Life On Lavinder Lane

When we were growing up we only had one t.v. and it was located in the living room. Well, that's not exactly true. We only had one working television. The newer one would always be sitting along side of (if it was a console) or on top of (if it was portable) the non-working one. They weren't quick to dispose of anything. When the whole family watched t.v. together, there were only two couches to sit on, so I'd usually opt for the floor to avoid the close quarters. Unless it was Saturday morning or right after school, in which case Priscilla and I owned the couches. That's when we'd stretch out and watch for hours, because we hardly ever met a t.v. show or cartoon we didn't like. Oh, how I longed to be Philly Joe and live in Petticoat Junction.

We actually had a den ,but it was downstairs, and nobody went down there except in the summertime because it wasn't heated. Sometimes DaddyDearest would build a fire for us so we could hang out there, but not often. I really don't remember if there was a t.v. down there, but I know there was a record player and plenty of room for dancing and boy, we loved to dance. It was also the perfect setting for the slow-dancing, belly-rubbing, make-out scenes (we called them parties) that we had in our early teens. There was usually enough drama at one of those to make "It's My Party And I'll Cry If I Want To" the theme song of the evening.

There was a whole lot of wasted space in our downstairs, and by wasted space, I mean rooms that were never used for anything except to house junk. And we sure as hell had plenty of junk. We never had to get rid of anything. If we weren't using something, we could just "store" it in one of those basement rooms until we needed it again. Most everything there became as long-forgotten as the many piano recital pieces we were forced to memorize.

At different times through the years, at least one or two of us girls used one particular room downstairs as a bedroom. J.C. and Suzanne were sharing it back in 1962, when Suzanne helped J.C. climb up and out of the window to the waiting arms of Romeo, and on to the elopement that sent the family into a complete tizzy. Suzanne won the Oscar that next morning for her performance of the innocent, sleeping sister who hadn't seen or heard a thing. I still to this day burst into spontaneous applause when I think of how superb she was. In time, J.C.'s freedom flight actually turned into more of a prison term, so she had to give Romeo the boot a few years down the road.

And the accumulation of junk we left in those downstairs rooms? MommyDearest tapped into that stuff for years. She had more garage sells than Uncle Joe had excuses for not helping out at the Shady Rest.