A Definite Difference in Delsey

     In my toddler days, we had a black and white television which got only three channels. I was not allowed to watch TV whenever I wanted, but I was an avid viewer whenever the television was on. Mom would say that I was spellbound in front of the original Mickey Mouse Club show – I sang all the songs along with the Mouseketeers and shouted out their names.

     And the television commercials! Mom said I knew the words to all the ads and sang along to all the ditties. She said that often if she walked into my room after I had been put to bed at night, she would hear, in the dark, a little voice doing the song from a toilet paper commercial - “there's a definite difference in Delsey” - and the voice would have all the earnestness in it that you can imagine!

     I don't remember doing this, but I can see Mom sitting at the table with a cup of tea, a little smile on her face, imitating my little child voice and singing “there's a definite difference in Delsey,” as she told the story. And that is a very nice memory to have!

Honorable Mention - oh yeah!

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Common Sense 1

     Every once in a while, my Dad would say that I was the child with no common sense. At first I took silent issue with the comment because any child of his would have to be brilliant in every way! But over the course of my long life and the reflections that come from putting personal stories together and scouring my mind for memories – certain examples of what Dad was talking about do come to mind.

     The earliest instance of what some might not so generously refer to as a lack of common sense, or what I would say merely typifies my special logic- is an anecdote from my Mom. I was about toddler age. At the lunch table one day I was whining about the food I had been given to eat. Mom, being a Mom, told me that I had to eat. And me, being me, did not eat.

     Then Mom made her tactical error, but how could she have known? She told me that if I did not eat my lunch, I would have to sit at the table until dinner.

     To me, that was quite acceptable.

     And so I sat at the table, much to Mom's mortification, until Dad came home and they both sat down to dinner, with me.

the real me

     When I heard the story from Mom years later, she was still mystified that I could have emboldened myself to such disobedience. But I understood my younger self – I am sure I did not feel like I was being stubborn or defiant – I merely thought I was being offered a do-able alternative. Why would a parent be upset about that?

     Oh, I guess that's what Dad meant.

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First Confession Part 1

     On Saturday mornings, when I was in second grade and seven years old, I got in the car with my Mom, and we rode to Hamburg, the town next to North Boston. She let me off at the corner of Main Street and Pine – and then she drove away! On that corner is St. Peter and St. Paul Catholic Church which includes a two story school building. It was there that the public school kids received religious instruction in preparation for our First Holy Communion which would be the next May. The class was led by a nun – I do not remember her name now – she was a non-stereotypically-stern-yet-not-so-particularly-nurturing nun who I realize now was probably merely the person who got the short straw and had to teach Saturday class that year. She's the one who told us we each had a soul – an invisible organ in our bodies in the shape of a pie with a piece taken out that would get more and more impure with each sin that we committed. We were required to memorize catechism, prayers, and the 10 Commandments.

First Communion Day - the one on the right is me

     Before we could take First Holy Communion, we would have to make our souls pure again – after all, they had seven years' worth of sins upon them. And we had to prepare for our First Holy Confession! About a week before First Communion, each of us would have to go into the confessional and tell the priest all of the sins we had committed up to that point in our lives. Then we would be required to ask for forgiveness, say the Act of Contrition, and then do the penance that the priest might ask, usually a few Hail Marys. After that, our souls would be clean again and ready for Communion – that is, if we did not sin again in between confession and Communion.

     So the nun told us to be getting a list ready of all of our sins so we could report them to the priest. Well, I thought all sins were encompassed in the the Ten Commandments. If you disobeyed one of the Commandments, that was a sin. And of the list of 10, for a kid like me, 7 of the sins could be crossed off right away: I did not worship false gods, and Dad took us to church every Sunday; I did not steal, murder, adulterate, or covet spouses or things. And that just left 3 sins: lying, disobeying one's parents, and saying the Lord's name in vain.

     Let me tell you, I was totally stressed over the lying and disobeying – not that I was someone who lied or disobeyed on a daily basis – but, you know, over the course of 7 years, things did start to add up. And I was worried that God wanted an accurate count – and I did not have an exact figure. How could my soul get pure again if I could not confess the precise number of times I had committed each sin? I mean, I know God would know the exact number – was I really required to get the count right? I was beginning to panic – after all, if my confession was not perfect, then my soul would not be pure and taking Communion with a soiled soul would be another sin and I would have to go to confession again before going to Communion again and how could I ask my parents to take me to confession without them asking what I had done wrong, and oh my gosh!

     I have come to realize, lo these many years later, that the only sin being committed here is by the adults who force seven-year-olds to go through all of this in the first place!

     It was around this time that I heard my Dad telling other relatives the story of my trying to light a match on the beach in Evangola when I was two years old and when I couldn't get it lit I yelled “Jesus Christ”! Oh no! I had said the Lord's name in vain? I did not remember this! Was I expected to confess to sins I could not remember? I decided to add to my confession that I said the Lord's name in vain one tim     But what if I had said it more than once? God knew, but I sure didn't.

     I desperately wanted to ask someone about all this – did God want me to give an exact number of times the sins were committed ? But asking the nun or my parents or any other adult would have just invited them to demand that I elaborate on the specifics of the sins rather than answering my question. And I was afraid to ask fellow classmates how they were going to handle the situation because they might answer that they themselves had never ever lied or disobeyed! And that would be even more humiliating for me. 

     So I stressed in silence, and hoped that God would be okay with “ballpark” figures for how many times I had committed each sin in my seven years of existence.

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Evangola at Two

     Here is a story I overheard my Dad tell about me one time – it is not an incident I had remembered at all. It must have been the summer of '55 because neither of my brothers had been born as yet. So I was just under two years old. My parents wanted to go to the beach – this was Evangola State Park – a beautiful beach on the shore of Lake Erie, south of Buffalo and Hamburg.

     At one point during that afternoon, my folks wanted to go in the water without me. So they sat me on the blanket which was stretched out on their portion of the sand and instructed me to sit there and not move. I was not to get off of the blanket for any reason. They said that I would be able to see them at all times when they were in the water – but I was not to leave the blanket before they got back to me.

     Then they walked into the water, keeping their eyes on me at all times. I seemed to be sitting obediently, and Mom and Dad were quite pleased with themselves for having a child who followed instructions so well! They had as much fun in the water as they could considering they could not stop looking at me for even a moment.

     Finally Mom and Dad got out of the water and started walking back toward the blanket. Their satisfaction at having been able to have some fun in the water while their two-year-old stayed safe on the beach soon turned into a state of panic! The closer they got to the blanket I was on, the more into focus I became, and they saw what had been preoccupying me while they were in the water, and understandably, it scared the heck out of them.

I had an unlit cigarette hanging from my mouth! In my left hand was a pack of matches. In my right hand was a single match which I kept striking against the strip on the pack to light! I was unsuccessful with every strike of the match, and with every missed stroke, I yelled out “Jesus Christ!”

     That was the day my Folks realized they had to stop saying certain words in front of me if they did not want to hear me saying them also.

     It was a shock when I heard this story – because I could not recall ever hearing my parents say the Lord's name in vain, or otherwise cuss – and yet, it was obvious that my two-year-old self had gotten it from them!

from the photo album

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The Practice Kid

    Today's post is a stringing together of anecdotes my Mom used to tell about being pregnant with me. I am Jim and Mary's firstborn child. I am their Practice Kid. You know, like when you bake a batch of cookies, and the first tray goes into the oven, but the cookies might not turn out quite right – the cookies may be over- or under-cooked, or some ingredient is missing – and you compensate with the next tray of cookies in the oven, and the next batch comes out okay? That first batch might even get thrown in the garbage; or you might serve those cookies to guests with the disclaimer that they are the practice cookies. And so it is with the Practice Kid – the first child is maybe not quite right.
    Whenever I complained about being referred to as the Practice Kid, Mom or Dad would say, “Hey, we could have thrown you in the garbage!”

    (You might think my parents would have said they got better with practice and hence my brothers who came after me were all right – but the Folks couldn't resist taking the joke one step further - Mom used to say that when the second child and then the third child turned out to be practice kids too, she and Dad decided to stop practicing!)

    Mom was working the whole time she was pregnant with me. Every weekday morning she and Dad would drive from their house in the small town of North Boston, New York to Mom's parents' home in South Buffalo – my grandparents lived in the upper level of a duplex at 51 Dash Street. From there Dad would continue to his job in Cheektowaga while Mom walked to a bus stop and caught the bus to downtown Buffalo – to the Ellicott Square building where she worked as a legal secretary for patent attorneys.

     She was tired at work, and so Mom would sneak her sandwich at her desk around 11 o'clock every morning, and then at the regular lunch hour, noon, she would go to the ladies room where there was a chair, and Mom would sleep through the entire hour! (And now the mystique of the lounges in the ladies rooms everywhere has finally been exposed! – but really, it was merely a bare wooden chair that happened to be there – and Mom managed to catch a nap on it.)

     Mom did not have an obstetrician, but rather went to see the regular general practitioner that she and Dad had. He was in South Buffalo, and Mom went for pre-natal visits. At one point, the doctor said, “Mary, you have gained 20 pounds! That is too much! You will be so upset with yourself if you have to lose weight along with taking care of a newborn baby!” So he put Mom on a diet while she was pregnant!

     I think that every woman who has been pregnant in Buffalo during the month of July will swear that the July of her own pregnancy was the hottest in Buffalo history! And so it was the summer that Mom was pregnant with me! Picture now, if you will, what that July must have been like – Mom was seven months pregnant with her first child – commuting to work every day – exhausted, dieting, and dying from the insufferable heat!

     Well I was due on September 22^nd. And my folks were eager for me to get born on that exact date. In fact, they were kind of hoping I would be twins! You see there was a washer/dryer manufacturer having a special promotion that year to celebrate its anniversary – any couple giving birth to twins on September 22^nd would receive a free washer and dryer! Mom and Dad could have really used a washer and dryer! Alas, the day came and went, and I neither made my arrival nor was I twins. That was the first time I disappointed my parents, and I was not even born yet. And the washer and dryer had to wait for a few more years.

     Mom continued going to work past her due date. Seven days later, Dad dropped her off at 51 Dash Street and left for Cheektowaga. As Mom went into the house, she thought she might be in labor. My grandmother suggested Mom call the doctor and tell him what was going on. And the doctor said she should go to the hospital. So Mom had to call the place where Dad worked and have them look for Dad in the plant to give him the message that his wife needed to go to the hospital. Dad finally got back to Dash Street and went into the house to get Mom. My Grandmother followed them down the stairs and out to the driveway – she was almost as excited as they were – after all, her first grandchild was about to be born!

     When my grandmother got to the driveway, she noticed that one of the neighbors was spying on them, wondering what was going on. Granny turned to the neighbor and waved her arm toward Mom and Dad – Granny said, “The kids are off on their honeymoon!”

     Yes, this was the family I was getting born into!

     Once at the hospital, Dad was ushered to the waiting room around noon, and he was not communicated with again until after I was born.

     The doctor checked Mom and said that the labor was proceeding very slowly. He told the nurse to give an injection to speed things along. The nurse took issue with him - “if we give her a shot now, you will be coming back at midnight to deliver the baby; but if we wait until morning to give her the injection, you can come back tomorrow during the day.”

     “I am here for my patient, not for my convenience!” the doctor scolded the nurse (can you imagine all this going on in front of a 20 year old first-time mother in the midst of labor?), and the injection was administered. At 12:13am on September 30^th, I was born. Neither of my parents had ever held a baby in their arms before, neither had ever even babysat!  – but in spite of their lack of experience, I was put into their arms anyway. And I was even allowed to go home with them 8 days later which was the staying time for moms and newborns in the hospital back in those days.

A cherished 4-generation picture

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Learning to walk

     Three old men were sitting in the park one day just like they did every afternoon, and they were one-upping each other over who had the best memory.

     The first old man thought he had the contest won, “My memory is so great I can remember the priest sprinkling me with holy water the day of my baptism!”

     The second old man chortled and proclaimed “I can remember the doctor slapping my bottom at the moment of birth!”

     The third old man knew he would have to out-do the memory of the second old man's first breath, “Ha!” the third old man exclaimed, “I remember going to a picnic one day with my father.....and coming back with my mother!”

     Gosh, I hope that joke is not copyrighted or anything – I don't know where I first heard it or who to give credit for it – just understand that it is not an original joke of mine, and we will let it go at that

My Grandmother had my baby shoes bronzed!

     My own earliest memory is really just a flash of a moment – my mother's smiling face was looking at me; and then my father's smiling face was looking at me. From what I can figure of these two visions – I think I was learning to walk! Mom was at one end of the living room cheering me on as I stepped in her direction, and then after walking to her, I turned around and stepped in the direction of my cheering Dad at the other end of the living room! Of course, in my eyes, the living room was much bigger then – in reality, I would have only needed a few steps to get from parent to parent.

     It seems far fetched to think I have a memory going back all the way to the time I was only a year old – I do not have any other memories of that time. Yet, I'm fairly sure that is what I am seeing in that vision. It is a memory that has always been with me. Writing it down here now, however, it has made me realize that the earliest memory of my life is of my Mom and Dad each giving me a great big cheering, celebratory, approving, loving smile. I had never thought of it that way before – instead, I have spent my life thinking that I will never have their approval – and yet it has been there all along, from the very beginning!

Today they are used as bookends

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What does the buffalo say?

Some of the women of MAS - this is from the 2014 Christmas Party

Last year, in 2014, the women who usually go out to lunch on Administrators' Day at the lab where I work, did not go out on the actual Admins Day because one person was sick with strep throat and everyone else was too busy! It took several weeks to find a date when all of them could actually go to lunch together, and then they asked me to go along! They picked Ted's Montana Grill up 141 near 400.

   There were 7 of us at a round table – and some might say we were obnoxious, but others would be kinder and say we were merely having a boisterously good time. In the midst of stuffed crab-cakes and wondering, yeah, a cow says “moo”, but what does a buffalo say? we laughed a lot.  We laughed so hard, the waitress began to take it personally. But we weren't laughing at her, we were just making random buffalo noises!

     Back at the lab afterward, one co-worker mentioned how wonderful it is to work with such a group of women who can go out to lunch together and laugh to the point of tears streaming down our cheeks!

    That comment reminded me of a letter I got years ago from a dear friend. She had been dating and was between relationships when she wrote “I'm looking for someone who makes me laugh so hard I pee my pants!” And I thought at the time, indeed – those are the people we should be hanging around with – life is too short, really, to spend it any other way!

    Hang out with those who make you laugh so hard you cry - the peeing one's pants part is no longer a criterion – just about anything makes me pee my pants these days – a cough, a sneeze, a sudden movement. Peeing my pants? No. But laughing until I cry? Oh yeah.

     My friend has been married now for many years to a guy who still makes her laugh every day. Every so often I thank her via e-mail for the memory of the line in her letter from so long ago which became one of my rules to live by.  And I too have found and married  a guy who makes me laugh (a super great wonderful guy!). And at the lab, I am grateful to be able to work every day - with some of the finest folks I have ever known – especially the women - who make me laugh until I cry. Life is too short to spend it otherwise.....

      But I think we will stay away from Ted's Montana Grill for a while.