Grandpa would play games with me, let me take all his cigarettes out of his cigarette keeper so I could use it as a cash register. I would cut out paper money, and have him buy things so I could charge him and give him change. His favorite record was "I Love A Lassie" sung by Harry Lauder. I would listen to that record with him, sitting on his lap. Granma [or Mema], always fed me alphabets with butter, and creamed peas with butter. I found out much later that the peas were actually pea soup undiluted. I loved that and think of it as comfort food.
We lived up on Queen Anne Hill, and Granma and Grandpa lived on Capital Hill. Mom always drove the same way, and we would pass a house with an upstairs window that was put in as a diamond. It was a small square window tipped up on point. Mom told me that Nikos Kazantazakis lived there. I had no idea what that meant but I surmised in my little girl pea brain that it must have been someone mysterious and weird because of that window. Now I think it may have been an author. One time I had to stay with my grandparents for a week, and they put me in school which was a block away from the apartment on Capital Hill. I had to sit in the front row in looking at the teachers desk and the teacher. All I can remember, and it was not anything I learned, was being asked by the boy sitting next to me to pass a note to the girl sitting past me on the other side. The teacher had left the room, and before she left she told us not to talk, and to sit quietly and do nothing. She asked if we had done anything when she came back, and someone told her I had passed a note. I was speechless. I was told to stand in a corner. I could hear quiet laughing. I had been set up! I was humiliated and miserable. I never forgot that event. Scarred for life. I felt stupid, and was because I obviously did not learn anything. Nor did I make a friend. I don't think I told anyone in my family either.
So, living in Seattle, on Queen Anne Hill, I was pretty much on my own a lot. My brothers were older, and I had friends who lived near and would ride bicycles with me, play dolls with me, and paper dolls. I read by myself, and I liked doing that in my room curled up on my bed. Two friends who would play with me were Valerie and Carrie. My memories are faded, and I wish I could remember more of that time. But I do remember the household things. My Mother spent a lot of time in bed. I did not understand it, but I did know where to find her. My Father was in the South Pacific in World War II. We then had a wonderful woman named Maude who sort of ran the house. I knew to go to her when I needed things, food, or comforting. Maude was the one who told me my Mitsey dog had been hit by a car and killed. I also had a cat named Mittens who I treated as a four legged baby and would dress in doll clothes and then forget her. She would just sleep in my doll bed with a dress on, until she would drag herself downstairs thumping her back legs in that doll dress. Mom or Maude would find her and free her from the clothes.
Reading was very important to me. I read the Nancy Drew mysteries. I read the Book of Knowledge from end to end once when I was sick in bed. I had Scarlet Fever when I was about 7 or 8, and had to stay in bed for a month. Mom would bring a book a day up to me and I would read about everything alphabetically. I was a Brownie then, and had been stuffing envelopes with red feathers, a charity campaign, and felt woozy. I guess I keeled over with a fever, and was taken home to bed. The Dr. came to the house to attend to me! Wow, different times. I read the book about the Brownies, the little gnome type of brownie. I also read some books that my Mom gave me about some weird stuff I can't remember now, but there was a yin and yang symbol on the cover of the book.
To Be Continued!
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