Marisa's Laughter Page
November 17, 2001
I'm much too young to be this darn old!
Thanksgiving is upon us, and after that, the holidays will be in full swing. Whether you're Catholic or Protestant or Jewish, this time of year is busy, busy, busy, and it's also a time for family.
I try to spend time with my family throughout the year. Most of my family lives about 25 miles from me in the next county. This is the perfect distance. Now, I like my family, don't get me wrong. I just want to keep it that way. If I lived next door to one of my parents or grandparents, I would lose my mind. They watch the clock to see when you go in and come out. If you're 15 minutes late coming home from work, they start calling local emergency rooms. Been there, done that. Not in a hurry to go back.
My husband's family lives in another adjoining county, about 15 miles in a different direction. Again, this is a nice distance, for the exact same reason. If we go on vacation, and my husband tells his mom we'll be home at 7:00 pm, she starts calling at 5:30 to see if we're there yet. Bless her heart, I just took the kid she was put on Earth to worry about and gave her two more people to give her gray hair as well!
Our busy lives and work schedules keep us from seeing as much of each other as we'd like, but we get together with our families at least once a month. That's something I'm thankful for all year long.
We have some friends who have just had their second child. They're hoping to add three more to the family. My husband thinks they're a little crazy. I told him that honestly, I'm a little jealous. I would probably stop at a nice even number like four children, but the picture of myself as a full-time mother of four in a perfect suburban home really appeals to me.
Actually, I think this vision began when I was a four-year-old only child, living in a trailer with my still-very-young parents. My mom was a hairdresser and sometimes we went to other people's houses to do hair. One of her regular customers was a thirty-something lady (I'll call her Sue Jackson) who lived in a big barn-shaped house with her family of four children, a big dog and a strong, protective husband - a typical father figure. Their home wasn't in a heavily populated subdivision, but they had close neighbors. They drove a big Ford wood-paneled station wagon. They had all the cool toys and a bunch of record albums.
I loved going to their house because they played the Partridge Family albums. I watched "The Partridge Family" and "The Brady Bunch" at their house, and felt like I was watching a real-life sitcom being played out right there.
The kids were all older than me. There were three boys, all teenagers at the time, and a girl who was about five years older than me. I thought they were the coolest people I knew. Several years ago I ran into the daughter at a flea market and I told my husband, "This is the girl who taught me the kids' rhyme, 'Here is the church, here is the steeple...'"I also told him that they'd given my (then) baby brother Trever the nickname of Tractor, and that they'd been the ones to teach me how to play "Smoke on the Water" on the black keys of the piano in the church sanctuary. These people made a lasting impression in my life!
When I was ten or twelve years old, the Jackson family moved away. They moved back several years later, after my parents' third child was grown and I had two children of my own. They missed out on knowing us during the years we owned a Chevy Caprice wood-paneled station wagon and lived in a split-level in a large subdivision. When the Jacksons returned to our hometown, my parents were divorced and living new lives. My dad married a mother of three. We're not exactly the Brady Bunch though. One of her sons died in a four-wheeler accident. All three of Daddy's kids were grown by the time he married our stepmother. My mom married a father of three, but the marriage didn't last. Besides, his girls all lived with their mothers and we never saw them.
Now my own kids watch "The Brady Bunch." I look at the TV and wonder when I went from being a starry-eyed kid, younger than the Brady kids and thinking, "Wow, they are almost as cool as the Jacksons!" to becoming as old as the Brady parents. I'M the parent now. I'm the one who packs the lunches every day and supervises the homework. (Does that mean I'm also Alice?) I'm the one who drives the mini-van, this generation's equivalent of the wood-paneled station wagon.
When did this happen? I think I missed something. Well, I didn't really miss anything. I had my share of popularity contests in high school. Davy Jones didn't come to my prom and my mom didn't drive a psychedelic bus, but I lived a pretty normal teenage life. I went to college, pledged a sorority, met the guy of my dreams, and married him the week after I graduated from college.
Time has just had its way with me. I can't believe that the baby I dreamed of holding in my arms is now almost as tall as I am. Even harder to believe is that her baby brother, born with special needs during my husband's grad school days, is a thriving first-grader, making straight A's. I am so blessed. It just seems like time has gone by too quickly, and I worry that it's only going to get worse.
Seems like just yesterday I was at the Jacksons' house, playing Porter Wagoner's "Carroll County Accident" on 16 instead of 33 1/3, waiting for the kids to get home from school. (Playing records at the wrong speed could keep me entertained for hours. Dolly Parton sounds REALLY full of helium on 78. Try it sometime, if you can find an old turntable.) I can't believe all that was thirty years ago. A few years ago, I taught my little girl "This is the church, this is the steeple...".
And I can still play "Smoke on the Water" on the black keys.
This page was started on August 23, 2001
last updated July 23, 2002
Copyright 2001, Rissy's Treasures