THE FACE THAT LAUNCHED A THOUSAND SHIPS

Helen - no, not that Helen (of Troy) - is finally on her way to living in a new place, one of my (and Dad's) longest-term goals. After rescheduling her move THREE times the end of October, Ann and I finally ended up actually doing the deed this past Friday (November 10). We envisioned two days to get the old disaster area packed up and carted over to the new (soon to be disaster) area. By the end of Friday, Ann realized it would take a lot longer than expected, so she is currently back up there as of Monday and Tuesday this week, finishing up, she hopes by Tuesday. (I could only help the first two days, since the third move date ended up just days from my ACTFL Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.)

Knowing that Helen would be overly anxious and, to be blunt, a nuisance to anyone trying to box up and organize her chaos, we wisely decided to send her off on a couple-day "vacation" to Big Bear, further up the mountain, with Cathy, her Mountain Nurse, while Ann and I did the move for her. No good deed goes unpunished, however, and Helen had a bit of an emotional "melt-down" while at the cabin, not knowing where she was, afraid to sleep, etc. She hasn't slept away from her house in Crestline since 1991, when it was built, I imagine, so being in an unfamiliar town was more traumatic than we had expected. Cathy called us in desperation Saturday. Ann began to wonder whether Helen would be able to live in a new house at all - maybe we needed to take her directly to a senior home?

We had only paid for two nights in Big Bear (plan A), so Sunday, Cathy had to bring her back to Crestline, where we had reserved a local motel room. To everyone's huge relief, that seemed to calm her. At least she knows Crestline and had an idea where she was and why she was there. Cathy and the motel owner have been checking in on her from time to time, and so far, so good. She's just up the street now from where her new house is and looking forward to moving in.

It was sad, frustrating, and mind-boggling at times going through the layers of mess Helen had built up over the past 15 years in her isolated house on the lake. We knew she wrote notes to herself about everything, but we had no idea what a compulsive obsession it had become. She had tiny notebook after notebook filled with scribbling in every room and on every surface and notes in wild handwriting on every letter, magazine and book she had ever received (never throwing anything out). The coup de grâce was a hardbacked book I found that had a sticker by Helen on each cover labeled "front of book" and "back of book"! I had had only an inkling of how confused and scattered her cognitive function really was. (I began to wonder whether she wasn't more ready for assisted living than a new house.) We found hundreds of plastic Kleenex packages, tiny jars of Vaseline, cat toys, paper clips, Christian tracts, hearing aid batteries, in every room and drawer. Ann discovered piles of debris behind each of her dresser drawers (inside the dresser); she wondered how anyone could get so much back there! It took a good two days just to sort the wheat from the chaff and pick out the important papers from the junk paper. (The goal in packing was to make sure she could orient herself to her old possessions in their new space - especially the vital pieces, like her daily calendar, recent bills, etc. We assumed there was some method in her disorganization - at least sometimes!)

More welcome discoveries were some of her family history items, photographs (including her 1946 wedding photos wrapped tightly away inside two paper bags and closed with duct tape, an old will from our mom and dad written in 1965 (!), and her marriage and divorce documents. She has been totally closed about that era of her life our entire lives. And the relatives just gave us the outlines, no dates, not even years. So ... mystery solved: she married ex-GI Athal White in 1946 after Dad (her brother) had returned from the post-WWII occupation in Korea. The family story was that her mother and aunt had discovered her bruised and discolored a month or so after the wedding and realized they had to pull the plug on a bad situation. The marriage lasted months only, but the divorced wasn't finalized until 1949. Being the stalwart, fundamentalist Lutherans they were, her parents couldn't allow her to remarry (it would be "adultery" according to our Lord's words), so she was condemned to a life of singleness the rest of her days. That was no small part of her "nervous breakdown" in the early '60s, I imagine. She has been on CA State Teachers disabilitiy ever since. 40+ years now!

The new house, however, if it works out even for a year or so, will be worth it for her. It's all one story with no steps or slopes and reasonably spacious for a house in Crestline village (dumpy cottages are the norm). Ann did an admirable job of sorting and organizing, so what she starts out with, at least, will be some order and simplicity, with tons of old detritus safely disposed of. (She had Time magazines from the 1980s!)

Her old house needs a thorough cleaning and painting (the rug is unsalvageable). But in a month or so, Ann wants to have it on the market. It should have good resale value being right by the lake and across from the city recreation area. It's away from the hustle and bustle of the village, but just a few minutes from shops. And the 1991 house is well built and should be attractive to buyers.

NASHVILLE

Tomorrow, Wednesday, I'm off to Nashville for about 5 days for job hunting at the ACTFL conference. I'll attend some papers, but my main goal is to canvas the exhibitors' area, meeting language publisher reps and handing out my card. Last year the conference (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) was in Baltimore; this year it's in the heart of Opry Land. My La Quinta Inn is just a few minutes from downtown by freeway (and about half as expensive as even the convention rate at the downtown hotels). More in my next posting!