Growing up, my mother made it a point to take the hour long drive to Palm Beach to have Sunday Brunch with my grandma and grandpa. I remember thinking that my grandparents were very fancy as we ate on fancy china and a real table cloth- my house has paper plates and plastic cups. There was a catch with brunch, you should never tell my grandma that you liked a certain food item, because for the next 10 years, that item would be placed in front of you in a crystal bowl (this was my fate with cottage cheese-which I later grew to detest) and you were expected to eat an entire pint of the vile item. Birthday's at grandma's involved cakes filled with fruit layers and some low-fat frosting...no 10-year-old wants to see fruit chunks between layers of vanilla and chocolate, not to mention the frosting, gross. Overall, the brunch was a time to sit around and talk about what was going out with "the kids." These brunches sort of lost their appeal once I was old enough to start having to help clean up. Now I realized why we use paper plates in our house.
A day at grandma and grandpa's wouldn't be complete without swimming at the pool (with its dinosaur-sized lizards and a lively 70-85 year-old crowd) and an early dinner of KFC chicken buckets. Started off the day as the Waltons' ended it like the Cosby's.
After my grandfather passed away (thats another story involving a very religious Jew in a Catholic nursing home), our trips to my grandma's slowly ended as did my grandmother's health. Outliving her care giver (I am not kidding) my grandma put up a great fight, and finally at the age of 100, she decided it was time to go. On a side note- my father forgot to mention to my family that Iris, the care giver who lived with my grandma died, typical.
At the funeral my grandmother's "blood" relatives came out in full force- as they and everyone knew, they would be getting her life savings and the place in Palm Beach. My grandparents had opted to be buried in a terrible neighborhood- this was consistent with my grandmother's frugalness. Prior to the funeral, like typical Friedman fashion, we had to use the restroom, dressed in our Sunday best, we stopped at a McDonald's that was decorated with Black History memorabilia. When my family walked in every single head turned and stared as the four white Jews making a b-line to the restroom. I did learn that air conditioning was created by an African American, so the trip was not a complete wash.
I never really liked audience participation in shows or events, and the idea to go around and say a memory about my grandmother made me nervous. I wanted to think of something deep, yet memorable- when it was my turn, all I could think of was "She always had the food I wanted at brunch." That wasnt going to be written on her headstone. I was a bit perplexed because her "blood" relatives were talking about how she took them to Mexico, on cruises, paid for their nose-jobs and kept on mentioning her famous pie- um who the hell were we talking about- all she gave my sister and I were banana's, Nips and Kennedy half-dollars.
So now back to this last weekend, my family (and my grandma's side of the family) made their way back across the wrong side of the tracks for her unveiling (you really do cross a train track- entering the bad part of town). After hearing round two of how my grandma paid for this and that and how amazing her cooking was the stone was uncovered. To set the scene, my grandma's entire family is hysterically crying, while my parents are standing there probably wondering if someone is in the process of taking the rims off of their car. Looking at the headstone, my mother noticed that the year was incorrect- my grandma died in 2008- not 2003...curious, her head looked at the name to the left of hers- Leo? Then it hit her, causing her to laugh- the entire ceremony (complete with music provided by portable speakers with an iPod) was conducted over the wrong bodies. For nearly an hour, Leo and Sylvia Friedman were being told stories and sung to by complete strangers.
They eventually found the correct headstones and proceeded to do an abreviated service (dont worry the music was repeated) over my grandparents. I know that somewhere they heard the entire service...probably eating that gross cake with a side of cottage cheese.
Clean it up kids,
Dan
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