TOE-MAY-TOE, TOE-MAH-TOE

She often introduced herself and me
to new people saying:
she was born in Chicago,
and Steve was born in New York,
and we met in California.

True enough,
and you could hear it when we spoke.
She illustrated this by asking me
(when guests or friends were present)
to count; so I did
one – two -  three – faw
Oh, how she loved to jump on that “faw.”

And we had other differences –
a life-long teasing back and forth
over “mirror” and “orange.”
She said meer, I said mir-rer,
She said oar-nj, I said ah-rinj.

Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe
Poe-tay-toe, poe-tah-toe
Let's call the whole thing off – NOT!!!

Since working on digitizing my Grandpa Art's book, I have found out a great deal about the era my mom was born.  He recalled her birth as being "the most beautiful experience of a lifetime."  She was born in 1928 just one year before the Stock Market Crash and Great Depression. Grandpa Art was a successful professional house painter and had even done a job for the famous Al Capone.  He never got a chance to finish though, because Capone got busted, his empire collapsed, and grandpa was out several thousand dollars.

Fortunately he didn't panic and got some smaller jobs that kept him and his family afloat.  He had more time on his hands so he played a lot of tennis and taught himself golf.  He says that he took Fran and her sister Vicki out on the court as soon as they were able to lift a racket.  Now I know why mom was such a good tennis player!