Tanga is an exotic name for a poor white girl from rural northern Kentucky, a name her father had read in a farm magazine. Although her parents never traveled far, by naming her Tanga, they staked a small claim to the bigger world; but as if to apologize for being so bold, they gave her the middle name of Bea. So she is Tanga Bea, both exotic and plain. An internet search shows Tanga is a city in northern Tanzania or a g-string type bikini bottom, and we all remember Aunt Bea from the Andy Griffith Show.
Bea loves gospel music; Tanga tells off-colored stories. Bea collects Vera Bradley; Tanga reads spicy romance novels. Bea gives her nephews backpacks full of goodies on their birthday; Tanga points out the sexual overtones of Michael Bolton’s head. Bea runs her library like a beat cop, no talking, no bad sites on the internet; Tanga, when asked on the library phone if she has seen an escaped mental patient, says: “I’m looking at a roomful of ‘em”.
Tanga Bea is a woman of deep, subtle talents; for example: (1) she scored perfectly on a tone pitch test in school, shocking the teacher; (2) her eye-hand coordination is so good she: will almost never swing and miss a pitched ball…won the foosball tournament at the BSU in around 1976 or so, guys and girls; (3) her memory for faces is stunning, and (4) she can solve those square tile-sliding puzzles like lightning - but as she likes to point out, no one will pay you to do any of those things.
Tanga Bea cares for other people: (1) she is known for finding just the right gift for birthdays or Christmas, (2) she gave a cell-phone to a former student at her college and paid the monthly bill for years, (3) several years ago when I was having a tough time at work, she put together a picture slideshow, playing Mariah Carey’s Hero and (4) for two recent Springs she stayed late after work two nights a week for the months of February, March and half of April; helping do taxes for free.
During the autobiography-sharing phase of our relationship, she told me how her Aunt Silvia picked her up from school the day her father died, when she was nine; of a packed house the next night when all the neighbors came to pay respect with plates of food and words of kindness; of walking into the dark bedroom to get a game her cousin Angie was going to play with her, and tipping over a dish of marbles that loudly hit the linoleum and rolled, people coming running and drawing attention to her; the last thing she wanted to do, on that of all nights.
She spoke of how, a few weeks later, she was asked to quote Bible verses in front of other kids and adults for a GA (girls’ auxiliary later changed to Girls in Action) award; and how when she opened her mouth, tears began to flow until Goldie Bowen stopped the spectacle and told everyone Tanga should get her award anyway because she had heard Tanga say the versus before they started.
And I heard of the "funny" stories of poverty, of a car with a mirror for a gearshift, of a car left out of gear, rolling to the bottom of the hill; of a brick laid on the coal stove to heat and then the foot of the bed to keep her feet warm during cold nights in a poorly-insulated house. I had similar accounts of growing up without much money or material things, so once we knew one another well; we formed a club of two, for poor, hesitant, but determined people.
I pledged early on to try to make her life better than it was before, figuring such a goal might be more doable and worthwhile than many other goals I might set. I am not sure how I have done on it. She grew up surrounded by a loving family of brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, school and church friends; and due to my jobs, we have lived far from them for over thirty years. In 2005, flying back from England, I half-pretended to shoosh her for laughing so hard at the movie she was watching with headphones on. Her laughter reminded me of how it sounds when she is with friends and family.
I suspect I have been a less-than-easy person with which to live. In the Fall of 1979, Tanga was working at Zayre’s Department Store in Terre Haute, Indiana and I, so engrossed in what I was doing at the University, waited until after my night class to pick her up after her day shift. As we drove to our apartment Supertramp’s “Long Way Home”, came on the radio and I was amused by the irony, but of course, she was not. This story illustrates our marriage pretty well; I make mistakes enjoying the irony in them and she forgives. So, the jury is still out on whether I have “made her life better”, but I hope I still have some years to go.
Fortunately, she is good at taking care of herself and me. One thing she and our friends from college have figured out is how to keep relationships going across miles. Due to their efforts, we have seen those friends at least once a year since we all graduated over thirty years ago and for the last twenty years or so, we have been together at least three times a year. She and those dear friends have made my life better. She never said her goal was to make my life better, but that's her way; less talk, more do.
Back when she was working me through graduate school, some of our friends told her she was a saint to stay with me. Maybe then, I have accomplished my goal of making her life better; I mean, how many husbands give their wives the chance to be a saint?
Happy Birthday, Saint Tanga Bea Turner McCullough
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