ALEXA'S REPORT TO HEADQUARTERS

I have been in this house well over a month and have nothing to report.....nada, nuet, rien du tout. This is the most boring household EVER!

Initially they tested me out to see what I knew.  He enjoyed my dirty jokes and asked me silly questions until she told him to stop bothering me.  Bothering me? I am dying of boredom here.

She mostly asks for the weather, Maine Public, or to play classical music.  She gets up at an ungodly hour and I hear her making breakfast, but then it is quiet with only an occasional page turn heard.  He appears around 7 (I hear him grind coffee beans) and then there is quiet again aside from comments like "What does your day hold?"

It is usually quiet during the day as many of their activities are outside the house.  They congregate again around 5 and I believe have a glass of wine.  He goes on about all he has done in his workshop, the woodworking book he is writing and many other comments about woodworking involving planes, saws, dovetails, mortise and tendons, etc., etc.  Her main topic of conversation has been the condition of the sidewalks this winter and recently switched to the amount of litter now that some of the snow has melted.

One day during one of his long diatribes about woodworking she said "I don't want to hear anymore about it..........I don't want to hear about wood, sawdust, saws, bits...ENOUGH!  He said "Well, I don't want to hear you complain about the sidewalks if there is nothing you can do about it". After that, the conversations got a good deal more interesting but nothing to report of interest.

And then one day she same home and said that she had heard a talk on NPR about how I was listening to everything they were saying and storing it for headquarters to review.  He got up and came over and pulled the plug and complete silence ensued. 

I am requesting an immediate transfer to a more interesting abode.

Alexa

A New Gadget

To add to the new age gadgets also obtained in 2018 was an Instant Pot, which if you don't know is an electric pot that does EVERYTHING!  It is a slow cooker, a pressure cooker, yogurt maker, steamer, rice cooker, cake maker, sterilizer, sauté pan.  It makes the world's best hard boiled eggs.  There is even a Facebook Instant Pot group and a ton of recipes online.  I imagine in the very near future, many of the food products will have IP instructions on the packaging.

Now I remember my mother using the pressure cooker frequently, but there always seemed to be the fear that the thing would explode, so it was with trepidation that I approached the Instant Pot. But once I get over the initial fear, I discovered that it is a wonderful invention and fun to use.

I think back to all the culinary styles during my lifetime.  I remember going to my grandparents and the fat laden meals-- meat, potatoes, veggies cooked to death, rich desserts.  And then the advent of the casserole and packaged mixes during my childhood.  One recipe that my mother made was a canned tuna and some creamed soup casserole topped with potato chips. I found it particularly vile.  And then Julia Child came along as I began my culinary adventures with these meals that took hours to prepare.

One interesting Julia Child story.....when I lived in France, I lived with a family that was related to Simone Beck, Julia's co-author.  One night, Julia and her husband were to come for drinks before the theater.  The mother of the household spent days making these elaborate hors d'oeuvres.  She did just about everything but stuff a goose for pate de foie gras.  Long story short, they were late so arrived at the door and said "So sorry we can't stay, just wanted to say hello".  The poor mother was crestfallen.

A Recipe 

COUSCOUS WITH COLORFUL CARROT AND CITRUS BUTTER SAUCE (from Simple Green Suppers)

Julie said she made this and everyone loved it.  I am going to make it tonight.

·         4 tablespoons unsalted butter

·         ¼ cup orange juice

·         1½ teaspoons Dijon mustard

·         1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest

·         1 teaspoon lemon juice

·         1 teaspoon white balsamic vinegar

·         1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus a pinch

·         1 cup uncooked couscous

·         1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

·         12 ounces colorful carrots (orange, yellow, and red, if possible), peeled and cut into sticks between 2 and 3 inches long and ⅜ to ½ inch wide (yielding about 9 ounces or 3 cups)

·         2 large shallots, cut lengthwise into ½-inch-wide wedges

·         ½ cup frozen peas, thawed, or fresh peas, blanched or microwaved for 30 seconds

·         2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh tarragon

·         ¼ cup coarsely chopped toasted hazelnuts (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

1.     Cut 1½ tablespoons of the butter into 6 pieces and keep chilled in the refrigerator.

2.     In a small bowl, whisk together the orange juice, mustard, lemon zest, lemon juice, and vinegar and set aside.

3.     In a small saucepan, combine 1 cup of water, 1 tablespoon of the butter, and ½ teaspoon of salt and bring to a boil. Stir in the couscous, then cover the pan and remove from the heat. Let sit 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork. Cover to keep warm.

4.     In a small (4- to 5-quart) Dutch oven or other deep, wide pot, heat the remaining 1½ tablespoons of butter and the olive oil over medium-low heat. When the butter has melted, add the carrots and ½ teaspoon of salt. Cover loosely and cook, uncovering frequently to gently stir, for 5 minutes. Add the shallots and a pinch of salt and stir, then cover loosely and continue cooking and stirring frequently until the carrots are tender and very nicely browned, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the peas and the orange juice mixture and immediately stir well, quickly scraping up any browned bits. Remove the pan from the heat, add the cold butter, and stir until just melted and creamy. Stir in the tarragon.

5.     Portion the couscous between two or three bowls or spoon onto one platter. (You may not use all the couscous if only serving two.) Spoon the carrot sauté over the couscous and garnish with hazelnuts (if using). Serve right away.

WE SOLD OUR CAMP!

A New Jersey couple climbed over massive snowbanks, saw our camp and decided to buy it.  They want to close by March 30, which means we have to climb over massive snowbanks to empty our stuff out.

A little aside here….I have a bit of ESP.  Over the years I have predicted/dreamt about things that have happened.  I dreamt my Dad’s death two days before it happened (he had not been ill). I can be in a store and know I will run into so and so, and there they are at the next turn.  I predicted a couple of weeks ago that whoever was being shown the camp that week would buy it and voila! (My brother once said to me, “If you ever dream anything bad about me, please don’t tell me!”)

We loved this funky little camp but we found we were spending less and less time there and then would feel guilty about it.  I will definitely miss the loons, the peepers, the quiet.

 

BOOKS 

Here are the books read since the last Gray Zone with my ratings:

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee ****

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger *****

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder ****

A Family Place by Charles Gaines

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas ****

The Chaperone - Laura Moriarty ***

Slow Medicine by Victoria Sweet *****

The Immortalist by Chloe Benjamin ****

Everything is Beautiful Here by Mira Lee ****

I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O'Farrell ***

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng***

Elmet by Fiona Mozley****

Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday*** This was an interesting, well written book that I am still puzzling over.

On my side table waiting to be read............

God's Hotel by Victoria Sweet

Happiness is a Choice You Make by John Leland

If you enjoy my blog, please pass it on to others.  I don’t post it on Facebook for obvious reasons.

THE LITTLE GAMES I PLAY

Every once in a while I play these games. One is called “It’s the end of winter and we must rely on our dwindling food supply” and the other is “I have to move in a week”.

The first one originated with my mother, whose refrigerator contained many small containers of leftovers that she would throw together into a delicious soup.  I do this and call it “garbage soup”, but heard others call it “shipwreck”.  My game usually surfaces when the refrigerator needs to be cleaned out and incorporates not only leftovers but also veggies that are wilting, little rinds of cheese that I know will add a bit of flavor, half empty containers of broth, etc.  It also involves using things that have been sitting on the pantry shelf for ages and I know if I don’t do something with them, they will be there until my death. I hate to throw food away.  (And truly, warehouse club members should only be for those feeding more than 6 people!).

The second game “I have to move in a week”, I think I have mastered, but just needs an occasional tweak.  I am curious about this new book “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning” by Margareta Magnusson. Not the world’s most inviting title, but the premise is a good one.  I do very well on the non-clutter aspect, having moved twice in a month 5 years ago, but am not great on keeping all the financial stuff in such good shape that my daughter would know exactly where everything is…..I must work on this (but it is soooooooooooooo boring to me).

WEEPING AT THE DROP OF A HAT

I have become the most lachrymose creature. A little wisp of a girl who comes to church in her dragon outfit, a beautiful sky, a smiling stranger, music, my grandson yelling “Hi Clog” from his bike as I walk to yoga, a moving passage in a book,  all these things and more, reduce me to tears.  Now, I am not one who shows my emotions, so I find this phenomena quite interesting. Ah, I guess this is just another factor of old age and actually I quite like it.  Should have tried it years ago.

WHAT WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING

Bleak House –This series is on Amazon and is very well done. I love seeing those wonderful English actors year after year in these productions.  We are looking forward to the next episode of “A Place to Call Home”, which airs on November 23.

We saw the last movie of Harry Dean Stanton “Lucky” at the museum yesterday.  It started out a bit slow, and I was wondering if Jim would hang in there, but it turned into a very moving movie about an old man coming to terms with his mortality.  Stanton made this movie when he was 90 and, unfortunately, died a month before it was released.  I shed a few tears with this one.

WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING

Rules of Civility – Amor Towles – I liked “A Gentleman in Moscow” so much I turned to this one by same author.  A good read.

Mid-Winter Break – Bernard MacLaverty – This book was very dear. An older couple take a mid winter vacation.  I cried on the last page.

Enduring Love – Ian McEwan – This is an interesting book as McEwan’s books always are.

Everyone Brave is Forgiven – Chris Cleave – A wonderful wartime love story.  This is the first book of Cleave’s that I have read.

Glass Houses – Louise Penny – The continuing Inspector Gamache series that are always enjoyable.  This is the only mystery series that I read.

What Comes Next and How to Like It  (A Memoir)– Abigail Thomas – How did I ever miss this author?  I loved this book.  Maybe because she is my age and the kind of gutsy, devil make care person that I am not (but would like to be).  I then went and read her other memoir A Three Dog Life.

Am I Alone Here – Peter Orner –I love these books about books.  I get so many good recommendations from them.  Another is Books for Living by Will Schwalbe, which I read several months ago.

WHAT WE ARE EATING

Caramelized Onion & Brussels Sprout Galette

Serve this vegetarian tart recipe as a main dish or in thinner slices for an appetizer or side dish. This dish was sooooooooooo delicious, I could have eaten the whole thing!  I am going to serve it to the vegetarians at my Thanksgiving table. I used Mark Bittman’s pie crust recipe that has never failed me (see below).

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 4 cups thinly sliced onions
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt, divided
• ¼ teaspoon ground pepper, divided

• 5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 12 ounces Brussels sprouts, trimmed and thinly sliced (4 cups)
• 2 7- to 8-ounce prepared pie crusts, thawed if frozen
• 1½ cups shredded Gruyère or sharp Cheddar cheese (6 ounces)

Preparation

• Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and ⅛ teaspoon each salt and pepper; cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are tender and browned, 15 to 20 minutes. Add water, 1 tablespoon at a time, if they start to burn. Add garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute more. Transfer to a large bowl.
• Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil in the pan. Add Brussels sprouts and the remaining ⅛ teaspoon each salt and pepper. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender and lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Stack pie crusts on top of each other so you have a double-thick crust. Roll out on a lightly floured surface into a 13- to 14-inch circle. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle 1 cup cheese in the center, leaving a 1½-inch border around the edge. Top the cheese with the onions, then the Brussels sprouts and sprinkle with the remaining ½ cup cheese. Fold the edge of the dough over the filling, pleating as you go.
• Bake the galette until the crust is lightly browned, 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.
• To make ahead: Prepare through Step 2 and refrigerate onions and Brussels sprouts for up to 1 day. Assemble and bake galette (Steps 3-5) and refrigerate for up to 1 day; reheat at 350°F for about 40 minutes.
• Equipment: Parchment paper

MARK BITTMAN’S PIE CRUST

1 cup + 2T flour

½ tsp. salt

8 T, cold, unsalted butter (1 stick) cut into pieces

Add the above to food processor and combine until it resembles cornmeal then add

3 T ice water (more if necessary).  Combine until dough forms a ball.  Refrigerate until ready to roll out.  Makes 2 crusts.

On the Lighter Side

This is something my brother sent me years ago and I am sure it was in another Gray Zone, but it is good for a chuckle

A Box of Chocolates

For all of us who are married, were married, wish you were married, or wish
you weren't married, this is something to smile about the next time you open
a box of chocolates:

Sally was driving home from one of her business trips in Northern Arizona
when she saw an elderly Navajo woman walking on the side of the road.As the
trip was a long and quiet one, she stopped the car and asked the Navajo woman
if she would like a ride. With a silent nod of thanks, the woman got into
the car.  Resuming the journey, Sally tried in vain to make a bit of small
talk with the Navajo woman. The old woman just sat silently, looking at
everything she saw, studying every little detail, until she noticed a white
bag on the seat next to Sally. "What in bag?" asked the old woman.
Sally looked down at the white bag and smiling and said, "It's a box of
chocolates. I got it for my husband".

The Navajo woman was silent for another moment or two. Then speaking with
the quiet wisdom of an elder, she said: "Good trade."

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I made this little decoration the other day by adhering this colorful material to a vase with 2 sided tape and tying a bit of raffia around it.  It brightens up the living room. 

TOO MANY NICE DAYS!

Seriously, I never thought I would say this, but this summer and fall we have had one perfect day after another, and FINALLY, today is drizzly and cold, so I give a sigh of relief that I can stay inside and not be guilt ridden.  It comes from when I was a child and trying desperately to hole up in my room and read, only to be told to get outside on this beautiful day, or help my mother or whatever.  It is amazing how those childhood admonishments stick with you.

BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS

Aside from the continuous nice days, I have managed to read several really good books lately:

A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles   I loved this book.  I was right there in that grand hotel with the Count.  I read they are making this into a movie.  This book lead me to his former novel....
The Rules of Civility, which I also enjoyed.

The Leavers by Lisa Ko
Everybody's Son by Thrity Umrigar
I read the above two books as well as seeing the very good movie "The Lion", if you asked me to tell you the plot of each, I would have great difficult as they are all similar plots, but all excellent.

Guesswork by Martha Cooley - A new author for me, but a very good one.
How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton - a friend had given me this book which I thoroughly enjoyed.........which then lead me to his novel The Course of Love, which my book club is doing this month.  I would love to give this book to every couple embarking on a serious relationship.

In This Grave Hour - Jacqueline Winspear (a Maisie Dobbs Mystery)

And speaking of books..........my beloved daughter, Julie Falatko's second book is out.  It is a sequel to her first book SNAPPSY THE ALLIGATOR (Did Not Want To Be In This Book).  The second one is SNAPPSY THE ALLIGATOR and His Best Friend Forever (Probably).  Check out her website at juliefalatko.com.

I am not quite sure how she does all this with 4 kids (14, 11, 9 and 7), 2 dogs, and a house renovation that they are doing themselves. She has a wonderfully supportive husband.

*The flower bouquet in the above picture is from the CSA (Left Field Farm) I joined this year. 

MY RANT DU JOUR

I recently had to buy some more face cream that I use.  After wrestling and hack sawing my way through the packaging, I got to the product, only to discover that they had put on a new cap to cover the cream.  This cap had a tiny knob on it that you lifted to get at the cream, which only someone with long, manicured (well, I added that part) nails could lift. I have to use tweezers.

I emailed the company and complained and quickly got a reply saying they had to change the packaging to prevent tampering.  Tampering?????  Someone would really, really want to mess with this product to get through the packaging and lift this tiny little knob to do whatever they would do to the face cream.  They are sending me a $10. coupon.

Ah, I feel better now.

RECIPES, RECIPES

I am not a vegetarian per se, but find myself more and more going in that direction.  I have several friends who are vegan, which I would find a real challenge, but vegetarianism I can grasp.  Below are two recipes that  are both quick to make.  As you can see we like spicy food, but you can easily adjust that. 

I recently found this recipe in Real Simple magazine and it has become a favorite.

JAPANESE CABBAGE PANCAKE

This is an incredibly easy and delicious dish.  We make it frequently.  A great brunch dish.

INGREDIENTS

3 Scallions (I have often just used cut up onion and chives from my garden)

4 cups shredded green cabbage (I have used red also) about ½ small head

½ tsp. fresh grated ginger

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

2 T. tamari, divided (I used Braggs Liquid Amino)

2 T. canola oil

Sauces

¼ cup mayonnaise

1 tsp. sriracha

2 tsp. water

Mix above in small bowl and set aside

____________________________________________________

¼ cup ketchup

1 T Worcestershire

1 T. tamari

Mix the above in another small bowl

1.      Slice scallions, separating white and green parts

2.      Stir together cabbage, white scallion, flour, ginger, eggs and 1 T tamari.

3.      Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Add cabbage mixture; press to flatten and cover the pan.  Cook until bottom is golden (about 8 minutes).  Carefully flip pancake (I ask for assistance on this one!) and cook uncovered until bottom is golden (about 5 minutes).  Transfer to a service place (I often leave in the skillet and serve from there).

4.      Drizzle sauces over pancake and sprinkle with green scallion.

 SPICY CASHEW CRUNCH STIR FRY

INGREDIENTS

STIR FRY SAUCE

·         ¼ cup soy sauce

·         1-2 Tbsp chili garlic sauce 

·         2 Tbsp brown sugar

·         1 tsp grated fresh ginger (I use the ginger paste that I got at the Indian Grocery)

·         ½ tsp toasted sesame oil

·         1 Tbsp cornstarch (I don’t bother with this)

·         STIR FRY

·         2 Tbsp vegetable oil

·         1 crown broccoli (about 1 lb.)

·         2 carrots

·         1 red bell pepper

·         1 yellow onion

·         1 cup cashews

·         2 green onions, sliced, for garnish (optional)

·    4 cups cooked rice

·    INSTRUCTIONS

1.     Prepare the sauce by combining the soy sauce, chili garlic sauce, brown sugar, and sesame oil in a small bowl. Use a small holed cheese grater to grate about 1 tsp fresh ginger into the bowl. Stir to combine, then add the corn starch and stir until it is fully dissolved.

2.     Cut the broccoli into small florets. Thinly slice the onion, red bell pepper, and carrots (I do all this in the Cuisinart).

3.     Heat a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add the vegetable oil to the hot skillet and tilt the skillet until the bottom is coated in oil. Add the vegetables to the skillet, then stir continuously as they cook. Cook the vegetables only until the broccoli turns bright green and the onions just begin to soften (3-5 minutes). You want the vegetables to retain some crunch in the center.

4.     Finally, add the sauce and cashews to the skillet. Stir until everything is coated in sauce and heated through (1-2 minutes). Serve immediately over rice. Top with sliced green onions if desired.

NOTES

*Start with 1 Tbsp chili garlic sauce. Add more to the skillet at the end if more heat is desired (I used 2 Tbsp total). .

 MOVIES

We rarely go to the movies anymore.  I will look at what is playing and find nothing to my liking.  There are a couple in the theaters now The Battle of the Sexes and Victoria and Abdul that I would like to see, but otherwise we stick to Netflix, Acorn or Amazon.  We are thoroughly enjoying the new Season of Poldark.  I remember liking the old one years ago.  Love to hear any recommendations.

THIS BLOG

I am sending this via email only at the moment, not posting on FB.  If you know someone that would enjoy reading it, please pass it on.  I look forward to comments.

I am not very tech savvy so will have to have someone help me with different features to make it a more attractive blog. (As I type this out of the blue music starts playing and I have no idea why or how to stop it. Ugh!)

Link to Old Gray Zone Posts

For those who are interested in my old posts, I've posted the link below:

sylvia-thegrayzone.blogspot.com

FATHER'S DAY TRIBUTE

I recently read Richard Ford’s memoir of his parents Between Them and it got me thinking about my parents and remembering events from my childhood.  I enlisted my sister, Sandy, in this project and we have had some great discussions of those times.  In trying to put together dates, in my archives I came across this talk that I gave to a couple of Historical Societies in the towns near where we grew up and where I was living before I moved to Maine.  I share the notes here as I believe they capture the essence of my Dad.

Imagine an ad for a job which read:

Berlin, NY - Need a board certified physician to practice in a small town in a rural setting. Hours – 24 a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, no vacation, no benefits, low pay.  Would you apply for this job??? Well that is just what my father did in 1948.  Although I don’t know if there was an actual ad – maybe some of you can tell me.

Since the Berlin Historical Society asked me to do this, I have been thinking about things. It's hard to remember my childhood as one cohesive story, but I do remember lots of little things about it and general impressions that I had, and although that's not as easy to do as a talk in front of people, I’ll give it a try.

My Father's Background

            Son of Presbyterian minister

            Wesleyan – Cornell – summers in Labrador

Residency in Rochester NY – met my mother – first couple in hospital to be married and both allowed to still work. (You can guess who would “go” in this one (1939)!

Sister born in Rochester - Me – born War College, Carlisle PA - brother in Troy, NY

            3 years in China

            Johnson & Johnson Research

            Berlin, New York

Life was very hectic.   My father made house calls in the morning, had office hours from 1-3 and 7-9. I would often hear the phone ring in the night and then hear my father get up and go out.  And he did this is all types of weather.  One time he was called to a car accident on a bitterly cold night and his ears got frostbitten and the morphine in his bag froze in the vial.

We never sat down to a meal that the phone or door bell did not ring.  One time we were sitting at the dinner table and the phone had wrung about three times.  Half kiddingly, my father said to my brother, who answered the phone, “Tell them your father is not here”  So Jim got on the phone and said “My father says he is not here” which I am sure went over very well on the other end.  To this day, none of us like the telephone and often if I must make a call, I make sure it is not around a mealtime. At that time the local switchboard was our “answering machine” and if it was an emergency the operator, Norma, would track my father down. (I also remember leaving messages with her when I was away at school if unable to get through to my parents.)

My father’s practice demanded some sacrifices on the family in terms of privacy, financial burdens, family time, and solitude.  I only remember my parents taking a vacation once when they went to my father’s college reunion.  We never went on vacation as a family.  It was a treat just to take a small ride in the car together and often we would be in the car ready to go and someone would drive up needing attention and the trip would be aborted.

Being a small town doctor was a little like being in political office.  Your life was very public and you were either loved or hated.  My sister remembers kids telling her that her father was a “horse doctor” and being deeply hurt.  My brother tells of being beaten up because he was the “doctor’s son”, but I never remember anything happening to me.

Since the practice was in our house, the whole family became involved.  They had regrettably taken out a back stairway to make the kitchen larger which left the only means of getting to the downstairs was the front hallway. If you were not fully clothed you would stand at the top of the stairs and listen carefully to see if you could hear anyone in the waiting room and then make a mad dash for it.  Often you would then get stuck downstairs. 

This lack of privacy has affected us throughout our lives.  If we got into an argument and were shouting at each other, we were told “What will people think if they hear you”, which has probably contributed a great deal to our personalities as far as keeping things inside and also the theory of “what will other people think”.  We all love to be alone and have things be very peaceful. 

My mother was very much a part of the practice and personally I don’t know how they would have managed if they had not worked as a team. She was nurse, secretary, maid, wife, and mother. We didn’t have any outside help.  She was very good at screening calls and often taking care of things without involving my father.  She had to do all the laundry involved with making sure the office linens were sterilized, as well as the instruments.  Although one of the familiar smells in our house was that of burning rubber when my father would take over this task and forget he had left the sterilizer on and the syringes would burn.  She had to remind him to remind people that they owed him money.

Of course you knew all the town hypochondriacs and various other eccentrics. And somehow we knew that what we saw or knew was confidential, although I never remember being told this.  As many of you probably know, you could tell my mother something and she would never repeat it.   My sister tells of being in the upstairs hallway when one patient, a schizophrenic, would come and talk to my father about people being after her and how she could feel the blood dripping from her heart.  My sister heard all this and when the woman left she said to my father “Daddy, she just needs someone to talk to” and he said “Well, next time she comes I will call you”.  Which I can hear him saying.  

I remember 3 babies that he delivered, although I am sure there were many more.  One day when we came home from school the kitchen was closed up and the windows all steamy.  There was a newborn, all cheesy in the kitchen with my mother who had the oven going.  Apparently a school girl came home from school not feeling well and delivered the baby.  The parents demanded that my father take it out of the house immediately.  The baby stayed with a local family until she was adopted. Another time, in the middle of the night, a man came to the door and said his wife was sick.  My mother leaned out the window and told him to wait and my father would drive him home, but he left instead.  It was up on the Plank Road and when my father got there he realized that the woman was having a baby and he did not have the right instruments, so said that he would have to go home.  As he was going out the door the grandmother said “He is going home to get something to cut the biblical cord”. And then he did deliver one when he had already retired.

And it is little tales like this, of slips of words, that I remember.  One time a patient was in the hospital and the family called to see how he was doing and were told that he had expired.  They went to visit him the next day.

I remember at one point being very curious about death and what a dead person looked like.  I was probably about 12 when this happened.  I had avoided a corpse for years as I would never visit the undertaker’s girls next door if they had someone laid out in the living room as they too did not have a back stairway!  Anyway, one time there was a corpse in the waiting room – a road worker who had died of a heart attack and I begged my mother to show him to me.  He was huge and his face was all purple and believe me it cured me of my corpse obsession for quite a while. My brother claims that my father would take him on calls all the time (probably to get him out of my mother’s hair!) and that he witnessed the aftermath of 3 suicides.

It was a great treat to ride with my father on calls as that was really the only time we had one on one with him.  Although he was always home, he was not always there for us. We all remember being jealous that others got most of our father’s attention.  My sister remembers faking an illness to get attention.  I do remember that there was a little girl who had been bitten by a rabid dog and had to come everyday for two weeks to get shots which at that time were very painful.  My father would get a little something for her each day to ease the process a bit and I remember being insanely jealous of her getting the gifts, especially one gift which was a tiny tea set that he had purchased from the corner store.

My father was a great putterer and had many hobbies, painting, woodworking, music, reading (he especially loved reading about the Civil War) and would often be off in his workshop or the barn working.* One day I was in the house alone and some people came to the door and said that they had their sick mother in the car and could they bring her in and I told them to bring her in while I looked for my father.  They opened the car door and the poor woman fell out onto the sidewalk, foaming at the mouth.  I said “Oh don’t bother to bring her in, she’s dead”, which set everyone hysterically crying.  Fortunately at that moment my father came around the corner and had them bring her in while he calmed everyone down (and she was indeed dead).

*He also jogged before jogging was the rage, and much to my horrification, often during class I would see him running in his shorts around the school track. 

Often one thinks that because you are a doctor that you are rich.  We were far from rich, in fact we were quite poor.  My mother made all our clothes and could stretch a pound of hamburger many ways.  I can remember my father recording a patient’s fee for an office visit in a little book -- $3.00.  And he was a terrible bookkeeper and often would forget to bill someone because he forgot their name or he would just not charge them if he thought they were too poor.   He worked on the barter system with many patients – a dozen eggs or whatever.    My mother told me that the year I lived in France my father made only $6,000! There was no Medicare or Medicaid back then, but there was welfare. Frankly he would never have been able to deal with all that paper work.

In 1965 I think my father realized that in order to have some money for retirement he would have to change, so when the opportunity came up to be a school physician at a prep school (Northfield Mt. Hermon) in Massachusetts, he took it.  There was no social security for doctors and working at the school allowed him to have some sort of pension.  He was at the school 10 years. 

They always loved Berlin and kept their house, planning to return here which they did in 1975.  My father died in 1976 at the age of 64.

The type of practice that my father had rarely exists anymore and is so different from medicine today.  Very few doctors today would have their office in the home and the family would not be involved like we were. Most physicians would be in a group practice that allowed them coverage and time off.

I truly believe that my father loved what he did and loved Berlin.  He was a tremendous influence on my life and I have missed him these past 41 years and rarely does a day go by that I don’t think about him.