energy dog, his devotion to my sister, brother and me made him extremely protective of us. My parents returned twice from evenings out to find our babysitter sitting on the back porch, us three kids playing in the kitchen within her sight, and the dog guarding the back door in ferocious dedication. Like most Welsh Terriers, Penn formed his own decisions and would never back down from perceived “danger.” For him, that meant he had to defend his kids at all costs.

            Freedom made him crazy with doggy glee, and he cut across the play area, running in circles around me as I tried to get him to jump into my arms. He’d dash full speed at me, make as if he would come into my embrace, and then veer off wickedly at the last second. Each time he made his circle, he widened the circumference of his loop until his orbit started zipping him into the back yards of our neighbors who didn’t have fences.

Suddenly, he broke from his circular rotation and made a dash to the opposite side of our field, and I pelted after him, my legs pumping like pistons. I’m not certain what happened next. Penn shot across one yard where neighbors had their cat staked out on a super long lead. I remember watching the cat spring straight up in the air, almost like a cartoon, with her fur bristling out and her snarling meow and menacing hiss bringing Penn to a full halt. At that point, I lunged for Penn, but he escaped my tackle attempt and continued on his mad dash. As I got to my feet, the hysterical cat started climbing onto me, digging her claws into my skin as she tried to get onto my shoulders. She dragged her lead with her, tangling my feet and legs. Before I knew it, I hit the ground again. Startled even more, the cat caught my right arm in a death grip and wouldn’t let go.

By this time, Penn sensed my pursuit of him had stopped and circled around in time to see me go down in a free fall with the cat attached to me. Terrier instinct took over, and he swooped in to defend me from the cat by grabbing the cat’s leg and pulling with all his strength. He’d pull and shake, pull and shake, trying to rip the cat free. And the cat’s claws dug deeper and deeper into my arm.

By this time, the entire neighborhood’s on alert! One woman, nine months pregnant, grabbed a broom and started beating Penn over the head, but he ignored each blow. Our next door neighbor, who played often with us and Penn, managed to pull the dog off the cat and haul him away while other kids and adults examined the pulp of my arm.

When my mother ran up, she found me sobbing uncontrollably as blood seeped through my sweater. Always calm in emergencies, she grabbed an offered towel from one neighbor, instructed my sister to get her purse and car keys, told the boy holding Penn to take him back to our yard, and carried me over to the car.

The emergency room staff, of course, knew me. I had enough visits to the ER that my parents worried the nurses would report them for abuse. My injuries, though, always had a bizarre tale attached to them that dovetailed with the physical evidence. Coming in with a clawed up arm and a story of my dog trying to rescue me probably topped the list. With efficiency, the nurses cleaned my ripped fingers and doused gallons of antibiotic scrub on the deep punctures the cat’s claws gouged into my arm. The doctor took a look at their handiwork, gave me another shot of penicillin for good measure, and sent us on our way.

Within a few days, the fever started. My arm throbbed constantly and overnight the wounds began oozing white puss. Another trip to the ER had the young doctor pouring over his medical books to diagnose Cat Scratch Disease. He changed my antibiotics, gave explicit instructions on how to care for my wounds, and sent us on our way. Every day, I’d head to the school nurse’s office to have my injury cleaned and new bandages placed on my arm. At first, the nurse would cringe and grimace at the seeping mess. Eventually, the antibiotics kicked in and the fever and infection went away.

I still carry the scars on my arm from my encounter with Cat Scratch Fever. Fortunately, I never attached any type of trauma or phobia to the participants in this event. I still love dogs and cats, and I don’t panic when I see pregnant women waving around brooms! I’ve never met another person who also contracted the disease, so as a child I enjoyed my notoriety that the disease afforded me. Finally, I survived the years of teasing from my family that I endured once Ted Nugent’s song hit the airwaves.   

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

           

“Cleanliness is Next to Obsessiveness”

 

 

            The other day, I theorized with a friend that the tangle of a childhood spent in base housing still impacts my life fifty years later. While some of my friends grew up surrounded by clutter, our military routine of moving every three or four years meant we traveled lean and mean. My mother never feared the demanding, detailed inspections of our housing since she cleaned everything all the time. She assigned me and my siblings age appropriate duties that were completed daily, weekly, or monthly. My sister’s expertise became dish washer extraordinaire. The iron became my weapon of choice as I stood for hours pressing Dad’s white handkerchiefs or the bed sheets that had wrinkled down into a tight ball.

            My siblings abhor housework. They both attend to the necessities: dishes, laundry, lawns, shopping. They managed, somehow, to escape the flaw I ironed into my personality. Before retiring from the classroom, I drove myself and my family into exhaustion by expecting everyone to reach my unrealistic standards for the house. Fingerprints never lasted on any painted wall. Base boards gleamed. No one ever checked over my door frames, because in real life, they don’t matter. But a white glove test could’ve been run at any time with perfect results.

            Doing less never worked for me. Letting things “go” slung me into anxiety attacks. As time passed, I can embrace the freedom of my husband and son having their space to putter in without going ballistic at their creative messes. Imagine my delight when I retrained my brain to close doors on rooms that are not my territory!

            In retirement, the grace of having time translates into set days for different chores. Monday we “market” with grocery runs and other errands. Tuesdays, if the weather’s not too hot or cold, go to either cleaning the car or doing yard work. Wash days are Wednesdays. Thursdays turned into the hardest day for me: NO CHORE THURSDAY. I read, watch television, and do only projects that bring me bliss. I hold onto Mom’s Friday drill: bathrooms top to bottom, dusting, and floors just in case unexpected company arrives.

            I’d like to say that my expectations have lightened up over the years, but then I’d be lying to everyone!     

 

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Cows in the Road"

 

In route to Doolin, Ireland Sept. 2010

          When my father first met my mother, he told her he and his family owned “land in Texas.” Although my mother’s family no longer owned their farm in Illinois, others in her family still farmed their acreage. Visions of Giant must have briefly flashed through my mother’s mind until my father jokingly admitted that the “land” consisted of the two plots his parents and aunt owned in League City, Texas. My mother, interested more in Dad’s good looks than his possible oil rigs or herds of cattle, married him anyway.

          As a couple, my parents moved frequently. During the first few years, Dad’s training took him to twenty-four different places, and my mother followed him each time. In later years, they entertained us kids with tales of Texas Panhandle dust, Shreveport gumbo, and Florida lizards big enough to ride. By the time I came along, Dad had completed his training and began three or four year assignments in exotic places like New Jersey and Delaware. After a year in Vietnam, Dad decided to say goodbye to Air Force life and retired in San Antonio, Texas. He wished to be closer to his own aging mother and great aunt, who still resided on the family “estate” in League City, but he didn’t want to be too close.

          My siblings and I, transplanted so many times in our childhood, fixed deep roots in Texas. If you heard my sister speak, you’d never suspect she’d lived anywhere but here. Having spent from the age of two to five in New Jersey, I had a different accent for quite a while, and my blended twang belongs uniquely to me. My brother, somehow, escaped the Texas drawl. All three of us have never thought about leaving the state. As a matter of fact, my brother lives in my parents’ home while Mom’s living with us. My sister and her husband landed in Bay City after they graduated from college thirty-seven years ago, and David and I settled back in San Antonio as soon as I graduated from college.

          Now, I don’t go around claiming Texas is the grandest state in the nation. Nor do I deride others for living in different states. Most of the time, I muddle through each day without much claim to “Texas Pride.” When we travel to other states, I enjoy the beauty and unique features of each place, but I’ve always been glad to return home—until Ireland.

          David and I try to spend our vacations in new places, but we talk of returning to Ireland eventually. On our last trek up to our cabin in the Hill Country, the summer’s drought scorched everything in sight. The contrast to Ireland’s lush green made me wince. Clouds of dust enveloped our SUV as we snaked down our rocky road, and we stopped for some cows in the road.  Instantly, I transported to another street. This lane, slicked wet by an earlier rain, rolled among soft green hills. We paused in our journey on this faraway track because of cows in the road.

          I know the “What if we leave Texas?” temptation is only a game we play. We’ll cling to our soft hills, green only in the spring, and our winding rugged roads because our roots have fastened themselves so deeply below the rocky ground (probably in search of water).

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Summer Games-Red Rover"

            Our quarters at Dover A.F.B. lent itself to play. Laid out in the pattern of a giant U, base housing had a row of attached houses to the right, center, and left. The front doors and yards of the houses faced outside the U, and we rarely played in that area where the perfectly clipped and edged lawns and pristine white sidewalks reminded us that the families enlisted in the military along with their fathers and mothers. The back doors of our homes dumped into a common play area. Some families, like us, put up fences around their yards for their dogs. Other families kept their back yards open to the field. A huge black topped parking lot filled the cup of the U and provided not only a slot for the family car, but also the perfect roller skating and skate boarding surface. Beyond the parking lot, toward the center was The Field.

            In this field, we played together on endless summer nights. Roaming the area like a pack of stray dogs, all the kids from our section shifted in play from football to baseball to games like “Crack the Whip” and “Mother, May I?” Some evenings, when we gathered a large enough group after dinner, we’d divide into two teams to play “Red Rover.”

            “Red Rover” intimidated me. My pixie sized body rarely broke through the linked hands, meaning I became captured round after round.  The other team never failed to get delight in watching my futile attempt. Every time they sang, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Lizzy right over!” I’d critically analyze the opposing line for the weakest link. My heart pounded, my breathing picked up, and my little scrawny legs pumped furiously as I flew across the distance to fling myself at the selected spot. I tried torqueing my body at the last second to add force to my plunge, but it never mattered.  The hands never broke free. I’d hang like a wet rag, winded and ashamed while guffaws and catcalls erupted from both teams.

            I learned strategy and tenacity from playing “Red Rover” because I didn’t give up. I could have opted out of this game, retreated to the safety of home and a piece of Mom’s fresh baked pound cake. Or I could have pretended I wanted to play on the slides and swings with the other younger kids. Something in my personality drew me into this challenge, and the humiliation of defeat after defeat never swayed me from my desire to play. Perhaps all of these summer games of childhood served more purpose than keeping us out from underfoot at home. I learned teamwork, tactical planning, perseverance, and doggedness. I tasted victory and survived loss—all of these elements necessary in maneuvering through adulthood’s life games.

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Summer Begins"

 

Summer begins  

shedding stress by    

lusting for Father Ralph  

I become Meggie   

slipping into heartbreak  

reliving my own devotion  

veiling my Catholic guilt under Italian lace 

missal clutched in small, white-gloved hand   

crystal Rosary, blessed by Pius XII,  

soothing my restless fingers  

his Irish brogue a supple song   

his blue eyes like laughter

he kneels before me, eye-to-eye   

proposes a date  

he’ll be my father—  

a surrogate breaking bread 

erasing my disappointment 

drying my tears with his finger tips  

tugging my hand to the crook of his arm 

his brilliance dazzles me

my heart worships him 

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

 

"Veterans Day"

           “Is that Daddy?” queried four-year-old Lizzy as she pointed her finger at a man dressed in green fatigues.
         The young mother squeezed her daughter’s hand tighter as she answered, “No. I’ll tell you what you need to do. Look at the caps the men are wearing. Your daddy’s cap is dirty.”

         Ten-year-old Paula nodded in affirmation. “Dad needs a new hat.”

         Restlessly, the two children watched as airmen purposefully strode across the tarmac. Suddenly, Lizzy tugged free of her mother’s grasp and dashed toward a man wearing a dirty hat. She wrapped her arms tightly around his legs in the tightest bear hug her little arms could muster. The young man attempted to disengage himself from the small child, his face growing red as he scanned the area.
         “Elizabeth Anne,” the girl’s mother dashed forward. “This man isn’t your daddy!”
         “But his cap is really dirty!” Lizzy exclaimed earnestly.

         The airman pulled his cap into his hands, embarrassed by the child’s observation and confusion.

         “My husband’s been on a long TDY,” the mother explained.
         “I understand completely,” the man said as he sidestepped the little family and continued on his way.

         Hand on hip and head shaking in disapproval of her little sister’s faux pas, Paula pointed to another cluster of men approaching the fence line. “There he is!”
        And there he was! Dad with a brand new cap cocked on his head. He jogged away from the other men and scooped his girls into his arms.

Karl F. Abrams--circa 1948

         For years, my family teased me about the time I flung my arms around the man with the dirtiest cap, converting the story into a running joke that I threw myself at men. As an adult, though, I realize how much that childish mistake must have stung both of my parents. My mother did her best to talk about Dad when he left on long trips, but keeping his image strong in the mind of a four-year-old proved an almost impossible task. Tight on money, my parents didn’t have many photographs of each other around the house. After my mistake, my father gave me dashing picture of himself from when he first joined the Air Force to keep in my room.

         For Veterans Day, we pause to honor the men and women who serve in our military, but we should also reflect upon the sacrifice the families make. When a young man or woman decides to serve our country, his or her entire family becomes a military member. The soldier misses birthdays, Christmases, and anniversaries. The soldier misses that first step, the lost front tooth, the touchdown, and the first broken heart. Every moment of every day, the families of these men and women ache for the lost moments. Our tributes to these veterans must recognize the full scope of their sacrifices.

copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"The Middle Child"

Middle child   

between curly hair with doe brown eyes   

and an only son   

one five years ahead, the other five behind   

imitating the elder while   

lingering in childhood with the younger   

envying her poised elegance and   

longing for his sweet innocence   

Middle child   

between worldliness and naiveté   

flanked by her play for independence   

and his everlasting childhood   

expecting more from myself   

learning by her mistakes   

benefiting when parents learn   

it’s something kids just do   

Middle child   

between reserved solitude   

and gentle attachment   

becoming reliable and resilient   

out of necessity and then habit   

passing white glove inspections   

knitting and purling the blanket of family   

needing its comforting warmth   

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Veterans Day"

           “Is that Daddy?” queried four-year-old Lizzy as she pointed her finger at a man dressed in green fatigues.
         The young mother squeezed her daughter’s hand tighter as she answered, “No. I’ll tell you what you need to do. Look at the caps the men are wearing. Your daddy’s cap is dirty.”

         Ten-year-old Paula nodded in affirmation. “Dad needs a new hat.”

         Restlessly, the two children watched as airmen purposefully strode across the tarmac. Suddenly, Lizzy tugged free of her mother’s grasp and dashed toward a man wearing a dirty hat. She wrapped her arms tightly around his legs in the tightest bear hug her little arms could muster. The young man attempted to disengage himself from the small child, his face growing red as he scanned the area.
         “Elizabeth Anne,” the girl’s mother dashed forward. “This man isn’t your daddy!”
         “But his cap is really dirty!” Lizzy exclaimed earnestly.

         The airman pulled his cap into his hands, embarrassed by the child’s observation and confusion.

         “My husband’s been on a long TDY,” the mother explained.
         “I understand completely,” the man said as he sidestepped the little family and continued on his way.

         Hand on hip and head shaking in disapproval of her little sister’s faux pas, Paula pointed to another cluster of men approaching the fence line. “There he is!”
And there he was! Dad with a brand new cap cocked on his head. He jogged away from the other men and scooped his girls into his arms.

Karl F. Abrams--circa 1948

         For years, my family teased me about the time I flung my arms around the man with the dirtiest cap, converting the story into a running joke that I threw myself at men. As an adult, though, I realize how much that childish mistake must have stung both of my parents. My mother did her best to talk about Dad when he left on long trips, but keeping his image strong in the mind of a four-year-old proved an almost impossible task. Tight on money, my parents didn’t have many photographs of each other around the house. After my mistake, my father gave me dashing picture of himself from when he first joined the Air Force to keep in my room.

         For Veterans Day, we pause to honor the men and women who serve in our military, but we should also reflect upon the sacrifice the families make. When a young man or woman decides to serve our country, his or her entire family becomes a military member. The soldier misses birthdays, Christmases, and anniversaries. The soldier misses that first step, the lost front tooth, the touchdown, and the first broken heart. Every moment of every day, the families of these men and women ache for the lost moments. Our tributes to these veterans must recognize the full scope of their sacrifices.

copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman