My Bio - Part 4

We had a summer cottage at Old Colony Beach in Old Lyme, Connecticut. As soon as school let out, we’d head there and stay until Labor Day. My family began going to this beach when I was a baby and continued until I was in my mid-teens. This was partly because my parents made some enemies there. While the beach had its fun moments, I usually preferred being at our house in Massachusetts. Old Colony Beach was predominantly a Jewish beach, which suited my parents, as they weren’t particularly interested in associating with people different from them. They never explicitly taught me to hate others, like Black people, but I eventually grew to dislike everyone in general, regardless of race, color, or anything else.

When I was about eight, Tammy and I would go out and “be bad” when we checked on the cottage during the off-season. We’d rip screens off of other cottage windows, yank old doors off their hinges, and cause other minor damage.

My main companion was Andy, the youngest of six kids in the cottage next to ours. My parents and his, Judy and Al, had been friends for years, even before I was born. Their friendship ended in the ’70s, and Judy and Al sold their cottage shortly after.

My parents had fallings-out with at least three other families at the beach, mostly because of my mother. These childish cliques and struggles for popularity went on and on. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized just how silly and immature it all was.

Most of my days at the beach were spent bored—swimming and playing in the sand could only keep me entertained for so long. In the evenings, I would sometimes interact with other kids, play bingo, or watch movies on the beach. When I stayed in, I watched TV, listened to the radio, or played with my dolls.

Despite my boredom, there were a few highlights at the beach, like ice cream, fried dough, candy necklaces, miniature golf, and glow-in-the-dark wands. There was also Mrs. Labriola, an elderly woman who lived at the other end of our street year-round. I don’t remember how we met, but she was very good to me, often spoiling me with little treats. I was between eight and ten years old when I started visiting her, and the last time I saw her was when I was around twenty-four in 1990. After I moved to Phoenix in 1992, I learned that she had died in 1994 when I called her home and her son, Vito, answered.

My parents often played cards or other games with other couples just like them—very white, very straight, and very Jewish. My mother, like my sister, craved praise and popularity. Recognition and acknowledgment were everything to them.

My most horrible memory of the beach was when my mother nearly left me for dead.

Literally.

As I got older, my parents, especially my mother, became more obsessed with my appearance. I went through a chubby phase as a kid, and my mother taunted me as if I were a beached whale. This made me self-conscious, and my self-esteem started to crumble. I began to eat less and less as I tried to live up to my mother’s obsession with me as the “beautiful” child. Known for my big, long-lashed eyes, thick curly hair, and petite frame, I felt immense pressure to maintain this image—or else! When I finally lost some weight, my mother congratulated me as if it were the greatest achievement I could ever accomplish.

On one particular crash diet, around the age of ten, I went without food or water for several days. On the third day, I could barely lift my head off the pillow. I was incredibly weak.

My mother and her best friend, Charlotte, were just outside my room by the little kitchenette. When I called out to my mother for food and water, she refused to help me.

“You did this. You correct it,” she said, eager to return to her backgammon game, which was obviously much more important.

I was confused. My mother had been picking on me for being fat, yet when I once insisted I was too full to eat any more at a restaurant one night, she made me finish my meal and I ended up vomiting it up in the parking lot. It took that for her to stop forcing me to eat when I was full.

As I lay there in my weakened state for hours, I realized it was up to me to save myself or I would die. Somehow, something must’ve wanted me to live because if that kitchenette hadn’t been right off my room—forget it. With all the strength I could muster, I pulled myself out of bed, stepped just outside the room, yanked open a cabinet, grabbed a Devil Dog, and collapsed back onto the bed. My heart was pounding. It took me ten minutes to gather enough strength just to unwrap the wrapper and eat the damn thing. By this time, it was late afternoon.

After I ate and got some water in me, I showered and went outdoors. My legs were shaky. And being the kid that I was, I didn’t hold it against my mother that I could’ve died had I not managed to feed myself, and I almost didn’t!

In my early teens at the beach, I’d often cruise the next beach over, a public beach, looking for anyone who had some pot to spare or share. Once, I was foolish enough to get into some guy’s car to get high where there were fewer people. He hinted at wanting sex but dropped me back off at the beach when I said no. The guy could’ve kidnapped, raped, and killed me, so something was looking out for me that day too.

I attended two camps in Maine—one when I was eleven, the other when I was fourteen. I was supposed to be there for the whole summer, but I managed to get kicked out of both camps. I hated camp, not because the activities weren’t fun, but because it was too structured and hectic, leaving no time for myself or for privacy. I always valued my solitude and missed being in my own room with my own things, without having to share a bathroom with twenty other girls. I missed my stereo the most.

Camp M, where I was when I was fourteen, doesn’t stand out in my mind much. All I remember is making sure I’d get caught smoking cigarettes so I could get kicked out, and slugging the camp counselor assigned to my cabin. I guess she startled me when she went to wake me up, so I didn’t literally “slug” her. She claimed I did, though, but I knew she was exaggerating because she wanted me out of there just as much as I did.

Camp N, where I went when I was eleven, stands out more because of a woman whose name I couldn’t remember. She was somewhere between her late teens to mid-twenties and was exceptionally nice to me. I think she was some kind of supervisor because she had her own cabin where we spent my last night together.

Twenty years later, in Phoenix, Arizona, I tried to track this woman down to thank her for caring for me when so many others didn’t. I was never one to take good people for granted after all the bad ones I’d encountered, and I’m still not. I even contacted Unsolved Mysteries for help and was shocked to get a phone call from them inquiring about her, but I couldn’t find her or learn her true name at this time. No one I spoke to seemed to remember her. All I learned was that the camp was predominantly a Jewish camp. I should’ve figured as much since my parents were big on sticking with our own kind.

Jenny, a friend I’d had since I was nine, wasn’t a very good influence on me. On top of having a controlling mother, I had this bossy friend telling me what to do, too. But being the nice girl that I was, I put up with it until I was in my twenties.

After a year of friendship, Jenny moved to a rural town about forty minutes from where I lived, but we still visited each other from time to time. Her father seemed pretty passive, but her mother was a neurotic alcoholic whom I never really liked.

Jenny and I had our share of good times, but I can’t say I was too thrilled with her for getting me started on cigarettes. Who knows, though? Maybe I’d have started anyway. She also introduced me to pot, though fortunately, I never got carried away with that. I smoked the occasional joint from my early to mid-teens. Actually, my last joint would be when I was twenty, but that story will have to wait.

As kids, Jenny and I would hang out together, smoking our cigarettes and stealing from stores. Petty things like candy and cigarettes.

My other friend was Jessica, and she and I are still friends today.

Just as Jenny had gotten me hooked on cigarettes, I got Jessie hooked on them but I spared her the pot. Jessie and I didn’t cause much trouble together, though we did skip school once.

Jessie was also adopted like Jenny was. Her adoptive parents were divorced, and she lived with her mother just a few houses away from mine. Her father was a very famous public figure…Sesame Street’s Big Bird.

I stayed with Jessie at his house in Connecticut a few times. His house was quite impressive, with a cool layout and many photos of him with other celebrities. The show’s set was in New York, where he also had a nearby apartment.

I hated school and having to get up early, though I found middle school to be a little better than elementary school and high school even better. Before I became a ward of the state, that is. I loathed math and history. English and science were okay. My favorites were chorus, gym, and the typing class I had.