The Biggest and the Best

One time, Grandma Tolley and Uncle Jim were at the zoo. They, as well as a whole bunch of other folks were looking at an exhibit of some of the world's biggest cockroaches. Always the comedian, Uncle Jim took advantage of the situation. In a loud voice, He says, "that's nothing. We've got bigger ones than that at home!" Everyone turned to look at Grandma, because Uncle Jim, who had been standing next to Grandma, was gone.

Dancers in the Family

While it can certainly be said that Tolleys are performers, we have had several dancers in the family. Uncle John danced in several school musicals, but Aunt Carrie actually took dance lessons. She performed onstage at McCormick Place in downtown Chicago. Perhaps if you ask her, she will tap dance to Sinatra's "Love and Marriage," like she did back in the day. I remember thinking that her little pink and white costume was very glamorous. Of course you had a couple of glamorous dancing costumes yourself. I will never forget the day your dance troupe was performing at the grand opening of the new Metrolink station. On our way to catch the train, we ran into a prostitute who told you that she liked your sparkly pants. You can all trace your talents to Grandpa Tolley, the original family dancer. Back when he was a teenager, he danced on TV with a group called the Polka Teens. I'll bet they also had glamorous outfits because this was like an early MTV. I keep hoping someone posts an old movie of the Teens on YouTube. So far, no luck.  It is rumored that Grandma Tolley had something to do with the breakup of The Polka Teens. Teenage bombshell that she was, it seems that she lured Grandpa away from dancing with the Teens. So maybe all the Tolleys have a little bit of dancer in us. That would explain why some of us like sequins so much.

Tolley Wrapping Paper

Every Christmas, the Tolleys gather around a bunch of newspaper-wrapped gifts to celebrate the holiday season. In the past, the presents had numbers on them instead of names, but Grandma would routinely lose the list that matched the present numbers with the kids. As we got older and moved away from home,  grandma started putting our names on the presents. But the tradition of wrapping paper made of newspaper continued. Why did we start using newspaper for wrapping paper? Because Tolley kids couldn’t leave well enough alone. Whenever there was a present under the Christmas tree, each of us would imagine that the present was for us. Someone would eventually lose control and start picking at a corner of the wrapping paper to get a peek at the box beneath it, and pretty soon, all the presents had little corners torn, like everything was wrapped by a dog. So Grandma started using newspaper to wrap presents because it got to be pretty expensive rewrapping  all the torn packages after us kids were through. I’m sure she will tell you that she still uses the newspaper to wrap presents because it’s cheap, but deep down inside, I think that she is remembering us little kids. Then again, maybe I’m wrong. I was never right at guessing the presents, either. I'll  have you know that I never lost the list!!  The first layer of newspaper was sealed with duc tape and the second layer applied to help prevent snooping. Mom

Punkin's Last Stand

Punkin was the world's meanest cat. She hated everybody, and this only got worse as she got older. She was an alley cat who kind of adopted us and slept in a box in our garage. One Chicago winter night, Grandpa came home from work and saw her in the little cold box. Being a big softie, he brought her into the house "because it was so cold," and she stayed forever. This was when we lived at 59th & Lawndale. Punkin later moved with Grandma and Grandpa to the house on Millard Ave. Punkin only liked one person at a time. She was my cat from 2nd grade till I went to college, then she kind of decided that she liked Uncle Jim and became his cat. She kind of knew when you needed a cat and when you needed to be left alone.  As she got older, she started to age. Her eyesight started to go, and I think she had some arthritis because she had a hard time moving around. Her hair got all clumpy and she kinda smelled.  So one day, this mean and ugly cat was relaxing on a kitchen chair at Grandma's house on Millard Ave. when Sid, the young german sheperd saw her there. Now Sid wasn't very bright. Grandpa Tolley brought him home from the police department because Sid couldn't cut it as a police dog. (They say he had bad hips, but I think there might have beeen a little bit more to it than that.)  Sid comes bounding into the room, as was his style. Seeing Punkin on the chair, I guess he figured he would say hello, maybe play a bit. Because Sid's head was at chair level, it was easy for him to poke Punkin with his nose. That was a mistake. Punkin clawed Sid's nose, and in the process, got her claw stuck in his nose. Poor Sid was yelping and backing away, with a spitting cat stuck to his nose.  Punkin picked that moment to die. The spitting stopped and she became a deadweight on the dog's nose. Everything got worked out, and Uncle Jim gave Punkin the grand funeral that she deserved. He buried her in a beer carton at Sundown Meadows, a popular lake for parties.

Oh Christmas Tree

The Tolleys had a ratty looking artificial Christmas tree to symbolize the festivities of the season, and the festivities began with putting up the tree. Now, I have nothing against artificial trees. They don't have that piney smell, but they don't rot, either. Or so you would think. Our tree was ancient. When fully erected and poofed, it never looked like the picture on the box. No matter, the picture on the box was long gone, much like the instructions for putting the tree together. There was a general plan of inserting branches into the center "trunk" of the tree, and that was pretty much it. At one time, each branch had a color painted on its end to help you put the tree together, but over the years, the paint had all flaked off. Every year we would scrutinize the branch ends like we were on an episode of CSI, yet still we had our doubts. You would think that the size of the branches would give us a clue, but our yearly rush to take down the tree and put out Easter eggs had made us squish all the branches together to fit in the decaying box until next year. Everything was a little bendy, but with an "artistic" view of trees and some squinting, our tree was passable as a tree. Now it was time for the ornaments. Remember the scene in Charlie Brown's Christmas where the kids all get together around the skimpy Christmas tree? With the help of holiday magic, their busy little hands transform a sad little tree into a thing of beauty? That never happened for us. Our ornaments consisted mostly of things us kids had made in school, brownies or cub scouts. Lots of faded construction paper, sequins and macaroni. Grandma had a couple of nice ornaments, but over the years they started to look as "well-loved" as the other ornaments. Styrofoam gingerbread had bites taken out of it and glitter was spread to other ornaments, making everything look like it came from a holiday rave. And dangerous. Our ornaments were dangerous. We had metal can lids decorated with ribbon and Christmas card pictures. One cut from one of those and you risked both botulism AND tetanus. That's why adults today secretly make fun of safety scissors and bike helmets. We think kids today are weak. And after all our hard work, Punkin would climb in the tree and we would lose half of any glass ornaments on it when the tree hit the ground.  After we rescued the cat and tied the tree to the wall, we stood back and admired our  tree. Clumps of ornaments where some kid had gotten bored and put them all in one spot competed with the (sometimes) twinkling lights reflecting off of the broken ornaments on the floor.  The tree may not have been beautiful, but the memories are. Hi Kid,   You should includ the story of how we came about that tree in the first place. We had a real tree that was very dry. Your Mother was out last minute shopping on Chridtmas Eve. There was a sale at JCP's so she bought the tree. When she got it home I took the old or real tree down. While you kids and your Mother were decorating the new tree I carried the old tree to the alley and set it on fire. Some of the neighbors asked what the heck I was doing. I told them that you kids had been bad during the year so  Santa was not coming. Love, Dad

The Banana Monster

Our house on 59th Place had an old, scary, stinky basement. We never played there  or used the space for much of anything, although it would have been a good place to play medieval prison.  When Grandpa and Grandma decided to remodel the basement, they had to have the floor broken and the stairs taken out in order to pour a new concrete floor. Now the basement really looked scary, with a dirt floor, a bare lightbulb for light and a ladder leading up to the kitchen.  This is where the Banana monster lived. And of course, Uncle John was involved. Shortly after the basement was torn up, Uncle John started telling the story of the Banana monster. It seems that the monster lived in the basement and waited for children who went downstairs to get the laundry. We were terrorized for weeks, because it was some time before all of Grandpa's police friends could get the day off to help pour the new floor. We shuddered every time Grandma asked someone to help get the laundry, because it was so dark down there and Uncle John had told us such horrible things about the Banana monster. But one day we decided that we had had enough of the Banana monster. We worked it out so that Grandma insisted Uncle John go in the basement. I was already down there, wearing a yellow blanket and waiting. I think that Uncle John must have believed his own stories because when he saw me coming towards him and looking like a big yellow banana ghost, his eyes got really big and he let out a big scream. And that was the end of the Banana monster. Uncle John never talked about it again.

Swing Sets and Stuff

Growing up on the south side of Chicago, we didn't have much of a backyard, but we used what we had. At various times, we had a pool, lawn furniture, and my all time favorite, the swing set.  The swing set was standard issue swing set material; a monkey bar ladder type thing with 2 swings, a set of rings and a trapeze. It took up most of the yard and left a big dirt spot where us kids had trampled all the grass.  Now the swing set was standard issue, but our imaginations were much bigger than that. With a little help, It became a circus tent, a pirate ship or a rocket. We were quite fond of tying sheets or ropes to the swing set in order to make boat sails or make a ladder to escape from jail. We all got fake names when we played on the swing set. I was Laura Lynn the Fin Toadstool, Uncle John was Jonathan Livingston Postage Stamp (after the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull, very popular at the time), Aunt Carrie was Caroline Mundeline Clothesline, Uncle Jim was Slim Jim Bowling Pin, and my best friend next door neighbor, Kathy Wallow, was Kathryn Von WallowWhopper.To this day, Kathy and I still use these names. Much like other Tolley adventures, the end of the swing set came about in a dramatic manner. We had discovered that if you hung a painter's drop cloth between the monkey bars, you could swing people. Far. Like into the next yard. Of course the day came when  a neighbor was hurled across the yard, landing face first on the sidewalk. A couple of stitches later and we were closed for business. Something about homeowners insurance.  We moved on to other dangerous games, but thinking about the swingset always makes me smile.

Tutus In Heaven

One morning when you were very little, you asked me how we would find each other in heaven.  "Oh, Honey, of course we will find each other. Mommies can always find their babies, wherever they are." "I don't know," you said. "Wouldn't it be a lot easier if you just wore a tutu?"

Your Mom Has a Vision

Your Aunt Carrie and I went to Maria High School on the south side of Chicago. It was about 2 miles from home, but on the city bus line. So, like every other Catholic school kid, we rode the city bus to school. Sometimes the bus got really crowded, and the driver would just pass the stop you were waiting at because there was no freaking way he was fitting another teenager with a trombone case onto his bus. It was especially bad in the winter when you had to wait for the bus in your school uniform because we weren't allowed to wear those unladylike blue jeans to school. So, there you would be, freezing on the corner, and the bus would just whiz by, filled with lucky kids who had gotten on a stop or two earlier. Those kids would look at you, like they were better than you. And they were. They were on a warm but crowded bus on their way to school, and you were stuck in the cold waiting for the next one. You could just imagine them saying, "Sucks to be yooooouuuuuuuu...." as they rode past. Great way to start the day. It was only a matter of time before I became a member of The Missed Bus Club. After missing mine one morning I joined the ranks of other tardees and made my way to the office for some sort of special dispensation that allowed us admission to our classes.  Now, I had been in many first periods where people walked in late. It was almost always the bus and everyone knew it. So, the stragglers would go to their class, hand their special admission slip to the teacher, and sit down. There wouldn't even be a break in the lecture.  On this day, I quietly entered my sociology class like all the other miscreants I had seen do in the past. But something was different. Instead of just putting out her hand for my golden ticket, my teacher stopped class and asked me why I was late. What? Why was she doing this to me? Everyone knew it was the bus...was I supposed to be an example? I figured she must have thought there was a fantastic reason for me to be late. So I gave her one. "Well," I started," are you familiar with the corner of 59th and California?" At this point, the look on here face told me that she had expected me give the standard bus answer, but I was too invested in my story to let it go. "The corner of 59th and California is very busy this time of the morning. Lo and behold, right in the middle of the intersection appeared a vision of St. Casimir. He was surrounded by lights and glorious music...well, all traffic was screwed up from that point on, and my bus just got here." My teacher just sat there. She took my pass and didn't say a word. Class went on as usual. I thought that this was the end of the matter until I was getting my books out of my locker later in the day. An adulty  voice behind me said,  "I hear you saw a vision today."  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the familiar folds of a nun's habit and I knew I was busted.  See, the nuns who policed our education were the Sisters of St. Casimir, a religious order from Lithuania. I cannot remember the name of their founding city, and it has probably changed names several times since then. This place was a war torn area that turned out tough little nuns (who, in my mind, were no strangers to the tortures of war.) Mother Maria Kaupas was the founder of the order. In fact, my senior year, we presented a musical adaptation of her life for the stage, entitled: To Kaze, With Love." It was kind of like Fiddler on the Roof, with all the harshness of life, but without the chance of love. And St. Casimir made everything better. Being the president of the drama club that year, I was hoping for West Side Story, but I was voted down by anyone of any importance. We took our nuns seriously. The fact that I still remember all this shows how important it was to the nuns. So, in a slight panic, I turned around to see my inquisitor. It was Sister Kathleen, the senior art teacher. I didn't even have her for classes, but it seems that she knew me. She was young and smiling broadly. Turns out that the story of my vision had made it to the teachers lunch table. I started describing the lights and glorious music, but she just smiled and patted me on the arm.  Once again, the miracle of St. Casimir came through for a person in need.

Popsicles

Uncle John woke up hungry one night, and decided to get a popsicle. Being a nice kid, he decided to bring everyone else a popsicle too. Seeing as everyone else was still sleeping, Uncle John left the popsicles on their pillows, next to their heads.  In the morning, everyone woke up with popsicle sticks stuck to their hair and sticky pillows. Nobody knew what happened until Uncle John woke up.

Goldfish

St. Nick’s school carnival was like every other parish carnival on the South Side of Chicago. You had a couple of rides on the corner of the parking lot, a beer garden, home made cakes, and carnival games.  And, like all school carnivals, you could win a fish if you threw a ping pong ball into the little guy’s bowl. The fish never lived too long, partly because of the brain damage from being hit on the head with a ping pong ball, and partly because kids either forget to feed them or they dump a whole box of food into the little bowl.

One year Uncle Jim won a fish. He was very proud of his fish, and vowed to take good care of it. instead of keeping it in the little bowl from the carnival, the fish was now moved to a 5 gallon glass water jug that sat pretty much in the middle of the kitchen.  You could barely see the tiny fish in this big jug, but Uncle Jim paid very close attention to it. Now, Tolleys being Tolleys can’t leave any open opportunity for a joke.  I really can’t remember who actually did it, (probably either me or Uncle John) but somebody bought another goldfish from the store and put it in the jug while Uncle Jim was at school. Imagine his surprise when he came home to find that his fish had a baby! Well! We didn’t even know she was a girl. This was all quite amazing. I think a couple more babies appeared before someone rolled a bowling ball into the glass jug, which broke into a million pieces and soaked the carpeting in the kitchen for days.

Carrots

Aunt Carrie was known to hate carrots. Alot. She would sit there, push them around her plate and pretty much try every way she could think of th leave the table. Grandma always told her that she couldn't leave the table and play outside until the carrots were gone, but that didn't seem to make things easier for Aunt Carrie. One day, she had had enough. Being the last one sitting at the table, it was quite dramatic when Aunt Carrie put all her carrots on her fork and said, "Goodbye outside, hello bedroom." And she flung the carrots off her fork directly at grandma.  Needless to say, Aunt Carrie did not go outside that night. I'm sure the carrot battle continued after this, but this was the biggest and best one.

Christmas Morning

Early Christmas Morning Like all kids, none of us could sleep on Christmas Eve. Even with our special holiday Cold Duck cocktail, it was hard to stay in bed till 7 the next morning. Christmas was just too exciting for sleep. Grandma and Grandpa insisted we wait till 7am, when the sun came up. I'm sure it was something like,"If the sun is not up, then neither are you" because that would be easy for kids to grasp..look out the window. Is there light? No? Go to sleep. You didn't need to be able to tell time. Some had tried over the years to sneak an early peek at our presents, but it was nearly impossible to avoid the creaky board outside your grandparent's door. Grandma had super hearing and would yell at us to go to bed as we tiptoed down the hallway. Nobody slept on Christmas eve night. So it was quite unusual that one early Christmas morning, Uncle John woke everybody up yelling, "Wake up! It's time! It's Christmas!" We were all still really tired, and grandma couldn't believe it until she looked at her clock. It said 7am. We all raced into the living room and started attacking the presents. Nothing was wrapped, just had little nametags on it. The 4 of us kids were done dividing and conquering in just a matter of minutes. Grandpa says now that he remembers wondering why the sun wasn't up, but he didn't think much about it. He went into the kitchen to" put on a pot of coffee," my parent's favorite verb.  Everything was fine and filled with the christmas spirit until grandpa turned on the radio. What he heard was something like:     "Good Christmas morning, Chicago! It's a cold, 3am here in the big city...lets's play a little music for you early risers..." 3am? Did the radio say 3am? Grandpa looked out the window. There was no sign of sunrise. There weren’t even any lights in any of the other houses on our block that had kids. He looked at the kitchen clock: 7:15. The clock in the bedroom also read 7:15.  Turns out that Uncle John had fast forwarded all the clocks in the house by four hours. Magically, he got past that squeaky board outside Grandma’s door and got into their bedroom (remember, Grandpa Tolley was a cop). No one knows how he did it, and Uncle John hasn’t given up his secrets.