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Show 137 "How I cried the day we gave them Eastern Europe," said Jon. "How I cried. I fought to save Europe and my country gave it away." "Because of Communists in the government," said Stanley. Now all the adults were in the kitchen, Aunt Frances who looked a lot like Helen only pointier and Uncle Matt axaxaxaiaxMaii who made a lot of money in Detroit for Pontiac. Frances went up and put her arms around Helen. »//owt/ Kennedy'* ih 4r\A H/e have a Catholic president," she said. And all the adults but Red said "Hmmm," to that. Then we did the unusual thing of the year, we went to see Grandpa Whitey Loop and Grandma Emma Loop who lived in Germantown in the house where Red was born and the house that Red helped pay the mortgage on isp in high school when he worked as a paperboy and pinsetter and after high school when he continued to work in the bowling alley as a maintenance man nights and worked in the Forge days, though Red didn't have any ownership in the house, in fact xxxx Grandpa Whitey and Grandma Emma iixaaxixxxxxiiixaxaxxax didn't even own the house anymore but lived in a little extension added onto the back while Uncle Bif xxaxRaaxaxxixiBX who always wore a shirt with a big '7' on it because he was a janitor for the Seven-Up plant and Aunt Jelly who had one big leg and one little tiny leg because she had polio as a kid lived in the front of the house with there daughter Nancy who was a little older than me, though not their son Bif-boy who was in the Air Force somewhere in Sacramento, California. I always figured we didn't go over there much because they were Protestant, especially Uncle Bif who once was Catholic but converted to Lutheranism when he married Aunt Jelly, that poor fucker was as doomed as glue. But as I got older it got clear that things were a little more complicated, having to do with how come Uncle Bif and Aunt Jelly were living in the old house and also something about some store on lower Celebration Avenue that Bif and Jelly and Red and Helen once owned in common, though Red and Helen never talked about any of that at all ever, there were just these little intimations here and there that accumulated after years of cohabitating with them. Uncle Bif always seemed okay to me. He always had xix plenty of Seven-Up and always said "Ha" about everything and slapped me on the back and talked to me like I was a human being, even when I was a fcid^hiah^pjjL^ffieult for me when I was younger, having |