Hello to new viewers!

Not sure what's going on with this site, but just imagine that I put spaces between paragraphs and inserted photos. Blogger wouldn't let me. Maybe they will later?

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Being Auntie Pat


I've always told people that I was an "afterthought". My parents had already had 3 girls, the youngest of whom was 12 years old, and the eldest, 19. There is some proof, however, that I wasn't a surprise...I was planned. I felt some comfort in the fact, that my mom had a miscarriage before me, but still, even at 41, tried again. Perhaps I would have had another sister or brother, or maybe I wouldn't have been around.

When I was four, my oldest sister had her first baby, a girl. They lived a couple of hours away, so when they came to visit a couple of years later, my sister helped me bring her to my first grade class since it was my turn to "show and tell". I imagine that I educated the class about what a niece looks like, and the fact that I was the youngest auntie in the class.
Over the years, my sisters ended up having 10 more babies, and I found myself delighted with my little playmates. I was, after all, closer to their ages than I was to many of my own cousins. Most of them lived close by in the Bay Area, and would often come over to my house, where I lived with my Mom and Dad.

This is during a time way before video games or cell phones. We had a great time just being outside playing together. Running around my parent's white stucco house, chasing each other, was a major pastime. One game was called "the farmer and the chickens". It consisted of one kid being the farmer, trying to catch all the chickens before they ran all around the house and crept in to the "chicken coop", aka the porch swing, in the backyard. Much giggling and shrieking was involved in this game, as we tried to get by the farmer, who clearly was at a disadvantage being on his or her own.

Another memorable game was played on the cement front steps that were painted the obligatory red. It was called "school", and one child, the teacher, held a rock in one hand, and put forward both fists for a student (all of whom were sitting on the bottom stair), to choose a hand. If they chose the one with the rock, they graduated to the next step, but if they didn't, they either stayed where they were or, later in the game went down one step. This game was really good for all ages, except for the times when one of the littler kids felt bad about losing all the time, cried and wouldn't move. The first one to get to the top stair was the winner, and was the next teacher. I remember everyone having red chalky stains on the back of their pants after sitting on the stairs.

The lawn in front of the house was on a hill, so it was great fun to take turns rolling on our sides, over and over on the cool grass down to the sidewalk. The sidewalk usually had a hopscotch drawn on to it with chalk. Some of the older kids played hopscotch, while the younger ones tumbled down the hill. I learned from recess in grade school, that you should have your own bit of chain as your marker. I think it is called a taw. My dad gave me a few links of a toilet chain he found in the garage, while my friend had a small chain that hooks at either end, usually used as a key chain. The chains landed and stayed put where a rock might roll around, so it was preferable. A chain, being  longer though, might drape over a line when tossed, causing you to miss a turn. Sometimes, if there was a taw in each of the first three squares, you'd have to get a running start to make a flying leap over all the squares, and keep your balance on one foot after you picked up your chain, and then finishing the grid. We all had to keep an eye out for the toddlers, though, that they didn't randomly walk through the game, picking up the chains.

Back in the house, my Dad was always willing to answer the pleas of the grandkids to let them do "flips" on him. He'd hold their hands as they walked their little feet up his legs and on to his chest. Then they'd flip over backwards. The older, more experienced ones could flip back the other way, face beaming, and then get back in line for another turn. By the time all this was happening, I was about 12, and a little too tall for such things. I remembered wistfully that I had had my share of flipping in my day.

A couple of years later, I sat in front of the TV every couple of nights for my Laura Weber guitar lesson on KQED. I was very devoted and practiced every day, sitting by myself in the living room in my Dad's big chair. That's where I'd sit after a while with all my attentive, darling nieces and nephews, singing along with me, as I played and sang, "Oh They Built the Ship Titanic", and other songs that I still have in my Corduroy Book, a binder full of folk and pop songs. They had been painstakingly printed by hand on binder paper and many of the chords and words had been,.carefully transcribed by me and a friend by listening to records on my portable record player in the living room.
The Corduroy Book is still in use, as last May, I was asked to bring my guitar and music to my first niece's 60th birthday party. Her special request was to sing the Titanic song. We were sitting around a campfire, and as I looked out past the flames at the crowd, I saw many of my sweet nieces and nephews next to their own grown kids, singing along with their Auntie Pat once again.