seestories

when we lived in bonn, pater noster worked at a building with a paternoster.

kinda like riding a ferris wheel to your office every day.

Nelson Mandela’s release from prison is one of my most vivid historical moment memories from growing up… I remember watching it all on TV in our living room in Mexico City and Mom and Papi explaining who Mandela was and apartheid to me, and just crying and crying (tears of sadness and happiness, simultaneously, somehow) as little 8-year-old me grasped as much as i could of the importance of this moment.

Similarly, this Johnny Clegg & Savuka song (which is from 1987, so while he was still in jail) always had a special meaning to me (and made it onto many a mixtape) thanks again to my parents’ careful explanation of its significance.

It’s crazy to think it was 20 years ago today.

-claire

in honor of our mother starting a new (very awesome and ridiculously, impeccably suited to her skills and interests) job next week, i thought i’d revisit some of the her past occupations.

alas, i don’t think all of these have made it to the latest version of her resumé, but all have contributed to her supremely superior skill set, that’s for sure.

some personal favorites:

• Tobacco Picker, Greensboro, North Carolina, 196?
• Dishwasher, Middlebury, Vermont, 1973-74
• Pornographic Puzzle Factory Worker, Boston, Massachussetts, 197?
• Yarn Spinning Instructor, Maseru, Lesotho, 197?
• English Voice Over Talent, Köln, Germany, 1993-95 (?)
• Book Translator, La Verdadera Historia de La Malinche, mid-00s
• Bike Activist, Kingston, RI, 2008-2009
• Immigrant Community Center Founder + English Teacher/Surrogate Mom, Newport, RI 2007-2009
• Freelance Landscape Architect, everywhere, always and forever

…and let’s not forget: Den Mother, Pre-K teacher, ghostwriter, real writer, editor, educational advisor, and, of course, the BEST MOMMY EVER!

-claire

Jean Frisbie, 1991, about Ten

Our two characters never would have met had it not been for a little program called work study. And so it happened that one fateful night, Russ and Jeannie’s fingers found each other inside the greasy soapy water of the Middlebury dining hall kitchen sink.

“You see, it’s best to fill up this pot and use the soapy water to wash all the smaller items first,” said Russ, sharing his fine-tuned dishwashing theory with Jeannie, who rolled her eyes when he looked away. “Then rinse.”

But that night, they finished earlier than usual, and as they left the dining hall together, the cold Vermont winter nipping at their necks, Russ told Jeannie that he owned a TV (“Oh!” Jeannie gasped) and that, if she wanted, she could come watch the news with him and his buddies the following night. Jeannie thanked him for the offer and hurried back to her dorm to tell her friend Patty Forbes about this older guy she’d just met.

-claire

The year was 1973.

Russell Frisbie was a well traveled audio-visual geek with longish hair and a scruffy beard. But let the record state that he wasn’t a hippy. He was in his senior year of college, but let’s back up a bit. Russ had previously attended elementary school in England—where he only wore shorts; short shorts—, Frankfurt, and Warsaw, middle school in Vienna, and high school in Bethesda, Maryland. He has a younger sister named Michelle (ME-shell) who married his best friend from high school, Tom. At their wedding, Russ bore a striking resemblance to Rod Stewart (see above). After dabbling in the Russian department at Middlebury, he decided to major in history, with plans on eventually working for the State Department, like his father. At Middlebury, he enjoyed hosting his radio show (after Jean Meserve, who played The Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker” on her show), baking cakes with his buddies, long bike rides followed by trips to the A&W, and just generally hating on preppies.

Jean Zarker was a skinny sophomore who could read 10 books in 2 hours. Also a bit of a nomad, she started her education (kindergarten) off in Rome, but considered herself a southerner from her formative years spent in Nashville, where she passed the time skipping school to protest the war and skinny dipping with her friends Amy and LeAnn and some long-haired dude who once pulled down his pants to prove his manhood to some hippy-hatin’ southerners. After her parents made her move to New Hampshire against her will, Jeannie finished up high school as quickly as possible and got started with college, where she was studying German. She once kissed a professor on the cheek when he was really just inquiring about her wisdom teeth, but was otherwise pretty well-behaved. Except for that time she threw her typewriter out her dorm window at the end of the semester. Thankfully, no one was hurt. At Middlebury, Jeannie enjoyed modern dance, listening to Van Morrison and Joe Cocker records, and smoking cigars to piss her roommate off. Her roommate wore a park ranger uniform. All the time.

-claire

Exactly 35 years ago today, Jeannie Zarker put on a floral orange skirt and top combo and laced up her brown boots. Russ Frisbie wore the one suit he owned, combed his shaggy hair, and let Jeannie help him with his bowtie. Then it was off to the Town Hall of a city they hardly knew. The room was mostly filled with strangers, though Jeannie’s older sister, Leslie, had flown taken the train from Florence over to Prague for the occasion, and Russell’s parents were naturally present, since they lived there at the time. They exchanged rings, kissed, signed some papers, fed each other cake, and rode off in a horse-drawn carriage. They hadn’t even known each other a year.

Three and a half decades later, and those papers are still valid, though one of the rings was lost, and the other one was melted down to create two new ones. And, well, we’re here. Considerably older than either of them at the time, and eager to retrace their life together through stories, photos, videos, music, and most importantly HUMOR, in a sort of multi-media digital tribute to our loving parental units and their immense love for each other.

-Claire and Meg

**Please note that we were either not present or perhaps not old enough to really count as being present for many of the stories we will be recounting. They’re the product of what we’ve chosen to remember over the years, plus a little imagination. But that just makes things more fun, or at least we think so. Feel free to correct us in the comments, or to suggest stories/tidbits via email.