I Had a Dream, Dear

Dad loves the King Family.

A 1960's television icon, the King Family is a multi-generational very blonde, very musical group who sings their way into the hearts of sentimental slobs like our father. Every Christmas, "The First Family of Song" dons white cardigans and assembles around a grand staircase to sing, "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm". That sterling combination of blonde good looks and four part harmony chokes Dad up every time.

The next King Family. Back from left: Joe, Mick, Rick. Front from left:
Deb, Mary, Terri and Carry. (Christmas 1969)

"Kids, right there," he snorts back emotion and points to the tv, "is what family is all about."

Dad believes we are the next King Family. We fail to understand his logic since we are neither all blonde nor beautiful. Mostly we are not talented. Dad thinks we are.

Once a month, Dad drops Mom off at Dr. Strain's office for the infant checkup of whomever is the newest Mary or Joseph at the time. The rest of us are forced to wait in the parking lot with Dad.

"We can practice our song!" he grins at us in the rear view mirror.

We groan. Dad adores the lyrics of "I Had a Dream, Dear", a famous old tune from the 20's, and is teaching us to sing it in four part harmony. It will be the song, he promises, that will propel us to television stardom and plant us on the stage of "The Ed Sullivan Show" - exactly the way the King Family started out.

Dad's favorite group - The First Family of Song

"I'm allergic," Deb, my five-year-old sister, defiantly folds her arms across her chest and excuses herself from practice.

Dad ignores her. "Get ready for your notes," he instructs. Like a virtuoso conductor, he holds a single finger aloft and hums a note to Joe who is presumably the low bass section. The fact that Joe's only ten and at least three years from puberty makes no difference to Dad. Joe rolls his eyes but hums obediently.

Mick and Rick, the tenor section, hold onto their note as well. Not only does it sound nothing like Dad's note, but the two of them sing completely different notes from each other. I, at least, as the alto in the group, have taken piano for a year from my dad's cousin Peggy Tighe, who, as it turns out, IS musical. I know just enough to understand that the notes we're humming into the stale air of our old station wagon would not be recognizable on the Chromatic Scale. When Deb and Mary chime in as sopranos, we make a sound similar to that of a very sick goat in heat. Dad, however, beams and hears only his beloved King Family.

We have sung "I Had a Dream, Dear" for so long that we've memorized the words. "I had a dream, Dear! You had one, too. Mine was the best dream because it was of you..."

Dad coaxes us along. "A little stronger at the end," he waves his finger in the air.

We blare out the last lyric. "YOU TELL ME YOUUUUUUR DREAM! AND I WILL TELL YOU MINE!"

An elderly couple parked beside us glares and rapidly rolls up their windows. Dad takes no notice.

We sing it again and again until Mick loses interest and entertains the irritated elderly couple next to us with his Herman Munster impression.

"All right, all right," Dad at last relents. When Mom returns with the baby, however, he makes us sing one last time. He can hardly contain his excitement. Mom barely suppresses a sigh but patiently listens. We give it all we've got.

"Mmmm!" she smiles noncommitally.

"What d'ya think?" Dad can barely contain his excitement.

Mom nods hopefully. "Isn't it something," she says brightly, "that they know ALL the words?"

We never do make it to the Ed Sullivan Show. Dad is disappointed but eventually accepts the fact that none of us are musical. It's a hard pill to swallow, but perhaps there's still hope for three or four professional athletes or even an Olympian in the family.

In another twenty years or so, I will finally have the opportunity to listen to an old record album of the famous Mills Brothers singing "I Had a Dream, Dear". I am amazed. It sounds nothing the way Dad first taught it to us all those years ago in the parking lot of Dr. Strain's office. I can actually detect a melody and a sultry harmony. It is beautiful, calming and smooth as warm honey.

And I like Dad's version a lot better.

Joe, Mick and Rick

Rick, Mick and Joe

My brothers grow up with chronic bald spots. It isn't because of disease or stress or vitamin deficiency. It's because they crack their heads open with determined regularity.

 Dad's remedy is to shave their heads - just around the wound - to prevent infection. Sometimes all three of them sport a bald spot at the same time. There is the day, for instance, the three of them squeeze into a cardboard box, careen down the second floor stairs, and knock all their heads together at the bottom.

Rick, Mick and Joe - 50 years later

Joe, Mick and Rick arrive in this world almost as a single unit. They sleep in the same room together, play baseball together and drive Mom and Dad crazy together. Born a year apart right after me, they appear to belong to an altogether different species.

"Where do they come from?" I demand of my mother. She laughs but insists they are neither adopted nor stolen from wolves.  A troublesome thought occurs. Perhaps I am the adoptee.

Everything they do is foreign to me. I particularly cannot fathom their fixation for collecting other worldly creatures. One summer they're obsessed with crawdads. Every afternoon they sling a half a dozen buckets and pails to City Park to fill with crawdads from the big lake. Their method is ingenius - they attach a dab of liver to the end of a piece of string and lure the things out.

Our next door neighbor, little Chris Romer, is their partner in crime. By the end of the week, the four of them triumphantly cart home more than 300 crawdads.

"Let's build them their own town!" Joe suggests. In a corner of the Romers' yard is a huge sand pile. Chris and my brothers dig a mammoth hole in the middle, line it with plastic and fill it with water. They dump all 300 crawdads into the water hole and grin at each other with deep satisfaction.

The next morning, Mrs. Romer screams as she discovers four crawdads nestled together under the morning paper by her front door. Similar cries of horror are heard up and down Eudora Street. Every crawdad has escaped, and our neighbors' yards, porches and sidewalks are mysteriously taken over by the tiny, horrible creatures.

"It's like a plague from the Bible," old Mrs. Lazaar warns my mother. "A sign of the end times," she shakes her head soberly. Everyone knows Mrs.Lazaar's mind is leaving her, but Mom kindly nods her head in sympathy. And perhaps a little fear. It's far better for Mom to believe the Apocalypse is imminent rather than that Joe, Mick and Rick are responsible for the Crawdad Coup.

That same summer, after a big rainstorm, Joe, Mick and Rick splash through the gutters armed with jars to collect tadpoles. Unbeknownst to Mom and Dad, they sneak the jars upstairs to their room and gaze in fascination at thousands of beautiful wiggling tadpoles. A few days later, all of us wake up scratching and covered with bites. Turns out the tadpoles are mosquito larvae. Dad grounds my brothers for two days.

No matter the season, my brothers find trouble. In winter, behind the shrubbery at the Masonic Temple at the end of the corner, they fling snowballs at moving cars on Montview Boulevard then duck down to hide. The moving driver of one car turns out to be Dad coming home from work. Joe, Mick and Rick stare at each other then run like hell down the alley to make it home before Dad turns the corner on Eudora. The three of them are innocently playing in the front yard when Dad pulls up.

"How was work, Dad?" Mick greets him brightly.

Dad looks sharply at the three of them contentedly making snow angels. Nothing, however, appears to be amiss. He grunts in irritation and strides into the house.

Dad is no fool. He understands his boys are usually plotting some sort of chaos.  Mom, however, is a soft touch and can usually be persuaded that Rick would never be guilty of breaking the McCabes' window with a baseball or that Joe would ever smoke with his seasoned fifth grade buddies.

She is never fooled, however, by Mick.

Mick is far and away the most troublesome of my three brothers, and even though Mom watches him like a hawk, he manages to elude her on many occasions. One afternoon, home from school for the lunch hour, Mick is entrusted with a couple of dollars.  Mom instructs him to run down to the neighborhood grocery store for a loaf of bread. "Get some peanut butter, too!" she calls after him.

Mick makes the purchases and has a little money left over. He decides it's a fine day to treat himself to some candy and ditch school. After lunch, instead of heading back to Blessed Sacrament, he veers over to the Masonic Temple and hides behind the hedge with his stash of candy. In the meantime, Blessed Sacrament School calls Mom to tell her Mick has gone AWOL. But Mick isn't worried. He's crouched behind the hedge two blocks away and figures Mom'll never spot him.

After inhaling a Big Hunk, he peaks his head through the hedge. Mom is on the other end of the block searching intently. He whisks his head back behind the bushes, but it's too late.

"MICKY BROWN!" Mom is enraged. Before he knows it, she's collared him and drags him by the arm back to school.

"Mom! How'd you..." Mick sputters. "How'd you see me?" He is amazed by my mother's super power vision.

Mom pushes him through the school doors and into Mrs. Farley's classroom where class has been in session for the last half hour. Mick is made an "example of" in front of all his classmates. This is what happens to little boys who ditch school. But the real punishment awaits him at home.

"Just wait," Mom, still enraged, whispers to him before she releases him to Mrs. Farley. "Wait until your dad comes home."

To be fair, my brothers aren't always wreaking havoc. Joe is the talk of the neighborhood when he wins the local King Sooper's YoYo contest. He's awarded the coveted gold championship yoyo and entertains every kid on the block for months afterward.

Rick is voted MVP for his sixth grade performance in the Denver Athletic Club football league. At the end-of-the-year banquet, he receives a trophy and a football signed by every Denver Bronco.

And Mick? Mick is caught by the nuns behind the trash bin at recess showing all the fifth grade boys a Playboy magazine.

And then he waits for Dad to come home.

Sister Rita Maureen

Sister Rita Maureen thinks I am mentally challenged.

She says as much to Mom and Dad.  "Mr. and Mrs. Brown," she peers through pink-framed eye glasses. "It's the end of first quarter, and your daughter can't read. Something is very wrong."

Removing her eyeglasses, she polishes them furiously to generously allow my parents time to digest this information. At last she looks up.  "I think you understand what I'm telling you," she says primly.

The clock on the wall ticks in the stunned silence of the first grade classroom. Then my mother is suddenly overwhelmed by tears. Dad snaps to attention. Nobody, not even a nun, is permitted to make my mother cry. Furthermore, no one should even dare to suggest that one of his children is remotely less than perfect.

Mom and Dad, 1963

"Sister Rita Maureen," he breathes, with barely controlled rage, "it seems to me something's very wrong with the teacher."

Dad is as good a Catholic as they come. However, on this eventful evening he has managed the unthinkable. He has insulted a nun. A nun in full habit no less. According to pre-Vatican II tradition, Dad should justifiably burn for eternity in Hell. And probably all his offspring should, too.

I don't hear about this story until years later. Even now, Dad's behavior shocks me. But it explains a lot. Sister Rita Maureen never does warm up to me. Who could blame her? Never in her life has she been treated in such a disgraceful manner.

First grade is pretty much a bust after that.

In 1961, after Deb is born and I have completed kindergarten, we move from our little ranch all the way across Denver to the big house on Eudora Street. Now the parents of five kids, Mom and Dad need more space for their growing family. The rest of that summer, we settle into our new home and neighborhood, and I look forward to attending my new school, Blessed Sacrament Elementary.

The first day of first grade, I walk the half block to school with lofty ambitions and fully expect to come home hauling vast volumes to peruse at my leisure. But the kids at my new school have a jump on me. Already they know their letters from attending the same kindergarten class. I have wasted precious time across town with the beloved Miss Roser laboring over useless finger paintings of misshapen houses. I am lost, pure and simple. It's as if I've landed in the middle of a story that never has a beginning.

After the first week, Sister sends me with a copy of Dick and Jane to sit by the radiator with Group 3. The Loser Group. We all know it. We are the handful of kids relegated to the back of the room so that Sister Rita Maureen can get on with the real business of teaching. Murray McCarty lounges beside me and makes moon eyes at Ann Miller sitting by the blackboard in Group 2. Denise Stubblefield is intensely interested in the second grade kickball game on the playground and stares out the window.

I sigh deeply and leaf through Dick and Jane to stare at the big vibrant illustrations. Jane and her little sister Sally fascinate me. They wear different color-coordinated outfits every day. Dresses, hair ribbons, socks - they all match. I long to know them. They look like such happy girls.

After that fateful parent teacher conference, Sister Rita Maureen ignores me completely. But it doesn't matter. Mom has decided to take matters into her own hands. One afternoon I arrive home after school to see flash cards lined up across the back of the high couch in the tv room.

"Today," Mom announces firmly, "you're learning to read."

I stare at the flashcards. What can she be thinking? Sister Rita Maureen will not approve, I worry. But my pretty mother is very determined. We start with the vowels, then she explains consonants. Within the hour, I am putting together three letters to sound out "cat". I look up to stare in wonder at Mom.

Cathy - shortly before moving to
Eudora Street.

"See?" she smiles her wonderful smile that makes me feel as if I am the most loved person on earth. "That's all there is to it."

After that I sound out every single word I can find - on street signs, cereal boxes and toothpaste tubes. Then one magical day, Mom walks me to the library at Montview and Clermont, and I walk out with five books and a library card of my own. Nothing before or since has offered me such satisfaction. I am rich. Learning to read changes my entire world.

In Sister Rita Maureen's classroom, I am still sitting by the radiator. Murray McCarty's quirky humor has wound its way to my heart. I walk home sometimes with Denise Stubblefield to devour marshmallows at her kitchen table. We might be The Loser Group, but we are good friends. As I sit next to the radiator, I become intimate as well with Dick, Jane, Sally, Spot, Puff and the whole cast of characters. I read the stories of their lives and am too absorbed to be unhappy.

One day, however, Sister Rita Maureen calls out for Group 3. Surprised, Murray and Denise and I rouse ourselves and troop to the front of the room.

"Open your books," Sister instructs us as we settle ourselves in chairs arranged in a half moon. She fixes her gaze on me. "Read."

So I read. Sister forgets to tell me to stop. I read three pages before I finally take a breath to look up. Every kid in class is staring at me in astonishment. Beside me, Murray McCarty's mouth and eyes form perfect O's. "Wow," he smiles at last and claps me on the shoulder. It hits me in that instant. I am the best reader in the class.

It is a perfect moment, and I smile at Sister Rita Maureen who is plainly astounded. Suddenly, she snaps her mouth shut. "Well," she clears her throat and gathers herself. "You may return to the back."

That is all.

I have been a teacher myself at my beloved Central Catholic now for almost 40 years. It's a long time, however, before I fully understand why I choose to teach.

It's all to do with first grade.

In first grade I learn the greatest lesson of my life. I'm grateful to Sister Rita Maureen. She taught me that a teacher's smallest touch, word or look can be so powerful that it can change the entire way a child thinks about herself.

Mom taught me the very same thing.

To Start With...

Mom and Dad name all ten of us Mary and Joseph.

We are an even steven five boys and five girls. Aside from one Mary and one Joe, the rest of us are called by our other names. I am Mary Catherine but called Cathy. Mary Theresa is Terri, Mary Debra is Deb, Richard Joseph is Rick, Thomas Joseph is Tommy, and so on. Nonetheless, surely our parents could foresee the confusion that would result. Our schools, doctors, and dentists never know which Mary Brown or Joseph Brown they're tending to.

Mom, Dad and all of us (minus Jeffrey Joseph who would be born
the following year) on Eudora Street in Denver.

"Is it like a cult?" a bewildered young receptionist at the Kearney State College Registrar's office inquires of me.

Dear God. Does she imagine cults call their members after the Mother of Jesus and St. Joseph? "No," I sigh. "It's a Catholic thing."

While Mom and Dad are still engaged to be married, the story goes, they are befriended by a very large, very Catholic family. Our parents are deeply impressed by the entire brood and decide they, too, will have a big saintly family of Marys and Josephs. Now that I think of it, I wonder if it was our big dominant father who really decided. Mom, however, who grew up as an only and sometimes lonely child, would easily embrace the idea.

The trouble is, we are far from saintly. Our 12-year-old brother Mick (Joseph Michael) collects Playboy magazines that he and a neighbor boy steal from the not-so-secret stash of the neighbor's father. They spirit away the magazines into the old unused incinerator behind our house and dub it "Paradise Alley".

And even though I am the oldest and should know better, I play with matches in my bedroom closet and let my brother Joe (Joseph Patrick) take the fall. Joe is punished severely for the very reason that only recently he accidentally sets our parents' bed on fire. Mom and Dad, fortunately, are not in the bed at the time. Nevertheless, they begin to worry that my eight-year-old brother may be demonstrating disturbing arsonist tendencies. It will be another 40 years before I apologize to Joe for throwing him under the bus.

In our big dilapidated Denver house on Eudora Street, Dad groans as doorknobs come off in his hand. When at last we wear out the channel turner on the television, we hang the prongs of a fork over the stem and whip it clockwise to turn the channel. We grind carpets to a nub, somehow break every single drinking glass, and overwhelm the new washing machine into exhaustion after 18 months. Our beautiful mother takes the damage in stride and disappears to play her piano when it all gets to be too much.

But Dad seethes. "Brick by brick," he shakes his head. "Brick by brick by brick."

Dad must wonder what became of his vision of the perfect Catholic family. We do not entertain any doubts, however, that he regrets his decision to sire us. Nothing makes Dad happier, in fact, than when we are all together - in church spilling into two pews, in the tv room crowding around his recliner, or even in the the old brown station wagon with the third seat that faces the rear window.

I hate sitting in that third seat staring at the driver who comes close behind us at a stoplight. I am not sure where to look. But there are never a lot of seating options for 12 people in a station wagon. In the late 60's and early 70's, we ride together without benefit of shoulder belts or child restraining seats. Mom, who cradles our infant brother in her lap, and Dad sit in front with Terri in the middle. It's a scramble for the second seat, but it usually is claimed by Joe, Mick and Rick. Deb, Mary and I end up in the very rear seat staring uncomfortably out the window. Fortunately, between the second and third seats, there is space which we call "The Crack". Carry and Tommy, who are the smallest next to our infant brother Jeff, are forced to sit there. It is especially uncomfortable when we take a long trip to the mountains in the hot summer time. But Carry and Tommy simply have no choice.

"I don't wanna sit in the Crack," they sometimes whine tearfully.

The rest of us are unmoved. Seniority is everything. "Get in the Crack," my brother Joe orders.

Dad, though, is happy that we are all crammed together like sardines careening down a mountain highway just one flat tire away from the instant and total annhilation of his family.

"Let's sing!" he grins.

Because Dad is intensely patriotic, "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is his favorite and boasts the only refrain he knows all the words to. I am a teenager and much too old for sing-alongs, but I am content to be in the middle of my siblings, even if it means I am one of five Marys fighting for elbow space and looking out the rear window at strangers.

At least I'm not sitting in the Crack.