The Fun Aunt

I was very lucky that my mother was the oldest in her family, and that her youngest sister was just 16 when I was born. That’s not so unusual; Scott has an aunt who is four years older than he is, and you even see aunts and uncles who are younger than their nieces and nephews, like in Little House on the Prairie where Laura and Ma were pregnant at the same time.

My grandmother (who will be heretofore referred to as Nana) lived about fifteen minutes from us, also in Lowell, in a brown ranch house in a family neighborhood not too far from downtown. In her fifties, she had not one but two kids still living at home—my aunt Joanne, in her twenties, and my uncle Mike (who was 14 when I was born). Joanne had moved out for a while, married her boyfriend at 18, had two kids, got divorced, and moved, with her two kids, back in with Nana. Mike never left (he really never left—he still lives there, but he owns the house now and lives there with his wife and daughter.)

This might not sound like such great material for comedy, but my brother and I had a fantastic time every time we went to Nana’s house. My cousins were there, and Nana had already raised her own kids. Mostly she was out playing cards or bingo or having her card ladies over; to her credit, she didn’t even care if we sat under the table and giggled while they played. The ladies smoked, laughed loudly, and ate crackers with cheese you squeeze out of a can. Nana wasn’t the one babysitting us anyhow—that was Joanne’s job. And she was the best babysitter I ever had, without question.

Joanne was cool. She had long, straight brown hair and wore t-shirts, jeans and flipflops, not polyester pants and printed blouses. She even had one of those leather visors with studs in them, like a biker. She gave me all of her celebrity and fashion magazines when she was done reading them, and she loved records—one time she had us all dance around in her room to Michael Jackson’s “Rock with You” from “Off the Wall" with the blue strobe light flashing. She was also a fan of the Beatles, Heart, and Supertramp, and we liked to look at album covers with Heart, Linda Rondstadt, and Olivia Newton John on them and talk about who was prettier and why (the dark-haired woman from Heart. Because she could play guitar). When she took us for ice cream (which was often) she always asked, afterward, “What do you say?” to which we were supposed to shout in unison “Thanks a heap, creep!.” She often used the word "shithead" in regular conversation, not in anger, but to make us laugh. When the movie 10 was popular she styled our hair like Bo Derek’s (which took a long time) and then we sat out on the front porch and did what she called “waving to cuties” who would drive by.

Life there was very different from life at home. First, we didn't always have to eat at the table, and we were free to turn down what was offered and eat something else. Joanne is the pickiest eater I know or ever will know, as is her daughter and now her granddaughter, but she did cook one thing on a regular basis: a dish known as “yuck-yuck,” which, as far as I remember, was made of ground beef, noodles, and tomato sauce. Her tastes are not without contradiction—she hates tomatoes, but will eat some things with tomato sauce and loves Bloody Marys. She is still a big believer in options. At her fiftieth birthday party a few years ago, there were two lasagnas: not a vegetarian one and a meat one, as you might expect, but one with tomatoes and one without tomatoes (though it still has sauce). Every holiday she makes two banana cream pies: one with bananas and one with no bananas (though it still has banana filling).

My Nana’s house was not the quiet place one might think of when recalling grandma’s house. The music I most associate with being there are the opening chords of “Smoke on the Water,” because my uncle Mike, who lived in the basement at the time, often had his band over and you could feel the music vibrate through the floor—it was that loud. Sometimes the band guys, shaggy-haired, bearded dudes with jean jackets, would come up—to Joanne’s delight—but we were never supposed to go down there when they were around: I think that the was the only rule , and it was Mike’s. Nothing cramps your style like five little kids running around.

Yet when I think about how Joanne was when we were kids, she seemed to genuinely like hanging out with us. She never seemed bored or annoyed, and I don’t remember her ever getting mad or yelling; in fact, she found tantrums funny (which took away any reason to have one) and she didn’t mind it if we swore or engaged in light combat. No one really ever got hurt anyhow. I have a niece and nephew of my own now, and remembering how Joanne was (and still is) with us has made the experience of being an aunt even better; maybe I am now the “fun aunt.”