A MISHMASH OF BOJON MEMORIES

You won't hurt my feelings if you pick out the Bojon's in this crowd! These are my five incredibly awesome children! Each one has a beloved Bojon memory and they could share it with you if you ask them! This was taken on the hottest day of May 2009 at Hannah's high school graduation. Their father is an Irishman, red headed in his youth and freckle faced just like his late father Carl before him and his father Avery before him! These children were raised on blood sausage and kolabasi. They will eat potica and ham and sour potatoes. Their father will too. He just fell into loving the whole Bojon experience!

My sissy Mary in her Jackie-O sunglasses! My mother in her later years and my not the best hair cut I ever had! My mother was a firecracker. She could talk to anyone, anywhere,anyplace. when our second daughter Rebekah Michelle was born June 13, 1988, my mother was crossing the Kansas state line heading to the wedding of her grandson Rudy in Pennsylvania. There was a snapshot of her at the wedding reception. Apparently the head honcho at the bride's church and the bigwig from the Catholic church on the groom's side presided over the wedding ceremony. In this photo my mother is sitting there chatting with these two high rollers! She could talk to anyone. She had a true gift. Several years ago, when I met my blogging friends LaVoice and Suzanne and Suzanne's mom Patsy I was told by LaVoice that she never met anyone who could talk as much as I did! She never had the opportunity to meet my mother!

My grandmother Cecilia Steblay and Auntie Mary Steblay-Mishmash and her mother-in-law Mrs. Mishmash Strong willed women, the kind of heroes you want to grow up with. I remember my grandmother making a huge pot of soup and homemade bread, We would sit on her back stoop and eat with hobos because they would come from the river and the railroad tracks and my grandmother never denied any of them a meal. Auntie Mary could sew like a dream. Her entire basement was filled with All Saint's Day costumes. There were nuns, and more nuns and other nuns! HeeHee! Mrs. Mishmash was a quiet lady. She lived with my aunt and uncle. My aunt lost her precious husband on Mother's Day 1965. Cancer. I will never forget. Uncle Charlie was very tall and he was very quiet. But he loved little Mary with a passion even a kid could see!

A copy of a copy is not great quality but here is mom's grave site. My father is on her left.When she passed away my sister Mary and I sat together in church with my husband and our children. We were very sad but we looked over at the casket adorned with the most beautiful flowers and my sister ribbed me saying "Even in death, ma has our number"! She was referring to the spray of flowers filled with snapdragons! Now I told you I would share the snapdragon story. When I was born my sissy was five. She was not happy that I was there. Neither was Eddie and he was seven! The other two were teens so they knew eventually they would be stuck babysitting so they did not care one way or another! A neighbor lady brought mom a bouquet of hand picked flowers from her garden. My sister told me she sat in the corner and while the neighbor was cooing over me with mom Mary was snapping the heads off those snapdragons! It is a story you can relate to if you were the baby and a new baby came along. I love that story so much and it made a difficult time in our lives just a little easier if only for a few moments.

Uncle Sam Cosimano was a very artistic man! when I was choosen to be the angel in the Nativity school play he crafted my halo from a metal coat hanger using aluminum foil to cover it! My sissy is wearing one of those hand made nun costumes from Auntie Mary's basement. Doesn't she look so authentic? I was always so shy and scared of my own shadow. Hard to believe, I know, but it is true. Just ask my sister, or maybe not! She might tell some tales on me! These costumes came in handy for All Saint's Day as well. Our parents did not run out and take a bank loan so we could have a costume. They used their imagination and we were never unhappy. In fact, I am glad we were raised exactly the way we were! Kids today expect to have everything handed to them. They want the newest, the biggest, the best! We got what our parents gave us and we were grateful.

Whenever I see a Chinese restuarant offer a buffet I chuckle! As a child, my father had this to say at dinnertime, "This is not a Chinese restaurant, if you do not like what your mother cooked you can go to bed!" Needless to say, I never went to bed hungry and learned to like a variety of foods. Today it seems everyone is allergic to something. I think if we were to experience another great depression, and do not fool yourselves thinking it could never happen (history does repeat itself), I wonder what people who eat gluten free or dairy free or claim to suffer from allergies from this food or that would do? I can tell you, if you are hungry enough you will eat what you can scrounge up!

A little Bojon potluck for you today. See you next time and