Dolly and I moved into our efficiency apartment , in the fall just before school started. We decorated with what we brought from K.C., Mo, got cheap at second hand stores, or what Daddy sent us. It felt modern to have bunk beds. We draped “cool” aqua fishnet – imagining ourselves mermaids. We splurged on the purchase of a used record player and round speakers that had and 2 records: James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James and Moody Blues Days of Future Passed. Our exposure to the music of the 60’s and 70’s had been through TV or radio ( “WHB – the world’s happiest broadcasters” ). We watched Ed Sullivan, Laugh-In, Sonny and Cher, Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk with Nanny on her color TV. Like all in our generation, we were Beatles fans, but I was enchanted by The Carpenters. In October, ’71 Rod Stewart’s Maggie May came out and can still bring me right back to that time . We had gone through such a confusing time. Now in Madison, we were teenagers in a city of teenagers and 20 year olds and caution flew to the wind . Teri lived upstairs from us in the apartment building and introduced us to marijuana, Quincy Jones and Isaac Hayes. She had the coolest apartment with a glass covered wagon for a coffee table on a zebra pattern area rug. We smoked pot, ate ice cream and granola, chocolate cake and coffee, and went for rides in her car. I enrolled at West High , but spent many hours away from the campus , exploring my newfound freedom or lost in dreams. Leaving Kansas City meant leaving behind attempts to fit in with the “in” crowd. My junior year of high school at West was a chance at a new identity, but who was I ? Owning a bicycle in Madison was essential. Mine was a rickety three dollar three speed. We rode Lakeshore Path, canoed from the UW student union across Lake Mendota to Picnic Point, hiked and hitchhiked back and forth to the UW campus. We ate the legendary ice cream made at Babcock Hall, drank pitchers of beer in the Rathskeller, and raided the gardens we thought were experimental UW Ag gardens, but which were student housing community gardens. Nanny came to visit us that fall, and was initiated into all of our exploits. Somewhere there is a picture of Nanny standing in the gardens biting into a contraband tomato
That Thanksgiving, Dolly and I took the train to Chicago and the El Train to Evanston to share the holiday with Ruth Louise , who was living in a dorm at Northwestern. The dorm had one kitchen available to students. We were last in line and finally ate turkey and stuffing and all the fixings ( including green beans cooked in a coffeepot ) after midnight. Nanny took the train from Kansas City to join us for our first feast away from home. We likely slept in Ruth’s small dorm room, and Nanny on a couch in the commons area. Thanksgiving had traditionally been at Nanny’s home, prepared solely by her. Certainly the pain of losing her daughter, and then all of the grandchildren to locations far from home must have weighed heavily on her heart. She was willing to forego comfort and even dignity for the salve of being close to the children she had given so much of her life to raise. There have been many Thanksgivings and delicious meals since, but the pleasure of waiting for and sharing good food we had prepared ourselves began that night with our midnight meal.
Secrets from Granny 