I would not have whited out
him but this is not about
Sam and Grace Oliverio.
It is a collage of their off-
spring: Linda, Paul and Judith.
The one who appears the oldest
(and the most mysterious)
is actually the opposite.
The infant in the two left-side photographs
is beaming with pride and joy because
at the time those pictures were taken
Sam and Grace had only one child.
That year was 1948.
I was born the following year and the picture of me
on the beach was taken in 1968.
As for my younger sister: her family had a summer rental
on the coast of North Carolina.
I believe the year was 1990.
She was born in 1955.
That Judith is alive and well is no mystery.
We talked last week and, in July, I had visited
two of her daughters in Baltimore.
Two daughters and Judith's brand new grandson!
Were our older sister still alive, Linda's six-month old
grand-nephew would already know his times table.
I know that to be true because Linda taught me*
the times table before I was old enough to crawl.
Not only is Judith's grandson crawling,
he already knows how to dance
but only when Chubby Checker
is singing The Twist.
As for the great-grandparents he never knew,
here is a picture of them, albeit undated:
 |
| Sam and Grace Oliverio When their total age was less than my current age! * In 1951, this is how Linda spoonfed a toddler the 20-times table: "Twin-T, 4-T, 6-T, 8-T" Whimsically, Linda Oliverio shares her next page with Franz Kafka. |
Tough guy.
ReplyDeleteAu Contraire
ReplyDeleteIt was mighty humble to have blackened my eyes,
darken most of my body and appear
to be seated on a gravel strip.
I was actually twenty feet above the high tide,
purposely seated on a pebble bed and reading
a Sartre (or Camus) book.
That the collage image whited out
the deadly handsome face
of my father was not
the photographer's
intention...
But the text of the page worked around
the mistake of the flash:
I created a "family" page of deeply personal significance
without an emphasis on my parents.