Once upon a time there was...
No, that's not the way I want to start.
Four score and seven....boy am I glad I am not there yet! This is enough of an adjustment.
Half a century ago..... No, that just sounds too old.
Fifty years ago today, a little girl was born in a small city in south Jersey. She was the third of what would end up being four children. There's not a lot that I know about her birth, really. Her parents were both twenty-nine. Her mother had a hard time with all of her pregnancies, but she said later that delivering this little girl was easy because of something called "twilight sleep." Her father said that the doctor was nowhere near the delivery room, but they had to pay him anyway.
Her mom was a homemaker; her dad worked for Owens-Illinois. I am not sure what his actual job title was.
Two siblings awaited her arrival. One was a boy of eleven, the other a girl of seven. Nobody ever told me if they were excited or not, but the mom and dad were, and that's what counts.
The family lived in a duplex on a quiet street. I have seen it. It looks roomy. They lived there for twenty-one months after the little girl was born. Then the dad was transferred to Ohio.
I am that little girl. And although today is my fiftieth birthday, I know that within me lies the girl who lived in the duplex, the one who moved to the apartment in Ohio. I wonder, sometimes, how life really was for my parents. My son is twenty-six and looking at him, now, I know how young they were at twenty-nine. When I was twenty-nine, my children were five and six. It was the year before my brother-in-law was killed in a tragic accident while working on the railroad, but nothing momentous happened that year. At least nothing that has stuck in my memory.
My brother-in-law was thirty-seven when he died. He left a twenty-three-year-old wife, a three-year-old boy and a three-month-old boy. After the funeral, one of the railroad wives came up to me and said that his wife was too young, that it should have been one of us. "Why?" I wanted to scream. "Would we have missed our husbands any less? Didn't our children need their dad just as much?"
That whole situation was bad. My husband was there when it happened and, as if that were not enough, he heard all the gossip as the railroad reached a settlement with his brother's widow. His brother was a foreman, and the railroad gave his wife a smaller settlement because they said that if he were going to be more than a foreman, he would have been by that time. I think it upset all the men who knew about it. Washed up at thirty-seven? That's a pretty young age to have achieved all that you can.
I didn't do anything momentous at thirty-seven, but at thirty-eight I went back to school. I had planned on doing that once the kids left home. I went early because I was tired of subbing and having people ask me why I didn't get a real job. Subbing in Ohio wasn't like it is here in Indiana; you actually had to have a four-year degree to do it. Going back with two teenagers was sort of hard, but my husband was very supportive. He didn't complain about the money or the housekeeping that I let slide. I am very A-oriented. Had to have 'em. And I did. I took sixty-four hours in eighteen months so that I could get my English certification.
Just as I was finishing, my husband went back to school, so our kids never really got a break. He was working full-time at that time, so it was hard for him, too. He always regretted not having finished his degree earlier, but the family into which he was born needed him, and he rose to the task. Then his situation changed, and he was not predictably free during the week. Thank goodness they have weekend college now!
Before he got done I got my first "real" job teaching English in parochial school. Junior high. I have to say this...I learned a lot about working hard when I worked at McDonald's during college, and I learned even more working at the parochial school. It was rewarding, but it WAS slave labor.
Just as I got comfortable in my job (they say it takes four years, which is the amount of time I have been in my current position), Norfolk Southern purchased ConRail and we moved. I was really thankful that the move involved a step up for my husband. He disproved the statement about his brother and became a supervisor when he was forty-eight. Truth be told, I breathed a sigh of relief that he had a job, period. I know there are many who have not been so fortunate after a buy-out.
But the move was a bigger deal than I thought. Being three hours away from your family does not sound like a lot, but it really is. And it is hard to make new friends in a new town. Silly things matter when you move, like finding a TV station that you like or a grocery store that you can live with.
Then our son got married and I got RA (reverse the order, though.) Talk about adjustments! He is in the Marines, and he got married 9/10/01. In case you missed that, the next day was 9/11. And I had to get used to not being able to do the things that were once easy for me. For a while there, I was looking at using a walker, which was a big thought to me at the age of forty-six.
Fortunately, things have not turned out as badly as I feared. Turns out, there ARE nice people in Indiana. I didn't have to use a walker. And for four years I have had a job that, although I never would have sought it out, has allowed me to serve other people. Some of them are pretty helpless and need all the people looking out for them that they can get. I don't know that I would have even considered it if I hadn't already been slowed down, and it has been a lifesaver in that it kept me moving when I could easily have quit. My son and daughter-in-law have presented my husband and me with two precious grandsons, and my daughter has come through a bad marriage and is landing on her feet. Not even the fact that my old car broke down today and we replaced the dishwasher yesterday can take away my gratitude that despite all the things that have happened to me along the way, I am here. I made it. To half a century.
And as the little girl who was born in south Jersey looks forward to the next half, she will carry with her the tall, shy teenager, the new wife, the young mother, the woman who has survived tragedies and wept with joy. I wonder who they will become.
No, that's not the way I want to start.
Four score and seven....boy am I glad I am not there yet! This is enough of an adjustment.
Half a century ago..... No, that just sounds too old.
Fifty years ago today, a little girl was born in a small city in south Jersey. She was the third of what would end up being four children. There's not a lot that I know about her birth, really. Her parents were both twenty-nine. Her mother had a hard time with all of her pregnancies, but she said later that delivering this little girl was easy because of something called "twilight sleep." Her father said that the doctor was nowhere near the delivery room, but they had to pay him anyway.
Her mom was a homemaker; her dad worked for Owens-Illinois. I am not sure what his actual job title was.
Two siblings awaited her arrival. One was a boy of eleven, the other a girl of seven. Nobody ever told me if they were excited or not, but the mom and dad were, and that's what counts.
The family lived in a duplex on a quiet street. I have seen it. It looks roomy. They lived there for twenty-one months after the little girl was born. Then the dad was transferred to Ohio.
I am that little girl. And although today is my fiftieth birthday, I know that within me lies the girl who lived in the duplex, the one who moved to the apartment in Ohio. I wonder, sometimes, how life really was for my parents. My son is twenty-six and looking at him, now, I know how young they were at twenty-nine. When I was twenty-nine, my children were five and six. It was the year before my brother-in-law was killed in a tragic accident while working on the railroad, but nothing momentous happened that year. At least nothing that has stuck in my memory.
My brother-in-law was thirty-seven when he died. He left a twenty-three-year-old wife, a three-year-old boy and a three-month-old boy. After the funeral, one of the railroad wives came up to me and said that his wife was too young, that it should have been one of us. "Why?" I wanted to scream. "Would we have missed our husbands any less? Didn't our children need their dad just as much?"
That whole situation was bad. My husband was there when it happened and, as if that were not enough, he heard all the gossip as the railroad reached a settlement with his brother's widow. His brother was a foreman, and the railroad gave his wife a smaller settlement because they said that if he were going to be more than a foreman, he would have been by that time. I think it upset all the men who knew about it. Washed up at thirty-seven? That's a pretty young age to have achieved all that you can.
I didn't do anything momentous at thirty-seven, but at thirty-eight I went back to school. I had planned on doing that once the kids left home. I went early because I was tired of subbing and having people ask me why I didn't get a real job. Subbing in Ohio wasn't like it is here in Indiana; you actually had to have a four-year degree to do it. Going back with two teenagers was sort of hard, but my husband was very supportive. He didn't complain about the money or the housekeeping that I let slide. I am very A-oriented. Had to have 'em. And I did. I took sixty-four hours in eighteen months so that I could get my English certification.
Just as I was finishing, my husband went back to school, so our kids never really got a break. He was working full-time at that time, so it was hard for him, too. He always regretted not having finished his degree earlier, but the family into which he was born needed him, and he rose to the task. Then his situation changed, and he was not predictably free during the week. Thank goodness they have weekend college now!
Before he got done I got my first "real" job teaching English in parochial school. Junior high. I have to say this...I learned a lot about working hard when I worked at McDonald's during college, and I learned even more working at the parochial school. It was rewarding, but it WAS slave labor.
Just as I got comfortable in my job (they say it takes four years, which is the amount of time I have been in my current position), Norfolk Southern purchased ConRail and we moved. I was really thankful that the move involved a step up for my husband. He disproved the statement about his brother and became a supervisor when he was forty-eight. Truth be told, I breathed a sigh of relief that he had a job, period. I know there are many who have not been so fortunate after a buy-out.
But the move was a bigger deal than I thought. Being three hours away from your family does not sound like a lot, but it really is. And it is hard to make new friends in a new town. Silly things matter when you move, like finding a TV station that you like or a grocery store that you can live with.
Then our son got married and I got RA (reverse the order, though.) Talk about adjustments! He is in the Marines, and he got married 9/10/01. In case you missed that, the next day was 9/11. And I had to get used to not being able to do the things that were once easy for me. For a while there, I was looking at using a walker, which was a big thought to me at the age of forty-six.
Fortunately, things have not turned out as badly as I feared. Turns out, there ARE nice people in Indiana. I didn't have to use a walker. And for four years I have had a job that, although I never would have sought it out, has allowed me to serve other people. Some of them are pretty helpless and need all the people looking out for them that they can get. I don't know that I would have even considered it if I hadn't already been slowed down, and it has been a lifesaver in that it kept me moving when I could easily have quit. My son and daughter-in-law have presented my husband and me with two precious grandsons, and my daughter has come through a bad marriage and is landing on her feet. Not even the fact that my old car broke down today and we replaced the dishwasher yesterday can take away my gratitude that despite all the things that have happened to me along the way, I am here. I made it. To half a century.
And as the little girl who was born in south Jersey looks forward to the next half, she will carry with her the tall, shy teenager, the new wife, the young mother, the woman who has survived tragedies and wept with joy. I wonder who they will become.
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1 Comments:
That is a large collection of random thoughts. It is weird what you see when you look back on your life.
Or maybe you are just easily distracted and need a nap. :P I hear that happens sometimes when you get older.
Happy Birthday, Mom!
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