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WHo are tHese PeoPle? (Part 2)
brought in. Virtually all things that needed to get fixed or done got fixed or done by him. You could tell that winter was coming when he would remove all screens from the windows (ground floor and second floor as well) and put slipcovers on the living room furniture. You knew that spring was upon us when he would retrieve all of the screens from the garage, hose them down (with my unneeded assistance), and hang them up, and also remove the living room slipcovers. You’d know that camp was around the corner because, as the very best folder in the universe, he would neatly cram an enormous amount of name-tagged clothing and other summer paraphernalia into a trunk destined to be transported to camp, along with my duffle bag, by Railway Express. Best of all, you would know that a new school year was upon us when he would cover all of my textbooks neatly and tightly by cutting, folding, and taping brown paper grocery bags that he had saved for that purpose.
There was only one project of his, however, that didn’t quite hit the mark. While it is true that there are many trees in Brooklyn, greenery was nevertheless at a premium, as houses, at least in our neighborhood, were built on narrow lots with very small areas of grass behind them. It transpires that my mother thought it a good idea to have a small patio, consisting of about twenty square feet of concrete, created at the rear of the house, so that barbecuing or merely sitting outside on beach chairs could be easily accomplished there. This task fell to my father, who never ducked a challenge, especially when money could be saved. Only one small stipulation from Mom: the concrete had to be green! I will spare you the details of the researching, product hunting, instruction inter- preting, temperature controlling, and mixing of sand, water, and dye that Dad went through, all for virtually invisible, but nevertheless useful, results. Ever the realist when it came to such matters, he shrugged, bar- becued, and lived with the minimal amount of very light green pavement.
Dad was about five feet six inches tall, wore a mustache, and had an olive complexion that turned very dark in the sun, wavy dark-brown hair, and brown eyes. He also had a brilliant smile. He liked to dance with my mother, enjoyed a party, and had what I thought was a playful and rakish manner around women. My mother would always enjoy
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