MOVIN’

People would ask if it bothered me to move so much. I always replied that after living in a house for seven years it became dirty so it was easier to adjust to moving. Now, I never left a house dirty for the new owners, as a matter of fact one new homeowner told me the house was so clean that the woman she hired to clean it couldn’t find anything to do.

The best part of packing up was going through everything you own and throwing out what you don’t want, finding something you forgot about and reorganizing your kitchen drawers and being able to start anew. That was the reason I preferred to pack everything myself and not rely on a moving company to do it for me.

We’ve now lived in our current home for seven years and it’s become dirty but we probably won’t be moving soon or ever again so I’ve got to do something about it. But it’s so hard to get my butt in gear, organizing and making decisions about a lot of totally unnecessary items that I can easily do without.

Maybe I’ll do what I did several years ago and arrange a family garage sale with no money exchanging hands. Everyone gets a number and forms a line to choose from the treasures. Now that I remembered that, I think that’s what I’ll do. Hallelujah!

THE CONCEPT

While staying in a beautiful resort, a few of us went to checkout a restaurant situated in a small town alongside a river that would be suitable for ten adults and 6 children. As we checked out the ambience, my nearly thirteen year old granddaughter laughed when she looked into a separate room in the front and saw a group of Red Hatters. She understood the concept but thought it strange for them to be there in the middle of nowhere. They must have driven from somewhere else because the restaurant was on a two-lane highway far from any major highway and although it sat beside a river there was not much to see out the rear windows. The food might have been their reason for visiting the area, but their salad-bar looked totally pedestrian. (I love to use that word) We decided it had no atmosphere, no view and the prices were too high.

Upon leaving I discussed the Red Hat concept with my granddaughter. (When I’m old I’ll wear a purple dress and have on a red hat) I always thought that was a great concept in that when you got old you could be totally different and do what you want and not care what other people thought and be non-conforming. So what’s non-conforming about a large group of women all wearing ugly red hats?

THE PASTOR

On Sunday in our church the parishioners had a choice of the eight or ten o’clock Masses. In order to receive communion you had to attend at eight o’clock. The priest never offered it at the later Mass, but visitors from out of town who didn’t know any better would approach the altar. I remember thinking “boy, are they going to get into trouble” so I was surprised when he served them.

Ten o’clock Mass was always, always followed by Benediction.  At the end of Mass, our priest would turn to face the congregation with his perpetual sneer daring anyone to leave.  Making sure no one did, he spouted some Latin and in the midst of his incantations he sang “bring it out” which was the clue to the alter boy to carry out his ornate cape and place it on his shoulders. I always listened for those words and wondered why the altar boys always had to be told when to “bring it out”.  Father was a short stout man, imagine Dick Cheney garbed in a heavy white robe embroidered with gold and wearing his own famous snarl and you can picture what we all saw on Sundays.

I know that the Priest had been a classmate and friend of the Bishop which may account for his longevity in our church. In those days people didn’t complain, they just accepted what went on because they felt they didn’t have any say in the matter. You couldn’t criticize or complain because “you would bring scandal to the Church”. When a priest got into trouble he was sent to that secret place for wayward priests. Such a place was always spoken about in whispers.

During the Second World War, theaters started opening on Sundays and showing movie matinees. We kids never went because across the street stood our priest watching to see if any of his parishioners dared to go in.  One thing I know is he never intimidated the older boys because they weren’t frightened of him.

SOMETHING YOU’ll REMEMBER THE REST OF YOUR LIVES

We left Troy, Ohio on a sunny spring day. I was driving the five children and myself to our new home in Pittsburgh. I had wanted to stay to finish cleaning the house after the movers had left, but my Mother said to please leave, she would see to everything that needed to be done.

An hour or two later in Columbus we encountered a blizzard but continued on until the weather cleared.  The rest of the trip was fine until we got to Upper St. Clair where a heavy snow started falling and the roads had became covered. It was dusk by that time and the car was sliding a bit on the steep hills. My seven year old son became petrified having lived all his life in Ohio where we had no hills to speak of. He cried saying we were going to fall off the road.

I told them all we were almost to our home and that things would be fine. Dad would be waiting for us with food and blankets for us to sleep on and that would be exciting.

I didn’t tell them my big concern was I wouldn’t be able to find our house.  I’d only seen it once several months before and the development had winding streets, up and down hills and a lot of dead ends and they were now covered in snow.

I said to the five kids “this is something you’ll remember the rest of your lives”.

CARRYING

He has a gun in an ankle holster.  It’s my theory that he hopes someone will attack him so he can shoot that person dead with his quick draw which I’m sure he practices in front of his huge full length mirror so he could be declared a “hero” and never get prosecuted because in this state you can get away with murder. Except for his ego, there is nothing big about him unless you count his gun collection. 

IT’S A BLOG!

When I gave birth to this blog, I really didn’t have a definition of what it was. My idea was it would be just a lot of rambling ideas mainly in short paragraph form. What has happened is I write long ramblings consisting of many paragraphs and have felt rather guilty because I think I’ve veered from what was expected of me.

In the New Yorker Magazine I just found one writer’s description of a blog. He wrote “A blog is a means of sharing your pet peeves and off-the-cuff theories of everything with the entire planet”.

So I’m going to intersperse my long ramblings with some short peeves in the future. It had not been my idea to share sad experiences with you all. I only wanted to give future generations of the family a partial history of some of their ancestors. So put your handkerchiefs away for the time being and enjoy some of my pet peeves.