By: Barbra Sue Yurachek

PROMPT(S): 

• ARE YOU MORE LIKE YOUR FATHER OR YOUR MOTHER? IN WHAT WAYS? 
• WHAT DID YOU LOOK FORWARD TO THE MOST AS A CHILD?

I was an only-child and just three days shy of my 9th birthday.  It is hard having to answer all those only-child inquiries—especially the one ALL your friends with families the size of “the old woman who lived in a shoe” asked: 

“Do you get anything you want?” 

Or more ridiculous: 

“Are there always fried chicken pieces left in the platter at your house?” 

Well, much to their surprise and disbelief, I did not get everything I wanted. It took two years and a tear-stained and wrinkle-ruined page of a year-old Sears Roebuck catalog to get my 24-inch wheel, blue girls’ bike that was supposed to come on my 9th birthday and didn’t. It was such a popular model, it sold out quickly. Instead, I got a basketball—A BASKETBALL! What on earth does an un-athletic, clumsy 9-year-old do with a basketball—go back to her book, Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.” That’s what. Not 3 months went by until, on a bright summer morning, I not only found the 24” girls’ blue bicycle in my backyard but also a basketball hoop attached to the garage. And so close to Christmas. So I set my heart on a piano for Christmas but never ever got one. I knew that was an impossibility. I lived on a farm and a piano cost as much as a plow. Or a tractor tire, or a cow. So I waited until my husband and I bought a Wurlitzer Spinet some 25 years later. I still have it (out of tune and with a gimpy leg) and I love it.

By 1951 I was what is called today —and maybe even then —pre-pubescent, and my tastes were changing. All my friends, all of them except me, of course (and in truth about half the others), had beautiful ladies’ wristwatches. No one wore lipstick or eyeshadow. That wouldn’t come until at least 9th grade, maybe not even then. But we could wear these beyond sophisticated grown up ladies’ wristwatches. If you had a Bulova 17-Jewel raised Crystal gold-plated with a Speidel expansion band, you had made it. There was nothing better in the eyes of your friends—the next step was Bert Parks singing “There she is, Miss America” as you wore your crown across the stage, also wearing your Bulova.

Of course I wanted the Bulova with all the extras. The raised Crystal was of course the coup-de-grâce. The cat’s pajamas, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing on the ceiling. My 11th birthday was only a few days away and could I get the Bulova or any watch for my birthday—probably not because you see, my mom was pregnant. Yes, after all these years I was going to be a big preteen sister. I wanted that baby more than anything in the world; but in my mind it would mean giving up any dreams I had, because quite frankly I didn’t feel my parents could afford a baby and a Bulova watch with a raised Crystal. 

My birthday came and all was the same. I helped my mom prepare a huge dinner for my dad and all the field workers who were all congregating around our big farm table in our kitchen while congratulating us on the upcoming baby. It was hard for some of them to comprehend since most of them had 4 to 6 children, all about 2 years apart.

My dad was a little quieter than usual. I thought he was thinking about the baby, but when he asked me to sit at my assigned place at the table, l saw that my plate was turned upside down. When I turned it over, I squealed like the little piggy in the nursery rhyme who squealed all the way home. There it was. The 17-Jewel Bulova with the Speidel gold expansion band and yes even the raised Crystal. That was next to the best present I ever got.

The best present I have ever received, I got some months later when my mom gave birth to my sister, who my mom had seen while under anesthesia jumping up and down with ponytails on both sides singing “My name’s Paulette; my name’s Paulette!”

My dad said we have another girl.

My mom said I know; and her name is Paulette.

I had a sister and a Bulova. Life is good.

I married a month shy of 20 and remained an only-child.

Our parents reared 2 only-children

We grew up not only distant in age, but in milestones and geography.

Now that we are both widows, I feel the kinship I never knew we were missing.

She is now 71 and I am 82.

We are both old ladies. 11 years at our age means nothing.