The:Kelli's perspective

When Matt first started kindergarten, I thought he was the luckiest person alive. He got new clothes, he got to ride on a big bus and he was allowed to leave the house for a few hours without Mom.

Jeremy and I were so jealous. In our eyes he was a man of the world.

We would wait anxiously for him to return, watching in the picture window for the bus to pull up. He would walk up our driveway everyday, backpack strapped to his back, holding Mom's hand. When he came in, he would sit at the table and have Mom's undivided attention.

I thought he was so lucky, until this one day.

In kindergarten in Blackstone (back in 1976, at least), the first book you were given to read was called Sun Up. The beginning of the book reads:

The sun was up. Bing was up. Sandy was up. Bing and Sandy was up.

Clearly the author of the book cared more about learning to read than grammar.

Matt took the yellow and orange book out of his backpack and showed Mom. She told him to read for her. He looked at the cover of the book and read the title.

"Sun Up", he said.

Mom was so proud.

I was so jealous. He was reading words from a book. Real words. Not just making them up. He knew what the words really said.

He opened to book to the first page. He was so confident because he had just read the title with ease. The first word was the.

Matt looked at the word and said "ta-ha-eee".

Mom had to tell him the word was the.

He corrected himself and continued reading. Soon enough the word the came up again. Again Matt said "ta-ha-eeee".

I could hear the frustration in Mom's voice. The word came up several more times on those first few pages, but not once could he read the word correctly.

Finally Mom told him it was time to take a break. I think it was all she could do to keep from strangling him.

My brother, the published writer, struggled and struggled with the word the.

When it was my turn to go to kindergarten and read Sun Up, I never stumbled on the word.

I guess I have my brother to thank for that.

My brother, the brute: Matt's perspective

While I am sure that some of this is true, I honestly have no recollection of any of these events, but I also recall my mother telling me the story about the time we pulled Kelli from the crib like a rag doll.

I can also confirm that my siblings and I were especially brutal to one another, and in being the eldest, I have no doubt that I delivered considerably more abuse.

Kelli should thank me for making her so tough.

My brother, the brute: Kelli's perspective

"Oh Kel, they're just playing".

Those were the words my mother spoke whenever my brothers injured me.

I only know this first story because my mother related it to me when I was older.

My brothers were awake and I was in my crib. They pulled all of my stuffed animals out of the crib, one by one. Then it was my turn. They each took an arm and flung me out of the crib.

Not to be vicious. Just to play.

Fast forward six years. A family gathering was taking place downstairs. I was being the annoying little sister, battling for my brother's attention again. Matt, at age eight, obviously didn't understand the physics of smothering. He became very annoyed with me and put a pillow on my face and sat on it.

Not to kill me. Not to hurt me. He was too young to know it could lead to bad things. After about a minute and a half of sitting on the pillow on my face, my short life flashed before my eyes.

Finally he got up.

I ran downstairs. At the table were my mom, my evil stepfather, and my Memere and Pepere. I was crying and told my mother what my brother had done.

Her response? "Kel, they're only playing."

Fast forward to a day at the bus stop. I admit, I was an annoying little sister. I was standing at the bottom of the driveway with my Dancing Donald Duck backpack, trying to annoy my brothers. I was wearing a dress that day with white tights.

I had obviously pressed Matt's last button. He grabbed my Dancing Donald backpack and swung it (and me) around until I fell on the ground, tearing open my leg. I was on the ground crying when Matt saw the bus approaching. Being the protective, big brother that he was, he pulled me off the ground and wiped my tears.

I went through the school day with my wounded leg untouched. By the time I arrived home, the cut that I had sustained had begun to scab with my tights stuck inside it.

My mother, with a warm wet face cloth, dabbed the wound, trying to moisten it in order to pull the tights out.

As I cried about how horrible my brothers were, my mother stated "Kel, he was only playing."

I loved my brothers with all my heart, but seriously Mom?

"Kel, they're only playing" doesn't cut it.

New Year's Eve, 1987: Matt's perspective

While it wasn’t quite illegal to eat in our childhood home, the restrictions were extreme. Two Oreo cookies after dinner, an apple in the afternoon, and that was it in terms of sweets.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Everything else in our house was meat and potatoes, and mostly potatoes.

And pasta. A lot of pasta.

There was never a lot of money in my childhood home, so food was often bland in color and miniscule in portion size.

Nevertheless, the rules in terms of eating were insane. I went through my entire childhood never tasting a single sweet that we saw on television.

No Flaky Puffs. No Ring Dings. No Twinkies. No fruit roll-ups. No Pop Tarts. No Rice Krispies Treats.

My parents had plenty of snack food set aside for them and lots of soda, but the kids at Almac’s brand Oreo cookies and drank milk and Kool-Aid.

So I’m not surprised that Kelli was grounded for a food-related issue.

I remember the 1987 New Year’s Eve party, but I don’t remember being nearly as cool as Kelli describes me. In my junior year of high school, my friend, Danny, and I were hired at the McDonald’s in Milford, MA, about 30 minutes from our hometown. The Milford McDonald’s was paying slightly more than minimum wage at the time ($4.85), so we felt this was worth the 30 minute commute. Though Danny didn’t last long at McDonald’s (he eventually became a dishwasher at a restaurant across the street), I quickly gained a core of Milford friends and began spending the majority of my time with them.

It made sense that many of my friends eventually came from Milford. I was spending almost all my time there. Halfway through my junior year of high school, I became a manager at McDonald’s and was working 40 hours a week or more most of the time.

Kelli wasn’t kidding when she said that I didn’t see my little sister much. I had a 30 minute commute to a fulltime job after school and track practice.

I was never home.

I’ve been trying to mentally reassemble the guest list for that New Year’s Eve party. I’m sure that my high school girlfriend, Laura, was there, and I am also certain that BJ Luciani was there because his Corvette broke down on the way to my house, requiring us to push it the last mile to my driveway.

Kelli has confirmed that my best friend of 25 years and DJ partner, Bengi, was there as well. It was around this time that we met one another, and though his memory is usually superior, he couldn’t quite remember if he was there.

My sister had a crush on him at the time, so she is certain of his attendance.

There were others at the party as well. Stephanie Fahey, Deb Davis, Danny Pollock, Whips & Chains, the Tanners and perhaps some Blackstone people are possibilities, but I cannot remember. There were probably about a dozen people in all, and if I recall, my parents were out all night, allowing my party to stretch out into the wee hours of the morning.

Also notable about this party was the lack of alcohol. I did not drink until well after high school, nor did most of my friends. We had a great time, but we did it sober.

I remember the party mostly because it was my first party that included girls. Prior to this New Year’s Eve party, my last party was probably my tenth birthday party, a stellar affair in which I was allowed to invite three other people. I invited Jimbo Powers, Peter Archambault and John Fox.

My parents gave me a desk and a globe that day, just two in a long line of bizarre, inexplicable gifts. In later years, I would receive more furniture, a microwave oven, flatware, a set of dishes and bowls, hand towels and bed linens.

They were preparing to kick me out at an early age.

Seriously.

Kelli sounds surprised in her post that I was allowed to have a party, but unlike her, I had been given almost unlimited freedom at an exceptionally early age.

When I was ten, I began babysitting for my brothers and sisters, sending them to bed at 9:00 PM and staying up until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning when my parents would finally arrive home after a night of carousing. I became a connoisseur of late night horror movies, MASH reruns and The Twilight Zone during those days, and even today, I can’t believe that my parents would leave a ten year old kid in charge of four other kids, ages six to ten, for hours at a time.

I was also sleeping in an unheated basement bedroom by then and had the freedom to leave at any time via the bulkhead (hatchway for those of you who did not grow up in Massachusetts) and utilized this freedom often. I would leave the house at 11:00 PM every Saturday night and walk two miles to the local middle school for midnight hoops without my parents ever even knowing I was gone.

A New Year’s Eve party, even with girls, did not seem like anything special.

In fact, I routinely had girls in my bedroom for hours without my parents disturbing us once. My evil step-father’s entire explanation of the birds and the bees amounted to this:

“I don’t care what you do with them down here. Just don’t get them pregnant.”

Sage advice from the worst man I have ever met.

But I’ll save that for a future post.

New Year's Eve, 1987: Kelli's perspective

It was New Year’s Eve 1987. I was 14-years old, and I was grounded.

Eating was illegal in my house, and I had been caught eating a Pop Tart that I had bought with 50 cents of my own money at the snack bar at school.

As a result, I had been grounded for a month.

All of my friends were going to the New Year’s Eve party at Roller Kingdom and I was on lock down. My parents were going out, and my brother, Matt, was allowed to have an unsupervised party at our house.

At the age of sixteen.

I couldn't eat a Pop Tart that I had purchased with my own money but my 16-year old brother could have an unsupervised party with girls. Go figure.

Matt came up to my room after the parentals left. He invited me to his party. I wasn't too excited at first. I hadn't known my brother very well for some time, as he was older and didn't really talk to his baby sister much. All I knew about him was that he worked at McDonald’s and was able to get me all the Happy Meal toys I wanted.

It was cool to be a teenager at Roller Kingdom, but I still liked kiddie things, too.

Again, go figure.

So thanks to a horde of Happy Meal toys, I thought that my brother was cool. I had no idea how cool until that night.

Matt let me come out of my room to his party. He let me picked the music from his collection of cassettes. That was the night that I fell in love with the songs Sister Christian, Desperado and Hotel California. I probably never would have heard and appreciated those songs if it weren't for my big brother. I listened to and played my brother's music and thought "Wow, my brother is kind of cool."

After being at the party for a short time and listening to his friends talk and listening to him talk, I realized, "Wow, my brother is totally cool".

I had always known that he worked at McDonald’s, but I never knew that at the age of sixteen, he was the manager.

I never knew he had cool "Milford" friends.

The respect kept growing.

Around 10:30 PM his friends began getting hungry and wanting food. I was sure that I would be left behind. The first thing my brother did was invite me. He took me to Woonsocket A place that I was not allowed unless it was Roller Kingdom and I was being driven by another parent.

Not this night.

Matt was taking me with his friends. We went to Moonlight Pizza, long before the restaurant’s renovation. It was dirty with a single, unisex bathroom and a bullet hole in the wall. It was so dangerous in my mind. So cool. In a bad part of Woonsocket without my parents....my night was so much cooler than my friends' night at Roller Kingdom. I was with older kids, and I was cool.

I realized that night how cool my brother was. It was the first time in a while that I looked up to my brother and wanted to be like him. Not having a Dad and having a step-father who you could compare a pile of manure on a hot summer’s day, I had finally found a man to look up to.

I had a peek into my brother's secret life, and it was cool.

I realized that night my big brother was cool.

Bittersweet: Matt's perspective

Most interesting part of Kelli's Bittersweet post was the fact that we never had any paper for drawing or coloring.

She's right.

I can't imagine why our parents wouldn't spring for a pad of paper or even a notebook of some kind, but they never did. Instead, we tore the blank pages from the beginning and ends of books, and I would do the same for every library book I borrowed, too (forgive me, librarians of the world).

Our kingdom for a little drawing paper.

As for the torturing of my sister, all that was true. We would hide or kidnap Bittersweet for days at a time, and we would threaten his safety from time to time by placing him in the oven, the microwave and the dryer.

And although Kelli never cried, it wasn't because we didn't try.

She's always been tougher than me and my brother put together.

Bittersweet: Kelli's perspective

When my brothers and I were growing up we always had the 64 count box of crayons. That was the box with the randomly named crayons because face it, who can name 64 real colors?

Thinking back I'm not sure why we had crayons when there was never a coloring book or drawing paper in the house. We would use the blank pages in the backs of our books to use our crayons.

There was one crayon that I especially loved.

Bittersweet.

He was a combination of pink, tan, and orange. I don't know if it was the color of the crayon that I loved or if it was the name. All I know is I loved Bittersweet.

Matt and Jeremy knew it too. To torture me, which they loved to do, they would remove Bittersweet from the safety of his box and hide him in different places in the house. And they didn't hide him where an 8-year old could find him. It would've taken a crayon sniffing dog to find that crayon. They put him on top of door frames, in the freezer, and just about anywhere I was too small to reach.

Sometimes they would play "hot and cold" to help me find him.

Sometimes they would wait for me to tell on them.

They never let it go so far that I cried though. Such sensitive guys.

I don't know what ever happened to Bittersweet. For all I know he's still in our childhood house in the last place they ever hid him.

All I know is Bittersweet will always have a place in my heart.