"PEG O' MY HEART"

((March is Womens' History Month, and also the month of St. Patrick's Day. So I 
thought I'd celebrate by reprinting a story about one of my maternal side relatives, 
my Irish American grandaunt Peggy(McFarland)McCue. First posted in 2012))


Memory is a funny thing. You can go for years not thinking about something
and then something will catch your eye or ear and a memory will be triggered,
which might lead to others. I had one of those memory triggers happen the
other day.

I was doing my laundry over at the community center here in the apartment complex
and while I was waiting for the dryer to finish I checked out the recreation room
bulletin board and passed by the record player. Now for you young folks records
were these large wax or vinyl discs that you played music with using a turntable
and a needle. There was a stack 33 1/3 albums(I’m not going to explain that to
you. Look it up in your Funk & Wagnall’s…or on Wikipedia) and the album on
top was entitled “Peg O’ My Heart” by Jerry Murad and His Harmonicats.
That’s when I started humming that song and remembered where I’d heard
it as a kid. It wasn’t a version played by an all harmonica band. It was the versions
played by Aunt Peggy on a standup piano.

Peggy was actually my grandaunt on my mother’s side of the family, the
younger sister of my grandmother Agnes McFarland.  I’ve written before
about the cottage she and Uncle Leo McCue owned at Houghs Neck in
Quincy, Ma.. But  I also remember their place on Bowdoin St (or was it
Bowdoin Ave?). The first aquarium I ever saw was at that house and one
of the fish was a swordtail. Cousin Bobby had some sort of walkie talkie radio
connection with someone who lived across the alleyway from their house..
The best chicken salad I ever tasted (at least up until age 8 or 9)was the
chicken salad I ate at Aunt Peggy’s.( It had little chunks of celery in it.)

Aunt Peggy worked at one of the big department stores in Boston but I can’t
remember if it was Filene’s Basement or  Jordan’s Basement.  I remember my
Mom bringing me in there to shop and we’d  stop by the department where
Aunt Peggy worked. The first real wristwatch I ever had was a birthday or
Christmas gift from Aunt Peggy. It was waterproof and I wore it in the bathtub
which was where I found out that while the watch was waterproof but the watch
band wasn’t. It was some blue cloth material and I had a blue stain around my
wrist for a few days afterward..

When I was cast as Merlin in a play put on by the Codman Square Library Kids’
Summer Reading club, it was Aunt Peggy who provided the big black coat that
served as my magician’s robes along with the plastic paperweight that served as
my crystal ball. The paperweight was hidden in my sleeve and I was supposed
to pull it out at some point, but the sleeves were so big that the paperweight fell
out and rolled across the floor in the middle of some scene. That’s about all I can
remember about that!

But it’s the memories of Aunt Peggy playing “Peg O’ My Heart”, and “Heart of
My Heart” and “Those Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That old Gang Of Mine”
on the piano that I remember most. I don’t need to actually hear the song to have
those memories triggered. Just seeing the names can do it, and once more I’m
reminded of summer days at Houghs Neck and Aunt Peggy.
    

PEG O' MY HEART

Memory is a funny thing.  You can go for years not thinking about something
and then something will catch your eye or ear and a memory will be triggered,
which might lead to others. I had one of those memory triggers happen the
other day.

I was doing my laundry over at the community center here in the apartment complex
and while I was waiting for the dryer to finish I checked out the recreation room
bulletin board and passed by the record player. Now for you young folks records
were these large wax or vinyl discs that you played music with using a turntable
and a needle. There was a stack 33 1/3 albums(I’m not going to explain that to
you. Look it up in your Funk & Wagnall’s…or on Wikipedia) and the album on
top was entitled “Peg O’ My Heart” by Jerry Murad and His Harmonicats.
That’s when I started humming that song and remembered where I’d heard
it as a kid. It wasn’t a version played by an all harmonica band. It was the versions
played by Aunt Peggy on a standup piano.

Peggy was actually my grandaunt on my mother’s side of the family, the
younger sister of my grandmother Agnes McFarland.  I’ve written before
about the cottage she and Uncle Leo McCue owned at Houghs Neck in
Quincy, Ma.. But  I also remember their place on Bowdoin St (or was it
Bowdoin Ave?). The first aquarium I ever saw was at that house and one
of the fish was a swordtail. Cousin Bobby had some sort of walkie talkie radio
connection with someone who lived across the alleyway from their house..
The best chicken salad I ever tasted (at least up until age 8 or 9)was the
chicken salad I ate at Aunt Peggy’s.( It had little chunks of celery in it.)

Aunt Peggy worked at one of the big department stores in Boston but I can’t
remember if it was Filene’s Basement or Jordan’s Basement.  I remember my
Mom bringing me in there to shop and we’d stop by the department where
Aunt Peggy worked. The first real wristwatch I ever had was a birthday or
Christmas gift from Aunt Peggy. It was waterproof and I wore it in the bathtub
which was where I found out that while the watch was waterproof the watch
band wasn’t. It was some blue cloth material and I had a blue stain around my
wrist for a few days afterward..

When I was cast as Merlin in a play put on by the Codman Square Library Kids’
Summer Reading club, it was Aunt Peggy who provided the big black coat that
served as my magician’s robes along with the plastic paperweight that served as
my crystal ball. The paperweight was hidden in my sleeve and I was supposed
to pull it out at some point, but the sleeves were so big that the paperweight fell
out and rolled across the floor in the middle of some scene. That’s about all I can
remember about that play!

But it’s the memories of Aunt Peggy playing “Peg O’ My Heart”, and “Heart of
My Heart” and “Those Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That old Gang Of Mine”
on the piano that I remember most. I don’t need to actually hear the song to have
those memories triggered. Just seeing the names can do it., and once more I’m
reminded of summer days at Houghs Neck and  Aunt Peggy.
    

((580 words for the Family History Writing Challenge)  

HOUGHS NECK

When I was a kid "going to the beach" meant we were going
to visit my grandaunt and granduncle Peggy and Leo McCue
at their cottage on Hough's Neck. (pronounced How's Neck).
"The Neck" is part of Quincy, Ma. and juts out to form the
southern boundary of Quincy Harbor.


There were other nearby beaches but they were crowded
and the water wasn't too safe on some days, so for most of
my childhood we would drive out to see Aunt Peggy and
Uncle Leo. Their cottage sat at the end of the seawall on a
little dirt road named Nut Island Ave. but one of my earliest
memories of the place is of walking down a long flight of
wooden steps to the cottage from Island Ave which ran
along the hillside above it. There was brush on either side of
the stairs and walking down towards the building must have
made an impression on me because I've never forgotten it.

Aunt Peggy (Margaret) was the only surviving sister of
my grandmother Aggie. She and Uncle Leo had five
children, three boys and two girls. Four had already married
and started their own families so there were usually some
cousins around to play with when we visited. It was also great
when Peggy's youngest son Bobby was around because he was
my idea of a very cool guy: good looking, athletic, and he had
a driver's license. He was about 7 or 8 years older than me so
it was a classic case of a younger kid idealizing an older one!

The first picture is of my second cousin Margie, my Mom
on the right and oh, yeah, that's me in the middle. It's a bit
ragged like some of the old photos I have and one of these
days when I can afford the cost of Photoshop Elements I
hope to be able to fix this and others like it.

The dirt road ended at the cottage and beyond that was a
rocky beach. We used to toss rocks at the ground and watch
for the "squirt" of the steamer clams and dig them up. If you
went swimming, you either had really tough soles on your
feet or you wore old sneakers into the water.


One incident at the cottage I dreamed about for years. There
was a raft in the water made out of old planks and oil drums
and somehow or another I fell off it into the water. I must
have been around 5 or 6 years old and I swallowed a LOT of
water. The end result was that for years after, right into
college, I never put my face under the water while I swam.
We had swimming class as part of gym at college and that's
where I finally got over that fear, but I still prefer to keep my
head above water!

I have other memories of the cottage. One involves my first
taste of beer. The grownups were sitting around drinking
what I thought was ginger ale but when Uncle Leo gave me
a sip of his I didn't like it at all. My Mom told me I made
quite a face.


I've never forgotten the family dog, Lady, who was crawled
over, tugged at and pestered by grandchildren and cousins
and was always patient about it.

And the first place I ever saw "The Ernie Kovacs Show" and
The Nairobi Trio was on a tv at the cottage.

As you can see from the picture of the building, the cottage
wasn't some grand building and the atmosphere was laid back.
If you look closely, you can see somebody's leg resting on the
railing of the porch.

Uncle Leo passed sometime in the 1960's and Aunt Peggy in
1988. At some point the ownership of the cottage changed
hands but I don't know the particulars. Two of their children
had cottages in other Massachusetts towns and so my
younger brother (who is 17 years younger) has memories of
the visits to the Marshfield cottage.

I haven't been out to Hough's Neck in years and I think the
original cottage no longer stands.

But the memories live on.