Throwback Thursday - The Notebooks

from 864 Humorous Cuts
from the Twenties and Thirties
Selected and Arranged by
Carol Belanger Grafton
Dover Publications

To clear up some confusion, the Notebook passages posted on Throwback Thursday were written by my father and found by me after he passed away. They were his attempt to tell the family history. He was in his late 80s or early 90s when he wrote them. Today's chapter:

One Sunday in February 1940 or before my birthday (17. March), I brought Mary to visit the Arnolds. Although she had met them at their Orient Heights home in East Boston at a Valentine's Day party (a Center sponsored party), they couldn't place her. Just as on this Memorial May     , 07 I can remember to a certain level the name of the street is gone. I can't remember the addresses in Waltham or my address in Cambridge. I can put myself in areas mentally but numbers and streets are not there!

Anyway I brought Mary in. Bobby [ed: the middle son] was present and he started to tell us about a cake his mother baked. She shut him up and sent him to his room to cool off. He was angry and told Mary , "I hate you."  Anyway, it turned out to be a birthday party for me. And some of the staff  had been invited.

[ed: It is and isn't surprising to see  Dad brushing off this memory as not a big deal.Surprising that he didn't remember his 21st. birthday party and not surprising as in these pages I can see the glimpses of Alzheimer's.

I heard Ma's memories of the party many, many years ago.This was the first time she really "met" the Arnolds and was almost like being introduced to a second set of parents.

Since this was Dad's 21st birthday, when he reached the age of majority (could legally vote, drink, get a bank loan) and became a full-fledged adult, this was a very big deal. Doris and Charlie had gone to some trouble to decorate the cake. Which is why Bobby got sent to his room before he could spill the beans about the cake and surprise party.  Ma said on the top was a tipsy hobo (like Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp) leaning against a lamp post. These things made out of construction paper.

Charlie loved parties, games, and was a practical joker. Ma said that in one of the games she had to kneel on the floor and bend over. Charlie had a piece of paper in front of her and she was supposed to read this little poem. She said the poem ended with something like "..and here I am with my ass in the air." She said all in good fun and everyone had a good laugh. Classic Charlie.]

We had a good dinner before others came and I could tell from Doris and Skip talking to Mary and kidding which Skip could do, that they approved of her. Because she was Italian and they both felt that it would be better to marry within your nationality. Because both parties would dunderstand each other, customs, like, and dislikes.

They did not think Betty was from me. They felt that Betty would approve whatever I wanted to do that she would not stand up to me. I'm not sure that Betty would do that.

I brought Mary home and it was the time that her parents expected her to return from a date. [ed: I'm assuming 11 pm. as that was the curfew Ma imposed on me.] They did not know where she went. However, they did find out. Mary talked in her sleep and that's how they found out. They were somewhat upset that she had gone that from home and to a stranger's house.

That episode passed by and things began to go smoothly. And we became more serious. It did not seem unusual as I was seeing her on and off as a friend from the first time she came to the Central Sq. Center.