I grew up bouncing around the country as a child. I love the holidays because one of the few fixed points in my early existence was grabbing my big green sleeping bag, piling into the back of our orange Country Squire station wagon, and heading to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to visit our Aylesboro Avenue relatives and celebrate the season.
I’m sure nostalgia colors my remembrance but I still smile
when I recall the anticipation and the excitement of reconnecting with my many young
cousins and overhearing (i.e. spying) on gossipy adult conversations.
This was back in the ‘seventies when children were still seen but not heard. It’s no surprise to me now that I developed into a mystery writer since once the elders spotted me eavesdropping, they started sharing significant looks and exchanging enigmatic verbal clues that I needed to somehow piece together and solve just so I could figure out who they were talking about (suspects, persons of interest) and what the forbidden topic (motive) was.
Looking back, I can see that my deductive and detective seeds were already very firmly planted.
I had two favorite parts to these holiday visits. Firstly,
all of us kids were sent upstairs to the unheated third floor where we camped
out in our sleeping bags and made rough beds from salvaged chair and sofa
cushions. We would stay up so late, so past our bedtime giggling and catching up that my adorable Uncle Bill would eventually repeatedly flick the light switch
from the base of the staircase, shrilly whistle and then thunder: “You kids upstairs go to bed!”
He wasn’t really mad at us. It was all part of the
tradition.
My second favorite part of each visit was dangerous because getting
caught spying on grown-ups was a punishable offense. But I couldn’t help
myself. Adults shared the best stories. They discussed genetically inherited bad
behavior and treasonous multi-generational sibling betrayals. Passionately
overheated PG-13 rated sex scandals and dark Poe-like tales of plotted revenge. Of course, I had to
listen in. It was intoxicating. Whenever I did get spotted my mother would warn
everyone: “Martha's listening. Little pitchers have big ears.”
Eventually, I was clever enough to weasel my way into the
conversational circle and into their good graces by learning how to serve a sausage
and cheese board, mix cocktails, and become their step-and-fetch-it cupbearer. I
was so efficient my grandfather nicknamed me Ganymede.
Sidebar: That older generation also matured during the Great
Depression when no one had any money and they had nothing but board games, vocabulary, and wit for entertainment. To this day, I remember overhearing this exchange between my grandfather
and his younger brother Jim fifty-five years ago:
Uncle Jim: “I’m going to become a
lounge lizard singer when I retire.”
“You might get there,” my grandfather said, not missing a
beat. “Keep practicing your scales.”
Do you have any fond family holiday memories? Did your
family members help you become the writer you are today?
Yes- because of their background stories and what, like you, I could eavesdrop.
ReplyDeleteGood morning, Debra! I miss those conversations and I wonder if the younger generations even have them, hooked in as we are with social media these days. I know now when I do have a decent lengthy conversation with someone it seems like a rarer event. Ah, golden days.
DeleteFor me, I think, it was more a family tradition of reading -- and during the summer at camp, crime stories occupied a large percentage of the reading material.
ReplyDeleteHi Jim - My grandmother was our biggest reader. She devoured library books. My grandfather was the one who introduced me to mystery fiction through Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novels. Once I started reading them, I knew I'd found my niche.
DeleteI would often hide under the kitchen table (one of the few places I was safe from one of my brothers who was never wrong and could do anything he chose. I was his favorite target.) Most of the talk was about social unrest. Was it immoral to send money to cousins in the IRA, given their penchant for violence? Was it immoral not to send them money, given the realities of life in Ireland? The travails of one grandfather, who, as an early Teamsters organizer, was blacklisted from employment for thirty years. (Although I'm on withdrawn status, I'm a member of the Teamsters Union, and I've walked their picket lines.) The terrible changes in my other grandfather's behavior over the years. He worked in a hat factory, and in retrospect, probably suffered from mercury poisoning. What we overheard in childhood undoubtedly has an influence on our writing.
ReplyDeleteWe weren't allowed to discuss religion or politics at the table. My dad and uncle worked in the steel industry. (We were from Pittsburgh after all.) I remember sticking black olives on the ends of my fingers while the dads discussed selling tons of cold rolled steel and my cousin correctly spelled Mississippi backwards. It was a madhouse. Thank goodness my older cousin Alice had all the Nancy Drew Mysteries. When I needed a break, I disappeared into one of them!
DeleteI love this. It brought back sitting on the upper steps where I couldn’t be spotted because of the wall catching up on the adult conversation. Amazing the things a kid could learn. It required careful listening, though, and was excellent training at reading between the lines. The only bathroom was just behind me at the head of the steps. If I missed the cues - disaster.
ReplyDeleteHi Kait - Yes, stealth listening required vigilance. LOL Luckily, we kids knew it was us versus the adults so I could negotiate a bribe with any of my cousins who caught me at it. Standard bribes usually involved buying a 15 cent comic book from the corner newstand. Man, I am giving away my age with this post!
ReplyDeleteI was always terrified to sit on Santa's lap as a kid, despite my parents trying to get that perfect holiday picture. One year, my aunt (who is only 13 years older than me) came down for Christmas, and because I idolized her, she decided to sit on Santa's lap so that I would do it. She asked Santa for a new apartment with a door (long story...) and I finally got up the courage to ask for School Teacher Barbie. Lo and behold, we both ended up with our Christmas wish -- and I learned sitting on Santa's lap wasn't at all scary!
ReplyDeleteSchool Teacher Barbie sounds harmless enough. I asked for and got a chemistry set once that when I reconsider these days I ask myself: what was Mattel (and Santa) thinking? It's a lucky thing I didn't poison someone or burn down the house!
DeleteLovely piece, Martha! It made me nostalgic for all the family I'm missing! Happy Thanksgiving to you!
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving to you! Are you still having some turkey and don't forget the pie?
DeleteYou were born to be a snoop, Martha! When I was a young boy, my four siblings, two parents, and I would travel from Pittsburgh to Danbury, Connecticut, for the Fourth of July, where our grandparents lived. My Grandpa was an Italian immigrant who took great delight in playing tricks on the grandkids. We would gather together in the living room and he would give us exactly 60 seconds to remain still while he hustled upstairs to take an "invisible pill." One minute later, we all rushed up to investigate every nook and cranny. No Grandpa! Dejected, we returned to the living room ten minutes later, to find Grandpa sprawled on the chaise lounge, enjoying a root beer. Even as we aged and got the notion of how he managed to do this, it never got stale!
ReplyDeleteWe had pranksters in our family, too, so much that when something odd happens I still ask: is this a trick? LOL. Happy Thanksgiving!
Delete