Potluck Passion

There's No Place Like Home

  Even though it's not fair to pick "favorites" - here's my response to Jo's challenge to write about our favorite relative. 

  Mom with me and my baby sister - circa 1958 (yes, I'm the spacey kid)

         I stood in line at McDonalds™, barely able to keep my child-like excitement intact.  I was finally on my way to visit my mother and three sisters for the first time in almost a year, and the McDonalds™ stop was more of a bathroom/stretch-the-legs break from the four hour drive.  I had no intentions of standing in line for food – I just wanted to get back on the road and into mom’s arms.  She’d been seriously ill and we’d almost lost her, but she managed to pull through and now I was quite anxious to see her.  I hurried out of the restroom and was on my way out the door when I spotted the display case of Happy Meal™ toys.  Childhood memories came rushing back as I walked over and got in line. 

Once a year, mom would hook arms with my sisters and me, the Lullaby League, and skip us down the hall and off to bed singing We’re Off to See the Wizard.  We’d get all the way to our bedrooms, then beg mom to do it one more time.  What made it even more special was mom’s first name, Glenda, was the same as the Good Witch, spelled differently, sure, but that didn’t matter to me.  I didn’t know anyone else who could boast being tucked in by a mom who shared a name with the most beautiful heroine in Oz.  Year after year, as soon as Glinda asked Dorothy if she was “a good witch or a bad witch” and the munchkins giggled, I would snuggle closer to mom and we would share a knowing smile.  Our yearly ritual continued even after we started going to the neighbor’s house so we could watch Dorothy open the door to Oz in living Technicolor.  I remember the tingle of anticipation as Dorothy, dressed in shades of gray and with Toto clasped firmly to breast and wicker basket dangling from arm, cautiously reached out and swung the door open.  Squeals of delight and sounds of hands clapping filled the neighbor’s living room when Dorothy took her first steps onto the golden bricks, spun around in her blue-and-white gingham dress, and gazed in awe at the eerily vibrant (and somewhat exaggerated) red, yellow, purple, and green of the landscape.  And, like Dorothy, I watched in awe as the luminescent ball grew larger and larger and became the most magically beautiful woman in the world.  When the show was over and I was tucked safely in bed, I’d fall asleep thinking “There’s no place like home.”

I stepped up to the counter.  “I’d like one of those Happy Meal™ toys please.”

“A Happy Meal™?” the young girl behind the counter asked.

“No, just the toy.”

“For a girl or boy?”

“Girl.  I’d like Glinda, the Good Witch.”

I handed her the money, she handed me the doll.  “Look!” I said to no one in particular.  “Her eyes really open and close!  Isn’t she beautiful?”  I tucked the treasure in my purse and headed towards the arms of the most magically beautiful woman in the world.