Lots of Ways To Make New Friends

The Byrnes House

When Sue Desnick, Wally's kindergarten teacher, asked me to tell her the story how a bear had tried to eat Wally the only thing I could say was WHAT!?  She said she noticed the scar on Wally stomach and asked him how he got it.  His answer was that it was where the bear tried to eat him.  You can not imagine my surprise at his answer coming from a little boy who always told the truth even though a little fib might have been better.

I explained to her that the scar was from surgery for Pyloric Stenosis when he was seven weeks old. In Dr. Spock's book, the current authority on raising a baby, he described Pyloric Stenosis in great detail and basically the elastic valve at the bottom of the stomach closes up and food can not be digested.  Projectile vomiting of undigested formula is the big warning sign and they simply go in and make a snip and all is well. I guess the bad mother in me had failed to explain to Wally how he got the scar but by the time he was six I never thought about it. An even worse thought crossed my mind that maybe I had actually told him that a bear had tried to eat him since it was easier to explain than the medical details of the surgery.  At least Sue Desnick now did not have to imagine me leaving him in the woods for a bear to eat.

It would be great to say that everyone in our new town was welcoming and friendly.  However that would make it sound like the town was actually perfect.  There has to be at least one bad apple in every group.
I was fortunate in that the bad apple was next door.

The house to the east of us was inhabited by Elmer Fudd and Gertrude McNasty. Needless to say that was not their real names but somehow I can usually come up with fitting nicknames for certain people. Elmer was a pleasant little man, retired and only seemed to have landscaping and a huge vegetable garden to oversee.  Gertrude, on the other hand, was a rather brash woman who constantly barked orders at little Elmer before and after she rode her broom to work everyday. I know all this as they seemed to enjoy a spot next to our driveway and fifteen feet from my open kitchen window to sit on lovely spring mornings and afternoons. Conversations drifted across the driveway and into the window that were difficult to ignore. It was interesting to say the least to hear how awful Wes and Wally, Tug, the dog, French Fry, the Cat and Dennis and I were.  I wonder if learning all this valuable information about us tended to make us better neighbors or even more difficult to live next door too?

It was not very often that Dennis and I needed a babysitter.  Actually we never went anywhere without the boys unless it was some Ford Motor company affair. Sis and Gus were always willing to watch over them for an afternoon but I did not want them to have to keep them until the wee hours of the morning.  It didn't seem like their were many kids that did babysitting so when an event popped up I was having trouble finding someone.  By a stroke of luck a dog and a loaf of bread led me in the right direction.

One morning there was dog noise in the backyard  after I let Tug out.  It was not barking but playful yelping.  When I looked out there was a blonde curly haired dog much larger than Tug running around with a loaf of bread in it's mouth.  Tug thought that it was time to play with that interesting toy so the two of them were having a big time.  A boy and a girl appeared yelling "Beau" and trying to catch the dog. It was a pretty funny scene and when they got the dog's attention and headed away Tug went with them. Naturally I joined in the pursuit as I had no idea where Tug was going to end up.

This is one of those times when I wished could dash off a cartoon.  The event was much like a drawing in a Dick and Jane first reading book.  Two dogs with a loaf of bread, followed by two children all running at full speed followed by a mother barefooted and in a bathrobe.  Naturally the best path was directly through Elmer Fudd's garden and ending up in the yard of the house behind Elmer Fudd's.  By the time the children's mother emerged laughing from the house the bread wrapper had been reduced to shreds and slices of bread lay all over the yard.


Beau was now hiding under the porch, the children were gathering up slices of bread, Tug was sitting at my feet trying to look like a good dog and I got invited in for a cup of coffee.  Truthfully I could have been offered a cup of poison and would have accepted for the chance to see the inside of a rambling three story Victorian house plus being able to get to know someone in town close to my own age. There was also something about Sandy Byrnes that I instantly liked.

After a tour of the house we settled in the kitchen and I met the oldest daughter who was a year older than Wes.  I had seen her around town riding a three wheeled bike she pedaled with her hands and wondered about her.  Her name was Sandy, like her Mother's, and she was born with Spina Bifida.  She walked on braces and crutches which was difficult as her legs were very short.  Her Dad built her the bicycle so she could have the freedom of going places with the other kids.  As her Mother and I were talking about my needing a babysitter she said she could babysit for us as she knew Wes and Wally from school.

I really did not know what to say at this point.  Her Mother said she had been wanting to babysit but had not had the chance.  Also that she was very good at keeping Bonnie and Jimmy, her brother and sister, in line.
What questions do you ask about a handicapped girl only a year older than Wes being in charge of two little boys who like to fight?  How do you not hurt someone's feelings?  Well, the answer is you don't especially since the company event was three days away and our attendance was required. I said yes she could babysit and invited her to come over later that day to see the house and meet the boys.

No one could imagine my misgivings about agreeing to have little Sandy babysit.  By the time she came over that afternoon I was really looking for an excuse to tell her I didn't think this was going to work out.  My hope that the boys would be against it were dashed when Wes told me he thought having her as a babysitter would be cool. I was worried about the stairs but on the tour of the house she handed Wes her crutches and crawled up the stairs faster than Tug. Her Mom and Dad were only around the corner if they were needed so I had to just try not to worry. Wes, who was almost eleven, even thought it would be cool if she spent the night since we might get home very late and offered her his bottom bunk.  Gee, thanks Wes.

The night of the party arrived and I was a wreck worrying about how the kids would do.  Sandy arrived on her bicycle with her crutches strapped on the back.  By the time we left they were all at the dining room table playing a game. I kept telling myself maybe it would be alright while Dennis was telling me I had made a big mistake after he took one look at Sandy.  It was a long evening and we did not arrive home until after 2:00.  To my surprise the downstairs was as neat as I had left it and there was an interesting smell.  When I checked the kitchen out there was a half eaten pan of brownies on the cupboard.  Interesting.  The upstairs inspection found Tug and Wally asleep in his bed and in Wes's room he was asleep on the top bunk, Sandy on the bottom one. Maybe things went okay.

When the kids got up in the morning I paid Sandy (much more than the going rate) and she went home.  I asked the boys about the brownies and how the evening went.  They all decided they would like to have some brownies so Wes robbed his piggy bank and they all went off to the grocery store two blocks away.  Sandy sat up on the cupboard to mix them up and Wes actually cleaned up the kitchen afterward which was a first for him. Sandy became our babysitter from then on, little Jimmy and Wally became buddies while Wes was not into girls yet he and Bonnie and Sandy did have some fun together and best of all Tug and Beau were now running buddies. Tug did not start stealing loaves of bread but Beau did teach him to swim in the river or our fishpond. Oh boy!  That meant lots of baths before Tug could come back into the house.

That first summer in New Jersey was really a fun one.  I gave up trying to get anything done on redecorating the house and basically spent the summer playing.  With going to Bay's on Friday, Storytime and Crafts for Wally at the Library, Wes in sailing lessons, my teaching Water Aerobics, day trips to der Shore with stops to buy fresh veggies at roadside stands and drives with Dennis all over New Jersey and Pennsylvania there was not much time left in the week.

I was rather sad when school started again in September.  Somehow I thought it would be just Tug and I hanging out at home all day painting or hanging wallpaper. Guess I should have known better.  The fall brought quite a few changes that kept me busy still having fun.

Class Reunions

If you were waiting all week to hear the rest of the story about how Wally told people his scar was from when the bear tried to eat him or how I survived living with Wes who made life feel at times you were living with a tornado you have to wait another week.  My mind has been preoccupied with other things.

For the last few months I have been attending meetings once a month planning my high school class's 55th reunion. This is the first time I have gotten involved with the planning of a reunion and I have not made it to all the reunions for reasons I will get into later. The one thing I have always wondered about was where some of the people I grew up with were. So like a complete idiot I said I would try to find some of the people that never seem to come to the reunions.

Sounded quite simple.  I got the list of the missing classmates and a list of the deceased from the gal who has taken care of it for the last twenty years or so.  She has been very good through the years on setting up a web page for the class, information about reunions, meetings and the notices of who had passed away.  However, some of the people I was really curious about were not on either list and some of the missing people I am actually friends with on good old Facebook.  So, I asked her for the Master List and realized that somewhere in the switch from snail mail to email there were a lot of people that we really did not have email addresses for. Did those people just never want to hear anything about the kids they grew up with or did they just get lost by moving and changing email addresses.  

So began my quest, not with a sword or hiking through the vast wilderness but with a magical computer and cell phone.  In the last two days I have sent fifty emails checking the addresses which is pretty easy since a bad address gets immediately kicked back and probably twenty messages on Messenger to people I found there. The fun part is when I have gotten nice responses back from people I remember only from their picture in the Yearbook and "you must be crazy" from ones I have seen at reunions or are friends with through social media. If you are a member of the Muskogee High School Class of 64 and haven't heard from me yet it is because I have only gotten through the E's, I know where you are or I can't find you. (That is a hint to contact me.)

I have found it very interesting in talking to people through the years about their thoughts on class reunions.  There are some, like me, that try never to miss one if possible.  Or they are in contact in some way with people they grew up with or even just went to college with.  On the other hand, I hear people proclaim that they have never and will never go to a class reunion.  I have asked why someone does not want to step back in time for a day or two and see people who were a pretty big part of their lives at a really important time.  They seem to not really have an answer and just sort of say they are not interested in that sort of thing.

I can't answer the question of why I have "non-reunion" classmates.  The best I can do is to explain how I feel and my experience.

I grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma which actually was about the same size of a town that it is now.  I proudly admit to being the first of the Baby Boomer Generation and lived in one of those "after the war" two bedroom houses on the East side of town.  I did not know until junior high school that the west side of town was where all the big houses were and where I lived was the equivalent of living on the wrong side of the tracks.  No matter, I had friends and we played in the street until dark every night.  I slowly grew passed the stage of skinned up knees and hems torn out of my dresses to piano and dance lessons. By junior high we had moved to a new bigger house but still on the east side of town. The teenage insecurities began to set in as they do with everyone
at that age.

Then in high school the east and west sides of town blended together to form a class of about five hundred students.  I got over the imagined stigma of being on the wrong side of town and replaced it with not being cute, popular, didn't have any friends and whatever else I could fret over.  At the same time I kept trying to fit in and joined every activity I could, had crushes on boys who I thought never noticed I was there and tried to be friends with everyone.  But I went to school everyday with a smile on my face and look back at those years as my having a heck of a good time.  For all the work and effort it took to have a good time it is hard to over look the disappointments and mistakes and I should probably have been a great candidate for not going back to a reunion.

Going off to college to a private girl's school was not my idea especially since I knew absolutely no one there.  Here I was the country bumpkin from Oklahoma with people from New York, Hawaii, L.A. and every place in between.  It was a great learning experience in that I was able to not worry so much about not knowing anyone as we were all making new friends.  The amazing thing was that I managed to stay friends with two very special girls and even though we don't see each other for years when we do get together it is like a day had never pasted in between. There was something very special about the time we had shared that one year, some connection, that never went away.

When I got married and moved away from Muskogee I never had any contact with my high school classmates except for one.  It was standard procedure for me to stop by and see Robert at his drugstore to say hi and get some of the latest news on some of the people.  He added my changes of address through the years to the class list and when our ten year reunion came up I got an invitation.  Much to my dismay my husband thought of a million reasons why we couldn't go and I do remember crying a lot the weekend of the reunion but also telling myself that I would not have had any fun, no one would remember me and every other consoling thought I could come up with.

When the twenty year reunion rolled around it was many moves, many states and many new friends that seemed to get lost once I moved on to the next place. I put my big shoes on and stood my ground on the husband's refusal to go.  I think my statement was I would go by myself.  We all drove Oklahoma for the reunion, he very unhappy about the whole thing. If I tried to think of the best and the worst weekend of my life, that was it.

Somehow, a first in twenty years, I got to go into Muskogee from Warner where we were staying and help decorate on Friday afternoon.  I can remember being quite nervous about seeing everyone and worried that no one would even know who I was.  Maybe this was really a bad, stupid idea. However to my amazement everyone not only recognized me but seemed actually glad to see me. I wondered if my being pleased was the result of just moving so much.  It seemed like I was always making new friends, moving off and once gone not having much in common with them. 

The Friday night "meet and greet" was fun but a little tense.  Dennis, the husband, was not in the least way having fun and not even making an attempt. He hung on my elbow all night and I as I watched the expressions on his face I realized there were limits to what he could put up with.  It was pretty obvious he was not pleased with the conversations and definitely not the hugging from people of either sex although I tried hard not to exclude him.  The picnic in the park did not go much better the next day.  Saturday night was the worst and I would not wish the events of that night on my very worst enemy. I remember every awful thing he said to me and how many times I ran to the bathroom so everyone did not see me in tears. 

One might think that I would never think about going to a reunion again.  Nope....Because by the twenty-fifth there was no husband in tow, I had kept in contact with a lot of the people I had seen at the twentieth and have tried not to miss any in the years since.  One of the interesting things about going back is that I can really laugh about some of the high school events that seemed so horrible at the time.  Now it is easy to see the guy who broke the date to the senior prom with me a week before the prom and realized maybe once a jerk, always a jerk plus I did manage to find a date and we had more fun than anyone else there. I actually forgave the boy from junior high who gave me the nickname "Busty" and who yell it across the gym or the football field when I was a cheerleader because he apologized for it at one of the reunions.

The fun parts are hearing a voice across the room at the fiftieth and recognize it as belonging to someone you knew from the first grade and haven't seen since high school, talking to people that never spoke to you back then and the new friendships made.  Our class has reunions every five years, there were several gatherings between Christmas and New Years and we have had fiftieth, sixty-fifth and seventieth birthday parties.  We have had a lot of classmates reconnect and marry after attending a reunion which is pretty cool. It has been very special to me that my current husband, Marshell, seems to like my classmates and to go to my reunions as much as I do.

So just what is the big deal about going to a reunion?  Do you not go because for you those were miserable years?  Sorry, not an excuse as growing up is not easy to do but there were a lot of people experiencing the same things at the same time that you did.  Do you not go because you gained weight, your hair turned grey and no one will recognize you?  Not an excuse because after maybe the twentieth you won't recognize hardly anyone without a name tag. (There are exceptions to this and you just quietly hate them.)  Do you not go because you did not become the President of GM or drive a BMW?  Once again not an excuse because no one stands at the entrance to the parking lot and writes down what you arrived in or asks for a resume.  That all ends at about the twentieth. Did you go to one reunion and no one talked to you?  Again, not an excuse because there are a lot of people especially with a big school and the normal thing is to visit with your old buddies.  Go up to someone you had a connection with, were in band or basketball with and say "Hi, I remember you from band". I think it will only take a person or two to make you feel like you belong there. It isn't a junior high school dance where the boys sit on one side of the gym and girls on the other waiting for someone to make the first move.

Why go to a reunion?  That is so simple it is silly.  You spent twelve years with basically the same people surrounding you that had the same victories or disappointments you did.  Stop and think about it but you may have been around these people longer than a spouse or had a better relationship with them than with your parents.  There is a connection between you and your classmates that is hard to explain.  Maybe it is because it is or was your hometown and the people are part of your roots. It is about all the adventures and influences, good and not so good, in our learning how to be grownup adults.  

My recommendation is to try going to one or two reunions as you might really like it.  If you have completely lost touch with your high school class, call your high school, look on the web or any social media to see if your class has a page or look on social media for a name or two you remember. (The guys are pretty easy as they don't change their name with a change in spouses.)

Wesley's Dream Came True

Wesley and Wally really did an amazing job of getting adjusted in Riverton. Once they got over the surprise of living in an old house filled with ghosts and the fact that there were no other children on the block
they decided it was a pretty cool place.

Too say that things were a little different for them is a real under statement.  Everything was different than living in Texas or Oklahoma and much to my surprise there were never any statements about wanting to go back to where they had lived before. Usually new kids at school in any location find it hard to fit in and to make friends.  Not in this place perhaps because it was so rare that there were new kids on the block.  

The Riverton school was certainly different from anything they had experienced before.  It was from kindergarten through the eighth grade, most of the teachers were fairly young and had children of their own in the classes and I had never seen teachers before standing before the class in such casual dress as flannel shirts and jeans. The principal was a tall nice looking guy who looked to be a kid himself but was somewhere in his thirties.  The art teacher, Mr. Leven, looked like a big kid in his Converse tennis shoes but could inspire every child to become an artist.  His class was Wesley's favorite.

Riverton School

In kindergarten the teacher had each child bring their favorite item to school and they made a film of the children talking about what they had brought.  Wally took Teddy the big stuffed bear Dennis had brought to the hospital on the day he was born.  The filming took about a week to complete and little Wally carried Teddy to school and back every day in a brown paper bag.  The films were then shown at their eighth grade graduation. Unknown to me until much later was that Wally was the only one who took his favorite item home everyday as most of the children left theirs at school.  Of course Teddy had to come home each night or, according to Wally, Teddy would be lonely without him.

The school did not have a kitchen so they sold a boxed lunch for a dollar each day or the children could come home for the hour long lunch period.  Wally tended to stay at school for lunch but it didn't take long for Wes to start arriving at home with a few friends or going to someone else's home for lunch. I learned to just wait for the arrival of the kids before I fixed anything or taught Wes how to fix something if I wasn't home.  Needless to say the house was never locked and the kids always welcomed.

The school was much further ahead in curriculum than the other schools Wes had attended.  Wally had only gone to kindergarten in Kansas City for two or three months but Wes had some catching up to do. Besides school stuff they learned that some of their friends lived in converted carriage houses, had many brothers and sisters, some houses were nicer than ours and some not but by far the best thing was that they learned about children with disabilities and a lot about life itself.

The school schedule was much different in that instead of school starting sometime in August it did not start until a few days after Labor Day. It could not start before then as most of the children and the teachers were at their summer house or rented cottage "down der de shore". Winter break took place for a week in February since school might as well close because everyone would be off for the last chance to go skiing. Spring break was always at Easter time and school was always out for the summer somewhere around my birthday, the middle of June.

It is an understatement to say Wes had a lot of energy.  I don't think he ever stopped moving and his mind never stopped turning with big plans and ideas. (He hasn't changed much)  Boredom set in easily and that usually resulted in it being time to beat up on his little brother.  With school getting out for the summer I was not sure it was going to be a pleasant one.  Wes was too big for story time at the library but by a stroke of luck I discovered sailing lessons at the Yacht Club.  I don't remember how much they cost but any price would have happily been paid.  Every morning at 8:00 Wes walked the block to the Yacht Club where he was kept busy learning to sail until noon. By the time he got home he had already made plans with the other kids for an afternoon of bike riding, hanging out at Mr. Bill's Bicycle Shop in Palmrya or any other adventure the boys could think of. That is except for Fridays.

Before school was out Sis talked me into going to a lady's house named Bay on Friday.  The plan for the day was to bring something to share for lunch and in the winter some sort of project like quilting, knitting, or something to do as everyone snuggled into Bay's converted carriage house.  Bay was well into her sixties, a Quaker, worked several days a week in Philadelphia for the Quaker group sorting clothes that were sent to Afghanistan (at that time I had never heard of Afghanistan) and was a master at making wool rag rugs to die for. Seems like she brought wool coats home as there was not a need for them in that distant place.

Summer time the group moved outside as Bay had a large patio and a swimming pool that had to have been built for the original house that had burned down decades before.  From the pool and the patio you had a direct view of the Delaware River and all the huge ships and the small sailboats that dotted the river all summer.  All the children and grandchildren of the ladies were invited for lunch and an afternoon of swimming in the pool.  Wes showed up on his bike a little after noon and was kept busy for the rest of the day. Wally, of course, got to come early and there were always other children to play with.

I had to tell about Bay and the pool since one thing led to another and somehow I ended up teaching water aerobics three evenings a week in that pool.  Did I know anything about water aerobics?  No, but I had a book on it and it did not take a Master's degree to figure it out.  I have to say that I was in better shape that summer than before or after since the ladies were all in the pool and I lead the exercises from the edge of the pool.  

One night when I was in the middle of the class Wes came racing over on his bike to tell me Dennis had an accident and was bleeding. Sis and I dashed to the house to find Dennis bleeding from a large gash in his forearm.  Sis took the boys home with her and I took Dennis to an emergency room.  Have you ever noticed how long any visit to an emergency room takes? Ever notice how cold they are?  Try sitting in one for four hours in a wet bathing suit.  Dennis ended up with fifteen stitches in his arm and I think I really needed to be treated for hypothermia by the time we left.

So how did this little accident happen? Years before we had acquired a Honda 175 or something like that.  I tried riding it but it had a kick starter and my leg gave out before the engine ever turned over or it would die on me in the middle of some busy road.  So it got moved from place to place and sat in the garage.  For some reason Dennis thought it might make a good ladder so he stood on it, it fell over and he ran his arm through a plate glass window. Hmmm....who is the stupid one now?

How does one get rid of a Honda that has no attributes?  Leave it to Wesley to come up with a solution and a pretty good one at that.  He went to Mr. Bill at the bicycle shop and convinced him he needed a Honda motor scooter and the small price he had to pay was the shiny chrome motor cross bicycle Wesley had been eyeing for months.  Mr. Bill agreed with the idea and so started our life of wearing checked Van shoes and running all over Pennsylvania and New Jersey every Saturday seeking the bicycle motor cross races.

Wonder how come an eleven year old boy gets car sick when forced to go on Sunday afternoon drives through the countryside but never gets sick on long hauls to a motor cross race?

Then there was the day Wally's kindergarten teacher cornered me at the local grocery store wanting to know the story about how the bear had attacked Wally. What?

How A House Becomes A Home

Willy the Whale in Wally's Room

If I searched for a reason how I managed to emerge from the house after six months of hiding from the world and feeling very sorry for myself being in New Jersey it actually had to be the people. That is a pretty amazing relevation considering the fact that most southerners consider those living north of the Mason-Dixon line to be unfriendly and rude. It was certainly a learning experience in a lot of ways.

In the fifteen years Dennis and I had been married the move to Riverton was number nine and the third Ford Motor Company move. I count the move from Arlington, Texas to Carrollton, Texas as a Ford move because we moved closer to Dennis's office.  That move and the one to Kansas City was the typical large corporation thinking in that you build a new house in a new neighborhood so when you get transferred again you get the maximum appreciation on the house when you sell. Nice thought but as they say, money isn't everything.

The new house in the new subdivision maybe nice but all the people you meet are from some place else and know that they won't be there for long.  Boxes don't get unpacked and lasting friendships don't get made.  Kansas City was a great example for me as all my neighbors not only stayed pretty much on their own block or joined a group like New Neighbors to hang out with other people who wished they were someplace else. I was lucky in Kansas City because of the decorating business I met a lot of "natives" and was able to see the town as home rather than the current tourist attraction.

The move to the east coast was frightening because of how unfriendly the people would be, there was no way we could afford the new house where all the other Ford employees lived and here we were living in a town the real estate agent had thought was the scourge of the earth.
It sounded like it was a setup for disaster and we did a very good job at first making that come true.  After all our cat ate the baby cardinals, we chopped down the huge shrubs,  put awful Christmas lights on the house, had two little boys and a dog running loose and strange trailers and cars in the driveway.  Then there was this old lady that kept popping up on my porch wanting to be friends when the New Neighbors had preached that friends don't pop up on your porch. To top it all off we lived in the "Adams" house who were pillars of the community.

My best guess is that for six months everyone watched us while we watched them.  Perhaps that is the "Yankee" way.  No rushing up on first sight with big smiles and welcomes then suddenly no one pays much attention to you as they are too busy with whatever they have to do.  The "Yankee" way is to carefully study the newcomer with just a casual stare when you pass them in the store at first, that slowly changes to a polite nod, then to a smile with a nod until they decide you may be okay and it doesn't look like you are going anyplace else.  That slow warm up then turns into a lasting friendships with some very interesting people.  The other fact is that no transients chose Riverton to live so that in it's self made it more difficult for them to shun us.           
The funny coincidence of suddenly being accepted occurred  after the arrival of Ms. Vogue Magazine, aka Mother.  Perhaps it was her perfectly matched running outfits (I was in cutoffs and a sweatshirt) or the neighbors viewing her in the smashing Lord and Taylor/Neiman Marcus outfits as we dashed out the door to exciting places.  Maybe they decided we might have some class after all.  My Mother had turned into a very flirtatious woman in the past few years which was amazing for me to watch and a great pleasure for all the neighborhood men.    

The first to come and meet Mother on her arrival was, of course, our next door neighbor and regular afternoon visitor, Danny Mento.  He was in love with Wes and Wally and usually arrived with food, treats or toys for them.  Danny was the picture of the Italian man and his wife, Mary Jane, had put up with him since the day they graduated from high school some four decades earlier. Danny sold new Oldsmobiles and played a saxophone in his own little Jazz band at all the clubs and hotels in South Jersey.  My very favorite story of his was how if you arrive home at 6:00 in the morning it is a good thing to walk into the house backwards so the neighbors don't really know whether you are coming or going. I always thought the tuxedo would give him away.

At first Mother tried to act rather aloof but that could not last long with Danny.  Very soon it was like watching a contest on who could flirt the best.  Mary Jane and I would try very hard not to roll on the floor in laughter but it was pretty hard. One evening we were all invited to their home for dinner which Danny's Mother and sister arrived with since Mary Jane did not cook.  That was the most outstanding Italian dinner I ever had and an evening filled with laughter at stories from both Danny and Mary Jane. It was rather interesting that Danny's mother and spinster sister were always dressed in black - perhaps something about being Italian I did not understand.

There was an evening of drinks and snacks on Sis's porch.  Since Sis was the one who was really working hard to make us a part of the community I think she invited the entire town to drop by the last evening of Mother's visit. I am forever thankful for her hospitality that evening as it turned those east coast stares into real conversations and smiles when I met people on the street. Sis always said that South Jersey was like a part of the mid-west plunked down one the east coast.  I didn't understand her statement, especially since she had never spent much time in the mid-west, but I think she had been trying to tell me that they were just as good at hospitality as other parts of the country. I loved every inch of our new, old house dust balls on the hardwood floors included but that evening at Sis and Gus's house made made the move to Riverton home.

Mother flew back to the wild west of Oklahoma with promises of many more visits to come.  I put the new running shoes back in their box promising myself I would not ruin them by mowing the yard or painting with them on.  Of course I was not going to continue the morning dash around town but perhaps I would trade the cut offs and sweatshirt for something more stylist before Mother's next arrival.

Raising two boys who were four years apart in age was always a challenge or maybe it was just Wesley that was the challenge.  Sis, in her effort to blend us into the community, asked if Wes and Wally could be waiters at a spaghetti dinner at the church.  There were not many children that attended the church and I did wonder how a six and ten year old would work our as waiters but I marched then down to the church for the dinner.

Actually they did a pretty good job and at the end of the evening they gave the boys four boxes of leftover Neapolitan ice cream, the kind with vanilla, strawberry and chocolate in separate little sections in the box.
Naturally the boys thought that was pretty cool as each boy had two boxes of their very own. A few days later Wally is crying his little heart out after getting one of his boxes of ice cream out of the freezer.  It seems like Wes had gotten into Wally's ice cream and very carefully cut the sections of chocolate out and eaten all of it. So I had Wally crying his eyes out and Wes explaining that he only liked the chocolate and he had left the vanilla and strawberry for his little brother. What was the problem?  Oh, the challenges of being a parent.  I wanted to take away every privilege that Wes had or give him a good spanking but it was difficult to get any words out without laughing. The best thing I could do was to hide in the bathroom for a few minutes to get over the laughter, then take Wally to the store for his own box of chocolate ice cream and tell Wes if he touched it he would never get to eat again.

Is there something wrong with me?  School will be out in a week and I am looking forward to the summer?