Debbie's Blog: May 2017

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Happy 16th Birthday Marley!

Birth to 16 in a blink of an eye!

I remember the day she was born like it was yesterday. My first grandchild!

Marley has always been everything a grandchild should be and I couldn't love her more.

Happy 16th birthday, sweetie.

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Throwback Thursday - The Swamp at the end of Oleander Street

I have so many good memories about "the swamp" at the end of the street where I grew up, Oleander St., in West Springfield.

In the picture below, I am standing with my friend Carl Natti. He lived on Primrose St., which was at the end of Oleander St. His house backed up to the swamp.

The only time I was allowed to go down to the swamp was in the winter, to ice skate.

I used to sneak down there, only to hear my grandmother yell, "DEBORAH", and I knew I was in trouble.

When I got a little older though, I used to have "clubs" (usually in our chicken coop) and one of them was a hiking club. The picture below is of my friends Marie Benjamin (left) and Doris Watson, two members of my hiking club.

I loved that swamp.

There was also a part of the swamp, further down towards the center of town, where we used to go sledding.

I haven't been in that swamp for years; over 50 years.

I have been telling Paul for a long time that I wanted to go back to that swamp and just walk around and see if anything looked familiar.

This past Saturday we set out to explore the swamp. Since there is no entrance, that I know of, that doesn't include going through private property, I thought maybe we could access it from the end of one of the streets close to the center of town where I used to go sledding, and just walk across the swamp to get to "my part."

We found out this was not possible. This, too, went through private property.

We decided that if we (I) really wanted to do this, we were going to have to knock on a door and ask if we could walk to the back of their property.

As luck would have it, when we parked on Primrose St., there was an elderly man working on his flowers in front of his house. It was actually Carl Natti's house. We told him what we wanted to do and asked if we could walk to the back of his property. He was very nice and said that he would go with us. He told us he had lived in this house since 1984 and had heard the name Natti. I told him of my love affair with the swamp! He seemed to like it as much as I did.

To my surprise, the swamp was covered with water! Much more than I remember; maybe because it was Spring. I only remember one section of it, right behind Carl's house, where there was like a little pond. The rest of it was just, well, "swampy".

He said that we were welcome any time to come back and look at the swamp. I told him that it would be fun to come in the winter when it was frozen over.

He introduced me to his next door neighbor, a young woman with two young girls. She said that the girls love the swamp too. I said to her, "Maybe some day, 50 years from now, her girls will knock on the door of the house they used to live in and ask to visit the swamp."

I know this all sounds a bit silly, but it was such a fun time for me.

Saturday, May 20, 2017

A funny little story about Paul's rocks

Today, our landscaper/friend Joel came to do the Spring cleanup of the front of our house. When we took out the huge bushes in the front of our house in 2012, Joel designed the front and has taken care of it in the Spring and Fall ever since.

He decided that I needed something on the driveway side that was "of interest" in the winter because everything else died down then. He said that he noticed that we had a stone wall behind the deck and wondered if he could use one or two of them.

Paul told him the story of those stones. Years ago, when we would go on a ride, we would bring home a rock and Paul built a stone wall with them. Each rock was numbered on the bottom and he kept track in a book where each rock came from. In fact, one time one of Mark's friends was at the house and they got talking about the rocks. Knowing Paul, his friend (I can't remember who it was but I think it was Mark Severino) said, "He probably has them all numbered." Mark said, "Actually he does." They got quite a laugh out of that.

Joel also said that he saw some pavers (from our neighbor Judy when she re-landscaped her yard) under our deck when he was getting the rocks and he wondered if we would like him to make a border with them on the driveway side. We said that we would love it.

Well, while Joel was taking one of those rocks out of the wall and hosing it down, we were backing down the driveway leaving to do an errand, and Joel yelled down the driveway, "Number 124." Too funny.

Later that evening when we got home, we saw that he had not only done the rocks, but also the paver edge. I sent him a text to thank him.

We both thought it was hysterical about rock 107 and 124, and the 3rd rock that wasn't numbered!

PS The next day I took a picture of what he did. Doesn't it look nice? Joel's the best!

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Throwback Thursday - Weekend Vacation Trip to the Cape the Summer of 1968

My best friend in high school, Cheryl Walker, and her parents used to spend summer vacations at the Cape. In the summer of 1968 they invited Cheryl's boyfriend, Nicky, along with me and Paul to visit them. We had all just graduated from high school.

This is a picture of what I put about that trip in my scrapbook back then.

These are the instructions for getting there that Cheryl wrote for us:

I'm so glad I have these scrapbooks (3) starting in junior high, but I wish I had words to go along with the pictures and "stuff". I guess back then I thought I would always remember what happened.

What I do remember about that trip is getting there at night, spending some time together and then Cheryl's parents shuffling us off to different parts of the house to sleep, lol!

The next day we took a trip to Provincetown. I had never been to the Cape and I loved every minute of it! We went for a sail on the Schooner Hindu. I had never been on a sailboat before; everything was all so new to me.

Afterwards, we looked in all the little shops in Provincetown, and Paul bought me these little shell people.

I think there were a few more, but these are the ones that have survived.

These are a few pictures that I found on the Internet of the Hindu. Actually, it still sails out of Provincetown!

From http://www.sailschoonerhindu.com

"One of the oldest, most historic wooden schooners in the Florida Keys, sailing out of Provincetown, Massachusetts since 1946. Built in 1925, Hindu is 90 years young and sails as good as she looks. The crew spends Winters in Key West and Summers in Provincetown, offering daily sailing excursions aboard the Schooner Hindu."

*****Update 10/2020

In a trip to the Cape Paul and I found the cottage in Dennis Port that Cheryl and her family stayed at in the summer of 1968 where Paul and I, along with Cheryl's boyfriend Nicky visited. I brought pictures of the directions that were in my scrapbook and we actually found the cottage. So fun!

Monday, May 8, 2017

Happy Birthday Paul!

This is a picture of Paul (right) and his good friend Ralph Lathrop. It was taken at our church, Bethany, on December 6th, 2015. When I saw them standing in the foyer together looking like twins with their bald heads and gray goatees, lol, I just had to take their picture.

This was Ralph's first time in church since his stroke in the beginning of November, 2015. He went to Brigham and Women's in Boston and then to rehab.

These are the scrapbook pages that I made of this time.

Ralph had been diagnosed with breast cancer in November of 2012, and had been doing really well until this stroke three years later.

A few days after he got home from rehab, Ralph's brother flew up from Florida and drove Ralph and Linda down to their condo in South Carolina where they have been spending the winters for quite a few years.

He has had his ups and downs health wise but had been holding his own until this Saturday, May 6th when he had a massive aneurysm and was placed on a breathing tube until his sons could get there on Sunday, May 7th.

What has all this got to do with Paul's birthday?

Unfortunately, the day Ralph passed away was the day before Paul's birthday and the day we had his birthday party with the family. We all tried to be upbeat for his party but there was an underlying sadness. I'm sure, every birthday for Paul from now on, he will remember his friend Ralph. Maybe that's not a bad thing. Rest in peace Ralph. The Radtkes love you!