Not long after Billy had moved to Connecticut, we made a trip to Fall River for my introduction to the Lowney clan. What an experience that was. His parents, Tom and Jean, both alcoholics, lived in a wooded lakeside enclave on the southern edge of Fall River, Massachusetts, a few hundred feet from the Rhode Island state line. Originally just summer camps, the area was gradually changing as new ‘real’ houses were being built, and a number of the cabins were expanded and converted for year round occupancy.
The Lowneys lived in one of those conversions, a small cabin to which a covered porch had been added, then enclosed, another added, then enclosed, and so on, resulting in a rather disheveled collection of interconnected shacks that spread like a fungus over two lots. The last addition, a bedroom for Jean, was built not long after I had met them. While constructing the floor—no foundation, just boards laid on the ground—a big boulder was encountered. No problem, they just sloped the floor up a couple of feet in that corner. Using nothing more than crumpled old newspapers as insulation, these Lowneys brought a whole new meaning to the term ‘Shanty Irish!’
Karen, the oldest, was married and lived with her husband and children quite some distance away. Smart girl! Doubt I ever saw Karen more than a couple of times. The next, Jeanie, was married to a guy called ‘Croke’ and they were both alcoholics. Third in the lineage was Tommy, another drunk, and pretty much a waste of a human life. Followed by Billy, do not get me started—but I was in love with him then. These evaluations evolved over time, my observations are not what were immediately apparent; at least not all of them.
Next was Bobby. After Billy and I got together, but before he had moved to Connecticut, and before I had been revealed to the family, Bobby and his girlfriend, Debbie, got married. They were destined to become two of the dearest friends of my lifetime. Next was Jerry, a teenage drunk and a part-time thief; then Kitty, Billy’s closest and most beloved. Following, another sister, Helen, who married young.
By then I had become entrenched in the family, and held the position that the marriage of those two kids was just an excuse for another party/drunken brawl. She should have an abortion, I pronounced. Yet as I watched her daughter, Jen, grow up, I came to believe that the world would have been a lesser place without that beautiful loving child.
The next sister, Patty, was a very sweet kid, but the first of the lot to show signs of Fetal Alcoholic Syndrome (FAS), which became more and more apparent in each of the subsequent children. Three more girls—Erin, Chris, Carol—I never felt I knew well. At the time they were too young to hang with the adults, and too old to hang with the three younger kids, when my nieces were visiting from Connecticut. Third to the last was Susie, the next to the youngest a boy, more or less, PT. Finally Sean, who was the most affected by FAS … he was somewhat retarded. As an adult he has been able to live independently, but gets full disability benefits from Social Security.
On one of our earliest visits, before I knew better, elder brother Tommy suggested we go for a drive. When I told Billy I was going he said, “No! You‘re not!” “But ….” “Forget it, you’re not going anywhere with Tommy!” He didn‘t have to add ‘case closed’ but there was no question about that. Don‘t know how I related that to Tommy without sounding too pussy whipped, maybe I didn’t, but he said, “Okay, but do you want to smoke some weed?” “Sure!” “Then follow me.” By this time in my life ‘Mary Jane’ and I were well acquainted.
He led me into a shed and then turned me on to a big bowl full. I don’t know what it was laced with, but by the time we all sat down to dinner I was completely blitzed. It seemed as though the kids were all giggling, and first I thought, They’re not goofing on me are they? Then dismissed that, Nah, you’re just being paranoid. No sooner had those thoughts formed in my brain, when Billy turned to me and snarled, “I hope it makes you happy, knowing that everyone is laughing at you!” Oops! I was in the dog house for weeks.
Tom Lowney was a nice enough fellow, a good guy really, easy-going and kind of quiet … foolish, loud and pugnacious when he was drunk. He had had a variety of jobs, and one time he ran the town dump, where the family lived in the house provided adjacent to it. More of a binge drinker, he’d tie one on, the two of them would fight, and he’d disappear for a while. When he’d come back after an absence of a few weeks/months, they’d make up and plant another seed. Ultimately Tom would go on another binge and the cycle would repeat itself.
One day he saw an ad offering a nanny goat for sale, and he wanted to buy it—planning on a good source of fresh milk. I drove him to the farm and brought the goat back in my Pinto station wagon. Unlike cows though, nannies only give milk when they have a kid, so the goat ended up another pet … with an edge. This was a very nice looking goat; she was quite tame and good with the kids. But she had an eye for buttocks, and couldn’t resist butting any available. Most of us learned the hard way to never turn our back on her.
Unlike her husband, Jean Lowney was a firebrand … a sawed-off and sassy hot head, with a bent towards mean and nasty. If you have ever seen the 1972 movie “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds” (if you haven’t, you should), you will know Jean Lowney. She is the character Beatrice, played by Joanne Woodward—not in appearance but in every other way.
Jean never failed to have a cigarette in one hand, or dangling out of her mouth, and a drink in the other. For a time she worked as an aide in a mental hospital. Little though she was, she could handle herself, and had a penchant for flipping people (no doubt that’s where Billy learned it). In a barroom she’d get into an argument with one big fellow or another, and ultimately say, “I only have one question for you. Where do you want to land?”
Her ‘unique’ characteristics didn’t end there. Once when she claimed to have gone on the wagon, we couldn’t understand how she was getting sloshed on ice tea … she had frozen the booze in the ice cubes. From April through July her place was always resplendent with lovely flowers. It seemed as though she had her own private nursery … she did, the nearby cemetery. The day after holidays—Easter, Mothers’ Day, Memorial Day, Fathers’ Day, The 4th of July—she’d send a band of the kids down to appropriate all of the flowers.
Living in the vicinity of the Lowneys was never less than a roller coaster ride, a mixture of joy and pain, happiness and sorrow, amusement and despair, and stress. No sooner had I come to really appreciate having that barrier between our house and their compound—the two deep thickly wooded lots, with the innocuous cabin tucked in amongst the trees—when they scraped the money together and bought that property. Then they were right across the gravel road. From that time on, any night that we got home late after an evening out, we would see the glow of her cigarette as she sat on the porch, and hear the clinking of the ice in her drink. As we’d walk from the car to our door we could hear her snarling from across the street, “Yeah, you’re too fucking good to drink, but you can smoke pot!”
After buying the place, Jean immediately started her renovations—always determined to top me, never even coming close—and she coerced Croke, her drunk son-in-law and skilled mason, into building a natural stone fireplace on the front of the screened in porch, which faced my house. With the work not even half completed, the two of them got into a drunken brawl, and Croke walked out.
Then the ever undaunted Jean set about finishing the fireplace herself. She would get plastered (well, more plastered), then start mixing mortar and piling on stones. She’d have a few more drinks, then roam around and find whatever junk she could—broken plates, teapots, coffee urns, iron skillets, vases, pitchers, mugs, rusty old tools, you name it she’d use it—and cement them in amongst all of the misplaced rocks. In the end it looked like a vertical trash heap. Next she went on to enclose the screened porch, in the ubiquitous traditional Lowney style … Early American Shack.
As if that wasn’t enough, when her old white Chevy gave out she left it to rust broadside in front of the cabin. Tom had a penchant for buying old pick-up trucks, and no matter what color they were, or how good their paint was, he painted them with red house paint using a brush. When one would give out he’d park it in front of the Chevy, facing my house, and buy another.
Ultimately there were three old trucks, along with the car, rusting in place. It was reminiscent of a wagon train circling around to fight off Indians. They were ready for an attack, or to attack. That was about the time I decided to have the entire outer perimeter of my property surrounded by fence—not yet realizing that the problem was not going to be solved by 900 feet of six foot high stockade fence.
One minute it was despair, and the next the kids could make it all seem worthwhile. Sean, the youngest, would frequently come by when I was in my workshop. He was a sweet boy but a typical boy, getting into every-thing, asking a thousand questions. When my patience wore thin I’d give him a job to do, and I always had one waiting … a big bucket of nails and screws that needed to be sorted. He never lasted more than fifteen minutes.
The next to the youngest, PT, was a character in his own right, and we never knew what to expect next. One day at age eleven, he showed up at our door in a long flowing white lace dress, with another little boy in tow. He then informed us that he was getting married and introduced us to the groom. Oh, okay, PT. You go girl!!!
My nieces would visit a lot, staying weekends, school vacations, summers. Figured it was good to give their mother a break, and vice versa. Much of the time though, their mother seemed more a part of the problem than any solution. At first the two girls would always come together, but more often than not they’d bring their arguments from Connecticut with them, so after a while I switched it to taking turns.
Jayna, the oldest, was clearly my favorite, and she was a good kid … but Juli!!! She was quite friendly with Billy’s sister Susie. One day when I got home from work there was hair and water everywhere, they had been playing beauty salon … as well as, apparently, barmaid. Almost a full bottle of vodka was gone, and thirteen-year-old Susie was passed out drunk on the living room floor. When who to my wondering eyes should appear? Jean and Tom at the door, just coming over for coffee. I dumped Susie on a chaise in the backyard, and threw a blanket over her.
The Lowneys were bad enough, but my next-door neighbor, Ernie Audette, could be a disturbing element as well. I was forever telling him to shut up and mind his own business, in so many words, so many nasty words. One day when Bob and Deb were there, the kids had a motorbike that they were all taking turns riding. When Susie was on it she lost control, and went flying between two cars (mine and Bobby’s), smashing into Bobby‘s. In the midst of all the hubbub, Ernie came flying over shooting his mouth off.
At first I was sitting at the kitchen table, pretending that none of that was happening. Ernie went on and on and on and on, and considering my history with him, they were all surprised that I wasn’t out there reaming him a new one. Even I was surprised that I wasn’t out there in the thick of it, but ultimately my reserve failed. The door flew open, I started screaming at Ernie, and he quickly scurried into his house. Everyone was relieved, the Lance they knew was back.
As loony as the Lowneys were, sadly sometimes Billy and I seemed to fit right in. Our relationship was nothing if not volatile, and one morning after a battle the previous night, Jean was in the kitchen having coffee. Billy and I were still not speaking, but I came in and sat down, still fully expecting him to make my breakfast. A master at pushing my buttons, he put a bowl down in front of me with two soft boiled eggs … in the shells!
Now I could peel my own eggs, but it wasn’t about that. This was a statement, as clearly as if he had slapped me in the face, and he knew it! That bowl with eggs went flying the full length of the kitchen, and landed right in the trash can before he even got there. That was the first time that Jean had seen that side of me, and she was shocked. She went to retrieve the eggs, and said she’d fix them for me, but I went storming off to McDonald’s.
The vow I had made at age twelve was still in effect, I would never fight, and to this day I have never laid my hands on anyone in anger … but it didn’t preclude throwing things. Another day Billy and I were going at it, and I went out to my workshop to get away, while Billy and Patty were cleaning the house.
When lunchtime came, Billy delivered to my workshop a lovely plate of tuna, egg, and macaroni salads, on a bed of lettuce with sliced tomatoes. He had gone out of his way to make all of my favorites, and it was a very nice presentation indeed. Without saying a word, he set it down on the bench, and then turned to go back to the house. That plate was airborne in a flash, just missing his head and smashing into the wall as he ducked through the door.
His subtle message had not been lost on me. He had made my lunch, but I could eat it in my workshop … I was not welcome in the house. To add insult to injury, that little schmuck returned with a nice tall glass of iced tea. He put it down with a big smirk, then ran like hell, only getting the door half closed before the glass crashed into it. Knowing I wasn’t finished, he ran through the den and into the living room, and locked the door behind him.
Silly boy! Do not lock a door against an Edwards man. As I went crashing through the door feet first, Patty looked up from cleaning the kitchen counter, and said very calmly, “Lance, you’re too much!” Later the father, Tom, came over to my workshop, at which time the cats were eating the salads that were dripping down the wall. “Look at those cats,“ he said. “What are they eating?” “My lunch!”
Billy‘s second oldest sibling, Jeanie, was married to a neanderthal Bobby Croke. He was your typical high school linebacker, or wannabe … big and brawny, a neck like a tree trunk, a head like a pumpkin, a brain the size of a pumpkin seed; both where alcoholics. They lived with their two beautiful towhead sons in a lovely house that Croke had built, but never quite finished, set way back on a large, thickly wooded lot. They seemed to have a pattern similar to Jeanie’s parents, splitting up after a drunken brawl, all forgiven and forgotten once they sobered up.
On occasion, for one reason or another, the two boys, Timmy and Jason, would spend a few days with us. It always broke my heart the way they would cling to us when we gave them a hug, or carried them down to the lake for a swim. They seemed to be grasping as tightly as they could to a little security, a little affection. They were so afraid and starved for love.
Once when they stayed over a weekend, Monday morning I had to take them to their house to catch the school bus. At the time Timmy was in the third grade, Jason in the first. After driving up the winding gravel driveway to the house and parking, I made sure they each had their lunchboxes, and we started walking back to the road. I was holding Jason’s hand, and all of a sudden he said he wasn’t going to school.
He flung his lunchbox into the woods, and Timmy ran to get it as I started dragging Jason down the drive, while he dug-in, kicking and screaming all the way. At this point I was flashing back twenty-five years. Seems as though I remembered a first grader named Lance, who one day after lunch told his mother that he wasn’t going back to school. My mind filled with this image of the boy’s mother, dragging him by his arm all the way to the school, while he dug-in, kicking and screaming all the way. Just desserts!
At the road I kept a firm grip around Jason’s waist, and greeted the bus with a sigh of relief. Timmy bounded on, and with my arms still around Jason’s waist, I attempted to carry him into the bus. His arms and legs flailing, he grabbed a pole with each hand. By some miracle I was able to pull those little fingers free and make a little progress.
The driver, an older woman, said, “Just get him into a seat and make a run for it.” Well, that’s exactly what I did. He fought every step of the way, but I finally got him seated and then tried to straighten up, but I couldn’t … each of those little hands had a firm grip on my hair. By this time the entire bus is in an uproar, the kids practically wetting their pants. More prying one finger at a time and freedom was mine. Whew! Too funny!
At one time Jeanie wanted to leave Croke (well, more than once, but this time she went further than usual) and she asked if I would go to a hearing with her. She wanted custody and a restraining order. Naturally I went, and of course Croke was there. The proceedings went okay, Jeanie had her say and I supported her statements, while the whole time Croke was giving us the evil eye.
Later that afternoon I was home alone, when Croke’s truck pulled up. He came to my door, and I invited him in. He was doing his best to be intimidating, and he was succeeding, but I wasn‘t backing down. He started to rehash the hearing, claiming he never laid a hand on Jeanie or the boys. “Do you believe I’d beat my children?” he barks in my face. “Not only do I believe it, Croke, I know it for a fact. I have seen the bruises on those poor little boys, and if I were ever to see that again I’d have you arrested.” Thinking, If you lay a hand on me now, I’ll have you arrested today. He didn’t. He left.
The two of them did split, for a while anyhow, and that Christmas we had a big dinner at our place. The family and all the usual suspects were present: Bob and Deb, probably Ray and Mal, Jeanie and the boys, my father (AKA ‘Papa Jesse’). About eighteen of us in all, and we were having a good time, when we saw Croke pull up. He crashed the party. My father, a force to be reckoned with drunk or sober, was already feeling absolutely no pain, and from the minute Croke walked in the door, Dad was gunning for him.
Good ole Papa Jesse walked up to the goon—who was at least six inches taller, forty pounds heavier, and thirty years younger—tapped him on the shoulder, looked up into his eyes and said, “I know who you are, you’re Croke. I’ve heard a lot about you, and none of it was good I might add. I hear you think you’re a big shot, a big man, and a tough guy. Why don’t you step outside, show me how tough you are? I’ll knock you down a peg or two.” You go Dad, I’m thinking, when Billy says, “Lance, reel in your father.” “No way, he’s doing great.” This was the first and only time that my father’s drunken misbehavior had my approval.
Dad continues to badger, “Come on, big man, step outside!“ In complete bewilderment, Croke asks, “Who the hell is this guy?“ “Me?“ Dad responds, “Why I’m Jesse Edwards, Lance’s dad.“ Perhaps my father saw something in Croke that he was always afraid of recognizing in himself. Lord knows when it came to boozing, wife beating, and abusing two sons, they could have been cast from the same mold. My father continued, “I know you’re a no good son-of-a-bitch, but it’s Christmas, I’ll buy you a drink anyhow.“
The only gift that I ever gave my father that he liked was a travel bar, and he never left home without it. Croke said he’d have a beer. “A beer!“ My father exclaimed. “I thought you were a man! Beer’s not a man’s drink! What are you a panty-waist? I’ll make you a man’s drink.”
So Dad pours a couple of fingers of scotch over one ice cube, while Croke sits down at the dinner table. Dad hands him the drink, but when Croke reaches for it Dad pulls it back. He plays that a couple more times, and then he pours the drink slowly over Croke’s head. And he still wasn’t done!!! Next, he started rubbing the drink into Croke’s hair. A Christmas turkey, $18. A bottle of scotch, $22. Dad pouring a drink on Croke’s head, Priceless!
As the saying goes, you’ve got to take the good with the bad, or the bad with the good as the case may be. So despite all of the drama and the trauma associated with proximity to the Lowneys, my lifelong friendship with Bobby, Billy’s next younger brother, and his wife Deb, made up for it all. Their son, Little Bob, was born shortly after I met them, and I had the pleasure of watching him grow up. He was the closest that I have ever had to a son of my own. I love them all so very very much.
We were always doing something together, and had so many wonderful adventures that it would take another book just to share them all. The summer of 1976 was the bicentennial year, a big event for the country but especially for New England and Rhode Island, and the Tall Ships were coming. The five of us packed in the car one Sunday, and headed for the island of Jamestown, to find a spot from which to watch the ships, as the flotilla sailed into Newport Harbor.
The perfect spot was found, up on a hill with a panoramic view, right in the middle of a major tick infestation. We were all grossed out, particularly Debbie, but I kept preaching ‘mind over matter’ and somehow we toughed it out for a few hours, picking off ticks the entire time. All for naught, as the ships were delayed, and rather than an awesome armada, they straggled in one at a time and some not at all.
Bob and Deb lived in a tenement next to her parents, and when they wanted to buy a house I signed on as chief ‘advisor’ and really enjoyed looking at different places with them. Ultimately they had narrowed it down to two, a cookie cutter raised ranch with a cheaply redecorated interior, under some high voltage electric lines, and a beautiful old farm house on a big treed corner lot in Swansea. When Bobby was thinking about making a bid on the ranch, he asked me if I thought it was a good offer, and I remember saying that I thought it was, but why would you want to buy that house?
Once convinced, they focused on the farm house, and we sat down one night crunching the numbers. I told them that I’d offer twenty-five thousand, and they didn’t think that was enough, saying they didn’t want to insult the seller. In the end they took my advice and, sure enough, the offer was accepted. Ever the Monday morning quarterbacks, they were so cute. Once the offer, that they had feared was too low, was accepted so quickly, they started lamenting that they hadn’t offered less. But it was the right offer—a win-win situation for everyone; a nice house and a beautiful piece of property.
One of my greatest joys was helping them with the decorating, getting them things for the house, and especially buying gifts for Little Bob. One Christmas I bought him a big plastic toy box shaped like a football, and then filled it with a bunch of toys all wrapped separately. Once he opened everything, what he enjoyed most was climbing in and out of the toy box, curling up and hiding in it. Little Bobby loved to receive toys but wasn’t too keen on clothes, and would usually have quite a tantrum when he got them.
So another Christmas I had a scheme as to how to give him toys and clothes too, and avoid the histrionics. I had seven packages wrapped, four toys and three clothes, and planned to dole them out toy-clothes-toy-clothes-toy-clothes-toy, so before he could fuss too much about clothes, he’d open another gift and it would be a toy, and the last would be a toy. Well, that was my plan. The best laid plans. Somehow he managed to override my program, opened all the toys first, and by the time he finished with three clothes in a row he wouldn’t stop bawling.
Of the trips that we took together, one of the most memorable was to New Hampshire, visiting the usual sites as well as the Flume Gorge at Franconia State Park. I don’t remember how much time we spent, or the distance we hiked, but to me it seemed like hours and miles, the whole time with Little Bob riding on my shoulders, but I never faltered. Another was a camping trip to—don’t blink or you’ll miss it—Hiram, Maine, and a visit with Tom/Mr Harris. Years earlier he and Grace had bought eight acres there as a retirement dream, one that they never realized together; Tom was then living alone in a big one room cabin that he had built..
There was no running water, just hand pumps at the well and the kitchen sink … a ‘one-holer’ out in back completed the ‘facilities!’ My niece, Jayna, joined the five of us and, as usual, we left Fall River later than planned, and it was dark when we arrived in Hiram. After hastily pitching the tent we all piled in, the six of us in a row—Deb, Bobby, Little Bob, Billy, me, and Jayna.
Despite being an eight-man tent, it was an uncomfortable night for everyone, and the next day—ever the interior designer—I rearranged. With the two kids in opposite corners and an adult couple in each of the other two, we all had our own little ‘nook’ and the next three nights were much better. That problem solved there was only one left … bathing. The solution, the Saco River ran along one side of the property, which was convenient and … extremely cold!!!
During beach weather, many were the times we’d spend a weekend day visiting Papa Jesse in Jerusalem. He really enjoyed the company, and we always had a great cookout on the back deck, sometimes we even had lobsters. One time two of Debbie’s friends joined us, Charlotte and Dale. My father’s friend, Ken Gove, was there as well, and the two of them were like randy schoolboys in the presence of the two single women.
While I took the gals and Little Bob to the store, Billy and Bobby stayed behind. They were under the house, no doubt sharing a doobie, and Ken and my father didn’t know that anyone was there. While my father was in the bathroom coloring his moustache—Oh! Brother!— he and Ken were talking about the two gals, assessing their attributes, and my father said, “Dale is a hot one, but that Charlotte … she looks eager!!!” Poor Charlotte, you know that we never let her forget that one.
Years later, after moving to San Francisco, I returned to New England for my niece’s wedding, and spent three weeks which included a few days with Bobby and Debbie. When I arrived, I left my suitcase in the trunk of the car. Later, after visiting for a while, when I went out to get it Little Bob (then about 11 or 12) joined me. Once out at the back of the car, he said, “I haven’t seen you in so long, let me have a hug.” Needless to say, one of the most heartwarming moments of my life.
After dinner we were sitting on the front porch, and Little Bob was playing with a ball on the front lawn. At one point the ball came up on the porch and landed in my lap. Bobby scolded his son, "Act your age." And I said, "I think he is." When I threw the ball back to Little Bob he said, "Oh, you throw like a sissy." Immediately he realized who he had said that to (i.e., someone who is a ‘sissy’) and said, "Oh! That's okay. That's the way I throw too."
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