Blog Post #50B: More Memories of Stacy’s Youth
Updated: 1 hour ago
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As tends to happen these days, I have taken a while to get back to blog posting and follow up on my prior post about my memories of raising our daughter Stacy, who eventually made me a Nana. Even when I was preparing to write the next post this past summer, the recognition that AI had usurped my prior post, #50A, delayed my going forward. But finally, here goes where I left off, resuming tales of Stacy’s childhood and youth.
Halloween was always a fun time, especially when Stacy was young. Choosing costumes and creating them was also fun too. Having an October birthday, Stacy had a costume party for her 7th birthday, where she dressed as a pink fairy with homemade wings.
Disney also features highly in my memories of Stacy’s youth, as I wrote in Bog post #20 Nana Does Disney:
“Personally, I had always been a great fan of the Disney experience since my youth of growing up on Walt Disney Presents, must-see Sunday night television of my era. I was thrilled to go to Disneyland for the first time as a teenager in 1966 when my parents took our family out west. By the time I had my own children, both Disney and my parents had set up residence in Florida. In conjunction with grandparent visits and Jesse’s occasional medical meetings, we frequently took our Boston-raised children to Disney World.”
We actually took Stacy for the first time to the Magic Kingdom when she was only 2 years old, and I was advanced in the pregnancy which would eventually result in Benjy's birth. Altough my parents, first time grandparents, joined us, toddler Stacy only wanted her mother to pick her up and carry her despite her Granny's attempt to relieve me of the child load. That was very reminiscent of the Disneyland trip when Nana Beryl accompanied mom Stacy and 2 & 1/2 year-old grandson Cooper only wanted to be carried by his mommy.
Nevertheless, a highlight of Stacy's first Magic Kingdom trip, as she excitedly repeated, “Minnie kissed me!”
A few years later brother Benjy had a similar euphoric response when Pluto stepped out of the Disney parade and gave Benjy a big hug, commemorated by the Pluto stuffed dog purchase, which still resides in Nana and Papa’s house after all these years.
By the time Stacy was six, she was excited to go on the Space Mountain roller coaster, and she considered that accomplishment a “red badge of courage,” to be returned to repeatedly.
After countless Disney World visits, we were staying at Disney’s Contemporary Resort where Jesse had a meeting when Goofy showed up in the breakfast area. 10 year-old Ben enthusiastically ran over to the Disney character to be hugged. Perplexedly shaking her head, 12 year-old Stacy said, “I can’t believe he’s still excited about that.”
Soon after that teenage Stacy concluded she was decidedly over Mickey-ed, and had no reason ever to return to Disney. And that lasted until Stacy became a mother when the “siren song” of Mickey Mouse in California called out to her.
As Stacy grew up, the most poignant features of her secondary school life were her consistent excellence in academics, her devotion to sports, and her artistic creativity, making her a standout in the Weston Public Schools in the Boston suburbs. All A’s were the norm on all her report cards through middle and high school, as she studied in high level, honors and advanced placement classes throughout.
Every year Stacy followed in her dad’s footsteps by playing soccer in the fall and basketball in the winter. And she also chose her mother’s favorite sport, playing tennis in the spring. During Stacy’s senior year she was co-captain of all three sports.
Furthermore, Stacy continued figure skating lessons, performing and competing in Massachusetts throughout those years as well. When Stacy and her skating instructor selected her performance music, they went to a music editor to match the selection to the required length as well as intersperse fast and slow segments to coordinate with the required elements. Then Stacy and I also went to a specialty seamstress to create a skating costume to reflect the theme of the music. All new activities for me, which I greatly enjoyed supporting.
During several summers Stacy went away for ice skating experiences. In her middle school years she spent a week in upstate NY. In the summer before 9th grade Stacy went on a People to People trip to Australia, staying with families while she skated in Sydney and Adelaide. And the summer before her junior year Stacy ice skated in Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, with an instructor friend of her home coach, where Stacy had to immediately employ her high school French skills among the local skaters.
During Stacy’s senior year, I enjoyably took us to watch the US National Figure Skating championships which were being held in Phoenix. It may have been far from Boston but was a familiar area to me, as Jesse and I had lived in Arizona for two years before kids.
And we all continued to ski together as a family, due to living in New England and Jesse's lecturing at many hand or orthopaedic surgery meetings in ski areas.
In the home animal realm, we had a family dog most of Stacy’s youth and we got a cat when she was about 12.
But after her mice, Stacy’s next creature request, in 9th grade when she was taking biology, was to have her own aquarium. That was about when Stacy started talking about her interest in marine biology. So for her 14th birthday, we made an excursion to an aquarium store where she was advised what to buy for a basic start-up tank which was installed in her bedroom. Stacy predominantly cared for her tank but we noticed that our cat was overly interested, sitting on the chest next to the aquarium and staring in, as if he would like to snatch out a fish snack. We solved that problem with a screen cover.
Unfortunately we had a fish disaster after a few years when our well-meaning housecleaner insisted on giving Stacy fish from his tank. Stacy was reluctant but Vinny convinced us. Unfortunately, they were bigger and ate almost all of her remaining original fish.
We certainly were exceedingly proud of our accomplishing daughter. But like all kids, Stacy was not perfect. She was a teenager after all.
Most of the time Stacy’s bedroom was a mess, strewn with projects, schoolwork and clothes. Despite my complaining, Stacy rarely cleaned up in any way that made any visible difference to me. One summer when she was away, I embarked on a major clean-up in her room. When I came across a Garfield sticker that was extraordinarily appropriate, I affixed it prominently on her mirror, so we could all read and remember that “Creativity is not a pretty sight!”
After Stacy was accepted to Harvard, she was sent a questionnaire to assist them in placing her with freshman roommates. One question asked about her level of neatness, to which she honestly replied about her very messy bedroom. From the looks of her small dorm room which was assigned three students, her two roommates had likely admitted to being pretty messy as well. Each time I visited, I cringed at the mess, with leftover food being left casually throughout. At least at home Stacy could leave her cluttered bedroom and relax in our generally neat house. The freshman dorm experience totally changed Stacy around from being messy about her personal belongings to becoming very neat and organized.
Near the end of Stacy’s eleventh grade year, I planned to go with Jesse to an international hand surgery meeting in Paris for about a week. Since 8th-grader Ben was going on a school trip to Quebec over Memorial Day weekend which coincided with the first several days of our trip, I felt comfortable leaving supposedly responsible Stacy and our live-in exchange student by themselves until Ben returned and we would have an adult kid sitter stay at our house. Little did I know what might occur without adult supervision.
When I called home to check on things, I spoke to Stacy and naturally asked, “How’s everything?” She paused before she answered, “uh, OK, but … oh, nevermind …”
“Is there something you want to tell me?” I asked. “No, uh, not now,” she said haltingly, “when you come home.”
“OK, I’m curious, but I suppose it can wait.”
So when Jesse and I came home, no one was around at first but the house had some clues. Some decorative items in the living room were out of place (reminding me of the cracked glass egg belonging to the mother of Tom Cruise’s Risky Business high school character), there was a broken railing on our deck, and in the back yard was a large yellow trash can, identified as property of the Weston High School athletic department..
“Something went on here,” I told Jesse, who was oblivious to any differences.
When Stacy came home, we heard the whole, but likely edited, story. She sheepishly told us that she had invited a “few” friends for a Memorial Day weekend barbecue. Somehow word got out in our small town that Stacy Jupiter on Sherburn Circle was hosting an unattended party. The throngs showed up, with beer in tow, which I presumed was carted in an ice-filled yellow trash can. When the noisy outdoor party continued late, Stacy and our exchange student were worried but did not know how to curtail the large inadvertent party. They might even have been relieved that our next-door neighbors called the police about the loud party.
But there were consequences. Even though a juvenile, Stacy was cited for allowing minors to drink alcoholic beverages at her house, with a court date to follow. And due to Massachusetts Interscholastic Sports Association rules, Stacy was banned from finishing out her tennis team season.
The day Stacy was assigned to go to court, she dressed very primly and asked me to French braid her hair, all her idea to give the impression of a very proper young lady. We were given a report time, but having no experience with the local court system, I suggested we bring reading material for posible wait time. So as we read in the courthouse hallway, I observed to Stacy, “No one else appears to be reading.” Looking at the rather scruffy lingering occupants, Stacy quickly retorted, “Probably no one else knows how to read.” I had to chuckle at that.
Stacy’s proceedings did not take place in a typical courtroom. Rather we were brought into a magistrate's office, accompanied by an officer from our town who was there to explain the complaint. The Weston officer wanted to be more punitive to make an example of Stacy’s bad behavior to her schoolmates. Having undoubtedly seen a lot worse, the elderly magistrate was more kindly to the remorseful teenager who came before him. “We don’t think this is likely to happen again, do we Stacy?” he asked. Her punishment was a several month probation, after which all charges would be dropped if no additional offenses occurred. It was a learning experience, for both of us.
Fortunately no charges remained on Stacy’s public record and did not have to be reported in college applications. She applied to all Ivy League schools. Stanford even sent her an unrequested application to complete but I was not ready to have our first child at 17 years old move across the entire country if she was accepted to excellent east coast schools, which she was, all the Ivies to which she applied. In the end, I “won the battle, but lost the war.” After college, Stacy left for two years in the Peace Corps in Africa, went to graduate school in California, did her research and post-graduate work in Australia, and took her first employment position in Fiji where she has remained to date.
But we still had another unchaperoned party episode at our house when Stacy was a college freshman. She was living in her campus dorm and her brother had chosen to go to boarding high school in Connecticut. About February, I told her I was accompanying her dad to a meeting in New Orleans, and asked her if she had any college weekend plans. She said she might like to come back to our house, and maybe bring a friend with her, which I okayed. “The dogs will be home,” I told her, “with Vinny coming in and out to care for them, so please tell him when you know your specific plans.”
Speaking to Stacy at the end of the weekend, I inquired whether she had gone to our house. Since she replied yes, I asked “Did anyone come with you?” To which Stacy replied, “yes, some friends.”
“That’s nice,” I said, “How many came with you?” Slight pause, before she said, haltingly “eleven.”
“Eleven?” I repeated in surprise. I didn’t even think she had 11 college girlfriends. “So I suppose it wasn’t just girls?” I reflected out loud. And of course, it wasn’t. So Stacy had hosted a coed sleepover party. And now it was after the fact. And of course, I realized they could all sleep together at school without my knowledge, and drink alcohol under-age too for that matter. So what was bothering me?
“You might be telling me now,” I admonished, “but you didn’t want to ask permission beforehand?” As I felt angry and betrayed.
“But mom," she tried to excuse herself, "you don’t know Harvard students, they even folded up all the sheets.” I had to laugh at that sorry excuse for misbehaving.
But then something occurred to me, and I said, “So if you were at the house, at least Chelsea (our puppy who couldn’t be trusted to have unsupervised run of the house yet) could be out of her cage more.”
Again the halting answer, “Not exactly.”
“And why not?!” I inquired.
“One of the guys is afraid of dogs, so Chelsea was still caged a lot.” And this was someone Stacy had recently dated.
As a longtime dog owner, keeping the puppy cooped up while they were home seemed even worse to me than having the overnight party without permission. “Well, I certainly hope this relationship is not going anywhere,” I said. And it didn‘t.
This time no police, no court, no consequences, but another example of teenage imperfection. In all honesty, I was also a top student who also behaved like a typical teenager at times. But I’m not going into those experiences here.
Since Stacy went to college nearby I tried to minimize intruding on her college experience, and tried to reserve visiting unless requested. But I was always happy to hear from her, and agreeable if there was a reason to connect in person. But one day I got a request that I was not willing to fulfill. “Mom,“ Stacy breathlessly phoned me, “some upperclassmen came into the freshman dining room and were tossing around goldfish. But I saved one. I have it in a cup, but I need a goldfish bowl. Can you get one and bring it to me?”
“As much as I would love to see you,” I told her, “I am not dropping everything to shop for a goldfish bowl and drive it to you. There must be somewhere in Cambridge that you can buy one.” And she did.
When that semester ended for summer break, Stacy brought the goldfish in bowl home with her, and asked me to feed the fish while she immediately went off to Europe for several weeks. Unfortunately, since I hardly went into Stacy’s room in her absence, I totally forgot about the fish, which sadly died on my watch. I was very apologetic but for quite a while Stacy called me “fish killer,” which made me feel worse.
Stacy continued to be active and sporty in college. During her freshman year, she played JV soccer, and during her sophomore year she played intramural coed ice hockey, which she had not played previously but was obviously comfortable on the ice from all her years of figure skating. And Stacy also taught figure skating at the Harvard ice rink, but declined to be paid as taking money would compromise her “amateur status.” That seemed absurd to me as the $15 per hour she would have been paid would have been that much less that her parents would have contributed to her allowance. It was especially ridiculous when you think today about the astronomical amounts that some college athletes are being paid, with no longer any consideration of “amateur status.”
For additional exercise, Stacy ran or roller bladed along the Charles River, and one time she even roller bladed 13 miles from Cambridge to our Weston home.
During the summers before both Stacy’s freshman and sophomore college years Stacy worked as an overnight counselor at Pine Forest Camp in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. Jesse and I enjoyed visiting her there because Pine Forest, owned by my relatives, was where I went many summers in my youth, many of my cousins went too, and that’s where Jesse and I met when he worked one year as a PFC counselor. Jesse too had his youthful exploits, which surfaced that summer when he broke counselor curfew, returning drunk to camp, and getting in trouble with his supervisor. But as Jesse always related well to young kids, his campers loved him.
Stacy seemed reluctant to find a summer job after her sophomore year, but the art project she focused on has remained one of my favorite paintings. She painted our two English springer spaniels, Liza and Chelsea, at the beach on Martha’s Vineyard. During high school and college, Stacy created some other memorable oil paintings that hang in our residences to date.
Once again this memories blog of our daughter Stacy has gotten long enough without coming to my conclusion. This seems to be a good stopping point, so it appears that I will have to return with a blog post #50C, to chronicle more poignant memories of Stacy before she made me a Nana. Once again, I hope I don’t take too long to return to the next post. But if you've been following my FinallyNana blog for some time, you know not to hold your breath.
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