Autumn 2010

When it was all said and done, I felt like I was the only one who cared about the house. It was gone, the whole process over. Grandma died, the house was cleaned out, fixed up, and sold. All over a two month period that had passed before I was ready to except its possible arrival.

At no time in the past had I ever thought about twenty-seven Autumn Drive not being ours. It would always be Grandma and Pop Pop's house. I had always simply known this to be true, and now my feelings were clashing with reality.

I thought about it every day, had everyone else forgot? They excepted it, 'dealt' with our financial situation and acted accordingly, never stopping to think about what they were actually doing. I tried to tell them, warn them of what they were doing, but the language of love can never communicate with the irrational gibberish of money.

I felt the fear of seeing somebody die, the pain of watching someone suffer. Maybe everyone felt the way I did, but feared bringing their rawest emotions to the surface, only to know the anguish, fell the knife dig that much closer to their heart.

One Year Gone

I can still remember her voice. When it's quiet, and I close my eyes, I can hear it in my head. I had heard Grandma say "hello" so many times when she picked up the phone that it's palpable sound sometimes wakes me up at the edges of my sleep.

I can still see her too, the image of her as we left the house on any given day, standing in the doorway as we pulled out, holding the screen door half open and waving to us goodbye. I could tell she missed us as soon as we pulled around the corner. In the last couple years before she got sick, I remember pulling away and being ambushed by my own sadness, caught off guard at the idea that I may not see her again, that anything could happen. Finally I was right to have worried. Grandma had been sick many times before. Countless visits to the hospital over the years ended positively--a mitral valve replacement, getting a pacemaker, gall bladder removal, hernia surgery. She always returned home and before long was back to her normal self.

The fact that knowing the day would come when her mortality would be realized--that I'd be stared down into a casket at my grandmother--did nothing to dull its consummation.

She's gone and I'm troubled. Frustrated that there's no one to be mad at. No person or thing to blame for her not being here except our biology and life. Is it really worth the trouble of putting all these things into place, loving so many people, just to have it taken away?

On the A.T. June 28

During sleepovers at Grandma's house, before we went to bed, Grandma and I got the pancake mix out of the cabinet, set it on the counter, and made our way upstairs. 

Pop Pop had a different approach. He got everything ready the night before. Long after game shows had ended, or the baseball game ended, Pop Pop went to the kitchen, usually around eleven thirty, and began his nightly ritual. He started with one paper towel laid out in front of his chair on the kitchen side of the counter. Beside that he folded a napkin and placed a spoon on it, which he used for his cereal, Corn Flakes. After the bowl was placed into position, he stood the cereal box on the counter beside the set up and fetched a coffee cup, which he placed on a third napkin nearby. 

The whole process took only seconds. Fast, I thought, because he had been used to the same method for who knows how long. Lastly, he went to his plastic medicine dispenser and emptied the pills he needed to take in the morning. Placing them on the coffee cup napkin marked the end of the process. Pop Pop would soon disappear up the steps. 

I tried to copy the procedure a few times, laying out napkins and plates and the maple syrup beside my fork. I didn't have pills to take, so I put a Flintstones vitamin or two on the napkin next to my upside down orange juice glass. 

On the A.T. June 27

Grandma had been a stay-at-home mom her entire life, a house-wife. That was how she knew all the things she did around the house: how to sew and crochet, cook, plant flowers, play cards, and guess the words on Wheel of Fortune. When she grew up, her family didn't have money, like many of the families in and around Wanamie, Pennsylvania. Aunt Steffie told me too, how their mother would sew all their dresses and create cloths out of any fabric she could get her hands on.

Sticky summer days at Grandma's never bothered me, I knew inside would be a cool sixty degrees. During winter, it was the opposite, the average temperature in the house was anywhere from eighty to eighty-five degrees. One day, while the air conditioner near the back door wasn't making the house as cool as Grandma and Pop Pop needed it, Grandma showed me a trick to help with the heat. 

"Run your wrists under the cold water," she said, beads of moisture glistening off her forehead. "This is what we used to do when we were kids, we had no air conditioning back then. 

It seemed to work, though I couldn't imagine going a whole summer without air conditioning and running to the faucet ever time I began to sweat. What about the water bill?

On the A.T. June 26

I liked to build things, I always had. It started with Legos, continued with bird houses, and even small shelves for a while. One day I decided to take my expertise to my father's side of the basement and build something for Grandma. I had a great idea--make a mini 'Plinko' game, or something just like it, so she could play whenever she felt like it. Plinko was our favorite game on The Price is Right. The discs dropping down among pins bouncing and diverting the round objects added an unpredictable element to the show, like when the contestants spun the big wheel, anything could happen. It was exciting until the last possible minute, when either the disc fell in the middle, and the money, or the losing slots on the sides. 

My wooden Plinko game had the same concept, only it used a marble instead of a plastic disc. The whole thing was about the size of a shoe box. When it was done I painted the bottom red and the sides yellow. On the runway, where the marble would make its way downhill, i used one inch finish nails as the pins that diverted the little ball. 

Normally the contraption laid flat, but when Grandma wanted to play, all she had to do was flip up the block I had screwed on a hinge underneath. The gave the device just enough down angle for the marble to slowly roll down, and enough time to get thoroughly caught up in the nails. 

On the A.T. June 25

My Aunt Nancie could kick some ass--at least that's what she always told me. I believed her, if half the fights she related to me were true, them most of the guys at the local bars had something to worry about--and a woman to avoid. 

I was never sure where she learned the moves she unleashed on men that came on to her too hard or touched her in inappropriate places. She made it clear to me that she taught them a lesson. She was animated when she set up her stories: minding her own business, a guy comes up to her and starts talking. The classic bar scene.

"I told him I wasn't interested but he didn't get the hint," she'd say, running her skeleton-thin fingers through her long hair. "I turned away and then he grabs my boob."

This guy wasn't taking no for an answer, she'd explain. 

I turned around and grabbed him so fast he didn't know what to do," her eyes lit up and grew as her arms swung up and down with her recreation.

She grabbed him from the back of the neck and sent his chest down into her ascending knee, at which point she threw him back jerking into his chair--never to mess with her again. It was amazing that such a skinny, pale, fast-talking person could take on guys twice her size. I guessed that the men that did try and cross her the wrong way must have been drunk or caught off guard. The more stories I heard, the harder it became to reduce them to luck. 

Nancie knew a lot of people-most of whom she met at bars. Logic told me that even if a guy went to a bar on a semi-regular basis, they would learn not to mess with Nancie Nursyck. They obviously didn't learn though, and the 'idiot guys' kept on coming.

The AT

For the next 5 days I will be doing my daily entries along the Appalachian Trail. I will post them when I return. See you all on the other side. Good luck.

The Fourth of July

The Fourth of July was a special day at Grandma's house. Not only was
it America's birthday, it was Grandma's birthday. We always went and
celebrated with meatballs, pasta, mashed potatoes, and goumpki. After
that, it was cake time, always decorated with red, white and blue
icing, little American flags, and matching candles. Grandma was in her
seventies, but we just put as many candles as the second digit of her
age. When she turned seventy five, we had five candles. Seventy eight,
eight candles. When she turned eighty though, we put eight...

Some Fourth of Julys, when the day fell on a weekend, I slept over and
we all watched fireworks on TV, fireworks from Tokyo and Dubai, to
France and Disney World. Grandma liked watching the fireworks. Whether
I was at my house or Grandma's, the night of the Fourth was
eventful--outside. Bursts, explosions, and low, rumbled bangs echoed
throughout the late evenings. At Grandma's house it got loud. The
small amusement park further down the Mouton, Lake Compounce, cast
their expensive, chest rattling displays high into the air, echoing
off the mountainside.

"I think I hear the grand finale!" I'd say, my ear tight against the
picture window glass. Soon after the thunder went quiet.

The Swing and Tent Part 3

...

"Why don't you sing for us?" Aunt Sophie would ask me.

Grandma agreed with enthusiasm every time, "Oh yes."

'You are My Sunshine' was my favorite song for those occasions, and I sang it the best--at least that's what I was told (I knew far better than 'Rain, Rain, Go Away'). I sang it every time they asked.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine," perked up, back straight, I enunciated every syllable. "You make me happy, when skies are grey."

The notes were high. I tried my best to make it sound like the professionals that sang the national anthem before baseball games.

Slowly, I continued "You'll never know dear, how much I love you."

Every time I sang the words, or heard them sung, they pulled me in. I didn't know who wrote them or why they were so powerful, but they effected me way more that I would have guessed.

"Please don't take my sunshine away."

Sometimes, after singing, I went inside to the bathroom and cried. I cried because I thought about how much I loved Grandma, how much she must have loved me. Each word in the song made complete sense to me. At nine years old I knew what love was, I thought, the warm eyes and subtle smile Grandma wore as she watched me, the lips of Aunt Sophie singing along. They though of someone taking them away from me hurt me deeply.

Most pressing in my mind was the inevitability of their death. Not soon, I didn't think about that, bad things were saved for some time in the future. But one day I knew I would be thinking back to those very moments wishing to relive them just once, to go back in time for only a minute under the tent as I sang, as Grandma watched me and grew proud for a reason I didn't know. I knew that one day I would be attempting to remember the wrinkles in my aunt's smile and the way Grandma sat, legs touching, soft hand held together and tucked between them.

The Swing and Tent Part 2 / The Rain

The swing itself was blocky. Two by three inch blocks made up the the seat, twenty five or so lined up across the width. The same kind of wood made the back rest, only spaced out every other block. The armrests had to be a bit wider, the chains attached there towards the front and back of the armrest.

Right around the time the swing went up, so did the tent: a large party style canopy that covered the swing and the area in front of it. Every year Pop Pop pulled out the box that stored the green tent and I carried out the poles. The aluminum poles were tricky to get standing on their own, I often had to hold one up while Pop Pop spaced another pole at the right length. Once the tent began to take shape, the taller center pole was put underneath in the middle. This had to be placed well ahead of the swing, so that no one would hit it when they swung back and forth. Two lines each secured the corner poles, steamed into the ground a few feet off to either side. The poles in the middle of the corners had only one line.

With the green framed swing placed at the back half of the canopy, there was room for other chairs and stands at the front half. 'The swing,' as that area was always referred to, was used a lot. Pop Pop talked with me about the vegetables and tomatoes in the garden. Mrs interesting were his stories about the war, or what he did with Uncle Chet 'back in the day.'

Grandma sat their all the time after she made her rounds through the yard, more often, I guessed, when I wasn't around. When I was around we would sit and talk about anything: what was new in school, how the flowers were coming in, or the weather for the coming days. Some evenings my great aunt from down Winterpark Drive came to visit anc sat outside with Grandma.

"Hi Aunt Sophie," I said, walking down the yard to the swing.

"Hello," she'd say in a soft voice, and I would take my spot in between them.

From there we watched the world go by, birds and squirrels, people and cars. We made a game of guessing what color car would go by next, or how many cars would pass of a certain color.
...

----------
The Rain

At that age I thought I had the power to control the weather. On rainy summer days at Grandma's house, when I longed to be outside, I walked up to the front door and stared stoically out onto the lawn and street. The rain always came down harder there, it seemed, than at my house. The millions of clear, cool raindrops streaking to earth made a blurry picture of the neighborhood. When it rained harder, I could no longer see the tree tops down Winter Park Drive, or from the back door, Aunt Steffie's house through the woods.

"Rain, rain, go away," I said in a dark, foreboding tone, as deep as my eight year old voice could go. "Come again another day."

I didn't intend to scare the storm by saying it in that way, that was simply how something important had to be said. Besides, it worked for me almost every time. After a while I pictured the storm watching me, almost waiting to hear my command from behind the screen door of 27 Autumn Drive.

Never mind the fact that they were typically pop-up thunderstorms on humid summer evening, or that we lived in New England. If I wished hard enough, stopping the rain was possible. If I tried hard enough, I could do anything.

The Swing and Tent Part 1

In the springtime, on that first day of warmth, the day that ushered away the days of bulky coats and winter hats and brought in the tee-shirt afternoons and sweater nights, I ran outside to meet the day. Enough time had always gone by to forget the freshness of early spring the year before to make the birth of the new summer just as warm, beautiful, and stunning as the very first time I was conscious enough to experience it. I looked up to the floating clouds, collapsing inward and slowly expanding in spots. I had missed them all winter, having never taken the time to look up as I walked, slid and shoveled my way through the winter snow.

My grandfather didn't run outside and enjoy the day in exactly the same way I did, he had his own way of getting ready for the ever increasing warmth of spring and summer afternoons.

"Jonathan," he said, getting my attention. "Wanna give me a hand bringing the swing out?"

I always agreed. The big wooden swing always that sat at the back of the garage, that's where it sat all winter. From here, we each grabbed an end and carried it to the backyard. The dark brown swing hung from a green painted metal frame, maybe from an old kid's swing-set from long ago. I never cared enough to asked.

What I did care about was how much the giant swing weighed. It always took a great deal of my strength, but with a break or two in between, Pop Pop and I always managed to get it to the area and attach the tops of the swing's chains to the green flaking frame.

The Lawn

As I grew, I inherited the task of mowing my grandparent's lawn. The lawn itself was mostly flat, unlike my house, so it wasn't bad, only bigger. The only obstacles, other than the flower gardens and sidewalks around the house, were trees: the thick, stout oaks clustered in the front yard to the left of the house. A dogwood tree bloomed with porcelain white flowers in the spring beside the house, that quickly lost its pedals and resembled a normal tree by mid May.

In the summer, the backyard was in bloom, the garden

Further back in the yard, well behind the dogwood, sat the swing, and the poles and that held up the canopy, twelve in all--always a pain to mow around. Further back still, behind the swing, grew a pear tree, already well taller than the canopy it was reaching for but not quite touching. Across the yard, in front of the garden, a peach tree grew and spread its branches in the space it had between the vegetable and sidewalk around the back of the house.

Neither of the fruit trees gave much fruit, except for the occasional pear or peach that grew big enough to taste. The squirrels and bugs claimed all the others.

"Damn squirrels," Pop Pop would say looking out the kitchen window. He couldn't talk about the squirrels, bugs, or birds in the yard without a 'damn' in front of their name. Later on he told me that he'd have no problem taking out his .22, the one he used back when he hunted, and blowing away some of the rodents that ran through his yard--if it wasn't for the damn neighbors the would call the cops in a heartbeat.

"You know how people are these days," he'd say. "They're funny."

Mowing Pop Pop's lawn would always land me ten bucks, even when I said I wouldn't take it. After a while, it was an unspoken agreement that ten bucks was what the job was worth, if I wanted the money, it was mine for the taking. He always said that he'd rather pay me, then be charged three times that by some other guy off the street.

Baseball

My Uncle Chet always wore an Atlanta Braves hat, though I didn't know why. All he ever watched were Yankees games, just like Pop Pop. The only time I saw the Atlanta Braves, the only reason I knew who they were and what they looked like, was the 1996 World Series.

The games I didn't see at Grandma's house were on at mine, my father yelling from the living room recliner, "Come on, what are you swinging at?"

Up to this point, baseball was only something that distracted my father's attention.

"What teams are playing?" I asked, only wanting to hear the team name and not just their city, like the way Pop Pop and Uncle Chet communicated about teams. Where they came from wasn't important, it was the team name that mattered, what they represented. Were they the Los Angelas Angels of Anahiem or just the White Sox? Who was afraid of a white pair of socks anyway.

If my father answered Orioles, they were my favorite team, if he said Indians, I loved the Indians. Rooting against my fathers team gave me some reason to watch it. Baseball wasn't the fastest or most exciting game to watch, it was slower, and required patience to get to the good stuff. When I ended up seeing the occasional walk-off home run, or dugout clearing brawl, I knee why they watched baseball--it was awesome.

The next step was a team, and after 'liking' every team in the Ameican Leage and a few in the National, the choice was made easy, the 1996 Series changed everything. The Yankees were my team, and I began to understand baseball for what it was: a sport, a battlefield, and a conversation piece. People got mad, players got mad. Baseball flew and fan argued. Pop Pop and Uncle Chet talked about it all the time, occasionally referring to some players as "dummys."

A Late Night: Aunt Nancie and More Ghosts

My time spent staring in the mirror and slowly, tediously descending my grandparent's basement steps peering around every corner, I'm sure, led to my uneasyness in all dark places or houses where someone had died at some point in the past.

No one had ever died at Grandma's house, they were the first ones to move in, back when Jude Lane and Autumn Drive was being developed in the sixties.

That didn't faze Nancie, "Some people attract ghosts, there's just something about them."

"What do you mean?" I asked, nervous but intrigued.

"They're called mediums, they have a special connection to the ghost world."

I had just about heard enough. With all the things Nancie told me, and all the things she saw, I was sure she was one. If she wasn't a medium, I don't know who was.

One time she told me about the two figures standing at the foot of her bed. One, she thought, was her biological father. The other was her guardian angel, or my grandmother's father. Though she never figured out for sure.

Aunt Nancie and Ghosts

To this day my brother Jason says that Aunt Nancie was the reason he was afraid to go in Grandma's basement--or her closet, or Nancie's room.

"There could be demons in the closet," she'd say provocatively to us, probably making a reference to one of the many Stephen King books she read. "Trolls too maybe."

Grandma's closet opened up pretty big. It wasn't deep, but cloth and metal shoe racks lined the walls to the left and right. To the right, once I crawled under the hanging cloths and on top of old purses, yarn bags and boxes of fabric, a platform opened up, similar in size to the cooby hole across the hall, but with no doors. I jumped up and was surrounded by more of Grandma's things--older things that hadn't been used in a long time: dusty pairs of slippers, cracked and ripped change purses, and old blankets inside plastic bags.

There was an access panel on the back wall of this area. Four boards made a square around the opening. Behind this was the attic--and the troll cave. It wasn't a stretch for me then to believe that trolls or demons took up residence in this dark corner of the closet--or that Jason and Nick believed the same thing a few years later. I probably would have spent much more time in there if I wasn't afraid of a diminutive green troll poping out and pulling me back into the darkness.

Nancie's closet was even more scary. I think I only saw the inside of it once. In fact, the only time I ever went in her room at all was when she was there. Too many stories about staring ghosts standing at the foot of her bed, shadow people making noises outside her window and flying away, and Bloody Mary in the mirror made me want nothing to do with her room.

"If you say Bloody Mary three times while you look at yourself in the mirror," Aunt Nancie explained. "She'll appear. But don't do it Jonathan."

I often stood in Grandma's room, staring at myself in front of the dresser, saying the name.

"Bloody Mary..." I just had to say it. "Bloody Mary..." The third and final ghost-summoning Mary never came. I was brave, I thought, for saying the name at all.

Sleepovers Continued

...

Sleepovers at my grandparent's house always consisted of midnight trips for water and a snack. Once it started to get late, I waited for twelve thirty, and like a strict tradition that had to be followed, the routine kept me awake and ready to obey the clock when it turned to the right time--my grandmother not so much.

Sometimes she was already up, giving humming laughs to Bewitched or I Dream of Genie, other times I had to wake her up.

"Grandma," I started softly. "It's twelve thirty, we have to go downstairs."

It hurt me even then to wake her up in such an abrupt fashion, only an hour or so after she fell asleep, but I knew the tradition was worth it, she was always thrilled I decided to wake her up--not once did she turn me down.

Downstairs we went, and out of the cupboard I pulled small glasses that we filled and sipped from as we sat across from each other at the island countertop.

"So how are you Grandma?" I asked sincerely, sampling the water.

"I'm well," she smiled, her big brown eyes looking back at me through her 'night glasses,' the ones she needed when her contacts weren't in. "Thank you."

It was great. The soft lightbulb above the sink cast just enough light for us to see, yet kept enough darkness in the rest of the downstairs to keep our tired eyes from squinting. It was the only time I saw the house like this, tranquil and still. Coming down the steps after midnight brought us into another world, the quiet world that few get to see: the house at an early hour of the morning. I liked that idea, Grandma did too, I guessed. That's why we couldn't just stay in the living room until the right time, we had to go upstairs, and wait until the darkness prepared itself for us.

Minutes went by and we were done. I was relieved and usually fell asleep quickly in my grandmother's arms. She fell asleep too--most of the time.

Sleepovers

During sleepovers, I sometimes slept on the queen size bed in my grandfather's room. My grandmother and I slept there, or sometimes my Aunt Norcie and I when she visited from Pennsylvania with Uncle Ernie.

On those occasions my grandfather went to bed, way before we did, in Nancie's bedroom. We usually stayed up to watch the late night talk shows or play our favorite card game, rummy.

The master bedroom it was, and it always seemed like the darkest room in the house, probably because it faced the backyard, away from the street and passing cars. Only dim slanting headlight beams crept along the ceiling from the window that faced the neighbors house. It was the perfect place to fall asleep--if you weren't uneasy about the dark. I would never have slept there alone.

I can still remember how the radio sounded in the darkness. On the nightstand beside the bed, the old clock radio had its knobs tuned to light rock music or sometimes country. Its soft red digital numbers did nothing to abate the darkness. Pop Pop listened to the radio almost every night--I always could hear the music humming through the sound-dulling walls across the hallway. Most sleepovers I slept in my grandmother's room, where we choose to watch television, shows on Nick at Nite like I Love Lucy and The Brady Bunch, until our eyelids drooped low enough to forget to keep them open and we fell asleep.

Sometimes, though not with me, Grandma listened to talk radio when she couldn't sleep. Strange things came on the radio late at night she told me, talks of ghosts and monsters, UFOs and the Cupacabra. I sometimes tried to stay up to hear them, but I could never do it. After a time, all I figured out was the shows had to have come on some time after one thirty in the morning. Coast to Coast AM the show was called, and I thought it was cool that my grandmother listened to it.

...

More Reflection

Money is paper. Sure, it represents more in what it can give us and provide to us, but strip away society and the arbitrary 'value' we ascribe to it, and all we have is cotton, linen and a few synthetic fibers glued together to make an interesting collection of dead presidents on little green rectangles.

Oh how we strive for those portraits. Those green symbols can usher in the highest peaks of attainable bliss and lowest possible reaches of despair in our human experience. I didn't have enough rectangles with pictures of Benjamin Franklin or Ulysses S. Grant to buy and save my grandparent's house. It's as simple as that.

In the weeks after my grandmother passed away, I forgot the evils of my Aunt Nancie, her coldness, her inhumanness. That no longer mattered. There would be time for reflection and anger, that wasn't it. When the time finally came, and I realized my godmother's betrayal had run too deep, the hatred and animosity came swiftly, in waves of seething passion that tugged and seized my ankles, pulling me further into the rip current of despair.

Money mattered, it was not just paper and portraits, it was freedom. It represented more than what it could buy or what it could provide for a family, it was freedom in the purest sense. I knew money couldn't solve all problem, no one thing could ever wish to do so, but I knew it could solve a lot of them, way more than anyone without money would want to admit. When someone had money, it relieved stress and lengthened lives. Those people breathed.

I felt as if I struggled well below the surface in a sea of stress, pumping my legs and arms in its genetin-consistency, slowly slipping further into the abyss. I thought of my Aunt Steffie, the moment she saw her winning lottery ticket, what other emotions may have come with the adrenaline that flowed through her body. How each successive matching number led closer to the realization that their lives were going to change.

"Money don't mean nothing to me"? My Uncle Chet really said that? That notion felt impossible, unbelievable, even insulting to me. What that money could have accomplished was beyond what they could have imagined, far beyond giving it to the two casinos in Connecticut. If that white and pink piece of paper were in my hand, things would be different, it would have been enough to make things right.

The statement manifests itself in the deepest parts of my brain: Of course the million dollars went to someone whos "lifestyle is perfect already." Is it sad to think this? But this is too presumptuous of me to say. I am lucky to have been affected by it at all, lucky to have been so close to its benefits.

The power is in the paper. But talk is cheap...sorry, it's all I can afford.

Reflection

At twenty years old I had done all I could, exhausted every avenue I had available, even the ones that only hinted at a chance of saving my grandmother's house. It became clear that after a time that I was only fooling myself. There was no way I could buy my grandparents house. Nancie had already stole, lied, and manipulated almost all of its worth. If she hadn't done that, and the money that should have been there was, I could have done it. I would have done anything, I was prepared to work as many hours as it took, get another job, take a break from school, anything.

 

The realization hit me as I laid in my bed, in the silence, watching the occasional car send stretching shadows of the norway maple branches up and down my window. My muffled heartbeats bellowed in my head and ears, making the darkness quiet for everything except me. I had failed. I felt alone, alone because I was the last line of defense against the arbitrary, orderly, average 'rules' of society that forced us to have to sell the house. Because who could afford it in this market? The whole situation didn't register in my brain, it couldn't. Family, love, growing up, learning, sleepovers: none of that required money. From day one I was taught those were the very things that mattered the most, before anything else, especially money, when it came to living a good life and loving my family. Yet money was the only thing stopping me from saving 27 Autumn Drive, the place I had learned those very things. It wasn't about buying, it wasn't about owning, it was about saving--and I couldn't make it happen. 

 

To my brothers and I, the house was more than a building, it was more than a home, it represented our childhood, part of which we were still experiencing. The house was a trophy, a resonating declaration of success for all those ancestors that risked the journey to America in the jam-packed boats and filthy cargo holds. Those who wished only to give their children a shot at a better life. Back then, 27 Autumn Drive would have been only a whisper at the back of their mind, an inconceivable benefit of giving someone a chance in America. 27 Autumn Drive was the first, the biggest, the shiniest example of success, and it belonged to me, by inheritance, to benefit anyone else in the future who wanted an example of achievement and triumph, that know that it is possible. But society's cold hand knocked at our door, and we had to take the 'smart,' 'logical,' and 'responsible' way out. Who had the money to buy a house anyway? Not us, and not me.

 

Whoever said money isn't important lied, and they continue to lie because I hear it said too often. Whether they intentionally deceive with their vile words or truly believe them I cannot say. I don't think it matters; it doesn't take away from the wickedness of what they preach. I don't know from experience if money can buy happiness, but I can say that lack of money can bring divisive hatred, hardship, and loss. Like it or not, believe it or not, the sad truth is that money is everything. In society we cannot move, function, or breathe without it. Everyone is in a perpetual struggle for it. And we cannot spend a day without its inexorable hold, influencing us in some big, small, annoying, tedious way.

 

Who can deal with that anyway? I can't afford to, life is too short and some things are just too important.

'We Won Lotto"

On July 25, 1992, my Aunt Steffie and Uncle Chet won a million dollars. At the top of Jude Lane they stopped in a package store and bought a Lotto ticket, like they did every day except Sunday. That day, the six random numbers on their white and pink ticket matched Connecticut's drawing to win the prize of one million dollars and eighty-nine cents.

 

"We watched the drawing and then I went upstairs to check the ticket," my aunt explained to the papers. "The numbers matched and I double checked and went back and told my husband to turn the TV off. I started to cry. I dont know if I was happy or nervous."

 

I could never figure out why she would have been nervous, but then again I never won the Lotto, maybe people get nervous. My uncle had his opinion on the matter.

 

"Money don't mean nothing to me," he said glibly. "And no, I don't want to go to Disney World."

 

He was content. They had extra money, their bills were always paid, and they recieved their Social Secrurity checks every month. They didn't have kids either.

 

Even though my Uncle Chet said plainly that he didn't think they would live to see the end, they took the money over a twenty year period, recieving almost thirty-eight thousand dollars every July. This was good news for me. For as long as I could remember, my Aunt Steffie, usually with my grandmother (my uncle and grandfather always chose to stay in, typically watching the game), went out for dinner at least once a week. We usually went to Queen Pizza (or later renamed to JD's Great Food and Drink) on the other side of town for pizza or pasta. After our stomachs were full, if I played my cards right, I could get my aunt to take me to Toy Works or Ames to get me the newest Nerf gun of Lego kit. After a while, I played my cards right pretty often.

 

After they won the money, my aunt and uncle bought a forest green Cadillac, the vehicle that brought me to dinner and my aunt, uncle and grandmother to the casino. Its sun heated leather seats burned my skin.

 

My Uncle Chet really didn't seem to care that much that they won, but my Aunt Steffie ignored my uncle's indifference about the money, "He can give it to his wife."

 

Nancie

My Aunt Nancie was my grandparent's only child for four years before
my mom came along.

Unlike any of the adults I knew, my Aunt Nancie was different, not
just because she was adopted, but because of her adolescent, carefree
attitude. She was up to date on all the newest songs and movies that
came out, she stayed up late when she wanted, she dressed like a
hippy, and every so often she swore.

"Don't swear in front of Jonathan," my grandmother would quickly scald.

"Oh don't worry," she'd say laughing confidently. "He won't repeat it."

My Aunt Nancie and I had a special relationship. She felt like a
friend under the grown-up eyes of my grandparents. Though that
grown-up supervision was never oppressive or gloomy, she sometimes
made it seem like it was, and we stuck together, sending each other
reassuring glances when no one else was looking. She was my godmother.

Nancie's full name was Nancie Nurscek. She was married to Ken Nurseck,
a burly, quiet plumber from the local area. She spent most of her
afternoons on Autumn drive, wear she could eat, do her laundry, and
sleep until she left at around () o'clock. She worked at the same
hospital my mom did, in charge of (tvs). My aunt had strawberry blonde
hair that waved passed her shoulders, skinny legs and a skinny face,
high cheekbones, a long nose and big boobs.

She was weird about some things. I remember one winter.

"We're you watching him Ma?" Nancie asked as I stepped my way back
inside from the biting cold. I looked up at both of them.

"I was watching him," my grandmother replied.

"Well don't you think someone should be bout there with him?" she
asked again. "You never know these days."

I pulled the wet, suctioned mittens from my frozen hands. Nancie
turned to me, "You know not to go with anyone if they stop and talk to
you right?"

It didn't seem like the questions were going to stop. "Yes I know
that," I said. Never talking to strangers was the first thing my mom
taught me. Even though I could take on any bad guy on my own if I got
mad enough, like the movie Home Alone, my response would be to scream
and run away. I had promised my mom I would too many times.

Pop Pop

My grandfather's name was Primo Pauletti. My grandmother and older relatives called him 'Scrappy,' or 'Scrap' for short. Some of my uncles on my mom's side called him Uncle Primo. I called him Pop Pop, said quickly to sound more like Popop.

My grandfather was also the son of immigrants, immigrants from Italy. He was born in the United States, in Shea Town, Pennsylvania, a poor rural community outside Wilkes Barre. He had served in the army, worked in factories and for Pratt and Whitney. He'd been retired for () years before I first saw him.

Pop Pop was a bigger guy, pot bellied and friendly. He had a round head, slightly slanted towards the back, a stocky neck, thick abdomen and short legs. His once powerful hands were chubby now, like strong, calloused workers hands softened by age. He loved sports, talking with my Uncle Chet, fixing things around the house, and his tomato plants.

Pop Pop was my kind of guy: he watched baseball in the afternoons, ate when he was hungry (usually Grandma's meatballs or lasagna), and didn't have to take showers every day, he just washed his white hair, most of which grew on the sides of his head, in the kitchen sink every morning.

My Aunt Nancie was my grandparent's only child for a few years, and she was adopted. My mom came along () years later.

Josephine

My grandmother's name was Josephine Pauletti, but her sisters and brothers always called her Josie. My grandfather did too, though every once in a while he refered to her as 'dear,' usually after making a fresh comment on her cooking, or when he told me his famous line "never get married, Jonny!"

"Don't take after your grandfather," she'd smile to me, never taking it to heart.

I called my grandmother 'Grandma.' My mom told me it was one of the first words I learned to say. After I learned 'apple' and 'Mom,' 'Grandma' apparently came easy, though at first it sounded more like 'Gama.'

My grandmother was a warm and kindhearted woman, slightly overweight, a little short, and always well dressed. She called her colorfully designed and delightfully patterned shirts 'blouses' (which I could never figure out, the difference between a blouse and a shirt). She always wore black pants, ironed to show the crease at the front of the legs, that stopped right before her black slip-on shoes. Her short hair was curly all the time, especially after she went with my mom or Aunt Steffie to get a perm. She had a round and bulbous nose that held up big glasses in front of her brown eyes. Her round face smiled often.

Antonina

"You're great grandmother would have loved you so much," my grandmother often told me. She caressed my face and looked into my big brown eyes with her own. I could tell she was looking at me and imagining what her mother would have thought, how proud and loving she would have been, how sad it was that she wasn't around to see me.

I though of what my great grandmother must have been like. I had only ever seen her in small, blurry, black and white photographs, ones that reminded me of a time before cameras. She wore a dark dress and apron on her round figure with short curly hair and thick, circular glasses. I always thought of this photo when I imagined her. The idea of her forced me to think of someone more cozy and loving than my grandmother, which was hard for me to do. But this was the person that taught my grandmother everything she knew, how to cook and make meatballs, sew a dress or crochet a blanket, all the things a great grandma needed to know. I figured she must have been like my grandmother in a number of other ways: gentle, caring, and always willing to make ice cream cones with extra scoops.

My great grandmother came from Kombornia, Poland, a small village located in the Southeast part of the country. Her name was Antonina Ballivajder, but my grandmother and Aunt Steffie always called her Bocky, which apparently meant 'mother' in polish. When Antonina was just seventeen years old she made the trip across the Atlantic to America with the hope for a better life, a life superior to the one lived in the poor rural areas and farmlands of Poland.

She moved to Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania and started a life, poor still though it was, in the United States. She had her first children, five of them, with , who passed away young.

Good and Evil

...

That could be part of the reason I had to improvise in that department
too. Unfortunately my grandmother didn't have any devil statues lying
around that I could use for my bad guy, but her strawberry-red hair
brush did the trick. It was just about as big as the Jesus statue and
the wispy hairs in its bristles made an eerily distorted face, which I
thought was appropriate--as long as I squinted hard enough to see it.

Atop the high peaks of the dresser, nightstand, and television, Jesus
and the Devil fought for the freedom of humanity. The stage was set,
it all came down to this. Somehow these battles, between a color-faded
Jesus statue and a plastic comb-devil seemed more intense, like the
skies above were watching with interest for the outcome of the
struggle. I had more of a responsibility to make sure things ended up
right.

"You will die!" I said for the Devil, moving the comb handle down the
dresser towards Jesus. The comb, though, emanated hatred. It wasn't a
comb. Once committed, my child eyes saw no comb, only the shapeless
figure that made up the Devil.

"You will never prevail," Jesus responded triumphantly, sending his
foot in a sideways ninja kick that met the Devil mid-stride. The red
comb bounced back toward the precipice of the dresser, the highest
area of the room. Below, the floor, a bottomless pit of nothingness
loomed as the Devil struggled to hang on to the edge.

"Damn you," the Devil sneered, slipping off the ledge and into the abyss.

There Jesus stood, victorious and humble, his expression unchanged. I
did this kind of thing on multiple occasions, sometimes in front of my
grandmother while she napped, hoping, for some reason, to give her
dreams of the dramatic duels.

"Did you have any dreams while you were sleeping Grandma?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think so," she said. "I can't remember them though."

I smiled to myself.

June 6 While Falling Asleep...

Before I had my Power Ranger action figures, I had to improvise. In my grandmother's upstairs bedroom, she had a small statue of Jesus: white robed, red scarf, long brown hair and a pale-white face. Without real toys of any kind or my Legos, I used 'our savior' as the good guy in my dramatic fights.

My grandmother went to church all the time, and always told me about Jesus. How I should pray every night, go to church every Sunday, thank god for everything I had. My grandfather never went to church with my Aunt Steffie and grandmother on saturday nights, he watched mass on television every morning before The Price is Right came on.

I tried to take the example and do all the things a young catholic boy should do, after all, I did go to religion class on Tuesday nights to learn how God wanted me to behave, learned about angels and the devil, communion and confession.

However long I tried to follow the rules and suggestions of the priest, it never seemed to stick. I remained too busy on my Legos and the important events surrounding the hero of my adventures, Johnny Thunder. Riding my bike and playing with my neighbors across the street took up a lot of my time as well. After all, I noticed fairly quickly that most of the people I saw in church were old white-haired men and women. I'd have time for praying, now wasn't it. I'd have plenty of time to make it up.

Religion gave me my first 'bad guy,' in the form of the devil. I heard during some of the Sunday morning services about the story that Satan (apparently 'Devil' was only his nickname) had been an angel at one point. The seriousness of his betrayal and what that meant for mankind was always stressed by the sweaty, angry looking priest. No one, though, could ever give me an accurate description of what the devil looked like. I even heard that he changed form if he wanted to sneak around or trick people, so he never had a set form. He looked like whatever he felt like.

Aunt Steffie Part 2

Few things rivaled the complacency of those moments. Sitting in some comfortable corner of a hole-in-the-wall restaurant filling my belly, eating with my grandmother and Aunt Steffie, two people that loved me more than I could have known at the time, and eagerly awaiting the short trip to Toy Works right afterwards.

3) Once at Toy Works (every so often Toys R Us), I walked excited but casually to the location of the desired item.

I found myself explaining the intricacies of the blue ranger and the back story of all the others, sometimes even going as far as the events going on inside my head and the 'episodes' I had going with my action figures. My explanations made it clear that I needed the blue ranger. I began getting really effective at logical persuasion, my aunt understood this every time.

4) If I ever felt torn between which one to get, or if I felt especially spoiled, I could try and delay for as long as it took to get my aunt to give in, "Okay, get 'em both. Let's go." It usually always worked.

I couldn't have guessed the transparency of my plan at the time, but I could always hear it in my Father's voice when he found out I got something new--again.

"Boy you're lucky," he'd say in an almost disappointing tone, realizing what 'I' put my aunt up to. "Did you say thank you?"

I always had.

My Mom was happy for me when she saw me playing with my new toys. She loved seeing me happy. Sometimes she took an interest in what they bought me, asking me about it and seeing what the new toy did and how it worked.

Aunt Steffie Part 1

When I ran up to see my Aunt Steffie, my grandmother called it running through the 'woods,' even though it was only a few trees at the bottom of the hill where the two yards met.

My yard had woods. Our small backyard sloped down into what most would call forest. I could see the neighbors house and lights on the next street over, more clearly in the winter months, but the space in between crawled with vegetation, bugs, and poison ivy.

Other times they called it 'running up the hill,' which made more sense to me. Every once in a while I ran up the hill with a mission; they went a little something like this:

1) During conversation, but only 'in passing,' mention the new toy that I want.

"I have three out of the four power rangers now," I would say, referring the my action figures. "I think that Toy Works has the blue ranger now, Mom didn't get it for me though."

1 1/2) If she didn't get it at that point, another couple of hints always did the trick. I couldn't just come out and ask, that would be rude...

2) Soon, my Aunt Steffie offered to take me out for dinner with Grandma, then to Toy Works afterward. After her offer, I would give some shocked reaction to her gracious offer.

We usually went to Saints in the next town over for their famous hot dogs or Tony's for greasy delicious pizza.
....

More Slowness...On my Brothers and I

In early spring, after the snow thawed, my brothers and I played kickball in the backyard.

From the center of the yard, we rolled the purple plastic ball up the slight incline to the back porch where the kicker stood ready to swing their leg at the bouncing ball.

Along with tag, chase the monster, and hide and seek, we played kickball every so often throughout the summer into the cold autumn days before it snowed again.

When my brothers were six yeas old, my grandparents bought an automatic pitching machine, a plastic one that pitched wiffle balls. The bat that came with it was red, with an adjustable handle that my brothers and I swung with intensity. We waited for the machine to hum and click and release the ball, each time only about eight to ten feet from where it sat.

More on Brothers

My brothers grew and before long the small wooden stand that held magazines behind Pop Pop's recliner got replaced by a play pen. I remember holding on to the padded, baby blue railings and staring down at my baby dome-headed brothers. They crawled around pointlessly and batted their little chubby hands at the nylon screen, as if looking for a way to escape their new environment.

Jason laid on his stomach and held out his hands and legs like a skydiver would in free fall. Nick observed Jason most of the time and attempted to recreate his bizarre sounds and actions.

Once in a while, between helping my grandfather and watching cartoons, I would catch my brothers in conversation, baby conversation. They held out their tiny arms and motioned frantically back and forth while chattering and shrieking. Eventually they would stop, both finding some unknown look or sound funny, and fall to their stomachs laughing encontrollably until their faces turned red. This made everyone smile.

Tickling them also elicited the red-faced, feet kicking laughter. They looked back at me after I tickled their belly or rubbed their armpits, wondering if I would bend back down to get them again.

When my grandmother lifted my brothers up and put them on a blanket on living room floor, they never stayed put. The need to explore wasn't just reserved for me. Jason, a least, would think about listening when asked to stop. Nick ignored any attempts my grandmother made to call him back. When really excited, either one of my brothers could spontaniously break into a turbo crawl, yelling, giggling, and outright laughing as their little arms and fat legs bounced back and forth wildly.

My grandmother and I always had to make sure the door to the garage level was closed when Nick and Jay were out and about. I helped my grandmother keep an eye on them when they tried to climb the steps to the upstairs, or play with the wires behind the television. I saw early on how much work it took to take care of two little kids, and how little time remained for me.

Ice Cream and Consciousness

"Do you want some ice cream, sweetheart?" my grandmother asked me as I watched the game in my grandparent's living room.

"Sure," my grandfather answered with a straight face from the couch.

"Oh shush," she reprimanded.

I added that I wanted ice cream too. My grandmother turned and disappeared into the kitchen. I looked to my grandfather and we chuckled quietly to ourselves. His belly bounced up and down as he held off louder laughs.

Outside, the sun humidified the afternoon. Across the street seemed submersed in a cloud of summer haze. The mountain further back had been gone since late morning, hiding somewhere behind the humidity. Inside though, the giant, wall mounted air conditioner in the dining room chugged away noisily and kept the house at a cool sixty degrees.

The ice cream came in its usual form: a wafer cone in one of three colors (plain, a dull red or a light green color); and a hard, nearly frozen solid mix of chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice cream stacked with as many scoops as easy balancing would allow. Perfect for a hot summer day.

My grandfather and I sat licking and biting into our ice cream in front of the TV. The Yankees were winning again. My grandmother sat behind us at the dining room table playing 'beat the devil' as she always did.

Little did I know then how precious that moment was. From about that age, ten-years-old, I consistently heard the older people in my family tell me how I should appreciate the moments I have and be happy that I'm young, "You're living in the best years of your life," and, "Enjoy life while you're young, Jonny," were just a few. But when your young you don't have time to be happy about it, the excitement of your youth distracts from the slow, rational and calculated thoughts of an adult. Kids don't have the receiver to pick up that frequency. They don't even have radios. And when they finally figure it out, finally graduate to an age that permits them into the 'club of growing up,' they realize it's too late, and there's nothing else they can do except prepare to warn the next generation about the speed trap their own life already passed through.