Suzy Barile, Writer

A Whole Life in Literature

2011-01-30T07:36:00.001-08:00

This piece appeared in the Jan. 28 News & Observer (Raleigh, NC).

By Suzy Barile

HARMONY -- As a young reporter for The Henderson Daily Dispatch, one of my "beats" was Warren County - its school board and county commissioners, the town councils of Warrenton and Norlina, the ill-fated Soul City, then in its heyday, and occasional activities in Macon and Littleton.

Though I spent just two years at the Dispatch, it was long enough to be introduced to Reynolds Price. The author was a favorite son of Warren County - born in Macon and raised in Norlina, both of which figure prominently in several of his novels. Residents were proud of the young man who had graduated from Duke and Oxford universities, then been hired by Duke to teach composition.

By the time I happened upon him, he'd been teaching nearly 20 years and already had published a highly acclaimed first novel "A Long and Happy Life," and added "The Names and Faces of Heroes," "A Generous Man" and "Permanent Errors," among others. The Henderson library never had a better customer as I devoured his works, taken in by the narrative voice that his colleague James A. Schiff once described as ranging from "austere, solemn, detached and at times, even biblical or oracular in nature."

Tt was Price's way with words that captivated me: "They observed Papa's birthday with a freezer of cream even if it was the dead of winter, and they had given him a Morris chair that was not brand-new but was what he had always wanted. The next morning he was sick, and nobody could figure the connection between such nice hand-turned cream that Rato almost froze to death making and a tired heart which was what he had according to Dr. Sledge."

Readers could "see" the stories he told and "hear" the characters speak, relating to their plights, their joys and their sorrows. I relished his work - bragging to those to whom I'd recommend him that he'd written not only novels but plays and poetry and memoirs and essays and songs - the lyrics to James Taylor's "Copperline" and "New Hymn" - even published his personal writing journals.

But it was Price's voice itself - that "deep, lovely voice," noted former student and novelist Josephine Humphreys - that soothed me. I never passed up a chance to attend a public reading or lecture. His pauses, often at the end of a descriptive phrase, even if it wasn't the end of a sentence, delighted me. When I read his words, I could hear him reading them to me: "Papa said 'Tired of what?' and refused to go to any hospital. He said he would die at home if it was his time, but the family saw it different so they took him to Raleigh..."

During a reading at Quail Ridge Books in late 2007, Price spoke of his own mortality. It wasn't an unusual topic: In "A Whole New Life," the memoir of his bout with cancer, he shared an encounter with Jesus and the healing he'd been promised. Now, 20 years later and nearly 75, he acknowledged that death was a certainty.

Never hear his voice again? Never hear that wryness with which he broached ideas about which he was passionate, that careful placement of words and phrases? I purchased his memoir in audio - "author and reader," the cover claimed - and placed it intentionally, yet unopened, on the bookshelf containing my Reynolds Price collection.

At the conclusion of "A Whole New Life," Price described his writing after cancer: "The books are different from what came before in more ways than age. ...Even my handwriting looks very little like the script of the man I was in June of '84. Cranky as it is, it's taller, more legible, with more air and stride. It comes from the arms of a grateful man."

This grateful man, who enjoyed 50-plus years of a prolific and varied writing and teaching career, died Jan. 20 following a heart attack. As are other fans, I am grateful for that career. And one day soon I will unwrap and listen to the audiotape, certain that for me his words will live on.

Shannon, Illinois, History One That Generates Pride

2011-01-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

By Suzy Barile

In this world of social networking, with self-promotion at our fingertips, it’s easy to get information about oneself out into “the world.” But is that what’s best when tackling a serious matter such as a review of artwork or a film or a book? Can we legitimately review ourselves and not seem self-serving?

I’d say “NO!” if asked by my Intro to Journalism students. Yet as I paged through Shannon, Illinois: 100 Years – 1860-2010 published late last year by the town’s 2010 Sesquicentennial Committee, I couldn’t help but want to issue a glowing review, despite the fact that it includes a piece I wrote on one of the town’s first physicians, my great-great uncle Richard Caswell Swain.

At 272 pages, Shannon, Illinois is a comfortably-sized hard-cover, coffee-table-worthy book jam-packed with history, anecdotes, celebrations, and photographs about a town that was “founded in 1860” and chartered in 1869, but had its stirrings some 40 years earlier as settlers headed west in search of new lives found lead in the mines of the prairies of Illinois – lead for making ammunition, vessels, pipes, roofs, tanks, coffins; the list goes on and on. So many settlers arrived that by the time the Village of Shannon became an official town, it already had farms and homes, a railroad stop, churches, a hotel, and a school, everything any growing and thriving town needs.

I knew little of Shannon until I began the research into my ancestor. He moved there to practice medicine at the behest of his brother-in-law, Freeport, Illinois, postmaster, lawyer, and newspaper editor Smith D. Atkins, a former Union soldier who saw promise in this man who also had served during the Civil War -- as an assistant surgeon for the Confederacy -- and apparently suffered from what today is called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In the 1860s, however, he was a drinker, among the thousands of soldiers who came home from the war damaged, labeled as suffering from hysteria, melancholia, and insanity. Swain seemed unfit to treat anyone, until his sister’s husband intervened.

His move to Shannon in late 1865 was apparently a welcome one for residents of the village, as he immediately began seeing patients, soon building a thriving practice. His wife and daughter followed him in early 1866, just as talk of incorporation was taking place, and he continued treating his neighbors until a train accident in January 1872: While attempting to board, he somehow slipped and was pulled onto the tracks. He was killed instantly.

Swain was not the only doctor to serve Shannon and its surroundings, and he and others who made the town what it is are remembered fondly in chapters entitled “People of Our Town,” “Businesses of the Past,” “Businesses of Today,” and “Memories.” Readers will learn about the area’s first residents, its first businesses, the groups and organizations that were a part of a growing farming community, and most importantly, about Shannon today.

It took a little more than a year for the Souvenir Committee of the Sesquicentennial Committee to raise the funds and gather information – stories and photographs -- for Shannon, Illinois, the second such publication to examine the town’s beginnings (a paperback titled A Memento of Shannon, Illinois Centennial Celebration 1860-1960 was produced for that milestone). This newest committee’s success is reflected in the new volume’s “Introduction”: “It has been a very exciting journey. We have learned a lot … To the best of our knowledge, we have done our best to issue a Shannon Book to be proud of…”

If my words have been self-serving, my apologies. If they make you want to order Shannon, Illinois, then such self-servance has been well worth it!

(Shannon, Illinois: 150 Years – 1860-2010 was designed and produced by its editor and Foreston, ILL, resident Kathy Pasch and printed by Walsworth Printing Group of Marceline, MO. It is available by contacting Carolyn Deininger, Box 626, Shannon, IL 61078.)

Supporting Others a Good home-Remedy

2010-09-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

By Suzy Barile

“Sorry, we’re getting ready to move,” I said, pointing out the “For Sale By Owner” sign by the sidewalk to the young Cary High football player who rang our doorbell on a hot Saturday afternoon and asked if I’d like to buy a coupon book to support the team.

But then he asked if I’d like to make a donation. “Let me see if I have any money,” I replied.

Patiently he waited. Waited as my dog continued to bark because she thinks anyone coming to the door – well, actually, anyone within her eye-and-ear shot -- wants to be her friend. Waited while I went upstairs to find my purse, all the while wondering what an appropriate donation was to replace the “no thanks” I’d already given to the $20 coupon book. Waited while years of fundraising events flashed through my memory.

So what if I was moving? Couldn’t I support the local high school football team? My own daughter had played soccer all four years at Enloe High.

What about the dozens of fundraisers Jen had participated in? There were red velvet holiday bows for the Cary Sister City’s youth trip to Le Touquet, France, and cookies sales for Girl Scouts, and T-shirts for church youth group, and tickets for “The Little Match Girl,” “The Music Man” and “Spring Dance Recital,” and the two quarters I sent weekly for pencils from the Lacy Elementary School store. She never did use them – they were too pretty to sharpen.

What about the fundraising I’d participated in over the years? Most especially were the Beanie Baby auction and yard sales and brick sales and Lazy Daze food booths to fund the Kids Together Playground. Ten years of raising money. I always hoped no one I asked to help would say “no.”

What about my mom, who was a substitute teacher during the late 1980s and early 1990s? She’d loved teaching, supported every student fundraiser, even annual yearbook sales. When she battled cancer, dozens of Cary High students sent her well-wishes, then came to her memorial service after she lost the fight.

What about all those years I’d worked at The Cary News, writing editorials and covering stories about making Cary a better place to live?

I couldn’t have been gone two minutes.

“I’ll take the coupons and give them to my sister,” I said, holding out a check.

The young man appeared puzzled, then saw the check was for $20. He handed me a coupon book, offered his thanks, and turned and walked away, clearly with no idea that his polite request for me to support the Cary High Imps football team had led to such a soul-searching journey.

“Have a good season,” I replied.

copyright 2010

Remembering Ronny Jones

2010-03-26T20:21:00.001-07:00

NOTE: Though this was not read at Ronny's funeral at Harmony United Methodist Church, it was shared with the family.

By Suzy Barile

Many of you today are thinking, I suspect, exactly what I am: We wish our reason for being together would go away, that we would awaken from this bad dream. But try as we have, we have awakened to the same reality. Our wish has not come true. And so we are forced to face what seems the unthinkable – life without Ronny Jones.

I am a relative newcomer to the Jones family. My daughter and I – my entire family, in fact -- “married in,” as they say. Yet there was no trial period, no testing of the waters to make certain we fit. Shirley and Ronny Jones made certain of that – and not just with us, but with everyone they met. No one was a stranger after stepping inside the Jones home.

Ronny was my mother-in-law’s first cousin’s husband. My husband John called him “Uncle” Ronny. I did the same, and I did it often, especially when we began coming to Harmony on a regular basis while working on a plan to renovate John’s grandparents’ house, just down the road from Ronny and Shirley. I spent two summers here, often alone when John was working, and sometimes with family and friends visiting.

Being alone meant that when I found yellow jackets in the yard, I called on Uncle Ronny to take care of them. The afternoon I watered the yard after planting grass seed and depleted the well’s reservoir so it made an awful grinding noise, I called Uncle Ronny. When my sister and nephews came for a visit, and we were accidentally locked out of the house, we called Uncle Ronny. At this point, I must underscore the “we,” because those nephews – Jack and Joseph and Jesse – thought Ronny was their uncle, as well, and he never told them differently. They never hesitated to ride their bikes down the road to see if Uncle Ronny was there to visit for awhile or to have him fix a sticking bike fender or to ask for whatever it was they needed. “We’ll go get Uncle Ronny,” they would say when problems arose.

But we are not the only ones who would call on Ronny, and as when we called, he never hesitated to stop what he was doing to lend a hand. Many a veteran’s family gravitated to his warm smile as he traveled around Iredell County, representing the American Legion at veterans’ memorial services. He was on one committee or another at this church and served his hometown of Harmony in a variety of ways. He never lost touch with those he worked with, even after his retirement. Uncle Ronny loved his family and his friends and his neighbors as fervently as Jesus had commanded him to do – and he did it the right way: loving them as he did himself.

The selfishness of why we have gathered cannot be overlooked, either. We are here because we loved Ronny, because we appreciated that he did always drop whatever he was doing to help us or comfort us or offer us sage advice. And we are asking: Who will do that now?

For me and John, who will convince the company that is to dig our new well that it must be dug where Ronny doused for water? Who will show us how to plant our very first Harmony garden this summer? Who will talk basketball and football with me? Who will drop what he is doing when any of us calls?

And who will greet us as Ronny always did: “Hey, Jowhn. Hey, Suuuzy”? I’m certain he drawled your name as he did ours!

Yes, we all must now face the unthinkable – life without Ronny Jones. It is something not one of us, I am certain, wants to do.

Remembering Roy Turner

2010-01-25T07:12:00.000-08:00

By Suzy Barile

Dr. Roy C. Turner came into my life the summer of 1975, immediately after my graduation from UNC-Chapel Hill. He was married to Elaine Eiselstein, my mother’s best friend since kindergarten, and while I had met him when I was younger, not until I accepted a reporter’s job at The Messenger in Madison, and became a regular in the Turner home, did I truly get to know this good man.

Though I’d been away from my family in Northern Virginia since heading to college, there’s something about setting out on one’s own that brings a bit of homesickness. No sooner were boxes unpacked in my small rental house on Sunset Avenue than I was invited to dinner in Eden once a week: "Make certain to bring your laundry," Dr. Turner added.

At 15 miles, the distance between Madison and Eden was not great, but I made the weekly trip via a route that took me along the country roads between Madison, Wentworth and Reidsville, as I restocked The Messenger’s newspaper racks in a dozen or so country stores. By the time I reached Eden, I was famished and ready for one of the hearty meals Roy and Elaine enjoyed cooking together. My laundry promptly went into the washer, and for the next couple of hours, I was one of the family.

Eden became familiar territory over the next 12 months. Being “adopted” as I was by the Turners, I took part in a variety of activities. I never played golf, as was Roy’s custom on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons after a busy optometrist's schedule, but I learned my way around downtown, occasionally did stories on residents of the former Leaksville, Draper, and Spray, and eagerly looked forward to the weekly get-together for food and friendship and, often, wise counsel.

It was Dr. Turner who discovered I needed glasses when every photo I took for The Messenger was out of focus. It was he who helped replace my 1967 VW with a 1973 Carolina blue one when the old one developed a carbon monoxide leak. And it was he who advised me in no uncertain terms that I needed to look for another job when it was clear to him, though not immediately to me, that my reporting position was coming to an end.

In June of 1976, I left Madison and headed to the Daily Dispatch in Henderson, NC. Other newspapers and towns and states followed before I settled in Raleigh, and for the next 30 years, my visits to Eden were limited to about once a year, or when I’d make the drive to get my eyes examined. But year in and year out, the connection remained. When I had a little girl, when I remarried, when my mother died, Roy and Elaine were there. And when December arrives, my family patiently awaits delivery of a large bin of popcorn – “love from the Turners,” says the tag. Christmas is here, says my family.

No holiday or special event or family gathering will ever be the same, for Roy Turner will not be there. But those who encountered him during his 50-plus years serving the residents of Eden will remember a man who said what he meant, believed what he said, and gave his all to whatever he committed to do. He laughed heartily and hugged mightily and loved completely. He was a good man.

(Copyright 2010)

Emma

2009-07-01T06:02:00.000-07:00

By Suzy Barile

“Does Emma know she absolutely cannot die on a Monday?” I asked my brother-in-law, Michael. We were in the lobby of the emergency room, waiting for Dr. Anderson to emerge and tell us what he’d found during my mother-in-law Emma’s latest trip to the hospital.

“Does she realize that Cynthia would never cancel her Circle meeting for her own mother’s funeral?”

My voice dripped with sarcasm. This weekly Thursday afternoon meeting of Cynthia’s, where she supposedly coordinated all the behind-the-scenes volunteer activities for her church, had been the bane of our caretaking efforts for Emma over the last few months, ever since she’d been diagnosed with inoperable colon cancer.

Never mind that this was Emma’s third bout with the disease that had also taken the lives of her older sister, her father, and her youngest brother. Never mind that even while undergoing aggressive chemotherapy, she continued to care for her grandchildren – Cynthia's children, and there were five in all, from age 16 down to 3 -- as her middle daughter worked dead-end job after dead-end job.

No, Cynthia had never in the dozen or so years I’d been married to her oldest brother been able to let go of any sliver of her own self-importance long enough to think of anyone else. I often wondered if her children saw it. Did they feel put upon, especially as the oldest children cared for the younger ones -- changing diapers, putting them to bed, entertaining them during Cynthia's favorite weekly television show?

Their father, Thomas, had died two years before – a heart attack, the doctor said. He failed to note the fact that Thomas had been in another woman’s arms when fatally struck.

With a modest life insurance payout and the children’s Social Security benefits, Cynthia had tried to continue living in the manner she imagined a middle-class widow would. There were dance lessons for the girls and music for the boys, but no sports, Cynthia insisted. She feared the children would be injured, even in a non-contact sport such as swimming or tennis. It was probably just as well. Their after-school activities changed as often as Cynthia did jobs. No team or teammate would ever be able to depend on a long-term commitment.

Emma always said her daughter's problem with keeping a job was because none of her employers ever realized or understood the stress placed on Cynthia as a single parent. But truthfully, her high school education afforded few career choices, and if Cynthia wasn’t late for work, then she was having to make up time. She was always running late, even when it came to picking up the children at her mother’s house where the youngest three stayed. When Cynthia tired of the chaos, she’d quit her job and vow to find something more amenable to her lifestyle needs.

Everyone knew her ways, even my family members. They had attended enough joint events over the years with my husband’s family. My sisters simply said, “That’s Cynthia,” each time she was late to a family get-together or complained of unreasonable work hours and difficult bosses.

Yet more and more, her no-one-else-in-the-world-matters attitude was playing out in her children. When the younger ones were at their grandmother's house, they loved to make mess, but never cleaned up. The older children's grades showed a lack of study and interest in homework, and regularly they were called into the principal’s office for mischievous deeds. Cynthia called the misdeeds "cute pranks" and never punished one child.

It was no wonder, then, that when she was asked to head the women’s Circle at her church, all who knew her well wondered how she’d manage it. This volunteer effort involved making certain there were flowers on the altar each Sunday morning, that the communion plates and cups were cleaned and polished after each use, that cards were sent weekly to parishioners in need of prayers, and that staffing was found each week for the nursery during the two-hour Sunday school and church service.

With five children, and a mother on the verge of dying, there was no way Cynthia's ways would or could change. But because she didn't see these problems in her life, and apparent those who asked her to serve didn't either, she agreed to head the group during the upcoming church year.

Silly women, I thought, when I heard Cynthia had been tapped to lead the Circle. They'll soon learn they can’t trust her to follow through on anything, not even with delegating tasks.

No sooner had fall activities at the church gotten under way when all her family knew about her became clear to the women in the Circle -- as well as to other church members. Because Cynthia never got around to delegating any tasks, and certainly (she said) couldn't be expected to do them all herself, Saturday evenings found one or another Circle member making phone calls to see who had flowers in bloom in their garden, or running by the grocery store to find and purchase the least-sad-looking bouquet.

On Wednesday before the first Sunday of each month, when the church held its communion service, two sopranos (also members of the Circle) met after choir practice to rinse off any sticky cups and wipe away any tarnish spots on the plates.

And thank goodness for the church secretary who began keeping a supply of prayer cards and envelopes, stamps, and a membership roster at hand so when the self-appointed card sender stopped by Monday morning, all was ready.

The task of getting help for the nursery, however, was a whole other problem. Young parents weary of their own charges looked forward to a couple hours of calm on Sundays and seldom signed up to help. Each week, frantic calls went out late on Saturday afternoon, trying to catch those planning to attend Sunday school and the church service and coercing them into watching over the roomful of rambunctious babies and toddlers.

As usual, Cynthia was oblivious to what went on behind her back while she enjoyed the status of being leader of the Circle. At its monthly meetings, the good church women who made up its membership never said a word to Cynthia. Instead, they chose to count down the Sundays until spring when her leadership role ended. They also agreed to rotate the task from that point on.

Despite the fact that Cynthia did none of the work assigned to her circle, much less serve as a responsible leader, she surely would never miss a monthly meeting. Waiting for Dr. Anderson to speak to us, I reiterated to Michael what I knew to be true: "If Emma dies on a Monday, the funeral will most likely be on Thursday, three days later.

“Cynthia won’t cancel her meeting for anyone.”

Michael was a bachelor who lived far enough away that he was called on to help only every once in awhile. He shrugged and replied, “Well, you know Cynthia.”

Just then Dr. Anderson emerged through the double doors separating the lobby from the emergency room examining area. Grave concern showed on his face.

“It doesn’t look good,” he said. “The CAT scan shows the tumors have spread more aggressively than we’d have liked. I think the best we can do is keep her comfortable.”

And so it was that when Emma breathed her final breath, at 12:05 a.m. on a Tuesday, Cynthia also breathed a sigh of relief. The funeral, planned for three days later, would be on Friday.

Saying Good-bye to Memories

2009-07-01T05:54:00.000-07:00

By Suzy Barile

When is it considered too soon after they leave home to give away your children’s belongings? In my case, my youngest sister took over my bedroom after I moved into an apartment my junior year of college and took very nearly everything I owned – which wasn’t much considering I was the oldest of seven!! Each time I came home for a visit, I was “allowed” to sleep in “her” room.

My daughter, however, is an only child, and for seven years was the only grandchild on both sides of a family that included seven adoring aunts and uncles and four sets of grandparents. As you can imagine, over the course of her infancy and toddlerhood, and from pre-school through 12th grade, we saved a lot of stuff. In what we labeled “forever save” boxes are Jen’s schoolwork, souvenirs from travels, trinkets from shopping trips to the mall, special items she just couldn’t part with, and countless dolls and stuffed animals.

For many parents, school projects and favorite toys provide the most difficulty when it comes to deciding just what goes and what stays. And for how many years? For example, I have living in a basket at the foot of my bed Oglethorpe, a teddy bear who was bigger than me when my Uncle Bill proudly presented him after I was born, plus my baby doll Tootles, who is missing hair and fingers, clothes and shoes, and my mother’s Dorothy Lamour doll. This film star of the 1930s, 40’s and 50’s was best known for her roles in the “Road to…” movies with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, and was honored with a china doll featuring a head of long, dark brown hair and a face made up to resemble her.

I’m certain the doll once was attired in a fancy outfit such as the Edith Head-designed silk and cloth-of-gold sarongs Lamour wore in so many of her movies, but for as long as I can remember, she’s been dressed in a baby’s outfit, origin unknown. Nonetheless, this doll was a treasured Christmas gift that stayed with my mother until she had a little girl who could love it as much – and then it became mine.

Clearly my family has a hard time getting rid of anything labeled sentimental, even though I recently absolved myself of any guilt for giving away the fancy pencils Jen purchased for a quarter every Friday at her elementary school store – the last one from June 1993 when she finished 5th grade. When I arrived at my appointed time last week to help students in the Wake Tech Writing Center, I presented a dozen or so brightly colored pencils bearing such slogans as “Green is Good” and “Happy Halloween” to the center’s coordinator. I promised to continue bringing them in by the handful until the plastic box in which they had been so lovingly stored was empty. Pens and pencils seem to disappear quickly from the center, so he was more than delighted to accept these cast-offs.

But fancy pencils that cost a quarter are different from what I discovered ruined after our 14-year-old hot water heater died and flooded the basement: In water-soaked cardboard boxes and plastic bags were dozens of Jen’s dolls and stuffed animals – soggy, smelly, mildewed. As I sorted through the moldy remains, I whispered into the phone to my sister -- the younger one who moved into my bedroom all those years ago -- “I won’t tell her yet.”

Even though Jen was emphatic when she graduated from college that she wanted nothing she hadn’t already taken from her bedroom, I’d been hesitant to clean out a small chest containing letters from her Nana, who died just two years ago. And now I wasn’t certain I should part with the Baby Smurf, Rainbow Bright, plastic Snoopy, and hand-made rag doll that were gifts from her Granny, who died in 1991. So into the washer and dryer they went, on the hand-wash cycle, with my fingers crossed that today’s advanced technology would leave them in good shape. After an extra wash and two drying times, I was not disappointed.

Now I must tell Jen that many of her stuffed animals and dolls were ruined, even though I’d saved a few, and face what for me will probably be the sad response that she still doesn’t want any of her childhood belongings. Should that happen, I will give some away to children who will love them. But I believe I’ll be getting a larger basket for the foot of my bed!

Sporting Gone Awry

2009-07-01T05:51:00.000-07:00

By Suzy Barile

Like every good UNC-Chapel Hill grad, and as my parents – both alums – dutifully taught me as a child, I yell, “Go to hell, Duke” at the end of singing the UNC fight song. I lovingly taunt my other-ACC school friends when the Tar Heels beat them, and proudly wear Carolina Blue, whether we win or lose.

But I also ask “What’s a Rutgers?” while reminiscing the drubbing one time of an ACC team by this seemingly unknown school, because I always support ACC teams when they play outside the conference. And I do it even if it’s Duke or Maryland, which I have disdained equally since a Terrapin med school graduate made a vertical cut, instead of the favored horizontal one, on my Tar Heel abdomen when my daughter was born 27 years ago.

All these likes and dislikes have been foremost on my mind in recent weeks as Ben McCauley fouled and cried “not in my house” to a bench-warming Tar Heel player with a chance to make a slam-dunk at NC State, when Duke players sang an unflattering song to Ty Lawson (forgetting and forgiving, I suppose, the antics of JJ Reddick), when Maryland’s fans chanted the name of one of their hard-hitting players while a Blue Devil player lay motionless on the floor, and as Maryland coach Gary Williams called for his students to raise the noise level in Comcast Center during the Terp’s game against the Tar Heels.

When, I wonder, did the term “visitor” become synonymous with “enemy”?
Remember the days when scoreboards read “Home” and “Visitor,” indicating the other team wasn’t native to the court or field, but was there with an invitation? When guests visit in my home, I ask such questions as “Can I get you anything?” “What would you like to drink?” and “Are you comfortable?” and beg them to “Make yourself at home.” Perhaps I’m glad when visitors finally leave because life can resume some sense of normalcy, but never do I taunt and berate and make life miserable for them.
Now, I must also admit I have done my share of banging on the bleachers on an opponent’s third-down attempt; I once threw ice at the bald spot on Lefty Driesell’s head when the Terps were playing NC State; and I let out a loud “boooooo” when the poor little boy who agreed to pose as a Duke fan comes on the jumbo screen and talks up the benefits of ACC sportsmanship. That child’s parents will think twice the next time they sign a commercial contract for him!

While in Washington, D.C., for Barack Obama’s inauguration, I was taken aback by the presence of 2 million people crammed into a tight spot and all getting along, even as we waited an hour to exit a Metro station. Only once was I somewhat apprehensive of what might happen if one person in a block-full of people trying to get out of the National Mall stumbled and fell. Would that person be trampled like we hear happening in European soccer stadiums? Would anyone care? As several young men standing on street barricades tried to direct the throng on how to undo the logger jam, I decided we would all be OK.

How can it be that I am not fearful in that crowd of strangers, but I know how I would be treated as a UNC fan wearing Carolina blue at a Duke or Maryland or Georgia Tech or Miami or Boston College or UVa or Virginia Tech or NC State or Florida State or Wake Forest or Clemson home game? Been there, done that, as the old saying goes.
I so badly want to go to a Tar Heel basketball game and I have season tickets for UNC football. But the more I see and hear how we as home fans treat the visitors, the more I wonder if my support is encouraging this unseemly behavior. Where does it stop?

WE Did It!

2009-07-01T05:42:00.000-07:00

By Suzy Barile

Within hours of Barack Obama’s 2008 election win, plans to travel with my daughter Jen to Washington, D.C., for his inauguration were under way.

This would be our third presidential swearing in, for we attended the Clinton ceremonies in 1992 and 1996, though my reasons now were far different than before. Seen as a return to youthful leadership for the nation, the Clinton-Gore ticket represented my generation, and I was thrilled to be a part.

However, neither win brought the tears that fell so unexpectedly on the evening of Nov. 4 as I acknowledged to Jen, “I never thought in my lifetime that I would see a black man as president.” These tears were deep-seated, born of having grown up in a time when segregation was rejected by the courts and that decision grudgingly accepted by the people.

We traveled to Washington on Sunday and visited with family on Monday, but our Inauguration Day plans were a bit loose. I viewed getting into the nation’s capital much as I do finding free parking for Cary’s Lazy Daze and the N.C. State Fair: as a long-time attendee of each, I refuse to pay to park at either.

“No sweat,” I told my cousin, with whom we eventually decided to stay. “We’ll take the Metro in and out. And we’ll try to see both the ceremony and the parade.”
Clearly I had yet to fathom what an estimated 2-million plus others intent on attending would truly look like.

All I can now say is “HA!” Yet it is a “HA!” filled with a great deal of satisfaction.

We did take the Metro, wisely buying our tickets the day before to avoid long lines. And though packed like sardines in the last car of the second train to enter the station once we arrived at 6:40 a.m., then standing and holding on tightly for the hour-long ride into L’Enfant Plaza, we remained confident of a good viewing spot.
Because the station’s escalators couldn’t handle the weight of the thousands of riders, it took another hour to make our way out of the station to daylight. Still we were optimistic. After a 30-minute, eight-block walk to the closest place we could find near a Jumbotron, we were three-quarters of the way between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, just east of the Washington Monument, at the intersection of 15th Street and Independence Avenue.

We made it in just minutes before police closed the mall to visitors: It was full, and our ability to see the huge TV screen by peering between and over the shoulders of those standing in front of us was that confirmation.

For the next three hours, despite frozen fingers and toes, and a cold northwest wind blowing steadily, we waited and watched. It was clear America had united behind this first for our country, this son of a black African father and a white American mother. We saw no protestors, though they may have been present. We experienced no ugly exchanges as those in the crowd pressed against one another to catch a glimpse of the ceremony. We heard of no arrests– though our spot alongside a first aid station made for a morning of continuous, shrillingly loud sirens.

What we did witness time and again were dozens of acts of kindness.

There was the young black man who offered his seat on the Metro to an older woman and the Metro riders, ever-so-slowly exiting the L’Enfant Plaza station, making certain a grandmother from Texas didn’t become separated from her family. A Florida woman who asked for “just a peek at ‘him’” had her wish granted by those ahead of her, while a child from Chicago was led to the front of the line for a better view, and a young man who was taller than those behind him traded places so they could see.
I marveled at this selflessness.

As cries of “Amen,” “Yes!” and “Uh-huh” rose from the crowd during the prayers and words of wisdom of the day’s speakers, a poster held high underscored their resolve: “We did it!”

Jen and I also had done it. Even though we weren’t able to negotiate our way through the throng to the parade route, and found ourselves walking nearly six miles and crossing the 14th Street Bridge into Virginia after the over-taxed Metro was closed for several hours, we had see Obama sworn in as the nation’s 44th president and its first African-American leader.

Such a personal achievement was to be commended, I thought, and I was eager to share the details of our day with friends and family.

Then the taxi driver we hailed told us about winning a lottery ticket for a Green Card and a chance to come to America from his native Ethiopia. This past November – now a U.S. citizen -- he voted in his first presidential election for this man with African ties. What amazed him was how the leadership of the country was passed from one party to another with such dignity.

“All the world should learn from this,” he said.

His pride as he shared his story finally made clear to me the value of this day: Just as Obama reminded the millions of spectators that Inauguration Day 2008 was not his personal success, but everyone’s, and after he called for a renewed dedication from every American to take this nation forward, it was unmistakable -- “WE did it!”

All Behavior is Not Equal

2008-02-23T19:44:00.000-08:00

By Suzy Barile

As if having her parents divorce when she was in second grade and her Granny die when she was in third weren’t enough to ruin elementary school for my daughter, as a fourth grader, she had the teacher students referred to as “Ms. Satan.” It rhymed with her last name.

Each afternoon when I picked up Jen from the Hillsborough Street YMCA in Raleigh and asked how her day had gone, she gave one of two answers: “I got my name on the board” or “I didn’t get my name on the board.” That was the punishment for most wrongdoings in “Ms. Satan’s” class, from talking and hitting others to not having one’s homework folder. While I am certain this long-time educator saw it as a deterrent to future poor behavior – though those who really misbehaved started collecting checkmarks beside their names -- in our family it became a matter of self-esteem.

Now, I wasn’t one of those moms who ran to the principal each time something didn’t sit right with my child. As the daughter of a U.S. Navy officer, I learned to follow rules, and that is what I expected of my own. But when an elementary school student gauges her day on whether her name has been put on the board, the time has come to take action.

First I talked to a friend who taught kindergarten and was using positive reinforcement in her classroom. She found it worked beautifully, so I made an appointment with the teacher and told her of our problem, of how my child was embarrassed by having her name posted on the board where everyone else could see. What if, I suggested, every child started out each week with a certain amount of play money, and for each wrongdoing, a portion of it had to be paid to the teacher. At the end of the week, the children with money left could “shop” for stickers, a piece of candy, or some other trinket. As long as the teacher used discretion in allowing her students to “shop,” there would be no need for embarrassment.

“Ms. Satan” looked at me like I was from another planet and thanked me for stopping by. End of conversation. What could a mother possibly know about disciplining fourth graders?

My next stop was the school office, where I was handed over to the assistant principal who listened, acknowledged my position, asked me to serve on a committee to discuss various punishment options for the following year, and sent me on my way. You guessed it. No call inviting me to committee meetings ever came. We were thrilled when fourth grade ended!

Thankfully the year with “Ms. Satan” was just that – a school year. And somehow we survived. Today my daughter is a well-adjusted 24-year-old professional who seems NOT to have been harmed by the way in which retribution was meted out. But how I wish Dixie Frazier of Reedy Creek Elementary or Laurel Crissman of Apex Elementary had been her principal.

In these progressive settings, Frazier and Crissman and their staffs are joining educators in 12 other Wake County schools and across the nation trying to improve classroom conduct by teaching students how to behave, then rewarding them for their appropriate actions. The official mission, the school system says, is "to empower teachers and other adults with the skills needed to improve overall classroom and school climate to achieve higher academic performance for all students." In essence, they are teaching children to “do to the right thing,” as one parent has so aptly put it.

This idea was introduced 20 years ago by professors at the University of Oregon working with students in special-education classes and focusing on what they should be doing. Now this approach is reportedly being used in 5,000 schools in 38 states. By 2011, all Wake County schools will employ it.

At Apex Elementary, students have been earning stickers and filling up Compliment Cards under the program they call P.A.W.S. – Practice responsibility, Act kind and respectful, Work hard, Stay safe. Reedy Creek students have spent the last two years learning about positive choices and being accountable for their actions. Good choices include following directions, exhibiting good sportsmanship, and showing respect to adults and peers.

In applauding these undertakings, I think of the what-ifs of a long-ago school year: What if “Ms. Satan” had accepted my ideas in 1991 – five years after Positive Behavior Support was pioneered? What if she had used modeling of good behavior and rewarded it? What if Jen had learned it was far more enjoyable to have play money left at the end of the week to buy a sticker than to be embarrassed by her name on the board?

What if? What a wonderful fourth grade experience we could have had!

* * *

Scars of a Different Nature

2008-02-23T19:43:00.000-08:00

By Suzy Barile

Fourth grade was a memorable school year – both a boy and a dog bit me, leaving two quite different scars.

Along the hairline on the left side of my forehead is a barely distinguishable spot that is compliments of my classmate Frank, who ran into me during a game of Red Rover on the playground of Cranston-Calvert Elementary School in Newport, RI. His two front teeth broke open my skin, leaving a small gash that required several stitches.

The other scar, from the dog who ran up behind me as I headed home from Rosie’s Corner Store with Popsicles for my siblings on the last day of school, was lasting: To this day, I am terrified of dogs.

All dogs fit in this category, including our own, which we adopted from the SPCA when she was 2-months-old. Even as a puppy, she could move me to tears with her growling, such as the morning I attempted to get her to come inside while leaving outside a nasty something-or-other she’d found on the ground.

Now 11-1/2-years-old and with arthritis in all four legs, Sandy hardly seems a threat, unless you try to take food away from her and elicit that ferocious growl, or you pull onto our street. Then she begins barking like there’s no tomorrow, warning us that “danger” is near. That danger includes our long-time neighbors arriving home from anywhere, delivery trucks with such loads as furniture, pizza and packages, fire and rescue vehicles, the town’s trash and recycling collectors, visitors, other dogs, and us.

Quite frankly, I think Sandy is near-sighted, for it isn’t until my husband or I get closer that her franticness turns into a yelp of recognition. And it’s clear to us that whoever first owned her wore a baseball cap, and abused her, for the approach of someone in one sends her over the edge.

When strangers reach our front door, they do a double-take at a scene reminiscent of a guard dog protecting its owners’ possessions, then back away while we put her safely upstairs behind a gate, where she continues barking. Once she is comfortable, she calms down to a whimper as if to say, “Ok, now I want to join in the fun.”

As the victim of a childhood bite, I fully understand how people passing by on the greenway behind our house are sometimes taken aback when a loudly barking dog runs towards them – until her 25-feet of leash stops her abruptly. If I am anywhere near, I tell her to quiet down and bring her inside. And when we are on her daily walk and someone approaches, whether with dog or without, I make certain her leash is reined in tightly so she won’t jump – her favorite greeting for those she doesn’t consider a threat.

What I do not comprehend, also because I am the victim of a childhood dog bite, is those folks who feel free to let their pets run loose on the greenway. A family with one small and three large dogs keeps only the small one on a leash. Whether the husband, the wife, or the son is with them, they stroll along with the smaller dog while the other three wander into nearby back yards or sniff along the edge of the creek that runs beside the path.

If Sandy and I are walking and see them coming, I take one of several tacts: I turn and head the other way, because I want nothing to do with loose dogs. Or I stop until the three large ones are hooked to leashes, then stay put until they pass. Only once have I remarked that there is a leash law in Cary. That was a big mistake. I was told in no uncertain terms that some dogs behave quite well when off a leash, and it obviously isn’t mine.

Such a response reminded me of the day a young woman who frequently runs with her dog trotting alongside suddenly noticed her pet gone, bounding across the creek. No matter which commanding entreaty she made, it was clear her obedient pet had no intention of returning until he had finished with whatever he was doing. At the training school Sandy attended but did not graduate from, the instructor reminded us that dogs are animals and they won’t always respond to a command.

Another time when I was chatting with our neighbor as Sandy pulled and tugged at the leash, signaling she was ready for us to go, I glimpsed a woman approaching out of the corner of my eye, then saw her dog several yards ahead, and off its leash.

“Will you please put your dog on the leash?” I asked.

She called me a b----, told me hers’ was well-behaved, and walked on.

I was as speechless then as the day Sandy and I encountered a large Labrador retriever barreling towards us. Stopping in my tracks, I hollered, “Call your dog, please call your dog.”

When the owner finally did so, he also called me a few unsavory names and continued on his way.

Perhaps I am too cautious. Perhaps I need to take the same chances with my dog that another neighbor did the afternoon she was talking on a cell phone as her pet tore across a large, grassy expanse towards us, then stopped, took one sniff of Sandy, and lunged at her.

“Call your dog! Call your dog!” I cried frantically as I tried to pull mine away from the biting teeth of hers.

She was speechless and motionless, taken aback by the scene taking place.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she said, as she got her dog under control.

I merely nodded and reminded her, “That’s why there’s a leash law.”

Sometimes I wish it were the mark on my soul that is indistinguishable, not the one on my forehead that has faded with the years. But surely I am not the only one who wants dog owners to remember that the town’s leash law pertains to all of Cary, not just its public areas.

Though a greenway or play area might be owned and maintained by the subdivision it is part of, the town’s leash law applies: All dogs must be on a leash or lead if they are not on the owner’s property.

(Copyright 2000)

* * *

Graduation Special For All

2008-02-23T19:38:00.001-08:00

By Suzy Barile

I knew from the start Sandy wouldn't graduate.

Sitting in the classroom during orientation, listening as the instructor went over the goals of the course, the daily homework assignments and the different learning approaches to the material, I couldn't imagine how she'd make it successfully through the next eight weeks.

First there were the assignments: do them every day, build on what has been learned and don't be discouraged by setbacks, said the instructor.

Next, the class meetings. Seven o'clock on a Thursday night when everyone was cranky, ready for the day — and the week — to come to an end.

And finally, the instructor's prediction: only 80 percent of the students successfully complete the class. Well, there you have it, I thought, she'll be in that 20 percent that fails.

Sandy attended class unfailingly every week, though I watched as she often paid attention to everyone but the instructor. The slightest distraction was enough to bring her focus away from the exercises, and for other eyes — those of the other students, the instructor, and guests — to be upon her. She also had to contend with a broken leg at the start, something which also managed to get in the way of her concentration.

Each time she was distracted, I know I shuddered, wondering if the hour each week was being well-spent.

While Sandy's homework assignments weren't always completed — inevitably it was late in the day when she got started, and weariness already had set in — the intent was there. The instructor had said there would be setbacks, and she was right. There also were plateaus that were reached, and I wondered frequently if they could be overcome.

Midway into the eight weeks, I was heartened by the assistant instructor's remark that Sandy seemed to be showing some improvement. Although I couldn't see it as readily, others who saw her only once a week also were complimentary. I smiled my thanks.

As she came down to the wire, however, my original feelings crept back in. Going through the examination steps the sixth and seventh week, the instructor reminded everyone that repetition of the class wasn't unusual, and shouldn't be taken as failure.

"Failure," I thought. Would I consider Sandy a failure if she didn't pass?

The week before the final exam was crammed with everything but time for the homework assignment, and as we headed for the class that last night, I was resigned to Sandy being in the 20 percent unable to meet the requirements to move on.

That evening, two students failed to show up. Did they know, already, they were in that 20 percent? Were their families too embarrassed to attend the final class? Other students had family members there; I had brought my camera.

One by one the students went through the exercises they had practiced. Sandy was distracted frequently by the others, not used to the individual work being done — they had always practiced as a group. She wasn't good at sitting still, either, and that added to my nervousness.

I must say I was grateful when applause rang out as she finished the final assignment, the instructors and her colleagues letting her know they saw she had improved. As we shared refreshments and stories of the last eight weeks, I wondered what her certificate would say.

My curiosity was answered immediately; Sandy was first to receive her certificate.

Up to the front of the class she went, my daughter, Jennifer, in tow.

"We picked out something to say about each one of you," said the instructor. "Here is 'The Hardest Working Trainer."

Jennifer beamed. She had worked hard and earned that recognition. Sandy didn't seem to care. She was content to return to her seat — the spot on the floor beside Jennifer — and enjoy the crumbs left over from refreshment time.

As I looked over the certificate that acknowledged perfect attendance, I had to admit Sandy wasn't ready to be in that 80 percent of dogs that usually graduate from Puppy Training. In fact, the instructor had recommended she repeat the class.

But, there was pride as I watched the two of them — 13-year-old Jennifer and her young dog — for I knew the hard work that had gone into the last two months. It is Jennifer for whom Sandy sits, stays and lies down when prompted with a treat and praise. It is Jennifer who knows how to push her away with the "down" command and make it stick. And it was Jennifer who, on those hectic nights, worked to learn how to control a wild, wiry, eight-month-old puppy.

Now it's my turn. My turn to put away memories and long-standing fears from when I was 10-years-old and a dog ran up behind me and bit me. My turn to use the treats as enticements to sit, stay and lie down, so she knows she must learn to behave others, as well as Jennifer. My turn to work with this puppy that has eaten everything from Christmas elf salt and pepper shakers to a Graham Kerr cookbook, dinner candles, a bottle of Vitamin E and 12-inches of wall molding.

I didn't ever want a dog. My vote was a hesitant "OK" when the conversation about getting a dog came up. I'd never been around dogs and had found cats to be easy pets to care for. Alas, my husband is deathly allergic to cats. How convenient for him.

I laid down all the rules. Jennifer had to take the dog for a walk, feed her, clean up behind her. "I will, Mom," she promised.

The story is all too old. It is I who is first up, stooping down in the kitchen each morning to pet the dog, then let her outside and listening for when she is ready to come in.

I have cleaned up my share of messes, taken her for walks and tried to protect all of our belongings from this live wire who puts absolutely everything in her mouth. I bid her "night-night" as we turn out the lights, and give her that "quality" playtime in the evenings. She knows if I pull a chair out from the table and sit that it's time to play.

She knows the routine of going outside, of getting a treat, of a handful of cereal in her bowl each morning when I pour mine, of the hug she'll get once I hang up my coat.

Jennifer and my husband have their special times with her, as well, but for this fearful person who always cringed when any dog walked by or barked, I like to think our special times together are a tad more special.

In fact, with it being my turn to help with the homework assignments, the next time certificates are passed out, I hope they proclaim "Graduate."

(Copyright 1995)

* * *

Shared Dreams

2008-02-23T19:32:00.000-08:00

By Suzy Barile

The evening after Coretta Scott King died, I discovered she and her husband were married on the day I was born. It struck me as odd that I, a trivia lover, had not known this, but it did remind me of the day I met her 10 years ago at a conference in Washington, D.C.

She was keynote speaker at a Women’s Action for New Direction (WAND) luncheon, and in a roomful of female activists, she addressed the difficulties facing women of all races and the importance of raising our children to be good leaders and respecters of others. Afterwards she posed for a photograph with conference attendees, and then for group shots – we North Carolinians gathered ’round proudly.

As a journalist, meeting famous people is part of the job. Go to an event, listen to a speech, ask a few questions, and write a story. Done. But something about that day stayed with me, though whether it was her quiet demeanor around her admirers, or the resolve with which she’d continued her husband’s work after his death, is unclear. Perhaps it was simply the difference in the color of our skin.

Attending Wake Technical Community College where I teach are students from all over the world -- Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, Algiers, Mexico, Iran, Russia, Chile, Zaire – and what I learn about their countries and cultures is an education in itself. This interaction is worlds away from the one in which I was raised. The daughter of a U.S. Navy officer, I lived segregation. Though I don’t recall actually seeing restrooms and water fountains and schools and motels and lunch counters designated “colored,” these people of color worked for and served us.

Now, I did “know” black people: Mamie and Robert worked many years for my grandparents. She had large, rough hands made tough over years of helping others, but tender when she hugged my siblings and me. In a photograph taken of her a year or two before she died, she is seated in my great-uncle’s living room, surrounded by my smiling family. Notwithstanding that oneness, we still were different. The photo is of my family with Mamie.

We lived in Newport, R.I., while I was in elementary school. One cold day, two sisters died in a house fire. They were found in their bedroom closet, dressed in their Brownie Scout uniforms for a meeting that afternoon. Despite Newport being a small town, I did not know the little girls. Their Scout troop was the “colored” one.

By high school, a few black students were in my classes, for the late 1960s brought desegregation to Northern Virginia. My senior year, the Fairfax County school board assigned one of the first black principals to my predominantly white school -- as a test, we later learned. While there were problems at nearby Marshall High, so aptly portrayed in the film “Remember the Titans,” we got through the year at Madison High with no turmoil.

Next came junior college and classes with a young black woman. But she was “African,” we were told, not black. Two years later, on the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill campus where I had transferred, the greater number of white-to-black students made it easy to remember those who excelled. For instance, Washington Post news editor Mae Israel was in my graduating class.

This trend of little-to-no exposure to minorities continued throughout much of my newspaper career, for newsrooms have never overflowed with diversity, unless you consider that, as a female reporter, I was a minority in 1975.

Not until motherhood, with my contribution to the “Y” Generation, did my world finally change. Considered the largest consumer group in our nation’s history, these babes born from the early-1980s to the mid-1990s made popular the term “Whatever,” demanded education be delivered in sound bites, and established multi-tasking as the norm. They seldom looked at color, merely taking differences for granted. As young adults, the members of this “Y” Generation are intermingling, intermarrying and integrating – celebrating their differences.

Following her husband’s assassination in 1968, King said she was more determined than ever that his dream be realized: “I have a dream that one day … little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers,” he proclaimed.

Why did that meeting with Coretta Scott King stay with me? Perhaps my experiences over the intervening years played a part, for in that “six degrees of Kevin Bacon” moment when I discovered I shared a special date with this couple, the affirmation of their dream was somehow realized in me.

* * *

Finally -- Understanding Longing

2008-02-23T19:28:00.000-08:00

By Suzy Barile

“Don’t answer right away,” my husband instructs, his voice breaking up over the miles and through a borrowed cell phone. “But there’s a lot more work to be done and I need to know if it’s OK with you for me to be gone another two weeks.”

My answer cannot wait.

Earlier in the day, I’d finally understood what “longing” is about. The feeling had eluded me when I encountered it in the film “Truly, Madly, Deeply” as the main character, distraught by her lover’s unexpected death, tells a friend that she longs for him to return.

After two anxious days with no phone call, and too many hours of television reports about medics being fired upon as they tried to help victims stranded by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina, I longed to hear his voice, to have him home.

Once I teased him that his answering machine message of “hey, this is John, and thanks for calling” sent chills through my body. Sometimes I’d call simply to hear his voice and enjoy the surge that followed. But when I’d tried that technique several times over the last couple of days, it had not soothed me.

“Can you get home if there’s an emergency?” I ask, knowing that a fellow member of the national medical response team he is on had returned home early from Hurricane Dennis when a family crisis arose.

The emergency I have in mind is his mother, hospitalized for the last month and seemingly losing the desire to get better. If she doesn’t start eating more, her doctors say, she won’t have the strength to regain her ability to walk. And if she can’t walk, she can’t go home.

“Yes,” he says. “I’ll call you later tonight.”

But he doesn’t have to call me back.

Long before I entered his life, John was a caretaker of others. A volunteer firefighter and paramedic before being paid for both loves, he never didn’t respond when an alarm sounded. Many a meal had been left untouched at a restaurant; many a family event had been held in his absence.

“Where’s Uncle John,” my three-year-old nephew always asks when he sees me. Usually I reply that he’s at the fire station or working on the ambulance.

“I wish he didn’t have to work all the time,” Joseph laments.

“Me, too,” I say, knowing I could never ask him not to, though once I told him if I’d wanted to spend my life alone, I’d have married someone in the military.

My mother did just that when marrying my dad after they graduated from college. He had a Navy commission for four years; she had a journalism degree and a reporting job. But under a bridge in Washington, D.C., where their shadows – backlit by a streetlight -- fell across the road, she supported his decision to make the commission a career. He was gone for months at a time when on sea duty – I was born while he was in France, and only a castor oil and tomato juice cocktail that induced the birth of my youngest sister allowed his ship to sail without him.

Through those long months when he was in either “the Med” or the Middle East, my mother raised seven of us, took care of the house, paid the bills, was a Cub Scout and Girl Scout leader, a PTA volunteer, a trusted neighbor, a jack-of-all-trades. It mattered not how many postcards came in the mail, hers was a lonely marriage. And her promising career as a journalist was reduced to the stories she made up, such as “Ellie-belle” and “Suzy-belle,” the fairies who set out my sister’s and my clothes on the foot of our beds each night while we were sleeping. We never squabbled over what to wear to school!

For a few years, my mother seemed to live vicariously through me and my two youngest brothers – one a paramedic and the other a volunteer firefighter – with the scanner they bought her for Christmas. Whether at home and ever mindful of the location of rescue and fire calls, or at the high school where she listened and watched while a substitute teacher, she supplied hundreds of “hot tips” to our small-town newspaper where I was a reporter.

So here I am, a wife and a mother, a teacher and a writer, a trusted colleague and ardent volunteer, and a sister and an aunt and a daughter with an abundance of life around me, being asked if it’s OK for him to help those in need a bit longer than we’d anticipated.

I long for him to return. I long to reach for the kitchen towel to dry my hands and find it slung over his shoulder. I long to push him out of bed with one foot after his alarm has awakened me, not him. I long to hear him say he’s ready to go, then discover he still has to make his ever-present container of iced tea. I long to find a note on the coffee pot in the morning that says, “Just turn it on, my love,” and to feel his arms around me as he whispers those simple-yet-satisfying words, “I’m in love with you.”

I long for his return.

“You stay,” I say.

* * *

The Luckiest Boys

2008-02-23T19:20:00.000-08:00

By Suzy Barile

"There's that funny lady," said 6-year-old Jack as he put his foot on the ground to steady his bike and bring it to a halt.

He and his brother Joseph, who was 4, were riding their bikes along the greenway behind their Aunt Suzy’s house while she walked her dog, Sandy.

Aunt Suzy looked over to where Jack pointed and saw her neighbor, Virginia, leaning over, her hands clasped behind her back, staring intently toward the ground.

Spring had finally come to Cary, North Carolina. And Aunt Suzy and her nephews were enjoying a sunny, warm afternoon. The azaleas were showing off their bright red, white, purple, fuchsia and tangerine blossoms. Small pink and white petals peeked out from pale green leaves on the dogwood trees. The scraggy pines – called loblollies, Aunt Suzy had said – had dropped yellow pollen over everything in sight, from the cars in the neighborhood to sidewalks and decks, even the wooden bridge over the creek.

Two weeks before when Jack and Joseph had helped take Sandy for a walk, Aunt Suzy had pointed out the small cones growing on the pine tree’s branches.

“See this miniature pine cone?” she asked, gently pulling a limb towards her nephews. “Let’s watch it grow when we take our walks. When they are finally big enough in October, they will fall to the ground.”

Joseph said, “I remember when we picked up the pine cones and put peanut butter on them and rolled them in birdseed and hung them up for the birds.”

The three turned their attention back to Virginia who was on the other side of the creek.

“Did she lose something?” Joseph asked.

Both boys now dropped their bikes to the ground to watch what she was doing.

“Maybe we should help,” Jack said.

Aunt Suzy laughed.

“What’s funny?” asked Jack.

“Virginia didn’t lose anything,” she said. “She’s looking for four-leaf clovers.”

The boys’ puzzled looks meant she had to tell them more.

“What is a four-leaf clover?” asked Joseph.

Aunt Suzy pulled on Sandy’s leash and brought the dog to her side as she knelt down and ran her right hand over a lush patch of green.

“Do you remember the shamrocks you colored green for St. Patrick’s Day”? she asked. “They had three leaflets.”

Jack nodded yes. And Joseph, who often was called “Repeat” by his cousins because he mimicked everything his big brother said or did, nodded in agreement.

“Well, a four-leaf clover is a shamrock with four leaflets and some people think they are lucky.”

“We want to be lucky,” cried Jack.

“Yeah, we want to be lucky,” echoed Joseph, and the two took off running across the bridge. They reached Virginia just she was standing. In her left hand was what looked like hundreds of four-leaf clovers.

“Wow,” said Jack. “How did you find all of those?”

“You will be very lucky,” said Joseph.

Virginia smiled. She remembered the first time she discovered this particular patch that always seemed to have an abundance of four and five and even six-leaf clovers.

“It’s really very easy,” she said. “Here’s what you do.”

Virginia squatted down in front of the clover patch. Jack and Joseph did the same.

“Now, look into this patch as hard as you can and try to see something unusual,” she said. “Since most clovers have just three-leaflets, it will be easy to see ones that have four.”

Sure enough, within seconds Jack had spotted the special clover.

“Look, Aunt Suzy, look what I found,” he said, holding his find high in the air.

Aunt Suzy walked over to her nephews.

“Hello, Virginia,” she said to her neighbor. “I see you are showing these two your special talent.”

To Jack she said, “Aren’t you lucky!”

Then she looked over at Joseph. He was seated on the ground, his head hanging down over his chest looking dejected.

“I am not lucky,” he said, holding up an empty hand as a tear rolled from the corner of his eye and down his cheek.

Before Aunt Suzy or Virginia had a chance to answer, Jack came over and held out his hand.

“Look, Joseph,” he said. “You are lucky. I found two four-leaf clovers and you can have one.”

Joseph wiped the tear from his chin with his hand as it started to fall onto his shirt.

“Thank you, Jack,” he said. “Look, Aunt Suzy. I am lucky.”

* * *

Chicken Palo ("puh-low")

2008-02-23T19:18:00.000-08:00

By Suzy Barile

My mother was a child of the Depression and a wife and mother of the 50s – never allowed to experiment in the kitchen because food was a premium -- as she and her sister and parents lived with her widowed paternal grandmother, who had a cook, there wasn’t much cooking to be done. But as a young bride in 1951, she was pressed into the kitchen just as the instant food phenomenon hit grocery stores nationwide. My siblings and I grew up on recipes concocted with Campbell’s soup, and enjoying frozen and canned vegetables, and instant rice and mashed potatoes, and drinking Lipton’s instant iced tea. Desserts were created with instant pudding and Jello, and Betty Crocker cake and brownie mixes.

While she could a mean piece of meat, from a delicious Salisbury steak made in the pressure cooker to sesame seed baked chicken, meatloaf, leg of lamb, roast beef, orange-glazed pork shops, and golden-brown turkey, she didn’t learn how to cut up a chicken until I was in college and was taught by a boyfriend’s mother, then passed on this new skill to my Mom. In fact, when that same boyfriend’s mother instructed me to “go dig some potatoes for dinner,” I looked at her like she was from another planet. “Dig potatoes?” I asked. She handed me a spoon and directed me to the garden where I soon learned about making real mashed potatoes from real ones!

Nonetheless, my six siblings and I never turned up our noses at Mom’s meals, and all still enjoy fixing dishes we grew up on: Blushing Bunny (tomato soup with cheese melted in it, then poured over saltine crackers), barbecue chicken, and spaghetti sauce that’s simmered all afternoon in an electric frying pan.

This recipe for Cherry-Almond Chicken probably was made with canned chicken, and I know when my Mom was in a hurry, she simply mixed the chicken and fruit cocktail together, heated it up, and served it over rice. I can’t imagine with 7 hungry mouths to feed (I am the oldest!) that she had time to make certain the cornstarch and broth made the perfect sauce before adding the other ingredients. When prepared that way, she called it “Chicken Palo” (pronounced “puh-low”). For this dish, I combined the two approaches – cutting up 2 cups of chicken breast but using the fruit cocktail from my youthful memory.

Cherry-Almond Chicken – Mom

1 can cherries, 1 can white grapes, 1 cup cling peaches – or use fruit cocktail

1/3 c. almonds

3 TBSP cornstarch

2 C. chicken broth

1-½ TBSP lemon juice

½ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. celery salt

2 C. chicken

Combine cornstarch with enough broth to make a paste. Add broth and cook until thick. Add lemon juice & salt & stir. Add the rest of the ingredients. Let simmer until chicken is cooked. Serve over rice mixed with cinnamon.

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We Are All Hokies

2008-02-23T19:15:00.000-08:00

By Suzy Barile

Last night before heading downstairs to my computer, I consciously closed and locked the front door, as well as the upstairs and downstairs sliding glass doors opening onto our deck. So uncharacteristic, I thought, but then I’d just read Newsweek’s coverage of the Virginia Tech killings and who knows what may lurk in the dark?

That thought left me undone and angry, however, for as long as we have lived in our house, I’ve kept the front door open – storm door locked, but front door open -- so I could enjoy the sunlight, the rain, the night sky, my neighborhood. Even after my husband’s truck was broken into, our front door remained open. Even nights when I am home alone, I leave the front door open. Yet the tale of a young man who felt so betrayed by his world that he would shoot 32 strangers is certainly enough to place fear in the minds of innocent people.

My response to that story made me stop and think of the many dangerous situations I had been in over the years when I was a full-time reporter: an armed bank robbery in Madison where the FBI agents allowed me to ride along as they interviewed witnesses and searched for the thief; a story involving a community college instructor who tried to get a union started and soon even I feared I was being followed; late-night drives from Morrisville to Raleigh when I covered that western Wake County’s town board for The Cary News. And I distinctly remember demanding my roommates promise never to tell my mother how often I drove Old Warrenton Road after covering activities in Warren County for the Henderson Daily Dispatch.

All those were times when something, anything, could have happened and there were no cell phones for emergencies and precious-few phone booths in the middle of rural North Carolina. Still I set out to cover each event with no fear. Why then did I feel compelled to lock my front door? After all, Cary is one of the safest places in America to live.

Perhaps it is the kindred-ness I feel with the Virginia Tech community. Children of friends, as well as those friends, have graduated from that university. The national headquarters of the sorority to which my daughter and I belong sent out email after the shootings to tell members around the world that all the sisters in that chapter were safely accounted for. The professional organization to which I have belonged for 20-some years notified its national membership that our Hokie-affiliated colleagues were fine, though extremely fatigued, both mentally and physically. And students of mine at Wake Tech have shared that their family members -- also Virginia Tech grads – are saddened and in shock.

Yet what I believe prompted that locked front door is the proclamation “We are all Hokies” which Americans were called on to adopt during the nation’s days of mourning. It wrapped its arms around me more tightly than the burnt-orange and Chicago-maroon ribbons I wore on my sweater and tied to the antenna of our car. Somehow the idea that “something could happen” is now more than a passing thought, if ever it had been one during my years of reporting.

Though my grief for what has happened is great, I know I will once again leave my front door open and not be afraid of the dark outdoors. But the students, faculty, staff, families and friends of Virginia Tech have much to deal with in the days ahead, and before true healing takes place, we all may have to remain Hokies a while longer.

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