cloak-room (n.)

also cloakroom, 1827, “a room connected with an assembly-hall, opera-house, etc., where cloaks and other articles are temporarily deposited,” from cloak (n.) + room (n.). Later extended to railway offices for temporary storage of luggage, and by mid-20c. sometimes a euphemism for “bathroom, lavatory.”

I had never heard the word “cloak” before I attended kindergarten, but I sure loved the sound of it. The following is an excerpt from my memoir, (currently) entitled Who’s to Blame for Me? Girl on the Wrong Side of Forty Comes of Age. Ginger Moran, the woman who edited my book, doesn’t like this title and she may have a point. She’s a Phd and a fabulous editor and educator who has just returned from teaching physicians how to write at Harvard Medical School. Anyone reading this who wants help with a manuscript will find her well worth the money. Here’s a link to her website: https://gingermoran.com, and please tell her I sent you.

I haven’t yet found an independent publisher for this memoir, but I’m not giving up yet. Maybe a better name would be: Mother: An Ordinary Mystery, because it is indeed a mystery: did my mother have it out for me from the day I was born or had I imagined things? Although I chose the original title “Who’s to Blame..” to indicate that this would be a humorous work and quite universal for any daughter. I think it delves into the complex areas associated with concepts like truth, perception, and memory, and is serious and poignant as well as funny. What do the 2 or 3 of you following this blog think? Ha ha!

This is from a chapter entitled “Kindergarten” and is one of my favorite excerpts.

I had a little epiphany when Kelly Galvin asked me to play “house” at school with her and Mike Legray. Well, not really an epiphany. I saw that the empirical evidence, the results of my direct experience, pointed to a particular conclusion repeatedly for me, and so I considered this conclusion “the truth.”  

A small cubby set off from the rest of our large kindergarten classroom was designated for “playing house.” The kitchen consisted of a play stove, a blue plastic cabinet topped by a “sink” and fake faucet, and a pretend refrigerator (inside of which were stored a few battered looking plastic fruits, vegetables, eggs, and one brown object meant to resemble a turkey but which looked to me like a turd with legs) all arranged in a row along one side of the cubby. Usually I ignored this area– I already “played house” every day. That’s why I liked going to school in the first place, to get away from playing house, which at home meant making the bed, helping with dishes, and watching my little brothers and sisters, among other things. Kelly’s experience as the youngest of three children must have been very different from mine, but of course this fact didn’t occur to me then.

 I liked Kelly, who, for a blond, was much nicer than Dawn Butler. I agreed to play. Kelly held in her arms a baby doll she’d wrapped in a blanket. Then she said to Mike Legray, who sat in the living room “armchair” and pretended to smoke a cigar that was really just a Lincoln log, “Honey, will you hold the baby while I get dinner?”

Mike grimaced, keeping his teeth clasped around his “cigar,” but grunted in a fatherly way and nodded his head. 

Kelly bent over and carefully deposited the doll in Mike’s arms. She looked at me now. “Come help me make dinner in the kitchen,” she said. But as I walked past Mike to follow her the roughly three feet to the kitchen, he stuck his foot out and tripped me. I fell awkwardly to the floor and looked up at him from where I sprawled, because it wasn’t immediately clear to me that he tripped me on purpose.   

Mike was laughing his ass off, which aroused in me a combination of anger and shame. Kelly giggled too, covering her mouth with her hand, but not meanly.  

Why didn’t he trip her? I wondered. She was the wife and I was the maid, I guessed.

“Oh, Anne, are you okay? I’m sorry for laughing, it wasn’t funny,” Kelly said apologetically, “but I couldn’t help it.”

 My “truth,” or “conclusions based on mounting empirical evidence” were that:  1. playing alone was easier than playing with other people, and 2. blond females were not to be trusted under any circumstances. 

Then I remembered:  my mother was blond. Mrs. Bertrum, too. Well. Hmm.

 I pushed those thoughts aside. My shame turned to anger. I imagined hurling Mike to the other end of the classroom, where he landed in a pile of oversized, colorful cardboard building blocks.

We sang a song called “Patch the Pony” about refusing candy or rides from strangers. Patch said, “Nay, nay, from strangers stay away!” On my birthday, I handed out Dum-Dum suckers and received the honor of a song request to be played by Mrs. Bertrum on the piano. I requested “Patch the Pony.” I also crawled through the “spanking machine,” and got “a pinch to grow an inch” from Mrs. Bertrum. When she hugged me close to “pinch” me, the tender, gentle expression on her face looked like what I imagined love looked like, so that my heart glowed with love for her in return.  

One day Mrs. Bertrum read us the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Then our class played a game where we had to find an object she hid somewhere in the room. Once we spied it, we called out “Huckle Buckle Beanstalk!” Mrs. Bertrum hid a cardboard cutout of the Hen that laid golden eggs for the Giant in the story, and instructed us to get up in groups to find the Hen. I was shorter and smaller than most of my classmates, and often followed behind everyone because they were also faster and more aggressive than me–so I didn’t see the Hen at all before I heard a tall red headed boy named Rodney yell out, “Huckle Buckle Beanstalk!” Then the rest of the kids yelled, “Huckle Buckle Beanstalk!” and, not wanting to be different or left behind, I called out with them, ran back to the circle, and sat down although I had never seen the Hen. 

 “Anne, can you show us where the Hen is?” asked Mrs. Bertrum. I was taken aback. She was actually calling me on this?  

I stood up and walked to the area where Rodney spied the Hen, all the while wondering, “Should I tell the truth that I don’t know where the Hen is? Because if I can’t find it I’m going to look really stupid!” Don’t panic, just fake it. 

Did I say that?  I glanced around for a few seconds as the class watched in silence. There it was, on a bookshelf! Relieved, I picked up the Hen and showed Mrs. Bertrum. But my heart pounded in my throat as I walked back to our red circle.  

Mom gave me a small Cinderella doll she ordered off the back of a box of cereal (Grace received Sleeping Beauty and Sophie got Goldilocks.) Cinderella was a very small doll, 3 inches tall, and came with clear plastic slippers and a pumpkin carriage coach. I brought her to Show and Tell, and later that day as I sat playing with Cinderella by myself on the floor of the classroom, tall redheaded Rodney sat down next to me and asked, “Can I be the Prince Charming?” in such a fawning, syrupy way that I forgot my manners and shouted, “NO!”