Go Pound Salt

By Mandy Minick

Throughout the Great Depression, World War II, the '50s, '60s and '70s, a tiny, hard-scrabble neighborhood in Brownsville, Pennsylvania was the home of a band of siblings who sang, danced, laughed, worked, partied and fought their way through life with a strong sense of humor, hard work and togetherness. One sister in particular, made an indelible mark on the people and places she loved. From her home base in the Pike Mine Patch, she traveled the world, created her own adventures and made friends and memories along the way. This is less like the telling of a story and more like the painting of a picture of a people a place and a time. "To think that in such a place, [they] lived such a life" - Winston Churchill.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Sep 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483456751

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Minick

Copyright © 2016 Mandy Minick.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5674-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5675-1 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 09/01/2016

Contents

The most beautiful day

Go pound salt

Brownsville

Peppy

Gracie and Peppy (+Katie)

Crazy

Smart

Fire and lies

Let’s have a party

Family vacation

Family vacation part II

Globe trotter

How to make memories at a family wedding

What to do when you’re a house guest

So long…

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To think that in such a place I led such a life.

Winston Churchill

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Preface

B efore you read this, please understand….

I have taken some liberties. I have made certain assumptions about details, speculations about thought processes and guesses about circumstances. I’m telling the stories as I remember them and as I remember other people telling them to me. The fact is, for much of what I’m trying to describe, there are precious few people available to provide me with the actual information. And even those who are available are hard pressed to remember the details. It’s really a guessing game in most instances with me filling in the blanks as I see fit. My intent was not to root out our family lineage, chronicle our ancestry or provide a historical narrative of Brownsville. I just wanted to capture the essence of the people I love and the lives they lived. Please read this with a large amount of grace knowing that I’m not a historian, but rather, a granddaughter, a great-niece and someone who just wants to make sure the stories get told. Again, I have taken liberties but I hope and pray they add instead of detract from the stories I’m trying to relay.

Maybe other people don’t want to hear these stories. Maybe other people won’t find them amusing (or maybe they just don’t find my telling of them to be amusing). I cannot be objective about these stories (or my telling of them) because I’m too close. I’ve heard them told over and over my entire life. I’ve told them over and over my entire life. I’ve had an Aunt Katie – this specific Aunt Katie – my entire life. I can’t be objective about anything related to her since this is the first time I’ve ever lived without her – without her and her antics, her sayings, her expressions, her moods, her hare-brained ideas, her encouragement, her laughter, her music, her dancing, her cheating, her logic, her joking, her smiling, her generosity, her work ethic, her cooking, her letters, her visits, her fashion sense or lack thereof, her company.

So, I don’t know. It might be important for other people to know these stories because they might need to know that their particular brand of weird, crazy, odd and different can leave a hole so large in the hearts of those they love that someone has to write a book about it after they’re gone, too. It might be important to tell Aunt Katie’s stories because maybe people just need to know that someone like her existed. I mean, if you never met her, you really missed out. I can’t imagine that what I’ve written will come anywhere close to the actual experience of knowing her. After all, she was right when she told us, You’ll never have another Aunt Kate like me.

I just want it to be known that, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, "in such a place, they lived such a life."

The most beautiful day

I t was the most beautiful day. The sky couldn’t have been a more perfect shade of blue. The temperature was warm but not hot, and there was a comfortable breeze as the sun shone through fluffy white clouds. The day we buried Aunt Katie was gorgeous, except for the fact that it was the day we were burying Aunt Katie.

We filed out of St. Peter’s Church behind her coffin, got in our cars with the little funeral flags attached to the roofs, and drove to the cemetery. After a brief service in the mausoleum, we got back in our cars and drove away. For me, this is always the hardest part (and don’t get me wrong, all of it is hard for me). But the part where you are supposed to turn your back on the coffin, get in your car and drive away…the part where you have to leave them there by themselves with all the other dead people, while you drive off in the direction of the living. Presumably, this is the time when you are supposed to go have something to eat, because after all, living people need to eat and dead people don’t. So, you’re supposed to go fill up on pasta and bread while this person who you love and who has always been a part of your life – someone who has been as vital, constant and accessible to you as oxygen – is occupying a box that you have just left at the cemetery. You’re supposed to have spaghetti, while a tractor is plowing soil on top of their box. This is the hardest part. This is where you’re supposed to leave them, but how do you leave a piece of your very own heart? Oh God, I hate death.

And because she was the last one, when we left the cemetery that day, in a way, we left all of them. And while their story is over, it can’t really be the end, can it? For more than 100 years, one set of siblings ran riot in this place. They played, they sang, they danced, they fought, they loved, they worked, they built, they mourned – their sweat, their tears – that’s what’s in this soil. Yes, they’re dead now. But, there never lived a group of people who were more alive. The mines and stores where they worked are abandoned now, and the houses they built are falling into the creek. It’s just as well. Mines and houses don’t tell stories. When it’s all said and done (and, it is), the stories are the evidence. These are some of the stories.

Go pound salt

I have no idea what that means, but I can’t count the number of times she said it to me. Aw, go pound salt! It was her way of saying, shut up, or, get outta here or maybe leave me alone; I know what I’m doing. Sometimes she was kidding and sometimes she was mad. It was hard to tell the difference, really. She was always saying or doing something crazy, outlandish, foolish or embarrassing and whenever you acknowledged the fact, you were likely to be told to, go pound salt. It was just one of