I always
liked this song, I identified with it because he describes a boy being born in
1951 and how a couple years later his “mother brought him a sister”. (I was
born in 1954, my sister 3 years later) But I was not a lonely boy in any way I
can recall. The one line that resonates is “When they said I was the only son,
I thought I was the only one.”
Andrew Gold
was the son of Marni Nixon, who sang the vocals for several stars in the 50’s,
Audrey Hepburn, in “My Fair Lady”, Natalie Wood in “West Side Story”, and
Deborah Kerr in “The King and I”. He also played on many albums in the 70’s and
produced one for Linda Ronstadt.
I don’t
recall being jealous of my sister as a toddler. For years I thought I
remembered, at 3, when my mom went to the hospital to have my sister and I was
left with my grandparents, but years later my mom said it was probably when she
went to deliver my brother, Greg, who died of SIDS.
I do
remember that. I remember my grandfather coming to the apartment in a big blue
Plymouth and everyone being sad. I called him (my baby brother) Gregory Pecker
for some reason. I remember going out to Bluff City Cemetery and seeing my
dad’s parent’s graves, with a simple “Kammrad” stone, but I’m not sure where
the baby was buried. There was no headstone, and we almost never talked about “the
baby” after that.
I also
vividly remember the nightmares I had in that apartment. They always took place
in the bathroom (it had a tub with a window high up in the wall) and they
always included a star-shaped thing appearing in that window. In them I would
be frozen, I couldn’t scream or call out or do anything. I’m not sure what
stars mean in dreams. (I guess that’s what Google’s for, no?)
I remember
nothing of the layout of the apartment, I think it was on the second floor, but
I do recall a telephone pole in the backyard that had rungs driven into it
about 4 feet off the ground (they were usually higher, so that a repair man
needed a ladder to reach them) and I was obsessed with finding something to
boost me that 2 feet or so, so that I could climb it (just like Dad! See #37).
Several
years later our landlord from that apartment was arrested with a couple other guys
counterfeiting currency. They actually made an appearance in the Sunday
Tribune’s funny papers, “Dick Tracy’s Crimestopper Tips”, because the only
reason they got caught was that they threw out their rejects in the garbage and
someone saw them and turned them in. (The Crimestopper tip was, “always look in
the garbage at a suspect’s house” or something like that)
He was also
indicted in connection with Silas Jayne’s plot to murder his brother George in
1970. (George was killed by a sniper as he played bridge in his house). His
lawyer was also the lawyer for E. Howard Hunt of Watergate fame.
I was 4
when we moved from that apartment to our house in Algonquin in 1959, and I
entered kindergarten at Eastview Grade School (now owned by St. Margaret Mary and
run as a Catholic Grade School) that Fall. The school is about five blocks from
our house, but if you cut through someone’s yard, it was about two blocks.
There was a small strip of trees that was on the edge of the property that over
the last 50 years has grown into a forest that has deer living in it, my mom
tells me.
There was
one particular house that we dared not cut through because the two brothers
that lived there went to Lutheran grade school and they laid in wait for us
public school kids to try to cut through, and then threw rocks at us and chased
us away. One of the brothers became one of my best friends in junior high and high
school; I drove him to high school each day in my mom’s Pontiac Catalina. If I
woke up and didn’t see any lights on in his house I would call their phone
number and hang up when they answered (waking them up, which I’m sure they
appreciated) in those pre-caller ID days.
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