Here is a post from this day last year. I actually wrote it when a guy in Yugoslavia asked me to be a guest blogger. I liked it an posted it on Third Street, as well. I don’t post much on that blog anymore. But Smartmom, Hepcat, Teen Spirit, and the Oh So Fiesty One are alive and well in my weekly column in the Brooklyn Papers. Out every Friday, the paper is available all over Brooklyn (at Key Food and other supermarkets, the Ninth Street YMCA, and elsewhere in Park Slope).

Today is the anniversary of Smartmom’s parents. February 3rd. The date
is etched in her mind. She and her sister would go to the same gift
shop year after year to buy an anniversary gift for them. West Town
House smelled of bath soap and sachet. It was just a block and a half
from the Riverside Drive apartment. They’d browse for an hour or more.
And with only four dollars, they’d find something to buy: a stone paper
weight or a letter opener, which the owner would gift wrap in green
paper and a black ribbon bow.

Smartom’s parents aren’t married
anymore. They’ve been separated since 1976. But February 3rd still
stops her short. And while they’ve been separated for longer than they
were together, February 3rd means only one thing: the beginning of
something that later came to an end.

Manhattan Granny showed
OSFO her wedding album a few weeks ago. A large, white, leather-bound
book, the black and white photographs present Smartmom’s parents on
their ceremonial day. In a simple and elegant, calf-length gown, Groovy
Grandma looks like Audrey Hepburn; her hair is close-cropped like
Hepburn’s too.

Groovy Grandpa, with no trace of the beard that
would later define him, looks pleased with himself and his bride. Their
parents gather around them