Memoirs of a Geezer!
Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth
to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!
This Episode: Soap Carvings, Soggy Cereal Soaked in Cocoa, Cod Liver Oil...
A Truly Remarkable Woman... Her Legend and Legacy!
"What is this stuff?" I asked the mother of my little friend, Jimmy, when he and I were kids, and in Miss Brooch'es fourth grade class at St. Bernard's School. It was a sleep-over at his home. (Jimmy never slept over at my house!...)
"Are you trying to be cute, or funny?" Jimmy's mom replied, "Or, are you simply being obtuse?!... It's a bar of soap! Hand soap!" With profound irritation, she spat the words, like stinging projectiles.
"But..." I stammered, "But Mrs. Igglegoober, it isn't shaped like soap... I mean, like any soap I've ever seen! I'm not trying to be... Hello!!?? Missus!!??... Um... Missus!..."
She turned quickly away from me, padding off in her pink mules shaking her head, mumbling and grousing, "Stupid child," I heard her say, and then, "How did my smart boy connect with such a rube... Honey!," I heard her yell to her husband, "Our son has befriended a rustic, some sort of countryfied gnat brain!..."
Today, as a grown geezer, I tell my children, grandchildren and friends about my mother's relationship with soap, and thus mine as well. You see, Helen Genevieve Raccoli was an artist and an art teacher. She taught legions of eager young students for more than 45 years in the Milwaukee Public School system. Among her perennial art projects, assignments given her students, was soap carving. Each pupil was required to bring a bar of soap to school -- usually Ivory brand -- and then carve the bar into a creative shape, such as an animal or an effigy or a familiar object one sees in everyday life.
My mother was the empress of frugal. She had an ulterior motive, I think. Home came all the
soap carvings for use in our upstairs bathroom, downstairs "half-bath" and kitchen sink. We washed our hands and faces with fishies, chickens, duckies, dogs, cats, swine and an assortment of model cars, a 1950 Chevrolet truck, a studebaker, a LaSalle and other soapy autos. I think there may have been carved vegetables too, and heads of students' family members... famous heads, too. Calvin Coolidge and Herbie Hoover heads, for example! My siblings and I never saw a "cake" of soap shaped rectangularly. How the hell would I have known the classic shape of hand soap?!... (You snot-nosed, nasty old poop of a Mrs. Igglegoober!!)
Not only hand soap, but laundry soap. She'd grate and flake the excess and broken "sculptures" and soak them in warm water, using a strainer in her "manufacturing process" to liquify the flakes and make laundry detergent. Didn't exactly remove stains but then what did in those days?! Everything we wore smelled like old soap and spoiled eggs because of the ancient starch she somehow managed to obtain for nearly nothing. My older brother was not amused. "Ma! My friends say I smell like rotten eggs! Why can't we get NEW starch, like udder kids...?"
Greeting cards! My mother never sent a new greeting card. She'd white out or somehow obliterate print and signatures and "re-purpose" the cards she received. I think she mistakenly sent the same card to someone who sent the card to her... on several occasions. I don't think the recipients ever challenged her. If they did she'd simply laugh it off and suggest the complainer was merely delusional. "Just duplicate cards," she'd insist. Gift wrap? She made us open those rare, wrapped packages with great care so that she could re-use the stuff, and not just once! "Be very careful, honey, don't rip the paper...!!"
She made a great deal of her own clothing, for her children too. On one occasion when we were in 7th and 8th grade respectively, she made my brother, Kris, and me winter overcoats. They were made of a forest green fabric and brown fur collars, and belts. I've never been much for fashion, but even for me that was beyond what I'd agree to wear in public. Strange and "geeky" - looking, the coats were, however, superbly made.
She was always the artist, a perfectionist in everything she fashioned. My mother painted wonderful pictures, watercolors, acrylics and oils. She worked with ceramics and even sculpted in wood. She did get a bit odd at one point in her career, plopping large flowers in the forefront of some of her paintings, but the phase didn't last long. It was what we termed her
"Goon (-y) (Floral) Period."
In robust middle age, perhaps a bit earlier, my mother became fascinated with investing, the stock market in all of its frightening complexities. For her, however, it was a hobby that bore great dividends. She did extremely well with her investments, a talent that sadly passed over at least one fiduciary imbecile in my generation... meaning me, of course. My brother and sister inherited the talent, to their credit. Alas, some siblings are merely distracted I suppose!...
Back to my mother... she had a remarkably well-honed sense of humor and an infectious laugh. And she was magnificently eccentric, in behavior, as in attire, wearing animal-print outfits, Attila the Hun fur-rimmed headwear, Persian shoes, enormous purple-rimmed glasses and enough jewelry that would cause many lesser mortals to become stoop-shouldered.
Her artistry extended to things culinary as well. I must elucidate. She was a terrible cook and baker, but she set a beautiful table. When my mother entertained, the cooking or catering was "outsourced." Here's an illustration of her kitchen "skills." When my wife, SweetHeart, was pregnant with our first child, my mother invited us to dinner...
"What's she serving?" SweetHeart asked.
"What are we having for dinner?" I asked my mother, into the telephone. "What? Oh! Pork roast with mashed potatoes. That's nice. Isn't that nice, SweetHeart? Probably won't affect your morning sickness at all, right?" I opined the latter sotto voce. Things didn't work as I'd hoped. You see, my mother owned a pressure cooker, holes in the kitchen ceiling attesting to its explosive power when the pressure propelled that thing on the top -- I think it's called a "steam vent" -- with such force it might have flown beyond the earth's atmosphere had the kitchen ceiling not intervened!! She tended to cook everything in the pressure cooker. As such, the pork roast was grey and rubbery, the mashed potatoes grey with the consistency and flavor of wallpaper paste. We don't mention the sour kraut for fear of my safety! SweetHeart spent much of the evening in the small downstairs washroom.
On another occasion, my mother invited us for chicken and dumplings. As though heavenly chefs created a gastronomic miracle, the dinner was superb. "Ask you mother to make chicken and dumplings," said SweetHeart on another occasion, a year or two removed from the first. The chicken was rubber, the dumplings lumps of 1950s school room paste. My mother could not repeat the miracle of the past. To her credit, she knew she was a terrible cook, and laughed along with the rest of us at her gastronomic disasters.
Early in their married life, my brother's wife, Jaynie, made stuffed peppers. She's an excellent cook. My brother picked at the dinner and announced, "This isn't like my mom used to make." Jaynie was highly displeased, to state the matter euphemistically, knowing her mother-in-law's reputation in the kitchen. Happily, the young marriage survived, and, in time, brother, Kris, grew to appreciate truly fine cuisine, cooking skill and good food he had not known in his youth.
(My brother always complained the split pea soup was "too lumpy." I preferred lumpy particulates in my soup. Mother pureed the pea soup. His complaints were louder and more effective, obviously, then mine! Once when I complained the bread she served us was stiff and dry, my brother dumped a slice of bread in my tomato soup!... but that's a story for another time!)
My siblings and I grew up on soggy cereal soaked in hot cocoa, the skim on top of the boiled stuff a particular source of nausea for me. And cod liver oil. My mother insisted our daily eye dropper full of cod liver oil was the source of perfect attendance throughout elementary and high school, not to mention the strength and stamina needed to deliver heavy Sunday newspapers through brutal winters in Wisconsin.
Apart from her eccentricities, her talents and her lack thereof in a certain realm, my mother
was an extraordinary person, kind and generous almost to a fault. She volunteered her time and talents for so many, including teaching art classes to seniors, taking care of those less fortunate, the sick and needy in so many different ways and venues. She gave a great deal of her time, love and attention to a certain set of fatherless grandchildren, never complaining, always available when needed, or wanted for her special gifts. She was much loved, respected and admired.
Oh yes, one more thing. My mother loved to travel. I believe she visited nearly every country on this planet. She collected masks, hats and various artifacts. I have the mask collection in my office. They're wonderful. They scare and fascinate my grandchildren. And 8mm home movies. She made more movies than Cecil DeMille or John Huston, I think.
My mother was a marvel of creativity, innovation and interests. My brother and I miss her, as do all of her family members who survive. My children, Alie and Bethie, and her other grandkids remember with fondness and humor the gifts she bought them from rummage sales! To my mother, the rummage sale was a kind of religion, and she'd never pass one by, no more than she'd ignore bananas at 29 cents a pound, or canned goods on sale that she'd stockpile in her basement larder, a storehouse that could have fed an army of shut-ins!
"Kids, get those dishes done! Don't make me have to tell you again? I've said it 47 times!! *"
(* Her favorite number, particularly when agitated or wishing to emphasize something!)
A Truly Remarkable Woman... Her Legend and Legacy!
"What is this stuff?" I asked the mother of my little friend, Jimmy, when he and I were kids, and in Miss Brooch'es fourth grade class at St. Bernard's School. It was a sleep-over at his home. (Jimmy never slept over at my house!...)
"Are you trying to be cute, or funny?" Jimmy's mom replied, "Or, are you simply being obtuse?!... It's a bar of soap! Hand soap!" With profound irritation, she spat the words, like stinging projectiles.
She turned quickly away from me, padding off in her pink mules shaking her head, mumbling and grousing, "Stupid child," I heard her say, and then, "How did my smart boy connect with such a rube... Honey!," I heard her yell to her husband, "Our son has befriended a rustic, some sort of countryfied gnat brain!..."
Today, as a grown geezer, I tell my children, grandchildren and friends about my mother's relationship with soap, and thus mine as well. You see, Helen Genevieve Raccoli was an artist and an art teacher. She taught legions of eager young students for more than 45 years in the Milwaukee Public School system. Among her perennial art projects, assignments given her students, was soap carving. Each pupil was required to bring a bar of soap to school -- usually Ivory brand -- and then carve the bar into a creative shape, such as an animal or an effigy or a familiar object one sees in everyday life.
My mother was the empress of frugal. She had an ulterior motive, I think. Home came all the
Not only hand soap, but laundry soap. She'd grate and flake the excess and broken "sculptures" and soak them in warm water, using a strainer in her "manufacturing process" to liquify the flakes and make laundry detergent. Didn't exactly remove stains but then what did in those days?! Everything we wore smelled like old soap and spoiled eggs because of the ancient starch she somehow managed to obtain for nearly nothing. My older brother was not amused. "Ma! My friends say I smell like rotten eggs! Why can't we get NEW starch, like udder kids...?"
Greeting cards! My mother never sent a new greeting card. She'd white out or somehow obliterate print and signatures and "re-purpose" the cards she received. I think she mistakenly sent the same card to someone who sent the card to her... on several occasions. I don't think the recipients ever challenged her. If they did she'd simply laugh it off and suggest the complainer was merely delusional. "Just duplicate cards," she'd insist. Gift wrap? She made us open those rare, wrapped packages with great care so that she could re-use the stuff, and not just once! "Be very careful, honey, don't rip the paper...!!"
She made a great deal of her own clothing, for her children too. On one occasion when we were in 7th and 8th grade respectively, she made my brother, Kris, and me winter overcoats. They were made of a forest green fabric and brown fur collars, and belts. I've never been much for fashion, but even for me that was beyond what I'd agree to wear in public. Strange and "geeky" - looking, the coats were, however, superbly made.
She was always the artist, a perfectionist in everything she fashioned. My mother painted wonderful pictures, watercolors, acrylics and oils. She worked with ceramics and even sculpted in wood. She did get a bit odd at one point in her career, plopping large flowers in the forefront of some of her paintings, but the phase didn't last long. It was what we termed her
 |
| Two of my mother's paintings, one a rowboat and boathouse scene from a pier on Okauchee Lake, the other (at right) birch trees... probably needless to specify! |
In robust middle age, perhaps a bit earlier, my mother became fascinated with investing, the stock market in all of its frightening complexities. For her, however, it was a hobby that bore great dividends. She did extremely well with her investments, a talent that sadly passed over at least one fiduciary imbecile in my generation... meaning me, of course. My brother and sister inherited the talent, to their credit. Alas, some siblings are merely distracted I suppose!...
Back to my mother... she had a remarkably well-honed sense of humor and an infectious laugh. And she was magnificently eccentric, in behavior, as in attire, wearing animal-print outfits, Attila the Hun fur-rimmed headwear, Persian shoes, enormous purple-rimmed glasses and enough jewelry that would cause many lesser mortals to become stoop-shouldered.
Her artistry extended to things culinary as well. I must elucidate. She was a terrible cook and baker, but she set a beautiful table. When my mother entertained, the cooking or catering was "outsourced." Here's an illustration of her kitchen "skills." When my wife, SweetHeart, was pregnant with our first child, my mother invited us to dinner...
"What's she serving?" SweetHeart asked.
"What are we having for dinner?" I asked my mother, into the telephone. "What? Oh! Pork roast with mashed potatoes. That's nice. Isn't that nice, SweetHeart? Probably won't affect your morning sickness at all, right?" I opined the latter sotto voce. Things didn't work as I'd hoped. You see, my mother owned a pressure cooker, holes in the kitchen ceiling attesting to its explosive power when the pressure propelled that thing on the top -- I think it's called a "steam vent" -- with such force it might have flown beyond the earth's atmosphere had the kitchen ceiling not intervened!! She tended to cook everything in the pressure cooker. As such, the pork roast was grey and rubbery, the mashed potatoes grey with the consistency and flavor of wallpaper paste. We don't mention the sour kraut for fear of my safety! SweetHeart spent much of the evening in the small downstairs washroom. On another occasion, my mother invited us for chicken and dumplings. As though heavenly chefs created a gastronomic miracle, the dinner was superb. "Ask you mother to make chicken and dumplings," said SweetHeart on another occasion, a year or two removed from the first. The chicken was rubber, the dumplings lumps of 1950s school room paste. My mother could not repeat the miracle of the past. To her credit, she knew she was a terrible cook, and laughed along with the rest of us at her gastronomic disasters.
 |
| See... I like big lumpy stuff, particulates, in my pea soup. My brother complained... Mom pureed the soup. I never got lumps, except on my head when I wouldn't play properly with my big brother!! |
Early in their married life, my brother's wife, Jaynie, made stuffed peppers. She's an excellent cook. My brother picked at the dinner and announced, "This isn't like my mom used to make." Jaynie was highly displeased, to state the matter euphemistically, knowing her mother-in-law's reputation in the kitchen. Happily, the young marriage survived, and, in time, brother, Kris, grew to appreciate truly fine cuisine, cooking skill and good food he had not known in his youth.
(My brother always complained the split pea soup was "too lumpy." I preferred lumpy particulates in my soup. Mother pureed the pea soup. His complaints were louder and more effective, obviously, then mine! Once when I complained the bread she served us was stiff and dry, my brother dumped a slice of bread in my tomato soup!... but that's a story for another time!)
 |
| (From Left) The perpetrator of this writing, SweetHeart, Jaynie, wife of brother, Kris, and Kris at right, taken during Kris and Jaynie's 50th Anniversary celebration! |
My siblings and I grew up on soggy cereal soaked in hot cocoa, the skim on top of the boiled stuff a particular source of nausea for me. And cod liver oil. My mother insisted our daily eye dropper full of cod liver oil was the source of perfect attendance throughout elementary and high school, not to mention the strength and stamina needed to deliver heavy Sunday newspapers through brutal winters in Wisconsin.
Apart from her eccentricities, her talents and her lack thereof in a certain realm, my mother
 |
| That's my mother, Helen G., shown with my father, photo taken in 1974. Note the ubiquitous 8mm movie camera!! The image at top was taken, perhaps, in the late 1930s or early 1940s! |
Oh yes, one more thing. My mother loved to travel. I believe she visited nearly every country on this planet. She collected masks, hats and various artifacts. I have the mask collection in my office. They're wonderful. They scare and fascinate my grandchildren. And 8mm home movies. She made more movies than Cecil DeMille or John Huston, I think.
My mother was a marvel of creativity, innovation and interests. My brother and I miss her, as do all of her family members who survive. My children, Alie and Bethie, and her other grandkids remember with fondness and humor the gifts she bought them from rummage sales! To my mother, the rummage sale was a kind of religion, and she'd never pass one by, no more than she'd ignore bananas at 29 cents a pound, or canned goods on sale that she'd stockpile in her basement larder, a storehouse that could have fed an army of shut-ins!
"Kids, get those dishes done! Don't make me have to tell you again? I've said it 47 times!! *"
(* Her favorite number, particularly when agitated or wishing to emphasize something!)
Humbly Submitted with Loving Memory, 06-20-17 -- Joel K.
My, but this fellow's a splendid writer. His work is terribly interesting, sort of episodic in focus and characterization. Tell me, please, where I can purchase his entire canon of fine literature?
ReplyDeleteDad. I loved this blog post... I do wish that I had known Grandma better when I got older. I think she and I would have become great friends in my adulthood...
ReplyDelete