On Halloween, the year I turned twelve, I wanted to dress up like my favorite television character, Jeanie, from “I Dream of Jeanie.” Mom pulled out her silky, black pajamas, put my hair up in a bun and wrapped a scarf around my face. That year I was I was the hit of the neighborhood Halloween party.
Thanksgiving was always a special event in our home. We had no family living close to us and never saw my dad’s side of the family after the divorce. So, it was usually just my mom and the kids, although a few times whomever she was dating also joined us. The night before, Monica and I would peel and slice apples for homemade apple pie. Our mother also taught us how to make the flakiest homemade piecrust. Rubbing flour on our hands, we’d roll out the dough, plop it into a pie pan and pinch the edges. Afterwards, Mom would spruce up the house with bowls of apples, oranges, nuts, and even colorful turkeys made out of pinecones, felt, and construction paper.
Shouts could be heard throughout the house early at daybreak on Thanksgiving morning from Mom. “Come on kids, time to get up. The Macy’s Parade is about to start.”
It was an annual event. We loved sitting close to Mom on the couch, still dressed in our snuggly pajamas. When it was time to prepare the stuffing, and cook the turkey Monica and I were whisked away from the television to help out. My sister and I diced celery and onions while margarine slowly melted in a saucepan. After mixing it together and adding breadcrumbs we helped stuff the turkey, eagerly watching Mom sew it shut. It seemed like hours of chopping, mixing and baking. Mom always boiled the neck and innards to make the gravy. Monica and I would get a piece of the neck meat before the turkey was done since we helped prepare the meal. Nothing ever tasted so good.
I was always the one who was fortunate to mash the potatoes. We found the mixer but only succeeded in finding one of the beaters. So, year after year we had lumpy mashed potatoes but no one seemed to mind. Opening cans of black olives was amusing for my sister and me as we put olives on our fingertips and slipped them into our mouths while turning away from our mother’s watchful eyes. We made candied yams, sprinkled with brown sugar and topped with fluffy, white marshmallows. Dinner was almost ready: the potatoes were peeled and cooking, cranberries prepared, and the table was set; all we had to do was wait for the bird to finish baking.
Our mother always preferred we dress up for dinner Thanksgiving dinner. My sister and I put on dresses and the boys wore their best button-down shirts, while mom teased and sprayed her hair and applied her makeup. The scent of our delicious turkey filled the air, our mouths watered as we impatiently waited for our feast. We sat together at our fatherless table, said our catholic prayers, “Bless us oh Lord for these they gifts which we are about to receive,” Dishes clattered, forks dropped, food scooped up we couldn’t wait to cram our mouths full of our delicious meal. We always saved the tail for our mother it was her favorite part of the bird. ‘Don’t throw out the wishbone Mom would say.’ Two of us kids would each grab a hold and break it, whoever got the slightly longer half believed our wishes would come true. Mom would cover the food with a clean, white sheet and hours later we ate leftover turkey sandwiches and sweet, creamy pumpkin pie.
My earliest Christmas memory was the year I turned five and my dad and mom were still together. I desperately wanted a horse. I could not wait to visit Santa Claus so I could ask him for a pony of my own. After ripping open my packages early Christmas morning, I pushed open the front door and ran outside. With tears streaming down my face, I ran back into the house screaming, “I can’t find it.”
“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” Mom asked. “What are you searching for?”
“Santa Claus didn’t bring me my horse.”
My mom tried to comfort me, “But honey you got lots of presents this year.”
Somehow that didn’t seem to make me feel any better. I will never forget the year I was angry with Santa Claus.
As a single mom, our mother tried hard to get us presents. When Christmas was several months away she would always put a few dollars down every week on layaway at Kmart for our gifts. The weeks leading up to the holiday was filled with excited anticipation. Mom wouldn’t wait for Christmas Eve to get a tree like our dad used to. We all looked forward to accompanying her to the local tree lot. Afterwards, Mike helped Mom string the glittering lights. My brothers, sister and I hung up the ornaments and the paper red and green chains my mom had made earlier out of construction paper. We all took turns stringing popcorn to put upon our tree. Year after year, we’d impatiently watch Mom slowly put on the tinsel one strand at a time. We’d always lost interest and soon Mike would grab a handful from the box.
“Here Deb, watch this,” Mike would say with a chuckle on his lips, as he threw the silvery, glittery mass on the unsuspecting tree.
Grabbing a piece of garland and throwing it around my shoulders, I’d strut around the Christmas tree and sing, “Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.” Mom couldn’t help but join in on the laughter too.
My mother loved to sketch pictures of Santa Claus, Yule logs, Christmas trees and candles. She used markers and crayons to draw on cardboard and then put her drawings around the house for decorations. Gently, she would take the white angel hair she had saved every year and spread it on the end tables and coffee table to put under our holiday décor. She’d cut out a star-shaped piece of cardboard and wrap it in aluminum foil for the top of the tree. We loved her homemade ornaments. And we always put a miniature manger set under the tree on top of the smooth, soft angel hair. Mom taught us that Christmas was the time we celebrated the birth of Jesus. But it would be years before I would come to understand who Jesus really was.
Piling in the station wagon at night we’d drive around and look at twinkling Christmas lights that adorned other people’s homes and sing holiday songs. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer had a very shiny nose. Year after year we had our favorite streets to drive down. It would become a tradition I would carry on with my own family.
When I was eleven, just weeks before Christmas, it was a particularly cold winter night and Mom called me to her room. “Come here, I bought you a furry, brown coat for Christmas, and I am going to let you wear it to the Christmas program at school. But as soon as you get home, we have to wrap it up and save it for Christmas morning.”
I felt so special that year, that Mom and I had shared a secret from the other kids.
After the divorce, we always appreciated the small number of gifts we received on Christmas. Mom made our family time special as we all sat together, spending hours playing our new Monopoly game. Grabbing our presents, we’d run outside, knock on the neighbor’s doors and ask, “What did you get for Christmas?”
Most Sunday evenings were movie nights. After a homemade meal of fried chicken, crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside and lumpy, mashed potatoes, gravy, and corn, Mom would put oil in a pan, pour popcorn kernels in and turn up the heat. We would all come running into the kitchen and listen to the “popping” sound of the kernels. Afterwards, she’d drizzle the crunchy popcorn with creamy melted butter and shake on lots of salt. We’d sit around the television set watching The Wonderful World of Disney.
“Look,” nine-year old, Dave pointed, “There’s my girlfriend, Tinker bell.”
“I wish we could afford a color TV,” Mom would repeat every Sunday. “The shows sure would look better in color.”
My brothers and sister and I didn’t care though. We spent holidays watching old favorites such as Santa Claus is Coming to Town, The Wizard of Oz, and at Easter, the unforgettable, Ten Commandments. Lots of happy times were spent around the tube!
Coloring eggs at Easter was a huge family event. Cups of all sizes and shapes lined our dining table, filled with a rainbow of colors waiting for seven sets of hands. We strung rubber bands around eggs, colored some with crayons, and then dropped them in the tinted water. Mom loved getting creative during holidays. Weeks before the celebration, she’d co
llect tree branches and make a homemade Easter tree. She would poke a pinhole at each end of a raw egg and blow through it until the raw egg came out of the shell. After dyeing the egg she’d glue a piece of ribbon on it and hang it up on the egg tree. It was quite unique.
My sister and I would pretend to be the Easter bunny to our little brothers with our mom’s encouragement. After tucking them in for the night we would excitingly put together their baskets, filling them with delicious chocolate eggs, colorful jellybeans and sometimes, when we could afford it, a solid chocolate bunny.
Easter morning, while the ham was baking, Mom made us cover our eyes while she hid the Easter eggs outside. Some years, we would pack a lunch and head to Mom’s favorite picnic spot, Lytle Creek, just twenty minutes east of Fontana. We’d spend the whole day hanging out, wading in the creek, hiking, re-hiding eggs, then eating them. We would only return home when the sun was setting behind the mountains.
Our mother like to be involved with the boys while they were young and several years in a row Mom held the proud position of Scout mother while Mike and Dave attended Scouts. Our mother made the coolest crafts and made up skits with the boys. One year she put on a play and all the boys wore Mexican sombreros and repeated, ‘sitting on the cactus and trying to move.’ Everybody laughed and laughed. Every year in February Mom put on the best Blue and Gold banquets. The purpose of the banquet was to celebrate the pack’s anniversary. Mom would eagerly adorn the community center with decorations while Monica and I set the plates and utensils on the tables. Afterwards the rest of the family joined my mom and brothers for a wonderful dinner.
It was easy for my mom to be involved with her boys but when it came to Monica and me she did not encourage us to participate in any activities. But one year my sister and I were invited to join Brownies by a friend. We looked forward to going to the meetings and we eagerly consumed the tasty, homemade cakes and cookies set out by the other members. After we attended several times, the leader loudly exclaimed, “This is the third time in a row you have come to our meetings without paying your dues. Do you have any money?”
Monica and I looked at each other, our cheeks red from embarrassment. Sadly, we shook out heads.
“You need to leave, then.” The leader escorted us to the door and we were promptly kicked out of the Brownies.
Fourth of July was always a big event in our neighborhood and Mom had saved up to buy fireworks. We would start the day by going on a picnic at a nearby park with our packed lunches. Later after grilling hot dogs at home and impatiently waiting for the sun to set we lit sparklers and waved them around towards each other before Mom lit the big guns. Most of the kids in the neighborhood joined us.
I’ll never forget one birthday while I was in junior high. I wanted a pair of hot pink shoes and my mom ran all over town trying to find me that special gift. Monica’s birthday followed mine by five days and all she got were promises, Mom would say, “On payday I’ll get you a present,” but unfortunately, she always ran out of money and my sister rarely got her gifts. This was a pattern repeated throughout Monica’s childhood. It wasn’t until years later that I would realize how cheated my sister felt on her birthdays.
Mom made holidays and birthdays fun and we rarely questioned where our father was. Once he was out of our lives we didn’t speak of him or even think about him. Unfortunately, he didn’t stay gone for long. Throughout the years he’d show up when you least expected him.
9
Times with Dad and Other Friends
“Wise people think before they act; fools don’t and even brag about their foolishness.” Proverbs 13:16
After the divorce, time spent with our dad was sporadic. Sometimes he would show up at the door after we had not heard from him for months or years. Dad had a good friend, named Bud, who lived in an apartment with a swimming pool. Sometimes Dad would pick us up and take us to Bud’s apartment. Enthusiastically, we’d spend our day swimming, while, unbeknownst to us; my dad and his friends were cooking drugs in Bud’s kitchen. A few years later we found out Bud blew his self-up making drugs in that very same apartment.
At this point my father was still involved with his young girlfriend, Glenda. They had a daughter named Jessica. My sister and I looked forward to holding and playing with our new half-sister. Dad always claimed Glenda was the love of his life. About three years after Jessica was born my dad and Glenda broke up. Several years later, Glenda was killed; it had something to do with drugs. Jessica was only six years old when her grandmother began raising her. Thankfully, she was spared from my dad’s influence. We wouldn’t see Jessica again until we were all adults.
Glenda’s death hit my dad pretty hard. He talked of her often throughout his lifetime. Eventually Dad stopped coming around, unfortunately, we could never count on him leaving for good. Several years later he showed up again and introduced us to his new wife, Sandy, who was from Canada. She had two little girls and Monica and I enjoyed playing big sister to her daughters.
That Christmas, when Sandy’s children were only two and three my mother gathered us kids together. “Your dad doesn’t have money to buy Sandy’s girls any presents. Let’s go to the department store and buy them some toys and clothes.”
We were excited to play Santa Claus to the two girls. It never seemed weird that my mom was concerned about my dad’s new step-children. And the fact that she could barely afford gifts for her own kids didn’t seem to daunt her generous spirit.
Sandy and my father lived on the edge, they talked of playing Russian roulette, a game that involved pistols and bullets. I would find out later that he and Sandy took lots of drugs. He also told tall tales about robbing the homes of celebrities. I don’t know if he really did or not. He’d often boast about checking himself into the nearby mental hospital so he could get his drugs free. After a couple years, Sandy sent her two daughters back to Canada to live with their father. I always wondered if my dad ever touched them. Dad came around less and less and once again when he walked out of our lives no one seemed to care much.
Since Dad never paid child support, my mom continued to collect her monthly welfare checks. Standing in long lines once a month for our government food was something I looked forward to. I can still recall the cool breeze, bundled in our sweaters, in the early dawn waiting for the sun to come up while listening to the other welfare recipients talking. Maybe it was because Mom and I did it together that made venturing out in the wee hours of the morning and waiting in long lines seem like fun. Cans of shredded turkey, blocks of butter, bags of lentils and oatmeal, jars of peanut butter, and sacks of powdered milk were handed out. I don’t know about the other kids, but I never felt ashamed because we received government food. Mom was very creative in the kitchen. We had family dinners mostly every night and when she wasn’t there I always made sure our family had a home-cooked meal. We all sat at the table together with or without Mom being present.
Breakfast usually consisted of cold cereal, but often on weekends, Mom made flapjacks for the family. Her silver dollar pancakes were the best. Oftentimes we’d have a cold burrito for lunch or my personal favorite, a warm bologna sandwich smeared with mustard. That was until my sister and I hit Junior high, then we were too embarrassed to take a lunch. Having no lunch money, I was envious of my classmates as they waited in the food line for crispy French fries and hot cocoa.
One day, I came up with what I thought was a great plan. I would do anything I could to keep my sister from going hungry. Walking up to the minister’s daughter, I tapped on her shoulder. “Katie, can I borrow a quarter? My sister and I are so hungry we can’t afford to buy lunch.”
“I’m so sorry, sure you can have some money, here is fifty-cents.”
Grabbing the change, Monica and I feasted on delicious sidewalk-sundae ice cream bars. Other days we’d eat warm peanut butter cookies and drink steaming hot cups of cocoa. Throughout the year we gorged on our treats, all due to Ka
tie and a few others I sought pity from week after week. As an adult, when I realized just how much I had conned my classmates, I was filled with guilt. But a girl has to do what a girl has to do and I had to take care of my sister.
During this time, Mom had friends named Howard and Gail. Mom knew Gail before she married Howard. Howard joined the army and I remember listening to the song “Solider Boy,” with Gail while she was still a teenager. When he returned we attended their wedding.
Howard always made me nervous and he seemed to enjoy calling me names. Because I sucked my thumb until I was twelve my front teeth stuck out a little. Howard’s favorite thing to call me was, “Bucky Beaver.” I was very self-conscious about my looks and covered my mouth when I talked or laughed. Mom never seemed to notice that Howard had a penchant for referring to me as Bucky Beaver and if I complained she’d just shut me out, “Quit feeling sorry for yourself. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
It would be many years before I carried on a conversation or laughed without covering my mouth—not until I finally got my teeth fixed in my early thirties. I liked Gail, but tried to avoid Howard whenever Mom took us over to their house, although I looked forward to visiting them because they had a beautiful red Irish setter named Rusty. Willingly, I’d endure Howard’s taunts just to have a chance to play with his dog. I’d spend hours outside watching Rusty chase butterflies. Tossing a ball to him and playing fetch seemed to go on for hours. A couple years later, that beautiful, magnificent looking dog was hit by a car and Gail and Howard had him put to sleep.
Aside from the name-calling, there were many happy times spent with Howard and Gail. They owned a boat and oftentimes they would take my mom and us kids to Salton Sea, the Pacific Ocean and lakes around our area. On Saturdays, we’d spend the day lounging at a nearby lake, while music played in the background. The adults drank beers, smoked cigarettes and laughed a lot while us kids found lots to do. Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones could be heard loudly over their conversations. Nowadays whenever I hear a favorite tune of my mother’s I’m instantly transported back into that happy time of my childhood.
Something About Those Eyes Page 6