“SHE’S ON HER WAY UP!”

It seemed to happen every morning around 11:00 am. Mom would have the radio playing on top of the white Westinghouse refrigerator, Arthur Godfrey selling his Lipton Tea or interviewing the latest singing sensation, Julius LaRosa.

Maybe a vacuum cleaner would be roaring in the background, it’s cloth covered cord, snaking throughout the living room, or maybe a dust rag waving like a flag as it swiped the furniture, one last time.

As a five year old, I was busily playing or watching something out the window that would fascinate me and stir my imagination, when all of a sudden: the doorbell would chime.

“SHE’S ON HER WAY UP!” I thought.

Sure enough, step-by-step she would climb the three flights of stairs and arrive at my front door, my Mom instructing me to open the door for her. Marie Corace, Mom’s baby sister had arrived! She carried with her, her little bit of hell for me. She would enter our apartment and go straight to the refrigerator and terminate Arthur for the day. For that I was grateful, yet harbored a little resentment. She was not done by a long shot. No, she would then tell my Mother she was very slow, to hurry up, she wanted to go shopping.

Once Aunt Marie (Her real name is Marietta, and she hates it) was seated, she started on me. Grabbing me, she would hold my head and look behind my ears.

“Did you wash behind the ears, today?” she would inquire, twisting my ears.

“Tsk, Tsk, Tsk! You didn’t wash behind the ears today!”

Then she would admonish Mom to hurry up and off we had to go, down three flights of stairs and the long haul for a five-year old down to Broadway and the endless shopping and walking, that didn’t end until 3:30-4:00 pm as they rushed home to make dinner for their husbands.

As she got older, she would employ more severe interrogation techniques such as:

“Did you do all your homework?”

“Did you wash your hands?”

“Did you eat all your breakfast”

By the end of the day, I would look into Aunt Marie’s eye, where she had a big brown spot and ask: “Does that hurt?” and she would laugh, out loud.

Turns out she was just pulling my chain, teasing me to no end, and enjoying my discomfort every minute of it!

She was also so very instrumental in helping me finish my college education, when I had a automobile accident, and she took me in because she lived closer to the college than home was. She never charged me a dime, nor did her wonderful husband, Uncle Frank, who: although not a blood uncle, I loved more than my real blood uncle.