she dreamed the same dream night after night~We are an orchestra of one, we are a majesty unveiling, we are newly born lovers, christening one another with mouths and hands and seeking tongues. We are everything and nothing~ Night is falling. night is falling. and I am drowning. in your arms. I am safe again. I am safe again. You surface me, and cling to me, night is falling and I am in my place again. above you, beneath you, wherever it pleases you so... oh my love, I am home again. My heart has been reborn again. the night is falling. and so am I . Falling for you ( into you, above you, through you). night is falling. night is falling. and so am i. so am i. always for you. for you.

blustarswendy3

~random vintage wendchymes~

prayerful of dreams - 2008-06-28
preschool princess - 2008-06-16
life with my sweetheart - 2008-04-29
the fast approach of four - 2008-04-12
lighting up my own life - 2008-03-08

2002-07-18 - 5:07 p.m.

I Grew up knowing Ted Williams. For forty years he and my grandfather were very close friends. It all started on an ordinary Thursday in 1950 something, My grandfather was working at his Italian Restaurant, named after his family surname. ~Lindia's~. Chomping on the end of his unlit Cigar. His favourite thing to do was to tend bar. So, at most any time of day, this is where he could be found. He would talk to anyone, about anything, and as a result of all of his years of tending bar, he used to speak out of one side of his mouth, in that "come closer, I have something juicy to tell you, but I don't want the big mafiosa guy 3 stools down to hear me". He spoke loudly, never really lowering his voice to a whisper. Instead, he twisted his mouth, pushing it to one side. This would most likely only confuse a lip reader, not an actual hearing person. Nevertheless, my grandmother claimed, he spoke this way, because of tending the bar. God knows how many times, he must of turned to" Lou the Pigeon" and said, " Check out that * hot*( little number over there " and shot his eyebrows up and nodded his head to the side, so as to ensure that THE hot litle number would never ever be able to hear what he was saying. and I do not think this weird speech pattern was very effective, but apparently it is highly contagious. That summer I was 6, I spent two months with my grandparents, and my mother swears that I came home, talking out of the side of my mouth just like " papa"

My papa was a big baseball fan. When I say big, I think he was possibly one of the biggest, having grown up in the streets of Cranston Rhode Island, living the gritty stained poverty of the depression era. Sleeping four boys to a threadbare bed, with only a carved stick for a baseball bat and a prayer of a chance. Filling their days chasing the ice trucks down the street, mischievous laughter echoing on the industrial streets. Gangs of Italian and Irish boys insulting one another and deciding to defend their honour with a mean game of baseball. What boy in 1928 did not want to grow up and escape the tattered poverty of their youth ? The biggest dream they could imagine was to make it somehow in the newly seductive and seemingly lucrative world of baseball. In their nightly prayers, they promised themselves and the big guy upstairs that they would all buy their mothers shiny new cars and their daddy's a new suit, and a bottle of gin, if they made it big. Baseball Players were gods back in the days of buicks and root beer floats. In the 1950's of my grandfather's life, Ted Williams was indeed, a diety of unreachable proportions. And he played for the Boston Red Sox. Boston was a mere 40 mins away, but it might as well have been a million, because my grandfather's sole/soul dream was to have Ted Williams to dine at his Restaurant He would serve him a three dollar surf and Turf, washed down with a couple of 60 cent Tom Collins or Harvey Wallbangers and end the night in a poker game in the back room, with a few cubans and the boys. Just like every other Thursday night when the assorted guys, Jimmy The Nudge, Nunzio the nose, et al would religiously seek a safe haven in the back room, from their appointed wives. And if the phone dare ring, they would all yell in unison, " if it is my wife, tell her I AM NOT HERE!" They paid their dues and drank away their blues all to the tune of " are you in, or are you out." In the back bar room this infamous poker playing dog cartoon hung on the wall. We are talking, real class here!

So, on this ordinary Thursday night, the phone rang. And yep, you guessed it. After everyone yelled the predictable, " if it is my wife, " blah blah blah, my papa picked up the phone and said a cocky "hello" out of the side of his mouth. It was his brother, my great Uncle Eddie. The guy who went to war, and survived all of his missions, and came home on a Navy ship, only to get really seasick and evacuated off the ship in cowardly, nancy boy, disgrace, halfway home. The ship sailed off into the setting horizon without him. It was full of other Sailors and Medalled war heroes. They had all served their tours of duty and were greatly anticpating their return to American Soil. In the Greastest of ironic tragedy, the ship promptly sank, killing everyone aboard, except Uncle Eddie. Simply because he was still green around the gills and hurling in the sick bay of some foreign Navy Hospital. After the shock wore off, everyone kept saying, "wow, it is a miracle that Eddie survived. He must have been saved for a VERY special reason!!" I think even Eddie started to believe that, and the weight of this tremendous expectation, of selective greatness, was a huge burden. He died of a massive heart attack, at age 50, childless and ordinary, whilst still awaiting his ship of greatness to come in. Truth is, it sunk and left him behind. but anyway, at this moment, in this black and white flashback to the colourless world of 1950- something, Little Brother Eddie is on the other end of a party line phone. He is calling big brother Joe, from the Florida keys. Papa Joe stands in the back room of the bar, leaning slightly forward, white apron tied, folded in half, around his waist. Eddie called papa to tell him, a story. One that he knows Joe will absolutely not believe.

The story is about how,

Eddie was fishing,

in the Florida keys.

and in the next boat over.

it seems that Ted Williams was also fishing.

yes, he said TED WILLIAMS

as in TED WILLIAMS The Baseball player!

and he was gonna be there for a week.

just fishin' and relaxin'

my grandfather slammed down the phone.

his brown eyes flashing with the fast pace of a maniacal plan

quickly untying his apron and throwing it on a hook.

he ran out of the backroom of the bar.

yelling to his sister ,the waitress, that she was in charge.

and then papa drove like a maniac to his house on Elmwood Ave

and raced past my mother and her brother, who were playing a board game in the parlor

sped past my grandmother watching the little black and white tv and laughing at Jack Parr

and up the stairs, 3 at a time, he ran

and reached into the hall closet, where he grabbed a suitcase.

and threw in a few random pieces of clothes.

and then stormed down the stairs, in a flurry of a hurry.

and yelled something about "going to florida."

and vaguely mentioned he would phone and explain, when he got there.

and then he ran , to the car, and jumped in,

and with his heart in his throat, feeling like he was gonna pass out, from excitement, he drove straight to Boston Airport.

and got on the last flight, that night to Florida.

to convince Ted Williams to come to his Little Italian Restaurant.

and convince him, He did.

papa

( end of part 1)

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