My Mom

My mom was born in Berwyn, IL, a suburb of Chicago, and moved to Moline, IL with my grandparents when she was very young. My grandfather worked at the Rock Island Arsenal, was a smoker, and had black Buddy Holly glasses. That's all I really remember of my grandfather. My grandmother had the 60's blonde wavy hair, smoked, and loved to wear makeup. She was very much into fashion and dressed my mother in all the latest styles. In the 60's it was the mod fashion with the Jackie Kennedy pencil skirts and the big sunglasses. It's funny because that is all coming back and I find myself attracted to the pencil skirt and somewhat of a mod hairstyle. Anyway, my mom grew up in the Quad Cities along with my Uncle George. She went to Alleman High School and from what she has told me - loved to write. After graduating from Alleman, she attended Black Hawk College and worked at Knee's Florist and somewhere in there worked at the post office. She met my dad in Biology class, would be out all night with him, and sneak back into the house early in the morning. My dad was drafted into the Army during Vietnam but stayed in the states as a mechanic at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina. He proposed to my mother before leaving for basic training and my mom planned the whole wedding while he was away. The wedding took place at St. Mary's Catholic Church in downtown Moline with the reception in my grandparent's backyard. My dad wore a light blue suit and it was very 70's. Eventually my mom moved to North Carolina into a trailer with my dad while he served his time in the army. She became pregnant with me in September of 1971. I found her diary with the story of her pregnancy with me and the turmoil that was happening in the U.S. regarding the Vietnam war. She wrote about the bra burning protests and the bad blood toward the returning Vietnam veterans. Part of me desperately wants to be back in the era because young people actually gave a shit about politics.
My parents moved back to the Quad Cities in an apartment in downtown Rock Island. My dad decided to become a carpenter and registered for aprenticeship classes with the local union. My mom stayed home to care for me. At some point they decided to move into a different apartment in downtown Moline and maybe it was because I needed to attend school??? Anyway, they moved into 11 Street A and that is where I recall most of my memories.
My mom would have me help bake cookies every once in awhile and on one occasion I remember throwing flour all over the kitchen. My whole face was white and I don't remember if any actually was added to the dough. Today when I'm cooking or baking I sometimes get that urge to throw flour. I think it's because the texture is so soft and pillowy when it's in the canister. It sure was fun throwing flour all over the kitchen and I don't think my mother scolded me but she did take a photo.
During the summer, my mom and I would cool off in a blue, plastic kiddy pool or we would wash the 1957 Chevy that my mom and dad inherited from my great grandparents. There was this huge rope-like haired dog that would run through the neighborhood. One hot afternoon my mom and I were washing the '57 and that dog came bounding down the hill, grabbed the hose, and began shaking his head. It was like an instant sprinkler. I remember screaming and laughing. My mom laughing like she did in between the "oh knows" (my sister Jenny does a wonderful impression of her laugh). We finally got the hose back and finished washing the car. Spending time with my mom was great!
I started kindergarten in August of 1977 and at the same time my parents broke ground on some land in Coal Valley, IL. We lived with my grandparents while the house was being built and it was great!! My grandma DeGrauwe would let me have vanilla ice cream in my chocolate milk in the morning! My grandparents would eat there big meal at noon and watch Days of Our Lives. Marlana became a household name that we kicked around like she was a relative. They had a park close by and we would walk at night down to the park so I could swing and try to go in the rolling barrel. I was scared to death of the rolling barrel. It was this wooden cylinder that was on rollers so that when you entered and leaned up against the side it would begin to roll in place. It was so scary and I thought that if I slipped I would roll to the top, fall, and hit my head. I liked going to the playground but I had a bad experience at the 16th street park. I was climbing the monkey bars and fell. I chipped two of my front teeth and had to have caps put on them. The caps were a light bluish color so my kindergarten pictures look like I have some weird front teeth. Anyway, I would swing or go on the slide and that's about it. My kindergarten class was fun and I had one boy named Karl Bodenbender that I became friends with but then we moved.
In 1978, we moved into our new house in Coal Valley and my parents bought me a dog. I remember going to pick her out. She was white and silky soft. I named her Buffy from the show Buffy and Jody that I loved to watch. The house was big and had a big backyard. Buffy loved to run around in the backyard with me and would sleep in my room. Oh my room....it had mint green carpet and mint green walls with two closets. One was big with room to hang clothes and the other had shelves so that I could put all my golden look books on them. My mom registered me for first grade at Bicenntennial School which was down the hill and up another hill. I had to ride the bus but my mom assured me that I would be fine and that she would be involved with the Parent Teacher Association (PTA). My first day on the bus was o.k. but there was this boy that sat at the back of the bus named Gabe. He lived in the trailer parks by the airport and he was mean to me. I tended to sit toward the front of the bus so that I could see the driver. My first grade teacher's name was Mrs. Simpson and she was really nice because I was shy and didn't really want to be singled out at all. I met some nice kids at school including a neighbor named Lisa Wildermuth and another girl named Michele Dillon. First grade was going to be fun!
Turns out that my mom was pregnant and I would have a sister or brother in the fall when I would be in the second grade. My mom often hung out with Judy Meirhaeghe, a neighbor that lived across the backyard. They had three children, a girl named Stacie who was 4 years older than me, Rick who was two years older than me and Eric who was 3 years younger than me. Stacie and I became friends and spent many summers riding bikes and building a fort in the woods. I rode the bus to school with them.

Growing up DeGrauwe

My first recollection of being a child was when we lived in an apartment near downtown Moline. My parents and I lived in the first floor of a two story apartment. I had a fairly simple life back then. My dad would go to work leaving my mom and I home to play in the park up the hill, watch Sesame Street, play with my "baka buggy" baby buggy, and every once in awhile go visit the neighbor across the street who raised 25 to 50 cats in her house. I didn't have a dog or a cat but rather a parakeet named Porky. Sometimes my mom would allow Porky to venture out of his cage and fly around the house. I couldn't really play with Porky but he would land on my head and I would walk around the house with Porky on my head.

My parent's landlady would come around every once and awhile. She was a chain smoker and I cannot remember her name. My mom would talk with her and I would go off and smoke clothespins in the hallway. Yes, I pretended that the clothespins were cigarettes and would mimic the landlady. My mom actually took a photo of me smoking clothespins in the hallway. One day while my mom was talking with the landlady, I ran up to them and the landlady's cigarette embedded itself in my neck. Today you can still see the burn mark from the landlady's cigarette.

On the weekends my parents would hang out with the Arnolds and they had a son named Kevin, who was my best friend. Our parents would sit out in the Arnold's backyard with our mother's drinking brandy alexanders and our father's maybe beer. I can't remember because my dad doesn't drink that much. While our parents were hanging out in the backyard, Kevin and I would be upstairs playing in Kevin's play room. He actually had a designated area for play. At our apartment the play room was the whole house. Kevin was a good friend but much older than me. He was already in school and I just was anticipating starting kindergarten at Lincoln Irving. Kevin and two other neighborhood kids who were much older than Kevin helped me celebrate my 5th birthday. I remember a picture my mom took of me in Bert and Ernie bell bottom blue jeans, Kevin in a blue shirt and the two neighbor kids whose dad was never home and when he was he was drunk.

Our apartment was mixed in amongst some single family homes. At the end of our street was a huge drop off that overlooked an old abandoned school. There was a metal cylindrical shoot that protruded out of the third story. During Halloween, this building became a haunted house. I would sit with my parents on our front porch and listen to the kids screaming and ghouls rushing out of the haunted house. They used the shoot as a way of escaping the ghosts and ghouls. I was very frightened of that building throughout the year.

My dad had a metal detector and one spring I was walking with my dad as he swayed the metal detector back and forth. At one point the detector began making noise, my dad dug into the soil uncovering a buffalo nickel. It looked just like a regular nickel but had a picture of a buffalo. My dad told me that it was an old nickel. We spent lots of time at the park with that metal detector. The park was fun and was within walking distance from the apartment. I don't remember a playground but large statues of men on horses and a huge hill that overlooked downtown Moline. We would go sledding in this park during the winter.