6 minute read
A Straight Shooting Nana
A Straight Shooting Nana
By John Sherman
My grandmother came from starchy New England stock. Her forebears arrived in the 1630s. She had a man’s haircut, carried her hand bag in the crook of her arm and wore sensible shoes. Her laugh was full, but came infrequently.
She was born on Orange Street in Brooklyn, just before the blizzard of 1888. Her father, a reporter in Albany for the New York Times, was part of a small group, including Theodore Roosevelt, who helped break up Tammany Hall. He went on to become publisher. He had two daughters and, as the story goes, when he received word that his wife had given birth to another, his response was “hell and damnation.” She was named Helen.
Her father left the Times after its sale in 1896. I have a framed $10 check made out to Helen Spinney for her notable work in the Times essay contest on the city’s 250th anniversary. That was 1903. The next image I have is of her and her sister, dressed in white with big hats, holding on to a bicycle wound with crepe paper. The suffragettes.
I grew up on Long Island, just up the street from my grandmother, who had been widowed when I was two. Her husband, Harold Lewis, created one of the most famous nurseries in the country on which we lived.
To me she was Nana.
She was a handy babysitter when my parents were out or traveling. My most vivid memory was a huge, fully loaded pistol hanging on her bed post. Given her nature, beware.
We played hours of “canasta” and “battleship” overlooking the nursery. At breakfast we would listen to “Rambling with (John) Gambling,” a gentle news and music show on WOR radio. I can still hum the theme song.
Nana was a birder, not the stalker with binoculars, but as a caretaker to feed and protect them as friends. Her substantial house was surrounded by bird feeders. We would watch the comings and goings through a large picture window. She taught me a wide variety of names and plumages—-the difference between a chickadee and a junco.
And there were enemies, notably the purple crackle, a sizable black bird that would swoop in to gorge, scaring away the pretty ones. “Black robber,” she would shout, reaching for a crystal glass full of demitasse spoons. She would pick one and hurl it at the window, scaring away the robber. It was my job to pick up the spoons once breakfast was over.
At a certain age, it pained her to bend down. Necessity is the grandmother of invention. She tied a thread to the spoon for easy retrieval.
She kept a .410 shotgun behind her kitchen door. Arriving one morning, I had to explain that the hawk hanging in her garage was a federal offense.
Nana taught me to fish, a passion that remains. She would rent a boat from a dock in Cold Spring Harbor and row me out into the sound. We fished with hand lines (many rods would come later). She shamed me into learning to thread a blood worm onto a hook. We would raise and lower the sinker, I guess to lure the bottom fish.
I now fish for just trout, or just redfish, or bonefish. Back then, half the excitement of getting a nibble, then a bite, was never knowing what would surface. Flounder, blowfish, eels, bluefish, porgies—-even crabs. After a few summers she let me row. Then my father, who had no use for fishing, bought us a five horse power Evenrude motor.
Nana was a straight-on cook, nothing complicated or frivolous. Her dishes were handed down by Puritans. She occasionally splurged on lamb chops and, perhaps a weird bunch of asparagus. But she stuck pretty much to the threeon-a-plate combo. She was queen of the Waldorf salad. Desert options rarely shifted: custard (before creme brûlée) and tapioca pudding. Oh, and jello. I can’t ever recall having ice cream.
She came to visit us in France where I was stationed in the army—-defending Orleans against a Soviet attack. It was the fall of 1966. She would come home with shopping bags brimming with local essentials: baguettes, cheeses from Normandy, saucisse and other charcuterie and, of course, a box from the patisserie.
Up and down our street my wife would report the latest flattery from shopkeepers. “Your grand-mere is a delight. She speaks (schoolgirl) French. She is so curious about food.”
A classic Nanism: We were driving east toward Brussels when we stopped off at the champagne house Moet et Chandon. I remember Nana drinking a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve, always adding a cube of sugar. In a serendipitous turn, we ended up being given an hour’s private tour by an executive. Last, we were shown to an exquisite orangerie where he popped a bottle of Dom Perignon. Nana, with a wry smile, turned her flute upside down.
I never thought of Nana watching much television; each year she would alternate between the New York Herald Tribune and the Times. What remained virtually undiscovered was, perhaps, her closest friend. Julia Child.
I watched the show one evening after my discharge. I’ve never heard her laugh like that since taking her to see a silent film with Harold Lloyd dangling from the hands of a clock. Particularly when Julia was in the midst of a coq au vin and the chicken fell to the floor. She reached down, picked in up and threw it into the pot. As a result of her enthusiasm, Nana’s guest menu was upped to include lamb Navarin, quiche Lorraine and tarte tantin.
Nana kept a diary. It would always start with the weather and continue on: “Saw my first scarlet taninger. May Coggins for lunch. Went shopping.”
I read through a hundred entries over the years. I never crossed a subjective thought. “I’m feeling old today” or “I hate Stalin.” She held her feelings—-like a straight flush—-close to her bosom. No better example came the day she became a widow: “Harold dropped dead at 2:45 this afternoon.” Direct and to the point.
Probably, the last big headlines of her life were Woodstock, the moon landing and Nixon’s election. I never asked Nana about Nixon.
