“Squirt” –
My name is Dorothy Ann, but most people call me “Squirt”. You know when you are growing up and parents call you personal names that just sort of pop up out of their heads like “Pumpkin, Pussy Cat, Cutie, Hummer, Weasel or Tiger”. Well, my father called me “Squirt”. It was a sort of coded message from him that said, “You are small, wiry, full of energy, with great spirit and I just love what you are!” There are some people that you know love you without saying it right out; you can see it in their eyes. Then, I have found, that there are others that say it to you everyday and you just never quite can believe it.
My father had a CB radio in his car to talk with his friends while he was commuting. He added a loud speaker behind the grill so he could joke with people. One day he dropped me off at school and thru the loud speaker came “Have a good one, Squirt”. Embarrassing! I could have killed him. The other kids picked up on it and it was “Squirt” this and “Squirt” that. I knew some of them were just getting on my case, but I carried it proud and soon the mean ones got bored and my friends started to say it like something special. So “Squirt” I became and “Squirt” I am.
We live in Ridgeway. It’s a small town in Connecticut where most of the houses have gardeners and multiple car garages. My Dad had some sort of fancy job, but one day the light kind of went out of his eyes. His walk changed and his shoulders rounded so we moved to this house which has a carport and I do the lawn. He seemed to have less and less to say so he’d give me hugs rather that conversation. It was sort of like looking at a big lighthouse where they had turned off the light. He started to work for the town and my Mom did real estate and their friends changed.
For me it was kind of like watching a show on TV and someone was making everything run slower and a bit darker. I got out of middle school. Yeah, I was always pretty smart and found learning stuff interesting. Figuring things out and hearing about other countries just upped my curiosity. I got the right sized breasts and boys started saying I was “cute”, but they still called me “Squirt”.
My Dad got quieter and quieter and the lines around his eyes grew deeper. There just wasn’t much any of us could do. It was sad for me as each day we lost touch just a little bit more. There was nothing there to blame. There was just a growing sense of loss. There came a day when my father just wasn’t there. He had gradually faded as a person, but each day there had been some glimpse of what had been, a head nod, a smell, a magazine, keys where he always dropped them and then there was nothing. Mom said, “He went to Hawaii” and I didn’t know what that meant. My friend’s parents went to Hawaii to play golf, to get a suntan, to go to luaus, to wear leis and then they came back. But my Dad never came back. There was not even a tacky Hula girl postcard, no credit card bills just silence. We coped. Mom seemed resigned, perhaps she knew more of the whys, but we fell into acceptance and the edges of our feelings softened.
Life went on and the regular things happened. I made the honor roll, ran for class president and almost won, but Sally Anderson from the two car garage set edged me out on dazzle. I made the cheerleading team. Now you can stick your nose up about that if you like, but we were really good. Took all state three times and being “Squirt” paid off. I was top of the stack, the light one for all the big tricks and point for the big ending. I had lots of good friends, worked hard, we had a good coach and we were all together on this.
It had been five years after he left when we heard that the cheerleading team was invited to be in some big event at the convention center at the Marriott in Kauai. It took a while but when the details got worked out, well, the team would be going to Kauai, Hawaii.
I knew there were a couple of islands, but my Mom had no idea where Dad was or even if he might have moved. I am pretty good at the internet and had put his name in “Search” a couple of times, but nothing came up. I couldn’t think of anything more I could do, but I was still hoping (yes I was!) for something.
It was exciting and my first trip out of the US of A. The team got new uniforms with “Ridgeway High” on the front. On the back I put, “Hey! I’m Squirt. Yeah, it’s me!” Well, amongst the cheerleading crowd I am pretty well known. But, I even put my name on the college applications as “Dorothy Ann ‘Squirt’ Williamson”. The bus took us to the airport and we flew forever, stopping in LA. Yeah, I kept imagining movie stars everywhere, but we never saw a single one. Then on to Lihue on Kauai where another bus took us to the Marriott.
I mean it was different from Connecticut. Palm trees, orchids, water the brightest blue in the world and warm sun. We put on the bikinis, slathered in sun tan stuff and lay around the pool. We ate papaya, guava, ahi and ono (I think those are some kind of tuna). We even walked around the golf course to see what the parents had been up to. At night there were hula dancers. They kept their feet pretty flat on the ground but their knees and hips went crazy. We got up and tried, but found out it was tough.
The competition went OK. We came in third behind Iowa and Montana. Everyone was happy with that. The next day we went to see the Kilauea Lighthouse and Nature Preserve. Frigate birds soared overhead, boobies (weird name for a bird) nested like snowflakes on the hill, monk seals slept on the rocks. It was amazing. Someone said there were albatrosses you could see through a telescope so I went over to take a look.
“Is that you, Squirt?” I was wearing my shirt, but I knew that voice in a heartbeat. He was standing there in a blue shirt that said “National Park Guide” with a name tab with “Bob Meyers” in black letters. I didn’t know what to do so I just let instinct take over and stepped over and gave him a hug. It felt right. When I looked up, I could see the light was back in his eyes, skin tanned and pride back in his body.
“Meyers” had been his mother’s name and I guessed it was his way of starting over. We had a lot to talk about. It was clear how good we felt about the moment; how we both had grown, were connected to our new lives, and still could see that the warm connection was there. We found some time to sit and talk and a big hole seemed to fill in in my life. We would stay in touch. He wanted to know what I was going to do next. OK!
With the team back on the plane I could feel the change, how somehow things were a bit bigger, a bit more complete. I felt myself growing up. You can see now that I am not really a “Dorothy” or an “Ann”. Next year, when I’m eighteen I think that I will change my first name officially. I have been trying out “Brittany”, “Celine” “Crystal”, “Melissa”, but the one that I think I like the best is “Courtenay”. My Mom said “Dorothy” came from the “Wizard of Oz “ which she liked a lot and “Ann” from some relative of her mother’s so now she is saying “Go for It”.
Well, I’ve got to go now.
Been nice talking with you.
In a couple of years you might Google “Courtenay Williamson” and find something interesting.
See yah!
Bye, bye for now!
That's it. Why not give it a try.
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