Arthur
By: susan peterson stamis
Tags: children, cousin, foreign service, lawn mower, state department
Category: Uncategorized
Every couple of years when my family went home to Los Angeles, my cousins and I would become re-acquainted, frenetically developing all over again a frenzied short-term relationship, playing as hard as we could to make up for lost time. With so many hysterical kids running around loose, someone was bound to get hurt.
It wasn’t a matter of if, but when, and I’m sure our parents experienced some level of anxiety, holding their collective breath as they waited for the bloodbath. We never disappointed them, because our repertoire included falling headfirst out of trees and jumping from unsafe heights with our tongues between our teeth. But every once in a while, one of the cousins would get a little more creative.
We were playing outside, hopping like popping pistons around our sweating grandfather as he cut the grass in the front yard. Finished with the task, he ambled towards the detached garage at the rear of the house, towing the manual mower behind him, the blades lazily flat-topping the long grass stripe between the two concrete strips of the driveway.
As the rest of us kids watched in horrified fascination, my ever-curious little cousin, Arthur, sprang into a crouching run, chasing after the mower with his index finger extended towards the rusty blades, because he “wanted to see if they were sharp.”
During the drive to the hospital, the weeping and confused little boy had time to ponder that, yes indeedy, the blades were sharp. Thankfully, that old mower was moving slowly and the only thing Arthur actually lost that day was his 6-year-old dignity.
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About Me
My father was a Consular Officer in the United States Foreign Service. He was first stationed in post World War II Berlin, where I was born in 1950. Subsequently, we lived in the Philippines; Jamaica; Guatemala; Washington, DC; Greece; Ceylon and Mexico; visiting many places in between. I was reared by my parents and nurtured by the various amahs, nannies, and housemaids who, every two years or so, entered and exited my little life.
I was educated in American Schools in “foreign lands,” but the most fascinating classrooms were the exotic locales where we lived, and the most inspiring teachers were the colorful people of those exotic and ancient cultures.
The bi-annual “home leaves” which my family spent at my grandparents’ homes in Los Angeles, California provided a sense of constancy to our nomadic lifestyle. My many aunts, uncles and cousins lived there and I eagerly looked forward to those vacations. We were 1st and 2nd generation Greek Americans (all 4 of my grandparents had immigrated at the turn of the century), and thus had foreignness stamped onto us even though we were Americans.
Two of my father’s siblings were also in the diplomatic service, and we world-traveling cousins were a source of endless curiosity to our domestic counterparts when we came home speaking English with unusual accents, reducing the statesiders to hysterics.With his various cameras, Kodachrome, Ektachrome, 16 millimeter, Super 8 and Polaroid, my father rarely lost an opportunity to document the events unfolding around us. After years of waiting patiently in boxes under the stairs, these photographic records are now fulfilling their purpose as mnemonic retrievals of my little life.
Mnemonic Retrievals 
We were all gooky little idiots at that age. I remember the joys of riding my broomstick horse up and down the drive at Chevy Chase.
Brava, Susan
Mary