Six things I miss about my mother

Written by admin on May 23rd, 2013

By Rosalie Tirella

My mom passed away last summer. Here’s a list of things I miss most about her:

1. The way she stroked my little girl’s hair when she talked on the telephone with my Aunt Mary.

My mom was a single working mom who never stopped working! We were raised very Old World in our Green Island flat. In my childhood, adults worked like mad at jobs that were physically demanding and low-paying (factory work, day laborer, dry cleaners clerk), but they earned the money that paid the rent, utility bills, bought the food. So they got to make the rules. They fed you, clothed you, took care of you – and you were grateful … and stayed out of their way – tried not to get underfoot, out of respect and a little bit of fear.

My mom would not – could not – spoil us the way most kids are indulged today. Even when it came to affection (and we knew she loved us), my two sisters and I had to catch it on the fly – like when she was talking on the telephone with my Aunt Mary. It was then, when my mom comfortably seated on our red vinyl sofa, unwinding at the end of her work day, chatting and gossiping with her favorite sister on our big old green Bell telephone, that I, seven or eight years old, would sneak into the living room and lie down on the sofa, softly placing my head on her lap. As she gossiped in Polish and laughed her very husky, sexy laugh (my mom didn’t smoke or drink but she didn’t have a sweet, girly voice – it was sexy and deep), she absentmindedly stroked my fine brown hair. Stroked and twirled and played with it, as she joked and talked with my Aunt Mary. Our third floor Green Island flat was high up in the sky so I could hear the birds chirping in the trees so clearly as my mother stroked my hair. I watched the old five and ten draperies that my mom bought at White’s Store on Millbury street, billow into the living room. They looked dreamy …

2. The way my mom whistled.

My mom was the best whistler in the world! She could whistle entire songs: verse, chorus, verse and fill our tenement with her own bird songs – usually old jazz standards. She was a child of The Great Depression and World War II. I think they did a lot of whistling back then, to stave off very real fears of: Hitler, poverty, Hiroshima, Polio, death. Watch a Frank Capra movie or check out a Clark Gable or Jimmy Stewart film. They are whistling!

3. Her Sunday chicken dinners.

Always the same – for the 18 years I lived at home: Baked chicken, baked potatoes with butter, spinach from the can but super tasty, and milk. It was all part of the incredibly stable life she built for her three girls despite working 60 hours a week at a shit minimum wage job, putting up with my father who came in and out of our lives whenever he felt like it – sometimes disappearing for a few years only to return looking tougher and meaner than when he left.

My mom? She was the ROCK, THE FOUNDATION. Her sit down, fancy Sunday dinner never changed. It was as constant as the Northern Star; preparations had a rhythm all their own, like funky waves beatin’ down on some inner-city beach. Cans would clunk, butter would sizzle in a little pan, the chicken’s legs would get all crusty brown.

Sometimes, as a little kid, I would watch my mom make the meal and try to help. When I was older, a teen hoping to be thee first in my family to go to college, I would sit at the kitchen table doing my homework – and enjoy the familiar, soothing sounds and smells of Ma making Sunday chicken dinner.

4. My mom’s love of old movies.

All the classics from the 1930s and 1940s. Her love of the era’s movie stars – she never called them actors – only STARS for her universe. As a young woman my mom, like most Americans back in the day, went to the movies AT LEAST once a week. There was no TV. People were fascinated by the BIG, moving pictures projected onto the huge screens of their local movie theaters, and they read all the star magazines, many of which weren’t even printed in color. And the movies didn’t have to be first rate! The second rate ones were called “B Movies,” as in second rate and my mom and her sisters and their peers still went to see them – and loved them. There were even B picture movie stars!

When I was a little girl, I loved watching old movies with my mom because she would give you a brief bio of each movie star as you watched the and then say things like “he was only in B movies” or “she was in the best.” My mom called Bette Davis “Bette” Davis, never adding the “eee’” sound to the end of Bette. It was like she was best friends with Bette Davis, calling her “Bette.”

Sometimes a movie star just bugged my mother. She couldn’t connect with them no matter how beautiful or handsome or talented they were. She was not fond of Robert Young, Loretta Young (no relation to Robert), Fred Mac Murray or Myrna Loy – one of my faves. She adored Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyk, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman and Judy Garland.

5. Saving the grasshopper.

There I was on the back porch, full of my nine year old self! I had just put the grasshopper I had caught in the field next door on his leash, a long piece of white thread I had snitched from my mom’s sewing kit, and had expertly tied around the middle of the grasshopper’s thin, brown body.

I was a neighborhood girl. Ran around the my hood with neighborhood kids (many of them tough, a few of them who smoked – get this – at age 6!!). I played in the streets and I played in the fields. I made up my own little games with their own sometimes cruel worlds, when I played in the field alone – a field filled with Queen Anne’s lace, dandelions, clover, brambles, earth worms, beetles … . An inner-city paradise, that old vacant weed-choked lot. My mom and grandma nicknamed it “The Big Yard” as in “Ma, I’m going out to play in The Big Yard.” That meant I was gonna go out and catch grasshoppers and dig up earth worms and stick them into glass jars into whose covers my mom had punched holes with her trusty can opener.

But this time, my mom was not happy with my grasshopper adventures, the one I had tied a thread around, the one that was struggling against me, fluttering so hard that his back was oozing a brown juice.

My mother, who never lectured or nagged us, came out on the back porch and saw what I was doing. She looked mad. My mom could look scary when she was mad. Her lips would get tight, her face beet red. She put her hand in her housecoat pocket and pulled out her manicure scissors, the new, perfect little scissors that she used to cut her fingernails every Sunday night. A weekly ritual – she got ready for the new work week on Sunday with her special scissors and gave herself a mini manicure. She was the “counter girl” at a dry cleaners and was fastidious about her hygiene because, as she liked to brag to us, she “worked with the public.” These were her special scissors.

But there was Ma, on the porch, using her beautiful, silver scissors to cut the thread that I had looped around the grasshopper’s body, actually touching an insect, which were not part of her world. Like an expert surgeon she held the grasshopper between the fingers of one hand and cut the thread with the other hand. The grasshopper flew into the air and over our third floor porch railing, back to nature. My mom said nothing. Still looking angry, she turned around and went back into the apartment. The screen door closed shut with a slap.

6. Her Elizabeth Arden red lipstick and Orange Skin Cream.

I loved the way my mother wore her fire engine red lipstick! My mom, who had dark brown hair, many folks called it black, looked smashing in red lipstick!!! Her makeup staple. She wore red lipstick her entire life – from 18 to her early 80s.

Always the same color red – bold, eye catching, none of the tamed down reds. And she always bought the same brand of lipstick: Elizabeth Arden. Found only in department stores, she liked to tell her girls. And boy did Mom sparkle! Just like a 1940s movie STAR.

My mom, all the way up to her 40s, had a killer smile! Perfect white teeth that she brushed and flossed and took to an old dentist downtown for cleanings and fillings and obsessed over. She had a flawless set of teeth, perfectly shaped, pearly white. This was God’s gift to my mother, her lovely smile, despite the grinding poverty, the abusive husband, a Green Island flat. Here was her bit of old Hollywood. She wore no braces in her youth, had nothing capped or realigned or bleached. Nope. Her beautiful smile was all her own. It was so great that my father used to tell her: “I married you for your smile,” as if he had been seduced by her great set of … molars! My mom loved when Daddy threw that compliment her way. Usually he hurled insults at her – laughed at her niceness and decency, the kind of home she had built for her girls. By the time we were in our teens, my sisters and I would have jumped the old man if had laid a hand on our mother. I would get bold and ask my father: Will you leave now? He never did.

Through all her stressful days with Daddy, in good times and bad, happy and tragic, to work, to church, to school parent nights, to downtown, to wakes even!!, my mom put on her red lipstick and made her way through her world with a little extra something. Pizzazz.

Later, I began to see her Elizabeth Arden tube of red lipstick as a kind of armor she wore before she went out to conquer – or at least deal with her difficult world. Car-less in Green Island, walking to work every day in all kinds of weather, her little brown paper bagged lunch in one arm, her brown pocket book in the other; sitting at the kitchen table, the monthly bills spread out before her, the money orders she had made out waiting to be signed. Red lipstick made it more bearable!

As a child, even as a teenager, I used to love to go into the bathroom and find my mom’s lipstick and jar of Elizabeth Arden Orange Skin Cream on the vanity. I would secretly open the jar of Orange Skin Cream and stick my nose two inches over the big jar of orangey, whipped goop and INHALE. It smelled divine!! So luxurious. Just like a grove of perfume-y oranges. My mom told us her special cream was expensive. So she would apply it to her face only on Sunday, getting ready for the work week to come. She would wear her special moisturizing cream around the house all day! She looked shiny-faced and cute! She even wore her special cream to bed – to wring out every last beauty benefit.

My mother had the softest, prettiest cheeks …

Haunting Relic of History, Slave Cabin Gets a Museum Home in Washington

Written by admin on May 23rd, 2013

From The New York Times

Junior Meggett, 80, in the former slave cabin on Edisto Island, S.C., where his aunt and uncle lived in the 1940s. Mr. Meggett lived in a different but identical cabin.
STEPHEN MORTON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By ROBBIE BROWN
EDISTO ISLAND, S.C. — The floors creaked. The walls swayed in a strong breeze. Rot and termites had destroyed parts of the rickety structure built before the Civil War.

But when curators from the Smithsonian’s new African-American history museum in Washington visited this marshy island last year, they found exactly what they were looking for: an antebellum slave cabin that captured the stark life of plantation workers before emancipation …

to read entire story click here

Hike your way through Boston’s backyard

Written by admin on May 23rd, 2013
 The Nature Conservancy provides a list of nature-near-you getaways for the entire family
 
 BOSTON – Some of the best summer memories involve being in nature.  Whether camping with the family or discovering frog eggs and climbing trees, the warm hours of endless freedom and fun are best-enjoyed outside.  Sometimes, it can be difficult to not feel trapped in the loud and fast-paced city, but The Nature Conservancy has come up with a list of family hikes located within an hour of Boston.  Whether you’re outside for a day or for a week, you and your family will enjoy these close-to-home summer escapes:
 
1. Sandy Neck Preserve – Sandy Neck Road, Barnstable, MA
Town of Barnstable & The Nature Conservancy
Summer and sand go together like light on a lightning bug.  But while swimming and beach-combing are traditional and enjoyable beach activities, visitors of Sandy Neck Preserve engage in a much wider range of possibilities.  The six miles of barrier beach is known for its dunes and swales as well as being the nesting and feeding grounds for migratory shorebirds and diamondback terrapin turtles.  Site offers beach, dune, and marsh trails.  Take your family to the preserve to catch some rays, build some sand castles, and experience coastal ecology at its finest.  The beach is open from dawn to dusk and you must pay to park.  A nature trail begins at the property’s gatehouse. 

2. David H. Smith Preserve and Fire Trail – Oyster Pond Road, Edgartown, MA

The Nature Conservancy

The largest remaining coastal sandplain habitat on Martha’s Vineyard, the David H. Smith Preserve serves as an educational nature walk where visitors can learn the effects of fire both natural on the Vineyard and controlled for restorative purposes.  The ¾ mile Fire Trail is the only maintained trail on the preserve.  Wildlife includes pitch pine, oak forests, sweet fern, blueberries, hairy woodpeckers, quail, and hermit thrush.  To get there, take the Oak Bluffs Ferry or the Vineyard Haven Ferry.  Admittance is free.  Parking is available at the site and a kiosk of trail information is located at the trailhead. 

3. Blue Hills Reservation – Hillside Street, Milton, MA

Massachusetts DCR

Accessible by bus and located only minutes from downtown Boston, Blue Hills Reservation’s 125 miles of trails are a boundless and fuss-free escape from the bustle of city life.  There are 22 hills in the Blue Hill chain, dotted with scenic outlooks and home to interesting and safe-to-climb rock structures.  Nearly 7,000 acres of oak and hickory forests, streams, meadows, and a range of plant and animal wildlife give this expansive reservation its far-away feel.  Cool off with a swim in Houghton’s Pond or learn the cultural and natural history in the Trailside Museum for a well-rounded trip to inspire curiosity and appreciation for the natural world.  Admittance is free.  Reservation is open from dawn to dusk and camping is available with permit.  Parking and public transit are available as well.

4. Boston Harbor Islands – Boston, MA

US National Park Service

Either go camping or make a day to ride the ferry to one (or more) of the harbor’s 12 islands and peninsulas.  Rich in history, the islands are home to the remains of farmhouses, hospitals, and civil-war era forts.  Shipwrecks and Native American history are also woven into the harbor’s fascinating past.  Land and sea give way to double the amount of wildlife.  Search for clams, barnacles, seals, and rabbits; and before July be sure to watch for the nesting and feeding grounds of shore birds.  Remember, look, enjoy, and don’t disturb!  There are a few different ferry sites in the Boston area.  Design your family’s perfect plan at the Boston Harbor Island’s website. 

5. Noanet Woodlands – Dedham Street, Dover, MA

The Trustees of Reservations

Take your family to Noanet Woodlands for a beautifully memorable day trip.  The 17 miles of shady trails and woods roads allow you to choose the duration and intensity of your hike.  The scenery and breath-taking views make visitors feel much farther from the city than they actually are.  Kids will particularly enjoy the .5 mile walk down Caryl Trail to an old mill site.  The four ponds on site are home to painted turtles and bullfrogs, and wildflowers dot the land and marsh.  The site is open from sunrise to sunset.  Admittance is free and parking is available at Caryl Park, on Dedham Street. 

The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working around the world to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends. The Conservancy and its more than 1 million members have protected nearly 120 million acres worldwide. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org/mass

Folk artist Richie Havens …

Written by admin on May 22nd, 2013

… passed away a few weeks ago. Here are some great photos of this Woodstock icon and two songs, one from a movie I adore. It’s about Bob Dylan. Dylan is played by several actors, one of whom is this little Black boy. Havens sounds great! The movie is only five or so years old! – R. T.
Richie Havens in Paris in 2008

To see more photos, click here!

HRC announces endorsement of Ed Markey for U.S. Senate

Written by admin on May 22nd, 2013

Washington – The Human Rights Campaign – the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization – yesterday announced the endorsement of U.S. Representative Ed Markey running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. Markey fully supports LGBT equality, earning a 100% rating from HRC in each Congress since the organization started its Congressional scorecard in 1989. He was one of just 67 House members to oppose the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments challenging the constitutionality of DOMA earlier this year and is expected to rule this summer.

“Massachusetts has been a leader for LGBT equality since it ushered in marriage equality nine years ago, and the people of the Bay State deserve another great Senator who represents the American value of fairness for all,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Rep. Markey has spent his career in Congress working to advance equality. It’s time for him to bring that proven track record to the U.S. Senate.”

“I am proud to receive the endorsement of the Human Rights Campaign, whose passion and tenacity galvanized a movement that has made this country more equal for all Americans, regardless of who you love,” said Rep. Markey. “I voted against DOMA and have urged President Obama to prevent discrimination by federal contractors. In the Senate, I will bring this fight for equal rights and advocacy on behalf of LGBT people.”

Rep. Markey is a committed supporter of LGBT equality. In addition to voting against DOMA, he was also one of the first members of Congress to support equal marriage rights for all Americans. He has the support of Massachusetts’s senior Senator Elizabeth Warren, former Rep. Barney Frank, and the Kennedy Family.

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

Ban bullies and bullhooks

Written by admin on May 22nd, 2013

 By Delcianna Winders

 Every day it seems we learn more about the astounding sophistication of elephant communication. The most recent revelations, coming from experts who have studied elephants in the wild for decades, further establish the scope and scale of these animals’ intelligence, social relationships and emotional complexity. Before your family goes to the zoo or circus, please consider what your tickets are supporting.

 Biologist and conservationist Joyce Poole and her husband, Petter Granli, direct ElephantVoices, an organization dedicated to studying elephants in their native homelands. After nearly four decades of meticulous observation, the team has developed an online database decoding hundreds of distinct elephant signals and gestures. Rumbling, purring, trumpeting, screaming, humming, ear flapping, freezing in place—all these vocalizations and postures have specific and important meanings.

 When baby elephants cry as they are forcibly removed from their frantic mothers to be beaten and their spirits broken for the circus, their anguish is real. When mother elephants wail as their babies are taken away, they are heartsick. When elephants trumpet at the sight of their tormenters approaching with bullhooks—devices with sharp hooks on the end that resemble fireplace pokers and that are used to hurt and punish elephants used in circuses—they are truly terrified.

 Just like us, all elephants have distinct personality traits and are unique individuals. Some elephants are born comedians. Poole and her team saw time and again elephants deliberately pulling pranks or, as she says, “They know that they are funny.” Some elephants are drama queens while others are simply regal. One other thing elephants share with humans: They avoid pain and don’t like being hurt. There can be no doubt that living in chains and in constant fear of the bullhook causes captive elephants immeasurable suffering.

 Every detail we learn is one more nail in the coffin of Ringling Bros. circus and other acts that still exploit these keenly intelligent and self-aware animals. Right now, Rhode Island’s House Judiciary Committee is considering a ban on the use of cruel bullhooks as well as chaining elephants. Other municipalities, including Fulton County, Ga.; Pompano Beach, Fla.; Southampton, N.Y.; and others, already have bans in place. Zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums have been directed to transition to a management system in which the use of bullhooks will be exceedingly limited next year.

 More than a dozen U.S. zoos have gone a step further. Recognizing that the complex needs of the world’s largest land mammal cannot be met in a cramped pen, zoos from coast to coast have closed their elephant displays and sent the elephants to reputable sanctuaries. Without exception, relocated elephants have thrived in a more natural environment.

 Take Maggie, for example. Maggie was torn from her Zimbabwe home when she was a baby and spent 24 years in the Alaska Zoo. Spending most of her time in a barn, Maggie developed health problems and repeatedly collapsed. The zoo built a giant treadmill in hopes that she’d get some exercise during the frigid Alaska winters, but she didn’t take to it. Today, Maggie is a mischievous charmer who cons her elephant friends at California’s Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary into giving up their goodies and favorite mudhole spots.

 Or Sissy, who was chained and beaten with bats until her knees buckled and she fell to the ground at the El Paso Zoo. Now Sissy gets as much of her favorite food as she likes (carrots!) and explores the woods and hills of The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee.

 Knowing all that we know about these magnificent animals makes condoning their suffering in circuses and zoos all the more indefensible. If you agree that elephants deserve better than to be beaten with bullhooks in the circus or to spend decades in cramped zoo cages, never buy a ticket to either.

Hooray for City Manager Mike O’Brien! Hooray for Worcester’s kids and families!

Written by admin on May 21st, 2013

By Rosalie Tirella

Worcester City Manager Mike O’Brien is including branch libraries in his proposed 2014 budget! Well, sorta. According to his proposal, there are going to be branch libraries open once again in the city of  Worcester, but they will be run out of our public schools, many of which shuttered their in-house libraries years ago. When I attended the WPSchools – Lamartine Street, Providence Street Jr. High, Burncoat Sr. High – we had great school libraries in each school.  I loved and used all the libraries at all my schools. The librarians and their staff were great. I took out books for book reports, learned how to research term papers, checked out fun stuff for me. My mom used to make cupcakes for the Lamartine Street School library bake sales. Sadly, few kids in Worcester’s public schools have that experience today. Remember: our city branch libraries – except for Greendale and GBV – were shuttered years ago.

We say HOORAY FOR THE CITY MANAGER for wanting to make libraries and all their wonderful resources available to ALL the city’s children. America needs an educated, always-learning work force.  Libraries instill a comfort … a comfort with magazines, computers, i pads, technology, learning … .  HOORAY FOR OUR LIBRARIES AND OUR KIDS!!!

We have been blogging and writing in ICT about this issue for a long, long time. Thanks for listening, city movers and shakers! … We don’t care how it’s all funded, just get the branch libraries the heck open again …  slam open the doors and welcome all  kids (and their families!)!

From the City Manager’s budget proposal (public info):

” … the City Manager believes that the community can strengthen student outcomes with an unprecedented partnership and collaboration between the Library and the Schools. How can Worcester leverage public & private resources to achieve equitable access to literature, information, and technology for students, teachers, families, and neighbors? The solution is to have a Worcester Public Library Children’s Branch Library in every Worcester elementary public school.

Four pilot sites will be identified, which will bring the partnership between public library and public schools to the next level. Both Schools and Public Library are partners for success. When school principals/teachers and public librarians join forces, kids win and communities thrive! …”

YES!!!!!

And the candidates for Wusta city council and school committee are …

Written by admin on May 21st, 2013

Public information:

At-Large Councilor: Bill Coleman, Carmen Carmona, Joe Petty (mayor-I), Kate Toomey (I), Konnie Lukes (I), Mesfin Beshir, Mike Germain (I), Michael Gaffney, Morris Bergman, Peter Kush, Rich Rushton (I) and William Feegbeh

District 1 Councilor: Chris Rich and Tony Economou (I)

District 2 Councilor: Jennithan Cortes and Phil Palmieri (I)

District 3 Councilor: George Russell (I)

District 4 Councilor: Sarai Rivera (I)

District 5 Councilor: Gary Rosen and Bill Eddy (I)

School Committee: Brian O’Connell (I), Dianna Biancheria (I), Donna Colorio (I), Doug Arbetter, Hilda Ramirez, Jack Foley (I), John Monfredo (I), Robert Cohane and Tracy O’Connell Novick (I)

Is this …

Written by admin on May 21st, 2013

… Miss Dionne, channeling Marilyn? Love the Dusty Springfield version! – R. T.

Health workers say funding disparities pose major threat to Massachusetts community hospitals

Written by admin on May 21st, 2013

Caregivers call on state senate for change to Medicaid funding approach

Boston – A new advocacy campaign by the state’s largest healthcare union is targeting what caregivers say is a major threat to the quality healthcare services that the public has come to depend on from local community and safety net hospitals.

According to local caregivers, extreme inequalities in what Medicaid and Massachusetts insurers are willing to pay hospitals for the same services at the same quality is a problem that has now grown out of control and has reached a tipping point that threatens the availability of convenient, affordable hospital access in several regions of the state.

In a new campaign, caregivers from 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East claim the inequalities and the threat they pose to consumers and community hospitals have become the ‘elephant in the room’ in the local healthcare industry. Now, caregivers are calling on the state senate to take action as a first step towards addressing the disparities, before it’s too late. Click to continue »