It wasn't exactly a farm for me. It was a tenement in New York. My uncle
purchased it from the owner because the owner kept raising the rent. My uncles
saved enough money to purchase the building, a 5 story affair with tenants from
all over the world and of all colors. Some were nice, some were contentious,
some were awful but everyone seemed to live together in relative harmony. My
grandfather passed away when I was 6 years old. I only saw him once, from down
the hallway in the apartment. He stood outside of his room and I stood outside
the living room. We stared at each other. I said, Hello and he nodded his
head at me, then went back into his room. I asked my mother later who that man
was and she said, That's your grandfather. I had no concept that a
grandfather was supposed to be friendly. He was a philosophy professor with not
much use for children, but he wasn't mean, just not very well. Yes, the days of
leaving doors open and having all the
neighborhood wandering in and out of the house are over forever. It's sad that
I did not appreciate life as it was then because I was too young and took it
for granted that this was the way things would always be. As I grew older, the
world grew more dangerous until locks and bolts and burglar alarms were the
only things left between us and the outside world. However, I live in a nice
place now. My neighbor just put up a fence because he intends to get a cow. His
roosters wake me up in the morning and my peacock shares food with my two
outside cats. The inside cats are relatively happy and I have two enclosed
areas for special needs cats. Not as bad as it could be.
From: Lorrie felineres...@frontier.com
To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2013 8:12 AM
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Chicken feathers, etc
Lee, I loved hearing about your grandmother. I absolutely adored my
grandparents, and in the 1940's they had a large farm with cows, horses,
chickens, ducks etc. Their house was a big 20 room victorian and had 5
stories counting the basement, first floor, second floor, a full third
floor and a big attic. My cousins and I could play hide and go seek and
not find each other for hours!
You and I are both fortunate to have had such wonderful grandparents.
Mine have been gone for many many years, but I still miss them.
Lorrie
On 09-15, Lee Evans wrote:
This was a long time ago, in the 1950's when there were still private
butchers and my grandmother would buy her chickens from the butcher who
would pluck them there in the store so some feathers were always left
on. Yes, she was from Odessa, Russia and only spoke German and Russian.
She would tell me (in German and broken English) that the coffee was a
French recipe. My grandfather had traveled all the way from France
across Europe to Russia. He was an itinerant philosophy professor and
taught his way across Europe at Universities. The French coffee was
probably his idea. I was too young to drink coffee but it was
traditional to put some in my milk. Then I would watch the coffee
grains float. I loved my grandmother. She was very kind to me and I
loved visiting her because I could go through the mysterious wardrobes
and inspect the dresses and hats my aunt created. The building was in
an ethnic neighborhood in New York City, the doors were never locked
and people of every color and language were constantly walking in and
out, as were dogs and cats from the area. I picked up a rudimentary
understanding of quite a few languages before I was a teenager. There
were always strangers in the apartment having coffee or a meal and
conversations with my grandmother or my uncle and always some dog or
cat being fed in the hallway.
__
___
Felvtalk mailing list
Felvtalk@felineleukemia.org
http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
___
Felvtalk mailing list
Felvtalk@felineleukemia.org
http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
