MarxLennon's Gratuitous Image Page

My mom came from a big family. Actually, it's a huge family. Sixteen kids. Yeah, you heard me. Sixteen. She was the eldest girl. She has one older brother who's exactly nine months older than she is, but for all intents and purposes, she was the oldest. The kids were all between nine to fifteen months apart, with two sets of twins. My mom describes the experience as being one giant pile of diapers for twenty years. My mom was already in college when her youngest sister was born

I don't think I have to tell you that my mom's family is Catholic. Dad's family would fall under the heading of "other". Growing up, we went to mass with mom, and listened to dad talk about the cosmos. The difference in religion never seemed to affect the relationship between my parents, or between my dad and mom's family. To a person, they all love the hell out of them, although my grandfather does refer to dad as "That damn pagan." My dad's favorite pastime is to go over to their house with a case of beer (gramps loves his beer), to expound on his latest observations on the cosmos. Then he sits back and watches gramps screw himself into the ceiling. Gram says it's what keeps gramps young. Gramps loves his religious and political discussions with dad. Dad's the only one who can deal with gramps when he gets himself in an uproar. None of his other kids or in-laws will even attempt to disagree with gramps on anything. They claim his yelling gives them a headache.

When my mom was about 15, my grandparents bought a little ice cream shop for the kids. All the kids, even the littlest ones, were expected to put time in there. The profit went towards their clothes, with a little extra for spending. The original owner was an elderly man who'd lost his wife the year before and just didn't have the heart for it anymore. The two had run the shop together. They sold homemade ice cream and cones. Later on, they'd branched out to ice cream cakes, pies and bars. The place was very popular, so when it went up on the market, gramps bought it.

Once it was sold, Mr. Zimbolski (Mr. Z to the kids), didn't know what to do with himself. He would get up every morning and walk down to the store and just hang around. This went on for a couple of weeks. One morning, when my mom was setting up to open the store, she opened the door and asked Mr. Z if he would mind helping her with one of the ice cream makers. She told him it didn't seem to be working properly. Mr. Z was happy to oblige. There was nothing wrong with the maker, but mom felt so sorry for him, she couldn't bear to see him outside looking so miserable all the time. Gram, of course, approved. From that day forward, Mr. Z would come in everyday and work with the kids in the store. He showed them how to make ice cream, gave them all the recipes he and Mrs. Z had collected or developed over the years, and just generally ran the place. This freed gram up to pop out more kids, and deal with the never ending piles of diapers and dirty clothes.

Gramps had bought the shop during the summer, so he figured he was going to have to hire someone to run the place while the kids were in school. Mr. Z's presence made that unnecessary, but Mr. Z wouldn't let gramps pay him, so they worked out a barter. Gramps is an accountant/money manager, so he took over Mr. Z's finances in return for Mr. Z taking care of the shop when we were in school. Family legend has it this worked out extremely well for them both. Gramps had a good manager, and Mr. Z had more money than he knew what to do with. Mr. Z lived to a ripe old age. His youngest son had come to live with Mr. Z when he lost his wife. Mr. Z Jr. took over as manager when his father died at the ripe old age of 97. Mr. Z senior was very much with it until the end.

Mom spent her years in high school working in the shop, dealing with brothers and sisters in various stages of potty training, and hanging out with my dad. They'd been close friends for years, so dad spent a lot of time over at mom's house and even took his turn working in the family ice cream shop. As dad's already told you, his upbringing was far from typical, so he liked hanging out at mom's. Mom, on the other hand, loved to go to his house where it was quiet.

By the time they went to college, mom already knew what she wanted to study. Since she'd spent her whole life taking care of people, she chose nursing. She briefly considered being a doctor, but felt that doctors didn't really spend much time with their patients, and she wanted to be more involved in her patient's care. She won a scholarship and off she went. It just so happened that dad was at the same college, and they fell into their habit of hanging out together. Dad spent holidays with mom and her family, and mom crashed on his couch when the family got to be too much. All in all, a good arrangement for them both. Then dad joined the AF, and mom's life changed.

Dad informs me this is a good time to quit, so I'll continue next week. (Oh, by the way, this week's picture of me was draw by Jake. I'll tell you more about Jake later on.)

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