Memories From Childhood

 NATIONAL GRANDPARENTS' DAY !!! September 7:
I was so blessed to know a great-grandmother and a great-grandfather growing up. Both were a real "hoot".
 
> Great-grandfather would take me to the local grocery, set me on the counter to show everyone his great-grandchild BUT . . . only if I was clean and dressed up. This big nosed, bald man loved any old western on television. He went dancing every Saturday night in his pin-stripe suit with watch chain dangling and chewing Black Jack gum. He swallowed a teaspoon of Vicks Vapo Rub every night at bed time. The man lived into his 90's with one kidney.

> Great-grandmother worked as a tailor at a men's store, would take us to the circus and eat cotton candy. She took us to the fair and rode the roller coaster with my brother and the ferris wheel with me. She bought tickets and took us to TV wrestling matches where she would sit on the front row and yell, "Git him, git him!, pin him down!" She was an old lady who never grew old. I will never forget the way she washed our hands - not with a cloth but with her hands. I remember the way she washed my eyes open with a warm cloth, when I had whooping cough.

> Paternal grandmother was a "vamp" singer in the style of Kate Smith and Sophie Tucker was a professed Catholic who never went to church. I remember watching her get ready for an appearance by putting on false nails and lashes, shaving and repainting her eyebrows and using those long metal waving combs to set her hair. She baked the best sugar cookies in the world and always made amazing cakes for our birthdays: dolls in cake dresses, a merry-go-round with animals that carried candles, cars and clowns. At Easter, she turned eggs into dolls. She loved to braid my hair and tie big bows on the ends. Her kitchen drawers were toy chests full of wooden spoons and cookie cutters.

> My mother's mother (my American Indian grandmother) was up at dawn to prime her well pump and hoe the corn before the sun got hot, in a large straw bonnet. She canned the best bread and butter pickles and let me eat all I wanted. There was a metal bucket of water in the kitchen with a rusty ladel that everyone use. She always had a black cat around - said they were lucky. Her outhouse had a wasp nest at the door and - two seats - ? I climbed her apple tree with a salt shaker and ate until I was sick. I sat in the limbs of the mulberry tree, overhanging the road, and flicked little green spiders off the berries to eat them as cars passed below. (Mother would have whipped me if she knew.) I ran her corn fields until dark, playing with kids across the road. I remember warm baths in a galvanized tub beside her pot belly stove while she poured baking soda water over my chicken pocks. And, she had the gentlest stroke when brushing my hair and relating Indian folktales. We ate diabetic ice cream and she always let me run free. She was my favorite.

> Grandfather said she didn't know how to boil water when he married her. They separated before I remember. He was a house painter and when my father left, grandfather moved in to be chief cook and babysitter while mother worked. He practiced tough love and taught me to cipher, cook, look people in the eye, shake a firm hand, stand up straight, color mixing and how to run a chalk line. He played the harmonica and spoons and we danced with abandon. We cleaned wallpaper with putty, painted the walls every two years and I listened in awe to his childhood stories of a one room school house he walked to in his bare feet in 12 inches of snow - up hill both ways. No one messed with his grandkids and we adored him to pieces.

I do not remember any of them ever going to church on Sundays. The Indian grandmother is the only one I know of who read the Bible. God provided a rich heritage and some great memories.

One Negative Thing

 The only negative . . .

thing I can say about Pop: he was a bigot. I remember some terrible stories he told and comments about other peoples that made us laugh and wince at the same time. Grandpa had been in the Second World War, and there was a family rumor that he had even been a member of a very well known subversive group. All his names for Italians, Germans, Black People, Japanese, and more, were new to us. (Interesting fact: Grandpa's family had roots in Creole country.) Even at our young age, we found his comments embarrassing though in the privacy of our own home. Mother is the only reason I can give that none of Pop's theories influenced us. She never saw any differences in human beings. We just accepted it as how Pop was; that was not us. We all make excuses for those we love.

 

I never knew him to go to church but for one of my weddings and his funeral. I never knew him to read the Bible or heard him say a prayer. To his credit, he never spoke against Christianity, though he had his own definite opinion of other religious sects. I can attest to him as a believer. I remember an occasional mention of God, or heaven when he talked to us. It was always matter-of-fact as though that is just the way it is; God is God and He is. 

 

> > > > > You do not have to be a saint for God to use you. < < < < <

 

Let me interject right here that I do not remember grace being said at our daily meal. A short blessing was given at large family gatherings on holidays. My husband and I do not begin a meal without thanks for and blessing on our food, at home or in public.

 

I adored my grandfather. Every time he left the house, I needed to go with him. I was his shadow, taking three steps to every single stride of his long gait. I hung on his every word and believed every story he ever told. He never took anything for himself and gave everything he had to Mother. His undershirts were riddled with holes and he went barefoot all summer. He wore white painters' pants that were spotted with a rainbow of color blotches. In just a couple years, he would save my sister and I from the greatest terror of our young lives.

 

Jerry and Pop were never as close as either would have liked but Jerry respected him. I remember comments my brother made as an adult; always with great respect and admiration for Pop.

 

 

 

What all of us learned and received from this man cannot be priced in any way. The wisdom he taught and the laughter he injected cannot be measured. I could tell stories for days from memories I would not give up for any prize. He lives on in our memories and through our lives. It broke my heart, years later, when he had to be admitted to a veteran's nursing home and this old man cried for me to take him home with me. (I find myself in tears just at this writing.) He died there from his third stroke - or giving up. I am so sorry, Pop.

 

There is no death, only a change of worlds. . . 

Chief Seattle, Duwamish Indian.

 

* This continuing story begins with the post on Dec. 30, 2024

See "Entertaining Angels Unaware"

More About Pop

STORY: There was a winter when Mother could not pay the gas bill for our three-story Victorian house. Pop put a door on the kitchen and turned on the electric stove to use the oven for heat. We heated water on the stove and washed in the sink. We ate, dressed and did our homework in that one room. At night, we scurried to a large bed upstairs, where the three of us kids pooled our blankets and shared the warmth.

Pop hated cards. He said that people always fight over cards and have even killed each other. Occasionally, we would get a deck of cards from the dime store to play games like fish and gin rummy. He allowed it until we started arguing over who was cheating - always my brother. Then he grabbed the cards and into the trash they went - until another deck came our way.

 

STORY: A couple boys had Jerry just outside our yard and were taunting him. He must have been nine or ten years old. Pop, Karen and I were watching from behind curtain at the kitchen window as they placed a stick on my Brother's shoulder and knocked it off. He was confused and humiliated and I felt so bad for him, but Pop would not intervene. When they were finished bullying, Jerry came in the house and Pop made it clear to him that if that ever happened again Jerry would get the whipping of his young life. Pop never made idle threats and Jerry knew it. A few months later, my brother came in holding one hand in the other. Grandfather stopped him in the kitchen and wanted to know what was going on. That's when my brother fearfully revealed his hand with two knuckles out of place. Pop pulled on his fingers to reset them while asking how it happened. Jerry had a disagreement with his best friend and had punched him. Pop was so proud, and my brother did not let anyone bully him from that day on. Oh yeah, he and Charlie remained best friends through the Vietnam war.

 

Pop told us he knew everything we said and did. He had eyes in the back of his head was how he put it. We believed it because - he did! It took me some time to realize that he spied on us at play. He would amuse himself by sitting around the corner and listening to us. He heard if we said a bad word, if we cheated at a game, what we argued about and learned all about each of us as individuals. He also used shiny surfaces to see us when his back was turned. Nothing got past that old man and we thought he was magic. 

 

Jerry, around age 12 - 13

 

STORY: About the age of eleven or twelve, my brother's friendship with Charlie had grown. Charlie had a father who smoked cigars and would drink himself to sleep on a weekend. After the household had retired for the night, my brother would climb out his bedroom window, down the drain pipe of the back porch, and go to Charlie's house where the two of them would wait for Charlie's "old man" to fall asleep (pass out). Once this was done, my brother and his friend would finish the whiskey and smoke the cigars. In the early morning hours, my brother would sneak back into the house by way of the old coal delivery door in the cellar. Pop became aware of pretty much all of this. On one of these occasions - I believe the last one - Pop waited for midnight and went to the basement to wait at the door of the coal chute. When Jerry came in, feet first, Pop grabbed his ankles and scared my brother so bad that he peed his pants and baptized Pop in the process. (It was a sprinkle baptism.) Of course, Pop let go and Jerry ran. In the morning, Pop found my brother asleep on the cold concrete of the front porch. He opened the door and Jerry came in - very sheepishly I might add. There was never a word said about the matter. My brother stopped sneaking out at night.

 

God must have blessed Pop for all he did for us, Mother and those to whom he shared the wisdom of Solomon before and after us. We became his life during that time; a kind of mission. The teachings and constant attention cannot be measured by mere love. Pop was God sent.

* This continuing story begins with the post on Dec. 30, 2024

No One Messed With His Grandkids

 And . . . no one messed with his grandkids.

STORY: During the time Pop had the pizza shop, we (Pop's grandkids) received a threat from a customer he refused to serve, when the man came in drunk. Every morning, Pop would walk us to school and came back in the afternoon to walk us home, carrying either his double-barrel shotgun, that put food on our table, or the two handle pizza blade that resembled a square machete - a very large one. This was open carry before open carry in a state that does not have that law. Pop really didn't care. In our neighborhood, word spread through stunned parents and children alike, the Kenner kids had a guardian angel. 

 

STORY: In previous text, I mentioned that Mother could never spank my brother; everything she tried backfired by breaking. Pop had an issue with my brother and told Jerry to go to the yard to find a switch so Pop could spank him with it. When seven-year-old Jerry drug a very large tree limb to the door, Pop laughed so hard that my brother got a reprieve.

 

 

 

On holidays that Mother either worked or socialized with friends, we would stay up late and have a family party. New Year's Eve and Fourth of July were great times for this. Pop would play the spoons and we would dance. He taught us old folk songs like "The Ol' Oaken Bucket" and "The Erie Canal". There was always a treat that he acquired with some change he managed to save from grocery money; a soda, chips or candy.

 

When we were younger, he was constantly on us to pick up our toys. He particularly hated the ones left on the stairs. We turned a deaf ear, as children do. Sometimes it was just that we forgot. Sometimes, it was just being lazy. We got home from school one particular afternoon to find our toys in the yard and it was raining. "Leave 'em there", he said and that was all that was ever said about the matter. The rain ruined the toys and we never left them underfoot again. Period.

 

He preferred psychology to physical discipline whenever possible and it worked. Children need guidelines in order to feel secure. Indeed, decades later, I used the same psychology on a couple step children at the time. Actions do speak louder than words.

 

When we got sick and couldn't sleep, we knew we could wake Pop and he would sit with us in the kitchen over a glass of juice or tea to pass the time, rather than suffer alone. "Don't wake your mother. She has to get up for work." Many nights were spent at the kitchen table listening to his stories of childhood. Sometimes, he would have a candy bar stashed away just for this occasion.

* This is what our Lord does. When you spend time with Him, it is always a treat.

 

This time was mainly for my sister and me. Pop and my brother had difficulty relating as Jerry got older. Jerry had trouble coming to terms with not having a father. My brother, and his dog, spent his adolescent years in his room with model cars and motorcycle magazines. He didn't get along in school and became solitary until he quit at sixteen. Mother agreed, as long as he got a job. He did - and bought a motorcycle. At seventeen, she signed the permit papers for him to join the Marines.

 

Continued . . .

* This continuing story begins with the post on Dec. 30, 2024

Eyes In The Back of His Hiead

One more person I want to relate to you before my story moves on from innocent childhood, is my grandfather who has had a profound influence on me.

 
I instruct you in the way of wisdom; I lead you in courses of fairness. Pro. 4:11

Blessed are those who find wisdom. Pro. 3:13

 
When our father left, we moved to the inner-city neighborhood I have previously mentioned. That is when Mother's father moved in. He practiced tough love, practical thinking and common sense. I was eight years old, headstrong and a bit spoiled. I had been "Daddy's girl" and put a lot of misplaced blame on my mother for him being gone. Children cannot understand the nuances of adult relationships in their small, self-centered worlds. I harbored some resentment for Grandfather in the place of male role model. 

He had moved in to tend to us while Mother worked. This man took on cooking and tending his three grandchildren while Mother earned a living for us. This created a form of role reversal in our home. This was a good lesson that just because you are born into male or female gender does not mean you can't take on roles related to, or competing with the other gender. I grew up with this as a fact of life. 

 
Everyone came to call him "Pop". He was respected by everyone who knew him. Whether you liked him or not, you respected him. His word was his bond. He looked you straight in the eye and shook your hand firmly. He was six foot in bare feet with massive hands, straight black hair and a hook nose. He was always squinting from the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. Oh yeah, he had a firm protruding belly you could set a tray on but you could not call him "fat".

 
He was a retired house painter and was the first person to instruct me about primary colors and how to mix them. By the time I was ten, I could run a chalk line and cut a baseboard with the best of them. I took pride in being neat and never needed a drop cloth if there was a brush in my hand. To this day, I have the neatest art studio I have ever seen.

Pop was indeed an "angel in disguise". He saved all of us from lives misspent. No telling what Mother would have done without him. He served God by serving his children and their children. Before and after helping us, he had and did live with aunts and uncles helping them in much the same way. I don't know that he owned a Bible, but he never spoke irreverently about God and he did speak of Him.

 
STORY: Pop teaching himself to make pie dough is a memory that comes to mind. I don't remember if he had a recipe but that dough got the best of him for a long time before he finally mastered it. He would knead it and roll it, and it would fall apart. He would knead it again and again and it would fall apart again - or fall apart while he was rolling it out. I saw him, on more than one occasion, throw that dough across the kitchen. It would fall to the floor and he picked it up and rolled it again. "The heat will kill the germs," he said. That is what he always said when he was cooking. He hated waste - with a passion. Later, he taught himself to make bread dough that seemed to be easier for him - he didn't have to use that rolling pin.

 
I remember that he would eat anything, like cooked dandelion greens with fat back, fried mountain oysters and was very fond of sopping bread in bacon grease for calf brain sandwiches. Uugghh! No matter what was shot during hunting season or caught from the lake in the summer, we ate it. He detested waste.

 
He was self taught with the spoons, fiddle and harmonica. In deed, a great role model for being "self taught". He could cipher like a mathematician. He liked beer, occasional cheap wine and drank more as he got older. Pop had high blood pressure - no wonder. I wonder if the alcohol helped cut the cholesterol in his blood to be the only reason he lived as long as he did. 

Photos are Author, Brother Jerry, Sister Karen 
Circa: 1955 

 
This man put food on our table, turned all his pension income over to my mother, planted a vegetable garden, cultivated our grape vine and peach tree to make juice and jelly, brewed home made beer, canned, hunted and fished to put meat on our table. I remember picking buckshot out of rabbit and squirrel during supper. He taught us how to gig a frog, fish with a cane pole and gather mushrooms. He canned and fished in summer and hunted in winter. For several years, he opened a neighborhood pizza shop with pinball games and sub sandwiches. He mastered bread dough but gave up on pies.

 
To be continued . . . .

 This autobiography begins with "An Ordinary Childhood" posted Dec. 30, 2024

 

A Small Family Unit

> The barrel chested father of my mother was a great mentor.

He taught me how to cook, "cypher" and run a chalk line. He spent many years as a professional painter and took pride in his work, often pointing out public buildings that he worked on. "Hold your head up and stick your chest out. You are as good as anyone else" was a constant part of his stern teachings; I adored him. He has been a huge influence on me. This man was undeniable evidence of God in my life.

 

 

 

As far back as I can remember (age 4 or 5), I talked to God. Before Mother sent me to Sunday school, I talked to God. Memories are clear of looking up at stars and talking to Him. I have no recollection of why other than it must have come from my mother. There have been times in my life when I felt lonely but never have I felt alone; there is a constant presence.

 

I often wonder if it wasn't because I was first born. The Bible defines special blessings for first born children. God says, "The first born of every womb is mine", "they belong to me". Parents are to dedicate their children to God (for His particular care throughout their lives) with special emphasis on first born. It's like offering the first of the flock for sacrifice, or tithe. With all God provides for us, this is all He asks - a small part. Jesus was "first born among many" and the supreme sacrifice. Samuel's mother, Hannah, gave her first born to become one of the greatest prophets to anoint the first God ordained king of Israel, David. I believe God has special work for "His" first born. I am not talking about favoritism, just singled out with a special purpose. Just a thought.

 

My brother, Jerry, was only eighteen months younger and we were as close as twins. I am ashamed to admit we left my poor sister, Karen, five years my junior, on her own other than torment from us. She did rebel with jealousy and "tattling" on our mischief. It is a wonder she survived the two of us or that she even grew up liking us. This serves as a testimony to her beautiful nature.

 

 

We were not to wander beyond our own yard after school unless on an errand to the corner grocery, so we became a tight family unit. Gradually, Mother distanced herself from her siblings - all but her favorite brother, who lived next door with his wife and six children. There were frequent visits from a sister who would come to cry on Mother's shoulder about her abusive husband. Early on, I do remember Thanksgiving and Christmas at our house with meals conducted in shifts so everyone got fed. There were lots of cousins, food, conversation and football games on the television. This stopped when it became too much for a single working mom to provide.

Mother Struggled

Mother struggled:

to raise three children on tips and her less-than-minimum wage. At that time, a waitress salary was not required to be up to minimum pay standards because of monetary tips that came with the job. Unlike today when the gratuity is figured into your bill to assure you pay for services rendered - or not, which can encourage laziness and a disregard on the part of your "server". Mother took pride in hard work and a job well done. I am certain she was excellent at her profession.

> As a child, I frequently wrote to my father with never an answer. I would literally beg him to attend dance recitals and school functions. He never came. Memories flood back to mind of standing behind a stage curtain and peering out at the audience to scan the crowd for his face. I just swallowed the disappointment of a little girl seeking the attention of her adoring "daddy". That undefinable bond that develops between a father and daughter that can not be duplicated with any other man in her life time; that relationship that sets the standard for men for the rest of a woman's life. A certain yearning has remained with me for most of my adult life; a small empty place inside never filled. That special indescribable relationship between father and daughter never happened for me.

> Fathers everywhere should be made to understand the affect they have on their children. I never shared my deepest disappointments with anyone; just swallowed them down deep and struggled with controlling my growing need. 

 

Father

> Dance lessons and my first dream of "what do you want to be when you grow up?" (answer: a prima ballerina), died when my skills advanced beyond mother's income. Any advancement was out of the question. Mother couldn't drive, we did not have a car, no money for travel, costumes or advance training. This was another disappointment to be swallowed that God would replace with an obsession in a few years.

> A prominent childhood memory is searching the sofa many times to find hidden coins for a loaf of bread and some milk. There was always something to eat even if it was just soup beans and fatback. There was a time when Mother had surgery, then months recuperating and searching for a new job. She applied to the state for Aid To Dependent Children. This was before food stamps. Once each month, she would walk with a neighbor friend, pulling a little red wagon to the fairgrounds to pick up her commodities. She was so embarrassed that she would try to hide under a head scarf. That winter, the heat bill did not get paid and I don't know what we would have done without the ingenuity of Grandfather.

> Lest this story take on a morbid twist, let me state here we were never given to self-pity. Mother often explained that no matter how bad off it got, there was always someone in lesser circumstances. Besides, Grandfather always had a childhood story available of how he had it worse: trudging through three feet of snow, barefoot, for five miles uphill - both ways, into forty-mile-an-hour winds and drifts as high as barns, to the one-room schoolhouse with a coal stove for heat. When Grandfather finished talking, we thought we were rich.

 

*  This "Book Blog" begins with my first posting on Dec. 30, if you would like to follow this story from it's beginning.  This biography is on going until the finish of the book.