Small Town Girl ... Livin' in an 80's World

Read The Foreword and Chapter 1 here for free

Author’s note: This book is and will always be dedicated to my loving parents. It is also in memory of my mom, who we lost in 2023.

FOREWORD

My brothers and me in 1973. Notice they’re straining against my girth. The doctor had to put me on a baby diet. Sadly, that part is entirely true.

When I sat down to write this childhood memoir, I knew the process would be both bittersweet and, well … bitter. It doesn’t matter who we are or where we’re from, we can all relate to both the nostalgia and the heartbreaks of childhood. And we’re torn; while we yearn for the innocence of that time, we’re also relieved that we don’t have to relive certain years. (That means you, seventh grade. We are never, ever, ever getting back together.)

While the funny, lighthearted stories easily poured out of my mind almost faster than I could type them, there were other tales that left me troubled. I yearned for simpler times. I missed the ’80s. And I was obviously still haunted by certain events, even 25 years later. When would I get over it already? It’s difficult; after all, I’m Polish. We’re a stubborn bunch.

Maybe I would never quite get over particular things; overall, I’ve had key events in my childhood (both bad and good) that will forever influence the way I live my daily life. I gained life lessons from these experiences. But what about all of those other humiliating and cringe-worthy parts of childhood that were still stewing in my brain?

Well, I took a lesson from my wise mother, whose advice could be summed up by this little story:

One time my mom and I went on a trip together to Michigan’s Mackinac Island. Unfortunately, she had forgotten to bring her medication with her; she had to quickly call her pharmacist to get a few pills to tide her over for the weekend. I’d heard her flawlessly rattle off some impossibly long drug name, and we made our way into the town pharmacy to pick it up.

“What’s the name of your medication again?” I’d asked her.

“Carbidopa-Levodopa.”

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

“Seriously? That can’t possibly be its real name. That’s like a name of a very complicated polka. Or a Polish sitcom.”

Mom didn’t skip a beat.

“My life is a Polish sitcom,” she fired back.

She was right. Sometimes we all feel like we’re living in the middle of a sitcom. And so, I did the only thing I could do: I found humor in all those awkward, embarrassing parts of my childhood. After all, it’s those “real” situations that make us resilient. We got through them, even if our eighth-grade crush found out that his name was written in hearts all over our Trapper Keeper® and then avoided us like a “Baby Ruth®” floating in a swimming pool. (It’s okay – he probably turned out to be a jerk anyway. Go ahead, check Facebook if you don’t believe me.)

Okay, I think that’s all you need to know by way of introduction. It took me long enough to finish this, so let’s get these stories started!

Table of Contents and Chapter 1

Table of Contents

1. Polish Princess

2. Little Catholics

3. The 1970s, aka “Safety Schmafety”

4. Big Brother Torture Devices

5. Annie Don’t Camp

6. The Fishing Pond “Game”

7. Random Miller Street Memories

8. The Property

9. Jocks vs. Nerds, Part One

10. Little Catholics, Part Two

11. Hot Lunch Hell

12. Air Band Mania

13. The Sadistic Orthodontist

14. Jocks vs. Nerds, Part Two

15. Social Anxiety

16. Mean People

17. On the Road Again

18. Donald’s Stocking

19. Pets? Not So Much.

20. The Scooter

21. How I Spent My Summer Vacation

22. Polka! Polka! Polka!

23. Polish Deformity

24. Exchange Students

25. The Polish Matriarch

Chapter 1: Polish Princess

“It’s a girl!” proclaimed Dr. Murray as he triumphantly hoisted my naked little body into the air, “Lion King”-style.

Or at least I assume he hoisted me. Doctors are always doing that in the movies, so that must be how it works in real life. I’m not quite sure since I’ve never had a baby myself, but I assume that “the hoist” is a maneuver taught in all medical schools.

Minutes earlier, Dr. Murray had come into the room, set down his lit cigar, and said, “Okay, Maxine. Let’s do this.” (My mom claims that the cigar was set down in an adjacent room, but given the lax medical practices and overall lack of safety in the ’70s I’m not quite sure. For all I know, my first puffs of breath in this world could have been of the Cuban variety.)

But then the overly relaxed, nicotine-addicted doctor was looking at my mom, waiting for her reaction to the news of her brand-new baby girl.

“Are you sure?” my mom asked him in disbelief.

Dr. Murray chuckled. Yes, Maxine, he reassured her. He was sure.

Even though my mom was probably high on some super sweet 1970s labor drugs that are surely illegal today, she did have very good reason to doubt the sex of her third-born child. After all, she had already given birth to two sons, plus her sister-in-law (my dad’s brother’s wife) had previously pumped out five boys in a row. Now if you’re doing the math, that’s seven boys in a row on my dad’s side of the family. All signs (and genes) seemed to indicate we were well on our way to fielding a football team. That is, until I came along.

After making sure that I was indeed female, my mom started asking for my dad. Dad wasn’t present for my birth or the births of my two older brothers. On one hand, it wasn’t as common as it is today, where some folks welcome in younger siblings and video cameras as if they were on their own reality show. On the other hand, despite being a super tough and talented athlete in his day, my dad is crazy squeamish around anything blood-and-doctor related. He probably would have been passed out cold within minutes. If you really want to torture him, just start talking about his absolutely huge arm veins (seriously, the things look like little garden snakes lodged under his skin), and he’ll immediately start covering his ears and putting his head between his knees. Then he’d have to go put on a long-sleeved shirt.

My mom, being the kind and understanding person she was, went through all of her births without my dad. Right when things would start to get particularly messy my dad simply told my mom, “Sorry darling, you know this is the time I need to leave.” And he would kiss her goodbye, and go into the waiting room at a safe and comfortable distance. And to Mom’s credit, she completely understood. (Like I said, the drugs were pretty good back then.)

You may think I’m joking about the drugs, but when my oldest brother, Peter, was born in the late ’60s, my mom was literally laughing in the delivery room. The doctor had told her that whenever she felt the need, she could just give herself a “hit” of the good stuff by pressing a little button. Apparently, all the hits did the trick; Mom was feeling very little pain. Given that she was only 21 years old and about to face childbirth by herself for the first time, I guess I can’t blame her. Besides, my brother turned out (somewhat) normal.

After Peter came out, my mom promptly got pregnant again and had my other brother, Dan, about 15 months later. The doctor then sat my mom down and said, “Now, Maxine, we’re going to have to do something about this.” If the doctor hadn’t had said anything, I’m pretty sure my young, naïve Catholic parents would have kept on having babies. So my mom ended up with some sort of birth control device, but eventually my parents thought they’d give it one more college try for a third kid.

Years later I would discover that my mom had her tubes tied, since there was no way in hell my dad was having a vasectomy (see above story re: Dad and doctors). She referred to that procedure once, really off-handedly, as though she was telling me about some errands she had run one day.

“Oh yeah, don’t you remember? That was the summer I had my tubal.”

“Uh … no, Mom, I don’t remember,” I told her, incredulous. “At that point I was only 8 years old. I doubt I even knew what a tubal ligation was, much less that you were having one.”

“Oh … really? Hmmm. Well anyway, yeah, I had my tubes tied.”

Good to know, Mom.

So back to the hospital and the day of my birth (June 12, 1973, by the way). The hospital staff eventually did find my dad – he had been in the bathroom – and he met his baby girl. Even though he had no idea how to relate to this little person, he already had something in common with her: the big toe. My mom immediately pointed out that I had inherited my dad’s big toes. That is, my first toe – the biggest one – was particularly huge on both feet. Even though I was only minutes old, their enormity was already quite apparent. To this day I affectionately call them both “Paul”, after my dad. As years went on I would discover we had even more physical traits in common, such as short legs and a long torso, as well as incredibly cold feet. I also inherited the ability to grow a lot of long nose hair. (Thanks, Dad.) Unfortunately, I did not inherit his tremendous athletic abilities, but more on that later.

It’s a good thing I had those hereditary toes, because other than those identifying marks, I looked nothing like my parents. In reality, I looked like some kind of Native American/Asian crossbreed instead of the Polish/German/French/Scottish mutt I truly was. I was so decidedly unrecognizable that when my mom’s best friend, Carol, came to visit she couldn’t identify me in the nursery. Eventually she asked my mom, “Oh, is she the foreign-looking one?” A few days later I became jaundiced, which only added to my Asian appearance.

Even though I looked nothing like my family, I was blessed with a perfect head of black hair in just the right amount. It wasn’t so little that I looked like a very tiny old man, and it wasn’t so freakish that I looked like a baby wearing a wig. The nurses liked to curl my hair around their fingers and fasten it with a tiny bow. And in those days, there was actually time for such things; Mom wasn’t ushered out of the hospital in less than 48 hours like women today, completely exhausted and still bleeding from their girly bits. Nope, Mom could sit back and start collecting gifts. Lots and lots of gifts. You see, once word spread that a girl had actually arrived on my dad’s side of the family, the boxes and boxes of cute little girly outfits just kept arriving. My mom’s hospital room literally had so many boxes piled up that my dad had to make multiple trips home with them. (My lifelong obsession with fashion and shopping can undoubtedly be traced back to this singular event. I like to remind my husband of this fact when the credit card bills arrive. See, honey? I was conditioned for this from birth!)

The first gift bearer to arrive was none other than the aforementioned sister-in-law who had given birth to five boys in a row: my Aunt Alice. If clothing could be bittersweet, that initial little pink dress took the prize as the most bittersweet piece of clothing I would ever own. I still have that dress, tucked away in a small keepsake box.

Our little Polish family was now complete, and we had a lot of adventures ahead of us.