I got on the phone today with my Mom that was calling to check on us with the bad wind and rain that our region has been getting recently. At first she spoke with my wife as she picked up the phone first. That was good as it gave me a moment to finish my other chatwine.blogspot.com blog on the single-vineyard Mendoza, Argentina wines of the DECERO Winery and Vineyard. We just did a tasting of them this past Friday at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 Tel:202-363-4265 sales@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com also now on Facebook at : Cleveland Park Wine & Spirits and on Twitter at : cpwinespirits ). That blog is now posted and I will start this new one that will record the stories that my mother tells me in person or over the phone.
I like this idea or recording these stories and I hope that others enjoy them, too as they will be like a record of past events that can be charming and informative and sometimes you simply never know : you simply forgot, you simply never knew - and it's fun to have your mother bring them back to life from way, way way back out of the past : a BLAST FROM THE PAST so-t0-speak that you either welcome or not.
I mostly welcome all of these BLASTS FROM THE PAST as it is nice to fill-in some of one's personal history as it helps to inform you also of where you are when you hear them. Cheers and enjoy, ...
My mom asked me about my brother and if I had heard from him? We got into that conversation and then one about taking a vacation and she asked me if I had ever been on a cruise ship? I told her that the only time I remember is when I was five or six years old ( before my two brothers were born in Brazil ) and the three of us had taken a cruise together. She did not remember at first and I said that I was surprised as we had talked about it on several occasions. Her response was : " not recently ". I guess you are right about that Mom. But I continued to talk about it and tell her that I remembered that there was a nice poll and that I had dived deep down into it ...
" Oh, I remember that! That was when we were on a cruise ship between Brazil and New York ". And the details stated to pour from my mother's lips and convey through the wire circuity of the phone network to me here at home in northern Virginia outside of Washington D.C. on a beautiful Sunday on February 27th, 2011. I had walked our dog and done some work in the front yard breaking up fallen branches and raking and also reading the Sunday morning Washington Post newspaper edition ( yes, I still love having a copy of the Washington Post newspaper to hold in my hands and read! That will never change : bring it on! Keep bringing me copies of the Washington Post newspaper that I can hold in my hands and touch and read : I love it!!! ). This last issue has lots for me to read and I will read it over the next two days as there is simply not enough time in the day to do all of this at one sitting.
My mother kept saying that she was amazed that I remembered this almost three month period of ours as we three took a cruise from Brazil to New York : bought a car because it was cheaper in Connecticut and then drove it across the country to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, then to San Fransisco to see my father's mother, then to Los Angeles and Pasadena to see her mother : and then south to New Orleans ( she does remember anything about New Orleans ) . Then we all boarded a steamer boat that took on some passengers as it went back and forth between North and South America carrying goods and merchandise.
The story became more interesting as she told it, I commented on what I remembered and she filled in more of the empty spaces. I was loving it : I always love hearing these stories about my mostly forgotten past. That is why I will write these : to have them as a memory of sorts that will serve as some of our histories together that have long since happened and which it is fascinating to hear and remember and be reminded of.
The cruise line from Brazil to New York was memorable for me because of this challenge of seeing who could retrieve the most of the plates that were tossed into the pool and bring them back up to the surface? The challenge was open to anyone and I was the only child amongst a bunch of men that took part. I was also the one with the most plates to show for my efforts and this according to my mother did not please many of the men. Oh well, I loved it and I still remember it. My mother was also worried that I would hurt myself holding so many plates! I guess everything was alright in the end.
I also told my mother that I remembered finding silver dollars on the ground.
This really got her going and she began to tell the story about her mother and her brother and Lake Tahoe. It was not at their summer home in Lake Tahoe where I had found the silver dollars ( three to be exact : right there as we got out of the car by my feet in a parking lot of a group of shops in Lake Tahoe ).
We were going to the house that her mother that had adopted her had bought and where they vacationed every summer. The house had been sold the year before my mother married my father. She was sorry for that, that the house had been sold. She said it was a year before the marriage and before the two of them had come out here to the East Coast and to Washington D.C. where my father started his career as a career officer for the Sate Department and the American Embassy. This was before I was born.
Anyway, my mother wanted to show my father and me her old summer home in Lake Tahoe. She said that it had changed so much since they had owned it that she did not have the heart to knock on the door and talk to the " new " owners. Too bad, it would have been fun to check that out. But as my mother said at that point in my life it did not matter to me : the lovely lake or the old house or anything except for the three silver dollars that I had found getting out of our car there in Lake Tahoe. That was pretty exciting, really for me that was pretty special!
My mother also told me quite a bit about taking the steamer from New Orleans back to Brazil. It was a ten-day trip according to her and she mostly remembers the captain of the ship coming in search of her and my father as he had something that he wanted us to see. He had been himself called by his team to witness me there all alone on a Sunday in a big room listening to a recorded Catholic service. I was sitting on a hard , wooden chair with my feet sticking straight out in front of me looking straight at the radio from which this sermon was coming out - rapt attention according to my mother and unaware of anyone observing me except when they spoke up and I heard them. None of the steamer staff or my parents could believe that I was listening so raptly to this sermon/service.
My mother spoke of the other passers on the steamer heading for Sao Poalo, Brazil. They were missionaries and they were headed to SA Poalo to work there and they had their children with them. They would not allow their children to play with me and she said that it was a pretty miserable trip.
The other thing that she remembers about this trip is that she had a shaving iron and that she had tried to plug it into the plug in the our state room and that because of the different currency/voltage that the whole side of the boat's circuits had blown and that it was of course fixed within five minutes and she had never told them it was her that had done it. I guess they figured it out anyway.
It's so much fun to hear your stories Mom and I will try and record them here as accurately as I possibly can. Thanks for sharing Mom. It sure does help me and I appreciate that a whole lot. I will be asking you to tell me many more stories as we go along. Cheers and have a good day.
As I told you as we got off the phone : I advised that you go and sit outside in the sun after the conversation as we are in the two photos above here at your home. You said that you had done that yesterday as it had really been a nice day then and you had enjoyed it quite a bit. I may go out again now as it still looks nice to me here from our basement as I look up through our window up and out onto the corner of our deck. I will try and squeeze a few more minutes outside there as I love being outside.
In the pictures above you were showing me pictures of your father and my grandfather that was an actor and in the picture he is shown in one of his plays with his co-star in a production in Pasadena, California. I will mention more about that shortly as there is much to say on that.
I have already included some of my conversations with my mother at : qynothna.blogspot.com and chatFrance.blogspot.com.
I will also now create a " new " blog site for my father called : chatmyfather.blogspot.com.
Cheers and enjoy this beautiful day. Anthony ( TONY ) Quinn
