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.
"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.
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. |
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.
Love this one, too, Cathy! With four boys and four girls in our big Catholic family, It brings back lots of similar memories. We didn't have the same name, but we had the German "Braun" name, so were called "Brown" all the time! And a big old station wagon packed full of kids! Lisa Braun Hagman
ReplyDeleteWe are kindred spirits, Lisa! Didn't ever know that people mistook BRAUN for BROWN.So funny!
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