[Written in 1997]

Refrigerator Art

As Marilyn, an old friend from high school, assembled lunch for us in her kitchen, she lamented the lack of artwork on her refrigerator. Marilyn’s children, just preteenagers then, were already too old to bring home papers to display.

      I began immediately looking forward to putting two-year-old Dan’s scribbles on our refrigerator. I had grown sick to death of the olive green dinosaur and was glad to cover it with colorful camouflage.

      My friend was right. One of the delights of living with a child is the ever-changing art show on the refrigerator. For a while it was a black five-legged cat, Dan’s then-current version of his fascination with sunsets, then a four-year-old’s sketch of “POSNIVY,” (poison ivy), flying birds with feet sailing out behind, a series of fast cars, other cat drawings, clouds raining smiling raindrops, the four-legged turkey.

      From Mrs. Shafroth’s first grade, he brought home crayoned pictured of trees in fall colors, a snowman in front of a brick house, a Pilgrim standing with an Indian, a blue-eyed Indian with hair not colored (with a note above the headband, “I don’t have a black and my my mom says I can’t borrow people’s crayons.”)

      More colorful creativity came home from Mrs. LeCroy’s second and third grade room, one a list of New Year’s Resolutions, which included “I promise to keep my name off the board.”

      But I remembered Marilyn’s warning about that stage when the artwork would begin to trickle, then shut off. No problem. I had hoarded holiday drawings and other favorites and began to use them year after year, even through high school.

      “Aw, Mom,” he’d complain as he shook his head. When his buddies came by, he could always blame me. His buddies had Moms, too. By then, Dan was also adding cartoons–political and otherwise.

New Refrigerator

      The refrigerator is white now and new. No need to hide it, but it’s still handy for catching the overflow from the bulletin board. And Dan has gone off to college, graduated, and turned twenty something already. 

      When he was home for spring break, he groaned when he saw the fridge. It featured cheery holiday art he drew on notebook paper when he was eight. He had made one for each month. 

       When Dan was in college, we sent each other favorite cartoons and articles. Some ended up on the refrigerator. Depending on the season, and what’s in the paper, the art scene on the fridge is usually a combination of seasonal photos–especially snow scenes, cartoons, something with a cat in it, fences, barns and silos, umbrellas, windmills, backyard birds. Plus at least one of Dan’s old drawings.

      Once an essay from The Daily Iowan was magnetic to the fridge. Taped around the edges of the piece were strips of paper with Dan’s corrections, editing, and raucous comments. Before adorning the refrigerator here, that Dan-edited masterpiece decorated his dorm door.

      When asked where Dan lived at college, I hesitated. I can think of the name of the dorm but I use his address labels for snail mail; otherwise I e-mail. But I could find his room: Go in the south door, up two flights of stairs, and through two doors, and down the hall on the left until you come to the door with the cartoons, jokes, and irreverent humor–Dan’s version of refrigerator art.

[The Dallas County News, June 12, 1997]

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Update: Dan is married and is the dad of eight-year-old Kate. We’re certainly blessed by Kate’s contributions to our now-elderly white refrigerator. 

It looks like this story will also be included in The Immigrant and the Ancestor–and Other Stories, due out later this year.