Smokey and the Screen Door

Until she outgrew it,  my baby sister slept in a lovely little wooden cradle.   One morning my mother found our cat curled up in the cradle next to the sleeping baby.

Not an animal lover herself,  my mother had tolerated pets in the house for our sake.  (See  The Puppy in the Waiting Room and Fluffy and the Alligator Shoes).

But a cat in the cradle was too much for her.   Although I never knew her to be superstitious,   she evoked the old wives tale about cats who smell milk on babies breathe and smother them,  and she banned the cat from the baby’s room.

Years later when our son Noah was born,   my mother implored us to keep our cat Smokey out of the baby’s room at night.   To placate her we promised we’d keep the door closed.

But the baby asleep behind a closed door was intolerable to me,  and so I asked our super to install a screen door on Noah’s room.  That way we could keep the cat out of the room while we could look in.

Then one morning I realized Smokey hadn’t slept on our bed that night as he usually did.   Nor was he in the kitchen circling his bowl and meowing for breakfast.

I walked down the hall and looked through the screen door.   In the crib was the sleeping baby,  and curled up on the floor under the crib – the sleeping cat.  Apparently the night before we’d locked Smokey in Noah’s room instead of out.

Needless to say,  we didn’t tell my mother.

– Dana Susan Lehrman

The Jane Addams HS boys basketball team with Coach Jon Ostrow (Ozzie) in the blue shirt.

A Favor for the Coach

I’ve shared many memories of my years working at Jane Addams HS.   (See Magazines for the Principal , The Diary of a Young Girl,  Going Back to Work , Mr October  and The Parking Lot Seniority List)

Here’s one more.

I live in Manhattan’s upper eastside and for the many years I worked at Addams,  which is in the Bronx,   I commuted to work by car.   It was an easy drive  –  in the mornings the southbound lanes on the FDR Drive would crawl,  but I was heading north against the traffic and would breeze along.

And I’d either drive alone or carpool with other eastsiders depending on our semester’s  schedule – our school had both early and late sessions.   But one eastside colleague who was never in our carpool was my friend Ozzie.   He coached the boys basketball team and stayed late for after-school team practices and games,  and thus drove up to school himself.

However on the afternoons the team had games at other Bronx schools Ozzie would leave his car in the school parking lot,  take public transport with the boys to the host school,  after the game take a bus or subway home to Manhattan,  and the next morning take public transport back up to school.  But in addition to the inconvenience of no car for his morning commute,  leaving a car in the parking lot overnight was always a bit risky as our school was in the infamous south Bronx,  a high crime neighborhood.

And so one day Ozzie asked me if I would do him a favor and on the afternoons Addams had away games,  I  would drive his car back to Manhattan and park it.   He and I lived only a few blocks apart and of course I said yes.

Ozzie was on early session and I was usually on late,   and so rather than wake up an hour earlier to drive up with him,  I’d come to school with my carpool and later drive myself in Ozzie’s car back to Manhattan.

I garaged my own car,  but Ozzie parked his on the street so once back in our neighborhood I’d have to look for a space,  being mindful of alternative-side and the myriad of other New York City parking rules.   And as the upper eastside is the most densely populated residential neighborhood in Manhattan,  finding a legal overnight space could take as long as an hour.  Then once I found a spot,  I had to let Ozzie know where to find his car.   He and his wife Liz lived in a small apartment building that had no doorman,  or that would have been an easy solution.

So this is what we did –  I’d find a parking space,   walk home to my own building,  and then write a note saying where I’d parked .  I’d give the note with Ozzie’s car key to my doorman for Ozzie to pick up when he got back to our neighborhood after the game.

And I’m happy to say during my years at Addams we had many winning basketball seasons.   The credit goes to the boys on the teams and to their great coach of course – but maybe just a bit of the glory should go to the coach’s friend who did him a favor and parked his car!

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Birthday Bakers

Going to birthday parties has always been great fun for kids.   When I was young I’d wear a pretty party dress and my mother would take me to the birthday kid’s house,  with me proudly carrying the wrapped gift.   Then we’d put on paper hats,  play games,  and eat cake and ice cream while the celebrant’s father took home movies as we waved shyly at the camera.

A generation later things were quite different.   The birthday parties I took my son to were usually themed and held in restaurants,  gyms,  or museums,  with entertainment supplied by hired clowns or magicians.   Pizza or 6-foot heroes were usually on the menu,  and the kids were completely unfazed by the professional videographer recording the event for posterity.

But for my son’s birthdays I always tried to come up with party ideas that had special meaning for him,  and one year I capitalized on his early love for cooking and baking.   (See Reading with Hattie, Baking with Julia)

He was 7 or 8 when I hired the Birthday Bakers,  two lovely young women who arrived at our apartment bringing everything that was needed for a dozen little kids to bake and decorate a cake,  even little chef aprons for them to wear and keep.

All I was asked to do was preheat the oven while the Birthday Bakers spread everything out on our dining room table,  and helped the kids break eggs,  measure flour and the other dry ingredients,  mix the batter,  and make the icing.

Then while the cake was in the oven,  the kids sat in a circle on our living room floor and our two Birthday Bakers read them Maurice Sendak’s wonderful book In the Night Kitchen.

And that year everyone agreed our birthday party really took the cake!

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Had someone drugged the soft drink they served me, at the offices of the mining company where my newfound friends needed to make a stop? Was I influenced by the sultry thirty-something woman who insisted that I receive my first lesson in appraising sapphires?
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