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Other Writings
RHODA'S MEMOIR, RHODA: HER FIRST NINETY YEARS IS NOW AVAILABLE AT:  www.Amazon.com
           Dream/ Memory
           We lived on Millard Avenue on the lower west side of Chicago from 1918, my birth year, until 1930, when I was twelve, and I have had this recurring dream many times.

           In my dream, I get off the street car on Twelfth Street, walk two blocks west to Millard, passing the Jewish butcher, the drug store on the corner where it's possible to buy, for "two cents plain," a soda glass of nose-tingling seltzer water. (Five cents bought me flavored syrup spritzed into my glass while I twirled around on the counter stool). On the next block, I pass the grocery store where the Jewish grocer sold me hard candy or chewing gum for a nickel. I can hear the song in my head as I walk down the street, "My ma gave me a nickel/to buy a pickle/I didn't buy no pickle/but I bought some tsooing gum/tsooing gum."

           I turn left on Millard, and suddenly I'm running, past the duplexes, red brick with slanted red-tiled roofs sheltering the porches. Each narrow house has a small flight of steps leading down from the steps to a concrete walk. No fences, sometimes a small patch of grass to one side of the walk. I run and run, but my house, on the left, about one-third of the way down, eludes me. I try to see ahead, to the lower end of that long block, down to Cicero Avenue, but it's dark and vaguely ominous.

           Suddenly, I see my house, and I become myself, on my knees, my chin resting on the windowsill, looking out over the slanted tile roof, across the street where my friends, Irving and Harry, Bessie and Tillie, are playing under the street lamp on a hot, humid night in July.

           My dream changes, and I find myself jolted awake. I lie in my comfortable small bed in the mother-in-law apartment built on the patio of my house in Berkeley, California. The year is 2006 and I am eighty-eight years old. I open the blinds and look out on the garden, flooded with full moonlight. As I sit on my carpeted floor, wrapped in a blanket, gazing out through the floor to ceiling windows, I remember viscerally that particular hot night in Chicago, when I am seven years old.

           At that age, I was seldom allowed to play outside at night, and on this particular night, I was sent to my small bedroom off the living room at seven-thirty. This was a vastly unfair time to go to bed, when it was still light outside and the voices of my friends playing under the streetlight just opposite taunted me with their chanting happiness.

           All the windows in the flat were open to catch whatever breeze interrupted the smothering humidity. My bedroom window opened onto slanting red tiles, with a drainpipe anchoring the right-hand side of the roof. I kneeled on the floor in front of the open window, my elbows resting on the sill, just a few inches from the roof, watching the activity across the street, consumed with envy.

           Suddenly I saw my parents, my sisters Sara, Jeanne, Fay, and my brother Al troop out of the house and amble up the block. They were going to visit a neighbor whose father had died recently. My mother was carrying the family's offering--a chocolate frosted sponge cake.

           They were gone! Quickly, I shucked my pajamas, put on pants and a shirt, stepped through the open window onto the sloping roof. Moving cautiously to the right, I grabbed onto the drainpipe and shinnied down to the street. My friends, Irving, Harry, Bessie and Tillie, greeted me happily.

           "Hey, Rhoda! You made it! We were just going to play "Living Statues."

           "OKAY! Let's go! Are you first, Harry?" I jumped up and down.

           Harry leaned on the lamppost, his back to us, covering his eyes with his hand. He began to count..."one, two, three..." As he counted we ran off in all directions, trying to get out of sight before he said, "ten!" Then we froze in as many funny positions as we could, and Harry looked at us carefully to see if any of us moved at all. If he saw anyone moving even the smallest bit, that person was out. Then he turned around again, and we ran and hid. The game was for Harry to try to find anyone he could, and then race that person to the lamppost. If Harry got there first, he was still in the game, but if one of us got there before him, Harry was out and we started over again. After that we played "Kick the Can."

           We were in the middle of "Kick the Can," our version of soccer, when Irving shouted, "Hey, Rhoda! Here come your folks around the corner! Better go back!"

           I scrambled up the brick steps to the porch, grabbed hold of the pipe, but my hands kept slipping. Irving and Harry ran up the steps; Harry bent over and Irving boosted me onto Harry's back. I clutched the eave and pulled myself onto the roof. Scrambling through the open window, I ducked into bed with my clothes on, pulling the light cover over my head, closing my eyes, trying to slow down my heavy breathing. I heard Fay come into our room briefly and then go out again. I knew I would have a few minutes while she spent some time with the rest of the family gossiping about who was at the Beckers' that night. That gave me enough time to get out of my clothes, throw them in the closet, slip on my pajamas, get back into bed and turn my face to the wall.

           My sister Fay and I shared that room called a bedroom, although it was really just an alcove, curtained off from the living room by a heavy blue velvet drape. The bed took up almost all of the space, making it necessary to move sideways to get to the small closet behind the bed.

           Our flat was a long, "railroad car" style, with a several windows in the living room facing the street. The living room led to a long hall which passed the entry door and proceeded down to the dining room, from which a kitchen on the left led to a screened-in back porch. Two bedrooms on the left and a single bathroom on the right opened off the hall. My parents had the larger of the two bedrooms; Jeanne and Sara shared the other one. Al slept on a couch in the dining room, keeping his clothes in a hall closet. Mornings were shouting bedlam. With only one bathroom for seven people, Al was the only one to get the bathroom all to himself. There was much pounding on the door and shouts of "What are you DOING in there? Your ten minutes were up five minutes ago!" I remember hopping up and down the hall with crossed legs to keep from peeing in my pants.

           I sigh contentedly, relishing the quiet singleness of my life, and go back to bed to finish the night, the dream played out, never to return.




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