Found in Queens

We are still not done clearing out Oma's apartment in Flushing but we are getting closer. Look what I found in her medicine cabinet. Moist Spock or Captain Kirk towelette anyone? I had NO IDEA she was a trekkie!This is a picture I have known my entire life and my Mother has too, hence it's an oldie. My Mother doesn't like it because she has alway looked at it as the dog was missing a leg. The leg is there just very faint, no one else in my family wants it. I guess I'll be the one to take it. I think we are getting to the sad part now. We have been saving the pictures for last as it would be depressing being there with the bright spots on the walls that a picture leaves after being hung in the same place for years.What should I do? Take them because I know that she would probrably be pissed if we threw them out (guilt!) or not? By the way, this is another old picture she had hanging up forever.

Found in Queens

In today's installment of "Found in Queens" I find my mother's old hair as I am clearing out my recently departed Grandmother’s apartment in Flushing, Queens. Yup, twelve years of her hair growth to be exact. I found it at the bottom of a cedar chest in her bedroom, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. I knew these long dark blonde braids were my mothers, because, like everything else in the apartment they were labeled and dated.Ernas's Braids-Cut 1946-Age 12 Years

My mother's response to me shrieking and running into the kitchen to show her?

"Get rid of them! I couldn't wait to get those cut off so I could look like everybody else!"

One of the stories my mother would tell about her childhood in the Bronx was about getting teased and getting her hair pulled. These braids are about two feet long. Now I understand why she was such an easy target!

I've never felt disembodied human hair before. It is an eery experience to touch them. The hair feels alive, it feels like what a twelve-year-old girls hair should feel like. It’s smooth, thick and shiny. It even has a little curls on the ends.

I asked my mother, "Is this normal?" She answered,"No! Just get rid of them!"

She had absolutely no interest and barely even looked at them.

I threw them in the vintage 1960's Pan Am flight bag which was found in some other cluttered corner of the apartment. The apartment is now looking more like a "pack mouses" apartment, it is slightly less cluttered. It took me four days to clear out one small closet, two dressers, two side tables and a chest. Four days!

And, by the way, she didn't want her old dolls or just about anything else to do with her childhood, so it all got toted home to Brooklyn in the Pan Am bag.

Related posts:
Note to self:Do not be a pack rat
The Pope

Found in Queens

I took another trip out to Queens where I spent the day attempting to clear out my Grandmother's apartment with my folks. I just want to say, everything that Queens Crap says about Flushing is absolutely true. I believe it all started 20 odd years ago when U-HAUL put their giant sign in front of the old clock tower building, obscuring the clock. You see it right before you go into the tunnel to Main Street and I curse it every single time. It's criminal. It's like Flushing's bad feng-shui beacon of doom.

Anyway, as I mentioned before about the situation at my Grandmother's apartment, the woman was a total pack rat. I spent about five hours in one corner of her bedroom. it looked a little different when I left, but not much! I didn't find an unused Merv Griffin ticket like last time but interestingly enough I found a postcard of my local beer supplier Thrifty Beverage Center in Cobble Hill. It's still there on Court Street & Kane. It looks like it's from the early 1960's. I am beyond asking why she had this or anything else in her apartment. I'm imagining she probrably was in Brooklyn for jury duty and took a stroll down Court Street. She saw the Thrifty Beverage Center and just had to go in and of course bring home a souvenir of her visit!Here are some other great postcards I found. She had tons. I imagine she went to these places on weekend bus trips or something.These are two of the "Three Little Bakers", that's Nick and Hugo, Al was probrably dead at this point if you are wondering why there are only two. They scare me a little, my grandfather was pastry chef and he never felt the need to incorporate baking and dinner theater!The "Famous" Smorgasbord at Woodloch Pines Lodge in Hawley, PA!This scene looks scarey and cold, note the mean looking woman is wearing a full on coat and fur hat.And of course, The Pope! I mentioned before that I was finding newspaper clippings and photos of the Pope everywhere. Didn't matter which Pope, as long as he was The Pope. There was definitely an obsession there. I guess if she were born in a different era she would she'd be worshipping rock stars instead.