Talking with my younger sister . . .

My younger sister and I visit with each other by phone almost every Tuesday and today was no exception. It was quite warm in Connecticut and it was very warm here in Louisiana. I started to reminisce about growing up in Moosup. I vividly remembered Mama sending us to the library to get books during the summertime. She loved books and we always got books for Christmas but I think  she used to get us 'out of her hair' by sending us to the library! We would walk up Highland St. Ext. to High St. all the way down to the library on Main. It was always a pleasant walk and Ma always knew if we behaved ourselves because Miss Main ran the upstairs and Miss Dolly Barber the downstairs so Ma could always check on us. It's odd that I can picture these two women - Dolly was short and a bit stout with dark hair and used to tell me stories about Ma teaching her how to set type at the Journal Office. I recall her saying, 'Dolores would tell you to pay attention because she was only going to tell you how to do something once. So you paid attention!' Not sure why this has stuck with me. Miss Main was a very sweet, grey haired lady and strict about the rules, a perfect librarian. I used to love going to the library. We would sometimes walk home by Main Street and up Church cutting across the parking lot at Paul's Package Store to get home. When I was little I used to make sure no one crossed our lot as a shortcut and would tell them to 'Get off my propity!' What a pain in the derrière I was! I think the big kids laughed at me.

I remember sleeping out in an army tent Pa would set up in the back yard. The girls in the neighborhood would sleep out together one night and the guys got a chance the next night. The worst thing that I remember about that is rolling over on the army cot, yes we had cots! and I felt something cold and clammy squish under my side. I jumped out and grabbed the flash light to see that I had squished a huge, monster green ugly tomato bug. I do believe I decided to sleep in my own bed after that. I remember all of us kids, neighborhood kids too, singing songs in our living room while my older sister played the piano and I still get teary eyed when I remember when it was my turn in the heat of a summer night to sleep on the porch swing and listen to Butch aka Tex Lévesque play his guitar upstairs at his house across the street. I think he used to sit out on their porch roof. Butch died while he was serving in the US Army in Italy - it seems he had drunk too much and left a bar feeling sick; he didn't want to ask anyone for help. He was found dead outside near the stairway. I still feel the loss and that was so long ago. I remember Ma wouldn't let me stay outside to play in the summer after 7 o'clock. It was so unfair! So I'd creep out of bed and sneak to the hall window and watch the older kids playing. I even saw Georgie break his arm as his brother Charlie was playing 'airplane' with him! Holy cow. I don't know why all of these memories are flooding in tonight. We had a heck of a good neighborhood and most of the time all the kids played in our yard because my mother loved to watch us play especially the pick up baseball games. To pick the players for a team two of the older boys would throw a bat and work their hands around the bat one after the other; who ever managed to get the last hand on the bat would be able to start calling the name of the best player he wanted to start on his team. Then the other boy would name his player and back and forth until everyone was taken except me because I was always the littlest. But usually Charlie would let me play on his team kinda like the bat girl! And I remember Ma would have to referee if the kids got out of hand. At the end of almost every summer the older kids would get together before school started and bring Ma a big bouquet of flowers with a fancy card thanking her for letting the whole neighborhood play in our yard. We even played football on Saturdays in the Fall and Charlie would still pick me for his team. He was a big guy and must have been about 15 to my 7 years old. His team would get the ball to me and before anyone could tackle me he'd protect me all the way to the goal and if he had to he'd make like a cave with his body and I would sneak under him for the touchdown! Tonight, I refuse to remember my little sister Louise getting a very high fever one evening and dying. I had to sleep at my Aunt and Uncle's across the street while all of the adults and Charlie and the doctor tried to save her. I remember eating hazelnuts and shagbarks, fishing and cowboys and Indians, swinging my life away on the numerous swings we had on the front porch and under the big maple, swimming at Moosup Pond, getting the eggs at the neighbor across the street. I remember Pa and Ma putting up a sheet on the wall in the living room and showing movies to all of the neighborhood kids and even adults. My mother would charge the adults a safety pin to get in. She was always short of safety pins for the baby's diapers! I remember picking raspberries with Pa while Ma and Pauline picked them over and made up gorgeous baskets of the best berries on earth and then Pa would put them in our wagon and we'd walk down Church Street and sell them. I think we sold them for .50 and even Dr. Barry bought some from us. I remember  Gert Panasuk's ice cream parlor, literally her parlor  which was just across the lot from us. Ma would send us to get some odds and ends and Gert would put the change in the bag with the bread or whatever we had bought. Ma didn't realize that the change was in the bag and used to throw the bags in the garbage which Pa would burn every Saturday. You know we found a lot of black change under the barrel when the bottom gave out! I remember my friend Sylvinia Pareno whose family spoke Spanish and whose Dad was involved in trying to overthrow Castro. My friend Karen and I have tried to find her but we haven't yet. The last Karen knew Sylvinia was in New York City and that must be at least 50 years ago. I remember stopping on the way home from school in Potvin Village to see Mon Oncle Sam and Ma Tante Bernadette. She would be making home made doughnuts and Mon Oncle would be cleaning up after her! Best honey dipped doughnuts ever as she would let me dip them in the honey for her. Well that's it for tonight.