WHAT I REMEMBER

As time goes by, more quickly each year, I find myself looking back and comparing the new years to the old.

I remember safety and security, a mile walk to a birthday party when I was 7 years old, wearing my one party dress for such occasions and carrying a small wrapped gift worth only a few dollars.  The walk back was the same plus a sugar rush from ice cream, cake and soda; less a gift under my arm.

I remember simplicity: just party games, expected sweets, a paper table cloth, paper cups and children that at 7 years old were expected to behave.  No pizza or jumping houses.. or parents aside from those of the birthday girl.  We had fun.

I remember my parents who talked about the depression from time to time, never the war.  My father who fought in the war, returned, married my mother had five kids and moved on.  I remember my mother telling of her mother who came through Ellis Island expecting some glorious city with streets clean and golden who ended up in tears on the strange, new, filthy streets of New York.  She moved on too and found a position in elegant Beverly Farms as a maid and later found my grandfather, a butler for the same family.  They moved on; he became a carpenter and created a nice life for their three children, my mother being the youngest.
My father had a different story.  He was one of eight whose mother died when he was twelve.  His father, a fisherman was "always out to sea" as he put it and married a woman to look after his children.  She had children of her own and resented those of her new absent husband.  He told the story, but that was it.  My father insisted on good shoes for his children as he didn't have the luxury of his own shoes, just hand me downs with holes.

I remember the shopping trip to Hanlon's, a store known for only well made shoes with my father and two of my sisters.  They were ugly shoes to me, like something Buster Brown would wear.  I faked to my father that they were too heavy and had trouble walking with my skinny legs.  My sisters were OK with them and tried them on again when we got home.  The shoes had smooth leather souls and my sisters slid across the living room rug enjoying their temporary new game that I could only watch with a brief, mild envy.  I remember some time later on my birthday, my father brought home a pair of pretty red buckle shoes that I thought were too young looking for me being in the last year of grammar school.  I faked again that I loved them and hid the buckle underneath my foot to make them look like what the "big girls" wore when I went to school.

I remember walking to friends houses and calling out for them..Hi O Betty!  Never rang a bell, almost always played outdoors, winter, spring, summer, fall.   There were neighborhood baseball games led by the fathers when the warm weather started.  I walked often to the store with my father so I could have him all to myself.  He used to buy me rainbow ice cream cones and told me "not to tell the other kids", my siblings.  He knew the lady who owned the store and they knew him and greeted him by his first name.

When I got older, my mother used to send me to the small grocery nearby.  It was a treat to go by myself and hope for some left over change for a treat.  She would call the store and find out the exact amount, I think, because there was never any change.  My parents had a thing about sweets and our teeth.

On Friday nights in front of the TV, we all got to choose a candy bar from a variety pack.  My older sister always got the "Payday".  I always wanted "Jr Mints" or  "Milk Duds" so they would last longer.  Everybody was pleased with their choice.  There was never any more candy in the house except for Halloween and that was rationed well into the new year.  No soda, except for birthday parties, though the cabinet was always filled with boxes of cookies for our lunches at school.  We all had cavities and no dental insurance included with my father's Fireman's benefits.  Teeth were another big issue with my parents; it was the cookies that did us in as my parents did not think them as harmful as candy and soda.

We walked to elementary school with lunch boxes like all the other kids.  Nobody would ever have expected the schools to provide lunch, never mind breakfast.  When we arrived home after school, we played outside...jump-rope, bike-riding without a helmet, hide and seek, dolls and carriages.  We even played school teaching the smaller kids and sometimes my older cousins with their friends would teach us.

I remember tradition.  For Easter, we all had new clothes from socks to underwear, dresses, shoes and hats!  We arrived at Mass dressed up like most everyone else, piling out of the car and walking to church together.  Fourth of July was always about the fireworks at night.  Off to the pond, easy parking though with big crowds.  Earlier in the day the local parks gave out free hoodsy ice cream cups and big lolly pops.  The girls decorated their doll carriages and the boys decorated their bikes.  The best one got a prize.  Summers were beach memories.  Driving with my parents, the radio on and the windows open, nobody talked much, traffic was always light and the beach was an easy park.  Picnic baskets full, we usually stayed past sunset and the smaller kids slept on the way home.  Drive-in nights piled us all in the car once again with sacks of potato chips and juice.  We never went to the refreshment stand...too expensive...but we always begged anyway.
Back to school was about a shopping trip down town.  New clothes for all and big fatigue for all by the time we were back home by public transportation.  We sometimes had lunch "in town" but not always.  A definite treat.

Halloween came around and we wore home made costumes.  The neighborhood was filled with kids dressed as well in crude or creative costumes and we all advised each other which houses were giving out whole candy bars.  All doors were open with lights on, storm doors already put in for cool fall nights and winter on the way.  We would be out without chaperon from about 5:30-8:30 traveling to adjacent neighborhoods and moving quickly.  Thanksgiving was traditional with turkey always and we all dressed for dinner.  My mother always cooked with no help.  She did this well into her 70's.  She was a true traditionalist as was my father.  Christmas started soon after Thanksgiving, never before.  School plays and parties with music, shopping, pageants at the church with free candy canes. Picking out a tree was my father's assignment and I was more than happy to go along.  Each family member made a tradition of critiquing it.  Christmas Eve was always pure magic; the tree lights on and stockings obit the fireplace filled with small treats, mostly fruit.  Chocolates were handed out later in the day.  My older sister made it a habit of waking me up on Christmas Eve to get a spy in on my parents working on transferring the presents hidden in closets and attics to underneath the Christmas tree.  I liked surprises, but could not resist.  When my parents got too quiet, we knew they were on to our caper and we sneaked back into bed.

These memories warm me and overwhelm me with gratitude for parents who created for us a safe, fun, structured environment surrounded with love. The love required the expectation that we would all do the right things which mostly we did.  Whatever this changing world holds for the future, these special and abundant memories cannot be taken away.