I am about to enter into a commitment to myself to write a few short stories, or essays. I tell these
stories to my friends at times and they usually get a kick out of them, so I thought it was time to
write them down. I am hopeful that anyone reading these stories will find some humor in the following
pages, as I laughed aloud to myself when I thought of some of the things I would write about. It is my
hope that other family members can contribute to these stories as I think it would serve to keep a
humorous record of our memories in the house known as 49 Charleston Drive.
Let me go back in time a little bit and explain what 49 Charleston Drive is. I will refer to this house
as "49" throughout these stories -- if only because of my lack of adequate typing skills. You see I type
with about 5 fingers in total and often miss the appropriate keys, ending up typing even the most simple
words incorrectly. Um, I am getting off the track of what this paragraph is all about. OK, well, my
parents originally bought 49 I think back in 1961 or 1962. The house was actually built in 1941. In any
event, my siblings and myself were born while my parents owned this house. We were all brought up in
this house through at least high school graduation. Suffice it to say, there are many funny, true and
interesting stories to tell.
My parents eventually moved out to the east end of Long Island to a town called Mt. Sinai. I ended up
buying 49 from my parents back in 1995 and this is where I now make my home.
GIGGLING TOILETS
It is my experienced opinion that any house built in 1941 has a toilet that continuously runs. The trick
to getting the toilet to stop running is to "jiggle" the handle. Get it? Our downstairs bathroom was
afflicted with this problem. For years, this darn toilet would run. No sooner would you walk out of
the bathroom and through the livingroom would you realize that you had to walk right back to the
bathroom and jiggle the toilet. This was common practice when using the downstairs bathroom. I used to
try and "trick" the toilet by jiggling it right after I flushed so I could save time. But no, the toilet
was much too intelligent for that. It would "fake" me out and not run. Then as soon as I was halfway
through the livingroom I would hear that familiar, yet annoying, sound of a running toilet. Retracing my
steps, I would pad back to the bathroom and jiggle the stupid thing again. I got the gist of it after a
few years when I realized that when it was jiggled correctly, it would issue a higher pitched running
sound. That would mean it was finishing running and I could resume whatever it was I was doing before
I had to use the toilet.
When my older sister, Suzanne (Sue) and I were younger, we would spend much of our time with our Uncle
Andy. Only we never called him Uncle Andy, just Andy. You see, he was only a few years older than us,
so the "Uncle" title was just a bit too formal to use. By the way, we still call him Andy. One day,
Andy was visiting us. I must have been around 8 or 9, Sue about 10 or 11 and Andy about 13. Mom happened
to be on the phone when one of us used the bathroom. You need to understand that this was back in the
days before cordless phones were invented. Well, maybe they were invented by then, but we didn’t have
one. Anyway, of course, the toilet was running. Because we were having too good a time hanging out with
Andy, nobody bothered to jiggle the toilet. When the toilet ran continuously with no jiggling, it would
drive Mom bonkers. Now, since Mom was on the phone, and we didn’t have a cordless, she could not jiggle
the toilet. Mom instead opted to continue her conversation while writing a note about the running toilet.
You see, her intention was to get our attention and show us the note so that one of us would go jiggle
the toilet. I can’t accurately remember how Mom ended up getting our attention, but she did. We ran over
to Mom to see what she wanted and she showed us her note. In my Mom’s graceful handwriting was written
"giggle the toilet!!".
I am 35 years old now and I giggle every time the toilet runs.
49: THE ROUND HOUSE
While we were growing up, part of our responsibilities were to help Mom and Dad keep the house in order.
We had our chores to do on a daily and weekly basis. Now, we were pretty young when we were assigned the
duties of straightening up the house and cleaning. I guess we started helping out before we turned 10.
Unfortunately, the grade school curriculum does not include a class to educate children on keeping a
house in order. But, we did the best we could considering that when we were done, we could go out and
play. This basically means that we often rushed through the job.
One of my responsibilities was to straighten up the house after school. This meant picking up various
items that were left out by myself and other members of the family. Since I did not really know where to
put them, I found my own places. Of course, I was too interested in getting the chore done to bother
asking anyone where their things belonged. By the way, I am still the same way today, too busy to ask
and make way too many assumptions....but that is something I am working through. In any event, the result
was that I would pile up the various objects into the corners of each room.
Thus, I created a unique type of architecture in the 1970s. I like to think I was ahead of my time. By
placing items into the corners of each room of 49, I effectively created the world’s first round house.
THE CHILDHOOD EVERY KID DREAMS OF
On the of the things I remember most fondly about growing up in 49 was the fact that there were always
puppies around. What better childhood could anyone possibly have? Puppies, puppies, puppies. In the
early 1960s, my Mom and Dad entered into was has become a lifelong commitment to breeding beagles.
Mom and Dad belonged to a local chapter of a national club dedicated to the breeding and field showing
of beagles. As a result of my Mom’s unbelievable knowledge of the breed, her expertise on beagle breeding
and her uncanny ability to produce the most desirable hounds, there was usually at least one litter of
puppies in the house.
As far back as I can remember, I was the puppy helper. This basically meant that I had the honor of
helping my parents feed the puppies (when I was old enough to take responsibility) as well as clean
the puppy pen. I didn’t mind any bit of it. I loved those little furry four-legged creatures that
licked my face. Our puppy pen was situated in a special room in the basement. Although I am now
told it was not that big, I remember the puppy pen being tremendous! From a child’s perspective,
I felt it was my responsibility to make sure the puppies were fed and happy and that their pen was
clean. They were my puppies, you see. They were my charges. I remember making sure to hold and kiss
each one of them before I left the pen area. I did not want any one of them to feel I did not love
him or her any less than the others. That was very important to me as a child. For hours at a time,
I would sit inside of the pen with the puppies and they would climb all over me and lick my face.
My family gets a kick out of recalling those younger years of mine. I am teased at holidays and family
get togethers at how I would sit in the pen with the puppies and let them crawl all over me with poopy
feet! I didn’t care if they had poopy feet. When I am teased about my poop covered clothes from those
days, I just smile. I don't remember the poop all that much, I just remember the puppies that made me
so happy.
I guess 49 has a requirement about having puppies in the house. I am now raising my second litter of
golden retrievers in this house. I hold and kiss each one before I leave their pen and I sit in their
pen with them quite often. I still don't mind poopy puppies.
ARACHNOPHOBIA
Throughout my childhood, I had a tremendous fear of bugs of any kind. When one of the neighborhood kids
would find one of those "roly-poly" bugs, they would flick it with their finger so it would turn into a
small gray ball. I would not touch the things. Now don't misunderstand, and know that I am not a wimp by
any account, but bugs are just not my cup of tea. I would rather pick up a dead fish than touch a bug of
any kind.
Another bug that would always make me nauseous were those earwig creatures. I would have nightmares
about the disgusting little things. Because of their name, I would imagine that they would crawl into
my ear and stay inside my head. My Dad would rescue me from them when I was younger. Dads do heroic
things like that. You know, they rescue their daughters from dangerous insects on a daily basis. As
a child, I thought this is one of the reasons Dads existed.
But the biggest insect fear I had as a child were of spiders. Big, small, white, black, brown...any
color, any size...spiders and I just did not mix. My phobia began when I was about 5 years old. I would
lay in bed at night and I swear those creatures were spinning their webs right above my head. As I lay
in bed, I would look up and there they would be - at least six spiders spinning a web over my head. Of
course, the next morning, the web would be gone and along with it my proof that the spiders were
conspiring against me. In order to avoid the prospect of being mauled by these creatures, I got an
idea. I was convinced that a hat would protect me from the viscous things and deter the spiders from
crawling in my hair. Remember, this is from a 5 or 6 year old child’s perspective. For my special
armor, I chose a navy blue watch cap. My plan was to wear the hat to bed at night, thus protecting me
while I slept. So, I started to wear a hat to bed at night. This practice caused an undesirable amount of
knots in my hair as well as endless teasing from my schoolmates, but I slept much better.
Years later, when I was about 27 years old, I lived in the studio apartment which we used to have at 49.
At the time, my parents still owned and lived at the house. I recently converted the space back to it’s
original use, the family room. But that is another story. Anyway, my younger sister, Jenn, still lived
with my parents upstairs. One day I was cleaning my apartment when I came across the blackest, most
enormous and hairiest spider I had ever seen. I mean, this thing would have eaten a roast beef for
supper! The spider was blocking my exit from the apartment. Now, don't laugh, this was serious business.
This thing would have given Arnold Schwarzeneggar a run for his money. Get the picture? So, here I was,
facing the largest and most lethal arachnid of all time with no clear method of escape. I longed for
that watch cap. I thought for a minute about what to do. I thought back to my early years as a child
and remembered my hero. I grabbed my phone (I had a cordless by now) and dialed my parents number.
You see, my parents lived upstairs and Dad would come to my rescue like he always does. Jenn picked up
the phone and said hello. I asked for Dad and Jenn told me he wasn’t home. She could tell by the sound
of my voice that something was wrong. I didn’t want to seem like wimp, but my life was much more
important than my pride at the time. I explained to her the predicament I was in. Jenn hung up and came
downstairs. She saved me. Younger sisters can be heroes, too.
The Neighborhood Monster
There was this kid that lived around the block from 49. His name was Tommy. Tommy also happened to live
2 houses away from my lifelong friend, Judy. This kid was mean. He would pick on any other kid who
happened to cross his path. We used to think he also looked for reasons to pick on other kids. We have
no idea who he was trying to impress or if he was even trying to impress anyone at all. Tommy had this
kinky red hair and a freckled face and he was a big kid! He often preyed on the smaller kids, of course.
All bullies have the same MO.
One day back when I was about 9, my friend Judy and I were walking down the block dragging a cart behind
us. I have no idea what we were planning to do with the cart, but you know how kids are. Anyway, we came
across Tommy’s gray cat. We thought that maybe the cat wanted a ride in our cart. So, we picked the cat
up, put him in the cart and continued on our merry way down the sidewalk. We happened to be walking on
the sidewalk along my neighbor’s house. This neighbor had these large hedges that lined the property.
They were so high that we could not even attempt to see over them. So, here were were, having fun giving
the cat a ride when Tommy popped out of the hedges and onto the sidewalk. He started yelling at us to
leave his cat alone. We were so scared thate we dropped the handle to the cart and ran back to my house.
We were afraid for our lives, you see.
When we got inside my house, Mom demanded to know what all the fuss was about. We told her what had
just happened. Now this was not the first time Tommy had picked on us and, frankly, Mom had reached
her tolerance threshold about us being picked on by this red-haired, freckle-faced monster. What followed
was great and I never forgotten this after all these years. Now, you have to picture the scene. 49 had
an open front porch and the kitchen door was a dutch door, so the top could remain open while the bottom
was closed. Well, Mom leaned out the top of the dutch door and spotted the red-haired freckle-faced
monster out front of our house. Mom called out to him. Now, to us he was a monster, but I guess he had
some manners because he acknowledged my Mom. Tommy walked up to the dutch door.
Without hesitation, Mom grabbed the front of his shirt almost lifting him off his feet and said to him
"if you’re so tough, why don’t you pick on me"? (or something like that). The look on Tommy’s face was
enough to make up for all the bullying he had done to anyone, ever. He was scared out of his wits by my
Mom! After my Mom let him go, he ran down the steps and hightailed it away from my house. Judy and I
just laughed and jeered at him through the window. Right then and there, I realized that my Mom was
really cool and I developed a whole new admiration for her.
Tommy never picked on Judy or me after that, but when we reached high school we did think he was kind of
cute.
