The Beatles Final part

 The Beatles keep turning out hit singles. Hit Albums and even movies. I must say, I was not a fan of their movies. I don't recall even going to one of them. 

I have always said, there has never been a band as popular as The Beatles.  Not only did we love their songs, so did our parents.  Many singers of the time, from my parents era, would sing Beatle songs.  Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Frank Sinatra sang their songs just to name a few.  

Here is a list of Beatle songs. Amazing. 

We followed the goings on of the Beatles in Magazines and TV.  We found out John was married and had a son! But soon the other Beatles married and divorced. John said they were more popular than Jesus and caused a whole big uproar.  I knew what he meant but apparently many did not and burned their records. 

Their music style grew and changed and became psychedelic. Their hair was long they all had beards and mustaches.

And then the arguments and threats. Finally it was the end. They were splitting up.

One of the last pictures of them as The Beatles.

The end of an Era.

They went on leading their own groups, their own lives. One of them might make a special appearance in another's group. 

On December 8th, 1980 my mother called. Are you watching the news? I said no. She said put the news on, she would not tell me why.  

John Lennon was murdered in front of the Dekota Apt. building where he lived. My mother knew I would be upset and couldn't tell me.  Very Sad.   Then George died of cancer.  I was going to marry George when I was a beatlemaniac. sigh

Paul just released a new album, frankly, I think he should retire now. His album sucked.  But that's just my opinion.  Ringo is in a band with his son, I believe. I never bought any of their records after the beatles. 

I will always be a

BEATLEMANIC

The Beatles, Part 1

 So, we were a nation mourning the loss of our President. Old Johnson was the President now, with Lady Bird and their 2 daughters. The Vietnam war (its not a war, it's a police action) is in the news more often and of course  we gotta watch those Russians! 

I have a British penpal, Cheryl. She was telling me about a group in England called, The Beatles, have I heard of them? No. She sends me some magazines about them. Boy, do I WISH I had those now!  I think they look weird. They have long hair.

To think we thought this was long hair. But the buzz cut was still popular from the '50s or the slick back Elvis hair was still popular too, so this was quite different from those.

In 1962 the Beatles are getting on the Charts in England and by 1963 they had hits on the British Record charts.  In the USA, the record, I want to hold your hand, became Number 1 in January, 1963.

I want to hold your hand

Yes, I bought it.  I loved it, the music was so different.  My dad wanted to hear what they sounded like. He was not impressed with the group. It is not one of my favorite Beatles songs either, but it was the first song by the Beatles that I  ever heard. 

This was the start of  Beatlemania. This is in England, but it was the same here. 

The Beatles came to America, arriving at LaGuardia  Airport, New York, on February 7th, 1964. My 13th birthday. Did I feel special. 

Many girls/kids were cutting school and going to the airport. I was in the 7th grade.  As much as I wanted to be there, I never even thought of cutting school. I had my transistor radio and ear plug, we only had one ear plug, not two plugs for the ears...for some reason.  So I listened when I could in class, of the happenings at the airport. 

(See those pocketbooks hanging over the sign? I had both of them.) 

I had tons of Beatle cards and magazines.  We were always at Woolworths buying records. 

The boys started getting Beatle haircuts and wearing boots with heels. 

There was even a hit song, called, We love you Beatles. Really dumb record and yes, I had it.

We love you, Beatles, oh yes we do

So, this was the start of Beatlemania and The British envasion.

Next part coming up

what a picture can do.

 I did this post last night and somehow, erased the whole thing. 😭 So here it is again. 

I have this picture tucked into the picture on my desk of my mother when she was 4/5 at Coney Island. 

It makes me smile every time I look at it.  My mother hated having her picture taken. It's Christmas day, 1962 is my guess. That's my oldest sister, Peggy, trying to remove mom's hands from her face. I love this picture because it is not posed. 

Mom has her usual attire, that she wore her whole life when she was inside or just hanging out front. A house dress. An apron and her slippers. I remember that housedress. It was off white and the design was brown. Peggy's pants were called ski pants and they were the style for a year or two. 

She was married, but only lived a few blocks away. This was before she moved to Upstate N.Y.

The white door with the glass door knob was Peggy and Barbara's room When Peggy married I moved in with Barbara. And when Barb married I was the first one to get her own room!   The white door has yellow curtains that Mary Crowley made for my mother. 

In the glass inclosed bookcase is the World One Encyclopedia. I LOVED it! I would take one out and read. As an adult, knowing what they cost, I am sure it warmed my dad's heart seeing it get so much use. He also bought the year book, every year,  to keep it up to date.  After the fire in 1976/7 he gave the set to the boy next door.   I can't tell what books are on the bottom shelf, but I will keep trying to figure that out. 

On top is where our black telephone was, it is behind Peggy and my mother. A little fish tank is there. My dad had numerous hobbies and fish were one of them. We all loved the fish and learned a great deal about them through him.

I can see toys under the tree that must be Tommy's, the youngest sibling.  Behind the rocking chair was the tree and I can just see the christmas cards hung along the arch.  That area was once the front porch, including the room with the white door. But it was enclosed at some point and the door and windows taken out to make that arch. Eventually all the houses on the block did the same thing.

I can see what looks like a bracelet on my mother's wrist. She must have just got it that day as a gift because my mother did not wear or like jewelry that much. 

So...this picture takes me back in time, when we were all young, together and alive. 

Where were you when John F. Kennedy got shot.

 I was 10 when JFK became our 35th President in 1961. He came after Eisenhower.  JFK was young and handsome with a beautiful wife and daughter.  Being 10, I wasn't much interested in the Government, but every morning while I got ready for school my dad would have the news on the TV. When you only have one TV in the house you watched what  the grown ups watched. 

It would show his news conferences. It was mostly fun. The reporters would laugh..he would laugh. I thought I might grow up and marry a President like him.  You notice my 10 year old brain could not even conceive that I could be President. 

I was 12 on Friday,  Nov. 22, 1963. I was in the 7th grade at St.Fidelis and I had Sr. Theresa. 

It was after lunch that an announcement came over the speaker from the Principle's office that the president was shot and needed our prayers. I remember watching Sr. Theresa's face and I could tell she was upset.  So, down we got on our knees and prayed the President would be ok. 

At some point Sr. Theresa left the room and came back looking upset. I can't remember now if there was another announcement to pray for him.  

School was over. I walked to Woolworths to see my sister who worked there.  She worked in the back in the office.  I asked her if  she heard anything about the President and she told me he died. 

I remember walking home on Main Street, looking at the faces of the people I passed and wondered why they were not crying.  Did they know? I felt like crying. 

Monday, Nov. 25th was his funeral. The nation was shut down, people had no work, stores (mostly) were closed. Everyone was watching the funeral at home.

Not long ago my Son in law said he was talking to someone and they said the whole nation mourned the President. I said yes. He said the WHOLE COUNTRY shut down. I said, YES, the whole country  watched the funeral in shock and sadness. 

Everyone who was old enough will tell you exactly where they were when Kennedy got shot. 

JFK announcement

Cops in the 1960's and my encounter with them.

 Back then, a cop could and did meter out his own justice.  We all knew most cops were crooked.   In our neighborhood in College Point, we had good and bad. They would park in a commercial area and drink instead of doing their rounds. We saw this many times.  

They took bribes. If a cop got a complaint about you, he might take you for a ride, and give you a talking to and or a few whacks.

So, in 1965, when I was 14 I got to see the back seat of a cop car.....

We kids hung out down Grantville, a place by Flushing Bay, across from  LaGuardia airport.  My friend Jean was there and a bunch of  boys. About 5 of us were sitting on the cliff. There were boys setting off fireworks on the beach (illegal). Another group of boys were playing penny poker near us (illegal).

Someone yelled COPS! The boys on the beach and playing poker all ran towards us.  The cops yelled for all of us to go by the car.  They asked Jean and me our ages and told us to get in the backseat of the car because we were minors.  The cops are still outside talking to the boys. 

Jean shows me what is in her pocketbook. It is a GIANT KNIFE!  She is crying. My cousin Brian use to tease her all the time and she would tell him, "one day I am going to stab you with a knife!"  so today was the day she brought a knife. Jean had long lashes and she would put on thick mascara on her upper and lower lashes. She put it on so thick it would clump. Now she has black rivers going down her face because she is crying.

I am thinking, if they look in her purse we are going to JAIL!  I am so scared I can't even talk. The cops get in and start driving us home. She is hysterical, begging not to be taken home, she will NEVER hang out down there again...etc. I don't have to say anything she is begging and crying enough for the both of us.

 We are passing the Club Safari and I scrunch down in the seat so no one can see me. My brother in laws family own it. In this town if a cop car passes with someone in the back seat we always look to see if we know who it is.

I am thinking, its a nice day, my mother will be outside with the neighbor mothers and here I come in a cop car. 

She will beat me twice, once for doing something so wrong the cops had to take me home and once for embarrassing her in front of all the neighbors. 

They turn on 25th road and 122nd street and stop.  Two blocks from home.

They tell me we will let you off here, give me your address and don't lie, we will check up.   I give them the only house address I know by heart which is my friend Maria's address who lives 3 houses up from me.

They leave and I can still hear Jean begging and crying as they turn the corner and go to the other side of town where Jean lived. She did keep her word, she never hung out there again.

About a week later, Maria's mother(who did not speak English but understood it) is outside sweeping her stoop and sidewalk when a cop car pulls up. 

They ask her if she has a teenage daughter. She says yes and they leave.  Maria came home from school and her mother beat the crap out of her asking her WHY were the COPS asking about her! What did she DO! And she got punished for a weekend. 

To this day, I did not tell her it was my fault. I could tell her because we are still friends on FB. But I don't think I will.......

My Grand Aunt Rita

 Margarita Cuddy Bick Fitzgerald was born in Manhattan on July 2nd, 1899.  Her sister, Mary, was born 2 (or 3 ) (I have to find my paper work) years later. Mary was my grandmother. 

My grandmother died before I was born, so my Aunt Rita was more of a grandma to me, than an Aunt.

Here she is near the end of her life with her second husband, Uncle Billy.  He was a wonderful kind man and all the children loved him.

Looking at this picture it's hard to believe what a wild woman she was.  In this picture you can also see Geraldine. That is their youngest child.

By all accounts, Rita was a beautiful woman. My grandfather actually chased after her, but was turned down, he then married her sister.  My father had a crush on her. 

She  married Charles Bick. He was German,  he was a butcher and  he was very athletic and liked to show off his skills and body. When I find the pictures of them two at the beach I will put them here.  They had money,  he had a butchers schedule, he had to be in bed early to get up for work around 1am.   They had a son, Charles Bick. 

They were at the beach one day when show off Charles dived off a pier. Now days they always warn, DON'T jump/dive off anything without inspecting the water below first!  He dived and hit something that killed him.  

What a shock that must of been for Rita. She is now a  young widow with a young boy.

Here is a picture of them, probably soon after the death of her husband.

Rita always loved to dance, so she joined a dance troop that traveled to different clubs.  She was a flapper. Her son was left with her sister a lot of the time.  Rita liked her booze too. She drank and danced her money away.  She met Bill Fitzgerald and lived with him for 9 months before getting married.  My mother told me this in hushed tones many years later. lol

They had  4 children. Billy, Rita Ann, Bobby, Geraldine.  When Rita Ann  was 6 years old she died of appendix. The doctor was treating her for a cold. My mother told me because of the poison in her body making her bloat she looked like a 9 year old in the coffin.

I was named after her, my name was supposed to be Rita Ann. But when my mother gave the nurse the information when I was born, the nurse put the Ann down as my middle name.  I used to be called Rita Ann by family,  which I never liked. 

I loved going to visit Aunt Rita because she would make me strawberry malteds! She lived in Brooklyn and she would take the buses and trains to visit us in Queens. I would be told to wait up the corner for her and I can still see her coming and me running towards her.  She did pinch my cheeks pretty hard. I did not like that so much. lol  My father would drive her home.

When Ag was little  we would visit Aunt Rita in Staten Island. She loved Agnes and the feeling was mutual. Agnes had a stuffed baby superman doll that she called Aunt Rita and she had to keep it near her at bedtime. 

Aunt Rita told me her mother was afraid of storms and during a storm she would light holy candles to keep safe. Rita did not like storms either.

On July 17th, 1982, Rita told Bill she was going in to nap. She would put a hankerchief over her face when she napped.  She never woke up.  

My aunt Mae told me they went to visit them one night and looked in the window and saw them watching TV, holding hands. They had a great marriage. Uncle Bill did not live long after the love of his life died.

* Because her first born, Charles was with my grandmother so much, he was closes to her, not his mother and he always resented the fact that she did not put some money aside that his father left for them, for him, instead of partying it all away.

*Rita was talking about some woman when her sister picked up a plate of butter and smashed it in her face saying, "you  have no right to talk about other people!"  Bringing up the fact that  Rita "lived in sin" with Bill for 9 months. lol

*We were at a wedding, it could have been the wedding of the picture above and there was a piano (we would walk her back and forth to the bathroom) and I asked her play. 

She did play a little tune and showed me her fingers, how her nails turn up a bit and she said that is because she played the piano.

UPDATE: More pictures! 

Here they are, handsome couple.

I am guessing it is their car. I don't know who the woman on the left is, but she is in a lot of pictures and I wonder if she is a relative of Charles Bick. 

These pictures are  almost a hundred years old.  So the quality of this picture is pretty bad, but you can see Charles posing for the picture. And there is Aunt Rita in her black bathing suit posing for the picture too. 

I wonder if this was the day....he died.  We will never know.

This is their son, Charlie, all grown up.  He  had AAA, abdominal aortic aneurysm, that they did not know about and died having minor surgery when it erupted.  Aunt Rita had it too, but she did not die from it. (Aunt Mae had it too)

He was a wonderful man,  lots of fun, I miss him. 

Growing up Catholic and sinning in 1950s-60s

My parents were Catholic, and grandparents etc.   In the Bronx my sisters and cousins went to St. Peter and Pauls Catholic school.  I went to St.Fidelis when we moved to Queens.  

We had to say, I am a ROMAN Catholic.  It seems there are  also Greek Orthodox Catholics and it had to be made CLEAR we were not one of them, although I have never met one.  

My family was a bit odd, they did not (thankgoodness!) force us to go the church and they did not go, yet we had to go to Catholic school and do the sacraments. (Baptism, First Penance  First Communion,  Confirmation).The school forced us to go to church though and you could be thrown out of school if you constantly missed church.

So, any THOUGHT, DEED or ACTION could send you straight to hell if any of those were a Mortal sin. But a Venial sin, a little sin,  will not cause the soul eternal damnation.  

Confessions were every Saturday, so you could receive communion on Sunday at church.  Father Conway was a mean priest and NO ONE wanted to go to him for Confession. We would all line up at different confessionals (these were around the sides of the church). A nun would have to force some kids to stand at his confessional.  A priest would sit in the middle and there would be two lines, one person would enter on one side and confess, when he/she left someone would enter on the other side.

Not our church but you see the confessional booths.  On more than one occasion, Father Conway would start screaming, get out of his booth and throw the boy who was confessing out of the church! Thus, everyone that had to go to him to confess...lied.  You made up little venial sins so he would not embarrass the hell out of you.

 After confessing your sins, he would bless you and give you prayers to say at the alter rail, appropriate to the sins you confessed.

Afterwards, all will be forgiven and your soul was clean and you will go straight to heaven if you died at that moment. But just one little tiny venial sin ( I wish I had Laura's hair, O NO, sin of Envy!) you would end up in Purgatory.

~Purgatory, the condition, process, or place of purification or temporary punishment in which, according to medieval Christian and Roman Catholic belief, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for heaven. ~

You can still go to heaven,  I used to pray all the time to get my family out of there. Because, you know, there was no chance to go straight to heaven. 

We were taught, gay people, were going straight to hell. 

You could NOT eat meat on Friday. All Fridays.  Because Jesus died on a Friday and this was a recognition of his sacrifice. I had to look it up because I forgot why. (how stupid..) You had to confess if you did eat meat on Friday.

You had to dress decent for church and females HAD to have their head covered in church. I remembered being told it was because Mary covered her head. Hello..that's how they dressed back then. Males were not to have their head covered.

When you received the host (body of Christ) you had to just have it lay on your tongue and let it dissolve. I'm pretty sure if you chewed it you would go straight to hell with thorns in your eyes. 

If you married a non-catholic, your children HAD to be brought up Catholic.

We were taught ONLY CATHOLICS, probably ROMAN Catholics, went to heaven.  I was so happy I was born Catholic. My cousin Mary became an Episcopalian to marry her husband. I was HORRIFIED she would give up her hope of getting to heaven! 

The Jews killed Jesus. I don't think we were really ever taught that Jesus was a jew.  

I slowly started to question a lot of things. 

It took me awhile, I was an adult before I told my mother that I did not believe in the church any more because I did not know how she would react.   But she was ok about it and we had some good conversations about life after death. 

When my mother was dying, my very religious Aunt Lee (although she drank beer every day and swore like a sailor) called her Bishop  and he gave my mother the sacrament of Extreme Unction right before she died. 

The Last Rites are a religious process for cleansing one of his or her sins before they leave this earth. Since Catholics believe in judgment after death, they want to leave this life as clean souls free from sin. The practice and prayers of the Last Rites protect the recipient on their journey to the afterlife.

 Although I did not believe it any more, it was a comfort to me. 

The Church became more lenient over the years, from what I understand.  My personal opinion is all organized religions are just a business to get your money and keep you like sheep so you continue supporting them.   

The Church works for many people.  I say, whatever gets you through this life,  is fine with me.

St.Fidelis, where I spent many happy and sad moments of my life.