My Mom did not always have an easy life. Early in their marriage, after I was born, my Dad was laid off for various lengths of time. He worked at the Arnold Print and later GE. Blue collar workers had it rough and when the GE did not need you for a while, you were gone. So my Mom had to go to work. She worked mostly as a secretary, for Sprague Electric and then for a lawyer in town. My Mom is a very good cook and she used what she had to make creative meals. I loved her spaghetti, roast beef, and chicken soup. Later, she learned the art of Polish cooking from my Babciu and she makes wonderful golabki and pierogi. She learned how to make pies from Other Gram and how to make nut rolls from our neighbor, Mrs. Mecher. Mom taught herself to sew and made numerous outfits for the two of us; later, when I was in high school, she taught me how to sew.

My Dad has always been one of the most patient people I have ever known. He was always handy with whatever needed to be done around the house. He fixed cars, did plumbing and carpentry, put up wall paper, scraped the woodwork, repainted, and stained furniture. He taught us how to play baseball and how to fish and swim. We took long hikes around Mt Greylock and other local places. He worked the second shift at the GE and we rarely saw him during the week but he always made time for us on the weekends.

I was born in 1952, about 11 months after my parents were married. My brother Bruce was born 2 years later, to the very day...October 26. Bruce was a funny kid who had the most awful tantrums if he could not have his own way. I remember him as always having a bandaid on his forehead as a 2-3-year-old because he banged his head on the floor during those tantrums. When I was 5, we moved into a house and just after we moved, in 1958, my brother Paul came along. Paul was a sweet baby but he did not want to speak until about the age of 2. He has not stopped talking since. Jason, the last of the clan, was born in 1968, when I was already almost into my junior year of high school. Though he was a great baby, it was almost embarassing to acknowledge that my parents were sexually active. Needless to say, babysitting became one of my sisterly duties.

My mother, Pauline, according to my parents' stories, met my father at a mens' league softball game. I guess they hit it off quickly and were married within 2 years of meeting. She was 3 years younger than my dad, having graduated from high school in 1949. She worked at Woolworth's and later as a secretary at Sprague Electric.

My paternal grandmother, Helen, was also an accomplished needle-worker. She crocheted and embroidered. One of her favorite things was to embroider tablecloths, bureau scarves, and pillows, and then to crochet a pretty lacy border. She had learned well the art of Polish cooking and helped Babciu make the kapusta, borscht, pierogi, kielbasa, and golabki. I loved to eat at their house during the holidays...the unmistakable smell of cabbage in the air. My grandmother always had orange soda and cookies of some sort for the grandchildren. Helen was a small woman with tight curly gray hair and glasses. She was an adventuresome sort, having lived with my uncle in Boston for several years. She and Babciu had an apartment at the top of Victory St hill on the east side of town, just past the PNA and ZPRK Halls, across the street from Zepka's florist.

All of my grandparents and great grandparents had worked in the Berkshire Mills. The Berkshire Mills were involved with cotton manufacturing, owned by the Plunketts and run for many years as the major industry of northern Berkshire County. The trains would bring cotton from the south and the mills would spin cotton thread and manufacture cloth. The looms were massive and filled the mills to capacity. Everyone in town worked at the mills at one time or another and my family was no exception. Even my Dad had worked there for a time. However, in the 1950's, the cotton manufacturing industry began to leave the area, bound for the cheaper mills of the Carolinas. Several of the old mills still stand, though they have been long empty of the old looms. Many remain as apartment housing for the locals; some contain new businesses.

My parents came from two very different backgrounds. My maternal grandmother, Esmeralda, was English and her family had lived in New England for several generations. My maternal grandfather, Henry, had come to New England from Germany as a young man. My grandparents' children included my mother, Pauline, and her sister Jean, who was 6 years younger. They all lived with my great grandmother, Elva, in a large farmhouse in a very small town in northwestern Massachusetts. Elva and her sister, Burt, lived in the old farmhouse together, but separated by the walls of their own living quarters. Burt lived on one side, in an apartment connected to the rest of the house. Elva and her family lived in the larger part of the two-story white house at the top of a hill.

My maternal grandmother was a tiny, gray-haired lady whose gray tresses slowly changed to an incredibly shiny silver and finally to snowy white. Esmeralda walked with a very quick step and she could walk from one end of town to the other. She never developed a passion for cooking but she could click the knitting needles with the best in town. Her crocheting was superb and she made everything from hats and scarves to skirts and tablecloths. Esmeralda made so many hats with metallic bangles crocheted into them that before long, everyone in town had one. My favorite teacher Christmas gift was one of her hankies with the lacy crocheted edges. She made so many crocheted sweater vests for me that I had one in every color. When I was in high school, she made me a dark green matching crocheted vest and skirt (with a satin underslip made by my mother)....a mini-skirt, course...it was the 60's...one-of-a-kind...I still have it.

My maternal grandfather was tall, had thinning gray hair and blue eyes, and wore small round wire-frame glasses. He worked at the Arnold Print Works when I was little and he always brought home Hershey's chocolate bars when my brothers and I visited. We loved him for that. What a great treat! My grandfather became blind when I was in late elementary school and he would sit on the front porch for hours, listening to the Red Sox on the radio. I liked to sit with him and listen. He died when I was in the ninth grade and then I missed those warm summer days on the porch.

My great grandmother Elva has always been one of my favorite people. Because we did not understand the words, "great grandmother", we simply called her "Other Gramma". An extremely patient person, she would often take time from her daily chores to play with us...dominoes, "Go Fish!", Crazy 8's, War. When we were little, the special game was "Button, button, who's got the button?"...we would play for an hour. Elva loved to walk from the house to the brook and back, picking wild flowers the whole way. She would take us with her and would show us where the violets, buttercups, and daisies grew. We would delight in finding a "Jack-in-the-Pulpit" or a red or white Trillium. The lily of the valley was my favorite, fragrant and delicate, the small white bells cascading from straight stems. Sometimes, when the season was right, we would find rhubarb in her garden, pick it and eat it with sugar back at the house. Elva always had a good-sized garden for fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and corn in the summer. She grew dill and canned pickles. An old-fashioned New Englander, she made baked beans often, and was fond of brewing dandelion wine and root beer. She was a stout woman with long gray hair that she braided into a long thin braid which was wound around into a bun at the back of her head. Always in a cotton dress, the staple of her wardobe was a full cotton apron for protection. She made quilts, crocheted, tended the plants, and was the house cook. Her apple pies were to-die-for-good, sweet with a perfect crust. When I was in college, she would send me one via my parents. My friends and I would devour it! She also made wonderful wedding cakes...hers were applesauce-raisin, more like a fruitcake, but very moist and soft...dressed up with a buttercream icing...wish I had her recipe!

My paternal great grandparents were Polish and they arrived in New England from Poland in the early 20th century. They too settled in the same mill town in Massachusetts. I only remember my great grandmother, my great grandfather having passed away before I was born. Her name was Mary, but we called her "Babciu", grandmother in Polish. She spoke almost no English, but she understood more than she let on. I remember that she always seemed to be happy. She laughed easily and often. Her cure for rambunctious kids was to open a closet door and remove a big box of old toys for us to play with. We were always anxious to see what was in the box and we were always happy to play. She was a wonderful Polish cook: her pierogi were to-die-for...perfectly soft dough with many different fillings. My favorites were her kapusta, a mixture of sweet cabbage, sauerkraut, onions, and butter...and her prune, thick and sweet with a hint of lemon. Smothered in butter...oh, I can taste them! She made many other kinds of pierogi: farmer's cheese and onion, blueberry, cherry. We loved them all and they didn't last long with hungry children around.

Mary was a round chubby robust woman who lived to the age of 92. She broke a hip in her 70's but it healed well and she continued to walk to church until she was in her 80's. Like my great grandmother Elva, she had thinning gray hair that was wound into a braided bun at the back of her head. A devout Catholic, she would walk down the steep hill to the Polish church for daily mass. Mary also was an expert at the needle and she would sit and crochet while rocking in her chair on the front porch. She would make cotton doilies of all sizes, colors, and shapes.

Let's Start at the Very Beginning...

I'd like to write a book some day...probably about some of the funny and poignant things that have happened to me over the course of my life. So, as a prelude to writing the book, it occurred to me that I should at least start by writing things down before I forget them. After all, I am no longer in the prime of my life and I want to put as much of my life together as I can. I will try to keep ideas and happenings in a chronological history but as the title implies, there may be random babblings.