Anne J. Morley

So the word is, Mama got a credit card in the mail yesterday. Watch out, world.  Tee hee.

So it is time to immortalize Anne J. Morley.  From birth to 12 I had a babysitter, who watched me while my mother worked part time.  I will describe her physically.  She was around sixty-five when she began working for us.  She had a bit of a belly but I wouldn't say she was fat. She had a uniform of sorts:  She wore different polyester housecoats that are akin to infant's onesies.  They button up the front, you can buy them five for ten dollars, pastel colors.  She wore brown man's dress socks and wore orthopedic dark men's dress shoes. No make up and wild gray hair that went every which way when the wind blew.  She had three teeth.  Her voice was deep and smokey.  When she hollered, you listened.  She was sort of a female Archie Bunker.  She was definitely the most racist person I ever knew.

She was awesome.

She is also the reason I love soup so much.

Anyway, she took care of me from the time I was born until seventh grade.  She had a sickly half brother, Johnny, that she took care of until he died, when I was about seven.  She was destitute, and she had a blind poodle named David and about a million cats. She was pretty fierce.  One time, my sister got held up with a knife in our elevator by a big guy, and Anne went out into the hallway to chase him in her man socks wielding her own knife and hands down I'd place all my money on her.  She had asthma and always put money in the poor box at church.  St Patty's day was her favorite, and she always got us the green Entenman's cupcakes to celebrate.

Now, towards the end of her life, someone from the state must have intervened and she somehow ended up with a black, mentally retarded man as her caretaker.  They lived together in her apartment and I remember thinking (I was in high school then when I visited her once). Wow.

I think about her a lot and I miss her so much.  When E has her temper tantrums I think to myself: that is probably exactly how I was, and how would Anne have handled it?  She did love her soap operas and her game shows, and I was a different child when I was with her.  Obedient, kind, happy and subservient.  Anything Anne wanted, she would snap her fingers, and I would run to get.  What was her magic?  I wish she were here so I could ask her.

I am also pretty sure she took me to a bar when I was about four to have a shot of whiskey while I played pinball.  Those were the days, as Edith Bunker would sing!