Page 40 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
But, when it came to me, tenacity and impenetrable logic were not her only tactics. When all else failed, she would play her most effective card: She would purport to show some understanding when I sought permission for some activity that she opposed but then let me know in no uncertain terms that whatever course of action it was that she opposed would, were it to be adopted, be extremely upsetting to her, and that, to spare her the agony of worrying and worrying (she came, as Warren Baum, Kathy’s father, would have said, “from a long line of mighty wor- riers”), perhaps to the point of illness, I should desist for her sake. She was a very fearful person, she would say. That was not my fault (much less her fault), she would add. It was historical. But there was nothing that she could do about it, and she knew that I didn’t want to hurt her, so I should please understand. If I went to my father for a consultation and second opinion, he might initially agree with me, but he would inevita- bly take the position that my mother’s feelings were paramount. And, I’m forced to concede, her feelings were not feigned.
When I was a ten-year-old camper, the entire camp went on a trip to Beacon, New York, the site of Mount Beacon, which at the time was known for its funicular, an incline railroad that took tourists to the top so that they could have views of the Hudson River. Did I say, “entire camp”? Well, that is a bit of an exaggeration. It seems that the camp required a permission slip for each touring camper—and that there was one camper whose parents did not supply one. (In fairness, my mother always denied the truth of this story. I do, however, have a vivid memory of being able to eat two salami sandwiches, twice the standard fare for camp outings, while sitting on my bunk porch and looking out upon a campus that was devoid of anyone other than kitchen staff and the coun- selor who must have drawn the short straw.)
As a result of my mother’s constant worrying, I always had a curfew that was earlier than everyone else’s, and, by the time I was a senior in high school, I was alone in having a curfew at all. If I did violate the curfew, I would be treated to the scene of silhouettes of my parents pac- ing and staring out the living room window, well after their normal bedtime. It was in this context that I learned the word palpitations. Mind
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