*This apartment was in the heart of the city in a fairly rundown old red brick two-story duplex converted into a fourplex, but at the time, anything was better than living with my parents. Stan and I were in our final year in college. The apartment came furnished with a double mattress and box spring (no bed frame) and a gawd-awful gold-colored mid-century sleeper couch. It was convenient that there were two places to sleep since my parents freaked out if they thought I actually slept with Stan. They were so naive and easily placated by telling them "no, we weren't." We slept on the mattress, but not the sleeper couch. That thing was pretty uncomfortable, but not as bad as one sleeper couch we slept on as guests in someone's house once...that thing had that bar going down the center that would kill anyone's back, as it did Elaine's in that famous Seinfeld episode where she had to take muscle relaxants for the pain. Stella! Stellllaaaaa!
**This couch was like something out of the early last century...20s? 30s? Who knows, maybe it was as old as my grandmother's house, which was built around 1910 or so. It was made with a maroon velvet fabric with a large floral print. The style was rounderd, not angular like the one that replaced it. In its day, I'm sure it was gorgeous, but by the time it reached my era, it was a collapsed shell of its former self. The cushions were all flat, yet oddly puffy at the same time. It was not a sittable couch, but served as storage for afghans and linens and was moved to the dining room where it was out of the way. It had been replaced by a mid-century (1950s?) green angular couch and chair set in the living room. which was more stylish for the geometric modern times, but felt out of place in a bungalow with floral wallpaper and built in wooden cabinets with leaded glass doors.
Labels: Dreams
8 Comments:
Sorry I never had a chance to see the inside of your grandmother's house. The couch in our first place was bad, and I think most of those kinds of couches are bad to sleep on...Stella!
Wouldn't it have been strange if we could have stayed at your grandmother's house and we might have had to sleep on the couch?
You remind me of a dream I had about 4-5 weeks ago. Your grandfather, whom was passed away long before we met, came to me in a dream and told me (in short) that I was suppose to be a union steward. Wasn't he in a union?
If things were different and my grandmother was still able to function and live at her house in Racine while we were going out, and we decided to take a trip to Racine (assuming she was still alive as well), we wouldn't have to sleep on any couch. She had a rollout bed/cot, which I slept on (probably one of the wonky ones we slept on at my parents house before they got the futons), and also there was a bedroom (where my mom slept when she visited) with a very wonky-mattressed double bed...you know, the old fashioned metal frame kind of bed that freaks you out.
Anyway, yes, my grandfather who I don't remember (the one married to the above grandmother) was in a union. That's pretty weird. What did he look like? From old pics and from what my mom tells me, he looked like Oliver Wendell Douglas, which, when I was young, got all confusulated in my child-mind because my grandmother lived on Douglas Avenue, and my grandmother spoke with an accent similar to Lisa Douglas, and part of Racine at that time was very country rural what with vegetable vendors and the egg man that came door to door (Mr. Haney?). I was confused sort of in a similar way when I thought I was at the Kennedy/Onassis weddding in Massachusetts when some cousin of my dad's was getting married. There was some relative by marriage...Olivera was the name...who looked like Onassis...Olivera, Onassis...to a 6 year old it's all the same.
I think your mom showed us a photo of him with some other beer drinking looking sorts who were likely his friends. I don't remember much of what I saw in the dream, and mostly remember it being like a Lost thing - like Jack we have to go back to the island and we were never suppose to leave - as if I was already suppose to be a union steward and had missed the timing and was late.
Do you think your grand father looks anything like my uncle Al?
Yeah, kinda like Uncle Al, except Al seemed puffier and angrier than the pictures I remember of my grandfather. Uncle Al looked more like Boris Yeltsin to me.
He was an angry man, and it's sort of strange that he never seem to get over the idea that the streets in this country were suppose to be paved with gold. He really had a great deal here in his time and I imagine he would have been an angry man even if he had stayed in the old country.
I'm glad your grandfather wasn't that angry.
Those beer drinking guys might have been his brothers...he had 6 of them.
Oh, the large farm family thing that use to be so common.
I'm sure my grandfather had some stress in his day, especially during the war when the factory went on overtime. He would walk in his sleep. My mom had some really freaky stories about that I probably told you...night terrors where he was waiting to attack people. I don't know if he was angry or not, but he did die of a stroke at 68.
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