Family vices

          During yesterday’s conversation with my parents I jotted down a lot of notes. However, there was one story that my mom insisted, “Don’t write that down!” Ok, I didn’t write it. But I remember what was said and it fits into a topic that I find amusing: the vices of my family.

I think this subject first came up about ten years ago, while I was working for SUM Child Development. We were attending a professional development day and my assistant, Donna, and I had signed up for a workshop on creating memories for children. A good deal of the session involved the book Roxaboxen.

It’s a great book and one that I’d recommend. But part of this class that really appealed to us was when we were told to reflect for a few minutes on how we spent our family time when we were little and to share those memories with a partner. Donna and I ended up giggling hysterically because in both of our families, when there was a get-together, there was usually gambling involved. We gambled for pennies — her family while playing poker, mine in dice games — but we gambled. We wondered what that said about our families.

Ok, back to the story from yesterday. I asked my parents where they lived, all of the addresses and when. There were several arguments between the two of them, particularly about timelines. My father’s defense about timing for one of our homes on Vine Street was an incident. “There was a party at Ted and Donna Fritz’s house, an adult party. I never drank alcohol before and I got drunk. I was drinking sloe gin out of the bottle and got so drunk that they had to put me in the back of a pick-up truck and drive me home and then carry me into the house. Tut Kleinfelter came across the street to see what was wrong with me. That was the last time I ever get drunk.”

And of course, the presence of Tut was what made the point of where they lived at the time. What was even more amusing is that the next day my parents (and me, I suppose) had Sunday dinner with Gammy and Pappy, my dad’s parents, while my dad had a miserable hangover. One of our final memories of Gammy was at Pappy’s funeral. At that point in time she was already affected by Alzheimer’s, but was usually able to carry on conversations with some semblance of sense. Not at Pap’s funeral. Somehow I earned the job of sitting with her while she received guests: each person who approached her was told, “I never smoked and I never drank.” That became her litany. After her funeral, we all gathered at my sister’s house and drank a toast to her.

That may have been the last time my dad got drunk but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t have alcohol in the house. We almost always had a bottle of sloe gin in the closet. I’m not sure why. Whiskey, however, found its use.

At Christmas time Mom made pineapple. Yes, that sounds strange, since pineapple is grown, not made, but that’s what we called it. I suppose a more accurate name would be “pineapple boats.”

Mom would cut the pineapple, carefully slicing it into wedges and returning it to the peel. Next she mixed powdered sugar and whiskey, brushed it over the pineapple slices, and topped each slice with a maraschino cherry speared on a toothpick. This was a staple for my great-grandmother’s family Christmas Eve party. She didn’t measure anything for this, and some years she went heavier on the whiskey than others. But a little whiskey or a lot, this was a favorite of the kids in the family. At that point in time, there wasn’t as much concern over children and alcohol.

Cigarettes as well. No, we didn’t smoke them (at least, not when our parents could see us). But we could buy them. There were no warning labels on the packs.

Ok, there were warning labels, but not until 1965. It was not uncommon for a relative to hand me some money and say, “Run over to Fager’s Store and get me a pack of Lucky Strikes.” Unfiltered, no less. And I’d head over there and back without a problem, bringing back the cigarettes and earning myself a Popsicle or Hershey bar in payment.

Some of my relatives quit smoking as more evidence was produced about the ill effects. Of course, that didn’t stop the younger generation from starting. And others never quit: I can still remember seeing my aunt Bert (Pappy’s sister) taking a hit off her cigarette followed by a puff of her inhaler, her emphysema not stopping her habit.

And now for the gambling — because I started with that and because my family loves it. My parents play the lottery religiously, even having plans for the distribution of the money if they ever hit the big one. I don’t play, but I’m waiting for them to make me rich. Mom and Dad also like to hit the casino. They used to visit Atlantic City, but why bother when they can go to Penn National Race Track and hit the slots there?

Race tracks. There were many race tracks in my childhood. Of course, there were the ones where my dad raced cars, but those weren’t the gambling type. No, that was Ocean Downs. Located just outside of Ocean City, Maryland, this was a special outing whenever we vacationed at Rehoboth, Dewey, or Bethany Beaches. The adults saved money to play on the sulky races.

Donnie and I had a chance to bet as well. Of course, we couldn’t place our own bets, but Dad would buy a ticket for each of us for the Daily Double. Sometimes we pored over the listings of horses and riders — simply because that’s what the grown-ups were doing — but more often we just chose random numbers. In fact, that was how I won. Before the races, we would go to Phillips Crab House for dinner.

Then a short walk on the boardwalk. This particular year, I decided to “invest” some of the money I had saved — a quarter, to be exact — in a fortune telling machine.

I don’t remember what the card I received gave as my fortune, but I do remember that my lucky number was “54.” I played numbers 5 and 4 on the Daily Double that night and my $2 ticket paid $152. I used that money for school shopping that year.

Our other gambling took place on New Year’s Eve. Gammy and Pappy were the hosts of the annual party, and right in the center of the house, spread out on the dining room table, was the Penny Game. This was a homemade affair, a large sheet of white oil cloth, to which my grandfather had carefully added boxes and numbers. We’d carefully place our pennies on the boxes, then throw the dice to determine which pennies we could remove from our array. Whoever removed all of their pennies first won all those remaining on others’ boxes, as well as the ante in the middle. I don’t know whether he invented the game or adapted it from something he saw. I also don’t know what happened to the oil cloth game. I hope that someone in our family still has it.

So that’s it: the family vices. I guess they aren’t that bad, but much of what we did when we were together could have been frowned upon by others.