And now, back to Tucson

My family moved to Tucson when I was 10 years old and, except for a couple of years in Denver right after my kids were born, I lived there for 30 years. That's where I grew up, got married, had my kids. It's where my grandparents lived and died, where my mother died, and where many of my aunts and uncles lived. It was home.

Now I've been gone for 21 years and when I go back, so much has changed. I still remember where places from my history are, but so much is new. So many places I grew up with have been torn down. Know what really makes you feel old? Remembering a "modern" building going up, only to now see the empty lot because it was "old and falling apart." I mean, what does that say about me!!!!

This last trip we drove past my grandmother's and great grand-mother's houses. Lots of nostalgia, lots of sadness. The photo below is my grandparent's house. It was a few blocks from the University of Arizona and such a charming neighborhood at the time. Now it's been stuccoed, all the front yard is gone, and there is a wall around the property. The little building to the left is a little one-bedroom apartment where I lived with my girlfriend when we were in college.


Here is the house I remember! The front yard was a family gathering spot. We sat there every Fourth of July and watched the U of A fireworks display. We had Easter Egg hunts on the lawn. It's where my grandparents had their marijuana garden. It's where we had all our big family dinners. The yard had orange trees, loquat trees, even a pomegranate tree. Now it has gravel. My grandparents were so proud of their house and yard. I have so many photos of family members visiting from Chicago and standing by an orange tree - usually with a cowboy hat on.

Here are my grandmother and grandfather enjoying their front yard.

How I miss them and those days. Surrounded by family, greasy Italian food, lots of laughter, and the feeling of Tucson in the late 1950's and early 1960's. My great-grandmother lived less than a mile away from my grandparents. She also lived one block from the school where I went to 5th grade so I would go over to her house often. Grandma was the quintessential old Italian woman. 4' 10" on a good day, constantly wearing an apron, gray hair in a bun, nylons rolled down to just below her knees, that one gold tooth that seems to be mandatory in old Italian women, and an accent so thick you had to really concentrate to understand her. Here is Grandma and this is her house today. The front section used to be a porch. There was a little wire fence around the front yard and a small gate that we would go through.

This is where we would go every Christmas Eve to see her Nativity display and be with family. As you can see, this is a very small house. But there would usually be 50 or so people inside! Many smoking, all laughing and talking, and, of course (we are Italian, after all) everyone eating. The back yard was almost as big as the house. There was also a little guest studio in the back. Grandma has an amazing garden, fed daily by coffee grounds and egg shells. And we would have lots of family picnics in her yard. I'm so glad to have these wonderful memories. I'm sad that almost everyone in these photos is gone. I wish my kids could have known my grandparents and great-grandmother - and Tucson in the "old days." They would have loved every minute of it. Hopefully we're creating good memories for them that someday will be their "good old days."

What the Hella You Want?

I saw a blog today from an 88-year old woman who lives in San Francisco. 88!!! I find that quite awesome. Of course, today she was badmouthing my generation (the Baby Boomers) and all the hoopla about us turning 60 - but I can forgive her that!

My great-grandmother was 88 when she passed away. Can't imagine her using a computer - the tv and telephone were about as high tech as she got. And this was in the days before push-button phones and remote controls! Grandma had 16 kids (3 sets of twins in a row) and three husbands. The first one died, the second one, well, no one's sure, and the third one died. She may have been a bigamist, but what the heck. With 16 kids she had enough to worry about without dealing with marriage laws!

Grandma was the stereotypical old Italian woman - about 4' 9" tall, white hair pulled back in a bun with a hair net over it, ALWAYS wore an apron (even to church), had nylons rolled down to just above her knee, one gold tooth, very heavy accent, and an intense love of family. She was small, but no one messed with her family and lived to tell about it!! She baked bread, made wine, made pasta (although we called it "macaroni"), baked cookies, had a garden and chickens, and loved her soap operas. My mom called Grandma one day and Grandma was crying. Mom said, "What's wrong?" Grandma said, "Peggy was in a car accident and they don't know if she'll live!" Mom started to get upset until she realized we didn't have a relative named Peggy - that's when she figured out it was a character on General Hospital!

But the soaps did cause her a few problems - like the day she was eating a slice of bread with peanut butter on it, the phone rang, and she was so distracted that she put the bread (peanut butter side up) against her ear instead of the phone! Not pretty! If you called her at a really bad time, she would answer the phone saying, "What the hella you want?!?" She loved the actor "Humpity Bogart" and listened to a lot of Perry Como records. Her house in Tucson was very small, but we managed to squeeze about 40 people into it every Christmas Eve. She wouldn't have it any other way!

Grandma had a stroke about two weeks before I had my twins. I delivered Jenni and Joe in the same hospital and one of my aunts took the babies up to see Grandma. Hopefully on some level she heard them and knew that there was a new set of twins in the family - she would have loved that! I wish my kids could have known her - she was an amazing woman.