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Authors: Adena Halpern
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that thing while also trying to grab a Barbie paint-by-numbers set off a shelf.
How cool were all those birthdays?
And really, how amazing was my childhood with all the toys FAO Schwarz could provide? Well, it was okay. See, there was one problem: for all those birthdays and all that stuff, I never had a friend to share them with.
Poor little rich girl. That was me. It goes back to the question I asked in the beginning: how much money makes you rich?
Now you get where Iâm coming from.
Iâm not saying it wasnât awesome to have all that stuff. It was like seventh heaven on earth. It would have been a bitch of a decision if my parents came to me one day and said, âYou get a choice: all this great stuff or five really good friends.â Thank goodness that question never came up.
(Wait. I just thought of this. Is this something Iâm supposed to learn from writing this essay? Does all my stuff in seventh heaven equal my childhood? Is that the reason for this essay? Are you giving me a choice? Fine. Iâll take seventh heaven, with my grandparents and Adam. That wonderful guy and my family make seventh heaven worth all of it. If fourth heaven had five really great friends, though, Iâd have to think about it. From what Iâve heard about fourth heaven, though, I strongly doubt it. It doesnât, does it?)
Now, back at the Friends School the kids didnât like me very much. I didnât like them much either. Truthfully, they didnât understand me and I didnât understand them. My friends were my parents and grandparents and uncle. When my parents went out on the weekends, either my grandparents or uncle Morris babysat. I never had a nanny or a regular babysitterâwhat outsider could be trusted with the miracle child?
While I suppose the other kids were having sleepovers and playdates on the weekends, I was learning how to play bridge. I was pretty good at it, too. Other kids got to go to McDonaldâs and Roy Rogers, but I developed a distinct taste for kasha varnishkas. I heard stories from my grandmother about growing up in Strawberry Mansion (which youâd think was a mansion, but actually it was the name of a poor neighborhood in Philly). Because of uncle Morris, I know the difference between the smell of a cheap Phillie Blunt and a Cuban Montecristo, how theyâre rolled, and why one is so much better than the other. My grandfather taught me to recognize the voice of the old Philadelphia Phillies play-by-play man Andy Musser so well that once when I dialed a wrong number and somehow accidentally called Musser, I knew it was him immediately, just from his âhello.â We talked for an hour and a half about his retirement and the glory days of the 1980 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies with Tug McGraw, Pete Rose, and, of course, Mike Schmidt.
From all the Saturday nights watching Channel 12 with my grandparents, I know every Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Jack Lemmon, Billy Wilder, and William Wyler movie so well I could teach a class.
Now, all these things seem warm and loving, and when my grandparents and uncle Morris died, I missed my Saturday nights with them. But as a child, all I wanted were the trips to McDonaldâs and slumber parties my classmates got to have. Not to mention the teasing I endured at school. I was a sixty- five-year-old eight-year-old who had prune juice for lunch and loved it. No matter what fantastic toy I boasted having, they werenât going to accept me.
I only cried to my parents once about the kids teasing me. They had one piece of advice: tell.
Needless to say, the kids didnât like me any better as a result.
So if a kid was upsetting me during recess, Iâd tell. If a kid was trying to cheat off of my paper, Iâd tell. I was always the consolation kid when they picked teams for dodgeball, and I was always the first kid to get rammed with the ball. And I told, which in turn, I am proud to say, got dodgeball
How cool were all those birthdays?
And really, how amazing was my childhood with all the toys FAO Schwarz could provide? Well, it was okay. See, there was one problem: for all those birthdays and all that stuff, I never had a friend to share them with.
Poor little rich girl. That was me. It goes back to the question I asked in the beginning: how much money makes you rich?
Now you get where Iâm coming from.
Iâm not saying it wasnât awesome to have all that stuff. It was like seventh heaven on earth. It would have been a bitch of a decision if my parents came to me one day and said, âYou get a choice: all this great stuff or five really good friends.â Thank goodness that question never came up.
(Wait. I just thought of this. Is this something Iâm supposed to learn from writing this essay? Does all my stuff in seventh heaven equal my childhood? Is that the reason for this essay? Are you giving me a choice? Fine. Iâll take seventh heaven, with my grandparents and Adam. That wonderful guy and my family make seventh heaven worth all of it. If fourth heaven had five really great friends, though, Iâd have to think about it. From what Iâve heard about fourth heaven, though, I strongly doubt it. It doesnât, does it?)
Now, back at the Friends School the kids didnât like me very much. I didnât like them much either. Truthfully, they didnât understand me and I didnât understand them. My friends were my parents and grandparents and uncle. When my parents went out on the weekends, either my grandparents or uncle Morris babysat. I never had a nanny or a regular babysitterâwhat outsider could be trusted with the miracle child?
While I suppose the other kids were having sleepovers and playdates on the weekends, I was learning how to play bridge. I was pretty good at it, too. Other kids got to go to McDonaldâs and Roy Rogers, but I developed a distinct taste for kasha varnishkas. I heard stories from my grandmother about growing up in Strawberry Mansion (which youâd think was a mansion, but actually it was the name of a poor neighborhood in Philly). Because of uncle Morris, I know the difference between the smell of a cheap Phillie Blunt and a Cuban Montecristo, how theyâre rolled, and why one is so much better than the other. My grandfather taught me to recognize the voice of the old Philadelphia Phillies play-by-play man Andy Musser so well that once when I dialed a wrong number and somehow accidentally called Musser, I knew it was him immediately, just from his âhello.â We talked for an hour and a half about his retirement and the glory days of the 1980 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies with Tug McGraw, Pete Rose, and, of course, Mike Schmidt.
From all the Saturday nights watching Channel 12 with my grandparents, I know every Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Jack Lemmon, Billy Wilder, and William Wyler movie so well I could teach a class.
Now, all these things seem warm and loving, and when my grandparents and uncle Morris died, I missed my Saturday nights with them. But as a child, all I wanted were the trips to McDonaldâs and slumber parties my classmates got to have. Not to mention the teasing I endured at school. I was a sixty- five-year-old eight-year-old who had prune juice for lunch and loved it. No matter what fantastic toy I boasted having, they werenât going to accept me.
I only cried to my parents once about the kids teasing me. They had one piece of advice: tell.
Needless to say, the kids didnât like me any better as a result.
So if a kid was upsetting me during recess, Iâd tell. If a kid was trying to cheat off of my paper, Iâd tell. I was always the consolation kid when they picked teams for dodgeball, and I was always the first kid to get rammed with the ball. And I told, which in turn, I am proud to say, got dodgeball
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