Yet Another Childhood Survey

Purloined from Lushy:

Are you a child of the 70s, 80s, or 90s?
The 70's. God, I'm old.

Where were you born?
The Jersey Shore.

What city did you grow up in?
A little beach side town on the Jersey Shore.

Did you enjoy your childhood?
Immensely.

When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up?
The first female football coach in the NFL. Seriously.

What do you want to be now?
Over sexed and independently wealthy.

Name the first memorable vacation you took as a kid?
When I was about six, my mother, brother, and I drove to Florida to visit my oldest brother in college. I was actually quite good for most of the trip, until I saw the giant Welcome to Florida sign, and then I started the ubiquitous "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" That lasted for the next nine hours until we got to Sarasota. Who knew Florida was so long?

What was your first best friend or friends' name?
Lori F. We found each other the first day of kindergarten. The teacher lined us up by height, and Lori and I were last. Being the two shrimps of the class, we found it wise to stick together.

Are they still your friend?
We stayed friends all the way through high school, where we continued to be the shrimps of the class. I haven't seen her in years. If I were to run into her, I would tackle her with all the delight of a slobbering puppy.

Can you name all the schools you ever attended?
Of course, I'm not that old.
You don't want me to do it here, do you?

Who was your first crush?
Richie H. in kindergarten. I started young. Even at five I could appreciate big blue eyes and long lush eyelashes. We walked to and from school together with our moms and I would pretend we were married. This did not please Lori F, as she too had an eye for the cuties. Fortunately, we never allowed boys to get in the way of our friendship.

Were you closer to your Mom or Dad as a kid?
I was always closer to my mom, but like Lushy, I longed to be closer to my dad. Daddy issues anyone?

Do you have any embarrassing school stories to share?
I used to beat up boys. Like, a lot.

What was the first record, tape or CD you remember buying?
Shadow Dancing by Andy Gibb.
Shut up.

Were you scared of anything?
I was afraid of our basement. It had all these creepy little rooms and closets from its former glory days as a speakeasy. Even though it was my favorite place to play, I still remember being petrified when it was time to go back upstairs. For some reason I had it in my head that if my feet were on the basement floor when I turned out the lights, the Boogie Man could get me. The lights had to be turned off before you went up the stairs, which posed quite the dilemma. So I would stand on the bottom step and lean over as far as I could so I could turn out the lights and not actually be touching the floor. I almost fell on my face on a daily basis doing this, but the Boogie Man never got his grubby paws on me. Suck it Boogie Man!

What was your favorite class in elementary school?
The first year the government started doling out money for the Gifted programs, I was tested and immediately sent to be in the new "Special" class. There were only a few of us in this little room, and I don't think our teacher, Mr. K, had a fucking clue what to do with us. I can still see the Incentive Chart on the wall covered with bright shiny stars to keep us interested. We were meant to put on some sort of play for the school, but that never happened. In fact, suddenly Gifted class just stopped and nobody ever told us why. It wasn't until I was about 30 years old that my mother gently explained to me that my beloved Mr. K had had a nervous breakdown and had been carted off in the Twinkie Mobile. I blame myself.

Broke any bones or had any freaky accidents as a kid?
I was quite the little athlete as a child, mostly because I thought I was a boy until the twins arrived. The two major injuries I remember were both sports related.
Injury One: in my valiant effort to avoid getting hit in Dodgeball, I slid across the gym on my shoulder and wound up slamming head first into a bench. You should have seen the look on the school nurse's face when she saw me - subdural hematoma anyone?
Injury Two: I was playing Kickball with the boys for the world championship (of the playground). I was in third grade at the time, and not only was I the only girl allowed to play, but I was the pitcher as well. The last one up was a fourth grade boy who snickered derisively when he saw that a girl was pitching. He kicked the ball right at me with all his might. I stood my ground, held my arms out, and literally caught the ball with my neck. I toppled over onto my back with the ball but never let go. We won!! Everyone was screaming and cheering and going wild until they realized I couldn't get up. The ball hit me so hard that I literally could not move, speak, or breathe. The aforementioned and now traumatized nurse actually thought that it had fractured my windpipe. Fortunately I was ok - after a week or so of bed rest.
The important point to remember here is that we won the game - because of me. That's all that matters. Windpipes come and go, but glory on the playground lasts forever.

Did you play house or pretend to be a super hero?
I did it all baby. I was a thoroughly modern woman.

Letter to 13

Dear Brooke at 13,

I know that this is an incredibly scary time for you. Everything you have ever known is changing, and not for the better. I also know that there is nobody you can talk to about any of this. You know what I am talking about. Not about puberty, which is pretty much the only issue that your peers are dealing with right now. And not about boys, as you have no problem in that area. This is about the disintegration of your family, your home, and everything that has made your life good, and stable, and happy, up to this point.

Your father is gone - not for good - but he's gone for now and there is nothing you can do about it. It's not your fault and it's best for you to just know that he will be back and he will make every effort to make it up to you in his own way. Your mother is having the first of many meltdowns. Get used to this. They come and go with the breeze. This will be hard for you to comprehend, but you and she will be best friends one day. Important tip: breathe deep and count to five when you sense an oncoming freak-out. As for your brothers, though older and wiser, they are still too young and contain too much testerone to be able to understand what you are going through. They are also having a much harder time dealing with all of this then they are letting on.

You will always have fond memories of your life before now, but please, leave them in the past. You had an incrediby happy childhood. What you are going through now is totally unfair and borderline cruel, but you will get through it. The long, lonely walks you will take to get to your new school will help. They will give you the time to think, and sort, and deal with the fact that you are in a new town, a new home, and none of your old comforts to help you. I know it will be tempting to spend those walks imagining that none of this is happening - believe me I know. But don't. Pretending that none of this is real robs you of the opportunity to see the good things when they come - and they will. Believe me.

Give the new kids a chance. I understand why you don't want to tell them about where your father is. Or that your family had to sell the house you grew up in and then all go their separate ways. Or that you had to give away your dogs, and your cat, and sell anything of real value to move from a 5-bedroom house at the shore to a tiny 2-bedroom rowhome in Center City - with only your mother, no less. It's ok to have secrets, but don't let them eat you up inside. These kids won't judge you. They will like you. They don't care that you don't have the kind of money they have. They don't care that you wear Levi's and not Sassoons. You will be extremely popular because you are enormously likable. Trust me.

I don't want to tell you how this year ends because I am afraid it will begin a lifelong pattern of living in the future and not the present. But know this - you are going to be OK. You have more strength in you than you know. Everything that has happened - has happened for a reason. Go with it. Stretch. Learn. Absorb. And most important of all, don't be afraid to be yourself.

Love,

Brooke at 40
(I know! Can you believe it! We're 40!)

I Can Remember...

Those days we left behind,
Will always be around
For in this heart of mine,
I will never forget the times
In my youth - always dreamin'
In my youth - I believe in
Innocence was mine - in my youth

-Noiseworks, "In My Youth"

Fractured Fairy Tale

"You have four older brothers? And you're the only girl?! You must have been so spoiled growing up! Were you their little princess?"

I get this a lot. Clearly from people who did not grow up with four older brothers. I dont know where they get the idea that I had a fairy tale childhood just because there were four boys in my house. I mean seriously, think about that image. A house full of stinky socks, stinky boys, and stinky athletic equipment. I now know where I get my super sensitive sense of smell.

I called them "the boys". To this day I still do. And I'm not saying the boys didn't spoil me in some ways. I was theirs, in a sense, and they made sure I was included in almost everything. They celebrated every first - first new teeth, first day of school, first dance recital. They created my own corner in the basement and made all of my birthday parties the event of the season. They let me hang out with their friends, and taught me all about sports. In many ways, the boys raised me.

But boys will be boys - so my fairy tale is definitely a fractured one. They tormented my friends - especially those that were unfortunate enough to develop crushes on them. They tickled me until I cried, or wet myself, whichever came first. They insisted that I needed a bra for my knees since they stuck out more than any future breasts ever possibly could. I was their personal slave - it was my job to change the channel (no remote control back then, but then again, only about four channels to choose from), to keep them fed and watered, to never ever tattle, and to run all over the house to find whatever it was they couldn't find at a given time. It should also be mentioned that I have had long nails since I was a toddler because my brothers told me the only reason I had been brought into the house was to scratch their backs.

I say brought into the house, and not born, for a reason. I don't remember exactly when it happened, but there came a time when I was very young that my brothers felt the need to reveal the truth to me. I was not, in fact, their real sister. I had been adopted. When I was just a baby, a policeman found me abandoned in a basket and brought me to the house. He felt our family would be perfect since there were only boys, and these boys clearly needed a little sister to scratch their backs and do their bidding. It was important for me to be good, or the police officer would have to come back and find me a family to live with up in Atlantic City.

The policeman's name was Officer Krupke.

For years I would pout whenever the dreaded Officer Krupke was brought up. It can't be true! I had heard the stories about when I was born from my mom. How she could hear the Miss America parade going on from her hospital room when she was waiting for me to arrive. How the whole town made a fuss because finally a girl was born. How the prim and proper lady across the street came running over in her nightgown when she heard the big news. My brothers, the big poopyheads, had to be lying.

I remember in vivid detail when my brothers told me that a very special movie was going to be on television that night and that we would all be watching together. My parents said I could stay up late to see the whole thing, and I was very excited. I brushed my teeth and put on my pajamas and went downstairs to the living room. My brothers seemed to be more excited than I was, and they took great pains to make sure that they were all sitting around me when the opening credits of West Side Story came on.

I loved it. The singing, the dancing, the fighting! It was enthralling! How cool of my brothers to make sure I didn't miss this! I don't recall how far into the movie it was when I heard the Jets break into the famous Gee Officer Krupke song. I just remember that when the boys - who had been waiting for this moment for most of my life - saw the recognition in my face, and heard me scream "HEY!!!!!! That's Officer Krupke!!!!!" - they finally knew what it was like when they tickled me.

Krup you boys.

I've Been a Bad Bad Girl

So I'm like nine years old. And I want some candy. Bad. Real bad. The problem is, I have no money. That's bad too. Real bad.

All I need is a quarter. With a quarter I can get three candy bars and four Bazookas. (Yes, I'm that old.) So all I need is a quarter. But I don't have a quarter. So I do what so many of us have done but won't admit.

I go into mom's money drawer.

But there are no quarters. There are no ones. Not even any fives.

So I take a ten.

That's reeeeeeeally bad.

Ten dollars is a lot of candy. But I only plan on getting a quarter's worth of candy. I will then hide the rest of the money and use it to buy candy until I'm 12.

I slip the ten in my shorts' pocket, run out to the garage, and take off on my bike like a little girl terrified of getting busted for stealing ten dollars from her mom's money drawer. I arrive panting and wheezing at Bowen's Candy Store five minutes later.

I reach into my pocket.

The money is gone.

It fell out of my pocket.

Crap.

I spend the next three hours retracing the five minute bike ride to the candy store. I look under every rock, in every gutter, on every porch.

It's gone.

I'm being punished for stealing. I just know it.

I go home with the guilt of a little girl who just stole ten dollars from her mom's money drawer and then let it fall out of her pocket. I hide in my room for a while wallowing in my shame. Then mom calls me downstairs to feed the dogs and set the table.

I bring the dogs' bowls of food to the back porch. Sweetums runs up the steps and starts inhaling her dinner. Sundance stays in the yard, barking. He's dug a hole, and he is standing there barking at it.

This is odd. Our dogs don't dig holes - or bark at them - and they never allow their dinner to sit for one second longer than necessary. I wonder if he has tried to bury a bone, or if he just wants to prove to me that he knows how to dig a hole.

I go down the stairs. I look in the hole; hoping there is nothing disgusting in there like a dead bird or one of my brother's socks.

It's not a bird or a sock.

Lying in the bottom of the hole is a ten dollar bill.



True story.

And yes, I put it in mom's money drawer.

And I never stole again.

Childhood Meme

The Meme: What 5 Things do you miss about your childhood?

I got tagged by Modigli. Thanks for the walk down memory lane, Mo! Perfect timing since I was just in my hometown. I also helped myself to some copying and pasting from your post for the rules. Hope you don't mind.

Rules to this meme:
Remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place. Add your blog's name in the #5 spot. Link to each of the other blogs for the desired cross pollination effect.

1. This is Ali
2. It's the End Of The World As We Know It
3. More Than My Luggage
4. Modigli
5. Babbling Brooke

Next: select new friends to add to the pollen count. Of course, no one is obligated to participate, but what's the fun if you don't play along? On that note, feel free to tag yourself if I didn't list you here, but you'd like to do it.

Ghost Writer
Anthony
Ruben
WhiteBoyBob
Cannot Be Trusted
Jo-Anne
Upstate Girl

So, the five things I miss about my childhood are:

1. My corner. Our basement - as I have mentioned before - was a speakeasy back during prohibition. It was huge, the entire length and width of our house, and had all the original fixtures from its less lawful days. My parents pretty much handed over the basement to my older brothers, who gave legendary parties down there that people still talk about 25 years later. In one end of the basement, my brothers took it upon themselves to make "Brooke's corner". They built shelves out of old planks and bricks and filled them with my books, toys, Barbies, and records for my record player. I had an easel, a kitchen set (interesting to note since I went on to become a chef), and a ladybug table and chairs. I would play down there for hours on end, and even if my brothers were having friends over, I was never sent away. It was my corner, and I could play when I wanted. Often their friends would join me in my corner. Usually they were stoned. I would bake them little cakes in my Easy-Bake oven while they waited patiently at my ladybug table. Good times.

2. My birthday parties. Again, legendary to this day. And again, my brothers played a major role. You must understand, I have four older brothers - and I'm the only girl - and while I wasn't spoiled, they did like to make a fuss now and then. My birthday parties were a big fuss. Eunie - our housekeeper/second mom/all around fabulous person - would make her famous fried chicken. My brothers would set up games like hide-and-go-seek and penny-on-the-shoe. I would actually wear a dress. My parents would deal with 30 screaming little girls tearing through the house. And the presents! Actually I don't remember the presents much. I was too much of a party-girl even then to care much about the presents. Hawaiian Punch for all my friends!

3. Summer vacations. Our house was half a block from the beach. Our town was a major resort area. It is actually on an island. Summer camp? We don't need no stinkin summer camp! The beach was our summer camp. I would wake up in the morning, inhale my bowl of sugar-laden cereal, put on my bathing suit, grab a towel, and yell "Moooooooooooooommmmmmm, I'm going to the beeeeeeeeeeeeeach!!!" Her reply was always the same "Sit by the lifeguards and I'll be right theeeeeeeeere!!!!!!" And then I would walk myself down to the beach. Can you imagine? An eight year old walking herself to the beach? Couldn't happen in this day and age. The lifeguards loved when I came down. They were in charge of holding my glasses while I was in the water, which they used to burn greenheads to a satisfactory crisp. When the rest of the family arrived we would all set up the chairs into a giant semi-circle, and my friends and I would spend the day playing in the water, making drip castles in the mud, and rolling around in the hot sand. Til the ice cream man came - then all hell broke loose. The bell would ring, the kids would scream - "THE ICE CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAM MAN IS HEEEEEEEEEERE!!!!!!!!!!!", and there would be this mad dash of kids running up to the bulkhead with their ice cream money. Trying to carry all the ice creams for everyone back through the hot sand was always entertaining for the adults. But that was our job, that - and making sure that the *shoobies didn't feed the flying rats.

4. Playing in the street. There was one street in our town that had about 40 kids on it. No kidding. Every family had anywhere from three to eight kids on this little tiny beachblock. All the surrounding blocks had tons of kids too, just not quite as many. We lived two blocks away and had five kids. (sad that people don't have big families like that anymore) So we would all migrate over to that block and play whatever game was going on that day. During the day it was usually street hockey. (I was the only girl who played street hockey. I had four older brothers, remember? I was practically a boy until my breasts showed up.) Usually in the evening we would play Kick the Can until it got dark. Then we played Ghost in the Graveyard. Pretty much the same game, but the ghost part made it spooky and rid of us of any annoying sissies. Back then our parents didn't worry about us walking home alone after dark. Life was sweet.

5. Snowball fights on the beach. You haven't lived until you've had a snowball fight on the beach. I still have such strong images in my mind of the forts we built, the gray of the ocean, our dogs running maniacally around in a perfect state of bliss. Coming home to hot chocolate, stripping out of our sandy snowy clothes, and sitting in front of the fire til our clothes were dry again and we could go out and do it all over again. It seemed so natural to us back then. Now I realize how lucky we were to grow up in a place where playing in the snow on the beach was a normal part of winter.

I just noticed that none of my memories have anything to do with school, but are all about partying. Interesting. I do have great memories of school - but that will have to be another blog.

*Shoobies is the local term for tourists. It has two meanings. It refers to the old days in Atlantic City when tourists took a day trip to the shore by train. They would bring their lunch in a shoe box and then eat on the beach. Its more modern meaning usually refers to people from out of town (Philly in particular) who wear shoes to the beach - a major no-no for locals.

Our House

I did something today I promised myself I would never do again, but I just couldn't help myself. I was drawn in like a moth to the flame. Like flies to shit. Like...why do these analogies include bugs? I hate bugs, they are creepy crawly....sorry. I'm back. I'm distressed by what I saw today. And in order to fix this distress, I'm going to need about a million dollars. I'm a little distressed about that too.

I'm in my hometown in Jersey this week, and one of my favorite things to do is ride my bike on the boardwalk in Ventnor, then on down to Margate (no boardwalk in Margate, it got washed away in a hurricane before I was born) and then down to the Longport Point. I grew up in Margate, in a fabulous house, one of those houses that people still talk about with fond memories. It was the house that made everyone feel welcome. I was shattered when we had to sell it, but unfortunately I had little say in the matter being that I was only 12. There was a lot of family strife going on at the time, and our house was a casualty of war.

So today I took my bike and went for a ride. It's a perfect day here, not too hot, not too cool, light breeze. I was having a wonderful ride. And then I did it. I tried to stop myself but my bike seemed to have a mind of its own. I rode up to my old street. I stopped. I parked my bike. And I sat in front of our old house.

And I cried.

I didn't cry because seeing the house brings back memories - even though it does. I didn't cry because I resent that we had to sell it - well, not anymore I don't. And I didn't cry because of how much I miss living here at the shore - even though I do. I cried because our house, the house that so many people loved and still love to this day, is now the shabby house on the street.

Nothing has been done to it. Nothing. No gardening. No painting. No sprucing up. Nothing in over 20 years. It sits there - peeling, chipping, rusting; with broken windows and long-dead rosebushes. It is, in a word, unloved. It has not been loved since we moved away all those years ago.

And even worse than being unloved, it is empty. Nobody is there to live in this wonderful, warm, welcoming home. Nobody appreciates the basement that was a speakeasy during prohibition, and all the spooky rooms where the hooch was hidden. The porch with the ocean views. The beautiful stained glass windows. The marble fireplace we sat in front of on cold winter nights. The tiny backyard where our dogs would play. The amazing architecture, the hand-made crown molding, the gorgeous parquet floors (oh I'm sorry, the gorgeous parquet floors are covered with carpet now, the one thing the buyers did do to the house. Who the fuck carpets parquet floors???)

To backtrack a bit, we sold the house because we had to - long long story that I don't wish to go into here. It was just before the casinos really hit in Atlantic City, and the buyers got their summer home for a song. A summer home. My house became a "summer home". Nauseating. A year later it had quadrupled in value. Today it is worth 10 times what we sold it for. Despite their good luck due to our family misfortune, the new owners never truly had the chance to enjoy their summer home. Shortly after they bought it, their daughter was killed in an accident. I don't think they ever really recovered from her death. Now they are very old, and very ill. They have issues with their remaining son. (I found all this out from the next door neighbors, who when I told them that I had grown up in the house - and they saw my distrees - were more than willing to fill me in.) And so the house sits, run-down and neglected. A casualty of war again.

When I saw it today I felt like it was calling out to me - as if it is waiting for one of us to come back - wondering what it did to deserve to be abandoned and ignored. I am terrified that it will be sold and torn down like Maloney's; like so many of the beautiful old homes here at the shore. I just can't let that happen to our house.

And so I need a million dollars, at least, to save our house. Lottery tickets, prayer, and begging are all included in the first plan of action. I haven't worked out the second plan yet. Clearly if I knew how to make a million dollars - I would already have a million dollars. Maybe even two.

I'm definitely a little distressed.