As I look back over the many years of my life, I realize that the times I enjoyed the most were Summer vacations during my grade school years. My generation, the Baby Boomers, had complete freedom during the summer. Our parents would tell us that we had to be home once it got dark out. They never asked us where we went or what we were doing. However, we often stayed out long after it got dark. If we didn’t come home when it was dark, our mothers would call us out the front door to go home. I grew up in a small town in New Jersey called Maple Shade. Everyone in the neighborhood knew all their neighbors. And they would watch out for their neighbor’s kids.

After dinner, all the neighborhood kids were allowed to go outside and play. We would play hide and seek. The only problem was that the mosquitoes would eat you alive during the summer in South Jersey. But we didn’t let that stop us. Regardless of the mosquitoes, we played outside until our parents called us to come in. The first thing my mother would say when I came in the front door was, “Susan, close the door before all the mosquitoes come in.” Often by the time she said that there were mosquitoes already in the house.

We didn’t have air conditioners back then, but there was always a big, electric fan in the window that would circulate the air and hopefully cool the bedroom out a little. And let me tell you, it was hot and humid. We were under constant attack by mosquitoes all day and all night. The worst thing was the mosquitoes buzzing in your face all night.

When I was young, I shared a room with my twin sister, and my two older sisters slept in a bed beside ours. My brother had a bedroom of his own. My older sister had a room of her own as well. My brother, Harry, was twenty years older than me, and my oldest sister, Jeanie, was fifteen years older. My next older siblings were seven and eight years older than my twin sister and I.

We were an Irish Catholic family. We lived two houses away from the Catholic church and the elementary school I attended for eight years. Our neighbors were Catholic, either Irish or Italian, and had large families. Some of my elementary school friends had as many as ten or twelve kids. It wasn’t unheard of for some families to have ten or more children. They did not have large homes. For the most part, most of the homes in Maple Shade were two stories but only had three bedrooms, an eat-in kitchen, and one bathroom. We only had one bathroom and six siblings. So, as you can imagine, we didn’t get to spend too much time in the bathroom.

As time went by, my older siblings got married and moved away. My oldest sister, Jeanie, moved to New York, and I rarely saw her unless she came home to visit my parents. After several years, my older sibling and their spouses began having children. I was happy when they visited my parents since I could spend time with my nieces and nephews. And I loved spending time with little kids. I was so proud to be their aunt. And I used to take them all over my neighborhood to show them off.

When I got a little older, I babysat my sister’s kids. I couldn’t wait until I grew up and could have my own children; until then, I had to be satisfied by my animal menagerie. We had a dog and birds, and I had hamsters and gerbils. I loved animals almost as much as I loved little kids.

Strawbridge Lake

As I was saying, Summer during my childhood was the best time. The older I got, the more I used to roam all over Maple Shade and nearby parks and lakes—especially Strawbridge Lake, which was several miles away from where I lived. I used to ride my bike there every chance I had. There was a bridge and a waterfall there. And I just loved to walk across the bridge. I used to take all my best friends with me. Our parents never asked where we were going, and they just told us to be on time for lunch and dinner. Sometimes, we would take a picnic lunch and a blanket with us and eat our lunch by the lake. It wasn’t a lake you could swim in; it had fish. But, we would take our shoes off and walk in the shallow end of the lake.

There were always a lot of kids around, and we would play with them as well. We would go on the swings and the sliding board. I never told my parents where we went, and they didn’t ask. But if we were late coming home, my mother would be upset. I never had a watch when I was a kid, so I’m not sure how I was supposed to know what time it was.

And one of our neighbors. The Phiefers had a built-in pool in their backyard. All the kids in the neighborhood would go swimming in their pool every Summer. The deepest part of the pool was four feet. I never learned how to swim, and as a result, I nearly drowned a couple of times. One day, I found myself at the deep end, grabbed onto Denny Pheiffer, and almost drowned him as well. And that was the end of my swimming in the Pheiffers’ pool.

Luckily, I had a lot of girlfriends in Maple Shade, and they also had pools. On Saturdays, we would all visit the Roxy Theater in downtown Maple Shade and see two movies for twenty-five cents. Sometimes, we would see the same movie again and again. If we got tired, we would take a bus to the roller skating rink and roller skate for hours.

But the best holiday was Halloween. Everyone in town celebrated it. All the kids would go from house to house to get candy. My friends and I went to every house. I’m not exaggerating. We would take an empty pillow case, and it would be filled up with candy. We would take it home, drop the candy off at our houses, and then go out again and fill the pillowcase with candy again. The whole downtown was decorated for Halloween, and the movie theater would have a spooky movie playing, and all the kids would go to see it for twenty-five cents.

Susan Culver- high school graduation picture

By the night’s end, I was always sick when it was time to go home. I’m surprised I have any teeth in my head after many years of celebrating Halloween. Although, I have to admit that by the time I was ten or eleven, I had a great many cavities. And I had to go to the dentist to have them all filled. At some point, my parents decided that I wasn’t going to go out trick or treating anymore. So, we would just watch a spooky movie instead.

And then there was Christmas. I can not describe how much I looked forward to Christmas. Where I was sure I would find a Christmas tree loaded with presents with my name on them. But, Alas, I usually only received two presents. But, somehow, the anticipation of Christmas and the one or two presents I did receive made me happy enough. That was until I went to my best girlfriend’s house after Christmas Mass, and she showed me the presents she had received. There were only two children in her family at that time. And I had five siblings. But I was still happy with the Christmas gifts I received.

And then there was the joy of the first heavy snow that came down on Maple Shade. My friends and I would stay out for hours and hours. We would slip and slide on the frozen snow or shovel the snow and make large snow mountains to climb and slide down. We would all stay out until we were practically pop cycles. There aren’t words to describe the fun we had on a cold and snowy day with all our neighborhood friends.

I’m not saying that my childhood was perfect, but it was when I had a great deal of freedom, no responsibilities, and many friends to play with all year round. My parents did not discuss family matters, good or bad, before me or my twin sister. I don’t recall my parents ever disagreeing when I was around. If my parents had financial problems, I never knew about them. We always had our needs met, never went hungry, and got new clothes if we needed them.

I have many happy memories of my childhood. I believe my childhood overall was a good one. My parents protected us from difficulties they encountered during my early years. My mother was the kindest and most caring person I have ever known in my long lifetime. My father worked hard to take care of our family. We never lacked anything. My two older sisters, myself, and my twin Karen all attended private Catholic schools. We were given every opportunity to succeed in our lives. My parents did everything they could. Were they perfect? No, they were not, but I can not imagine having other parents. And although my father passed away from lung cancer in 1986, and my dear mother passed away a year later in 1987, I still miss them and think of them nearly every day.

I don’t know if there is a heaven but it there is I hope my mother and my father will be waiting patiently for me to arrive at heaven’s door some time in the future.

As far back as I can remember, I loved flowers. I suppose this was a strange attachment for a young girl to have. Nonetheless, it is true. It all began when I was old enough to go outside my neighborhood alone. One day, I was sitting on our front step and noticed the arbor extending over our front door. I suppose it had been there for a long time, but I didn’t notice it until that moment. I looked at the arbor, and I saw that it was adorned with beautiful and fragrant red roses. My father had trained them to grow on the arbor. And every spring, the roses would begin to grow, and by mid-summer, they would cover the entire arbor. The fragrant smell of the roses would greet me as I left my house and returned. 

It was so comforting that I could look forward to seeing and smelling their elegant perfume every year. And their wondrous beauty never let me down. They were a comforting presence and made me feel safe and loved somehow. As I stepped down the front stairs, I walked by my mother’s Lilac Bush. My father had planted it long ago. He told me it was older than I was. It was also one of my mother’s favorite flowers, and I found it comforting that my father would plant and care for these beautiful blooms because of the love he had in his heart for my mother. Who was the kindest and most thoughtful person I knew? I always believed that she deserved all the roses and the stars that lit the sky at night. I could not imagine having a mother who loved me or took care of me more than she did every day of my life.

Occasionally, when I was over at my best friend’s house down the street, I would look at all the flowers that they had growing in their yard and wonder where their roses were. One day, I asked my best friend, Joanie, where all their roses were. And she said, my mother doesn’t like roses. She likes hydrangeas. And she pointed to these crowded bushes with large blue flowers that almost resembled bouquets. They were so big. I said, Joan, can I bring one of those flowers to my mom? She said, well, I don’t know, I might get in trouble. I’ll have to ask my mom. And she did just that. She ran in through the front door, and a couple of minutes later, her mom came out with some scissors.

Joan’s mom was pretty; she had bright red hair. And she was always laughing. I loved visiting Joan’s house because her mother made delicious cookies. And she always told me to sit down at the kitchen table, and she would hand me a tall, cold glass of milk with two cookies. That she said were Italian Cookies. I didn’t know what Italian Cookies were, except they were delicious. Then, she said, “After you two are finished with your cookies and milk, I’ll cut a hydrangea for your mom. She looked over at me and said the same thing she always said, “You better be good to your Mom. You know she is an absolute saint.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I think she greatly liked my mom. I said,” Thank you for the flower. My mother will love it. And I was so excited about the flower that I grabbed it and ran home. We lived three houses away, so it took only a few minutes to get home. I burst into our kitchen through the side door. My mother was standing at the kitchen sink doing the dishes. Whenever I came into the house from outside, she did the dishes. Sometimes, she washed the floor on her hands and knees. And she would say,” Don’t walk on the wet floor. So, then I would run outside again to our backyard and go into the house through the cellar door. And then I would run up the steps to the hallway which was right next to the kitchen and I yelled, “Mom, look I have a beautiful flower for you. She would look up at me and said, “thank you, I love it. Can you wait a few minutes until the floor dries? Then I’ll put the flower in my vase.”

I waited patiently for my mom to bring the vase, and finally, she did. She put the hydrangea in her favorite crystal vase and put water in the vase. She placed the vase carefully in the center of the kitchen table so everyone could see it. “Please tell Marion I said thank you, she is such a kind woman.” I said, “OK, Mommy, I will.” 

I ran out the front door and up the street, three houses down, and burst in their front door. And I yelled, “My mom said,’ Thank you. You are such a kind woman.’” Joan’s mom said once again,” Your mother is a saint. Why don’t you two go out and play? It’s a beautiful summer day.”

It was springtime, and I loved that the sun was shining most of the time and getting warmer outside. Easter was just around the corner, and I couldn’t wait. First, there was a big Easter Egg Hunt. And then, on Easter Sunday, I couldn’t wait for Easter morning when I finally got my Easter Basket. I loved, loved, loved candy. Especially Easter candy. My mother would dye hard-boiled eggs, and I just loved looking for them in our big backyard. On Easter Sunday, we would all dress up in our best Sunday clothes and go to Easter Mass. All the kids from my school sat together. And the adults would sit behind us. It was a long, long mass. I couldn’t stop thinking about all that Easter candy waiting for me at home.

After Mass, my mother made a big Easter Breakfast for us, and my older brother and sister would come to visit my parents after Easter Mass. It was a fun day. Later in the afternoon, I would change into my play clothes, and all my neighborhood friends would come out and play. Even though most of us felt a little sick from all the candy we were eating, It was a great day, and at dinner time, my mother would have made a big dinner for my whole family to attend.

Easter Egg Hunt

Although Easter was the beginning of Spring, it wasn’t the end. We spent most of the time outside until dark after our homework was done. And we started planning what we would do this summer vacation. It was in the middle of June, which seemed a long, long time away. But it wasn’t only about six weeks. I couldn’t wait. Summer vacation was when all the kids looked forward to no homework and no going to school from first thing in the morning until three o’clock. We absolutely counted the days down until the last day of school. After final exams, we didn’t do much work. Sometimes, we had to help clean up the classroom to prepare it for next September. But that always seemed like a lifetime away.

And there was nothing in the world that I loved more than Summer. There was no school, no teachers, no nuns, just a day after day of freedom, visiting all my friends and riding our bikes all over the place. My parents never asked me where I was going; they just warned me to be home on time for lunch and dinner. I didn’t have any chores or homework. It was a dream come true.

Summer finally arrived, and the fun began, with endless days of riding our bikes all over town. I could visit all my school friends whenever I wanted as long as I came home on time for lunch and dinner. My parents never really questioned where we were or what we were up to. And at night, we would be allowed to stay out until dark. The only thing we had to fear was the mosquitoes would eat us alive. Then, the mosquito truck used to go up and down the streets, killing the mosquitoes, and we rode behind it. I’ll never understand why not one of our parents told us that it was toxic. Maybe they didn’t know or think about it at the time. I must admit the mosquitoes were a nightmare all summer; there were too many to count and too many to kill. They were horrible. But we all got used to it. And tried to ignore them. After all, they were just another part of Summer, the bad part.

As I look back over that time, it seems like a lifetime, but it was only about eight years ago when I attended grammar school. It remains one of my happiest memories. And one I wouldn’t exchange for anything in the world, not even if it meant the mosquitoes were still a nightmare to this day. Life is short; the innocence of childhood passes too quickly. I only hope the children nowadays have the same wonderful Summer experiences that I had. Enjoy the Spring and the Summer. It passes too quickly, doesn’t it?

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As I look back over the many years of my life, I realize that the years I was most content were the years when I felt loved and accepted by the people whom I loved and cherished the most. In addition, to be perfectly happy, I absolutely felt a need to have animals that I loved, and that loved me in return. Be they cats, dogs, hamsters, gerbils, or birds. Without them, my life would have been lonely. That was as true for me when I was a young child as it is today. 

The Dali Lama said, “The very purpose of life is to be happy.” But when our understanding of happiness includes everything from simple pleasure to rapture—all of which are temporary, as is the nature of feelings in general—how can a person know when he’s truly happy? And is it a state that can be attained and/or sustained?

There were times when I was a child when I did not feel loved. The memory that has stayed with me since I was quite young, perhaps nine or ten years old. I was in my backyard, I can’t remember what I was doing out there except I was sitting under our large Willow tree and listening to the birds that were nesting there. I was by myself. My father came out back and said, “We are going to go visit one of my oldest friends, Dar, and his wife, Jehana.”

I didn’t particularly appreciate going over to this particular friend of my father’s because they had children who had a tendency to play roughly and say mean things to me. If I didn’t go along with whatever they wanted to do. As I stood there looking at my father, I made up my mind that I would refuse to go with them. I said, “ I don’t want to go.” My father responded, “Children who don’t obey their parents are not loved by their parents. And no one will ever love you if your parents don’t love you. At that moment, I felt my heart break. I never told anyone what my father said to me, but I never forgot it. For many years, I didn’t believe my father loved me; even as an adult, I had difficulty believing anyone loved me. Because it never occurred to me that my father said what he said in a moment of anger and frustration. I truly believed he did not love me anymore. And that there was nothing I could do to change how he felt. 

But the truth of the matter was that I loved my mother and father with all of my heart. And I would never stop loving them, even long after they passed away. My father passed away in 1986 from lung cancer. He used to smoke two packs of Pall Malls a day. It was a horrible way to die. It was even more horrible to watch since there was precious little I could do to help him. He died in 1986. My mother seemed lost after my father passed away. They had been married since 1929. My dear mother passed away one year later from congestive heart failure. At that time, there was little the medical profession could do for her aside from giving her pain meds for angina pain.

I, too, was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in my mid-fifties. I am luckier than she since the present treatment for congestive heart failure allows me to continue living for many years. I will be turning seventy-three on my next birthday in May. In general, I feel fine most days. I only have to go to the cardiologist once a year. When I was first diagnosed, I had to go every three weeks for a long time. But, the medication and time healed my heart to some extent. And every day, I’m glad to be here still.

In addition, I have seen my two daughters grow up to be honest and decent people. And not every parent can say that. Now that I am retired, I find I have the time to do all the things I wanted to in the past and didn’t have time or energy to do. I spent a great deal of my time taking care of my family and working full-time until I was sixty-two. Then I decided to file for Social Security since I didn’t know at the time just how long my life would be.

Each day, I make every effort to do the right thing, work hard, and take care of my family and my pets. Bring happiness into each day. I fill my days, weeks, and years doing the things I love and being creative by writing. I have written memoirs and short stories for the past eight years. And at some point in the not-too-distant future, I will attempt to have the book I have written published. It is called GRIND. In addition, I want to begin painting and drawing again. When I was thirty-six, I was excepted at Temple University, Tyler School of Art, and graduated cum laude at forty-one. I taught art for many years. We were living in a large home that had been owned by a doctor, who had his practice in part of the house. I also taught art to children and adults in those three rooms for many years.

In my remaining free time over the last eight years, I have been volunteering at Animal Edventure in Coats, NC, taking care of parrots, macaws, and pheasants. Although it is hard work, I love every minute of it. In addition, there are some 200 other animals that live there that I can see and love.

Life offers us many opportunities; it is up to us to decide how we want to spend the limited time we have on this planet. I believe that I have spent my working years well, and I have tried to help people along the way in every way I could. That included working at NJ State Mental Hospital as a psychiatric aide and many years of working in Social Services with at-risk adolescents who were incarcerated in the locked-down facility called Ranch Hope in Alloway, NJ.

In addition, I worked at the Center for Family Services in Camden, NJ at Center for Family Services with Wilson Good, the first black mayor of a major city in America. I worked with five churches in Camden, NJ, and matched at-risk kids with members of the five churches as mentors, and I worked along with Big Brothers and Big sisters. I would visit the children’s parents, explain the program to them, and then match the adolescents up with mentors. Who were members of the Antioch Church. Often, I had to visit prisons, both state and Federal prisons, where some of the parents were incarcerated, explain the mentor program, and get permission for their children to have mentors. It was a challenging job, but I do feel that what I did benefited these kids. And the people that vollunteered to be mentors.

I can not say how long I have left to live on this planet, but I know that as long as I have breath in my body, I will put forth every effort I can to make my little part of the world a better place. In addition, I will continue to support the people I know and care for in any way it is possible for me to do so. I know that when my time ends, I have done my best. And I can only hope that the world was a somewhat better place when I was a part of it. And I keep in mind that I must first do no harm. I attempt to keep my heart open to those I meet along the highways and byways of my life.

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I have lived a long time, but the best memories of my life took place in the Summer. I can remember counting the days until my summer vacation would begin. I so looked forward to the last day of school. I and all the other students would be counting down the minutes for the dismissal bell. It would ring loudly in the school hallway. And we would all jump out of our seats and start laughing and cheering. And then, we would be warned to sit down and quiet down. Or we would all be staying after school. 

I lived two houses down from the school. So, it only took me a couple of minutes to walk home. I would talk to all my friends once we were released from the school. I say released because school often felt like a prison. I was taught by the St. Joseph’s nuns, and let me tell you, they were strict. If you stepped out of line or talked when you were supposed to be quiet, there would be hell to pay. In that, you would be kept after school and have to clean the blackboards or write some essay saying how sorry you were for disrupting the class over and over again.

I’m not sure what we were supposed to learn from this type of punishment, but nonetheless, the more trouble you got in, the worse the punishment became. Sometimes, if I or some other unfortunate person was caught talking or, god forbid, laughing, you would find yourself standing in the corner, in front of the classroom. And believe it or not, the nuns would put a dunce hat on your head. 

As I look back on this experience, I understand why the sisters were so stubborn. I was part of the baby boomer generation, which consisted of seventy-four million baby boomers born after World War 2.

As you can imagine, the classrooms were crowded, especially in Catholic Schools where birth control was not allowed. However, I believe the public schools where I lived and grew up in Maple Shade were also overcrowded. There were sixty-seven-year-old students in my first-grade classroom. Sometimes, the classroom was so full that there weren’t enough desks, and students had to sit on the windowsills.

As a result, there was often chaos if the teachers, whether they were lay teachers or nuns, didn’t keep the children under control. I used to go home for lunch daily since I lived two houses away from the school. And I used to run home as fast as I could to get away from the classroom and the nuns. My mother would always have chicken noodle soup and Lebanon Bologa sandwiches ready for my sister and I when we arrived home. My mother would always ask,” And how was school this morning?” And I would always say, “I hate it. Do I have to go back?” And my mother and father would laugh and say,” Yes, yes, you do. But only for a couple more hours. My mother would assure me she would have cookies and milk ready when I arrived home at 3:15 PM. And she always did, she asks us how was your day? Do you have homework? How was the teacher today? I never had a kind remark to say about the day at school or anything else. I hated it. However, I liked to play in the schoolyard with my friends until the lunch bell rang. And we had to walk single-file into the school quietly. If you weren’t quiet, you would get rapped on the head with a wooden ruler.

As the school year drew to an end, I became more and more restless. And even worse, there were exams in every subject at the end of the year. And you would told that you could leave back if you failed any of the exams. By some miracle, I always passed all the final exams. However, if I were truthful, I would admit that I barely passed because I hated studying for the exams. If I studied harder, I could have gotten straight A’s, but I always did the minimum. Because I hated school, and I detested the nuns.

As the end of school drew closer, I found it more and more difficult to concentrate. I counted the days until summer vacation, three months without having to sit in a hot, overcrowded classroom or a cold classroom in the winter. And then that long-awaited day arrived, the last day of class before summer vacation. All of the students from first grade through eighth grade were anxious to hear the three o’clock bell ring. And when it did, we all clapped. The sisters tried to calm us all down. But, it was a useless gesture. And after the second bell rang, we all marched into the hallways and to our appointed exits. There was laughter and cheers all the way. And there wasn’t a thing the nuns and teachers could do. As I look back at this experience, I imagine that inside, the teachers and nuns were cheering as well and looking forward to several months of peace and quiet. And then, before you knew it, we were off the school property and on our way home and had a long, hot, and wonderful summer. When we would be allowed to stay out until dark with all our friends in the neighborhood. We looked forward to Memorial Day and the 4^th of July parade. And days and days and weeks and months of playing outside with all our neighborhood friends. We would catch fireflies and then release them. We ran around the neighborhood with flashlights while we played hide and seek.

During the day, my girlfriends and I would go to the clay pits and dig for treasures, ride our bikes to Strawbridge Lake, two towns away, and walk around the waterfall, trying not to fall into the lake. We ate picnic lunches that we had brought with us. We usually ate peanut butter and jelly and cookies that one of our mothers made.

We would stay there as late as possible and come home sunburned and sweaty. After dinner, all the kids in the neighborhood would play hide-and-seek. And we would come home itchy from all the mosquito bites and sunburn from being in the sun all day until dark. Around nine o’clock, our mothers would yell out the front doors of our homes and say,” Time to home, home.” And we would all moan and groan because we were having such a great time.

When I arrived home, my mother would say,” Would you look at her? All red and mosquito-bitten from head to toe. Time to get a bath, Susan, and don’t forget to clean behind your ears. Make sure to rinse all the shampoo out of your hair. Understand?” I would sigh and say,” Yes, Mom, you always tell me the same thing.” And as I turned away, she said, “And don’t forget to brush ALL your teeth. And I would sigh and say,” Yes, Mom. I know.’

Then I would run the water for the tub and lie there and soak, knowing I couldn’t take too long since my sister would soon be knocking at the bathroom door and telling me it was her turn. And I would sigh and say,” Yeah, yeah, in a couple of minutes.” And then I would lie in the water that was getting cold and think, “I can’t wait until tomorrow. Maybe we will go roller skating or ride our bikes to Strawbridge Lake, have a race, or play baseball. Or we could swim in Jackie, my next-door neighbor’s pool. I couldn’t wait to wake up tomorrow morning. And start a new and exciting Summer day.

But, before I knew it, the summer was almost over, and I would have to return to school. I dreaded it. On the other hand, I would get to see my school friends again. A lot of them went down the shore over the summer, and I didn’t see them. And the thought cheered me up. So, I decided not to be sad over the end of summer and look forward to a different classroom, a different teacher, and all my school friends. And besides, I would look forward to next summer and all the holidays that happened before then. I mean, Life was good. I was happy.

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