Shadows in the Garden

When New Year's Eve still meant Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians, I used to travel with my grandmother. New York City to see Doris Day and David Niven in "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" at Radio City Music Hall, dinner at a magnificent restaurant with statues of mermaids suspended from the ceiling. New York State by way of the Cabot Trail, Washington, D.C. and before I was old enough to go to school, winters in a small cottage in Daytona Beach where I rode a glass bottom boat. I was allowed room service - we never stayed at motels because she scorned any accomodation with less than ten stories and she would never have carried her own bags - and though I still can't remember exactly why, I was never allowed to be barefoot in hotel rooms, as if she didn't quite trust the carpeting.

If we were home on New Year's Eve, we dressed up - I was even allowed a tiny touch of makeup - and we ate shrimp cocktails, celery and olives, crackers and cheese and drank Canada Dry ginger ale from champagne glasses.
Guy Lombardo played and Times Square was a wonderland of colored lights and music and noise. We would listen to the countdown, watch the amazing ball drop, and it would be a new year, a better year, she would always promise me. And some years, it was.

I think of my grandmother often these days, trying to recall her as she honestly was. I'm inclined to forget that she had her shadow side - anti semitic, anti-catholic, anti-black. They were feelings she expressed only in the most subtle ways but she did try to pass them on. I suspect she'd be shocked if she'd been accused of racism or religious bigotry, she saw herself as simply having rules and standards. Everyone has their place in life, she would tell me, it's important to know what your station is and not try to be above it. To a child, the words sounded reasonable and true but Nana was as damaged and flawed as anyone else. She just did a better job of hiding it.