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The Fun Guy and the Big Yellow Fungus -- Over My Shoulder

Although there were five children in my immediate family, my extended family was rather small. My father was the youngest of six children, only four of whom survived to adulthood. My father was the only one who had children. We enjoyed being the doted-on nephew and nieces. My mother was from a smaller family. She had a brother and sister. Her sister never married. Her brother had three boys each three years apart. The youngest was about a month younger than me, and the oldest was about the same age as my oldest sister. Although we were obviously close in age, we saw very little of our cousins growing up. We did not do family reunions or cousin events – nothing warm and familial. Besides they lived about 6-hours away from our home.

As my siblings grew up, we sought out opportunities to get to know our cousins. One encounter still many years later brings a smile to my face. Here’s how it went down. Between my freshman and sophomore year in college, my eldest cousin got married in Massachusetts (for the first time. It took him three tries to get it right). We were invited to the wedding. It was a beautiful June wedding. My sisters and I very much enjoyed socializing with my cousins.

The three were very different from one another. The eldest became a doctor and an eminent researcher in HIV. The youngest brother became an attorney, practicing with a prestigious firm in New York City. The middle brother left high school and entered the Coast Guard, where he completed his GED. Of the three cousins, he was the fun guy. At the time of his brother’s wedding, he had just finished his service and was returning to civilian life. The adjectives large, loud and fun-loving would all apply to him. We got along famously for the rest of his life. He was always the fun guy.

After serving in the military, my cousin decided to go to art school. He was very talented. As a teenager he did very intricate glass enamel on copper craft work. He chose to go to art school in New York and while exploring his options came and spent about a week with my family. It was riotous. He was so big and strong that we could playfully pick me up with one arm and my younger sister with the other.

He was also incredibly helpful. My mother asked him to vacuum the downstairs. The vacuum cleaner was a torpedo-shaped, drag-along Electrolux. My cousin made fast work of the task, startling my mother by asking what he should do when the vacuum got too hot to hold comfortably. My mother was quite concerned until she realized that my bearlike cousin had simply tucked the entire vacuum under his arm instead of leaving it on the floor and dragging it along by its hose. Both parties were relieved when she explained the usual mode of operation.

The visit was not all housework and hijinks. One afternoon we went for a ride in the soup car. I don’t recall why we were going, but I do remember the ride. As we were rolling through the New Jersey backroads, my cousin spotted a tree with a large sulphury yellow fungus growing on it. The fungus was huge and very bright yellow. He asked me to stop so he could look at it. I pulled over, and he jumped out and took off into where he had seen the big yellow fungus. Expecting him to return in a minute or two after looking at the fungus – no one else exited the car. Imagine my surprise when he returned with a piece of fungus approximately two feet tall and two feet wide. He wanted to take it with us for further examination.

Getting the fungus back to my parent’s house presented no small challenge. My very large cousin took up the entire front passenger’s seat. The fungus was too tall and fragile to fit in the front under the bonnet of the VW. We decided to put it in the open compartment directly behind the rear passenger seat. This was an awful decision. My two sisters were riding in the back seat. The fungus was malodorous and perfumed the car quickly. There were no rear windows to open, and even with the front windows fully open, the smell was pungent. My sisters leaned forward to gasp air from the open front windows. Unfortunately, this put their weight just right to set off the predictable fireworks at every bump along the way as the springs sparked against the battery.

The ride home felt very long, but my cousin enjoyed a merry time sketching the fungus once we got it home. My sisters were not pleased with the trip and were more than a little surly about the fungus. It seems for the rest of our lives my cousin was always the fun guy. He regrettably passed away Summer of 2024.

College Commuting in Rolling Wrecks -- Over My Shoulder

I entered college before I could get a driver’s license. To this day, I am not sure what my parents were imagining my college experience would be like. My older sister had commuted to the same college and graduated several years ahead of me. I guess my parents thought that I would easily follow in her footsteps. The big difference was that she had a driver’s license before her first day of college. There was also no way for me to get to the college via public transportation, so each morning my mother would drive me 45 minutes to school and then at a pre-determined time would retrieve me. Mercifully this arrangement did not last long. I got my driver’s license, as fast as I could, and the fun began.

The year I started college my older sister went abroad to study in England. She spent several years living and working abroad. When she left, I was given her car. It was a very beaten-up VW beetle. My sister had been and unfortunately has continued to be in automotive mishaps. She had a head-on crash with a truck while still in college. She survived, but her vehicle was a total wreck.

The VW that I inherited was its replacement. Not all my sister’s mishaps were spectacular crashes. Many resulted in just another dent. The right side of the VW had been hit by a drunk driver who decided to drive down a broad sidewalk in Philadelphia, sideswiping a whole block of parked cars. There were so many dents in the VW that I could not determine what was new vs old damage when, as a new driver, I popped the clutch and hit a phone pole – just a tap, not a crushing blow. I could see blue paint that kind of matched my bug on the pole. It just added another bit more character.

The bug had many failings – character marks. It had no gas gauge. Old VWs did not have gas gauges. They were equipped with a reserve tank that was operated by the driver flipping a lever inside the car. I never got to do the gymnastics this would have required, because the reserve tank was inoperable long before I got the car. To check my fuel level, I carried a yardstick and dipped the tank. It was in the front of the rear engine bug. This exposed another failing. The latch on the hood did not work – a collision by my sister with a deer had smushed in the front of the bug and had made the latch inoperable. Always inventive, I used bent wire coat hangers to lash the handle of the hood to the bumper. I always carried an ample supply of coat hangers ready for instant replacement and repairs.

My first VW bug also had no turn signals. You had to wind down the window and use hand signals, even in cold wet weather. Rain presented another set of challenges. The floorboards were rusting away. The area where the brake, gas and clutch pedals went through the floor was so rusted away that water would gush in whenever I hit a puddle or heavy rain. My solution to this problem was to drive without my shoes on when it was wet.

The driver’s side was in good condition compared to the passenger’s side. The floor had a large completely rusted through hole. I used a flattened cardboard box to cover the hole. It was convenient for dropping apple cores and other food debris. All I had to do was gently lift the corner of the box and discreetly dispose of my debris directly onto the roadway.

With all this ventilation, the heater was not up to the task. It couldn’t even keep the windshield from frosting up from the inside. My solution was to keep an ice scraper ready at hand whenever I needed to improve my view out the windshield.

Did this battered vehicle run? It barely ran. It burned oil at a startling rate. I carried a case of reconditioned oil in the back seat and added yet another quart whenever it needed more oil, at least once per tank of gas. The synchromesh on the gears no longer worked, so the driver had to make sure that the engine and the transmission were in sync before going from first to second etc. even using the clutch. It was tricky. My brother had taught me how to drive the 4-speed transmission even with its idiosyncrasies.

This rolling wreck died in two stages. First, I hit a bump, and the right rear bumper broke loose. I pulled over and using one of my trusty coat hangers wired it back together. A few weeks later, the engine seized up as I was exiting a major highway, and my rolling wreck came to a halt, never to roll again.

Rolling Wreck No. 2

My parents were not pleased when the battered wreck died. I was chastised for not taking care of it. What was there to take care of. Search me. I initially thought with dread that my mother would commence driving me to college again. It was winter, and she did not want any part of my commute, so on came Rolling Wreck No. 2. It was another VW bug. It was the color of cream of tomato soup. It was in much better condition than the battered wreck that I had been driving. It was not without its minor problems. It had no gas pedal. In place of a gas pedal there was a hard rubber disk like a hockey puck with a hole in its center mounted sidewise on a lever. My guess is that a pedal would have fit over the hockey puck and made a nice smooth connection. The way it was configured, the driver had such direct contact that the car would lurch and bolt at the lightest tap on the gas.

There was also an issue with the battery. Old VWs had the battery positioned under the rear seat on the driver’s side. There should have been a metal cover over the battery. There was none in my car. Rear passengers were in for a thrilling ride. If we hit a bump and the springs on the seat depressed and contacted the battery, sparks would fly. I would urge my passengers to be prepared to post like on a horse to ensure that the springs did not contact the battery. Not every passenger followed the directions, but all quickly learned to sit lightly or enjoy the show.

The soup car, as my sisters dubbed it, ran well. The heater was inefficient, but overall, it got me to school and back with little or no drama. My folks loved VWs and how efficient they were – lots of miles per gallon of 25.9 to 29.9 cents per gallon gas. My mother bought herself a VW, a nice white car that even had a wicker shelf under the dashboard. It was a very uptown version. It became my car in my junior year of college. The soup car was sold, and I got to roll in style.

The white VW saw me through college and on to graduate school. I sold it my third year in graduate school and bought a car from my sister – the same sister that I got my first rolling wreck from. You would think I would learn, for I quickly became a buyer’s remorse candidate. My new old car was a black VW. A collision with my sister at the wheel had badly dented the left rear side panel. A coat of Rustoleum minimized the visual effect of the collision.

The car had a sunroof. There was a bit of a problem with it. The darn thing leaked all around the edge. My solution was to carry a roll of duct tape to seal the edge of my roof. Opening and closing the sunroof was challenging. All the tape was stripped off to open it and reapplied upon closure. Before I got rid of the car, it developed a unique set of mechanical problems. First, the long screw that holds the turn lever in place went missing. There were three options for activating the turn signal. The first option was to hold the unit in place with one hand and move the signal lever up and down with the other. This did not work well if the driver needed to steer the car and activate the turn signal. Option two was to simply use the signal as if nothing was wrong which meant that the signal unit would rotate around the steering column in its own special and unpredictable way. The third option was to use old-fashioned hand signals.

The turn signal problem became big problem when the worm gear that operated the steering decided to lose teeth. Turns became chancy, who knew how many turns with the wheel it would take to engage the steering enough to make the turn. At first the steering was just a bit crunchy, then as the steering lost more teeth, it became flatly unsafe – even by my then low standards.

My family always kept our cars for a long time. A car with less than 100,000 miles was a new car. I even now keep my car for a long time. The last car I traded in had over 100,000 miles on it. I carefully maintain them, so they run well, and they still look terrific when I trade them. I guess driving the rolling wrecks instilled in me a love of nice cars.

Every Night Another Bedtime Story – Over My Shoulder

Educators urge parents to read to their children. There are numerous documented benefits. Reading to children helps them develop active listening skills, expands their vocabulary, enhances their knowledge of the world and even helps them develop empathy as they emotionally connect with the characters in the stories. It also instills a love of reading and creates readers for life. When a parent reads to a child a stronger relationship develops between them. When I was growing up, there were no screens to distract us, and the evening bedtime story was a way of closing out the day and a preface to going to sleep.

Each evening my mother would gather my brother and younger sisters and read to us. We usually sat up in our beds and listened as mother seated in a nearby chair read us a story. As a family we had several beautiful books with Arthur Rackham’s illustrations as well as other classic children’s books. There were Kipling’s Just So Stories about how the leopard got his spots and the camel his hump. Aesop’s fables kept us amused. The Wizard of Oz books provided many evenings of entertainment. Not all the selections were light and entertaining. Mother had a fondness for the dark fairy tales of Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. Some of these are quite frightening. Mother thought they were good for us to listen to and learn what could befall us if we misbehaved. Mother also read us Peter Pan and Robinson Crusoe a chapter at a time. Each night we would whine and wheedle trying to get her to read us more, but my mother was strict. You had to wait for the story to continue the next night. Once I could read on my own, I did not have to stop reading when the chapter ended. It was a small freedom gained by becoming a proficient reader.

Mother stopped reading to us when we became old enough to read on our own. One of my most exciting presents I received as a six-year-old was my very own bed light. It was ivory-colored plastic with a bullet, almost torpedo shape. It clamped onto the bed’s headboard. There was a lens in the front that focused and intensified the light of a 25-watt bulb. Like many lamps in the 1950s, it had beaded pull chain to turn it on and off. I learned how to carefully pull the chain so that it would make as little noise as possible so that no one could hear when I turned it on or off. I often read well past my bedtime and did not want to get caught still awake and reading. Even as an adult, I find it almost impossible to fall asleep without reading in bed before I turn off the light.

When I was ill and confined to my bed, I read and read and read some more. The nights were frightening since when I would lie flat, I had difficulty breathing. I slept propped up in a semi-upright position. If I slumped, I would sometimes be awakened struggling to catch my breath. As a result, I slept fitfully and would silently turn on my light and read. I am still many years later a serious night owl often awake very late.

As an ill child, my companions were a veritable menagerie of stuffed animals and a few dolls. I have always had “stuffies.” They were very important during my most formative years. A sick child is a lonely child. I had my stuffies to keep me company. Before I shut off the light, I would array them in a semi-circle near me on the bed and read to them. As I grew older, I would tell them stories, my own versions of the Just So Stories crafted for each of them. I considered them my pals so why not create their own literature. My time being read to, then reading on my own and creating my stuffie stories ignited my interest in reading and writing. The habits learned in childhood follow us all the days of our lives.

School Days in Bed -- Over My Shoulder

My childhood was punctuated by long periods of illness during which I spent many days in bed. During my longest illness, late-September to mid-March of first grade, the school system sent a tutor to my home several times a week to try and keep me from falling too far behind in my studies. She was kindly lady, and I am sure she was not sure how to deal with me. Because I spent lots of time alone and confined to my bed, I quickly was able to read several grades above the reading level that she was trying to teach me. I simply breezed along reading whatever she brought for me.

Math was a horse of another color. While I was confined to my bed, I had an AM radio within arm’s reach for instant companionship. I loved listening to the radio and still do. As a sick child I particularly enjoyed the horse races that were broadcast in the afternoons from the horse tracks in New York and New Jersey. As a result of my fascination with horse racing, I wanted to learn what the announcers meant when they described the odds on each horse. I am sure it scandalized my very staid tutor. She had me focus on completing boring math problems in the math workbooks that were used by the schools, not on how to handicap horse races. I did not enjoy the workbooks and did the tasks joylessly. I relied on my father to help me understand how the odds were figured at the racetracks. My father also improved my math skills by teaching me to play cribbage. I cherished the times when he would spend some time with me playing hand after hand of cribbage.

My social studies learning was also informed by my radio listening. In the 1950s, the radio still carried radio dramas. My favorites were: The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, and The Lone Ranger. These brought adventure into my sick room. They also excited my imagination and interest in geography and history. My education was not neglected while I sat in bed ill.

My days had a rhythm to them. I ate my breakfast as my brother and sisters left for school. It was the lowest point of my day, for I desperately wanted to go with them. After breakfast I washed up, brushed my teeth and hair. As my mother called it – “I made myself presentable.” My tutor did not come every day. Even on days when my tutor did not come my mornings were usually spent learning either reading or working on the dreaded math workbooks.

My in-bed school day ended with lunch. After lunch I napped, for my mornings exertion often left me worn out. When I woke from my afternoon nap, I would listen to the radio and do activities. I was an avid jigsaw puzzler with several puzzles that I worked repeatedly. They were 200-500 pieces, remarkably complex for a 6-year-old. I also had several cut out and paste picture books and connect the dots activity books. I rationed these, limiting myself to only doing one page a day. Connect the dot pictures were enhanced with crayons so that each was both a puzzle and a coloring book page. This made them last longer.

When my brother and sisters came home from school, my day would shift. Most days my brother would bring me a beverage, a Canada Dry Ginger Ale in a green bottle with a straw, and a snack. He would sit by my doorway and tell me about his day. It was a special time. My younger sisters did not make routine visits to my room. My brother was my pal and confidant.

Late afternoon slid into supper and bedtime followed soon after. I would often quietly read until I would fall asleep. Sleep was not a friend, for I mostly slept half sitting up so that I could breathe better. My temperature would often rise as the day went on so I was often feverish and feeling ill by evening. I knew that I was getting better when I was less tired at the end of my day and eager to join the family. My first forays were to come down the stairs, pausing to count to 10 on each step and then moving to rest in the living room in the late afternoon. To my joy, I would eat dinner with the family, then one of my parents would carry me upstairs to bed. At first these trips were tiring, but over time I was allowed to lengthen my time downstairs and could go upstairs step-by-step on my own.

Doctor visits were a major interruption to my school from bed routine. My doctor was in New York – a pediatric pulmonary specialist. Trips to the city were quite elaborate events. When I was six my parents would bundle me up, put me in the car and drive to the city. As I grew older, I also saw an allergist in New York who treated my asthma. I would see both doctors the same day. How we parked and got to the doctor’s office has not been retained in my memory. What I do remember is how tiring and stressful the trips were. I am sure they were exhausting for my mother.

In My Attic the Trains Ran on Time -- Over My Shoulder

Trains were a theme that ran through my childhood. I still love traveling by rail even after riding a roundtrip from Paris to Athens in 1969 on a packed, un-airconditioned train. When I lived in Boston, I would ride the train to New York in preference to flying. It is actually faster to get to mid-town by train than by air.

The small town that I grew up in was defined by the train tracks. The signal gates (or “ding-ding gates” as we called them as children) marked one boundary of the town. The railroad line cut across the edge of the town and a branch of the Raritan River marked another boundary. We lived a short block and a half from the train station. From my bedroom I could hear the ding-ding gates and every train. This was not annoying but gave a pleasant rhythm to my daily routines.

There was a freight siding just beyond the station. The largest business in town was a lumber yard. During World War II, the millwork shop at the lumber yard made wooden ammo boxes for the war effort. It was still quite busy when I was a child in the 1950s, and my brother would regularly raid the millwork shop’s trash bins for bits of lumber usable for his projects. The shop workers welcomed him to forage. It was a gentler time. Freight came during weekdays in the off hours, and from my home I could gear the freight being switched in the yard, cars coupled and uncoupled. All the sounds of a working rail yard writ small.

The post office was in the same area as the train station, and when I was little child, the mail came on the train and the bags were trundled down a slight grade in the parking lot to the post office. Large parcels, luggage and trunks were picked up and shipped from the station through the Railway Express Agency (REA) office. There was no mail delivery. We picked our mail up daily at the post office. I have fond memories of walking the family dog up the street each morning to pick up the mail before going to school.

The station itself was a busy place. Just inside was the paper man. He had stacks of New York papers for sale. Regulars paid the paper man to hold them a paper. My dad was a regular and read The Wall Street Journal every morning while he ate breakfast standing up at the counter in the kitchen. It was my job to get the paper and have it folded by his breakfast every morning. When I got to the station, the paper man knew who I was and would simply hand me a paper so I could rush it home. If the stock market made a significant change up or down, the paper man would be very busy and would sometimes run out of papers available to non pre-paid regulars. There was no Internet to track changing stock prices, so the paper was very important to those who made their living on Wall Street.

The town was home to many New York bankers and stockbrokers. They would ride the train to Hoboken and then take a second train under the Hudson River to Wall Street. There were three trains each morning and others during the rest of the day. The 6:59 was the early train ridden by eager beaver and up-and-comers. The 7:27 was the busiest train, and the 8:02 was the last morning train to the city. This last train was often filled with the true white-shoe bankers. In the Summer I loved to glimpse the outfits on the late train riders. They seemed almost like uniforms – seer sucker suits, tightly woven linen spectator shoes with brown or navy tips and straw hats.

My Very Own Train

The 1950s were the heyday of the model train, and I had my very own Lionel setup. At Christmas, when I was 5-years old, my parents gave me an electric train set. My older brother already had a set and regularly received enhancements to it. My set included an engine, a tender, three freight cars (box, flat and tank) and a caboose. I also had a transformer power plant to run my train and enough track that I could configure my train’s route several ways.

My train provided many hours of enjoyment. I set it up in my bedroom and would run my train eagerly morning, noon, and night. It was as fascinating as a video game. My flat car was used to transport many items – small stuffed toys, tiny wooden animals, small rocks, Tinker Toy connectors or anything else that I wanted to transport on my railroad.

My brother and I merged our railroads and decided to build a larger more complex layout with our combined resources. After a failed attempt to mount our railway in the basement –sawhorses and plywood, we moved our railway to the floor of the attic. We built an elaborate setup. It was not a thing of beauty since it was the work of two children. We did not pay close attention to the scale of buildings or other features.

Despite endless challenges, our trains always ran on time, and the freight always reached its destination. The layout was a trigger for our imaginations. My brother and I created a hideout for bandits on the edge of tracks – furthest from the transformer. It was outsized (not much of a hideout) since it was constructed from Lincoln Logs. The bandits themselves were fashioned from pipe cleaners, so too were the hobos in the nearby hobo jungle. There were many train robberies enacted with the trains racing away from the bandits. Hobos regularly jumped the train and rode the line. We had a station near the transformer. The hobos would jump off just before reaching the station. My favorite feature was the mechanical dairy car that on and off-loaded milk cans. We laid out pastures and a farm space with weird-sized cows to feed the dairy car. There was another car that tilted to offload logs near the farm. There were also some strange mechanical creations fashioned by my brother from his metal Erector Set. For our railroad, we employed all of our mechanical toy construction tools – Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, and metal Erector Set pieces.

Like real trains our set fell on hard times during the 1960s when the two owners, my brother and I, turned our attention to other activities. When my parents downsized the home, they got rid of our trains. I have never lost my love of model trains. I always yearned to have a Santa Fe “Warbonnet” engine. The iconic red, yellow and silver engine powered the Super Chief, an all-stainless-steel streamliner running between Chicago and Los Angeles. It was America's most famous and finest train. The Lionel version was highly coveted. About 15 years ago I purchased a German made Marx knock off Santa Fe. I have been a “trainiac” since childhood.

A High School Wardrobe Malfunction -- Over My Shoulder

It seems like a good time for lighter memory. It has been hard for me to write about my musical memories. There are several more still in draft form on my computer, one is my late brother’s story and is only tangentially about me. The second is about my efforts in college to put aside my feelings about music, but these two stories will wait for another day.

My social life was somewhat stunted by going to an all-girls convent school. The nuns were not big on coed social events. My parents view meshed with the nuns. I never went unsupervised to a coed event with a date until I entered college. Further, my ethnic family had additional rules beyond those imposed by the nuns. My brother had to know and approve of anyone that I went out with even to school functions. If I was going to a non-school function, my brother came along with a date of his own. If I received an invitation even to a school function, I would check with my parents, who would check with my brother. If the date cleared those hurdles, then the unlucky suspect had to meet my parents, who would grill my date and lay down the law as to when I had to be home, usually immediately after the school function. This rigamarole really put a damper on my social life.

When I finally got to college, I learned just how much of an impediment this routine had been. I met a nice guy who told me that he had always wanted to date me in high school. He went to the same high school as my brother. I flippantly asked him why he hadn’t tried. He informed me that my brother was like a dragon at the mouth of a cave, and no one was going to come near his sisters. This information came as a relief to me, for I had always told myself that the reason I had such an awful social life was that I was an unattractive nerd. In college I slowly emerged from my suffocating cocoon.

School Dances Were a Big Deal

My high school had two or three coed events each year – a semi-formal fall dance, sometimes a semi-formal winter dance, and a very formal spring prom. Given the infrequency of these events, they were a very big deal. Girls would pull out all the stops to secure an acceptable date. Having an older brother gave me some currency with my peers. He never missed being invited to a dance at my school.

In the 50s and early 60s girls wore tea-length fancy dresses to semi-formal dances and long prom dresses to the spring prom. Shoes were carefully dyed to match or coordinate with the dress, and a little formal purse completed the outfit. I will always remember one dress bought specially for a semi-formal in my sophomore or junior year in high school. It was a very bright dress, a gorgeous wide ethereal organza plaid in orange, yellow and blue over a full crisp under layer. It had a blue velvet belt, and my shoes matched the belt.

My mother and I shopped for the dress together, and she was as pleased as I was with it. In fact, my practical mother took a flight of fancy and gifted me with several pairs of shimmery gold-toned nylon stockings for the dance. They really enhanced the sunny quality of the ensemble.

This all happened before women started wearing panty hose. We wore stockings that were hitched either on a garter belt (a medieval torture device) or to some type of undergarment. I owned both a garter belt and a flimsy elastic panty girdle. I was slim and trim and did not need the discomfort or “control” offered by a more restrictive girdle. Stockings were purchased based on height. If they were too long, they would pool in rings at the ankles and not hitch up properly. Some minor adjustments could be made with the garters. Unfortunately, I grew in high school. My mother’s vision of my height did not mesh with the length of my very special shimmery nylons.

The evening of the dance, I put my stockings on. I knew they seemed a bit short, hard on my feet, but I was blinded to the reality check that was coming. I made it to the dance, and all seemed to be going well, until I was chatting with some friends and their dates and felt something happening under my dress. The battle between the too short nylons and the weak girdle had been won decisively by the nylons. I felt my panty girdle slowly easing its way off my rear. I looked at my ankles and to my horror saw my stockings starting to pool into shimmering rings. It took just the slightest additional movement for my panty girdle to quit the battle and slide into constrictor mode. It did not slide all the way down. I did not let it happen. I hobbled off the dance floor to the ladies’ room furiously gripping the failing panty girdle with my thighs and knees. It was not my most graceful exit.

Once safely in the ladies’ room, I pulled off my panty girdle and the nylons. Luckily the ladies’ room was the gym locker room, so I was able to stash the defeated panty girdle and nylons in my gym locker. I went back on the dance floor without my fancy stockings and hoped that the nuns would not notice my bare legs. I somehow escaped the notice of both the nuns and my mother when I got home. I truly welcomed the advent of panty hose and embraced the concept, knowing that I would never have another wardrobe malfunction that involved stockings and a panty girdle.   

“I Meant What I Said. I Said What I Meant.” -- Over My Shoulder

Music practice was sacred in my home. Two of my siblings were promising musicians. Both went on to professional careers in music. Both started playing the violin before their hands were big enough to grip a full-sized instrument. Yes! There are half-size violins. As their hands grew large enough to play a full-sized violin and their playing proficiency increased, required practice time increased as well.

Both practiced three or more hours every day and sometimes even more on weekends. There was always the sound of someone playing a violin. My dad usually played his cello late in the evening, so the cello was not a regular part of the seemingly all-day musical din. It was not uncommon to hear the violinists play the same musical phrase or exercise over-and-over. A difficult fingering or bowing or musical expression might be played hundreds of times before the demanded level of perfection was achieved. Practice time was also closely monitored by my parents – no shirking allowed. They were very draconian.

This is my younger sister’s story, but I am including it because it shows the contours of just how important my parents viewed rigorous music practice. The story is in three parts. First, my father often gave directives in lecture format – listen up and take notes. One Sunday morning he lectured my sister about how she should take seriously and literally whatever he told her. This was a mistake on his part.

My sister has had a lifelong propensity for looking through people. Not that they are transparent, but she simply stares at them as though they do not exist. This gives a clear impression that what you are saying does not deserve her attention or even register. That Sunday my father found this behavior quite exasperating. My sister assured him that she would do as he said despite looking at him like he was an idiot for lecturing her.

Then, my father made his second mistake. As he was dismissing her to go practice, he proceeded to deliver his second lecture of the day. Dad emphatically informed her that practice time only counted from when the bow went on the string until it was lifted. It did not include setting up the music, rosining the bow or adjusting the cloth chin rest. After this second lecture, my sister was sent to practice.

The plot thickened. An unreasonable amount of time passed, and my father, hearing no sounds of violin from where he was downstairs, climbed the stairs to check on my sister’s practice. When he opened the door, he was greeted by the sight of my sister’s violin neatly positioned on her bed with the bow resting on the string. My sister, who was also a brilliant student, was sitting at her desk reading a book.

Following the principle of ducking out of the way when parental fireworks were coming toward any of the sibs, I scooted; however, I was not so far out of the way as to not hear my sister calmly tell my father that she was taking his instructions literally. The bow was on the string. She told him that she knew that he meant what he said and said what he meant. She was taking him literally. The rest of the altercation and subsequent reckoning is lost to me. I do not recall the consequences, but I am sure there were consequences, for there were always consequences.

To this day, my sister, now a retired musician, will practice, but she is the only person who knows what and how she counts her practice time.

Quartet Group Is Coming, Oh No! -- Over My Shoulder

Whenever my mother would announce that the “Quartet Group” was coming, I knew that it was going to be a difficult day for me. My parents had lots of musician friends. The group was fluid in membership and usually met monthly during the cold months and less frequently during the summer months. Hosting duties rotated among the members, but my parents were frequent hosts. Why not? We had a nice, comfortable large living room with a grand piano and could accommodate the entire group. There was the added attraction that my siblings could fill in for missing members, in that my brother and sister proficiently played violin and/or viola. They were readily pressed into service.

The musicians would arrive lugging instruments and stacks of music. Then, once the group determined the music to be played, the instrumentation etc., they would play for several hours. Sometimes the selection included trios or quintets, but mostly they played quartets. The group would often play, then stop or restart or just play the piece through. It was just like a choir or chorus practice. The musicians would work up an appetite playing. This was, of course, rewarded by a feast.

The Eats

Another advantage of having the group meet at our house was the food. Members of the group would usually bring some dish, but mostly these were paltry offerings compared to the veritable feast that my mother and her helpers (her children) would produce. We could expect that 20-30 or more people would be eating, including our family. The meal was almost always a buffet with multiple main dishes, vegetables, salad, bread, and dessert. A selection of beverages, wine and coffee was on offer. Sometimes if the group got off to an early start, we would plan for an antipasto course to be eaten in the living room during the pre-feast music making.

Getting ready for the Quartet Group feast required a lot of preparation. Just moving the dining room furniture to buffet-ready positioning, dragging out the right number of serving dishes, glassware, china (no paper plates for this crowd) and utensils took hours. I can remember ironing tablecloths and any number of cloth napkins the day before. Then, there was food still to be cooked.

The food itself was often highlighted by multiple pans of lasagna, a baked pasta, or some other filling large-crowd main dish. The vegetable of choice was usually broccoli or asparagus with a potent family specialty garlic and lemon sauce. There was nothing special about the salads. There had to be something for those who did not want to reek of garlic. The bread was usually homemade garlic bread or made-from-scratch rolls. Dessert was always spectacular – mother’s signature rum cake or a delicious ricotta pie. There was sometimes a selection of desserts since some members of the group would bring dessert, Italian cookies or cannoli.

FHB, Oh No!

No sooner would the music stop than the crowd would line up for the eats. I was always unhappy when my mother would order us to FHB. This was code for “family hold back.” This meant the children were to go to the end of the line and hope that there would still be plenty of food when their turn came. Sometimes the pickings would be slim on some delectable dishes, and the choices limited. This usually happened when some members of the group had brought extra guests along. My parents were very gracious hosts and fed whoever and however many came to play.

My Place Was in the Kitchen

Once the group was fed, the musicians and guests would once more retire to the living room to either play more quartets or enjoy each other’s company. Often, someone would ask my siblings what they were playing for their next recital or audition. My parents were eager for their cherished, discerning and appreciative friends to hear my brother and sisters play and would urge (force) them to perform. This created a moment of panic for me. I was the non-musician, the black sheep, the embarrassment to my heritage and had to hide quickly lest the guests know (as if they didn’t already). I got quite agile at burying myself in the kitchen doing the clean up from the feast so that I could avoid being dispatched to the kitchen by my father.

As a teen, if for a moment it looked like I would be still around when the call for sibling performances was made, my father would order me in Italian to go help my mother. My lack of musical ability was a profound embarrassment to my family. Then, when I got the dishwasher loaded, leftovers put up and any pots and pans cleaned, I would sneak up to my room and hide, usually to do my homework, until the company left. Once the last of the company finally departed, I would come back down and help put up the dishes and reset the furniture, grab a snack from the remains of the feast and be glad that another soiree was done.   

Opera in the House – Over My Shoulder

In 19^th century Italy, many small towns had their own opera houses where local talent sang the operatic “hits” of the day. Between 1730 and 1930, 570 opera houses were opened in Italy. Many were named after the composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). Italians immigrating to the United States brought with them their love of opera and opera houses. My grandfather was among them. He was an opera singer and an entrepreneur. He owned Verdi Hall in South Philadelphia which opened in 1905 where my aunt sang as a 9-year-old on her way to the Metropolitan Opera in New York where she sang from 1935-1942. Grandfather had a career on the stage and is credited with making the first operatic records ever made that are associated with a singer’s name. These were recordings he did for Emile Berliner on March 4th, 1896.

Having grown up steeped in opera, my father loved opera and shared his love with his children in interesting ways. He had a collection of opera records that he played over and over. He cherished a recording of Renato Tebaldi singing Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. If my memory is accurate, he had a reel-to-reel tape version which he would play on the high-fidelity system. He would play the music at a bold (loud to very loud) volume and then either sing the libretto or translate it for his children who were gathered around to listen. It is very sad opera, and my father would sometimes include his personal stage directions and commentary. These operatic sessions were exhausting.

Puccini’s one-act opera Gianni Schicchi, a favorite of mine, would really bring out the stage director in my father. This short opera has one of the most beautiful arias “O mio babbino caro.” This gorgeous piece of music is often sung by itself, not just with the opera. Gianni Schicchi is a short and not very complex opera. My father took advantage of this and would stage the entire opera in the living room, moving his children around as props and characters. We never had to learn lines or sing. We just had to learn which character we were and what was the scene and where to stand. Then, my father would tell the story, translating it from the Italian, as the music played and the singers sang. It was fun, but it was not your standard fare even in the 1950s.

The Language of Secrets – Over My Shoulder

In the last quarter of the 19^th century, millions of immigrants flooded into the United States from Europe. This massive influx included my father’s parents. Many settled for convenience into areas where other immigrants from the same country or region lived. Some of those areas still bear the distinct characteristics of their immigrant populations. Boston’s North End, settled by Italians, still celebrates Italian feast days and has numerous Italian groceries and restaurants. These “little Italys” were much more distinct in the 1950s and 60s. In 1967, I had friends who lived in New York’s Italian neighborhoods, and had family elders who spoke no English. Some had lived happily in New York for many years still speaking only Italian. They were able to navigate life in the city quite comfortably. Everywhere they had to go, there were other Italian speakers.

I had friends in college, whose families were recent Hungarian refugees arriving after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. They were often the only English-speaking members of their families. My friends would give me their phone number and tell me to just ask for them by name and wait while someone was summoned to the phone. There were no mobile phones to make direct contact easy.

My father was born in Philadelphia, PA, but spent his early childhood living in Italy during World War I. The family was abroad when the war broke out and did not return to the US until just before the war ended. My father’s first language was Italian. He also spoke Spanish, French and German. He was a very affable man and would respond in whatever language you addressed him in. He was sought after as a doctor by the Italian speakers in the area where we lived. He often treated older patients who spoke only Italian.

During high school one of my friends was at our house having dinner with us. My older sister had several friends visiting who spoke Italian and German. I will never forget my friend’s perplexed look as the conversation whirled around her in several languages. I was accustomed to it, for it was not uncommon to hear multiple languages spoken all at once in our home. You simply tuned into the conversation that was important to you.

My mother on the other hand was stubbornly monolingual. She only spoke English. I know that she grew to understand the Italian, spoken around her by my aunts, uncles and father, but she would not answer or even let on that she fully understood what they were saying.

As for myself, I never learned to speak Italian and focused my language learning on ancient languages – Greek and Latin. Now, here is the kicker. As a child I rapidly learned to understand exactly what was being said in Italian. My father, aunts and uncles spoke very quickly and clearly. Their speech did not include dialect or slang. This made it easier to understand. It was also one of the reasons that I never learned to speak Italian. Every word had to be perfectly pronounced, every sentence perfectly constructed. This was a big ask for a child.

There was another dimension to all of this. Italian was the language of secrets. Just as people spell out words like “leash” or “walk” so their dogs don’t get excited thinking that an outing was in the offing, my Italian-speaking relatives would jabber away thinking/assuming falsely that their conversation was not being understood by the children. I learned quickly to stare at the floor or put my head down when the chatter began so that I could eavesdrop without being detected. This worked for the most part. If they could not see my eyes and expression, they would be for the most part unaware that I was following their conversation. My father always claimed that: “the eyes are the windows of the soul.” In short, by watching someone’s eyes, you can read what they are thinking or understanding. So, they seldom saw the whites of my eyes.

One time when I was very ill, my father and my beloved aunt were in my room. My aunt was asking my father in Italian what the doctors were saying about my illness. At that time the news was not good. I had just been released from the hospital with pneumonia, and they did not know what the future held, for I was not getting well. My father told my aunt in Italian that unless I got better, I might not live to be an adult. She clutched me and wailed to my father. I was stunned by my father’s admission and by my aunt’s response. I did get well, for here I am today writing about my life, a life that some thought I would never fully enjoy.

Another Twist

As I grew older, the use of the language of secrets changed. It became the language of orders. When we had company, I was often sent to help with clean up from whatever meal had been served while my siblings performed. My perceived lack of musical talent was a profound embarrassment to my father, and he would order me in Italian to leave the gathering so that I would not be called on to play my non-existent recital piece or whatever. The tone of my father’s command told me that he was not sparing me embarrassment, but himself.

We often had gatherings of my parents’ “quartet groups.” These were informal musical groups that would convene at a member’s home to eat and play music. Our home was often the site of these events. There was usually a buffet served midway through the event, then, as the adults took a break and socialized before playing more music. Someone would inevitably ask to hear my brother and sisters play. I learned to quickly excuse myself so my father would not have to order me in Italian to go to the kitchen to help clean up and do the dishes.  

More to come on the endless musical events that were a part of my youth.

Around the Piano -- Over My Shoulder

Our family home always had a piano in the living room. When I was quite young, it was an upright. This was later replaced with a rich-sounding grand piano. I remember the excitement the day it was delivered. It was a big deal. The beautiful wood of the piano was kept lovingly polished, and it was tuned on a regular basis.

As a teen, my brother learned to tune pianos. He had a perfect pitch ear and hated the sound of anything that was out of tune. So it made sense that he would want to keep the piano tuned.

In the style of the time, a large navy and deep maroon striped rectangular fringed scarf was draped across the piano's closed lid. As a child, I loved the drape on my aunt in Philadelphia's piano. Hers had a magnificent fringed gold satin brocade drape. She also had numerous photos in leather frames displayed on it -- her pupils and a memorable picture of my grandfather dressed in a turn of the century cut-away suit. I loved to check out the pictures when we visited her. Our piano did not have a photo gallery.

Lots of Players, Lots of Music

Our piano was always busy. My father, although trained as a cellist, played the piano with zest and for fun. My siblings took piano lessons as well as lessons on their string instruments. This was part of their musical education. Most classical musicians during their training learn to play piano. The endless (or so it seemed) piano practice added to the nonstop musical din in the household.

In my childhood, up until my later teenage years, my dad would sit down to play and would gather the four younger children around the piano so that we could all sing together. There were several books of songs that were favorites. There were two of American favorite songs. These included songs like: "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly," "She'll be coming around the mountain," and other similar fun tunes. At the holiday season we sang Christmas carols. Later as college-aged young adults, we would go caroling in the neighborhood.

We also sang our share of popular music. Dad had a fake book of 40s and 50s hit songs. Fake books are a standby for gigging musicians. They have the melody, lyrics and chords, and require the musician be able to "fake" it to play the song. The old saw of "hum a few bars, and I'll see if I know the tune," is just what the fake book works for. Dad would turn to the fake book and play pop hits of the time: "Tennessee Waltz," "Delaware," "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be). "Que Sera, Sera," a 1956 hit sung by Doris Day was one of my favorite songs. The lyrics spoke to me --  "When I was just a little girl/I asked my mother, what will I be/Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?/Here's what she said to me/Qué será, será/Whatever will be, will be/The future's not ours to see/Qué será, será/What will be, will be." I still love this song.

My memories of singing around the piano with my father are some of my fondest musical memories. At these fun sessions, it did not matter that I had no musical talent. We all sang together, and I sang along.

Always, The Sounds of Music -- Over My Shoulder

There was always the sounds of music in my home. I don't mean that a radio or sound system was always playing. The source of the music was live human beings playing musical instruments. You see, I am the third generation of a very musical family. My grandfather was born in Italy and came to the United States in the 1880s. He met my grandmother while he was a singer at the Chicago World's Fair. She was also Italian and sang and played the mandolin in a gypsy band. They settled in Philadelphia and had 6 children, only 4 survived to adulthood, and all became musicians. My dad was the youngest. He played the cello professionally, including a stint with the Philadelphia Orchestra, before he decided to go to college and become a doctor. He was the first of his family to go to college.

My two aunts and my uncle all became well-know musicians. My aunt was an operatic star. She sang at major opera houses around the world -- La Scala, the Met, etc. Upon her death, she was featured in a retrospective during a Met performance presented on radio by Texaco. Her older sister also had a career in opera, but the First World War disrupted her career. She too settled in Philadelphia, married a banker, and became an esteemed voice teacher and vocal coach with the Curtis Institute of Music. At one point in my youth, she had a student in every vocal range (baritone, tenor, soprano, etc.) performing leading roles at the Met. My dad's brother was a composer. He won the prestigious Prize of Rome and studied musical composition in Italy. He wrote operas, symphonies and musical compositions that are still played and performed. He was also an educator, teaching musical composition at Julliard. He was also one of the founders of the NC School of the Arts, which today is part of the UNC system.

My generation was expected to carry on the family tradition. My older sister received extensive voice lessons from my aunt. She chose an alternative, but acceptable path and became a costume designer. She has designed costumes for many well-known dance companies (Alvin Ailey, Joffrey, Ohio and Milwaukee Ballet companies, just to name a few). My younger sister also chose to pursue a career in theater. She later changed careers, but that is her story, not mine. She played the piano and the cello, but did not become a musician. My brother and youngest sister were the most musically talented of my generation. My brother played the violin and viola and was a conductor. He had a degree from Julliard and worked as a musician for some years. My youngest sister also played the violin. She has a masters degree in performance violin and played for years in the NJ Symphony, starting when she was still a teenager. Most of her career was as a Broadway musician. She had an impressive career.

Note that I make no mention of my musical talents, for there were none. My lack of musical ability was a source of enormous pain for me, for I was shamed and othered by members of my family. All of my accomplishments were trivial, for I was always missing the magical ingredient -- music.

Day and night there was the sound of music practice. You don't become a virtuoso on an hour per day of practice. My sister and brother routinely play 3-6 hours per day. Every morning the violins would crank up for an hour and a half or more before school. Then, in the afternoon it was either lessons or more practice. In the evenings after his dinner, my father would play his cello. There was always the sounds of music. My inability to participate was a daily reminder that I was not talented and a blot on the family heritage.

It is not that I did not try to join the merry band, but I do not have the exceptional level of talent required for admission. In my youth, I had a lovely singing voice and sang in choruses and choir. It did not count. I tried to play a musical instrument, an accordion. My lessons did not mesh with the other family needs and demands or my health, so they were abandoned. I simply could not cut the chart so to speak.

As I grew up, I developed a distaste for classical music -- it was simply filled with painful memories. It took me years to realize that it was not the sounds that I disliked but rather the association with my family. I actually have favorite classical pieces and will go to concerts to hear them performed live. To me, it is a sign of my maturity and that I have made peace (or at least declared a truce) with the most painful aspects of my growing up. It is my intent that this will be the start of a number of memory recollections in this memoir with a musical focus. 

Epochs of My Timeline-- Over My Shoulder

The more I write about my life and growing up in the 1950s and 60s, I have become increasingly aware of the need to create a timeline in which to place each of these stories. Recently, my writing has focused on how and what we ate. These mostly span across most of my youth. My earlier writings on Mud Puddle Madness and the two bears cross from my early childhood into my adolescence. Bwacky and Fuzzy WasHe, both belonged to my sister and only peripherally become part of my story. After lots of thought, I have decided to give this timeline of my youth.

There were four distinct epochs in my youth. The dictionary defines an epoch as "a period of time in history or a person's life, typically one marked by notable events or particular characteristics." The epochs of my early life are each punctuated by specific events that mark their beginning. They can be titled: Blissful Childhood, Sickness to Health, Nothing Was Easy, and Emerging Whole.

Blissful Childhood

The first epoch begins at my birth. When I was born WWII had been over for just over a year. America was entering into a period of optimism. Soldiers were returning home, and the baby boom was upon us. Because my father was a doctor, he was not drafted into the military, He was procured, a euphemism at best. He was also trained as a psychiatrist during his military service. I have early memories of my father in uniform. His last assignment was caring for the "shell-shocked" veterans. Then, he had private general medical practice in the small town we lived in. His office was in our home. Dad ultimately moved his office to a slightly larger nearby town when he restricted his practice to psychiatric patients. My mother was a stay at home mother, like most 50s mothers. She was an osteopath, but did not practice. It was always understood that if you just hurt go see mother about it. If there were bloody wounds, see dad. Even with this division of labor, mother still did a lot of caring for the bumps and scrapes of her children.

There were five children, all bumping and scraping themselves. There were five of us, but we neatly broke into two groups. My older sister was one group. She was born before the war and her childhood was marked by wartime rationing and my parents moving about during the war. She was nine years older than me, a huge gap in reality. When I was five and she was fourteen, she went off to boarding school and never really returned to the family life as a full-time member. My closest sibling was my brother who was two years older than me. He was my comforter, my protector and constant companion during my blissful childhood. Unfortunately, due to society's expectations and tightly defined roles for boys and girls during the 50s, we drifted further and further apart as we grew older. As adults we infrequently saw one another, and the encounters were often marred by strife.

My two younger sisters were inseparable. My youngest sister is three years younger and my younger sister is almost equidistant between us in age. Bwacky was owned by my younger sister. My two younger sisters are still very close. They married late, both after 30, each had one child, a son. At one point, the youngest sister used to call the younger sister every morning to make sure that she was not late to appointments. Youngest sister was known to do her sister's homework. My youngest sister is very smart and always has been. Both sisters are gifted in different ways.

The first five years of my life were very uneventful. I played outside with my brother, did lots of activities with my two sisters and enjoyed the sociability of a big family in the 50s. I went to kindergarten in the town's four room schoolhouse that was three short blocks from my home. We walked to school. The streets were safe. They had sidewalks and were tree-lined, the roads were not very busy. Besides I always walked home with my big brother. This blissful idyll came to a sharp end on a warm September afternoon when I was six years old in first grade.

Sickness to Health

I remember the day clearly when I first got sick. As the school day ended I felt sick and knew that I just wanted to get home and rest. The three short blocks seemed endless and horribly long. My big brother urged me on. When I finally walked up the brick path to the house, all I could think about was how nice the daybed/couch in the sun porch right inside the door would feel. It was my favorite napping space, an old comforting daybed. I had bolsters on the ends that were terrific pillows and a warm red and tan afghan that was cozy. I barely made it through the door and to the couch. My nap heralded the start of a long illness. On that fateful day, I had a high fever and a respiratory illness.

That September day was my last full day in first grade, for I did not go back to school full-time for the rest of the year. I was tutored at home by a teacher sent by the school system for several months. Then, I was able to go to school in the afternoons a few days a week. I could not go if I had a fever over 100 degrees, and I was delivered to school and picked up immediately afterward. I never went out on recess, having arrived after the luncheon recess. I did not eat lunch at school. For several months before I was even allowed to go part time, my activities were severely restricted. If I had no fever in the afternoon, I could dress and leave my room and come downstairs. I was to take the stairs one at a time, pausing at each step. Then, I was for some time only allowed to walk the length of house only once per day. I ate supper with the family and was usually carried back to my room immediately after supper.

My lung condition did not improve for some time. They said that I had a chronic pneumonia, but what caused it was a mystery. My New Jersey pediatrician referred me to a pulmonary specialist in New York. She was a wonder.  She understood children. She knew I was frightened and did a lot to help my child brain make sense of a very serious medical problem. She was my doctor until I was well -- until I was just about 11 years old.

Second grade was bit better. My condition had improved enough that I could go to school, but my attendance was awful. I missed lots of time, between days going to the doctor, an all day trip to New York, frequent colds and other problems. Then, there was the asthma to deal with. During the course of my illness, I developed asthma. It nearly killed me several times. In the 50s there were very few drugs to treat asthma. The patient was frequently given shots of adrenaline to open the airway and relieve the asthmatic spasm. I will write more about my asthma later.

Third grade was rolling along until just before Christmas, when I got a severe pneumonia. It put me in the hospital in an oxygen tent. I was very ill. I was released to my father's care just before Christmas. I am sure that if my dad had not been a doctor, I would not have been home for Christmas. I missed more school, and the school system was concerned that I had missed more days than I had attended. The school wanted to put me back a grade. My parents resisted. I was put through a battery of tests. My reading skills were way advanced -- no joke, that was about all I could do. My math skills were not bad. Intellectually, I was up to grade. Social development was another criteria that the schools were concerned about. This did not wash either. I came from a big family and had regular  social interaction with my siblings -- not much otherwise.

My parents, tests in hand, decided to send me to very large catholic school two towns away. My father was the doctor to the nuns who ran the school, and they put me in third grade. I rode a bus to school. It was a big treat for me to get on the bus and go to school. I got measles and another pneumonia about a month or so later. The nuns were very patient with me and welcomed me back when I recovered. I will write more on this time later. I still missed days to go to the doctor and was very restricted in what I could do. The nun who ran recess, Sister Mary, would tell me to leave the playground and start walking up to the school well before she blew her whistle that summoned the rest of the children.

My health improved from the end of third grade. I was put on a powerful new drug that was still going through clinical trials for use in pediatrics. My New York doctor was one of the researchers doing the clinical trials. I was monitored aggressively. It worked its miracle, and by the end of fifth grade I was proclaimed well. The exercise restrictions were slowly released. The allergy treatments had greatly reduced my asthma, and I had learned how to cope with it. 

The school side was a bit more problematic. With returning health, I learned even faster. My thirsty mind sucked in new information at a ferocious rate. I roared through my schoolwork. The nuns challenged me and tried to keep my eager mind engaged. At one point in fifth grade, I was sent to history classes in the high school that was part of the same school, just in a different wing of the building. I whipped through those assignments. Bored in my classes, I was increasingly difficult and mildly disruptive. Big changes were afoot.

Nothing Was Easy

Towards the end of fifth grade, I once more given a test. It was an entrance exam to another school. It was another religious school, but it only had grades 7-12. I was informed by my parents that I would start 7th grade in the Fall. It was a huge change. I skipped grade 6 and was thrust into a very exacting, highly competitive academic environment. I was told that I could take gym classes and was to expect no special treatment, for I was declared well. I was tutored in math during the summer and given a reading list to complete.

I threw myself into my academic studies with all I could muster. I was the youngest kid in the school. The 7th grade class was just two students, myself and a girl fully two years older. At our fiftieth reunion she confessed how hard it had been for her to be in class with me. I was the little kid who always had the correct answer. Throughout high school my classes were a bit larger, but the school was small and competitive.

My fixation with sports and athletic achievement began as I challenged myself to make up for lost time. With no restrictions on my activities, I set about achieving in sports. I played field hockey, learned to play basketball and loved playing lacrosse. I worked hard learning all the kinetic skills my peers had been learning during the years of my illness. Nothing was easy. My academics were hard. I will write more on these experiences as I go along. Every day was a challenge.

Of my high school class, I was the first accepted to college. I was the only student from my school who exhibited at the state science fair. I did not win a prize, but my exhibit was invited to a second fair run by the Rutgers Agriculture School. I won all kinds of awards along the way to college, but they were always hard fought.

Emerging Whole

College was really when the caterpillar started to emerge from its cocoon into a butterfly. I entered college at 16. I did not even have a drivers license. My mother would drop me off at college and pick me up at the end of the day. After I got my license, my life changed. I became more whole. I grew up. I emerged whole. I will write more on my college experiences over time, but for now I wanted to layout the epochs of my youth.

Offal Meals -- Over My Shoulder

In the 1950s, we ate a number of dishes that have mercifully slipped from regular rotation on family menus. Growing up in an ethnic home, we ate some things that are Mediterranean delicacies. For example, we ate a lot of offal. Calves ' liver and onions routinely came to the table. Sometimes there would be bacon included. This was served as the main dish. Chicken liver pate was a party dish (one that I routinely served once I started entertaining as an adult). There was lots of less appealing offal served.

If I see tripe in a dish or on a menu, I cringe. Mother used to cook tripe and serve it in soup or a pasta sauce. Beyond the flavor, the honeycomb texture was too much for me. Even cut up very small, I still find it repulsive, just as I did when I was a child. For the same reason I also don't eat head cheese, a cold cut that is a European delicacy. It is quite spicy and made from the head of the pig or other animal. The meat is chopped up, and the meat gelatin holds it together. My dad loved both tripe and head cheese. As a teen, I encountered in a slice of head cheese a bit of meat where the bristles of the pig were still visible and intact. It put me off head cheese for the rest of my life. Since it was viewed as a delicacy, we were not forced to eat it. Thank goodness.

We were forced to eat beef tongue. Today, I only find tongue at very ethnic delis. Mother loved it so we saw it fairly often. The meat is delicious, but the visuals are not very appealing. My brother used to note disdainfully that we were having "licker" for dinner. It was definitively not his favorite food, and he did what he could to make the rest of us hate it.  Mother would bring a whole tongue to the table (cringe, cringe) and slice it up. When first cooked the tongue had a thick skin, like a hide, covering it. Mother would snip it with scissors at the table and then commence cutting slices. I used to shut my eyes while she carved. It was nearly a traumatic experience.

The offal hits just kept coming. We ate kidneys, usually lamb, in stew. They were usually cut up so it was not quite as thrilling dining spectacle as the tongue. Mother called them "meat mushrooms," but she couldn't fool us. We ate our portions of her delicious stew without complaint.

Only very occasionally would mother really venture and cook calves brains. I found this dish way beyond my palate, and I never wanted to watch the preparation.

Our offal meals were not that unusual for the time. Farm families still used all of the pig but the oink, so it was not that odd at the time to include what mother would describe as "parts" in our menus. Today, I don't eat or cook "parts." The broad use of antibiotics in the cattle industry, and the threat of mad cow disease has made me rethink including offal in my menus.  

Avoiding the Kitchen -- Over My Shoulder

As a adult, I love to cook. I started learning to cook quite young. I could prepare a complete meal by the time I was about ten years old. I learned by watching my mother cook, by participating in daily meal preparation, and by following recipes. I still rely on recipes and today will often view videos on cooking to expand my knowledge of specific techniques. I have even enjoyed taking a few cooking classes. Given my enjoyment of cooking, it would probably come as a bit of a surprise when I say that there were times when I would avoid the kitchen at all costs. There were certain foods I did not want to watch in the preparation, participate in their cooking and even sometimes in eating the finished product. Here they are:

Don't Look in the Soup Pot

In the 1950s when you bought chicken, it did not come all cut up and neatly packaged. My mother bought whole chicken at the butcher shop. The butcher would cut the chicken up into parts per mother's directions. This often included taking an alcohol burner to singe off any bits of feather that might still be clinging to the chicken's legs. The butcher would also bundle up the liver, gizzards etc. You got the whole chicken, not just selected parts. Mother had lots to work with.

Mother made lots of soup. She regularly made chicken broth. When this occurred, I would try to make myself scarce. Mother very ingeniously (or so she thought) included the feet in the broth. They do provide collagen and flavor. Mother would tie the feet in a bundle with twine. She would then tie the string to a handle of the soup pot. The view of the feet cooking was horrifying to me as a child. If I peeked into the soup pot, I would see an eerie sight. As the spot simmered, the feet would slowly bob up and down tethered to the pot with their harness of twine. Their strange dance was hideously unappealing. Mother liked being able to easily remove and discard the feet intact. Rest assured, I do not cook chicken feet.

The Feast of Seven Fishes Sent Me Out of the Kitchen

The Christmas Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian tradition. I love fish and often make fish dishes. I even catch fish and clean it and cook it. So what was my problem with the Feast of the Seven Fishes. The problem was the cleaning of two of the fishes. Eels are delicious and are often part of the feast. They do not go gently into the pot. Most recipes call for skinning the eel before cooking it. Eels are slippery and are difficult to skin. The skin is tough and drys out quickly making it even harder to remove. Once the head is cut off (a bit gruesome, but . . .), the cook must peel back the skin like removing a sock. To get a good grip on the skin, cooks will resort to gripping the skin with pliers and pulling on it. Watching my mother, pliers in hand, grimace with effort to remove the skin was my undoing -- whew a bit too much and I am not squeamish.

With the eel dispatched, I just might bravely slink back into the kitchen and watch mother clean squid, another delicacy. To this day, one of my sisters will not eat squid, won't even try it. In my youth, we purchased squid frozen uncleaned in 3-5 pound blocks. Today, I buy it all cleaned and in neat tubes at the fish counter. Mother always worked with the frozen squid while it was still very cold, with ice crystals still clinging. I actually find squid fascinating. The purple skin comes off very easily, particularly when compared to the eel. The head with its tentacles readily come apart from the body. The ink sac poses a bit of a challenge. Pierce it and it gets messy and is very fishy. We did not use the ink, so the sac was carefully removed and discarded along with the beak and head. We kept the tentacles, for they are delicious. Once cleaned, the tubes were cut in rings and cooked. As one might guess, cleaning several pounds of squid was not a trivial task.

Today I find it hard to imagine many cooks undertaking some of my mother's cooking ventures. It is no small wonder that I am an adventuresome cook, for I have followed her example.

Memorable Awful Meals -- "Good Earth" and the White Thanksgiving

As I have previously written, my mother was an excellent and relatively creative cook for the 1950s. Even the best of cooks can experience a failure or serve a meal that is subpar. One memorable meal and a menu offering (that occurred with some frequency) fall into the realm of my mother's failures.

The White Thanksgiving

One Thanksgiving during my teen years, mother decided not to serve the usual gargantuan holiday feast and instead go "traditional." Mom's upbringing was heavily biased to old New England menus. Married to my Italian-American father she learned to cook a repertoire of food that pleased his palate. Mother always loved traditional New England specialties. For example, we enjoyed Finnan Haddie -- lightly smoked haddock cooked with milk and potatoes and onion. It would appear on cold winter mornings. Finnan Haddie was cooked overnight in a device that I now recognize as a 1950s slow cooker. It was a warm, delicious treat. I digress.

The Thanksgiving that mother went traditional/off the rails the menu included: turkey, mashed potatoes (no sweet potatoes graced the table), creamed pearl onions (not a favorite of mine or anyone but mother), and lovely white parsnips. There is something notable about this menu -- it was all white, even the turkey. The ritual cranberry sauce looked like an unsettling red gash on the plate. What was my mother thinking when she put this menu together? I will never know. I was not the only one struck by the stark whiteness of the meal. My siblings took it to the next level. My brother began singing: "I'm dreaming of a white Thanksgiving with every bite." This was not appreciated by my mother. My father thought it was hilarious -- I'm not sure he wasn't smarting from the absence of the usual pasta course. I do know that in the run up to every Thanksgiving after the White Thanksgiving various members of the family would check in, sing/hum a brief verse of "I'm Dreaming . . . " and offer colorful menu options. This was when I learned that food not only had to taste good, but it also has to look appetizing.

About "Good Earth"

"Good Earth" was my mother's name for a concoction that does not deserve a name. It was usually served as lunch, often on Saturdays. It was leftovers at their worst. We did not regularly have a large quantity of leftovers. Seldom was there enough from one meal to make adequate servings for everyone for another meal. I learned about leftovers after I married my husband, an only child. His mother never didn't have some portion of almost every meal leftovers from a previous meal. In his home this were not a function of cooking too much, but rather there were too few diners. We never had too few diners. Even so, nothing was ever wasted. Every dab of leftover food was put away in the back fridge.

Our house was a big old late Victorian beauty. It had a good sized kitchen with a butlers pantry and another storage pantry with a large built-in refrigerator -- the back fridge. This fridge was original equipment, so old that it had wooden insulation on the doors, like a vintage icebox. The refrigeration unit was on top and looked like a hassock fan. The fridge was cavernous. It regularly held whole watermelons, the cheese fossils and lots of large bulky foods -- pans of lasagna etc. It was also where the leftovers  were stored and whatever was the Sunday/holiday roast was simply entombed in its roasting pan in the back fridge waiting to be called forth to make the dreaded "Good Earth." There was also a front fridge in the kitchen prep area that held food that would be used immediately -- eggs, milk, fresh vegetable, fresh meat.

As a kid, I knew "Good Earth" was in the works when mother would get out the food grinder, a hand operated contraption, and clamp it on the counter's edge. She would summon us to bring forth all of the leftovers from the back refrigerator. All of the remnants of meals past were fair play. Whatever meat was extracted from the carcass that had been in the back fridge and all the other leftovers were passed through the food grinder. This was then mixed with an egg to bind it -- similar to how a meatloaf is made, but this was no delicious meatloaf. The result of mother's efforts were put in a baking dish, often topped with homemade breadcrumbs and baked. The result was usually awful. The color was suspect. It never looked the same twice, since there was never a predictable quantity of leftovers. It never tasted like anything but leftovers at their worst. We grimly ate our portions of "Good Earth." As I have stated previously, mother wasted no food and brooked no complaints about her cooking. I made a fatal mistake of grousing about breakfast, and I will cover the results of that mistake at another time. Today, I do not make anything that even vaguely resembles 'Good Earth." I shudder at the memory.

Food, Feasts and Celebrations -- Over My Shoulder

Food was very important in the life of my family as in many other ethnic families. At an early age children were expected to take part in preparation, serving, eating and cleaning up from meals both everyday and festive holiday feasts. Before I could tell my right hand from my left, I learned to set the table. A set of forks was put in my left hand and knives and spoons in my right hand. It was my job to dispense a fork from my left hand and a knife and spoon from my right hand at each place. Knives always had to face inward -- mother insisted. Then, whoever set the table had to make sure that there was a napkin at each place and salt and pepper shakers at each end of the table.

We ate a formal meal each evening. There was no wandering off until you were excused, and you always sat at an assigned place. You were expected to eat what was put in front of you on the table -- no picky eaters were allowed. I sat at the far end of the table away from the kitchen at my father's right hand. My brother sat to dad's left. Youngest sister was at mother's right hand, closest to the kitchen. Younger sister was to the left and my oldest sister sat between my brother and youngest sister. This arrangement did not vary for my entire youth.

We did not even have a kitchen table so all meals were eaten in the dining room at the dining room table. Mother liked a nicely laid out table. The wooden table had pads that protected its wood finish, and there was often a table cloth on top and/or placemats. Sometimes placemats were put on top of the tablecloth. Each person had a napkin ring and was expected to return their cloth napkin to its ring at the end of the meal. As you might expect, there was a strong emphasis on table manners. This sometimes set up interesting clashes. More on that at another time.

Some meals were served, but not in the kitchen. Mother would stack the plates in front of her and serve the food. If there was meat to be carved, my mother did the carving. Sometimes particularly as we grew older, serving dishes were passed around. This required some strategic thinking and diligence, since my father would often fail to pass the food along, and dishes would become marooned at the end of the table. Either my brother or I would have to move the dish along. This sounds simple, but it wasn't always so in the doing.

At the end of the meal one or two of us would be asked/told to clear the table. A cardinal sin for clearing the table was any stacking of dishes at the table, so clearing the table meant taking multiple trips with the plates and dirty silverware. Any utensil set on the table prior to the meal was expected to be cleared and washed.

Feasts and celebrations were more of the same, yet more. There would often be an antipasto served before the meal. This was served in either the dining or living room, depending on the crowd. Then, no matter what the holiday -- Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving or Mothers Day -- there was always pasta, followed by an entree and lots of sides. Salad was served and eaten just before dessert. Many a bewildered guest would stare at a lovely green salad sitting on the table or sideboard and think it was forgotten. Some would even boldly ask and were informed that: No! We ate salad after the pasta, entrees and sides. Visitors unfamiliar with our dining habits were often warned that the pasta was not the main course, so don't eat too much and fail to leave room for the entree. I forgot to warn my now husband the first time he visited at my parents' home. The main course was still staying warm in the kitchen while we enjoyed that pasta. He had two helps and was then quite stunned when the rest of the meal arrived. He found himself uncomfortably full at the end of the meal.

Dessert was served as a separate course after the pasta, entrees, sides and salad courses were cleared. Many feasts featured mother's marvelous rum cake or some other baked treat. Coffee and liqueurs were sometimes on offer with dessert.

The clean up crew would be hard at work between the courses. We always had a dishwasher. The first load of dishes would be busily washing while salad and dessert were being served and eaten. As the oldest of the three younger daughters, I was often on the clean up detail. If my big sister was home, we could very efficiently fill the dishwasher and seamlessly partake of the meal. While one hustled dishes into the kitchen, the other loaded the dishwasher making quick work of the task. After all of the meal was done, the clean up crew scrubbed pots and pans and put up any leftovers. Cooking, serving and cleaning up after a family feast was a big job, but many hands made light work of it.

Mother's Marvelous Cake -- Over My Shoulder

My mother was a good cook and enjoyed sharing food with not only her family but also those she considered friends. A gift that was particularity loved was her "rum cake." Italian rum cakes are renowned, and there are many recipes in cookbooks and shared in family recipe boxes. Unfortunately, I never really got the recipe. I can only make some of it, but the totality eludes me. Neither my three sisters nor I can replicate my mother's cake. I have vowed to try and recreate this delicacy. It was a major part of most family celebrations and holidays. 

The rum cake was a labor of love and took fully two days to prepare. The cake itself was an 8-9 inch square sponge cake. (I have yet to produce a suitable cake for this delicacy. One of my sisters, an excellent baker has tried and come close.) The cake recipe was from her beloved Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Mother would bake the cake, carefully cool it, then wrap it in cling film to rest overnight. Once rested, the cake was ready for assemblage, and that was where the magic came in.

The cake was cut into three layers. This required both deft hands and daring. Each of the layers got a separate treatment. Before the cake could be put together two custard fillings were made -- cooked and cooled. The fillings were usually almond and orange or lemon flavored, seldom vanilla. The custard was only part of the filling. Before the cake could be assembled, mother would make and cool a syrup of rum and sugar. A rum cake without rum --unthinkable.

The part that, as a child, I was most familiar with was the solid part of the filling, chopped almonds and maraschino cherries. Mother always bought whole almonds with their skins on. I am not sure if this was out of necessity or preference. The almonds were cooked in water until the skins loosened, then each almond was individually slipped out of its skin. I enjoyed skinning the almonds, of course, sneaking a taste. The cherries often had to have stems removed before they were chopped. These could also make their way into snacks for the helpers.

Things that had to be chopped were put in a wooden bowl. Mom did not have a food processor. She had children. A semi-circular blade, a mezzaluna, was used to chop. Our blade was so old that the handle had long since split and been replaced by a functional, but ugly, homemade wooden handle. The blade itself was sharpened on a stone, since it was a good sharp steel knife. Older children were entrusted with chopping the almonds and cherries. Mom carefully supervised to make sure that the consistency was just so.

With all of the parts ready, the cake was ready to be put together. Each layer was treated with the rum syrup, then the almond and cherry mixture was applied, and each layer was topped with custard. The top layer of the cake got a generous application of the rum syrup. The cake was then once more set aside to cool and let the flavors meld. Just before serving or presentation, it was frosted, no slathered, with rum flavored whipped cream. A small slice was all one ever needed of this wonderful cake with its delicious custard and cheery cherry and almond filling. 

Someday I will be able to replicate this delicious cake. For now I must rely on my memories of making and enjoying my mother's marvelous cake.

My Perspective on Advent

The church that I attend -- St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Durham, NC -- has asked members of the parish to write reflections on the meaning of Advent, the liturgical season that precedes Christmas. The writer of the reflection is asked to base the reflection on the reading assigned for the week. I was asked to write one. I have chosen to reproduce the text here since I am not sure how the church will archive these writings. Here it is:

A Prophet Is Born – John the Baptist

Daily Readings for December 13, 2023

This week’s Gospel reading (Luke 1:5-17) focuses on Zechariah and Elizabeth. He was a priest, and she was a descendant of Aaron. They were a well-bred couple. According to Luke, they were a righteous, living, older couple with no children. The Old Testament lesson (Malachi 2:10-3:1) shows how childlessness was viewed: “And what does the one God desire? Godly offspring.” This story could find many 21st-century parallels—older childless couples. The media is filled with stories about how older couples are having children and about new infertility treatments. Elizabeth and Zachariah did not have the medical resources available today for addressing infertility. They received an exceptional treatment plan from God—a frightening visit from an angel. This messenger from God preached Zechariah in the temple, calming his fears, and told him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son; you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.” This child was to become John the Baptist, a substantial presence in my youth.

John the Baptist – A Long, Very Personal History

My first encounter with John the Baptist was as an eight-year-old attending Mount Saint John Academy, a prominent Catholic school run by the Sisters of Saint John the Baptist. It was here that I first encountered the traditional representations of John the Baptist. These included a desert hermit look, semi-naked clad in skins, not a look that Zechariah and Elizabeth if they were modern parents, would be proud of. Then, as my education progressed, I went to St. John Baptist School (SJBS), an Episcopal girls’ school. At SJBS, I encountered a more frightening and bloodier version of John the Baptist. Christian art is replete with paintings of the beheading of John the Baptist. At SJBS, we spent lots of time learning about martyrs and the many modes of martyrdom—burning, beheading, stoning, and other more creative, deadly tortures. I found John the Baptist to be an important yet tragic figure in my youth. I now realize that amid these memorable representations, I did not understand fully John the Baptist’s role as a prophet, a messenger prefiguring the birth and death of Christ.

Mary and Elizabeth – Two Mothers

My enrollment in Catholic school coincided with the ending of the Marian year, which ran from December 1953 to December 1954. I learned a lot about the Virgin Mary, but not about the righteous living Elizabeth, who, like Mary, bore a child. Both births were miraculous--the older mother and virgin mother. As I reflect on this symmetry, I note that Elizabeth is a bridge to the Old Testament and its promises of salvation. Mary is the embodiment of the future Christian church. I plan to reconsider my understanding of Elizabeth and John the Baptist during Advent.

Mom Was a Good Cook -- Over My Shoulder

My mother was a good cook, but not much of a food stylist. It did not suit her pragmatic nature, besides she was cooking every day for a large family. We were usually 6-7 and often more, depending on whether there were guests. It is sometimes hard to remember that the early 1950s were not that distant from the rationing of the wartime 40s and the stark days of the Great Depression. There were more housewives who did not work outside the home so convenience foods or grab-and-go foods were not very prevalent. American tastes have matured and changed.

There was always ample food on our table, but it was somewhat predictable -- not quite as predictable as some homes where you knew what day of the week it was by the menu. In our home there was always three categories of food on the daily table -- 1. a protein, usually meat, 2. a starch, rice or potatoes (on Sundays it was always pasta, but that is another story), 3. a vegetable. Dessert was not always predictable, but it was most often fruit. Mother canned peaches so they were often included. Baked goods were reserved for festive occasions. Unlike many homes in the 1950s, my mother did not make many casseroles, except for "good earth" which was usually a Saturday luncheon meal -- more on that at another time. It deserves its own treatment. Another missing item from our table was gelatin salads and desserts. There was never a canned pear embedded in lime jello on a tiny bit of iceberg lettuce passed off as salad. This was not my mother's style. She cooked real food.

Like most cooks of her day, my mother did not rely on an array of cookbooks for recipes. She had a trusty Fannie Farmer, Boston Cooking School Cookbook. It was so worn that it almost opened on its own accord to her favorite recipes. If you shook it, I am sure a nice dusting of flour would have rained down. She also had a Joy of Cooking, but she hardly ever even opened it. She did not have either the familiar red plaid, Betty Crocker Cookbook, or Good Housekeeping Cookbook. She did not need them. I only remember two specialty cookbooks in her collection: one for Chinese food and another, a gift, on Italiian regional cooking. It was more pictures than recipes. I did not follow her lead. I have about 60 cookbooks and use them regularly. I also rely on numerous Internet cooking sites.

This post is a prelude to more on dining in my home during the 1950s. It provides context.

 

Bwacky and Fuzzy-WasHe -- The Two Bears -- Over My Shoulder

Stuffed bears figure large in my childhood. Most children grow up learning the story of the three bears. This is a story of two bears, both cherished by my younger sister. Bwacky was a large (by bear standards) black teddy. My older sister found him at a rummage sale and salvaged him as a gift for my little sister. He had suffered much in his teddy-lifetime and wore it hard. He was already very old when my sister rescued him in the 1050s. From what I know of teddy bear construction, he was made well before World War II. His original fur was black mohair, but mohair is attractive to moths, and they had dined well on Bwacky. His fur had patches of thick and thin mohair. His face was a bit mangled too. One eye had to be re-affixed on a regular basis; otherwise it would have fallen out. He also required frequent surgeries, all performed by my older sister, to keep him from disgorging his insides from seams that had come open. His insides were wood excelsior, which was used to stuff old German teddy bears. Sawdust was used as filler for the face and head. Bwacky had already lost some of the sawdust from his face before he came to live with us. He lost even more after he came to live with us. A drizzle of sawdust was a bear emergency. Big sister would find the hole and patch him -- a bit thinner and ever stranger looking.

He was an ugly, ugly bear, but my little sister went nowhere without her Bwacky bear. He was beautiful to her, and she was inconsolable if she did not have Bwacky nearby at bedtime. She would drag him along by his ear whenever we went anywhere. My older sister loved to take us out to a nearby field where we would look for 4-leaf clovers or make timothy grass wreaths to wear as crowns. These bucolic afternoons were lovely, and we would return home hungry and tired.

After one excursion, as we were getting ready for bedtime, Bwacky was nowhere to be found. My big sister remembered him accompanying us out for our excursion. She recalled making him a wreath. No one remembered him coming home. My big sister retraced our excursion and with a flashlight found Bwacky wearing his wreath sitting in the field. He was damp with the evening dew, but he came back home. After that, whenever we went anywhere with Bwacky, his was one of the noses that had to be counted before we returned home. I have no idea what became of Bwacky. I do know that at some point he was retired, and Fuzzy-WasHe took over as first bear.

When Fuzzy-WasHe first arrived he was a lovely tan, soft mohair bear about 12-inches tall, less than half the size of Bwacky. My sister named him Fuzzy and adored him. She loved him, cuddled him and played with him so much that she rubbed the fuzzy fur right off him. She did a more thorough job than the moths had done to Bwacky. In just a few short years his torso was completely bald and his cloth exposed. He still had a fuzzy head, limbs and back side, albeit somewhat sparsely covered in fuzz. That was when he became Fuzzy-WasHe. We created a little rhyme, that my younger sister hated. It would set her into an instant protective stance. It went like this: Fuzzy-WasHe was a bear/ Fuzzy-WasHe had no hair/Fuzzy-WasHe didn't care/Cuz Fuzzy-WasHe was a bear.

I took pity on Fuzzy-WasHe and set about covering his hairless body. I had learned to knit when I was six years old, and by the time I was 8 or 9 years old was creating knitted garments for my dolls. Fuzzy-WasHe was a nice challenge for me. I made him two sweaters -- a pullover with sleeves and a cabled vest. The pullover was was a lovely beige/tan wool almost Fuzzy's original color. It had a nice bit of color detail (raspberry and navy) just above the ribbing at the bottom. My sister was thrilled with it, for her beloved Fuzzy's baldness was no longer a source of sibling mockery. I decided to make him a vest, a summer wardrobe so to speak. I wanted to practice/teach myself how to do cable stitches. I was successful. I did not have a cable needle so I used a bobby pin and was startled at how nicely it turned out. Fuzzy-WasHe was a dapper-looking bear with a summer and winter wardrobe. These two bears -- one horribly ugly from the get go and another one that was loved to near ugliness both show how indiscriminate child's love for a beloved toy can be.

 

Mud Puddle Madness -- Over My Shoulder

As I look over my shoulder at my childhood, I find that it is sometimes difficult to place exactly how old I was at the time of the incident that I want to recall actually occurred. I can precisely pinpoint when mud puddle madness occurred because of the hardware involved -- a bicycle with training wheels. I learned to ride a bicycle at an early age, graduating from a tricycle to a two-wheeler with training wheels when I was four years old. The training wheels were removed by the time I was five. So I was about 4 when mud puddle madness occurred. Three of us were involved in this memorable incident -- me, my brother who was 6 years old, and my younger sister who was two and a half, not yet three years old.

Our home had a lovely curved gravel driveway. Unfortunately, right as it curved, the gravel would wash out from the wheels turning to make the slight turn. This created a nice two-track set of ruts that became puddles whenever it rained. My brother and I loved to ride through the puddles watching the water spray out behind our bikes. He would ride through one track, say the right side one, while I rode through the left. One day we made a startling discovery that when the puddle was deep after a big rainstorm, my bike with its training wheels would not go through the puddle. The training wheels held it just enough above the actual gravel that I could not get any traction. I simply stopped above the puddle, but the fun did not stop. The water did not stop spraying. In fact the more I pedaled, the more water would shoot out from behind the now stationery bike. This would have been a bit of harmless fun, if my little sister had not gotten involved.

On the particular day of our mud puddle madness, my parents were heading off to some event that now escapes my memory. My little sister was going along. My mother got her ready to go, bathed, hair neatly combed and dressed in her best dress and then took a few minutes to get herself dressed and ready to go. My father was unaware of what was transpiring as my mother dressed. My sister wandered outside to where my brother and I were playing with my bike at the deep mud puddle. My too-curious-for-her-own-good sister came to take a look. She got splattered by the muddy fountain we were creating. She seemed delighted and played right along as the game shifted to how close could she come without being doused with the spray.

This did not end well. Mom and dad came to collect her and leave only to discover that she was happily drenched in gray gravel water: a new bath was needed, hair needed washing and a complete change of clothes was required. My father handled the madness part, severely scolding my brother and I for drenching her, even while he recognized that she was the one who came too close for her own good. (By the way, in my home older children always were punished or scolded if they had anything to do with a misfortune that befell a younger child.) My parents were of course delayed in leaving for their event, and our game was over. It was fun while it lasted, and still some 70 plus years later mud puddle madness stands out as a memorable incident as I look over my shoulder at my childhood.

Another Summer, More Self-Improvement -- Over My Shoulder

The summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school was very busy. A fuller outline of my activities is for another time. In anticipation of looming college boards and other standardized tests, I decided to improve my vocabulary. In my usual style, I went at it hammer and tongs. First, I got a copy of 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary. This book by Dr. Wilfred Funk and Norman Lewis is still available. It was originally published in the 1940s, has undergone several editions and has been widely imitated. Each chapter which should take about a half an hour to complete covers a specific topic. There is a list of relevant words; each is presented (with definitions). There are numerous tests and exercises included to help with the learning process.

Every evening right after dinner, I would sit with my pad of paper and pencil and complete another lesson. I would meticulously review the previous days lesson before going forward. It was a valuable exercise, and I gained quite a lot of language proficiency from this structured vocabulary learning.

This strategy was not enough for me. I wanted more, and more I got in the form of a box of 1,000 English vocabulary flashcards. The box took me longer to work my way through. I was still working on it well into the school year. My method was to take a small number of cards, 25 or so, go through them carefully learning the definition and spelling. Then, I kept the mini-deck in my pocket and would pull it out and periodically quiz myself during the day whenever I had a free moment. If I got the word right, I would place the card at the back of the deck. I always had a blank colored-paper card to separate those I had learned from those I had not yet mastered. Any word that I did not get right was put just in front of the colored paper spacer. Each day I would replace the learned cards with new vocabulary cards. I must say that this was an amazingly successful strategy. When I finished the box, I gave it another go, just to ensure that the learning stuck.

I ultimately obtained similar boxes of flashcards for both Latin and Greek vocabulary and used them to improve my ability to sight read both of these languages. I majored in Classics in college and went on to earn a PhD in Classics -- Greek and Latin. The boxes of vocabulary flashcards were a key learning tool for me.

Might I say the results of this endless self-improvement efforts paid off. By the time I took my the standardized tests, I had developed a very large vocabulary, and I excelled at standardized tests.

The Labor of Division -- Over My Shoulder

Managing a large family has numerous challenges. In the post-War 1950s, large families were quite prevalent. In my family, there were five children. My oldest sister was born before WWII and is 9 years my senior. My brother was just 2 years older than me, and my two younger sisters were close in age, born just about 18 months apart. We were a very competitive family, each child always looking out for their own interests. This created a lot of opportunities for squabbles and skirmishes. My mother found inventive solutions for how to keep us in line.

How We Divided Food Treats

Sweet treats were not a regular feature of our diet. They were carefully doled out. This created a fertile ground for the accusation -- his or her piece was bigger than mine or had more frosting (for cake), or whatever. The solution was simple. Mother would cut two pieces. She was not to be challenged on the size or selection; otherwise there might be no selection to be made at all. Then she would pair us off and hand one piece to each pair. It was a tough task if you were selected to make the next cut, for the game was rigged. Whoever cut the piece in half had to let their partner choose first. Then, by default the cutter got the remaining piece. The result was that we developed highly-tuned skills at very evenly dividing goodies. The rule of one cuts, the other chooses shut down the bickering and squabbles, but it was a high anxiety adventure. I still many years later see glimmers of it when a family member is tasked with cutting a cake or pie. Unless one asks for a small piece, the piece one receives is exactly the same as the others being cut.

A Cheesy Punishment

Mother also devised an exquisite punishment for the inevitable skirmishes of childhood. In the 1950s Parmesan cheese did not figure heavily in the cuisine of the day unless you were Italian. We were quite Italian. My father was the first generation of his family born in the US. My mother was the exact opposite. Her family arrived in the US well before the Revolutionary War. Even with this mixed heritage, we cooked and ate Italian. This meant that Parmesan cheese dispensed in small green cardboard canisters was totally unsuited to the family's needs. The same green shakers of Parmesan cheese can still be found on grocers shelves. I have no idea who buys or uses them. Even in the 50s we needed a more robust quantity of cheese for pasta, salads and other delicious menu options.

My father solved the supply chain problem. He would go to "little Italy" and bring home large chunks of cheese, usually Parmesan and Romano. The chunks were so large that we stored them in the back refrigerator in a vegetable bin. These huge chunks lasted so long that they became known as the "cheese fossils." They did not grate themselves; however, this was the exquisite punishment meted out to sibling combatants. Mother would declare that she had enough and was going to put an end to the bickering. For some reason this punishment usually was delivered when her Mason jar of grated cheese was running low -- she was a clever one. Mother would lay down a sheet of waxed paper, lay out the cheese grater (a metal drum grater just like you see in restaurants today), then send one of the combatants to go get the cheese fossils. Mother would hack off a chunk, load it in the grater and hand it to one of the squabbling combatants. The instructions were simple -- one person counted turns of the handle, while the other counted. Every 100 turns, places were switched -- the grinder became the counter. Since the cheese fossils were extremely hard and very well aged, the process was both slow and smelly. Mother would check how the cheese grating was progressing often shaking the jar to make sure that it was being properly filled. When the Mason jar was sufficiently full she would declare our punishment ending, but first we had to pick up any stray cheese fragments, make sure that the cheese fossils were back in their place in the refrigerator and that the waxed paper was properly thrown away.

As I look back over my shoulder, my mothers solutions appear elegant in their simplicity. These were just two lessons of many lessons in justice that she imparted.

Ping and Pong -- Cats, Not Table Tennis -- Over My Shoulder

There are dog people and cat people. I am decidedly a dog person. I revel in their devotion and their willingness to please and comfort their loved ones. Cats on the other hand know that they are highly superior beings that deign to spend time with humans. Some are more loving than others, but most just want to be fed and petted on their terms.

They have a special affinity for those who are highly allergic to them. Cats seek out my husband, going to great lengths to escape from any confinement their owners have put them in out of deference to his allergies. They immediately find him and wind themselves as close to his nose as they can get, climbing the backs of chairs and leaping on couches to get near him.

Ping and Pong

One memorable pair of cats were two owned by my spinster aunt. She was a bit eccentric and interesting. She spent many years in the foreign service -- stints in Moscow during Stalin's regime, a tour of duty in Copenhagen, Denmark, followed by a tour of duty in Salzburg, Austria, just as the 1956 Hungarian Revolution broke out. When she returned home, she worked in DC and bought herself a little townhouse in Georgetown. I loved to visit her, see the sites in DC and hear of her travels.

My aunt also had two Siamese cats -- Ping and Pong. They were diabolical and quite spoiled. She adored these two creatures. They were handsome (to some, not me) with their cross-eyes and angular faces. They also had frightening grey teeth. How do I know their teeth were grey? I saw them as they sunk them into my flesh on more than one occasion. They also had a full complement of weaponry on their paws -- talons, not claws. Again, I learned by experience. I did try to get to know them, but was instantly rebuffed with hideous hissing. My aunt suggested that I ignore them, passing their bad behavior off as simply excess devotion to their beloved owner. I tried to follow her directions. Ping and Pong for their part would not comply and ignore me (or any other visitor).

My mishaps with these two lovelies were inadvertent. After several hissing encounters, I would carefully try to determine if they were present in the room, then pick the least cat-attractive place to sit. The one place that I could not tell where they were was in the kitchen. On more than one occasion I had an unpleasant cat encounter. For example, my aunt asked me to get something from the refrigerator. When I went to open the door to the frige, a missile came barrelling at me from the little space above the frige. That was when I came to see and know the grey teeth. My aunt thought it was quite amusing. She brushed off the attacks with a note that the cats often lounged above the frige in the tiny warm space between frige and cabinet. I subsequently learned that the cats patrolled the entire kitchen from their vantage point above the frige. Everywhere in the kitchen was their domain. The counters, like the frige, were off limits. They would attack with their toe-talons any unsuspecting person reaching for something on the counter. They were fast, sneaky and quite frightening. They would bite and scratch without provocation.

When visiting my aunt, I learned to avoid the cats -- Ping and Pong -- and listened graciously to her cat stories. They were usually neither interesting nor amusing except to their devoted owner, my beloved aunt. It was a valuable lesson that one man's feast is another man's poison.

My Sepsis Journey—Over My Shoulder

These Over My Shoulder entries mostly document my experiences of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. This entry reflects on my 2023 experiences — my sepsis summer. My intent is to share what has been a surprisingly difficult and prolonged illness. Sepsis is a top 5 killer of adults over 60. It often comes on suddenly and is frequently fatal if it is not caught in time and treated properly 

it All Began in June

June is very busy for us. We are fortunate to have two homes. Our winter home is in the Carolinas, our summer home in the cooler climate of coastal Maine. We migrate in June. This June was no different. The college baseball season for us ended abruptly. Nothing was keeping us from leaving. Closing the house and packing up is stressful. Our home has a number of systems that keep it cool, the lawn adequately watered and the security system functioning. As we were getting ready to leave a squirrel ate a hole in one of the irrigation lines. Fixing it was no small task. Once that was done, cars packed, we took off. We had planned to take two days to get to Maine with a site seeing stop at Manassas, Virginia. I had always wanted to see the Bull Run battlefield. We left NC very early about 5 in the morning and arrived in Virginia well in time to view the battlefield. I was very tired and found the air heavy and polluted. As we drove on to our NJ evening destination, the smog grew very heavy — the cause of the smog was huge forest fires in Canada. When we left NJ the next morning, officials were closing schools and urging people to stay inside. The weird color of the sky was apocalyptic. I was quite eager to get away from the smoke. Maine did not have the smog, but it was rainy and very cold. It rained or was wet and gray for about 10 days. During that time we carefully cleaned our house, restocked the fridge, got the ice maker working and set ourselves up to have a terrific summer. On June 22 we a celebratory first round of golf. Let the record show that my husband beat by just one stroke, a very promising result. We celebrated with dinner on the club’s deck. I complained that I was very cold, but given how cold it was in Maine compared to the heat of the Carolinas, I did not suspect that I was sick. 

Went home and turned in early, bundled up to warm up. At around 4 in the morning I got up to go to the bathroom and tripped coming back to bed. I was unable to get up off the floor. My called EMS. They wanted to take in to the hospital, but I insisted that I was alright and had them put me back in my bed. About two hours later I went to get up again and collapsed on the floor. There was no question about whether I should go to the hospital. I was very incoherent and not thinking straight. The very capable EMS gently and skillfully brought me down three flights of stairs and took me to the nearby hospital. I have very dim memory of being transported and almost no recollection of an entire day spent in ER with medical personnel hovering over me and working on me. 

What Went Wrong!

The doctors quickly decided that the problem was sepsis. My fever was 104 degrees Fahrenheit, my heart rate was faster than normal and my blood pressure was low. These are all signs of sepsis. The doctors told my husband that if they had not gotten me to the hospital in just a few more hours, my survival would have been problematic. Mine was a urosepsis caused by a symptomless UTI. After they cultured the bacteria from my blood, they were able to ascertain that it was an E. coli infection. 

Here is what they did to me. Cathetered me to monitor my kidney function. My urine looked like thick Coca Cola, very dark and very much of it. They put IV fluids into — bags and bags of fluid. Gave me drugs that would kill the bacteria. They put me on oxygen since my O2 saturation was low. I shivered and shook with fever. By late afternoon, I was admitted to the hospital and moved to a floor. Apparently, I was kept in the ER until I started to respond to treatment; otherwise they would have transferred me to a bigger hospital better able to handle a critically ill patient. I was so out of it that I had no idea of the passage of time. I was intermittently aware that medical personnel were caring for me.

Once admitted to the hospital, I spent 5 days trying to get well. I was very sick, lethargic and not very with it. I remember only snatches of what went on the first day or so — a nurse telling an aide not to put a blanket on my feet since I had such a high fever. I remember sipping ice water from a cup at my bedside, being offered a bit of pudding the only food I had all day. Each day I could tell that I was improving. I wa so unsteady on my feet that I made to use a walker to move about. The second night when my fever finally broke, I was drenched in sweat, my bedclothes were cold and wet. This marked the turn toward recovery. The hospital personnel wanted to send me to rehab facility to more fully recover. I did not want to do this. I was reluctantly discharged when they determined that there was no more infection in my body. They looked hard—blood work and even a CAT scan to see if there pockets of residual infection. I was thrilled to be allowed to go home. I assumed incorrectly that I would be fully recovered in another week or so. This is not the case. I am still struggling 4 months later. My hair has alarmingly come out in a surprising quantity. My energy level has not come back. I played my first round (9 holes) at end of July. I barely made it through 7 holes before I was shaky and felt unwell. It was August before I could actually play 9 holes. The next day was a wipeout. I could barely crawl out of bed and get through my daily routine. 

Sinusitis — Another Hit

I have always had change of season allergy/sinus problems. My system was so weakened by the sepsis that I spent over a month and a half battling a sinus infection. Two rounds of antibiotics have for most part gotten rid of it. Now my real task is fully recovering and regaining my strength. I eagerly await that day. Sepsis is a serious illness. You do not recover in a day or two or even a week. It is a slow climb with its share in full measure of setbacks. I have learned to be kinder to myself, accept help in doing tasks and to rest when my body says rest. 

Smoke, Smoke, Smoke Those . . . Over My Shoulder

Cigarettes and smoking really came of age during and after World War II. Mini-packs of cigarettes were part of military rations from World War II until after the Vietnam War. Watch an old movie and see cigarette smoke curling around almost every actor and scene. During that era it became socially acceptable for women to smoke both in public and in private. There were no designated no smoking areas, and passengers smoked on airplanes. In short, cigarettes and smoking were pervasive in the world I grew up in. Both of my parents smoked like tar kilns. Mother smoked a pack and a half (what she would admit to) of unfiltered cork-tipped Herbert Tareytons.  Dad was less brand loyal. He smoked a variety of brands and was not above smoking OPCs — other people’s cigarettes.

Three of my four siblings smoked as young adults. Only my brother never seemed to quit. Both of my parents to my great surprise quit smoking in their late ‘60s. I never even tried to smoke and like my eldest sister eschewed the habit.

Cigarettes and smoking paraphernalia was everywhere in our home.  Ashtrays were on every side table — some were glass, others metal.  Three stand out and are the subject of this story, for I particularly disliked them.  The first was an ashtray with a beanbag bottom. The fabric bottom was green corduroy. It followed my mother like a puppy.  From breakfast table to night stand it was never far away. Even though, I am sure it was regularly emptied, I have no recollection of it empty.  It often had the smoldering remains of mom’s cigarettes, sending up whiffs of foul-smelling smoke to announce its presence. The real smoldering ashtray though was a large hammered aluminum ashtray that was often on a coffee table in the living room. Even with its large 10 inch across capacity, I recall putting out many smoldering fires in it and the beanbag. Mother also drank huge amounts of coffee, more on that at another time, and would causally tip her coffee dregs into the ashtray to put out a smoldering fire. Might I say, dumping and cleaning these minor campfires was beyond unpleasant and went a long way to convincing me never to smoke.

The third hated type of ashtray was to be found in the car. For some reason, it was always full and threatening either to overflow or catch fire. A mini-ashtray fire in a moving car required pulling over to the side of the road to once more dump the mess and ensure it would not catch anything else on fire. The presence of the ashtray was not the only reason to avoid sitting in the middle of the front bench seat in the car. In the 50s and 60s, cars were equipped with push-in cigarette lighters. The smoker would punch in the lighter and wait for it to heat before lighting up. The lighter would pop out when it was hot — not usually with such vigor as to eject from its cylinder— but just often enough in our cars to add a bit of uncertainty to the fate of  the close-by passenger.

My mother died in 1991 and had quit smoking over ten years earlier; however, to this day I can clearly recall her rituals for opening a brand new pack of cigarettes. Tareytons were unfiltered and had a faux cork tip. Mother would take each new pack and thump the bottom of the pack on the table several times before pulling the cellophane string tab that removed just the top of the cellophane wrapper. She would then carefully strip back just enough of the foiled paper to expose two rows of cigarettes. A quick shake would deliver a fresh new smoke ready to go. All she had to do was add fire.

Sometimes this posed a challenge even though there were matches everywhere -- long kitchen strike anywhere wooden matches by the stove, small boxes of wooden matches, and countless books of matches with advertising themes. I can remember numerous times being sent to find some matches for my mom. This was not always an unwelcome task, for some matchbooks prompted an evil response. The Pep Boys auto repair stores used matchbook advertising. These ads featured the three Pep Boys on the matchbook cover. They were stood full length touting their services. Well, they were just too tempting a target. It didn't take much to work a hole in the match book cover at crotch height and then pull a red-tipped match through to create a bit of visual porn. My mother could be bit of a prude and found our Pep Boys matchbook arts and crafts offensive, making it even more delightful.

Matches were not the only fire sources. Mother had a lady-like Ronson lighter, tortoise printed metal. It was not favored because it required refilling with lighter fluid, which mother never seemed to remember to do. My dad on the other hand had a trusty wartime Zippo lighter which he could flip open and use with one hand to light his cigarette. My dad died in 1982 and I can still hear in my mind's ear the definitive click of the hinge as he flipped his Zippo open. Dad occasionally smoked a pipe and had lots of paraphernalia for smoking the pipe. We children steered clear of these tools not wanting to "get in trouble." Lighters and other smoking equipment are artifacts of the 50s and 60s and can be readily found in yard sales and auctions. For me they are the stuff of memory.  

 

Before the Internet, I Had an Encyclopedia -- Over My Shoulder

Before I was sucked down the rabbit hole of the Internet with a Smartphone, tablet or computer almost always at hand to answer my every curiosity, I relied on books and libraries. The favorite instant source of my youth was an Encyclopedia Americana. The 24 blue pebbly leatherette volumes, stored together in a special bookcase all their own, called out to me. It excited me that there were 24-volumes of knowledge always at the ready awaiting my curiosity. I loved the photos and line drawings and eagerly read the captions. The articles were clearly illustrated and simply captivated me.

Instead of just using the encyclopedia for school assignments or to address my endless youthful curiosity, I took such a fascination with the blue volumes that I decided to make it my personal project to read the entire encyclopedia. Always an organized student, I kept a blank index card to mark my place. I would carefully tuck it in whichever volume I was reading. After each session I would move my marker from page to page and volume to volume.

Reading the encyclopedia was my project alone. I did not mention it to other members of my family. I thought that I might be ridiculed or teased, or even hounded about how my project was going. It took months for me to work my way through all the volumes, but I did it. I learned a tremendous amount. For many years I was teased as being the household "Answer Man." If anyone had a question, they would pose it to me first. Then, shock of shocks, if I did not know the answer, the questioner would look to more authoritative sources.

My beloved encyclopedia was replaced during my high school years with a larger more impressive Encyclopedia Britannica. I have no idea what happened to my beloved blue leatherette volumes. Today, encyclopedias are artifacts of the past. Now a quick check on my phone or computer will answer any pressing question of the moment such as -- Do birds have teeth? or What do wombats eat? or Where exactly is Azerbaijan?

Three Grey Sweaters, No Red Shoes -- Over My Shoulder

At a young age I learned the lesson that life is filled with little disappointments. I always wanted red shoes instead I had three grey sweaters and no red shoes. There were logical reasons for this that I never really accepted. For example, keeping three girls close in age appropriately dressed was a challenge for Marion, my ever practical mother. She met the challenge head on. She realized that allowing a lot of personal choice for each of us would make clothes shopping a tedious and expensive task. This was not what she signed on for. Her solution was simple -- we were dressed almost identically until we were all in high school. For example, when I was about 8 years old she got us hats. We were to wear them to church or other events where hats were worn in the 50s. She bought three white pillbox straw hats each with a different colored ribbon band. They all were held on our heads by an uncomfortable under the chin elastic. We were each assigned a hat to call our own. Mine had a navy blue band. These hats were intended to coordinate with our Spring coats. Again, the style of the coats was identical. Unfortunately for Mom, she could not obtain all three in the exact same color -- one was a camel color, one a pinkish beige and the third was a light almost ivory shade. They were wonderful light weight wool coats. Mine was the darkest and deemed a nice match for my hat with the navy band. I actually loved my coat, liked my hat and hated how the elastic cut into my neck.

Unfortunately, another dissapointing aspect of being in a big family is that even your most cherished items of clothing were purchased to be passed along to your sibling next in size. The coats and coordinating hats were kind of special, they were bought new for all three of us. My coat was passed along, but the hat stayed mine -- my head did not outgrow it as fast as I outgrew the coat. The new identical outfits all bought at once only happened when there were no hand-me-downs at the ready. Over the years, there were several other times where we all three got a similar, almost identical outfits. 

Since I wore a uniform to school, my wardrobe was quite small. As the oldest of the three sisters, my clothes had the longest useful life since my two younger sisters would wear them as they grew into them. My just younger sister messed the cycle up, by growing taller than me as we approached our teens. She had to have new clothes, not an ill-fitting hand-me-down. This meant that I got to keep some items for their entire useful life. To my memory, a skirt and sweater outfit for each of us was the last of the three dress alike purchases. I actually had an emerald green pullover sweater, part this outfit, until I was in my mid-20s.

With three growing girls to dress, my mother was a bargain hunter. When Mom spotted a bargain, she could not resist scooping up three identical items in sizes that would fit her daughters. She once bought three ugly chartreuse green cardigans. We all hated them and wore them only under extreme duress. My youngest sister promptly declared hers as "too small," middle sister also did away with hers by ruining it somehow, and I kept mine until I could discretely dispose of it.

Mother also believed in neutral colors. She loved grey, for she claimed it went with everything. For me her love of grey meant that when I went to college I had a grey plaid jumper for dressy events, grey pumps for dress shoes, all paired with a nice grey cardigan. One of her bargain finds was three grey cotton sweaters. We each got one. Over time, I wound up with two out of the three in my possession. They were a fixture in my wardrobe. I had my good grey sweater (that went with the plaid jumper), my not so good grey cotton sweater and my knockabout grey cotton sweater. I kept the grey sweaters all through college and even into grad school. I kept a grey sweater in my library carrel when I began my dissertation. They were durable -- virtually indestructable. One of the first gifts my now husband gave me was a beautiful lambs wool maroon cardigan. It finally convinced me to retire the very tired grey sweaters and break from grey. I have regressed. I now wear a lot of black clothing -- dresses, pants, t-shirts etc. You might say that black is my new grey.

About the red shoes and my disappointment. Purchasing shoes for the three sisters was another thing altogether. Our feet grew at different paces, and each individual wore shoes out differently. The solution was to limit each of the girls to three pairs of shoes -- dress, school and play. My shoes were a cinch for Mom to buy. There were heavy saddle shoes for school, dress shoes were black patent leather Mary Janes when I was a little girl, ultimately followed by a pair of grey pumps with a hint of brown in a spectator pattern and white Keds sneakers for play shoes. Galoshes for rain and snow rounded out the footwear wardrobe. I always wanted red dress shoes. I got grey. If I couldn't have red dress shoes then I wanted red play shoes -- none were forthcoming. Mother declared that red shoes would not go with all of my clothes, so no red shoes for me. I had to wait until I was out on my own to get my red shoes. Over the yeats I have had many pairs of red shoes, but I did not get my first pair until my husband insisted that I buy a pair of red shoes that I fell in love with on a shopping trip. Until then, I had three grey sweaters and no red shoes.

The Box of Mismatched Mittens -- Over My Shoulder

As a young child in New Jersey, a snow storm was an event to be rejoiced. We had a large yard with plenty of space to make snow angels, build snow men (even snow families), and create snow forts for the inevitable snowball wars. But first, you had to gear up in snow suits or snow pants and jackets, and galoshes (the black heavy ones with the buckles that filled with snow and froze). Then, you could not go out without head and hand covering. Hats -- the head covering of choice -- were usually assigned at the start of the season. Mittens and gloves were always a challenge.

In the storage area under the window seat where the snow suits lived, there was a shoe box with random mittens and gloves. Why random? It was hard to match up a pair of mittens or gloves from the box. Mittens and children often part company in unexplained ways, and my practical mother simply paid little attention to making sure that each child had a pair of neatly matching hand coverings. Besides gloves wear out or finger poke holes in the tips of the gloves fingers. Mittens wear out at the palm or the thumb develops a hole. The challenge was not to find a matching pair of mittens or gloves, but rather making sure that your whole hand was covered. This might mean pulling a mitten over a swiss-cheese-like glove that had an intact thumb, which the mitten lacked or whatever combination worked. This lesson in creative dressing was done every time you donned your snow gear. Annually, the box of mismatched mittens and gloves was given a once over by my mother. Those deemed beyond salvageable were put in the rag bin. Sometimes parts would be saved, and the resulting amputated thumb or finger sewn onto another glove or mitten. My mother had an old fashioned darning egg and would do what she could to improve the stock in the mitten box. I have no memory of how new mittens or gloves came into the box. I'm sure they did, for I have no recollection of going out in the snow with bare hands. To this day, I cherish my gloves. I still have a heavy pair of mittens that are over 35-years old and gloves that are over 20 years old. I do not have box of mismatched mittens -- I learned to cherish my gloves and mittens at a young age.