Janet Grant, though Ma always called her Mrs Grant because she was not comfortable calling adults by their first names, even her friends, for a long time. Lots of memories about John and Gug (Doug) Grant, including when their father "went up to live with God." Remember?

I thought the Chef was on the west side of the highway and more north. Chinese takeout was the Chinese Kitchen, where the ur prawns came from. More later; gotta go.

Hey, I just came here to post what you'd said about The Chef, and reply to it, and I found you'd made a post! Damn me, I never thought to check back after you said you wanted to cool it for awhile. Very, very cool! just the kind of thing I'd hoped would happen.

I don't remember anything about Lala's Kotex boxes! Nor do I remember the 40th birthday, although now that you mention it, it's so easy to picture it it's almost like it is coming back to me. That is doubtless the original source of the sense that turning 40 was supposed to be traumatic. Shit, I also just remembered, it used to say "Life begins at 40" on the side of milk cartons-- and Lala would say "Haw Haw Haw!" in that sarcastic way of hers.

I do remember all the fighting. Fran could hold his own with her, but she usually won with Grandma, reducing her to tears. I remember Grandma saying, after one of these battles: "Don't ever have kids!" I understood what she was saying, but I never took it seriously. I always figured I'd have them, but I sure as hell wasn't going to ever let them live with me after they got married. I talked some with Thea about this the last time I was out there, but I can't remember now what she said about it. It's in my notes somewhere. I think Fran lost a job or two after they'd been out living on their own for awhile, and they had to move in with Grandma to survive. According to Thea, Grandpa had bought a lot of stuff for them, which she still feels resentful about. It wasn't so much a matter of money after the war as it was the horrendous housing shortage. Remember, that's why we got turned out of our house in Paly and forced to live in a shack in an orchard! Times were hard. It took the big subdivision boom before there were places like Hillsdale, a complete new town, that Lala and Fran could move to.

Anyway, here's what you said in email today:

Ma does not remember eating at a restaurant on the peninsula called The Chef. We were little. You remember, don't you? We knew the waitress, and one night I came home with an earring in my hair because she'd hugged me.Do you remember this?

Yes, I remember it, including the earring incident. Or at least I remember it being talked about after the fact. It was out on El Camino, between Los Altos and Palo Alto. On the west side of the highway. I had forgotten the name of it, but remember it now. We also used to get Chinese take-out somewhere in that same neighborhood-- the first ethnic food I remember having. I do remember how very exotic it was when Mrs. Grant (what was her first name?) fixed something called "pizza."

Yes I do remember the stuff in Grandma's fireplace, also the exploding milk cartons. I also remember LaLa burning kotex boxes there so the trashman wouldn't see them. Do you remember LaLa's 40th birthday where each time the clock chimed she announced how many hours she'd been 40. A lot of my memories of Grandma's house are tied up with LaLa. LaLa and Fran fighting, when she would laugh and laugh as he yelled and yelled. She and Grandma fought, too, and sometimes she would make Grandma cry. God, she was a tough one, that Nelda. Imagine, she was 40 and still living at home in that tiny house, with her husband. I'm sure they had money.

I remember the

Do you remember sitting in front of that magnificent fireplace at Grandma's house and tossing some kind of dust into the fire that made the flames turn different colors? I just read something (in Neil Gaiman's Stardust) that made me think of it. When did people stop turning their fires different colors? It was such a lovely thing to do. Grandma used to burn trash in the fireplace. It was fun when she burned wax-covered paper milk cartons because sometimes, when they were sealed up and burned just right, they would explode. Mostly, the milk came in glass bottles, though, and they were delivered to the house. She would also roll up newspapers into logs, then twist them to keep them tight, and burn them too. The days before recycling.

We both started school when we were four. Four! When I look at four-year-olds now, I see babies. They're barely past being toddlers, they don't really remember stuff in detail yet (at least I don't). That is too young to be thrust into a school setting, even if it is only kindergaten. I wish I'd been allowed to wait until I was five; maybe I wouldn't have been so small in comparison with my classmates, and not so damned shy. You seemed to do okay with it, though, and you were even younger. But you weren't so tiny.

I have vague memories of being in Berkeley and Oakland quite early, but nothing concrete. It's funny, but I seem to have a sense of each of them as food: 1719 Rose Street is cottage cheese; 5482 Kales Avenue is lamb chops and tuna fish sandwiches. I have a clear memory of a blackout while staying at Grandma's-- walking from the dining room to the kitchen and having the lights go out just before reaching that swinging door. Lala had a big stash of canned food in the basement. That was where the tuna came from, and it was a special treat-- Lala made the tuna sandwiches. Grandma made the lamb chops.

What is your earliest memory? Mine is sitting on the front steps of our house in South San Francisco (The Industrial City) on "Harvard-near-Silver", as I was trained to say, waiting for Pa and Dan to pick me up and take me to The Farm. It must have been winter, because I remember being all bundled up.