Senior word drop

Sue Clark

Gene. I see him perfectly: dark hair, comically handsome face,

careening around a lamppost singing about love. Splashing through

rain puddles. What is his last name? Not again! I run through every

Gene I can recall. Nothing. Total word drop.

This trance state will define my golden years: I’ll be wearing a

housecoat, walking down the street mumbling, “Gene Krupa: nope --

drummer. Gene Hackman. Gene Wilder. Gene Pitney. Gene LeClerc

(college boyfriend). Gene Simmons.” People will guide me back to my

house, whispering, “She used to be sharp as a tack.”

I give up and e-mail my daughter. “Gene Kelly, Mom,” is her reply.

So I devise this little memory trick: “Kelly green, his name is

Gene.” I don’t like asking her this kind of thing. She’s the one whom

I once ordered to “take these clothes and put them in ah, the room

where we wash things.”

“The laundry, Mom.”

“Yeah, that room.”

I keep calling those funny little cars PF Flyers instead of PT

Cruisers. Hey, they’re both transportation.

I call my favorite movie of the summer “Captain Nemo.” Any English

teacher could do the same.

I’m driving, and the song “Blue Suede Shoes” comes on. It’s not

Elvis; it’s that other guy who wrote it. It was Carl somebody. Carl

Orff? No, classical composer. Karl Marx? (Just kidding). I call my

friend Susie, the rock archivist. “Carl Perkins, of course,” she

says.

But I’m not alone. I’m walking my dog the next day and an

exuberant beagle rushes over to say hello. He’s irrepressible,

bouncing around and frightening my introvert terrier, who cowers

behind me.

“Sorry,” explains his owner, a lady around my age. “We just got

back from a two-week vacation, and he was in the, um, place where you

leave pets.” She is annoyed at herself, I can tell.

“The kennel,” I say kindly. She nods, and I realize we are in this

thing together.

Um, you know, the thing I’ve been talking about.

* SUE CLARK is a Newport Beach resident and a high school guidance

counselor at Creekside High School in Irvine.