Family Issues and Conflicts – Early On

Endicott St. Days – 1939 to 1944

a) Mémère
b) Mom
c) Mom’s stories and photo album
d) My dog, Pal, a German Shepherd male dog
e) Monsieur Poulain, our landlord on Endicott St.
f) Margarine in a plastic sealed bag with red dot loaded with vegetable dye
g) Vegetable wagon and bread truck
h) Air raid warden, white metal helmet and Dad’s gas mask, all stored in a closet
i) Riding my wooden wagon on White St.
j) Black kitchen curtains for air raid protection
k) Ronald LaCouture, neighbor boy on Endicott
l) Chickens in backyard and Monsieur Poulain’s hen house,  un poulailler
m) Traveling only in our yard and, sometimes, in our immediate neighborhood
Mother’s aunts living on Riverside on a large piece of land near hardware store
Richard visited only now and then
Florence and Gerry were there often
Much light entering kitchen from the two windows overlooking the White-Endicott intersection – very upbeat
beautiful cast-iron, yellow-enamel-coated kitchen stove at south end of kitchen
Mom’s fancy hair-drying and curling machines in corner bedroom, diagonal to the central stove
neat pantry with many closets and drawers located along side bathroom with its tub and toilet
exit door to hallway stairs going down and to the covered and screened veranda overlooking side yard with the rhubarb patch and the large garden area with its
free-range checkens roaming about
Ronald would cause Mr. Poulain some grief by turning on his garden hose & letting it run
Dad was working for Darcey Pies and Mom did hair dressing at home
Best socioeconomic neighborhood of my youth and, later, doing studies at Lowell-Tech
Neighbors were distant, but Madame LaCouture, a woman from Belgium, was pleasant
Madame LaCouture spoke French with a thick accent, which I found curious but, quite attractive Different intonations can easily also the cadence and tone of a language. Already, I was interested in language and variations of language.
Everyone else usually spoke the French-Canadian patois of Quebec province, which is often called, derisitively, “le cheval”.

Un char
la chantepleure

“Christ de Calvaire”
‘Sale de putain”
“Marges de la marde (merde)”
“Jesus, Marie, et Joseph”
“Trou de cul”
“Baisses-moi le cul”