The Easter Bunny Lived in My Back Yard

We had a rabbit hutch in our back yard, and its star resident was the Easter Bunny. Honestly!  That’s what Dickie told me. And he was my big brother, so that’s what I believed.

The thing about the Easter Bunny that many people didn’t seem to know was that he had only one ear.  He lost the other somewhere along the way, but it didn’t seem to bother him much.  He was a big buck who ruled the roost, and I was very proud that he lived in my back yard.  He brought me lots of jellybeans, malted-milk eggs, and a chocolate rabbit or two every year without fail.

There were drawbacks to being the only one in school who had a personal relationship to the Easter Bunny.  Teachers, for example, always had to ask why I only colored in one ear. So I had to explain, over and over again, that the Easter Bunny had only one ear, and that he lived with us on Grove Terrace. 

One big advantage to knowing the truth:  I felt free to make every chocolate bunny I encountered anatomically correct.

I don't really remember when I found out that neither Dickie's story nor the whole Easter Bunny thing were real.  Sometimes real life doesn't have to crowd out a good story.

Quirkie

Quirkie was a hoot, and she was one of my best childhood friends, even though she was nearly old enough to be my grandmother. Her real name was Alice Quirk, and she lived in the house behind ours.  Her husband, Big Bob, a Leominster police officer, died when I was very young, and her children, Bobby and Mary Jane, were soon off to their own lives.

Quirkie may have lived alone, but it was never in her nature to be alone.  She loved being around people, often dropping by our house for “half a cup of coffee.” She even enjoyed having a little girl tagging along with her.  We would go to Howard Johnson’s for Fish Fry Night, and for years, I slept on her sofa every Saturday night after we watched, and sang along with, Mitch Miller.  I would join her for visits to her family in Worcester, the O’Rourkes, and for mean games of Pokeno with her lady friends.

When Mary Jane married and had children, Quirkie would take me along on drives to Stamford, Conn.  (She nearly always got a ticket for driving too slow on the highway.)  Mary Jane’s kids, Stephen and Neil, are now grown men and probably don’t even remember me, but I adored those babies and could change their diapers and burp them like a pro, at least after a little practice. Mary Jane was as sweet to me as Quirkie, and I adored her husband Sal.

When I was very little, Bobby nicknamed me Little Miss No-Name because I refused to say my name.  I didn’t stay shy long.  After serving in the Navy, Bobby came back to Leominster.  He used to beg me to read really bad jokes to him from a book I carried around.  Soon, he married Sandra, who I thought was just about the most glamorous woman around.  They came to Quirkie’s for dinner every Sunday—I recall Quirkie fixing “ham what am.” Bobby was a model son, always showing up to mow or shovel for his mother.

Looking back, I realize that my friendship with Quirkie was something very rare and special.  She taught me that adults can be real friends to little children, even those outside their family, and can make a child feel quite special.  I like to think that I honor her example in my friendships with various neighborhood kids over the years.

Speak Now or Forever Hold Hold Your Peace

To a child, everything is normal because it is all you know.  It takes some years to appreciate the eccentricity that surrounds every home in every town.

Among our neighbors was a couple I will call George and Martha.  They did not speak to each other.  They had been married for many years, had a grown child, and shared a lovely little house that was divided in two.  George had use of the former dining room; the living room was Martha’s.  They prepared separate meals and, I assume, slept in separate rooms. 

Alice was exceptional in many ways.  She was middle aged in my childhood, and not svelte by any means, but she wore rather dramatic clothing, favored black stockings, and wore lots more makeup than any other woman I knew.  She worked full time and did not drive.  My mother made it very clear that we were to help her by running errands whenever she asked, and she asked fairly often.  She was very nice about it, and so I didn’t mind—except for those rare occasions when she would ask me to deliver a message to George.  Even a small child knows that this is odd.

I am not sure when George and Martha stopped speaking to each other or exactly why.  I do know that we occasionally saw George with another woman at the grocery store and around town.  Divorce was no doubt out of the question for these devout Catholics.  The standoff lasted decades.

Then, miraculously, when I was grown and gone, George and Martha reconciled.  But almost as soon as they did, Martha was diagnosed with cancer and had to have her larynx removed.  She was never able to speak again, and she never regained her health.

George was completely devoted to Martha’s care at the end of her life, treating her with great tenderness.  When I visited them, they looked into each other’s eyes like love-struck teenagers.  But they were never able to speak to each other again.

Nature's Nobleman

One of the best gifts my parents ever gave me and my brothers and sisters was a bullmastiff named Rebel.  His name did not suit him at all; there was nothing rebellious about this gentle giant. My Louisiana-born mother insisted on the name as a form of equal representation because my father had a cat named Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Rebel was 130 pounds of lumbering love.  We were puppies together; I’m told that my parents would put him in my playpen with me.  Perhaps that is why he was unusually protective of me.  I know of only two times when he ever even barked, once when a vicious dog charged at me and the second time when a stranger invited me into his car.  In the first instance, I am sorry to say he killed the dog, a crazy Dalmatian.  As for the stranger, Rebel somehow managed to jump into the car and put his big mouth on the man’s neck.  I ran home and my mother called the police, who found the man unharmed but with Rebel still holding his neck between his teeth. But these were most definitely the exceptions.  He was so gentle that our cat once enlisted his help in transporting her kittens, by mouth, to another location.

There were no leash laws in Leominster in those days.  Rebel wandered all over town and seemed to have a fairly regular routine.  Mornings, he would drop by Crossman’s Market (now Honey Farms) on Merriam Avenue for the bone that Mr. Crossman, a butcher who was also our mayor for years, would give him.  During the day, he would roam from playground to playground during school recesses to visit with the kids.  When the factory whistle blew at 3:00 p.m., he dropped by McCann’s Café, a pub on Pleasant Street, across the street from Charley Whitney’s gas station, to enjoy a bowl of beer.  Most days, he would finish up in time to walk home with me from St. Leo’s School.

A giant dog makes the perfect pillow for a bunch of kids watching TV, and Rebel served us well through many episodes of American Bandstand and the Mickey Mouse Club.  He was so big that the vet said he needed to sleep on a real mattress, so he had his own bed in the cellar, where he was often joined by my cat Chi-Chi.  He wasn’t allowed on the second floor; the only time I know of when he did come up was when he snuck up to visit me when I was confined to bed with the chicken pox.  I still have a tiny scar on my cheek where he licked one of the pox too hard.

We had Rebel for twelve years, an exceedingly long time for his breed even today.  In his later years, he had all kinds of health problems, including eye issues.  Dr. D’Ambrosio, an ophthalmologist, agreed to take on his case.  After some of his human patients objected to having a dog in the waiting room, we took him to a drugstore in the same building, and Dr. D would come over and see him there.

All good things, and all good dogs, must come to an end.  Rebel was quite literally beginning to fall apart, and so we had to have him put to sleep.  We all gathered around him, hugging and crying, as my mother prepared to take him to the vet.  I recall her scolding us for giving him a tearful sendoff, so we tried our hardest to pretend to be happy so his last memories would be happy, too.

My brother Dick had the sad and difficult job of digging Rebel’s grave in our backyard.  A while later, our neighbor Mr. Yule, who owned a monument company, showed up with a pink granite headstone inscribed,

                Rebel

                Nature’s Nobleman

                1952-1964

He was a dog in a million.  I have had other dogs, including my current mutt Rufus, and I have loved each of them.  But your first dog is like your first love, leaving a distinct imprint on your heart.

The Christmas We Were Poor

Mine was a fortunate family.  We were not wealthy, but we were better off than many families in the factory town where we lived.  It might have been otherwise; the Commonwealth of Massachusetts did not pay its judges nearly enough to support a family with six children.  Fortunately, my father’s was designated a part-time court.  So while he was paid little for being a judge, he was permitted to practice certain kinds of law on a part-time basis to supplement his income.

But one Christmas, that extra income did not materialize.  My father had been working on a big lawsuit, and the client did not pay.  Both of my parents grew up in financially strapped households; both had also been through the Great Depresssion. They knew how to keep food on the table—I remember lots of canning that year.  But there was virtually no money for Christmas.

I remember no better Christmas than the Christmas we were poor.  Santa enlisted the help of talented force of elves to make it happen.  Mrs. Nettel next door knitted new outfits for all of my dolls, which had been cleaned and fixed up.  The broken doll cradle was under the tree, but much better than before; it had not only been repaired but was shining with a fresh coat of beautiful blue paint and pretty flower decals, thanks to the talents of my big brother Dick.  A dolly high chair had been similarly upgraded. 

These toys were better than new.  They were cherished toys passed down through three sisters that were now new—and distinctly mine.  It seemed like magic, and it made this the most enchanting of Christmases.

Best friends

Debbie and I were born four days apart and lived four houses away from each other. My older sisters played with her older sisters. We were best friends from the beginning.

On Saturday mornings, we walked downtown together. We headed straight for the pet department downstairs at Grant's and endlessly debated which of the fish was most beautiful. Then it was on to the paper dolls or to spend our precious allowance in the candy department there or at Green's Drugstore.

We loved our cats. Hers was Pandora--Pandy--a pretty, soft tuxedo cat who once gave birth to a litter of kittens on the skirt of Debbie's nightgown. Mine was a calico named Chi-Chi, who I found in the woods when she was just a few weeks old and nursed with a doll's bottle. We each had a slider turtle in a plastic dish with a plastic palm tree on our dresser, and we both had a rabbit. Together, we established a cemetery for the occasional dead bird or other critter we would find.

Debbie and I also had matching Suzette dolls. Suzette was a fashion doll like Barbie, but her figure was a bit less improbable. We would make clothes with scraps from Debbie's mother's sewing and enact great dramas. Debbie also had an elaborate set of plastic molded farm figures and structures she loved, and we would set them up on a chilly little enclosed porch at her house to play on rainy days. We had a sleepover every Friday night, alternating homes, and watch our favorite TV shows, which included “The Flintstones” and “77 Sunset Strip” (Kookie couldn't comb his hair enough!).

Another TV show, “The Roaring 20's,” inspired us to learn the Charleston, force our moms to make us flapper dresses, and sing and dance our way through a year or so. My lovely Aunt Marion invited us to give a memorable performance to her “girls night out” group from Dupont at a restaurant I think was named Lanza's. I was always a bit of a ham, but looking back, I am surprised that the shy Debbie was willing to do it.

Each May, Debbie's German grandparents arrived from New Jersey to help out during Memorial Season. Debbie's father owned a monument company—he made gravestones—and every family wanted their loved one's plot marked in time for Memorial Day. Both of her parents worked almost around the clock to make it happen; when they were at home, everyone was expected to be very quiet. But there was an upside. Grandmother Grund made the most amazing potato doughnuts. Grandfather loved to garden and would let us help him prepare the ground and plant seeds. I don't think either of them spoke English, but I always looked forward to their visits.

When I started junior high, Debbie and I went to the same school for the first time. We walked to school together every day, were in the same classes, and made the same friends. But junior high is a cruel time. Our friendship shattered, never to be revived in meaningful fashion.

Making Music

Walking across the yard, the breeze blowing crisp. My corduroys singing jjoop jjoop with every step . . . jjoop jjoop . .  Making up words to accompany this newfound music.  Red corduroys with flannel lining to go with my red orthopedic oxfords and red plaid flannel shirt.  Headed next door to see Mrs. Paul, who is teaching me to knit.  Her house smells like heaven, always, like cookies fresh from the oven.  I head home . . . jjoop jjoop . . . singing about the peanut butter cookies in my pocket.