Part 2: The House on Warren Street
In the second half of 1956 we moved to this house on Warren Street. I apologize for the photo, it's the worst of the lot.
I had been driving around Keyport for twenty minutes before finding the place and I just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.
It's a pity because even though I don't remember much about the place, the happiest part of my childhood was spent there.
Before we begin, a word about Rita. To my sister and I dad is dad but mom is Rita. Rita had a hair trigger temper and when she got angry
she was angry for the rest of the day. She was nasty and abusive and I had no love for her. As an adult I felt hatred towards her.
But she really didn't deserve it, she couldn't help herself.
Mom's family had a strain of mental illness. There was Rita and there was her sister Kay. Rita once told me about growing up with Kay.
The words she used to describe Kay were the same ones that I'd use to describe her. She could see it in Kay but not in herself.
There was also mom's nephew, Donnie. Donnie had bipolar disorder. Most of his life was spent in a vain attempt to get it under control.
In his 60s his doctors finally came up with a drug cocktail that worked. But Donnie didn't get a chance to enjoy his new found stability, soon after he died of cancer.
Anyway, the point of all this is that we weren't a loving nuclear family. And, at 55, I've reached the point where I no longer hate Rita.
I'll never love her but that's another story. Now on with the show.
I have a few memories of Warren Street. There were older kids in the neighborhood and they'd let me follow them. My room had wallpaper
with horses. And then there was the cross on the church. We could see a church from the upstairs hall window. It had a big cross on top that
would light up at night. I was fascinated by the thing and mom would put me on her lap and sing nursery rhymes. It was, at least for me, a very
happy time. Dad might have felt differently but that's his problem. But when I was three we moved to Keansburg. And I'm going to show you the reason why.
That was my cousin Kathleen's house, it was around the corner from our place. Kathleen was ten years older then dad and she was sort of a big sister to him. She was also principal in one of the local schools (sadly I forget which one). She got the job in the 1940s and that was fairly big. In those days women were teachers and men were principals. She was very, very smart. I found a picture of her after dad died:
Here's my dad's favorite story about her. One day in 1948 her car wouldn't start. But there was something very important going on
at her school and she had to be there. She called her friends for rides but nobody was answering. Finally she called my dad and he
gave her a ride on his motorcycle. The kids at the school were quite impressed.
I strongly suspect that Kathleen was the reason for the move. Dad had a lot of family in Keyport and Kathleen just was around the corner. Kathleen knew
what mom was like and probably would have intervened from time to time. So we had to move. The explanation I was given (when I was a lot older) was that the house in Keansburg
was within easy walking distance of the school. It never occurred to me to ask why I couldn't have ridden the bus in Keyport. I don't know if dad
bought mom's reasoning or decided to keep his mouth shut to keep the peace. Keeping his mouth shut was dad's coping strategy.
I don't really have any other memories of Keyport. Dad went back to see Kathleen a lot. In her 80s she came down with Alzheimer's disease and moved
in with her niece and her niece's husband. I called her up once and she was quite stoic about it. She told me that she had good days and bad days. She said she remembered
me as Henry's son so I had hit her on a good day. I suppose it helped that she lived with two people who loved her. Dad wasn't quite so lucky but that's another story.