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The inauguration speech the president delivered was as eloquent as usual, it still lingers. I’ve reread it several times now and continue to be absorbed by this passage;
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We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.
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Drifting back into my own early history there were some significant markers, profound and perception altering events that would rearrange everything I knew, memories that remain vivid to this day. I’d like to tell these stories from the perspective of the kid I was then, try and recreate the time and the place and the mood.
I was born in 1955.
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Christmas was a holiday revered in my family, the emotional expectation at fever pitch when my mom would wake up my sister and I sometime past midnight, mere minutes after Santa dropped off all the presents we had asked for. Our letters and good behavior well worth the effort as we spent hours opening box after perfectly wrapped, bowed and hand written and tagged box, under a ceiling high tree so carefully adorned with ornaments, lights and silver tinsel, the tree trimming process had to start in early December.
Rarely did I ever see my mom happier than on Christmas day.
Being Catholic and attending Wednesday afternoon catechism, I understood the religious significance of the holiday but I don’t remember that connection being stressed all that much at home. Mom was a ‘practicing’ Catholic and by practicing, she remembered where the church was on Sunday when she dropped us off, rehearsed a weary ‘do what you’re told’ finger wagging scold for asking too many questions on Wednesday afternoon, questions that required but never did get satisfactory answers for a kid with an inquiring mind.
Instead, I recieved the steel edge of a wooden ruler across my knuckles from the nun who was oh so disappointed by my lack of faith and displayed her disgust everytime she stopped at my desk, drawing blood with each perfectly aimed thwack! Constant threats that I would not be allowed to attend Confirmation and would need to take this class again eventually squelched the questions; even at that age I had a healthy sense of self preservation. Any hope though, that I might find a way to convince myself to believe what I was being taught also ended in that drafty, squeeky wood floored classroom that year.
Blood and humiliation have that effect on a kid.
As far as my mom was concerned, the Catholic religion was more duty than devotion. Her true faith was in Christmas, the event. Even then, I recognized her mood and behavior change demonstrably during December. By the time we finally opened all the presents she was no longer an adult, she was herself a kid again, a kid reconnecting with the child whose innocence was lost too early, regifting presents that were never recieved, a little girl trying desperately to recreate memories that just never were.
She did what so many parents yearn to do, creating a magical experience for her children and memories far better than her own. So in hindsight, I fully understand the reaction my mom had when I swung the storm door open one summer afternoon bawling my innocent seven year old eyes out, asking for reassurance through all my tears that Santa was real,
‘Wasn’t he?’
‘It was Robert and Peter, right?. Those G*dd**n b******s!’
She didn’t need an answer but I nodded, over and over again as she tried her best to console me, alternating between cursing and stroking my head. Of course it was Robert and Peter who crushed my Santa fantasy and seemed to enjoy themselves immensely in the process, the same two best friends who secretly teamed up to beat me at Monopoly when they couldn’t win on their own. And it was the same Robert and Peter who I let talk me into a game of hide and seek on my Confirmation Day still wearing my perfect white suit and chalky white shoes, after promising my mom I’d wait on the stoop for the photographer to arrive.
By then, I could at least recognize that dull, devious glint in their eyes.
I knew the photographer was arriving any minute to take photos but I played anyway, ruining the suit by scrunching up against the red bricks at the base of our house behind the evergreen hedge, in a tight impossible to find spot. It was my first concious act of parental defiance and maybe a subtle, subconcious swipe at my Catholic teaching that I learned to despise. Whether it was or not, that Confirmation ceremony was the last church service we attended.
My hide paid dearly for that ruined suit.
I can still remember the enraged look on my mom’s face as I eventually emerged, standing in the middle of our front lawn with the once bright white suit and shoes now smudged head to toe with terra cotta colored brick dust. It was an absurd scene not lost on Robert and Peter who were cackling in that creepy way that evil minded boys can and do at the worst possible time. They never did find me, actually they had no intention to but at least I knew it.
Our friendship was never the same or at least my concept of the friendship had changed. I was starting to understand betrayal, beginning to hold my heart in abbeyance even though I craved their friendship, a profoundly difficult lesson to learn and put in practice as a kid.
Unfortunately it wouldn’t be the last time I heard their cackling at my expense.
That year we were all eligible to join the local Little League and they ended up on the Lions, the team that always won the Little League World Series. I was on the Beavers, a new expansion team created because so many more boys were coming of age in our Long Island town. Our teams would play each other in the World Series that season in a classic David and Goliath showdown, with me batting with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.
Sometimes life does script itself so perfectly.
The right words were never spoken to truly make Santa real again, the pain and circumstances lingered for a time although I was awfully curious about those two words I’d never heard before. My mom never cursed, at least not in front of us.
Unfortunately for her,
‘G*dd**n b******s’,
came sqwauking out of our parakeet’s cage during a rare visit by my dad’s parents and siblings and stopped the buffet chatter mid sentence, forks remained midair between plates and open mouths.
My grandmother, a stout, barrel shaped immediately unlikeable human, a judgemental raging bull in everyone’s emotional china cabinet possesed a pair of piercing, angry grey eyes that could kill a cat and a smile I never trusted. She always wore her gaudy gold cross conspiciously outside whatever dress she wore, Italian peasant style flowered dresses that had a little hip pocket where she kept her Rosary beads at the ready. Another ‘practicing’ Catholic, she played the role of a devout Christian, while she criticized my kind and good natured grandfather into submission every chance she got. He rarely spoke, he knew better. At 6’4′ he towered over his wife by a healthy two feet but I never knew him to raise a hand or utter a word in protest.
His genes were by far the best gift I ever recieved.
She heard the curse words as did everyone else as they all slowly crowded around Pretty Boy’s cage. Pleased with all the attention he said it a few more times clear as day and then, as if to punctuate the departure of my grandmother with all the moral outrage she could muster, he screeched,
‘oh s**t, oh s**t, oh s**t’,
just before the door slammed leaving my grandfather awkwardly standing alone, shaking his head. It would be the last time my grandparents ever visited our house. It was a year of many significant ‘firsts’ for this naive, sensitive kid and just too many difficult life lessons to absorb.
It was time to go play some baseball!
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