Family reunion long ago

I'm not too certain when this picture was taken, but I believe it was taken at my brother, Carl's, home in Williamstown, NJ. The child "hanging" over the top of the swing set is my Cyndi. She was about 7 or 8 in this picture (I'm guessing based on what she's wearing) so that means it was probably around 1980.

The "larger" person in the front is me. I haven't really changed that much, but I dress better now that I can afford something that doesn't come from Goodwill. Next to me is my mother. How frail she looks. And then comes my father. Note the suspenders and the tie. It must have been a really hot day or he would have had on his jacket. I'm surprised he doesn't have a dozen pens in his shirt pocket. He usually did. And next to my father is my sister, Debbie, who still looks just the same as she did then.

I always envied her because she always dressed so beautiful. I always looked frumpy, even when I was a size 5. Yes, folks I was once a size 5 (new size 0). Size 5 was the smallest you could get back when my nickname was "Olive Oyl" not because I looked like Olive Oyl, but because I was built like her. Stick!

Behind me is my brother Carl. He grew to be the tallest of the bunch. My dad was only 5 foot 8 inches, mom was five foot two or less. Next to Carl is Mark, my other brother. The one who hates broccoli.

I don't really remember why we all had this reunion, but I know it wasn't for my parents 50th anniversary, because my Cyndi was a teenager and she would never have been hanging over a swing set.

I suppose we had some reason for a reunion. Perhaps my sister and her family were visiting Jim's family in Delaware and we were visiting my mom, as was my brother, and we were able to get together. I can't imagine, though, my five and my brother's five in the little house on second avenue, all at the same time. But then, I'm remembering less and less as the days go by.

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Food we ate when we were growing up

I know I've addressed this before, but my niece's recent BLOG about broccoli got me to thinking about likes and dislikes in the food department that we, as children, had.

The first one that comes to mind as a dislike is LIVER. Oh, how we ALL hated that stuff. But daddy liked it, so every once in a while, too often for me, mom would make liver. And, we HAD to eat our small (thankfully small) portion. The only way I could get that stuff down was cutting it very, very small and surrounding it with mashed potatoes so that it would slide down without having to chew it (or taste it). Mom, thankfully, wasn't real fond of liver either, and so she told us about the mashed potato trick, and she always made mashed potatoes when we had liver.

The second dislike that comes to my mind is TONGUE. Ewww! While it really does taste sort of like ham, I could never get past those taste buds. The way it felt on my own tongue made me gag, and gag I did with every single bite. Mom wasn't as generous with mashed potatoes when we had tongue, because oddly enough she liked the stuff. And fortunately we had it only once or twice a year.

I don't recall disliking any vegetables except for TURNIPS. Since we depended a lot on what people gave us in the vegetable department, and what we raised, we didn't get many turnips. I think I had to endure that horrible root veggie only once or twice in my life.

I know my brothers and sister weren't overly fond of BEETS, but I loved them. I loved them pickled or hot with lots of butter or in orange sauce. Beets were one of my favorite veggies and my father loved them.

My mother had a knack with LIMA BEANS -- which I really liked -- that I don't have. Her limas were always soft in the middle and the skins were still intact. My limas seen always to be very hard through and through. Maybe it's the beans? Do I over cook them? Do I under cook them? I don't know. I've tried cooking them for a long time and they are still hard as rocks, which would lead me to believe I over cooked them. Then I cooked them for a shorter time, and still they were hard. So, while I like lima beans, we don't eat them very often. Dad liked succotash, and mom saved the left-over limas and then the next night combined it with corn (which we always had on hand because she froze a lot of it in the summer).

Now, to the subject of my nieces, hilariously well written article on BROCCOLI (click on my favorite BLOG list, All Because Two People Fell in Love and read the BLOG entitled "We must keep up the fight"). I know my niece, Lori, gets her dislike of broccoli from her father, my brother, Mark. I'm not sure she's ever even tasted this wonderful veggie. I love broccoli. I don't like it raw, however. My children weren't especially fond of it, but I made it at least once a week when they were growing up. Alan ate it, but wasn't particularly fond of it, so now that it's just the two of us, we don't have it very often.

Growing up, we had broccoli a lot in the summer because people would give to us from their abundance. My mother basically blanched it and served it with butter, salt, and pepper. While I enjoyed it that way, after I was married a friend introduced me to a sauce she used on broccoli and I started putting that on the broccoli all the time. It a mixture of mayonnaise and mustard -- three tablespoons of mayo and 1 tspn of mustard, all mixed together and poured over the broccoli. My own children would tolerate brocolli served that way. I guess the sauce masked the flavor of the broccoli for them. Alan started to enjoy the broccoli after I fixed it that way. Now I even use that sauce for his chicken, and anything else he's not particularly fond of.

In thinking back to when I was a child and when we were fed based on what (1) mom could afford, which wasn't much, and (2) what our generous parishioners handed us, I don't think there was much we all didn't like because I think we knew we were eating what God had given us for that day, whether it was a chicken that mom had to pluck given to us by our neighbor who raised chickens and supplied us with eggs on a daily basis, or whether it was from a neighbor who had an over supply of broccoli in his garden. We ate what we had and enjoyed it or went very, very hungry.

I personally am thankful for the variety we had and especially the way my mom cooked what was given to us and stretched it so that we didn't go hungry. God was good.

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Dinnertime in the 60s -- Another episode of Back to Runnemede

Here we are eating dinner, or rather having our picture taken after dinner. The year? 1968. Christmas. I know this because? There is a stupid santa hat hanging from the picture behind the buffet which is at the top center of the photo.

Alan is sitting on the end, looking back toward the camera. I am in the lower right of the picture. I am about four months pregnant, and since I wanted to badly to be pregnant, I started wearing maternity clothes as soon as I couldn't button my skirts. Since I was a working lady, and pant-suits weren't permitted in the work place, I had skirts that I had to fit in. And spandex was just the gleam in some inventor's eye at that time.

This must be our Christmas dinner in 1968, because it looks like all the family, sans papa is there. Also in the picture is Alberta and her husband, Harold; my brother Carl and his wife, Linda; and the guy with the sideburns on the right, back, is my brother, Mark.

You will notice all those cans on the buffet -- remember I talked about all the cookies our family received at Christmas time -- baked fresh by the ladies in the church? Well, take a look. And that was AFTER most of the children had left home, so they weren't giving dad as many cookies as they did when he had four hungry children living at home.

This picture was taken in 1970, I believe, although my sister thinks it was later than that. I think this is when I am pregnant with Becky, who was born in 1971. The guy on the back end, left-hand side, is Alan. When I first saw this picture, I thought it was Phil, my son. Of course, that wouldn't be possible because he was only 1-1/2 years old at Christmas, 1970. This may be Thanksgiving, though.

My sister, Debbie, is at the end, and she too, is pregnant, with Jennie. Now, she tells me that Becky was already born when she was pregnant with Jennie, but I'm too skinny, I think, in this picture for me to be pregnant with Cyndi. I hadn't lost much weight after Becky was born, and bam! I was pregnant with Cyndi. My brother, Carl is in the foregound, right; Aunt Annie is on the right-hand side, back side of the table.

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Back to Runnemede circa 1950

That's our "little" family. Weren't we cute? My mother is holding my youngest brother Carl (Diddle), whose birthday I missed again this year. He was born on January 2, 1949. It was a Sunday. And I've written about that before. To rehash: My mom informed me prior to Sunday school that we would have a new baby before the day was out. She let me feel her belly as she had a contraction. Like an almost-six-year-old cared. I pretended I did. And Dad took us (my sister and other brother, Mark) to church. He preached, while messengers went between the house and church keeping him informed of mom's progress. Actually, it was one messenger, Mrs. Aspling, who was attending her. After church we children were hustled off to people's homes to await the birth. He was born around 1:00 in the afternoon and we were all home by 2:00 p.m.

Anyway, he's probably two or almost two in this picture.

You can see some greenery on top of the bookcase, so it was around Christmas time when this was taken. I recall the incident. Mr. Fisher, a member of the church got a new camera for Christmas and wanted to try it out, so he came over to take the "preacher's family's pictures."

We children weren't very still and I recall it was quit difficult to keep my two brothers still long enough to get a decent picture. So why am I surprised when my younger grandchildren don't want to sit still to have a picture taken?

We are all sitting on THE LOVE SEAT. The LOVE SEAT that has seen more wear and tear in the past 65 plus years than I can remember. My niece Lori, who sent me the picture, asked several questions about the history of the still-in-existence loveseat. Her sister Emily now houses it.

My father's Uncle Orf and Aunt Mary gave the three-piece set (love seat and two chairs) to my mother and father, I'm guessing for Christmas, because I sort of remember it being cold when the furniture arrived. Our old furniture was put in the basement and we used it for a "family" room/playroom for years. Anyway, the seat is made of a mahogany frame (very sturdy) and the material that covers the seat and chair in the picture went the way of four children and was replaced in the early 60s with the covering that now is on the seat -- a sage green material.

You might ask why the material is still in fairly good shape. Well, mom kept it covered and only exposed it when we had company. I always thought it had a baby-poop colored yellow cover on it. Obviously, I was wrong.

One of the chairs in the set had low arms -- arms below where you would normally think arms should be. That's because it was a lady's parlor chair, and they were purposely made that way so that ladies billowy skirts wouldn't either get squished or their hoops wouldn't bounce up exposing all their undies! That particular chair is just out of the picture on the lower right-hand side.

Also in the picture is my dear sister, Debbie -- she's on the left end. I'm squished in between her and my brother Mark. And Mom, the controller, the trying to keep us still enough to get a fairly good picture. She succeeded. This is one of about three of what seemed like a hundred pictures that were taken of us that night. I do remember asking, "Are we through yet?" And being told to "Behave, Judith." Ah, yes, I do remember those things.

The wallpaper gives the illusion that we had high ceilings. We didn't. The house had 8-foot ceilings and the room was very small. On the wall opposite us is the piano, which, of course, you can't see.

On the left as you look at the picture is the Magnavox radio/record player. I can't tell you the hours I spent in front of that non-television watching pictures in my mind of what I was hearing on either the radio or from the recordings.

I think it's no wonder my generation was so prolific in inventions and moving this country (and world) forward in so many areas. We had only our imaginations to motivate us. Today's children, for the most part (Jon & Kate plus 8 an exception) don't get much chance to use their imaginations.

There's a whole world out there yet to be explored by children. Too bad they depend on others (such as cartoon and TV producers) to do that exploring for them.

mtf

Last of the pictures

This is during the gift opening session. Dan is leaning on the coffee table. You can see Becky, Grace, Annie, and Quinn on the sofa behind Dan. The blondie is Rosie.

Alan is opening a gift from one of the children.

Grace opening one of her gifts, and Dan in the back enjoying a sword he received.

And, I gotcha Beck! She's hard to catch to get a good picture, or any picture for that matter. Like me, there are few pictures of her or me. Me I don't care about, but I do like to have pictures of my children.

And that's Becky, Annie, and Grace at in front of the tree. You can see the paper chain that Rosie made.

The children all had a sticker nativity that they put together. Matt decorated the tree with the angels and stars and bows while the older ones were swimming. And Rosie came next door to see Me-mom and she made the chain and some snowflakes at that time. We taped the snowflakes to the windows.

I think the highlight of the week was the "candy walk". Each child was given 11 pennies and they could use those to select a number of several numbers for a certain candy pack -- and the packs were very large. Ask the parents. Well, if they ran out of money before all the candy choices were set out, they were out of luck, so to speak. The Hahns won most of the candy. The Fords? Not so much, but all the families received some candy.

And at Bingo, we played five games, and the child which won was able to go to the treasure chest and pick out a gift. At the end even the losers were permitted to get a gift. Memom doesn't like losing and so there were gifts for the losers during the games as well as the winners.

I can't remember who the winner of the Pick-up-sticks game was, but those non-winners also got a small gift.

All-in-all I think that until I fizzled out at the end of the week, all went pretty well. God was good.

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Home again, home again, jiggety jog

How's this for a Charlie Brown's Christmas tree? I got it at Dollar General for $12.50, $15 if you throw in the ornaments. It's a six-foot prelit, very sparse Christmas tree, but the children loved it and Matt our youngest grandchild decorated it. Later Rosie made a chain of green and red paper and that was hung on the tree as well. Those ornaments twinkle as they twist and turn because of air currents. Really quite attractive when all the other lights are out.

Here's Matt and his mommy, Amy. Amy was so very ill the entire week. She's still recovering from pneumonia and she was not up to snuff, as we used to say. Can't say who felt worse this past week, Amy or Me-Mom.

This is Annie. Beautiful Annie. I have always "signed" that to her since she was a baby. And she is living up to it. Such a sweet child. Don't you just loooove the hat? It's got sequins sewn into it.

All the girls received scarves that I had knitted. And I think they must have liked them because they wore them each time they went outdoors, even though it wasn't really that cold outside.

And this is Grace. Quiet, helpful, cutie-pie Grace. Her name says it: She is our Grace. We love her to bits. And she just stays in the background, but is right there when you need her.

Well, these are just a few of the pictures I took while we were in Tennessee.

Alan and I love Crossville, TN. It's a quiet place and the resorts (there are four that we're aware of) are back in the woods, on lakes, and we are so able to relax. Another added bonus is that my cousin, David Evangelista, Aunt Daisy's ONLY son, lives there. And while we cousins are aging more rapidly than we'd like, it's nice to know that even in such a tranquil, bucolic place, we can get together and enjoy each other's company.

Unfortunately, this trip that didn't happen. Dave and his wife, Linda, were visiting family in California, while we were in Crossville, and they arrived home shortly before we left. The only window of opportunity was a day when I could barely move, so we cancelled our planned get together.

But, I know you're all just interested in the family pictures anyway. So enjoy.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig.

Pictures to follow.

We had a great week in Tennessee. The weather cooperated amazingly. We had rain at night and one morning, I think. Today was yucky, but who cares, we checked out and came home and it was sunny by the time we got home.

Becky and her three children (and husband, Quinn, of course), and Phil and Amy and their four children joined us for the week. We sort of had an open-door policy between the condos, unless and until Me-mom (that's me) told the children that Me-mom was feeling pretty bad and could the little ones stay at their own place for a little bit.

I had planned around ten projects, crafts, a play, games, etc., and was only able to complete about half of what I had planned. Well, it turned out okay because instead of my activities, they all went swimming while I rested.

I'll post a supplement to this announcement that I am home again and getting caught up on all that I missed here and abroad this past week. I took my computer, but had no access to the Internet, so I have lots and lots of e-mails to go through, actually 153 NEW ones, and I left about 25 old ones that I was going to read and do something with this past week, but didn't. I had no Internet, so I had no Facebook. So I need to go through all my family members and try to reconstruct what I missed with them this week. And of course, because I had no Internet, I had no BLOGging ability. Bummer.

TTFN