DelBloggolo: I REMEMBER

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

I REMEMBER

A man told his friend: "My wife only has two complaints: nothing to wear and not enough closet space."

It seems that every year at this time we start to complain about the weather. The snow comes it seems everyday now, the sky is grey and the clouds seem to hang around forever.

About when I hit the snowbank

I remember my first introduction to snow, I must have been around three and my mother threw me out of the house telling my older sister to watch me. Should I wander off, and should my older sister start to look for me, to stop for a loaf of bread first and bring that home, she couldn’t look for me with her hands full.

It was on the sidewalk of Brooklyn, in front of my house, and the snow seemed to be piled up on the curb and cars that parked in front of the house. There was one mound of snow that sat in front of the alley next to my apartment, and it was there, with a large tablespoon that I presided. Sitting atop the mound the DOS left behind with their plows, is where I met my first friend, Anthony.

I wore leggings and boots, black rubber ones and a hat that covered my ears and of course gloves and coat. It was the first winter day I can recall, and of all the winter days since, that one still comes to mind.

By the time I was 5 years old, I had become a little more sophisticated and thus: clothes conscious! All the kids in my kindergarten and first grade class wore belts: I wore suspenders! God how I hated the suspender look, I felt like an oddball and complained one day in front of my Grandma Frances. From what I recall, Grandma Frances returned to the apartment that day with my first belt! I was absolutely ecstatic, no longer feeling like an odd ball!

The belt was fine and good but there was one other article of clothing I loathed and that was shorts. Summer shorts that you wore in the dead heat of summer, I hated. Why? Because in my mind, in Brooklyn, I thought I looked ‘sissified’ Once again, all my friends were wearing what we called ‘dungarees’ today’s version is called jeans, and I wanted jeans. I used to go to my grandmother’s house on Fulton Street in Brooklyn, and on her corner under the el was a store called Louie’s where they sold men and boy’s clothing. Hanging up in the store were row after row of Levi’s and I would fondle the jeans and imagine myself wearing them, with a cowboy hat and boots. I remember a belt, thick and black with a huge buckle adorned with filigree and made for jeans.


Filigree

Today, I’m just happy to be wearing a pair of shorts in the summer and suspenders at a wedding. It was a lot of angst for nothing, called growing pains,