Core of Conviction : My Story (9781101563571) Page 5

  But all that logic was lost on me and my adolescent mind. My thoughts raced: We aren’t really leaving, are we? I don’t want to leave Iowa. I love living in Iowa. Iowa is home—everything I know. It’s family, friends, church. A happy place. A wonderful place. I never want to be anywhere else. And when I die, I want to be buried in the Garden of Memories Cemetery, alongside my grandparents. We can’t go to some faraway land with no relatives nearby.

  Of course, Minneapolis is just a little more than two hundred miles from Waterloo—but to a twelve-year-old mind that seemed an unfathomable distance.

  I started crying. Then I gave what I thought was a good argument: “But I’ve never even been to Des Moines! Our state capital!” Yet my reasoning fell flat and we moved.

  That was 1968. For the nation as a whole, it was a grim year of war, assassinations, and riots. America was being torn apart. And my world too would soon be torn apart.

  Minnesota, of course, is a wonderful place to live. Yet after this drastic change for the family, it took a little time for the Gopher State to feel like home. For one thing, it was colder. Now, over the years, I have come to love the outdoor winter sports of Minnesota, including cross-country skiing, ice-skating, and, of course, hockey. It just took some getting used to, that’s all.

  We moved into a four-bedroom, split-level house on an acre of land nestled in the pleasant Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park. In terms of material possessions, we had a far better life. Our VW Beetle, for example, was soon joined by another car, a Ford LTD. I thought we were the richest people in the world.

  At first the other kids in sixth grade teased me for being different. They thought I said “thank you” and “please” too often. They were good kids, but they asked, “Why are you so polite?” Well, maybe I was always polite, although I like to think that good manners are something that most parents teach their kids. Being polite at all times was one habit that our mother insisted we never break. And certainly a nation of polite people is preferable to a coarsened culture.

  I was a good student—I got mostly As. How did I do it? I worked hard and read a lot—it remains my favorite pastime. I like to say that I learn with my wrist. That is, I write everything down, and as I write things down, the words and ideas become imprinted in my mind.

  We settled in, and we even bought a brand-new exotic machine called a snowmobile. It was gold and black and gorgeous. Our dad pulled our toboggan behind the machine as we went racing through the snowy woods and over the frozen lakes; we kids thought we had really moved up into an exciting new world of technological luxuries. So while I still missed Waterloo, I began building up a store of fond memories from my new life in Minnesota.

  But then, in 1970, everything in our happy little home changed. Our parents made a decision to end their marriage of nineteen years. We knew no one in our family who had divorced. Security was gone. Stability was gone. And our dad was gone. I will always honor both my father and my mother, but the fact remained that our family was irretrievably broken. Dad moved out, and we didn’t see him again for six years. It’s one of the oldest stories ever told, and it’s been played and replayed many times, but it still hurts. Dad moved to California, and just five days after the divorce from Mom was finalized, he married another woman. Now I had two new stepbrothers, but six years would pass before I got to meet them.

  And so I resolved that I wanted, more than anything else in life, to have, someday, an intact and happy family. I told myself that I would marry a man who would be committed to me and to our family—and we’d have lots of kids! And we would stay together, happily ever after. And so in my teenage mind, I resolved to turn something bad into something good. Four decades later, that determination—which I now share with my husband and children—still burns inside me.

  When Dad left, the economic impact on the rest of us was immediate. Overnight, we literally fell below the poverty level. For nearly two decades, Mom had been a full-time homemaker, taking care of us kids; now, all of a sudden, she had to go out and find a job. Sadly, she had few marketable skills. She hadn’t stayed long enough at Luther College to get her BA, because when she married, she had followed Dad out to Colorado when he was in the Air Force. She had only a one-year teaching certificate, and that wasn’t worth anything in the Minnesota job market.

  But she was willing to work, and work hard. We qualified for welfare, but Mom wouldn’t think of it. She did not consider herself a political conservative; she just didn’t see us as poor enough to take government help. She knew she could get a job. And so even if we were barely getting by, she was sure she wasn’t going to rely on the government to provide for us.

  So Mom got a sales job at a department store, then found better work as a bank teller—for $4,800 a year. She did her absolute best for us, but it was still an uphill struggle. Soon, it was obvious that we couldn’t afford to stay in our home in Brooklyn Park, and we had to move out. In the small apartment we were moving into, in the farther-out city of Anoka, there wasn’t much room, and because we desperately needed money, Mom held a garage sale. I remember gazing at many of our nicest belongings—my mother’s wedding gifts, all the china—just sitting there on a card table in front of the house we were leaving. People would pass by, looking for bargains, and then snap up something for fifteen cents, or maybe a quarter or a dollar. I remember thinking to myself, That’s our whole life going away. All these years later, I am a relentless bargain hunter at yard sales, but even so, when I see something that was obviously someone’s treasured heirloom, I feel a twinge in my heart.

  My parents’ divorce in 1970 was a mile marker in our lives; nothing was the same after that. Our relationships with our extended family changed, and our support structures were altered. Millions of families go through this trauma with disappointed, disillusioned spouses and children who are deprived of the daily support and presence of both parents. Some divorced parents, to be sure, manage their duty to their children with a sense of sacrifice and service—and some don’t. Either way, it’s nearly impossible for the kids to come away from the experience without a sense of loss. But Mom had the blood of all those sturdy forebears running through her; she came from strong stock. And thanks to her, and the child-support checks from our dad, we all survived—and ultimately thrived.

  As the oldest child still living at home, I helped care for my two younger brothers, Gary and Paul. So to inspire them to do their share of the chores—or maybe sometimes more than their share—I developed a point system, scoring various activities, such as doing the dishes or picking the weeds in our itty-bitty garden. Earning points, I assured my little brothers, was a good thing. And what did they get for piling up points? Well, that was a tricky question—because in truth, I didn’t have anything to offer them, except . . . more points! And, of course, compliments, smiles, and hugs. They thrived on sisterly praise. You don’t always have to have material things in life.

  My mother’s mother, Laura—the petite widow who had carried huge trays of bacon around the Rath meatpacking plant in Waterloo till late in her life—would come to visit, bringing canned food and hams in the trunk of her car. I can remember seeing her beige Ford Fairlane, bearing those black-on-white Iowa license plates, and thinking of happier times back in Waterloo. My grandmother had been widowed with seven children before her fiftieth birthday. She was poor before her husband’s death, and after, of course, it was even harder on Mom and her six siblings. Grandmother was resilient, that’s for sure. She was one of the hardest working people I have ever met, she saved her pennies, and yet at the same time, she was generous and kind. Pure love. She was always a lady, but she was always strong. Indeed, she was both ladylike and strong at the same time: When she was eighty-three, she changed the snow tires on her car in her garage while wearing one of her favorite Shelton Stroller dresses. She was ever a lady!

  Meanwhile, I was working. I started babysitting; the going rate back then was fifty cen
ts an hour. I took every babysitting job I could get, because by ninth grade, I was growing conscious of my appearance. In those days, girls had to wear dresses to public school, and if I wanted pretty dresses, I had to buy them, because Mom couldn’t afford them for me; she couldn’t afford lunch money. I remember during my parents’ divorce I asked Mom for ten cents for some activity at school. Her face was pained; she didn’t have it in her purse. So she looked through her dresser drawer and eventually found a dime, which she gave to me. After that experience, seeing the look of pain and loss on her face, I vowed to never ask her for money—or much of anything else—again. If she had had it, I knew, she would have given it to me, but clearly our lives were reduced to about as low as we could go.

  I quickly realized that expenses were piling up faster than my earning power, so I taught myself how to sew. I went to summer sidewalk sales at the local fabric store, picked up a pattern and small swatches of marked-down fabric, and then figured out how to vary the pattern so that I could make two dresses for the coming school year. But I wanted to do better. I had always been a hardworking student, but after the divorce my mother had told me, “Your education is one thing that can never be taken away from you.” Those words inspired me to work harder than ever. As they say, adversity can either break you or make you—and I was determined to make it.

  After all, I was now in high school, and I could see a path to my future life and career. In fact, I was fortunate enough to be at Anoka High. Go, Tornadoes! Anoka is the alma mater of Garrison Keillor, of Prairie Home Companion fame. His politics are very different from mine, but I love his gentle, knowing humor. Keillor understands Minnesota, from Lutherans to lutefisk, and his ability to squeeze laughs out of serious-minded midwesterners makes him a legend. The way he writes, it’s as though he was present at our grandmother’s Sunday table. Clearly, looking at his skill, he received a good education at Anoka—I know I did.

  Anoka High offered a wealth of academic, vocational, and extracurricular activities. I joined everything. I was in seemingly every club and every group, and I had at least a small part in every play. I knew I might not be the star, but I could always learn something and contribute something.

  But I soon settled on a big goal: the cheerleading squad. I have never been athletic or well coordinated, and yet I knew I wanted to be a cheerleader more than anything. So I practiced, practiced and practiced. I was a disaster at first, and I rehearsed my cheerleading routines in our living room with the shades down in order to avoid humiliation in case anyone saw me, even though our apartment was on the second floor! My brothers poked fun at me as I crashed around on the carpet, but I kept at it until I mastered the Anoka Tornadoes fight song:

  Fight, fight, Anoka, fight;

  Go, go, Tornadoes!

  Win, win, maroon and white

  We’re with you tonight, Tornadoes!

  Fight, fight to victory,

  Team, team, it’s your game.

  Score, score, score and then

  Score some more

  Tornado men!

  Astonishingly I made the cheerleading squad! I even made the varsity cheerleading squad. And to top it all, I was football cheerleader. A girl who tripped, who couldn’t run, who couldn’t play normal sports without embarrassing herself—I had made the squad.

  Fortunately, I could lead the Anoka cheers without really being able to see beyond the girl next to me—or the girl standing on my shoulders to make the Anoka A. I had always had poor eyesight. I couldn’t read anything without my glasses; indeed, I can barely see my hand in front of my face—I need my glasses. For cheerleading, I could take my glasses off, but the rest of the time I was a hopeless four-eyes. And as I got older, my glasses had to be thicker and clunkier. Not good.

  So what to do? I knew that I needed to see, but just like every other teenage girl, I wanted to look my best. The answer? Get contact lenses. But such vanity was not in our budget, and because we as a family couldn’t borrow or print money—as the U.S. government could always do—I had to be both thrifty and strategic.

  So I worked even harder to save up money. Happily, I loved babysitting; I loved being around children, watching the way they learn and grow up. So babysitting was a wonderful way for me both to make money and to prepare for a family of my own. I had a little jar on my dresser for keeping the coins and dollar bills that I had earned. Once a week, I sent my earnings to the bank with my mother, where she made a deposit. It was exciting to watch my bank balance increase, week after week, month after month, year after year. After three years, I had saved up three hundred dollars, and now I could pay for my contact lenses.

  So I made an appointment to see the eye doctor, and he measured me for contact lenses. I was so excited! Another step on the path to adulthood.

  But back in those days, in the early seventies, contact lenses were hard, not soft, as they are now. People don’t know what that’s like anymore, but back in the days of hard lenses, putting in a lens felt like putting a sandbur into your eye. And so for two weeks, it was just sheer pain, until my corneas built up calluses. I remember weeping and weeping for those two weeks, because it was so painful to have the lenses in my eyes. But I had worked for three years to get them, and I wasn’t going to give up.

  One afternoon I went out bike riding with the new contacts, even as my eyes were still watering from the pain. But one of the lenses suddenly flew out of my eye, landing on the gravel shoulder alongside West River Road. I got off my bike and searched for it as cars whizzed by just a few feet away. I had this feeling of horror: I had worked for three years, and now the lens was gone, and I was out that three hundred dollars.

  Unable to find the lens, I rode home in tears and told Mom the bad news. Always determined and always the optimist, Mom said that we would go out together and find the missing lens. So we went back out to the highway, and together we got down on our hands and knees on the gravelly side of the road and looked for that lost lens. It probably seemed ridiculous, but that’s what families are for—to solve every crisis that arises, no matter how ridiculous. Then, miraculously, the sun glinted on the lens—and we saw it! That little piece of plastic represented three years of work and savings to me. I was thrilled to know my labors weren’t for nothing. So we took it home and washed it off, and I put it back into my eye. I was utterly grateful to Mom, and utterly happy at the same time—so I ignored the pain.

  With the help of my new look, I felt more confident in high school. I wasn’t really a beauty-pageant girl; there were scads of girls far more attractive than I was. But I was chosen twice as a princess for the homecoming court, and, yes, I even won the title of Miss Congeniality. I borrowed friends’ prom dresses to wear to the court; we couldn’t possibly swing buying a fancy gown. But there was one problem: the tradition at Anoka was for a girl’s father to walk the queen, and all the princesses, across the football field at halftime in their ballgowns. I borrowed a gown, but I didn’t have my dad. What to do? We had no adult male relatives in Minnesota, so I looked to a man who laid down the law at Anoka, our principal, Art Dussel. I made an appointment with the school secretary to speak with him. I was very nervous and felt a little ashamed to ask him if he would escort me across the football field. My emotions overcame me and though I didn’t mean to, I started to cry when I asked him to do this. I’d never spoken of my parents’ divorce, and it was harder than I had even anticipated to talk about it. Mr. Dussel couldn’t have been more gracious or kind. He immediately agreed, and seemed honored by the request.

  At the Friday-night homecoming game, sure enough, Mr. Dussel met me at the fifty-yard line in his suit and tie. He had a little gift-wrapped box in his hand that he gave me which contained a small pearl pendant necklace. Gifts were rare to nonexistent in our family, and I couldn’t believe that he and Mrs. Dussel would be so generous. I’ve never forgotten his kindness or how he “stood in the gap” for me when I needed a
dad’s presence at that important event in my life.

  I went on a few dates in high school, maybe to the movies or to a school event, but not many. In addition to the fact that I was always studying, working, or rehearsing, I wasn’t fun in the way that so many high-school boys defined “fun.” I didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t do drugs—and didn’t fool around. Despite serving as prom chair, I didn’t get asked to the junior prom. I felt bad when I didn’t get asked my junior year, but I was really embarrassed and sad that I wasn’t asked my senior year. I was working as a grocery cashier at Country Club Market and was scheduled to work prom night. Because girls couldn’t ask boys, and because I had no idea how to flirt, I found myself literally minding the store rather than primping for the prom.

  Meanwhile, my home life was changing yet again. In 1973, when I was seventeen, my mother remarried. She had met a man named Raymond J. LaFave, a divorced father with five kids of his own, at a Parents Without Parents meeting and dance. My mother hadn’t had much success at these meetings and decided this would be her last try. Ray was, and is, a wonderful man. He worked hard all his life and is a true salt of the earth. And he has always been good to Mom. Finally, our economic situation had stabilized. My stepdad was a proud Army veteran of World War Two, with a great smile and a great sense of humor. He had been a single father to his five kids, and clearly he was crazy about our mom. So in May 1973, I became a bridesmaid at my mother’s wedding. In October of my senior year, I got to see my mom and stepdad purchase their own home, a three-bedroom rambler. Thanks to everyone’s pitching in, from Grandma Laura to the youngest sibling, all through those tough years, we had made it. During the lean years, my mom had told us, “Don’t worry, it won’t always be this way. Things will get better.” It was tough, but we all learned a work ethic, we learned to save, we learned that if we wanted something, we’d have to work for it, and we learned the value of a dollar. We also learned that material possessions could sprout wings and fly away overnight; we also learned to look at material possessions as temporary, rather than permanent. It was my first lesson that I didn’t want material things to own me or define me.