This will be the first and last post on this blog about the Roggebusch family who reside at the three-story Queen Anne at 48 Broad Street, Mount Holly, New Jersey. At first I thought I'd relate the trials and tribulations of this family on this blog, but really, Jellwagger's taking up too much space as it is. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the family inhabiting 48 Broad is far too big and whacky to share a blog with Mike Jellwag or anyone else. Even having me here might be too much. Even though they wouldn't exist without me, I'm sure I make them feel crowded.
Indeed, it's not just the Roggebusches who live on the southwest corner of Broad and Buttonwood. Well, what I mean is, it's one family. There is a father, a mother, and a bunch of kids. Seven kids, to be exact, all boys. But you see, this is the third marriage for patriarch Frank Roggebusch, and it's the second for his wife Faith. And don't you know they've each got kids from their respective prior marriages, plus a couple of adopted ones.
Two of the boys are from Frank's first marriage. Then you've got the one and only boy from his second marriage. He's the youngest of the seven and will be the main focus of the 48 Broad tales. More on him later. So those three kids are Roggebusches, but what about the other four? Well, two of them are Faith's kids from her first marriage, to a guy named Ford Peterson.
The last two boys are where it gets kind of messy. They're the offspring of neither Frank nor Faith. Their mother is Frank's second wife, Joan, and their dad is Joan's first husband, Marcus Woods (Frank was Joan's second husband). Unfortunately, Joan barely has the means to support herself, let alone any kids. And Marcus disowned them soon after he and Joan got divorced. Part of the agreement of Frank and Joan's divorce was that Frank would continue taking care of them.
But wait. I've forgotten to mention two more inhabitants of 48 Broad. The first is the dog Gorbachev, or Gorbie, as most people call him. Gorbie is a Lhasa apso, black except for a white stripe along his tummy. From a distance he looks like a skunk.
And finally(!) there's the child prodigy violin player named Bunny Stringfellow. She's a bit different from the rest of the brood. First of all, she's dead. The poor little thing died about a hundred years ago, when 48 Broad was a music school. And most people can't see her. Gorbie can sure see her, even smell her, and it drives the little furball nuts that he can't tell everyone about her. Only one of the seven boys can see her, the youngest one I mentioned above who's the main focus of all this.
His name is Bawrence Barney Roggebusch, and he's nine years old. No one calls him Bawrence except his father Frank. Most just call him Barry. Like most of the Roggebusches, Barry was born in Washington, D.C. His parents, Frank and Joanne, divorced when he was six and a half. Joanne Barney Roggebusch changed her name to Joan Purvis and relocated to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to start afresh. She still talks to her boys on the phone every week and visits with them a couple times a year. Her story, however, is for another time. For most of the 48 Broad tales, she won't be present at all except as a voice on the other end of the line for Barry.
While she went south, Frank moved north to be closer to his job as a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. Instead of the Pennyslvania side of the Delaware river, he settled on the New Jersey side because he heard the school system was better. With a population of about 10,000, Mount Holly's been around since 1688, is the seat of Burlington County, and is located about twenty miles east of Philadelphia. So it's a fairly painless commute for Frank. Besides, he only teaches on Tuesdays and Thursdays anyway.
Barry is in a sort of unique position in that he's got all of these siblings, and yet he's an only child. When he was born, he had two half-siblings on his father's side, and three on his mom's side. His mom had three kids with Marcus Woods, the two boys who live at 48 Broad as well as a girl named Peggy. She still lives with her father. Of all these kids, Peggy is the oldest at twenty.
My new blog devoted to 48 Broad will be called 48 Blog. Some posts will be about a particular resident there, or about a particular characteristic of the house. Other posts will be short stories. Ultimately it will form a collection of linked short stories entitled, obviously, 48 Broad. Do you know what I mean when I say linked short stories? When you read a short story collection, right? Each story is typically its own self-contained story, with its own plot, setting, and characters. 48 Broad will be one of those story collections wherein each story might have a stand-alone plot, but they will all have in common the same characters and, naturally, the same setting. Some characters who are featured prominently in some stories may be only peripheral in other stories. As I've said, though, ultimately this will be the story of Barry.
The stories will take place in the spring of 1986. Barry is nine years old and is approaching the end of of fourth grade. His favorite song is "Take On Me" by the Norwegian rock group A-Ha. Whenever he hears it, he thinks of a cute blonde in his class named Misty. Among his favorite films are A View to a Kill, House, Goonies, and Amadeus. Indeed, Barry is quickly becoming a movie nut. If he sees a movie he likes, he'll watch it ad nauseum until he can practically quote every line in his sleep. One of his brothers nicknames him MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). He is particularly fond of horror films. Since his father takes a mostly hands-off approach to parenting, Barry can catch the odd Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street whenever it fits his fancy.
To enter the world of 48 Broad: http://fortyeightblog.blogspot.com/.
