http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=351
This American Life producer Alex Blumberg sets out to find a woman named
Susan Jordan, who babysat him and his sister for a year when he was nine. He
discovers that each of them remembered something about the other that the other
would just as soon forget.
I had a babysitter growing up who was so much fun and with us so often - she was unlike any sitter you can imagine. Marilyn. My mother said she showed up on our doorstep at the age of 11 with handmade business cards which said, "Babysitting" and gave her telephone number. She provided references. She had long black hair that was board straight and parted squarely down the middle. She always wore Levi's Jeans (faded and fitted) and plaid shirts. She had parties in her backyard for all the kids she sat. She had a metal shelving unit in her garage that contained every board game and fun toy from her own childhood, all in perfect condition as she took such good care of her toys. She went on vacations with us. She loved Bobby Sherman and Ringo Starr and read Young Miss magazine. Does anyone remember Young Miss? She gave me old copies of the magazines as she had saved them all - again in mint condition.
She never talked on the phone, she never lost her patience or her temper and she was always focused 100% on my brother and me. She let us eat our spaghetti outside on the swingset and we made garlic toast with lots of butter and lots of McCormick's garlic salt. We would sing, "That's they way uh-huh uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh uh-huh" and laugh and dance around our kitchen.
Once, I was invited up to Austin to visit and stay with her in her dorm room after she went off to UT. She lived in Kinsolving Dorm. She bragged and bragged on me to all her coed friends, how cute I was, how close we were. I can vividly remember my trip home to San Antonio after that weekend. I was disconsolate, depressed and utterly empty. I think that may have been the first time I ever felt those emotions and they were powerfully strong. I had had such a good time with those college girls in their college dorm. And we felt absolutely safe with Marilyn.
Unlike the man in the story, Marilyn has stayed in my life. I went to her wedding (and my brother was a member of her wedding party). And recently she found me on Facebook. When we first left New York and went back to San Antonio for a time, she found me there and I drove up to Austin with Emery to see her. Emery was a little baby. She made a delicious homemade lunch. She came to my wedding in 1997 and true to her style, the wedding gift she gave us was Laurel's Kitchen, a hippie classic cookbook of vegetarian, wholesome recipes.
Hearing the story on This American Life took me back to my babysitter, who I loved and still love today.
Laurel's Kitchen:
http://www.amazon.com/New-Laurels-Kitchen-Vegetarian-Nutrition/dp/089815166X
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