Down Memory Lane

I was just on the phone with the Sibs talking about going to Disney World, as one does, and other things, and the conversation drifted back down the mists of time, mostly to our grandmother's house in Massachusetts, and our aunt and uncle who lived there, and then later in their own house there, and so on. The conversation took a turn, as conversations do, so here are two tales of Little Me that might amuse you.

My mother's parents lived in the Bronx, where I was born, in an apartment that I had known all my little life. (They moved from there when I was about ten.) I loved all of my grandparents, but I saw these two more often because they only lived twenty minutes away from us. First story.

When I was in kindergarten, I made one of those palm-pressed-in-clay things that little kids tend to make in kindergarten. I think we were told that we were making them as gifts for our parents, probably Christmas gifts. We made the palm prints, then painted them -- mine was blue -- and then the teacher attached some kind of calendar to the bottom of it with pipe cleaners. Voila. Anyway, I brought it home and my mother loved it because, you know, it's the kind of crap kids make and she probably had one from my sister someplace. But I was adamant -- and quite stubborn -- that I had made it for Grandma and Grandpa. My logic was that my mother still had children; I could always make her another one, but my grandparents were childless! They had no children in their house, so who would make them such a wonderful treasure if not I? Anyway, the thing hung on the wall in their kitchen until they packed it up years later for the move to Florida.

Second story. I rarely spent the night with them because they stayed with us at least two weekends a month, as they babysat so Shirl and Jack could go to a movie. Talk about your win-win situation. Anyway, a couple of times in my childhood, I was driven into the Bronx and left with them overnight. I loved to explore their apartment, which was interesting to me. The kitchen window looked out over an alley, and more or less directly into a neighbor's kitchen window. The bathroom sink had old-fashioned handles and spigots, separate for hot and cold (the spigots too, not just the handles.) Aunt Becky, who lived with them, had a bedroom bigger than the living room, and loved to show me her various treasures.

Once when I was staying with them, I opened the refrigerator for some reason and there on a shelf was something I had never seen before in the real world: a can of spinach. I didn't know that real spinach could come in a can; Shirl bought it in a bag, a bag of spinach leaves. As far as I knew, spinach in a can existed in only one place ...

Grandpa Sam was a small guy, you know, scrawny, actually. And he ate spinach in a can. There was only one possible explanation:

Grandpa Sam was his secret identity. His real identity must be Popeye. It was the only answer.



watching GOLDEN GIRLS :: ENTRY #2049
READING: American Lion: Andrew Jackson by Jon Meacham