Families

Wandering around in journal land, reading other people’s thoughts and rants, I’ve learned something about families. Chiefly, that no two are exactly alike, and yet there are common threads that run through every one, to which we can all relate. The one universal truth that governs them all, I think, is that there’s nothing simple about family relationships.

When I was very young, I took for granted that my family was perfect. Dad went out to work every day. Mom stayed home with the kids. We attended Catholic school. Went to Mass on Sundays. Mom and Dad never fought, rarely even exchanged cross words in front of us. Once a year, we had a photographer out to the house to take formal pictures of the five of us. (Dad kept a couple of these pictures, framed, on the desk that he had at the hospital for 35 years. I remember, after I was married, visiting his office and there were those pictures…easily fifteen years old by then.) On family outings, we looked like five little stairsteps…from 13-year-old Joyce, to 10-year-old Donna, 8-year-old Chris, 7 year-old Lauren, down to skinny little 5-year-old me…trailing around behind my parents, taking in the "sights" of the City of Chicago as if we came from another country. Summers, we visited my grandmother, who lived in the tiny town of "Lake-in-the-hills." With pails and shovels from the five and dime, we played in the sand, and learned how to swim in the warm, shallow waters of this little lake that wasn’t much bigger than a pond.

Gramma died when I was five. Mom went back to work full-time when I was nine. Life changed… We had more money, with Mom working, so we were able to start taking real vacations, once Dad went out and acquired enough camping equipment to outfit a small army. We discovered the North Woods, 6 hours north of our Chicago suburban home, and spent many weekends kicking around the trashy tourist shops of Eagle River, Wisconsin. And being held hostage—until we by god caught some kind of fish--in the 12 foot aluminum rowboat that Dad bought second-hand from the proprietor of one of the campgrounds we frequented. (That boat now sits in my driveway…we are determined to spiff it up and take it out on the channel, in honor of Dad…someday. Even if it never sees water again, I can’t bring myself to part with it…)

My sisters and I became latch-key kids. We were responsible for getting ourselves home from school and doing chores before Mom and Dad got home from work. I have to say, we never WERE very successful at this…the chores part, anyway. We got home okay, but we spent the afternoons watching TV—at first, the local after-school cartoon programming; later, the late afternoon soaps---"All My Children," "General Hospital," "Dark Shadows." And eating. We used to swipe money out of Dad’s change bank, go down to the "Convenient Food Mart" at the corner, and fill our bags with penny candy and ice cream. An entire pint of strawberry ice cream cost 35 cents---37 cents with tax. Quite a find! I don’t know why I didn’t weigh 500 lbs. by the time I was twelve.

We had a real family…a normal family. Or so I thought. We were so fifties, even in the early sixties. So post-war baby boom. But, let’s not forget, the boomers of the fifties became the hippies of the sixties. For some reason, we couldn’t deal with being perfect. With being happy. We tore ourselves away from that perfect place, And we dragged our parents right along with us.

To be continued….