2014

2014. The New Year has passed with its charmless confetti. The frozen Massachusetts ground, with the green hair of summer browning with the chilled scrape of winter's comb, welcomed half-heartedly the passing snow showers. Christmas, as it were, was teased and tousled with the notion of a white coating. The snow soon melted and aptly fled when the lit tree twinkled in the early morning of the 25th.

I knew the flakes would fall again.

There is great faith that comes with the weather. As a child looks to the night's sky, the flickering stars like candles in the dark windows of their only known home,  I know that the winter's blackened slate held hope and wonder. If you squeeze your eyes tightly enough and the world can transform.

Transform it did.

7 years in the making and the family has reunited. All 12 siblings fell back into the world together, tumbling from their current stations in life and celebrated the holiday together once again. Families forming, new additions and happy children. Laughter and love filled our little country town, the snow  softly skirting the Powell Home, nudging the family back together again.

December 2014
Bottom Row, Left to Right, sitting: Adriana (Mike's wife), Mike holding onto daughter Lily, Sam, Robert, Joseph, Gabe the Dog
Middle Row, Left to Right, sitting: Zachary (Mary's son) on Mama's lap, Papa, Ava (Mike's daughter)
Back Row,  Left to Right, standing: Sarah, Nina, Nell, Bill, Marlena (Bill's wife), Barbara (me), Don (Mary's husband) holding Jaymes (Mary's son), Mary, Brian (Evelyn's husband), Evelyn and Gabrielle. 

Evelyn vs Me

Screams and gnashes. Hair pulling and threats. Sisters loathing, hating, abhorring, disliking more than anything else in the world. It was a wonder that we were able to live underneath the same roof for even a day, let alone our entire childhood existence.

Evelyn and I had the worst case of sisterly rivalry.

In between the few days that all went well in the world beneath that sloping farm rooftop, between the calm and the serenity of a Sunday morning, where all in the house were asleep, quiet, unmoving. Between those real precious moments, there was an animosity that grew with each and every interaction.

Of course, reader, I exaggerate. But anyone with a sister knows exactly what I mean.

Evelyn came in, came into the bedroom I shared with Sarah, Nell, Christina and baby Gina, screeching and raging like a hopeless woman lost in tears over the horrific plight she was unfortunately caught up within.

"WHO RIPPED MY PURPLE TANK TOP?! BARBARA, DO YOU KNOW WHO- [even louder now]- WHO RIPPED MY FAVORITE PURPLE TANK TOP?!"


There was no escape possible. No sneaky door to pull open or chandelier to swing from. No grandiose battling that only Mr. Toad and his cronies, Moley, Ratty and MacBadger, could  muster.

Shoot.

I cowered on the top of my bunk, pulling the blanket up close to my chin, the tattered Babysitters Club book I was reading flopped over on a lost page at my side. My off-white, greased-from-use Granby Public Library card bounced out of the paperback and fell pitifully to the ground, attempting a not-so-masterful escape.

I gulped. There was only one thing I could do here.


"I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" I kicked back the blankets and scuttled backward toward the wall. "You musta ripped it in the washer machine!"


No matter. Evelyn lunged up the rickety rockety ladder leading up to the ceiling-kissing bed, throwing herself at me. The end was clearly near. As near as her fingernails.

I hurled myself off the bunk bed and ran out of the room, screaming at the top of my lungs-- a blood curdling scream that rattled the windows and shook the floor beneath me.




Barreling down the stair with Evelyn in hot pursuit, I shot out the front door and flew over the gravel driveway and out into the side lawn. The Blessed Mother Mary, standing stiffly and planted,  looked patiently at me, her graceful hands clenched in prayer against her holy bosom. I hoped it was in prayer for me.

I dared a peek behind me. There she was. Evelyn, standing atop the stair overlooking the driveway, screeching at me in an inaudible and clearly angry language. There was no time to decipher. I fled into the back field, barefooted and gangly legged, running from the fury that was my older sister.

My Best Friend

As I've eluded to, or rather fully acknowledged, my best friend and I grew up together. Sarah was born exactly a year and a month after me, emerging into a family where cliques were already forming due to age gaps and personalities. She was born with a full head of ebony Mohawk Indian hair, a savage baby. Starkly different from my own light puffs of blonde fuzz. I wish I could say one-year-old Barb remembered her birth, but to be honest, my life as I remember it has always had Sarah in it.

Sarah grew from that savage little Mohawk into an awkward preteen. Her wild, long hair was tied back into a low ponytail in order to alleviate her eyes from the constant curtain of brown. Full, round glasses sat on her nose, trying to swallow her face whole. Her bright brown eyes were wide behind them, eager to soak in as much information and knowledge as she could.

Sarah and I are complete opposites. We definitely have different features. She takes after Robin, our Father, with her dark hair and uproarious laugh. Her legs were always longer than mine and her features darker. Her complexion was always better than mine, since her skin was smooth and rarely tarnished. My hair has always been a very light brown, almost blonde, to which I've colored countless times. My nose is a button, whereas hers is a proper nose--- there is no other way to describe it.

We also have very different perspectives on life. Sarah eyes success as studying hard to obtain the end goal. She prides herself in the work she is able to accomplish and always puts her best foot forward. As for me, I tend to set goals outside of studies and put my efforts into those. School was never the number one priority on my mind, but for Sarah, it usually was. And that worked for her.

But, even with our differences, we have the time of our lives together. We've spent entire Saturday  nights laughing so hard we thought our stomachs would burst. We stayed up late into the night, talking about serious matters of importance, like Y2K, and silly matters of nonsense, like where we wanted our honeymoon to be. We fought and cried and yelled, but we loved and smiled and laughed together much more.

As kids, we would all gather in one of our huge yards or bedrooms and play silly games together. We'd use the creative juices that we each accumulated and create a game that would consume entire afternoons.

One fantastic game that we'd play often was "Boy and Girls." Sarah would always have to be the boy since she was the youngest girl. Evelyn (the oldest sibling I played with on a regular basis) and I would be the pretty girls, strutting down the driveway as we'd try to catch the attention of the strapping boy, aka Sarah. We'd make Sarah choose who she liked best. Poor Sarah had to endure this game countless times. But she was a great boy and for that I am appreciative.

But there was one game in particular that Sarah shone in---

Mrs. Thirteen Claws.

But let's set the scene.

The bedroom we lived in as kids wasn't all that large. (It did fit up to 5 girls at one point-- but not until the youngest was a toddler.) Two bunk beds sat prestigiously across from each other, pushed up against the walls. The bunk bed to the right reached all the way up to the ceiling, creating a small space between it and the mattress. That was my bed-- Sarah slept in the top bunk opposite, a shorter, but sturdier, bunk. We loved that room.

When night crept up, that room and those bunks were our play haven.

Sarah would lay in her bed, staring up at the ceiling, when suddenly:

"Sarah. Sarah. Psst!" As she sat up, a twisted sheet, like a rope, flew in her direction, the knot at the end hitting her body. Stifling giggles, she grabbed the sheet excitedly, sat up and secured her heels against the bed's side board. The twins, thought to have been asleep beneath us, would watch us in jealousy, eager to get in our our game.

On the cold nights of winter, after our Father or Mother said our prayers with us and sang us a song or two, Sarah crawled up onto my bunk bed. With her she brought her two large quilts and pillow. In the nip of the winter, we'd huddle together beneath a mound of blankets, talking about everything. One thing we loved to talk about was the future. We planned to live together in a big house when we grew up, having parties and doing anything we wanted. It was my favorite topic with Sarah.

Most of the time, those snuggle sessions would end in a fight. One of us would get upset and I would order her to leave my bed. But, the next morning, we would go back to being the best of friends.

It was high school, though, that truly built a lasting and loving relationship between the two of us.

Our highschool was a barely restored seminary that stretched out against the fielded green of Granby, Massachusetts. The halls were long, narrow corridors, enough space for two single lines of students could stream through in between classes. When our teachers let us out of class, we would tumble into that hallway, squeezed next to and behind and in front of our fellow Catholic schoolmates.

These halls were made for Sarah and me.

First, we'd catch each other's eye from opposite ends of the hall, seeking each other out through bobbing heads and stuffed backpacks. Then, one of us would shriek in excitement, completely oblivious to the hall stuffed with sardined students. As soon as we got close enough to each other, all traffic would come to a screeching halt-- we grabbed each other in a furious and hyper embrace, shouting proclamations of our love for each other.

I loved my Junior and Senior year purely because I got to share the hallways with Sarah.

As we came home from track practice, we immediately headed to the kitchen, grabbed the daily crossword from the newspaper caught underneath my napping dad's hands as they rested on his belly, put a pot of tea on the stove, and promptly plopped down at the kitchen table. Frozen fig newtons and pencils in our hands, we conquered that crossword together every day, laughing uproariously together.

But, as promised, Sarah was the greatest at one thing... Mrs. Thirteen Claws.

Mrs. Thirteen Claws was a vicious and horrid babysitter that we concocted. She was always trying to catch you with her long, awful claws--probably to eat you or destroy your childhood in some sort of clawed way.

Her victims always were the children she was "babysitting." Sarah stood outside of our large, bunk bed-filled bedroom, snarling:

"I'm Mrs. Thirteen Claws!"

Shrieking and bursting with laughter and falsified fear, my playmate of the day and I scurried up my bunk bed,  screaming at Mrs. Thirteen Claws to stop. Sarah climbed noisily after us, swiping at us with her imaginary claws. The chase would continue until Sarah tired of her role, Evelyn or Joe and I bounding across the bed on our hands and knees as Sarah cornered us.

Sarah is, without a shred of doubt, my very best friend.

Cheaper by the Dozen?

I wouldn't trade in my childhood for anything. There were too many fantastic things about it that have made me into what I am and what my family is today.

Granted, we didn't have many possessions and extras when I was a kid. We mostly had each other to play with and the huge expanse of property that seemed to stretch out for miles.

Our home was a peeling, white farmhouse that stood proudly near the end of South Street. Surrounding our farmhouse were two large side yards, a sloping front lawn, and an endless back field, its perimeters peppered with woods. The majority of my childhood was spent outside on my parents' property with my best friends-- Joe, Sarah, and Evelyn.

It didn't take much to entertain us.

The back field was our most prized possession in those days. The adventures were constant and exciting. Joe was always the mastermind behind the day's games and journeys. He had a brilliant knack of creating the best scenarios. As his sisters and best friends, we would always go along with them.

The back field was a grassy mess then, a green playground. We would make our way to the highest patches, stalks that would hide our small bodies as soon as we knelt down. We'd scramble away from each other first, claiming our own territory. Dropping to the ground, we'd be surrounded by the cool weeds, unable to see each other. Then, laying flat on our stomachs, we'd roll. We'd roll and roll, knocking the grass down into a child-made path, trying to smother our giggles as we got lost in the grass.

The key to the game, though, was to keep quiet and make the best pathway without getting "found" by the others. I smile now as I write this because we would always bump into each other, erupting into fits of laughter as we discovered the other playmate, never able to keep quiet or successfully mowing down our own corridors in the grass.

Beyond the field was a campsite that my dad had set up. As you reached the back edge of the field, a small stream welcomed you, the only thing in the way of getting to the campsite. A bridge had been constructed, probably by my dad, out of a thick, rounded tree that had been cut down ages ago.

The stream was one of the best places on our property. It stretched beyond the field and gurgled its way toward the golf course next door. Donned in either well-worn water shoes, or completely barefoot, we'd splash into the cool water, disrupting the annoyed frogs and send them jumping in every direction.

Most of the time we were daring explorers, conquering a new land and discovering rare species of butterflies and water bugs and tadpoles. Other times we were the survivors of Jurassic Park, stealthily avoiding the dinosaurs that lurked behind the bushes. We were safe only in the water.

There were days that I spent playing beyond the back field alone, trekking through the stream as I made up scenarios in my head. I loved playing by myself even though I had so many siblings.

Since we were constantly out in the back field, dinnertime would creep up without any of us knowing it. My mom, the brilliant woman that she is, set up an old fashioned bell on the side of my dad's workshop. It was aged and a tad rusty, but when dinnertime came around, that bell summoned us home. You could hear it being rung from all the way out at the campsite.

DING A LING A LING A LING A LING!

That was the one thing that would send us Powell kids charging homeward, no matter where we were on South Street. Sometimes whoever would ring the dinner bell would holler. But the bell was enough.

When we stayed within site of the house, there was plenty of fun to be had.

A broken down tractor sat between the barn and my dad's workshop, a green spectacle. Joe was the best at taking charge, climbing up onto the driver's seat, switching the gears professionally, and grabbing onto the chewed wheel confidently.

"On the time machine!"

The time machine was the best thing about growing up. We could go anywhere we wanted on that old tractor and it never moved from its resting spot.

We went to outer space and fought the nasty aliens who were trying to take over the Earth in the future.

We went to World War II and hunted the opposing forces, creeping around bushes and trees and into the run down barn as we tried to hide from the enemy.

We went to the days of pirates, bounding toward the tall tree house that stood gloriously by the sand pile in our backyard.

We went everywhere.

The sand pile was another place of great adventure. Every summer my dad would go to a sand and rock distributor down the street and pick up a truck bed-full of sand. The day the new sand was dumped onto the last year's matted down pile was always an exciting one at the Powell house. As soon as dad's truck rumbled down our gravel driveway, we would run outside, shrieking.

In the very middle of the sand pile stood the great Elm tree. I don't remember the year my dad built the tree house, but when he did, my brothers and sisters would spend hours up there. It was a simple tree house, approximately 7 ft by 12ft . My dad had fashioned planks of wood together to make a sturdy floor with horizontal planks built in a fence-like manner that were about 4 ft high. The top of the tree poke through the floor to the side, offering a seat for the tree dwellers. The fort was topless and it gave the best view of the back field.

It was the ladder up to the tree fort that was the most incredible part, though. My dad had discovered a large fishing net at the beach one summer and brought it home without knowing what he would use it for. He staked the bottom of the net to the ground in the sand pile and attached it to the tree fort, creating a fish net ladder for us. It was a mother's nightmare, with misplaced rope and holes and height, but it was a little kid's dream. We would purposely get stuck inside the net, hiding in the pockets and climbing up without any intention of stopping at the treetops fort.

A simple childhood with simple pleasures...I loved every minute of it.