5 Places I Have Lived
Back to the Me-me-meme …
When I first started this journey, my parents brought me to a little old house in Island Heights, NJ. As I remember nothing about this house, I won’t count it in places that I lived.
PLACE ONE
When I was 6-months-old, they moved me to a red, three-bedroom ranch on the corner of Bellwood and Overlook Dr. I lived there in my own room for the better part of five years. Several important things happened there:
- One evening as I waited for sleep, my bedroom wall opened up and a Punch & Judy puppet show ensued. The wall closed as mysteriously as it opened. My investigation the next day turned up no clues on how this event happened and no one in the family took credit for the production. To this day I don’t like Punch & Judy and will not stare at a blank wall while falling asleep.
- My sister was born.
- Fat Pat the Water Rat, the world’s worst neighborhood bully, stole five of my GI Joes while they were bivouacked overnight. When I called him on it, he returned six.
- Fat Pat the Water Rat’s brother fell from the top of the tree on the corner of the lot. He bounced off branches all the way down and finally, with one hand, grabbed the last branch thus averting certain death. In my memory, he still hangs there like an orangutan.
- Kevin Keane, my friend next door, plugged a cord into the wall of his carport. There was nothing but frayed wire on the business end of the cord. It buzzed around the carport like a wet cat with sparklers tied to its back.
- My parents got divorced.
My mom, sister, and I moved several times after that. I don’t remember exactly where we ever were. And I don’t think we were ever in one place for a very long period of time. It’s all a blur in my memory.
PLACE TWO
But eventually we wound up in an apartment in Union City, NJ. It was a stone five-story walk-up. We lived on the third floor.
I was a member of an informal gang of young hoodlums. It wasn’t a gang in any real sense. We were just a bunch of kids looking to make trouble. Some of the things we did:
- Broke into the school by taking the screws out of the door handles.
- Harassed Old Man Henderson as he walked to his gig as the janitor at the garage across the street. I walked him home every night and apologized.
- Made wrist-rocket slingshots from wire coat hangers and shot bobby pins at the Jewish kids who lived in the apartment building across the street. They shot back. It was a mutual war - there was no real hatred, but no real friendliness either. It was just something we did.
- I got caught shoplifting with my hoodlum brethren. I attempted to steal a pen. The police drove me back to my mother. She never mentioned it to me.
- My mother got arrested on burglary and drug charges. I’ve only seen her once since that day.
My sister and I bounced through a couple of foster homes until my social worker found my dad. I don’t count these as places I lived either because the memories are, once again, fleeting. I didn’t even live there long enough to go to school. The other kids went to school; I waited around, reading.
PLACE THREE
My dad picked my sister and I up close to the Newark Airport one evening. It was dark and cold - probably late fall. The social worker took us in her car. I think it was above-and-beyond her duty to do such a thing at that time of night - I hope St. Peter remembers that act.
We lived at my dad’s house in Silverton for a little while. He had nice family - a new wife (Aunt Dee), three kids (Timmy, Liz, and Bobby), and a big St. Bernard in the backyard. Bobby and I got along famously. He’s still one of my favorite people ever.
I don’t think we lasted there a year. While I’m uncertain of the circumstances that led to my father offering me up as a “ward of the court”, here are a couple of reasons that I’ve inferred over the years:
- My sister and I didn’t fit into Aunt Dee’s plans.
- My mother and her friends were harassing my dad and Aunt Dee, and threatening the lives of Timmy, Liz, and Bobby.
- My father was young (still in his 20s) and didn’t know what to do.
An aside: I don’t blame my dad. It’s cool. As a matter of fact, I feel bad for him. He’s apologized (what I call “drunken mia cuplas”) several times. I’ve told him that it’s all alright. “If you need my forgiveness, you got it.”
I was seven or eight-years-old.
The family myth is that at the court hearing regarding my sister’s and my custody, my maternal grandmother (Nan) stepped up and said to the judge, “Enough already. I’ll take the kids.”
The judge asked her, “What if the mother comes around threatening you?”
“I’ll break her fucking neck.”
It might be myth, but I believe it. You betcha.
PLACE FOUR
Nan and Pop raised me as their own, in their home, for the next decade and a half. I could not ask for better parents - I dare not ask for better. If, up in Heaven before I was born, God’s social workers asked which family I wanted to be placed with I would have picked Nan and Pop’s.
People have asked if I believe in angels. I always say, “Yes. I was raised by two.”
I felt best about myself and my place on this planet when my Pop introduced me, even as an adult, as “My Boy, Jim.” Eight years after his death, those memories still choke me up. (If you knew Pop, and he referred you as “His” boy or girl, you’d understand.)
There are too many stories to tell about my times with them. I’ll get to them. I’ve written them before, I’ll write them again. But for now, just know that I lived in their home, my home.
Eventually I moved out, rented an apartment for a couple of years. Got married. Bought a house, lived there for 15 years. Had two children at that house. Wonderful neighbors. Wonderful friends. Lots of stories. Especially about that fucking boiler - “The Beast.” But I’m not counting those because I want to finish this little essay with …
PLACE FIVE
After Nan and Pop died, the house they raised me in went up for sale. My wife and I bought it.
It’s a 100-year-old farm house that was in dire need of an upgrade. The plumbing was original. The electric too. There was no heat upstairs and only one electric outlet in each room.
We brought the house down to its studs and joists and rafters. Tore out all the mechanicals. And knocked off the back porch.
We replace all the mechanicals. Reworked the floor plan, including a “library” and a great room that combines kitchen, dining, and family rooms. Added two bedrooms and a laundry room. And relocated the upstairs bath.
While it’s all brand new, the house is still haunted by the memories of two generations of my family that lived there. I’m raising a third generation.
If you liked that, maybe you will like this:
- 3 Bad Habits & the Family Meeting
- There Is a Reason It’s Called Dope
- 17 Years, 21 Days
- Once In a Lifetime
- We’re All Angels
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