I WAS ALWAYS A LITTLE DIFFERENT

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As far back as I can remember, I always felt I didn’t quite fit in with everyone my age. Reflecting on my childhood experiences, I believe there were several reasons why I felt like the “Odd One.” 

I grew up in the 1950s. My fraternal twin didn’t seem to care for me at all. On the other hand, I had a lot of friends in the neighborhood where I grew up. My best friend, Joanie, lived three houses away from my house. Then, I made friends with a new girl who lived at the end of Fellowship Road.

That is the name of the street I lived on until I was twenty when I moved out. And there was the fixation I had on Cats. I loved them. The neighbor lady, Mrs. Collins had many, many cats,, and they lived in her basement and could go in and out through a flap in the basement window. They would then be inside a fenced-in area that ran from the back of her house to the end of her backyard. I became obsessed with those cats. I visited them every day, sometimes several times a day, for my entire childhood. And Mrs. Collins had a dog named Rudy, who I loved as well. That is where my love of animals began.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I had no friends. I had a lot. First, my best friend, Joanie, lived next door to Mrs. Collins. And all the other kids who lived on Fellowship Road, including the boys. I used to go next door and play with army men with my next-door neighbor, Jackie Rice. He was a few years older than me but a friendly kid. His mother was a window as her husband had died many years before. I used to go to Joanie’s house as soon as I was dressed. Her father soon told me not to come over so early or often. Fortunately, he wasn’t home that much during the day since he worked long hours at an Acme Food store.

After school, I would play with all my school friends, as my friend Joanie had to do her homework right after school. I did mine after dinner. Before I had a bike, I used to walk to my friends’ houses. But once I was on wheels, there was no stopping me. I went over all my girlfriends’ houses and didn’t leave until it was almost dinnertime or when their parents said,” Time to go home, Susie.”

When I wasn’t visiting my friends, I would make things out of stuff I found around my house. I was always a creative kid and kept myself busy. I spent much time at the Maple Shade Library, where I learned how to read. It was located on Main Street, next to the police station. Once I had my bike, there was no telling where I would go or how far. As long as I got home in time for dinner, there was no problem. My parents never asked me where I went or what I was doing. I kid you not. Maybe they thought they were better off knowing what I was up to at any given time.

I rode my bike to Strawbridge Lake and some as far as the Moorestown Mall, the first Mall in Southern NJ. I never had any money, but I still liked walking up and down inside the Mall. At the time, they had a giant birdcage with Parrots, and I came to love those birds. My mother had a pet, a parakeet. And we had a dog (actually, it was my father’s dog; his name was Andy. I loved that dog.

My father did not believe a dog should always be kept in the house. And he would allow him to go and come at will and never seemed to worry where he went. Because he always came back. He also gave Andy corn on the cob to eat, and when Andy went outside, he would poop corn in all our neighbor’s yard. Our neighbors were not fond of Andy. But my father loved that dog. And every night, Andy would lay on the floor next to my “father’s chair.” And my father would pet him all night until he went to bed.

As I related to you early in this memoir, I was not your regular kid. I was extremely creative. I always loved making things, drawing, and making up stories. I told so many stories that most of my family and friends took everything I said with a grain of salt.

When I graduated from the eighth grade, my parents decided that my sister, Karen, and I would attend St. Mary of the Angel’s Academy in Haddonfield, NJ. We had to take the bus back and forth. St. Mary of the Angel’s Academy was an all-girls school, which was just fine with me because, at the time, I didn’t care about boys. I admit I didn’t put much effort into studying and doing my homework. My mother made every effort to make sure I was doing what was required, and it was because of her efforts that I graduated from high school. My mother was the kindest, most loving person I ever met or had in my life. She worked hard all her life and never complained about anything. Everyone said,” She was a saint.” And I believe that was true. My mother was a loving and caring person who worked hard every day. I was so lucky to have her.

THIS IS A DRAWING I MADE OF MY HOME IN MAPLE SHADE, NJ, WHERE I GREW UP.

My father was something akin to a “Big Grouch.” His nickname was “The Old Bear.” And he could be pretty harsh. Over the years, I realized I was lucky enough to have my parents in my life. He did everything he could for all of his children. I’m not saying my father was perfect; he wasn’t. He worked hard but also had his own life outside of home. He played cards for money. On his days off, he had a part-time job at Johnny Marrow’s Auto Supply Store in downtown Maple Shade. He also went to the Garden State Racetrack and played horses. Once, he won big, and he took my entire family out for dinner on his winnings. It was the only time I remember attending dinner with my whole family. I’ll never forget it.

My mother worked at Wanamaker’s employee kitchen while my sister and I attended St. Mary of the Angel’s Academy (a girl’s high school.) I’m not saying my family was perfect; we weren’t. But, as I look back over those many years, I know that I was blessed to have my parents, four sisters, and brother. My older brother was a psychologist and spent his whole life helping people. My eldest sister, Jeanie, lived in New York most of her adult life. And she was lovely and so funny and intelligent. Unfortunately, Jeanie had Alpha-one Atrypsin Deficiency (emphysema), and after many years of being ill, she passed away at forty-one. When I was living in California with my husband Bob, he was attending Brooks Institute for Photography. My only brother, Harry, passed five years ago from liver cancer. I have always been so proud of my brother, who spent his whole life helping people. Luckily, I still have my sister, Karen (my fraternal twin), Eileen, and my sister, Liz. And many nieces and nephews and great-nieces and nephews. There’s nothing like an Irish family. And I feel blessed to be a part of it.  THIS IS ME WHEN WAS A LITTLE GIRL

As for myself, although I was somewhat of a shy child, I grew up to be outgoing and independent. I moved out of my parent’s house when I was twenty, and I got my apartment in Haddonfield, NJ, which happened to be the town where I went to high school at St. Mary of the Angel’s Academy. And it was about that time when my best friend Joan, who grew up down the street from my cousin, Bob, was visiting her. She asked if I wanted to see him since I had a childhood crush on him. And that my friends were the beginning of the rest of my life. Bob and I went out a couple of times, and then he returned to Florida, where his family lived. We kept in touch by letter writing and phone calls, and after several months, I moved to Florida to be near Bob. And that my friends was the beginning of my new life, we were married and then Bob decided to Brooks Institue for Photography and we were of to California where we lived for several years until he graduated.

After his graduation, we decided to move back to New Jersey and the Philadelphia area. Where he felt there were better opportunities for work. He wasn’t able to find photography work. So, he started working with electronics which he was proficient and was hired. And that, my friends, was the beginning of the rest of our lives. We decided to start a family. We have two adult children now. Who are both highly intelligent and talented. Jeanette is married, lives in Philadelphia, and makes gorgeous clothing. Bridget lives with us in North Carolina and works in ceramics. However, I spent many years teaching art and painting. I have found that I love writing and have spent much of the last eight years in my free time writing short stories and memoirs. I have also volunteered at an animal sanctuary in Coats, NC, for almost nine years. I care for Parrots, Doves, pigeons, pheasants, and birds of all sizes. As I have said, I’ve always had a great love of animals.

In addition, I have two dogs and ten birds, and my daughter has a cat. I don’t know what my life will hold, but I hope I have many years ahead of me. I look forward to whatever time I have left. Life goes by quickly, so don’t waste any of it.

 

 

Baby Boomers

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My wonderful mother, when she was young.

Yes, people, I am a baby boomer. I was born in 1951. I came from an Irish Catholic family with five siblings. I lived in New Jersey my entire childhood until I was twenty-three, when I moved to Florida on my own. I am now about to turn seventy-four on May 24th of this year. I feel lucky to have been born part of the Baby Boomer generation. I came from a family with five siblings. Of which, my twin sister and I were the youngest. I grew up in the small town of Maple Shade in New Jersey. Our house was two doors from the newly built Our Lady of Perpetual Help elementary school.

I attended elementary school for eight years. When I came of the age to go to high school, I was accepted at two Catholic High Schools, Holy Cross High School and St. Mary of the Angel’s Academy in Haddonfield, NJ. It was an all-girls school, and I was there with my fraternal twin. I graduated in 1969. At this point, I got a job working as a dental assistant in Haddon Township. I worked for Dr. Edward G. Wozniak for several years.

When I was almost twenty-three, I decided to move to Florida to be closer to my now-husband, Bob. We were married in 1974 and have now been married for fifty years. We are retired and living in North Carolina. We had two daughters who are now middle-aged adults.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church. I lived two houses away from it.

I don’t know if I would fit the mold of all the other baby boomers of my generation. But I did start making decisions for myself and my future at a reasonably young age. When I moved from New Jersey to Florida, I drove there with all my worldly belongings. My parents did not want me to move, but I did. Everyone in my family was somewhat taken aback by my moving hundreds of miles away from my family since I had always been somewhat of a quiet and shy child. But beneath that shallow surface was a young woman who knew what she wanted and was willing to do whatever I needed to be happy.

My parents kept in touch with me while I lived in Florida. I talked to them once a week and wrote long letters telling them what I was up to, what kind of job I was employed at. I knew my parents were concerned for my well-being. I tried to reassure them that I was fine, had a job, and was generally doing well. Not too long after that, my husband, Bob, decided to go to Brooks Institute in California. He was accepted, and we were off to Santa Barbara with the few belongings we could fit in Bob’s van and my 1970 Volkswagen. We lived there for two years until Bob finished his education.
Meanwhile, I found a job at Robinson’s Department Store selling hats and wigs. If there was a more boring job, I don’t know what it could possibly be. Fortunately, I made friends with quite a few people, and one of them told me about a job working with mentally handicapped children at St. Vincent’s School. I immediately went and applied for a job. The next day, I received a call to come in for an interview. Sure enough, I was hired and worked there for the rest of the time we lived in California. I loved working with the kids, and when it was time to move forward with our lives, I had to say goodbye to those kids I had come to love like they were my children.

Then, we decided to move back to Philadelphia for better job opportunities for Bob. My parents were happy to have me back in New Jersey, and we lived with them for almost a year. Until Bob and I decided to buy a house in Pennsauken, Bob used his VA benefits, which allowed us to purchase a home without a down payment. We lived in that house for fourteen years. I gave birth to my two daughters. My oldest was born in 1981, and the youngest in 1984.

When my oldest daughter was seven and the youngest was four, I decided I wanted to get a college education so that in a few years, I could earn a higher income than minimum wage. I applied to several Art colleges in the Philadelphia area. I prepared a portfolio with my artwork. I was accepted at all the schools. I was offered a scholarship for the first year at Temple, Tyler School of Art, and I accepted it.

So, for the next four years, I juggled going to Temple University full-time and babysat children in the summer when I wasn’t in school to earn extra money. I won’t lie. It was tough having two young children and going to college full-time. I was the oldest Freshman at Tyler, but I went out of my way to befriend all my fellow students and professors. And believe it or not, I graduated four years later with a degree in Art Education and Graphic Design. I applied to every elementary, middle, and high school in New Jersey and Philadelphia. Only to discover that the school budgets no longer supported teaching arts in the public school system. I can’t lie. I was heartbroken.

That is when I came up with the idea to start art school. Sure enough, I found an advertisement for a massive house for sale in Pitman, NJ. It had been unoccupied for eight years. And it needs a whole lot of work, including a new roof. The house was five thousand square feet. It had three floors and two basements. It required a lot of work. Nonetheless, after selling our home in Pennsauken, we bought a house in Pitman. We lived there for twenty-four years until we retired and our children were grown. We had befriended all the people in the neighborhood. There were three empty rooms that the previous owners had used; he was a doctor. I renovated the three rooms and bought all the art materials I could afford. Then I took an advertisement for the ART ROOM. Sure enough, I had students after school and adult classes in the evening. I made many friends in Pitman, students and adults. 

After many years of teaching, Bob and I decided it was time to retire. I knew I would miss our Pitman home and the people we loved there. But there was no way we could afford to live there after Bob retired. After researching states that would be affordable, we decided to move to North Carolina. And here we are nine years later. I have volunteered at an Animal sanctuary in Coats, NC, for nine years. Taking care of birds, mostly Parrots. I have always been an animal lover. And I have ten birds of my own, two dogs, and my youngest daughter has a cat. We also have a Koi Pond. And that, folks, is where I am now retired in NC. Who knows what I will do next, but don’t worry, whatever it turns out to be, I will tell you about it. Life is short, so do your best, treat everyone the way you would like to be treated, and be kind to all people and animals.

Although no longer young, I still have my dreams and goals. Don’t let your age keep you from enjoying your life or be afraid to try something new. Life is short; Live It.

LIFE AS I KNOW IT

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My mother, when she was young

It is the year 2025, and in May, I will be seventy-four. It is hard to believe because I certainly don’t feel that old, but I will be that old. This fact makes me reflect on my parent when they were that age. My father died from lung cancer in 1986, and my mother died from congestive heart failure one year later. My mother was born in 1910, and my father was born in 1911. They were married in 1929. They lived in Philadelphia for a time and ultimately purchased a home my father helped build in Maple Shade, New Jersey.

They had eight children in all. Unfortunately, a set of males that were born after my twin sister and I did not survive as they were born prematurely. They were buried in a cemetery in Moorestown, New Jersey. My oldest sibling, Harry, was twenty years older than me, and my oldest sister, Jeanie, was nineteen years older. My sister, Eillen, is eight years older than me, and my sister, Liz, is several years older. My eldest sister, Jeanie, passed away when she was forty-one. She developed Alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT) deficiency ( a genetic disorder), causing emphysema. No one else in our family developed this disorder aside from her. My sister, Jeanette, was one of the kindest and funniest people I ever knew, and so beautiful. My brother, Hugh Carberry, was twenty years older than I; he passed away five years ago when he was eighty-five. He was a practicing psychologist who spent his life helping people. He was an outstanding father and husband.House I grew up in.

My next oldest sister is Eileen, eight years older than my twin, Karen, and I. She is among the kindest and most hard-working people I’ve ever known. My sister, Elizabeth, is seven years older than my twin and I. She was a practicing nurse in her working years. She dedicated her life to helping people when they were ill. And then there was myself and my fraternal twin, Karen. Karen had a highly successful career in her working life. She was a district manager for Subaru.

My employment years were diversified. Over my forty-year career, I worked in many areas, starting with being a dental assistant right out of high school for six years. Then, I worked as a psychiatric aide in Ancora State Mental Hospital for over a year. Then, I worked at Ellis Insurance Company, selling high-risk insurance Compate in Haddon Township, NJ.

Our home in Pitman, NJ

At that point, I met my now-husband, a cousin of my best girlfriend. I moved to Florida to be with him, and shortly thereafter, we were married. That, my friends, was fifty years ago. My husband Bob and I moved to California because Bob wanted to attend Brooks Institute for Photography, his main interest.

After Bob graduated from Brooks, we moved back to New Jersey and stayed with my parents for about a year, and then we purchased a house in Pennsauken, NJ, where we lived for fourteen years. We had two children, girls three years apart. When Jeanette turned seven and Bridget was four, I applied to Temple University, and I was accepted with a scholarship for the first year after they inspected my art portfolio. I graduated four years later with a 4.0 average with Magnum cum Laude (great with honors) and Art teaching credentials. I sent my resume to all the public and private schools in the South Jersey area. Only to be informed that the public and private schools were no longer teaching art to save money. I spent months looking for a position teaching art to no avail.

Our home here in NC.

That was when I decided to look for a bigger home that would accommodate our family and have room to teach art. I eventually found a home in Pitman, NJ, which had been empty for almost eight years. It was 5,000 square feet. And within that, there was an area with three rooms and a bathroom where I could teach art. And so, we sold our house in Pennsauken and moved into the Pitman home, which needed a great deal of work, not to mention a new roof and new heating and air conditioning units. Somehow, we succeeded in our endeavor; we bought the house and had a new room put on it. Over the next twenty-four years, we renovated the house and the yard, front and back.
I opened my school and taught art to children after school and adults in the evening for many years. In this way, I met and befriended many people who lived in Pitman, and we lived there for twenty-four years. Until we reached retirement age, it was hard to leave our home and all the friends we had made over the many years we lived there. But we couldn’t afford the high taxes we had to pay every year once we retired. It was a difficult decision; our kids had grown up there and had friends. We had many friends; It was hard. But life can be difficult sometimes, and you must roll with the punches and move forward. After much thought and research, we sold our beautiful home in Pitman, NJ, and all our friends. We then retired to North Carolina, which was a less expensive area to live in during our retirement.

And here we are, almost nine years later, living in North Carolina. I have been volunteering at an animal sanctuary for the past nine years. And I began writing short stories and memoirs. I don’t know what will happen in the coming years. But, I will keep on as my generation has always said. So, I keep putting one foot before the other and never give up. Life is what you make of it.

My Irish Ancestry

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Dublin, Ireland

     As I have been writing this blog for eight years, I thought you might be interested in hearing about my family history. My family of origin was Carberry. Our family name was originally O’Cabri, and we were from Ireland. My family originated in Northern Ireland, in County Down Patrick, in the parish of Grossgar and Killyleach, Bally Patrick.

     Elizabeth McMullen (my paternal grandmother) was twenty-eight when she married Patrick Joseph Carberry on April 2nd, 1899. He had just turned eighteen years old. Patrick had a seventh-grade education. Elizabeth had a fifth-grade education. Frances McMullen witnessed the Marriage. They had a first child, John Henry Carberry. He was born on January 26th, 1901. The child was stillborn or died soon after birth from unknown causes. Patrick J. Carberry emigrated to the USA on May 18th, 1905, on the oceanline, The Baltic.” It landed at Ellis Island, NYC. His name is engraved on the wall of immigrants.

     At that time, thousands upon thousands of Irish emigrated to all parts of the world, including Britain, Australia, Canada, South America, and the USA. They left to escape the repercussions of the potato famine and the widespread poverty and unemployment that prevailed in Ireland and the potato famine and the widespread poverty and unemployment that prevailed since then.

     They were given $12.00, the cost of the trip to America, by the landowners and the taxpayers who were hard put to feed all the starving people in Ireland. The Irish immigrants often had to endure extremely crowded conditions in the steerage section of these ships. The majority of these passengers could described as laborers or servants without occupation. They depend upon the weather, the prevailing winds, and the quality of the ship. It was a dangerous trip. There was always a possibility of shipwreck, but disease was the greatest danger. Outbreaks of disease, especially typhus, are not uncommon. Of whom 20,000 people had died.

This is a picture of me when we were in Dublin, Ireland.

     The voyage took two months, depending on the weather, the prevailing winds, and the quality of the ship. After their arrival, they did not know if they would be allowed to stay. They often arrived only owning the clothes on their backs and what they could carry. And then they were sent on their way.

     I have not been able to establish if Elizabeth McMullen(Carberry)traveled with Patrick or came at some later date. In 1911, Patrick and Elizabeth had a second child. Hugh Henry Patrick was born on February 11th at their home at 803 North 43rd Street. His baptism was witnessed by Mary McMullen) a relative of Elizabeth.

     Patrick found employment at SEPTA as a trolley mechanic. SEPTA is the South Eastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, and he was a trolley mechanic. Unfortunately, Patrick died suddenly of uremic poisoning, which he had contracted as a complication of dysentery. He died on August 11, 1915, after an eleven-day hospitalization after an eleven-day at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Philadelphia. He was thirty-four years old at the time. He had no relatives in the USA. He is interred at Calvary Cemetery on 48th Street and Lancaster Avenue in Philadelphia, PA.

     Patrick was an only child with no relatives in the USA or Ireland. Hug was four years old at the time of his father’s death, and Elizabeth was forty-two. Elizabeth and Patrick had purchased a home described as small but cozy, kept clean, and well-cared for.

     Elizabeth Carberry was left a widow and a single parent. She had to provide for herself and her son. For the first year after her husband’s death, Elizabeth kept body and soul together by renting rooms to boarders but found there was little profit in it. She found employment at Horstmann’s, where she was a seamstress. She earned $10.00 a week. She kept one border. By then, her son Hugh was in second grade and was described by his teacher, Sister Leonida of St. Ignatius School, a private school, as a good boy who was especially good at math.

     Elizabeth decided that the best place for her son to receive a good education would be Girard College, a residential school for orphans or boys with one parent. This school was established in 1848. It was established by Stephen Girard, considered the richest man in America at the time of his death. The School is located on College Avenue in Philadelphia, on forty-three acres. It still exists to this day, but there are both girls and boys there at present.

Small village in Ireland

Small Village in Ireland

     My father, Hugh Carberry, passed away in 1986 at the age of 75 from lung cancer. He was one of the most intelligent people I ever knew. My parents were married in 1929. I was born in 1951. I have a twin sister and four older siblings, all older than I was. Of the remaining four, there are four of us.

     I feel blessed to have been a part of the Carberry family. My father was stricken, but I always knew he loved me. I still miss him to this day, my dear mother died one year later, in 1987 from congestive heart failure. She was the kindest and loving person I have ever known. I still miss her to this day. I couldn’t have asked for better parents. I was blessed by their presence in my life.

Adventure One, Moving to Florida and Onward

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     It was 1974, and Bob and I married on July 13th, 1974. I was twenty-three years old and recently moved to Florida to be near Bob. I had never visited Florida before and was thrilled to live in such a beautiful environment. It was so lovely, save for the overwhelming heat and humidity. It’s not that I was never exposed to humid heat; I was born and raised in Southern New Jersey. The winters were bitter and cold. Icicles hung from the roof of our house; you could ice skate on the sidewalks or the church parking lot behind our house in Maple Shade, where I grew up. I lived in it until I was twenty and decided I wanted to be independent from my parents. This is me with my first child , Jeanette

So, I decided to rent a small, one-bedroom apartment in Haddonfield, NJ. Haddonfield is a prestigious and beautiful town. I attended Saint Mary of the Angels Academy high school there. So, I was familiar with the city, and I loved it. My apartment was located two blocks from the public library. And two blocks away from downtown Haddonfield. There was only one other apartment in the building. An older woman lived there alone. I rarely saw her. Beneath the two flats was a knitting shop where the woman who rented the other apartment sold supplies for knitting, I suppose, since I never went into the shop.

One day, the woman who lived in the apartment next to me knocked at my door and told me to be on the lookout for the dentist who practiced next door to our apartment/knitting shop. I thought she was paranoid, but low and behold, she wasn’t paranoid. She told me to keep curtains on all the windows and to lock my car doors.

The next day, I sat at my tiny kitchen window and had a creepy feeling that someone was staring at me. I looked out the kitchen window, and sure enough, the creepy dentist was looking up at my window, where he could see me standing in my pajamas. Since I was from a small town, I had no idea anyone would try to steal a peak of me when I was in my abode. But, sure enough, there he was, big as life. I flashed him the one-finger salute, which I had never done before. He made a weird smile at me. I opened up the window, which was almost impossible since I nearly killed myself, trying to yank the window and yelling, “You are a freak; I’m going to call the Haddonfield police if I see you looking up here again. And I flashed him the one-finger salute again. And that was the last time I saw that freak, my friends.

Around that time, my oldest childhood friend informed me that her cousin Bob would visit her family soon. She asked me if I wanted to come and see him while he was there. I said, “Yes since I always thought he was “cute.” I went to Joan’s parent’s house, and Bob was there. The next thing I knew, Bob and I went to eat with his other cousin and girlfriend. They lived in Philadelphia. We went out a couple more times, and then he had to return to Florida, where his family lived. I wrote him letters for several months, and before I knew it, I was on my way to Florida. My friend Joanie (Bob’s cousin.) told me about an auto-train. I packed all my clothes and sewing machine and headed toward Lorton, Virginia. It was quite an experience since I had never driven farther than Philadelphia. When I arrived at the train station in Lorton, I found a public telephone and called my parents to let them know that I had arrived safely at the auto-train depot and wouldn’t arrive in Florida until early the following day.

And then I would have to follow, Bob. We arrived hours later, and I stayed overnight at his parent’s house. The next day, I went to the apartment that Bob had found for me. It was a small apartment with one bedroom, a small bathroom, a tiny kitchen, and a living room. Only one other tenant and the husband and wife’s apartment owned the building. They were friendly people that I only saw when my rent was due.
Meanwhile, I had to seek out employment. Bob’s cousin Margie recommended an insurance company for high-risk clients and said she would give me a reference. Sure enough, I was once again working in an insurance company. My immediate co-worker was supposed to train me, but she never got around to that. But she was a decent person. She was old, at least that’s what I thought then. Because I was only twenty-two, it was a company called B.D Cole. I worked there for a short time. I had to start looking for another job because they laid off any older or new employees. And that, my friends, was the beginning of a new peas can. So, I began searching for another job. This was when I discovered that companies in Florida at the time would only hire new employees who had lived in Florida for at least three years. So, that was a kettle of fish after looking for employment unsuccessfully. I decided to attend the West Palm Beach Beauty School. And I was accepted. It was a ten-month course. And so, I completed the course. I’m not sure why I wanted to go to a hairdressing Academy. Since I had never previously had any interest in hairstyling,

But, as push came to shove, I applied to the Beauty Academy and was accepted. It was an engaging experience. I met many lovely young people and some middle-aged students. I made a lot of friends. I had difficulty finding a job at a hair salon because of Florida law, which requires you to be a resident for three years to be hired again. This is ridiculous since most of the residents of Florida didn’t originate from Florida but from some other state.

After a month, I found a job opening on Singer Island in Florida at the Collonades Hotel. It was owned by a millionaire named McArthur—a couple named Zimmerman. I did facials. The customers were primarily wealthy visitors from Canada. And some of the wealthy occupants of the Cononades Hotel. They were friendly people. It was a good experience for me, and I made many friends. I was putting Bob through the Brooks Institute for Photography. When He graduated, we decided to move back to New Jersey. So, we began our long trek back to New Jersey and Philadelphia, where we believed there would be more job opportunities. My parents were so happy we were returning since I hadn’t seen them in five years.

Bob and I stayed at my parent’s house, my childhood home, until Bob could find a job. It turned out there weren’t any jobs in photography in the Philadelphia, New Jersey, area. So Bob found employment doing electronics at RCA in Princeton, NJ, which was a relatively long haul from Maple Shade, New Jersey. Nonetheless, he accepted the position and began working. Meanwhile, we stayed at my parent’s house until we decided we had enough money saved to put a downpayment on a small house in Pennsauken, NJ, which was only about a twenty-minute drive from Maple Shade. It was a three-bedroom house with a small kitchen, a dining room, a decent-sized living room, and a basement. We ended up living there for fourteen years. In the meantime, I had two children, three years apart. And I was busy taking care of them. Pennsauken Elementary School was only a ten-minute walk from our house when they were old enough to attend elementary school.

Temple University Philadelphia

Temple University, when I was thirty-six and graduated at 41.

When I was thirty-five, I decided I needed a higher education to make decent money, so I applied at the Hussian School of Art and Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I had to prepare a portfolio of my work and take an exam to be accepted at any higher education university. I was accepted at both schools. Temple University offered me a scholarship for the first year, so I decided to go there.

And so began my higher education. I was the only student in the first-year class of a non-traditional age; I was thirty-six, and the rest were seventeen or eighteen. I never had any problems with the students because of my age. I made many close friends over the four years that I attended Temple. I won’t lie. It wasn’t easy attending a university and juggling caring for my children, the house, the yard, etc. But I took one day at a time. I didn’t get much sleep since I had to care for my kids, clean the house, pay our bills, and take care of our front and back yard. And believe it or not, I excelled, and four years later, I graduated Suma Cum Laude with a BA with teaching credentials. Overall, it was an excellent experience, but it wasn’t easy. The day I graduated, I received a standing ovation from my fellow students. I won’t lie; I was proud of my accomplishments and looked forward to the next chapter in my life: teaching art.

After graduating from college, the next chapter in my life was finding a position teaching Art. And that was a more significant challenge than going to school. I look forward to the next chapter in my life next week, “what I had to do when I couldn’t find a teaching position in a public or private school in New Jersey or Philadelphia.

GROWING UP CATHOLIC IN THE 1950’S AND 1960’S

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     I was born in 1951; I have a fraternal twin sister. We came from a large Irish Catholic family, of which my twin sister and I were the youngest. I had four older siblings. My brother, Hugh, was twenty years older than me, and my eldest sister, Jeanette, was nineteen. My sister Eileen was eight years older than me, and my sister Elizabeth was seven years older. My mother gave birth to my twin brother several years after my twin Karen and I. Unfortunately, they were premature and didn’t survive. When I was in my late teens, my mother and father took me to the cemetery where my younger brothers were buried. I hadn’t been told about them before, and I was upset to find out my little brothers had passed away.

It wasn’t unusual for children of my generation from Catholic homes to have large families. I do not know whether this was by choice or because no birth control adequately protected mothers in those early years from unplanned or unwanted pregnancies.

My mother in the 1950’s.

However, I didn’t feel out of place since I lived in a neighborhood where most of the families were large. My parents were married in 1929, which explains why there was such a lengthy age gab between my older siblings and my twin and I. We were born in 1951, during a time when we were referred to as the Baby Boomers. After the war, there was tremendous growth in the birth of children and larger families, so large communities were formed, and small towns grew and expanded.

When I was old enough to attend elementary school in 1958, there were over sixty students in my class and three first-grade classes. My teacher was a Sister John Michael, she belonged to the Sister’s of St. Joseph. And let me tell you, she ran that first-grade class with its sixty-plus students like we were in the military. The classrooms were overcrowded and stifling in the warmer months and cold in the winter. When I was in the third grade, my classroom was situated right next to the boiler room. And let me tell you, it was hot as hell. It wasn’t easy to concentrate when you felt like you were going to pass out at any moment.

House I grew up in.

Our home in the early 1950s in Maple Shade, NJ.

In addition, since all the classrooms were overcrowded, everything was routine. We have an assigned time to go to the bathroom, and woe is the child who had problems with holding it in or intestinal issues. I was one of those unfortunate children. One day, I kept raising my hand because I had to go to the bathroom. Dear Sister John Michael ignored me as usual. So, on that particular day, I was in distress, to say the least. I was called up to the front of the class to work out a problem on the blackboard; I tried to explain to Sister John Michael that I had to go. But she ignored me completely, so while I was trying to complete the math problem, I had an accident and peed my pants. I forgot to mention that Catholic School Uniforms were made of heavy wool: winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall. As I stood in my puddle, all the students laughed as they observed my accident. Sister John Michael smacked me hard, and yelled at me in front of the whole class. I tried not to cry, which would only call more attention to myself, and Sister John Michael told me to go to the girl’s laboratory and clean myself up. When the lunch bell rang. I was the first one in line. Students living nearby were allowed to go home for lunch and then return to school to finish the day off.

When I arrived home for lunch, we lived only two houses away from the school, and my mother could see I was crying. It took a while for my mother to get me to tell her what happened in school. She said she was going up to the school and giving Sister John Michael a piece of her mind. My mother rarely lost her temper or raised her voice, so I kept begging her not to go to school since I believed Sister John Michael would be angry if my mother criticized her for anything.

After that unfortunate event, I refused to drink anything at breakfast before I went to school. Since, I couldn’t bare a repeat of the previous event. Although this must seem such a meaningless event that was soon forgotten, I can tell you I never forgot it, Or I wouldn’t be able to tell you about this unfortunate event. The nuns left their mark on me for sure; that made a big impression. By the luck of the Irish, my third-grade teacher was a lay female teacher, whose name was Miss Norris, and she turned out to be the polar opposite of the “dear nuns” that I had up to that point in my academic career. Under her tutelage, I bloomed. She never yelled at the students, called them stupid, or smacked the student’s palms with metal-edged rulers. She was calm and never said a harsh word Or called any student a mean name. As a result, the classroom and the students in it maintained themselves and didn’t fight, argue, or carry on.

As for me, I began feeling more confident in myself and my ability to do better in school. I opened up to the other students and made many friends during that year and the ensuing years through eighth grade. At this point, the students in the eighth grade, which included me, had to decide what Catholic high school we wanted to attend. We all had to take entrance exams before we were accepted into High School. By some miracle, I passed both exams and was accepted into both Catholic High Schools. My parents decided for my sister and me to attend Saint Mary of the Angel’s Academy, which coincidentally was an all-girl high school and was located in Haddonfield, New Jersey and was a town where most of the residents were wealthy, which was a whole different environment from Maple Shade where I lived. There weren’t wealthy people living there. My parents struggled to have their children attend private Catholic Schools.

St. Mary of the Angel’s Academy was a different kettle of fish from Our Lady Of Perpetual Elementary School. Everyone in Maple Shade was working, living in smaller homes, and not having much money. Most parents both worked full-time. My mother worked and cared for the house, as did my siblings and me. I never heard a word of complaint from her, not ever. My mother was the kindest, most decent woman I ever knew. I feel blessed to have such a wonderful mother. My father worked hard and often had two jobs to make ends meet. I feel blessed that I had two such wonderful souls for my parents. I never went without. We had homemade dinners every night of the week. And there was always food in the fridge. I never lacked anything. We had all our needs met throughout my childhood and my adolescence.

St. Mary of the Angel’s Academy- All girl highschool

When I graduated from St. Mary of the Angel’s Academy, I found employment at a dentist’s office in Haddon Township, New Jersey. I had no experience working in an office, let alone a dentist’s office, but Dr. Wozniak trained me. His office was part of his house. And so I came t know his decent and kind wife, Connie. I worked there for five years until I met my now husband when he was visiting his cousins in New Jersey. He was living in Florida. And that, my friends, is a whole new story about my experiences living in Florida and then, later, California.

You Never Know Where Life Will Take You, But You Must Keep Putting One Foot In Front Of The Other

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So, here I am in my senior year. It’s hard for me to believe, but it’s true. It seems like just yesterday, I was a young mother with two children. I still have two children, but they are grown and no longer need me to watch over them or direct them.

For that matter, it seems like recently I was a kid riding my bike all over, playing jump rope and rollerskating in the summer and ice-skating in the winter at Strawbridge Lake in a town a bike ride a half-hour away from my house. My childhood as a baby boomer was somewhat idyllic to some extent. I attended twelve years of Catholic School taught by nuns. There were rules and structures in place. And if you didn’t follow the rules, you could look forward to unpleasant consequences. Which included having your hands rapped with a wooden ruler with a metal edge. You would have to stay after school and write many pages of apologies for your negative behavior. Then you would be sent home with a note from your teacher informing your parents of your misbehavior, a double whammy because both your mother and your father would give you further negative consequences for getting into trouble at school. Mainly because my parents paid high tuition to have us be educated in a private Catholic school.

Reflecting on my life, I find that I have few regrets. Yes, I made the occasional bad choice, but who doesn’t? I have led an interesting and challenging life. After I had two children, I decided to go to college when they were grade-school age. I applied and was accepted at Temple University in Philadelphia and the Hussian School of Art. Also, in Phildadelphia. At the age of thirty-six, I began my college education. For the first several months, the other seventeen- or eighteen-year-old Freshman students mistook me for their teacher. They were somewhat shocked when I explained that I was a Freshman, too. But, over time, they all came to know me, and believe it or not, I was a popular student with the student population. As for the teachers, they seemed to make a unilateral decision that I was the first student to be called on in class, and since I always had my work done on time, be it artwork or written work, My work was used as either a good example or a poor example, either way, the students would learn from my completed work. Although it was difficult at times to balance my home life with a husband and two children and going to college full-time, somehow, through pure determination. I graduated at forty-one with magnum cum-laude and art teaching credentials at the top of my class. At the grand old age of forty-one, with a standing ovation from my whole class and the professors.

Tyler School of Art

After graduation, I searched for an art teaching position in New Jersey. I found that the public schools in New Jersey were no longer funding art teaching. I can not express how devastated I was when I discovered that there were no jobs for me at all.

After some long nights and consideration for my future, I decided that since the public schools were no longer teaching art, I would start my own art school. The house we were living in at the time was too small, and over time, I found an older home in Pitman, New Jersey, that was large and also empty, as the previous owners had passed away years before. Until now, no one had the desire or the funds to buy and renovate the house.

Pitman home and Art Room

The realtor made a last-ditch effort to sell the house and had an open house. And we went to the open house and checked it out. The home was large, 5,500 square feet, and had been unoccupied for many years. It needed a great deal of work. But I was determined to make it ours. And so we made an offer, and they eventually accepted it. We sold our smaller home, moved into our new home, and began to renovate it from top to bottom. The previous owner had been a therapist and had two rooms and an office where he treated his patients. It also had a small bathroom. I was convinced this would make my perfect art room where I could teach my students drawing, painting, and sculpture. I immediately began renovating those rooms. And the two storage rooms. I will slowly purchase all the materials I need for myself and my students.

After I had The Art Room prepared for teaching art, I went downtown Pitman and talked to the editor of the local paper, The Pitman World News and Report, and had a one-page advertisement about my school and the classes I would be teaching. And that my friends were the beginning of my art teaching career. I taught children of different ages in the afternoons and adults in the evenings during the week. Over time, all my classes were filled. I also taught drawing, painting, pottery, and three-dimensional art for many years. I also had the privilege of getting to know my neighbors and many of the residents of Pitamn. We lived there for twenty-five years until we were ready to retire. It was hard to leave Pitman and all the great people we had come to love, but we knew we couldn’t afford to live there once we retired. And so, after my husband retired, we sold our house. And started seriously making decisions about where we would be living next. And our final decision was to move South to North Carolina as it became clear that the taxes were much cheaper there. It was tough for us to move away from our Pitman home and the friends we made, but we did. And so, I sit in my bedroom in our house in North Carolina, having been retired for nine years. I have kept myself busy volunteering three mornings a week at an animal sanctuary and writing this blog for the past nine years.

I don’t know what or if our circumstances will change, but I do know that I will keep putting one foot in front of the other into the future.

All The Days Of My Life-Part One of Work experiences

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ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE-

     I grew up in the 1950s in Maple Shade, New Jersey, about a thirty-minute drive from Philadelphia, PA. My experiences as a baby boomer greatly impacted the adult I eventually became. Some of the experiences that impacted me the most were related to the fact that I grew up two houses away from the Catholic Church, called Our Lady of Perpetual Help or OLPH. My mother was a devout woman and attended church seven days a week. And was a member of the Altar-Rosary Society that would gather each day after Mass and say the Rosary. As a result, most of my siblings (six of us) and I attended Catholic School. I went to a Catholic elementary school for eight years. And I attended Saint Mary of the Angel’s Academy in Haddonfield, New Jersey. This was an all-girl high school. My twin sister and I attended St. Mary’s of The Angell’s Academy.

I have to admit I was somewhat immature in high school and had no interest in boys. The only boys that I had any contact with during my high school years were attending Bishop Eustace High School. And we girls who attended St. Mary’s of the Angels Academy were informed that all the boys were studying to become priests. So, we never bothered to get to know any of the boys. Of course, that wasn’t the truth. Few of the boys attending Bishop Eustace became priests for St. Mary’s of the Angel’s Academy. I only knew one of my classmates who became nuns. So, much for that.

When I turned eighteen, I decided I wouldn’t attend church. And I haven’t, except for weddings and funerals. The reason I made this decision was because my mother spent years and years praying for my oldest sister, Jeanie, who was diagnosed with alpha-one deficiency. A genetic form of emphysema. She passed away when she was a mere forty-one years old. She was such a wonderful, funny, and intelligent person, and she had two children who were left motherless at a young age. I lost my faith in god, and that was the end of going to masses and going to confession as far as I was concerned. If there was a god, he had left my sister to die from a long and painful death. And I didn’t want to pray to him again if he existed.

When I was a child, I was shy and quiet. I hated having to talk in the classroom. Probably because the nuns showed no mercy to quiet and shy children, they had no difficulty saying harmful and hurtful things and embarrassing students by making them stand in the corner or not allowing them to go to the bathroom unless it was when all the students in the class stood in the hallway and waited their turn. Unfortunately, I was blessed with intestinal problems and IBS, which was a relatively unknown illness in the 1950’s and 1960’s. This caused me to have accidents in the classroom, Which ultimately caused me to hate Catholic School even more.

Not everything about elementary school was bad. I made a lot of friends during my eight years of elementary school and four years at St. Mary of the Angels Academy in Haddonfield, NJ. I have to admit I didn’t put forth much effort in my twelve years of school, possibly because I was constantly told how stupid I was during those twelve years.

My experiences after I graduated from high school by the skin of my teeth proved to me that I was certainly not stupid but quite intelligent. Right out of high school, I found employment as a dental assistant for Dr. E. G. Wozniak in Haddon Township, where I worked for five years. Then, I worked at Ellis Insurance for Evie and Harry Ellis for several years until I met and married my now husband, Robert. We have been married for fifty years and have two adult daughters.

Over the years, I have had many jobs, including selling high-risk auto insurance and hairdressing, as well as being a counselor at St. Vincent’s School for Exceptional Children in Santa Barbara, CA.

How, you may ask, did I end up in California? After Bob and I married in 1974, Bob moved to California so he could attend Brooks Institute to study photography. We lived there for three years. And I loved every minute of it—such a glorious and beautiful place to live. And I made many friends while we lived there. The first year I was there, I got a job selling hats and wigs at Robinso, which isn’t a department store. I worked with a decent and kind boss but hated the job. Standing eight hours a day trying to sell hats and wigs. A friend who worked part-time at Robinson’s school told me about St. Vincent’s School, and I immediately went there and applied for a job as a counselor.

      I called them several times a week for a month until they gave in and interviewed me for a full-time job. I immediately said, ‘Yes.” For the next three years, I worked as a counselor at St. Vincent’s School in the cottages where the girls lived. And I supervised teenage girls. I can honestly say that this position was my favorite job ever. That’s saying a lot because, throughout my long life, I have had many, many different jobs and employment opportunities. My father always had difficulty understanding why I ended up working with nuns( they taught in the school where the kids attended.) since I always detested them when I was in elementary and Catholic high school. I had minimal contact with the dear sisiter’s since I only interacted with them when I picked up the kids from school, a short distance from the building where they lived.

     As I sit here contemplating my life, I feel blessed to have had all the experiences throughout my lifetime. I have learned from each one of them, and I met wonderful people. I will be writing memoirs in the not-too-distant future. Going to college when I was thirty-six next was a challenging and positive experience for me. Since I was the only adult student to enter Freshman year at my “advanced age of thirty-six,” I attended and excelled at Temple University, Tyler School of Art. They were at once the most challenging four years of my life and the most rewarding..  Not only was I, not your typical college freshman, as I was thirty-six years old, and I had two children, seven and four. And so began my life as a college student. More to come in Part Two.

YOU NEVER KNOW WHERE LIFE IS GOING TO TAKE YOU

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Looking back over my life, I find it difficult to believe that so many years have passed by so quickly. And here I sit, realizing that I have come too close to the end of my years on this planet. For the most part, I have few regrets.

I have led a fascinating life for the most part. I was born into a family of two parents and five siblings. My parents were hard-working people who did everything they could for their children. For over forty years, my father was the head dispatcher for SEPTA Bus Company in Philadelphia. He devised the system that is still used. His nickname was Smiley. It was some joke because my father rarely smiled. There were members of our family who referred to him as “THE BIG BEAR.” Because he was somewhat of a grouch.  House I grew up in.

My brother, Harry, was twenty years older than me. He was married and moved into his apartment when I was pretty young. He was a psychologist, and very well-known in his field, In fact, for many years he was head of the Psychological Society. My sister, Jeanie, was nineteen years older than me. She was one of the kindest people I ever knew. And she was beautiful. I have two sisters, seven and eight years older than I am. They both married when they were young. When I was in grade school, their names were Eileen and Elizabeth. Then, my sister Karen and I came into the picture when my mother was forty-one.

Our first home in Pitman, NJ

We are fraternal twins. This means that although we were born at the same time, we don’t look alike, act alike, and have few things in common other than we have the same birthday. As children we did not play together, we each had our own friends. My mother, Marie, had two babies a year after Karen and I. They were named Steven and Girard; unfortunately, they did not survive. I didn’t learn about their existence until I was about ten or eleven. My father took my twin sister and me to the cemetery and showed us where they were buried. I was young then and don’t think I understood what my parents told us.

Life in the Carberry Family was typical for the most part for families that lived in Maple Shade, New Jersey, where I was raised. We lived two houses down from the Catholic Church, Our Lady of Perpetual Help. We were Catholic, so we attended Sunday Mass when we were young. And then when we were old enough, seven years old.” We were enrolled at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Elementary School for eight long years. I say eight long years because we were taught by Saint Joseph Nuns who were very strict and thought nothing of putting you in the corner, smacking your open palm with a ruler with a metal edge. Or, in my case, putting me in the heater room if I misbehaved. I don’t recall what I was doing wrong, but I spent quite a lot of time in the corner with my back to the rest of the class.

When I graduated from grade school, by the skin of my teeth, we had to take an entrance exam to attend Catholic High School. Parents had to pay tuition for Catholic Schools. There was a public elementary school at the end of our block. But I believed we would benefit from a Catholic School. And so my twin, my two older sisters, and I attended Catholic High School.I graduated by the skin of my teeth in 1969 from Saint Mary of the Angel’s Academy in Haddonfield, NJ. Haddonfield is an upscale town where most of the residents are pretty wealthy. My parents enrolled us there because it was an all-girls school.

high school graduation picture

Susan Culver- high school graduation picture

I can’t say I missed having boys in school with me since I was always quite shy around them. I didn’t go out on a date until I was twenty-one. So, you may wonder what I did do next. You probably think I went to college. No, I did not. My parents told St. Mary of the Angel’s Academy that they could not afford to send us to college. However, the school did find employment for both my sister and I. My twin got a job at a mailing service. She did pretty well there and made good money. I got a job through the school as a dental assistant at a dentist’s office for Dr. Edward Wozniak. He was a decent young dentist with two small children. His office was attached to his home. I worked for him for five years. It was an interesting position, and I was pretty good at it. I trained two people to do the job. When I was twenty-one, I went on a date with my best childhood girlfriend’s boy cousin. And the rest, my friends, was history. Her cousin lived in Florida then and was visiting his cousins in New Jersey and Philadelphia on his way back home to Florida. I had met him when I was pretty young. Anyway, after he (Bob) went back to Florida. We started writing letters to each other. The next thing that happened was that I decided to move to Florida to be with Bob. That is precisely what I did; I was about twenty-two then. My parents were heartbroken when I left since I was their last child living at home. All the other siblings had married, moved to their own homes, and started having children. My parents ended up with seventeen grandchildren. I loved those kids. And I was looking forward to having my children at some point.

After I arrived in Florida, I took an auto-train. This is a means of transportation where your car and the people in another train car are loaded on the train. It took eight hours. When I got to the end of the ride, I waited until Bob got off from his job and met me at the parking lot where the auto-train left me and my car off. It was hot, hot, hot. I had no idea any state could be hotter than New Jersey’s summer. But, boy, boy, were they. It felt like an oven to me. Bob finally arrived, and I followed him behind his car to the apartment he had rented for me. (I paid for it.) It was a lovely one-bedroom apartment with a living room, small kitchen, and small bathroom. It was nice. I had lived in my apartment in Haddonfield, New Jersey, for a year before I moved to Florida. So, to some degree, I was used to living alone. I found a job in the first month I arrived in Florida selling high-risk insurance, I had held a simlar position in New Jersey. And I liked it. The fact is, I enjoyed working in general. I like being busy, accomplishing things and doing it well. I liked earning my own money. It’s a good feeling.

So, what’s next, you might ask. Well, we got married. I decided to look for a different job. Why, you may ask. Because when I came back from our honeymoon and went back to work. I was called into the office and informed that, unfortunately, I was being laid off. Sorry about that. After several weeks of looking for a new job, I decided to go to hairdressing school because employers in Florida were reluctant to hire people from out of state. Yes, hairdressing school. Why? You may ask. You only had to attend for eight months, and you got a license to do hair. Now, I never had any interest in hairdressing. I didn’t do much with my hair. But hairdressing is what I learned to do. And sure enough, I completed the training and got a job doing what? Not hairdressing, I had also been trained in doing facials, nails, and hair. So, I applied for and was hired to do facials at the Collanides Hotel on Singer Island. (where the rich to play) And actually, I was pretty good at facials. I worked there for several years until my now husband, Bob, decided he wanted to attend Brooks Institute in California to learn photography. And that is how I lived in beautiful California for several years until he graduated.
I got a job working at St. Vincent’s School as a counselor. Once again, I had never done this type of job, but I was more than willing to give it the old college try. And as it turned out, I loved this job and all the children. I came to love them like my own children, and I stayed there for several years until Bob graduated from Brooks Institute. After Bob graduated, Bob and I decided to move back to New Jersey. Bob believed there were more photography jobs in Philadelphia than in the South. And so, we were returning to New Jersey and Philadelphia. And thus began another chapter of our life.

Stay tuned for the next chapter of my life next Wednesday.

Life Is Not Always A Bowl Of Cherries

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My dear mother, passed away in 1987

My dear mother passed away in 1987

Life Isn’t Always A Bowl Of Cherries. I’ve heard this expression throughout my life many times. And I get it. No one’s life is perfect all the time. As we go through life, we will occasionally face difficult times. We can face health issues that we never would have thought would affect us. This has happened to me. When I was in my early 50s, I started experiencing angina pains up and down my right arm. Then, I began getting short of breath when going up and down steps or sometimes just walking too fast. I tried to ignore it, but it didn’t go away. So, I decided I would make an appointment to see my regular doctor.

The doctor listened to my heart and took my blood pressure. I was asked multiple questions about what I was doing at the time. I noticed changes in my ability to walk without shortness of breath, etc. My primary physician gave me a referral to a cardiologist. I was shaken up about the whole thing. I had just turned fifty, and in general, I had good health. I rarely got sick, I didn’t drink, I didn’t eat meat. I exercised every day. Nonetheless, it seemed as if I had a cardiac condition.

As I was leaving the doctor’s office, tears started running down my face. All I could think about was my mother. She had congestive heart failure, and ultimately, she died from it. Even though she was being treated for it. I was thirty-six when she passed away. My children were six and three at the time. They never really got to know either of my parents since my father had died the year before my mother died from lung cancer. He had been a long-time smoker;, sometimes, he smoked two packs a day. I never smoked. My mother smoked, but she only smoked two cigarettes a day. As it turns out, congestive heart failure is an inherited trait. And unfortunately, I inherited that trait.

Life is full of challenges. We have to face them and deal with them the best we can. We do not get out of life alive. Eventually, we will all pass away from something. I grew up in a family with six siblings. I had an older brother, Hugh who was twenty years older thatn I was, and my sister,, Jeanie who was ninteen years older than I was. Unfortunately, my sister, Jeanie, developed Emphysema; It was called Alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT) deficiency. It is a genetic disorder that causes low levels of AAT, a protein that protects the lungs and liver. It’s also known as “genetic COPD” or “genetic emphysema.” It is an inherited trait. When she was forty-one, she passed away. She was among the kindest, generous, funniest people I ever knew. And she was absolutely beautiful. It has been almost fifty years since she passed away.

I still have three siblings, including my twin sister. My oldest sister, Eileen, was diagnosed with cancer a year ago and has spent the last year being treated with Chemotherapy and radiation. After a year, the doctors believe she is cancer-free. I can not tell you how much I admire my sister, who followed the doctor’s orders, endured the treatment, and never complained. She is my hero. My only wish for her is that in her remaining years, she remains cancer-free and healthy. My oldest sibling, who was twenty years older than me, passed away five years ago. My sister, who is my fraternal twin, has diabetes, but other than that, she seems healthy, and my sister, Liz, is well, as far as I know.

I know we have no guarantees in life, so I made a decision years ago after I was diagnosed with left heart failure that I was going to live my life to the fullest, for whatever time I had left. It has been twenty years since I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. And I feel fine at this time, I try to eat healthy food (no meat, no sweets, no junk foord.} And so far, I am doing well. I’ve never had a heart attack, and I haven’t had angina pain in years. I believe I will live out whatever years I have left feeling well and making the most of each day of my life. Who could ask for more than that? As the French say, “ vivre la vie pleinement” Live life to the fullest. And that, my friends, is my advice. Live life, be happy.