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Landlady
By admin | September 8, 2009
“She sits there thinking that the answer
To life will come soon and romance her
Waiting for true love to enfold her
Hasn’t anyone ever told her
That this is all there is to it
And if she wants it done, she’s got to do it?
But she just can’t seem to see through to this
She’s so foolish….”
Rosie confronted me in the kitchen: “Mary Ann, did you write that song about me?” Her head was angled to one side, her chin down as she looked at me sharply over the top of her reading glasses. I was standing in front of the kitchen counter strumming my guitar with my back to the sink. I was leaning over my spiral notebook which was lying on the counter next to Rosie’s cookie jar when she suddenly appeared. “Uh…no,” I said, “I didn’t.” She looked doubtful, shook her head gently back and forth and stammered, “Because if … if you wrote that about me, Mary Ann…I…I just….” “Rosie, I didn’t. I didn’t write it about you. I wrote it about me.” I felt surprised she didn’t know this, but then, she was just my landlady.
I don’t think I asked her to listen to the song, though why else would I be singing in the kitchen with her in the house? I had learned well at my parents’ home to keep to myself or suffer the consequences: yelling, a wallop, ridicule, or nothing – possibly worst of all. Rosie’s house, in total contrast, was a caring environment, though we were complete strangers when I moved in. I guess I ventured out of my room with my guitar that day and dared to play my latest song to see what would happen.
It hadn’t occurred to me that Rosie would think I wrote the song about her. I would never have even thought the words “she’s so foolish” in connection with Rosie, I was so impressed by how she lived her life. She had divorced her husband years before, feeling like a failure, she told me, but finally accepting that he wasn’t going to stop drinking. She’d had a successful career as a nurse and saved enough money to purchase a number of houses in the area and start renting them out. She eventually retired from nursing and managed her properties on her own. I recall Rosie’s midnight re-upholstering sessions with not-quite-antique chairs in her living room, and her stash of toilets in the back yard. She drove a few different trucks, not shiny new ones, but old beater types from the ‘50’s & ’60’s to haul trash to the dump in - trash that she herself had cleared out of vacated homes. Rosie was very smart, very practical, a devout 7th Day Adventist, and truly one of the kindest people I had ever known.
I had told Rosie how, in my house growing up, we all lived in the shadow of my father’s uncontrollable anger and meanness. He would lose his temper and smash our furniture and toys, throw plates of food and glasses of water on us, or at us. He once hurled an unopened can of tuna at me so hard that it put a hole in the kitchen door when I jumped out of the way. He would go for weeks or months without speaking to one or the other of us, including my mother. It would take a teacher to call to ask if there was something wrong at home because my work would begin to suffer, and then he’d start talking again. “It really hurts me to think of you growing up in a house like that,” Rosie said, “with how sensitive you are.”
I arrived at Rosie’s by fortunate happenstance. I was invited by a high school friend who had graduated the year before me and moved with her boyfriend to a house they rented in California. I left Fairview Park, Ohio behind for the palm trees, orange groves, and avocados dropping off the trees onto the streets of Mentone that my friend had promised me. “And Los Angeles is really close by — you can finally do something with your music!” she enthused over the phone. I worked for nearly a year to earn the money for the trip, and to buy a car once I made the move. But, by the time I arrived, my friend had traded in her Cleveland boyfriend for a California one and was moving on. I needed to start working immediately and find a place to live.
I took the first job I was offered at a combo burger joint & taco stand, and the short order cook told me he lived in a trailer in the backyard of a woman who rented out rooms in her house. I went with him after work to meet her. Rosie’s house was set back a ways from the road that was Highway 38 and situated a few miles before the highway begins to ascend in earnest on the way up to Big Bear Lake. On clear days, the San Bernardino Mountains were visible in the not so distant distance, the foothills practically in Rosie’s back yard.
It wasn’t long before Rosie’s caring ways began to take effect. For example, I quit smoking while living there, and I’m proud to say I did it without ever denying myself a cigarette. Instead, I made myself a deal: I could have a cigarette any time I wanted one, as long as I ran up to Frank’s house and back first. Frank was a friend of Rosie’s who owned his own backhoe, handy for cesspool digging and trash hauling. Frank used to come over to the house on the days they had worked together and sit smoking at the dining table. Rosie, seated in the living room to avoid the smoke, would repeat at regular intervals, “I really wish you’d quit smoking, Frank. I really wish you would!” Frank continued to puff away. Well, if he wouldn’t, then I would! Frank’s house was .7 miles up the hill, and by the time I’d get back from my swift jaunt, the wafting scent of donuts baking at the Donut Hut next door, usually tantalizing, with or without the smell of the popcorn Rosie occasionally popped after dinner, made me nauseous; a cigarette would have made me puke!
I bought my first car while living at Rosie’s, and all in all, I owned 4 vehicles during my time at her house: 2 used cars, a new motorcycle, and a new Nissan pick up truck. Now, over 20 years later, I still drive the truck that Rosie helped me buy, and I know her generosity didn’t stop with me. There is a scholarship in her name offered at Loma Linda University’s School of Nursing. And she gave her house and various properties to the 7th Day Adventist Church. I’m certain these aren’t the only instances of her giving to others, but these are the ones I learned of most recently.
I had been gone long enough, staying in occasional touch with Rosie but no one else in the Mentone area, so that no one in Rosie’s life would have thought to notify me. An old acquaintance of mine saw an article in the newspaper, recognized the house as where I used to live and called me, realizing I may not have found out for quite some time otherwise. Rosie’s house had caught fire one night while she was sleeping and burned to the ground; she died in the fire.
Sometime after I got the news, I took a trip through the southwestern United States and visited the Grand Canyon for the first time. The majesty of the land inspired me to write a song in honor of Rosie and her place in my life and heart. If I could venture out of my room with my guitar into her house again, this time I would go to her and ask her: “Rosie, can I play you a song?” I imagine she would look at me gently over her reading glasses, an unasked question in her eyes, and nod her head yes. I would take a chair from the dining table and set it down across from where Rosie sat in the living room. Seated in front of her, guitar in hand, I would look her in the eyes and say, “I wrote this song about you, Rosie. It goes like this.”
“They say that time heals
But it’s not always true
I know that I’ll never stop
Missing you.
Your love pulled me together
If it hadn’t been for you
I don’t know if I’d have ever
Made it through.
I’m blowing away
Bit by bit
Piece by piece
Where are you today?
I feel like I’m blowing away.
Friendless and with no family
I was totally alone
And I remember that you said
You once lost a child of your own
The room that you offered me
In your house soon became home
Full of loving care and comfort
Like I’d never known.
I’m blowing away
Bit by bit
Piece by piece
Where are you today?
I feel like I’m blowing away.
Well, you were like a mother to me
As well as a friend
And I can’t believe that I’ll
Never see you again.
Like stone turned to sand
By an ocean of grief
Long after the ocean
Has abandoned the reef
Like a field of wild flowers
That have all gone to seed
And now the wind
Is picking up speed.
I’m blowing away
Bit by bit
Piece by piece…
I need you today
I feel like I’m blowing away.”
To hear this song, go back to the home page of this site and select the Rosie button, or paste the link below into your browser:
http://www.mememeproductions.com/rosie.html
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