To Hell with Kix, I Want Quisp

I have three sisters; two older and one younger. Sometimes when I tell people that they say things like, "Oh, that must have been hard for you growing up. Y'know, being the only boy, huh?" Nope. Not at all. Think about it: My oldest sister Theresa (we call her "Tree" by the way) was saddled with the burden of having to break-in our parents. She had to test all their rules and limits to see where the weak points were (and she found them too...woo-boy did she ever). Patty, the second-oldest, kinda got the shaft. I mean, Tree is the oldest, I'm the only boy, and Mary is the youngest (I can't call her "the baby"...cuz she'll punch me in the arm). So Patty is Jan. No one wants to be Jan (not even Eve Plumb). Patty showed us all up though by being the only one of us (so far) to produce an offspring. She single-handedly made sure that our giant-head genes were passed on to the next generation. And Mary had to deal with me as an older brother. Shit, I had it easy.

Growing up in a small apartment with 4 kids, 2 parents and a grandmother made for an interesting childhood. The place where we lived until 1986 didn't have much in the way of real doors either. Most of the rooms, including the bedrooms, had those shitty vinyl accordion folding doors (I tried to find an example of those doors but none of the pics did them justice. Suffice it to say that they were cheap and would come out of their tracks nearly every time you tried to open or close them). Yeah, that doesn't really cut it if you're looking for some privacy or if you don't want monsters to come in your room. Only the bathroom had a real door but it was the only bathroom for 7 people (did mention that I have 3 sisters? I did? oh, ok). This is one of the reasons I wanted a single-family house. I wanted some goddamn privacy and some real doors.

Mom used to like to rearrange the rooms in the apartment. And I don't mean just moving where the couch is. No, she would swap out entire rooms. This meant that my bedroom, at one point or another, had been relocated to every room in that apartment with the exception of the kitchen. The kitchen was the only room that remained constant. She liked to keep us on our toes I guess. I did eventually get my own room (once Tree went off to college) but it suffered from the lack of a door as well. And since it was right off the noisiest room in the house; the kitchen, it was occasionally hard to go to sleep (especially with the kitchen light beaming through the slats in my "door").

For most of that time we were a single-income household and I can't for the life of me figure out how the hell my parents managed that (Mom went back to work when Mary turned 6 or 7). I mean, we were nice kids and all but holy shit we'd eat you out of house and home. I mean look at these faces. These are the faces of kids who meant business.

No, I don't know what I'm looking at. All I know is that I'm the only one who was classy enough to get dressed for this photo. Vesty/stripey shirt thing? Check. Wide-as-fuck shiny, white belt? Check. Just a hint of belly showing? Check and mate bitches. 

How did I get that cut on my chin? A simple story there. Patty and I would take my Tonka trucks to the top of the street where we lived and then we'd sit on them while they hurtled down the hilly sidewalk. It was fun AND dangerous! Double score! You'd think that I got that cut from a spectacular yellow dump truck wipe-out involving a neighbor's car suddenly pulling out a driveway (although that happened too) but no, I got that when I fell off the curb walking back up the hill to do it all over again. I am quite clumsy you see.

My dad's job driving a delivery truck in Boston required him to get up at an ungodly hour to start his shift. He then would come home about 12 hours later (sometimes later, depending on how shitty his day was) where we would attack him at the front door. Can you imagine four bobble-headed kids barreling down a long hallway towards you after a long day? Holy shit. After flinging ourselves at him we'd demand his attention for the next hour or so while he tried desperately to wind down from work. Dinner would be served by 6PM or so and we'd all sit in the kitchen watching TV and fighting over the last sawdust-dry pork chop or stuck-together spaghetti. After dinner everyone would go about their business (homework, washing dishes, getting ready for bed, punching each other) while Dad would remain in the kitchen doing his crossword puzzle with the TV on. He'd usually start to nod off at the kitchen table with Mom saying "John, why don't you just go to bed?". Because he's stubborn dammit. He'll go to bed when HE wants to! Or at least not until he nods off for the 10th time and his cigarette burns yet another hole in the cable rug around the kitchen table.

Dad also did the weekly grocery shopping for the family on Saturday mornings. Since he was so hard to get him to ourselves during the week, it was considered a special treat to be the one who got to go with him. Not only did it mean that you got Dad all to yourself for a good couple hours but more importantly it meant that you got to choose the cereals for the week. That was a highly coveted position to be in and we'd get pretty competitive about who got to go. Being the one to pick out the cereals for the week was basically the kid equivalent of winning the lottery (now with marshmallow bits!). Another bonus was – depending on how long it took to do the shopping – Dad would sometimes take the one who was with him to Brigham's for an ice-cream. Holy shit. That was huge. An ice-cream that you didn't have to scarf down in fear that the others were waiting for you to let your guard down to swoop in and take the rest (at least that's what it felt like). You could sit there at the counter and listen to the grown-ups talk about whatever the hell they were talking about and just ENJOY your ice-cream.

As we got older of course it became less special to spend your Saturday morning in a Ceratani's grocery store pushing a shopping cart up and down aisles that had saw dust all over the floor (what was with the saw dust anyway? Was it meant to sop up spills? Cuz all it really did was make most of the floor really slippery and it would clog up the front wheels on the cart. Most of the carts at Ceratani's had wheels that were completely jacked-up). I would still go with him every now and then through high school but it was not the same. We didn't have the connection that I think we both wanted at that time in our lives. I think I was there mainly so that he'd have someone to carry all the stuff up to the 3rd floor of the apartment building. And eventually – after some pretty intense arguments that we had about the choices I was making – I stopped going with him on Saturdays completely. We just didn't get along if I'm honest. We barely spoke for months during my last year of high school. Basically he had called me out on my bullshit and at the time I hadn't been mature enough to agree with him and change. Now I get it and I'm glad he did that. I'm glad that I grew a pair and told him that he was correct before he died. It's been 14 years since he passed away and this June it'll be 16 years since Mom died. I can't believe that. Those numbers seem impossible. I'm glad I had them as my parents.

Mmmm...pie and cigarettes