The Book of Me: Prompt 9 - Halloween

[Editor's Note: The Book of Me is a series of writing prompts focusing on life streaming or preserving one's own memories rather than those of our ancestors and family members. Click here to read more.]

This week's prompt in The Book of Me is Halloween. My memories of Halloween are still pretty vivid and I remember almost every one of them when I was a kid:

• My first memory is watching the Halloween parade on Main Street in Liberty, New York, dressed in my Caspar the Friendly Ghost costume.

• I remember Mom taking my brother and I trick or treating over on Dwyer Avenue in Liberty. This was always considered a "safe" area of town and given the crazy stories of razor blades in apples or pins in candy - all urban legends - many children were out in this area on Halloween evening.

• One Halloween stands out because we actually went trick-or-treating on a Sunday afternoon. I can't recall if this was related to the time change or what.

• I also remember going over to White Sulphur Springs, New York which was about 5 miles away and marching in their Halloween parade.  There were always cider donuts and hot cocoa at the firehouse afterwards.

• When we moved out to Neversink Road in 1976, since it was not downtown, we almost never had trick-or-treaters unless they were neighbor children.

© 2013, copyright Thomas MacEntee

The Book of Me - Prompt 7: Grandparents

[Editor's Note: The Book of Me is a series of writing prompts focusing on life streaming or preserving one's own memories rather than those of our ancestors and family members. Click here to read more.]

This week's prompt in The Book of Me is Grandparents. I never knew my four grandparents very well so when I'm asked about my grandparents, I often focus on the great-grandparents who helped raised me: Therese McGinnes Austin and John Ralph Austin.

These two people had such a monumental influence on my life, especially after my parents separated and then divorced in the late 1960s. I remember so much from my weekly visits to their house in Grahamsville, New York:

• The large Dutch farmhouse built in the 1840s.
• Grandma's handmade quilts in each bedroom upstairs (there were four large rooms).
• All the "old stuff" which fascinated me. Stuff like curious, clocks, furniture and more.
• The lack of television and where conversation was more important than the boob tube.
• Sunday dinners with the fold out dining table which converted from a simple entry way table to seating 12 people.
• Learning about family history and all the stories of my ancestors.

My great-grandfather passed away in 1976, less than a year after they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. After that, Grandma spent winters with family either in Florida or California and then spent the summers with us. She passed in 1988 at the age of 94.

I miss them both and think about them often, that is how great their impact has been on my life. While I didn't always agree with them, and I don't always follow their advice, I know they set me on the path to being the best person I could be. 

No greater gift can be given to a descendant.

© 2013, copyright Thomas MacEntee

The Book of Me - Prompt 6: Journals and Diaries

[Editor's Note: The Book of Me is a series of writing prompts focusing on life streaming or preserving one's own memories rather than those of our ancestors and family members. Click here to read more.]

This week's prompt in The Book of Me is Journals and Diaries and this is an area in my life which has always vexed me.  I don't maintain a daily journal although I'd absolutely love to.  Here's why:

• I am on several social media channels every day where I am doing what some would call "lifestreaming" which is maintaining an online diary of my activities and thoughts.

• There are several programs that can aggregate all your lifestreams (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) into one platform but I've just been too busy to investigate them.

• My handwriting is so horrible (and always has been) that if I were to keep a written journal, no one - absolutely no one - would be able to read it. Talk about an exercise in futility.

My best hope for journaling is this little old blog right here which is coming up on its seventh anniversary in December. I began blogging to capture the family stories told by my mother as her Alzheimer's Disease advanced. This blog has turned into something much more and it is the closest thing I have to a diary.

© 2013, copyright Thomas MacEntee

The Book of Me - Prompt 5: Your Childhood Home

[Editor's Note: The Book of Me is a series of writing prompts focusing on life streaming or preserving one's own memories rather than those of our ancestors and family members. Click here to read more.]

This week's prompt in The Book of Me - Your Childhood Home caught me by surprise. The items listed within the theme brought back many memories, and I guess that is how this is all supposed to work, right?

• My concept of home is bifurcated, meaning "split in two" since my family moved in 1976 from an apartment to a house. Up until I was 13, my mother and brother and I lived in a three bedroom apartment over a warehouse in Liberty, New York.

• In 1976, we received notice that the apartment building was going to be converted to offices or storage and that we needed to find another place to live. At this point in our immediate family's history, my mother was just starting to recover financially from her divorce in 1970. She worked for the telephone company and while we were far from "well off" we were no longer among the "working poor" as we had been.

• So the search was on for a new home and home was they key word. My mother had the foresight to realize the need to own a home and not just move to another apartment. What was available in our price range was almost unlivable. At the very least, a fixer-upper home was definitely in our future.

• Finally, on the outskirts of town we found a Lustron home for sale with two acres of land. Lustron homes were "pre fabricated" houses made of steel which were very "mid-century contemporary" in style but suited more for warmer climates. Let's just say that over the next ten years there would be quite a bit of work and retrofitting.

• The rooms were small. There were two bedrooms and I shared a room with my younger brother. There is also only one bathroom and a small kitchen. But it was home and it was where we thrived and memories were made.

I "left" home when I was just 17 back in 1980 as I went off to college.  I'm not sure whether it was the time period in which I grew up or the environment, but children were expected to leave home sooner rather than later. One thing I know for sure is that while you can review and relive those memories in your mind of home, you can never truly go home again and experience that exact time in your life. For now, I'm content with my memories and the lessons found in my experiences of home.

© 2013, copyright Thomas MacEntee

The Book of Me - Prompt 4: Your Favorite Season

[Editor's Note: The Book of Me is a series of writing prompts focusing on lifestreaming or preserving one's own memories rather than those of our ancestors and family members. Click here to read more.]

This week's prompt in The Book of Me - Your Favorite Season - happens to coincide with the approaching Autumnal Equinox here in the United States. This is no accident, for Autumn or Fall has always been the best time of the year for me. So as I sit here on a late Chicago afternoon with a cool breeze coming off of Lake Michigan, I decided to try an experiment with the writing style for this week's topic. I call it "life streaming mind streaming" where I just put down strings of words and phrases to pop into my head about Autumn.  Here goes and I hope it makes sense . . .

• Leaves turned gold, red and brown, their summer emerald green coats transformed.

• Cool breezes pushing Summer on its way to other lands.

• The sound of geese flying South warning of Winter's chill.

• The smell of warm apple cider and cinnamon simmering on the back burner.

• Roasted root vegetables with a slash of balsamic vinegar and sprig of rosemary, served in Grandma's favorite casserole dish.

• Preparations for the coming winter, gathering and preserving summer's harvest, remembering how Mom did the same thing each Fall.

• Breaking out the comforter for the first time in months, wrapped in warmth; memories of Grandma's quilts in that huge farmhouse in Grahamsville.

• Walks in the woods and fields looking at Nature's annual show; knowing your roots in the Catskill Mountains.

• Crisp morning air just after sunrise over the lake, awaiting the first frost.

• Meals morphed into soups, stews and slow roasted meats, smells and memories wafting through the air.

• Looking forward to family gatherings over the holidays as you do each year. 

This is Autumn for me. My favorite season.

© 2013, copyright Thomas MacEntee

The Book of Me - Prompt 3: Your Physical Self

[Editor's Note: The Book of Me is a series of writing prompts focusing on lifestreaming or preserving one's own memories rather than those of our ancestors and family members. Click here to read more.]

This week's prompt in The Book of Me series focuses on the physical self, a topic which has always been difficult for me to discuss. While you wouldn't know it by looking at the photo above, taken just for the San Francisco Symphony's Black and White Ball in May 1987, I've struggled all my life with a weight problem.

I've fought the good fight on several fronts. I was overweight as a child, more so after my parent's separation and subsequent divorce in the late 1960s. Emotional eating has been a condition that I've come to understand better as the years go by. In addition, I am cursed with genetics which insist on making me a fat-storer and a "square shaped person." The running joke is that friends can always pick out one of my relatives at a family function since the men seem to be built just like the women: short, dumpy and as tall as we are wide.

In the mid-1980's, as I dealt with my sexual orientation, I decided to embark on a weight-loss program which resulted in my losing over 100 pounds in an 18-month period. I took up weightlifting, running 10K races and ballroom dancing. And it seems a penchant for peroxide and too much sun (Exhibit A above). Years later, an accident in 2001 would severely impact my ability to exercise for several years and resulted in the "weight creepage" as I call it. Add in arthritis from all those activities in the 80's and 90's and it becomes more difficult as one gets older to move and exercise.

While I haven't always come to accept my body, in my later life I've come to understand it better. I know what can and should be done, but we all know that saying and doing something are two different things. Rather than focus on physical appearance, my goal is (and always should be) to focus on physical health. Eat right, sleep enough and exercise; everything our mothers told us, right?

I still hold out hope that I'll arrive at that crossroads of body acceptance and good health, even if society pressures me to look a certain way. And given that I don't have any "twerking" engagements booked in the near future, I think I am good right now.

© 2013, copyright Thomas MacEntee

The Book of Me - Prompt 2: Your Birth

[Editor's Note: The Book of Me is a series of writing prompts focusing on lifestreaming or preserving one's own memories rather than those of our ancestors and family members. Click here to read more.]

This week's prompt for The Book of Me focuses on birth and coming on to life's stage. Many readers have already read my birth story which is a bit more unusual than most, but here it is again.

I was born on 25 December 1962 in a small town of about 5,000 people in upstate New York called Liberty. I was not due until around 1 January and my mother went into labor without even knowing what had happened. I was her first born and as I remember her telling me, she always had to go to the bathroom quite a bit when she carried me. So, when her water broke, she had no idea that the labor process had started.

She went through the entire Christmas Eve going to family functions and even attending Midnight Mass. As was common in my Irish family, everyone would go back home and play cards and drink through the night. Well, about 4:00 am Mom realized that her bundle of joy was arriving a bit early.

I was delivered on a Tuesday at 6:50 am at Maimonides Hospital which is no longer open, but here is a current photo. I've been told that since I was a Christmas baby I was placed in a stocking and then in a bassinet in the maternity ward, yet I can't seem to find any photo to prove this!

The photo above was taken in my first year, 1963 in Liberty. The one thing I remember most from my family stories is that I was a fussy and colicky baby . . . quite a handful even at a young age. Many would say that I still am!

© 2013, copyright Thomas MacEntee

The Book of Me - Prompt 1: Who Are You?

[Editor's Note: The Book of Me is a series of writing prompts focusing on lifestreaming or preserving one's own memories rather than those of our ancestors and family members. Click here to read more.]

Who Am I?

• I am Thomas.
• I am a child of G-d.
• I am living in the mid-20th to, hopefully, mid-21st centuries.
• I am living in Chicago, United States.
• I am gay.
• I am my mother's son and caretaker.
• I am a partner.
• I am the steward and keeper of my family's history.
• I am a genealogy professional.
• I am an educator.
• I am a techie.
• I am opinionated.
• I am inclusive.
• I am a thinker.
• I am a history geek.
• I am tireless.
• I am an observer.
• I am fearless.
• I am outspoken.
• I am a doer.
• I am an organizer.
• I am a curator.
• I am restless.
• I am unique.
• I am Thomas.

© 2013, copyright Thomas MacEntee