Alone

I'm a bit surprised about how little I've been inclined to say about my mom during the years in Havertown. As I've mentioned - she had a hysterectomy shortly after we got there and she was on meds for years afterward. She was irritable and stressed most of the time - and she honestly wasn't that much fun to be around - she wasn't 'herself'...
She still played the piano and sang occasionally, and I really enjoyed that (as long as it wasn't "Aida"). And my parents still entertained quite often - to the rest of the world they still appeared to be the perfect couple. They were great at putting up a front...

And I have to admit that I was fortunate to be the male child. Despite my mom's fiery disposition she was deeply vested in traditional gender roles and my sister bore the brunt of her expectations. Mom was constantly lecturing her about what she needed to do to get a "decent man". (Ironic since mom had 3 highly volatile and failed marriages...)
So when we could no longer afford the maid my sister got stuck with a lot of the cooking and cleaning. It was not a role she relished, but she did it (grudgingly). Of course, I wasn't expected to do much of anything - I was a male :-)

My sister amused herself by writing up menus for the suppers she fixed - there weren't really any selections - she just listed the courses. And she put food coloring in almost everything (e.g. blue mashed potatoes, green milk). But I guess it kept her from 'losing it'. And her lunch specialty was what she called "Tahiti" - a big mound of instant mashed potatoes in a bowl of onion soup...
Even when money was tight we never skimped on food. Mom only bought nationally advertised brands of canned and frozen foods - and all our meat and dairy products came from "Farmer Rush". He was a "modern Mennonite" who came around periodically in a Ford Econoline van selling farm goods. The stuff was amazingly good - it was all organic. Of course, this was decades before anyone knew what "organic" was. But I digress :-)

The topic I'm (very slowly) working around to is that there were occasions when I felt very much alone... As I got older it became increasingly clear that I just didn't think or feel like other people did - I didn't 'get' them and they didn't 'get' me. (My wife thinks it was/is Asperger's.)
And as the family's problems started consuming everyone's attention nobody stopped to wonder how I was doing... My sister got a lot of attention because she acted out. But I would just sneak off to one of the rooms on the 3rd floor and stare out the window wondering why I was different... and feeling quite isolated... That's one of the strange ironies of my life: I can't stand being alone yet I feel uneasy and out of place in social settings. I like to be around people but not necessarily with them :-)
But sadness wasn't a 'constant' thing. I've always been easily amused :-) I'd spend hours bouncing a tennis ball off the side of the house. Or I'd sort through my baseball cards. Or ride my bike. Or listen to my Beach Boys albums. Or play with my trains. Or label things - my Christmas present in 1963 was a Dymo label maker (embossed tape). It was one of my most prized possessions - I still have it :-)

And there's lots of little things I haven't talked about - like how Bozo the retriever would run upstairs and wake either my sister or I upon my mom's command. And how I used to put my clothes on the radiator near my bed on cold nights so they'd be warm in the morning. And how much I hated those high end restaurants with lighting so dim you couldn't see what you were eating except when the waiters set it on fire... And the time Bozo ate a pack of cigarettes and spent the next 2 days licking the living room carpet. (Trying to get the taste off his tongue?) And Lou Bradfield's "astronaut ant" game - it was "mix vinegar and baking soda to shoot the cork out of a bottle" except he taped an ant to the cork first :-)

OK - but I really have to mention the china cabinet:
Mom bought it for $10 at an antique barn out in the country. It was painted bright pink but the trim and glasswork made her suspicious that it was a 'high quality' piece... And she was right. She spent weeks laboriously stripping the paint (there were at least 5 layers) to expose some exquisite cherrywood inlay work. Everyone who saw it was amazed by it. She was quite proud of it and wondered why anyone would have painted something that beautiful in the first place...

I think dad sold after we left for Germany - it was rather valuable. Regardless, it was among the many things I never saw again...