Of late . . .

[sartorias]

Happy Purim to those who celebrate!

Somewhat related, a beautiful and poignant display of dioramas of Polish life in the 1930sIn other news, due to unfortunate circs, my mother had to leave her trailer park and she is about to move into a retirement facility. It's one she picked, and the window of her admittedly small room has a view of the

Comments

[asakiyume]

Your paragraph about asking about children reminds me of the elderly guy who ran the daycare my kids went to when we lived in Japan in the early 1990s. He was very, very friendly, but now and then he'd mention the firebombing of Tokyo....

What it is to be human. So much one life can encompass, so many reversals (or restorations) of fortune.

Love-love-love your postcard. Your friend with her feet in your face, you with your feet in the glove compartment. I guess it kept you warm though! And did you sign Love-Love-Love? (Needless to say, I love that too!)

[sartorias]

You can read that? Wow!

I wasn't the only clueless one. When we got to Northern Germany, one of our number looked around in disgust and said, "It's all modern--we may as well be at home? Where are all the old buildings?"

"Bombed flat," of course.

[marycatelli]

I once had a co-worker from India who more than once expressed surprise that Atlanta looked 19th century. He knew why Germany looked modern, but even though I pointed it out every time, it never sunk in that Atlanta had had the same issue.

[sartorias]

Good grief, what did he expect from Atlanta, given that it wasn't even built until the nineteenth century--after the railroad went through???

Or was he expecting to see what the Cherokee left behind after they were booted out?

[asakiyume]

(Didn't say a word in my comment about your mom and her move--hope it's going/goes smoothly)

[sartorias]

There are . . . issues, but once those re resolved, I trust all will settle out.

[sholio]

Definitely ask your daughter about the letters! My grandmother saved all the letters my parents wrote home in the 1960s and 1970s, and after she died, my dad gathered them all up and sent them to me. I absolutely loved reading them; even the prosaic little details of their lives were fascinating to me. It also opened up some really interesting discussions about that time in their lives, because of course they were sanitized for parental consumption like you were talking about, so asking my mom or my dad how some event or other really went down was fun.

Your experiences in Europe sound like one of those amazing times that can only happen in your 20s, when even the worse bits (well, most of them) make interesting stories later on.

I hope your mom's move goes well.

[sartorias]

So true! There was a lot I kept from them--like having to defend my life with the switchblade I'd picked up in Spain, after one of Franco's many, many police tried to molest me on a train. (Because, as I heard over and over that year, everybody knows that all American girls are sluts, especially blondes.)

[negothick]

Maybe you shouldn't ask NOW--when she'll want to read the letters is, oh, 30 years from now--and she'll have bitter regrets that you didn't save them.

[sartorias]

I'd love to think I'll be alive in thirty years to ask!

[mamculuna]

What great memories! Your kids can toss them if they want, but I suspect they'll be more interested than you think.

My kids would probably keep letters, but it kills me that they don't want the furniture. One I especially love is a very simple dropleaf table from my 3 or 4 X great grandparents. How can they not want that?

And hope for the best for your mom. I know that kind of move is hard, at best, but there does come a time (I'm already thinking that it will come to me, too). She's lucky to have you to help her with the stuff.

[sartorias]

My sister has actually been point woman, as 100 miles separates me from them (100 miles of solid LA traffic, so multiply that by many hours of inching along, both ways)

Yes! About the furnishings. Though most of what I have is the leftovers from parental divorces, none of it worth anything. But there is one nice bedroom set that my husband's grandmother left for my daughter, who turns up her nose at it. It's really beautiful stuff, too. But also, she doesn't have room for any of it.

[blairmacg]

What would be totally cool is to take each of those letters/postcards that glossed over or didn't mention something, and write out--as you did here--the rest of the story. What a remarkable record of life, of parental relations, of the inside/outside tale of youthful travels and experience!

[sartorias]

I've told a lot of it orally. I'd actually written it out, in detail, in journal letters to another friend, as I lived it. Unfortunately, she tossed them a couple decades ago, sigh. So I doubt they were as interesting as I thought they were!