June 2007 Archives

This morning surfing during breakfast produced a program summary, "Multiple murders muddle Matlock's seaside sojourn." Wonderful! All that alliteration arked back to our AngloSaxon beginnings, reminding me of the cliched Buddhist T-shirt slogan: Front: "What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?" Back: "Make me one with everything." Anyway, most people know alliteration only from tongue twisters, but it was even the way Old English verse forms were constructed, very evident in our first literature as in Beowulf (which has become popular again, whether in modern opera, John Gardner's modern novel Grendel, or the Antonio Banderas movie, The Thirteenth Warrior); and one of my very favorite modern poets, Auden, used it extensively, partially because of its long historical roots in our language.

Likewise, I ran across two other sentences producing the same kind of delight, though not alliterative. One is from Matthew Sharpe's hilarious experimental novel--too rowdy and bawdy for most, I suspect--Jamestown, a post-apocalyptic version told in alternating chapters by Johnny Rolfe and Pocahontas, this example from Pocahontas: "On this evening's menu is me telling you about the pre-hunt pep rally that just happened and that always happens around a fire in the center of town on the night before all the guys in town--most of the guys in town--the popular guys in town--the physically strong guys in town--the aggressive guys in town--the normal guys in town go on the hunt." (She sees right through males, especially the macho maniacs.)

The other example was from Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics, which just came in the mail and which I opened, like John Cage using the I Ching, to another serendipitous style: "It was obvious the Bluebloods, including Nigel and Lu, approached sex as if it were cute little towns they had to whizz through in order to make good time on their way to Somewhere (and I wasn't so sure they knew their final destination)."

And I've just sent off a copy of one of my very, very favorite books to Kay Koftan, David Mitchell's Black Swan Green, stuffed full of stylish trophies, such as these: "Dad's a pair of scissors at times. Snip snip snip snip." "Dad's 'DID YOU HEAR ME?' was like a brick through a window. Julia and me jumped. 'Yes Dad.' "
"The cold poked me awake. I didn't know where or who or when I was . . . . The pain in my foot had gone but my head didn't feel right, like a crow'd flown in and couldn't get out."
"Bluebells swarmed in pools of light where the sun got through the trees. The air smelt of them. Wild garlic smelt of toasted phlegm. Blackbirds sang like they'd die if they didn't. Birdsong's the thouhts of a wood."
" 'OPEN UP! OPEN UP!' holler door knockers. 'OR I'LL BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN!' Bells're shyer. Bells're 'Hello? Anyone home?' The vicarage had a knocker and a bell and I'd tried both, but still nobody answered."
"The old lady's rivery eyeballs chased the words across the pages."
Who could not have a great day reading our words spun into clothes of gold and silver for our delight?

NOTE: This is what I wrote, by request, to be submitted to the national court reporting association's magazine as a memorial for my sister, JaVee, killed by accident in early May. Whether or not it is ever published, this is the original version I post in her memory.

JaVee Suhr, my sister, was positively demented about court reporting. She may have persuaded me to follow her into the profession in my career change, but I would never approach her proficiency nor her occupational joy. From the time she entered Bill Braun's Northern Technical at the end of Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis to her death on Dad's birthday this year from a shocking four-wheeler accident, JaVee was her own best competitor. She loved writing and practiced endlessly, for those school speed tests, during slow business periods, for her merit writing proficiency level, for any upcoming case with difficult jargon, for mastering real time with ease. Helping me out two years ago when I, a retired state district court reporter, had to re-create a 2500-page lost criminal bill of exceptions from 1994-1995 showed me all over again her thorough professionalism, as she made special brief forms for recurring names, DNA terms, as I knew she did for all her jobs, usually getting documents and exhibits ahead of time to have her special dictionaries prepared. A superlative businesswoman, when attorneys wanted transcripts the cliched day before yesterday, JaVee would stay up all hours to get the work to them three days ago. Her efficiency, experienced poise, diligent performance, quality work product gained her widespread respect and recognition across the Omaha legal community into state and national areas. That's undoubtedly why we had a tremendous outpouring of support, respect, and sympathy during those awful final days, with dozens of lawyers, judges, reporters following her www.carepage.com medical entries, then appearing at visitation and the funeral.

Her unique name was our parents' initials, J for Jack, V for Velma, spelled phonetically. Tall and slender like Dad, only a half inch shorter than my six feet, she was a beautiful exercise and health addict looking years younger: the EMTs at the accident scene thought her 35-40, which would've made her laugh at 52. Undoubtedly all that helped her with attorneys, though I suspect it was more her easy smiling grace, her confidence, her job skills that mattered most in her constant networking. After a brief entry period with Dorothea Pharris and Associates, she created her own business partnerships, establishing Thibault Suhr and Thibault in 1976 with Gary and Alvin Thibault. JaVee served as co-president representing the freelancers, with Margaret Kirkeby representing the officials, for the Nebraska state association. She regularly went to national meetings, leadership conferences, often returning happily excited at new accomplishments, such as the time she came home from Florida ecstatic that a new friend had showed her a new way to write numbers, which she promptly demonstrated. (She was always showing me her latest software, newest masteries.) She had no trouble traveling nationally, or to Sweden and Denmark, later Australia, for depositions, coming back with anecdotes about idioms and accents.

Of course, her life wasn't entirely her profession. Her ICU respiratory specialist in her last days had played volleyball with her 30 years earlier. She was likewise involved with golfing, her church, boating, following local sports activities such as Creighton U. basketball, the College World Series, and our various hockey teams, and especially with her family and hosts of friends. (She never went anywhere without meeting people she knew.) She leaves her daughter, Cianne; her partner, Rodger Hanten, and his two daughters, Dana and Courtney; her sister, a virtual twin despite a slight age difference, Sue Rohrer and her family; me, her brother, Gary Luckert; her ex-husband, Greg Suhr. We will hear her "Give me a hug" or "Thank you, God" only in poignant memory now.

It seemed very apt that a courthouse friend called her the Tiger Woods of reporting, at least for this area. I suspect if there were an Oscar equivalent in court reporting, JaVee would have competed hard for that.

NOTE: I should never improvise orally but always write. This is what I meant to say at Aunt Betty Koftan's memorial service:

Whatever you think of me, I am the product of my grandmother and mother. Consequently, whatever they thought, as the ancestral Twigg bent, I was bound to be espaliered in the same directions. Since Aunt Betty was my mom's very favorite in-law, she was naturally, unquestionably my very favorite aunt. Of course, it helped that she was tall, like my dad's side of the family, pretty, with a beautiful smile, like the one on the cover of the memorial service brochure, and with a certain serenity that was valuable in our high-decibel family.

Actually, I'm sure that she had times of tears and anger, but I only vaguely remember her in those Kodak negative moods. The photos I found missing from her childrens' montage of her life were one of her in her high school play and one when she was clearly very pregnant and mugging wryly, "Just take it from here on up," with her hand sliced across her neckline, her jaw jutting forward, a rueful look, a sweetly funny photo.

Otherwise, I remember her bringing a smiling calmness into our mostly noisy families. The Luckerts were notorious for emotional teariness, both aunts and uncles. The Peters emphasized their Irishness by noisy arguments, especially if there was a Republican foolish enough to admit it. Besides Grandpa's explosive Czech fury, Grandma and Grandpa Koftan had a wrangling relationship that bothered me as a little boy, but Mom always laughed about their sniping, treating it affectionately as their version of such contentious radio couples as the Bickersons. And Audree and Larry had a very strident sibling rivalry. Amid the noise, Aunt Betty was this quiet place, soft-spoken, all the more appreciated along with her other virtues.

Back then she spoiled me. When she found out that I really, really liked her cherry pie, that's what I got at family gatherings or when I visited their family. Because I sight-read piano music well, I never learned to play by ear or memory. When I went to visit them in Albion, she had nothing to sing, and I had nothing to play; so she went uptown and bought me the sheet music for an old Irving Berlin song, "[Let's Take] An Old-Fashioned Walk," a very singable waltz from a forgotten musical, Miss Liberty. Every time I ran across it, I thought of her. She also bought me the piano transcription of An American in Paris and possibly Rhapsody in Blue. The first was because the folks and Uncle Larry and Aunt Betty had gone fishing up at Enemy Swims, South Dakota, leaving me home alone. While there, Mom and Aunt Betty had gone to the drive-in to see the then new film version with Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, which made me feel especially bad for having to stay home. So she made the special gift to me. While I wasn't Jose Iturbi or Oscar Levant, famous movie pianists of that time, I could bang my way through fairly well for her.

This was, after all, the time when many children had piano lessons just as in The Music Man, when people sang much more and much better than they do now, before TV (and even after, for that matter), when we spent much of our radio evenings with "The Hit Parade" and other musical shows, prize game shows like "Name That Tune" and "Stop the Music," talk shows featuring mainly vocalists; and singers like Dinah Shore, Perry Como, and Kate Smith, had their own variety shows. Gathered around the piano at Mary's Cafe or at family reunions, holiday occasions, even public meetings, we had singalongs regularly well before Mitch Miller made those a TV hit.

Of course, Mom and Aunt Betty had beautiful, strong alto voices. Mom's power offfset easily the rest of her church choir's sopranos; she sang frequently for weddings, funerals, conventions, alumni banquets, a local Kate Smith. Aunt Betty's sweetly strong voice could harmonize easily with Mom's, and she sang in duets and trios, as I recall. Besides choir, both sang everyday around the house, with or without the radio, with or without Gramma or me playing the piano. They sang us through car trips to Norfolk to shop or to picnics and reunions. They're the reason I learned to read the alto line in the hymnals and songbooks of the day long before I learned the tenor or bass parts. I cannot truly describe the tremendous joy they gave with their gifted voices, their own pleasure at singing.

Besides music, I should mention that we were all also readers, another habit almost lost. So I wasn't surprised to discover that Aunt Betty shared Mom's fondness for crossword puzzles, as do I, dependent as those are on vocabulary and widespread general knowledge gained mostly from reading--not from watching TV. When Cousin Linda told me of the crosswod puzzle club memberships she'd given her mother, I was impressed that Aunt Betty could probably have dealt with Will Shortz's well-known New York Times crosswords. Such verbal background undoubtedly contributed to her wry sense of humor, which her children have inherited to catch me off guard with.

I was also pleased when some earlier blog entries of mine delighted her about the 1950s we shared, the last happy era before TV and computers and microchips assaulted us 24/7 with world and data overload, agitating us into commercial-length attention spans. I had written about the popular songs on the colorful Wurlitzer jukebox in Mary's Cafe during my high school years, and she immediately e-mailed me what happy memories they gave her. The same happened when I catalogued popular candies of the time, mentioning such bygones as Walnut Crush and LaFamas, which had been among her very favorites too. Kindred minds with kindred tastes.

Finally, I have a habit of classifying even weather by art. Art museums are to me what churches are to you. Thus, summer dawns of pastel pinks, purples, peaches, those familiar Impressionist colors, are Monet dawns, as certain sunsets are blazing Turners. In this case, not so strangely, because artists have used women as symbolic landscapes--and I don't just mean Dali's surrealism--in line with Aunt Betty's symbolic serenity, how she made me feel, I not only associate her with Omaha's Lauritzen Gardens, where I go to escape stress in luminous green tunnels by trickling waterfalls, but with Constable days, especially Constable days. An English landscapist, John Constable is high summer, his scenes all deep blue skies with cumulous cloud boats over lush green pastures, cattle quietly grazing or standing in still ponds, farmers fording shallow streams with hayricks, romantic old farms and mills, distant villages with a church spire among their trees, the opulence of high summer in all its green wealth, so that you want to throw yourself down into the deep grass and fall up into the cerulean sky. Such calm beauty was Aunt Betty's. Such is how I remember her.