Life in a Northern Town

I grew up with characters. Not cartoon ones, though there were certainly enough of those in my young life, but the real-life kind. People with interesting stories and personalities. The odd, the quirky, and the downright strange. And the more idiosyncrasies they had the more I loved being around them.

For instance, I have fond memories of a friend of the family who, when we had our yearly cookout at a local lake, would eat live dragonflies for my amusement. He'd pluck them out of the air, bring them close to my face so I could get a good look at them, and then swallow them whole as I clapped with glee. This was also the same man who made the best kapusta around. Any man who works that closely with a lot of cabbage has got to have an eccentricity or two, if you ask me.

My extended family had their own peculiarities, but it's the friends and acquaintances of my parents, aunts and uncles who I think back on now with real fondness. The friends of my father and uncles were all a bunch of loud, hard drinking and hard working blue collar guys who would spend their precious time off from work at the local social club. This was the place my father would take my sister and me to when it was his turn to "babysit". He'd hand us a bunch of quarters for the pinball machine, kept us quiet with a steady supply of Coca Cola, chips and Slim-Jims, and then he'd spend the rest of the afternoon solving the world's problems with his buddies over bottles of beer and shots of whiskey.

The men had strange names like Uncle V, Montsy, Ratchet, and Cisco. They told off-colored jokes, but usually had the good sense to be embarrassed when they had gone too far in the company of young girls. Embarrassed, but not enough to stop telling the jokes. To this day I love a dirty joke and there is not much you can say that will shock me. Go ahead, give it your best shot.

"Breaking balls" was the sport of choice, and the better you were the more you were respected. They called each other slurs based on their nationalities, but with fondness. Frenchies, Geese, Pollocks, everyone was defined in some way by their heritage. If you could not be labeled so easily from your background you could be sure there would be some physical or mental characteristic that would shape you nickname.

My mother's friends were quieter. Not so much the characters as the men, but I respected them. They were the glue that held their families together, and in my working class town that was very important.

But it was the men who left their indelible marks. They helped shape who I am today.

I don't belong to that life anymore. I left the working class behind in favor of a white collar husband. I've traveled, evolved and tried to educate myself away from that way of life, but sometimes I can still fall back into it, like a comfortable chair, or shrug it on like an overcoat. I have no desire to go back to that life full time, I probably couldn't fit in even if I tried, but sometimes I wonder why I fought so hard to get away from it.

I live in a world of Keeping up with the Joneses, McMansions, and European cars. I like where I am and I believe my friends to be genuine, but sometimes I wonder if we're not all trying to keep up appearances. I long for the characters, the people who told you what they thought about you for your own damn good and to hell with your feelings. Maybe I'm remembering it all in a romantic light, but today if I had to pick between sipping martinis in a trendy club or bellying up to a well-worn bar to throw back a couple of cold ones and shoot the shit with the regulars... Well, the choice would be simple.

I'd pick the characters.