“…and I love my family…

That being said….”

is like the “but”

midway in a conversation,

for it’s what we say

after the “but”

that counts…..

so, but,

My Father was a Bronx boy, born and rye bread

who wanted nothing more in his life

than getting out of there.

My Mother, a Brooklyn, Maryland, young lady

attended Towson State College

to meet her husband to be.

Turned out he was my Bronx born father.

(Though I never found out how he ended up there!)

Neither graduated,

both having achieved their academic goals

by way of a Justice of the Peace in Baltimore,

earning their Mr. and Mrs degrees

and a loving spouse.

Their second most important post-wedding decision,

(after discovering which one liked being on top, better,

my Mother, apparently, since every time

me or one of my (very quickly by then)

4 siblings,

wandered into their bedroom on any morning,

there they were, Daddy beneath….)

It took years before any of us kids knew

why they might want to sleep that way

and how either of them could,

Mommy astride Daddy,

Daddy resting with Mommy on top…

Besides, we were quickly chased

out of their RomperRoom

with a gentle but speedy,

“Not now child. Go Play!”

from my ever gentle but panting Mother

with deep growls coming from Our Father Below,

for emphasis.

Anyway,

their second decision was

to get as far away from Baltimore,

or any city for that matter,

as fast as possible.

So they chose Vermont.

Coventry, Vermont, in the North Kingdom,

to settle and raise an even bigger family.

We moved from Maryland one day in May

with Dad driving a crammed Hertz Rental truck,

“Locked, stocked and barreled” said Dad,

and our loaded woody Chevy station wagon

with Mother driving and us 4 kids and our “acoutraments”

stuffed among the blankets, pillows and bags of food,

“Bell, booked and candled” Said Mother,

that could not be squeezed into the Hertz hearse, as we called it…

Off we went to the North,

to an, even then, ancient, used-to-be-dairy-farm-house

just outside of Coventry.

(It should be noted here that it would be difficult

for a wandering stranger to recognize when he was

outside or inside,

Coventry, Vermont.

A one pump gas station with a box car diner,

a U-U church turned Community Congregational

and a single sign pointing down a dirt road

to the Coventry Free Elementary School,

WAS COVENTRY.

We lived .47 miles north of Bob’s Quick Stop and the UUCC Church

in our ramshackle, used-to-be dairy farm

with Land!!!

Oh such sweet Land!

And woods and hills and a delapadated barn

we kids used as our playground, amusement park

and, later on, our sparking loft

once we reached our teens and discovered

other kids from other families scattered around us,

on the dot on the map called Coventry.

Ah!

Paradise!

Mother kept us fed by writing newspaper articles

for the Newport Gazette and the Saint Johnsbury Current

and a few homey novels about life in the North

with, by then, 6 kids.

Dad kept a roof over us by

doing anything anyone who needed something done-

done.

He’d learned to be handy and could lift or fix anything.

So we ate well and were warm.

Except in the winter.

No one in Vermont

is warm in the winter.

Mother froze in the winter.

She was from Maryland, after all.

Us 7 kids ranged from “pretty cold” to “ice chips”

depending on which parent we took after.

Dad relished the cold until the hot rinse water

in the yellow plastic bowl in the sink

froze

one night in early November.

It was time.

When ever Mother and Dad reasoned together,

they were long on rational ideas

but short on logical execution.

It was a reasonable conclusion to arrive at

that the family could move to a warmer climate for the winter,

like migrating almost Canada Geese.

It was the “to where?”

where the logic was lacking.

We 7 kids first surprise was to what state our migration would take us.

“Not Maryland! I’ve already lived in Maryland!”

said Mother…

“How about New York?” Dad asked.

“Not New York City!!” they both shouted.

What was the furthest away from the Bronx we could get

in New York State?

Simple!

Buffalo!

So, decision made,

they would pack us up in late November,

find some little place,

maybe near a lake,

(what lake? Erie? Ontario?)

and move west for the winter

and stay there until late February,

getting back to Vermont in early March….

Mud season!!

Mother would write stories about

The Falls And The Great Lakes.

Dad would do anything.

And we’d winter west in Buffalo.

However,

there were complications.

Schooling in Vermont was easy

for the 7 of us of school age.

The little guy, (we called him #8)

and our infant sister, (mini-9)

stayed home with the typewriter.

The Magnificent 7 were bussed

to Coventry Free and North Country High School.

Classes, sports and homework kept us busy.

But what to do in Buffalo?

And of greater concern,

Were we even legal,

leaving Vermont mid-semester

and waltzing into Buffalo Central Schools

unannounced….

Well, we just did it.

Mother and Dad engineered two Great Escapes

each school year,

sneaking the gang into our new second hand Winnabago

late at night in Coventry and again in Buffalo

a few months of Winter later,

magically appearing in our class rooms on Monday morning.

We loved it!

It was sneaky, exciting, those midnight giggles and “Shhhssss”

No one official on either end seemed to mind.

We were a pretty smart bunch of kids…..

We all ended up graduated on time,

year after year after year….

Billy and Wilbur are Navy officers.

Samuel is a Doctor.

Lisa is a Biology teacher North Country High School.

Maureen is an English professor at SUNY Buffalo.

I do this and fix like Dad.

He taught me.

And I am writing my third self-help book

for 50 somethings who can’t navigate in this new AI world.

And my wife makes a fine living from

her bakery in Southport, NC where we settled.

Mother and Dad live in Key West Florida

because as they grew “Olderly”

They realized it is just as cold

if not colder,

Dad says “The ice is colder”

in Buffalo than it is in Vermont,

what with lake effect snow and those.

rainbowed, frozen Falls…

as it is in Vermont.

So they moved South to Florida.

Mother is still writing.

Dad mostly sits in their

AC’d EZ Breeze, retired

but for his painting of sea-scapes!

(Who Knew?)

One just sold at

the Miami Art Collective for

10,000$!!!!!

So, life is good.

And our family knows that

it doesn’t take much to enjoy it!

Just a lovely willingness to live it

and the guts to head west when you feel

the cold creeping in from under the door!

t