Chapter 1
Six ‘n’ fifty years flew, Dickens scaring his dickens out, or, suppose, into me. “Marley’s dead,” Dickens’ Christmas Carol read. “No doubt what so ever.” In Jack Kennedy we lost childhood’s major part. Jack, no Marley, lived life rather smartly. Not desiring sounding bad, Jack’s brains, aback his continental, had gone splat. He stood tall, not sprat, most certainly never fat. Having class, neither Jack nor Jackie, were ever mean.
Jack living, five and sixty had been retirement age. I’m five and sixty, but it’s no longer that age. Still, I’m functionally retired.
Pete Seeger sang, Where have all the Flowers Gone. Folk songs about flowers rowed out from our lives some sixty years ago. My mind scours upon flowers, not about what lays bequeathed underneath. Mightily his eternal flame should burn brightly, but for all too many, it doesn’t. Presented, isn’t some Confederate General’s home, but Arlington.
Mom lay in beloved earth some decade. She loved growing geranium, mint, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme with its lemony aroma. Life without Jack brings up, Paul Simon’s, or is it that English balladeer’s, Scarborough Fair. Like those Arlington flowers, Mom’s lay in her yard, she being one green thumb. Charlie, my sailor, worked clerical at some government agency. Still, this must be understood, or nothing wonderful comes. Mom, like Marley, lay dead!”
Don’t have much time for gardening. Mom always filled planters, using aromatic flowers, filling her yard in green, pink, white, and lavender. Mom, gone. My backyard said otherwise. Strange!
Adorned from night’s last in lavender, I awoke very early, glancing at my calendar. Something wasn’t right.
Feeling uptight, cool Kreider Farms, Lancaster Fresh Milk hitting Rice Krispies filled my ears. Pan banging from downstairs, I lay under my Barbie blanket perplexed. Barbie blanket? Me? Long since outgrown! Something’s not right. Besides, someone’s preparing breakfast within my kitchen!
Wilson Lean ‘n’ Meaty Bacon cooking’s distinctive aroma, joined Sunnyside fresh eggs, roaming into my room. Waffle aroma entered. Only one person cooks in our Charlie, Molly McGill household. Me! Still, Mom did her own cooking my turning seven. Mom, one great cook, died in 2011. This smelled like her cooking.
Charlie chopped down our apple tree in day’s yester. Still, somehow, red apple aroma roamed up my nose.
My aging body had smacked its sack in my nights last. It had overturned my dusting powder, me having recently switched, taking up Pixy brand.
Istanbul’s Romani Corporation touted its mint and lavender dusting powder. Its most exotic, enticing aromas stood within its Pixy brand which my body in day’s yester overturned. This powder had rolled upon imitation birch linoleum. Now my eyes took in black vinyl asbestos. Strange! Walls came in pastel-green. These walls were pink wallpaper. Vinyl, white asbestos, popcorn ceiling decorated this room. Our home bedroom had our nighttime from that night we married. How does anyone paint walls and ceiling, overnight, me sleeping, not noticing?
Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit, no pun on Jack, rabbited out from my bedroom sound system. Pills, bennies, make people feel big. Barbs, make them feel small. Someone had slipped me some rainbow? It drained my body into small? Alice would’ve been proud, Grace Slick prouder.
“Charlie!” belted from me, steering my yell for Charlie’s hearing. “Charlie? Cooking breakfast? Told you, never send your cooking my way again!” My voice seemed different, like at 7.
Mom, turned off her stove, running upstairs before bursting through my threshold.
“Problem?” Mom probed. “Charlie lives next door. Your mind fling another dream?”
My brother, like myself, lay in bed, me casting my eyes upon Mom, alive, appearing as she did in 1962! Didn’t I mention Mom was ten years gone?
Mom presented her five-foot-five, 130-pound brown-eyed, black-haired frame, pressed into her floral, print dress. This slipped just below her knees almost hiding three slips. Mom, smelling like Crisco wore pumps.
“Don’t understand,” must run with that! “Day’s yester, four October ’21, sun’s day, had been X’ed out. This morn, day named after our moon, nine October 1962 X’ed out?”
“You had another vivid dream, dear,” Mom informed. “Your brother, sleeps in his room across our hall. Cast your eyes ’round.”
Pink flower plastered wallpaper retrained my mind, turning my attention. “Our president died in November 1963,” billowed from me. “Cuba points missiles. LBJ sent troops into some Vietnam. Nixon won this nation’s White House.”
Mom, gently sat upon my bed, cradling my head upon her belly, stroking my hair. “Silly! you’ll always have your Kennedy crush,” rushed from her pink cheeks.
“Man!” I cried, winking puppy dog eyes. “Dreamy!”
“Darling! You live in 1962!” Mom offered. “Our month marches slowly through October. We have this world’s best Secret Service, Uasal James Rowley, directing, plus this nation’s best FBI, in Herr John Edgar. Nothing bad can, or will, come. President Kennedy remains safe. Losing next month, pack Nixon’s trunk then prick your fork into Nixon. He’s done!”
“Ah, ha,” chuckling billowed from me.
“President Kennedy trained in foreign affairs,” Mom presented, ’gain, caressing. “Farming sons into unknown Vietnam? He’s not dumb.”
“Mom! President Kennedy had his fall,” I stammered, “In Dallas in next year’s Fall,” before Mother informed:
Next year’s Fall? Molly dear, President Kennedy’s one fine lass, having no need for visiting Dallas. LBJ on their Democratic ticket, he’ll carry his thicket. This nation’s Deep South always votes Democrat. LBJ has little standing in U.S. planning. President Kennedy rushes for advice from Robert McNamara or Dean Rusk.
Racing toward my window, my lovingly remembered backyard tree remained. Nearby, Mom’s planters grew, how I remembered in ’62. Mom’s geranium, mint, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme’s lemony aroma wafted. Mom’s aluminum post having spokes for hanging clothes staked out its familiar presence, bearing its umbrella shape, line rolled ’round.
Pondering my dream’s crazier ideas, joyfully filled me. Clothes on Mother’s line remained out high for dry.
No machine dries clothes. No such animal can exist. Machines washing dishes? Brings me stitches. Washers without wringers? Seems like they’d come bearing stingers. Only in my dream is life not having line stackable.
How could clothes dry without any wringer’s removing excess water first? It just doesn’t fly! My desk’s writing pad drew my focus. Tiny TVs phoned into telephone? Type on any tiny typewriter, writing shows up on my TV screen? Bizarre!
Tiny boxes a-next tiny typewriters displaying information from all over this world? Kids don’t use it for study? How could minds be so small? Crazy!
Tools for searching, giving relevant results, maybe one time in ten thousand? Experts call it great? Study isn’t baseball! Small numbers are bad! Maybe this’s why folks in my dream didn’t use these fancy searching tools. Telephones not plugged into walls? Little boxes, songs installed in their thousands? Crazy ideas had crammed into my dream.
Airplane propellers distinct whine, some commercial flight, probably from New York sailing toward Philadelphia, flew over sunny morn.
Propellers outside, some thousand blades inside? Round air spinning within chambers causing flight? So, lame!
Downstairs, Mom’s little pink radio seared Gary Lewis’s, Green Grass, into my ears.
My drawer chest closed, it freshly cleaned using pine oil into days before. Its aroma clogged my nose. Cinnamon, peppermint, then clove drops near my musical jewelry box helped wrench away its stench. I opened my box.
Offenbach’s Can, Can, socked from within. Pressed into my pink dress, my day came ready.
Moving toward my closet, spinning my person, then picking out clothes, my robe wrapped ’round. Moving into my next-door bath, Mister Bubble awaited. Sitting within tub my mind wondered. My dream told me 99 percent pure soap is really campfire crap and sow fat. Shampoo’s really mint and lavender tea poked into egg yolk. Headed toward my room for dusting, then one minute, rusting.
Dusting makes me prouder, using my pretty peppermint, hanging inside it’s pretty pink box. This gave its chatter. Mister Bubble, made me clean, smelling nice, having betoken its sharp, fruity coconut, banana, peach, jasmine, vanilla, and raspberry notes.
Downstairs, our living room came in pastel-green, having black and white vinyl asbestos flooring, and white popcorn ceiling. It had its aquamarine sofa and davenport, its mahogany rocking chair with crack down its seat. Dad had found it in some landfill. It also had other chairs for relaxing which matched our davenport and sofa.
Our living room’s backwall doubling as our stairs, it also had our huge 23-inch Motorola Television. Near our stairwell sat our black telephone. Ma Bell said you could have any telephone color you liked, so long as it was black. Our furniture aimed at either our TV or our backyard.
Behind our living room, and me descending downstairs, sat our utility room in back, our downstairs bath, then Mom and Dad’s bedroom. On our living room’s other side came our kitchen plus our exit into our driveway.
Here, Dad sat his five feet eight, 150-pound, hazel-eyed frame downstairs, sittin’ a-next Mom’s kitchen. He relaxed, wearing his white button-down shirt over gray slacks and black dress shoes.
“Time quickly calls!” flowed from his mouth. “Hurry up! Sunnyside fresh eggs ‘n’ Wilson Lean ‘n’ Meaty Bacon grow colder. Captain Crunch calls.”
Little brother, Richard, already downstairs munched on Wonder Bread, helps build strong bodies eight ways toast, before he sipped upon nostril trilling Chocolate Ovaltine.
My body slid ’round Mom’s fabled table, placing my little tokhes there. Mom’s table came in its ’50s style, made from aluminum, its red top flopped atop.
On Mom’s kitchen counter sat her small pink radio, playing Acker Bilk’s Stranger on the Shore.
Aluminum, plastic seats atop, chairs matched Mom’s table. My butt sliding in, mother surged, bringing scrambled Sunnyside fresh eggs & Wilson Lean meaty bacon.
Ovaltine awaited, beside my Captain Crunch, their aroma ever before me. “Great morn,” poured out from me in my Irish. “God be with yah.”
“God and Mary be with yah,” Dad bore out in Irish, followed by Mom, then Richard, that turd. “God and Mary be with yah!”
“Take your Charlie Chocks Vitamins,” Mom insisted.
“Charlie hates ’em,” I resisted.
“Personal problem, his, not yours,” Dad enlisted, his teeth chomping upon Sunnyside fresh eggs. “He doesn’t much care for Star-Kist Tuna, either. Still, you love it in your Macaroni & Cheese. You also love your Good & Plenty, even if they use Choo-Choo Charlie.”
Desiring peppermint gum, those vitamins slithered down my throat instead.
Breakfast finished; my Barbie lunch pail slung into my hand before slithering out our home’s threshold. My body slid out home before Richard’s, we all bundled up for Levittown cold.
My clunker, thick yellow plastic raincoat wrapped ’round me, over plaid jumper. Mary Jane shoes clunked under awkward black buckles, me sloshing within pink galoshes.
Drizzle! its earthy aroma roamed into noses.
Cascades, Rhythm o’ the Rain, played on Mom’s little pink kitchen radio.
Richard carried his Popeye lunchbox, it having its three-dimensional design. Our friend, Charlie, drug himself from home, his sister Sandra eagerly parading out. They lived across Huckleberry Lane. Julian, Pious Spiritus, alongside brothers and sisters, paraded out their house.
Outside, freezing, bite your bones drizzle greeted. Irish green tights plus my fire engine red blended into Irish green, plaid, jumper. Socked myself into barbershop thigh high socks. This proved enough for hungry, biting rainy Pennsylvania November cold. My pastel green blouse rained in our rain, my nostrils taking in rain’s earthy aroma.
Dad, gazed lovingly at Mom, lip-syncing their favorite Everly Brothers, All I Have to do is Dream. We went down our driveway, Dee Clarke dropping Raindrops upon us.
“Fitting,” came from my lips, me, casting my eyes upon drizzling rain. Juniper bushes bent, sending into us their distinctly Autumn scent. Pennsylvania shower rained within its warm, earthy aroma.
“Great morn upon yah,” I laid upon ’em, thrashing out my lips, in Irish. “God be with you.”
“Great morn upon yah,” sullied from out Julian in Italian. Pious-Spiritus’ remaining family followed, like swallows, imbued upon us their “God and Mary be upon you.”
“Had this vivid nightmare last night,” my lips spiked.
“Interesting thing!” Julian laced, bearing his inquisitive expression. “Some strange message or something?”
“Don’t know,” sliced through my lips.
“Could be true! God’s Divine Spirit comes sneaking through your speaking,” Anton let fly, casting his curious, yet somehow spiritual air. “Take steps for making sure your nightmares never come true.”
“Remember any details?” trailed out from Charlie.
“My last night’s dream coming upon me while slumbering, so vivid now,” upon this I crowed, rolling my eyes, remembering.
“Jot down details, hiking down our trail,” Catherine imparted, putting her books down before pulling out her notepad. “Take action, so cool, after school.”
Everyone agreed.
“Cursive writing, Second-grader?” Catherine observed, me writing my note. “You know cursive? Who taught you writing in cursive?”
“Don’t know,” scuffed from my lips. “Always knew this stuff.”
“What other stuff, you know you didn’t know in our day’s yester?” Charlie inquired, giving me his kindly glare. Upon our spelling list my eyes gazed.
“This breezy list seems so easy!” I beheld. “Took my gander at next week’s. List simplicity struck me, simple city.”
“Perhaps you can grace me, teaching me my algebra,” Vincenzo upon me graced, giving me one kindly slap on my shoulder like some boulder.
“I’ll try,” came from my lips. “One strange, scary recollection, collecting answers using letters not numbers, spare me! Shouldn’t know this, right? It’s nothing if your bright! Moving letters ’round your page, should fill you with no rage! This’s hard? You’re no retard!”
Everyone had one big laugh.
“Any other interesting nightmares?” Charlie quizzed, we again parading down Huckleberry Hill.
“One special remembrance,” my memory recalled. “Standing taller, adult size, prancing within my white wedding dress. Locked my eyes on your face afront Saint Michael’s, bagpipes blaring.”
Charlie snidely smacked me on my shoulder.
“Ha, I’m Lutheran, so you’ll notice,” he stammered.
“In case you didn’t notice, believe Lutheran faith too,” I complained. “Some nightmare!”
Girls in our company sang Darlene Love’s, The Boy I’m Gonna Marry.
“Well, Charlie?” Vincenzo chided, slapping Charlie on his back. “Best man? Charlie ‘n’ Molly sitting in their tree: K I S S I N G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Molly ‘n’ Charlie behind their baby carriage!”
“Stop!” I protested. “Dreamed some stupid dream. Boys have rotten cooties. Ain’t interested in no boys.”
“What did I do?” Charlie pled, moving himself one step away from our remaining group. “I deserve this?”
“You? her love interest?” Anton taunted, laughing.
“Ain’t marrying no girl, either,” Charlie shouted, charging ahead, making his feet move like never before. Girls in our company sang, Dixie Cups, Going to the Chapel.
“Asked if I had any other disasters in my nightmare and I told you,” I stammered. “In love with you?’ Nightmare!”
Glared at each other for however longed we dared.
“If we must fall in love when we grow up, you’d be one nice boy,” I reminded. “Still, I mean, you’re one nice toy! Still, my real love remains tall, dark, dreamy, debonair, President Kennedy.” I pinched Charlie on his cheek.
He placed one light punch into my rib.
Charlie, Sandra, Richard, and I turned prancing, 400 yards down Huckleberry Hill singing Jimmy Dean’s PT 109, followed by Big Bad John.
Huckleberry Lane’s Pious-Spiritus kids, hushed, hiked up Holly Hill catching Queen o’ the Universe Catholic School bus. They sang If I had a Hammer. Their voices fading into Huckleberry Hill’s distance, they sang my mom’s favorite, Ferlin Husky’s Wings o’ a Snow-White Dove.
Rain picked up pace raining from its slow drizzle into one fast pouring rain. It pushed its fresh, rainy, warm, earthy, smell into my nostrils. Our skating past Misses Smith’s home, we stopped, smelling her roses.
Our bathroom’s aroma gurgled from my throat, before my sighing. Mister Smith’s Studebaker Lark’s distinctive sound filled my ears.
Nothing but pure power in what Dad called an eight banger. Studebaker tires, lacking radial tires’ sound, drove their way out his driveway. I had my peek.
Front bucket seats plus center console’s awesome beauty overwhelmed me. It’s rear door vent struck me peachy keen too! Any convertible, red, hood down? How could any sis resist?
Butch, Benny, and Billy ran out their house on their sidewalk, 37 Huckleberry, making merry, running down Huckleberry. They never hung out amongst us, ’though in our same grade, attending our same school.
“Don’t hang out ’mongst ’em,” Mom stuffed into our minds. “Butch, Buster, Benny, and Billy eat dog food and do stupid stuff.”
Imagining eating dog-food, I nearly barfed. Misses Carry’s flowers pulled me toward ’em.
Lavender beside honeysuckle, joined lilac aroma sliming, caused my considering, these send out their bathroom aroma sometimes.
Arriving at Huckleberry Hill bottom, we observed ’em team up, joining Buster, our block bully. He lived at 315 Holly Drive, a-next kids who lived behind Charlie.
“Butch! Buster! grand names for school bullies,” Charlie observed.
“If such school bullies, why don’t we ever see ’em fighting?” bulled its way from my mind.
“Don’t know,” slipped from Charlie’s mouth.
Arriving at Huckleberry Hill bottom, Huckleberry Lane kissed Holly Lane.
Misses Green, one middle-aged lady wore her vest. This identified her as our crossing guard.
“Guten Morgen,” she greeted us.
We gazed around this corner toward Holly Way which slithered, taking us toward Crabtree Drive.
We turned toward our never cool, school. “Great morn upon yah,” rushed from our mouths in Irish. “God be with yah.”
“So very good,” she replied in German.
At Huckleberry Hill’s base sat weeping willows, their fruity scent filling our nostrils.
Observing how rain fell off leaves like tears, our weeping tree. I guess trees don’t like much being out in this either, pondered within my mind.
Autumn aroma joined soaked juniper coupled amongst dead leaves, leafed through my nostrils. Sauntering past apple tree decorated homes, apples distinctive, wet bark, woody aroma greeted us.
Ruth Martin had placed many pies, pumpkin, cinnamon, and apple, in their windows.
They trilled their aroma into my awaiting nostrils.
One grand mass about those leaves, scattered all over Levittown ground. Some hung onto trees for dear life. This provided our eyes their Autumn beauty.
“Charlie, Lionel, Molly, you ready for another school day?” Misses Green questioned.
“Yes, Misses Green,” we responded.
“Wait until I say so,” she laid. “You’ll not be late!”
We smiled, seeing Ron ‘n’ Paul Devlin sauntering around this corner. These boys lived behind Charlie.
After waiting while I told Misses Green about my dream, Ron smiled.
“Hope your dream didn’t involve me,” he opined.
“In my nightmare, Charlie chose you for his best man at our wedding,” I not so subtly informed.
“Ron, how does living, being best at anything, feel?” Paul remarked giggling.
“Best man makes you grand friends,” I snipped.
“Ain’t no groom,” Charlie refused making room.
We chuckled.
“Honkey Dorey, bridal party, all remains Ola Kalos, all is Beautiful. You may go ahead,” Misses Green informed us.
We quickly scampered across Holly Street then ’round its corner toward Crabtree Drive.
Ventures Walk Don’t Run, played from some nearby home, we galloping toward, school.
“Love Walk Don’t Run,” I swooned.
“Yeah, I know,” he confided.
Our rain decided its little wet could no longer remain good enough. It poured.
Rather than run, Charlie joined me singing Everly Brothers, Crying in the Rain. We skipped in puddles toward George Washington Elementary, me finding second grade all so elementary.
My first big day in this new yet familiar strange day follows.
