Marie Memories

 Every so often I have one of those days where I think about her a lot. I'll see something or hear something and she will immediately spring to mind. Following are a few things I think about in regards to her:

• She always packed the exact same lunch for us in elementary school every day: a peanut butter and bacon sandwich, a hard boiled egg, 4 Oreos and a sliced orange. Sometimes when it wasn't the lunch box, it was a small brown lunch bag. I hated buying the school lunch.
• Her love for Tom Jones. When she found out I met him once when I was doing a fashion show, she just about lost her mind!
• She would tell me "a whistling woman is fit for neither God nor the devil". I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but it terrified me. There were no other options! And now I am no longer able to whistle!
• Sometimes she would call and say she made something I really liked, and she would save me some. When I would stop by, she would have it in a container. I always said, "Can you put the container in a paper bag like when we were kids?" She always did, and wrote my name on it. I'm not sure why she always seemed to have some on hand, but it always made me happy. Maybe that's why!
• For our birthdays she would always make the same cake: butter yellow golden with chocolate frosting. No matter who you were or how old you were. Man, I miss those cakes! Sure I could make my own with Duncan Hines like she did, but it's not the same.
• She could NOT make chocolate chip cookies. Thank goodness for Mrs. Dinicola!
• She wasn't the greatest dancer, but she could do the Elephant walk and some weird sideways swimming motion when the music got good to her!
• She wouldn't hesitate to yank down my b-r-a from the back (through my shirt) if she thought the girls weren't "sitting right". Shocked me on more than one occasion, and would do it in public! But it was better than being at her house and her telling me to "lift up my shirt so she could make sure the straps were adjusted correctly". 😦 Yeah...no.
• The only thing I ever wrote that she liked was a story about a Christmas angel. I wrote it in the 7th grade.
• She insisted she wasn't a drinker, but she would always accept one (or 2!) hi-balls if offered. (Like a Tom Collins)
• She made my wedding cake, and it was the best cake ever (unlike the marriage).

Oh Marie: we had our differences, but we also had some good / funny / odd times too. That's what I'll always remember. 

Give Pumpkin a pat on the head for me 😊

One Night At The Club

 The song "Young Hearts Run Free" by Candi Staton just started playing on the Sirius channel on my phone. It immediately took me back to one particular night at my favorite club. Not because they played this song that night, but because of something else.

I must have been around 18. It was a Saturday night, and I was waiting for my bestie Vickie to pick me up so we could go to the Golden Grill Disco, which is what we did most Saturday nights. She would also swing by to pick up Denise and Ivy, since they lived on the way to the club. We were all dressed up and were anticipating an evening filled with lots of dances and good-looking men!

We got there, sat at our usual table and let the night unfold. We were laughing, dancing, flirting and having a great time - until the unthinkable happened. I was on the dance floor, looked up: and my parents were walking through the door! Not just them, but my Aunt Elnora, her husband Uncle Tom, and my father's brother Jeff from Baltimore with his wife Catherine.

Don't get me wrong: I loved Jeff and Catherine, Uncle Tom was my favorite uncle and his wife was gorgeous. However: what were they doing encroaching on my territory at their age??? I hustled off the dance floor and went up to them. "What are you doing here???????"

Marie answered, "Well you're always talking about this place, so we wanted to check it out. Especially since Jeff and Catherine are here visiting. Tom and El like to dance so..." Seriously??? 

As you can imagine: this put a serious damper on my evening. The only thing that could have made it worse would have been if Denise and Ivy's parents had been there too! And to add insult to injury: all of them except for my parents got on the dance floor and started dancing! Uncle Tom was close behind Aunt El while she had her arm in the air, waving it like she just didn't care! Jeff and Catherine got up there and did the Baltimore Boogie or some such thing. However, thankfully Marie and Clarence just watched with big smiles on their faces. Oy vey! Vickie was giggling and said, "Wow, look at them go!" I was wishing they would!

So there was no more sexy dancing with hot guys for me: not with family on the watch. After awhile Denise and Ivy didn't care but I invited my parents to our table and pouted like a child. When were they leaving???? Not soon enough.

As I look back on that night so many moons ago, I wish I could go back and enjoy that night with them. I'm sure they didn't really care if I wasn't pleased: the important thing was that they had a good time. They even got home after I did that night! But now: Jeff was the first of the group to pass away: followed by Catherine, my father and then Marie. 💔Only Uncle Tom and Aunt El are left but they don't go out dancing anymore... 😢 Sadly, I can't turn back the clock.

Anyhoo, why does that song remind me of that night? Because it was Uncle Jeff's favorite song, and Catherine said that he would leave her for Candi Staton if she'd let him, ha ha. So I always think of them when I hear that song. 💖 Thanks for playing it, Studio 54 Radio!