Margaret and Howard

Margaret and Howard
Albany, NY
1955- 2000 ( this is how long I knew them).


They were my great aunt and uncle; Margaret was my grandmother's sister. Both had been married to other people before they met. Divorce and remarriage were unheard of in the 1930's.

• They lived in a tiny house in Albany and lived frugally and had plenty of money. They had just two forks, two knives and two spoons.
• They never had children.
• They always considered my mother to be a little girl.
• They traveled around the world.
• They lived in India for a few years and that seemed to be the highlight of their time together.
• They used to be heavy smokers but gave up smoking at some time in their lives.  But they never put away the big ashtrays on a stand in their living room.
• They loved to play bridge and other card games.
• They always had a cat.
• Howard worked fro a paper company.  So he would bring us a full case fo paper every year.  We never had to buy paper.  I think I could find some of that paper now in my apartment.
• Howard was a gadget guy.
• Margaret was always a beauty.  She practiced yoga for years and stayed flexible up until her death.
• Howard liked to fix our things whenever he came to visit.  My mother would put together a list of tasks for him and he would work a few hours each day and then settle down and have a drink or two.
• They really liked to drink.
• They would come to our house for Thanksgiving Weekend and they would show up with a whole box of liquor: a gallon of wine or port, a fifth of whiskey, tonic waters, club soda and mixers.
• They had Citizen Band (CB) radios. His radio name was Apple Jack and hers was Apple Blossom.
• When Howard was only 5, his father took his brother and went out for a pack of cigarettes.  The two of them never returned. And Howard never heard from them again. Maybe 75 years later, Howard met a child of his brother who said the father never got over the guilt of his awful deed.
• Howard died first. Then my mom died next and Margaret was lost as she felt as if she had no family left.  And two years later, she died.

Cards

CARDS

My parents' house

Philadelphia, PA

1963-1976

 

When I was a kid, my family played a lot of card games. My grandparents were tied impetus of this activity.  They were avid bridge players and had regular, friendly tournaments at their apartment and sometimes at our house. And when they weren't playing bridge with their friends, they were engaging us in card games. 

They lived just two miles away from us so they came to our house every day.  We would have two different games of pinnacle going and then the winners would player the winner and the losers would play the losers and then those two winners played each other.  I was always up for the challenge which explained why I never had time to dome homework.

• spit and malice
• gin rummy
• rummy
• pinnacle
• war
• solitary

Monkey Shit on a Bicycle

Hello Monkey Shit On A Bicycle

Somewhere in France

World War I

Around 1917

"Bonjour la merde de singe sur un vélo."

My grandfather loved to tell this story.  He was in France during the war and lo and behold, he runs in to his older brother who is also fighting in the war.  They hadn't seen each other since they both departed to serve.  

The older brother tells my grandfather, "The women here love me. They greet me everyday. They love Americans. Everyday they see me on my bike, they call to meet;"

My grandfather asks, "What do they say?"

"Bonjour la merde de singe sur un vélo," he proudly tells his younger brother.

                                                         **********

I don't know when my grandfather learned the translation of this greeting.  And I don't know if my great uncle ever learned of the translation.  But this story was one that my grandfather loved to tell us again and again. And I always found it to be funny.

1975

1975

Woodbine Avenue

Overbrook Section

Philadelphia, PA

     and

Long Beach Island, NJ (summer months)

My age: 19- 20

School- Penn State University- junior year.   I studied Adolescent Counseling with the hopes of someday becoming a high school counselor.

• My dad insists that I buy season tickets ($12/6 games) to the Penn State football games. I had never heard anything about this team and football doesn’t interested me so I just gave my tickets away. People offered me money for the tickets but I couldn’t be bothered.
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•  I had stopped out of college for a semester.  This decision just about sent my mother over the edge because she was certain I would never go back and she would have a lazy, college drop-out on her hands.  But I did go back and I was determined to do the best I could.  However, I had one lecture class that was dreadful. there were 200 of us in the 8AM class.  It was winter time and cold and snowy.  The Teaching Assistant was boring.  SO, I skipped a few classes.  Then I looked at the syllabus and calculated that a midterm was upon me.  I went to class, as prepared as can be for someone who’s missed three weeks of class.  I sit down and the teacher is handing back the mid-term.  I missed it.  I fucking missed the mid-term. I was just about to throw up when the TA confesses that there is a problem with the class.  More than half of us missed the exam and those who did take the exam, performed poorly.  The TA agreed to own part of the problem.  He threw out the test, rescheduled it and change the format of the class so that it was more interesting.  I FUCKING LUCKED OUT.

Work-

• During the summer, I worked at the Crust and Crumb Bakery.  We sold Elephant Ears, “a flaky French pastry with brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans.”  I probably said that line 100 times a day. We used to call this place the Crust and Crud Bakery. I think I made $1.35/hour.
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• During the fall semester, I stopped out of college.  To fill my time and to make money (which was a desperate need) I was a server at the Sander’s Nursing Home in Philadelphia. Mostly I poured coffee for the old people, which was their greatest vice. They. that were middle class residence who were paying lots of money to live there.  And most of the workers were indifferent to them and their needs. At one point during my three-month tenure here, my brother needed a job and coincidently there was an opening at work. I told Chris he could work there and then I told my boss that my brother was immediately available.  My boss told me he had reservations as he never liked to hire siblings as that usually resulted in worksite bickering.  He didn’t give me a “NO” so I went home and told Chris to come to work with me the next day.  We arrived at 630 and my boss didn’t show up until 9.  I thought he could come in and see what a good worker Chris was. Sure enough, things worked as I had hoped.  I left in December to go back to school and Chris worked there or another three or four years.

Music- I started to listen to music more as literature and poetry rather than background music.  I could listen to the same song again and again and again. A lot of great artists capture my interest:

• ·      Joni Mitchell- The Hissing of Summer Lawns:   Don't Interrupt the Sorrow" is my favorite song on the album
• ·      Joan Baez- she sang a lot of war protest songs
• ·      Judy Collins
• ·      John Sebastian
• ·      C, S, N & Y
• ·      Phoebe Snow
• ·      Roberta Flack
• ·      Van Morrison
• ·      Laura Nyro
• ·      Johnnie Rivers
• ·      John Denver
• ·      Emit Rhoades
• ·      James Taylor
• ·      Livingston Taylor

Movies- I didn’t go to many movies in the theatres now because they were just too expensive and they cut in to my beer funds.  There were old movies shown on campus for 50 cents.  I’d go to them from time to time and catch a movie I didn’t see when it was in the theatres.

Books-

• ·      I’ve started reading Japanese literature form the 1950’s and 60’s.
• ·      I read JD Salinger’s Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenter which I loved and eventually would read every year in the spring for the next 15 years.

Television-

• ·      I waste my summer afternoons watching soap operas.  I don’t watch them at all when I am in school but once I start working my summer job, I get hooked on All My Children and General Hospital.
• ·      I start watching 60 Minutes and find myself becoming interested in political issues.

News events

•   Margaret Thatcher becomes the 1^st female leader of the Free World. At the time, she seemed bold, decisive and strong.  When she died, almost 40 years later, Brits came out in force and celebrated her death and condemned her leadership. This takes me by surprise.  I didn't know she was so hated.

•   Oil prices surpass $13.00 per barrel and the price of a gallon of gas begins to rise.

•   The Vietnam War ends. The United States’ involvement ended as the last American military members escaped in helicopters taking off from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. 

•   The US Carries out Vietnam "Operation Baby lift" bringing Vietnamese orphans to the US. We watched hundreds of babies leave their country and come here to start a new life. It seemed as if all of us wanted one of these babies.

•   US pulled out of Cambodia. At last, we are not at war.

•   Betamax videotapes and VHS taped hit the market and our world of movie viewing is never the same.
Jaws, is released during the summer and it becomes the highest grossly film of all times. Everyone is afraid to go in to the ocean.  I didn’t watch this movie until recently and I found the movie to be laughable with it’s obvious shark attacks.

•   The IRA bombs London Hilton Hotel in Park Lane.  It seems as if the IRA is bombing London every other week.  And although I support the IRA’s cause, all their bombing unnerves me.

•   Jimmy Hoffa, ex teamsters boss, disappeared. There are hundreds of rumors as to where he ended up.  I don’t know what happened to him but it wasn’t a happy ending.

•   Patty Hearst joined the Most Wanted list and was arrested for armed robbery. Her bizzare story was riveting.

Family and friends

• ·      My grandmother went to Florida for Christmas. This was her first Christmas without my grandfather and it would have been their 50^th wedding anniversary. We thought for sure she would be so sorry she left us at this time.  She called us on Christmas day and told us she was having such a fun time that she was going to move to Florida.
• 
  
• ·      My two sisters and I work for John Maschal who owned Bay Village. on Long Beach Island, NJ.  This enterprise is run entirely by college students. There are over 200 of us and we are not allowed to pay cash for anything we purchase at this village of 20 stores.  We must pay against our paycheck and if we stay for the entire summer and through Labor Day, we get 20% back as a bonus.  This sounded great until the first paycheck came in and way too much money went to a bar bill I accrued at The Tide Bar.  Some of my friends spent all their money there every week.  They went back to college with zero money.
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• ·      My college roommate is Jewish which is very different from my all Catholic environment.

My Inheritance

My Inheritance

My parents and grandparents left me a lot more than just money. From my father I learned the value of saving money. He started us all on saving accounts when we were in first grade. He gave us an allowance and rewarded us for saving half of that allowance. When I graduate from college at the age of 22, he nagged to me to open a retirement account. “What are you waiting for,” he asked as I finish my first year of work. “you’re running out of time to save for your retirement”. At the time I thought his behavior was a bit obsessive but now I’m so damn grateful to him.

• My parents and grandparents all liked to travel around the world. They filled me with a wanderlust that is insatiable. In 1973 when I was 17, my parents sent me on a trip to Italy and I was never the same. I wanted to see the rest of the world.
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• My mother was an artist and she taught all of us how to use our hands in one way or another. At the age of 43 when she was pregnant with her youngest child, she insisted that all of us make him a gift. I made a needlepoint pillow of a baby lamb. Brian still has that pillow 46 years later.
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• My parents and grandparents were avid readers. I had trouble with reading. I’m dyslexic so reading was a real struggle for me as a kid. It still is a struggle but I don’t see it as this sign of a failure as I once did. Now I am an avid reader. And I have been exposed to thoughts and ideas that far exceed my experiences thanks to my reading.
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• I’m one of seven children. My parents taught us how to be respectful of each other and how to be friends. To this day we are all friends to each other enter each other’s spouses. That’s a real gift.
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• My parents always lived within their financial means. They never engaged in conspicuous consumption. My dad always bought a used American made car. He never saw the value in buying a brand-new car. Me too.
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•  “To thy own self be true”. This is a motto I heard from my father every single day of my life.
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•  When I was in high school and trying to debate my father over one of his ridiculous request of me, in my opinion, I would spew that life isn’t fair. And he would agree with me. But then he would go on and state the obvious. “Do you want to see how unfair life really is”, he would ask. “Let’s get in my car right now and drive to north section of Philadelphia. Let’s go find some young black girl who didn’t finish high school but as two babies and no husband and let’s ask her if life has been fair to her. You’re right Bridget; life isn’t fair. Don’t have any expectations that it is”. It’s pretty hard continue a silly, immature, self-righteous argument about unfairness after that statement is made.
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• Both of my grandfathers were educated. One grandmother started at a junior college after high school. Both of my parents graduated from college. Education was very important to my parents. They made sure all of us received a quality primary education. All of us attended a private academic high school. All of us were afforded the opportunity to attend a four-year college. All of us started college. Five of us finished. And then we either earned multiple Bachelor’s degrees or moved on to Masters and terminal degrees. Our parents taught us the value of education.
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• My mother was in charge of the household. She ran a tight ship. She had to. My father worked and worked and worked to support all of us. That left my mother alone to fend for every other aspect of raising us and taking care of the household. She taught us how to listen to authority, how to respect authority, and how to work together. She was in charge and she let us know that. Sometimes that offended us but in the long run, we developed thick skins and an appreciation for how difficult her job was.
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• In the course of his career my father was a lawyer, a Public Utilities Commissioner, a vice president of a large company, an adjunct professor and finally a federal judge. He taught us the value of work.
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• He worked very hard but he always had time for his family. When he was home with us he was engaged in our lives. And he and my mother purposely arranged outings to enrich our lives. We went to museums and plays and musicals and movies and shows and exhibits from around the world. We were exposed to music, dance, theater, and all sorts of worldly productions.

In the end, I have always had meaningful employment.  I  lived within my means.  I have traveled the world. I have strong relationships with my siblings and others.  I have a sense of self worth and appreciation. That’s really not a bad inheritance.

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