IT”S THAT TIME OF YEAR

Yes indeed, that younger baby sister is now an old baby sister, and by tomorrow she will be even older than me! She may be even older than GOD at some point!

Powitanie do Stanu Connecticut, or: Benvenuto a Connecticut! Either way you say it, it still means the same: Welcome to Connecticut!

Tom, the Polish Prince of Connecticut, has spent a long time with Fran, or ‘Nippy’ as she is really known, as her husband. The family has tried to make it up to him in the past, but the damage is done. Nippy got this name over a very short summer vacation, while traveling with my uncle and aunt through New England. It seems she was getting little doses of scotch and enjoying them, as the car started feeling like a magic carpet after imbibing once or twice, then hiding the unfinished bottle from my uncle!

Since those salad days, she now has a ‘Zero tolerance’ policy toward alcohol! That is “Zero for you: get your own!”

But she has always been someone special to me. She started out like her other siblings, in a small two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, and grew into a great teacher, mother and wife, let alone sister.

She is in my eyes, when she taught, “Teacher of the year” as her dedication came through every time we met. As a little girl, she often played school, and she had to be the teacher. I really couldn’t see the point of it all, since I was the one who had stand in the corner! She loved her profession and spoke of her experiences with little children, first graders who often where taller than she was! One year she was up for ‘Teacher of the Year’ in Connecticut! That is how good she was. Today as she enjoys her retirement, I think of how sad it must be for the state to have lost such a valuable asset.

As a child, she was also a ratfink, you heard me, and you read that right, a ratfink who constantly ratted me out to my mother, causing me to put my rosaries down and run from a wooden spoon!

But oh! How I prayed for her! That she would see how wonderful I REALLY WAS! But no, she would rat me out and get her gingersnap cookie for a reward, with the title of: “Boss of the Soda”, bestowed by Dad, until one day she became dethroned by mom, because of a certain visit to the dentist.

But anyway you twist it, and it may be a little twisted here, she is a great gal, I love her dearly and wish her a Happy Birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIPPY!