When I was a kid, I loved Cracker Jack.... it came in boxes with that little Cracker Jack boy and his dog pictured on the label. I think it was seven cents a box when I first became aware of this special treat.
My dad loved sweets, and he and I would always share a Hershey's chocolate bar (five cents back then) or a bag of M&Ms, also five cents in the 1950s. And for a special treat, a box of Cracker Jack. Daddy ate the peanuts, I ate the popcorn. It was a perfect arrangement because I didn't like peanuts (still don't) and my father said the sticky popcorn got stuck in his teeth.
In the 1950s, Cracker Jack had a tiny surprise inside the box... a charm-sized animal or doll, a little ring or a tiny toy. I don't exactly remember when they stopped including those miniatures in their boxes of Cracker Jack.... now they have paper riddles and jokes and puzzles. Kids today don't know what they're missing, and the adults who once saved all their Cracker Jack toys back in the day can now buy them on eBay for ridiculous amounts of money.
When I was old enough to sit through a two-hour show, daddy and I went to Madison Square Garden in New York City to see Barnum and Bailey's Circus. My dad's favorite parts of the circus were the animal acts and the clowns, and the grilled hot dogs. I didn't much care for hot dogs then (still don't) and besides, hot dogs were messy, and I always had to wear a dress when we went into The City. Popcorn was a much safer choice... not as messy, and just as filling. I would have a box of popcorn in one hand, and a lighted circus necklace around my neck (all the kids would swing those necklaces in a circle when they lowered the bright stage lights and all you could see were thousands of little red dots glowing on necklaces around the arena).
In high school, popcorn was out and pizza became the snack of choice.... friends would meet at the local pizza place after school, or on the weekends. Either by the slice or a whole pie, depending on how many kids were there, pizza was definitely the thing to eat if you were going to ruin your dinner or splurge on calories in the 1960s. My dad was still driving the bus for the Transit Authority when I was in high school, and there were days when I would meet him at the last stop on his line, and ride half the way back along the Avenue with him, getting off at the bus stop nearest to where we lived. Most often than not on those days, daddy would give me a box of Cracker Jack as I got off the bus, saying "Don't forget to save me the peanuts!"
Pizza didn't last long as the 'treat of choice' as I got older and started worrying about calories. One slice of pizza was fine, but when you were with a lot of friends, just one slice was hard to do.... so it was best to move on to a healthier snack. Popcorn was 'in' again, and big companies were producing multi-paged catalogs with all sorts of flavored popcorn. When I was working at the library up in New York, our director would order huge tins of gourmet popcorn at Christmas and at Easter. The caramel flavor (similar to Cracker Jack) was always the first to go, with the cheese-flavored popcorn sticking around till the very last. Once the caramel popcorn was gone, I wasn't interested in the other flavors. Those popcorn companies are still in business, with the biggest one being in Chicago, I believe..... it had been featured on one of the Oprah shows, and if that isn't a life-saving endorsement for a business, then I don't know what else would be.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I had a small apartment up in New York, about a twenty-minute drive away from my job at the library. With a healthy snack in mind, I bought one of those hot-air heated popcorn makers. All you needed was a good quality brand of corn kernels, and like magic, you had fresh and delicious popcorn that didn't even need a drop of butter. (Never liked butter on popcorn, and still don't.)
One thing about that hot-air popcorn maker, my whole apartment smelled like a movie theater as the kernels were popping. Which was kind of appropriate because the popcorn would be made before or during an old movie from the library's collection of VCR tapes. Casablanca..... Out of Africa.... Gone With The Wind.... An American in Paris.... Breakfast at Tiffany's..... certainly all of those films, and so many more, were popcorn-worthy.
When I moved to Texas, the big popcorn-thing here turned out to be kettle corn. Sort of sweet, like Cracker Jack, but lighter and not as sticky. Definitely addictive.... once you start eating kettle corn, it becomes your meal. Somehow, just having a handful doesn't work. Kettle corn is made in huge copper pots over an open flame, most likely found at country fairs and street celebrations in small towns. I've tried making kettle corn at home.... it just doesn't work, doesn't taste the same. Without the big copper pot and the open flame, it's just not worth the time and the calories.
Except for buying a bag of kettle corn at small-town festivals, I've been staying away from popcorn. What used to be an every-night treat in my little New York apartment is now just a whisper of memory. A small bag of Cracker Jack is nice, but not as memorable as those little boxes that would fit into my dad's shirt pocket. And I remember one Christmas long ago when my husband put a gold and diamond ring into a Cracker Jack bag that he wrapped up in Santa-and-snowmen wrapping paper.
Popcorn has such innocence to it, all that golden deliciousness wrapped up tightly and puffed up inside a tiny corn seed. The aroma of popping corn reminds me of the circus with my dad, and country fairs with street vendors yelling "Get y'all's kettle corn here!" What is especially touching to me is that just the sound of popcorn kernels bursting and exploding from the heat brings back so many memories.... and I can actually hear the dialogue of all those old movies that were 'popped' into the VCR in my tiny little apartment back in New York.
"Here's looking at you, kid." (Was there ever anyone better than Bogart?)
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Ghosts of Christmases Past...
Every night when I plug in the little light that shines into the Nativity set that my dad bought before I was born, little Christmas memories crawl across my mind like a fast-forwarding movie....
My Uncle Mino and my dad used to put knife marks into the chestnuts before they were heated up in the oven after dinner on Christmas Eve. Uncle Mino would make a cross into his half of the chestnuts, my dad would make an X. You would think, both marks being almost alike in size and design, that either mark would let enough steam escape so the chestnuts wouldn't explode in my grandmother's oven. Every year, however, there would be a discussion between my uncle and my dad as to which mark was the proper one, which mark was the most efficient, which was the most Christmas-worthy. The final decision was never committed to a lasting part of family tradition, but those chestnut discussions are still talked about to this day.
On Christmas Day, my Aunt Edie would proudly show the rest of the family how she decorated the large wishbone from the Thanksgiving turkey that everyone shared the month before. Every Thanksgiving, no matter who carved the turkey, they were instructed by Aunt Edie to not only save the wishbone for her, but to not let the knife scratch or cut into that wishbone. Edie would soak the wishbone in warm soapy water, getting off all the meat residue. By the time she was finished cleaning and polishing up that wishbone, it looked like a fine piece of ivory. When the wishbone reached that exalted state, Edie began to create her masterpiece. First came a coat of clear nail polish. After that dried, she would paint the wishbone with her current favorite color of nail polish. (She swore that Revlon made the best polish, for both nails and wishbones.) After two or three coats of color, Edie would brush on another coat of clear nail polish. She would sprinkle the still-wet wishbone with glitter, tiny glass beads, the tiniest seed pearls, or brightly colored sequins. Aunt Edie had to plan the design before that last coat of clear polish, and she worked fast to decorate one side of the wishbone before it dried, then she'd repeat the process on the other side. The result was a sparkling and embellished turkey wishbone that she would wrap in tissue paper until it was revealed at my grandmother's house on Christmas. We all ooohed and aaahed over her creativity.... and by the time I was in high school, my grandmother had about a dozen painted and blinged-out wishbones displayed in her china cabinet.
The adults in our family had Christmas dinner in the dining room.... the kids ate at the children's table in the kitchen. In the dining room, the 'good' china was used; in the kitchen, the kids used the everyday plates. Our family never had paper plates or plastic utensils, and paper cups weren't even used in the backyard for barbeques. My Uncle Mino would never eat food served on a paper plate, not even when he worked in the city and had lunch at the corner deli or at the cafeteria in his office building. At one particular deli, where Uncle Mino was a good customer, he asked the waitress if he could please have his lunch on a 'real' plate, otherwise he just couldn't eat there. This deli had the most delicious New York-style hot dogs, something that Mino loved to eat during the summer months. He asked the waitress so nicely, and she spoke to her boss, and they provided a restaurant-style china plate for Mino whenever he ate there during his lunch hour. In our family, we all learned early on to appreciate the time it took to make good food, and we also learned that presentation and protocol was just as important as the taste. I think of all of that at Christmas time, because when I use my own collection of Christmas-design plates during the months of November and December, I have to wonder why no one in our family ever thought to use bright and festive Christmas plates at this time of the year, considering how much they all loved Christmas. Maybe our family was just too big to have a third set of dinner plates. And probably, my grandmother was more practical than I am.
My Aunt Dolly was a saver of gift boxes, ribbons, cards, wrapping paper. If it could be re-used, or made into something new and different, then she saved it... and stored these things up in the attic. At best, all her boxes of "save this" and "save that" became a craft cornucopia for all of us kids when we told her we had nothing to do. There was one Christmas that my Uncle Bernie gave my Uncle Mino a new wrist-watch. I don't remember what brand of watch it was, but I do remember that it came in a very nice wooden box. Everyone in the family still remembers that box, because my dad made such a fuss over the box, rather than appreciating the watch. My dad liked pocket watches, so his brother's new wrist-watch didn't interest him... but that wooden box certainly did, and he just couldn't get over the fact that the watch came in such an expensive box. Daddy made such a to-do over that box that Uncle Bernie made sure that Aunt Dolly saved the box..... and the following Christmas, Bernie wrapped up that watch box and gave it to my dad for Christmas. As soon as my dad unwrapped that gift from Bernie, everyone at the table just cracked up laughing.... hardly anyone could even speak because we were all laughing so hard. I remember my father laughing so hard that he cried. To this day, all you have to say to get my family walking down Memory Lane is "Remember that Christmas when Bernie wrapped up the empty watch box...."
In the 1960s, Uncle Mino's girlfriend Kathryn gave Aunt Dolly a beautiful silk garland of green holly and red berries..... it came from a shop in Manhattan, and no one in the family had ever seen anything quite like it. Aunt Dolly hung up the garland on the archway between the living room and the dining room. That particular archway had a wooden, fancy-swirled rod supporting a swag of satin curtains hanging between the two rooms. The silk leaves and the bright red berries of the garland were just the perfect Christmas touch for that space. When the Christmas decorations were taken down in January, that garland was the last bit of Christmas happiness to get packed away. The following year, it was the first decoration to be taken out of its storage box. When Kathryn passed away, the family was just devastated by her sudden and unexpected death. Even though Mino and Kathryn never married, they saw one another every weekend and Kathryn was very much a part of the family. Aunt Dolly was so saddened by Kathryn's death that Christmas came early that year..... that beautiful garland was taken from its box and hung up on the archway months before any of the other Christmas decorations came down from the attic. Kathryn's garland stayed up on that archway for years and years afterwards, never being taken down except for cleaning, and the garland was still there in 2009 when the family home was put up for sale.
When I was a kid, our tree was put up in the dining room, in the corner opposite the piano. The Nativity set that I now display in the living room of our Texas home was always underneath the Christmas tree when I was a kid. My mother would set it up at the center of the tree, on top of the tree-skirt which she would cover with a rolled-out piece of cotton batting. No one ever questioned the 'snow' scene around the manger, until I got older and let everyone know that Christ was born in a desert, not at the North Pole. This Nativity set has a lot of individual pieces...... the family, the wise men, the shepherds, a donkey, a camel, a cow, and a lot of sheep. When I was little, I would take the sheep from the Nativity set and bring them into the living room. I would put the sheep on the sofa and read stories to them, or make believe I was the teacher and the sheep were my students. My mother was constantly having to rescue the sheep and return them to the crèche, telling me that if I wasn't careful with them, their legs would break off and they wouldn't be able to follow the shepherds. Either I was very careful with the sheep years ago, or my mother rescued them just in time, because all of the sheep survived without damage to their legs. When my husband and I first saw this house, I knew that the dining room was not only big enough for the furniture we had, but also large enough for a Christmas tree that would touch the ceiling. Since we've been in this house, the real tree has always had pride-of-place in a corner of the dining room. I have quite a few Christmas trees in all of the other rooms, but the dining room tree gets the vintage bubble lights and the antique ornaments. The Nativity set is on the buffet in the living room, resting on gold-dusted bits of hay instead of a blanket of cotton snow, and I've got the same hay pieces dripping from the roof of the crèche. There are no little children to play with the sheep, and all the animals around the manger look quite content.
My Uncle Mino and my dad used to put knife marks into the chestnuts before they were heated up in the oven after dinner on Christmas Eve. Uncle Mino would make a cross into his half of the chestnuts, my dad would make an X. You would think, both marks being almost alike in size and design, that either mark would let enough steam escape so the chestnuts wouldn't explode in my grandmother's oven. Every year, however, there would be a discussion between my uncle and my dad as to which mark was the proper one, which mark was the most efficient, which was the most Christmas-worthy. The final decision was never committed to a lasting part of family tradition, but those chestnut discussions are still talked about to this day.
On Christmas Day, my Aunt Edie would proudly show the rest of the family how she decorated the large wishbone from the Thanksgiving turkey that everyone shared the month before. Every Thanksgiving, no matter who carved the turkey, they were instructed by Aunt Edie to not only save the wishbone for her, but to not let the knife scratch or cut into that wishbone. Edie would soak the wishbone in warm soapy water, getting off all the meat residue. By the time she was finished cleaning and polishing up that wishbone, it looked like a fine piece of ivory. When the wishbone reached that exalted state, Edie began to create her masterpiece. First came a coat of clear nail polish. After that dried, she would paint the wishbone with her current favorite color of nail polish. (She swore that Revlon made the best polish, for both nails and wishbones.) After two or three coats of color, Edie would brush on another coat of clear nail polish. She would sprinkle the still-wet wishbone with glitter, tiny glass beads, the tiniest seed pearls, or brightly colored sequins. Aunt Edie had to plan the design before that last coat of clear polish, and she worked fast to decorate one side of the wishbone before it dried, then she'd repeat the process on the other side. The result was a sparkling and embellished turkey wishbone that she would wrap in tissue paper until it was revealed at my grandmother's house on Christmas. We all ooohed and aaahed over her creativity.... and by the time I was in high school, my grandmother had about a dozen painted and blinged-out wishbones displayed in her china cabinet.
The adults in our family had Christmas dinner in the dining room.... the kids ate at the children's table in the kitchen. In the dining room, the 'good' china was used; in the kitchen, the kids used the everyday plates. Our family never had paper plates or plastic utensils, and paper cups weren't even used in the backyard for barbeques. My Uncle Mino would never eat food served on a paper plate, not even when he worked in the city and had lunch at the corner deli or at the cafeteria in his office building. At one particular deli, where Uncle Mino was a good customer, he asked the waitress if he could please have his lunch on a 'real' plate, otherwise he just couldn't eat there. This deli had the most delicious New York-style hot dogs, something that Mino loved to eat during the summer months. He asked the waitress so nicely, and she spoke to her boss, and they provided a restaurant-style china plate for Mino whenever he ate there during his lunch hour. In our family, we all learned early on to appreciate the time it took to make good food, and we also learned that presentation and protocol was just as important as the taste. I think of all of that at Christmas time, because when I use my own collection of Christmas-design plates during the months of November and December, I have to wonder why no one in our family ever thought to use bright and festive Christmas plates at this time of the year, considering how much they all loved Christmas. Maybe our family was just too big to have a third set of dinner plates. And probably, my grandmother was more practical than I am.
My Aunt Dolly was a saver of gift boxes, ribbons, cards, wrapping paper. If it could be re-used, or made into something new and different, then she saved it... and stored these things up in the attic. At best, all her boxes of "save this" and "save that" became a craft cornucopia for all of us kids when we told her we had nothing to do. There was one Christmas that my Uncle Bernie gave my Uncle Mino a new wrist-watch. I don't remember what brand of watch it was, but I do remember that it came in a very nice wooden box. Everyone in the family still remembers that box, because my dad made such a fuss over the box, rather than appreciating the watch. My dad liked pocket watches, so his brother's new wrist-watch didn't interest him... but that wooden box certainly did, and he just couldn't get over the fact that the watch came in such an expensive box. Daddy made such a to-do over that box that Uncle Bernie made sure that Aunt Dolly saved the box..... and the following Christmas, Bernie wrapped up that watch box and gave it to my dad for Christmas. As soon as my dad unwrapped that gift from Bernie, everyone at the table just cracked up laughing.... hardly anyone could even speak because we were all laughing so hard. I remember my father laughing so hard that he cried. To this day, all you have to say to get my family walking down Memory Lane is "Remember that Christmas when Bernie wrapped up the empty watch box...."
In the 1960s, Uncle Mino's girlfriend Kathryn gave Aunt Dolly a beautiful silk garland of green holly and red berries..... it came from a shop in Manhattan, and no one in the family had ever seen anything quite like it. Aunt Dolly hung up the garland on the archway between the living room and the dining room. That particular archway had a wooden, fancy-swirled rod supporting a swag of satin curtains hanging between the two rooms. The silk leaves and the bright red berries of the garland were just the perfect Christmas touch for that space. When the Christmas decorations were taken down in January, that garland was the last bit of Christmas happiness to get packed away. The following year, it was the first decoration to be taken out of its storage box. When Kathryn passed away, the family was just devastated by her sudden and unexpected death. Even though Mino and Kathryn never married, they saw one another every weekend and Kathryn was very much a part of the family. Aunt Dolly was so saddened by Kathryn's death that Christmas came early that year..... that beautiful garland was taken from its box and hung up on the archway months before any of the other Christmas decorations came down from the attic. Kathryn's garland stayed up on that archway for years and years afterwards, never being taken down except for cleaning, and the garland was still there in 2009 when the family home was put up for sale.
When I was a kid, our tree was put up in the dining room, in the corner opposite the piano. The Nativity set that I now display in the living room of our Texas home was always underneath the Christmas tree when I was a kid. My mother would set it up at the center of the tree, on top of the tree-skirt which she would cover with a rolled-out piece of cotton batting. No one ever questioned the 'snow' scene around the manger, until I got older and let everyone know that Christ was born in a desert, not at the North Pole. This Nativity set has a lot of individual pieces...... the family, the wise men, the shepherds, a donkey, a camel, a cow, and a lot of sheep. When I was little, I would take the sheep from the Nativity set and bring them into the living room. I would put the sheep on the sofa and read stories to them, or make believe I was the teacher and the sheep were my students. My mother was constantly having to rescue the sheep and return them to the crèche, telling me that if I wasn't careful with them, their legs would break off and they wouldn't be able to follow the shepherds. Either I was very careful with the sheep years ago, or my mother rescued them just in time, because all of the sheep survived without damage to their legs. When my husband and I first saw this house, I knew that the dining room was not only big enough for the furniture we had, but also large enough for a Christmas tree that would touch the ceiling. Since we've been in this house, the real tree has always had pride-of-place in a corner of the dining room. I have quite a few Christmas trees in all of the other rooms, but the dining room tree gets the vintage bubble lights and the antique ornaments. The Nativity set is on the buffet in the living room, resting on gold-dusted bits of hay instead of a blanket of cotton snow, and I've got the same hay pieces dripping from the roof of the crèche. There are no little children to play with the sheep, and all the animals around the manger look quite content.
Monday, December 2, 2013
The Family Charm Bracelet.
There is a link-style bracelet that became very popular in the 1990s... the links are stainless steel with gold accents, and each individual link locks together, sort of like the links on a watch-band. I don't know exactly which company designed this particular style of bracelet, but it's called an "Italian charm bracelet." I had bought one of those bracelets for my cousin F up in New York..... she's not really a jewelry person, but the significance of the links (with very personalized pictures and embellishments) make it an interesting accessory, and F is a big fan of such detail.
When I first got the bracelet for F, I had one link for each letter of her first name, and then every other link had something identifiable to her alone. She absolutely loved it, and began making similar bracelets for other family members. When that mission was completed, F had the brilliant idea of making a Family Charm Bracelet.... with charms for each of the uncles and aunts, or the cousins, or whoever was deemed charm-worthy for the bracelet. (She was indeed on a roll with the Italian charm bracelets, and still is.)
F searched the Internet looking for specific charms to celebrate each family member, and I decided to do the same on a Family Charm Bracelet of my own. Searching the Internet sites for Italian Charms gives you unlimited access to every type of charm you could possibly imagine... and if you can't find exactly what you're looking for, then some companies will custom-make whatever you request. The charms are very affordable, with a price range for every budget. Only the solid 14k gold charms will get even close to breaking the bank.
On my Family Charm Bracelet, I used individual letter links to spell out the family's last name. I decided to honor the children of my grandparents (my dad, my aunts and uncles) on my bracelet. Nothing against all of my cousins, but with one link for each cousin, that would make about three bracelets.
The letters of the family name are gold, set onto the stainless steel links. The link just before the first letter of the name is an Italian flag, because (needless to say at this point) my family is Italian. For the links honoring each person, I attached them from the oldest to the youngest as they fell into the birth order.
The link after the last letter of the family name shows a ballroom-dancing couple... that link is for my Uncle Larry, whom I was named after. Larry was an award-winning ballroom dancer... it was his first love and his life's passion.... and it was a pity that his life was so short.
The next link shows the Pearl Harbor Monument, in honor of my Uncle Jimmy who died there when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Jimmy died before I was born, but one of his two sons was my godfather.
The following link is a bright red cardinal, for my Aunt Dolly. The cardinal has always been her favorite bird. I cannot even begin to count the number of times she would call me to the kitchen window in Grandma's house because she saw a cardinal in the bird bath or at the feeder.
The next link is the Chinese sign for Happiness, for my Aunt Edie. She loved every kind of Oriental artwork, and her home was filled with black lacquer Oriental furniture. Aunt Edie believed that Chinese women were the most beautiful, the most graceful.
The next link shows the actor Jackie Gleason's face in a full moon--- the logo of "The Honeymooners" television show, very popular in the 1950s and still showing on TV stations all over the country in re-runs ever since. This link is for my dad.... he loved Jackie Gleason, and loved "The Honeymooners" because Gleason's character was a bus driver for the New York City Transit Authority, the same job my dad held for nearly 40 years.
The following link is a gem-shaped diamond filled with tiny sparkles, for my Aunt Jaye. Jewelry was my Aunt Jaye's passion.... there wasn't a piece of jewelry that she didn't love, and if it had diamonds or pearls on it, she loved it even more. Her jewelry collection was an investment and a treasure, something to be proud of, to be taken care of, to be worn and enjoyed.
The link after that is a tiny Lincoln copper penny, for my Uncle Mino. He collected coins for years, and was constantly looking for the rarest of the rare Lincoln pennies. His coin collection was the most pampered, the most polished... and the most appreciated. He would sit us down at Grandma's kitchen table and explain each particular marking on the coins, telling us that "Money isn't everything, it's just a collection of metals and paper."
The next link shows a black bowling ball with a few white bowling pins, for my Uncle Tony. Bowling was his all-time, life-long sport. I believe that baseball was his first love, but being a champion bowler was easier to achieve and longer-lasting as he got older. Tony continued to bowl until he could no longer drive himself to the bowling alley and get a decent score for his team.
The next link shows a cosmetic case with lipstick and eye shadow, for my Aunt Angela. She was the youngest of my grandparents' children, and the most adventurous in experimenting with color and cosmetics. Angela was beautiful without a drop of make-up, as were all of my aunts, but Angela's make-up case and her talent for application made her a stand-out beauty.
The link after that is a German Shepherd dog, for Grandpa's dog "Major." This huge and gentle dog let my generation of cousins ride him like a horse, dress him up for parties, and play with him for hours without one complaint. Grandpa taught Major to say his prayers, shake hands, fetch balls that had rolled into the street, and protect all of us kids from doing stupid things. If we so much as opened the gate to leave the yard, Major would bark as if the sky were falling.
The next link is a deck of cards, for Grandpa. He loved playing poker in the dining room with his sons, and he loved to play solitaire at the kitchen table. He taught every child in my generation the rules of solitaire as soon as were old enough to read the numbers on the cards. We didn't realize until we were much older that in doing so, Grandpa was also teaching us patience and honesty, as well as the fine art of enjoying solitude.
The link next to that one is a ball of yarn with knitting and crochet needles, for Grandma. My grandmother could knit and crochet everything, without a pattern. All she had to do was look at a finished piece, count the stitches, study the pattern, and off she would go to her chair by the kitchen window. Grandma's delicate hands crafted the finest, most beautiful doilies, tablecloths, bedspreads, shawls.... the list of her handmade accomplishments is endless, and everyone in the family was given such beautiful gifts throughout the years.
I wear my Family bracelet nearly every day...... it is rich in honor and history, it lets me remember my grandparents and their children, and most importantly, it never lets me forget who I am and where I come from.
"Family is always family, no matter what happens."
When I first got the bracelet for F, I had one link for each letter of her first name, and then every other link had something identifiable to her alone. She absolutely loved it, and began making similar bracelets for other family members. When that mission was completed, F had the brilliant idea of making a Family Charm Bracelet.... with charms for each of the uncles and aunts, or the cousins, or whoever was deemed charm-worthy for the bracelet. (She was indeed on a roll with the Italian charm bracelets, and still is.)
F searched the Internet looking for specific charms to celebrate each family member, and I decided to do the same on a Family Charm Bracelet of my own. Searching the Internet sites for Italian Charms gives you unlimited access to every type of charm you could possibly imagine... and if you can't find exactly what you're looking for, then some companies will custom-make whatever you request. The charms are very affordable, with a price range for every budget. Only the solid 14k gold charms will get even close to breaking the bank.
On my Family Charm Bracelet, I used individual letter links to spell out the family's last name. I decided to honor the children of my grandparents (my dad, my aunts and uncles) on my bracelet. Nothing against all of my cousins, but with one link for each cousin, that would make about three bracelets.
The letters of the family name are gold, set onto the stainless steel links. The link just before the first letter of the name is an Italian flag, because (needless to say at this point) my family is Italian. For the links honoring each person, I attached them from the oldest to the youngest as they fell into the birth order.
The link after the last letter of the family name shows a ballroom-dancing couple... that link is for my Uncle Larry, whom I was named after. Larry was an award-winning ballroom dancer... it was his first love and his life's passion.... and it was a pity that his life was so short.
The next link shows the Pearl Harbor Monument, in honor of my Uncle Jimmy who died there when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Jimmy died before I was born, but one of his two sons was my godfather.
The following link is a bright red cardinal, for my Aunt Dolly. The cardinal has always been her favorite bird. I cannot even begin to count the number of times she would call me to the kitchen window in Grandma's house because she saw a cardinal in the bird bath or at the feeder.
The next link is the Chinese sign for Happiness, for my Aunt Edie. She loved every kind of Oriental artwork, and her home was filled with black lacquer Oriental furniture. Aunt Edie believed that Chinese women were the most beautiful, the most graceful.
The next link shows the actor Jackie Gleason's face in a full moon--- the logo of "The Honeymooners" television show, very popular in the 1950s and still showing on TV stations all over the country in re-runs ever since. This link is for my dad.... he loved Jackie Gleason, and loved "The Honeymooners" because Gleason's character was a bus driver for the New York City Transit Authority, the same job my dad held for nearly 40 years.
The following link is a gem-shaped diamond filled with tiny sparkles, for my Aunt Jaye. Jewelry was my Aunt Jaye's passion.... there wasn't a piece of jewelry that she didn't love, and if it had diamonds or pearls on it, she loved it even more. Her jewelry collection was an investment and a treasure, something to be proud of, to be taken care of, to be worn and enjoyed.
The link after that is a tiny Lincoln copper penny, for my Uncle Mino. He collected coins for years, and was constantly looking for the rarest of the rare Lincoln pennies. His coin collection was the most pampered, the most polished... and the most appreciated. He would sit us down at Grandma's kitchen table and explain each particular marking on the coins, telling us that "Money isn't everything, it's just a collection of metals and paper."
The next link shows a black bowling ball with a few white bowling pins, for my Uncle Tony. Bowling was his all-time, life-long sport. I believe that baseball was his first love, but being a champion bowler was easier to achieve and longer-lasting as he got older. Tony continued to bowl until he could no longer drive himself to the bowling alley and get a decent score for his team.
The next link shows a cosmetic case with lipstick and eye shadow, for my Aunt Angela. She was the youngest of my grandparents' children, and the most adventurous in experimenting with color and cosmetics. Angela was beautiful without a drop of make-up, as were all of my aunts, but Angela's make-up case and her talent for application made her a stand-out beauty.
The link after that is a German Shepherd dog, for Grandpa's dog "Major." This huge and gentle dog let my generation of cousins ride him like a horse, dress him up for parties, and play with him for hours without one complaint. Grandpa taught Major to say his prayers, shake hands, fetch balls that had rolled into the street, and protect all of us kids from doing stupid things. If we so much as opened the gate to leave the yard, Major would bark as if the sky were falling.
The next link is a deck of cards, for Grandpa. He loved playing poker in the dining room with his sons, and he loved to play solitaire at the kitchen table. He taught every child in my generation the rules of solitaire as soon as were old enough to read the numbers on the cards. We didn't realize until we were much older that in doing so, Grandpa was also teaching us patience and honesty, as well as the fine art of enjoying solitude.
The link next to that one is a ball of yarn with knitting and crochet needles, for Grandma. My grandmother could knit and crochet everything, without a pattern. All she had to do was look at a finished piece, count the stitches, study the pattern, and off she would go to her chair by the kitchen window. Grandma's delicate hands crafted the finest, most beautiful doilies, tablecloths, bedspreads, shawls.... the list of her handmade accomplishments is endless, and everyone in the family was given such beautiful gifts throughout the years.
I wear my Family bracelet nearly every day...... it is rich in honor and history, it lets me remember my grandparents and their children, and most importantly, it never lets me forget who I am and where I come from.
"Family is always family, no matter what happens."
Sunday, December 1, 2013
The Family's Senior Moments... Angela.
This little girl was the last child of my grandparents. Born in the early 1930s, Grandma called Angela her 'change of life baby.' Angela, small and petite, became a living, breathing baby-doll to her older sisters, who were in their late teens and early twenties when she was born.
Somewhere along the way, Angela was given the nick-name of "Sookie" by her brothers and sisters...... I have no idea how that name came to be, but that's what most of my generation of cousins called her: Aunt Sookie. When my dad was in the Army during World War II, he wrote the name "Sookie" in white paint on the front of his jeep.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, mostly everyone in the family dropped the name Sookie and began to call her Angela again. To us kids who were so used to calling her Aunt Sookie, calling her Aunt Angela sounded very adult and it was hard to say without falling into giggles over her given name. (As if the name Sookie wasn't giggle-worthy?)
Angela inherited her mother's talent for baking.... cakes and breads and pies and cookies... anything and everything could be mixed together from scratch and baked in special pans with special baking tools. She loved to bake... and would rather bake than cook because she thought that cooking a meal was more messy than baking a dessert. "Besides, everyone loves desserts.... not everyone loves everything that I cook," Angela would say.
Angela married an Irish man..... Uncle Bernie. They had one son, my cousin S. Uncle Bernie learned to eat all the Italian foods cooked by my grandmother and my aunts, and he loved it all and said he'd never eaten so well until he became part of the family. On every holiday, there would always be a bowl of mashed potatoes for Uncle Bernie, cooked especially for him because he enjoyed them so much..... he didn't care for the sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving, or the roasted potatoes at Christmas. Grandma would say: "He's Irish... the Irish like their mashed potatoes... don't touch those potatoes, they're for Bernie."
When Angela and Bernie were first married, they lived in a little cottage by a lake in Spring Valley. From their front door, you could walk down to the small beach and put your toes into the lake, or swim out to the wooden platform in the middle of the water. I don't actually remember just where Spring Valley was, but it was surely out of the city limits. No noises from traffic, no bus lines, no subways. Just lots of green trees and houses without sidewalks. It was a magical place for our generation of cousins and we all loved to be invited up there for the day, a weekend, or a week during the Summer. We all thought our cousin S (Angela and Bernie's son) was the luckiest boy on the planet to be living in such a carefree place where no one seemed to be concerned about locked doors and kids playing in the front yard without supervision. They eventually moved out of that little cottage and into a high-rise condo.... no one in the family had ever lived in such a fancy-dancy place before and it was a culture shock to my generation of cousins. We all missed that tiny little cottage by the lake.
At all of the family parties and get-togethers, all of my dad's sisters would be dressed in classic black dresses, with smart-looking hats and black shoes. They were all beautiful, without a doubt, but they all preferred black dinner dresses instead of any other color. Except for Angela.... she would walk in with the brightest dress, the most flamboyant hat, the most colorful shoes and purses. Like all of her sisters, she was beautiful, but in that family sea of black dresses, Angela was like a brilliant rainbow. My generation of cousins couldn't wait to see what she was wearing at all the parties, holiday dinners, christenings, weddings. We were a big family... there were a lot of parties and celebrations, and many occasions for dressing up. Angela never disappointed... she always had the biggest and most-feathered and beribboned hats, the most colorful dresses, and she wore eye shadow before any of her sisters dared to try that colorful cosmetic.
In the 1960s, Uncle Bernie and Aunt Angela and their son S went on a trip to Disneyland, and they didn't drive there, they took a plane. This was a big event in the family, since until that time, hardly anyone had ever been out of New York state, much less on a plane. My generation of cousins thought that S was the luckiest kid in the family..... while the rest of us were content to watch "The Wonderful World of Disney" on television every Sunday night, S was actually going to Disneyland. "He's going to see Mickey Mouse! And he may even see Walt Disney!" We all wished we could jump into a suitcase and stow away on the plane with them.
The night before their plane flight, they stayed at my grandparents' house because it was so close to the airport. I remember Angela on that night, not wanting to mess up her hair-do...... she had gone to the beauty salon that morning and her hair was done up in a fancy French Twist with a few curls at the back. She didn't want to put her head down on a pillow and mess up her hair. I remember Angela saying "What would Mr. Disney say if I show up there in a crushed French Twist?" Angela slept sitting up that night, propped up with three pillows, and when she left for the airport, her hair-do was salon perfect and ready for Disneyland.
I don't exactly remember when Angela and Bernie split up, but it was a shock to the whole family. They seemed so happy together, always surrounded by that bride-and-groom-on-top-of-the-wedding-cake aura. I never asked any questions about their problems, and it just always seemed to me that Angela never stopped loving her husband, long after they'd been separated. At one of the holiday dinners when Bernie was no longer around, there was an absence of mashed potatoes on the dining room table. Aunt Dolly always made them just for Uncle Bernie, and it seemed to me that the holiday table just wasn't complete somehow, even though Bernie was the only one who usually ate them.
In the early 1990s, I went to dinner with Angela and my cousin R. It was a spur-of-the-moment visit with Angela, since R and I were out driving and right near the small apartment where Angela lived. The three of us decided to have dinner at a small local Italian restaurant not far from the apartment. All during dinner, Angela talked about growing up with her sisters and brothers, her marriage to Bernie, her son S, the little cottage in Spring Valley, the large modern condo. She didn't mention details about the break-up of her marriage, but I remember her saying "And before I knew what was happening, Poof! Just like that! It was all over! And now I have this tiny kitchen and most of my baking pans are still in the packing boxes."
I spoke to Uncle Bernie in the late 1990s. He had gotten in touch with my Uncle Tony out in Arizona, and he gave a phone number where he could be reached "by anyone in the family who would like to say hello." Uncle Bernie at that time wasn't in the best of health and my Uncle Tony thought that calls from the family would brighten his day, his week, his year. To make my Uncle Tony happy, I called Bernie to say hello.... and we had a very nice conversation. Uncle Bernie talked of the little cottage in Spring Valley, the big apartment in the condo-complex, and he remembered the holidays with the family. "Your Aunt Dolly made the best mashed potatoes, and Grandma made lasagna that no one can duplicate." Uncle Bernie talked of Uncle Mino's fastidiousness, Aunt Jaye's leopard coat, Aunt Edie's opera gowns, my dad's love of driving, Uncle Tony's bowling. I listened to family stories that day that I hadn't heard in years, and the sound of Bernie's laughter was as infectious as it was when I was a kid.
Angela passed away in 2010..... she was in her mid 70s, and her death shocked everyone in the family. She was the youngest of our grandparents' children, and no one expected an early passing for her. My Aunt Dolly, who was 97 at that time, was just beside herself with grief. Even now, at 100 years of age, Aunt Dolly still talks of Angela's passing as something that "wasn't right... it should not have happened to such a young girl." Forever young, forever the baby of the family... that's how Angela will always be remembered.
Somewhere along the way, Angela was given the nick-name of "Sookie" by her brothers and sisters...... I have no idea how that name came to be, but that's what most of my generation of cousins called her: Aunt Sookie. When my dad was in the Army during World War II, he wrote the name "Sookie" in white paint on the front of his jeep.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, mostly everyone in the family dropped the name Sookie and began to call her Angela again. To us kids who were so used to calling her Aunt Sookie, calling her Aunt Angela sounded very adult and it was hard to say without falling into giggles over her given name. (As if the name Sookie wasn't giggle-worthy?)
Angela inherited her mother's talent for baking.... cakes and breads and pies and cookies... anything and everything could be mixed together from scratch and baked in special pans with special baking tools. She loved to bake... and would rather bake than cook because she thought that cooking a meal was more messy than baking a dessert. "Besides, everyone loves desserts.... not everyone loves everything that I cook," Angela would say.
Angela married an Irish man..... Uncle Bernie. They had one son, my cousin S. Uncle Bernie learned to eat all the Italian foods cooked by my grandmother and my aunts, and he loved it all and said he'd never eaten so well until he became part of the family. On every holiday, there would always be a bowl of mashed potatoes for Uncle Bernie, cooked especially for him because he enjoyed them so much..... he didn't care for the sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving, or the roasted potatoes at Christmas. Grandma would say: "He's Irish... the Irish like their mashed potatoes... don't touch those potatoes, they're for Bernie."
When Angela and Bernie were first married, they lived in a little cottage by a lake in Spring Valley. From their front door, you could walk down to the small beach and put your toes into the lake, or swim out to the wooden platform in the middle of the water. I don't actually remember just where Spring Valley was, but it was surely out of the city limits. No noises from traffic, no bus lines, no subways. Just lots of green trees and houses without sidewalks. It was a magical place for our generation of cousins and we all loved to be invited up there for the day, a weekend, or a week during the Summer. We all thought our cousin S (Angela and Bernie's son) was the luckiest boy on the planet to be living in such a carefree place where no one seemed to be concerned about locked doors and kids playing in the front yard without supervision. They eventually moved out of that little cottage and into a high-rise condo.... no one in the family had ever lived in such a fancy-dancy place before and it was a culture shock to my generation of cousins. We all missed that tiny little cottage by the lake.
At all of the family parties and get-togethers, all of my dad's sisters would be dressed in classic black dresses, with smart-looking hats and black shoes. They were all beautiful, without a doubt, but they all preferred black dinner dresses instead of any other color. Except for Angela.... she would walk in with the brightest dress, the most flamboyant hat, the most colorful shoes and purses. Like all of her sisters, she was beautiful, but in that family sea of black dresses, Angela was like a brilliant rainbow. My generation of cousins couldn't wait to see what she was wearing at all the parties, holiday dinners, christenings, weddings. We were a big family... there were a lot of parties and celebrations, and many occasions for dressing up. Angela never disappointed... she always had the biggest and most-feathered and beribboned hats, the most colorful dresses, and she wore eye shadow before any of her sisters dared to try that colorful cosmetic.
In the 1960s, Uncle Bernie and Aunt Angela and their son S went on a trip to Disneyland, and they didn't drive there, they took a plane. This was a big event in the family, since until that time, hardly anyone had ever been out of New York state, much less on a plane. My generation of cousins thought that S was the luckiest kid in the family..... while the rest of us were content to watch "The Wonderful World of Disney" on television every Sunday night, S was actually going to Disneyland. "He's going to see Mickey Mouse! And he may even see Walt Disney!" We all wished we could jump into a suitcase and stow away on the plane with them.
The night before their plane flight, they stayed at my grandparents' house because it was so close to the airport. I remember Angela on that night, not wanting to mess up her hair-do...... she had gone to the beauty salon that morning and her hair was done up in a fancy French Twist with a few curls at the back. She didn't want to put her head down on a pillow and mess up her hair. I remember Angela saying "What would Mr. Disney say if I show up there in a crushed French Twist?" Angela slept sitting up that night, propped up with three pillows, and when she left for the airport, her hair-do was salon perfect and ready for Disneyland.
I don't exactly remember when Angela and Bernie split up, but it was a shock to the whole family. They seemed so happy together, always surrounded by that bride-and-groom-on-top-of-the-wedding-cake aura. I never asked any questions about their problems, and it just always seemed to me that Angela never stopped loving her husband, long after they'd been separated. At one of the holiday dinners when Bernie was no longer around, there was an absence of mashed potatoes on the dining room table. Aunt Dolly always made them just for Uncle Bernie, and it seemed to me that the holiday table just wasn't complete somehow, even though Bernie was the only one who usually ate them.
In the early 1990s, I went to dinner with Angela and my cousin R. It was a spur-of-the-moment visit with Angela, since R and I were out driving and right near the small apartment where Angela lived. The three of us decided to have dinner at a small local Italian restaurant not far from the apartment. All during dinner, Angela talked about growing up with her sisters and brothers, her marriage to Bernie, her son S, the little cottage in Spring Valley, the large modern condo. She didn't mention details about the break-up of her marriage, but I remember her saying "And before I knew what was happening, Poof! Just like that! It was all over! And now I have this tiny kitchen and most of my baking pans are still in the packing boxes."
I spoke to Uncle Bernie in the late 1990s. He had gotten in touch with my Uncle Tony out in Arizona, and he gave a phone number where he could be reached "by anyone in the family who would like to say hello." Uncle Bernie at that time wasn't in the best of health and my Uncle Tony thought that calls from the family would brighten his day, his week, his year. To make my Uncle Tony happy, I called Bernie to say hello.... and we had a very nice conversation. Uncle Bernie talked of the little cottage in Spring Valley, the big apartment in the condo-complex, and he remembered the holidays with the family. "Your Aunt Dolly made the best mashed potatoes, and Grandma made lasagna that no one can duplicate." Uncle Bernie talked of Uncle Mino's fastidiousness, Aunt Jaye's leopard coat, Aunt Edie's opera gowns, my dad's love of driving, Uncle Tony's bowling. I listened to family stories that day that I hadn't heard in years, and the sound of Bernie's laughter was as infectious as it was when I was a kid.
Angela passed away in 2010..... she was in her mid 70s, and her death shocked everyone in the family. She was the youngest of our grandparents' children, and no one expected an early passing for her. My Aunt Dolly, who was 97 at that time, was just beside herself with grief. Even now, at 100 years of age, Aunt Dolly still talks of Angela's passing as something that "wasn't right... it should not have happened to such a young girl." Forever young, forever the baby of the family... that's how Angela will always be remembered.
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