A Thousand Stories And How I Wished I Could REALLY Tell of the Racier Ones

 

God, I hope I ain’t repeating myself with these stories but at this age now, it’s a real threat and I have caught myself doing it. Anyways, some silly memories and moments from so long ago.

*****


For 25 years, no one, our parents, Ken nor his doctors knew he had cystic fibrosis, That was odd because being born in 1959 with it meant certain death by the age of 5. It wasn’t till he joined the Navy that a ship’s doctor became suspicious of his coughing. Naval doctors are highly attune to any sickness on board because any disease can spread through a cramped ship and render it useless if the crew is incapacitated.


One of the benefits of having full blown cystic fibrosis (which my brother did have which threw the doctors for a loop because they couldn’t’ explain why he lived as long as he did) is that your spit is thicker than normal. So, as a kid and teen, my brother could win any spitting contest vs. any other boy in our neighborhood. With his heavier that usual spit, he could launch well aimed missiles of goop higher and further than anyone else. It could land on the sidewalk with an audible splat. I can too by the way and I might speak more on having only ONE copy of the transmutase CF gene later.


He told me a story when he was fifth teen, he and Sue Ann, the girlfriend of a guy he knew, were standing on opposite sides of a large transformer that was in the back of a small shopping mall near where we lived. We all hung out behind that place as kids and teens. My brother and the girl could not see one another due to the transformer being between them it was no matter as they did not like each other well enough to even speak.


So to wile away the time before his friend Tom showed up, he decided to launch a glob of spit straight up into the air. He fired it and he told me it traced a perfect parabolic arch up and over the transformer. He then heard a shocking high-pitched scream from the other side. Sue Ann then comes running around to confront my brother.


“You DIRTY Son of aa BITCH! You BASTARD! I’m getting my boyfriend to KICK your ASS! NO one spits on ME!”


He tells me he started to bust out laughing. Not because he wanted this to happen, but just the sheer luck of hitting her in the first place. When you’re fifth teen, these things are funny.


In telling the story, he said he never did think it was a big crime to have spit on Sue Ann, apparently her boyfriend didn’t either as he never made good on Sue Ann’s desire for revenge.


*****


Waking up on a Saturday morning after us guys spent the night hitting the Providence night clubs was always a struggle. I never drank much but even so, I could never avoid the hangover that always came the next morning.


One morning in autumn I had gotten up and then promptly sat on the couch, feeling like crap with a dry mouth and wondering why I keep doing this. It wasn’t three minutes after 7 AM when my Mom appears to bitch about the leaves in the backyard she wanted raked up.


“Are you going to rake up those leaves? You SAID you were going to do it today!” she gripes. I can’t imagine why she’s so annoyed so early in the morning but if she was in one of her moods (and there were a lot of them) she could be real fun to deal with.


“Look, I just got up...I’ll get to the yard eventually.” I tell her.


She leaves in a huff and I sit there, nursing my tiredness and think, “Great, I’m feeling like crap and she’s just piling on...it’s way too early in the day for this.”


After 20 minutes I go to the kitchen to drink a gallon of OJ to relive my thirst when I spot my Mom through the window, out in the backyard,  raking the leaves. It dawn on me what is happening.


I go outside and say, “Hey, I TOLD you I will get to this...go back inside!”


She ignores me and I see this for just what it is. Since I didn’t leap off the couch immediately to do the raking, she flew outside to “do it herself” to make it look like I was never going to in the first and to give herself a “reason” to be bitchy and unload whatever misery she had onto me.

“Hey, I will DO it!" I tell here again.


She’s not looking at me and grumbles to herself, “I have to do EVERYTHING around here” and continues furiously raking up the leaves.


Now I’m staring to get pissed and the hangover isn’t helping.


“OK...OK..fine! Look, You LIKE raking leaves HUH? You LOVE it? Get in my car now! I’ll take you to the woods in the Slater Park and YOU CAN RAKE ALL THE LEAVES YOU WANT!”


In the next door neighbor’s back yard, I hear Terry start laughing loudly as he had heard the entire conversation and my quip.


I go back into the house, sit on the couch and drink my OJ.


*****


I knew a German family over by Teknor Apex’s chemical plant not too far from here. Dad and Mom had emigrated from Argentina and prior to that from Europe. I began to wonder if the Dad was of WW2 age and was one of the Nazi’s who fled to that nation as they were a bit too friendly with ex-Nazis. Argentina had at one time hid the executive officer of Auschwitz, Eichman. There was also Dr. Mengele and many of those other fun loving guys who survived the war and fled with the help of either faked or real UN refugee passports.


I knew the youngest boy in the family, Paul. He was the only one in the family with an English name but the family pronounced it as “Powell.” Paul’s sibling names were Liesl, Anton, Bruno, Klaus and Gerhard. The oldest brother had a seven year old daughter named Krystal and the whole family had a nickname for her, "Krystal Meth." I have no idea where they came up with that one. They were all Americanized beyond belief and you wouldn’t know they were from overseas at all. They had no accents and they loved McD’s. I once made the mistake of thinking out loud to Paul how hot his sister Liesl was. I was like that, blurting out what I was thinking at times. Whoops…well, she was damned pretty.


On a hot July Sunday afternoon, Jim, Paul and I were hanging out on his front steps with that wonderful polyvinylchloride smell from Texnor Apex hanging in the air. His brother Klaus then came outside to ask Paul to “move his stuff from the dryer” as he wanted to use it because he needed his work clothes ready for the morning.


“Yeah, sure..yeah, in a bit” says Paul


“No man, I need it now, I have a ton of stuff to dry.” says Klaus.


Paul retorts that he’ll do it...later.


That pissed off Klaus who switched to German and yells.

"Hol deine Scheiße aus dem Trockner!" (Get your shit out of the dryer!)

"Später! Hör auf mich zu nerven!" (Later! Stop bugging me!) shoots back Paul.

Klaus is red in the face now and shouts, "Gottverdammt! Ich werfe deine Kleidung auf die Straße, wenn du sie nicht wegräumst!" (God dammi! I’ll throw your clothes into the street!)_

Now, I’m watching and hearing this and I start to feel some fear. Why? I have seen soo many WW2 movies as a kid and the most German I have ever heard was from mean, nasty and angry SS officers screamning  at Jews, Ameican POWs or whoever as they tried to conquor the world.

It really does sound like that in real life that and it amazed me. I had an actual reaction hearing it.

Next, of course, the brothers start swinging punches at one another and continue to shout in German. This brings out the Haus Frau, their mom, who is built like a overstuffed sausage in a in old fashioned dress more akin to European fashion than American. She herself starts barking in German at her two sons. She had finally said something that got the two of them to stop immediately. She then looks at Jim and I and says something else in German.  By the look on her face when she said it, it probably was an insult. She was one of those loud mouth, bragging working class Moms who was quite fine swearing like a sailor in front of anyone, including us at times. She also looked like she could pull a plow on a farm because she was tough, low down and beastly.

Later after all that,  Paul, Jim and I are walking to Vet’s bar on Central Ave to see if they’re illegaly open to get some beers on a Sunday.

 

I say to Paul, “Hey, I know some German…’Fick mich, du miserabler hurensohn.” I say.


“Do you KNOW what you just said?” Paul asks.


“Not really,” I tell him, “it’s from a Frank Zappa song.”


Paul translates...”You just said, ‘Fuck me you miserable son of a bitch.”


Again with my stupid mouth trying to act all smart at 18.


We continue walking when Paul asks, “Hey...did you ever see a real Walther PPK? An antique one? My Dad has one!”


A Walther PPK was the standard side arm issued to SS officers during the war back then. I really began to wonder just what that family’s back story really was after hearing that. But I never pressed the issue. Years later, I come to find out his Dad was just a conscripted Waffen soldier in the last years of the war, fleeing the Russian Army as they smashed the German war machine. Thousands of German soldiers deserted and made their own way home. His Dad instead took off for Slovenia and then to Argentina and then next door to Teknor in Pawtucket, towing his Frau and six kids with him.

Mr. Know It All...

 

The body chills started Sunday. I wasn't too surprised as I was outside in the yard, clearing it up one final time and buttoning up the house for winter, in just a tee shirt. So, back inside I fire up the furnace and huddle near the heat register to warm up, which it did. The odd part was that five minutes later I was freezing again. OK, try the furnace again I think. Once warmed up I go about getting some food ready.

I can't finish that. I get hit with a wave of tiredness so strong I just shut off the stove and lie down under a pile of duvets I have on the bed to warm up. This was at six PM. I don't wake up till 2AM and that's to use the bathroom. I make it fine and back to bed I go. I finally get up at 5 because I can't sleep anymore, I get up and stumble to the bathroom once again and lose my balance and crash into the wall. I retrieve my balance by throwing myself the opposite way and lose that, right into the sink. POW! Great, not only am I freezing and dizzy, I'm holding my side as I think I cracked a rib.

After a few, I finally get take my god damn piss.

I sit down and start to think. “What the hell is this? I ain't hacking but the inside of my nose is stinging and running like a faucet. Another thought. “What day is it? Is it Monday...no...it's Wednesday...wait...”

I flip on the computer and it says it's Monday. “Is it really?” as I doubt this machine that rarely makes mistakes. It slowly comes to me, I'm the one that's fogged out and I doubting even the most common sense things that pop into my head. “You're sick! No I'm not, it's just the arthritis in my legs. No dummy, you don't crash on a daily basis! But it could be I need to loosen up more like you always do in the morning. No...you are never are THAT stiff in the morning!”

I get up to start the day and I'm wobbling around. Trying not to repeat the sink crash. I sit back down, a little more cognizant and think, “Is the Minute Clinic open? Shit no, it's way too early. Damn...do I try the ER? I'll be there most of the day!” I go back and forth figuring out what I should do. I could drive there myself but my worry is that I have to navigate the 70 yards to the door and what if I fall and lay face flat down on the pavement before someone notices? I call my buddy up for a ride. M. shows up pretty quickly and on the ride there he tries to sound upbeat but I can manage still to read his face. It is showing some surprise and concern. He talks more and then I hear him say. “That's not what I asked you at all.” I then realize I totally didn't understand what he had asked and answered some other Q I thought he asked.

I get into Sturdy's ER. They take my info and immediately get me into triage. After the usual scans, off I go one of their rooms. I lie there, trying to plan what I'm going to do but I can't think straight at all. Then this spikey white haired Dr comes in, the one I remember from the last time. Dr. Jedrick Chrzanowski. Try and pronounce that! It probably sounds fine if you can speak Polish.

“Well, we'll run some tests and scans. He asks some very simple Q's, year, date, where I live and then plays a little finger game with my hands and then my toes. “Well, I doubt you're stroking out” He says “You answered all the questions right and you can perform these simple motions...we'll find out for sure what's up though.”

Up my nose for the covid, flu, RSV swab and they rasp my brain with it nearly. My blood is drawn and then for the arterial puncture in the wrist. I've never been stabbed that deep in my life and does that sting like a son of a bitch. A couple of Xrays and then I'm left to wait for the results, which come back quicker than I thought.

“You have covid! You also have fluid in the bottom of your lungs and that, ontop of covid's ability to fog you out is why you are feeling so dense.”

I ask, “What about my balance? I was all over the place this morning.”

“Not at all unusual” he says. “I've seen it happen a lot...lucky you didn't knock yourself out cold in the bathroom though. You might have stayed there on the floor for a good while. You're super dehydrated though..We'll do an IV with some saline, some steroids to open you up. Get relaxed, you're gonna be here a while.”

He reads the computer screen a bit more.

“Ohhh, I remember you now.” he says.

“You still live alone? Single your whole life, not married?”

“Yeah” I tell him.

“Uh-huh” Which sound a bit sarcastic to me when he said it.

“You still hike? Climb?” he asked and then I wonder had he taped our last conversation from before.

“No, my legs will scream murder if I put them through that again.”

“Well, you are nearly 60.” he says.

He then turns to me...”You hiked alone a lot? Purposely ever go off trail to get yourself sort of lost, just so you could use a compass and map to find your way back? Testing yourself?”

I turn to look at him, in sort of amazement.

“So you have.” he says. “I have another patient near you age, similar hobbies, hiker, bachelor male type...You like your independence? Staunchly defend it?”

“Yeah.”

“Anyone ever tell you you're stubborn? Refuse to take anyone else's opinion because you think they're wrong?”

“Yeah...I don't' usually voice it but in my head I scream 'Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!' ” Now I wonder why this is turning into a therapy session.

He goes on. “You might be surprised but there's more than a few of you “bachelor males” (his favorite term to use) out there, like yourself. I run into you guys often enough and you're all fairly similar.. It's a great trait, to depend on yourself, learn things on your own, paying attention to the tiniest details, checking things again and again...over doing that...and you've been doing it for years. It's useful but there's a downside.”

“Believing like you do and living alone, you have NO counterpoint to to what you think is painfully right, in your mind and only in your mind. You believe ONLY you can do things "right.". A wife, girlfriend or live in room mate could easily offer a more common sense, grounded view of what's up with you at the moment, like you could've used yesterday when you should have come in, instead of trying to handle this one your own. And I don't think I have to warn you again you carry only one copy of the cystic fibrosis gene, had you the second gene as well, you'd be long since gone like your brother from 20 years ago. You beat the odds, outlived them all by years, but don't think you're totally immune from your family background. You can't will your way out of that fact because your fiercely independent.”

“Was your Dad like this? Independent, Stubborn?” he asks. Holy shit I thought. Bingo! My dad would have to have been dragged by his heels to go to an ER. But I didn't tell the Dr that.

I felt like this guy hired a private investigator to follow me around. How did he know? Well, I guess if you see a thousand patients a year, you learn a few things about personalities.

“Well, we'll get you situated, control it all, but your nose is going to run like a faucet for a few days...don't hang out with others w/o a mask! The fogginess will go away on it's own. And...COME BACK if it gets worse..don't chew over that decision because you think you know what your doing...you AREN'T qualified to do so! You seem to know a lot but nothing in this field!”

****

Years ago, I had worked in social services. I have seen and been through therapy sessions. I'd see the tricks they employ to get you to admit ugly dark secrets, open you up w/o you realizing they're doing it. They can get you to believe, in family sessions, that they are interviewing others when in fact they're watching YOU and how you respond via body language to what everyone else was saying. I was and am still aware of how they investigate. But this Dr, gutted me in minutes, like a haddock on a boat, feeding the seagulls with the useless bits.

At 14, I thought I knew all I needed to know about the world. I was RIGHT. I was SURE. At 60, I still sort of just believe myself because I have known too many idiots and seen how they crash their lives constantly. Take their advice? Pfff! Not in a million years. However...having been exposed like this by a Dr who pinned me to the wall...I should believe I really, really don't know so much as I like to think I do. 

 

 Fall Risk, Bruise Risk, see my arm?...and I'm not playing with cutting tools so don't worry. 

 

 

When I Met Jim Tarricani, A Moment From My Life.

 

 

 

Mel (not you Melanie M, the other Mel!) and Mary were two friends I knew back through the '90s. Unfortunately, due to one misunderstanding and the usual drift in people's lives, I haven't seen either one in decades. Mary and I pissed one another off over what I can't remember now and Mel and I just wandered from one another.

Mel and Mary were friends for the same reason everyone else becomes friends, common views, qualities and each can fill in the other's missing parts. You ever see two people come together and the sum of those two parts is greater than supposed whole? With Mel and Mary, it was the opposite. Those two would come together and degraded till the sum of their particular parts went negative.

Mel, managed in certain people, to have them revert to a younger more immature self. It was what made Mel happy, to return to a time when she was childish and w/o any responsibilities. She was probably the first Peter Pan Girl I ever met, who vowed 'never to grow up.' She managed to get away with it (for a while) as her personality was vivacious, upbeat and quite energetic. Also, like people will do, they allowed her to be that way. We all make concessions to other's personalities as long as the cost isn't too great. We accommodate another's peccadilloes as a manner of course.

Mary 'n' Mel could act like they were 12 year girls at times. The whispering, gossip, giggling, attraction to things that were silly. When I used to drive a convertible, the two of them decided to crawl into the backseat and cover themselves with a blanket I had there, as we were flying down Post Road. At the Airport road redlight, the other drivers shot looks at me, the two hidden girls and then wondered...what I don't know. Mary, was married with a kid and from what I saw, enjoyed the time with Mel as a brief vacation, otherwise, Mary was as dead serious as cancer at times when it came to life at times. But around Mel...she was a different woman then.

I've said it before, I tend(ed) to live life close to the vest as I have seen how it all can go haywire, so keep your shit wired tight. However, show me a girl who didn't live like that, who did run into the street w/o looking, who chased fun at the drop of a hat, and I was immediately attracted. Those women I refereed to as roller coaster rides, not that they were malicious about it or some hidden drug problems in their lives, but addicted to fun and adrenaline rushes.

Mel mainlined adrenaline...and I liked that!

**

Mary, Mel and I were tooling around downtown Providence one Saturday night. We were just ambling around on a summer night, seeing what may be there. We ended up at Waterplace Park at a small event in that amphitheater. The girls were dressed in 90's girl fashion and I? I was dressed a bit cheap. I wore white jeans, top siders with a tasteful (sort of) Hawaiian shirt. I kinda looked like this guy pictured just below.  Yes, it was slightly tacky and vulgar but it gets you attention and I could be a hog for that if I was in the mood. It's a major reason why I tell stories so much, you're focused on me! Yes, I am quite aware of myself at times!

The event was chamber music and the crowd attending it were polite, quiet and behaved. We three never climbed into the seats but instead leaned against a security fence in center/front of everyone there and for a bit, watched the musicians saw on their violins and cellos. Of course, the two girls have to start goofing around with one another and I got in between them, wrapping my arms around their shoulders and we started this slow mamba dance to the music. Mary didn't excite me at all but Mel sure did. She knew damn well I liked her and she ground that feline body into mine as we slowly gyrated to the music.

I think we were the only ones there making any noise and it wasn't that loud to begin with.

I then, for some reason, turned around to look at the people sitting in the amphitheater and I noticed half the crowd was looking at us. The closest person gawking at us, about 10 feet away, was Jim Tarricani of New Watch 10. When our eyes met, I could see what his face said. He was disgusted with us..with me. We three were ruining this noble, staid event by my/we acting like a pimp with two harlots on my arms. Jim and I stared at one another for, oh I say, longer than one should because it started to make me uncomfortable. I know disapproval in someone's face when I see it and Tarricani's face said I was an ignorant, uncultured pig. Well, it depends on the setting doesn't it?

I turn to the two girls and tell them it was probably time to leave as we weren't making too many friends there. Mel, who asked why, then said “Oh Fuck them!” a bit too loudly after I told her the reason. With a little push on my arms, I guided we three right back out of the venue. I was sort of surprised with Tarricani's gaze following us out until we passed the support walls till it blocked his view.

Perhaps, just perhaps, Tarricani's front row, center seat was special? Perhaps there were other luminaries from the State and media in the other seats close by? Whatever that event was, there was no security at all. But how many goons do you need to control the gates at a chamber music concert? I would say...none. Leave the door open and we'll come in.

 

Sort of Barely Well Off Upper Middle Class

 

 

A few weeks ago I read an article about insufferable “new rich” who visit Nantucket. The article went on to surmise that many of the tourists were the nouveau riche who came to the island like it was a pilgrimage to Mecca. “If one finally 'arrives,' one must make at least one pilgrimage to Nantucket to bray about their financial status. Profess your faith through displaying conspicuous consumption.” In other words Rhode Islanders would understand, a spacone.

The original subject of the article was about some nasty Islanders who callously dismissed the poorer residents (the “help”) concerns about finding affordable housing there. Bumper stickers were appearing that said: “If You Want Affordable Housing, Go Back to the Cape Where You Belong.” The author goes on to question whether the help was going to commute the four hour total, ferry to and from the Island, to work their jobs keeping the rich from having to do their own laundry and such. A response to the article had one threatening to introduce as many male and female skunks to the island, in hopes they breed like hell and stink up the place. I think perhaps some nice Lyme disease carrying tics stuck to the skin of male and female badgers would make island living more interesting.

But the author's trip to the Island took on a different bent when he encountered the stuck up attitudes of mostly the visitors of the Island vs. the actual residents themselves. He noticed the arrogant way they drove on that tiny island, with over sized Cadillac Escalades and giant Land Rovers. Add to that their inability to follow parking regulations and parked wherever they wanted. Also the comedy of seeing their purported off road vehicles sunk, up to their axles in the sand, on some of the beaches.

He spoke of standing in line at one of the many ice cream shops near the principal marina there and overhearing, rather TOO easily, some young 20 Something Trust Fund kids insult his choice in sunglasses. They weren't Jacques Marie Mage shades but a pair of knock-off Ray Bans bought at a Boston yard sale. Oh, How gauche! How tacky!

He ignored the comments but it perked his interest and began listening in to some other conversations he would overhear from the young rich he'd find. The best one was where he overheard a young wife, with a little one in tow, rip the hell out of her husband about not “being able to afford the White Elephant Hotel and instead staying at some B&B where they do NOT babysit the kids all day. The White Elephant boasts of a staff where you can dump your annoying, fun killing kids off all day, freeing you to get drunk and go wind surfing. If you're really rich, you can send them to some boarding school in Switzerland. Then you can sail the world in your yacht, docking at all the proper places and be seen.

Ugh, imagine a wife who was soo class conscious to ride you about not moving up as well as you can, so you can afford to brazenly display and shove in the face of others, your wealth? Even if she was hot that wouldn't be compensation enough.

**

On a 4^th of July once, I hung out with some friends I grew up with at their place of business to watch the fireworks at McCoy stadium. It was nicely placed to see it all and an easy in 'n' out as the city population would swell another 20,000 and jam up all the roads. For us, we knew how to navigate the side roads and avoid it all from where his business was.

At the time, I was driving a Sebring convertible which I loved. I always loved convertibles as they were a joy to drive and very relaxing. I had parked mine with the other vehicles there. It was the only “car” in the lot as everyone else drove oversized SUVs. As the night wore on, one of the wives came to me and asked why I was still driving a car. It was the way she said it that dripped of judgment and failed conformism on my part. I wasn't keep up appearances it seems.

I told her I didn't need a truck like that, and being very conscious of costs, I alerted her that the exhaust system on her husband's SUV costs more than than..say a very decent weekend on the Cape. That didn't click for her, she was too involved in her appearance and how she slightly tilted her white wine glass as she spoke to me. Also being desperately thin at 47 didn't help her in my mind's eye either. “You're not 20 honey..not anymore!” I thought.

As she walked back to her family, I mouthed, “You're married to a plumber for God's Sake, who was convicted of drug dealing in his teens. I know, I saw him being shoved into a cop car in Slater Park.” I suspect she was waiting for her invitation to join the Point Judith Country Club. It'll be a lonnng wait honey, you aren't their kind of people. You'd be arrested if you tried to walk in the front door.

At another cook out event, I ran into another conspicuous spender wife. She had questioned why I was still living in Pawtucket and not moved to Seekonk or Rehoboth where all the newly rich ones in Pawtucket fled too. I had told her that it would be nice to have the privacy a couple of acres would give me but the “need” to move just two miles to the east wasn't that strong. As we continued to speak, she fired jabs at me and I at her. When I found out she belonged to a home owners association, I really dug into her. I called them conformist shit holes where “bored rich housewives who have nothing to do but stir the shit in the pot by patrolling the neighborhood looking for petty violations of the association's contract...the wrong colored rose bushes...only red American Beauty roses are allowed!”

I go on...

“My God..it's like a bunch of teen girls ripping up another one over her lack of proper mascara...you'd think these women would've grown emotionally over the years, simply just grow up!”

When I said that, her head spun around and she gave me the worst look in the world.

BINGO! You gave it away! I nailed it! She WAS one of those girls! I thought.

“Hey Kathy, why did you get so angry at what I said? Are YOU one of those girls?”

Silence. Only crickets chirping.

The whole time, her husband was sitting right next to her and just dried up like a spider on a hot stove as we two had this little row. He wasn't going to say a damn thing..and didn't.

She cut me off after that for the rest of the night. No loss. I just felt bad for her husband who had to LIVE with that. 

 

 

 

 

Lite Brite

 

 

 

I usually post a Christmas story here if I'm in the mood. Most of my past Christmases fade into the dust as nothing exceptional sticks out. However, there are a few that do. Two of them I'll tell you about here. One is a great memory for me and the other, quite ugly. This is all true

The Good.

Of course I was up early for Christmas morning when I was five. I had managed to beat everyone at that. Even at that age, if I was the first one up, I knew enough to creep around as to not wake the others. So I crept down the stairs and came upon a sight. The whole living room seemed stuffed with gifts. As a little kid, everything in the world seems so much larger. The living room, the tree, the gifts and anyone older than me. Remember how your perspective was very different then? To me, it seemed that the living room had no more room in it when filled with so many gifts.

I walked up to them, trying to figure out who was getting what. I could see my brother's name and mine on most. The stockings hung up were bulging and on the stairway banister, six fist sized ornamental foiled balls were taped to them. I didn't know they were chocolate candies underneath that foil till I was told later.

When everyone else got up we tore into the gifts. It's such a blur that I really don't remember much except for that my Mom was sitting there on the couch, fully dressed and smoking her Newport cigarettes and drinking her fave earl gray tea. My Dad, was over by another chair, still half asleep in his paisley pjs.

“Richard, it's Christmas...aren't you getting dressed?” my Mom asks Dad

“Yeah...later.” If it wasn't for us kids being noisy, he'd easily go back to sleep right then and there, half sliding out of the lounger.

My Mom's style back then was to dress like Laura Petrie from the Dick van Dyke show. I really don't remember if she ever wore a dress back then. Then again, she was the youngest Mom in our neighborhood and I remember most of the other Mom's dressing in dresses, which looked like printed bags. Thinking back on it too, my Mom had a decent figure to wear something like Laura would wear. I know, I know....sounds gross to rate your own Mom, but compared to the other house-coated ratbag Moms I knew on our street, she was the better “looker.” 

 

Laura Petrie

 

 

The best gift that Christmas morning I got was Lite Brite. I had asked Dad how does it work and he said we'd set it up later as too much was going on now. I could be a fairly patient kid and knew he was right. No matter...Santa had brought the one gift I was wanting above all else. I can wait.

Later on that night, a few uncles had stopped by and of course, being Irish, there was liquor for the adults. My brother's friend, Bobby, had come by to play with my brother's new gifts. I was soon pushed into the background as the adults adulted with their Irish whiskies and my older brother with his older friend did what all older brothers do, shove you away.

“Will you STOP pestering us! Go away! Get Dad to set up that Lite Brite! Beat it!”

I was getting a bit desperate to get my Lite Brite up and running. To me, from seeing it on TV, it was a magical machine and I HAD to see it now. I returned to the kitchen and approached my Mom about it. She then got up from the table and with a “I'll be back,” came with me to my room upstairs.

For an adult, screwing in a 100 watt light bulb into a plastic box, snapping on a peg board, then a paper graphic with another peg board on top of that was not rocket science. It was to me. Hell, I'm five, give me a break! She then told me to look closely at the holes as they were printed with the first letter of each color. “B” for blue, “R” for red and to push the transparent colored pegs into that hole. She sat next to me on the bed as we did this and offered just enough help for me to figure it out. She was good for helping me as a kid but also would let me struggle with things to learn it myself.

As I filled the peg board, the outline of a sailboat was forming. I became excited because the colors were glowing right into my face and I kept telling my Mom how cool this all was. Here's the key memory that I still see today. I turned to her, excited, she looks at me and smiles. We were doing something together. I had her to myself and she seemed just as enthusiastic about this as I was. We both were experiencing this magic machine for the first time. My Dad and his brothers in law were getting louder, drunker in the kitchen. My brother and Bobby I could hear in his room thumping away on the floor doing God Knows What but the best scene in that house was my Mom and I. We were two best friends discovering life's miracles together.

Once the board was all filled up, I asked her to shut off the overhead light so to see this glow in the dark. She did and I was shocked. The full wizardry of the Lite Brite had shown. The colors were so deep, so bright that it just saturated our eyes, causing me to utter, “Ooooooh!”

In winter gray New England, this was Heaven, or it looked like what Heaven would look like, the deepest colors imaginable. I and my Mom were there to see it. We two had found another revelation together. We two included one another, enjoying each other. It's at this age you find out that sharing “fun” with someone increases it by so much more.

The last time I had a reaction to color was at a Pink Floyd concert decades later. The opening song, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” had a single, gallium-arsenide laser appear and bounce around inside the Civic Center. The beam had an electric blue color to it and a ghostly feature, a semi transparency with what looked like static within the beam itself. Gilmour plucked away at his guitar as this other-worldly thing glowed and sizzled 20 feet above my head. This was the first time I had ever seen a laser in real life. The five year old in me thought “Oooooh!”

The Ugly.

My brother had was on leave from the Navy for the Christmas of '83 when I picked him up at the airport. While driving home, I had warned him that our Mom was in another depressive episode again, this one stronger than the last. She had fought with depression ever since I was alive and it's cycles just repeated itself. She'd get into a deep funk for about three to four months and then somehow get out of that rut, mostly by herself. The treatments for it were lousy back then in the '70's and she had tired of them not working as promised. Eventually, she gave up on Dr's, psychiatrists and would just tough it out alone.

This bout of depression was worse though in '83. I had known that trying to get her to see a physician was not going to work as she'd completely balk at the idea. So I did what I did most times I saw this in the past, wait it out. She'd come around again in time.

“Holy shit!” my brother says to me when he encountered our Mom again on Christmas Eve. “She's really bad this time around!” He had not seen her in two years so this was a shock to him.

I had told him “Yeah” but was hoping for that turnaround we both had always seen before. It happened so many times in the past like this.

“I don't know man...I don't know.” he commented.

She has lost weight, let her hair turn into a rat's nest and had this completely blank expression on her face most of the time.

“I'm calling her GP tomorrow.” he says.

“She won't do a damn thing, she'll tell the Dr to buzz off...she'll fight any advice he has! She won't on her own accord look for help.” I reply

“Yeah...I know she will, but what else can we do?”

On Christmas morning, my brother gets off the phone, “The Dr says to take the 'bull by the horn' and literally kidnap her to Butler Psychiatric Hospital. He says not to worry about any legal problems with it...and if she fights, just drag her there anyway, anyhow. I'll back you two up.”

So my brother and I come up with a ruse, we were all to just take a ride this morning. She had gone without any resistance. Once inside the main entrance to Butler was when I felt her pulling away from me and him, trying to get back to the car. I just gripped her arm harder and shoved her along towards the ER desk they had there. Within two minutes, three large oak sized men showed up and grabbed her, pulling her along and past two doors that slammed shut behind them. I then heard some mechanical sounds coming from those doors. Automatic locks engaging so I figured. It was that sound of the doors that got me. The gravity of this finally sunk in. My Mom has been locked up in crazy bin.

On the drive home from Butler, my brother turns to me and in his particular black/dark humor says, “Merry Christmas!”

I got the joke. Life was just too absurd at times to make any sense. We both, for some reason, had this kind of humor and outlook on life.

Butler Hospital then, was beautiful. It looked like the best hotel I had ever seen. Quiet, clean with expensive paintings on the walls and other artworks placed in the halls. When my brother and I arrived for a family meeting, we were led by a psychiatric graduate student to the “Locked ward.” On our way there, we had passed through an arboretum filled with bushes, trees, flowers and ivy, all growing inside this large room that led to a staircase and open walkway in the center of the building. It smelled like summer in there, it being just the day after Christmas.

Family meetings include everyone, kids, parents, relatives. I instinctively knew what was about to happen there. This meeting was not about my Mom, it was a surreptitious staged event by the Dr's and assistants to watch the family members as they talked about Mom. They were looking for family dynamics and would find them, I was assured of that. I doubt any other relative knew that they were the subjects that morning. I knew I would be. How? I was a psych major at RIC and had seen this very same thing at a visit to a mental health center we had to witness and then write about.

Dr Martin Furman was her assigned Dr. He had an odd Afrikaner accent which made sense, since he was born and lived in South Africa during Apartheid's heyday, later emigrating to America, landing in Rhode Island as a psychiatric physician at Butler. This guy looked like a German SS officer to me and with that German exactness for detail and mannerisms. This guy wasn't about to fuck around at all, with anything.

Furman starts with me. So I tell him of the past twenty or so years of her illness, life and whatnot. I was fairly truthful but felt a bit defensive as he probed me further on details. It then happened, Furman's match lit the fuse. The interactions of everyone there fired up and accusations, old hurts, bitterness came out. Events happening 20 years before I was born came to light. Three graduate level interns sitting with us then started scribbling away on their legal pads as everyone talked at once. Furman just became quiet and leaned back, just watching everyone else and not really my Mom at all. I myself shut the hell up, not taking part in this as I knew that the people there were dissecting us. I didn't want to be dissected at all. My past, bad decisions and general personality I wasn't about to divulge or even reveal via body language.

Later on, after it was over, my brother and I were checking out that arboretum we saw earlier. It was really nice to see a little, living forest in late December. He then turns to me says, “Oh..I forgot...and Happy New Year too!” Even more of his nihilistic humor!

Things got better within a month. By the times in the early '80s, they had much better drugs and therapies to deal with depression. I would shake Martin Furman's hand today if I happen to come across him. He had managed to make my Mom's life bearable for the next 13 years.

**

It goes without saying that I prefer the Christmas of 1969 better than that of 1983. I had, for a time at least, a Mom who was lucid and stable for it. And when she was healthy, she was there for me and we both enjoyed each other's company. It wasn't all crap and there were times some absolute gems we two had found together. I haven't forgotten about that.

Poles Apart

 

 

The door is halfway open to the hallway. I can see well from my little examination room as a Dr wheels his touch screen up to my room, but before entering it he taps some icon and a song comes on from the overhead speakers. He's pleased and turns it up more by sliding his finger up. Pushing his touch screen in he introduces himself, “I'm Dr SuchnSuch!”

I then say to him because I immediately recognized the guitar solo, “You like David Gilmour??

He stares at me for a second...”You KNOW who he is?”

“Yeah, that's “Poles Apart” from the Division Bell you're playing now.” It's a song where Gilmour tries to patch up the past he had with Syd Barrett and Roger Waters.

He again stares...”How...? None of my patients know of this..you're the first to make any mention of it. I play it all the time.”

We then kill 15 minutes speaking of Pink Floyd, Roger Waters and comparing concerts we've seen, before we get to the task at hand, checking me out.

The tests come back, “Yup, didn't really have to do them but wanted to confirm what I thought. You have lobar pneumonia, lower right lobe, could hear it on the stethoscope. It's pretty common...it can last days or weeks, depending on who you are and in your case, you were probably walking around with it for a week w/o knowing it til the last days it kicked in.”

I think, “Great...same damn thing my Dad would get, again and again,” but he hated Dr's and never would see one. Last time he got the big P, it took him out.

“Go to CVS, get these meds and it'll be gone in a day or two.”

Then...

He's following me through the maze in the office space speaking of other Pink Floyd stories he had. The other patients waiting are sort of looking at us, hearing us speak of things NOT medical. At the entrance, he says...”Kudos for knowing 'Poles Apart!' You certainly surprised me on a Saturday.”

The only other Dr story I have was when my brother was in RI Hospital and his Dr had paperwork for me to sign so they could do surgery on him.

“Oh, There's Dr Adair now, she'll take your papers”

I turn around and see this little girl scout in a white lab coat emblazoned with RI Hospital/Brown U emblem. She looks 17. I almost say, “You're a Dr...really?” I didn't but was stunned at how young she looked. It then reminded me that I was above the median age for Americans..way above it. The chances of me running into anyone older than me were getting shorter and shorter. It looks like most I meet are younger than me. Well of course they are....statistics back it up. But damn, she looked like jailbait. And apparently she was the one who did the laparoscopic surgery on my brother. Sigh...this little girl has far more talent, degrees and money than I will ever see. 

 

Poles Apart

 

A Little Fun

 

 

That was a first. I crashed a high school reunion I had no business attending. It was the 1982 Tolman High school 40^th. I, instead, was a St Ray's 1982 graduate. The reason I went was because I figured I'd run into kids (now old adults) I knew in Goff Jr High back....in 1979. When we all left jr high, most of the ones I knew went to Tolman. You get older, you look back a lot and these people I knew then did figure in my life to some importance. I wanted to see how they turned out.

A few did recognize me and a few others did once they learned my name. After looking at them sort of intently, I could recognize their eyes. They were amazed by my white shock of hair I sport now. Their last memory of me was of auburn/reddish haired Irish kid.

Dave asks: “So, what are you up too?”

I then tell him I have to compress in 4 minutes 40 years of my life. I tell him of my career path, domestic life and how I just ditched a job and the whole scene a year after covid ravaged the nursing/rehab homes. I stayed “retired' for about a year. His eyes widened when I told him that and I caught it. If you work with the deaf, you learn to read people quick.

“You're retired? He asks, with a bit of surprise.

“No..well...sort of..maybe...I don't know yet.” I tell him. “I am working again and the future I kind of leave open ended as to what's next. To tell the truth, I don't know what the future holds. No one does. Work till I drop, quit, retire and feed the ducks at the pond...take up water color painting? Who knows?”

He then tells me of his three daughters that he's pushing through college. I then think, “No wonder he was surprised at me, he's working to pay off what the state won't.”

A situation occurred where I had the same reaction at my 35^th reunion for St Ray's. I was introduced to a guy I knew back then and then tried like hell to hide my light horror. The guy, I'll call Phill, looked like he was 69 years old. He was bald, covered in old age spots and sort of hunched. I tried, really tried not to look shocked but you can't hide it all. There are days where I feel that old but I don't look like this guy. We spoke for a few and I just scanned him as we talked. “God...how some people age badly” I thought.

I then looked around at the women. There were a couple of Sloppo-patomuses there but most were average. Though there were a few cheerleader types who must've spent 45 minutes trying to wriggle themselves into a pair of skinny jeans. The desperately thin at 59 years of age.

Since I crashed this party, I had no name tag. When I arrived I just sort of walked past the registration table, got a beer and started schmoozing. I wondered how long I could get away with it. Not too long apparently.

Thirty minutes in a guy comes up to me and asks, “Who are you? You have no name tag? Alot of people seem to think they know you but you have no tag.”

“Nope. I am a 1982 graduate of Saint Rays, but I figured I'd see people I know here.”

“Did you pay?” he asks.

“Nope.” I tell him.

“Well,” he goes on, “don't you think it's unfair that these people paid and you didn't?”

I then tell him why would I? I never attended Tolman high, and I was there for a short time anyway and had NO intention of eating their food. I'm not that much of a leech. I too, have some pride.

“But..the rules...you didn't pay!” he tells me.

I lift my glass of Blue Moon beer to him, sort of toasting him and say, “Ain't it funny how life turns out? How these things occur? You enjoy the party, I know I will.” And I walk off.

I knew that he'd rejoin his group and in about 28 seconds my crime would be broadcast to all there. No problem. I headed downstairs to the bar and ordered a greaseburger. There, I am no longer trespassing on the temporary property of Tolman's 40^th that's going on upstairs and I managed to continue my chats with some who were downstairs as well.

Crashing events you were never invited to can be fun. When much younger, a few of us would stumble across a wedding reception at some restaurant or event place and we'd slide ourselves in. The lure of falling down drunk bridesmaids was usually the motive. Or, the reception was really hopping and we'd invite ourselves anyway for a good time.

The best crash was at a Bruce Sundland, Governor of RI event. My brother at the time was a writer and he had written a scathing, satirical piece about Sundlund's dating habits. It was titled, “Bruce Sundlund's Dating Guide” and in it, my brother makes him come off as the sleaziest, woman using, male slutting, whore mongering prick you ever met. My brother managed to get away with it because at the bottom of the piece was written: “This is a spoof, a work of comedic fiction. In no way should anyone take this as a serious piece of journalism. All statements in this article are wholly made up” But it was written in teensy-weensy script so more than a few people never read that part of it and thought the piece was real and just an ugly political hatchet job on the governor. You have to be extra-specially STUPID not to get satire, but there are more than a few in RI who are dullards.

How did my brother know people took it as a real piece of journalism? The paper he worked for received dozens of pieces of hate mail. The editors thought it a goof and it sold more copies. Since the piece was stated to be a “work of fiction,” the paper was barely not liable for libel slandering.

Soo, my brother wanting to enjoy a good time, wants to shake the Governor's hand. The event was at the Biltmore and we go down, dressed sort of business casual and we drink, rob the buffet line and my brother is waiting for the moment to place himself in front of Sundland.

He gets his chance.

“Hello Sir, I'm Ken M____, I was the one who wrote that piece in the Providence Monthly.

It took the gov about 12 seconds to figure it out and then just icily stared at my brother.

My brother and I retreated to a corner of the room, trying not to laugh. I managed to finish off a beer when two very serious looking guys come up to us.

“You two have to leave...now!” they say.

“Why? Asks my brother.

“There's no why, youse two have to go!”

So we leave. Why spend the weekend at the Intake Center at the ACI?

Anyways, I managed to see a few I knew from so long ago at that reunion I might not have otherwise. Where and when would I be able to find them all stuffed into a single room again?