Chapter Nine: Working on the Jane Gang....

 

 

Blane Jane’s daughter Jandy married Tom Barrington in 1978.  It is through this marriage that I (Mick Jane, Jandy’s brother, Blane’s oldest son) become part of the Dentdale Diaries.

 

 

 

The Jane house was located within blocks of Jake and Carol Barrington’s home in Dentdale, but our house called Denton Heights its home.   The interstate (I-295) created an unnatural divide between the two towns and none of us had ever met or heard of the Barringtons until Jandy started seeing Tom.

 

 

 

Jandy has four brothers in this family and seven half-brothers and sisters through Blane’s first marriage.   The Second Family is what we were called by The First Family.   Blane liked to think of us (the second family) as The Jane Gang.   This was a not-so-subtle way of hiding an embarrassment by putting in plain sight for all to view.  His embarrassment was that he was a sixty year old man with a family of five children (plus wife) to house, feed, a cloth.  Actually, having a young wife and five children was a source of pride: that he no longer earned enough money to support his ‘trophies’ was his embarrassment.    Recognizing that the best way to earn money was through sweat equity, and also recognizing that his aging body would no longer produce the testosterone to produce the needed sweat, Blane reviewed his remaining assets, and quickly put them to work.   We (Mick, Stan, Jandy, Heff, and Scotch Jane) were the most visible (and audible) of Blane’s remaining assets and so, like it or not, we became independent contractors in Blane’s diverse business empire.  Whether it was cutting lawns, shoveling snow, house painting, or any other ‘handy-man’ chores that could earn a buck – Blane had a worker who was immediately available: one of us!

 

 

 

He disavowed his previous employment as a privileged executive (or maybe they ‘disavowed’ him when he knocked up his secretary). He liked the idea of steady income, and of steady work.  He just wasn’t really fond of doing the work that provided the steady income – after all, in his previous career he had been ‘management’- not labor.   

 

 

 

The seasonal businesses that diversified the ever-expanding portfolio affectionately referred to as Blane Inc. LLC would always be regarded as money that could not be depended upon.   A drought would mean that lawns weren’t mowed so frequently, a blizzard would mean that the gas bill could be paid within 30 days of its presentation.   Years that presented rain and no snow meant the gas bill wasn’t paid until lawn cutting began in the spring.  Equipment failures meant an unexpected expenditure.  Births represented another set of hands that could one day offset the expense of the equipment costs.  Birthday parties were written off as a business expense because the cake and ice cream were an entertainment expense for the independent contractors.   Birthdays also meant that we were one year older, and that meant we could work harder, longer, faster, and that no increase in salaries would be necessary.

 

 

 

When we were very young, Blane would use day laborers for his businesses.   Given that I had so many half-brothers and sisters, I assumed that Jesus, Juan, and Carmen were my blood relatives.   They were there at every birthday party, that every child in The Second Family had, so it was kind of reasonable to assume that there was another ‘Mommy’ out there producing these brown eyed kin.   Later on, Priscilla explained that they weren’t actual relatives.   She explained that she treated them as family because they were such nice, caring people.   In fact, they were very nice people, who we saw on at least a weekly if not daily basis.   Blane invited them to our celebrations because he honored their work, and was empathetic to their obvious limited social mobility.   But, as with most things in business: business is business, and with every slice of cake that Jesus, Juan, and Carmen enjoyed, Blane saw a tax deduction for ‘business entertainment’.

 

 

 

The foundation of Blane Inc. LLC was related to his career in the printing industry – well, kind of.   One of the customers for the printing business was a local newspaper.   Their delivery service was somewhat slipshod, and they no longer wanted the responsibility of delivering the product that they printed.   Thinking that newspaper delivery was a temporary fix for a short term cash flow shortage, Blane agreed to deliver the newspapers.

 

 

 

Some people don’t need a straight eight hours of sleep every night.   Blane was one of those people who could be happy with short naps, and four or five hours of sleep at night.   When the kids started arriving, he found it difficult to find the quiet time to get his well-earned and much-needed rest.   The paper route required waking at 3 a.m. to pick-up, rubber-band, or encase in plastic wrap the newspapers.   This would take two or three hours, and then the next two hours was spent delivering the papers.   By the time he returned home, the older children were off to school, and the younger children were there to be enjoyed.  By noon the younger children and Blane would nap. Late afternoon would see the return of the older children from their classes and we would be marched out the door to earn some money in the other business opportunities that Blane would stumble onto.

 

 

 

Blane had more quiet time than of any of us in that house.   ‘Alone’ was just not something that one could be with five children, two parents, and a mother-in-law living in one house.  His odd hours meant that he could sleep when most of us weren’t there.  Or, he could be out of the house, when we were there.  Either way, it was a win/win situation for him.

 

 

 

Blane enjoyed the solitude of the paper route.   He liked the physicality of the work.   Yes, the customer complaints were a daily source of annoyance, but the complaints were generally resolved by quickly replacing the soggy, thrown-in-a-bush-and-can’t-find-it copy of the complainant’s newspaper.     There were chronic complainers, but Blane recognized that their complaints were most likely the only human interactions that these sad and forgotten people would have during their long lonely day.     So, the chronic complainers were thwarted in their whining, by nearly daily ‘wellness checks’ that Priscilla would execute by phone.  

 

 

 

The Jane Gang’s reputation was burnished to a high gloss by Priscilla’s actions to thwart complaints with kindness!    We (meaning Priscilla) took special care with folks who were suffering from loneliness, illness, or any other ‘ness’ that could be cured with a smile, and the episodic gift of home baked cookies.    Little could be done about an errantly thrown newspaper, or plastic wrapped newspaper whose plastic disintegrated in the acid rains from Dentdale’s industrial facilities.   It was Priscilla who recognized that a ‘big deal’ could be turned into an ‘oh well’ by simply being friendly.    It is easier to complain to a stranger, than it is to complain to a friend so Priscilla made all of her customers, her friend.

 

 

 

He walked out on his family of seven (plus his wife) to begin life anew with my mother Priscilla.   He was in his fifties, and clearly having a mid-life crisis.   Priscilla was an only child with a great sense of humor, and her personality boasted a pragmatic way of seeing things.   She was pretty-of-face, and had a bubbly personality, but she was a large girl who had pretty much resigned herself to remaining single.

 

 

 

Blane had risen through the ranks to become an executive in the company that he worked at.   Priscilla landed a secretarial position in the company, and then she landed Blane.   The ‘doing’ was not Priscilla’s work.   It was Blane whose wandering eye wandered her way.   The heart wants what the heart wants, and as he approached his fiftieth birthday his heart wanted to start over – to do it all again.   The thing he most wanted to ‘do’ was Priscilla.   His doings were done without regard to the consequences.   However, he did not shy away from the responsibilities that resulted from his behavior.   “You breed ‘em, you feed ‘em!”  was his motto, and he stayed true to his word.

 

 

 

We never lacked for food, or fun.  What more can one ask for in a childhood?  The only thing we wanted was the thing we would never get (of course):  to be able to stay in a warm comfortable bed on a cold rainy day; and not have to wake up every, single, day of my life at 3 a.m.!

 

 

 

Tom Barrington’s dad (Jake) required Tom and Frisky to unload and load Jake’s station wagon with whatever product he was peddling at the time.   Jake had been a milkman, but when grocery stores and ‘The Wawa’ started selling milk, the milkman disappeared from the American scene.   Jake liked physical labor, but was much more sociable than Blane.   Jake was a much younger man than Blane.  His work had far fewer customer complaints, so he didn’t need the isolation that Blane preferred.     When the milk business shut down Jake and his other milkmen buddies (mostly) went into the food brokerage business.    They already knew the routes, the highways and byways, of southern New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, so instead of milk; they peddled Chun King, Aqua Net hairspray, Lysol, Thousand Island salad dressing, or any other non-perishable product whose manufacturer wanted premium shelf space in the supermarkets.  

 

 

 

The Barrington’s basement served as a warehouse, and it was here that Jake had what he thought were ‘bonding’ moments with Tom & Frisky.     Frisky liked organizing the warehouse, and the organizational skills that he learned served him well in his later careers.   Tom was less enchanted with the duties required of him to help Jake keep his job, and provide income to the family.  Tom grew to resent Jake’s bi-monthly loading and unloading of the station wagon.  The unloading occurred on Friday night, or Saturday morning, and the reloading would happen on Sunday evening.   Total time to unload and reload the car was less than an hour (half hour unloading, a half hour loading).   So, it wasn’t a daily occurrence consuming twenty percent of Tom’s waking moments.

 

 

 

Tom’s resentment of Jake for this and other perceived failures in Jake’s personality were unshakable.   This is kind of funny because Tom greatly admired Blane for making us work every day of the week delivering papers in the moon’s waning light.    His resentment of Jake’s chores is laughable, because the grass was most certainly not greener in the not-so-verdant garden of the Jane household. 

 

 

 

Tom’s love affair with Blane was evident to everyone in the Jane household.  Tom expressed in word and action his desire to disassociate from the Barringtons (Jake specifically, Carol later on, and Frisky – always).  Tom and Jandy had many things in common, and it wasn’t thought of as a bad match.   But, Blane had already experienced three other daughter’s marriages, his sister’s marriages, and his own two marriages.  Blane’s experience in marriage was extensive and his opinion of Jandy’s marriage to Tom was not quite ready to be verbalized or discussed.   His surprising departure from this mortal coil left the question about his opinion on the pending engagement ceremony unanswered.

 

 

 

Blane had the rather dubious distinction of having a wife, a sister, and a daughter who were all the same age!   Take a moment to figure out how that works out……… we’ll wait!   While he was considered a man’s man, he clearly had a way with the ladies.   He was a very smart man, whose libidinous instincts would prove to be his legacy.   His success with the ladies was not due to his good looks (he was good looking though – as we all are in the Jane family); it came from an intuition about feminine attitudes and behaviors.

 

 

 

As Jandy progressed through her teenage years, Blane supervised and hoarded her virtue.   This was a mostly successful campaign, and Blane relinquished his management of Jandy’s chastity shortly after she met Tom.   Blane saw Tom as a nice ‘starter-kit’.   In today’s terms, Tom would have been seen as a nice first husband.   Blane would not have minded if Jandy and Tom shacked up (after all it was the ‘70’s and living together was becoming a common modality). 

 

 

 

Did Blane transition from this life to avoid refusing Tom’s request for Jandy’s hand?   Did Blane relinquish his control knowing that all-would-be-well?   As Freud said:  “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”  Blane was old.   He didn’t go to the doctor, and really who knows what really ailed him in the final months of his life.   He had fallen a few months before his demise, and it is most likely that some thrombosis, inner bleeding, or issue related to the fall hastened his ending.  

 

 

 

The romanticized version that Tom and Jandy cling to, is just that: a romanticized version of the truth.  In the movie “Something’s Gotta Give” Jack Nicholson’s character tells Diane Keaton’s character that he’s always told her “some version of the truth”.  It is said that history is written by those who survive the longest.  Tom and Jandy’s version of the truth makes for a nice story, and it will be the version of the truth that will become (if it hasn’t already become) an unimpeachable chapter in the official family history.

 

 

 

Blane saw through Tom’s pretensions.   Blane disliked Tom’s disavowing and discrediting of the Barrington family.   Blane could not understand how Jake became the cause of all that was evil in Tom’s world – Jake was well-liked, he never divorced Carol, or ran away from home and he kept a steady income from a job that he despised so that Carol, Tom and Frisky would have a solid foundation from which they could build their fortunes.

 

 

 

Blane also knew that if a man would turn on his own flesh and blood, he would turn pretty much turn on everyone that he would encounter.   As time has gone on, it has been proven that Blane was correct in this observation.  Tom’s treatment of Jake, Frisky and then Carol was stunningly inappropriate.  How Carol got onto the bad side of Tom we’ll never know – but there she was.   Fortunately, Carol was blinded by her grandmotherly duties and Tom could have lit a bag of dog poop on her doorstep and she would not have minded – just as long as the grandchildren continued to visit.

 

 

 

Tom swore that his kids would be shown the door on their eighteenth birthday.   The fact that he did not leave Jake’s house until he was twenty three was just another inconvenient truth.   Did he make good on his promise?   Yup, the kids had eighteen years to get their act together on Tom’s ticket and then it was “Bye-bye, don’t let the door hit you in the ass…..”.

 

 

 

When Jandy got sick, Tom’s true colors began to show.   Frisky had revealed that he was being treated for HIV many years before Jandy’s illness.   Frisky’s clock was clearly ticking, but Tom showed no empathy or sympathy for Frisky’s plight.   Tom truly believed that Frisky was just being a hypochondriac and that Frisky’s hospitalizations were just a ploy for attention.   This explains why Tom was rarely ever informed about Frisky’s hospitalizations, and why Jandy fearfully told him that she too was ill.

 

 

 

Of course, Jandy didn’t have HIV.   It was cancer that was found, fought, and defeated.   Cancer didn’t fit into Tom’s neat and tidy life.   There were too many ups and downs, and Tom found himself encumbered with Jandy’s prescriptions, doctor visits, and hospitalizations.   Jandy had always been so self-sufficient, and independent.   Tom trusted that Jandy would never set emotional ‘traps’ or employ cloying techniques to manipulate or control his love for her.   However, he did suspect that Jandy’s illness was some kind of Trojan horse that she sent his way filled with emotions, sentiments, and needs that Tom was completely incapable of processing.

 

 

 

Tom could share his emotions (in a somewhat niggardly fashion).    He could give (reluctantly), but he could never receive.    In some way, he perceived every act of kindness as a Trojan horse.    Possibly he misunderstood Carol’s declaration that:  “a buck is your best friend”.    He would never ask for, or accept help from anyone.   He felt that assistance was really just a covert methodology being employed to shackle his free spirit, and independence.   He felt that if one did not pay in cash, one would pay in some other way.   The cash he didn’t mind paying (if it wasn’t a lot of cash) – it was the paying of his imagined emotional debts through acts of kindness that he could not find himself capable of.

 

 

 

Jandy’s recovery was a slow process.  The countertops filled with prescriptions reminded Tom of Jake’s medicine cabinet.  He hated Jake for his illnesses.   While it was true, that Jake was a bit of a hypochondriac, it was more truthful to state that Jake’s insurance plan caste him as bait in a sea filled with money-hungry physicians whose prescriptions and quack treatments would ultimately be the end of Jake.

 

 

 

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder had really not gained a foothold when Jandy became ill, and Tom’s retroactive use of this excuse for his poor behavior during her illness fell on deaf ears.   Just like Jake’s plea that he really was sick, no one believed Tom.

 

 

 

Tom didn’t have PTSD, he had selfishness.   Was he afraid:  he was afraid for himself, not for Jandy, not for Frisky, not for Jake, not for Carol, not for……!  Well, you can fill in the blanks.  The list of people that Tom could not find compassion for is a long one.   Really, it’s quite a shame, because Tom is essentially a very nice guy.   All of the Barrington’s are and were nice people.  Tom just could not unlock that last door that would open his heart to a land of emotional fulfillment.

 

 

 

Tom wanted to be a part of The Walking Id, The Jane Gang.   But he was not willing to pay the price of admission to our low-bar-entry-level club.   Part of being one-of-us meant that you would be responsible for a unilateral sharing, caring, giving and receiving – and poor Tom just would have none of that!

 

 

 

When the angels handed out self-protection, Tom took the entire shelf-load for himself.   When Frisky Barrington went to get his ration of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-protection he discovered that the angel’s pantry boasted only empty shelves – Tom had taken it all, and hoarded it as if it were gold.   To him (Tom) it was gold.  No, it was better than gold, because it could be stored in the safest place of all – in his cold and miserable heart!

 

 

 

Was Tom’s coldness nature or nurture?   In his case it was a bit of both.   Grandma Mary’s coldness ran in his blood, but Mary came from a different time and place, and her survival depended upon her ability to continue on, through the most stressful of circumstances.  One does not bury three children without an incredible resilience that sometimes manifests itself as coldness.   Mary’s attitude was in his nature, but she did not nurture Tom’s coldness. 

 

 

 

There were several incidents in Tom’s youth where he was held accountable for actions of a rather dubious nature.   Truthfully, he was lured into some of these situations by older people in positions of authority, and should have been shown more sympathy than discipline.  But not all of his transgressions were executed in ignorance.   His fertile mind learned quickly the way to entrap people into activities that he desired without leaving so much as a fingerprint to imply his involvement.   He never did anything that was much more than an average boy’s maturation process, but there were a few things involving Frisky that Tom should have, and did, know better than to involve his younger brother. 

 

 

 

Was Tom abused? We’ll never know, he’ll never tell.   Certainly to no great extent was he abused, but it is common knowledge that his proximity to those who may have acted inappropriately creates a cloud of suspicion. In retrospect Tom’s ability to protect himself from abusive relationships resulted in a hyper-sensitivity and distrust of all relationships.  

 

 

 

Carol and Jake had no particular opinion about Jandy, and no particular objection to Tom marrying straight out of college.   That Tom had not experienced much of the world, or experienced the personal growth that comes from failed, youthful relationships was seen as a safe and logical choice.   Safe and logical choices were important to the Barringtons.   If it seemed safe and logical then it could not be found to be wrong.   They later applied this template to Frisky’s childhood – ‘it was a safe and logical choice to dress Frisky as Jackie Kennedy…..’!  One can well imagine Mary Dolan Barrington’s raised eyebrow when she learned of that safe and logical decision.

 

 

 

Tom believed himself to be Carol’s favorite son, and felt some sympathy for Frisky in this regard.   Frisky thought himself to be Carol’s favorite son, and felt sympathy for Tom in that regard.

 

Carol had enough common sense to keep her opinion about her sons and their choices to herself and really had no favorite of the two.

 

 

 

Tom was her ‘rock’ and Frisky was her ‘hard place’.   She was never torn between the two, because they were so diametrically opposite.    What she found amusing was the fact that the distance between them could never erase their closeness: they really were peas-in-a-pod.   They walked alike, they talked alike, they thought alike – they just refused to admit how much alike they really were.   They were Barringtons, Shreves, Dolans, Smiths and the hodge-podge of genetic material that may or may not have descended from French royalty.  It was their Irish Alzheimer’s that allowed their good memories of their youth to fade while keeping the resentments and slights of those same precious years alive and well.

 

 

 

Tom never really did make it into The Jane Gang.   We were too old to continue our fraternity.  Also, four of us moved out of the house shortly after Blane’s passing.   Stan has stayed in that house to this day.   He still wears his high school bomber jacket, and his high school ring.   He loves his Corvettes, The Brass Rail, and pizza.   He vacations in Sea Isle, and has never travelled further than Virginia.  It was a happy day for him when he kicked Priscilla over to the Denton Towers for Senior Living.   Frankly, even Priscilla jumped for joy when she learned that she was to be emancipated from that eighty year old house whose floors never ceased to be creaking.   Finally, Priscilla could sit in her living room, and be deafened by the sounds of silence.

 

 

 

Heff and Scotch both married relatively early in life.  Stan and I (Mick Jane) waited until our thirties before marrying.   Of the five of us, you would think there would be at least twenty children.   But no, only seven kids were produced out of five marriages.   The Jane Gang is still close, but our lives weren’t particularly eventful or challenging so there were very few incidents where we needed to pull the gang together to defeat or overcome any obstacles that presented themselves.

 

 

 

The last time I saw Tom was at the funeral.   He stood in the back of the funeral home, and then in the back of the church.   When the casket passed by him he acted as if it was Pandora’s Box.  Those of us who knew Tom, knew that he feared the casket would open, and out would leap his pre-deceased ancestors who would want to hug him, kiss him, and tell them how much he was loved.   For Tom, that would be a fate worse than death….

 

 

 

………..

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eight: Toot Sweet!

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eight:  Toot Sweet!

“Tout suite!”

“Tout suite!” was the favorite phrase of my grandmother.   She would have no truck with laziness, and in her mind, a moment’s rest was a moment wasted!

Mary Dolan Barrington’s genealogical searches rather dubiously attached her family to French royalty.    She recognized and reluctantly admitted that she had gathered very few facts to support her research.   Facts never really got in the way of a good story in our family so Grandma Mary would beat down any challenge to her theories with her world famous ‘raised eyebrow’ and a stare like that could (and  would) ice up at least the first three gates of hell.

 

Mary’s personage was more politely expressed in French:  She was ‘glace’!  When she added a few pounds to her petite frame, she became La Glaciere!   On good days she could be described as La Crème Glacée;  La Glaçon; La Verglas;, La Glaçage.  To me she was Ma grand-mère avec La Sucre Glace.  

She never noticed the sniggering of her Barrington in-laws about her purchase of an ice cream store (which she always referred to as a boutique).   The Barrington’s would often comment how La Boutique Glacee’s ice cream was the coldest cream in New Jersey, and then add that this coldness was achieved without the aid of refrigeration!   Mary saw this statement as homage the fine quality ice cream that she served, and never realized that the Barrington’s were saying that the ice cream’s coldness was achieved through its proximity to Mary!

On bad days she was La Vent du Nord (the North Wind).  Her natural sangfroid would readily discourage any and all challenges to her royal lineage.  The pretensions that she adopted to support her confiance en soi (self-belief) were more thoroughly researched than her royal lineage and her faux-Patrician accent cemented everyone’s belief in her French origins.

 Mary created and adapted herself to a French persona.   Had there been an Alliance Francais to join in Camden, Gloucester or Collingswood, she would have been its president, its directeur general, et la femme important!

Nancy had woven some loose genealogical thread into the fabric of her identity and actively pursued her spirit de corps, and her corps’ spirit was decidedly French.   Out went the Irish lace, in came the gingham.   A perfectly wonderful apple pie, made with apples picked from an old orchard off of Barrington Avenue was no longer called a Dentdale Apple Pie; it was a French Apple Pie!  Beef stew?  Now it’s bouef bourguignon!  Imported sharp cheese from Ireland was replaced with brie (served warm of course).

She was an avid fan of I Love Lucy.  Lucy and Ricky moved to Connecticut and Nancy mistook their early American motif as Country French and redecorated ‘The Big House’ in Collingswood, and ‘The Shore House’ in Sea Isle City with things that were authentically French, or things that could be repurposed and pass as French.

Along with this French immersion, came some lessons in French language.   She had read many of the French authors (read their works in English), and had imagined that reading them in the original language would bring her closer to ‘her people’.    Lacking actual French people to speak to, she could only manage to scrape together a few French phrases.   Her ambition to read Flaubert in the original language was guillotined along with her hopes and dreams that she would one day be returned to the French throne from which her gene pool derived.   Realizing that her path to the French throne would meet with some resistance, Mary contented herself with being queen of the dynasty that existed in her mind.   Her closest friends were seen as ladies-in-waiting, and her enemies were treated as peasants.   In fact, Mary was one of the few people that I knew who truly believed in a peasant class.

As mentioned before, Nancy had an aversion to laziness. Laziness was for the peasants.   Nobility such as her and hers, had a responsibility to sustain and maintain the aristocracy. This could only be achieved by twenty-four-hour-a-day diligence.  Mary was most likely more manic than depressive in her disposition, but it can truthfully be said that her mania served her branch of the Barrington family quite well.   Mary was a whirling dervish of activity who was rarely found sitting.    Had she found a French language instructor who could give lessons while Mary whirled through her many activities, Mary would have mastered the French language.   Not only would she have demanded that everyone speak to her in French, she would have read only French literature, and eventually have written her own books (in French of course).

Mary did recognize that not everyone could keep up with her.   She did not expect her family and friends to work as hard as she did.   She did expect them to work hard though.   "Working hard" for la noblesse oblige did not require digging ditches, planting potatoes, or other peasant class work.  Mary  felt that  one must keep active either through sports, education, or participation in the arts.  In her mind, idle hands were the devil’s workshop, and so any languishing was met with a command to read a book, practice the piano, paint a painting (or the front porch).    If her command was to do some chore or activity; that chore or activity needed to be done “Tout suite”!

When Chitty Chitty Bang Bang premiered in 1968 Nancy found her theme song:  “Toot Sweets”.   “Toot Sweets” is four minutes and nineteen seconds of my life that I’ll never get back.   It is arguably one of the worst, most repetitive, stupid songs, I’ve ever heard.   Whenever Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is shown on television, I gird my loins because I know I’m going to spend the next forty or fifty days living with an earwig: “Toot Sweets”.

‘Toot Sweets’ is my bête noire because my nickname is Toot.   All of my classmates at the Kingston School (friends and enemies) plagued me with the humming or whistling of 'Toot Sweet's every time I passed by them.  Even  now (decades later) my ears are plagued with that tune when Chitty Chitty is shown on cable - TV.

I am Thomas William Barrington.  There is no other person named Thomas William Barrington.   There are many William Thomas Barrington’s, but they are all descended from John Jacob Barrington I, through his son William Thomas.

I am Frisky Barrington’s older brother and they call me Toot (The Other One – with a ‘T’ added on for flavor).  I am Jake and Carol’s first born.  There is only four and half years between me and my younger brother.  I'm sure that I was called Tommy, or Thomas, or possibly T.W. as an infant, but as soon as Frisky came along I was called Toot;  so I really don’t remember a time when I wasn’t referred to (lovingly) as Toot.  

I thought that Grandma Mary’s constant muttering of 'tout suite' was a symptom of early onset senility, or late onset Tourette’s.  It is the privilege of the first born to indulge in narcissism.     I was probably in my twenties when I realized that tout suite, wasn’t Toot-is-sweet. To be fair, first-born-narcissism is a nurtured (not natured) trait.   It’s also a well-earned indulgence and trade-off for all of the rules and regulations that are inflicted upon first-borns and then abandoned with the younger children in the brood. So I think I should be forgiven for thinking that tout suite, was too sweet.   I personally am an unforgiving person, but readily, and quickly forgive (or more likely forget) my own transgressions.  This too, is the privilege of the first born.  So sayeth The Toot! So shall it be!

My interest in things French is non-existent.   I’m a little more connected to my Irish ancestry through the Barrington lineage.   The Dolan’s were nice, but there were too few of them, and most of them lived on the western side of Philadelphia and they wouldn’t cross the Delaware to save their lives!  I had always thought that Frisky's French connection(s) were part of his life plan.   Only later did I discover that his puff pastry excursions to Paris were the result of events that could best be described as serendipitous.
 

Frankly, I’m not all that interested in things past.   Frisky was always the family historian.   Actually, I think of Frisky as more the family’s ‘hysterical’, than historian.   Frisky was the one who glued himself to the Aunts and Uncles at those Fourth-of-July reunions held in the Barrington Avenue home that I grew up in.  It is Frisky who has scraped out a more authentic version of the truth that the Barrington’s called history.   It is Frisky who stored all of the stories and then compared them to family documents; and it was Frisky who then applied a more humanistic template to events (both good and bad).  

The result of his analysis is interesting to many – but not to me.   I’m more of a here-and-now guy.   I have my opinions (some good, some bad) about my relatives and once I’ve formed an opinion I’m unlikely to revisit the topic for a change-of-mind. In this regard I am somewhat Catholic for an avowed Atheist.  

In my world, if you’ve done something bad, that bad thing cannot be offset by any number of ‘Hail Mary’s’ or ‘mea culpa’.     I have no purgatory in my spirit or soul and much like Grandma Mary; my (generally regarded) warm personality can throw more ice, more quickly, than Queen Elsa of Arrendale (Frozen).

I run hot and cold; often within the space of a few minutes.  My colleagues unanimously voted me the P.M.S. Poster Child for 1988, ’89,’ and ’90.   The streak would have continued, but I notified one and all that ‘if elected, I would not serve’.   I was thinking of Lyndon Johnson’s famous quote in 1968 when I said that.    

 

It was later that I amended General William Tecumseh Sherman’s original quote:

"If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve” –General Sherman

“If drafted, I will not run: if nominated I will not accept: if elected, I WILL NOT BE YOUR BITCH!” –Thomas William Barrington (Toot).

 

 

The 1960s in Dentdale were wonderful times.   Although I moved out to Vincentown with my wife in 1978, I returned to Dentdale for the parades as often as I could.   Even after Jake and Carol sold the house, I would go first to the Dentdale parade, and then skip on down West Atlantic Avenue to enjoy the Denton Heights parade.

My wife Jandy had grown up in a big house on the White Horse Pike, and Mrs. Jane (my mother-in-law) stayed in that house for many years.   In fact, Jandy’s brother, Stan, never moved out of the house, not ever.

So after the parade, we’d stop by for a quick visit with Carol and Jake, and then spend the rest of the afternoon at the Jane’s house – waiting for the fireworks to start.

I married Jandy Jane whose father was Blane Jane.   The Jane family lived on the White Horse Pike in Denton Heights, and Blane had sired thirteen children in two marriages before I met and married Jandy.

To be really honest, I’m not a big fan of the Barrington family, and my marriage to Jandy was my way of escaping from my personal belief that the Barrington’s were the cause of all the evil in the world.   To me, Jandy and the four brothers that her mother gave birth to were the idyllic family.

I thought Blane Jane was amazing.   He had done well in life with his first family.   He was a Vice President in a printing company, and when he laid his eyes upon the corpulent and Rubenesque frame of the twenty two year old Priscilla Smith, he ditched his wife, his career, and his original family.

I had always seen Blane’s pursuit of ‘true love’ as the most honorable thing a man could do.   It was Frisky who unforgivably humanized Blane Jane as a predator whose principle character trait was an affinity for unsafe sex with a woman whose chances at love were at best minimal.

Jandy and I had been dating for several years.   We had both graduated from Denton Heights High in 1972.   Jandy was in the graduating class’ Top 10, and I was in the Bottom 200.   Her older brothers Mick and Stan had created a legacy in the school, and Jandy was very well liked.   We really didn’t ‘hook up’ until we started bumping into one another on campus at Glassboro State College.

She wanted to be an elementary school teacher, and I wanted to teach ‘shop’.    She had been victimized by all of her brothers, and I loved victimizing my brother.    Victimization requires two to tango, and it was (and is) this ‘victor/victim’ tango that Jandy and I danced for many years.

I needed to distance myself from Frisky, and some events that had occurred in my early teenage years.   Marrying Jandy, and becoming Blane’s ersatz ‘son’ - provided me with an escape route, and some plausible deniability about my show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine adventures in the Boy Scouts.  I had participated in some harmless shenanigans in the Boy Scouts, and I decided to wash away my shame, by shaming others.   After all, ‘denial’ is not just a river in Egypt; it’s a great way to discredit someone’s memories about things best left forgotten.   Who better to foist my shame upon than my cake-baking, pink-piano-playing, little brother?

Jandy and I approached our graduations from Glassboro with eager anticipation.   I bought a little house out in Vincentown and asked Jandy to marry me.    Well, actually, I don’t think my proposal could really be compared to a Romeo and Juliet moment: more like a sitting-at-Taco Bell-why-don’t-we moment.

Wanting to impress Blane with my gentlemanliness I let it be known that I would formally request Jandy’s hand in marriage.   Blane’s blessing was akin to adoption papers for me.   With his blessing I would become one of The Walking Ids that Judy called a family.  

I too could be hyper-masculine.   I too could rise above my station in life, to be a union laborer at Acme Supermarkets and make $25 an hour to stack canned goods and sweep aisles.   I could easily have done that, but I choose an even better route: I would be a ‘teacher’.    This would make me smarter than Jandy’s mucho macho brothers, and I would benefits from whatever testosterone run-off came my way from associating with The Walking Ids.

I had planned to meet Blane at the Jane home on White Horse Pike on Friday afternoon.   Jandy and I stopped by Jake and Carol’s house to show off the newly purchased engagement ring.   Jake was (of course) not there.  Carol answered the ringing phone in the Barrington Avenue kitchen, and Priscilla Jane (Jandy’s Mom) gave her the news:  Blane had died only moments before.

‘Shit, fuck, damn!’ 

 Were my immediate thoughts.    My adoption would never be consecrated.

‘Shit, fuck, damn!’  

I had already rented the tuxedo for the wedding and was sure it was a non-refundable deposit.

‘Shit, fuck, damn!’

Jandy thought she might be pregnant so our wedding had to happen quickly, or my virginous Jandy’s reputation might be besmirched.   Even worse than the public learning that my virgin bride had been soiled, was the holier-than-thou attitude I needed to shame Frisky and his ilk.

Lastly, I thought:

‘Shit, fuck, damn!’

Now I have to be the one that tells Jandy that her Dad is dead.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck………’

Well, I married Jandy two months later, and our first born didn’t arrive for another five years.    The wedding took place in the house that I purchased in Vincentown.   It was a small affair that might just as well have taken place in the Evoy Funeral Home on Station Avenue.   Even though Blane was long buried, his corpse loomed large at our wedding.  

A bride whose mother is dying or is recently deceased is totally screwed at her own wedding.  

A bride whose father has just recently died is exalted, and her martyrdom is secured.

The groom, who marries the bride whose father is recently deceased, is completely and totally screwed.   I could have stood on that make-shift alter with a I.V. drip of testosterone, and I still would not have been half the man that the on-looking crowd of Jane’s and Barrington’s needed me to be.

That I was wearing an aqua-marine colored tuxedo, with grey velvet collar and ruffled shirt didn’t help my de-masculinization.   I was rescued by the thought that Blane died because he knew his job as Jandy’s father was now finished.   Jandy had her knight-in-shining-armor (me), and he (Blane Jane) could now depart his corporeal form for some fun with the 72 virgins that he thought the Jehovah’s Witness promised at death.

Yes, towards the end, Blane had a tendency to confuse things, so Islam vs. Jehovah’s Witness……… it was either/eyether to him.   Priscilla was none-too-thrilled with the obvious glee he took in anticipation in his heavenly romp with 72 new, nubile, sex partners.   It bothered her that Blane lusted in his heart for other people,  but it kept him happy (and off of Priscilla’s worn loins) so she made no issue of the matter.

Like I said, I was screwed at my own wedding.    Most of the Jane’s did allude that Blane would be proud to have me as his son-in-law, and that his passing was to be considered a compliment to my love, honor, obey, and support his lovely Jandy.    I liked this story, and so did Jandy.   We tell our children this version of the truth.

At one of the funerals in the Barrington family, a cousin, or cousin-in-law remarked that Frisky had done his duty.   Frisky had witnessed Blane’s funeral and my wedding with an unusual silence.   Well, maybe he wasn’t silent.   Maybe I just didn’t care what he was saying, and had my selective hearing turned up high – which meant Frisky’s dulcet tones were not on my wave-length.   Frisky, was somewhat pissed off that I had clearly dumped our fraternal relationship to embrace the hyper-masculine, guaranteed-union-wage, I-still-wear-my-high-school-ring-even-though-I’m-forty-years-old Jane boys as my new-found brothers.

It had taken Frisky a few years to find the truthiness in Blane Jane’s deification, and in the end he stumbled upon an inconvenient truth:   Blane didn’t die knowing that Jandy would be well taken care of.   Blane died, because he could clearly see that I was not a suitable match for his lovely Jandy.  Even I knew that I wasn’t the man I needed to be, or that Jandy needed to be.   But why let that stop me from marrying the only chick that would probably ever be convincible enough to marry me?  Blane wasn’t in the mood for confrontation with Jandy or me, so he up and died.

Clearly, 72 virgins was going to be a lot more fun than watching a reenactment of the Capulet and Montagues jousting over Romeo & Juliet, so Blane picked himself up, detached himself from his body, and moved to heaven:  where I hope his 72 virgins were male……..

 

 

 

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