In 1938 Superman was born. Now, I’m not talking about the Action Comics Superman that was published on April 18^th and cover dated for June. I’m talking about the REAL Superman born on April 10^th, 1938. The one who was heaven sent and grew up in Danville, VA—not the one from planet Krypton, raised by farmers in Kansas.

                Like that other superman, the real superman also came from humble beginnings with high moral standards. Both supermen are on the quiet side and have hidden strengths that only emerge whenever circumstances demand a strong man of action. One superman can bend steel with his bare hands. The other superman is ambidextrous and can fix practically anything.

                These supermen both wear birth control glasses during their day job, one a mild-mannered reporter, the other a retired sergeant major in the Air Force.

                Both supermen fell in love with smart, ambitious women, who they support with grace, using their superpowers to provide a protective bubble around them. Yet the real superman also has three daughters and four grandchildren, all of whom sensed the real superman’s love for them at an early age ‘cause the real superman knows that the love of family is the greatest power of all and the protection of family is the highest honor bestowed upon him.

                The real superman is also a numbers man. Don’t leave a piece of paper lying around—or else he may start figuring out his numbers for the pick 3 and pick 4 on it. The real superman used to bid everyone in the house a good morning then ask what they dreamed about, ready to look up the numerical significance of the dream. Whichever scheme he employs, the real superman has never won significantly more money than the average person, but anyone who knows him, knows that the death number is 769 and that my sister’s wedding anniversary is 624. As morbid as it sounds, the real superman also plays the death dates of famous people.

                Back on his 70^th birthday, the real superman told all of us who were in attendance for his party that the key to good living was measured in laughter. That’s why the real superman, my father, Karl Wayne Roberson, can still leap over tall buildings in a single bound, laughing and sending good energy the entire way.

 

 When my sister and her husband said they were coming to visit me, I didn’t realize I would be a chauffeur to two shopping fiends! After concluding their business conference in San Antonio, I picked them up.  That was after they’d hit two cowboy boot shops.

A cousin of ours, the same cousin who had chauffeured them to the two boot shops, took us to a yummy Mexican restaurant. My brother-in-law figured that since he wasn’t driving, he’d have two strawberry margaritas.

The next morning, I dropped them off at a shopping mecca to get their early fix when I went to my doctor’s appointment. When I returned, I was then introduced to the mystical world of Panama hats (which actually originated in Ecuador), hat boxes, hat sizing and choosing the perfect hat for one’s body shape.

We spent a little too much time in the hat shop and was a bit late for our lunch date with another cousin who’d driven to Austin from Atlanta to spend the week with her boyfriend. Another thing that delayed us was a sudden downpour, which everyone blamed on the recent tornadoes for stirring things up. Along with those two things,  I parked in the first available spot that was about 6 blocks away or a mile and a half if one listened to my brother-in-law.

We were soaked even with our umbrellas, but at least we had a table waiting for us. A bonus came in form of one of my favorite samba teachers who was a server there. She had just got off work and was closing her tickets, but not before giving us a complimentary sampling of antipasta.

I ended up ordering two glasses of malbec and the creamiest bowl of gnocchi I’ve ever had the pleasure of having in my mouth. Turns out, it was my cousin’s 28th birthday; so we had our server put a candle on a wedding cookie and my sister sang a jazzed up happy birthday song.

Given a 50-50 chance, I initially led everyone in the wrong direction to the costume shop where I wanted to rent a Superman outfit for my upcoming Austin Writers Roulette. Yet even the downpour couldn’t put a damper on the fun we had in the fabulously entertaining shops on South Congress.  No matter how whacky the store, my sister and her husband still managed to find boots.

As a matter of fact, there were two boot stores they wanted to hit on South Congress, which was convenient since that’s where the costume shop was.  I knew that I couldn’t afford to drop hundreds to thousands of dollars on a pair of cowboy boots, but I was mildly affected by boot fever, which I attribute mostly to the delightfully dizzying smell of leather.

After I tried on several different Superman and Supergirl costumes, I finally settled on a Supergirl costume with some glorious red go-go boots, which I would’ve taken a picture of except there was a sign forbidding me to do so. I was feeling pretty rule-abiding at the time; so I’ll have have to wait until I’m completely decked out for the show for pictures.

The second boot shop, which was lesser known and not truly on anyone’s hit list, was closed by the time we got to it. Nonetheless, we continued north on South Congress until we were in the heart of downtown Austin. My sister and her husband wanted to check out the downtown location of the hat shop where they’d shopped in north Austin. The only landmark that we had to find it was across the street from the oldest hotel in Austin.

The hat shop was a bust, but I escorted my visitors a few blocks on the infamous 6th street just so we could say we did.  The heavy rain and the time of day meant that the freaks had not come out to play, but my guests weren’t too interested in people-watching anyway. Despite the fact that we’d just eaten about two hours earlier, my brother-in-law bought a slice of pizza from a place that boasted the 16th best pizza in the US. All I can say is if that was #16, the #1 pizza must give one an outright orgasm.

The next morning, I made a light breakfast and took my visitors to the 10 am capoeira class, which happened to be the advanced kids’ class.

I had warned my capoeira teachers that I was bringing a couple of 50-somethings; so I wanted them to go easy. I further told my sister and her husband to modify the moves by not going so low to the ground. 

I’m happy to report that not only did they survive, but they actually completed the entire class. I also told my sister that that class was my revenge for her forcing me to see a movie that I had not wanted to see.

We cleaned ourselves up, ate then went to tango class. I knew people would be shocked to see me since I hadn’t been in tango class for 9 months.

The tango teacher even jokingly introduced herself to me after I’d made introductions. My brother-in-law never rotated to dance with other women, but at least he and my sister had enjoyed the class and got to test out the basics.

Of course, we went to another boot store, followed by its second location down in the south part of Austin, where my sister got a second pair of boots, which turned out to be kids’ boots–perfect for her tiny feet and cost about $40 less. Before we did anything else, I demanded that we take an ice cream break.  After all, I always make a trip to the famous locally made ice cream shop for everyone who visits me.

Then we hit my favorite thrift store that has never let me down whenever I’m looking for an outfit. My sister had it in her head that she wanted a particular country western shirt, but she ended up empty-handed. I think she was too exacting in her search.  My brother-in-law, by contrast, found his country western shirt and even a shirt for my nephew.

Next up: BBQ. I took them to my old standby place, which doubled as a gas station and was near their temptation–the mall. I told them no matter what else they got, they had to try the extra moist brisket and creamed corn. My brother-in-law proceeded to order far too much food, but I’m not complaining since I’m going to enjoy a couple of days of leftovers.

After recharging, we headed to the mall. Fortunately, we didn’t have too long to shop since the mall was closing in two hours!

This morning, I ended their visit with a trip to one of my favorite Sunday brunch places. I knew that we’d be seated relatively soon since there wasn’t a huge crowd on the balcony. One thing that I had never thought to ask a server was if the alcoholic beverage that the restaurant was named after was actually served there. Leave it to my brother-in-law to inquire. We split two shots of it, which meant he had one and a half shots since my sister and I just took polite sips of the shot we shared.

As a drove them to the San Antonio airport, I saw a sign for yet another location of one of their favorite boot shops and I teased them about how we weren’t going to stop shop. I felt a little bad about that since my sister called about thirty minutes after I’d dropped them off at the airport, saying how there wasn’t much shopping to be had at the airport.

Yet, they cannot truly say that they failed in having a shopping good time. At this point, I don’t even want to buy my usual gas and groceries since I’m so shopped out!

Many around the world had feared that the coming of the second millennium would be a technological doomsday that was going to throw us back into the dark times of…the pre-computer age. On New Year’s Eve I had full tank of gas, bottled water, canned food, and I had spent the night with some friends just in case calamity broke out and I had to help form a new tribe.

Since humankind didn’t come down with the millennium bug, I had another special reason to celebrate the year 2000.  That was the year I turned 30, Mom turned 60 and her mother, Mama Bea, turned 90.

A 30-60-90 triangle has special properties, such as the ratio of the length of its sides, which is 1: . Mama Bea, Mom and I have our own special ratios. Our age ratio is 1:2:3. Mama Bea birthed 6 children, Mom birthed 3 and I’ve birthed none.

Early on, Mama Bea and her switch taught me not to boo-boo in my britches. Mom and her belt pretty much taught me all the rest. Say what you will about spankings (or whippings as my family calls it), but as an energetic, creative child, I usually gave plenty of motivation for whippings. Throughout my childhood, Mom often said that if anyone ever kidnapped me, they’d bring me back in a hurry. As a matter of fact, several of Mom’s favorite Teresa stories were those that ended where either she or Dad disciplined me or as she loves to say that one of them “whipped Teresa’s little tail good!”

Yet, who can blame me? I’m the third generation of hyper energetic, intelligent women. Mama Bea was the first Avon Lady in the Cascade, VA area. We, her grandchildren, thought of her as the “Original Ms. Prissy.” She kept her money straight and conducted her business with the grace and elegance of a sweet-smelling, well-dressed woman with a beehive hairdo and vintage bejeweled cat eyed glasses—before that style actually became vintage!

Mom briefly dipped her toes at being an entrepreneur, but spent most of her professional career as a bank teller. I’m quite thrifty with money myself. Although I’ve had rare occasion to write a check these days, I’ll never forget an important checking lesson Mom taught my sisters and I: just because you have checks, doesn’t mean that you have money! And of course, that leads to one of my favorite banking analogies: don’t let your mouth write a check that your ass can’t cash.

Now, no decent Southern woman worth her salt would dare show her face in public without knowing how to cook. My earliest recollections of Mama Bea took place in her spacious, aroma-filled kitchen. When my grandparents marked out the rooms of their future house, the contractor consulted my grandfather about the enormous size of the kitchen. Papa basically told him that if Bea marked out a big kitchen, he’d better build it.

Mama Bea had two deep freezers full of homemade sausage, chicken, creamed corn, green beans, various other greens, yams…well you get the picture. Out of all the savory Southern cuisine that Mama Bea cooked in her cast iron skillet and antiquated oven, fried apples with buttermilk biscuits was my absolute favorite.

Now don’t get me wrong. Mom also knows how to cook. From fried chicken, to pork chops, potato salad, cole slaw, barbeque, Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas brunch, do you know that Mom’s favorite meal in the world is hot dogs? HOT DOGS! As well as my momma knows how to cook, she’ll break for a hot dog and a cherry slurpee in a heartbeat.

Mama Bea, of course, was ol’ school. I remember one time a big group of us went out to a wonderful seafood buffet. Once everyone had fixed their plates and the blessing had been said, Mama Bea looked to her left and her right and said, “Lawd, look at all these people too lazy to cook.”

Unlike my grandmother and mother, I didn’t grow up knowing how to cook. I had a mother and two older sisters for that. I didn’t learn how to cook until I was in my twenties. In the beginning, I was amazed how I could buy fresh food, “cook” it and end up with edible poison. When I’d consult Mom about how to cook some of my favorite dishes, she’d just get this big smile on her face and say, “Well, y’know I don’t MEASURE. I just go by taste.”

One of the things that I treasure that I inherited from Mama Bea and Mom, other than intelligence and beautiful skin, is my gift for storytelling. Sitting at the knee of those two entertaining women, usually during the preparation of food, the breaking of bread and the settling of a meal, I listened to their personal stories and stories of extended family. Their daily dramas no matter how serious or tragic, were seasoned by humor with an aftertaste of a life lesson.

The fictional stories I write, follow the same recipe—with a dash of sex thrown in! Yet no matter how extensively I’ve traveled the world, how many academic degrees I’ve earned or how many books I read, I’d be an educated fool, as Mama Bea would say, if I ever forgot the influential women who raised me, protected me, and shaped me.

Mama Bea stood no taller than 5’2” and Mom stands about 5’3”, but I dwarf in the accomplishments of those two women. Perhaps one day, if I’m lucky, I will stand as mighty as they have.