While scanning old photos into my computer I reflected upon the fact that a whole generation of family is almost gone. In only a few years my generation will be the old ones, the keepers of family memories.
One of the photos I scanned this past week, was of my Grandma Putz. I always liked her, but she stole my heart the day she chased down my dad as he ran after me with his belt. "Ahlex, Ahlex, don't you hit that boy!" She shouted after him. Dad obeyed his mom and by the time she left to go home, Dad had forgot all about whatever it was I did to piss him off. There were other memories of Grandma Putz, like the loaf of what she called strudel that she always brought with her when she visited. The 'strudel' looked like a loaf of bread, but sweet, with icing on top and a poppy seed filling swirled through it. The most outrageous memory I have involved riding back to Tinley Park with Grandma in the front seat of our car. We had picked her up at the end of the Western Avenue bus line. Dad took the scenic route back home through the forest preserves. As he drove down Central Avenue something came flying out from the side of the road. Bam! It hit the windshield. Grandma screamed and started yelling at Dad. She wanted him to stop the car and go pick up what he had hit. It was a pheasant. A now dead pheasant. With three wide eyed kids in the back seat, Dad drove on home while Grandma sat in the front passenger seat holding her box of strudel with a dead bird on top of it.
I don't know that much about how my grandmother grew up. Only that she came from a small town in Austria. I think they had a farm, which would explain what happened with that pheasant. It was plucked, cleaned, and cooked in my mom's kitchen, with no help from my mom. It was all Mom could do to cook a piece of meat from the supermarket. No way was she going to get involved with preparing pheasant that my dad's Plymouth had smashed into. So that Sunday we had fried chicken and road kill pheasant. At least I know that I ate fried chicken, while watching in horror as Dad and Grandma ate the road kill.
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