Florida in the 70's

So we make it to Meme's in Florida but don't last too long with her because her energy is entirely too positive and her work ethic (something Dad lacked greatly) entirely too strong.  I loved the short time we were there, though.  Dad was nice--he had to be with mother-in-law watching--we always had good food, my Uncle Tim (Meme's son from a later marriage) was a teenager and very cool, and Meme was just the most positive person I had ever encountered.  I remember her going to and coming from work.  She would sing, "work, work, work, fun, fun, fun."  Of course, being 5, I didn't realize she was saying it for my unemployed father's benefit, I just thought she was always really happy to be working!  Wow, did Dad hate her!  Moreso because we all loved her and bought her positivity as just that--a positive attitude. 

We left her house and moved into a beautiful home next to a family with 4 children all very close to our ages.  It was wonderful.  I practically lived next door with my new best friend.  Her mother and brothers were very kind, her father was an ass hole, so naturally we related perfectly to each other.  Jill would tell me some of the horrible things her father did, like forcing her mother to shave her head and various beatings she and brothers would receive.  I, in turn, would tell her the horrible things my father did like prison, drying my brother in the dryer for wetting his bed, torturing the cat we used to have--I had no idea how much worse it would soon get.  Jill's mother taught me to swim, brought me, with Jill, to the finest restaurants, bought me beautiful dresses, and protected me at her home from the hell next door.  I believe this was the home where Dad regularly used a black cane to beat my brothers--I escaped this form of punishment as I was always next door.  Thank God.

When we stopped paying our rent there, we moved to an apartment complex where my only memories are:  nearly drowning in a too crowded pool as I got stuck under a bunch of people, singing "Yellow Submarine" to a heavy girl who came to the pool in a yellow bathing suit (I still feel bad about that, I was stupidly following other kids), Dad working at a car dealership and bringing home different VW's all the time and when we went on long rides I would have to ride in the hatchback, which is a fancy word for trunk, Gary's crush on Jeannie Manini whose name I would just say over and over again because it was just too cool, Gary and Dave's friend's blind father sitting alone in their dark apartment, and being molested by my friend Jessica George's drunk father when I spent the night at her house.  I thought it was so kind of her to let me sleep in her bed while she took the floor.  She knew--at least I saved her one night of  something she probably dealt with her whole life.  Amazingly, this has really left no emotional scars--just a little bit of paranoia when it comes to my daughters sleeping at friends' homes.

Oh, I forgot to mention that in Florida in the 70's segregation was still alive and well.  And little known fact here:  Jews were on the same level as blacks during that whole segregation era (my father was put in an all black regimen in the Air Force).  I was put in an all black classroom in a separate room (trailer) from the rest of the school.  When she began to see the work I was bringing home, which was probably at a pre-kindergarten level because you know "them blacks and Jews ain't too bright,"  she stormed into the school demanding an explanation.  They were forthright in the whole, "you're a Jew" thing--being Irish and never feeling discrimination, she said she realized then what black people must feel.  I wish everyone could feel that even if just for a moment--I'll bet a lot of racism would disappear.

Finally, we moved to East 14th Street.  This was my favorite place even though we had absolutely nothing--no food, no electricity, no clothes that fit us, therefore no school, no shoes.  Nothing but each other, a new dog that Dory got for her birthday and a mango tree in the backyard.  Thor was Dory's black Great Dane.  Dad would get him riled up and he would run, jump, bark--make noise and be crazy--things never allowed in our always controlled world.

Then there was the food situation.  By now it was 1976--I remember this because we would get a half gallon of red, white and blue ice cream (everything that year was red, white and blue) and have to eat the whole thing because, as I mentioned, no electricity.  At 7 years old, this was a wonderful thing.  Tuesdays were A&W chilidogs days (they had a special on Tuesdays--10cent hot dogs or something like that) and I would walk to the stand in my bare feet with one or both of my brothers, watching for glass and picking up treasures: bottlecaps, long round shells, discarded toys...  It was one night a week we knew we would eat something other than liverwurst (I'm not sure why, but that was pretty much all we ate when we lived there). Liverwurst and mangos.

We ate the mangos from our tree in the backyard until dad realized we could make money selling them, so he sent Gary and Dave into the tree to pick them then hawk them at the local grocery store.  Did you know that mangos emit a poisonous syrup?  Gary and Dave woke the next morning with their eyes swelled shut--in fact the skin over their whole bodies was swollen. Mango poisoning.  Who'da thunk it?  I can still taste the dry pasty liverwurst and the sweet but gritty mango.  I've not eaten either one since.

As I write I realize there is so much more Florida than I though I remembered.  I'll have to post a Florida II tomorrow.  Maybe even a Florida III and IV.  But for now, I smell London Broil and rice pilaf upstairs waiting for me.  Mike is a good man.

Jen ;-)