I just came across this illustration from a 1950's kid book.
I thought this is just the sort of digs I'd like to live in or regularly visit.
It reminded me of the play cabin my grand Aunt Josey built for all us kids behind her place.
It was our Wendy House.
I was blessed in having her and Uncle 'Louie'.
He was a Merchant Marine. Sailed Convoys in WW2. Torpedoed yet went out again.
After the war he worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Built aircraft carriers with his bare hands.
Wadda a guy.
We were so blessed to have him Aunt Josey, and the play cabin. I'm just remembering she had some rabbits and a lamb out back too. She lived way out in the country, so she let them roam about. Then there was that 1940's rubber wading pool she's drag out for us. Any family out there remember that? She also gave us little boats made of twigs and leaves to play with.
Uncle was who I came out to when I was 16. He told me to tell him if I had a problem. 'Said, there's nothing I could do he ain't heard of or done himself. So one afternoon I went over.
He sat me down at the kitchen table lit up a Chesterfield and said: "...It's okay just tell me" He had a way of looking stern yet loving at the same time. I said I might 'like' some of the boys at school. ...pause... He blew his top.
But not for the reasons you'd think.
He said ...said my dear Uncle Louie. Said he: "...What?!!!
Is that all?!! I thought you got a girl pregnant!"
Turns our he my ma, and all my aunts knew since I was born.
They always called me, ...sensitive. Code for, ...well 'sensitive'.
Mind you my teen years like everyone's was a speeding dumpster full of flaming shit. However my family cut me slack on the Gay thing. Most seriously didn't. ...especially back then.
If they make a movie of my life, and times that scene with Uncle goes in.
That and when we saw a UFO.
That's a beautiful, comforting image.
ReplyDeleteYou were lucky to have an intact family. Many kids wish they did, but don't.
Z
I had and still have a rather vast extended family. Every type. One had their pick. Which is to say there were some safe ports of call in the hell of growing up. Yes, we were and are blessed. ...in an imperfect sometimes hard but mostly okay sort of way.
ReplyDeleteIn his last novel, Island, Aldous Huxley described a society where it’s standard for a group of families to form an association, whereby their kids can visit elsewhere when there’s trouble at home. I can see how a big extended family could sort of function like this. The tiny nuclear family has some major problems.
ReplyDeleteZ
Oh yes. For example, my youngest sister was a deeply troubled kid. Very difficult for us to deal with. We sent her to live with my Grand Aunt. This far from the city in the country. It took her out of the group she was with, and her imagined wrongs done by us. Later I stayed with a cousin of my Ma's. She lived in Vancouver. Jim Crow even in NYC was having a deadly effect on me. I attempted to take my life. So I lived years in another country. They had problems but no Jim Crow. I healed and came back.
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