Fairy Tales

from vannessagx on flickr

Finished Welty's The Robber Bridegroom a couple nights ago and was reminded of how much I enjoy fairy tales. The old English Fairy Tales collection illustrated by Arthur Rackham that I used to pour over at my grandparents' house stands a little dusty now in the kids' room (not that any sisters can take it...). The boys, while loving fantasy, haven't had a taste for Jack the Giant Killer or the Grimms' dark tales, and I feel a little at fault. Every once in a while we pick up a more richly illustrated copy of something like Anderson's sorrowful "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" at the library, but they tend to prefer fast, funny, plot driven series books to the short, frightening stories I used to love to read (and my oldest just checked out a Tom Clancy - perhaps inspired by our viewing of The Hunt for Red October). 

Welty's story captures the sing song tone of fairy tales and the gruesome colorful characters without sounding like some of the contemporary recycled versions of a wornout tale with heavy emphasis on morality, which most of these old fairy tales lack. The beautiful maiden elopes with the bandit and lives happily in sin and in ignorance of her lover's identity (a Cupid and Psyche twist) until the foolish boy Goat foils an Indian massacre, saves their lives, but reveals the identity of the bandit to all. So the bandit and the maiden, after a brief separation, run away to make a fabulous fortune after stopping briefly to be wed. No morals anywhere, but a great tale.

I'm having a hard time thinking of any American fairy tale writers other than Washington Irving right now - Mark Twain maybe? Add fairy tales - and their illustrations - to the list of things to love. And I also love the little local toy store where I stumbled on a collection of fairy tale illustrations today. Resisted the temptation to buy.

Last night while working Bingo for our parish tuition subsidy, I heard another sort of fairy tale, along with a lot of fascinating gossip and restaurant reviews.  One of my fellow "volunteers" is the granddaughter of a woman whose parents immigrated from Yugoslavia. When her mother died, the grandmother dropped out of 3rd grade to help take care of her 4 brothers and little sister. Meanwhile, the father went about his business making a fortune from shrimping and fishing. First he bought a boat. Then he bought a pier. Then he bought a warehouse and a packaging plant. Eventually he had quite a conglomerate of fishing industry businesses.  He sold most of this to the Starkist company for $72 million. A rags to riches story. Eventually, his heirs leased some additional waterfront property to the Grand Casino for 5% of their monthly income.  The twist is that in Yugoslavian culture, only the sons could inherit money, so the poor sisters were left penniless, not even given a freezer of fish after the Starkist deal. This wealth is still floating around Biloxi, and the woman, the granddaughter, telling this story has kids who now go to school with their extremely wealthy cousins, while their dad manages the Domino's district here. Could make for some jealousy.

I'm still fighting jealousy over neighborhood envy.  Another outcome of working Bingo (aside from learning how to make fries in the little basket dipped in hot oil, in case I ever am desperate for a job), is that I have had my running routes curtailed, after hearing that I must be crazy for running on a couple of these streets. We don't have many children on our street anyway - a baby across from us, and some teenagers on the corner. And we don't have any easy carpool mates.  And then today, J's friend commented that he wouldn't want to trick or treat in our neighborhood because it looked all foggy and rundown and some one might put drugs in the candy. To which B replies, "Yeah, our neighborhood is pretty seedy." 

All the doors are locked, and the outside lights lit.

I knew the neighborhood was sketchy when we were looking at renting in it. Too close to the casinos and the water. We drove around the part of Bayview to the left with the pretty waterside houses, not the neighborhood to the right with boarded up, overgrown ones.  Suddenly I feel nervous driving on the streets after dark.

But then I have to remind myself that the people who live in these old rundown houses are people, too. They want to come home after a long day at work.  I could be robbed or accidentally shot in a good neighborhood, too.  The St. Vincent de Paul society feeds hundreds of people a month (I tried to volunteer but couldn't do much unless I had childcare for my 3 yr old because schizophrenics and molesters come in the office). Just as there is great wealth in this area, there's great poverty. 

It's easier to feel nervous than to feel compassion. Having to readjust to what it means to be a good neighbor.