Stories by Friends

From Chris Schram

Our family holidays are defined by generations-old traditions and recipes, and redefined by geography, sharing time with new families, and this year, by the pandemic. For many American expats and emigrants Thanksgiving is an opportunity to return home to family, give thanks, marvel at the social and commercial transformations in America, and then ritualistically shock our systems with the most prodigious, indulgent, and excessive meal of the year.

While Thanksgiving is always an away fixture, Christmas is firmly a home match. Imported New World traditions - in reality a blinky, dazzling, mutated amalgam of Old World traditions -- are melded with my Dutch family’s established holiday practices. Hence a stately Christmas tree adorned with cherished family ornaments and simple white lights, but also a single string of colored flashing lights. Nearly all the balconies in our complex similarly display a string or two of white lights, from afar a lovely collective effort, though our neighbors are both humored and amused by the twinkling colors along our balcony rail (and no doubt relieved I have not - yet - installed a full-on animatronics Santa and flying reindeer display).

The official transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas was formerly marked by my mother insisting that we assemble outside in the cold while she unintentionally, theatrically fumbled with the plug for a few minutes before her balcony lit up with an excess of colored blinking lamps.

After her passing we continued to return for Thanksgiving to visit our family, and also to visit with her sister, formally my Aunt Nancy, but known to us as Nanoo. Since childhood my forever little brother Andy would bestow names on family and friends, initially as part of his imaginary (or was it it?) world of Peebees Newman. The earliest names were borne of simplified pronunciation - I became Lis-Lis, my sister Robin was and is Lot-Lot (except when I call her Dahoo Doree, but that is a Grinch-inspired Christmas story for another time). Nanoo’s honorific predates the Mork and Mindy ‘Nanoo Nanoo’, and has reputed origins in ‘Nanook of the North’.

This year we were unable to return to America for Thanksgiving, and amid our lock-down limited errands and preparations this Christmas Eve we still feel a certain emptiness, a lack of proper closure from Thanksgiving. Our small dinner in Scheveningen included nearly all of the requisite foods, in excessive quantities - turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, a jar of overpriced and comfortingly over-sweet cranberry sauce from the British store, and two types of pie with slatherings of slagroom (whipped cream). We ate to excess and then some, then splayed on the couch, groaning contentedly, and like millions of others we enjoyed the ersatz experience of Zoom calls with siblings, kids and grandchildren.

Social media reflected this years’s Corona realities for friends and family - far fewer family posing at the table, around a scrawnier bird and muted selection of side dishes, and screenshots of Brady-bunch tiling from Zoom calls. That and excessive portraitage of unique turkey preparations worthy a Forrest Gump soliloquy - baked, boned, brined, splayed, stuffed, and deep fried, among other variants and perversions.

This year I missed the comforting Moran turkey, with great-great-grandma Blake’s stuffing. My mom, Uncle Jim, and Aunt Martha all prepared and argued the authenticity of their decidedly different preparations, while Nanoo deigned to experiment - including the truly heterodox but privately appreciated inclusion of raisons.

A fine cook, only once did her Thanksgiving daring miss the mark. While pickled brussel sprouts may have been appreciated among the more refined palates at the grown-up’s table, they were the source of much gesturing, gagging, melodramatically letting fall from open mouth to plate or lap, and general merriment at the kid’s table, and thus took their rightful place in family lore.

Nanoo’s oyster casserole elicits a similar utterly undeserved response in the younger generation (unfortunately now defined as 40 or younger). She dutifully made it each year, a dish venerated only by her, my father and myself; a gelatinous milky material enrobing and perfectly complimenting the silky soft oysters (or sea snot, as my daughter refers to them). The dish is untouched by the youngest, and new guests tend to take an obligatory spoonful followed by a lone tentative taste. I now realize how much I missed them, and Nanoo, this year.

We tried to fit in as much family time in during our Thanksgiving visits. Before my mother passed on Josetje and I would take her and Nanoo to lunch at Lighthorse in Leesburg, a small town on the edge of the Blueridge foothills boasting a charming collection of 1800’s rowhouses, shops and restaurants. In the last three years we continued the tradition with Nanoo, an escape and now revered tradition.

Last year my Uncle Cal was nearing the end of a fine 95 year run, and though a bit less spring in the step, Nanoo welcomed the opportunity for a few hours out. More specifically, just after arriving I called her and first asked how the wardens (as I lovingly referred to my cousins Sarah Sally and Barbara, and their families) were treating her, and if we could spring her for the trip to Leesburg. She said “The wardens are really quite wonderful. I look forward to our lunch”. “OK noon sharp, be presentable” I replied. This was an inside joke, as my mom always maintained that Nanoo inherited her elegance and style from their mom, while she seems to have missed out. True to form, for our Lighthorse outings my mom would change from her casual duds (the woman had a set of favorite fleeces and hoodies through her last decades) and would apply lipstick without obsessing about lip-borders -- but never to the elderly clown-lady extent.

We arrived on time, and also true to from Nanoo was smartly dressed, in seasonal reds and greens but stylishly matched. “We’re gonna spring you for a few hours, OK?”. “Nothing would be nicer. You are such dears” she said, taking an arm.
Our Lightfoot lunches were an occasion to dip into and expand the pantheon of family stories, and as with Uncle Jim and my mom before her, intimations of mortality in their late years brought fresh urgency to pass on family history for posterity.

Much of the lore centers on many generations of smart and headstrong Moran women, and we revisited old stories about Gagoo and Aunt Nan, and the Moran proclivity for breaking taboos and advancing causes - first in voting, smoking, driving, university, and divorce. Like us Nanoo deeply missed my mom, especially seeing each other or talking every day. We chatted further about Escanaba, Queen of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Pearl of Little Bay Du Noc, their beloved childhood home - but for the younger generation, a sleepy village at the edge of the world where the oldsters dragged us to for family reunions.

In their last year each took a final trip to Escanaba with their siblings; first my Uncle, three years ago my mom, and subsequently referred to irreverently as the proverbial elephant burial ground. We reminisced about trip, and Nanoo recalled our break-in at Fayette State Park. Though temporary closed with a large boom across the entrance, my mom egged me on to try to raise the boom and drive further though I needed no further encouragement. Trespassing in the park somehow transformed the three Moran matriarchs into giggling conspiratorial sisters, taking great pleasure in breaking into a park where they played together with their brother 70 years earlier.

Jose told the story about trying to find them after they suggested we go out for coffee and some time together. With no response from their room, we walked to the motel pool and saw two laughing, teasing, very young older people frolicking in the pool. It was like the film Cocoon, there is something in the water in Escanaba.

Finishing lunch, Nanoo said she didn’t need to return immediately. “Shall we go for a drive?” I suggested. We drove through sleepy Purcellville and rising atop the first foothills we took in the Shenandoah Valley, the eponymous river made famous by John Denver (‘better singer than pilot’) snaking through it, and a postcard-picture line of blue-grey ridges of the Appalachians beyond. I suggested a stop in Berryville, and Nanoo noted she had been there on drives with my dad and mom.

As might be expected from an incredibly sharp, accomplished debater (initially in University, later honed through parenthood) she was frustrated by the diminishment of short term memory after 90-some years. I laughed and told her I was decades younger and can’t always remember what I had for breakfast, but she still remembers the important stuff. Driving through an older neighborhood on the east side of Berryville, she proceeded to tell us about the Bristow neighborhood and its role as an early successful Afro-American community in the middle of a segregated and struggling antebellum Virginia. Sharp as a tack.

Pulling in back at their house, I noted that we had been gone for over 4 hours, so a flight to Green Bay would be easy-peasy followed by a leisurely drive to Escanaba. “I need to take care of Cal now, but I’d like to go back and see (Aunt) Martha and Escanaba again. But I don’t know if that will happen.”. She saw Jose’s big blue eyes rim up, took her arm gently and said “Oh, Jose, there”. It was nearly the same final gesture and words as from my mom.

Uncle Cal passed away in December, and I managed to see Nanoo again in March, during a business trip to the US days before Covid restrictions took effect. Frailer, but still the bright blue eyes and the Moran smile. Whether illness or slow failing, all of the Moran elders and thier partners have gone gently into the good night, surrounded by family and friends. Our family approach to death and loss are derived largely from the Irish traditions, sometimes in jarring contrast to some of the more somber and restrained practices elsewhere.

For elders coming to the close of a long and wonderful life, the final hours are as much a time to remember, celebrate, revere, and hope for a peaceful passage, oars slipping silently across the Styx. In practice, to outsiders it may bear closer semblance to the send off of the Queen Mary, and on more than one occasion hospital staff have peered down the ward at a laughing, teasing, hugging gaggle of family camped outside the door, a remarkable display of multi-generational family love and bonds, and perhaps the most comforting sounds to hear at the end.

During a period of comparative freedom between lockdowns we visited the Schiedam Museum, which included an exhibition of photographs from the lockdown. Scenes of empty streets and vacant school grounds, but also more intimate photographs of small family occasions and, more striking, funerals without mourners. Our cousins advised us that Nanoo had passed on, and we too would not have the chance to gather, to share memories, to comfort and to celebrate.

Also in keeping with the Irish-American traditions our family funerals are decidedly non-funereal, and mingle the requisite liturgy and service with deeply personal speeches and readings. The service gives way to a pot-luck reception, where the youngest generation further hear from friends and attendees how amazing, cool and special their grandparent or great grandparent truly was (but only reinforcing what they already knew).

A dry recitation of accomplishments and spawn is frowned upon; in place of talking about what they did, we celebrate who they were through bitter-sweet, poignant and often roaring-funny accounts. Touching and funny, tears of sorrow mingled with tears of joy. Like a line of ancestors reaching back to Escanaba and further across the Atlantic, at the end of a service one cousin might turn to another and note “That was a fine eulogy”, and the other will agree, “Indeed it was, for a fine woman”.

Next year we’ll hopefully return for Thanksgiving, and we’ll find a way to celebrate Nanoo. A gathering to tell stories, and finally share the non-social distanced hugs and tears and laughs that we missed. Her accomplishments are already chronicled, so I’ll tell the young generations about suffering imagined slights and earning deserved wrath from my parents, showing up red with rage and trembly-lipped at my aunt and uncle’s house, and Nanoo initially listening and sympathizing with my position, then gently outlining my parent’s perspective, and ultimately calling my mom: “He’s here, I understand there was a little misunderstanding. We had a nice chat. He’ll head back shortly.”.

I’ll tell them about breaking into Fayette and touring Berryville, and the treasure and mysteries within her stories and history.

I’ll tell them about the pickled brussel sprouts and carrying on the oyster casserole first for my dad, and then for my pleasure, and daring to explore beyond the traditional confines of the Grandma Blake stuffing recipe.

I’ll tell them we always enjoyed a meal together, never failing to remark that we shared an admirable trait -- generally unnoticed but when discovered was viewed with curiosity and even a lack of empathy. We prefer distinct, separated portions on our plates, and not a handful of peas climbing up the mashed potatoes, or carrots casually strewn across the meatloaf.

I’ll show the picture of my mom and her in Escanaba - sisters, best friends, confidants, matriarchs, in my cousin John’s aptly borrowed words, “Tripping the light fantastic”.

Addendum from Robin Fogelson:
Absolutely wonderful, Lis! Thank you so much for sharing this. One caveat; I was the one who gifted Nanoo and Calhoun with those nicknames. I only mention this because I remain inordinately proud of this accomplishment.

From Phil Lilienthal

There are so many of us who knew Cal and Nancy from the early days of Reston (we moved in 1967 and met them almost immediately) and my memories are so suspect that I will forego the geezer role of remembering the snowstorms before global warming and seeing Cal out there before the snow removal vehicles arrived. The accuracy would probably be like remembering walking uphill both ways to school! 

My memories are less suspect when I remember Cal as the truly humble but brilliant law partner who worked tirelessly and without compensation for the needy. Whether they were AIDS patients from Whitman-Walker or recently-arrived new friends from Central America, they somehow found a path to his welcoming (albeit on the third-floor of our walk-up townhouse) office. 

He would never regale us with his clients and what he was doing for others. He was not [so quiet], however, [about] the artfully-crafted letters that he would send to the local newspapers tweaking someone in the political establishment with new ideas to make the community or the world a better place.

In preparing the groundwork for a Best of Reston nomination, one learned how much he had done and how quietly he had done it. Never in the forefront, Cal did whatever was needed to make a valued community organization better and better able to serve his beloved Reston community.

As an inveterate traveler, I remember laughing when Nancy told me how she had finally gotten Cal to agree to a foreign vacation in Iceland. He loved it but thought that being around home was as good as it got.

We were fortunate that he thought so since he, too, was as good as it got.

From Lydia Macdonald Colwell

So glad you were in our lives! Every time I saw you, I felt happy. You exuded love and caring and we know why you won all the wonderful awards you received. So admired as a newspaper boy!

Stewart and I lived in Hunters Woods but spent days of our lives in Lake Anne Center. Working to get LRI started kept me in Lake Anne and the Baptist Church for many hours and, best of all, running into the Larsons, often, for a long or sometimes short visit. Lord and Lady Fairfax, of course. Taking in souls who needed them and whom they loved.

I miss you, but I have SUPERIOR MEMORIES. 

From Rod and Deborah Page

It is impossible to summarize the friendship we enjoyed with Nancy and Cal. Rod has known them on and off as a neighbor for fifty years, from the time he lived in Waterview Cluster in the 1970's to currently as a direct neighbor in Lakeside, beginning ten years ago when we bought our neighboring townhouse. It was always clear how much Nancy and Cal loved being in Reston and their support for the entire community.

They welcomed Deborah three years ago when we moved into our renovated home two doors down. They started and ran many businesses over fifty years. They maintained a large stable of friends and causes. They were wonderful parents and grandparents. Everyone Nancy and Cal met were their friends. They were wonderful to us, including us in their entertainments. Losing their steadfastness has been a blow to all. The wonderful memories will sustain us, as we all recall their exemplary lives for many years to come.

From Julie Boyd

I first met Nancy when I got involved in the Reston Community Assn., then of course met Cal. Nancy was a very positive person, took great joy in local politics and keeping the Reston dream alive. Cal did some legal work for us, setting up our business, doing a house sale or two. Yes, in those days you had to have an attorney do it. He also helped a friend with an immigration problem. I’m still here, living at the Town Center now. Husband Jerry died in September 2019, at age 91. The day of Carl’s funeral, ironically, was our small family memorial get together for Jerry. Reston has matured, and changed, but it is still the best place to live in Northern Virginia, thanks to Nancy and Cal, and all of those who worked so hard to keep to the original plans.

From Leila Gordon

For all the years I served RCC as the Arts and Evens Director, Cal and Nancy were among the most stalwart of attenders - of performances, festivals, activities, lectures - you name it. I was especially fond of seeing them at CenterStage performances and none more than those from contemporary dance companies. Cal and Nancy were among the few, the intellectually-and-emotionally-curious enough, the open-hearted enough to appreciate that contemporary dance performances would not easily yield a straight and clear narrative to audiences. They could just relax and let the music, stagecraft and movement unfold and speak to their senses. They never failed to stay for any "meet-the-artist" talk back, and they were unfailingly perceptive and generous in their comments or questions. I adored their senses of humor and shared many a hearty laugh with them. Their wit could be either subtle or sharp - which entirely depended on the context.

As I got to know these two deeply caring and compassionate friends through the years, their presence in Reston remained always a touchstone of all that is special and good about this community. They raised an exceptionally humane bunch of kids and grandkids. Their willingness to contribute to worthy causes is legendary. Cal and Nancy each embody to me all that any person can do to be thought of as "good" and "kind" and "smart." I miss them. But, because of how they lived, they remain in my heart and my memories - indelibly intertwined with the notion of a "beloved community" and how to be part of one. May their spirits rest and rejoice in one another always.