Chapter 26 Struggling to Stay a Family

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PART SIX

STRUGGLING TO STAY A FAMILY

Chapter 26

Starting Over Again at the

State University of New York in Albany;

34 North Allen Street

In the beginning the prospect of moving back east, trekking across the country by camping trailer and text was an exciting one to us all. Change is always a challenge, to the adults as well as to the children. But in the long run this move was to prove an ordeal for all of us in a lot of ways, although the impetus of the change itself obscured this fact for quite a while.

At first we were far too busy to notice how enormous the change we were making actually was &endash; for every member of the family, including our dog, Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog (named after Tom's dog in the TV kids' program, "Tom Terrific"). The older kids were totally cooperative in helping with final preparations. We were all suffering from the anxiety of coordinating and completing our elaborate disentanglement manoeuvers, but finally everything was done, our house was sold, our goods taken care of, and off we went, leaving Bill's mother with the mother of one of our Unitarian friends, to follow us by plane once we had a house for her to come to.

Our trek was relatively uneventful, and its agreeableness as a cooperative venture helped to restore somewhat our sense of family cohesiveness. Having Billy as a relief driver was a great boon! It seemed not too different from our trips across the country in previous summers - but it really wasn't the same &endash; we were now back east for good! It was exciting, At first we were too burdened with the details to be handled to notice much except the change of climate - which was, of course, a pleasure! It was only much later that we began to realize how much of our connectedness with a group of real friends we were giving up for the cold-hearted impersonality of a northeastern city! In the end we ended up all suffering from the culture shock of the change, which, looking back, took several years to adapt to.

We arrived at the farm in Ashfield in the dark, greeted ecstatically by Bucky and her "new" dog Jamie. Packing everyone off to bed, we settled in ourselves, only to be wakened by furious snarling and barking outdoors. Rushing out into the frosty coldness, we found Jamie with Manfred's entire head in his huge jaws doing his best to crush his skull - and only separated them with great difficulty by repeatedly slugging Jamie with a shovel, the only thing I could find for the job! Bucky had let him out, oblivious of the consequences.

Receiving a call from Mr. Morris, our secondary mover, that he had arrived in Albany, Bill, Billy, Manfred and I headed east to meet him and find a warehouse to store his load. This accomplished, we contacted a real estate agent we had found in the yellow pages, but after being shown a couple of totally unsuitable houses, we finally decided to return to the farm, feeling discouraged and rather unwell. On the way we stopped off in a community west of Albany to board Manfred with a friendly couple who had a sign advertising kennels.

When we arrived back at the farm, we discovered that Peter had taken Tommy and Ellen up to the top of the wooded hill we call the "top of the world,." assuring them that he knew where he was going. Unfortunately, he got turned around, coming down again, and led them over and down the east side of the summit, ending up out on the West Road, miles from our house. Fortunately, they had came out near a stone cottage on the road, and the woman who lived there spotted the little group of lost children and kindly drove them home,

This episode of "Peterism" made us realize we couldn't leave them alone with Bucky, so I stayed home the next day and Bill and Billy drove in to look at houses. They didn't get any real leads, however, and Bill's mother was putting pressure on us to let her fly east, saying she could not stay with Mrs. Earnhart, the friend we had left her with! Panic! The anxiety level rose even further &endash; and now Bill's stability began to wobble, especially after he and Billy made a visit to his new boss Bob Creegan's office and he began to get a clearer picture of what was going to be expected of him.

The next day, however, we headed back to Albany, seeking out a new real estate agent, a Mrs. Eva Geller, with whom we made an appointment to look at still more houses on Sunday and opening an account at the National Commercial Bank & Trust Co., at a branch patronized by a great many of the faculty at the University. Finally heading back to the farm again, we called our bank in Denton and arranged for a transfer of funds to the new account. It was all we could do for the moment - which was in a way a relief. We spent the next day catching up with our lives, washing clothes, going swimming, relaxing a bit before heading back into the fray!

Sunday came all too soon, and we headed doggedly back to our house-hunting chore. After showing us a dark farmhouse even further out in the country, Mrs. Geller finally began to realize more clearly exactly the kind of house we needed, located where we needed to live &endash; which was within easy biking distance from the campus - and told us she had a perfect house for us. She leveled with us, warning us that it was actually the kind of house many agents dread being asked to list, because it lacked the contemporary style features demanded by most professional families &endash; but for us it was clearly THE HOUSE!

She was right. It was a perfect setting for our family of nine so widely separated by age, by temperament, by interest, by need, close enough to the campus for Bill either to walk, take a bus or cycle to work. Built some time during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it had three floors and a big basement, a wide, wrap-around porch in the front of the kind Bucky would call a veranda, a two-story carriage house in the back yard, and, best of all, a fat TOWER on one corner, with a round, many-windowed room at its base on the first floor and a similar one above which would be perfect for Bill's study! Five bedrooms on the second floor, and four more rooms on the top floor, not as well finished but still usable as bedrooms, We took it at once, signed the contract and drove back to the farm, jubilant!

The first obstacle had been surmounted &endash; but others were still to be tackled. The contract gave us thirty days to come up with the down-payment on the house, but we needed to finish the purchase process much sooner than that in order to arrange for Bill's mother to be put on a plane to join us. As it turned out, we were fortunate indeed that Bucky was so glad to have us all as long-term guests at the farm, in view of the time it was going to take before we were all actually ready to move into the new house!

In the meanwhile, we got a sudden call from the United Vanline movers, who had the bulk of our household goods, informing us that we had exactly three hours to arrange for the delivery of our goods! Double panic! We had made an arrangement to drop Bill off at the airport in Springfield to meet his mother and oversee the transfer from Idlewild, where she was coming in, to his flight back to Springfield &endash; so we called Mrs. Geller, who made an appointment with the owners of "our" house &endash; the McGowans &endash; to let us into the house to meet the movers at noon. It took longer than we had anticipated drop Bill off in Springfield and make it back to Albany in time, but, arriving fairly late, everyone was still waiting, and the transfer of our furniture took place! We then drove back to Springfield to pick Bill and his mother up at the airport.

Gradually, the rest of the pieces of the puzzle came together after this near miss, although it took longer and was more painful than we had anticipated. Bill's mother was clearly in a state of passive rebellion against the whole process. She did her best to cope, but expressed her dislike of being left at the farm, complaining jokingly about the lack of sidewalks - and exhibiting increasing signs of a level of anxiety of an intensity that had led to the development of severe gastric ulceration earlier in her life.

We were too busy with the many requirements of establishing ourselves in our new surroundings to make her needs a top priority, however &endash; the most urgent of these being the arrival of our account money from Denton County National Bank in order to close on the house, and arranging for the three older boys to be enrolled in the Milne School, a laboratory school left over from the teachers' college phase of the University to which faculty families were given precdence of admission. This school, which gave student teachers their practicum, was alleged to be greatly superior to Albany's junior and senior high schools, and I guess it was true, given the deplorable state of Albany's school system under the Democratic party's "marathon mayor" Erastus Corning, in office since the '20s! But that was information we would not fully appreciate until some time later.

Of course it all took longer than we had anticipated, but finally the house was ours, and we were able to hook up the power and gas, move everyone in, including Bill's mother and Manfred, retrieve our warehoused goods and begin unpacking, sorting out bedrooms and the like. The McGowans came over with their boys to help us put on the old-fashioned storm windows, and we began to settle in, meet our next-door neighbors on both sides, and generally beginning to feel we had established a beachhead in our new place, our new life!

Some aspects of our new life were rewarding, but the stress on us all was palpable. Bill's mother was not the only one who had begun to suffer from physiological difficulties in reaction to the demands of the new situation. Bill began realizing his vision was slightly impaired in strong light. It looked as though his cataracts, which had been stable for years, were beginning to thicken in opacity. This would have to be given medical attention, once we were completely settled. He was both pleased and distressed by what he was finding about the new situation, and about his own ability to meet the challenges:

… I set up my study in the second floor tower room today. With windows (four of them) on the east and south, it has unusually good light. Since it doesn't have a closet, it wouldn't make a very good bedroom. Besides, it's a little small and rather exposed to the street. As a study however, it is ideal. I need more bookcases, not having the built-ins I had at 1807 Bell [Avenue].

It can't be all emotion - my eyes are giving me more trouble, especially vhen I'm out in broad daylight. I've always had some light confusion, but now things seem to go blah just when I have most need to see. I often can't see the traffic lights and sometimes feel unsafe out on the street, which, of course, intensifies the trouble. A classmate of Mary's at Children's [Hospital] is married to an eye specialist in Greenfield. She's going to write to him for a referral to someone in Albany who knows .something about the problems of people with very limited vision. These and other problems keep my general anxiety level fairly high, but I still feel much better than I did last week. It, was just a week ago this afternoon that we first saw this house.

There are difficulties with this house - congestion in the bathroom, the door of vvhich won't even stay closed, much less latch; shortage of electrical outlets; sink in our room badly cracked; so are some windows; some rooms rather dark; heavy traffic on Allen Street; neighbors close around and bustling city everywhere. Still, we think it is the best possible arrangement we could have made, and almost miraculous, especially considering the ignorance and inefficiency with which we approached the problem of housing. We slept in our own bed again last night, just twenty days after we dismantled it in Texas and threw away our whole way of life. I guess we aren't doing too badly.

Saturday, August twenty-sixth

Mary shopped at an A&P on Central, which she says is bigger and better than the one nearer us, She processed laundry in a coin washer place next door, says that none of the machines seem to get clothes as clean as did her old Bendix, but they all get them much drier.

Peter, pushing things as usual, has started repainting his room. Billy worked all day converting some of the radio equipment he got from Bob Laws. Manfred has a handsome tan, brass-studded collar, the first he's ever worn, seems sad about it. Ellen and Mark ran and screamed all day with the Zumbo children next door. Both ended the day with crying jags.

But now it was September, and Bill became absorbed in his class work and his new role as a faculty member. We still had no family doctor, and all five kids were going to need their smallpox inoculations before being accepted into school, so I asked Mrs. Smith next door for advice. She told me there was a very good general practitioner named Dr. Poskanzer right on our street near the corner. I made an appointment for them to be inoculated &endash; and for Mark to have his booster shots. Dr. Poskanzer was friendly and relaxed, and they all liked him right away in spite of the unpleasantness involved with needles.

The older boys began their school year in the new school and Ellen began her third grade year in School 16, right across the street from our house! Her reaction was distressing to us both, especially after such a wonderful year at the Prep School in Denton. I enclose her picture from that year.

She was initially bored and disheartened by her school situation, which meant for her sitting idle most of the day while her teacher, although kind, spent most of her time plowing over and over ground Ellen had covered more than a year before, I went over to the school office to ask if there was any way her work could be made more challenging, and the next day Ellen came home reporting that she had a new teacher. She had been switched to a class which was labeled the third grade "AT" track &endash; "AT" apparently standing for "Academically Talented," although we later learned that the kids called it "Animal Trained" &endash; a designation which turned out to be accurate. Ellen began crying and protesting strongly when it came time to go to school! We were both distressed, but could think of no viable alternative, so Bill walked her over to school and up to her classroom, at her urgent request. It seemed to help a little, but not enough.

It wasn't until later, during our mid-year school conference, when I myself went to meet her teacher and hear her report on Ellen that I realized what a terrifying person her teacher was &endash; but by this time half the year was over, and it seemed inevitable that she complete the year. Looking back, I regret this decision very much, because it set up a years-long pattern of timidity and tentativeness in Ellen which had many bad repercussions, including a sudden onset of extreme near-sightedness - but at the time, neither of us could think of an alternative!

So far we were meeting the challenges together as best we could, like a real family - but as our adaptations to living in a city began to take hold, it gradually began dawning on me that I was now the person left at home with Bill's mother, and that each member of the family was going to be more and more drawn into their own separate worlds, and that we would be doing less and less as a total family unit.

The presence of Bill's mother in the household made very little contribution to the life of the family, mainly because she seemed to be overwhelmed by the size of the change in her own life, especially, I think, to being only one member of a much larger family most of whose focus didn't include her! I, on the other hand, had become used to Bucky's ways of integrating herself into the family, making herself relevant and useful by often washing dishes after dinner, reading to Ellen and Mark, and generally taking care of her own needs. She had even arranged for the boarding of her dog Jamie with one of her caretakers while she was with us, so that was not a problem. But she and Bill's mother seemed to have very little in common, and neither of them made much of an effort to bridge the gap, as far as I could tell.

In fact, there were two reality factors making this separation almost unavoidable. Bucky's extreme deafness and social snobbery - which now made her even less accessible than previously, in spite of her hearing aid - and Bill's mother's social timidity, complicated by her vulnerable physical condition, her initial response to any new situation being to withdraw and make negative judgments as to its value. This she would express by giggling (out loud if she felt secure, or inwardly, if she did not) at the foolishness of such strange ways of approaching life &endash; meaning, not "our" way.

What this coping strategy began to deteriorate into is described vividly in Bill's journal for a Sunday afternoon on the first of October that he and Ellen spent walking around Albany:

Ellen and I took a walk this afternoon down South Allen to New Scotland Avenue, east a couple of blocks, then back. On the way we talked about houses, their distinguishing characteristics and their architectural style. We passed some esthetic judgments on those we saw. We also worked a few arithmetic problems and discussed numbers in general….

Mother had a bad day. These things come in waves, and we know it's building up when she just sits in her room most of the day, staring blankly into space and looks very wooden when she does come down. Leaving her here all day yesterday was the last straw. She complains of great loneliness, of our ignoring her, of the children treating her mean. She still does very little to participate in the life of the family, belittles every gesture we make toward her, saves up every slight, real or imaginary. Her mental health is not good. And Mary finds her very hard to take.

I found my morale sinking lower and lower as time went by, feeling increasingly like a very small fish in a very big pond, suffering from the loss of the support systems I had taken for granted back in Denton, where I had established a real sense of belonging. I now found myself shopping and cooking for nine people every night, doing their laundry, listening to their woes and scheduling and transporting people to necessary appointments of various sorts, trying to help manage our own finances as well as Bucky's, keep up with at least the bare bones of housekeeping standards, getting six people off to their various daily activities on time (although I took on as little of this as possible), and acting generally as dog's body - or CEO, depending on my morale at any juncture - to the group!

Instead of focusing on the lack of personal reward for myself that was built into our life, as it were, I refocused my attention on the international situation, which was becoming increasingly threatening. The "Berlin crisis" was in full spate! Russians were blockading Berlin from receiving food supplies, and our government responded by flying them in on a regular schedule, defying the blockade. Both our country and the Russians had resumed nuclear testing. UN Assembly Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold died suddenly on the eve of the meeting of the Assembly. Things seemed to be falling apart. Tensions were mounting, with the threat of nuclear war always underlying the tensions.

My inner belief in the continuity of existence as a "given" became increasingly tenuous. Bill's journal entry for October 6th gives a strong clue as to what it was that triggered off the acute phase of my anxiety:

Summery again by afternoon, but the trees are now turning,

Last night Mary was watching a CBS news analysis program called "Where We Stand: War or Peace," and it threw her into an anxiety attack that lasted the rest of the night. I didn't see it, but she said that it was the consensus of opinion of the CBS commentators that we are committed to use tactical atomic weapons in the Berlin situation and that Russia is committed to reply with an all-out nuclear attack if we do. Furthermore, the commentators, according to Mary, seemed quite resigned to the situation and agreed to the current popular thesis, "Better dead than red."

Mary kept abusing me for trying to get to sleep instead of making plans for immediate evacuation to South America or some other place in the southern hemisphere. This morning she wrote and mailed off a long letter to President Kennedy and seemed to feel a little better.

I remember a visit we made the very next day (as Bill's journal entry reminds me) to an apple orchard in the valley west of Albany to pick apples. It was a wonderful, warm autumn day. The intensity of the colors - sapphire blue sky, glowing green leaves and jewel-like red fruit on the trees, all set off in the warm glow of the sun &endash; felt to me poignant almost beyond endurance, plagued as I was by such a strong sense of impending doom, of last days &endash; a sort of "On the Beach" mood, remembering the book and movie made about the last survivors of nuclear war in Australia, waiting for the radioactiue cloud to engulf the last remnant of the human race on earth!

Bill again:

Mary insisted that I formulate my notions of what would happen if a nuclear war broke out. I said that of course, I did not kcnow and didn't think that anyone else, including the self-appointed experts knew. What seemed most likely to me, however, was that destruction would be less than total, not because of humanitarian or rational considerations but merely because the weapons of total destruction under actual operating conditions wouldn't work any more reliably than many other inventions, and also because the orders and organization would get all fouled up. If we survived the blast and the fallout and the social disorganization that followed, some sort of life might be possible.

At least I couldn't be sure a priori that it vouldn't What feeble preparations best to imake? I couldn't see fallout shelters - too realistically primitive, but I couldn't see too much wrong with stock-piling a little canned goods, especially as it was something, we had decided to do anyway as an economy measure. On the other hand, I didn't really think that any very effectual measures could be taken to prepare for such an overwhelming castrophe.

Mary is still convinced that it's coming, and soon. But she gave haircuts to Billy, Peter, and Ellen anyway.

So I laid in a big supply of canned goods, which I bought from the A&P by the case, the act itself lowering my anxiety level somewhat. But of course there were also local sources of stress. We had been seeing quite a bit of the Creegans, who had conducted us on a day trip to Vermont and a family picnic at Thacher Park, invited us to dinner at their house and invited them back - all of which was very pleasant, but also created a sense of burden.

Doris, Bob's wife, invited me to join the Capitol Hill Choral Society, which was very rewarding, and had begun inviting me to bring Mark to play with her son Charlie on weekends - which was mutually beneficial. But I had begun having a return of the upper respiratory symptoms that had plagued our last year in Texas, and began realizing that my immune system wasn't working very well. Also, as the autumn wore on and winter began to close in, the whole family responded to our situation by an increase in colds and fever, which of course resulted in the kids' staying home from school.

On this level, the diversions mentioned above didn't really work in alleviating my symptoms - but it did keep me from noticing them so much, and from noticing the size of the change in my whole life - very little of it for the better, from my point of view. Around this time Bill writes about his mother's responses:

Mother spent the entire morning in her room playing solitaire. Mary remonstrated with her over what she is doing to herself and to us, so she shifted to her only other attitude lately &endash; excessive humility. I'm afraid that she is getting "sicker," and I'm not sure that there's much that can be done, at least in our family setting.

I suspect this pattern of withdrawing which she was developing as a way of defending herself from her intense fear of alienness may have contributed to a physiological response pettern which gradually began increasing in intensity as the months went by. But the pattern was developing only gradually, and it was not until very late in the process that either of us realized fully how lethal it had become &endash; both to her life and to ours. The future was beginning to loom - in more ways than we were able to foresee, although we certainly knew the trend was a bit alarming!

Bill writes:

Mother is complaining of abdominal pain. Mary fears that she is working up to one of her spells.

Ellen is very negative and emotional about school. Mary says that it is mostly fear of being reprimanded. Ellen's attention still wanders, and she is too scared to ask for help if she gets off the track.

And another note a couple of days further along:

Ellen's teacher is still riding her hard, sent her to the principal three times about a book she misplaced for a couple of days, then found again. She, the teacher, didn't respond to Mary's second note.

At this point my parents and Teddy came for a visit, which actually helped a great deal to ease the tension among us all. My father was benevolent, and my mother and Teddy made themselves very useful and welcome! I was reluctant to see them go!

By now we were well into the month of November, and one essential ingredient in our settling-in process had remained stubbornly unresolved - only one, but it was an important one: rubbish collection. The grocery bags filled with rubbish had begun to take up all the floor space in our basement. It was becoming an emergency. At this time Albany had no municipal rubbish collection. The removal process was handled by a number of private companies, each of whom I called more than once as the weeks went by - but still no one of them had been willing to take on a new customer! I decided I needed to call the Board of Health to complain. This decision proved to be my initial introduction to the Albany way of handling municipal affairs. It was a stunner!

I dialed the number for the Board of Health and spoke with an employee, explaining my problem. This person said at once, "You need to call City Hall." I was surprised, but thanked him and dialed that number. A gravelly male voice answered at once. I identified myself as a new Albany resident, gave him my name, address and phone number and explained my problem, apologizing for bothering him but adding that the Board of Health had suggested I do so. The man said, "Just a moment." I waited for perhaps five clicks, and a new male voice came on, saying, "This is Mayor Corning. How may I help you?" I was flabbergasted, gave him my name and situation, and then began apologizing abjectly for bothering him, which he brushed aside, answering, "That is fine, Mrs. Leue (pronounced correctly!). Mr. Clark, of Clark Rubbish Removal, is a friend of mine. I will call him up immediately and ask him to collect your rubbish. He will be on your doorstep tomorrow morning. Please call me again if he does not come." I thanked him profusely, accepted his courteous response, and hung up, awestruck,

Sure enough, Mr. Clark rang our doorbell at ten AM, and we made an agreement for his firm to handle our rubbish collection, which one of his men proceeded to carry out on the spot. But that's not the end of the story. About three or four days later my phone rang, and when I picked it up and said hello, the person on the other end of the line said, "Good morning, Mrs. Leue. This is Mayor Corning. Did Mr. Clark pick up your rubbish?" Reduced to stammering, I said good morning, told him that indeed Mr. Clark had come the next morning, that everything was fine, and thanked him again!

Where but in Albany could such a thing happen? We were to learn a great deal about the overall influence, for good and for ill, that Mayor Corning's four decades in office had had and would continue to have for another two decades! But for me this amazing exchange would always remain a strong ingredient in my personal response to our "marathon mayor." Mayor Corning's hold on the city had many repercussions that were far less positive, however. The electoral process under the machine run by Corning in alliance with Democratic party boss Dan O'Connell, was a mere token vote for incumbents! Both the city's schools and its streets were in deplorable condition, having been neglected for decades! We were learning more and more about the dreadfulness of Ellen's school experience.

Bill:

…this evening … we attended the open house at Ellen's school. It isn't really a very happy place - cold and penitential. Ellen's schoolroom is rather small and drab. Her teacher is sort of hatchet-pussed. The best she could say for Ellen is that she thought that Ellen was beginning to submit to the discipline. The children's work looked dull and uninteresting, lots of copying of long passages. The one thing in Ellen's folder that she composed on her own, an essay on "Why I Like Living in Albany" was fragmentary and unimaginative.

and a couple of days later,

Mary was insisting last night on taking Ellen out of this school and putting her in a private school which we can't afford. I got her to agree to talk to Ellen's teacher first, and then, if Ellen wants it, see if she can be put back in the less "advanced" section she was in at first. Today, however, Ellen said that she would like to try remaining in this class.

This entry relieves me of a considerable burden of guilt I've been carrying concerning Ellen's education. The long-term effect of this stressful year resulted for Ellen in near-sightedness, to correct which she wears glasses! In fact, later on when she was a student at Milne, the "Laboratory" High School run by the University's Education Department, following in her older brothers' footsteps, I got a call from a woman who informed me that our family was entitled to some sort of subsidy on Ellen's behalf because of her "disability." I (probably) nearly broke her eardrums shouting at her to expunge the label of "handicapped" from Ellen's records!

But the problem continued, and I finally began to see its full scope:

Mary had a consultation (or confrontation) with Ellen's teacher, Mrs. Moran, this afternoon, found her practically the edge of psychosis, managed to keep her own head and talk her to a standstill.

As Mary started up the stairs in the school, she heard Mrs. Moran screaming down from the third floor at Ellen, who was coming down the stairs. Ellen had just committed a horrible crime - blown into the ear of a little boy.

Mrs. Moran, according to Mary, was incapable of telling a straight story. Her most glaring inconsistency was that she first said that Ellen was at the very bottom of the group, and later she said that she was in the middle of the group in her achievement ratings. Apparently Ellen's worst and most persistent crime is that she will not"conform" - the word is Mrs. Moran's. and she kept repeating it. As far as etiology of Ellen's difficulties is concerned, she first suggested lousy Southern schools. Then when informed about the program at the Prep School, she switched to being pushed too far ahead. Mary says that she calmed down toward the end, but she doesn't know whether it was because she was getting through to her or because she felt that this was the proper note on which to end the interview.

She also seemed to be mad at Mary for taking the option offered on the report card and requesting an interview, said that none of the other parents did such a thing. Mary and I were reflecting on the thinking that seems to lie behind the selection of a woman like that to teach an "academically talented" group. The idea may have been that she was tough enough to ieep these smart little characters in line and see that they were given plenty of work (busy work] to keep them occupied. She could instill into them early the basic notion that their talents were to be kept strictly in control and used for ends dictated by others. In other words, the "Academically Talented" program may be basically a "security" device for early detection and warning of society against potentially disruptive elements.

By now we were deep into the birthday/Christmas present-choosing season. Mark's, Pater's, Billy's and my birthdays are all in December, and Ellen's is in early January. Bill's comments on Mark on his third birthday are interesting:

This was Mark's third birthday. Doris and Charlie Creegan came over this afternoon. Ellen baked a cake as her present to Mark (and a very good cake it was). I went out and bought strawberry ice cream and candles to go on the cake. Mark seemed to be happy with his construction equipment.

Mark at three is not an easy child. He never has been. He is extremely emotional and releases lots of aggression, even beats on strange adults. Still, he has nightmares, several a night, and seems to remain stuck at the heights or depths of dependency. He can't let Mary out of his sight for more than a few minutes without starting to scream, "Mummy, where are you! I need you!" He can sometimes play by himself or with Ellen or Tommy for a considerable length of time and fairly constructively, but outbreaks of temper and destructiveness are frequent. He loves to dump out all of the blocks and other toys, then throw them down the stairs.

Training was going quite well for a while, is now almost gone again, but one feels (I at least do) that he uses his constant lapses as a weapon or as an appeal for more support. His regular routine each morning around six is to wake up, cry, crawl into our bed and kick us for a while, then go downstairs and wet and mess.

His speech development is quite good. He can say quite complex things, and when everything goes his way, he can be quite gay. On the whole he seems more like Peter than any of the other children at this age, but I think that he is considerably more aggressive than Peter was. I hope that we are doing a better job of handling him than we did with Peter, but he is trying!

Bill's year-end summary cries out to be included.

Sunday, December thirty-first

First the backward look at this, one of our most eventful years. The most pervasive and probably most important event or rope of events during this year was our change of our base of operations from Denton, Texas to Albany, New York, and all that went with it - the negotiations, the decision to make the move, the breaking of all of our ties in Denton, the trek, the desperate search for a place to live here, the settling in, the discovery of new facets of our new environment, the fading rumors of our old world.

Evaluating this move is, of course, impossible. On the positive side are the greater stimulation of our new environment, the greater professional opportunity (probably) for me, the more cosmopolitan world for our children to grow up in, the more beautiful physical surroundings, the general return to aspects of our culture with which we feel more rapport. On the negative side are our age and unresolved problems, which we have realized, belatedly, make it doubtful whether we can take full advantage of the new opportunities and even raise doubts as to our ability to make a minimum adjustment. There is the loss of the old status niches and associations and friendships, which we may have discounted unduly. But going on longer on this general theme would be pointless agonizing. The decision has been made, and now we must try to live with it. And, after all, we might feel trapped indeed this New Year's Eve, if we had mounted to the moment of decision last spring and then backed down. As it is, the future seems perilous but interesting. To put it crudely, we had really just about milked Denton dry. Considering the extreme negativism with which we had made our initial approach to our life there, we really got a good deal out of it.

How do we stand in more detailed areas? Financially we sure took a beating this year - the loss we took on our house on Bell Avenue (which we bought for seventeen thousand and sold for fourteen thousand, five hundred, minus about a thousand more in various selling costs, the heavy expenses of moving, about fifteen hundred or so, the loss of the state's matching funds in the Texas retirement system, the purchase of a new house here, the large amounts of new furnishings, clothing, and so on needed for the changed conditions of our life here. I don't know how to add it all up, but I bet that I could put up a good case for about a ten thousand dollar loss during the year.

Our income here has increased somewhat, and there will probably be larger annual increments than we could have anticipated in Texas. But our cost of living has gone up even more steeply, In order to get this house we had to take out a loan for $5500, in addition to the mortgage.

We have already paid off about fifteen hundred of this amount, but only by drawing upon other funds, such as the money needed to buy prior service credit in the New York State Teachers Retirement System. We just sent them a check for $500 as initial payment on the twenty-seven hundred we owe them, but this leaves twenty-two hundred that we want to put in as quickly as possible.

And, with Billy planning to enter an expensive college next fall [Cornell], the prospects for the next year and the years to come seem progressively darker on the economic side. Pretty soon, I guess, we'll have to commit that unspeakable New England sin - dip into capital.

Billy, Milne senior

As individuals we are growing or decaying more or less on schedule. Working backwards by age: Bucky at eighty is feebler both physically and mentally, but still operating in her accustomed manner and, I guess, more or less enjoying life.

She certainly seems to get more out of it than does my mother, who is in lots better physical shape. Indeed, since the great success of the cataract operation which we forced her into having last summer, she could manage herself much more adequately, but psychologically she's a mess - paranoid, self-indulgent, and self-deceiving, demands love and attention, rejects them when offered, gives very little in return. She doesn't want to participate in our ordinary family activities, spends most of her time in her room, except when she comes out to complain that nobody talks to her or amuses her; but she refuses to be left alone in the house, says that we must carry her along on any trip we make. Oh well, I know it's a very common problem and that there are things to be said on her side of the problem, but, still, it's hard to live with and not likely to get better.

I'm next in age, though sometimes I feel older than that. Awareness of diminishing powers oppresses me - less psychological bounce, but, most specifically and most distressing of all, the un-get-roundable fact that the little vision I have has declined quite radically in recent months. I sometimes try to tell myself that at least some of the appearance is due to increased insecurity and tension, but I know that these things can't account for all of it. Things are just too damn blurred too much of the time. Reading, even with my microscopic glasses, is palpably more difficult and tiring. I am however, resolved to carry on in spite of symptoms. It will be interesting to see how long and how far I can go without being able to read or recognize people.

Mary too has run head-on into her own limitations this year. She spent large portions of it semi-incapacitated with lingering respiratory infections. She ends the year with another lingering cold and concomitant chest pains and headache. She too is bothered by partial insights into the psychosomatic aspects of her problems - her limited capacity for prolonged effort, her increasing instability when confronted with unrelenting tensions. But Mary too, God bless her, is resolved to keep fighting!

In contrast the children, for the most part, show increased copability and promise. Billy is preparing to go to college next fall, is making his own decisions, filling out his own applications, and doing a pretty good and responsible job. He has his moments of withdrawal and complete self-preoccupation, but I don't suppose much significance should be attached to them.

Peter is more competent and more expressive. The persona he has been developing for himself seems a little odd at times, but I suppose it is the sort of peculiarity that has wide acceptance in adolescent circles. He is certainly showing more social competence and independence than he ever had before, even gave up some of the first acquaintances he made this fall when he decided they were generally undesirable.

Tommy is maturing physically, is suddenly taller than Mary, his voice is changing, and I shaved his budding mustache for him the other day. In terms of personality, however, he is still pretty much in jolly middle childhood. He has become more verbally expressive of his own thoughts and feelings than he was before.

Ellen, finding certain features of her world rather unpleasant and demanding, has retreated more into fantasy and petulance, but I don't think her withdrawals are serious. She is gay and charming, however, and very very stubborn.

Mark is at long last making real efforts to socialize himself. Increased ability to verbalize is helping him greatly. He seems to have boundless energy and enthusiasm for life, even if he is low on control mechanisms. It's probably better that way then the other way around.

There isn't much that can be said for the world at large, except that at each year's end it seems more precarious, less likely to endure for another year. If these are indeed the last days, they are very paradoxical ones, for in details life is certainly fuller and richer and more laden with new experiences and new promise for more people than ever before. We build ever-more-spacious castles ever farther out on the brink. All the accumulated guilt of the ages adds undertones of menace and overtones of irrational fear to the rationally apprehended impasse in which we find ourselves.

One odd little heap deposited by the year is this journal, some six hundred pages of it. Certainly too much, even for a rather eventful year. I should here take renewed resolution to return to my original principles of leanness and austerity for the new volume in the new year.

Most of the colds seem to be vanishing. Only Mary's hangs on, and a most distressing cough. Also psychological malaise. She was trying to write some of her seasonal messages today and found it too distressing.

Write me at

maryskole.aol.com

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