Today is a lovely day, but I think I have a cold coming on so I’m lying low. My throat is scratchy and my body aches, but I really don’t feel all that bad yet so I figure I’m nipping it in the bud as Barney Fife used to say.
I am late today as I slept late and my usual Sunday call to my sister was for two hours. We talked about my grandparents and where they used to live and what we remembered. My mother’s parents lived for a long while in an apartment in East Boston. My sister remembers that on each side of the front steps was a decorative granite piece which was a perfect slide though it was a really short ride. I remember far more. The hallway went from one end of the apartment to the other. It always seemed dark to me as the bedroom doors off the hall were often closed. Stephen King could have used that hallway as a setting for one of his scarier novels. At one of that hall was the kitchen. The living room and a small TV room were at the other end. I remember the kitchen was bright with windows, and the deep, white porcelain sink stood on pipes which were hidden by a skirt my grandmother had made. The table was near the windows.
At the other end of the hall was the living room which had a giant heater near the back wall. I remember it always made a hissing sound. That was where my great-grandfather’s rocking chair was and where he always sat. He was big and scary to me. He never talked to any of us grandchildren, but he always yelled at us to get out of his house. I think he was senile and had no idea how scary he was. We used to stand in the doorway for a minute to get up our courage then we’d run by him for all we were worth to get to the TV room. He’d yell but we knew he’d never leave his chair so we were safe.
It’s funny what we remember. The day-to-day things fade, but the extraordinary, the strange and the wonderful pieces stay longer. I think we’re lucky that way.
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 