- I remember moving to Austerlitz when I was 2 years old.  I don’t know who moved us, but I remember mom trying to find my sister Margy, as she was crying, and was hidden behind boxes. 

She put me on top of the boxes and told me to find her and sit there until they could get to her.  I did and Dad or someone had to move all those boxes to get to us. 

We didn’t have games to play with, we made up our own.  Anything we did, we turned into a game. 

As we all grew up becoming older, Mom gave us jobs to do around the house.  I remember when I was 15 or 16 years old and going out on a date but before I could go I had to do the dishes.  I remember feeling like that was all I ever did and as I washed them these words came to me to the rune of  “I’m forever Blowing Bubbles” 

          I’m forever doing dishes

          Dirty dishes in the sink

          They’re piled so high

          Nearly reach the sky

          All I do is wash and dry

          My family’s always eating

          of me they never think

          I’m forever doing dishes

          Dirty dishes in the sink 

I believe w all sang this song in our household from time to time.  I know Isabel and I still sing it.  I can’t vouch for the others. 

We learned how to cook, clean, do canning, plant a garden, raise chickens and pigs. We learned  how to survive the four seasons.  Stacking wood in the barn for winter heat.  Dad had wood delivered and the people would just dump it in the driveway and we had to stack it in the barn.  Also cleaning the drive.

 

I remember getting out of as much work inside the house as possible, so I could be with Dad outside.  We used to go fishing and woodchuck hunting.  Mowing the lawn or planting flowers.  Dad worked away from home and when he came home I washed and polished his truck every weekend and he gave me a dollar.  This was great and I could hardly wait for the weekends; now they come to soon. 

I was very mischievous, but not by myself.  If one of my sisters had a scheme, I always went for it and always paid for their ideas in the end. 

Evie and I got dressed up one day and she convinced me to ride on the bar of our “shared” bicycle.  Mind you we were dressed in our older sisters clothes and high heels.  Well we started out the driveway and headed down to the Jensen’s store for candy or something, only to get a few yards when I got my foot caught in the wheel and Evie tried to keep going, twisting my foot and leg in the spokes.  There was a man who was walking down the road and we both screamed and hollered for help.  He picked me up and took me in our house.  I was really bruised but no broken bones.  Our next door neighbor across the road Mildred Brizzie brought me over a stool to keep my leg elevated.  I don’t know I guess Evie got a spanking. 

Also the time Ronnie and I were not to ride our bikes off the property but we did anyway and rode all the way down to Green River and me being on the crossbar, we went off the shoulder of the road and trying to get back on the pavement, crashed and really got scraped up, blood everywhere.  Mrs. Reynolds called mom and dad came and got us and we had to hold the bicycle up on the outside of the car to bring it home.  Man that damn thing was heavy.  We both were punished and I think the biggest punishment was I had no more transportation; now I had to walk.  So I did. 

I knew the hills on both sides of the road as I was always wandering off.  Mom could never find me and sent my sisters out to find me.  Most of the time I was at Anderson’s, they were the first people in town to have a T.V.  I loved watching “Howdy Dowdy: “ Freddy Friehofer” and Texaco Hour. 

There was a time, when at the Anderson’s, Mrs. Anderson had chicks ready to be hatched and her daughter Dorothy and I cracked them all open and trashed them down the stream.  Looked like eggs to us.  Going down behind their house, I would go into the stream, and with her help with a bar of soap and an ear syringe, I would catch frogs and give them a soapy enema and let them go “put put put” up the stream with bubbles coming out of their rear.  We thought this was fun.  Our parents didn’t. 

When mom couldn’t find me sometimes, I used to just be sitting up in a tree, going so high no one dared come after me. 

One time I sent to Stockman’s, where we all had gone to swim.  I had invited myself to tea.  She, Mrs. Stockman, had company.  I didn’t want to be left out.  I went to the closet took out a cup, put tea in it and sat down to join the crowd.  I was having fun until I turned around and saw my sister Dorothy storming up the driveway.  I said to myself, “oh shit I’m in hot water”.  She approached angrily and said she was taking me home.  I told her she would have to catch me first.  I ran away and she followed me.  I ran to the back of the house and up to a room where Mrs. Stockman kept all her hats in boxes.  She kept coming closer and I said, “if you come any closer, I’ll step in every box.”  She came closer and I stepped in every box crushing the hats.  Dot was mortified and the only way I came down was when she left and I went home along at night to be punished and the next day, having to face Mrs. Stockman was  apologies and being banned from her for a while. 

Another time I wandered off and mom send Shirley after me.  She found me up on Harvey Mt. Road and hollered she was going to blister my ass.  No way Honey.   I took her up and down the mountain, through creeks, running home into the field where Emma’s house now is.  She was exhausted.  I only got punished a little.   

I worked at Edna St. Vincent Milley’s cleaning her pool.  I knew her husband Mr. Bousavan and her fields, where she wrote her poetry.  Never was I allowed in her cabin or no further than her kitchen sitting on a stool drinking orangeade.  When she died and her place was open to the public, it was an honor to be a tour guide.  I still have my plaque, pin and name tag. 

I remember mom and dad going away leaving Emma in charge.  My chose was to scrub mom and dad’s bedroom floor.  Guess I was taking too long, because Emma came around the door and wanted to know what was taking me so long.  He headed for me and I told her to back off or you’ll get this mop a round your neck.  She didn’t listen and got the mop around her neck.  I really got spanked when dad got home an grounded for what seemed forever. 

My first day at school, Emma and Dorothy walked me between them (we always walked to school) lifting me over the cracks in the road.  I’ll always remember mom saying “Don’t step on the cracks or you’ll break your mother’s back.”  To this day I never step on cracks in the road or driveways. 

I learned how to make bread, biscuits, cakes, cook a turkey, a virginal baked ham, baked beans and everything that went with a meal and learned how to put it on the table properly.  Everything was showy and good looking.  I helped dad slaughter pigs, smoking ham and bacon, helping mom take the rinds and making fried pork rinds.  We ate these for snacks.  Making lard from the fat, sausage and anything else we could.  The only thing left ere the bones, which we buried.  The chickens are another story.  Forget it!!! No Way, Never Again!! 

Dad taught me how to knit and Aunt Carrie and Auntie taught me how to crochet and tat.  Uncle Him showed me how to get honey from the bees in the side of his house.  Also we went bullhead fishing at Mr. Popps pond at night. 

I remember as I got older, dad taking us to the Peterson’s barn for square dancing, going to Arthur Murray’s studio of dancing with Margy.  I had won a free dance lesson and I took her along.  We got lost in Troy but had a good time.  We were going to continue to do this, until we heard the price.  Instead of this, Dorothy, Evie, Margy, Emma and I took up roller skating lessons in Stockport.  I had a ball and learned how to skate, but when prices went up and boyfriends came around, this also disappeared.  Just as I was learning to go b backwards.  I still roller skate, but go forward. 

We all sang and played some kind of instrument.  Emma, dad, Evie, myself and Margy I think went with Elmer Jones for an interview to sing on radio at Derrings Barn.  We were good but never made it.  We were although invited to sing at the Hotel in Albany.  This was great fun. 

Growing older, we all got married had weddings, children, with the love of our parents and each other.  There is no time in my life that I can’t remember that we were always there for each other. 

I remember when Jimmy was hit by a car. He was in a body cast and wanted to go to school..  I pushed him up to school on a chaise lounge, and back home.  Going home was tough because it was up hill.  He saw the same scenery going as coming!  Push, pull effect!  Jimmy almost died on us five times. 

I pulled Isabel out of the creek which we called the “white bridge, near Auntie and Uncle Jim’s house. Again I was dressed up in high heels.  There was a cement wall on one side of the bridge.  It was spring time and a thin layer of ice on the brook, also on the cement wall.  We walked up to see if the ice was off the water, it wasn’t and she fell in.  I kicked my shoes off and one landed on top of a car coming down the road.  I ran around the bridge, down the bank into the water and grabbed her arm, pulling her out.  The driver of the car carried her into Auntie’s house.  She was turning blue and so was I.  Somehow we got through this, I don’t remember.  Dr. Wilcox perhaps? I’m sure. 

Here I’m going to just list my memories; picking lice our of each other’s hair, kerosene washes then vinegar, sleigh riding down east and west shills, making large showmen in our hard, the outhouse, helping dad built an addition on the house, blueberry picking, helping Carlo clean the schoolhouse, for help with my homework.  Braiding Isabel’s hair, giving Evie a haircut, using Shirley’s “artees”, trying to steal Freddy from Dorothy, teaching Jack how to dance at the garage, walking on top of the “blue bridge” and swing on the bars under the “white bridge”, smoking dad’s cigars, mom’s cigarettes and Aunt Carrie’s pipe, helping Uncle Jim sharpen scythes, getting a nickel from him when mom said no, working at the garage, roaming at night in the grave yard, scaring my sisters and their boyfriends, who would take a stroll down “lovers lane Route 22”, making mud pies, taking punishment for Evelyn, getting sprayed by a skunk I thought was a varmint after our dog Brownie, going to 4-H, singer sewing school, being a girl scout leader, cub scout leader, a mother, school bus driver and now I am going to be a graduate of Columbia Green Community College in December. 

My life has not always been roses, but who can say that theirs has. 

I miss mom and dad, but am very thankful for knowing that through them we were brought up to love one another and can sense when help is needed.  Although I was mischievous, I did learn how to give as much of me to those who have given much of themselves to me.  This is a good time.  Lets keep it going.  Mom and dad would not have waited so long.  

After thoughts – I remember: 

Having piano lessons with Mrs. Osborn, painting with Mr. Osborn, helping Charlotte Mallin making tailored shirts for men, pestering Mrs. Herron with her mail, helping mom pump water to the sink, sleeping in the bathtub by myself, going in to the attic, riding in the rumple seat of the car, picking narcissism for a bouquet on the table and a daisy “he loves me, he loves me not” picking black berries with Al Shilling, Arthur Brizzee making me my only hope chest for my 16^th birthday.  Having a gun case made for my dad, a foot stool for my mom.  Catching my finger in the needle of Uncle Jim’s sewing machine.  Winning a blue ribbon at the fair for washing shoes and making a dress. Going with Evie with our kids to Oneida up on the lake, taking along our records and record player, everyone coming to visit us; me and dad going out and eating clams and having a drink or two.  Mom was so mad that we were gone so long.  Getting my first police stop with Margy, going to bible school, never going to sleep with out a story and a kiss on the cheek. 

My memories are much longer