I haven't written here for awhile. The weather has been mostly overcast until the last couple of days and the sun came out and it was over freezing so some of the snow started to melt. But now, last night we have a dusting of snow and they are calling for about 3" of snow on Sunday/Monday. I am sick of winter this year. It seems so long and dragged out. We haven't really had a bad winter but am really ready for Spring this year.

I have been longing for a trip to Florida even though I know it is out of the question. I have no money and two of my bills have increased and that is almost another $100 out of what I get in each month. I don't know how I am going to do it. It just gets worse and worse. I have shut off the lights and put the temp down to 65 at night and the bills still keep going up but the social security check is still the same. I never thought I would be struggling this bad at this age. Poor me one more time. LOL At least I am alive and kicking so they say.

When we moved to Florida there was very little around us and no friends. There was a house next door with a couple of other houses which I believe they rented out. On the other side was a large building that became an auction house. There were businesses across the highway (Alternate Route 41 or Nebraska Avenue) but little else close by. My address there was 100007 Nebraska Avenue, Tampa, Florida. I believe the first real girlfriend that I had there was Pat Pless who lived on the next corner down the sand street. Pat's dad repaired semi's. Pat's mom was a stay at home mother and had a wooden leg. I have no idea how she lost her leg. She had an older sister Olive. Pat and I would go to the sink hole and grab the rope that someone had tied to a tree and would swing out over the sink hole. Thankfully I never fell into the water as I didn't know how to swim. The last time I was in Florida there are fences around the sink holes in the area. A sink hole is a large pond that is connected usually to another sink hole by underground water. Pat and I would also play in a cement block building that someone had started to build and never finished. If a snake was in the building we didn't go back there for a long time. We usually walked on the top of the cement blocks.

Pat's mom was Italian and the house always smelled of spaghetti sauce. I remember one time going out to the causeway with them and going crab hunting. We collected buckets of crabs and then when we got back they were put in the spaghetti sauce. From what I remember the sauce had a wonderful taste.

Pat was younger than me and went to Catholic school so we didn't see each other too often.

I was alone a lot living in Florida. My mom and dad were always busy with the restaurant and motel. When I had nothing to do I would sometimes wash the clothes from the motel. Our washing machine was outside. It was a wringer washing machine and we had one utility tub out there. I would wash the clothes and then hang the stuff on the clothes line. I was about 11 at the time.

There was very little to do in the neighborhood we lived in so I went to the movies quite a bit. The theater was in the town of Sulphur Springs which was a mile or more away from our place but it was only about 8 blocks from school so many days I would walk from school to the theater. I also went just about every Saturday. One Saturday I met a boy there and really liked him. He was nice to me and we talked through the movie. I met him there a few times and then never saw him again. He probably moved away. In those days, did not realize that his parents were probably pickers or worked on someones farm. His name was Gabriel Rodriquez.

Because I liked the movies so much I started writing letters to the studios for photographs of the movie stars. I still have many that I collected. I also collected pictures from movie magazines. Naturally Mom eventually threw them away. She didn't like anything extra laying around. I used to keep the pictures in a cardboard doctor's kit (it was a toy). My favorite star was Cornell Wilde. Funny I never sent for his picture.

Super Bowl Sunday

Today is the Super Bowl. I haven't watched a football game in years. The year that the Bears were playing was a great year for Illinois. We all had parties and everyone was doing the Super Bowl Shuffle. I probably won't watch the game but will switch back and forth to see the commercials.

I went on a web site that had things that were happening on the day I was born. It said that "gas Masks" were classed as "wearing apparel". I don't ever remember anyone walking around with a gas mask on. LOL "DDT" was also used to fight bugs and later found out to be harmful to people. Maybe that is why I have lung disease along with the smoking I was doing. Everyone sprayed their gardens with DDT in those days and for many years to come. The new invention that year was the military helicopters. My first president was Franklin D. Roosevelt. Joe Lewis was the boxing champion. Bobby Riggs was the Wimbledon men's winner and he sure played for many years after that.

Judy Garland was the most popular singer and the movie of the year was "Gone With The Wind". Vivian Leigh won the Oscar for that movie. The the most popular song was "We'll Meet Again". That song I don't think I ever heard.

An average house cost was $8985, WOW. A car was $1328. I take one please. Gas was
$.15, bread $.09, flour $.04, a dozen eggs $.16, bacon $.26 and eggs $.16. Gas for the $1328 car was $.l5 a gallon. If those prices were now, I would be a rich person.

The other statistics were that my name Pat means Well-born and I was born on a Sunday. I am a Gemini and my birthstone is an emerald. My flower is Lily of the Valley which is one of my most favorite flowers. I can almost smell them now. I used to pick 2 or 3 bouquets at Teta Kubat's house every spring. My color is Saffron but I don't think I have ever had anything that color. It says that I am loyal, loving and energetic partner for whom romance is important. My relationships must be varied to interest me. Boy that is for sure. LOL It also says that I am imaginative, charming, quick-witted, and vivacious I guess that is enough trivia on me.

February 6, 2010

It is a weekend again. Time is going so fast. I have so many things I want to do and I just don't have the energy or the breath to do them all. Last Thursday I went to a quilt shop in Lockport. I love fabric. I wish I could buy it all. There are so many beautiful prints and colors. I want to make a couple of applique quilts that I have the patterns for. They were from a web site called bunnyhill.com The quilt from last year has a basket for each month with different things by the basket or in the basket. The one she is giving out this year is snowmen. They are BOM or Block of the Month. You get one block for every month. I have decided to make both of them. It will be a great way to use up a few scraps and not have to buy alot of fabric. I only had to buy the snowman white fabric so far. I hopefully will start getting the fabric together for each square today. I also want to finish my raggy quilt so that I can get it finished.

Now back to growing up in Florida. When I got to Florida I was around 10 or 11. I am not sure what month we got to Florida but I believe it was at the end of 4th grade. There were not many kids around as there were not many houses in the area. The first person I met was Rosalind. She lived down the street and was a few years older than me. She invited me to a party and it was a party of boys and girls and they played spin the bottle which at 10 or 11 I had no idea what it was all about. They also played hide and seek but when you got found by a boy you got kissed. I left the party pretty quick as these kids were too grown up for me. I never went to Rosalinds house again and I believe within a few years, I had heard that she was expecting a baby. For the first year down there, I was pretty much alone and was young enough that I could play with my cut out dolls and collect my movie star pictures. Mom and I would go to the movies at least once a month in downtown Tampa. After the movie we would stop at this drive in that made milk shakes, I believe they had 34 flavors of milk shakes. I always got vanilla and it is still my favorite. I used to look forward to going to a large theater in Tampa with the treat afterwards.

Chuck had a girlfriend across the street and if I recall she was pretty but she also had another boyfriend and dumped Chuck for him. Chuck only had a couple of years before he graduated high school and I don't remember him being around too much. I do remember he got the large bedroom and I got the small one.

Things were different when we moved to Florida. Most of the time I would take the keys and open the restaurant and make my own breakfast and get myself off to school. Mom and Dad would be sleeping as the restaurant/beer joint was open until
1 AM and by the time it was cleaned up it was probably 2 AM. I was pretty much on my own when we lived in Florida. I would have to occupy myself and take care of myself. When I got home from school Mom would make me a hamburger on the grille or I would make myself one and I would have a coke and a hamburger almost every day. Naturally I gained weight from eating the snack after school. When supper time came I usually sat on a beer case and used a couple of other beer cases for my table. We rarely ate in the restaurant and if I did I would sit at the end of the bar.

I started school in the 5th grade and went to Sulphur Springs school. The classrooms in the lower grades were barracks. My 5th grade teacher was Mrs. Miner, I believe. I was way behind everyone and had to learn my times tables as they were almost through them. It was hard for me to get used to the school down there. If you misbehaved the teacher would hit the back of your hands with a ruler and if you really misbehaved you would be tied to your seat with crepe paper and if you broke that crepe paper you would be spanked in front of the class. Fortunately I was very good and never got hit. We also started out the day with a Pledge to the Flag, and a prayer and a bible quote. Where I lived was called the "Bible Belt". I was a good student and got very good grades and eventually caught up with the rest of the kids. Even in those days, Chicago schools were behind and what I didn't realize at the time, Florida schools were also behind.

Today we are having snow flurries with 1-2" accumulation. I cut out the batting and the fabric to work on my new quilt and will probably work on it this afternoon. The groundhog saw it's shadow so naturally we are having 6 more weeks of winter. I knew that before he even looked. LOL We are bound to have 6 more weeks of winter. Spring can come fast enough for me. I just want to go out in the sunshine.

This morning when I was looking in the closet for something to wear a thought of my Mom came to me. I don't remember when I was young my mother wearing pants. She always had on a dress or a skirt and blouse. When she was at home either cleaning the house or baking she wore a dress that was called a Mickey Apron. What a strange name for a dress. It was made out of cotton and was very plain. It had cape sleeves and a tie belt that started on the sides and tied in the back. It was always of a print. I remember Mom wearing them a lot. Mom's in those days were stay at home wives/mothers. I only knew of a few women that worked in those days. My aunt Anna I believe worked at a factory during World War II as a lot of women did. My Aunt Dorothy who was the youngest, only 3 years older than my brother John, worked as a buyer for Marshall Field and Company. She bought clothes for the children's department.

Anyway, getting back to the dress, my Mom always wore them and even in Florida. When we got down to our new house, everything had to be cleaned starting with the business and there was remodeling to be done. I don't remember the beer joint or tavern, I don't really know what to call it. Only beer was sold no other liquor was allowed. My dad worked on the windows first as Mom started scrubbing the kitchen and organizing it the way she wanted it. They had decided to make hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chili and occasionally soup. Mom also made breakfast which was only bacon and eggs and I think pancakes. But I am not sure about the breakfast. After Dad removed and replaced the windows, he started working on the bar and changing a few things around and changing it a little. Within a short time the beer joint was clean and running. There was beer on tap and coke and milk for my Dad. My Dad was not a drinker and only occassionally had a beer.

My mom got the lovely job of cleaning the bathrooms but I know when she came to the Men's bathroom she made my Dad help her. Her next job was the motel rooms. Dad also had a neon sign made for the front and they planted Azalea bushes in front of the motel units. Dad also made a planting area around the one side of the Joint for lack of another word to describe it. He also out of cement block made a fence around the patio. Things were starting to shape up.