Momma Said

As Momma Said began to fill page after page, Margie became my young friend. I watched her and Momma wrestle with life’s many dilemmas that confront their mother/daughter relationship. They come face to face with one another and each of the neighbors: Crazy Annna, Volunteer Fireman Freddie, his father Oldman Costello, Dickie Dee and his grandfather Mr. Dee, plus Angry Angie and let’s not forget Poppa. Their individual identities are examined in a world where secrets are accepted as common place and nosey neighbors continually get involved.
Margie struggles to become an individual despite Momma’s own secret youth that influences what she allows her daughter to experience. She cloaks her fears with an over-protectiveness she sees as a virtue, all the while sending Margie to a safe haven, her bedroom to “go color.”
Through it all, Margie learns that love comes in many forms, often unrecognizable for a long time; time being the yardstick where experiences expand minor incidents into major memories that each of us carries for a lifetime.
This is the 1950’s. The neighborhood is the stage where each of them plays out a scenario that might pop up when someone coughs with wine on his breathe or an emotional outburst is redirected with a garden hose and an upright piano or a hearse takes one of them away.
It is when a new family moves across the street from her home on Franklin Street that Momma frets about the complexion of the neighborhood and property values.
Margie’s grasp on life begins to take shape when she secretly sits listening at the top of the stairs as Momma’s absurd strictness and emotional tirades help to fuel Margie’s relentless curiosity. The intensity mounts as Margie grows more defiant when 12 year old Gordy from NYC moves next door.
Halloween shows the unexpected side to a despicable neighbor and Christmas opens Momma’s heart in ways no one would have expected. But it is Valentine’s Day that gives Margie plenty to dream about.
Amidst historical changes that come to the Franklin Street neighborhood, Momma tries to keep hidden the very things Margie instinctively knows she must uncover.
These simple events bring us in touch with our own past on holidays or when a sense of community takes ordinary people who are considered crazy, drunk, nosey or simply do not belong, and gives them a reason for being.