Being the eldest I was always in the middle. I was the one that babysat so the rest of the kids saw me as middle-management, yet when something went wrong I was punished as one of the kids. I sat with the kids at the holiday dinners and in the middle seat of the station wagon on long drives. We lived next door to my aunt who had four kids, we had five kids in our family and one of my mom and aunt's best friends had five boys, all younger than me. Yeah, 14 kids and I was the eldest.
On our street we had the Vetriceks and right down the way the Hansons. From those families have come police officers. Chuckle. Could have predicted that from the games played. Anyhow, back to me. I led the fourteen of us (plus whatever neighborhood gang was there) up hill and over dale. We combed the woods from 19th and Irving to 25th and up to the Column. We knew where the overgrown long forgotten gardens were and each spring had the best pick of flowers to sell door to door. Each day we wanted to we could sell about $15 worth of flowers, which back in the day was quite a bit. Each older kid would team up with two of the little kids and go door to door using the little kids to hold out the bouquets and look up adoringly. I don't remember ever setting a price on those flowers. People just gave us whatever they wanted to.
We would also organize parades. "Give a hoot don't pollute" was very profitable for us. We would make cardboard signs and hang them around our necks, with various slogans regarding polluting on them. Then half of us would have kazoos and the other half would have cymbals, blocks, and an assortment of other noise makers. We would parade up and down 19th street screaming, "GIVE A HOOT DON'T POLLUTE" until one of the neighbors came out and gave us fudge sickles or money to run down to Public Market for treats. We thought it was in praise of our efforts! Ha, ha, ha, ha!
In the evenings we would put on "shows" and charge admission. One of our most popular shows was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was very, very dramatic and we were asked to perform this one many times, to my recollection. My parent's and aunt's friends were duly impressed and paid us for their tickets. We even gave this performance for a Tupperware party or two!
Imagine my surprise when one of my sisters called me a while back to ask if she was having a horrible dream or if I had actually really and truly made her blow a kazoo in a Give a Hoot Don't Pollute parade! Made her? You begged me to be in it, was my memory. You have got to be kidding, was hers. You threatened our lives if we didn't. She's crazy, always has been.
Now, that shook me up a bit. A leader doesn't like it when the troops have different memories. This was a glorious memory of our childhood. Checking in with other members of our past and it seems that quite a few of them have been discussing things on their own and coming up with an unauthorized history of 19th street. According to some, these events were embarrassing! According to some, they were traumatic, needing years of therapy to get over! According to some, the little cuties were unhappy with their cut of the flower proceeds and are thinking of a class action law suit after all these years.
What the? It wasn't about the money, it was about fun, camaraderie, being with the big kids! Sheesh. Look where they are at now. One of them has a PhD and is head of her department working for the state of Hawaii and runs triathlons, owns her own house there! Another owns a home in Bellevue, blocks from Microsoft, head of PTOs, organizing marathons, go-to-guy for the school's money making ventures, another is the very first white person to hold tenure at the private school where he is teaching in a foreign land, another was head of her division at Boeing making mother boards for 747s, two more are in rock bands cutting cds as their part time jobs, full time one's a pastry chef for an eatery in downtown Seattle and another is an electronic technician. Thank God, none are in Hollywood writing a movie. No Jeremy, you are not.
I mean if not for the creative childhood "we" had together who can tell where they would be now? At home, in Astoria, watching television, writing on a blog?
Hey! Hmm, like my eldest has been known to say, "My mom always made it easy to leave home."
3 comments:
I have a cousin that was the "runt" of the gang ... me, my borther, and 2 cousins ... at family gatherings. He was the constant object of jokes and scarey stories while hiking through the woods ("was that bigfoot?").
He went in the Marines, after high school. Now he's a "corrections officer".
Which goes to prove my theory that a certain level of "bullying" is beneficial. And perhaps even necessary for certain careers.
Yikes! I guess I am happy none of them ended up in Springfield or Columbine!
Yikes, they should be paying you royalties, not suing you!
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