String(theor(y/ies): CAtcher in the Rye: Iowa: Morgensons: St. Louis: Thanksgiving:

September 7-8-9, 2012: Iowa




Was it Iowa?



I don’t remember but Iowa seems right, J.D. Salinger’s Alma Mater. I was offered a full ride by the recruiter.



We, my mother and I had driven from St. Louis after Thanksgiving with the Morgensons and I was offered a full scholarship. No student loans - no financial strings or tenterhooks from home.



“The only reason they want you is you’re better looking than any of the other people who go there. Did you look at the yearbook?” my mother said “Yuck- you’d be the most attractive person on campus.”



The campus wasn’t attractive, the town wasn’t attractive “your college friends are going to be your contacts in life- in business and looks matter, they just do,” my mother said “I’m not telling you to turn it down (beat) just think about what you could missing out on.”



No students loans, no hurricanes and none of the games that followed. But that was the year she had started to be nice to me; she hadn’t been a mother and I so wanted her approval that I turned down a full scholarship.



A great school?



No.



An inspiring landscape?



No, at least not the day we were there.



Fully paid for?



Yes.



Everything about my mother’s air said she would not approve the choice “but I’ll support you no matter what you decide”.



Hurt remembering that on the mat today- and really seeing it, especially from here- from all that came after and what it would have meant to and for me to just have been able to get that slip of paper ASAP from the University or College of Anywhere.



And who was it who raised me on “the importance of college” and “you can tell who has been to college and hasn’t” ? The same person who in her own particular way told me turn down a full scholarship in that way only a parent can tell their child while dangling all they‘ve withheld.



Iowa?- Hmm



maybe the show me state?



I’ll have to look that one up.



I remember I liked the library; Wright didn’t build it but you could certainly see him in the design.



How did Martha tell it? What did she say? When the cousins asked- how did she play it and portray- because portraying her kids as this or that was rather a specialty of hers, not that I found out about that until her death. Me being on full scholarship would’ve gone against the grain of how I was being portrayed, unbeknownst to me. To me she’d show up and tell all her problems, her suicide plans, etc.- me, well I wasn’t really her job.



Me, I just went on as if the offer had never happened- maybe because I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened or was happening for that matter only that I had been counting down the years for twelve years and it was getting near the end; I only had to make it a little bit longer.



“She didn’t want to go,” would that have been what my mother said? Like when my younger sister was offered a spot at a summer program for middle schoolers who showed promise in science at Duke University.



“She didn’t want to go,” Martha said.



Was that the truth? Was that what actually - did that reflect the actual reason as to why my sister didn’t go to Duke for part of a summer? She hadn’t wanted to go on camping weekend thing either but Martha had made her go- not to Duke but away for a weekend wherein Martha had planned on leaving town and going to Minnesota so as to leave me alone with the Earl-of-That-Never-Happened.



Some people raise children with the idea, the goal of them becoming independent, successful and ready for the world. Others, those like my parents, its almost as if vampires could and can give birth and when their child is growing they figure just how much life force they can suck out without actually killing them. Over the years they just bleed them out- a bit here, a bit there and most often while dangling approval or care or perhaps even love like a trinket that really, really can be had.