Is that CPS walking up the driveway? Oh, mom, what have you gone and done now?
My sister, Janet, reminded me of another reason why our mother should have been on a watchlist if she wasn't already. Along with serving milkshakes and eggplant Parmigiana for breakfast or dressing her children inadequately for being outside in the winter, you can add serving alcohol to minors on my mother's list of infractions.
When my sisters had menstrual cramps, our mother would offer up a shot of scotch instead of Midol before sending them out the door. "Drink it down in one swig because you won't like the taste, but it will make you feel better," she would tell her junior-high-school-age daughters.
I'm going out on a limb and posit that was a factor why my sister, Barbara, started drinking on her own at an early age.
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In the 50s & 60s, our next-door neighbors were the Cusenza's. Mrs. Cusenza – we've always referred to her as Mrs. Cusenza, and never once by her first name, Antoinette - would call up and, in her Italian accent, say, "Marian, come to the fence, I have something for you." A big pot of spaghetti sauce, an oven-ready lasagna, or a plate of still-warm Italian cookies would be handed across the fence that separated our two houses. And so began my life-long love affair with Italian food.
My favorite memory was going over to the Cusenza's and stand in her kitchen with my back against the cupboard where she kept cookies. I'd rock back and forth, very casually, of course, until Mrs. Cusenza would ask, "Andy, do you want a cookie?" My eyes would light up, and I'd shake my head; yes.
Janet's favorite memory of eating at the Cusenza's (what is it with Janet & food?) was a loaf of Italian bread, straight from the oven, sliced open, drizzled with olive oil. Then she'd press anchovies into it, similar to a panini. Janet, sitting at their dining room table, would eat the entire loaf. Sharing the table was Jim Cusenza and his 'business associates' who were all dressed in black shirts and white ties, drinking red wine with a raw egg dropped in the glass. Janet was well aware that Jim was mobbed-up even at a young age.
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Another one of our neighbors would bring tongue sandwiches to school for lunch, which Janet begged our mother to make for her. Mom got so tired of hearing Janet's begging that she took her to the grocery store and showed her what tongue looked like. Seeing this monster slab of gross-looking lumpy meat folded over and sealed inside a Styrofoam tray made my sister sick. But it quickly put an end to her longing for a tongue sandwich.
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As I mentioned earlier, we referred to Oscar Meyer Olive Loaf as pressed garbage, and because of that, we never got to have bologna sandwiches, either, but we could have hotdogs (Uh…, mom, they're the same thing!). Mom would cook us hotdogs for our school lunch, then tie a string around them and put it inside a Thermos to keep warm. In our lunchbox was a bun with mustard, so after you fished the still warm hotdog out of the Thermos, you'd drop it into the ready bun and have lunch.
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While the four of us kids were taking our naps, mom would be busy in the kitchen. There would be four glasses of milk and four graham crackers with a simple butter and sugar frosting on them when we woke up. However, different colors of food coloring were added to each glass and individually frosted graham cracker. Nancy's milk & frosted cracker was red, Janet's blue, Barbara's was yellow, and mine was green. It was a magical and special treat.
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One of my favorite treats was popcorn balls, which our grandmother would occasionally make. These were made from fresh-popped popcorn and a syrup made from butter, sugar, and Karo syrup. You heat the Karo, butter, and sugar until the sugar melts and then dump it into the bowl of popcorn. Once it cools down, you form the balls with your hands. The key here is after the syrup has cooled down.
Once when I was helping grandma make popcorn balls, I got a little too eager to help out. Right after the hot syrup was poured into the bowl, I plunged my hand deep into the popcorn, only to quickly pull it out with three of my fingers covered in scalding hot syrup. Yes, that hurt like HELL!
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Looking back on how we were raised, it may seem peculiar to some. But as young saplings in our household, it wasn't anything weird, bizarre, or different, as we had nothing to compare it with. It might not be how you were raised, but it was perfectly normal to us. Just as the way you were raised, you would consider that to be normal. As normal as eggplant Parmigiana and a milkshake for breakfast, or blind bike riding could be - (https://maryandandysphotos.
Ciao!