Written: Aug. 23, 1997

The Blanchards sometimes came over on Christmas day in the afternoon. We then sometimes went to visit Ernie. Ernie was Daddy's (and Aunt She She's) father. I remember liking the car ride, but not the visit with Ernie. We were raised with only seeing him occasionally on Christmas day. We kids did not know him. We were raised with Papa really being our grandfather. Nana married Papa after she divorced Ernie. I believe that saying Ernie was not a kind father is putting it quite mildly! I don't know how old Daddy was when Nana and Papa got married. We all loved them very much even though Nana did, I believe, drink more than my parents liked. I believe that there is a story that my parents decided that Nana could not babysit us anymore because of her drinking. All three of us girls loved the boys. Lyne loved Russ, I loved Tim, Susie loved Chris. I believe that these were all pretty serious crushes! Anyway . . the Blanchards lived in Pico Rivera. They had a swimming pool so many summer weekends we would go out and swim. We all loved the water. The name She She came about, I believe, because Shirley was hard to pronounce. People called our uncle Speed because of his motorcycle riding/racing. Once they moved to Havasu we all spent many weekends there while they were building their house. Sometimes there would be as many as 10 kids sleeping on the floor of a camper.

The Balvins were our cousin's cousins. From that family Lyne dated Vince, I dated Tony, and Sue dated Mark. Years later when Vince and Mark got caught bringing drugs up over the Mexican border they got put in a Mexican jail. Mark died having been beaten to death. Vince served some time before there was some kind of Mexican American exchange of prisoners. Pretty sad, huh?

Back to the Christmas picture! As you can tell, Mommy kept our hair short. I don't ever remember that being a choice on our part. It's just the way it was. I think I had the straightest hair and know I had lots of perms. I always thought Lyne was the prettiest of us, Susie was the cutest, and I was just PLAIN. The plain middle child! Christmas Eve we went to Mom and Pop Carroll's. Those dinners were unbelievable. (You know that she was a cook at a school for many years?) My mom's brothers (Jim and Jack) and their families were there. She'd have like three major meats like ham, chicken, & roast and every fixin' imaginable. The only thing I remember not liking about that evening is that we "had" to sit on Pop Carrol's lap. He was old with rough whiskers. His tongue hung out and he was always slobbering. He gave us a quarter. It's a bit sad how I remember Pop Carroll because Mommy has wonderful stories of him. I guess he was a wonderful father and used to play the fiddle for Mommy and her friends. Pop Carrol's parents were from Dublin, Ireland. I think he was about twenty years older than Mom Carroll.

I know I've rambled . . . Love Joni

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