My Russian-Polish immigrant grandparents lived on the 12th floor of an old brick high-rise towering above Avenue R between Ocean Parkway and Kings Highway in Brooklyn,New York. It was the 1950s: a promising black and white cookie decade when good was good, bad was bad and people believed in something bigger than themselves.

Over school vacations, my parents threw the five of us into the station-wagon. We clamored for the back-back, not the middle seat, then sat squished together, unbuckled and fortified with treats. This was before seat belts, Ipods and TVs for mobile entertainment. Dad drove the distance from Massachusetts to Manhattan on friendly local roads, rambling through small towns sprinkled with stop-lights, penny candy shops and open public restrooms. Later, these back roads were replaced with major highways, cutting travel time in half. By then, we were grown and scattered.

New Americans were hard-working folk. My Grandpa,The Tailor, schlepped around his industrial sewing machine mending and stitching seasonal jobs. During one slow season, he made each daughter-in-law a raccoon coat. Decades later, when wearing animals was boycotted, these coats disappeared. During the coldest east coast winters, I often wished I could don one. Just the thought warmed me up, reminding me of a certain kind of familial love binding generations.

Grandpa played the accordion by ear, ate a loaf of marbled rye daily, and smoked heavily even during a bout of pneumonia while attached to an oxygen tank. He had the enthusiasm of a toddler. Once, while visiting the suburbs, he mounted a two-wheeler belonging to his youngest grandchild, then took off, riding gleefully, fast up the street for a spin. A raging argument about safety erupted inside the house around the kitchen table. We were not debating the use of guns. “So he’ll die doing what he loves,” spoke the Voice of Reason embodied in his youngest son, The Artist, usually the quiet Dreamer.

In his mid-80s, Grandpa rode the subway late at night to turn into a Ticket -Taker at a dimly lit red-curtained movie theater on 42nd Street in Manhattan. Years later, we grandchildren realized it was not a full-featured cinema, rather an X-rated porn palace.

Mugged once,Thugs took his watch, shoes and cigarettes. When they told him to strip before their get-away, he pleaded with them to leave his clothes behind so he could go home clad. For some reason they agreed. A bit shaken, but unharmed, Grandpa got back on the Q Train rattling his way back to Brooklyn, barefoot.

My Grandma was a Lady. The Wise One. The Queen. Her name gracefully fit her like snug leather gloves, a flowing floral duster clinched at the waist and a petit string of pearls. She worked at a women’s and girls’ clothing store owned by my Eldest Uncle, fittingly called The Adorable Shop. On Fridays, Grandma punched in and out early, working only a half day so she could go to the Beauty Parlor for her weekly wash, set and fresh red manicure. Only to walk home thereafter to cook a chicken dinner, looking beautiful.

At home, she ruled her roost, keeping a rogue husband and three wild sons who shared one bedroom in line, sometimes with only her voice or a look. Other times, with a spoon or rolling-pin.

A cracker-jack Mahjong Wiz, Baker of butter cookies that became a local coffee shop favorite, Grandma too was a heavy smoker and black coffee drinker, always carrying Chiclets in her bag. She had sparkling blue eyes, jiggling arms and a heart big enough to hold us all: ten grandchildren–half boys, half girls– even those unruly and out of control. She taught us to play cards. We all adored her.

Grandma always asked me, “Are you happy”?

It was an impossible question, too broad to interpret or answer.

Never wanting to disappoint, however, I usually replied,”Yes!”  Though once, heartbroken after a bruising breakup, I lied. “Of course”, I muttered in a crackling voice. Seeing right through me, Grandma wisely said nothing.

Regarding my future love life and life at large, Grandma later advised :

 ” Always dress nicely, wear clean underwear and smile”.

 “Who knows?” she proclaimed,

 “You might get into an accident – god forbid- but the person who hit your car might ask you out for dinner… you just never know who you might meet,” she continued, then paused….

Fifty years later, I remember that moment clear as seltzer:

while uncharacteristically batting her eyelashes–

My Grandma, coyly and emphatically concluded,

“even when you take out the trash”.