these were tarts from the bakery. Talk about gleaming red perfect berries (often topped by an inviting dollop of snowy whipped cream)! Talk about having the oozing berries nestled in crispy, delicious tart shells! The tarts, purchased at the nearby bakery on North Avenue, became a dessert mainstay at our home when strawberries were in season.
Besides looking and tasting so good, the tarts made me happy for another reason. After my mom purchased that first apartment building, she started to make more and more trips outside our home. We didn’t have a car when we lived in the two flat, so the trips to the new property were pretty long ones made by streetcar. I missed her, of course, and when she came home with neatly tied white boxes of those treasures from the bakery, her return spelled double happiness. I can see the two of us savoring the moments.
As time has passed, I’ve tried many a bakery in search of strawberry tarts as good as those my mom brought home. Found some very good ones, too. But something is always missing. Never do they taste quite as delectable as those juicy red strawberry tarts my mother and I shared so many years ago.
Piano lessons
Posted on September 2, 2010 by June
When I was around three or four, my mother showed me a cardboard imprinted with black and white piano keys representing the octaves of a piano. The details of this teaching device are more than a little fuzzy, but the important thing about it, of course, was that it worked! It really taught me the names of the keys and made it possible for my mother to teach me the songs in “Thompson’s Book for Beginners”.
The really amazing thing about all this is that my mother, herself, had never had any piano lessons. And it wasn’t until I was an adult that I appreciated her accomplishment. No one ever commented that this was kind of remarkable. My loving mom had gone to a store, purchased a model of the keys along with the Thompson’s Book, and taught her little girl to play the beginning pieces after she herself had studied them. As I said, my memory of all this is pretty hazy, but I do remember that I loved my mom’s lessons and the times we spent together at the piano. She made the whole experience fun. And she taught me “Long, Long Ago”, which I can play from memory to this day!
Eventually, after moving into the apartment building, my mother arranged for me to take lessons from an “official” piano teacher and I progressed to a slightly more difficult piece known as “The March of the Wooden Soldiers.” It appeared that my piano career was really taking off when my music teacher announced that she was giving a formal piano recital in a nearby auditorium. I did practice “March of the Wooden Soldiers”, but looking back, I don’t think I worked very hard at it. I hadn’t an inkling of what it would be like to perform a piano piece from memory, especially in such an intimidating setting.
I dimly remember sitting at the piano, playing the beginning of “Wooden Soldiers”, and for the first time in my life, having my mind go blank! Ouch! When I think of the embarrassment, I still can fee the heat in my cheeks! Having attended a zillion recitals over the years, I know this is not all that unusual. At the time, of course, it seemed like the end of the world. It wasn’t the end of the world, but by mutual agreement it marked a long pause in my piano studies!
The breath of autumn
Posted on September 3, 2010 by June
The hot, muggy days that began September are vanished. The air is sun-washed. The blazing yellow of the mature black-eyed susans along the fence still remind of summer. Yet there’s no denying…autumn is hovering.
Dickens and me
Posted on September 5, 2010 by June
Even before I started school, I loved reading, but it was in my second year of high school that literature loved me back. My teacher was a wise woman who taught us to appreciate Dickens by reading him aloud. Having an opportunity to hear my teacher bring “A Tale of Two Cities” to life in the classroom set off my romantic imagination. I loved hearing her oral interpretation.
However, when I learned we would all be taking a turn at reading aloud, anxiety set in. I was about fourteen, having skipped a grade and a half in grade school (no one gave much thought to social maturity in those days), and this kind of dramatic reading was unfamiliar territory. Unfamiliar and scary. Some of the other students had stumbled on the words and I was petrified that they would remain buried in my throat when I was called upon. It didn’t take much to frighten me in those days and my hands were cold and sweaty as I waited my turn.
Yet the overwhelming and selfless love of the dissipated English barrister Sydney Carton for the lovely Lucie Manette had set my teenage heart afire. Imagine, Sydney was going to the guillotine so that his beloved could be with his rival, the man of her choice! And when it came time for me to read, to my amazement the words I read aloud actually sounded pretty good. Unbelievable as it seemed, my reading turned out to be fun. Dickens had so involved me in his characters that my concern for them shone through my words. For a while my shyness went out the window, and I felt exhilarated. Best of all, my teacher caught up with me after class and said those special words, words I will never forget: “June, I think you should be a writer!”
When I went to college and had to choose a major, however, I opted for a degree in sociology. I believed I could do more for humanity as a social worker and was convinced an English degree was frivolous. It wasn’t until many years later that I followed my instincts and got a masters in English lit and returned to my love of language.
Going back to university in my forties was an adventure! Even when the professors left something to be desired, reading the great masters in maturity was like food for my soul. Later I worked as an adjunct instructor at Harper Community for six years and that was another mind opening experience. My life became so much more satisfying when it included literature. Here I am, sixty-five years after that eventful English class and that wonderful experience with Dickens. And I am writing.
Home birth
Posted on September 14, 2010 by June
I was born into what was then a relatively new section of Chicago in the northwest outskirts. It was made up of neat rows of brick two flats, one after the other on the parallel streets, with commercial development along North Avenue. I made my entrance into life in an upstairs bedroom on a very hot June day after a prolonged labor during which the doctor accused my mother of not pushing hard enough to deliver me more promptly.
As it was later revealed, I was wedged in the birth channel sideways, so when the doctor pulled me out thinking he had grasped a leg, it was really my right arm. I was at first not conscious and my right arm hung limply at my side. Fortunately, though I weighed only four pounds, to my mother and father’s great relief, I started to cry.
Over the years they told me many times of how thrilled and happy they were to have their little girl. I was told they carried me around on a pillow, so afraid were they of injuring me. Poor Mom was furious with the doctor and accused him of incompetence; however, suing was not was as common as it is now, so they dutifully massaged my arm according to medical advice until it regained partial restoration and we all went on with life. Though my entrance to life was challenging, I had a treasure not available to all: loving parents.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте
