Growing up in the 70‘s just on the border of Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee, Massachusetts, I lived with my young mother and her parents, (affectionately known as Meme and Pepe) while my mom was in school. My grandmother cleaned houses and I’d spend the day with my patient, gruff, big Pepe while he fixed things with his red toolbox. Having a trailer meant things broke a lot but luckily Pepe could fix just about anything and I helped.
One day his project was to replace the foam ceiling tiles in the entire trailer. Pepe had stacks of these tiles piled in the living room. They were white with little holes of various sizes. As Pepe took down the old tiles, I watched and I helped. I went to the kitchen and grabbed a pencil. I then stood next to the pile of foam tiles and added more holes in each tile, stabbing little holes in each tile. Pepe was NOT amused but damn if he didn’t use those tiles anyway. (At the time I was so happy he liked what I did but I realize now it was just about cost. When you are poor you waste nothing.)
I tried helping Pepe solve the wasp problem under the trailer by grabbing a box of Kleenex and stuffing balled up tissues into the hole in the metal under the front steps. It worked until the wasps flew out en mass and attacked my little face. My grandfather took me to the emergency room, the first of many times when we lived in that trailer.
