The Chase

Grandma and Little Alan

I was looking through some of the photos I've scanned over the last couple of years and came across this one of me and my dad's mom. So many great memories of her. Like the candy dish on her coffee table. We were allotted one piece of candy from that dish every time we visited. We couldn't just grab one. We had to wait until Grandma actually offered it to us, which insured our good behavior for most of the visit. And then there was her 'strudel'. She called it strudel, but I'm not sure that is exactly what it was. Sort of a loaf of bread with some kind of sweet stuff swirled through it. Maybe almond paste? Anyway, it was very good. One memory that is seared into my mind is the day my dad got pissed at me, and believe me he had many a reason to get pissed at me. That day when my dad came after me with the belt I ran out of the front door and down the street. Usually Dad would eventually catch me. This time however, my Grandma was at our house on one of her Sunday visits. To this day I still can hear her running out of the door, screaming after her eldest son, "Ahlex" (she was Austrian just like Arnold Schwarzenegger) "Ahlex don’t you touch that boy!". With those words she became my heroine forever. My dad listened to his mother and gave up chasing me that day, she having more power over him than me. So I lived to irritate him again.

Artist's rendering of the chase.