(ed. note – this post was written by Irene in 2019. I have always felt that, of the two of us, Irene is the better writer. So I’m happy to share this, with her permission – and hope y’all enjoy it, as well.)
HERE I AM —
11/21/2019
“Here I am, Irene Passek Fraties from Ansonia, CT standing on The Great Wall of China!” Some form of that sentence was always uttered in almost total disbelief as I embarked on some adventure that I never dreamed of in my growing up years. As a matter of fact, it’s a comment my brother Steve and I shared – and continue to share – in our grown-up years as we’ve enjoyed new experiences.
Sometimes it seems so naive to me to continue to be astounded at the difference between my adult life and my youth. Doesn’t everyone else disconnect from their early beginnings as they adjust to who they are as adults? I always imagine that if I came from a more ‘sophisticated’ – no, more like the life I raised my kids in – life, that I would just sort of take all this as part of the ‘normal’. But then I wouldn’t have the extra thrill that comes from each of these new experiences. So here I am, about to turn 74, and I’m still marveling at how things are so different from when I was a kid.
At my earliest memory my Dad’s job was an ash collector, who worked for the city of Scranton, PA. It was hard manual labor, he came home filthy from ash dust every day, but because he started so early in the morning, he’d be home by mid-afternoon. In the summer I loved seeing him walk up the hill and come sit in the back yard while we played, without going into the house first to clean up.
Most people in the western states don’t even know what an ash collector is – or was. Scranton was the city of coal mines. Everybody burned coal in their furnaces, so there was lots of ash that had to be disposed of. The city provided that service. My dad was one of the guys who rode around on the big trucks collecting ash from cans, the way that garbage was collected. Of course, at that time, everything was manual – no big automatic trucks mechanically lifting and emptying the loads of refuse into the truck. No. My dad had to physically lift the really heavy garbage type cans full of coal ash and manually empty them into the truck. I guess he was in his late 30’s, early 40’s at that time.
My parents were both very bright people. They were first generation offspring of parents who emigrated from ‘the old country’. My dad’s father died when dad was only 6. My mom was one of 8 in her family and the second oldest. Formal education was a luxury their families couldn’t afford. My dad had to quit school after the 6th grade to get a job and help support his family. My mom was able to stay in school all the way to the 8th grade before she too had to quit to get a job.
Throughout the majority of my life at home, both my parents worked in factories and life was about working hard and taking care of the family’s needs. There was no talk of personal advancement or getting ahead; there were no vacations other than an occasional trip to visit a relative; we never owned a home, living in the upstairs apartment of an older home after we moved to Connecticut.
Ah, Connecticut! What a beautiful state, right? We moved to an industrial valley where factories lined the river that ran through the area and dumped their effluent so that the river ran yellow and green, where there was water left. But working in factories was a step up from collecting coal ash and life was still good for me. We still never travelled or went away to camp or went out to restaurants, other than for an occasional pizza. Yum! East coast pizzas were great – oily, cheesy and lots of sauce! Anyway, expectations were conservative, I don’t remember dreaming about great things or having lofty goals.
Well, I didn’t intend this to be an autobiography. I just started with the idea of comparing all the wonderful opportunities I’ve had and enjoyed in my life that still give me a thrill with the limited means and dreams of my childhood. Life is definitely good.
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