Lysol

Thinking we know about feminine hygiene, yet only resorting to now-and-then care may make all the difference in marital bliss, as our trusted family practitioner Dr. Cummington pointed out so many winters ago when I blossomed into womanhood right here in Swoyerville, PA.   By the time Dr. Cummington retired, he had treated all three generations of our family at his busy medical practice.  Dr. Cummington would go on to keep my secrets, and for this he proved valuable.  I was so desperate to hide, and he was willing to falsify certain items of my medical records to preserve my esteem within the community.   But his gruff manner and bryl-greased hair was something we all tolerated only because he was so very discreet.  I guess it took him having to die before I re-evaluated some of the possible harm he may have done to me and to my children.  As a child, he frightened me with the notion that my teenage body would change, and that noticeable things would start happening to me.  He made me ashamed of my breasts and curves.   Did he do this to my daughter too? 

Once upon a time, Dr. Cummington prescribed Lysol brand disinfectant for my (how-shall-I-say-it?) personal cleansing.

Well, we are obedient,  here in the NePa, I suppose.  Just tell us anything, give us a set of rules, and some of us will go about following those rules, still others will go on to break them!  I certainly am a rule follower.  I developed the skill of not questioning authority early on with my Catholic education right here in the Wyoming Valley.  I know my rightful place in Heaven awaits because of this devotion and faith, groomed since childhood.


But alas, those good intentions were tested by the particular application of a Lysol solution that quite burned my tender parts with each and every attempt.  Maybe I should have diluted the chemical with more water?  Maybe my enthusiasm for a more wholesome cleanse drove me to add extra Lysol on the basis of more-is-better?  I didn't question authority.  Lysol was deemed viable for useage "down there" and at a certain point in our Good Christian Exuberance and Zeal to get to Heaven, women everywhere tried it for intimate cleansing.

Dr. Cummington warned me that freshness was imperative 24 hours a day, especially for the woman, should a happenstance tragedy of some sort occur amid our daily bustle, necessitating the removal of clothing by medical personnel.  Now, if during such emergencies, the gotchies are wilted, or stained, or if they produced odors of any kind, it could stave off vital medical treatment while the paramedics were overcome by shame at the inkling of our uncleanliness.   A careless risk, he explained, and I quickly agreed, but this agreement was very short lived.


All of the strange psychology of Dr. Cummington may have had a deleterious effect, and if it did, I was none the wiser.  Until now.  We were rigorous with our fingernails, hair and body grooming, and the stakes always seemed so high when the male authority figures counseled us about feminine freshness.  Who was I to speak up and defy them?  I was just a woman, and they were authority figures.  This is how many of us were raised, you see. Certainly my family...all ten of us brothers and sisters were poked and prodded and made to feel dirty by our family doctor, and we never stood up for ourselves because we were too afraid, and didn't think we deserved it.

The familiar brown Lysol bottle became a staple in each and every one of my sister's feminine cabinets except for mine.  I guess there's something to be said for a Fresh Holy Flower, but thankfully, women know better these days.  I am certain that almost every gal in the family drew her own conclusions the hard way, but we never spoke of such matters.  The same way I now realize that Dr. Cummington often gave terrible recommendations and always made me feel very uncomfortable. Come now, Dr. Cummington!   Lysol is for bathroom tile, not our delicate jewels of femininity.  If only I didn't need his discretion regarding my eating disorder!

Father Olexy later echoed similar recommendations about God's Lysol Douche, and at one point he too inquired about my womanly cleansing rituals during my Confessions.  This advice always came during those familiar periods of indifference in marriage to my Walter.  And let me tell you over the years Walter and I had several periods of indifference.  Olexy cautioned me, "If your man is not attentive, maybe the fault is yours?"

Father Olexy's well credentialed opinion seemed to echo Dr. Cummington's, and both men warned me to never run a careless risk with dainty feminine freshness.  Problem is, they were men and I was woman, and their Lysol had burnt me.  I finally began defiance of this so called God's Lysol douching, and simply concealed that sin from the Confessional.  Certainly the men in my life were none the wiser.  Once Lysol was omitted from my daily toilette, I stayed equally fresh by other means, and thusly cannot be held accountable for any Christian Cleansing rules that may have been broken.   If either of these men had happened to me today, I would have slapped both and shouted, "Get GOING!!"

I shall end my story here.

Yours in the Love of Christ, 

Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr. 

Valley Lesbian Comes Out of the Closet

Now you all have heard me mention my ladyfriend Josie Scarnulis plenty of times before. Over the last few months, her behavior has gotten strange.  Every other Saturday, she and I used to see Roberta over at the Narrows for a wash and set, then we'd drive to Sizzle-Pi on the way home for lunch.  Roberta would even come along sometimes. Well that all stopped 2 months ago, and I now understand why.

Josie is now wearing a crew cut.  Like me, she grew up in the Wyoming Valley as a God fearing Roman Catholic, but unlike me, her voracious humor and sheer beauty made her much more of a success at it than I.  She's buried 2 husbands, and has grandchildren in their 30's who are all respected pillars of the community. Chet Scarnulis was the nicest man you'd ever want to know and he sure did treat Josie good in those last years before he succumbed to an accidental poisoning at his workplace.  She says that she's been lesbianese for quite some time and Chet even knew about it, but she never told me because she feared what I had to say.

(Now I'm reminded of last year when  Josie and I took a trip to Atlantic City, and how she woudln't let me change into my swimsuit while she was in the room, by explaining a new form of modesty on her part. She also stayed in a private room with Nancy Ansinanski, of whom I don't approve, due to her Wiccanism.   It was in their hotel room that I noticed a vcr tape of TheBoys in the Band; something also at the time, I found objectionable.)

I marvel at all these years that I didn't know about her being a lesbian, or the fact that (it finally dawned on me!)  Josie and Nancy are a lesbian couple! Lesbian this. Lesbian that. Everywhere I turn I see Lesbians. My daugher has been this way for many years and has begun lording it over me lately, and now my best friend from cradle to grave its gonna be came out as a lesbian too. It all had me in a very anxious mood. It is not often that I so focus on sex, but anytime you mention those gays, my mind immediately goes to the magnitude of their private acts.

Nobody should be given a free pass to premarital sex either. If the gays could simply remain chaste, like all unmarrieds, there wouldn't be any problem. But no. Here they are enjoying an unGodly smorgasbord of consistent unmarried pleasure, mocking the pure, who choose to remain Vestal like the unopened rosebud on her sanctified wedding day. Yes I know I sound old fashioned, but premarital sex is still a sin, so when the gays do it, I would guess it's even moreso of a sin, due to the ignominious nature of such genital pairings.


I was so very agitated, to my Parish Priest I went.  The lines for Confession have been dreadful since the merger of my church St. Chmieloski's with The Church of the Black Madonna, a lower end Parish past the tracks.  Now there's so much foul language in the lines for Confession, it's enough to make St. Cunegunde, our new patroness, frost over in her ancient grave.  Because of the coarse profanity and teeth gnashing, I dread going to Confession.  I sweat profusely, and today was worse as I was also preparing to cut Josie out of my life entirely. I felt so terrified and alone in my courage to stand up to the Gays and Lesbians, speaking out God's Truth.   Deep down I was sad.  Could I change my mind and now declare that all lesbians were good people?  Or might that render meaningless the entire life of turmoil I created for my daughter in retaliation for her lesbianism?  Foryousee, if I choose to  keep Josie, shouldn't I have been nicer to my very own flesh and blood lesbian Betko?  I cried so many days over all of this in a continual sweat.

I didn't arrive at that decision overnight, but since I ultimately decided against keeping Josie in my life,  I broke down crying and begged palliation.  My tears accidentally destroyed the double-blind confessional privacy when I also (accidentally) let Josie's name slip.  I am sincerely hoping Monsignor Wasileski upholds his Churchly Ethics and does not share with anyone the lesbian earfull I had just thrust upon him. Once I realized that I had become a terrible gossip, I began to hyperventilate, as a precaution.  I also told him my own name too.

Thence, I fled the confessional for fresher air, and awaited another spot in line--at the very end of a very long line of sinners.  Jeepers it was crowded.   I explained to Wasileski that I was back and he told me to keep lesbianism confidential and not to burden Josie if I had a problem with it, and that I should mind my own business. I was shocked.  I was surprised by what appeared to be a sudden change of heart amongst my clergy.  Will I next consult with the Bishop, or maybe the Pope in Rome?  Just to verify that this Priestly advice about gays is indeed kosher?

In the meantime, I had no plans for today, and Josie called me up because she baked some Pagatch, and she knows how much I love it.  I took some butter over there and we had a long discussion about what we mean to each other. Nancy was not around.  Josie told me that when my Betko had a crisis with her lesbianism, she went out there to Los Angelos to help her, and that was awfully nice.  I had no idea that she even did that.  I am glad that she was able to assist my daughter at a time when my strict devotion to the Lord forbid me to fraternize with fringe elements of society.

But friends, Eighty five years of self induced agony in the Luzerne County have landed me into analysis. I am now seeing an analist, which has been very helpful.  It seems that everyone around me are either Lesbians or dead, and it is like I have no choice but to somehow accept all lesbians, because I know Josie from up the street my  whole life long and I know she's a good woman, and I don't want to lose her.  I told her that I would need some time, and that my analist might help me.  I mentioned that I think I will need to start watching Ellen, and then we hugged, but I didn't make it a warm, lingering hug, lest her mind wander onto me as an object of affection.

Yours in the Love of Christ,
Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr.

The Bible is confusing sometimes!

My Parish Priest told me that it can sometimes confuse people to read so much scripture, that is why the Catechism is a better alternative to reading the Bible. Now I disagree sometimes, because just holding that Holy Blessed book in my hands, and leafing through each silky page, I feel Christ's Love. It inspires me to spread his good news of love and peace.

But once they came out with the Catechism, Pastor told me to stop reading The Bible, for Catechism is easier to understand. I worry sometimes about today's children and if they are being taught the Catechism like we were taught. It was invaluable, because it saves you from all that reading.

Even today, I rarely open my Bible. If I pay attention in church to what the Priest is saying, I learn everything I need to know, (unless the celebrant is Father Doran, who always talks like he's got napkins in his mouth.)

Yours in the Love of Christ,

Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas

Wait a Second was that Dottie Sandusky?

There is a sensational trial going on right now in Bellefonte. Pennsylvania is once again in the national news.  Each and every day, we watch the new and lower life forms being ousted from public positions of trust that they have held for years.  Ousted they are, but I weep at their corrosive legacy. Our leaders harmed us, consistently and brazenly!  There is nothing we can do to fight back, so we hold onto the anger.  Oh that is a famous Pocono Mountains routine! I'm a powerless old lady.  I cry a lot each time I realize that every tier of our local government and almost every educational institution in Northeast Penna has been systematically corrupt for generations. I want to pray for a more righteous and just Pennsylvania, but it seems as though Pennsylvania citizens haven't known even one day of life without the mar of grievous betrayals!  Who the heck can keep up with all of that when I'm busy praying for so many other things in my own terrible life?

I don't know what the heck she was doing in Wilkes Barre, but it happened about 6 months ago right here in Public Square.  A lady with yellow teeth came and sat next to me while I was feeding the pigeons some breadcrumbs.   The day was chilly, but she was dressed in a ski parka and poly skirt and a pair of sandals with her toes hanging off the front edges.  No hosiery, tut tut. (Proper foundation undergarments [girdles] are essential for women of a certain age to [how shall I say it] keep things together, but today was a day she had obviously gone without.)

I took particular note of her lower extremities, her ill-fitting vinyl padded sandals with braided jute across the vamp, and the several toes hanging off the front. They were dry and crackled, and each toenail was yellowed like her teeth, resembling a tiny bacon rind.  It appeared to be an officious toenail fungus, the likes of which no podiatrist of average merit could rectify on even their most triumphant of days.  My own toenails aren't looking so hot these days due to my swollen ankles, so I understood her predicament.  But.  Goodness gracious, I keep my toenails covered in good taste and decency.  

Dottie's toenails (If this was, in fact, Dottie Sandusky!) were not covered.   She just plopped herself down on the bench adjacent to mine and after several minutes of silence, pulled out a cellar phone and placed a call.   I recognized the attention grabbing cock of her head when the party to which she connected said hello.  She trumpeted her remarks into my general vicinity so as to provide ease of listening for both me and the birds.  I believe she was "whooping it up" for my benefit as she intoned:

"Gerry and I are in town for two bleep-ing days and you know what? You can go bleep  yourself, okay?   Bleep YOU and your lousy Scampi.  No i'm not going to calm down, you think the plates of shit (bleep) at your restaurant are any better because you're the one open the longest?  Our table stunk and your service stinks and the people in the other room were talking about us!  You kept me and Gerry on the toilet all night with the *bleeps*.  I can't wait to get onto the interwebs to smear your lousy name into the mud on every single solitary website I can find with the name Hottle's on it!!   *Bleeeeep* you!!"

By this time my eyes were fluttering everywhere and I began to get very nervous, as is often the case whenever I bear witness to salty behavior from a gal. I naturally assume all women know the value of dainty conduct in public, and how to act accordingly.  But that's always been my problem, folks:  Giving too much credit where absolutely no credit is due.  

I was completely flustered at this point, and Dottie (if this was actually her) caught me looking.  My loaf of pigeon bread had been entirely depleted, and I didn't have any activity to camouflage or mask my eavesdroppish behavior, so I glassed up my eyes and pretended that I didn't notice her noticing me and began pulling imaginary lint off of the sleeve of my knit sweater. (Part of me wanted to engage her in conversation so that I could tell her to try some apple cider foot baths and to stop wearing open toed shoes.)  She stood up, inhaled loudly and said in a terrifying low baritone, "Which bus goes out to Miners Mills?"  and I was so frightened now,  I grabbed my cane and screamed in horror hoping that she would assume I was truly insane and step back to allow me a safe window of retreat.  Which is exactly what happened.

But when I screamed and yelled, my flapping arms and loud voice caused all of the well-fed pigeons in Public Square to scream and flap their arms too.  Dottie, well, let's just call her Dottie just in case, became trapped in a fray of birds just like the gal in the Hitchcock movie.  One actually hit her in the side of the head while I ambled my way to the safety of my parked car nearby.

Please tell me there were others there, who saw her too?  We know he's locked up behind bars now, but where was her Gerry that morning, and who was she going to see in Miners Mills?   I know I was screaming loudly, and the birds were really cavorting, and perhaps some passersby saw the commotion, and someone can step forward to help me confirm that this isn't just another one of those holy stupors  I am plagued with from time to time.

Yours in the Love of Christ,

Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr.

An Unpleasant Childhood Memory

Blame it on Pennsylvania humidity that tests our sanity each and every summer? Why do I keep having so many flashbacks to my childhood?    Blame it on the depression?  Why were my parents screaming at one another under the grape vine arbor that night?  I was only 5 years old and just wanted to see happiness and frolic in the backyard.   I didn't speak Slovak, so I had no idea what any of the fight was about, but I knew they were angry because they were spitting their awful words at one another in a violent way.  All of the other kids were asleep in the big beds we shared, but I was standing at the window, trying my best to see what the commotion was.  Mother did most of the shouting, with Papa interjecting every so often.  I just know the neighbors heard all of it. The same way I heard all of it.  I never forgot those sounds, or the paralysis they induced that night.

Pa worked for many different mining companies, but for a few years he was at Glen Alden Coal Company out in Nanticoke, which meant that the coal we used to heat our home was blue coal.  This superlative made us the envy of all our neighbors, and kept our winters cozy in the giant feather beds we shared with our brothers and sisters.  Papa was always working, going from company to company, seeking better salary and better conditions.  Mother enjoyed being able to buy a new frock only once every 10 years, but it was so much fun to spend time with Mother and my sisters when she enjoyed being a girl.  The four daughters eventually began to sew our own clothing from patterns, just the way Mother had taught us.  We also earned extra money doing it for others.  Once my own daughter was born, it was like a lid was placed over her heart, like she wasn't interested in anything.  I think this phenomenon is hereditary, because I grew to feel the same way deep inside my own heart.   I cry all the time nowadays, I don't even know why.   I began gardening back then, and I still do it to this day, even though Daddy's grapevines and the pretty trellis are long gone. The morning sunlight still grows regal hollyhocks each and every summer, and they are the talk of the block, a summer Katsellas Tradition, you might say.  My goodness, don't tell anybody that the only reason we planted them way back then was to camouflage the outhouse!


Mother and Papa had escalated their quarrel, and someone was being struck with fists.  It sounded like she was slapping him, and that he was defending himself.  I quietly ran outside and hid in the flowers to see Papa's shirt ripped in pieces but still clinging to his heaving 6' 6" frame.  He was sobbing, and he looked so vulnerable and hurt; nevertheless, he snarling and still engaged in battle. His face had a monstrous glare, and I had never seen a barechested male before.  He seemed to posses an animal-like force, and he was covered in thick black hair.

Mother's face was bright red as her open hand came down across his face.  He bounced back to immediately slap her in reciprocation.  Watching a strong man hit a diminutive woman made me frightened, and seeing Papa so upset reduced me to tears and panic.  He then picked up a crucifix and threw it to the ground.  Was Papa angry at God?   The crucifix shattered to pieces, and Mother blanched.  I know my childhood eyes were not deceiving me, for I had never seen anything like this before.  The sound of the broken porcelain echoed into the night until everything became silent but for the crickets and night birds off in the distance.  They were both staring at one another, moving in a circle like dogs in a fight, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. 

Then I watched him raise his left hand to her, snatching the collar of her dress violently,  tearing it into two pieces that instantly fell from her body.  She stood motionless for awhile and then jumped into his arms with an unusual, almost primal gyration.  Were they moving in slow motion with one another, or was my scared little brain playing tricks on me?   Did any of this really happen?   She began kissing him passionately.  I still remember Mother's naked silhouette against Papa's dark fur, but now I worry if this was all a dream of my own since it happened so long ago.  Papa stiffened his body, shot his arm around her waist, and took her down to the floor, returning her ardor and passion.  They weren't yelling anymore, but I was still frightened.  At this point, I decided that I had seen enough and ran away from this horrifying scene.  I had never seen two people so angry before.   I was glad they never found out that I had been watching them, for I truly would have been a goner.

Yours in the Love of Christ,
Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr.

My Ancestral Home

It was the lovely summer night in my backyard tonight that transported me back in time to my childhood.  The mind is a funny thing, you know.  Or maybe it was that blasted neighbor of mine Gert Whipple next door, burning her garbage again.  Everybody used to burn their garbage, but the Borough outlawed that long ago, so I now take certain delight when I inhale fresh air.  But hey that doesn't stop Gert from keeping an illegal fire pit to burn her refuse.   Or maybe it was because I should have been in bed a long time ago.  Then again, I have always had problems falling asleep at night, I don't expect to lose that bad habit now that I am well into my 80's.

My mind would not stop reeling.  I began to smell whiskey boilo and hear the childhood laughter of my sister Zlata.  So many memories are coming to the surface lately.  My dreams are tormenting me, and I feel as though my imagination is constantly playing tricks.  We were children in the 1930's, and Zlata has been dead for over 30 years, bless her heart, but I conjured an image of Daddy pushing me on one of the swings he had suspended from a tree limb, and I wanted to keep swinging higher and higher.  Zlata looked on wearing a lavender dress, clapping her hands and squealing patiently waiting her turn.  I smiled so broadly back then that oftentimes, my face would begin to hurt.  I felt so loved and so admired when Daddy would push us high in the swings.  Afterwards, he would waltz around singing Slovak folk tunes with the visitors in all manner of drunken caprice.  It was a different person than we knew in the privacy of our home.


I still call that place my home, that three bedroom coal shanty house my parents built when they settled here in the 1890's.  That is where I live now, modernized over the years, of course!  I had a full remodel after the Agnes flood and since it is only me, everything remains in pristine condition.  I became full matriarch of this home with my Walter once we married back in 1945.

Mother and Papa moved up the street to live with Zlata and her husband in the 1950's, but there was always a brother or sister hanging on.  This house has seen an awful lot of foot traffic.  Family and neighbors would often gather in our backyard underneath the trellis where my father's grape vines grew.  He fashioned a small arbor and shaded porch area with a glider and a firepit and chairs for us to convene on breezy weekend nights.  Visitors would be treated to a drink from his cauldron of home made boilo or perhaps some birch beer or a maybe cold Stegmaier's out of the cool cellar.  I think this was before the delicious Ma's Colas swept into the Valley and won our hearts.


Oh wake up you silly old Mrs. Katsellas! It is the year 2012, and you are all alone right now. You have been left all alone in this house!  A lonesome old lady with an internet's connection who thinks too much.  A sad old lady who cries too much.   This house knows heartache and pain, for what is family, if not heartache and pain?   I don't think Daddy was a happy man, he never spoke English, so I didn't know if he ever complained about anything.  Mother had better command of the language, but even then she kept quiet, preferring to demonstrate and charade out the words for us all to interpret.  She knew how to sign her name, and that was it.  Papa was able to read, I assumed, but no, wait a second, if he couldn't speak English, well then forget it, he couldn't read either. 

Rarely did we hunger for food, except for a very lean period of two years, when our resources were stretched for beyond comfort for a family of ten.  Let me tell you, the Depression left no survivors, we all died in some way as a result of terrible government practices.  Mostly though, we all had shoes and we each had a down pillow, and we each had 2 dresses and 2 knockabout outfits, and plenty of underwear and socks. When we grew out of our clothing, naturally, the garments were handed down and the one who outgrew the clothing began extra chores in order to procure a replacement.  Daddy kept himself and all of us working so hard to keep the down mattresses we shared (5 kids per bed) and by making the home decent and presentable through hard work and ingenuity.    He tried to make life good for us in his own little way, and I don't know how he managed to do all of it with ten little mouths to feed.  There were times that all of us saw his dark male personality, and for whatever reason, he called upon me to vent time and again.  Whenever I saw that look in my father's eyes, my blood instantly ran cold.  I learned to swallow my pride and allow Papa to verbally abuse me or whip me if he needed to.  I just wished I knew what the heck all that Slovak was that he'd be hollering at me while I cried and cried!

Walter had one of these dispositions as well.  Maybe I do too?  I think it is a Wyoming Valley trademark, that we hold our anger deep inside.  We don't trust the promise of relief that is found in confiding a secret to a loved one.  Naturally, the Church has cleansed me of my sins. By telling all in the confessional, I still place a great deal of faith in the powerful sacrament of confession.  I adore the word of the Lord, and strive to walk in Christ's Love each and every day, but it doesn't always work.  Nor does Christs' Love seem to take any of my anger away.  

Blogging on my new Appel computer has helped.  Janice down at the Senior Center helped me pick it out and buy it and all of my grammar and secretarial skills of yesteryear are whisking you visitors on a thrill ride through the emotions and private folly of an 85 year old boobie.  I know I am completely confidential, but getting things off my chests is not in my nature, as a Catholic, perhaps.  Rather than talk, it always feels so good for us to scream at somebody or break something.

But after so many years, I am fighting against this cruel habit that is so deeply ingrained into my soul, for I realize that I am alone and lost and I cannot take much more pain.  Here I sit typing at my computer pouring out my heartache and pain in a last ditch effort to assuage my guilt and shame of all the mistakes I made and continue to make in in my foolish life of 85 years.

Does God still love me?  Or has he forgotten about me because I sin too much?   Or did God forget about me and everybody in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton a long time ago, because we all sinned so much?  I wish I knew who God was.  I just don't know anymore. 

Yours in the Love of Christ,
Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr

I was beautiful at the Hotel Sterling

--> It was 1941, and I was dancing in circles in the Grand Ballroom at the Hotel Sterling while the rest of the room looked on, enviously delighted by my carefree whimsy on the dancefloor.  I was wearing a yellow dress with ruffled sleeves and a big scarf that shimmered a great deal in any direction I moved.  The weather was warm and breezy.  There had been a terrible storm the night before that served only to polish some coal dust off of the Wilkes-Barre landscape, supplying my memories of that night with a kind of glitz not often observed here in the NePa.  This recollection comes 61 years later, yet I remember it so fondly.  I was growing into a mature young woman and spent the night spinning like a top on the dance floor with my Senior Prom Date, Cousin Vince.

Even though my Walter and I had known each other in high school, I continually turned down his propositions when we were students, and thus, l did not have a date.  My sister Iris convinced me to ask Cousin Margie's permission that her husband, Vincent Seracino, accompany me to my Senior Prom, held at the swanky Hotel Sterling in Wilkes-Barre, PA.  Oh I was so excited for a night of dinner and dancing at the Sterling!  Margie hated to dance, but Vincent was an absolute dreamboat on the dance floor.  We always danced together at weddings and family outings.  Back then, Daddy taught us to hate the Italians, for the jobs they took away from our boys, so when Margie married Vince, many of our relatives disowned her and she needed to curry favor from all of us every chance she got. But I never believed that Italians were bad deep in my heart.  I loved the foxtrot and so did Vincent, and he was all smiles when he was in his element.  

Mother taught me how to work my thick Eastern European tresses, and she assisted with the incorporation of tiny grape hyacinth buds into my hair,  plucked from the clay of our modest Swoyerville backyard gardens.   I remember wearing my shiny raven hair in an upsweep, spending almost the entire day getting every tendril to drape perfectly, having received my first permanent wave the week before.  I have always had poker straight thick hair.  Naturally, I still require the perms, and still receive compliments for my coiffures even now at my advanced age, although I am salt and pepper.   More pepper than salt if you can believe it!

Mother and I wove grape hyacinth blossoms through my hair and also festooned 2 golden barettes with the posies on each side.  The curls and purple blossoms that we grew ourselves were tucked everywhere for a marvelous effect.  My Mother was so very clever and had a wonderful sense of artistry.  She also fashioned a corsage with the Peonies from our backyard garden.  All the details were in place, and last year's corset from The Boston Store Bargain Basement still fit me like a glove underneath the sophisticated yellow dress I had borrowed from Iris.  But with the really important things, my family was less helpful:  How was I to act on my first date?  Do all gentleman 'expect things?'   I needed practical advice on how to powder myself, and at what intervals depending on the given activity of the moment, but mother never gave advice to prepare me for sexual awakenings, so I never knew them when they occurred.  When all of these new feelings swept over me, I felt like a helpless victim.  A longing began to grow inside of me, but I swept it under the carpet.  Delight had always turned into guilt, something which both confused and comforted me.  Mother witnessed a lot of horror in Slovakia, and now there was a big language barrier.  She couldn't read and barely spoke English, but her fear of the Almighty iron fisted ruler of our destiny had a profound effect on all of the kids.  Father Olexy's advice was to say NO, and to allow suitors the ability to kiss only my hand.  But how could I stop from sinking into nothingness if our lips met on the dance floor?  I banished all thoughts of Father Olexy and his stern warnings from my mind.  I just wanted to smell Vincent’s aftershave.

Vincent had a pretty redness in his cheek on this night.  He wore a jet black mustache that shined and gleamed the same as his thick wavy hair. I gasped when a maroon Lincoln Zephyr pulled into the driveway!  Now, let’s do some math.  Vincent Seracino was a local businessman who owned a Paper Supply Shop over in Pringle.  I'm guessing since he was Italian,  he obtained this luxury car through mafioso ties out in Pittston, for I had never seen him driving it before or after, and how else would a cardboard box salesman afford such an indulgence? I didn’t care. When he stepped out of that car wearing a rich brown tuxedo, strutting confidently in my direction, my neck got warm; my skin flushed with a wave of gooseflesh and nerves.  This kept happening to me all night, and I thought these sensations were new and exciting and terrific.  Cousin Margie could have been one thousand miles away for as much as I thought about her.  Whenever I stole a glance of Vincent's pretty eyelashes, curling up on the ends,  I became trapped in a daze for a few seconds.  His dark brown Italian eyes seemed to be surveying my figure as never before, and at times, they engulfed me with deadly force and undaunted magnitude. 

Now The Hotel Sterling was an impressive hotel for us coalmining folk.  The ediface stands to this day, dilpidated and abandoned, but back then was it was a showpiece for out of towners, and where the locals went to exude style and class.  All the gals were excited and nervous to see the legendary two story lobby with the grand marble columns we had only read about in the papers, and heard about from my older sister Zlata.  We giggled like boobies in the Ladies lounge about the soaring towers of shiny marble that made us feel like tiny peanuts in comparison.  A string quartet was playing in the lobby as we entered, and the violin music filled my ears--nothing like my sister Iris' violin when she practiced at home.  Our school had booked a salon for an hour of hors d’ouvres and conversation before dinner, and it required us to go to the tower portion of the hotel connected by a sweeping long corridor in between called Peacock Alley.   Oh the food at the Sterling was marvelous, but I hardly ate a thing that night, beginning a lifelong obsession about food and my waistline.

We arrived in a bustle of traffic, car horns and naysayers, who were mostly angry that we prom goers were holding up traffic on River Street and also over the Market Street Bridge.  With my Chickadee Yellow dress and Vincent’s dapper tuxedo--certainly, we turned heads and stopped traffic.  There were tall vases stuffed with plumes and ornamental grass at  the entrance of the grand Hotel, and a band in the distance played Moonlight Serenade and Green Eyes.  Still later, this band was playing a Charleston.  The elegant hotel was dimly lit by candles and diffused Hollywood lighting.  I drank it all in emphatically, and when I heard the charleston it caused me to let out a heretofore unfamiliar low pitched sigh and ironic chortle.  Dancing the Charleston made me feel quaint and mature, and all grown up.  The air smelled of bacon, garlic, flashpops, Green Goddess, fruit compote and my own Chanilly by Houbigant, something my three sisters and I afforded by sharing a spray bottle of the classic eau de parfum between us. 

When Vince and I marched down Peacock Alley on the way to our surf and turf, my footsteps were tiny and light, so wistful and delicate on the tile floor.  In my white two inch heels with cutwork over the toes, I don't think my feet made any noise at all.  And when I was dancing, he twirled me everywhere and I felt weightless.   Just like a moviestar, but something terrible happened that night.   I will post Part II when I can muster courage and write it all out.  I've never told anybody before.

Yours in the Love of Christ,
Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas, Jr

Betko Changed My Life

My goodness, all of the strange sensations those hormones were making me feel during my first pregnancy.  It frightened me so much at first, because until I found out it was a baby, I actually thought I was being posessed by a demon.  Nobody warned me about this.  I had no education on sex--what was I to think when one day in 1945,  I lost all control of bodily functions such as urination?  I didn't enjoy those feelings at all.   Nobody alive on the planet Earth likes wet panties.  How in the world was I supposed to excel into a life of Motherhood that nobody had prepared me for?

I was vomiting daily, and Mother didn't speak enough English to be of any real importance in my life except to embarass me.  Then again, anytime I  yelled at Walter and got him to agree with me at the end of one of our fights, she baked me an apple pie, and of course I loved apple pie.   I trusted Aunt Sabina, but couldn't talk to her either due to the language barrier.  My girlfriends and contemporaries all felt like we were in competition with one another and our husbands and babies, so I dared not ever reveal what was true and in my heart to any of them.  And a demure woman would never admit that she had tasted the pleasures of reproduction.  In the confessional, I weekly declared an intense dislike for impure thoughts, and except for two children, remained steadfast in a repeated denial of my own instincts and longings for sex.

Early in our marriage I was having a recurrent fantasy about my Walter and me procuring nakedly in a lush Hawai'ian waterfall, but the Lord in Heaven put everything into place.  When I confided the dream to our beloved Parish Priest Father Olexy,  none of those fantasies happened.  I had to put all of my faith and trust in what Father Olexy told all the girls.  He was very strict in his teachings on the sins of the flesh.  Father Olexy's approval meant everything to us all, and because I remained faithful to those promises, his Holiness is with me to this day. 

And, thank Goodness for Catholic purity.  Walter and I waited to consummate our love until after marriage, as all good Catholics were instructed. As you may note by the dates I provided that our firstborn Betko was indeed conceived AFTER the sacrament of Holy wedlock so as not to risk a sullied reputation amongst my family or church community.  I was an honors student, and was later voted Most Devout 1961 and 1962, and there were standards to uphold in order to bring pride to the family.

So we baptized our lil Elizabeth and nicknamed her Betko and warned her of the sins of the flesh at a very early age, mostly upon the urgings of Fr. Richard Baublitz, a trusted co-Priest of Father Olexy's.  The two lived with Monsignor Wasilewski at the Rectory back in the 1940's and counseled all of us when we needed it.  Preventative maintenance is what these gentlemen of the cloth suggested for our children and their budding sexuality.

I do wonder if we made mistakes in handling our little Betko.  Aunt Sabina was incredibly cold and distant. I was so busy with the new challenges of motherhood that I never quite bonded with my infant daughter the way I bonded with my infant son the next year.  Do priests still counsel young mothers to reject their children for being born immoral?  There's a lot of people talking about gay this and gay that lately, and I have to tell you it makes me nervous, simply because I don't like thinking about sex.  My late husband Walter was often a close-binding, overly possessive, puritanically domineering father, and I believe that is what triggered the emotional and psychological conditions that produced her lesbianism.  Such a hard life my daughter has chosen for herself, when so many people hate her for it!  Why would she pick this?!

All the stereotypes Father Baublitz told me about those homosensuals must be wrong. For my Betko is certainly not identifiable as one. With her neatly trimmed manicure and all the lipstick she uses, I am forced to conclude that if all Homosexuals turned green tomorrow, we'd have neighbors, mailmen, grocers, ministers, kid sisters, best friends, policemen and others lighting up like St. Patrick's day, and I'd say, "There goes another one! Foiled again!"

Yours in the Love of Christ,
Mrs. Watler J. Katsellas, Jr.