MEMORIES OF MOM - Chapter 6

I got out of the Air Force at 12:30, June 27th, 1969 at McGuire AFB in New Jersey. I came home and did not tell anyone in my family I was coming home. I got to St Louis and no body knew I was there, I mean nobody. Nobody was home and nobody could come and get me. I called and called and nobody was home that I knew. Finally, my brother Mike came home after being out with his friends and came and got me at Lambert Airport. My mom and dad were on vacation fishing. Well, you see I came home at the end of June 1969 and I got married on April 11th, 1970. A lot of things happened from the time I got home until I got married. Many of these things happen that led me to just be in the right place and the right time to meet Regina.

A little over a week went by, when it was the 4th of July. Mom and dad came home from the fishing trip and dad was back to work at Monsanto. I think it was Uncle Blake who came in to St. Louis and picked up mom, mark and me and we went to St. Ann's to see a fireworks display. We did not tell Dad we were going to be gone and he was not home yet from work when we got home. Well, it was getting late and Dad still was not home and we got worried. We were all sitting in the living room and I heard a car door close. It was my dad and he was coming up the stairs real slow. He said he had chest pains but was OK. He said he had to stop a few times on the way home to rest. 

My dad was short, five foot 6, but heavy about 230,I guess. I went down on the steps and picked him up in my arms and carried him to the car. I put him in the car and called for mom and away we went to the hospital on Grand, near highway 40. He had a heart attack and nearly died. He was out of work for months and he never really got back to good health. While dad was off work I went to work at Monsanto to help pay for my school at Mermec Community College.

I worked in the cafeteria cleaning tables with other kids of parents who worked at Monsanto. It was here that I met a beautiful woman that I was in awe of. She was the most beautiful girl I ever met. I asked her out but her dad would not let her go out with white guys. She was black and beautiful, and I found out later she was a friend of Reggie's.  She went to school at St. Elizabeth Catholic High School where your mom went to school. She came to visit your mom a time or two at her house and it caused a stir with your mom's grandma. Your grandma did not have any problem having a black girl over to the house for supper but Grandma, just made sure the family ate off paper plates.

When I started attending classes at the college, I found out that I could get a job as a Campus Policeman and, besides the G I Bill paying for me to go to college, I would get my tuition paid for by the school. It was after I started working as a college policeman, that I took your mom to the dance in St. Charles with my friend John Rusicka and his girlfriend, Pouche. They latter married and we became good friends and hung around together with a bunch of my friends from my high school.

I am getting away from the main story line here,  so I will back to Reggie and me. We started to date a lot from the first real date. I do not think we went a day with out seeing each other. I soon knew I had to get up some money real quick if I wanted to get married. I was going to school, working the midnight shift as a campus policeman, so I was too busy to take on another job, or was I? I figured I could get a part-time job as an apartment manager. I took over the job as the apartment manager of a place on the corner of Chippewa and Gravois.

I got my rent free, electric and my phone bill for just taking out the trash that people put on the rear steps and walkways each day and making sure there were no problems. I had to rent out apartments too but everybody stayed there for a long time. I also had to clean the hallways and the shovel the walks. I was off Monday mornings so, I did a lot of clean up stuff on my day off. 

I was set now with a place to live, a good income, a start of a good education and a woman I was really in love with. I moved in this apartment in November of 1969 and I started to buy things to fill out my apartment. I worked, went to school, cleaned up the apartment building and picked up mom at times and took her to work. She worked for the government and had a great job. She worked in downtown St. Louis and could take a bus back and forth to her job but really liked it, if I took her to work or picked her up. I was only getting about four hours of sleep a day trying to do all of this but it was worth it to spend time with your mom. 

It was worth it until I almost went into the cemetery with my green machine on the way to pick up your mom one day on the way home from work. I do not remember going off the road on highway 66 but I do remember seeing the tree in the area just off the highway in the cemetery. I had to slow down and mom started taking the bus more to go to work and I would see her when she got home. Sometimes, she would get off the bus right in front of the apartment. She made supper now and then,  and man, she could make pasta. My family loved it when she made Lasagna and garlic bread. 

My dad loved Regina but did not like it, that she would walk right in their home without knocking.  She could catch my dad in his underwear a lot and sometimes my dad had to run and hide to keep from being caught. He always said “can't you teach that gal to knock”? My dad did like your mom but he could never understand how I left Germany with out finding a good German girl to marry. I could not make him understand that most of the German gals I met were not the ones you’d bring home to meet your mother.

I was invited to come over to the Bottini’s home for the first time a few weeks after we started dating. It was going to be a big deal for Regina,  as Joe, Jane, Tommy, and Mary would be there to play the extras on this night. Your mom was going to make my favorite desert, lemon mirage pie. She wanted to show off for me and make her mom know she was serious. She made the crust and everything from scratch

When she read the directions, she saw the part that said 4 teaspoons but the recipe was a bit old and she thought is said 4 cups! She ended up making syrup pie, just cut the crust and spooned the syrup onto the plate. It was sweet and Tommy and I were the only ones to eat the pie; Tommy ate the pie because he loved sugar and me because I would have eaten crap if it were on the plate. 

Tommy made some neat disclosers at the table that night. He kept saying SBD, SBD, and SBD. I had no idea what he was talking about but everybody else was giving him the, BAD EYE.  Grandpa got on him right away and Tom went into his ‘I cannot breathe routine’, and I thought he was having a big problem. I had a ball and the dinner went real well. Jane said she was sorry for the noise level and I remember telling her, I am used to it because of eating with more than a hundred people for the last three and a half years. I did not know at the time that grandpa does not like talk about (BODY WIND) at the table. He had a very week stomach and he nearly went to the bathroom to upchuck. In case you do not know what SBD is all about it stands for, ‘silent but deadly’.

Christmas was the next big thing to come into our life. I know we just started going out but by the end of December we were making plans to get married. I know in January, Reggie just wanted to drive to Illinois and get married. I do not remember who had the knowledge but we thought you could get married by a Justice Of The Peace on the spot. There was no day or week to wait, just get married now, she said. I wanted to get married but not that way; she really pushed to leave to go to the east side.

For many years, the place to go on Christmas Day was Sam and Barbara's house. They are wonderful people and the whole Italian family always meets a couple times a year there. I came to visit for Christmas 1969 and I was called the AMERICANO, put the accent on the O. I love the love that comes from a visit to Sam and Barbara's house anytime you go there. 

Christmas is a whole different story because the party goes into an Italian mood. The wine, snacks, meat, pasta, music, decorations, and the people are all Italian. My mother-in-law told me that many years ago she was the Americano but it was my turn now. 

The women sit in the kitchen, the family room, living room or perch their heads over the men in the dinning room playing cards. No woman could play cards when I first came to the family.  The men all spoke Italian, even my future father in law spoke nothing but Italian. I was invited to play cards with the big boys and play I did. I lost every hand for about three hours and then I got down to my last few dollars.

I saw all the players; there were ten of them looking at me and smiling and speaking Italian and laughing and grinning at me all night. I was just about out of it all when I got dealt four kings and a jack. With ten men playing five-card draw how could I loose, you had to shuffle the throw away cards to play the hands.

I bet heavy but so did the guy with the open shirt and the gold chains pulling his neck down. He was the forerunner of a Mr. T. with an Italian accent. It soon became a hand with only me and Sorro playing against each other. Hell, I know he threw away three cards so how can he win with that chance. I know I borrowed money from Joe my future father-in-law and Reggie. He raised and I raised; man, we really spiced up the pot and I knew I would win. The whole place was just humming with words that I could not understand and a lot of laughter.

How in the hell did he end up with four aces?  How did this happen when he picked up three throw away cards? Who would throw away an ace in a game like this? I always think that this was somehow a test to join the family. It was like "Well, he did not go ape shit or get up and leave". Nobody knew what I was saying under my breath but the laughter was really hitting the high notes and I was just quiet.

Things are not the same when you play cards today. The women play a lot of the games that the men did not let them play in years back. Hell, a woman could not sit at the table way back in the early 70's. I think I could be wrong that Regina and her mom broke the wall down and got equal rights at the card table.

It was at this house, that I met the whole family and heard the stories about moms past. How she was the flower girl at Sam and Barbara's Wedding and passed-out during the ceremony and crashed backwards off the alter. How she was such a sweet little Italian girl who reminded everyone of Joe's Mother, Gina. When your grandma Jane would get a few drinks inside her; she told everyone she was Italian by insertion. 

The people here are the best, they love you or hate you, there is no in-between. Unless you did one hell of a bad thing, you were welcome and still are with open arms. Hey Sam! How is it going? Sam would always answer BUSY, BUSY, and BUSY. Sam was and is today, one hard working person who came to this country and made a life for his family and his friends.

In February, Reggie and I took a trip to Southeast Missouri State to check out the school. Reggie was going to get a transfer to work at a government job near the Cape. I was going as a rep for Mutual of New York and they would pay me to offer insurance to the students. I would still get my G I benefits. We were going to move down to the University and our plans were really in order. We were going to get married, I think in August, and then move. I would get my college education in business because insurance was what I was headed after.

Angie, you started to come alive on that trip to the Cape. I bought some white leather boots when we went on that trip. Man, mom had the most beautiful legs and the white boots and a mini skirt made mom a real hot chick. So hot in fact, that I asked her not to wear them a while after we got married. Well, she wore them anyway because she would say "THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKING".  She was really in good shape and I think she was a size five then. 

I remember the day we drove home from the Cape, we stopped at road signs and took pictures of each other. If it was a sign that said, "Watch out for the curves" then she would get next to the sign and look sexy. I did the one for caution slow children. We went to eat at a place just over the bridge in the Cape that was a hang-out for gangs in the 20's. I was the Purple blank, blank. It burned down many years ago but is was a wonderful memory we had for years.

In late February, I got real sick and had a high fever. My brother Mark came over to help me work on the apartment one weekend and I really got sick. Regina and Mark tied to get my fever to go down with ice and ice packs. Regina fell asleep and so did Mark, only to be woke up by a mad father wondering why his little girl was still at my house at 4 in the morning. I do not know if Joe believed us or not but nothing happened that night. It may have happened other nights but not that night.

I do not know when but that night or the next day, I went to the hospital because of the pain I was in. I had a bleeding intestinal tract from eating so damm many White castles. I ate them all the time for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now you would think that your mom would be very understanding because I was so sick - NO WAY. 

I was in the hospital on the day I was supposed to pick up the ring for our engagement. Your mom got so sick she ended up in the hospital herself.  She passed out in the hospital by my bed and they took her to the emergency room.  If your mom is looking down at me right now, she will be shacking her head, it was her nerves that made her sick. She hated when people or doctors would say that to her. 

I got out of the hospital the day after Reggie got put in and I went and picked up the ring right away. My brother Mark had a connection with the place I picked up the ring at but I do not remember now just how. I went to your mom's room and got down on one knee and proposed to my wife in the hospital. She did not want to wait another day longer.  I do remember she was mad as hell at me because I proposed to her the same way my Dad did by singing the same song he did when he proposed “It's a sin to tell a lie, I love you", was the song. Bad choice but I made a few and bad ones just not the wrong women. 

We were planning to get married in August and the ring was on her finger. Hey, it was a good one too even though she went to a jeweler a day after she got out of the hospital to make sure the ring was real - she really did! I think my mother-in-law had something to do with that deal, right mom. 

Now, we are into March of 1970 and Reggie fell down at the bus stop one morning. She caught the bus just down the street at the end of Sunshine drive and Gravois. She said she could only remember falling into the street and skinning up her legs and messing up her nylons, shoes and her dress. I came over after work that morning and tried to calm her down. She got dizzy a few other times in the next few weeks. 

She took off work a few times and it did not look good for her at the office. I was concerned about her a lot and did not know what to think.  Reggie and I did some talking one night and decided to call a friend of mine and talk to his wife. Mike Stewart's wife was pregnant and she had always talked to your mom about how good her doctor was. Reggie made the appointment and we went to see him as soon as we could.

I remember the doctor saying "you’re lucky you’re pregnant,  Reggie because you have a curved uterus.  It's a wonder you even got pregnant because you may never have another child again”. (I now go back in my mind and think that her uterus was curved just right to have more babies). I remember the ride back to her house that day.  How am I going to tell my mom and my dad? We loved each other and even though, it changed our plans a lot, we would make it.

I just remember how hard it was going to be to tell her mom and dad. I told her dad as I can remember and I still remember what he said, "Hell,  I am not a bit surprised".  Hey, we still didn't do anything on the night she was at my house until four in the morning.

Reggie's mom was hurt and she just took it all in and started to make plans for a wedding. My mom and dad were the next two to break the news too. My dad was out of town on a fishing trip so we did not get to tell him for a few days.  My mom was happy for us and hugged Reggie real hard and said " You know I got married when I was pregnant also”. When my dad came home a few days latter, I went over to give him the news. I can still remember just how it all went. I walked in and my dad was sitting in the front room in a corner. He greeted us both and went right into a story - no, he went right into five or more stories about his trip.  

He must have told us 7 or 8 different stories that night but after the 4th, 5th, and the 6th story, I tried to stop him by telling him "DAD REGGIE AND ME ARE GOING TO GET MARRIED NEXT WEEK".  He would look up at me and then go on to his next story. Well after the 7th story, I just went over to him and grabbed him and shook his shoulders. I looked right at him and I was just a few inches from his face yelled, "DAD WE ARE GOING TO BE MARRIED NEXT WEEK, I AM GOING TO BE A FATHER".

Now, I can remember this like it just happened today.  My dad stopped his stories and with tears going down his eyes he said "Son, your mom was pregnant too when we got married".  Then he said "I LOVE YOU STEVE". Now you may not know this or remember this but I will always remember this moment.

My dad grew up in a house that had no room for emotions. He was brought up to think that a MAN never showed his emotions because that was a sign of weakness. That moment was the 2nd time in my whole life that I remember my dad telling me he loved me. It was also the last time he told me that. I knew he loved me by his actions and never had a problem with that, but besides the time I left to go overseas in the service this was the only other time he told me that he loved me.