Yolie

A little girl was born in 1911.

Her name was Yolanda.

Her parents immigrated to the United States from Italy before her birth, so she was the first in her family to be born in the new land.

I think her parents came through Ellis Island.

And I’ve seen pictures of Yolie’s beautiful mother; she died fairly young.

My father-in-law, Al, was also an only child, and despite his left-handed tendency toward mischief (there’s this caterpillar story) was considered pretty much perfect in Yolie’s eyes.

So when he met and married my mother-in-law, Marie…Marie was not granted the same perfection status which sometimes made for a rocky relationship between Yolie and she.

Eventually…Marie and Al had two children, Craig and Cheryl (because back in the sixties all the children had names which began with the same letter…it was some sort of rule).

Al worked for one of the big oil and gas companies. During the 1980s, he was banished from the land of milk and honey (New Jersey) to Texas (where very few others with Italian surnames resided) for no good reason.

Craig, the grandson of Yolie, had to change his plans for college. Instead of attending Rutgers or one of the other infinitely better New Jersey schools, he now decided to look for a university in Texas.

It made sense. He would be closer to his family.

So he chose Baylor, and that’s how we met.

In the meantime, Yolie and his other grandparents continued to happily reside in a place called Holiday City located in Toms River, New Jersey.

By the way…Holiday City looked like something out of the early sixties. When John Mellencamp sang about “Little Pink Houses,” he was probably singing about the southern equivalent of Holiday City. A 1980s snapshot would picture row after row of little white houses with small, tidy yards sporting a wide variety of garden sculpture. But, I have to say, the Virgin Mary figured pretty popularly into the equation.

Back in Texas and despite his very different last name, I could see Craig just reeked ‘good guy’ (and was handsome as well), so we started dating during the latter half of my senior year at Baylor.

The following summer, Craig planned a temporary return to New Jersey to stay with his aunt and uncle while he worked at a pharmaceutical company to make money toward his continuing stay at college.

This meant a three month separation for us…just when our relationship had barely gotten off the ground.

So Craig had a brilliant idea (I knew he was smart!). He would invite me up for a visit before his new job started. We would spend time with a friend in New York then head down to New Jersey to see what it had to offer. We even managed to get in some Philadelphia time.

But while in New Jersey, I would meet his extended family.

This is how I (The young, city-bred, Texas mongrel) happened to meet Yolie (the Italian-American, Jersey grandmother).

to be continued…

Comments

[Laura]

Thanks for commenting, Honey! :)

[Honey]

Very good stuff - i cannot wait until the next part