Monday, December 28, 2009

La Di Da...

I could say 'Happy Birthday' to The Countess but The Countess wasn't born until September of 2005.  She emerged from the ashes of widowhood and became an entity all by herself.  But she actually started way back on 12/28/1942....born in a snowstorm, delivered from a firestorm....let's start with that story!  The Cocoanut Grove in Boston.....one month before she was born.....11/28/1942...






My mother went into Boston that fateful night to have some fun before she became a mother.  She had gotten pregnant with a boyfriend from high school who had abandoned her.  Back in those days I might have become just another abortion statistic but my grandmother would not have any of that.  When my father's mother and family came to her house to say that my mother was a whore and that they wanted nothing to do with her, my grandmother got the gun from under the bed (a holdover from when they made gin during prohibition...another story!) and shot over their heads....."I will take care of my daughter and her child...you are not welcome here!"...so says the family legend.


And so my mother decided to have one great night out with her friends before she became a mother.  The Cocoanut Grove was the hottest nightclub in Boston at the time.  What better place to get that final rush of fun.  Of course this was long before our health system decreed that drinking and smoking and sex were all bad if you were pregnant!!!  Anyway, my grandmother was listening to the radio when the news broke in and declared: "Fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub!"  From that moment on she was glued to the coverage and praying for her daughter.....and of course, for me too.  The stuff that family legends are built on.  You can google the Cocoanut Grove Fire today and read about the tragedy.


My mother finally made her way home the next day with a fantastic story of being pulled through the kitchen and saved from a fiery death.  One month later, on a snowy New England night, I was born. 


Family legend has it that it was a major snowstorm that night.  The doctor was on his rounds at the New England Sanitarium and, after many telephone calls, my mother was brought to the Sanitarium.  I was told that they had to park the car at the bottom of a hill and climb the driveway through the snow.  And so I was born....in a snowstorm after surviving a firestorm....such a beginning to life!  Is it any wonder that I am a fantastical creature?



Countess Bedelia 12/28/2009 04:12:00 PM

1 Comments:

What a story dear Countess! However, I would have been sorely disappointed to think you might have come into this world in a more mundane fashion. I wish you many more years of mayhem, fun, and foolishness!

Add a comment