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In Memory of Zaz (Cassandra)
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Schoolgirls Walking (excerpt)
Topic: "Unconventional" the book
Shortly after the birth of my first child, my oldest daughter, my young wife and I entered into a photographic plan to have pictures taken twice a year of our daughter as she grew up. I believe it was called "Family Record Plan". A free photo album and discounted photography came with the plan for ten years. The closest photographer we could find associated with the plan, as we lived in Waukesha Wisconsin at the time, was Breitlow in Wauwatosa Wisconsin on Harwood Ave. So it was that in February or March of 1971 I had occasion to be driving through Wauwatosa on my way to pick up proofs of recent photographs of my oldest daughter. I worked second shift as a transformer assembler at the old R.T.E. plant in Waukesha at the time, so my errand running was always accomplished in the daytime. I had a brand new car at the time, in fact the only car I ever ordered from the factory. All my other cars were purchased used, or bought new off the lot. It was a special order color, a 1965 color called "misty turquiose", though the car was a 1970 SS Nova. It had every available option of aluminum and chrome bright trim offered from the factory at that time. I had replaced the factory rally wheels with Cragar five spoked "Mag" wheels with blue Chevrolet bow tie center caps, and new Goodyear Polyglass wide oval tires 60 series. I had the car pinstriped in black with chrome hood-pins installed. The suspension was lifted in the back with coil over shocks to accomodate the biggest tire I could fit in the wheel well. I was used to the car being noticed and enjoyed it. It was after all the muscle car era, and I was young and dumb. As I rumbled my way through the streets of Wauwatosa, while stopped at a light I noticed two dark haired schoolgirls crossing the street on the other side of the street I was on. I caught them looking at the car, so I gunned the motor a little at the light. I was smoking a cigarette, and had the window rolled down and the radio on. As I pulled out of the light and passed the girls, I looked directly at them. The girl closest to me turned to look at me, and our eyes locked together in a way that felt almost timeless. We stared at each other, and intently studied each other's faces until I rolled by. After I passed, I looked in the mirror and saw the girl turn to the other girl and say something close to her ear, almost leaning her head on her shoulder, which caused the other girl to react with a little handclasp and a giggle. I went about my errand, but the girl's face stuck in my mind for weeks, and I even awakened one morning, months later, dreaming of her; startled by it with a splitting headache from trying to remember who she was. After Zaz and I had been together as adults for a while I saw the picture of her at sixteen, and realized that the girl that day had been my Zaz.
Monday, 21 December 2009
Thank You Boy (excerpt)
Topic: "Unconventional" the book
When I was ten tears old, a week or so before Easter, my Father took me to downtown Milwaukee to a little basemant tailor shop to get the pants of the new corduroy suit he had gotten me for Easter fitted and tailored. Afterwards we went around town a bit on various errands; stopping at what was then the New Central YMCA on Wisconsin Ave. and two or three other stops. I don't remember the purposes of the stops, but my Father was involved with religious drama, YMCA fund raising, and the Greater Milwaukee Council Of Churches at the time. He had even involved me as a child performer in a few fund raising skits for the YMCA. On the way back he decided to run over to a little grocery store for something, I don't recall what, but we made our way there in a roundabout fashion, as I recall walking through town part of the way, after leaving the car parked in front of another errand site. As we were walking along, and I'm not even sure what street or alley we were on, I noticed two boys a little older than me playing catch with a baseball out on the sidewalk. All of a sudden a little girl in a beautiful white dress ran scrambling out onto the sidewalk, situating herself between the two boys, and jumping at the ball as they tossed it back and forth. The boys began to yell at her, "Cut it out. It's a hard ball. You'll get hurt." Finally one boy said, "You'd better watch out. We're going to throw it real hard." They began throwing the ball harder and harder to each other, and closer and closer to the little girl. She became frightened and ducked into a fetal position on the sidewalk whimpering, "Stop it. I'm scared." By then I had proceeded close enough to them to intervene. I ran in between the two yelling, "Cut it out!" The boys were bigger then me, but my Father was just behind me; and I guess the instincts learned from having two little sisters of my own caused me to feel protective of the little girl. Just as I bent over and began to kneel down to assist the little girl, I felt the ball hit me in the lower back and skip up over my shoulders. It should have hurt as the momentum of the impact threw the ball up over the head of the other boy, and out into the street. I don't recall any pain, just a thump and a brushing feeling across my back that made me aware I had been hit by the ball. I kneeled down and assisted the little girl to her feet and said, "Don't be afraid. They won't bother you now. My Dad will chase them away." She looked up at me, rubbing the tears off her cheeks, put one little hand on each side of my face, and looking right into my eyes said, "Oh thank you. Thank you boy!" Then she ran off through the yard and disappeared behind a house. I didn't know it at the time, and wouldn't realize it until after we were together as adults, but that little girl was my Zaz. She was around four and a half years old. My family had just moved to Greenfield Wisconsin from Minneapolis Minnesota the year before. I didn't know anybody from Milwaukee, except for adult associates of my Father.
Saturday, 19 December 2009
Birds and Bees (excerpt)
Topic: "Unconventional" the book
In July of 1955 I lived in Marion Ohio. I was five years old, to turn six in September that year. I was very young, but I remember several incidences during that summer. My Uncle Tom was fifteen to turn sixteen that year, and used to visit fairly regularly. I remember he had a firecracker cannon that you dropped a lit firecracker into, and if you stuffed paper quickly in afterwards, it would shoot out shreds of paper after it went off. He also had a little motor scooter that he took me for rides on occasionally. He was very fifties, very James Dean, and impressed me quite a bit as a little boy with all the dangerous things he did as a teen. At five going on six I was eager to impress any older boy with my daring do as well. I had a friend down the block named Paul, who was two years older than me, who took to me because of my knowledge of basball cards, interest in airplanes, and pirate sword fighting with wooden swords Uncle Tom made for us. Most of the neighborhood boys were impressed with Uncle Tom. I think he made my first rubber band gun as well. As that summer went along, Paul and I got to be good friends. I defended myself, and my sister, a few times in boyish skirmishes, and rock throwing fights across the street; even taking a good wound to the nose once and surviving. The object was to stand there and not chicken out, a painful object I would discover, but well worth the gain in neighborhood status. I had a pretty good reputation as a scrapper by the end of that summer, highly enhanced by my Uncle Tom I'm sure, but a reputation none the less. One day Paul happened to see me flinch when a bee began to buzz about my head. He started to tease me about being afraid of bees, so of course when he suggested that we catch bees in glass jars, I had to prove that I wasn't afraid. We began to regularly catch bees and release them at other kids to scare them. We noticed immediately that the other kids were impressed not only that we caught bees, but that out mothers gave us permission to do it with glass jars as well. It was quite a power trip for a couple of silly boys. One afternoon we were at the schoolyard with the big swings catching bees and chasing kids around. I remember it was after the fourth of July, but before my sister's birthday on the thirtieth. Paul got into an argument about Mickey Mantle with some other older boy and I drifted off toward the swings waiting to see what would come of it. I noticed an older dark-haired girl lazily swinging on the swing, in what looked like a Catholic School uniform. I thought she might be an older sister of one of the kids I was teasing, so I looked at her a bit warily. I'd gotten thumped enough by my Aunt Maryanna who was around thirteen, so I knew enough to respect an older girl's power. She looked up at me curiously and said, "What are you doing boy?" I thought it was odd at the time to address me as just plain boy, but I never knew the signifigance until later in life. I plunged ahead and replied, "Catching bees." She asked, "Why?" I decided not to answer that right away, and took the offensive brandishing my jar, "Want to see these two?" She replied, "Sure." I handed her the jar and she looked them over at different angles for a bit and then said, "You have to let them go you know. They'll die in the jar." I said, "They're just bees." She said, "Don't you know the flowers need bees?" I just said, "I never kill them. I always let them go." Aunt Maryanna had told me the same thing. Then the girl just unscrewed the jar lid and shook the bees free saying, "All right then." I was impressed now. I asked, "Are you Catholic?" She ignored the question and began to swing slowly humming a song I didn't know. The she asked, "Is that your brother over there?" I said, "No, I only have a sister and she's at home with my Mom." And then I added, "But my Mom is having another baby soon." She stopped swinging and looked at me smiling and said, "That's your brother. Your Mom's new baby." I looked at her for a minute, and then for no reason just took her at her word. I think she sensed that I had done so and then said, "I think of being a Nun sometimes. They marry Jesus, and get a wedding ring and everything. You have to be very good though." Even I knew about Nuns so I just said, "They can't have babies though. They're married to God." She scolded me and said, "I'm not a dumb bunny you know." She giggled and started swinging and said, "Do you know this song?" And then she began to sing, "Let me tell you about the birds and the bees, and the flowers and the trees, and the moon up above, and a thing called love." I said, "No I never heard it before." She said, "You will." Then she looked at me peacefully and said, "I have to go home now boy. Tomorrow is my birthday." I said, "Happy Brithday then. Watch out for bees." She feigned a frown, and said again, "I'm not a dumb bunny you know." She ran up over the hill behind the swings, and I never saw her again in Ohio. The day before my birthday, September 29, in the early evening I was playing outside in the backyard. I was imagining my swing set a great sailing ship under my command. There was a storm coming in, but I was determined to stay out there in the growing wind and play pirate. My Mom kept calling me to come in and I kept puting her off. She said, "Tommy you get in here if the lightening gets any closer." I said, "In a minute Mom. It's OK." Inevitably the storm began to grow, the sky darkening as the winds picked up. Suddenly there was a great clap of thunder, and a huge lightening bolt cut through the air. It startled me and I took off for the back door of the house. Halfway across the yard I stepped on a bee in my bare feet and got stung on the right foot. It started to rain. I hopped and jumped and managed to get to the backdoor, tears in my eyes, and reached out for the doorhandle and got stung again on the right hand by a yellowjacket perched on the door handle. The next day I had a sore swollen right hand and foot. I remembered the girl on the swing on my own birthday in 1955, and on the day my brother was born in October that year. I know now that somehow the girl was Zaz. I think she was trying to let me know she was coming into the world the day before she arrived. The last few years I have equated the bee stings with the unexpected death of my brother, and the tragic death of her Billy. The song she was singing turned out to be the Jewel Aiken hit song from 1965. The first time I heard the song on the radio I thought it was a silly old song from back in the fifties. I told my friends that liked it, that it was stupid to compare a song like that to Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone". I was so serious in the sixties. I think I was so precocious as a child, because I was so terrified of my Father. It was a defense mechanism to stay on my toes and be smart around him. That the girl, Zaz, was ten years old simply indicates how mature of a five year old I was at times. She knew I was smart, and she made sure to show me how smart she was, and not to get too big for my britches.
Thursday, 17 December 2009
I Could Not Smell Your Hair
Topic: Poems for Zaz
The pain that you suffer in the time you have lost returns like a story on the winds where you tossed and whispers so sweetly in your mouth full of sighs and drains you so empty of the tears in your eyes Tomorrow is a shadow on a road that is not there Today never happened because I could not smell your hair So write it up and down cut a cross upon my chest and make a bed of thorns to lay my shattered heart to rest Tie my soul to heaven's gatepost a tattered banner in the stars to keen of love just taken beyond healing, beyond scars Tomorrow is a shadow in a night I cannot bear and yesterday can't make me because I cannot smell your hair My time is washed behind me and in front there is no light I stand in my same footsteps where you left me on that night I'm just a hollow echo of the song we used to share and our angels all stopped singing when I could not smell your hair so burn my corpse a daybreak send the smoke to heaven's air all the angels started dying when I could not smell your hair tommy for Zaz
The Long Sweet Fall (Tears for Zaz)
Topic: Poems for Zaz
I can't remember if it was snowing or if the night was even cold All I could see were your beautiful eyes and that soldier sadness in your face You looked straight at me and I looked straight at you like coming home for the very last time There was nothing for us here we needed to find - just each other And it all went into that long sweet fall in that half-light of love that should have always been Sighs here in this shadow of heaven filling up the last of the night And then they lined up all around us and just ran us straight into the ground Angry for losing their senses Hurt with that thing that they could not feel And then the stars hung their heads and the broken moon dropped tears all over our holy ground until nothing could hold back the flood And it all went into that long sweet fall and their half-opened eyes couldn't take the light as they ducked into the shadows of heaven just beyond our sorrow burning there so bright And my Zaz and I went into that long sweet fall Laying back into the arms of forever Carried up over all the shadows of heaven to rest where worlds spin so softly in unbroken skies Now every step I take is just a long sweet fall like the tears running down my cheeks I know the midnight is lifting in heaven as we rise to make a morning for our love again I swear I heard your little feet run across the kitchen floor but the dog still sits alone looking at the door I swear I smelled you on the pillow, felt you move next to me but it's just the curtains sailing up on a midnight breeze tommy for Zaz always
Information
Topic: Information
This Blog is for my Zaz, Cassandra Dawn (Ohrmund) Shoplas, who passed away July 31, 2009. She was and still is the love of my life and my forever. I will be posting poems and pictures about her here. I am currently engaged in writing a book about her as well and will post excerpts and progress reports occasionally as I go. "You can dance every dance with the boy sitting next to you And you know, baby girl you can go do anything you want to do, but don't forget who's taking you home and in whose arms your gonna be darling, save the last dance for me" The song I played out under the stars the night after the funeral, while six grown men stood and wept. tommy
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