"Miss Polly had a Dolly ... That was Sick Sick Sick," They pointed their fingers and shook them in unison. Connie started to giggle while Laura kept on singing. "Who called up the Doctor to Come Quick, Quick, Quick!" Then Laura began to giggle and they had to start over. They kept starting over and then cracking up and pretty soon they had everyone laughing. The audience loved them. But I still don't think they should give ribbons for giggling. It didn't take any talent to do that.
The next morning, Connie's Chatty Cathy was found floating in the creek.
When my older brother Ricky wasn't away at big kid's camp, Mom made him look after me. Other times, I'd follow him around, even when he didn't know I was doing it. I loved to spy on him. One time, I caught him and cousin Donnie smoking a cigarette. I watched from the base of the Rocket, as they hid on the side of the ugly-brown outhouse.
A moment or two later, when a grown-up lady went inside the outhouse, they got down on the ground and yelled up through the floor boards, "Hey Lady! We're working down here!" The woman inside screamed and the boys ran off laughing.
When Rick discovered that I was following him, he yelled at me to go back to the trailer, but I threatened to tell on them for smoking and he let me come along. We pulled that trick at the outhouse many times that summer. It was always good for a scream.
The canteen was where we ate when Mom didn't feel like cooking. They served hot dogs and hamburgers and the greatest french fries God ever put on earth. They were crinkle cut-the kind with ridges, and were best when you got them while hot. But not too hot or they'd burn the roof of your mouth. The ketchup was in a large plastic jug, but I needed someone to get it because it was up on the counter and too high for me to reach. The ketchup was always warm so I couldn't use it to cool my fries. I would sit and wait, testing with my tongue every few minutes. But that could be dangerous, because the longer it took for them to cool, the greater the risk that one of my cousins would come along and want some. "It's always polite to share," Mom would say. I hated being polite.
Mom didn't like it when the Parsells were out at the camp. I heard her say once that she thought they were a had influence on Dad. Dad had five brothers and sisters, a couple of cousins plus all their kids. He always seemed happier when they were around.
Dad and Uncle Billy were the only ones who lived in Dearborn; so they had to sneak the rest of them in. They didn't have a trailer either, so they slept in tents. With twenty-six cousins, it wasn't easy getting everyone in. Dad and Uncle Billy would remove the Camp Dearborn sticker from the inside windshield of their cars and share it. Or they'd take turns driving in and out-smuggling the rest of our clan into the park.
At night, they stayed up late drinking and sometimes got so loud it was hard to sleep, but then everyone slept in the next morning and that made it easier to stay up again the next night.
Inside our trailer, I slept on the upper bunk, where I'd watch the bugs fly around the light just outside the door. In the mornings, there were always a few trapped inside the globe. I wondered how they got in there, and how stupid they were for not going back out the same way they came in.
Mom didn't like all the drinking, especially around us kids. She had grown up with a mother who drank a lot and she didn't want us growing up the same way. Mom was only fifteen when she ran off to marry my Dad. She told my Grandpa that she was perfectly capable of raising a family of her own, because she already had. Mom was the oldest of four kids, and when her Mom passed out on the sofa by three in the afternoon-Mom had to look after the others.
My grandparents were married on October 29, 1929. Mom said the stock market's crash that day did little to dampen the spirits of her parents' wedding. The O'Rourkes and The Costellos. My grandma, being the Costello, had fourteen brothers and sisters. All of them eventually died of one form of alcoholism or another.
Mom said the O'Rourkes were very different from the Costellos. They didn't mix well at all, mostly because of the drinking. "The Costello reunions were always the same," Mom would say. "They'd start out falling down laughing and they'd end up falling down drunk." Mom, being the oldest, felt responsible and now that she had her own family-the Parsells were continuing the same tradition.
Mom and Dad argued a lot about the Parsells. I heard them screaming once about choosing and they were both very angry. That was when Mom would start breaking things. She'd grab a plate from the counter or a flowerpot from the window and smash it on the floor. It would scare me and I'd start to cry. She promised me she wouldn't do it anymore, but I knew she couldn't help herself when she got mad at Dad.
Morn said I
