Cross Pollination from the Work Blog

I grew up in a small town at the furthest reaches of the commuter train to Manhattan in the house of lesser-known comedians. My mother, whose other abilities at oil painting, flower arranging and decorating I did not inherit, married a man with truncheon-like wit and they both consumed cocktails with like-minded neighbors for inspiration. They led inebriates in sing-alongs from the IBM songbook. They named their dogs after the IBM president, in the event that there was a bonus for that as well as for naming children after Tom Watson.
Then there was an annual New Year's progressive dinner party in the neighborhood that included most of the families on the street and ended in a colossal binge at our house. My sister told what I considered to be exaggerated stories that likened these middle-class suburban gatherings to Roman orgies but the most I ever saw was the traditional stroke of midnight kiss, admittedly pretty sloppy one by that time. Having drunk and eaten their way all up and down Vassar View, the celebrants would then pick up our "Twelve Days of Christmas" placemats (which Mom only used for decoration ... and caroling) and tramp through the snow to the only house in the neighborhood whose occupants were never invited to this event and treat them to a sort of cheerfully loutish shivaree.
These nice people who were so rudely awakened each year were the Bradys. They were dignified people that the other neighbors were too chicken to invite to such brawling festivities. It's not as though they were aloof. My mother went over there fairly frequently to have coffee with the elegant Catherine Brady. She liked her coffee served very, very hot - but then wouldn't drink it until it was almost tepid. Her husband was a very quiet and reserved gentleman with a dry wit who worked as a stockbroker on Wall Street, and their son P. T. (or "Petey," an adult in college when I knew them) a cheerful character who teased me about the plural of "moose" and took his bride on a camping honeymoon that featured sleeping bags that zipped together.
The family was alternately worshiped and razzed because they seemed so sober and upright. Catherine Brady was a cousin of Joel Chandler Harris of Uncle Remus fame. I was told this in awed tones although at the time I had no clue who this Uncle Remus guy was.
As if the annual shivaree wasn't enough, my mother once sent me over to Paul Brady with a sponge sandwich to see if he would eat it. Never mind that we'd never taken a sandwich to him before or that he'd just been outside spraying the ornamentals with insecticide. Mom carefully made a sandwich out of a thin, dry yellow sponge, two slices of white bread, and mustard. She wrapped it in wax paper (as was done in those days before little plastic baggies) and, giggling, sent me across the street with the unlikely comestible.
It says volumes about me that I undertook this delicate mission for her. This was the same woman who sent me out in the yard with a salt shaker to catch birds (the same wheeze her mother used when she wanted some peace in the house). At last I would be in control of the joke! I could barely contain myself, but knew that a straight face would be necessary. In the end, Mr. Brady had the good grace to at least attempt to take a bite because he could see how crushed I was that he was suspicious of a highly unlikely sandwich. I took great pleasure in admitting it was a sponge after his teeth were in it.
Older than most of the people on the street even then (and most of the others were in their forties and fifties), the Bradys senior must be long gone. Om alone knows what they made of the antics of their silly neighbors.

A Little Sophocles