My parent’s life story has never been writ and I now find
the urge to let it be known. I begin
this tale where I enter the story. They
found each other as first loves and teenagers in the early 70’s and I was born
shortly thereafter. The wedding photos
are etched in mind as if I attended, which I guess in a way I did since my
mother was already several months along at the ceremony. The bride wore a floor-length hand-me-down
gown with an umpire waist reminiscent of the sixties style. If Woodstock had been a color, it would have
been found on this dress; its’ vibrant purple, turquoise, and white flowers
running like a child’s finger-paints to the grass. I felt safe behind it. My father’s unruly long brown curls and blue
collar demeanor contrasted sharply with his lavender dress shirt and tie that
was as white and wide as his smile. The
muscle cars; Barracudas, Galaxies, and Novas that lined my grandparent’s
driveway were adorned with big puffy tissue flowers that formed pastel peace
signs and spelled out the word LOVE along the hoods and doors. But underneath the event’s soft colors lay an
undertone of hard feelings. My
grandparents were traditional folks brought up during the depression era and
had a difficult time accepting their middle daughter’s teenage pregnancy. Times being what they were, it was not as
commonplace as it is in today’s society.
People still worried about what the neighbors thought. So my parents packed up and moved to the
west-coast of Florida where they lived in a whitewashed clapboard cottage steps
away from Madeira Beach. I am told that
after I was born, my mother would sing and dance while she cleaned the house or
baked homemade bread to Beatles songs while my brown fuzzy locks could be seen
bouncing just above the edges of the white bassinet to the music, my tiny
fingers clutching the side for balance as I bobbed. Our house was always filled with music,
America, Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, The Doobie Brothers, Yes, John
Lennon, The Allman Brothers, Jim Croce, Fleetwood Mac, Gordon Lightfoot, and
The Grateful Dead to name a few. But I
was breastfed on the Beatles and had my first taste of saltwater in this
place. Both music and the ocean would
become a life-long staple for me, a never-wavering constant, friends that
comfort me in times of loneliness, like a mother’s love.
But I digress… Once I
was born, my grandparents came to their senses and stopped shunning my parents
once I won them over with my sweet face, and our family moved back to NY. (This turn of events was a major bummer for
me since I was destined to be raised on the water, but the Niagara River would
have to do for the time being. I made it
back to the Gulf of Mexico eventually.)
My baby sister came along 2 years later, which made my parents 19 and
high school dropouts with 2 kids. I
don’t remember my dad being around much in those younger years since he was
working third shift at the steel plant, sleeping during the day and working all
night. He worked his ass off at a dirty
hard dangerous mind-numbing job for 11 years so that my sister and I would have
a roof over our heads. My mother had the
thankless task of raising us hellions until I was 12, when she decided to go
back to work. She spent the next 8 years
going to night school, taking a class here, driving an hour there, and this
after working a full shift as a bank teller on her feet all day. I am extremely proud of my parents. They rose above being teenage pregnancy
statistics, and without any help from their parents, have come a long way in
their careers. My father took a big
chance and quit his safe union job at the steel plant. Hard hat plastered with Buffalo Bills and
Sabres stickers, blackened steel toed
boots (that he still has to this day) in one hand and a lit cigar in the
other, he walked out of those factory doors and never looked back. He worked his way up the ranks as a radio
salesman, writing commercials and guest starring on morning shows as Buffalo
Bill. He never graduated high school but
the man can clear 5 figures now from pure ambition, street smarts, and hard
work. And my mom, after years of working
a full time job, raising 2 kids, and going to night school is now an accountant
for big industry.
But I don’t think this is where either of them had intended
to end up.
For as long as I can remember, wherever we have lived, a
stack of Farmers Almanacs and Burpee seed catalogs have adorned the living-room
coffee table. And my mother has had a
garden, whether it was in the form of spindly seedlings reaching for a hooded fluorescent
grow light with 3 feet of snow drifts outside the window, a 4’ x 4’ weed-ridden
plot of nothing but compost and Florida sand where papayas and pumpkins
make for strange bed-fellows, or hundreds
of feet of hand-shovel-turned black dirt mixed tenderly with horse shit from
the nearest stable, where my sister and I would sneak sugar-snap peas and
cherry tomatoes right off the vine in the summertime when we tired of playing
with tadpoles in seeps enveloped by Forget-me-nots. (They are still my favorite flower, which befits
my gypsy tendencies.)
Once upon a time we owned land out in the countryside in a
small cow town named Warsaw. May parents
called it The Farm. It had a view of the
entire valley and the next foothill over.
It had acres of open pasture filled with purple clovers that my sister
and I would pluck and savor the honeysuckle sweetness between our teeth. There were wind breakers between property
lines where we’d climb the trees and make imaginary forts. There was a small stream that ran through the
middle where our Barbie dolls would whitewater freestyle down the rapids. Behind the creek there were wild strawberries
hiding among the knee high grasses that were matted down into large patches
where the deer had bedded the night before.
There were elderberry bushes that we’d gingerly pick tiny berries from
the delicate stems. My mom would can
this black gold and give elderberry jam as presents that family members fought
over at Christmas time. There were
blackberries that grew to be the size of your big toe in bramble thickets that
even a jackrabbit would think twice about entering. Yet it always seemed that the biggest,
ripest, juiciest prize was shining deep violet-black just beyond reach and
you’d come out looking like you lost a fight with an alley cat, just to get
your purpled lips around one. There was
a forest at the back of the property line that we’d take walks through, to hear
the Fall leaves crunch beneath our feet and smell Autumn. I have memories of my dad, all bushy-bearded
and ball-capped behind a fire-engine red Roto-tiller he had just bought,
plowing large swaths of earth and my mother, knees in the dirt, planting
strawberries, fruit trees, and corn in her plaid flannel shirt and wide-brimmed
straw hat humming away, as my sister and I toted hay to her for mulching. My parents dream was to build a log cabin on
The Farm and get back to the land; like so many other hippies of the time. But not all stories have “they all lived
happily ever after” endings. You see,
the driveway we used to access The Farm was an easement across the land owned
by the man in the big house that lay in front of our property. When it came time to finalize plans for
building I guess they needed permission to drive the heavy equipment and logs
across this man’s property (our driveway) to access the construction site. Turns out this man didn’t want a house built
on the property behind his and was successfully able to keep my parents from
realizing their dream. In the end, my
family needed the money so badly in order to start over new somewhere else that
even though my dad had sworn the last person he’d sell the land to would be the
man in the big house, we didn’t have any other offers, so my parents had no
other choice but to sell and move back to Florida.
I do believe that my parent’s spirits were irretrievably broken
that day. That they have spent the last
20 years moving forward only to yearn for getting back, back to the land. Their relationship with each other also
broke, my mother waited until both us kids were out of the house, but then the
music stopped. My parents still love
each other dearly, don’t get me wrong…they call often, take care of the other
when hardships happen, they just can’t live together without driving the other
crazy. I think when they lost the glue
that held them together, my sister and I and The Farm, there just wasn’t
anything left to make it stick. I still
like to dream that someday, when they both retire from the fast-lane, they will
build that log cabin together on a hill overlooking a grassy pasture with
horses and cows grazing. I picture my
dad with his feet propped up on the front porch railing smoking a doobie
looking out on my mom with her hands in the dirt and a watering can by her
feet, as a spring breeze carries her song away.
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