The Pirate's Chest

                                                         

 

The other day while I was doing major housecleaning, my husband asked me why I was still keeping my youngest grandchild's treasure chest in the guest room. It took me a few moments to reply. Why was I keeping the old wooden chest when my youngest of nine grandchildren was almost in high school?

“It’s not time, yet,” I replied.

“What about the basement and the shed? Don’t you want to give those toys away?” Dan asked.

“It’s not time,” I repeated. Dan shrugged, then walked into the other room. After thirty-five years of marriage, the poor man knows when not to push the envelope.

                                                            
Why was I keeping the Native American walking stick that my husband had made for each of the grandsons? Why was I keeping their toy swords and bow and arrows in the shed out in the yard? And why in heaven’s name did I keep one of Nathan’s disposable (clean) diapers in my car many, many years after he’d been potty trained?

                                                       
Was I a hoarder; a toy lady (something like a cat lady)? Okay, the diaper is weird, but something keeps me from tossing the twelve year old pamper in the trash. Maybe I am a hoarder.

I decided to open the treasure chest that belonged to Nathan. The blankets that drape over the chest are authentic Native American blankets that were given to me by my mother and, the hat was from the Lewis and Clark Traveling Exhibit. I was the manager of the Changing Hall when this historical gem visited the Academy of Natural Sciences. It was a gift from my staff.

                                                              
Inside the chest are all kinds of stones, shells, two smaller chests, and a few books. I remember helping Nathan find the items for his chest. Whenever the boys, Nathan and his two older brothers, slept over my house, Nathan would immediately head for his treasure chest. Whenever we went on a hiking trip, Nathan took a little bit of nature home with him and placed it inside the chest. I put my foot down when he wanted to put worms inside the treasure chest.

I guess I could move the walking stick and treasure chest to the basement with the other toys, but a memory popped into my head. A few weeks ago, Nathan slept over my house. While he was there, the little girl from across the street came to visit. She is six years old, about the age Nathan was when we found the old wooden chest at a yard sale. I’ve been babysitting her since she was three months old. She has a crush on Nathan.

Nathan pulled out the old pirate’s chest and he and Isabella spent the whole afternoon going through all the stuff that Nathan had collected. The two of them spread the contents on my kitchen floor as I prepared dinner.

“Grandmom, do you remember this?” Nathan asked on and off, holding a shell or a stone up for me to see.

                                                         
As for the toys in the basement and in the shed, this past Christmas Eve when all the grandchildren were over for our big party, all of them from the oldest (27) to the youngest (13) were playing with the toys and laughing their heads off. The boys, one a U.S Marine, were outside shooting the toy bow and arrows and chasing each other with the swords. All of them, now young ladies and young men, laughing like they did when they were so very young.
                                                                

 

As I was placing Nathan’s treasures into the Pirate chest, my husband walked back into the room and said, “I guess you can keep this stuff for our great grandkids.”

“Yes, I think I will,” I replied, but after he left the room, I finally knew who I was keeping all the toys for. They were for me. The toys were my three dimensional photo album of my grandbabies; my time machine to the past.

I closed the chest and called Nathan on his cell phone. When he answered, I said, “The weather will be getting cooler, soon. Want to go hiking and look for treasure.” We have a date!

Life With Fred & Lucy, Episode 35: Soap Operas

                                                                 

The other day, I saw something posted on my Cousin Christina’s Facebook page. I didn’t recognize the people in the photo, but she had written in the comment section: 33 years today and how many women married a rapist?

I was puzzled and wondered if my cousin was speaking about the couple in the wedding photo. They looked familiar, but I just couldn’t place them. I haven’t seen my young cousin for many years because she had moved cross country and I assumed it was a member of her extended family especially because the couple looked so damn familiar.
                                                                         

                                                                                

I quickly responded with “What??? Who???” I was shocked to even imagine this happening in our family. Maratea women are strong willed and street smart and we're not prone to allowing anyone to attack us and, live another day. I was definitely curious about the people in her comment. I waited for Christina’s response.

Her quick reply was this: Luke and Laura were on General Hospital 33 years ago. Before they married on the show, they were friends. One day he raped her and they fell in love. It was a scandal on daytime TV at that time.

Luke and Laura from General Hospital? Oh my goodness, my cousin was talking about a soap opera. I don’t watch soap operas, but my mother did and it reminded me of an incident that happened when I was about thirteen years old.

                                                                    

We all worked long hours in the grocery store, but every day and I’m not too sure of the time, my mother would walk the three city blocks to my Aunt Louise’s house to watch their soap operas with "As the World Turns" being their favorite. They did this religiously. We didn’t have any way to tape shows back in the day, so if you wanted to know what was happening with the characters, you had to watch the show when it aired. When my mother returned from these visits, she would then watch the store so that my dad could take a nap. Some days, my mother would come home cursing under her breath, “Stunad or putana.”

“What’s wrong, ma?” I would ask, but she would only shake her head and add, “Don’t you ever do what Edith did!”
                                                  Ruth Warrick as Edith Hughes

                                                                       

“Who’s Edith?” I would ask, but my mother refused to tell me. So there I was wondering what this mysterious Edith did to piss off my mother. How could I keep from walking in Edith’s shoes if I didn’t know what she did or who she was? On the few occasions when my Aunt Louise came over our house to watch the show, my siblings and I, who were normally rowdy by nature, knew better than to bother my mother while she watched her "Soaps". My mother had slippers that acted like heat seeking missiles.  

One day, while I was helping my father put the frozen veggies in the freezer, my mother entered the store crying her eyes out. She had just returned from my Aunt Louise’s house, so right away my dad asks if his sister Louise is okay, but my mother just runs upstairs. “Call Aunt Louise on the phone and see if she’s okay,” my father ordered.

When my aunt answered the phone, she was also crying. “Aunt Louise, daddy wants to know if you’re okay.” I said.

“No, I’m not okay. I can’t believe she died,” my aunt replied.

“Who died?” My aunt said a name, but I didn’t recognize it. Maybe it was one of the second cousins.

“Oh, okay...I’ll tell daddy (blank) died.” Look, I was thirteen and didn’t know how to handle both my mom and favorite aunt crying, so I hung up the phone and went back into the store to tell my father what Aunt Louise had told me.

“I don’t know that person,” my father said as he glanced at the wall clock. It was time for his nap and Lucy was still up in her bedroom crying. We could hear her all the way on the first floor. “Go get your mother and tell her I need to take my nap.” I yelled up the stairway for my mom to come into the store. Fred got cranky when he didn’t get his nap on time.

When my mother entered the store, her eyes were red from all the crying. She started to take care of the customers who were there as my father and I finished putting the frozen food away.  Right before he took off his apron, he asked my mother about the death. “When’s the funeral? I’ll have to shut the store.”

“Oh sure, make fun of me,” my mother snaps back.

                                                                          

“Are you $&%*#% crazy? I need to know when the funeral is so I can make sure I get the milk and bread delivery done earlier in the day.”

My mother wiped her tears, looked Fred in the eye and said, “Real funny, like we can go to Hollywood.”

Fred threw the apron on the freezer and stomped out of the store and headed upstairs for his nap, but he cursed the entire way up the steps. It wasn’t until after dinner when my Aunt Louise and Uncle Jack came over for coffee and to play cards that we all found out who had died.

No one! Yep, that’s right. The person who died or was murdered was only a character on one of my mother’s soaps, but the way my mom and aunt behaved you would have thought it was their best friend.

                                                                      

Needless to say, my father made sure he teased my mom about this for the longest time, which brings me back to my Cousin Christina’s post. I never got in the habit of watching soap operas, but I can understand when people, who do watch them, get upset. These characters come into your home every day, same time, same station and, like it or not, they do become like family and we mourn them when they die or celebrate even if they marry the man who raped them. I guess when you think about it, my mother's addiction to soap operas was no different than my addiction is today for "The Walking Dead". 

Thank you Cousin Christina for reminding me about this funny story.

Life with Fred & Lucy, Part 24: Street Games

              Aunt Helen with my cousins and my sister                                                            

I don't think kids today know how to keep themselves entertained without plugging into a video game, but when we four kids weren’t working in the grocery store, we played outside with our friends. In South Philadelphia during the 1950’s, there were electric trolley cars that ran down 15^th street. Since not everyone could afford a car in those days, we kids had more room to play stick ball. I can see the puzzled looks already. Stick ball? Yep, that was another term for baseball, but without a field, bat or even a regular ball. If you check out this site, you’ll get the gist: http://www.streetplay.com/stickball/

                                                                             

                                                          Sample of stick ball game
I honestly don’t remember any of the kids on our street belonging to any baseball leagues like we have today. I don’t know how it was in the suburbs, so if there are any readers who lived outside of South Philly and were part of a junior baseball league, let me know.

                                                              

                                  15th and Porter Streets--Fred's Grocery Store

We kids were resourceful back then and could make up games to play at the drop of a hat, but let’s get back to stick ball on 15^th Street. There was always an old broom stick that was used as a bat and of course the most important equipment; a pimple ball.
My father sold pimples balls for 10 cents and then he would slice the pimple ball in half for the kids. This was the only way you were allowed to use the ball. As far as the bases, we usually designated whatever cars were parked on the street, and Home base was usually a neighbor’s step.                                                                   

Whenever a car drove down the street or the trolley came by, we would stop the game until it was safe to continue playing. Sometimes we were so into the game, that we didn’t notice the approaching car. It was a wonder that we weren’t killed, but maybe it’s because there weren’t that many cars on the road during the 50’s. The game lasted until the neighborhood Moms yelled out their front doors to tell us that dinner was ready.                                                                    

Jailbreak was another neat game, where one person was the jailer and the person who was 'It' had to capture the crooks and stand them in front of a designated neighbor’s house.
                                                                               
The trick was to keep the people in jail from breaking free while you capture more prisoners. Tag, jacks, hopscotch, and roller skating were other favorite games that we neighborhood kids loved to play until the call for supper sounded.

                                           Jane and Michael                              

We didn’t have video games or computers in those days and the television only had 3 to 5 stations, so it was up to us kids to make up our own games. We were never bored and if we even dared to say we were; our moms had plenty of work for us to do around the house.                                    

One time, my cousin Annie from New Gretna, New Jersey came to spend the week and I had lent her an extra pair of skates to go street skating with us. These were the skates that attached to your shoes and you had to use a key to tighten them.

While we were skating on the street, a big street sweeper turned the corner and headed up the street towards us. Poor Annie, who’d never seen a machine like this, panicked. We were little and I don’t think the driver saw Annie, but I was able to grab her arm and pull her to safety.

The streets were noisy with the laughter of children as we ran, jumped and tumbled our way through childhood on a South Philly street. We were innocent of the evil lurking behind closed doors and only came face to face with it when one of our friends sported a black eye given to them by good ole dad or mom. But that is a story for another time…maybe saved for my book, as I want these blog posts to be about happy times.
                                                                             

                Next week’s post will be about Uncle Ralph’s visit from Naples and King Kong.

Finally a Picture!!

 

 

 

Rct. James Reid III, Platoon 3018, Kilo Company, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, holds up barbed wire so his fellow recruits can crawl under Feb. 21, 2014, on Parris Island, S.C. The course is part of Basic Warrior Training, held during the ninth week of boot camp, which focuses on basic field-related skills all Marines must know. The basic combat training recruits receive while on Parris Island will be broadened after boot camp at follow-on training in Camp Lejeune, N.C. Reid, 19, from Sewell, N.J., is scheduled to graduate March 14, 2014. (Photo by Cpl. Caitlin Brink)

My family and I have been searching for pictures of my grandson Jimmy ever since he left for boot camp in December. Jimmy Reid is the oldest son of my daughter Rere and her husband Jim. Jimmy joined the United States Marines. What is really interesting is that there are sites the parents are encouraged to join that gives up to date information on what your child is experiencing each week. One of the sites that I go on daily is the Kilo Company Facebook page, where several angels (other marine moms) share photos and information as they come in. Thank you Tammy Opel, Michele Breland Gauthreaux and Libia Salazar

                                                                      

 

We would check the Kilo Company Facebook site several times a day with hopes of catching site of Jimmy, but with the all the recruits’ hair cut short and their caps pulled low over their eyes, it was damn near impossible to identify Jimmy out of the crowd.

                                                                       

 

Every once in a while, Rere would find a picture that looked like Jimmy, but we were never sure if it was really him. It was driving us crazy as we tortured others in the family to look at one or another picture to judge if we had found one of Jimmy.

                                                                        

 

Today, thanks to Michele, we have a picture of Jimmy and let me tell you, the family has finally agreed that it’s really him. Plus, his Aunt Denise who is a Dental hygienist recognizes his teeth. Well there is also the above article with his name and all. My grandson is doing what he was born to do and I’m very proud of him and my daughter and her husband for raising such a brave boy.

SAM BAG PROJECT Who is it for?

                                                                      

Shout out for all my Blog, Twitter, Google! and Facebook friends and family.

I know my followers are used to reading all kinds of posts on my blog ranging from zombies to ghost hunting, but today I'm putting out the call to help the young men and women who  are in Marine Boot Camp. I'm sure you've read my post on Biff Bam Pop about my thoughts on the movie Full Metal Jacket and my oldest grandson joining the Marines. My daughter and her family along with hubby and I are planning of being there for Jimmy on the day he graduates, but...

 Not every Marine has family coming to their special graduation day, either due to illness, death or maybe financial reasons. Since these brave souls are willing to put their lives on the line for us, the least we can do is make sure that everyone of our soldiers has a goodie bag on graduation day. Check the information below and do this for them, please and thank you. Check information below:

SAM Bags are for Stand Alone Marines – new Marines that do not have family members come for family day or graduation.  Friends and family members collect donations to pack goodie bags for the new Marines as a way to thank them for their sacrifice and congratulate them on their accomplishment


We are looking for items to put in bags for the SAMs.  We will be making 25 bags.  The following is a list of items you can donate or if you have something specific please feel free and send it!  Kelly at Gilligan's also gave me a few things that they already have and we DO NOT need to send.  I will list those as well.  All items must be received by March 13, 2014 by 4:00.  If you have any questions please just ask.  Thank you all for your support!



Please mail all donations to:

 

Gilligan's

2601 Boundary Street

Beaufort, SC  29906

Please make sure you mark the box with the company name and graduation date

KILO and NOVEMBER COMPANY 3/14/14.

Donation Ideas:

 
Beef Jerky

Gift Cards  (McDonalds, Burger King, etc.)

Disposable Cameras

Stationary Items

Chips

Magazines

Gatorade or Bottled Water (this is an item someone could bring to the restaurant)

Things NOT to send:

 
Hygiene Products

Word Search Books

Playing Cards

Life with Fred & Lucy, Part 12: Discipline

                                                                        

My parents were strict, Italian and Catholic. That’s all I have to say and I think you'll get the gist of where I'm going with this newest episode. How did Italian parents dish out discipline in South Philly? Swiftly! But, I don’t think it mattered what your nationality was; parents demanded respect back in the old days, and believe me, they got it.

                                                                       

                                                       Lucy, Mike, Me and Jane

My siblings and I were a handful, but we didn’t start out each day asking ourselves, “How can we drive Fred and Lucy nuts?” Honest! It just happened. We never meant to drive our parents crazy, but somehow,  we  always did a good job of it

I was the mouthiest of Fred and Lucy’s four cherubs; always debated the rules. I would challenge the rules, bargaining for more freedom. Jane, only eighteen months younger, often chimed  in. Did we weaken our parents' stance? Hell no!  I told you they were strict.

                                                           

                                                     

When the four of us weren't getting into trouble, we were fighting. The three sisters usually siding against the lone brother. Poor Michael was outnumbered...but...every once in a while he got even. Michael had an inquisitive nature. He was always taking things apart just to see how they worked. Our clocks and radio the most frequent targets.
                                                                       

My father would normally find parts of the wall clocks or radio in my brother’s room. What was Michael building? My brother eventually figured out how to bug the whole house before he reached the age of twelve. He missed his calling in life and would have made a great 007. Needless to say, between my sassing back and Michael's need to experiment on household objects, we received most of the spankings, but only if our parents could catch us.

My father had a bum leg from a childhood accident that had landed him in an Atlantic City Hospital for two years. He'd developed osteomyelitis and almost lost his leg. That illness left him with a limp, but if we made him angry enough, he’d chase us throughout the house.

“Get back here,” he’d yell as he limped after us. Sure, the belt hurt and sure, we would cry, but my father would only hit on us on our butts and then all was forgiven. My mother was not so forgiving and it was my mother who we feared the most.

                                                               

                                                      Release the Kraken!

My mother used various objects to get our attention when we four kids misbehaved: wooden spoons, slippers, hair brush, a doll (that Patty Play-pal Doll story is for a later time) but when she was close enough, she used her hands. Her bedroom slippers were her weapons of choice. Her aim was better than any of the Military Drones used today.                                         

I still don’t know how she did this, but she would throw her slipper at us and that sucker would track us down; turning corners if need be. It didn’t stop its flight until it made contact. Did Mom’s slippers come equipped with radar? We’ll never know, but her aim was just as good with the hair brush.
                                                                     

                                                                                 
We knew we were in really big trouble when she took out the wooden spoon. This spoon was the one used for the ritual making of the Sunday Gravy. The wooden spoon wasn’t that big, but my mother used it like a numchuck, and there was nothing wrong with her legs, in fact, she ran faster than we did. My parents demanded respect not only for them, but for our neighbors and customers, and heaven help us if a neighbor complained about us; out came the strap or spoon.

Today, teachers today get little respect from their charges or the little darlings’ parents, but back in the day, if you can home and told your parents that Sister Mary Margaret (who I think was a relative of Attila the Hun) hit you with her ruler; you were hit again by your parents. Why? Well, according to my parents, it was always our fault.

All that discipline didn’t harm us, and if anything, it made us stronger, respectful, less of a cry baby, and more importantly, taught us that we were accountable for our actions. Every action has a reaction and our generation knew this and lived by the code, and if my parents were alive today, Mom would be using her slipper on  the knuckleheads in Congress.

                                                                            

Life with Fred and Lucy, Part Three: Spying 101

                                                     Lucy &  Fred                            

When I was around 11 years old, a supermarket had opened several blocks from our store. It was called the A&P. That bit of news sent shock waves throughout the area. For women shoppers, it was a bigger store featuring more items at a lower cost than the neighborhood grocery stores were able to provide. To the owners of small grocery stores, it was life or death situation, which required immediate action. Fred declared war on the A & P!

                                                                          

First Fred had to find out what the other stores were charging for their Italian lunch meats, dairy items, and breads. This called for a strategic gathering of information. It called for well-trained spies.

                                                                

           

                                     MI6 Agents: Lucy, Michael, Marie and Jane

Fred sent my mother to the A & P to check on their prices. We had nothing to fear, at least when it came to the luncheon meats. My dad bought the highest quality meats; the new store did not. But the A & P sold everything in one place and that wasn’t good.
                                                             

So Fred began to stock up on everything from aspirins, to ladies’ nylons, to comic books; you name it, he had it. But he was still worried about the prices of his neighborhood competitors. Thus was born Fred’s junior spy brigade.
                                                                        

                                         Fred's spies on their get away wagon
 
Fred had my sister Jane and I dress up in disguises. We went shopping for certain items at the other grocery stores. Our disguises fooled no one. It was embarrassing. Luckily for us, the two sons of a competitor's store kept our secret on my sister and my trips to buy food. They never ratted us out. Want to know why?
                                                                         

Their dad had them doing the same thing. There were four grocery stores within walking distance to each other and all the kids were being used as spies in order to keep tabs on the competitors prices. Eventually, all the junior spies made a deal to cash in on all this counter intelligence work we were ordered to do by our parents. We kids (the spies) began lying about the price of the food in order to buy candy with the extra cash. The candy was shared between all the kids involved with the spying. We had a good thing going until our parents figured out what we were doing.

Fred was able to get all the grocery stores in our neighborhood to agree to a pricing method that would enable the small businesses in our part of South Philly to survive the big supermarkets that were popping up all over. Great things happen when everyone works together.

                                                                             

Next episode, I'll tell you about the war between Fred and the Neighborhood Pharmacy: Orange to Aspirins. 

 

Life with Fred and Lucy-part two-Security

                                                                    

 

The last time I posted about life with Fred and Lucy, I promised to tell you how we managed the security for our grocery store. If you think the C.I.A. was good at spying on people, then you should have known Fred. My father and mother were both OCD, especially about being robbed.

                                                                 

                  Our Grocery Store at 15th and Porter Streets

The grocery store was a family business and everyone was put to work. Along with the canned foods, dairy products and luncheon meats, my parents sold penny candies, loose potato chips and loose pretzel sticks. This was in the early fifties and you  were given a small paper bag to fill with candy, chips or pretzels.

                                                                            

Most people were honest, but every once in a while a group of strangers (kids from another neighborhood) would come in and steal the candy. They would do this every few days and this drove my father bat shit crazy.
 

You didn’t make a lot of money owning a store and the profits were earned a penny at a time. What did Fred do? My sister Jane, me and, my three cousins, Anthony, Jerry and Michael became Fred's front line of defense.
 

Acting every bit like General George Patton, my father prepared his own version of the Battle of the Bulge. The only difference was the bulge we would be fighting was the stuffed pockets of the teenaged boys stealing our candy. It was a brilliant plan! My father installed a buzzer that would buzz on all three floors: 2^nd, 1rst, and basement. No matter where his workers were, we would hear that stinking buzzer.

                                                    I hated that buzzer!
                                                                 

Anyway, when he pressed the buzzer, we kids would drop whatever we were doing and run to our secret observation points: I hid behind the pasta shelf, peeking through the boxes where I could grab hold of the thief’s hand in mid-theft. Jane had the potato bin where she was in charge of tossing potato grenades at the enemy; 
                                                                    

Cousin Anthony stood at the door to prevent the hoodlums' escape while cousins Jerry and Michael stood in front of the penny candy display. It was a success!! Word spread throughout the neighborhood, and soon ,the teenaged thieves stopped raiding the store. My father’s ‘Battle of the Candy Bulge’ was so successful, that the other neighborhood grocery stores adopted the buzzer weapon.

My mother never had to resort to the buzzer, because all the neighborhood kids were afraid of her. She had a wicked stare.

                                                            

                                             

Next episode: How we became secret agents

June Babies

                                                                  

 

                                                                            

There are two months of the year that I need to work three jobs; December and June. I come from a large family and everyone decided to be born on either the first two weeks before Christmas or in June. I wanted to say a special Happy Birthday to my nephews John and Tom, identical twins.

                                                                          

 

I could never tell them apart when they were infants and if my sister needed me to babysit, she would have to paint one of their toenails a different color. I was always placing them in the wrong crib or calling them by the wrong name. They call me the Warden. No…it’s not what you think, I’m not a meanie but when they drove their parents crazy, I would threaten them with special projects like pulling weeds from my garden or watching a foreign film with sub-titles. These guys are the best and I love them dearly.

                                                                       

Now some Happy Birthday wishes to the other June Babies. My grandsons Jimmy, Josh and Nathan celebrate their birthdays on the 6^th 14^th and 18th. My oldest grandson not only turns nineteen, but he’s graduating High School and is going into the Marines, Ooh rah!  He’s been doing his research and knows what he wants to do. He passed his physical and is waiting to get sworn in. He was born for this.

                                                                  

 

                                         Happy Birthday to the Desperados! Love you lots.

                                                                      

 

 

                                                                                 

 

 

If you’re wondering how many in my immediate family celebrate their birthdays in December, the

answer is ten. Don’t ask about Christmas.