Looking up my Past

 I loved how my parents were so busy and happy in Virginia.  They often took the train up to NYC and ate at fancy restaurants and saw amazing musicals like “My Fair Lady”, “Camelot” and “Annie, Get your Gun”.  There is a story that my mother fell asleep during “My Fair Lady” and missed the whole play.  We never got to go with them, because we were little, and my parents did not want us to be exposed.  I think I envied them, and yet I did know that I wasn’t able to be out that late.  Also, I was the oldest, and everything had to be okay with my younger brother, and he was not interested in such things.  My Husband Bill had completely different experience.  He traveled to NYC with his parents and grandparents, also by train, and they let him, and his sister, be the center of attention.  He got to wait after the show for autographs, and he had lot of stars, like Ethen Merman, Julie Andrews, and Howard Keel signing for them.  The difference may have been that his parents and grandparents didn’t smoke or drink, and my parents did, in spades.  So, his family happily went along, but my parents would not have liked us around them.  They ate late and were drunk and goofed up when they saw shows.  I would have probably loved going, but with a different family, not my own.  For my family, the night was for adults, and when we were rarely taken to Richmond for a night show, our parents were elsewhere during the event.  probably drinking and smoking and barely making it back in time to pick us up.  My family was all about the exclusion of parents vs kids, while Bill’s family was centered on what the kids wanted to do.  So, I got to go to Washington, D.C. and see the museums and art and places like Mount Vernon, and the Capital area, but at night, I babysat for my brother and my little friend.  Different worlds indeed.

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