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
November 14, 2010 at 10:14 am
Terry,
I love your blog! I’ll be coming back… and telling all my Smithie friends.
November 14, 2010 at 10:35 am
Hey Laila! What could be nicer that this! You know I can’t drive by the place without stopping and digging out a pair of shorts and sitting a while under one of the trees. No one looks at me funny. I think I must look familiar somehow. I mean we’re all sisters, however many years between right?
November 17, 2011 at 9:06 pm
So you were born in 1949, and your grandfather in 1874. Did you know him?
My Grandfather was born in 1896 and my grandmother in 1900. She came to Oklahoma in a covered wagon with her family in 1903. Her mother (my great grandmother) died in 1969, so I got to know her fairly well I was born in 1951). My grandmother died in 1976, but I was fortunate enough to have lived next door to her through the early days of my childhood, and to have lived about 6 blocks away during the last couple of years of her life and my tenure in medical school. I went by there every day unless I was on call. What a gift. Anyway, not trying to make any point (obviously), just wondering if you had time with your grandfather and were able to learn from him.
November 25, 2011 at 1:40 pm
I did know him Steve. He took us in – well, he took my mother in when her marriage failed. I lived in his house until he died when he was 83 and I was just turning 9. Of course I thought he was sent to earth to play with me in those early years. He called me Blackberry Top because I had these shiny black curls, tight together all over my head… He was born here but was the child of immigrant Irish who were lucky enough to buy up land when farmers in Western Massachusetts died in the ‘war of northern aggression’ (you might not put that in quotes I realize.)
It’s amazing to me that your grandmother was born just 7 years before my mother! You are younger than I am but so far all those dance classes at the Y and color by Ronaldo keep me in the game (ha!)
Anyway I love hearing a story like this. Covered wagon, imagine! Oklahoma too, what associations the mind calls up there!
January 11, 2012 at 11:35 am
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January 11, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Hello there I just wanted to pop in to say I’ve passed on the 7 x 7 Award to you. I really enjoy your blog and hope you’re happy with how I’ve passed on your link in my post. You can check it out here.
http://maturestudenthanginginthere.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/move-along-nothing-to-see-here-just-a-jaded-student-with-a-handful-of-awards-to-pass-out/