Good Morning.
I recall quite vividly that one year my father wanted to go skiing on Good Friday and was told in crisp language by his wife that he was doing nothing of the sort. Thus I will tell you about several memorable people from my distant past, none family to be fair to all of them. I shall publish today and hopefully stay out of trouble tomorrow.
1. Sister Mary de Lourdes, a renegade nun. She operated a K-3rd grade school in the basement of a Catholic college and hired teachers and enrolled students of every race, creed, and color. She liked to skip around the gym and dance on the lawn near the playground. In 1960 when I paid her a visit, she lifted up the starched white guimpe on her habit and showed me her Kennedy button. Don't tell anyone, she told me.
2. My piano teacher, Mrs. Hurwitz. She ran a summer music camp in the Berkshires and employed a Baptist cook who prepared fabulous food, minus, of course, any bacon. I spent six of the happiest weeks of my life at the camp, got to hang out with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, covered for my roommate, a cellist, who regularly snuck off with her boyfriend, a struggling pianist like me, and learned how to do the hora, a frequent activity in the circular driveway at the camp.
3. Gerda, the Swedish cleaning woman. She came to us for thirty years, starting when I was two. She got me to eat my carrots, not my favorite, by mixing them with mashed potatoes that I loved. She lived in a duplex with her husband who was an electrician, and on the other side was her sister, also a domestic, who was married to a plumber. They all got along real well.
4 and 5. George and Charlie. They ran the Shell gas station, wore khaki uniforms with their names stitched in red on the shirt, pumped our gas, checked the oil, cleaned the windshield, and said hello to the dog who was usually in the back seat. We gave them a box of cigars at Christmas. I think this car is a Cadillac that we most assuredly did not have. We had a dark green Chevy with brown upholstery that smelled like a musty closet, but
it got us where we needed to go.
6. My sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Donahue. He was the only man in the school except for the custodian who was his father-in-law. Mr. Donahue wore a gray suit every day, was always in a good mood, and wrote the sixth-grade fall play, "Mercedes and The Haunted House". I landed the role of Mercedes, the only time I have ever appeared on stage in an acting role, though some might disagree with that statement.
7. Aunt Grace. She lived next door and wasn't my aunt, but very close people were called Aunt or Uncle by younger types. Others were addressed as Mr. or Mrs., never by a first name. Aunt Grace made snow pudding in a kitchen that was very green, not environmentally friendly green, painted very green. She talked to the birds in her back yard and I thought it was okay.
8. Mrs. Mahl, a widow from Canada. She made my party dresses and spoke with perfect diction even when she was holding a couple of pins between her teeth. She poured us tea in her parlor after a fitting and put two sons and a daughter through college with her earnings. She lived in a house with heavy, dark woodwork that was a little scary but Mrs. Mahl was not.
9. Aunt Hap, another aunt who wasn't an aunt. Her real name was Harriet but nobody called her that. She had a summer home at the shore that was always packed with guests and made pancakes in the shape of everyone's initials for breakfast. She taught every kid within ten miles how to swim all the way to the raft, even those of us who never thought we could do it.
10. Mr. Miner, owner of a general store in Monterey, Massachusetts. He had huge wheels of cheddar cheese so sharp it brought tears to your eyes when you ate it. He sold canned goods, road maps, mousetraps, and fishing worms. Mr. Miner is responsible for the fact that I like old, beat up stuff that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
P.S. I miswrote. I called George and Charlie George and Charlie. I also called Gerda Gerda. Bye.
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