Pig in the Parlor Or How I'm Really Shanty Irish

There were families I knew growing up who had that one room NO one was allowed in. I used to call them Museum Rooms because they were restricted. All that was needed was a red velvet rope. You could look but not touch. This was the same rule they applied at the RISD museum as well that had ropes and display cases. Pam's house on Liberty St, a block away, had a mother who threatened us boys with slow death if we were caught inside her house. That made us fantasize about slinging mud on her carpets. We managed to get in once but we had to swear to Pam we wouldn't touch anything. I was surprised at what I saw. No clothing on the floor, no toys spread around and the place didn't reek of ashtray. The place was organized like a calculus equation. “Who lives like this...it's like a kind of  Hell.” I thought. Her Mom's parlor looked like something out of 70's MasterPiece theatre that PBS ran.

These parlor rooms, were for showing off your “arrival” to a bit higher middle class society. You used them to entertain anyone higher on the ladder than you. Should the local parish priest drop by, get out the good coffee, maybe some Lorna Doone cookies and invite him to sit on the plastic protected couch you got from Ethan Allen. Perhaps some Glade spray to get rid of the stink of dog before he comes in as well.

We...my house...didn't have any such room. In fact, all of the rooms looked like a Hollywood special effects hurricane fan had been turned on. Our home was cluttered and disheveled. Mind you though, there were no mushrooms growing from the couches, no free ranging cockroaches either. We were clutterers but not grubby pigs. There was, however, a pungent smell of Newport cigarettes my Dad and Mom inhaled ad infinitum. This was when cigarettes weren't vilified like they are today. I think our ceilings were “antique bone” color from the original ceiling white that was once applied, thanks to the tar and nicotine. No amount of Glade was going to conceal that miasma.

As a kid, I knew I really didn't want to invite anyone inside for a couple of reasons. One, the obvious mess the place was and the fact I couldn't really predict what mood my Mom would be in that day. Why give first person account fodder for gossips? Our neighborhood was full of bored, stay-at-home Moms who wanted the hottest slander that could be spread. And boy, did some of them love to air everyone ELSE's dirty linen! You have to love these self-appointed guardians of the neighborhood morality bitches who pronounce judgment like head cheerleaders.

This untidiness changed in a hurry after my Dad was finally installed as XO at a local bank. With that promotion, it was my Mom, not Dad, who decided it was time to move up into the world. Within a 6 months, she had managed to get him to buy newer furniture, redo the kitchen, curtains and the only improvement my Dad wanted was a circuit breaker system instead of those old fuse boxes they originally installed in the house. Once done, my Mom was satisfied and then sat in her usual spot at the kitchen table and stuck up a Newport cigarette. It was maybe then I would bring other friends over the house.

Now we were Lace Curtain Irish. Respectable, honorable and up to snuff.

In time, we cluttered all this up too. But it was a “tasteful” clutter mind you! Meaning? There was more expensive junk lying about and not in it's place. You see, the floor is really a giant shelf that many people don't utilize!

Once, after my Dad's death, we had to have an appraiser go through our house to inspect it and I was in the den, with an old styled balsa wood plane being pinned to the cardboard I had laid out on the floor. The poor guy had to gingerly step through the maze of useful junk I needed to complete it. I think my mom had the look of “busted drug dealer” all over her face, that kind of look you see on that TV show, COPS.

“Slattern Mom! Slattern Mom! Whatcha gonna do when Better Homes and Gardens come for you!”

**

Today, I can be OCD at times but that's only when I have to get things done RIGHT. No joke, I can be like this to the point you can predict what I'll do next. HOWEVER, give me some down time, some free latitude and all that goes right out the window. My kitchen table is a desk for many, many projects that don't need doing right away. Not only that, I can correctly point out which piles of paper relate to what. It's also collated with piles of documents I have on the couch! Dusting? Well, I'll get to it. Vacuuming? Well, it isn't that revolting yet. This old Behringer measurement microphone that doesn't work anymore? Well, can't throw that OUT yet! That old tuner that also won't work right at times but still can if I need it as a back up? No, it must stay! Right on the living room floor with the myriad of other audio cables I have there and that I may need in 2026!

I'm no longer lace curtain (by the way, I need new curtains too). I was Lace for about two years but I got over that! At this age, it's easy to get over. Who the hell do I need to impress now?

Things I Notice...

There's a Quickie Mart near my house run by Jordanians. I've been popping inside for so long now they know my name. I don't know their true Arabic names as they all have adopted cute American ones. The guy in the evening behind the register definitely isn't a “Bob” and doesn't look like one either, but that's what everyone calls him.

There was a much older man who ran the place on occasion, dressed in his country's natural garb. For three days I'd see him in a row, ordering the usual pack of Marlboro lights and Coca Cola. On the fourth day, he couldn't keep quiet.

“My son...these products you purchase...they are not good for you. Your body is Holy. Christian holy too...both are the same!”

“Yeah, I know, can you put them in the bag anyway?” I say.

I know he had my best interests at heart. Muslims tend to steer the hell clear of caffeine and nicotine. So do Mormons for that matter. Ever see a sick Mormon? They all look like incredibly healthy Boy/Girl Scouts with rose colored cheeks and ejection fractions of Olympic athletes. You know, I guess some of these practices do have a payoff .

But that isn't the funny story I want to tell. Here's one where everyone else thinks I'm old as dirt now.

I had stopped in one night, probably tired and limping a bit and bought TWO bottles of Coke and I schlepped it towards the door when all of sudden I feel someone yank the bag from my hands. My first thought was, “Shit, I'm being bag snatched!”

Nope, it was the young, barely 20 Something Jordanian who was running the store that night. He had grabbed my bag and brought it to the car, opened the back door and placed it on the seat. He turned around with a mile wide smile and I stood there, sort of shocked. I then pieced it together about what happened.

“I will help this poor, old, decrepit, broken down, near-death old man I will!” this kind hearted kid thought.

“Uh, thanks...” was all I could muster up to say.

He kept smiling like those smiles you see on foreigners who don't know any other way to communicate. I drove off, kinda miffed that he thought I was that lame. But with the deepening crow's feet I have and blinding white mop of hair, I guess I do look like 91 years old to a 19 year old kid.

Every generation thinks they are the first to discover everything. So did mine. I'll hear a young person tell me, with great enthusiasm, about a new club, restaurant, place or whatever to me like they were the first White Man to step on Antarctic ice...and especially to me do they tell it because I'm too infirm to go out anymore apparently. 
 

“Ron, there's this place near the beach, it's a Hippie Commune thing, full of gifts, art work, even farm animals. It's called The Umbrella...”

“Factory.” as I finish her sentence.

“You've been there? When?” She asks with surprise.

“Oh, 30 years ago I think” I say.

“30 years....” she trails off.

30 years ago, to these kids, is when Woodrow Wilson became president. To me, it was a few months ago.

I better get used to this. There will only be more of it.

I Learned Math at Home, not School...How to COUNT Money.

I'm not sure if they did this in your school, but once a year, a Yo Yo company would show up to sell us kids their toys. The teachers would herd us into the auditorium for a quickie 20 minute sales pitch and afterward you could go up to the stage and buy one. Here's an old Simpsons flick showing exactly what I mean.

Click!

Perhaps it was due to having a Dad who worked in the banking industry that I turned out like I did, a kid who learned how to treat money. The first lesson about money I learned was this: Don't Piss It Away. The other lessons my Dad taught me at the kitchen table was how interest worked, how loans and mortgages worked, in the bank's favor...always and one time he let me hold a $13,000,000 Federal Bank transfer order. When I saw it I though were were RICH! He let me down pretty fast when he said his bank routinely moved money from the Boston Federal Reserve to various other banks in the New England region. It wasn't for us but it was a quick thrill.

He also taught me about the stock markets and warned me that I could be easily taken, like being raped by a rhinoceros, if I played it wrong. He also did forensic accounting for the FBI on a case by case basis I learned much later (that's how they nailed Al Capone, by digging into his finances). The guy knew his shit and I absorbed as much as I could and became consumer savvy.

So, at times I would try to explain to the more dull kids I knew in school why they shouldn't buy this or that as it was a rip off or completely misleading. It was like trying to hammer a nail into a rock as these kids would point to the supposed fun they'd have if they did buy it. A salesman first job is to get you emotional about a product or service, once done, your brains run out your ears and the son of a bitch can nearly charge you what he wants.

Some of us are old! I do remember that the backs of many comic books had ads for various toys and curios that you could order. What I saw when I looked at them was junk. But for others...it was a different story.

“Of course it's real! See! They say the gold ring is GENUINE!”

“Read it again” I tell them “It says, Pure, real, genuine, 100%, authentic, fake gold...that last word negates everything that comes before it!”

“But there are more good words than bad!” I was told by the kid. I then realized I can't explain English grammar rules to this fool nor word positioning. I tell him in another way, “do you really think they'd sell you a solid gold ring for $1.99?”

He ordered it anyway and was out $1.99 plus postage and handling. When I asked a couple of weeks later, he said he hadn't received it yet. I began to think he didn't want to admit he got a die cast aluminum ring coated in glittery gold paint.

**

So, in 1979 at Goff Jr high, the Yo Yo company was back again and we were told we'd be herded to the auditorium later in the day. In nearly every class we had before that, I kept bitching to those around me that we're being forced and shoved into buying this shit that we could probably buy for less at the Ben Franklin's store down the street.

What I didn't know yet, was that the kids were listening to me this time.

We're herded into the assembly hall and we see it again, the proficient yo yo artists do their thing on stage. Around me, I hear murmurings of annoyance and disgust for the stage display from the other kids. Some of the mutterings were nasty and audible to the stage.  When it was time for anyone to go up to the stage to buy one, just three did.

Afterwards, we're sent back to class. When I was in Mr Holt's class, Mr Forrest, aka: Stone Face, our principal, comes over the intercomm to bitch us out. He harangued us about being disrespectful, uncooperative and non compliant. After he was done, I said, a bit too loud that, “Mr Forrest is pissed at the sales, his “cut” wasn't as large as it used to be.” I said it as a facetious remark but it was overheard by our teacher Mr Holt.

Holt replies to me, “HE was saying that you all were supposed to learn a lesson on being a consumer, on capitalism, how a transaction works! That you all took this opportunity and turned it upside down on it's head! You all ridiculed this guy!”

I lost it...I'm surprised I didn't add the word "fuckin" before every verb and adjective as i spoke.

“WHAT? I'm to be ORDERED to purchase things? I have NO say? If I work for money that I now OWN then I ALONE will DECIDE how it is to be SPENT! NO ONE will dictate to me!”

Before Holt could respond, about 10 other kids in the class started immediately yapping about how I was right.

Finally when the kids quieted down, Holt has his last say. “When I was in the Army, I knew guys like you...guys who bucked the system...cause dissension.”

I reply

“Guys like me? Guys who can think for themselves? Spot crap when they see it?”

Oh he hated that. The look on his face betrayed his real feelings.A few teachers and administration were alerted to me I came to know later. 

** 

Oh dear...how many salesmen I have denied over the years, revoking their hopeful commissions? Guess I wasn't a team player huh?

A quote from my Dad I remembered: “You have assets...everyone else wants them. You DON'T give them ANY w/o careful consideration!”