I have to say that my mind triggers with the most innocent of stimuli.
Seeing this unwavering “-6 Fahrenheit” notation at the bottom lefthand corner of my computer screen, just erased over half a century from this poor boy’s attention. I’m back in the Bronx in the late 1960s.
My grandfather, Spaghetti, was a quiet man, but when he did speak, he could coin some colorful descriptions that just stayed with this impressionable Bronx boy, especially when I was conscripted to shovel snow back at the McCaffrey house on Mosholu Avenue – like during the NYC blizzard of February 1969. Spaghetti was a bull, so he handled plowing a center path down the driveway with ease while the child-age males in the family struggled to follow him working at widening the path he carved.
The snow removal effort in early February 1969 was very much like bailing out the Titanic. Continuous snow fell over three days as fast as we could shovel it. We froze our asses off. The only way you could be freed from the chain gang was if you cried loud enough for my grandmother, Posey, to hear you and come out to rescue you. That was dangerous, because you risked having your eyes frozen shut if she failed to hear your wailing over the regular wind shears that made the fallen snow drifts look more like a frozen angry sea during a typhoon. And then you had to shovel blind.
It was during one of the sub-arctic expeditions from our back yard to the sidewalk out front that Spaghetti stopped his shoveling just long enough to declare to Father Winter – like King Lear during his tempest – that “It’s as cold as a witch’s tits in a brass brassiere!”
The words formed and hung there, condensing before me in the freezing breath of his northern Irish brogue. It was an incantation. Pure Celtic magic.
Now this traveled right over the heads of my younger siblings, and my older brother stoically played everything but the beatings he liked to administer very close to his vest, but the phrase was just catchy enough to lodge in the mind of this over sexualized twelve-year-old hurtling towards his teen-age years. The hormones were pumping. I was already growing sideburns.
You see, my older brother and I had already found my father’s stash of Playboy Magazines in the back of the bottom drawer of his home office file cabinet.
Indeed, Jackie Vaughan and I had recently survived being caught by the old Irish proprietor who was the owner and namesake of Vinnie’s at the bottom of Mosholu Avenue perusing the centerfold of the latest edition of that mind altering magazine with the threat of telling the Monsignor and our parents. Old man Vinnie never did tell anyone, but I stopped going to weekly confession and avoided Vinnie’s shop for years afterwards.
Anyway, Spaghetti’s colorful turn of phrase landed at just the right time of my life.
You see, I not only was fascinated by females, I was enchanted by sorcery, reading whatever books on the subject I could swipe from head shops or magic emporiums down in Manhattan. That’s an occult interest I maintain to this day.
But far more importantly, at the time, I had the biggest crush on the actress, Elizabeth Montgomery, as manifested in her character, Samantha Stevens, in the top-rated television show, Bewitched.
I had a double crush on Samantha’s wicked twin cousin, Serena (of course I knew it was EM playing both roles). It was the wildness and dark hair of Serena’ character that nailed it for me.
Serena | Bewitched Wiki | Fandom
Here’s a factoid. EM’s real-life niece lived in Riverdale for a while, and she had a lot of the same genetic and magnetic sexual appeal of her aunty, so much so that she was quickly taken out of circulation by one of the older alpha males in the neighborhood, Brendan Nugent (who taught me how to drive a school bus). She moved away before she ever returned to the dating pool. Sigh.
And my obsession really wasn’t my fault. It’s always about the subliminal messaging, isn’t it?!
But I digress.
As soon as Spaghetti uttered those words my mind went to images of the subject of the incantation by conjuring images of EM. I had never heard the word “brassiere” before, but my Catholic school advanced educated mind kicked in and, by breaking down the syllables, quickly established its morphology – which led to the conclusion that Spaghetti was invoking an archaic form of a women’s undergarment. Good enough for me. At that time, the word “knickers” was enough to trigger me.
Anyway, with those images streaming in my head, my body’s temperature stayed well above freezing for the remainder of the 3-day blizzard, and the nonstop shoveling sapped enough of my strength to prevent me from going blind chasing other indoor pursuits. Thank you, Spaghetti, you knew how to work the Celtic magic in your own rough way and guarantee survival for your grans.
So, whenever it gets really cold here in NoCo, my mind returns to Spaghetti’s catchy phrase and Elizabeth Montgomery. Maybe that is why I can walk barefoot in the snow.
Another factoid, when Lisa and I visited Salem, Massachusetts, I made sure to spend a little devotional time in Samantha Steven’s presence.
Salem Travel Guide – Jessica Litras | Travel & Lifestyle Blog
One other Salem story from the same trip. Lisa and I stayed in a cool B&B that was right out of a horror story. We slept in one of those huge 4 posts beds, with the canopy and netting, etc. Everything in the room captured centuries past.
Anyway, Lisa was in the adjoining bathroom blow drying her hair while I sat on the bed in the corner waiting for her to finish. The blow dryer was old school and loud, so we had to shout at one another while it was blasting.
That ended up being great training for how we communicate now.
Anyway, while I was sitting there, the large black, oak door that opened into the single room unlatched and slowly started to open – eerie creak and all. There was no one in the doorway or the empty hall behind it. I called to Lisa to come see what was happening, and the door slowly closed again and latched. By the time Lisa walked back in the room, I was doing my best Honeymooners – “Homina-Homina” – impression:
Maybe it was EM? That’s the stuff that dreams are made of.
Well, that little trip down ma-memory lane was fun. Hope I didn’t offend too many of my fine, five readers with my honest recollection of far more innocent times in my life. I share these backstories here, so that you can distill the method to my literary madness. And anyone who knows me – or at least has read my novels – also knows that I come from powerful matriarchal roots, married a no-bullshit woman, raised a take-no-prisoners daughter and have the deepest respect for the opposite sex.
Just don’t get me started on the derivation of the Bronx slang term, high beams.
And no matter what else we get up to on this frozen Monday, let’s make today a great one.
