Free Too Close to the Falls by Catherine Gildiner

word
alchemy
in a Nancy Drew mystery story, she had the history of the word on one of her file cards. I was amazed and simultaneously comforted to have this information in my own home in the event we had an etymological emergency.
    While she engaged in all these outside tasks, she committed herself to none of the everyday duties of the fifties housewife. In my entire childhood I never recall her making a meal. We ate all of our dinners in restaurants. My father worked most evenings, and Mother and I went to Schoonmaker’s Restaurant almost every night for twelve years where we had a dinner of beef-on-wecks. Since we were regulars there I would often wander into the kitchen, perch on a high stool, and talk to Marge Vavershack, the waitress, as she sped around. I watched the world of the kitchen with fascination, wondering how they kept everything straight and how all the food came out cooked at the same time. I wondered where they got the food to start with and how they knew what people might want to order. I was amazed to see that hamburger didn’t come in patties. I was at least six when I first saw a raw egg broken on the grill and I was astonished that it changed form. It never occurred to me that people accomplished these same feats in their homes. Our fridge contained only allergy serum, Coke, and maraschino cherries. Our oven was only turnedon to dry wet mittens on the door and the only cooking smell I remember from my youth was that of burning wool.
    On the occasions when my father came home at dinnertime the tradition changed only slightly. He pulled into the driveway and beeped the horn and Mother and I ran out to the car and we all headed to the restaurant. It was always a Friday when my father was with us and we sat in the barroom of Schoonmaker’s, which was overflowing with Catholics performing their weekly fast. (When my mother and I dined alone we had to eat in the dining room that adjoined the barroom because only women who “risked their reputations” would be seen in a barroom without a man.) The paper place mats described “the edible fish of the world” and showed a giant fisherman in thigh-high boots catching something that looked like a swordfish with a snout. We always had a halibut fish fry caught fresh from Lake Erie by Mr. Schoonmaker. It was many years later that I learned halibut didn’t live in the Great Lakes.
    Since everyone knew everyone else we often pushed the tables together and on the Fourth of July we sang “God Bless America.” On St. Patrick’s Day we all sang “Danny Boy” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” Every St. Patrick’s Day my father wore a green bow tie with shamrocks on it which had plastic tubing attached connected to a rubber ball. He hid the tubing inside his shirt and when he squeezed the ball, snakes jumped out from behind the tie and wiggled wildly to commemorate St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland with his blessed staff. This tie was one of the highlights of my year until I was about ten. My mother, however, never appeared to tire of the tie or any other part of my father’s humorous repertoire.
    On Sunday mornings we ate bacon and eggs in Schneider’s Restaurant. I regularly ordered peameal Canadian bacon, thinking it quite sophisticated to order “foreign food.” We always took home a few hard rolls from brunch, put orange marmalade on them, and called it supper, dining on TV tables as we watched Ed Sullivan, featuring the infinitely unfunny Topo Gigio. When I told Mother I didn’t find Topo at all funny, she said maybe people in the Midwest liked him because Ed wouldn’t continue to have such an idiot on TV if everyone thought he as stupid as we did.
    After the age of seven or so, I ate dinner at a friend’s house once in a while. I was shocked that they ate at a table, together, at home, and that the mothers did the cooking. When I asked why the Canavans ate at