Do You Have Any Tattoos and What Are Their Significance? (Mimi)

I don't have any tattoos. But I do have a tattoo story although your mother doesn't remember it this way. Once upon a time, I was at work on a Saturday night and I got a call from your mother who was in tears. She had just gotten home after a really bad experience with a guy she was seeing at the time and needed her mommy. So I went home and she started to tell me about all the terrible things that had happened to her. She went on and on and her heart was breaking at being betrayed by this guy. I was devastated to hear that someone was cruel to my baby girl. She was crying and I was crying and suddenly, out of the blue, she blurted out..."and I have a tattoo!" And that was how I found out about your mother's rose tattoo.

I also found out about her second tattoo accidentally. If I remember that one, she was wearing a short top and it peaked out at me above the waistband of her shorts. I think I just shook my head and wondered what she was thinking since tattoos have never been attractive to me. Oh well, it was her body and she was a big girl at the time.

I never knew the stories behind your mom's tattoos until she wrote this Memory Jar entry for you. She said that I never asked and so she never told me before and she is probably right.

Describe a favorite childhood friend and something you did with her or him. (Mimi)

I don't remember having a lot of childhood friends. I was the oldest of five children and I remember playing mostly with my sisters when we were little. One of our favorite games was playing school with Karen and I fighting over who would be the teacher and Teri NEVER getting to be the teacher. We also played store with empty boxes provided by Nana. We also used to "hike" to the Shoe House and to Matthews Stables which was owned by your Grandpa Art's family.

We went to Catholic school and our parents were a bit snobbish about it and felt that we shouldn't associate with the neighbor kids since they weren't Catholic. Every now and then I was allowed to play with Cheri who lived down the street. Her family was from Buffalo and she was nuts about horses and the most memorable thing that I can remember about her was her obnoxious laugh. We also occasionally were allowed to play with Eileen and Carol who lived next door to us. They were the oldest two children in a large rather rough family. My mom was very hesitant to allow them in the yard for fear that their bad qualities would rub off on us kids.

During the school years, I remember having a different best friend each year. My childhood was rather controlled by my mother and we didn't do the things that other kids did so it was hard to have anything in common with my schoolmates. They would go to parties and to outside activities such as bowling or roller skating and I was not able to join them in any of these things. There were sleepovers that I was never allowed to participate in. My mother didn't drive and my father worked second shift most of my school years so we basically went to school and came home. I think that might be part of the reason that I developed into a book worm as a kid. I was the loner who was content to sit in the corner with my book and the one place that I did visit regularly were libraries.