The Real Skinny: "They turned us into Germans for the day..."

The real skinny (according to Girl): Turkey was not in the picture. I was positively a "Ham for Christmas" person. The Robinsons were gracious and generous our first Christmas in New York. They turned us into Germans for the day with a wonderful taste of sauerbraten and other homemade cooking. "Mista" was the correct pronunciation here in New York. Mr. Robinson’s sister was there. She was blonde and much younger than he. It was our first time trying a White Russian. We both have warm thoughts of the generosity and kindnesses expressed to us.

Christmas with the Robinsons, According to Girl

Christmas with the Robinsons according to Girl: Because it was Christmas, because it was our first time away from family, and because we were newlyweds, we were invited to the party.

Not just any party, this was the German Christmas feast of all times. They rolled out the welcome. We wore our best. Mike put on his favorite green tie that matched his eyes. He wore khakis and I wore my little black long sleeved dress with spiky black strapless high heels. I was not used to wearing heels and was a bit tippy. But everyone in the family was expected to dress for the holiday.

Mrs. Robinson wore a bright red dress. Mr. Robinson had a red sweater vest under his suit coat. This made the two of them look like Santa and Mrs. Claus. Their parents from each side came. His sister, Elsa, was there—she was blond, pretty and very friendly. She liked White Russians, sipping on them most of the afternoon. Last but not least, Charlie Junior, the young and only son of the "Claus" couple, was present, but quiet. He was at the point in his young life where his arms and legs were too long for the clothes he wore. He was a shy, very thin young man with long brown wavy hair. Mike told me that he was an outstanding runner.

We were greeted by hugs, and an old fashioned bottomless glass of White Russian. This tasty drink consisted of two ounces of vodka, one ounce coffee liqueur, topped off with light cream, and poured over ice. So we sipped and were warmed by the hospitality and the drink.

The Christmas tree was decorated with small wooden nutcracker soldiers (a German tradition), along with bells and angels. It was simple and beautiful. The Christmas tree, as we know it, originated in Germany. There, it had a mysterious magic for children because they were not allowed to see it until Christmas Eve.

We learned from our hosts that there was a special Christmas tradition from the old country. As the practice dictates, German children would be occupied (or entertained) in another room by their father, as Mother would bring out the Christmas tree. She would decorate it with fresh fruit, candy and toys. It would be illuminated with candles or lights, and presents for the family would then be placed under it.

Somewhere within sight of the tree, Christmas dinner was laid out. Then a bell would be sounded, and the rest of the family would join the mother. Once the Christmas Story was read, presents were opened.

For me, the essence of the Christmas is best exemplified by the smell of the pine tree. As a child I always knew Christmas was right around the corner when I could smell the tree as I walked into my house.

If legends are to be believed, on December 24th in Germany, rivers become wine, animals learn to talk, diamonds and rubies can be found laying on the ground, and, if you hold your ear to the sea, you can hear church bells ringing from the deep. But, of course, only the pure of heart witness this. The rest of us are, however, allowed to celebrate anyway.

As we chatted, dinner was being prepared by the skilled hands of Mrs. Robinson. She was a magician in the kitchen; she was baking bread, preparing sauerbraten, potato pancakes, red cabbage and a Waldorf salad. I wanted to help, but she shooed me out of the kitchen to visit with the family. She said that she was the queen of the kitchen and I was a guest in her home. The ten of us found our places at the rectangular dining room table and we enjoyed the succulent spread of the day. We indulged in the delightful flavors of each new treat passed around the table.

As the conversation unfolded, Mike and I each shared our stories of our families and our traditions. He explained that he was the youngest of six children, and that he and his parents lived in the rural village of Lacota (Michigan). Most of his siblings had moved out of the area, so his parents would be celebrating Christmas by themselves. Our plan was to call them later that day.

I shared about being the oldest of six children, with my baby sister, Joanie, being only two years of age. I wished I could have been there watching my brothers and sisters open their presents. I told them that my family would be eating a scrumptious dinner of ham and mashed potatoes on our newest Melmac plates, with our mix-match silverware. When finished, we would use paper towel for napkins. Our Christmas celebration would be in our big kitchen at our house on Spencer Street. Dad would do the cooking and Mom the cleaning up. I missed them.

Later that evening, Mrs. Robinson brought out the coffee and apple strudel. It was made with the most wonderfully tart Granny Smith apples, smothered with a mixture of brown sugar, golden raisins, and covered in a pastry shell frosted with white powered sugar. It was just out of the oven and still warm.

Heading back to our apartment that evening, I told Mike how much fun I had. I enjoyed our new family. The next day I assured the Robinsons that their kindness, generosity and warm hearts were greatly appreciated.

Mike and I have celebrated many Christmases since that year in 1968. However, that Glendale Christmas stands out as one the most memorable.

Chapter 39 - Christmas with the Robinsons

According to Boy: It was our first Christmas together as Mr. and Mrs. Carrier. Actually, it was our first Christmas together, period. The holiday that year fell on a Wednesday. I had no classes from December 21st through January 4th, but Evie had only December 25th off. So, there was no point in trying to go back to Michigan. She probably could have got off Thursday and Friday, but in addition to the lack of time, there was also the lack of money.

Even though Evie and I were both very family oriented, neither of us had a problem celebrating Christmas by ourselves in New York—at least, not initially. Once we had made the decision not to go home, we talked about how cool it would be to just spend the day together, with Mister. However, the closer it got to Christmas, the more we started to question our decision.

I remember suggesting to Evie that we probably could still get tickets and fly home; if even for just a few days. I called the airlines, only to learn that the best we could hope for was "standby." That might work for one of us, but the odds were not good that we would both make it. So, we just resolved ourselves to make the best of it. I think it would have been easier had I not called the airlines at all, as it just got our hopes up.

Then, our landlord got involved. We ran into him about a week before Christmas, as Evie and I were leaving the apartment to walk Mister. He asked us what our plans were for Christmas, expecting to learn that we were going back to Michigan. When we explained to him that we were going to spend Christmas in New York, he was surprised.

He knew that we were friends with Joel Randall and his wife, so he asked us if we would be having Christmas dinner with them. We told him that the Randalls were heading back to their families in the Midwest for Christmas, and that we had bought a small turkey.

Charlie then said, as he grabbed my arm: "Then, it’s settled. You will have Christmas dinner with us."

"No, we can’t do that," I quickly replied. "We really appreciate the invitation, but we were really looking forward to roasting the turkey, and decorating our tree."

"Roast your turkey for New Years, and decorate your tree tonight. You’re having Christmas dinner with us. I insist."

Charlie Robinson was absolutely the nicest person we had ever met, up to that time. He and his whole family were wonderful, down-to-earth German-heritage New Yorkers. They treated us just like we were their own kids. We knew that Charlie genuinely wanted us to eat Christmas dinner with him, and that there was really no way he was going to let it be any other way.

Evie and I just looked at each other, and smiled. "That is very generous of you. Are you sure your wife won’t mind?" I asked.

"No, of course not. We’ve already talked about it and she told me to invite you."

Man, what sweethearts they were.

So, obviously we accepted the invitation, and we had the most wonderful time with Charlie and his family. It wasn’t a big dinner, at least not as far as the number of people there. I would guess that there were maybe twenty, counting us—probably less. But they made us feel so very welcome.

I remember very little about what was served. I think we had some delicious duck. It was the first time I had ever eaten duck. Mrs. Robinson was a fabulous cook. And so was her sister, and Charlie’s sister.

I do remember some sort of tasty alcoholic drink. Maybe that’s why I don’t remember very much else about the meal.

The one thing that sticks in my mind was our conversation with Charlie’s family. They were fascinated with our Midwestern accent—particularly the way we pronounced the final "r" on words such as "Mister."

The conversation would go something like this: "So you’ve got a dog, a Norwegian Elkhound. What’s his name?"

"Mister."

Then there would be a moment of silence, accompanied with a puzzled expression. "Mystery?"

"No, Mister, like in ‘Mister Ed," I would say. 

"Oh! Mista," they would respond knowingly.

I always did wonder why it took "Mista" so long to respond when I would call him. Obviously, he was more of a New Yorker than was I.

The Real Skinny: "I never asked our landlady to retrieve my underwear. I would just buy more"

The real skinny (according to Girl): If I chose the top five chapters of mine, this would have to be included. I absolutely loved writing about the clothesline. Agnes, my heroine was the pulley story of an active imagination. I never asked our landlady to retrieve my underwear. I would just buy more. And Bonnie and Clyde odors were confined to a lower elevation.

The Rope Clothesline, According to Girl

The rope clothesline according to Girl: The story goes like this—Agnes was hanging clothes on her clothesline, which was attached to a pulley outside her fifth-floor flat. Years earlier she had worked for the circus as a beautiful artistic trapeze performer. She probably wore the standard pink leotards and sequined skimpy dresses. She had retired from the circus when she married the circus "horseshoer," at his insistence.

On this particular day, in December, 1905, as Agnes was hanging out the laundry from their apartment window, she reached for the next portion of empty clothesline, and the pulley broke loose from her house.

She determined that the freshly washed clothes were not to end up in the mud below, and she knew she could not re-attach the pulley. So, remembering her rope tricks with the trapeze, she held tightly on to the rope, wrapping it around her arm, protecting the clean laundry, she jumped toward the pole at the other end.

She missed the pole on her first attempt, but was able to land for a moment on the window of the adjoining apartment.

She jumped a second time, and this time she caught the pole. However, the impact nearly knocked her unconscious.

She gripped onto the pole with both hand and both legs, and lowered herself to the ground.

Slightly stunned and embarrassed (but with no bones broken), and with the help of neighbors, she was able to crawl back to her apartment, and cook dinner for her husband before he came home later that evening (New York Times, December 23, 1905).

Okay, so I never hung from the rope myself, however, it would be an adventure that I would certainly consider.

I am sure that there were others, in the years following Agnes (perhaps a bored, stay-at-home housewife that had a secret ambition to join the circus and walk the rope), who would stare at such a clothesline and wonder what might have been.

Maybe, it was a girl who just went to see the latest Spiderman or Superman movie; perhaps she had a superhero wish.

Perhaps, there might be the girl who just got back from Las Vegas, where she saw girls in Cirque du Soleil dancing high above the audience on ropes of silver and gold, all painted up, and wearing skimpy designer costumes; and a five-story clothesline caused her to dream of flying with the best of the performers.

Well, my imagination ended on the other side of the window.

I saw noisy kids, dog messes, and plaid drippy work shirts and towels.

Agnes’s story would go down in history. She was the performer. It was going to be her story and I liked it like that.

Chapter 38 - Rope Clothesline

According to Boy: We did not have a washer and dryer in Glendale. Unless, of course, you consider a sink a clothes washer, and a rope on a pulley (outside our kitchen window) a dryer. If so, then we had them.

Once a week we would pack up all our dirty clothes, shove them in the huge laundry bag (one I had left over from undergraduate school), and off we would go to the laundromat. Each of us would usually have two loads to wash, and one each to dry. It would take us about an hour, maybe a little longer. It was not a great time, but it was okay. We would buy a cup of coffee, then read and talk until the wash was done. We would always do it on a weekday evening—we were not going to waste a weekend doing something as mundane as our laundry.

I always sent my dress shirts out—folded, heavy starch. Even when we were really poor, I still liked to have a nice, crisp shirt to wear. So my wash basically consisted of jeans, socks and underwear.

Between trips to the laundromat, Evie would often wash out a pair of tights, or some underwear, in the bathroom sink. If it was winter, she would hang them in the shower to dry. If it was not freezing out, however, she would wrap them in a bath towel, and carry them into the kitchen. She would then open the kitchen window (Mister’s window), and hang her wash on the clothes line that was attached to the outside wall, just about midway up the window.

There was a pulley hooked on the house, and another one on a pole at the back of our lot, with a semi-taut clothesline hung between the two. There was a similar assembly directly below, for Mrs. Robinson’s use.

Using spring powered wood clothespins, Evie would carefully attach her Capezios to the line, followed by an assortment of various colored socks.

Occasionally, some of her clothes would fall off the line, probably due to stiff winds or defective clothes pins. Then, of course, she would have to go down and ask Mrs. Robinson for permission to go in the back yard to retrieve her underwear. I don’t think that happened very much.

Sometimes the winter winds would come up all of a sudden, and freeze her clothes stiff as a board. She would ask me to remove them from the line when that happened.

After time, when Bonnie and Clyde grew larger and more odiferous, she ceased using the outside clothesline. There was just something repulsive about mounds of St. Bernard defecation. Eventually only Mister got a kick out of the kitchen window—that’s why it became known as "Mister’s window."