Now that I am a middle-aged grandmother, I oftentimes review the hollowed caverns of my decrepit mind and re-examine the things that stand out to me. Thankfully, when I think of something from my past it is always tied completely to a smell, which rises to the surface for me to follow it like a track of footprints toward a warm cabin full of memories in a snowy wood.

My grandmother lived in Brooklyn on East 15th Street and Avenue M. Her house was the place I wanted to be more than anywhere else in the world, mainly because she lived there. Life at 1365 was warm, loving, safe, and secure. Reminiscing about the days when I hid my face in the folds of her house dress fills me with a bouquet of fragrances that are entrances into my past. Every corner of my grandmother’s house had a distinct aroma, inside and out. Avenue M is a station stop on the BMT Brighton Line of the New York City subway, and it was an elevated el train, level with the second floor and in the backyard of my grandparent’s home. Along with the screeching brakes that we could hear from the station, there was always a layer of putrid diesel fuel, which wafted through air like a backdrop to a play.

Inside the house was a cedar chest, whose smell is seared in my mind. Every time it was opened, which was often as a favorite hiding place for children, the smell filled the cedar paneled porch where we congregated daily to watch the parade of shoppers passing by toward Avenue M. Wood smells had a strong impact on my memory, like the inside of my grandfather’s server where obsessive compulsive disorder reigned supreme. Perfectly stacked piles of sorted coins stacked in rows against the side, money wrappers, rubber bands, paper clips, and piles of newspaper clipping stacked in metal, mesh baskets. Mike’s server was the secret place that I would go to get gold and red paper rings from the cigar cases that I could wear proudly on my all my fingers. All the contents of the chest melded together with the spicy, leathery smell of cigars and dried out cherry wood. My grandma’s end tables were slathered with layers of lemony Pledge, and each drawer held a world of adventure filled with a cacophony of smells. A prominent china closet that housed decks of playing cards when opened its trapped, stagnant air held the fragrant promise of afternoon games of Pinochle and Gold Fish. Not to forget an entire second floor, whose wooden floors filled the air with the antiquated wooden smell of a colonial house I had visited. These floors had never been sanded or shellacked and were responsible for many tears shed as a result of deep, painful splinters in the feet of children who refused, after being repeatedly warned, to “…put their slippers on.”
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Every birthday and Christmas, without fail, an Aunt who lived in Australia would send me a birthday card. I’d see the card with it’s foreign postmark and rush to open it. Inside there would always be a crisp $20 note.

I can still remember now how happy that used to make me feel. The promise of this note, given to me by someone far away, who wouldn’t know what I spent it on. Whenever I got money from my parents as a gift, there was always a knowledge that they would know whatever I bought, and therefore it should be acceptable to them. But this faraway Aunt would never know; I had $20, and no one could tell me how to spend it.

Nowadays, I treat $20 bills almost with disdain. In the age of the credit card, I’ve almost stopped using cash all together, and even when I do have actual bills they never seem to amount to much. A grand purchase of something I really want is rarely going to be covered by cash; I now associate the feeling of infinite spending possibilities with an anonymous bit of plastic.

When I think what I spend $20 on now, it amazes and delights me that so much thought used to go into what I’d spend that gift from my Aunt on. There are days when I spend $50 without really noticing on things that life unfortunately deems essential, such as food or gas. A simple amount of $20 is now almost ruined, as my expectations and responsibilities have changed.
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“Welcome to the Guinea Pig Circus!” My voice echoes through the striped tent, building to a volume my five-year-old body could never hope to produce. Sam, the ringleader, stands in the center, a top hat perched upon his salt-and-pepper fur. Goldie has donned a light pink tutu—today she is a ballerina, though she has on other occasions played the role of acrobat, magician, and elephant. Her performance is delicate, sweet, paws skipping over the ground as she dances past lions and bears. The crowd cheers, wild with applause as Goldie takes a bow. The circus floor is covered in flowers, and—

“Leah! How many times have I told you not to take the pigs under there?” The circus tent is ripped off, and by the time it hits the floor it is nothing more than an old sheet. My mother stands above me, exasperated as ever. Sam and Goldie squeak wildly and use this opportunity to escape—Sam’s top hat, a simple affair of colored paper, flies off as he skitters under the couch. The next ten minutes are spent luring him out from beneath it with carrots, although I insist that meat would work better. After all, Sam was a tiger not half an hour ago. Goldie the prima ballerina is already back in her cage, Barbie shoes and ribbon skirt placed haphazardly on the table. My carefully arranged circus is destroyed in the process of “rescuing” Sam, bent aluminum rings and  crooked cardboard platforms signaling the end of the entertainment.

“The circus is over for today, okay? Next time ask an adult to take the pigs out for you.” I nod dutifully at her lecture, but inside I am already planning the next performance. A ribbon laid across the table will be a tightrope, a hula-hoop transformed to a ring of fire. I think my mother is disappointed that she did not receive an invitation—the Guinea Pig Circus is a very exclusive event, stuffed animals and best friends only. It would not be nearly as exciting if it weren’t a secret.

It isn’t until I am older that I realize my furtive actions were hardly as well concealed as I thought they were. My mother could see me dragging the sheet down the stairs, setting up the acts, carefully putting together costumes. She would give me half an hour to play with the pigs, then expose my circus to the living room. This, apparently, was her game—she played the part of an unhappy customer. The circus continued in this fashion for a year or so, until I was too old to carry on the charade. But when Sam and Goldie died, I buried their outfits with them, teeny circus paraphernalia that I had saved for years.

I can only hope that somewhere out there the Guinea Pig Circus lives on, Sam and Goldie its eternal stars.

I took a recent trip to New York to attend to family business. Feeling a bit nostalgic, I decided to drive over to the park near my mom’s house to take a look. You know, for old time’s sake.

Not much had changed since my last visit a decade ago. The basketball court where I dominated in my younger days (note sarcasm) was still there. The same for the baseball field, tennis courts, and handball courts. The small lake looked the same.  The park was quiet except for a couple of mothers with baby strollers enjoying the late morning sun. There was a dopey kid on a skateboard nearby and an older gentleman throwing a ball against the handball wall. Just a quiet Monday at the park.

After taking in the scene, I began to stroll with flashbacks and memories stirring in my head. As I got closer to the handball courts, I recognized the man throwing the ball. He wasn’t just lobbing it either. He was firing the ball against that huge cement wall. I looked closely at the man and I couldn’t believe it.  It was John Verwoert, one of my former baseball coaches and a man whom I had met 27-years earlier. I hadn’t seen him in at least ten years.

“Mr. V,” I yelled.

He walked over to the fence. It took a couple of seconds before he replied in his New York accent, “Billy Rogan. What are you doin’ here? You’re supposed to be in Denvah.”

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When I was about five years old, my parents made the decision to move my sister, brother, and myself from Cincinnati to Washington, North Carolina. Never heard of it? Not surprising. Washington is a little town on the Pamlico river, about fifteen miles east of Greenville and about an hour and a half north of Atlantic Beach. Washington has two claims to fame, the first and most touted being that it was the first town named after George Washington. The second, less known feature is that Washington is located near Chocowinity, home to Fountain Powerboats—a company that specializes in luxury powerboats bought by drug dealers and law enforcement agencies alike. But that is neither here nor there.

When I look back at my childhood, the memories that remain the most clear and the most sentimental center around family trips to Atlantic Beach. Even when we moved back to the Cincinnati area five years later, my parents still loaded us all into a car for the thirteen hour trip back to Washington and the Atlantic Beach every summer. It was a family tradition that could be waylaid by nothing.  No financial difficulties, nor surly teenagers, nor forces of nature could keep the five of us from our yearly trek to the beach.

When we lived in Washington, the trip to the beach was  regular affair. We would often spend long weekends at the Whaler or one of the other many ocean-front hotels. These trips were fun of course, but the highlight of the season was always the week long stay that would occur around late August. My mother was a teacher and my father an accountant, so this vacation was always a last fling before the encroaching advent of the new school year and the fall tax season. My parents would book a week at the Whaler Inn, whose amenities included a fully equipped kitchen. This was an important feature for a family of five; it allowed my parents to bring a car full of groceries along, negating the need for expensive restaurant trips. Over the years, my family established a list of sacred destinations and activities that filled the week with adventures that have remained vivid in my mind for the past twenty years.
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Before there was Six Flags and before there were gravity defying roller coasters that stood you up on your head, there was Ponchartrain Beach. Located on the waterfront in New Orleans, Ponchartrain Beach was responsible for generations of family centered amusement rides and attractions. It originally opened in 1928, and its biggest and main attraction was the Zephyr—the thousand-foot roller coaster that taunted me at the age of six.

Ok, maybe it wasn’t a thousand feet tall, but it seemed like it to me. I used to stare at its intimidating frame as I watched car after car of screaming teenagers ascend into the darkness. I have reason to believe that my father and grandfather were once young teenagers gliding along those rails in the Louisiana moonlight. I unfortunately had not inherited their bravery or mastery of the Zephyr. It was a monster that I seemed to have a love/hate relationship with. On the one hand it was the thing nightmares were made of–wheels clacking, boards creaking with each turn. Its old wooden frame was in desperate need of paint and maintenance and even at a young age I could sense the danger that lurked around every bend.  On the other hand, the shiny metal cars beckoned me to be brave, and more than once I stood in line determined to see it through. Car after car of sticky, sweaty teenagers laughed and whooped as they exited–no one ever seemed disappointed. Still, as I neared the entrance gates, the ratcheting of the roller coaster cars as they began their routine ascent would send me reeling in panic.

Every time we went to Ponchartrain Beach it was the same thing, a desperate dance between a not so brave 6 year old and a not so young roller coaster that had seen its prime. As the years progressed, the longing intensified. Then one night in 1983, I got word that Ponchartrain Beach was closing its doors and I made up my mind that I would join the ranks of the converted and ride the Zephyr.

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With the sudden loss of my father two years ago, it is just now that memories are starting to surface, which brings clarity and understanding to my childhood. My father was a first generation Italian of Sicilian descent who was rooted in the old country even though he was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. My father Phil’s body might have been in Brooklyn, but he was firmly planted in nature in Lecara Friddi, Sicily. No one spoke English in his home, and in those days, when sent to public school, if you couldn’t speak English you were sent home until you learned. He was sent home and allowed back when he had a grasp on the language a year later.

As I age, I understand the conflicts that I had with my father were mainly based in basic geography.  Here was a man who was steeped in old world tradition and culture surrounded by a modern Italian American wife and five daughters and a son. He lived in perpetual culture shock. His background was such that the male was the head of the house, so he exercised his authority with an iron fist and strong determination to control what was oftentimes out of his control.

Nowadays I spend some of my leisure time thinking back on some of the memories that can help me better understand a man whose good intentions, pride, hard work and definition of honor and respect went oftentimes severely misunderstood.
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People talk about all the snow in Buffalo, NY.  Well, it does get its share of the white stuff.  However, nothing like the snow the South Towns get.  The South Towns are exactly that, towns located south of the City of Lights.  They are the winter Mecca of the Western NY area, precisely because of all that snow.  My friends and I loved to ski and toboggan, and later snow mobile and snow board “down south.”  Our favorite winter destinations were Kissing Bridge and Chestnut Ridge.

There were many “firsts” associated with KB and Chestnut:  My first run down a main ski slope at KB, which led to the first time I had to yell for people to “get out of the way” as I picked up too much speed and managed to fall just a few feet before skiing straight into the lodge.  Then, there was the time I had my first, (and last), drink of Southern Comfort, from a bottle passed around under the seats of the bus taking us tobogganing at Chestnut.  I got pretty silly and sick.  Two of my best friends were mad at having to hold my arms to walk around outside, and then hold my head inside the restrooms.  They got over it pretty fast, though, when the group we were with got tired waiting in line and crashed their toboggans down an unauthorized slope.  A couple managed to get their first broken bones that trip.

Mostly, though, our times were great fun.  Even when I was in my twenties and on tour a lot as a singer, there’d still be time for winter escapes.  One year, some musician friends from Hawaii came with us for their first time tobogganing.  The keyboard player was blind, but up for most anything, when he went “sightseeing” as he said.  The rest of his group sat him up front, not one of them wanting to sit there.  I worried that he would have a hard time of it, without the advantage of seeing where he was racing.  Instead, he loved it and was our lead man all day.  In truth, I think the cold was a lot rougher on these Pacific Islanders than the speed out of the chutes.  So, later I took them to my favorite place of all for enjoying winter in the South Towns; inside a lodge by the fire with a hot drink, watching the other snow birds go by.