I was thinking about my Grandma this morning. She had many a moniker. Grandma Basch, if you were talking about her and needed someone to know it was Mom’s mom. Mona, if friends were talking about her. Bashka, if her sisters were showing affection. She had an employment agency, and was a total “Thoroughly Modern Millie”, before her time. She called it The Mona Conrad Agency. This was a stage name she used from acting days, and Grandpa preferred it, so that the guys at the trucking company didn’t think she “had” to work. She was a spitfire, a spectacular beauty and took no bullshit. When my Papa Gene passed away, Grandma took over at the trucking company and I recall the brown paper pad on her desk with big block letters emblazoned, Mother Trucker.
For years she lived in Clifton, New Jersey. It was off of the Garden State Parkway, about 50 minutes from our home. My sister and I would often go to Grandma’s for the weekend. She lived in a cool high rise on a golf course. Papa called the 5am golfers, Schmeckles, which I always thought meant golfer in Yiddish until I was a teen. The groovy 60s building had a country meets city vibe, and seemed to me, like something out of a fancy storybook.
The building had this giant circle drive, with a giant swooped white covering, where we would drop the packages or larger bags before pulling into her garage spot. The best and friendliest doorman was Dom. Hello, Mrs. Deutsch he would say with a smile. You could tell they favorited Grandma.
The lobby itself was so extreme, it had this giant fish pond with turtles and plants and the Zen like din of its fountain feature. Visiting the turtles was a favorite adventure of mine. Sitting on the edge and putting my fingers in the water. I also liked to bring change down to the lobby candy machine to get a pack of Chuckles, and chat with Dom. It felt so very grown up to go downstairs alone. I remember riding the elevators up and down, and doing cartwheels with Danna in nightgowns down long carpeted hallways on corridors where we didn’t know a soul.
Grandma’s apartment was full of souvenirs from her travels, and trips to antiques markets, and big houses she had in the past. The favorites remained. Standouts include sofas that were covered in hand embroidered fabrics, gold threads on crème satin that looked like evening dresses. There was an enormous black plate she called “Willy”, a relief of William Shakespeare. I never knew who he was till years later, but I knew Willy was important. If you should jump on the sofa, you should be very careful not to bump him or the blue and white plates on the walls from Copenhagen.
She had a candy dish that was always freshly filled with M&Ms, minty sucking candies, Werther’s and a chocolate or few. If you went along with her to the beauty parlour where she got her hair done, you could be sure one of these candies was in her pockabook waiting for you to enjoy while you whiled the time on the round tufted settee in the center of the shop. This and the “toy chair” are total standouts in my memory. When you would arrive, Grandma would have placed a few treats for you on the chair. There was usually a crafty kind of thing, like fresh pointy crayons and an interesting word search or coloring book. It could be something to play with at the pool. She was so good at picking out these delights. She also stocked up on special cheese bread from Stop & Shop to toast up, and had this colored sugar that you would likely use to top cookies, but she allowed us to sprinkle over Rice Krispies or Special K for breakfast.
When you went to the pool with Grandma, she always had these lovely monogrammed towels that had elastic at the edges that fit the chaise lounge just right. Each yellow swath emblazoned Mona, in navy cursive. She was very fancy, in a kind of not so fancy way. I loved the way she sat criss-cross apple sauce on the chair and told you stories and adventures mostly of her two sisters Petie and Zibby, or something funny or naughty about Mom. She taught us lots of old timey songs too.
One of my all-time favorite traditions of being with Grandma, was to sit just this way on her bedspread, her jewelry box opened like a treasure chest, and her charm bracelet out for admiring. “This one, this is a high heel I won for being in a dance contest.” When charm holders were all the rage in the 80s, she bestowed a few of her classics on me, that shoe included. She also had fabric covered bolsters to match the spread, and it fascinated me the way her bed pillows squished up in these tubes, disappearing into the décor scheme. Another big day, was going for school supplies annually. She leaned on the card as we slowly rolled along the rows picking out and reviewing all the options in new pencils and notebooks and loads of things you didn’t even need for school, but she wanted you to have, like a pack of colored paper—to this day my love for these trips, pencil cases and fresh notebooks lives on.
Two particular memories came to me recently. One is the knowing that Grandma placed my Dad in his first ever advertising job. He graduated with a degree in pharmacy, but Grandma seemed keen to combine his creative spark and Midwestern charm and sent him off to meet with an agency specializing in doctor direct work. His background in medicine was the perfect fit, and wouldn’t you know, it became his lifelong and quite legendary career.
The second, and one that to this day is deliciously scandalous, is the day we pulled into her usual garage spot, and once again the neighbor car had pulled in so tight – it was tricky to get out.
Grandma had reported this hideous violation to Dom numerous times, and this day she took matters into her own red nail polished and Nivea smooth hands.
I saw her reach into her bag, take out her signature red Lauder lipstick from its golden container and begin to write on this gent’s front window. Sister and I watched wide-eyed. In her finest loopy penmanship she wrote, “You are parked too fucking close to my car.“ She looked at us and smirked. Not sure if she knew we could read her manifesto or was just proud of her handiwork, but it was epic and lives on in my “best of days” book.
When Grandma was in her mid-60s, she moved to a very pretty retirement community to be closer to us. I could bike there it was so close. One day after she had moved in, I did just that. She shared story after story as she found a place for her treasures in her new space. She got ill and had complications from her emphysema and never came back to that house. She never came home at all. I remember all the sadness of that time. She left an unfillable void and remarkable life behind. Not to mention a few badass women.
I am not sure what made me think of her today. There are vivid memories as the eldest grandchild that just sit so firmly and strongly in my heart and memory. They tap along in my mind’s eye like her long, strong nails tip tapping on the piano keys. Taking them out today, like she did her jewelry box, fancy dresses and evening robes, sometimes feels just right.
PS. I just learned from my Aunt Trudy that this piece has been written on what would be their wedding anniversary.
