A Year of Blogging: July 26, 2011

July 26 is Aunts and Uncles Day. Just like I wasn't close to my cousins growing up, I wasn't really close to most of my Aunts and Uncles (dad's siblings). There were so many of them! When we were little, I was probably closest to Dad's youngest brother, Tim. He is Laura's and my Godfather. Uncle Tim was 16 when I was born. We used to take a day trip and visit him in college. He went to Central Connecticut, and was on the football team. Our trip started early in the morning, with Grandma and Grandpa coming to our house. We filled thermoses with cocoa and coffee and soup, packed bags with snacks, and piled all the extra blankets we could find in the car. Then we set off in the pre-dawn darkness for Connecticut. After the game, Uncle Tim took my sister and I around campus. We thought we were big deals! Uncle Tim carried one of us on his shoulders, and a friend carried the other one. I remember meeting lots of girls. Later, when I was older, I realized he'd basically been using us to pick up girls. I was closer to Mom's sister, who is also our Godmother. We used to play dress-up in her clothes. She worked at a bank, so she had a lot of professional clothes: skirts, dresses, and heels. Lots of heels. On rainy afternoons, we went into her closet, put on her clothes and had fashion shows for my grandparents. She never minded. She had a record player in her room, and while we were dressing up in her clothes we put Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA' on her record player and played it over and over and over again. We experimented with her makeup and tried out her jewelry. When we visited in February, we went on whirlwind shopping trips with her and Grandma, and then shipped boxes full of new clothes home via UPS. When I was really little, about 3, I called her at work one day and asked her if I could keep any money I found in her old pocketbooks. She figured I would find a dollar or so, so she said yes. I forget exactly how much I found- but it was quite a sum for a three year old. After that, she learned to clean out her pocketbooks before she put them in storage. She has always had a lot of pocketbooks. She still does. We have gotten closer now that she is back in NY and I can see her more often. We share a love of books and history, and she's about the only person who doesn't mind trekking through cemeteries with me. The Aunts who really influenced me though were actually Great-Aunts. Aunt Hazel lived next door, and she taught me how to knit. She let us work in her leather shop, decorating leather scraps with her fancy stamps and designs. She and Uncle Sid looked out for us when we were outside. Their door was always open. We didn't have to knock, we could just walk in. If they were in the house, Aunt Hazel was usually in the kitchen, and Uncle Sid in the living room sitting in his chair. I can't count the hours we spent at their house, just hanging out. Uncle Sid was like another Grandpa to us. He and Laura were incredibly close. They used to walk the neighborhood together, stopping to chat with everyone. One neighbor, Frank, who had been a great friend of our Grandfathers', had two lawn chairs that he kept in the front of his garage. He would sit there, with the garage door up, watching the comings and goings in town. Frequently, Uncle Sid sat there with him. Before long, Frankie added a smaller version of the same chair, putting it between the two big ones. That was for Laura. She loved sitting there, gossiping with the two old men. The Aunt we spent the most time with was Aunt Vera. Aunt Vera is a great-aunt on Mom's side. She is about 4'9" and always dressed to the nines. Her husband, my Uncle Ernest (Grandma's brother) died when I was four. The only thing I remember about him is that he was tall and very thin. He smoked a pipe. He died suddenly of a heart attack. I remember Mom standing in the kitchen crying as our neighbor tried to comfort her. So for most of my life, Aunt Vera has been a widow. She was widowed young, she was not yet 56 when Uncle Ernest died. Mom always included Aunt Vera in our plans- she invited her for all the holidays, birthdays, and frequently just for Sunday dinner. If we were headed past her house, we stopped to make sure she was ok. Aunt Vera really was another Grandmother to Laura and I. For many years, Aunt Vera remained in the home she had shared with Uncle Ernest. It sat on top of a hill, with sweeping views from the living room overlooking the valley. At the back of the house was a huge family room, with a bar. She had the cups you shake drinks in, and martini glasses. It was very 1960's rat-packish. Laura and I loved to host huge imaginary parties in that room. We were the best hostesses! Every year, Dad's company had a picnic in Connecticut or Massachusetts. Mom and Dad took the weekend and spent the night. Laura and I were sent to Aunt Vera's. We looked forward to that weekend all year, and actually asked Mom and Dad to go away more often so we could go to Aunt Vera's (sometimes she did take us over night, just because). Aunt Vera's grandchildren were teenagers, and at the age that they didn't really want their grandma around. So she happily spent time with us. We went to Bennington to go shopping and to have dinner at McDonalds. In nice weather we also stopped to play miniature golf and to get an ice cream. In colder months, she took us to the museum. When we were pre-teens and teenagers, Aunt Vera came to get us once every couple of weeks and we went off on adventures. Sometimes it was to the amusement park an hour away, other times we went to Manchester, Vermont to ride the alpine slide. The trips to Manchester were the best. We rode the alpine slide until we were worn out, then we went for lunch. Then we stopped at the Jelly Mill, which was an old barn that housed tons of little stores, including a candy store where you could get Jelly Belly jelly beans. After shopping, we stopped to play Mini Golf. We arrived home exhausted, and yet Aunt Vera still had enough energy to go for days. She is a bundle of energy, even now at 86 years old. She looks like a sweet little old lady, but she is a spitfire. When I turned 16, Mom and Dad both tried to teach me to drive. They couldn't do it. Mom and I are so much alike that every time I got behind the wheel we had an argument. Dad got frustrated with me. And then he couldn't give me directions well, which frustrated me. Aunt Vera was down one day for dinner, and Mom and Dad were saying they didn't think I'd ever learn to drive. It was summer, and Aunt Vera said 'I'll teach her'. Mom and Dad tried to dissuade her, but she said 'I can do it'. When Aunt Vera and Uncle Ernest got married, she couldn't drive. When he got sent of to WWII, he taught her to drive so she could keep his logging business and sawmill going. She learned in the matter of a couple of days, and after that, her little frame could maneuver logging trucks, school buses, anything. While she's a bit of a fast driver, she is a very good driver. She even offered to teach me on her Volvo- which was a standard. Mom and Dad didn't want that, so she agreed to teach me in my old beat-up car Mom had bought for me. Aunt Vera worked with me almost every day, all summer long. We got out onto the highway, where the speed limit is 55, and I was doing 20. Sure, it's a rural highway, but people were still blowing past me. Aunt Vera sat in the seat next to me telling me 'don't worry about them, just do what you are comfortable with. Let them go around'. It was a breath of fresh air. Once she knew I had the driving part down, she started working with me on parallel parking. She borrowed some of Dad's five gallon pails and set them up in the church parking lot. She spaced them far enough that you could have parked a semi in that space. My first attempt caused the bucket to get crushed. So she thought about it, went back to the house, and came back with a rake and a broom, and red rags. She set the rake and broom each in a bucket and tied a rag on the top of each. She got in the car, and asked if I could see them. Then she worked with me on parallel parking. I've never mastered it, in fact, I almost failed my driver's test because I was too far away from the curb and the nice DMV lady gave me another try (which by the way, is odd- no one else I have ever known in NY had a lady as the tester or got another try!). Mom still says if it weren't for Aunt Vera, I wouldn't know how to drive. Now that I am an Aunt, these are the things I think about. Someday, I want Drew and Sydney to talk about how much fun Aunt Amy is. I want them to always want to spend time with me, to enjoy coming to my house. I never want them to dread seeing me. My greatest hope is that we will always remain close.