My grownups were political, i think. They were Famine Irish anyway with long long memories.
Maybe my memory is long just from having listened to them. My mom, my sister Nan and I lived in our grandfather’s house until he broke a hip, had a stroke, then turned up in a coffin looking nothing like the twinkly man who gave us all those Hershey bars. He was born in 1874 if you can believe it. Then Mom came in 1907 and lasted long enough in the world to hate both Nixon and Reagan. Oh and there were also two great aunts both born in the 1860s.
The result of all having all these long-memoried people around is that I remember lot of stuff I wasn’t even here for, like about the ice man and the rag men with their houses clopping down the streets mornings, or the guy with the ladder who came to light the lamps on the streets come twilight.
Mom would’ve been 100 this year if she hadn’t died so suddenly in my living room. I miss her as much now as I did 20 years ago when she left the party early.
I fell for this older boy named David Marotta when I was 19 and he and I are still slugging it out together with the kids grown and gone, still happily bickering away about who left the front burner flaming away all night with nary a pot in sight.
I used to paint my light bulbs pink so I could look as good as people in funeral parlors but now these same kids of ours are trying to wreck my fun, telling me I have to stop; telling me I have to start buying those ugly yellowish bulbs that look like IUDs but I say the hell with that. I also dye all the lampshades.
I know people cuss and carry on with bad language on blogs every day. I can’t seem to do that; I used to be a teacher is maybe why. I don’t mind quoting others when they swear however; it’s kind of fun and I figure I can’t be blamed for it since I’m just reportin’ da news so to speak. So maybe I’m ladylike, if you can be ladylike in a sort of blunt and earthy way. I know that back in college when everyone hitchhiked I was careful to do so in white gloves so people could tell I was a nice girl.
You can call me anytime at all at 617-512-2264 – that’s my cell – but if you ring my doorbell and I’m not expecting you I might duck behind the curtains and pretend I’m not home because I don’t do well with the unexpected: My sister and I almost killed our mother by throwing her a surprise 75th birthday party. She walked into the house, saw everyone she knew there and yelled “Gad! Am I dead?!”
Then, five years later we had a birthday party that wasn’t a surprise and what do you think? She died at it.
Go figure. Life’s a mystery.
May 12, 2008 at 8:05 pm
You’re incredible, the way you write. I too had Irish grandparents and great grandparents. I also remember the rag man plying his wares on the streets of Holyoke back in ‘57 or ‘58, outside my grandmother’s house in the early morning. “Rags for Sale” is what he would say.
July 1, 2008 at 12:42 am
Tes,
This backgrounditude is just hilarious. i love your style on the blogsite! it is so conversational (“is why” you might add!) and the part about dearest Callie, gad am I dead, is dead on perfect.also, Juddy “filled us in on what we missed” …just perfect. What a pleasure to read you. can I ever do this when my practice is up and running??
XOXO
sheila beila
February 21, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I, too, had an Irish father, with an Italian mother, who is 90 years young. My mother spoke very little Italian, which was odd since both of her parents came from Italy. My Irish father could speak it fluently, which puzzled all of us. I asked him one day, how did you learn to speak Italian, and mom doesn’t speak any at all. His response was that his Uncle Sam sent him on a vacation in the early 40’s to look for a man by the name of Gerhing, who was menacing Europe, along with his German brothers. He picked up the language easily. Crazy, isn’t it?
June 28, 2009 at 2:33 am
Dear “T”,
How nice it was this morning to read your tribute to MJ and others – my heart became full. How could you know that I needed all these words? As always, you just do.
I am deeply saddened by Michael Jackson’s death, among the others that have left me, and your words are a comfort