Sitting on the porch in Parksville

I sometimes wonder, if I sat outside the new-ish Parksville Post Office, which was built on the site of our own beloved Bauman House some years ago, and I listened to the sounds and sighs of a summer night, would my dreams become reality? Would I be transported by my own yearning to those halcyon days of my long lost youth and vigor? Would there be a magic carpet flying me through the ages, leaving what is, until I arrived at what was?

That post office, way too big for the tiny hamlet, would simply evaporate and be replaced by our own Little House, with its very big porch. Like those of us aging humans, the house was barely standing at the end of its long life, but the memories that went down with it were too powerful to be buried. They are remembered and shared to this day, transmitted by links to our very own stories.

Don’t get me wrong! I’m not a crazy person rejecting today’s life, and especially, today’s cast of characters. There are so many loved ones in my life that only a fool would want to turn the clock back and ignore those who brighten the stars in the sky for me each and every day. “No way!” says Savta Rabba Ro, the me of today, who just said good-bye to sabra great-grandson Nael Beeri, almost one year old, at his home in Jerusalem, after sharing an international rendition of “Bye-bye Black Sheep” on Facetime.

I only want to return to one place, for one brief moment. Is it not okay to want to hear my mother’s voice calling that dinner is ready, just one more time? And what a dinner it would be. She cooked endlessly, for each of us our own favorites. My sister would have a daily dose of thin, well-done steak. Pop would have homemade soup, rich with flanken, its globules of fat floating atop the savory, magically delicious broth. Mom never learned how to make anemic flavorless soup. Dad would eat anything, always proclaiming that if Mom cooked it, he would love it, and he always did! I once heard him rhapsodizing about a mélange of leftovers that Mom had put aside for our beloved mutt Phoebe.

Me? So many of her creations that I now long for, blintzes, stuffed cabbage, meat borscht, endless lavish dishes that she always proclaimed were so easy to make. Ha! Not true, but truly labors of love.

I never remember her cooking anything for herself. Her only real indulgence was not food-related, beyond the pleasure on our faces when meals were served. She did display a bit of extravagance at her weekly seasonal attendance at Broadway theaters, where she and her buddies from childhood, Shirley and Esther, went every Tuesday night for $2 second balcony seats. Her reviews were spot-on. I still recall her raves after “South Pacific.” With all her Brooklyn College education and brilliance, her embrace of the arts, opera, classical music, theater, Victorian poetry, and great literature, she always considered us to be her real career. She was on the job until the day she left us forever.

And so I conjure us, sated from dinner, sitting on that porch, with its pale green slatted rocking chairs, avocado colored, but who knew from avocados then, and the border bench, for those who arrived too late to grab a rocker. Pop would never be amongst us. He was always too busy stoking the coal stove so we could all enjoy hot water, from early morning until late at night, or making repairs, endless repairs. He was lucky that Mom knew his favorite foods, so that, at least, he would briefly stop to eat. His thin frame was easily and quickly filled.

Aunt Fannie would be there, rocking with gusto while looking out for her one and only son Eleazer, known to all as El, to make absolutely certain that Pop wasn’t working him too hard on the young man’s post bar mitzvah days, and nights, when he was Pop’s eager assistant — and that he wasn’t sweating. I hear the call still. “El, you’re sveating.” No. The v is not a typo. She couldn’t pronounce the w! Pop would look at her with disdain, at those frequent moments thinking the unsaid, a healthy boy could, and should, work!

Fannie was never one of Pop’s favorite people. She came from the same town as he did in Poland, and as he never tired of telling us, she was a guest at his wedding to her cousin Peshka, my grandmother. This, of course, he thought obviously and condescendingly, made her both a cousin and much older than his son David, Uncle Dave, the magnificent, who made what Pop considered a grievous error when he married her. El was adopted, but was never told the truth of his birth, which became the basis for many family stories, including the one where his biological mother came to Uncle Charlie’s dental office in search of her son. El and I were the same age, very close and dear cousins, but we were both too young to remember the certain and terrible drama of that moment.

But, pardon my diversion as I return to that beloved porch. Of course it came equipped with all the haunting, yet usually charming, night sounds and visuals. There were the fireflies, innocently igniting their sparks in the air to light the darkness. And the chirps of the crickets, creating a loud hum, a veritable orchestra, singing their favorite melody, always the same, always in tune, even without a conductor. There was the occasional owl and sometimes, a few steps below, the slithering of some unknown creature, reptilian or mammalian. Worst of all was the skunk, unseen but not undetected. At times, the dog got skunked, a verb, as we all smelled it, loathed it, and knew right away it would be long lasting and profoundly horrid.

Mrs. Lipschitz was always there, in her forever long life, enjoying every topic of discussion but contributing little. Her daughter Flo and son-in-law Mr. Levine were also good listeners but rare talkers. I cannot say why he was always called Mr. Levine. Not my decision.

Sometimes Auntie Bessie was perched on the porch as well. She was from Boston and thought she was a superior being, a Brahmin. She wasn’t. Other times she would have whisked her little family off to Seagate, Coney Island’s center of elitism, turning up her nose at our primitive Catskill facility.

The porch sitters were mostly the same every summer, with only Bessie’s unpredictability, unless the dreaded angel of death had come and swooped in during the long winter. Sometimes that would happen. One year we suddenly lost our cherished Uncle Dave, at only 53 years old. That was very tough.

The dogs, however, were more temporary participants. There were several of them over the years, starting with the genius Phoebe, who always knew when Shabbat was coming and would perch herself on the bench corner where she would gaze longingly at the parking lot, awaiting Dad each Friday afternoon. When he finally pulled in, as candle-lighting time was almost upon us, she would leap off the bench and, seemingly with wings, on an old and very fat dog with serious asthma, she would wag her tail enough to swat flies, exuberantly, joyfully and with abandon. The love of her life, Sam, had arrived. All was well in her world.

And in ours as well.

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of nine. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com

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