MY FIFTH GRADE BUDDIES WITH THE CUSTODIAN. People were a study to me from early in my life. Time moved slower then, giving me lots of time to take note, eavesdrop, and think about the people in my life. Being alone a lot fed that too.
I took tap dancing lessons for about 4 months when I was 7 or 8. I could get there because the bus stopped near the front of our house. It was always the same driver. He promised Mom that he would tell me when to get off across the street from Mr. Tucci’s house, wait until I crossed safely and be sure to pick me up a half hour later on his return run. There were five other girls my age in the class in Mr. Tucci’s basement. I was a klutz much better at climbing trees than tap, tap, tapping. I loved the shiny patent leather shoes with the metal tips that held a penny inside. But the dance routine was too boring. I didn’t belong and never got to perform at the end of the year. The tap shoes went into the drawer in the old oak bureau in the attic.
Athletics were much more my style. With two brothers in the house, I brought home the only baseball trophy. At this time, my one-day-to-be-step-father Joe had brought a bat for my brother Bob. I whined that he didn’t bring me anything. I really wanted a set of paints and brushes. He didn’t know anything about paints and brushes so be took me to buy a baseball glove. I couldn’t get to all my games because Mom didn’t drive and I rarely had a way to get there.
When I was 12 Joe took me twice on Friday nights to watch wrestling matches (not anything he enjoyed) that a friend of mine was in. He thought I liked wrestling, but it was the boy I wanted to see. I promised him I would come see him wrestle. Joe was helping me to keep that promise.
On a summer day I rode my bike several blocks to play with Marilyn. She couldn’t come out to play because she suffered from asthma. Sometimes she was okay enough to play board games. This was my first exposure to the Ouija Board. Finding Marilyn healthy enough didn’t happen often enough to make the long trek out to her house more than once a week. Her parents thanked me for coming, telling me that I was important to Marilyn and the only girl who came to play with her.
Within the year she moved across the Delaware River to Yardley, Pennsylvania. Her folks came to pick me up at home to spend a day with her and then brought me home again. That was just a one-time happening. But it took me to see new territory, opened my horizons, let me know there was more than my neighborhood. It also taught me compassion for the restrictive life Marilyn had to live.
Category Archives: women
BEING DIFFERENT
MY HOUSE ON THE CHURCH SIDE
Being different is not the same as not belonging. It may be a cause for not belonging but being different stands alone. I grew up being told I was different, not because of being the only girl in a neighborhood of boys (and I had two brothers, no sisters) but because we were the only family without a father in the house. It was quite unusual in those days and in our neck of the woods.
We weren’t confined to the back yard but allowed to roam as long as we didn’t cross the busy streets that defined the neighborhood. I didn’t have an ounce of shyness in me then, not even internally. That came later when I would have to push myself forward.
A half block up Liberty Street was a neighbor who also lived in a semi-detached house. He owned two lots alongside his house that were planted in vegetables but mostly in flowers. At 7 years old I would stop my bike and talk to him through the fence while he worked. He never encouraged it but he didn’t reject me either. One summer day I asked, “How come I always see you outside working but I have never seen your wife. You have a wife, don’t you? And how about kids. Do you have kids? I’ve never seen any.”
He explained to me that their children were grown up with households of their own and that his wife was very ill and liked to be quiet. I quickly followed up with, “Why did you build a swimming pool if you don’t have kids?”
These were the days when the only swimming pools were community pools that you needed to pay to get in. Woodlawn was the pool we went to once a week in the summer with the school playground program. It was a 2 mile walk, one way.
He patiently explained that he built his pool (a wooden structure 5 feet high, about 10 feet long and 8 feet wide) for exorcise, told me to never come in the yard without his invitation. I think this came after I told him about my climbing adventures on the church fence. He also invited my brother and me to come swim in his pool on a day he selected, with a written consent from my mother. We went two or three times and loved it, respected his rules and never pushed ourselves on his generosity.
His generosity expanded to giving me fresh flowers for my mother on Mother’s Day after I told him that I rode four blocks away to the cemetery to pick some flowers from the gravestones for Mom on Easter. He kindly but firmly explained why I should never, ever do that again, that if I needed flowers to come ask him. I never picked flowers from the cemetery again.
Filed under Memoir, reflection, women, women writers, women's stories, writing
BELONGING OR NO
HOMEDELL SCHOOL . . . . now offices
I learned early on about not belonging. It came from the 13 boys in the neighborhood and no girls until I was about 9 or 10. That’s a lot of formative years and trying to fit in. It’s what toughened me up and I learned to work harder, hiding my tears when I was hurt, couldn’t let them show, not in a bunch of boys. They would have shunned me for sure.
It was in kindergarten that I found my first friend who didn’t fit in either. He didn’t because Nathaniel was black. In a school of 7 grades, one being kindergarten, and less than 20 kids per grade, there were only 5 black kids in the school. We also had a couple Jewish families, a Mexican family, a couple Irish families, several Italian families, some Polish families, and a family from down south. A block over from my house was Gail, who was blind but she went to a special school for the blind in Trenton.
Our kindergarten class was scheduled to perform on stage at the end of the school year. We had learned to play instruments like triangles, birds (that had water in them and gave a whistle sound) and jingle bells on a string. We also had to perform a dance at which Nathaniel became my partner. I chose him because he was different. I already knew about not belonging and sensed that he knew it too. We remained friends until he moved to Trenton in the fourth or fifth grade.
Of course I did have classmates that were girlfriends even in kindergarten but they lived blocks away. I didn’t get a 2-wheeled bike until I was in second grade. Then I could ride the whole neighborhood (about 8 blocks long and 4 blocks deep surrounded by major roadways) but by then friendships had already been formed and I was always the third person out. I ventured to ride to Nathaniel’s which was on the far side of the square. He only got to my house once because he didn’t have a bike and it was a long way to walk. I pretty much remained a loner until the fourth or fifth grade when Roberta moved a block away from me.
I learned about belonging or not, about being different early in life and it remained with me until I finally embraced it as a blessing. It gave me leadership opportunities, pushed me with courage and taught me to make my own place.
Filed under Memoir, women, women writers, women's stories, wormen writing
more of HAVE I TOLD YOU? Ellie Newbauer booksigning party
HAVE I TOLD YOU? Booksigning for Ellie Newbauer went beautifully well today at the Rosemont Winery. A good turnout of friends from near and far on a lovely, sunny afternoon raised glasses in tribute to our 92 year old leader of the pack. Many HAVE I TOLD YOU? Conversations were carried on. We each read a page from Ellie’s book before we asked her to do the same.
Filed under books, booksigning, Rosemont Winery, winery, women, women's stories, writing
HAVE I TOLD YOU? Booksigning Party for Ellie Newbauer
HAVE I TOLD YOU? Booksigning for Ellie Newbauer went beautifully well today at the Rosemont Winery. A good turnout of friends from near and far on a lovely, sunny afternoon raised glasses in tribute to our 92 year old leader of the pack. Many HAVE I TOLD YOU? Conversations were carried on. We each read a page from Ellie’s book before we asked her to do the same.
Filed under books, booksigning, Rosemont Winery, winery, women, women writers, women's stories, writing
NANCY DREW?
What are snowy days for? To start a 1,000 piece puzzle of Nancy Drew book covers. That’s what. The puzzle takes me back to when my brother Bob and I put a jigsaw puzzle together on the dining room table. Always after the Christmas holidays were over. We wouldn’t need that table until Easter.
The subject of Nancy Drew took me back, too. I loved her books! I could hardly wait until library day at school, even though the librarian would not allow me more than two books! How unfair! That means I would go for days on end without a good book to read. Of course I wanted to be Nancy Drew.
Fast-forward to the time I opened a new, used & rare bookshop in the 90s. Gary Wheelock offered me the opportunity to meet a Nancy Drew author! WOW! Until then I had no clue that the stories were written by multiply writers. Carolyn Keene was the listed author on the cover of all the series. I went straight to the internet to do some research. Edward Stratemeyer created the series as a female counterpart to the Hardy Boys series.
Well, as least I would have the thrill of meeting one of the esteemed authors. Feeling like a 50 year old groupie I joined Gary in the visit. Some thrill! She was a miserable, unhappy woman who felt no pleasure, no pride in being the writer of the few books about Nancy Drew that she wrote, that were adored by millions of girls. It devastated me. A numbness settled on me. All my happy images of Nancy Drew and all they entailed slapped out of me by this empty woman.
Time passed as I realized that there were many other authors that I could still look up to with anticipation of meeting them. And I have. No more Nancy Drew authors, but there you have it.
Filed under books, women, women writers, women's stories, writing
THE MUNICH GIRL BY PHYLLIS EDGERLY RING –REVISITED
It’s been more than a year since I first read The Munich Girl and loved it so much that I waited a whole year to have my book discussion group share in the experience. A list of books set in place was to be read first. It was worth the wait. We particularly discussed the many relationships in the book. The intricacies of a friendship, even one that is only renewed every four years and holds secrets, can be a delicate situation. It certainly was with Peggy and Eva. We recognized that the story was well researched with Eva coming across clearly, bringing out Hitler’s intimate relationship in the process.
The discussion also spread to our political situation today with many comparisons made about what we, as Americans, are facing today. We talked about the effect the leader of a country has on certain people that apply his damaged way of thinking to allow them to bully and brutalize others.
We talked about how the women of today have so much more power and the avenue to use it than in the 30s and 40s. Hopefully, more women will go into the political arena and truly change our country for the better. We spoke of how the brave women of today will no longer tolerate sexual coercion from powerful men and put shame on the shoulders of those who have taken advantage of their power.
The story brought us into ‘what if’ speculations. What if Peggy had known earlier of who Eva’s secret ‘man’ was or what if Peggy had made a different choice about staying in Germany or moving to America.
Finally we listened to Ellie who was a newly married 17 years old, soon-to-be-a-mother whose husband left to fight in WWII. She stated that communication was not what it is today. Much of the events happening at the time were not known to the general public in our country. What she had to deal with was daily existence and keeping a household together until her husband came home.
Many thanks to Phyllis Edgerly Ring for flushing out this story of the people who did not support Hitler, of relationships, recovery after a war, sacrifices made, and for revealing the life of Eva Braun.
Filed under American History, book review, fiction, women, women's stories, WWII
BIG NEWS
! A Podcast of THE MAKEOVER in Chicken Soup for the Soul Step Outside Your Comfort Zone is scheduled for Nov. 29. Wed. and will continue on your app.
Filed under books, general, women, women's stories, wormen writing
PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE LINEAGE
The photo shows Grandmother Elizabeth Urbanski Daniels (my mother’s mother) holding me approximately one year before she passed away. No stories have come to me about anyone before her in her birth line being psychically developed. She certainly was. My mother didn’t tell me about this until I was nearly 30 years old. I’d had some out of body experiences of my own, but Mom didn’t know that. She never knew it because I never told her. Mom had a habit of belittling me, so I wasn’t about to confide anything at all to her.
Grandmother Elizabeth (as she was referred to, never Grandma) read tarot cards. She was good at it. My mother was developed as far as my two brothers and I was concerned. She always knew before I did, when I was pregnant. I’m talking about within days. With my brother Bob, it was instant. In her later years, she lived in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida but knew instantly when Bob’s car was in an accident in New Jersey. She called on the phone within minutes after it happened. The car was empty. Bob was in the house with me at the time.
Filed under books, family, genealogy, general, Memoir, New book release, paranormal, psychic phenomena, women, women's stories, writing
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