The Voices in My Head

No, I’m not crazy. At least not any crazier than before. I’m not describing malevolent, audible commands, like Son of Sam. These are my memory loops stored over six decades. Not only am I not crazy, neither are you if you can hear them (your voices, not mine. If you hear my voices…yikes). I hear the cadence and rhythm, the subtle inflections, the volume. There’s something about the power of the spoken word.

Eighth grade, Sister Madeleine. Forget about her nickname of “Mad Dog” which we whispered in the shadows (and she almost certainly knew about). A nun at St. Anthony’s, she was one of the best teachers I ever had. If the goal of teaching is to train students to retain knowledge, she set the standard. She also had a temper. When a student committed some egregious act of disobedience, she would step close, crimson-faced with searing eye contact. “You are brazen. You are bold,” her voice a scathing whisper.

Pardon my adolescent ignorance. I knew she was angry, but I didn’t understand the rebuke. I recall looking up “brazen” in my pocket dictionary. It said, “made of brass.” Hmm, I thought in my confusion. As far as I knew, “bold” referred to someone with courage. Afterwards, I silently translated her sentence to “courageous brass,” but I knew from her tone it was no compliment.

My friend from high school, Alan used to mutter, “Dirty rottens.” It was shorthand for those we encounter who intend bad things to us. The best part is you don’t have to finish the sentence. If it’s not intuitively obvious why the person is a dirty rotten, then the phrase doesn’t fit. The phrase worked fifty years ago as well as today. We still use it. Try it out.

A girl in my youth who said, “You have beautiful eyes.” No idea where she is, but her words remain.

Mr. Burrows, my golf coach (complimenting me after I hit a monster drive): “Hey, ya gorilla, grab another banana and keep playing!” Weird that I recall that line.

“Michael, you know what’s the most fun in Debate? Winning.” That was my mentor and assistant coach and good friend, Jack Stanislaw. Standing in the Dundee Crown HS parking lot after another strong tournament, we were discussing the value of Debate, what we liked about coaching. He was right. We won a lot, and the van rides home were much happier when we won.

“Hey, Dad.”All grown up, the line resonates from Mindy, Molly, or MJ, even now as it did in their childhood. The words are a cue: a question or thought is coming. Whatever comes next is a prize chosen just for me. Now, the simple two words might be followed by, “I need money,” or “Where are you taking me for dinner?” or “Can you help me?” No matter. I’m blessed to have “Hey, Dad,” in a three-part harmony.

Melanie has far too many to list here. Forty-one years of marriage will do that. Given our great love of movies, she’ll remind me (and her children), “Have fun storming the castle!” It’s not only a classic Billy Crystal moment from Princess Bride, but an admonition to live large, wherever we may be headed.

The Queen of Voices is my mom. Gone since 1990, I can still hear her phrases, artfully articulated. She was the Rembrandt of the short utterance. “She stinks on ice,” to one she deemed especially noxious in behavior. “He’s a dime a dozen,” applied to anyone she wanted to dismiss. She’d sneer the final word, her verbal gavel drop. Sometimes her anger would peak: “I hate him with a purple passion,” she’d offer. I’m still unclear on whether she had other colored passions. “You can’t have everything,” she’d tell the often disappointed me. Her voice would rise through the sentence, almost a song, and the lilt on the final word was poetic. I didn’t appreciate her wisdom at the time, but she was right.

The list would be incomplete without a few Dad additions. “Lights!” he’d shout when he found a well-lit room with nobody there. The expectation in our cave of a home was to ONLY turn on lights when absolutely necessary and to turn them off immediately when you left that room. Otherwise, we had to live like moles in a living room illuminated by a single 40-watt bulb and the glow TV screen. He loathed PG&E, which is why he cursed them as PIG every month when the bill arrived. “Noooo,” he’d utter when the answer should be obvious to anyone with a brain. He loved asking kids about the “olicoptor” flying overhead or asking if they liked to eat “pisghetti.”

I saved the best for last. From my mom: “I will always love you.” The mere words fall far short of the earnest voice, the compassionate face. She said it for that moment and beyond. She reiterated (and wrote) it so frequently, she knew I’d never forget. It worked; the tape still plays in my head thirty-three years after she passed.

From my dad: “You did good.” I only recall him saying this once–my graduation from Cal-State Fullerton in 1982. Uttered after the ceremony on the cement by the stage, the words were accompanied with a firm handshake and those sparkly blue eyes. It was one of the best compliments I ever received.

This is a mere smattering of my mental recordings. I could write several thousand more words. But it does make me ponder. Family, students (at WHS or the Orchard youth group), debaters, neighbors, whomever I’ve encountered. It makes me wonder what tapes I’m leaving behind.