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Observations of An Ex-Cop in La La Land |
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BIG SISTERS |
 From left: Rosemary, Cookie, Dolores and Louise. |
Here are my four sisters:
The treasures of my life
of TheColumnists.com
I consider myself a lucky guy because I had, not one, but four older sisters! Sure there was lots of tap dancing outside our only bathroom door growing up, but, hey, they were worth it. Let me tell you about them.
My four big sisters were as different as any four people could possibly be, yet they had many of the same qualities that made them good people. Three are in Heaven now and one resides in south Florida. My only photo where the four of them are posed together was taken years ago at our cousin's wedding. They were all in the pink and life was great.
Dolores was the youngest--and beautiful. My remembrances of “Dolly” was how she always managed to do everything right, according to the rules of our beloved father, Andrew Murcia. Dolly finished school, had a job working in our family doctor’s office, and helped Mama around the house. Dolly not only kept her nose clean, but she also took more than one shower a day, which was unheard of in the 1950s especially in a house with one bathroom. She was indeed perfect.
Dolly was also a cheerleader
at N. Miami High School and did some professional modeling. Pop
always made sure that a family member went along with her on
the modeling gigs. She was voted Miss North Miami Beach one year
and boy did that ever make me popular, too. A lot of older guys
would buy me, her fat little brother, shakes and burgers, thinking
I could get them a date with her. But she dated rarely and then
only with nice boys that had gained our parents approval.
Dolly kept everything in her room in perfect order. Her things
had to be folded just so, and every bobby pin lined up next to
the others, all in a row. The only “fault” I ever found
with her was that she would beat me up for going in her drawers
and messing things up. I tried to explain that I was only looking
to borrow a few bucks out of her “boodle” that she
hid there. I also learned she could punch pretty hard, as my
buddy, Marty, and I found out one day when we did something we
shouldn't have done.
We were about 12 in the 1950s and it was Marty’s idea. We
drilled a small hole in the bathroom door, near the floor, so
that when Dolly went to take her daytime shower, we could sneak
a peek. Marty and I were dying to see a naked girl, any girl
would do, so we drilled the hole.
Turns out we didn’t see a naked Dolly. Instead, she suddenly
opened the door for some unexplained reason. She was still fully
dressed and found Marty laying on his stomach outside the bathroom
door with his eyeball glued to where the peephole would have
been. I was lying along side Marty waiting for my turn.
She beat the hell out of us. Marty got a few cracks in his kisser and ran home crying. I got Dolly’s bony bare knuckles as she rolled me on my fat back and sat on my chest, pinning my arms with her knees as she punched me in the face in a rapid fire fashion that even Roy Jones would envy. This is where I first learned how to slip a punch. In hindsight, I know I had it coming. Why even Bill Clinton would say, “it’s not cool looking at nude chicks within the family. At least I think he would say that.
In the 1950s, Dolly married a handsome guy who was a naval officer and a dentist. Our father bought them a big wedding at a fancy Miami Beach Hotel, and also helped to finance the young dentist's first upscale office near the beach.
Dolly had it all, a great husband, three beautiful children, lovely homes, and they were so happy. Then it all collapsed when our beloved Dolores died from a cigarette-related illness. She was only 40. We were all devastated and my Mother and Father never really were the same afterwards. Nobody can really accept his or her kids dying first.
Louise was my third sister. We called her Joanie and she was a happy go lucky party girl! She loved life and was the life of any party for all of her life. Joanie was a performer. She loved an audience and knew how to entertain one. As a girl, she had it all. She had looks, talent, (singer/dancer) and could make anyone laugh as not only did she know how to deliver a comedic line, she was just naturally funny. She saw the humor in everything.
She was also the world’s best house cleaner and we nicknamed her “Miss Wipey”. Her two best song’s were, “Embraceable You” and “You’ll Never Know”--and she could sell those lyrical songs with the best of them. As a kid she earned money by cleaning rich peoples houses to buy make up and dance shoes. She loved to dance and could spend hours putting make up on.
I recall my father taking me with him down to the malt shop once when we lived in New York. He had just received a call from Joanie’s high school that she was absent, again. Pop and I walked into the shop with the loud jukebox blaring hits of the late 1940’s, and there she was. She was in a circle of boys who were taking turns jitterbug dancing with her. Pop looked on for a minute as Joanie would tire one boy out and then pull a new boy in to take his place while she just kept on dancing. Joanie never saw Pop coming as he pushed his way through the circle and grabbed her hand as if he was going to dance next with her. The look on her face was priceless as Pop led her out to our car. Pop went easy on her, though--just a little hollering as he drove us home., I remember Joanie sneaking a look at me and discreetly flashing her lovely smile and winking at me.
Joanie did a few other things in her life that Pop didn’t approve of, like the time she crashed his new Pontiac, or when she ran off and got married to a bashful sailor named Fred. It was not that Pop didn’t grow to like young Fred, because he did; it was just that he wanted all his daughters to have real weddings in church.
Joanie was always my “buddy” sister. From taking my collect calls when I was a homesick kid of 17 in the Navy, to when I was a grown man and needed her shoulder to cry on when my wife, Ann Jillian, was battling breast cancer. Joanie moved into our guest house here in California from her own home in Florida. She was always there for me with a pot of coffee and to give me her heart and those big beautiful blue eyes to talk to and to cry with if I needed too.
Because Joanie was such a good singer (even in her 60’s), we put her in Ann Jillian’s concert shows as a “ringer” in the audience. Ann graciously would coax “the ‘ringer” up on stage, play straight to Joanie's comedy and then let her sing “You’ll Never Know” to steal the show. Everyone loved her and Ann proudly told the audience she was her wonderful sister-in-law.
But all too soon Joanie got sick--very sick. She, too, suffered from a cigarette-related illness. So, I lost yet another sister. I did get to spend the last week of her life with her, though. She wanted me to drive and take her outside, so we would park at the beach in Florida and talk for hours. I bought all her favorite foods and we talked about Mama and Pop as well as her own three children, among other subjects.
Most important to me was how she showed me her faith in our God in ways that only a guy like me could learn from and appreciate. And once again, along with the lesson in faith, she had given me her heart and those big, beautiful blue eyes to treasure forever. On the morning I was with her in the emergency room for her final stay in the hospital, she looked up at me and said, “Brother, this ain’t no place for a party girl is it?” I said; “No, it’s not, but don’t worry, we’ll get you out of here fast, Pal.”
I sat by her bedside the first night alone with her. We talked as much as she felt like and we watched part of some TV show that featured a big band playing. After they played a hot tune, and though she was in pain, she whispered; “I like that band!”. I could see the desire in her baby blues to be up there swinging with them. The second night came and our niece, Cathy, sat all night with us. We watched the morphine drip into Joanie and slowly, but surely, take her away from us.
It was 4 a.m. when Joanie died. At that hour of the morning, in her hey-day, she would have just left a nightclub and would be coming home trying not to let Pop here her enter the house. She had suffered so much and fought so hard to live. It was the saddest time in my entire life as I said goodbye to my sister Joanie.
Cathy went home to her
husband. I drove out of the hospital parking lot and eventually
found myself in front of Joanie's house. I cried out loud, “Why,
God? She never did anything bad to anyone in her life! With so
many rotten bastards in this world, why take Joanie now?”
I banged the steering wheel repeatedly until my hands hurt so
bad I could hardly steer the car afterwards. I quickly stopped
asking God questions in temper that came from my loss and instead
began to beg him to please take care of Joanie. I asked that
He make her my sister again in Heaven when my time came. Soon
I just got to thinking that God must have needed another really
good singer who knew how to have a good time up in Heaven--and
that’s why He called her home.
My oldest big sister was Rosemary. She our mother’s daughter by an earlier marriage that had ended badly. Rosemary took after my Mother. My boyhood remembrances of Rosemary were that she could do most anything and do it fast. She smoked cigarettes fast, hung curtains fast and could drive a car in traffic faster than a New York cab driver!
Up until the time she got married, she was Mama’s helper. Mama could delegate household chores like the CEO of a major company. With seven kids in all, Mama HAD to know how to delegate duties. For many years, Rosemary was Mama’s right arm.
Some of our father’s old 16mm family movies shows Rosemary running after me when I was about three years old on Coney Island beach in New York. I was fast, but she was faster, and had a great smile, too! Rosemary was a real New Yorker in every way.
Rosemary gave Ann and me a place to stay when we first hit NYC during Ann’s Broadway days. She opened her apartment up to us and we were grateful, as our bucks were in short supply back then. The last time I was in Rosemary’s company was at a family dinner in south Florida, when she got upset about something and walked out on us all. I thought she was just going outside the restaurant to get a smoke and would return, but she left. I never saw her alive after that night. I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I didn’t follow her outside, smooth over whatever upset her, and coax her back in. We lost Rosemary shortly after that dinner to yet another cigarette-related illness.
I saved the best for last for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted to end this with someone who is still alive and not a smoker! My big sister, Elizabeth--or “Betty” as she’s known to others, but "Cookie" to her family. She was a second mother to us kids. Cookie not only took care of us kids, but also took loving care of our dear Mother and Father.
Though Rosemary was the older sister, she was not as dependable as Cookie--and she was not a Murcia girl by birth, as Cookie is. Cookie was the one wearing the hand-me-down coat with a safety pin for a missing button in the family photographs. Cookie scraped and scuffled right along with Mom and Pop in the hard and lean early days of our family. She was also our babysitter when Mom and Pop took a rare night out.
My father loved all his daughters, but Cookie was, hands down, his favorite. As a young girl, Cookie was a tall, slender beauty. She looked like what my father’s family from Spain would refer to as a “Spanish Queen.” Cookie always had a job and took care of her own. She was and still is the “rock” of the Murcia family. Not only did Mom and Pop need her emotional support, but all of us, her brothers and sisters did as well.
Cookie married a former Marine, an ironworker turned cop. He reminded her in some ways of our father, a handsome cop. They had five terrific kids. Cookie is also the “lady” of our family--quiet, reserved, well-mannered and friendly to everyone. Her reserve keeps her from letting her hair down about her innermost feelings and thoughts.
The only negative thing
I ever tell people about her is; “Just don’t ever get
her mad at you!” Cookie has so many of our dear father’s
qualities, including his ferocious temper. Both Cookie and Pop
needed a large dose of provocation to tick them off, but once
it blows, enemies had better run. You might compare her temper
to the airforce’s “Daisy Bomb” blast as if it
hit you square on the noggin.
As a teenager, I once got a peek at this temper of Cookie’s
as she lifted my then 185 pounds by my biceps and held me a foot
off the floor against a wall. I soon discovered how a picture
frame must feel while hanging on a wall. With fire in her dark
eyes she firmly asked me if I “felt her strength” and
I wisely said, “Yeah, sure, yes, I feel it already, put
me down now!” She put me back down and we have enjoyed a
wonderful sister-brother relationship ever since. My family thinks
of me as a tough guy, but Cookie is the true tough member of
our family.
Cookie’s daughters inherited all her good qualities. Although her daughters have changed roles with her as she enters her 70’s, these young ladies get the biggest kick out of looking after their beloved mother. God, in his wisdom, has truly rewarded the centerpiece of our family with her own centerpieces to love and honor her. These kids don’t just love their Mom because they think it’s the right thing to do, they are loving toward her because their hearts feel such joy doing it. They are the happiest family within our family.
Cookie and her family pull together through bad times and good, all for one and one for all--and always with love and respect. I admire my sister Cookie the most for the shining example she has given me on how family members should love each other. I thank God that Cookie and I can still pick up the phone and visit. Just hearing her voice as we reminisce about “our family,” I feel as if they are all still right here with me. I thank God that I still have Cookie.
These are only tiny glimpses of who my four big sisters are to me. There’s so much more to say about each of them, but it would take volumes. I hope, after reading this, you will not only know how lucky I’ve been to have had each of them for my big sister, but that it might remind you to pick up the phone and call your sister or brother while you still can. Life is too short not make that simple effort.
I hope you know and like all of my big sisters by now. And if you do, then my message has been delivered.
©2003 by Andy Murcia.
The caricature of Andy Murcia is ©2003 by Jim Hummel. The
photo is from the Murcia family collection. All rights reserved.
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