Lightbulb Moments

My mom found “Mr Right” when I was ten years old. She was enchanted. I was not. He thought I should laugh at his jokes as generously as my mother did. I thought he acted like a ten-year-old boy in a thirty -year-old man costume. I was not that amused. Their first summer together the decided to take and extended honeymoon and I got shipped off to my “new” Grandpa’s farm to meet and bond with the extended family I never had …or wanted. Oh joy!

I just wanted a repeat of the last summer when Ms Rossi, the maintenance lady at our school, let me sneak in through her shop. Every day I went straight to the library and gathered books. It was heaven: unrestricted access to any topic, reading level or quantity of books I wanted. I hauled them to the teacher’s lounge where I curled up on a big yellow couch and wrapped myself in stories, sonnets and sensational adventures. This was bliss.

Sometimes I would take my lunch to the shop and hang out with Ms Rossi. I drank a soda from the vending machine and observed what she was working on and asked her questions after question about the various tools and parts on the walls and shelves. I wasn’t so much interested in using the tools myself, but I wanted to understand them. What did they do? What were they for? What happened if she put something in backwards or upside down? What was the purpose? What were the consequences? What would happen if…? I had a million questions and she patiently pondered and answered them while we chowed down on sandwiches and chips on paper towels at her work bench.

It was not to be. “Dudley-new-Dad” had convinced my mother I needed the great outdoors, new sights, new sounds, and new friends in Kenton, Tennessee…home of the white squirrel. Mom said I needed to get out of the library and into the world, enjoy the sunshine, climb a tree, make some friends that weren’t fictional.

When I asked her how many books I could take she said, “One.”

“The kindle?” I asked hopefully.

“No.”

My heart sank. One book wouldn’t last me a morning, much less a whole summer! So I decided I would write instead of read. I grabbed a small notebook and a hand full of mechanical pencils and tucked them away in my backpack. I would make a list of the books I would read when I came home, a list of topics and authors. I would capture the questions and look up the answers when I was allowed to return to civilization. I was deposited at Grandpa’s Lee’s with a black cloud over my head, resigned to my fate, and completely unaware of the life altering events about to unfold.

The southern hospitality was genuine and warm. But to say that I didn’t fit in was more than an understatement. We were a long way from Washoe City, Nevada. I was used to high desert and I was drowning in the humidity. I was given a couple of days with the Grandparents before all the cousins descended. On the second day I snagged a Farmer’s Almanac and laid in the soft green grass in the shade of a mimosa tree…it was an informative read that lead to many questions and topic being added to my notebook. Unfortunately while I devoured its pages chiggers devoured me.

The aunts, uncles and cousins arrived the next day. To say that I didn’t fit in would be a gross understatement. Everyone had grand plans for the summer and it was expected that I would go along with all of them…fishing, farming and shooting bottle rockets off the bridge, if we were good. I was trying. Uncle Albie seem to notice my lack of social skills, furtive looks at the bookcase tucked away in the corner, and my genuine discomfort in being a kid who didn’t really know how to be a kid. I had taken care of my mother so many years and now she was off on an extended playdate and I was completely out of my element, outnumbered and surrounded.

As a group they began planning our upcoming activities. The kids chimed in with ideas and wants and the adults pointed out logistics and resource issues and made the final decisions. I was lost. I had a million questions and even a few objections. But I was supposed to be polite and grateful and not cause trouble so I sat, quietly scratching my chigger bites and occasionally nodding agreement. It was like giving permission to a runaway train. I didn’t want to waste energy when I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. So you can imagine my surprise when among the chatter over fishing in Reelfoot Lake and swimming in the mighty Mississippi I heard someone say what I was thinking.

“What if we took a day to go to a museum or a library? What if one day we stayed inside and learned some stuff?” These were the thoughts inside my head but they were being spoken in Uncle Albie voice.

The “real kids” groaned their objections, “That’s like school! We don’t want to go to school! It’s summer!”

Grandpa Lee rolled his eyes and said “Here we go! Lightbulb and his questions.”

“Lightbulb?” I questioned finding myself drawn into the conversation by the hope of actually getting to do something that interested me.

“That’s Grandpa’s name for Uncle Albie.” One of my cousins explained, “When he talks he asks a lot of questions. Grandpa calls him Lightbulb cause he has a thousand “whats”. It was a silly pun but I giggled anyway. I couldn’t help myself. I had been there three days and I think that was the first time they had seen me smile. And when I made eye contact with Uncle Albie I knew I had found a kindred spirit. That summer changed everything for me. While the rest of the family stayed for a fourth day of fishing and camping at the lake, Uncle Albie and I went to the Carnegie Center for Arts and History…the site of the first public library in Jackson, TN and then to the Casey Jones museum and, just because I asked, the library at the university.

I did get some sunshine and make friends with my cousins and connect with the people and the world around me more that summer. But at night I read the books Uncle Albie would sneak to me under the table. Grandma and Grandpa had promised my mother that I wouldn’t spend the summer with my nose buried in a book and we didn’t want to get them in trouble so we kept it a clandestine act. I spirited them away from the table and hid them in my pillow case. At bedtime I said my goodnights and then pulled out a flashlight. I giggled over Tumbling Creek Tales by Pek Gunn after a day hunting for fossils in the creek. I was spirited away by Walter Farley’s Black Stallion after learning to ride a horse and I had my life changed forever by Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins because I understood how she felt so alone and that meant someone understood me.

Over the next five summers going to Kenton and hanging out with my counsins and Uncle Albie became my new heaven. But it wasn’t just learning to be a kid and still getting to read my books. It was also the questions. Grandpa was right. Uncle Albie was full of questions but when I finally broke out of my shell I gave him a run for his money. And Uncle Albie loved questions so much, he even taught me about them… open questions, closed questions, rhetorical questions. He taught me that some of the most fun questions were the ones that everyone answered differently like; “What’s your favorite color? or Who was your first crush?” He taught me how to get to know people like I got to know topics and characters, by exploring, investigating and appreciating.

“The best questions,” he said “are the one that change your direction.” I had begun to pay more attention to the world around me and noticing injustices and inequities. Even from my now beloved Uncle Albie. Had I been older and wiser my barrage of “What ifs” might have been construed as criticism but Albie knew I just wanted to understand and also that if he didn’t like the way he was heading he could always turn a new direction. Before we knew it, it had become a but if competition between us to see who could come up with the best questions. I filled many notebooks and had me thoughts on life and living turned upside down again and again. I got a nickname too… when Grandpa called me Lightbulb Junior one day. Uncle Albie said “No she’s Mega What…Meg for short” The legacy began.

And then it ended. Mom stopped laughing at Mr Right’s jokes. They were divorced in Reno and the summer I turned sixteen was spent working at a Waterpark in Redding California. We didn’t have the money to take long trips to visit relatives who weren’t relatives anymore. I kept in touch with Uncle Albie, emails and phone calls…birthday cards and book recommendations. I told him once that if I had a dollar for every time he responded “Great question” I’d be a rich woman. He told me with those kind of questions in my head I was already richer than most. We stayed close, he was even going to come out to my highschool graduation but a month before he had a heart attack. He survived the first round but there was a lot of damage and two weeks later a second one took him from us forever. Instead of him flying out for my graduation, I flew back for his funeral.

That was seven years ago. I was able to go to college through a combination of grants, loan and part-time jobs. I made good grade and impressed my professors with thought provoking questions. I love to learn and engage and ask questions that change directions so I decided to become a teacher. I work in a school system with many kids who had to grow up too soon. I look out across the class room of old souls in young bodies and wonder what I can give them.

Yesterday was my 25th birthday. Today I received a certified package from a law office in Kenton, TN. I was surprised. Uncle Albie had not been wealthy. His treasures had been passed out to friends and family in his last days. But today I got a box filled with notebooks…filled with questions and topped with a note.

Dear Meg,

What if I gave you a treasure…not when you expected it but at just the right time? What if you had a dollar for every great question you asked me?

Love Uncle Albie

I picked up the first note book and watched in stunned disbelief as a $100 dollar bill slipped out and fell to the floor. He did it…he gave me the legacy of a question that changes your direction and an inheritance of $20,000 dollars, just when I needed it most. I went to the store that night an bought pencils and notebooks for my students. I knew exactly what to give them. I had a legacy to share.