The Corbett Family

Okay now I am an even bigger disgrace because I hurt my mother's feelings with my last post. Those were not my intentions, it was meant to be light-hearted and funny. I got an email from her apologizing for falling short. Falling short? Those words never enter my mind when I think about the Corbett family, so I would like to now share with you the BEST types of memories. Ones that can't get lost while moving, ones that won't grow mold in a musty place, ones that even if the earth blew to bits couldn't be destroyed, because they are the memories in my heart. My big sister helped me with this because she remembers the earlier years when the Corbett's were just starting out....

Our father told Southland Corporation (7-11) he was leaving - he had NO JOB - but he had 4 kids and a wife he didn't want to be away from anymore. He would just figure it out - well he was such an awesome employee they practically "gave" him the store that became our families 7-11 so that he would still be with the Company.
If we were all busy with our own lives and out and about too much he would call a "family day" and we would all have to cancel any plans we had for that day and the six of us would spend the day together.
Both of our parents instilled a great sense of FAMILY in us because we were always the house the family gathered in and always multi generations.
Every year we went to Lake George for a week and stayed in an "Old school" cabin where we played games, cards, and swam, and still cooked in the cabin and sat down all together for every meal.
Our mother never worked in the summer when we were all in school so that she would be home with us and our friends.
They deliberately kept phones and T.V.'s out of our rooms so we would all come together every night in the living room as a family. No phone calls between 5-7 because it was family/dinner time. We all talked about our day.
We went to the diner every Sunday morning for breakfast-and most of the time they gained about 4 extra kids because our friends wanted in on the action.
My father taught all four of us how to swim, and the other three to drive. He took me out for a spin once, and took me back home and called The Driving School.
We would get woken up by our parents at midnight to join around the table and chow down on about 50 pounds of Chinese food.
Anyone could sleep over-but it was like pulling teeth to sleep out. My parents couldn't sleep without their family under one roof.
My Mom wanted new furniture, so she hauled everything out to the curb to try to force my father to comply. He followed up with getting lounge chairs from the yard and placed them in the living room. my mother stopped him before he could go buy the sand that he intended to pour throughout the room to finish off the look.
When our father died we did not have much money at all - me, Marie and our mom moved into an apartment. Our mother gave us the big bedroom and she took the little one with a twin bed - with the little bit of money she had she bought us new bedding, curtains, carpet etc…. To make the room nice since we had to leave our home - and she kept all the stuff we had, had for years. Completely selfless for her girls who had just lost their father - even while she had lost the love of her life.
To this day, 15 years after my fathers death, my mother wears her "bling"(and yes, it's bling) with pride, has never been on one date, and holds my father closer to her heart than ever. Like she always says.."You can't go from caviar to flounder!"

So you see...in the big scheme of things, I wouldn't swap these memories for a baby book, or a family name, or a portrait, not for anything.