Esther Williams and the chicken house

Who do you want to be when you grow up?  Not what but “whom”.   If you had asked me that when I was a little girl I could have told you without even thinking…..Esther Williams.

Summers my parents and I went to my Grand Parent’s home for a couple of weeks every summer.  My very best friend was my cousin, Theresa, and we spent the long, hot summer days playing together.  Sometimes those summer days included a movie at the Dixie Theatre, and my favorites were the Esther Williams extravaganzas.

It never occurred to me as we sat gobbling popcorn in the dark theatre that there was anything odd about a story line that always ended up in the water.  There she was…underwater with a smile that bordered on a grimace, her bulging eyes looking straight into the camera.   She was the Hollywood mermaid, and I wanted to be just like her when I grew up.    

After the movie we’d hustle back to Grandma’s house to play, and I can still see two little blonde girls running to the “chicken house” to play with the trunk of old curtains and linens kept there.   We’d call out, “I’m Esther Williams”....”No!  I called it first!”…..”Nu-uh!  I called it first!” as we charged off to play.  After deciding who got to be Esther we’d play the rest of the day, pretending to be bathing suited movie stars…performing water ballets and synchronized swim moves as we ran through the orchard with old lace curtains trailing behind us.  Theresa would tell you I always got my way, I was always Esther Williams.  That’s just not true, and since I’m writing this I get to tell it my way.

The outbuilding we used as a playhouse was always dubbed the “chicken house” because Grandma had kept chickens there at one time.  After giving up on the pesky creatures she wasn’t one to waste a perfectly good outbuilding.  The “chicken house” sat full of wonderful treasures for two little girls to enjoy.  Old tableware, mismatched dishes, a few old pieces of furniture and some lawn chairs.  Even the big cast iron, wood burning kitchen stove that had provided heat, hot water and great meals for so many years now lived there.   Those old curtains became our costumes, and tied around our heads they were long, flowing hair.  Covering old lawn chairs made them elegant furnishings; the wormy apples we scavenged from the orchard and the grapes that grew there were mashed and smashed into meals that we ate and forced on anyone who was unfortunate enough to check on us.  Ah yes….I remember the crampy bellys of summer quite well.

I don’t remember my Grand Mother raising chickens, but I do have memories of her preparing them for the food chain.   Those memories keep me from enjoying meat to this day.   I still cannot eat any meat in recognizable body parts.   Chicken legs or wings?   No, thank you.  I’m absolutely worthless at a hog roast, and my Thanksgiving turkey is usually a couple of turkey breasts that are anonymous enough for me to eat.  If it’s the whole turkey I indulge in the big selection of trimmings we always enjoy and forgo the main course.   There is a great health benefit from living close to the land, but there is no way to forget living close to the chain of protein that ends up on the dining room table.    I am marked for life.

Watching Esther Williams swim gracefully across the screen so long ago I decided I was going to be her when I grew up, and I think Theresa was of the same mind.   I eventually grew up to run radio stations and now edit Heart of Ohio Magazine…..Theresa is a realtor.   Neither of us ever learned how to swim a stroke; today we are still two career gals who don’t like to get their hair wet. 

I think it’s time for me to take a road trip to visit my cousin so we can sit on her deep, shady front porch.  We can relax in the swing that hangs from chains and go through our mental scrap books together…and laugh.   When we were little girls she always hated the fact that I was older. Now that we are “mature women” she loves to remind me that I am the elder by two years and eleven months.    I think she’s just jealous because I’m Esther Williams. 

                                             Yes….I definitely feel a visit coming on.

                                                                  Life is Good