Mom’s graduation
On Easter 1977, we went to Turtleback Zoo.
The song Don’t Leave Me This Way by Thelma Houston was popular. The Commodores’ hit, Brick House was huge but at the time, I had no conception of the figurative meaning of “brick house.”
Dancing Queen by ABBA was ubiquitous, and decades later, it’s still done to death.
Later that school year, Mom’s Registered Nursing training was coming to a close, and there was talk about graduation in June.
Preparations were made for a professional cap and uniform, as well as graduation ceremonies plus a big party at our house following.
Even as a kid, I picked up on the magnitude of this accomplishment, and was proud of my mother. This was significant; no small feat considering her timing and distractions of life and motherhood.
It was a Friday late in June when Grandmommy, Papa, Dad, Steven and I gathered with hundreds of other graduates’ family members in a chapel in New Brunswick to witness the graduation of the St. Peter’s School of Nursing Class of 1977. I could see the pride in Dad’s face, and the radiance in Grandmommy’s … her daughter had made it!
“Fooled Around and Fell In Love” by Elvin Bishop
Elvin Bishop – Fooled Around & Fell In Love
As they marched up the aisle as a group, Mom’s class sang “The Times of Your Life” (their graduation song) and Dad got movies of Mom onstage receiving her nurse’s cap, with its black stripe. It was a well-earned, shining moment for Mom.
That night we had a tremendous catered party at our house. We were jam-packed with family and friends, food and fun. Dad’s old friend Dolly and her husband Fred gave Steven and me a giant “Sugar Daddy” each (I never finished mine, it was so gargantuan).
I remember feeling so carefree that night—school was ending for the year, and the house was teeming with well-wishing folks and the relief of accomplishment. It was so much fun.
“Mr. K”
That summer, Mom got me started on beginning violin lessons at the high school. This was taught by the legendary Jerry Kupchynsky, a short Ukranian man with an imposing presence who eventually became East Brunswick’s Director of Music and of considerable influence throughout the state.
We rented a three-quarter size instrument for me and got the beginning green Samuel Applebaum book.
Mr. K had two daughters, Melanie and Stephanie, who were a few years ahead of me in school. They were virtuosos, even at a young age. They knew their way around a Paganini concerto at a time when I was negotiating Hot Cross Buns in Book One.
Those of us who were fortunate enough to have been under Mr. Kupchynsky’s musical influence were saddened to learn of his passing in 2010. “Mr. K” will always be fondly remembered. A wonderful Op-Ed appeared in the New York Times by one of his former students, Joanne Lipman.
We went down the shore almost every weekend. We played on the back street. Mom was making plans to begin her first nursing job in the fall. It was starting to look like a fun summer.
Startling News
And then it happened. An alarming breast self-exam sent Mom to her MD, who referred her for the appropriate tests.
Early July of that year brought a devastating diagnosis: Metastatic breast cancer. This bomb turned our idyllic world on its ear. Mom immediately went into the hospital for a radical mastectomy, and Grandmommy came to stay with us for a week in August.
“Fly Like An Eagle” by Steve Miller Band
Steve Miller Band – Fly Like An Eagle
While “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz continued his sick, much-publicized rampage, our family tried to chart new territory.
The Commodores’ Easy, Steve Miller Band’s Fly Like An Eagle, Andy Gibb’s I Just Want To Be Your Everything, Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Peter Frampton’s I’m in You, Crosby Stills & Nash’s Just a Song Before I Go, Your Love Has Lifted Me Higher by Rita Coolidge, and Pablo Cruise’s What’cha Gonna Do? ruled the radio.
Dad put on a brave face as he agonized about countless unanswered questions. I missed Mom so much while she was in the hospital. Evergreen by Barbra Streisand played one afternoon when I was lying on my bed and I cried.
To make Mom feel better, I drew a special customized book for her titled Mommy in the Hospital. It chronicled the entire experience from my viewpoint, with our family as the stars of the story. Mom loved it.
I’d been drawing that book on the kitchen counter when the back of the oven buzzed and I was terrified. I dashed down to the basement screaming and found Dad had been throwing a breaker back on to see why that wall had no power. Well, we found out. He promptly replaced the socket behind the oven.
A few days following the surgery, Mom took Steven and me on her lap in her hospital room. She very frankly explained that Mommy was sick but the doctors were doing everything they could to make her better, and gave a very general kid-palatable version of the operation.
At 10, I was bewildered. Steve and I didn’t know what to make of it, but after all, it was MOM, right? She could conquer anything, or so we thought.
Dad bought me a white mouse as a pet, which I named Snowball.
Meco’s Star Wars hit the radio, coinciding with the big-screen debut of George Lucas’ epic feature.
Mom came home from the hospital, and Grandmommy went home to Delaware.
We tried to return to a semi-regular “fun” summer routine of trips to Dallenbach’s and the shore to see the DeRoses. We also went to the pool at the West End condominium, and Cousin Danielle and I walked to the boardwalk by ourselves.
My favorite song of the summer of 1977 was Heart’s Barracuda. Andrew Gold’s Lonely Boy was also popular, and both it and Barracuda take me back to car trips to Long Branch.
Post-Storm Shocker
One day after a nasty thunderstorm, a wire fell in front of our house, just minutes after Steven and I had been playing in the cool running water of the gutter. When the wire snapped, it made a horrible bizarre sizzling sound, accompanied by a colossal shower of sparks and blue acetylene glow, and gouged a big hole in the concrete below.
“Barracuda” by Heart
Steve and I were hysterical with fear, hugging each other on the sofa. Mom immediately got on the phone with Public Service, herself trembling with shock because moments before this happened, her babies had been frolicking at ground zero — and she let them know it.
That summer also brought a massive power failure in the New York area, coined the “Blackout of 1977.” It didn’t affect us in central New Jersey, but I remember the news coverage. Dad didn’t go to work one day. As Manhattan was crippled, there was gridlock and no deliveries, especially by tractor-trailer, could be made.
Mom took us to see “Star Wars” at Movie City 5 and while she liked the Chewbacca character, Steven thought the spaceships were cool, and hunky Han Solo kept me interested. At $1.50 a pop, seeing the film was downright cheap by today’s prices.
George Lucas has since milked the franchise to near-oblivion with countless remakes, ‘prequels’ and tweaks on various platforms — even updating much of the content to CGI. Sorry my guy, I liked Tatooine better as puppets. Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, and the endless sequels and merchandising continue to this day.
Dad also traded the 1970 Fleetwood for a 1974 burgundy Coupe DeVille. Our ’64 T-bird had by that time briefly been replaced by a ’74 T-bird. Shorty after that, he bought a ’73 Mercury Marquis, which he primed and painted himself.
That summer, Dad gave in to our begging and built a tree house. He was very technical about it—beams and all.
Dad was a heck of a carpenter and had raw talent. Unfortunately, the project remained unfinished because Dad realized the fine plywood floor would eventually buckle to the expanding maple tree trunk.
We even spent one night out there with Mom’s permission and the gate locked, with sleeping bags and the proverbial cans of pork ‘n beans. The beans were pretty lousy cold, but it was all part of the “roughing it” experience. Mom left the back door open just in case.
Also, the Fs moved next door, and to my delight, they had 5 daughters! I became fast friends with the two youngest, Joan and Leslie. I was actually Joan’s age, though I was a grade higher.
“Couldn’t Get It Right” by Climax Blues Band
Climax Blues Band – Couldn’t Get It Right
I was in the tree house when I first saw their father, and called to him to say hello and welcome them to the neighborhood. He was always very nice, as was Mrs. F, who was a nurse like my mother.
They were great neighbors and one of the daughters, Carrie eventually bought the house and lived there with her husband and kids for many years. They became quite close to my dad until he sold the house in the late ’90s. One of Carrie’s children eventually went to WVU, my eventual college alma mater.
Once Mom’s surgical incisions healed, she got a special bra with a silicone prosthesis on the left side. In retrospect, I never once thought that it was odd or that she looked any “different.” She was just our Mom. She even showed me her scar one time, as a matter of education, and keeping it real.
Home movies from late that summer showed the stress Mom was feeling. I didn’t pick up on it as a kid, but I can definitely recognize it now.
The summer wrapped up with our getting new school supplies and my caring for Snowball. I recall it as being an extremely lengthy summer—all of these memories actually happened within the span of only about eight weeks.
In retrospect, that summer seemed to last forever, jam-packed with events and memories, though it was actually a relatively brief couple of months.
On To Sixth Grade
I began 6th grade in Mrs. Coady’s class (she would later provide the connection for my fiancé to live in NJ, and then attend my wedding).
A new kid, Paul T from Portugal and I became friendly. He was so nice to talk to and is still the same nice guy today. Another new kid, Maria P, just moved to America from Guyana. They became a subject of interest because of their multicultural origins. This sparked a class project of different countries’ customs, food and geography.
Foreigner’s Cold as Ice, Debby Boone’s You Light Up My Life, Carly Simon’s Nobody Does it Better and Boogie Nights by Heatwave were popular.
Gina P and I teamed up for Alaska, which in itself wasn’t a “country” but was approved because of its diverse nature of climate, topography and people. Over time, it seemed as if Gina was taking over the project when I had different ideas.
“Boogie Nights” by Heatwave
Mom saw this happening and eventually wrote a note to Mrs. Coady to complain; declaring this was not fair and that Gina could “shove the whole project up her royal Alaskan pipeline.” The point was made, Gina backed off, and for years following, Mrs. Coady remembered that letter with much amusement.
A new TV show, “CHiPs” premiered Thursday nights on NBC. Steve and I quickly got hooked, and I developed a killer crush on Larry Wilcox, who played Officer Jon Baker. I was smitten! That entire year was spent anticipating watching the show. I would scour the TV Guides and teen mags for pictures, and order posters from Scholastic.
I’d save up my allowance to get Teen Beat and Tiger Beat. What I would have done with the Internet back then. And it was tough enough wading through all the pearly-toothed, terminally grinning Erik Estrada memorabilia to find solo pics of the blond cutie.
I was also one of the first girls in the class to begin wearing a bra, a trainer Mom got me at Penney’s. I had to. Susan K asked me in a hushed whisper one day, “Are you wearing a bra?” as Lisa B looked on from the row behind me. Well, I couldn’t exactly lie, with the telltale straps under my blouse.
“The Year Of the Cat” by Al Stewart
Around that time, Grandmommy had taken ill with lung cancer. Mom evaluated her health care situation, saw she wasn’t on a cardiac monitor, and immediately had her moved up to St. Peter’s Medical Center in New Brunswick. There, she oversaw her mother’s care, at the same time recovering from her own cancer diagnosis and surgery.
Though Mom and Dad must have been having an extremely rough time handling all of this, they were determined to give us a nice Christmas.
Christmas 1977 was when Steve and I got matching blue bikes … brand-new! I thought that was amazing. We couldn’t wait for the spring, when we would ride everywhere, expanding our horizons.
Eventually, when the weather grew warm enough, we would pop wheelies on Prigmore Street, and against Mom’s wishes, venture into the woods off Mihalichko Road to conquer the rougher terrain in there and explore.
We found a clearing where high school kids smoked and drank, but of course never said anything about it. A kid in my class, Eric S, let me use his skateboard and I went to his house a few times.
With Mom’s illness on the back burner of our kid-awareness, we as a family continued with life and Mom was involved with her new job in a pediatrician’s office.
“Grandmommy’s Gone to Heaven”
Unfortunately, Grandmommy eventually progressed to a point where she needed constant care.
Mom as her personal R.N., overseeing things and dealing with medical staff (now her colleagues) continued to monitor Grandmommy’s needs.
We visited her in the hospital a few times, and it was sobering to realize that our own grandmother no longer recognized us.
In reading Mom’s journal, I now understand how wrenching it was to see her beloved mother so ill. Had I been able to care for Mom as an adult (like I eventually did for Dad), I’d have had the maturity and wisdom to really participate in her support.
However, I was 11 in Grandmommy’s waning days, and just an adolescent when my own mother fought cancer’s struggles. I was truly clueless to these harsh realities of life and was ill-equipped to provide the necessary assistance.
In early January 1978, Grandmommy lost her battle with cancer. Mom came to pick us up from school one day to gently break the news. It was the first time anyone close to me had passed away.
I remember our family riding in the Cadillac limousine to Washington Monumental Cemetery in South River on a very cold and rainy day. It was strange to no longer have Grandmommy with us. We stayed in close contact with Papa, now alone in Delaware.
Our new pediatrician was at the same practice where Mom worked; Drs. Goldman, Sweberg and Sand on Summerhill Road in East Brunswick. She began bringing us there after Dr. Ondash on Ryders Lane retired.
I remember being impressed one day as I was in the waiting room, and an off-duty Mom was summoned to assist with a young patient. It was the first time I saw Mom in “professional nurse” mode. I was so proud of her.
Chapter Ten: Revelation and the Junior High Jungle
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