Robbie's Memories

          Memorial day, the old Memorial Day, when it was a fixed celebration on May 30, not this slippery, sliding, last Monday in May thing, was my mother's birthday.  With the help of her Uncle Clyde, who it seems was responsible for most of the lies of her childhood, she grew up thinking all the parades and celebrations were for her.           I was trying to remember what we used to do on Memorial Day.  I think my grandparents took us to the cemetery to visit relatives graves: cut the grass, leave some flowers, have a picnic.  Later when I was in Girl Scouts, there would be a mass at St. Helena's with all the scouts in uniform.  But that's where the memory gets fuzzy and I'm wondering if it's actually July 4th that I remember.           The fourth of July was a big deal in Olney (a row house neighborhood of Philadelphia) when I was growing up.  Now that I do remember.   ...

          I spent two years in Kindergarten.  My mother sent me at age 4  because I was being bullied by the girl across the street.  Judy and I were born the same day, same year, but she had an older brother.  My experience with my granddaughter leaves me to believe that younger sisters of older brothers are much tougher.  The day Judy caught me in the corner between the steps and someone's porch, stuck her arms out straight with tight fists on the end and whirled around hitting me, until I got past her and ran home crying, was the day my mother decided I should go to school.  On the recommendation of my godmother, Loretta Daly, principal of an elementary school herself, she sent me to Ravenhill Academy.           Ravenhill was a small private, Catholic, girls (after grade 4, co-ed till then) boarding and day school (I was a day student, of course!)  It was run by the Religious of the Assumption, who...

          My mother used to tell a story of picking me up at school on my first day of first grade, with her friend, Donald Baird in the car.  She asked me about my day.  I was so excited, giving her all the details, especially recess and lunch.  I said "And do you know what we had for dessert!  Jello!"           Mr. Baird, matching my enthusiasm, said "Oh, do you like Jello!"          I responded "NO!  Yuck!"  Somehow the grown-ups always thought this was very funny.         My grandmother made Jello a lot.  My grandfather loved it.  It was usually lime, with apples or canned pineapple (it doesn't gel with fresh; she tried) or bananas.  Pop would pour milk on it: he called it "Shimmy pudding".          The ad slogan back then was "There's always room for Jello".  Personally, I thought there was always room for ...

          I did think about becoming a psychiatrist when I headed to medical school.  Seemed to me that if you wanted to help people, that may be the best chance to do it.  The med school psych department soon disillusioned me.           Our psychiatry teaching came in two parts: first a one hour lecture each week for the entire freshman year, followed by an exam.  Then in Junior year we would have a six week psychiatric rotation, monitored by one of the staff psychiatrists.           The freshmen lectures were pretty good: a nice change from gross anatomy and some really good teachers.  In a school that was still 2/3 female, with a large psychiatry department, there was only one woman in the psych department and she was a pediatric psychiatrist.  This was reflected in our final exam.           Really, a solid year of weekly lectures, with no tests or review...

          My grandmother was a meat and two cook (or three if you count dessert).  Eating out meant a seafood house.  China was a poor nation and the Chinese ate weird things like thousand-year-old eggs and bird' nest soup.  Why would anyone want to eat in a Chinese restaurant?           So I was out of college and working in Baltimore before I ever tasted Chinese food (except canned Chow Mein at a friend's house, and that was awful!).  I had gotten a civil service job as a computer programmer trainee at the Social Security Administration.  I absolutely hated it.  After six weeks, I landed another civil service position as a cardiac cath lab tech at the Public Health Service Hospital.  Unfortunately, in the job switch, my checks got messed up and I went over a month without getting paid!           I ran out of money and I ran out of food.  It didn't occur to me to call ...

          "Darktown Strutters' Ball" was the first song I learned.  My grandmother said she taught it to me as soon as I could walk and talk, and took me down to the sweater mill where she used to work (until she quit work to take care of me), and had me sing it for her friends there.  I don't remember learning it, of course.  It's just something I have always known, along with "Daisy, Daisy" and "Du, Du, Liegst Mir IM Herzen", other songs my grandmother taught.  I remember learning songs from my grandfather when I was 5 or so: The Star Spangled Banner, My Country Tis of Thee, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, and Pop Goes the Weasel.  Pop had a collection of 78's that I was allowed to play, but the only one I remember is Alexander's Ragtime Band.           My grandmother had a lovely voice.  Mass was still in Latin back then, and Catholics didn't sing at mass.  But my grandparents took me to the Novena of ...

          Natalie Goldberg in "Old Friend from Far Away", a book about writing memoir, asked an interesting question.  If you were losing your memories and could only keep one, what memory would you keep?   Been pondering this one for the last two days, which is why I didn't write.           There are the important memories, the memories of life changing events: that magical point in my internship when I suddenly knew I could do this: I could diagnose illness and take care of patients and do it well the afternoon on the banks of the Potomac River when the man I loved said he loved me picking up Diane at the airport or, even better, the day she called me Mommie the parade out to the car the day we brought Nerissa home the experience at Trap Pond and the weekend that followed when I knew without a doubt that there was a God and I needed to trust Him (or Her) the day they put Sammy in my arms in the delivery room and I be...