Even though our house was in the country, it was a transitional community. The old farms had been broken up and not all of the lots had been sold. A lot of older homes already occupied lots scattered here and there. Lots were larger than city lots, maybe ¼ to ½ of an acre. The roads were tarred, there were no sidewalks, and the leafy elms leaned out over the roads, lending shade and beauty. Ten years after we moved here, all the elms had to be cut down because of Dutch elm disease.
On one side of us lived an older couple who were Mennonites. We thought they were nice, but very strange. They had an old house covered in brown shakes, hidden behind many shrubs and pine trees. It looked like it belonged in Appalachia. They, “Aunt Annie” and “Uncle Kenny” could not cut their hair or have a TV, or listen to the radio. Their children were already grown and lived away. They had a huge garden in their back yard and canned their own vegetables. Uncle Kenny worked for the railroad. Sometimes Aunt Annie would invite us girls in to complete sewing projects and listen to religious lessons. For Halloween they gave out pumpkin cookies which we tried to trade off for candy until we found out how delicious they were. They raised a hedge against our back yard which allowed them pretty much total relief from the Taylor backyard mayhem.
On the other side of us was a tiny house that one could really only call a shack. It had been built at the back of a narrow, wet lot, so it was right next to our back yard. In this house lived a woman from our nightmares, Mrs. Crabtree.
Mrs. Crabtree definitely smoked and she drank, a lot. She never cut the grass in her front yard, and she would not let anyone else cut it either. Of course, she only had a front yard, so it gave the appearance that we lived next door to a vacant lot.
We really were scared of her, but we cut across her yard so many times to visit friends on her other side that we wore a path through the tall grasses. Usually the grasses were higher than our heads if we scrunched down a little.
Mrs. Crabtree was not sociable. She hardly ever left her house, that I remember, but always took deliveries, which must have cost a pretty penny, because we did not have many stores nearby. I guess once in a while she went somewhere in a cab.
We did see Mary Crabtree sometimes though, because living next door to her was sort of like living next door to a geyser. Periodically she would “go off”. She would stand in her doorway with her flyaway head of dull ginger and gray hair, a cigarette in her hand or hanging from her bottom lip. She wore a full-length white slip for these occasions and she would start lecturing the neighborhood. She would sometimes spend half an hour or forty-five minutes reaming out everyone for all the injuries done to her since the last time she “went off”. Although by daylight we made fun of her, when the sun went down we weren’t so brave and we were most often the subjects of her tirades. I’m sure she rued the day we arrived next door. She didn’t know our names but she yelled at each of us individually, identifying us by our misdeeds. Many a dusk caught us all sticking pretty close to Mom and Dad and keeping a real, low profile while Mary did her thing. It never turned into one of those sweet stories where a child softens the grief and pain of an older person’s life.
Once a trio of us was cutting across Mrs. Crabtree’s front yard through the tall weeds when she jumped out of her door and yelled at us up close and personal. We turned tail and ran. After that we avoided her yard. Even as teenagers, when we played Hide and Seek in every other yard in the neighborhood, we avoided Mrs. Crabtree’s yard so as not to touch her off.
Dad told us, when he thought we were old enough to understand, that Mary Crabtree was a WAC in WW II. He told us that she had a metal plate in her head. She drank to ease her pain and she yelled because she was so angry that when she got drunk, she finally let it all out. Dad sometimes did errands for her and tried to remind her that we did not break her windows on purpose, or yell just to ruin her naps (which was true because we were too scared of her). When she eventually got seriously ill, long after I was gone from the house, Dad drove her to the VA hospital where she lived out her days.
Mary Crabtree probably had nothing to do with my smoking addiction. She, actually, should have been a great smoking deterrent.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Chapter 5 Tyler
Tyler’s whole name is Tyler Hobart Taylor, which doesn’t sound quite as bad as Tyler Taylor. All our names came right out of a Baby Names book. My parents were about two generations ahead of time when it came to picking out names.
He may have been born with blond, curly hair, but he was always all boy. He would never play 'house' or 'wedding', but be would play 'war' and 'doctor'. He was also available for 'Hill Dill' or 'Freeze Tag' or anything that involved running. When he got on the ice rink in the back yard it became a hockey rink. He was in favor of catching tadpoles, frogs, grasshoppers, and fire flies; cracking open rocks; burning things with a magnifying glass; and doing anything that involved a tool.
When we first moved to the country and we were after Dad to get us a swimming pool, Dad said, “start digging” and left for work. Tyler organized us all with shovels and we dug all day. When Mom objected, we told her that Dad told us to do it. By the time Dad got home from work we had made a rectangular hole about 5’ wide by 8’ long by 1’ deep in the soft soil in the back corner of the yard. Dad couldn’t say much; he blamed himself because we didn’t understand sarcasm yet. He talked to Tyler and they went off and got a load of sand. The swimming pool became our sandbox, where we spent many happy hours with trucks and various mud cooking-baking duties.
Tyler built forts and rode bikes and learned to hunt and fish. He was the one who taught us all to play mumbley-peg and built a wall of the newspapers my father collected in the cellar to fire his BB gun into (until someone got hit in the leg.) He organized the baseball diamond games that stripped our front yard bare of grass, and the basketball court games that stripped the back yard bare of grass. Dad had a little farmer in him, but he never could get that grass to grow back until we were all grown, even though it was really a meadow and not a lawn. We played football in the road, but since we played all the games all summer long, the grass did not get a rest.
When Tyler entered his preteen years he became very self-conscious and stiff and full of guy-pride. When he had to go to the dentist, he let my mother go too, but made her walk on the opposite side of the street. He made it clear that he was a bit embarrassed by us all.
He still had his coarse and playful side. He had to share a room with Robert and he considered Bobbie his personal plaything. He farted in his face and then covered my brother with a blanket to trap the noxious fumes. He called this “smotheration.” He didn’t just do this once; he did it many, many times. He also lit Bobbie’s and his own farts with a lighter. To Felicity and me this all seemed a very long way from Clark Gable.
It’s a wonder our house didn’t burn down considering all of us going through our “fascination with fire” stage at different times.
In spite of these gaseous activities, Tyler wanted “the good life,” which apparently, at that time, meant a cool car, an apartment, and a pretty girlfriend. He knew a lot about cars from all the time he spent hanging out under a car hood with my father, who kept any one of our procession of used cars running by performing some kind of magic under the hood.
When Felicity got her first car, the black VW Beetle, she didn’t have her driver’s license yet. Before she even got to drive her car, Tyler took it out for a joy ride with his friends and end up tipping it over in a field somewhere. Drinking was involved. He got out without a scratch, but the car was totaled.
As soon as he could after graduation, he got a job repossessing cars, got a girlfriend with long blonde hair, got himself a red GTO with 4-in-the-floor, and rented an efficiency apartment on the best street in the city.
All was not smooth sailing in Tyler’s world. The blonde was balky. She broke his heart. The GTO transmission never was right, and the apartment did not turn out to be a chick magnet. But Tyler didn’t burn his bridges with the family. He was home visiting all the time. Eventually he started going out with an auburn-haired, translucent-skinned beauty from his high school graduation class. Allison had a troubled family background, so they saved each other. Soon after they got married he had to go to Vietnam.
Tyler smoked for many years. I think, when he was in Vietnam, he smoked things other than tobacco.
He may have been born with blond, curly hair, but he was always all boy. He would never play 'house' or 'wedding', but be would play 'war' and 'doctor'. He was also available for 'Hill Dill' or 'Freeze Tag' or anything that involved running. When he got on the ice rink in the back yard it became a hockey rink. He was in favor of catching tadpoles, frogs, grasshoppers, and fire flies; cracking open rocks; burning things with a magnifying glass; and doing anything that involved a tool.
When we first moved to the country and we were after Dad to get us a swimming pool, Dad said, “start digging” and left for work. Tyler organized us all with shovels and we dug all day. When Mom objected, we told her that Dad told us to do it. By the time Dad got home from work we had made a rectangular hole about 5’ wide by 8’ long by 1’ deep in the soft soil in the back corner of the yard. Dad couldn’t say much; he blamed himself because we didn’t understand sarcasm yet. He talked to Tyler and they went off and got a load of sand. The swimming pool became our sandbox, where we spent many happy hours with trucks and various mud cooking-baking duties.
Tyler built forts and rode bikes and learned to hunt and fish. He was the one who taught us all to play mumbley-peg and built a wall of the newspapers my father collected in the cellar to fire his BB gun into (until someone got hit in the leg.) He organized the baseball diamond games that stripped our front yard bare of grass, and the basketball court games that stripped the back yard bare of grass. Dad had a little farmer in him, but he never could get that grass to grow back until we were all grown, even though it was really a meadow and not a lawn. We played football in the road, but since we played all the games all summer long, the grass did not get a rest.
When Tyler entered his preteen years he became very self-conscious and stiff and full of guy-pride. When he had to go to the dentist, he let my mother go too, but made her walk on the opposite side of the street. He made it clear that he was a bit embarrassed by us all.
He still had his coarse and playful side. He had to share a room with Robert and he considered Bobbie his personal plaything. He farted in his face and then covered my brother with a blanket to trap the noxious fumes. He called this “smotheration.” He didn’t just do this once; he did it many, many times. He also lit Bobbie’s and his own farts with a lighter. To Felicity and me this all seemed a very long way from Clark Gable.
It’s a wonder our house didn’t burn down considering all of us going through our “fascination with fire” stage at different times.
In spite of these gaseous activities, Tyler wanted “the good life,” which apparently, at that time, meant a cool car, an apartment, and a pretty girlfriend. He knew a lot about cars from all the time he spent hanging out under a car hood with my father, who kept any one of our procession of used cars running by performing some kind of magic under the hood.
When Felicity got her first car, the black VW Beetle, she didn’t have her driver’s license yet. Before she even got to drive her car, Tyler took it out for a joy ride with his friends and end up tipping it over in a field somewhere. Drinking was involved. He got out without a scratch, but the car was totaled.
As soon as he could after graduation, he got a job repossessing cars, got a girlfriend with long blonde hair, got himself a red GTO with 4-in-the-floor, and rented an efficiency apartment on the best street in the city.
All was not smooth sailing in Tyler’s world. The blonde was balky. She broke his heart. The GTO transmission never was right, and the apartment did not turn out to be a chick magnet. But Tyler didn’t burn his bridges with the family. He was home visiting all the time. Eventually he started going out with an auburn-haired, translucent-skinned beauty from his high school graduation class. Allison had a troubled family background, so they saved each other. Soon after they got married he had to go to Vietnam.
Tyler smoked for many years. I think, when he was in Vietnam, he smoked things other than tobacco.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Chapter 4 - I Go To College
I graduated from high school in 1963. Snoopy was our class mascot. I had already done the PSAT thing and the SAT thing. No, I don’t remember my scores; much higher in Verbal than in Quantitative, probably a great enough difference to constitute “scatter”, if “scatter” is an issue with this test. “Scatter” apparently means some dark psychological forces may be at work in your psyche. (May explain a few things down the road.) I was accepted by a four-year state university in a brutally cold little north country community, with the best fall weather anywhere, everything deep golden and russet with filtered sunshine and sunsets that drenched the sky with saturated color and all of it reflected in the river so that color was all around. It was just three hours from home but I felt, at the last minute, like I had been banished to Siberia instead of going off by choice to satisfy a lifetime goal. How could I leave everyone? I did it, I set my head straight forward and followed my nose, but I felt like a traitor, and a pioneer, and a victim of a terrible dismemberment. I knew that this parting was temporary, there would be vacations and semester breaks. But I also knew it was permanent, because I would go home as an outsider. I had thrown in my lot with the wide world and agreed to miss huge chunks of family history, which would take place without me.
I sent Mom and Dad home with my throat muscles clenched so tight against crying that I could barely breathe or speak and I went to college and had a great time.
I decided to major in English because it was my best subject. I had been discouraged about architecture by my guidance counselor after she saw my math test scores. Majoring in English does not prepare you for an actual career. To be practical I became an English Secondary Education major so that, if I had to, I could teach when I left school. What was I thinking? Of course I would have to teach when I left school. My family had no money and neither did I.
In my first year my roommates were music majors, nice girls, but they were never around, always practicing or performing or preparing for a performance. I was so lonely. I lost forty pounds from homesickness and from having a balanced diet for the first time in my life. Pasta and potatoes were no longer my major food groups. I discovered protein.
Typical dinners, chez Taylor, consisted of potatoes with hamburger gravy, potatoes with chipped beef gravy, macaroni and cheese (all of these recipes involved a roux, all were delicious, and all were way heavier on fat and carbos than they were on protein.) We also had spaghetti and meat balls, meat loaf and potatoes, beef stew, pot roast with potatoes and carrots and gravy, chicken and biscuits. My mother lived through the Depression; she knew how to stretch a piece of meat. Later I had a boyfriend whose family had been migrant workers in the South and I learned about neck bones (which have even less meat than our gravies often contained) and red-eye gravy, which actually has no meat at all but uses burnt flour, so that it has a hearty, almost meaty taste. We used a lot of bullion in our household to enhance flavors.
We learned to make our own potato chips from real potatoes (which are delicious) and one of our biggest treats on a Sunday morning was to have fried dough with a variety of toppings. I preferred butter and salt, other family members preferred frosting or maple syrup or even jelly, or occasionally cinnamon and sugar.
So when I got to the dining room in college and was offered a whole steak instead of a small slice, I was pleasantly shocked. Our cafeteria offered only one meal a night and everyone had to make do with that one meal, like it or not. Our cooks were good though. In fact it was rumored that boys from the neighboring school dated girls from our school just to get invited to dinner. We had a huge cooler that offered all the milk and orange juice you could drink, no limit. By the time I left home to come to college “the big kids” at home were supposedly limited to one glass of milk a day and orange juice was a very rare commodity in our house. I don’t remember what we drank before Kool-Aid, probably lemonade, but as soon a Kool-Aid came along we made several huge pitchers a day. Fizzies were also very popular at our house as we rarely had soda.
College food all by itself was therefore quite a culture shock to me. During my second year I had roommates from Long Island who ate things like blue fish and salmon, lobster, shrimp, clams, etc. One of my roommates actually had a summer house (well, her family did, although it was north shore, not south) where she went clamming frequently. I had never eaten any fish but fried haddock. Although we weren’t Catholic, everyone in our town ate fried haddock. This was before fast food. This was about the only take-out you could get.
At college we all went out to restaurants at the drop of a hat, sometimes just for a snack after a movie, sometimes when someone’s parents were visiting or if we were in town for an off-campus class. We learned to drink too. Sometimes it was 40 below zero for a week at a time. You had to warm up somehow. We played chugging games while our legs thawed out (girls wore skirts and dresses then). I never became a great drinker. Guess I don’t have that gene, thank goodness.
You just learn so much at college that is not about course work. You learn other people’s childhoods and customs; you learn to love things you never even heard of. I learned I had an extravagant streak. I loved things made of embroidered silk and real leather. I started to read through Mademoiselle and Vogue and Glamour, besides Look and Life. I learned about perfumes. One very stylish roommate introduced us all to the idea of men’s colognes for women (4711, Canoe). Instead of Avon, I began to appreciate Givenchy.
Once I started to room with fellow English majors we became a bit more flamboyant and artsy. We edited the college yearbook and the literary magazine, went to poetry readings and took oil painting. We had boyfriends who were poets or actors. I had a folk singer from Ireland. We hung out at the coffee house. We were before the days of student demonstrations and sit-ins; at least they hadn’t hit the North Country. We had curfews, and men and women had separate dorms. Almost every night a full contingent of fraternity brothers stopped by a dorm to serenade a girl who had gotten “pinned.”
For the most part we didn’t have cars and we walked everywhere we went until our junior and senior years when more friends with cars appeared on campus.
We studied hard. We usually went together to a study room across the quad from our dorm, a classically-dimensioned room with high windows, round tables and comfortable arm chairs in dark wood and fireplaces (not lit). We each took a separate table where we studied until almost curfew and then rushed home through the cold or shuffled home through the fallen leaves. We took breaks sometimes, in the snack bar upstairs where we could get orange juice and crushed ice to take back to our study table if we were in a time crunch. If we weren’t in a hurry we would order coffee and vanilla ice cream, dip a spoonful of ice cream in coffee and slurp and talk about whatever, sometimes gossip, sometimes deep philosophical stuff. And we would smoke. Yes we all smoked cigarettes. My sophisticated friend of the men’s cologne for women trend, got French cigarettes in black cases that opened like a woman’s compact. We were near the Canadian border. The cigarettes were oval, scented, and covered with pastel papers. For a while we all smoked these, but I soon settled on Parliaments and they became my cigarette of choice. I like the recessed filter. We could smoke or not smoke as we pleased in those days, because we did not inhale. We just puffed and looked mature and slightly jaded. So artistic. We were the Dorothy Parker Algonquin Round Table crowd of the North Country.
Our favorite movies were Blow Up, The Americanization of Emily and Putney Swope. I know that everyone was high in Blow Up, but I don’t remember actually seeing anyone get high. These were the first hippies I ever saw, but I didn’t know the word hippie yet. I don’t remember if anyone smoked in the other two movies, but it didn’t matter. Much more powerful influences than subliminal suggestion from movies were afoot.
I decided that, although I would probably have to teach for a living, I would have to live very large and have tons of experiences, even seamy ones, so that I could one day be a good writer. If you’re supposed to write about what you know, then it would be best to know about everything.
I sent Mom and Dad home with my throat muscles clenched so tight against crying that I could barely breathe or speak and I went to college and had a great time.
I decided to major in English because it was my best subject. I had been discouraged about architecture by my guidance counselor after she saw my math test scores. Majoring in English does not prepare you for an actual career. To be practical I became an English Secondary Education major so that, if I had to, I could teach when I left school. What was I thinking? Of course I would have to teach when I left school. My family had no money and neither did I.
In my first year my roommates were music majors, nice girls, but they were never around, always practicing or performing or preparing for a performance. I was so lonely. I lost forty pounds from homesickness and from having a balanced diet for the first time in my life. Pasta and potatoes were no longer my major food groups. I discovered protein.
Typical dinners, chez Taylor, consisted of potatoes with hamburger gravy, potatoes with chipped beef gravy, macaroni and cheese (all of these recipes involved a roux, all were delicious, and all were way heavier on fat and carbos than they were on protein.) We also had spaghetti and meat balls, meat loaf and potatoes, beef stew, pot roast with potatoes and carrots and gravy, chicken and biscuits. My mother lived through the Depression; she knew how to stretch a piece of meat. Later I had a boyfriend whose family had been migrant workers in the South and I learned about neck bones (which have even less meat than our gravies often contained) and red-eye gravy, which actually has no meat at all but uses burnt flour, so that it has a hearty, almost meaty taste. We used a lot of bullion in our household to enhance flavors.
We learned to make our own potato chips from real potatoes (which are delicious) and one of our biggest treats on a Sunday morning was to have fried dough with a variety of toppings. I preferred butter and salt, other family members preferred frosting or maple syrup or even jelly, or occasionally cinnamon and sugar.
So when I got to the dining room in college and was offered a whole steak instead of a small slice, I was pleasantly shocked. Our cafeteria offered only one meal a night and everyone had to make do with that one meal, like it or not. Our cooks were good though. In fact it was rumored that boys from the neighboring school dated girls from our school just to get invited to dinner. We had a huge cooler that offered all the milk and orange juice you could drink, no limit. By the time I left home to come to college “the big kids” at home were supposedly limited to one glass of milk a day and orange juice was a very rare commodity in our house. I don’t remember what we drank before Kool-Aid, probably lemonade, but as soon a Kool-Aid came along we made several huge pitchers a day. Fizzies were also very popular at our house as we rarely had soda.
College food all by itself was therefore quite a culture shock to me. During my second year I had roommates from Long Island who ate things like blue fish and salmon, lobster, shrimp, clams, etc. One of my roommates actually had a summer house (well, her family did, although it was north shore, not south) where she went clamming frequently. I had never eaten any fish but fried haddock. Although we weren’t Catholic, everyone in our town ate fried haddock. This was before fast food. This was about the only take-out you could get.
At college we all went out to restaurants at the drop of a hat, sometimes just for a snack after a movie, sometimes when someone’s parents were visiting or if we were in town for an off-campus class. We learned to drink too. Sometimes it was 40 below zero for a week at a time. You had to warm up somehow. We played chugging games while our legs thawed out (girls wore skirts and dresses then). I never became a great drinker. Guess I don’t have that gene, thank goodness.
You just learn so much at college that is not about course work. You learn other people’s childhoods and customs; you learn to love things you never even heard of. I learned I had an extravagant streak. I loved things made of embroidered silk and real leather. I started to read through Mademoiselle and Vogue and Glamour, besides Look and Life. I learned about perfumes. One very stylish roommate introduced us all to the idea of men’s colognes for women (4711, Canoe). Instead of Avon, I began to appreciate Givenchy.
Once I started to room with fellow English majors we became a bit more flamboyant and artsy. We edited the college yearbook and the literary magazine, went to poetry readings and took oil painting. We had boyfriends who were poets or actors. I had a folk singer from Ireland. We hung out at the coffee house. We were before the days of student demonstrations and sit-ins; at least they hadn’t hit the North Country. We had curfews, and men and women had separate dorms. Almost every night a full contingent of fraternity brothers stopped by a dorm to serenade a girl who had gotten “pinned.”
For the most part we didn’t have cars and we walked everywhere we went until our junior and senior years when more friends with cars appeared on campus.
We studied hard. We usually went together to a study room across the quad from our dorm, a classically-dimensioned room with high windows, round tables and comfortable arm chairs in dark wood and fireplaces (not lit). We each took a separate table where we studied until almost curfew and then rushed home through the cold or shuffled home through the fallen leaves. We took breaks sometimes, in the snack bar upstairs where we could get orange juice and crushed ice to take back to our study table if we were in a time crunch. If we weren’t in a hurry we would order coffee and vanilla ice cream, dip a spoonful of ice cream in coffee and slurp and talk about whatever, sometimes gossip, sometimes deep philosophical stuff. And we would smoke. Yes we all smoked cigarettes. My sophisticated friend of the men’s cologne for women trend, got French cigarettes in black cases that opened like a woman’s compact. We were near the Canadian border. The cigarettes were oval, scented, and covered with pastel papers. For a while we all smoked these, but I soon settled on Parliaments and they became my cigarette of choice. I like the recessed filter. We could smoke or not smoke as we pleased in those days, because we did not inhale. We just puffed and looked mature and slightly jaded. So artistic. We were the Dorothy Parker Algonquin Round Table crowd of the North Country.
Our favorite movies were Blow Up, The Americanization of Emily and Putney Swope. I know that everyone was high in Blow Up, but I don’t remember actually seeing anyone get high. These were the first hippies I ever saw, but I didn’t know the word hippie yet. I don’t remember if anyone smoked in the other two movies, but it didn’t matter. Much more powerful influences than subliminal suggestion from movies were afoot.
I decided that, although I would probably have to teach for a living, I would have to live very large and have tons of experiences, even seamy ones, so that I could one day be a good writer. If you’re supposed to write about what you know, then it would be best to know about everything.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Felicity, Chapter 3
Felicity was 5’2”, slender, with dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, and regular, but not beautiful features. She was a true petite, with size 5 feet and skinny bones. She was quiet and responsible. I never remember her sobbing uncontrollably or having hissy fits, like some of us. She spent all of her time role-playing and preparing for a future right out of Future Homemakers of America. She had a best friend across the street named Carol and together they experimented with hair and make up. I tagged along with her often and she never complained in front of me, although I was boisterous and bossy and loud. We all had our baby dolls as I remember, which we held and fed and took for carriage rides. We didn’t mistreat our babies. We were already experts on child care. I didn’t want a baby doll. I wanted a Toni doll. Toni was the brand name of a home permanent kit. We had much practical experience of home permanents, since Mom was always slapping one onto our hair so she wouldn’t have to fuss with our very straight, fine hair. To this day I can’t recall the actual texture of Felicity’s hair. Maybe she did have some natural curl. I surely didn’t. Anyway the Toni doll came with a little permanent wave set, tiny curlers, a wave solution so you could give your doll a perm. The direction said that when you ran out of permanent solution you could substitute sugar and water. Whenever you wanted you could wash the Toni doll’s hair and it would straighten again, ready for the next perm. I was seven when I got my Toni doll and I permed the life right out of her.
There are also a number pictures of Felicity, Carol, and me playing cards on Carol’s porch, or Sorry, or Parchesi. Carol had a beautiful bedroom too, which she didn’t have to share with anybody. It was “decorated”. We loved to spend time up there doing I don’t remember what. I do remember that when Felicity and Carol were young teens they spent an afternoon practicing kissing techniques on each other, which I found very yucky at the time, but also fascinating.
Things weren’t always so easy for Felicity. Because she was the oldest she was sort of the guinea pig child. She had the most rules and because of her responsible nature, she took the rules pretty seriously. A lot of housework and child care duties fell to her. She was good in school and had lots of friends. Two boys were fighting over her by the time she was fourteen; a good-looking red-headed holy terror from the next block, Timothy Stanton, and an also handsome, slightly “hood”ish guy from across the main road. They hung around our house constantly, ate meals there, and strutted around each other cockily. Eventually my sister discarded both of them in favor of a slightly older guy, Jack Rhodes, from two blocks up.
When she graduated from high school with an award in Latin in 1962, she enrolled in the community college to train as a secretary. She lived at home while she went to college. Mom and Dad let her trade her bed in on a sofa bed and she could make her bedroom look like a little sitting room, and she could have boys up there. She was still with Jack Rhodes, but he was starting to balk. She wanted to get married, he didn’t.
The “hoody” guy from across the highway reappeared. Dean Travis was his name. He was underfoot all the time again, this time trying to ingratiate himself with Mom and Dad and my brother, Tyler. He helped Dad spread stones in the driveway, fix cars, load newspapers to take to Spevak’s for money, and with any number of small household repairs. In short he made himself indispensable and, although Felicity at first paid him no mind, he was like a force of nature. Eventually she stopped seeing the guys she was sort of dating and let him court her. Within three years of graduating high school she had finished community college, had her big wedding, decorated their new apartment, gone to work as an executive secretary at GE, and was talking about starting a family.
Although her husband looked good and had an engaging smile, I think he had been better at courting than at husbanding, but they did seem relatively happy. Dean may have smoked when he was younger, but he did not smoke after they were married, and, of course, my sister never smoked.
If the fifties life style had lasted forever, their life together would probably have been perfect, but by the late 60’s that 50’s optimism and affluence were being pushed aside by some mighty powerful new forces and beliefs.
The major new beliefs seemed to center around the idea of equality, which reared its idealistic head in a number of areas as we all remember.
The civil right’s movement was in full swing throughout the sixties. Someone noticed that a large segment of the American population was not sharing in “the good life”. They often had no TV’s and no cars in their possession; in fact they probably didn’t even have a garage to put a car in. And even if they did, they could be, apparently, only “separate, but equal,” not really equal. I don’t think white Americans would have noticed this on their own, maybe they would have, but some Black Americans began to call attention to it.
TV made such a difference because it allowed events to be played out in our living rooms while we ate dinner, or prepared it, or got ready for bed, or when we woke up in the morning. It may have started out with Rosa Parks but it escalated into fire hoses and dogs and prejudiced southern “honkies” with “cracker” accents and mirrored sun glasses and Freedom Riders or Fighters, and deaths; four little girls in a church, some of the Freedom Fighters, eventually Martin Luther King. Many of us were aghast and could no longer pursue our middle class dreams until a few things got straightened out and the dream was not just for White America, but could be universal. How could we enjoy our affluent peace if images of injustice were going to march through our living rooms? (Of course, now we know there’s not end to it, but we didn’t know that then.)
And, of course, there was the war - the Vietnam War which was not World War II, global and morally necessary. It was a small local war in a totally foreign culture; a war many of us suspected was none of our business. Yes, the Cold War was in full swing, and yes, there was the question of the “red menace” sweeping in across the face of the earth, but didn’t these people have the right to battle this out for themselves?
And it was such an awful war (all wars are awful) with such an elusive enemy. We often couldn’t tell the enemy from the allies and we were not used to guerilla warfare tactics, hit and run battles. The jungle was so hot and dark and deep and so easy to get lost in, with natural enemies like bugs and snakes and rot to go along with the human opponents. And there was napalm and Agent Orange and reports of civilians ruthlessly murdered. It was an undisciplined, dirty war and we were not winning. America was in chaos and her citizens were far from home.
And then there was also women’s liberation. Since everyone else was striving for equality, surely it was time to investigate the women’s role in America. Were women to be a part of the “equal right’s movement” or, if not, could they tolerate their position as “second class citizens” any longer. Women should get to live up to their full potential as human beings, either within the institutions of marriage and family, or outside of them, as necessary. Menial, repetitive housework and child-rearing tasks should not be the sole province of women, but should be shared by men, thus freeing women to satisfy higher needs, like the needs for an education, and a satisfying role in the world outside of the home, and to satisfy their sexual and spiritual needs. Why many women still lived in semi-slavery to dominating and despotic husbands!
And you can’t forget the musical revolution and the pill. Of course, the musical earthquake began in the fifties with Buddy Holly, Elvis, et al. Add in the pill (the birth control pill) and pot, etc. and you get the heady mix of free love, getting high, grooving to heavy sounds and the promise of spiritual enlightenment right along with all that cultural equality. A new world order all rolled into one hit of astonishing power and excitement.
How did Felicity and Dean’s little suburban paradise stand a chance against all this? We’re a long way from cigarette smoking and addiction, you say? By now people were smoking funny cigarettes, wacky tabbacky. We’re almost there.
There are also a number pictures of Felicity, Carol, and me playing cards on Carol’s porch, or Sorry, or Parchesi. Carol had a beautiful bedroom too, which she didn’t have to share with anybody. It was “decorated”. We loved to spend time up there doing I don’t remember what. I do remember that when Felicity and Carol were young teens they spent an afternoon practicing kissing techniques on each other, which I found very yucky at the time, but also fascinating.
Things weren’t always so easy for Felicity. Because she was the oldest she was sort of the guinea pig child. She had the most rules and because of her responsible nature, she took the rules pretty seriously. A lot of housework and child care duties fell to her. She was good in school and had lots of friends. Two boys were fighting over her by the time she was fourteen; a good-looking red-headed holy terror from the next block, Timothy Stanton, and an also handsome, slightly “hood”ish guy from across the main road. They hung around our house constantly, ate meals there, and strutted around each other cockily. Eventually my sister discarded both of them in favor of a slightly older guy, Jack Rhodes, from two blocks up.
When she graduated from high school with an award in Latin in 1962, she enrolled in the community college to train as a secretary. She lived at home while she went to college. Mom and Dad let her trade her bed in on a sofa bed and she could make her bedroom look like a little sitting room, and she could have boys up there. She was still with Jack Rhodes, but he was starting to balk. She wanted to get married, he didn’t.
The “hoody” guy from across the highway reappeared. Dean Travis was his name. He was underfoot all the time again, this time trying to ingratiate himself with Mom and Dad and my brother, Tyler. He helped Dad spread stones in the driveway, fix cars, load newspapers to take to Spevak’s for money, and with any number of small household repairs. In short he made himself indispensable and, although Felicity at first paid him no mind, he was like a force of nature. Eventually she stopped seeing the guys she was sort of dating and let him court her. Within three years of graduating high school she had finished community college, had her big wedding, decorated their new apartment, gone to work as an executive secretary at GE, and was talking about starting a family.
Although her husband looked good and had an engaging smile, I think he had been better at courting than at husbanding, but they did seem relatively happy. Dean may have smoked when he was younger, but he did not smoke after they were married, and, of course, my sister never smoked.
If the fifties life style had lasted forever, their life together would probably have been perfect, but by the late 60’s that 50’s optimism and affluence were being pushed aside by some mighty powerful new forces and beliefs.
The major new beliefs seemed to center around the idea of equality, which reared its idealistic head in a number of areas as we all remember.
The civil right’s movement was in full swing throughout the sixties. Someone noticed that a large segment of the American population was not sharing in “the good life”. They often had no TV’s and no cars in their possession; in fact they probably didn’t even have a garage to put a car in. And even if they did, they could be, apparently, only “separate, but equal,” not really equal. I don’t think white Americans would have noticed this on their own, maybe they would have, but some Black Americans began to call attention to it.
TV made such a difference because it allowed events to be played out in our living rooms while we ate dinner, or prepared it, or got ready for bed, or when we woke up in the morning. It may have started out with Rosa Parks but it escalated into fire hoses and dogs and prejudiced southern “honkies” with “cracker” accents and mirrored sun glasses and Freedom Riders or Fighters, and deaths; four little girls in a church, some of the Freedom Fighters, eventually Martin Luther King. Many of us were aghast and could no longer pursue our middle class dreams until a few things got straightened out and the dream was not just for White America, but could be universal. How could we enjoy our affluent peace if images of injustice were going to march through our living rooms? (Of course, now we know there’s not end to it, but we didn’t know that then.)
And, of course, there was the war - the Vietnam War which was not World War II, global and morally necessary. It was a small local war in a totally foreign culture; a war many of us suspected was none of our business. Yes, the Cold War was in full swing, and yes, there was the question of the “red menace” sweeping in across the face of the earth, but didn’t these people have the right to battle this out for themselves?
And it was such an awful war (all wars are awful) with such an elusive enemy. We often couldn’t tell the enemy from the allies and we were not used to guerilla warfare tactics, hit and run battles. The jungle was so hot and dark and deep and so easy to get lost in, with natural enemies like bugs and snakes and rot to go along with the human opponents. And there was napalm and Agent Orange and reports of civilians ruthlessly murdered. It was an undisciplined, dirty war and we were not winning. America was in chaos and her citizens were far from home.
And then there was also women’s liberation. Since everyone else was striving for equality, surely it was time to investigate the women’s role in America. Were women to be a part of the “equal right’s movement” or, if not, could they tolerate their position as “second class citizens” any longer. Women should get to live up to their full potential as human beings, either within the institutions of marriage and family, or outside of them, as necessary. Menial, repetitive housework and child-rearing tasks should not be the sole province of women, but should be shared by men, thus freeing women to satisfy higher needs, like the needs for an education, and a satisfying role in the world outside of the home, and to satisfy their sexual and spiritual needs. Why many women still lived in semi-slavery to dominating and despotic husbands!
And you can’t forget the musical revolution and the pill. Of course, the musical earthquake began in the fifties with Buddy Holly, Elvis, et al. Add in the pill (the birth control pill) and pot, etc. and you get the heady mix of free love, getting high, grooving to heavy sounds and the promise of spiritual enlightenment right along with all that cultural equality. A new world order all rolled into one hit of astonishing power and excitement.
How did Felicity and Dean’s little suburban paradise stand a chance against all this? We’re a long way from cigarette smoking and addiction, you say? By now people were smoking funny cigarettes, wacky tabbacky. We’re almost there.
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