Some time ago, I was asked to write a “grandparent’s book” of reminiscences for my grandchildren. In the ‘old days,’ this used to be a book of blank pages with a heading at the top of each page indicating the subject or focus of each separate entry to help guide both the writer and the reader through many years of childhood and adult memories. All of the questions the grandparent was encouraged to answer were in chronological order from “To whom in your family did you feel closest?” and “At what point did you move away from home?” to “How did you meet grandpa/ grandma?” and “In times of trouble who or what has helped pull you through?” There were questions about the grandparent’s values, advice, and opportunities to record reflections on maturity and ageing among many others. My mother diligently filled out her answers to the questions she was asked, and the book remains a treasury of her thoughts.
The electronic age has put an end to this simple way of recording the past. Instead, the grandparent is given a list of topics chosen by a family member, and is expected to write an answer and send it in to the on-line “publisher” who promises to “publish” a book complete with photos submitted, undoubtedly at extra cost to the buyer. No editing or proof-reading is offered: this is too expensively time-consuming, and time, remember, is money. You do your own editing. One of these topics asked me what was one of the bravest things I have done. I am enclosing it here, in an edited version for Story Quilt readers.
‘I made a trip to New York with my wife (and your grandmother) when she was pregnant with our first child, so there were three of us in danger when we left the subway train there. We wanted to visit The Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum that overlooked the Hudson River and held art of the medieval period and in order to admire their paintings of unicorns, a particular interest of your grandmother. I decided to take the subway without knowing which exit would be closest to the museum. When we left the train, we discovered that we were in the heart of Harlem, in those days a dangerous place for those who did not know the area. We went up the escalator to try to find a uniformed official to ask for directions, but the booth was unoccupied, so we retraced our steps to wait for the next train, but it was too long in coming. As we were the only ones left on the platform, we decided to seek help upstairs again, only to discover that the stairs were blocked by five young men, one carrying a tape player then known as a ‘ghetto blaster.’ They appeared to want to bar our way as was intended by their bearing, I thought, this could mean harm to us. We were clearly tourists, as your grandmother was wearing her trademark Hudson’s Bay coat, and I was carrying a backpack.
