Duck Soup

Summer 1962

Draw a picture of summertime in your mind -- hot muggy summertime in the Midwest; steamy summertime in 1962 before air-conditioning -- armpit staining, brow-wiping, fan-waving, sweltering summertime.  Now sketch in a mom, dad, and three kids.

This is a story that's a little like the story about stone soup, a soup that's made up of more than stones. Duck Soup is a story that's about more than ducks (and although the story doesn't involve soup, it does include ducks).  

The summer of 1962 began with a bang, or rather a rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat. My family had just moved from Marshalltown, Iowa to Monmouth, Illinois. Mom and Dad sold the house, the animal hospital -- Dad's veterinary practice , packed us all up and followed the Mayflower moving van with all of our toys and furniture to Illinois. We moved into an old brown two story house that had a fire place, 1940's wallpaper in every room, and a fabulous backyard that was big, covered in overgrown bushes and refulgent with daisies.  That winter,  we discovered that we were sharing our home with another family -- mice. My mother, never one to let anyone or anything get the best of her, set out daily mouse traps and my 8-year old sister emptied each one (she had no fear). 52 mice in all. My mother kept a tally.  But the mice weren't a problem that summer.

Shortly after we'd moved and settled into our "new" old house, and my sister and brother and I had made friends with the neighbor kids, Larry & Gary, a city crew set themselves up directly across from our house and began tearing up the street with noisy loud drills. Rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat. My dad, fortunately for him, was at work (testing herds of cattle for brucellosis, which I'm sure seemed infinitely more fun to Mom than being home on a 100 degree summer day with three kids and a crew of burly men breaking the concrete street up into small pieces). Thankfully, Mom decided that rather than stuff cotton balls in her ears and suffer through it (the result of which would've been a very crabby mother), she packed a picnic lunch and took my sister, brother, and I to the park.

That weekend, Dad drove the family and another picnic lunch to the lake. For some reason, women and girls wore bathing caps then -- some were plain and others were flowery.  My sister and I wore plain white bathing caps, but I have no idea why we had to wear them. They didn't keep our hair dry.  Anyway, we had a wonderful time on the manmade beach, splashing in the lake, making sand castles, and  eating our lettuce, lunch meat, & butter sandwiches (my parents spread butter on every sandwich, no matter what else went on it).

By now, you're probably wondering where in the world are the ducks?  Sorry, no ducks at the lake.

The next day, I woke up with the worst earache of my short life. Within a few days, after multiple rounds of warm ear drops, my ear canal filled up with pus (ick, I know!) so, of course, I had to go to the doctor.  My sister had also come down with a virus, a twofer for the doc.  One problem, though, we'd just moved and left our beloved Dr. Wells behind in Marshalltown.

With Dr. Wells remotely tucked away in the cornfields of Iowa and two sick kids on her hands, my mother turned to our elderly neighbor, Mrs. Pearl Allen (we always called her "Mrs. Allen" but her wheel-chair bound husband went by his first name "George"; I have no idea why.) My mom & dad's respect for older folks was enormous, so it made no difference to them that Mrs. Allen had at least 4,000 cats and was a member and staunch defender of the John Birch Society, a radical right-wing organization. Mrs. Allen wore pinafore aprons that completely covered the front of her dresses and nylon hose rolled half way up her calves that I couldn't help but stare at in wonder given my newly budding fashion sense. Her thin hair was pulled into a tiny bun, white with streaks of yellow that to my 10 year old eyes looked like pee. "That's what happens to blonde hair when you get old," I told my blonde sister. Mrs. Allen loved to have political debates with my dad over a cup of tea in her huge kitchen that smelled mildly of cat urine, silent George stationed in his wheelchair beside her and a portable potty next to him. It was cheap entertainment for Dad, and he liked both Mrs. Allen and George.  Oh, and the walls of the Allen's house were also papered in a 1940's wallpaper. (Paper-hanger must've had a one-day sale.)

So after Mrs. Allen's doctor recommendation, we all (except for Dad who was again testing herds of cattle for brucellosis because that's what Illinois state vets did) climbed into Mom's old green Oldsmobile (which my mother had fondly named Betsy) and drove to our new doctor's office. In the small inhospitable waiting room, I leafed through a LIFE magazine and happened on pictures of Marilyn Monroe climbing out of a swimming pool in a nude body suit, promoting her upcoming movie Somthing's Gotta Give. I remember thinking skeptically that she didn't look naked in her nude bodysuit when I was called into the examining room and given a shot of antibiotics (in my rear-end; why is that always the spot, I asked angrily), prescribed medication, and then it was my sister's turn. Her diagnosis and treatment were much different than mine. The doctor determined that she had a case of meningitis and she was immediately admitted to the hospital.

I don't remember that my mom and dad were distraught that my sister was in the hospital with meningitis but that was most likely because I had become even more ill.  Within two days, I'd gained 10 pounds in water weight and could barely walk a block without having to sit down to take a breath. One night, my parents heard me gasping for air, so my dad stayed with me all night, holding my head up.  The next day he threw out the little green pills that looked like M&M's that I'd been prescribed. Evidently, I was allergic to the medicine - chloromycetin. Meanwhile, my sister was still in the hospital but my dad soon had her discharged when he noted that even though he and my mother had to wear surgical masks when they went into her room, the nurses and orderlies flitted in and out with nothing on their faces. My sister had been misdiagnosed.

The day Mom and Dad brought my sister home, Dad traveled to a farm, bought two white pekin ducks and a large kiddie pool, filled the pool with water, let the ducks out of the carry pens, and made us kids go outside (well, he actually didn't have to make us go outside; we were entranced with our new feathery pets). Playing outside with the ducks, my sister and I quickly grew healthy again (and my brother remained healthy). Mrs. Allen and George had a new interest other than cats, tea, and the John Birch Society:  for hours every day, they sat outside, watching our ducks swim while my siblings, our new friends Larry & Gary, and I played tag and hide & seek, darting around trees and skulking into bushes.

Duck soup!  

Sometimes a Hat is More Than Just a Hat

In 1962, I lived in Monmouth, Illinois (a college town), and my most prized possession was a wig hat. Wig hats were the hot fad of that year, and I had to have one. Interestingly, the wig hat hair was similar to the hair of  troll dolls, and in fact, the hair on the hat I owned was the same color, white, as my own troll doll's. That the hat was my treasure may seem odd unless you consider that ​I was 10 years old, and although not a budding fashion model by any means, I did feel quite stylish in the hat and a pair of black stretch pants which I wore nearly everyday (my mother had to sneak into my bedroom while I was asleep to wash them), so yes, they were covered in fiber pills and the knees bagged out two inches from my legs . The coolest part of the stretch pants was the stirrups that kept the pants from riding up (I assume that was the purpose of them).  But, I digress.  My wig hat was the thing, the chic thing, de rigueur. My weekly, almost daily, outfit combo of my wig hat (always neatly combed into a pixie hairstyle) and the black stretch pants (and whichever sweatshirt I could grab) was usually accessorized with a long strand or two of pink plastic beads (to complement the white hat, of course). 

I remember with bright and colorful sparkles attached to the memory the first time I set eyes on the hat that became a status symbol of such great importance, I was reluctant to take it off at school (teachers reminded me

  gently at first, then not so gently, when I stubbornly refused to remove it and stick it inside my desk or when I'd sneak it back on -- as if they wouldn't notice).  But, I digress again.  My first glimpse of the gorgeous wig hat was inside a softly-lit women's dress shop downtown.  There it was, my white beauty on a hat stand, displayed with other hairy hats of different colors - black, grey, brown. I, however, was in love with the white hat at first sight, and my mother, who was always very practical and quite thrifty, oddly purchased it for me.  I think, no actually I believe, she did so because the idea of that hat on me, a 10 year old kid who spent most of her time playing with neighborhood kids, climbing trees,  or curled up somewhere reading, amused her greatly.  

And so, with hat box in hand, I glided out of the store not touching the sidewalk with my feet and at least a block ahead of my lovely and benevolent mother.