John: This relief was an early memory on the wall of my grandparent’s house. My mother indicated that it was one of the few items Leland Sr. wanted to bring from the house in West Union. I remember staring at it and wondering what the story behind it was. Romeo and Juliet, I assume, but mysterious to a small child. I loved its three dimensions – and that the fellow presumably climbed a tree to be with his love.
John: My Aunt Ann would get excited toward the end of June. She would gather us children to the kitchen and swear us all to secrecy. Then she would open a secluded drawer and pull out sparklers; big sparklers, flashing and colorful sparklers, all kinds of sparklers. She loved them.
and then she would slide the drawer shut because it was not yet time.
On the fourth day of July she would gather the children again, reopen the drawer and pull them all out. She was the Pied Piper and we were in her thrall. She led us out under those big pine trees that created such a dark black shadow on the front lawn. You can see them on the right.
She took the sparklers from their wrapper, shared a box of matches (as they say now, OMG!) and enjoyed each glittering result. She helped us spark each one of them off. The younglings just had to watch in awe.
What a joy to be thought “old enough!” She was a wondrous woman.
John: My Aunt Ann married a big charming engineer named Bob Marvin. He worked for the Dravo Corporation. They built ships in the Pittsburgh area, but he had also worked on several large dams in West Virginia. They purchased a large peach orchard and built a large home on the top of a beautiful rise. The property had a gravel driveway that seemed to run for miles. It had a duck pond, and he had a second house built for his brother-in-law Richard Dower and wife Zeda. The peaches were luscious.
One unique feature of the property was that it was located not very far from the runway of the Pittsburgh airport. Planes and jets would scream overhead at all hours.
The house was a museum. The centerpiece for this young boy was a huge billfish mounted in the basement. This was my Aunt Ann’s catch on one of their vacations, and touching its huge sail and long pointy bill were irresistible. They had a shuffleboard court out in back of the house, and a massive stone screened-in porch, which I actually thought was a “screen den porch.” We would have great family feasts there.
Aunt Ann was the elder who took it upon herself to always make sure that we got at least one trip to an amusement park each summer. Usually it was White Swan Park, but sometimes she took us to different and larger venues in the area. And she would ride even the scariest of rides.
Uncle Richard was the unofficial caretaker of the property, and one of his responsibilities was to look after the ducks in the big pond, maybe an acre in size. He would collect stale bread from the local grocery store and had a large stack of bread in the garage. When we visited, I was always delighted when he would take us down to feed the ducks and fish.
One day he took “me and Annie” (pronounced “Menannie”) to the pond with a loaf of bread. I eagerly pulled open the loaf and delighted as each slice went sailing across the water, to be gobbled by ducks from above and the fish from below. It was quite a contest.
As the fish and ducks scrambled, I grabbed a slice of bread and all of a sudden there was a splash. I was surrounded by a murky green swirl of webbed feet, feathers, frantic fish, and water! My sister panicked, but Uncle Richard calmly waded in and grabbed me by the scruff of my shirt and pulled me out, gasping and stunned.
It was a soggy walk back to the house for towels and dry clothes, but the excitement was very much worth it.
John: When I was young, my grandmother Cecelia (Gram) was a beautiful and substantial woman brimming with unconditional love. Grandfather was very devout and specialized in religious discussions, filling thousands of index cards with notes for his sermons. He eventually became a lay preacher at the local church.
We welcomed the times when he was distracted by the Pittsburgh Pirates, sitting close to the black and white TV set in his black rocker and monitoring every pitch.
We liked to visit them, as there were a number of children our age in the neighborhood and it was fun to explore new places. There was a large apple tree in the area, and this boy loved to climb. If I could reach a branch, I was up in the crown before long.
I’m not sure what happened that day, but I got up in that apple tree, scooted along a limb, and there just did not seem to be a good way back down. I was unusually stuck, and spooked. I told one of the kids there to go tell my Gram. I’m not sure where my parents were, but this was an emergency!
My grandmother came running, but she could do absolutely nothing but wring her hands and angst below me. It was quite a scene. How could I have involved her in this?
Finally one of the neighbors, a tall gentleman named Phil, came to her rescue and talked the spooked kid down out of the tree, but my grandmother ruled the apple tree off limits for a number of years, to my chagrin.
And Phil – well, he could walk on his hands, a feat we begged him to repeat again and again on summer evenings – and tried to emulate with scant success.
John: One early morning my parents were woken up by a commotion in the next room. My grandmother was visiting and sleeping with the two rambunctious kids (Menannie) so they were probably not too surprised. But two or three a.m.? They put on robes and went to investigate.
Annie and I had convinced our grandmother that it was time to get up and get dressed. The fact that it was dark outside did not register, and I am sure we had a glib excuse. We loved having her visit so much we did not want to waste a single minute of it in bed!
John: One day my parents had left my grandmother in charge of the kids while they were out. We were playing outside the apartment block in Connecticut. Somehow, I decided I was going to play barber, probably after a recent trip to visit our German barber, Herr Hehr. I am not sure of the spelling of his last name, but it was a great family joke.
I got several chairs lined up in front of the apartment, and enlisted sister Annie as my first customer. She was almost always up for any new game. There was just one thing missing.
“Gram, can I have some scissors? My parents let me use them.” My grandmother innocently handed them over. I headed outside where my first customer was waiting.
I trimmed Annie up pretty good. She smiled sweetly as her wispy blond locks tumbled around her. I worked to get the sides even, but each attempt resulted in an unusual lopsided coiffure. I finally proclaimed her “done” and she went off happily to play on the swingset.
My next customer was Jeannie. Her hair was much thicker, a dark brown, and done up in two lovely pony tails. I nonchalantly snipped one off and handed it to her. The piercing screams and wails echoed down the apartment block. Clutching her pony tail and sobbing, she ran back home.
My grandmother was soon surrounded by a crowd, including one very upset mama. Her excuse – that I had told her my parents let me use scissors – somehow did not appease. My days of barbering were ended as swiftly as they started.
Mi Mayan Hamaca 