Hippie Chick: Coming of Age in the ’60s

CHAPTER 1:

A Gift from the Universe

If you tell the truth it becomes part of your past. If you tell a lie, it becomes part of your future.

—John Spence

My mother’s death set me free. It was February 19, 1962. I was sixteen, a junior in high school, and in the throes of teenage rebellion, hating her for being strict and old-fashioned, for never letting me do what I wanted or get my way. Like a typical teenager, I’d yell, I hate you! when she wouldn’t let me shave my legs or get my ears pierced or go to the drive-in movies with my friends. She would come after me and slap me wildly for being so disrespectful, which made me hate her even more. I remember running from her up the stairs and into the bathroom, the only room in the house with a lock.

Open the door! my mother yelled, banging on the door.

No! I answered from behind the locked door. I spent long periods of time in that bathroom with those dirty white tiles and graying walls that hadn’t been painted in thirty years. I opened the bathroom window and looked down from the second story. I could live in here, I thought to myself. There’s water and air, and I could sleep in the bathtub.

Open this door right now! my fantasy of a life free of harassment rudely interrupted.

No, I won’t! If I open the door, you’ll hit me.

I won’t hit you. Now, open it!

You promise you won’t hit me? I pleaded, so wanting to believe her.

Yes, I promise. Now open it!

And so, I gave in, helpless to stand up for myself in the face of my mother’s demands. I glanced at the lock, the only thing standing between my mother and me, and slowly turned it. As I did so, my mother forced the door wide open like a hurricane on a stormy night and started slapping me.

What a fool! I believed her! She’s a liar! My mother lies, and she doesn’t even care, I cried as I tried to protect myself from her flailing arms. I choose to imagine that the best of me cleverly managed to leave that scene through the open window.

More than the bitter smart of her hand across my face, what lingers still is not the humiliation and sting of her blatant lies, but her lack of respect for me. I took it personally, not realizing that was just how it was done then. The irony is that respect was what was being demanded, and yet respect was the one thing that my mother couldn’t give me. Children were not respected. In the midst of it, the realization that my mother never ever apologized to me for anything fueled my indignation.

My father had his own version of disrespect if I was ever brave enough to venture an opinion or seek some justice for myself. Shut up! You’re just a goddamn kid! or You’re still wet under the armpits from your first bath. What the hell do you know about anything? were common refrains from him. I often wonder how my life might have been different had I been treated with respect. I clearly remember promising myself that if I ever had kids, I would parent them differently.

My mother had a bad heart and was unwell from as early as I can remember. The night before she died, she and my father had had a big fight. She desperately needed him to cut her toenails for her and he refused. I felt so sad for her because her toenails were really thick and hard, and she needed help cutting them.

Harry, please, come up and cut my toenails. I can’t do it myself, she pleaded from her bed upstairs.

No, leave me alone, goddamn it! I don’t feel like it, he yelled back from the living room downstairs. Harry was in one of his foul moods.

I remember that night because my Italian boyfriend, Sal, and I broke up for good after a big fight. I lay in bed upset and sobbing—overwhelmed with jealousy and hurt over a girl Sal flirted with. We had been together since freshman year. The problem was that he was Italian, not Jewish, like me, so our love needed to be a complete secret from my family. For nearly two years, I had been sneaking out and telling lies to be with him. Jewish boys would pick me up for dates while Sal waited down the corner for me. When my father took a home movie of a Jewish stand-in giving me a corsage on prom night, I knew I was in over my head.

Our whole identity as a family was about being Jewish. Every Friday night my mother lit candles for the Sabbath. Wearing a piece of cloth on her head, she would bring the light toward her: one, two, three times with her big soft arms. Then, with her head slightly bowed, she would place her hands over her eyes and say a silent prayer, as Jewish women have done for thousands of years each Friday at sundown. Our family always hosted the Passover Seder to a house full of relatives. The Seder, the annual passing down to the next generation of yet another story of how Jews survived oppression, went on for hours. After the story was told and the prayers said, we finally got to enjoy the traditional holiday dinner that my mother had spent days preparing. We were told that passing Judaism to the children was the most important task for Jewish parents. It had something to do with survival, though I didn’t understand why.

The Holocaust ended shortly before I was born. My father, gratefully, did not allow the awareness of that horror to be brought into our house. I didn’t even know about the slaughter of six million Jews until years later. But the Holocaust affected my life anyway. There was in our family—and, I’ve come to believe, among Jews in general—an undefined sense of urgency about things and a general feeling of terror mixed with a dose of shame about being a Jew who had survived.

From my vantage point, all I knew was that dating a non-Jewish boy was the worst thing imaginable. The problem was that Sal and I were crazy in love, and nothing was going to keep us from being together. I felt treasured by him and I couldn’t have that taken away. For me, there seemed to be more reasons to lie than to tell the truth.

The night of that fight, my mother wandered into my room. Perhaps she came to see if I would cut her toenails, but when she saw the state I was in, asked, Why are you crying? I couldn’t tell her. There was no way. She would kill me, I had repeated over and over to myself and to my girlfriends. I was certain of this. The lie had gone on too long. There had been way too much deception to imagine telling her now. I just turned my head to the wall and ignored her.

What’s a mother for if you can’t tell her your problems? she asked, as she turned to leave the room. Though her question surprised me, I said nothing. But something had changed for me. My mother never asked me about my life. Actually, it thrilled me! My mother had reached out to me, even if she did leave the room rather quickly after I turned away. But it was enough for me to notice that maybe I mattered, and with that bit of encouragement, I made a most courageous decision: I promised myself that tomorrow I would tell her about Sal and the lies that had taken over my life. The decision frightened me, but I was dying to be unburdened. I so wanted her to know me. I so wanted to feel like a good girl again.

The next day at school, I was a wreck. I felt nervous and scared the entire day, but I was determined to keep the promise I had made to myself. After school, I went directly home and began to straighten the house and set the table for dinner to assure my mother’s good mood when she arrived home from work. When she finally got home that rainy February night, she quickly threw down her raincoat and umbrella and ran right upstairs to the bathroom. The nurse who came each week to give my mother a diuretic injection was waiting in the living room. What’s with you? You haven’t even had your injection yet! the nurse joked about my mother’s urgency to use the bathroom before her injection.

My dad, who had recently discovered the joy of taking home movies and showing them to the family, had just gotten back his latest Super-8 reel and was excited to share it with my mother. He was threading the film into the projector, but the projector malfunctioned and spit out the film onto the floor. Here, you hold the film while I feed it back on the reel, he demanded of me, becoming frustrated and irritable. I obeyed and stood there, holding the film off the floor, when suddenly I had the sense that it had been too long since my mother had gone up to the bathroom. I dropped the film and ran upstairs.

Ya goddamn kid! my dad yelled after me.

I knocked on the door. Ma? I called. There was no answer. I jiggled the doorknob. The door was locked. I banged on it again. Ma! Daddy! I yelled.

My dad understood right away and ran for his tools and then up the stairs. The nurse followed. My dad managed to pry open the locked door, and there was my mother still sitting on the toilet seat, her body slumped over, motionless, her skin a shocking shade of blue. I cried out, Mommy! although fear stifled the word as the nurse yelled, Oh my God! My dad, the nurse, and I jumped into action as we carefully laid my mother down on the cold tile floor. The nurse took out my mother’s false teeth.

You need to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, she said to me.

But I don’t know how! I cried, horrified that she even thought I would know how to do that.

Okay, you pump her stomach up and down while I do it. I did as I was told, wildly pressing up and down on my mother’s big soft belly with all I had.

My dad ran to call the ambulance. Soon red lights were circling the house, and guys in white rushed up the stairs to the bathroom. After a couple of minutes, I heard, She’s expired. I didn’t know what that meant and for a split second, I held on to a sliver of hope.

Is she going to be all right? I asked, my mind still considering possibilities, though my body already knew.

No, they said. She’s dead.

I didn’t want to believe it. It was too big for me to hear. I ran downstairs to my father. I needed him to hold me and comfort me. Instead, he gruffly pushed me away. Go call everybody. Stunned and hurt, tears streamed down my face as I made the calls. My mom just died, I repeated as I made each call. The words came out of my mouth, but my brain couldn’t connect to the reality: my childhood was suddenly over. My angry and sullen adolescent rebellion against my mother would be the legacy I would get to live with forever.

Soon people began coming to the house, including my oldest sisters, Billie and Irma and Claire. As we stood on the front stoop, I cried, I was waiting for Mom to come out of the bathroom because I was going to tell her a secret I’ve had for a long time.

What was it? Billie asked as she put her hand on my shoulder.

I have a boyfriend, I blurted out. He’s Italian and his name is Sal. I’ve been sneaking out with him for two years, and now I’ll never get to tell her, I wailed.

Billie looked straight at me. Can you imagine if you told her and then she died?

Oh my God! I would have thought it was my fault! And in an instant, I understood what grace is. The relief of not being the cause of her death trumped my disappointment in not getting to tell her my long-held secret. That I didn’t have to keep that solemn promise I had made to myself, to tell her what would have surely broken her already unwell heart, felt like a free pass. I had gotten away with not having to do the one thing in my life that would have taken great courage.

Reflecting back, I feel proud that I made the decision to tell her everything; in the end, it was a gift from the universe to not have to. Sometimes I ponder how it affected my life not to have had the chance to come clean with her. I got to take the easy way out, but surely not without paying a price.

CHAPTER 2:

New Jersey

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

—Anaïs Nin

I was the youngest of six kids. We were five girls and one boy, widely spread out in age. The three oldest were Claire, Irma, and Billie, then after six years, the three younger ones, Carole, David—the treasured boy—and finally, me. I sensed early on that my presence was a burden. Though grateful for my life, another baby girl was the last thing the family needed.

Our once grand three-story house in the Italian–Jewish neighborhood of Mill Road in Irvington, New Jersey stood out of place in the middle of a busy commercial shopping district. Billie told me that Mill Road used to be a dirt road with cows meandering by, and we had had next-door neighbors and even some friends. It was difficult to imagine. Before I was born, the neighbors had sold their homes to the developers and moved away. But my father wouldn’t hear of it. So, they built all around us. By the time I came along, the lower-middle-class neighborhood of Mill Road was leveled and replaced with the Good Deal Super Market, Kartzmann’s Delicatessen, Strulowitz’s kosher butcher shop and others. But the most important store was the one my father built, English’s Mill Road Sweet Shoppe.

Front & center, smoking his pipe, is my dad. That’s Carole crying between his legs; David’s the baby; Billie’s on the left; Irma’s on the right; Claire’s behind Irma; a neighbor friend is next to her. And they still have me to look forward to. It’s 1942. I’ll arrive in three years.

My father seized on the Mill Road building boom early on, seeing an opportunity too good to pass up. Though he had never built any kind of commercial building before, he was a man who worked with his hands. He had eight garages in the backyard that overflowed with tools and equipment of every kind. Besides being a guy who could fix anything, he hated to throw anything away. The yard was filled with a cement mixer, a forge to bend wrought iron, welding equipment, wheelbarrows, lumber, and truck parts, not to mention his prized, gray, 1949 Cadillac. He loved that car so much that he would rarely drive it or let his kids in it except on special occasions. Sometimes my mother would yell, You care more about that damn car than your family!

Yeah, well, maybe I do, he’d shoot back. Ah, Harry and Sally, such was my initiation into the world of relationships.

It was 1950 and I was five years old when the luncheonette finally opened for business. It was a day of celebration and great pride. My mother wore a corsage as she stood in front of the store for a photograph. The Sweet Shoppe had a fancy Formica counter with padded stools that spun around and padded booths in the back.

On weekdays, before school, my mother would seat David and me in a booth in the back for our breakfast among the canned goods, syrups, and supplies. We’d watch as people ran into the store for the newspaper, cigarettes, or coffee.

I loved mornings there, mostly because of those cute little boxes of cereal we had for breakfast. I took great pride in carefully opening the two doors of my Rice Krispies box on the dotted line and pouring the milk in myself. And then, of course, listening for Snap, Crackle, and Pop. After breakfast, we’d walk the ten blocks up Nesbitt Terrace to Chancellor Avenue School. At five and eight, we were pretty much on our own.

David and me, 1949.

The luncheonette was a family business; everyone had a job. Billie and my father worked the grill. My mother prepared the food, and Irma and Claire washed dishes or cleaned tables. David took out the garbage, though he mostly stood around reading comic books at our newsstand. Carole was distinguished for her infamous hot fudge sundaes, piled high with gooey walnut topping, enough hot fudge to clog a horse’s arteries, a mountain of whipped cream, topped off with a bright red maraschino cherry. My job was to sit at the cash register on the big stool spinning around and around. I gave people their cigarettes and took their nickel for the paper. The store was a busy place and pretty much took over our lives—that is, until my mother had a heart attack.

English’s Mill Road Sweet Shoppe, 1949. Photo © Sally English

Everyone said the stress of the luncheonette was too much for her, and she never worked there again. One by one, the family lost interest and began leaving home. David and I were still in school, or we would have left too. The burden of running the store was now my father’s alone.

Overwhelmed and feeling defeated and bitter by the lack of help and interest from the family, he was forced to sell the business. The name, painted in big letters on the side of our house, was changed from English’s Mill Road Sweet Shoppe to Mattie’s Luncheonette.

Times were hard after that. There was never enough money, and the pressure on my father was great. Unpaid bills brought debt collectors to our door looking for him. He sometimes had me answer the door and say he wasn’t home as he stood hiding right behind it. My training in the art of telling lies started early.

My mother’s bad heart and the demise of the luncheonette weighed heavily in the air. My father could never express his grief about what was happening to his wife. Instead he cast himself as the victim and blamed her for everything. In truth, she was his strength. Without her, he could only struggle.

There were some good times at 32 Mill Road. Many of them happened around the old upright piano that stood in its spot for thirty years. We would gather around it while my sister Irma, the best piano player in the family, played our favorite songs. We all sang enthusiastically and loudly. When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair, and A Bicycle Built for Two were always part of the mix. Good Night Irene was my personal favorite, because, although the song signaled my bedtime, I loved that my family changed the words to Good night Ilene. Even my father enjoyed singing into the evening.

From as early as I can remember, my mother was the center of things. She was the one who was always in the kitchen, cooking meals and serving food. Her sister and brother-in-law, Aunt Edith and Uncle Richie, and her brother and sister-in-law, Uncle Morris and Aunt Sue, came to our house every Sunday to visit. They would arrive in the late morning and stay through dinner, just relaxing, eating, and talking. I can’t remember a time we ever went to anyone else’s house just to hang out—my father hated to go anywhere. Nor did our family ever eat out in a restaurant. They put lard in everything, he’d say. The suspicion that something in the food served might not be kosher fueled his stubbornness. Given this, it may seem ironic that we had a restaurant; yet, making and serving quality food was the family tradition that naturally carried over to the luncheonette.

Arguments were a constant at our house, and they were always about money. My father was irrational so arguing with him was not an option. My mother surely learned early on not even to try. Dinnertimes were the worst. It was rare to have a peaceful meal. The family was a captive audience. My father would start in on my mother with something like, I should have bought that property across the way years ago. It’s all your fault. You’ve held me back my whole life. He would become more and more agitated as he went on. His voice would grow louder, and he would get angrier and angrier, and before you knew it, she would be crying. All we could do was be quiet, try not to draw any attention to ourselves, and get away from the table as quickly as possible. No wonder I eat so fast.

In many ways, my father was like a child, one who refuses, or is simply unable, to control his temper tantrums. If ever my parents had to go somewhere, say to a relative’s wedding, he would make my mother a complete wreck, yelling and carrying on. I don’t have any goddamn socks without holes in them. Why can’t they make good socks anymore? or That suit jacket is too damn tight, or Those goddamn shoes, I hate them. And then finally, I’m not going! I hate those goddamn ten-cent millionaires. They’ve never done a goddamn thing to help me, those bastards. And on and on with the goddamns. It was easier to stay home.

In a household filled with tension, it was often my big sister, Carole, to whom I looked for comfort. Six years older than I, she’d help my mother by giving me my bath.

Come stand on the toilet seat so I can dry you off, she’d instruct.

I would giggle happily as she made soft circles of talcum powder all over me, and then finish by powder puffing my nose like a clown.

Come, let’s get your jammies on and go say goodnight.

Invariably, my parents would exclaim as I entered the living room, Who is this little girl? I don’t know her! She’s so clean.

It’s me! I’d whine, playing along that they didn’t recognize me. Then I’d give each of them a peck on the cheek, and off I’d go back upstairs so Carole could tuck me in.

When was the last time your sheets were changed? Carole asked as she straightened my wool army blanket.

I don’t know.

Look at them, they’re filthy! Mom, have you seen Ilene’s sheets lately? Carole called downstairs.

A rare outing with dad in his ‘49 Cadillac, 1952. Photo © Harry English

I know, I haven’t felt up to it. I’ll change them tomorrow, my mother called back.

And why doesn’t she have a top sheet?

She’s fine. Please, don’t start with me, Carole. Just put her to bed and be done with it.

Goodnight, Ilene, my sister said, as she tucked the scratchy wool blanket around my feet.

In 1953, when I was eight, my mother had a major heart operation, one of the first open-heart surgeries. She was forty-six years old. After her heart operation, which required ninety stitches, she was given the gift of recuperating at the Kate Macy Ladd Convalescent Home, offered free of charge to gentle women with little means. I didn’t know what a convalescent home was. I imagined that my mother was having a grand time there.

Visiting my mother (plaid blouse) at Kate Macy Convalescent Home. Photo Credit: Carole English

She was gone for several months, so the task of looking after David and me fell to Carole, who was fourteen at the time. On Sundays, we would go as a family to visit our mother. Carole would dress me up in my special blue dotted swiss dress and put my hair in a ponytail with a bow.

My mother looked so tan and relaxed at the convalescent home, which resembled a beautiful resort with trees and lawns. I never saw her look like that before or after. She adored the Kate Macy Ladd Convalescent Home and said she never wanted to leave that place, which made me sad. Often, I would lie in bed at night and cry: Will my mother ever come home? Is she going to die? And sometimes I’d fall asleep imagining that she was calling for me to come live there with her.

Several articles about my mother’s rare heart operation appeared in the newspapers.

Mrs. Sally English can tell you how thrilling and wonderful all the little everyday commonplace things really are. You see, this happy mother of six, who probably has cooked as many meals as anybody’s mother, never thought she’d be around to do all these dreary tasks. Just about two years ago, Mrs. English was told she had an incurable heart condition. Doctors wouldn’t attempt to tell her how long she had to live, but Mrs. English wanted to know …

Mrs. English decided that maybe the doctors had made a mistake. She found one who agreed with her, and specialists at the University of Pennsylvania hospital proved him correct. A delicate heart operation, only the thirteenth of its kind attempted up to September,1953, … gave me a new life. It was as if God had created a second birth. Philadelphia is where I was brought into the world: and the same city gave me back a life I was told would soon be taken from me. Mrs. English is so thankful for being able to be another housewife, the noblest of all professions.

With my mother away, the house became a battlefield. Carole openly smoked cigarettes, and David took a photograph of her smoking to prove it to my mother. Carole tried to grab the camera from him. They fought wildly. I could only watch, feeling scared at how out of control they were. I was at the mercy of my older siblings, but especially my brother, who enjoyed tormenting his baby sister. Though his distinction as the only boy was important and secure, another baby, three years later, must have taken away from him what precious little attention there was. He took every opportunity to let me know that he wished I had never been born. It could have been so nice between us, as I adored him, but he was edgy. He would pinch me, make faces and laugh at me. You’ve got big teeth and little eyes, he’d tease. David enjoyed making me cry. Then he would taunt me, and I would cry some more. It broke my heart because I loved him. Completely. I held the distinction in the family as the crybaby. I would sob hopelessly and often. I somehow had the job of expressing the pain for the whole family.

After her surgery and months of convalescence, my mother finally came home. She didn’t seem to notice what was going on between my brother and me. Of course, though both parents were distracted with problems of their own, everyone still expected me to help and take care of my mother, and do what was asked of me. The message was that if I didn’t behave, her heart would give out and she could die.

As luck would have it, the largest amusement park in the state of New Jersey was a few short blocks from our house. Over the entry to Olympic Park, a giant SMILE sign welcomed you in. Olympic Park had one of the largest roller coasters in the state, a roller-skating rink, and oh, so much more. It was definitely the place to be on a summer afternoon: rides, cotton candy, and an Olympic-size freshwater swimming pool.

Olympic Park, Irvington, NJ, 1950.

One summer day when I was nine or ten, my mother was