Third Grade Easter Break

Since I will be traveling tomorrow I decided that today I would write about my first time trip that consisted of me flying for the first time.  I was in third grade so I am guessing that I was about eight years old and my family decided that we would travel to Florida to visit Walt Disney World.  Usually we would take the trailer pop up tent to some camp ground somewhere along the upper east coast, but that Easter break my mom thought it would be great to go to Disney World and dad reluctantly agreed.

First thing that I remembered was my mom coming into my classroom to take me out early.  I must have been the last to be picked up since my brother and sister were already in the old white station wagon as well as our luggage. 

Being that this memory is well over thirty years old, it is totally understood that there is much that I don’t remember.  So this is going to be like Swiss cheese, with lots of missing spots.  The next thing I remember is being at Newark Airport and looking out the large window at the planes lined up.  I can remember my brother bouncing all over the place and how excited he was, and then I remember waking up at the Howard Johnson’s motel the next morning.  The reason for the huge gap in that memory was the fact that I fell asleep in the chair at the airport and didn’t even wake up until the next morning.  For years I have been told how great it was that I slept the whole time and how worried my parents were about the air pressure and my ears.

There are only a couple of memories of being there that I remember and that is an elephant ride and the smell of rental car and swimming at the pool of the motel.  I know you would figure that something in Walt Disney would stand out in my mind more, but honestly the most important thing I remember was a sense of pure peace.  Being that there really weren’t that many times in my life that gave me that sort of feeling it was a big enough deal to stand out in my mind.  I remember sitting by the pooh with an orange juice in a container that looked like an orange and watching as my family swam around in the pool with smiles.

As I search my brain right now, I believe it was the only time in my early life that everyone had a true smile on their face at the same time.  It ended as soon as we entered the airport in Florida and it never returned.  I remember asking my parents if we could go back many times and I know that they thought I loved the theme park so much that I felt as though we had to go back, but what they didn’t know was that I wanted to feel at peace again.  

On the return flight I did the same as I did on the way out there, so I have no memory at all of flying or the excitement my brother experienced.  

Funny thing is that when I visited my mother for the first time when she moved to Florida she made sure that me and my four year old son spent a day at Disney.  That feeling was not there and in fact it was so stressful that I could not even enjoy watching my son at his first experience of that park.  I guess too many years and too many differences had crept in between my mother and me to have that feeling again.  I am just thankful that my son had no idea the amount of strain between my mother and me.  

The picture at the top of the blog is of me the summer after we went to Florida.  It was taken at my uncle’s house in Schenectady, NY.  Well that is it. Take care.

Drunk Grandmother

Next month I have to travel to Florida to say my final good-byes to my mother, and being since I have to go and do that, I decided that I would share a memory of a time I had with my mother.  I will start of by saying that this is not going to be peaches and cream type of memory.  The reason for this is that I really don’t have any with her like that.  We were never particularly close and in fact I don’t have that kind of mother and daughter relationship with her.  Alright so here goes…

In November of 1990 I gave birth to my son.  At that time my grandmother was living in Florida, but she just happened to be visiting New Jersey for a short spell.  I am thinking that maybe my son was aware of this and decided to come along two days early from his due date.  Anyways, I call my mom and let her know that I gave birth to him and that since Gram was going to be going back shortly thereafter, I asked mom to please Gram to the hospital that very next day.  Back when my son was born, the hospitals only gave two times during the day for visiting hours, because the babies came out and having too many people around could bring diseases to the babies. 

Anyways when the first visiting hours came, I waited with anticipation to show my son off to my Gram.  The first visiting hours came and went and still no Gram.  At that point I was not worried at all, because I knew there was still one more visiting hour before Gram had to return back to Florida.  I just figured that my mom had something she had to do for work and would bring Gram in the evening.  I had called Gram to make sure though that mom was still planning on coming and Gram had confirmed what I figured.  I could tell from Gram that she was ultra excited about seeing the baby and me as well.  We talked for quite a while and she shared her experiences with bringing babies home from the hospital.  I loved when Gram shared her stories.

That evening my sister arrived for the second time along with my son’s father’s family.  My sister Tammy was so excited to see a new addition to the family and the only grandchild of my parents.  Tammy made sure she visited each and every visiting hours, but her reason for this visit was to see my Gram as well.  After my son’s father’s family left and Tammy still remained she could tell that I was getting nervous that mom would not show since there was only a short time before visiting hours were over.  She asked my son’s father to get something just so he would leave the room.

Tammy told me that she was sorry that yet again mom had failed to do what she said she was going to do and that I should know that Gram was super excited about my son’s birth and not to worry about Gram missing seeing him.  I am not a crier, but anyone who knows about hormones after giving birth, knows that I had lots of them and began to cry.  When the nurse came in and told my sister that she needed to leave, she gave me hug and told me that she loved me and would see me the next day.

My son’s father returned to see me alone and the nurse brought in my son for a feeding.  About a half hour later, my son’s father and I are engrossed in caring for my newborn son, when in walks my mother with my Gram.  I am not sure how they were able to get past the nurse’s station but somehow they did.  Within a minute I could smell the alcohol on my mother and could tell by her excited personality that she had well then enough alcohol to be considered drunk.  I could also see the concern in my Gram’s eyes that she was worried about my mom as well. 

Gram tried to make the best out of the situation and was happy to actually get a chance to touch the baby and tell me how very cute he was.  Mom tried to touch my son, but I kept him to me and Gram.  When the nurse came in she was astounded that mom got in and then when she asked mom and Gram to leave, mom said that he was her grandson and she was not going to leave.  I could not believe that she was about to pick a fight with the nurse.  All I could do was give her a look like I am so sorry.  Gram was the one who gave me a kiss and grabbed my mom by the elbow and escorted her out the door.  All the way out you could hear my mother saying how it was unfair that she could not stay any longer.

Because my Gram felt bad about the situation, she decided that she would change her flight plans and stay a few extra days and visit me and my son in our apartment, and again my mother showed up drunk, as she also did when she brought a family friend to my apartment as well.

Since I was a teenager, my mother was aware of how I felt about people who make that decision to drink and drive and even though I was mad about how she was in the hospital, I was even more mad about the fact that she decided that it was ok to drink and drive with my Gram in the car.  Through the years, my mother and my father have had issues with drinking and I have learned to accept that.  What I always found the most difficult to deal with was their complete disregard to the dangers of drinking and driving.  

Well that is the memory for today and the picture is of my son in the hospital a day after he was born.

All I Want for Christmas…

With Thanksgiving done now I could not help but write about a Thanksgiving that my Gram and Gramp stayed at our house for a couple of nights.  I am not going to actually talk about their stay, but I am going to talk about the first time they thought they were getting ready to leave our home in Hillsborough, NJ to go back to their home in Staten Island, NY.

I was I guess about seven.  It was the day after Thanksgiving and Dad and Gramp had just gotten done loading up Gramp’s car.  Everyone was outside, because that is what we always did when Gram and Gramp were heading out.  I remember that the weather was much like it is today, nice and clear and warm enough to not have to wear a jacket.

Having grown up with a lot of various fruit trees and bushes around, we knew that if we wanted a snack it had to come from those spots.  We had baskets full off apples in the garage and I had just grabbed one and walked to the door of the garage to give Gram and Gramp a hug good bye.  I stood next to my mom and my sister was on the other side of me. Dad was helping Gram in the car and my brother was in front of the car grabbing rocks and sending them sailing in the air with a tennis racket. 

Over the course of a week or so, I noticed that my two front teeth were getting loose just as my bottom ones had, and didn’t make a big deal about it, so no one in the family knew about it.  As I am watching everything around me, I take a bite of the apple and felt something strange, so I stopped biting and took the apple out of my mouth, and sure enough, there in the apple, were my two loose front teeth.  I am guessing that mom had looked down at that point and noticed what I did.  She let out a loud OMG and that stopped everyone.

Gram came running thinking that I was hurt and started laughing as she noticed what happened.  By this time, Dad was checking inside my mouth to make sure I was ok. Dad was always the one to make sure we survived our falls and trips, with a diligent of a detailed artist. 

Before I knew what was going on, Gramp started bringing in the stuff he just loaded into the car.  He was shaking his head as he laughed.  I asked him why he was doing that and he just said something about how could they leave now knowing that there was going to be a visitor that night.  

Now as an adult I understand why Gram and Gramp decided to stay.  That next morning I found a silver dollar under my pillow.  Yes back then it was like hitting pay dirt in the tooth fairy world.  My usual take was a quarter.  I know that in Gramps mind, he knew at that moment that the silver dollar he always carried was going to find a new home.  I really wish I had kept it, but being a young kid, there were other things to do with a silver dollar then to leave it alone.  

Of course I had to endlessly hear that Christmas tune about all Susie wants for Christmas is her two front teeth.  It was fun though.  Such innocent times. 

Old Shack in Hillsborough, NJ

From time to time you will read about my childhood and the picture above is one of the areas that I lived.  I have a lot of memories from that house (middle one in the picture). We were surrounded by much woods and fields that belonged to Doris Duke.  Today I am going to talk about the small rail road shack that was located to the left of my house.  I know you can’t see it from the picture and honestly I can’t find it when I blow it up, so it must be gone. The rail road track that was near the old shack was never used and I assume it was closed off by the time I lived there in the 70’s. 

Just a little bit of information that you have to know to understand the memory is that we lived on a street that consisted of only about seven kids my age at the time.  There were of course the kids that came and went, like any neighborhood, but for the most part there were seven of us that were always together.

On this day there were just me, my brother, two sisters that lived next door to me on the left, and their little brother.  We had often spent much time in the field across from our houses, but his one day we decided to see if we could find something new and we did.

As we walked up the street, one of the sisters pointed to something that we saw before, but never did we try and get to it, because there was a dirty pond that we would have to cross.  It was a spring afternoon, had to be a weekend, since we were out in our play clothes since the sun came up.

You know I think about it now and realize that I had no fear about snakes and mice or anything of that nature back then.  Funny how learned behavior falls upon you.  Today I have a real fear of small critters and how back than I didn’t.

Anyways we made it over there and the first thing we saw was all the coal that was in the back of the building.  The oldest sister, who was three years older than me, gave us all a lesson about how back in the day, people used coal to heat their homes and how dirty it was.  She also went on to explain something about diamonds or something.  I don’t really remember, because at that point I was helping her younger sister try to find the perfect one to add to her rock collection.

We took quite a while looking all around the small shack looking for treasures, little did we know that the real treasures were actually inside of the shack.  I remember that the shack had a strong mildew smell to it.  At that age, I am guessing around eight or so, I understood time and dates and years.  The only thing we saw in the shack were papers all over the place and we almost left because of the smell, before we even looked at the papers.  My brother, who didn’t care about the dampness and dirtiness of the papers, grabbed one and looked at it.  He stopped us and told us that he didn’t know much but he could tell that these papers were quite old.

This new information stopped the older sister dead in her tracks.  She went over to my brother and looked at the document and told us that they were a hundred years old.  I was like wow that was older than my gram.  Which in a kid’s eye that was way old.

We started to tear through the documents that were wet and full of mildew and saw that at one time that little shack saw a lot of business. I remember that it started to get dark and we had to go.

For the most part that is the end of that memory, but I do know that from that day until my family moved away, us kids were on a mission to find as much old stuff as we could all around.  We did find bottles and things, but never did anything about it.  If that was today, I know I would have brought some of those documents out of the shack and some of the bottles as well.  I think the only thing we did take with us from that excursion was the final lump of coal that the younger sister added to her rock collection.

But now that shack is gone as well as the tracks next to it.  So I have my memory to share with others. 

Colorado 1984

I chose to talk about my trip to Colorado because of the picture I put at the top of this blog.  That picture was taken on the train ride up to Pike’s Peak.  I didn’t know that my mother was taken that picture and didn’t even find out until she had her photos printed.  I know by looking at the picture that I was in my own little world at that moment, most likely looking at the goats on the mountains, since that is the only thing I remember about the ride up or down.

Ok so what do I remember from my trip up there.  There are many things really but the one thing that does stand out in my mind is of my grandmother.  She was with us on the trip and let’s just say, she made the trip more enjoyable, for me at least.

One morning gram was having issues with her bowel movements and needed to get something for it.  Mom was annoyed and took her time getting something for her.  Gram seemed to get on my mother’s nerves quite often, hence the reason I said that gram was what made the trip more enjoyable, at least for me anyways.

So we go to a restaurant and eat and gram is still complaining, so mom takes her to the drug store where she can buy Pepto.  They bag her Pepto in a small brown paper bag.  We get outside and gram takes off the top of the Pepto, still leaving the bottle fully covered, and takes a swig as if she is drinking whiskey or something like that.  That is funny on its own if you were there, you know seeing an older lady taking a long swig from a bottle in a brown paper bag. What made this even funnier though was after she was done, she had a pink ring around her mouth.  Guess you had to be there.

I think another thing I should add to this short story is the fact that my mother was all about appearance.  She was constantly worried about how other people perceived her and the people with her.  Me on the other hand, didn’t give two s&*ts about what others thought.  I did however laugh to myself whenever my mother got embarrassed from things that were not worth getting embarrassed about.  Actually for the most part, no one cared about what we were doing.

As far as the rest of the vacation went, I remember that I loved the scenery of both Colorado Springs and the other area we had visited.  I remember I really enjoyed the long drive from one place to the other, because of the view.  I remember also wanting to leave New Jersey and move there as soon as I could.

I will try to post a picture with my blogs, but today there is no need since I have the one at the top to go with this one.