For our readers (I believe there are at least 3)! following my journey back to eye health from my Visine addiction I am happy to report that I am sticking to my new regimen of no contact lenses, rewetting drops and cod liver oil.
The boys find my new fascination with cod liver oil both repugnant and hysterical. Andrew drew the picture at the top of this page after I read aloud the process for extracting the oil from the liver of the cod.
Welcome Spring! The proverbial "in like a lion out like a lamb" holds true up here in Northern Connecticut as we had another 1/2 foot of snow from the evening of February 29th right into the early hours of March 1st. Andrew is tired of the snow but I admit I am not. Perhaps most of the world is ready for spring training and green grass but I would not mind another good storm to tide us over with winter memories until next year.
I recall sitting in my living room in 1992 with my Mother watching a late season snowfall and yearning for spring. Mom had cancer surgery in August of 1992 and was undergoing chemotherapy. Although
we knew she was invincible, she was more cognizant of her own mortality than we suspected.
As I explained why spring should really get a move on - how I was tired of all the white stuff, the mush, the difficulties commuting to law school in the bad weather and so on and so forth, she told me that this might be the last snowfall she saw in her lifetime. It was a rare admission from her that she might not recover. She started to cry. I assumed she was just having a weak moment in what had been a valiant battle with nary a complaint from her.
She was right, and we buried Mom in November of that year, just as the winter of 1993-1994 was underway. The ground was already frozen at the cemetery and I was caught off guard mostly by her death- but also by the prematurely frozen ground and frigid winds.
Dad sent me to Marshalls in Enfield to buy a black wool coat for the funeral because it was so cold. I hung onto that coat for years until I gave it to Goodwill a few years ago.
I never contemplate a late season snowfall without that memory.
It is hard to believe that in a mere 30 days the ground will be free of snow and soggy under our boots but that's the inevitability of a New England spring. Spring peepers are traditionally heard in from the beaver marsh by March 30th or so.
The lion roars.
I think it might be time to archive the blog. In the 2 years or so that I have been blogging I have covered all the important "stuff" and (gasp) I might be recycling old material. In an unending quest to be current I asked myself "what is so important that I'm blogging about?" Our sons, our holidays together, our family, friends and collective memories. Upon reflection, that is what our lives consist of -no more, no less. My older sons have learned everything they know about my parents from this blog. There is no better motivation to continue blogging.
My mother grew up in a small - strike that - tiny house in Greenpoint, New York. Her home was a 2 bedroom bungalow probably no more than 900 square feet in size. Greenpoint was a part of Brooklyn where the Irish, Polish and Germans sought to dominate the neighborhood and eyed each other warily. My mother was from neutral/Irish territory and my father's German family rented apartments in mostly Polish neighborhoods.
My mother, Georgette, slept on a pull out sofa in the living room of this Brooklyn bungalow. She lived with her own widowed mother Mary O'Grady, her blind grandmother Catherine Madden, and her two bachelor uncles Thomas and William who were retired NYC firefighters. She termed her childhoold as an idyllic upbringing. Their family always had food during the Great Depression and she spent her summers in another tiny rented cottage at Rockaway Beach. Mom grew up adored and surrounded by love which explains a lot about how she approached life.
There were only 2 pieces of furniture remaining from the Brooklyn bungalow. An armoire which my father sold along with the house in Suffield, and a battered table. It was the convertible dining room table Mom grew up with in Greenpoint. Long before the days of custom, granite encrusted eat-in kitchens every room served double or even triple duty. This table sat in the living room which served as Mom's bedroom after dark. Just before supper its leaves would come out from underneath, a tablecloth would go on and the utensil drawer (in the center of the table) would serve up knives and forks for the evening meal. Lunch was called dinner and evening meal was termed supper.
This dog eared relic resided in our basement in Suffield until we got furniture in the basement and turned it into a rec room. It served as a sofa table for a few years (1982-1988), got chewed on by our golden retriever puppy (1984) and became progressively wobbly until it became too shabby and was shuttled back into the recesses of the dark basement (1990). It was then moved to Lisa's house (1995), then back to mine (1996). Since then, Mark and I have moved it no less than 3 times, never using it. Over recent years it almost fell from our consciousness. Someone attempted to refinish it and gave up not long into the project - but not before the top became scarred and bubbled from the aborted effort.
June 2009. I got the name of a reputable furniture restorer some months ago. 2 weeks ago some strange sense of urgency overtook me and I called Minuteman Furniture Restoration come out to look at the table. We agreed on price after a bit of haggling and The Minuteman expressed sincere reservations about the damage to the table and his ability to repair it - the dog chews, the bubbled veneer, the shaky Duo-Fold leaves. He dated the table at circa 1925-1930. The original tag on the bottom of the table read "H.P. Robertson", Jamestown, New York. Some quick research revealed that Robertson manufactured only tables and went out of business in 1938. This type of fold up leaf table is called a Jacobean table and was in vogue just before the Great Depression. This coincides with the date my great-grand uncles bought the Brooklyn bungalow in 1923.
Minuteman determined the table to be solid walnut with a thick walnut veneer on the top. In short order a craftsman and his tools erased all evidence of animal bites and age. The table was delivered today - what a thrill! It is solid, fully restored and gleaming in our living room.
