"Good boy!" My grandmother encouraged my two year old father. It was 1931. She was leaning out their York Avenue window, Dad was in the cobblestone street with a bucket using one of his six year brother's baseball cards for a scooper.
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"That's it Bobby, pick some more up."
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Dad knelt and put horse crap into the bucket for Nan to use as fertilizer.
Nan loved her flowers and plants. When she died, I tried to save something.
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In the photo above, to the right of my Great-Aunt Mary is a snake plant with one big leaf peeking out.
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It's summer 1969, Mary, 70 years old, took the subway in from Jackson Heights to visit her baby sister, Ann, in Yorkville. It was Saturday night, they made potato pancakes and fresh apple sauce.
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The sisters talked in Italian to keep me out of their business.
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The same snake plant sits in my apartment today, forty years later.
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That's Dad's painting over the fridge
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