Glenna Stearman Park, Learning Curves

Glenna Stearman Park

There were days in my childhood when my father would flip his cork and let a string of curse words stand in the air. We girls, of course, were silent and let him blow and then watched him get up, go outside and go to the airplane and fly for a while. It was Dad‘s way of getting “above it all.”  I liked that solution, so as often as I could, I would go with him.        

In raising my own children, three boys, and a husband, I was on a steep learning curve for how to deal with males. When I would reach my point of exhaustion, I didn’t have an airplane, but I would get in the car and drive on interstate 10 east towards Houston until I came to a bridge over “Woman Hollering Creek.” I would slow down as I shouted, “I know why she hollers!” Then I would turn around and drive the 10 or 15 miles back home.  Other times I would get on the freeway going west and drive to Comfort, Texas.  Again, near a bridge, I would turn around and come home feeling comforted.

There was one time I came home too soon and decided to park our ‘69 Chevy Impala on top of a bush.  Joel calmly observed that I missed the driveway, and I said I hated that bush and decided to do something about it.

At a later date when my fuse was lit, I took Joel’s Porsche 944 and went to a coffee shop, 

called my sister and told her I was frothing at the mouth, but calling her to calm me down.  She eventually talked me down and I agreed to go home.  As we were closing, I told her I was going to put the Porsche in the garage—but without opening the garage door.  My sister kept me on the phone longer.  I ordered a chocolate malt, sat and cooled my jets, then drove home and properly left the car unharmed in the driveway.

There are moments in one’s life when one has to create serious solutions to one’s frustrations.  Mom wanted a new sewing machine and talked often about the Singer model she liked.  For Christmas she opened a gift from Daddy that was a Kenmore (Sears) machine, and he proudly told her all the fancy stitches the Kenmore could do.  Mom tried it out for about six months.  The threads would break, the tension would slip, and the feed would skip spaces.  I knew she was ready to blow, and I watched with glee as she took a big hammer to every part of that machine.  Dad’s response was that he guessed she didn’t like it, and that was one way to “deal” with the machine. 

Later in life, one of the illustrators at work told me his wife pushed the washing machine out of the kitchen, onto the back porch, and off the three steps down the stairs to the grass.  He said she had complained about the machine but did not expect such a final solution. 

This approach to frustrations reminds me of the urban legend about the college kids who plastered over a door, painted the walls and confused a colleague who had been away for a weekend.  He had to work to get into his room.