When the weather is hot and sticky,
That's no time for dunkin dickey.
When the frost is on the pumpkin,
That's the time for dickey dunkin.
I have no idea who the originator of this limerick is. I do know that my Grandmother taught it to me around the time I was able to fully appreciate my first dirty joke. As I think back, she loved dirty jokes and could laugh as hard at them as anyone I have ever met.
She stood every inch of five feet and had her father's steel blue eyes that could see into a person's soul and judge their worth. The rest of her features and a loving heart came from her mother. The proud chiseled face, long raven hair and ramrod straight back. She was the daughter of a Yankee horse trader and an American Indian from the Tupper Lake region of New York State.
My Grandmother had liberal ideas on sex. Especially when you consider her era, a time when an exposed female knee would throw a community into frenzy. Her views on life, love and sex were handed down to her from her mother, a woman who viewed life with a practical and honest eye.
My aunt was born two months before me. Not only did her age start tongues wagging, but; Grandmas' husband had died two years earlier and no, she had not remarried. Perhaps this is not so noteworthy today, but back then, it was considered scandalous.
You would not have known that my mother had been raised by this woman. Dear Mom was a prude, among other uncomplimentary things that I believed her to be. I am sure, that if she had been there for Hester Prim's trial, she would have voted for the boiled in oil option.
I think Dad got laid once a year. Kind of like a Christmas gift. I say this because I am an only child and was born on the twenty-third of September.
Even as a young child, I preferred staying at my Grandmothers small farm. It was infinitely better than spending time with my mother or my father, who seemed to me like a lost man, with no purpose in life. Don't get the wrong impression; my Dad was a good provider. He was a pharmacist as was his father. When Grandpa Tucker died, Dad took over, not out of love for the work, but for no other reason than that's what was expected of him.
The older I got, the less time I spent at home. I'm sure to my mothers liking. As she would express a continuing dissatisfaction with me.
"You are an unruly and ungrateful child," she would chide me.
"One of these days I'm going to ship you off. Get you out of my mother's wicked grasp. Then you will see that life is not the fun and games that she has filled your head with."
I, like my father, found it easier to allow her to rant and rave, though unlike my father, when she was done, I was free to go where I felt loved and wanted.
Holidays at my home were perfunctory, celebrated for the sole purpose of meeting societies minimum requirements. However at Grandma's, every holiday was a celebration of life, joy and a giving of thanks.
There were three holidays that we, Grandma Holt, my Aunt and I celebrated, that the town's people did not.
On the first full moon after mid April, we would celebrate with a firelight ritual dance. We would express our thanks and joy at the season of new birth. There was a similar event for the summer solstice. The third took place each fall on the night of Halloween, giving thanks for the harvest and as a remembrance of love for those that had departed.
-----
My Aunt Mariah and I where approaching the end of our freshman year of high school. We were more like brother and sister, despite the teasing of kids at school about her being my Aunt.
We were sitting side by side on the bus ride home. "Well, are you excited about tonight?"
She didn't look at me when she replied, "Why, what's tonight?"
"Don't give me that. You know perfectly well. It's the twentieth, full moon, now do you remember?"
In a mundane voice, she answered. "Oh yeah, that."
"I'm excited, aren't you?"
She looked at me and lowered her voice as she said, "You're excited because this is the first year I have tits and you think you're going to get to see them if my old buckskin shirt rides up while I'm dancing. That's the only reason you're excited."
"No Aunty, it isn't."
She hates when I call her Aunty and she glared at me as I continued.
"I'm excited because I want to see what happens to your tits on a cold night. Don't groan. Wearing your too tight buckskins is part of the ceremony."
"In your dreams. I'm not dancing and I'm going to talk to Mom."
"You know, I think you're turning more like your older sister every day."
She gave me a hard punch to the arm, but I figured it was worth it. There was no way that she'd back out of tonight's celebration now.
When we walked into Grandma's kitchen, she was busy, putting the wheat bread in the oven.
"Glad you're home, Tim, I need you to change then go down to the field. You need to build the fire this year."
"But, Grandma. You usually do it and I help."
"Not this year. The fire is a man's job. This is the first year that you qualify. You've seen me do it enough. The hearth is the woman's joy and pride. This year, Mariah is a woman. She and I will prepare the feast and talk woman's talk. Now, go. We have a lot to do before the moon rises."
There was still a chill in the spring air as the sun set and we ate our celebration feast.
"Tim, light the fire, it will warm the earth and air for us while we eat and give thanks to our provider and the earth's creator."
We ate our small feast of warm whole-wheat loaves, hunters stew, and baked apples, with warm mulled applejack. Scant food from the remainder of the winter's stores never tasted so good. No doubt, that the seasoning of love added a flavor and zest to these most meager of dishes, turning them into a true feast.
When we were done, the crest of the moon was just appearing above the line of birch trees.
My Grandmother spoke, "It is time to prepare our selves for the dance of vernal life."
She was the first to remove her jacket and expose her hide-covered torso to the cool spring breeze. At age fifty-seven, soon to be fifty-eight, my grandmother was a healthy figure of a woman as she stood there, silhouetted in the moon light.
Even in my early teens, her beauty was not lost on me.
I turned to Maria, just in time to see her tug the heavy sweatshirt that she was wearing, over her head. The shirt pulling her buckskin top up, revealing her breasts. My mouth opened in shock. Her breasts were almost the size of her mothers, only there was no sag to them. They were beautiful.
Despite a tiny twinge of shame for the lust I was feeling for my Aunt, I watched, spellbound as the perfect round mounds came into view. The cool air hardening her nipples. When she noticed me staring, she brought her shirt back down to cover them.
A moment later, my grandmother spoke. "Mariah, no shame; remember?"
"Yes Mom, I remember, but why does he have to stare at me."
"Tim, shouldn't you be removing your jacket?"
"I am Grandma; I just wanted to see if Maria needed any help."
"Tim, you're always thinking of others, you're so sweet. If that's the case, come over here and take my jacket and fold it for me, then put it beside Mariah's."
When I looked back a Mariah, she was standing, top neatly pulled back in place. Oh well, I thought; let's see what happens when she starts the dance. My hopes were high.
My grandmother was about to begin when the high beam headlights of my fathers new 1966 Buick La Saber blinded us.
We stood, motionless, as my mothers screeching voice drowned out the sound of the crackling wood fire.
"Tim! You get over here this instant. Get away from those tramps. I knew they would have you devil worshiping out here with them.
"You; crazy woman," she screamed at her mother. "I'm going to call the police and have you arrested for perverting my son."
Mariah moved faster than I had ever seen her. In a single leap, she was at the table and grabbed a sharp knife. Then in a sprint, she was at her sister's side, knife in her hand. Her muscles rippling with tension.
"Mariah," I shouted as I ran to her. "Don't."
When I got close all I could hear was. "...I'll skin you like the snake you are."
My mother was all too happy to take her eyes off Mariah and as she move toward the car, she snapped at me.
"Get in the car, before I have you all arrested. And don't get any of that filth from those things you're wearing on the interior. -- Don't you understand! Move when I tell you."
I got in the back and positioned myself on the edge of the seat behind my mute father. I looked out the front window and for the first time in my fifteen years, I saw my Grandmother, slouched, shoulders down and head bent. She was still standing in front of the yellow and orange flames, but now she looked broken, defeated by her eldest daughter.
-----
My mother made good on her long time threat. The one where she promised to send me away. Away from the place that I knew and loved, with its green hills, clear lakes and talking trees, the proud home of the Algonquin. Tears filled my eyes and hatred my heart, for what my mother was taking from me.
I was sent to live with my aunt, on my father's side. Their home was in the Back Bay area of Boston. Dr. Vincent and Mary Giatino. These people were far happier than my parents and being childless, took me in to their hearts. They were good people, loving and kind. They just weren't my people.
Time may not truly heal all wounds, but it lessens their importance. So it was that I began to blend in to my school. By the time I graduated from Boston Latin, I had a new and far more sophisticated group of friends.
Three of us were continuing together to attend Tufts. During my time in Boston, I had written to Mariah and my grandmother less each month, until now, three years later, I was only sending them birthday and Christmas cards. Once in a while, I would miss home and the nostalgia of the little town of Sarnac, New York would fill my heart with love and longing for the beauty and peace of that sleepy town. On those occasions, I would write a note or short letter to them.
As for my mother and father, I refused to open the few cards or gifts they sent. When they made their monthly phone call, I refused to speak to them. My Aunt was wonderful about the letters and the calls. She never pressed me to speak to them, and often made excuses for me. My parent's letters were kept in a box beside the entry door coat rack.
From Mariah and my grandmother, there was nothing. No cards, no calls. I was sure that my mother had threatened them with something in an effort to prevent them from contacting me, but it hurt none the less.
-----
My Aunt and Uncle paid for my tuition at Tufts and I was determined to get high grades in an effort to show them my appreciation for their gift.
