Maureen Ritter:  

Life: has been a real roller coaster ride for me, with some very low lows and high highs (lol).The best of times for me was always the summertime. It meant freedom from strict discipline both at home and in school. Now that I am older, though, I find I prefer Spring and Fall to the heat of Summer or cold of Winter. Internal thermometer is just not working right anymore. lol My best year, by far, was the summer after I turned 16 (1973). I lived with my grandmother (Nana) in Glendale for a time, working at the Glendale Bake Shop's main location, where all the baking was done. Talk about strict! If we weren't waiting on customers, then we cleaned glass non-stop. Then I went to live with a close friend, who's family owned an ice company. My friend and I worked at the ice company together when we weren't required at the bakery. Joanne worked at a different location. We were allowed something like $1.80 a week in free baked goods. My grandmother would come up and I would proudly give her my allowance to take home. Or I would deliver Lintzer Tarts to the boy I liked. He was Italian and his mother must have thought I was nuts. lol My friend Joanne and I used to sit with her mom Lorraine and her Grandmother and eat a chocolate cake between us sometimes, down in her family's basement, where the kitchen was. We had such high metabolisms from working two jobs that we could eat anything and not gain weight. Her sister Jeannie was a bit older and much smarter. She ate much less and worked in the air conditioned office doing the accounting. Both Joanne and I are part German and it showed. We were both tall and strong, and loved working like dogs, lifting multiple 40lb. bags of ice, chopping cakes of ice down the middle. At night, or at lunchtime, Jeannie would take us for rides in her car. It was so exciting! She knew where to meet all the older guys and we knew the younger ones, mostly whom were a foot shorter than both of us. lol Jeannie was the one who taught me how to color my own hair, first making it lighter just in two strips in front. And both she and Joanne taught me about makeup. I rarely wore it though. Too much trouble. lol Big Joe made sure we also all had household chores to do when we weren't working, especially Joey, whom I felt bad for. Being the comedianne that I was, and a little hung over, one day, when I was too tired to vacuum, I just stood in the living room upstairs and made the noise the vacuum made instead. Trouble was, Joanne's father, Big Joe, (takes a scammer to know a scammer), walked in and caught me. lol We were always getting yelled at, but always had such fun, but I didn't want to be Joey, who he was so hard on. Lorraine was like my second Mom and her mother was awesome too. When I moved back home that summer, we three wore halter tops because it was so hot in Glendale. We were walking up Bedford Avenue from the stores and boy did we get stared at. Seems in Rockaway Point, aka Breezy, it was always breezy, so everyone wore tee shirts over their bathing suits and cutoff shorts instead. Big changes were afoot in my parents' house, but I had no idea and no sense, so I walked on in..... lol My father wasn't speaking to me, my little sister took over my bedroom while I was gone, my other younger sister was pregnant with my first niece. But we had enough summer left somehow to dance the night away after sneaking in to the Bay Terrace, aka Kennedy's by the bay. I married on my eighteenth birthday (I told you I had no sense!) in 1974 and had my first child a daughter, Rachel, a year and two months later, in August 1975, at age 19. I had my first son, Richard, in late May 1977, when I was 21 and my third child, Ryan, a second son in March 1982, at 25. Those boys nearly killed me at 12.5 and 14 lbs at birth respectively. Presently divorced, I am proud of my 3 grown children, Rachel Marie Flanders Lafferty, a graduate of Wagner College with a BSN, RN; Staff Sgt. Richard Louis Flanders, who is with the US Army - 1st Cav 3-8 out of Fort Hood returned from his 2nd tour of duty in Iraq and is now a recruiter in Freehold, NJ; and Ryan Patrick Flanders, whom you may see if you go to the beach in Rockaway in summer as he is a 10 year ocean lifeguard with the City of New York (out of 86 shack.) I was always a bit of a gypsy, having lived in Glendale, Breezy Point and Rotonda West, FL, but after the divorce I became more of one. My kids and I kept going back and forth, from NY to FL, then to Belle Harbor, Queens, on to Dana Point, CA, and back to Rockaway Park, down to Mooresville, NC and back to NYC. I always seem to return to New York; most New Yorkers do. Though it looks pathalogical it is nearly always for family and neighborhood reasons. It's certainly not because it is cheaper to live here. I am now living in Rockaway Park, New York right off the boardwalk at Rockaway Beach, where I can see and smell the ocean. I sold my home in Mooresville, NC, (near Lake Norman), just prior to the birth of my first grandchild, a fiesty Sarah Niamh Lafferty, who turned 3 in May. My Sarah Bear is a willful child, with a strong mind of her own (gee, wonder where that came from?) and she continually amazes me at a point in my life when I thought there were no more miracles. I highly recommend grandparenthood to everyone, as it is truly a fountain of youth. (If you can't run to keep up, watch out!) I've loved all the places I've lived, mostly because they were all close to the water. Especially beautiful were Dana Point on the Pacific and Mooresville on Lake Norman. Mooresville is know...Expand for more