My Heart Remembers My Grandmother’s Hotel

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My Heart Remembers My Grandmother’s Hotel

The leader of a writing workshop I took years ago asked us to think back to our earliest memories and write about a place our heart remembers.   I thought of my grandmother’s hotel in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York where I spent childhood summers.  (See My Game Mother,   The Troubadour and Hotel Kittens)

When I was 11 my grandmother was no longer able to run it,  and the hotel was sold.   Then years  later when the Catskills were no longer fashionable we heard that a developer had taken over the property and razed the buildings to the ground.   But my heart remembers the hotel just as it was those long-ago summers when I was a child,  and so I wrote about it in a child’s voice.

“At my grandma’s hotel we have a hill and I can roll right down all the way to the lake.   And we have a dock and we have four rowboats,  and they have their names on them.   My mother painted the names and one rowboat has my name – DANA!

And there’s a waterfall where the lake gets very small and goes underneath the Neversink Road into the woods.  And at the other end of the lake there’s a special place –  the swamp where the big snapping turtles live.   Sometimes my father takes me there in the rowboat and we sneak up on a big old turtle if he is sleeping on a rock and if I’m very careful my father let’s me tap old Mister Turtle VERY GENTLY with my oar!

And at my grandma’s hotel a favorite place to hide is under the porch.   No one can see me there,  but I can hear the people talking and if it’s before the time to eat I can hear the waiters inside the dining room setting up the tables and the tinkly noise of the glasses and the plates and the spoons.

Then when it’s time to eat my grandma goes on the porch and rings the big dinner bell to tell the people to come,  and all the grownups come to the dining room.   And all the kids come too and we run to the children’s dining room in back of the big dining room.   It’s noisy in the children’s dining room but no one makes us be quiet so it’s fun.

My grandma has a cook and a salad man and a baker and a dishwasher man,  but my father says sometimes they quit or they get drunk or my grandma has to fire them and then my grandma is the real cook.  And sometimes my grandma is the real baker too and she makes apple strudel for the dessert on a big table where she rolls out the dough with a big rolling pin.   And guess who my grandma says is her very best helper?    She says it’s ME!”

– Dana Susan Lehrman

The Puppy in the Waiting Room

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The Puppy in the Waiting Room 

I don’t know if I really remember some of the stories my parents would tell about my naughty or my endearing childhood antics,  or if I’ve heard them so often I think I do.  But I remember how we found Fluffy in the waiting room as if it happened yesterday.

When I was growing up we lived over the store – actually over my father’s office.   Nowadays my dad would be called an internist or a primary care physician,  but in those days he was just a GP.  In fact he was the kind of GP who could take out your appendix or deliver your baby,  and he actually made house calls carrying his iconic black medical bag.   Hearing he was a doctor,  someone once asked my father what his speciality was.  “The skin and its contents.”   he replied.   (See GP)

My dad’s office was on the first floor of our house,  and the front parlor served as a waiting room you entered directly from the street.  My father’s dentist friend Ben shared the office space and their patients shared the waiting room.  (See Laughing Gas and the Chestnut Tree)

One day both Ben and my dad had busy schedules and the waiting room was full.  Later they both remembered the little dog curled up on the rug,  but each assumed it belonged to one of the other man’s patients.

In fact we never learned how that collarless puppy got into the waiting room –  if she was a stray who wandered in from the street when the door was open,  or if someone thought a doctor’s waiting room was a good place to abandon an unwanted pet.

In any case,  when office hours were over and all the patients were gone,  the dog was still in the waiting room,  and so my father carried her upstairs.

“Would you like to keep the little ball of fluff?”   he asked me,  gently placing a warm white and brown puppy in my arms.

But Fluffy was licking my face and I couldn’t speak,  so my mother settled the matter.

“The answer is yes.”   she said.

– Dana Susan Lehrman 

Once a Troublemaker …

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“She finds trouble wherever she goes,” my younger brother said of me back in the 1980’s. It was meant as a compliment. At least I chose to take it as such. He said this after I had led (or participated in–I can’t recall for sure) a walkout of reporters at the East Bay weekly paper, The Montclarion. It was the right thing to do. The publisher who owned the paper had fired the editor for running a perfectly good, well-researched article accusing the Emeryville police chief (who happened to be a friend of the publisher) of gambling the city’s money at a local card club. What were we supposed to do? Allow  the publisher, without objecting, to ignore the public’s right to know? So we had a meeting and decided to walk out, believing that all the local media outlets would cheer us on. Which they did. Until it was clear that he would fire us en masse, and some of them could have our jobs. Oh well. I only regretted losing that job for a few years. (I got over it last year.)

My brother was right. I did seem to be wherever trouble brewed. Prior to my dream job reporting for the Montclarion, I worked for a small business consulting firm in marketing. But I was always trying to convince the boss to let me write a newsletter for them. So he finally relented. He asked me to write an internal bulletin about the company to hype the company for employees. He was a real salesman, and was intent on selling franchise prototypes of his company to anyone who would buy one. They were, in fact, selling like hotcakes. (Perhaps more like Gamestop shares last week, if you’ve been following.) Anyway, as I watched these franchises selling far and wide across California as he gave his spiel in one city after another, I realized we were going to be hard-pressed to teach all these folks how to make their purchases profitable. So I wrote the front page story of the bulletin, starting with the line, “The MTC is going to have to do some fast dancing to keep up with the speed at which Michael can sell these franchises.” I thought it was a great opening. He didn’t. He called me into his office and gave me hell. I started looking for a new career shortly thereafter.

And even before that, when I was in college marching against the Viet Nam war, my photo was on the front page of the Michigan Daily, causing my father to disown me. I had my work cut out for me, trying to get back into his good graces so I could finish college, and also convincing him that he, in fact, had taught me to speak out for what I believed in. Eventually he came around and became outspoken about the lies we were told.

At the end of my junior year of high school I was ready to step into the job of editor of next year’s yearbook. I’d worked hard the previous three years to earn that position and everyone expected it would be mine. So when the faculty advisor walked into our yearbook office to introduce a boy to our staff, a boy we all knew, a boy who he said would be a great editor-in-chief for next year’s yearbook, I was not having it. I fought loud and hard to retain my position. Remember, this was 1964. It was considered much more important for a boy to have something like “editor” on his resume for college than it was for a girl. But my father had taught me to fight for what was by rights mine. I could be whatever I wanted (as long as I didn’t beat the boys at bowling) if I worked hard for it, he’d said. So I made my case. I wasn’t settling for the booby prize of some minor editorship. But I did end up having to negotiate a co-editorship. Which didn’t turn out to be too bad. We created a great yearbook, we both got into good colleges, and we fell in love.

So I guess my troublemaking goes way back. Have I mellowed with age? Probably not. I march and speak out– in smaller venues, perhaps– but once a troublemaker, always a troublemaker, I guess.

 

Madam President: The Storm Before the Storm

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I imagine the smoke-filled room: a group of fat cats sit around a table. Their shirt sleeves are rolled up, they puff on stumpy cigars, their foreheads are slick with sweat. It’s getting late; the hours tick by while the discussion gets heated. Voices get louder and the shouted comments are laced with profanity. Fists pound  the table. Tempers are wearing thin. What’s going on in this room? What’s it all about?The election is coming up. Someone has to be nominated for president.

But who?
Names are tossed around and rejected. One of the cigar smokers leans back from the table and stares at the ceiling, deep in thought.
 What about…? He tosses out a name. Someone he thinks will “play ball.”
Around the table, everyone snaps to attention. A new name to consider. An unknown. No experience? What difference does that make, as long as the agenda will be adhered to? As long as the status quo remains, uh, the status quo…
A hush falls over the room then. Time to choose someone so they can all go home before daybreak.  One by one, they nod, then take several contemplative puffs on their stogies. It is done.
And this is how I was nominated for the office of PTA president at my children’s elementary school in 1990.
Well,  maybe it was not quite like that. But still, my name was put out there and I got votes.
And so began my year of living dangerously in the PTA.

It was my very own annus horribilis.  I had the bad luck to get elected, and found myself in the middle of a politically divisive controversy. Do the details matter any more, nearly thirty years later? They do to me.

So don’t get me started on the subject of how one person can piss some people off so much they practically have a torch and pitchfork parade in her honor, while others believe that sainthood isn’t out of the question. And I am not talking about myself here. I’m talking about the school’s principal.

This situation is not unique. I’ve heard stories about one person causing a rift in a community or an organization that goes beyond–way beyond–reason.  I was clearly on the side of evil, according to some, while others believed, as I did, that the party in question was being maligned for no good reason. Hatfields and McCoys. Sharks and Jets. Something like that. Everyone took a side, one way or the other.

And another thing: I read the bylaws of the organization and put a stop to the way the funds were being used. Every party needs a pooper, and that was me.

I  saw how out of compliance we were, especially when it came to how the money was being spent.  I took some serious flak from people who felt very differently about spending PTA funds for things (gifts, parties) other than programs and enrichment for kids. Call me crazy, but rules are rules. And I believe in following the rules, even when I ruffle some feathers. Yeah, takin’ it to the streets, old (elementary) school style. How can you be a rebel and a stickler at the same time? A funny line to walk, but that’s the way it happened.

Some people  thought I was the worst president since…I don’t even know. (This was a very long time ago.)

I learned a lot that year about friendship and loyalty and how normally reasonable people can dig themselves in so deep that there’s no talking to them. Backstabbers: they’re out there. They smile in your face, etc.

I also learned that there are more than two ways to look at any problem, and I wish I’d had the wisdom to see that in the heat of the controversy. On the plus side, I did learn to be more comfortable speaking in front of groups, and I found out that there actually are benefits to taking an unpopular stand and sticking with it when you know it’s the right thing to do.

 

It was my first and last experience of getting elected to any office, however unimportant. No thanks!
I finished my term in the spring of 1991. When it was over, I couldn’t imagine living through anything that horrible again. As they say, little did I know…The worst was yet to come.
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