Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day!

Yesterday, I went to my friend Susan's house in Newton for an outdoor picnic in her backyard.  I was still feeling tired from going to Saturday's Earthfest concert in Boston where I saw James Blunt perform  so I spent most of the afternoon sitting in one of the lounge chairs just to rest my tired feet.  Of course, I ate food and drank punch (non-alcoholic) and soda.  That required my getting up a lot.

The weather was great.  I did consider wearing shorts, but I couldn't remember where they were in my bedroom.  I am so disorganized.  I wore my black jeans and a black long sleeve shirt.  They were very comfortable.

While I was out there sitting in the lounge chair wearing my jeans, I briefly recalled a picnic I went to on Memorial Day 1980.  I was 15 years old when we went to my brother-in-law's mother's house for a picnic in her backyard in southern Maryland.  Just before my parents, my brother Alfred, and I left the house that day for the picnic, my mother was yelling at me for putting on shorts.  I had shaved my legs earlier that morning so they looked good, but my mother screamed at me for looking bad and forced me to wear pants and a long sleeve shirt.  I felt very hot in them.  Keep in mind that it's a lot hotter in Maryland on Memorial Day than in Massachusetts.

As soon as we arrived, I sat down in a lounge chair because I was upset and angry that I wasn't allowed to wear what I wanted to.  My mother insisted that the other girls around my age would be wearing pants, but they weren't.  I was the only one in pants that day as the weather went over 90 degrees on that day.

Still, my mother got on my case again.  She demanded that I was supposed to help out in the kitchen, although Charlette, my brother-in-law's mother, never said anything to me about it.  Only one or two of the other girls my age were helping out, while others were sitting around talking.  Some were playing games.

I just merely groaned in frustration, and my mother threatened me.  It was something she did during my childhood years.  Sometimes, she would hit me.  This time she didn't.  I think I got up and hid in the bathroom or some other place in the house for awhile.  I can't remember a lot about that day.  Distant memory I guess.

This happened a couple of weeks before Alfred, my older brother, was in that car accident that cost him his life.

Alfred is usually the one I remember on Memorial Day.

I should mention that was the last time (I think) I went to a barbecue at Charlette's house.  Several years later, one of the foster children that Charlette looked after stabbed her to death two days before Thanksgiving in 1987.  He did it because he wanted money.  Very sad.  The last time I saw Charlette was around Christmastime 1986 when I was visiting my parents.  I had decided to move to Boston in 1986 after graduating from Emerson College that same year.