It was a long summer’s evening in Colorado Springs, 1975. The air was warm and still, and Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” and Rod Stewart’s “Maggie Mae” were spinning on the AM station of my friend Paul’s Earl Schrieb freshly-painted turquoise-blue Karmann Ghia. “When you’re down and troubled, and you need a helping hand…” I felt accomplished to have memorized each song and confidently sang the works out loud.
Paul closely resembled Jim Croce: dark Italian skin, long chestnut curls, olive eyes, and a handlebar mustache. He had a New York accent, which felt familiar to me, having lived in New York, and both my parents had New York accents. Paul was attentive, taught me how to cast silver jewelry using the lost wax method, and understood …show more content…
My mom’s parents were merchants who sold wares on Delancey and Orchard street. My mom weighed no more than one hundred twenty pounds (though she would insist even now that she weighed one hundred ten). She stood a tall five feet and was loud and overbearing to me and everybody else who was in her way, or she perceived to be in her way. She knew everything about everybody, and had premonitions - that were always right, or close!
That summer night, Paul and I finished a juicy steak dinner with blue cheese crumbles, oil anointed onion rings, and dark pumpernickel with butter at “Three Thieves”. The sky had turned to dusk, and Paul pulled up and parked in front of the silver iron gate to our “Sears & Roebuck” chain link fence when my mom popped out of the house, running out of her plastic flip-flops. She was clutching Frenchie, our white poodle by his chest, with his paws dangling at her side.
“Your father is dead!” she screamed.
“You are now an orphan! I saw the whole thing!
He is not dead yet, but by the time they find him he will …show more content…
“Let’s come inside.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and led her in the front screen door. I followed behind. My feelings vacillated. First I was mortified, distressed with fear, gasping for air, and later I felt disbelief. It was as if I was trying out an array of feelings, but none of them appropriate. Nothing felt right. As “different” as I knew my mom to be, I also knew that she was probably correct about my father, and an intense discomfort came over me that my life - as I had known it - had changed….forever.
My dad had not been home all night, but I tried not to worry. It was not the first time he had stayed out, and I knew that when he’d have too much to drink, he slept iin his cab and came home after he woke up, arriving home safely.
The next morning, I meticulously parted my long unruly hair down the middle, dressed in my Levi’s 505’s and a Cat Stevens tee from the “Tea for the Tillerman” album and applied three shades of Bonnie Bell purple eye shadow. I was ready to start my first day at “The Amulet,” Paul’s jewelry shop in the “Agora Mall”, a trendy area downtown by Colorado College. I was excited to create hand crafted silver beaded necklaces and to greet customers. My mom’s insistence could not keep me from leaving; I didn’t want to be around when my father came home, with my mom screaming nonsensically and embarrassing my dad in front of me. I didn’t know that none of that would ever happen
Paul closely resembled Jim Croce: dark Italian skin, long chestnut curls, olive eyes, and a handlebar mustache. He had a New York accent, which felt familiar to me, having lived in New York, and both my parents had New York accents. Paul was attentive, taught me how to cast silver jewelry using the lost wax method, and understood …show more content…
My mom’s parents were merchants who sold wares on Delancey and Orchard street. My mom weighed no more than one hundred twenty pounds (though she would insist even now that she weighed one hundred ten). She stood a tall five feet and was loud and overbearing to me and everybody else who was in her way, or she perceived to be in her way. She knew everything about everybody, and had premonitions - that were always right, or close!
That summer night, Paul and I finished a juicy steak dinner with blue cheese crumbles, oil anointed onion rings, and dark pumpernickel with butter at “Three Thieves”. The sky had turned to dusk, and Paul pulled up and parked in front of the silver iron gate to our “Sears & Roebuck” chain link fence when my mom popped out of the house, running out of her plastic flip-flops. She was clutching Frenchie, our white poodle by his chest, with his paws dangling at her side.
“Your father is dead!” she screamed.
“You are now an orphan! I saw the whole thing!
He is not dead yet, but by the time they find him he will …show more content…
“Let’s come inside.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and led her in the front screen door. I followed behind. My feelings vacillated. First I was mortified, distressed with fear, gasping for air, and later I felt disbelief. It was as if I was trying out an array of feelings, but none of them appropriate. Nothing felt right. As “different” as I knew my mom to be, I also knew that she was probably correct about my father, and an intense discomfort came over me that my life - as I had known it - had changed….forever.
My dad had not been home all night, but I tried not to worry. It was not the first time he had stayed out, and I knew that when he’d have too much to drink, he slept iin his cab and came home after he woke up, arriving home safely.
The next morning, I meticulously parted my long unruly hair down the middle, dressed in my Levi’s 505’s and a Cat Stevens tee from the “Tea for the Tillerman” album and applied three shades of Bonnie Bell purple eye shadow. I was ready to start my first day at “The Amulet,” Paul’s jewelry shop in the “Agora Mall”, a trendy area downtown by Colorado College. I was excited to create hand crafted silver beaded necklaces and to greet customers. My mom’s insistence could not keep me from leaving; I didn’t want to be around when my father came home, with my mom screaming nonsensically and embarrassing my dad in front of me. I didn’t know that none of that would ever happen