Our day begins in the kitchen. We wake up to the aroma of coffee percolating on the kitchen counter and bacon and eggs frying on the stove. I’m not big on eating first thing in the morning. But my mother insists that we eat a breakfast that will stick to our ribs for the rest of the day.
My mother in pin curls sitting in our kitchen
As I walk into the bright yellow and orange room, I see my mother hunched over the wide kitchen counter. My father recently redecorated. My father’s a creative man with an unusual sense of color and design. He is, unfortunately wildly attracted to psychedelic patterns. He made the kitchen counters really wide. He made the counter in front of the sink wide as well. My mother has difficulty reaching the sink since it’s set back so far from the edge of the counter.
My father purchased a kit to decorate the kitchen counters with small bits of multi-colored tiles. After he spread the tile bits, he poured some type of liquid resin over it. It took a long time to dry and had a somewhat lumpy result. Unfortunately, the dirt tends to accumulate in the lower recesses of our bumpy countertop.
Hanging from the ceiling over the kitchen table, my father fashioned a candelabra of sorts. He found a giant wagon wheel in the dumpster of a Steak house Restaurant and brought it home to serve as a light fixture in our kitchen. Of course, our kitchen is much smaller than the Steak House dining room, and our kitchen ceiling is much lower than the dining room in the Steak House, where it formerly resided. The wagon wheel hangs right above our heads at the table. If you aren’t paying attention when you stand up, you take a chance that you might knock yourself out when you stand. We have to back our chairs up and then stand to avoid getting a new bump on our noggins each time we sit or stand at the table for a meal. Mealtime is no longer a quiet time to reflect on the day. It’s time to pay attention to the surroundings, or you can end up in the Emergency Room.
I look across the kitchen and see my mother is hunched over the stove, frying the eggs and bacon. “Hi, Mom.”
“Good morning Susie, what can I get you for breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry Mom, how about a piece of toast.”
A couple of minutes later, my mother brings me a bowl of hot oatmeal. “Here, Susie, this will stick to your ribs. Eat up,”
I look down at the bowl of steaming oatmeal, and I begin to feel sick to my stomach. I hate hot cereal. I have told my mother this time and again. But she always says the same thing to me. “Nonsense, eat up.”
I’m repeatedly told I’m a picky eater. Which is probably true. But none the less I detest hot cereal.
Unfortunately for me, I have to ride an ancient school bus to Haddonfield, where I go to high school at St. Mary of The Angel’s Academy. It is my Freshman Year. The bus is on its last legs, and the shocks on the wheels died a slow and painful death a long time ago. It’s a long and rocky ride to school. We have to pick up all the students that go to St. Mary’s and the boys from Bishop Eustace Prep. So, we have to ride all over Burlington and Camden County and Haddon Township. It takes over an hour.
By the time we arrive at school, I’m feeling sick to my stomach. And start the day off by throwing up the moment I step down out of the bus. Mr. Hartman, a lovely man who came from Ireland, is the bus driver, gives me the same sympathetic look every day as I pass by him in the driver’s seat. He knows what’s going to happen momentarily. None of the other students on the bus ever mention my daily purge.
When I was going to grade school at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, I came home for lunch as we lived two houses away from the school. Every day when the lunch bell rings, I rush up to the front of the classroom to line up to go home to eat. Not because I was looking forward to my lunch, it was always the same. I hated school with a passion and can barely tolerate one extra moment in the presence of the dear Sisters.
One day as I stood at the front of the classroom, I realize I have to pee immediately. I raise my hand. Sister ignores me. I begin waving my hand and arm urgently. Finally, Sister said impatiently, “What is it, Susan?”
“Sister, I have to go to the girl’s room right now.”
“Susan, you have to learn patience and self-control. You can and will wait until you get home.”
I wave again more frantically. Sister ignores me. I realize I’m peeing my pants. All the other kids notice it at the same time and start laughing. I begin to cry.
Sister says, “you will wait until the second bell, Miss Carberry.”
I’m simultaneously crying and peeing. I vow to myself that I will never return to this wretched place again. The second bell rings. The kids in line are permitted to go home for lunch. I keep my head down.
I emerge from the school, I take off like a rocket and get home in record-breaking time. I yank open the screen and the front door and allow them both to slam closed. I rush to the bathroom. I hear my father yelling at me from the kitchen. “What’s the matter, Susie, pants on fire?”
After taking care of the wet pants, I walk out to the kitchen nonchalantly. My mother says, “How was your morning, Susie? Did you learn anything new?”
“Yes, Mom, I learned that I shouldn’t take a long drink at the water fountain before lunch.”
“Did Sister tell you that Susie?”
“Not exactly Mom, she told me that I needed to learn patience and self-control. And I learned that I really hate Sister Daniel Catherine.”
“Susan, you should never say you hate anyone, especially one of the Sisters, that’s a mortal sin.”
“OK, Mom, I won’t say I hate one of the Sister’s ever again. I promise.” And I never did say I hated one of the sisters out loud ever again. But I said it many, many times inside my head.
“Susan, sit down I made your Lipton Noodle Soup and Lebanon Bologna sandwich it’s all ready.”
“Thanks, Mom. I’m starved.” Lunch was never a surprise since I had the same lunch every day for eight years, through elementary school years. Although on special occasions I had Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup.
As I eat my lunch, my father sits across from me, eating his six hot dogs. He doesn’t eat hot dog rolls, only the hot dogs with relish. They are cut up in little slices. My father doesn’t like it if anyone talks while he is eating. So, I sit quietly until he finishes eating. And then I bend his ear and tell him everything that happened in school that day. This is actually his dinner since he works the second shift at PTC, which is the Philadelphia Bus Company. He is the Head Dispatcher at the bus depot for the entire city of Philadelphia. When my father has to work the third shift, he sleeps all day, and we aren’t allowed to make any noise and wake him up. My father is deaf in one ear, and we always pray that he is sleeping on his one good ear.
My mother rarely sits down at mealtimes. She’s always getting dinner ready or serving dinner or cleaning up after. Sometimes my mother has her hair set in bobby pins all day unless she is going to go to Mass with the Altar Rosary Society. They are a group of women who say the Rosary together early every morning, and they wash and iron the Altar vestments and clean the Sanctuary in the church.
Right after lunch, my mother starts getting ready to cook dinner. My favorite meal is Irish Stew which is made with beef and carrots, onions and celery and potatoes. After my mom cooks the stew for many hours, she rolls out the dough and puts in on the top of the casserole. And puts it in the oven to bake the dough and let it rise and brown. It’s delicious.
While dinner is cooking, my mother irons. The ironing board is in a little closet on the wall next to the refrigerator. You open the closet door and pull down the ironing board. My mother irons clothes, sheets, and my father’s underwear and his socks. She irons all our clothes. Then cleans the whole house. I have never heard her complain about anything.
Everyone tells me,” your mother’s a saint,” and I believe them. She works so hard and takes care of everyone in our family. And always has a kind word to say. I never heard her say a mean thing in my entire life. I wish I could say the same about myself, but I get mad all the time, at my sisters, my father and the dear sisters, every one of them. I doubt that I will ever be as good a person as my mother.
It’s one of the things I have to tell Father Nolan in confession all the time. He tells me to say three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys. No matter what sins I commit, he gives me the same penance, three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys.
My mother is a quiet person. But a good listener. Every day when my sisters and I come home, she asks us how our day went. And she sits and listens until you finish talking and then she offers you cookies and milk.
After dinner, my mother sits at the kitchen table while we do homework. She quizzes me on my spelling words. She gives me hints if I don’t know how to spell the word. If my father is home, he helps me do my math homework. He works out the problems differently than I do in school, but he always gets the answer right. I keep telling him that’s not the way we do it in school. We do New Math. He tells me that we are doing it incorrectly. He shows me how to do it. He is always right.
But in school, I do it their way. My father is a smart man. He reads a lot on every kind of subject. Right now, he is studying all the world’s religions. He doesn’t go to church as my mother does. But he is curious about the world and the people in it. You ask him any question, he knows the answer. My father’s memory is phenomenal. He remembers everything he reads and hears.
On Sundays, one of my father’s days off, he watches golf on TV. It’s the most annoying thing you can imagine. He is transfixed while he is watching it. Sometimes he feels compelled to tell you about the golf game swing by swing. Although I’m impressed by his ability to remember, I want to plug up ears every time he starts talking about golf. It is unbelievably tedious.
My father watching the news 1960s
Television is an amazing thing, no doubt. But in our house, my father controls what we watch. He is the King of his castle. On his days off, he watches the 6 O’clock news with Walter Cronkite. We aren’t allowed to utter a sound when it’s on. If we want to watch TV, we watch what he watches, end of story. I have become quite fond of Cowboy stories like Matt Dillon and The Lone Ranger. My father and I watch it together. My father pets our dog Andy, the whole time he is watching TV.
My mom brings my father a bowl of ice cream to eat while he is watching TV in the evening. He doesn’t tell her or ask her. She brings it in and, he eats it with salty pretzels. My mother brings herself a bowl too. She is extremely fond of ice cream. She is the proud owner of a sweet tooth that I inherited.
At the end of the night, my dad lets Andy our dog go to the bathroom and waits for him to come back inside. My mother gathers all the coffee cups, ice cream bowls, and glasses and takes them in the kitchen to wash. My dad turns out the lights, and we all go to bed. The next morning, we wake up and start all over again. Good Night.