The Old Lair

On this day in 1972 (45 years ago), my family moved to this house.

My engineer dad got a job at Morganite in Dunn, NC, and we moved from small-town St. Mary's, PA to (really not that much bigger back then) North Raleigh. I marvel at how real estate transactions ever happened without the Internet. Morganite flew my parents down, and they had a weekend to select the house we'd grow up in. As an adult, I thanked Dad for moving us to Raleigh rather than Dunn. His commute was over an hour -- I don't even think the Beltline was completed then. 

Mom moved from a drinking, smoking, card-playing life in a German-Catholic town that had its own brewery since 1872 to Southern-Baptist-dominated Raleigh, which didn't even have "liquor by the drink." As I understand it, the restaurants would have little cubby holes behind the bars, and like, your company would maintain bottles of liquor there that the bartender would pour for a corking fee? Something like that. I think it was bordering on scandalous for a woman to drink or hang out in bars. Then Mom got a job as a waitress at nearby Mayberry (later, Lock, Stock & Barrel), and it was probably remarkable for her to be walking up the street in her little uniform, too. I wish she were around now so I could ask her what it must have been like to pick up and move her family of six to such a foreign culture after she'd lived her whole life in St. Mary's. (I have a bit of an inkling, now.)

The house in Raleigh had woods in back, at least until I was in about 4th grade, when they built houses back there. All the kids would hang out in the woods and build forts. We knew the woods like the backs of our hands. There were trails and places everyone knew: the Bunny Trail, the Whoop-de-dos. There was a burnt down old farm house back there overrun with vegetation. I was shoeless from April to October, crossing the creek over a fallen tree and sometimes even walking barefoot down the gravel Rocky Road to the Power Lines. If the briar patch got me, I washed my cuts with nasty creek water.

Some kids had motor bikes. I knew who was coming to visit by the sound of their bike. My brothers won a Kawasaki from WKIX. I was too little to drive it, but I rode on back and had my bare legs singed multiple times - specifically that time Bob wiped out on Devil's Hill with me and Eric on back. Our house was midway between the Power Lines (the nighttime party hangout) and Colony Shopping Center, and the shirtless freaks and bell-bottomed hippy girls were always stopping by looking for one of my brothers. Sometimes they'd hang out and play ping-pong or TV tennis or Led Zeppelin records or guitar.

We moved to Raleigh two weeks after a mass shooting at North Hills Mall, a mile and a half away from our new house. Our car stopped for gas just after crossing into North Carolina. It was late afternoon in summer, so naturally, it had just rained. Steam issued forth from the pavement like a lava pit in Hell, and my brother Bobby gasped for air as he got out of the car to pee. "Is this what it's gonna be like here??" he asked Mom. She didn't know.

How could she know whether they'd made a good decision, that the house would be in our family for 40 years? That its cracked patio would host killer keggers; that its brown oven produce golden turkeys; that its front stoop shelter a boyfriend's shy goodnight kiss? That, according to my husband, I actually walk differently when I'm within a mile of it because I guess I feel like I belong there?

Random bit of advice, though: If you aim to learn to ride a bike without training wheels, don't let your older brother teach you on a driveway lined with holly bushes.

Junk Jewelry Christmas Tree

What to do with junk jewelry?  I've really been wondering that for many years and only recently discovered a good answer.

I have more than 400 pairs of earrings, and some I have no intention of ever wearing again because they are tarnished, broken, missing a mate, or not my style.  But I never throw earrings away nor most other jewelry because I have this crazy notion I will make my own with leftovers someday when I have ample time.  But not all jewelry can be strung together with beads.

Of course if you have good jewelry, you can sell it to a pawn shop or mail it to the gold and silver scavengers who will melt it down.  You can also donate to a thrift store, and there are some charities that collect nicer accessories and give them to battered women starting life anew so they can look polished on job interviews.

But if, like me, you have a lot of old jewelry you're pretty sure no one else will want and it just seems WRONG to throw it in the trash can, then this is a great idea for how to repurpose it, and it's surprisingly easy.  (Click "Read More" and scroll to the bottom of this post for directions.) The other reason I like this craft is that it is the perfect compromise between my need to get rid of junk and my desire to cling to the past.

The Mother of Invention

Though I get no credit in the paper, the photo of the upside-down clown in this October 1977 issue of The Mini Page is me. The Mini Page is now syndicated and appears in 500 newspapers worldwide, but it originated in Raleigh the same year I was born.

Beyond circumstantial proof, I submit a more recent photo of the papier-mâché clown head that was part of the costume. I rediscovered it this year while cleaning out junk from the house I grew up in. While posting this photo, I noticed a happy coincidence that in the background you can see a basket full of thread and sewing notions that belonged to my mom...

Ceremonial Drums

One of my familiars does her best Peter Cris impersonation.

Wolfman Jack'n'Coke

Because don't all witches have a wolfman for a brother?

Prince of Pyrotechnics Part 2 (or Pete vs. the Police - Part 23)

In a previous blog post, I introduced my brother Pete and his proclivities with all things pyromaniacal. It should come as no surprise to learn that he has had some run-ins with the police on those occasions when he actually got caught doing something he shouldna been.

Not every episode involved fire and explosives. For example, one time he was arrested for breaking and entering – a home that wasn’t even finished being built yet. All the neighborhood kids would explore the new housing development that leveled the woods behind our house; Pete was just the one that got caught for it. I didn’t even know it was illegal. Which is not to say he didn’t deserve to be punished. There were plenty of things he did that he didn’t get caught doing, and plenty of things he got blamed for that he never did. I figure the karma evens out.

Prince of Pyrotechnics Part 1

Most people associate the Fourth of July with parades, cookouts, watermelon, homemade ice cream, and a pleasant trip to see the fireworks. My family did that stuff, too, but sometimes instead of a trip to the fairgrounds, our fireworks meant a trip to the Emergency Room.

Most of my friends have met my two eldest brothers, Tom and Bob. But usually when I mention Pete, they scratch their heads and say they don’t recall meeting him. Allow me to introduce you now.

Pete is one year younger than Tom and Bob, who are twins, and I’m about six years younger than all of them. Maybe you could blame it on his middle child status and a need for attention, but for whatever reason, Pete was always getting into trouble. I should clarify: he was always finding trouble, but not necessarily getting in trouble, as getting in trouble would necessitate getting caught.

REDRUM

My first two years of college, I lived in a unique residential living-learning program, where I met numerous really cool people who became lifelong friends. One of the traditions at Residential College is that each semester, most of the dorm packs up and retreats for a weekend to a giant cabin in the mountains of North Carolina. Alumni and faculty are invited, too. (Well, alumni WERE invited, until my freshman class sort of ruined things for posterity with a weekend of debauchery exacerbated by alcohol provided by older alumni. But that’s a blog post for another day.) Alumni are now only invited in the spring semester, so one spring, some of my closest friends decided to have a mini reunion by attending the retreat.

Any of the Glens'll Do

In 2004, I was a never married 35-year-old single white female, once again facing a familiar predicament: how do I meet men? I didn't attend church. I had taken classes in swingdance, winetasting, and Klingon, and was running out of hobbies to investigate, and the last guy I'd dated that I met in a bar had a blue mohawk and turned out to be a cocaine dealer. (The bouncers in every bar in GloSo waved us on through the door, and I thought, "Wow, he sure knows a lot of people!")

I started asking some friends about their experiences with online dating.

St. Croix Souvenir

In late April of 2005, I had been dating Sean for almost a year, but he had spent nine months of that time training in Maryland to be a combat photographer with the Army Reserves. He had just finished his course and returned to Raleigh when the opportunity presented itself for us to travel to St. Croix with my brother Bob and my brother-not-in-law Cookie, who are both airline employees. Why not?

We spent a few days relaxing in the sun and driving around the island. On our last night, we decided to eat at the restaurant next door to our condo. After dinner, we walked back to the condo along the beach. Bob and Cookie had walked up ahead of Sean and me.

So we were just moseying along in the moonlight when Sean suddenly called my name while tugging on my hand.

UNC-Queensboro (Scholarship Interviews Part 1)

In February of my senior year in high school, I was invited to attend competitive scholarship interviews at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I hadn’t yet decided what college I wanted to attend or what I wanted to study, although most of my interests were in the liberal arts. UNCG had once been the Woman’s College, so it was known for good programs in liberal arts, nursing, music, and subjects that had once been related to home economics (nutrition, interior design).

When my parents drove me to Greensboro for interviews, it was my first campus visit. The invitation from the University included directions to a reception for scholarship finalists and their parents that would kick off the interview process. Dad had a map that showed UNCG, but it directed us to a different “main” entrance than the one provided in the invitation. Consequently, our directions got a little confusing and we got turned around.

Resisting gender stereotype, Dad decided to stop and ask someone for directions. Fortunately, college campuses abound with pedestrians. Dad pulled up alongside a student, rolled down the window, and asked, “Excuse me; can you tell me where the Alumni House is?”

The student seemed positively overjoyed to help us. “Oh, yiesss! It’s right over there!” He pointed with big dramatic gestures not unlike the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. “If you jusssth drive to the end of thisss ssstreet and turn to the left, and then turn left again, it’ll be right there!”

I’m gonna take a wild stab and guess that he was a theatre major. He had more flames than an Olympics Opening Ceremony.

My dad thanked him kindly and rolled up the window. He then turned to me and said, “THIS is the college for you, daughter!”

Tom vs. the School Bus

While driving home on his mo-ped from the apartment complex where he was a maintenance technician, my 19-year-old brother Tom collided into the back of a parked yellow school bus. Whenever you are reflecting on my brother Tom, it is often best not to ponder such complexities as “why” and “how,” but it might have had something to do with a Sony Walkman.

I was of the age when the world would stop spinning on its axis if I could not talk on the phone for hours to my tweenage friends. Tom’s difference of opinion with the bus is the reason my parents broke down and added the Call Waiting feature to our phone service – because I was on the phone when the operator executed an “emergency breakthrough” to inform us of the accident.

Tom returned from the hospital with cuts and bruises, a cast on his arm, and more metal in his mouth than that Jaws character from the James Bond films with Lojah Mooah. He had broken his jaw, and the doctors wired it shut. For six weeks, all of his meals would be consumed through a straw.

Spring in My Step

As I have mentioned in other posts, my relatives in St. Marys, PA, are all about celebrating holidays. I do not know why this area of the country should be so into holidays, but it is, and so am I.

In St. Marys, people will exhibit outdoor holiday decorations just about every month of the year, not just during the Christmas season. For example, when I was travelling through the area at the end of January 2009, I saw outdoor decorations for Valentine’s Day, Groundhog Day, the Steelers (who would go on to win the Super Bowl that weekend), and more than a few leftovers from Christmas. (Hey, it’s cold up there, and you can’t blame some people if they are reluctant to risk their lives against killer falling icicles just to take down their string lights.)

Now, anyone can put up a seasonal house or garden flag. But in St. Marys, we saw a house with a glowing red heart in every single window. My husband said, “Hmmm, things are starting to make sense.” Now he knows why I fret when Mardi Gras, Chinese New Year, and the Olympics occur on the same day. Now he has more sympathy for my earring crack habit.

A Drink on Uncle Lushwell

I have the best aunts and uncles in the world. It’s just that I have so many of them that a few of them are bound to be noteworthy. My parents each had seven or eight siblings. One of my faves was my mom’s brother Bill, who used to tell us to call him “Uncle Lushwell.”

How to describe Uncle Bill? Kind of a lovable, hapless guy that you couldn’t help but like. Probably never hurt a flea in his life. Often had a unique way of looking at things and was always ready to tell you about it over a beer. At one point, he was governor of the local Moose Lodge. He was fond of such sayings as, “Gull-dang,” “squeeze the sponge,” and “Jeepers Cripes O Fridy!”

My First Concert

My first concert was Adam Ant in January 1983. I was 13, and my 12-year old friend Shawn had won tickets from the radio station. It was at Raleigh’s Civic Center downtown, and I managed to get my 20-year-old brother Tom to drive us.

He Slimed Me - Childhood Department Store-y #1

It was Christmastime in Raleigh and I was seven years old. I had three older brothers, all six and seven years older than me, and a no-nonsense mom who needed to get some Christmas shopping done. Sometime after supper, she announced she was headed to King’s Department Store.

“I wanna go!” we all pleaded, and despite her usual protestation of “I ain’t takin’ sixty-eight kids to the store with me!” (it was always "sixty-eight" with Mom, for some reason), we all climbed into the olive green 1971 Ford Torino and headed to King’s. ...

That Witch We Call a Rose

After my mom died and my dad retired, he surprised the rest of the family by taking up amateur acting. One day, he saw an ad in the paper for a play at a local senior center and decided to audition.

He went up to the reception desk there, and the receptionist gave him some information and answered his questions. She obviously was used to working with senior citizens, as she enunciated very clearly and loudly for the hard-of-hearing.

"If you have any more questions," she said, as she leaned quite dramatically over to one side, "my name is I-LEAN."

"Well, thank you. It's very nice to meet you, Eileen," said my dad while nodding his head up and down emphatically. "My name is Bob."

The Cowlossus of Roads

Growing up, I used to take long family car trips almost every summer between North Carolina and Pennsylvania. My mom would keep a list of all the different state license plates we came across along the way. Sometimes, we'd play "Slug Bug!" (or I guess other people call it "Punch-buggy"). But I was in my early 20s when I learned a new travel game from a friend. ...