Carolyn Butler -- My Wicked, Wicked Mother

(note: I had originally posted this blog, and then, while using my phone on vacation this week, I accidentally deleted it. My husband, the ultimate hunter/gatherer, managed to find a copy in my old browser history and restore it to me after we returned. So this is a second edition of this blog. Thank you, Imzadi! You save me so much heartache!)

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My mother was the most positive, unswervingly optimistic person I've ever known. She could see the bright side in just about anything. As a teen, if I'd point out that I'd chosen two colors in my outfit that didn't match, she'd cheerfully reply, "Those colors are in the same family! They look great!" She was irrepressible. To describe her, I like to tell the following story I heard somewhere:

Scientists wanted to study optimism in children, and whether they could change a child’s outlook by changing his or her circumstances. They led a small boy who was constantly pessimistic into a beautiful, brightly lit room full of the most creative, lavish, state-of-the-art toys any child could ever want. The little boy walked into the middle of the room, looked around sadly, then dropped his head and began to wail in despair. 

“What’s wrong?” asked the scientist. 

“How can I possibly find time to play with all these toys? And what if I break one? What if I break them all?? What if someone comes in and steals them all? Oh, nooooo… this is just terrible!!” 

Next, scientists ushered a little girl who was constantly optimistic into a different room. This room was piled knee-deep with horse manure. The room had nothing but plain beige walls, a single hanging light bulb, and a floor full of horse manure. Instantly, the little girl’s face lit up. She waded gleefully into the manure and began scooping up great handfuls, throwing them up in the air, and yelling, “YESSS!!! This is SO GREAT!!” 

Perplexed, a researcher asked her, “What are you talking about? This is a room full of horse manure. How can you possibly be so happy?” 

The little girl continued digging, giggled wildly and answered, “I just KNOW there’s a PONY in here somewhere!!!!!”

That little girl could easily have been my mom.

Mom was the survivor of a terrible childhood. It wasn’t until 1976, when I was 13, that she first obtained a copy of her own birth certificate. It was then she discovered that the man whom she’d grown up thinking was her father actually wasn’t. A different man’s name appeared in the section marked “FATHER”. It turns out that my grandmother had gotten pregnant out of wedlock (which, in 1934, was a MUCH bigger deal than it is now). The Fred Sharp she knew as "Father" was not at all related to her. 

[THIS JUST IN - my sister Debbie, who has done a lot of research on our family tree, says Grandma was actually married to Gerald Steuttgen, the guy on the birth certificate, and that they divorced after something like two years. Apparently I need a fact checker, because when you learn things as a kid, they're almost always not the whole truth... In any event, the fact that my grandmother had my mom with another man never came up in conversation between the two of them, apparently...]

For my mom, this discovery caused everything to click into place in a way it never had before. She had grown up suffering abuse from this man, whom she now realized was just her stepfather. The fact that her younger sister, who was his actual offspring, escaped the same evil treatment suddenly became clear and much more understandable.

My mom said she always knew that the abuse she suffered wasn’t her fault. Many children of abuse grow up with terrible self esteem, thinking they were the bad, wrong ones, rather than rightly blaming the monsters who hurt them. Mom had a deep and unshakeable faith in her Savior, Jesus, which sustained her through those years of mistreatment.  And in spite of this, Mom was the most upbeat, cheerful woman I've ever known. 

Therefore, no one would ever suspect that Carolyn Butler had a secret mean streak. But oh, did she ever. She was a wicked, wicked woman. I shall now attempt to prove this with two true stories.

First, there was our quartet, Sterling.

For several years, I had the pleasure of singing in a Sweet Adelines quartet with my mom. Sterling was my first quartet experience, and it was amazing. The other three ladies in my quartet were seasoned Sweet Adelines, and they had already distinguished themselves in our hobby. Our tenor, Mavis, had been in many regional champion and medalist quartets. Our first bass, Susan, was a “Queen of Harmony” (international champion) with 4-For-The-Show. Our second bass was Bonnie, also a Queen, with Panache. My mom had sung in many international level quartets - I think the highest she ever placed was fifth, with Quicksilver.

So, being the lead and brand new to quartet singing, I had the unparalleled experience of singing with three brilliant, completely bulletproof, amazing musicians, who simply sang into my sound and patiently followed along behind me while I progressed. As I mastered new skills and achieved more mature resonance in my voice, they simply unpacked more of their own fully stocked boxes of talent and brought them out to play in our developing sound. I admit that this experience spoiled me forever for quartet singing. How could I ever have another quartet to rival this?

But I digress. I was supposed to tell you about my mean, wicked mother.

To further set the stage, you need to know that I am, to say the very least, fiercely competitive. Each year before our regional competition, we’d put together little love gifts to exchange with the other competing quartets. Once, I (only partly) joked that I wanted to include a little poem I’d written, along with our gift:

“If contest has got you so nervous you’re hurling,

Think about getting your butt kicked by Sterling.”

My quartet overruled me, of course. I mean, it's not like I woulda actually given that to the other ladies... Sheesh.

Anyway, in competition, we always seemed to place just behind another quartet called Shimmer (and I believe I've told all of those ladies this story by now - most of us have sung or still sing in Harborlites chorus together!). It was a source of great frustration to me that we never seemed to manage to out-score that darned Shimmer.  So when we finally placed third, earning a MEDAL, and Shimmer came in just behind us at fourth place, I was pretty pumped.

The Monday following our regional weekend, however, I got a phone call from my mother. She told me she had some bad news. Our International Headquarters had called her to say that they had unfortunately made a tabulation error in our regional contest scores. Instead of outscoring Shimmer by the few points we had, which had landed us in third place, it turned out Shimmer had actually earned the medal, and Sterling was once again, sadly, fourth. Mom said that the representative from International asked us to please mail our shiny new medals to Shimmer, and that they’d be glad to send us those lame fourth-place ribbons that you have to safety pin onto your clothes... (mind you, the SAI rep didn't call them lame. I'm relaying my version of the conversation).

I was devastated. I'm pretty sure I even started to cry. How could they make such an error? Why on earth would they ask us to send OUR medals to our (in my sad, little mind) rivals? As I moaned and railed against the system, I slowly became aware that my mom was, incredibly, choking back laughter. When I finally took a breath, she could barely get the words out — “April Fools!” before she burst into her little high-pitched, hysterical mirth. Dismayed, I think I finally hung up on her.

See? I told you she was mean.

But wait. There’s more. I shall call this second piece of evidence “Zebra Panties”.

Long ago, I was shopping with my mom, whom my sisters and I used to call "The Carolyn Bird" (imagine a parrot repeatedly squawking, "Looks good! Buy it! Looks good! Buy it!"). I needed undies, but in the amazing high-waisted, high-cut style pictured above (which, in my defense, was quite popular at the time), literally the only color scheme left on the shelf was this 3-pack of zebra stripes. I kept digging and searching until, exasperated, my mom said, "Just buy them! No one but you will ever see them anyway!" Anxious to be done, I hastily paid for them and we escaped the store.

Fast forward several months. We were at a Verdugo Hills Chorus show, hurriedly changing in the dressing room between sets. Guess what I was wearing? And who else but my dear mother yelled, from across the room, "Hey Doreen!! NICE ZEBRA PANTIES!!" This drew guffaws of laughter from my singing sisters. See? My mother was NOT as sweet as you all think...

As a little postscript, fast forward SEVERAL years, after my mom had died. Just because of that fond yet cringe-inducing memory, I had never thrown out these panties. And the only time I ever dig one out is on laundry day, when there is NOTHING else left to wear. So, one such laundry day happened to fall on a Harborlites rehearsal night. They were revealing our new costumes, these gorgeous, flirty, velvety black dresses with polka dots. Another front row member, Carol, tried it on first to act as a model for the chorus, but she was too skinny for the prototype. So they had me try it on. Our opening song for our finals package was "Ain't Misbehavin'", which featured some of our more athletic front row people rolling around on the floor and flinging their legs into the air. Gerry Papageorge, the designer, asked me to get down and do the kicks (even though I wasn't one of the floor people), so that they could see how the dress would move around with the dancers. I suddenly realized, with horror, that that morning I had put on those darn 80's zebra panties, and that a hundred people would soon see them in all their glory as I lie there awkwardly flailing around on the floor. I agreed to demonstrate the floor kick, but only after quietly asking our director, Pam, to make the entire chorus turn their backs on us! She actually DID, and I then felt compelled to explain my odd request to the entire chorus by repeating this whole tale, assuring them that Mom was probably having another great laugh over my zebra panties.

So next time any of you has a mind to talk about how nice my mom was, be sure you know the WHOLE story. Wicked, I tell you...