I don’t even remember when I first met Skip & Eddie. Their parents lived full-time in Michigan City, IN, where our Cottage was, and whenever we came to town, our parents always got together to play cards, drink and argue.
My Mother always told us kids to call their parents “Uncle Ed & Aunt Lorraine” so I thought we were all related and that Skip & Eddie were cousins of mine. As we got older, we (the kids) realized that none of us were related at all and our parents were just drinking buddies!
The original Gonsorek family had five kids – Diane, Eddie, Skip, Tina and Tim. After Lorraine passed, Ed remarried, and his new wife, Dorothy, had at least five kids of her own! (I actually lost count of how many people were in that extended family!) There were brothers and I think a sister that were older than all of us, but there was also Karen, who was a bit younger than me, who became part of my group of close friends.
Michigan City had a big Marina and lots of people from Chicago brought their boats over. There was only one small public beach there and the rest was all private beach property. Whenever we were in town, Skip & Eddie (and friends) and Karen would more than likely spend their weekend days hanging at the beach with us. My Dad was always conning the guys into doing manual labor, in exchange for free beer. The guys were more than ready to pitch in for that!
I have so many memories of the Gonsorek Family…
Like the first time I ever got drunk, was on Harvey Wallbangers, at a party at their house, when I was maybe 13 or 14! (I think that Eddie was the bartender that night, so it’s probably all his fault!) What a bad influence they were! And, I never drank Wallbangers after that night either! (Thanks Eddie.)
We went to a lot of local fairs and carnivals together and did what everyone else in Michigan City did – cruised the McDonalds’s at night, looking for people we didn’t know! (Seriously – that was a big past-time in Michigan City!)
There are also some vague, vague memories of playing “Spin the Bottle” one night, on our backyard patio, but I’d never remember “who kissed who” and there are no photos to prove any of it happened anyway!
My mother loved Skip and Eddie so much, I’m surprised that she didn’t trade two of her own children, in exchange for the two of them!
Eddie even became sort of a “brother” to me, when he lived at our house in Chicago for a year, while he was working in the city. When I had a boyfriend who was seriously injured in a traffic accident at college, Eddie was the one who drove me down to Southern Indiana to see him, in the middle of the night. What are friends/brothers for?!
I’ve known for well over 15 years, that Eddie actually lives less than 35 miles from me now, and we have yet to get back together! I will now have to annoy him on Facebook, until he finally makes plans to do so! Or, threaten to post more photos, when I unearth them!
