The 1,946th year of the Common Era brought the world peace. Aside from the civil war in China. And the Jews, Arabs and Brits in Palestine. And the French and Viet Minh in Vietnam. And the Muslims and Hindus in India. But who’s counting?
As with any year, there was old and new business. Various German and Japanese war criminals had to be executed to put paid to that whole affair. The brave new world began with mob bosses meeting in Havana, Winston Churchill coining the phrase “Iron Curtain” and the U.S. setting off atomic bombs at the Bikini atoll in the Pacific. Speaking of bikinis, the first one was modeled this year in Paris.
For the first time on the planet Tupperware went on sale. In Atlantic City Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis debuted their stage act. Back home, we Gillons billeted at Grandmom Gillon’s house on Regent Street. We always called it that even though it was actually bought and paid for by Grandpop Gillon. He was a barber at the Penn Athletic Club, which was, and apparently still is, a well-known rowing club. You may ask why a rowing club needed a barber, well, wonder no more.
All that hairy rowing saw Pop’s family through the Great Depression. One of our family button busters is that Grandpop once cut Warren G. Harding’s hair. Yes, President Harding of Teapot Dome fame, not to mention the scandal at the VA and his many mistresses. Quite the honor, though perhaps not as grand as our connection to the royal Stuarts of Scotland. You see, Grandmom and Grandpop were Catholics. From Scotland. They came to America when the Irish need not apply, which was fine since they were Scots. From Scotland. Where they boarded ship for America. And how else to explain why Scots were Catholic? What other reason could there possibly be than being related to the deposed royal Stuarts? To hear Grandmom tell it, she and Prince Charlie were two peas in a pod.
But what need had Grandmom of fancy ancestors, being herself a woman of rare distinction? As a girl, she’d worked in a factory at the age of ten, something of which I was frequently reminded. I never heard what she did when she was eleven. Probably became the foreman. From these humble origins, much like Abe Lincoln, she rose to become the ninth female honorary Christian Brother in North America. Yes, dreams can come true.
Grandmom had stoutly opposed Pop’s marriage, not because Mom and Pop were ludicrously young but because Mom was not Catholic. That Mom had been pregnant at the time mattered not at all. How could Pop know the child was his? The girl was a Methodist after all.
Grandpop, by contrast, was a good-time Charlie. Always singing and dancing, chewing on a cigar, bouncing me on his knee singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls”, and yes, that does seem an odd choice.
Given my mother’s stubborn refusal to convert to Catholicism, this billet probably wasn’t all that comfortable to begin with, but then more troops arrived. Uncle Bill had been an Army medic in France and now brought home his bride Nanette and her son Christian. Pop would later recount the time he and his oldest brother Pete picked up the new arrivals and on the drive home were treated to Nanette’s extensive vocabulary of Yankee profanity. Nanette, you see, had been, throughout the entire German occupation, a very hard working girl. She and Grandmom would get along famously.
There has also been family talk about how loud Bill and Nanette had sex. And how often. And speaking of frequency, another bit of family lore was Grandmom’s boast that she had had sex only three times, once for each son. How she might have worked this into a conversation I cannot say, but it could have gone something like this:
SETTING: Dining room table at Regent Street.
AT RISE: Grandpop sits at the head of the table per Grandmom’s instructions. She sits at the foot. Along one side are Christian, Nanette and Bill. On the other, Mom, me and Pop. Grandpop beams, Grandmom sits bolt upright. Mom, for want of something better to do, takes advantage of my every move to fuss with me. Pop looks at his plate, Bill looks around smiling, Christian hunches down trying not be seen and Nanette stares into space.
POP (looking up): So Bill. France. I never made it out of the country.
BILL: Count your blessings.
GRANDPOP: We’re all very proud of you Bill. (Turns to Nanette). It must have very hard for you Nanette.
NANETTE: But yes. Mais J’ai combattu la guerre avec ma chatte.
BILL (translating): She was in the Resistance.
(LITTLE JOE farts). Grandmom glares at him.
NANETTE: Resistance? Non, non, je ne pas resiste! Je leur ai donne tout le clap!
BILL: She was a saboteur.
GRANDPOP (impressed): Well, well, another war hero!
NANETTE: Oui, exactement. Le saboteur! (She laughs). Je ai donne le clap a des centaines d’Allemandes! (She looks around triumphantly).
(Christian stares in awe, as he might look at Audie Murphy).
NANETTE (seeing that no one but Bill and Christian understand): Hundreds! Une maladie venerienne!
CHRISTIAN (incredulous): Centaines?
NANETTE: Oui, oui, mon petit porc nazi. Peut-etre une mille!
GRANDMOM (sniffing): Well, I’ve only had sex three times, once for each son.
(Everyone stares).
NANETTE: Pauvre chose. (Poor thing.)
GRANDMOM (Glaring at Pop): At least she’s Catholic.
Well, all good things must end, and even some not so good things. Between Grandmom having a foul-mouthed French hooker in her house and Grandmom having a heathen Methodist hussy in her house and everyone in the house hearing Bill and Nanette making whoopee and Grandpop trying to cut everyone’s hair while singing Thank Heaven for Little Girls, I suppose our departure was over determined. And we left for to Cemetery Lane.
