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Message |
    
Virtual It Girl
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 3766
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, January 6, 2006 - 8:13 pm: |     |
So interesting how they ended up in St. Louis, both from opposite ends of the world.
Your mom must have been very young when you were born! |
sportsnut
Citizen
Username: Sportsnut
Post Number: 2255
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 2:42 pm: | |
VIG - my mom was young when she had me. She was a week short of being 21. She had my older brother at 19 and was done with children (my younger brother) by the time she was 24. |
Virtual It Girl
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 3768
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 3:11 pm: | |
Not uncommon back then. What am I saying...even today...my husband has first cousins who had their first kids at 16, 18 & 20. |
sportsnut
Citizen
Username: Sportsnut
Post Number: 2256
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - 3:39 pm: | |
Fast forward a few years to my mom and Uncle's teen years. Uncle was a brainiac. Graduated from Midwood HS with great grades and went off to college to become a "power systems engineer." AFter four years in the Army he began a fairly successful career at GE designing locomotive engines. After over 20 years at GE he was unceremoniously let go and found work with Boeing where he became part of the design team for work on the "Osprey" which I believe was one of the first aircraft to take off like a helicopter and fly like a jet. He later move back towards his first love and went to work for Budd Locomotive in Philly.
My grandfather was always very proud of my uncle and his accomplishments. Unfortunately, my uncle would refuse him a favor in the early 70's that would not only wound my grandfather deeply but haunt my uncle 20+ years later.
My grandfather was always scheming in an effort to make money. He was an entrepeneur at heart and at various times was an importer, a bar tender, a bar owner, a salesman, a chicken farmer (yes he had chickens in the basement of his house in brooklyn), a luncheonette owner and finally a real estate broker during his life.
The two best stories involved his attempts at becoming a snack salesman and of course the chicken fiasco.
Filipinos eat dried fish as a snack, kind of like the way we eat potato chips. Often they eat this dried fish - danggit - while drinking beer and telling stories. I was at a barbeque once where a group of relatives were eating the stuff and I couldn't get near it. But there they were munching away drinking San Miguel beer and smoking cigars it was god awful. But anyway...My grandfather had been a salesman for Schaeffer (sp?) beer and had concocted a scheme to sell this danggit along with it. Seemed to him like the perfect combination. It didn't go over so well, what with the smell of the dried fish and the fact that one bar owner's cat nearly wiped out his entire stock of booze trying to get at the delicacy. Needless to say he lost quite a few accounts after that and set out to become the Filipino equivalent of Frank Perdue.
Somehow he scraped up enough money to buy some property in Freehold, NJ and set about becoming a chicken farmer. Not withstanding the fact that he would have to figure out how to run the place from brooklyn. It was also an unmitigated disaster. Many of the chickens never made it out of brooklyn alive and the few that did survive the transport died soon after arriving in NJ. Through it all he never gave up. He finally decided to run an "ordinary" business when he purchased a luncheonette on the corner of Parsons Blvd and Union Turnpike in Queens. It is the one place I remember most from my childhood.
My older brother and I spent a great deal of time there in the late 60s. I remember sitting at the counter as my grandmother worked the register and my grandfather worked as the short order cook/soda jerk. I can remember shelves filled with all kinds of candy/gum, cheap toys and baseball cards behind my grandmother. There was also a bench seat from an old car in the back where my brother and I used to nap during the afternoons.
The one smart thing my grandfather did was buy real estate whenever he could and to that end he purchased twenty-two acres in a sleepy ulster county town approximately 65 mile north of NYC. Why he chose that area remains a mystery.
To say that my mom was a handfull during her youth would be an understatement. According to my grandparents she was smart but lazy and liked to run with the "tough" crowd. My grandparents would constantly ground her and she would defy them. She started smoking (a habit that she still insists on keeping today) and drinking at age 15 and by 17 had had enough of HS and my grandparents so she dropped out and by the tender age of 18 had gotten married to a guy in the same crowd she used to hang with. A not so nice Italian boy named Sal who was three years her senior. They were young but determined to get ahead. He had a job with a courier company and my mom landed a secretarial job on Maiden lane in the city. She had to quit however, when she got pregnant with my brother. Her "career" lasted all of about six months.
By all accounts they were typical teens/twenty-somethings. They worked during the day and partied at night and on the weekends. Unfortunately, the pregnancy didn't stop them.
My grandparents begged them to straighten out their acts and put off any further children until they were a little more financially stable but those requests fell on deaf ears. Eight months after the birth of my brother my mom became pregnant with me.
The financial burden of two young kids forced my parents to ask my grandparents for permission to move in with them. My grandparents caved and we soon took up residence in the basement of my grandparent's house. Imagine two young babies and two adults living in the basement of a house. There are pictures of us taking baths in the downstairs sink and pictures of a small kitchenette down there. My mom and dad slept on a pull out couch while my brother and I shared a crib.
My earliest memories are probably from that time because I remember running up and down the stairs of my grandparent's house playing with my older brother. I remember my grandparents taking us with them to work in Queens and taking us to that wooded land in "upstate" during the summers. There are pictures of my brother and I up there from when I was three or four years old.
Alas, the partying continued and the tension grew between my grandparents and my mom and dad. There were lots of late nights and though I don't remember my brother tells me lots of arguing back and forth. Dad was working but mom was not so more and more of what my grandparents made at the luncheonette went to caring for my brother and I.
Apparently all of the partying and casual drug use got the best of my dad in December of 1968 when he died of an overdose. As I had mentioned once before in another thread that time period is just a blur to me. I remember nothing about it other than my dad was no longer around and was "in heaven" a result of an "illness" of some kind. What did I know? I was three. That's where my memory seems to fail me most of all. I have plenty of memories from before his death but none from that specific time period. Either my family did a great job of sheltering me from the chaos or my brain has decided to let those memories fade away.
My grandmother tells the story that it was at my father's wake that my my mom announced that she was nearly three months pregnant with my younger brother. Boy was life for us going to change and change dramatically especially in another year when my grandparents announced that they had sold their business in Queens and were in the process of selling the house so that they could re-locate to Florida. |
Virtual It Girl
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 3773
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - 4:03 pm: | |
Wow S'nut. Sorry to hear about your dad. Really could have been so many of our parents in the 60's...though my mom never even tried pot, as she likes to remind us all.
Amazing story. I look forward to reading more. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 13730
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 12:11 pm: | |
sportsnut, you had some career decisions a while back. How did they go, and where are you working now?
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sportsnut
Citizen
Username: Sportsnut
Post Number: 2411
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 7:27 am: | |
I have lots more to my story above - my mom actually gave me our family history, which was compiled by my grandmother about 20 years ago from letters she received from parishoners of a church in her family's hometown. Its really quite amazing. And of course there is another wrinkle since the same Grandma recently passed away at the ripe old age of 98. More on that later.
Tom,
For now I'm staying where I am. The folks at SBC have made it clear to me that they would like me to stay for the forseeable future. They only had one person who does what I do and there are only two of us from legacy AT&T and there is lots of work to be done, especially with the pending merger of the "new" AT&T and Bell South.
My offer from the accounting firm is still on the table and I had lunch with them just this past Wednesday. I told them I'd still like to wait for my severance package and that it might take until Sept/Oct. of this year to resolve. As of now they say, "No problem" - they can wait. Not sure how much longer they will but for now the offer is still on the table. So we'll see. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 14231
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 7:45 am: | |
What a great set of options you have. You are lucky. Do you still enjoy the job reasonably well?
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sportsnut
Citizen
Username: Sportsnut
Post Number: 2412
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 10:22 am: | |
I am lucky. I enjoy my job - I don't love it. I'd much rather be buying old homes, fixing them up and re-selling them, however in this market its not that easy to do. At least with that type of work you can see some tangible results when the job is complete. Not like here where all of the work you do is mixed into the giant corporate machine and you rarely see more than the memo you write.
This job provides the flexibility I need with respect to my family. My wife has the higher paying of the two jobs but her job is so inflexible. She is not permitted to take half days and working from home is out of the question. She has to be in the city by 8 and gets heat just for leaving at 5:15. That flexibility has a price tag associated with it - not easily quantified. As I mentioned before the offer from the accounting firm is a good one but I think I'll stay here as long as possible until I am forced to make a decision. |
sportsnut
Citizen
Username: Sportsnut
Post Number: 2551
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Monday, August 21, 2006 - 1:53 pm: | |
Well I think I'll stay just a little bit longer. Recently my new boss (who is not the same as my old boss) came up from San Antonio for a little "rally the troops" meeting. I like him, he's a no BS kind of guy who doesn't want to hear every intricate detail of how you arrived at your decision. He just wants to know your decision and whether you've considered X,Y and Z. He's direct, almost blunt and its so refreshing after working for some people here at AT&T who rose up through the ranks through lots of ••• kissing and very little technical ability. I am trying to negotiate a raise and a portion of my severance package and there is a slight chance of both happening so we'll see.
Of course my home life situation is about to change which in turn drives my professional life. Lil' Sportsnut II is on his way and should be making his arrival in the next two weeks or so. All the more reason to keep my flexible job while we get re-settled. Lil Sportsnut was not on board at first but he's come around in the last couple of weeks. We told him that he'd be moving into a bigger bedroom and gave him a limited amount of autonomy with regards to design. He came up with a raised platform bed in Nickelodeon colors and some decorating ideas. I'm about 99% complete in building the bed and he's already moved himself into the new room. Now I just have to find time to paint his old room in time for the arrival.
We went shopping yesterday at Babies R Us and it brought back a flood of memories at how nervous I was the first time around. I really had no idea what to expect, other than what everyone usually says about sleepless nights filled with crying babies. But this time I was filled with happy memories about buying baby clothes, toys and other accoutrements. My 7 y.o. son was actually very helpful when we were looking at car seats, pack and plays, bouncy seats etc. BTW, when did everything baby related become so expensive? My wife received a $400 gift card from her friends at work and it was gone in about ten minutes. Sadly I started looking at the car seat industry with a very cynical eye. I mean every seat is at least $100 and you need to buy three of them for each child as they grow larger. Some of the better seats are over $200, and like zombies we gravitate towards them put them in the cart and purchase them. Thankfully, we never got around to tossing the crib, some clothes, and other assorted baby items that are in our attic. I just have to venture up there and dust them off, hoping that when my stepson dismantled the crib he put all the hardware in a bag or something.
This pregnancy has been much harder on my wife (she will be 47 in November) but she insisted on still going to work every day. That was until her doctor found out that she had disobeyed a direct order to cease commuting. Finally the dr. ordered her out on disability this past Friday. My MIL will be coming to visit for six months beginning the 10th of September. She hasn't been here since 2000 and she's turning 72 this year so the opportunities for her to endure the 17 or so hours on a plane are dwindling. It will be good to have an extra set of hands around but we will be searching for a Nanny pretty soon. In fact if MIL has her way we'll be looking at hiring a Filipina nanny to help out after she's gone.
Other than that things have been pretty good. Our kitchen, driveway and front walk projects were all completed this spring/summer and everything looks nice. I think we'll put all other major projects on hold for a couple of years and enjoy what we have now.
I'm taking my son to Great Wolf Lodge in September - just dad and son for a weekend of fun. My MIL will be home with my wife and I thought it would be great to show him that he won't be forgotten when the new baby arrives. Last night my son asked me who was going to take care of him when the baby comes. I told him nothing would change around the house except for the presence of the baby and crying but none of that should impact the amount of time that I spend with him or his mother spends with him. He seems to be taking a wait and see attitude.
Unfortunately, about three weeks ago my father ran over one of their dogs, a five year old chocolate lab named Boomer. The damage to Boomer was such that they had to put him down. Originally the Vet thought they could save him and he was scheduled for an operation to insert a plate and some screws in his hip but his condition worsened and his bladder had been ruptured, thus the decision to put him down. It was devastating for my parents. In the nearly 35 years that they'd had dogs no dog had ever been hit by a car, which is quite amazing consdering the make up of my parent's house and driveway. My parents live at the end of a 350 ft long driveway. The driveway is shaped like a P that's fallen forward and the house is at the portion of the p that forms a circle. The dogs sit on the front porch keeping vigil over the mailman and the neighbors. When they see one of my parent's cars head up the driveway or the neighbor's driveway they make a beeline straight for the cars. Well, one day my dad was dropping the neighbor off next door and sure enough the two dogs went charging through the small plot of land that separates the two houses and sadly as Boomer was running along side of the truck he zigged when he should have zagged. Thankfully my dad's best friend (the neighbor) was there to help lift Boomer into the truck (he weighed 110 lbs). The neighbor drove while my dad rode in the back of the truck with Boomer. My dad said the dog never made a sound, just looked at him even when they lifted him out of the truck to get him to the vet. My mom met them at the vet. After an hour or so they went home and let the Vet do what he needed to do. The next morning the Vet called with the news that there would be no operation, his bladder was ruined, and his sciatic nerve had been severed. So my parents drove to the Vet and while my mom waited in the car my dad made the decision to put him down.
I felt terrible for them. They are both retired, still young enough to be enjoying themselves and this came out of nowhere. My dad still doesn't know what happened but suspects that the puppy they have may have been nipping at Boomer's legs (as usual) and it caused him to lose focus for just a second and that's all it took.
I call my dad every couple of days to make sure he's fine and you can hear the sadness in his voice. Clearly its not the first dog they've lost in 35 plus years living in that house, in fact there have been too many to count, but this one was different because he was directly involved.
I hope they ultimately decide to purchase another dog. But it does make me wonder if my dad's driving skills have slipped just a bit (he's only 65) and brings me one step closer to the realization that they are getting older no matter how hard I try to believe otherwise. |
Virtual It Girl
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 4970
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, August 28, 2006 - 8:17 am: | |
Hi Sports...long time no see. Hope your summer has gone well.
I thought when I met your wife she may have been pregnant, but never having met her before of course I didn't want to ask. Do you know it's another boy?
Good luck with everything, and I'm sorry to hear about your parents' dog. I'll miss not seeing you at Tuscan each morning! |
sportsnut
Citizen
Username: Sportsnut
Post Number: 2565
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - 7:27 pm: | |
Vig - the day you wrote this we drove by your old house and I mentioned to my wife that two of the people I know and talked to while walking to school have moved to S.O. and won't be around any more.
Well my wife is no longer pregnant - she gave birth, begrudgingly to a baby boy this afternoon at 3:05. It was an emergency c-section. We went to the hospital this morning at around 6:30 am and somewhere around 2:45 the nurses came rushing into the room because they kept losing the baby's heartbeat. My wife and I were casually talking about whatever was on the TV and the next thing we knew there were about 8 Dr.s and nurses in there muttering and whispering to each other to call my wife's Dr. The heartbeat was gone, now its back, now its gone again. A Dr. handed me some scrubs and told me to get changed. I went into the bathroom and changed as quickly as I could and when I got out the room was completely empty. Gone, everyone. I walked out into the hall in a semi daze and was greeted by one of the nurses who showed me where to wait and in about ten minutes they walked me to the OR. There they were, mom and son. I really am glad that I'm an accountant and not a Dr.
So now I'm going to pick up my wonderful almost 8 y.o. to bring him to the hospital to meet his new little bro and to see his mom. His only question when I dropped him off at the Y this morning was, "Is mommy going to get hurt?" Thankfully the answer is, "Yes, but in a good way."
BTW, 7.6 lbs and 19.5 inches long. Hooray!!!!! |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 15501
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 6:25 am: | |
Congratulations to the entire Nut family!
|
Virtual It Girl
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 4994
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 7:25 am: | |
Congrats! Hope mom and baby are doing well! |
Wendy
Supporter
Username: Wendy
Post Number: 3058
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 9:47 am: | |
Congratulations Sportsnut to you and the rest of your family! |
Project 37
Citizen
Username: Project37
Post Number: 351
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 9:49 am: | |
Congratulations!!  |
LilLB
Citizen
Username: Lillb
Post Number: 2326
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 9:58 am: | |
Congrats!!! |
sportsnut
Citizen
Username: Sportsnut
Post Number: 2566
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 1:11 pm: | |
Thank you all. Have a short time before I get back to work fixing our house. Needless to say we weren't exactly ready since he decided to come a week early but everything will work out. It always does.
I tried to convince my wife to take the private room but she resisted and now she's regretting it a bit. Her roommate is a talker/busybody. Nice but a little too friendly when all my wife wanted to do was rest.
Baby looks great of coures dad forgot the camera the last two visits so no pictures yet. He has dark hair (of course) and blue green eyes, not the dark brown that is typical of Asian babies. His older brother has the brownest eyes I've seen.
I took my son to meet his lil' brother last night and he said, "this doesn't seem real" as he was gently touching his brother's foot. I said, "It will be very real when he starts crying in the middle of the night." Then when we got home as we were getting out of the car he asked me, "If I was dying and the baby was crying who would you take care of first?" When I explained to him that a child crying wasn't serious he then asked, "What if the baby ate something he wasn't supposed to eat?" But then dropped the whole line of questioning when I reassured him that I would always do my best to take care of both of them just like we did with he and my stepson.
Thanks again. Perfect timing to get a little extra time off for the holiday. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 15507
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 2:30 pm: | |
I love those quotes from your almost-eight-year-old!
|
Virtual It Girl
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 4996
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 3:09 pm: | |
Ahhh, how sweet and what a perfect answer you gave him. |
Pippi
Supporter
Username: Pippi
Post Number: 2836
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 5:50 pm: | |
sports nut - congrats to the whole Nut family! Glad your wife and baby are doing well. |
sportsnut
Citizen
Username: Sportsnut
Post Number: 2569
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, September 9, 2006 - 9:48 am: | |
Well I have the first week under my belt. Its been fun reliving all the things I kind of forgot with my older son. Funny thing was that last Saturday night after I put my son to sleep and the day before the I began to get very sad. Sad that things between my son and I were going to change forever. Up until that day my son and I had been very close, we do everything together. I coached his baseball team, I take him to swimming lessons, I pick him up and drop him off at school, we play games all the time, play Xbox and his computer games, do arts and crafts etc. When we first had him I thought it was very surreal. I couldn't believe he was ours and now before I knew it he was on the verge of turning 8 and on the verge of becoming a big brother.
By his questions above I could sense that he knew things were going to change, that his status in the herd was going to shift slightly and that's what prompted my sadness. I had given up hope that we'd have another baby since the last attempts didn't go very well and I had resigned myself to that fact. So I got my mind ready for the fact that it would just always be the three of us and that my son would always look to me as his playmate. Which is why it stung just a little bit last year when he laid down the law as I was walking him to school on the first day. He said, "Dad, please don't kiss me goodbye today. I don't want to be embarrassed." I said, "Ok, no problem." But inside I was crushed. As I patted him on the head, said goodbye and walked away he called out to me and asked me for a hug and when I told him to have a great day he said, "right back at you."
Now we have this "intruder" and I mean that in the most loving way possible. He's short, his body is twice the size of his tiny legs. He's got chubby cheeks and a shock of dark brown hair, eyes that haven't quite found their color yet stuck betwen hazel and brown. And the noises he makes. Grunts, squeals, squeaks, sighs and coos. He eats, sleeps and wakes up to eat again only to fall asleep halfway through eating. Its amazing how the birth of a baby changes you, how it teaches you unconditional love for this little buddah that graces our home. He's taken my spot on the bed while I've been relegated to the couch so he can feed and go back to his favorite activity....sleeping with minimal interruption.
And all the while my older son adjusts. He doesn't fight for attention, but I know he craves it. He wants to do everything I do, he wants to wear the same clothes, play the same games, do the same things. He hid all of my birthday presents this past week and insisted on helping me find them. Then when I opened my new Ipod nano he sat on my lap and asked me if we would still download his music to listen to. So I set up a playlist for him. Crazy Frog, music from HS musical, Terry Hendricks and anything you can find on XM kids.
On the one hand time has flown by so fast yet I know that my job is only 1/3 complete with him. I still have a lot of years left with both of them. These are the days I wish I could stop time if only for a little bit.
Here they are:
 |
ess
Citizen
Username: Ess
Post Number: 3081
Registered: 11-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, September 9, 2006 - 10:50 am: | |
Sportsnut, you have beautiful children! Enjoy them! And congratulations on the new baby.
I enjoy reading your stories and history and hope there is more to come. Thank you for sharing those. |
Virtual It Girl
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 5030
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, September 9, 2006 - 10:57 am: | |
Someday C will realize you just gave him the greatest gift...a brother! Sounds like you share a great bond, I'm sure the baby will dramatically change things, but you two will still be buddies. |
sportsnut
Citizen
Username: Sportsnut
Post Number: 2571
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, September 9, 2006 - 11:44 am: | |
ESS - Thank you. I wish I could take credit for the beautiful children. However, my stepson has become a handsome young man and I had nothing to do with that (genetically speaking of course).
My wife is blessed with the "beautiful child" and "look younger than your age" genes.
VIG - you're right, we'll still be buddies. Slightly different but still buddies.
We're going to spend next weekend at the Great Wolf Lodge out in PA. Just Dad and son. I'm looking forward to it as is he. On Friday night we plan on grabbing some dinner and settling in to watch the premiere of a new Avatar episode. I can't think of a better way to spend my Friday night. |
Virtual It Girl
Citizen
Username: Shh
Post Number: 5033
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, September 9, 2006 - 12:11 pm: | |
Hehe, my girls love Avatar too, but "our" show is "What Not to Wear". Typical Friday night, after pizza, the girls and I watch that.
Have fun on your little getaway. Enjoy each other's company! |
algebra2
Supporter
Username: Algebra2
Post Number: 4246
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, September 11, 2006 - 11:22 pm: | |
Sports - Congratulations. As a mom of an only child I totally understand the weird feelings about changing the family dynamics -- you are now a family of four! I really can't believe it! I hope your boy is liking second grade, mine is doing well. I am just a wee bit jealous. Hopefully we can run into you guys at the playground. |
