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 36: Evening In Paris

                                                            

No, Fred and Lucy never went to Paris. I don’t think my father ever went farther than Wildwood, N.J. in his 90+ years. My mother on the other hand had visited her sister Anna on several occasions when Anna lived in Oklahoma. Mom also spent time in Reno when applying for her divorce from Fred before moving to Napa California with her boyfriend. Long story and I don’t want to talk about this part of my childhood on the blog. What I do want to talk about is the perfume that I had always associated with my mother when I was growing up and...after she left.

                                                         

My mother loved using Evening in Paris. It was for a long time her favorite perfume. I remember Jane, little Lucy and I sneaking into our parent’s bedroom when they were busy working in the family grocery store and investigating my mother’s stuff.

                                    looked something like this, but nicer                     

Mom had a vanity set that was to die for. It looked like something right out of the movies and this is where Mom would sit and put on her make-up and jewelry. She kept her bottle of perfume on the top shelf of the vanity and we three girls would spritz the perfume on our neck after we would put on Mom’s makeup.

                                                           

Evening in Paris had a strong scent, at least to me, and even though I wasn’t particularly fond of the scent, I still spritzed. When we three sisters were done spritzing and putting on makeup, we would pull out mom’s fancy slips and make believe we were famous actresses.  

                                                        

Sometimes we’d forget to wash off the perfume and makeup before heading downstairs for dinner. Mom would ask, “Were you touching my stuff again?”

“No??” we lied, but I think the smell and the rouge gave us away.

“That’s expensive perfume. Don’t touch it,” she’d counter every time.

Recently someone sent me some photos about the old days. I shared them on a blog. One of the photos was a bottle of Evening in Paris. I thought about my mom. She stopped using Evening in Paris way before she took off to Reno. I think she was using Channel # something or other; it really doesn’t matter.

                                                   

On one of my sister Lucy’s and my visits to Napa, we were in Jane’s kitchen having coffee with mom. I don’t know how we got on the conversation of perfumes, but when Jane, Lucy and I began laughing about our ritual of playing movie stars with mom’s belongings; my mother denied ever using Evening in Paris. “You’re all crazy. I didn’t use that cheap shit.”

“Yes, you did!” we countered in unison. Mom was in her mid to late stages of dementia by then, but we hadn’t picked up on how bad it was at that time. We just thought she was being “Lucy”.

Even though hostile to each other while alive, my mom along with Fred decided to spend their afterlife in my attic. I don’t know why except my dad’s commode is up there, and in their old age before they died, they both considered bowel evacuation as the highlight of the day. It probably has something to do with old age. I hope I don’t get like that, but I told my daughter that if I ever started talking about bowel movements, she is to put me on a block of ice and send me out to sea. It would be time “To Flow.”

                                  

                                                            

So my parents are haunting my house and I’m perfectly fine with it. They help me with my Fred and Lucy stories; not too crazy about my zombie stories. Anyway...when I looked at that photo of Evening in Paris, I heard mommy say, “I did use it.”

                                                                
And just for a moment, a blink of an eye second as time stood still, I smelled the perfume.

Life with Fred & Lucy, Episode 27: Rat Patrol

                                                                  

My father was adamant about keeping our building roach and rat free, especially because of the stock that we sold in our grocery store. When you live in a big city, you’re bound to encounter a roach or rat at some time in your life and Fred’s store was no different.

My father had an exterminating company do our entire building from top to bottom every month, and then as an extra precaution, Fred would spray his own concoction in between visits from the professionals. I pretty sure Fred’s ingredients would have been listed as dangerous toxic waste material by today’s standards, but in the 50’s and 60’s DDT ruled. It wasn’t until Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring caused a big uproar, that dangerous poisons were taken off the market and palmed off on the third world countries.                                                           

I went my entire childhood never encountering a roach, but one day we did have a visitor from the rodent family. The rat had arrived via delivery of stock from one of our vendors. Fred was unpacking one of the crates when he met the rat face to face. My father dropped some curse words and the large rat showing absolutely no fear, sauntered away to hide somewhere in our stock room.

                                                            

My father made the mistake of telling my mother and us four kids which elicited two different reactions. The kids wanted to keep the rat as a pet and my mother channeled her “Release the Kraken” personality and let out a scream heard all the way to Naples, Italy. “I’m not staying in the same house with a rat,” she declared and ran out of the store and to Grandmom’s house. She’d forgotten to take us with her, which was a foretelling of future events.                                                                

My father wanted a quick solution to the rat problem. He needed a cat and not just any cat. He needed a Terminator. We didn’t own a cat.  “Go find me a cat,” he ordered.                                                                           

Jane and I had no idea where to find a cat, but we knew there were a lot of strays up the alley. Taking a quart of milk and bowl with us, Jane and I went on a big game safari. We lucked out and on our first expedition up the alley, found a tom cat with a taste for cold milk. He followed us home, just as my mother pulled into the parking spot in front of the store while giving a slight tap to the bumper of the car behind her. She was just as bad at parking as she was at driving.

My father closed the store so we could take care of the rat. He first placed a wooden board that was close to three feet high at the doorway of the stock room to keep the rat trapped in the room. My mother held the cat in her arm, while my father used a broom to coax the rat out from behind the stock boxes. Mom had one job only and that was to release the cat as soon as the rat showed his head.

While my father searched for the rat and my mother stood guard with the cat, their children were begging for the rat’s life. “Can’t we keep it as a pet?” 
                                                                       

                                                                          

Suddenly, the rat scurried out and my father screamed, “Lucy, the cat!” But…Lucy was nowhere to be found. She took off and ran outside with the cat in her arms. “Where the *&#$&%$ did your mother go?”

I took a peek out the side door and replied, “She’s on Shunk.” My mother had made it to the end of the next street in Olympic record time, “And she’s still going,” I added.

“Go get her,” my father ordered, but I wasn’t so sure I would be able to talk my mother into returning.

Later that day, my mother returned covered in scratches and sans cat. It was almost dinner time and we were busy with the dinner crowd. Lucy was in her playpen where we could keep an eye on her. “Where the hell is the cat?” my father asked her when the store had cleared.

“How the hell should I know,” Lucy replied, as she began to prepare dinner. “And…don’t involve me in any more of your crazy schemes,” she added, slamming the frying pan on the stove top.

                                                              

My father had to enlist the help of Uncle Jack and another cat later that night, while my mother and we four kids visited with Aunt Louise. I guess ‘Operation Rat’ was a success because we didn’t see any trace of it or the cat.

Like I said, DDT isn’t used now, but back in the days it was, and…it was probably in the spray the trucks used as they rode up and down the Philadelphia streets spraying for mosquitoes.
                                                             

I remember chasing after those trucks with the rest of the neighborhood kids and getting splashed with the mist from the insecticide spray they were using. What did we know? We were told it was safe. Scary, right?

Scary Movies Then and Now

I found this little video on Youtube and it got me thinking about growing up in the 50's and 60's and the types of scary movies that were shown every weekend at our local movie theatre. The Saturday Matinee Movies was a big hit in our neck of the woods in South Philadelphia. There were two theatres that we could go to: The Broadway Theatre on Broad and Snyder


                                                                        

                               and the Colonial Theater on 11th and Moyamensing Ave.


                                                                      

 

We got to see movies like this from Your Daily Milk!




Yes, the monsters offered to us, are laughable today, but back then; they scared us enough to drop our lunch, which consisted of baloney sandwiches and an apple, out of our hands. Yes, back then, kids were allowed to bring a bag lunch with them, as long as they also bought a bag of popcorn or lots of candy.
                                                                 

                                                                   
Most of the time, the baloney sandwiches were used as air to ground missiles by my siblings, if we were fortunate to get a seat in the balcony section of the movie theatre. If we noticed one of the neighborhood kids sitting below; then the time spent waiting for the first cartoon to start up was put to good use; bombs away!


                                                                      

The fright level of the movies began to change in the 60's with the introduction of Hammer Films. The screams from the audience grew louder and we began to cover our eyes. Here is a sample movie from Hammer Films:




We all know that Hollywood produces movies to fit the times, right? So what was going on in the 50's and 60's that upped the level of horror at the matinee shows?

                                                                 The Cold War

         
                                                                        Sputnik
      

                                                                           Vietnam

                                                                          

Today we have ghost stories, zombies and vampires. I think the matinee horrors of our childhood have been stomped on and replaced with real world horrors. Today's news frightens me more than the prospect of encountering a zombie.
                                                                        

Our politicians are all crooks and owned by corporations; our young military men and women, sheep sent to the slaughter; human slavery and poverty are out of control; nations all over the globe hate Americans.

I long for the days of innocence, but I think we were already lost by the time the Exorcist came out on the screen.
                                                                    

                                          
So, I'm hoping that you don't mind me sharing an old movie with you once in a while. I miss the days of zippered up monsters with cotton ball eyes. I'll leave you with this one movie trailer to cheer you up, enjoy!

Sister Love

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
                              Me, my sister Lucy playing referee, and Jane
                                          

Even though my parents had four children, my sister Jane and I have always had this love/hate/love relationship that would rival that of the biblical Cain and Abel.
I’m the instigator for most of the arguments as I have been trying to do her in since the first day my parents took her home from the hospital, going as far as trying to give her away to the Fudgie Wudgie Ice Cream man at the Wildwood seashore.

                                                         

                                                                                          

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Jane very much, but we’re only 18 months apart and this closeness in age, apparently became the catalyst for all our squabbles our entire life.  

                                                               

                                                     

Jane and I have a younger brother and sister, but our disagreements with them were far and in between and consisted mostly of whose side they were on when Jane and I fought.

                                                            

                                                                                                                    

I was the firstborn and the little princess for our extended Italian family. My father took me everywhere and my mother made the prettiest dresses for me and my grandmother doted on me. I was, for lack of a kinder description, spoiled rotten.
                                                            

Then Jane arrived. Who was this interloper that dared to take all of my mother’s attention? Where did she come from? And better yet, how could I send her back? Remember I was only 18 months old, but I knew that this was a threat to the throne that had to be dealt with. I remember and have been told by older family members that I would try to give her away to anyone who came to visit. Fortunately for her, there were no takers.

                                                                                                                                              

My sister Lucy was and is today the peacemaker, always stepping in whenever the “War of the Planets” was about to begin. Lucy tends to be, middle of the road, live and let live, you’re both wrong, type of girl. And even now that Jane and I are both in our early sixties; Lucy often has to play the part of the “United Nations and send in the peace keeping troops.”
                                                                                           
My brother wisely keeps out of the battles, thinking we’re all nuts.

                                                                                                                                               

With my sister Jane being hard core Tea Party and I a hard core Democrat.

 our younger sister Lucy has to play referee, but I did give Jane fair warning that the Fudgie Wudgie man still exists and can still be found selling ice cream on the Wildwood beach.