Daddy was a con man.
Not a thief, not a Catch Me if You Can con man, but a con none the less. Of course, this was before he married my moms.
Before he married Big Edie he was a lot of things. I was raised on the stories of a Fred before my moms, before me. That’s him, front and center with his Navy pals. He was a handsome rogue & a gypsy tea leaf reader. He read crystal balls, minds, tarot cards, handwriting & palms. He worked the carnival side shows & the burlesque halls. He rode a motorcycle & wore black leather. He was The Wild One. He was Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone rolled into one. A real buckler of swash, he had style & flash and was bigger than life to me as a kid. I was awed and I was terrified.
I fought for the privilege of saddle soaping his leather m/c jacket. It was years before I was allowed to touch the crystal ball. Read the rest of this entry »
She drives me crazy, my mother does. You know what they say, no one can push your buttons like the folks who installed them – and Big Edie & I are preternaturally close (hence, the endearment, Big Edie). She doesn’t see it like that, as co-dependence or enmeshment or any of those other psychobabble terms. “We just have a really good relationship“, she says.
