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LATE SUMMER AND FALL
I write theses stories because I want to go back. It happens. The simple world. The clear struggles. The attainable solutions.
So, I write down what I remember, what was beautiful, poignant and significant to me.
The end of the summer was one of those times. After supper in Gramma’s dining room. She had the downstairs of the big brownstone, Mom, Dad, Billy and I had the upstairs. I liked Gramma’s downstairs. It was always neat and there were interesting things to look at. Our apartment was entirely too practical for me and my brother and I made it a bit messy with school and such. My mom couldn’t break Dad of the habit of neatly hanging his clothes on every piece of furniture.
As I was saying, after supper we sat outside under the big maple tree in the front yard, enjoying the breeze. But as August wound down and with it the summer, the breeze created a few goose bumps and the necessity for sweaters. The Bungalow Bar truck was no longer selling the ice cream we craved to cool down the hot nights, sleeping without air conditioning. The only relief I found in my tiny bedroom was pressing my cheek against the cool plaster wall.
I loved this time of year. The pansies were planted in the cold frames just after Labor Day. They would develop into full grown plants by early November and survive the winter for planting in the cemetery come March.
The seeds came from the old pansy plants harvested from where they had been planted, and meticulously worked over by Mom, Gramma and me. We picked the seed pods using our fingernails and a quick twist. We put them in a cloth bag which was hung in a dry cool place where they would burst open releasing the seeds. They were so tiny, just a little bigger than poppy seeds.
I can’t leave this part out. Right before the pansies were planted and school was back in session, the cold frames were weeded and cultivated. Someone once asked me how I knew the weeds from the good plants. Hah! They never weeded ten cold frames. A gardener once told me weeds were just plants in the wrong place.
During the summer the cold frames were used to grow tomatoes and cucumbers. The tomatoes were harvested and placed in a large, galvanized tub of boiling water to remove the skins. They were chopped up and sealed in Mason jars.
The cucumbers became pickles with the help of the necessary condiments procured on one of our trips to Delancy Street.
Halloween was around the corner. Again, my ever-resourceful grandmother planted pumpkins on the mountain of topsoil not used in the summer. The seeds came from last year’s crop. She also planted sun flowers. We harvested those seeds as well. Not for human consumption, but for Polly, our parrot.
The pumpkins were made into pies, lasting until Thanksgiving. But my favorite pumpkin story is that Mom chose the best one for the Jack-o-Lantern she carved for Halloween night. It had a real candle for light, and I still remember how it smelled as the candle flame roasted the insides of it. I still carve a real pumpkin and place it in the window on Halloween night in memory of Mom.
Halloween was not the national frenzy it is now. We dressed in our most raggedy clothes and begged for coins from the neighbors who often didn’t think we were either cute or funny. The next day we went to Mass to celebrate All Saints Day. I loved when the air turned crisp and always looked forward to what school would bring. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it was disappointing. I mean how many times do you get to do the color wheel in what passed for “art” class?
