Chapter 4: Footprints on my bladder

The Culprit

I've Got Footprints On My Bladder

by Patricia Graham

Oh, I've got footprints on my bladder.

I've got babies on my brain.

All day long I'm a-chatter,

'Bout clowns or dollies I'm gonna frame.

My stomach is expanding

And is restless and demanding.

Do ya think I kin ever fit

Into a dress the size I'm gonna git?

I wonder what "Ish" would say

If he saw me standing this-away

Surveying my expansion

-a-itching and a-scratching?

How long d'I hafta wait

-afore I git to hatching?

Oh, I've got footprints on my bladder.

I've got babies on my brain.

The sex, it doesn't matter,

But I can't think of a name!

At the time Pat wrote this she was Assistant Editor of the Littleton Independent.  December 1969

Back to Basics: Camp Gongi

Aunt Gongi: roommate, bridesmaid, duck advocate...

One of the best parts of doing this blog is having mom's past be dynamic- a living, breathing part of my day where humans inter-relate and discuss.  In that spirit, I wanted to share a recent email I received from mom's iconic roommate Pat Graham, aka Gongi.  I always knew her as Aunt Gongi.  She called Loie "Nutsy Mommy," but I'll save that story for another time.


On the eve of mom's yahrzeit Gongi's email serves as a wonderful reminder to the heart of mom's book.  She didn't do it to produce a biography, or to memorialize herself in bright lights.  In a word, advocacy was the theme of her work. 


Deep felt thanks to Gongi for allowing me to post her email, and thanks also for the advocacy reminder/reprise as I move forward with this project.


From Gongi:


I have wondered what had happened to Jan's dream of a book... I also contributed to her call for material for it when she was putting together a rough draft--- but she didn't like what I sent.  She said I had inspired her to leave behind the prosthetic for the patches and that was the story she wanted me to write, but what I sent her was more like a tale of "The Odd Couple"...!!!

But during her last years and months, she emailed me a lot, mostly tracking the frustration with the health care system and other mostly earthly concerns about insurance and money.  After she died, I printed out all of those emails and have them in a three ring binder.  They are stored in a drawer along with pictures and some other items.   Would you like to have the binder of emails to add to your blog?

I have felt guilty that I have not made a story of it-- I've waited for a "call" to take it all out and do that-- but perhaps it would be better in your hands to give you some more insights into the story that is flowing out of you now.  Yes, she was sweet and romantic and spiritual and reached hearts of a wide variety of people.  But she wasn't all poetry and strawberry cream.  She was tough, too--- she had to be tough to survive, to get the system so stacked against her to work for her.  She used her charms and her wits to get what she needed to get through the worst times and to get to the next day...

I have faced a lot of my own health challenges in recent years, forcing my retirement as an economics professor in December 2009, and I have survived using a lot of your Mom's strategies including No. 1: get your health caretakers on your side.  Make sure they know you as a person, a special individual, not just another "patient."  So I have learned to know the janitor's name, the name of the aide that wheels you to X-ray, and especially the names of the CNAs and nurses.  Yes, the doctor is important, too, but those nurses and CNAs are the people who hold your life in their hands.

Your Mom knew she couldn't battle all the demons alone.  So she knew how to "use people" in a good way--- she recognized special gifts in others and knew how to appeal to them so she could learn and absorb new ideas and energy that kept her going.  She was a kind of "wheeler-dealer" in the spiritual world--- appearing to be just a sweet little kid from suburban Illinois who just wanted to be a Christian Education director in the Methodist church. She looked like a real softy, a real pushover, but I'm telling you she had to have real rock hard guts and courage to reach the people and to get to the places she did. 


I'll bet she and Elizabeth Edwards are having a bit of a chat right now!

Strawberry Story: Thérèse de Lisieux



Handout brought by Gongi for mom's memorial with this poem.



May today there be peace within

May you trust your highest power

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith

May you use those gifts that you have received

And pass on the love that has been given to you

May you be content knowing you are a child of God

Let this presence settle into your bones

And allow your soul the freedom

To sing, to dance, and to bask in the sun

It is there for you~ and every one of you.

~ Thérèse de Lisieux

Chapter 3: A Patch is Born

From the cover of Wild Women.

The summer before mom transferred to DU she worked back in Chicago as a Kelly Girl and was placed at United Airlines new executive headquarters.

I went to downtown Chicago on the train on Saturdays to Patricia Stevens' modeling school where our girl scout troop had visited.  I enrolled in many different classes.  During an eyebrow class the instructor looked at me struggling to invent an eye brow on top of the seam of this plastic glob.  She said, "I notice you make all of your clothes.  Did you know there was a famous opera singer who always performed with jewel encrusted eye patches?"  I thought this was a wonderful idea to explore.  When I went home to tell my parents that night,my Mom said, "Great idea, try it!" and my Dad said, "No daughter of mine is going to be a pirate!"  Of course he had no way of knowing how it felt to me, with my face, to be in my adolescence: navigating through the world of fashion, appearance, and the need for acceptance.

The Pirates of Blood River came out in 1962, context for Grander's comment.

So, I waited to try it.  My parents drove me to Denver University in the fall; as they headed down the driveway to go back home, I went in to Pat's sewing machine and came up with my first patch proto-types to wear during rush week.  My thinking was that this was a whole new place, no one had ever seen me before besides Pat, and I could be whoever I wanted to be: they'd think I had always worn a patch.  And if it didn't work out or feel good to me, I could always go back to Illinois and never see any of these people again.  It was a window of opportunity I didn't want to miss.

It's obvious, isn't it? The patch worked.

Chapter 3: I'M A SWAN!

Mom begins chapter 3 saying she always listened carefully when anyone talked about swans.  She loved Hans Christian Anderson's story of the Ugly Duckling, but also references a fairytale of a different sort:

A Hindu story says that swans, as represented in the order of Saraswati, represents the priceless skill of discrimination and discernment.  Supposedly a swan is able to drink in fluid but spit out the water while swallowing the milk that was in the mixture.  It reminds me of Virginia Satir's advice to "taste everything, but swallow only that which fits you."