While growing up in the early 70’s, we slept 3 in the bed. My sister on the left, grandma in the middle and I was on the right. Sure, we would switch around once in a while, but generally, Grandma suffered in the middle.

It wasn’t a large bed, a double at best. We weren’t large people back then, so it worked well for many years.

During my childhood, I don’t remember book and good night stories of fairy tails and princesses.

But the tails my grandmother would recite have formed the membrane of each cell in my body. A million parts that when piled together make me who I am.

They were stories of my grandmother’s life.

In that bed, I learned about life. We would have our talks. Grandma would share her philosophies and experiences with us.

I want to share some of thees stories. I could tell them to you as I remember hearing them, but I almost think it would be better to write them in in her voice. Her voice, scratched with the smoke of Pal-mal Reds. Her hands, ruff from the chemicals of the fry pan line, stoking my head. I want you to know grandma, she is well worth knowing.

Nothing I could give her, while she walked her on this earth, could ever equal the things she gave me. I could not give her the peace she deserved, but I hope, by putting her words here, I can give her a bit of immortally.

I dont know if she wanted to live forever-- but Im going to try to make it happen anyway.

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About her mother…

To understand my grandmother, you have to understand where she came from. The earliest picture we have of my grandmother shows a well dressed 5 year old girl sitting on a carnival type horse. The picture is old and in black and white. When I asked her about it she looked at it with a smile, and then with discuss.

“Look at those shoes. Those shoes don’t match. I remember I cried when they put them on me. I knew they didn’t match. That’s when I was boarded out.”

“Boarded out?”

“Yeah,” she said as she inhaled her Pal-mal cigarette. “ My mom boarded me out after my father was put away. He had TB. I don’t really remember him. My mother was a flapper, she worked at dance halls.”

It would be a good 10 years before I said to myself-- Wait, a flapper? Dance halls? Are you saying? Was she? Did she? No!

I never directly asked my grandmother about her mother’s profession, how could I?

“She boarded me to a Jewish family. I had my own room, my own bed the finest of every thing. And then, she came and got me and it all went to shit from there.”

“You see, there was this guy. He would visit her. His driver would bring him by to visit her. And he had about 6 or 7 different cars. Oh my mom was so impressed. She figured this guy was connected. So, he convinced my mother he would make an honest woman of her. She said she would marry him, but I had to come with. He didn’t put up a fight about her having a daughter. Humph! That should have been the first red flag.”

Well, they got married, only to find out, he wasn’t some big shot mafia guy like my mom thought.
The driver was his son, one of 7 kids he had that your Grandma Gilda would have to take care of.

And those cars, well he would wash those cars. That was his job, a big fancy car wash boy.

“So there I was, a princes with my own room and my own things in a big city apartment. I went from that to living in a country shack. I shared a mattress on the floor with 3 of my sisters. We would take baths in a tub in the middle of the kitchen. Not like in the nice private bath I had back at the apartment. I remember I would be there in the tub and the chickens my step dad kept would come in an look at me in the tub. You ever see a chicken close up? They would look and stare at me. They are ugly looking things. I hate chicken. To this day, I hate chicken. I even hate eating chicken.”