There was a little girl with a little curl ...

"There was a little girl with a little curl right in the middle of her forehead.  When she was good she was very very good but when she was bad she was horrid." 

     Yep that was me.  Mama always said that to me when I was a little girl.  And from the stories I heard about me that little saying was true.  I was the little curly haired blonde baby that mama was so proud of.  She loved blonde hair and who expected her to have a fair haired and fair skinned little Italian girl.  But low and behold there I was born on October 22, 1946, at All Souls Hospital on Mt. Kemble Ave., in Morristown, NJ.  Mama said I was bald for the first year with just a little curl on top of my head.  I grew into a pretty child and Mama loved the fact that people would stop her on the street and tell her I looked just like Shirley Temple.  She wanted that response; she dressed me and fixed my hair just like Shirley.  I had long blonde finger curls and short little dresses with ruffles on my underpants.  I remember a dark blue frosted drinking glass with Shirley’s picture and name on it that I drank from.  Wish I still had it today. 

     I did not have the angelic personality Shirley had in the movies. I was a little spitfire with a very naughty streak.  But I could be very sweet and friendly to everyone when I choose to.  Washington Street was really a busy highway that went right through town. But that never seemed to worry Mama, she let me wander up and down that street from the time I was 3 or 4 years old with no supervision.  I don’t know where she was but I don’t remember her being anywhere in sight.  That didn’t bother me either; I was friends with all the ladies on the street.  I went from house to house visiting and eating all the cookies they gave me.  There was Elinore the maid, Mr. Murphy the Limo driver and his sister and Rose Corbit and her brother John. Elinore impressed me because in the house where she worked they had a big ironing press and I would watch as she pressed clothes and all the wrinkles would disappear like magic.   Rose Corbit had a pull chain toilet that was on the back porch in a little closet like room and I loved go into it and pull the chain.   Mr. Murphy had a cat that had kittens, which any 4 year old would love. I can still see their little grey faces with huge eyes, the cats not the people.  But most of all I remember Miss Sweeney.

     Mrs. Sweeney was my adopted grandmother since I didn’t have one and what a character she was.  She was already an old lady when I was born and I don’t remember life on Washington Street without her.  She once owned the house we lived in but at the time she lived in the house right next door. As a matter of fact she owned a lot of houses on Washington Street and in Morris Plains all left to her by her mother whom she lived with all of her life.  She was eccentric and sold Mama many of those houses and then would buy them back from her and Mama would make a profit.  Mrs. Sweeney always paid Mama more than what she paid her for it them.

     My mother was young enough to be her daughter but she called Mama Aunt Mae. Mama told me I even started calling her Aunt Mae so she and Papa had to start calling each other Mommy and Daddy. Mrs. Sweeney took me everywhere, I had a big straw pram and even at 4 I would make her push me in it when she would take me uptown to the Park in the heart of Morristown to feed the pigeons.  I loved it when we stopped in at Woolworth and bought the fresh hot peanuts that we fed them, they smelled so good.

     When the Morris County Fair would come to the county she and I would make the journey to see it.  If I remember correctly it was in Pine Brook off of route 46. I say Journey because we would have to take at least 3 busses to get there, Mrs. Sweeney never drove. It was a fun trip for a small child.  Mama would pack us a lunch and we would sit at a table at the fair grounds and eat our lunch and then get frozen custard for dessert.  When I got a little older we would even go to the Movies together.  I remember seeing The King and I, Three Coins in the Fountain and Love is a Many Splendid Thing with her.  She was old but very active and walked everywhere.  Around the house and neighborhood she wore a long black coat and shabby black hat but when she went “uptown” or to Church she wore her Sunday best. 

      She and Mama were dedicated Democrats.  When Eisenhower was running for president against the Democrates candidate Adlai Stevenson our house was full of election talk.  I remember our kitchen in the mornings that summer, Mama and Mrs. Sweeney would sit and drink coffee and listen to WMTR our local radio station and get updated on the campaign.  It appeared to me as a child that Mr. Stevenson could do no wrong and he just had to beat that bad IKE. Ikes’ campaign slogan was “I like Ike” and I would say it just to annoy the two of them.  They would both say in unison, “NO YOU DON'T”.  When Ike won the election it was a sad morning in Mama’s kitchen. 

     But really the reason I will never forget Mrs. Sweeney is because of what happened to my new front tooth when I was 7 years old.  Mama and Papa were going out for the evening and Mrs. Sweeney always babysat for us.  We were watching TV which she loved doing because she didn’t have one. Back in the day not all homes had acquired them.   When it was time for Linda to go to bed, Linda started misbehaving  and ran up the stairs and got under the covers of Mama and Papa’s bed.  Mrs. Sweeney was wheedling a soup ladle she carried to discipline us. She decided Linda needed a smack with it on the behind. As she swung it around to hit Linda she hit me instead, right in the mouth. The ladle broke  my front tooth in half.  The damn tooth had just come in.  I had to go through the rest of my childhood with a broken front tooth.  The dentist would not cap it until I was 12.  All through my adulthood the dam thing had to be changed for one reason or another resulting on me paying a lot of money to get a permanent bridge.  As of several months ago that frigging front tooth, in the bridge, broke once again.  So guess what, I have a broken front tooth again.  So yes she left me with and indelible memory of her and I curse her every time I look in the mirror.  As of last week I had it fix yet again.

      I had heard a story about my cousin Nickie Abato many times and it went something like this.  During the war Mama lived with Zizi Rosie and Uncle Ben, at that time they had one child Nickie.  One day Mama was washing dishes and took her Diamonds off and laid them on the kitchen window sill.   She had forgotten that they were there so when she went back to get them they were gone.  She searched everywhere and never found them. She was beside herself, crying and praying to St. Jude to help her find them.  And St. Jude came through for her. One week later Nickie asked her to go outside with him, he said “Aunt Mae let’s go outside and see if any Diamonds grew”.  A little went off in Mama's head so she went outside with him and low and behold he had buried her diamonds in the backyard. He thought they would grow more diamonds like flowers.  It was just luck that he remembered the exact spot where he had buried them. I like to think it was St. Jude who got Mama's diamonds back to her.   Mama of course, called him a little Son of a Bitch Bastard (her favorite names).  But she could laugh about it and told the story many times.

     Mama went back to work at the Slip Factory when I was 4 and Zizi baby sat for me.  One morning before JoJo went to school (Zizi's daughter) she yelled at me for touching her dolls and told me I could not play with them.  This made the bad little girl in me come out.  JoJo had a complete set of International Dolls which had beautiful dresses replicating costumes from all different countries. I got an idea reminiscent of what Nickie did to Mama’s Diamonds.  I took every one of those dolls outside and buried them.  Later that day when JoJo came home from school she found her dolls missing.  Zizi called Mama and wanted to know what I did with the dolls.  I had to admit that I buried them in the back yard.  Mama had to buy JoJo all new dolls because when she dug them up the beautiful dresses were ruined. 

 Another time I disappeared from my Aunts house while playing outside.  Zizi and Mama spent hours looking for me and when they found me I was in the High School Gymnasium doing exercises on the floor with the girls.  I had wandered up to the school which was on Atno Ave where my Zizi lived.  The Gym door was open because it was a lovely spring day, and I noticed our neighbor, Norma Rocco, with her gym class doing exercises, so I decided to go in and join them.  And that is where they found me, lying on the Gym floor doing leg lifts with Norma. I feared nothing as a child and still don’t and it still gets me into trouble.

     As I have mentioned many times on this blog Mama loved to cook and bake.  She liked to experiment and one day while making cookies she decided to put crushed potato chips in the batter.  Papa loved potato chips and there was always a bag of them around.  They turned out great and Mama named them Potato Chip Cookies. As a small child I loved these cookies and so did Papa.  Over the years Mama gave this recipe to whoever asked for it so even though she created it she never got credit for it. I like to make these cookies because it is fun to have people try to guess what is in them.  No one ever gets it right and are surprised when I tell them.

 Mamas’ Potato Chip Cookies

4 cups of flour

4 sticks butter (1lb.)

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups of chopped walnuts

2 cups potato crushed potato chips (good brand of chips not baked)

Bake at 350

     Get ready to get your hands dirty. Using Mixer mix together the soften butter, sugar and vanilla. Crush the potato chips by putting them in a plastic bag and roll over them with a rolling pin. Or hit them with a mallet, it helps to get out any aggression you might have.  Add all the other ingredients to the butter mixture and with your hands mix it all together. It is a very stiff dough and a mixer won’t be able to mix it.  Drop dough by tablespoonful’s on to an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes.  Do not undercook these cookies because they will be greasy, they need to be crispy. When cooled dust with powder sugar.  Have fun playing the guessing game.