Grandma's Life, well at least some of it.....

My Grandma, my sister and me.

My father only made 50 cents an hour. He worked in a coal mine. It’s the job he was assigned when he came to Pennsylvania. In his home country, he was somewhat of an accountant. He had a wonderful way with numbers. All his math was done in his head. He was a very smart man and came from a smart family. His brother was comparable to an attorney in Yugoslavia. He was also made to work in the coal mines. Immigration didn’t care what you were “over there”. They gave you the job that needed filling. Because the immigrants didn’t speak English, they were thought to be stupid.

There were seven kids in our family. The oldest kids got the new clothes. When the clothes got too small for them, they passed it down to the younger siblings. And everybody was different from the other. That’s what kept us going and drove our parents crazy. We were all individual, with our own ideas, weaknesses and strengths.

We only one pair of shoes because we couldn’t afford to go to the store often. You took care of what you had.  All the fathers had shoe kits. If any of the soles broke off, they could put them back together. One of my jobs was to shine my father’s shoes. I didn’t mind doing this. But the shoes had to be perfect. I would spit shine them. I spit on the shoes and rubbed it in until they were shining and clean.

Some of us, like Aunt Julie and Aunt Millie liked school. And some of us, like my brother Tom and ME, hated it. When our school burned down, my father thought that I had something to do with it. I didn’t. But I can say that I wasn’t sorry to see it go.

We walked to school. Both ways. Every day. It was at least a mile away. And even though we didn’t have a phone, somehow our mother always found out if we didn’t make it there. And we’d catch hell when we got home. I started school at the age of 6. 1^st thru 3^rd grades were on the 1^st floor. We received a report card at the end of our 3^rd year. If we passed, we got to go up the stairs to grades 4^th thru 6^th. It was very exciting for us to go up the stairs with the big kids.

The government gave you a book for rations. We had to ration everything because of the war. Many factories and businesses stopped making common goods and started to manufacture things needed for the war and for the soldiers.  There was only so much in your ration book. You had to make it go a long way for a long time.

Everyone had gardens.  They were called victory gardens. We, and all our neighbors, grew the vegetables and fruits we needed. These came about because all commercial transportation was used to move the troops and munitions overseas for the war. Everyone took half of their lawns to grow vegetables because you could not buy them at the store and food products were not transported. Everybody had chickens and ducks. They would lay eggs. What wasn’t used up in the summer and fall was preserved in some way to get us through the winter months. My mother made all our breads, noodles, cookies, pies and anything else that could be baked. On Saturday’s, she would make about 15 loaves of bread to get us through the week.  Grandma was the one that killed and butchered the poultry. Nothing went to waste. The meat was used for dinners, the bones and skins for broths, the feathers for pillows and the wings were used for basting. We had that much anyway.

But we were happy playing together. I think there where 42 kids on our block. We made all our own toys and made up games because we could not buy them. We made our own baseballs by putting a bunch of paper together with black tape. We used to make a big circle on the ground to play marbles. Everybody had their special marble. You got mad when someone won your marble and had to try hard to win in it back. In the winter, we borrowed our father’s big shovels. They were used instead of sleds to sled down the big hills. One of our favorite hills ended at the train tracks. A friend of ours dared to travel down the hill when a train was coming. He made it to the other side of the tracks just in time. In other words, we made our own entertainment.

There were good movies out about WWII.  I used to sell newspapers to pay to go to the movies. I had regular customers that would buy them from me. As I got older, my family bought me a used bike to make it easier. I only wanted to make 10 cents a week.  I used that money to go to movies. I still love movies.

During the war, all the men were gone. There weren’t many men left to play baseball. So, they made women’s leagues.  I loved baseball and was good at it. A baseball scout saw me and offered me a job on a baseball team! My father wouldn’t give his permission. Imagine how different my life would have been.

At 9 o’clock we had curfew. We had to put our black out window shades down so no lights would shine out.  If any planes flew past, they would not see our houses. They had wardens. If you weren’t off the street, then they chased you off the street.

A month before Christmas, we started cleaning. The house had to be spotless. My mother made all the Christmas goodies from scratch. She would save on rations during the year in order to have enough saved up to bake. Cookies, breads, rolls, pies. Everything was placed on the back porch to stay fresh for the big day. Everyone was poor because of the depression. We could not afford a tree. We had kind neighbors that where Catholic.  They celebrated on December 25^th. But because we were Russian Orthodox, we celebrated on January 7^t.h. When they were done with their tree, they gave it to us. Now, when it came closer to Christmas Eve, we were all exited. We would sit in the living room looking at the undecorated tree and tell each other stories. On Christmas Eve night, we would hang up our stocking on our bed and while we were asleep, my mother would to decorate the tree. When we woke up, we woke up to a decorated tree and little gifts in our stocking. Though we were poor, and Grandma made our gifts they were very special to us. One year, you won’t believe this, but my gift was a doll made from clothes pins. And I think my brother got a little car. Then we all had to get washed and dress nicely to go to church. When we came home from church, the table was filled with delicious cookies and cakes and dinner. It was a feast. In the early evening, my cousins would come, and we would sing Christmas carols. We would play this game as we sat on the couch. We looked at an ornament and we had to guess what ornament the person was looking at. The next day the choir from the church would come and sing carols There where three men that where like the three wise men. They kissed all the girls on the cheek.

That’s about it. I have lots more stories to tell. But it takes too much time.

(a.n. So, hello ladies and gentlemen. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these so I decided that i'd rewrite the fourth chapter of the third volume of Penguin Man to see if I can get back to writing these on a semi often basis. So yeah. Let’s see what I can do now that my mind has matured a bit and my writing style has improved, probably. Anyway, now that this author's note that is more worthy of an essay paragraph is done - let’s see how it pans out, shall we?)

Chapter 4

I woke up in my bed at the ice palace or at least that’s where I assumed I was, considering I was in a room made of thickly packed ice with a really cold draft in it. Though I don't know where said draft came from as the door was closed and there were no windows to my knowledge. I got up and got dressed in an ice blue shirt that was more tunic than shirt, some sky blue pants of an unknown fabric, and a soft and warm cloak that looked like it was made from snowflakes. I went out of my room to try to find the kitchen or dining room. The key word here is try, as I got hopelessly lost. I finally got to the dining room after I climbed the same tower fifteen different times - not an exaggeration. I sat down at the end of the table and waited for something to happen.

When something happened it was a hour and a half after I got to the hall. Charles came in half out of breath and the following conversation ensues:

Charles said “Hey.”

I replied, “Hello.”

Charles said, “This place has more hallways than the moon has craters.”

I said, “No kidding!”

I then asked, “Where is dad?”

Charles said, “I don’t know. I knocked on the door to the room he said he was sleeping in but there was no answer.”

“You think he’s sleeping in?” I wondered

Our dad chose that time to step out of the shadows and yell -  “BOO!” -scaring the ever living day lights out of the both of us and making me accidentally turn into a baby penguin out of nowhere. When they were both done laughing at my predicament, Dad told me how to turn back. When I asked why I turned into a penguin he said, “Since we are both dragons and gods, in a sense we are able to shift our forms to our whims. As an example I could be a ten year old female three toed sloth. Or I could go into my full draconian form and be a giant dragon the size of fifteen empire state buildings or larger.”

This was interesting news. If I had known that I would have just turned into a mouse or something when I was trying to get Charles to believe me yesterday. I then asked why he was lurking in the shadows and he said that he had been there before I had gotten there. As to how he had gotten there, he used one of the many techniques he apparently knows to enhance his speed and he ran around until he found the dining hall and then used his magic to cloak himself in the shadows  that where all around the room.

This was interesting to hear about seeing as the only things I had seen that was magical were the portal I had opened and the time I had frozen a police officer in a block of ice. Curious I asked about magic and he told me that he would show us some after we had breakfast.

Speaking of; by that time a few servants came and placed a plethora of food, such as bacon and eggs, among other more exotic foods. It’s not every day you see a roasted chicken that was five feet tall and 3 feet wide.

When we were finished eating dad opened up a small portal made out of a shadow like substance and on the other side of it was a training room the size of a football stadium. It was very hard to take it all in as we went to the center of the training room. On one side there were dummy’s for sword practice and on the other there were targets for archery practice. When we got to the center after five minutes of walking our dad turned to us and said “ Okay. Here I shall go over a few things such as how to control your elemental magic properly and to explain the basic fundamentals of it. I shall also demonstrate a few of my abilities such as my own elemental manipulation.”

He then said “ everything throughout the different dimensions has the potential to use magic either as a source of power or as a tool for their everyday tasks. Though only few gain the ability to use magic due to certain rules set by the creator gods when they made their respective dimensions. The ways a human can gain access to magic are numerous; either from great traumatic distress, or accidentally unlocking the ability while doing strenuous training, or by meditating on the traits that make up their personality. They can usually use magic by having a staff or a stave with some exceptions depending on the dimension. Though for us dragons and gods, it's quite a bit different. A dragon may wake his or her magic when they come of age which in dragon terms is about a hundred years of age. Now this may seem a bit long to you both who have lived with the time that is normal to humans, but to dragons a hundred years is like eighteen years to a human. The type of magic dragons can use in any form is depended on the type of dragon that they are. Such as you Kiwi (quick a.n. is you don’t remember penguins man’s name is Kiwi). You are an ice type dragon, so therefore, in order to use your ice you have a high elemental affinity to water and air magic. Whereas Charles has a high affinity to earth. All dragons have a relatively high affinity to fire though for some it is less so. I am somewhat special among dragons because I have affinity for every element, though my main and most powerful affinities are darkness, then fire, followed closely by lightning. Then comes light and wind and finally earth with water being my weakest affinity. As far as I know, only a few people have had affinity’s for darkness and light magics with only one other having an affinity for both, and he has not been around since the first dimension was created - way before I was born. Now for gods such as our family, we have our own type of magic and those types of magic correlate to the titles that we gain throughout our immortal lives ,either through some action or our heritage.”

(He then looks off into the distance and whispers something I think it was “though I won’t reveal my titles due to plot reasons.” He then winked at something that I couldn’t see.)

He then went on to give us some exercises to better enhance our control over our abilities. By the time lunch rolled around, I could make a sword out of ice with a few blades of ice and freeze what could be considered an entire New York City block in a block of ice that would stand for one hundred years. Charles could make spikes out of earth and stone and could have an entire platform of dirt float up into the air so that he could ride on it.

We went through another portal that our Dad made and we went back to the dining hall so that we could eat our lunch. Once we had eaten our fill of a twenty slice pizza with all of the toppings (and I mean all) we went back to the training room that looked more like an arena. Our Dad told us that he was going to teach us how to shift into our draconian forms. To demonstrate he became engulfed in shadows which grew bigger and bigger until he was the size of an apartment building. And when the shadows dispersed in our Dad's place, there was a pitch black dragon with the wingspan of a B-47. His eyes where slits like a serpent and his irises had a molten fiery look that seemed to move, also his eyes were like a ravens' feathers when the sun hits it. If I’m being honest I may or may not have pee'd my pants a little at the rather terrifying visage that was my father’s face. He had a horn-like protrusion from the back of his head and his teeth were sharp as a newly made scythe. I think Charles fainted in fright but I wasn’t paying too much attention to him at the moment.

When our dad turned back into his human form, he told us that we will learn how to transform into our draconian forms and the different hybrid forms that are possible. When we were done learning, he told us that he would be holding a council meeting with the rest of the family tomorrow to introduce us to the others. He also suggested we drop by Charles part of the dragon dimension to get his bo staff and for him to get some new clothing as he had been wearing the same clothing since yesterday.

And with that, we returned to the dining hall and ate a rather uneventful dinner; if you don’t count the several bowls of mac and cheese with ham and fried onions our Dad had. Then once we were finished, we all retired to our rooms with me going through a portal made of ice that I had learned to make earlier that day. The same went for dad and Charles except they made portals of their respective elements.

When I got to my room I got dressed into some pj's and went to bed. I fell asleep once my head hit the pillow, and drifted into the world of dreams.

End of chapter 4

Ending authors note: Well. That was really fun to write and I certainly hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it. 

Just a quick disclaimer. Some of this story will have certain elements that may belong in things like video games or TV shows or books. Seeing as this part of Kiwi's adventures as Penguin Man is heavily based in my imagination, with my imagination character the one who I control, and is like the character a player controls in a game. Most of my imagination character techniques can be based off of stuff from other works but that doesn’t mean that I won’t have stuff of my own in this. Some of you that may or may not be reading this may not recognize the stuff that I made up and stuff from another book or a game. Things like the concept of the creator gods I eluded to in this chapter and the different dimensions  are all my ideas. If you see something that you don’t recognize just look it up in whatever browser you have and if nothing comes up for it, then it is probably mine. But, if I use a thing called the Chidori in this, that is from the TV show/manga series Naruto. Now as for my imagination character - think of him  as a mix between Deadpool and Alucard from the abridged version of Hellsing Ultimate. As referenced by the little fourth wall break I had in this story, you can tell that William (Dad in this story) is aware that he is in a book right now and that he is being read by you. I’ll go into greater length about my creation in a later chapter. Heck, maybe if I feel like it after I finish this I’ll write a short story about him. Though if I do, I won’t add certain things in from my imagination because it would take too long to explain. Now, I believe that I have been rambling on long enough so I shall be taking my leave now.

Til’ next time.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Arrivederci.

William

another informational blog for the past month or so

Hello, everybody that may or may not read this blog. I have returned to write another one of these. so as you can tell from the title that this is an blog about whats been happening in the past month or so.



Ok. The first thing off the top of my head is the upcoming holiday of Halloween. I am super exited for it because I have a pretty good costume in mind and I already have all of the pieces to it. This year I am going to be what is called a Visord which is a thing from an anime called Bleach. I am not going to get in to what that is or this paragraph will be 2000 words long. The details may change for it a bit during the next few days but for now I have all need. heres a picture of it:

yeah wouldn't want to meet this guy in a dark ally

So, another thing that happened was that I think it was last Saturday I went to my only friends house and it was rather fun. This happened while I was at my one of my sisters friends house for a party and I ended up becoming friends with my sisters friends brother and we have quite a bit in common.


Hmm... I cant seem to think of anything else so I'll tell you guys an idea I had recently to see if you guys like it and it is about the little short stories I was writing and posting a while back called Penguin Man. I was thinking of writing a sort of a filler` book until I fix a few things with the main story line that I have going because apparently book 4 is all over the place but once I clear it up I'll post it on here. So anyway, use the comment section to tell me how you think of it and for those who know me please put your names so i can identify you.


Well, it's currently 12:56 here and I haven't had lunch so auf Wiedersehen!!!

stay tuned til' next time



TO BE CONTINUED



peace

my summer in detail

hello everybody that may or may not be reading this blog i have returned once again after a very very eventful summer and i have come to tell it all to you in great detail.

well the i suppose ill start with the least eventful stuff and end with the most with the rest in between the two extremes.


so the least eventful thing that i did last summer has to be last month where my sister Lilly left to stay at a friends house so that she could go to her third and final round of dancing camp. for the entire month she was away (excluding the weekends in which it was very loud) we mainly just sat around but on a day or two my mom and my went places like the bookstore to get more books because i had read all of the (15 times) or we went to go see the newest avengers movie infinity war which was really good and i suggest watching it if you haven't all ready. i also got a new computer a few months ago and it works like a charm.


hmm lets see another thing that happened is i guess i went to Florida, well i say i went but more really i was pulled along down to Florida but i turned out to be fun except that Lilly had to do two weeks of ballet because she manged to get into Orlando dance studio. it was for two weeks that where sandwiched into the middle of the month so at the bigging and end of the month we stayed at my grandmamas house in homasasa springs and it was kinda fun. Lets see we went swimming we my uncle billies pool a few times. We had to sleep in a very small bed because the other room was a bit of a mess but it was better than mom thought. On the way down to Florida i watched the entirety of sword art online a really good anime and another one called seven deadly sins which is also a good anime full of magic.



while we where in Florida in the time that Lilly was doing the dance intensive we stayed at a hotel that i don't remember its name but it had a huge pool and i swam in it a lot so that was fun. The second week though has to be one of the highlights of the trip because i went to a summer camp at seaworld about marine biology and i learned a lot and i also did a lot of cool stuff even though it was 70 degrease out there. a few things i did where petting a penguin and a dolphin and a shark. the penguin felt soft and was very cute. did you know that if you hold up a quarter to a penguin that in a quarter inch of that coin there would be 70 feathers compact into it where as a regular duck or seagull only has twenty five. the dolphin felt weird, the best way i can describe it is that it feels a bit like how the inside of you gums fell like, except more like cardboard and wet. the shark felt pretty much as you can expect. kinda scaly but it was a small one about the size of a childes arm. did you know that sharks only attack a few people and that because they think were food but when they bit down they spit us right back up. even lightning kills more people than a shark and if it dose kill its probably either by the victim bleeding out or that shark has a vendetta against that person. i also went into a cage and was some captive sharks though i was protected by some glass walls and it was cool. i actually was accidentally one of the first two in the cage that we saw the sharks in and we where lucky because marine bio was the only group in the entire camp to do that and its apparently not available to guests anymore. i also got new stuffed animals and they are so cute and fluffy!


on the way home we stooped by  a place by the sea that i forget the name of to a hotel halfway to new York and from there we went up through the big bridge the name of which i forget but it was really long and had two tunnels that where really cool and went underwater. after that we went up through Delaware to near Philadelphia to sleep then we went from there to home and got there around 8 maybe 9 and we came home to father sitting in the couch that i am sitting in currently.

and thats the basic premise of my summer and i did warn you that it would be in great detail. there are some more important things that happed this month but ill save it for another time.



stay tuned til' next time

TO BE CONTINUED


(insert ending pun here)

Hey guys!

It has been a long while since I've done one of these. I've been busy with school and stuff like that.

Anyway. I had to do a poem for a school project and I thought I would post it on here.

Can you guess who it's about? Hint: It's Norse based...

I hung on a tree

Amid the black sea

Where you won’t find me.

I drank the mead

That was the misdeed

Of two dwarfs killing a god.

I hung on a tree

Amid the black sea

Where you won’t find me.

A master of runes

That sealed our dooms

Our prophecies connected.

I hung on a tree

Amid the black sea

Where you won’t find me.

I was eaten by my foe

Who was tied by the toe

Alas, who was my undoing.

I hung on a tree

Amid the black sea

Where you won’t find me

I cannot see with both my eyes

But I was ever wise

And now, who am I?

So, let me know what you think in the comments. And if you don't have a proper Google account and you are family and friends, please put your names!!!!!

(I still have to do Penguin man 4. I might do that sometime in the summer.)

Stay tuned 'til next time!

Peace out

TO BE CONTINUED!

the ratteling on of a 13 year old

hey guys it’s me William and i am doing good today how about you?

I am going to see my big brother brad tomorrow which I am excited about because i miss him and because we can go on a walk and I also want to try my hand at the board game that he beat me at.

mommy is out right now because Lilly has dance and it is at Rochester and that is 2 hours away so that is really far and i miss mommy but she’ll be home soon enough.

this week I am doing a report on Romania which is fun. we even have an atlas for it and everything!

well it is 7:56 and I really want to change into my pjs so I suppose I shall see you later.

til' net time!

TO BE CONTINUED!!!!!!

real quick

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY