The difficulty of scent

Today on the bus I sat next to a lady who smelled like Gogo: tobacco, camphor, powder, and one other thing that I know is a food smell but I can't quite grasp it. The only mental image I get is dark green pickle relish, but I know that's not right. It's not a vinegary smell, though it is rather sharp.

I leaned toward her and sniffed and sniffed (as unobtrusively as possible, of course) the whole ride. I closed my eyes and remembered the time that I slipped on the stairs and Gogo caught me at the bottom. I was much more scared than hurt, and I burrowed my face into his yellow cardigan, his arms tight around me, and breathed in that smell.

He died in 1995. I still miss him. The first time I took off from my job at the library was bereavement leave for his memorial service in Vermont. And now here I am: the first time I'll take off from this job will be for Mimi's, in less than 2 weeks.

Mixmasters

Gogo was a martini drinker. And when we were all together, he would put one olive in his drink for each grandchild. There are so many pictures of small children grubbing about in Gogo's drink glass. My mother says, "He drank a lot of cloudy martinis."

I still love olives, but they are not the same as those gin-soaked ones, cold and sharp, not really delicious but something I craved.

One of our Vermont treats was vanilla ice cream with green creme de menthe on top. The sharpness of it was not yummy to me, but I loved the bright green and white together, how very cold the mint tasted, and the fact that we only ever had it in Vermont. I would never even have asked to have it at home.

When I was eight or so, Gogo started to teach me how to bartend. He said one should "kiss the glass" with the neck of the bottle of vermouth when making a martini. Mimi and Dad had bourbon with water: two jiggers of bourbon and one of water. Mom had one jigger of bourbon and the glass filled with gingerale. I used to know how to make Aunt Lee's old fashioneds, but I've since forgotten. But I loved to mix the drinks as if I were playing with my chemistry set. I would still do, if I could drink a whole cocktail anymore.

Aunt Betsy is a white wine drinker. Gogo would buy these great green jugs of white wine from the state liquor store, and they lived down in the bottom the liquor cabinet. He would serve it over ice. Once Aunt Betsy was down for cocktails and the jug of wine was empty. Gogo sent me across to their house to get another jug, telling me that the jugs were in his work room. I went in, and in fact the jugs were everywhere, lining the walls. I brought in a jug and poured Aunt Betsy a glass.

She took a large sip, spluttered, and yelled "This is water! You're trying to poison me!"

And that was how I learned that Gogo kept old wine jugs filled with water in case there was trouble with the well and that the wine lived in a little cupboard in the work room.

And that apparently my Aunt Betsy runs on alcohol.

One reason why I cling to them

Gigi (Mimi's mother) was stern, reserved, and elegant. I loved her with every bone in my small body. When I was quite little she had a group of lady friends (Miss Kinley and her "companion" [=girlfriend], Cousin Bitta, who else?) who would come over for cocktails, and they would arrive in hats and gloves, with little rhinestone clutch purses, stepping gingerly over the ruts in the Countryside Road behind Innisfree.

Here is a Classic V Story, one that makes my sister growl every time she hears it:

When she was a little girl, my sister was incredibly beautiful. She still is, of course, but as a small child, to look at her would make a catch in your throat. Her shyness came across as a kind of gorgeous serenity. Even I, with the usual sibling jealousy and intimate knowledge of how mean she is ... I mean was, would sometimes look at her and hardly be able to breathe.

So one summer, Gigi's friends were cooing over her. I never thought of myself as pretty. I was always the entertainer. And as the old ladies fussed and cosseted, I backed farther and farther into the corner, wishing that the wall would open up behind me.

Gigi called me over. "I saw you standing in the sunlight," she said, "and your hair looked so lovely, shining all golden."

I would not have believed her if she had told me I was pretty, just then. But I believed that my hair was, and I was grateful for it. It was just the right thing to say.

PS to my sister: neener neener! You can't stop me telling this story!

Sign of the changing times

About 10 years ago, a lady in town took a lease on a tiny space next to the general store and opened a consignment shop. I honestly don't know its true name: we've always called it "the emporium." The locals (including Mimi) were pretty sniffy about it. Later, the shop was mentioned in a guide of "hidden treasures of Vermont," and there was a great deal of grumbling about how the village would be ruined by all the tourists.

(It hasn't been.)

But I can't tell you how many things I've bought there over the years. I'll be on a clothing moratorium from here on out, because I always hit the emporium hard. My pony hair heels came from there, and the first of my vintage dress watches (grand total: 2). Several little black handbags. Upstairs is modern clothing and downstairs is vintage. One of my cousins bought a pair of vintage military jodhpurs one summer that I would have beat her up for if my hips had been 5 inches narrower.

(Who am I kidding? Gret could totally take me.)

When I first bought the watch, the first year that the emporium was open, I paid $32 for it. It wasn't working at the time, and it hasn't worked in years because it requires pretty regular maintenance. Mimi said, "Doesn't that look wonderful on your pretty slim wrist?" I don't know why that comment has stuck with me. My first husband fussed at me for spending 30 whole dollars on a watch that was clearly fancier than anything *I* would ever need. I sent it to a watch repair shop, and it came back valued at $500. That stopped his fussing.

Heh. I think I shall take my watch in.

Much better than a lingerie shower

One of the items I look forward to seeing again when I visit Innisfree this summer is Mimi's scrapbook for her wedding. She and Gogo only met 4 times in person before they married: he was in the Army during WWII, and theirs was a romance of letters.

(Do those letters still exist? Wouldn't that be the jackpot?)

Some of her friends threw her a handkerchief shower. Imagine! She carefully listed all the hankies she received: a box of a dozen plain ones from someone's mother, several many hand-embroidered by her friends.

"They're all so lovely! Now I just need to catch a cold!" she wrote.

Fun for four-year-olds

When Mimi and Gogo lived in Syracuse, I had two excellent rituals: the milk door and the elephant slide.

I remember their house being yellow, but who knows? It was on Cherry Hill Lane. It had a milk door. A tiny V-sized door! With its own lock on the inside on the second door! I liked to go in and out of the house through the milk door. Nothing better. I had my own special entrance.

In my memory, the elephant slide was about half a mile tall. There was a ladder that went up into the elephant's backside, then a short, dark tunnel, then a metal slide coming out underneath the elephant's raised trunk.

The ritual went like this:

Arrive at park. Run to slide. Climb, crawl, slide down. Run as fast as possible to the back. Climb, crawl, slide down. Repeat until called home.

It was very important to slide as much as possible.

In what I remember as my last time on the slide, Mimi, Mom, and I were coming back from church (? I had on a dress, at least). It was raining, and we drove by the slide. I plastered myself to the car window and began to howl. Despite the rain, Mimi won the discussion, and we stopped. I ran out, climbed the ladder (slippery in my Mary Jane dress shoes), climbed through the darkness. The slide was wet---I went down so fast, too fast, and came flying off the end, out into the air for what felt like a week, my stomach knotted up. I plunked right down into a muddy puddle. I was startled, cold, and afraid that I'd get in trouble for getting my dress so dirty. I started to cry. Mama picked me up and we drove back to Mimi's house to dry off.

The family tree is more like a hedgerow

I'm reading Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, which also counts as weightlifting, and I just love efficiency.

Two of the "folkways" (simplistically, groups of British settlers who influenced American culture in a particular region) are the Puritans in New England and the aristos of Virginia, so I'm reading with personal interest, because those are some of my ancestors. My maternal grandparents were fourth cousins, and that side of the family has been well traced: pilgrims from the Mayflower, a bunch of Angevin Hugenots who came to this continent quite early, and some Scottish Methodists (so many religious nonconformists!). Mimi's family is like A Brief History of American Army Service going back to the Revolutionary War, and it's through her that I could join such sketchy outfits as the Society of the Lees of Virginia and the Daughters of the Confederacy. (Why yes, I'm very conflicted about that, thanks for asking!)

Gogo's family is more of a mystery. His mother was the daughter of Irish immigrants from County Cork, and that's all we know. Grumpi (from whom I get my surname) did not talk about his past. We know his mother's first name and that he was born in Bellefort, Alsace (near Strasbourg), when it was Germany but that his family asserted their Frenchness VERY strongly. So there will have to be trips to Ireland and France at some point. Woe!