Excerpt from my writing...EVALYNS DAUGHTER. When I look at it now, it seems a rather small lake, nestled inside Thatcher State Park in East Berne NY, but when I was about 5 yrs old, I remember holding my breath in anticipation while mom swam across the lake and back, thinking she must be some type of an Olympian. Her brothers Bob and Dick dared her. Their wives, my aunts, Connie and Barbara both swam across and back and mother was not about to be outdone. There is a picture of Betty Grable most famous for being on soldiers lockers during the war and she has on the same style suit mom wore at the lake that year. It was nothing you would expect my prudish mother to wear at all. A bright yellow number with straps that went up around the neck and squeezed her already largish breasts closer together, a little pleating at the sides and pulled across the front forming a modest little skirt, as was the style of the day. Her dark blond hair was down. She had blue eyes like me and filled her suit out just like Betty Grable, although mom was slightly fuller figured. I noticed how pretty she was. I remember seeing that same bathing suit in the wash so many summers after that one, the rubber foundation slowly crumbled and the bright yellow color faded to a creamy pale version of its former self, but these were wonderful days, while they lasted. During the school vacation and summer months, our families, friends and neighbors piled into small caravans of station wagons pulling camper trailers, trucks filled with elaborate tents, tarps and canopies, and cars tugging overstuffed pop-ups, and headed west on NY 85 toward the Helderberg mountains to Thompsons Lake. We’d usually make a last minute trip to the supermarket in Stuyvesant Plaza just before we hit the Northway to stock up on charcoal, lighter fluid and groceries: canned raviolis, beer, soda, chips, cold cuts, marshmallows and cookies. After that, just one more stop to load up on blocks of ice, before we made it to the lake. In those days people on the roads still helped each other out and we never drove past a family pulling a trailer, stranded with a dead engine. Nanny and Grandpa pulled their tiny little trailer ahead of us leading the way. When we saw a family in distress, grandpas blinkers indicated he was pulling off the road to help, and then one by one, we’d all pull over, uncle Bob and uncle Dick towing their pop-ups, behind my father and the big blue sardine can we affectionately called home for the summer months. Grandpa would get out of the car and in his easy way, say hello to the people who always looked exasperated, frustrated and burning up in the hot summer sun. “Yessir” was a phrase that popped out of Grandpa’s mouth all the time, when he was thinking and around other people. He wasn’t exactly calling anyone “sir” it was just an expression, with no particular meaning. Yessir, yessir, like, you can say that again or you got that right. Grandpa had lots of expressions I never heard before. When he worked on cars in the garage at home, ever since I could remember, I pulled the tools out of his big grey toolbox, and handed them to him when he rolled out from underneath a car. I was just a toddler so walking was a challenge all by itself and tools were something else altogether, but I was grandpas “little stick-tight” so there was no getting rid of me. “Hand me the crescent wrench, Arlene.” When I first started as a miniature mechanics apprentice, I handed him whatever was on top of the box and hoped it was the right one. “No, the other one, this is the ratchet wrench.” Of the many wrenches, the ratchet was always my favorite because of the clicking sound it made when I turned the end of it around. “Arlene’s a little pilookoo, ‘cause her mother told me so.” Just the word pilookoo could make me laugh myself silly. Grandpa said some strange things alright. So no matter the hurry, we’d all pull over when someone towing their camper was stranded or broke down. Grandpa would stick his head inside the open hood and poke around the engine a little, his blue eyes twinkled and mustache twitched, like the magical sorcerer he was when it came to cars. “Give it a little gas” he’d say and then tilt his head and just listen to the sound of the motor running. I never could figure out what he was listening for and I listened hard. My father and uncles would get out of their cars and wander over to stand by the open hood and watch grandpa work, making small talk with folks who had more hope than faith. Though everyone had their own ideas about what the problem might be, after a time you could see they all stopped offering suggestions, and kept church quiet, leaving grandpa to get about what he was good at, and that was fixing anything with a motor. When I was still only 6, but almost 7, grandpa made me a mini bike out of a lawnmower engine and a bicycle frame. I was the only girl in the neighborhood with her own self propelled vehicle, making me a very popular first grader with the boys. After that, I had a go-cart which was a great deal easier to ride because it was lower to the ground and harder to fall off of. The mini bike had a wire for a throttle, meaning you could only steer with one hand and had to use the other hand to give it gas. Our neighbors like to tell the story of a young Leo getting his hands on an old airplane, and although it would never fly again, he got it running and drove it down Western Avenue to the shock and awe of everyone driving their Fords and Chryslers on Route 20. Grandpa always knew what to do to get people on the road again. I can’t remember us leaving anyone stranded. Eventually when he was done working on her he’d say, “Now start her up” and the engine would sputter and choke and finally turn over, coming back to life, like he gave it the Heimlich maneuver. Men would whoop and the women would be near to tears with thanks and gratitude. The men always offered to pay money but grandpa would never take it. Invariably the wives would scramble to offer cakes and baked goods to Nanny who politely declined but the women would see us kids in the back seat of the station wagon, sneak over with Tupperware containers, they didn’t even expect back, filled with cookies and say, “Take this and don’t tell your grandma until you get where you’re going.” Grandma never got any of it because she was a diabetic but of course we wouldn’t hurt their feelings by telling them that. “Thank you,” we said. Many fine folks, and a few who stayed friends with us for years after, we first met broken down by the side of the road.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 10:32:02 +0000
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