My mother is funny. She's retired. A nurse. She went to nursing school in the days when there were nursing schools and nurses wore those hats. You know, the white ones. (St. Clare's. In the city. New York City. You know.)
She says her father--George the German--gave her a choice when she was in her late teens growing up in the Irish part of Brooklyn:
You can be a teacher or you can be a nurse.
She chose nurse.
My mother was "older" when she had me and my brother. Older like in her early 30s. But she was a modern woman, and she went back to work once we were in school and everything was fine and I wasn't blind and didn't suffer from dwarfism, and my brother wasn't deaf.
At a hospital on Long Island, my mother turned up on her first day of work--she was in her early 40s at this point--in her old nurse's kit. The white dress, the hat, the everything. I believe the hat had a brown velvet stripe. And I would not be surprised if she were wearing some sort of scapular on that first day. With saints' cards in her pocket(s). Her fellow nurses laughed at her. Because this was the 80s and no one wore the outfit anymore. Unless you were religious of course.
Personally, I think she should have kept the outfit thing going.
Fast-forward many years later and I'm older and doing my own thing. My mother--now retired--goes on vacation somewhere in the southwest of America with a group of folks from her "active adult retirement community." (I call it The Boca Vista. Seinfeld fans will know what I mean.) In her heart and in her mind, my mother is still a nurse. Today, yesterday, every day of her life. She tells her fellow travelers about The Alzheimer's test. How you say to an older person, "I'm going to give you three words. Repeat them to me. And then I'm going to ask you about them later...
...Apple pear umbrella...
Repeat them to me."
She is the life of the trip. And anyone--old or not--will repeat the words. "Apple, pear, umbrella." Then ten minutes from then, a day from then, a week from then. "Apple, pear, umbrella! Yes! I'm fine! I don't have Alzheimer's!"
It goes on for days and days and then weeks and months and then many active adults in South Florida declare themselves free from everything.
Unless you're me. And you're somewhere in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and it's Christmas but sunny and gorgeous and you think this whole "Apple, pear, umbrella" thing is just so very, very funny. So you tell this whole story to your dad. Your tall, strapping Irish dad who--family rumor says--is descended from the Spanish Armada even though that happened like 400+ years ago. So at a stoplight, you say "Apple, pear, umbrella. Repeat this to me." And he does, and it's funny, and you drive along the beach and you think about nothing in particular but the beach and the sun and maybe later you'll stop for some blackened grouper sandwiches somewhere. With some Arnold Palmers.
And then later at another restaurant, and then at another stop light, you think it will be funny if you ask him again.
So you ask him to repeat the phrase. That one time. And then another. But you don't give him the nouns.
And your 72 year old father laughs and laughs and laughs and looks at you funny and then finally, eventually, he looks at you--like straight at you, really straight at you--and he says, calmly and without emotion, "Umbrella?"
She says her father--George the German--gave her a choice when she was in her late teens growing up in the Irish part of Brooklyn:
You can be a teacher or you can be a nurse.
She chose nurse.
My mother was "older" when she had me and my brother. Older like in her early 30s. But she was a modern woman, and she went back to work once we were in school and everything was fine and I wasn't blind and didn't suffer from dwarfism, and my brother wasn't deaf.
At a hospital on Long Island, my mother turned up on her first day of work--she was in her early 40s at this point--in her old nurse's kit. The white dress, the hat, the everything. I believe the hat had a brown velvet stripe. And I would not be surprised if she were wearing some sort of scapular on that first day. With saints' cards in her pocket(s). Her fellow nurses laughed at her. Because this was the 80s and no one wore the outfit anymore. Unless you were religious of course.
Personally, I think she should have kept the outfit thing going.
Fast-forward many years later and I'm older and doing my own thing. My mother--now retired--goes on vacation somewhere in the southwest of America with a group of folks from her "active adult retirement community." (I call it The Boca Vista. Seinfeld fans will know what I mean.) In her heart and in her mind, my mother is still a nurse. Today, yesterday, every day of her life. She tells her fellow travelers about The Alzheimer's test. How you say to an older person, "I'm going to give you three words. Repeat them to me. And then I'm going to ask you about them later...
...Apple pear umbrella...
Repeat them to me."
She is the life of the trip. And anyone--old or not--will repeat the words. "Apple, pear, umbrella." Then ten minutes from then, a day from then, a week from then. "Apple, pear, umbrella! Yes! I'm fine! I don't have Alzheimer's!"
It goes on for days and days and then weeks and months and then many active adults in South Florida declare themselves free from everything.
Unless you're me. And you're somewhere in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and it's Christmas but sunny and gorgeous and you think this whole "Apple, pear, umbrella" thing is just so very, very funny. So you tell this whole story to your dad. Your tall, strapping Irish dad who--family rumor says--is descended from the Spanish Armada even though that happened like 400+ years ago. So at a stoplight, you say "Apple, pear, umbrella. Repeat this to me." And he does, and it's funny, and you drive along the beach and you think about nothing in particular but the beach and the sun and maybe later you'll stop for some blackened grouper sandwiches somewhere. With some Arnold Palmers.
And then later at another restaurant, and then at another stop light, you think it will be funny if you ask him again.
So you ask him to repeat the phrase. That one time. And then another. But you don't give him the nouns.
And your 72 year old father laughs and laughs and laughs and looks at you funny and then finally, eventually, he looks at you--like straight at you, really straight at you--and he says, calmly and without emotion, "Umbrella?"
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