Mornings on NE Main

It's 5:00AM and I'm awake.

Of course this was not by choice. But as my boyfriend left for the gym at 4:45 and set two alarms with two snooze buttons, there wasn't much getting around it. So, here I am at my computer in limbo between conventional night and day.

At this hour of the morning, when dawn hasn't yet turned the corner into my neighborhood, the whole world is quiet aside from the gentle hum of the refrigerator's cooling element. As a kid, I spent countless summer weekends at my grandparent's house in Minneapolis. But it was at this particular hour, between four and five o' clock, that I would hear Count Bassie and Benny Goodman jiving on the puce linoleum of the kitchen at 311 NE Main Street. Something, bacon or sausage usually, would be popping in time from a skillet, and if I snuck quietly enough around the corner to the kitchen, I could catch a glimpse of Teedy at his vintage range stove, dancing and singing and unaware of his audience. He never sang the words of song--only a "lie di die" sort of version, and while I'm certain he knew the lyrics, I mostly believed the habit of creating his own was simply old hat.

At 5'4" or 5", he stood in either zubas or his cut off scrubs from North Memorial Hospital, and wore a heather grey sweatshirt with the sleeves likewise cut to his forearm. Though Grandpa was a retired butcher by trade, my uncle had swiped the scrubs from the hospital where he runs cardiac machines during surgeries. In front of the tiny kitchen's wire legged table, Grandpa wore navy blue nikes and tube socks on his feet. His thinning hair was typically covered by a trucker's hat announcing he was "Proud to be Polish," or reporting latest record for the pierogi festival at St. Hedwig's Catholic Church. But this morning, he donned the white Windsor hat he had probably received at Mayslacks--a North East Minneapolis bar named for its owner and known for its roast beef.

While Grandpa stood in the kitchen listening to AM radio, beating eggs and pouring them over fresh ham in a skillet, I'd brace myself for the moment he saw me. But instead of a "What are you doing up?! Go back to bed!" from Grandpa, more often a gentle "Pssst," would ring down the hall and across the brown shag carpet in the living room. Rosie was calling for a cuddle from the set of twin beds that resided on the hard wood floor in my grandparent's bedroom. I'd pad down the hall past the wall-length rosary hung over white paint, and poke my head through the doorway.

"Hi," always escaped my lips in a whisper.

"Well 'morning Baby," she would respond.

Grandma slept in the bed farthest from the door, and I made my way there by light of the old analog clock that rested on the oak veneer of her nightstand. On her head she wore ancient curlers under a net, and I fiddled with them as she lifted the covers up to let me slide between the rose floral sheets. Soon, her 60s silk nightgown would be covered by a corresponding robe when light finally seeped through the shades and grandpa turned up the tunes in the kitchen. Once up, her curlers would be removed in the bathroom and with brushes and hairspray and picks, the woman would weave her poodle-curly hair into a half beehive.

But here in her bed she always asked, "Did you sleep okay?" and I would always answer affirmative even though the old stuffed animals in my father's childhood bedroom gave me the heebie-jeebies in the middle of the night. At six I could handle it. I wasn't a baby after all. We would chat until the sun had risen as it is now, and eventually Grandpa would call from the kitchen for breakfast. The table would be set with Rosie's homemade cherry jam, and a pottery crock of butter. Orange juice was filled in tiny vintage glasses, and our plates were arranged with the iron-skillet flavor of my grandfather's morning dance.

"Kelsey Delsey, do you want toast?"