Levittown Stories

FAREWELL

2011-01-29T12:18:00.000-05:00

Hello to my loyal readers. I have now completed the book about my childhood in Levittown and distributed it to my family. I will not be posting on this blog anymore. I am now moving into art and poetry and will be creating a new blog shortly. I anticipate the blog will be called PoemArtPalace. Enjoy and thanks so much for reading and commenting on this blog. Hope to see you in my new online home.

2010-10-14T10:04:00.000-04:00

It's late afternoon and the snow is two feet deep. The crust over the snow is slick and tinged violet from the slant of winter light.

"Do you think it's too late to go to Helen's?" Emilia asks me.

"It only takes fifteen minutes to walk to her house," I say. "And we really need to deliver the money from the Girl Scout cookies."

"Yeah we better go today. I'll be right over."

I hang up the phone and bury myself in leggings, socks, boots, coat and hat. After tucking the envelope of money into a deep pocket I slip my hands into red gloves pilled from making storehouses of snowballs for snowball fights. When Emilia gets to my house we head up Loring Road and discover that walking in two feet of snow for four blocks takes a lot longer than fifteen minutes.

Finally we arrive at Helen's house to find that no one is home. I wonder now if we just assumed that every family was home on Saturday afternoon in the era of tight knit families and limited monetary resources.

"I guess we have to go back,"I say, looking at Emilia.

We both look around at the dying light and watch the street lights blink on, our signal to go home. As darkness falls we try to walk faster but the snow and our freezing toes make the going slow and tedious. We each find a fallen tree branch to brandish as a weapon should we need it and also to help us navigate the slippery terrain. We're both a little fearful of the dark, especially walking along a quiet road alone. When a car slows we hide behind a bush and watch as it pulls up to the curb.

"Renee! Emilia!"

It's my Dad come to resuce us. Although rescue is an unworthy word to describe the urgency in his ordinarily smooth soft voice. We run out from behind the bush and into the warmth and safety of Dad's blue and white Chevy Bel Air.

"What were you thinking going out so late?" he asks. His voice is soft now with relief but the concern glints in his blue eyes.

"We didn't think it would take us so long." Emilia says.

"Yeah, the snow slowed us down. Usually it takes only fifteen minutes."

"Well let's get you girls home."

Dad drives toward Emilia's house where her Mom and Dad wait at the door for her safe arrival. Relief and a splash of anger in their warm brown eyes.

"You could have asked me to drive you," Dad says with a smile.

"I know."

I bow my head in apology and smile too knowing no matter what, my parents will be there to save me from my crazy ideas.

2010-09-15T20:12:00.000-04:00

SEPTEMBER SMILES
I love the fresh September air and the fact that my job as an Assistant Principal allows me to live, over and over again, the joy of going back to school. Much as I love summer warmth, blue chlorine pool water and salty oceans, and the freedom of longer daylight hours, I always loved that return to the classroom. The smell of chalk dust, freshly sharpened pencils, stacks of blank notebooks and books with tight spines. That little plastic zippered pencil case that held pencils, pens, erasers, rulers and filler paper hole reinforcements, whose outside decorations changed each year to match the current fashion trends. And speaking of fashion--there was such fun in shopping for school clothes and wearing dresses and new shoes after a summer of shorts and flip flops. New teachers, new friends, and new skills and concepts to learn. Seeing friends I hadn't seen all summer and strolling down the school corridors with their faint odor of disinfectant and the mirror glow of newly polished floors.

Though these days I work all summer I still get that fresh punch of newness with a new school year. And I always felt September was the start of the year and a time to make new resolutions and fresh starts. But now the draw of blank notebooks holds even more. As a writer I like filling the straight blue lines with flowing poetic verses and dramatic fiction. Or opening a new notebook to begin scribing stories about my life that will keep me alive even after I leave this earth.

September is clean and crisp, a chance for new beginnings, an opportunity to make some new decisions about what to write, what to wear and how to make myself a better woman. I invite you to make a few resolutions of your own about how to live the way you want to live. Why wait till January when your muse is buried in snow?

2010-08-12T14:17:00.001-04:00

CLOVER CHAINS

I crawl across the cool evening grass

of summer to pick the delicate white and green

balls of clover flowers that sprinkle the lawn

like out of season snow flakes.

I pluck the stems close to the sun baked earth,

tight and cracked from too little rain,

so the stiff green tubes will be long.

With a fist full of sweet scented treasures

I crawl into the shade of the cluster of evergreens

at the corner of the front yard,

my knees stained green, grass blades stuck

to the damp knobs of my knee caps.

In this tranquil corner, beneath the rose quartz

canopy of sunset, I carefully notch

a slit in each stem with a fingernail

curved and pearlescent like the sliver of moon

that peers over the peaked roof of the house.

I line up the flowers on the grass like a rainbow of gentle angels.

I link each stem together, slipping one into the next

until I have chains I can turn into

necklaces

bracelets

crowns.

I parade around the yard adorned in my jewels,

a princess in the blue-gray dusk as fireflies

light the path into the house for bedtime.

I pile the circles of clover chains on the book shelf

and slip into dreams of castles and kings

and wide moats that protect me from dragons.

The next morning the white and green flowers

are tinted brown, wilted and parched,

as my childhood disappears around me

and I make clover crowns too delicate to cradle me

in this glorious summer of innocence.

2010-08-01T19:20:00.000-04:00

AUGUST IN LEVITTOWN 1960
A crisp blue sky unfurls overhead like a freshly laundered sheet. The sun is the color of sunflowers, like the ones that line the fence, their brown faces turned upward soaking in the warmth. The buzz of late summer cicadas fills the air, competing with the caw of bluejays and the serenade of a robin perched on the corner of the roof. This is the best time for me, the thrill of summer fun and the expectation and excitement of school opening next month.

Emilia and I sit on the grass under the maple tree eagerly waiting for the mailman. Any day now we will receive the letter from Wisdom Lane school telling us whose class we will be in. In fifth grade we were in separate classes and not happy about it. We attempted to eat lunch together every day but that didn't always work. First of all we had to either both be buying lunch or both bringing lunch from home because those two groups sat at different tables. Then we had to hope our classes got to the cafeteria at the same time. It was a social dance that didn't always fall into rhythm.

By lunch time we tired of the wait but only ventured to the backyard after our tuna sandwich lunch to turn on the sprinkler and situate it just right so when we swung on the swings near the cherry trees we arched right into the cool spray. After we'd had enough of that we perched on the wall around the garden next to my house and ate blueberries right off the bush. By the time the mailman arrived our fingers and lips were stained a bright blue. But I snatched the letter from the stack the mailman gave me and tore open the envelope with the school's return address. Lo and behold I would be in Mr. McNamee's class. We raced to Emilia's house and met her mother hanging clothes on the line in the backyard.

"Did the mail come?" Emilia asked.
"It did. It's on the kitchen table."

We ran inside and found the letter from school. Tearing it open Emilia read it and smiled with delight when she found out we would be in the same class. It would be our last year in the elementary wing of the school before entering junior high and we wanted it to count.

We ran outside and shared the good news with her Mom. Then the bells of the Bungalow Bar ice cream truck filled the hot afternoon.

"Can we..."
"Yes," her mother said. "Go get ice cream to celebrate."

We ran to place the order while Emilia's mom went inside to get money.

It was a triumphant day in a magical summer and now as I relax in the summer sun with a book and an ice cream bar I recall those childhood days and continue writing my stories so those days will never end.

2010-07-04T16:53:00.000-04:00

FIESTA BURGER

In nineteen fifties Levittown breakfast, lunch and dinner were home cooked affairs. We didn't eat frozen dinners or processed meats or instant anything. Meatloaf was made from scratch as were chocolate cakes, Toll House cookies and masked potatoes. McDonald's, Taco Bell, Wendy's and Checkers were nowhere to be seen as we drove along Hempstead Turnpike, Jersulam Avenue or Wantagh Avenue. I suppose it was easier then, when most if not all mothers were home all day taking care of their houses and their children. More time to shop and let fragrant stews and soups simmer on the simple but functional stoves.

Then one day there was a new face in town. It appeared on Hemptead Turnpike like a newly carved visage on Mount Rushmore. It was called Fiesta Burger. You pulled your car into a parking space and rolled down your window to place your order through the speaker that looked like the ones you hooked onto your car at the drive-in movie. I guess that's one reason they called it a drive-in food place. Oh, you don't know about drive-in movies? Well, that's another post.

Anyway, you placed your order and someone would come and bring it to your car. I remember the hamburgers and fries were pretty good, but still being rooted in home cooked fare we only ate there twice. But it wasn't the food, it was more the process of ordering and having food delivered to your car that made it so special. No matter how tasty it might have been, homemade food was better. But we had fun going there, the novelty of it making it a treat. And some kids added there own twist to the experience by walking up to a speaker, ordering food, and then running away. Kind of like a prank phone call gone one step beyond.

It was good clean fun--I guess. It's a memory now. Fiesta Burger was pushed out by all the other food chains serving Bic Macs and Whoppers. Times will never be the same. Now when I drive by the chain of stores and medical offices that took over that spot I can still see the little waitresses emerging with their trays of hot burgers looking for the car to bring the food to and finding the space empty. I hope she enjoyed her lunch.

2010-06-30T19:53:00.000-04:00

SUMMER DAYS
I awoke this morning to cool leaf scented air waving through the bedroom window. The blue sky was painted with wisps of clouds and streaks of translucent pink light. It was five thirty but my muscles trembled with eager energy. It all reminded me of childhood summers in Levittown when I guzzled down orange juice and Rice Krispies and padded out the kitchen door in my P F Flyers.

Under the maple tree I bounced a pink Spaulding ball between the lacy shadows on the sidewalk. Songs like "A my name is Alice and my husband's name is Al," joined the songs of robins and bluejays and the distant bark of a dog on his early morning constitutional. As I bounced and sang I planned my day. I would swing on the swings in the backyard, next to the row of three cherry trees we'd brought from my grandparents' home in Kentucky. Perhaps a relaxing lunch of tuna on white bread with a glass of cold milk, while lazing in the shade. I would call Emilia and we might follow the black tarred lines along the street to the candy story at the Village Green to buy a new book of paper dolls, or a new Venus Paradise colored pencil set. Just before dinner we might make up another story to act out in our secret game of "Sisters." We called it "S" for secret when someone else was in earshot. The only secret part of the game was that it was the one thing we did that we didn't allow any other friends to share with us. It wasn't an actual game, but rather just a signal that we wanted to play by ourselves.

After dinner we would go outdoors again and ride bikes or join in a jump rope game in the neighborhood. When the street lights blinked on like so many diamonds in the dusky light it was time to call it a night and go home to "Amos and Andy" or "The Mickey Mouse Club."

Now as I sit in my room writing this post the light is graying and cool air tickles my arms and hands as they fly across a computer keyboard I'd never dreamed of when I wrote stories and poems as a child. Somehow summer days are not the same. Maybe its global warming, environmental destruction, or just my own aging. I don't know, but when a summer day like this one mimics the ones in my memory I cherish it for its golden light and warmth, heady scents of roses and mown grass, and the lift of strands of hair on the back of my neck when the breezes blow.

I'm still writing and reading in the shade of trees and inhaling the magical aromas, but these summer evenings will never feel the same.

Truth or Dare

2010-06-07T10:00:00.000-04:00

It's 5:00 in the morning and my journal lies open on my writing desk, my hand is poised above the pristine white sheet of paper, pen aimed toward the first straight blue line. Here I sit, suspended in the moment, deciding what to write for my daily journal entry. On the shelf over the desk are binders and notebooks and an art journal, objects that represent a variety of creative projects and cause my head to swim in confusion. I know I need to focus on just one thing, one writing project, one genre, one book--but poems, art pages, novels, short stories and memoir beckon me toward them and I can't choose just one--they are salty and addicting as any potato chip. So I set the blue ink across the page and ponder the question of whether I want to write memoir or fiction.

Memoir seems easier--no characters or plot to create--it's all outlined in my memory. There is only one story line to follow (or maybe not) I know the time and place, the scenes and the stories. Then again--if I go back to fiction I can write whatever plot I want, I can fabricate characters and develop towns that don't exist. If a plot point isn't going the way I want I can change it. Freedom versus constraint, truth versus fiction.

I scrawl the words across three pages, my writing time is up, and I still have no answer for this question. I suppose I will always be a genre jumper, but I would like to know how other writers confine themselves to one type of writing that they can perfect and get published. I want to know how I can have only one binder on my desk with one writing project ot work on at a time.

Focus--focus--focus.

Writing tip of the day:
What genre do you read, which do you love to write? make a choice.

JUST CALL ME POLLYANNA

2010-05-14T09:55:00.002-04:00

I woke on the first day of summer vacation with the scent of roses, mown grass and honeysuckle in the air that wafted through my bedroom window. The pale pink walls of my new bedroom shone like an early sunrise, but there was so much light in the room I knew sunrise had happened hours ago. I jumped out of bed and ran to the kitchen. Daddy had already left for work and Mommy was wiping down the stove and sink. I sneezed at the odor of bleach cleanser that stung my nostrils.

“What’s for breakfast?” I asked, itching to get outdoors to play.

Mom turned, put down her cleaning cloth and gave me a kiss and hug.

“Nothing till you go brush your teeth and wash your face.”

It was a rule in our house. Daddy had laid it down with his gentle voice and a firm stare from his blue eyes. He was gone to work already but the rule remained behind. I scrambled back upstairs to the bathroom.

I was lucky to have my own bedroom upstairs under the newly installed dormer. I also had my own bathroom. Emilia always kidded that I had my own apartment, but in many ways I did. The bedroom was outfitted with a new antique white bedroom set with a bookcase headboard, had a desk and chair, a corner bookcase unit, two cardboard chests on either side of the bed, and a stand for my record player. There was enough room in there to dance away rainy afternoons. My cousin Kathy and I would listen to soundtracks from shows like Oklahoma, South Pacific and My Fair Lady and choreograph our own productions. All this space for my very own was another benefit to having a little brother who needed his own bedroom; namely the little one I once slept in downstairs.

After performing the requisite hygienic procedures I went back down stairs where Mom had leashed our dog Snappy and handed him off to me to take outside.

In shorts, tee-shirt and bare feet I ran out to the backyard where my little brown puppy did his business and wandered around the yard sniffing for buried treasures in the form of dog bones.

The summer sun was already hot and it felt good on my bare arms, contrasting with the cool dampness of the grass on my toes. I was reluctant to go back indoors but also eager to get breakfast over with so I could go out and play with Emilia. I was thinking about what we could do on this glorious day when the dog leash slipped out of my hand and Snappy went tearing off for some fun and freedom on his own. I started chasing him.

“Come back, Snappy. Come back.”

I chased him around the back yard but he was quick and my legs were short and I couldn’t catch up to him. Mom came out of the house then and around to the backyard.

“Snappy,” she called. “ Come. Come here.”

But he kept running until he ran out into the street and got hit by a passing car.

The driver got out. A woman about Mom’s age, with a long white shirt over a bathing suit and pool shoes on her feet. She and Mom bent over Snappy who laid still as a rock on the hot asphalt. Mom nudged me behind her to block my view, then brought me into the house while she made a phone call.

I pushed aside the rose colored brocade curtains and peeked out the living room window where I saw a police car pull up. The policeman spoke to my mother and the woman who was driving the car. Then he picked up Snappy and put him in the back of his car. After speaking to my mother again he drove away.

I couldn’t absorb what had happened but I knew I would never see my dog again. Suddenly the prospect of jump rope, bike riding and roller skating didn’t seem as inviting as usual. I went into Mom’s room and sat on her bed waiting for her.

On her dresser were two glass lamps with crystal beads hanging around them. The morning sun beamed in through the window, shining through all those crystals and casting rainbows across the walls. It reminded me of a scene in the book “Pollyanna,” where she learns how prisms can refract the light and create glorious rainbows even when a person’s world is falling apart.

Mom came in and sat on the bed with me. She bundled me into the embrace of her arms and told me Snappy was too badly hurt and he was gone.

I couldn’t imagine where “gone” was since mom didn’t practice any religion and didn’t believe in heaven. A sadness washed over me that turned the bright sunny day to dismal gray, despite the light pouring through the window.

“Are you okay?” Mom asked.

I swallowed a deep breath, scrubbed tears out of my eyes. Tears that I wouldn’t let fall. Then I looked up at Mom.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I said. “Just call me Pollyanna.”

WRITING PROCESS

2010-05-14T09:50:00.000-04:00

The process of writing this memoir is a struggle and a joy. The memories are a delight and a comfort after a busy day at work. It is glorious to recall the fun and simplicity of those times and that age. But my challenge lies in how to proceed with the book.

I ask myself: Should I just write simple stories of my happy childhood and bind them myself to give to family and friends? Or should I incorporate the personal challenges I had as I grew up? Do I write about how the stages of my development parallel the patterns of psychological growth in all women and how I succeeded , or not, in traveling along that journey?

Perhaps I have two books here. The first drafts of each book are written and there have been some revisions to both. I am coming to the end of the line for the simple collection of stories and beginning my research for the second book.

Decisions, decisions.

It's all good and all part of the memoirist's journey.

CHANGES

2010-04-19T15:00:00.000-04:00

On April 3 my mother passed away at the age of 93. She lived a full life and was independent, alert and active right up till the end. I feel as though the dynasty of my Levittown childhood went with Mom even though I still have these stories. She was the person who made it all happened. The one who moved us into that adorable cape cod house, who held vigil over her children, and who entertained family every weekend. The joy of memories lives on inside me, but some of the light has gone out. All the more reason to post more vignettes of that great life.

I encourage all of my readers to spend as much time as you can with family and friends as life changes from one second to the next. One minute I was looking at a house to rent so Mom could live with us, the next I was planning a funeral.

Life is short, as they say, so burn your candle at both ends because too soon the spark dies and a thin trail of smoke leads up to heaven.

2010-03-14T19:16:00.000-04:00

WALKING THE STREETS OF LEVITTOWN
About seven months ago I took a sunny afternoon to park by the Levittown Library and stroll the neighborhood of my childhood. I wandered up Shelter Lane and up Brook Lane to Barnyard Lane, the corner where the bookmobile used to stop. Then I walked along Barnyard Lane to Gun Lane, the corner where I lived. Though many of the sidewalks have been resurfaced with smooth modern day concrete, many of the paths I took that day looked the way they had fifty years ago. The squares of cement were rough with large stones bubbling up like a petrified cauldron of witch's brew. There were many cracks, like lines on an old woman's face, and places where the cement had been pushed up by the roots of trees. I wondered if these were indeed the same squares of cement I once walked on to and from school, to the pool or to Emilia's house.

Light green polly noses rained down on me from the canopy of maple trees above my head, and soft breezes rustled my hair and tingled my skin. I especially liked the fact that some of the houses had not been added on to or redesigned, and still looked like the cube shaped Cape Cod homes of my youth. I smelled the scent of cut grass, the warm musky odor of fertile soil, and the sweet aroma of the last roses of the summer. I walked slowly, allowing memories to wander into my mind, bringing me back to those wonderful times.

After standing on the corner by the house I once lived in, which looks nothing like it once did, I turned the corner and walked down Ridge Lane passed the house Emilia once lived in. Though no one in our families live there now, I could close my eyes and almost hear the sounds of children jumping rope or playing ball in the street, now too crowded with traffic for kids to enjoy. The rare times a car did go by when we were playing, we sang out "car, car c-a-r" and just waited till it passed.

I completed the circuit back to the library and sat on a bench recalling those blissful days. The pool is next to the library, and despite the fact it was empty of water at the time, the season having ended, I could still hear spalshing water, lifeguard whistles and laughing children in the sound room of my imagination.

Regretfully I had to go home, but the essence of the memories stays with me and I know I will take that walk again soon.

2010-03-07T14:38:00.000-05:00

SUMMER GAMES

The summer of 1958 came like a giant gift, wrapped in bronze sunshine, rippling shadows of maple trees, the laughter of neighborhood children, and the scent of honeysuckle and privet hedges. On the first day of vacation I awoke as the sunrise painted a stripe of rose gold across the horizon. Sleepy birds prodded the damp ground for worms. I put on shorts, a t-shirt and a pair of red P F Flyers, the fifties’ trend in sneakers. I was outside bouncing a pink Spaulding ball on the concrete sidewalk when Emilia arrived. She carried a bag filled with paper doll books and scissors. I ran into the house to get my own paper doll collections and met her in the shade of the trinity of evergreen trees that stood like sentinels in the corner of our front yard.
“I didn’t cut any clothes out yet,” Emilia said. “I waited so we could do it together.”
“Oh, great.”
I spread a sheet out on the cool grass and we got down to work.
“I have Cyd Charise and Rosemary Clooney,” I said.
“Me too. And I just got Debbie Reynolds and this new one. Look.”
She withdrew a paper cut out book with a tall slim figure of a woman on the front.
“Who is she?” I asked.
Emilia shrugged.
“No one famous, I guess. I just liked her.”
I shrugged back. “Who cares who she is? She’s pretty. Did you give her a name?”
“I call her Lucinda.”
And so the paper doll was dubbed Lucinda and her clothes, with their requisite whit tabs to hold them on the doll, were carefully snipped off the page. When we were done cutting out all the clothes we dressed our dolls and had them act out stories we had read or made up. As we maneuvered the figures, the soft branches of the evergreens swept our shoulders and shaded us from the sun. It was the first, but not the last, pleasure of the day.
That night at dinner, as I took my last bite of salad made with Dad’s homegrown tomatoes, the phone rang. I jumped out of the chair, knowing it would be Emilia.
“I’m on my way over,” she informed me. “Meet me at the corner with your bike.”
“I’ll be out in fifteen minutes.”
I cleared off my plate and pit it in the sink, running water over it to keep the food from sticking. I went upstairs to wash up and put my sneakers back on. Rarely did we ever wear shoes indoors, especially in summer. Daddy was a farm boy from the rural hills of Kentucky, and barefoot was the way to go.
In the backyard I eased open the door of the shed and rolled out my blue bicycle. I rode to the corner of Barnyard and Gun Lanes and waited for Emilia. The hot afternoon sun had mellowed and a cool breeze rustled the pale green maple trees sending down showers of polly noses that would grow into baby maples after we stuck them on our noses like Pinocchio.
When Emilia rode up on her bike I hopped onto the black leather seat and we took off.
“So what do you want to do first? Try to get lost, or ride the hill?”
Getting lost was a challenge for two nine year old girls. We would ride around the neighborhood trying to lose ourselves in the grid work pattern of streets. But no matter how long or how far we rode our bikes we would always end up on some familiar street. I don’t know what we would have done if we ever had gotten lost. We had no cell phones and neither of us would have had the courage to knock on a stranger’s door to ask for help. If it had grown dark as well, we probably would have sat down on the curb and tried.
Thinking back, it seems like such counterpoint to the woman’s journey to find herself. Perhaps it reflects the need to meander through uncharted territory in order to find who you really are inside.
But as usual we didn’t get lost that night, in fact we never did get lost. But we wound through the neighborhood till we came to the steepest hill. Hills aren’t really that steep at all on the south shore of Long Island, but two petite girls could find one just steep enough. We took turns starting at the top of the hill and sailing down on our bikes, no pedaling required, and often hands-free. Flying through the air like birds was better than any virtual video game kids play today. When we were finally out of breath and had enough of hill soaring, we slowly made our way toward home.
The waning light of dusk drained the trees and flowers of color. The sky turned steel gray and fireflies began to twinkle in the air. Then, in unison, the street lights flicked on like a necklace strung from metal posts.

Writing the Hard Stuff

2010-03-03T08:48:00.000-05:00

Writing memoir can be a joyous ride or a rugged trip down memory lane. Writing the stories of growing up in Levittown for this blog is like tripping into fairyland--the sky is aglitter with rainbows and mist, the grass is neon green, and the air smells of clover, toasted marshmallows and honeysuckle. But no one's life is completely docile and idyllic. For me it was adulthood that pushed me over the edge.

Though this blog is about Levittown, it is also about the process of memoir writing. And today's post addresses the tough stuff. I have been fortunate to have many writers as a support team to get me through what I have dared not write about for so long. First of all is my writers' group. We met through IWWG and have been meeting for seven years. Our group's name is "Tapestries" because we are woven together by our writing dreams and our compatible personalities. I also belong to Story Circle Network. I have been a member for 11 years and have been supported by online classes, publication in Story Circle Journal, belonging to online reading and writing circles, and for the first time this year attending their National Conference. At the conference I was able to connect with some wonderful women, among them Susan Wittig Albert, founder of SCN, Lisa Shirah Hiers, the SCN President, and writers like Janet Riehl, Matilda Butler, and Linda Joy Myers. I have made new connections that will help me get the tough memoir written, finally.

Today I am grateful for these wonderful women and support teams that honor my writing. I thank you all for your love and dedication to women and the craft of writing. When you share the struggles of writing, especially the hard stuff, and offer soft shouilders to cry on when the going gets impossible, you know you have found your tribe. I'm glad I belong to the big tribe of writing women and to the smaller tribes of Tapestries, Story Circle Network, and the International Women's Writing Guild.
Happy writing to all of you and happy reading to the rest.

First Home

2010-02-20T15:16:00.000-05:00

HOME IN LEVITTOWN
The Cape Cod house

stood on the corner

of Barnyard Lane

Protected by

       a white fence

       a copse of evergreens

      a lifetime of memories
For ten years

its soulful eyes

      welcomed me home after school

      watched over all my departures

      reflected and repeated the love in my parents’ eyes.
Forty years later

a new family

      drastically changed the outside of the house

      modernized and expanded it

      beyond recognition.
But deep in its heart

      are the same beams of wood

      concrete slab foundation

      pulsing beat of life

holding my childhood forever.
Forty years later

      I walk the same grid of sidewalks,

      pass the house

      yearning to enter,

      see what it has become--

yet reluctant to find

the only things left

are memories

and yellowed photographs.

Writing on a Frigid Afternoon

2010-01-30T16:49:00.000-05:00

While the temps dip to the teens and pewter clouds crawl across the sky like a down comforter, I sit at my computer and write. I slide back to warm summer days under shady maple trees, to a simple time when there were only 5 tv stations and music was monophonic. I slip a soothing CD into the player and remember the time when music was recorded on black vinyl and diamond tipped needles had to be replaced and dusted on a regular basis. It all comes back to me, or calls to me to return to the splendor of childhood.

It's hard to keep to a writing schedule, even when the stories I write are fun. So many other activities call to me--like reading a novel, painting a picture or turning images and words into a new collage piece. But I plod ahead because I am working on a book that must be written and shared. I let publication pull me toward the finish line of completion. But more than that, I must write this story for my children and grandchildren and for all of you out there who also grew up in Levittown in the fifties and sixties when life was a beeze and not a monsoon of stress and activity. I must write it so your children can know what wonderful lives we lived.

The writing comes after a few minutes of quiet recollection. I feel the stories fill me as the words fill the page. I keep the image of the completed book in mind as I work out starting points, character development and satisfying endings. Soon two more stories are done and accomplishment warms me. I cease to know the bite of winter, but only the pleasure of my fingers on the keys.

The Writing Process

2010-01-21T10:34:00.003-05:00

Writing memoir is a challenge and a joy. Writing the Levittown Stories is the joyful part because unlike many authors of memoir, my childhood was a pleasure, filled with love within an intact family that dispensed affection instead of abuse. The memories come like little bits of chocolate or peppermint candy--sweet on the tongue and raising endorphin levels to joyous heights. They come unbidden or with the slightest nudge of my writer's prod.

I hope my readers enjoy these stories about a time and place that lives in my heart and head. They depict life in its most magnificent glory. Someday I hope to produce them in a book for my children and grandchildren so they will know exactly where I came from and what I am about. But there are other memoirs to write, not so glorious or pleasant. Perhaps that will be another blog or maybe those stories will stay inside notebooks and hidden from public view.

That is a struggle many memoirists have--how much to tell and who to allow to hear the stories. You must tell the truth, but how much of it do you reveal? Sometimes revealing the story to yourself is the most difficult thing to do. But we must, as writers, get our stories down and out in the world, like a tiny infant who clamors to be born and breathe her own air. These stories need to breathe too and maybe once they do I can breathe freely at last--unburdened and free of the stories that hold me back and hold me down.

It's all good! Life is good! And time is a wasting--so back to the story writing.

Stories

2010-01-21T10:32:00.001-05:00

THE SHED

In the 1950’s there were no plastic playhouses with snap together walls and colors not found in nature. Barbie was barely a child and her Dream House hadn’t been built yet. Dora the Explorer wasn’t even a figment of someone’s imagination. But we did have places to play. A blanket tossed over a couple of chairs, sofa cushions arranged like a giant deck of cards, an empty refrigerator box, or the carefully arranged copse of evergreens that stood in the corner of our front yard. All of those play houses were far superior to any of today’s plastic constructions.
My favorite play house was the shed my father built in the corner of our backyard. It was a small rectangle of wood and nails that Daddy worked long hours to build. It took him weeks and weeks to slowly and meticulously create a home for his lawnmower and garden tools. Those long weeks were heaven to Emilia and me as we took possession of the shed as if it were being built just for us.
On long hot summer afternoons, and navy blue evenings sparked by lightning bugs, we would act out the stories in the mystery books we devoured like M&M’s. The Six-Fingered Glove Mystery, Nancy Drew mysteries, and other stories we created ourselves were the fodder for our wild imaginations. The shed became our theatre where the stories came to life entangled in silvery spider webs and covered in sawdust.
I remember one summer night when the heat and humidity closed in on us and our unfolding mystery like heavy velvet stage curtains. We’d set up our dolls to be characters from the story. We dressed the set with twigs, leaves and old popsicle sticks stained with the fruity colors of the sweet frozen treats.
The story was underway: A secret and a buried treasure needed to be discovered. The shade of the apple tree, its seductive scent floating on the air, gave just enough darkness to lend suspense. We crawled over the cool damp earth, reciting the story, manipulating props and dolls, speaking dialogue for the characters. As the mystery unfolded we solved the secret, an old man hiding out in an abandoned house in the woods, and dug up the treasure made of old coca-cola bottle caps and cardboard caps from glass milk bottles that were delivered to the side door of our homes twice a week.
Dusk fell and the street lights blinked on like the eyes of wild animals, our signal that it was time to go home. Emilia headed to her house and I went inside for a bath, pj’s and a half hour of the Sandy Becker Show on our 12 inch black and white Philco television set.
A few days passed, rainy and sticky, while we remained indoors reading and playing out the stories in the empty drawers of a cardboard chest. Then when the sun came out we returned to my backyard with a new mystery to play out and solve. But our little theatre was now filled with Daddy’s lawnmower, garden tools, and my bike. The bare wood was painted the deep green of Robin Hood’s forest and the naked roof now had a coat of weathered gray shingles.
The show was over. The stage had been re-purposed and the magic was gone. As summer ended we made ready for fourth grade and bigger things to come. Though we still read mysteries we became more involved in playing out life instead of made up stories. The shed receded into the shadows of the apple tree and became a tiny little memory in a sea of many others.

2010-01-12T08:24:00.002-05:00

THE POOL

It’s nine o’clock in the morning. Already the heat of a July sun has evaporated the dew off the roses and wilted the blueberry bushes. The grass in the backyard is crinkly beneath my bare feet. But my bathing suit, hanging on the clothesline, is dry and that’s all I care about at the moment. I free the yellow and orange pleated fabric from the tight clothespins and run back in the house to get ready. After I slip into my suit and put on a long t-shirt to protect my modesty I pack a canvas bag with a towel, a book, a comb and mirror, my bathing cap and a sandwich and a drink in a thermos. This summer Emilia and I can go to the community pool without an adult. Such is the reward of turning ten in the 1950s. We carry the honor like an Olympic medal in the guise of a simple metal tag on an elastic band that lets us into the pool.
We arrive at the gate at ten minutes before ten when the pool will open for the day. Every second of the opportunity to swim or sit in the sun must be sopped up like the chlorine water that will turn our skin white like chalk and our lips blue with cold. The gate opens, we enter and show our pool tags, as well as notes from our mothers that say:
“ My daughter is ten years old and has my permission to swim in the pool
Without my supervision.”
We find a nice piece of concrete at the end of the “big” pool and spread out our towels. The pool tag gets slipped around an ankle so it won’t get lost. This year it is more precious than a diamond ring. We struggle for endless minutes to shove our hair into the rubber bathing cap. It is a hideous piece of headgear but girls must wear them in the water to keep our hair from clogging up the drains and filters. A small price to pay for the pleasure of this day.
The sun is hot on our backs. The clear blue water is icy cold. We stand on a line about twenty feet from the edge of the pool and face each other.
“Once, twice, three shoot!”
She shoves out her hand with two fingers sticking out. My hand has three fingers extended. So, guess what? Emilia takes one step sideways closer to the water.
“Once, twice, three shoot!”
This time she has two fingers out and I have only one so I step sideways.
“Once, twice, three shoot!”
We keep this up until I have one foot dipped into the water. The next step I take is a plunge into the pool. Seconds later Emilia follows and we stay immersed until lunch time.
What can two girls do for two hours in a pool? The possibilities seem endless when you are ten.
We swim races from one side of the pool to the other. Head under, head out, back stroke, breast stroke. There are no limits. We toss a penny or pebble into the water and dive for it. We perfect our handstands. And in the middle of a race to the ropes that separate the diving part of the pool, the twelve o’clock whistle blows and it’s time for lunch.
There is no food allowed in the pool so we go outside the gates to the playground. We eat bologna sandwiches with mustard on white bread, a plum or peach, and some pretzels in the shade of maple trees. Then we go back to the pool to read until the obligatory hour is up before we can go back into the water. I am reading “Betsy Tacy and Tib.” Emilia is reading “The Six Fingered Glove Mystery.” We lay on our towels only inches apart and yet we are worlds away. The pages of a book can transport us farther than a DC-6.
Then we struggle back into our bathing caps and head back to the pristine coolness of the water.
“Once, twice, three shoot!” And we splash into the pool.
By five o’clock, our skin is goose bumped, our lips are blue and our teeth chatter. But if you asked, neither of us would say we were cold. At five o’clock the lifeguard’s whistle blows and we must get out. This time is reserved for adults and everyone under the age of sixteen must leave. Emilia and I need to be home for dinner anyway so we shed our caps and pull combs through our drenched hair. We sit outside the fence surrounding the pool and let the sun dry us off. Then we put on our shirts and walk home.

The process of writing memoir

2010-01-05T07:48:00.001-05:00

Digging into the process of writing memoir evokes a garden of emotions. A garden filled with fragile flowers, hardy foliage and treacherous weeds. It starts with the cultivating of fields long left fallow. Plunging my hands into the soil uncovers the challenge of making something grow from the unnourished earth of forgotten memory. I stare at a blank page in a notebook or a barren computer screen and wonder how to make something grow. But in writing, as in gardening, one must just begin.

What I find are dry seeds that I water with the tears and laughter the memories bring. From each memory many things may grow. There is joy and sadness and the buds of childhood desire. There is the warm respite of writing about happy times and the shuddering fear of telling the stories that might hurt the feelings of other people, or that might expose things about me that would shatter the image I present to the world. There are the brilliant blossoms of achievements and the steadfast weeds of memories I would sooner leave buried with the bones of old pets.

How one comes to write memoir is an individual choice that comes from a personal need to share something, or to just examine what was and compare it to what it is and what will be in the future. A memoir writer hopes to learn something about herself and in the process to teach a life lesson or two to her readers. It is a joy and a burden to write memoir and it’s nice to know there are so many women out there also going through the pain and reward of getting it done. After all, we are born storytellers and we all have a story to tell.

The Artist's House

2010-01-03T17:02:00.001-05:00

THE ARTIST’S HOUSE

About four blocks up Loring Road from my house toward Hempstead Turnpike, stood a very spooky looking house. Emilia and I would pass it walking to Food Fair to pick up items either her mother or mine had forgotten on their weekly shopping trips. We also had to go by that house on our way to Howard Johnson’s for ice cream, or to the roller skating rink on Saturdays.

The house stood on the corner of the block and had rough faded gray shingles and was surrounded by a split rail fence over which grew red leafed, thorn laden hedges. Through the squinted eyes of a nine or ten year old I imagined the witch’s house from Hansel and Gretel--only this house wasn’t made of candy. Emilia and I would speed up as we walked by the house and its adjacent greenhouse filled with exotic plants in bloom all year round. We never saw the woman who lived there but Emilia and I could picture a wiccan gypsy in flowing colorful dresses that no other woman in our neighborhood would wear. The fact that we never saw the mistress of the house out in her yard or in the greenhouse, added to the mystery we created to surround her. We didn’t even know if it was a woman, a man, or a family who lived there, but our imaginations were quick to supply any missing details and so we made the inhabitant a woman.

It wasn’t until I was 11 years old and in sixth grade that I found out how right and wrong we really were. I met a girl who had just moved to Levittown. She and her mother were renting a room in that very house that caused chills to dance up my spine every time I passed it.

One day she invited me over to visit and despite my reluctance I went. After all, I was on the brink of junior high and felt more sophisticated. And I liked Susan and wanted to be nice and welcome the new girl in town.

What I found beyond the thorn covered red leafed hedges and the gray shingled walls was a creative, warm and inviting home. In the living room was a real stone water fountain built by the woman who owned the house. This woman was not a witch at all. She was petite and of an indeterminate age. She had a long dark pony tail that reached her waist and was highlighted with long streaks of gray the color of the split rail fence outside. She wore a bright red silk shirt that was loose and dotted with paint, a shirt so big it practically swallowed her up and made her look even smaller. Her small size alone dispelled any fears I had and made her less threatening than a lady bug. She was in the middle of sketching and painting a mountain scene right on the entire wall of her living room. I was amazed.

Instead of the dark interior Emilia and I had imagined, this house was bright with color and creativity. It made me feel free to be myself. After all--who wouldn’t love to be in a house where drawing and painting on the walls was not only permitted but encouraged. Who wouldn’t love the woman who allowed you to do so.

Perhaps, besides the seeds that sprouted in the greenhouse, a seed had sprouted in me. A seed of creativity and the potential of art and craft to bring life to a home. Looking back it reminds me of my son Jesse who painted meandering leaves and vines across the walls and ceiling of his bedroom. And of the first time his daughter Isabella crayoned the walls and he took pride in her first piece of art.

Remembering that artist’s house and the woman who lived there, reminds me not to be afraid of impulsive creativity, but to go with the impulse, follow where it leads and see where it takes me.

New Year's Resolutions

2009-12-31T17:34:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow will begin a new year and some new resolutions are in order.
The most important one is my resolve to complete all my memoir writing projects. The biggest one is the collection of essays about growing up in Levittown.
I have sadly been away from this sight for a long time, but I am back now and hoping to make 2010 the year that I get more visitors to my blog and consistently post more stories along with some essays about the process of memoir writing.
To new and old visitors to this blog----
Happy New Year

2009-01-17T10:54:00.004-05:00

THE BOOKMOBILE
Excitement built in me as Emilia and I walked down Ridge Lane and went to the corner of Brook Lane and Barnyard lane. The yellow sun provided a velvet heat and the breeze that grazed our cheeks was soft and cool. the scent of freshly cut grass mingled with honeysuckle and privets. Robins and sparrows crooned odes to summer. As we got close to the corner we walked faster. The blue Levittown Library’s Bookmobile would be arriving any minute.
Each week the bus-shaped vehicle came with its selection of library books to be borrowed by the members of the neighborhood. Most families owned only one car, which was used by the father to go to work. The Bookmobile was a service provided to those who lived too far from the library to walk there. Its convenience escaped me at the time. I simply thought of it as a treasure chest that I could rummage through each week.
By the time the Bookmobile pulled up to the curb a long line of readers had assembled, the leader seeming to know precisely where the door of the vehicle would be
when it stopped. We followed the throng of book lovers up the two steps and into the Bookmobile where we returned our books and began to stroll among the shelves. The Bookmobile was a narrow, one-way affair. People entered from the front and exited in the rear. We followed those in front of us until we finally came to the children’s section. As the patrons browsed you could hear quiet snippets of conversation, but in general a silent reverence filled the small space. The Bookmobile was, after all, an extension of the public library and in those days library patrons whispered.
Standing side by side in front of the children’s books Emilia and I searched the selections. We pointed and elbowed each other and eventually chose a handful of books: The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew Mysteries, Betsy-Tacy books and Carolyn Haywood’s Betsy books. We picked one or two picture books just for fun and I chose a collection of children’s poems.
I ran my fingers along the spines of the books, tilting my head to better read the titles. The feel of the books, even in their sterile plastic library covers, was second only to the feel of the pages as I turned them while I read. There is a big difference between a person who loves to read and a person who loves books. Reading them is a wonderful trip into fantasy or foreign places.

Touching and smelling books, cracking the spines of a new book and owning books lined neatly along wooden bookshelves, is a sensual experience. As I browsed I would take a book and open it. The odor that escaped was unique and continues to evoke feelings of coziness and expectation. It draws me, as completely as the words, into the imagined lives of the characters. My father who only read one book in his whole life, “God’s Little Acre,” also loved the smell and feel of new books. How glad I am that I feel the same way.
Emilia and I made our final choices and checked out our books. The library cards we carried in the pockets of our shorts were no less precious than our first driver’s licenses would be years later. We walked back to her house and placed our books on her bed, then went to the kitchen for iced tea. We played in the yard on the swings for a while and then I headed home.
“Call me after you eat dinner,” I said.
“okay. Want to ride bikes?”
“Good idea. See ya later.”
When I got home I darted through the side door. Hearing the screen door’s creak my mother came into the kitchen. I showed her the books I had chosen while we shared a snack of summer plums. Of course I was not permitted to touch the books while I ate. In my mother’s house books were sanctified possessions and very often covered with saran wrap while they were being read. I carefully washed and dried my hands before picking up three books and taking them outside.
I sat in the cool grass in dappled shade and sunlight and felt the breeze on my face and soft grass beneath my bare legs. For a few minutes I simply gazed at the clouds. Soon enough I was drawn to the books lying next to me: Betsy and Tacy Go Over The Big Hill by Maud Hart Lovelace, Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski and Back to School with Betsy by Carolyn Haywood. I picked up the books and stacked them in size order. I browsed the titles, noted the authors’ names , checked the number of pages in each book, read the chapter titles and the dust jacket blurbs and author biographies. Each action pulled me in with quicksand power. Then I chose a book and began my ascent into literary heaven. I was oblivious to everything around me. All that existed were the magic words of my story and the new friends I was about to meet on yet another literary adventure.

Kindergarten in Levittown

2009-01-01T11:51:00.002-05:00

The soil left from the potato fields was rich and dark and everything my parents planted in their many gardens blossomed into beautiful rose bushes, peonies and fruit trees. We also grew tomatoes and blueberries and a stand of three evergreen trees that would later be a favorite place for me and my best friend.

The ground was fertile, but so was the family culture of the fifties. I remember those years, and that town, as the best years and the best home of my life. But even then my insecurities were beginning to emerge, like the weeds that grew up through the cracks in the sidewalks that we refused to step on. We would chant, “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back. Step on a line, break your mother’s spine,” as we walked to school, or to the town pool, the bookmobile, or down the block to the grocery store. But that was later. At age four I was still a ward of my mother’s court, carefully supervised in the house, and outdoors. My first taste of freedom came in September of 1954, when I turned five and went to kindergarten.
Wisdom Lane School was four blocks from our house, one of those “blocks” being the big field behind the school that we walked through. In spring the field would be filled with tiny brown toads and the boys would catch them and torment the girls by waving them in front of our faces or sneaking them into our pocketbooks. But that came later, when we were older and less supervised. In kindergarten Mom led me by the hand and deposited me at the doorway of the separate wing of the school where the two kindergarten classes were. The classrooms were filled with delights and treasures for five year olds, including friends and a nurturing teacher. Outside were swings and a sandbox big enough to park a truck in. I liked the soft warm feel of the sand between my fingers. I also liked to ride the strap swings up to the blue heavens, floating far above the realities of life. But most of all it was what was inside those brick walls that intrigued me.

Mrs. Connolly, my kindergarten teacher, was a middle-aged woman with graying hair and a comforting voice who gave me my first thoughts of becoming a teacher. I wasn’t aware of the movement inside me, but I must have known, at a subconscious level, that I wanted to spend my life in a classroom.

In the fifties five year olds weren’t pressured to learn how to read and write. Our two hours in school were occupied by the difficult work of learning who we were through play. There was a block corner, where the boys usually played. And there was a doll corner, which was the girls’ domain. Gender equality wasn’t even a germ of a concept, and no one seemed to mind.
As if my desire for solitude was already embedded in me, I cannot remember too much about the other children in that classroom. My mother tells me today that Mrs. Connolly was concerned that I preferred to play off by myself. Was it sensory overload, an extreme shyness, or simply the habits of an observant, introspective girl? I remember Mrs. Connolly and I remember the art activities and the dolls. And I know I had a genuine need for acknowledgement and attention and would do anything to get it. I fought an internal war between shyness and a need to be noticed. One way I got that attention involved a kitten.
I don’t remember how it started, but I know it ended in my getting caught in the first lie I would tell to gain some validation for myself. What disconnection from the world, what inner need, what desire for self-esteem, attention and recognition possessed me to bring some stray kitten to school with me and tell Mrs. Connolly that it was mine?

My teacher gave the kitten a saucer of milk, which it devoured the same way I devoured the attention from the teacher and the other children. A shy, quiet, miniscule girl had found her moment of glory. A moment which ended two hours later when Mom came to pick me up and revealed that the kitten wasn’t mine.

Coming to Levittown

2008-12-14T15:28:00.000-05:00

In 1946 William Levitt saw acres of barren farmland and had the wondrous notion of creating a low-priced housing community for the GI’s returning from World War II. My parents, being WWII veterans themselves, were able to take advantage of that opportunity. Though they wouldn’t buy that little Cape Cod house until 1953, that advantage given them, became an advantage of mine--growing up in a wonderful place, at a wonderful time.

We arrived in Levittown in Daddy’s black Buick in the year 1953. All my worldly possessions were packed into cardboard boxes, except for my Saucy Walker doll that I cradled in my arms. At four years old I wasn’t quite sure what this whole moving thing was about but from the car window I saw a square gray house with white and turquoise shutters. The house sat on the corner of Barnyard Lane and Gun Lane. The opened door looked like a smiling mouth ready to welcome us in. The two front windows greeted us like soulful eyes offering a promise. I trusted that promise of a warm home and a happy childhood and I was not to be disappointed.

For the first time I would have a bedroom of my own. A small, rectangular room that held my bed, a dresser for my clothes, a shelf for my books, toys, dolls and records. My first sanctuary. One of many more to come. Indeed, as Virginia Woolf proclaimed, every woman needs “a room of her own,” and this was mine. Unpacking my things and putting them on the shelves was just the beginning of my fairytale childhood memories.

Introducing Levittown Stories

2008-12-13T10:01:00.000-05:00

Summers came like a giant gift, wrapped in bronze sunshine, the rippling shadows of maple trees, the music of children's laughter and the scent of honeysuckle and privets. On the first day of vacation I awoke as the sunrise painted a stripe of gold across the horizon and sleepy birds prodded the damp ground for worms. I put on shorts, a t-shirt and a pair of red PF Flyers and went to the kitchen. I felt the cold milk as it touched my throat, but barely tasted the cereal floating in it. When you are eight years old there is no time for eating. Adventures await you that cannot be missed. I was outside bouncing a pink Spaulding ball on the concrete sidewalk when my best friend, Emilia, arrived.

We weren't interested in the news of the world. We lived in Levittown, a small cookie cutter community on Long Island, in the state of New York. And nestled in the gridwork of streets and sidewalks was everything we needed for our idyllic childhoods.

What adventures didn't come our way we created for ourselves. There were no computers or video games. The television had a total of 6 or 7 channels and was a novelty that we watched for only an hour before bedtime. We found our stories between the pages of books and those we couldn't find we gladly made up. It was a world remote from the one we live in now. It was a chidlhood rich with possibilities. This blog will post a collection of stories about growing up in Levittown and give my gentle readers a sense of the time and place I grew up in. And, too, the sense of friendship between two young girls that has grown and lasted over fifty years.