[Critique Group 2] Leonard's belated comments on Dawn's March sub

[Leonard Tuchyner]

This memoir is well  done. 

I like the way you have placed yourdescriptions of your time with nany  bothin time and place

. I get a very clear picture of lifebefore   going back to your original  quarters. 

I don’t usually like preambles, 

but this one  seems to work well. 

In putting the  story in context. A 

few questions.

 

 

Dawn 

 

Saturday, July 22, 2017

New York 6:53 AM

 

Sometime in 1966, when my brotherStephan was about 2 and I was 4, we moved in with my mother’s mother, my Nanny,and her brother, Uncle Stefie. The house was small but comfortable, located at80 Manning Avenue in North Plainfield, NJ. It was a temporary arrangement as myparents were then looking to buy a house in one of the many agreeable townssituated in Somerset County, NJ.   

 

Of primary import to my mom was thequality of the school system. My dad, for his part, was also concerned aboutproperty taxes. Together, they made a good couple… well, at that time, anyway.Why they did not choose to settle in North Plainfield is a mystery to me exceptthat I think my mother, in her way, was a bit of a social climber. Putdifferently, I think she wanted to build a better life for her kids by movingto a somewhat more affluent town.  They eventually found a beautiful ranchhouse on a corner lot in Watchung, NJ. This town was just up the road fromNorth Plainfield but it was slightly tonie

Tonier?

r and, in the late sixties, verymuch on the rise. The schools were very progressive and the property taxes lowthanks to some commercial properties located at the far end of town. We livedthere from 1968 until 1975, when my parents were divorced. So, the irony isthat we ended-up back in North Plainfield at Uncle Stefie’s house on ManningAvenue. The even bigger irony is that I liked living in North Plainfield morethan Watchung, despite the logistical hardships of our having to cram into thetiny house on Manning Ave. It hadn’t been so difficult when we were little kidsbut, as teenagers, the challenges were significant.

 

I’m pretty sure the schools in NorthPlainfield were better than those in Watchung – well, the high school certainlywas. I am proud of the education I received at NPHS. I’m grateful, too, allthese years later, to have reconnected with so many high school friends here onFacebook.

 

Yesterday, when some of us weretalking about the moonwalk, I started remembering those early days in NorthPlainfield, when Nanny and I shared a bedroom – shared a single bed actually. Iloved my Nanny and it felt special to be so close with her. Every morning, shewould get up around 6 AM, wash-up and then toddle into the kitchen to makebreakfast. As small as that house was, the kitchen was huge – the biggest roomin the house. This still seems entirely appropriate to me.   

 Who was your nany.

I would sit with Nanny at thekitchen table while she read the paper, drank her tea and ate a bagel. UsuallyI ate cereal. Later, I might have scrambled eggs when my mom came downstairs tofix Daddy’s breakfast. My dad worked in an office but Nanny had to be up andout early to get to the factory where she worked. Luckily, it was just down theblock, so she could walk there in a matter of minutes. This also meant that Icould stop by after school and give her a hug and a kiss before going home.This was back in the day when children were permitted to walk freely andindependently around their neighborhoods. 

 

I should clarify that the “factory”where Nanny worked was a small business where she and two or three other womenspent the day making confections that would be mounted atop special cakes:roses, a bride and groom, Easter bunny, congratulatory message for ananniversary or graduation. While the workplace is best described as a“factory”, it was really a family—owned, friendly manufacturing businessovertop a storefront on Watchung Avenue. 

 

Sitting at the kitchen table beforeNanny left for work, we’d play games, sing songs and practice reading. Yep, shetaught me to read the newspaper when I was just four years old. One of myfavorite games was the “matching game”, which was a kind of predecessor toSesame streets “one of these things is not like the other”. Our potholders wereembroidered with images of kitchen items like cast iron pans, ladles, servingspoons, etc. Nanny would select one of the items and then ask me to identifythe matching images. Simple, I know, but it surely stimulated my little brainin positive ways.

 

After Nanny left for work, I’d watchcartoons in the living room until mom came downstairs with the baby. I loved mymother and father and baby brother very much, so the beginning of each new daywith them was always something like a special prize. Once I startedkindergarten, the prize got even “specialer”. But no time was ever as specialas those early morning hours I spent with Nanny in the kitchen. 

  

 




 
 
Leonard I. Tuchyner, Author
 
https://www.dldbooks.com/tuchyner/

 
  
 
 

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