Marvin came over to me. “What did you have for lunch at school this past week?” I tried to remember what we had eaten. Marvin shock his head. “Yes, that’s what I delivered.” Marvin was a truck driver and delivered school lunch to many of the elementary schools from the school district’s central kitchen.
The best thing at Granny Annie’s house was the large player piano. My sisters and I knew how to use it. We lifted the lid to uncover the piano keys. Then we put a paper roll in the top of the piano. Sometimes Dad had to help thread it into the player part of the piano. Once it was set, we could play with the piano forever. We had to take turns though, so each child could play with it. And so we entertained ourselves while the grown ups talked.
After awhile, Dad came over and said to me, “Do you want to come see the basement with me?”
I knew it was spooky down there, but I went with him anyway. First we walked back out to the kitchen and opened the clothes chute. Dad told me how the dirty clothes would drop down to the basement. Then we walked down the creaky and ancient wooden stairs. We saw where the clothes would end up once they were dropped down. The basement was very dark, lit by a single bare light bulb. I could see an old bed. Dad said, “I used to sleep down here, when I would come to visit Granny Annie.”
I knew I would never want to sleep down there. Then Dad opened the door to the food storage room. There were cans of food on wooden shelves. But the one thing I noticed was a cake. It was Granny Annie’s wedding cake, high on the top shelf and under a glass lid. It was small with only two layers and a decoration on top. She had saved it all these years. I thought it still looked pretty good.
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