tale of two [jodi/jody]s

I love to talk, but I crave silence. The American Sign Language introductory workshop seemed like a perfect blend. It’s a beautiful language, ballet for your hands.

I got there compulsively early as usual, and at 6pm I made my way to the classroom for a 6:45 workshop. Another girl got there at the same time, thinking she was only slightly late, thinking it started at 5:45. She looked like someone I could talk to — she was pierced and tattooed. Me too.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Jodi.”

“Really?” she said. “I’m Jody too. ”

The two [Jodi/Jody]s  blabbered away while we waited for people to show up. We had more than our names in common. We both blabber easily to strangers and unconsciously took turns instructing the attendees that came after us to sign in, sign in, sign in there, hey you, you need to sign in. No one asked us to. I can’t stop myself from that sort of thing. I guess I’m not the only one.

The workshop was interesting, we smiled, shared a “Hey, nice meeting you [Jodi/Jody]” wave & smile and promptly got lost in the hallways together trying to find an elevator.

The other Jody says something about Levittown. I stopped. I’m going to see a play called Levittown tomorrow. I’m going because I grew up there. My life has been haunted by the spectre of growing up in Levittown. I thought she’d said she lived in Massapequa?

“Well, I just moved. I grew up in Levittown. My parents moved ….” we finished the sentence together …“there from the city to give us a better life”. When we moved there in 1957, that meant whites only. Jody said it hasn’t changed.

We gawk at each other. I hear the theme from the Outer Limits in the background. She probably does too.

Where in Levittown, I ask tentatively.
Constellation Road, she says.
The Twilight Zone music kicks in. And it’s loud.

Jody grew up in 48 Constellation Road, half a block & twenty years away from my house at 35 Constellation Road. She graduated Island Trees in 1998, twenty four years after I did, making her young enough to be my daughter. She would have been born just about a year or so after I moved away.

The stop sign on her corner, there because a little girl had been hit by a car. Me. She works in a library that didn’t exist when I was there. When I was a kid, that building was our grade school. There wasn’t a need for a library when I was a kid. Levittown didn’t exactly encourage reading.

We talked about the book banning, famous by the time she went to school, part of the legend, part of my childhood. Pico vs. Island Trees. Steven Pico at 37 Constellation was my neighbor, one of the other plaintiffs was my cousin at 25 Constellation.

Same workshop. Same name. Same town, school, street.
I breathed a sigh of relief that we didn’t share birthdays, she’s 4/13 and I’m 7/23, although the threes are a little close for comfort. We exchanged email info, how could we not?

There’s a short story here or an X-files episode at the very least.

[audio:https://onlythejodi.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/1-35-mr-rogers-neighborhood-1.mp3]