52 Ancestors Week 31: A Day in the Life

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 31:

The theme for Week 31 is “A Day in the Life.” Our ancestors were more than just names and dates. This week, explore an ancestor whose daily life you know something about (or that you wish you knew something about).

Eagle eyes should spot that that's the 1996 calendar.

    It's just another day in the life, huh? I was fortunate to know what my grandparents were up to almost every day since they either lived close by or they'd call my parents telling us what they were doing and what they did that day. This was before texting and everything so phone calls were usually the norm! I honestly can't picture either grandmother texting someone using a modern iPhone! It would have been funny to see at least! 

    My grandfather Bob was no stranger to Red Lobster. When he and my grandmother moved to Florida, they would often frequent the local Red Lobster, order a lobster dinner and talk about how it wasn't nearly as good as the lobsters back in New England when they talked to my mother. You can take the man out of New England. But you certainly can't take New England out of a man! He talked about going to Red Lobster quite often despite his complaints!

    Closer to home, a day in my grandma Ollie's life was a little different. This week, I'm going to talk about what Ollie did every Friday for as long as I can remember. For the stake of nostalgia, I'm going to pick a Friday in the summer. Why? You'll see by the end of the blog! With all that in mind, let's go back in time to a random Friday in the summer of 1996.

Totally not a real blond!

   On that Friday morning Ollie wakes up in her house on Washington Street in Haverhill. She has a full day planned with loads of fun things to do. After showering and getting dressed, a car pulls into the driveway driven by her brother-in-law Arnold and with him are her sisters, Louise and Ellie.

    After talking for a little bit, Arnold took the sisters down the road to their hair salon where they would spend hours catching up on the latest gossip and of course making themselves look great. Fun fact. I've never known Ollie, Louise or Ellie with the dark hair they were born with. I was blown away when I saw them with dark hair in a photograph. I never asked why she colored her hair. I suspect that she didn't want to and that was her call.

    At least she looked good and that's all that matters. I've never known her with any other hair color so I never judged!

    It was also amazing that they were all the same shade of blonde!

    Once they were finished, the three would go to lunch at the nearest restaurant and go all the way to Salem to shop at Macy's. They liked to go to the malls in the Salem area because of the lack of sale's tax in New Hampshire. This is a big reason why the Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem, which opened in 1991, became the dominant mall in the greater Merrimack valley. The mall, unlike others in the United States, is still operational because it's right on the border and people like my grandmother spend cash and look for great deals in New Hampshire. Yay, Capitalism? 

    At the end of the day, the sisters would return to either Ollie's house on Washington Street or Louise's house on Bartlett street and have dinner. Here is where my family and I would come in. In the summertime, we would sometimes go to Ollie's house on the way to the marina that Friday.  We would sometimes enter the house and catch the sisters in mid conversation. It often took my parents a few minutes to catch up to whatever topic was being discussed that day.

    Our visits were often a surprise and yet somehow Ollie always had a bowl of fresh pasta e fagioli waiting for me. It was as if the universe told her we were coming by for a quick visit.  The visits were short as my father always wanted to hit the road. But it was nice catching up with my grandmother and all the gossip she heard that day.

    Arnold was always cracking jokes whenever the sisters talked when he saw me, he'd call me "Superman" because of the DC character and I guess his favorite superhero was "Superman". Little did he know my favorite was Marvel's web-swinging wonder, the "Amazing Spider-Man".  Actually, he knew. He just liked to call me "Superman". I suppose there's worse names to be called.

    Ollie's weekly outings with her sister shows just how strong the bonds were between the sisters. They lived close by and were always talking to one another at each other's homes. They even talked on the phone all the time despite being a few miles away!  Ollie was never in a nursing home or in an assisted living facility. She and her sisters lived life on their own terms and by their own rules. They were always great to talk to and yes I have to say it once again. They were all definitely like Sophia from "The Golden Girls"!

See ya next time!