The way I remember it Skip kept the Schlitz in the basement frig at our friend Diane’s house
on Weyman Avenue just waiting for us girls to get them, pleasant clinking when we took ‘em double fisted and walked up to Mary Anne’s kitchen at 3pm before they could get home and catch us.

The way I remember it we got creative with the beer-food pairings including Cheetos, Fritos, Nacho Cheese Doritos and even Milanos for when we were feeling fancy with their frilly
paper holders fitting four to a packet one stacked on top of the other but the main event was the chocolate chip cookies from Entenmann’s in their unassuming white box and navy blue lettering and if there was vanilla ice cream on hand we’d blow minds by making our own brand of Chipwich ice cream sandwiches.

The way I remember it Diane’s after school parties were the start of a slew of legendary activities that got her in trouble but were memory making like the time we stole her parent’s car scraping the driver’s side on the house as we backed up to go by drugs over the bridge connecting Pelham to the Bronx from a guy standing in front of a park.

When we got there we were too scared to speak but not Diane she rolled the window down
and let him know that some white chicks from New Rochelle needed a nickel bag pronto
once we got it we peeled off hoping the fuzz wasn’t coming to get us in Westchester I don’t know if we smoked it or if we did whether we got high because we didn’t know where to buy papers or if we did how to roll them right.

The way I remember it we were major league players when we boosted Skip’s boat for the 3rd time but not until we first stopped at Marina Deli for roast beef sandwiches with Russian dressing Twinkies and sour cream and onion potato chips when we started the engine and glided into the water of Long Island Sound we were careful not to make a wake and alert Harbor Patrol so smart we thought with Diane at the helm our fearless captain with two sixes of Schlitz rattling on deck between us.

The way I remember it things were going great until something went wrong I don’t recall
why the boat stopped but it did and by this time we finished the Schlitz and had sun burned faces because we were Irish and in the 80s no one gave two shits about skin cancer prevention.

I have no recollection of how we got help maybe the Coast Guard was called by a concerned boater who saw us crying and bobbing in the salty water at sundown off Shore Road but by the time Skip got to us he was more pissed than we’d ever seen him just crazy trippin’ balls over what we did we prayed Diane wouldn’t be killed or worse like locked away forever without Schlitz or Entenmann’s or Us.

The way I remember it those days were precious despite the shit that came later like cancer September 11th and siblings’ crippling addictions not to mention the other ways life sucker punches you with Fucks like injuries illnesses and children because what we’ve built is solid not like the spotty recollections of a middle-aged woman who talks to pine trees when missing her mother but like an autumn Vermont mountain upon which our lives are firmly grounded.

So thanks Skip and Maryanne for letting us hang with your delinquent daughter Diane and not locking her away like a Schlitz-less Rapunzel without Entenmann’s or friends to raise hell with.

---