The Murphy's lost their last uncle, Uncle Joe, on Monday.  No obituary yet, but you could fill a whole newspaper with Uncle Joe's life and stories.  I first remember Uncle Joe (or it could have been Uncle Eddy) coming home from war.  I was a little kid, and Grandma scared me as she screamed with joy and ran up and embraced her son.  Joe married Rosie, and we would sing a song, "Rose, Rose, I love you, with an aching heart, glory is the future, now we have to part..." as we walked up Falconer Street toward our house, under their upstairs window.  Rose and Joe and her family, would take Barbara and me to Sylvan Lake with them, early in the day, and the grown ups sat around the picnic tables, eating all kinds of delicious Italian food, while the kids would swim, just going back to get lunch.  Then Joe and Rose moved out of Grandma's house to their own place, a few miles away, but they visited often.

I remember one Christmas morning, when they came to see us, the house was a mess, six kids opening presents, wrapping paper all over the place.  Uncle Joe sat down, took out a cigar, unwrapped it, looked around and threw the wrapper on the floor with the rest of the mess, without a second delay.  That was Uncle Joe.  In later years he would enter saying, "It's Uncle Dum here", would give the finger to the O'Leary kids (they loved that), called my son, Paul, "Peter, Paul and Mary".  He would make some off color remark, and Aunt Rose would just say, "Oh, Joe".  They were a cute couple and had a son Brian that agewise was the same as the older O'Leary's.

When Sabra was born I asked Joe and Rose to be her God parents, and they agreed, and came to Tivoli to St. Sylvia's for the baptism.  After that, each Christmas, Sabra got a special gift from them, always one of her favorites and the other kids would watch just as excited to see what it was.

When Sabra got married, I rented a limo to drive the Judge, his wife, Uncle Joe, and Rose and Aunt Lillian and Bucky up to Germantown for the wedding.  It was a long ride and I didn't want those old folks driving so far.  Bucky cancelled, so she missed the fun.  I had told the bartender at the wedding, "Don't serve any drinks until after the ceremony", but I didn't realize the limo was equipped with a bar.  I did as soon as I heard Uncle Joe yell to Bucky, "Buck, you shitted out".  Uncle Joe and the Judge were ripped.  The Judge slurring his words, Uncle Joe standing in front of them, swaying back and forth, in his Uncle Joe dance - a dance he did upon completing a race.

That's another thing, Uncle Joe's running.  Apparently, years back, he was doing the Bridge Run, but walking it, and as people ran past him, he started to run.  And then he was hooked.  Race after race, he would run in, arms over his head, yelling something like "I'm not dead yet".  He ran with another older guy, and they would hold hands, coming in at the same time.  Sweet to see.  The Rhinebeck race was one of his favorites, and Timmy and I and Aunt Rose would go for breakfast, right after the race started.  "We have an hour before he comes in", Aunt Rose would say, and off we would go. Joe was a race favorite, winning trophy after trophy, sometimes the only one running in his age group.

Uncle Joe loved Bucky and even after her death, would address the couch as if she were sitting in her favorite place.  Sometimes he would ask for a hug, and once Maria gave him a good one and he commented "There's a lot of woman there", which made us all laugh.

Laugh we did, Uncle Joe was a comic, we're lucky to have had him.  Rest in Peace Uncle Joe.

Back from a vacation with Paul's family to Niagara Falls, Canada and five days at the cabin in Black Lake.  What a difference when I got home - no cicadas, no noise, and the blue jays and cardinals who have been dining on a cicada buffet are back at the feeders.  This morning there were two mother turkeys eating the corn, one with four babies, pretty small, and the other had three bigger babies. 

Niagara Falls is amazing, a real international destination, as there were people from all over the world there.  Not much English being spoken.  To ride a boat right into the falls, you board an elevator and go down several hundred feet.  Then you put on a blue raincoat  complete with hood, and you realize soon that you really needed to wear this as you head into the mist of the falls.  The steep banks are lined with seabirds, they looked like gulls and you can see people wearing yellow raincoats walking on a trail that actually takes them behind the falls. We didn't do this.  As you get closer to the falls, the boat, that is loaded with people, starts to roll and shift and everyone has out cameras that are getting wet.  I had my usual throw away camera, and the Japanese were very interested in it - pointing at it and speaking to each other in their language, so I don't know if they were impressed or laughing at me.  Anyway, it was fun, exciting and something to see.  The next day we went over the Rainbow bridge to Canada's side of the falls, which was in some ways even more visibly exciting, as you were on the top of the falls. 

Anyway, I am back to reality, B&B business, and a month away from my next destination vacation, Cape Cod.

An update on the cicadas:  the brighter the sun, the louder the noise.  Today is bright and the noise is terrific, hard to even be outdoors in.  And it is affecting the other animals.  Last week we had a squirrel that got in the garage and refused to leave.  For two days we left the garage door wide open, and nothing doing.  Usually, a trapped animal will make a beeline for any opening, especially a car garage door. You can't miss that.  Finally, he left, or he is just hiding better.

Then, this morning, a chipmunk came into our bedroom.  Timmy, still in bed yelled, "Squirrel, squirrel in the bedroom".  But it was only a chipmunk.  He had found a screen that I had not secured tightly yesterday.  That's another story- I was ironing the Bird's Nest tablecloth, had it doubled up on the ironing board, when I hit a bump, and at the same second, heard the cicada's scream.  Yes, I had ironed one of my friends that I have been saving lives of for the last two weeks.  Anyway, I opened the screen to throw out the dead bug, and couldn't close it right.  So that's how Mr. Munkchip (that's what Atticus used to call them) got into the bedroom.

We opened the windows, took out the screen, shut the bedroom door, and thought he would just jump back out.  But no, he stayed in the open window, watching Timmy mowing the lawn for two hours.  He was calm and collected, just like the squirrel in the garage, he liked it inside...the noise was a lot lower.

I don't know if he is still in there or not, but my theory is the local animals can't take the noise anymore than we can.  Rain tomorrow, so it will be quieter, but then when the sun returns, there will be more noise than ever.  I think we have a billion cicadas on Clay Hill Road alone.

2013 welcomes the cicadas.  They started to come out last week in small bunches, then the cold stretch of weather, but now in the heat they are coming out in groves.  Sabra has been taking pictures of them in  every stage - coming out of the shell, hanging upside down all white except for two black dots like eyes, and then the red eyes.  Yes, the little girl that used to capture wooly bears in her big purse, now captures them on film.  The Kingston Freeman printed two of her pictures of the cicadas right on the front page "photo by Sabra Ciancanelli".

But she doesn't stop there - when ants were attacking one still in the shell, she threw her coffee on them and moved him to safety.  When she read that they need high grass or something to climb up to rid themselves of the shell, she put sticks in the grass for them to climb up.  She even helps some of the struggling ones get out of their shells - a regular cicada midwife.

They ARE amazing - I myself can't get enough of them or am tired of seeing them hanging upside down in the early morning - that's when they emerge.  The trees are full of them at seven or eight in the morning, and then in a few hours, they are the black cicadas, starting to fly.  Birds are having a field day, especially cedar waxwings, waiting in the trees, and when they see one fluttering by, as if in a drunk stupor, swoop down and easily pick them off. 

So it's a regular jungle out there  - as in the song that starts the Monk show....I myself think of them as religious symbols - rebirth, souls leaving their old shell of a body, to go to a better place, mate, die, eggs go underground for SEVENTEEN years, and then the cycle repeats. Why don't I remember this from the past 5 times this has happened since I have been with them on earth?

Memorial Day used to be held on May 30th, that was until they changed all the holidays to a Monday for a three day weekend.  Memorial Day, May 30, 1915 was when my grandparents were married, so I still think of that day as special. 

I have a clipping from the newspaper when they had their 50th Anniversary.  It says they were married in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, the ceremony performed by Rev. B. Mateye.
The article goes on to tell about their 50th celebration in the Knights of Columbus.  "Some 90 friends and relatives attended the fete.  Congratulations were sent by President and Mrs. Johnson and Sen. Robert Kennedy."  I remember when Poppy got the mail and saw a letter with the President's seal on it.  He yelled to Grandma, "Bad news, I think I just got drafted."  The article went on to say that on Jan. 10 they were among the 50-year wedded couples presented awards by Francis Cardinal Spellman.  Attending with them were their children and two granddaughters.  The two grandchildren were Barbara and me.

It was cold, the dead of winter and St. Patrick's was packed with couples and families of the couples married for 50 years.  Afterwards we went to a church, St. Vincent de Paul (I thought that was where they were married, but it must have been their local church.)  I was pregnant, and after two girls, asked for my wish that Grandma said you do when you go into a new church that you have never been in before.  So I wished that I would have a boy and if I did I would call him Vincent Paul.  When Paul was born, I weakened and reversed the names.  Anyway, after that we went to Poppy's sister's house for lunch.  And it was delicious.  I especially remember the rice, a golden yellow, with such flavor.  How do you make it so yellow? I asked and Mrs. Peepa (that was kind of her name) answered simply "Goose Fat".  Barbara and I looked at each other, our eyes large. 

Anyway, I remember the Anniversary Party too- I was large with Vincent Paul not-to-be and the place was packed.  I happened to sit near the Resicks, family friends of my mother's family for years.  Their son had been killed in World War II, a handsome young man, I think his name was Billy.  Anyway his brother told us this story that has stayed with me for all these years.  They had sent home the body of his brother, in a locked coffin, and it was set up in the living room, as it was done in those days.  Anyway, he said he heard a noise that night, after everyone was asleep and he came downstairs and found his mother with tools, trying to open the coffin.  She just wanted to see him, make sure it was her son.  A touching story, and appropriate for Memorial Day, whenever you celebrate it.  Happy Anniversary Grandma and Poppy. 

My neighbor was cutting his grass just as my soap opera was starting.  I glared at him for interrupting my show and noticed he was drinking a beer.  His wife had told me he bought this lawnmower because it had a beer holder on it.  Anyway, it reminded me of something else, a time at Cape Cod, maybe almost twenty years ago.  We were at Newcomb Hollow, and Maria and I had just opened a beer...something the sign said was not allowed.  Rachael yelled "Lifeguard, lifeguard, my mother's drinking a beer" and Maria grabbed her, putting a hand over her mouth and dragged her up the dune to the car.  That was when you could put a kid not obeying in a hot car for punishment.  And Ria wanted to punish her for saying that.  But that's the way Maria's kid were - unpredictable.

This bought me to another time.  Chrissie and I were on an IBM bus tip to Bronx Zoo with Jer and Lizzy.  We sat way in the back of the bus, we knew there could be trouble.  There was some, we were right next to the bathroom and at one point Jer pushed one of the kid's books I had bought along to amuse them under the bathroom door.   But that was nothing compared to what happened next.  Jer suddenly jumped up, ran down the aisle and screamed "the bus driver's not driving the bus, the bus driver's not driving the bus".  Everyone turned.  The bus driver looked in the rear view mirror, I could see his eyes as I grabbed Jer.  No one would make eye contact with us after that, and we tried to remain in control until we got to the zoo.

Later, at the zoo, Chrissie and I relaxed, each ordering not a pint but the really large beers.  We were sitting on a bench with maybe four other people near the bison exhibit.  We looked up.  Jer was watching the bisons, and imitating their actions.  He tossed his head, one foot went back, one foot went front, and then he charged.  Chrissy and I had no time to save ourselves, and he attacked and threw our beers flying in the air, all over the over bench sitters.

But that brought me to Lizzie and one morning in Spring, when her father dropped her off at Clay Hill Road, and she was sitting on the porch with me while I enjoyed a cup of coffee.  Suddenly, she jumped up and stood on the sunlight that was on the porch floor and started to sing "I'm walking on sunshine, oh yeah, walking on sunshine".  She was maybe three years old and I was amazed - one that she knew the words, two - she could apply them.  Thank you - Jer, Rachael and Lizzy for all the wonderful and exciting moments you have given me.

Mother's Day - when Bucky died, Anne B. of Bailey's in Tivoli told me "not a day goes by I don't think of my mother" and I find that this is very true.  Our Mother, Bucky, is not an easy person to forget, even for a day.

I took a class on siblings this Spring, mostly about rivalry in the family, and a lot of this trouble was caused by a parent liking one sibling more than another, and being stupid enough to say it.  Once in a while, one of us would ask Bucky, "Who do you love most?" and her answer was always the same - "I hate you all equally."  Quite a good answer I thought while I listened to my classmates complaining about their sisters and brothers. 

But then there was the gentle, motherly side of Bucky, who would say (I think from an old Latin story) "These are my jewels" meaning us six kids.  Bucky didn't have much jewelry, other than us kids.  She did have golden earrings, a gift from our father, who would sing a song about giving golden earrings to his love - I think a Nat King Cole song.  She never wore a necklace or anything around her neck.  She used to say, "I must have been hanged in another life, I can't stand anything tight on my neck."  That was another thing about Bucky, she would come up with those sayings and somehow we believed her.  So Bucky didn't care about jewelry, or clothes, she was happy in an old loose house dress.  In the sixties I made her pant's suits and she started to wear pants then.  Bucky wasn't one for makeup either, she used to have a tiny compact filled with rouge and maybe a lipstick tucked in her purse.  When I was little she used to always  carry a bottle of salts, "in case I faint" but I never remember her fainting.  She would uncap the bottle to let me smell and the smell was strong enough to wake the dead.

I remember when she died, Maria and I went to the house.  Plans were being made for her funeral and Bob and Diane were looking for clothes.  Two blouses were out but they weren't sure which would fit her.  Maria grabbed the shirts and took them into the bathroom to try them on.  She said, "If one of them fits me, it will fit Grandma."  And that's how it was decided.  The funeral home gave her the makeup she had never used.  Her brother Ed thought she looked beautiful and remarked she looked like a "young Ma", their mother.  But I will always think of Bucky as wearing the loose house dress, safety pins attached for any emergency, throwing a comb through her hair, racing to join Grandma who was in the car, tooting impatiently for her to come out the door.   Happy Mother's Day Buck.